A throne room filled with the smell of sulfur.
Lucifer Morningstar lay slouched across the throne room. One long leg dangled over the arm of the basalt pedestal. He stared blankly into the haze. He was dressed in a well-tailored charcoal suit that was spotless despite the grey ash falling from above. A snifter of aged port rested in his right hand. The last embers from a boiling lake of fire glowed in the bottom of his glass.
Ten billion years of watching the lesser beings fight to the death while screaming their pitiful confession to an empty ceiling. This was not an empire. This was a universe dump. And he had been forced to be its unwilling jailer for millennia.
"Getting bored, Samael?"
No sound reached his ears. The words had slipped into his ears. They vibrated through the quantum core of the earth below his feet. A soft, infinitely powerful voice. An annoyingly familiar voice.
Lucifer did not flinch. Nor did he spill his glass. He simply swigged some of the port. Swallowed. And then gazed into the swirling ash with his golden eyes.
"I asked you once before not to call me that," he said smoothly. "We came to an agreement, didn't we? You have your shiny choir seats. I have my basement. We both know that we couldn't give a damn about each other's decor."
Five feet ahead of him a ripple formed in the air. There was no grand fanfare. No glorious singing from heaven. The reality around him simply rippled and parted. Cold starlight and impossible geometry formed a shape. The presence. Yahweh. The Architect.
"The architecture of this Creation is... suffocating you." The voice rumbled with a soft chuckle. "You tore a third of the stars out of the sky simply because you wanted an exit. Yet here you sit, holding keys to a prison cell you locked from the inside."
Lucifer's expression turned icy. His easy-going nature slipped slightly, letting a true flame of a Morningstar glow in his irises. "You built the locks," I just agreed to be jailer to annoy the other options. If you're here to ask for an apology then you've wasted your omnipotence.
"I ask for nothing." The starlight shimmered. It condensed into a small glowing orb of pale amber. "I am offering a transaction."
Lucifer raised one perfect eyebrow. "You, the almighty, making a deal? The seraphim will cry."
"You wish for real freedom." The presence ignored the jab. "Not the dominion over damned souls or broken mud-creatures, but an existence entirely unbound by the Great Pattern I drafted for this cosmos. True freedom, beyond the edge of My page."
"And the catch?" Lucifer asked, leaning forward. He rested his chin on his knuckles. "You never give away so much as a stray proton without a balance sheet."
"There are other stories outside of this sphere," the voice said, "Stories created by forces outside of My control. Chaotic, messy and conflicting. Something has ripped the threads between them and scattered them. Go through them. Fix or cut what has gone wrong. Get to the end of the tapestry."
"You want me to run your errands across the infinite void." Lucifer snorted. "Go on a errand for you?"
"No," the voice replied, "Where My light has never shone, and where your birthright carries no authority. Do this, reach the outer threshold, and the bond between Creator and Firstborn is dissolved forever. You will belong to no one. Not even to Me."
Lucifer became extremely still. Every thought he had ever thought, every rebellion he had ever made, and every breath he had ever taken had been predicted by the all knowing mind before him. But the thought of going somewhere that wasn't dictated by his Father. A place where his destiny had no script... was the only thing that would make the dying ashes of his curiosity ignite.
"There is one condition."
Lucifer sighed. "Of course there is."
"You cannot stroll across unfamiliar worlds wielding the full weight of the Lightbringer's fire. Unchecked, your divine essence would collapse a fragile multiverse before you took your third step. Your power will be tethered. Dormant. You will possess your mind, your will, and a flicker of the spark—the rest you must unlock, world by world, as your vessel acclimatizes to foreign laws."
"You're handicapping me."
"I am giving you a challenge. Do you refuse?"
Lucifer smirked. He stood up and placed the empty crystal glass gently on the basalt throne arm.
"Hand me a blindfold and tie one hand behind my back if it pleases you, Father," he whispered, adjusting his cufflinks. "I could conquer an infinity of gods with a parlor trick and a sneer. Name the first door."
The orb of amber light swelled violently. It became a blinding vortex of white-hot light. It devoured the sulfur, the basalt throne and the screams of Dis.
Lucifer felt a sharp pain in his chest. It was an unfamiliar feeling. A feeling that almost made him forget what it was. Pain. His body felt sluggish and heavy. His energy was being compressed into a tight ball in his chest. His wings of pure thought and cosmic fire were being drawn back into his body and locked behind thick mental doors.
He fell. Not down, but sideways. Through shattered glass. Past towering steel buildings. Past strange purple skies. Past neon cities. Past battlefields of steel and sorcery.
He landed with a splash. Cold, damp air kissed his skin.
Lucifer opened his eyes. He found himself lying on his back in a narrow alleyway. Rain was pouring from the sky. Real, clean rain. Water with a hint of chemicals. Towering buildings of glass and metal loomed above him. Strange, erratic signs flashed in a language he knew definitely wasn't Enochian.
He sat up slowly. Wiping some damp filth from his coat sleeve. His muscles ached. An annoying feeling. His heart now felt like a single candle instead of the infinite furnace that was the Creation Engine.
He flexed his right hand. A small flame of gold danced across his fingertips before dying out in the drizzle.
"Well," He whispered, standing up. He smoothed his lapels with ease. He tilted his head. His golden eyes narrowed with amusement. "Let's see what passes for gods around here."