Helluva Time 3 (Patreon)

Where: Office of Immediate Murder Professionals, Imp City, Pride Ring, Hell

When: 346 days to next Purge

Who: Alastor, The Radio Demon

Ah, the looks on people’s faces when they see me at the door. Always worth a small dose of amusement, though this is the second time in the last month that I’ve had them close the door on me twice. Nevertheless, when I’d heard that my brother Nestor’s descendant was seen in Imp City I couldn’t resist checking up on the boy.

The door opened a third time, the imp holding the door knob a different one from before, “Is there… something the matter? Alastor… sir?”

“May I speak now?” I asked, mildly amused by how this meeting is mirroring the one with Charlotte.

“Of course, of course, I’m Blitzø, the ‘o’ is silent.”

“Pleasure to meet you. Excuse my dropping in uninvited but I’d heard that my nephew was spotted by your office. I haven’t seen him since before the last Purge and Paimon retreated to his study.”

Ah, there’s the boy. Well now, isn’t this interesting, “Ah, Jacques my boy, I’m glad to see you’re doing well. What have you been eating to get so much stronger in the two months since I last saw you?”

“Hello Uncle Alastor,” my nephew greeted as he walked up, his antlers far more prominent and his legs now covered in fur than they’d been when I last saw him, “I simply discovered a new aspect of my powers.”

Well now, that is interesting. From what I’ve seen in my time here, you’re either ‘born’ with power or you find work arounds, you don’t get more powerful over time. You might get better at utilizing your powers, finding hidden, less obvious uses, but new abilities don’t just appear like he seems to be describing. Which means whatever it is was always there, but something new happened that made it become apparent.

“And what might that be, my boy?”

“My dice game uses the power of the other players to enforce the rules and terms; and should they lose I gain a portion of their power,” he said, causing me to freeze as I put together how it must have happened.

“Wait, what’s this about Paimon? One of the Goetic Princes, Right Hand to Lucifer himself?” the imp that initially answered the door asked, peeking out from around the corner along with a female imp and a hellhound.

“About a month and a half before I came to Imp City, Paimon approached me. Said he was going to use me to send a message to Uncle Alastor.”

The imps froze, my smile became ever more amused.

“Um… did… did you say that Paimon… attacked you? And you didn’t think to mention that when we asked if you had any enemies in Hell?” the one with the white heart on his face asked.

Oh this was fun, Jacques getting into trouble because his brain isn’t right. Not as entertaining as the Stock Market Crash or Charlotte’s Fiasco, but still a bright spot of entertainment. The faint look of confusion on Jacques’s face was a delight, so simple in his way.

“You asked if I had made any enemies. I haven’t. Paimon was attacking me because of Uncle Alastor,” Jacques said.

If I didn’t know the boy as well as I did, I’d think it was intentional: that he lied by telling the truth. It would have been amusing for a moment, but the kind of thing that you expect in Hell. But Jacques was being genuinely honest: he didn’t see Paimon attacking me through my kin as him having made an enemy.

“So, my boy, what exactly happened in this encounter with Paimon?” I asked, curious to see how this encounter had progressed.

“It was a few days after you ate the butcher. I was returning to my apartment with some groceries when Paimon approached me on his camel. He said it was nothing personal, but since you’d killed some of his servants when you first arrived in Hell he was going to kill me to send a message to you. I challenged him to a game of Liar’s Dice, best of five, wagering that if I won he’d leave me alone and not attack me again, directly or indirectly,” Jacques explained.

The game was different, but more or less as I’d predicted so far. This was the Pride Ring, challenging a natural born demon from here was a sure way to get them to do exactly what you wanted. If this was going the way I’d expected, then this was going to get very interesting.

“He found it funny, and agreed. Stating that if I lost he’d violate me in every way he knew and a few more he’d invent, before parading my corpse through the Ring as a message not to fuck with him.” the imps and hellhound all winced in sympathy, even with Jacques stating it in his usual dull monotone. “When I made the challenge, I expected him to break the agreement as soon as it was over. You remember the game with the horse Sinner?”

I nodded, repressing a shudder at the memory. That didn’t end well for anyone.

“I assumed that with Paimon being much more powerful, he’d face much less difficulty breaking the bindings. I lost the first and fourth rounds, but something was different. I didn’t know what at the time, and I lack the words to properly convey the sensation, but I won the fifth round, and a surge of raw power was pulled to me as the bond with Paimon broke.”

My grin stretched as wide as my base form allowed, oh this was delicious. One of the Goetic Princes, humbled by a Sinner that had been dead for less than a year at the time. To top it off, said Sinner was one that he’d planned on doing “unspeakable” things to, in order to send a message. And then, after losing to a lowly Sinner, what does this Goetic Prince do? He runs to his manor, locks himself in his study, and hasn’t been seen since that day five months ago.

“So… you challenged Paimon to a game about lying… and not only did you win, but he didn’t kill you immediately after?” the hellhound asked in confused disbelief.

“He tried.”

… okay even I need an explanation for that.

“I thought about it after, and the conclusion that I drew based on the information I had available to me is that when I start a game state, my power connects with the power of the other players and uses theirs to make sure that everyone obeys both the rules of the game and the agreed terms before the game starts. Blitzø would have an easier time cheating during my game state and breaking the agreed upon terms than you would.”

That was… surprisingly devious. I underestimated my nephew, I hadn’t imagined his cute little dice power had so much potential. Depending on how much power he stole… he still felt weaker than me, so it couldn’t be too much, and he hadn’t gotten any significantly stronger from when he played with other Sinners so it wasn’t a set amount. A percentage, perhaps?

I resisted the urge to cackle. I had a wonderful idea. Oh this was going to be so entertaining, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she agreed once she heard about it. But first, I had a hunch.

“You, Blitzø, yes?”

“Oh, um, yes? Please don’t eat me.”

“I think I’ve heard of you. Where was it? Ah yes, you fell into a cake in the home of Prince Stolas, yes? How is he doing by the way? It’s been ages since I spoke to anyone from the Greed Ring.”

“Er… last I saw him he was fine. Just fine.”

“S̖͂p̲̎l̝ͣe̘͆n͚ͪd͕̽i͚ͤḍ̒,” I purred. Oh this had the potential for so much entertainment. Even more so than the hotel. Why if this little enterprise worked the way I suspected, then there’s the potential for Jacques to be in position to completely shake up not only this Ring, not only the entirety of Hell, but possibly even Heaven as well. Oh Nestor, if you could see your descendant now. He’s even more like me than I thought when he told me how he died.

I stayed for a bit, getting a better feel for those that my nephew would be working with and trusting to keep him safe, before departing a few hours later. I had an idea I wanted to try. I was hesitant to play a dice game with Jacques now, I had too many enemies for me to risk giving up any power, even if it was to family. But I had a suspicion that I could talk someone else into playing a game.

I’d anger more than a few demons, even some that I’d probably be better off not angering, but the potential entertainment was too good to pass up, and on top of that, it’d give Jacques an even greater ability to protect himself. If the necessity to accept his challenge to a game became known, then all that would be needed is a refusal to accept. He lacked the ability to talk a person into doing something they didn’t want to do. Well, he lacked the ability to intentionally talk a person into doing something they didn’t want to do.

“Oh, hi Alastor,” Niffty greeted as I entered the hotel.

“Hello Niffty. Do you know where Miss Magne is? I have something I wish to discuss with her about my trip to Imp City,” I asked the petite Sinner.

“Um… I think she’s in her room? Last I saw her she was heading that way with Miss Vagatha.”

Which meant I didn’t want to walk in on any of that. Disgusting. Settling in to wait, I took the opportunity to complete some paperwork, mostly on the finances of the hotel. Arranging the salaries for everyone working at the hotel, minus myself, was a relatively simple affair. Fortunately for me, it seems that what the two lovebirds were doing behind closed doors was almost finished when I got back, as they were entering the main lobby as I finished the payrolls.

“Oh, Alastor, when did you get back?” Charlie asked.

“Not long ago, My Dear. I managed to get a satisfactory feel for the fellows my nephew is staying with, and learned something he’d discovered since I saw him last.” I answered, beginning the dance that would end with Jacques being even more powerful than myself.

“I still can’t believe you have relatives,” the eyepatch wearing weakling groused.

“Oh, what’d he find out?” Charlie inquired, either not hearing or ignoring her girlfriend’s grumbling.

“You remember the kerfuffle when Paimon locked himself in his study a few months back? Turns out that my nephew is responsible! His power has more potential and far greater power than I’d expected. He managed to gain an increase in his power from beating Paimon in a game of Liar’s Dice, while also ensuring that Paimon can’t hurt him in retaliation! I’m so proud of him.”

I mimed wiping away a tear as all four in the lobby stared at me. Husk promptly reached under the bar and began to chug a bottle of Cheap Booze, Niffty returned to cleaning, while Charlie’s girlfriend immediately turned to the Princess of Hell and said, “Charlie, no!”

Charlie, yes.

“Vaggie, you know that there’s a lot of demons that would go after his nephew to get to Alastor. That’s not including some of the things I’ve heard about some of the residents of Imp City. There’s an assassin that seduced a Prince from the Greed Ring!” Charlie cried out, it was almost as if she was trying to make my manipulation easier for me.

“That’s actually his boss.”

The results of this were going to be so entertaining.