Azhga takes a random circle. He glances over the binding when he appears. There is a very loose gag; the only word he can't say is "soul".

"...hi. I'm Azhga. What's up?"

When he starts talking, she grins widely at him. "Daria, hi! Everyone keeps saying that you can't summon a demon without a gag because they'll talk you out of your soul but there's no reason that should work if I just promise not to trade my soul no matter what you say. Angels and fairies are basically normal people except the wings, there's no reason you should be able to magic me out of it or something."

"...I applaud your open mindedness. As far as I know demons can't actually take...spirits..., they just think it's funny to pretend they can."

"Wait, really? - first of all I would like to state for the record that is exactly what you'd say if you wanted me to give you my soul, but also fuck that, wow."

“Like, I’m a really young naturally occurring demon, maybe taking, um, spirits, is possible but I don’t know about it, it’s not like I’ve tried. But. There are people who have sold their spirits multiple times, and people who don’t believe in spirits don’t seem to suffer negative consequences from selling theirs. There’s compilation videos of people selling their spirits in the Library of Hell and stuff.”

"What do you want for the videos? It's really hard to find any information about people who've sold their souls, no one wants to admit it - also, uh, sorry about the 'spirit' thing, I promised a friend I wouldn't summon a demon without a gag and, uh. I don't like lying to her." Not that she expects Mariam to be impressed by this line of reasoning, but she hasn't lied. Technically.

“No offense but that is a super weak version of not lying. Hm. I want to spend the next month on Earth—are we on Earth? I don’t care that much, any planet is fine, I just haven’t been on planets much. Hell is great but it’s a bit... meta-samey. And everyone being indestructible does weird things to the culture.”

He pauses. 

“I don’t want you to do anything bad with the videos, like, I dunno, using them to out people who have sold their spirits. I can offer to just make you a chiplocked computer which requires me to authorize unlocking the videos, but I’m okay with you doing non-evil things which involve them not being chiplocked. Do you have ideas?”

"We're on Earth. I can't actually let you wander around without a gag, people'll freak out." And as far as potential for the demon to do evil things was pretty close to the worse thing she could do without snapping his binding, and she isn't about to risk other people for the information. "What I want is to be able to show people videos of someone selling their soul multiple times or whatever other evidence I can pull from there so someone who hasn't talked with the potential walking infohazard - uh, sorry - can make their own conclusions."

"I can pretend to be gagged and I can pretend to be a fairy, but it's not really a sticking point, reducing humans' level of prejudice about demons is good anyway. The demons could just be pretending to be accepting the spirits after the first time, it's hard to prove conclusively beyond 'everything demons say about it sure points to no spirits'. ...I wonder if I can conjure for models of people whose spirits are in Hell, or something. Although that might get demons who used to be human even if demons can't take spirits." He tries. It does not go. 

"Used to be human?"

"...yeah? Most demons just kinda spawn but some used to be human, you can conjure for their works before they died and stuff."

"Why does no one know this? Do you have proof? Is it just demons? Which humans? What the fuck?"

"Nobody knows this? I guess that puts some concerns into perspective. I can do some forensics, you'd probably be more confident in it if you specified the search criteria. I don't have any reason to think it's just demons but I've met like, one fairy ever, and angels and demons don't like each other. If I conjure for the complete works of somebody I usually get stuff after they died, it took me a while to actually realize that humans die. I haven't actually checked what kind of daeva they were though."

"No! No one knows this! If the angels and fairies knew and didn't tell us I'm going to - reevaluate my impression of the relative trustworthiness of daeva, anyway. Forensics, yes, um. One hour of forensics related to the task of figuring out what the fuck is up with that for... what do you want that isn't 'panic everyone by wandering around being obviously daeva enough that they check your binding'?"

Shrug. "You don't really need to pay me, this is fun. Resummon me with a real gag and take me to a park later? Angels and fairies should know, I guess they can't trivially do forensics to actually check but they would have met daeva who used to be human."

"Sure. Trade you the name of the last book I read and a promise to summon you for a visit to a park later for accurate forensics as specified?"

"Yes summoner."

"The Master and Margarita," she says with an ironic smile. "It felt thematic."

"I'll read it once somebody gives me Russian. Forensics time?"

"Complete works of ex-human daeva? Demons angels and faires separate."

"...Not a conjurable parameter."

"Complete works of all humans after death?"

"Complete works? Maybe let's do complete published works, I don't really want to conjure people's private letters?"

"You'll miss some people - but I guess that doesn't matter unless there's only a couple - first published work, then?"

There is a lot.

"Jesus Christ."

"I'm not sure but I think this amount looks like all, or at least a large fraction of, humans have the ability to publish stuff after death."

"With numbers like that I'd expect most daeva to have been human, how did we miss this?"

"—If they're all demons, nobody talks to demons—

"I don't think most demons used to be human but hell is big place, maybe I've just never been out of the spawn area for demons who randomly spawn fully formed...

"I could make little models of the first thousand alphabetically and look for the type of wings—"

"Yes, good idea. If this is because nobody talks to demons -"

Most of them don't have wings. Of the ones that do, there is a bias towards fairies.

She sweeps the little models carefully into a plastic bag after she's looked at them. "So it's probably not that you end up in Hell if you sell your soul - are there wingless daeva? I've never heard of one answering summons."

"You don't have to have wings, you get wings from a wing catalogue—maybe fairies don't, I don't know how fairies handle it, maybe they're built in—, but most daeva do, it would be shocking to get this many wingless ones in a randomish sample."

She glares at the bag in her hand as it was personally withholding the information from her. "Can you try each type of daeva separately, I want to see if it's the fairies that mostly don't have wings, that would make... some sense? Maybe?"

Sample of randomish fairies almost all have wings. So do angels and demons.

"So there's something special about the ones that were human. Maybe they end up in different parts of Hell or wherever? That would explain why you haven't seen many, at least. And why nobody ever told us."

"Or they're not all – "

He conjures for subsets of the previously conjured people currently in Hell, Fairland, and Heaven. He conjures significantly less than a thousand people, almost all of whom have wings.

" – fuck – 

— maybe we should get. An older demon. It's quite likely that it's actually known what's going on, I literally spawned in Hell like three years ago and nobody has given me the lecture about everything we apparently secretly know about the human afterlife."

"There's a human afterlife. That's-" Daria makes a noise halfway between a growl and whine. She breathes for a second, collects herself, and adds, "I guess that's not actually weirder than humans becoming daeva when they die. Please tell me it's not called Purgatory, Heaven and Hell are bad enough as names."

"Well I don't know!!! They're not even called Heaven and Hell in almost any demon languages, this is a human thing."

"Because we're superstitious and stupid and gag demons - Are there any older demons you know I could summon?"

"Manakel—it's ironic—is nice and would probably know stuff."

"Why is it ironic?" she says, already setting up a space for another summoning circle.

“Oh, it’s the name of an angel in Abrahamic religion.”

She snorts. "Fair enough."

She starts sketching, checking the circle against a copy on her phone. It's taking up most of the remaining space, her dorm room is going to get rather crowded at this rate.

He sit one the floor while she draws. "Okay if I make myself something to fidget with?"

He's been perfectly nice but if there's some kind of loophole - "make what?"

Eyeroll. "That's fair. A squishy tube with a marble in it." 

She can't think of anything he could do with that and she doesn't actually want to antagonize the apparently friendly demon. "Sure, go ahead."

Fidget fidget. 

After a while, she lift her head to ask "How do you spell Manakel?"

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.

Okay no talking then. If stands really still maybe he'll become invisible?

"I... kindofsummonedamostlyungaghedeomon. And asked him things. And he didn't know some things so I, uh, summonedanotherone."

She glances from Daria to the demons, who have entirely failed at becoming invisible. 

"I... see." She closes the door carefully behind her and sits down heavily on the bed, only partly because it's the only open space in a room not designed for four people, two of them winged.

Demons are in fact trying to not have their wings take up too much space but they are large. 

Thinking his wings off would be REALLY WEIRD he should not do that. Awkward wave?

Waving gets a slightly reproachful glance from Manakel, which is entirely fair but makes him much more confident in the decision to do so. 

"...just to clarify, you summoned an ungaged demon, who told you there was an afterlife, so you summoned another one to check."

"Yes? The deal was accurate information, I didn't just take their word for it!"

Mariam takes a deep breath and points at Manakel, who seems less uncertain than the waving one. "Tell me what you told her. In small words, please, I'm confused enough as it is."

“My deal with my summoner was to give true answers to some questions for the name of a book.

“Humans usually go to a place usually called Limbo when they die. Limbo is rather boring in that it is an infinite plane of dirt in which nothing can grow, but Limbo culture tries to mitigate that, and there are occasional concordances with Heaven, Hell, and Fairyland where daeva can send limboites nice things. Summoners become daeva when they die.

“The first is widely known among daeva, the latter is not; it’s hard to tell but I think most daeva are aware that some daeva used to be human, just not what caused them in particular not to go to Limbo.

“You can confirm this with demonic forensics.”

Pause. 

“Also, demons can’t actually take, uh, pneumas—Daria made a very specific gag—, some demons are making that up because they like to upset people.”

"Daria."

"It's not my fault there's an actual afterlife!"

"No. No, it isn't your fault there is an afterlife. That wasn't - are you trying to misinterpret - aaaagh."

At this point Mariam gives up on trying to be the adult in the room and collapses face first onto the bed.

Manakel is an adult but Mariam probably legitimately needs to collapse for a bit.

Azhga is not remotely an adult. Azhga is technically three. He plays with his fidget toy and manages with great effort to restrain himself from saying things.

"Sorry?" Daria tries after a minute of silence.

   "If you're going to try things like this warn me next time," mutters Mariam into her pillow.

"Um. You would have told me not to and I didn't want to fight again."

    "If you're going to do it anyway I'd rather know! Do you really think I don't know you well enough that I can't tell when you're set on doing something?"

"Oh. Sorry." Daria says again, slightly more confidently.

    "It's - well, it's not okay," Mariam says, turning to face Daria and the two demons, "but we should probably... do something about that."

He really wants things done about this! He wants human friends! He wants humans to have access to Hell's internet and library and stuff!

"I imagine that the fine folks at Ganymede have some procedure for obvious infohazards which are not especially in our favor here."

"No, they really aren't." Mariam had done a lot of reading in the process of making friends with Daria.

"I mean, we can just check, it isn't hard if we use a standard forensics binding and think about the wording of the deal a bit." Daria also did a lot reading, as a natural consequence of being Daria, but very little of it had focused on safety procedures and she wasn't entirely certain she believed in infohazards.

"I doubt that's enough. Anybody can say they checked."

"We tell them to check. They don't have to let you talk to do forensic conjuration."

"That only works if they actually check, and it would be really hard to get them to check because they'd be spending their time on the word of some crazy people who were probably messed up by talking demons. Maybe if we make enough of a scene beforehand—that could bias them against us too but at some point they'd have to check—

"Making a scene about this sound kind of hard, but you could... publish a collection of art by demons or something? There's totally loads of people who would buy that and we can just conjure something along those lines because Hell has excellent content curation. With profiles of the artists. Cute ones. If we wanna soften the blow, the collection has zero words written by a demon, just art and human-made profiles, but I don't know if it makes sense to do that."

Daria mutters something uncomplimentary about 'idiots that won't check simple facts'.

"We should at least double check first - no offense intended," she adds to the demons, "but I'd like to have more to go off of if we're going to be doing public relations for you."

The demons think that makes perfect sense and do not object. 

But it's not really public relations for them, they are perfectly alright in Hell not taking summons, it's public relations for people on Earth to be able to talk to the most powerful kind of daeva so that they can get nice things and so that nice demons will actually take summons.

Shush, Azhga.

Or they could just tell people and the ones that realize how important it is can check themselves.

She doesn't shush Daria but she looks somewhat tempted.

Daria how many people do you know who are as reckless as you.

"I'm not reckless I'm just not afraid of someone talking me into doing things I don't want to!"

Like, it's not that he would not definitely also do it if he was human. But not a lot of people will. It's actually reasonable to be concerned about not being able to model a threat class.

Hmph.

Okay, so, how does double checking work? Are they going to need to dismiss them?

They're going to take at least a couple of days - yes, Daria, really - so that would be best.

Makes sense. This is going to be so much fun once they've confirmed stuff.

It was lovely to meet them! Here are their mail labels and information about those. Manakel would prefer they write before summoning him since he does a lot of scheduled things, but it's not a big deal since he can always write home.

Daria grins at Azhga and writes down the mailing labels and focuses for a minute each on wanting them gone - looses it the first time and starts over - and then she and Mariam are alone in her room.

They go home.

They think about strategy! 

So for credibility it's good to have a lot of different people saying the same thing, it's good to have easily reachable proof, it's good to not at all focus on demons in the initial "some daeva used to be human" push.