The Last Day
This story was made using the solo RPG Caveat Emptor, by Exeunt Press.
“Well, today wasn’t so bad.”
Ohog didn’t answer. The raven hopped from one foot to the other in discomfort. He wasn’t one for placation — wisdom and guidance were supposed to be solutions in themselves — but something in Ohog’s dark and plaintive mood was drawing a new and painful emotion out of the bird. Whatever Ohog was feeling, he wanted them to stop.
“Really, if you tell Mephistopheles what’s going on, you might get a promotion!” The Raven clacked its beak in optimistic support. “Think about it. How many years have they been sending devils here, ordering them to keep a low profile and sell subtly?”
“Over a decade…”
“Right…” the raven cocked its head. He wasn’t entirely sure Ohog had intended to answer his question, but… “Right. Think of all that wasted effort! Now you can drop your human disguise and sell openly! Why, you could even make the curses selling-points! More people might show up if they knew what curses they might get. This could be the start of a whole new market!”
Ohog didn’t answer. Instead, they reached into the smoke of the nearby candle and pulled out their ledger. Sinking to the ground, they leaned their back against the counter and began to flip through the pages. The raven watched as Ohog paused here and there, reading the names and curses of the many clients the shop had serviced over the years.
When they reached the last pages, they stopped and stared. There had been three more customers that day. Overall, a good haul. They were back on track to meet their quota; if tomorrow was as good a day as today, they might make it. Mephistopheles would be…well, at least satisfied, and Ohog wouldn’t be dismantled and returned to nothingness as punishment for failure. Things were looking up!
Ohog ran a claw over the names and purchases. Hermann Camerarius wanted forbidden knowledge, and so he had purchased an urn of ashes that would show him visions of the past and future. False visions, of course, completely fictional, but visions nonetheless.
Ohog had finally gotten rid of the golden harp, selling it to Brunhilde Gasnier with the promise that it would help her be a famous artist. It would play soothing music, even if she never took a lesson in her life. Granted, the music would be so soothing that it would put people to sleep, and she would become a famous flop.
Albrecht Bluome wanted to explore distant lands, so Ohog sold him the book of Alchemy. There was barely even a curse on it; all the vital ingredients for every recipe were long since extinct. There were no more dragons to harvest teeth or blood from, and the Mandrake roots that killed with their scream had all died out. He would be searching forever in dangerous and uncomfortable locals for things that no longer existed…
But he’d be exploring, wouldn’t he? Had Ohog actually given him what he really wanted? Perhaps he’d become so obsessed with finding the exotic ingredients that he’d forego the foreign cuisine and music in favor of crouching in swamps and running from tigers. Maybe he’d be really miserable, with his joy just a few feet away, if only he’d stop chasing his illusions…
Ohog looked up at the shop door.
It was an ancient door, well seasoned with candle- and lamp-smoke. It had its own share of scars and chips, a crack or two, but it was a solid and faithful door. It separated the inside from the outside, and let everyone know the instant someone opened it to cross from one side to the other. There was nothing more reliable in Ohog’s life than that door.
“You alright?”
With a flick of the wrist, Ohog tossed the ledger over their head and into the smoke of the candle. “What’s the point? I mean really, if they’re going to curse themselves, is any of this really necessary?”
“Well…” The raven paused, caught off-guard by the blunt question, “I suppose ’necessary’ is a loaded term. Do you mean necessary for you? Because —”
“I know I don’t have a choice,” Ohog interrupted, holding their head in their claws, “I mean…I mean they don’t seem to mind the curses. They’ve just accepted that…that they need to buy things.”
“Doesn’t that make it easier?” The raven cocked its head on the other side. “For you, I mean?”
“I suppose,” Ohog heaved a sigh, “but…I don’t know, it feels so…so sterile. Like, I always thought I’d be providing something, you know? When I was a little imp, I dreamed I’d be doing something significant that would help damn the world. When I got my horns, I realized it’s more of a machine, right? Okay, so I can live with that, at least I’d be a part of this great infernal machine tormenting and damning mortal souls…but…” Ohog leaned back, bonking their head repeatedly against the counter in frustration, “I didn’t think the mortals would be a part of the machine, too! And they realize it!”
The raven coughed. “Yeah, I’ll admit, that surprised me too.”
Ohog gave an infernal chuckle. Heaving another sigh, they stood up and pulled their quill from the candle. Pulling a note-card from under the counter, they scrawled a quick note and stuck it to the raven’s cage. “Make sure they get this, yeah?”
“Who?” The raven tried to poke its head through the cage, straining to read the note. “Get what? What does it say?”
“I’m going to be leaving now,” Ohog said, pulling a cloak and hood from nowhere. “I won’t be back.”
“Is that wise?”
Ohog looked at the door. “Wisdom doesn’t mean anything when you don’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice,” the raven protested. “It might be a crummy choice, but there’s always a choice.”
“Ha!” Ohog laughed black smoke from their lips. “You’re right…I guess I mean…wisdom doesn’t matter if the choice is easy enough.”
The raven thought about this for a moment; it was certainly true-er than the idea that there was no choice; sometimes the alternative was absurd. Whether or not to eat when you were hungry, for example, or choosing to accept disintegration instead of doing what Mephistopheles told you to do. He had just come up with his rebuttal when he realized Ohog had already left.
“Hmph,” the raven resumed craning his neck to try and read the note. It took some uncomfortable twisting, but he finally managed to read the hasty scrawl. “Well!” he huffed. “See if I ever try and give you advice again,” he muttered to himself as he settled back on his perch.
The note said; “Not all that wise.”
Ohog didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, and that was a kind of freedom they had never experienced before. They had always known what tomorrow held; more flames, more fawning, more freezing in terror when Mephistopheles appeared behind them in a cloud of sulfur and brimstone. It had never occurred to Ohog that they could just stop.
Of course, they knew what the day after tomorrow would bring. Mephistopheles would show up at the shop, expecting to find an obsequious devil either pleading for mercy or offering a quota-filling ledger. Instead, he would find the shop closed, empty of devil, and in his demonic fury he’d show up in a pillar of green flame and visit his most painful displeasure on Ohog’s person. Or perhaps he’d just snap his fingers and Ohog would vanish forever, never to be seen again. It didn’t matter, because knowing Ohog would die tomorrow, in the only way that devils could die, was freedom too.
They no longer had to look over their shoulder, wondering if today would be the day. They would never have to beg or plead, never suffer the indignities of low demonic status, never do things no other being in the universe would do just to avoid the wrath of their district manager.
There was something about making the choice that didn’t make sense that made everything else make more sense. If they were really a devil, they didn’t have to answer to anyone. Not God, not Michael, not Mephistopheles, not even themself. They could do anything.
For one singular day, they were well and truly free.
Ohog wondered if this was how the Morningstar felt when they fell from Heaven. They wondered if this was how Humans felt when they became angels.