Beelzebub’s laboratory was a model of efficiency on an industrial scale.

While the slack-jawed thief watched in open amazement, swarms of flies swirled around the room in a ballet of carefully orchestrated chaos. Everywhere he looked, hundreds of insects were working together in a seamless cyclone of glittering wings and black carapaces. In one corner of the long, rectangular room, multicolored vials were shuttled from one table to the next by clouds of buzzing couriers. Each potion was escorted to different sections of the four long tables that stretched down the length of the room. Once there, the mysterious concoctions were carefully measured and diluted through a series of complex apparatus.

Mesmerized as he was by the feat of insectoid innovation, Dal almost forgot to respond to Sylvia’s introduction.

“Dalthan Sol’Magor,” the [Rogue] finally replied, much to Sylvia’s visible relief. Dal doffed his wide-brimmed hat and bowed gallantly with a theatrical sweep of his arm. “[Rogue] extraordinaire, at your service.”

“Yes,” Beelzebub’s distorted voice seemed to vibrate through the air all around them. It was as if the creature’s words were being formed by changing the pitch of the massive swarm’s wingbeats. “I received a request from Ancev to provide you with whatever you need. State your request quickly because my time is too valuable to spend on communication. Since you and the nymph arrived, the lab’s overall efficiency has dropped by fourteen-point six percent. This is unacceptable.”

Dal wasted no time.

“Can you make poisons?” The [Rogue] tried to keep the sharp notes of excitement out of his tone. He mostly succeeded. “Preferably something that works well on bald wizards or old witches.”

“What my teammate meant to say,” Sylvia burst in, “is that he would be interested in something that could keep him alive. Regeneration, Stone Skin, or Invisibility would be greatly appreciated.”

Dalthan scowled at the [Druid] while Beelzebub replied in its strange, droning voice. “I do not waste my time on potions like Regeneration. There is a sixty-six-point seven percent chance that anyone who needs such a potion to survive an encounter will need another within two days. This creates an inefficient drain on resources. It is far better to simply recycle the inept adventurers when they perish.”

The [Rogue] triumphantly folded his arms across his chest and favored Sylvia with a look of superiority. “See? A waste of resources. Poison, on the other hand, is highly efficient.”

Sylvia gave the con man a flat look. “I’m trying to keep you alive, dumbass.”

Dalthan airly waved one hand to dismiss her concerns. “People have been trying to kill me since before my balls dropped. None of them managed to get it done so I’m not worried. Imagine how much fun the next chore is going to be when I have something that explodes.”

Sylvia’s dark green brows narrowed dangerously, making the thief’s confident smile falter. “No one managed to kill you, and yet, you ended up here.” The [Druid] paused a beat to let her words sink in. “Because you died.”

Dal groaned and tossed his hands into the air. “I’m almost completely positive that I probably died in an accident. Probably.” Seeing that the woman’s stern expression remained, he gave up on that argument and called in reinforcements.

“Vex,” the [Rogue] said with a hint of exasperation. “Come out here and tell Sylvia that there’s nothing to worry about. Then we can have the nice monster make us something that blows up.”

The nymph shifted her weight, cocking her hips to the side while she tapped her foot against the floor. Obviously agitated, the temperamental [Druid] crossed her arms beneath her generous chest. The change in her stance made Dal immediately worried that she was about to spill out of her top, but his close inspection of the danger only seemed to stoke the flames of her unjustified anger.

Some people were just too caught up in themselves to recognize concern when they saw it.

“Human Dalthan,” came Vex’s familiar croak as the abomination sullenly rose from the thief’s shadow. “Something…” The murder toad’s mouth fell open, its long red tongue lolling out like a panting dog. “...smells delicious.”

The thief blinked at his partner’s odd behavior. In a show of male solidarity, he reluctantly tore his eyes away from the potential disaster unfolding beneath Syliva’s top. It was amazing that the strange, woven-leaf material hadn’t already snapped.

“What are you talking about, Vex?” Dal’s emerald eyes settled on the blue slaad just in time to see the massive frog direct its attention toward Beelzebub’s swarm mannequin. The moment the slaad’s beady black eyes focused on the cluster of flies, its tooth-filled maw snapped forward like a starving crocodile.

In the blink of an eye, Beelzebub’s entire left leg vanished down Vex’sakan’ilopupanawa’s gullet.

Dalthan wasn’t proud of the feminine shriek that sprang from his lips while he watched the slaad chew up a chunk of an ancient deposed [Archdevil].

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Dalthan yelled, relatively certain that the last thing he’d ever see was the blissful look of satisfaction Vex had plastered over its amphibian face.

“I must insist that the slaad desist,” Beelzbub’s droning voice buzzed all around them. Though Vex seemed utterly unconcerned as it finished chewing up its snack, Sylvia was far more apprehensive. If the sudden press of her body against his side was any indication.

Maybe he should have Vex eat more people.

“What are you doing?!,” the nymph hissed in his ear, her strained voice sounding like the hiss of an angry cobra. “Stop him before he gets us all killed!”

Dal might have enjoyed the moment a bit longer if Sylvia’s nails hadn’t started digging insistently into his bicep. “Ow, fuck! Okay, okay.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The blue slaad seemed to be sizing up Beelzebub’s swarm for his next bite when Dal hurriedly spoke up. “Vex, you can’t eat the Lord of Flies. Before we put our mouth on people, we make sure they want it. And then, when we do, we do it respectfully.”

The words had barely slipped past his lips when Sylvia punched him in the ribs.

Unsympathetic to the [Rogue] gasping for breath, the massive murder frog released a strange, whining gurgle. “But it isn’t people. It is tasty bugs and this blue slaad wants more, Human Dalthan.”

“Sometimes people can be tasty bugs.” Dalthan wheezed, glaring over his shoulder at a completely unrepentant Sylvia. “Especially when those people are [Archdevils].”

“I am not, technically, one of the rulers of Hell anymore so I cannot claim the title.” The Lord of Flies didn’t sound put out about having its leg consumed. Now that Dal took a moment to study their host instead of his misbehaving partner, the devil seemed to be standing on one leg just as easily as it had been on two. Indeed, Dalthan could see lone flies all across the room buzzing their way across the laboratory where they began to clump together and reform the monster’s missing leg.

“Aside from misunderstanding the nuance of lower planar royalty,” Beelzebub continued, “the [Rogue] makes a salient point. A full twenty-seven percent of the old [Archdevils] were non-humanoid. However, they would still be classified by modern Hub doctrine as people.”

The ancient evil helpfully lifted its writhing arms to put air quotes around ‘people.’

Sylvia, desperate to steer the conversation away from Vex’s transgression, latched onto the devil’s words like a dragon snatching up a limited-edition coin.

“We were talking about the Last Prince on our way here,” she said. The nymph was all smiles as she not-so-discreetly kicked Vex. The slaad immediately sank back into Dalthan’s shadow, pretending that it hadn’t been licking squirming flies away from Beelzebub’s regrowing leg.

“Is that so?” It could have been Dalthan’s imagination, but he could have sworn that the distorted buzzing of the devil’s voice took on a thoughtful tone. “I’m surprised the mortal races would be interested in such ancient history.”

Sylvia flashed the Lord of Flies a brilliant smile that shone like the sun emerging from a storm-swept sky. “I love history! Dalthan hasn’t been here long enough to learn much about the origins of the Hub so I was trying to teach him. I’m sure that a first-hand account would be much better than the stories that I’ve been told.”

Dalthan glanced toward the [Druid], his face filled with open suspicion. This was starting to sound like some kind of lesson. He hadn’t had anyone try to educate him since the wraithbone habit finally put ol’Sloefoot in the dirt. He’d put up with the old man because the crippled crook knew the Thief’s Handbook by heart.

Sylvia and Beelzebub weren’t talking about cracking safes or cutting purses. They were talking about some unimportant event in the moldy past. He had no time for that nonsense.

He had [Witch-Queens] to blow up and [Swindlers] to poison.

The thief noisily cleared his throat. “I’m a very busy man. We should save the his-”

Dalthan’s voice cut out with a strangled cry as Sylvia unceremoniously stomped on his foot.

Beelzebub paused, regarding the two for a long moment while the [Druid] offered the devil a strained smile.

“As you wish. I will offer you an abbreviated version of the tale,” Beelzebub said, “since the full version would take many weeks to communicate. Please follow me.”

Without further ado, the shambling swarm turned awkwardly and began to move deeper into the bustling lab at a slow, shuffling pace. Sylvia immediately began to follow, though she stopped after two steps to look back at a petulant Dalthan who’d refused to move a muscle. With a roll of her eyes, the nymph grabbed hold of his arm and hauled him forward.

“Don’t be such a fucking baby,” the nymph murmured, leaning in close enough that the warmth of her breath tickled against his neck.

“I think you broke my foot. Seriously. I can feel my boot filling up with blood.” Unwilling to pull away from Sylvia’s grasp, the thief moved forward with an exaggerated limp.

“It has been a long time since I had guests in the lab,” Beelzebub said, seemingly unconcerned with the antics of the two adventurers. “I’m afraid that I’ve been lax in my hospitality. Would you care to sit?”

At his offer, streams of buzzing black flies wound their way across the room and began to gather together. Dal stepped back, eyeing the two piles of insects warily as they grew taller and taller until they took on a loose approximation of a bar stool.

“Thank you, but I think we’ll stand,” Sylvia said diplomatically. Dalthan nodded his agreement.

A moment later, Vex reappeared from Dal’s shadow. Before the thief could react, the slaad leaned forward and took a bite out of the nearest stool. Sylvia looked down in horror, but just as before, Beelzebub gave no indication that it’d seen Vex devour a chunk of its workforce.

“The Last Prince had ambitions toward Godhood.” The devil began, its droning voice easily heard over the noisy crunch of Vex chewing a mouthful of flies. “He tried many schemes, both martial and mental, only to be rebuffed by the old Lord of the Ninth, Asmodeus, and his allies. It was not until Balerik struck an accord with Mephistopheles that the balance of power in the lower planes began to shift. Balerik overthrew Dispater, claiming the second level of Hell as his own and the title of [Archdevil]. Using his new resources, he subjugated the rest of the lower planes until only Asmodeus and Zariel were left to oppose him.”

Beelzebub’s voice was an alien sound, not meant to convey mortal emotions. And yet, Dalthan was certain he could detect a wistful note of nostalgia vibrating through the devil’s droning voice. “The war that ensued tore the lower planes apart. The Last Prince would likely still be embroiled in an endless battle had he not reached out to find other allies. In a stroke of genius, he decided to convince a solar, one of the highest choirs of angels, to lead their heavenly host in an assault on Hell while he battled Asmodeus. The celestials were reluctant to throw in their lot with a devil, even against a mutual enemy, but Balerik promised them Asmodeus’ divine spark after he tore it from the devil’s grasp. Believing the task was worth dirtying their white wings, the angels answered the solar’s call to arms. Together, the combined forces were too much for the old King of Hell and Balerik broke him and shattered his throne.”

“But Balerik didn’t simply hand Asmodeus’ spark to the heavenly host. He reforged the divinity into a tool that they could not wield. A tool that haunts the higher planes till this very day.”

Dalthan stepped back when the face of Beelzebub’s swarm puppet split in a macabre grin that sent flies tumbling from its maw like spittle from the jaws of a ravenous wolf. “You see, he used that power to forge the very system that governs the Hub.”

Dal felt Sylvia’s golden eyes on him but he was mesmerized by the devil's story. More than that, there was something familiar about the tale. Something that conjured images of cold nights in a Low Town shack and the drunken slur of a voice shot through with bitterness and regret.

“The celestials were apoplectic,” the devil continued with obvious satisfaction. “The solar was stripped of his command and banished from the higher realms. The divinities swore vengeance for The Last Prince’s betrayal, but their words were empty. War was always destined to carve a bloody swath through the higher and lower planes. For eons they had a divine System to empower themselves and their champions. A System that only they could utilize. So they felt confident in their inevitable victory.”

“Only now, since The Last Prince's triumph,” the devil finished quietly, “we have the means to match them. Blade-for-blade. Spell-for-spell. System-for-System.”