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For the first time in centuries, Methidion feared for his life.

The imp had been killed countless times, his body destroyed and his soul reborn again and again, unable to ever permanently die. It had always been the way of the umbral plain. Until now. His leg--or the stump where it had once been--burned in agony. Something had hit it. He wasn't sure what and his mind was to foggy from the pain and shock to figure it out. Carnage surrounded him, umbral magic fruitlessly flowed in an effort to fight off the assailant and sounds of agony filled the caves at a level he had never heard before. But above it all were the cracks and booms of that infernal weapon. It cut through everything else, ringing out again and again with relentless ferocity, tearing bodies apart and consuming their souls and essence alike. In the back of his mind, through the pain, the stray magic, and the fear, there was a bit of bemusement. He had envisioned the Umbral Scourge as some terrifying monster, a creature that dwarfed the upper hellions. But instead...it had simply been a man.

A simple man, smaller than many creatures of the umbral plain, and if Methidion were being honest in a clearheaded state, not even that frightening in appearance. It's why he was probably going to die. Methidion cursed his curiosity as he crawled on three limbs away from the battlefield. Maybe by some fluke he wouldn't be noticed, but deep down he knew it was over. Nobody even knew that the Umbral Scourge looked like because nobody within miles of him ever survived.

Methidion looked behind him at the carnage, trying not to look at the stump of his missing leg. The armor the man wore was strange and alien, unlike anything he must have ever seen in the overworld, and moving so fast it was difficult to keep track of him. The weapon flashed for every crack it emitted--quite often in bursts of several per second--and each shot tore a rockfruit sized chunk of flesh out of a victim. That must have been what took off his leg, and the three-limbed imp watched as a dragonborn dove at the Umbral Scourge, hoping to land a blow in and crack that armor. It was still thirty feet up when the Umbral Scourge turned his weapon on the airborne demon, the weapon cracking and the dragonborn torn into a gory mess, falling to the ground in pieces.

But then he witnessed what the dragonborn's true death. Killed traditionally as it had just been, his essence hung in the air as a red fog, slowly disseminating where he would eventually reform weeks, months or perhaps even years later. But then the Umbral Scourge drew the red smoke into his weapon, consuming the dragonborn's power, and fueling his eternal rampage. Methidion stopped his crawl in shock, his pain momentarily forgotten. This _man _was using their own essence and their own souls to slaughter them.

Methidion needed a way out, but with one leg and a mind numbed from shock, he wasn't going to make it very far. Just a couple hundred feet away however, was possibly salvation. A cliff, overlooking a lava lake, and a drop that was probably a mile high. After seeing the dragonborn die, then be truly destroyed, the imp knew what he had to do.

The battle raged on in full force, if it really could be considered a battle. The truth was the demons had no chance. Most of them had no souls and were just beings of mindless aggression, but a couple of the hellions wrapped up in the situation desperately exerted their will on the surrounding monsters in an effort to survive against the juggernaut that stood before them. It wasn't a battle, it was a slaughter. At one point a titanic demon lumbered into the fight and brought one of its massive clawed hands down on the Umbral Scourge in an effort to crush him. Instead, it was like it drove a nail through its palm. His armor was so strong the demons flesh broke before the armor buckled, leaving the Umbral Scourge standing in the middle of a man-sized hole through the demon's hand.

The demon was headless shortly after.

If Methidion was capable of crying, he would have. No water leaked from his eyes, but his chest heaved and pathetic noises emerged from his mouth. It was the first time in his life he was truly terrified.

At some point dizziness overwhelmed him and he almost lost consciousness, collapsing to the ground and laying amongst the corpses and gore. In that instance, he lost track of time, and he forgot what was happening. Methidion just wanted to die.

"There's a reason I only shot off your leg."

The voice was deep, filtered and inhuman. Some of the upper hellions had strange voices, some rumbling with growl like qualities, others sounding like multiple people speaking and once, slightly pitch shifted. But this voice...it almost sounded metallic.

Methidion looked up to see hell's worst nightmare towering over him. There was no face to be seen, just a metallic plate that betrayed no hint of emotion. But in the body language...it was almost curiosity. The tilted head, the loose grip on the weapon. Yet Methidion still doubted he was making it out alive.

"You're one of the smart ones. I can see it in your eyes."

The voice expressed interest. A desire to know something. But there was no mercy in it. Just a cold, objective curiosity.

"Why are you doing this?" Methidion's voice was barely more than a whisper. Almost all the energy had been bled from him, and the imp was on the cusp of death.

In response, the Umbral Scourge looked away towards something and pointed. Methidion managed to follow his direction--barely. Even turning his head felt like a monumental effort.

Not thirty steps from them was something strange. Something alien. Something that distinctly did not belong. It was a disc of energy suspended in the air, surrounded in red and black smoke and flashing with silent bolts of red lightning. Methidion has never seen anything like it. Was it a portal? An exit to the umbral plain? And if so, where did it lead that such a being of power guarded it?

"I believe intelligent creatures deserve to know why their lives are forfeit," the Umbral Scourge said, looking back to Methidion. " And I only kill those who see the exit. For example, those three succubi hidden in that cave half a mile away?" He pointed with one of his heavy gloves hands, then looked back to the imp. "They haven't seen the portal, or myself for that matter, so there's no reason to destroy them."

His head tilted again and even though Methidion couldn't see the man's face beneath that mask, he could sense his expression change.

"But you, you have seen the way out, and I can't afford any more monsters trying to escape. I need you to be frightened. I need you to run from me."

Methidion looked up at the Umbral Scourge crouched over him and mustered up the last scraps of energy to make one plea, one last pathetic hope for survival.

"Please don't kill me. I won't speak."

The metal clad man stood back up from his crouched position, slowly levelling his weapon at Methidion.

"Unfortunately, I can't do that." He looked away for a moment to survey the battered hellscape then back to the dying imp. "I suffer the trials of hell, an eternity of torment by combat and the curse of eternal life granted by the infernal aura of the umbral plain to guard the realms of men. I take your life not out of malice, but out of necessity! And the day the portal closes, I will--"

He cut himself off at the sound of rapidly approaching hooves. Methidion managed to turn his head just enough to see an infernal steed--a centaur alight with flame--charging the Umbral Scourge with a crude axe in hand.

It was in that instant opportunity struck. As the Umbral Scourge turned to dispatch the infernal steed, one dying burst of energy filled Methidion's body. It was now, or the cold void of oblivion. As the weapon fired, its crack both brutal and filled with primal power, Methidion leapt into action. With his doom looking the other way, the imp sprinted and stumbled on his three remaining limbs towards the cliff side, hurling himself off the edge just as the Umbral Scourge turned back to where he'd been only a moment prior. As he fell, relief flooded through him. The sensation of falling not a horrific one that ripped him from his dreams, but an ode to freedom. To survival.

To his continued existence in the fires of hell.

***

Somehow, the room laughed.

It sent Srida's--or rather, Andreas' mind--spinning. What was funny? His first action in the underworld had been to try to kill the imp. Fortunately, the imp kept talking.

Standing up on the table, he hobbled slightly to the side before regaining his balance, holding an oily drink that had similar effects to alcohol but was closer to poison.

"The first thing she does in the underworld is turn me to stone," the imp sighed, speaking like he was some kind of disappointed parent.

The statement got some mirthful smiles, the general group ready to tease her for her mistake, and the imp had a grin of his own, but it didn't reach his eyes. His gaze was hard and cold, unlike the playful mocking tone. The imp knew, but he hadn't said anything. So she held his gaze with a pained smile that was equally void of humor.

"Guess I'm a little skittish," she said after a moment, slowly glancing around the room to gauge the reactions of others. It was eerily similar in tone to a group that had just pulled a prank on someone and were collectively awaiting her reaction. "Little odd for someone my size, don't you think? Maybe I'll jump at a rat too?"

The imp hopped off the table and held out his hand for her to shake, giving a mocking bow in the process. Willing to play along in hopes he wasn't about to spill her secret, she shook his hand tentatively and grimaced when he crushed it in his surprisingly strong grip.

"My name is Methidion," he said, his voice still overly theatric, "I'm about a thousand years old, have died two hundred and thirty-four times, and right at the start of my life I decided not to bother expanding my soul so every time I die, I'm back within a week."

He released her hand from his obnoxious grip. "Because of that, I'm probably the best scout in hundreds of miles, and I've seen some things I doubt anybody else here has. Soooooo.... Welcome to Stillrock. Try not to kill anyone else, will you?"

He nimbly hopped back up onto the table, and took another swig from his drink, giving her shrewd eyes the whole time. The buzz in the room slowly resumed after a somewhat awkward silence, and Srida was grateful for Vyvyla in the corner, who gestured for Leo and Srida to join her at a smaller table with Gowris.

"Failed to mention a bit, didn't you?" she asked, but there was warmth in her voice, unlike the imp who had just finished.

Srida grimaced, willing to take on the shame of what the others viewed as a justifiable mistake, and hoping the truth didn't come out. Whether or not she should approach the imp later about what he'd seen hung over her head however.

"He was the first thing I saw," she said bashfully, "and within a minute of waking up. I..." she shrugged, and then told the part of the story that was the truth. "Well I just reacted. I had no idea what was going on. Truth be told, the only reason I didn't lash out at you on sight was because I heard you speak first. I didn't realize hellions even existed."

Vyvyla nodded slowly and Gowris looked at her in agreement.

"It's what a lot of us think initially," he said, completely unphased by her explanation. "Lots of us lash out like that, you just happened to have a rather...strong form initially. Truth be told, we're rather lucky it was Methidion who took the hit."

Vyvyla bit her lip with rather wide eyes and nodded in agreement. "That's true. I don't want to know how that would have faired for one of us."

"Probably would have had stiff joints," Leo joked, and Gowris snorted.

"That's closer to reality than you think," the dragonborn said. "I've only ever caught a glancing blow of the magic before and I've never been so sore."

Srida looked at him curiously. She'd always assumed hellions like himself and Vyvyla were entirely above her in terms of magic. Vyvyla seemed to catch onto her train of thought and explained.

"Resistance is a trait unto itself," she said. "Not many people really opt for it until late in their lives. It just isn't that useful."

"Or fun," Gowris grinned, tugging on one of the wings on Vyvyla's back. The succubus grinned back and flicked him with her tail, rustling the bat-like wings behind her.

"Isn't useful?" Srida asked skeptically. "Even with the upper hellions and their hypnosis or whatnot?"

Vyvyla bit her lip. "If you're in that scenario, its over for you anyways. If they can't slave you immediately, they'll likely forcefully capture you and take their time to break into your mind. A person can only last so long."

"Unless you have centuries of resistance power," Gowris added. "Which well...unless it's innate with the form, nobody does."

"Not really how I envisioned it," Leo said slowly. "But I suppose it makes sense. Just because you have a sword, doesn't mean you're wearing armor."

Gowris raised his eyebrows. "Good analogy. Some people come down here with an innate sense of why some forms beget certain powers and resistances, but the details are just out of our reach."

"So you're resistant to the lust projections then?" Leo asked, glancing at Vyvyla.

The succubus blushed.

"No?" Leo sounded bemused and aghast. "Seems a little counterproductive..."

"It's the other way around," she whispered. "I'm susceptible because of it."

Gowris was grinning, biting his tongue. "It's hilarious. Anyhow..." he glanced back at Srida. "On the topic of magic, I'm curious if you do have hypnosis as well as petrification. It's always nice to have a couple people around if we need it."

"Interrogation?" Leo guessed.

Vyvyla nodded grimly. "Better than torture, and more effective. Rarely comes to that but it's a reality down here."

The entire conversation, Srida had been closely watching the imp through her hairsnakes. Half paying attention, but more focused on Methidion. He reminded her of an incredibly charismatic if somewhat crude merchant. It was in the way he moved as he spoke, with plenty of gestures, but a large amount of them dismissive of the person, like his attention had to be earned.

"What is his deal?" Srida finally asked after a moment of silence.

Vyvyla leaned to the right slightly and glanced at the few snakes on Srida's head that weren't moving, but watching behind her, and followed their gaze.

"You really need to gesture when you do that," Vyvyla smirked. "But Methidion? What do you mean?"

Leo turned to look at the imp as well, Srida now the only one not visibly staring right at him. "He doesn't act or speak like I expected an imp to, that's for sure," the displacer beast said.

The two old hellions thought about it for a moment.

"He's been around for a long time," Gowris eventually said. "But lots of people treat him like a fresh spawn because he simply chose not to expand himself. Not many make that choice."

"Why?" Srida asked.

"Fatalism?" he said, though he didn't sound entirely sure. "I guess it's just part of his identity at this point. A lowly imp whose job is to go into mortal danger, so we don't have to."

Srida finally looked back at the imp with her eyes for the first time. "Well now I feel even worse." A lie, of course. The fact that the imp had been a hellion and not a demon was terrible, and being unable to get rid of him put her in an incredibly precarious situation.

"Don't," Gowris grunted. "He's a dink and deserves it. I can't believe how the hellhounds eat up his act. He's like a pet to them. Besides, so what, it's completely justified what you did. Don't worry about it."

She frowned and tried not to let her anxiety show. He hadn't spilled the beans for now, so she did need to talk to the imp still and figure out exactly what his intentions were. She just hoped it wasn't blackmail.

***

Srida was working on her spear fighting with renewed intensity the following day. She lashed out like a viper over and over, driving the metal rod into the target as hard as she could in quick succession, dodging nonexistent strikes at routine intervals, and constantly repositioning. If she had been human, she could have been drenched in sweat, but her gorgon body seemed to have no qualms with the heat and was incapable of sweating. Instead, she was just subject to utter exhaustion. Exhaustion that she pushed through. Calluses were forming on her hands from the metal rod constantly sliding through her grasp, and her forearms burned from gripping weapon so hard. Yet she pushed through it, striking the target in the center over and over until she felt like she was going to collapse.

She was alone in the target field, the only others currently training being Bendali and a hellhound wrestling in the sandpit. Perhaps that was why Methidion approached her.

"You really shouldn't let your stress show so much," he said in a quiet voice, approaching the gorgon without a hint of hesitation.

Srida had seen him approach through her hairsnakes, and pounded the target a couple more times before sinking to the ground, eye level with him when her hips were ground level.

"I need to burn it off," she said curtly, dropping the metal rod to her side. It felt wrong to exercise so hard and not have water afterwards--but it didn't exist in the umbral plain. Demons didn't need it to survive.

The imp looked at her through squinted eyes. "Summoning spell gone wrong?" he asked in a low voice such that even the most sensitive eavesdropping ears couldn't hear them.

Srida nodded slowly. "Something like that."

Methidion mulled that over for a moment. "You know, I've seen a lot of shit. Probably some things literally nobody else alive in this place has. Yet, I've only seen a summoning backfire like that twice before," he said, pacing circles around her, the gorgon impressed with how commanding his presence was, despite his size. This was very different to the belligerent drunken imp from the previous night. Eventually he made eye contact with her again, as if to say I don't fear your gaze. In fact, she very much doubted this imp feared anything.

"The other men weren't fast like you were." The statement hung in the air for a moment. "Cooked alive and burned to ash in under a minute."

Srida licked her lips nervously. "So there's no one else like me."

"Nobody that I know of at the moment," he said, finally breaking off eye contact. "But I'd think that not all our explicit knowledge of the overworld comes from the upper hellions. I imagine some down here came down in life and not death. Cowards."

"I'm not here by choice," Srida growled.

The imp snorted. "Well good luck leaving. I doubt an upper hellion will give you a ride out anytime soon."

He picked up her training spear off the ground and handled it experimentally. It was far to large for him and would have worked better as a pole vaulting rod for someone his size. Then he flipped it around and handed it to her.

"With this little show you're putting on out of anger or stress or whatever, you clearly didn't tell them the full story." He looked back to her sharply.

Srida shook her head, calming her hairsnakes slightly so they weren't writhing so aggressively. They tended to do that when she was stressed.

"Good," the imp grunted. "That would attract the wrong kind of attention. Do yourself a favor and get yourself killed so you lose that human magic. The last thing we need is the upper hellions getting wind of that and coming after you--and all of us by proxy."

"What?!" Srida hissed. "No!"

The imp turned towards her and backhanded her across the jaw with an incredibly vicious blow, the speed and force stunning her. "Coward!" he hissed back, keeping his voice low as to not attract attention--as if his strike hadn't. "Next time there's a battle, you martyr yourself! If you don't, I'll have Ceelia kill you herself!"

When Srida opened her mouth to speak, Methidion talked over her. "She will do it," he said dangerously while she clutched her jaw. "I'm giving you some time, but if an upper hellion finds out, you really don't want to know what will happen."

Then he walked away, leaving the gorgon in the dirt clutching her jaw more from shock than pain. Part of her respected the audacity of the little imp, part of her was outraged at what he had just told her to do, and a small third part of her mind told her that he was right.

The remainder of the day passed in a blur and ended with Srida lying curled up in her cave on a bed of snake composed from her own body. Her humanoid half was partially buried in her heavy coils, only her head and an arm poking out from the heap of snake. She had indeed burnt off the stress, and now she just felt hollow. There had been a pit in her stomach the entire day and she really had no idea how she was going to handle the situation.

"Srida?"

Leo's voice tugged her away from the edge of sleep, startling her ever so slightly. She just wanted to be left alone, and looked up at him through her hairsnakes, otherwise not moving. He was poised at the edge of her sleeping room, looking through the low doorway.

"Are you doing alright? What did the imp say?" His voice was hardly more than a whisper, so the sharp ears of the hellhounds couldn't pick up what he said.

The gorgon took a moment than raised her head to look at him. "He saw everything," she finally said in a faint voice. There was far more horror in it than she intended, but it rang true with her emotional state.

Leo visibly deflated a bit too. "But he isn't saying anything?"

She wasn't sure how to break it to him, that it would take far longer to figure out a way to get back to the overworld than they likely had.

"Come in here," she said quietly, gesturing slightly with the tip of her tail.

The displacer obliged, and once he was through the doorway, she got up and shifted her bulk so that her coils plugged the doorway. Leo suddenly looked uneasy, and it struck her perhaps he was slightly claustrophobic?

"I don't want any sound getting out," she explained in a low voice, shifting herself more so that it was completely sealed off in addition to giving the two of them something to lean against.

Leo obliged, moving on all sixes like cat, settling down so he was sitting in her coils like a beanbag.

"That damn imp saw everything," she repeated, still keeping her voice down. "Me entering, transforming, everything. And I guess the entrance was hard to miss."

"What does he want?" Leo immediately asked.

Srida's jaw twitched. "He's worried about my magic. I'm not sure why, but he thinks it would be incredibly valuable to the upper hellions, and doesn't want word of it getting out, and bringing them here."

"Well that's reasonable," the displacer beast said slowly. "I hardly blame him. But I suppose that means you can't really practice it in case someone else finds out and a rumor starts."

She shook her head. "Worse. Way worse. He wants me to off myself."

Leo's expression remained completely impassive, his only reaction licking his lips nervously. "And lose the magic," he finally said. "That's...a problem."

"And if I don't, he's going to tell Celia and have her do it."

"If she doesn't use you for her own gain," Leo frowned, and when he saw Srida's confused expression, he elaborated. "I don't know. I know what she's built here is a good thing, but the woman--both of them actually, both her and Mathalus--they're tyrants too. Just...the benevolent kind."

He gave her a pained expression. "Yet I'm not entirely sure about that. I've talked to Celia a couple times now, and I just get an uneasy feeling about her. Same with that husband of hers. There is...something about them that bothers me."

Srida reflected on that for a moment. In her few conversations with them, they had seemed like genuinely nice people, just trying to do the best to make her comfortable and welcome.

"I don't see it," Srida said. "But I could see her killing me to flush the magic from my soul," she added darkly. "Cutting off a gangrenous limb so to speak."

"Maybe I'm just wary of people who run things with an iron fist," Leo muttered. "Ironic, considering I was military. But the leadership there is earned through competence and experience, it isn't tyranny of power, regardless how well intentioned."

He sighed, and Srida felt him relax completely. Up until that point, he had been supporting himself somewhat, but now hew as entirely at ease on top of her coils. Then the intrusive thoughts struck Srida again and she pursed her lips. She objectively knew what was happening, but it still wasn't pleasant.

Andreas was compartmentalized in her brain. That was who he was on a fundamental level, and he was the seed of Srida's identity. Srida was the headspace he'd slipped into in hopes of preserving Andreas, and not having his personality weathered away by the gorgon's biology. It worked for people in the otherworld, it kept the behaviors of the person in their human form and their demonic form separate.

_Perhaps part of the headspace technique is allowing the biology to define a second personality. _The thought floating through her mind, and Andreas inside her flinched. But she couldn't deny that on an instinctual level, Leo was incredibly attractive. He was tall, broad shouldered, literally every single muscle on his body was well developed and flowed, yet his fur kept the definition from being freaky, and he was lying right on top of her. Or her serpentine half at least.

Srida squelched the thoughts again. It wasn't the first time. Andreas' identity as a straight man kept bubbling up and suppressing those thoughts, molding Srida's behavior. But she wasn't Andreas right now. She was Srida, and the whole purpose of compartmentalizing the old person and allowing the new to grow was to keep them separate. She couldn't keep pushing what she felt down...

"Still, that is a problem," Leo said darkly, breaking the silence and pulling Srida from her introspection. "How long do we have?"

Srida snapped back into focus mode. "I've hardly solved half academic the problems I need to. I don't know how long we have, but I'm willing to bet it isn't enough time. He said 'next time there's a battle,' but I've got a nasty feeling that he'll want it sooner. And even then, I'd still need to leash to an upper hellion..."

"Which is literally the hardest part," Leo said quietly. "But you are hypnosis resistant right?"

Srida snorted in derision. "That wouldn't help. It's only good in the heat of the moment, like a battle or something. Or so they tell me."

She leaned back herself and sighed in frustration. "It doesn't help I've basically no idea what the rest of the underworld it like! Is it just crawling with demons? Do the upper hellions rule vast areas? What about the people who live under them? How possible is it to get close to an upper hellion? How often are they summoned?"

"There are a lot of variables," Leo agreed, then looked to her nervously. "I don't think there's any way to know that without actually imbedding ourselves amongst them."

Srida bit her lip. "I think you're right," she said quietly, eyes wide.

It was a truth that had been quietly sitting in the back of her mind she didn't want to admit. Andreas had a bad habit of doing that--simply refusing to think about certain issues, always telling himself he'd get to it once it was a problem that needed to be solved. It was a shame refusing to acknowledge a problem wasn't actually a particularly effective solution.

"Hey," Leo grabbed her hand gently with one of his lower two, giving it a light squeeze as she glanced back up at him making eye contact. "We'll figure it out. We both can still get out of here."

The situation was incredibly strange for Srida. Typically as Andreas, _he _would have been the one acting strong, putting on an act of false confidence and asserting they still had control of the situation, even if they very much didn't. But Srida didn't mind. She was worried, hell, she was _scared. _She really could be in this place forever. In that moment, Srida committed. She could have pulled her hand away, letting Andreas' mindset dictate her actions, and fight off what she inevitably was. But she didn't. If she was in it for the long term, perhaps allowing a second identity to flourish wouldn't hurt, even if it hurt Andreas' ego in the moment.

"I really hope so," she sighed quietly. "We probably will need to run, won't we?"

Leo bit his lip and nodded. "But when?"

She just shook her head. "I don't know. I don't even want to think about it now."

She shifted herself and her coils slightly, bringing the two of them together so she was leaning up against him, and he against her.

"It's a problem for tomorrow."