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The first movement the surface saw in hours was the shifting of a massive rock. It twitched, then moved a couple inches seemingly on its own accord, and moments later a tiny snake peeked out from underneath it. The little serpent looked around, saw absolutely nothing of interest, and pulled back down into the hole. Down in the cave below, the gorgon announced that she saw nothing above ground and that it should be safe to come out. With the hairsnakes writhing around on her shoulders, she was almost glad to have them. It felt nice to be useful.

Gowris heaved the rock blocking the entrance up and rolled it away, climbing out of the crawl hole that led to the hidden cave below. Vyvyla followed and Sha soon afterwards. The naga slid out of the cave over the course of about ten seconds, nervous of the surroundings and on the alert for any stray demons that might have escaped the Umbral Scourge. When Srida emerged from the cave, she gasped.

She had seen some of the carnage when looking to see if the fighting was still in the distance, but to truly see how much damage had been done was downright frightening. Corpses were everywhere. Not only were smaller demons such as imps and wraiths lying dead on the ground, but there were larger monsters that must have been fifty feet in height, their guts spilled out, knees broken in, and heads torn off. Horns were shattered, limbs removed, skulls crush, torsos shot--the scene was so gory Srida gagged. And it stretched on, and on, and on.

"How?" she whispered.

Gowris just shook his head. "I don't know. I've literally never actually seen him--it. Those who have tell me it looks just like a man."

"In armor unlike any they've ever seen," Vyvyla said in a small voice. "We are nothing in the grand scale. Always remember that."

As Srida continued forwards she found herself slithering through the blood and guts. If she had feet, she might have been able to pick her way through the gore without getting them dirty, but a giant serpent had no choice.

"It'll lose magical resistance shortly," Sha said quietly to her, "become inorganic and burn off. Don't bother trying to avoid it."

Srida gave him a curt nod and slithered onwards, trying not to think about the bone, flesh and guts she was sliding over.

They walked for a few minutes in silence as per Vyvyla's orders, listening for any trace of chaos in the distance. Fortunately, nothing sounded. After about five minutes, they came across what was possibly the largest monster Srida had ever seen. It looked like a gigantic elephant crossed with a centaur, covered in a chitinous plating that must have been at least three inches thick. The whole beast, probably a hundred feet tall or so, had been killed by some kind of energy weapon, a seared hole straight through its throat.

"A Tripidian," Vyvyla said as its corpse came into view. "You don't see those very often. The fact that the upper hellions are sending those after him means something."

Rose looked at her, confused. "What exactly?"

Vyvyla shook her head. "I don't know. But it's not normal. We're going to need to find out what."

Then Vyvyla looked at her boyfriend--or perhaps her husband?--Srida had never thought to ask. "Do you want to stay with them or me?"

"I'll stay," Gowris said quietly. "You get find Ceelia and the lot and check if Stillrock is still intact."

Vyvyla didn't look to happy at that prospect. "Lost souls, I hope it is. It's been around for so long..."

The succubus took a couple steps away from him and her eyes glowed bright red. "Another thing that you can do when as you get stronger," she said to Srida, not knowing the others had explained soul expansion to her, "is take on knew forms. As you get stronger, you could shapeshift into a naga, or perhaps a giant serpent that's a hundred feet long. For me..."

Suddenly two magnificent draconic wings snapped out from behind her, alight with deep red flame. The horns on the top of her head were glowing red hot, her eyes alight with power, and wings engulphed in fire. She was a good two feet taller, her red skin now covered in scales, and her hands almost claw like. Vyvyla was suddenly terrifying as she gave her monstrous wings a beat, lifting into the air.

Nobody except Srida flinched.

"I'll catch up with you later," she said from above, her voice sounding like multiple people were talking in unison. "I'll let you know if I see any demons. Stay safe."

Then with a couple more beats of her wings, she was gone.

Jorg saw her expression and laughed. "Like we told you, she's no simple succubus. That woman has a decent amount of power."

Gowris was still watching her fly away. "She's so hot when she does that," he murmured.

Srida leapt at the opportunity. "You could say she's on-"

"Don't _fucking _say it!" Gowris barked, but unable to keep a grin off his face.

Gowris led the group onwards, though everyone except for Srida seemed to know where they were going. They were out of the gore soon enough and Sha had been right. Separated from the remains of the bodies, the blood soon lost its magical resilience and became inert, boiling and burning off Srida's unaffected scales. It wasn't long before they were passing fields--actual crops of food being grown in the underworld.

"Oh thank goodness they weren't trampled," Rose said in a sigh of relief. "They take so long to get up to this size."

The crop she was referring to looked like a vine, except the vine was an endless, bony limb that looked like belonged on a starving child, and not a plant. Occasionally a tentacle would emerge from the network of limb-stems and end with a sphere sort of like a pumpkin. The sphere looked like it was made of stone, or perhaps baked clay, and the largest grew to about three feet in size.

"Rockfruit," Rose said, glancing back at Srida as the group walked--or slithered--past the edge of the field. "If you break one open it's filled with wormy flesh, but mulched down and seasoned right it's actually pretty good."

"Sounds vile," Srida frowned, shuddering at the thought of eating worms.

"It's a rock full of noodles," Gowris said flatly. "But nobody seems to know what a damn noodle is."

"What?" Srida gave him a confused look, and Gowris sighed. "No, how do you guys not know what a noodle is?"

Gowris barked with laughter. "Thank you! Finally! At least some of you new spawns seem to have an idea what it is. Seems wherever I lived is finally reaching out!"

Srida opened her mouth and cut herself off immediately. She'd nearly said Yawlen, the nation renowned for its pastas and pastries. Hard knowledge doesn't carry over. Just concepts, Andreas said in the back of her head. Don't blow it.

They eventually came upon a small road through the field of Rockfruit, and made their way down it. Srida had been expecting a few minutes of travel--not hours. They made small talk the entire way, Gowris taking off to fly circles to make sure there wasn't anything lurking over the horizon while Rose and Sha explained the various type of plant she might see in the underworld. They all looked like deformed limbs apparently, with red or purple being a generally healthy color, and black dead--because they lost their magic and burnt.

As they approached the end of the field, something odd started to happen to the landscape--the ceiling of the underworld was coming down to meet the ground. Were they reaching the edge? She looked at the slowly descending roof curiously--more through her snakes that craning her neck upward--and shot the others a curious glance. Jorg chuckled. He was waiting for the question.

"I don't suppose you figured the underworld was one big open cavern," he said in a low voice.

Srida shook her head smiling. "Are there tunnels?"

The hellhound shrugged. "Some, nothing too cramped." He paused for a moment. "The only place that is a honeycomb of tight tunnels is mostly inhabited by nagas, obviously. Right Sha?"

The naga nodded. "It's hundreds of days from here though. At least. But it's a nice bustling colony of nagas. I'd like to go back there sometime, if Raj ever falls."

He sounded a bit forlorn as he said that. Raj was one of the local upper hellions, controlling a large chunk of territory and all the tunnels unfortunately that connected the series of great caverns they lived in and the ones next to them. The caverns they currently inhabited had once been controlled by a hellion named Thesuis, but the Umbral Scourge had ripped his spine out about seven hundred years prior.

"Raj has been careful since what happened to Thesuis," Gowris said in a low voice. "That's why he didn't expand his territory into this region. Doesn't want to overextend himself and make himself a target."

"Does the Scourge go after the strongest hellions?" Srida asked.

"He seems to make them a priority," Sha said. "But what he does is gets into the middle of an area then attacks. With their minions spread out, it's easier for him to creep in undetected. And if the fighting starts in the middle of your territory..."

"You could lose a lot," Srida finished.

Everyone else nodded.

"Well," Rose said, trying to change the topic. "This is the biggest tunnel connecting the two main caverns we live in. There are multiple all around, but most people just take this one."

"It is the easiest to fly through," Gowris noted. "Nice and wide, not to mention straight..."

"Yeah well not many of us have to worry about that," Rose said, her voice sour.

"One hundred years..." Gowris said in a sing song voice, quite uncharacteristic of him. "One hundred years and you get your wings."

Srida looked at Rose curiously. "Vampires can fly?"

"We get giant bat wings eventually," she said resentfully. "But I need to go a hundred years without dying."

"It's a hundred for us dragonborn too," Gowris said sharply, "and more for the succubi. But both Vyvyla and I managed it."

"Yeah but you two are..." Rose trailed off, unsure what to say.

Srida glanced at the vampire who was looking visible distraught. She really wanted her flight.

Gowris let her resentment wash over him. "Rose, you're like Vyvyla and I. Careful, deliberate and intelligent. You're just younger, that's all. I truly think you'll get them in time. Perhaps even in your first hundred."

Rose glanced back at him, a mixture of resentful, guilty and sad. She'd almost snapped at him, but he'd just been kind in return. The little exchange left Srida thinking. Gowris looked intimidating and mean, so she really hadn't expected that kind of reaction from him. Yet, it had been the right response.

The giant tunnel they passed through was about fifty feet tall, but the reason she hadn't seen it from a distance was the way it slowly sank down into the ground. It was a giant if shallow U shape, several miles long and about a hundred feet wide. As they entered it, Srida noticed the walls were laced with what could only be described as glowing red quartz. It radiated light and heat alike, in addition to something else. Something she couldn't quite describe. Magic, perhaps? The others made no mention of it and she was too shy to ask.

After a few moments of consideration, Andreas realized something. He still had access to his regular spellcasting, and perhaps his magical senses were tuned slightly differently than the others. Filing that in the back of his head, he switched his headspace back to Srida.

The sound of beating wings alerted them to Vyvyla overhead, who landed just in front of them. She didn't look quite as demonic as she had during her transformation, as her horns--while still glowing--were smaller and wings no longer on fire. She'd also lost about a foot in height and the scaling on her body was a bit subtler then before--quite similar to Srida's.

"Almost everyone's okay," she announced, her voice no longer layered and creepy. "Two of the groups lost a scout each unfortunately, but considering that's only two of a thousand people, I'd say that's the best we could have hoped for."

Rose breathed a sigh of relief and the others visibly relaxed and Vyvyla touched down, walking backwards to face them while talking and matching the groups pace.

"Seems he isn't rooting us out anymore," Sha said dryly. "I suppose we aren't a threat?"

"Actually, yes." Vyvyla said. "Jahala's group actually saw him face to face. The rocks covering their cave got shifted and he definitely saw them."

"And he didn't kill them?!" Rose sounded downright shocked.

"There were several displacer beasts on him," Vyvyla said grimly.

"Well that makes a bit more sense," Gowris grunted.

"Indeed. There's another new spawn as well, found him wandering by the low exits. A displacer beast himself as well."

"Hey! Srida get's a pal!" Rose leaned into the gorgon and elbowed her playfully. "I bet he's cute."

Srida blushed, more out of Andreas not knowing how to handle this kind of situation, and the succubus grinned and raised an eyebrow. "Displacer beasts are always cute. Poor guy was even more confused than Srida too."

"Spawning as a displacer beast is like spawning as a gorgon," Jorg said to Srida with a faint smile. "Most people are hellcats instead."

"I don't think I've ever heard of a displacer beast," Srida said slowly. A lie, of course. Andreas had studied demons extensively at the college, and had heard of every form they'd come across so far.

"Like Jorg, but a cat," Rose said in an upbeat voice, the poor attitude she'd had at being wingless earlier now forgotten. "But they also have another set of arms, and two tentacles coming out of their back. With spiked spades on the end."

Srida raised her eyebrows. "Sounds nasty."

"They're agile like you wouldn't believe," Sha said. "There's a reason three of them kept the Scourge busy enough that he didn't kill Jahala's group."

Vyvyla nodded to him. "Exactly. We lost two bodies today, but really, we got two far better people in exchange. Not that I'm happy they're gone," she added quickly. "But objectively speaking..."

"Hopefully the demons got them and not the Scourge," Gowris said.

Vyvyla nodded again. "Most likely, they're in for a bad few days but I'm sure they'll spawn just fine."

"But...won't they be far away?" Srida asked curiously.

Vyvyla shrugged like it wasn't a big deal. "Depends. When your soul is in freefall like that, it's when you really suffer. Some people can keep their mind together through that, and stay in the same location. Others lose focus and drift."

Jorg shot Srida a sideways glance. "It's bad. The pain is different for everyone, sometimes emotional, sometimes physical, sometimes it's just simply being really itchy. And moving around _always _mitigates it."

"So they're gone," Srida said quietly, "even if they're not destroyed."

"We can't really know," Vyvyla sighed. "Just hope. I didn't know either of them very well so I can't say if they'd be the type of person to endure the torment."

"Imps?" Sha guessed.

The succubus smirked. "Am I that predictable?"

"I'm not answering that," Sha said lightly, but there was warmth in his voice and the others laughed.

The little group spent the next hour and some making the journey through the tunnel. While it was long and wide, it wasn't particularly straight and took several slow turns as they continued on through it. It was also the first time since leaving the cave that Srida had felt she was underground. The underworld had a ceiling yes, but it was so high overhead that the environment never really felt confined. Even though there was a ceiling overhead, the underworld still had a sky. But now, in a comparatively narrow and long tunnel as opposed to a giant cavern, it felt like the walls were pressing down on her, despite still being a hundred feet overhead.

It did begin to widen thankfully, suggesting an end to the tunnel before it could actually be seen. Eventually they crested a hill and found themselves in another monstrous cavern, not unlike the other Srida had first entered the underworld in. Thanks to her hairsnakes, she was able to take in the whole scene at once and noticed a couple things.

Far off to the right was another lava lake, casting a warm orange glow of real light and a substantial more on the infrared spectrum. Now that she knew what was happening, Srida didn't have any trouble differentiating the types of light and was surprised she hadn't actually realized it sooner. More interesting however was the lavafall that poured over a cliff, standing out against the stark black rocks and creating a scenic view for those overlooking the sea of molten rock.

And to her left, was another series of cliffs. These however, were quite a bit different. A trail had been cut into the wall of stone, and every couple hundred feet, a door. Paths cut even deeper into the cliff would allow someone following the path to get to a second, third, and even a forth level in the cliffs, and the entire thing was punctuated with caves. It was surreal enough Srida turned to look at it with her own eyes, disregarding the view her hairsnakes provided.

"That is incredible," she breathed. "This is Stillrock?"

Gowris nodded with a smile on his face. "It's really something isn't it? We have several home cliffs just like this."

"I like how every single one of the snakes on her head is looking at it," Rose teased.

Srida blushed and her hairsnakes fell into their normal disarray, writhing atop her head without any real direction like they normally did.

The others laughed and even Gowris allowed himself a chuckle. "Here," he said, leading them onwards. "Let's get you a cave to live in. There are plenty on the third level that are still unoccupied."

"How did you carve all these out?" Srida asked, somewhat amazed. Andreas knew that demons--and by extension, hellions--only had very specific magic based on their race and power, and he was pretty sure stone shaping wasn't included in that bucket.

"With a lot of effort," Sha said in a low voice.

A couple of the snakes on the back of Srida's head focused on him, giving him a bit of a look to elaborate. He stared at them, unsure what to make of it until she glanced back with a curious expression.

"We just chipped away at the stone with a pickaxe," he said. "Some people are quite a bit faster than you'd expect." He glanced to Gowris, who rolled his eyes.

"Hellions with enhanced strength are a large part of it," Gowris admitted. "Not that it takes away from the work..."

"No, no, of course not," Srida said absentmindedly, slithering up the path. "Third level?"

The group showed her to a cave situated near the edge of the third level, overlooking the mouth of the tunnel they'd just emerged from. It was built for a naga specifically, featuring a small hole that only she and Sha could slither through, and a main doorway for visitors. Feeling it was appropriate to use the entrance specifically designed for her, Srida slid through the narrow tunnel and emerged into her new home. The inside of the cave was about seven feet high and was divided into two small rooms. The main room was obviously the living space, with a table for eating at and a couple seats chipped into the wall, obviously intended for guests.

The others--aside from Sha, who had slid through the naga entrance as well--walked through the main door and cramped into the main living room-kitchen area. Between a gorgon, naga, and for other normal bodies, it was quite cramped.

"Welcome to your new home," Vyvyla said warmly. "More than enough room for yourself, and perhaps a second should you couple up with anyone..."

Srida hid her discomfort and nodded in thanks. "What do I do for food?" she asked. "It's a living space, but also kind of empty..."

Vyvyla nodded without hesitation, seeming a little impatient--or perhaps rushed. "Rose, do you mind helping her get the essentials for the place? Sha and Jorg if you want to help as well that'd be great. We're going to make flights back and forth and just keep morale up amongst the returning groups. Some people aren't taking it so well." She glanced to Gowris who nodded in agreement.

"It's for the best," he said.

The two hellions took off from the cliffside, leaving Srida with the naga, hellhound and vampire.

"Do they run the place?" Srida asked curious, watching the dragonborn and succubus fly down into the tunnel they'd just come from.

Jorg shrugged. "To some degree. Ceelia and Mathalus are the two who are really in charge, but they get hellions with several hundred years of power to work closely with them--mainly because they can fly."

"Flight is a big deal, isn't it?" Srida asked quietly, careful not to look at Rose when she spoke.

Sha nodded with pursed lips. "It struck me as strange too that messenger is among the most esteemed positions one can hold down here. But that's life."

"Well, when you have those upper hellions scattered everywhere, moving from place it place is dangerous," Jorg said darkly.

"Well," Rose said, her tone a little curt. "Shall we work on getting Srida settled in?"

The group spent the better part of the afternoon getting odds and ends for Srida's cave. The entire time she was torn, unsure how she should be taking this situation. When Andreas had been pulled down into the umbral plain, this was by far the last thing he'd expected. Part of his mind was nagging him to find a way back to the overworld--but the truth was, he had absolutely no idea how to do that.

As far as Andreas knew, the only way to leave the underworld was to be summoned, and to remain in the overworld one needed a body to anchor them. He had the body independent of his soul--for he hadn't died yet--but that still didn't solve the problem of there simply being no way out of the umbral plain. All the while Rose was helping her find stone bowls, metal metal cutlery, and even a polished metal disk to act as a mirror--something Srida was careful not to look into--Andreas was working the problem in his mind, desperately searching his memories for something that could help him.

But the simple, cold truth was that there was nothing. He had falling into a deep pit with smooth walls, and there was no way to climb out. Nobody knew his spiritual tether for someone to summon him out, and he hadn't told anybody about the gorgon he himself and been attempting to destroy for her power. There was no way out on his own, and nobody in the overworld with the information to pull him out. If anyone would even look very hard.

Face it, a voice in the back of his head told him. You killed yourself. You're in the afterlife. You just haven't died yet.

That's right, he scolded himself, squelching the self pity--something he truly hated. You are not dead. Yet. So live.

"We still need to get you some clothes made," Rose said, pulling Srida from her thoughts. "We might have some extra scales lying around, though in time you might want to get clothing made from your own."

"There isn't anything else we can use?" Srida asked curiously, banishing the thoughts she'd been mulling over for the last few minutes. "Seems a little..."

"Weird? Yeah, I know." Rose sighed. "But scales seem to be the only thing that doesn't immediately burn when they become inert."

Srida frowned. "That's odd. But fur from hellhounds does?"

Rose pinched her shirt to show Srida it was made of some kind of wool. "No but...you'd have to convince a hellhound to shave themselves. Jorg did for me. Once," she giggled. "I don't think it'll happen again. Not after discovering how hilarious he looks naked."

Srida fingered the shirt skeptically, smiling. "Clothing must be rare then. Or expensive at least."

"Collect any scales that fall off," Rose said sharply. "If you don't need them yourself, someone will pay well for them." She paused for a moment. "Like me."

She pushed open a heavy stone door to a small building at the base of the cliffs. Like everything else in the underworld, it didn't seem very well furnished, with stone benches and crudely made tables, the fanciest thing in the room a sliding stone slab mounted on metal railing, acting as a window that could be opened. There was also a variety of metal tools on the stone table in the middle of the room, and boxes of raw materials--mostly different kinds of scales as well as some metal wiring.

"Keep in mind the top I gave you is actually really high quality," Rose said sharply. "Oh, you can keep it," she added with a small laugh as Srida glanced at her nervously, "I'd just like some scales of yours when they fall off. I guess I'm one of the village tailors."

Srida looked at the top she was wearing once again. "Wait, you..." she rolled her eyes and sighed. "Of course you made this," the gorgon muttered, a little annoyed with herself. "How did you get them to stick together?"

The little stone container of loose scales hadn't been lost on her, so why wasn't the top falling apart off of her body? Or were those scales rejects?

Rose smirked and picked a small hammer up off the table. "I beat them together."

She held up one of the singular scales to the top Srida was wearing, comparing their differences in size. The scales the garment was made out of was substantially larger from being flattened out, and their coloration slightly faded.

"But," Rose said, "this is a size too small for you and as nice as tight clothing is, it will pull apart after a couple weeks. Scale clothing doesn't stretch well unfortunately."

Srida examined her top once more. Initially she'd found it uncomfortably tight, but if anything it just felt snug now. "I'm not damaging it right now, am it?"

The vampire shrugged, grabbing a thin strip of metal covered in markings--a measuring tape. "Any damage was done when you put it on. Just don't take it off until I have something else for you."

The question what about when I need to bath leapt into her mind, but was immediately overruled with how the hell do I clean myself?

"Uhm," Srida said nervously, holding her arms out so Rose could measure her proportions. "How do we clean ourselves down here?"

The vampire laughed, mirth trickling into it. "Ohhhh boy, trust me. It takes some time getting used too."

When Srida gave her a worried look, she continued.

"Lava," she said simply, and the gorgon's eyes nearly popped out of her head.

"What?!"

Rose grinned. "It's really weird, I know. But molten rock is literally the only fluid down here. So it's that or the flame vents. And this isn't going to survive either of those. Mind you..."

Rose tugged on the top, lifting it up and exposing Srida without any regard for her modesty. She ran her fingers down Srida's side, feeling the scales and then poking her breast, the gorgon fighting the urge to shy away the entire time. She wasn't used to a female form, much less someone touching her.

"Your body is pretty solid," Rose said without any hint of embarrassment at touching another woman. "And the scaling makes you look less...naked. And there are quite a few people who go nude around here. Usually as they get more powerful and their bodies evolve." She tried to pinch Srida but her scales prevented her from getting to sharp of a grip. "See? It's not like you have sharp objects to worry about."

The gorgon gave her a dirty look for trying to pinch the side of her boob. Rose shied away but didn't say anything--and Srida would only realize later that as a gorgon, she needed to be more careful about scowling at people.

"I'd still like a top," she said flatly. "I'm not quite ready to have my tits hanging out just yet. I've already got this," she flipped her hairsnakes behind her to illustrate her point, "to deal with. Can't I just feel like a person for a while?"

Rose nodded in admission. "Of course. Just wanted you to know it isn't weird if you want to forgo clothing. Many with your body would."

Recognizing Rose was just trying to be helpful, Srida let the subject drop and Rose finished measuring her. It hurt Srida internally to do that--no, it hurt Andreas specifically_, _he was one who always needed the last word. Srida bit her tongue and let the subject lay.

After Rose was done her measuring and started forging a top of Srida, the gorgon took the opportunity to head back up to her new home and rest. It wasn't that she needed it physically, but emotionally she was drained. Since the events a day before, it had just been a nonstop slew of information and stress, to the point of overwhelming her--him.

Andreas was back. He flipped himself out of Srida's headspace and back into what he considered his own. Srida was him, but she was an extension of his character. She wasn't as shrewd, wouldn't voice her disagreement if it wasn't critical, and was far more timid. Srida was also a gorgon, a woman with a snake for legs and a writhing mass atop her head. She was covered in scales, had an alien tongue, and green yellow eyes. Andreas couldn't look down at himself and say this is me. This is my body. Srida's character helped him cope with that disparity.

Srida was also what Andreas needed to be to get along with others, he decided, making explicit the approach he'd been instinctually taking. He knew what problems he had, and that didn't normally bother him. In the overworld he could just walk all over others because his situation allowed it. Wealthy, talented, intelligent...he wasn't virtuous, but his family hadn't gotten to where they were in life with generosity. They acted in self-interest, to protect their own. But now, it was in his self-interest to network. Make friends--or at least allies--and to orient himself in this world.

And that thought brought him back full circle, to the reality of his situation. Gods, he was stuck, wasn't he? For the first time, that weight truly settled on his shoulders. It was a brick wall, bearing down on him. Andreas, for all his flaws, had been a hard worker and studied in most of his free time at the academy. It was because of this he couldn't tell himself that there might be a spell he didn't know, because he really did understand how much trouble he was in. One rule was fundamental, taught in his first days at the academy, and so widely known even the public was aware of it.

You cannot climb the planar stack.

Demons couldn't enter the overworld on their own accord, a mage needed to summon them. A human couldn't ascend without help from a god, they needed the power bestowed upon them. These things were simply out of reach. Andreas could no more return to the overworld alone than his teachers could grant themselves immortality.

Andreas slowly slid into the bedroom, a much darker and cooler place with a low ceiling and smooth polished floor. Then he did something he rarely did.

He cried.

The stress was simply too much. The idea that everything he worked for, everything he had, was simply pulled out from under his feet by his own stupidity--he didn't even have feet anymore! The stray thought tipped him over the edge, and coiled up in a ball, the gorgon wept softly. Tears didn't even form properly either, the water leaking from his eyes steamed away as soon as it formed, not even granting him the satisfaction of self-pity.

Andreas was never really sure how long he spent in that state, it could have been hours, it could have been minutes, but it was long enough to get it out of his system. Eventually he found himself laying buried in a giant serpent's coils, the emotion burnt off, and feeling slightly ashamed. Embarrassed by the outburst. Weak.

But his mind was back, analytically unhindered. There was a problem to be solved, and there must be a solution given the rules. He sat up, leaning against his coils and settled deep in thought. He couldn't climb the planar stack, so he had to be summoned. But nobody in the overworld knew he was trapped down in the umbral plain, much less his spiritual tether to pull him out. But how had he entered the underworld exactly? He'd been tethered to a gorgon returning through portal he'd created--a portal that reached down. Could he in theory tether himself to a demon being pulled upwards? In theory, he probably could. Still alive with a physical body, Andreas still had a large magical repertoire he could draw upon. If he could get at a demon being summoned...that carried with it many of its own problems. He needed to find one and tether to them before they were summoned, and not be annihilated by them in the process.

Names of demons--no hellions, upper hellions--played through his mind. The names of the hellions mages typically summoned. The one thread back up to the overworld was their summoning. A brief window to salvation, where he could purge his soul of this umbral magic and be free for the afterlife. The logistics of the magic he could use to tether himself to a hellion started playing out in his mind again, thinking about the many variables that could affect the spell, and how he'd need to craft it. Could it be maintained at a distance? Perhaps he could latch onto them undetected?

But one factor was a constant.

He needed to find an upper hellion.