The flutes and other instruments began to blare at full sound. The people of the Boiling Isles spoke to themselves and each other unable to leave the podiums because of Nyarlathotep having his horde of monsters hold them hostage. They glared down at the bank of the large stadium.
After a few seconds, the Emperor arrived on the scene. He clutched his staff in his right hand, attempting to stabilize his walking stance. He turned to speak to the children of the Isles, but a low, suffocating cough rang out from his vocal cords.
"Belos appears to be sick, does he not?" one of the witches noted.
With the life forces of the palismans no longer being enough to stabilize him, Belos was on his last leg. He thought back to when he appointed Lilith to retrieve a special flower for him with which he hoped to stave off his impending doom a little longer. But alas, that flower was a ruse. He searched far and wide for any source of magic to heal him, but his luck was gradually running out. He bowed his head likely mourning the fact that he had no children that could ascend to the throne. The thought always filled his mind ever since he arrived to end the Savage Ages fifty years ago, but he foolishly gave little thought of the future of his empire. He flickered his hand. "If I am going to die, I should at least make it a spectacle."
He slammed his staff on the ground. "Children of the Isles; the hour has arrived!"
He turned away to lift his mask and slipped two fingers in. With a blow, Warden Wrath and some of his men from the Conformatorium arrived. They had Camila tightly in their grips. She flailed her arms and kicked her legs, but the large, burly men were pinning her in place. Belos trudged over and cupped Camila's chin and cheeks between his gloved fingers. He then resumed his glare to the audience.
"I present you with the accused!"
Some of the witches and demons recoiled at the appearance of the middle-aged mother before them. "What creature is this?"
They started to toss down vegetables and other objects at Camila in disgust. The food was smearing on Camila's disheveled uniform that was already wrecked beyond repair. On instinct, she wanted to shield her face from the projectiles, but that was not going to be a luxury for her.
"Yes, yes," Belos remarked, "she comes from a race of warmongering beings who selfishly kill all in their way to get what they want." He tilted his head to Warden Wrath to continue.
The warden of the Conformatorium excused himself and ran out the stadium. There was a slight chattering and heaving and remained that way until four of Belos' goons were pushing a wooden frame. At the top of the wooden device was a sharp blade of rock with some hints of dried blood at the tip of it. At the bottom near the base was a slab of rock through which straps were in place to hold the one sentenced to death. The slab of rock was surrounded by a larger circle now looking more like a gargantuan bullseye.
Warden Wrath returned to Camila's side and grabbed her by the left arm. She screamed in protest, but her pleas for mercy were being drowned out by the scornful yells of the audience. Approaching the stone slab, it was fixed to have the victim's limbs lay on. Four small flaps were for the hands and feet, while one was specifically designed for the head.
Camila kicked and thrashed with all her might. A third goon had to intervene to wrestle with Camila's abdomen. He knelt over the woman, gripping her arms. The strength in his arms was greater in comparison to the mere human woman's. With little struggling from his end, he took hold of her hands and slammed them in place. Warden Wrath then tightened the straps on her wrists.
The goon then did the same thing to her legs, this time being more careful when dealing with her lower body since she could catch him off guard and hit him. As he approached her neck, Camila spit at his face. A surprised, resounding gasp came from the crowd.
Wiping his helmet, the goon tied the strap around her neck, uncaring at how tightly bound she was. Air was now slowly seeping into Camila's lungs, enough to keep her conscious, but even then, that was no guarantee. She stared up at the blade that would soon end her life with a swift gash.
A one-eyed, slug monster wearing a gown similar to Emperor Belos arrived. Most of the goons followed after him unaware of the trail of yellow slime he was leaving behind. They fell on themselves eliciting a few snide remarks from the witches. He placed a monocle over his enormous eye. He coughed into his right hand and withdrew a scroll from his other.
"On this day, we have the human woman Camila No-cee-da who had been accused of the most grievous crimes against the Emperor and the Boiling Isles."
Warden Wrath walked over to a crank outside of the wooden death box and waited for the signal. The slug monster continued to drone on.
"The accused had been declared to be put to death without haste. As she is not one of us, the standard petrification for such crimes will not be enforced." He pointed at the device restraining the woman. "Instead, the Emperor had envisioned something far worse for her."
Belos sat down in his throne clutching a couple palismans from the staffs of long departed witches. However, in one of his hands was none other than Owlbert. He pinned the small owl's back using his thumb and index finger. The bird tried flapping his wings to fly away, but it was futile. At that point, having to absorb the life force of palismans was no longer of use to the Emperor aside from maybe the taste of the magical entities. As such, Belos was going to engorge himself on the palisman in much the same way that a human enjoyed popcorn while watching a movie. He was going to immensely enjoy the spectacle.
Back in Belos' laboratory, Luz had completely covered the portal machine with the fire glyphs and was waiting by to activate them. The Shoggoth and Amity's abomination were still violently ripping apart Emperor Belos' goons as they flooded in to try to overtake the two blob monsters. She saw Hooty was still happily chatting with the lifeless bodies of the goons and drinking tea with them. It disturbed her that Hooty was that scatterbrained to seemingly have little comprehension of his actions, but it was enough for her to accept that Hooty was on their side.
Amity and her older siblings ran into the laboratory. "Luz!"
Luz turned to them and smiled. "Amity! Guys, you're, okay?"
The twins nodded. "Edric's going to have to rest for a while," Emira explained, "thankfully he can still do magic, but we don't want to overexert him enough already."
Luz noted this. "You guys might not want to be in here when the portal lights up harder than that one time my Mom let me attend a rock concert
The Blight siblings looked at each other in abject confusion and mumbled to themselves. Luz smacked her head. "Oh, right...human terms, you wouldn't get that."
"In other words, we'll try to stand back just in case things go horribly wrong," Emira said.
Luz smiled. "That's fair."
Amity twiddled her fingers in deep thought. Luz continued to stare at the portal machine with her back turned. Amity's heart was beating and she felt she could dig a hole and crawl into it to die, but she just wanted to make some certainty out of the uncertainty of the situation.
"Hey, Luz?"
"Yes, Amity?"
Amity's cheeks were a tomato red. She turned her glance away from her friend out of an irrational fear at making eye contact. "If...if we survive this..."
Luz looked at the stammering witch girl. "What is it?"
She was stumbling on her words. From a glance, she could see Emira and Edric giving her a thumbs up. She rolled her eyes in annoyance, but it did give her some encouragement.
"If we survive this...will you go out on a date with me?"
There was a stillness in the room, aside from the ceaseless clambering coming from Hooty's beak. Amity braced herself for the rejection.
"Yeah, sure."
Amity's eyes widened. "Re... really?"
Luz smiled. "Yeah, sounds fun."
Amity looked down at the polish on her fingernails. "I... I'd very much like that."
"Edric and I are going to keep watch of the door, Mittens," Emira announced.
Amity's cheeks blushed again this time out of irritation. "We'll be outside, Luz," Amity said.
Luz nodded her hand in a flickering motion. With that, the Blight siblings evacuated the laboratory. Eda and Lilith crossed their arms with a smug grin on their faces.
"So, when are you going to go out with her, Luz?" Eda asked.
Luz grinned. "Maybe next week."
Luz was too preoccupied with the machine; she did not realize what Amity asked her at first. But it did hit her like a ton of bricks dropping from a two-story window.
"Wait...A DATE!?"
"The verdict has been read out," the slug monster remarked solemnly. He steadied his glance on the woman strapped before him. "Any last words before the fullest act of the law are enforced?"
Camila only smiled in reply.
The slug turned to Warden Wrath and nodded. Belos' eyes immediately darted at the crank and then at the blade of solid rock. The Emperor had already ripped his gloved fingers through one of the palismans whilst keeping the struggling Owlbert underneath his other fist.
The warden turned the crank in a counter clockwise fashion making everyone hear the execution device start up. The rock was lifted as high as it could realistically go and towered over the bullseye. The slug man spoke again.
"You will be stabbed through the chest until you're dead; may the Titan have mercy on your soul."
The blade could more or less be compared to an archer readying their arrow by bending it backward on the string of its bow to calculate the accuracy. The blade swung down at an inhumanly fast pace like a speeding bullet. Belos bent backward and clutching Owlbert in his hand in anticipation.
Camila looked up at the blade and smirked.
WHAM
The collision sent dirt and rocks into the air obscuring Camila's impaled body from the audience's vision. Emperor Belos got out of his seat in curiosity. "Is it done?"
The dust cleared away revealing the condition of the slab. The blade tore its way through the thick stone, but Camila's broken body was nowhere to be seen. Clearly, the blade struck the middle-aged woman directly where her chest would be, but she was gone.
"How can this be possible," Belos thought to himself. He scratched his chin. "She could not have escaped that easily unless..."
The slug monster dropped the scroll and, despite being a slow-moving monster, swung around with great speed and somehow produced a small blade from his hands and sliced Warden Wrath's head off. In the place of blood was a gassy vapor. The slug then ripped into his own body and removed his skin. Underneath him was the Owl Spy.
Belos stood there, stunned. Of course, it wasn't Camila; it never had been her. Instead, it became crystal clear to the tyrant: the Camila he dragged out of her cell was an illusion. He felt a chill go down his spine.
"Hello, father."
Turning around, he could see that Camila was holding a lightning glyph on parchment paper. A streak of lightning erupted from the paper and struck Belos in the fast.
The witches gasped in amazement. Belos is blasted across the stadium slamming into a wall. Belos's chest heaved in small huffs. Standing up, he clutched his face. Probing his orifices, he turned to see that his mask was ripped in half by the lightning spell. Camila covered her mouth to stifle a scream.
Belos possessed dark, black hair on his head and sideburns. Instead of an upper lip, long, slimy tentacles covered his lower lip. Rips in his suit exposed a thick hide of scaly orange skin on his upper body. On his back were a series of unintelligible markings of red and green. Towards the bottom half of his body, he was coated in a red suit of lobster-like armor. Elongated legs roughly the size of an ostrich's. Around the bottom of his abdomen, there appeared to be a large, gaping mouth and a fleshy organ resembling a human lung.
"What in the world?" Camila finally spoke up.
Belos removed his gloves and showed off elongated, slurping tentacles in the place of fingers topped with bloodshot red suckers. In the palms of his hands, there were underdeveloped maws dripping a purple substance. In fact, purple, inky pus was seeping out of open cuts from his body. More tentacles protruded from his waist encasing his long, jangly legs and had eyes of all sizes staring in every direction. He chuckled.
"Well, this will be more fun than I anticipated."