The Drow hanging from the ceiling held their breath.
When they realized those molten eyes represented another deity from a distant world beyond their own, they instinctively slowed their breathing, afraid the slightest sound might displease him.
They even wished their hearts would stop beating.
And most of their hearts did indeed skip a beat—
Even for the long-lived Drow, gods were beings whose voices they heard but whose presence they never saw.
Moreover, most of those present were male, with no chance of encountering a deity in their entire lives.
Yet now, omnipotent gods stood right before them—two of them!
They were even negotiating over a mortal's soul!
Their limited experience no longer gave them any basis for understanding why. They could only stare, dumbfounded, at the man gradually regaining his composure between the two deities...
Divisions of race, gender, and ability seemed to burn to ash in the fires of hell and vanish from their minds.
In the end, all that remained was horror at reality and anticipation of what came next—
How would he die at the gods' hands? As a deity herself, Lolth's thinking was quite simple.
Although the King of the Nine Hells had nominally claimed this human's soul, the human himself was hardly complicated—just a bard with a Silver Tongue. Aside from playing instruments and singing, all he had was a quick mouth.
She did not know how he had offended the King, but surely the King would enjoy seeing his soul suffer.
And when it came to torturing souls, she had a hundred ways to satisfy him.
Giving her the soul and allowing this archdevil, seated upon the throne of the Nine Hells and unable to reach this Junkyard in person, to witness his suffering was clearly a choice that would satisfy both