“Hey! Back of the line, bozo!”

The world had barely resolved itself when Twilight was being jostled on all sides. She was in the middle of a queue, a long queue, in a bureaucratic office. And “long” wasn’t some measly hyperbole, oh no; in spite of serpentining back and forth across the room, the queue stretched into the distance, beyond what Twilight could see. Naturally, there was a single clerk handling the veritable continent of queuers.

Right next to Twilight was a mare, hitched to a cart full of papers piled high (Twilight caught the title of one of them: Form 8ABD3-6932i-27/RX-MLP — Confirmation of Bureaucratic Competency in Demonic Environments During a Simultaneous Summoning and Deathday Party (Part 6, Section K) ). The mare was glaring at Twilight as if the latter’s default response to absolutely anything was “kittens in a blender”. “Look,” the mare said testily, “not that seeing another pony isn’t great, but if you’re also applying for a job here, get to the back of the line!”

“Applying… for a job?” If all else failed, a job as an infernal bureaucrat (wasn’t that redundant?) might get her access to the Library, and all she had to do was be complicit in the torture of billions for eternity. Hmm. Decisions, decisions.

“Well, during life, I may have been lazy,” said the pony, “and misfiled a file or two. Dozen. Dozen. Every day. For years. But it wasn’t like I did anything bad! No one died or anything. Except for that one time, I guess. And the other. And the other. And… hmm.” She frowned. “And there was that one time a misfile almost caused a war. And all the other times. And that one time it actually caused a war. But it was hardly hell-worthy! And I got sent here anyway.”

Then she grinned and tapped the side of her muzzle. “But, see, I’m smart. I think fast, then I say to the demon introducing me to hell, ‘Demon,’ says I, ‘I’m worth more to hell as a worker than a tormented. I bet your bureaucracy’s pretty bad.’”

“Oh, yeah,” whispered Twilight. “It’s bad.”

“And then we strike a deal, him and me. I get to stay out of hell in exchange for sorting out hell’s bureaucracy. But…” The pony sighed. “I need to get it all approved first. And at first it seemed easy — fill out the form, and away I go — but the official said I need to fill out this form first, one thing led to another, and…” She sighed again and jerked her head at the cart of papers.

“Ticket number six million, seven hundred thirteen thousand, two hundred eighty!” screeched the clerk. “Six million, seven hundred thirteen thousand, two hundred eighty!”

“And it’s weird.” She looked up at the clock. “I feel like I’ve been here getting bounced back and forth between officials forever, filling out more and more forms, but that clock says no time has passed.” Her voice dropped to a stage whisper. “Maybe they really do need my help. But seriously, you need to get to the back. I’m not giving up my spot.”

“Right,” said Twilight, not sure how to break the news. “Sorry. I’ll-”

“Hey! Twilight!” Starlight forced her way across lines to Twilight. “Are we in the right place? This…”

“I don’t know.” Twilight pulled Starlight over a few lines so the pony would stop glaring at them. “I think we’re in the right circle,” said Twilight, “but the wrong… personal area. This is definitely Sloth, and the Library was in Sloth. Let’s try again.”

“Wait.” Starlight cocked her head and lowered an ear. “You were supposed to have it right the first time. Are we just going to jump around hell at random and hope we wind up in the right place?”

“We might not,” Twilight said defensively. Her horn started glowing. “Now get busy with the teleportation spell.”

“…This is gonna be a looooooong day, isn’t it?”

The floor was covered with gold coins. Even at its most shallow, the coins were still piled an inch deep, forcing Twilight to literally wade through them. The rest of the place looked like a mall, of all things, stores on both walls stretching off into infinity. “Starlight?”

“Over here!” She didn’t sound far away. “Take a look at this store.”

Twilight pushed her way through the coins, gave up, and flew over them to where Starlight was. More and more golden treasures were piled high everywhere; whoever had designed this hell didn’t have much of an imagination in the way of precious metals. Starlight was staring at a storefront, speechless. Twilight took a look.

“‘Spatuling’?” Twilight asked. “What kind of a word is that?”

“I don’t know whether that’s usage of a spatula or a baby spatula.”

Twilight walked across the surface of the coins to the door and peered inside. A store of everything except spatulas lay beyond. She checked the times. “It opens at 8:00,” she said to Starlight, “and right now, it’s-” Clock check. “-yep, 7:59 forever. Greed. All the money you could want, nothing to buy with it.” She looked back inside. Even from this position, she could see Allen wrenches, gerbil feeders, toilet seats, electric heaters… “Not the best punishment. What’d happen if you were actually looking for a spatula? You’d pass this store witho-”

“Spatula City’s right behind us.”

Twilight looked. “Ooooof course. ‘We sell spatulas,’” she said, reading their slogan, “‘and that’s all.’” A sign in one of the windows caught her eye. “Huh. They’ve got a sale on hydrodynamic spatulas with port and starboard attachments. And it’s buy-one-get-one if you get the turbo drive version.”

They didn’t say anything, but their voices kept echoing down the mall for long moments. “Are we early?” asked Starlight. “Has the pony this hell is for just not died yet?”

“Probably not.” Twilight looked down. “You know… if this is real gold-”

“Alright, people, look alive!” a demon said, stepping out of a hole in the air, followed by numerous others. “She’s due to die in five minutes! You, janitors, take up your positions! You, security guards, start patrolling! You, mortals, start-” The demon did a double-take. “Mortals? Mortals! Security breach! We need-”

Twilight jumped on Starlight and hugged her close. “Spell! Now! Anywhere!” And they were gone.

“Twilight,” hissed Starlight, “we should get out of the line while we can. I don’t think they’ve noticed us yet.”

“We’ve been at this for hours. Aren’t you hungry?”

“Yes, but not ‘attend hell’s bake sale’ hungry!”

“Look at the sign. It’s free.”

“Yeah, and I bet the food’s rotting corpses soaked in kerosene!”

“No, it’s cake.”

“…Real cake?”

“Yeah. The ponies ‘selling’ it are the ones being punished. For Gluttony; they have to give away all the food they can eat without having any of it themselves. If it was rotting corpses, they’d be happy to get rid of it.”

“Fine. We’ll have some cake.”

One not-actually-that-long wait later, they had (admittedly tasty-looking) cakes shoved at them by a scrawny pony with a smile so fake even the worst Chineighse knockoffs poo-pooed its quality. “Thank. You. Come. Again,” the pony said as they left.

“Alright,” Starlight snapped. “We’ve got cake. Now let’s get going.” She tossed the cake over her shoulder.

Twilight snatched the cake from the air with her magic and shoved it in Starlight’s face. “Come on, Starlight!” she said. “Don’t have your cake, eat it!” She was already gulping down huge bites of her own cake, and the look on her face said it was better than anything.

Starlight dubiously took a bite of the cake. Five seconds later, she was vacuuming the rest of the frosting off the plate. “You know,” she said, “I wouldn’t mind waiting again. That was hella good.”

Twilight scraped the remains of her own cake off of her face. “When we get to the Library, we’ll find you the multiverse’s best cake cookbook.” She licked her hoof clean.

“I’ll take it.”

“You mean bake it?”

Punch.

“Just look important,” Twilight whispered to Starlight, “and they’ll think we’re supposed to be here and ignore us.”

Starlight shuffled to one side to let another business-suited demon past. “Why are we staying here, anyway?” she asked. “We’re supposed to be looking for Sloth, right? This is an office building. Plane. Dimension. Thing. Whatever, this is not Sloth.”

“Well, no,” admitted Twilight. “But we got shuffled out of our target circle for some reason, so if this is, I dunno, corporate or infernate, we can find out some of the structure of hell and focus our jumps a bit more.

“‘Find out some of the structure of hell’? How?”

“…I dunno.”

Starlight facehooved.

The decor of the office was infernale chic, with perhaps more pointy bits than were necessary, but Twilight had never imagined demons as extremely fricking dapper as the ones here. It was true: no matter who you were, what you were, a good suit made you look classy as all get out (apparently, “classy as hell” wasn’t an exaggeration). And if you ignored the smell of brimstone and bleach, the whole place wasn’t too bad.

But they were hiding, and that was the important part. Demons passed them by, never giving them any more than a-

“You two mortals look lost,” said a demon.

Twilight opened her mouth to make up some excuse, but Starlight quickly said, “Yes! Yes, we are.”

“Go see Levannerthan.” The demon pointed. “Second hall on the left, just past the ‘Your Rival’s Birthday Party’ office.”

Starlight pulled Twilight down the hall. “Such a great plan,” Starlight mumbled to Twilight. As they approached Levannerthan’s office, they could hear voices coming from it.

“Whaddya mean you don’t have a punishment set up yet?! She’s been waiting in limbo for a decade!”

“You have no idea how hard it is to punish someone for envy, do you? Barely anyone has envy as their main vice! It’s always sin number two or three! There’s like no precedent!”

“There’s plenty of precedent! I’m the one who runs Envy, for crying out loud! Why did you even APPLY for Envy?”

Starlight pushed open the door to the office. Two demons were inside, quarrelling. Starlight hadn’t even opened her mouth when the larger raised a hand to her. “I’m Levannerthan, and I’m also sorry, give me a minute,” he said. “Buckthym here can’t seem to do his job and craft a personalized punishment for an envious pony.”

“Oh, sure,” snapped the smaller demon. “Just insult right me in front of the guests!”

“Was she envious of a particular person?” said Twilight, sliding in after Starlight. “Make her the president of that person’s fan club.”

“…Are you even trying?!” Levannerthan screamed at Buckthym. “A decade! A decade and nothing from you! Then this… mortal flounces along-”

“Flounce?” Twilight asked, frowning.

“-and she solves the problem in two minutes! One and a half of those minutes waiting for a chance to speak!”

“I did not flounce.”

“Oh, like it’s so easy for you!” snapped Buckthym.

“Yeah, that wasn’t flouncing at all,” said Starlight.

“It is! I’m not head of the Envy Division for nothing!” said Levannerthan.

“It was more of a… mosey. Or an amble.”

“Oh, lay off! You’re always getting on my case!”

“Or a promenade?” asked Twilight.

Levannerthan ate Buckthym.

“Yeah, maybe,” said Starlight.

Levannerthan licked Buckthym’s ichor from his lips and said, “So! Mortals aren’t supposed to be in here, but I’ll ignore that since you solved that problem so easily. Any other small favors you need? I’m sure I can pull a few tendons around here, get something done for you.”

“Could we have, I don’t know,” said Twilight, “some sort of badges that let us be here? Constantly having to evade security demons is a pain.”

“And a map!” said Starlight. “We reaaaaally need a map of hell.”

“Yes! A map! A map would be great. How did I forget about a map?”

“Oh, both of those’re easy,” said Levannerthan, nodding. “I’ll just pop out for a second, and- Here, have some MINTs while you wait.” He vanished out the door.

Twilight and Starlight looked at the bowl Levannerthan had gestured at, then at each other. “Those are mints?” Starlight asked skeptically, backing away.

“Maggot-Infested Necrotic Tissues, probably.”

“Yeah, not touching those.”

Starlight lounged against the wall, trying to avoid looking around her. She would’ve thought that this section of hell, being a place of punishment for lust, would be more prudish, not like… this. And yet, the place’s other inhabitants were inconsolable.

Finally, Twilight trotted back from the stage, looking a little shaken. Starlight stood up straight. “So? How’s a bar filled with beer kegs and beautiful dancing mares a punishment?”

“Well, the kegs have holes in the bottom…”

“Okay. Makes sense, I guess.”

“…and the mares don’t.”

“Oh. …Oh.”

“Yeah. Let’s keep moving.”

“Hold up. How did you find out-”

“LET’SKEEPMOVING!”

The place looked like an ordinary cafe in Canterlot, barring the sanguine sky that may or may not have been literally dripping blood. And considering the weird turn Luna’s tastes had taken recently, all you’d need to do was stick up some Nightmare Night decorations and you could overlook even that.

“So, yeah,” said the pony sitting across from Twilight. “I was prideful of my successes in life, and now I get graded poorly on literally everything I do-”

“Horrific infodumping!” screamed the demon standing behind the pony. “1.5 out of 10!”

The pony groaned and hung his head in his hooves. “And it’s hellishly annoying.”

“Stating the obvious! e out of 10!”

“e out of 10?! What even is e?”

“Improper math skills! 0.123958230502 repitan out of 137!”

“If you take one plus one-over-x,” said Twilight, “and set that to the xth power, e is what you get as x goes to infinity.”

“Oh,” snorted the pony, “like that’s a big help.”

“Twelfth use of sarcasm this hour! 2 out of 10!”

“Actually, it is. In compound interest, for example-”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Interruption! 2 out of 10!”

Finally, Starlight coughed. “So are we going anywhere, Twilight?” she asked. “Something about every book possible? Or can I-”

“Have you deciphered the map yet?”

“No, it’s-” Starlight pushed the wiggling thing that was vaguely recognizable as a three-dimensional map at Twilight. “I don’t think this map is… whatevering right. You said we were going here, right? But this-” She waved a hoof around the diner. “-doesn’t look anything like that.”

“Hmm. You’re right,” Twilight said, tapping her chin. “Can you see where we actually are?”

“Right here. I think.”

“Double hmm. We’ll need to do some more jumps and see how the destination compares with the coordinates. There might be something wrong with this map.” Twilight pushed her chair away and stood up. To the other pony, she said, “Sorry, but we need to get going.”

“That’s okay,” said the pony. “Thanks for stopping by.”

“Sincerity! 9.5 out of 10!”

The pony spun and looked at the judge, a big smile on her face. “Really?!”

“Inability to simply accept good scores! 3 out of 10!”

“MOTHERF-”

Twilight looked up. An endless wasteland, flat as salt plains, stretched around her. The ground was dry and parched, with cracks looking like it was on the verge of falling apart completely. Pools of bubbling acid were scattered about, spitting caustic fumes into the air. But that didn’t matter, because they still weren’t in the Library. “Son of a botch!” she screamed.

Wait, what? “Botch. Botch. Booootch. Bit. Itch. Botch. …Ship. Dock. Punt. Hiss.” Hmm. Twilight nudged Starlight, still dazed on the ground. “Starlight, could you swear at me?”

A still-woozy Starlight ruffled her mane. “Gruh?” she mumbled.

“Swear at me. Please? Just the F-word. Or something.”

“Fudge,” sighed Starlight.

“No, no, the obscene one.”

“Fiddlesticks.”

“About oscillating the unmentionables.”

“Fornication.”

“That starts in F and ends in U-C-K.”

“Firetruck.”

“That’s two words! Swear at me!”

Rolling her eyes, Starlight asked,“Why the funk should I- What the funk?”

“Hoo-ee, holy ship! Ain’t seen no funkin’ other ponies in a funkin’ long time.”

A grizzled earth stallion in a sailor’s uniform was standing in one of the pools, acid up to his withers. Below the surface of the liquid, his legs weren’t much more than bone and burned muscle. A coffee cup hovered in front of him, periodically floating to his lips for him to take a sip. He waved a burned, nearly skeletal leg at Twilight and Starlight. “Yo.”

“Um. Hi.” Twilight waved back. “Sorry, we’re just, uh, stopping by and can’t stay long.”

The sailor shrugged. “Eh. Whatever. Wasn’t funkin’ expectin’ anything better’n this piece o’ship.”

“Why can’t I swear?” Starlight mumbled, half to the sailor, half to herself. “Ship. Ship. Ship. Shiitake. Okay, what the funk?”

“ ’Tis a part o’my torment. Them demon punts installed a funkin’ profanity filter or summat.” The sailor sighed. “I tell ya, d’ye know how funkin’ hard ’tis t’be a funkin’ sailor an’ not able t’funkin’ curse all proper-like? Buffer ’em. ’Tis funkin’ hell.”

“I think that’s the idea,” said Twilight.

“Buffer ’em anyway.”

Starlight looked around the place. “Not very creative, is it? Just, stand in acid for eternity and that’s it. Where’s the karmic irony? Where’s the sophistication? Where’s the-”

“Hey, it’s not my fault! I’ve only been doing this for three thousand years, I’m still new!”

Twilight and Starlight both jumped and spun around. A she-wolf demon with griffon wings and toilet paper stuck to a rear paw, taller at the shoulder than the tip of Twilight’s horn, was stepping out of the air, looking forlorn. Before Twilight could apologize, the demon continued, “I was a tempter for so long, giving mortals what they don’t want is alien to me! I’m still working out the kinks! And all the good ideas for Wrath have already been taken.” She shook the toilet paper off. “And the middling ideas. And the bad ones. And the bottom-of-the-barrel-ones. And-”

“Well, you could start by not giving him coffee,” suggested Starlight.

The demon looked horrified. “Seriously? Can you imagine going through eternity with no coffee? That’s cruel and unusual even for hell.”

Twilight couldn’t deny that, and Starlight was nodding sagely as she pulled out their map.

“Anyway…” The demon did a halfhearted bow. “Welcome to hell,” she mumbled, “I am Marechosias, this is the personal hell of blah de blah, you’re lost, aren’t you?”

“Are we?” Twilight asked Starlight.

“I don’t know,” Starlight said. She turned the map upside-down and frowned. “Give me a minute.”

“We’re not lost yet,” said Twilight.

“Well, gooooood for yooooooou,” sneered Marechosias. Taking a sword, she poked halfheartedly at the sailor.

Twilight’s friendship reflexes engaged. “So what happened?” she asked. “You seem… I guess ‘up’ would be the bad thing here. Are you? Is something wrong?”

“Downsizing,” muttered Marechosias. “You… ponies, with your love and friendship and tolerance and harmony and all that… Blech. You make it hard for a tempter to do any actual tempting, you know? I offer you the world if you’ll just damn your soul to hell for eternity, but oh, you’ve got frieeeeeeends, they’re beeeeeeetter than the world, oooooooooooo!” She made jazz paws. “It’s hard for hell to support all those tempters when nothing comes of it, you know? Stop ruining our economy!”

“I’m… sorry?” lied Twilight.

“I got replaced by Baphomane millennia ago. And Baphomane’s not even a real demon!” Marechosias shrieked, beating her wings. “He was made up by some idiot named Aleistrot Cropley! But pretending he exists is cheaper, so now Behemoth gets to do overtime when ‘Baphomane’ gets summoned, but Marechosias? Nooooooooo.” She sat on her haunches and pouted at the acid. “I used to be a Marquis,” she mumbled. “I commanded thirty whole legions of demons. Thirty funking legions! I was a great tempter. And now I’m just some unpaid intern of a tormenter. Pfah.” She contemptuously spat out a plume of fire.

“Funkin’ drama queen, ain’t she?” the sailor whispered.

Twilight and Starlight looked at each other. Starlight mouthed “we’re lost”, shoved the map at Twilight, sidled over to examine one of the acid pools. Twilight coughed and said, “You know, while we’re here, we are lost. We’ve got a, uh, map…” She showed it to Marechosias. “…and we’re trying to get to the Library of Babel. A Library of Babel. It’ll probably be organized and well-sorted by a very, very intelligent person. But we can’t seem to read the map right, so… any chance you can help us?”

Marechosias examined the map for a moment. “Well, duh. You’re reading it inside-out.” In a movement that made Twilight’s brain hurt, Marechosias pushed the map ana into the fourth dimension, reversed it, and pulled it kata into the third. “See? You’re right here and you need to be — you wanted the organized one, right? — you need to be here.”

“Uh-huh.” Twilight tilted her head back and forth as she looked at the map, a grin spreading across her face. “Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot more sense! Thanks! Starlight, I’ve finally got the right coordinates! Are you ready?”

“I think I have burns on the insides of my lungs,” gasped Starlight from where she was writhing on the ground.

“Oh, quit whining,” said Twilight. “One last jump, and if that’s not the Library, we can go home. Okay?”

When the unicorns had left, Marechosias and the sailor were alone on the acid plains. The sailor raised an eyebrow at Marechosias. “Y’know,” he said, “mebbe the reason y’ain’t a funkin’ mar-keeeeee no more is ’cause yer too funkin’ nice fer a demon. Yer supposed t’be a botch.” He took a sip from his mug.

“Oh, ha ha. Very punny. So very, very punny.” Marechosias yanked the mug away. “Anyway, coffee break’s over. Get back on your head.”