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For unamed fantasy setting. Go check out his page where you RvBOMally's work like Space Cadets and Sunshine .

... Vesper grumbled from behind them.

Olivia sighed in the dimming violet light glow plants. They were used to the curses. After almost a half a decade as an Investigator, you had to be. They didn't mind Vesper in particular; they were a really good street deputy. Olivia didn't mind the fowl mouths, cold grumpy superiors, repugnant cleaving addicts, the pervasive press, or the daily gory carnage; none of those really phased them anymore. It was like horrific shock had turned into drudgerous annoyance. What was most aggravating to the imp: not being taken seriously by their peers.

It didn't matter how many reports they wrote, many cases they were on, how much evidence they found, how well they could shoot, or the murder they had solved, they would always see Olivia as a cute little imp. Rising above the other imps just made them a mascot for their district section of the City's Investigatory Office. Even iracundibians and superbians younger than Olivia on the force treated the imp like an infant.

'Great One cast it to the coldest ring, I'm thinking like a Superbian or Invidibian,' Olivia thought. It was the crux of the imp's greatest fear: maturing. Statistically speaking Olivia knew it would happen eventually. They had staved it off for almost ten median ring years past the average age of transformation, but without surgery, it always happened. With enough peer pressure, temptation, and time, it was inevitable. Olivia didn’t want surgery, they wanted to have spawn to nurture and teach before natural fission or an untimely death. But they couldn’t commit to transforming. They terrified of the form they would take. It was relief to know they would never become a cupido and risk spiraling into degeneracy, but the hounds of jealousy and pride drooling around their soul were two paths Olivia feared almost as much. They would give anything to become one of the strong – no nonsense - and focused Iracundibian, a chubby - hardworking- and cheerful Gulabian, a responsible and numerically inclined Avaritibian, or even a carefree genius Desidiabian. But the two dispositions they were most likely to progress into just had to be Superbian or Invidibian. Without cleaving, their was a 95% chance of becoming either a serpent tongued narcissist or backstabbing serpent that blamed others for their misery and depression. And cleaving for such a selfish purpose was a sin.

Olivia shivered at their thoughts before turning back to work. Surrounding the Imp were a horde of deputies and investigators, white marble, black fleshy roots, and the first wave of reporters. Olivia crouched and stared longingly at the corpse, something was wrong. They knew something was wrong even before they shot the psycho. It wasn't proportioned right: the arms too short, the helmet too small for its head, and the feet... the feet looked outright deformed. More troubling was the sameness. It couldn’t be a result of mutation because all of these nut jobs had those features. It wasn’t unusual for gangs, those suffering from hedonistic degeneration, or murder hobos from cobbling together home made armor, but this was different. All of it looked expertly crafted, like something from antiquity. It glimmered in the dimming hues of the glow plants and electric light lamps above the garden, with not a spot of rust. It didn’t look like steel, tin, or aluminum, it looked like pure silver only somehow more brilliant if it weren’t for the blood. However, the most troubling aspect for Olivia though was the smell.

Olivia could smell the stench of smokeless powder, the stench of death from their few victims, and the overwhelming aroma of The One Above All’s lymph. The one thing Olivia couldn't smell was the corpse. To put it frank most junkies, degenerating or not, smelled awful. If these weren’t junkies and some kind of cult or gang they would still have some kind of smell, whether it would the musk of sweat and adrenaline from combat or a thick sent of perfume put on to mask it. Olivia should have at least smelled tinge of blood, but the air above the body didn’t smell like anything; it was almost the absence of smell. Olivia leaned closer carefully above one of the splotches of blood expecting some whiff of the metallic tinge of blood. They caught a whiff of something, but it wasn’t blood. It was of fresh mud and oddly enough an unnatural hint of firewood ash.

Olivia pointed to down at the corpse's helm, “Vesper, something is very wrong. They smell wrong. They look wrong. I mean just look at their head, they couldn't have possibly squeeze there horns in that tin can."

"Olivia, they're just drugged up degenerating junkies. They do insane and stupid shit all the time," Vesper replied with a hint of exhaustion.

"I haven't seen a single case of degeneration that results in permanent horn loss or this consistent level of deformation between all of them."

"Then they lost them in a street fight or they cut them off."

"Every single one of them lost their horns in street fights, and they hadn't grown back? Why in the name of the nine rings would every single one of them cut off their horns?"

"Maybe they sold them for stimulant and cleaving money? Maybe it's part of some kind of cult ritual? Look I'm not an investigator, but spawnling you almost died you don't need anymore stress until the paperwork comes in."

'Spawnling? I'm twenty five,' Olivia thought. Vesper had gotten under their skin, but despite the offensive remark, Olivia knew better than to start something in front of the gathering reporters and film cameras. Quickly the Imp went back to examining strange corpse. Nothing about this case made sense.

The Iuliacum Stone Garden was one of many forged by communion between St. Mephistopheles and divine spirits almost two millennia ago. Back then Iuliacum was nothing but a small town at the crossroads between multiple tunnel systems, a far cry from the expansive network of tunnels and caves crammed with brutalist and old gothic architecture. The garden was place where the smoothest marble columns of antiquity intersected and combined with the roots of god into divine tapestries with unknowable meanings. The garden was a glimpse of the realm of Barbalo beyond the first ring. It was one of many scared places in the city for Olivia and the kin to bask in the divine spirit. It was a place to touch and observe up close The One Above All. It was a reminder that The Great One was more than just towering lines of roots, vine, and other flesh to be observed by spyglass and telescope far above their cave. The Great One could be tender and intricate, and added character to each of them, like it did the smooth featureless stone surrounding them. And as the maniac that lay had learned, it could also be a reminder of The One Above All’s power.

Olivia squeezed almost her whole clip into the mad degenerate. Whatever that armor was made of took most of her rounds, and the few broke through didn't effect the degenerate in their hedonistic drug fueled haze. The junkie bellowed like an Iracundibian as it charged with its long sword straight out of legend raised to the Roots of God, screaming alien words. Words far different and stranger than any dialect Olivia had heard from other cities in the Abaddon Confederacy or even from the mouths foreign tourists. Even the Imp’s next shot struck the fiend down, there were three other’s charging toward them. Without a sheer luck or an act of god, Olivia was doomed.

With final squeeze of the trigger, the imp’s pistol sent a round between the psycho’s visor. The junkie fell instantly, smashing into the marble lifeless and dead. Attacking hollowed ground is unwise, but battering The Great One’s flesh itself is suicide. A swarm of Black Pygmy Cherubs, tending to foliage and flesh of the divine, descended like Larisian Crag Raptors upon the fiends. The normally docile cherubs sunk their four sets of fangs into the edges and ringlets of their silvery armor. There thorny venom laced tendrils exploited every weakness, snaked through every gap and crevice to rasp against their skin. No drug could dull the anguish of their venom, and yet they continued to struggle. Whatever new kind of stim was in their veins, made the poison seem almost as inert as water.

Cherubs are spawned stubborn. They continued to fight to the death with their larger opponents. Their barbs dug deeper slashing into vein and artery. The maniacs not brought down to bleed out on on marble in agony, were quickly finished off with well placed pistol and shotgun blasts to the gaps in their armor.

Olivia almost agreed with Vesper about it being a cult, but that last detail didn’t fit. Olivia had heard tales of anti theist cults in other cities, but they were just failed Superbians trying to be edgy. Every kooky cult Olivia knew on the contrary revered The Great One with an unhealthy level of zealotry. They would never attack a part of Gods flesh nor a holy site… unless, unless they were trying to cause a divine culling.

Olivia knew how these cults preached ice and biting wind for all those who did not turned back to tradition. The chilliest of theses sermons declared for a reset every ounce of progress to the time of antiquity: no ultrasound and radio communication or television, no motor carriages or trains, and no cleaving – pharmaceuticals – or other forms of modern medicine.

Olivia knew well from both legend and history what happened when a city or nation took the flesh of The Great One for granted and exploitation. Angels descended out of God’s roots and veins onto daemonium kind below. Creatures far larger and more terrifying than the pygmy cherubs. Sometime, it would be a tragic decimation, sometimes it was a full quarter of the population slaughtered, and sometimes the whole sinful or civilization would be reduced to rubble and gory corpses. What if this was one part of something bigger? What if this was the first step to inflict divine wrath upon Iulicum, greater Abaddon, or all of known Sheol? A grand conspiracy to send all of Sheol back to the primative antiquity or worse: primal ruins like Dis?

Still there were holes in this horrifying hypothesis. Why would they modify their bodies like that? These cults stressed the perfection of the daemonium form that combined the best traits of all races. If they were fine with that level of cleaving and surgery, they would have crafted their bodies into one in a million gargoyles. They wouldn’t have cut off their horns, shortened their arms, and broken and bound their feet into this. Just the thought of the process made the imp want to barf, almost as much as the first corpse the Imp had ever seen on the job.

Olivia glanced away with a grimace. When they opened their eyes were drawn to something more peculiar; something they couldn’t believe they had missed. The corpse’s hand had five fingers. Five fingers very alien fingers. They didn’t have beautiful black and retractable claws, but what looked like tiny hooves wrapped around the top of each finger. They were sickly almost translucent, with pink and white flesh beneath the. The whole hand was an unnatural color. Instead of cool bluish grey, dull red, charcoal, evergreen, indigo, or brilliant white, it was light sandy tone. How much cleaving had they done? Were they even daemonium anymore?

Before the Imp could ponder further, their attention was drawn toward a shout. Slowly filtering their way toward the crime scene were a dozen soldiers brandishing automatic and recoiless rifles.

.........................................................

“Respect the dead, for The One’s sake! What are you looking at anyway, hun? Never seen a bunch of murderhobos before?” Focalor, a black cap, harrassed the nearest camera crew. Oria couldn’t help but think of that awful face paint they were wearing. It made their face look less like a menacing skull and more like a clownish cartoon character or some amphibious monster from a silent era film.

Orias adjusted their suit. This was going to be a nightmare, but then again what day wasn’t for Orias’s line of work. How little did everyone around them know that Sheol could be on the brink. The urgency of it all made the constable all the more frustrating to deal with.

“What’s the meaning of this?” the lead investigative constable asked rudely.

“Constable, we are with the Nine Rings…”

“Yeah, I know you’re black caps. Shouldn’t you be delivering strongly worded letters warlords about how to play nice?” the constable interrupted with a rhetorical grumble.

“We are here to take over the investigation, constable,” Orias replied politely.

“No, no, no, let me stop you right there,” The constable says with a pointed finger and extended their claw. “I know you think you’re the hottest rock in Sheol because you did some peace keeping or fought some international crime syndicate, but you think because you’re in the League you get to traipse around my town with a military unit? You know how much this violates not only Iuliacum city law but the sovereignty of our Confederacy?” the Iracundibian spouted with spite.

Orias kept their composure but wanted to giggle at the tough wrathful display. They could barely see the constable’s tail cover beneath their overcoat. They’re compensating for something for sure.

Orias calmly replied, “I am on orders from the Confederal Arbiters, the Iuliacum City Arch Chairman, and High Sheriff Lillian.”

“That’s a leviathan load of shit.”

Orias sighed and rolled their eyes they displayed their papers for the irritable Constable. The Constable grimaced staring into the flipbook as each signed document passed by. Finally after a frustrating pause the Iracundibian stood aside and shouted to their deputies, “our job here is done we’re pulling out?”

“What?” The other deputies ask in confused unison.

“The black caps have jurisdiction over the crime scene. Get a move on, lets go.”

Orias took a step and waved the armed escort and the cleanup crew forward. As the aggravated deputies passed by the constable growled, “I’ll make sure to mention you in my paperwork.”

“Don’t worry deputy, besides a statement of events from the other, your paperwork has been taken care of. However, I’ll be sure to change your section a little,” Orias replied with a smirk and salute. They just loved how the Iracundiabias face flinched with that remark.

Orias proceeded forward with haste. The night was very young and there was much work to be done. The past century and a half since the Dark Age had been a strange for sure. Beasts of burden had once more been almost replaced with trains and motor carriages. Electric lights, televisions, and a variety of artificially cleaved plants glowed in the darkness of nighttime homes. Settled caverns and cities could now communicate instantaneously using ultrasound and taking advantage of God’s root network with electrical signals. But the secret war that had been brewing before the Dark Age loomed with no end in sight.

It was not the shadow war enveloping the multitude of confederacies, federations, unions, tin pot oligarchies, and other nations of known Sheol. This was a war much more terrible and grand in scope. It was a much more secretive war with nightmarish despots, zealots, monsters, and murderous fiends from another plane of existence. The war with Gaia: the world of a long dead god.

There was a lot to be thankful for. They were lucky that gaians had only a single magic user among their party. They were lucky that these gaians were a race called Man, and unlike many of their brethren, were only bloodthirsty and confident enough to begin their massacre at the garden. They were lucky that the cherubs and other angels climbing along the great fleshy roots above them, only cast judgment upon the gaians and not the Sheriffs nor the block full of the terrified citizens below. On the other hand, it was quite unlucky that the marauders were in the city of Iuliacum far, far from Dis.

It meant one thing. There was a mirror gate in the city.

“May I ask you a question?” a voice interrupted.

Orias turned to see a small imp in a black suit only a few inches shorter than themselves. They had the big innocent eyes of a newly spawned hound pup.

“Shoot,” Orias said.

“Are you a superbian or an… an…”

“An imp?” Orias responded promptly.

“Yeah…” the Imp replied.

With their face always caked in makeup and the horn extensions Orias was normally mistaken as a short Superbian, very few guessed they were an Imp like the one before them. Orias began to chuckle. All of these cosmetics were silly and superficial, but just because you’re an imp doesn’t mean you don’t have to play the Superbian games. Navigating the realm of international politics and intelligence it was a must to give off the air of pride, but it was equally important to not lose yourself in it.

“I really didn’t mean offense,” The imp said cautiously.

“No offense taken, you’re the first stranger to get it right in almost a year,” Orias said back with a smirk. The imp gave a nervous smile back.

“What’s your name?” Orias asked.

“Olivia.” The imp responded.

“My names Orias, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Say, do you know where these junkies came from or if you heard any rumors about where they were bumming around? We suspect they’re part of a sensitive international smuggling operation, and would appreciate any leads.”

“Honestly no. I was just about to get off our shift when Vesper called us over the squelch about an attack. Ira said the perps had come from the park entrance but that’s all he saw. When I got here it was chaos blood and wounded everywhere, thank The One that more weren’t here. I wouldn’t have survived if it wasn’t for the pygmy cherubs and a lucky shot.”

“Lucky shot?”

“I unloaded most of my clip. That stubborn monster wouldn’t go down until I hit him in the head. ”

‘Cast it to the void,’ Orias thought to themselves. It confirmed the worst of their fears: mithril armor.

“Well we’re glad you were here. If you weren’t, who knows how many others could have been killed by those maniacs?”

“Is there anything else we can do? The outbound quarter’s Sheriff section can help with anything you need.”

“Thank you. Besides getting making sure we get those statement, just take a rest; I’d know I’d need it after a day like that.”

The Olivia fumbled with one of their pockets before brandishing a card. “If you change your mind just give me a call,” the Imp said placing the slip of paper in Orias hand.

“Thanks again, will do,” Orias said to the other Imp as they jogged off.

Orias began to stride toward the crime scene and ponder. The Imp remembered being that young, skittish, and naïve. Despite the innocent exterior, Orias could see the ambition and drive behind those indigo eyes. They would learn in time to play the game. Despite what others may believe, it was healthy for modern civilization to have imps in the rank of power. It was imps like them cooled hot, ambitious, and self-centered heads to make the myriad of known Sheol’s societies in run smoothly. The Union of Dis served as a reminder.

Dis was a once great civilization that had began the push toward industrial society five long centuries ago. It quickly rose to hold dominion over many of the modern power players in Sheol’s eternal game of shadows. For with its technology and now lost trade routes beyond known Sheol, it had surpassed most alliances and nations with far older and richer histories than it. Despite marvels of Dis’s engineering, the strength of its military, and the robustness of its economy it was doomed to collapse.

Blinded by pride, they began their greatest achievement, something that would give them dominion over all the other nations and tribes struggling to modernize and compete against them. They would to grow their own god and angels to be subservient to them grown from The One’s flesh. It was a dark deed that would not go unpunished. A decade long civil war began over the blasphemous act. And at the end of the violent conflict the nation had made a breakthrough with their project, they would turn the tide and ensure dominance over Sheol. The light of The One dimmed above the core of Dis’s hegemony, and Countless Angels crawled out from God’s flesh to descend upon the doomed civilization. Rather than kill their creation or accept death they fought back in vain. Within weeks their great core cities were reduced to ash. To stem the tide and saved what little remained they sealed off the heart of their empire and tens of millions of citizens still alive. Like their attempt at resistance, it would be in vain as well.

The periphery emergency government collapsed back into civil war and then outright warlordism. A dark age would spread with news of the Union’s collapse. Trade and modernization stalled and regressed for almost a century out of fear of angering The One Above All. And the power vacuum would lead to numerous violent and bloody wars, rocking the slice of known Sheol. And from this struggle known Sheol would rebuild itself into the world they knew today. That was the official narrative at least.

The truth was Dis had fallen to a secret war. A war which the League of the Nine Rings and the nine great powers who funded it had unfortunately inherited.

As Dis was beginning to decline into decadence, it effected the personal pride of their new crop of leaders. Why should they treat irritable clients states and the old powers as equals when it was them who had begun this new age? Why should they fade into the dustbin of history and letting the others surpass them. And, so the unchecked Superbians decided to flex the muscles of their nation once more. Not only did they begin work on an artificial god, but invading another world after discovering the ancient mirror gates to them. What was meant to be an short campaign against savages stuck in the iron age, transformed into a decade long meat grinder for the Gaia. Supply lines were stretched thin, as neither vehicles, weapons, ammunition, or food could be produced from the cursed soil. More and more of the State’s coin and effort went into managing the logistics of the war, causing tensions on the home front grow. Protests eventually became food riots which in turn boiled over into civil war. When Nation was on its knees and at its lowest point, the gates between Sheol and Gaia opened, expanding to sizes thought physically impossible. Through the gates turned bridges, the infernal armies of Gaia and traitor daemonium flowed forth.

They raped, pillaged, and enslaved, as one would expect less advanced peoples to do. But their bloodlust did not end, they only became more enraged and depraved when the precious gems and metals of Sheol wouldn’t work in their alchemy, nor would their food grow. Dis and Sheol were as cursed to them as they were for us. It was then that the real barbarism began and it may have spread to all of sheol if they weren't so blatent or stupid.

Whether it the sight of so many of their favored children slaughtered or the ignorant assault upon their very flesh, The One Above All would be unkind. All the Angels over Dis descended from on high, and divinity sent forth unumbered others to rend the invaders like the men in the garden. But, before the full flood of hosts could wash over Dis, the Gaians and traitors fearing their own destruction sealed its heart off from the rest of Sheol. With great effort they burned God’s separated flesh and exterminated the few hosts remaining that could function without connection to Barbalo.

The atrocities they inflicted upon Orias species could never be forgiven. Not by daemonium. Not by The One Above All. They were starved in famine after famine, because gaian crops gained preference for tilling. They were worked to death in labor camps to quarry worthless stone and cut wood to burn into soot. They were hunted them for sport in the ruined streets like animals. They became host to the cruelest and most sadistic forms of torture, experimentation, and execution. Daemonium of all ages and race sacrificed like cattle in factory farm in the name of eternal life or to cosmic predators claiming to be gods.

To the Gaian despots, daemonium were only a resource. They were labor until their bodies gave out. There bodies were material, skin for clothing and flesh for alchemy. Even their souls were not spared. Those unlucky souls under Gaian heel would never bask in the paradise of Barbalo or be reincarnated. All would refined into mana for consumption and to fuel savagery of gaian war. They all met oblivion. And their were still worse fates.

The damned as they were called were brought mirrorside, to the dead world. It was a world with no tunnels or cave rock, but a vast infinite void much like space, but each day the stars above would be consumed by the unatural bright blue of ether. The light did not come from the warm hue of glow plants or the one above all, but from a massive star. It was a star unlike the one enveloped by Barbalo, it was not a welcoming warm red, but a harsh blinding yellow that baked the very ground. But the vomit inducing vertigo of the sky and discomfort of the blinding light did not last long. Those that whethered the trip would be brought to the darkest dungons of the dead world, becoming hosts to experiments so unspeakable and vile... Orias began to shake.

Orias had seen it. Orias had lived it. Orias had barely escaped it. Orias had sworn to The One Above All they would never allow it to happen again.

The Imp opened their eyes to observe the crime scene. They had to push out the memories and trauma. Orias would not let it control them.

They ran back through the checklist in their mind. The party was small and human, thank The One it wasn’t elves. The party was uncoordinated and unfamiliar with the danger’s of Sheol. This was good, few knew about the gate except for a select few treasure seekers. However, their armor was mithril. Were they men of noble blood, knights who had earned it, or men at arms with deep pockets? The details didn’t matter, they were important enough for someone to start looking for them.

The full might of just a minor Human Kingdom would be devastating if unleashed upon the city. Orias shuttered at the thought of what would happen if The Empire of Crimson and their undying despot discovered the gate.

Orias observed their surroundings. Most of the reporters have been pushed out of the garden, which was a pleasant surprise for the Imp. They needed interviews with the medical rescue and victims. Now they also needed…

A member of cleaning crew stumbled backward interrupting the Imp’s train of thought. A faint fit of coughing emanated from below. Orias glanced at the demon’s feet; one of the corpses was starting to stir.

Focalor pranced forward kicking the fiend's sword further to the side; all while cautiously keeping a steady aim at the man’s noggin. Orias pushed her way through the swarm of black caps encircling the invader. Their mission had just gotten a whole lot easier.

“I’m *cough* alive *gasp* thank the gods,” the man said in his native tongue.

“You’re going to wish you weren’t,” Orias replied back with a smirk.

Description
For unamed fantasy setting. Go check out his page where you RvBOMally's work like Space Cadets and Sunshine .

... Vesper grumbled from behind them.

Olivia sighed in the dimming violet light glow plants. They were used to the curses. After almost a half a decade as an Investigator, you had to be. They didn't mind Vesper in particular; they were a really good street deputy. Olivia didn't mind the fowl mouths, cold grumpy superiors, repugnant cleaving addicts, the pervasive press, or the daily gory carnage; none of those really phased them anymore. It was like horrific shock had turned into drudgerous annoyance. What was most aggravating to the imp: not being taken seriously by their peers.

It didn't matter how many reports they wrote, many cases they were on, how much evidence they found, how well they could shoot, or the murder they had solved, they would always see Olivia as a cute little imp. Rising above the other imps just made them a mascot for their district section of the City's Investigatory Office. Even iracundibians and superbians younger than Olivia on the force treated the imp like an infant.

'Great One cast it to the coldest ring, I'm thinking like a Superbian or Invidibian,' Olivia thought. It was the crux of the imp's greatest fear: maturing. Statistically speaking Olivia knew it would happen eventually. They had staved it off for almost ten median ring years past the average age of transformation, but without surgery, it always happened. With enough peer pressure, temptation, and time, it was inevitable. Olivia didn’t want surgery, they wanted to have spawn to nurture and teach before natural fission or an untimely death. But they couldn’t commit to transforming. They terrified of the form they would take. It was relief to know they would never become a cupido and risk spiraling into degeneracy, but the hounds of jealousy and pride drooling around their soul were two paths Olivia feared almost as much. They would give anything to become one of the strong – no nonsense - and focused Iracundibian, a chubby - hardworking- and cheerful Gulabian, a responsible and numerically inclined Avaritibian, or even a carefree genius Desidiabian. But the two dispositions they were most likely to progress into just had to be Superbian or Invidibian. Without cleaving, their was a 95% chance of becoming either a serpent tongued narcissist or backstabbing serpent that blamed others for their misery and depression. And cleaving for such a selfish purpose was a sin.

Olivia shivered at their thoughts before turning back to work. Surrounding the Imp were a horde of deputies and investigators, white marble, black fleshy roots, and the first wave of reporters. Olivia crouched and stared longingly at the corpse, something was wrong. They knew something was wrong even before they shot the psycho. It wasn't proportioned right: the arms too short, the helmet too small for its head, and the feet... the feet looked outright deformed. More troubling was the sameness. It couldn’t be a result of mutation because all of these nut jobs had those features. It wasn’t unusual for gangs, those suffering from hedonistic degeneration, or murder hobos from cobbling together home made armor, but this was different. All of it looked expertly crafted, like something from antiquity. It glimmered in the dimming hues of the glow plants and electric light lamps above the garden, with not a spot of rust. It didn’t look like steel, tin, or aluminum, it looked like pure silver only somehow more brilliant if it weren’t for the blood. However, the most troubling aspect for Olivia though was the smell.

Olivia could smell the stench of smokeless powder, the stench of death from their few victims, and the overwhelming aroma of The One Above All’s lymph. The one thing Olivia couldn't smell was the corpse. To put it frank most junkies, degenerating or not, smelled awful. If these weren’t junkies and some kind of cult or gang they would still have some kind of smell, whether it would the musk of sweat and adrenaline from combat or a thick sent of perfume put on to mask it. Olivia should have at least smelled tinge of blood, but the air above the body didn’t smell like anything; it was almost the absence of smell. Olivia leaned closer carefully above one of the splotches of blood expecting some whiff of the metallic tinge of blood. They caught a whiff of something, but it wasn’t blood. It was of fresh mud and oddly enough an unnatural hint of firewood ash.

Olivia pointed to down at the corpse's helm, “Vesper, something is very wrong. They smell wrong. They look wrong. I mean just look at their head, they couldn't have possibly squeeze there horns in that tin can."

"Olivia, they're just drugged up degenerating junkies. They do insane and stupid shit all the time," Vesper replied with a hint of exhaustion.

"I haven't seen a single case of degeneration that results in permanent horn loss or this consistent level of deformation between all of them."

"Then they lost them in a street fight or they cut them off."

"Every single one of them lost their horns in street fights, and they hadn't grown back? Why in the name of the nine rings would every single one of them cut off their horns?"

"Maybe they sold them for stimulant and cleaving money? Maybe it's part of some kind of cult ritual? Look I'm not an investigator, but spawnling you almost died you don't need anymore stress until the paperwork comes in."

'Spawnling? I'm twenty five,' Olivia thought. Vesper had gotten under their skin, but despite the offensive remark, Olivia knew better than to start something in front of the gathering reporters and film cameras. Quickly the Imp went back to examining strange corpse. Nothing about this case made sense.

The Iuliacum Stone Garden was one of many forged by communion between St. Mephistopheles and divine spirits almost two millennia ago. Back then Iuliacum was nothing but a small town at the crossroads between multiple tunnel systems, a far cry from the expansive network of tunnels and caves crammed with brutalist and old gothic architecture. The garden was place where the smoothest marble columns of antiquity intersected and combined with the roots of god into divine tapestries with unknowable meanings. The garden was a glimpse of the realm of Barbalo beyond the first ring. It was one of many scared places in the city for Olivia and the kin to bask in the divine spirit. It was a place to touch and observe up close The One Above All. It was a reminder that The Great One was more than just towering lines of roots, vine, and other flesh to be observed by spyglass and telescope far above their cave. The Great One could be tender and intricate, and added character to each of them, like it did the smooth featureless stone surrounding them. And as the maniac that lay had learned, it could also be a reminder of The One Above All’s power.

Olivia squeezed almost her whole clip into the mad degenerate. Whatever that armor was made of took most of her rounds, and the few broke through didn't effect the degenerate in their hedonistic drug fueled haze. The junkie bellowed like an Iracundibian as it charged with its long sword straight out of legend raised to the Roots of God, screaming alien words. Words far different and stranger than any dialect Olivia had heard from other cities in the Abaddon Confederacy or even from the mouths foreign tourists. Even the Imp’s next shot struck the fiend down, there were three other’s charging toward them. Without a sheer luck or an act of god, Olivia was doomed.

With final squeeze of the trigger, the imp’s pistol sent a round between the psycho’s visor. The junkie fell instantly, smashing into the marble lifeless and dead. Attacking hollowed ground is unwise, but battering The Great One’s flesh itself is suicide. A swarm of Black Pygmy Cherubs, tending to foliage and flesh of the divine, descended like Larisian Crag Raptors upon the fiends. The normally docile cherubs sunk their four sets of fangs into the edges and ringlets of their silvery armor. There thorny venom laced tendrils exploited every weakness, snaked through every gap and crevice to rasp against their skin. No drug could dull the anguish of their venom, and yet they continued to struggle. Whatever new kind of stim was in their veins, made the poison seem almost as inert as water.

Cherubs are spawned stubborn. They continued to fight to the death with their larger opponents. Their barbs dug deeper slashing into vein and artery. The maniacs not brought down to bleed out on on marble in agony, were quickly finished off with well placed pistol and shotgun blasts to the gaps in their armor.

Olivia almost agreed with Vesper about it being a cult, but that last detail didn’t fit. Olivia had heard tales of anti theist cults in other cities, but they were just failed Superbians trying to be edgy. Every kooky cult Olivia knew on the contrary revered The Great One with an unhealthy level of zealotry. They would never attack a part of Gods flesh nor a holy site… unless, unless they were trying to cause a divine culling.

Olivia knew how these cults preached ice and biting wind for all those who did not turned back to tradition. The chilliest of theses sermons declared for a reset every ounce of progress to the time of antiquity: no ultrasound and radio communication or television, no motor carriages or trains, and no cleaving – pharmaceuticals – or other forms of modern medicine.

Olivia knew well from both legend and history what happened when a city or nation took the flesh of The Great One for granted and exploitation. Angels descended out of God’s roots and veins onto daemonium kind below. Creatures far larger and more terrifying than the pygmy cherubs. Sometime, it would be a tragic decimation, sometimes it was a full quarter of the population slaughtered, and sometimes the whole sinful or civilization would be reduced to rubble and gory corpses. What if this was one part of something bigger? What if this was the first step to inflict divine wrath upon Iulicum, greater Abaddon, or all of known Sheol? A grand conspiracy to send all of Sheol back to the primative antiquity or worse: primal ruins like Dis?

Still there were holes in this horrifying hypothesis. Why would they modify their bodies like that? These cults stressed the perfection of the daemonium form that combined the best traits of all races. If they were fine with that level of cleaving and surgery, they would have crafted their bodies into one in a million gargoyles. They wouldn’t have cut off their horns, shortened their arms, and broken and bound their feet into this. Just the thought of the process made the imp want to barf, almost as much as the first corpse the Imp had ever seen on the job.

Olivia glanced away with a grimace. When they opened their eyes were drawn to something more peculiar; something they couldn’t believe they had missed. The corpse’s hand had five fingers. Five fingers very alien fingers. They didn’t have beautiful black and retractable claws, but what looked like tiny hooves wrapped around the top of each finger. They were sickly almost translucent, with pink and white flesh beneath the. The whole hand was an unnatural color. Instead of cool bluish grey, dull red, charcoal, evergreen, indigo, or brilliant white, it was light sandy tone. How much cleaving had they done? Were they even daemonium anymore?

Before the Imp could ponder further, their attention was drawn toward a shout. Slowly filtering their way toward the crime scene were a dozen soldiers brandishing automatic and recoiless rifles.

.........................................................

“Respect the dead, for The One’s sake! What are you looking at anyway, hun? Never seen a bunch of murderhobos before?” Focalor, a black cap, harrassed the nearest camera crew. Oria couldn’t help but think of that awful face paint they were wearing. It made their face look less like a menacing skull and more like a clownish cartoon character or some amphibious monster from a silent era film.

Orias adjusted their suit. This was going to be a nightmare, but then again what day wasn’t for Orias’s line of work. How little did everyone around them know that Sheol could be on the brink. The urgency of it all made the constable all the more frustrating to deal with.

“What’s the meaning of this?” the lead investigative constable asked rudely.

“Constable, we are with the Nine Rings…”

“Yeah, I know you’re black caps. Shouldn’t you be delivering strongly worded letters warlords about how to play nice?” the constable interrupted with a rhetorical grumble.

“We are here to take over the investigation, constable,” Orias replied politely.

“No, no, no, let me stop you right there,” The constable says with a pointed finger and extended their claw. “I know you think you’re the hottest rock in Sheol because you did some peace keeping or fought some international crime syndicate, but you think because you’re in the League you get to traipse around my town with a military unit? You know how much this violates not only Iuliacum city law but the sovereignty of our Confederacy?” the Iracundibian spouted with spite.

Orias kept their composure but wanted to giggle at the tough wrathful display. They could barely see the constable’s tail cover beneath their overcoat. They’re compensating for something for sure.

Orias calmly replied, “I am on orders from the Confederal Arbiters, the Iuliacum City Arch Chairman, and High Sheriff Lillian.”

“That’s a leviathan load of shit.”

Orias sighed and rolled their eyes they displayed their papers for the irritable Constable. The Constable grimaced staring into the flipbook as each signed document passed by. Finally after a frustrating pause the Iracundibian stood aside and shouted to their deputies, “our job here is done we’re pulling out?”

“What?” The other deputies ask in confused unison.

“The black caps have jurisdiction over the crime scene. Get a move on, lets go.”

Orias took a step and waved the armed escort and the cleanup crew forward. As the aggravated deputies passed by the constable growled, “I’ll make sure to mention you in my paperwork.”

“Don’t worry deputy, besides a statement of events from the other, your paperwork has been taken care of. However, I’ll be sure to change your section a little,” Orias replied with a smirk and salute. They just loved how the Iracundiabias face flinched with that remark.

Orias proceeded forward with haste. The night was very young and there was much work to be done. The past century and a half since the Dark Age had been a strange for sure. Beasts of burden had once more been almost replaced with trains and motor carriages. Electric lights, televisions, and a variety of artificially cleaved plants glowed in the darkness of nighttime homes. Settled caverns and cities could now communicate instantaneously using ultrasound and taking advantage of God’s root network with electrical signals. But the secret war that had been brewing before the Dark Age loomed with no end in sight.

It was not the shadow war enveloping the multitude of confederacies, federations, unions, tin pot oligarchies, and other nations of known Sheol. This was a war much more terrible and grand in scope. It was a much more secretive war with nightmarish despots, zealots, monsters, and murderous fiends from another plane of existence. The war with Gaia: the world of a long dead god.

There was a lot to be thankful for. They were lucky that gaians had only a single magic user among their party. They were lucky that these gaians were a race called Man, and unlike many of their brethren, were only bloodthirsty and confident enough to begin their massacre at the garden. They were lucky that the cherubs and other angels climbing along the great fleshy roots above them, only cast judgment upon the gaians and not the Sheriffs nor the block full of the terrified citizens below. On the other hand, it was quite unlucky that the marauders were in the city of Iuliacum far, far from Dis.

It meant one thing. There was a mirror gate in the city.

“May I ask you a question?” a voice interrupted.

Orias turned to see a small imp in a black suit only a few inches shorter than themselves. They had the big innocent eyes of a newly spawned hound pup.

“Shoot,” Orias said.

“Are you a superbian or an… an…”

“An imp?” Orias responded promptly.

“Yeah…” the Imp replied.

With their face always caked in makeup and the horn extensions Orias was normally mistaken as a short Superbian, very few guessed they were an Imp like the one before them. Orias began to chuckle. All of these cosmetics were silly and superficial, but just because you’re an imp doesn’t mean you don’t have to play the Superbian games. Navigating the realm of international politics and intelligence it was a must to give off the air of pride, but it was equally important to not lose yourself in it.

“I really didn’t mean offense,” The imp said cautiously.

“No offense taken, you’re the first stranger to get it right in almost a year,” Orias said back with a smirk. The imp gave a nervous smile back.

“What’s your name?” Orias asked.

“Olivia.” The imp responded.

“My names Orias, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Say, do you know where these junkies came from or if you heard any rumors about where they were bumming around? We suspect they’re part of a sensitive international smuggling operation, and would appreciate any leads.”

“Honestly no. I was just about to get off our shift when Vesper called us over the squelch about an attack. Ira said the perps had come from the park entrance but that’s all he saw. When I got here it was chaos blood and wounded everywhere, thank The One that more weren’t here. I wouldn’t have survived if it wasn’t for the pygmy cherubs and a lucky shot.”

“Lucky shot?”

“I unloaded most of my clip. That stubborn monster wouldn’t go down until I hit him in the head. ”

‘Cast it to the void,’ Orias thought to themselves. It confirmed the worst of their fears: mithril armor.

“Well we’re glad you were here. If you weren’t, who knows how many others could have been killed by those maniacs?”

“Is there anything else we can do? The outbound quarter’s Sheriff section can help with anything you need.”

“Thank you. Besides getting making sure we get those statement, just take a rest; I’d know I’d need it after a day like that.”

The Olivia fumbled with one of their pockets before brandishing a card. “If you change your mind just give me a call,” the Imp said placing the slip of paper in Orias hand.

“Thanks again, will do,” Orias said to the other Imp as they jogged off.

Orias began to stride toward the crime scene and ponder. The Imp remembered being that young, skittish, and naïve. Despite the innocent exterior, Orias could see the ambition and drive behind those indigo eyes. They would learn in time to play the game. Despite what others may believe, it was healthy for modern civilization to have imps in the rank of power. It was imps like them cooled hot, ambitious, and self-centered heads to make the myriad of known Sheol’s societies in run smoothly. The Union of Dis served as a reminder.

Dis was a once great civilization that had began the push toward industrial society five long centuries ago. It quickly rose to hold dominion over many of the modern power players in Sheol’s eternal game of shadows. For with its technology and now lost trade routes beyond known Sheol, it had surpassed most alliances and nations with far older and richer histories than it. Despite marvels of Dis’s engineering, the strength of its military, and the robustness of its economy it was doomed to collapse.

Blinded by pride, they began their greatest achievement, something that would give them dominion over all the other nations and tribes struggling to modernize and compete against them. They would to grow their own god and angels to be subservient to them grown from The One’s flesh. It was a dark deed that would not go unpunished. A decade long civil war began over the blasphemous act. And at the end of the violent conflict the nation had made a breakthrough with their project, they would turn the tide and ensure dominance over Sheol. The light of The One dimmed above the core of Dis’s hegemony, and Countless Angels crawled out from God’s flesh to descend upon the doomed civilization. Rather than kill their creation or accept death they fought back in vain. Within weeks their great core cities were reduced to ash. To stem the tide and saved what little remained they sealed off the heart of their empire and tens of millions of citizens still alive. Like their attempt at resistance, it would be in vain as well.

The periphery emergency government collapsed back into civil war and then outright warlordism. A dark age would spread with news of the Union’s collapse. Trade and modernization stalled and regressed for almost a century out of fear of angering The One Above All. And the power vacuum would lead to numerous violent and bloody wars, rocking the slice of known Sheol. And from this struggle known Sheol would rebuild itself into the world they knew today. That was the official narrative at least.

The truth was Dis had fallen to a secret war. A war which the League of the Nine Rings and the nine great powers who funded it had unfortunately inherited.

As Dis was beginning to decline into decadence, it effected the personal pride of their new crop of leaders. Why should they treat irritable clients states and the old powers as equals when it was them who had begun this new age? Why should they fade into the dustbin of history and letting the others surpass them. And, so the unchecked Superbians decided to flex the muscles of their nation once more. Not only did they begin work on an artificial god, but invading another world after discovering the ancient mirror gates to them. What was meant to be an short campaign against savages stuck in the iron age, transformed into a decade long meat grinder for the Gaia. Supply lines were stretched thin, as neither vehicles, weapons, ammunition, or food could be produced from the cursed soil. More and more of the State’s coin and effort went into managing the logistics of the war, causing tensions on the home front grow. Protests eventually became food riots which in turn boiled over into civil war. When Nation was on its knees and at its lowest point, the gates between Sheol and Gaia opened, expanding to sizes thought physically impossible. Through the gates turned bridges, the infernal armies of Gaia and traitor daemonium flowed forth.

They raped, pillaged, and enslaved, as one would expect less advanced peoples to do. But their bloodlust did not end, they only became more enraged and depraved when the precious gems and metals of Sheol wouldn’t work in their alchemy, nor would their food grow. Dis and Sheol were as cursed to them as they were for us. It was then that the real barbarism began and it may have spread to all of sheol if they weren't so blatent or stupid.

Whether it the sight of so many of their favored children slaughtered or the ignorant assault upon their very flesh, The One Above All would be unkind. All the Angels over Dis descended from on high, and divinity sent forth unumbered others to rend the invaders like the men in the garden. But, before the full flood of hosts could wash over Dis, the Gaians and traitors fearing their own destruction sealed its heart off from the rest of Sheol. With great effort they burned God’s separated flesh and exterminated the few hosts remaining that could function without connection to Barbalo.

The atrocities they inflicted upon Orias species could never be forgiven. Not by daemonium. Not by The One Above All. They were starved in famine after famine, because gaian crops gained preference for tilling. They were worked to death in labor camps to quarry worthless stone and cut wood to burn into soot. They were hunted them for sport in the ruined streets like animals. They became host to the cruelest and most sadistic forms of torture, experimentation, and execution. Daemonium of all ages and race sacrificed like cattle in factory farm in the name of eternal life or to cosmic predators claiming to be gods.

To the Gaian despots, daemonium were only a resource. They were labor until their bodies gave out. There bodies were material, skin for clothing and flesh for alchemy. Even their souls were not spared. Those unlucky souls under Gaian heel would never bask in the paradise of Barbalo or be reincarnated. All would refined into mana for consumption and to fuel savagery of gaian war. They all met oblivion. And their were still worse fates.

The damned as they were called were brought mirrorside, to the dead world. It was a world with no tunnels or cave rock, but a vast infinite void much like space, but each day the stars above would be consumed by the unatural bright blue of ether. The light did not come from the warm hue of glow plants or the one above all, but from a massive star. It was a star unlike the one enveloped by Barbalo, it was not a welcoming warm red, but a harsh blinding yellow that baked the very ground. But the vomit inducing vertigo of the sky and discomfort of the blinding light did not last long. Those that whethered the trip would be brought to the darkest dungons of the dead world, becoming hosts to experiments so unspeakable and vile... Orias began to shake.

Orias had seen it. Orias had lived it. Orias had barely escaped it. Orias had sworn to The One Above All they would never allow it to happen again.

The Imp opened their eyes to observe the crime scene. They had to push out the memories and trauma. Orias would not let it control them.

They ran back through the checklist in their mind. The party was small and human, thank The One it wasn’t elves. The party was uncoordinated and unfamiliar with the danger’s of Sheol. This was good, few knew about the gate except for a select few treasure seekers. However, their armor was mithril. Were they men of noble blood, knights who had earned it, or men at arms with deep pockets? The details didn’t matter, they were important enough for someone to start looking for them.

The full might of just a minor Human Kingdom would be devastating if unleashed upon the city. Orias shuttered at the thought of what would happen if The Empire of Crimson and their undying despot discovered the gate.

Orias observed their surroundings. Most of the reporters have been pushed out of the garden, which was a pleasant surprise for the Imp. They needed interviews with the medical rescue and victims. Now they also needed…

A member of cleaning crew stumbled backward interrupting the Imp’s train of thought. A faint fit of coughing emanated from below. Orias glanced at the demon’s feet; one of the corpses was starting to stir.

Focalor pranced forward kicking the fiend's sword further to the side; all while cautiously keeping a steady aim at the man’s noggin. Orias pushed her way through the swarm of black caps encircling the invader. Their mission had just gotten a whole lot easier.

“I’m *cough* alive *gasp* thank the gods,” the man said in his native tongue.

“You’re going to wish you weren’t,” Orias replied back with a smirk.