Bureaucracy of the Damned
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This content has been retired and is no longer available in game. |
You notice a high-pitched buzzing in your ear, which gets louder as you search for its source. Then there's a puff of foul-smelling smoke and a demon appears in front of you. He wears the polo shirt and khaki slacks of a peon in the demon bureaucracy (of course Hey Deze has a bureacracy, in the same way that it has rapists and murderers). He speaks in the rhyming argot of the lesser demons:
"Brimstone is red,
Magma is orange.
Azazel wants to see you, um... wait... crap... sorry, I'm still not very good at this.
Azazel has heard there is a living mortal in his realm, and he wants to see you. If you'll just follow me, I'll take you to him."
| Follow the pencilnecked demon |
| Follow the pencilnecked demon |
| Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the pencilnecked demon |
You follow the demon down through the inner city of Pandemonium, across a frozen lake, and up to Azazel's temple. Azazel hovers over a giant obsidian throne, a blur of swirling and flickering glaring eyes and sharp, sharp teeth.
"I heard that you might have recovered the talismans of my evil power," he says, his voice rumbling and whispering like a stampede of librarians. "Show me what you've got."
- Without Azazel's unicorn, Azazel's lollipop and Azazel's tutu:
You do a few funky dance moves, then realize that's not what he was talking about. You pull out what you've found so far.
"Fool!" Azazel screams. "Your quest is not yet complete. Get out of here before I use your entrails for garland on my Crimbo tree, and your skin for a throw rug."
You scurry out of the throne room while your insides are still in and your outsides are still out.
- With all the necessary items:
"Talismans of evil power?" you say, incredulously. You pull out the purple plush unicorn, the bright, rainbow-colored lollipop, and the frilly pink tutu and lay them in front of him.
"You clearly don't understand the nature of evil," Azazel says, then addresses the stuffed unicorn. "Are you okay, Snookums? Did the bad demons hurt you? It's okay, you're safe with me now." He stops, realizes you're still there, and gruffly shouts "leave me to contemplate my evil plans!"
"Um," you say, "there was a reward, right? I mean, if not a reward for returning your dolly, your lolly, and your lacy underthings, at least a reward for not telling anybody."
"You dare to threaten the third most evil demon in Hey Deze?" Azazel shouts. "Very well, then, I shall give you your reward. Bear in mind that the rewards of Hey Deze are likely to be less than agreeable to a mortal weakling like yourself --" he pauses and chuckles evilly, then continues:
- If you are pathless or a boozetafarian:
"When you drink it, it will turn your liver to steel! Henceforth, you will have to drink more alcohol to become inebriated! Ha ha ha!"
 | You acquire an item: steel margarita |
- If you are a teetotaler:
"When you eat it, it will turn your stomach to steel! Henceforth, like Tantalus, you will have to eat more food than usual to feel full! Ha ha ha!"
 | You acquire an item: steel lasagna |
- If you are an oxygenarian:
"When you smell it, it will turn your spleen to steel! Henceforth, you will be forced to consume more items that boost your power, until eventually the lust for power consumes you! Ha ha ha!"
 | You acquire an item: steel-scented air freshener |
"Um... thanks?" you say, and get the Hey Deze out of Azazel's temple before he "blesses" you again.
| Don't follow the pencilnecked demon |
"No thanks," you say. "I'm a loner, demon. A rebel. I think I'll keep sight-seeing. I hear the grove of suicides is the perfect place to take an afternoon picnic."
"Demonskin's red,
My eyes are purple,
Suit yourself, loser,
'I'll try again later. Ah, damn it!" the demon says, and disappears.
- Choosing this option does not use an adventure.
Occurred at The Deep Fat Friars' Gate.
Notes
- A superlikely adventure, always occurring every 10 gate adventures or upon returning from 10 adventures spent anywhere.
- Not only does the pencil-necked demon do poorly with poetry, his geology is a bit lacking, too. Brimstone is in fact bright yellow in color!
References
- The various choices are a take-off on the Wizard of Oz song sung by the Munchkins: "Follow the yellow brick road / follow the yellow brick road / follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow brick road."
- The resulting text when you choose not to follow the demon is a reference to the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure, in which Pee-Wee Herman says, "I'm a loner, Dottie; a rebel." This also may refer to the Whitesnake song "Here I Go Again". The third line of the chorus is "like a drifter I was born to walk alone".
- The demon's poem if you don't follow him ends "Ah, damn it!" a reference to the supposed absence of any English word to rhyme with "purple." The obscure words curple and hirple do in fact rhyme with "purple."
- The rhyming demon refers to Etrigan the Demon, a DC Comics character. His main shtick is speaking in rhyme, which denotes his rank in the underworld.
- "Azazel, ma belle" (French for "Azazel, my beautiful") is taken from The Beatles song "Michelle."
- The Grove of Suicide is a place in Dante Alighieri's Inferno in the seventh circle of Hell for those who are violent against themselves. Their punishment is to live as trees for casting off their bodies before their time was up. They can only communicate by someone or something breaking their branches, which also causes them to bleed.
- The Grove of Suicide also can refer to a beautiful grove of trees in Hades in Greek Mythology. The myth was that lovers who killed themselves for another lover (for example, a lover kills herself because her husband dies or leaves her) would always be there, always sad, but the grove was extremely beautiful, despite that, the myths said.
- The Grove of Suicides is mentioned as a place in Hell in Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics. Azazel appeared in this series, and his image and description here strongly resembles his appearance in those comics.
- The Grove of Suicides could also refer to Aokigahara, the Japanese forest that the second most common place to commit suicide.
