Epilogue III – The Creator

“Contimate check!” 435 waved his claw at the underling assigned to his supervision.

“Ah… Uhm… Let’s see…” said the nearby newbie forge imp.

“Dial three.” 435 tried not to sigh. As one of the original five hundred, he was one of the oldest and most capable forge imps The Creator had. As such, he was responsible for overseeing the passive distillation of the forge aspected corruption his master cycled downwards into the Infernal Industrializer.

“Yes! Uhm… Forge reads… One hundred two percent!” said the newbie.

That was good. 435 nodded. “Okay. You can send next.”

The newbie pulled on a giant lever bigger than he was tall. Ahead, an enormous bucket of simmering magma was released from the line. The metal wheels screeched along the rails as it began descending down into substation four. There, it would begin the laborious process of being inserted into the industrializer itself.

“Uh.. 435.” The stupid newbie had gotten out of his operator chair, and was leaning over the rail looking down.

“Sit back down!” Leaping up from his own seat, 435 yanked the imp back just in time to avoid a nearby railcart from taking off his head. “What tell you! Stay seated!”

The other imp squealed, falling on his butt. “Sorry 435…”

“Remember. Need watch dial. We monitor, they distill.”

“I know. I wanted see. Better understand process.” The newbie had that infuriating look on his face again. It drove 435 crazy.

“No! That problem! You can’t handle this! How handle that too!” 435 shook his head violently. He led the other forge imp back to his seat, before pulling the safety strap back around his waist.

He’d just made it back to his own chair when his subordinate spoke up again. “Uh… What do if orange?”

“What you mean?”

“What do if orange?” asked the newbie again.

“Are you stupid? We all orange. Forge imps.” 435 was really starting to lose his patience.

“No… It…” The imp sucked in a breath. “It orange!”

“Yes I—” 435 was about to berate the fool when his own readout changed. He smacked the glass dial lenses with his claw, but it didn’t change. “That odd. Corruption anomaly… above threshold.”

435 leapt up from his station, pointing an accusatory claw at the other imp. “What did you do?!”

“Nothing! It go orange!”

435 stepped closer, looking at the stupid underling’s dashboard. What he saw made his spine go cold. “Oh shit. You fucked up. You really fuck up. Bad. This bad.”

The other forge imp was really starting to get nervous. His little pupils nearly popped out of his head. “What mean? What do?”

“Mean you fuck up!” 435 pointed at the number three meter, which had dropped below a hundred points at orange. “Mean reduction in forge… You fuck up!”

“I didn’t do!”

“You got up! You never get up!”

“You did too!”

435 wasn’t listening now. He was digging under his tunic. “I’m blowing the whistle!”

“What?!” The other imp was trying to unfasten the safety strap. “No, no, no. No whistle. No.”

“Yes. I’m blowing it!”

“No! 435! No!”

Finally getting the shiny blue whistle awarded to all senior forge imps, 435 pressed the warm metal to his lips.

“Don’t do it! Don’t!”

Taking a deep breath, 435 sucked in, and then blew. Hard. The shrieking call that went out nearly made the other imp faint in pure terror.

Just to make sure it was heard, he took in another breath and blew it again.

Above, the sounds of metal claws banging on the catwalks sounded. Newborn managers were on the way. Smiling smugly, 435 tucked the whistle back in. He was just about to rehearse his planned speech when he heard a ticking. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the number three dial. It wasn’t just dropping. It was plummeting.

Before he could so much as blink, it went from ninety-eight to zero.

“Oh shit.”

Half a second later, a violet light exploded beneath the metal grates and catwalks below. Staring down in horror, 435 witnessed as a gargantuan circle of demonic scripture sprung into being around the Infernal Industrializer. The enormous contraption of metal, magma, and envious forgeful creation shivered.

Then, with a pop, it simply sunk into nothing. Rails, channels, and chutes that previously led to it were left bisected midair.

The bucket of lava that the idiot sent down flew straight off its rails, landing with an explosion of fire below. Steam and smoke erupted upwards, filling the air with the scents of singed metal.

Gaping, 435 had no clue what to do. He just stared down in complete and utter horror at what had once been the Infernal Industrializer. A working of forge that had been dozens of cycles in the making.

Gone.

The door to the operating room exploded open, three newborns striding inwards. “What the hell happened?!” At their head, the lead newborn was practically seething. He had two massive iron hammers, one in each claw—clearly the trio had come mid work at the sound of the whistle.

435 pointed his claw at the idiot forge imp. “He got up!”

“NO! Not like that!” shrieked the newbie.

Yet, before 435 could explain further, a presence descended.

Everyone—the imps, the newborns, even the nearby demons—they all went entirely still. A collective breath was held in.

Each tried their best to remain conscious as a pure envious rage blanketed the cavern. As if forge itself had turned against their very existence.

“Where. Is. My. INFERNAL INDUSTRIALIZER?!”

***

The Creator didn’t know what happened.

For the first time in his entire cycle of existence, a draft pact had been offered to him. It was a pesky thing. One that he denied without much thought. A small curiosity, but no more worth his time than anything else nowadays.

So along he went, just allowing the infernal foundries to work, and for that work to collect into essence.

That was, of course, until he felt the plane itself. Moments later, his sprawling body of metal and fire felt as if a part of him had been ripped away. Likely because that was precisely what appeared to be the case.

His newest and most impressive creation—decades of work and the entire consumption of his current existence—was gone. Just gone.

A rage like no fire he’d ever felt blazed to life. The two enormous eyes of ember turned into infernos as the great grates of his maw opened.

Smeltery doors closed, workshop levers locked, and gears all throughout his body turned violently.

Answers. He needed answers. And now.

“Where. Is. My. INFERNAL INDUSTRIALIZER?!”

The very caverns of the infernal foundries shook with such force that several small tunnels caved in, killing dozens of imps working them.

A fact that meant nothing to The Creator. All that mattered was finding where his creation had gone.

No one—not a demon, not a newborn, and not an imp—said a word. That just made him even madder.

At his display, the entire underbelly that was his domain had gone silent. Not even a pickaxe was dropped.

He was about to release the fires of forge and start burning out questions when that silence was finally broken.

By a shrieking whistle.