The Heavens and the Seven Circles of Hell are real realms beyond mortal reach.
The Heavens is an endless expanse of radiant light: crystalline spires that sing with harmonic choirs, gardens of liquid starlight, and rivers of pure memory where the virtuous relive their finest moments in eternal serenity.
The Seven Circles of Hell is a descending spiral of tailored torment: the First Circle a whispering library of forgotten regrets; the Second a furnace of molten guilt; the Third a frozen lake of betrayed trust; and so on, each deeper ring calibrated to the precise weight of a soul’s sins.
Angels (radiant beings of light and song, winged and robed in shifting auroras) and demons (horned, flame-wreathed, and cunning, their eyes ember-coals in obsidian faces) walk the mortal plane, but they do not engage mortals, nor do they fight each other. They are observers, silent scribes who tally every deed, every kindness, every cruelty. When a soul departs, an angel or demon appears unseen to shepherd it to its earned eternity (golden spires or sulfurous pits), provided undeath has not claimed them before. Angels and demons do not get involved in the war between Rebmos and the Red Suns; they simply tally and ferry the dead.
These celestial and infernal visitors were granted permission by their superiors to linger on Lymbus. They bear an added task: keeping their own in check. Rogue angels who preach forbidden mercy or demons who tempt beyond tally are hunted by their kin and sent back to The Heavens or the Seven Circles. No mortal has ever witnessed this celestial policing; the observers vanish like smoke when their duty calls.