Like something out of a slapstick comedy, Jay only got to take a single step on the other side of the door before he lost his footing. The second came down on a slick, curved floor that had clearly been designed as a chute. There was no way it would be accidental.

  The involuntary slide that followed was short thanks to the chute curving back in on itself. That didn’t stop him from catching glimpses of the scattering of crystals lining the walls. Jay had no idea what kind of crystal they could be, not off of such a quick glimpse, but each of them had a scattering of dark particles suspended inside.

  His sliding journey ended quickly; the chute was just a single curve that ended almost directly below where it had started. There wasn’t much of a frame of reference for how high it was but Jay was fairly certain that it wouldn’t be out of reach for someone a foot or so taller than him. It was also nearly the only thing he could see at the bottom; the rest of it was pitch dark save for a single light mounted in a bump on the floor that was pointing away from the chute.

  Before he followed the path it illuminated, Jay took a second to look at the crystals again. Other than the flecks of dark material inside, they were perfectly clear. That was less reassuring than it could be once he noticed that the particles were moving, drifting downward at the same rate that the remaining wisps of fog were moving. He had a sneaking suspicion that they were the same thing and going to the same place; it was all headed downwards and further along the lit up walkway.

  He wasn’t going to be able to avoid walking in it down here. The only reason he wasn’t already was the small gap left by the chute above his head. Jay couldn’t even tell what the pathway was made of ahead of him from the layer of mist that was somehow dark enough to stand out even among the rest of the ambient darkness.

  Agensyx tried to send thoughts across, bright red anger clear, but Jay locked their bond down to avoid it getting through. He didn’t have time to waste on what was probably a rightful reaming-out. Something about trying to rescue Brocia felt right in a way nothing else had except trying to help kill Duke Kinicier. And at least this he had a shot at succeeding without some hidden assassin beating him to the punch.

  So there was nothing for it. Jay followed the only directional indicator he had, continuing on as more lights sprung into being in a line with the first. He passed four lights before something else came into view: an obelisk of crystal with a concentration of the black occlusions swirling within it. There were enough of the specks to limit the obelisk’s light to a thin, broken pool of weak illumination around its base.

  Standing in front of it was Ullmin, arms spread as if he was basking in the light, with the fog curling up and over Brocia’s shoulders like some misty cloak. In what had to have been the most human moment Jay had seen from him, he was humming a simple upbeat tune, fingers twitching in time with every pitch change.

  It didn’t escape his notice that the darkness clustered as close to the archdevil as it could.

  Jay’s grip tightened around the hilt of the crystal sword. Just to make sure he didn’t accidentally kill Brocia, he blunted the edge of it. Salvidor could fix severe head trauma. He just hoped a concussion was enough to separate her body from the possession. There wasn’t going to be a better shot for this than a completely turned back.

  He flicked the mental switch that engaged [Active Stealth]. It hadn’t been useful in many situations so far, but when it was, it had been extremely worth having. Jay’s steps became muffled, his stance wider. There were only a few dozen creeping steps he had to take, and he inched through them one by one.

  When he was close enough, he didn’t waste a second before swinging.

  Brocia’s arm twisted around with a sickening, tearing crack to catch the sword. He hoped it had just been her shoulder; who knew how magical healing would handle the possibility of bone shards in a joint like the elbow? Clearly Ullmin wasn’t concerned with the idea.

  “No, no, little [Necromancer],” the archdevil chortled. “You’re no [Assassin]. Stealth is useful, but you are fully literally standing within portions of my domain. There is nothing that happens here without my awareness.”

  His domain? The answer clicked into place nearly before the question had been asked. The fog.

  “Someday,” Jay replied, “someone is going to say something and actually explain what it means when they do instead of being cryptic.”

  This got a deep, full laugh out of Ullmin. He turned Brocia’s body around without releasing the grip on Jay’s blunted crystal, an act that generated another symphony of sickening noises.

  “Abandon that hope,” he said. “Or become someone that can demand the unaltered truth and have a chance to receive it. In the spirit of encouragement, I suppose I should offer you another chance to step away from all of this and let me reclaim what is mine.”

  The archdevil sighed. “But no. I gave you your chance and you still marched down here to interfere. And clearly encouraged others to do the same, judging from what’s happening back in the records room. I hope you know they won’t make it.”

  Jay stalled for time. Every second he could delay Ullmin with conversation was a second that he had to think of something that could get Brocia back in control of her own body.

  “Maybe if you’d ever bothered to explain what you actually wanted, no one would try to get in your way,” Jay tried.

  “I have been more clear than you deserve,” the possessing devil said. “And fully as clear as I intend to be. What would more information do for any of you? I would be surprised to learn that there was even a single corporeant left alive that would understand the explanation.”

  Jay gestured the classic “bring it” motion with one hand, leaving the other wrapped around the hilt of the crystal sword. “Try me. Maybe I’ll get more than you think I will.”

  “What part of ‘as clear as I intend to be’ was confusing to you? I will reclaim what is mine by right and has been stolen from me.”

  “You’d think you’d at least try phrasing it in a different way,” Jay said. “Anything other than the exact same thing with only minor shifts.”

  Ullmin shook Brocia’s head. “You’re not worth it. Die.”

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  The last word was filled with the System’s resonance but it didn’t sound like any incantation that Jay had ever heard before. It wasn’t in that ancient language that Omnilinguist imbued with so much extra meaning, nor was there any glow to indicate magic being used.

  Regardless of that, a weight pressed into him, trying to lock his chest into place as if to stop him from breathing. It might have even been trying to stop his heart; the heaviness spread through his entire torso equally.

  The sensation peaked without either outcome occurring. It didn’t stop afterwards but it didn’t increase.

  Ullmin shot a confused look at Jay. “Did you not hear me? I told you to die.”

  There was a brief moment before the word was fully out that the weight lifted, though it flooded back in before the resonance had faded. Jay continued to breathe, his heart continued to beat. Whatever this was, it didn’t seem to be as much of a one-shot, one-kill ability as Ullmin intended.

  The archdevil seemed pissed at that fact.

  “How are you doing that? Has this world figured out enchantments to countermand Edicts? I’m almost impressed. Clearly I should have been paying better attention to Halea,” Ullmin mused.

  Edicts. Jay had never heard the term before, not in this context. It wasn’t hard to guess that it was some form of System-enforced command system but surely that would have been referenced somewhere that he’d have found. Unless it was and just never got named.

  This world had an infuriating number of issues with information clarity.

  “How about this one,” Ullmin started. “Do not interfere.”

  Jay could feel the weight of the Edict settle into his whole body this time. It felt lighter, as if the larger area of effect weakened the effect, but he wasn’t willing to call that anything more than a coincidence until he could figure out more about how this actually functioned. Unfortunately, it also felt far more absolute. Jay tried to push against it but couldn’t figure out a way to replicate the feeling of it failing to lock his heart and lungs into place.

  He wasn’t going anywhere. The most he could do was shift the Crystalband back so they could stop holding the awkward face-to-face position that hadn’t changed since the archdevil had caught it.

  “That’s better,” Ullmin cooed. “Now it’s time to go back to doing what needs to be done.”

  He turned his stolen body back to the crystal. The light was almost entirely hidden at this point from the volume of blackness that had accumulated inside it. Even the floor was almost clear, the last trickles of fog surrendering themselves to the crystal with the rest of the material.

  Ullmin took the time to hum one last quick sequence of notes, tapping along with it on the crystal itself this time. The purpose behind the location became clear immediately as cracks began to spread from the places his fingers made contact. They spread, tracing a weblike pattern of weakness around the obelisk, covering more and more of its surface until it all lost cohesion and came crumbling down.

  The darkness that had been inside retained its shape for a breath before rearing up to envelop Brocia’s possessed body, sinking into her body and leaving gray stains behind like a paper towel mopping up dyed water. A small part of Jay took some comfort in the fact that he wouldn’t be the only person running around with gray skin anymore in the same moment that he was horrified at what that had to mean for her iteration of the Curse.

  The entire river of blacker-than-black particles condensed into the stolen body. Once it was done, Ullmin took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. System windows began begging for Jay’s attention.

  “Oh, I’d forgotten what it felt not to be missing that portion of myself,” the archdevil sighed. “I’ve been without it for longer than you have the mental capacity to conceptualize. I cannot properly describe what it feels like to be able to collect on the backed up power that’s just been waiting.”

  As he spoke, an aura of darkness grew into being behind him, deepening with every word. It had the faint look of spreading wings, as if the floor light was showing something not visible to the normal senses.

  Jay still couldn’t move. The Edict hadn’t weakened at all in the time he’d been locked in place, though he guessed that had been too much to hope for. [Sense Magic] chose then to ping with an almost tactile sensation, drawing his attention back to the archdevil.

  The wings had begun to condense the same way the material polluting the crystal had, taking on a physical, liquid weight. Two columns began to form, rising from the floor before joining together. Legs. Then a torso, arms, a head. The body was one of pale gray skin, black runes searing themselves on just before the sweeping robes formed. A runebound, then, but not one with any form of runes Jay had seen before. Even Omnilinguist didn’t translate these.

  Brocia’s body dropped like a marionette with its strings cut. The newly formed body opened its eyes for the first time in the same moment, irises a startling pure white against the otherwise black organ.

  “Physicality again,” Ullmin spoke. His voice wasn’t the bastardization of Brocia’s that it had been while using her vocal cords; it was high and cruel, almost haughty, and spoke without a sense of hurry. “A far, far underrated experience. Perhaps you’ll learn if you ever have the misfortune to visit my realm.”

  The archdevil stretched with an inhuman flexibility. Every stretch caused something to pop, from his fingers to the individual vertebrae of his spine. “I’ll take my leave now. There is more of myself to recover, after all. Learn from the helplessness you’re currently feeling and stay out of it next time, will you? Wallow in it a bit if you have to.”

  [Sense Magic] pinged again as a peal of thunder sounded. The Archdevil of Despair vanished; the Edict faded.

  Jay let himself collapse just to give his legs a break, blinking furiously. He hadn’t even been able to do that while frozen. Brocia hadn’t moved, so once he wasn’t suffering from the world’s worst case of dry eye, he checked her pulse. It was there, so at least all his effort hadn’t been wasted yet, but he didn’t know enough to say whether there were any good signs or bad ones.

  He reopened the mental connection to Agensyx. Ullmin’s gone.

  And I suppose you thought not consulting any of us on the situation was the best possible outcome, the familiar replied. Because of course you did. The blasted centipede finally moved so we’re coming.

  As if to prove his words, the Khashin slammed face-first into the floor. Judging from his angle, he’d missed the chute entirely. He peeled himself off the ground immediately as if it hadn’t hurt. Maybe it hadn’t.

  His speed made him the only other conscious being in the room when a blue ghost spun into being and began speaking.

  “Now listen. If I’m here, this is a terrible situation. You’ve either done something or not done something that should have been handled a much different way. Please hold for a second while I get updated.” The blue figure cocked her head.

  Omnilinguist wasn’t translating. Either this apparition was speaking with her own variety of universal translation ability or – and this was the option he was more inclined to assume was true thanks to the phrasing – she was speaking true English.

  “What is that?” Khashin asked. “Why is she blue?”

  Before Jay could explain that he wasn’t honestly sure about either of those questions, she started talking again.

  “Right! Okay. First things first: you really bungled this whole thing, guy.” She looked straight at Jay as she said it, then glanced over to Khashin for the second sentence. “Second things second, before I get into the full explanation, an answer for the peanut gallery: why am I blue? It’s a joke you’re not going to get about a little thing called Star Wars.”

  Guess that answered that question.

  “I don’t think Force ghosts curse,” Jay said, and her eyes shot back to him, an expression of utmost confusion written across her face.

  “How the fuck. Do you know. What Star Wars is?” she asked, disbelief coating every hesitant syllable.