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EPISODE 7: Nixing Nyx

Sirrian Hell Dimension: Nyx

Red as the devil's ass, black as a coal mine. The Black Lands of Nyx presented itself as the unforgiving equivalence of what many called Hell. Any who discovered themselves upon its corrupted sands suffered an inferno of pain and chaos, for Nyx was the unchaste realm of the unhallowed and profane. To tread Nyx was to wallow in eternal anguish, but the Black Lands, all of Nyx, wasn't exactly an oven nightmare. Its thick air moderately hot; like a tired old molten oven filled with ghastly ash. The skies above blistered and droned dark, charred and fissured were its clouds of murky doom—burning red. In the distance, gloomy peaks reached upon the horizon, sore with agony, like rigorous claws frozen in torment that lurked over the fiendish clefts of the abyss. What seemed to be trees now seared to death, an evil earth's flora cauterized, pale, and far beyond hopeless.

This was no paradise. Far from it. It was a typical demon's purgatory in every vile way. And even in these blacken lands of hellish misfortune, Ricven's herbaceous eye showed keen. He entered this cliché world of fire and brimstone with Fae, Cornelius, and Hanakin and already discovered something worth picking. Sort of.

He had to make a stop; a must. Hanakin and Cornelius trekked ahead whilst an eager Ricven squatted in the black grass, sifting through the high brush of eerie weeds and busily uprooted a batch of dismal herbs. He stuffed his pack with ashy leafs and a few red roots then filled a vial with Nyx's grainy black earth.

"Must we really stop to pick flowers?" Fae said annoyed. She popped out of Ricven's head and swooped around to get a better look at Ricven's herbal habit. The Sepian just had to find something worth his alchemy to play with.

"There's a use for everything," Ricven replied. "Not like you've bitched about it before."

Fae fisted her hips and leaned towards Ricven's freckled face, beaming her adorable grimace at him. "This is a rescue mission, NOT a flower safari!"

The trek continued. They walked for miles until finally stalking the unfortunate area where Hanakin and Aethenius previously met an unfavorable ambush. Hanakin trailed ahead, Cornelius followed suit. The presence of demons crawled through Hanakin's skin, and the ominous surge of danger cracked off on Cornelius' nerves so much that he laid a hand on a holstered Dusk.

Their yet-discovered presence could cease at any moment. Not that Ricven feared the inevitable. The uneasy surge taunted Fae's little fairy soul, as Nyx's bleak atmosphere strummed too grim for her pixie heart, and she clung to Ricven's hair in a flickering shiver. Braving the evils that waft the realm like a black breeze of pure death.

The poor fairy felt the chills indeed, and her fearing groans tickled Ricven tremendously. He saw no need for her to be shivering like a scared little mouse on his head.

At least she didn't tinkle.

"I can't tell if something's coming or going..." Fae feared.

"That's what she said," Ricven quipped. "The ladies could never see me coming anyways. And even then, I still keep going."

Fae gagged. She couldn't take it. Not while she already cringed from Nyx's dark air. She vanished into Ricven's head and Ricven chuckled too good.

"There," Hanakin pointed ahead. A pit of decrepit pillars and grim light pulsed across the wretched vale. Cornelius surveyed forward and followed Hanakin's direction. He squinted his eyes. The light and commotion purely demonic in nature.

"Demons gather," Hanakin continued. "We will find Aethenius through them."

The surge all too familiar. The indomitable currents of demonic energy popped the veins upon her cursed fiend arm. No demon could escape her—nor did many fear her, too. Cornelius knelt and drew Dusk from its holster, double-checking its crystal as he clicked the barrel open for quick inspection.