Tad fell through the portal as opposed to walking like he usually did. The fall was jarring and unlike any portal he had ever gone through.

He found himself in a wide natural cavern composed of rough red stone that glowed faintly. Tad could see the chaotic mana suffusing the chamber. It was not a damp cave, and no water ran or could be heard. He saw a large opening at the side and a corridor beyond that space. Tad heard no sound coming from the corridor. He could barely see in the dim orange light. Tad reached out with his soulmancy and felt nothing ahead of him. He walked towards the opening, keeping his stave in his hand to be ready if anything were to go wrong.

He took a step away from the twin pillars of the portal, he peered into the gloom more intently. To his right in the shadows of the wall, he heard chittering. Using his soulmancy Tad reached out, he felt the presence of three creatures hunkered down in those shadows. He didn't think they were large, but they were watching. What are those? he thought to himself as the tiny red eyes were there staring at him.

The three creatures spread their small wings and took off across the chamber. Damn those things are fast. As they left the shadows and circled above chittering.

The creatures had short wicked smiles showing off their sharp pointed teeth. They had red skin and had the appearance of tiny evil fairies with leathery bat wings. They each had long tails that flicked back and forth behind them. Tad watched as the tails curled while the small creatures banked left and right. Their faces had the appearance of monkeys. They were hard to follow in the dim light.

Tad walked towards the corridor, assuming the creatures were harmless. Until he felt a sharp searing pain rip down his upper back. One of the creatures had flown down and gouged him from behind as it whipped past, he had assumed incorrectly. Not this crap again, thought Tad. Why is it always Monkeys? Sure, they were imps, but why do they look like evil little Monkeys?

Tad cast a spell and forced energia into a soulmancy shield behind his head as he swept his staff quickly at the imp closest to him. The staff whirled around in a large arc as he let it slide forward. Both of his hands rested on the last portion of the staff in the swing. It connected with one of the flying imps sending it careening across the floor with a squeal. Tad felt another imp strike from behind, but this time the blow slid across his soulmancy shield, leaving him without a scratch. Tad spun around, kicking out with his left leg for balance he continued with the staff's arc trying to connect with another imp. He released one hand to widen the staff's reach. The staff missed as the creatures flew higher. The two remaining imps flew up to the ceiling of the large cavern screeching louder as Tad glanced briefly at the fallen monkey-thing twitching on the ground. That thing is never getting up again. The remaining imps became more agitated and scrambled out of the chamber and flew down the long passage.

Tad held his staff in his left hand and cast a heal spell with his right while softly murmuring a word of power. He felt the mana convert to energia as it flowed into the complex shape his mind held when casting the spell. Tad reached his right hand as far back behind his neck as he could and let the magic flow into his body towards the small wound in his back. Tad had some knowledge of healing and understood the risks of infection if he didn't treat this wound immediately. Imps are minor devils, whose magic could cause infection in humans. Tad hoped they didn't have any poison on those tiny talons, which he could not heal using magic. He looked again at the crumpled monkey-thing on the ground. Wisps of smoke were starting to rise from it as the imp burst into flames. The flesh on its body turned to dust, leaving a tiny winged skeleton behind. Tad watched the smoke for a moment shuddering.

Where was he? He saw no sign that his adoptive father had been there.

Tad continued forward into the corridor. He could see the light of a red sky farther down the tunnel as he moved forward, Finally he was relieved. He smelled acrid sulfur and fungus. Looking at the floor, he noticed mushrooms on both sides of the tunnel growing in a straight row along the walls. Tad summoned a small ball of light and hovered it ahead of him to get a better view. The passage walls and floor looked carved here with no natural features. There was a hand-width line of dirt on either side containing the mushrooms, and they looked planted and evenly spaced out in the soil.

Tad had his soulmancy extend before him. He felt something near the entrance of the tunnel. He slowed and brought his stave up to prepare for a fight. A figure moved in front of the entrance and leared at him. The being in front of him was humanoid-shaped with deep red scales covering its body. Horns protruded visibly high on his forehead. No discernible wings on the demon gave Tad a bit of hope, maybe this will level the playing field a bit if he has to fight. Standing fixed at the entrance, covered only in a loincloth with his clawed hands at each side, Has he ever tried putting on a pair of pants? The demon did not look all that formidable due to his pantslessness, until he unhinged his jaw. The ugly ass creature opened his massive mouth infused with multiple rows of sharp pointed teeth as he screeched. Oh my god why does he sound like that? Tad fell to the ground covering his ears from the deathly screech. The two unphased imps that had escaped Tad earlier were flapping above the demon, chattering loudly.

As Tad struggled to stand, a giant mass of sickly blackness formed behind the demon. Tad could sense the malice of the dark form as it blocked the exit to the cave. He could feel the disgusting creature's magic reaching out from the blackness as this new creature assaulted his mind. He shuddered and tried to regain his balance as the creature's vile spirit form swept down the tunnel towards him.

Tad backed up and cast another spell, placing a soul shield between the darkness and himself. He continued feeding fire energia into the shield to help strengthen its defenses, but it overwhelmed his magic. The foul darkness effortlessly engulfed the shield and enveloped Tad. Tad struggled to move away as the talon-like tendrils of black ooze held him in place, pushing his head back and forcing its way up his nostrils. Tad was paralyzed and suspended by the magic, unable to breathe. Unconsciousness began to claim his mind as he heard another roar from the tunnel's entrance. A booming voice followed, "You are not a god. I was promised an ultimate fight of wills! You are just a mere human. " The black tendrils tightened around Tad in a meteor of pain.

Tad was thrown backward and against the tunnel wall as the void creature released its grip. He lay on the floor, gasping to fill his lungs with air. He bitterly thought, Well that wasn’t much of a fight.

"Take him to your master. I leave to find the god." This was the last thing Tad could understand before a blow to his skull rendered unconscious.

***

The Cell

Tad awoke on a stone floor, darkness enveloping him. Not the dark of being outside where there were stars or stray shadows. This was pitch black darkness. Even the air seemed as dark as it was chilly and stagnant, and the stone was warmer than the air around him.

Tad sat up and tried summoning a light. It didn't work. He tried ice, fire, and life spells. None of his spells worked. He could feel the mana, but he could not make any of the spells work or move his energia. He crawled around, feeling the stone floor. A small room, around eight feet square. The door was stone with two metal bands. He didn't feel a lock on this side. He felt a stone grating carved in the floor to one side and gagged at the smell. Tad heard movement under the grate. He backed away from it on his hands and knees, not wanting to be bit through the small slotted holes. He felt his eyes still worked and were both there. He checked himself. He felt whole.

Tad could hear screaming in the distance. Several voices, all different pitches but in agony, wailed and keened. Many others shouted in languages he didn't understand. Tad looked down at his wrist using his magic sight and saw his language charm was still active. He wondered why he could not understand the voices he heard. He tried once to use his soulmancy, but the sudden intense headache taught him not to try that again.

How was Tad to find his father if he couldn't help himself? How is he supposed to fight demons? They had magical skin and were resistant to many types of magic. He could crush the smaller ones, but the larger ones would laugh at his attacks. He had fire spells, but those won't do much against any demon or devil. His ice spells were not very good for attacking. His soulmancy mainly was shielding himself from damage. Why had the demons not killed and eaten him?

In the darkness, he heard shuffling and odd footsteps. The sound stopped beyond the door. A small opening appeared at the bottom of the door, and something was pushed in. There was a tiny amount of soft red light on the other side. In the darkness, it looked very bright.

"Hey, why am I here? Who are you?" shouted Tad.

He heard hissing laughter as the creature went away. Tad felt around. There was a flat piece of something that might have wanted to be bread and some half-cooked vegetable mash on a rough stone plate. Well, he thought it might be a vegetable. Next to this was a stone cup with water in it. The bread smelled horrible, and the water tasted of sulfur when he took a tiny sip. He placed them both on the floor. Where in all the planes was he, and where was Beothorn? Tad heard chittering in his cell.

***

Had it been days or months now? He barely registered his circumstance. He rolled to his side slowly and stiffly and pushed off the floor to a sitting position. The distant screams outside his cell hung heavy in the air. The cries intensified and faded in waves for what seemed like hours at a time. He struggled to understand his plight and calm his pounding head with a still body technique and focused breaths. As soon as he let his focus slip, a shiver ran up his spine, and mental images crept in of the tormented creatures he heard. As quickly as the sounds seeped into his thoughts, the screams were gone with an abrupt silence. Were they dead or worse?

Somewhere in this nightmare existence, Tad had lost track of time.

Tad's thoughts started to take shape in the sudden silence. He was overwhelmed with his fatigue, hunger, exhaustion, but mostly the pain. Tad began to test each part of himself with small movements to assess his injuries and abilities. He winced in pain with each stretch of his sore muscles. Nothing seemed broken, and most of his joints still flexed. Small comfort to his pained body.

Tad knew he was imprisoned in one of the fortresses of a Duke of Hell. Technically the demon was an Archduke; Tad corrected himself. The guard demons had angrily told him this while dragging him to his cell earlier after another painful interrogation. Of course, the guard had backhanded him hard enough to loosen a tooth. So, Archduke, it was.

During these torture sessions, the demons kept asking him how he came through the portal. The demon interrogators hissing in common language had told him he should not have been able to do this. The more he said he didn't know, the more they hurt him. They used some magical device that made any part of his body it touched feel like it was on fire and being cut open at the same time. It didn't actually burn him, but the magic still caused painful bruises and soreness. They haven't tried for his eyes yet, thankfully. He could not use his healing spells. All of his normal magic was being blocked somehow in these catacombs. He could still go into his soulmancy space during these sessions, so he hid his mind there while his body was ravaged with the torturous pain.

Tad sighed then spoke softly, "Could someone be having a worse time of it?" He sighed afterward.

Perhaps the creature whose screams were leaking into the cell, he thought more humbly. Heavily bruised and battered, Tad used the wall to help stand. Its warmth eased his shoulder pain as he leaned against it.

It had been his last quest and battle that had landed him here. He had come in search of his father. Tad had never met his biological father. So far, the only thing that man had offered him was emptiness. Beothorn was the only father he knew. A stalwart dwarf and his wife taking in a human child to raise.

Tad began to feel around the cell again. Tad found a small flat stone days earlier, and it had been his only comfort in this darkness. The stone had a tiny trace of magic, but Tad had yet to see it do anything. There was nothing else in the cell except a few rats that would brush up against him while they sniffed to see if he was dead and fled as Tad kicked at them with his foot. Tad hoped they were rats, at least. He could not see them in the darkness of his cell. The creatures had no magic that Tad could sense.

Tad's jailers had removed everything from him of value, and they left only his now tattered clothes and his now smelly half-boots. Tad's hope was becoming as black and empty as his cell.

In the darkness, there was no way to assess the time. Had it been weeks or months since he started pacing the cell? Was it now night or day? He had no way to know. Bored of the pacing, Tad had nothing left he could do but try to sleep. He lay back against the corner where the wall met the floor. He fell asleep with his arms curled up under his head to serve as a pillow. In one hand, Tad held the stone. His only companion. It is odd what one feels after being alone in the dark for so long. As he slept, his hand relaxed, and the rock rolled out of his palm and onto the floor.

Tad woke, identifying immediately that his rock was gone. Madness briefly gripped him, taking over his senses. His breaths quickened as he began to panic at its loss. He went to work scanning the floor with his palms. Tad felt instant relief when his fingers wrapped around the stone. Tad snatched it up, securing it in his clenched fist once more. Satisfied that his stone was in hand, he rolled onto his knees and felt the wall as he stood. He heard the door slot next to his cell slam shut, then the distinctive sound of keys rattling, and the creek of his door slot opening. Something slid across the floor, and then the door slot closed again.

He had been trying to mark time by the feedings and had felt he was being fed once a day. Tad hurried to the food before the rats did. If Tad was slow, he would lose half his meal to the scavengers.

Once Tad had eaten whatever stinking porridge-like substance he had been given, he returned the simple stone bowl to the door where a demon would retrieve it later.

Tad's thoughts began to drift through his memories and regrets. Tad remembered being told once as a child that he would see his life flash before his eyes when he died. Tad wondered if this was the case now or if his mind lingering around his childhood was just a diversion from his descent into madness.

He closed his eyes to hear the woman's voice more clearly as he re-lived past memories.

***