As useful as they are for dealing with demons, full-on dungeons are a rarity around here. The church has one, and we have one at the high school. There’s supposedly one more hidden inside one of our hunter bases, but we’ve never been able to find it.

Generally, we use exorcisms to deal with demons. It doesn’t kill them, but it at least removes them from our plane of existence. However, Greater Demons (demons that can maintain their form without a vessel) and certain Mid-Ranked Demons (demons that need a vessel to maintain their form) can’t be exorcised. So, we have to cleanse them.

Cleansing is really just a fancy word for torture. We’ve found that putting demons under extreme amounts of stress makes them destabilize. And once they’ve destabilized enough, they just kind of… stop existing. We’re like 60% sure it kills them, but it’s quite the process.

Sure, we have Mallory’s fancy, kills-everything blade, but (as she puts it) sinful demons don’t deserve the mercy of a quick death.

I find a “sinful demon” to be kind of redundant, but hey. It’s her weapon.

The church keeps their dungeon in a separate, but nearby building. The path to this building is lined with seals, making sure that loose demons can never really escape. We ask the church to leave us be, then step into the dungeon.

Inside the dimly lit, concrete room is a variety of modern torture devices. On the center wall is a variety of knives and stakes. On the left and right are tables. The left table has tools used to electrocute and burn. The right table and the adjacent wall is a bit more normal, housing ropes and various tools.

And in the center is a metal table, with all kinds of knobs and cranks to contort it every which way. Oh, and on the table is our demon for today. A very humanoid being with two horns sprouting from the sides of its head. It’s even dressed like what it thinks humans like to wear.

Mallory skips past the demon to the wall of knives, her hands clasped behind her back as she stares up at it. I can hear soft giggling coming from her, but she just as quickly quiets down.

“Uh… Lory?” I call out.

Mallory jumps in surprise, then whips around to face me. She furiously rubs at her eye, being so rough that it forces her eye to roll back. She blinks a few times and her eye rights itself.

I continue, “Maybe you should sit this one out?”

“What? And you let you have all the f—” She clenches her fists, then unclenches them. “Credit?”

I cross my arms and raise my eyebrow. I hate to do cleansings alone, but she doesn’t seem to be in a good state to do one with me. I suppose we could just put it off to another day, but the church might not let it go.

“Besides, we haven’t even given him a trial yet!” She prances back over to the demon strapped to the table, who seemed more than content just watching us converse.

“A trial, huh?” I sigh, taking my position on the other side of the table. “Alright, demon, prepare to get trialed.”

“Yeah!”

The demon slowly turns its head to face me. It gives me a once-over, then turns back to face Mallory.

“I hadn’t realized the church would stoop so low as to employ children.” It says, it’s voice deep and smooth.

“You must be new to the Overworld! No human can resist free labor.” She grins back. “I’m Lory, and that’s J.L. You are…?”

“My name is none of your concern.”

“Alright, um… Buddy. Since this is a church—well, part of a church—let’s start with a confession of your sins! We just might be able to forgive them.”

“That’s an ability reserved for the gods, is it not?”

“Anyone can act as a god if the real ones aren’t paying attention.” She shrugs. “So, about those sins…?”

Technique 7: Attempt to trap the monster in a redemption program.