The wedding of Princess Selina and the hero Yamamoto did not live up to expectation.

  Firstly, there was a dispute among some of the hero's female comrades, and some had to be excluded from the festivities.

  Secondly, some sort of uprising in nearby Promise-controlled lands shook the peace and distracted the high nobles from their adoration of the pair.

  And lastly, a demon clown appeared at the reception, cursing the bride and groom to sleep eternal.

  -

  She had blended in as a performing jester, with face painted bone-white, but had suddenly jumped on top of the ice sculpture to address the party-goers.

  "Attention in-breds! It's me. If I could take some time out of your busy schedule of slander and sycophancy, I'm here to receive my birthright.

  "Enough of this." The armed men guarding the proceedings stepped up to the display and the captain drew his sword. "This is not the stage for your tomfoolery. Get down from there."

  The jester idly flicked her hand at them. At once the weapons of all guards wrested themselves free from them and held up against their throats.

  It was a magic beyond what any there thought possible, as each blade moved individual and with precision, without any exacting will from the caster. Rather, she let the weapons to their business as if they were will separate from her own, as she searched the faces in the crowd.

  Balancing on one toe she pirouetted on the ice like a dancer, taking view of the whole circumference of the room, until she had found who she was looking for. "There's the happy couple."

  With a graceful leap over the heads of the heads of high nobility, she landed in front of the princess and her groom.

  "I couldn't make it to the bridal shower, should I give my gift now? Or should I wait until you've arrived in hell?"

  "Get behind me Selina." Yamamoto said, and shielded her with his body.

  But the jester didn't seem to register him as a thread. "Where's the mother of the bride," she asked, "overcome with pride and sentimentality for her little girl growing up?"

  "She's dead. The queen has died last month after a struggle with illness." The princess said softly.

  The clown paused, seeming lost for a moment, then she regained her wicked demeanor. "Ah, a wedding coronation combined! How economical. Then I'm speaking to the monarch bride herself. Will you take accountability for the sins of your station?"

  "Yamamoto!" Someone from the crowd called out and tossed him his katana.

  He grabbed it out of the hear and unsheathed it. "Sorry Selina, I broke my promise. I did smuggle my weapon in."

  "Never mind that promise." She sighed with relief. "Show her your swordplay."

  But as he lunged, the white woman simply spun to step aside and kicked the weapon out of his hand.

  It went flying with such force that it exploded into a marble pillar, throwing up dust.

  Before he knew it, she had him in a vice grip. One hand twisting his arm, the other in his throat.

  "It used to be..." she said ominously, "that heroes earned the right to ask for a princess' hand only after extraordinary, world-saving feats. S-rank heroes. What rank would you have gotten in those days, Yamamoto?"

  "Cunt." Selina said, finding strength and bravery despite her fear. "Let go of him."

  A murmur went up amongst the crowd, perturbing the clown.

  "...Or what?" She threatened.

  "Let. Go of him."

  She threw the man to the floor. "Tell me what to do will you? Attack me with a sword and then play the victim. That was always your problem. No... I say you inherit the sins of the mother."

  Strange purple energy coalesced as the jester twirled her hands above her.

  Discordant, organic magic circles filled the space.

  "See you in a hundred years, bitch!"

  The next moment, bride and groom were turned to stone. Or rather a heavy stone-like metal.

  The nobles stood in shock at the display of magic, and those among the guards that had regained control over their weapons made no attempts to approach the caster.

  The magic circles still hung in the air, and when the demon clown looked up, they spring in alignment with her gaze, targeting whoever she was looking at.

  "Who will throw themselves after their queen? Haah? Have the lords and ladies of the red city felt the power of permanent transmutation?" She pointed at a thin woman in the back. "You'd make a spectacular bovine."

  As she spoke the sky grew red outside, fire filling the air.

  She looked up, surprised.

  "I can't believe the luck of you people. I suppose your savior showed up. Anybody that's still here when I get back will be hexed."

  Demonstrating her strength, she kneeled down and then jumped up and out through the cathedral roof to confront an aerial foe.

  In the next few minutes the guests trampled each other trying to get out.

  The dark sorceress never returned, and after a few days people dared come into the hall once more.

  The bride and groom were cursed with a potent and unbreakable magic. The most powerful mages still in the employ of the Reddington court could not unearth the true nature of its working.

  Nor could the strongest men lift or move the petrified pair. Their weight was beyond measure, locked in place by the white woman's magic.

  After a two afternoons mucking about with ropes and pulleys, the workmen began to notice it was a weight dragging down the entire palace.

  The small steps leading up to the main and servants' entrances had sunk in the earth, and the neat stone plinthing at the underside of the walls had begun to disappear.

  The men proclaimed the site cursed and fled the city. Though their superstition might not have been as strong a factor as the riches offered by the foreign legions of the expanding Grienician empire.

  -

  Regardless, the building continued to sink.

  Even without a monarch, especially without their monarch, the Reddingtonians had to preserve passageway into their halls of power, and of course access to the petrified pair. So the earth around the doorways was dug up and the mechanisms of state continued on for a while.

  A temporary governor position was established, to wield the powers of the crown without ever wearing it, and a well respected duke received the honor. A symbolic compensation for his loss of land under recent developments.

  -

  But the building continued to sink.

  The pits into the old buildings were becoming steep drops, so wooden staircases were installed, as well as alternative entrances at some of the upper-story windows.

  Pouncing on the chaotic and reduced state of the red country, the Grienician military declared war outright. Their justification, as always, the elimination of noble birthright within the continent.

  Reddington was outmatched, but small holdouts held their ground, including the capital city. Now filled to the brim with impoverished nobles that had lost their lands and lived on the dole of the city.

  The governor position became rotated amongst rivaling families.

  -

  Still, the building continued to sink.

  Now there was no light within the halls of power, as the windows displayed only stone and dirt pressed against the glass.

  The different entrances were narrow ladders into the depths, and fore-offices were constructed were bureaucrats could sit and get their affairs in order before plunging the depths. They became an entire ring, a halo circling above the palace's outsides.

  By this time the city was forced to invite in a garrison of hobgoblins and other subhumans. The abhumans filled in the rank-and-file for defending against the still belligerent Grienice.

  With such a high ratio of noble-born citizens, they could do with the manual labor.

  -

  The sinking continued.

  And by the time the original palace had been completely swallowed up, the state of affairs had become normal to Reddington.

  Every year the palace outgrowth had to be extended, as all that had been added before was being dragged downwards by the magic locked in that immovable pair.

  Thus the Reddington palace became a subterranean maze. A series of floors and steps down into the greater depths and, as was becoming increasingly clear to all, remarkably shaped like a dungeon.

  -

  Years passed, the current generation grew old and the new generation grew up. The sinking palace of Reddington a mundane fact of life. Through intermarriage, there was scarcely a human left who did not have some claim of noble blood, and the goblins became their only peasantry.

  The conflict with the green city cooled down, though peace was never officially declared, and the Reddington state worked to regain some of its dignity.

  Money from relatives working in Grienice's adventuring guild, smuggling of old Promise artifacts, and the refinement of various fire-based disciplines earned them some riches. This led to the newest levels of the palace-turned-dungeon being build wide open and spacious. Opulent marble halls meant to match the grandeur their ancestors had once erected the dragon-slaying statues outside with.

  The old halls of the original palace were now visited only in quiet reverence, like a church. And even the lower levels of the outgrowth obtained a sense of elderly stateliness.

  It took another few decades, but the opulent halls above eventually disappeared too and absorbed that same aged stillness.

  -

  The Reddington culture was fading now. The noble blooded offspring of the original inhabitants had internalized the Grienician worldview and dispersed among the lands outside. The city was mostly goblin now.

  The hobgoblin culture was alive and well, mixing and exchanging ideas with those of similar palace towns. Their elders kept close guard on their education and warned greatly against books and ideas carried over from the green city, ideas of lost goblin heritage and overthrowing of their human masters. Such words, they said, were insidious weapons designed to make their species weak and entitled.

  The sinking palace was increasingly seen as an old curiosity, access maintained only for historical value. A single winding staircase to the great hall was maintained, which could be extended with modular pieces at any time. Rumors began to emerge of ancient groups of goblins that had gotten lost in the underground maze, that were still down there, feral and dangerous.

  -

  More than seven decades after the palace had begun sinking into the ground, the city finally fell to Grienice.

  An ogre had taken offense to a diplomat suggesting he owed more loyalty to the goblins in the green city than the humans in the red city on account of his race, and had slain him on the spot.

  Enough reason for the mighty Grienician empire to regain its focus and finally crush the aged monarchical holdout.

  Under republican rule, the buildings honoring heroes of the old regime were torn down, the Promise notes currency was done away with, and the old palace was sealed off.

  A new series of buildings, in a new architectural style went up around the spiral staircase, but they too were swallowed into the ground.

  By this time the presence of genuine monsters within the halls became clear. The magical flow of dungeon architecture had produced an ecology fit for magical flora and cave creatures. Including, indeed, lost feral goblin tribes.

  The site became of interest to counter cultural Grienicians, who glorified the old princely ways that their government was trying to obscure, and exploring the dungeon become a favored past-time of adventurers.

  The industry of old Reddington became geared towards accommodating tourists, populated mostly by seasonal workers from neighboring lands. When the demonic catastrophe occurred, and

  Grienice was destroyed, the flow of tourists stopped and Reddington became abandoned as a ghost town.

  Nobody was there to notice the sinking had stopped.

  The underside of the palace had looked very differently during all this time.

  As it had sunk down into the underworld, the walls that had served to keep out the pressing dirt now kept the insides from spilling out into the arid underground.

  Pulled ever down by the accursed statues, it breached the floor of the cavern and pushed on. Into the deep darkness of the abyss.

  The diligent construction of different masters enabled it to dangle long and precarious, like hanging guts, into the nothing. Lower than any other dungeon in the world of Lite. Until, eventually, it dipped into the last layer, the deepest one.

  One hundred years after the jester had cast her mighty curse, the underside of the palace pushed onto the sulfuric bedrock. The towering tendril above pushed in, condensed and settled. That was when the sinking had stopped.

  It was then that the petrification of the bride and groom suddenly dissipated.

  They gasped for air and reached for each other, disoriented and confused.

  The towering majestic windows of the great hall shone with the red light of hell.

  "Stay behind me Selina, we are not alone."

  "What's happening? Were is everybody?"

  "I don't know, but I can sense power nearby. It may be that devil woman." He briefly glanced behind him as he was shielding her. "Do you know her?"

  Selina didn't answer.

  "You were foul-mouthed with her, that was unlike you." He said.

  "Yamamoto... I want to get out of here."

  They snuck to the darkened halls, haunted by the ruby shine in the windows, until they found the foyer where they expected it.

  However, at the other end of the door was not the streets of Reddington, but wooden steps leading up into darkness.

  "What's happening? This is madness!"

  "Stick close to me, okay?"

  -

  So began their long ascent upward.

  In their journey they encountered demons, beasts, and goblins.

  They found others wandering the dungeon. Foragers willing to trade for food, and fellow wanderers.

  The constant battle for survival honed their skills. His as a swordsman, her as a healer and fire mage.

  When they finally emerged from the staircase and out into the sunlight, they'd become very different people.

  -

  "Air! Fresh air! I'd forgotten how it smelled." Selina gasped.

  Yamamoto embraced her from behind to share the moment with her, and both watched the sun disappear behind the clouds.

  "You two must have been underground a long time." Their fellow wanderer said. "How did you even get down there?"

  Don had ran into them around halfway towards the surface and said he'd been on his way topside as well. As a lock-pick and way-finder he filled in the third spot in their trio.

  The fourth was an aging ogre named Mann, that had entered the dungeon from the underworld and supplied the brute strength.

  "I told you before, and it was the truth." Yamamoto said. "We were transported, palace-and-all, to the bottom of this maze. The masonry of the Reddington throne is still down there."

  "No magic in the world that strong." Mann said.

  "Yet, it's the truth." He said, willing it to be true.

  "Goodness, we must be presumed dead." Selina said. "We've been in that infernal maze for months! Let's waste no more time. Don, Mann, will you fight with us still?"

  "Ho there little lady," Don mulched. "It's one thing claiming to be the princess of some made-up country. It's a whole 'nother thing getting me to play the role of lackey. We're all on the surface now, I gots my place I gotta go. I'm sure the ogre does too-"

  "How can you not have heard of Reddington!" Yamamoto fell out at him. "The kingdom of fire! One of the four great nations!"

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  "Yeah? What's it look like?"

  "The capital is still sovereign, if that jester hasn't taken it over. A tall mountain, watching out over the rolling hills, with monuments to the dragon slayers of... of old..."

  Having taken in the fresh air and peace-meal sunlight, their gaze fell on the lands below. And his words began to feel like a narration.

  The buildings were gone, the steps ripped out, and different architecture put in its place. But just as from the steps of the palace before the wedding, they looked out over a steep slope and distant rolling hills.

  "I remember tales of fire kingdom." Mann said. "Long ago, in time of distant elder and great goblin city. There was four lands. Water, fire, wind, and..."

  "Earth?" Don offered helpfully.

  "Don't remember the last one. But the water kingdom took 'em all over, and our ancestors had to flee to the below. Was last wish of my Mama that I see the upper world again."

  "This 'water kingdom'..." Don said. "Wouldn't mean the Grienician empire, would it?"

  As the sun peeked out from behind the clouds again, the great marble colossus that framed their view came into stark contrast. It was the broken off upper body of what had once been a statue honoring an ancient dragon slayer.

  In hind-sight, it should have been very obvious.

  Selina was so affected by the revelation that she took a week to recover.

  In that time they learned about the history of the city from some former scholars, who were squatting in the remains of the abandoned city.

  One was able to describe quite captivatingly how the goblin banks and the three kingdoms had been crushed by the Grienician empire after it had undergone a sudden growth in magical and technological capability. And how that very same Grienician empire succumbed to demonic influence at the height of its power, leaving the world to the lord of Darkness.

  "Ah, that was a time of heroes." The historian said. "The adventuring profession became centralized to the great city, akin to an unofficial branch to their military. When those green gates closed on the world... they left it to the shadows."

  "Why didn't the other kingdoms build militia to defend themselves?" Selina asked, horrified.

  "By then, they had already lost that ability. The Grienician empire had rooted out the noble houses concerned with martial strength, and taken away the trade and infrastructure that allowed them to militarize. It was quite sensible at the time... the guild would always be there to defend them and this way there would be no risk of an uprising. They couldn't have predicted their fall."

  "Or they could have, and that was the point." Don said. "They knee-capped the world in order to serve it up to the demon king."

  "Of conspiratorial mind!" The scholar laughed. "I have some colleagues developing the same theory. That it was Abyss' demons that guided the development of the empire from the very start. They do call him the demon king after all."

  "Do you know anything about what happened here, a century ago?" Yamamoto asked him. "About the witch that cursed the palace. Was she send by Abyss as well?"

  "We have records of an 'uninvited guest' from that time. Her description matches the white lady, who serves under the demon king today as one of his seven generals. So... it depends on who you ask, but I consider it very credible that she was."

  The hero clutched his sword. "So she's still alive."

  The historian raised his eyebrows. "Well... of course. The demon king's generals are long-lived monsters of various species. The white lady is in charge of the inquisition, hunting down the last vestiges of humanity."

  "And where is she now?"

  Don laughed. "What are you going to do? Challenge one of the demon king's generals to a sword fight?"

  "As long as Abyss rules this world, we will not be safe." Selina said.

  "You can't be serious!"

  "Write this down for your history of the world," Yamamoto told the scholar, "the age of heroes is back."

  Their journey took them to all corners of the world. From the yellow wastes all the way to the mysterious mist islands in the east.

  The climb up from the sunken palace had honed their skills enough to survive in a world overtaken by demons, their quest through the ruined world grew them even further.

  No records exist of this adventure, as the author was not present to divine it. But all-in-all, it was a journey of heroism, revenge, and personal growth.

  A scarce few times they encountered the white lady, prancing around out of range from their attacks and mocking them.

  In the end, they defeated all six other generals before they had a chance to confront her.

  -

  The inquisition army had struck the earth near the damned city of Grienice.

  The powers of darkness understood very well that they were under attack, and Abyss had recalled his last general and her forces to his headquarters.

  Just as well for the royal pair, who seized the opportunity to finally pin her down. Even if it was going to be on her terms.

  -

  Under the cries and noises from within the green city, the heroes managed to sneak into the fortified inquisition camp.

  They were discovered before reaching the general's mobile palace, but with high-level magic and advanced swordplay they were able to keep the guards at bay and make a charge for the white lady.

  She'd been expecting them.

  -

  "Hello again." She said, mildly amused and reclined on a sofa.

  She had barely aged since a hundred years ago, though a tinge of maturity had rounded her figure.

  Handsome shirtless men surrounded her to attend to her every need. Superficially, they looked human, but human beings would not carry the expressions they did serving their exterminator.

  With a flick of her hand, she commanded the guards to stay away. "I take it you're here to kill me, finally?"

  "Cunt!" Selina said.

  "Whoa, language." The lock-pick said.

  "There's no nice language for one such as her." Yamamoto defended, and pointed at her with his sword.

  The white lady's mouth twitched. "How dare you call me by that name?"

  "But that is your name, isn't it?" The princess said. "Sister."

  Yamamoto looked at her with new eyes. "Your evil sister with the whore make-up that tried to have me executed?"

  "What are you so shocked about, womanizer?" Melina scoffed. "I've waited one hundred years for your thick heads to thaw, I don't know why I expected it'd make you any more interesting. ...Excuse me, how long are you going to be wearing that disguise?"

  "What?"

  "Now's your chance," Don said. "This is what you've been training for all this time."

  The white lady looked at him directly. "Come over here so I can rip your face of."

  With a threat like that, the time for talk was over. Yamamoto charged.

  -

  The resulting battle was worthy of a dragon slayer.

  The two lovers and their combat-oriented party members unleashed strength and mana scarcely seen for a century, honed by their travels.

  The white lady's minions did nothing more than prevent escape, as she matched their strength in a deadly duel.

  None can accurately recount all the tricks and techniques employed in this final clash, but it went on for several minutes of fast-paced combat.

  Eventually, the lock-pick they had tried to shield was taken a hold of by the white lady and, as she had promised, she dug her nails in his neck and cleanly tore off the flesh, so that his skull was exposed. He sunk to the ground.

  "Don!" Selina gasped. "You witch, he was never a threat."

  "You're wrong about that. Maybe not to me." She spat. "Weren't you going to kill me?"

  The second half of the fight both sides had expended much of their strength, but without a non-combatant to protect, the heroes' superior numbers tipped the scale and they forced the general on her knees.

  She gasped, knowing that she'd been beat.

  The inquisition goons did not budge from their post to help her, though they received a suspicious side-eye from the princess.

  Melina looked up. "I just want to say-" But she was interrupted.

  With a clean swing of his blade, Yamamoto cut her head off.

  -

  As they paused to catch their breath, a slow clap emanated from the sofa where the white lady had lounged earlier.

  "Well done, well done. You excel yourself- no, rather you live up to Papa's expectations exactly."

  It was one of the pretty boys she had surrounded herself with, no sitting in her place like a usurper.

  "Who are you?" Yamamoto panted.

  "We are but humble servants of the man who is to be demon king, Abyss." Another manservant said. "And we would very much like to introduce you to him."

  "Now that your magic and stamina has been helpfully depleted..." The first one snapped his fingers and the inquisition closed in like one large organism.

  "We can still fight out way out of fodder like this," Yamamoto boasted, but he was quickly restrained by their magic. "H-how?"

  "Take them away!"

  -

  When the living heroes were bound and carted off, the incubi came to stand over the corpse of the lock-pick.

  "Ahem."

  At the sound of the polite cough, the figure rose to a sitting position.

  Hell Skeleton

  Family: Undead

  Threat Level: E

  Reward: none

  Believed to be former sinners, hell skeletons are low level monsters found in the fiery lakes of hell. They should pose no threat to adventurers of sufficient level to travel there, though can unexpectedly grab at the ankles of passerbys, trying to drag them in.

  As undead, hell skeletons are damaged by healing magic. However, when encountering a horde large enough to pose a threat, only high-level healing spells such as Mass-Heal will make a dent, it is therefore recommended to use simple damage.

  Fire demons occupy themselves with the torture of hell skeletons. They therefore form a helpful distraction to sneak past these high-level enemies.

  Hell skeletons contain no useful reagents.

  "Papa Scratch." The incubus shook his head. "My badness, I had half expected a goblin to come crawling out of that suit of flesh."

  "Benesant had given up on the goblin idea." The skeleton said as he tried to reattach his face, awkwardly pressing the ripped flesh together. "She ended up pouring some power into me just so she could reincarnate me into something even worse off."

  "And the human disguise?"

  "I made it myself," his voice trailed off as he wandered over to his goddaughter's decapitated head, "False Flesh. It's a recipe Cyclophan once used to help us close our wounds. This form as some mana so I was able to..." he picked her up.

  For the first time ever, she looked to be at peace.

  "You knew about the palace dungeon then," the demon said, "and you used it to return to the world of the living. I can see why you were once favored to be demon king."

  He didn't answer.

  "Have you gone sentimental in your old day?" Another laughed. "The white lady's last few years were starkly devoid of true passion and joy, I will say. Her subhuman nature and power extended her lifespan indefinitely, but she had nothing to live for other than to one day see this confrontation. We found it all very amusing."

  "Last time we spoke..." the loose-faced man mulled over his words, "...I haven't always been patient with her. But Rita wasn't the cause of all of this going sideways. When it comes down it it, I only have one enemy."

  The demon soured, he had been prying for a stronger reaction. "You shall carry that regret evermore. Your scheme is cut off by the final stretch and it will all have been for naught. We intend to show you."

  "What my brother means to say," the first demon said, "is that would be an honor if you were to accompany us to the site of the execution and of your final humiliation."

  They smiled broadly.

  No human being had set foot in the city of Grienice for nigh-on three decades.

  Left alone to manipulate the culture of the city, Youthere and his family had stoked the fires of partisan violence relentlessly. Cultivating a range of unstable and incompatible identity groups to fuel it.

  Eventually, the citizenry of Grienice had become so inwardly turned that maintaining their empire became impossible. The gates had closed to the impurities of the outside world, and the people devolved into cultists of demonic inspiration, turning to every sin and corrupted virtue the family of temptation managed to spin into their narratives.

  -

  When the heroes were ushered in, they were met with disorienting clamor en stink. Unwashed, violent people that had never seen the outside and lived like beasts in buildings they could not appreciate or understand.

  Though they could not see, blinded as they were, they could smell the shit packed against the walls, the dried blood of tribal combat, and the wafting air of open sex out in the filth.

  The inquisitors kept the rabble at a distance, they were trained in the extermination of humans and wielded magical weapons from a bygone age.

  Though they had been untaught most of the skills that made a man, the manufactured primitives knew one thing, and that was oration.

  "Aristocratic imposition!" One shouted.

  "See here the natural end point of the south-side's rent-seeking paradigm," another said, "our very home is trampled on as if we are mere objects. Where we pay tribute for the very things necessary to live, life itself has become a commodity."

  As they said it, they were smashing in someone's skull.

  Various lengthy soliloquys flew overhead, justifying the killing of others and the taking of their possessions via discursive narratives. The ability to justify and all things, and place all evil on the names of others had been carefully instilled in them by demonkind and had made them the creatures they were today.

  -

  "Yamamoto, are you there?" Selina whispered. "What's all this madness around us?"

  He struggled against his constraints. "I'm still alive. The fight took a lot out of me, but we have to muster the strength to escape or I fear we might never see that happy ever after we promised each other."

  He received a hard knock against the back of his head.

  "Show some deference, rebel, you're about to meet the dark lord Abyss." An inquisitor said.

  "Abyss." He gritted his teeth. "He's the real cause of all this."

  Blinded as they were, they could not see the light from above rapidly growing closer.

  They could not see the craft shooting down their captors either, but they could hear it.

  They were undone of their bindings and their hands placed on the rungs of a rope ladder.

  "Come vith me if you vant to live."

  The dark lord had received many honors by his demon followers. He was sat on a white boney throne and looked on from the palace square as various villains and sinners were prostrated before him one by one, swearing fealty.

  The small incubus Scratch had once called his familiar stood behind him, whispering about who was what and how they could serve him. Occasionally, he would pass judgment instead and kill them.

  -

  It was past midnight and the heroes' party still hadn't appeared before him.

  "Where are the assassins?" He asked.

  His assistant gestured angrily at his comrades. And one came up to bow before him. "Forgive us, your lowness, but the loathsome do-gooders seem to have escaped their captors. They're loose somewhere within the city."

  In an instant, he was vaporized.

  Abyss lowered his staff.

  "Worry not, lord Abyss," the incubus said. "Your lieutenants can be quickly replaced by the mightiest arch-demons once you ascent to the title of demon king. We have the true mastermind behind their defeat here."

  Still holding his face in place, Scratch was quickly shuffled forward to appease him.

  -

  Abyss still looked and dressed the same as he had at the dungeon lords' round table all those years ago.

  Just like back then, he would occassionally stare at the palm of his hand and slowly clench it into a fist, feeling the force of his magic.

  He glanced dismissively at the thin man standing before his throne. "You and your friends must be quite powerful to have defeated all seven of my generals."

  Scratch just nodded, trying to tuck his forehead under his scalp.

  "I collect powerful things. If you swear loyalty to me-"

  "Why?"

  Abyss didn't miss a beat. "To save your own life. Then again, you could die with your ideals intact."

  "Oh, scew this." Scratch gave up on the skin completely and let the face flop over. He took the opening with both hands and tore it open so wide his skull could escape. He then proceeded to undo himself of the rest of the disguise by climbing out of it like an overall and discarding it on the ground.

  There he stood, more naked than any living being ever had been, stripped to the bone.

  This did startle the dark lord for a second.

  "Why are you still on about this ultimate power business, Ken?" Scratch said, gesticulating wildly, "you were already on this back in Ritter's day when you just had to have every wyrm shard. What's the point? You rule the world, what use is even more power to you?"

  "...Who are you?"

  "I'm you. Last year's model. I'm the previous guy these rats said they would make king of the world."

  The small demon by Kato Ken's side sucked in some air and moved in to set the record straight. "Your wretchedness-"

  "How do you know that name?" He demanded.

  -

  The skeleton looked east, to the part of the sky that was visible over the ancient ruined architecture. Then he turned to the dark lord again. "You're Kato Ken. You were a highschooler until your schoolbus rode you and your whole class into a cliff. Your favorite author learned about it and decided to write you into his light novel series. That's the long and short of it, isn't it?"

  Ken stood up. "You forgot to mention the indignities I suffered at the hands of my classmates. How I was humiliated and outcast for lacking the cheat-like skills on their level. But I gathered power in secret... build myself up, and then took my revenge! That's why I gather power. This world has taught me power is everything."

  The various demonic creatures looked back and forth between the two, made speechless by the bizarre turn of events.

  Scratch straightened his back. "This world has nothing to teach you that you don't already want to believe. I've run into protagonists to many stories here, and they all received the life they always dreamed of. A guy that loved giant robots got to make giant robots, a girl that loved a romance character got to live her life. That's why this world has magic card games and running around as a fantasy hero is a career. Ken, if you were mistreated in any way that sparked your revenge, that is because you needed an excuse to become who you are now. Tell me I'm wrong."

  "No. You..." Ken sunk back into his chair. "I... I was made cruel. It's because of them."

  The demon was quick to help his reasoning. "Your wretchedness is strong. You were forged in the fires of hardship."

  "He used to talk to me like that." Scratch laughed mirthlessly. "You know there's a perverse pride in being called a dark lord. There's a sense of power in it, isn't there? If you're gonna be bad, you'd want to be the baddest of the bad. The arch-villain. I recognize myself in you that way, we're both peacocks, aren't we?"

  "Shut him up!" The demon shouted. "Who brought this failed pretender here anyhow? Bring out those to be judged!"

  The soldiers were about to seize him once more, but Ken stopped them. "Halt. My advisor does not hold command over my forces," he said quite sternly, "you will not move until I give the command."

  The demons stood in dubio between the skeleton and their post, but did not press on.

  Having seized control of the scene again, the dark lord righted himself and regained his composure. "This creature seems to be afraid of what you have to say. So... speak."

  -

  If he could breathe, he would have taken a deep breath. "If you look east from here, you can probably make out the Heiligdom spire. It's halfway across the continent but it's very tall."

  He was right. Like a hair-thin line dividing the sky into two, the tall thin tower stood against the faint glow of earliest twilight.

  "I had that thing build with the help of five gods. They owed me a favor."

  Abyss shook his head. "The holy spire was build more than a hundred years ago in a scheme by the goblin banks to bankrupt the Blurichan nobility."

  "Good, you're up-to-date. To make a long story short, that's where the wyrm shards went."

  "Nani?"

  Scratch held up his skeletal arms. "The logic is sound. The wyrm shards were created after the original evil god, Malsidious, took on a physical form to dominate the world of Lite and was destroyed.

  Putting them together, one should be able to recreate a functioning dragon body."

  "Yes, but... no divine soul to inhabit it."

  Scratch looked around gesturing at the abyssal rabble. "Demons are ridiculous creatures. They're opposite in everything and say stuff like 'your wretchedness'. In a hundred years stirring this rotten soup of a city, they never cooked up anything bad enough for Benesant to inhabit the dragon and stop it. Frauds!"

  The demon forces yelled and hissed.

  "You're worth nothing as minions!" He screamed over the noise. "Worse than disloyal, you're incompetent!"

  -

  The advisor leaned in again to speak hurriedly. "Your wre- Master, you are on the cusp of attaining demon king status and all the forces of evil under your command. You possess the cruelty past candidates lacked, if you merely prove-"

  He was cut off by the dark lord's hand closing around his throat.

  "You are ridiculous." He said. "Now be quiet." He looked around at the corrupted and seemed as though he was seeing it for the first time, surprised by the filthiness. "If what you're telling me is true, then the suffering I went through was by my own wish. And my revenge was never justified. I'd rather not believe it."

  The skeleton looked at him. "Once I would have said there was no such thing as a justified revenge, I would have said a man should pursue his interest and repay suffering on some imaginary balance is a distraction. I believed I was above such things, and I took pride in that... but somewhere in all this violence I lost that part of myself that I was so proud of. Benesant took it from me."

  Ken descended from his morbid throne. "I see now. You trained up that party of rebels to one day defeat Benesant in wyrm form and that'd... what? Scatter her into countless lesser gods like Malsidious?"

  He tapped the side of where his nose would be. "That satisfies my criteria for revenge. It would have happened by now if I hadn't let these bozos gaslight me with the morality play."

  "Oh?"

  "People act out of self interest, all the rest is just talk. Take Benesant, I mean she's is fueled by order and light. That's why she has her followers run around smiting monsters. Not for its own sake, that'd be insane, but to protect the source of her power. She'd never risk her own life coming down here just to fight evil, that'd be putting the cart before the horse, innit?" He paused to make him appreciate his genius insight. "The rat-race of villainy these bozos have come up with will drag you in until you see things their way. I think that's their purpose, cosmically speaking, to keep the real rebels down and turn them into symbols of evil, fodder for someone else's heroic adventure..."

  As he had spoken, Ken had come up to him and stood uncomfortably close. He flexed his magic to make his destructive potential felt. "People act out of self-interest. That's your creed?"

  "Uh, yeah." Scratch arched his neck backwars not to bump foreheads.

  "People act out of self-interest and your goal is to summon a wrathful living god to my empire, what's my self-interest here?"

  "...I think our interest align, actually."

  "You think so, and why is that?" The dark lord said in a faux-polite tone while his elemental magic was already boring into the skeleton's ribcage.

  "Ow, haha. Well you see... ouch. The only thing bad enough for Benesant to prefer likely destruction is certain destruction. For the entire world of Lite; light and darkness, order and chaos to be destroyed. The end of the world. You're growing ever more powerful. Soon you'll have the means and the motive."

  "What are you saying?" Ken raised his chin without stopping his slow and torturous attack.

  "Your revenge, you gathering the most powerful artefacts you could find, and later trying to become demon king. It's all for the same reason, right? You want to be someone who matters. But nothing you can do in this world will ever matter as long as it keeps on turning, as long as it goes the cycles of big bad after big bad you'll only ever be one of many in a long list of temporary kings-of-the-hill.

  Stevie has already written down your story and he's looking for his next protagonist. You'll be forgotten about in a year..." he saw a shimmer in Kato Ken's eyes that showed he'd found his sore spot and was encouraged to continue. "Ending everything. Leaving a mark that can't be glossed over. That's the only way you'll be anyone."

  Ken shot away from him, as if attacked by painful magic himself. "Shut up! Destroy the world... and myself in it? Urusai That's idiotic."

  As much as a boney frame with no musculature can look smug, Scratch looked smug. "Not now, but... as the years drag on. As the victories mount and nothing can challenge you anymore. You'll think about how meaningless it all was, how your revenge and everything that had inspired it was pre-determined, how the only purpose you have was to star in a mediocre comic book, and now you don't even star in it anymore. Given enough time, eventually... you'll have only one thing to look forward to."

  "Master!" The demon screamed. "Kill him. Let us kill him! He is a corruption, he is-"

  "SHUT UP! I WILL." Ken fumed. "I'm just-"

  *Skree-onk!*

  It seemed like the sun had dawned in the east. But it hadn't.

  The spire which had bifurcated the sky as a black hair had exploded into yellow light and began to twist and coil.

  A mighty, unfathomably long dragon tore apart the atmosphere and began rushing for what had once been the green city.

  "Gods can see the future." Scratch gloated. "All I needed was to implant the idea."

  The dark lord was about to fall out at him, but the titanic creature was upon them in a heartbeat.

  Sparing no time, Benesant unleashed a concentrated beam of light on the forces of evil, destroying the demons and their prisoners, and forcing Abyss himself into a hasty retreat.

  The airship that had picked the heroes up was powered by magic of a caliber the surface world hadn't seen in a hundred years.

  Crystals, runes, and pipes carrying elemental magic lined the insides of the bridge, and a tall, pale gentlemen stood at the helm.

  "You saved us." Selina said.

  "Who are you?" Her husband asked.

  "My name is Noss. I'm a friend of your sister." He turned to face them, bearing the fangs of a vampire.

  All sprung up, raising their guard.

  "You should know zhat she alvays had your best interest at heart. Everyzhing she's done, she's done to make you stronger."

  "Stronger, why?"

  "You see zhat?" He pointed and the bright light coming in from the porthole.

  The giant wyrm coiled above Grienice, a beam of blinding light shooting from its maw, raining nuclear destruction.

  "Zhat is zhe wyrm of light. She knew it vould one day escape its prison spire. Abyss's actions have finally unleashed it, and now ve need you to save zhe vorld."

  Selina swallowed a lump in her throat. "She took everything away from us. Our life, our family..."

  "We're sorry." The large crystal in the middle of the room unfurled, revealing its draonic form.

  "Zhis is cyclophan, a lesser wyrm." Noss said.

  "Melina never wanted to tell you the truth. She thought it would be easier for you to simply hate her... But now the end of days is here, and we don't have much choice anymore."

  Selina began to tear up.

  "Over the past few months you've travelled the entire continent, and found the vestiges of civilization that still exist. You've shown your bravery and kindness then. All those places are again at risk now. Will you save them?"

  The pair reached out to intertwine hands.

  "It wouldn't be a happy ever after if we let our friends in the mist isles die, would it?" Yamamoto drew his sword. "One more final boss. Bring it on!"

  The end.