Into the Abyss

Tom shook his head and brought both hands up to feel his face. His mouth and nose protruded a bit from his cheek bones; that’s how he could have so many spiky fangs. His nose was right above his mouth, sort of like a dog’s snout, but not so pronounced. Feeling the rest of his head, he confirmed that the image he’d seen in the misty place was accurate. He was bald, had long pointy ears and a set of horns that could gore a bull. They felt like immobile parts of his skull and bracing his very thick neck; he couldn’t budge the horns or his head when he resisted.

He tried to recall the image he’d seen. Assuming that was accurate, he had large cat like eyes and the horns were the same shiny black as his nails and the spade on the end of his tail. How tall was he? Based on what he could guesstimate and how big he’d felt in the room, he had to be well over ten feet tall. He stretched his wings; he had a wingspan of maybe twice his height? What twenty feet?

Tom shook his head and realized he’d stopped breathing again. He really needed to stop forgetting to breathe. He shook his head. This was just insane. It was too much to process; he was in sensory overload. He closed his eyes to try and calm himself. He needed a moment to get his thoughts together, to make sense of this insanity.

He didn’t get it.

“What did I tell you? I felt the plop!” A high pitched voice squealed excitedly behind him.

“Yes, yes, you did. You do have a good sense for these things. I’ve never denied that, dear fellow!” Another voice replied with a distinctly British accent.

Tom whirled to confront the voices and nearly lost his balance. He grabbed at the stone wall beside him and heard the nastiest screeching noise, like fingernails on a chalkboard as his hand dug into the stone of the wall. Literally, he’d clawed his fingers into solid stone.

There were two... two... somethings behind him. The one that was more human looking was wincing in apparent discomfort from the sound of his claws in the stone.

The wincing, fellow, demon, creature? Was quite ugly. And little. Or rather, about half Tom’s height, so probably human sized. On better inspection, he actually seemed quite humanoid. He was, like Tom, naked; and he had very long prehensile feet, very long fingers, a tail not unlike Tom’s, bat wings, horns and red skin. Other than that he looked mostly human, ugly human, with sharp teeth, very sharp teeth. Oh, and he was wearing a monocle. That seemed odd.

“Greetings, fellow comrade in eternal servitude!” The fellow shouted. “It appears you gave somebody a good fight, or maybe fright!” The little demon flew up to the ledge; Tom stepped back for him to land; only at the last minute did he realize it might not be a good idea to let a demon land on the ledge with him.

The little demon landed and effortlessly stuck out a hand with a slight bow. “How do you do? Bogsworth’s the name; however the local chaps call me Boggy!” Tom shook the little demon’s hand being careful not to crush it.

“Uh... Tom.” Tom responded.

“So Uh Tom, you just get here?” Boggy asked. A loud buzzing sound came from above them.

“You know he did! I told you the moment he popped up.” The shrill voice said angrily, or at least Tom thought it was angry. “You can smell the Mana just dripping off him! It’s like butta!”

Tom did a double take; the shrill voice had suddenly changed in midstream to sound exactly like a yenta from Queens. He glanced up to see a very bizarre demon. This demon was sort of splotchy greenish and flying with his stomach to the ground; he had four arms and four legs, all mostly human looking; just a lot of them. He also had two sets of pectoral muscles, two sets of lats, and two sets of male genitals. Tom looked away quickly; he really didn’t want to explore this demon’s undercarriage. The demon also had a double set of wings, or at least Tom thought he did, they were moving very fast, like a hummingbird or something.

Boggy just chuckled. “Yes, Tizzy, you did indeed; you are correct; as always.” He shook his head and waved at the little demon with a smile. “Tom, it is my pleasure to introduce my partner, Tisdale! Or Tizzy for short!”

“Are you calling me short?” Tizzy asked waving what appeared to be a curved long stemmed old man’s pipe in his lower left hand. Boggy just rolled his eyes.

“Partner? Are you married?” Tom asked.

Boggy blinked a couple times trying to parse Tom’s question. Tisdale just burst out laughing and suddenly crashed into the side of the spire they were standing on and slid down to the ledge laughing.

Boggy was looking quote perplexed. “Uhm, partner as in business partner, associate, best friend, bosom buddies, what all?”

Tom winced, “Sorry, it’s just where I come from well... never mind...” He’d put his foot in it damn fast. It probably wasn’t a good idea to call a demon gay.

Boggy twisted his head to stare at Tisdale. “What exactly are you cackling about?”