IC CONTACT

[wizzardly]

VOICEMAIL:

"Er... yes, okay, I suppose I should tell you that if you're trying to reach me I'm not here, and if you're trying to reach me because you want to do something involving pointy bits of metal or otherwise painful objects, I'm never going to be here. So sorry."

Comments

[kickingand]

-- They hire a stork to bring them a bouncing baby demon? Yeah, try again.

[wizzardly]

You started as a human then, I've got to assume. You did mention you had a brother at one point.

...I suppose it does explain the lack of horns or otherwise terrible appendages.

[kickingand]

Most demons come from corrupted human souls. Y'know, the ones that get stuck in the pit and tortured for a few hundred years. So yeah, we all start off as people.

[wizzardly]

Ours don't. [with a verbal shrug.] The tortured souls in our Hell rather just... remain tortured souls. Bit boring, I suppose, but I personally like predictability in my hellspawn.

[a beat.]

Do you remember your human life, then?

[kickingand]

Well yeah, ours get with the torturing, too. Spend a decade or two down there and they start conning you into doing more and then-- tadah. You're hooked.

But do I remember? [ He has to do some mental counting for a second. ] 'Course I do, only died a couple months ago.

[wizzardly]

...I suppose any choice where one option explores the various uses of hot pokers is going to be somewhat weighted.

[this beat is somewhat longer than the first.]

And were you somewhat inclined towards demonic activities when you were living, or is it - just something which grows on you?

[kickingand]

No, see- I'm just lucky. I wasn't supposed to die, and then I did. And since the King of Hell's a little more available than the big guy upstairs...

[wizzardly]

- You've a King of Hell as well? I thought - but Lucifer made it sound as though he ruled it.

[kickingand]

[ Cough. Cough. ]

He does, in theory. We just had a change of leadership after the near-apocalypse mishap. Guy who took the throne's a little bitch.

[wizzardly]

What, Lucifer just let someone else take over?

And he shouldn't hold it for too long then; coups are something of a demonic pastime.

[kickingand]

Not exactly, no.

Considering the last Knight of Hell that I killed was planning on taking over? Believe me. I know.

[wizzardly]

[well, as if Rincewind needed another reason to be glad he was able to give Dean the slip that night, here's another one. Unseen, he grimaces.]

I helped unintentionally with my Hell's last overthrow. I think. ...Pretty sure. I take it you aren't after the position yourself?

[kickingand]

You think? [ Dude, how do you not know for sure. ] But yeah no, herding demons'd require a kind of pay raise that doesn't even exist. I don't need to rule Hell, I'm just enjoying the benefits.

[wizzardly]

I was somewhat preoccupied with just trying to escape Hell at the time.

[a pause.]

...Do those benefits have anything to do with that mark?

[kickingand]

Seems reasonable. Place is kind of a bummer.

[ ... snort. ] They might. Why, would it make you feel better if I was born with 'em?

[wizzardly]

Not worth a holiday, certainly. But that's what happens when a thirteen-year-old demonologist mistakes you for a demon.

[mostly he's just curious what the hell it is. Getting info out of Dean over the phone instead of in person seems to be working out for him. ]

Oh, no. I was more wondering what it does.

[kickingand]

I can see how that'd happen. [ Considering Dean probably mistook a good number of non-demons as demons when he was a young'n....

But look here buddy, he only just learned about the Mark's specifics, he is not going to go revealing them all to you. ]

Back home it meant I could use the First Blade.

[wizzardly]

Really? Because I couldn't.

[Hell's in pretty poor shape if scrawny wizards can be mistaken for their people.]

Is that quite the step up from the Second?

[kickingand]

Thirteen year olds are idiots, point blank. Demonologists or not.

[ Ahahhaha wow your wit. Listen to Dean... not laugh. ]

Version 2.0 never made it into production. [ sigh. ] But it's the blade that Cain used to kill Abel. And it can kill anything.

[wizzardly]

[well, he won't argue that. All those hormones.]

Oh, I read about them. [he's been trying to get through the Bible; it hasn't been easy.

But that's interesting information.]

Anything? ...Angels, even? Or supposedly unkillable knights of hell?

[maybe a little too sarcasm in that last one - he still thinks the Luggage could have taken care of him.]

[kickingand]

In the Bible? Well then, there you go- It is called the Mark of Cain for a reason.

And I did say i'd killed a Knight, didn't I? It was the reason I got the Mark in the first place, Abaddon was being a pain in the ass.

[wizzardly]

[so now he knows what the mark is called and that it transfers, and that there's some magical blade which can kill even the unkillable. ...The blade probably isn't here, but still, that's useful to know. Maybe.]

Rather fortunate for you that the blade wouldn't be in this world, I imagine.

[kickingand]

[ Maybe. Ish. Sort of. ]

Didn't stop me from bringing it.

[wizzardly]

...You have it here? With you?

[that Dean is telling him this leads Rincewind to wonder if he isn't the brightest demon in Hell.]

[kickingand]

[ One should take heed and question whether or not any of the shit Dean is spewing is fact or fiction, Rincewind. ]

Showed up when I did. Pretty convenient in an alternate dimension.