(Earlier and elsewhere...)

It is not the domain of Asmodeus, Tyrant of Hell, to spy out every last detail on every last world on which He has influence. He has far greater purposes that affect a single world, and the vassals of His vassals' vassals are of little concern on that desperate, poor planet, of interest to Asmodeus almost purely for that it happens to be the location of sealed Rovagug.

Nonetheless, each and every world of any importance to Asmodeus has a general chosen to the task of its conquest, and Alichino, Malebranche of Golarion, possesses an excellent information network, with spies in nearly every city across the Inner Sea and good lines of communication with His great master's vassal, the colony of Cheliax.

It did not reach His notice, when a light shone in the courtyard of a castle in desolate Varno, and the political map shifted; it did not reach His notice when a Colossal crustacean flew across the Inner Sea. Hell's response networks are slow, and while its resources are vast, vaster is the universe across which they must spread it.

It reached Cheliax's notice as a fact of possible interest when the outsider flew up to the gates of Lastwall, was detected as Overwhelmingly Chaotic Good by a bored low-circle cleric on Cheliax's payroll and then spent several hours closeted with Lastwall's leadership inside a scrying-barrier, and thus passed from demons on temporary service in Golarion on to their masters in Dis, and thence to Alicino. But there are a lot powerful Chaotic outsiders in Elysium, and few are like others; other than the consequences of a maximally vague 'there is another player on the board of a power probably somewhere between a fifth-circle cleric and an elder dragon', there were few updates to make to Hell's plans.

Alicino only realized that these plans were now complete nonsense four combat rounds after almost every undead in Ustulav was suddenly brought back to life.

At which point, the Malebranche charged with overseeing the conquest of Golarion - 

- Did nothing.

He doesn't actually have that large an intervention budget to direct. Golarion is only one world out of many. He presented Asmodeus with suggestions for cost, Asmodeus confidentially explained to some Good gods what He would do if they did not oppose him, and Asmodeus received a small payment in exchange for limiting His directions to telling Cheliax that this was an urgent and important threat. Asmodeus's favorite squirrel in all of Golarion had a plan, of course; her plan was to go to Hell, Gate the very annoying crab into a nasty part of Hell as soon as there wasn't a Mind Blank effect making the "locate" part of the Gate spell inoperative, and then have young Gorthoklek (already paid for) and some comparatively deadly squirrels and petty devils mess with her. Alicino quite supported this plan, as very safe, very low-budget plans go.

Then she lit up the entire River of Souls. The whole of it. The whole one-tenth-damned thing.

That was when Asmodeus very legibly exhibited to his fellow gods that this was not about the situation on Golarion in the slightest and that every single one of his actions that followed would be done completely ignoring the Golarion aspect of it and focusing wholly and entirely on the fact that the RIVER OF SOULS ITSELF WAS UNDER ATTACK.

It is actually not that common that Chaotic Evil and Neutral Evil subsidize Hell. It practically never happens.

It, uh, happened.

When Lucy appears in Hell, she appears on the first layer (the only layer accessible from Golarion), extremely surrounded. All around her is an atmosphere of agony and despair; fire burns the body and sears the soul, and the screams of the tormented mortals, agonized and blackened but not destroyed, who queue up in distant lines on distant hilltops echo through the plane. High above them, a hope that they shall never again reach, is a heavenly isle; below is ground shuddered and cracked with flames, ready to incinerate all mortals who dare set foot upon this unholy ground. 

Near her, however, is an island in the fire, and in it are are nine pit fiends, and while the host of lesser devils around her speak words to strip her wards from her and stretch out claws ready to tear away her flesh and mind, the Nine hold out glimmering rubies of stupendous price in dread claws, speaking the words a half-horrifying instant out of sync, faster than any mortal mouth could speak or mortal ear could hear:

"I BIND THEE, LUCY WHITMAN, BY THY TRUE NAME, TO THE KEEPING OF THIS STONE."

--Well. 

Lucy is not mortal. The sheer amount of anti-mortal that Lucy is is the entire reason they're all here. 

Nine garnets shatter, on the ring on her right hand, and Lucy takes a moment to be INTENSELY GRATEFUL to Count Ristomaur Tiriac for not being a berkelium-238 half-life slower in retrieving it. 

She screams a word to shatter every stone in the island of fire, and she takes the hell off, transforming only as much as she needs to to put SPACE between her and these people. She can turn the rest of the way when she's got a few miles. 

Lucy is really really fast!

The claws of apostate devils, however, do not exactly have range. Their range is Sufficient, up to and including "on another plane, viewed via divination spells." And they do not rend merely the flesh, but the mind as well.

(Hell came prepared, for this.)

Ow ow ow fucking ow

The physical damage is, like, whatever, she's turning into a giant diamond crab and those have a bajillion hit points. The mental damage, on the other hand?

Fucking ow. This is the most unpleasant thing she has experienced since that time Mr. Eaten bit her. 

And even more transient. She lights up. 

(Any paving stones around?)

She is, at this point, in the sky over Avernus, that plane where every soul that comes to Hell appears. A significant distance up in the sky, to account for melee attacks.

Every new-come soul to Avernus is Healed, and restored to another life wherever their death may have been.

Every one of the infernal citadels that dot Avernus crumbles into dust.

The Promised Land, haven of Barbatos and trap beyond all traps, disintegrates as the lashing white worms that make up its soil are restored to full and true existence on whatever plane they once hailed from.

Where gates to Dis stand at the wrong angle, the light of Life passes through, and the city of markets crumbles as the slaves that are their literal foundation arise wherever, and on whatever world, they passed from it.

... And, if that was all, then Hell would not have been so injured; but Hell's fate is still worse, for just as she unleashed that curse the Second of the Nine (hoping to strike her down before this could be accomplished) had drawn her back with another Wish, a Wish that placed new rubies in the hands of his eight compatriots, to bind her again beyond the power of any mortal and trap her in Hell's foundations forever, there to meet the fate of those who oppose their Lord.

For devils are forged of souls, and each of the pit fiends that stand by her was once a great mass of lemures new-come to Hell, a blobs of flesh that was once a great villain, forged and mangled together until one entity had all the cunning and power and cruelty of every soul that went into forging it. It would take a great deal indeed to unmake a devil, for their true identity is now infernal; whatever mortals they might once have been are gone, and this new devil cannot be unwoven by... nearly... any means known to Pharasma's Creation.

It would, for instance, take a full blast straight in the face of the mightiest Life-light that Lucy might use to restore herself while under attack from a whole lot of apostate devils who weren't quite enough to shatter her mind completely, but where that was an active risk if she kept going.

About, say, a quarter of the strength of a main sequence star?

Lucy is REAL FUCKIN STRESSED, and also under a WHOLE LOT OF ATTACK, and--

--see, the thing is--

--she's healing the damage they're doing to her mind very fast, but they're also doing it very fast--

--and the inhibitions and filters that they're attacking are, frankly, the reason she's never done this before. 

A quarter of a main sequence star isn't some herculanean adrenaline-fuelled feat, for her. She is a quarter main sequence star; her grandfather outputs full-power light every day and has for eons, and it doesn't wear on him any more than a human is worn on by the relentless beating of their heart. 

It's a very good thing all these souls are vanishing immediately because if they hung around to get more than an instant of her incandescent blast of vitality, weird shit would happen to them. 

Yes. Even weirder than this. 

HELP THE ANCIENT DRAGON TYRANT KAZAVON JUST REAPPEARED

The top layer of Hell is devastated. An entire army of devils has been unmade; worse, restored wholly to life; the armies of Hell have suffered a wound, this day, greater than any they had suffered on Golarion in the past century.

(Well, at least the living mortals will be tormented more than they had previously been being. That's not one of Asmodeus's important goals, but it's somewhere on the list.)

... And, of course, Lucy is just going to keep doing this sort of shit until they kill her! So they're not giving up yet!

Lucy's brain is now no longer being clawed apart by devils! This is objectively an improvement. 

...She's kind of nervous, actually, she's never actually gone full power before; it seems to be solving her problems, though, and boy were those some problems, so she will...keep it up for now...

She zooms off in a different direction than the one she originally did, glancing into any portals she passes. If any of them react to WAY TOO MUCH LIFELIGHT with, like, absurd amounts of vegetation, as opposed to INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVASTATION, then she'll assume they're a portal to Not Hell and shrink down however much she needs to to fit through. 

So far all the portals she's seen are ones where glowing life-light straight through damages the cities, not just vanishing the people - 

- Hey, that looks useful! It's a walled and domed possible-city (which is not crumbling in the light) and there's something inside that feels like some kind of portal elsewhere -

If Hell is to 'do something', this leaves the question of who, exactly, is to do it.

The original inhabitants of Hell are not devils. That much, at least, is not a lie; for when Hell was first formed the asuras were formed among it, and they are no friend of the gods. There are devils who were once asura, just as there are devils who were angels until their explorations of the wildest corners of human experience found them states they preferred mortals to inhabit to pleasure (or balanced their lawful obedience to Asmodeus against all else and found it the greater), but the vast swarms of the hosts of Hell were once mortal, and Asmodeus does not intend to lose more devils to this threat. The portals to Dis close by the moment, and Avernus is nearer to cut off than it has been since Heaven's last invasion...

... And if pit fiends do not suffice, it must be one of the Lords of Hell. But even the Lords of Hell were once other than they are, and Asmodeus would not have their bonds unmade...

... Except, of course, for one. The most convenient one, even.

Barbatos is Lord of Avernus, and it was Barbatos who came to Asmodeus, with news of a world that could be made part of Hell, and a world's people who could be made its foot soldiers. Barbatos; lord of suicides and despair; lord of willing surrender to Asmodeus that is never as willing as it might be, of the price that is too high for the favor you ought not to ask, for the power that entraps and entreats with false visions and the mind that denies itself to their service; the beaten mind that like an animal yields to superior force and so to Asmodeus.

It is not a great figure that stands between Lucy and what might be freedom; a slight, stumpy, humanoid, hooded and veiled, leaning on a staff, beard low.

... But Avernus is His, and His Promised Land has been assailed.

And all directions only lead towards the Gatekeeper of Hell.

(Barbatos does not fight like a mortal, here in His domain. A being of Golarion might call it divine powers, or to analogize it by saying that Avernus was a part of His body, and all in it prey fleeing straight into His maw.)

(Someone not a mortal might analogize it to - might perceive it as - Correspondence.)

The winding spiral that spins ever down and may not be escaped save at its master's will. The pitiful desire of a lesser being to escape its chains. The prospect of escape wrapped 'round with chains and restrictions, the briars encircling without release, and only a single exit with a single key. The concept that this escape can be hers, For A Price.

...She stops. 

The shifting landscape of this place did not escape her. It wasn't immediately obvious what it meant, but. 

This man is not vanishing. 

She stops glowing.

She shrinks. 

She walks towards him, bare human feet going shfffff against the paving stone-less ground. 

A [reserved/cynical/skeptical] request for the price of offered wares. 

 The nature of the Servants of Hell is this: To bind and trap and entangle. All about him, here and elsewhere, are The encircling vines that grow 'round the trees and The creeping ivy of Law over all and the urge of the beast to bow, beaten to its master and all these are His nature, sprouting tendrils and fed by Life-light, not destroyed by it, as the prettier illusions of some other god might be.

The pact that all must swear. The price of escape is to impose limits on her actions, as the gods impose limits on their actions; to accept that there is a Balance among the Powers and bring Herself back into it; to take up the station of a demigod, with interests on a thousand worlds and a place in Elysium that is Hers as this is His, to leave the mortals to the mortal affairs and touch them only with heralds or outsiders or finite, limited incarnations. To those who will swear is the secret of how to grant spells and see across a thousand worlds and cast one's mind in a thousand ways, and so affect all within them - or else to leave this place and all within it, forevermore, and be cast out into the Outer Darkness never to return to Pharasma's Creation, as the gods do. Only if she will change Herself.

If she will not swear this, then she must face the inescapability of Avernus to any within it by any power within it, for the sake of the impenetrable fortifications of that least prison within Hell, which is to mortal prisons as they are to the accidental cages of a thornbush.

The creation of a half-human child for the explicit purpose of bringing the power of its non-human parent into the realm of mortal agency. 

BATNA: Stay in Avernus forever, becoming a life-giving star that resurrects every damned soul. 

(Hell loudly broadcasts that it offered to back this very weird not-squirrel in ascending in exchange for it stopping wrecking everything and the squirrel said no. Some Lawful and/or Neutral deities shift their opinions to be more opposed to her, except Calistria, who shifts hers to be more in favor.)

The ever-sucking pit.

The ladder whose rungs are broken above and breaking under your hand.

The creeping ivy that corrodes all it touches and rises further with every scar.

The malice of Asmodeus, Lord of the Ninth, that has no equal among all the worlds that have ever been.

And - the nature of Hell such that even its sun is forever damned.

Lucy’s favorite word. A fundamental motivation: the nondiscounting of suffering in those classified as Other. The phenomenon of changes in a person’s motivation as being reliant on having a lever and a place to stand. The profound emptiness where a fulcrum isn’t.

And Barbatos will show her Asmodeus as he once was.

(That this source is unreliable - is passed, indeed, from the hand of Mephistopheles, who is the soul of Hell and may have gotten it from Geryon inventor of heresy, is not, of course, expressed in this, because why would Barbatos be honest? He tells the story as it was told to him, that and no more.)

He will show her the high and noble champion of Good, who was Law simply contrasted to Chaos in the beginning when Evil was simply notgood, eldest champion of Heaven, and how he set foot in this place, a den of wicked spirits, and thought to reform it into a second Heaven...

... the crack that began, imperceptible, until it became so yawningly vast it swallowed all that was of Asmodeus-that-was.

Such is Hell, he "says," and the vines that grow around the captive's soul until there is no escaping them...

THE PRIMORDIAL FIRE THAT UNMAKES CHAINS.

The fires of Avernus, that burn brighter than any flames of the mortal realm! The frost of Nessus, that freezes more chill! The icy cages in which none bound can free themselves -