Discoveries (Amrocar 2)

He shot into the air, out of the Fusion Layer and over the lip of the Pit. He spread his wings to brake himself, but found he had none. For a surprised second he seemed suspended in the air, but then he was falling, crashing into the ground with barely an attempt to catch himself. He smashed his head into something hard and lay dazed under a blue sky. He thought he must be making a terrible first impression on his Summoner, but couldn’t seem to get himself moving. He smelled lavender faintly on the breeze. He could do nothing but lay there, and as he did he heard voices.
“Hey! You! Get away from there!” There was a loud clanking of armor, and then, “You’ll come with me, then. We’re going to see the Captain about this!” The tone seemed malicious to him, and he tried to raise himself to help, for surely this was his Summoner being caught by the Paladins, but the effort was too much for him, and he passed out. His last thought was that he had never heard of an unconscious demon before, and he felt a sort of horrified embarrassment at being the first.

He had dreams for the first time in His long existence. He had become the slave of a more powerful demon somehow, and was forced to do demeaning tasks for His master’s amusement. He tried to fight once, but His master’s power was much greater, and He had no chance against him. He was beaten, badly, and never dared to fight back again. But there was always a core of resentment in Him. He found a pet once and cared for it, but His master found out and killed it in front of Him as a ‘lesson’. The core grew.

When Joshua came to, the sun was shining directly on his face. Opening them in reflex he was nearly blinded by the huge orb seemingly right over his head. It was very hot, and he realized it was only a few hours to dusk. The sun had finished its transit of the sky and was getting ready to make its descent through the Pit into the lower world. Joshua rolled over and got to his feet. Despite his confused and already-fading dreams, he felt rather good, his enforced slumber having given time for his body to stabilize in its new form. He took stock of his new body, trying to determine the abilities his Summoner had given him.
At first glance it was relatively unimpressive. Well-formed and male, with above-average musculature and skin density. No wings, horns, or spikes. Flexing his fingers produced no claws, and a quick feel of his teeth revealed them to be human normal. Neither could he find any poison-producing glands in his mouth. A cautious spit yielded only a wet spot on the dry baked ground, with no fire or sizzle of acid. With regret, he supposed he must have been given more subtle gifts, and would need the assistance of his Summoner to work them out. Or it was possible that his Summoner had locked them somehow, to only be unlocked in his presence. Somewhat comforted by that, Joshua looked at his surroundings for the first time.
Dry sun-baked plain stretched in all forward directions, turning to desert in the middle distance. As the sun came down it would heat this area up to the point where nothing could live for long. Looking at his nude body, Joshua realized that he was in trouble. Despite the uniform tan covering his body, he would burn badly without covering. For a moment he wondered whether his Summoner had given him resistance to fire, but the burn of the sun on his skin made it unlikely. He couldn’t count on it, and so had to flee like a normal human. Sighing, he trudged away from the Pit, regretting the loss of his wings more and more.
An hour later Joshua was starting to realize exactly how much trouble he was in. His skin burned from the unrelenting sun, he was parched and dry, and his head was beginning to ache. He had several times seen scuff marks in the ground that indicated he was following a large group of people, probably with horses. He assumed that this was the Paladins, and had been intentionally following them so that he could later free his Summoner, but at this point he would be almost relieved to be captured if they would just give him some water and shade from the sun. He thought that the heat was starting to affect his mind, but he couldn’t seem to concentrate well enough to tell. He wasn’t sure why he kept going, but there was something pushing him to continue. He was seeing shapes in the distance for nearly half an hour before he realized it.
He tried to jog towards them, but stumbled and nearly fell. His legs were too tired to move any faster than he was already. He kept plodding on, his skin feeling incandescent and his mind wandering. He kept thinking he was back in the change barrier and chanted his name softly as he walked. After a time he heard the same clanking of armor that he had heard back at the Pit and before him came a glowing figure, too bright to look at. He swayed to a stop, and the figure approached him. Joshua tried to raise a hand to block the glow, but the motion was too much, and he fell. The hot sand was a bruising and burning agony to his tortured body, and he passed out once more.