Ashtoreth looked down at a delicately crafted silver locket that was set with a ruby and hung upon a thin chain:

{Ashtoreth’s Heart-Shaped Locket}

This locket can store up to 3 hearts that you’ve torn from slain enemies in an extradimensional space.

Hearts contained within the locket don’t lose freshness.

You may only store hearts that you are able to consume.

“Oh it’s perfect,” she said, raising it up and admiring how it glittered in the light of the bloodied moon. She thrust it out to Dazel. “Look!”

“Uh-huh,” Dazel said. He climbed into the chest, then eyed the diadem still resting on a piece of felt.

“Did you read it? You look like you didn’t read it.”

“It stores hearts.”

“Oh, you did. Sorry! I’m guessing that when it says it won’t store hearts that have lost their freshness, it means I can’t store hearts that won’t restore [Bloodfire] because their owner died more than an hour ago.” She paused in thought, then added: “Technically I can still consume those, though. But by eating them. And for no bonus.”

“Hearts are too bloody and stringy for my taste,” Dazel said absent-mindedly. “I’m more of a belly-fat fellow.”

Two articles remained in the chest before her: the diadem that had been confiscated when she’d arrived and something else new.

It was a non-magical bag, and thus couldn’t be identified. As she lifted it out of the chest, she saw that it was more like a thick messenger bag than a purse. It was white leather, and had a red heard emblazoned on the front.

“Oh, Dazel, look!” she said, flipping open its flap. “It has compartments for storage! And a sweet little heart on the front too. And I daresay it looks quite fetching.” She spun and let her momentum lift the satchel out and away from her. “If only I had a mirror I could get a better look.”

“So it’s not even enchanted?” he asked, peering at it. “It’s just a satchel for hearts?”

“Mhmm!” she said. “It feels very high-quality, though,” she said. She lifted the satchel to her face and gave it a sniff. Her eyes widened. “It smells like elven leather!” she said. She ran a hand across the front of the satchel. “So supple!”

“Well I guess you can get rid of that knotted, blood-soaked thing around your neck.”

“Uh-huh!” she said, tearing it away and then pulling her new heart satchel over one shoulder.

As she transferred her remaining hearts from the sack of torn cloth into her new leather satchel, Dazel hopped up onto the rim of the chest and looked down at its last remaining item.

It was the diadem that had been confiscated. It was a simple thing: a circular, crenelated band of silver studded with 36 small diamonds.

He looked up from the diadem to Ashtoreth. “You brought this with you?”

“Uh-huh!”

“You know how to weave glamours?”

Ashtoreth grinned. Then she picked it up, examining it:

[Ashtoreth’s Glamourous Diadem]

100% charged.

This enchanted diadem allows you to conjure glamours.

Glamours make a thing seem like something else, and can deceive any of the senses to do so. The strength of this diadem’s glamours is extremely weak.

The diadem charges by draining your [Bloodfire] while you wear it, and won’t replenish charge that was spent on a glamour it is currently maintaining.

The diadem was made of two halves. She undid the simple lock that connected them, then locked them back together around her head.

The magic of glamours was a powerful magic indeed. Any bad situation could be paved over over with fantasy and made better.

“Time to choose an outfit,” Ashtoreth said, looking down at her scorched and blood-soaked white robes. They were torn through in many places by teeth marks. “Something human, you know? What do you think?”

“Well, you’re a betrayer of Hell. How ‘bout a blindfold and a cigarette?”

“Dazel,” she chided. “Come on—what if I dressed like a superhero? A business woman? Even a regular woman? I could be any kind of human there is. I like uniforms, though—maybe a human soldier.”

She made a complex gesture with her hand as she drew it through the air, and suddenly she was wearing black military dress uniform that was trimmed with violet, complete with a polished white cap and pristine white gloves.

“That was… fast….” Dazel said, voice sounding uncertain.

“Is it too much?” she asked. “I don’t want to seem like someone who doesn’t respect the military. Maybe something more casual—”

She moved her hand through the air again and was suddenly wearing a baseball uniform, complete with cap. It was black with violet pinstripes and had the word pride written across the shirt’s breast, the back, and the front of the cap.

“Let’s try this!” she said, looking down at herself. “This feels good. Very human, and it shows I’m a team player—at the very least, it should make any human who spots me pause in confusion long enough for me to explain that I don’t want to kill them. Plus I can’t feel the sticky blood anymore.”

“You’re completely insane,” said Dazel.

She waved a hand dismissively, then began to jog toward the edge of the forest so that they could find Frost again. “You think Sir Frost will like the diamonds?” she asked. “On Earth, the diamonds don’t ever come perfect, I don’t think. These would be pretty valuable, if not for the apocalypse.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Sure,” said Dazel. “Just give him a second to pull out his jeweller’s monocle and check, and he’ll be very impressed.”

“Did you know they have blood diamonds on Earth, too?” she asked, ignoring him. “It’s sort of a different thing, though, but you could make the argument that they’re technically the same. In Earth’s case, they don’t directly sacrifice—say, it’s Sir Frost!”

He’d appeared near the edge of the forest, jogging toward them.

“You stopped hiding,” Ashtoreth said, trying to sound both cheerful and accusatory.

“There was a dragon,” he said, eyes seeming wild. “An actual dragon, flying over the lake. It was level 50.”

“So you ran to us in the hopes that we’d be the safer bet,” Ashtoreth said. “Smart! Anyway, I killed the huntsman.”

“I was worried about you when I saw the fires in the forest light, then go out all of a sudden.” He stared at her, blinked. “You’re wearing—” Then he shook his head as if to clear it. “You’re not more surprised by the dragon?”

“It might be the tutorial boss,” she said. “We’ll find out when we kill it, I guess.”

“That thing was massive,” said Frost. “It wouldn’t have fit on my front lawn. How the hell is anyone supposed to fight that?”

“We’ll think of something.”

“You’re not at all surprised or worried about this?”

Ashtoreth frowned. “You are? I mean, humans have figured out that dragons are a typical boss by now. Like the one at the end of the Hobbit.”

“Sure,” said Frost. “The dragon. There was one in the Bible, too.”

“And Beowulf,” said Dazel. “Also, the dragon wasn’t at the end of the Hobbit.”

“Yeah,” said Frost. “He dies right at the start of the third movie.”

Dazel groaned. “Right, well, ignoring the movies for a second, the dragon’s not really the final boss of The Hobbit. He should be, but after they kill him everyone squabbles over the treasure. Really, greed is the true antagonist of the Hobbit—represented by the dragon, but also as a force that all the peoples of middle earth fail to overcome once the dragon is dead.”

“Uh, okay,” said Sir Frost.

“He’s a knowledge spirit,” said Ashtoreth, beaming proudly down at her familiar. “Say, Dazel: maybe when Earth is peaceful again you can do video essays—I bet you’d be great at it!”

“What? No. What?”

“Sorry, can we focus?” said Sir Frost. “There could be people in trouble even now and—actually, what is going on with you now?”

“Oh?” Ashtoreth said, spinning in place. “You mean my new threads, or my new frosting?”

Frost just stared.

“Frosting as in ice,” Ashtoreth explained. “Ice as in jewels.” She paused, letting the sentence hang for a moment before adding: “I have diamonds.”

“The tiara.”

“It’s a diadem, but yes. It makes glamours—I started with my new outfit. I can do one for you too if you like.”

Frost blanched, seeming totally unable to process this. “The baseball uniform… is a glamour?”

“Yeah, you like it? I like it. I thought a firefighter’s gear would have been too on the nose.”

“You chose this,” Frost said.

“It’s the great American pastime, right?” Ashtoreth said. “I definitely want to be an American once we get to Earth—they’re the strongest. And they have things like Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon and liberty. Anyway, the glamour masks the feeling of the robes, which were getting pretty uncomfortable.”

“Your diamond tiara puts baseball uniforms on people. Sorry, I—” he put his face in his palm and rubbed his temples. “Right, let’s just go see if we can find some other humans, I don’t know if more talking is going to help me understand this.”

They set out into the woods. Because Frost was looking at her like she was a crazy person, Ashtoreth added: “It’s not just for trivial seeming fashion choices, okay? I can use my diadem to trick anything that doesn’t have true sight. Whole types of enemies will have no defense against an item whose power scales with my creativity.”

“Okay,” he said. “I suppose that makes sense.”

“Just wait a bit,” she said. “Give it time and I’ll show you how useful it’ll be. It will take time, though—it replenishes very slowly, so in a real fight using it should be a last resort.”

“Except for the baseball uniform, which was essential.”

She smiled and looked away. “Well, I mean, when it’s full it feels like a waste to not use a little bit of it. I still have plenty of charge left for combat. But it’s nice to wear what makes you feel good, you know? I bet your police officer’s uniform made you feel pretty good, huh?”

“Uh, sure,” said Frost.

“Anyway, we should probably move through the woods, but parallel to the lake of fire. That way we’ll hopefully run into anyone else who’s just come out of the dungeon area because we can keep sight of what’s out in the open while still taking cover from your dragon.”

Frost thought about this, then nodded, seeming relieved to hear something that made a little sense. “Sounds good,” he said.

“Oh, and here—I have cores for you to absorb. Just touch my hand.”

To her chagrin, Frost seemed somewhat reluctant to touch her offered hand. But he did, and she transferred all of the cores she’d gotten from the hounds along with that of the boss’s horse.

“Hopefully that gets you to your class,” she said. “Then you should at least be strong enough to fight with me and not be a liability.”

“Great,” he said.

“Obviously, your third aspect is your choice,” Ashtoreth said. “But let me know if you want any pointers, okay? I’d be happy to help.”

“O-kay,” said Frost. “I have [Armament] and [Sacred]. The second one I took because it would be effective in Hell, and the first because it said it was versatile and could get me a gun.”

“You know? Maybe you don’t need my help. That’s some pretty sound judgement, right there.”

“Uh, thanks,” said Frost. “You said the third one is my choice—is there something different about the fourth?”

“Fourth?” Ashtoreth asked.

“You gave me enough cores to get the third and fourth aspects,” Frost said. “Uh… thanks, by the way. But you only said the third one is my choice. Does the fourth one get chosen for me?”

“There’s only three aspects,” Ashtoreth said, frowning.

“Oh,” said Frost. “I suppose that makes sense—it’s a racial thing, under human.”

Ashtoreth looked over at him, suspicion dawning. Surely he didn’t mean….

“What’s a racial thing?” she asked.

“Human,” he said. “It says it lets me pick an extra aspect to make a class with. I should have realized you wouldn’t know that, since you’ve never met a human before—I saw it when we loaded in, but I wasn’t really thinking clearly, then.”

Slowly, Ashtoreth began to laugh.

“What is it?” Frost asked.

Dazel padded quietly beside him, staring up at the police officer. “You said you get four aspects? You’re sure about that?”

Ashtoreth was laughing so hard she was practically cackling. “I guess that goes a little way to explain what he’s so afraid of,” she said.

“Who?” Frost asked, looking from her to the cat. “Dazel?”

“Oh no,” Ashtoreth said. “Not Dazel—the King of Hell.” She shrugged, then kept on walking into the woods, smiling to herself. “There’s a reason that Hell is putting so much work into invading Earth, after all. Now I at least know part of it. There’s eight billion of you, right? So it figures—the King of Hell is afraid of humans.”