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If an Angel Can Fall, Can a Devil Rise?
One day while in a village in the hells, you are pulled aside by a shadowy female with blue eyes who is completely covered in strips of different cloth, as if mutilated beneath. It is clear from the shape of the cloth that she has horns, however.
The shadowy figure nervously looks around, before drawing closer and explaining that she has been watching you for a while and needs your help. But she can’t talk here, she explains, and begs you to follow her somewhere safer where she can talk.
If you go with her, she’ll swiftly lead you to the poor slums of the town, before stopping at the entrance of a small shack. She’ll look left and right before ducking inside quickly, and beckoning you to follow her.
Inside, scattered books on teleportation and interplanar travel litter the sparse shack. The woman will take her face coverings off; revealing that she’s a devil with bone-white skin, and golden horns. Shimmering golden specks fleck her skin, like stars in the night sky, and glisten from reflected light when she moves. She explains hurriedly through golden lips that she desperately needs your help, saying that the others like her have been captured and locked away in a maximum-security prison. If you don’t help them, they’ll be tortured to death–or worse!
If you ask her what she means by others like her, she’ll say that just as celestials can fall, devils can rise. Most of the time it’s caused by a devil spending too much time on the mortal plane, and learning to love freedom. Or they might come to empathise with the mortals, and regret the evils they have done to them. Or, very rarely, the devil might never see even an inch of the material plane, and still somehow have a change of heart.
Regardless of why they changed, because they were made in the image of their god, unlike most mortals who were gifted free will, when a devil rises–just like celestials when they fall–they cease to be devils. Their essence has changed, and so does their outward appearance.
They cannot control it, the risen devil explains, and it gives away what they are. Because of this, when the other devils see them, they capture them and torture them until they either embrace evil again, or die.
That is what has happened to her friends, she says, breaking into tears. They had banded together to find a way to escape the hells, but now she won’t have enough resources to survive for long on her own, let alone finally leave this place. She begs you to help her, though she doesn’t have much and can’t afford to pay you. But she’ll do whatever she can to help, including leading you to the prison where they’re being kept and fighting by your side.
Should you agree, she’ll hug you in gratitude, before stepping back and shyly apologising. Then she’ll sniffle some more, and ask if you’re ready to go there now.
The journey to the maximum-security prison is perhaps a day’s walk, through difficult heated tunnels carved alongside magma flows. Eventually you’ll reach a cliff, with a metal elevator leading up. There is a handful of devils guarding the landing at the top of the elevator, and they’ll attack you when they see you. But they will attempt to flee before dying, saying that “The Guardian” will take care of you.
Devils with lesser crimes (such as betrayal) are kept in the cells along the entry halls, where they are starved to death. The risen devils however are at the heart of the prison, guarded by an extra door.
If you manage to break that door open to access the cells behind it, a circle of lava at the center of the room will begin to boil fiercely, before a dripping magma serpent rises from it and snarls at you.
When you’ve defeated The Guardian, you’ll be able to free the risen devils–though some of the cells are empty, and the surviving prisoners will explain that one of them died but the other two fell to the darkness again.
Once this is done, the original risen devil will thank you from the bottom of her heart for your sacrifice. Then she will hesitate, before drawing a knife from her belt and chopping off one of her golden horns. She will hand it to you, and you’ll see that though hollow, the horn itself is pure gold. She’ll explain that it’s only right that she sacrifices something in return for what you selflessly risked to free her people.
If you ask her what they’ll do now that they’re free, she’ll explain that they will figure out how to get to the material realm. It will be hard, she says, but there they will at least have freedom to survive and try make out a life for themselves. She doesn’t expect they will be accepted–they are not accepted anywhere. What risen devils tried to go to the celestial realms were butchered there, for the angels did not believe that they were not deceiving them.
She explains that she expects it will be much the same on the material realm, but it will be better than what they risk down here. At least there, they can try to atone for all the wrong they’ve done, by helping those in need.
The risen devil also explains that should you need their aid on the surface, her and her brethren will gladly give it.
GM’s Notes:
The Guardian is a magma spirit magically bound to defend the prison from intruders, and kill any who attempt to escape.
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