(Untitled)

[gimmeachant]

This is D'Hoffryn's hell: vast, silent, empty and black as space the day after the last star was switched off. Despite the lack of light sources, the visible objects are lit quite adequately, with a flat white light with no visible source; that casts no shadows

Comments

[hadyougoing]

"Ooh!"

Ava looks around curiously; her curiosity dampens somewhat when she takes the place in and sees that there ain't actually all that much to it.

"... Huh."

So apparently that 'hell is other people' thing hasn't gotten much traction in other dimensions. The demons from her own world have implied that hell is a lot more ... brimstoney.

Also evisceratey.

[gimmeachant]

"This is my office," he indicates. "There are only a few authorized entrances and exits to this realm."

[hadyougoing]

"Authorized?" Ava says.

And, dreamily, adds, "I like your fish."

[gimmeachant]

"Survivable," he amends.

He glances at her narrowly. "This is a scrying portal. It has one or two way functions."

"...that's the screensaver."

[hadyougoing]

"Oh!"

Ava sounds enlightened and pleased, but not terribly embarrassed.

"... I don't think they have scrying portals on my world," she adds. "Or, who knows, maybe they do, until last year I definitely didn't think they had demons and that turned out to be totally wrong."

[gimmeachant]

"We use them to observe and prepare for an insertion," he explains. "We--"

"Well, it'll be easier to sit in on, probably. Come along."

He steps off into the empty blackness; contrary to all logic, he does not fall or particularly float; he seems to walk along as if on a solid, if completely soundless, surface.

[hadyougoing]

After a moment of !!!, Ava trots after him quickly, realizing that maybe bedroom slippers (hers are pink) were not the best wardrobe choice for a professionaltype jaunt like this one.

Well. Too late now.

(Ava tries really hard not to think about how the floor works. She mostly succeeds!)

[gimmeachant]

The two triangles vanish quickly behind them, and they're soon left in infinite darkness.

"This is all firmament," he explains (?) gesturing at the darkness. "Very versatile stuff."

He rubs his hands together. "Now, where to start. I'm not sure who's in the office right now, so the best bet is to stop by the Well of Sorrows, I think."

[hadyougoing]

"Sounds good!" Ava says cheerfully, despite the fact that this infinite darkness is pretty freaking creepy.

Firmawhat?

It sounds sturdy, at any rate, which is always a good sign.

[gimmeachant]

Abruptly, D'Hoffryn turns; abruptly, there is a door here beside them, wooden and rickety and marked with an odd glyph where the crescent moon would on an outhouse door. He taps it, and the door shudders briefly, as if it had a chill.

He opens it, and gestures her through.

Beyond: a rocky cave, an old stone well, and, incongrously, a cubicle set up at the edge; it has the impersonal nature of a desk that doesn't belong to anyone permanently. The chair is currently abandoned.

[hadyougoing]

Ava is ... surprised? But doors that go places that look like actual places are a plus, so she scurries past D'Hoffryn with a quick "thank you!" tossed over her shoulder.

Never has a rocky cave been so comforting. She feels like she's on solid ground again, despite the fact that the 'firmament' was allegedly solid as well.

... What's with the cubicle?

[gimmeachant]

There is a phone there, although the line out of the back doesn't go anywhere, and a laptop open to something written in demonic glyphs and featuring some pretty disturbing pictures.

Also, tons and tons of Post-it pads, and a stack of tricolor carbon papers.

The room is pretty silent as they enter, but soon an unearthly wailing begins to rise from the well.

[hadyougoing]

Ava cranes her neck with interest to take a look at the contents of the cubicle, and is momentarily distracted by the laptop. There's something weirdly familiar about that screen ...

When the wailing starts up, her head jerks around to follow the sound. It's eerie and anguished and ... also familiar, in some ways. She can't make out the words, but as soon as she focuses in on them, the sound hits her like a migraine.

She'd kind of love to snap at the well to stop whining, lots of people's entire families have been killed by genocidal Sudanese death squads, but she's stopped in part because she feels an odd twinge of ... feeling, like in church or at the dentist's, and it makes her uncomfortable and faintly as if she might cry so she presses her hands to her ears and tries to appear nonplussed in D'Hoffryn's direction.

Or should she be looking sympathetic?

Job interviews are hard.

[gimmeachant]

"What's she saying?" D'Hoffryn says, impassive.

(He makes a gesture behind his back, locking the door.)

He points to the forms. "Write it down." There are pens in the rollout drawer. "Don't worry if you missed anything. She'll repeat."

"There's no one else that can hear her, after all." He looks very...

...inhuman, right now.

[hadyougoing]

Ava glances to the forms uneasily, then uneasily to D'Hoffryn, and fumbles for a pen.

"Can you ... can you not hear?" she says.

She sounds, at this moment, more envious and incredulous than anything else, though she's uncapping the first pen she finds and testing it out on the paper.

[gimmeachant]

"Consider this a practical interview."

The phone begins ringing; D'Hoffryn moves quickly to answer it.

"Arashmaharr. Yes, it's me. Yes. Just a little exercise. Be patient. Take your break."