“Your Wish is granted!” Bey 'Azzar exclaimed immediately, and a whole lot of subtle power began to flow through the Seal on my back.

“I Wish that the planetar being currently Sealed by me be subjected to a Restore Mind!”

He probably didn’t know what that was, but I did, and I was the one making the Wish. “Your Wish is granted!” he proclaimed boldly again.

“I Wish that the planetar being currently Sealed by me be subjected to a Greater Purification!”

“Your Wish is granted!” he finished up with loud approval.

Having a planetar owe him a favor, or three, could only be really, really good for him in the future, after all!

A return to original condition and invigoration of the body and soul. An easing and strengthening of the mind to repair the immense trauma of his time of torture. A cleansing to rid the celestial of any lingering Taint or corruption from this time, place, and the energies that had ravaged him.

I didn’t know if it would truly be enough, but the waves of relief I could feel coming from the Seal certainly couldn’t be a bad sign.

“One more gathering of helpful volunteers eager to save everyone, and then off to Detroit. You can dump the souls then, and I’ll be able to put the planetar in the hands of those who can take care of him.” As the Ward interfered somewhat with the outside world, they didn’t know what had happened here, and wouldn’t until I went outside and memory-dumped for everyone.

Eh. Probably didn’t need to see the two of us looking like this, either.

“That should fill up most of the spikes,” Master Fred agreed, looking over the pattern.

“I can always make more!” I volunteered helpfully.

“Noted!” she confirmed in ninefold stereo, and we were off to find some more charitable souls ready to save the citizens of Hong Kong.

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

Dusk was coming. We’d lost a day of making magic items, but the Naming Karma had been fine, so it was all good.

There were certain areas burning on the island of Hong Kong. There were certain people who had been beaten to a pulp, trucked up to a certain Hellstar formation, and then thrown onto the rings of empty spikes thoughtfully left around the edges of it. The hellfire didn’t mind at all.

Perhaps the Cultivators could have done something to act on it, but the new Dome of blackness hiding hellfire inside it spooked even them. A couple junior ones did try to get through it, and then the Curses that it held went off on them, and they began to burn and scream as their Sins, starting with consuming the soul of their progenitors, burned inside them, and they fell flaming into the sea to be reduced to messy guck and ash.

There was no Cultivator invasion. The Buddhists tried purifying the thing, confident that their Light could do the job... and unfortunately, forced enslavement of the minds of mortals was a fundamental Sin, and the hellfire leapt back along the Light and devoured the shining sources of the ‘cleansing illumination’ very happily, indeed. Burning black, the monastic Enlightened also fell burning and screaming into the sea...

Yes, it was a very effective Ward, indeed. They’d be very safe for some time, without a doubt.

Nobody who wasn’t a really Good person was going to get through that Dome, either, so the fishermen were going to have to be pretty careful.

I hooked back into the Markspace as we drove outside the Dome, and a bunch of interested people linked back up and wondered what had gone on.

I told them to get a biiiig tub of holy water ready, heated warmly in sacred fires, the purest incense they could find, and asked the Angelos if he recognized a certain face.

-Commander Haru’Ara!- he /blurted out instantly, his joy radiating through the Markspace... and then instantly falling to horror when I relayed to him what had been done to his superior.

“Break off your horns as you step out from the Pacts, and you should be able to return to your normal self.”

Master Fred reached up to the horns instantly, and despite them being reinforced to be strong enough to satisfy her vastly boosted strength, they snapped off with a flare of Wrath as if they were as brittle as china.

With a woosh of dissolving hellfire, the raven’s wings vanished into nothing, leaving a golden-haired Amazon there in front of me.

“The lack of pain is a relief, despite itself,” she admitted quietly in her multi-layered voice. “My Hellpact does not want me to backtrack.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

I just reached forwards and hugged her once. “Yes. And it is your choice, not its. I imagine all your new guests don’t want to experience what hellfire does to a person, either.”

Her eyes glittered. The Ruedian Amazons had gotten off pretty easily, all things considered. They were just dead, they weren’t burning in hellfire for however long they could last before dying... then to burn again if they ever got to Hell.

There was no doubt they knew they were going Down to burn, and if Master Fred was standing between their Pacts, they were just normal women, who likely didn’t even qualify to be Threes or Fours, and didn’t have the Amazon auto-conditioning of a warrior’s mindset.

They were just normal women, now forced to fully face the horror of what they had done.

“They all deserve to experience it,” she agreed, and her grim tones were layered around the edges with all sorts of leaking fear.

There was a hiss as hellscars bloomed across her throat and face, mass was added on, bones grew, and the Amazon imprint went away, growing into the scarred and damaged Silent Warlock of Detroit once again.

His hellscars were actually spitting fires at him, which he just stood there and stoically endured, passing it all on to his internal voyeurs so they could feel what had been done to him.

They were looking at his soul. They could tell with searing transparency that he had done nothing to warrant what had been inflicted on him... as they certainly had.

I was pretty sure I could hear faint psychic screams coming out of the hellfire scars, which took long minutes to calm down to merely hateful glowers, charring and healing in an endless cycle.

-What about you?- he /asked, reaching back to tink one of the silver horns coming out of my head.

I reached up to the tops of the horns and pushed. Morphing magic did its thing, and the protrusions were shoved back into my skull in protest. Pulling in the two-meter tail that wanted to go rubbing over everything was a bit harder, kinda like trying to take back a fart, but I reeled it back in easily enough. The bat’s wings I sent a charge of sacred fire through, igniting the magic they were made of, and they fwooshed away into stray sparkles.

I did look down at my chest, and rolled my eyes. The tightness of my shirt went down, but not back to where it was before, encountering some major resistance as I tried.

“She already gave up herself to become part of me, I’d have to literally carve her off now.” Memories of that experience caused me to almost break out in a cold sweat. “I don’t think I can do that to myself. I’ve been purging a lot of the unclean memories, or at least wiping them of emotional context.” Or gritting my teeth and enduring them. Mental and spiritual domination is horribly degrading and invasive, and an excellent way to temper your willpower. “Her past is more about crushing suppression by the Old God more than anything, rather than toying with mortals and Damning them. She was basically a sex slave.”

-Rue seems to like women who were once treated like sex toys,- he /relayed. -They’ve been throwing their lives at me to justify what they’ve done.-

“But they’re still as crimson as Hell.” He just nodded.

I hugged his broad shoulders and neck a little tighter, opened our Bond a bit, and put my head on his shoulder, right next to the hellscar that had replaced his left ear and side of his face. “Why don’t you drive around the harbor once, and then head south, give them time in Detroit to set things up, My Warlock.” I kissed his hellscar once; the hellfire protested and went out, and I shut my eyes to lean against him, and enjoy the steady shine of his hard, tempered soul.

Sleipner gunned his engine silently, and we took off over the waves as I flicked Invisibility into place. I could see perfectly fine with my eyes closed, but he was leaning back into me as I was into him, and we were just taking a ride over the South China Sea, drawing Lived-Lines.

If his internal former-Amazons were screaming in pain at the hellscars all over him, and in envy at some positive emotions they really wished were directed at them, well, that was on them.

-I have some Wishes to make, My Lady.-

-It is my command, My Warlock.-

-----------

Greater Teleport being able to bring us all the way around the world with one spell was terribly convenient. We shimmered into place on the Energized Seal under the eyes of a great number of solemn members of Heavenbound Hall, in a sub-bunker deep underneath the surface.

Gentle sparkles of holy incense filled the air, and Blessed candles were the only illumination, save for the rippling lights swimming through the glowing Seals on the floor and walls, all radiating a calm, harmonious glow.

Both Graf Mochtal and the Angelos were present, the looks on their faces very solemn as I slid off Sleipner’s seat. The nine Hellbound sleeping on the Disks were courteously seen off by waiting attendants, to recover elsewhere and start contributing as part of Penitent Hall.

I said nothing as I strode to the edge of the overlarge basin, big enough for Graf Mochtal to take an easy soak in, currently filled with holy water and shimmering petals from a dozen types of flowers grown in Blessed soil on Consecrated land.

I turned my back on it, and released my Binding.

There was a brief pause, and then the released spirit of the planetar bound there streamed out in a flow of Light that lit up the entire room, making the breaths of the mortals there clench on witnessing its purity. Water sloshed and parted smoothly, accepting the burden as Commander Haru’Ara materialized within it.

His four wings were all folded up, but there was no hiding the swelling feeling of his angelic Aura as it swept out and covered everyone. They all spontaneously knelt in reverence to the feeling of it, the shining grandeur of a truly mighty representative of Heaven manifested on this Shrouded Terra.

I noted the Angelos’ Clerical Aura was pinging a full Fourteen: he had indeed been busy. Graf Mochtal was ‘only’ a Twelve, but that still made him the most complete Artificer on the planet at this time.

“Lord Angelos, does the Commander have a hobby?” I asked calmly, stepping away from the tub, and the angelic occupant within.

“Lady Traveler, the Commander loved to spend any time free from his duties fishing,” the deva replied, rising to his feet.

“Graf Mochtal, I have a Wish to request,” I asked formally.

The blue-skinned djinn rose to his feet, smiling grimly. “And what might you be Wishing for, Lady Traveler?” he replied smoothly.

“I would Wish for a fisherman’s Hat of Difference,” I answered quietly.

“Your Wish is granted,” he said formally, raising his large hands, now scuffed and callused by lots of smithwork, and presenting them to me as something wove itself into existence upon them.