Superbia’s soft, silk-shod steps barely made a sound on the polished obsidian floor as she led the procession into the Grand Throne Room, her head held high, her pale porcelain face a mask of serene, glacial pride. She moved with a preternatural grace, the gold-leafed tips of her horns catching the flickering light of the thousand hellfire torches that lined the cavernous hall. Two nervous looking imp attendants trailed in her wake, carrying scrolls of satin and incense burners that released fragrant, cloying smoke into the air.

"He will be pleased," she murmured to herself, her eyes sweeping over the preparations.

The Throne Room was a testament to infernal power. Vaulted ceilings soared into a shadowy void, held aloft by pillars of twisted, petrified bone. Between them, tapestries woven from the flayed skins of angels hung slack, depicting scenes of conquest and damnation. At the far end of the hall, dominating all, stood the Hell-throne itself—a monolithic construction of black iron and volcanic glass, forged from the swords of a million fallen enemies. It was empty.

Superbia took her place before the dais, arranging her pristine white robes with a sharp, precise motion. She glanced sidelong as her fellow council members arrived.

Avaritia waddled in next, her stout blue body swathed in comfortable, practical robes of dark indigo. Her thick-lensed spectacles were perched on the bridge of her snub nose, and she clutched a heavy ledger to her chest like a shield. Her wide, curving horns were plain and unadorned.

"The treasury reports are in order," she announced, her voice dry and carrying a note of long-suffering. "Assuming no further… extraneous expenditures." She shot a pointed glare at Superbia. The Prideful Succubus merely sniffed and looked away.

A heavy, rhythmic tread announced Ira’s arrival. The Marshal of the Legions strode in, her red skin gleaming under the torchlight, her brass scale-mail clinking with each powerful stride. The massive axe, Gorgemaw, was slung across her broad back. Her face, handsome and strong-jawed, was set in a grim, watchful expression. She took a position opposite Superbia, crossing her muscular arms over her chest.

"All’s quiet on the front," Ira grunted, her voice a low, gravelly rumble. "The Dog-Lords of the Flayed Plains are squabbling again, but it’s nothing a few heads on pikes won’t settle." Her crimson eyes swept the room, ever vigilant.

Finally, a figure seemed to materialize from the deepest shadows beside the throne dais. Invidia, the Dowager Duchess, was a study in somber elegance. Her dress was of a green so deep it drank the light, appearing as absolute black. She wore no jewellery save for a single, heavy onyx ring. Her horns were slender and graceful, curving back from her temples. She stood perfectly still, her hands folded before her, her eyes—a soft, poisonous green—taking in everything. Her presence was like a drop of ink in water; silent, pervasive, and impossible to ignore.

The four Succubi—Pride, Avarice, Wrath, and Envy—stood assembled before the empty throne, each a pillar of their King’s power, each a facet of his terrible reign.

Superbia cleared her throat delicately. "The court awaits His Majesty’s pleasure," she announced, her voice carrying through the silent hall.

The Pentagonal Cthonic Council Chamber held silence like a held breath. Its five obsidian walls, polished to a sheen so perfect they reflected the occupants like malevolent mirrors, offered no distraction, no decoration. The only furniture was the pentagonal ebony table, its surface so dark it seemed to swallow the dim, sourceless glow that illuminated the room. At the fifth side of the table, the king’s side, sat a throne of singular basalt, polished to a gleaming black mirror, cold and empty.

The air was thick with the clashing perfumes and energies of the four beings who orbited that vacant seat.

Superbia sat ramrod straight in her ebony chair, her porcelain-white fingers steepled before her. Her white silks, trimmed with threads of genuine gold, seemed to emit their own light against the gloom. A faint, disdainful curl touched her lips as she examined a parchment—a proposed design for the ceremonial banners of the campaign.

"Unacceptable," she declared, her voice a soft chime of absolute authority. She did not look up. "The proposed vermilion clashes catastrophically with the royal black and basalt-grey motif. It screams of ‘provincial warlord,’ not ‘unassailable divine majesty.’ The color palette for the Vanguard’s livery must be restricted to charcoal, ash, and blood-black. It is a matter of psychological warfare. Awe must be the first weapon we deploy."

Avaritia, seated to Superbia’s right, let out a loud, weary sigh that fogged her thick spectacles. Her blue, pleasantly plump face was a picture of exasperation as she slammed her own ledger—this one detailing projected supply costs—onto the ebony table with a THUMP.

"Psychological warfare doesn’t feed fifty thousand hellspawn, Superbia," she grumbled, dragging a pudgy, ink-stained finger down a column of figures. "Charcoal-dyed banner cloth is three times the cost of standard hellfire-red. Ash-grade leather for harnesses? Do you have any concept of the logistical tail required to forge a bridgehead into a mortal realm?" She peered over her glasses, her dark eyes narrowed. "We need siege engines, not silk tassels! The portal stabilization crystals alone will cost a treasury’s ransom in soul-gems!"

Superbia finally deigned to look at her, a slow, glacial tilt of her head. "And what is an army without its spirit, Avaritia? A mindless, grunting horde. It is the image of invincibility that breaks mortal cities before the first catapult stone is loosed. You would have our King’s glorious return to Alteyra look like a barbarian migration."

"I would have it succeed without bankrupting the infernal plane for a millennium!" Avaritia shot back, her horns seeming to quiver with indignation.

From Superbia’s left, a low, rumbling chuckle cut through the bickering. Ira leaned back in her chair, the ebony groaning in protest under the weight of her brass-scale armor. One heavy boot was propped on the edge of the table, the hardened leather scraping the polished wood. She was meticulously sharpening a dagger on a whetstone, the SCHIIICK-SCHIIICK sound a steady, aggressive counterpoint to the argument.

"You’re both missing the point," Ira said, her crimson eyes fixed on the blade’s edge. "Banners, beans… it’s all chatter. The point is the breach. My scouts have identified three potential focal points for the main portal, locations in Alteyra where the veil is still thin from the old war." She looked up, a fierce, predatory grin spreading across her features. "I say we hit all three at once. A decoy assault on the Frostwatch Mountains to draw their paladins, a secondary feint at the Sunken Cathedral, and the main, glorious spear-thrust right into the heart of the Human Kingdoms. Let them split their forces. Let them panic."

"A tactically sound, if brutishly simplistic, assessment, Marshal," came a voice so soft it seemed to seep from the walls themselves.

All eyes shifted to the fourth chair. Invidia, the Dowager Duchess, had not moved. She sat shrouded in her dark-green mourning silks, a pool of absolute shadow. Her hands rested folded in her lap, the single onyx ring a dull eye upon her finger. Her poisonous green gaze was fixed on the empty basalt throne, as if seeing something the others could not.

"However," she continued, her voice barely above a whisper yet silencing the room, "it assumes the mortal kingdoms of today are the same as the scattered, heroic bands of a century and a half ago. They are not. The ‘Party of Heroes’ solidified into a dynasty. The Pendragon line holds the continent in an iron grip, upheld by churches, treaties, and standing armies far larger than anything Abaddon faced."

She finally turned her head, her gaze sweeping over the three other Succubi. "A three-pronged assault broadcast our strength, yes. But it also betrays our desperation and our limited understanding of their current defenses. It paints a target on our strategic mind—which would be you, dear Ira." She offered a ghost of a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. "No. The portal must open in one place only. A place they have forgotten to guard. A place of… sentimental weakness."

She let the implication hang in the air. Superbia’s brows furrowed in thought. Avaritia stopped fuming over her ledger, intrigued despite herself. Ira’s grin faded into a scowl of concentration, her whetstone going still.

The chamber lapsed back into a tense, waiting silence, broken only by the soft hiss of the torches in their sconces. The four pillars of the King’s will were assembled, their conflicting counsel laid bare upon the dark table. Their bickering was a ritual, a prelude. All of it—the pride, the greed, the wrath, the envy—was now coiled tight, waiting for the one presence that could give it direction, for the weight that would settle into the basalt throne and decide the fate of two worlds.

They waited for you.