"So cliche, darling. I think you'll find this will hurt more than a barbed whip ever could."
*How this is going to work is as follows:
Each character picks a truth or a dare and Lucifer then gives them one. For the dare, it might be an ongoing thing at which point the character accepting the dare will impose that limit on them forever (no wriggling out of it possible). Alternatively, if they choose a truth they need to tell the whole truth omitting nothing (I'll take it on trust that you as players don't hold back). If they do either of these, they get to leave and can choose to gain either a level up, any spell of 5th level or lower to cast once a day or any official very rare or lower item
They'll be pretty tough so characters who can't fulfil a truth or dare/don't partake will get locked in the dungeons, from which they can try to escape but it'll be tricky and there's no boon at the end of it. Dares tend to have a lasting effect on an aspect of the character whereas truths are more intended to provoke an RP response, though secretive characters may be forced to reveal something they really didn't want to. For most of you a truth is probably the easier (wussy 👀) option*
"So cliche, darling. I think you'll find this will hurt more than a barbed whip ever could."
*How this is going to work is as follows:
Each character picks a truth or a dare and Lucifer then gives them one. For the dare, it might be an ongoing thing at which point the character accepting the dare will impose that limit on them forever (no wriggling out of it possible). Alternatively, if they choose a truth they need to tell the whole truth omitting nothing (I'll take it on trust that you as players don't hold back). If they do either of these, they get to leave and can choose to gain either a level up, any spell of 5th level or lower to cast once a day or any official very rare or lower item
They'll be pretty tough so characters who can't fulfil a truth or dare/don't partake will get locked in the dungeons, from which they can try to escape but it'll be tricky and there's no boon at the end of it. Dares tend to have a lasting effect on an aspect of the character whereas truths are more intended to provoke an RP response, though secretive characters may be forced to reveal something they really didn't want to. For most of you a truth is probably the easier (wussy 👀) option*
*Alloy is a wuss so I'll take it. ALSO COOL, MECHANICAL BENEFITS*
"Then you may ask what you will. I will answer... as best I can." Alloy grimaces.
"Alloy, how exactly did you escape Levistus' service? Every detail if you please, and don't forget to speak up." Lucifer grabs some popcorn, interested to hear this one
"Alloy, how exactly did you escape Levistus' service? Every detail if you please, and don't forget to speak up." Lucifer grabs some popcorn, interested to hear this one
Alloy goes quiet for a moment. "As you... as you wish."
*Content Warnings: Violence, torture, child cruelty, themes of suicide, slavery*
Alloy pulls out their deep brown, leather-bound, weathered journal and flicks through to around the mid-point. "It started on salt day. The day once-per-month the Erinyes stopped us from working at chiselling away at Levistus' ice cage and forced us to take what they always referred to as "a hot bath". The water was colder than the ice we slept on, and it was filled with salt, for the express purpose of stinging our wounds from their whip lashes, and our cuts, and splinters from mining the block of ice.
"After the salt bath, they'd take glee in showering us with cold water, so icicles would form and rip at our skin. The Erinyes were cruel and loved to see pain. They then chained us all up again to our beds for the evening... well, everyone except me. They forgot to chain me down. And so, while they weren't looking, I ran. I left everyone else behind me. I didn't even know who they were - their personalities had been lost long before I ever arrived there.
"I managed to make it to the edge of Evihome, the devil settlement run by the Erinyes slavers, and steal much of their food and drink under cover of darkness. I also managed to steal from Levistus' personal library, taking some books as petty revenge for my suffering. I was weak, and so I was forced to sleep in a tiny shelter of snow I dug on the side of a building for the night."
Alloy's eyes seem to start crystalizing, as snowflake tears start to fall. "I ran the next morning. I could hear the Erinyes hollering behind me. They could have caught me, if they wanted. They could have bet me to death. But they didn't - they enjoyed the game too much. I knew though that they would get bored by the end of the weak, and I would be brought back to Levistus.
"Every night I spent on those Styx-forsaken ice plains, I dreamed. And Levistus was in all my dreams, mocking me for my identity, my escape that would fail, for how I failed everyone I loved. It almost drove me mad. I couldn't sleep anymore. So I spent nights reading the books I had stolen from Levistus.
"My food soon ran out, and I was forced to feed on bugs, small animals, and remorhaz eggs. Disgusting things. But the Erinyes never caught up with me - I had begun using the ice magics my very masters had forced me to learn to save myself from them. To hide. To run faster and faster, further and further. I spent nights in the hollowed-out carcasses of carrion I had found slain. After almost a year, however, with the Erinyes still behind me, I was so weak I could barely manage to walk, and I could hear my slavers jeering behind me. Levistus still came in my dreams...
"And then I made a mistake. Searching for food, I stole a remorhaz egg from its nest. The mother... it found me. It almost killed me, until... a large tentacle of darkness reached up out of the earth and snapped it in two. Someone had saved me - a deity known as Eris White-Eyes. They gifted to me a sickle they had found in the remorhaz' armour plating, this very sickle here." Alloy pulls out the Levistus' Promise, a nasty blue-bladed sickle with a cool glint. They hold it as if it's some sort of holy weapon. "I promised myself I would kill my parents with this weapon if I got the chance. Kill them for enslaving me and my siblings. For abandoning us.
"Eris protected me and travelled with me for a week, and part of their keen insight of the cosmos rubbed off on me. I learnt how to summon dread tentacles from the Far Planes. Between her and the Styx, I had more support than I had ever had before. But it still wasn't enough. I began to lose hope.
"And then I remembered... when a non-fiendish being dies in the Hells, it is transformed into a soul coin. Most soul coins go immediately to their owners - in my case, Levistus - but sometimes, they get lost on the Styx. So I prayed to Eris and the River of Planes, and I slit my own throat with the very same weapon Eris had given me." Alloy points to a blotchy red scar on the side of their neck.
"I didn't die, that day. I didn't survive, but I didn't die. I awoke in a cave of shimmering ice, where all the walls acted as mirrors, reflecting myself. I was weak and frail, and my soul had been partially severed from my body. Not entirely severed, but partially. Behind me, I could hear the cackle of Erinyes slavers, calling my name. I crawled as fast as I could, smashing the walls with Levistus' Promise, the sickle, as I went. They couldn't find me. Levistus' hold on my soul had been broken, somehow. Eventually I came to a set of stairs, leading higher and higher until it reached the surface world. As I crawled up those stairs, my soul mutated me into forms I both recognised and did not recognise - gators and caiman metres long, tiny four-legged green creatures with the ability to jump very high, wingless birds with beaks like axes, even hounds with coarse grey fur.
"When I reached the top, I found myself in an Icy Swamp realm. I spent days travelling it, avoiding my Erinyes pursuers. Eventually, I felt the souls of my siblings nearby, somewhere deep in my heart...
"That was when the final Erinyes struck. They had managed to find me, weak and feeble as I was, and stab me in my back. Luckily, the blade didn't go too deep, but I was sent flailing into an icy river. I pulled the Erinyes in after me, and even as their blade tore at my throat, I entrapped them in vines and drowned them... in the bottom of the river."
Alloy shivers even harder this time, the tips of their fingers and ears turning a pale orange, like the colour of their scars and the palms of their hands. "I managed to crawl between a magical barrier between that world and the Death Dells, sending a message through the river Styx to my siblings in the only ink I had left - my own blood - asking for help. My sister Zaza found me and took me back to the Adventurer's Legacy, as it is called, and nursed me back from the brink of death."
Alloy finally wipes their eyes. "I still hear Levistus sometimes, in my sleep, taunting me. In truth, Mister Lucifer, I never escaped the frozen corpse realm of Stygia. I am a prisoner of fate even now, and a prisoner of my own mind."
"Alloy, how exactly did you escape Levistus' service? Every detail if you please, and don't forget to speak up." Lucifer grabs some popcorn, interested to hear this one
Alloy goes quiet for a moment. "As you... as you wish."
*Content Warnings: Violence, torture, child cruelty, themes of suicide, slavery*
Alloy pulls out their deep brown, leather-bound, weathered journal and flicks through to around the mid-point. "It started on salt day. The day once-per-month the Erinyes stopped us from working at chiselling away at Levistus' ice cage and forced us to take what they always referred to as "a hot bath". The water was colder than the ice we slept on, and it was filled with salt, for the express purpose of stinging our wounds from their whip lashes, and our cuts, and splinters from mining the block of ice.
"After the salt bath, they'd take glee in showering us with cold water, so icicles would form and rip at our skin. The Erinyes were cruel and loved to see pain. They then chained us all up again to our beds for the evening... well, everyone except me. They forgot to chain me down. And so, while they weren't looking, I ran. I left everyone else behind me. I didn't even know who they were - their personalities had been lost long before I ever arrived there.
"I managed to make it to the edge of Evihome, the devil settlement run by the Erinyes slavers, and steal much of their food and drink under cover of darkness. I also managed to steal from Levistus' personal library, taking some books as petty revenge for my suffering. I was weak, and so I was forced to sleep in a tiny shelter of snow I dug on the side of a building for the night."
Alloy's eyes seem to start crystalizing, as snowflake tears start to fall. "I ran the next morning. I could hear the Erinyes hollering behind me. They could have caught me, if they wanted. They could have bet me to death. But they didn't - they enjoyed the game too much. I knew though that they would get bored by the end of the weak, and I would be brought back to Levistus.
"Every night I spent on those Styx-forsaken ice plains, I dreamed. And Levistus was in all my dreams, mocking me for my identity, my escape that would fail, for how I failed everyone I loved. It almost drove me mad. I couldn't sleep anymore. So I spent nights reading the books I had stolen from Levistus.
"My food soon ran out, and I was forced to feed on bugs, small animals, and remorhaz eggs. Disgusting things. But the Erinyes never caught up with me - I had begun using the ice magics my very masters had forced me to learn to save myself from them. To hide. To run faster and faster, further and further. I spent nights in the hollowed-out carcasses of carrion I had found slain. After almost a year, however, with the Erinyes still behind me, I was so weak I could barely manage to walk, and I could hear my slavers jeering behind me. Levistus still came in my dreams...
"And then I made a mistake. Searching for food, I stole a remorhaz egg from its nest. The mother... it found me. It almost killed me, until... a large tentacle of darkness reached up out of the earth and snapped it in two. Someone had saved me - a deity known as Eris White-Eyes. They gifted to me a sickle they had found in the remorhaz' armour plating, this very sickle here." Alloy pulls out the Levistus' Promise, a nasty blue-bladed sickle with a cool glint. They hold it as if it's some sort of holy weapon. "I promised myself I would kill my parents with this weapon if I got the chance. Kill them for enslaving me and my siblings. For abandoning us.
"Eris protected me and travelled with me for a week, and part of their keen insight of the cosmos rubbed off on me. I learnt how to summon dread tentacles from the Far Planes. Between her and the Styx, I had more support than I had ever had before. But it still wasn't enough. I began to lose hope.
"And then I remembered... when a non-fiendish being dies in the Hells, it is transformed into a soul coin. Most soul coins go immediately to their owners - in my case, Levistus - but sometimes, they get lost on the Styx. So I prayed to Eris and the River of Planes, and I slit my own throat with the very same weapon Eris had given me." Alloy points to a blotchy red scar on the side of their neck.
"I didn't die, that day. I didn't survive, but I didn't die. I awoke in a cave of shimmering ice, where all the walls acted as mirrors, reflecting myself. I was weak and frail, and my soul had been partially severed from my body. Not entirely severed, but partially. Behind me, I could hear the cackle of Erinyes slavers, calling my name. I crawled as fast as I could, smashing the walls with Levistus' Promise, the sickle, as I went. They couldn't find me. Levistus' hold on my soul had been broken, somehow. Eventually I came to a set of stairs, leading higher and higher until it reached the surface world. As I crawled up those stairs, my soul mutated me into forms I both recognised and did not recognise - gators and caiman metres long, tiny four-legged green creatures with the ability to jump very high, wingless birds with beaks like axes, even hounds with coarse grey fur.
"When I reached the top, I found myself in an Icy Swamp realm. I spent days travelling it, avoiding my Erinyes pursuers. Eventually, I felt the souls of my siblings nearby, somewhere deep in my heart...
"That was when the final Erinyes struck. They had managed to find me, weak and feeble as I was, and stab me in my back. Luckily, the blade didn't go too deep, but I was sent flailing into an icy river. I pulled the Erinyes in after me, and even as their blade tore at my throat, I entrapped them in vines and drowned them... in the bottom of the river."
Alloy shivers even harder this time, the tips of their fingers and ears turning a pale orange, like the colour of their scars and the palms of their hands. "I managed to crawl between a magical barrier between that world and the Death Dells, sending a message through the river Styx to my siblings in the only ink I had left - my own blood - asking for help. My sister Zaza found me and took me back to the Adventurer's Legacy, as it is called, and nursed me back from the brink of death."
Alloy finally wipes their eyes. "I still hear Levistus sometimes, in my sleep, taunting me. In truth, Mister Lucifer, I never escaped the frozen corpse realm of Stygia. I am a prisoner of fate even now, and a prisoner of my own mind."
Aovin softly pats alloys shoulder, "Its ok alloy...."
"Alloy, how exactly did you escape Levistus' service? Every detail if you please, and don't forget to speak up." Lucifer grabs some popcorn, interested to hear this one
Alloy goes quiet for a moment. "As you... as you wish."
*Content Warnings: Violence, torture, child cruelty, themes of suicide, slavery*
Alloy pulls out their deep brown, leather-bound, weathered journal and flicks through to around the mid-point. "It started on salt day. The day once-per-month the Erinyes stopped us from working at chiselling away at Levistus' ice cage and forced us to take what they always referred to as "a hot bath". The water was colder than the ice we slept on, and it was filled with salt, for the express purpose of stinging our wounds from their whip lashes, and our cuts, and splinters from mining the block of ice.
"After the salt bath, they'd take glee in showering us with cold water, so icicles would form and rip at our skin. The Erinyes were cruel and loved to see pain. They then chained us all up again to our beds for the evening... well, everyone except me. They forgot to chain me down. And so, while they weren't looking, I ran. I left everyone else behind me. I didn't even know who they were - their personalities had been lost long before I ever arrived there.
"I managed to make it to the edge of Evihome, the devil settlement run by the Erinyes slavers, and steal much of their food and drink under cover of darkness. I also managed to steal from Levistus' personal library, taking some books as petty revenge for my suffering. I was weak, and so I was forced to sleep in a tiny shelter of snow I dug on the side of a building for the night."
Alloy's eyes seem to start crystalizing, as snowflake tears start to fall. "I ran the next morning. I could hear the Erinyes hollering behind me. They could have caught me, if they wanted. They could have bet me to death. But they didn't - they enjoyed the game too much. I knew though that they would get bored by the end of the weak, and I would be brought back to Levistus.
"Every night I spent on those Styx-forsaken ice plains, I dreamed. And Levistus was in all my dreams, mocking me for my identity, my escape that would fail, for how I failed everyone I loved. It almost drove me mad. I couldn't sleep anymore. So I spent nights reading the books I had stolen from Levistus.
"My food soon ran out, and I was forced to feed on bugs, small animals, and remorhaz eggs. Disgusting things. But the Erinyes never caught up with me - I had begun using the ice magics my very masters had forced me to learn to save myself from them. To hide. To run faster and faster, further and further. I spent nights in the hollowed-out carcasses of carrion I had found slain. After almost a year, however, with the Erinyes still behind me, I was so weak I could barely manage to walk, and I could hear my slavers jeering behind me. Levistus still came in my dreams...
"And then I made a mistake. Searching for food, I stole a remorhaz egg from its nest. The mother... it found me. It almost killed me, until... a large tentacle of darkness reached up out of the earth and snapped it in two. Someone had saved me - a deity known as Eris White-Eyes. They gifted to me a sickle they had found in the remorhaz' armour plating, this very sickle here." Alloy pulls out the Levistus' Promise, a nasty blue-bladed sickle with a cool glint. They hold it as if it's some sort of holy weapon. "I promised myself I would kill my parents with this weapon if I got the chance. Kill them for enslaving me and my siblings. For abandoning us.
"Eris protected me and travelled with me for a week, and part of their keen insight of the cosmos rubbed off on me. I learnt how to summon dread tentacles from the Far Planes. Between her and the Styx, I had more support than I had ever had before. But it still wasn't enough. I began to lose hope.
"And then I remembered... when a non-fiendish being dies in the Hells, it is transformed into a soul coin. Most soul coins go immediately to their owners - in my case, Levistus - but sometimes, they get lost on the Styx. So I prayed to Eris and the River of Planes, and I slit my own throat with the very same weapon Eris had given me." Alloy points to a blotchy red scar on the side of their neck.
"I didn't die, that day. I didn't survive, but I didn't die. I awoke in a cave of shimmering ice, where all the walls acted as mirrors, reflecting myself. I was weak and frail, and my soul had been partially severed from my body. Not entirely severed, but partially. Behind me, I could hear the cackle of Erinyes slavers, calling my name. I crawled as fast as I could, smashing the walls with Levistus' Promise, the sickle, as I went. They couldn't find me. Levistus' hold on my soul had been broken, somehow. Eventually I came to a set of stairs, leading higher and higher until it reached the surface world. As I crawled up those stairs, my soul mutated me into forms I both recognised and did not recognise - gators and caiman metres long, tiny four-legged green creatures with the ability to jump very high, wingless birds with beaks like axes, even hounds with coarse grey fur.
"When I reached the top, I found myself in an Icy Swamp realm. I spent days travelling it, avoiding my Erinyes pursuers. Eventually, I felt the souls of my siblings nearby, somewhere deep in my heart...
"That was when the final Erinyes struck. They had managed to find me, weak and feeble as I was, and stab me in my back. Luckily, the blade didn't go too deep, but I was sent flailing into an icy river. I pulled the Erinyes in after me, and even as their blade tore at my throat, I entrapped them in vines and drowned them... in the bottom of the river."
Alloy shivers even harder this time, the tips of their fingers and ears turning a pale orange, like the colour of their scars and the palms of their hands. "I managed to crawl between a magical barrier between that world and the Death Dells, sending a message through the river Styx to my siblings in the only ink I had left - my own blood - asking for help. My sister Zaza found me and took me back to the Adventurer's Legacy, as it is called, and nursed me back from the brink of death."
Alloy finally wipes their eyes. "I still hear Levistus sometimes, in my sleep, taunting me. In truth, Mister Lucifer, I never escaped the frozen corpse realm of Stygia. I am a prisoner of fate even now, and a prisoner of my own mind."
Aovin softly pats alloys shoulder, "Its ok alloy...."
They moan softly. "He was right. That did hurt more than whips..."
"Alloy, how exactly did you escape Levistus' service? Every detail if you please, and don't forget to speak up." Lucifer grabs some popcorn, interested to hear this one
Alloy goes quiet for a moment. "As you... as you wish."
*Content Warnings: Violence, torture, child cruelty, themes of suicide, slavery*
Alloy pulls out their deep brown, leather-bound, weathered journal and flicks through to around the mid-point. "It started on salt day. The day once-per-month the Erinyes stopped us from working at chiselling away at Levistus' ice cage and forced us to take what they always referred to as "a hot bath". The water was colder than the ice we slept on, and it was filled with salt, for the express purpose of stinging our wounds from their whip lashes, and our cuts, and splinters from mining the block of ice.
"After the salt bath, they'd take glee in showering us with cold water, so icicles would form and rip at our skin. The Erinyes were cruel and loved to see pain. They then chained us all up again to our beds for the evening... well, everyone except me. They forgot to chain me down. And so, while they weren't looking, I ran. I left everyone else behind me. I didn't even know who they were - their personalities had been lost long before I ever arrived there.
"I managed to make it to the edge of Evihome, the devil settlement run by the Erinyes slavers, and steal much of their food and drink under cover of darkness. I also managed to steal from Levistus' personal library, taking some books as petty revenge for my suffering. I was weak, and so I was forced to sleep in a tiny shelter of snow I dug on the side of a building for the night."
Alloy's eyes seem to start crystalizing, as snowflake tears start to fall. "I ran the next morning. I could hear the Erinyes hollering behind me. They could have caught me, if they wanted. They could have bet me to death. But they didn't - they enjoyed the game too much. I knew though that they would get bored by the end of the weak, and I would be brought back to Levistus.
"Every night I spent on those Styx-forsaken ice plains, I dreamed. And Levistus was in all my dreams, mocking me for my identity, my escape that would fail, for how I failed everyone I loved. It almost drove me mad. I couldn't sleep anymore. So I spent nights reading the books I had stolen from Levistus.
"My food soon ran out, and I was forced to feed on bugs, small animals, and remorhaz eggs. Disgusting things. But the Erinyes never caught up with me - I had begun using the ice magics my very masters had forced me to learn to save myself from them. To hide. To run faster and faster, further and further. I spent nights in the hollowed-out carcasses of carrion I had found slain. After almost a year, however, with the Erinyes still behind me, I was so weak I could barely manage to walk, and I could hear my slavers jeering behind me. Levistus still came in my dreams...
"And then I made a mistake. Searching for food, I stole a remorhaz egg from its nest. The mother... it found me. It almost killed me, until... a large tentacle of darkness reached up out of the earth and snapped it in two. Someone had saved me - a deity known as Eris White-Eyes. They gifted to me a sickle they had found in the remorhaz' armour plating, this very sickle here." Alloy pulls out the Levistus' Promise, a nasty blue-bladed sickle with a cool glint. They hold it as if it's some sort of holy weapon. "I promised myself I would kill my parents with this weapon if I got the chance. Kill them for enslaving me and my siblings. For abandoning us.
"Eris protected me and travelled with me for a week, and part of their keen insight of the cosmos rubbed off on me. I learnt how to summon dread tentacles from the Far Planes. Between her and the Styx, I had more support than I had ever had before. But it still wasn't enough. I began to lose hope.
"And then I remembered... when a non-fiendish being dies in the Hells, it is transformed into a soul coin. Most soul coins go immediately to their owners - in my case, Levistus - but sometimes, they get lost on the Styx. So I prayed to Eris and the River of Planes, and I slit my own throat with the very same weapon Eris had given me." Alloy points to a blotchy red scar on the side of their neck.
"I didn't die, that day. I didn't survive, but I didn't die. I awoke in a cave of shimmering ice, where all the walls acted as mirrors, reflecting myself. I was weak and frail, and my soul had been partially severed from my body. Not entirely severed, but partially. Behind me, I could hear the cackle of Erinyes slavers, calling my name. I crawled as fast as I could, smashing the walls with Levistus' Promise, the sickle, as I went. They couldn't find me. Levistus' hold on my soul had been broken, somehow. Eventually I came to a set of stairs, leading higher and higher until it reached the surface world. As I crawled up those stairs, my soul mutated me into forms I both recognised and did not recognise - gators and caiman metres long, tiny four-legged green creatures with the ability to jump very high, wingless birds with beaks like axes, even hounds with coarse grey fur.
"When I reached the top, I found myself in an Icy Swamp realm. I spent days travelling it, avoiding my Erinyes pursuers. Eventually, I felt the souls of my siblings nearby, somewhere deep in my heart...
"That was when the final Erinyes struck. They had managed to find me, weak and feeble as I was, and stab me in my back. Luckily, the blade didn't go too deep, but I was sent flailing into an icy river. I pulled the Erinyes in after me, and even as their blade tore at my throat, I entrapped them in vines and drowned them... in the bottom of the river."
Alloy shivers even harder this time, the tips of their fingers and ears turning a pale orange, like the colour of their scars and the palms of their hands. "I managed to crawl between a magical barrier between that world and the Death Dells, sending a message through the river Styx to my siblings in the only ink I had left - my own blood - asking for help. My sister Zaza found me and took me back to the Adventurer's Legacy, as it is called, and nursed me back from the brink of death."
Alloy finally wipes their eyes. "I still hear Levistus sometimes, in my sleep, taunting me. In truth, Mister Lucifer, I never escaped the frozen corpse realm of Stygia. I am a prisoner of fate even now, and a prisoner of my own mind."
Aovin softly pats alloys shoulder, "Its ok alloy...."
They moan softly. "He was right. That did hurt more than whips..."
"Emotions suck, but you're ok. You're here, and you have us"
"Alloy, how exactly did you escape Levistus' service? Every detail if you please, and don't forget to speak up." Lucifer grabs some popcorn, interested to hear this one
Alloy goes quiet for a moment. "As you... as you wish."
*Content Warnings: Violence, torture, child cruelty, themes of suicide, slavery*
Alloy pulls out their deep brown, leather-bound, weathered journal and flicks through to around the mid-point. "It started on salt day. The day once-per-month the Erinyes stopped us from working at chiselling away at Levistus' ice cage and forced us to take what they always referred to as "a hot bath". The water was colder than the ice we slept on, and it was filled with salt, for the express purpose of stinging our wounds from their whip lashes, and our cuts, and splinters from mining the block of ice.
"After the salt bath, they'd take glee in showering us with cold water, so icicles would form and rip at our skin. The Erinyes were cruel and loved to see pain. They then chained us all up again to our beds for the evening... well, everyone except me. They forgot to chain me down. And so, while they weren't looking, I ran. I left everyone else behind me. I didn't even know who they were - their personalities had been lost long before I ever arrived there.
"I managed to make it to the edge of Evihome, the devil settlement run by the Erinyes slavers, and steal much of their food and drink under cover of darkness. I also managed to steal from Levistus' personal library, taking some books as petty revenge for my suffering. I was weak, and so I was forced to sleep in a tiny shelter of snow I dug on the side of a building for the night."
Alloy's eyes seem to start crystalizing, as snowflake tears start to fall. "I ran the next morning. I could hear the Erinyes hollering behind me. They could have caught me, if they wanted. They could have bet me to death. But they didn't - they enjoyed the game too much. I knew though that they would get bored by the end of the weak, and I would be brought back to Levistus.
"Every night I spent on those Styx-forsaken ice plains, I dreamed. And Levistus was in all my dreams, mocking me for my identity, my escape that would fail, for how I failed everyone I loved. It almost drove me mad. I couldn't sleep anymore. So I spent nights reading the books I had stolen from Levistus.
"My food soon ran out, and I was forced to feed on bugs, small animals, and remorhaz eggs. Disgusting things. But the Erinyes never caught up with me - I had begun using the ice magics my very masters had forced me to learn to save myself from them. To hide. To run faster and faster, further and further. I spent nights in the hollowed-out carcasses of carrion I had found slain. After almost a year, however, with the Erinyes still behind me, I was so weak I could barely manage to walk, and I could hear my slavers jeering behind me. Levistus still came in my dreams...
"And then I made a mistake. Searching for food, I stole a remorhaz egg from its nest. The mother... it found me. It almost killed me, until... a large tentacle of darkness reached up out of the earth and snapped it in two. Someone had saved me - a deity known as Eris White-Eyes. They gifted to me a sickle they had found in the remorhaz' armour plating, this very sickle here." Alloy pulls out the Levistus' Promise, a nasty blue-bladed sickle with a cool glint. They hold it as if it's some sort of holy weapon. "I promised myself I would kill my parents with this weapon if I got the chance. Kill them for enslaving me and my siblings. For abandoning us.
"Eris protected me and travelled with me for a week, and part of their keen insight of the cosmos rubbed off on me. I learnt how to summon dread tentacles from the Far Planes. Between her and the Styx, I had more support than I had ever had before. But it still wasn't enough. I began to lose hope.
"And then I remembered... when a non-fiendish being dies in the Hells, it is transformed into a soul coin. Most soul coins go immediately to their owners - in my case, Levistus - but sometimes, they get lost on the Styx. So I prayed to Eris and the River of Planes, and I slit my own throat with the very same weapon Eris had given me." Alloy points to a blotchy red scar on the side of their neck.
"I didn't die, that day. I didn't survive, but I didn't die. I awoke in a cave of shimmering ice, where all the walls acted as mirrors, reflecting myself. I was weak and frail, and my soul had been partially severed from my body. Not entirely severed, but partially. Behind me, I could hear the cackle of Erinyes slavers, calling my name. I crawled as fast as I could, smashing the walls with Levistus' Promise, the sickle, as I went. They couldn't find me. Levistus' hold on my soul had been broken, somehow. Eventually I came to a set of stairs, leading higher and higher until it reached the surface world. As I crawled up those stairs, my soul mutated me into forms I both recognised and did not recognise - gators and caiman metres long, tiny four-legged green creatures with the ability to jump very high, wingless birds with beaks like axes, even hounds with coarse grey fur.
"When I reached the top, I found myself in an Icy Swamp realm. I spent days travelling it, avoiding my Erinyes pursuers. Eventually, I felt the souls of my siblings nearby, somewhere deep in my heart...
"That was when the final Erinyes struck. They had managed to find me, weak and feeble as I was, and stab me in my back. Luckily, the blade didn't go too deep, but I was sent flailing into an icy river. I pulled the Erinyes in after me, and even as their blade tore at my throat, I entrapped them in vines and drowned them... in the bottom of the river."
Alloy shivers even harder this time, the tips of their fingers and ears turning a pale orange, like the colour of their scars and the palms of their hands. "I managed to crawl between a magical barrier between that world and the Death Dells, sending a message through the river Styx to my siblings in the only ink I had left - my own blood - asking for help. My sister Zaza found me and took me back to the Adventurer's Legacy, as it is called, and nursed me back from the brink of death."
Alloy finally wipes their eyes. "I still hear Levistus sometimes, in my sleep, taunting me. In truth, Mister Lucifer, I never escaped the frozen corpse realm of Stygia. I am a prisoner of fate even now, and a prisoner of my own mind."
Aovin softly pats alloys shoulder, "Its ok alloy...."
They moan softly. "He was right. That did hurt more than whips..."
"Emotions suck, but you're ok. You're here, and you have us"
"I just... I just hope that's all that Lucifer wants... I'm scared of him." Alloy quickly pulls out a pre-written letter and hands it to Aovin. It seems very small and unimportant. It might be a goodbye note, just in case. "Open it."
"Alloy, how exactly did you escape Levistus' service? Every detail if you please, and don't forget to speak up." Lucifer grabs some popcorn, interested to hear this one
Alloy goes quiet for a moment. "As you... as you wish."
*Content Warnings: Violence, torture, child cruelty, themes of suicide, slavery*
Alloy pulls out their deep brown, leather-bound, weathered journal and flicks through to around the mid-point. "It started on salt day. The day once-per-month the Erinyes stopped us from working at chiselling away at Levistus' ice cage and forced us to take what they always referred to as "a hot bath". The water was colder than the ice we slept on, and it was filled with salt, for the express purpose of stinging our wounds from their whip lashes, and our cuts, and splinters from mining the block of ice.
"After the salt bath, they'd take glee in showering us with cold water, so icicles would form and rip at our skin. The Erinyes were cruel and loved to see pain. They then chained us all up again to our beds for the evening... well, everyone except me. They forgot to chain me down. And so, while they weren't looking, I ran. I left everyone else behind me. I didn't even know who they were - their personalities had been lost long before I ever arrived there.
"I managed to make it to the edge of Evihome, the devil settlement run by the Erinyes slavers, and steal much of their food and drink under cover of darkness. I also managed to steal from Levistus' personal library, taking some books as petty revenge for my suffering. I was weak, and so I was forced to sleep in a tiny shelter of snow I dug on the side of a building for the night."
Alloy's eyes seem to start crystalizing, as snowflake tears start to fall. "I ran the next morning. I could hear the Erinyes hollering behind me. They could have caught me, if they wanted. They could have bet me to death. But they didn't - they enjoyed the game too much. I knew though that they would get bored by the end of the weak, and I would be brought back to Levistus.
"Every night I spent on those Styx-forsaken ice plains, I dreamed. And Levistus was in all my dreams, mocking me for my identity, my escape that would fail, for how I failed everyone I loved. It almost drove me mad. I couldn't sleep anymore. So I spent nights reading the books I had stolen from Levistus.
"My food soon ran out, and I was forced to feed on bugs, small animals, and remorhaz eggs. Disgusting things. But the Erinyes never caught up with me - I had begun using the ice magics my very masters had forced me to learn to save myself from them. To hide. To run faster and faster, further and further. I spent nights in the hollowed-out carcasses of carrion I had found slain. After almost a year, however, with the Erinyes still behind me, I was so weak I could barely manage to walk, and I could hear my slavers jeering behind me. Levistus still came in my dreams...
"And then I made a mistake. Searching for food, I stole a remorhaz egg from its nest. The mother... it found me. It almost killed me, until... a large tentacle of darkness reached up out of the earth and snapped it in two. Someone had saved me - a deity known as Eris White-Eyes. They gifted to me a sickle they had found in the remorhaz' armour plating, this very sickle here." Alloy pulls out the Levistus' Promise, a nasty blue-bladed sickle with a cool glint. They hold it as if it's some sort of holy weapon. "I promised myself I would kill my parents with this weapon if I got the chance. Kill them for enslaving me and my siblings. For abandoning us.
"Eris protected me and travelled with me for a week, and part of their keen insight of the cosmos rubbed off on me. I learnt how to summon dread tentacles from the Far Planes. Between her and the Styx, I had more support than I had ever had before. But it still wasn't enough. I began to lose hope.
"And then I remembered... when a non-fiendish being dies in the Hells, it is transformed into a soul coin. Most soul coins go immediately to their owners - in my case, Levistus - but sometimes, they get lost on the Styx. So I prayed to Eris and the River of Planes, and I slit my own throat with the very same weapon Eris had given me." Alloy points to a blotchy red scar on the side of their neck.
"I didn't die, that day. I didn't survive, but I didn't die. I awoke in a cave of shimmering ice, where all the walls acted as mirrors, reflecting myself. I was weak and frail, and my soul had been partially severed from my body. Not entirely severed, but partially. Behind me, I could hear the cackle of Erinyes slavers, calling my name. I crawled as fast as I could, smashing the walls with Levistus' Promise, the sickle, as I went. They couldn't find me. Levistus' hold on my soul had been broken, somehow. Eventually I came to a set of stairs, leading higher and higher until it reached the surface world. As I crawled up those stairs, my soul mutated me into forms I both recognised and did not recognise - gators and caiman metres long, tiny four-legged green creatures with the ability to jump very high, wingless birds with beaks like axes, even hounds with coarse grey fur.
"When I reached the top, I found myself in an Icy Swamp realm. I spent days travelling it, avoiding my Erinyes pursuers. Eventually, I felt the souls of my siblings nearby, somewhere deep in my heart...
"That was when the final Erinyes struck. They had managed to find me, weak and feeble as I was, and stab me in my back. Luckily, the blade didn't go too deep, but I was sent flailing into an icy river. I pulled the Erinyes in after me, and even as their blade tore at my throat, I entrapped them in vines and drowned them... in the bottom of the river."
Alloy shivers even harder this time, the tips of their fingers and ears turning a pale orange, like the colour of their scars and the palms of their hands. "I managed to crawl between a magical barrier between that world and the Death Dells, sending a message through the river Styx to my siblings in the only ink I had left - my own blood - asking for help. My sister Zaza found me and took me back to the Adventurer's Legacy, as it is called, and nursed me back from the brink of death."
Alloy finally wipes their eyes. "I still hear Levistus sometimes, in my sleep, taunting me. In truth, Mister Lucifer, I never escaped the frozen corpse realm of Stygia. I am a prisoner of fate even now, and a prisoner of my own mind."
Aovin softly pats alloys shoulder, "Its ok alloy...."
They moan softly. "He was right. That did hurt more than whips..."
"Emotions suck, but you're ok. You're here, and you have us"
"I just... I just hope that's all that Lucifer wants... I'm scared of him." Alloy quickly pulls out a pre-written letter and hands it to Aovin. It seems very small and unimportant. It might be a goodbye note, just in case. "Open it."
"Alloy, how exactly did you escape Levistus' service? Every detail if you please, and don't forget to speak up." Lucifer grabs some popcorn, interested to hear this one
Alloy goes quiet for a moment. "As you... as you wish."
*Content Warnings: Violence, torture, child cruelty, themes of suicide, slavery*
Alloy pulls out their deep brown, leather-bound, weathered journal and flicks through to around the mid-point. "It started on salt day. The day once-per-month the Erinyes stopped us from working at chiselling away at Levistus' ice cage and forced us to take what they always referred to as "a hot bath". The water was colder than the ice we slept on, and it was filled with salt, for the express purpose of stinging our wounds from their whip lashes, and our cuts, and splinters from mining the block of ice.
"After the salt bath, they'd take glee in showering us with cold water, so icicles would form and rip at our skin. The Erinyes were cruel and loved to see pain. They then chained us all up again to our beds for the evening... well, everyone except me. They forgot to chain me down. And so, while they weren't looking, I ran. I left everyone else behind me. I didn't even know who they were - their personalities had been lost long before I ever arrived there.
"I managed to make it to the edge of Evihome, the devil settlement run by the Erinyes slavers, and steal much of their food and drink under cover of darkness. I also managed to steal from Levistus' personal library, taking some books as petty revenge for my suffering. I was weak, and so I was forced to sleep in a tiny shelter of snow I dug on the side of a building for the night."
Alloy's eyes seem to start crystalizing, as snowflake tears start to fall. "I ran the next morning. I could hear the Erinyes hollering behind me. They could have caught me, if they wanted. They could have bet me to death. But they didn't - they enjoyed the game too much. I knew though that they would get bored by the end of the weak, and I would be brought back to Levistus.
"Every night I spent on those Styx-forsaken ice plains, I dreamed. And Levistus was in all my dreams, mocking me for my identity, my escape that would fail, for how I failed everyone I loved. It almost drove me mad. I couldn't sleep anymore. So I spent nights reading the books I had stolen from Levistus.
"My food soon ran out, and I was forced to feed on bugs, small animals, and remorhaz eggs. Disgusting things. But the Erinyes never caught up with me - I had begun using the ice magics my very masters had forced me to learn to save myself from them. To hide. To run faster and faster, further and further. I spent nights in the hollowed-out carcasses of carrion I had found slain. After almost a year, however, with the Erinyes still behind me, I was so weak I could barely manage to walk, and I could hear my slavers jeering behind me. Levistus still came in my dreams...
"And then I made a mistake. Searching for food, I stole a remorhaz egg from its nest. The mother... it found me. It almost killed me, until... a large tentacle of darkness reached up out of the earth and snapped it in two. Someone had saved me - a deity known as Eris White-Eyes. They gifted to me a sickle they had found in the remorhaz' armour plating, this very sickle here." Alloy pulls out the Levistus' Promise, a nasty blue-bladed sickle with a cool glint. They hold it as if it's some sort of holy weapon. "I promised myself I would kill my parents with this weapon if I got the chance. Kill them for enslaving me and my siblings. For abandoning us.
"Eris protected me and travelled with me for a week, and part of their keen insight of the cosmos rubbed off on me. I learnt how to summon dread tentacles from the Far Planes. Between her and the Styx, I had more support than I had ever had before. But it still wasn't enough. I began to lose hope.
"And then I remembered... when a non-fiendish being dies in the Hells, it is transformed into a soul coin. Most soul coins go immediately to their owners - in my case, Levistus - but sometimes, they get lost on the Styx. So I prayed to Eris and the River of Planes, and I slit my own throat with the very same weapon Eris had given me." Alloy points to a blotchy red scar on the side of their neck.
"I didn't die, that day. I didn't survive, but I didn't die. I awoke in a cave of shimmering ice, where all the walls acted as mirrors, reflecting myself. I was weak and frail, and my soul had been partially severed from my body. Not entirely severed, but partially. Behind me, I could hear the cackle of Erinyes slavers, calling my name. I crawled as fast as I could, smashing the walls with Levistus' Promise, the sickle, as I went. They couldn't find me. Levistus' hold on my soul had been broken, somehow. Eventually I came to a set of stairs, leading higher and higher until it reached the surface world. As I crawled up those stairs, my soul mutated me into forms I both recognised and did not recognise - gators and caiman metres long, tiny four-legged green creatures with the ability to jump very high, wingless birds with beaks like axes, even hounds with coarse grey fur.
"When I reached the top, I found myself in an Icy Swamp realm. I spent days travelling it, avoiding my Erinyes pursuers. Eventually, I felt the souls of my siblings nearby, somewhere deep in my heart...
"That was when the final Erinyes struck. They had managed to find me, weak and feeble as I was, and stab me in my back. Luckily, the blade didn't go too deep, but I was sent flailing into an icy river. I pulled the Erinyes in after me, and even as their blade tore at my throat, I entrapped them in vines and drowned them... in the bottom of the river."
Alloy shivers even harder this time, the tips of their fingers and ears turning a pale orange, like the colour of their scars and the palms of their hands. "I managed to crawl between a magical barrier between that world and the Death Dells, sending a message through the river Styx to my siblings in the only ink I had left - my own blood - asking for help. My sister Zaza found me and took me back to the Adventurer's Legacy, as it is called, and nursed me back from the brink of death."
Alloy finally wipes their eyes. "I still hear Levistus sometimes, in my sleep, taunting me. In truth, Mister Lucifer, I never escaped the frozen corpse realm of Stygia. I am a prisoner of fate even now, and a prisoner of my own mind."
Aovin softly pats alloys shoulder, "Its ok alloy...."
They moan softly. "He was right. That did hurt more than whips..."
"Emotions suck, but you're ok. You're here, and you have us"
"I just... I just hope that's all that Lucifer wants... I'm scared of him." Alloy quickly pulls out a pre-written letter and hands it to Aovin. It seems very small and unimportant. It might be a goodbye note, just in case. "Open it."
"Alloy, how exactly did you escape Levistus' service? Every detail if you please, and don't forget to speak up." Lucifer grabs some popcorn, interested to hear this one
Alloy goes quiet for a moment. "As you... as you wish."
*Content Warnings: Violence, torture, child cruelty, themes of suicide, slavery*
Alloy pulls out their deep brown, leather-bound, weathered journal and flicks through to around the mid-point. "It started on salt day. The day once-per-month the Erinyes stopped us from working at chiselling away at Levistus' ice cage and forced us to take what they always referred to as "a hot bath". The water was colder than the ice we slept on, and it was filled with salt, for the express purpose of stinging our wounds from their whip lashes, and our cuts, and splinters from mining the block of ice.
"After the salt bath, they'd take glee in showering us with cold water, so icicles would form and rip at our skin. The Erinyes were cruel and loved to see pain. They then chained us all up again to our beds for the evening... well, everyone except me. They forgot to chain me down. And so, while they weren't looking, I ran. I left everyone else behind me. I didn't even know who they were - their personalities had been lost long before I ever arrived there.
"I managed to make it to the edge of Evihome, the devil settlement run by the Erinyes slavers, and steal much of their food and drink under cover of darkness. I also managed to steal from Levistus' personal library, taking some books as petty revenge for my suffering. I was weak, and so I was forced to sleep in a tiny shelter of snow I dug on the side of a building for the night."
Alloy's eyes seem to start crystalizing, as snowflake tears start to fall. "I ran the next morning. I could hear the Erinyes hollering behind me. They could have caught me, if they wanted. They could have bet me to death. But they didn't - they enjoyed the game too much. I knew though that they would get bored by the end of the weak, and I would be brought back to Levistus.
"Every night I spent on those Styx-forsaken ice plains, I dreamed. And Levistus was in all my dreams, mocking me for my identity, my escape that would fail, for how I failed everyone I loved. It almost drove me mad. I couldn't sleep anymore. So I spent nights reading the books I had stolen from Levistus.
"My food soon ran out, and I was forced to feed on bugs, small animals, and remorhaz eggs. Disgusting things. But the Erinyes never caught up with me - I had begun using the ice magics my very masters had forced me to learn to save myself from them. To hide. To run faster and faster, further and further. I spent nights in the hollowed-out carcasses of carrion I had found slain. After almost a year, however, with the Erinyes still behind me, I was so weak I could barely manage to walk, and I could hear my slavers jeering behind me. Levistus still came in my dreams...
"And then I made a mistake. Searching for food, I stole a remorhaz egg from its nest. The mother... it found me. It almost killed me, until... a large tentacle of darkness reached up out of the earth and snapped it in two. Someone had saved me - a deity known as Eris White-Eyes. They gifted to me a sickle they had found in the remorhaz' armour plating, this very sickle here." Alloy pulls out the Levistus' Promise, a nasty blue-bladed sickle with a cool glint. They hold it as if it's some sort of holy weapon. "I promised myself I would kill my parents with this weapon if I got the chance. Kill them for enslaving me and my siblings. For abandoning us.
"Eris protected me and travelled with me for a week, and part of their keen insight of the cosmos rubbed off on me. I learnt how to summon dread tentacles from the Far Planes. Between her and the Styx, I had more support than I had ever had before. But it still wasn't enough. I began to lose hope.
"And then I remembered... when a non-fiendish being dies in the Hells, it is transformed into a soul coin. Most soul coins go immediately to their owners - in my case, Levistus - but sometimes, they get lost on the Styx. So I prayed to Eris and the River of Planes, and I slit my own throat with the very same weapon Eris had given me." Alloy points to a blotchy red scar on the side of their neck.
"I didn't die, that day. I didn't survive, but I didn't die. I awoke in a cave of shimmering ice, where all the walls acted as mirrors, reflecting myself. I was weak and frail, and my soul had been partially severed from my body. Not entirely severed, but partially. Behind me, I could hear the cackle of Erinyes slavers, calling my name. I crawled as fast as I could, smashing the walls with Levistus' Promise, the sickle, as I went. They couldn't find me. Levistus' hold on my soul had been broken, somehow. Eventually I came to a set of stairs, leading higher and higher until it reached the surface world. As I crawled up those stairs, my soul mutated me into forms I both recognised and did not recognise - gators and caiman metres long, tiny four-legged green creatures with the ability to jump very high, wingless birds with beaks like axes, even hounds with coarse grey fur.
"When I reached the top, I found myself in an Icy Swamp realm. I spent days travelling it, avoiding my Erinyes pursuers. Eventually, I felt the souls of my siblings nearby, somewhere deep in my heart...
"That was when the final Erinyes struck. They had managed to find me, weak and feeble as I was, and stab me in my back. Luckily, the blade didn't go too deep, but I was sent flailing into an icy river. I pulled the Erinyes in after me, and even as their blade tore at my throat, I entrapped them in vines and drowned them... in the bottom of the river."
Alloy shivers even harder this time, the tips of their fingers and ears turning a pale orange, like the colour of their scars and the palms of their hands. "I managed to crawl between a magical barrier between that world and the Death Dells, sending a message through the river Styx to my siblings in the only ink I had left - my own blood - asking for help. My sister Zaza found me and took me back to the Adventurer's Legacy, as it is called, and nursed me back from the brink of death."
Alloy finally wipes their eyes. "I still hear Levistus sometimes, in my sleep, taunting me. In truth, Mister Lucifer, I never escaped the frozen corpse realm of Stygia. I am a prisoner of fate even now, and a prisoner of my own mind."
Aovin softly pats alloys shoulder, "Its ok alloy...."
They moan softly. "He was right. That did hurt more than whips..."
"Emotions suck, but you're ok. You're here, and you have us"
"I just... I just hope that's all that Lucifer wants... I'm scared of him." Alloy quickly pulls out a pre-written letter and hands it to Aovin. It seems very small and unimportant. It might be a goodbye note, just in case. "Open it."
"Hm- what is it?" He asks, opening the lettet
*ooooh*
Aovin silently hugs alloy, "Its ok."
Alloy wipes away another snowflake tear. "Life is complicated."
"Alloy, how exactly did you escape Levistus' service? Every detail if you please, and don't forget to speak up." Lucifer grabs some popcorn, interested to hear this one
Alloy goes quiet for a moment. "As you... as you wish."
*Content Warnings: Violence, torture, child cruelty, themes of suicide, slavery*
Alloy pulls out their deep brown, leather-bound, weathered journal and flicks through to around the mid-point. "It started on salt day. The day once-per-month the Erinyes stopped us from working at chiselling away at Levistus' ice cage and forced us to take what they always referred to as "a hot bath". The water was colder than the ice we slept on, and it was filled with salt, for the express purpose of stinging our wounds from their whip lashes, and our cuts, and splinters from mining the block of ice.
"After the salt bath, they'd take glee in showering us with cold water, so icicles would form and rip at our skin. The Erinyes were cruel and loved to see pain. They then chained us all up again to our beds for the evening... well, everyone except me. They forgot to chain me down. And so, while they weren't looking, I ran. I left everyone else behind me. I didn't even know who they were - their personalities had been lost long before I ever arrived there.
"I managed to make it to the edge of Evihome, the devil settlement run by the Erinyes slavers, and steal much of their food and drink under cover of darkness. I also managed to steal from Levistus' personal library, taking some books as petty revenge for my suffering. I was weak, and so I was forced to sleep in a tiny shelter of snow I dug on the side of a building for the night."
Alloy's eyes seem to start crystalizing, as snowflake tears start to fall. "I ran the next morning. I could hear the Erinyes hollering behind me. They could have caught me, if they wanted. They could have bet me to death. But they didn't - they enjoyed the game too much. I knew though that they would get bored by the end of the weak, and I would be brought back to Levistus.
"Every night I spent on those Styx-forsaken ice plains, I dreamed. And Levistus was in all my dreams, mocking me for my identity, my escape that would fail, for how I failed everyone I loved. It almost drove me mad. I couldn't sleep anymore. So I spent nights reading the books I had stolen from Levistus.
"My food soon ran out, and I was forced to feed on bugs, small animals, and remorhaz eggs. Disgusting things. But the Erinyes never caught up with me - I had begun using the ice magics my very masters had forced me to learn to save myself from them. To hide. To run faster and faster, further and further. I spent nights in the hollowed-out carcasses of carrion I had found slain. After almost a year, however, with the Erinyes still behind me, I was so weak I could barely manage to walk, and I could hear my slavers jeering behind me. Levistus still came in my dreams...
"And then I made a mistake. Searching for food, I stole a remorhaz egg from its nest. The mother... it found me. It almost killed me, until... a large tentacle of darkness reached up out of the earth and snapped it in two. Someone had saved me - a deity known as Eris White-Eyes. They gifted to me a sickle they had found in the remorhaz' armour plating, this very sickle here." Alloy pulls out the Levistus' Promise, a nasty blue-bladed sickle with a cool glint. They hold it as if it's some sort of holy weapon. "I promised myself I would kill my parents with this weapon if I got the chance. Kill them for enslaving me and my siblings. For abandoning us.
"Eris protected me and travelled with me for a week, and part of their keen insight of the cosmos rubbed off on me. I learnt how to summon dread tentacles from the Far Planes. Between her and the Styx, I had more support than I had ever had before. But it still wasn't enough. I began to lose hope.
"And then I remembered... when a non-fiendish being dies in the Hells, it is transformed into a soul coin. Most soul coins go immediately to their owners - in my case, Levistus - but sometimes, they get lost on the Styx. So I prayed to Eris and the River of Planes, and I slit my own throat with the very same weapon Eris had given me." Alloy points to a blotchy red scar on the side of their neck.
"I didn't die, that day. I didn't survive, but I didn't die. I awoke in a cave of shimmering ice, where all the walls acted as mirrors, reflecting myself. I was weak and frail, and my soul had been partially severed from my body. Not entirely severed, but partially. Behind me, I could hear the cackle of Erinyes slavers, calling my name. I crawled as fast as I could, smashing the walls with Levistus' Promise, the sickle, as I went. They couldn't find me. Levistus' hold on my soul had been broken, somehow. Eventually I came to a set of stairs, leading higher and higher until it reached the surface world. As I crawled up those stairs, my soul mutated me into forms I both recognised and did not recognise - gators and caiman metres long, tiny four-legged green creatures with the ability to jump very high, wingless birds with beaks like axes, even hounds with coarse grey fur.
"When I reached the top, I found myself in an Icy Swamp realm. I spent days travelling it, avoiding my Erinyes pursuers. Eventually, I felt the souls of my siblings nearby, somewhere deep in my heart...
"That was when the final Erinyes struck. They had managed to find me, weak and feeble as I was, and stab me in my back. Luckily, the blade didn't go too deep, but I was sent flailing into an icy river. I pulled the Erinyes in after me, and even as their blade tore at my throat, I entrapped them in vines and drowned them... in the bottom of the river."
Alloy shivers even harder this time, the tips of their fingers and ears turning a pale orange, like the colour of their scars and the palms of their hands. "I managed to crawl between a magical barrier between that world and the Death Dells, sending a message through the river Styx to my siblings in the only ink I had left - my own blood - asking for help. My sister Zaza found me and took me back to the Adventurer's Legacy, as it is called, and nursed me back from the brink of death."
Alloy finally wipes their eyes. "I still hear Levistus sometimes, in my sleep, taunting me. In truth, Mister Lucifer, I never escaped the frozen corpse realm of Stygia. I am a prisoner of fate even now, and a prisoner of my own mind."
Aris flinches as Alloy mentions [the reason there's a suicide content warning], starting to cry a little. When Alloy finishes talking, they wordlessly reach over and hug them.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Darold the Mud Dauber says: _ _ it's still spooky season | )/ ) \\ |//,' it's always spooky season (")(_)---"()=--(\\ \)
"Alloy, how exactly did you escape Levistus' service? Every detail if you please, and don't forget to speak up." Lucifer grabs some popcorn, interested to hear this one
Alloy goes quiet for a moment. "As you... as you wish."
*Content Warnings: Violence, torture, child cruelty, themes of suicide, slavery*
Alloy pulls out their deep brown, leather-bound, weathered journal and flicks through to around the mid-point. "It started on salt day. The day once-per-month the Erinyes stopped us from working at chiselling away at Levistus' ice cage and forced us to take what they always referred to as "a hot bath". The water was colder than the ice we slept on, and it was filled with salt, for the express purpose of stinging our wounds from their whip lashes, and our cuts, and splinters from mining the block of ice.
"After the salt bath, they'd take glee in showering us with cold water, so icicles would form and rip at our skin. The Erinyes were cruel and loved to see pain. They then chained us all up again to our beds for the evening... well, everyone except me. They forgot to chain me down. And so, while they weren't looking, I ran. I left everyone else behind me. I didn't even know who they were - their personalities had been lost long before I ever arrived there.
"I managed to make it to the edge of Evihome, the devil settlement run by the Erinyes slavers, and steal much of their food and drink under cover of darkness. I also managed to steal from Levistus' personal library, taking some books as petty revenge for my suffering. I was weak, and so I was forced to sleep in a tiny shelter of snow I dug on the side of a building for the night."
Alloy's eyes seem to start crystalizing, as snowflake tears start to fall. "I ran the next morning. I could hear the Erinyes hollering behind me. They could have caught me, if they wanted. They could have bet me to death. But they didn't - they enjoyed the game too much. I knew though that they would get bored by the end of the weak, and I would be brought back to Levistus.
"Every night I spent on those Styx-forsaken ice plains, I dreamed. And Levistus was in all my dreams, mocking me for my identity, my escape that would fail, for how I failed everyone I loved. It almost drove me mad. I couldn't sleep anymore. So I spent nights reading the books I had stolen from Levistus.
"My food soon ran out, and I was forced to feed on bugs, small animals, and remorhaz eggs. Disgusting things. But the Erinyes never caught up with me - I had begun using the ice magics my very masters had forced me to learn to save myself from them. To hide. To run faster and faster, further and further. I spent nights in the hollowed-out carcasses of carrion I had found slain. After almost a year, however, with the Erinyes still behind me, I was so weak I could barely manage to walk, and I could hear my slavers jeering behind me. Levistus still came in my dreams...
"And then I made a mistake. Searching for food, I stole a remorhaz egg from its nest. The mother... it found me. It almost killed me, until... a large tentacle of darkness reached up out of the earth and snapped it in two. Someone had saved me - a deity known as Eris White-Eyes. They gifted to me a sickle they had found in the remorhaz' armour plating, this very sickle here." Alloy pulls out the Levistus' Promise, a nasty blue-bladed sickle with a cool glint. They hold it as if it's some sort of holy weapon. "I promised myself I would kill my parents with this weapon if I got the chance. Kill them for enslaving me and my siblings. For abandoning us.
"Eris protected me and travelled with me for a week, and part of their keen insight of the cosmos rubbed off on me. I learnt how to summon dread tentacles from the Far Planes. Between her and the Styx, I had more support than I had ever had before. But it still wasn't enough. I began to lose hope.
"And then I remembered... when a non-fiendish being dies in the Hells, it is transformed into a soul coin. Most soul coins go immediately to their owners - in my case, Levistus - but sometimes, they get lost on the Styx. So I prayed to Eris and the River of Planes, and I slit my own throat with the very same weapon Eris had given me." Alloy points to a blotchy red scar on the side of their neck.
"I didn't die, that day. I didn't survive, but I didn't die. I awoke in a cave of shimmering ice, where all the walls acted as mirrors, reflecting myself. I was weak and frail, and my soul had been partially severed from my body. Not entirely severed, but partially. Behind me, I could hear the cackle of Erinyes slavers, calling my name. I crawled as fast as I could, smashing the walls with Levistus' Promise, the sickle, as I went. They couldn't find me. Levistus' hold on my soul had been broken, somehow. Eventually I came to a set of stairs, leading higher and higher until it reached the surface world. As I crawled up those stairs, my soul mutated me into forms I both recognised and did not recognise - gators and caiman metres long, tiny four-legged green creatures with the ability to jump very high, wingless birds with beaks like axes, even hounds with coarse grey fur.
"When I reached the top, I found myself in an Icy Swamp realm. I spent days travelling it, avoiding my Erinyes pursuers. Eventually, I felt the souls of my siblings nearby, somewhere deep in my heart...
"That was when the final Erinyes struck. They had managed to find me, weak and feeble as I was, and stab me in my back. Luckily, the blade didn't go too deep, but I was sent flailing into an icy river. I pulled the Erinyes in after me, and even as their blade tore at my throat, I entrapped them in vines and drowned them... in the bottom of the river."
Alloy shivers even harder this time, the tips of their fingers and ears turning a pale orange, like the colour of their scars and the palms of their hands. "I managed to crawl between a magical barrier between that world and the Death Dells, sending a message through the river Styx to my siblings in the only ink I had left - my own blood - asking for help. My sister Zaza found me and took me back to the Adventurer's Legacy, as it is called, and nursed me back from the brink of death."
Alloy finally wipes their eyes. "I still hear Levistus sometimes, in my sleep, taunting me. In truth, Mister Lucifer, I never escaped the frozen corpse realm of Stygia. I am a prisoner of fate even now, and a prisoner of my own mind."
Aovin softly pats alloys shoulder, "Its ok alloy...."
They moan softly. "He was right. That did hurt more than whips..."
"Emotions suck, but you're ok. You're here, and you have us"
"I just... I just hope that's all that Lucifer wants... I'm scared of him." Alloy quickly pulls out a pre-written letter and hands it to Aovin. It seems very small and unimportant. It might be a goodbye note, just in case. "Open it."
"Hm- what is it?" He asks, opening the lettet
*ooooh*
Aovin silently hugs alloy, "Its ok."
Alloy wipes away another snowflake tear. "Life is complicated."
"So cliche, darling. I think you'll find this will hurt more than a barbed whip ever could."
*How this is going to work is as follows:
Each character picks a truth or a dare and Lucifer then gives them one. For the dare, it might be an ongoing thing at which point the character accepting the dare will impose that limit on them forever (no wriggling out of it possible). Alternatively, if they choose a truth they need to tell the whole truth omitting nothing (I'll take it on trust that you as players don't hold back). If they do either of these, they get to leave and can choose to gain either a level up, any spell of 5th level or lower to cast once a day or any official very rare or lower item
They'll be pretty tough so characters who can't fulfil a truth or dare/don't partake will get locked in the dungeons, from which they can try to escape but it'll be tricky and there's no boon at the end of it. Dares tend to have a lasting effect on an aspect of the character whereas truths are more intended to provoke an RP response, though secretive characters may be forced to reveal something they really didn't want to. For most of you a truth is probably the easier (wussy 👀) option*
*Aris is shameless, has nothing to hide, and is too overwhelmed to take anything seriously so this ought to be interesting 👀*
After wiping away their tears, they turn their head sideways till their neck cracks. "I love truth or dare! I'm kind of tempted to say both, just for the fun of it, so you get to choose..." They pause for a second before adding, "...broski."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Darold the Mud Dauber says: _ _ it's still spooky season | )/ ) \\ |//,' it's always spooky season (")(_)---"()=--(\\ \)
"Alloy, how exactly did you escape Levistus' service? Every detail if you please, and don't forget to speak up." Lucifer grabs some popcorn, interested to hear this one
Alloy goes quiet for a moment. "As you... as you wish."
*Content Warnings: Violence, torture, child cruelty, themes of suicide, slavery*
Alloy pulls out their deep brown, leather-bound, weathered journal and flicks through to around the mid-point. "It started on salt day. The day once-per-month the Erinyes stopped us from working at chiselling away at Levistus' ice cage and forced us to take what they always referred to as "a hot bath". The water was colder than the ice we slept on, and it was filled with salt, for the express purpose of stinging our wounds from their whip lashes, and our cuts, and splinters from mining the block of ice.
"After the salt bath, they'd take glee in showering us with cold water, so icicles would form and rip at our skin. The Erinyes were cruel and loved to see pain. They then chained us all up again to our beds for the evening... well, everyone except me. They forgot to chain me down. And so, while they weren't looking, I ran. I left everyone else behind me. I didn't even know who they were - their personalities had been lost long before I ever arrived there.
"I managed to make it to the edge of Evihome, the devil settlement run by the Erinyes slavers, and steal much of their food and drink under cover of darkness. I also managed to steal from Levistus' personal library, taking some books as petty revenge for my suffering. I was weak, and so I was forced to sleep in a tiny shelter of snow I dug on the side of a building for the night."
Alloy's eyes seem to start crystalizing, as snowflake tears start to fall. "I ran the next morning. I could hear the Erinyes hollering behind me. They could have caught me, if they wanted. They could have bet me to death. But they didn't - they enjoyed the game too much. I knew though that they would get bored by the end of the weak, and I would be brought back to Levistus.
"Every night I spent on those Styx-forsaken ice plains, I dreamed. And Levistus was in all my dreams, mocking me for my identity, my escape that would fail, for how I failed everyone I loved. It almost drove me mad. I couldn't sleep anymore. So I spent nights reading the books I had stolen from Levistus.
"My food soon ran out, and I was forced to feed on bugs, small animals, and remorhaz eggs. Disgusting things. But the Erinyes never caught up with me - I had begun using the ice magics my very masters had forced me to learn to save myself from them. To hide. To run faster and faster, further and further. I spent nights in the hollowed-out carcasses of carrion I had found slain. After almost a year, however, with the Erinyes still behind me, I was so weak I could barely manage to walk, and I could hear my slavers jeering behind me. Levistus still came in my dreams...
"And then I made a mistake. Searching for food, I stole a remorhaz egg from its nest. The mother... it found me. It almost killed me, until... a large tentacle of darkness reached up out of the earth and snapped it in two. Someone had saved me - a deity known as Eris White-Eyes. They gifted to me a sickle they had found in the remorhaz' armour plating, this very sickle here." Alloy pulls out the Levistus' Promise, a nasty blue-bladed sickle with a cool glint. They hold it as if it's some sort of holy weapon. "I promised myself I would kill my parents with this weapon if I got the chance. Kill them for enslaving me and my siblings. For abandoning us.
"Eris protected me and travelled with me for a week, and part of their keen insight of the cosmos rubbed off on me. I learnt how to summon dread tentacles from the Far Planes. Between her and the Styx, I had more support than I had ever had before. But it still wasn't enough. I began to lose hope.
"And then I remembered... when a non-fiendish being dies in the Hells, it is transformed into a soul coin. Most soul coins go immediately to their owners - in my case, Levistus - but sometimes, they get lost on the Styx. So I prayed to Eris and the River of Planes, and I slit my own throat with the very same weapon Eris had given me." Alloy points to a blotchy red scar on the side of their neck.
"I didn't die, that day. I didn't survive, but I didn't die. I awoke in a cave of shimmering ice, where all the walls acted as mirrors, reflecting myself. I was weak and frail, and my soul had been partially severed from my body. Not entirely severed, but partially. Behind me, I could hear the cackle of Erinyes slavers, calling my name. I crawled as fast as I could, smashing the walls with Levistus' Promise, the sickle, as I went. They couldn't find me. Levistus' hold on my soul had been broken, somehow. Eventually I came to a set of stairs, leading higher and higher until it reached the surface world. As I crawled up those stairs, my soul mutated me into forms I both recognised and did not recognise - gators and caiman metres long, tiny four-legged green creatures with the ability to jump very high, wingless birds with beaks like axes, even hounds with coarse grey fur.
"When I reached the top, I found myself in an Icy Swamp realm. I spent days travelling it, avoiding my Erinyes pursuers. Eventually, I felt the souls of my siblings nearby, somewhere deep in my heart...
"That was when the final Erinyes struck. They had managed to find me, weak and feeble as I was, and stab me in my back. Luckily, the blade didn't go too deep, but I was sent flailing into an icy river. I pulled the Erinyes in after me, and even as their blade tore at my throat, I entrapped them in vines and drowned them... in the bottom of the river."
Alloy shivers even harder this time, the tips of their fingers and ears turning a pale orange, like the colour of their scars and the palms of their hands. "I managed to crawl between a magical barrier between that world and the Death Dells, sending a message through the river Styx to my siblings in the only ink I had left - my own blood - asking for help. My sister Zaza found me and took me back to the Adventurer's Legacy, as it is called, and nursed me back from the brink of death."
Alloy finally wipes their eyes. "I still hear Levistus sometimes, in my sleep, taunting me. In truth, Mister Lucifer, I never escaped the frozen corpse realm of Stygia. I am a prisoner of fate even now, and a prisoner of my own mind."
Aris flinches as Alloy mentions [the reason there's a suicide content warning], starting to cry a little. When Alloy finishes talking, they wordlessly reach over and hug them.
Alloy looks surprised but warms into it, still keeping an eye on Lucifer
*Aris is shameless, has nothing to hide, and is too overwhelmed to take anything seriously so this ought to be interesting 👀*
After wiping away their tears, they turn their head sideways till their neck cracks. "I love truth or dare! I'm kind of tempted to say both, just for the fun of it, so you get to choose..." They pause for a second before adding, "...broski."
"Alloy, how exactly did you escape Levistus' service? Every detail if you please, and don't forget to speak up." Lucifer grabs some popcorn, interested to hear this one
Alloy goes quiet for a moment. "As you... as you wish."
*Content Warnings: Violence, torture, child cruelty, themes of suicide, slavery*
Alloy pulls out their deep brown, leather-bound, weathered journal and flicks through to around the mid-point. "It started on salt day. The day once-per-month the Erinyes stopped us from working at chiselling away at Levistus' ice cage and forced us to take what they always referred to as "a hot bath". The water was colder than the ice we slept on, and it was filled with salt, for the express purpose of stinging our wounds from their whip lashes, and our cuts, and splinters from mining the block of ice.
"After the salt bath, they'd take glee in showering us with cold water, so icicles would form and rip at our skin. The Erinyes were cruel and loved to see pain. They then chained us all up again to our beds for the evening... well, everyone except me. They forgot to chain me down. And so, while they weren't looking, I ran. I left everyone else behind me. I didn't even know who they were - their personalities had been lost long before I ever arrived there.
"I managed to make it to the edge of Evihome, the devil settlement run by the Erinyes slavers, and steal much of their food and drink under cover of darkness. I also managed to steal from Levistus' personal library, taking some books as petty revenge for my suffering. I was weak, and so I was forced to sleep in a tiny shelter of snow I dug on the side of a building for the night."
Alloy's eyes seem to start crystalizing, as snowflake tears start to fall. "I ran the next morning. I could hear the Erinyes hollering behind me. They could have caught me, if they wanted. They could have bet me to death. But they didn't - they enjoyed the game too much. I knew though that they would get bored by the end of the weak, and I would be brought back to Levistus.
"Every night I spent on those Styx-forsaken ice plains, I dreamed. And Levistus was in all my dreams, mocking me for my identity, my escape that would fail, for how I failed everyone I loved. It almost drove me mad. I couldn't sleep anymore. So I spent nights reading the books I had stolen from Levistus.
"My food soon ran out, and I was forced to feed on bugs, small animals, and remorhaz eggs. Disgusting things. But the Erinyes never caught up with me - I had begun using the ice magics my very masters had forced me to learn to save myself from them. To hide. To run faster and faster, further and further. I spent nights in the hollowed-out carcasses of carrion I had found slain. After almost a year, however, with the Erinyes still behind me, I was so weak I could barely manage to walk, and I could hear my slavers jeering behind me. Levistus still came in my dreams...
"And then I made a mistake. Searching for food, I stole a remorhaz egg from its nest. The mother... it found me. It almost killed me, until... a large tentacle of darkness reached up out of the earth and snapped it in two. Someone had saved me - a deity known as Eris White-Eyes. They gifted to me a sickle they had found in the remorhaz' armour plating, this very sickle here." Alloy pulls out the Levistus' Promise, a nasty blue-bladed sickle with a cool glint. They hold it as if it's some sort of holy weapon. "I promised myself I would kill my parents with this weapon if I got the chance. Kill them for enslaving me and my siblings. For abandoning us.
"Eris protected me and travelled with me for a week, and part of their keen insight of the cosmos rubbed off on me. I learnt how to summon dread tentacles from the Far Planes. Between her and the Styx, I had more support than I had ever had before. But it still wasn't enough. I began to lose hope.
"And then I remembered... when a non-fiendish being dies in the Hells, it is transformed into a soul coin. Most soul coins go immediately to their owners - in my case, Levistus - but sometimes, they get lost on the Styx. So I prayed to Eris and the River of Planes, and I slit my own throat with the very same weapon Eris had given me." Alloy points to a blotchy red scar on the side of their neck.
"I didn't die, that day. I didn't survive, but I didn't die. I awoke in a cave of shimmering ice, where all the walls acted as mirrors, reflecting myself. I was weak and frail, and my soul had been partially severed from my body. Not entirely severed, but partially. Behind me, I could hear the cackle of Erinyes slavers, calling my name. I crawled as fast as I could, smashing the walls with Levistus' Promise, the sickle, as I went. They couldn't find me. Levistus' hold on my soul had been broken, somehow. Eventually I came to a set of stairs, leading higher and higher until it reached the surface world. As I crawled up those stairs, my soul mutated me into forms I both recognised and did not recognise - gators and caiman metres long, tiny four-legged green creatures with the ability to jump very high, wingless birds with beaks like axes, even hounds with coarse grey fur.
"When I reached the top, I found myself in an Icy Swamp realm. I spent days travelling it, avoiding my Erinyes pursuers. Eventually, I felt the souls of my siblings nearby, somewhere deep in my heart...
"That was when the final Erinyes struck. They had managed to find me, weak and feeble as I was, and stab me in my back. Luckily, the blade didn't go too deep, but I was sent flailing into an icy river. I pulled the Erinyes in after me, and even as their blade tore at my throat, I entrapped them in vines and drowned them... in the bottom of the river."
Alloy shivers even harder this time, the tips of their fingers and ears turning a pale orange, like the colour of their scars and the palms of their hands. "I managed to crawl between a magical barrier between that world and the Death Dells, sending a message through the river Styx to my siblings in the only ink I had left - my own blood - asking for help. My sister Zaza found me and took me back to the Adventurer's Legacy, as it is called, and nursed me back from the brink of death."
Alloy finally wipes their eyes. "I still hear Levistus sometimes, in my sleep, taunting me. In truth, Mister Lucifer, I never escaped the frozen corpse realm of Stygia. I am a prisoner of fate even now, and a prisoner of my own mind."
He gives a slow golf clap. "Good show! Well, as promised, you may leave and I'll give you a nice little parting gift."
*Aris is shameless, has nothing to hide, and is too overwhelmed to take anything seriously so this ought to be interesting 👀*
After wiping away their tears, they turn their head sideways till their neck cracks. "I love truth or dare! I'm kind of tempted to say both, just for the fun of it, so you get to choose..." They pause for a second before adding, "...broski."
*Yup!*
"Aris.... You're always chatting up the next new person, aren't you? I dare you to never flirt again."
*Flirting includes dating, general romancing etc*
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Chilling kinda vibe.
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"So cliche, darling. I think you'll find this will hurt more than a barbed whip ever could."
*How this is going to work is as follows:
Each character picks a truth or a dare and Lucifer then gives them one. For the dare, it might be an ongoing thing at which point the character accepting the dare will impose that limit on them forever (no wriggling out of it possible). Alternatively, if they choose a truth they need to tell the whole truth omitting nothing (I'll take it on trust that you as players don't hold back). If they do either of these, they get to leave and can choose to gain either a level up, any spell of 5th level or lower to cast once a day or any official very rare or lower item
They'll be pretty tough so characters who can't fulfil a truth or dare/don't partake will get locked in the dungeons, from which they can try to escape but it'll be tricky and there's no boon at the end of it. Dares tend to have a lasting effect on an aspect of the character whereas truths are more intended to provoke an RP response, though secretive characters may be forced to reveal something they really didn't want to. For most of you a truth is probably the easier (wussy 👀) option*
Chilling kinda vibe.
*Alloy is a wuss so I'll take it. ALSO COOL, MECHANICAL BENEFITS*
"Then you may ask what you will. I will answer... as best I can." Alloy grimaces.
Frequent Eladrin || They/Them, but accept all pronouns
Luz Noceda would like to remind you that you're worth loving!
"Alloy, how exactly did you escape Levistus' service? Every detail if you please, and don't forget to speak up." Lucifer grabs some popcorn, interested to hear this one
Chilling kinda vibe.
Alloy goes quiet for a moment. "As you... as you wish."
*Content Warnings: Violence, torture, child cruelty, themes of suicide, slavery*
Alloy pulls out their deep brown, leather-bound, weathered journal and flicks through to around the mid-point. "It started on salt day. The day once-per-month the Erinyes stopped us from working at chiselling away at Levistus' ice cage and forced us to take what they always referred to as "a hot bath". The water was colder than the ice we slept on, and it was filled with salt, for the express purpose of stinging our wounds from their whip lashes, and our cuts, and splinters from mining the block of ice.
"After the salt bath, they'd take glee in showering us with cold water, so icicles would form and rip at our skin. The Erinyes were cruel and loved to see pain. They then chained us all up again to our beds for the evening... well, everyone except me. They forgot to chain me down. And so, while they weren't looking, I ran. I left everyone else behind me. I didn't even know who they were - their personalities had been lost long before I ever arrived there.
"I managed to make it to the edge of Evihome, the devil settlement run by the Erinyes slavers, and steal much of their food and drink under cover of darkness. I also managed to steal from Levistus' personal library, taking some books as petty revenge for my suffering. I was weak, and so I was forced to sleep in a tiny shelter of snow I dug on the side of a building for the night."
Alloy's eyes seem to start crystalizing, as snowflake tears start to fall. "I ran the next morning. I could hear the Erinyes hollering behind me. They could have caught me, if they wanted. They could have bet me to death. But they didn't - they enjoyed the game too much. I knew though that they would get bored by the end of the weak, and I would be brought back to Levistus.
"Every night I spent on those Styx-forsaken ice plains, I dreamed. And Levistus was in all my dreams, mocking me for my identity, my escape that would fail, for how I failed everyone I loved. It almost drove me mad. I couldn't sleep anymore. So I spent nights reading the books I had stolen from Levistus.
"My food soon ran out, and I was forced to feed on bugs, small animals, and remorhaz eggs. Disgusting things. But the Erinyes never caught up with me - I had begun using the ice magics my very masters had forced me to learn to save myself from them. To hide. To run faster and faster, further and further. I spent nights in the hollowed-out carcasses of carrion I had found slain. After almost a year, however, with the Erinyes still behind me, I was so weak I could barely manage to walk, and I could hear my slavers jeering behind me. Levistus still came in my dreams...
"And then I made a mistake. Searching for food, I stole a remorhaz egg from its nest. The mother... it found me. It almost killed me, until... a large tentacle of darkness reached up out of the earth and snapped it in two. Someone had saved me - a deity known as Eris White-Eyes. They gifted to me a sickle they had found in the remorhaz' armour plating, this very sickle here." Alloy pulls out the Levistus' Promise, a nasty blue-bladed sickle with a cool glint. They hold it as if it's some sort of holy weapon. "I promised myself I would kill my parents with this weapon if I got the chance. Kill them for enslaving me and my siblings. For abandoning us.
"Eris protected me and travelled with me for a week, and part of their keen insight of the cosmos rubbed off on me. I learnt how to summon dread tentacles from the Far Planes. Between her and the Styx, I had more support than I had ever had before. But it still wasn't enough. I began to lose hope.
"And then I remembered... when a non-fiendish being dies in the Hells, it is transformed into a soul coin. Most soul coins go immediately to their owners - in my case, Levistus - but sometimes, they get lost on the Styx. So I prayed to Eris and the River of Planes, and I slit my own throat with the very same weapon Eris had given me." Alloy points to a blotchy red scar on the side of their neck.
"I didn't die, that day. I didn't survive, but I didn't die. I awoke in a cave of shimmering ice, where all the walls acted as mirrors, reflecting myself. I was weak and frail, and my soul had been partially severed from my body. Not entirely severed, but partially. Behind me, I could hear the cackle of Erinyes slavers, calling my name. I crawled as fast as I could, smashing the walls with Levistus' Promise, the sickle, as I went. They couldn't find me. Levistus' hold on my soul had been broken, somehow. Eventually I came to a set of stairs, leading higher and higher until it reached the surface world. As I crawled up those stairs, my soul mutated me into forms I both recognised and did not recognise - gators and caiman metres long, tiny four-legged green creatures with the ability to jump very high, wingless birds with beaks like axes, even hounds with coarse grey fur.
"When I reached the top, I found myself in an Icy Swamp realm. I spent days travelling it, avoiding my Erinyes pursuers. Eventually, I felt the souls of my siblings nearby, somewhere deep in my heart...
"That was when the final Erinyes struck. They had managed to find me, weak and feeble as I was, and stab me in my back. Luckily, the blade didn't go too deep, but I was sent flailing into an icy river. I pulled the Erinyes in after me, and even as their blade tore at my throat, I entrapped them in vines and drowned them... in the bottom of the river."
Alloy shivers even harder this time, the tips of their fingers and ears turning a pale orange, like the colour of their scars and the palms of their hands. "I managed to crawl between a magical barrier between that world and the Death Dells, sending a message through the river Styx to my siblings in the only ink I had left - my own blood - asking for help. My sister Zaza found me and took me back to the Adventurer's Legacy, as it is called, and nursed me back from the brink of death."
Alloy finally wipes their eyes. "I still hear Levistus sometimes, in my sleep, taunting me. In truth, Mister Lucifer, I never escaped the frozen corpse realm of Stygia. I am a prisoner of fate even now, and a prisoner of my own mind."
Frequent Eladrin || They/Them, but accept all pronouns
Luz Noceda would like to remind you that you're worth loving!
"I'll take truth. I don't need to owe you an action" aovin sighs, "Whatever you want to ask I guess"
Aovin softly pats alloys shoulder, "Its ok alloy...."
They moan softly. "He was right. That did hurt more than whips..."
Frequent Eladrin || They/Them, but accept all pronouns
Luz Noceda would like to remind you that you're worth loving!
"Emotions suck, but you're ok. You're here, and you have us"
"I just... I just hope that's all that Lucifer wants... I'm scared of him." Alloy quickly pulls out a pre-written letter and hands it to Aovin. It seems very small and unimportant. It might be a goodbye note, just in case. "Open it."
Frequent Eladrin || They/Them, but accept all pronouns
Luz Noceda would like to remind you that you're worth loving!
"Hm- what is it?" He asks, opening the lettet
*ooooh*
Aovin silently hugs alloy, "Its ok."
Alloy wipes away another snowflake tear. "Life is complicated."
Frequent Eladrin || They/Them, but accept all pronouns
Luz Noceda would like to remind you that you're worth loving!
Aris flinches as Alloy mentions [the reason there's a suicide content warning], starting to cry a little. When Alloy finishes talking, they wordlessly reach over and hug them.
"Hey, we're here for you" he smiles warmly
*Aris is shameless, has nothing to hide, and is too overwhelmed to take anything seriously so this ought to be interesting 👀*
After wiping away their tears, they turn their head sideways till their neck cracks. "I love truth or dare! I'm kind of tempted to say both, just for the fun of it, so you get to choose..." They pause for a second before adding, "...broski."
Alloy looks surprised but warms into it, still keeping an eye on Lucifer
Frequent Eladrin || They/Them, but accept all pronouns
Luz Noceda would like to remind you that you're worth loving!
*Can't wait!!!!*
Alloy stares at Aris in wordless horror.
Frequent Eladrin || They/Them, but accept all pronouns
Luz Noceda would like to remind you that you're worth loving!
He gives a slow golf clap. "Good show! Well, as promised, you may leave and I'll give you a nice little parting gift."
*What do you want Alloy to get?*
Chilling kinda vibe.
"Why don't you tell everyone about working for your father?"
*Damn y'all are going for the truths huh? I'm not sure whether this one is a secret or not tbh 🤦♀️*
Chilling kinda vibe.
*Yup!*
"Aris.... You're always chatting up the next new person, aren't you? I dare you to never flirt again."
*Flirting includes dating, general romancing etc*
Chilling kinda vibe.