Infernal Invasion: Azal the Infernal prequel
Azal: A Dying Lieutenant
At Dreadrock, Azal the Infernal greets the Hero with an accusation: the Hero is responsible for his suffering and the fate that has chained him. He promises a final fight to enjoy, but the Hero defeats him. Afterward, his hostility gives way to a request for company. He would appreciate someone staying until the end. He was not always such a solitary warrior.
Asked why he targeted civilians, Azal answers that he follows orders and that his army needs recruits for what is coming. He first claims to have no regrets, then admits that he does. His appearance does not mean he lacks a conscience, and he was not always an Infernal. With nowhere left to go, he offers the Hero his story. He has no chance to change the past; he can only recount it.
The remembered Azal is a lieutenant of the Celestial Army, held captive by the Infernals. Their general, Mehgan the Merciless, welcomes him to his new home and mocks his plea for release. Azal warns that Aranx will come. Mehgan insists that he never will, anticipating the pleasure of watching the prisoner's hope disappear. For now, Azal still expects rescue and writes while he waits.
His first journal entries describe a cramped cell and the sounds of other Celestials suffering nearby. The prisoners try to keep imps out, still trusting that Aranx will save them. Dampening chains and cuffs drain their strength and magic, leaving them unable simply to fight their way out when released from their cells. Hunger forces them to catch the imps for food. Even as their captors insist that no help is coming, Azal continues to believe in Aranx and the Hero.
Azal: The Entries Without Dates
A hesitant rookie guard seems to offer a chance to strike back. Azal notices a hint of white in his wings, but the prisoners attack. The Infernals laugh instead of intervening. Only afterward do the captives learn why: the guard was another Celestial, dressed by their captors as an Infernal. They have savagely killed one of their own. Azal recoils from what they have done, then turns back to food as a way to forget.
Hunger begins to turn him against the other prisoners. The imps have started to taste good, and Azal decides to attack a Celestial whom he believes is taking more than his share. Later, the others fear him. He sees their fear as rejection, takes more food from them, and tells himself he feels better. By Entry 583, he no longer knows how long he has been imprisoned. The numbers in his journal are the only dates he has left. A desperate attack on a guard and a hound ends horribly.
In the next surviving entry, Azal remembers being bound more tightly and blindfolded, perhaps on a table. He cannot identify what was done to him through the pain. He wonders whether they were clipping his wings and describes the sensation of parts of himself being chipped away and replaced. Survival becomes his immediate purpose, and he hunts weak, solitary hounds for food. Later, the Infernals let him move more freely and speak as though he is one of them. His wings look darker. He steals rations from the wandering Celestials, deciding it is better that he eat than they do.
Entry 1000 records a fight with Infernals that Azal loses. Their demonic blood enters his open wounds, and he feels a major change in himself. He resolves to leave that night, defeats the Guard Captain, and escapes into Dreadrock. The journal ends with the thought that he would be better off dead. His escape has come after the darkening wings, the captors' growing familiarity, and his own violence against fellow prisoners. Freedom from the keep has not restored the Celestial who first waited there for rescue.
Azal: No One Came
The story returns to Dreadrock, where Azal kneels with his staff for support. He refuses to call his listener a hero. No one saved him or the Celestials held in the keep, he says. Most perished; some became Infernals after their minds were broken, as his was. The captives he once imagined sharing a rescue instead became victims of the prison and, in some cases, figures like the enemy they had feared.
Azal's account leaves the rescue he expected as a bitter absence. He had trusted Aranx, continued to hope for the Hero, and endured Mehgan's taunts that neither would come. Now he places the blame on the heroes who failed him. The Hero hears that accusation from the dying prisoner who survived; Aranx has offered no account here of what he knew or why rescue never arrived.
When the Hero asks whether anything can make amends, Azal names his price: join the Queen, and make up for what was not done for him and the other captives. The Hero refuses. Azal says he expected that answer. In his eyes, heroes think only of themselves and what stands before them. The man who admitted regrets before telling his story now declares that he has none.
His final warning is to prepare for what is coming, because it will not be pretty. Then he asks to be left alone to rest until the darkness comes. The Hero has heard how a Celestial lieutenant became an Infernal, but the telling brings no reconciliation. Azal remains at Dreadrock, waiting for the end he believes is near.