Chapter Text
“Who is THAT?”
The young Devil speaking, a Technology Demon called Cryptex, narrowed their glowing green eyes which clicked and whirred as he zoomed in on the other Demon in question.
Walking down the middle of the street was…a very confusing Demon. For one thing, they were in their True Form, which was…a little odd for a Demon to do though not unheard of. At eleven feet tall, they were definitely on the short side for their apparent age, and coal-black from tip to tail. Their entire body was studded with yellow pustules and glowing yellow veins, and they bristled with the faint tips of spikes. They reeked of sickness and filth, an air of power rolling off them.
This Demon, whoever they were, was also indescribably ancient by Player standards.
An elder Disease Demon, to be sure.
And wasn’t that a walking paradox of itself? Disease Demons never made it very far.
This one had.
…and yet somehow, despite their apparent age, they had a golden amulet around their neck. Implying they couldn’t just invert their own gravity like any regular Demon. And they were wandering around, looking at the buildings, like it was their first day in the Underbelly.
Cryptex’s friend, a smaller stone Demon called Tephra, tilted her head with an audible rattle, the chains of stone beads that were woven into her braids clicking against her hexagonal column-like horns.
“I dunno, Cryp. I’m a bit more concerned about why they don't have any Contract Marks.” she said nervously.
And they didn’t. From nose to tail, not even a hint of a Mark. A Demon that old should have had at least a few- if not dozens. But instead of a story of a life well lived, this demon’s skin told no tale whatsoever.
Cryptex exchanged a look with Tephra nervously. That…wasn’t…how anything worked.
The Elder Disease Demon wandered up to a small Devil, towering over them obliviously. They smiled, showing all their needle-like teeth, and when they spoke-
The Infernal that rolled out of the plague demon’s lips sounded- strange. Perfectly understandable as a magic language, even from this distance, but with a bizarre, unearthly accent that tasted of ash and gasoline.
The Devil quaked a little, and pointed down the street, scurrying off as soon as the Plague Demon looked away.
They huffed a sigh, and their seven eyes fell on Cryptex and Tephra.
And they stomped over.
“Hello!” they said, in that odd Infernal, “Do you two know where I could find a map? Also, do you know where I am, exactly?”
“How do you not know?” Tephra countered, though there was a faint quaver to her voice.
The elder demon winced.
“It was… A messy summoning….”
Impulse blinked.
There were a few things wrong with his current situation. For starters, he’d been summoned, which was something that hadn’t happened in a few millennia.
Which was understandable, seeing as the main reason he got summoned was when someone needed a plague spread, and most people weren’t that sadistic.
Including the player staring at him from the other side of the circle.
“Milksop” was the word that sprang to mind for the dewy-eyed twig of a man staring back at him.
Unfortunately, protocol was protocol, so Impulse took a deep breath and roared:
“WHO SUMMONS THE MARQUIS OF PLAGUE FROM HIS BUSINESS? WHO CALLS ON IMPULSESV?! ANSWER ME, WRETCH!”
“Oh- oh no,” The player said, eyes wide, “Oh, I don’t think I got the right demon…I- are you supposed to be this grumpy?! The book said you weren’t going to be grumpy!”
Impulse leaned against the circle, resting several of his massive clawed hands against the barrier.
“I’m a plague demon . People don’t summon me unless they’re complete sadists,” Impulse growled, dropping into English once it was clear this guy had just accidentally summoned him, “if you’re looking for Laniux, you drew the circle wrong.”
“A plague…I didn’t want a plague demon!” The player protested.
And then they sneezed.
“Well,” Impulse tilted his head, “what DO you want?”
“... Do you know anything about item filters?” The player asked meekly, “I’m building a storage system and I’m terrible at it. I wanted a technology demon.”
Impulse quirked an eyebrow at that last part. Technology demon? But then he turned the rest of the player’s request through his mind, and a nasty smile stretched across his lips.
Impulse laughed. He laughed and laughed, and the player shrank back from him.
“Item filters?” Impulse rumbled in amusement, “Dude, I INVENTED them.”
“Didn’t the Demon manning the Underbelly entrance give you a map of the place along with a gravity inverter?” Cryptex asked.
“I mean, the gravity inverter, yes. A map- they just sort of assumed I knew my way? I guess? I’m not sure why.”
The plague demon offered one of their many hands for a handshake.
“ImpulseSV, plague lord of Pestilence. I use he/him,” Impulse said politely.
The title made Cryptex and Tephra glance uneasily at each other. Declaring himself a Lord was an odd thing to do, though considering this guy felt powerful enough to be an Elder, they both supposed it didn’t matter.
“I’m Cryptex, they/them.” Cryptex politely said, carefully taking Impulse’s hand and shaking it.
“Tephra, she/her.” Tephra added, inclining her head.
Cryptex quickly took over the conversation, saying. “I assume that you were not given a map because all Demons know their way around the Underbelly. This,” They gestured around them at the normal looking town that was built on the ceiling of the caverns, “is where we’re born and live after all until we’re ready to go seeking Contracts of our own.”
“I don’t have any contracts.” Impulse rumbled, tapping two of his many fingers together nervously, “and my summoner was nice enough to not try offering me one. So uh, I wasn’t really looking for a contract.”
Both Cryptex and Tephra stare at him in unbridled shock.
“You don’t-” Tephra said, stunned. “But how is your soul so- Like no offense, but you’re obviously really old and powerful. So how is your soul so stable without any Contracts?”
Impulse tilted his head.
“I don’t really need them. My soul is stable because it’s a soul and they’re stable by default.”
“Stable by de- But we’re not Players! I mean we are but we weren’t meant to Play!” Tephra protested. “We’re not from here and the Universe lets us stay at a price!”
Impulse nodded a few times.
“I’m… not that sort of demon.” He said carefully, “I’m a different kind of demon. I’m from the Pit. We play by different rules than you. I don’t need contracts. What I do need is some help getting home.”
Cryptex hummed softly tilting their head in thought. “I guess we could take him to The Mausoleum? Maybe the Twins will be able to help you.”
Impulse nodded.
“Can you two show me the way?”
The two younger Demons nodded and started to lead him through the cobble streets.
It was a beautiful city, full of carefully cultivated glowberry vines on trellises and upside-down (to the Demons walking through the streets that is) soul flame lanterns on top of long chains to light the cobble streets. Instead of trees, there were intricately carved stalactites depicting all kinds of scenes from history and legend and blooms of amethyst that glowed with the refracted light of lanterns placed around them. The buildings themselves leaned towards a Tudor Revival style with half-timbered stone walls, lending an air of quaint and simple at a glance. Getting closer, it was obvious that Demons had over the years carved symbols for protection, for luck, for love, for wealth, for good fortune into the wooden beams in a steadily growing design unique to each building.
After a few minutes of walking in silence, Tephra shyly asked. “Soooo you said you were summoned here by accident? And you called your summons, messy?”
Impulse nodded.
“I’m honestly amazed my summoner got the sigil right. They’re really lucky they did- the other guy you can get if you mess up my sigil is notorious for killing their summoners.”
Impulse shuddered.
“What did they want you for?” Cryptex asked. “My summoners tend to want my assistance buffing their firewalls or helping them upgrade their comms.”
“The guy wanted help with a storage system, if you can believe it.” Impulse chuckled, “they couldn’t have picked a better guy. After all, I invented item filters, so…”
Cryptex and Tephra exchange another look before Cryptex says. “That will do it. Sometimes people might have a skill in mind rather than a specific type of Demon to summon.”
“Huh.” Impulse blinked a few times, “that’s not…that’s not how summoning me is supposed to work. It’s incredibly specific…this is weird.”
“I guess it must be different where you’re from.” Cryptex said sagely. “Here, intent, symbolism, and belief all tie together in order to summon a Demon properly.”
Tephra pointed at herself. “Take me for example! I’m a Stone Demon so as long as they use symbols and runes that represent me like stones and mountains and the earth in general in their circle, and they have faith that their magic circle will summon me and they know that I can help them with whatever they need, then they can summon me. Though knowing my True Name is more likely to get me directly to them.”
“Huh.” Impulse frowned, “the guy who summoned me was sick with a head cold, so that probably helped….”
“Aaaand that should do it!” Impulse grinned, patting his hands together, looking pleased at the item filters that he helped this player with.
He had carefully walked him through the steps as he had put the filters in place so if it broke, the guy would know what to do to repair them without summoning Impulse again.
Impulse stepped back, putting his hands on his hips with pride. He’d shifted back to his human disguise so he’d have his inventory, and that had impressed his summoner quite a bit.
A summoner who was now rereading a dusty old tome and looking…alarmed.
“Uh,” they said, “I think I messed up. I think we were supposed to come to some kind of an agreement, or something?”
Impulse waved a hand.
“Nah. Don’t need that. I’m a nice guy, you were polite, I needed something to do. No problem at all.” Impulse shrugged, and opened his comm.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just be…going now?”
And his eyes went wide.
Because all the servers on his comm were grayed out.
OUTSIDE OF PLAY AREA blinked slowly in the middle of Impulse’s comm.
“Is something wrong?” His summoner asked.
Impulse swallowed, scrolling through his server list. All of them were greyed out- including the private world he shared with Skizz. That one…that one hurt.
“I think I’m stuck,” Impulse said faintly, eyes wide and voice quiet.
And then-
One option was still working. Right at the bottom. It was green, meaning he could connect, but the text was glitched. He couldn’t read it.
That was the Pit.
It had to be
With no other options, Impulse clicked it.
Home?