The Internal Affairs

[Slayer of Love]

Discarding the whole charade makes the fiend behind rather pleased, and no less witnessing the cold heart in the man behind.

"It is simple. You have questions.
I have answers.
I also have questions.
Want to deal, mortal, do you? Make your bid."

[Serena]

He listened quietly to the fiend's words, one eyebrow raising lightly as he considered them.

"I do not wish to deal, no," he admitted matter of factly. "But I'll listen to your questions, and if I'll feel like answering, I'll ask a question of equal value in turn. Up to you how this is going to go."

There was a pause and then the half-drow eventually added.
"For any of this to work, however, I'll still want to know who am I talking to. Since you already know that part."

[Slayer of Love]

"Why don't you come through the portal? We'll get to know each other very well... and you will definitely feel like answering."

Rhistel gathers from the wry tone that the fiendish presence doesn't really expect him to fall for that. He finds the fiend no longer displays a need to lift the summoning ring's constraints. There is something suspicious about this sudden lack of pressured haste.

[Serena]

"Veiled threats... classy" He considered casually, moving his gaze around the room before returning it on the seal and toward where the voice came.
"Or is it something else? You are being... Pretty inconsistent."


The half drow narrowed his eyes again. The situation wasn't great to begin with, but now it started feeling even more concerning by the time...

[Slayer of Love]

Aside from the rumbling, eerie vibrations innate to the astral plane, there is no sound made in vicinity. It's been like that, deadly quiet, for a while now, without answer to Rhistel queries, those or any further.

It may be that the fiend is not tempted to bargain on such terms, maybe even somehow offended, or simply drawn to other matters. Nonetheless giving up on getting what it wants from Rhistel - whatever this can be - would be rather inconsistent for a devil. Either those answers are not too precious to the fiend, or it still has something up its insidious sleeve.

Few minutes into this dead silence of the abandoned labolatory Rhistel can hear a rattle of glass. Bottles, vials, crockery in the lab shake lightly back and forth and bounce against one another. It repeats rhytmically, as though the ground was quaking, though benignly enough for Rhistel not to even feel it.



* * *


Castellan Gomory, the minaurosian deputy on this jury, is openly against the accused in this hearing. Dark is she and the minaurosian court have had some sort of millenia long feud between each other, and Gomory was personally involved. Like burgrave Nimroth he too has been rather bored with this charade, only he couldn't wait for his own chance to press her.

Maraphiel tosses a look at the canian deputy, and given a permissive nod, she explains with her ever present wry, half-crooked smirk,

"Deep infiltration orders."

Gomory is quick to challenge that.

"Accused! Are you saying you have essentially legalised a treason?"

"Is there a legal merit to this question? Ha, ha, ha."

"This is a joke to you? Pity yourself as you confess to your crimes!"

A very measured burst of anger makes it through her well convincing mask of mocking this entire enterprise, only to emphasise the point and slip back into contemptible ridiculing.

"Only if the crime is to gather invaluable informants, which undeniably cannot be a crime as these WERE MY EXACT ORDERS from YOU, meh-ladies and meh-lords."

A dry scoff follows she lets out less out of actual amusement and more as a stop in the coded message for Nimroth.

[Serena]

The half drow had clearly little interest for the devil's hurt feelings, yet, its presence there, along with the now fully functional seal -did- unsettle him for several reasons.
Who repaired it, and why?
And why did the devil lose so soon interest in trying to have him open it again?

He really wanted his answers, and he even knew how to get them, but the place.. was it really safe to consider performing a divination?

He probably knew the answer was "no" even before the low vibration started...

[Slayer of Love]

Rhistel realises mending the seal must have had to do with preventing the fiendish remains from returning to Hell. Whomever or whatever did this, for some reason did not wish for those devils' swift return to Baator.

Is it ever really wise to perform divinations when denizens of Hell are involved? Probably not, but it's not like that's ever held Rhistel back.

Click. Clock. Click. Clock. He hears the hoofbeat outside. From the window he can see - something's approaching.

Riders.



* * *



The unbearable, dragging stagnation that bothered Nimroth is gone the moment he deciphers the coded message, and all his mental prowess fires up all at once to contemplate its meaning.

"N-o--d-e-a-l" ? This communication goes against every expectation he's had. What possible reason would there be for the accused not to try to bribe him or blackmail him? Every meeting like this both her side's and Alecto's offered him their bids to choose from, and he would auction off his vote. It pays to take the neutral middleman stance, and not just Nimroth - this is after all how this jury ever reaches conclusions. He deduces some other scheme must be in play.

It can't be that she's going to flee. If she was, she wouldn't have come peacefully.
Bypassing the jury's authority is unlikely for the sheer amount of strings one would have to pull up in all nine of the infernal royal courts.
No, the most likely solution is that already she has somebody else to back her vote. Which of the courtiers is it, though?

On the outside the dissian burgrave is stoic, not a single unnecessary move, not a single blink of an eye. Not a smallest change to demeanor he's had. But the game's just changed, and now he takes every opportunity to study the remaining eight judges.

Nimroth figures a little nudge to provoke some reaction would be in place.

"You will respect this Jury, Maraphiel. They bestowed upon you the honour of your position, they can take it away."

"Will they, though?"

"You are not irreplacable"

"No one is, milord. For example your masters may find your explanation, so as to why this Jury removed them from partaking in the rather unique Initiative Yod-Lamed-Resh-Tav-Bet,... interesting ..."

There is an agitation around the Hall, some devils exchange looks and hushed whispers whilst others burst out enraged.

[Serena]

Sure enough he had been unwise -and, let's be honest, stupid- at times, but right about now he didn't really feel like taking chances, not a single bit. there was time for answers, and he didn't strictly need to be there to get them, so the choice was obvious: leaving, now.
He stepped away from the window after getting a clue of what was approaching, and then quickly double checked that he had gathered all the devils' remains before heading for one of the windows that faced away from the main road. He opened it, and and with one fluid movement he jumped out of it, disappearing halfway through his fall at one single muttered word, only to reappear behind one of the buildings farther away, where he cloaked himself in invisibility only to be able to spare a last glance at what was going to go down at the Tower...

[Slayer of Love]

Malevolent sparks glow in fiendish eyes of the heavily barded steeds. Their sharklike fangs bare loomingly on the disproportionally huge heads. Magical embers burn in place of their manes on the necks shackled in menacing, spiked collars.

On the warhorses' backs ride humanoids encased fully in spiked, plate armors, decorated with abhorrent, dark magic symbols painted in dried blood. Gruesome trophies hang attached to their armors: personal items, hairlocks, bones, ears, eyes, horns, skinned faces, profanated sacramentals of faith, decaying symbols of life. Beneath their helmets one can see their faces stuck constantly in an angry, baleful grimace, and eyes of immense sadness. Each horseman wields a radiant with heat, eighteen feet long pike blazing with dreadful fire.

In life they were paladins. Some fell by making an infernal deal, some were misguided into betraying their deity, some others' insistence on the letter of the law led them too far astray.
In perdidion these corrupt souls become the Narzugon, the infernal dark knights errant, and the elite cavarly of Baator's legions.
Almost always in groups, equipped with a Hellfire lance and riding Nightmares - extremely dangerous.

The regiment is very organised, their approach positional and methodical. Within the group each hellknight fluidly assumes a specialised, tactical role, as indicated by the extra equipment and behaviour.

Two armed additionally with swords rush past the tower, without stopping, and then circle back in opposite directions. Made sure that's clear, they keep circling around the tower.

Two others keep at the back, one each flank, just waiting to join up wherever they're needed. Staying in move just to preserve the momentum.

One throws a bunch of explosives inside through the tower's window.

Right after him another, wielding nets and a whip, has his mount bash the tower's door with front legs.

The last, seventh one, keeps at the back, apparently less concerned with the initial strike. He carries some magical staves and ingredients. Just follows at a distance, watching the battlefield closely. Spotter.

His gaze trails around the surroundings until eventually it meets Rhistel's direction. It freezes there. Momentarily the other riders turn that way too, alerted.

They are charging.


* * *


"Unbelievable!"
"Outrageous!!!"
"Wait, initiative what?"
"Shame! Shame! Shame!"
"Anyone tell you you're cute when you're angry?"
"Listen you little slag of pig pus..."
"Punish the traitor!"
"Fools! Let her finish"
"Threatening the Jury, that's admission of treason!"
"Milords, miladies, please..."
"So what is this initiati-"
"TO THE PIT! TO the pit with the insolent traitor!"
"You think I'll bow to you because your master told you to watch me?"



"::::: Enough ::::: "

Hassle stops as suddenly as it escalated. In fraction of a second all the judges are quiet. A bunch of servant, brute devils are waterboarding the Accused in boiling tar, and beating savagely with spiked clubs, rusted forks, all manners of glassware and farming tools.

It is Tacitae's doing, the Nessian representative's. A faceless, dark creature with four legs, eight hands, sixteen wings and thirty two horns. Profane, abhorrent runes shimmer on its pitch black, featureless skin, form a sacrilegous shape of a face. Most pit fiends of this court avoid so much as confronting its look directly.
It does not speak for it has no mouth. Its esoteric voice is not heard. Rather it manifests itself as a thought, innate, unspoken phrase echoing darkly from some hidden corner of listener's consciousness.

"::::: There shall be order in these precedings :::::"

The jury never has had any formal leader, but it is quite clear who holds the reins.

[Serena]

"Not looking like you're here to parley, mh?" He muttered to himself, before lazily raising a hand to bid his farewell toward the devil that had spotted him and stepping behind the building to conceal himself from them the time needed to wrap the space around him again. A blink of an eye, and he phased once more, this time at the maximun range allowed by his powers and as close to the Divinity Leech as possible, in hope the aura emanated by the singularity in it would mess up any detection they might use against him.
Only once he was there he took enough time to open an actual portal to the only place they were probably not expecting him to go.

Hell.