aesthetically displeasing

[andaisq]

Mortimer Halliwell, warlock extraordinaire and small-time crook, is having a remarkably bad day. First he runs out of the good coffee and has to use Folgers. Then the demon he summons to rob a bank for him only speaks Egyptian, which is hell on his throat. Then the demon gets discorporated and tracked back to his lair/duplex, the door of which is currently being battered down by some cheerful blonde madman.

He needs to summon another demon, and he needs to do it fast. He whips out the Black Book, flips desperately through its pages, and arranges the offerings around the iron circle set into the floor of his basement. A phonebook, a pile of dust, a miniature casket, a oh my god he got in screw it he'll do it without the rest!

He forces an immense amount of energy through his body into the summoning. The dust whirls into the air. He screams as his skin crackles and snaps with static. "I summon thee! I summon thee! I summon thee, K-Kh-"

It is possibly the most regrettable sneeze in Mortimer Halliwell's life.

There is a plume of red flame, and there is someone in his circle.

Comments

[bitterchill]

It sounds like she's talking about... souls? That makes sense. It seems pretty harmless to collect the soulless beings into some kind of afterlife. Unless it'd piss off somebody who runs the afterlife for the ensouled. God, maybe? Hel? Zoroaster?

"So you want to make your domain the place where good little sidhe go when they die?" he clarifies.

[ending_of]

"If sidhe are a form of aware life that does not currently go anywhere when they die, then yes."

[bitterchill]

"Yeah, I think that's what you're talking about. Can you tell by looking where, say, I would go? Or Mortimer, over there in the sinkhole? Because I'd like to be sure of what you're proposing."

[ending_of]

"You both belong to the category for whom an afterlife already exists."

[bitterchill]

Ari claps his hands together. He's kind of excited! It isn't every day you go after a minor-league demon summoner and end up chatting with a death goddess in his basement. "Good, good. I'd like to perform another test; could you step out of the circle? It's become pretty clear that it doesn't matter whether you're in or out."

[ending_of]

She eyes the circle in mild irritation for a moment, and then stands up and walks out of the circle and instantiates another armchair and sits in it.

"Was that very informative?"

[bitterchill]

"No, I just wanted to use the circle. Though it was good to know." He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a bag of sliced bread and a tiny plastic bear of fake honey. He applies the honey liberally to the bread, pushes the chair to the edge of the circle, and places the bread in front of it. Then he cups his hands around his mouth and whispers a name three times, too low for Morty to hear but possibly audible to the administrator.

[ending_of]

The administrator watches in mild curiosity.

[bitterchill]

About fifteen seconds pass, then there's a faint sound of whistling wind. It grows and grows, until there is an abrupt shower of sparkly powder and a winged creature about a foot long appears, its face sharp but beautiful. "Aaah! Human! Human!! What do you want? What do you want?!"

"I want to give you this delicious honeyed bread," explains Ari.

"Why?! Why do you want to give me the delicious bread? Is it poison? IS IT?!" screams the faerie in a shrill voice.

"No. It is delicious. Eat the bread."

The creature's wings hum in the air as it weighs its options. Then it dives towards the delicious bread and tears into it like a starving vulture into a week-old gazelle carcass. It is a grisly sight.

Ari turns to the administrator. "Could you tell me if this sprite will go to an afterlife when it dies?" Before the sprite can begin screaming, he repeats, "The bread is not poisoned. It is delicious. Delicious things are not poison things." The fairy acknowledges his logic with a birdlike nod and returns to its gruesome meal.

[ending_of]

...

"This creature belongs to one of the categories for which no afterlife currently exists."

[bitterchill]

That looks like a confirmation to Ari! And he's glad he could make the administrator smile, she seems nice and it looks like she doesn't get much laughter in her life. He wonders briefly if she'd like daytime TV. He decides she probably wouldn't. It's untidy.

He lets the sprite finish the interior of the bread, leaving behind the crust, then nods to it and releases it back to the Nevernever. He picks up the crust gingerly (it's soaked with glitter) and places it far enough away from the chair that he can safely light it on fire. "So, it looks like what we're working with here are souls," he says, once the bread is a pile of sparkly ash. "You wanted to bring the creatures who don't get an afterlife to exist in your realm when they died, you said?" He flicks his fingers in an impotent effort to remove the glitter. Pixie dust is even worse than craft glitter. He curses his luck.

[ending_of]

"Yes. Is that substance distressing you?"

[bitterchill]

He attempts to rub his fingers together and get rid of it that way. He fails. "Yeah. Pixie dust is like magic herpes, easy to get and impossible to get rid of. At least I'm not allergic."

[ending_of]

"Hmm."

She looks contemplatively at the pixie dust.



Now there is no more pixie dust in the room.

[bitterchill]

"You really are omnipotent. I am so tempted to worship you right now."

[ending_of]

"That would be unnecessary."

[bitterchill]

"Well, either way, I am eternally grateful for your services in helping me not have to stick my hands in a bucket of iron filings or spend the next two weeks scrubbing myself in purified water. Anyway, back on topic, are there any problems you can think of that would result from you... incorporating the soulless creatures into your afterlife?"

[ending_of]

"I can't think of any. But it's possible we have different ideas of what constitutes a problem."

[bitterchill]

"Would anything become upset about it in this universe? Would the disruption of the natural cycle lead to some kind of energy drain away from our world? Would the fabric of reality split open and let in an unending sea of horrible monsters? That sort of thing."

[ending_of]

"I do not anticipate any of those things. I can't predict who will or will not become upset, but I am reasonably certain neither the energy drain nor the unending sea of horrible monsters is a possible consequence."

[bitterchill]

"I guess... is there anything in this universe as powerful, or almost as powerful, as you are? Because if not, then them getting upset doesn't seem to matter much."

[ending_of]

"The current afterlife has a curator."

[bitterchill]

"And it's as powerful as you are?

[ending_of]

"Approximately."

[bitterchill]

"Do you... have any way of contacting this entity? And asking if you can put the soulless into your afterlife? Because this sounds like it could turn into a death god deathmatch without much advance notice."