The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I've told a few people about earth being a hell-dimension, but sometimes it looks better than others. This time it looked pretty good, with the clean spring sunshine and the birds singing - especially when I thought that this might be the last time that I'd be seeing it all. This was the day that we were making a trip to a really bad Hell-dimension, a place called Hystalgia. There was quite a big group of us going - and I rather doubted that we'd all be coming back.

I was late at the rendevous, but I wasn't the last and I topped up the candy bag strapped to my belt while the girls were chatting. I burn a helluva lot of energy when I'm working and that's a quick lift. I had some honey, too. That gives a real fast blast.

The new man, Grant, arrived while I was seeing to everything. There is something very odd about that man's vibes - I mean, strange even for Sunnyhell. I can't quite put my finger on what it is. I wish I could remember why the name Collinwood sounds so familiar, but there's been so many decades, so many random bits of information, and nothing left to give them context. He gave me a protection charm, though, and later I had reason to think to think that it must have been a good one.

The girls seemed to plain disbelieve my story of an elevator to other dimensions under the tower that was raised by the worshippers of The Great Unnamable Waster of Universes, (also known as Glory Hall! There's something about Sunnydale. Life here tends to humanize almost anything. No wonder the Field Operatives get hazard pay for doing a gig here!) Humans are odd. How did they think Glorificus had got her minions and their supplies in and out? They used to unload at night, under the cover of the base of the scaffolding.

We picked our way through the wreckage where the tower fell. (The authorities hadn't cleared it too well. I don't suppose they can find the owner of the site to sort out who's liable for what.) We found the elevator right where I said it was, of course. The whole of top level looked completely deserted, but it was too clean. Someone had been going to and fro there, and keeping the places that weren't easy to observe maintained. I didn't think the trip would be quiet and safe for long. I was glad that the elevator was big enough for the whole group. I wasn't picking up vibes from the inhabitants, not yet, but I just had a feeling that it wouldn't be a good place to split up.

There were some real fireworks when Cathy cast her thrall on the controls, then something disgusting happened. Pressing the buttons turned on ... sounds. You couldn't call it music. It was mechanically produced and it sounded like a car-crash scored for pan-pipes. I edged over to Cathy to get her to shut it off before my ears crawled under my collar to escape. She turned just as I came up to her, and caught me hard with her backpack; when my eyes stopped watering I did see that there were several buttons on that control panel. The word on the street is that every stop that elevator makes is in a different hell-dimension. I was just going to ask Cathy if she could tell where the various stops would be when the elevator doors opened at our floor....

and the welcoming committee were right there to greet us...