InBrightestDay

I should have known!
Well, the last of the reviews for Part Five is in.
Thank you so much!  I really liked playing around with the different creature designs.  The Charnel Spider might be my favorite, but there are a few more (Wrath, Sloth and Gluttony will be making appearances).
Yeah, I tried to pull back a little on the gore, but this is a sequel to Whore of Heaven, so it would be wrong to get rid of it entirely.  The students impaled in their seats, as if attending a lecture, is a reference to WoH, where it’s mentioned that many of Eparlegna’s mutilated victims were left posed in grotesque parodies of life.
That’s a very good point, though as you point out actually integrating it is something of a challenge due to pacing.  I’ll see if I can work it in without messing things up.
Well, based on how positive the feedback was here, I think I can safely say I’ll never match this high point.  Seriously, people, I’m pretty sure it’s all downhill from here.  I can only hope that downhill is still entertaining.
Next time, well, just in case you forgot what this is a sequel to...

Actually the reason the US is so often target for demonic invasions is probably due to not having switch to metric…

And honestly, even that might not do it.

Jude's Tale (original title Fate of a Fagottist) if I keep bashing out parts might actually make an undeserved 100 views! But I’m having fun writing it, so what the heck.
Thanks for your review! He’s drunk, in an enclosed space with the Duchess who is helping him think with his dick, and had something technically true told to him that allows him to believe he hadn’t broken that huge “don’t hit a woman” rule. He’s got to have been prepared to make the effort to change... Even so, I think in another part his self-reflection may return.
I hope she didn’t offer you a ride too? Oh, you mean in the Shannon’s report scrap! I guess technically you’ve seen her twice, only she was a lot younger and still an Archangel in the Fall of Chastia scrap.
Apparantly the easiest demon name to type is Asmodeus’s nephew Asdfghjkl.
I might even change her name again from that scrap! It could get sillier yet! She’s got quite the sense of superirority that woman. I’m think Duchess works better than the dark grace title too –It didn’t fit the persona she’s putting on for Jude of a concerned inhuman-hunter of wealth and status.
I think she knew exactly what to say to Jude – She’s got the advantage of being able to read Jude’s mind from a distance, same as old Eparlegna. Never mind the defeated and self-pitying way he walked, she got a look in there and decided he was her patsy, even before he met Kizzy, and then it was just finding a way to get them to interract. Unless my sloppy writing has kicked in and messed it up then her only lies to Jude are lies of omission otherwise everything she says is true – she’s targeting something inhuman with great strength, Kizzy is a dangerous foe to her, and has influence over Shannon, and would spot the Duchess or another demon/damned soul servant approaching her a mile off, and Shannon was in her employ (hers as she sees it!) and as far as she knows Kizzy hasn’t had any interest in any man (There may have been some distinctly less pure thoughts while watching Star Trek, no doubt down to the borrowed flesh, but the Duchess doesn’t know about that.)
It’s a nasty one, too. Hopefully by the end of the story, though, if you choose to read it all through and I manage to write it out as I have it all planned in my head you won’t be left needing to write a SAO to feel better. But if you do need to, well, that’s cool from my perspective because they come out great.
Thank you! kind of hot is good enough for me. He doesn’t even have enough experience to note that the tongue was a little unnatural. I’m actually feeling like it might be cool to just do another 1000 word part of them having some more sex, total PWP fuckfest, with the Duchess having to remember not to eat his soul as she needs him alive, unharmed and un-soulless for her scheme, then the part after that can continue with where it was going to be before. The only issue is the next batch of prompt words including haslot (which I swear ought be spelled haslet) and fitting in a reference to cooked animal entrails to a non-snuff scene. Ahh well, I seem to not have the interest to write good sex these days anyway so if it doesn’t work and I miss having a sex chapter, then those prompts would have a use when the weapon is deployed.
Yeah, that one made me smile too But, can’t say Kizzy didn’t warn him that intolerance’d end up with him in Hell.
Thanks again for your review! I think I would not be surprised if nobody else who reads it bothers, but it’s nice to get feedback from someone.

And honestly, even that might not do it.

Twinpregnation was probably the most successful of my old story re-writes. I’ve got more feedback on it already than I ever did on the original version and I get a bit of kick that out of the idea that one of their descendants is serving her country in a tiny cameo in someone else’s story. If it makes the final draft.

Thanks for your review! I appreciate your thoughts. I’m really glad the sex came across as hot – It’s a big part of the aim of a PWP thing like that. Funny enough the “twins having twins” ref made me think ‘Twinception’ for the frst time and I’m glad to see from google that Urban Dictionary got there years ago. In my original version of the story it literally started with the coming in and seeing the picture. I see what you mean about the perspective shift and the potential for the reader not knowing Connor’s thoughts – It never even ocurred to me to be honest! The original version of the story had the perspective shifts without the impregnation emphasis, and then I wanted to really establish all the changes to the characters for the re-write so I kind of made used seeing each character’s point of view to give them a lot of detail – the new opening was a big expansion on that. It almost certainly would have been better the way you suggest!
I don’t know that I’ll ever write sequels. I’ve always enjoyed that whole “risk of getting caught” or “actually having someone talking obliviously to one or both parties having sex while they’re doing it” due to coming in at the wrong time kink/trope/whatever and having some of that going on would be a lot of fun to write. Uncle Declan definitely wants to appear in more stories.
“What are you doing in there, Connor?”
‘Don’t say ‘My Sister’’
‘Don’t say ‘My Sister’’
‘Don’t say ‘My Sister’’
“Your neice.”
‘SHIT’
(With apologies to Family Guy who probably lifted the joke directly from an 80s sitcom)
Thank you again for the review! I really appreciate it and it was a nice surprise.

He was gonna go with “Straight Outa Hell” but someone already used it
I figured she would intervene to prevent him touching Jan, but show little concern about the possibility of him hurting her. At the same time she’s very aware that a guy gets drunk and hits one woman might go out and hit another.
I was definitely considering the Mpreg option, simply because then I’d get to explore something I’ve done very little with, but I think It’s more likely to be a thought-about pregnancy rather than actually happening.
All these folks writing first time stories, then there’s me thinking about doing the “first masturbation in creation” scene. Billions of years later,
“Hey, can you guess what I invented?”
But maybe that’s a bit too Mary Sue tbh. Maybe she ought to get the idea off a canon character.
Anyway, thanks again for the review! Hopefully won’t be too many weeks until part 2.

So… all it takes for the US to adopt metric is a demonic invasion. Good to know

I did actually consider showing the Spider carving parts off of a corpse, but I don’t think that would have made it any clearer.  At the time, I didn’t think it mattered if the audience knew what sin it was during the chase, but I thought they might be curious afterward, hence the Author’s Note.
“They’ve finally switched over” is exactly what I was going for.  Aside from the occasional bit of future tech (nano-sutures at the hospital, the Gungnir asynchronous coilgun, the presence of holograms) the only other thing I changed from the modern day was to assume that the US had finally adopted the metric system.
Thank you!  This was pretty fun to write, so I’m glad it was enjoyable.

Exactly! Ain’t no kids around before the dawn of time. And thanks! If I get it done, I’ll probably stick her right in there for someone for Chastia to be patrolling with.
“Man, don’t ask what we get up to. A gentleman never tells.”
“Right, got you, it’s just we overheard Calista leading a woman’s studies seminar on sexual fulfilment. Luzurial says there were three Succubi at the back. Looking shocked and taking notes.”
 

I’m actually glad people liked the Pride joke.  I wasn’t sure whether to go with it or not.
You know, it never occurred to me that Luzurial stabbing it through the head would look like one of those, but I guess that is kind of what happened, isn’t it?
Well, they’ll both have their turn to blink.  Kevin’s going to discover that he really shouldn’t taunt a demon, but by the end of the next chapter he’ll get a pretty good moment of his own.
Thank you!  I was actually pretty happy when I came up with the idea.  I was trying to think of new sin creatures, but the only deadly sins that readily suggest monsters are Lust, Wrath and Gluttony (the latter two of which will get showings in this story as well).  I wanted to use one of the other ones, and was wracking my brain trying to think of what Envy might be (trying not to go all Fullmetal Alchemist and have it be a shapeshifter) when the “stealing body parts” idea came to me.  The creature’s arthropod form comes from a type of assassin bug that attaches its victims to its exoskeleton as a form of disguise.

Part Five is up and we have new reviews!
It could be called “Not So Deadly Sin.”
Thanks!  To elaborate, the background monster, Grabby Hands there, is Greed.  Luzurial creates incarnate virtues, the same way Eparlegna creates incarnate sins, so I thought that perhaps those virtues might specifically oppose the sins, thus being drawn from the seven Christian virtues.  In this case, the virtue that opposes Greed is Charity, which, theologically speaking, is not so much giving money away as it is acting on love for your fellow human beings.  Dogs are often used as exemplars of selfless love, so I gave charity a canine or lupine form.
First off, we’re technically working in a shared universe, so as far as the stories go, what’s mine is yours.  Second, I’d be perfectly happy for you to include her.  I don’t know if she’ll ever get to personally show up in one of my stories, so it would be nice to see her...doing well, let’s just say.  I’ve gone back and forth over her mythological role as Angel of Conception, but that wouldn’t matter for your story anyway, given when it takes place.
It’s a cheap joke, I know, but I couldn’t keep from writing it in.
For those not in the know, in Jewish folklore, Lailah and Gabriel actually work together.  According to the lore, there’s a tree in the Garden of Eden called the Tree of Souls, from which new human souls are produced.  The souls fall from the tree into something called the Treasury of Souls, Gabriel draws one out and Lailah bonds the soul to a human embryo and then watches over it until birth, which is why she’s often referred to as the Angel of Conception.
Again, this is folklore, not hard canon; it’s not in Jewish church sermons or anything.  In that sense, it’s kind of like the Celestial Hierarchy.
I keep going back and forth over whether or not to include the conception thing into this story’s universe, but I liked the idea that those two work together, and that they might be attracted to one another, albeit unable to act upon their feelings due a perceived ban on physical intimacy.
Thank you for the suggestion!
First off, “There’s no way I’m coming out of this vent!  That’s exactly what the penis worm wants!” is my favorite joke in the entire chapter.  Second, the thought did occur to me that if the thing was attempting to get at Calista in the vent, that it might actually be her personal sin creature, which does make one wonder what her sex life with Abdul is like.
Thank you again.  The ring was actually an attempt at visually indicating that the monster isn’t made of human body parts, but is instead going around carving them off of people and wearing them.  I figured jewelry was a good indicator for that.
I really wanted everyone in our main group to get at least one really cool or important thing to do, so Abdul gets to apply his Chemistry knowledge with the methane bomb, and while Calista has a supporting role (well, aside from saving Abdul by beaning the Charnel Spider with her phone), it’s a vital one, allowing for those bullets to become useful.

Just added Part Five!

Funny thing, I actually calculated how strong Luzurial is.  I wanted to have some kind of yardstick so I wasn’t making her too strong, so…
In Whore of Heaven, Luzurial bites through a stone tentacle being used to gag her.  Assuming the magic animating the tentacle didn’t make it any stronger than normal stone (unlikely, but this at least gives us a minimum value), and assuming physical properties similar to granite, then it would have a compressive strength of roughly 200 megapascals or 29,000 psi.  Average human bite force is 162 psi, so assuming all of Luzurial’s strength scales to her bite force, that would make her (at full power) at least 180 times human strength.  Even assuming she’s at like one third of that right now, that’s still 60 times human strength.

Funny thing, I actually calculated how strong Luzurial is.  I wanted to have some kind of yardstick so I wasn’t making her too strong, so…
In Whore of Heaven, Luzurial bites through a stone tentacle being used to gag her.  Assuming the magic animating the tentacle didn’t make it any stronger than normal stone (unlikely, but this at least gives us a minimum value), and assuming physical properties similar to granite, then it would have a compressive strength of roughly 200 megapascals or 29,000 psi.  Average human bite force is 162 psi, so assuming all of Luzurial’s strength scales to her bite force, that would make her (at full power) at least 180 times human strength.  Even assuming she’s at like one third of that right now, that’s still 60 times human strength.

Thank you for your review!  Her big issue at the moment is that what happened to her (well, specific aspects of it) are what Luzurial considers her dark secret.  Kevin’s not stupid, mind you, so he knows by this point that if Luzurial went through something horrible and sex-related involving a demon, then she was probably raped, but there are details that Luzurial considers to be her fault that she doesn’t want him to know about.  Eventually getting to the point where she can talk to him about it is a big step in their relationship.
And no, this first reunion with Eparlegna will not go well.
He’s always had a very high level of self-confidence.  We see inside his head quite a bit during Whore of Heaven and at no point is he even the slightest bit nervous, so I figured that would carry over here.  To some extent, he’s justified; he can literally burn entire armies, but that kind of ability can go to one’s head.
The speech of his is also me expanding somewhat on his motivation for coming to Earth during the first story.  He simply doesn’t see the value in how Lucifer does things, and he can afford to shit-talk his boss because, hey, it’s not like he’s going to have to answer to him here on Earth.
As for his strength, well, impregnating Luzurial gave him a power boost, and after he carved her wings off he absorbed them too, so that’s some more power.  Finally, he’s got her sword, which as JayDee explained to me (and will come up in Part Seven) gives him yet more power due to what the sword is.  He might not be quite at full power yet, but he’s way stronger than she is at this point.
Well, yes and no.  He is fairly high up, but his power does have limits.
That’s definitely a fair criticism.  I didn’t want Sabrina and Kenneth to be blank slates, so I gave each of them a little bit of “why he/she’s working for a demon” similar to Shondra and Molly in Whore of Heaven, and even used the same method to do so (Luzurial reading their minds).  However, I did end up mentioning Sabrina earlier on, which probably made her out to be more important than she was.  I mentioned this in the author’s note, but I did consider lengthening the action scene, but then I feared we would have had the Neutral Female problem, only with male characters this time.  I could have had them pursue the characters inside the building, but there’s some other stuff waiting inside for them (Eparlegna’s “Craft Beings of Vice” power), and I didn’t want to get in the way of that.
But yeah, it’s definitely kind of disappointing, and I’m sorry about that.

I’m not sure if it would have been Neutral Female only because Kevin and Abdul are clearly very out of their depths. However I think this also went to show how strong an Arch Angel can actually be.

“Sleazy E” presumably being the name he used when he released his rap album.
When dealing with Jude, I liked that she got to be kind of scary, stopping his physical attack, and there’s that funny bit where he tries to slap her and just hurts his hand.  Of course, the followup is some frank but understanding moral advice, again demonstrating her learning.
As amusing as it would be to see the homophobic guy end up as MPreg, I imagine that’s more him impregnating someone...or something.
That sounds pretty cool in general, and the masturbation would allow Lucifer an opportunity for manipulation.

Jude's Tale (original title Fate of a Fagottist) Sometimes you get an idea for a story that almost nobody else is going to want to read, but you feel like writing it, and posting it, anyway. I have this concept for how to end this but I’m still not sure how to get to the end. Still, bit of sex in part 2!
Thank you for your review! I appreciate it. While I don’t think she’ll be in part 2, Kizzy’s definitely going to be important in the story – Jude’s the title character, but then it was Jeb’s blood on that hay in the title of Kate’s story (I’ve been working on part 3 of that in my head, too).  I figure it just happened to be that Jan needed help with homeless stuff that night. It’s probably not the first time Kizzy’s volunteered there – another time it might have been assisting elderly people, or one of other community outreach jobs. She’s certainly volunteering at non-church places, too. Probably sometimes she just goes out for a walk, and sees what she can do.
Kizzy’s first appearance shows her solving Jack with violence, but that was after first getting into a position where she had enough friends for a sleepover. Slow, careful work. Then she didn’t demonstrate quite the best negotiating skills with Shannon, before once again using violence against Eparlegna – but both Jack and Sleazy E were pretty evil, and that’s easy for her to deal with. When it comes to Jude, she’s got things a little harder, especially beause until fairly recently she didn’t really understand mortals so well. She’s getting better.
Jude… eh, he’s got some pretty unpleasant traits on display – the racism, homophobia, slapping Kizzy – but maybe he can turn his life around… and maybe instead he’ll give into temptation in Part Two. Where one of the prompts is gravid. I don’t know how soon I’ll get the second part done, it depends on what the ol’ muses help me put down. Might even get the Fall of Chastia story done first. I kind of want to write a ‘before the battle’ section for that. The Temptation of Chastia, maybe, so I can include a bit of Lucifer and make it less entirely OC for the bible section. And maybe even throw in some thought-to-be-totally-against-the-rules masturbation.  Get caught jilling off by Lucifer? Well, it might appeal to someone.
Thanks again for the review!

Thank you!  I always feel so bad when I make stupid mistakes (and you found another one further down), so I’m happy to know you’re still enjoying the story in spite of my screwups.
There are two confrontations in the story, the climactic one in Part Nine and this one.  As you might expect, this one isn’t going to go terribly well.
While I wasn’t referencing the Judge specifically, you’re not that far off.  Eparlegna is highly confident because he was able to overpower just about everyone 75 years earlier (like in the San Francisco footage).  Like the Judge, it hasn’t really sunk in how humanity has advanced, and he is being somewhat arrogant.
Having said that, he’s not about to get blown up with a rocket launcher.  Enchanted bullets can wound him, but they still can’t kill him.  Granted, this is a step up, since 75 years earlier they would just have bounced off him, but there are still limits to what human weapons can accomplish.
Furthermore, his attack on the App Theo building is not without purpose, which will come up later.
Thanks!  I really wanted to show what Eparlegna hints at in Whore of Heaven, namely a battle between human forces and, as he describes his new body, “an unstoppable force of Hell”, so we get to see human soldiers trying and failing to damage him with normal ammunition and even missiles, and the destructive power of the dragon’s hellfire breath, almost like a nuclear weapon (slower moving, though).
What I was going for here was that the car is mostly coming down toward her, so its momentum is primarily directed through Luzurial and into the ground.  In addition, the crumpling of the car’s roof absorbs some of the energy.  All in all, she probably slid back about a meter, but not enough that I wanted to really point it out.
You know, some day I’m going to put a chapter up and it’s not going to contain a single stupid mistake.  BUT TODAY IS NOT THAT DAY!
So, there are two reasons for Kevin taking normal ammo in that scene.  The first is the out-of-universe reason, namely that those bullets will, at the end of Part Five, be inscribed to be anti-demon rounds, so they needed to be “blank” for that (I suppose you could write over one inscription with another, but that would be a rather messy and difficult process).
The second reason, though, the in-universe reason, is that Kevin wasn’t planning to try to shoot Eparlegna with those bullets, but was instead thinking there might be more cultists inside, so he wanted to be able to shoot them.  And of course I didn’t make that clear, because in spite of my best efforts, I am a mediocre writer.  That mistake will be fixed come morning (with credit to you in the Author’s Note).

He does have a twisted sense of humor so there’s a fair chance it was built out of the bones of employees of a popular Ready-to-assemble furniture vendor.
He may have enjoyed the meatballs.
 

catharsis takes many forms. I enjoy the story too much to stop now.
That’d be a thousand times worse than taking a bookmark out and promptly reading the last page of a book and declaring you’ve finished the story. 
 tsuj hctaw  ruoy knird rof ehs yam ton be eb a dneirf

You know, it’s a shame my dad can’t know about this, because he would have appreciated that Hurricane of Puns.
That was something I was really trying for when writing Kevin and Luzurial’s developing relationship.  Given what she’s been through, I wanted it to remain as clear as possible that he doesn’t expect anything in return for his help; he really does just want to see her get better.
I know that was a joke, but aspects of my personality will inevitably make it into characters I write.  I tend to write male characters who are somewhat insecure because I’ve always kind of felt that way; I always feel like I should know more about the world than I do.  I try to give characters some kind of distinguishing traits, in this case Kevin’s temper (and the fact that my parents are still alive), but they’re all going to kind of resemble me in some aspects.  And yes, bringing it back to the remark that started this, I am a fan of breasts.
Next chapter: Enter the Charnel Spider.
The bit where MacBride gets cut in half, specifically how Eparlegna just does this nonchalant flick of the wrist, was kind of a way of showing both his demonic strength and how insanely sharp the sword is.
I actually added that bit after I sent you the rough draft.  Originally she was just being reassuring (she said something like “you will not harm me”), but then I realized how silly the idea of him stepping on her foot was after guns didn’t hurt her, so I had her make a joke.  Luzurial doesn’t joke often, but it does happen (see her annoyed “Ow” when Chloe shoots her in the head).
That’s about it.  I wanted an opportunity to see Luzurial go full Wrath of God on someone, and at this power level, this was about the best she could do.
Yeah, I kind of have a thing for female action heroes.  Much like my somewhat insecure male leads, that’s probably going to pop up in other stories I write.

It’s a character flaw of his.  He’s not completely off base; he trapped, raped, mutilated and tortured an archangel, and he got away with it...for a while.  And then, after being bound, he was eventually released by humans.  Where he goes wrong is in assuming this is something he can keep getting away with, leading to the other thing you pointed out.
While Eparlegna was strong enough to destroy armies 75 years earlier, what you’re saying is exactly the point Hobbs is trying to make.  I also love the sarcasm, by the way.
Oh, and “subtlety is overrated” is basically Eparlegna summing up his own character.  When you’ve built yourself a throne made of human bones, subtlety has officially gone out the window.
Or the nutshot, at any rate  (Part Six).
Yeah, we’ve seen how durable Luzurial is, both here and in the last story, but this is the first example (not related to bite force, anyway) that we really get of how strong she is.  And this isn’t even her at full power.
This is one of the things I’ve always admired about the character.  No matter what happens to her, Luzurial remains dedicated to the protection of human life.  Even though she’s nowhere near ready to face Eparlegna again, she’s still going in, because she can’t let Kevin and Abdul take the risk alone; that’s just the person she is.
...Assuming that sentence means what I think it means, I just want you to know that you do not have to keep reading this story if the subject matter is dragging up painful memories.  I appreciate the reviews, but it’s not worth upsetting you.

Part Four is up!