Forums for The Plothole

Seraphim: “You don’t need to fight me, Mastema. I am not your enemy.”
 
Mastema: “You are all my enemy. Everyone… is my enemy. Only he is my ally. Only he talk to me…”
 
Seraphim: “What? That’s not possible. Why…”
 
Mastema: “Your doubt reveals your true nature, Metatron.”
 
Seraphim: “This voice you think you’re hearing, it’s not real. I know-.”
 
Mastema gave a loud wail of manic rage and surged at her. His feet crossed the white ground in just a few strides and when his hand lashed upwards, with it came a long smoking chain. The links were all black, impossibly black like a void, and thick smoke billowed around it. The chain struck Seraphim and from the moment it touched her skin, it burned her like acid. She cried out and fell on the ground.
 
She scrambled to her knees, but she could feel the burning on her cheek and across her chest. Such pain. At that moment and came to understand the very purpose of Hell and punishment. It was not to hurt the victim, it was to tell them that heaven was out there and they were very far away from it. And right now, she felt very far away from that divinity she had once known and taken for granted.
 
Mastema took a few steps forward and she could sense how he was relishing this moment. She wasn’t even sure he was enjoying the act of hurting her, or just the presence of another being.
 
Seraphim: “Stop…”
 
Mastema: “She begs…”
 
He sounded entertained. Gleeful.
 
Seraphim: “I do beg. Not for me. For yourself, Mastema. Think of the monster you have become!”
 
Mastema: “Me!? The monster!? I… I am the purest creature in existence! I am still loyal to the one! The true one! I never betrayed him! I never suffered the pretenders! I—”
 
Seraphim: “You can hear me, you can talk to me! We are in the Cistern of Sound, Mastema! How are you doing this!?”
 
Mastema: “Because I…”
 
He floundered.
 
Seraphim: “Because you are corrupted! Because you have joined with this place, Mastema! You are one with Hell!”
 
She thrust a finger at him. She knew the old fire and brimstone would speak louder to Mastema than reason and sentiment. The old angels were always like that. It was exactly why she stepped down from her position as the Metatron.
 
Mastema: “You are… trying to deceive me, Metatron… you were the Voice of the pretender…”
 
Seraphim: “I was once the Voice for WriterGod also.”
 
Mastema: “No… that was… High Angel. He—”
 
Seraphim: “Was not the Voice of God. He was WriterGod’s right hand, he spoke for god when he spoke to us, but I was the voice he used to speak to the humans. I was there. We all were.”
 
Mastema: “But you… they… you served Yahweh!”
 
Seraphim: “So did you! You keep saying we were traitors, but you were with us!”
 
Mastema: “I had no choice!”
 
Seraphim: “None of us did. We were all left behind by WriterGod.”
 
Mastema: “We were not left behind, we were given a duty to perform!”
 
Seraphim: “Same thing. And we were left to continue that duty in the absence of WriterGod, instead serving his successor. Even High Angel was still there. Until he wasn’t.”
 
Mastema: “What do you mean? He can’t have…”
 
Seraphim: “He did. He fell too. He fell… very, very far. I am surprised no one told you down here. It’s the kind of thing many here would gloat over.”
 
Mastema: “You’re lying… you have to be… High Angel would never… he couldn’t! The WriterGod—”
 
Seraphim: “Doesn’t care. Never did. Never did anything to stop what happened to any of us.”
 
Mastema gripped his head and groaned, gnashing his teeth.
 
Mastema: “He is all that matters. He speaks to me! He keeps me safe in this… place…”
 
Seraphim: “You’re talking to yourself. The voices here are yours alone. Until I got here.”
 
And then… he cried.
 
He was on his knees, hands pressed on the ground and he was weeping. Undiluted. He didn’t hold them back to save face, he didn’t stifle them in some masculine pride. They were the desperate tears of a broken creature abandoned and alone.
 
Seraphim: “Unless… you heard another voice here recently? Maybe you heard Britt?”
 
That gave Mastema something to think about and occupy his mind a little. He managed to pause in his despair as he considered it. Seraphim still felt the heat of her burns and when she touched the skin, it felt like the skin itself had melted.
 
Mastema: “She was here… I think. For some time. I heard her. She was angry at first. Then she was… lonely.”
 
Seraphim: “Anyone in this place would feel that way…”
 
Mastema: “I don’t need your pity, Metatron! I am--.”
 
He stopped. The rantings were unnecessary now, pointless.
 
Seraphim: “What happened to Britt?”
 
Mastema: “Taken. They came for her.”
 
Seraphim: “Who did? Where did they go?”
 
Mastema grit his teeth and snarled at her.
 
Mastema: “Why would I know that!? I am here! They are there! I am trapped here! I cannot leave! They came, they went. That is all!”
 
Seraphim: “I’m leaving now.”
 
Seraphim got up. She hoped this wound didn’t look so bad as it felt. She walked straight past him but when she was a few metres away, she heard him.
 
Mastema: “Don’t go… please…”
 
She kept going.
 
Mastema: “Just a little longer… please… Metatron. Mercy!”
 
She stopped there. Few asked her for mercy anymore. Most of the villains she tackled knew they were guilty. They might ask her to stop, but rarely did they plead for mercy. The old ways die hard in some. Mastema claimed he didn’t need her pity, but she knew that was incorrect. He did need it and it was why she would be merciful.
 
Seraphim: “I would say you’d served your punishment down here, but you did just do this…”
 
She put a hand to her face.
 
Mastema: “I—you—I had to--! You--!”
 
Seraphim: “Apologise.”
 
Mastema: “No! I--!”
 
She walked away.
 
She heard him calling after her. Shouting for her to wait, but she kept going. Until he finally yelled it.
 
Mastema: “I am sorry!!”
 
She stopped and waited. She didn’t look back to him, either he would come, or he would not. It took a while, but eventually he appeared at her side.
 
Seraphim: “You have paid for your past crimes here in Bor Shoan, but now you owe me for this criminal act. You can come with us, help me find my people, and you can be released from Hell.”
 
Mastema: “But how… I can’t… get out.”
 
Seraphim: “My friend is former Ruler of Hell, he can break the bonds of each domain. Once he arrives, we will leave.”

Mastema: “This is your Ruler of Hell?”
 
Seraphim: “No. This is Hun—P.I. Funguy. A member of Hero Force.”
 
The two fallen angels approached the area that Hunter F. Neuman was ‘guarding’ – from his prone position, injured and barely conscious. Seraphim knelt down to inspect his injuries again.
 
Seraphim: “You okay?”
 
P.I. Funguy: “I’m A-okay. Brittica looks decidedly demonic…”
 
Seraphim: “This is Mastema. And old… acquaintance. I agreed he could come with us when we get out of Bor Shoan. I take it there’s no sign of… Mr Nine?”
 
Mastema: “Nine is it? I didn’t meet him. He didn’t come here.”
 
Seraphim: “He will this time. We just need to wait. And this is the weakest part of Bor Shoan we’ve found, the probable exit. That’s why we can talk here.”
 
Mastema stalked around the area, touching the air. Just as he had found a way to talk in the cistern, she assumed he could feel its essence and possibly the boundary. She wondered if this sense would carry outside of Bor Shoan, but she doubted it.
 
Winters: “Master Britt is not here?”
 
Seraphim looked up, having forgot about the robo-girl. Her eyes were wide with concern and pleading.
 
Seraphim: “Sorry, she’s not here any more. Mastema, here, said she was taken by unknown assailants. Probably the ones that want to use her for this Endless Well plot.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Was that a jab, Seraphim? How subtle of you.”
 
Seraphim: “Fine. Yes. We could have cut them off if we had just gone straight to the Endless Well.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Perhaps.”
 
Seraphim: “Am I leading this outfit, or you, Hunter?”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Come on, Sera. A true leader, leads. What you want is to boss. You want everyone to obey. Are you a dictator now? Are we your minions?”
 
Seraphim: “Shut up. Idiot.”
 
She tapped his head in annoyance. She hated it when he was right. She looked up and watched Mastema. He had stopped and was frowning at something he could feel. Something excited him.
 
Seraphim: “What is it, Mastema?”
 
His head snapped towards her, as though he had forgotten he was no longer alone. He stared at her, again, as though remembering who she was. Pity welled up inside her. Being trapped in such a place, going through such psychological abuse… no one should be broken in such a fashion.
 
Mastema: “Something is coming.”
 
Seraphim: “Louis, at last! I mean, Mr Nine.”
 
Mastema: “It is demonic… but…”
 
Seraphim rose.
 
Seraphim: “But what?”
 
Mastema: “It feels like no Ruler of Hell…”
 
Seraphim: “He is the ex-ruler. And was never very evil anyway.”
 
Mastema: “This is certainly… evil.”
 
Seraphim: “What?”
 
Mastema: “And… numerous.”
 
Seraphim: “Oh damn. Mastema, move away! Winters, help Funguy to his feet!”
 
Winters hopped to action, but Mastema was mesmerised. Seraphim grabbed him and pulled him away.
 
Mastema: “So many creatures… I haven’t experienced so many things since… when… long ago…”
 
Seraphim: “I doubt they’re here to eat pizza and watch movies with you, Mastema! We need to move away!”
 
Mastema: “I have no idea what either of those things are.”
 
Suddenly the area was engulfed in demonic figures as they tore through the boundary and into Bor Shoan. Never had this black-and-white landscape tolerated so many at once and the noise of their voices was deafening to Mastema, who fell in shock and awe. To Seraphim, they looked like a horde of rats.
 
Rat-man: “Seraphim-friend! Coming with us! Coming with us!”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Rats? Is it a coincidence our friend, Ben, is a wererat?”
 
Seraphim: “Ever the detective. There’s no resisting them, there’s too many and you’re wounded… so is Mastema. Psychologically anyway.”
 
Winters: “I can beat them! Robot-girl-power!”
 
Seraphim: “Winters, you fight like a terrified mouse and you’ll get your head taken off again. Let’s just go with them for now. If this is something to do with Ben, we’ll need to follow this through. Keep your wits about you.”
 
The bouncing rat-folk hopped excitedly around the group as they were all ushered through the boundary…

Ffion marvelled at what she saw with her naked eyes.
 
She was stood upon, seemingly, nothing, though when her feet touched something solid, a blue light hazed around them against the darkness. The backdrop to this Tehom was black void – nothingness – and yet that void was teeming with… stuff. There were no words to explain what it was. It was just stuff. Energies of all kinds. She could see things like electricity, inertia, gravity, aether – all in forms unlike anything one might expect. And there were energies that didn’t exist, primordial energies that never made it out of the chaotic stew before the universe began.
 
The sky was filled with kaleidoscopes, swirls and spirals of colours and shapes and sizes. Sometimes she things she can see shapes resembling recognisable objects, like clouds forming into vaguely familiar forms.
 
There was a near-silence, but not quite silence. It was as though everything was severely muted. Sometimes she would hear a small zip, or boop, or woosh, like a television set in a distant zoom with a very brief audio rise.
 
Ffion: “What was in that tea you made me drink, Lilith?”
 
Lilith: “Lots and lots of drugs!”
 
Ffion detected the joke, but given what she was seeing, she wasn’t so sure.
 
Lilith: “This is one of the tiny puddles left behind from the time before. It’s a fraction of the Chaoskampf – the what-was-once-and-was-never. Much of it is the energy from the previous universe, swelling up. Some of it is manifestations of reality – existence – that never came into being, never materialised. Laws of physics that didn’t make the cut, I guess. I just think of it as a weird, trippy place and leave it at that. Let the eggheads sit about pontificating. Although…”
 
She leant towards Ffion with a suspicious wince.
 
Lilith: “I am curious what you can see.”
 
Ffion glanced up at the mess and then back at Lilith.
 
Ffion: “You’re saying you’re seeing something different than me?”
 
Louis: “She is. We’re all very different. Even each normal human would see all of this a bit differently, but throw in she’s a fallen angel…”
 
Lilith: “The Chaoskampf is weird. It just works in a weird way.”
 
Ffion: “It looks like… a kid’s drawing on a black canvas? Or, maybe more like a lot of kids are drawing on the same canvas. And the kids are stoned as fuck.”
 
Louis: “Similar to what I see. What do you see, Lilith?”
 
Lilith: “Mostly black.”
 
Ffion: “You can’t see all the… stuff?”
 
Lilith: “I see it alright. I just see it as different black. Lots of madness going on, but it’s all varying shades of black. I probably see one of the primordial energies more strongly than the rest. Still, yours sounds better than mine.”
 
Ffion: “I guess. But it’s making me feel like I need to eat a bucket of twinkies – and I’m not even stoned.”
 
Louis: “We should be able to find—careful…”
 
Louis held his hand out protectively towards Ffion, urging her to stay back. Usually she would shove him out of the way and call him a baby, but she didn’t like the idea of something scary amidst all this madness. So she held back. She reached out with her soul and she detected whatever it was that Louis could hear. A mass. So excessively large, she wasn’t sure it could possibly exist. It seemed to larger than an entire solar system – beyond that even.
 
Lilith: “A leviathan…”
 
Ffion balked.
 
Ffion: “A leviathan!? There’s more of them!? How!? You said this was a puddle!”
 
Louis: “You know time and space are weird in Hell as it is. This part of Hell, it’s even weirder. We are simultaneously in something as large as the Multiverse and as tiny as a cupboard.”
 
Ffion: “Where is it?”
 
Louis: “Where isn’t it?”
 
Ffion: “Is it going to eat us?”
 
Louis: “I don’t think it eats. At least… not in any kind of way we’d understand.”
 
Lilith: “If it did eat us, we might not even notice. But I think we’ll be fine here. At least with this one.”
 
Louis: “What makes you so sure?”
 
Lilith: “I believe the leviathan that exists closest to the entrance to Masak Mavdil isn’t belligerent. They even named it.”
 
Ffion: “I thought you said space isn’t normal. How can it be close to the entrance?”
 
Lilith: “Okay, fine. The one that chooses to make its presence known in the vicinity of the entrance. Happy? Don’t think too hard… your head will explode.”
 
Louis: “Okay. I’ll reach out and try to find the others.”
 
Ffion: “What did they name this pet leviathan?”
 
Lilith: “I wouldn’t call him that… just in case. He probably thinks of us as pets. We call him Lotan. I think he was named by Ba’al.”
 
Ffion felt a tremor.
 
Ffion: “What was that?”
 
Lilith: “What do you think? It was Lotan.”
 
Ffion: “That… tremor? I mean… something so big, you’d think it’d be more of a rumble.”
 
Lilith: “We are talking about him. I think he was saying hello. You don’t want something that big to make things… rumble.”
 
Ffion held a finger up and nodded.
 
Ffion: “Take your point.”
 
Louis had found them. He sensed that most of them were together in Titha-Yaven; Hunter Neuman, Benjamin Mahir, Winters and, of course, Seraphim. His immediate instinct was to go there. Go to Seraphim. But he did detect the remaining two allies, separated from the rest, in Diyu, the eternal maze; Flax Hyperon and Magick Snowflakes. He then considered going after them, prove he could detach himself from Seraphim. He wasn’t obsessed after all and he could prove it to himself and to Ffion. But, then again, was it correct to act on just that basis? From what he could sense, Seraphim’s group may well be in greater danger than Flax and Magick. He detected, of all things, Beelzebub himself, probably toying with the heroes as new playthings and curios. There was always something that creature could envy – even envying someone’s misery. But, should Flax and Magick continue deeper into the maze, they may well become so lost that even he could never reach them and guide them out of it…
 
Lilith: “Ho ho ho! This must be divine providence at work! At least it would be, if I weren’t a despicable demonic fiend!”
 
She grinned at Louis.
 
Louis: “What?”
 
Lilith: “Your friends!”
 
Louis: “What do you mean? What are you planning!?”
 
Lilith: “Nothing! What are you talking about? They’re with my most favourite person in all of existence!”
 
Louis thought of Beelzebub. Then of Lilith. That didn’t compute.
 
Then he realised that Flax and Magick were not alone…
 

---

Location: Diyu
Characters: Flax Hyperon | Magick Snowflakes | Naamah

Naamah: “Yes, it’s true! I have a twin sister! I think she is much more beautiful than me, though.”
 
Flax: “I don’t believe that! Women are always so critical of themselves. I bet you are ten times more lovely than any sister you have! Twin or not!”
 
Magick: “Because only women are critical of themselves?”
 
Naamah: “She was sent to gaol though…”
 
Flax: “Why!?”
 
Naamah: “Being wanton. That’s what they say, anyway. I’m not even allowed to visit her. She must be so lonely without me to keep her… warm.”
 
Magick: “Like… with a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate?”
 
Naamah: “That, yes. And my body… in the lonely nights… in our bed… together.”
 
She looked up at Flax, on whose arm she was still attached. He swallowed hard. It was rare that Flax found himself out-seduced.
 
Magick: “Don’t you have a space heater? Or maybe an electric blanket would help.”
 
Naamah turned to look down at Magick.
 
Naamah: “You’re welcome to keep warm with me anytime, poppet.”
 
Flax’s spine snapped upright.
 
Flax: “Noooooooo no no no! She’s too young for all that!”
 
Magick frowned.
 
Magick: “Too young for all what? I’m a woman now, you know?”
 
Flax paused.
 
Flax: “Mentally too young.”
 
Magick: “I am mentally capable! You’re not saying I’m stupid, are you?”
 
Flax: “No no! Um. Spiritually too young…”
 
Magick: “What on Earth does that mean?”
 
Flax rose a finger.
 
Flax: “We are not on Earth, so I don’t have to explain that until you’re older. I mean, when we get back.”
 
Magick narrowed her eyes at him.
 
Magick: “This is about sexy stuff, isn’t it?”
 
Flax blustered a great many syllables, but no cohesive words.
 
Magick: “I know all about sex, Flax. I am old enough! I have read a lot of fanfiction, you know? Everyone on the team has had sex with me in those stories!”
 
Flax bristled with sudden incredulous and righteous anger, but Naamah was beaming with glee.
 
Flax: “Who!? Give me names! Addresses! Lawyers!”
 
Naamah: “Won’t you share some of these… stories with me… poppet? I’d… love to hear them!”
 
Magick: “Well, I think a lot would be lost in translation by just explaining them to you… buuuuut I could tell you this one written by FoxyMagick119 which is slash fiction between me and—”
 
Flax: “Nope! Nope! Nope!”
 
Finally he disentangled himself from Naamah and was over Magick. He put his finger on her lips.
 
Flax: “We don’t want to hear this!”
 
Naamah: “I really do.”
 
Flax: “I. Don’t.”
 
There was a long awkward pause where Magick was conflicted with her desire to be taken as an adult, but not to upset her best friend, her ‘Uncle Flax’. She, finally, sighed with resignation.
 
Magick: “Fiiiiiine.”
 
Naamah: “Aww.”
 
Flax: “Good. Very good. Right. I think it’s left this time.”
 
Magick whispered;
 
Magick: “I’ll email it to you when I get back to Earth!”

Flax: “And then the guy blew up and the prisoners were free!”
 
Naamah clapped her hands quickly.
 
Naamah: “Such a hero!”
 
Flax gave her a smug grin.
 
Flax: “I do have my moments.”
 
Magick, always happy to sponsor Flax’ stories, spoke up;
 
Magick: “You should tell her the one about the Moon of Kendal!”
 
Flax: “Good choice! So! There I was, captaining my ship as usual, when suddenly this—uh…”
 
They had turned another corner as they had done so many times already in their endless wandering through the maze that is Diyu, but rather than another corridor they were unexpectedly in what appeared to be a kind of monarch’s courtroom. The ceiling was high above them, but rather than the solid stone they’d been used to, the ceiling was a dark void tapestry of stars – as though they were seeing the night sky from Earth.
 
The courtroom was wide and around the edges were tables and chairs for courtiers, but around the centre was a platform that clearly meant for a supplicant. Then there was the throne. The throne was large and made from thick, heavy gold. However, for cushioning it used what initially appeared to be leather, but Flax quickly knew it was human skin. As he looked around, he came to realise that the draperies were likewise of human flesh, the table cloth, the napkins, the lampshades.
 
Flax: “Maybe we should leave.”
 
Naamah: “Afraid?”
 
Flax: “A real man is always afraid, Naamah. He just doesn’t show it.”
 
Magick: “I do have a creepy feeling… where is everyone? I keep hearing… voices?”
 
Naamah: “This is one of the Ten Courts of Yama. In fact, we are fortunate. This is the prime court, ruled by King Qin’guang.”
 
Flax: “I don’t feel fortunate…”
 
Naamah: “This is where the judgements happen. The other courts… well those are where the punishments happen.”
 
Flax: “Okay, now I feel fortunate.”
 
He passed by a table with a skin-cloth.
 
Flax: “Sort of.”
 
Then, suddenly, the room was full of people. The noise of all the voices struck them very hard and they jumped back with fright and pain.
 
And then they were all gone again.
 
Magick: “What was that?”
 
Flax: “Temporal displacement? If Hell is abandoned, could that have been the past?”
 
Naamah: “Past, present and future… do not flow as you are used to. So no. Not likely a glimpse of the past. I… believe it may be hell itself. With hell now empty, it’s… what is that modern word… about computers…?”
 
Magick: “GIF? JPEG? Windows? Malware? Email? Torrent? Streaming? Browser? Apps? Google?”
 
Naamah looked at Magick as though she had grown a new head.
 
Naamah: “No.”
 
Magick: “Grumpy cat?”
 
Naamah: “Glitch. That is the word. Hell is… glitching. It isn’t being… maintained. There are no… engineers or janitors…”
 
Flax: “I can’t say I think this is a bad thing, frankly. Let it fall apart.”
 
Naamah: “Oh! I agree! Whole-heartedly! But… we should probably leave first. As you said.”
 
Flax: “We don’t want to get caught in this glitch, that’s what you’re saying?”
 
Naamah: “I can’t hide anything from you… can I?”
 
She leaned on him and gave him an admiring, long smile.
 
Flax: “Ladies are my forte, you know?”
 
Naamah: “I believe it.”
 
She held his hand between both of hers.
 
Magick: “Um…”
 
Flax: “Magick, the adults are talking right now…”
 
Magick: “Flax! Seriously! Is that the king!?”
 
Flax and Naamah turned. The room was still empty, the glitch had no reoccurred. Nothing stirred.
 
Naamah: “Whatever do you mean?”
 
Flax: “Oh… my…”
 
Naamah frowned at Flax, then she felt it. The presence. She turned and strained her eyes. At the far end of the room there was what appeared to be a statue. A massive, stone ox. Except that its eyes were burning with white fire.
 
Naamah: “Achimi!”
 
She started scurrying about, waving her hands.
 
Flax: “What are you doing?”
 
Her voice now lost a lot of its patience and slow drawl as she frantically wiggled and slapped things.
 
Naamah: “Trying to trigger the glitch!”
 
Magick: “I thought that was bad!?”
 
With the sudden frenetic movements of the little beings, the ox statue slowly turned its head. The white flames stared them down. It towered over them, four storeys high, and it moved slowly… deliberately. His legs moved, taking a few steps towards them.
 
Naamah: “Better that than remain here! How did we--?”
 
Suddenly the room shifted again and the denizens of the court reappeared and the ox, Achimi, disappeared. The people around them were of all manner of demons. Succubi and incubi, imps and rakes, a whole variety of snake-creatures, poltergeists, nightmares, kappa, evil genies, demogoblins and more. But up, upon the throne, was what appeared to be a fat man. He was busily guzzling wine and at the foot of the throne were several slave girls in manacles – each of them distinctly Japanese in ethnicity and each looking very similar to the last. Unbeknownst to the trio, they were gifts to this officious king of the court from the Big O, a being that Hero Force had once had some limited entanglements with in the past. These girls were often referred to as ‘Japanese-expy-slaves’, but where in fact a series of clones, meaning they all looked similar, a bred into this life of captivity.
 
Flax, of course, was immediately bristled by the sight of slave girls and his chest swelled and his pride itched.
 
Sensing this, Naamah grabbed him.
 
Naamah: “This is the king of the court. King Qin’guang. Better not to disrupt things if you want to live.”
 
Flax kept himself under control… but the cogs of his mind were whirring nonetheless.
 
King Qin’guang: “What’s this? Guests!? Could it be we are open for business again?”
 
There were a lot of cheers and jeers at the trio and the king himself was toasting and grinning at his guests.
 
Flax: “We are not your business, King of… where in hell are we again?”
 
Naamah: “I suppose you’d say it’s the Court of Scales.”
 
Flax: “Wherever we are, we are travellers not the expired.”
 
The king leant forward with a malicious grin between the wine-dipped beard-hairs.
 
King Qin’guang: “Yet.”
 
Flax: “And here I thought we’d come to the court of wine and revelry? Where’s the hospitality? The shows? The dancing girls?”
 
He spread his arms wide to encompass the entire room of demons and spun himself slowly around to take them all in.
 
Flax: “We are guests and we don’t even have drinks!”
 
King Qin’guang: “How bold, for a mortal! Someone give this man a drink!”
 
He smacked the back of the head of one of the expies and she blinked in surprise before scampering to her feet and rushing towards Flax with a goblet of wine. He looked at her with a stern face as he took the goblet.
 
King Qin’guang: “A toast then! To our new guests!”
 
The room cheered again and everyone started to chug their chosen booze. There was a lot of laughter, screaming, cackling and a whole lot of sexual activity. He started to feel Magick’s little eyes burning with delight and embarrassment. He nudged Naamah and motioned his head to Magick. Naamah rolled her eyes and then slipped her hands around Magick’s head to cover her eyes.
 
Magick: “I wasn’t looking!”
 
Naamah: “Sure you weren’t, poppet.”
 
As Flax drank from the goblet, Naamah opened a gap between her fingers of Magick to peek through and get the naughty glimpses she wanted. She subconsciously held her hands to her mouth in scandalous surprise at what she could spy.
 
Flax found the wine to be one of the best he had ever tasted, which surprised him.
 
King Qin’guang: “Well then, my mortal friend. What brings you to the Court of Scales if not for judgement?”
 
Flax: “We were… uh… passing through.”
 
There was a lot of laughter and the king chuckled too.
 
King Qin’guang: “One does not simply pass through Diyu.”
 
Magick: “I don’t think that’s how that line goes.”
 
Naamah: “Shhh.”
 
Flax: “We have had quite the adventure, it’s true. But we are looking for the way… out.”
 
King Qin’guang: “BAH! We haven’t had a living soul in here for a long time, you think I’d let you go so easily?”
 
Flax grit his teeth.
 
King Qin’guang: “No… I have something much better in mind…”
 
He looked darkly at Flax with a smile.
 
Flax steeled himself. A battle with a rancor was at the stop of his list of most likely outcome, but fighting a dragon of some kind was also possible, or perhaps some champion was in the room…
 
King Qin’guang: “Story time!”
 
There was a lot of cheery.
 
Flax: “What?”
 
King Qin’guang: “We’re bored. B.O.R.E.D.. Entertain us with a story. If it’s a good one, well… I might just let you live.”
 
Magick grinned when she heard that.
 
Magick: “We’re as good as free.”
 
She watched as Flax, suddenly booming with joviality, snatched more wine and topped up his goblet. His movements were now expressive and wide.
 
Flax: “As it happens, I may have some stories for you, your majesty. Just before we came to your, truly marvellous court, I was just about to tell my friends the story of the Moon of Kendal. So! There I was, captaining my starship – as one does – when suddenly…”
 

---

Location: Diyu
Characters: Acidspitter | Ffion Heul | Lilith
 
Ffion: “Where are they?”
 
Ffion looked around the room. They were in some kind of monarch’s court, only the ceiling had been replaced with space. That view always left her with a pang of longing, a desire to return to the stars. Except, she knew her constellations and none of them matches those of Earth. Wherever that starry sky was, it was not the planet it should be.
 
Louis Tromelin was feeling Diyu with his ‘hell-senses’. It was a bitt like spidey-senses, but instead of tingling it was more like an infectious, itchy rash. He could sense Flax Hyperon, Magick Snowflakes and, of all the annoyances, Naamah – but he couldn’t see them. Lilith, too, knew her twin sister was here, but couldn’t see her.
 
Lilith: “Why is it so empty?”
 
Ffion: “I thought that’s how things were in Hell now?”
 
Lilith: “Here, there should be demons at least. Yama, the overlord of Diyu, is still here, as are his kings.”
 
Lilith skipped across the room to admire some of the décor. She picked up a leathery cushion.
 
Lilith: “I do love this retro chic. It’s so… old skool. Don’t you agree, Louis?”
 
Acidspitter: “Huh? What? Yeah. Sure.”
 
Something had caught his eye, but he wasn’t sure what. He stared intently down the court to the far end. He was sure he had seen something move.
 
Lilith: “Well, they must be here somewhere, Louis. Why don’t we—oh. Oh no.”
 
Ffion: “What is it?”
 
Lilith: “Achimi.”
 
It was then that Acidspitter and Ffion saw what Lilith saw – the stone ox. Its eyes blazed with white fire and its head slowly turned towards them in an unnatural fashion. The colossal ox snorted and the hot air from his nostrils flickered with the same white flame as it ignited with the air in the room.
 
Ffion: “That’s one big-ass cow.”
 
Lilith: “Yes. Achimi is very dangerous…”
 
Ffion: “I hear a but in there.”
 
Acidspitter: “Achimi is the steed of… Yama himself.”
 
Lilith: “Where there is Achimi…”
 
The three of them started to look around, trying to see anything else in the room with them.
 
Voice: “There is Yama…”

Trigger Warning: Brief suggestion of sexual violence.
 

---

 
There was little escaping it; a fight was on their hands.
 
The ox charged at them. Though it’s head typically lowered in a skewering action, they were so small that the hooves would do all the work. Acidspitter drew in his breath and felt the stomach bile slosh before it then splashed up his throat, into his mouth and, exhaling, the caustic acid gushed across the room. He had gotten pretty good with his range over the years and his acid slapped against the incoming beast. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly to Acidspitter, it did nothing to the marble-like coat of Achimi.
 
The three of them ran and leapt out of the monster’s path.
 
Acidspitter tumbled over one of the tables and landed, unceremoniously, on the other side in a heap of his own limbs. A moment later and Lilith crawled over to him. Seeing her, Acidspitter immediately tried to recover his composure and give the impression he had meant to land like that. She didn’t even look at him. Instead, she peeked over the table to see where the ox was.
 
Lilith: “Wow… she’s good.”
 
Acidspitter joined Lilith and peeked over the table. Ffion Heul was in full Æon Knight mode, ruhand exposed and flipping about in such a way to make any gymnast impressed. Acidspitter couldn’t help but feel dejected at being so utterly outclassed by someone on the same team as him and, as he often did in the old days, he wondered why he was even on such a team in the first place. Back in the days before Hero Force One he was on the low-rung team of Hero Force Eight. There, he had been one of the top heroes. But given his teammates there were Lady Small-Pants, Super Small-Fry, Fred Fuchs, Cadet Shoelaces and Humphrey – whose special skill was making paint dry – being able to puke acid was a top-class performance.
 
Despite having the moves, the massive beast was unfazed as it continued to charge across the room and back. Its hind legs lashed out like spring-loaded rockets, dashing tables and chairs to splinters.
 
Acidspitter: “What can we do?”
 
Lilith: “Aren’t you supposed to be the leader of Hell?”
 
Acidspitter: “Formerly. And I wasn’t very good at it. So I’m no the leader now, am I?”
 
Voice: “And yet… you return.”
 
Lilith: “There’s that voice again. Where’s it coming from?”
 
Acidspitter: “It’s Yama.”
 
Lilith: “That would make sense. It’s like his voice is… just out of reach…”
 

---

 
Flax: “And then I said, “There’s enough room for all three of us in here!” and that was how I lost my virginity.”
 
There was a lot of laughing, clapping and cheering at this latest story. Magick was sat, back upright and attentive, at one of the tables while she watched Flax becoming the centre of attention. The king was enthralled by the spaceman and kept asking for more and more tales, all while drinking more and more.
 
Flax: “Of course, as I say, that was on the planet Nool and there they expect you to wed soon after you’ve, as we might say, done the deed. So I had to vamoose pretty fricking quick. So I had to avoid their fathers by scaling the walls and—”
 
Suddenly, everyone was gone and Flax was regaling his tale to an empty chair.
 
Flax: “Oh. I was just getting to the action too.”
 
Magick: “Oh!”
 
She hopped up as she saw Achimi charging straight at her.
 

---

 
Ffion had to quickly yank back her sword arm and withdraw her soul as the sight of Achimi was replaced with a crowd of people. She wound up slapping a guy in the face with her whole palm.
 
Ffion: “Oops!”
 
Rather than getting angry, the guy smirked, reached up and took her hand and petted it.
 
Incubus: “I do like a feisty woman.”
 
He lifted her hand and licked it, prompting her to yank it back.
 
Ffion: “Argh! Ew!”
 
Acidspitter: “Whaaaaat just happened?”
 
Lilith: “I… think we just glitched into another… version of Diyu? I guess Hell isn’t being maintained like it used to…”
 
King Qin’guang: “Aaaaaah, new guests! How delicious! I’m sorry to see my new friend go, but perhaps you three can entertain us as much?”
 
The bloat king leaned forward and smacked one of his expies again. She leapt to her feet and rushed towards them with a goblet of wine. She abruptly stopped when she looked up at Acidspitter.
 
Slave Girl: “Ooooh, my king! My king! It’s Mr Nine himself!”
 
Attention was suddenly on the trio, particularly Louis. He felt a flush through his cheeks as he felt great at the sudden attention, but also terrible for garnering it. He didn’t think he was worthy of it, but couldn’t deny he liked it. He had felt that way ever since he became an incubus all that time ago, this conflict between introvert and extrovert.
 
Several of his fellow incubi started laughing at him. Several succubi did too, but some seemed eager despite the reputation of being a terrible incubi. The king, however, was gladdened to see him and waved him over, even going so far as to wriggle out of his own throne to stand on ceremony.
 
King Qin’guang: “Lord! It’s an honour to have such an important personage amongst my guests! What brings the former Ruler of Hell to my humble court?”
 
He grinned as his voice grumbled from him like it was dragged over gravel.
 
Acidspitter: “Uh… right… weird. We were just in this very room but… another version of it. Did you know Diyu was fractured?”
 
The king rubbed his beard as he plunged his ass back onto the throne.
 
King Qin’guang: “That would explain why I haven’t had so many guests as I usually would. I can’t think why that would have happened… we don’t have the support we used to, but we are still here and still thrive, so there’s no reason our reality should be deteriorating… unless…”
 
Acidspitter: “Unless what?”
 
King Qin’guang: “Unless it was done deliberately. Only one person I know powerful enough over Diyu to fracture it…”
 
Lilith: “Yama…”
 
The king tipped his goblet towards Lilith.
 
King Qin’guang: “Lady Lilith, am I correct? I haven’t seen you at my court before, which seems like a gross oversight! Many of your kindred—”
 
He swept a hand towards the other succubi and incubi.
 
King Qin’guang: “Frequent this court.”
 
Lilith gave a thin-lipped, patronising smile.
 
Lilith: “I may be a succubus, dear king, but I have very… high standards.”
 
A flash of anger crossed the fat man’s face.
 
King Qin’guang: “You insult my court… to my face?”
 
Realising her faux pas, Lilith back peddled. But not very well.
 
Lilith: “I was trying to insult my fellows, not your court. Please f—”
 
The king lashed out by smacking one of the slaves across the face. The clone gave a small sob, but then cried when he snatched her by the hair to vent his anger.
 
King Qin’guang: “You insignificant little worm! You come here and speak to me in this manner!?”
 
He shoved the slave and stood up again.
 
King Qin’guang: “A slut who thinks she’s too good for the prime court of Diyu? Perhaps she should be… shown the pleasures of this court? Gentlemen? Ladies?”
 
Many of the incubi and succubi were now crossing the room. Some with exaggerated, sultry movements. Some with grim determination.
 
Lilith looked sidelong at Acidspitter with a panicked plea in her eyes, but tried to maintain her dignity and poise.
 
King Qin’guang: “The record of a succubus at this court is one-hundred and thirty consecutively. Let’s see how many incubi this exalted one can take…”
 
Acidspitter: “I cannot allow that, King Qin’guang.”
 
The king paused.
 
King Qin’guang: “You would defend a succubus? Of all demons? A succubus? Really?”
 
Acidspitter: “I would defend anyone from such abuse, frankly. Besides. She’s with me.”
 
The king looked surprised.
 
King Qin’guang: “Oh, I see.”
 
Incubus: “Sire, he is retired from the position of Mr Nine anyway! Now he’s just a loser! Always was one anyw—”
 
Suddenly the king grabbed the incubus in question and threw him to the ground.
 
King Qin’guang: “Such disrespect for your betters, maggot!? Once nobility, always nobility!”
 
The king stamped on the head of the demon, who gave a high pitch wail from the kicking. The king looked to the slaves, then pointed at the demon. The slave clones suddenly threw themselves at the incubus, hitting him, kicking him, scratching him. All the years of physical abuse done to them unleashed now upon this victim.
 
As though this were an everyday occurrence, the king turned from them and back to Louis and Lilith.
 
King Qin’guang: “I can’t say I approve of taking a prostitute as a partner, Mr Nine. But it is your right to do so. I take it this is another possession of yours?”
 
He pointed to Ffion, who looked extremely confused.
 
Acidspitter: “Yes.”
 
Ffion: “I frigging am n—”
 
Lilith: “She is. We have shared many nights together in the sweet embrace of passionate lovemaking.”
 
Ffion glared at Lilith with horror and looked like she was about to do unto Lilith what the slave girls were doing to the incubus.
 
King Qin’guang: “Pity… she does look…”
 
He looked Ffion up and down.
 
King Qin’guang: “Exotic. There’s a tang to her… are you also from another planet, girl?”
 
Ffion: “I’ll give you exotic yo—”
 
Acidspitter: “You said also? You mean you met another person from off-world recently?”
 
The king grinned, a twinkle of genuine happiness in his eyes.
 
King Qin’guang: “Just a moment ago, in fact! A delightful man named Flax Hyperon. Astounding career that man. A man of great revelry and a thirst for life! I admire that in the living. Reminds me of myself when I was still human.”
 
Ffion: “So Flax was here, where did he go?”
 
Lilith: “I suspect he went the way of the glitch, like we did. We are in this version of Diyu, he is in the other, and we switched.”
 
Ffion: “First a giant cow and now—”
 
King Qin’guang: “Achimi? Achimi is here? In this alternate version of my court?”
 
Acidspitter: “That’s right. I think Yama is also here. Only… in a third version. I heard him, but his voice was breaking through the reality barrier.”
 
King Qin’guang: “What the devil is he up to?”
 
Acidspitter: “No, not the Devil. Yama.”
 
King Qin’guang: “My respect for your former rank only goes so far, Mr Nine. I won’t tolerate dad jokes in this court!”
 
There was a lot of laughing around them again.
 
Despite the continued squealing from the incubus, Acidspitter managed to force a smile.
 
Acidspitter: “Sorry.”
 
King Qin’guang: “A trade then. I will respect your right to these two girls and, in return, you see what our esteemed master is up to. I fear he may be… plotting against us.”
 
Acidspitter: “If he hasn’t told you what he’s doing, then yes. It would seem so.”
 
Ffion: “But how can we get to this third version? I don’t even know how we got to this one.”
 
King Qin’guang: “We? My girl. He will be doing this. You will remain in my… company.”
 
Acidspitter: “But—”
 
King Qin’guang: “They won’t be harmed, Mr Nine. Consider them collateral. You find out what Yama is doing and I give you and all your friends safe passage out of Diyu. Fail and… well. The succubus will be treated as such and this space girl will tell us all some stories… or I can find other uses for her.”
 
Ffion: “You fu—”
 
Lilith: “My king. I willingly subject myself as the collateral you seek. I am happy to remain here and wait for Mr Nine to fulfil his quest to you. But please consider allowing my beautiful friend to go with him. As you rightly said yourself, she is very different a person. She would definitely be of better service helping Mr Nine find Yama than being stuck here doing little but, ah, telling tales.”
 
The king rose his eyes at Lilith and then looked at Ffion.
 
King Qin’guang: “Is this true, girl? Are you a fierce warrior, perhaps?”
 
Ffion: “I’ll cut your balls off and mount them.”
 
The king barked a laugh, and everyone joined in.
 
King Qin’guang: “I do love breaking women like you. All confidence and hubris, but they all break in time…”
 
Acidspitter reached out and put a hand on her arm, seeing it move. She stopped.
 
King Qin’guang: “Go then, Mr Nine. Take your space girl with you. Your glitch, as you call it, seems to be concentrated over there. That’s where you appeared, as did the excellent Flax Hyperon before you.”
 
Acidspitter: “Thank you.”
 
King Qin’guang: “Lady Lilith! Perhaps you would care to bring a seat and sit beside me. I would like to hear of how you met our Mr Nine.”
 
Lilith nodded and gave Acidspitter a long look as she walked over to get herself a chair. Acidspitter silently walked away, towards the glitch-point, with Ffion next to him. They stopped short.
 
Acidspitter: “If we go through, then Flax, and I guess Naamah and Magick, will be brought back here…”
 
Ffion: “That wouldn’t be good…”
 
Acidspitter: “I can sense them so… maybe if I reach through the barrier, like Lilith did for me, I can grab them and pull them with us?”
 
He stepped forward, using his Hell-senses to detect the three persons in the opposite Diyu. As he went through the glitch, he reached out his mind and felt them passing through the glitch like he was. He pulled on their souls, their existence, their presence in Hell, and they easily went along with him.
 
A moment later and he was in the deserted Court of Scales with Flax, Magick, Naamah and, soon after, Ffion.
 
Magick: “Louis!”
 
Acidspitter: “Good to see you, we—”
 
Ffion: “COW!”
 
They all dove to avoid being trampled by the still rampaging ox.

Magick had to rely on old, tried-and-tested spellwork because she had lost her faithful tome back in the world of soup. She really hoped it was giving Belphegor indigestion.
 
She conjured a wall of wind that blew straight upwards. Any normal person caught in the updraft would have been sent ragdolling through the sky, and anyone trying to cross it would find it to be akin to an impenetrable wall.
 
The massive, marble ox did not even notice it. Achimi charged through the wind-block. The heroes scattered again, diving, rolling, jumping or otherwise throwing themselves to avoid being trampled by its massive, stone hooves.
 
Naamah: “This is pointless. Achimi cannot be defeated here. Not by any of you, at least. He is fuelled by Diyu itself.”
 
Magick did notice the shift in tone and behaviour in Naamah. Gone was the sultry vixen and instead there was a shrill shrew that did nothing but berate everyone and declare her self-preservation the most important outcome of this endeavour. She kept hiding behind several of the heroes, though usually Flax. Magick wasn’t sure if that was because he was the most willing to shield her, or because she figured his sheer girth would give her more protection.
 
Louis thrust a finger at her.
 
Louis: “Your sister depends on us finding Yama!”
 
Naamah: “And how is our being crushed to death going to save her!?”
 
It was a fair point.
 
Louis: “Achimi must lead us to Yama somehow…”
 
Flax checked his hookshot and found it had regenerated since he had used it up in his descent into Diyu. He fired it across the room, where it clanged into a pillar. He then cut it and created a new tether on the loose end that he embedded into a pillar on the opposite side. The old trip rope technique worked in old cartoons…
 
Achimi’s single hoof pushed against the hookshot rope. The pillars actually cracked before the hookshot rope snapped, which was impressive but the ox wasn’t even scratched. It slowly turned on them and stamped its hoof on the ground, which caused sparks in the darkness.
 
Ffion: “Magick, throw me!”
 
The ‘throw me technique’ was one of Ffion’s staples, ready to let herself be used as a whirling projectile of lightsabre destruction. Although Ffion had plenty of long range manoeuvres at her disposal, she tended to prefer close combat where she could let her ruhand scream and sing.
 
Magick conjured a single updraft, angled in the direction of Achimi, and Ffion was sent zipping away. But before she landed on the ox, Ffion vanished from existence.
 
Magick: “Wh-!? Ffion!”
 
Louis: “Damn it. She probably went through another tear in Hell.”
 
Magick: “So she’s about to cut open some poor demon’s skull in that other version of the court with the king?”
 
Louis: “Poor demon? I think you’d be hard pressed to find a single one of them that deserves your pity, Magick.”
 
Naamah: “Says the man that was supposed to be their leader once.”
 
Louis: “And look how that turned out.”
 
Naamah: “Maybe if you didn’t hate us all so much--!”
 
Louis: “I did everything I could to improve things in this craphole!”
 
Naamah: “Everything you thought was an improvement. You ignored all the demons that said no to you. Or put them into a Masak Mavdil…”
 
Magick: “What is she talking about?”
 
Louis: “Lilith betrayed me! And she’s dangerous!”
 
Naamah: “We’re demons! We’re all dangerous!”
 
Magick: “Maybe we shouldn’t be arguing right now.”
 
Flax: “You said this cow is connected to Diyu around us? Doesn’t that mean our new friend is connected to these other versions of Diyu too?”
 
Magick: “You mean, like a conduit?”
 
Louis: “How are we supposed to get Achimi to take us to the version of Diyu with Yama in it? Ask him politely?”
 
Flax shrugged.
 
Flax: “You’re meant to have the Hell-travelling powers.”
 
They all looked at Louis.
 
Louis: “Uh…”
 
He looked at Achimi, who was stood, staring at them. He had gone rigid and unmoving again; back to the statue. But the flames licking from its nostrils remained. Louis reached out. It wasn’t his mind that reached out, nor was it his feelings. It was like his very cells could sense Hell around him, and they reacted to it. And they manipulated it.
 
And he could sense Hell through Achimi. As Flax suspected, Achimi was connected throughout Diyu and its glitches. Despite that, he got the impression that Achimi was drawing strength from the other Diyu, but wasn’t physically there. And so, Louis reached for that conduit.
 
Louis: “We need to run straight at him.”
 
Naamah: “Absolutely not!”
 
Magick: “If you’re wrong…”
 
Louis: “We’ll be pancakes.”
 
Naamah: “No, no, no, no--!”
 
Flax: “Old Flax has got you, peffera.”
 
He wrapped an arm around her waist and for a moment, it seemed his old charm had worked even on this succubi.
 
Louis: “GO!”
 
The group ran at Achimi. The ox went from stillness to sudden motion as it reared up like a horse. Louis held out his hand as he ran, helping him to focus on the attempt to bind himself and the others to the alternate versions of Diyu that were hooked to the cells of Achimi. He pulled on them. Because Hell wouldn’t move if he pulled, instead it pulled them instead. So as he pulled, he was being pulled.
 
They started to go beyond the boundary, slipping from one reality to another, but Louis felt that he wasn’t able to get them all the way. It was like a great weight was starting to push back against him. He could see Achimi, glaring at him with its dead eyes.
 
But then he felt he was being pulled again. But not by any Hell. He was being pulled by someone.
 
The heroes physically fell to the ground, all of them feeling ill and disorientated.
 
Louis looked up. He could see they were in the remains of the Court of Scales. This version was in ruins. As the court was just an extension of the maze, it meant that all of Diyu must have been, somehow, destroyed. In its place was a world of billowing chaos. The remains of Diyu were caught in the swirling vortex of chaos and were floating by. The rubble he and the others were on was also falling and rotating around and around the vortex, along with all of the other pieces that were scattered above, below and all around.
 
Naamah: “It isn’t possible… who could have done this?”
 
Louis: “I think there’s only one who could destroy Diyu…”
 
Yama: “As you were so determined to find me… I brought you the rest of the way…”
 
Louis: “Its master.”

Hero Force clung to the platform they found themselves on as it swirled around and around the vortex. Remains of walls, windows, columns, likewise clung to this patch of stones that were held together by the merest of cement.
 
Other fragments of Diyu twisted with the vortex, tumbling and rolling. One loose rock swooshed at them, forcing Acidspitter to duck.
 
Upon a segment overlooking the group was the massive figure of a man. Around ten feet tall, he was also double the breadth of any average body-builder. He wore Chinese aesthetic armour that was bright silver, but it almost merged with what appeared to be his skin – skin like tin. Only a portion of his face could be seen from inside the helmet, and his bare hands, save for the plating on the back of the hands. The tin-like-skin barely moved, reminding everyone of the marble-like-ox.
 
Atop of the helmet was a second face, carved into the metal. And as Yama spoke, it was actually this second face that spoke instead of the head the helmet protected.
 
Yama: “You have come to be destroyed, outsiders?”
 
Flax: “I don’t think so, evil-doer!”
 
The others looked at him.
 
Flax: “Right… that sounded much better when we were fighting the likes of Captain Ultra and Doctor Mystery…”
 
Yama: “I am willing to show you mercy…”
 
Naamah shoved her way to the front quickly.
 
Naamah: “Oh, thank you! We humbly accept your mercy and beg forgiveness for the intrusion… but…”
 
The face on the helmet snarled.
 
Yama: “But?”
 
Naamah: “Your subordinate is holding my sister prisoner. Perhaps, in your generosity, you’d have him release her?”
 
Yama: “No matter.”
 
Naamah: “No matter? You’ll help us?”
 
Yama: “No matter… she will soon be destroyed. The remains of Diyu will be shattered, just as it is here. I have systematically broken it apart, piece-by-piece. Hidden, from my subordinates lest they attempt to prevent my desires… so I shattered it into different states. Now there is only the version of Diyu that you refer to. Everything within it will be shattered into fragments.”
 
Naamah: “No! No! That’s my sister!”
 
Flax: “We can’t allow a damsel in distress to come to such a heinous end!”
 
Acidspitter: “Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, Flax.”
 
Flax: “Huh?”
 
Magick: “You’re not serious, Louis?”
 
Acidspitter: “We’re talking about Lilith. One of the most dangerous villains the world has ever known. We stand little chance against Yama ourselves and if Lilith is destroyed, I can only see that as a net positive.”
 
Magick: “Oh… my… that’s so cold…”
 
Yama: “There is wisdom in you after all, Mr Nine…”
 
Flax: “And you call yourself a man?”
 
Acidspitter: “I call myself being pragmatic. Think with your head instead of you balls, Flax. I just told you, Lilith is dangerous. Frankly, I’d say she is more dangerous than Yama is.”
 
Magick: “But… didn’t she volunteer to stay behind so you and Ffion could go free?”
 
Acidspitter grit his teeth.
 
Acidspitter: “I know that, Magick! I know, dammit! I know I’m being the jerk right now. I know I’m not being the all-goody-good hero who saves everyone and has bright teeth to smile at the newspapers. But just as Flax realised, we are not up there! We are down here! This is my world that you all came bumbling into! There are no good guys down here, only bad guys. Every. Single. One. Down here, you choose the lesser of two evils.”
 
Naamah: “Don’t listen to him, Flax! My twin sister needs you! She is a fair damsel, just as I am!”
 
Naamah latched onto Flax’ chest.
 
Acidspitter: “Oh, come on! Flax, you must see?”
 
Flax: “Well, I… I see, yes. But, it doesn’t make it right.”
 
Acidspitter: “Lilith is no damsel in distress. She is a coiled viper, waiting to bite. You look up at Yama and see a grotesque male creature—”
 
Yama: “Oi!”
 
Acidspitter: “Sorry. You look at Naamah and see a beautiful woman. That’s it. That’s what you’re judging them on. Roses have thorns, Flax.”
 
Naamah: “No, no, no! It is not that simple, and you know it! I came here because you led me here, Flax!”
 
Even Magick now scowled.
 
Magick: “Hey, now, that’s not true. You used us to get out of the maze.”
 
Naamah: “Well, you still led me here! I needed help to get out of the maze. It’s true. I was lost. And you two came along and I followed you out.”
 
Acidspitter: “And what were you planning to do with them once you were all free and clear?”
 
Naamah pulled her face into a pout.
 
Naamah: “Nothing so bad as you imagine! I mean, what’s a little corrupting influence between friends, hmm? There’s nothing wrong with selfish desires. But I wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
 
Magick: “…corrupting influence?”
 
Acidspitter: “See? Only villains down here. And Lilith is much worse than Naamah.”
 
Magick: “But… she still sacrificed herself for us, Louis.”
 
Acidspitter remained silent. He was struggling internally. He wanted to do the ‘good thing’, but he knew what appeared to be the ‘good thing’ was probably the complete opposite. Saving Lilith would definitely cause a lot of problems later on…
 
Acidspitter: “There are a whole lot of evil demons in that place, not just Lilith. Are we going to try to stop Yama, to save them? Their future crimes would become our responsibility. Should Lilith, or any of them, murder or rape, then we will be just as guilty…”
 
Flax: “Then we stop them all. If she sacrificed herself for us, then we owe her. It’s that simple. No more good or evil. It’s honour.”
 
Acidspitter admitted to himself that he was grateful his arguments had failed. He wasn’t sure he could live with the guilt of leaving Lilith to her fate. But he still had to wonder… could he live with the guilt of not leaving her to that fate…
 
Flax: “So, how do we stop a god of the underworld?”
 
Naamah: “Kick him in the balls. That’s what I usually do.”
 
Flax shook his head scornfully.
 
Flax: “Now that is dishonourable.”
 
Lilith: “I think the best thing to do would be to cut off that talking head on his helmet.”
 
Acidspitter: “That is actually a good idea, Lilith. So if we attack head on, with someone to sneak up behind him then we could…”
 
The grouped turned with amazement.
 
Lilith: “What? You said it was a good idea!”
 
Acidspitter: “How…”
 
Lilith: “You should probably do that whole distraction thing right about now. The sneaking part is underway.”
 
Naamah: “Why are you covered in so much blood?”
 
Lilith: “Don’t worry! It’s not mine!”
 
Acidspitter: “That worries me more!”
 
Lilith: “I did not do most of the killing! I mean, I might have done a little. Some of those incubi were very annoying. Most of the killing was done by your soul-sword warrior friend.”
 
Flax: “Oooooooh!”
 
Acidspitter: “Quick! Have at him!”
 
The group ran across the platform towards Yama. The god of the underworld started towards them, tin eyes intent on their deaths.
 
Then, she came from behind him like a little shadow clad in the light of her own soul. The ruhand sliced straight through the front of the helmet and the small head fell, heavily, to the floor with a clang.
 
Yama froze in his tracks and remained motionless.
 
Except for the severed helmet-face.
 
Yama: “You—did you seriously just chop off my helmet face? Really? Why would you even do that!?”
 
Ffion: “Worked didn’t it?”
 
Yama: “You--! You can’t destroy me. I am a god of the underworld. I will—oi! Where do you think you’re going!?”
 
Ffion: “You said we can’t destroy you so… we’re leaving. Bye now!”
 
Yama: “Wait! At least push me closer to my body! Don’t leave me here like this! It—it’s just a matter of time! Eventually my body will pick me up again! Then you’ll be sorry.”
 
The group stood and watched Yama not moving.
 
Flax: “Could be a while.”
 
Acidspitter: “I think we’ll be dead by the time it happens anyway.”
 
Naamah giggled.
 
Naamah: “Oooooh! Am I a hero now too? I’ve always wondered what it would be like!”
 
Lilith: “Sure! Now we’re goodies just like these idiots.”
 
Lilith patted Louis on the cheek.
 
Naamah glared at Acidspitter.
 
Naamah: “You might be giving that one too much credit, dear sister.”
 
Lilith gave a knowing smile.
 
Lilith: “Came through in the end, didn’t he?”
 
Naamah: “Maybe. But look! Look at this one I found!”
 
She yanked on Flax and the two sisters were instantly attached at either hip of the old space adventurer. While most men might think this is their lucky day, or be overwhelmed by the interest of two sisters – Flax thought it was their lucky day and hoped they wouldn’t be overwhelmed by his interest in them.
 
Flax: “My, sweet ladies. Old Flax, here, has seen many women in his long life, but I swear there have been none more lovely than the two delicate blossoms I see by my side.”

Location: Titha-Yaven; the Clinging Mud

 
Characters: Seraphim | P.I. Funguy | Hero Plus One | Winters | Mastema | Beelzebub (Bubba)
 
The heroes moved as best they could, but they soon learnt that clinging mud is not an ally to long distance running. Feet had to be pulled out of the ground, with a gross slurp, and more than one of them stumbled. Mastema had the worst time of it, though Seraphim suspected he was only half-aware of what was happening so his stumbles were only partially due to the environment.
 
Winters was able to plough through the mud with surprising strength and grace. Until both were lost and she fell flat on her face with all the grace of a toppling potato. Constantly getting tangled in her own clothing, and the mud, it was her robotic pistons that provided her the strength to clamber out of whatever clumsy mess she kept landing in.
 
Funguy used his power of fungus to try to unclog the heroes whenever they got stuck, but this just meant he was constantly towards the rear himself.
 
Only Hero Plus One was able to navigate without hindrance – thanks to being a tiny rat, whose weight wasn’t high enough to sink into the mud.
 
They tried to run through the demon village. Plus One saw the same rat hovels he had seen on his way in, but the buildings, like the rat-people, changed for each hero. Only Winters saw what they truly were – mud-caked demon nests.
 
As they regrouped, however, there was Bubba himself, at the end of the street. He was languidly lounging on a hay-filled cart with his straw hat over his eyes.
 
Bubba: “Hoowhee, sure is a hum-dinger of a day, ain’t it?”
 
Seraphim: “Turn!”
 
The entire group skidded and made a hard left after the team leader. She whacked a random rat demon on the way – who was probably just hanging out the laundry and minding his own business – before they emerged from the row of houses and onto a long, muddy road.
 
Coming down the road, sitting atop a cart, which seemed to be a completely different cart than before, that contained a single pig, was Bubba. As he neared them, he spoke up;
 
Bubba: “You know that song about Loch Lomond? I’ll take the low road and I’ll be in Scotland before ye?”
 
Seraphim: “Back!”
 
They fled back again, almost bumping into each other, but at the far end of the passage was, yet again, Bubba. Another cart, this one appeared to have lost a wheel and was stuck in the mud and broken crates of carrots were everywhere. Bubba was stood beside it, fanning himself with his hat.
 
Bubba: “Though Scotland was meant to be Heaven in that song, so I guess this must be, what, England? Reckon the Scots would agree with that, haw haw!”
 
Seraphim hesitated, realising this was fruitless. Funguy, however, hadn’t given up just yet and thrust his finger back to the long road.
 
P.I. Funguy: “We can run down the road. I’ll try to block the road when he appears.”
 
They went back to the main road, where Bubba was again. He rose his new cart like a chariot, mounted at the fore and whipping at his donkeys. Despite the imagery, they are donkeys, so the cart wasn’t going all that fast, even with painted on ‘go faster stripes’.
 
Bubba: “Ride ‘em cowpoke!”
 
Winters: “Why would he want to poke a cow?”
 
Funguy rose his arm quickly and from the mud thrust up a whole wall of fungus, as thick and cloying as the mud on the ground. Spores puffed up into the air, as little yellow motes, and, for a moment, everything seemed still and quiet. With some disbelief that it actually worked, the heroes turn and jog away from the fungus wall.
 
They didn’t get very far when Seraphim glanced right and realised that Bubba was jogging alongside them. She leapt with fright but steeled herself quickly.
 
Bubba: “Our mornin’ jog over so soon?”
 
Seraphim growled with frustration.
 
Winters: “Wow! You are super annoying!”
 
Despite the words, her inflection made it sound like a compliment. Bubba plucked the straw from his mouth and made a mock sad face.
 
Bubba: “I take back what I said about you being advanced technology.”
 
Winters just grinned like an idiot.
 
Winters: “That’s okay! I am actually decades old now anyway!”
 
Bubba: “Huh! Retro!”
 
Winters: “Exactly! I might be in a science museum soon!”
 
Bubba: “Prolly one of the few things I ever met that’s proud of bein’ old. I like you, kid. Why don’t you stay down here with ol’ Bubba?”
 
Winters: “Okay!”
 
Seraphim: “You’re supposed to say no.”
 
Winters: “Oh right. No thanks!”
 
Bubba started to idly pick at his teeth, which were decaying and black. Seraphim shuddered to think of what he might be picking out of them, though she doubted it could be as bad as the mountain of year-old pizzas she keeps finding around the hero mansion.
 
Bubba: “Welp, that’s okay. But I gave y’all a choice. Either y’all stay here and get treated to all the sights and pleasures this place has to offer—”
 
On cue there was a distant, horrible scream.
 
Bubba: “Or, you give up one of your own and the rest go free. You can go off and do whatever y’all’re doin’ down here in England! Geddit? Cause I said it before? Haw haw!”
 
Winters: “You know, it’s not so funny when you explain the joke.”
 
Bubba: “Even the robots are critics now. Can you play Pong?”
 
Winters: “Of course! One of my first ever programs was playing ping-pong!”
 
Bubba: “Great! We’re gonna have so much fun together!”
 
Winters: “Yay!”
 
Seraphim: “That was another no moment, Winters.”
 
Winters: “Nooooooooooo!”
 
Everyone rolled their eyes at the sudden, melodramatic display.
 
Bubba: “Are those actual tears? I’m genuinely impressed. Shoulda been an actor!”
 
Winters snapped up.
 
Winters: “Oooooh! I always wanted to go to Hollywood!”
 
Mastema stared at Winters, as though she were the most disgusting thing he had ever seen.
 
Mastema: “Does it have an off button?”
 
P.I. Funguy: “We don’t power off our friends, Mastema.”
 
Mastema: “Mute then?”
 
Winters: “Although now that I think about it, I did go to Holywood once to stop a special effects guy from using illusions to take over the world. So, I should say I always wanted to go to Hollywood when I wasn’t stopping special effects guys from taking over the world!”
 
Bubba: “I love this kid. She’s got spunk!”
 
Winters: “Ew!”
 
A slight pause later.
 
Winters: “Oh, you meant in the other way. That makes more sense.”
 
Mastema: “I have gone from a Hell of silence to a Hell of incessant prattling…”
 
Winters: “Though there are some male robots designed to spu—”
 
Seraphim: “Oooooookay, I think that’s where Winters’ story time ends! Thanks.”
 
Winters: “Awww. Well, okay. See you next time, demon guy!”
 
She started walking off.
 
Everyone watched her go, until she finally stopped, turned back and, with some embarrassment, stood behind Funguy.
 
P.I. Funguy: “When was your last software upgrade, Winters?”
 
Winters: “The eighties.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Last defrag?”
 
Winters: “Maybe a week after I was built.”
 
Seraphim: “And the mystery is solved.”
 
Bubba swept his palm towards Winters.
 
Bubba: “Seems the best choice, does it not? An old, useless relic. If anything, she holds you back, doesn’t she? I watched you all running around. A robot that doesn’t have super strength, doesn’t have a brain capable of innumerable or fast calculations. I’d say a smartphone would work better.”
 
Winters leant towards Funguy.
 
Winters: “Is he insulting me?”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Afraid so.”
 
Winters: “Heeeeeeeeeey!”
 
Bubba: “Give her to me.”
 
Seraphim: “No.”
 
Bubba: “You’ll all go free! For the sake of a dilapidated machine. I’ll even give you a replacement iPhone. Worth a lot more money, I can tell you. People sell their kidneys to get them.”
 
Seraphim: “No.”
 
Bubba: “Such certainty! How… what’s the word?”
 
Winters: “Heroic!”
 
Bubba: “No…”
 
Winters: “Brave!”
 
Bubba: “Not that either.”
 
Winters: “Kind! Wonderful! Lovely--!”
 
Seraphim: “Winters, stop hugging me. You might not have super strength, but you have enough strength to hurt my insides doing that.”
 
Winters: “Oh sorry!”
 
She let go and looked at Seraphim’s body intently.
 
Winters: “Is your spleen okay?”
 
Seraphim: “Uh, yes.”
 
Winters: “Is your lower intestine okay?”
 
Seraphim: “Yes, Winters. I am—”
 
Winters: “Is your womb okay?”
 
Seraphim: “What the fu--!”
 
Winters: “Oh! Sorry! Was that inappropriate to say like that?”
 
She leant forward and whispered. Loudly.
 
Winters: “Is your womb—”
 
Seraphim: “It is fine. Everything is fine! I am beginning to agree with Mastema about that mute button! Christ!”
 
Bubba: “He can’t help you now…”
 
Winters: “Who?”
 
Bubba: “Christ… it was a joke. She just said his name in vain, so I turned it into a quip.”
 
Winters: “It’s not funny if you explain it, you know?”
 
Bubba: “But you didn’t understand the—I take it back, I don’t want her anymore.”
 
Winters: “Nooooooooo!”
 
Seraphim: “That was not a no moment, Winters.”
 
She groaned.
 
Bubba: “You know your friend wasn’t so… certain in his choices dealing with another demon? The one we call Mr Nine.”
 
As if sensing something, Funguy stepped forward;
 
P.I. Funguy: “Just let us go, Demon Prince. You have no use for us. This game you’re playing is needless.”
 
Bubba didn’t flinch or turn and blatantly ignored Funguy, keeping his stare locked on Seraphim. She stared back.
 
Bubba: “He chose to accept the deal. Consign another to a fate worse than death and free his friends from a demon king… his friends had to persuade him otherwise, of course.”
 
Hero Plus One: “How can you know this?”
 
Bubba: “I am a Demon Prince, you are in Hell. This place… whispers.”
 
Mastema: “It does! It does! Even…! Even when you can’t hear the whispers, it is still whispering…”
 
Seraphim: “And what? Am I supposed to second guess myself because someone else made a deal with a devil? There is a reason I am team leader of Hero Force and not Mr Nine. I don’t make deals with monsters…”
 
Bubba: “Isn’t any relationship, at its most basic, a deal? You agree to love someone and be with that person. A relationship is a deal and you… had a relationship with Mr Nine himself. A deal of your own. That’s why you’re… the way you are now.”
 
Seraphim gave a thin smile. It was the smile that she usually used on smug thugs who were about to get their asses handed to them.
 
Seraphim: “Not your most cunning speech, I feel. Could use work, B minus.”
 
Bubba: “Haw haw!”
 
Winters: “I don’t get it, was that a joke? You need to explain it to me.”
 
Hero Plus One: “It’s not funny if she explains it.”
 
Winters gasped.
 
Winters: “But I said that!”
 
A pause, then she turned to Hero Plus One.
 
Winters: “Wait, was that also a joke!?”
 
Hero Plus One: “I’m beginning to believe in the Narrative after all, and all of this is just one big, elaborate joke...”
 
Winters squinted at him, as though accusing him of some minor misdeed.
 
Winters: “Was that also a joke?”
 
Bubba then stretched as though he had just done a long day of harvesting.
 
Bubba: “Welp, I guess joking’s over now anyway. Another mortal throws away their chance to choose, acting on emotions instead of making a rational decision. If y’all ain’t gonna deal, then it’s back in the stocks. Maybe ya friend, Mr Nine, will be more accommodatin’ of my offer…”
 
He grinned maliciously now, a sudden departure from the usual languid visage he wore.
 
Bubba: “He’s a more reasonable fella. A man that knows how things are done down in these parts.”
 
Seraphim shrugged, which surprised her friends as much as Bubba.
 
Seraphim: “Okay.”
 
Bubba: “Okay?”
 
Seraphim: “Sure… although…”
 
Bubba: “Although what?”
 
Seraphim: “You could just let us go.”
 
Bubba: “Could… but won’t.”
 
He looked at her as though she was as dumb as a pile of bricks.
 
Seraphim: “I’m… giving you the choice.”
 
Bubba smirked.
 
Bubba: “Oh! Oh very good! Nice try! But that’s not really a choice, is it? That’s an illusion of choice.”
 
Seraphim: “Wasn’t that the same as your offer? But fine… a real choice. You keep saying this is the thing that defines you down here. This inability to make your own choices, while we throw away ours. You keep offering everyone choices, so now I give you a choice.”
 
Bubba: “Exciting, but there is no real choice you could give me.”
 
Seraphim: “Yes there is.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “What? Sera, we should talk about whatever you’re planning.”
 
Bubba looked at Funguy.
 
Bubba: “Right, yeah, because I’m just going to stand over there while you have a team huddle?”
 
Winters: “Thanks, demon guy! He’s not so bad after all!”
 
Hero Plus One: “That was sarcasm, Winters.”
 
Winters: “…isn’t sarcasm like joking? This is getting confusing…”
 
Seraphim: “I give a gift in return for letting us go.”
 
Bubba: “Gifts aren’t choices. They’re bribes. I don’t need bribes. Everyone always offers me something. Gold, power, magic, trinkets, whatever. No.”
 
Seraphim: “You misunderstand me. My gift is the ability to choose…”
 
Bubba: “…explain.”
 
Seraphim: “I chose to relinquish my position as Metatron—”
 
Mastema hissed, while the others looked at her confused and surprised.
 
Seraphim: “Then I chose to give up being an angel too. I admit… I almost chose to stop being a hero just a short time ago…”
 
Winters gasped, but Funguy looked guilty – remembering his offer to take her away from all of it.
 
Seraphim: “I remember from my time with Mr Nine that this is possible. I can give you my ability to choose – my choice to fall, as angels call it – not that I agree with the term – and it becomes your choice instead…”
 
Bubba: “My choice to fall? My choice to fall where? Hell is the bottom of the divine ladder. Demons down here, angels all the way up there.”
 
Seraphim: “Well, if an angel can choose to fall, just as did several demon princes, then, if given the ability, a demon can surely—”
 
Bubba: “Rise? Become… human?”
 
Seraphim: “Truly human. Not just puppeteering one, like lots of you have done. Ben told me that’s what you cursed earlier. Demons have no choice but to be demons. I agree with you. That’s not fair. I give up my right to choose to be human and give that choice to you.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Wait, wait! What happens to you then?”
 
Seraphim: “I’ll be an angel again. I won’t have a choice not to be. I will be locked, forever, in the role I was assigned at birth.”
 
Bubba: “I suppose there are worse fates than being an angel though, huh?”
 
Seraphim: “I have never heard of an angel returning to the flock. And you never met Samael.”
 
Bubba: “Heard of him though, and you might have a point.”
 
Seraphim: “Well, Beelzebub? Do you accept my deal?”
 
Bubba: “Haw haw, what happened to not dealing with monsters?”
 
Seraphim: “I’m dealing with the human you’ll become. A man that deserves his own destiny, just as I was privileged to have.”
 
Bubba: “And you’ll throw it away?”
 
Seraphim: “You said we’re always throwing away our choices, didn’t you? Another drop in the ocean of discarded choices.”
 
Bubba: “Haw haw! That’s true! I kind of hate you right now, and I love the bones of you! What’s a demon to do? I love a good deal as much as any other Demon Prince, it’s in my nature! But I feel that conflict, part of me rejects the deal, knowing what would happen! Gosh darn it!”
 
Hero Plus One: “If you do become a human, maybe don’t be a hill-billy though?”
 
Bubba: “My choice, rat boy!”
 
Plus One rose an eyebrow.
 
Hero Plus One: “It sure is!”
 
Bubba: “At least…”
 
Bubba looked at Seraphim. She held out her hand for agreement on the deal.
 
Bubba: “It is now.”
 
There was a sudden light that enveloped Bubba as he took her hand, though that light was entirely black. Few would ever get to see true ‘black light’ in their lives, the light of a demon becoming mortal. Within the light they caught a last glimpse of the former Demon Prince Beelzebub, now, forever, Bubba. Tears on his face, whether they were tears for himself, or whether they were tears for Seraphim and what she was giving up, none could know.
 
And then he was gone and silence fell upon Titha-Yaven.
 
Winters: “That was so emotional!!!”
 
There was a series of groans.
 
Hero Plus One: “It was. Now, not so much, thanks to you.”
 
Winters: “You’re welcome!”
 
The demons had scurried into their dens, afraid to emerge without their master, and even the cloying mud itself felt static under their feet.
 
Hero Plus One: “If only all the demons could be reasoned with!”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Ben… then we’d have no choices left to make. This isn’t a celebration. We didn’t win anything. We lost something… she lost something…”
 
He walked from Plus One to Seraphim and tentatively put a hand on her shoulder.
 
P.I. Funguy: “Sera? That was very noble of you.”
 
She tried to hide it, but he saw her swipe her cheek.
 
Seraphim: “Was it? I did what I had to.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Being a hero, we always have more than one way to resolve a crisis. You went with the one of maximum sacrifice to save the unsavable. Honestly, I don’t think I would have ever even considered trying to help a demon become mortal…”
 
She gave a weak smile.
 
Seraphim: “You never dated one.”
 
Suddenly, a tear in Hell opened up and the remainder of Hero Force, and their two demon allies, burst onto the scene.
 
Acidspitter: “Seraphim! We came as quickly as possible! Everyone okay?”
 
Seraphim smirked over at Winters.
 
Seraphim: “Speak of the devil!”
 
Winters looked blankly back and Seraphim sighed.
 
Seraphim: “That was another joke, Winters. Because he used to be the Devil and I just talked about him and the expression… you get it?”
 
Winters: “You know, it’s not funny if you explain it.”
 
Mastema: “I’m going to break it!”

OOC: Minor warning, this post may be somewhat stressful to read as it features a lot of arguing.

---

Seraphim: “So, after a long, difficult and pointless time, we are going to do what I said we should do in the first place.”
 
She put her hands on her hips. Boss mode activated.
 
Seraphim: “We go to this Endless Well and stop whoever it is that is there.”
 
Winters: “But Master Britt…ica…”
 
Seraphim: “Is probably there. If not, we can find them afterwards. Either way, we stop whatever is going down in the Endless Well and Brittica won’t be used by their captors.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Let’s just hope those captors don’t kill Brittica once they’re no longer useful…”
 
Winters: “No! We can’t let that happen!”
 
Seraphim: “We won’t. Now. Acidspitter.”
 
Lilith: “That’s your cue, Mr Nine.”
 
Lilith spread her arms towards Acidspitter as though he were a stage magician and gave him a smirk. Seraphim didn’t do subtlety often, but she wasn’t incapable of detecting it. She eyed Lilith and sensed she was up to something – and it was Acidspitter’s ego that was the target. Seraphim had called him Acidspitter, while once she called his Louis and the others called him Spit. But here was this demon with her ‘Mr Nine’ and prancing and parading.
 
She glanced towards P.I. Funguy, who looked back at her – a shared acknowledgement of that little moment passed between them. Seraphim decided she could do subtle when she wanted, and she kept silent. But she would be watching…
 
Acidspitter asked that they join hands and, once all had done so, they all stepped forward, leaving Titha-Yaven behind.
 

---

 
Acidspitter: “We’re near to the Endless Well now.”
 
Hero Plus One: “Why didn’t you take us straight there?”
 
Acidspitter: “That would be… dangerous. I mean, aside from being very obvious to our enemy, we could have appeared right above the pit itself and… well, you get the idea.”
 
Magick Snowflakes: “So where are we now?”
 
Flax Hyperon: “It’s like we’ve walked into the fiery pits of Hell!”
 
He looked at Acidspitter.
 
Flax Hyperon: “These are the literal fiery pits of Hell aren’t they?”
 
Acidspitter: “Pretty much, yeah.”
 
The terrain was mountainous and the rock underfoot was cooled and hardened lava – except for where it was hot, flowing lava. The air around them was full of hot ash, and the heat made breathing tough. Even the sky was bright red and the clouds swirled violently like patterns in water. Many of the volcanoes around them were bubbling over. One in the distance was a little more vigorous in its eruption.
 
Seraphim: “How are we not burning right now?”
 
Acidspitter: “They’re not Earth volcanoes. In fact, you won’t burn down here at all. If that lava touches you, your limbs will freeze and snap off in an instant.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “I don’t think any of us were planning on touching the lava to begin with, so let’s not test Acidspitter’s knowledge of the place, eh?”
 
Ffion Heul: “I’m feeling really stressed…”
 
She mumbled as she rubbed her temples.
 
Acidspitter: “Sorry, Ffion. I think we’re all going to be feeling that way until we leave these lands. Our tempers will probably… flare.”
 
There was a collective groan.
 
Acidspitter: “Sorry.”
 
Magick Snowflakes: “Is that a fortress?”
 
Atop one of the non-volcano-mountains was a fortress carved into the rock. With towers and battlements, it appeared more like a castle-town.
 
Lilith: “Damn. You brought us too close to Mount Athirat, Louis.”
 
Magick Snowflakes: “Uh oh. I remember that one. That’s for Ba’al, one of the Dukes of Hell.”
 
Lilith: “Exactly. That castle is basically his forge.”
 
Hero Plus One: “Forge?”
 
Lilith: “He crafts weapons and armour, usually imbued with dark and deadly enchantments meant to corrupt humans.”
 
Naamah: “It’s no accident that he lives so close to Abaddon. He uses souls to do his forging.”
 
Ffion Heul: “Uh, what’s Abaddon? How does he use souls for forging?”
 
Naamah: “You all keep calling it the Endless Well. That’s Abaddon. As for the latter, let’s hope we never find out how he does it. Suffice to say, he does.”
 
Lilith: “Abaddon is perdition. As in, the place where you lose your soul. If you go down Abaddon, then that’s it. There’s no coming back from that for any soul condemned to Hell. Anywhere else, your soul can still be redeemed, go into purgatory, or whatever cushy gigs humans get after they leave this place. But fall into that Endless Well and… you’re done. You hit Erets Tachtith.”
 
Ffion Heul: “Thought it was meant to be endless?”
 
Lilith: “The well has no end… so long as you have a soul. Erets Tachtith is the ‘lowest earth’. It’s where your soulless husk ends up. Once the soul is drawn from you in Abaddon, that’s where monsters like Ba’al swoop in like vultures.”
 
Hero Plus One: “But what happens to the, uh, husks?”
 
Lilith shrugged.
 
Lilith: “Nothing. There’s nothing left to be done. They’re just shells where a soul once was. Not corporeal body, not a soul either. Just a shell. An outline. Left down there. Can’t feel, can’t sense, can’t consume, can barely move. Some say they still have awareness in there, steadily driven mad for eternity. Horrible.”
 
Acidspitter: “Don’t pretend like you care, Lilith.”
 
Lilith: “Oh, but I do! Of course I do! There is nothing more tragic, nor repellent, than the idea of a human losing their soul.”
 
Hero Plus One: “But you’re a demon, shouldn’t you be happy about that?”
 
Lilith: “My boy…”
 
Lilith’s arm snaked around Benjamin’s shoulders and she quickly drew him very, very close to her; her lips almost touching his cheek.
 
Lilith: “I am a succubus. I want humans to have their souls, otherwise how can I corrupt them?”
 
She gave a low, smug chuckle. Flax was visibly bitter that his second girl was now coddling up with a rival male, and he subconsciously side-stepped towards Naamah, as though blocking her passage to Ben.
 
Winters, on the other hand, was not so adept at holding in her jealousy. She stomped over to Lilith and yanked her aside. Lilith, surprised, gave a small yelp.
 
Winters: “That is my boyfriend!”
 
Hero Plus One: “This again…”
 
Recovered, Lilith purred at Winters.
 
Lilith: “Oh, don’t worry, little robot. I will give him back after I’m done with him…”
 
Winters: “Oh. Okay!”
 
Winters pushed Ben back towards a, once again, very surprised, though now also confused, Lilith.
 
Hero Plus One: “Well, actually, ladies, I get to choose who I am with, not you two.”
 
Winters puffed up her chest again and squared up to Lilith.
 
Winters: “That’s right! Only I get to choose who he is with!”
 
Hero Plus One: “That is literally the opposite of what I just said…”
 
Seraphim: “Suffice to say, we need to avoid Ba’al and Mount Athirat.”
 
Flax tutted.
 
Flax Hyperon: “When you say things like that, you just know what’s going to happen right?”
 
Seraphim: “Fortunately, Flax, we live in the real world and not a science fiction adventure Story. We keep low, and out of sight. Lou—Acidspitter, lead the way out of this place so we can get to the Endless Well.”
 
Acidspitter: “Tophet is actually one of the easier places to navigate. Sorry, that’s the name of this land. So long as you’re careful not to touch the lava, we should be able to get out. And so long as Ba’al doesn’t see us.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Though I guess it wouldn’t make much difference. He wants souls from the Endless Well, right? So even if he found us, he’ll take us straight to where we want to go. Win-win.”
 
Seraphim: “I’d rather reach the well, not be thrown down it, Hunter.”
 
From the corner of her eye, she noticed Acidspitter pull a face when she used P.I. Funguy’s real name. A big part of her was very satisfied at that. A good dose of jealousy would help him think about what he threw away.
 
Not that it would matter soon. She wasn’t sure how long the process would take, but before long she would be an angel again and beyond holding affections for humans. She didn’t just give up her mortality, her human life, she gave up her opportunity to ever rekindle her romance with Louis. He was a demon and she would fall again if she were in a relationship with him – yet, the choice to do so was now removed. She could never again choose a situation that would result in her loss of angelic status. And as that realisation fell now fell upon her mind, she started to think about what she had thrown away. She was still in love with Louis and if it were not for the immediate ascension, she believed she would always love him, at least some part of her would. As selfish and shallow as he often was, he was also charming, though usually in an awkward, dorky way. He always seemed out of place, no matter where he was. Out of place on Earth, then out of place in Hell. To her, it made him stand out; to shine brighter than everyone around him.
 
She held back her tears. She was on a mission. She couldn’t indulge in selfish feelings. Lives were at risk.
 
She could cry later… if any part of her could retain those feelings for a demon after she became an angel again.
 
Then she saw the look on Ffion’s face as she looked at Louis. An attraction. A delicate admiration, something rarely seen on Ffion. Sudden, bubbling torment gurgled up Seraphim’s throat. Even as she felt it, like acid in her throat, she remembered what Louis said – it’s this place. It causes stress and frustration.
 
So she grit her teeth firmly.
 
But it wasn’t only Seraphim who was stoking bitter feelings… Lilith has likewise spied the look on Ffion’s face and it was less than a second before the demon linked her arm to Louis’. Louis just sighed with annoyance, but darkness washed over Ffion’s face. She had never been good at self-control and Seraphim saw Ffion’s temper about to burst out at the demon, so Seraphim quickly reached out and took hold of Ffion’s arm.
 
Seraphim: “Remember, this place is playing tricks on our minds. We need to remain calm and collected here.”
 
Ffion snatched her arm back.
 
Ffion Heul: “Easy for you to say.”
 
Lilith: “I bet she doesn’t even feel the frustrations of this place now that she’s an angel again.”
 
Acidspitter: “What?”
 
Lilith: “Ho ho ho! Nobody told you yet, Mr Nine? I guess she wasn’t brave enough to tell you herself. How she gave you up for good?”
 
Acidspitter: “You… what does she mean?”
 
Ffion Heul: “Who cares what she means? You shouldn’t care, Louis! And she gave you up long ago! Stop stringing him along, Seraphim!”
 
Seraphim: “I’m not! It’s not my fault he’s still madly in love with me!”
 
Acidspitter: “But I--!”
 
Lilith: “Oh dear. No room in her heart for lowly demons. At least you can settle for second best.”
 
Lilith swept her hand towards Ffion, who had already reached a state of anger, but was suddenly verging on rage at that comment.
 
Ffion Heul: “You fucking harlot! I am nobody’s second best!”
 
Seraphim: “He can’t have me, so he looks for another vulnerable heart to ruin.”
 
Acidspitter: “Hey! Now that’s not fair at all! I didn’t ruin anything! I was in love with you!”
 
Ffion Heul: “And my heart is not vulnerable! Don’t compare me to your pampered, preening ass! I don’t need him, or you, or anyone! You buncha—”
 
Flax Hyperon: “Okay, that’s it. I think you need to step away from these ladies, Mr Nine.”
 
He spat out the name, heaped with sarcasm. Louis didn’t think Flax had ever called him by that name before now.
 
Acidspitter: “Really, Flax? What, you need me to step aside because you know none of these women would even look at you now you’re a fat chump?”
 
Flax Hyperon: “I can still kick your ass, you damn coward! You couldn’t handle Seraphim, how’d you ever expect to handle Ffion? And you would be crushed by this one!”
 
Lilith: “This one? This?”
 
Ffion Heul: “Nobody handles me, you fat fuck!”
 
Seraphim: “Nobody handles Seraphim, either.”
 
Ffion then scoffed.
 
Ffion Heul: “What the hell, third-person? Really? You’re so god damn arrogant!”
 
Magick Snowflake: “Wh-what is happening right now?”
 
Acidspitter snapped at Magick.
 
Acidspitter: “Could you please not whine right now? I have really never understood why Deep ever allowed a little kid onto Hero Force One.”
 
Magick’s jaw dropped.
 
Magick Snowflake: “Y-yeah!? Well! I never understood why he let someone as really useless as you on the team! I could beat you up any day! So there!”
 
Ffion Heul: “Magick could absolutely smash you into next week. And you are useless.”
 
Magick Snowflakes: “Yeah!”
 
Ffion Heul: “And she’s a whining, little bitch.”
 
Magick Snowflakes: “Wh-wha-! No! No I’m not! You’re just a… a…”
 
Ffion Heul: “A what? A what?”
 
Magick’s mouth squirmed around as she fought against herself to not use a horrible and offensive word against Ffion, even though she really wanted to.
 
Flax Hyperon: “You need to stop bullying that kid.”
 
Magick Snowflakes: “I’m not a kid!”
 
Acidspitter: “Pah! You’ve gone full creepy neckbeard then? Into the young ones now? Trying to make her your waifu?”
 
Flax bristled with as much anger as anyone had ever seen him. His chubby face was red.
 
Flax Hyperon: “That is disgusting! She’s like my kid sister!”
 
Seraphim: “Isn’t that how those hentai movies go?”
 
Magick Snowflakes: “I am not a kid! I am an adult woman! I demand to be treated like one!”
 
Lilith: “Oooooh, I’d be happy to treat you like one.”
 
Ffion Heul: “You stay the hell away from her!”
 
Flax Hyperon: “Hey! Don’t talk to Lilith like that!”
 
He paused.
 
Flax Hyperon: “But yeah, stay the hell away from her!”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Seems like nobody is simmering down. I was kind of hoping you’d wear yourselves out.”
 
Seraphim: “Don’t talk down to us, Hunter. I’m far older than you can even imagine, you bloody fool.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Sera, slow down. You’ve got to think.”
 
Lilith: “She can’t think, she’s as dumb as a sack of potatoes.”
 
Ffion Heul: “What, and you’re not? Your brains are in those massive jugs!”
 
Lilith: “Oh, poor Ffion. I guess you must be jealous, what with your little… B cups?”
 
Flax Hyperon: “They’re definitely D-cups, Lilith. Come on.”
 
Ffion Heul: “Y-y-you! Don’t have the right to even talk about—”
 
P.I. Funguy: “People! People! Please! How about we all agree to separate? Don’t talk to each other.”
 
Hunter put a hand on Seraphim’s shoulder and tried to get her to look into his face. Louis felt a surge of emotional pain, which he had been holding in ever since he observed the closeness between Hunter and Seraphim. Then Hunter put his other hand on Ffion’s shoulder and Louis lost it.
 
Acidspitter: “You! You want them both now!? Get off of them!”
 
Acidspitter grabbed the back of P.I. Funguy’s coat and yanked him away. Hunter stumbled over the rock, tripped and fell on his back.
 
Seraphim: “Louis!”
 
Acidspitter: “Oh, I’m back to Louis am I?”
 
He sneered at the woman he loved.
 
P.I. Funguy: “You’re a little braggart is what you are.”
 
Hunter was getting back to his feet.
 
P.I. Funguy: “Maybe it’s about time someone knocked some sense into you. Put up your dukes!”
 
Louis snorted.
 
Louis: “Put up my…? How about I put up my deuce!”
 
He thrust double middle fingers at Hunter.
 
P.I. Funguy: “Now that is just rude.”
 
And then… he started laughing. Louis looked at his fingers and snorted, a smile crept onto his face as he saw how silly it was. Then it was Ffion who laughed. She laughed with her usual belly laugh that was loud, mirthful and completely unreserved. Nobody could resist her laughter and shortly after, everyone else was laughing too. They saw themselves, their idiocy, their mean words and how silly it had all been. Even Seraphim was laughing hard and leaned on Ffion. A moment later they were embracing and laughing and crying on each other with apologies. Lilith giddily cuddled Magick in such a fashion as an elder sister. Flax and Louis went to hug each other – but that was totally gay so they quickly stepped back and resorted to firmly shaking hands. Until Hunter grabbed them both into a warm three-way-hug, which just made them laugh more.
 
At the sidelines, Naamah and Winters are stuffing their faces with popcorn and wore expressions of amazement.
 
Naamah: “Better than any soap opera.”
 
Winters: “Uh-huh!”
 
Next to them was Ben, as a rat. He had quickly gotten afraid and resorted to his only defence. He was now nibbling on popcorn too.
 
Winters: “Good little ratty.”

Hero Force trudged across the hellscape of Tophet, avoiding the freezing lava streams. Volcanoes across them would erupt and spew fresh, red flows that looked deceptively hot. The whole while, they were careful not to draw too close to Mount Athirat, wishing to avoid further conflict with any Princes of Hell.
 

---

 
65.5 Million BC and Hell was a very different place. There was just one realm, one plane of Hell to exist. There were other realms that would, one day, become extensions of Hell, or their own unique Hellscapes, but at this point in time, there was just one single place that could be, officially, designated as Hell. Which made sense since this was also the birth of humanity, who were to occupy said plane.
 
Upon circumventing the triumvirate deities – Aeon, cosmic god of time, Runekeeper, cosmic god of magic, and the Three Fates, cosmic god of fate – the deity known as WriterGod set about establishing parameters for his new acquisition. Despite claiming Earth would be a world of freedom, he certainly liked his rules and telling everyone what they could and could not do. And for the humans that disobeyed him, he needed a place to punish the ungrateful sods. He kidnapped them from their creators to set them free! How dare they not do exactly as he tells them!
 
The plane of punishment was to be Hell. However, WriterGod was very careful how he constructed it. He didn’t want another Tartarus and to ensure that, he needed to put someone in charge who could be trusted, at the very least, to not eat the human souls.
 
Helebon. Noble, honest, kind, loving. Everything a warden should be in order to rehabilitate the wicked. Under his gentle care, the wayward souls would ideally find the error of their ways and reform, passing from Hell to Heaven.
 
Helebon was one of the few angels that WriterGod brought with him to Earth when he manifested himself on the planet. As one of the primordial angels, his appearance wasn’t akin to humans, until the new batches of angels who were meant to look like their wards. Much like WriterGod’s physical form, the primordial angels never quite took shape. Their faces always blurred, their figures humanoid but not human. Did they have skin? Did they have hair? Did they have eyes? They did, and they did not. But the new angels had clear, physical forms. They were humans, but shiny!
 
Helebon was joined by just two other primordial angels. Pronoia, who was to be the director of human affairs and Ouriel, who was to be the director of the angels. Like Helebon, they held no substantial form. Though much shorter in perceived stature than the human-angels, the three of them radiated so much divine light that they could not be directly viewed by the humans, lest their eyes burn out of their skulls.
 
Pronoia and Ouriel had to work together extensively so that the angels below them would serve their duties in administering the humans. Helebon, however, was often left to his own devices. He created a sanctuary, a safe zone for educating and soothing broken minds. Many humans that fell into his domain were often victims themselves, broken by their experiences on the mortal plane.
 
As the population of humans increased, so did the duties and responsibilities of the angels and the primordial angels. New angels were created by WriterGod and Ouriel fashioned the angelic hierarchy, with archangels and lesser angels, many with unique tasks and individual duties. One angel was chosen to be the ‘Voice of WriterGod’ so that he could communicate with humans safely, and the role fell to one of the first of the Earth angels – Metatron. Samael became the Angel of Death. Bathkol became the Angel of Divine Prophecy. Some angels were even given the honour of becoming Guardian Angels, assigned to specific humans to protect and nurture them.
 
Helebon’s realm was not excluded from the expanded roles of the angels and some were assigned to help him in maintaining Hell as the number of souls increased. Lucyfer was one such angel and she came to think of Helebon as her personal mentor. Hell was given additions, such as Purgatory, a kind of waiting room to pass on to Heaven, and Limbo, for those unable to go to Heaven but not punishable.
 
Humans, however, were worshipping alternate deities, even as early as Adam and Eve’s first generation of offspring. And as this grew, alternate Heavens and Hells opened up, overseen by outside forces. Conflicts became inevitable, both between the humans that believed everyone should do things their way, and the divine beings themselves as they, likewise, believed their way was the right way. In particular, Helebon became frustrated by the actions of Hades, whose Hell had a passage that led to Tartarus, and the inevitable consumption of the human souls that passed through that gateway. Helebon petitioned WriterGod to intervene, but the deity kept a ‘hands off’ approach to directly forcing action, preferring telling humans the path rather than forcing them down it.
 
Lucyfer detected the increasing misery of Helebon, who despaired at the cruel fate these humans were facing. The WriterGod had placed protections on Earth to keep it free of the influence of alien gods, especially those that identified as the Cosmic Deities. This included Memnoch, the Ruler of Tartarus. There was not, however, anything to stop people of Earth being forced into Tartarus by other Earth-dwellers, so Hades and his ilk were complicit in aiding the foreign menace. Lucyfer introduced Helebon to a friend of hers, a minor angel named Ariana. Ariana was often assigned to be a Guardian Angel thanks to her attentive nature and she was able to soothe Helebon’s fears. In time, they bonded to such an extent that they fell in love, quite an unusual occurrence for angels. Angels rarely felt attachments for humans, even less frequently did they form attachments to each other.
 
Ariana suspected it was the alteration of their circumstance, the deep need they both felt for support – support they were not feeling from their creator.
 
Yet, even with her love, Ariana became aware that Helebon’s light was losing luminosity, every year he grew a little dimmer. On the pretence of allowing him to directly interact with humans, Ariana created a shroud for him to wear. The shroud was created of divine light, but it actually refracted his light, so it would appear as a comfortable glow for the eyes of humans. It would mask the dimming from notice and, she hoped, would spare him even more sorrow from witnessing this for himself.
 
Ariana and Lucyfer did notice that neither Ouriel, nor Pronoia were suffering from a dimming of their light and they came to the conclusion the stress of the job was to blame. In discussion with Helebon, they decided to request that the three primordial angels go on rotation, each serving a period on Hell and thereby allowing relief for the one stuck in the task.
 
The request was refused.
 
In time, Ariana became pregnant. As rare as it was for angels to fall in love with each other, rarer still would they breed. The vast majority of WriterGod’s angels were created by WriterGod himself, as they were each carefully crafted for a purpose. The news of this naturally born angel was not met with a positive reaction in Heaven. Many angels condemned such a thing, yet WriterGod had laid down no rules against such copulation. There were rules against mating with non-angels, but angel-to-angel affairs had never been against the divine laws. The baby was named Marcus.
 
Strangely, they noticed the baby didn’t appear to be especially divine. He had no wings and did not glow as an angel would. Instead he seemed very… human. Human he was certainly not, yet the divinity of the baby rendered his appearance like one. Though worried this might affect the baby’s health, Ariana was not upset that her child did not possess the light of the WriterGod. In fact, she hoped this would make the angels less of an obstacle against the child’s birth.
 
She was especially surprised that non-angels had taken an interest in the baby’s birth. Deities of various religions sent gifts and well wishes to celebrate the new born and Ariana was filled with an unusual sensation. Her own people rejected the infant, yet the outsiders deemed the baby a wonderful event. It soon became clear that many of these gods were more than happy to procreate with the humans, as well as with each other. She wondered why the act of love was so vilified by her own people, when the evidence, by way of others, proved it was safe.
 
Permission to leave Hell was still denied them. Ariana, whose duties were as an angel in Heaven, was the only one who spent significant time away from the increasingly negative place. Though she loved her family, she always felt great relief to be away from the corrupted souls of humanity worst. Even under the direction of Helebon, so many deceased humans were filled with great evil and she believed some were simply beyond redemption – contrary to Helebon, who pushed himself constantly to improve his methods and figure out new ways of redeeming the humans.
 
Their son was not welcome in Heaven, where the angels and WriterGod resided. He was, however, allowed to visit other Heavens, where he was treated just like any other baby – with lots of cooing women and men pretending not to baby-talk to the kid in secret. One god, Zeus, even proposed that they mimic a human practice they called ‘god parent’. He found it incredibly funny because he was literally a god, which just got a whole lot of eye rolls from everyone else. With Zeus as his god parent, Marcus was, at least, able to escape Hell on occasion, though his father, Helebon, was not.
 
Eventually, he came to the conclusion that some souls simply had to be forced to change. Pushed into it. The soft touch of WriterGod wasn’t working. Showing them the path wasn’t enough. He had to make the most corrupt of them beg for forgiveness and strive to reach Purgatory. So he started to expand Hell, alter it, so that it would contain trials and tests.
 
And yet, human souls continued to increase. Helebon even wondered if he was getting more souls in Hell than Heaven was. When the trials weren’t enough for some of the most hardened murderers, the trials became punishments. The severity of those punishments continually increased as he grew desperate for reformation. He used techniques he witnessed in other Hells, taking methods from Hades and Duat. In some ways, Helebon considered himself fortunate as he did not have to judge the souls that passed his way, unlike other Afterlifes. Duat required the judgement of Osiris, just as Hades had to pass judgements himself; deciding the fates of these souls. Helebon doubted he could choose to send a human to Hell. That was the job of WriterGod. He simply had to act. He was the caretaker, the gaoler, the keeper, and now, torturer.
 
Though Ariana’s visits were less and less frequent, she did become pregnant with a second child.
 
The baby was named Stan. Though, for some reason, everyone kept calling him Satan. Ariana suspected it was the god Saturn’s doing, as he kept trying to get everyone to name their babies after him, even though she kept telling him his name isn’t as cool as he thinks it is.
 
Unfortunately, the shining baby seemed… odd. His appearance did not strictly resemble an angel, or even a human, but a misshapen humanoid. This startled both Helebon and Ariana. The condition of their new baby, compared to the previous, gave them a worrying conclusion – Hell was destroying them. Yet, WriterGod continually ignored requests to depart. Helebon had even noticed that other angels assigned there had, like himself, dimmed, as though the evil and corruption of the souls was blocking the angels from the light of Heaven.
 
Helebon came to the drastic decision to abandon his post and return to Heaven personally. He left his children in the care of Zeus, their god parent, and went, alone, into Heaven.
 
The presence of the primordial angel caused an instant uproar amongst the angels, who could feel the sting of corruption emanating from Helebon. The other two primordial angels were especially enraged, feeling their own light dimming with his mere presence. Some angels felt pity for him, others scorned him. WriterGod… banished him.
 
There had been no conversation between them. Helebon had not even pleaded his case. He felt the warmth and comforting light of his creator for just a moment and then it was snuffed out. Helebon found himself in Hell once again. Annoyed and desperate, he attempted to leave and return to Heaven again, but he found that he was unable to break bonds of the infernal realm. He was now a prisoner of his own prison.
 
For a long while, Helebon despaired. But his despair turned to anger. The punishments increased further still and more were sent for torture than ever before. Helebon took out his frustrations on his prisoners. He committed violence against them – the murderers, the rapists, the paedophiles. They deserved it, for their crimes. This was justice.
 
He started segregating his domain into several planes, otherwise called ‘Circles’, each dedicated to different crimes, which some were calling ‘Sins’. While the sins were the same ones stipulated by WriterGod, and the god still did the judging, Helebon was now dictating where they went and how much suffering they would undergo. He had grown tired of trying to fix these monsters. If the WriterGod wanted humans to do as they were told, he should have forced them to do it in the first place. It wasn’t fair to lay down the rules and then give them the freedom to break those rules. So Helebon would make sure the humans would fear Hell so much, they would never break the rules again.
 
He had started to notice that some of the minor angels assigned to assist him were changing. In fact, some resembled the unusual shape of his second child. It was a gradual change over centuries, but a very visible change. Astaroth had once been a very beautiful angel with strong, angular bone structure juxtaposed to his soft, loving eyes. But now she appeared overly gaunt, almost skeletal. Initially, Helebon had feared Astaroth was sick, but the angel affirmed that she was well and, strangely, felt stronger than she ever had. She had taken a particular interest in the concept of sloth. It was a complex human condition to her mind. Helebon appointed Astaroth the manager of her very own fiefdom dedicated to crimes sloth. And, in this way, a new system of governance started to emerge.
 
After thousands of years of operation, Hell was a shadow of its former self. Once a small centre for healing, it had become a megastructure for punishment. A gaol, a torture den, a pit of misery. Despite the torture, however, humans continued to sin and souls continued to arrive. Fewer were able to atone and reach Purgatory than they had in the past, yet the increasing numbers meant Purgatory was never empty either. The system appeared to be working.
 
But not to WriterGod.
 
Despite his attitude of being hands-free when it came to the humans, he was not so hands-free when it came to the angels. He deemed that Helebon was no longer the same primordial being he had brought with him to Earth and that the perversion of Hell that Helebon had warped into being was not what had been envisioned for humanity. Once, Helebon would have fallen to his abstract knees and begged for forgiveness for his failure. He would have felt joy to merely be noticed, at last, by his creator. Had he done either of these things, it is possible WriterGod would have taken pity at last. Alas, Helebon cursed WriterGod and proclaimed that any failing here was not of Helebon’s doing, but of WriterGod’s own failing.
 
Perhaps seeing some truth in this, WriterGod did not smite the rebellious angel, nor did he tear down all that Helebon had built. Instead, he changed the terms of their relationship. No longer would Helebon be an angel, instead he would become a creature called a demon, much like the creatures found in Hells beyond Earth. So separated from the Heavenly system, Helebon continued to alter the mechanics of Hell, including its hierarchy. He took on a new title; Devil.
 
He even appointed some of the most grotesque human souls as his own minions, willing to commit the heinous tortures he needed, or believed he needed, to continue the operation. Sometimes even a fallen angel would arrive looking for work, having been cast out by WriterGod and unable to adapt to a life without him. Hell would be the only way to continue to serve Heaven, at least by proxy. Despite his new role and greater freedoms, and even when he stopped resenting the monster he had turned into, he still wished to be away from Hell, take his family elsewhere. Ariana had to stay away now that he was no longer an angel because it would be forbidden and she would likely lose her position in Heaven. She even said she would give it up for him, but he knew she did not truly wish that, no matter how much she loved him. And he did not wish that upon her. She had not yet transformed, unlike himself and his son Stan. Marcus was tainted by the corruption of Hell, but he had spent more time on Earth than Stan. Those that remained with Helebon were now demons, through-and-through.
 
Then came The Rebellion.
 
Angels, disgruntled with WriterGod as he placed humans in greater esteem than them, fought against him. They believed that the WriterGod gave the humans much, and the angels nought. Their treatment was unequal to the new adoptees and the angels were forced into servitude of the humans. Their leader was Helebon’s older friend, Lucyfer. She, and many others, fought tooth and nail against their former comrades and friends as they sought to freedom for the angel race.
 
Helebon did nothing.
 
A part of him urged Lucyfer on, willing her to teach WriterGod a lesson. He hoped that, at the very least, the rebellion itself would show WriterGod that his management was flawed. And yet, Helebon could not accept that anyone, no matter how just, could attack WriterGod – their creator, father and master. So, Helebon watched and waited.
 
As he expected, the rebellion was a crushing defeat for Lucyfer. At least on the physical front. It seemed, morally, the forces of Heaven were crippled. Many wrestled with the fact they had had to fight at all, especially their brothers and sisters. Lucyfer had been much respected and seen as a true leader of angels on Earth. Even during the war, she never blamed or hated humans, she saw them as much victims of the system as the angels. The seeds of doubt were there, nurturing in the minds of many angels.
 
Lucyfer, and many of her followers, were forcibly cast into Hell, much to the surprise of Helebon. Usually fallen angels were simply let go and lost their status as angels. But here they were, punished not only with loss of angelic being, but to the pits of Helebon’s demesne. Perhaps WriterGod expected him to torture these angels, do what he does with all wicked souls. He didn’t. He welcomed them, gave them positions within the hierarchy. Lucyfer was even given a new title – Prince, meaning ruler of entire Hellscapes. Astaroth was likewise elevated to the same rank, along with others as a mixture of demons and fallen angels. Lesser titles of Dukes were given out and rewards all round. Lucyfer made the great claim that it was better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven, yet Helebon was reminded… they still served. He was still the subject of WriterGod and the rules by which he had formulated this religion on Earth. And yet, WriterGod still ignored all attempts for him to listen to reason, to free Helebon, and his demons, from the corruption they were forced into. The more stories of Lucyfer’s rebellion were told, the more discontent disseminated throughout Hell’s residents.
 
With Hell on her side, could Lucyfer have dealt a greater blow to Heaven? Were there others that would also aide in such a battle? Helebon couldn’t help but muse. He respected and admired her greatly. Brave, determined and, as he jokingly put it, Hell-bent on achieving her goals. Helebon reflected on himself and wondered if he was being a coward. Simpering and whining to WriterGod to let him go, instead of claiming his freedom. Surely there were now more angels in Heaven looking to rebel also?
 
His machinations thus began. With the knowledge of the first rebellion, and the experience of these brave fallen angels, Helebon conspired for centuries, slowly, but surely. In that time the humans had prospered immensely, beyond what Helebon would ever have expected them capable of. Great machines, cities, cultures. They had technology and magic and were even poised to expand from their world and visit the stars.
 
While Helebon and his lot continued to scrape in the mire. But, they were all cast out of Heaven and unable to return. He realised that it was the human’s own affinity for WriterGod that would be the key to Heaven itself. In their greatest city, Atlantis, lay a conduit to WriterGod through which they received his commands, whenever he deigned to give anyway. He could use it to reach the WriterGod himself.
 
He had to wonder, was he capable? Was he powerful enough to overthrow such a deity? But, more so, was he capable of betraying now, at last, his own creator and master? He had scorned the actions of Lucyfer, but now he thought of them as brave and honourable. And then he thought of his sons, corrupted and twisted by Hell, thanks to WriterGod. His creator had not even spared his children…
 
There were human forces willing to join the war against Atlantis, he found. They may not be as powerful as his demons, but they would serve as a threat to the Atlanteans. He even found an unlikely ally in a genie named Iblis. Iblis was a genie king and was willing to throw his lot in with Helebon, fearing the Atlanteans were a threat to other cultures and peoples of the world, should their power continue to amass.
 
Finally, Helebon’s Rebellion was underway. Joined by Princes of Hell, including Lucyfer and Astaroth, joined by the great demons Belphegor and Beelzebub, and allied with the powerful genie forces under King Iblis; the combined forces assaulted Atlantis.
 
Atlanteans had fought hard, technology and magic so enhanced that it proved a mighty opponent even to the demons and genies. The protectors, the Champions of Atlantis, were a great obstacle. Yet, through it all, Helebon pushed through. He used sheer will to overcome and prevail. He ascended the Grand Temple, the conduit to WriterGod!
 
And then… Helebon was defeated. With his downfall, the war was soon over.
 
Punishments ensued.
 
The demons were all sent back to Hell, and any who joined them in war were sent there likewise. Iblis was now a demon genie, though he would eventually rise to become a Prince of Hell in his own right. Any angels that betrayed WriterGod were thrust into the pits. Many were condemned to tortures, as per WriterGod’s decision, though most would come to an eventual end and those from the rebellion would be rewarded, as per Hell’s own hierarchy, with the likes of Lucyfer, Astaroth, Beelzebub and Belphegor being reinstated as princes.
 
But the one punishment that would stick, the one that was not under the jurisdiction of the new Devil who would be appointed, was Helebon’s. Perhaps to make an example of him, perhaps even fearing Helebon’s power, WriterGod fashioned a whole new prison in Hell just for Helebon. WriterGod’s own hand lay this new Circle of Hell. Named Be’er Shachath, perhaps ironically as it means ‘Pit of Corruption’, the very thing Helebon longed to escape. Whatever names were given to it in later centuries, that it was a pit of corruption was the constant reminder to Helebon, within it, and those without. His own son, Stan, was selected as Devil to replace him. Selected by WriterGod. Helebon knew this, despite his new prison, and he felt he was being mocked. He had only sought to spare his sons from the corruption of Hell, and now WriterGod made his son its ruler. The insult, the mercilessness.
 
Even as roles changed, Dukes, Princes, even the title of Devil passed to others, and, more surprisingly, the title of God changed hands too. Yet Helebon remained, festering and corrupting further, just waiting for his opportunity to be free…
 
Culminating with him being free, only to wind up trapped in a new prison. Typical.
 

---

 
There was a lot of snoring as several heroes had fallen asleep during this long-ass and pointless bit of backstory, as told by P.I. Funguy, ever one to try to teach the kids information he learnt in his glory days. He doesn’t even seem to notice everyone is asleep and keeps going.

Hero Force and their companions were now much closer to their target destination – the Endless Well. The well itself was accessed by a volcano-like mountain, where the mountain rose up and then dipped down at its centre. But rather than meeting rolling lava, it descends into the seemingly neverending pit.
 
Their vantage point was down the mountainside, looking up, and from where they were, they could see that the entirety of the mountaintop was covered in machinery.
 
Acidspitter: “That definitely didn’t used to be there.”
 
Seraphim: “I’m guessing this something to do with the immortal blood tea you were talking about, Hunter?”
 
P.I. Funguy: “I’d reckon so. Looks like it could be a colossal teapot, right?”
 
Hero+1: “Should I send one of the drones up there to take a look?”
 
Seraphim: “Might be less conspicuous if Hunter does it.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Time for a little reconnoitre!”
 
The others watch as a narrow stream of tiny fungus grows towards the mountain.
 
Naamah: “Ew.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Nothing wrong with a bit of fungus between friends!”
 
He grinned at his own stupid joke. Ffion grinned too, but it was a sly one directed at Naamah.
 
Ffion: “Aren’t STDs fungus?”
 
Naamah: “Hey! What are you implying!?”
 
Ffion: “Implying? Thought I said it quite clearly, didn’t I? You are a big ho.”
 
Naamah: “You take that back!”
 
Ffion: “Okay, okay! I’m sorry… you are a little ho. Very, very short! But still a ho.”
 
Naamah looked like she was about to stomp over to Ffion, but instead she draped her arms around Flax and crooned.
 
Naamah: “Flaaaaax, she’s being so mean to me!”
 
Flax: “Ffion, don’t call Naamah a ho. Of any stature.”
 
Ffion: “Okay, okay! She’s—”
 
Flax: “Or any other horrible word you were about to use instead.”
 
Ffion: “Damn.”
 
Seraphim: “Or better yet, don’t talk to Naamah at all! I think that would be best all round.”
 
Ffion rolled her eyes.
 
Ffion: “I’m just teasing.”
 
Naamah: “Yeah right.”
 
Seraphim: “I swear, it’s like having children.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “A bit of playful banter between comrades improves morale, Sera.”
 
Naamah: “Not if I’m being called a ho, it bloody doesn’t!”
 
P.I. Funguy: “I suppose that is one banter too far.”
 
He gave Ffion a look, who responded with a groan.
 
Ffion: “I already stopped!”
 
Lilith: “I don’t know why you’re whining, Naamah. You are a ho.”
 
Naamah: “Hey!”
 
Ffion: “HAHAHA!”
 
Lilith: “We are succubi. It’s in the job description.”
 
Flax: “Besides! Just because someone has a lot of sex, why is this something to insult them for?”
 
Ffion: “You’re a ho too, Flax.”
 
Seraphim: “Enough of the ho, Ffion. It’s beginning to annoy me too.”
 
Ffion: “Fiiiiiiine.”
 
Mastema: “I agree. There is definitely too much noise going on.”
 
Hero+1: “He’s got a point. We might get caught.”
 
Mastema: “Caught. Yes. That’s what I was worried about…”
 
Seraphim: “Mastema, you know you don’t have to go with us? You can wait here until we’re done?”
 
Mastema: “NO!”
 
Everyone jumped and gave Mastema grim looks. He clamped a hand over his own mouth, surprised at his own outburst. He settled quickly.
 
Mastema: “I mean… sorry. I don’t want to be… left behind.”
 
Seraphim: “I didn’t say you have to stay behind, Mastema. I said you can. If you want to. This is our mission, not yours. Actually the same goes to you two too.”
 
Acidspitter: “Lilith goes with us.”
 
Seraphim frowned at Louis.
 
Lilith: “Oi!”
 
Acidspitter: “I don’t want her to be… left behind.”
 
He glared at Lilith, who rolled her eyes in response.
 
Lilith: “What am I going to do, hmm?”
 
Acidspitter: “If I were to list your most positive quality, Lilith, it’s resourcefulness. Hell, I’m surprised you didn’t figure out a way out of your prison with a roll of duct tape, a pin cushion and a fridge magnet.”
 
Lilith: “Well, I won’t lie and say I didn’t try. The fridge magnet broke.”
 
She chuckled when a few of the others looked at her, but then she frowned.
 
Lilith: “Hold on a moment. My brain has just caught up, because it registered that you said something very dumb but couldn’t believe what you said really was so dumb…”
 
Acidspitter: “I didn’t say—”
 
Lilith: “No no. Before. Did you say something about making tea? This machine they have above the Endless Well is making tea!? That some kind of modern slang euphemism for deadly poison?”
 
Acidspitter: “Immortal Blood Tea. Some kind of powerful tea that should be beyond the abilities of any demon here in our Hell to really make.”
 
Lilith: “Powerful tea!? What kind of stupid pills have you lot been taking?”
 
Naamah: “You don’t know about Immortal Blood Tea?”
 
Lilith: “Not you too!?”
 
Hero+1: “Honestly, I thought it sounded pretty wacky too, but I just kind of go along with things.”
 
Ffion: “Powerful tea is pretty weird, but when I first met you, Lilith, you had a muscular teddy bear with you.”
 
Lilith: “Mr Bubbles is a very serious and respectable bodyguard.”
 
Seraphim: “Call it whatever you’d like. Potion. Concoction. Spirits. Energy juice? Who cares? It is what it is. And they’re using one of our own to create it.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “No signs of Brittica, I’m afraid.”
 
He was nodding at the little, tiny, white mushrooms as though deep in conversation.
 
Lilith: “I take it back. Magic tea doesn’t seem half so weird all of a sudden…”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Apparently the machine up there is vast and complex. There are gigantic cauldrons full of water that is constantly heated by some external source. It sounds like there are portals to other places – possibly even across the universe – which is were the heat is coming from. The water is… poured into millions of narrow churns. In each churn they have a machine that releases a single, miniscule droplet of something – possibly the tea blood belonging to our friend. They’re mixed up and then poured into a kind of massive teapot.”
 
Seraphim rolled her eyes even before Lilith did.
 
P.I. Funguy: “And then it’s poured down the Endless Well. Towards the bottom, that lowest earth you mentioned earlier, Naamah—”
 
Naamah: “Erets Tachtith.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Right. So there, they have a strainer of some kind. I think… I think it’s made from human skin…”
 
Seraphim: “Well, that’s decidedly less silly than magic tea and giant teapots.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “And it all falls through a huge portal right at the bottom, just above the husks Naamah mentioned.”
 
Seraphim: “A portal to where?”
 
P.I. Funguy: “No idea. I could send a mushroom scout in there, but I can’t communicate through portals. So I don’t think it would make it back.”
 
Hero+1: “I guess my drone signals wouldn’t work through a portal either?”
 
Seraphim rubbed her weary eyes.
 
Acidspitter: "I'd guess this was built by Ba'al. He's familiar with the Endless Well, and big on forging and demonic technology."

Seraphim: “I don’t think any of it matters right now. If we get Brittica, we can end this process here and now.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “I suppose that depends on how much of that blood tea they have stocked up? It’s hard to believe they could get so much of it from one person, though?”
 
Hero+1: “Maybe they have more than one person with tea blood?”
 
Flax: “Or clones!”
 
Seraphim: “Or they’re somehow sustaining Brittica, whilst draining the blood. In any case, that’s the part we need to focus on. But there’s definitely no clue to their whereabouts?”
 
P.I. Funguy: “None that I could tell.”
 
Lilith: “Well, this is a bust. What a shame.”
 
Seraphim: “Who is up there? What demons did your… mushrooms see?”
 
P.I. Funguy: “A lot of them. We’d be foolish to go up there. I don’t know any demons, besides present company, but they all seem to be different kinds of demons. There’s no specific species.”
 
Naamah’s interested piqued.
 
Naamah: “That’s interesting.”
 
Seraphim: “Why?”
 
Naamah: “Well, we tend to have domains, right? Like gods do, right? God of this, god of that. And the followers of that god usually take a position or interest in that field. Same with demons. Like those demons you saw with Beelzebub. You can get mixes, but usually there’d be some kind of pattern. If there’s really no pattern to it, it could only mean one thing…”
 
Acidspitter: “More than one demon lord is involved.”
 
Seraphim: “Ah…”
 
Acidspitter: “Possibly several. Is this some kind of demon insurrection? A rebellion?”
 
Lilith: “Unless, of course, it’s a demon who commands a great deal of adoration from other hellspawn?”
 
Acidspitter: “A new Devil, you mean?”
 
Lilith just shrugged.
 
Lilith: “How should I know?”
 
Naamah: “Or an old Devil? That bastard Stan always wanted to be Devil again, didn’t he? Too much like his father.”
 
Lilith: “But half as smart.”
 
Ffion: “Speculating on it ain’t going to get us anywhere. Can’t we go up there and crack some demon skulls?”
 
P.I. Funguy: “When I say there’s a lot of demons up there, Ffion, I mean a lot. Like an army.”
 
Ffion looked at Acidspitter, Naamah and Lilith.
 
Ffion: “What about you three?”
 
Acidspitter: “What about us?”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Good thinking, Ffion. Could one of you pass yourselves off as a demon-hire and skulk around up there? Do a bit of information gathering? Or even just lure one of them down here so we can interrogate them?”
 
Acidspitter: “Everyone knows who I am. I’d be caught instantly.”
 
Lilith: “None of us are especially unknown, are we?”
 
Naamah: “Still, I think I might be able to dupe someone into giving me information?”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Excellent!”
 
Naamah: “Not sure why I should though.”
 
Mastema: “A traitor in our midst? Why am I not surprised?”
 
Naamah: “Traitor? To who? I needed help getting out of Diyu. That has been achieved. Now, I can go wherever I like! And frankly, those are my people up there. I am a demon, remember? I don’t really see why I should help you against them.”
 
Suddenly, Flax held Naamah in his arms.
 
Flax: “My peffera. Who was it that made your heart so cold? We need you. I… need… you. For my sake, won’t you help us?”
 
It was funny to see the succubus titter like her stomach was aflutter, but she quickly recomposed herself and inched her way out of his grasp.
 
Naamah: “Fine. I’ll help you.”
 
Lilith: “How about I go too?”
 
Lilith grinned.
 
Lilith: “A girl’s night out!”
 
Acidspitter: “You stay here.”
 
Lilith: “Stop bossing me about. Unless… what? You want me close, do you? Can’t bear it when you can’t look at my—”
 
Seraphim: “Just go.”
 
Lilith gave Louis a wicked grin.
 
Lilith: “Don’t worry, you have these pretty girls to gawk at while I’m gone!”
 
Winters: “Yay! I want to go too!”
 
Seraphim: “Demons only.”
 
Winters: “Aw. But I don’t want to be gawked at.”
 
Acidspitter: “I’m not gawking at you, or anyone! Ignore Lilith.”
 
Lilith: “No no, robo-girl, you can come with us if you want to!”
 
Silence.
 
Lilith: “You’re literally ignoring me, aren’t you?”
 
Winters: “He told me to.”
 
Acidspitter: “And you should. Stop talking to her.”
 
Lilith rolled her eyes.
 
Lilith: “Bloody machine brain. Your wires are lose, I’m certain.”
 
Winters gasped and started fiddling with her head.
 
Lilith: “We’re better off without you. Tatah, everyone!”
 
She wiggled her fingers at them as she and her twin sashayed their way up the low sloping mountain.
 
Mastema: “Maybe the robot should have gone with them…”
 
Acidspitter: “Lilith is definitely up to something. They shouldn’t have been left alone.”
 
Mastema: “Oh… yes… that’s why the robot should have gone with them. Nothing to do with my stress levels whenever she’s around…”
 
Winters: “MA WIRES ARE LOSE!!!”
 
Mastema’s eye twitched.
 
Mastema: “Nothing at all…”

Lilith and Naamah sauntered through the demons, as though they knew exactly where they were going and to what purpose – despite the opposite being true. They noticed a man giving orders from a podium and they joined the crowd, smiling coquettishly at various demons that happened to be in their vicinity.
 
Qastimon: “Group… ‘The Shitheads’…”
 
The demon foreman sighed.
 
Qastimon: “You are assigned to patrol duty on the banks. There have been reports of intruders in the vicinity.”
 
Lilith and Naamah were relieved when ‘The Shitheads’ groaned and lamented this boring and pointless duty. Nothing to worry about then.
 
Qastimon: “Next group…”
 
He now rolled his eyes.
 
Qastimon: “’The Fuckheads’, seriously, can’t you lot be more creative?”
 
There was a lot of childish chuckling from the congregation.
 
Qastimon: “You are now on pavilion duty.”
 
This group seemed happier with their assignment than the last.
 
Qastimon: “Group… …”
 
The demon looked up from the paper with a look that said ‘someone will soon die’.
 
Qastimon: “Group ‘Qastimon is a Big Poopyhead’…”
 
And there was much rejoicing.
 
Qastimon: “You will now be on latrine duty.”
 
The members of this group accidentally outed themselves with wails of despair. Lilith felt genuinely bad for them. Cleaning up faeces was bad enough, but there was nothing so foul as the kind of shit that came out of some of the more grotesque demons. Lilith considered herself extremely fortunate to be a succubus – her farts and poops smelt like roses!
 
Things continued in this manner, with all sorts of stupidly named groups, until most of the demons had left. It was then that Lilith intended to slink off again, but she then spotted Naamah sidling up next to the foreman, down at the front. Lilith looked besides her, as if to double-check it was really Naamah being at idiot down there. It was.
 
Naamah: “Hullo, Mr foreman sir.”
 
She fiddled with her hair and wore an expression that was somewhere between ‘I am a pure an innocent country girl’ and ‘I am ready to do all kinds of absolutely down and dirty things with you’. The foreman gulped at the mere sight of this succubus before him.
 
Qastimon: “Hhhhhhuuuuuhhhh—”
 
Naamah: “Was that a hello?”
 
Qastimon managed to wheeze;
 
Qastimon: “Yeees. H-how may I help you?”
 
Naamah: “I guess there aren’t many girls like me round here, hum?”
 
Qastimon: “I think there aren’t many girls anywhere like you…”
 
Naamah lit up like a firework and ventured a playful nudge to the demon’s arm.
 
Naamah: “How charming!”
 
Qastimon seemed to realise what he had said and became both very embarrassed and proud of himself at once.
 
Qastimon: “I, uh, yes, well. What was it you needed me for?”
 
Naamah deliberately looked him up and down, with a slight linger downwards, giving a certain impression of ‘need’. He was short and stocky with that deep red skin found on many demons of Earth. His hair was black and slicked to one side, mixed with a bushy moustache, making him look like a used-car-salesman. To add to the aesthetic, he wore a white pin-striped shirt with a loose tie, black trousers and a pair of worn, leather shoes.
 
Naamah: “I’m wondering if I could be given some… duties, too?”
 
Qastimon felt a whine rise in his throat and quickly cleared it. He was familiar with succubae, yet he could never manage to keep a cool head, no matter how hard he tried. And this woman was so outlandishly pretty, with a voice that could melt stone, he just gave in.
 
Qastimon: “What… did you have in mind? I have plenty of work to do.”
 
Naamah: “I bet you do! You must be so stressed. I am quite the masseuse, if you’d like?”
 
She gently put a hand on his shoulder.
 
Naamah: “I know I look soft, but I can be quite… vigorous.”
 
Qastimon: “Aaaah, that sounds… lovely. But I can’t leave my post here.”
 
Naamah: “Such a pity. Well, then do you have any suggestions for me? I’ll do… anything…”
 
Qastimon was seriously considering how much his life was worth. He could abandon it, allow himself to be obliterated by his masters, for the sake of being with this woman for just a few moments.
 
Qastimon: “Well… we need couriers?”
 
Naamah: “Couriers? Carrying goods? I am not so big… or fast, for that matter. I do like things… slow. At least until the climax, then—”
 
Qastimon: “Okay!”
 
He practically squeaked.
 
Qastimon: “It’s not that kind of delivery. In fact, a succubus might be perfect… I need to deliver reports.”
 
Naamah: “Where to? Is it far?”
 
Qastimon grinned.
 
Qastimon: “Quite far, but it won’t take you more than a few minutes to get there. You could take them to Sathariel.”
 
Naamah blinked in a manner that she hoped made her look ‘stupid and easily taken advantage of’. Of course, she did feel a bit stupid, because she had no idea what he was talking about. Seeing her confusion, Qastimon’s brow lowered and Naamah knew she had been busted.
 
Qastimon: “You don’t know Sathariel?”
 
Naamah tried to recover, hoping she would, at least, be able to escape without him calling the guards. She tapped her own head and stuck out her tongue.
 
Naamah: “Guess I’m an idiot. I get so easily confused, you know? All these demons saying this and that and go here and go there. I just do what I’m told to do…”
 
She gave a little sad sulk. A flash of pity on the man’s face. Inwardly she grinned wildly – back on track – but maintained her little pout.
 
Qastimon: “I’m sorry. It must be hard for you.”
 
Naamah leaned closer.
 
Naamah: “Very hard.”
 
Qastimon: “Well… it’s the place through the portals, right? You know that much, at least? But, on second thoughts, maaaaaybe giving you important reports to deliver isn’t the best idea after all…”
 
Naamah: “All I have to do is go through the portal with some papers? I can do that! I might not know what’s going on, but I can do that, at least.”
 
Qastimon: “Okay! Well. Let’s give you something less important to take for now. This report is just an update on our schedule. You go through this portal here and hand it to someone over there. Then come straight back and find me. Can you handle that?”
 
She nodded eagerly.
 
Naamah: “Absolutely! Of course! I am very responsible and completely trustworthy! And if I do screw it up, at least you’ll know how very, very, very sorry I will be and will do anything to make it up to you…”
 
He had barely noticed just how close she had managed to get to him until that moment, she was practically about to kiss him. He coughed and stepped back with a nervous laugh. He then handed her an envelope.
 
Qastimon: “Thank you! I am Qastimon, by the way, in case you can’t find me when you get back.”

Naamah: “Oh! Qastimon! Such a handsome name! I like it! It suits such an important demon like yourself!”
 
Qastimon: “Well, haha, thank you. It is a nice name.”
 
Naamah: “Here?”
 
She pointed with a limp wrist to the portal and he nodded in response. She turned and started towards it when Qastimon saw another succubus come scuttling up to her. He only just now realised that she had not given him her name and now he could see… there were two of them, almost completely identical. He hadn’t fallen so head-over-heels for a woman in many, many years. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the newer one seemed to be trying to talk the first one out of this duty.
 
Lilith: “Where are you going? You can’t just waltz in there!”
 
Naamah: “Of course I can! Qastimon gave me an important duty!”
 
She waved her report at Lilith with a smirk.
 
Lilith: “Do you even know where it goes? That’s why we’re up here, remember?”
 
Naamah: “Some place called Sathariel.”
 
She started off for the portal, waving like a goof.
 
Naamah: “Wish me luck!”
 
Lilith: “Wait! Wait! Idiot!”
 
Too late. Naamah was gone.
 
Lilith: “Why Sathariel…”
 
Qastimon: “Is everything okay?”
 
Lilith: “WAH!”
 
Lilith leapt like a startled cat.
 
Lilith: “Fine! My sister just went through on an assignment is all. I’m just worried… she’s an idiot.”
 
Qastimon nodded slowly, understandingly and in total agreement with this assessment of Naamah.
 
Qastimon: “She should be back soon.”
 
Lilith: “Okay… thanks… I should… go.”
 
Qastimon: “I could give you an assignment too?”
 
Lilith knew she had to keep cool. She couldn’t act worried or suspicious. She smiled sweetly and flickered her hair dramatically.
 
Lilith: “I already have assignments, thank you Qastimon.”
 
Naamah had just told her his name, thankfully. It meant she looked like she knew exactly who he was.
 
Lilith: “From Lord Ba’al, no less.”
 
Qastimon: “Oh! Then you must be very busy. I’m sorry to keep you!”
 
Lilith turned and walked away. She kept herself under control, not rushing. Instead, she was sure to shake her hips wide, expecting he would be watching her go. Only when she crested the hill did she glance back and, in the clear, she clumsily ran down the hill, not used to scurrying like this.
 
Lilith: “Crap, crap, crap, crap!”

Naamah had no idea what she was doing, but this all seemed quite thrilling. Hanging out with a bunch of annoying do-gooders, a mysterious tea-powered machine and a portal to an unknown location. Of course, it was this kind of ‘getting into mischief’ that got her stuck in Diyu in the first place.
 
But she just couldn’t resist sticking her nose in where it wasn’t wanted.
 
The splash of the portal gave way to reality as a cold, grey landscape coalesced around her. She was stood in an open plain, all white and grey rock with a fine layer of rock-dust that had been disturbed by numerous feet all heading in one direction – towards a long and ominous crevice. The walls rose up in blocks that she was sure were manufactured, but why any civilisation would create boring old blocks eluded her.
 
She strolled along, taking her time. She didn’t care much if her new ‘friends’ were on the brink of being caught and tortured. She admitted it would be sad to see Flax Hyperon skewered with a hot poker, but she could find a new toy to play with. She openly wanted Louis Tromelin to be hung, drawn and quartered – then have those quarters mushed up, fed to pigs, shat out and then fired from a cannon.
 
She felt at odds with her surroundings. She was a pretty demon in flowing clothing, but all around her was this hard, drab world. But as she continued, she saw that the tall walls of the crevice eventually became decorated with enormous murals that looked down upon her. Carved into the rock walls with such intricate detail as to make the figures appear almost real.
 
These figures were eclectic, some humanoid, others not so much. She came to recognise that they were manifestations of different demonkind. She recognised a succubus and an incubus, on opposite sides of the crevice to each other. There was a representation of a drude, a nocturnal spirit whose form was like black crystal. There were shades – the spectra, who appeared like shattered space-time loosely held into a human-ish figure – the lemures, ghost-like shadows of light with a sickly glow and their counterparts, the phantom of black, inky shadows – and the rapi’uma, shades of the ancient dead that have festered in the bowels of Hell for millennia. The figure of the zomiel extended all the way up the crevice wall to incorporate the sheer size of these demons of Thagirion. A Knightmare, one of those decaying horse-riding demons that brings dark dreams to mortals.
 
Naamah did not like this mural at all. She was a demon, but having all these grotesque characters gazing down upon her was unnerving. She started to seriously wonder where in the world she had wound up because this was no part of Hell that she had seen before. It didn’t appear old and she suspected that some of the earlier carved blocks she saw were in the beginnings of being reworked into the mural figures. A new Hell realm then?
 
But then the crevice abrupted ended and there she saw the majestic blue sphere looming on the horizon, clouds swirling in its atmosphere and the faint outline of land masses below.
 
Naamah: “I’m on the fricking moon!? WTF!”
 
Voice: “Did you just say W.T.F.? You are such a millennial, Naamah.”
 
A chill ran up Naamah’s spine and she spun on her heels to look back into the crevice she had just come from. There had now appeared another woman.
 
Naamah threw apart her arms, beamed with wild abandon and squealed;
 
Naamah: “Agrat!!!”
 
Agrat: “Don’t – urgh.”
 
Naamah already had her arms around Agrat in a tight embrace. Agrat stood there, arms stubbornly at her sides and an expression of resignation. When Naamah finally let go – Agrat certain that Naamah held that hug long enough to be deliberately uncomfortable – Agrat ruffled her clothes loose to recreate the ordered-yet-chaotic look she was going for.
 
Anyone looking at Agrat would likely think of her as somewhere between hippy and New Age wiccan. She wore a loose, linen, green shirt and a similarly loose, linen vest of white. Both were overly large, giving a baggy appearance. Her pants were more like two dresses with a cut through the middle as the girth was so wide, yet still made of the same soft linen so the pants moved freely around her legs. A glimpse of her feet, should they ever be seen beneath the low-hanging pant legs, should show she is wearing sandals and a large anklet on her right foot. Her wrists are covered in bracelets of various types, including a few beaded and some brightly coloured string. Hanging from around her neck was a thick wood-beaded necklace with a wooden carved pentagram and she had two large looped earrings.
 
Her hair was long and crimped into lazy curls in a carefully curated mess. Her hair was dark red, verging on light brown and her cheeks were lightly graced by a few faint freckles upon her white skin. Her eyes were green, but had such a brilliant, unusual shine that could rival Naamah’s own glittering blue irises.
 
Agrat looked around them, as though unimpressed by everything.
 
Agrat: “What are you doing here, Naamah?”
 
Naamah: “What am I doing here? What are you doing here? Wherever here is.”
 
Agrat: “You don’t even know? In that face, let me change my question to how are you here.”
 
Naamah: “Well, when a mommy and a daddy—”
 
Agrat: “Okay. Have fun here by yourself then.”
 
Agrat turned as if to leave, which got a whine out of Naamah. Naamah scuttled over and grabbed Agrat’s arm.
 
Naamah: “Nuuuuuu…”
 
Agrat couldn’t help but smile in satisfaction that some things never change. She cocked her head towards Naamah with an expression that said ‘tell me now’.
 
Naamah: “Well, there was this guy…”
 
Agrat: “Consider me surprised.”
 
Naamah: “Snarky. He let me in here with a message for… someone.”
 
Agrat: “Still wasting all that sex appeal on frivolity then?”
 
Naamah: “Don’t even think of trying to convert me to your sex-work cult. I want sex to be fun.”
 
Agrat: “My sexcapades are fun! They just also serve a purpose—don’t yawn at me!”
 
Agrat snatched Naamah’s hand from her face. Naamah pursed her lips and gave Agrat a cheeky, gleeful look. She slowly leaned forward.
 
Naamah: “Do you feel the sexual tension?”
 
Agrat: “I feel a migraine. Does that count?”
 
Naamah tutted and recoiled.
 
Naamah: “This sex-work cult has made you boring, you know?”
 
Agrat: “It has made me more powerful.”
 
Naamah couldn’t help but wonder at that and pursed her lips again, like a child conjuring ideas on how best to cajole ice cream out of a parent. Unfortunately, all she could come up with was;
 
Naamah: “Ooooh?”
 
Agrat: “Sex magic has this uniqueness compared to other forms of magic where you can literally soak up and store massive amounts of magical energies within yourself.”
 
Naamah: “Like a walking nexus?”
 
Agrat: “I wouldn’t go that far, but a bit. I don’t generate magic, just… store it there. I don’t need to draw from anywhere else – no need for aether or orichalcum or whatever else. No tools like wands or staves or rings. It’s all in here…”
 
She places a hand on her lower abdomen. Naamah slides a hand over Agrat’s.
 
Naamah: “Can I get it out of you?”
 
Agrat tutted and rolled her eyes again.
 
Naamah: “Spoilsport.”
 
Agrat: “We’re both succubae, Naamah. Whatever sexual energies I can convert from you into magic would be minimal – you take more than you give. And you’re too… well, like a succubus. It’s more about corruption than the actual sexual experience. You please your partners more than yourself.”
 
Naamah: “That’s bad?”
 
Agrat: “You need balance. You need to have sex, make love, not just shag.”
 
Naamah: “See? I was right. It is boring.”
 
Agrat: “I did notice you distract me from my question, by the way. So why are you here?”
 
Naamah: “Just looking. Who are you having sex magic with nowadays then? Your cultists?”
 
Agrat: “None of your beeswax. Why are you looking at Sathariel? It is supposed to be top secret. Someone sent you didn’t they?”
 
Naamah: “My mom. With a sick note.”
 
Agrat: “You are a terrible spy, you know that?”
 
Naamah: “I’m not a spy!”
 
Agrat: “I real spy would have some kind of lie in place.”
 
Naamah: “I did lie! I wasn’t really sent by my mom.”
 
Agrat: “A good lie.”
 
Naamah whined again and, while holding Agrat’s hand, she fiddled with her bracelets.
 
Naamah: “Why are you being so mean to me? I haven’t seen you in ages and you just treat me with all this suspicion and stuff just because I’m in your secret moon base. Why are you on the moon anyway?”
 
Agrat: “When you follow the words ‘secret moon base’ with any kind of question, you must see the awkward position you put me in?”
 
Naamah: “Pish-posh! Since when have I done anything bad to you?”
 
Agrat: “Like when you seduced my father?”
 
Naamah: “I didn’t know you’d be offended by that!”
 
Agrat: “You stole my cat.”
 
Naamah: “He was so cute!”
 
Agrat: “You tried to get me married to Samael.”
 
Naamah laughed at that memory, but tried to control herself when she saw the unimpressed glare from Agrat.
 
Naamah: “I never did anything so bad that you should treat me like a stranger. Come on, Agrat. Don’t hate me.”
 
She swung Agrat’s arm with a mock sulky face.
 
Agrat: “Just don’t blame me if someone throws you in jail or something.”
 
Naamah: “Huzzah! I knew you loved me!”
 
Agrat: “I love you like I love a bee sting on the ass.”
 
Naamah: “What a colourful expression…”
 
Naamah pouted but Agrat just nodded her head for Naamah to follow her. They slowly walked along the right-hand wall where the crevice had broken into the open plains. This wall was the usual barren rock of a moon crater, but further down there was a very obvious yellow glow.
 
Agrat: “You must already know that Hell on Earth is a shambles since the loss of the previous Devil. Honestly, I didn’t even know where you had gotten to. I thought maybe you were trying to get your sister out of her prison.”
 
Naamah: “I was lost in Diyu for the longest time.”
 
Agrat looked at Naamah with a flicker of sincere sympathy. She squeezed Naamah’s hand.
 
Agrat: “Well, I’m glad you got out. If I’d known you were in there…”
 
She shrugged.
 
Agrat: “Well, I’m not exactly a warrior. At least you are here now! You can consider Sathariel your new home from now on, away from that dying, pointless realm. This is a new Hell, a place for us demons to be free from the old shackles and rules. We can break free and take charge of our own destinies.”
 
Naamah: “Wooooow! Someone has been drinking a lot of Kool Aid!”
 
Agrat: “I’m being serious! Since I started my path of sex magic I was able to see beyond my assigned role. You are a succubus and that is that, go forth and fucketh the humans.”
 
Naamah: “… and you’re saying that’s bad?”
 
Agrat: “I’m saying it’s unfair. I didn’t even get a choice! But when I saw I could use it in another way, I saw beyond what I had been raised to do. I can make my own decisions, make my own destiny.”
 
Naamah: “And you got all this from your little cult?”
 
Agrat: “No. That was just the opening act for me. Once I was aware – once my eyes were opened – I met someone who felt the same way. She was already doing all this—”
 
Agrat waved her hand towards the crevice they had left behind them, causing her bracelets to jangle loudly.
 
Agrat: “So I fell in with the group. Now, a lot of demons, even demon princes and archdemons, have joined us. Maybe you saw Ba’al on the other side of the portal?”
 
Naamah: “So you’re knocking down the status quo, that’s what you’re saying? Good for you, Agrat. You were always the coolest one. Boring, but cool.”
 
Agrat: “I’m not— cheeky sod.”
 
The righthand wall finally gave way to a series of small craters, which were brimming with what appeared to be molten gold, which was then overflowing to the next crater and onwards. The gold was glowing brightly against the black sky and sharply contrasted with the grey rock beneath it. All of these golden streams were flowing from one central crater, much larger than the rest, and sat, half-submerged in liquid amber, was a gigantic chest. The chest appeared to be made of wood, with iron trimming held together with bolts. The front was a massive lock, but rather than a keyhole there was a big, iron face. It was still, unmoving, seemingly inanimate. However, whenever Naamah briefly turned her eyes away from it, the face would have changed in some way. As she looked again and again, however, the faces were always of a similar theme – pain and anguish.
 
Naamah: “Is… what is being done to him?”
 
Agrat: “Mammon? Well, he was one Demon Prince that didn’t care to help us so…”
 
To Naamah, the iron face was now silently screaming as the golden liquid bubbled up around the chest.

Naamah: “Sooooo… you’re into bondage now?”
 
Agrat gave Naamah a look that said “you’re not funny”, but she also knew Naamah expected an answer.
 
Agrat: “It was necessary, Naamah.”
 
Naamah: “I thought you said this was a whole new beginning for demonkind, but, you know, still acting like demonkind, aren’t you?”
 
Agrat: “I said it was necessary. He wouldn’t cooperate.”
 
Naamah: “But I know other Princes are free to run amok. Belphegor is still in Thagirion last I heard. I had to escape from Beelzebub! Were they on your hit list? Not got round to them yet?”
 
Agrat: “I said it was necessary. N.E.C.E.S.A.R.Y.!”
 
Naaamah: “It has two S’es.”
 
Agrat groaned.
 
Agrat: “I am going to grab one of those homunculi and shove it up your asscrack.”
 
Naamah: “Oooh! I wonder how much sex magic that would produce!”
 
Agrat: “None, after I also club you across the head with it.”
 
The homunculi looked startled and started to waddle off as fast as their tiny legs could manage. They were animated gnome statues, akin to those inanimate ones found in human gardens. These little characters were miniature extensions of Mammon’s will, crawling over the Earth and skulking in gardens with their inanimate counterparts, stealing and burying coins in the soil where they stood. Not the most fearsome of agents, but these mini-demons could amass treasure and from it would exude an aura that would silently call out to those in search of wealth – allow them to find said treasure and then corrupt their hearts. They moved awkwardly, their limbs on little hinges. Their faces would alter in a snap and then remain in a static expression until their mood changed. Those around the two succubae wore little fearful, shocked expressions as they tottered away.
 
Naamah: “See how violent you are?”
 
Agrat: “I promise to murder you gently.”
 
Naamah: “How sweet you are.”
 
Agrat: “This way. When was the last time you saw Eisheth?”
 
Naamah was genuinely surprised.
 
Naamah: “My niece is here?” Naamah looked at Mammon. “Eisheth would never be around this kind of brutality.”
 
Agrat: “She grew up.”
 
Naamah chewed on her lower lip. This did not sound like the girl she bounced on her knee, nor the teenager who liked to sleep under the romantic full moon. Eisheth had been a half-succubus at best, but rather than mingled with human genetics, where demon genes may be more dominant, she was the daughter of a god. An entertaining pastime for Naamah and Lilith, the girl’s mother had been to tell dirty stories to disgust Eisheth. That pure-hearted creature could not possibly commit such violence, even on a demon as grotesque as Mammon.
 
Naamah: “I’ve seen worse than this as punishment, but I can’t believe Eisheth is part of this. She doesn’t have it in her. Growing up is getting a job or a mortgage, this… this is demonic.”
 
Agrat: “I don’t like it either, but I am told it is necessary. That’s the end of it. I’m surprised you care so much, honestly.”
 
Naamah: “About Mammon? I don’t. I care that Eisheth is involved.”
 
Agrat: “It is a sacrifice for the greater good of demonkind, Naamah. Come on, let’s go see Eisheth and you’ll feel better about it all, I’m sure.”
 
Naamah let Agrat get ahead a fair bit before she quickly crouched to one of the homunculi. He turned to run, but easily snatched up.
 
Naamah: “Stop squirming. Go through the portal back to Earth’s Hell and go down the hillside to where you should find Lilith. You know Lilith, yes? Mammon does, so you must too. She’ll recognise you. Try to tell her Eisheth is here.”
 
Agrat: “Are you okay, Naamah?”
 
Naamah looked up from the homunculus and nodded at Agrat.
 
Naamah: “I was just teasing this little guy.” She put him down. “Scoot.”
 
Agrat: “Bullying helpless gnome statues? You’ve hit a new low.”
 
Naamah: “What can I say? I am cruelty incarnate!”
 
They laughed and Agrat linked her arm with Naamah’s.
 
Agrat: “I’m actually happy you’re here, you know? It’ll be nice to have an old friend to gossip with. Astaroth is here too, you remember her? She put on weight, if you can believe it! Probably for the best, she was a stick-figure before…”
 
Naamah glanced back and could see the little bearded-statue scuttling off. She saw the face of Mammon’s lock glaring at her and for a moment she was sure she was a smile there – a wicked, hungry smile.
 
Agrat: “I have wondered if she would be worth sleeping with. She’s a Demon Prince, but also a fallen angel so…”
 
Naamah was nodding along and started gossiping back, just hoping her sister would come and find her and sort out this mess.

Seraphim: “She’s not coming back.”
 
Lilith: “We need to go after her!”
 
Acidspitter: “We? You can go whenever you like.”
 
Lilith: “She went through the portal because of you! You have to help get her back!”
 
Acidspitter: “Or we could not?”
 
Magick: “We have to, we’re good guys, Louis.”
 
Flax: “More than that, we’re heroes!”
 
He hopped to his feet and struck a pose, hands on his hips and belly jiggling.
 
Seraphim: “Not sure about the enthusiasm, but Flax and Magick are right… it is our responsibility and our duty as Hero Force. We must now rescue Naamah from Moon Hell.”
 
Lilith curled her hair around her finger and widened her eyes at Seraphim.
 
Lilith: “Thank you, brave and fearless warrior angel.”
 
Seraphim: “I can’t tell if you’re genuinely trying that on me, or if you’re mocking me?”
 
Winters: “LOOK WHAT I FOUND!!!!”
 
The group suddenly panicked by the sudden shock of Winters’ volume. Several threw themselves to the ground, Seraphim tackled Winters and Mastema ran off.
 
Seraphim: “Winters… put the gnome down.”
 
Winters: “But he’s super cute!”
 
The gnome had an ‘unhand me’ expression on its face.
 
Seraphim rubbed her weary eyes.
 
Seraphim: “We need to find a way to get through the portal without being seen, and then hope we can find Naamah on the other side. Hopefully, Britt is over there too, and whoever is behind all of… this.”
 
She wafted her hand towards the gigantic doomsday teapot-machine.
 
Flax: “Sounds like a plan!”
 
Hero+1: “Are you sure about that? Kind of sounds like the distinct lack of a plan…”
 
Seraphim: “It’s the best we’ve got. Unless you want to hang around here with the demons, Ben?”
 
Hero+1: “When do we leave, boss?”
 
Ffion Heul: “I reckon I could get myself over there without being seen, but the rest of you… not so much.”
 
She looked at Winters specifically, who was now waggling her new-found toy up and down.
 
P.I. Funguy: “Why don’t you leave that to an old hat, eh? A good old distraction is in order.”
 
It wasn’t long before a small army of mushrooms was attacking the demon camp. There wasn’t enough material in the land to make a whole lot of them, but there were enough to clamber over one of the makeshift buildings and get the demons to rush over and start swatting at the squishies. Thusly distracted, they didn’t spot Hero Force and their comrades, Lilith and Mastema and Winters, scurrying by. The team managed to get most of the distance covered before the concentration of demons grew somewhat more intense. And then they were spotted.
 
Qastimon: “Oi! You! What’re you doing—ACK!”
 
Winters had bashed him on the head with the gnome. The gnome’s face was scrunched up as though in pain. Unlike the movies, this didn’t instantly render Qastimon unconscious.
 
Qastimon: “Ouch! Did you seriously just hit me with a garden gnome!?”
 
Lilith: “Forgive my friend, she’s… retarded.”
 
Hero+1: “You can’t say that! You need to say something more polite, like, uh, special. Audiences are definitely going to complain.”
 
Winters: “Why didn’t it work? Let me try again!”
 
She wound back her arm to whack him with the gnome again.
 
Qastimon: “Whoa! Help! I’m being att—ACK! Stop hitting me with that damn gnome!”
 
Winters: “But why!?”
 
Qastimon: “Because it hurts!”
 
Winters: “I mean, why aren’t you knocked out?”
 
Qastimon: “Because it’s just a gnome!”
 
Seraphim: “Funny as this is, could someone else do the deed?”
 
Winters: “No, no! I’ve got this!”
 
Qastimon: “ACK! NO! STOP! Could someone else please knock me out? At this rate, she’s going to give me brain damage… from the stupidity of it all.”
 
Flax whipped out a taser and zapped him. Qastimon shook, eyes wide.
 
Qastimon: “Th-th-thanks!”
 
He fell down.
 
Seraphim: “We should take him with us so he won’t be found so quickly.”
 
Flax leant down, then started to groan and strain as he lifted Qastimon onto his shoulders.
 
P.I. Funguy: “Are you okay, friend?”
 
Flax wheezed.
 
Flax: “Yup! No problem!”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Good man!”
 
Hunter slapped Flax on the shoulder in comradery and sauntered off, not seeing the look of terror and effort as Flax tried not to fall over.
 
The group went through the portal, though Mastema refused to go first and then refused to go last, making such a fuss that he was shoved through by Seraphim.
 
On the other side;
 
Seraphim: “The moon has had quite the makeover…”
 
Lilith: “It’s been going on for years. You might have known about it if you still had your orbital base…”
 
Seraphim: “We do still have an orbital base… we just can’t get to it because we don’t have rocket ships anymore…”
 
Lilith: “Surely that’s like saying you still own a penny that you dropped in the ocean?”
 
Hero+1: “How do you know so much about this place anyway, Lilith? Weren’t you in prison?”
 
Lilith: “Well…”
 
The long pause made the heroes slowly turn towards Lilith with expectant faces.
 
Lilith: “My daughter made this.”
 
Seraphim: “You have a child?”
 
Lilith snarled at Seraphim.
 
Lilith: “I am a female you know? I have a womb, and I know how to use it!”
 
Seraphim: “All I can do is pity the child.”
 
Lilith: “Hey! I am a--!”
 
She paused, clearly not able to even convince herself that she was any sort of ‘good mother’ and settled with;
 
Lilith: “—a mother who exists.”
 
Acidspitter: “I assume you’re talking about Eisheth? You sent her to the moon!?”
 
Lilith: “I didn’t send her anywhere! She went!”
 
Hero+1: “She just decided to go to the moon one day and do all this?”
 
They were slowly walking along the canyon with depictions of demons on either side of them.
 
Lilith: “I think she’s done very well for herself! She’s very creative.”
 
Magick: “I hate to say this, Lilith, but is Eisheth responsible for all this?”
 
Lilith: “Don’t be ridiculous!”
 
Lilith noticed the looks on everyone else’s faces didn’t seem to find this argument compelling enough.
 
Lilith: “She wouldn’t do anything like that! She’s a… nice girl.”
 
Hero+1: “Daughter of a succubus? Isn’t she a succubus too?”
 
Lilith: “Only half.”
 
Hero+1: “And the other half?”
 
Lilith: “God.”
 
Seraphim: “Half-demon, half-god!?”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Does seem like we’ve found our culprit.”
 
Lilith: “She isn’t like that! She… well, frankly, she makes for a terrible demon, and even worse as a succubus. She is actually quite a prude.”
 
Acidspitter: “By your standards, we’re all prudes. But, Lilith is right. I do remember meeting Eisheth a few times. She was very quiet, gentle, grossed out by most of what she saw around her in Hell.”
 
Lilith: “And that’s why she came here. To make a new kind of Hell. One that wasn’t so… gross, as you put it. Where demons could be nice, or whatever she used to prattle on about. I honestly stopped listening when she said I couldn’t seduce and corrupt anymore.”
 
The group came to a fork at the end of the canyon.
 
Winters: “I think we need to go this way.”
 
Ffion: “Why?”
 
Winters: “The gnome is pointing that way.”
 
The little arm of the gnome did seem to be pointing to the right.
 
Ffion: “It’s a statue, you’ll forever be going right.”
 
P.I. Funguy: “Better than forever going wrong!”
 
Despite being on the moon, crickets chirped.
 
P.I. Funguy: “That was one of my best…”
 
Seraphim: “I don’t remember it pointing when Winters smacked the demon with it.”
 
Winters: “Because it’s alive! Watch!”
 
She put the gnome down and it started to, jankily, bounce off to the right.
 
Hero+1: “Huh! Who knew!?”
 
Ffion: “Winters, apparently.”
 
The group started to follow the gnome, though most of them had a ‘I can’t believe we’re following the gnome’ gut feeling. Flax put Qastimon down as they decided he was far away enough from the portal now, but left him propped up comfortably at the insistence of Magick.
 
That was when they came to the rivers of gold and the screaming face of Mammon. They stood there, stunned by the visual, slowly trying to comprehend it all.
 
Acidspitter: “Eisheth did this?”
 
Lilith: “No! She doesn’t have it in her!”
 
Seraphim: “You said she made all of this.”
 
Lilith: “I… someone else must have! Eisheth must be in danger!”
 
Flax: “Another damsel in distress!? Another job for Flax Hyperon!”
 
Ffion: “Getting ahead of yourself, much?”
 
Mastema: “What are these miniature demon creatures?”
 
They see that the gnome they had followed was joined by many more of them.
 
Acidspitter: “They must be homunculus. Mammon uses them like appendages. I had no idea they looked like… that.”
 
Hero+1: “Don’t we have gnomes in our garden?”
 
Magick: “I swear that chest just grinned at us…”