They say the more that you know, the more you know that you do not know. I had been opening the little advent calendar windows of knowledge lately, which seemed never-ending. Some of it was speculation, some of it was obscured - but just when you thought your plate was full, it turned out there was a whole buffet just across the room, and this was one of ten buffets just in your town. You could drown in the things you didn’t know. If only you knew you could.

I no longer stood in the small chamber. Surrounding me was now an infinite plane of shallow water, dark green in color. Perhaps there might be a horizon at the end of it. However, my immediate vision was obscured.

A rat, or some manner of hellish rodent, rose up hundreds - if not thousands of feet into the air. Directly before me was its large, yellow eye. Instead of fur, it had millions of writhing maggots the size of my arm pulsing and writhing across its body. Perhaps it was entirely made up of these monstrosities. I fought the urge to throw up as the creature of monumental significance glared at me.

And then, a hissing, like hundreds of different steam vents. The pitch rose and fell before falling silent. The rodent, half submerged in this mysterious liquid despite it only being inches deep for me, appeared to be waiting expectantly.

[He wants to know if you accept.]

The voice of Wight beside me was sobering, despite my inability to look away from the living horror before me. Why couldn’t this be rendered in cartoon-vision? Questions rose and popped within my skull like fetid bubbles.

“Who… what do they want me to accept?”

[A boon.]

Boons were a good thing. At least, that was my interpretation of the word. Seeing what lay before me, some eldritch… god? Was it just as likely to be a curse? It was honestly difficult for my brain to process - yet I didn’t feel the corruption of Hell clawing away my faculties. Since entering the chamber, I had been as clear of mind as any other time in the last few weeks.

My tongue stuck in my mouth. Did I dare? I felt like I was being rude, making the big rat wait for my response, but maybe time worked differently for whatever it was. The implication that I had to accept seemed a bit unfair, given the power imbalance.

“Your… suggestion?” I wanted to look at Wight for reassurance, but I couldn’t physically move. The eye entranced me.

[This is your destiny to fulfill, Eric.]

It was probably a lot to ask my patron to hold my hand through all of life’s choices. After all, if I couldn’t accept or deny the mysterious boon from an unfathomable entity, then I might as well ask for help with tying my shoelaces.

The steam vents of communication hissed and beat against my eardrums again. Perhaps I was now annoying it. I tensed, ready for oblivion.

[He understands your trepidation but asks you to look within.]

My jaw worked. What was within? I tried to search around my inner office, tipping over trays of paperwork and emptying pens across the floor in hopes of finding the blinding answer staring me in the face, obvious and proud. There was no looming revelation that made everything okay, nothing that made this make sense. Even if I wanted to return to the mortal world, would I be allowed? I found myself not wanting to make the attempt - that was enough of an answer for now.

“I accept!” I raised my voice in hopes my feigned confidence would make everything okay. Did it ever? Usually, only when I backed it up with a handful of demonic bullets.

Hisses of a returned phrase.

[He is pleased.]

“Well, that’s swell-“

Immediate darkness.

I breathed in and out. My heart beat slowly and rhythmically in my chest. External senses were numb. Taken? No, I didn’t think so… but for some time, I floated in an abyss of nothingness. Funny how it was always an abyss. There was no Wight, no strange voices in my head - and for a brief moment, I wondered if this was what death was like.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Certainly, I wouldn’t be breathing or pumping blood through my body if I were truly dead, but just the quiet emptiness of it all. The lack of anything except existing in some form. I imagined too much of this would drive me madder than the Hells did.

Eventually, I felt gravity against me. A weight pulled me down through the nothing, and the slight hues of dark green began to paint the edges of infinity as I sunk down. As I increased in velocity, the color grew brighter, and my senses started to return. My fingers, I could move - and then my arms. With a slow twist of my head, I looked around at the circular expanse of verdant hues around me.

And then I looked down.

Beneath me, the eldritch rat looked up at me; an impossibly expansive maw opened wide as his two yellow orbs of eyes glared up at me. There was no stopping the inevitable, and the constant tide pulled me down. I couldn’t look away as I dropped past teeth larger than skyscrapers, down into the inky pitch black of his insides.

I threw up and grasped at the side of the pedestal. My vision flickering, I realized I was back in the chamber - or hadn’t left.

[Breathe. You almost passed out, Eric.]

Another mouthful of my breakfast came back up to desecrate the room. I was sweating heavily - but it was warm sweat, not cold. I gasped for air and wiped my mouth with the jacket sleeve.

“What… what…” My words slurred as my brain tried to make sense of the last year… no, it was just minutes, maybe? I didn’t understand. I didn’t… I needed to get out of here, I thought.

[Time to go home.]

I closed my eyes and willed it. Three long seconds passed, and then vertigo and I found myself stumbling over the metal portal fixture back at the Org.

“Eric! Fuckin’ ass!” The voice of Partridge had me twisting back around to stand to attention. It's funny how his voice could be so sobering.

“What?” I blurted out, more out of confusion than attempting rudeness.

“You went off the radar after coring the King. Where’d you fuck off to?” He stormed down the short steps to the portal area. “Did the Quest brief say you could go jerk off in private?”

“I… didn’t read the brief?” My eyes slowly focused on the room and the rather angry man in front of me. My senses were still off-kilter, and the brow-beating was making me tired.

He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Of course you didn’t. Go sit your dumb ass down so medical can give you a once over.”

With a nod, I sidled past him and stumbled up the short steps - they should really mark them in some way. I resigned myself to a bench, my muscles screaming in pain as I slunk comfortably atop it.

Wight pooled into this reality in his mist form and hung near me.

[Can you hear me now?]

“Yeah. That was…”

[Pretty fucked, Eric. We will talk later.]

Even speaking inside my head, he didn’t feel comfortable discussing the events so close to the Org. I wondered what I had just gotten myself into. My tongue ran across my teeth - all normal. Other than feeling exhausted, I didn’t feel any different.

“How are you feeling, Mr Redd?”

Interrupting my inner monologue was the medical staff - a short woman with light brown skin and curled black hair. More interestingly, was that she was a Blank - although, how I knew that, I wasn’t quite sure. I had met very few of them in my life, but perhaps my demon side could pick it up.

Partridge stomped up the stairs to us. “He’s feeling like he knows better than the briefing.” He stopped and crossed his arms to glare at me.

“The pigmen trapped me underground; I tried to find a way out to finish the Quest but-“

“Hard to do when you eviscerated the royal ass you were meant to be kissing.”

“—but I think the corruption made me lose the plot a little.” I gave a sheepish grin and tried to ignore Partridge. It was a lot easier to deal with Org Quests when you didn’t have immediate feedback - especially with the verbal abuse that Partridge came with as standard.

“You’re not in physical pain?”

“Some bruising of my ego and legs, but nothing dire.” The landing in the muck pit had been softened by all the debris, but was still rough on my knees. I wasn’t in my twenties anymore.

She nodded and looked between my eyes. “Alright, I’ll prescribe some anti-psychotics and bed rest.” With a glance over at Partridge, she raised an eyebrow. “Okay?”

He worked his jaw, but gave a nod. I half expected him to smart-mouth something, but perhaps he had a blind spot for her.

She scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it over. My ticket to a little sanity. Although I had thought most of my brains would be slosh by now - even the Titan corruption had totally abated - I hoped. I gave her a smile of thanks as she left.

“Eric.” He sighed and gestured for the tech at the workstation to leave. He waited for the door to close before continuing. “You know you can’t solve every problem with violence.”

I almost burst out in laughter. “Sir?” I managed to say with a straight face.

“Following orders, executing the brief to the letter of the Org - those things matter too, shitass.”

“Honestly, Sir, I thought it was some kind of test.” I shrugged and raised my eyebrows at Wight. I thought we had done our best.

“Of course it was. But not every test is about how quickly you can blow your load over the demons. Middle Hells need nuance. Nuance, Eric.”

“Was killing the demon the wrong thing?” I had a lot riding on his answer, and I could tell he was thinking about how to navigate the response.

“You are one of our most capable Hunters in the Lowers, Eric. It gets the Org real hard when you go on a little killing spree. If you do that in the Mids, some big ol’ asshole is gonna crush you like a bug.”

I knew what he meant. It was a different ballgame. They didn’t even play with the same balls as… no, scratch that train of thought. They wanted me to mingle with normal demons, allow them to live so that I could run errands or whatever.

Eric the Loose Cannon didn’t like that.