How to Walk Through Hell

This story is set on Ishveos, on the opposite side of the desert from Far Selantur.

Samarc had fallen into working with demons quite by accident.

His career success in doing so, however, was anything but an accident.

It had all started at the restaurant he’d worked at as a boy, working as a runner for the head chef, a six-armed slug-like demon who, for all his blurring speed with spoons and knives, couldn’t move around the kitchen very easily. That turned into a side-job running errands for the chef and his family, which in turn got him a job helping residents of another demon species too large to fit into stores do their shopping.

Before too long, his side jobs had grown to the point where he’d left the restaurant entirely, and was making more money than his parents as a fixer for local demons.

And by the time Samarc was a grown man, he spoke no less than six demon languages, had friends among a dozen different species of demons, and was regularly consulted in demon negotiations with merchants, temples, and even governments. On top of that, he was well on his way to being a very wealthy man.

It’s not that he was particularly ambitious, or even hard-working— more that he had a talent for getting along with people of any body shape, and viewed his work more as socializing than an actual job.

So it said quite a bit that he was struggling so much preparing to work with the Tlemma.

Of course, he was struggling rather harder with the constant monster attacks.

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Samarc was no great student of history, but even he knew how the Great Salt Desert had become the monster-filled wasteland it was today. He had made sure to pick up several much more detailed histories of the catastrophe to read on his way to Naisat’s Road, though.

Even before the fool merchant princes and short-sighted bank gods of Far Selantur had broken the Great Salt Desert, when they tried to shift the weather patterns and bring the rain, the desert had been brutally dry.

Their failure hadn’t just ended what little rain there had been before, but also killed off the desert’s mimics, resulting in an explosion of bluelife.

Most folks on the inland side of the desert, in the lightly forested savannas of Furon, had given up on trying to reestablish the trade roads across the desert— for that matter, had fled from the edge of the desert entirely, with the constant attacks by ravenous bluelife escaping the desert.

The resulting economic collapse drove away even many of the bravest souls.

Some folks stuck it out, though, mostly huddled around the various military forts that hunted blueforms migrating out into the savanna.

And then, of course, you had the monastery of Naisat.

There had been thousands of place gods left to starve at the edge of the desert, as the desert and the monstrous bluelife advanced. Most folks had expected Naisat’s monastery to go the same way, when the advancing bluelife reached it several centuries into the creeping crisis.

Most folks had been wrong.

Naisat’s boons and blessings were, of course, extremely useful for a desert deity— when they were a god, they offered a godgift that helped prevent water from evaporating; and when they were a goddess, they offered a godgift that could control airflow over the skin, to cool skin on the brutally hot desert days or to insulate it under the viciously cold desert nights.

The problem was, of course, that there was no need for Naisat’s godgifts when the desert itself was utterly impassible.

Naisat was a clever, stubborn god, though, and found their break when they made a deal with the Tlemma.

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Samarc would never have traveled so far from his home city of Eogen, built atop the freshwater reefs of Lake Eogen, if he wasn’t being promised a ludicrous number of boons and blessings by Naisat and the Tlemma, enough to finally push him over the edge of Divinity.

He would have asked for considerably more if he’d known how many monster attacks the caravan he traveled with would suffer.

Samarc might be a Saint, but he had absolutely no combat boons, nor any combat experience. All of his godgifts were health and life focused— mosquitoes would never bite him, he would never have diarrhea save from the most extreme food poisoning, and his feet would never hurt from standing all day. But fighting? The last time Samarc had gotten in a fight he’d been six years old, with one of his brothers.

The Tlemma’s business representative had promised him blueform attacks were rare on this side of the savanna, but rare apparently meant “no more than three or four times per day”.

So he’d been in a bit of a bad mood already when he finally reached the beginning of Naisat’s road, and first met the Tlemma.

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Along with researching Naisat and the Great Salt Desert catastrophe, Samarc had done a lot of research on the Tlemma as well. There were, unfortunately, many fewer books on them, but he still found a handful.

And one thing that all the books agreed upon was that so far as demons went, the Tlemma were a deeply unimpressive lot.

Ishveos sat at an odd intersection of the Known Multiverse, a funny corner somehow adjacent to both many of the most important worlds whose laws of physics were amenable to human life, and simultaneously to a dense region of hells, universes whose magic had accelerated until they were rapidly approaching hot deaths instead of cold ones.

And one thing hells produced, above all else, was refugees, as their laws of physics warped farther and farther— and a huge number of them ended up on Ishveos.

Some demons dwarfed humans, and could meddle with godgifts on a fundamental level. Others could run faster than any but the swiftest Saints, and could sense gods at immense distances. Others never slept, and had prayers that were almost addictive to gods.

The Tlemma were weird monkey-lizard-chicken things about the size of a human child who were trilaterally symmetric, and could make weird noises inside the Firmament. Few folks thought much about them, aside from wondering whether they had a front end, or whether all three of their faces were equal.

The Tlemma were faintly scandalized by this, as their incredibly strict gender roles were determined by whether their three faces had even dominance, whether they had a single dominant face, or two dominant faces. It should also be noted that their genders had absolutely no relation to their reproductive sex, and getting either wrong would deeply offend them— all of which was made worse by the fact that they were deeply culturally resistant to telling anyone outside their species their gender or sex.

And that didn’t even come close to accounting for all the various taboos and cultural oddities of the little demons.

They did have one important thing going for them, though— they were unusually adapted to hot and dry conditions, to the point where they could even visit some of the coldest Kyrene worlds.

The deal between Naisat and the Tlemma was a strange one, but one that worked. Naisat desperately needed worshippers, to keep from starving like so many other gods, while the Tlemma craved a home, a stronghold where they could hide from humans and larger demons.

As the human and demon residents of Furon fled from the encroaching desert, few paid much attention to the little demons turning Naisat’s monastery into a fortress, and assumed that they’d be overrun within months.

They assumed wrong.

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The first glimpse Samarc had of Naisat’s Road was a colossal conical tower spiraling out of the ground in the middle of nowhere, fairly deep into the savanna.

“Is that where we’re entering the Road?” he asked a caravan guard.

“Some of us,” the guard responded, most of her attention on monitoring the golem cart next to her, an old one that was particularly prone to malicious compliance. “Most of the caravan is splitting off to head to Fort Damanad, bring supplies to the bluelife bounty hunters there. You should head to your wagon, make sure it’s splitting off for the Road.”

By the time the caravan reached the base of the tower, Samarc had sorted out his luggage and ride, and followed his wagon up the gently spiraling ramp up the side of the tower.

He certainly wasn’t going to ride the golem wagon up the spiraling ramp, in case it decided to walk off the side. If he could have joined another caravan without golem wagons, he would have been much happier.

Samarc did his best to spot the concealed murderholes in the wall alongside the ramp, but the Tlemma had hidden them well. He had no doubt the little demons were watching them from their hidden tunnels inside the tower wall, but he couldn’t even catch a little glimpse.

Near the top of the tower, the view out across the savanna was magnificent, stretching out league after league. Samarc could see a few hints of blue in the distance, none of which was moving their way, thankfully, but they were still much too far from the Great Salt Desert to see it.

Near the top of the tower, where the road entered a gate and began spiraling down the inside wall of the cone, waited several of the Tlemma.

One of the guards pointed them towards Samarc, and as the demons scuttled over with their curious tripedal gait, he took a deep breath, banished his irritation at the conditions for the trip over, and prepared himself for work.

“You/are/the/Samarc?” one of the Tlemma said, its words coming out in a rush, one from each mouth in a clockwise circle.

“We are the Samarc, yes,” he said, squatting in greeting while touching his knees. He was very careful to keep his torso as vertical as possible while doing so.

They immediately sent a chirping sound through the Firmament, one that was echoed a moment farther down the tower, then farther down again. The spiritual noise kept echoing, farther and farther away, as the demons relayed it down into and along their underground road.

Then the Tlemma delegation all bowed back to him, the arms at the edges of their bodies reaching out to touch the legs protruding from below their three faces. He did his best to note whether each reached clockwise or counter-clockwise as they did so— none of the guides he had read had indicated whether that was important, but given how many of their other customs revolved around rotation and symmetry, he suspected there was some meaning there as well.

He also couldn’t help but notice that the vaguely conical little demons resembled their towers quite a bit.

“We are/ready/to/explain to/the/Samarc/the circumstances/of/our/specific problem/if/the/Samarc is/sufficently/rested,” another Tlemma said. The dominant face of this one, the one that got to speak two words for every one word from each of the other two faces, very carefully avoided ever turning towards Samarc— another behavior he didn’t understand, but carefully noted to himself.

“We are sufficiently well rested, yes,” Samarc said. “Shall we walk with the rest of the caravan while you explain?”

Several of the nearby Tlemma spun in rapid circles for a moment, and one ran off for some reason, and then the rest joined him in walking along with the caravan as it descended into the bowels of the tower— and further, down into the bowels of the moon.

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The causes of Naisat and the Tlemma’s problem were threefold— they were very slow diggers, they had little to trade, they were frankly awful at negotiating.

Given their absolutely mad plan to build an underground road passing completely under the Great Salt Desert, Samarc would have thought the first to be the biggest problem. The little demons, however, were nothing if not supremely patient— by their own estimate, it would be decades until the underground road reached the parts of the desert Far Selantur had cleared already.

No, it was the trade, and especially the negotiations, that they needed Samarc’s help with- because otherwise, the problem itself was a deeply intractable one.

Namely, the Tlemma couldn’t afford the upkeep of all their road gods.

Maintaining the underground road’s structural integrity, even in the face of the infrequent moonquakes that affected the desert, was a massive enough job on its own. Keeping the air in the tunnel flowing in and out of the various towers, to keep it from going stale, took nearly as much work. That didn’t even take into account lighting the tunnels or concealing them from the senses of burrowing blueforms.

The Tlemma were swiftly approaching a prayer crisis, where there simply weren’t enough of them to maintain their population, even with sun and dirt gods letting them grow underground crops. They needed trade to keep the project going— and their lack of trade goods and terrible negotiation skills were obviously a problem there. Even with Naisat willingly accepting prayer austerity measures on herself to aid her followers, things weren’t looking good.

“So tell us what you have to trade,” Samarc said. He could already tell that referring to himself in the plural was going to get old quick, but it was hardly the strangest demon custom he’d had to deal with.

“Salt/zinc/godgifts/gods,” one of the nearby Tlemma said.

Samarc blinked at that last. “Gods? You’re willing to trade some of your reliquary gods?”

He definitely hadn’t expected that response— the Tlemma were notoriously resistant to giving up any of their gods or letting them starve. Again, not the most such— the Hadiacaran demons, for instance, refused to give up or allow any of their gods to starve, which doomed them to periodic economic collapses and mass god starvation events— but the Tlemma were notably resistant.

Several of the Tlemma twirled about at his question, and then chirped inside the Firmament. They didn’t respond to him right away, as their chirps were relayed by other Tlemma farther down the Road, until the message faded into the distance.

It wasn’t a long wait, though— no less than two or three minutes later, another set of chirps returned through the Firmament.

“Several/hundred/gods,” another Tlemma said.

Samarc nodded. That wasn’t much, but it was a start— he’d wager that once they got used to trading reliquaries, they would be open towards increasing their trade. And as they sold more, it would help take the edge off their problem.

“The salt and zinc will sell, but you’re not going to get rich off them,” he said. “You haven’t found any other mineral deposits during your burrowing?”

The Tlemma just spun silently.

Samarc sighed at that. “Right. Not a lot to work with, but better than nothing. And the negotiations so far?”

The Tlemma all seemed to hesitate at that, before one of them finally chirped into the Firmament, sending a signal down the tunnel once more.

They had a much longer wait this time, nearly ten minutes, before they received a response through the Tlemma relay.

“Badly,” one of the Tlemma said.

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It took almost a week of travel through the dimly-lit underground road for the much-smaller caravan to reach the city below Naisat’s temple.

They met no-one on the way, save other Tlemma, and the only noises they heard were the Tlemma’s own spirit calls, and the intermittent chittering of mimics along the tunnel walls.

 They passed a couple of small Tlemma villages— though in Samarc’s opinion, they looked more like a blend of a beehive and seashells— and many more side chambers for caravans to pull off onto.

For all the emptiness of the tunnel so far, it was clear the demons and their goddess had planned for a bustling future. At least a half-dozen caravans could fit side by side in the tunnel, with room to spare.

The only sign that they were approaching the city was a swift increase in the volume and quantity of Tlemma calls in the Firmament— distracting at first, but Samarc swiftly grew used to them.

And then the caravan rounded a corner, and the Tlemma city was spread out before them.

Samarc had seen underground cities before— at least a half-dozen different demon species on the continent preferred living underground, and there were more than a few humans who were fine with it as well. He couldn’t say he had a comprehensive knowledge of cthonic city planning, but in most respects, the Tlemma city was fairly typical.

In most respects was the key phrase there. It was a vast hollowed-out cavern, with colossal carved pillars supporting the roof, and cliffside dwellings on the walls and columns. Hundreds of godgift lights on the ceiling projected sunlight onto the farms on the floor, while

The unusual part, of course, was the spiral architecture.

Everything in the cavern spiraled, in one way or another. The columns were triangular, but their edges spiraled tightly around as the columns rose up. The bulk of the floor was built into spiraled farm terraces that twined up and down in dizzying patterns. Spiral patterns were carved into the fronts of homes, and engraved faintly into the floors. Even the major caravan roads, though flat and level, spiraled in towards the great central pillar, before spiraling back out to the other exit.

“This way/Samarc, you/are/needed swiftly,” one of the Tlemma told him, then set off on a slanted footpath heading more directly for the central column.

Samarc obliged, trusting the Tlemma would ensure his luggage reached him once the caravan arrived. He was more focused on the fact that this was the first Tlemma he had met with two dominant and one lesser face.

The several Tlemma who followed him still seemed impatient, even with the brisk pace and direct path, but didn’t push him to go any faster.

Once in the central column, the demons led him swiftly upward— at least as swiftly as the paths for larger beings allowed. Samarc had no doubt that the smaller tunnels for the Tlemma could have led him where he needed to go even faster, if he had fit in them.

The urgency of the Tlemma made perfect sense once he had been led into the meeting room.

There, as surprised to see him as he was to see them, was a Hadiacaran heretic.

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Relatively few demons came across as cuddly, let alone friendly, to humans. They were the product of entirely different branches of evolution— even moreso than mimics, for as strange as mimics were, they had at least evolved under far more similar laws of physics to humanity.

On paper, the Hadiacarans should have been cuddly. They were each bigger than an ox, covered in thick, soft fur, and had disproportionately huge eyes and ears. Well, not truly fur, some parallel evolution, but it looked like fur.

Samarc doubted any human had ever once been tempted to hug a Hadiacaran, even before they caught a glimpse of the horrifying serrated teeth of the demons. There was just… something off. The Hadiacarans’ long limbs moved wrong, twitching jerkily and asynchronously as they moved. They never kept an even pace as they moved, seeming to speed and slow almost at random. Even their breathing happened at a disturbing pace, one that eerily resembled a choking victim.

Even Samarc wasn’t quite sure what effect the Hadiacarans had on the Firmament around them, but anyone with an even moderately sensitive soul could easily tell that the demons were from a very distant part of the multiverse— much farther, and Samarc doubted that they would be able to survive in similar conditions to humanity.

So far as demons went, Hadiacarans weren’t overly dangerous or aggressive, for the most part. There did tend to be some violent incidents during the periodic theonomic crashes they suffered, due to their refusal to trade away any of their gods, allow them to starve, or to stop trying to grow them larger— but as normal Hadiacarans lived in isolated communities, simply staying away from them when a crash seemed likely was a fairly straightforward protective measure.

If they had been willing to compromise on any of the three, especially their insistence on growing all of their gods larger, it wouldn’t have been such a persistent crisis.

Heretic Hadiacarans were easy to identify, for anyone who had visited the villages of orthodox Hadiacarans. Rejecting the greater Hadiacaran community, rejecting their compulsion to keep all their members, including their gods, alive at all cost… It did something to their presence in the Firmament, made them immediately identifiable.

That wasn’t the main thing that alarmed Samarc, however.

No, it was the sash slung over the heretic demon’s shoulder that alarmed him— the sash bearing the marks of the Lake Eogen Mercantile Alliance.

He’d had dealings with the Mercantile Alliance before— everyone in Lake Eogen had at one time or another.

A more ruthless, exploitative bunch of bastards, Samarc had never met before. No one outside the embassy from Cambrias’ Wall liked doing business with them unless they had to.

“I was not informed others would be joining our negotiations,” the heretic Hadiacaran said, in a cultured, urbane soprano. “Who might you represent?”

“The/Samarc/represents/us,” one of the Tlemma who had come with him said.

Samarc managed not to frown— not just at the presence of a member of the Mercantile Alliance, but also at the fact that that particular Tlemma’s speech had switched from clockwise to counter-clockwise. What that meant, he wasn’t quite sure, but he was sure it was significant.

The Hadiacaran, at least, didn’t seem to have noticed anything unusual, instead staring at Samarc in an unfriendly manner.

“I see no particular reason why outsiders should be needed in our negotiation,” they said. “Our negotiation seems to have been going well enough already.”

There was a burst of Tlemma chatter in the Firmament at that.

“Lack/of/sufficient/mutual/comprehension,” another Tlemma said.

“Are our proposals insufficiently clear?” the Hadiacaran asked. “I had thought otherwise.”

There was another burst of Firmament chatter at that.

“Perhaps we can take a look at the proposed deal,” Samarc offered politely. “As fellow citizens of Lake Eogen, perhaps we might come to a better mutual understanding .”

The Hadiacaran’s twitches stilled for a moment, then resumed, if slower. “Very well. Samarc, was it? I am Zirah.”

Zirah slid several sheets of paper across the carved stone table, and Samarc sat down to read through them.

The proposed deal was, to say the least, utterly ruthless. It would provide the Mercantile Alliance with a massive block of voting shares in the proposed merged company, as well as a disproportionate perpetual split of all road tolls.

All for financial and theological support building the road. The sums in question were, in fairness, immense, but still pocket change for an organization as large and wealthy as the Mercantile Alliance.

Samarc didn’t see any obvious traps in the contract, but the Mercantile Alliance were seldom obvious.

“It seems as though we may be able to come to an understanding,” Samarc told Zirah politely. “Perhaps we could reconvene in a few hours?”

“Of course,” Zirah responded, equally politely, giving him an expression that resembled a smile.

Samarc had his doubts it was truly a smile— but it certainly showed a lot of teeth.
---------------------------------------------

“The Mercantile Alliance is planning to screw the Tlemma over,” Samarc told the little demons bluntly.

Several of them spun in place, but not in a surprised way.

“Yes/but/we/have/no/choice,” one of them said, then switched the direction of its speech. “We/cannot/afford/to/finish/the/road/ourselves.”

“The Alliance offers/just enough/to/complete the road/ with this/deal,” another Tlemma said.

Samarc shook his head. “That’s a common trick with the Mercantile alliance. They almost certainly have assessed the costs of the enterprise higher than you have— and when you run out, they’ll offer you more at far worse rates.”

More of the Tlemma spun in place this time, with far greater vigor.

“More, they’re planning to screw over Naisat, and probably some of your other gods, with this deal,” Samarc pointed out. “I can’t pinpoint how, precisely, they’ll pull it off, but it’s a tactic they use frequently— the sections of the contract tied to Tlemma prayer obligations are a dead giveaway.”

The Tlemma started chattering in the Firmament— and Samarc realized it was at his own mistake as much as his claim.

“We apologize for the rudeness,” Samarc said. “Tlemma ways of speech are still new for us.”

The Tlemma immediately settled down at that, and Samarc managed not to heave a sigh of relief. The little demons were prickly, but not unreasonable.

“We/had/anticipated/such/betrayal/though/not/the/specific/means,” one of the Tlemma said. “But/we/have/little/choice.”

“We/cannot/see/other/options/to/complete/the/road,” another said.

“The/greater/problem/is/the/lack/of/comprehension/of/purpose,” a particularly small Tlemma added.

“Purpose?” Samarc asked. “Like the Purpose of a god?”

Several Tlemma immediately tapped their feet in negation.

“No exact/translation,” one of the Tlemma said.

“Purpose/framework/paradigm/foundation,” the most talkative one said.

Samarc frowned. “We still lack mutual comprehension.”

The Firmament erupted with chirping as the Tlemma conversed among themselves, but none spoke.

Samarc’s frown deepened, and he rubbed his palms with his thumbs thoughtfully.

Then he decided to try a different tack, one that had helped him in negotiations with demons before.

“Tell the story of your homeworld,” Samarc.

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The tale of the Tlemma’s home was a familiar one.

A slowly dying universe, where magic had begun running rampant.

Experts who warned of the oncoming catastrophe, who noticed the increasing rates of change from generation to generation.

Greedy rulers whose wealth and power depended on ignoring those changes.

The eventual acceleration of the changes, the increasing density of their home universe’s Firmament, until their laws of physics began to warp past the point the Tlemma could survive, leaving only a few fleeing survivors into less warped hells, and eventually to Ishveos.

There was one important difference to the average demon story, however.

The Tlemma had fought the catastrophe. They had overthrown their corrupt rulers almost immediately, had drastically rationed the over-use of their homeworld’s magic. They had held off the collapse for generations, for centuries, had almost achieved the impossible.

Almost.

For, in the end, it wasn’t just their world changing, it was their universe. Perhaps there were distant worlds around other stars that weren’t fighting the changes, or perhaps the acceleration was driven by mere natural forces.

But they had failed, in the end.

Realizing their failure, they had made an orderly evacuation of their home universe— billions of Tlemma, migrating through worldgates and labyrinths.

Ishveos had not been their final destination— the Tlemma here were a tiny splinter group, one unwillingly separated from the others by some poorly understood catastrophe during their worlds-spanning migration.

Samarc managed to not show visible alarm at that part of the story— depending on what the magic of the Tlemma homeworld had been, their migration sounded on the scale of one of the multiversal hordes, like the Scaled Khanate, the Cloud Fleet, or The Pure.

Though if these Tlemma were anything to go by, he suspected they were less interested in loot and conquest that then Scaled Khanate or the Cloud Fleets, nor the more vile habits of The Pure.

Samarc knew better than to take the Tlemma entirely at their word— he’d never met anyone, human or demon, that lacked the capability for self-delusion— but you could always learn something from someone’s self-professed virtues.

And if there was one aspirational virtue that stuck out in the Tlemma’s story, it was self-sacrifice for the greater good. Oh, it was clear that not all Tlemma stuck to this— the existence of the corrupt rulers early in their story was proof of that. Still, there was a certain ring of truth to the story, based off his readings and his week of interaction with the Tlemma so far.

“We think,” Samarc said at last, “We begin to understand.”

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“Tell us,” Samarc said to Zirah the heretic, “what you think of your people.”

The Hadiacaran twitched rapidly, their eyes retreating a short distance back into their skull in irritation. “I don’t see how this is relevant.”

Samarc shrugged. “The Tlemma might not have come from as far out in the multiverse as your kind, but in many ways, their way of thinking is far more alien than yours. They genuinely do not understand you well enough to properly negotiate. Given how communalistic the Tlemma are, knowing why you left your people is important to them. Do you feel contempt for them, do you feel anger?”

All of the nearby Tlemma began to spin, oscillating back and forth in patterns that Samarc couldn’t even begin to understand.

He still took careful mental note of the movements, though— he was becoming more and more convinced that someone needed to write a guide to dealing with the little demons, even moreso after finding out about the massive migrating civilization they had been exiled from.

Zirah stared at him for a while, their eyes slowly easing back out to normal, and their twitches changing in pattern— no faster or slower, just… different. Samarc had enough experience with Hadiacarans to tell this posture was less irritated, but not enough to read the nuances.

“Not contempt,” Zirah said, finally. “Never that. Anger… a little. Mostly sadness, though. My people… we were not always like this. Our aural consensus was not always obsessed with preservation unto catastrophe, did not force such conformity upon our bodies.”

As Zirah began to tell the Tlemma the tale of the Hadiacaran’s loss, Samarc paid more attention to the Tlemma than the story. He’d heard it before, after all.

The Hadiacarans had spent their entire recorded history knowing magic was getting more common, easier. They had celebrated it, as it allowed them to build their civilization to greater and greater heights.

And when their magic started going wrong, when they became afflicted with cancers of both the body and the soul, when stranger, more highly magic adapted life began taking over, they panicked. When refugees from even higher-magic hells began arriving, peacefully or not, the Hadiacarans had realized what was happening.

And there had been nothing they could do. Nothing but flee, in a far less organized fashion than the Tlemma.

And those who had landed on Ishveos through the labyrinths had arrived grieving, desperate to preserve everything they could, until they took it to unreasonable levels, until they changed the nature of their magic itself, until the periodic crises it provoked became regular social catastrophes.

After Zirah finished telling the story, the Tlemma all stared at her, switching rapidly from one face to the next, as if considering.

“Gratitude/for/sharing,” one of them finally said, and the group all shuffled out, leaving only Samarc and Zirah.

The Hadiacaran twitched irritably. “What was the point of that? We’re here for business, we should stick to business.”

Samarc sighed. “I don’t think the Tlemma are here for business.”

“Then why did they agree to negotiate?” Zirah demanded.

“Oh, they’re willing to do business, but business is just a means to them, not an end,” Samarc said. “I suspect you’ll still get a deal out of all this in the end.”

“I’d better,” Zirah complained. “I don’t want to have come all this way for nothing.”

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Samarc climbed all the way to the top of Naisat’s temple that night.

It was, at this point, deep within the expanding desert, and under constant risk of assault by bluelife, but it was also the best defended part of the Road, and Samarc felt entirely safe taking in the view of the desert from its peak.

He’d been up there an hour or so when one of the Tlemma approached him.

Just one, something he hadn’t seen before. The little demons always ran in groups.

It was also the first Tlemma Divine he had seen, for that matter.

“You are right about the deal the Mercantile Alliance offers us,” the Tlemma Divine said.

“You’re only speaking from one face,” Samarc blurted out in surprise.

“Obviously,” the Tlemma said. “My kind are rare among the Tlemma, but we— I— serve an important purpose. A purpose which is not answering your idle curiosity.”

“We… I apologize,” Samarc said, then squatted in apology.

The Tlemma squatted slightly in acknowledgment.

“This deal will ruin us in the end, but not taking it will ruin us faster. We have no other choice,” the Tlemma said.

“I still don’t think I fully understand why you want to build the Road,” Samarc said. “But I feel like I’m starting to grasp the edges of why.”

“Answering this curiosity is not my purpose either,” the Divine said.

Samarc smiled. “Indulging this curiosity is my purpose, though, and it helps me consider how to respond.”

“Immaterial,” the Divine snapped. “Can you help us improve the deal at all?”

“You don’t need to take it at all,” Samarc said.

For the first time, the Divine spun to let its other two faces get a look at him.

“Explain,” the Tlemma said.

“You have, this whole time, been sitting on an immensely valuable resource,” Samarc said. “One that could pay for the Road entirely on its own.”

“And what is that?” the Divine asked, orienting its primary face towards him once more.

“Yourselves,” Samarc said. “Specifically, your ability to communicate through the Firmament. I’ve run into a lot of distance communication godgifts over the years, but they are, one and all, extremely inefficient. Just about every one of them is useful in only niche circumstances, or is prohibitively expensive in prayer for mass adoption. Your communication in the Firmament? You run the business right, you could be some of the richest folks on the savanna in a year or two.”

“Other demon species mock us for our soulspeech, call us terrified prey animals,” the Divine said bitterly.

“Idiocy is native to every intelligent species,” Samarc said.

“There are certain limitations to our soulspeech,” the Divine said. “It is not quite so useful as it might appear.”

“It doesn’t have much competition,” Samarc replied.

Then he tilted his head. “Actually, one other thing you might do is reach out to Zirah’s people.”

“The Hadiacarans?” the demon asked.

“They are, for all their other faults, excellent diggers,” Samarc said. “Make sure to put contractual limits on the number of gods they can have here, to avoid having one of their crises locally. Their assistance should move forward your schedule considerably, though. And it will irritate Zirah.”

“You have prior experience with Zirah?” the Tlemma asked.

Samarc snorted. “No, I just really don’t like the Mercantile Alliance.”

“A common sentiment,” the Tlemma said. “I will bring your proposal to the others.”

“I’ll be up here for a while,” Samarc said.

“Your location is not my concern either,” the demon said, and scuttled off.

Samarc smiled, and leaned against the railing to watch the desert.

-----------------------------------

It was always a little odd to Samarc that demons were simply lumped together. Most of them had as little in common with other demon species as they did with humanity, save for their common origin from dying, high-magic universes.

Well…

There was their grief.

All of them came from dying worlds, all of them had to struggle, in one way or another, with the generational trauma of lost homes, lost cultures, and lost communities. Some adapted into Ishvean society, others turned isolationist or worse. Some lived normal lives, others struggled just to make it day to day.

No matter how strange or alien the demons in question were… Samarc couldn’t help but think it was all just so very human.

Samarc sighed as he gazed out across the monster-infested Great Salt Desert, a land so brutal it might as well be one of the hells, and thought himself just a little closer to understanding why the Tlemma were so determined to cross it.