Monday, August 31, 2009

Chapter 14: On the Thingy

In which we see a strange thingy inside the human head.

My first day on Earth. I appeared somewhere in the city of what must be Strasbourg. Everything is so confusing, especially humans. Good news is that they don't seem to see me - I can walk around, listen to their thoughts and whatch their minds without them noticing me. Bad news is that their minds are really, really strange.

Let me explain. When I heared about humans being both animals and spirits, I imagined something like this:
I thought the relation between the conscious part and the animal part of the brain would be somewhat like the relation between a driver and a vehicle: The driver drives the vehicle where he wants, and the vehicle sometimes make the driver want to go somewhere, for example to the gas station. I thought the mind would analyze the animal's needs - both the needs of the body (like eating) and the needs of the species (like reproducing), and then decide how to satisfy these needs with minimal costs.

Turns out that's not how the human mind works. There is a third part which links the conscious mind with the "animal": A strange tentacular subconsciousness thingy.

I don't know how to call it, let's stay with "thingy". The thingy isn't simply an interface between animal and mind: It seems to have its own will. It's both intelligent and mad. It lies to the conscious mind. It tampers with the mind's thoughts. Sometimes it transforms an information into something totally different. And, strangest thing of all, it seems to assume that humans are still living in caves.

Let me give you an example: I saw a male human which was getting hungry. One would assume that the human would notice the bodily need, that it would analize which chemicals are needed and then elaborate a plan how to get those with a minimum of effort - and maybe corresponding to some social convenience, I don't know. But that was not was happened. First of all, the male got hungry when the body was not yet in urgent need for food. In the age of cave men this would have been reasonable, as the male would have needed enough forces to hunt down a mammoth or something. But here the hunger alarm went off far too early - which seemed not to be an exception, according to the male's amount of body fat. But even stranger: Instead of simply submitting the need "I'm hungry" to the mind, the "thingy" started kind of an age old program, the program "Hunt down mammoth - roast it on open fire - divide it for the tribe". This seemed to correspond to a perceived "role" of the male human, something like "Me being strong tribe chieftain, ooga ooga".

Unfortunately, there was no mamooth available, besides I am not sure whether the authorities of Strasbourg allow hunting mammoths in the city. So the thingy modified the mammoth program into some contemporary approximation - it's called "Barbecue". So the male went into some building where they distribute what appeared to be pieces of dead mammoths (or other animals, I dunno). It's called "butchery". Some minutes later it came out with enough meat to nourish ten persons - that was the "Hunt down mammoth" part. I didn't observe the execution of the rest of the program, but according to the human's thoughts, it intended to roast the mammoth meat in the garden, to brag about it's exceptional mammoth roasting capacities, and to distribute the meat to it's family like the tribe chiefs did it ages ago. The male's thoughts about everything remotedly related to mammoth hunting and roasting were quite enthousiastic, whereas the thingy made it avoid thinking about other forms of preparing food, let alone clearing the bones away and stuff.

This is only one example from what I saw. For every human, the thingy translated needs (of the body, the species or the thingy itself) in different ways. The funniest part was when I observed some other distributing building, like the butchery but specialized into footwear for females. I saw many females whose feelings like anger / need for attention / frustration / joy /fear / hunger / whatever were translated into the same "need": "Buying shoes". (The males' thingies worked in a different way, they rather translated everything to "buying toys", whatever that means.) I'm not sure how the footwear or toys are related to the time when humans lived in caves, but I wouldn't be surprized if there were a connection.

Anyway, I have no idea how the humans manage to live with those strange thingies inside their head. Somehow I'm glad to be a pure spirit and not bound to needs of body or species - let alone chained to some tentaculous monster...

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Short note

Tomorrow I will go to Earth. I'm not sure whether I'm excited or affraid - probably both. But it can't be worse than Hell, can it?

Friday, August 28, 2009

Chapter 13: On the Gates of Hell

In which we learn why those who enter here are not told to abandon all hope.

I will be sent to Earth in one or two days! Unfortunately I am supposed to buy my own ticket to reality - there is no such thing as "allowable expenses" in hell, at least not for an inferior demon. So I went to the Gates of Hell. If you imagine the Gates as kind of a oversize satanist city gate, you are wrong - they pretty much remind of a huge railway station. Hell Terminal.

(Well, in fact, the Gates of Hell don't remind of anything you know, or anything you might be able to imagine. Nothing down here reminds material objects - this is a world of forms and ideas, remember? But in this blog, I am used to use material approximations to describe immaterial entities: The demon with the broken horn, the soul in a jar... And a railroad station is a good analogy for the Gates of Hell, in both function and ambiance.)

The railway station is divided into two parts: The Soul Station and the Demon Station . Soul Station is the bigger part of it. Trains with cattle wagons full of damned souls come down the slope from reality, the souls are sorted on the platforms according to gravity and nature of their sins, poor desperate shapes, whining and trembling, and then driven into other trains leaving down the pit towards the different circles of Hell. Empty trains come back from the pit and return, without stop, to reality, in order to take new passengers. A perfect machine of damnation, a steady stream of damned souls carried down to eternal pain and despair. Wonderful.

I don't know whether there was ever a place like hell up there in reality. If there was, it's gate might have looked somewhat like the gate of Soul Station:


In the old days, there was an inscription above the entry gate of Soul Station: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." It has been removed. The reason is that the act of abandonning hope produces a considerable amount of energy, and this energy is better extracted in the torture centers where it can be transformed into the vital essence of distilled despair we demons need for living. Nowadays, souls entering here don't even know whether they are in Hell or Purgatory - that's what they learn, slowly and painful, in the torture centers. I have been told that some souls take decades to realize where they really are.

Demon Station is smaller and less organized - in fact, it's kind of a mess. The main hall is full of signs supposed to direct voyagers to customs, platforms, ticket counters, waiting areas etc., but as the administration regularly switches places of the different services, not all signs are up to date and you get easily lost. I spent about a hour finding the ticket counters, then two hours in a waiting line - only to learn that this are the counters for trains going down the pit. The counters for reality are on the other side of the station. After another hour in the line I had to convince a huffy clerk that "Strasbourg, France" actually exists. It took a considerable amount of bribe money to persuade her. Then I had to wait another hour in another line because the ticked had to get sealed. Every ticket has to be sealed, Lucifer knows why. The clerk behind the counter does nothing else than sealing tickets, all day long. Of course, he doesn't do this for free, it costs a random amount depending on his mood and the perceived wealthyness of the client. I wasn't surprised, that's how infenal bureaucracy works.

Anyway, I've got my ticket to reality. Yay !

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Chapter 12: On Strasbourg

In which you learn that I won't come to Canterbury to tempt you.

I've got the answer: I won't be sent to Canterbury. Too bad. According to my "mentor" there may be two reasons: First, everybody wants to go to Canterbury. Secondly, the Canterbury Cathedral is a very strong bridgehead of the Enemy, an age-old symbol of faith and religion. Remember what I wrote about symbols? It would be simply to dangerous for junior tempters to start there. Not that Corporate gives a damn about whether a demon gets into trouble or not - but they simply can't afford losing demonic ressources without reason.

In fact, I will be sent to a city called Strasbourg, in a country called France. I looked it up in the library but didn't find much, just a mention about the cathedral and an image of a Gargoyle.


It seems that humans have never finished the second tower of the cathedral - so it's an unfinished, deficient symbol, like the incomplete sigil of mine I posted some time ago. In consequence, its power as symbol is much less dangerous for rookie demons. Maybe that's why I am sent to this city.

Either that, or infernal administration simply assigned me to a random location. Which is in my opinion much more likely.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Chapter 11: On Canterbury

In which we learn about a demonic hero and a human martyr.

I was in temptation office to find out whether it has been decided where on Earth I am to be sent to. Turns out it hasn't yet. When I filled out the forms, I put into the case "desired destination" the name "Canterbury, Kent". The reason is that this is the only city name on Earh I have ever heared about. Every demon in Hell knows the name "Canterbury", because of the popular demon Zardax. Who in hell doesn't know the story of Zardax, the hero of Canterbury?

It happened around a thousand years ago, or let it be 800. Zardax wasn't an ordinary tempter, charged of tempting a specific person - he was a "special agent", a tempter sent to Earth to deal with a problematic situation. The situation, in this case, was a completely shipwrecked operation of the "human politics" department, called "Operation Puppetplayer". Zardax was sent to earth for limitation of defect, and what he did was... Well, I better starts from the beginning.

The goal of Operation Puppetplayer had been to corrupt and to undermine the church of England. A weak church is in general a good thing. At this time there was some tension between the church of England and King Henry II, and Corporate had decided to support the king. The start of the operation went smoothly: Our agents had achieved that the king's Lord Chancellor, a certain Thomas Becket, was named Archbishop of Canterbury. He seemed to be the ideal candidate: Intelligence had reported that Becked was decadent, not religious at all, a glutton, drunkart and sinner, and most important: Completely allegiant to the king. He wasn't even priest at this time, he had to be ordained in a hurry. Furthermore, Becket's personal tempter was an experienced and talented demon. What could possibly go wrong?

We shouldn't have been so damn sure about this man. The thing that went wrong was this: After having become Archbishop of Canterbury, Becket discovered god. I don't know why and how this happened, I don't know how many agents of the Enemy were involved, but the results couldn't have been worse. It was a desaster. Becket dropped his Chancellorship, he transformed into an ascetic, and worst of all, he exchanged the loyality to the king for a loyality to the church and did whatever he could to defend the church against the king's attempts to limit it's powers and liberties. The unwilling human agent of hell transformed into a willing agent of the Enemy. The conflict between state and church grew to a war, which could have been a good thing - problem was, the church was willing the war. The pope was already about to excommunicate the king. This had to be stopped.

This is when Zardax was sent to earth. Seeing that all attempts to change Becket's mind were useless, he decided to have Becket eliminated. And he did this in the most spectacular and glorious way, a way that earned him a prestigious title and founded his reputation as hero of Hell. You won't believe it: He had Thomas Becket slain, by four honorable king's knights, in the Cathedral of Canterbury, during the service! Having Becket killed was a good move - but doing so in the Enemy's local headquarters, in the full symbolic presence of the Enemy, was a slap in the face for the Enemy. I don't know whether or not the Enemy did care - but Hell was overjoyed. What a coup de main! What a humiliation for the Enemy! What a victory! What a hero!


Well, between you and me, some infernal historians doubt that this was this much a victory for Hell. Of course, we obtained the knight's souls, but Becket became a martyr, inspired many followers of the Enemy and may be still known in modern days - according to those historians. Maybe a more discreet death would have been more useful, some say. But please note that I didn't say I share their opinion - I don't want to get into trouble with Inquisition. Official doctrine says Zardax was a hero, so he was a hero, period.

Anyway, the name "Canterbury" sounds great as a place to be sent to. I've no idea whether it would please me - but wouldn't it be cool to brag about operating in the same location as the famous Zardax did ?

I hope I'll be sent to Canterbury!

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Chapter 10: On Symbols

In which we learn about harmful symbols.

Back to the library. The stories about demons destroyed by exorcism worried me, so I looked for books about other dangers to avoid "up there". Maybe kind of a beginner's handbook, I thought - but it turns out there is no such thing as a "Junior tempter's guide to reality". Too bad.

However, the old librarian demon helped me - again. This apparent selflessness is suspicious, I wonder what he really wants. He gave me a lesson about dangers and traps in the world of humans. Besides encounters with enemy agents, there is actually one thing that can harm a demon : Symbols. According to my "mentor", symbols are a link between both worlds - somewhat halfway between matter and ideas.

Of course I am familiar with symbols - they are very common in Hell. Everyone and everything has a symbol. Take for example my personal sigil. It looks like this :

Well, it doesn't look exactly like this, of course, I'm not stupid - I made some modifications for my own protection. Sigils are, just like names, very powerful, and knowing one demon's real sigil or real name gives you power over him.

One of the fundamental "natural laws" of our world is that a symbol - be it a sigil, a name, a melody, a gesture, whatever - is in a fashion identical with the symbolized. Whoever has my sigil has me. Woever speaks a word of power has power. Whoever makes a gesture of destruction causes destruction. this has nothing to do with causality - it's mystical identity. Difficult to explain.

Now, according to my mentor, humans know instinctively this principle : The symbol is identical with the symbolized. They call it "magic". I didn't remember everything my mentor told me, and my lack of knowlege of human customs make it difficult for me to illustrate this with examples. Maybe I will write another post about magic, later, when I know more about humans.

But what's important right now for me is that a lot of humans, in particular servants of the Enemy, know a lot of formulae, gestures and other symbols that can hurt a demon: The cross symbol, prayers, holy water, blessing gestures, holy books like the Bible or the Quran, incense, the color green... Of course, those things are only harmful when used as religious symbols - green harms only when used as symbol of the Islam, and a cross used as plus sign isn't dangerous at all.

By the way, symbols are also the weapons exorcists use to expulse and destroy demons. Experienced demons know techniques and counter-symbols to defend against symbol attacks, but for rookie demons like me there is only one advise when stumbling upon a religious symbol: Run like hell!

My mentor gave me advice about the most common religious symbols, and how to avoid them. And again, he didn't want anything in exchange for his help. Strange... If I only knew what he is up to...

Monday, August 24, 2009

Chapter 9 : On Possession

In which we learn about the dangers of exorcism.

One of the obligatory formalities before being sent to earth is a day-long crash course called "Instruction 71p". That was today. A boring instructor told us everything we need to know on possession, exorcism and such.

I won't go into the details. In a nustshell, he told us not to do it. Possessing people, I mean. Corporate doesn't allow it, Inquisition doesn't approve it, and we don't want it - for reasons I will explain below.

Centuries ago, possession was a quite common behaviour. For a tempter, the possibility to seize a human soul, to torture it while still inside its body and to drink its pain and despair is very... well... tempting. In the old days, it was kind of a sport - not encouraged by the authorities, but tolerated.

But there are two problems with this sport. First of all, possessions make the existence of demons very obvious, which is against current politics. Corporate wants us to hide as much as possible the existence of demons, for obvious reasons. The less humanity knows about our existence, the better we can operate in secret. Thus, every possession would risk to compromise our agents in the field.

The second problem is exorcism. A thousand years ago, human followers of the Enemy have developed techniques to expulse a demon from the possessed body. There are still some humans capable of expulsing a demon: Exorcists.


The instructer insisted on the fact that an exorcism is a very unpleasant and painful experience and can destroy a demon. He cited an example of a recent rogue possession and exorcism in New Zealand: The demon, a class-15 tempter from fifth cercle, was destroyed in the process.

As a sidenote, a human can be under full demonic control whithout being possessed by a demon (I am speaking of the spasms-and-funny-voices type of possession). A textbook case was a certain Adolf Hitler who was controlled by a committee of 23 demons. Despite the committee, the operation was surprisingly successful - probably because 13 of the 23 committee members were blackmailed and controled by an ambitious Earl of Hell who wasn't even member of the committe himself. So the committee was a mere facade for the Earl's own decisions. The Earl's goals remain unclear, possibly he intended to get ahead of his cousin and arch-rival who controlled, indirectly, a certain Joseph Stalin. What the two cousins did was completely unauthorized, but as they wreaked havoc with Europe and earned the hell truckloads of souls, Management decided to authorize it a posteriori. Which didn't hinder Inquisition to try both rivals for high treason and heresy, but that's another story...

That was "Instruction 71p".

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Chapter 8: On my Visa

In which I get the permission to leave Hell.

I finally got my visa to visit reality. Yea !


I can't tell you how much paperwork it needed to obtain this document, let alone the palm grease - in Hell you don't even get a postal stamp without bribing some functionaries. That's how it works. But I finally got the visa, with seal and signature. It's only valid for a year and I've only "observation" clearance - but who cares. I'm so happy!

Friday, August 21, 2009

Chapter 7: On Kant

In which we read about the utility of wings in a vacuum.

It's funny to see that some human authors, even the intelligent ones, even those who know Platon, deny the existence of the world I'm living in, the world of ideas. A guy called Immanuel Kant makes fun of Platon:

"The light dove cleaving in free flight the thin air, whose resistance it feels, might imagine that her movements would be far more free and rapid in airless space.



Just in the same way did Plato, abandoning the world of sense because of the narrow limits it sets to the understanding, venture upon the wings of ideas beyond it, into the void space of pure reason. He did not reflect that he made no real progress by all his efforts; for he met with no resistance which might serve him for a support, as it were, whereon to rest, and on which he might apply his powers, in order to let the intellect acquire momentum for its progress.
It is, indeed, the common fate of human reason in speculation, to finish the imposing edifice of thought as rapidly as possible, and then for the first time to begin to examine whether the foundation is a solid one or no."

I don't know why, but I find this section hilarious.

Chapter 6: On Reality

in which I discover that reality is less real than non-reality.

Reality - what a concept! Living in a world of forms and ideas, I thought "reality" was just kind of a parallel universe, with other forms and ideas. I was wrong. According to both demonic and human authors, reality consists of... how to formulate this... of shadows of ideas. Imperfect incarnations of perfect ideas. Take, for example, a sphere. Down here, a sphere consists of all points within a certain distance from a given point. Up there, in reality, it's some "material" object having more or less the form of a sphere.

One of their philosophers explained the difference between our world of forms and their world of objects with an analogy - it's more made for people living in reality but you might get it anyway. People trapped in reality are like prisoners in a cave, watching shadows of ideal entities on a wall. They take the shadows for existing, they call it reality, but in fact they are less real than the ideas (or "forms") casting the shadows, which they can't perceive directly.


Living in reality must be a strange and perturbing experience. You only see shadows, mock-ups, which they call "objects". You can't even be sure that those "objects" exist. Down here, a sphere exists, without any doubt, just as a poem exists, or a number, or a shape, or a formula, or a melody. Up there, it's not sure what exists and what doesn't. This is because thows who live in reality can't perceive objects immediately, they use "senses" to perceive them, and the senses can be wrong. They are doomed to live in eternal doubt.

Well, I think this doubt gives us tempters a double advantage when trying to influence a human: First we can make a human doubt of the existence of pretty much anything that exists, and secondly we can try to convince him of the existence of something that doesn't exist. Can be kinda fun, when you think about it. Can't wait getting up ther eto try it out...

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Chapter 5: On the Library

In which I meet something that can't possibly exist: A gentle demon.

I'm somewhat worried. In some days we are to be sent to the physical world, the so-called "reality", yet nobody cares. Corporate wants us to be prepared for the things to come, but didn't even replace the teacher.

So I went to the public library in order to find out for myself what this "reality" is. When I looked through the endless shelves of dusty books, something unusual happened, something that never happened to me before: Somebody asked me whether I need help. The person who asked was a librarian, an old demon with a broken left horn. Naturally, I assumed there was a price to pay, somewhat he wanted in exchange, but he denied, he just wanted to help.

Now that was one strange behaviour. Demons just aren't selfless. Besides being a severe heresy, selflessness is just stupid. Life is a zero-zum game, what one demon gains, another demon loses. So why would anyone let another demon gain something ? It's illogical. Unless, of course, this librarian has some very selfish reasons for this seemingly selfless behaviour. Maybe a bet or something. Of course I was suspicious, but he insisted that he won't claim any payment later - so declining his offer to help seemed almost as stupid to me than the offer itself.

I told him that I wanted to learn about reality. "I see... Junior tempter ?" he asked. "Yes." - "I was a tempter when I was younger... 17th century France... Had some great successes at the court of Versailles... Well, I guess you understant nothing of what I'm telling you. I will get you some basic works about Reality, from both humans and demons. Platon, Andromalius, Gremory..." He limped away and came back with some books. "Here, read this. If you have questions, just ask me."

Well, I think it will take a while to read all those.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Chapter 4: On my first human soul

In which I wonder what this is all about

We won't be sent to Earth before next week, for "adminiatrative reasons" - I'm not surprised, infernal bureaucracy is slow.

Today we had "political instruction". Our instructor is a hardliner, she made it clear from the beginning that she won't tolerate any "heresy", which may design pretty much anything from speaking a forbidden word to showing signs of tiredness. Then she spoke for about six hours about humans and their "inherent inferiority to all true spiritual beings". To illustrate her point, she brought a human soul in a jar and passed it around - a pathetic, miserable being, frighened and shivering in its glass prison:According to her instructor, it belonged to a 35 years old housewife, who came to hell for cheating on her husband with her lover, on her lover with her boyfriend and on her boyfriend with her husband. I've no idea what a housewife is, or a husband, let alone cheating - but anyway, it was interesting seing this little creature trembling in its jar, trying in vain to hide from our cureious and piercing looks.

But I admit that I was a bit decieved. It was the first time I've seen a real soul - in accounting, souls are only numbers on paper. So those are the humans this fuzz is all about - the temptation department, the soul accounting, the R&D, all this infernal administration? Those are the creatures whose eternal pain and terror, exploited in industrial scale torture centers, give us demons our vital energy? And are they really so difficult to catch, up there, on earth?

And the most intriguing question of all: Why makes the Enemy all those efforts to "save" them from hell? It seems that "he" does not use torture. "He" pretends he "loves" them, but this is of course nonsense, there must be another reason. "Love" does not exist, this is one of the fundamental dogmae of Hell. Everybody serves his own interests - how could it be otherwise? But if "he" doesn't love them and does not torture them, what are His intentions? Current ideology says that He only wants to harm us, but is this true?

Of course, those are dangerous thoughts. I better not doubt infernal ideology, if I don't want to get into trouble with Inquisition...

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Intermezzo: Organization of Hell

in which I try to explain how Chaos is organized.

I'm currently occupied with boring paperwork that won't be of any interest for you; but you might wonder how hell is organized. I have drawn you a little diagram to clarify things:
Note that down here, hierarchy goes downwards - so the deeper an entity is on the diagram, the more powerful it is. At the very bottom is, of course, the Antichrist, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies and Lord of Darkness - also known as Satan. Then the organization splits into two parts, commonly known as "Administration" and "Inquisition". The former constitutes the majority of infernal hierarchy, the latter one serves as powerful (and dreaded) control entity.

The schema is, of course, simplified - things are actually more complicated. R&D, for example, responds partially to Inquisition, as they are constantly looking for new ways of temptation, and this has to be "in line" with infernal ideology. The same holds for the marketing department whose objective is to popularize trends and ideologies and on earth that may help our cause, be it faschism, unhealthy beauty ideals or "religiously" motivated homophobia.

Note that all departments are present in different circles of Hell - for example "my" second circle which focusses on the sin of Lust.

Note also that the military is not represented in the diagram, it's organized les "corporate" and more "feudal", each prince pf hell having legions of hell under his order. A side effect of this is that conflicts on "corporate" level are often resolved with military means, internal wars are a daiuly occurence.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Chapter 3: On Inquisition

in which someone sait too much.

The teacher didn't show up this morning. Rumours have it that he has trouble with Infernal Inquisition, for having said that freedom is a gift to humans. Well, if I remember well, he only said that the Enemy pretends that it's a gift- but hey, who cares such details. If Inquisition decides that it's heresy, so be it.

Anyway, management wants us to continue our training "on the field" next week, which means that we will be released somewhere on Earth. Our objective is not to taunt - hey, we didn't even learn yet what's a sin - but simply to watch and learn. In addition, we will get a "political instructor" who will help us alligning our experiences with infernal ideology - building one's own opinion is strongly discouraged down here.

Now please excuse me, I'll have a lot of paperwork to do - being sent to earth is not a picknick in the Soul Park. We'll be sent to earth Baalsday (or maybe Kainsday, I don't know). Can't wait!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Chapter 2: On humans

in which i am confused.

I've learned a lot about humans but I'm even more confused. They are actually far more complicated that I thought. It seems that the will of their mind controls the body, but the body controls the mind. I can make you a schema but I doubt it will be of any help:


For example, when a human sees an apple, he can decide whether to eat it or not. So the will controls the body, in a fashion. Then again, if the body is hungry, it can make the mind want to eat. So the body controls the mind, in a fashion.

The example with the apple was not chosen randomly: It seems that all this mess started with two humans eating an apple. The mess is generally called "free will", and the Enemy pretends that humans are freer than demons or angels - but I wonder what the fact of being bound by the whimsies of a body has to do with freedom.

According to our teacher, the fact that the vody can influence what the mind wants has a purpose - it guarantees the survival of the humans as a species. Those "suggestions" from the body are generally all about eating, drinking, procreating and other animalic actions. But more important - for us - is the fact that this mecanism is one of the most important ways to tempt a human. Invoking the thought of a female breast, a cold drink or a donut with sugar frosting is often a way more efficient tool than any malicious thoughts about revenge, crushed rivals or world domination.

I can't wait to try it out...

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Chapter 1: On Class

In which I can't figure out what a human is.

My first day in Temptation was rather confusing. They put me into a crash course in anthropology, together with other newbies - twelve hours of class about humans, with a crabby teacher who doesn't like newbies.


Wors is, I still don't know what those humans are. Mister Naruk, the teacher, says they are somewhere between animals and spirits. I've no idea how this is possible. Maybe the body is like a vehicle, the spirit controls it, walks around, eats, procreates and so on. But Mr. Naruk also mentioned "human instincts", and that confuses me. When the spirit is in control of the body, it is not controlled by instincts, so instincts are superfluous. And if the instincts are in control of the body, the spirit is only a passenger, which would be strange.

Maybe my questions will be answered tomorrow.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Introduction

In which I present myself.

Please allow me to introduce myself: I'm a demon. My official name is "Underling 3281772", but my friends call me "Zogg". Well, what we call "friends" down here in hell - other demons I hang around with. I don't have any particular sympathy for them, neither have they for me - feelings like this are unknown down here.

You might imagine me as impressive creature, kind of a giant red satyr with dragon wings, but if you do so you are wrong. Being a small employee of the infernal administration, I rather look like this:
Up to now I worked as a soul accountant in the Second Circle. A boring job. Most jobs in hell are boring. Hell is a giant bureaucracy, each damned soul requires tons of paperwork, each soul captured by the Enemy needs even more.

But I'm lucky. Some months ago I've found out a dirty little secret of a co-worker who happens to have some connections to an assistant of Lord Valac, so I proposed him to keep my mouth shut in exchange for a little help... And guess what: Last Baalsday I got a letter concerning my transfer to Temptation Department.

I start tomorrow morning. Can't wait! And who knows, maybe I will soon be sent to Earth, to meet those strange creatures everybody is talking about: Humans.

I wonder what they look like.