The "somewhere else": a bedrock box, floating high in the sky.

There's a cobblestone staircase leading out, but the only way down is to jump. And it's a long way down.

There's also a table for making items, which might be useful if she has anything to make things with, and a black chest with a green buckle that glows purple when she opens it, which might be useful if it had anything in it. There's a large clump of dogs sitting politely in one corner, which isn't really useful at all, but at least they're company?

The rock feels wrong under her hands: too flat to be natural, too rough to be carved. Which - is the sort of thing that might exist anyway, in the hereafter. Is this Andoran? In all her visions there was a large moon looming in the sky, but like, it is normal for a moon to be around about half the time.

She notices the dogs first, notices they look a lot more ambiguously like wolves than most dogs in her life, then spends half a round frozen in panic/stealth before noticing that they are continuing to sit politely and probably will continue to act... politely. She avoids them, though. Animals don't like her any better than people.

The chest and workbench could be meant for her, but might not. She - puts off guessing if she's allowed to touch them and climbs the steep stone stairs first.

..........is this... an upper plane. is. is that why she is in the sky.

Hard to say why she's in the sky, just like it's hard to say why she's in a box with unbreakable rock and a group of polite wolves. She just kind of...is.

It's got to have something to do with the part where she just died, she's, like, most very sure of that. And she's not on fire, so probably this isn't Hell. Unless that's later. But it's probably Andoran. Right?

...she clambers back down the stairs and away from the Fall. MAYBE she is in a box to PROTECT her. Maybe the objects are for her!

She gently nudges the buckle open - flinches away from the sudden purple glow - checks if the dogs want to maul her death for attempted theft - looks into the chest and finds nothing. Well. The workbench has tools attached to it but they're, like, attached to it, she couldn't even use them to saw the bench up into planks or anything. ...is ?Andoran going to enslave her and force her to do woodworking. This seems unwise, they would have to teach her how to do it first.

...Alicia would've thought of something to do by now. And Tolar would argue with her about it, and Val would come up with something more sensible than anyone else.

She has no idea where any of them are. It feels not just unknown but unknowable, like there is no answer she could ever learn. She reaches out to dig her fingers into Kasidra's hair and—

Xenia sits down, on the rock that feels like the end of the world, and watches the sky for the height of the sun, and doesn't cry.

Meanwhile:

Shit. Shit. Shit. Who is this. Why did Parrot whitelist them. Why did Parrot whitelist them without telling anyone first. This wasn't in the plan!!!

He has to keep acting like he's the one in full control of the situation, and he has to get information. These are sort of opposed, because it's hard to ask for information without revealing that you don't know it, but not very opposed, because everyone already thinks he's lying whenever he says he doesn't know things (it helps that they're usually right). Plus it's just, like, not actually hard to get information out of people. Especially if they think you already know it. He sets a bed, breaks it, splashes the death-potion-that-isn't-real-death on himself--

And appears inside the prison. 

"Well, hello! Xenia, right? I'm Spoke. Pleasure to make your acquaintance."

He's a vaguely humanoid smoke creature with white eyes, a rainbow headband, a hoodie, and sweatpants. If she had to guess, he looks and sounds teenage, but it's hard to be certain given the general nonhumanity. He's wearing some armor--a helmet, chestplate, and boots, made of a black metal glowing bright purple--but his legs are glaringly free of it. He stands and talks with a certain confidence, like he owns the place and nobody can hurt him.

!?

...is it a fairy.

Is it a devil and she is in fact in Hell. That - would explain why he was expecting her - unless Alicia was a fairy and, and arranged for this, somehow -

Why does he half know her name? She - is absolutely not going to correct him, maybe it's bait for some magic that only works if you say it. And powerful people hate being corrected. Got to remember that... also hate being ignored. agh. why can't Alicia talk for her—

She - nods, and - says "hello," because he did so it ought to be acceptable, and - should she call him sir or something - if his full name is SpokeIsHere but he introduced himself as 'Spoke', probably she should follow that instruction? " - Spoke."

(She's a basically humanoid creature wearing a leather tunic and woollen skirt, sturdy boots, gloves and scarf. Her second layer is a hooded cloak, which covers most of her hair. Her skintone's a bit greyer than living humans should be, and her eyes are red—with goat-like rectangular pupils, which might not be obvious given how much eye contact she's not making.)

Spoke holds a water bucket, just to emphasize that he has one and could let her out at any time. (The significance of this is probably lost on Xenia, who is not familiar with Minecraft's water physics.) Her appearance or species hasn't registered as particularly weird to him.

Hmmmm. Hard to ask did Parrot whitelist you without revealing that he didn't whitelist her.

"You know Parrot? Me and him go way back."

Gives her room to disagree but if he's right then it looks like he knows what's going on.

Xenia does not on any level believe that 1 bucket of water could safely break a fall of How Far Even Is That, Help. It parses as potentially trying to tempt her to drink fairy water and/or threatening to set her on fire and put it out before she dies. Great!

What's a delicate way of saying 'why would I ever know an imaginary bird?' ...probably a guy named after the imaginary bird. That makes more sense. It - sounds like the correct answer is 'yes' but that's not true and probably Parrot would hurt her if she lied about him.

"I'm sorry, I don't," she says.

...what if she'd said 'yes, I said I would help him', and then when he heard about it he might take her up on it—no no setting up unlimited debts to unknown parties is stupid and would be bad even if she'd thought of that in time. Alicia could've made it work.

She could be lying but she sounds genuine. Huh. Okay.

"Good to know," Spoke says, and means it. "Ashswag? Vitalasy? Any of those names ringing a bell?"

...oh. She knows what question that is. It's would anyone care if I hurt you? The true answer is no, always has been. (Except—) The answer he believes absolutely must be yes. 

She can't make it stick no one will ever back her up but maybe if it lasts long enough to - get out of this box, it's not to protect her—

Well. No one ever believes her when she tells the truth. "I - n-no. Haven't heard of - either of them."

"In-ter-est-ing."

It's probably Vitalasy; Ashswag doesn't care enough to pull something like this, but Vitalasy's been sus for a while. Maybe working with Parrot, maybe working with Zam, definitely has more plans than he's sharing with Spoke. Spoke goes into his ender chest--flies to the top of the prison to put down a shulker box and splash himself with a po potion--puts the shulker box back away. When he flies back to face Xenia, he's got some sort of magic coming off him.

He's getting bored of dancing around things. Might as well do a little threatening. 

"I'll give it to you straight. If you tell me everything you know about how you got here and then don't tell anyone else anything that contradicts whatever story I end up going with for this, I'll let you out. If not, well, I can leave you here for a while. And if you agree to my deal and then break it--"

He reaches out towards Xenia. It doesn't look quite like a punch, or at least like it shouldn't be a very successful punch, but then it connects and it's so much stronger than it should be. It rips through Xenia; her corpse drops to the floor and she respawns, still in the prison, but with one fewer heart.

"--I can always do that." He hands her the heart back: a small little glowing star that, when she holds it, dissolves into her skin and puts her back to a max health she's more used to. "Except without the, uh, giving you the heart back." Smile. "Understood?"

When he flies away she acutely misses her goat; she couldn't see through Kasidra's eyes to watch their face and body language at the same time, but when they kept close enough she could feel the second opinion, that little edge of awareness, alertness from the-two-of-them-together. She needs to know what he's thinking and she's missing half of her mind. 

And then after he flies back she stops wishing Kasidra were here.

AAAAAAAAH.

Devil, then, this is a devil and this is Hell, her visions were a lie all along or or Asmodeus's servants killed her and dragged her soul back to his kingdom, this is his kingdom where the strong crush the weak and all is as it should be and she will always always always be the weak she—don't ignore him, start talking start talking, "I - I - I'm sorry, I don't, I'm not - I don't know - "

What does she know what does she know this is his place that's his chest enchanted so only he can use it, he needed to use it to - do that - the star melting through her hand left her a little more alive and now she knows where to look she can tell how much, six and then seven, he could kill her seven more times before - before - this is his place and he pretended he expected her when he was pretending to be nice, what's more likely to be true is him now implying that he wasn't - 

"Take your time." He leans against the wall of the prison, one hand in his pockets and the other holding the water bucket out again, still casual as anything.

Killing her was probably a bad idea, actually. Too impulsive. There is a really strong possibility that Zam saw the death message and is now going to try and swoop in and save her. Might even get his whole team for it. That would be... inconvenient. In Spoke's defense, it's really hard to have infinite power and not show off. Ideally he'd have someone block off the End to catch would-be prison breaks but Ash is asleep and Vitalasy can't be trusted. So he might not actually have infinite time. But the impression that he has infinite time is an important part of the bluff here. 

She takes a deep, audible breath in and out, just to show that she's paying attention. Still with the water - maybe in Hell setting you on fire is worse than killing you instantly, it'd hurt longer, but why not - do that - do not ask do not ask -

If he doesn't know she has something he wants, except she doesn't know - it must be Asmodeus - but he won't believe her - did she only make things worse or did it work, would he - do that and not give her her health back, if he wasn't worried about - one of his rivals, or superiors, is three too many superiors to have if Hell has nine levels - does - would he ask everything she knows and then kill her anyway, if he was sure no one knew she was here; will he do that either way, actually, why would he ever keep keep that promise—same reason as anyone else.

She takes another deliberately shaky breath. "Who - holds you to your deals, Spoke?"

"No one. I could be lying right now. Looks like it's your best bet, though." Unless she's messaging Zam right now. Please don't be messaging Zam right now. Spoke would really like for this to not be entirely a bluff. Unfortunately threatening her to this effect will do nothing but bring "messaging Zam" to her attention as something that might be helpful and which Spoke cannot actually stop her from doing. Or Vitalasy, actually, if Vitalasy whitelisted her--that would in fact be worse than messaging Zam, although hopefully Spoke would get more warning--is she moving around at all, even micromovements like looking around, or does she freeze entirely in place?

Does... it... —do not say that—

Tolar thought you didn't need someone to hold you to - he's not even claiming that stop hoping. Right. Right. There's... dogs in the corner, maybe if she flung herself between them he'd hesitate to risk hitting them. Or they'd eat her, which would hurt longer. No.

Nothing in her pockets, not a dagger nor a pair of dice. No one to turn to, no where to go, nothing to bargain for.

She wonders what happens, if he keeps - if he keeps killing her. Weaker and weaker and weaker... she wonders if she can starve, here. How many times can you die, before the worlds get tired of having you?

No good options. No way to survive, this. Is there anything else she wants?

...she wants the "leave you here for a while". She'd rather suffer alone. If she asks for that she'll never get it, so, so... what?

Maybe he'll... get bored. She puts her head in her hands turns away and—does not cry she cannot cry she can't it'd sound like she's laughing at him—whimpers like other people do when they cry.

(Xenia is not currently familiar with the kind of Message that has greater than 110ft range! Also she is both a) extremely scared and b) pretending to be extremely scared, so even when she's not moving around she's still, like, shaking.)

Hmmm. If she's shaking then she's not tabbed out typing, so that's good at least. She seems...more genuinely upset than is normal, even for a spawntrap. Maybe she needs a bit of carrot to go with the stick?

He drops her a cooked pork chop, even though she's probably not hungry right after respawning. "Hey. Xenia." He snaps his fingers a few times next to her, trying to get her attention. "I gave you the heart back, alright? I don't want you trapped here forever. Just tell me what you know and we can be done here. How's this, I'll even throw in some totems for your time."

Flinch back from finger-snapping! —not an attack, yet. ...why did he drop meat on the ground. Rock. It's not very dirty rock? She doesn't pick it up. ...yet, it appears that possibly you can in fact starve in Hell. 😔

She - rubs at her eyes to try to cover the absence of tears, takes another half-step back - whyyy is he switching to bribery - right, lying. He doesn't actually sound like he's lying but that's stupid. She doesn't even know what a totem is. It doesn't even sound like anything to guess. Why should she want any, is that too rude to ask. 'Why would you do that' no, she is supposed to already have an answer.

"I - we didn't have those in Cheliax," she says, and then immediately starts triple-guessing whether 'those' is clear.

Now we're getting somewhere. Not allowing totems is fair enough, Lifesteal didn't allow totems for all of season 3 and a decent chunk of season 4. No results for "cheliax smp", so it's--a private server, probably. Possibly a code name.

"Well, we have them here. Cheliax is--a server? Who owns it?"

Oh no, theological questions. She's not sure if 'server' means more like 'empire' or 'barony' or something more magical, but maybe she can get away with skipping that and go to the one has an unchanging correct answer. "Asmodeus."

Spoke doesn't recognize that as anyone's name or alt. He hovers frozen for a bit. Obvious spelling of 'Asmodeus' has a namemc; account exists since 2015. He doesn't recognize the skin. Asmodius? Has a couple of results that look more plausible but no smoking guns there either. Azmodeus? Azmodius? Both existed since 2017. He files it away to look at in more detail later, especially Asmodius. But he shouldn't do that for too long; he tabs back in and he's moving again.

"Does Asmodeus have any other names? Are any of the names I mentioned people you recognize from Cheliax?"

When he's frozen she - backs away slowly, another couple of steps, another look around this stone box that catches nothing more of interest than the... open sky...

When he tabs back in she's slightly further away from him.

...oh no, he's decided she's answering-his-questions now. She has not decided she's answering all his questions now. Um. Well, she did just get away with skipping one. And. Well. She has literally been whipped before for failing to answer one of those questions comprehensively, but the other one he doesn't know already. And he froze up when she mentioned Asmodeus so maybe she should keep doing that?? So. She... will. Yes.

"Uh - um - while of course no mortal knows every right and style owed to Asmodeus, he is also called the Lord of Hell, the Prince of Hell, the Ruler of Hell, Keeper of the Key of, of the Vault, Prince of Devils and Prince of Darkness, the First, the Archfiend, Lord of the Ninth as Lord of Nessus, um, Master of Witches and Lord of Lies, Supreme Master of the Nine Hells..." and if she runs out of titles before he runs out of patience, she can also switch to reciting them in Infernal...

She does not run out of titles before Spoke runs out of patience. "I get the idea. Someone's full of themselves." He laughs. (And those all sound like titles, not alt accounts--damn. This does make it more confusing who Asmodeus is, this isn't Parrot's style. Or Vitalasy's, honestly. So, probably not related, just some random middle schooler with a server and a taste for the edgy, but something to keep an eye out for.) He drops Xenia another pork chop, even though she's not picking up the first one. He'll have to pick them back up soon if he doesn't want them to despawn, but the gesture probably counts for something, right? "Ashswag. Vitalasy. Are either of them on Cheliax? Is that where you know them from?"

...are... devils allowed to mock Asmodeus... this is very unlike everything she has seen about the Church of Asmodeus and also all other 'hierarchies' ever. ^{*that she has observed in her hundred person village} Wait what if he is a fairy, what with the, the that and the lack of fire and the food—

(Xenia edges away from the pork chop not like it's an end crystal, but like it's a much weaker explosive than that.)

Ughhh she should have stuck to crying can't switch back right now that's too obvious - has he ever heard of a 'plate' no don't draw attention to not eating the food, that's worse than not answering his questions - why does he say 'on' Cheliax, like it's a plate -

(She's not - actually frozen but at this point she has backed away from him twice and is actively trying to not make facial expressions.)

- say something, start talking, he'll kill you - "I don't - I already said I - I've never h-heard of - of - " he is going to kill her he is going to kill her " - I can't - say anything else - "