<div class="floatleft">(http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m543/jakendy/Sp2.jpg)</div><strong>Name:</strong>Baa'lethor<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Xenolord, Glasya, Kadence, Tiberious<br/><strong>Location/time:</strong>Hell, to back of Tavern just after sunset.<br/><br/>Baa'lethor smiled from ear to ear, being given all that he had hoped for and more. He barely even heard Glasya's reply through his own elation, though he did understand that they had been permitted to become "Involved" with those who were not vital to the mission. Though Glasya dismissed his granted permission to the arcane library, Bay could hardly stand still. There was only one thing in the library that interested him, and it was none of the tedious chronicles of the mortal realm.<br/><br/>When Xenolord dismissed them, Baa'lethor bolted away from the door as fast as his nimble legs could take him without running. He didn't wish to arouse suspicion, but he'd been pining for months to gain access to that room, reserved only for demons much older and more powerful than he. Years before that had been spent learning to read and decipher the ancient and obscure demonic language that this particular book was written in. It had been a tedious chore, buttering up and deceiving this elder demon or that demon lord to piece together a full lexicon of the language, but it had all payed off and now he was within arms length of the ultimate prize.<br/><br/><strong><em>"Stand down, Dread Beast!"</em></strong>The large, demonic, ebony door demanded in it's brutish, rasping baritone as it bared its horns and teeth at Baa'lethor who it had grown wary of after several previous attempts to gain access.<strong><em>"You have been informed that this room is off limits to the likes of you. Any further attempts at prying your way past me will result in-"</em></strong><br/><br/>"I'm here on orders from Lord Xenolord. It's you who should stand down, you overbearing hinge swinger! Tell it, Slim." Baa'lethor quipped back, nudging the small daemonette abruptly from his shoulder. He'd given the small thing a nickname, it was best not to use a demon's true name around those who might desire to do harm.<br/><br/>"Ah!" Pachiko exclaimed at being so indelicately tossed from the Incubus' shoulder until his wings caught the air and he was able to flutter over to the door. "Yes, Sir Baa'lethor has been selected as primary Hunter on and Earthbound excursion, toward that end, Lord Xenolord has granted him access to the Arcane Library, so if you please."<br/><br/>The door made a face and glared past Pachiko to Baa'lethor who was smirking triumphantly. After a tense moment of snarling with dissatisfaction, the door eventually let out a metallic, heavy clicking sound from somewhere deep within it's throat and winced slightly as it's face cracked down the middle and the double doors swung slowly inward to the well lit library.<br/><br/>Baa'lethor gave the door a good kick to shut it behind himself, the demon door not being able to see behind itself and quickly he made his way toward the back of the expansive tower of tiered, winding bookshelves that looked to stretch up beyond imagining in a spiral staircase of shelves. But the power hungry Incubus was more interested in what was down. With swift and determined movements, Bay tore back the carpet at the very base of the stairs and continued ripping until he exposed the small weathered trap door at the base of the stairs.<br/><br/><strong><em>"What's going on in there?"</em></strong>The Door demanded, made very nervous at having the Incubus that he didn't trust lurking in his blind spot.<br/><br/>Baa'lethor didn't indulge the door with an answer, instead he lifted the iron ring on the trap door to reveal another spiral flight of stairs that led below the floor of the library. It was just as he'd heard...<br/><br/>Pachiko hovered nervously in the air, his allegiance already being tested, since the daemonette hadn't known about the basement level, nor had it been a part of what Xenolord had authorized, though he hadn't forbidden it either. For now, he'd remain silent, as his contract was with Baa'lethor.<br/><br/>At the very bottom it was dark and everything was coated in a thick layer of cobwebs, rat droppings and thick brimstone dust, but there was enough light filtering through the open trap door that Baa'lethor could see the locked cabinet that held the "Forbidden Texts". Many were useless, political opinion pieces that had been outlawed due to power changes or political climates. But not all were so trivial.<br/><br/>Throwing the door open wide, Baa'lethor held his breath as his finger landed upon the spine of the tome for the first time: "The Tome of Forbidden Spells". The cover was made from a deep, midnight blue demon skin leather and when he pulled it from the shelf, the ancient runes, crescent shapes and dashes carved into the cover glowed red, detecting a presence for the first time in ages.<br/><br/>It was true that few things were taboo in a realm like hell, but there was still an order to things. The hierarchy was based on strength and experience, and those at the top made decisions to protect that structure. Over the ages, certain spells, skills and schools of magic had been outlawed and banned from practice, due to one thing or another. Spells designed to harm or hinder other demons for example, or trap spells that could incapacitate even an angel if triggered, or spells that could allow demons who broke the law to escape punishment; were all deemed to be dangerous to what most perceived as the natural order of things and for that reason they had been removed from all readily accessable texts and never taught again. The only record of such alterations were held within these thick, yellowing pages.<br/><br/>Baa'lethor couldn't wait to learn the secrets of this book and was already reading as he followed the light back up to the main floor and closed the trap behind himself. He kicked the rug back into place casually as he buried his face in the book. Despite all the study, it was still a chore to read the archaic language, which made the progress slow at first. He was reading the chapter entitled "Phase Changing for Shape Shifters."<br/><br/>"You're not supposed to have that." Pachiko muttered, glancing over the Incubus' shoulder at the pages full of odd runes and shapes. "You should put it back!"<br/><br/>"You saw it, it was just gathering dust down there." Baa'lethor hissed, barely more than a whisper, not wanting the Door to overhear. "This is all for the mission. I might encounter ethereal up there, and I doubt I'd have much luck seducing the likes of them."<br/><br/>Baa'lethor turned the page abruptly, the first bit had been a rudimentary explanation of the three phases of matter, something that was frustratingly basic to one such as Baa'lethor, but on page two, he began to learn ways of shifting form into a liquid.<br/><br/>"I can read up there too..." Baa'lethor sighed, more to himself than Pachiko. "Why don't you talk me through how exactly you're going to<em>get</em>us up there and let me worry about what I'm going to do when I get there."<br/><br/>"Well, I'm a summoner, so I can create a portal for us to pass through." Pachiko began to explain. "We'll pass through exactly as we are now, but the tricky thing... The portal has to come through some solid surface on the other side."<br/><br/>"How about the ground?" Baa'lethor remarked casually, not looking up from the text as at last he began to grasp the concept of converting his physical body into vapor, the very idea that had sent him in search of this book. "Surfaces don't get much more solid than that."<br/><br/>"Yes, well, it's a little more complicated than that. People don't just spring up out of the ground like daises. It's important to find the right place, where people aren't all gathered around. Right now, the target is quite compromised in that respect. He-" Pachiko explained, only to be interrupted by an impatient Baa'lethor.<br/><br/>"Spare me all the tedious details, Slim. Just port me up behind some building or something, I'm sure a smart thing like you can handle it." Baa'lethor said, his tone quite impatient at the daemonette having made him lose his place several times.<br/><br/>"As you wish, Sir." Pachiko answered, fluttering over Baa'lethor's head and swinging his arms wide open to create a massive, swirling, red and black hole in the very air above the still reading Baa'lethor's head. Frustrated with how little attention the Incubus was paying to him and his Lord's wishes, Pachiko swung the portal down on his head quite abruptly, intending the passage to be as abrupt as possible.<br/><br/>As Baa'lethor passed through the portal, he glanced up from the pages of his book for the first time. The Incubus gasped slightly as he saw an endless sea of white petticoat fabric around him rather than the night sky, and he heard some unseen male voice saying "Hand it over now". Before he could even utter a single word, Baa'lethor was propelled upward, face first between a lithe pair of firm and tanned thighs until his face landed directly between her legs. For a moment the chaos was absolute, tangled limbs and tearing fabric as his body rose up to his full height and for a brief moment he was carrying the girl on his shoulders like a gladiator's helmet.<br/><br/>As the portal closed below Baa'lethor's boots, he felt the young woman's body shift enough that he was able to reflexively shove her off of him. She landed with a thud against the dirt, along with Baa'lethor's precious treasure. He was quite dismayed to find that the girl was also breathtakingly lovely. This wasn't the first impression he would have made.<br/><br/>"Bloody hell! I'm so sorry, love. I didn't mean it." Baa'lethor gasped, offering his hand to help the girl up, but only after he'd grabbed the book off of the ground and stored it inside his elaborate, crimson and gold embroidered tunic. "Are you alright?"<br/><br/>Baa'lethor flashed a gentle smile, and did his best to get his smell under control. When he was taken off guard, surprised or scared, his body naturally produced greater concentrations of spores, it was his defense mechanism afterall. The sight of the beautiful woman in a low cut dress, however, caused him to produce the spores of "Romantic Persuasion" which smelled of rose petals, ripe strawberries and sparkling dessert wine.<br/><br/>Taking a small step to the side, Baa'lethor caught sight of the hulking brute of a man who'd been standing just behind him. He eyed the man suspiciously for a moment, before taking a measured step backward from both mortals. There were too many witnesses, this was a catastrophe.<br/><br/>The tense silence was broken when Pachiko, ported himself up through the ground as well, horror evident on his face at the sight of the two humans. Baa'lethor snatched the daemonette out of the air swiftly, not wanting the little nuisance to be seen.<br/><br/>"Well, it's been great to meet you both... whoever you are. But I must be on my way now." Baa'lethor smiled, backing away slowly with Pachiko still hidden between his palms. "I'm called Basil. I'll see you around."<br/><br/>With that, Baa'lethor beat a hasty escape from the small plot of ground behind the tavern. He made his way quickly to an alley and didn't stop until he was out of sight. Breathing a sigh of relief, Bay opened the book once more, hoping to finally master the art of shape shifting into vapor. Much to his dismay, the pages of the book were written in English. The book in his hands was not the book he'd brought up from hell, it was instead some tedious historical edition that he had no use for.<br/><br/>"Damn it all to hell..." The fancifully dressed, foreign sounding man cursed to himself as Pachiko escaped his grasp and realized the problem.