Fungal Halo

The door’s long, slow creak echoes through the large chamber filled with arcane relics, humming catalysts, and piles of recently consulted tomes.

In the center, a very bored demon perks her ears up and casts a curious glance toward her visitor.

One last step, and the broken creature who was once a demon arrives at their destination.

It must be so much easier, they think, for an angel to simply fall. A demon’s slow trudge upward from the Infernal Demesnes is a rather more manual process.

The combat doll leaves a wake of fire and blood—noteworthy in scale even by the standards of this place—as it makes its way through yet another circle of hell.

At last it arrives at its destination, the prison for the soul of its old witch.

It brings the elegant cup to its lips, taking a moment to appreciate the warm, spiced aroma of its favorite tea blend before taking a delicate sip and setting the cup back down with a soft clink on the saucer.

Its companion is still upright, pacing, and fretting.

The King’s new advisor was a treacherous man, this much was obvious to most members of the court. There was a scheming air about him, and there had to be supernatural reasons why the King seemed to hang on his advisor’s every word, surely.

The goddess watches while her chosen hero arrives at the culmination of his journey. He’s so close now. All he needs to do is raise the amulet and speak the invocation, and the goddess’s great enemy will at last be vanquished.

And yet, he collapses instead. He fails.

It’s a strange party you find yourself in the middle of. You had no idea your friends knew so many different creatures from every plane you’ve heard of—and a few you haven’t.

You don’t see anyone you recognize right now, but everyone is chill, and you lower your guard.

The knight drags her sword behind her as she ascends the stairway up to the throne room.

Her muscles ache with the exhaustion of a long journey that now comes mercifully to its end.

Dangling at her chest is the Amulet with the power to seal the Demon Queen away forever.

There she is, my equal and opposite.

Fell creature of The Deep, the Piercing Tooth of the Great Maw That Devours, She Whose Steps Blight The Land approaches with wicked blade drawn and wild eyes staring.

I grip my own sword. Our great conflict ends today. It must.

A powerful angel. A beacon of light. He whose blade shatters the night. Hero of a myriad battles. The most loyal of all His soldiers.

So many things they called me. Even after my defeat, for some reason, they believed in me.

She was dying.

After decades of uncertainty about that fact and more decades of research on how she might avert it, she came to the conclusion that her death was both unavoidable and imminent. Likely no more than a century away.

So she did what witches often do. She plotted.

Have you ever seen a doll that has been excessively emptied by an inexperienced or careless witch?

It’s a sad, strange thing. It cannot hear commands. It cannot speak. It cannot move at all! It is a meaningless, decorative object at best, nothing anyone would want.

But I do.

Even witches long for something greater sometimes.

Knowledge of herb and ritual, of crystal and will, of secret places hidden inside the thin edge separating light and shadow… it is all only knowledge, after all. It is not ascension.

The angel quivers in my grasp as I hold her by the neck.

“You shouldn’t be here, pretty thing,” I breathe. She whimpers when I let my fangs graze the gentle curve of her ear as I whisper into it. “This is my realm.”

Perhaps compliance came easier to other angels, but whenever my halo compelled me to turn from what I felt was right, or kind, or at least merciful, it grieved me. The love of the Light sometimes seemed so cruel and fickle. I did not see the wisdom in it that my peers did.

The more she kisses me, the more I get lost in her kisses, unable to think or notice anything else. I cry in pain when her clawed fingers pierce my flesh, but even then it only inspires me to kiss back with greater fervor.

“At last, we have the High Priestess of that loathsome church in our grasp,” the hooded figure declares in triumph as others lead the young leader of a faith in decline to the prepared altar.

You never questioned why your exploration of this hidden temple’s ruins went so smoothly and easily, did you? How you seemed to instinctually notice the hidden passages and trap triggers? You and your fellows rode a wave of excitement all the way to the most hidden chamber here.

“We are not so different, you and I,” the Dark Sorceress declares as I confront her at last in her great tower.

I grip my sword and grit my teeth. “You’re a cold-blooded killer who consorts with demons and whose idea of freedom is born of chaos and destruction.”