Into the Inferno

The inside of the Inferno was actually surprisingly… boring. Not only was it pretty empty aside from some people sitting at a bar, but in contrast to the heavily suggestive outside, the interior design was pretty plain. A dark vinyl floor and some cheap red lights illuminated a very small club with a dancefloor and some tables around it. Off to one side there was a moderately stacked bar with a DJ table next to it. A barkeeper was there, but no DJ yet.

“This feels… underwhelming,” noted John as he looked around. ’Did the guy owning this run out of money before focusing on the inside?’

“No, this is just a face for the actual club. C’mon, follow me,” Brun said as she pushed John towards the barkeeper. The man was a 30-something, black man with a cleanly shaven face, dark hair and green eyes. He was currently polishing a glass, the typical move barkeepers did in movies when they had nothing to do. He was big, built like the typical worker-type, not really ripped but definitely muscular, and his eyes showed that he was ready to use that strength.

As they approached, he looked at Brun with a grin. “Well, well, well, look who it is. You here for my rat problem?” he asked with a grin.

The Valkyrie visibly shuddered at that. “I’ll deal with that tomorrow. I’m here for a good time with my boyfriend.”

The barkeep raised an eyebrow as he looked at John. “This guy? He looks like a stiff breeze could knock him over. Stepped down a bit after Alex?”

John tried to do his best to give the bigger and probably stronger guy his best menacing look that he could muster while also using Observe.

Paul Lakertin

Lv. 12 Liquimancer
Employee of Inferno
RP: +15 (You’re not looking that wimpy, he’s just pulling your leg.)
Preferences: Hetero, Consensual Gangbang
Threat Level: N/A
Ability Scores: N/A

So, there was some obfuscation going on here, but at least he now knew that the guy wasn’t actually hostile towards him. John loosened up as he learned that; however, Brun growled loudly to his statement, “You know exactly what happened with Alex, so shut it! Now, entry for two, please.”

Paul nodded at that, opening a drawer and pulling out to copper bracelets. “Entry for two, that’ll be five grand per day each. Any discounts I should know of?” As John saw the copper bracelets, he remembered the silvery one in his inventory and pulled it out.

“Does this give us any discount?” He dangled the bracelet in front of the barkeep’s face who looked at it closely. Next to him, Brun sharply inhaled. After a second of looking at the bracelet, Paul looked at him with a questioning look. “VIP package, first two days are free for you and a plus one. How the hell did you get your hands on that without knowing what it does?”

John just shrugged, “A friend of mine gave it to me, didn’t actually tell me what it could do, only that it would help me here. Any problems?”

The keep shook his head while chuckling, “No, no problems. I can see that it’s genuine and that you didn’t acquire it illegally, so works just as well for me. Now, take the copper bracelets and put both on. Rory is downstairs and will know what to do; he’ll tell you what you can do with the VIP bracelet.” He then pointed towards a door at the back of the club that was completely integrated into the wallpaper surrounding it.

Brun was now squealing loudly while putting on her bracelet, “Holy shit! I’ve never had VIP treatment before! You really know how to spoil a girl.” The last part was whispered into John’s ear while she sneaked a hand into his pocket and softly tugged on his dick.

It took all of John’s concentration and willpower to put on the bracelets and not do anything to the Valkyrie right now. His plan was to fuck her so hard at some point tonight…

Moving along to the door, it swung open as soon as they got near it and closed itself once they had stepped through. They were now in a dark staircase that was illuminated by dark red neon strips. There was still nothing… special about this, not as special as the outside at least.

At the bottom of the steps was a small room that contained nothing but a guy in a chair and a table in front of him. As he heard the two of them coming down the stairs, he looked up from a book he was reading with an apathetic and bored expression. “Bracelets,” he drawled, clearly used to and tired of asking the same question over and over again. Both John and Brun showed their bracelets and the guy quickly nodded his head. “Wow, VIP, look at you.You guys ever had VIP before?” Both of them shook their heads. The man spoke in a thick Scottish accent, so it was hard to follow along entirely.

“It’s pretty easy, actually. You get a private room that connects to any of the Sins and you get room service. Anything you get you’re going to pay immediately. Other than that, you can do whatever you want in that room, no questions asked. Once you leave, anything you leave in the room will vanish, so don’t forget anything in there, it won’t exist anymore. Last, you can contact the Administrators directly if anything isn’t to your liking. Other than that, same rules as always, no killing outside of Wrath, no public sex outside of Lust, yadda yadda, usual things like that. You got that?”

Sins? Wrath? Lust? The hell did he talk about? But John had understood what the VIP thing entitled, so he nodded; Brun did the same.

“Good, then off you pop,” the man said as he snapped his fingers. On the wall behind him, runes lit up in a circle, creating a hole. A couple of seconds later, something appeared inside the circle. In an instant, the sounds of a lot of people talking flooded out of the hole and some kind of plaza appeared on the other side of the wall.

Before John stepped through the portal, he cast a quick Observe on the guy in front of him.

Rory MacFergus

Lv. 16 Fateweaver
Employee of Fateweavers
RP: 0 (You’re just another client)
Preferences: Outdoors
Threat Level: N/A
Ability Scores: N/A

'This guy's a Fateweaver as well?' John wondered what Fateweavers were doing here working for some random club… Were the Fateweavers really that wide spread? He had expected them to be somewhat spread, but this?

He didn't have more time to think about it though as Brun pulled him through the portal to the other side.

He didn’t quite expect how the other end of the portal would look like.

They landed on top of a circular platform elevated above the ground with multiple floors of similar make beneath them. Looking around, John saw that they were now standing in front of a circular hole with the words ‘Springfield, USA, Earth’ above it. The ones next to it read ‘Tokyo, Japan, Earth’ and ‘Cairo, Egypt, Earth’, which made his eyes go as big as plates. Could he be able to travel to these countries, just like that?

Brun noticed his expression and could predict what he was thinking. “No, you can’t get to Tokyo just like that. The bracelets are keyed to one portal and one portal only.”

’Aw, that sucks. Would've loved to see how the Japanese Abyss looks like.'

Speaking of bracelets, John’s reacted to them entering the Inferno:

Copper Bracelet activated! You have entered the Inferno! Your magic will be suppressed until you either leave the Inferno or enter a sanctioned fight in Wrath! Breaking this rule will be prosecuted with swift justice! We hope you’re having a great time in the Inferno!

Adamantine Bracelet activated! Your magic is now once again accessible! However, you are still not permitted to break the rules. Breaking the rules will lead to a permanent ban. We hope to keep you as a valued customer!

Okay, that was a perk of the bracelet Rory seemingly forgot to mention… But then again, most people would likely not see these messages, so they wouldn’t even know whether their powers are inhibited or not, and it probably was a good idea not to proclaim it too loudly with drunk super powered people. Also, good thing his magic worked again, otherwise he would probably have a problem with paying for anything with his inventory being part of his magic… or that’s at least what he thought.

Taking the time to now look beyond the spire of portals they were standing on, John saw that the entire structure was seemingly built out of colored glass reliefs, depicting various scenes and objects. They were clustered by some logic John hadn’t quite understood yet, but for example, above a foliage green arc, a person lounging around under a tree, a giant beach, and multiple people sitting around a fountain were depicted. These reliefs were made with **** detail and some amazing artistry. Taking a quick lap around the platform they were on, John counted seven of these arcs, leading to some other parts of this… place. Was this really a club?

“So, welcome to the Inferno. I take it you like your first glance?” asked Brun, joining John by his side and winding her arms around his torso, softly cuddling into his back.

“This is… like nothing I’ve seen before… but I’m not sure what to make of most of this yet. All of this is a bit… excessive for a simple club.”

“Oh, you’ll see why it’s this excessive. C’mon, let’s get down so that I can show you the place.” Brun practically dragged him along with her.

They got down from the portal platform with an elevator stuffed to the brim with people that flooded out once they reached the ground floor. This place was buzzing with activity! And thanks to the global patronage here, the party probably really never stopped...

Auditory Atmosphere Supplement Activated. Now Playing: Daft Punk – End of Line

John was busy looking around at all the people walking by around him, completely entranced in the spectrum of things he saw. There were many variations of elves, people of all colors and regions, all of them dressed with some kind of intent and pretty much everyone well-groomed and very clean. The only exception were some people that were walking to and from the red arc to one of John’s sides. The people there were bloody, bruised, clothes torn, with a plethora of weapons and walking about or resting on one of the many benches around.

“So, this is the central Plaza. From here you can walk to and from every Sin to the others. Nothing really special happens around here, except maybe the occasional ‘street performer’ who isn’t wealthy enough to rent a stage at Envy.” Brun was happily smiling as she explained all of this to John who was still enraptured by all the people around him.

As he processed what she just said, he just had to ask a question, “Okay, can we slow this down a step? Like, can you first explain to me what ‘Sin’ means here? Like, one of the deadly sins?”

While he asked the question, the pieces already started to click in his head. Seven arcs in different colors, scenes and objects that likely had some meaning, seven deadly sins… “Okay, strike that, I think I get it kinda… So, every one of these arcs leads to a different deadly sin? Like Lust, Wrath, and Greed? Is this actually a club?”

“Technically it is. The outside room is a club, you can go clubbing here and you have everything that a normal club would have. But you’d be right if you said it’s more than a club. For some people it’s home, for others it’s a perfect den of debauchery to fulfill all your life goals. For others it's a hive of scum and villainy.”

Letting the Star Wars joke slide, that sounded a lot bigger than what he had been expecting…

“Each sin has a big area that is entirely devoted to that sin. Like, Lust is basically a giant brothel with any and all kinds of kinks you can think of.”

That logic was simple enough. Lust being one big brothel sounded pretty straight-forward.

“Wrath is just a giant collection of fighting pits, training dummies and personal trainers. You can fight against other people or against beasts that they manage to get. Some nasty fuckers there, both the beasts and the people.”

That sounded like she knew a lot about what went on there. Judging from her character that was probably one of the places she hung out the most.

“Greed is anything you can think of in terms of gambling. Hell, you can even bet on the fights in Wrath, no betting on yourself though, people don’t like that. Or against yourself, that’s even worse.”

Yep, she definitely knew her stuff about Wrath…

“Envy, well, Envy is a giant bazaar and auction house where you can get pretty much everything. And I do mean everything.”

John felt a bit queasy from the way she emphasized ‘everything’.

“Sloth is one big spa area. There’s nothing there that won’t chill you out. ****, saunas, massages. It’s really relaxing but, like, it’s kinda boring… with the whole ‘no sex’ clause and all. ”

Typical Brun…

“Pride is a collection of clubs and venues with anything that people want to flaunt the stuff they have. There’s, like, a floor for any kind of music you can think of. It’s pretty great! And you’d be surprised how many bands and artists are Abyssal!”

John really wasn’t surprised about that last one given what he had talked about with Mariana just some hours ago.

“And Gluttony?” asked John, already having his suspicion about what he could find there.

“Pretty much the biggest food court and bar that you’ll ever see. Which will be our first stop. ‘Cause I’m starving and I want to booze up before we check out that VIP lounge.”

The teasing smile on her face immediately revealed to John what would happen inside that room. And he couldn’t wait.