This Life of Sin 2: Demonia

Broken

Chapter 1: Broken

A musty, dirt smell assaulted my senses when consciousness first began to return to me. It was the first thing I noticed at least, and maybe the unpleasant smell is what awoke me. The second sensation was pain. Not horrible pain but a dull ache all over my body. Like maybe I fell down the stairs. That's when I remember that I had fallen, but not down a flight of stairs. It had been off a spider. A big, hairy green one with about a hundred eyes.

I groaned and attempted to pull my arm out from under my body but everything was sore. I thought I was too sore to get up until even more memories flashed behind my eyelids: Roran, his crazy ramblings, and the odd hole in the side of the boulder he had shoved me through. Panicking, I forced my hands under me and lifted, opening my dry, caked eyes.

"Oh, shit..." I croaked to the empty air. I was not in Kansas anymore. Well, not in a dungeon in the kingdom of Larasta at least. Where I was now, I had no clue, but it was bad. Very, very bad. "No..." I instinctively made to jump up but winced and fell back to the ground.

And what a ground it was. Dry and cracked, purplish grey packed earth as far as my eyes could see. An oddly colored barren waste land with no end it seemed. What the actual, hell? And why was I naked? Again!

I wrapped my arms around my exposed breasts and shivered. The air was dry as a bone and I could tell my lips were already dry and chapped from my dirt nap. A cool breeze blew almost constantly, like a chilly sigh, causing small purple-ish dust clouds to shift across the land. I glanced around myself, some how expecting to see a bag with cloths in it like the first time I awoke in a strange new place.

I saw no convenient bag, but about four feet away there was a small, dark leather, book. My grimoire! Wincing, I crawled forward and snatched it up to my chest. It was the only familiar thing I had right now.

"Alright Sin, get up." I told myself in a quiet whisper. It felt better to speak out loud.

I was halfway to my feet when another bout of panic hit, making me jump up painfully. I ran my hands over my shoulders while checking the ground around me again. I groaned. It was a heart-breaking noise. Drogin was no where to be seen! I was so used to him being on my shoulder that I suddenly felt devastated to find that he wasn't there.

Then I remember that he had been sleeping on Vendaval's back before I went to go find Roran. That sneaky, backstabbing, nut case! I was going to beat him within an inch of his life the next time I saw the bastard. If I saw him again. I remembered then, that as I was being thrown into what must have been some sort of portal that he had conjured, I had torn off his arm with my tail.

I lifted the appendage in question and ran my hands over its long, thin, whip like length, careful of my sharp scales. No blood. Surly, if I had just sawn a man's arm off with it there should be blood. Even if it had dried out in the time I had been passed out here in these dead lands, there should still be blood.

I shook my head and put that issue off for another time. I had to see if my tames were alright. I closed my eyes and tried to feal for them. Normally I could sense them in some form or another. We shared a blood bonded contract after all. Nothing. Terrified I tore open the grimoire and flipped through the pages. I sighed in relief when I saw the two spell circles written in blood and both labelled with a name. Had they of died, the contracts would have disappeared from the book.

Still shaking, I placed a hand on Vendaval's seal and said, "Come, Vendaval." Nothing. Not a damn thing. I shivered, slammed the book shut and screamed, fighting back tears. Why could I not summon them? It should have been costly, mana wise, but easily doable! But I didn't even feel a single drop in my mana levels. A horrific thought, that I couldn't use magic anymore, crossed my mind and I felt dizzy.