The monster didn’t stand in the door way as much as occupy it. It didn’t have any legs, or even a body. It was a dozen branches twisting together in a way that didn’t make sense. I felt a headache build behind my eyes as it shifted, seeming to grow in a direction while deleting the half behind it.
There was no face, but I still felt as if it was watching me as it shifted into an archway, holding the door up. I also could feel its impatience.
[I suggest you exit while the door is open.]
I walked up, but hesitated at the door, another wave of unease spilling over me as I neared the monster. I swallowed hard and forced myself to jump the last few feet through, landing out in a sprawling hallway. The creature crawled into the jail cell, dragging out the body and all of the trays. The trays seemed to disappear, folding out of my sight. I caught glances of them hanging around the edges of the monster, as if they were hidden just behind it, but at its thickest branches the monster was still only the size of an arm.
It wordlessly floated out of the room. I stared, mesmerized, as it opened the second door.
The body was half contained in its branches, seeming to disappear, folding around itself. All I saw was the dangling legs as the monster pulled the next door open. It shouted something at me, but I didn’t understand it.
[Applying universal translation spell to Interface.]
My hellfire dipped a tiny percentage as the audio replayed.
“You — BASTARD!”
A goat person stumbled out of the prison cell next to mine, pointing a dull gray sword in my direction. It licked the side of its face with a long tongue. Curled horns hung from his head, jewelry hanging and decorating them. The Treeguard seemed to not care, letting the door drop and slinking away in the hall.
In the goat person’s arms was a baby, looking distinctly more human than the parent carrying it. It still had nubby little horns, head tucked into the chest of the parent carrying it.
[Anomaly detected — accelerating.]
The goat man flashed red in my vision, time slowing to a crawl as Interface began to display dozens of signifiers.
[DODGE!]
I whipped out my sword and blocked.
The goat pushed me back, sending my sliding across the floor, sparks flying where it’s blade intersected mine, the point perfectly at me. It huffed, the air disrupting the hair on its nose.
“You son of a bitch!”
“What the hell!” I shouted back.
It swung it’s sword fast, a one, two, three swipe. I deflected and blocked where I could.
I couldn’t stab them! It was holding a baby!
“Oh?” The goat said. “You’re not Marvelle.” The goat was still in an attack pose, ready to leap forward. It huffed air out of its nose.
Then it relaxed, holding the sword up behind its shoulder. The baby on its chest released where it gripped fur, turning around to look at me curiously. Its face was much, much more human, missing the elongated goat like snout. To my disturbance, though, its tongue was also inhuman, and it shared the quirk of stretching it out and licking at its own face.
“No! I’m not! Why are you fighting with a baby!?” I shouted.
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“I’m not fighting with a baby. I’m fighting with you.”
“You’re holding a — a fucking child!” I pointed the sword reflexively.
The baby started crying.
“Hey! You’re scaring him!” The goat creature sheathed it’s sword, comforting the baby swaddled to its chest. “It’s okay Mora. Hey. It’s alright. You think he’d be less afraid of your ugly human face, since his is close to yours. Who looks like your mama? You do!”
The goat continued to play with the human, completely disregarding me.
“What the fuck is going on here?” I asked.
‘The goat appears to have a parental bond with that child. It also appears that he had an issue with the previous resident of your cell. Since you were released at the same time, its likely whatever conflict existed behind them is what led to them being incarcerated in isolation.’ Interface supplied.
“Shut up interface. I can see that much!”
“What?” The goat man said, looking up. Then it squinted. The effect was odd, since its pupils were lines. I had seen pupils like those before, but never on anything with only two eyes.
“Do you only have two eyes?” I asked.
“What?” He repeated. Then he looked towards the jail cell. “Who are you anyway? Where is Marvelle? Did he get released early?”
“The dead guy?” I asked. “Sorry, everyone I meet that looks like you normally has more than two eyes.”
“What? No. I just have the two. What is your — how did you get into Marvelle’s cell? He’s dead?”
“Yeah, bled out.” I said. There was a breeze behind me. I didn’t turn away from the person who had just swung a sword at me. “I’m K-Three — uh.” I replied automatically with my number. That wasn’t my name, it was just my automatic reply.
“K’Three.” The goat repeated. “Nice to meet you. I’m Nalaar.” The goat licked his face.
“No, sorry, not K’Three, I’m — ”
“We need to go before Marvelle’s friends show up. They’ll beat the shit out of us. Worse if they find out he’s dead. Let’s go.” The goat man said, walking past me. I turned, keeping my eyes on him and facing him. He turned his back on me without a second pause.
I followed along a winding hall. Light cut into it from windows above, wind whistling. A few steps ahead, the wall on our left ended, letting in the sun. I stepped out. There was a sun. I stared up at it.
For the last decade of my life I had been living beneath buzzing void, great red aurora’s of hellfire the only light to signify the day, a world painted in crimson colors. And now there was a sun.
“You sensitive?” The goat asked. “There’s shade ahead. The hell are you, anyway?”
“A Tiefling.” I replied. I reached up to touch the nubs of my horns — they were already starting to grow back from the day without filing them.
“The
“My dad was a human and my mom — it’s not important. I’m not sensitive to the light, no.” I replied, finally lowering my gaze from the sun. Darkened spots hung in my eyes. I felt giddy at the momentary blindless, a compulsory smile crossing my face as it finally hit that I had escaped the hells.
I was on a planet! Maybe not anyone I knew. After all, I was pretty sure the sky wasn’t tinted violet when I was growing up.
Then I finally processed what I was looking at. Ahead of me, a valley stretched miles into the distance. A fortress wall stories high lipped the edge at the other side of the valley. Giant gashes in space leaked purple smoke and fire, wounds in reality itself. A gigantic tower, so high it stretched from the bottom of the valley to above the walls around it, rose out of the center, piercing the clouds above.
Around it was a tiered, ringed city, half carefully designed stone and half ramshackle housing built atop it. Hundreds… no, thousands of people massed below and above, crawling across the city and standing beneath waving banners on the wall.
“What… where the hell are we?” I asked.
“Are you joking? We don’t have time for this.” Nalaar said.
I turned to face him. He must have registered something on my face, because even with his alien features I saw his expression soften.
“Welcome to the Celestial Scar. The biggest prison east of God’s Bane. Now come on, lets get out of here before we get murdered.”
“There’s a bigger prison? What kind of fucked up world is this? How big is God’s Bane? Have you seen it?”
I turned to the goat man.
“Seen it?” He asked, seemingly shocked. “No… you’re not a new prisoner, are you? But you’re not human! Or are you human? Are Tieflings human? Is this just like a different fur?” The goat squinted at me again.
“No one leaves the Celestial Scar!” He continued. “You broke into here? How did you break into a confined cell? Did you kill Marvelle? We really need to leave.”
“Well what do we have here? Nalaar, you son of a bitch. And… I don’t think I know you.” A group of three approached us from behind Nalaar. None were goat people. Two were normal, ordinary humans. The one talking, though, must have been nearly ten feet tall. His skin was covered in human colored scales. He uncrouched as he slid out from under another hallway like the one we had been imprisoned in. His face was round, his mouth disproportionately long. “I like your sword, stranger. I think I’ll take it.”