He had seen them enter the first level and had thought it must have been some sort of joke. What were three children, one no older than he was doing wandering around the levels of hell. He felt bad honestly, that just a couple of kids were about to get ripped apart by the Pale Death. They really had no chance, he'd seen full grown adults get shredded by the reaper ghost. Still, he couldn't in good conscience let them go on alone, even though it was sure to be their death. He was nothing to the Pale Death, really, since a reaper is not bothered by the 'technically' dead. 

He crept closer to them in the vast expanse that was framed by the soulstream. It was the prettiest of the nine levels, simply because of the stream itself. He watched fascinated by the littlest one for a moment, who reeked of eldritch powers, and calamari for some reason, as she stomped toward the Pale Death. He suddenly found himself thinking that maybe this trio was not so doomed after all as she began contending one on one with the Pale. She could only have been eight, but she was holding her own well. As he neared the other two, he noticed that the boy seemed out of it, and the older girl… the one not much younger than he was, well, she had some incredibly red hair. He hadn't believed it was possible for hair to be that shade of red. And it was curly.

Curiosity got the better of him as he crept up soundlessly behind her and perched awkwardly on a boulder there and pushed his nose into her curls. It had been a long time since he'd been this close to a girl, let alone one that didn't smell of garbage. She was dressed well, so were the other two, and she smelled of so many different flowers. It was sweet, and nice, and a greatly appreciated scent compared the musky scent of ectoplasm. 

He couldn't help it. 
"Oooh, you smell nice," he commented, not realizing that he was probably going to startle the girl.

Iva wasn’t really paying attention like she should have been. Her attention was solely focused on Hazel who was demolishing her way through the circles. She hadn’t noticed the shifter come up behind her and she hadn’t been prepared for his voice or the nose to her hair. It was true that Rosenites held a flowery smell even the male tended to smell just as wonderful as their female counterparts. “Oh thank you…. WAIT.” She was startled as she flung her fist as hard as she could into the man.

Hazel stopped her rampage as she put her barefoot to the throat of an incubus of the circle. “Iva, is that an enemy?” The eldritch tentacles came up in knife-like points as Iva held up her free hand as she put Rohan down for the moment.

“He doesn’t look like an incubus…” Iva moved over to him and began to move him with her foot. “Hey, hey you. What are you if you aren’t our enemy and how the far does this damn place go.” She sounded stern as she heard her brother giggling and then in pain. “Please, my brother is in real trouble so if you can help, please do it. We need to get to Dalanesca."

Ok, so he had surprised her. Fair enough, but he hadn't expected to take one right to the sniffer. He lay on his face, long white tail laying limp on the ground between his legs. She nudged him with her foot and he moaned, and lifted his head seeing stars, his long nose bleeding. 

"Gods… right to the sniffer…" he moaned rolling over and holding his face, his large white wolf ears twitching on the top of his head which was covered in messy thick white hair that fell across his face and almost down past his shoulders. He looked up at the girl who had knocked him clean off the boulder, still holding his nose. "I.. I guess I deserved that. You got one hell of a left hook there, Red," he said wiping the blood from his nose and slowly got up, making sure to give the girl some distance. 

"How far do you think it goes there, Red? You are in the NINE levels of the Circulorum Inferni," he pointed out snarkily as he backed away from her. "No, I'm not your enemy. And if I was, I have seen your little friend over there in action in not only this level but against the Pale Death as well. I wouldn't be so stupid as to try and get in your way at this point," he muttered. He backed away from her in a strange way, on his hands and feet, which were decidedly lupine, almost animalistically, and sat it a crouched position. 

When she motioned to the boy they were with, who was lying trembling on the ground now where she had put him down, the strange wolf boy cautiously moved around her to examine him. He reeked of Death Sanguine, and it was clear to tell he was reacting adversely to it. Thin black veins were snaking across the younger boy's skin, and his eyes were taking a disturbing shade of red. His eyes appeared to be sinking into their sockets, and his lips were turning a strange dark color. 

"He reeks of Sanguine Tenebris? What the hell happened for a kid so young to be injected with that nasty crap?" he asked. "He's in a bad way anyways…" he muttered. He looked up at the girl and sighed. "Getting to Lady Death is easier said than done. Her palace lies at the center of the Inferni, and you have to defeat all nine levels to reach her. And I hate to say it, but your little friend over there-" he shook his head "is no match for the guardian of the next ring. Those protecting the third level are those meant to punish Wrath, and from what I have seen, her power is directed by her anger," he said. 

"But, I might be able to help you. I know the levels of hell better than most people. I've been down here a while. If I help you reach Lady Dalanesca, maybe you can help bargain me out of here," he said. He carefully shifted Rohan's position and then pulled him up onto his back so that his sister would not have to carry him. 

“Sorry!” Iva said it instinctively as she tried to help the shifter. “I’m normally not startled so easily. My papa taught me how to throw a punch just in case I ever got in trouble.” It wasn’t true but he didn’t need to know that she had been taught by a royal tutor. That was the last thing that they needed to know.

“I was afraid you were going to say that. All we knew was that this portal led to Dalanesca. I was hoping we could avoid the nine levels but knowing her it is ten. Ten will be where she is.” It was clear that Iva knew a lot more about Dalanesca than she was letting on.

Her amber eyes kept an easy glare on their newest companion. It was getting worse the more that they examined Rohan. “We were trying to get out of Adeluna when he accidentally got stabbed with one of the syringes. Next thing we knew the only way to turn it back was to bring him down here.”

What she heard about wrath was enough for her to turn to Hazel and shake her head at the girl. “We’re going to get Rohan killed in this next circle if you don’t snap out of it.” Hazel whimpered and held onto the plushie more tightly as she came over to them. The seething rage had boiled down now that she knew Rohan would be in trouble.

“We can do that. Truth be told we’re hoping she notices us a lot sooner than the tenth circle. You see… Dalanesca is Rohan’s god mother. I’ve known Dalanesca since I was a little girl and before she was a goddess. If Dalanesca won’t bring you back… then my mother will. Angela Rose, The Mother, is our actual mother. This is Hazel, a good friend of Rohan’s… and my name is Iva.”

She was grateful that he was putting Rohan on his back. Hazel took Rohan’s hand to comfort him after they walked. “We have this circle beat so we can go to the next. I am worried about how we will beat wrath without using Hazel… I might actually have to fight even though I was told not to.” She drummed her fingers on her lips. “Mother will be angry… she will be angry regardless… We were told not to go to Adeluna…”

The boy, Rohan, his giggles were more frantic now, and he was trembling something fierce, his small frame shaking hard against the older boy's glowing form. 

"Iva. Pretty. Name's De'Zhelis," he said with a wolfish grin. 

"Well, if we are sneaky, I might be able to get us through without having to fight the demons there," he said. He paused a moment and adjusted his grip on Rohan before he began walking again. With no more incubi or succubi guarding this gate, they were able to cross into the third level. 

Which was much different than what De'Zhelis had thought it was going to be. He looked around, his green eyes scanning  the plush building all round them now, tables piled high with the most decadent food that the white haired shifter had ever seen. 

"Ok… this is NOT the ring I thought it was…" he said. He lifted a hand to his nose. "I smell nothing but sweet decadent food… and dogs…" he said. He looked at Iva. "BIG dogs… the kind of dog with three heads," he said. He immediately looked wary. "We should be fine so long as we prove ourselves not to be gluttonous. Don't touch anything on the tables," he instructed and motioned for the two girls to follow him in. 

Iva blushed a bit at his words on her name before she snapped her attention to the rest of her circle. “Sneaky shouldn’t be too hard as long as they don’t hear Rohan… Maybe if we gag him he will shut up.” Hazel glared for a moment at Iva before Iva chuckled nervously. “I’m just kidding Hazel. We’ll figure something out.”

As they crossed into the third circle she took a rather large gulp at the food around them. Even Hazel looked hungry since they hadn’t really eaten anything. “This is the circle of gluttony… I THOUGHT, that you knew what you were doing.” Iva pointed at the shifter before sighing a bit defeated.

“Iva, no point in getting upset… We can easily beat this realm by not being gluttonous. I mean as long as we keep an eye on Rohan we’ll be alright.” Hazel smiled up at De’Zhelis and Iva before holding Ro’s hand once more.

“So… How long have you been down here anyways?” Iva asked their new companion. She was a bit curious about him. “I mean… You are dead so it has had to have been a while now… right?”

"That is actually a more complicated question than you might think," De'Zhelis said with a bit of a sigh. "You see… I'm not 'dead' so to speak. Not all the way at least," he said. "I mean, I'm not wholly dead, and I never died up top," he told Iva and Hazel as he carefully maneuvered around the tables and the individuals being forced to eat their sins. "I made a powerful necromancer angry, and he cursed me with a ghost blight and banished me here," he explained. "And I am stuck here either until someone helps me 'cross over' back into the land of the living, or until Lady Dalanesca herself frees me from her domain," he admitted. "It's hard to tell the passage of time, so I don't know how long I've been here," he said. "But I've been here since before people started trying to see Dalanesca about this Sanguine Tenebris issue," he said. "Most everyone else who has come through has either just ignored me or tried to do away with me. Not that it does much good," he said with a sigh. 

"You guys are the first ones to have given me the time of day," he said giving her a bit of a half smile. 

"You said that Angela, the Lady of Life was your mother. Why couldn't she help your brother out? Is this thing really so bad that the Goddess of Life cannot give aid?" he asked Iva.

“So you are in Limbo. That doesn’t sound like an overly complicated answer at all.” Iva blinked a bit at him. “We just had a battle in the Soul-Stream not that many years ago now that I think about it.” She nodded a bit to his story and frowned. “You are too young to have pissed someone like that off.”

Tilting her head Iva gave him a smile. “Might be because who our mother is. We give everyone the time of day if they need help. Though help always comes with a price. For example, you helping us get to Dalanesca is the price.” Iva gave him a smile.

“That… is a good question. See my mother pulled out of Adeluna and strictly said she wasn’t helping. If we go to her and tell her that she promptly disobeyed her she could be very, very cross with us. It is a much easier time coming into hell and trying to beat the circles and ask Dalanesca very nicely to help us… than to face the wrath of our mother should she find out. That and Goddesses have a tendency to cross power out. We could waste time and hope my mother has a cure only to find out she can’t dominate Dalanesca… Again our options were quite limited with this.”

They found the entrance to the fourth circle soon after that. Looking around Iva tilted her head. “Greed?”

"Limbo. Yeah, that's a pretty good way to put it," De'Zhelis agreed. "I do remember that I was topside for that whole thing with the soul stream. I didn't get into it or anything, I was too busy, but I remember," he pointed out. He scoffed at Iva's remark. "I'm a teenager, it is my job to piss people off like that," he remarked flatly giving her a bit of a smirk. 

A slight pink came to De'Zhelis's cheeks when Iva smiled at him. She was kinda cute. "Well, I'm grateful. I was afraid I was going to be stuck here forever."

He listened to her explanation and made a face. "Well, cross she might be but I hope she's the kind of mother who will just be happy that you are safe," he commented. "But it makes sense that Life and Death would sort of cancel each other out when it comes to powers and magic. And where we don't have much time as far as this kid is concerned," he said nudging the still trembling and inanely giggly Rohan he carried "you probably made the right choice…"

His ears flattened against his head as they crept past one of the cerebus that guarded the gates to the fourth circle. 

He nodded at Iva. "Yeah, greed…" he looked a little nervous. "Let's just go as quickly as possible," he said. He pushed the gate open for Iva and Hazel and followed through with Rohan and stood stalled on what looked to be an old mine track that was suspended over a lake of lava. All around them the souls of the greedy dumped cart fulls of sparkling treasures into the lava lake and De'Zhelis whimpered. 

"What a waste…" he whined as he securely gripped Rohan, as if he was trying to keep his own hands busy so he wouldn't be tempted, and let out a canine-esque whimper before he looked at the track that lead out over the lake of lava. "Let's go," he urged.

Dalanesca was able to sense Iva and Rohan the moment they had stepped foot within Porta Inferni.  She could sense that there was something not quite right with Rohan, and it concerned her as the child was her godson.  There were two others with the children as well, and she did not seem to have a prior acquaintance with either of them.  After a moment's contemplation, she made the conscious decision to let them traverse the circles without her interference, so long as no dire injuries were to occur. 

With all the people traversing Inferos, it was difficult for Dalanesca to pinpoint one thing or one small detail about anyone, even those such as Rohan and Iva with whom she had a special connection.  She had to go off of the bits and pieces she could put together from the different things traveling the circles, and hope that she could figure enough out off of that.  Her realm was not designed with such an influx of denizens - she had not expected so many people to willingly venture to the Underworld in hopes of fixing what had gone wrong in Adeluna.

She could now sense that Iva and the group were in the circle of Greed, and Rohan's condition was slowly worsening.  It was at that moment that she realized that Rohan must have somehow been infected with the sickness than the Sanguine Tenebris was causing, and she knew that she needed to intervene now.

Within moments, Dalanesca had disappeared from her place within her palace and reappeared just behind the group.  Iva had grown since she had last seen him, as well as Rohan, and it was a shock to her system how poorly she had been fulfilling her duties as a godmother.  "Iva… not even a small child and you cannot stay out of trouble,"  she said, in an effort to draw the groups attention. 

She made no motion to introduce herself.  She walked to the other boy she did not recognize that carried Rohan.  "Give him here, I can fix him,"  she said, reaching out and drawing Rohan into her slender arms with much more ease than her frame would let on.  When she held the boy securely, she held her hand over his forehead and pressed her cheek down against his face, whispering something inaudible in a foreign tongue.  A few moments later, she handed him back to the boy.  "He will be weak for a while, but the sickness is gone.  Now, who is going to explain to me how your brother-" she shot Iva a look with darkened eyes "-managed to contract this sickness?"  Her eyes scanned to the other girl she did not know as well as the boy.  "And who are the two of you?"