Infernal Investigations

I moved cautiously into the smoke, keeping a wary eye about. I could see the large figure of the Queen of Masks moving through the smoke. Also moving about were the many smaller figures of the forming diabolical creations from the magic being thrown about. Case in point, as I stumbled across an imp forming out of a mug, spindly limbs pulling its half-formed body across the ground. I quickly smashed its head in with my hood.

I kept to the outskirts for now, away from that. The Imp was probably going to win in the long run, was my bet. The Queen worked best in open areas, with room to maneuver and weave illusions, whereas while it was a large inn, the Hells' Own was far too small for that tactic. She was at risk of being overwhelmed.

Case in point, as a gust of wind sent me to the ground, conjured wind blasted around the room, sending everything that could be used to make more smaller creations flying. The hells? I hadn't been able to do this when this thing had latched onto my brain.

The smoke was clearing now, thinning out as the winds forced the lesser creations away, smashing into the walls where they shattered or were consumed in Hellfire. Enough that I could see the fight clearly.

Parts of the walls were still burning, tarry black flames sticking to the marble and slowly melting it. The things that dripped off of it wriggled about, struggling to form into something capable of movement before getting pierced by spears of marble burned black by diabolic corruption.

"Boring/Dull/Incapable, parasite!" The Queen of Masks cackled, hellfire catching another spear of marble with a ball of hellfire. The tarry flame devoured it before it could even reach her, and she was keeping the host of marble statues, spears, and other weapons at bay with the bone sabers, slicing through stone like paper. She saluted a large face of marble, the Imp's visage

"Can you not even pose/be a challenge/difficulty?"

Arrogance, and I could see what her downfall would be in response to that statement. All I needed to do was look up, to that roiling roof of water, and the tendrils of inky blackness stabbing into it. The Queen of Masks cackled, and then vast tendrils of water shot down, far too many to count. I saw surprise on her face for a second before she was pulled up into the inky depths. I got to my face, cautiously creeping closer to where she had been.

"Do you think that will actually hold her?" I asked, and the stone face on the wall turned my way, sculpted stone shifting to an irritated expression.

I expect her to have more troubles with it than you would in your current state. The Imp said. If you don't have anything to contribute, do not distract me. I'll handle you later. I assumed you killed the other one?

"Why would I need to kill myself?" I asked it, getting a pained sigh in response.

I am not trying to puzzle out what little bit of trickery is meant by that later, It said. Prepare yourself and ready your mind for the choice you will make.

No need to ask what it meant as the roiling surface of water dipped closer. Bones shoved free, droplets falling to the ground as the Queen of Masks forced her way through, all three faces furious.

A ram of stone shot up from the ceiling, smashing into the middle face. It shattered, then the entire body, colored glass raining down.

I threw myself to the floor, bone sabers passing right over my head as the Queen of Masks manifested behind me. Really? Stealing my own trick?

She tried to stab, only for more arms to rip out of the marble, pulling her back.

Enough, The Imp snarled. I can hardly condemn an urge I have most days myself, but there is space for only devil in this useless girl's head.

I should take offense to that, if I weren't busy trying to put as much distance as possible between me and the two of them. The Queen of Masks was already tearing her way free, chunks of marble flying, only to suddenly pause.

The ground around her ignited, sigils in the ground glowing green and red as they carved patterns in the marble, forming a circle around her.

"Tch," she said, rolling her eyes at the circle of Infernal runes surrounding her. "Duty/responsibility/opportunity calls it seems. I'll kill/devour/absorb you both later, assuming you don't do it to each other first."

Wait, what was-

A field of ash led to a blackstone fortress, the remnants of past assaults. This was Zhar'dag'eth, citadel of Wrath, and none had destroyed it yet. Yet again forces were being arrayed to take it in the constant struggle between those who would claim the entirety of wrath their dominion.

Now souls were being sent onto these fields, scattered about until a flying besieger got close enough to hook them on a chain, dragging them up to the siege engines, forcing them into place. Forced onto its outer edges as it sparked to life, igniting and searing.

A thousand shrieking souls struggling as they were seared into place, forced to merge with the rising sun as it burned, sound and heat blasting from its surface, lacerating anyone in sight. Two dozen completed ones already hung, heralds flying between, occasionally biting into the writhing outer shells-

The circle closed, and I let out a breath, my lungs burning as air turned scalding left my throat. I nearly hit the floor, just managing to stop myself as I dragged my way to a table.

"That was the Hells," I said flatly, forcing each word out through a burning throat. "Not just that little pocket realm inside the circle's, the actual hells."

One of the places Daver had shown me when I'd asked to see them, and one of the tamest places he'd shown. But different. Back then, it had been an assault on ground, millions of enslaved souls bound and sent in an attempt to swamp that citadel in sheer numbers not…whatever those floating suns had been.

They made the Imp stir, a stone face turning to look at me. Impossible to tell the expressions in that formed marble, but the time the Imp took to respond told me enough. It was unnerved by what had just occurred.

Yes, It said. That was the Hells.

"What is it?"

The Imp glared at where the Queen of Masks had disappeared.

Extremely ungrateful, it snapped, turning its attention back to me. I suppose that is a trait the two of you share. I see you shattered that mask of yours.

"In a manner of speaking," I answered, going to grab my abandoned tankard. Pushing it on what the Queen of Masks was wouldn't be productive. Not unless I wanted a fight breaking out.

Somehow, in all the chaos, my tankard hadn't been overturned, a lone survivor of the wreckage that had swallowed the recreation of Hells' Own. Tables had been shredded, and the bar was still on fire.

"No," I said. "If I can't get you back to the Hells after this, you're going back to sleep."

Sneering, the imp brushed half a dozen tables aside with a swipe of its arm.. Oh really? I am? You're not making a good case for why I shouldn't try and force you into a more agreeable creature, child.

Shite. Well, it wasn't like this was unexpected.

"Allow me a drink first?" I asked, waving the half-full tankard. I'm pretty sure there was a little chunk of ceiling floating there at the bottom, but again, this wasn't real.

Also, I was hoping playing off the Imp's nature would stall this out just a while longer.

Who am I to deny someone their last request? The Imp said, and I could hear the sneer even without seeing one of its faces.

It's idea of a joke. Last request didn't exist in the Hells beyond some gibbered plea for mercy before you had your flesh shredded and your soul devoured.

I took a swallow, then grimaced. Okay, it wasn't real, but it could still make the mead taste of slate and…was that acrid taste arcane residue and its metal base trying to melt my tongue? The fucking discount lightning-repellent charms Edwards had once boasted to me about getting as Falara. I'd gone to look up at them out of curiosity to find some of the cheapest, easiest to mass-produce, sloppy enchantments ever up there.

And it had stuck enough for my mind to remember it, as I used a napkin to try and get the taste of melting brass off my tongue.

Not an enjoyable taste?

"Roof is a very acquired taste," I said. "Followed swiftly by enchantments. You know between this and the Hennisons, I-"

You're stalling.

"Always," I replied, smiling a little. "It's a very interesting thing coming up. Besides, you gain an advantage by waiting, don't you?"

Every second was another for the Diabolism to arrive. I couldn't believe that what the Imp currently had gathered was the bulk of it.

I don't need an advantage to crush you, The Imp replied. Give me a reason not to do so and end this, child.

"Your survival," I told the Imp. "You winning this is predicated on-"

I paused, reconsidering what I'd been about to say, while the Imp's influence spread across the room. More arms and claws were creeping their way out of the stone. More than just stone, as corpses writhed, flesh scraped free of bone and sinew as it all was twisted into hands and claws. Where had those even come from? No, wait, I could see my face mixed in with the burnt, shredded, and torn flesh. Clones made by the devil.

Not important, as sweat poured off my brow. Think Malvia. I'd known this angle of argument wouldn't work, and for good reason.

Claiming that the moment a devil woke up wearing on my face, it and any other devils in the vicinity would be destroyed was accurate. Could I convince the Imp that it could result in his permanent destruction, and so it was best to ride things out inside my head?

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Certainly. But that was just another temporary fix, wasn't it? Ignoring a problem once again and letting it fester would just lead to this rearing its head again. I couldn't just sit back and let this build until it burst like a boil again. And I'd done this before. With the Xangs. With Holmsteader. With everyone, holding on to a threat of what might happen when I died as a shield against them coming after me.

It wouldn't last forever, couldn't, and it never actually solved anything, just left grudges and hate to pile up more and more while I refused to let anyone close enough to help. What would be left, but a collection of grudges that would inevitably end with one of them killing me.

I needed something besides survival.

"What do you want?" I asked the Imp.

Its sneer deepened as arms of sinew pulled themselves onto the table. Ropey and dripping blood, they crept across its surface, halting bare inches away from my arms.

That is what you spent so much time mulling over? What do I want? For this farce to be over, one way or another. You will surrender to your heritage. You will go to the Hells. If you wish to handle some business here before they inevitably kill your new form and send it to the Hells, that is up to you. And I will finally return to my place in the Hells.

"And I suppose forcing myself to become a devil achieves your goal with no risk to yourself?" I said mildly.

More hesitation. I'd hit something with that remark.

Not without risk, the Imp admitted. There are…possibilities that do not favor either of us.

"You mean if I wake up a devil, and Gallaspie, Derrick, Tagashin, or someone of similar power brought by Intelligence is waiting and kills me, and you, before we ever reach the cells?" I ventured. "You were discussing contingencies, but you can't remain certain of how they will go. Or even certain of how I will turn out?"

What way would I twist and turns in the flames of diabolism. Even if we took the Queen of Masks at face value of being my future, my current appearance suggested an altogether different path. And would the capabilities that came with prove capable of safely reaching the Hells?

It is a gamble, The Imp said. But one that I will take. Uncertainty over being stuck in your mind.

"Banishment wouldn't do the trick?" I asked, and received an angry growl in response.

In sending me to the Hells? Yes, assuming it didn't kill me, or cripple me, or wound me in some other way. I am not enduring the pain of searing light or a suffocating blanket of kindness just to make it to the Hells. Not when a more immediate way is possible here.

I nodded, absent-mindedly wiping my brow.

The heat in the room was only growing. Hellfire still licked at the walls, held back from the room itself, but consuming the walls, black flames crawling about. It was not the same Hellfire sent wildly around by the Queen of Masks. The Diabolism was coming.

"I'm bound for the Hells anyway," I said tiredly. "I know there's no other alternative but being bound in some silver spike in Halspus' cathedral. Trust me, I'm hardly in favor of that as a solution. So it seems the answer is that it'll happen eventually anyway. I have a hard time believing there's another way. But when I go, it will be on my terms. The contract, does it have any way we can consider it fulfilled?"

No, the Imp groused. Not as long as there are things regarding diabolism I can teach you.

"I think I would be willing to accept your judgment that I'm ready regardless of the actual facts," I replied.

Only the contract holder can end the contract, the Imp said, a marble arm carving its way along my forearm before I swatted it aside. All of our mutual desires to be rid of each other mean nothing if your brother does not agree to it. And why would he ever do that?

Its main body pushed against the wall, marble cracking and shuddering as it slowly broke free of it, forming into a rough cross between goblin and gargoyle as stone broke apart.

"Because either he does or I kill him, and damn the consequences," I replied, getting up from my seat and heading to the miraculously still working taps to parch my throat. "If I'm damned either way, a lot of the reasons not to take a swing disappear like smoke in the air."

Stone shattered as the Imp's eyes narrowed, parts of its body smashed loose by its own movements. You are lying. You do not believe you could actually kill him.

Actually, I think I might have a chance, but a denial wouldn't fly. Not with these stakes. Instead, I shrugged.

"So? If I fail, I die, and am in the Hells anyway. Technical fulfillment of your contract, and if you fear the wrath of the creature that helped spawn me, you have my express permission to drag whatever I become in front of him so the truth of the matter can come out."

A pause, and I allowed myself another drink. Rancid, spoiled, turned sour by the amount of diabolism tossed around this room. Probably because my mind insisted it had to be, but still I drank because the heat was drying my throat almost as fast as I swallowed. I blinked repeatedly, sweat getting in my eyes and irritating them as I tried to think this through.

Would convincing the Imp to help with that do anything? Or was I forestalling one disaster for another?

More importantly, was there anything else left to sweeten the pot with?

"You'd also get the pleasure of my brother's soul entering the Hells soon after your own," I offered. "While outright destruction sounds like it would invite the Duke's wrath, I don't suppose he'd hold a grudge over some metaphorical lashing of a spawn that had disappointed him?"

A low chuckle from the walls. You think my enmity towards him goes beyond that of anyone else in this realm?

"I think it's not something you've shied away from expressing at any opportunity," I replied, blinking my eyes as the smoke began filling the room once again, beginning to swiftly blanket the floor of the tavern. "He's the most responsible for you getting stuck with me, is he not?"

A reluctant nod from the Imp. He knows how to hold a grudge.

Ah. They had a past, which had never come up before, and after a second of waiting, it seemed the Imp wasn't willing to expound this time either.

"Oaths?" I asked. "If you want to do this."

No need, The Imp said. If you lie, and we reach the Hells, your father's looking into my mind will say all I need to. As much as he might appreciate a new spawn in the Hells, he is not inclined towards those who don't hold good faith.

Likely only if it hurt itself, but I held my tongue.

"Then I think we have an agreement. I would like what lessons you have left to teach," I said mildly, each word coming with a little pain. "Without any possible adjustment of me in the process, this time."

I poured what was left of the drink down my throat, then went to the tap for more. Nothing but steam poured out when I tried to pour. Sweat was pouring off me now, hissing as the rising temperature made it evaporate.

So you noticed that, The Imp said, stone body fully torn loose from the walls.

"Suspected," I corrected, then immediately went for whatever dregs I could find. Plaster and slate were all I found in the tankard. "Not happy. Not angry. Is what it is."

It seemed an elegant way of solving it without you noticing, the Imp said. I will of course not do it as long as you pursue getting this contract unbound.

I nodded, then weakly gestured at the flames creeping closer. "This?"

The Imp cocked its head. What about 'this'?

I froze, staring at it. Nothing remained of the walls, just towering infernos of flames. The ocean above was gone, just more fire, forming a box all around me.

A box that was shrinking.

"The..you" My throat protested every word, cutting me off.

I am directing it because it shared a common goal with me, The Imp said matter-of-factly. I do not control it. It would protest anything more from me.

"Take it," I said, managing a few words. "Have it, its yours-"

The Imp shook its head. Your claim, grabbed fairly and without contest from any others. I will not claim it.

I coughed, then regretted it as my throat felt like shards of glass had been driven through it. My next words were a strangled, gasping croak as heat drove down my throat.

"Our negotiations-"

-were for me not to aid this in helping it and ending my sojourn here, the Imp said. I am not tearing myself apart trying to contain what you swallowed.

"Didn't swallow," I pointed out weakly. The fire was travelling along the floor now, closing in.

It cares not. You claimed it. The devil fled this plane of existence, but shed most of its power doing so. It wants a host.

"Not slothful," I croaked, clambering on top of the bar, my movements sluggish as I got hooves off of the ground just before the hellfire.

It is power, child the Imp chided me. It cares not for your sin, only a vessel and your worth in having it. Claimed by fang and claw and sin, whether you think your desire it or not it is yours.

It faded now, turning translucent, stone face frozen in that grin that had to be mocking on purpose.

Whatever happens, I look forward to whoever emerges from the other side keeping our bargain.

And with that, it was gone. My tail pulled back, joining me on the bar as flames almost caught it. The bar was all that was left, the rest a raging inferno of black and red flames, all blending together. Did anything else even exist in here?

I eyed them, tossed the tankard, and watched as it turned gaseous in an instant, evaporating as soon as it touched the flames.

Well. That was out. Was this even capable of being talked to?

"So-" I began.

Flames surged forth, and I screamed as they ate at me. There was nothing but fire, and pain, and something besides the pain, seeping into my bones, burrowing through my skin.

This could not be the end, not now, but what could I even do to control it? I flailed, trying to grasp them and rip them out. Skin sloughed off, flesh burned away, and none of it was coming loose. Not good enough, not capable enough, not strong enough.

It was going to eat me.

Ragged breaths in what were surely my last moments, trying to think of a way out. Submission maybe? To preserve at least some of myself? Even f I became something completely foreign, to let a little of me keep on going?

The butterfly was still here; I could feel it brushing against my cheek, and if I could yell at it, I would. What? What did it want?

Something was pushing up through my veins, clawing its way towards my brain. Bones cracked, flesh sundered as it traveled.

Submit, A voice rasped, a torn apart hollow of the sloth devil's voice speaking.

I laughed, tears streaming down as I considered the final ultimat- no. No. Why had it asked? Why ask at all? Why even manifest sentience to demand that of me when it could just take?

"No," I whispered, and a pressure now on the inside of my brain, words being abandoned as it let intent try to crack my skull like a nut.

"No," I repeated. "I don't care if it means being hollowed out, I will be obliterated before I let something with my name wearing my skin come into the world forged out of this. Even if you make nothing of me!"

It didn't answer, and the burning continued, letting agony settle in my bones, and while that never stopped, neither did the diabolism travel further up.

The butterfly went down now, brushing against my hand in a specific spot. I let it guide my claw forward until it brushed against something solid inside the Flame, a texture like scales that recoiled as I brushed against it.

They'd been right in what they said, just not to whom they should apply. I'd torn this out of myself once already, made my decision then. It was trying again, trying to worm its way in by force, but if it could do that, why not do it from the start?

"No," I said, forcing the words out even as it ate more and more of me. Bones shrieked as they lengthened, fins sang as spines poked through them, ending in cutting edges. "Same as the Mask, trying to assert your control because I gave part of myself to you. Even less my fault, though. I at least picked the mask; you were forced on me. Just another part of myself I had no choice in, another part decided from birth. And I've done everything from embracing you to rejecting you. Neither is correct, because part of you will never go away even if I try to force it. The rest of you though, I already made my decision on."

I shouldn't be able to talk. I could feel the holes eaten in my throat, that my head rested on my spine, and little scraps of skin and flesh. I should be dead. But I wasn't.

"You're part of me and always will be," I said, tightening my grip, and I felt the shape of it in the formless fire. My grip tightened, and I felt it struggle, trying to pull away. "But on my terms, at my will, never over it. And I do not want power at the cost of who I am."

The pain was gone, and the mutated parts of me returned to what I had woken up with. The flame was fading now, pulling into the flame I had gripped in my hand, until I held a black tarry fireball in my hand, everything else a simple black void I was floating in.

I looked at it, considering. I'd taken control of it, hadn't I? If I could control it here, maybe taking possession of it wouldn't be that dangerous. And this case, it already was involving entities I couldn't handle as I was. Sure, swallowing it would not be without risks, but consuming it could be-

I shuddered, forced their thoughts out of my head, and tossed the fireball off into the darkness.

"Nice try," I muttered, as demonic voices shrieked as the diabolism plummeted, falling down, down, then vanishing out of sight. Now it was just me up here, me and my changed form.

I eyed the fins, letting them extend. Pretty, I admitted. Distracting, attention-grabbing, but there were ways to solve that when I needed to be beneath notice. And when I didn't.

I looked over the flowing patterns of blue, white, and black, my tail slowly wrapping around me. Okay, not really a cost for Diabolism. Maybe I was luckier than I thought.

The butterfly was still on my shoulder, wings fluttering. I eyed it.

"What are you?" I asked it, getting only a flutter of wings in response before it dissolved in the air, vanishing from sight.

I let out a breath. Some things didn't need answers. Some things did, like the Queen of Masks and what she was, not to mention the whole host of problems waiting outside this dream. But some things could safely remain unanswered.

I'd handled the past. I'd done something about the present. The future of me? The future could wait. At least until I found out what part of the outer planes she'd fled to.

For now, it was time to wake up.