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makutamewtwo · 7 months

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Introduction to Jaala, the strange nature of his birth, his youth, his emerging adulthood, and his first visit to Hell!

Plate 1: Jaala at his current age of 20-something in a certain pose

Aw Heck, um I mean Hell, It's Jaala Leeds! This tricky imp isn't a particularly powerful demon and is about as low on the hierarchy as you can get. He commands no legions and spends most of his time slacking off and pulling low-stake practical jokes, the kind that even the one being pranked can laugh at or that involve some unconvincing plastic junk. Jaala does have one thing that makes him unique among devils: he was born of a human via the unity of two humans, without the involvement of a succubus or incubus. The reason Jaala was born like this seems to have been due to a prophecy. It was said of the ancestors of the Leeds family, who in the late 1700s early 1800s lived in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, that, due to Father Leeds' occult interests, Mother Leeds' 13th child would be a Devil. Now this seemingly did not happen then, but the prophecy must have been in the back of the gods' heads (perhaps Apollo took notice), and therefore it was made so for the next descendent of the Leeds brood who had 13 children the 13th would be born a devil.

Now the modern Ms. Leeds, mother of Jaala, lived in Drollerieville a bustling city mostly ruled by, in the mind of its politicians, conventionality. Ms. Leeds was active in the local LGBTQ+ community and acted as a surrogate mother for the children of many couples, 12 to be exact. You would think going through the pain of childbirth 12 times would be enough for Ms. Leeds but she had not yet had a child with her husband Mr. Leeds, so they unified, and soon enough Ms. Leeds was with child for the 13th time. When the embryo was visible via ultrasound, what most would consider an abnormality was noticeable, the fetus resembled a hybrid between a human and a goat. Any "normal" couple would have been shaken by this, but strangely, despite no awareness of the prophecy, the Leeds couple was as overjoyed and filled with love as any couple seeing their child for the first time.

A few months of gestation later, a fuzzy crimson child was born, a little prematurely, who immediately cried out a wail that sounded more like a bleating baby goat than a human infant. The child drew surprisingly little attention for his strange Satyr-like appearance but had to stay in the hospital for some weeks after his birth, but luckily, he was without any major ailments and was able to go home. Jaala as an infant could be described as clever and loud. His wailing could be heard across the whole neighborhood, and he was able to walk within weeks. It took him awhile to say his first word, which was the standard "Mama" for the curious, and there was a worry that he could only make goat vocalizations; however, there was a sigh of relief when he spoke. As a baby, Jaala did not have horns, nor a point at the end of his tail, his ears were disproportionately large, and he was very fuzzy. Jaala grew fast, but only as fast as a human child, in fact, despite his goat-like exterior, the doctors said that he was, for all intents and purposes, a human, except for his head which was like a combination of a human's and a goat's, and his cloven hooves. When his teeth grew in, however, they were very sharp like a carnivore's, Jaala was already observed to be omnivorous, so this was a little odd and very hard on Ms. Leeds, so she switched to bottle feeding. Eventually Jaala went from a baby, to a toddler, to a kid!

Jaala's days in Elementary School were difficult, he made some friends but was bullied a lot for his animal-like face. He also had trouble with the teachers as he didn't cotton to their authority that much and also found that he didn't enjoy the curriculum that much either. He liked to read, but by himself and hated math with a burning fiery passion. He also swiftly ended up with a teacher who was Christian though she wasn't supposed to express it. "I know what you are, devil." she would whisper to Jaala at any opportunity. Jaala didn't understand this, he hadn't, before attending school, thought he was that unusual. Sure, he looked and acted a little different than other people, but he still had a human heart. He had never put much mind to religion but had seen The Devil in cartoons, Halloween decorations and books of old folk tales, sure they were both red and The Devil had hooves sometimes like him, but implying these things meant that he was wicked like The Devil was difficult for Jaala who was generally a kind, gentle, and sensitive boy. He came home that evening crying. Jaala's parents were not happy with this unprofessional behavior from someone working with in the school system and got Jaala moved to a class with a nicer teacher. This teacher encouraged Jaala to do what he liked, while still teaching him the subjects he didn't care for, but it was fine. Jaala was learning and that is what mattered.

Eventually Jaala was in Middle School, an awkward time in everyone's life. He started experiencing changes but not just the usual ones, his fingers grew sharp golden talons, his tail gained a sharp bony point, and large horns grew from his head. He filed his talons, tail point, and horns down to avoid any hazard but still had trouble lying on his back and going through narrow doorways. He also started to feel angsty, he loved his parents who had supported him but he started getting mad at them for telling him what to do, he felt like he was being judged by his classmates for his different appearance. He found out about the rebellious figure of Lucifer and immediately related to him. Jaala came to understand something: regardless of if he was a demon or not, the idea of being one was kind of cool! He started vandalizing Church grounds and creeping around them hoping to scare the nuns. These pranks seemed harmless to him, but he was becoming known and loathed by the religious community who were treating him as a scapegoat for all the "problems" they had. When he and his parents found a local religious publication talking about "An Imp of The Devil in Drollerieville" they realized that if the local politicians caught wind of this, Jaala, only a mischievous tween at the time, could have become a political scapegoat for all the local issues. Jaala had to lay low and stop pranking out in the open, instead, he started doing graffiti and minor vandalism under the cover of dark without his parents' knowledge. Having stayed out of the eye of the public, Jaala was able to graduate middle school with few issues.

Jaala, of course, proceeded to High School, you would expect that, given how High School is often imagined, That Jaala overcame social ostracization and became the prom king and went on to marry that special someone who he met in High School, you would be wrong. Jaala generally laid low in High School, he had found himself to be a bit of an introvert, but he had a few close friends and some pleasant acquaintances, the classes were difficult, but he graduated and was, incidentally, now 18, he decided to chill for a year before seeking higher education. However, what he didn't know was that the Forces of Hell had been observing him, remotely viewing his antics, he wasn't incredible but he was distinctly devilish. Now you might think that this would be a horrible situation and that they were going to tempt him or mark him for death, but you view hell as a human, the demons viewed him as one of them, though he was especially interesting for one reason to the Demons of Hell, his body...no not in THAT way, most demons don't have physical flesh and blood bodies they are merely spirits without physical forms, so Jaala having a flesh and blood body was certainly a novelty. They started projecting themselves into Jaala's dreams which was quite disturbing for him, "We know what you are, devil," these apparitions would say, often times in the form of, people, sometimes even ones he knew, animals, and even his own reflection. The first time Jaala had one of these dreams it didn't shake him, though as these dreams got more intense and frequent Jaala started to be suspicious, these weren't just anxiety dreams, there was more to this, he was being communicated with. This came to a head when his reflection in a false awakening dream breathed onto the mirror and, in the condensation, drew a sigil, a sigil with his name on it, 4 Ankhs surrounding a goat's eye. Jaala didn't understand the relevance of this (he didn't have his Ankh necklace yet, but how he got that is another story) but he understood the assignment. He spent the entire day drawing and redrawing the sigil until he could finally draw it from memory.

Plate 2: Jaala’s Sigil

That night he went out to an alleyway. He was so tense his back felt like it was made of concrete, but he was determined to do what he needed to. He got out a can of spray paint, shook it well and onto a brick wall on the side of an abandoned building he painted the sigil, the smell of spray paint faded into the awful stench of brimstone as a doorway to Hell opened.

With very little hesitation, Jaala held his breath and plunged into the portal, falling on his face on the red clay of Pandæmonium, the employee housing of Hell. His senses were assaulted by cacophonous sounds, horrible stenches, and the foul taste of hellish clay. Jaala succumbed to overstimulation and fainted. He woke up in a comfortable bed in a well-furnished and air-conditioned apartment. He didn't know it, but the devils who had made contact with him had carried him to his room in Pandemonium. Jaala was puzzled and decided to look out the window to see where he was. Millions of demons who were each going about their business, stoking flames, eating, napping, talking, generally going about their day to day. Jaala saw this and felt sympathy for them. They were not all that different from the people of Drollerieville. Sure, they were spirits of frightening appearance, but they seemed normal enough.

Jaala left his apartment to be greeted with an unbelievably long hallway. Luckily a door marked "stairs" was right in front of his room, so he opened it. Inside it was too dark to see anything. Jaala stepped inside and felt movement under him, it kind of felt like an escalator, soon enough Jaala was greeted by a single light and a door. The door was labeled on a gilded sign "Mammon's office." Hesitating a little bit, Jaala opened the door and was greeted by a businessman-like demon at a desk, smoking an expensive cigar. On his desk a plaque read "Mammon CEO of Pandæmonium Apartments LLC, Archdemon of Greed." Mammon looked like a human businessman at first to Jaala, but then he noticed his face, an upside-down bag with a dollar sign on it covered most of it, and his jaw looked like a skull's jaw but with razor sharp teeth. He seemed to have dollars sticking out of every visible part of his person. He almost reminded Jaala of old political cartoons of "Boss Tweed" that he had seen in High School History class.

"Ahh, you must be that imp that I have heard so much about," Mammon coughed out in between puffs of his cigar. "What is like to have flesh?" Jaala understandably felt threatened by this statement, his face scrunched into a frown, "Oh, forgive me, that wasn't a threat, you're just a rare breed! Would you care for a mint?" Mammon corrected himself and pointed at a bowl of stale, melted together mints.

"Look," Jaala managed to get out, "It's nice here, but I was called here through my dreams, my Beelzebub damn dreams, do you understand what that feels like?" Jaala raised his voice more than he meant to and covered his mouth in embarrassment.

Elsewhere in a deeper part of hell, the peppy and egotistical giant fly, Princess Beelzebub's antenna twitched upward, smacking against her escoffion. "Huh, my Antenna, that’s unusual!" the Princess of Hell exclaimed, "There must have been an invocation to me... I'll get to it later." she said going back to flirting with her many suitors.

Mammon's expression was difficult for Jaala to read, he already wasn't the best at reading expressions and Mammon's eyes were covered by the bag over his head, assuming he had eyes at all. There was a period of awkward silence and Jaala's breathing became heavy and uncomfortable, he worried that he was going to be killed and that, for all he knew, the shortness of breath was caused by some kind of noxious gas that was pouring into the room. In reality he was very anxious, and his breathing was shallow, and the cigar smoke that filled the room certainly wasn't helping either. He and Mammon just stood there staring at each other, until Mammon broke the silence "I'll give you one thing, kid..." he said in a quiet voice "you've got spunk!" Mammon burst out into a genuine, mirthful laugh interspersed with throaty coughs and hacks. He didn't seem to be angry, nor was there any malice in this laugh.

Jaala smiled uncomfortably; his breathing normalized a little bit. "But... uhh..." Jaala stammered out to the Archdemon of Greed, who was in a coughing fit from his laughter "Why have I been guided here, what do you expect of me?" "Ahh, yes, yes, ahem" Mammon cleared his throat, he spit a wad of black bile into a spittoon on his desk, which melted through it and the desk. "Well, to be frank with you, you aren't that evil, but you certainly are, how should I put this... Devilish, do you understand what I mean, Mr. Leeds?"

Jaala was starting to feel more comfortable, Mammon seemingly had no malicious intent for him, despite clearly being an authority, something which Jaala loathed and feared with every fiber of his being, Mammon was speaking to Jaala on his level, Jaala noticed an old plastic chair in front of the desk as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he turned the chair backwards and sat in it facing Mammon, hoping to impress him with a old tactic to look cool that he had learned in his edgy middle school days, "Please, Mr. Leeds is my father, call me Jaala," he said in a manufactured confident and almost smug tone of voice, "Please clarify what you mean by devilish, because I'm not quite sure I understand."

"Well," began Mammon in a clear voice, no doubt the voice he used to speak to investors, "we here at Pandæmonium Apartments LLC cater to all kinds, but we tend to categorize them as 'devils' or 'demons' but this is a broad strokes term, many many kinds of spirits populate Hell and make it the wonderful diverse workplace that it is including, but not limited to, 'daimons', 'shedim', 'gods', 'fallen angels' from everywhere in the hierarchy, 'lilu', 'mazzikin', and even some 'faeries' and 'djinn.' Isn't that wonderful?"

Jaala's head was spinning, he was even more confused, he may have been a demon, but he wasn't a demonologist so most of these terms meant nothing to him and didn't clarify anything. He replied "Uh, yeah!"

Mammon let out another hearty laugh. "Okay, well let me cut to the chase, given your devilish nature, we in Hell have taken notice and, even though you're basically a gristly human of meat and bone, we still consider you one of our own and you may, as you wish, come and go to Hell whenever you like, simply by drawing your sigil."

Despite how honest he seemed, Jaala became suspicious that he was being tricked by the smooth talking but rough voiced Archdemon of Greed. "Wait, wait, you set me up a nice apartment just because I'm a demon? What do you want from me? Do you expect me to torture damned souls? Do you expect me to pay you money? Are you going to claim my soul when I die? I may be a demon and I'm also a human but I'm no fool!"

Mammon took a long drag of his cigar, clearly considering his next words carefully, "I wasn't going to say this because I felt it would sound insulting, but, we expect nothing of you, Jaala Leeds. We don't need your human money as we have our own currency, Beastmarks, we don't need your service as your physical body is too weak to survive the oppressive environment in which the souls of humans are tortured. In addition, we don't think you could psychologically handle it either, and we do not lay any claim to your soul, nor do we ask for it, the fate of your soul is... uncertain." The Archdemon made a gesture with open hands implying balance scales.

Jaala's tension lowered a little, but the statement about the fate of his soul intrigued and frightened him. He decided it would be best not to inquire further about it. "So, I'm allowed to leave whenever I want to?" This whole situation had been emotionally intense for Jaala, and he was ready to head back to his earthly home and take solace in its familiarity.

"Yes, but allow me to tell you one more thing..." Mammon's tone was suddenly very serious, Jaala picked up on this and listened closely, his floppy ears visibly perked up a little as Mammon spoke "Hell is a very dangerous place for a living being, it's not designed with them in mind. Due to this, you might want to stay near Pandæmonium, It's safer than most places in Hell. It's also important to know that your fellow demons are liars and deceivers, they shouldn't be trusted much, take everything they say with a grain of salt, this even applies to me. Judging by how you acted during this conversation, this shouldn't be much of a problem for you though, will it?" Mammon took a long drag of his cigar and coughed almost to punctuate the statement he had made.

Jaala didn't think that Mammon had noticed his hesitance, but apparently, he had. "So, can I just leave now?" Jaala asked, he felt that he had most of the information he needed.

"Sure, but if you fall on your face, my imps won't be there to pick you up!" Mammon smiled with a surprising amount of warmth for a greedy tyrant, he opened a desk draw and rummaged through it and finally pulled out a pen that was burning with light. "I stole this pen from heaven before I fell, it seems no one missed it!" Mammon tossed the pen to Jaala, who fumbled it in his talons before finally getting a grip on it. "Just make sure you give it back, It's a rare find!" Mammon smiled and, though Jaala couldn't be sure, it was almost like he was winking. Jaala drew his sigil with the pen.

The sigil was drawn in pure light, illuminating the dark room, the walls were fleshy and seemed to be breathing, a sleazy pin up calendar was nailed into it behind Mammon’s desk, staining the nail with blood. Jaala didn't stay long to observe his surroundings, he had seen enough and, frankly, it made him feel viscerally ill. He plunged into the circle and left.

Soon after, Princess Beelzebub appeared in a cloud of blood-sucking flies. Mammon immediately jumped from behind his desk and fell on his face at her feet, "Great art thou, O Princess of Hell!" he cried out, shivering.

"Oh, hi Mammon," Beelzebub cheerily buzzed "did you invoke me, do you need me to let loose a plague of flies on those filthy, filthy humans?"

"No Great Princess, honored be thy name, that will not be necessary, it was not I who invoked your unholy name, it was a guest in my office." Mammon belted out, his voice muffled by the fleshy floor.

"Okay~," Beelzebub sang out, enzymes dripping from her mouth, "then, who was this guest who used my name in vain?"

Mammon choked, he didn't want to reveal Jaala's name to her, but he had no other choice, she already knew it, nothing escapes her she just liked to act playful, "Jaala, great Ba'alah of creeping things." he sputtered out nervously.

"Okay~," she said, "that He-Goat knows not that he shouldn't speak my unholy name in vain, but if YOU invoke me for no reason, I'm going to have to cut off..." Mammon gulped at this pause, knowing all too well what she was going to say next "...your funding~!"

Mammon wept and gnashed his teeth out of agony, though he had been warm in front of the sensitive Jaala, the only thing he truly cared about was money, "Yes, Great Princess Beelzebub" he said through his tears "it won't happen again." Jaala regained consciousness in the same alleyway that he had entered Hell from, it seemed as if no time had passed and it all kind of felt like a weird dream, though a stale mint stuck to his butt suggested that this was more. "Aw, gross," Jaala thought "I knew I should have swept my hand across the chair before sitting in it, that office was a total sty!" He quickly got up and dusted himself off, a lasting odor of brimstone briefly wafting through the air before petering out. Jaala quickly went home and immediately took a long, cold shower, mulling over the events that had taken place as the water dripped off his horns "So Hell is real huh, I wonder what else I thought humanity made up is true," Jaala thought, shampooing his ears.

The filth of Hell washed off his body but was still in his mind as he tried to lay his weary head to rest, but his mind was rushing, and he couldn't sleep due to a combination of excitement and fear. The next morning, he hadn't slept a wink and was trying to decide if he should tell his family. He supposed that maybe Breakfast was a poor time to talk about his amazing voyage to Hell, so he waited until afterwards to tell the amazing story. Jaala's parents were certainly surprised, but not upset, they listened to the story with great interest, they suggested consistently packing burn ointment every time he visited Hell. Jaala had never suffered a burn in his life, but he agreed. Jaala continued to practice traveling between Earth and Hell whenever he desired, he quickly learned that he could use these sigils to appear almost wherever he desired, as long as he had been there before. He quickly imagined the pranking opportunities, just sticking his arm through a sigil could allow him to tap someone on the shoulder, to pants an important politician during an important speech, to invert all the crosses at the craft store all while remaining unseen... then he considered that any of these would have the issue of the appearance of a clawed hand emerging from a Hell portal to do the prank which would probably make waves, so this flight of fancy quickly faded from his mind.

He did, however, learn to master the art of travel by sigil in a few years, Jaala was now 20-something. He had saved a fortune on bus fares and hadn't yet learned how to drive because he had become so adept at subtle travel via Hell. He manifested himself in subtle places to get where he needed to go without the Hell portal startling fellow citizens. He would manifest unsubtly and theatrically at parties sometimes, and even set fancy cocktails alight with Hellfire, though those who drank them complained of a revoltingly pungent aftertaste and tended to practice temperance from then on, still, certainly a neat party trick. He started to keep his horns, tail point, and talons sharp as he had learned how not to injure others with them. Jaala would learn about others like him, other "monsters" and supernatural beings. The idea made him giddy, he had rarely been lonely, but he was truly not alone, other people like him existed! He knew for certain, even though he still lived a somewhat normal life, the world (or even worlds) seemed much bigger to him, and he knew that this wouldn't be his last adventure!

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