Nanoc found Dren in the library – of course that’s where the field scholar would be, he was drawn to words like a moth to flames. That comparison was surprisingly accurate in this case, too, as many of the books were on fire and burned Dren’s fingers when he tried to read them. This was Hell, after all. The elven scholar hissed and cursed as his fingers blistered and flamed, but he did not give up. The library of Hell only took up several wide rooms as the devils were not passionate readers. What they lacked in quantity, however, they more than made up in pure evil. The shelves were filled with the most dangerous and forbidden books in the whole universe, the types of books that caused madness to those who read them, books of the darkest secrets, books of lost gods and forbidden knowledge (there was also a whole shelf of demon/dinosaur erotica novels that were extremely popular with both the devils and their mortal slaves but the less said about those the better. Really.).

Faced with such an incredible treasury of lost words, there really was only one thing that Dren could think to do: he was going to steal as many of them as he could carry. Nanoc sat down to watch.

“I thought you’d be against stealing from a library,” the gnome said approvingly. “This is very chaotic of you.”

“Do you know, you are wrong, this isn’t really theft at all,” Dren said defensively as he separated books into piles based on their value and weight. “The demons refuse to acknowledge the role of the god Knowledge.”

“So?”

“So libraries are Knowledge’s sacred places. If the demons deny Knowledge, then they deny libraries, so this isn’t really a library. There is precedent in this, too. The great librarian Etirc Opyh would argue—"

Dren launched into a a complicated and technical interpretation of religious and scholarly rules about the definitions of a library and theft and books and so on.

“Ah,” Nanoc said, “Of course. I get it.”

And he did. If it wasn’t really a library, then Dren wasn’t robbing it, was he? No, he was just… tidying up. Putting the books back in their rightful place, which just happened to be – and this was a coincidence, nothing more – in Dren’s personal collection. Yes. Tidying up. The devils would probably be grateful, if they ever found out.

“You’ve been spending too much time with with Rotcel ‘Loc,” Nanic said with a smile. “Where is she, by the way?”

“Do you know, I thought she was with you. Where have you been, anyway?”

“I found the contract,” Nanoc said.

“The what?” Dren asked, distracted by a book covered in teeth. The book snapped at him. He slapped it across the spine and added it to one of his piles.

“Reeb’s contract. You know, the reason we came to Hell? The thing we’ve been looking for? We can leave now.”

“Ah. Do you know, I’d completely forgotten about that. Anyway, we don’t need to leave right now, do we? I just want a few more books—"

“We need to go. I’m getting hungry, and worse, I think the devils are, too.”

“Well…” Dren looked around desperately at his haul of books. There were far too many piles to carry. “Fine, then, but you’ll need to take that pile so that I can take this one and—”

Nanoc stood, dusted himself off, and didn’t pick up a single book. Then he looked into his friend’s pleading eyes and sighed.

“Fine, but you owe me one for this. Give me that pile. No, the one with the purple book with wings. Now let’s get out of here and—"

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Rotcel ‘Loc burst into the room, a massive pile of books in her arms. She spilled them over the floor, nearly burying Nanoc under their possessed pages, and drew a pair of the bright blue chains from a pocket.

“Quick!” she shouted. “I found the books you asked for, but the guards are coming. We need to get out of here. Are you two wearing your fake chains? Put them on, put them on so we can sneak out!”

The lizardling was already wearing her chains. She waved another set at Nanoc. “Come on!” Rotcel ‘Loc snapped. “Come on, gnome!”

Nanoc shook his head slightly in disapproval that the ruse would be repeated word for word. It wasn’t believable at all. Rotcel was often annoyed and sometimes scared, but she seldom panicked. The Guild had trained her too well for that.

But he still had to check.

“Let’s get out of here so we can finally get you back to your family’s farm,” Nanoc said, reaching for the chains. “And you can plant some turnips, I know you like that.”

“Yes, exactly—”

Nanoc brought the chains around in a whirl, slapping the fake Rotcel ‘loc across the face so that she fell backwards.

“You aren’t Rotcel ‘Loc!” he shouted.

“I am!”

“You are not! Rotcel hates turnips! Dren, don’t touch those cursed chains! This isn’t Rotcel, he’s a skin-changer imp!” Nanoc shouted, pinning the fake Rotcel ‘Loc down.

He grabbed the impostor Rotcel and shoved her against the wall before Dren placed the chains on himself. Nanoc needn’t have worried.

“Do you know, I’m quite aware that this being is an impersonator,” Dren said politely, entirely unsurprised to see Nanoc wresting Rotcel ‘Loc to the ground. “He’s an imp. It was obvious right away.”

“What? You knew the whole time? But you called me Rotcel and asked me to help you gather books!” the fake Rotcel protested. “And some of those books were really heavy, too! I carried them for ages! One of them bit me!”

“That was very helpful,” Dren said with a pleased nod. “It was also an immediate giveaway. Rotcel would never help. I knew you would be trouble eventually, but I thought, well, why stop you while you’re helping me? But let’s see your true form now. I’ll cast… Professor Seye’s de-illusion.”

He clicked his fingers. A bright spark of light lit the room. The fake Rotcel grunted in anger, her face and body melting off and flowing away to reveal a small, angry imp who glared at Nanoc.

It was the imp, Ostor.

“Again?” Nanoc demanded. “How did you get here so fast, Ostor?”

The imp frowned. “I’m not Ostor! What, do you think all imps look alike? How rude. —"

“Do you know, you do all look alike,” Dren said.

This was true. Imps were spilled from the cauldron of Hell in batches of hundreds, and the devils who made them didn’t care much for creativity. All imps look the same. They’re very sensitive about it.

“Actually, we look nothing alike. One of my ears is longer than the other and I—" the imp protested.

Nanoc grabbed the imp’s longer ear and twisted it until it was at risk of becoming his shorter ear. The imp squealed.

“Who are you, then, if you aren’t Ostor?” Nanoc demanded.

“I’m his cousin, Luke, if you must know. Luke Alike.”

“You’re the imp Ostor’s Luke Alike? Really?”

The imp shrugged. “What of it?”

Dren picked up the blue chains and examined them with interest.

“Do you know, these are real,” he said. “The locks can’t be undone. If we put these on, we’d be trapped in Hell.”

“Yeah. I think Ostor and Luke were going to betray us just as soon as we got Reeb’s contract. I bet they were going to sell our souls, too, the devil bastards.”

“No!” Luke protested. “We would never do that! We were going to trade them. It’s totally different.”

“Trade them for…?”

“Money. But it’s not selling, its—”

Nanoc slapped the imp across the face before he could explain anything more about the economics of souls.

“Where is our friend?” Nanoc demanded,

“She’s with my sister, Dupli,” the imp said sullenly. “Although she prefers to be called Kate. I—”

Rotcel ‘Loc rushed into the room.

“The devils are coming,” she said, barely sparing the imp a second look. “Put your fake chains on, and let’s get out of here!”

Nanoc and Dren stared at her. She stared back.

“Hey, Rotcel,” Dren said slowly. “Hold these books for me, would you?”

“No.”

“Do you know, they’re very precious.”

“Are they gold? No? Then no,” Rotcel said. “Can we get out of here now?

“Do you know, I think it’s really her this time,” Dren said, both pleased and distraught.

Nanoc was not so sure.

“She could be the Dupli Kate,” he warned.

Rotcel looked confused, then realized the problem.

“What? Oh, do you mean the imp skin changers? Yeah, mine looked just like Nanoc. I threw her down the stairs and she changed back into an imp.”

“But how did you know she wasn’t me before you threw her down the stairs?” Nanoc asked.

“I didn’t. Can we go now?”

The guards really were coming this time. Devils shouted in the corridors, the noise of their anger getting closer, closer. Souls screamed, imps squealed, and outside of the city, Cerberus howled in triplicate, harmonizing with herself.

It was time to get out of Hell.