The inn was nearly empty inside. A small fire burned in the hearth, and a handful of lamps were scattered across the room, but the result was more shadow than light. There were no other customers. A dirty banner with the words ‘Ales for your ails’ hung across the bar, and behind the bar stood a red-skinned devil. The devil stared nodded at the Nanoc and his friends as polished a beer glass. Rotcel ‘Loc grabbed Nanoc by the arm and tried to drag him away.

“It’s a devil, gnome! Make sure it doesn’t steal your wallet… or your soul, either,” she added after a second’s thought. “But definitely your wallet.”

“That’s a bit racist, right?” the devil behind the bar muttered. He was seven feet tall, as skinny as a rake, and had twin ram horns on his head that looked far too heavy for his neck to support. “Now, can I get any of you a beer? The first one’s free, if you know what I mean.”

“Great!” Nanoc said, but Dren shook his head.

“Do you know, we’ll pay for everything.”

“With your souls?” the devil asked hopefully.

“With money,” Dren said firmly, leading his friends to a table in the corner. “Only with money.”

It was never wise to accept anything from a devil for free – they were even worse than fairies in that regard. Devils had a million schemes for winning a mortal’s soul, and each one started with a freebie of some kind.

“What’s wrong with accepting a few free drinks?” Nanoc complained. “We don’t have to give him our souls.”

“Do you know, it’s not worth taking the risk,” Dren said. “It starts with free drinks, and it ends with your soul enslaved for a hundred years."

“Yeah, but it starts with free drinks,” Nanoc argued.

The devil bartender looked disappointed when he placed a tray of beers on the table and Dren insisted on paying him with coins. Devils had been created to discipline mortals who went against the gods in some way – they had been meant more as a deterrent than for actual punishment, but the devils had turned out to be surprisingly entrepreneurial. They had quickly learned that bribing mortals to be bad was an economical way of winning souls… and the more souls a devil owned, the better the bribes they could offer. Capitalism, of a type, had come to the world Below. The gods had not approved and the whole race of devils had eventually been thrown out of Heavens Above.

“Devils,” Rotcel ‘Loc muttered. “We lizardlings don’t like devils.”

“Because they taste bad?” Nanoc joked.

“Even with barbeque sauce.”

The devils described themselves, with talons over their hearts, as business people. After all, they only offered what mortals wanted, and what could be wrong with that? It was supply and demand, market forces, that sort of thing. They basically granted wishes. It was a service.

Their exile from heaven Above had been meant as a sanction of the most severe form, but the devils saw it as getting closer to their customer base. Mortals weren’t as greedy as the gods Above, but they had shorter lives and even shorter memories. They made great customers.

Or they had, once upon a time. Knowledge and his followers had done what they could to warn people.

“I’m the owner of the Inn Stant,” the devil said, a little sadly. “My name is Reeb. I apologize for the décor. This place has seen better days. All that transporting can be hell on the woodwork.”

It was true that the inn was run down: parts of the walls had collapsed, and blue sky was visible through the roof, but there was a fire, and a pot on the fire, and stew in the pot. Nanoc’s stomach rumbled loudly.

“I’ll bring you stew now,” Reeb offered, “And I’ll have pies ready soon, too, if you like. Yes, you can pay me in money if you must.”

A few moments later he placed three steaming bowls of stew on the table. Nanoc was about to take a sip when Rotcel ‘Loc pushed him back in his chair.

“Can we eat this?” she asked Dren.

“The inn?”

“The stew, I mean.”

“Yes? Do you know, that’s what you’re meant to do with stew.”

Rotcel sighed.

“It’s a devil-run inn, Dren. You don’t think we should be, I don’t know, at least a little suspicious about what might be in the food?”

“Ah!” Dren said, nodding. He took a sip of the stew and made a face. “You were right to be concerned. It contains coriander,” he said.

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“No!” Nanoc complained, pushing his away. “Dammit!”

“I meant it might be cursed or something,” Rotcel ’Loc explained, sniffing the stew. “Can’t you do a spell or something to check?”

“That’s unnecessary. Do you know, there is no record of a devil poisoning food.”

“Because there were no survivors?” Rotcel ’Loc asked.

“Oh? Good point. Let me see what I can do…”

But Dren had been right the first time, for the devils never poisoned their food: what use were dead customers, after all? A spell of identification revealed that the stew contained vegetables, chicken, and herbs.

“Coriander,” Nanoc muttered, turning his attention to the bread. “Why is it always coriander? Reeb! What happened to that pie!”

Reeb returned to the table with several pies and more beer. There were no other guests in the inn, so Nanoc invited the devil to sit down and eat with them.

“Really?” Rotcel ‘Loc and Reeb said in unison, then glared at each other.

“Sure,” Nanoc said, smashing a pie into his mouth. “Why not?”

“Do you know, devils steal mortal souls,” Dren explained.

“We trade for them,” Reeb snapped. “We earn them! We— I—”

The huge devil slumped forward and began to sob uncontrollably.

“I’m so broke!” he said, red tears rolling down his cheeks. “The Inn Stant gets summoned all over the world, but it’s never anywhere with customers! The last time I was summoned on the top of a mountain! The only customer I had up there was a yeti!”

“You stole their soul?” Rotcel ‘Loc gasped.

“There are many different types of devils, you know, and I’ll thank you not to stereotype us as thieves.”

“So you didn’t take their soul?” Nanoc asked.

“No, I just didn’t steal it. And now… and now…”

The devil began to cry again. One yeti soul was hardly a fortune.

“There, there,” Nanoc said, reaching for another pie. “It can’t be that bad.”

“It is! And all the time I spend trapped between dimensions doesn’t help. I’ll never pay this place off at this rate! I’m trapped in it!”

Dren cast a glance at Rotcel ‘Loc, who shrugged awkwardly. The devil was evil incarnate and wanted to steal their souls, that was true, but it was also a bit pathetic to see such a large beast cry, even if its tears were red and rather sticky.

“I could help,” Nanoc offered. “I can summon you somewhere better, if you like. I have the ability.”

“No!” Dren protested.

“You summoned me?” Reeb said, surprised. “That’s a high-level ability. I was sure the elf was responsible.”

“Nope. It was me, and I can do it again. In a city, maybe? But only if you promise to take money and not souls.”

“You’re very kind, gnome, but who would want to come to this dump?” Reeb said, slumping even further onto the table. “There is too much competition in a city. I won’t get any customers at all. Its useless.”

“You could add a cocktail area,” Rotcel ‘Loc suggested. She hated devils, but she loved a good cocktail. “And change the décor from dusty dungeon to, I don’t know, leather dungeon? It’s niche, but it draws a crowd.”

“I’d love to,” Reeb sobbed. “But I’m not allowed.”

“Whose stopping you?”

“My landlord. He says our contract prevents it. The worst part is that I don’t even know if he’s right or not.”

“You don’t know?” Dren asked, mildly offended by the concept. “Why don’t you read it?”

“It’s a devil’s contract,” Reeb said sourly. “There’s only one copy, and I don’t have it.”

“So go and find it,” Dren suggested.

“It’s not that easy,” the devil said bitterly. “The scroll is stored in the cursed business library, but I think it’s been enchanted to avoid me. I can never find it.”

“That’s not how libraries work,” Dren protested.

“It’s how cursed libraries work,” the devil countered. “It’s part of why they’re cursed.”

He started crying again. Nanoc finished his pie, then reached for a second one.

“I have a suggestion,” Nanoc said.

“Yeah?”

“When it comes to solving problems, wine beats whine,” the gnome explained. “Come, devil, let’s eat more dinner and see if we can’t think of some way to help you.”

Three hours later, they still had not thought of any way to help Reeb. The devil stood at the table, yelling across it at the top of his voice at Dren, who sat on the other side.

“But how can squash be a berry! Squash is bitter, not sugared and delectable!” Reeb shouted.

Nanoc banged his hand on the table. “Exactly! Exactly!”

“Do you know, a berry may be bitter!” Dren shouted back, red in the face as he rose from the table to argue. “The facts do not care what you consider to be an appropriate food!”

“It’s a cursed berry,” Rotcel ‘Loc groaned. “Just what we need. More wine! At least grapes aren’t—”

“Grapes are berries,” Dren said, wincing.

“Is anything of this world not born of the berry!” Nanoc shouted, throwing his mug if wine at a wall where it exploded into bits of clay.

Rotcel ‘Loc rocked backward and forwards, “Is this a berry? Am I a berry? How would I even know?” she said, clutching her head.

She passed out, slipping under the table. Dren rested his head on the table.

“Do you know, it’s not my fault,” the elf muttered. “I did not name them, I merely know of them. It’s not easy, you know, always having the answers to everything..."

The elf’s voice trailed off and he started snoring. Only the devil and the gnome were left awake.

“You seem like a fine devil, and you bake a great pie,” Nanoc said, slurring slightly. “Can we not help you somehow?”

Reeb drained the last flagon of wine, then tipped it upside down and peered into it in case there was more he had missed. There wasn’t.

“You can go to hell, gnome,” Reeb said.

“Oh? I thought it we were getting on just fine, but if you want to fight that might be fun, too—”

“No! Sorry! I forgot I was talking to mortals,” Reeb said, raising his massive hands in a gesture of apology. “Hell is a real place, the capital city of the demons. It’s where the paperwork for this inn is stored—”

Nanoc shuddered as the devil said ‘paperwork’. He had left the life of a clerk behind for a reason.

“We can’t help you,” he muttered. “Nope. Not at all.”

“—if I can only get the contract I signed for this, I might be able to find a way out,” Reeb finished.

The devil’s bright red eyes showed the thinnest sliver of hope; he was desperate for help. Nanc felt a familiar buzzing at his side; the banana of mayhem had just woken up.

“Ah, no don’t dare even—"

----------------------------------------

New quest: Go to Hell!

Go the the devil’s city and steal back Reeb’s contract or DIE TRYING!

Reward: It doesn’t matter, because this quest is impossible!

----------------------------------------

Nanoc sighed.

“Gods dammit,” Nanoc said, annoyed. “Tell me about this contract, then.”

Nanoc had been a citizen and clerk of the Empire of Order: paperwork did not scare him. Not even cursed paperwork. He was definitely going to Hell.