“It is your move once again, Lady Vi.” Beelzebub urged his opponent onward, growing impatient as she looked over the board.

She pondered every move, every piece she controlled and every piece she could potentially add to the board later on, before finally placing her pale fingers lightly atop a cracked knight shaped pawn. Sliding it across the table, she returned it to the position it had begun at.

“Fine, fine, I’ll play it safe for now, Akira and his party will regroup, and then return to town to heal his wounds.” she let out a sigh, not enjoying having to make her pieces retreat. “But at the same time, isn’t your flank exposed on the left? A strong enough piece could slip through easily and strike down your king.”

“But my dear, that opening has existed for some time, why haven’t you taken advantage of it, I wonder?” Beelzebub moved one of his pieces, far away from Fifil’s location on the board. “Is it perhaps that, despite your comments, you’re merely trying to make me think my false opening has truly fooled you?”

The white haired woman yawned, stretching her arms above her head, before sliding another of her pieces towards the one Beezlebub had just re-positioned.

“And why exactly would I do that? I prefer when you think you’ve been utterly outmatched by my genius, so to give you that sense of victory would be against my very nature wouldn’t you say?”

“Quite, so it’s likely that you only noticed it was a trap moments ago, and had been playing the game up to this point hoping our low level pieces would cause me to lose sight of a mistake in my high level defensive line.”

“You know me so well, don’t you Beelzy?” the mysterious woman who saw fit to challenge a god twirled her hair around her index finger as she spoke, her every word laced with venom.

“I should hope I do, we’ve been locked in combat for almost 500 years now.” he replied after a short pause.

One day, one year, an eternity… it didn’t matter in this room, in this place. They could play their game for mere moments, and an era could pass within the gameboard. Other times they could argue for weeks on end, while only a few seconds passed within the game.

“I still don’t know why you favor this new piece you’ve played, this filthy little creature is hardly worth your time.” Vi questioned him, eyeing Fifil’s pawn. “A goblin girl, what exactly is your plan with her?”

“To annoy you enough to want to quit so you’ll go away, isn’t it obvious?”

“Beelzy, don’t act like you’re not enjoying our little game, I’m sure you were so bored you had begun to stop thinking entirely before I showed up~”

“As much as I’ve enjoyed your company, your wit grows dry after half a millenia.” He moved the Fiffil pawn away from the city, placing it down gently next to a small cave. “There, that should do nicely for a weapon that won’t break under the stress of the Skills I’ve given you, Fif.”

“Huh? What have you done now?” Vi looked over the board, puzzled by his words. “That’s an empty cave, the only thing there is an abandoned fire-pit.”

“Look a bit more closely at that fire-pit, Vi.” He gestured to the board, and the long dead embers sprang to life, coiling around an ash covered blade in the center of the flames. “I believe this is something one of your pieces left behind nearly a thousand turns ago.”

“That piece really was incompetent at anything but slaying goblins! Idiot, leaving such an artifact behind, why didn’t I stop him back then?!” she screamed, realizing the current situation was at least partially her fault.

“Early mistakes can cost you the game later on, mayhaps milady will play more carefully in the future?” Beelzebub smirked.

-

So far, the world above ground has been pretty boring, it’s all just trees and grass. And adventurers trying to kill me, really don’t like that part.

And as it had been over a day now of me wandering the forest, I was beginning to get hungry, my feet hurt, and I really just wanted to go to sleep.

“Can’t just… sleep on the ground, that seems dangerous.” I mumbled to nobody in particular as I walked down a small dirt trail. It was mostly overgrown, likely abandoned by whoever originally made this path.

After ten minutes of walking, it opened up into a clearing facing a tall cliff. At the foot of said cliff was the opening of a cave, but you could tell it didn’t lead anywhere from where I was already. Outside of the cave a circle of rocks sat, a rusty looking, crooked sword stabbed in the center of what appeared to be an old fire-pit.

At some point this was a campground, but whoever used it was long gone. I don’t get why you would stick a sword into a fire, the sight was strange to say the least. Wondering what benefit that would have, I reflexively reached my hand out towards the rusty, soot caked saber.

My fingertips, long, claw-like nails touched the blade for only a split second before, seemingly out of the blade itself, flames burst forth.

“Wha!” I shouted, falling backwards and landing on my ass. The rusty blade roared to life, fire twisting and coiling around it, until the flames took on a bizarre shape.

The figure of a woman, made entirely of orange flame floated in front of my eyes, the sword piercing her through the chest, pinning her to the ground. Despite being so close to the strange fire spirit, my hand was unharmed. They burned with a gentle warmth, unlike the roaring fire they looked like.

“Master..?” The spirit asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes as if she had a physical body, but her facial features were just black soot floating within her blazing body. “You’re not Master… Master isn’t a goblin.”

“Uhh, hello?” I responded, too confused to say anything worthwhile.

“The goblin girl speaks, how novel!” the spirit smiled… I think. It’s hard to read her expression. “Oh, it’s been so long since I’ve spoken to another!”

“You… have you uhh, been here long?” I asked her.

The spirit looked as though she was thinking hard, but then just shrugged back at me.

“I’ve been sleeping since Master left until now, how long has it been? I cannot say.” she answered.

Was this also part of Beezlebub’s game? Did he cause this meeting between us? I thought he said I was supposed to have free will, but it sure feels like I’m on his strings right now.