"Restoration!" Volex cast. "Selva, have you made much headway on sorting through Lurk's victims?"

"...Elendar, tell her about the boneheaded way you designed the flow of time in this place," I said. "It should pass the time while I sort through all of this."

"Right, so..." Elendar began, before I tuned her out and began taking inventory. Lurk only had a dozen or so chunks of black onyx in her pockets overall, and I didn't believe for a second that Lurk only had a dozen or so souls trapped inside gems.

I found a scroll, and unrolled it, hoping against hope that it'd be an oddly-formatted document instead of another goddamn spell scroll. Alas, it was in fact another goddamn spell scroll. One that had multiple spells on it, which was odd. Oh, sure, it wasn't exactly a secret technique or even particularly hard to make spell scrolls with multiple spells, but it wasn't commonly used, either. Most of the point of spell scrolls is to allow non-spellcasters to have spells cast on their behalf at their own discretion, and the more specific a scroll was, the less fungible it was. Nobody wanted to pay for a scroll of Shatter, Passwall, and Identify Object because nobody ever needed that specific combination of spells. There was a decent business in multi-use Teleport scrolls, because Teleport was a very useful spell for travel, and it was not at all unreasonable that someone would want to do it multiple times in short order, but otherwise, nobody bothered. The only benefit to, essentially, gluing three scrolls together was that they'd all count as one object, but frankly, that was...

I blinked, and then hummed quietly. That was a mildly useful fact for someone with my resources. I slipped a scroll out of my pocket and approached the summoning circle.

"Planar Binding," I cast, summoning an Efreeti.

"Speak your wishes, summoner," she intoned.

"Give me a spell scroll containing fifteen castings of Planar Binding," I said. "Give me a Crafted Contingency that casts Dominate Person on someone who gets un-petrified within a thirty foot radius. And give me a spell scroll containing twenty two castings of Break Enchantment as cast by a Level 9 Wizard."

"Your wish is my command," the Efreeti said, before snapping her fingers three times and conjuring the items I'd asked for. Then she disappeared in a puff of smoke.

I picked up the scrolls, which were each about as thick around as my, admittedly rather noodly, forearms, and then the Crafted Contingency. I honestly didn't know what to expect; a brass brooch was as reasonable as any, though. I scooped it up too, and walked back over to Lurk, glancing over at the still-going ramble from Elendar. Whether or not Volex had fallen asleep on her feet was irrelevant; the magic of this place guaranteed I'd finish right before she did so. Or right after, whichever was deemed to be more annoying.

I pinned the brooch to my shirt, took a moment to carefully cut the scrolls into individual spells and bind them into proper codices, and finally, used the one sheet of Break Enchantment I'd left un-bound to un-petrify Lurk.

Granite faded back into gangrenous flesh, and my brooch flared with magic before dissolving. I felt a telepathic link form with Lurk, and decided to carry out our conversation that way, rather than out loud.

"Who do you work for?" I asked.

"Ur-Bishop Isanix," Lurk said.

"...Who the fuck is Ur-Bishop Isanix?"

"One of the Succubi who runs the Ur-Cult."

I sighed profoundly. "Explain the situation to me in full."

"So, when someone Evil dies and goes to the Lower Planes, they don't usually keep their mortal form. They're turned into demon larvae, and from there they have to work their way slowly up through the ranks of demonic creatures. Well, a while back, probably about a hundred or so years, a demon larvae who'd been an Ur-Priest in life finally evolved into a Succubus. Usually, demons don't retain much memory of who they'd been in life; it's usually more than one larvae that goes into making a demon. But this one remembered her lost magical tradition, and spent some time refining it for her new situation.

"With some retraining and a class level under her belt, she had a level in Ur-Priest, the ability to cast Ur-Priest spells off her sky-high Charisma score instead of her now-diminished Wisdom score, and soon, an inner circle of four acolytes. This demon is Ur-Pope Devaryth, and she intends to use her power as an Ur-Priest and her cult of duped mortals to ascend to godhood, bringing her inner circle with her to form her pantheon. Ur-Pope Devaryth is the one in charge, but in terms of actual administration, that's handled by Ur-Bishops Isanix and Sythaney, with Isanix, who aspires to be the Goddess of Seduction and Deception, being the one who handles external affairs. Like hiring me to assassinate you and your mentor."

I sighed. Well, that explains how Ur-Priests had made a comeback from the War of Black Roses. One of them survived the harrowing of hell with their training intact, and took a few hundred years to grind back up to a level where they could cast Plane Shift and bring their minions with them. Although...

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"You mentioned Dev... Uh... You mentioned the Ur-Pope had four acolytes. They all succubi?" I asked.

"Yeah. Isanix, aspirant of Seduction and Deception. Aellajyx, aspirant of Conquest and Domination. Sythaney, aspirant of Transformation and Corruption. And, until recently, Volex, aspirant of Love and Beauty."

I blinked, long and slow. There was no way that Volex...

...who had clerical magic despite worshipping no god, who had claimed to venerate Love and Beauty earlier today, who had an astronomically high Charisma score, who could very well have taken the form of a Tiefling to pass off any signs of her being an actual, for-real Demon...

...Fuck. God dammit. One thing at a time, though.

"Where are the rest of the trapped souls?" I asked.

"I keep them all on my person," Lurk said.

"I highly doubt you've only killed fourteen people."

"Fourteen since I hit Level 16 four years ago. Business has been pretty slow. Assholes had me assassinating Level 4 Magistry apprentices in a training dungeon, for fuck's sake. And I had to be grateful, because if it wasn't for that shit, I wouldn't fucking work."

"Wait, hang on, you assassinated Level 4 Magistry apprentices in a training dungeon?" I asked. "Was one of them, perchance, an elf who looked a lot like the last one you killed?"

"Yeah, I think so," Lurk said.

"You know which gem holds which soul?"

"Yep."

"Break the gem that holds that elf's soul. Actually, just break all the goddamn gems."

I turned to regard Volex- who I wasn't completely certain was a Succubus Ur-Priest, but I was reasonably confident about that one- and Elendar, who were, by the looks of things, four minutes into Interminable Ellie's Existentially-Enervating Exposition.

"So, I've got good news," I said, interrupting the chatter. "I just Dominated Lurk-"

"I wasn't aware she was into that," Volex said.

"-as in the spell, Dominate Person," I clarified, wearily. "And not only have I learned that the Ur-Priest cult is led by a circle of Succubi all with levels of Ur-Priest and ambitions of apotheosis, I've also solved a mystery that probably only matters to two or three people right now."

"Go back to the part with the apotheosis," Elendar said.

"In a minute, I'm not explaining this twice," I said, walking back over to the summoning circle. "Hey, Lurk, let the Efreeti turn you to stone. We'll bring you back once this whole mess has blown over."

"'kay," she said.

I yanked a scroll-page out of the codex, and cast, "Planar Binding!"

"Speak your wishes, summoner," she intoned.

"Petrify that Assassin," I ordered.

"Your wish is my command," the Efreeti said, before snapping her fingers once and pointing at Lurk, who froze in place as a statue.

"I would really like to know what's going on, here," Elendar insisted.

"You'll see," I said, before addressing the Efreeti. "For my remaining Wishes, resurrect Neloteth Tanelye!"

"That won't- I've tried-" Elendar's eyes widened, before narrowing. "That bitch-"

"Your wish is my command," the Efreeti said, before snapping her fingers once. Streaming in out of thin air, the body of a young Elfish woman coalesced, propped up on her feet. Snapping her fingers again, the Efreeti drew the soul back into the body, and Neloteth Tanelye opened her eyes for the first time in three years.

Noticing the codex in my hands, or perhaps just from the fact I was closest, she seemed to decide I was the one responsible for her resurrection. It was the best explanation I had for the fact that she lept at me, wrapping her arms around my neck and kissing me deeply. It was while she was doing this(and I was wrapping my arms around her in turn because I'm not an ungrateful asshole) that I finally noticed that she was a naked young Elfish woman.

Due to the vagaries of the Timeless trait, it was hard to say how long we stood there making out. She definitely seemed to be enjoying herself, and I certainly wasn't unhappy either. However, all things do eventually come to an end, and Neloteth withdrew from me, breathless. Apparently she didn't have the gifted constitution I did.

"...You're welcome," I said.

"It's nice to be understood," Neloteth said, grinning. "So! Mom! Volex! Fancy seeing you two here!"

"Hide your shame, child," Elendar said, pulling a robe out of her pocket and throwing it at her daughter. "That being said... Welcome back. I... I missed you."

"I missed you too," Neloteth said, slipping into the robe. "So, who's this?"

"Dr. Selva Imroth," I said, nodding. "Your mother was my academic advisor at the university, while I pursued my PhD."

"Egads, have I really been gone long enough for someone to ding 6th off study XP?" Neloteth asked, taken aback.

"Oh, no, I did some early entry cheese to get my PhD at 4th," I said. "It's a neat trick if you can pull it off. You were dead about three years, I think."

"Oh, well, that's not that bad, then," Neloteth said dismissively. "What else have I missed?"

"Well, there's a cult with exclusive access to a divine spellcasting prestige class that gets full Cleric casting but faster than the Cleric does," I said. "They're lead by a Succubus called Ur-Pope Devaryth who was made from a person who had that prestige class in life, and beneath her are apparently four Ur-Bishops, other Succubi who, along with the Ur-Pope, aspire to ascend as gods.

"And apparently, one of these Ur-Bishops is the Succubus Volex, aspiring Goddess of Love and Beauty."

All eyes fell on Volex, who looked grateful her skin was already red and thus could not visibly blush.

Volex looked down and to the side sheepishly. "...I can explain."