The Devil's On Your Side (Helltaker/Devil May Cry)

The world is burning.

The bodies stretch beyond the horizon, fire and earth both licking away at the ocean of blood and bone pooled across the ground. Here, lies the bodies of a dozen silver warriors, once proud guardians of the realm, now dismembered and strewn to the wind. There, the bloated corpse of a great serpent, an untouchable god-beast that in life could have swallowed mountains whole, a great hole gashed through its spine, pulped heart open to the world.

The sky is cracking, the might of monsters tearing away at what little stability graced the demon world. Nothing is well.

In the center of it all stands an abomination. Flesh and bone and chitin fused and twisted together into the approximation of something that lives. Eyes gleam with malice, with madness, staring into the sky and earth and nothing all at once. Claws, limblike things that twitch and grasp at air, snap as they heal, scars from tooth and blade and darker things disappearing as if never there. Around the beast are swarms of flies, cockroaches, mosquitos, drawn in by instincts uncontrolled, gorging themselves on corpses, bloating from the blood supped, only to burst into maggots that leap into the feast anew. It reeks of power barely held together, twisting and shifting under the weight of its own strength.

It's you. It's always been you. It's what you've always been. How keen the young are to forget that, how silly of your peers to hope you've changed, as if you knew how. Now you've done it. Surrounded by a sea of bodies, by the cracked shells of things no better than you. You gaze upon the horizon, at the broken sky, and laugh, the mad cackle of a monster that knows exactly what it's done.

-

The world feels heavy, a certainty of being that feels at once liberating and smothering. It's wonderful, really. Or it will be, you hope. How sad it would be, if the void had claimed so much of you that you could never touch the light again. How fitting. But that's no good for you. You suppose you'll just have to keep going until the world accepts you're here to stay.

Is that arrogance? After all this time? Guess you came out more intact than you thought after all.

You open your eyes.

You're standing in a field. The sky is blue, the grass is also blue, and there's not a single thing standing against the horizon. Actually, that's a little reductive, if you look closely the sky is more a dusty blue-grey, the primordial chaos shifting behind the borders of the realm. And the grass has a translucence to it, revealing an iridescent ichor beneath...

You don't recognise it. Not a surprise, you've been gone a long time. The living move and change, as is their nature. The thought triggers something in you, a low sound tearing its way from your lips. A murmur becomes a giggle, a giggle becomes a laugh and suddenly you're cackling, standing alone in this field.

"I'm back!"

Your voice echoes across the plain, fading into the clouds and fields. If you listen carefully, you can almost hear a half-asleep sound artist belatedly playing a canned lightning strike. Not really, that would be ridiculous. What really happens is no one says anything, because there's no one else here. Was fun regardless though. You probably shouldn't do it again.

Also the grass has been trying to eat you for the past ten minutes. It's failing miserably, of course, but that kind of behaviour probably has something to do with why no one else is here. You pull out a handful of the leaves out as petty revenge. It tastes sticky, with a springy, almost tendon-like texture. It's not very filling. Still, taste is taste, so that alone makes it worth it. You'll just have to find actual food later. Maybe pancakes. But that's a concern for later.

You walk. You need the cardio anyways. Surely you'll find something if you go far enough, else someone will find you. Who would be so bored and wasteful as to leave an entire realm unattended? Lucifer would certainly never have stood for it. Maybe there's been a change in leadership? Or perhaps you simply don't have the whole picture yet.

-

You've gotten nowhere. Oh you've been walking, certainly, and you even double-checked to make sure you haven't been going in circles. Did you zone out? What were you thinking about, while the neverending fields of blue pass on by? Oh dear. Oh well. Worthless things aren't worth dwelling on.

It's not really your fault anyways. It must have been hours since you arrived, or at least quite a few minutes. You're still adjusting to external time. Another thing to work on.

Still, did everyone in the Demon World die or something? Surely someone should have taken, if not interest, at least notice of your presence. Maybe you should cause some trouble, break a few things. It's not like there's much else here to stop you besides the grass.

Oh, would you look at that, a hole in the ground. What a convenient distraction.

Perhaps you're being uncharitable. It's more of a mound, a slightly raised area that honestly would not look too out of place if it weren't for how utterly unrelentingly flat this realm insists on being. It's actually pretty well-disguised too, you'd never see it from the air, and even from the ground it wouldn't be too hard to miss or dismiss as just part of the landscape. Here and there, buried in the sand, you see tripwires and little things that are most likely wards or alarms. It seems you blew them out without realizing it.

The point is that someone has been here recently, someone has to groom the grass, and...to leave footprints. Okay, so maybe they aren't as smart as you're giving them credit for. Maybe they're just confident? Maybe it's a trap.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The hatch is a thick, rusted thing, coarse with dust and loose soil. Forcing it open takes more effort than you'd like. Could it be that you've weakened? How could that be so! You've only been trapped outside the bounds of reality for subjective eternities.

Eyes, a set of three, glow out from the darkness of the hidey-hole, yellow and bulging. A scent fills the air, one you remember well even now. The smell of rot, of bone and blood taken and stored away by amateur hands. It's a sweet thing, a reminder of what you've lost, a promise of what you'll soon regain. But the here and now comes first.

"Hello little thing. What have you hidden away out here, hmm?"

It's twitching, the eyes flitting back and forth from the entrance you stand in and another place further in. Perhaps it has a whole tunnel network? Oh, you've missed talking. Of all the things! Abyssal Exile makes you appreciate the silliest things.

"Mine! I takeses, I hunt! Bone and marrow sweet, so little I have, please, lord, please…"

Its voice is a reedy thing, raw and pathetic. Vermin, really. How wonderful, how fortuitous. No one tracks the vermin, they get everywhere, the places they shouldn't be most of all. Perhaps you'll learn everything about the state of the world that's changed since you were last here. If only. You're not that lucky.

"Now, now, come out into the light when I'm talking to you. You're not going to lie to me, after all."

With that, you loosen your hold, allowing your power to pool and leak into the air. Let it know exactly what it's up against, how you could crush it, kill it, or worse, with the barest effort. As it stiffens with fear, feel the edges of the shadows, where shape and form meet, render darkness a wall to cut off that last hope of escape. And don't forget to smile.

It flinches and turns to flee, only to find its escape cut off behind it. You can feel the panic, the whisper of its heartbeat stammering in fear. Thump thump thump it goes, a rabbit locked in its cage. You can feel the moment fight or flight gives way to despair, to surrender. Your smile widens, just a tad. It turns back to the hatch, body creaks, joints cracking and popping as it moves. You note the scratching of nails, or perhaps claws, on the hard soil, a little pattern of life you didn't know you missed. As it closes on the doorway, you step aside to give it space to get out. A little courtesy never hurt anyone.

Its body is humanesque, though there's a level of distortion in it that would make mistaking it for a mortal impossible. Arms too long, unevenly spaced across its body, the jutted, protruding shoulders, the way the legs twist backwards, how the eyes stick out of its face as if at odds with the skeleton, all in all it looks exactly like the helpless animal it is. A little disappointing, that. You expected a surprise, mayhaps an attempt to blindside you with hidden strength, but it really is exactly as you expected it to be. Vermin, something that survives by hiding and scavenging, slinking away into the corners of the world away from those that would crush it beneath their heels.

It curdles away under the light, not daring to look up at you. In its hands it clutches what you recognize as human bones, femurs and pelvises, the flesh that once bore it long nibbled away and licked clean. They're strangely small though, as if...

Oh, right. Children, of course. You'd forgotten they were a thing. Honestly, you're almost impressed. It could probably barely fend off a normal human, so to dare to sneak in and take younglings speaks to either an unexpected level of skill, or a sufficiently obsessive desire. Probably a bit of both, judging from the way it gnaws at the bones, clutching them as if a ward of comfort against you. It won't help, but maybe you'll be merciful.

Hah!

Really though, how are you going to get the information you want?

===

[] Take what you need. Even as is, it can still lie to you, or tell you things it doesn't know better about. The best way to verify the information is to check the memories yourself. It probably won't be very filling, but every bit helps. It's not like it can get away from you.

[] Hang around. There's something to this place, and you're pretty sure there's something to it you haven't seen. Look carefully, let it talk, but focus more on the surroundings, and that tunnel. Something doesn't add up.

[] Ask nicely. Take your time, peel this little one apart for everything they're worth. A soul often holds secrets even it doesn't know about, and you never know when a little tangent might be the key to everything. Besides, you need the practice talking to people.

[] Open a Door. Look at it, so pathetic. It's not going to be able to tell you much, it's barely able to speak as is. But even so, it can be useful. Those bones it holds especially can be useful. With them, you can open a sympathetic connection, maybe even navigate a doorway to the mortal realm. Most wouldn't be able to do such a thing, but you're a real special snowflake, see? You even have a convenient sacrifice for the ritual.

Balance of Humours

• Icon of Pestilence: 0
• Warden of Decay: 0
• Lord of the Flies: 0
• Queen Crimson: 1

[] Aspect: Icon of Pestilence
[] Aspect: Warden of Decay
[] Aspect: Lord of the Flies
[] Aspect Queen Crimson


The system I'll be using for this quest is a bit unique. Basically, Beelzebub has four "aspects", each represented by a title of hers. Each of these aspects represent different parts of her personality, different viewpoints and perspectives, while still being part of her. There's only one Beelzebub. Remember that, that's important. Descriptions of Aspects can be found in the character sheet.

When you're given a vote option, there will be an additional vote on aspects. In this segment, you pick an aspect to boost by a single point value. If all aspects have at least one point, there will be a "normalization" effect that reduces all aspects until one of them hits zero, so there will never be true balance. You wouldn't want that anyways; even if having zeros across the board would be the best for Beel personality-wise. Beel's powers are tied to her aspects, so more extreme imbalance means a more unhinged Beelzebub, but it also means a more powerful one. Different aspects are likewise tied to different powers, different expressions of force. For example, the power she used in this update is [Chernabog], which allows her to control shadows and darkness, spaces of uncertainty that most resemble the Abyss she learned to shape while trapped. I'll update the character sheet as you go and figure out the rest of the powers. Among other things.

Oh, right. What happens if Aspects unbalance too much? Well, they start to take over, obviously. Push too far, and Beel will lose herself, and then no one will be able to control her, least of all herself. So it's a balancing act. Also, keep in mind that certain actions will affect the aspect balance, outside of the direct aspect vote. Have fun.

Credit to InterstellarHobo and Lisafication, who happened to be on the 8th SV Council Discord when I asked for feedback.