Weeks later…

Dorian and Sun saw the Kingdom of Ur rise in the ashy distance, watched endless streams of caravans trundle towards it yanked by herds of giant demigod drakes. In the mortal realms they might’ve been kings. Here they kept their heads low as God traders lashed their impatience with flaming whips.

As apt a metaphor for the importance of power as Dorian ever saw.

The traders came in all species. Clans of serpents. Naga. Minotaur hordes pulling stone wagons, Jiangshi dens driving carriages of bone. They came from the sky, Rocs and phoenixes and giant crows flying in their own cargo, but they grounded themselves to enter Ur’s giant gates. They came from the magma seas, Lava Whales and dragons and the like bobbing along crisscrossing rivers of magma, but they, too, were sent through canal lanes at the gates, where they were frisked with the rest. Far-flung and various as they were, the same feeling shone in their eyes, panted from their open mouths. The very same that moved Dorian now.

Greed. The flame that lit the Multiverse! At Ur it rose to a raging bonfire.

In Ur were housed some of the most lusted-for artifacts in all of the Upper Realm, after all…

No-one got in and out of Ur without being thoroughly inspected, identified, and bound to an oath to follow Ur’s rules. A Kingdom built on commerce—even a demon Kingdom, especially a demon Kingdom—required all entrants to respect the rule of law.

As a rule, Dorian didn’t respect the law. Close enough.

The Kingdom itself was shaped like a giant crown. The outer edges were proud obsidian walls, the insides towering redsteel spires. It was ancient even by godly standards. Back before the invention of Interspatial Rings, before portal magics were sophisticated, it had been the place for any respectable God to buy or transport anything whatsoever. Or rather—for unrespectable Gods masquerading as respectable ones, which was as good as you could reasonably ask for here in Hell.

Even now Ur was still the spot for trade. The trouble with Hell and its demons wasn’t so much the exchanging of goods. It was the backstabbing and infighting and thieving. This was Hell, after all! Its demons were hardly known for playing fair. Not unless a place like Ur made them.

“The first challenge,” said Dorian, arms crossed, “is getting in. Ur is allied with Jez. No doubt they have my Bloodline and aura fed into their gate wards.”

“Which we can’t fool, yeah?” said Sun, mouth half-full, munching on a carrot. Always munching on something.

“They’ve got the most sophisticated anti-cloaking wards in all the Upper Planes. Can’t fly in, either. You’ll be shot down before you get within a hundred strides.”

“No shadow-walking?”

“The whole place is a no-shadow-realm zone. They’ve got guardian wraiths that attack everyone who so much as steps through a portal.”

“Hmm.”

“Tricky, isn’t it?”

Sun turned to him. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense! Where is it?”

“Where is what?”

“The backdoor.”

“I don’t recall mentioning a backdoor.”

She stared sidelong at him. “I know you’ve got one. You must’ve been here ten thousand times before. You’re telling me you don’t have another way in? You?”

“…Fine. So there may be a backdoor.” He said dourly. “I was planning a shocking reveal, you know—never mind.” He sighed. “Follow me.”

“Knew it!” she said cheerily. “Is it underground? It’s underground, isn’t it? Ooh—is it through the sewers? It’s always through the sewers.”

“Calm down, runt.”

“Well am I right?”

“You’ll see.”

“I bet we’re going through the waste tunnel. Are we snorkeling in? Are there guards? It’s not warded, is it?” She scratched her head. “But why wouldn’t it be?”

“I didn’t say it was through a waste tunnel. Nor in a sewer.”

“But it is, isn’t it?”

He stopped. “Hey! Want to hear a parable?”

“I love parables!”

“There once was a little monkey-kin who was far too excitable for her own good. One day she talked so much she annoyed a god named Dorian. Then Dorian exploded her face. The end.”

Then he patted her head. She blinked.

For a few seconds the only sounds were their boots on soil and Sun munching on her carrot.

“Well that’s not very fun, is it?”

“True stories seldom are. What’s the moral?”

Sun scratched her head. “The monkey-kin should’ve bound him to a nonviolent soul contract beforehand?”

“…”

She grinned. “It’s a sewer, isn’t it?”

“…Yes, it’s a sewer…”

***

The waste tunnel in question was a toxic waste dump which ran out quite a ways from the Kingdom, underground, ending at a discreet lava lake nestled in the nearby mountains. The lava lake ran ten thousand li deep, linking to vast underground magma flows which branched through all of Hell.

Dorian and Sun perched behind a clump of rocks, wreathed in Sun’s cloaking as they peered over.

Before them was a chute carved thirty strides up the side of the mountain. Lava gushed out, along with chunks of blackened filth, a thick cloud of qi sizzling over the mess. On occasion body parts—chopped-up tails, a crisped arm, caved-in heads of all species—bobbed along too, slowly melting. They were then dumped into the lake, which lapped them up greedily.

The chute itself was flanked below by five guards. All demons well into Empyrean, all very serious-looking. Built into the wall was an array formation. It pulsed waves of anti-cloaking qi which spread out in a loose sphere, dissolving a few strides from where they he and Sun were hidden.

“They’ve tightened up security,” noted Dorian. His left eye twitched. This was even more tightly guarded than the main gate!

“What was it like last time you were here?” said Sun.

“It was just one guy. Beat him up, stole his badge, used it to bypass the wards inside, and I was done. Evidently they’ve since heard of that loophole.”

He pierced the darkness of the chute. Down there, more auras. Not only guards but also array formations. Probably keyed to annihilate any intruders.

It was slightly absurd how well-guarded it was. It was a toxic waste dump of a sewer!

Sun poked him. “Please tell me you have other backdoors.”

“Unfortunately not.”

“…Would it be at all possible to get in through a front door?”

“Only slightly less possible than going through here. At least here you’d only have a handful of guards to contend with! Trust me—the folks at the front gate have seen every manner of trafficking imaginable. The wards here are a joke compared to what they’ve got at the front gates. There’s so many I doubt even the Ur-guards know all of them.”

There was a pause. Then Sun nodded to the chute. “So… this is all we’ve got to work with?”

“Afraid so.” Which just about tore up all his plans. Fate, you heinous bastard! It was a shame Ur was so damned valuable. With all its resources, it might be the place that offered the most chances to skyrocket his powers in all of Hell! Too bad it was clamped wall-to-wall. Just thinking about the layers upon layers of defenses—just to get into this hellish city, not to mention the auction itself—was giving him a headache…

Sun’s noisy munching didn’t help matters.

“Weren’t you the one who was excited about stealing from the Royal Auction of Ur? Well, here’s your chance to show off your planning skills!” He gestured to the chute. “How do you plan on stealing from them if you can’t even get past this? Go on. Hit me. Throw a plan at me.”

He might as well squeeze some amusement out of this.

Sun opened her mouth.

“Oh, and some ground rules. Don’t suggest obvious things. If an idea pops into your head within five seconds—say, ‘what about tunneling into the chute? Or under the wall?’—assume ten thousand idiots have thought of it before you, and have failed miserably. Ur covers its ass extremely well. This was, as far as I could tell, its least-covered bit. Now they’ve got iron diapers on.”

Sun closed her mouth. Then opened it again, nose wrinkled.

“‘Iron diapers’? Really?”

“…not my best analogy, perhaps, but you get the point.”

Sun settled down to think. Dorian settled down on his ass.

“Ahh…” he said, closing his eyes, kicking out his legs. “Let me know when you’re ready to—”

An explosion cut him off.

He scrambled upright. Sun leapt so high she nearly cleared the boulder they were hiding behind. They both did a three-sixty. The guards weren’t looking their way. They were looking a few hundred strides to their right. And frowning.

Smoke billowed from behind the rock. Then a humanoid figure leapt atop it. He was dressed in a peacock-feathered crown, trailing a cloak shimmering with crystals the size of oranges. He looked like he’d sprung from the pages of a shitty comic, down to his exaggerated sneer.

“Oh, bother,” sighed Dorian. He relaxed. A quick glance around confirmed his suspicions.

“What’s going on?” whispered Sun.

“Idiots ten thousand one—” He jerked his head at the figure.

“—Two, and three.” He jerked his head at the rock face.

It took Sun a second to see them. Two other figures, small, on grappling hooks, draped in colors blended nearly perfectly with the rock wall. They somehow gave off not a hint of aura.

The guards, meanwhile, were frowning at this flamboyant clown on the rock.

“Behold!” boomed the clown. A high-God aura blasted out from it. “It is I! Kal-Il, dread lord of the molten lakes! Come, guardians of Ur, and meet your doom!”

One guard—a big albino ape—smiled at the fellow to his right. “Told you.”

“…Fuck,” said a rhinoceros—looking demon. It handed over a gold coin, which the ape pocketed smugly.

“What—cease, fools!” There was a slight waver in dread lord Kal-Il of the molten lakes’ voice now. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Tark here bet me ten mid-grade Spirit Stones we’d get fewer ‘Over there!’ schemes than last year. We’re up to six and the year’s not even halfway through.”

“What?!” Dread-lord Kal-Il of the molten lakes’ eyes popped.

“Oh. My bad. It’s—what’s the lay term?—misdirection? Distraction?” The ape looked to the rhinoceros, who shrugged. “Regardless. You distract us while your pals scaling the cliff—”

Said pals froze, halfway down the cliff. “Sneak in behind us.”

The silence that followed. Dread lord Kal-Il of the molten lakes gasped.

“It’s the third-most popular variant. Sometimes there’s a distraction up front, and they try to clobber us from above when they think we don’t notice. Then there’s the simple bum-rush, an old favorite.”

Then a third guard, a grizzled gargoyle missing a wing, gave a sigh. “Not all of us enjoy the sound of your voice as much as you do, Rast. Put the fools out of their misery and be done with it.”

“Tch. Very well.” Rast snapped his fingers.

Two chasms of darkness gaped the air before the climbers. Twin portals to the shadow realm. Two huge gnarled claws of shadow reached out, snatched them up, and yanked them in with contemptuous ease.

“Missed a spot,” he said, jerking his head to Dread Lord Kal-Il of the molten lakes.

Dread Lord Kal-Il of the molten lakes tried to run. A giant hand leapt out of the shadow at his feet, snatched him by the ankle. He grabbed hold of a boulder. Then a second shadow-hand reached out and chopped off the offending arm. Dread Lord Kal-Il of the molten lakes was dragged screaming into the darkness, and that was that.

“There’s our entertainment for the week.” said the Ape with a sigh. He glared at the gargoyle. “You’re no fun.”

“I am not paid to have fun. I am paid to guard.”

“Right, right…”

Behind the rocks, Dorian pursed his lips. “Apparently they’ve upgraded security more than I thought. Guards didn’t need to move an inch.”

He stood. “Well, that route’s a dead end.”

“Wait!” Sun looked shaken and excited at once. She had this gleam in her eyes—a gleam that made him a tad nervous. “I… might just have a plan. A real one.”

“Oh?” This had better be good.