"Gah!"

The moment I arrived, I was alarmed by a startled yelp coming from my right, closely followed by a chair falling over. When I glanced towards the source, I found Raven Boy, currently wearing a familiar tracksuit ensemble, staring at me in shock. He provided a great contrast to Hrul and Rabom in the background, who only acknowledged my presence with a lazy wave before they continued to stoically try to assemble the modular kitchen furniture I brought over in the morning. Without the instructions, of course, because real ram-men didn't need those.

Once they managed to put it together, preferably in this decade, the backup base would be, if not self-sufficient, at least marginally more livable than it used to be. It was also warmer, thanks to a pair of spare oil radiators, though it was still far from balmy.

"What the hell was that? You scared the shit out of me!" Raven Boy complained while he set the chair upright, and I couldn't stop snickering even if I tried. It's been so long since I've got a reaction like that out of someone; it just felt nostalgic.

Ignoring the glowering guy, I set the stone in my hand onto the nearby kitchen table and looked around, missing a certain someone.

"Where's Morgana?"

"With Pip. Restroom," Hrul responded without looking up, seemingly too busy closely inspecting two outwardly identical screws.

Just to be safe, I Far Glanced her way, and she really was up on the ground floor, discussing how to renovate the single toilet stall in the entire abandoned dockyard building. Since I planned to use this place as a kind of black site, mainly for storing all Bel-related incriminating evidence, getting the utilities into working order was important. I had no idea why she was the one doing the inspecting though.

In any case, since she didn't seem to be up to any malarkey, I returned to my body and turned to the table again, just in time to catch Raven Boy freeze mid-motion just as he was about to take a seat again and then jump back with another startled, "Gah! What's that?"

Following his line of sight, I leveled my gaze on the tiny tentacled eldritch abomination sitting on the table, where the blue stone used to be, and uttered a blasé, "It's a mini-shoggoth. Duh."

"What's something like that doing on the table!?"

I glanced at the one-eyed menace, and it waved its many stubby tentacles around like it was dancing to a tune only it could hear, so I faced Raven Boy and said, "Vibing, I suppose?"

He looked at me like I was out of my mind, but I didn't really care about his opinion, so after lightly scratching the strangely endearing creature of mild nightmares behind its nonexistent ear, I reached over to the bag on my belt and produced three interlinked, partially overlapping pieces of angular metal plates, each one roughly the size of my palm.

"Here, I fixed the damaged parts, so you can reassemble your gear for tomorrow's operation."

He still eyed the tentacled ball on the table cautiously, but inched closer to me and snatched the armour-part out of my hand. He looked at it, then at the bag on my belt, and told me, "I want my sabretache back too."

"And I want world peace," I responded with a one hundred percent genuine and totally friendly smile. "The only difference between the two of us is that what I want might actually happen one day."

"It's mine!"

"No, it used to be yours, before you lost it due to a series of terrible decisions that led to getting your ass handed to you."

"It only happened because I was weakened and let my guard down! If we fought again, I would not be defeated by you!"

His declaration was followed by a solid five seconds of silence, during which even the Fauns in the back paused and swiveled their ears around to listen closer. As for me, I exhaled a long, exasperated groan, then walked over to Raven Boy's side and placed a heavy palm on his shoulder. He flinched but met my eyes defiantly.

"Say, are you listening to yourself?" I asked, irritation all but dripping from my voice, and he finally blinked.

"W-What?"

"I asked, are. you. listening. to. yourself?" I repeated, this time a little more forcefully. "You are sounding like a bloody mob character in a cheap paperback story, with zero self-awareness."

"What the hell are you talking about? What's a mob character?"

"It's an extra with delusions of grandeur," I responded and lightly squeezed his shoulder. "Now that I think about it, that also describes you pretty well." Raven Boy continued to glare at me and tried to shake me off, but my hand was already clamped onto him, so I used the opportunity to turn him into a guinea pig by sticking one of my phantom limbs into his chest. In the meantime, to hold his attention, I lowered my voice by an octave and said, "Listen closely, you poor, miserable simpleton. Don't mistake my treatment of you for softness. You tried to kidnap my girlfriend, and as much of a pathetic failure the attempt turned out to be, it still landed you a position near the top of my shit-list, and the only reason why you still have your head attached to your shoulders is because of grander ramifications you can't even begin to fathom, let alone comprehend." I paused here, as I just came to a tricky part in my unsanctioned soul surgery, but it also worked great for making him sweat a bit before I continued with, "For your interest, the last person who pissed me off this much was an Abyssal Lord, and he spent two months in bed after the incident. Unlike him, you are potentially useful to me, so I recommend you try to leverage that fact as much as you can and be a good little boy, and if you are lucky, maybe I will kindly overlook your transgression this one last time. It's all up to you. Think about it."

After saying all that, I finally released my grip on his shoulder and used the same hand to pat it, eliciting a stifled hiss from the guy.

I, naturally, completely disregarded that and turned on my heel.

"Speaking of Crowey, I have some things to take care of in his neck of the woods. Where's my Bel costume?"

"Wardrobe. In corner," Hrul told me, with the exact same two screws in hand. I nodded in appreciation and headed over to the already assembled furniture in the back of the room, and quickly found it.

On the surface, it looked exactly the same as always, but in fact, this was my Bel Gear Ver. 3.0.4, with a brand new set of multi-layered wards, various utility enchantments to regulate my body temperature and vital functions, and a new and improved mask that, among other things, hid both my eye- and hair-color. I still used a wig with it though, because redundancy never hurt anyone.

Once I was geared up, I walked over to the table again, where Raven Boy was still frozen in place, and gestured for the tiny shoggoth.

"Come here, Pudding-kun. Let's practice."

"Pudding what?" the motionless Knight muttered, still in a daze, and apprehensively watched as the tentacled ball hopped over to my side and jumped onto the mask I held out. In a moment, its body shimmered, and then it seemingly disappeared, forming a thin lining on the inside of the mask.

Satisfied, I faced Raven Boy again and told him, "Also, for the record, don't even think about betraying me." I waited for a beat, then innocently added, "No, seriously. Don't. Also, make sure you don't accidentally reveal that I'm Bel to anyone either, or you're going to regret it."

"I know," he spat back, though his voice was considerably less confident than just a few minutes ago. "I've heard your threats the first time."

"Threat? Nah, it's just an advice," I said, still as innocent as thirteen popes (and one anti-pope) combined. "For example, let's say you tried to tell Rabom over there that 'Leonard Dunning is Bel of the Abyss'." He was only looking at me funny, so I said, "Come on, try. It's going to be funny."

Raven Boy was still apprehensive, but under my urging, he finally muttered, "Leonard Dunning is B—"

Without warning, his face blanched, and his left hand clawed at his chest while the other was grasping for support, ultimately finding it in the back rest of the nearby chair.

After a few gasps, he groaned, "My chest..?" only to regain some of his color and growl, "What's going on?"

"What? You tried to betray me by announcing my secret, so what did you expect?" I shot back with a not-at-all-self-satisfied smirk. "Also, for the record, you should refrain from writing it down, recording and then replaying it, or playing the relevant words in sequence during a game of Scrabble. I recommend you don't even think about it, really."

"But why are my Oaths reacting? How could you do something like that?"

"Why are you so surprised?" I asked back with a not-at-all smug grin. "After all, I. Am. Your king."

With that, I placed the Bel mask on my face, and a moment later, I reappeared in a side-room adjacent to Crowey's bed chamber.

...

"Was that too cringey?" I whispered under my breath, but since I was all alone, I naturally received no answer. After some further contemplation, I concluded that it was definitely a little cringey, but in my defence, when else was I ever going to use a line like that? Let's just blame it on the Bel suit influencing me, and leave it at that.

But speaking of my getup, I lightly touched the mask, then shook my head, first lightly, then with all my might. Thanks to the patented Shoggoth Lining (trademark pending), it remained firmly attached to my face like it was glued there, and it was only a little bit itchy. Honestly, the tentacled horror collective kept proving to be more and more versatile and useful by the day, and I had a hard time deciding how I felt about it.

However, this was neither the right time nor place to consider, so I set my wig, straightened the lapels of my coat, and proceeded to Phase through the large building one room at a time.

The Inannas, against all common sense, somehow had an estate that was bigger than the Dracis mansion, with an honest-to-goodness stone wall surrounding the whole compound. I had already done a couple of scouting expeditions around the place, so I knew that beyond the walls, there was a small yet relatively modern village. All in all, with all the 'commoner' Abyssals and the Fauns patrolling the streets, this one castle-town alone probably had about two-, potentially as high as two-and-a-half thousand inhabitants.

That might not have sounded like a lot, but this was just a single settlement centered on a single family that had more Abyssals than I have seen Magi and Draconians combined. As far as the number game was concerned, the Abyss certainly had an advantage over the rest of the world. It wasn't a wonder they were considered a huge threat in the past. Luckily for everyone, and especially me, they couldn't move out into the wider world all willy-nilly without using a Mana Well.

Just like the one in front of me.

In the heart of the Inanna castle stood a single, fortified room that easily matched the defenses of Lord Grandpa's office. Needless to say, such things meant nothing to me. The circular walls around me were covered in a web of intricate, geometric patterns glowing with a faint blue glow, barely visible compared to the fiercely shining object in the middle.

Floating mid-air over a round marble pedestal, about two meters off the ground, was a very slowly rotating object that kind of looked like a large Rubik's cube with a black frame and only blue squares. Along the circumference of the platform, there were dozens of small, iridescent crystals emanating a thin, transparent barrier, both containing the item within and protecting it from the outside.

Looking closely, I could see a myriad of thin threads, like blue spider-silk, streaming upwards and forming a semi-transparent spiral entering into a metallic receptacle set into the ceiling. It was an oddly solemn sight that kind of reminded me of the time I first looked at the mountain in the middle of the island from the top of the Ferris wheel. There was something simple yet primal about it, and I had to admit it was pretty impressive.

I didn't come here to just stare at it though, so I collected my wits and stepped closer to the fabled Mana Well of the Inannas while cracking my knuckles. Normally this kind of situation was calling for a subtle approach, with all kinds of esoteric phantom-limb-based finagling, but this wasn't a normal situation.

Simply put, I was about to enact some preventative measures tonight. The next day was promising to be hectic enough already, and since I was already aware Crowey and his posse were planning to start operating on the outside again, I decided it was prudent to make sure they wouldn't start causing any mischief just yet. Since they needed to use their Mana Well to leave the Abyss, the simplest way to sabotage their plans was by making sure they couldn't use it. Taking the Mana Well itself was, unfortunately, out of the question, as it would spark an instant civil war, and I wasn't a fan of volatile situations like that. Thankfully, I had an alternative.

So, let's say we had this immensely important relic that's both the source of the ruling family's power and their only way of interacting with the world outside of this copy of Critias. What would happen if some dastardly ne'er-do-well sneaked into its closely guarded vault? For a start, the whole household would lose their collective minds over it, and there would be a big investigation that would result in the item being unusable for at least a couple of days. I knew, because that's exactly what happened the last time I had sneaked in here and wrote a jaunty little limerick about the size of Crowey's nose onto the floor using three whole bottles of ketchup.

Now, here's the million Jen question: what would happen if someone actually triggered aaalll the defense mechanisms around the relic at once? I'd reckon there would be quite an uproar and it would definitely take the Mana Well out of commission for at least a week, time enough to resolve all currently ongoing plots with breathing room to spare.

And the quickest way to do that was to simply reach out and—

"Wait, stop!"

I froze in place, hand still extended when the panicked voice of a young woman hit my ears. My body immediately tensed up, but my sixth sense didn't warn me of any danger, so as I eased up, I slowly turned my head towards the owner of the voice.

"If you touch that… it will activate the alarms," the short young woman in a gothic dress, with a very familiar pair of thick-rimmed glasses and an even more unique black-and-pink hairdo, warned me with a mousey voice, still keeping her distance. At first, I hesitated about how to respond to her, but as I let my outstretched hand down, she sputtered, "A-Are you Lord Bel?"

My body froze again, but my mind immediately kicked into high gear.

"'Lord'," I repeated after her with an amused voice and moved my hand over to touch my chin before I let out a dramatic sigh. "Such a… nostalgic word." I could hear her audibly gulp, which was pretty funny, all things considered, so I relaxed my posture and asked, "How come I didn't hear you come in, Lady Tajana?"

"I-I fell asleep over there, and…" she answered reflexively, only to pause and stare at me blankly for a second. "Do we… know each other?"

"Do we?" I asked back, then pretended to think hard before I shook my head. "No, I'm afraid we haven't been introduced yet. Oh, linear time, you fickle mistress! How I loathe thee and your rigid ways. If only I didn't need you to know when my eggs are boiled just right…" I exclaimed while melodramatically covering my face with one hand, then loudly cleared my throat and did a well-practiced scraping bow. "You may call me Bel of the Abyss. It's a pleasure to once more finally meet you for the first time yet again."

"Y-Yes," she sputtered again and she hastily punched her skirt and did a clumsy curtsy, "I'm Tajana Sukkal of House Inanna. I-It's my pleasure to make acquaintance, Lord Bel."

While we only exchanged simple greetings, I had already dedicated all my grey matter to analyzing everything about her, from her word choices and her tone to her body language, and soon my lips parted in a pleasantly surprised smile.

Without further ado, I Phased closer to her, starling her in the process. She tried to step back, but by then I already reached out and grabbed her hand, then gently pulled her back towards me. Once I was sure I already had her marked, I let out a low chuckle, further confusing her.

"Lady Tajana. I came here today intending to retrieve what is rightfully mine, yet it seems unbeknownst to even myself, I might have come to meet you instead."

"W-W-W-W…?"

"Ah, but the time is not right!" I exclaimed and let go of her hand before casually walking back towards the Mana Well in the middle of the chamber, only to dramatically turn around and open my arms wide. "Not yet, but soon!"

"What… do you mean?"

"By the next time we meet, you will know," I told her with an extra playful voice, and raised my open arms even wider. "Today, I shall only request one thing from you. Tell your false liege that I shall benevolently allow him to hold onto my property a little longer. However, the day will come when I shall reclaim what is mine, and on that day, he will have to make the most important choice in his life." With that, I forcefully clapped my hands, and just as I did that, my two phantom limbs struck the pedestal, and the enchantments on it, at the same time.

The lights in the room flickered, and a moment later a wave of raw mana washed over me, buffeting my coat flaps and giving me a prickly sensation all over my skin. The alarms sounded at once, right out of a cold war era air-raid PSA, and it didn't take long for the doors leading into the chamber to open up, revealing a gaggle of astonished Faun guards on the other side.

I waited for another beat, just to let the situation sink in, then I added, "Tell him to choose well," before I promptly Phased out of the Abyss altogether.

What can I say? I was many things, but someone who would refuse an opportunity for grand mischief when it was presented on a silver platter definitely wasn't one of them.