Kanoechor

An Excerpt from the Jinx in Hell Campaign

Jim Vassilakos (jim.vassilakos@gmail.com)

Kurt, Jinx’s player and therefore my co-writer, doesn’t want the campaign write-
up, as such, continued in A&E, but he’s not adverse to my releasing excerpts. In
this scene, Jinx is already a godling gifted with insight and advanced telepathy,
although she is not yet particularly experienced at controlling either. She has been
asked to perform a mission involving Kanoechor, a minor noble on the 7th plane of
Hell, known as Maladomini. This excerpt previously appeared in APAcalypse T-
41. Hope you enjoy, and it’s good to be back (now if only I can get re-accustomed
to meeting the submission deadline).

After Jinx leaves Baftis, Akes is there to meet her and
take her back to her sisters-in-arms.
“Ring the bell when you’ve assembled your team,”
Akes tells here.
“No need,” Jinx replies. “I’ll be doing this mission
alone.”
“You intend to abduct Kanoechor by yourself?”
“Your concern for my well-being is most touching,”
Jinx smiles.
Akes stares for a moment, then simply nods with a
slight smile of her own. “As you wish.” And with those
words, she takes Jinx by the hand and teleports her to a
guarded tower on the very outskirts of Malagard. From
there they traverse to a balcony overlooking the city’s
outer walls. Jinx can see the dark, foreboding landscape
of Maladomini stretching out in the hazy distance,
bonfires burning here and there, each one a little party
of the damned.
Then they teleport again, blinking in and out from one
dark horizon to the next, until they soon find themselves
somewhere beneath the surface, standing at the edge of
a great yawning cavern several miles in width and
perhaps a dozen in length. Before them, at the cavern’s
central region, stands a city on a hill, not a glistening
white city, but rather a foul, black one, built from great
blocks of stone and surrounded by loose rubble. The
entire hill, in fact, appears to be a vast collection of
loose rubble, and the only light is cast by brilliant bolts
of lightning arcing upward from the very heart of the
city itself.1
As she observes this, a noxious odor greets Jinx’s
nose, a fragrance the likes of which she has never before
experienced. As she peers for its source, she can see
various streams of blood mixed with bile, marrow and
raw sewage slowly trickling into the cavern from
outside. As for the city on the hill, a rather low hanging
part of the ceiling seems to loom over it somewhat
ominously, making the whole scene appear like two
giant teeth intent upon gnawing against one another.
Then, for the briefest instant, Jinx can see within her
mind’s eye exactly that: the ceiling suddenly descending
without warning as the city is smashed flat, it’s
1
See Wayne Barlowe’s “Molars of Leviathan”.
occupants squished into squat little bags of broken
bones and spattered blood. That was only seven years
ago, and they have since rebuilt as is their task, though
Jinx isn’t quite sure how it is she knows this. Then she
looks at Akes, and she realizes it is because her she-
devil guide is thinking about it, almost laughing about it,
in fact.
“I present to you the Molars of Oblivion,” Akes
smiles, raising her hand somewhat non-chalantly, as
though the city’s continual construction and destruction
were entirely her idea.
“Molars,” Jinx says, feigning ignorance. “As in
teeth?”
“Precisely,” Akes nods. “Once every so often, the
teeth go ‘crunch’, and then there is a nice flat place for a
new town to be built. After all, we have to keep our
subjects occupied. It is for their own good.”
“An interesting torture,” Jinx nods. “What is it they do
to deserve this fate?”
“They fail,” Akes replies sans her usual smile.
“Then I shall endeavor not to. Where is Kanoechor?”
“In the mines below the city where the sewage settles.
You may have to swim through it to reach him,” she
adds with pouty-lips. “Nonetheless, you will find him
there with his hordes of misbegotten tieflings and other
assorted riff-raff, run-aways, and those who attempt to
feed off the Leviathan. If you get lucky, you may even
see Nergal. He has been known to drop in from time to
time.”
“What else?”
“There’s an entrance to the mines along the base of the
hill, but it’s magically guarded. I expect that you may
find it somewhat more difficult than the drow defenses.
Another way in is through the river itself.”
“The river of blood and excrement?”
 “And corpses, both animate and
hollow,” Akes nods. “It is fed by the
cleaning crews and the various estates
and grind towers along the path to
Malagard,” she points toward the
cavern’s entrance, then in the opposite
direction, to a small lake where the
stream seems to terminate. “At the
bottom of that sludge pool over there,
the river goes under the ground and
eventually intersects with the mines. The
miners guard it, of course, but
insufficiently, an obvious characteristic
of those who dwell here.”
“Most obvious,” Jinx agrees. “What do
they mine?”
“The blood of the Leviathan. They sap
it for black mana. And they sell blocks
of stone to the city dwellers, illegally, of
course, but by necessity so that they may
have nice things and so that the city may
meet its construction quota.”
“Which is set by Baftis.”
“More or less,” Akes nods. “Any other
silly questions?”
Jinx turns to her taxi, her eyes
darkening with foreboding beauty as
obsidian streaks crisscross each iris like
a constricting web.
‘Reminiscent of Lolth,’ Akes can’t
help but ponder, and even though Jinx
has created no link into the mind of this
she-devil, she can still somehow make
out these surface thoughts, as though the
bloody water of her dreams is still
speaking to her, revealing secrets even while she’s scalp had been ripped clean from his skull, so that his
awake. long, glorious hair of which he was once so proud could
“Does is bother you,” Jinx queries, “the Lolth-thing?” be burnt in front of him as he was tortured. Then he was
“Is that how you do it?” made to slit his wrists as an act of contrition, and finally,
“Do what?” when still he glared hatefully at his captors, his eyes
“Accomplish things.” were plucked out, and magical nails were hammered
“You think that is what strengthens my blood? into his bottoms of his feet, so that wherever he walked,
Darling, that and its diabolic counterpart are the weakest he would always feel pain and remember his crime.
of my three. Now, I have only one more, silly question: That is how they released him, laughing as he left, blind,
what does Kanoechor look like?” lame, and even unable to speak.
But Akes need not reply, for the image of him flashes He had since found a new head of hair, plucking one
in her mind, and for Jinx, at least at this particular strand from every creature he had since destroyed, and
moment, that is enough. In her mind’s eye she can see lacing each into his skull. No longer quite so beautiful,
him clearly as were he standing directly before her, and his hair was now a statement of his wrath. As for the
her eyes narrow to thin slits as she perceives this vision. nails and the slits on his wrists, they remained, made
He’s not a comely devil, at least not in her estimation, permanent by the strength of their magic, but he learned
though she can tell that he was handsome once, a very to walk without touching the ground and to live without
long time ago. That was before the front of his face was blood. However his eyes, his once glorious, beautiful
cleaved away, everything from his nose to his entire jaw, eyes, these he never replaced, preferring to see by the
for his crime of having sided with Nergal and leading second-sight he had since acquired in the deepest mines
his troops against Baftis and Barbatos. Likewise, his
of Maladomini. And so it was there that he continued to
exist, his presence tolerated more than condoned.
“He looks...a little strange, I suppose,” Akes finally
gets around to stating.
“Never mind,” Jinx replies. “I’m sure I’ll figure it
out.”