superhell pcs: zelgadis

[teufelshund]

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week 0, thursday morning

[teufelshund]

[ congrats it's zelgadis's favorite person, here with a cup of donkin' dunnts coffee in hand. ]

Guten morgen! ☆

[ spoken entirely too loudly for hangover day ]

How is last night treating you today?

[hardrocklife]

[Zel's sitting at a table with his face buried in his arms and an empty coffee cup next to him. He slowly lifts his head to look tiredly upward.]

Badly.

[teufelshund]

[ pulling out a chair on the other side of the table to take a seat across from him ]

Oof. I take it you don't attend events like that very often.

[hardrocklife]

As a rule, I try to avoid any place with a crowd.

[teufelshund]

I never would have guessed!

[ he takes a sip of his coffee, rip if you thought he was giving this to you. ]

I can't say I've ever seen anyone get that distraught over kissing a hand before.

week 0, post-execution

[teufelshund]

[ whenever he happens across zelgadis sometime after the execution, mephisto comes over with a smile — though a less aggressively cheerful one than usual. ]

Well, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't that.

[hardrocklife]

[Zel's at the shitty bar with a shitty beer, having figured anyone else looking to drink today would've chosen to linger at the better venue. When approached, he moves to pull his hood up, then after seeing who it is, decides not to bother.

There's a grumble-like noise of agreement to that statement.]

... I've seen all kinds of shadow magic, but never anything like that.

[teufelshund]

[ classic underestimation of how much mephisto enjoys shitty things. he takes the next seat over. ]

No, it wasn't quite like anything I've seen either.

[ which he doesn't like!!! ]

I'll certainly be curious to see where things go from here. There's clearly more to all of this than the picture those so-called demons have been painting for us.

[hardrocklife]

Lying by omission... It's what demons usually do.

Won't be surprised if we keep finding out about even more hoops we'll have to jump through in order to get out of here.

Week 2, Monday

[hardrocklife]

[A little later in the day, Zel's at the new bar with a mediocre beer in front of him. He's looking around at the decor...]

Guess this is an improvement over last week.

[teufelshund]

I rather liked last week's, clowns and scarecrows aside! But this has its own kind of charm.

[ and the beer's mediocre! ]

It isn't bringing back too many traumatic fish memories?

[hardrocklife]

I thought last week's was nightmarish, but I suppose there's no accounting for taste.

[a sip of beer.]

... And I don't have fish trauma.

[it's fish friend trauma, thanks]

[teufelshund]

Oh? Sorry, what would you call it?

Week 3, Monday

[hardrocklife]

[Hm. Zelgadis sees he's about to cross paths with Mephisto on this very memsharey day and just. turns around to leave.

but as he feared, a hole opens right up and sucks them in. the memory-hole. a memory starts to play on the screen right away.]

MEMORY: BEHIND HIS EYES

"Stop! No! Don't give it to him--!"

Your desperate plea falls on deaf ears. Your companion takes out the small statue in the shape of a woman, and throws it.

The blind priest clad in red extends his hand and catches it, clasping it tightly. "I have it," he says. "I have it... After all these years, it is mine!" From his tone, he seems to be overcome with wicked delight. With a smash, the statue self-destructs in his hand. He extracts a small black stone from it. It looks like... a rock, or maybe a piece of coal. Nothing a geologist would bother picking up. And yet, you know that pebble must be none other than the Philosopher's Stone.

"Yes! This is it... this, most certainly, is it!"

You begin chanting a spell. You have to stop him, kill him, before this goes any further.

A strong wind gusts out of nowhere, sending your cape fluttering behind you. But these shears of wind aren't part of a sudden storm. They're the physical manifestations of an intense miasma. In the center of that miasma, the red priest is alone. And laughing.

"Ah ha ha ha...! I can see! I can SEE!"

His eyes open. Orbs of red emanate from the darkness within. His eyes are at once the color of rubies and blood, and the tongues of fire, and behind them...

"Bwa ha ha ha ha! They're open! My eyes have opened!"

In that moment, the flesh begins to melt away from his body. Something inhuman can be seen underneath. His arms contort in unnatural ways -- no, even more appendages burst forth, tearing their way out of his red robe.

"What's happening!?" he cries, gripped with sudden terror. "Who are you!?"

A monstrous voice answers. "I am he whose rebirth you desired."

With a roar, you unleash your spell, sending a pillar of blue flames toward him. They wind around the priest like a chrysalis and then... disappear. The most powerful spell in all of shamanism, one that could destroy a human's mind with one blast, had no effect whatsoever.

When the dust settles, there is no longer a man, but a monster with eyes of crimson.

And then... you understand. You now know what horror has been sealed behind that man's eyes.

Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu.

(watch the anime version of this scene?)

Tch...

[He just looks generally displeased.]

[teufelshund]

[ damn. ]

You've really had quite a drama-packed life, haven't you?

[hardrocklife]

[god.

he looks so very tired as he nods at that.]

[teufelshund]

Can't say I envy you on that front.

[ there was a lot going on there and a lot he could ask about, but— ]

What was that spell you used, out of curiosity?

Week 5, Monday

[hardrocklife]

[Hey Mephisto, welcome to the Home Biome! It looks like Zelgadis wandered in here ahead of you.

The space has the appearance of a royal throne room. Pillars of marble, red carpets, and grand tapestries can be seen, and at the centre of it all, a great throne at one end of the room, with a blue banner hanging above it, displaying a crest depicting a golden dragon.

Zelgadis looks to be taken aback at the sight.]

What the... Why is this here?

[teufelshund]

[ jesus i'm fucking blind and didn't even see the dragon at first

anyway yes, hi, mephisto's popping in behind him. ]

Sounds like it's someplace familiar!

[hardrocklife]

[giving him an "oh, it's you" kind of look.]

... I've been here a few times, yes.

[teufelshund]

[ it's always him. ]

So you have royal connections on top of everything else? Exciting!

[ but only because this looks like fantasy royalty, politics are eh. ]

Assuming you weren't being brought before the ruler as a condemned criminal or something, anyway.

Week 7, Tuesday

[hardrocklife]

[Welp. They've just run into each other in some park in the city and Zelgadis is just looking really unimpressed.]

It's been what... three, four days? We couldn't even get half a week of peace?

[WHY ARE YOU BACK SO SOON.]

[teufelshund]

That's what you get for waiting so long! Could have done it off schedule and gotten a few more days in.

[hardrocklife]

True. Frankly, I was expecting I'd end up following you to the other side, but that didn't work out. Would've been better to just kill you sooner.

[teufelshund]

You know you could have just confessed toward the end once they all started piling on Filbo for the other one. Kind of a dick move just staying quiet and letting him take the punishment alone.