Truly Evil?

Ician shrugged. "I can't force you to do anything, June. But this is the end of the line, I'm quite sure. Whatever's in there is probably what we're looking for." With a grim shake of his head, he proceeded up the stairs one step at a time, pausing every second to shake away the myriad of foul stenches that assaulted him ever stronger.

"There's something in there, I feel it.  It's... wrong.  Dark magic."  June took a deep breath, her voice muffled by the mask.  "I'm coming along.  Just in case."  She could deal with how uncomfortable the magic made her, if it was being directed somewhere else or was latent.  She just really, really hoped there were no magical traps.  Or attacks.  In fact, a lack of active magic would be very nice. Steeling herself against the horrible sensation of dark magic, she started up the stairs after Ician.

Dusk simply drew his sword and said, "I'm not backing out now. It's time to kick his flank." He then followed Ician and June up the stairs. He pushed through the stench well enough, but he was hardly enjoying it.

Up the stairs the three went, being led by the book that had yet to trigger a trap. Eventually the stairs ended and the three ponies would find themselves in a fairly dark room, lit only by small candles that were magically burning a sickly green and giving off the stench that had filled the room. The minimal amount of light given off by these flickering candles barely illuminated the walls that were covered in various dark magic ritual circles and a few tall bookshelves that were scattered around the room. There was also a table where the remnants of components were left after what had been needed was extracted from them and an open book.

The candles weren't the only light in the space though. On the floor were the still bright glowing silver lines of the final ritual circle. The shine of magic looking almost pure and brilliant in the dark atmosphere, but only if what they illuminated was even just a little less monstrous. What had originally been curled up in the center of the circle when the ponies entered unfurled. As the creature sat up it's 4 large bat like wings spread as much as they could within the space of the circle making the creature at least appear considerably larger than the ponies. Three spiked and scaled tails uncurled from around it and slithered out of sight behind the impressive visage. As the creature raised it's pony skull shaped head, 3 pairs of brightly red glowing eyes settled on it's visitors before the skull became wreathed in flame.

The creature leaned forward to reveal a body coated in a mix of scales and fur that was surprisingly well orchestrated, and a full jaw of razor sharp pointed teeth pulled back in an at first glance cruel smiling grin. The creatures jaw parted as it drew in a breath before saying, "yo, wassup?" It added to this terrorizing question with what may have been a simple wave, but from such a demonic visage, could only really be something terrible that it was doing with it's claws. It them seemed to slouch or lean back... in what must have been a truly terrifying manner that ponies probably just couldn't conceive as it awaited an answer.

Uh... what, was all Dusk thought in his head when he heard the thing speak. He figured it had to be Sin Ester, but he didn't exactly seem hostile like most criminals would be.

"Um, I take it you are Sin Ester?" Dusk asked. He charged up some magic in his horn just in case things went downhill from there.

"Who? Oh you mean that unicorn who done gone an summoned me about a week ago? Yeah, he gone man," the demon said in his seemingly lax voice that simply must have hid dark and evil undertones at a pitch ponies couldn't hear. After all, a beast of such evil... evilness, can only be terrible and well, evil, in everything it does.

"Nah, my name's Char, short for Charcoal. Ya know, fire demon an all that. That unicorn you talking about, Sin Ester, he went and summoned me. Then he tried to bind me and tell me all this crazy stuff he wanted me to do and I'm like 'dude, I'm a fire demon. I burn stuff, I can't go spreading misfortune and mayhem', but the dude just wouldn't take the hint ya know. Seriously, I was like read my lips... well, skull, teeth, mouth area. 'I am fire demon, I make fire, not bad luck.' Then he got all mad and threw this big fit, saying all this crazy stuff an calling me useless. Man I tell you if I wasn't trapped in this circle, he'd know what he was messing with, ya know? He wouldn't last ten seconds if I got a hold of him," the demon explained in his foul tongue of evil demonics that had to really spell destruction so great that it was a blight upon the ears. The kind of blight that one simply didn't notice unless they really paid close attention to it and had to somewhat believe it was happening.

Ician was taken aback by the scene at first, but as Dusk asked his question he quickly regained his composure. "So," he said an as conversational a manner as he could, holding his telekinetically gripped sword behind him, away from the demon, "do you know where he is now? We could help you go and give him what he's got coming."

Knowing my luck, he's going to show up right behind me now. He kept his sword levelled at the space behind him.

June was silent throughout this whole exchange. The magic in the room still felt wrong, and at this point she would rather let the unicorns speak. She didn't quite trust herself around this apparently amicable but clearly horrible, horrible demon.

Yes, this horrible, terrible, only able to be more frightening if it's actions actually were scary or it did them in a scary manner that the ponies could understand, demon... was making what had been taught and told as the truth really hard to believe.

"Nah man, I've been stuck in this room for like a week or something. You know you're bored when you actually look to counting time just to pass it, gods mercy I see why *some unintelligible noise that ponies would never be able to replicate or want to cause it would nearly make their ears bleed* has us all doing this stuff for torture now. Still though I've got no clue where that unicorn's at, but if you guys could just erase a little bit of that circle, that'd be really cool ya know," the demon said with a innocent smile. "Just a little bit of it, just enough to break the seal."

Ician raised a very, very suspicious eyebrow. "Uh huh. You... do realise that you introduced yourself as a demon. And then subsequently asked us to erase part of the seal holding you back." He stared at him. "If I were you I'd have played my cards a little better. Now give me a good reason why you won't just leap out and kill us the moment we set you free."

"An deal with that mountain of paperwork, hells no. Shades, it's a 20 page form just to inflict a wound, no thank you. And dude, you break the seal, I can go home. I mean I'm already probably going to be in trouble because I didn't get the summon request papers filled out before that nut job brought me here, and I don't even know if there's a form for an extended stay but with *the same unintelligible noise that nearly makes the ears bleed despite it not being that loud or exceedingly high or low* has anything to say about it, there is," the demon explained from where he stood.

"*Sigh*, ya know I do kinda miss the old days before *unintelligible noise that could probably be assumed it was a name given how it was used, but it's still pretty unrepeatable* took over. I mean yeah the souls at least seem to be a little more miserable, but it's... it's not the same. You tell me, is being forced to sit and listen to the entire 500 page instructional manual on taxes really more terrible than a good old pitchfork in the chest or a molten lead drip?"

"Heck I remember this one pony I used to watch," the demon continued without waiting for an answer. "He had to bear the weight of his sins, as this really big freaking boulder he was chained to, and drag it up to the top of a hill. And I mean sometimes he'd get pretty close, or I'd taunt and urge him on and when he fell we'd have a good laugh as the boulder crushed him. Ah, good times, but now... last I saw, he was forced to sit on the boulder and listen to the one thousand page history of a single grain of sand day in and day out. Sure he's more miserable, but, ugh it's just not like the old days," the demon reminisced.

"But yeah, I mean I got to get back to work otherwise I'm going to have to listen to the employee manual again, and that thing doesn't even have an end yet. It's still being written, but last I saw it was in the millions of pages. So, think you could you know, break the circle?" he asked again while throwing the at least seemingly innocent smile. It was a little hard to tell with his head being a skull and such.

"Oh tell me about it!" Ician complained. "Even the least thing you want to do, there's always a whole mountain of paperwork behind it. I mean, come on, sometimes things just have to be done quickly. There's no time for hundred-page proposals, reports, and..." He trailed off. "I mean, yes, well. Forgive me if I don't immediately trust you." He turned to the others. "What do you think? And..." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Do we have the weapons to kill him, if it comes to that?"

"Um, I didn't exactly come prepared to fight a demon. So I think we'll be relying on him telling the truth if we do," Dusk said. He was having a difficult time reading the demon, so he wasn't sure whether or not he was telling the truth.

Ninety percent of June's mind was simply overwhelmed by the demon's presence. She wanted it dead. But the logical seven percent and the three percent speech filter took charge, telling the brain it was being irrational. June's magical sensitivity was rejecting the demon's dark magic was all. An instinctive reaction. Realizing that she had been quiet a while, her speech filter decided on a nice, neutral "He probably does hate paperwork. I do too."

"Yeah, the mare's got it right, and I'm already like a week behind," the demon said as he shifted around some into what might have been a more comfortable position... of evil. "Sure if I got to stay here I probably wouldn't mind the vacation, but I've only got about a week's worth of off days and there's still a mountain of paperwork to get those even opened up assuming this doesn't steal them away."

"I hate paperwork too. I'm willing to bet that half of Equestria hates paperwork." Ician murmured in a very, very quiet voice. "That doesn't make you not evil. Personally, I'm in favour of finding Sin Ester or any clues he may have left behind first, then coming back for the demon. We already know that Sin Ester was around here recently, and if we question him we might find out more about this guy. Right now, we don't have any evidence or witness testimonies to condemn or exonerate him. We'll come back for him later."

"I think I have to agree with you Ician. As 'pitiable' this demon's situation is, we have absolutely no reason to trust him. The sooner we start looking, the sooner we'll fins Sin Ester and get some answers," Dusk said.

"Ah c'mon, just erase a bit of the circle. The seal holding me here will break, and I'll be sent back to Tartarus," the demon pleaded while slumping, or at leas the equivalent the entity of evil could preform.

"Yeah, yeah, we'll see." Ician waved a hoof dismissively. "I'm not going to set anything loose without making sure it's not going to cause havoc." He turned back to June, arching an eyebrow as he continued in a low voice, "So, what do you think?"

She wasn't sure. She didn't quite trust the demon, but at the same time she couldn't be sure just how much of that was dark magic intolerance. Better safe than sorry, she decided, and gave a slow shake of her head. She wanted the demon to stay right where it was.

"Alright then." Ician said. He turned back to the demon. "Sorry about that, but no. We're not letting you out of there yet, we still need to confirm a few things. Besides, you already have a week of backlog, another ten minutes isn't going to make a difference." With that, he began searching the room much like he had done for all the other rooms prior, though staying as far away from the demon as he could manage.

Dusk also began to search the room, while occasionally checking on the demon. Even though the demon said it was stuck in the circle, the circle could be incomplete for all he knew, and the demon was just waiting for the perfect time to strike.

That particular thought made him chuckle a bit. Now he was beginning to act paranoid.

June stayed behind, still watching the demon.  She knew that she'd have to overpower her instincts to flee from the demon.  So she focused on something else she was feeling: curiosity.  She'd never really had a chance to meet a demon.  So she took a deep breath and fished her notebook from her backpack, holding a pencil at the ready.  "Is-" Her voice caught, and she swallowed. "Is it alright if I ask you a few things, while we're all here?"

The brooding demon shifted a little at the unexpected inquiry, the eye sockets arching in question despite them seemingly being made of bone. "Uhh, sure?" Char replied with a hesitant shrug. "But there are certain things I can't answer because of the confidentiality agreement."

The search of the room wouldn't be that difficult, even with the limited amount of light. There were 3 tall bookshelves filled with more tomes, but most appeared to be written in symbols rather than actual letters, characters, or words. The table's components, while grizzly in nature, were just barely there after the majority of them had been used in the demon summoning ritual. Other than that, there wasn't really that much in the circular room.

June gave a nod. "Of course." She took a slow breath. Just another research project, she told herself. You've done interviews before. "What's your name, where do you work, who do you for work, and what can't you answer?"