Hell.

You would think, given half of my past, that the sight of our current location would bring about strong feelings in my core. But, of what? Hatred? Fear?

Instead, I felt nothing. This was a construct of such place, not the real thing - for however you liked to use the word ‘real’. The flaming pillars of molten rock, the jagged edges of the terrain, and the amber to brown rainbow that decorated the entirety of the sky were all so… pedestrian.

“I’ll take the blame for this one.”

I turned my head to look at the elf, who had a tired expression across her face. “How so?”

She stepped up beside me and crossed her arms. “Well, I had said I’d go to hell and back for our love, and now look what happened.”

“As much as I love some decent foreshadowing, I don’t think you are at fault.” I wrinkled up my nose and took in the smell of the place. Burning, super heated stone, and… no idea. Something else about it was off.

“This is a home away from home for you?” Some of the grump eased away from her face as she tried to read my expression.

“No. It’s too… fake. Too System-created. The Hell I knew was a place of unrelenting violence that slowly eroded away at both your soul and sanity. I just feel a little extra warm here. So far.”

“Hmm.” She nodded slowly, but didn’t seem convinced. “Given how you react around demons, I am expecting the rest of us to suffer while you carve through everything… until we find a way out?”

I turned around to view the house we had arrived here in. It was decaying already, the wood not really burning, but just turning to ash. Would only be a handful of minutes before only debris remained. My eyes went from the building and over to Quinn and Tanya, the latter of the pair not looking too great.

“You okay, Tanya?” I stepped over, Ren following.

The fateweaver turned her tired eyes over to me. “Never better.”

“Wolf, take Ren and Quinn, see what the local threats are - any potential path forward.”

They each gave me a nod and set off - the bear looking rather unsettled by our new environs too. Ren caught my eye and started to talk to Wolf about how he was feeling. I turned back to Tanya and gave her a soft smile.

“You don’t have to talk to me, but I’m here.”

“It’s just that…” she sighed and rubbed at her eyes. “I thought that the world might be purgatory… and then when I came to terms with not going back and tried to live for now… to move on with the group.” Her eyes went over to the trio. “And with Quinn. Now that I’m in actual hell, it feels like a real punishment for not staying true to my family.”

I nodded. “So if we escape this hell, then you will see that as validation for your life choices instead?”

“Well… that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? The sensible part of me knows this is no different from the forest or a dungeon… but guilt often doesn’t care about that.” She gave me a glum smile. “I’ll survive, Max. Thank you. I’ll just be constantly perturbed.”

“Noted. Check in if you feel any worse.” I gestured to the others, and we went to catch up. “Quinn though? Sly dog.”

Tanya smiled, and some life came back into her eyes. “We tried to downplay it. Nothing serious, but it’s nice to have… someone who cares and understands, you know?”

“You deserve happiness.” I smiled, but raised an eyebrow. “If that is in the shape of Quinn, then more power to the both of you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Can you keep it between us?”

“Of course.”

As much as it pained me, I’d even keep it from reaching Ren’s long ears for now. A struggle to hold something from her, but it wasn’t my place to spread secrets that were not mine to tell. We arrived at where the others had stopped to look over an apparent ledge or decline lower than us.

“What do you think, Max?” Ren gestured down to the plateaus of parched stone and rough spines.

There were demons. Plenty of them… in fact, far too many. All milling around doing who knew what.

“They make me angry,” I said. “Not in a good way.”

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Quinn rubbed at his eyepatch. “Well, before you go off and have a terrific time murdering through every demon you meet, we might want an actual plan of action for how to get out of here.”

A valid point. Although all demons needed to die, it wasn’t likely that erasing all of them would be the key for us to portal back home. No point asking Tanya if she had another scroll either, as she would have brought it up immediately.

“I’m not an expert on these things… but it seems as though there are pocket areas that don’t show up on the main map. This just so happens to be the place where demons are generated and stored until they are needed in the actual world… unless there is a quest down here or something?”

My postulations were met with resigned shrugs and grunts that held no information.

I, however, was already chewing on a thought based on this hypothesis. What if our return didn’t have to be the same location that we had arrived here from?

It stood to reason that there would be other areas that received demons from down here. Some of those might accept some extra passengers… so what if we could appear nearer Candlekeep - or the Eternal Wardens… or even past the area three barrier?

We just needed to find a way.

The air shift just to the right of us. A solid rock wavered beneath some demonic power, and Ren raised her rifle up.

Out of the air, a large figure emerged. White fur, long ears, and bright purple eyes. Roger looked us over with a scowl on his face.

“What the fuck are you assholes doing down here?”

“Sight-seeing tour.” I crossed my arms. “Want to be our guide?”

He groaned in response and rubbed at his eyes. “This isn’t good, Boss. Once the demon king hears there are humans and human-adjacent species… and a bear… down here, he’ll flip his fucking nut.”

“Sounds like we’ll have to kill him then,” Wolf suggested.

I nodded. “Will you be our tour guide for that, Roger?”

“Boss. I have a family here. I can’t shit where I eat. Or… fuck where I eat? I forget which way it goes - which is bad because it’s part of my probation.”

“If we kill the king, will we be able to renegotiate the terms of that?” I raised an eyebrow, trying to coerce my demon into risking it all because I said so.

“Yeah… I suppose so.” His fuzzy hand went up to rub at his chin. “Would do wonders for my sex appeal. I’d be a fuckin' icon. Alright, I’m in - murder train full steam ahead.”

Ignoring for the moment that the System must be translating what a steam train was, I was content enough that it hadn’t taken that much persuasion to get him on board with… oh, I guess we were marching on a king now?

“Not that I don’t like a bit of bravado,” Ren began, one step ahead of my mental process, “but we don’t know whether that is a good idea, possible, or something that would take us back home.”

Quinn nodded along. “The first thing you should have asked our dear demon friend is if he knew a way for us to get home.”

“Nah.” Roger shook his head. “I only get out of here when summoned. Plus, even if I did know, I might not tell you now because usurping the king sounds fun as fuck.”

Not quite the level head I wanted us to go into this with, but about what I had expected from my pact demon. By my estimation, this should be somewhat like farming out a repeatable quest, just with a Boss at the end of it. Would be nice to assume we’d get some manner of reward out of the effort - but… hmm.

“Say, Roger. Do you know what levels the demons are here? Are there many much stronger than you?”

“Oh yeah, I’m like… middle of the road here, excluding the Higher Court and the big nob himself. Can’t see numbers or shit, though.”

I nodded and took my hat from my head to rub at my hair. Caught the gaze of Ren, as it seemed she had a similar line of thought as I had. One of the things that I adored about her.

“That’s a dangerous game,” she said, before I’d even spoken the words. “It will have to be a Party vote.”

Quinn looked apprehensive and remarkably sweaty. Tanya still seemed to be being eaten up by her guilt. Wolf was fed up with the oppressive smells and keen to get things rolling. Despite how odd the situation was, Ren was calm. Roger had already stated his opinion.

“Right then. Party vote time.” I returned my top hat to my head and gave them a wide smile. “There is a slight chance that we are currently in an advantageous position. If the System doesn’t see us as being in the second area anymore, that could mean we are no longer level locked…”

Tanya hummed. “So you are suggesting we purge hell, hoping that we get experience, and then go higher than Level Fifteen?”

“Precisely. Assuming all that is possible. It would give us an edge up over the competition, with the downside of potentially being here longer, without being able to influence the outside world.” I crossed my arms.

Given that we were still looking for an exit, our actual time here was variable. Even saying that - Roger seemed to travel through time differently when he was down here… maybe there was some time dilation we’d be wary of. As much as it would be dire to return to Othea to find the whole world was under control of the Lady in Red, I was reasonably sure things moved quicker here than there - to our advantage.

I took a deep breath. “Hands up if you are okay with trying to power level and kill the demon king on the way to finding our way out of here.”

Naturally, I raised my hand up.

Roger was in as soon as I mentioned regicide again. Ren was second to the raise her hand, still looking rather done with the day and how our lives seemingly just spiraled into worse situations every few days.

Wolf was next. He had been quiet, and I’d have to check with the elf to see how he was doing. I had banked on the power trio being down for the constant violence. Quinn hesitated but his hand went up gradually, my eye looking more toward the fateweaver than anywhere else - his thought clearly process visible.

Tanya remained with hands down, but leaned her face forward so that she could cover it with her abstaining palms. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be here - even though I know this is the best option for us.”

“Escape is always our first priority. As soon as the option presents itself, we will go - I promise you this.”

She sighed. “Fine. Let’s go fuck up some demons.”

“Wooo!” Roger yelled.

I rolled out my neck. While the idea was mostly my creation, I wasn’t as eager as I had made out. The outpost full of demons had caused me to black out with violence. Now in literal hell, I wondered exactly what a danger I’d become.

Roger led us toward a pathway, the time to find out soon upon us.