Kill Six Billion Demons III: "Seeker of Thrones" (part eight)
The party is standing over a bottomless shaft, trying to decide if they need to descend or ascend or find a secret door on the far side or what. Killy wants to start climbing and see where that takes them, but Cio thinks that it must be more complicated than that. As they consider the options, Oscar goes ahead and tries his own idea.
Well, that was stupid. It worked out, but it was still fucking stupid. I assume they brought 1-11 along for a reason other than sweeping for mines with his face; they already had Felicia for that.
...granted, now that attention is being called to 1-11 I'm kind of wondering if that actually is the case. Pale devils are supposed to be nearly mindless, right? 1-11 arrived with Suuze the acrobat, and Suuze is dead now, so unless someone else in the party has managed to get him to obey them is he still really participating?
...well, then again, Cuteypie and Honeybunch also appeared to be pale devils (albeit housed in custom human flesh avatars), and they weren't nearly mindless. Stupid as all hell, sure, but not mindless. So maybe that description of pale devils was overstating things, and 1-11 actually has more personhood than a mere insect.
Now that we've established that 1-11 probably is a sentient being and not just an accessory of Suuze's that's been on autopilot since her death, this happens:
Congratulations Oscar, you found out about the invisible mechanical traps, and all it cost was the party member who can disarm mechanical traps! Brilliance!
...what's Oscar's job in the party again? He served as recruitment agent, but what's his purpose *in the party* once they had all the recruits? Because, thinking about this pragmatically...
He never advertised any relevant skills or powers, aside from implicitly being a good fighter. And we haven't even seen him contribute that much to the fight scenes; between Succubus, Cio, and Charon, they seem to already have the bruiser role covered fairly well without him.
He is actively reducing the party's odds of success by needlessly sacrificing members who DO have unique skills and powers to contribute.
By that same token, his willingness to kill other party members with such minimal prompting makes him a personal threat as well as a hindrance to the mission.
When you lay it out like that, it kinda seems like all the others should gang up and kill Oscar right now.
...in fact, considering my earlier musings about everyone in this party potentially having ulterior motives and secret agendas, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that Oscar's been turned. Not by Mammon, probably, since he'd have betrayed them earlier if that were the case, but someone else who wants them to, say, get deep enough to cause a distraction and...
...
......
Mottom.
Mottom's been looking for Killy since the end of last volume. Cio's paper magic is probably distinctive enough that, after having it used on her, Mottom might have her agents looking for anything Yabalchoath-related. Oscar was wandering around the shades advertising a Yabalchoath heist. And now Mottom's ship is inbound on Yre while Oscar softens up the party as they get deeper into the fortress.
Yeah, this is looking pretty likely. Not a sure bet, but very much plausible. We'll see if I'm right!
The other devils seem to agree with me about the wisdom of Oscar's behaviour, asking him what the hell he even thought he was doing and what they're supposed to do now if they need a mechanic? Oscar is having a hard time making a case for himself, but (un)fortunately it turns out that 1-11 had a dead man's switch. Well, maybe not an intentional one, but functionally that nonetheless. Dozens of small dynamite sticks roll out of the dead 1-11's backpack and spread across the invisible floor. That glass jar full of luminous insects also breaks open, and its occupants immediately start flying toward any exposed fuses they can spot and lighting them with their heated abdomens.
Also, the invisible hallway turns out to be branching. And to have slopes and stairways, which some of the bombs fall down, the firebugs flying after them.
Cio manages to stomp out the fuses closest to her and grab the sticks to prevent the bugs from relighting them, but there are dozens more, and she can't get to them all alone with invisible walls and corners blocking their approaches.
Also, there's something going on with Cio besides just the misanthropy and depression.
I noticed a couple chapters ago that she had extra horns and facial ridges, but at the time I just thought it was another adjustment to the character design like she had after book one. At this point though, the changes are getting more pronounced from page to page, and it's drawn in a way to suggest that she's actually undergoing an in-universe transformation. A very Diablo looking transformation.
I thought devils needed to consume an external source of soul-flame in order to move up the spectrum, though? Also, don't they have to ascend sequentially? IE, in order to actually become Yabalchoath again, Cio would first need to go through red, green, and gold intermediary forms, right?
Hmm. Well, she might not actually turning back into an ebon devil, but rather just reverting to her old personality. So, Neobalchoath will still be a blue devil, but she'll act like her ebon self once did, and her appearance will change to mimic her old ebon physiology as closely as it can within the limitations of her tier.
At any rate, this is bad. Potentially worse than Succubus taking over Killy. Everybody and their mother is going Mr. Hyde in these last couple chapters.
Still, Cio isn't doing anything particularly awful yet. She stood by and let Felicia be sacrificed, but that's the kind of thing she's always had to just quietly tolerate.
As they corral the firebugs away from the bombs, the team appears to be losing faith in the expedition. For pretty much exactly the reasons I went into: Oscar is actively sabotaging their chances of success, and is killing party members seemingly on a whim. That's not normal even for devils. Not even for *these* sorts of devils. It's only being strong-armed by Succubus that gets them to very reluctantly continue, though I'm not sure why they don't at least gang up on Oscar before proceeding.
So it's a choice between certain death if they try to flee, and possible death if they don't. Unless they take out Succubus and Oscar, of course, but that seems like a pretty dangerous prospect. Especially after what happened to Suuze when she tried something along those lines.
On a less grim note, is that Princess up there in the first panel? I don't think he was visible at any point in the infiltration sequence until now. Where the heck did he come from? Either I somehow missed him up until now, or the artist just realized he'd forgotten him.
The other pale devil - the cat guy, whatever they were called exactly - looms menacingly up in Succubus' face. For a moment, she actually looks slightly intimidated by him, which makes me wonder if the real Killy might be managing to regain control a little. However, it soon passes when it turns out that Kitteh Kommander isn't challenging her, but rather just stepping passed her to release one of his claims to fame.
Apparently the cat can tell where it's safe to step and where it isn't. So, they have it leave a trail for them and follow it through the maze of invisible, trap-filled corridors and ramps.
Take a look at Oscar's expression here though:
He realizes that he got saved by the bell here.
Also, the under-the-page text for this page is a prayer:
““IA! IA! Behold the dragon!
His claws are the scything blade and all is chaff!””
It could be that this is a reference to the invisible scythe blades. However, I choose to believe that this prayer is from long after the time of the conflict when Mammon's cult has adjusted to the new management, and the entity being referred to here is the cat.
Speaking of the cultists though, the party only follows the cat and neutralizes explosives along the way for a short time before a bunch of secret doors open and the Priests of the Count finally appear in force. I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner, honestly. Maybe they saw that this was a dangerous party, and so decided to wait and set up an ambush in the invisible maze. Them knowing the layout confers the greatest advantage here than anywhere else in Yre, after all.
They're a strange looking bunch, also. Even by K6BD standards. Like a cross between some overdecorated Mameluke legion and a Mad Max gang.
Like their equipment and "uniforms" are just random bits of treasure they've decided to put on and use.
You'd think Mammon would issue them some more standardized equipment? The paranoid miser dragon is counting on these guys to protect his treasure. I'd have expected these guys to be stomping around in magic power armor with the best weapons and equipment all purpose-made for them...
...Mammon is dead, isn't he?
He didn't make the council call at the end of book one. He's the only one of the Black Seven who hasn't been seen at all during the time of the story rather than just backstory illustrations. There are all these things that it seems like he SHOULD be doing, but ISN'T doing. And the temple-like nature of Yre, with it celebrating events in Mammon's life in almost museum fashion over and over again...maybe the cultists just added those decorations and exhibits as part of their worship in the time since his death. That makes it seem much less out of place than it would in a living Mammon's own house decorated to his own taste.
The question then is what exactly happened when Yabalchoath robbed him before. How long ago was that supposed to be, anyway? Could she have actually been the one who killed him? Or at least, injured him or damaged his immortality device in a way that caused him to die shortly afterward? If he was already dead by the time of Yabalchoath's raid, then who DID she steal the Key from?
Hmm. If Mammon is dead, then his Keys have likely either been divvied up among the Priests of the Count, or (more likely) are being kept in a reliquary somewhere in the inner vault. If it's the latter, then Yabalchoath might have literally just picked a lock and taken one rather than actually doing any delicate surgical extraction from a sleeping greed-god.
Well, back to the here and now. The priests of the count very quickly demonstrate that despite their ramshackle appearance, they are indeed a threat that even high level PC's need to take seriously. Priests do go down, but they do so at a much slower rate than any previous mook armies seen in the comic, and the devils slow down as they take injury after injury after injury. Succubus is doing alright, thanks to her patron/puppeteer doing all the work, but it's still an uphill battle for the party.
Then, Princess - who only remembered he existed a couple pages ago - takes critical damage, only for this to happen:
This seems like it was included at least in part to signal that Yabalchoath's resurgence is a serious threat. Well, maybe. Princess didn't turn back into Vladok all at once; he just ascended one tier, from blue to red. Unless it's possible to skip multiple grades, the true Neobalchoath is still a few transformations away.
What prompted this, though? Just getting injured in battle? I thought devils needed to consume soulflame in order to ascend? Or get a human wizard to strip one of their names away? In either case, it wasn't presented as something that just randomly happens when the devil is sufficiently filled with determination. Their whole culture of bargains and contracts supposedly exists in order to help them ascend in power, right?
I gueeess he might still be soul-linked to Killy, in which case Succubus might have done a thing to let him consume some more of her fire and transform into a more combat-focused red. Usually the comic is pretty excplicit about things like that, though, and there's no visual or dialogue indication of it here.
I'm not sure how this works at all, I'm afraid. :/
At least the resulting rampage is cool, as Princess - now with one word less of drunk sorority girl babbling burdening his name - uses his hulking new body to put Vladok's old martial skills to good use. As Princess Crimson begins his rampage, the little tickers on the priests' necklaces reveal their function.
Whenever one dies, all the others tick downward. I'm not sure if the Priests of the Count actually have a one man wide and a hundred zillion men tall hierarchy, or if it's just a serial number system. In any case, the counters are enchanted to adjust in realtime, as well as it revert to zero if their own wearers die.
The fight goes on and on. The party tiring and taking damage throughout. Charon's sinuous body is riddled with bleeding punctures. Oscar has multiple swords stuck in him. Cio is drenched in sweat, her stance faltering. The formerly invisible walls of the maze are stained red with blood. More priests just keep coming, no matter how many go down, clearly ready and willing to win this battle through attrition.
Through the chaos, Cio happens to see the cat making its way to the last bomb, just barely ahead of one of the few remaining firebugs. Cio dashes over, weaving through the melee to get there in time, only to realize that she's practically running right into Succubus' back. Just in time to see her undergo a minor physical transformation of her own.
Cio realizes too late that this isn't just Killy going mad with power. She mistakenly attributes it to the Key doing some sort of possession thing, but either way she can tell that this isn't Killy. Unfortunately, Succubus isn't in a state of mind that can be reasoned with (or perhaps, she isn't a state of mind that can be reasoned with). She just announces that she's going to go kill Mammon and take his Keys herself, with or without any of the others. She's best off without their traitorous, self-sabotaging presence anyway.
She seems to have forgotten all about Zaid. Like she doesn't even remember why they're infiltrating Mammon's fortress as opposed to any of the others'. Or else she remembers, but only cares about things that Incubus would care about.
She's also forgotten about the explosives, though, and while she's holding Cio up the bug makes it to the dynamite and the fuse burns out. It explodes, and apparently there was at least one other stick with the blast radius that got lit on fire by the explosion. A chain reaction rips through the maze.
When the smoke clears, the maze is half collapsed, hundreds of bodies buried in the rubble. It's not clear if any of the other devils or priests survived, but Succubus/Killy seems to have shielded herself. Cio, meanwhile, lays limp under a mass of collapsed masonry.
For a brief moment, the sight of Cio unconscious, trapped, and bleeding to death seems to get Killy's attention, and she stares at the dead or disabled devil with a kind of confused, foggy concern, as if trying to remember that this is someone who should be cared about but not quite succeeding. Then, Succubus takes the wheel again, and she leaves Cio and the others to finish dying in the ruins.
End post.
