M-A-N-A-K-E-L.

She writes it in and closes the circle.

Hi?

"You're Manakel? Apparently there's a human afterlife and I'm really confused and he's new and doesn't know anything. Do you know why conjuring for humans after death gives you a lot of people, most of which aren't in Hell or Heaven or Fairyland? - oh, you can talk, gags are pointless."

"Humans by default go to a place called Limbo when they die. You probably want to make a deal with me such that I'm bound to speak truthfully?"

"I was just getting to that," lies Daria. "Uh, trade you the title of the second-to-last book I read for truthful answers to my questions? Unless you want something more complicated. Do you want something more complicated? I can't actually promise to get you much, I'm a college freshman and, like, broke."

She is totally lying but that's okay. "No, no, it's quite alright. Deal."

"When They Break"

"Humans typically go to a place called Limbo when they die. They are in good health and indestructible and cannot reproduce similar to deava. Limboites do not have deava powers and cannot leave. Limbo is a flat endless plain of dirt in which nothing grows with no food or anything, which is pretty depressing, but each limboite brings with them a single object representing what was dearest to them—they don't get to choose, it just comes with them. If it's perishable or finite, supplies get replaced; it is customary for people with taps to keep them running at all times as a supply of water for everyone, food gets brought out of houses for a small indefinite supply, et cetera. There are rare concordances between Limbo and the daeva realms; these days the daeve send a train going very fast with as many cars as will fit in the amount of time full of stuff limboites want. Basically all daeva over the age of ten know this.

"Humans who summon a daeva in their lifetime instead become daeva. Which one is determined by unclear means related to personality affiliation to the powers. Which humans become daeva is not known by all demons and presumably by lower fractions of others, it takes a little investigation and many demons have never even met an ex-human."

"What the fuck kind of afterlife setup is that. Why do we not know this."

"It's a pretty shitty afterlife setup but we do what we can. I think the GCP is strongly trying to discredit a lot of these claims for unclear reasons... Most demons and angels who take summons do it because they want to mess with people, since they have everything they need... The resentment between angels and demons might play a role... I'm really not sure though, it would really make sense for it to be known. I think the fact that the GCP will disapprove probably plays the most notable role."

"Is there anything stopping me from writing every major news station to go 'there's an afterlife, summon a daeva and check'?"

“You would most likely get ignored, especially given concerns about talking to demons being an infohazard. If you avoid being ignored, they might summon one fairy who doesn’t know anything or wants to mess with them and subsequently ignore you. If they go public, you’re probably already findable with skilled demonic forensics about people investigating the question; the GCP might try to sue you for endangerment or something, but “summoning a daeva to ask questions” is admissible in court. You’d be able to get interested daeva to pay your legal fees, I could help set that up for you if it come to that.”

"Politics," says Daria, rolling her eyes. "Brilliant."

"Maybe we should have a specific daeva advocate who is not a demon, they're good for politics and it might be more believable not coming from a random college student—no offense— Manakel, do you know anyone?"

Manakel totally has fairy friends. There isn't really room to summon somebody else in this room and also does Daria actually want to do this? She really did not seem happy about politics.

Daria has absolutely no desire to do this whatsoever, especially given it'll be entirely too obvious to Mariam she'd only kept her promise on the barest technicality, but she wants to be left out of it even less.

Should she maybe talk to Mariam?

Yyyyes, except Mariam's probably going to yell at her and she'd really rather postpone that for as long as possible.

That doesn't really seem like it will help anything, and, in fact, might make her more mad.

He's not wrong, Daria just wants to pretend she can avoid her problems a bit longer. Ugh. Okay.

She digs her phone out from under a pile of papers and sends a quick text asking Mariam to meet her in Daria's room.

Azhga tries to prepare stuff to say about not being evil. If it comes up.

When Mariam comes in and sees two demons in the room, she doesn't look like anything Azgha could say would help the situation.

"Daria - what - your text scared me - what is going on?"

"Um. Technically there's a gag? - there's an afterlife, people don't die, I made a deal for information and I'll need to check but I can't think how they'd be lying, if you summon you become a daeva if you don't there's a place called limbo and we're going to live forever and -"

"- Daria," she cuts her off, but can't think of anything else to say. "What did you do?" she adds eventually.