The Pleasures Of Hell 02 031

~~Mia~~

"Galon!"

Too late. He'd let the string go, and Mia threw up her hands as she clenched her eyes shut.

The batlam rune flared in her mind. The runes lined up, and the chains that connected them lit up like electricity through a filament lightbulb. It was blinding, and it brought the gold glow of the rune crashing down through the maze of her mind like a lightning strike.

It enveloped her. The fingers inside her grabbed the rune and lifted it, a reflex, like someone catching a baseball thrown at their head. Because it had to. Because she had to.

The gold glow turned red, and vanished. Her eyes were still closed, and she sucked in a breath as she waited for the inevitable pain of an angel arrow having already struck her through her guts or something. But it didn't come, and she slowly lowered her hands as she opened her eyes.

She was uninjured. And the angel hadn't fired his arrow. He grinned at her as he lowered his bow, arrow held to the grip by his aiming hand, string beside it. The asshole had unnocked the arrow just before he'd let the string go. She should have seen it coming.

"You... asshole!"

"You really thought I would shoot you? I'm offended."

"You... you!" She swung her staff at him, and he chuckled as he stepped out of range. "I thought you might--"

Wait. She had a staff?

Slowly, she squeezed the grip of the metal staff in her hand, and set her eyes on it and the glowing red stone sitting at its tip. A large ruby as big as her fist, wrapped in the squeezing, sharp spikes of the staff's top. Black, almost finger-like spikes. A black staff. It was shiny, like blackstone that'd been polished, and had several segments where the metal had grooves and spikes coming out of it, with tiny red gems decorating between the metal spikes. Thankfully, all the spikes pointed up and in. Purely decorative. And damn, did they look good.

The giant ruby on the staff's head glowed, and Mia stared down into it. Fire swirled within, amber, hidden inside the almost blood red of the ruby, a swirling vortex of... hellfire? Or lava?

"I'm surprised Yosepha didn't try this tactic with you," Galon said as he paced around Mia, looking her up and down with analyzing eyes. "Mikalim usually resort to physicality when they can't figure out a puzzle."

"Yosepha isn't like that. She's--" Mia gasped, and looked herself up and down. She didn't just have a staff. She had armor. And unlike the bits of meera metal she'd tried on before, this weighed almost nothing. It covered her, from shoulders to toes, all hidden inside layers of beautiful black armor. It wasn't easy to get a look at herself, and she had to twist hard to do it, but thankfully the armor didn't block her movement.

It wasn't as heavy-looking as a mikalim's armor, not as thick, easy to turn. Bits of red silk hung from between the joints, like white did from Galon's, but the similarities ended there. Her breastplate had breasts and a curved stomach. Her shoulders had shoulder pauldrons with big black spikes. There were some flared bits of armor at the waist that struck out and down as curved spikes, too, like some sort of fancy armor skirt over armored legs.

It was sexy armor.

"Um... this... this..."

"Interesting," Galon said, eyebrow raised. "You have a crown."

"Crown!?" She grabbed her head, and winced as she stabbed herself on a spike. A crown, black, with red rubies on it, almost a tiara. Glaring down at her now bleeding finger, she put it back, and did her best to not let the thrill of donning a crown make her heart race.

The angel laughed. "That armor isn't functional at all."

"That's what I was thinking! I can't fight in this. I..." She blinked down at her staff again, and held out in front of her with two arms. It was five feet tall, same as her. "This isn't even a battle staff! It's a wizard's staff!"

"A wizard's staff?"

"Don't lie to me, Galon. You know what a wizard is."

He laughed again. "I do, but I still want you to explain it, because I am just as much in the dark about this as you are, if not more."

"I..." With a flourish, she slammed the bottom of the staff against the ground. It went clink in a very satisfying manner, impact pulsing up the weapon, and she smiled. "I can cast magic, I guess?" She waved the staff around a few times, enjoying how light it was, and she drilled it into the ground again. "You shall not pass!"

"What?"

"Never mind. Why would the batlam rune give me a wizard's staff? Or armor that isn't exactly combat ideal?" She rotated her shoulders a few times. Not combat effective, but at least all the spikes on it wouldn't stab her if she twisted oddly, the crown aside. It even let her sit down and get back up, the armor skirt spikes lifting to fit the movement. "Look at this." She traced some of the red gems on the black armor, each found in a convenient location for maximum beauty, the biggest one right on her sternum. "I look like an evil wizard, too. Like, an evil wizard ready to ride a dark horse into battle. I... don't know how to feel about this."

"Your potram rune made you look like an evil seductress, too."

"I am not evil!"

The angel put up his hands, and his bow poofed out of existence.

"Don't hurt me!"

She glared at him, marched up to him -- clink clink went her boots on the ground -- and she poked him in the chest armor with her staff's ruby. They waited. Nothing happened.

"I'm not a wizard," she said.

"You can craft auras."

"So can you!"

"Not like you do. You can also use the angel runes."

"So can you..."

"Not like you do."

"Ugh."

"You can read the ancient language, and apparently know many of the runes used by the archangels."

"But I can't use any of them!"

Galon chuckled warmly and patted her with his wing.

"The three angel runes are gifts from God. They allow the rapholem, mikalim, and gabriem to engage innate aspects of themselves quickly. They shape themselves to who we are, which is why it's different for the three types of angels." He gestured to her with the same wing. "The rune is shaping itself to who you are."

"Which is an evil wizard that can't use magic?"

"Well, let's consider what we know. While the archangels had powers beyond understanding, us angels and demons are quite limited. Angels can create auras of peace, and auras of contentment."

"Not exactly useful in a battle."

"True. Demons can emit auras of hunger. The opposite of contentment."

"That's... Oh, that makes sense. A hunger for sex and a hunger for destruction?"

"In a sense. I'd say the auras are a little harder to describe than simply sexual and destructive, but close enough." He nodded, pacing again. "Angels can use grace to empower abilities humans might consider magical. Mikalim can unleash deadly rays of holy destruction. Rapholem can emit colossal, holy barriers. You've seen both in action."

She shivered. "Yeah."

"And we gabriem can heal wounds."

"Wait, what? Really? That's amazing. Can you... cure the common cold?"

He laughed. "There's no such thing as bacteria, viruses, or fungi in the afterlife."

"Semantics!" But, true. His healing powers were probably specifically of the 'close an open bleeding wound' kind.

"The most truly powerful demons can create hellfire, though that seems to be... different, than angel abilities. Related, but similar. We don't know exactly how it works, except that while an angel turns grace into essence to fuel their abilities, a demon creates a strange... reaction in themselves to unleash hellfire. It is chaotic, unpredictable, and, as you can imagine, quite destructive."

"I don't have to imagine. Vin didn't just use hellfire trying to kill that angel, uh, Azreal. He used it when the rider came at me. He incinerated a giant room."

Galon winced. "Vinicius is a dangerous demon, for a host of reasons. Be careful with him."

Mia clutched her necklace. "You think he'll betray me?"

"Honestly? No. I think Vinicius's desires are pretty much in line with yours, at least your greater ones. You want to save the world. He wants to rule Hell, and he can't do that if it's destroyed."

"Enemy of my enemy, I guess." Sighing, she tossed her staff from hand to hand in front of her, keeping its bottom close to the ground. "What other powers are there?"

"For us angels and demons, that's it. But for the archangels, the stories speak of ripping apart entire mountains, summoning oceans of lava, tornadoes of hellfire, holy rays that scorched the land, and..." He shrugged. "Powers on an apocalyptic scale. Armageddon."

She gulped. He gulped, too.

"You think I can do that stuff?"

"I hope not!" The nervousness in his eyes disappeared, and he laughed. It was such a great laugh, and she was sure he molded it that way on purpose. An expert at his craft. "But you can read the ancient language, know the ancient runes, and can craft auras that behave more like auras of the world. I'm guessing you can do more than you realize."

Mia stared at the staff in her hand, and the amber glowing inside the ruby.

"A state of mind," she said. "Like, how you think about yourself and stuff, does that affect the batlam rune?"

"It can make it more difficult to summon, as we saw with you. But that's all. What it summons is always the same."

If batlam was a rune designed to give angels a quick way to create armor and weapons that fit who and what they were, but not what their state of mind was, then the batlam rune knew the angel better than the angel knew themselves. Then it definitely knew Mia better than herself, or at least what she was, and how she'd fight. Magical powers?

She pointed the staff at the wall and poured her will into it. A fireball. She wanted to summon a fireball.

She thrust it forward toward the stone, and winced, waiting for an explosion.

Nothing happened.

"I don't think this is going to work," she said.

"I'd like to say that it will if you practice, but no one has the slightest idea what's going to happen. Heaven doesn't even know the unmarked can use the angel runes, and as far as I know, they only know about your ability to craft auras."

"Maybe you should tell them?" She tapped her fingernails -- oh wow she had black fingernails -- against the giant ruby. "If there are unmarked out there, doing bad things, I wouldn't want angels running into them, not knowing what they were dealing with."

Galon looked at her, and paused as he searched for the words to say.

"Telling them... wouldn't be very tactical," he said. "Your goal is important, more important than angel lives."

"Fuck, don't say that. Aren't angels the good guys?"

"Angels exist to protect and heal the souls of Heaven. They are not always so gentle with how they do that. The angels of Azoryev can be quite fanatical and visceral in how they deal with demons and damned souls."

"Double fuck. I--" Exhaustion hit her, and she teetered a few times before catching her weight with her staff. But the staff betrayed her, vanished from existence, and she squeaked as she fell to her palms and knees. No clink. The armor was gone, too, a tiny flash of red light announcing its departure.

Groaning, she looked at herself. Potram was on, something her subconscious seemed to handle for her now, as easy and automatic as breathing. But the staff and armor were gone, and when she went looking for batlam in her mind. The rune sat there, waiting to be lifted, but just considering it hit her with exhaustion. She needed rest, and food.

"Damn," she said, and she whined as she crawled over to her egg and sat beside it. "I lost it."

"You'll be able to wield it again much more easily, I'm sure, just like potram." He squatted down beside her, wings out, and he flapped them, creating a cooling breeze for her. "Feeling hungry?"

"I am. Definitely. Putting that rune on drained the shit outta me." She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them snug. "But... I don't like eating."

"Why?"

"Yosepha didn't tell you?"

"We only spoke for a few moments."

"I... see the memories of the people I'm eating. The bad stuff they did. If it's violent or mean, or... meant to harm someone, I suppose, I see it." She tapped her temple again. "It gets logged in here."

His eyes widened. "That's a very unusual trait."

"I know! And they're permanent memories, too. Thankfully, they don't really pop up in my thoughts unless I go digging for them, but they're there. It's so weird."

"Very." He stroked his chin and paced around. "I'll have to think about it. In the meantime, keep working on batlam, and keep--"

"Avoiding having an existential crisis?"

"Too late for that."

She groaned. "True."

"Keep exploring your abilities. The sooner we can determine your nature, the sooner we can figure out what to do."

"Who's we, exactly? The Damall? Or Heaven and the council?"

Frowning, he looked up at the rock ceiling, and his wings drooped.

"I don't know yet."

Oof.

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~~David~~

That was a disturbing dream. Nothing quite like looking into your own eyes and seeing the grim, disturbing face of a young boy about to commit murder to really give you some PTSD. Just another stone on that pile.

Their group sat in an alcove some ways away from the temple, but not too far. They had no way to make a stretcher, and while Acelina had an easy time carrying the riiva, Daoka was too injured to risk so much as a bounce. Finding an alcove for her to rest had been agony, each step tense and horrible, and the Las didn't know the area well. But Caera remembered a few things about it, and found them an alcove they didn't have to climb or jump to get to.

Come the waning twilight, everyone got around Dao.

"Still breathing," Jeskura said, and she sighed relief. Every muscle in her body relaxed, and her tail wagged slowly as she lay beside her lover.

Dao smiled up at them, weakly clicked twice, and Jes motioned David in closer. He leaned in, and the satyr chirped once before she reached up, ran a claw down the side of his face, and gave him a kiss on the chin. Satisfied, she turned her face to nuzzle into Jes's side.

"She'll live," Caera said. The Las cheered with some high-pitched squeals and chirps.

"You're sure?" David asked.

"Yes. We'll have to be careful, but it's always the first night that matters for life or death." She leaned in and gave the satyr's shoulder a nuzzle, and Dao chirped back. "Thank you."

Jeskura frowned at Caera, but it faded quickly. Still angry at Caera, but Dao definitely wasn't, and all in all, their mission had been a success for more reasons than they'd even originally planned.

The sensation of a skull breaking under a rock ran through David's skin. The image of seeing it from the other end cut across his eyes. Sure, the plan had gone well for the demons, but for David, not so much.

Put in a box. Deal with it later.

"I had a dream," he said. "I saw Greg die, same as the other dream with the other unmarked."

"Makes sense," Caera said, "if you're seeing an unmarked's last moments."

"Sense?" Acelina said. "Any dream in Hell does not make sense. Dreaming is for the surface."

Everyone shrugged. At this point, they accepted that anything and everything involving David's quirks were a mystery they wouldn't be solving soon.

"What now?" Lasca asked, and she climbed over Caera's tail to get to David; it was a small alcove.

"Ask Caera, not me."

The tiger shook her head as she chuckled.

"You're the one who killed an unmarked and two angels, David. That's how demons pick who's the leader, usually, the one with the biggest trophies."

"That... makes no sense. I only got Greg because everything was chaos. And the angels..." Christ, he'd killed two angels. "I don't know how I did that. But that shouldn't matter anyway, not when you're the one with the most experience, Caera."

Acelina snorted, but nodded when everyone looked her way.

"The boy is endlessly irritating, but he has a head on his shoulders. Zelandariel would have agreed with his assessment."

Right on cue, Jes snapped her head up and glared at the spire mother, but one weak click from Dao was enough to settle her.

"I hated that bitch," Jes said, "but Acelina's right. Zel was smart, and she would have known to ignore the whole trophy obsession. Caera knows more about the other provinces than we do."

"I have been around a lot of Hell," Caera said. "All the way to Angel's spine, and I've been to the Grave Valley. Each province handles differently. Here in Death's Grip, it's always been just... groups of demons doing their own thing. Tribes. They fight each other, but if they piss off a bailiff, the bailiff brings them in line. Three bailiffs keep the province strong and ready to fight off invaders." Sighing, she brought a hand up to her face, touched her ruined eye, and hissed. "The Grave Valley is more like... a structured version of Death's Grip. The groups there are more organized. They have names, and they fight each other regularly."

"That's not bad for keeping their numbers up?" David asked.

"Azailia and Zel are... were cooperative," Acelina said. "They had a truce. They would never attack each other's borders."

"I thought the Grave Valley bordered on another province, the Scar. Azailia's not worried about them?"

"Nah," Caera said. "The Scar is mostly concerned with its own shit, and the other provinces leave them alone because they like the silk they make."

"Everyone loves fashion," Acelina said, chuckling.

There was no way the Scar maintained peace with its neighbors purely on exporting fashion, and Caera and Acelina knew it, too. The Scar had a secret, but apparently not one they felt like telling David. Not important, then? He could find out later.

"Alright, plan time," David said, and he rubbed his hands together before sitting back against the alcove wall. Plans were fun. Executing them wasn't, but he loved making them. "We're done here, but if my gambit with that angel doesn't pay off, we can't stay here for long. Any idea how long it'll take the angel to get reinforcements?"

"It takes a few days of flying to reach the vortex from here," Caera said. "I mean, so I've read. There're a few old stories about battles with angels. I pieced it together, so I could be wrong. But I think a few days is a safe guess. Double that for the return trip."

"Then I guess we're lucky we started on the wrong side of Hell, if False Gate is our goal. Are we even sure we need to get to False Gate to cross the inner sea?"

Caera nodded as she prowled over to him, and lay down perpendicular to him, side to the wall, and huge head on his lap. She hid her bad eye in toward him, but made sure she didn't put any weight on it.

"Far as what I've read," she said, "Lucifer and the Old Ones went back and forth between False Gate and the Forgotten Place a lot."

"He, er, they didn't just, teleport everyone? That something archangels can do?"

"No idea," Caera said. "I hope not, or we're fucked."

The amount of uncertainties in their journey was triggering, and he ground his teeth until his jaw clicked.

"Then I guess we wait until we can move Dao more easily, and then we get going to... the Grave Valley?"

"Indeed," Acelina said, "if we can get past Domicela and the Geeraz Tombs."

"We're already mostly around it," Caera said. "We're a week out from the Grave Valley border, and Domicela will be concerned with trying to get across the canyon to the spire, especially if she's learned Zel is dead. No need to worry about her."

The spire mother nodded, growling quietly as she aimed her eyeless gaze down. David did his best to not look at Jeskura. He still hadn't told Caera or Dao that Mia was the one who killed Zel, not the rider, and far as he knew, Jes hadn't told them yet, either. And now with the Las around all the time, telling them without Acelina finding out would be nearly impossible. Honestly, the less that knew, the better, so Acelina would never accidentally find out. A white lie that made sure everyone got along.