The Diamond of Many Hells

After formulating their plans over the next half-hour, the two wrapped up their conversation, and Jean sat silently, engrossed in his thoughts and the endless possibilities before him. He was periodically interrupted by mental pangs of pain, but he was in a better place than before. His psyche still hurt, but it was no longer a dire issue.

After several minutes, the chat window closed, and a new notice popped up. 'Would you like to see your status?' There were no buttons for yes or no, but they didn't seem to be necessary, as as soon as the idea of assent appeared in Jean's mind, the notice closed, and a window that resembled a video game screen appeared.

---

Body name (name of body inhabited): You-Un

Personal Name (name recognized by you): Jean Boulinois

-

Active paths of power:

[Interface]

[Physical]

[Sociological]

[Mental]

[Spiritual]

-

Stats:

level: 0

Experience: 0/100

HP: ~1000/1000

physical attack power: 12

Defense: 8

Dexterity: 10

Agility: 5

-

Attributes (approximated from best available data):

Strength: 5

Deftness: 4

Endurance: 5

Intelligence: 17

Available Attribute points: 1

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Scalar Talents (approximated from best available data):

Strength: 2

Deftness: 1.3

Endurance: 1.2

Intelligence: 9

-

Talents: 

Cerebral: 52

Hidden talents: 147+

Available Talent Points (scalar and non-scalar): 0

-

Skills: [Interface (-)]

Hidden skills: 34417+

---

'That's... interesting,' thought Jean. 'How did you get this information?'

It brought up a new chat window with the text, 'It is one of my functions. It's an innate ability similar to how breathing or thinking is for you. I have some leeway to change how the screen is organized, though, of course. I had to take some liberties when creating it for the first time, as well.'

'What liberties? Why?'

'Not all of the information I can find is reputable. Some of it is certain, such as your skills, but I have to calculate your attributes and scalar talents manually because they aren't directly measurable, and I have to take some shortcuts for that because my processing power is not unlimited. That's why they're approximated, though they should be reliable.'

It continued, 'I also hid the majority of your skills and talents. You don't need me to remind you of the fact that you have basic motor skills, can drive a car, read, and so on, so I contained them all under their respective hidden categories. I also put the plus next to it because most skills consist of many smaller skills, so the number could be much higher depending on how specific you want me to be. Driving a car, for example, requires awareness, operating the pedals, the steering wheel, and so on.'

'I see, but what do you mean when you said that attributes and scalar talents have to be calculated? What are they, and what's the difference between stats, attributes, and scalar talents?'

'Stats measure your ability directly. They are what you can do as you are now. Attributes and scalar talents affect your growth potential. Attributes measure the growth of your stats, and scalar talents measure the growth of your attributes and their potency (basically giving you a one-time stat boost by retroactively giving you the stats you would have received earlier). If we represent everything relative to stats, then stats are a constant function, attributes are a linear function, and talents are an exponential function.'

Jean pondered this for a quick moment before realizing, 'Wait, they're just derivatives of one another. Attributes don't exactly represent the derivative of scalar talents because scalar talents also provide some stats retroactively, but it's close enough. That's neat. I suppose getting talent points would be the most mathematically effective way to increase my stats, then?'

'That is correct.'

'That's fascinating. What are regular talents, then?'

'Regular talents affect your skills. They are to skills what attributes are to stats. Your proficiency in any particular skill is normally represented in the skills section, and talents affect how quickly you become proficient in it.'

'So, why doesn't my interface skill have a proficiency? And what is it? Is that you? And why is it a path of power, too?'

'I don't have many answers regarding that, but to your third question, yes, I am the result of your interface skill. Regarding your first question, it doesn't seem like the interface skill has a proficiency. It's more binary, like you possess it or you don't, so I'm not sure if it should be a skill, but something tells me that it should be. As for why it's a path of power as well, I don't know. I know that it's a path, but while I would normally know more detailed information about a path, I only know that this is a path. I don't understand it, either.'

'Even you don't know anything about yourself. How useless.'

'Hey, you try and draw me a spleen, why don't you?'

'Was that supposed to be some kind of 'gotcha' moment? I know what a spleen looks like.'

'That's not my point. What I'm trying to say is that just because something is a part of you doesn't mean that you know what it is or what it looks like.'

'That's fair, but it's still f*cking infuriating that there doesn't seem to be a way to find out. Nothing I can think of, at least.'

'There isn't one, as far as I'm aware. Or maybe there is, but I have no idea what it might be, even if there is one.'

'Another unexplainable mystery, dammit.' Jean sighed before closing all of the windows. It seemed to be able to sense what he wanted, even if he didn't express it directly, which is why he didn't have to click an X in the top right corner to close them, and they practically closed on their own. It really was in his head.

Soon after closing the windows, Jean fell into a deep sleep. His head would have normally been buzzing with curiosity, but his earlier fit and persistent depression dulled it enough to let him sleep. But sleep was no respite for him, either. His dreams haunted him, too.

-

A new world appeared before his eyes. He was above it all, able to see everything, but what he saw was horrible. The first moment, he saw an enormous city with seemingly impossible architecture that seemed to be art but was still an expression of incredible geometric precision, boasting extreme intricacy, even though it was solely composed of edges and faces. Behind it, several moons hung in the sky, and a great leviathan ruled.

But, beneath the prodigious façade, it was a hell. Blood, sexual atrocities, hate, abuse, alcohol, and unrestrained pleasure flowed through each building. There were no homes here, only people. It was more than an empire of sin and vice; it was a state of death. There was no life here, only a facsimile of it. To live in the leviathan's city would be worse than death.

In the second moment, a new world appeared. A plain of Asmodeus was spread before Jean. The heat scorched him and tore his skin apart as he screamed, but he still did not wake. In front of him was a desert. White sand blew across it in sheets, fast enough to flay a person and hot enough to burn them. 

When Jean looked upon the desert, he saw nothing but sand, at first, but loosely covered by thin layers were skeletons, millions of them. The heat and sand had baked off all the flesh from these corpses and was slowly wearing them down to nothing.

Many of the ribs were thin enough for a toddler to break, and the skulls had holes in them. The toes and fingers had been lost or worn away, and many of the limb bones were loose, scattered throughout the wasteland. As a femur flew past him, understanding hit Jean. There was no sand here, only bones. Many of them had been slowly crushed into so many tiny shards that they resembled grains, but it was still only a field of bone.

The field killed everything in it and then used the dead as a weapon against any new living. There was no life in this hell, either. In the third moment, it all disappeared. He was in a void, but he knew that this wasn't another hell. A void is only a hell if there is something in it, but Jean was an outsider to these three scenes. He wasn't truly in any of them, even if it felt like it. The void was neutral because it was nothing in its purest form.

With nothing to do, his mind turned to the hells he saw. They were both extremely different from one another, but they both epitomized a different facet of the same harrowing diamond. He saw the hell of pain and the hell of iniquity. He didn't know the name of the diamond the hells described, but he knew that he wouldn't want to know.

Inexplicably, a sense of longing for the second hell appeared, but it did not appear because he adored physical agony; he simply knew it would be better for him to be there than where he was. Not in the void or first hell, but where he was now. When he realized this, he awoke to the now he wished to escape, and the void gave way to the light of wakefulness.