06/12/2026: Orestes the Horned Devil

The dungeon beneath Witherbloom Tower smells of damp stone and, now, brimstone. Orestes the horned devil has left his post — the room where he keeps this timeline's Hexmates — and is standing in the corridor. He was drawn there by the sound of Alistir murmuring to a shambling mound. This is his second student interloper of the evening, and somewhere behind a door that is almost certainly not thick enough, two nearly identical sets of Hexmates are listening to him fume.

The alternates have just been told by Diro that there are other versions of themselves on the other side of that door. Alternate Hester asks the obvious question from the back of the group: "Is any of this real, or have we consumed a foreign substance?"

"I don't know about the rest of you," says alternate KFC, with the confidence of someone whose GPA is not a rumor, "but I would never take any foreign substances. My body is a temple."

There is a brief pause, as there always is when this version of KFC says anything so very pompous.

"So, I think we can rule that out for at least me," she finishes.

⚔️

On the other side of the cellar, Alistir is kneeling beside the shambling mound, murmuring perhaps a bit too loudly. Orestes has stomped out into the corridor demanding to know what another student is doing in this part of Witherbloom Tower. "You are the second intruder tonight," he complains, loudly, "and what are you doing with my shambling mound? Who exactly are you?"

Alistir invents on the fly. "I am called Andrew, and I am just preparing to take him for a walk."

Orestes's brows elevate as he considers the fey crouching beside what is for all intents and purposes, a vicious monster. "I want your name — a real one — and an explanation."

Alistir straightens and looks the devil in the eye. "We care for all creatures big and small."

It is, as the original Debbie will later observe from around the corner, extremely 'Lorax' behavior. Their version of Beckaylee would approve.

Orestes is not appeased. He fumes. He seethes. Alistir holds their ground. The mound seems, at minimum, incurious about the standoff. Alistir can feel it purr beneath their hands.

Debbie, hearing the exchange from around the corner, decides what she needs most right now is her broom of flying. She finds her alternate self, looks at her, and takes it back.

"You're me. Give me our broom."

Alternate Debbie does not argue.

⚔️

Diro — who Orestes believes is a student named John Witherbloom — gets tapped for a diplomatic errand. He has been dismissed from this corridor once already tonight, but perhaps he forgot something: a pen, a root, something appropriately Witherbloom-ish? He agrees with Debbie, and begins heading back toward the corridor door, whe another idea emerges that does not involve face-to-face contact with the devil.

⚔️

Reyna, meanwhile, runs through what she knows about cornugons. Massive horns, very sharp. Physically tough. Hard to hit. Fast in the air. Slow on the ground.

"Fighting him at all is not a good idea," she murmurs.

Nobody disagrees. They will attempt subterfuge.

The plan: Reyna casts Thunderclap somewhere across the cellar, in a side hall. The noise will carry. Orestes will investigate. They will slip past him.

Reyna's crack of thunder rolls down the stone corridor. Orestes turns his massive horned head and begins moving north on his split hooves.

Very slowly.

"It's taking forever!" Diro complains. "Why isn't he flying?" .

"Does anyone want to start a game of poker while we wait?" Debbie hisses, eyes rolling.

"Lazy," judges Reyna.

⚔️

Meanwhile, the original KFC peers at the alternate KFC, trying to determine if she is wearing a Headband of Intellect. She cannot tell. The alternate's head is hidden beneath a little messenger boy hat, and the ambiguity is, for now, a mercy. If the question stays unanswered, it does not become a philosophical crisis for the original KFC. The Headband would become a reckoning of what might have been easier by cheating the system, rather than what nature had granted one KFC by denied another. Being smart is something that the original KFC has been working so hard to achieve.

The alternate KFC walks over and studies the original's face for a long moment. She raises the muscle where an eyebrow would be if she had one.

She moves on. She does not say anything.

The original KFC does not say anything either.

The alternate shakes herself, takes stock of Orestes — just coming back into view — notes the exits, and gets into position.

⚔️

As the alternate Titania comes around the corner, Squid becomes visible and runs at speed toward a pair of knees that do not belong to whom they think.

This Titania is quiet. Sober. She has a wife and a child named Ayan, and a very different life than the one Squid has been living.

"Ayan, small child, why are you here?" she says.

"Titania!" says Squid. "You're back! I haven't seen you in so long. It's just been Alistir. I don't like Alistir. And why are you calling me that weird name? Who is Ayan?"

"I also don't like Alistir, Ayan," says alternate Titania, warmly. Then she thinks to ask: "How did you get down here? Did your mother tell you I was missing?"

"My mom is dead," Squid says, their lower lip trembling. "You told me my mom is dead."

Alternate Titania blinks. "I am quite sure I have not said that. We do not always get along, but I would never — at least I am reasonably sure I have never —" She stops. She looks closely at the child.

"I'm Squid, Titania. Don't you know me? Why are you being so strange?"

Squid flees, finding the original Reyna and pressing against her side.

"There's something wrong with Titania," Squid sniffles.

"Is there not always?" Reyna smiles.

"More than usual. She's calling me by a weird name."

"What's she calling you?"

"Ayan."

Alternate Titania arrives behind them, cooing, "Ayan — darling, did you change your name?"

The original Reyna, quickly and quietly, explains the situation to the alternate. Alternate Titania listens, puzzled but willing, and offers, helpfully, that Squid is welcome to stay with her wife until they find their real parent. Reyna, still in the doorway, says — not quietly enough — that she did not know Titania had a wife.

It is becoming clear that Squid and this Titania are not going to reach an understanding tonight. Squid becomes invisible. The conversation ends where it started.

⚔️

Just then, the alternate Hester comes out of the side room and sees the original Hester.

The scream is high. Piercing. It bounces off every stone surface in the Witherbloom cellar.

Orestes, investigating a suspicious thunderclap at the far end of the hall, stops.

He turns around.

Two KFCs. Two Hesters. Two Reynas. He rubs his eyes.

"Get back to your prisons. All of you."

"I'm sorry," says the original Reyna. "Do I have a room reserved or something?"

Orestes snarls and hurls a mote of flame at her. It catches her down one leg. He points his large pronged iron fork in a way that communicates his feelings clearly, and conjures a second mote of flame, which turns slow circles in his palm. He would prefer not to explain to Murgaxor why he killed at least one of the Reynas. The fork, however, is non-negotiable.

Twelve people. Two Reynas, each with a Wand of Wonder. A reasonable collection of high-level spells between them.

"We can take him," the original Debbie calls to the group.

⚔️

She uncorks her Bottle of Lightning and points it at Orestes, who is, it should be noted, holding what amounts to a lightning rod. The bottle is small. The damage is modest. But it is enough to uncurl one of Orestes's horns at a slightly wrong angle.

The devil is not happy.

The original KFC sprints toward him and throws Sacred Flame. Orestes is immune to fire.

Sacred Flame is radiant. This is almost the right call. He steps aside with a dexterity that is genuinely offensive for a creature moving at twenty feet per round, and the flame catches nothing.

"You're dead, chicken," he tells her.

"That's not my name," says the original KFC.

Reyna ends this circular arguement by casting Storm Sphere. The corridor fills with a churning column of wind and rain and lightning, twenty feet across, and Orestes is inside it. His wings are drenched by the torrent. Rain soaks him through. Lightning finds him repeatedly, and does not apologize. He is not pleased about any of it.

The original Reyna sends a bolt directly into the lightning rod Orestes is still holding.

It connects, and the pitchfork blooms blue in the dim cellar.

Simultaneously, the alternate Debbie works through her spell list with the focus of someone who has not actually needed to cast anything in some time. She lands on Shatter. Her recall is good, and her thunder damage joins the storm, finding Orestes in the center of it. One of his horns is now at a noticeably wrong angle.

The electrified fork drops from his fried hand and begins circling inside the cyclone at tremendous and lethal speed.

⚔️

To the south, Alistir and the shambling mound watch this with what appears to be professional interest.

Diro's Stand moves into the storm sphere and begins hitting things, absorbing punishment from the sphere in return. It has not yet landed a fist on Orestes, but the attempt is logged.

⚔️

Alternate Reyna also has a Wand of Wonder. She points it at Orestes and lets fate decide.

What fate decides is Shape Change.

Alternate Reyna, less familiar in practice with her own spell list than with its theoretical contents, transforms. She drops her equipment — including her Wand of Wonder, which is now on the floor, unattended, available to anyone — and becomes an artillerist devil, the only thing that comes to mind when confronted with a horned one.

There are now two devils in the corridor.

Orestes is having a very bad evening.

⚔️

Alistir, watching from across the fight, recognizes the Storm Sphere by its silhouette. Reyna's work. They cast Moonbeam into the cloud and hold concentration. The beam stays, burning steadily.

Titania casts their own Moonbeam centered on Orestes, its light catching the wet, windblown devil full on. He bellows. Then Titania wild shapes into a dire wolf and leaps into the storm to address the matter more directly. The dire wolf form is not subtle. It is, at least, thorough.

Orestes takes is burned the Moonbeam. He is battered by the Storm Sphere. He is bitten by the wolf. A second Wand of Wonder lies on the stone floor, spinning slowly, waiting for someone to pick it up and give it a wave.

At the far end of the hall, the shambling mound remains where Alistir left it — patient, unhurried, apparently unconcerned with the chaos ahead. If it has anything resembling a foot, it might be tapping.

It is waiting to be taken for its walk.