Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 233
Worse than Hell
The night passes without incident. After a splendid breakfast they prepare spells and cast the usual battery of buffs.
“So,” says Dranko. “Who’s ready to be taken captive?”
“I hate it,” Morningstar complains. “I hated it with the ogres. I hated it with the orcs. Hell, I hated with the guards back in Tal Hae that one time.”
The Company is on high alert as they leave the Mansion, but no one is waiting to pounce out in the storeroom. Aravis dismisses the rope tricks and reclaims the ropes.
Dranko goes first out of the Way, in case there’s an ambush. And there is, sort of. Nine little demons – Dretches – are standing around in the cold. They spot Dranko and immediately start jabbering and pointing emphatically toward the Way back to Queylic. None of them show signs of hostility. When the rest come out, Grey Wolf looks down at the blubbery little creatures.
“If this is Queylic’s entourage, I’m not impressed.”
Still expecting trouble the party hops through the Way into the next Demon Slice. The bodies have been removed, though blood still stains the ground. There are no demons, and no sign of Queylic.
After about thirty seconds, Aravis shouts out, “We’re here! Please, don’t make us wait.”
Queylic’s voice sounds in all of their heads. “Oh. Because you didn’t make me wait. Have you freshened up?”
“Yes, we’re feeling much better, thank you,” says Aravis. He starts to whistle.
“Such confidence,” remarks Queylic.
“No, I’m just in a good mood,” says Aravis.
“He beat me at cards last night,” says Dranko.
“And I’m sure that stretched his abilities,” says Queylic. “But you’ll be happy to know that since you rested up, I decided to increase my retinue.”
“What, those little guys?” says Dranko, ignoring the jab. “Yeah, they were cute.”
“The dretches?” says Queylic, amusement in her voice. “Silly man. Those weren’t my retinue.”
With that, demons start to teleport in all around them. There are four of the towering lobster-clawed Glabrezu, and eight vulturous Vrock, in addition to a host of over fifteen arachnid Bebiliths.
Finally Queylic herself appears before them, nine feet in height. From the waist down her body is that of an enormous green serpent. From the waist up she is a unclothed female human with six arms. Ernie turns red and casts his eyes downward.
“Are you Queylic?” asks Dranko.
“Of course I am,” she replies smoothly.
“How do you pee?” asks Dranko.
Ernie makes a choking noise, but Queylic is unfazed by the question.
“Would you like to find out?” she says softly. “Come here...”
“Er... I’ll pass this time,” says Dranko, backtracking.
“Ernest!” says Queylic happily. “Such modesty. I don’t mind if you want to gaze upon my form. But surely you’ve seen... no, no you haven’t, have you? How delightful!”
She turns to One Certain Step. “Ah, there you are. Still thinking about my offer, holy warrior?”
“No,” says Step. “I stopped thinking about it less than five seconds after you made it.”
“What was the offer?” asks Dranko.
“That is a private matter, between the two of us,” says Queylic. Step looks grim and says nothing.
“Say, can you settle a bet?” asks Dranko. “Aren’t Hell and the Abyss the same thing?”
Queylic regards him with an indulgent smile. “Are you really that much of an id... no, never mind, Of course you’re an idiot. And no, they’re not the same thing.”
“Crap,” says Dranko. “Really?”
“And you made a bet about that? What is a being as stupid as you doing making monetary wagers on matters of intellect?”
“Because I have money!” says Dranko.
“In his view,” says Aravis, “It’s not a matter of intellect. It’s a matter of theology.”
“Ah, yes, right. He worships a God of Healing. What’s his name?”
“Delioch,” says Dranko. “Would you like to worship him?”
“Yes, he sounds wonderful!” Queylic squeals.
“’Cause if I convert you, that would so be a feather in my cap,” says Dranko.
“Dranko?” whispers Aravis. “Sarcasm.”
“Please tell me more about Delioch while we travel,” says Queylic. “I want to consider converting.”
It’s a surreal conversation with no obvious purpose. On the surface Dranko is trying to make Queylic underestimate him, but deep down he knows the demon is not being fooled at all. And Queylic keeps asking questions and pretending to be interested, even though she knows that Dranko can’t possibly think she’s serious. But Dranko has his reasons, and whether the demon guesses them or not, he is satisfied.
The cavalcade of demons surrounds the Company as they walk across the cracked red ground of the Abyss. The demons themselves are quiet for the most part, listening curiously to the banter between Queylic and Dranko. When that discussion starts to sputter, Dranko turns to Morningstar and asks, “So, what do you think? Is this better or worse than the Mouth of Nahalm?”
“This is worse,” says Morningstar without hesitating.
“Watch out!” says Queylic, putting an arm across Dranko’s chest. “Dranko, watch where you’re stepping!”
Dranko looks down and sees he was about to step into a small fissure while turned toward his fiancée.
“You don’t want to die here,” advises Queylic with a grin.
“We probably don’t,” agrees Dranko. “Hey, I think Delioch is getting through to you. You just performed an... an anti-sin!”
“Lord Tapheon prefers that you arrive intact,” says Queylic. “But if I have committed an ‘anti-sin' I suppose I’ll have to sin twice to make up for it.”
“But if she worships something evil,” says Ernie, a puzzled look on his face, “isn’t doing evil good for her, and doing good is evil?”
“Ooooh, I think you’re right,” says Dranko. Then, to Queylic: “I take it back. By doing good, you actually sinned!”
“I did?” says Queylic, aghast. “Dranko, quick! Have Delioch save my soul!”
“It’s not too late,” says Dranko sagely. “Here, bend down in front of me.”
“Oh!” says Queylic, with a knowing nod. “He’s that kind of God. Sorry, we already have one of those.”
“Perhaps I should stop sassing the demon,” says Dranko. “It’s probably bad for my health.”
“I’ll bet you don’t get many opportunities to sass demons,” says Queylic.
“On the contrary. I ‘sass the demon’ all the time, if you catch my drift.
Queylic thinks to everyone: “Does he often make comments like...”
There’s a resounding “yes!” from pretty much everyone.
“You must make a lovely traveling companion,” says Queylic to Dranko.
Strangely, no one comes to his defense on that one.
“You want a cigar?” Dranko asks her, filling the silence.
“No, I don’t smoke,” answers Queylic. “Only my victims.”
“What about Lord Tapheon?” asks Dranko. “Does he smoke?”
“Lord Tapheon is... beyond you,” says Queylic.
* *
Two hours after entering the Slice, the Company and their escort of demons arrives at another blue Way. They can see from a distance that there’s something different about this one, and up close they see that while most Ways are rigid, this one is rippling, like there’s a vacuum on the other side, pulling at the fabric of the Way itself.
“Why’s it doing that?” asks Dranko.
“It’s a side-effect of Tapheon’s power,” says Queylic simply.
“He sucks that hard, huh?” pipes up Ernie in the back.
Queylic turns to face the group, and her expression grows stern.
“I’m going to do you a favor, and give you some advice,” she says. “I enjoy this witty repartee. Lord Tapheon has less patience than I do. I would be most careful how you ‘sass the demon’ in his presence.”
“Gotcha,” says Dranko. “But I have one more question. What do we call you? Besides your real name, I mean.”
“I don’t understand,” says Queylic.
“Let’s pretend I’m going to survive all this,” says Dranko. “And someday I go home, and get someone to buy me dinner by telling them that once I exchanged witty repartee with a ten-foot-tall bare-chested snake demon lady. What do I call you?”
Queylic slithers closer to Dranko and smiles.
“Such bravado. It’s delicious,” she says softly, running a red tongue over her lips. She leans forward until her mouth is right next to Dranko’s cheek, and he can feel her hot breath on his face.
“I’m a Marilith,” she whispers, and licks the side of his head. The others flinch in disgust.
“Remember, you’re spoken for,” says Aravis.
Queylic straightens up, while Dranko turns to Morningstar and asks, “Have you ever told me not to get licked by a demon? I can’t remember.”
Morningstar shakes her head. Queylic turns on her in disbelief.
“Are you married to this dolt? On purpose? Did you lose a bet?”
Morningstar smiles.
“Does it bother you?” Queylic asks her quietly, “that he lusts after other women all the time?”
“Not particularly,” says Morningstar.
“Well, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. He’s not much to look at, and he’s not very smart. Ah, the long nights on the road must just fly by, with stimulating intellectual conversation full of euphemisms for masturbation. On the other hand,” she says, turning to Dranko while Ernie flushes red, “no one can be as stupid as he’s pretending to be and have gotten so far in life.
“My instructions,” she continues, “are to see that you walk through this portal. On the other side you’ll meet Trugoth. He’ll be taking custody of you once you go through the Way.”
“Don’t you see?” says Aravis to the others. “She’s not powerful enough to appear in front of Lord Tapheon. So she’s giving us to someone who is.”
“Maybe it’s time we stop annoying the demon,” whispers Morningstar.
“Don’t be concerned,” says Queylic. “I’ve been baited by far better than you.”
The Marilith slithers back a few dozen feet, and gestures toward the rippling Way.
“In you go,” she commands.
As the Company steps forward to enter, Dranko whispers to Step, “I tried to distract her for you, so she’d leave you alone. I hope it worked.”
“I suspect it did,” says the paladin. “Thank you.”
And through they all go.
* *
The next Demon Slice glows red with malice. Where the previous Slice was like a Martian landscape, this one has the ambiance, if not the heat and flames, of the Elemental Plane of Fire. The ground looks like orange sand that has congealed into a solid. The air is sharp with a hot sulfurous stink and olfactory overtones of things far worse. The sky is a pulsing, blazing crimson. And the ever-present vile nature of the Abyss lies unseen upon them all like a cloak of grief.
Before them stands Trugoth, a mighty Balor of The Abyss, twenty-five feet tall and wreathed in flame. Huge bat wings rise from his back, and he holds a flaming serrated sword, larger than a man. Around him are a number of lesser demons – more Vrocks and Glabrezu, mostly.
And when the Company is able to tear their eyes from this gigantic demon, they see something that is perhaps worse. The ground around them is scattered with long iron stakes, and on each of these is impaled an upside-down body. Many of these twitch and moan. The sounds of these tortured souls mixes with the sighing, swirling wind. Step’s clenched fists go white.
“I hate it here,” says Ernie in a very small voice.
“What did you expect?” asks Dranko. “This is the place where evil people go to get punished.”
In all of their heads Trugoth voice sounds deep and resonant.
“Follow me.”
They do. It’s a sickening journey.
Evil beats down on them like a hot sun, and the smell grows ever worse. The frequency and density of the staked damned souls rise as the hours pass, as do their plaintive shrieks and piteous moans. When it seems that things can’t get any worse, Trugoth brings them to a bridge over a thirty-foot river. The bridge is made of human thighbones, and it spans a thick white flow of boiling pus. Trugoth crosses the bridge in four long strides, while the rest of the demons form up behind the Company, leaving them no choice but to cross. Dranko can’t help himself, and looks over the edge to see if anything swims in that river. A bubble of pus pops and splatters by his face, and the smell brings bile into his mouth.
Half an hour after the river of pus, Trugoth again brings the party to a halt.
“Hungry?” says his voice in their minds. “I understand that living mortals need to eat.”
Strangely, the Company has no appetite.
“We’re not hungry,” says Grey Wolf. “Really.”
They do stop and drink some water from their skins. The demons mill about restlessly, and one of the Vrocks stretches out its neck and takes a savage bite from a staked body. It groans and writhes on its spike as the demon chews. Step has gone as pale as a ghost.
“What really bothers me,” says Dranko, “is that when they told us in church that places like this existed, I laughed at them. And I hate apologizing to people.”
Flicker turns to Morningstar and asks only half-jokingly, “Can you erase our memories of this once we’re done?”
Grey Wolf hears the sword Bostock whisper in his mind: “We should stay here no longer than is necessary.” Which is heartening, both because it speaks well of the sword, and because it reminds Grey Wolf that if he keeps his hand on the sword’s grip, he won’t have to breathe the foul air.
The Balor Trugoth leans over and looks directly down at Kibi. Then he turns and for another moment stares intently at One Certain Step.
“You two don’t look that important.,” he rumbles. “Hm.” He laughs deeply, then says again, “Follow.”
Ernie puts his hand on Step’s arm, and tries to distract the paladin by asking him stories about his childhood. For a while the two of them share memories of happier times and places, while the horrors around them grow worse. They cross three more rivers of festering fluids, and the impaled bodies of the damned grow so thick that they have to wend their way through them like they were trees in a forest. After more hours of this nightmare, the Fortress comes into view.
It is a great metal cube, a quarter-mile on a side, hovering a hundred feet in the air. It is tethered to the ground by dozens of colossal chains, each link of which is the size of a wagon. The Fortress itself seems to strain at those bonds, as if despite its great mass it would fall into the sky were it not anchored to the rock. The chains are welded to enormous adamant disks set deep in the ground.
Trugoth speaks to them, gloatingly.
“Behold, the Fortress of Indifference. Lord Tapheon awaits.”
... to be continued...
