It had happened three weeks and two days ago.<br/><br/>A squad of devils from the 7th layer had shown up on Merhault's doorstep. They rapped on the front door, and that had gotten his attention.<br/><br/>He looked up from his bench when he heard the dull knocking on the hatch to his drifting workshop. This was Modron piss.<br/><br/>He'd find and kill the Wizard who put up the wards on his workshop in the Astral Plane. He had been<em>found</em>. Dark metal teeth ground like millstones in his head at the thought of who might be at his door. He strapped on his armour, reached for a bundle of scrolls and shoved a pair of jet black crystal shards into the bracers of his spiked black armour.<br/><br/>He had left his workshop via an<em>alternate</em>method, and sat on the roof of his 'porch' for five hours before he was sure to let them in. The only thing that he knew was that they weren't an assassination squad. No killing thoughts, just evil ones, in their heads.<br/><br/>He glanced down at the demon axe he had been grinding down into a single shard of blood-stained bronze, and the glowing white angel-skin that he was planning on using to wrap the handle with. So much for making this weapon.<br/><br/>At least he had weeks to gather the supplies and equipment that he needed for this "meeting". His father would probably give him some scraps from his impossible tower, and he had been right. He was glad about the stocks that he had; enough to deal with whatever a Lord of the Nine might want. Whatever that might be, and if not, able to escape to somewhere safe.<br/><br/>Hopefully, what he would be asked to do would be nothing that would actually<em>change</em>the current set of Devil Lords. That would cause no end of trouble for himself in the long run, and that's what he had learned to care about. The Long Run.<br/><br/>He entered the meeting place with the silence of stone, his body was almost not there, shrouded in blurs and seemingly walking between sight, and not-sight.<br/><br/>When he saw the others, he looked them over like a butcher eying a gutted hog. Looking for weakpoints, trying to determine their role in all of this. He assumed they'd do the same. Hopefully they were doing no more than that.<br/><br/>It was a Wednesday, and if his reckoning was right, it also meant that it had been about a month since he'd have had to kill anything, or deal in the killing of things. One could always hope to not have to kill, but one had to be prepared. He briefly wondered what the Fiend Lord would be like in a fight. Easier than a god, but probably harder than most dragons. He looked over at the dragon at that though. It looked young. He didn't know if he should weep or laugh at how many dragons he'd met; and killed, or fought alongside.<br/><br/>He looked at the image of the Devil Lord with eyes that gave off small blue flames. When he opened his mouth he spoke with a voice like boulders grinding the petitioners too slow or weak to escape their fates on the lower planes. He glowered the whole time. Everything was still too unsaid, far too dangerous for his liking. One didn't live as long as he did without a massive amount of caution.<br/><br/>"<span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: veranda;">What do you want, fiend? What is the pay? Finally, will you tell me what the benefit for <em>you </em>would be in saving a world? We're no friends, and you of all creatures should know what will happen if you are placed in my hands.</span>"<br/><br/>And all this while juggling a strange assortment of items. A belt purse, a silver key, a gold ring, a pair of dice, a copper coin, and a set of lock picks.<br/><br/>After a few moments, he seemed to get bored, dropping each item onto a pouch on his belt, one at a time, as he caught them. The last thing left in his hands was the set of lock picks. The pouch however seemed like it was carrying a lot of other things besides what had been placed into it.<br/><br/>When he finished talking to the Hell Lord, he squatted on his haunches and began to pick his teeth with a lock pick like a lighting bolt, a piece of metal that jagged back and forth.<br/><br/>He looked at the other people with half lidded eyes and pulled a small clear orb that seemed to crackle with white light on the inside, he paid more attention to it than to anything else.