“I don’t have all day,” Nyx said, their voice resounding throughout the hallowed throne room.

They did, actually, have all day. They’d literally spent the last several months of their life lazing around, crafting the occasional culinary delight, wandering, and getting just enough semblance of work done to deflect guilt. The citizens of Red Ochre had all day too. It wasn’t like they spent their lives doing anything valuable but stare emptily and sulk. (That was Nyx’s conclusion, anyway.)

The procession of Red Ochrans and their offerings was almost done. The front door had shut a half hour ago. Nyx had received many offerings and set them beside their throne, to be sent back to the kitchen and the greenhouse (yes, the greenhouse, because how else were they going to grow tomato-like Gaian fruits, huh?). There were crude furnishings, natural resources, a couple of mementos that must have seemed real expensive to the Red Ochrans (such as a big copper pot—prestigious!!!). Sad, wilty produce and sad, bony goats. All idling around Nyx’s throne. All fundamentally useless to Nyx, nothing but tokens of the villagers’ surrender.

It wasn’t much, materially speaking. It didn’t give them any power, either. But it was a start, the start of real power, and that meant the world to Nyx.

One left. An old, quivering man stepped up to the throne of Lord Nyx. His twisting cane clacked along as he walked. Deep-brown liver spots and greenish-black scabs covered his bald head.

“Who are you?”

His voice rattled as much as his body. “Lord your majesty, gracious lord,” he said in a dusty voice, “I have nothing to offer you but my service and my mind.”

“That’s new,” said Nyx, though they were beyond unimpressed. “I thought this place was supposed to be weak. What kind of service are you offering?”

“I am a warlock, your majesty. The people shun me, they think I cast hexes, they think I tell the wyrms to destroy their works and do my bidding...”

Nyx snapped, “Enough of what they think you do.”

“Right,” he nodded. “I craft enchantments and healing. I aid the pixies that hide in the forest. I’m a peaceful warlock. As a medic and a man of nature, I could be of great service to my lord.”

Then his cane clattered to the floor. The old man staggered, fell, and barely kept his skull from crashing on the hard tile. He stared at the floor and heaved, his eyes almost popping out of his skull.

Nyx had smacked the cane out from under him, without even standing up.

“Impudence again,” they said. “...You know, it’s really not my style to criticize other people for their impudence, but it’s what all the demon lords are doing, so.”

He could barely hear Nyx over the sound and rage of his own heavy breath.

“Felicity! Dodd!” they yelped. “Take this man away. What’s your name, man?”

He moved his mouth, but no words came.

Felicity, though, came prancing out from behind the grand throne. Giddy all over, she hopped to the old man’s side and seized his arm with a death grip. He gasped with the pain.

“Get up, get up!” said the wood imp.

Another imp trotted down the stairs, clearly interrupted in the middle of cleaning, nervous and still holding her feather duster. “R-right away, my lord,” she mumbled.

Together the imps hoisted the old warlock by his arms, pushed the castle’s front doors open, and swung him out with a jolly one-two-three. He fell to the dirt. Someone tossed the cane out after him. Then the doors and their iron knockers were shut, and the castle, which gave off faint hellsmoke even during the day, walled him out.

Now the imps were free to cheer.

“Master, master! I’m sorry for my madness last night!” grovelled Felicity. “I meant well!”

“It all turned out well, I should say,” Dodd put in.

“Whatever, yeah, it’s water under the bridge,” said Nyx. They reminded themself not to admit how much of a trial and a wake-up call Felicity’s messages had been. It would not do for a demon lord to admit the superiority of their servants in any respect. They flopped out of position and sat up straight in their throne. “Just get over here, you two.”

They complied. Nyx took a moment to scrutinize them.

“Gimme that, Dodd.”

“This duster? A-as you wish.”

She wasn’t just holding that feather duster, though. When Nyx snatched the tool out of her hand, they also got ahold of the Light card from Dobie’s twelvetype deck. The one that cried Impostor. They brought it close to their face, furrowed their brow, and stared.

“I-I am sorry I ever took that card, my lord. I should never have told your fortune that way...”

“Well, what do you want from me? A beating?”

Dodd blinked. “It’s what most would do,” she admitted.

“I’ll just demonstrate my might another way,” said Nyx. Taking the card in their fingers, they ripped it in two. Then in four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two—and tossed them over their shoulder, to the carpet.

“Don’t just stand there idolizing me,” they told the imps. “You see all this shit standing around my throne? Do you have eyes?”

“We do have eyes, my lord,” they said together.

“Alright? So? Get it moving!”

It beat pushing the eternal torture wheel.