"You can simply say 'I rescind Mephistopheles' hold over you'. And - in order to invoke a True Name, it must be spoken aloud."

"Okay. Uh, learning mine was fairly uncomfortable, which doesn't really do the experience justice but so you're not blindsided.

Hecugoth the Abandoned, I rescind Mephistopholes's hold over you."

He sighs in relief.

"Thank you, Belmarniss. I am in your debt."

"Anytime. Please return me and my companions to Toril."

He inclines his head, and a freestanding portal materializes in front of her.

"There is no guarantee that we will ever see each other again," he says. "While you are here, I wished to say... you have been the first truly worthy master I have had since the one who created me. I have the highest hopes for you."

"Thank you. And I hope I can get you well clear one day."

Out she goes.

Her companions follow.

They come out in the common room of the Yawning Portal Inn, where Mephistopheles is fighting Durnan, the old innkeeper. Durnan's not going down easily, but he's not as young as he once was, and he's losing ground.

Mephistopheles turns his head to look at the party as they come through the more literal portal. "Oh, come now," he growls, catching Durnan's blade between the prongs of his ranseur. "This is a bloody farce."

"You guaranteed that when you diddled the legal system, sometimes if you do that a baby farce will show up." Would he like some of her fancy new sorcerer spells to the face? The wizard ones she has not yet had time to embooken but the sorcerer ones are handy right now!

A hail of stormbolts blast into Mephistopheles. He screams in rage and pain, and teleports behind Belmarniss -

- where Jojo slams a glowing palm into his chest. "We have unfinished business," he says pleasantly as the devil coughs.

Garrus has so many arrows to shoot at this asshole. It's truly incredible.

And Deekin is fluttering around, singing a song that makes those arrows sink deep into his flesh, rather than plinking away.

She spins around, relying on her anklet to keep her upright, and lays into him some more, ready to bust the name out if it looks like things are taking a bad turn.

He manages to impale Jojo pretty thoroughly a couple of times, and fill the room with hellfire a couple more, but Jojo and Deekin are actually very good at not letting people die, when they themselves haven't died immediately, which they don't seem inclined to allow to happen today.

When things start looking bad, he tries to teleport out. "I'm terribly sorry, but I'm afraid I have another -"

"Thra'axfyl the Ambitious, you will face us."

The archdevil looks as if he might vomit. "Where did you learn that name."

"Die screaming," Garrus suggests, with another volley of arrows.

"Or take up crochet." She hits him with more stormbolts. She likes stormbolts.

He overextends himself trying to stab Belmarniss.

Jojo kicks the ranseur out of his hand and tosses it several feet behind him. Then he delivers a kick that sends the archdevil sprawling to the floor.

"Belmarniss? I think you should be the one to quash his essence. Quickly."

(The concept, which may have seemed abstract before, unfolds in her mind. It's more or less just - telling him why he should cease to exist. In great detail. And then sealing it with his True Name.)

"You repulsive, conniving waste of space, you and your legal loophole can both cease to share an ontological status with me and my friends and particularly deserving squirrels. All this fucking around and existing you're doing, cut it the hell out, Thra'axfyl the Ambitious."

Mephistopheles listens. He has to.

The light of life fades from his eyes. Then... there's something glowing, deep inside him. His form collapses into ash, except for a glowing spark.

It pulses with energy. Once, twice.

Jojo's eyes widen. "It's going to-"

Everything goes very bright.

Then everything goes very dark.