Interlude II – The Creator

The Demonic Plane - Domain of The Creator

Deep within the depths of the plane, the infernal foundries roared. They were what many referred to as the true engine of the entire demonic underworld. The flames that never went out.

How could they, when they burned within the domain of The Creator himself? As the board chair of forge, envy itself reigned supreme. Envy to reshape, to forge, and to create. To take a form and make what was most desired.

And for that, you needed fire. Lots and lots of fire.

It took The Creator a while to find the synergy between flames and forge. But when he had, it allowed him to truly embody the aspect of Forge. Not long after The Vaunt found his rise at the seat of Pact, The Creator found his own chair of power as the seat of Forge.

Unlike The Vaunt’s spiraling open domain of space and skies, however, The Creator’s was entirely encased in cavernous rock. No demon even really knew how large his caves stretched—perhaps not even he—but no matter where you traversed within his seat of power, it was tunnels, mineral, and stone.

And the flames, of course. Fire. Sparks. Embers. Magma. Lava. It didn’t matter. To The Creator, it was the flames. Flames that could be shaped at his very whim.

It was a skill that he passed on to his followers. Tens of thousands of them—mostly forge imps and newborns—which even now sang a song of creation as they worked tirelessly. Hammers slammed down on anvils, molten lava traveled down iron channels that ran miles in all directions, and mine carts screeched as they barreled down winding wooden tracks.

Tracks that largely led to one place.

The infernal foundry.

A structure of immense size, made up of hundreds of smitheries, forges, smelteries, and workshops. Great buckets of lava were carried down a conveyor belt, before being deposited into the forges that needed them most. Lines of neatly smelted metals were transported to and from, with forge imps bellowing at one another.

The nest of chaos was an orchestra with thousands of musicians at its call.

But on this day, the music they played stopped. That’d been happening more and more lately. Ever since The Creator began his latest project.

For a moment, everything went still. Tens of thousands took in a breath, tensing. They could feel it. Another cycle of forge was coming.

The Creator was not just the creator of the infernal foundry. He was the infernal foundry. On the front of the enormous structure that made up its heart, two massive ember circles blazed to life. Eyes of molten lava that blinked, with a mouth made up of a series of grates that stretched hundreds of feet in both directions. As The Creator breathed out, steam hissed from his maw.

As the embodiment of forge itself, The Creator called upon his connection. Upon the resources his imps worked to refine, and upon the relationship he had upon the domain.

With a roar like coal being stoked into the great furnaces, concentrated forge-filled corruption was transferred into metal ducts that would eventually lead to his latest creation. They still needed to travel through the monitoring and dilution stations, amongst other beats in a long, long process. But get there they would.

This most extravagant contraption was his answer for the shortage that had begun to plague the demonic plane in its latest cycles.

The Bureau had done its damage—and while other demons of his kind were willing to slither away and take what scraps they could, The Creator would not. He’d been at the forge since before The Bureau had come to true power.

They would not halt him. For the forge must grow. Which meant that he must grow too. From within the great foundries, gears turned, slots shifted, and levers slammed into place.

With a great clanging, bronze bells began to ring. Then, doing the one thing that his minions could not, he harnessed Forge itself, and pushed. The gathered forge energy in the infernal ducts slid like sludge, before coalescing into pools that the infernal foundry would disseminate into magma buckets. They would be but the carriage for the aspected envy he collected within.

As for the contraption they were for?

The Creator stared down at the space where it lay. Like a limb, a new branch had been made in his great foundry. One where all those metal ducts and channels were routed to.

And within it, a new creation was being constructed. One that would serve him, and allow him to automate and grow charter cities like never before. Or farms, as the others called them.

But for The Creator, he had a new name for this contraption. One that other demons would learn to recognize and fear like his own. Once it was complete, of course.

“One hundred and one percent.” The words rumbled into the great depths of his domain, coming from the metallic body he called home. “Work, my minions. Work fast. We’ve come so far. This creation has officially surpassed one hundred percent forge aspected power. Give me your hearts for two more short decades and we can make it to one hundred and ten. The amount I require for full functionality and housing. In return, you shall have taken part in forging the greatest construct to have ever graced the plane with its very existence. Let the others… envy what we have made.”

Breathing in deeply, the air in the domain nearest him became quite chilly. That was, of course, until he spoke again. When he did, it felt quite hot indeed.

“The Infernal Industrializer.”