The gates of Hell opened just wide enough for Nanoc and his friends to squeeze through. Nanoc went first, the heavy doors scraping his chest as he pressed between them. The imp who had opened the gates awaited them on the other side. He was only four feet tall, although his long ears made him look at least five.

“Get in here,” he hissed. “Hurry up, if that damned dog gets in again, the arch devils will be furious. Come on!”

Dren was second through the gate, then Rotcel. The imp made a strange gesture with his hand and the gates closed with a loud clank. He led the trio of adventurers away from the gate and down a narrow side alley between two black monoliths of stone. Nanoc looked around in amazement: the spires of Hell rose above him in all their gory glory. Red lights flickered between, and fires lit the air. The city’s theme appears to be spikes and fire. He quite liked it – except for the screams.

“My name’s Ostor,” the imp muttered. “Reeb asked me to help. I’ll be your guide.”

“Hi!” Dren said brightly. “Do you know, we’ve never been to Hell before. This is very exciting.”

“Whatever. Look, you’ll need to wear these,” the imp said, holding out three pairs of bright blue metal chains. Ostor saw Nanoc’s skeptical look and sighed. “The only mortals in Hell are slaves, see? It’s the only disguise that will work. Quickly now, before we are spotted. Put them on!”

Nanoc and his friends didn’t move. There was something desperate in the imps’ eyes. Something hungry. Besides, who trusted a literal devil?

“Why are you helping us?” Dren asked suspiciously.

The imp sighed.

“I got in a lot of trouble with a fly-demon a while ago, and Reeb helped me out,” the imp admitted. “I owe him my life.”

“He slayed the devil?” Nanoc asked, interested.

“He convinced her not to marry me. It was for the best. Now she’s raising a brood of maggots inside the dead chest of her new husband, and I’m doing really well, too. I mean, I miss her sometimes, but it was never going to work out, not really and, and—”

“Dren, stop taking notes!” Nanoc said, horrified. “Nobody wants to read about devil romances gone wrong.”

Nanoc was utterly wrong, of course. The orc Elpma Xe, who had earned twenty levels in the warrior fanatic class but twenty-three levels in the steamy romance novelist class, had written several romances with male devils cast as the leads. They sold extremely well, mostly because the devils featured on the cover art had nine abs and great horns.

“We’re wasting time here,” Rotcel ‘Loc said, drawing a knife. “If you’re working for Reeb, let’s get on with it. If you try anything, you will deeply regret it.”

The imp looked offended. “I promised Reeb that I would keep you safe and help you find this contract of his, and I will. Pinky promise.”

The imp had extremely large hands, and the pinky finger he stuck out was as long and fat as a sausage. It ended in a thick red nail. Nanoc stared at it.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Do you know, you should take it,” Dren said. “The pinky-swear is a binding promise amongst devils, as far as such things go.”

Nanoc stuck out his pinky finger and gingerly brushed it against the devil’s.

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

Contract made!

You have made a contract with a devil, and it didn’t even cost you your soul. Well done! One wisdom gained.

The imp will keep you safe until you find the contract!

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

“Seems legitimate,” Nanoc muttered.

“Good. Let’s get started. You really do have to wear these chains,” Ostor said. “They aren’t real. These ones easily fall apart, look.”

Ostor demonstrated how the trick chains worked. Rotcel checked them out, as did Dren. The chains did appear to be what the imp claimed. They allowed themselves to be shackled – Nanoc groaned loudly as the fake chains wrapped around his body – and Ostor led them onward. The little imp had a whip in his hand, but one look from Nanoc convinced him not to use it.

“This way,” Ostor muttered. “Try and look wretched, would you? We don’t want to be noticed.”

The streets of Hell were quiet. The high-level devils flew everywhere, so only the low-level imps and the slaves they escorted walked on the ground. Nanoc and his friends passed several dozen souls caught up in the blue chains. The mortal souls groaned and moaned pitifully; the devils whipped and kicked with cruel disinterest. Nanoc furrowed his brows. It didn’t seem right, not at all.

“We can’t help them,” Rotcel ‘Loc hissed. “Not now, anyway. Besides, they did this to themselves when they sold their own souls.”

“I—”

“Do you know, the lizardling is right,” Dren whispered. “We came here to help Reeb, we can’t do much more. And anyway—”

“Quiet!” Ostor ordered. “Here comes the guards!”

A patrol of mean-looking devils in black armor marched by. They glared at Ostor but didn’t stop. Nanoc and his friends had the greatest defense of all: devils, much like the mortals they preyed on, didn’t like to see things that upset them. Living mortals walking through the city of Hell? Unprecedented. Impossible. Deeply wrong. Unsettling. And so on. Any devil who noticed the three odd slaves immediately ignored them; it was easier that way for everyone.

“Do you know, it’s working?” Dren said in surprise.

“Shut up,” Ostor hissed. “And stop drawing in that notebook!”

Ostor hustled them through the city, pretending to be three good slaves walking behind their devilish master. At last they reached the center of the city where a building had been carved from the skull of some ancient and titanic beast so that the mouth was the main entry. The massive eyes above were covered in dark red glass and looked down on all who entered. The skull towered over those below. Everything was white bone and red steel.

The devils had style. It was a bleak, horrifying style built from pain and suffering, but that’s fashion for you.

“I need to get one of these to house my treasures,” Rotcel ‘Loc said, staring at the skull. “It’s perfect.”

“Do you know, I’m running out of red ink pencil,” Dren complained as he sketched in one of his many notebooks. “Does anyone have a spare? Nanoc? Imp? Rotcel?”

“This is the town hall,” the imp whispered, ignoring Dren. “The hall of records is inside. We need to – gnome, where are you going?”

“Walking through the front door?” Nanoc suggested. “It’s how we normally do things.”

“What? How are you still alive? No! The guards there are far better than the ones on the street, gnome! They will see you straight away.”

“Ah. So…?”

“My cousin works here. He can open a side door for us. Come on!”

There was a door on the side of the great skull, because even Hell needs janitors. The imp’s cousin was nowhere to be seen.

“This way,” Ostor said. “There are servants’ tunnels throughout the skull…”

He led them through a set of narrow tunnels beneath the hall, up a set of stairs carved from teeth, down several more tunnels, and finally out through a narrow door and into a wide corridor. The corridor was empty.

There were signs written on the wall in neat, devilish cursive. The letters were in white, the arrows in red. Hell was organized.

“Look,” Nanoc said, pointing at the signs. “It’s that way to the ‘Cursed treasury’ and the ‘Cursed bookshop’, but this way to the ‘Cursed hall of records’. All we have to do is—"

There was a shuffle of feet and the sound of running. Nanoc turned around. His friends were gone. So was Ostor.

“Seven times dammit,” Nanoc cursed. “Now I have to get the paperwork on my own."