<b>The Inner Sanctum, Sunwatch City</b><br/><br/><i>Kerelith.</i>Sheri almost heard the name whispered out loud in her bitter thoughts as she stepped outside through the dungeon entrance. The younger succubus had no idea how much she meant to Sheri, and she had no idea how to express it any more clearly. Now it was too late, anyway. After thirty years, she had finally lost her lover… to some<i>girl</i>.<br/><br/><div class="ToggleTriggerAnchor bbCodeSpoilerContainer">
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</div><br/>The first step up the stone stairs was the hardest, as she knew that once she started to ascend, she’d have to put the thoughts aside and focus on the task at hand. A deep inhale made her realize it was almost noon, the air no longer cool like in the morning when she had walked down the stairs with Souris. The thought made her briefly smile. If she couldn’t have Kerelith, there was always someone else, perhaps not as intriguing as her beloved, but to do with as she pleased, to tie up to the ceiling, to spank with an open palm, to lash with a cat o’ nine tails. Mouse should have seen it coming.<br/><br/>Walking up the stairs, Sheri found herself fisting her hands and squeezing like the whip had still been there, but at least she was walking, a clop of her light hooves on each of the steps she took, until she arrived at the top, and relaxed. This was her domain. Down the stairs was Kerelith’s.<br/><br/>When she arrived at the wall, Sheri lifted a hand on it and trailed its rough stone texture with her fingertips, taking a turn to the left and making her way towards the north entrance. “What have you been up to?” she spoke quietly so only the wall was there to hear, “How long has it been since our last talk? Five years? Ten?” She stopped and looked straight up along the black stone surface that reached fifty feet up towards the clear blue sky.<br/><br/>“Have you forgotten who I am? I don’t think so. I bet you still think of me every day and every night and hope I’ll come back for you.” She gave a gentle pat on the cold stone and continued her walk, hand still trailing along, until she arrived at the black metal gate that stood between her and the archway.<br/><br/>“Let me pass,” Sheri spoke out loud, but the gate remained shut. “I said, let me pass,” she repeated. Nothing. Taking a deep breath, relaxing, she then touched the wall with the tip of her index finger, arm straightened, while placing the other hand on her chest. Sheri closed her eyes, tilted her head down, and focused.<br/><br/>There was a loud, low noise, like the hum of some heavy machinery at a great distance, coming out of the circular sanctum wall, confusing everyone inside. The noise was low at first, then lowered even further, gradually, as if shutting down. The air around her finger and the arm bent light like a mirage, and when she withdrew the hand, the noise cut out instantly, the trick of light swirling back and forth all around her. Then the voice was suddenly back, speaking from the depths of the demon’s own throat. “<i>Release me!</i>” it boomed as if Sheri herself was shouting in its booming voice.<br/><br/>“This is where you belong,” Sheri replied.<br/><br/>“<i>No! Send me to heaven! Send me to hell! Send me to the realms beyond! Release me!</i>”<br/><br/>“When I return,” Sheri said, and pushed open the metal gate, with ease, “You will let me pass. You will let me pass whenever I so please, and perhaps one day when this city rumbles to the ground, I will consider letting you go. Until then, you will do as I say, and let me use my own damn door. You are here to protect me, not to hold me a prisoner.”<br/><br/>The succubus walked through the archway that led her to another set of gates on each side, positioned so one could see through the narrow opening only after stepping through one of them.<br/><br/><i>“I will serve you, my mistress, until you let me go,”</i>the voice decided once it had considered its options.<br/><br/>“Good,” Sheri concluded, went through the gates outside the wall, and then pressed her finger against the wall once more. The noise was quieter this time, so it only boomed on the inside of the wall, unable to escape its confines.<br/><br/>“Next time, remember me,” Sheri said once everything was quiet again, and gave the wall another light pat before stepping away. On this side, it was made of light brown sandstone and it was not fifty feet tall.<br/><br/>There was a smile on her face. Oh yes, she still got it. It was one thing to lift a curse from a wall, take over the sanctum it protected, and then quite the other to bend that curse to her will, hold its spirit inside her, manipulate it, put it back into the wall... then live under its protection for half a century, and still have the will and the power to do it all over again.<br/><br/>It could have gone wrong. The curse could have possessed her body, used it as its vessel, taken over the city, and slaughtered every last living thing in it, but no. It went right, and now Sheri knew she could still do it again, as did the ancient demon soul trapped in the wall of the Inner Sanctum.<br/><br/>The succubus put on the hood of her black dress and walked further away from the wall, the clopping of her hooves gradually turning into the clicking of heels, and her presence visibly shrunk as the demonic features of her feet faded out of sight. She turned her back on the sanctum and walked down the city streets as just another one of its tens of thousands of citizens.<br/><br/><div class="ToggleTriggerAnchor bbCodeSpoilerContainer">
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