I made my way over and joined Ike and Kevinar, gathering around the hearth. Usually such heat was uncomfortable for me, the ice infernal body responding negatively to the baking warmth of the fire. But now it was comfortable, more again to a light skin massage. I sighed, glad for the return of such a small comfort, and Ike and Kevinar leaned back, Ike examined his blades while Kevinar stared into the fire.

“The dwarves, they worship the infernals,” Kevinar mused, “in the same way my people worship the abyssal spiders. I was surprised they didn’t immediately take to your words, Ryan-Jeldorain. It suggests my reckoning of these Khazud-Tharik is very incomplete.”

Ike sent his blades back to his inventory. “Not worth trusting, that’s for sure. But it’s not like we gotta a choice.”

We could devour the king and his people. Ike is wrong. There is always a choice.

“I think he distrusts us because of how strange our situation is. Imagine the power that it took to put me inside an infernal. Now we just happen to show up with an infernal, their most blessed sort of being, and claim that we need them to ally with us against the goblins? If I were a king, I’d be suspicious. It all seems too convenient.”

Kevinar nodded, clearly impressed. “That is a good assessment of the situation. I can feel the possibility inside it. It is not unlike the deviled trials of the Arachne, when rogue driders break free of their possession and attempt to flee for exile and refuge. Sometimes it is legitimate, but more often it is a ruse by the Spider Queen to judge us, and to mete out punishment if we fail in her ruling. It is a trick that has made my people paranoid and vicious, always against each other in total obedience to her will and the will of her pantheon.”

I nodded. “So the focus of our diplomacy, then, is to somehow convince the king and his court that we really are what we say we are. And that there is no goblin punishment waiting for them at the end of a partnership.”

You all think too much like mortals. What you need to do is convince them that the punishment we can mete out is greater than what the goblins can, Jeldorain advised. I paused, thinking through his logic.

“I can see that look on yer face, the one that makes it seem like you are ready to lay down one big ol’ frozen crap right here in front of us. What’s Jeldorain saying?” Ike asked.

I stood up and paced a little, thinking through his words before answering. “He says that for this negotiation, we just have to be the scarier alternative. If the dwarves are more afraid of not helping us than they are of a goblin trap, then there’ll be no question of who they will side with.”

The way I said it was better, Jeldorain grumped.

“He also said that I am an accomplished speaker, and that he is happy that I am here to translate his gibberish into amazing insights.”

Jeldorain stared through our spiritual cockpit, his eyes stern, and then he bent back, howling with laughter. If we can’t accomplish a separation, Ryan, I think it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. It gets boring in this body by myself over the uninterrupted course of many millennia.

“We need to be more than intimidating,” I said, Jeldorain’s observation sparking an idea in my brain. “We need to also be relatable. Give them some element that they want to be around. Something that would suggest to them that, given time, we can all be friends.”

Ike snorted. “Becoming relatable to people whose whole culture centers around the worship of infernals. Yeah, that should be easy.”

I shrugged. “Our stories, our experiences... they're powerful. You two have been directly enslaved by one of their number, and we’ve all been through combat with their kind. Surely that’s some common ground between us.”

“Unless they volunteered for it all, and our assumptions about how all of this has been operating are wrong,” Kevinar stated.

We were quiet for a moment.

“Brandosyeus could do it,” Ike said, slapping his knee. “That bugger would make up some song about infernal love and they’d all fall apart.”

As they should, Jeldorain said, sighing. Infernal women of all the planes are incredibly sexy, with tight bods and amazing hoohahs.

I, um, what? I asked, my mind suddenly pulled to the figures drawn in a million teenage boys’ notebooks all over my former world.

Yes, like that, Jeldorain replied wistfully. If we do get separated, I’ll introduce you to one of them. The encounter will inevitably be lethal, but I guarantee it will be worth it.

“Jeldorain thinks that talking of infernal women might not be a bad idea,” I said, my mouth twisting as I said it. The whole idea of going into the diplomatic meeting to do a bunch of locker room talk just seemed so wrong. It certainly wasn’t ever an option in any of the Lord of Chaos dialogue menus. But the way he spoke of them; it was possible they were the last bit of common ground we’d need to get things rolling.

After some more light chit chat, we finally rose from the dwindling fire, a silent anxious tiredness that had our eyes wide and our mouths yawning. Bidding everyone a good sleep, we walked through the long shadows cast across the room and made our ways to our prospective quarters.

I walked to mine, laying down in the large infernal-sized bed provided us, and pulled up my character sheet, ready to run my level up. I was level 14, with 420 hit points, 210 mana points, 250 stamina points and I knew what to do with my new skill up. I rolled through my abilities, finding Ember’s Grasp and raising it to B-rank. Lava coursed through my veins briefly as a prompt popped before my eyes.

Growing a greater affinity for the elements of flame, the infernal heat imbues your body with another ability:

Flame Puppeteer: You are an artist, the flames your canvas. Fashion and shape flames into simple forms such as animals, weapons, or walls, using them to intimidate, distract, or shield allies from harm.

That done, I let myself stare at the ceiling, thoughts bouncing through my mind.

Jeldorain, you mentioned female infernals. Does that mean you all have families?

Jeldorain's presence within me shifted, as if he were settling in for a long, thoughtful conversation. Families... Yes, in a manner of speaking. Infernals do form bonds, though not always in the way mortals understand them. Our connections are often forged through power, alliances, and sometimes, genuine affection.

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Images of a surprisingly attractive she-devil appeared in my mind, about her swirls of frost and snow smoking through the sky.

Who was she? I asked, genuinely surprised.

A being of another life. This was a time before the elemental wars, the legions of the earths, waters, winds, and flames smashing at each other and vassalizing the lesser planes in a bid for total domination. It was before the beginning of this particular plane, before the Treaty of the Nexus forced all of us who survived to agree to an eternal truce. I have reason to question the narrative, but at the time we were shown a vast new universe filled with worlds and wonder. Many of them were barren, but a few were living, filled with animals and sapient beings. And in an infinite universe, a few might as well be infinity as well. We were told that our struggle created this, that our elemental energies smashing together and annihilating one another had combined, blasting into existence a space where none had been before, filled with new gods and new beings. We were told that they were our children, and that they would serve us and give us purpose.

I stared across our mind, locking my eyes with his own. That’s genuinely interesting. And informative. But you didn’t answer my question.

He sighed. She was an object of my affection.

I turned over in the bed, intrigued. Affection? I wouldn't have taken infernals for the affectionate type. How does that work?

Jeldorain chuckled. There is a godly complexity that all of you lesser species put upon us. The truth is, we aren’t these horrid beings devoid of passion. We’re the opposite of that. We are horrid because we feel so hard. I don’t get hungry. I hunger. I don’t feel horny. I lust. For infernals, we stay away from each other for the most part nowadays because when we get angry, we kill, and when we love, it is forever.

Images of the she-devil flowed through my mind once again, but this time it was a montage of scenes, one after another, a barely traceable zip of incredibly raw emotion that started with a handsome blue-skinned man-demon named Jeldorain, not at all recognizable as the form he was now, and the she-devil named Jezebel.

It began with a challenge. Standing atop icy peaks outcroppings across from one another, a vast chasm between them underneath the swirling chaos of a winter maelstrom, they glared at one another. Both obviously young, staking claims for themselves in the Icy Hells, they come to a place where their borders overlapped.

No words were exchanged as the two narrowed their eyes at the other, jumping straight into a duel of epic proportions. Ice and wind blasted through the air, snow and stone scattering with each magical blast of the other’s might. The storm above intensified, lightning crackling through the air, whole sheets of ice slapping down in a meteoric mockery of hail.

And then, all at once, the landscape was silent. Dazed and weary, the two combatants stood just one arm’s length from the other, panting.

“You fight well for a youngling,” she said, her voice sultry and echoed like frosted caverns in winter.

“You as well,” Jeldorain said, cocking his head and grinning. He stepped forward just as she did, each mirroring the other’s movements until they were locked in a romantic embrace, their lips meeting the suddenly powerful howling of the wind.

Dating isn’t very complicated in the infernal world, is it? I asked, staring at the images as he froze them into place.

Jeldorain grinned. When lonely beings of power meet and learn to respect one another as equals, the foundations have been laid. What sense is there in stretching it out?

The scenes began to play out again, Jeldorain and Jezebel in a tavern that looked suspiciously like an overlarge igloo, blue-skinned beings of small, dwarvish stature with beards of ice and frost muttering over cups or serving chilled fare as the two matched each other cup for cup over giant mugs of local lager.

In the next, Jezebel was laughing, belting Jeldorain in the stomach before getting grabbed and pile-driven into the floor. Panting, they locked lips, their hands moving over each other before, suddenly, I saw them in their own cavern, a gaggle of NPC frost dwarves crafting and fashioning goods for their abode.

A home? I asked.

He froze the scene and nodded. The open, blowing wilds are a wondrous place. But not for a child.

My eyes widened. You – You’re a father?!

He shook his head to the negative. The scene zoomed out, and I was treated to the flashed of combat, the explosions of fire in the land of frost. Magma dwarves, fiery infernals of every shape and size, lava imps, a full on bestiary of creatures marched through the Icy Hells, laying charred waste to all they beheld. It was chaotic as I saw young Jeldorain marching alongside his lover, part of a legion that itself was part of an infinite mass assembled to defend their homeland.

In the skies above, dragons and wyverns of pure elemental composition fought one another, their ashes and wetness dripping to the land beneath them.

Marching into combat, ice met lava and flame, squelching heat as it fell into slushy waste. All over the infinity of each of the icy hells, they fought, cities of ice and snow crashing into nothing, leaving bare rock where they had once stood. I watched as the legions grew fewer, as the battles became less frequent, as Jezebel’s stomach grew and her battle candor waned.

“No more,” Jeldorain snarled, thicker and larger now, jagged bits of ice crackling out from patches of his blue skin. “You must stay in the cavern. We can still win and I can’t lose you!” he said, Jezebel’s face a rictus of anger.

“No! They are winning, Jeldorain. We need every fighter on the line. This is for us, for the Frozen Hells. We will not be slaves to the Flaming Abyss!”

The images froze, and I heard a sobbing snort. Looking away from the pictures, I saw that Jeldorain was crying.

I — I didn’t realize. You were such a dick when I met you. I thought infernals were just like that.

Oh, it isn’t your fault, Jeldorain said, attempting a smile. We are like that to lesser beings. I didn’t realize it until recently. You have taught me a lot, Ryan.

He waved a hand and the images played again. I watched as his homeland smoked and scorched, falling to the invaders one after another infinitesimally large block at a time.

How much—

A million of your Earths, Ryan. That many beings as well.

I saw Jeldorain and Jezebel’s unit collapse, the two of them rushing back for their cavern still days away from the advancing hordes.

“We can leave the planes! We can go to the Watery Abyss!” Jeldorain screamed frantically as he carried his partner through the howling gales. But I noticed that she didn’t respond. She couldn’t respond. Her eyes were closed and her body was leaking away, her skin slush, her baby bump already gone to the wind.

I’m so sorry, I gasped. Images of my own wife and family popped before us, crying at the feet of my dead body on the floor of the gaming convention, and Jeldorain nodded.

The images ticked forward, a messy and chaotic blur. I saw Jeldorain wailing into the sky followed by a host of ice infernals and dwarves standing before the massive figure of a flaming humanoid behemoth, opposite of who stood the ice god Thrymheimr. Words swirled in the air before them, and Thrynheimr bent his knee in obeisance, all of the other denizens following suit.

All but Jeldorain, who slunk away from the gathering to march into the deepest depths of the Icy Hells, to a place of frozen lakes and mountains, away from all the others and bathed in the tormented screams of a billion souls.

Does that answer your question, Ryan? Jeldorain asked, his voice subdued and tired.

Yes. Thank you for sharing that with me, Jeldorain. It couldn’t have been easy.

Easier than having your body taken away from you forcibly and given to that of a lesser being? Jeldorain asked. I glanced over sharply, afraid I had offended him, but a sad grin on his devilish lips told me he was joking, and I forced a chuckle.

Point taken.

Now, if you don’t mind, I wish to be alone for a while. Perhaps it is a good idea to sleep. It has been a long and exciting day.

I nodded. I think you infernals maybe got a bum rap. I’m glad to have met you Jeldorain.

He snorted. If we hadn’t met, you’d still be with your family and I’d still be wandering the hells in exile. But, I’m glad that of all the beings in the multiverse that the spell could have taken, it chose you. I don’t know if you are truly that great of a master strategist, but maybe the spell doesn’t work like that. Maybe it choses the people who, deep down, are most alike. Now, go away. I wish to lament and ponder.

I smiled. Goodnight Jeldorain.

He snorted and moved out of our mind, leaving me alone in our headspace. I closed my eyes, and I was soon asleep.