Lucifer was getting worried now.

And when the great Arch-Recorder of Pride got worried, you knew something had gone stupid.

The Observer held meetings at irregular intervals, intentionally irregular, apparently. He called them "organic scheduling" and said it helped "promote spontaneity." Lucifer called it annoying. But this time? This delay was suspicious even for Observer standards.

Lucifer squinted at the golden thread of ether curling lazily through his fingers. It showed him his current recording target, Eleyn.

Oh, Eleyn.

He was sitting under a very metaphorical tree (he didn't need shade, but it felt thematic) while Seraphis was, oh dear gods above, laying absolute carnage onto the forest floor.

"I feel like I'm recording a one-sided cooking show," Lucifer muttered to himself. The job description never said he had to work alone, but here he was, scribbling away in a book that didn't exist except when he wanted it to. "Ingredients: one extremely angry woman, several dozen ether beasts, and absolutely no chill."

Seraphis shot through the clearing, her cloak was a mess of ash and blade-light. The air behind her howled from the sheer speed. One creature, a massive lion-thing with far too many teeth and not nearly enough eyes, leapt at her.

It didn't get the chance to land, maybe it traded sight for teeth. Or maybe because it was fighting Seraphis.

With the grace of someone who's trained exclusively by bench-pressing regrets and lost causes, Seraphis twisted in midair, unsheathed an ether blade from what might have been her spine, and deleted the lion from existence.

No flashy explosions. Just, snip and Gone. All that remained where powdered sand... no, just sand, but differently colored.

Lucifer's recording quivered.

Eleyn, meanwhile, was seated under an actual tree, sipping something that looked like appraisal and early retirement — wine.

"She's showing off," she said, not bothering to raise her voice.

"She's winning," Lucifer muttered back, only half-aware that Eleyn couldn't hear him. Although it would be a death sentence, he half-hoped she could hear him.

The ground burst upward as another beast emerged, a worm the size of a bad decision.

Seraphis didn't flinch.

She just held her hand out. A spear formed from condensed ether, smooth, sharp, and glimmering with suppressed irritation. It skewered the thing like it was nothing more than a slippery sausage on a campfire stick.

Lucifer's hands moved in a blur. "And here we see the Seraphis in her natural habitat: ruining everyone's day."

He had no need to write what he was recording, but he had taken quite a liking to almost anything that alleviated boredom.

———

Gabriel was also worried. Not for some divine reasons, not yet, but because Prince Renald was up to something so normal it felt like a crime.

"He's, he's brushing his hair again," Gabriel whispered to himself, peeking at the long stream of divine memory unraveling in front of him.

The other Recorders would've mocked him. But no, this was serious.

Renald, heir to the throne, had been acting too... orderly. Waking at the same time, polishing the same boots thrice a day, feeding the same birds that didn't even exist five days ago.

And of course, "his hobbies" that are better left unspoken.

That was not the behavior of a prince. That was the behavior of a cultist who was really into presentation.

Gabriel leaned in closer. "He smiled at a baby... with both eyes. Suspicious."

Then the prince paused. Looked toward a wall. Touched it.

Gabriel froze. "Touching walls. Classic misdirection tactic. Is it hollow? Is it a secret passage? A button? No... it's just a wall. Or is it?"

He clutched his hands like they owed him money.

But it was just a poster for a new tavern.

———

Uriel had never been tasked with anything, but she considered that a blessing.

She found her own drama. Her current obsession?

A group of very dedicated idiots, adventurers, who were absolutely convinced that dragons were real.

Spoiler: No one else agreed.

They had set up camp in what they insisted was near an ancient site where the dragons were last seen before they disappeared completely.

It was just a windy hill.

"They left claw marks here!" one shouted.

"That's a goat track," another villager explained, for the fifth time this week.

Uriel was gleeful. She recorded every moment like a proud babysitter watching kids try to microwave soup with the can still closed.

Today's breakthrough: they found a "dragon scale."

It was shiny. Round. Had the word "Property of General Mint" on it.

"It's currency," Uriel said softly to herself. "They found an Avian coin. And are worshipping it."

She zoomed in spiritually. The adventurers were now holding a meeting. One of them stood up solemnly. "It's not that the world was wrong," he said. "It's that the world was... afraid."

Uriel wrote that down and underlined it twice. She'd be using that quote at every party for the next two or three weeks.

Not that she had many parties she could attend.

———

Barachiel's task was simple: record the movements of the Church of Umbra's assassin branch.

But she hadn't expected this.

Gereon Drakonis had arrived.

He didn't walk into the cathedral. He entered it like thunder enters a valley. Walls didn't break around him, they fled the scene to avoid being complicit.

"Uhh?... Shouldn't we stop him?" one assassin whispered to his frozen partner.

"No," said the other. "You should say your last words... It's the Drakonis!"

They didn't get to say much else.

Barachiel watched from her perch in ethereal space as Gereon moved. Not like a man. Like a concept. A philosophy with elbows. Wherever he stepped, it was as if a calamity were walking atop the earth.

He didn't need to draw a weapon.

He was the weapon.

A thousand hidden blades moved (Not that many, but still, for the added effects). He ducked, turned, and then stepped through five of them like they were fog. The assassins screamed. Mostly in surprise. Sometimes in halves.

Barachiel scribbled furiously, a hobby she had taken notice of from Lucifer. "Note: One man war. Also, his eyebrows glow. Why?"

In six minutes and twelve seconds, the place was empty of life and full of existential dread.

Barachiel sipped from a conjured cup of dessert. "He didn't even break a sweat."

This place was giant, and Gereon had come alone. She was never more excited at work.

———

Asmodeus was trying to spin a purple card between her fingers and was floating cross-legged above a muddy field where two neighboring territories were at war.

Correction: a very stupid war.

The issue? A goat. One goat. Stolen or wandered, no one was sure anymore. But both sides were now fully invested.

Catapults had been rolled out. Thatched huts had been caught in the crossfire. A chicken had been promoted to general, then eaten.

Asmodeus recorded without comment, her face utterly blank.

One soldier tripped over his own spear. Another fired a flaming arrow into his own barn.

"The real war," she muttered, "is against common sense."

A man with a potato sack for armor and a horned helmet on his head screamed "FOR THE HONOR OF GRAZELAND!" and ran headfirst into a trap.

Asmodeus didn't blink. "Peak drama. Ten out of ten."

Maybe she could fill out the comedy segment.

———

Satan had been given a rare green light: investigate the death of a dear friend.

The trail led him to the Church of Night, which he now regarded with the same enthusiasm as a clogged toilet.

He walked silently through shadowy halls, recording everything.

Every corridor he walked down felt like a funeral with bad lighting.

"Too much black," he muttered. "Even for me."

In the pews sat figures muttering nonsense. Prayers? Hexes? Office memos?

Satan didn't care. He was following the blood-trail of secrets. The last place his leads pointed at.

Then, there was a strange movement.

A priest turned, saw him, and gasped. "You shouldn't be."

"..." he tensed, already gripping his shortsword

"I should," Another priest replied, behind him, "There is a rat inside."

Satan let out a relieved sigh and made a mental note: They knew. Someone knows. Maybe all of them do. Or maybe they're just creepy.

He stepped through a door and vanished into the ink of memory, leaving the echo of his friend's laughter behind.

None of the Recorders had heard from the Observer. Not in weeks.

Lucifer adjusted his tie (which didn't exist), Gabriel watched a wall with a stupid advertisement poster, Uriel laughed at another fake dragon's lead, Barachiel blinked twice at a bloody mess, Asmodeus recorded a war over Lunchables, and Satan walked into darkness with a purpose.1

And still, no meeting.

"Something's wrong," Lucifer said, again to himself.

But the others were too busy recording to listen.

For those who didn't get the reference, Lunchables is a brand