Bryan Beal

Bryan Beal

Fictional Edge

Always Time

No Outwaiting this One

Bryan Beal's avatar
Bryan Beal
Dec 19, 2025
∙ Paid
Photo by Racheal Lomas on Unsplash

It is one thing to dip your toes into the unknown, quite another to play silly buggers with it and expect that everything will be all milk and honey. At the best of times, Helliosophus was not one for being woken up early in the lunar cycle. The keening of summoning spells in the aether simply got him out on the wrong side. Like Kronos scything off his father’s nether regions, Helliosophus tore into the soul of the creature that was suddenly before him.

The forest where the hapless idiots decided to conduct their moronic experiment in the occult was lit only by the blue tinge of the full moon. Humans would have called it haunting, and possibly avoided it like a dose of bubonic plague. Not these clowns dressed in shabby Halloween costumes intended to ‘be the part.’ Helliosophus found himself abruptly torn from his own plane in the lower layers of Tartarus, wondering how inept, brainless goblins could manage to accidentally summon him. The utter incompetence was on clear display in the humans’ complete lack of protective measures. No sacred names. No barriers between them and Helliosophus. Nothing.

Helliosophus chuckled.

Helliosophus gagged.

User's avatar

Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of Bryan Beal.

Or purchase a paid subscription.
© 2026 Bryan Beal · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture