Chapter 4.9: A Fear of Heroes

“She attacked you, because you killed one of her children!” Lyssa raises her voice and frowns. “No wonder she tried to eat you!”
Zamazel raises his hands.
“Well, I have to eat, don’t I? There are no trees to pick fruit from and I ran out of food yesterday. I can’t sit around and starve to death, right?”
Lyssa’s sunbathed face turns red. She clenches her jaw and spreads her eyes wide open, flabbergasted by what the demon is saying.
“There are cities nearby! There’s a temple right over there! Someone would have given you something to eat, I’m sure of it.”
Zamazel turns away from her and looks at Bruq.
“Fellow hunter”, he says, hoping for some sympathy, “you understand, right? It’s all part of the hunt, part of our way of life.”
The satyr, caught between two fires, hesitates.
“I can understand that you need to eat and that you hunt for food.” Out of the corner of his eyes he can see Lyssa silently judging him. “If you would have killed the mother, you would have caused more pain, leaving all cubs motherless instead of taking away just one cub.”
Zamazel sighs with relief.
“Exactly!”
“Well, that’s just a load of-”
“Nevertheless”, Bruq says loudly, stopping Lyssa mid-sentence, “part of being a hunter is also respecting nature and all creatures who inhabit it. I hunt to protect, not for fun or for food. If nature has nothing to offer here, no berries or whatsoever, I go and find them elsewhere. I don’t kill the first living thing to satisfy my hunger. You had it coming. That mother wolf had every right to try to eat you. An eye for an eye, Zamazel.”
The satyr’s white eyes blacken.
The demon looks at the ground, ashamed and clueless what to say to defend himself.
“I’m just sad we had to kill everyone”, Mero says. “You could have prevented a lot of deaths if you thought this through.”
While all of them are judging the demon - Oslando does so silently - their cleric walks up to the demon and pats his shoulder with his large claw.
“Sounds like they don’t like you very much anymore, demon.” Dargothoth’s hissing voice frightens him. “I do approve of your ways. As you heard me say in my prayer: I do believe murder is the way.”
Zamazel wants to interrupt the him, but the priest silenced him, pressing his finger against the demon’s lips.
“Do you see how they look at you? The hatred in their eyes? They thirst for your blood.”
Zamazel looks at the other ucha’ari. He doesn’t want to believe what Dargothoth is telling him, but it doesn’t look good for him. Lyssa has a destructive glance in her eyes, Bruq looks disappointed and Mero is fixated on the burned cub.
Oslando wants to share his thoughts, about better alternatives and what kind of punishment would be just. In his mind the voice of Oanoa echoes, telling him he can’t fix everything. This is their first encounter with a demon in this plane and the Beholder is already right. He swallows down the words he wants to speak and keeps his morals to himself for now.
Zamazel pulls his head back a bit, his mouth no longer pressing against the scaled finger.
“I swear, if I could-”
“Hush, demon”, Dargothoth says commandingly. “It’s time to pay us for saving your life. Or it will be, to quote my satyr friend, an eye for an eye.”
His mouth falls open and he raises his eyebrows. He shakes his head with disbelief.
“You want me to pay? I can’t pay you. I offered you my help to guide you to the temple in exchange for you killing three dogs. Don’t act like you five performed a miracle. I’m not paying you anything!”
(Persuasion 19 versus insight 13)
“Oh, I think you will.”
Dargothoth smiles ominously and turns his hand. The demon is looking right at the metal ring around the priest’s finger. It’s a terrified face with his mouth covered by two boney hands. The longer he looks at it, the more he would swear he can hear screaming somewhere in the distance.
“I think... I can miss the few pieces of azmal I have laying around.”
The demon sounds hesitant. He speaks more slowly, his eyes still fixated on the enchanting ring.
“That will not be sufficient”, the cleric replies. “You are going to offer us more or I will make sure you’ll be the next sacrifice in the name of Nerull!”