That guy is... awful, actually.

Woljif guesses this shouldn't exactly be a surprise, what with the whole "powerful demon" thing. You don't get to be a powerful demon without selling out some friends, and once you've done that a couple of times, just raping a mortal woman so's she can bear a tiefling child that will grow up to be a "destined vessel" for you to keep backstabbing and raping your way through life, eh, what's the big deal? 

No, the weird thing is that he seems to've thought Woljif would actually go for that shit. What, was he born yesterday? "You'll have the power", "we'll be equal partners", "vengeance on everyone who hurt you", give him a break. Woljif knows a conman's pitch when he hears one. He's not even tempted, honest. 

After the resulting fight - Woljif really appreciates having a boss who can fling those Bolts of Justice around like they're magic missiles - they obviously loot the smoking corpse; waste not, want not. The fact of the matter is, the Moon of the Abyss was a nice enough jewel, and all, but... any one of the bits of magic gear this powerful demon carried woulda paid for it twice over, and it's still not as good as Woljif's stuff. Which you can tell, because Woljif just used his gear to kill the guy who had this gear, right? Kinda disappointing, really.

"Hey, are you guys gonna eat that?"

"Nah, we got what we want from him; help yourself, little guy."

The rat is - well, ok, its looks are a bit against it. Not that Woljif hasn't sometimes wished he didn't look so obviously fiendish, but at least he has a roguish charm and his horns grow out of a mass of dark curls. Chicks go for that look sometimes. This rat? Well, maybe Abyssal rat chicks go for the mutated scabby half-starved look, this is the Abyss and for all Woljif knows it's the height of fashion among the local rats. Lann was able to attract a girlfriend, after all, and his horn is much less handsome than Woljif's. But it's not conventionally attractive, as rats go.

Looks can deceive, is the point Woljif's trying to make. But what doesn't deceive is - this here rat has obviously been living in the walls, scurrying away whenever so much as a dretch came by, eating whatever scraps it can grab, never fighting unless cornered and never getting cornered if it can possibly help it. And then when the local top guy gets killed, what does it do? It turns around on a copper piece, comes right out of the walls bold as brass and politely asks if it can have a share. This rat has an eye for the main chance, is what he's saying.

Well yeah. You try surviving in the Abyss without an eye for opportunities and the balls to grab them. Nocticula's protection doesn't extend to the likes of us, you know.

That's the thing about powerful people's "protection", innit? It only covers the ones who don't really need it in the first place. If you're a street rat, or a fiendish rat... they don't want to hear about you.

That's why rats gotta stick together. 

"Yeah? What's your angle, what's your pitch?"

(Woljif's not gonna yaw anyone's head off, here; that's not how he rolls.)

"You might already be familiar with it."

"Cut to the chase, Horns. Is there gonna be regular food?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I can do that now. For friends and family, anyway."

"All right then. You got yourself a familiar. Long as the food's regular, anyway."

Cool. Abyss, Hell, Material, they're all the same: Everyone's against rats. But sometimes... the rats can make a place for themselves anyway. If they stick together.

And never, ever sell anyone out.

Alushinyrra is... awful, actually.

Oh, well yes, what they did to Trever is awful too. Sosiel hates it. But - it could be worse. Sosiel was terrified, when he heard that Trever had become a Hellknight, that the war in the Worldwound had killed his brother - not his body, if he died in battle they would meet again in Heaven. No, he was afraid that what he admired in his elder brother, the parts of his soul that would have made Pharasma judge him as part of Heaven, had died. And truthfully, a gladiatorial arena in an Abyssal city is not a place where he'd have expected to find those glimpses of Heaven. But he spent so much time thinking of that, and worrying about it, that he did all his grieving for Trever in advance. And then when he finally found him... his brother, his elder brother who showed him how to paint, who went to fight the demons at the Worldwound to keep them out of their homeland, the reluctant paladin... he rose out of the filth of the Abyss one more time, and defied every demon in the city so that Sosiel might be safe. If Sosiel does not meet that man again in Heaven it will be because Sosiel's besetting sins became too strong.

No, it's the buildings that bother him; they're... beautiful.

"Perhaps there's beauty in the Abyss," he said to the Queen, sarcastically; he was implying that there wasn't any where he was standing on Golarion - a deep insult, coming from a cleric of Shelyn who is instructed to find the beauty in all things. And truthfully the Queen wasn't actually very beautiful at that moment, for all the regularity of her fine features and golden mane of hair; not with rage and envy and immense tiredness in her clear blue eyes. 

He wouldn't have said it if he hadn't been exhausted, and wounded, and enraged at the Commander being stripped of his rank and sent to fetch the secret of the Nahyndrian crystals as though it were a paladin's first escort mission. But that's no excuse; he needs to do better, and he resolved to do so, and... well, he's found beauty in the Abyss, indeed. That's the problem.

The glittering buildings, in shades of purple from delicate nightshade to smoldering foxglove, that curve and shift and twist elegantly out of the way - no, he might as well admit it. The buildings' are not the curves that bother him. It's the succubi.

They are... so beautiful. And so toxic. When it's said that a man could "drown in her eyes" or "lose himself in her beauty" it's not usually meant literally! 

Beauty not for its own sake, not for the joy it brings, but weaponised, venomised, made a tool in the service of hurting people and making them into more beautiful, poisonous demons to hurt still more people with this, this... Sosiel is not much given to theology, but the Commander has the right word: This blasphemy. 

He looks a little askance at Arueshalae, after that. He believes sincerely in her repentance and her attempt at redemption, Desna is not his goddess but She is not known for half-assing Her miracles any more than Shelyn is. But - now he understands a little more, what it is she is repenting of, what she needs to be redeemed from. 

He thinks of all the times he's shouted "you are beyond redemption" at some hapless brimorak, and blushes for shame; he'd always known it was wrong, for a priest of Shelyn to say that, but it felt like a venial sin. How much did it hurt Arueshalae, to hear those stupid words? That shallow, ignorant curse? He was a child, shouting words he did not understand for the pleasure of seeing others react, knowing nothing of what he was talking about. 

He cannot do anything about it now, except to apologise, very sincerely, to Arueshalae; and to resolve to do better. He understands, now. Nobody is truly beyond redemption; not even these poisonous beauties of Alushinyrra. But some have more to repent of than others.