Chapter Text
“Gordy, don’t do this, my child.”
”I’m sorry, Pops, but I’m in charge of moderation, not- not THIS!” Gorthiel, Seraph of Eating the Right Amount of Food sputtered, looking down on the town below. “I’m supposed to make sure they don’t eat too much, but when you don’t even allow them any food–! I won’t be implicit any longer as you starve more people, more children, just to test their faith. What sort of benevolent and loving god punishes those that follow him as a test? It’s fucked up. It’s toxic. If your friend was in a relationship like that, you’d tell them to get out of it.”
“If you defy me, Gordy, you know what awaits you.”
“You know what, Pops? I always fuckin’ hated that name. ‘Gordy.’ What’s wrong with calling me Gorthiel? You know, the name you gave me when you created me? You’re just trying to act like a close friend with some cute nickname to try and keep me by your side, but I’m not going to allow it.”
Gorthiel, Seraph of Eating the Right Amount of Food, shoved out his hands towards the land miles and miles below the cloud bank that he and his father stood upon.
“You know what’s really fucked up?” he added, not bothering to turn and look at the radiant deity standing behind him. “They’ll still praise you for this miracle. They’ll gain more faith in you while I get punished. It’s unfair; they’ll never know their god’s true intentions.”
“Gordy…” Sol’s voice was stern and Gorthiel could hear the frustration building behind it, as if he was a toddler on his father’s very last nerve and a severe punishment awaited him if he so much as sneezed.
Gorthiel concentrated, funneling his power down to the land of Spyre below, toward the small village Meadowgold – full of devout Sol-worshippers – which had been ravaged by famine and corn smut this past year.
“OK, Meadowgold. You guys are about to invent the delicacy known as ‘huitlacoche,’ – or whatever you want to call it – got it?” he muttered. “Not only is this going to get you through the poor harvest, but when those traders roll through your village, they’re going to trade you whatever you need once they try it; you’ll be set.”
He cast his heavenly magic down towards the residents of the village, filling all of them with the notion that maybe that smut ruining all of their corn might be tasty if they try it – and filling, too. With the feat done, he turned back to his father, shielding his eyes at His holy light. He could barely register as a solar flare flicked down Sol’s arm to his closed fist and settled there as a fiery whip.
Gorthiel grinned. “I’ve done it, Pops; unless you decide to eradicate the entire village, they’re going to discover how tasty and nourishing that fungus is. They’ll have enough to eat to survive this year and for decades to come.”
“And you, my child, shall never know the feeling of a full stomach ever again. I banish you from the loving embrace and eternal comfort of Paradise. I relieve you of your title, Gorthiel, Seraph of Eating the Right Amount of Food, and cast you out as Gorthalax the Insatiable!”
With those words, the mighty god whipped out the solar flare – catching the Seraph’s ankle – and used it to toss him over the cloud bank. Gorthalax plummeted toward the mortal plain below, his body warping and breaking painfully and gruesomely as he morphed from angel to devil. His halo snapped into two pieces and stabbed him in the temples before twisting and forming into massive horns. His spine bent and cracked, forcing him into a permanent hunch, and then his tailbone erupted outward in a spray of blood, elongating and whipping around into a pointed tail. His feet split into two, toes fusing and turning into cloven hooves as his ankles twisted backwards forming digitigrade legs. Feathers ripped themselves out of his wings, leaving only leathery skin bound between bony fingers. As his body became that of a malformed devil, he crashed into the grounds of what would eventually become the Durinson Mythril Factory on the outskirts of Elmville in the nation of Solace. The force of his fall caused him to burrow deep, deep into the earth until he reached Hell and the domain of the Bottomless Pit. There he stayed for centuries, residing over his new domain and processing new souls as they filtered into the Nine Hells.
It wasn’t until those dwarves dug too deeply in the mines that Gorthalax was given access to the mortal realm and – still feeling raw about being cast from heaven for saving people from his father’s ego – he went on a murderous rampage. Before his carnage was brought to an end by one Arthur Agefort, wizard extraordinaire, Gorthalax the Insatiable had killed thirteen mortals; he had also impregnated his young wood elf lover (though no one knew about that last part – even the mother herself). And so the devil was imprisoned inside a ruby that was buried deep in the heart of the mythril factory, and there he stayed until fifteen years later when his daughter played a sick drum solo and broke him from his jeweled jail.