"Who's this?" asks a voice.

"A fine question. Looks too disoriented to be a teleporter. Portalsnake?"

"We aren't adjacent to Dreamward."

"There could be another Dreamward."

"Don't they check for that?"

"Mysterious visitor, what brings you here?"

He would curl up tighter but he's already doing that as much as he can. He doesn’t even try to answer the obvious demons people in a situation where he strongly expects demons.

"...well, if someone could tote him to the infirmary so he isn't taking up conference room space..."

"My host doesn't want to touch noncommunicative portalsnake visitors, worried they'll have something weird going on."

"If it's a weird airborne thing we're already hosed."

"If it's a weird airborne thing we're in a precognition."

"I'll carry them." Yves is scooped.

He doesn’t follow all of that but he follows it enough to worry about the demons seeing the future.

He’s so easy to scoop. Not only is he remarkably light, he reflexively cooperates with attempts to manhandle him. It doesn’t make him more relaxed or responsive to external reality or agentic - if anything it does the opposite - but it looks a little like that since he unfreezes. Once he uncurls a bit it's just possible to notice the hole at the base of his neck that's the result of him having figured out how to suppress his regeneration before cutting his own throat. Pity it didn't kill him but it does keep him from speaking; he's sure these people can change that but at least it'll be one extra thing in their way before they can get much use out of him.

"Oh he's injured."

"It's not like the infirmary is out of your way on the way to the infirmary."

"Not wrong."

Carry carry.

His breathing evens out a little along the way. He's never seen an infernal infirmary before and these people don't talk like demons and that's probably a trick but it might be a trick that involves not hurting him for a while.

He is plopped onto a bed.

"We think he got portalsnook. - snaked? Snuck?"

"You think a portalsnake ate him."

"Or the equivalent, yeah."

"Missut, over here."

Someone comes over and causes his neck to glow green and heal over.

He makes a startled noise but doesn't say anything. He sits up and tries to affect an imperious and disdainful air, an effect pretty badly spoiled by everything else about him.

"Hi there!" says the green-glowy-person, a man in a nice sherwani and turban which matches the green glow with gold accessories. "Was that the only place you were hurt?"

...That’s not how demons dress, either. Not that that means much.

He smiles slightly. He’s a big fan of how this completely predictable violation didn’t involve any pain and the probably-a-demon responsible is pleasant to look at and that's clearly a deliberate strategy to get him to cooperate and he's inclined to be at least as cooperative as he would be if they were hurting him. Which is not very but he'd probably end up opening his mouth at some point if he were being tortured so he does that. His tongue has also been cut out.

"Sir? Anything else you need me to take a look at?"

Well, if that doesn't make it clear, then that's fine. They can just be baffled as to why nothing they try can get him to talk. He shrugs.

"- Missut I think he doesn't have a tongue."

"Cripes, how did I miss that, I was looking for dental problems - was this guy in Angband?" Glow goes on the tongue.

He makes a face and tries not to gag. His breathing is a little too even.

That was really very predictable but he thought it would buy him hours and instead they just did some kind of magic and undid all his hard work instantly and it's terribly unfair. The strategy where they act nice might last him hours anyway, though, or at least he tells himself that to try to tamp down on all the panic. It doesn't help much. He stares at the glowing person's outfit because that way whatever happens next at least he'll have gotten to see something that looked nice for a moment.

"Sir?" says the glowy person, Missut.

He shouldn’t say anything because he hasn’t thought through the precognition thing - only he only knows about it because they said -

- no, he’s being an idiot, words aren’t evidence of anything. Which doesn’t actually mean he should say anything, but. Maybe one thing.

"You’ve been very nice and you’re obviously trying not to act like demons so I’ll humor you long enough to let you know it’s not personal that I’m not going to say anything else. Except that it is. It’s not personal to the people you’re pretending to be."

"Oh for fucksake, he was in an Angband."

"Angbands don't have demons."

"They might if our Allspeak was glitching -"

"No, they don't, it comes through as 'orcs' and 'Maiar' and 'Balrogs' and stuff, not 'demons', I know everything is demons but those specifically are not, just like you and me."

"We got translated as demons in one language one time."

"Okay, fine, but they do check for Ardas, it's probably something else they don't check for."

"Which is just like Angband! Halle-fucking-lujah! I always wanted one right next door, I was feeling deprived -"

"Make yourself useful and go tell Sovereign Ristrell."

He will not be baited into making it clear whether he’s heard of any of those things before.

That seems to be more or less what they expect. One of the people who's hanging around puts on some nice music and leaves a cup of apple juice near the bed where he's sitting and then they leave him alone.

He lies down and appreciates being on a soft surface and tries to think of things that make more sense in hindsight if demons can see the future but there aren’t many. He decides that once he destroys Hell he’ll never tell anyone how or ideally even that it was him, but that’s... not really a near-term consideration.

He waits.

Eventually a couple of the voices he heard before is back. "We could possibly just send him to an appropriate Valinor." A tall dark man in a suit.

"Only after somebody's been by to chase him back to wherever he came from and deal with it, if they've got a portalsnake they may figure out adjacency and such any moment now. Oh, good, someone put music on, are there any other recommendations -" A remarkably average-looking woman with an incongruously severe expression.

"Just to be boring. Possibly you shouldn't actually take this meeting here?"

"Possibly, but give me five." She pulls up a chair beside the bed. "Hello. I'm Sovereign Ristrell. Our supracivilization's previous familiarity with people who've been tortured until they reach a state similar to yours is of fortresses called Utumno or Angband, controlled by the Vala Melkor also known as Morgoth, assisted by various Maiar such as Sauron or Thauron also known as Gorthaur, Thuringwethil, and various balrogs. If this describes the place you came from, it is within our collective power to annihilate Melkor and Sauron and free all of the prisoners, and it would in no way shape or form be surprising to Melkor if you announced that you would prefer this, nor would it make for a particularly dramatic moment to end a simulation. Does that description match?"

...That was obviously crafted to get a response. If they have the ability to do that - which they did not, actually, say that they do, just that they do if that vaguely reminiscent description is an exact match, which it isn’t, which doesn’t matter because words mean nothing.

He will not get suckered into working for the next deceitful nest of sin that pretends to be the good guys. Not even if they really aren’t his demons.

And they didn’t, actually, see the state Hell left him in. (Unless they did. Who knows how long they’ve been spying.)

"When I left they didn’t know me to have heard any of those names. And they didn’t know me to know what drama would have to do with anything. But I wouldn’t dream of trying to talk you out of killing them."

"Thank you. I am planning to keep you here until an appropriate specialist can come and derive information about the world you came from by examining you. They will be aware that they cannot expect to have your cooperation to work with beyond lying there. The standard of care for persons rescued from Angband, which I am going to borrow in this instance, is to have them under supervision in case they commit violence, supply background music to stave off the crushing boredom of refusing to take actions or have interesting trains of thought, allow visitors only on a case by case basis depending on what reaction they elicit, offer optional unconsciousness or death or psychological care, and supply an uncomplicated vegetarian diet. I intend to order this procedure followed with you, filling in details like whether your supervision should be sapient or not with whatever happens to be convenient for us, until we can hand you off to an appropriate expert in another world with ordinary Angband victims, unless you state that you would prefer otherwise."

"...I don't need food. At all. I, uh... I think the abilities you're acting as though you have might not be good enough? If you were expecting I was mortal?"

"Melkors can sustain people in conditions that would normally kill them but this effect doesn't operate outside their domains, so some rescuees from Angband, which I understand you did not personally come from but which I am using as a template, will die without food and water and air. If you don't need food at all then you can ignore the food that will regardless be brought to you per protocol, we aren't about to run out. If you want to elaborate on what abilities you will expect to be necessary I am listening."