The game room had been remodeled to look like an ordinary twenty-first-century Earth basement. It came complete with a scuffed concrete floor and windows that would never see the sky. There was a pool table. There was foosball. There was air hockey. There were things under tarps, and one was as tall as a cabinet.

Lord Nightfall’s imp-maid-companions had been down here before, of course, but only tonight had they been granted an extended period of time to clean it and poke at it. With feather dusters in hand, they looked at the games as if they were works of posthypermodern art.

Felicity paused in the middle of dusting each individual billiard ball. She gave Dodd a concerned look. “You look...happy,” she said. “What happened?”

“Oh, my boyfriend just died,” said Dodd.

“Oh,” said the wood imp.

And they kept dusting for a while.

“Hey, Dodd,” Felicity continued as she dusted the tarp that covered the cabinet-sized object, “uh, condolences and everything, for your dead boyfriend and stuff.”

“It’s nothing. Actually, it’s better than nothing.”

“You’re hiding something.”

“No, I’m hedging my bets. Waiting to see if the change I just saw in Lord Nightfall was lasting or genuine or, you know, good.”

At that moment, Lord Nightfall’s feet thundered down the stairs. “Lasting change,” yes, but “good?” Debatable.

They entered wearing a generous spandex leotard, leg warmers, and a neon-bright headband. As always, keep in mind that this story takes place during a technology-poor dark age of Gaian history, as well as in a time and place where spandex was a rare and bizarre novelty even among demons.

When Felicity and Dodd saw their lord in this outfit, their spirits sank to a new low. Everything in this game room was a strange hybrid of demon expense and human desires. Neither of them knew enough about Gaia to confirm that the game room had shit-all to do with the popular culture of the time (assuming Gaia even had pop culture). It sure didn’t look like Red Ochre. But it did not look like a demon lord’s riches and excess, or else there’d be some skulls on the floor.

“Alright, let’s get the blood pumping,” said Lord Nightfall, jogging in place and doing some very high knees.

“My lord, if I may be so bold as to make a suggestion,” said Felicity, “might we garnish our night with some hunting of human souls?”

Her master stopped. “Why would I wanna do that?”

Felicity took a deep breath. “Well, seeing as your night has gotten off to such an active and athletic start, you might as well cap it off strong.”

“And,” said Dodd, raising a finger, “the more souls you harvest and absorb, the stronger you’ll become.” (She was assuming, of course, that Lord Nightfall really was a demon, and therefore could absorb souls that way.)

“I guess I see the appeal, but eh,” they dismissed. “I didn’t come down here to cut off anybody’s heads. Unless you want that yourself, my vassal?”

Felicity frowned and shut up.

Lord Nightfall began ambitious and shameless stretches that grieved and embarrassed their imps. They said panting, “I’m feeling good tonight. Don’t either of you—haah—ruin it. Play along.”

“What’ll it be tonight, my lord?” said Dodd.

“Well,” they said, “I’m sure you’ve been wondering what’s under—haah—that tarp.”

“Not really,” mumbled Felicity.

“It’s a game that you won’t find anywhere else on the planet. Custom-built.” They stepped over to the cabinet-sized mystery and laid a proud arm across it. “Unless you’ve ever heard of demon arcades?”

The imps looked at each other. Nope, couldn’t say they’d heard of such a thing. Their lord had probably made it up.

“I can’t even remember the last time I played this shit,” they said lovingly. “Let alone with other people! Ah, the days when I got the high scores on this thing... Okay, enough of that.”

They stepped back, flung off the tarp, and revealed...a custom-made recreation arcade cabinet of Dance Dance Revolution, including a steel-plated dance mat (which had also been covered by the tarp earlier)!

Any twenty-first-century gaming human looking at the machine would know something was off. Of course it was off. It wasn’t made with Earth materials or Earth guides, but had to be reproduced from scratch on Gaia and for Gaia. The cabinet was hardly more than an indented box. There was no plastic, only wood and metal. Real paint covered, and was flaking off of, the front and sides. The arrows on the dance mat were in an especially sorry state.

“I hope you’re ready to dance,” said Lord Nightfall.

“How long?” said Dodd.

“All night.”

“My lord, those arrows...our legs are too short,” said Felicity.

“So?”

She accepted her fate.