Assuming his teammates think it will be helpful, Ajithu looks at each of them in turn and crushes the spell gem in his frail hands. He sprinkles its resulting dust on each member's head.
Shocca breaks into and swiftly hotwires an unused vehicle sitting at the edge of the park. Like most of the personal vehicles on the station, it's designed for efficiency and good handling in traffic, neither of which are immediately useful in this situation.
Shocca steps out of the car with a grimace. "Ah, with these roads the car won't get us far anyway. Thanks Ajithu." She doesn't need the magical benefits, so she takes a step back and watches with awe.
With Ajithu's activated spell gem sending you all aloft, you're able to make excellent time across the Station. Down below, you pass over darkened districts, fires, clashes between opportunistic thugs and beleaguered locals that are only illuminated by the occasional burst of weapons fire. Still, you have to trust that other people and organizations will be able to tackle these other problems as you move at full speed toward the devil incursion.
It takes only 10 minutes to make it out to the Grand Gardenia District. Just before arriving, you hear a report from the District on the emergency channel "They're definitely devils, outsiders, putting up walls? I didn't see where they came from. We all... we all ran. Those of us who could get out. I don't know where they are now, but if you follow the walls you'll find them."
True to the report, as you get close you see that swaths of destruction run in precise lines through the painted stacked apartments of this residential neighborhood’s streets. Vicious, Hellish edifices with black iron walls covered in ruthless spikes stand in the place of building corners that have been sliced from their foundations and dashed to rubble against the ground. The walls themselves glow with a dark fire, providing a twisted illumination to the transformed District. This once-pleasant neighborhood is now a maze of barricades and structures.
Thanks to your elevation, you don't have to wander the maze to find the source. You spot an area to the south where new walls appear to be growing out of the ground. If you're ready, you can fly down to meet the source of the problem...
"Huh... see those foundation points? See the edge of that wall there? They're acting as supports for the station hull..." She rubs her chin. "Could we have another kami situation on our hands? A seemingly evil monster that is just helping out in their own misunderstood way?" She flies up twenty feet to get a better view. Though I suppose devils are evil by nature, huh? Weird situation here...
She goes with her gut and puts her hands to her mouth. "Hey, uh, devils? You gotta any scary evil contracts that you're acting out right now? Uh... promise not to murder-sacrifice the whole neighborhood if we let you shore up the station here?" She swallows deeply. "Ten creds they pop out of thin air and stab me in the gut."
Ajithu squints and looks closer at the scene. Citizens are surely scared, but... they aren't being attacked on an individual basis. He relays his observations to the group in his typical, telepathic form.
This looks horrifying, and those spiked walls with dark fire are surely dangerous, but they appear to be part of some design or plan. The destruction is collateral, and beneath the care of the devils. They don't intend wanton destruction, but they also don't care.
He listens to Shocca, but a little unsure of her musings.
I think, unlike the kami, they have no interest in interacting with the citizens or any sort of retribution. Everything here of the station just seems to be in their way. We need to determine their plan for this...
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Arcalinte grimaces at the sight of this new subcrisis.
"I cannot say I appreciate the idea of devils operating right on my Order's doorstep...while the Empty Orbit doesn't really care about good or evil beyond how galaxy-shattering technology is used and thus devils don't often come into conflict with them, I am a Sarenite, and to me devils are slavers and warmongers who tear people away from the light with their lies and feed them to their ever-hungry flames of conquest. We see an object lesson in the folly of working with them here...but I will stay my hand until we get a clearer picture of just what's going on."
He thinks on what the others have described.
"We need to figure out how to get in first."
Swooping down to the center of the maze, you see a pair of bulky, red-skinned, winged creatures - almost definitely the devils mentioned in the report. These large fiends have humanoid torsos and curved horns on their bone-plated heads, as well as blackened fingers, eyes and teeth. Metal thorns grow from all their limbs.
The two devils pay you no mind as you approach, beyond a casual glance to take in your presence. Both are currently fully occupied with some kind of hellish ritual, claws raised and molten blood and metal spilling from their open palms. The molten material pools and then swirls, swiftly solidifying into another thorny fortification. You can see that many of these walls have already bisected buildings throughout the district, the contents of those buildings a bloody or ashen smear across the wall in question. In several places, an unlucky citizen was in the path of a wall as it sprung up, and now lies partly embedded within the fortification, pierced in a hundred places and assuredly deceased.
The two devils don't even slightly pause their construction ritual when Arc addresses them. One responds in infernal "Right-o, servants of hell we are. We got a clever little imp in the audience, eh?" while the other mockingly imitates Arc "Oooooh, what's the meaning a' this?" before saying "Don't seem too clever ta me. It's a wall, innit?"
As always, he speaks telepathically only to his own party.
What are they saying? Can anyone understand their tongue?
Shocca uses her knowledge of infernal to translate for the group. She speaks to the pair, her tone and language formal. "Hmmmm... it seems you both are on an important mission. We are as well, to save this station. Can you inform us of your current contract and goal?" As she finishes, she pulls up her microlab and gets a reading of these devils.
One of the devils responds to Shocca "Issat what we're doing? An important mission? Looks like work to me." while the other one complains "Work and work and work, 'til the client calls with some bloody changes. Always with the changes." They don't seem at all interested in answering properly, clearly not impressed by Shocca.
After a scan, Shocca's microlab identifies the two devils as tchorugons, also known as contractor devils. These devils are hell's engineers, foremen and construction crew, all in one, capable of building vast infernal structures in a matter of hours with their magic, as well as demolishing existing structures in an even shorter time. While their work is humble in concept, they are also powerful beings within hell's heirarchy. They are immune to fire and poison, resistant to acid, cold and magic, and non-good physical damage. They are capable of flight, can spit spears of metal, and rust away objects at a touch, but are most dangerous up close and personal.
"Yepp, yepp, more work. Sure, sure... So, uh, think you could do it without killing more folks? Cause, we're really trying to save everybody, ideally." She frowns, expecting that to be a resounding no.
"No can do missy." One of the devils speaks up, grinning "Nothing in the contract about avoiding any worms that, ye know, happen to be in the way." The other one begins a rough, unpleasant laugh.
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"You seem to be annoyed with your client changing their requests and prolonging your task. If you tell us who they are and where we can find them, we can ensure they stop this so you may finally fulfill the terms and return to Hell," Arcalinte says, allowing Shocca to translate. "If there's one thing that a devil values, it's efficiency," he thinks to himself.
Attempting to assist Arc, he adds on more to be translated.
Yes, perhaps time spent now before they confirm finality is wasted. Who wants to redo or undo work?
For the first time, the devils actually seem to properly be paying attention. "Yea, its a right proper pain it is. Big job, and the contract's too well written to get a good subversion out of it. Should have just turned right around when we saw that big brain, eh?" The other devil shrugs, then the first one continues "You want to get them to release us, that'd suit us just fine."
One of the devils point toward the nearby apartment building. "The floater barricaded itself in there. Ispenzia-1:17 it was called, innit?" The devils exchange a look.
Shocca nods, and makes her way to the door. "Yes, I have several Contemplative colleagues. Though their insights can be incredible, their personalities are often... challenging." She checks the door for traps before knocking.
Shocca checks the door to the apartment over and finds that it is securely locked (by an old fashioned maglock that it too mechanical to be hackable), but not trapped in any way she can discern. From the other side of the door, her sharp hearing picks up muffled chanting in an odd, uneven cadence.
Behind you, the devils continue their work diligently.
Ajithu will also Detect Magic on the door just to be sure.
I suppose we should at least try knocking first... as natural as breaking in might feel given our recent experiences.
Ajithu doesn't detect any magic from the door. If there's something magical behind it however, he knows the spell likely would not have picked it up.
There's no response when Shocca or Ajithu knock.
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"There's plenty of them back home on Akiton, it's their homeworld. Those ones are usually easier to get along with, so long as you don't bother them when they're meditating. It's mostly the ones that move out to the wider Pact Worlds who become arrogant," Arcalinte comments before making a harder knock on the door.
"Ispenzia-1:17!" he calls. "Open this door at once! Your summoned devils are interfering with Absalom Station's defense and crisis management! We want to help you before you make this already bad situation worse!"
Again, no response from the inside. The chanting continues unabated.
Not for the first time that day, Shocca pulls out her trusty thieves tools. "Whelp, you tried the easy way." As she works, she sings under her breath. "Gonnnnna open up this door, open up this door, open up this door. Gonnnnnnna get a Fireball to the face, fire to the face, fire to the face"
While Achlyss vaporizes the door's hinges, Shocca fiddles with the maglock until the internal mechanism falls out of alignment and disengages. As soon as it does the door (now hinge-less) falls over.
Inside, this comfortably furnished apartment is filled to the brim with books, woodprints, carvings, and items of occult and religious significance. The smell of sandalwood rises from a devil-shaped incense holder set on a polished wooden desk. A few plush chairs and several fine ottomans have been pushed to the side to clear a space on the patterned linoleum floor on which a collection of glowing sigils have been painted.
Floating in the center of the glowing circle is a giant brain, or rather, a contemplative. In the midst of an intricate chant, they twitch and lose their timing when the entry door crashes to the floor. The chanting pauses and the contemplative angrily and very speedily mutters "What is the meaning of this interruption? You would put a pause on the salvation of this very Station. Leave Me. To my Work. Now."
Ajithu freezes for a moment as the door is beaten down and the team starts to rush in. He hesitates as he considers whether he should go ahead and intrude on the contemplative but ultimately sides with following his teammtes.
The sigils give him welcome focus from the chaos.
He sends a telepathic missive to his companions.
The sigils form his calling circle. Its how he brought the demon contractors here. I am going to instate a zone of truth while we question him!
Ajithu quickly imposes his mind into the room...
Shocca slowly moves into the room, keeping silent for now. Demon-callers... what have we gotten ourselves into this time? She keeps an eye out for any traps or signs of what philosophical pursuits might most interest this contemplative.
Ispenzia-1:17's voice is outraged "ME? Damaging the Station? You absolute imbecile! The damage to the hull here is critical, and was spreading, until I intervened! We would not even be alive to have this conversation if I didn't have the knowledge and initiative to solve it. No one out there is dying. They're being saved."
The contemplative doesn't even attempt to resist the zone of truth, but seems a little ticked off that Ajithu has made the move to cast it.
Meanwhile Shocca sees the room is well decorated with occult tchotchkes and literature. This appears to be Ispenzia's primary area of interest. She doesn't spot any traps. Most likely, if the summoning completes, another summoned creature will appear in the center of the circle.
Shocca pokes her head out the window and eyes the structural damage to the station one more time to see if the contemplative is correct. Not another rock and a hard place situation...
"Enough already! No bystanders are being bisected, and these critical summons are saving the Station at great personal expense. I will not be lectured by some empty-headed twig while the Station's continued survival is at stake. Leave now, or I will make you leave." Ispenzia-1:17 sounds pretty serious.
To Shocca's eye, Ispenzia is more or less correct. The walls *are* holding together the buckled or buckling sections of hull and reinforcing the Station's structure. If they were not in place, the risk of a full hull breach would have been high, but probably not inevitable. The current degree of reinforcement however appears to be more than sufficient to stabilize the situation. It's possible that Ispenzia has not seen the full results of her summons' work. On the other hand , she also seems already at the end of her tether due to both the stress of the situation and Arc's verbal attacks. It might not take much to totally set her off.
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Ispenzia's words make Arcalinte's anger stop in its tracks.
"You...you didn't know that was happening?" he asks, much more cautiously. He takes a few deep breaths and makes the sign of the sun.
"I apologize, we're all under a lot of stress right now and my biases have gotten the better of me in this case it seems. I am sorry."
Bystanders were harmed. If there are more walls to erect we should figure out how to avoid that! Ajithu offers.
Shocca informs the group of the engineering problems, which appear to now be solved. "Ispenzia, I regret to inform you of this... but several bystanders have been harmed by the rather judicious raising of these support beams and walls. It seems your work was needed and that it has been successful. But I think your work has concluded here. Please, wind down your occultic ritual and take a walk around the block with us. We can observe the work of your laborers together."
"Bah, you riffraff wouldn't be able to tell a functional Stygian buttress from an infernal entablature. Leave me to my work and return to, whatever it is you do with yourselves." Ispenzia seems perhaps a little mollified by the apologies and more reasoned tone, but remains unfriendly. It seems she's unwilling to budge from her summoning circle and still expects to get right back to her work, regardless of your concerns. She doesn't seem to be taking your warnings seriously.
Now see here, we're not going to let you deflect from the effects of your choices. We've been nice to this point, but I'm particularly skilled in breaking minds. You seem to be nothing but, so it could be painful. This is your last chance to work with us of your own volition.
Ajithu's icy stare locks onto the contemplative, and he begins to glide closer to her.