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"Would you like to know what you found, Doug?"

Doug was once again seated in darkness with nothing visible but a man sitting across from him. "Crap! Did I fall asleep? I was supposed to keep watch. It's a really bad neighborhood Bryce brought us to -- well, I guess not much worse than where I'm used to living, but if we could break into this building to steal a room, then anybody could break in. Someone right now could be about to slit my throat and steal my stuff... except I don't have anything now except for that weird cube... which I kinda wish someone would take because it creeps me out. I mean, it just really creeps me out for some reason, and then we went near the wastelands which also creep me out and then to some apartment in the slums of some city I don't know with creepy people around -- I'm just very creeped out right now." Doug looked around as if to try and see out of his dream. "I really hope no one is about to slit my throat."

"Don't worry; you're fine for now," the Devil said, and Doug did stop worrying a bit, because the Devil always seemed to know what he was talking about and was easy to trust. "It was busy day and you need sleep, anyway. And before you get rid of that cube, I think you should try to understand what it is."

"Is it complicated? I'm guessing it's complicated. I was thinking if this is something important to the Trans and they're like already powerful enough to blow up mountains with their minds, then it has to be like super-duper powerful. Then again, I was thinking how I don't understand anything about those guys and thus something interesting to them might not mean much to me."

"I'd say it's somewhere in between, Doug. The demons seek it not out of power but out of fear."

"They're scared of it too?"

"For different reasons. It's not something in there that fills you with dread; it's what it lacks."

Doug thought about that. "It's filled with emptiness?"

"Something like that. Now, one of the damned -- the Hallowed as you call them -- the humans who have submitted their souls to the demons in exchange for immortality and power -- they would sense nothing were they to hold it. For that awful feeling you felt when you touched it is what they feel all the time."

Doug frowned. "That's horrible."

The Devil laughed. "Your sympathy is misplaced; they made their choices."

"Well, at least I know the more powerful people are these days; the crankier they seem." This was some interesting information, but he remembered how his friends told him to be more skeptical. "So... um... Mr. Devil..."

"You can call me 'Stan' for simplicity."

"Okay. Stan... do you have any ID that proves you're the Devil?"

"I'm not going to be able to prove it to you, Doug. You'll just have to see whether the things I say seem true or not and decide using that whether to trust me." The Devil chuckled slightly. "It will be matter of faith in the end."

"Okay... I guess that's reasonable."

"Back to point, the cube you found was made to prevent the contents from ever falling into the hands of a human. The mechanism to open it is located a spatial dimension you can't even perceive."

"And they don't want someone like me to have what's in there?"

"No. I doubt anyone would know what to do with its contents, but nonetheless the demons fear a human possessing it in case it might empower you against them."

"So what is in it?"

"A key."

Doug grimaced. He was hoping for something more interesting, like a jewel that would give him superpowers to fight evil. "What's it unlock?"

"Wrong question, Doug. You should ask what it locks."

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Hellbender Take Two
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