"That was brutal," Volex noted as I pulled my motorcycle out of its ented ste cloth.

  "Volex, you're my friend, and after your history of friendship to my family and servi the war against Hell, I really, really want to trust you and rely on your help," I said. "However. You're also a creature of narrative, and this is the worst possible time for you to start setting up this stupid-ass betrayal arc."

  "That's not what I meant," Volex said, her tail flig from side to side like an agitated cat. "I don't give a fuck about those assholes, I'm worried about you. The first time we met, you killed a man who had personally done you a great deal of insult and injury, after a long, drawn-out fight to get the blood pumping. Here, you just executed four men in cold blood, and I'm worried about what that'll do to you."

  "I assure you: my blood is not cht now," I said, climbing astride my motorcycle. "I have, in fact, beehing with rage sihe moment I woke up, because I do not have time for this kind of horseshit!"

  "...I see," Volex said.

  "They kidnapped my friends," I said. "They kidhree young women- barely more than just girls- to sacrifice them to a fug demon. You think I don't care about that? That I just shrug that off? Do you think, just because of my hat I have a heart made of stone?"

  "Okay, reel it back, champ," Volex said, before snatg up a cardboard tube with her tail. "By the way, you're fetting this."

  "...What about it?" I asked, looking at the cardboard tube she'd picked up. I'd dismissed it as just fireworks- something they had to ease the boredom of being stuck out in the middle of nowhere- but evidently Volex felt differently about it.

  "It's a signal fre," Volex said. "Light this, and it shoots off into the sky, and the cavalry es running."

  "...Alright, okay," I said, nodding slowly. "I'm starting to see what you mean. Okay, I like it. Lemme set some stuff up real quick."

  After the setup was pleted, I got bay motorcycle, and raced off into the desert. This time, though, I made sure to cross to the other side of the main pack's trail, and got some more distance before turning to follow the general dire of the horsemen, knowing now that they were heading straight for the Ziggurat, and where it was.

  "Perfect," I whispered to myself, spying the telltale dust cloud of a pack of horsemen and one caravan moving over the sands. I raced around them, a myself up on the far side of a tall dune, before pulling out a spygss and lying in wait.

  There, pin as day, was a gaggle of cowboys on horseback, surrounding a stationary, cherry red caravan. The cowboys had apparently demanded a halt for the horses to rest- it was hot, and the van was still fast enough that a horse had to gallop to keep up. The driver had gotten out of the van tue with the cowboys, but it was too far away for me to hear anything, and I didn't really care- I could guess that the driver was arguing that he should just keep driving, ahe others catch up whehey caught up, because nobody wao sit around the Bck Desert doing nothing.

  I spotted the Hellknight, whose own steed- a strange-looking demon, rather than a true horse- clearly didn't need a break as badly as the horses did. The Hellknight roag the driver and that argument, and if I had to guess, it robably tue that they weren't yet fully in the clear, and taking stupid risks like letting the van go ahead unprotected was just that: a stupid risk.

  I carefully pulled a slip of paper from my pocket with a few magical sigils scrawled on it, and then, with the barest flicker of magicka, I set it on fire. Five miles away, that slip's matched pair caught alight as well, and hopefully ighe fuse on that fre. The fuse looked to be about ten seds, so if I was right-

  Ah, it was a five sed fuse, eveer.

  There ointing and yelling, and the Hellknight turard the fre as it hung there in the sky, before exploding into a bright burst, the faint sound arriving nearly half a mier the light.

  The Hellknight turo give orders to the cultists, before charging off aloo deal with whatever prompted that signal fre- given the sorry state everyone's horses were in, he probably thought they'd just slow him down.

  So, now it was just me and Volex, versus what looked to be... oh, about two dozen cultists, I'd say. About half of whom probably had lightning wands, and four of them clearly had the glowing red amulets marking them as demon-priests- spellcasters, to be taken out first. The trouble was, they weren't clumped up together, so taking them out with a single quick burst attack just wasn't an option, so...

  "Volex," I whispered. " you do anything to clump up the priests? Without getting everyone alerted and angry and shooting at me?"

  "Nnn... No," Volex said, shaking her head. "If we were closer, and had some way of ving them we were supposed to be here..."

  "Y'know, it occurs to me that the only thing I'm missing that'd make me look like I belonged here is a fug horse," I muttered, wearing a face-ceali of hat, goggles, and bandanna. "And then I went and shot all of the horses at that campsite, like an idiot."

  "Holy, that wasn't a terrible decision," Volex said. "Horses don't have the same endurance as a motorcycle, and you've never ridden one in your life."

  "Alright, well, onto Pn A," I said. "Shooting them a whole bund hoping they don't mao shoot me back."

  "I fight, you know," Volex said mildly.

  "What happens when you get shot?"

  "I either drop and whine about it, or I turn into smoke and go back to the reliquary for a few hours."

  "Hmmm... Hey, you're a shapeshifter, right?"

  "Yeah? Why?"

  " you turn into a bird and fly over them?"

  "...I make it look like I'm a bird while I fly over them," Volex said cautiously.

  "Good enough," I said, reag into a pocket and pulling out a few sticks of dynamite, followed by a cheap lighter. "Light the fuse and drop it ory not to hit the van, but if you do, oh well, it's pretty sturdy."

  "Where the hell did you get dynamite?" Volex asked. "This stuff is incredibly illegal to just own."

  "I'm a Knight of House Redwater," I said. "I asked 'em for dynamite, and the only question they asked was 'how much?'"

  "That would do it," Volex said quietly, taking the dynamite in one hand and the lighter iher. "Okay. Wish me luck. And try to start shooting them after the dynamite goes off- I really don't want to draw all their fire to me."

  "Of course," I said, pocketing my binocurs and ing down the slope of the dune. "I'm gon on my motorcycle, so I have some immediate mobility."

  Volex nodded, and began to weave an illusion around herself- a simple visual illusion, repg the presence of a sexy dy with purple skin with that of a presumably-typical desert hawk.

  I got on my bike, silehe engine, and kickstarted it, as Volex took off into the air, going up in a spiraling pattern- I suppose she was flying with magical wings, rather than raw telekinesis. I saw her wings on occasion, but for the most part, she preferred to keep them put away, so people could have an unobstructed view of her back.

  "Aaaaaaaaaaaaand..." I said, watg and waiting, as Volex finally got to a good height and started to fly over the herd. She dropped something, and I started to grin like an idiot. "Aaaaaaaaaand... boom goes the dynamite."

  I guhe throttle, riding up and over the ridge of the dune, already opening fire on the dazed and fused cultists. A few of them mao point crossbows and lightning wands in my general dire and pull the trigger, but hitting a moving target was always hard, and I was a very fast target indeed.

  Ohe initial ride-by was over, and I was ing around for another pass- zigzagging at random to foul their aim while I did so- I started to take more careful aim. One of the priests had his red-glowing hand in the air, opening up a portal to summon a demon. So I shot him in the head, and the spell fizzled. Then I realized the driver had just gotten bato the cab, and squeezed off another shot that, as, hit the door instead, managing only to scratch the paint. Dammit.

  Then... Something strange happehe van started to rock from side to side, and I could hear the sounds of fighting ing from inside. Was that-

  The van roared to life and took off, the back doors opening aing a very angry-looking Padin and an even angrier-looking grizzly bear onto the bck sands.

  Hrm. Well, I'm gd they're alright, but to be ho, I wasn't terribly worried about them. I was worried about Emily, who was not a fighter, and who was, to be clear, the actually necessary sacrifice fing Demon King Paimon into this world.

  I hesitated, but... my motorcycle was faster than the van, and I could track it trivially, and I kly where they were going. If I left Faith and Talia to fend for themselves, however, they could very well get killed here.

  So, I wheeled around and sprayed down the remaining cowboy-cultists with a withering hail of bullets, until they were all down, and we were safe to take a moment to breathe.

  "How'd you two escape?" I asked, as Talia turned bato an elf, and Faith let her divine armaments fade away.

  "We were tied up," Talia said, breathing heavily. "So I turned into a bear and bit a guy's face off. Then I tore the ropes off of Faith, and by that point, we were getting charged by more of those cowboys- what the hell is going on with them, by the way?"

  "This is the new Cult of Paimon," I said simply. "Okay, well, Talia, do you think you turn into something small, so you and Faith ... ah, shit."

  "What's that sound?" Faith asked, turning tard the steadily-growing thunder of hoofbeats.

  "That," I said, as our adversary crested the hill, "is a Hellknight. I thought I distracted him and lured him away, but evidently he didn't get far enough away."

  "So you did survive," the Hellknight said, his voice eg within his helmet. "Good. I was hoping for a prht."

  Shit.

  AnnouWhat Little Remains Of Terpsichore Iro was inally envisioned as an experiment and exercise in writing more ventionally a-y aing stories. While I do feel like it's been a valuable experience, and while I do generally enjoy writing Iro, there's still a slight hit this particur getalong: It feels like there's maybe ten people reading this story, and none of them are willing to say anything unless I er them first. It's unpleasant and discing, and it also makes it hard to tell if I've actually succeeded in writing a more exg a story.

  So, if you like Iro and wao keep making it, the best way to do that is to talk about it. Leave ents here or on my discord server, and tell your friely why you love this story about an ambiguously fruity elf who's also a charismatically-traumatized murderer.