Part 4
Xalgaman chuckled at the first question. Seems demons really are all the same, no matter who they are.
"The demon nicknames, of course." He said with a gruff laugh. "We'll do a little game so you can understand demonic thought processes. I'll name a God or immortal, and you give me the first 2 word nickname that comes to mind. Don't think about it for more than a second."
"I'm not sure what you're getting at, but okay." Xellma said, confused but curious.
"You already know Royal Void's, so we'll skip her." Xalgaman said, taking a seat on the ground. "Agbus."
"Hmmm..." Xellma began.
"I told you, a single second!" Xalgaman shouted back.
"Shining Light."
"Of course. Eigengrau."
"...Dead Fish?" Xellma said, unsure why that popped into her mind.
Xalgaman chuckled. "Sargon?"
"Angry Hammer."
"Hamlin DeFountain."
"Really?" Xellma asked. Seeing a nod from Xalgaman, she continued. "Walking Church."
"Okay last one." Xalgaman said, standing up again. "She's not immortal but she's interesting. Princess Syndra Valmaris."
"Snow Thief." Xellma said immediately, almost as if on reflex.
"Every single nickname you came up with there? We've been calling them that for hundreds if not thousands of mortal realm years. Every single demon thinks the same way, Xellma."
"No, I don't think that's entirely correct." Xellma proposed. "Torture methods are all unique, for example would you have even thought of the orgasm denial and castration torture on the sex maniac from earlier?"
"Hmmm, no." Xalgaman admitted.
"How about the gender reversal on the serial killer who exclusively targeted women, followed by killing him over and over using the same methods he used on his victims?" Xellma asked, smiling. She wasn't aware she could orgasm from torturing someone before that moment.
"Ummm..."
"How about when I ripped the heart out of that man and forced him to eat it while it beat in my hand?"
"I get it." Xalgaman said, cutting her off. "Honestly I've never seen someone turn torture into both a science and an art."
"Surely I can't have been the first, you're older than dirt. Literally."
"Even with eternity you still meet new sorts." Xalgaman replied.
"I have another question." Xellma said, remembering something. "When I first met you, you said I wasn't thinking like a demon, what did you mean by that?"
"You think like you're still on the mortal plane. Hell has no reality anchors, this is a plane of unreality. Think of Hell like a lucid dream." Xalgaman explained, pulling a Dwarven gun out of thin air. "Nobody can die in Hell, nobody can starve, or age, despite the extreme passage of time. Of course you can find me by thinking about me, that's how Hell works. You didn't even need to know my name, you just needed to know you needed me." Xalgaman pointed the gun at the nearest damned soul and pulled the trigger several times, watching as cannon shells tore through the man, while laughing.
"That's a gun, not a cannon." Xellma stated.
"Again, this is Hell. Anything is possible. I wanted it to shoot cannon shells, so it did."
"What's a reality anchor?" Xellma asked, her curiosity piqued. She'd never heard of this kind of magic before.
Xalgaman exhaled. "That's a hard one, Xellma. I've been around for a very long time and I have no idea how they work."
"Who does?"
"Dead Fish knows how they work, but even Hell's unreality has limits. You can't just pull a God here."
As if on cue, Eigengrau quite literally popped into existence in front of them.
"You were saying, Xalgaman?" Xellma asked with a smirk.
"Oh, this is new. Where am I?" Eigengrau asked, looking around. She could tell she was not on Karand, or even one of the adjacent planes. So where was she? For that matter, how did she even leave Karand? "This is not Karand."
"Quite correct, Dead Fish. This is Hell." Xellma stated. "We have a question for you."
"I am in Hell? How?" Eigengrau asked. The questions kept mounting. "It is not possible for me to leave the mortal plane." Eigengrau looked down at her feet, and then she understood. "Ah."
Xellma looked down at Eigengrau's feet too, and saw it as well. "Well, that's certainly something."
Eigengrau was in fact not touching the ground in Hell, and was standing on a small square of dirt and rock that presumably came from Karand.
"I will set aside how you managed to summon me for now. You said you had a question for me?" Eigengrau asked, choosing to disregard this nonsense for now.
"Yes. What's a reality anchor and how does it work? Xalgaman told me Hell has no reality anchors and that's why it works the way it does." Xellma said to Eigengrau, gesturing around.
No reality anchors? Just what does Vordea get up to down here? Eigengrau was very intrigued by the idea of no reality anchors.
"Reality anchors are a very specific kind of runic magic, one that should not exist." Eigengrau began to explain. "We have used them exceptionally rarely, and are mainly used to enforce cause and effect on the mortal plane. However..."
"There's another use." Xellma said with a smile.
"Of course." Eigengrau replied with a small smile. She liked this one. "When used by a powerful enough caster, such as myself or Vordea, they can become an anti-magic rune. Reality altering spells and creatures cannot exist near these high level runes, with the radius of effect depending on the size of the casting circle. If it's the size of a continent, for example, it expands to the entire mortal plane."
"Wait, Royal Void is reality altering?" Xalgaman asked. This was new.
"Oh yes. Her very presence causes strains and cracks on the very concept of three dimensional space. She has an aura of madness that only divine souls can withstand. Even as demons you cannot comprehend her true form and merely see a three dimensional approximation of it. That being said, there is a small side effect when the spell is that big."
"That being?"
"You get a planet wide earthquake when it casts." Eigengrau flatly stated.
"It was you!" Xellma shouted. "In the 760s while we were fighting Saint Liddell. There was a sudden earthquake and it put her off guard! That's how we killed her!"
Eigengrau, for the time in a very long time, was surprised. She knew Vordea created demons from the souls of the evil dead, but she hadn't looked too closely at this one yet.
"Rebecca Ashe. I might have known." Eigengrau said, smiling. "Even in death you get up to mischief."
"What were you doing 40 years ago for a spell that big?" Xellma asked, crossing her arms.
"A very special spell indeed. One to prevent your dark lady from fully manifesting on Karand until the reality anchors expire at the end of time." Eigengrau answered cryptically.
"Why?" Xalgaman asked, curious himself now.
"The path not walked. That is all I will say. Now, as interesting as being in Hell has been I really must be going. Rest assured, I will have to inform Vordea about this."
With those words, Eigengrau was gone, along with the patch of dirt she stood on, leaving the two demons alone.
"Think we'll get in trouble?" Xellma asked Xalgaman, who responded with a barking laugh.
"Hah! If anything, Royal Void will be pleased as punch that you managed to summon a God of all people to Hell!"