There is a place where the rain does not fall onto the bosom of a bountiful earth, to nourish the life that sprouts from within. There are no waterfalls of crystal-clear water pouring over ridges, no dalliance of woodland creatures; nor any hint of the cozy warmth the Dwemi carved out of the earth. No Manling’s influence found purchase here. Even the Unliving, as forsaken as they were, would shy away from the visage of this land. The spirits, the denizens of this same realm, could scant be found at its edge. This is a place where flakes of soot and ash dot the sky and cast a grey pallor over the world. A place where bits of the molten earth erupted from under, forming weeping red sores of rage and anger. Where brimstone and coal coat the ground like tar, where above it all a crimson sun illuminates the land in the scarlet light of its perpetual sunset.

It was here that a rhythmic bat of a pair of leathery wings pushed a scrawny individual forward across the lifeless plain underneath the blood-red sky. A pair of short horns adorned his head, while a thin and pointed tail snaked around from behind him.

“Master always gives Kree the worst jobs.” grumbled the fellow.

“Master hate Kree. Stupid Master.”

He fingered the ring Master had given him. Only a precaution, he had been assured. In the distance, he spotted the outline of his destination – a mountain of obsidian, gleaming like a black jewel among the desolate landscape. He could not have missed it, as eye-catching as it was. However, the usual sheen of volcanic glass was dull and matte, lacking the normal shine. Even the memory of frothing streams of molten earth had cooled away leaving the rock as muted as the plains before it.

Kree tucked his wings in and gently landed on a short outcropping of brimstone a few hundred meters away from the black mountain. He gently paced around the mountain until he spotted an indentation, too abrupt and rough to be a natural formation. A line of jagged edges formed the mouth of a gaping, shadowy cave at the base of the mountain.

As he inched closer, try as he might, he couldn’t see more than a few meters in from the distance he was at – it seemed as though light itself balked at the thought of entering the pitch-black cavity. What little he did see did not inspire him.

The scattered bones of other imps lined the entrance. Some looked older than others. Half a skull lied buried in coal-like gravel, one of its horns cracked and split. Kree’s tail swished in agitation. He glanced from the skull to the entrance. He took a step forward, and then glanced back at the skull again. He could have sworn it was grinning at him. His tail continued to swish back and forth behind him. Maybe if he just said he delivered the message..

He never got to finish the thought – as soon as the first Letting out an agony filled skreee, his spine bent in a way it was never meant to.

“Kree didn mean it Master!” the imp howled in pain.

“Kree would never! Kree loyal! Always loyal!”

The imp’s body continued to contort unnaturally for almost a minute, his screams dying to an occasional whimper as the pain overpowered him.

After what seemed like an eternity to Kree, the convulsions stopped, and he collapsed to the ground in a heap. Bringing his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, he lied like that on his side, whimpering softly.

“Kree would never..” he murmured wide-eyed, in prayer.

He would have lain there until his horns grew curves, but the thought of enduring another Invocation had him reluctantly stand up. His knees trembled as he moved closer and closer to the maw of the cave.

“Strong Kree. Strong Kree..” He muttered.

He took great care to not look at the remains of the imps as he entered. He felt a slight tinge in one of his fingers as he crossed the threshold. The ring on his finger had grown warm. Kree swallowed. Hopefully whatever protection the ring gave him would hold up.

As he trudged deeper into the cave his thoughts wandered. It struck him as odd that there had been no reaction to his impromptu torture. In fact, Master once ripped out the throat of an imp that had been screaming too loudly. Couldn’t even suffer quietly, the Master had said.

Kree shuddered. Seek’dee’s gurgles as he bled out would never stop haunting him. Especially now that Kree was in his position. He absentmindedly rubbed his throat with one claw. So far, nobody had come to tear his throat out, which was good.

But odd.

Kree prided himself on his ability to minimize his presence. He also knew that there wasn’t a Cherub’s chance in Hell that whatever made its lair here did not hear him. He pawed at his throat again. Sure enough, it really was still there.

His footsteps echoed through the cave as he waded through the blackness. Perhaps.. Perhaps there was no one here? He dared hope. No one here meant that Master had been wrong, and he could leave immediately!

He soon found the end of the path as it widened into a cavern with dim light poking through some other holes. The center of the room, to Kree’s dismay, was not empty.

Sleeping on the ground was, in Kree’s opinion, some kind of Daemon. Rather, it had to be. Kree had seen dozens upon dozens of different imps and fiends – none of which looked like the figure in front of him. For one - the sleeping figure was huge. Easily doubling the size of the largest fiends Kree had ever seen, it was practically a dozen times larger than himself. Its body, albeit gargantuan, was grotesque and malformed. No sane man could ever imagine the Frankenstein fusion of flesh and limb that had been condensed into the form of one horrible figure. Multiple limbs jutted out of its torso in random areas, one even sprouting from its collar, its nails cracked and grisly. It snored, drawing deep breaths in from its mouth. Or rather, mouths. Its body possessed a multitude of them, one on the side of its back beneath one of its arms, whereas the second extra was attached to its lower rib, and finally, the one on his face, situated so normally that it seemed out of place on the monstrosity.  All three seemed to be consumed by a deep sleep and let out snore after snore, each rumble filling the cavern with noise.

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Spirits didn’t come this far down. Whatever this was, it could only be a demon. For better or worse, he had found him.

Kree gently nudged the gargantuan figure. It continued snoring unabated, unfazed by his meager attempt at garnering its attention. He put a bit more weight behind his push this time. Digging his soles into the ground, he shoved the giant with a fair amount of his strength. Another imp would have been bowled over. He hoped that would at least be enough to get himself noticed.

If the figure did notice his push, it certainly didn’t give him any indication of it. One of the mouths briefly hiccupped but continued snoring away immediately after. He narrowed his eyes. Taking a few steps back, he launched himself at the side of the prone figure, claws raking over its flesh just below one mouth.

Kree did not expect what happened next. Instead of simply waking up, a new arm sprouted from where he had sunk his claws in and took a wide swing right at him. Kree stared dumbly as the new appendage clocked him square in the face, knocking him off his feet a meter away.

Satisfied with its retribution, the arm melded back into the demon’s torso, the rest of its body’s sleep uninterrupted.

Finding himself on the ground for the second time in as many minutes, Kree shook his head to regain his senses as he pushed himself off the ground. He stood upright and straightened his back to form the most imposing figure he could muster.

He sucked in a deep breath and gathered his energy in his throat. Black and red flames built in his throat until they began to overwhelm its capacity and spill out of his mouth. Unable to hold it back any further, Kree let it loose.

A jet of black and red flames streamed out of his open mouth onto the slumbering figure. Every imp possessed Hellfire, and Kree was no exception. Normal fire was heat. Hellfire was agony and wrath. It would burn and corrode even the hardiest spirits and demons given enough time and this one was no exception.

Its flesh began to sizzle. Its body stilled, and all its mouths stopped moving. A second later, a short burst of sound erupted from the mouth attached to its ribcage.

His flames flickered and died as the shockwave passed over it. Shielding his face with his arms as it moved to pass over him, it pushed past him like a gust of wind, yet he felt no different than usual. Was that it?

With the fire extinguished, Kree watched as the figure twitched, and resumed sleeping as small patches of burnt flesh began to visibly heal before his eyes. Sighing, he dropped to the ground with a plompf. Waking up the demon was getting so exhausting. His arms felt like lead bars, and he could feel his eyelids drooping. Perhaps he could sit down for a bit. Maybe take a nap.

Sleep. The thought was tantalizing. Surely, he could do whatever he needed to do after he took a good long nap? He snorted. No other imp could have kept going for as long as he did. He could get around do doing whatever it was that needed doing later. As he leaned his head against the wall, he tried hard to recall what it was that was so important to do,

It hit him suddenly. Sleeping! That’s what he was trying to remember to do – it was so obvious! Why else would he be feeling so tired? He could just lean against the wall and drift away..

Something nagged at him though. His mind tried to relax and drift away, but an annoying sensation was prickling him. It stabbed and needled at his mind every time he closed his eyes. So infuriating! Why couldn’t he just go to sleep?!

He cracked his eyes open, looking at the source of his annoyance. What he saw was a ring, red hot and burning his finger. Looking at the source of his irritation snapped him out of his daze.

“The ring!” he croaked.

His voice felt stuffy, as if he hadn’t used it for some time. How long had he been out of it? He glanced around the room. The demon was still there, its snores reverberating around the cavern. The only other thing around the room were the dried-out skeletons of other imps. He realized there were no bones missing among them. A detail he hadn’t quite appreciated before.

It meant that they couldn’t have been eaten by the demon. There’d be a bigger mess, bones lying around haphazardly. It was as if they had sat down…

And never gotten back up.

Staring around in mute horror, he realized what had happened to the poor imps and what had almost happened to himself. He had been like every other imp who had wandered in here. Lost in his mind as his body wasted away.

His knees trembled as he began to understand how close he had come to dying. Normal demons couldn’t do things like that. They had rare and unique skills, but nothing like that. If Kree didn’t know any better, he would have sworn up and down that he was in the presence of a Power. But the idea was ludicrous, they couldn’t come this close to the In-Between, and even a talisman from Master wouldn’t have saved him from one.

He wanted to turn tail and flee. Fly for hours and hours until this death trap was leagues behind him. Yet his feet remained firmly planted to the ground. He cursed his treasonous flesh. He couldn’t go anywhere until that message was heard. He would have to try something a bit more drastic.

Like a newly born faun, Kree took one shaky step forward after another towards the demon’s head. He wrinkled his nose in disgust as foul-smelling breath washed over him every time the demon exhaled. Taking a deep breath, he marshalled his will and formed a point with claws and poked the giant demon right in its eye.

The snoring immediately stopped as the room was filled with a deafening silence. Kree gulped. The eye shot open, rolling around until it focused on the cowering imp in front of it. It stared at him unblinking for a few moments before shutting itself abruptly a moment later.

The entire cavern grumbled as the demon’s multitude of arms scrambled to find purchase against the gravelly floor and hoisted itself upwards. Sitting straight up, the demon was more imposing than ever, eclipsing the imp with ease. Kree shrunk further into the ground, to the point where he was close to becoming one with the floor.

The upright figure stretched. A multitude of cracks and creaks could be heard as the unused limbs ached in protest as they were called to motion after immeasurable amounts of time of disuse. Both of the demon’s eyes fluttered open and blinked a couple of times, tasting the dim light of the cavern. It explored its newfound consciousness as Kree sought to erase his presence as much as physically possible.

After what seemed like an eternity, the demon cracked its neck and looked down at the meager imp. Thankfully, it spoke from its normal mouth.

“What brings a little one this far? “He slowly intoned as he picked the pitiful imp off the ground in one ginormous hand.

Kree squealed in terror as he was brought face to face with the demon.

“Mas- Master.. W-wants you to find a vess.. Vessel!” he squeaked.

“Told Kree to tell you to find a vessel!”

The demon tossed the imp back down on the ground. Kree immediately scurried away, pressing himself against the wall in a vain attempt to distance himself. The demon rubbed its chin with one of its hands.

“A vessel.. Finding one would be..  Too much work.” it slowly drawled. The demon waved a hand in dismissal.

“It could not possibly be worth the effort to find-“ it began.

The demon froze. Kree’s curiosity overpowered his fear as he looked up at the immobile demon to see why it had stopped mid-sentence. The mouth on its back was repeatedly opening and closing, its tongue tasting the air.

Raising its head up, it spoke again with its voice colored by annoyance.

“He brought one here.” The demon sighed.

“Very well.”

It looked back down at him with a look of contemplation. It nodded and turned away.

“You will stay with me. You will speak for me.”

Kree opened his mouth to protest but was cut short as the demon grabbed him with a free hand.

He smiled at Kree.

“Now, little one.” it rumbled, “We wait.”