“Thank you, George,” Ólýsanleg Hryllingur af'Dýpt'gryfju said with a slight pained gasp in their throat. The smoke slowly starts to dissipate from their body, a sheen of strangely luminescent ash still coating their deep purple skin.

George took a step back, coughing slightly from the painfully burning heat and something deeper, “Gods abov--- err sorry, I mean what the hell happened to you, Hryll? I know it is bad down there but, wait, that isn’t radioactive, is it?” He took another step backwards, hoping to avoid another instance of radiation sickness if it could be helped.

“I sure hope not, George, but I’m fairly sure it is just Fönd’önd’gæs blood. The assault against the Count was going, well, poorly.” A look of defeat crosses Hryll’s face, knowing that if they hadn’t been able to hide in the still steaming corpse of one of the few creatures that they were able to defeat, they would have been just another head on a spike. “I really hate this Lucifer-blessed war.”

George nods sympathetically, and not for the first time he thinks about how strange it is that he was sitting next to an over two meter monster from nightmares. It’d be almost comical to imagine Hryll striding across the brimstone and hellfire plains of torment when they were curled up over the cup of tea that I had prepared for them.

No, Hryll was truly a demon. The spawn-tier of an arch demon of name, which they explained to him meant that they were certainly fairly powerful. But it also meant responsibility.

“You know, Hryll,” George starts, the words well worn and comfortable coming from his lips, “you are more than welcome to stay here. I can get a two bedroom flat, and maybe you can look into playing basketball---” The smile on George’s face drops as Hryll doesn’t grin back, but frowns slightly. “Wait, are you seriously considering it?”

Hryll gives the smallest of nod, “honestly George, it is a terribly tempting offer. Even if you already didn’t give your word that we would be equals, offer to make a blood contract to bind you to it, I’d still be tempted. But...” the frown burned into a grin, self-defeated, “they need me.”

Anger rises in George’s voice, coming at a near-yell, “they USED you! You’re a tool for them and you know it you big dumb lummox of a hellion!” This was also a well worn conversation, but not comfortable at all because it was painfully true.

Hryll’s towering form, even when trying their best to carefully place down the oversized tea cup still too small for their hands, was still so measured, so calm, so patient. “I know that, George. But that is how we work. It’s just how demons are---”

“Some would say the same thing about human beings,” George cuts them off, “because there are so many of us who are frankly horrible to each other. That is no. Fucking. Excuse.”

The rage in George’s face cools slightly after the outburst. He knows that Hryll wouldn’t be able to stay. Even if they signed a contract, he’d only live for another one hundred, maybe one hundred and fifty years if he was lucky. Sure, he could extend that even further by giving up more of his humanity, and frankly that wasn’t a bad idea. But that would be in the future. A future that he’d help Hryll form.

“Hryll, did you get a chance to use those neutron bombs that I made for you? I was hoping that they’d help you take the Count’s keep with less losses on your end, but I’m guessing neutron radiation bombardment might not be all that effective against the, uhh the giant geese things? Do you know if they’ve ever had something called ‘ebola’ down there before?”

George’s face splits into a grin matching Hryll, and the real meat of the summoning get underway as they start to talk about how to utilize the technology that he had access to as a technowarlock with all of the might of humanity’s brutal warlike past at his fingertips, at Hryll’s claw tips, and their command together to bring this war to an end.