The first thing to understanding the way things really are is to understand that everything is tangible, even the intangible. Ideas arn't just something that sit in your head, they are real, and they have power. There are things out there that want what's right there in the mind. Some arn't so bad, Gods want your worship but take care of you in turn. Fey will try to give you joy so that they may feed off of it. Spirits will gaurd you if only you keep them around by acknowledging them. However, some of the things out there arn't so fair minded. They'll make a deal with you, and at first it will seem you're getting something out of the bargain, but then they'll ruin you and feed on your suffering. These are the creatures we should really fear, and hope that they will be content with out fear. -Excerpt from "On the Multiverse: Recollections of a traveller."
You are a demon of the first hell, the crossroad from hell that reaches into the rest of the cosmos, and the entrance of the dead. You're a vassal to the minor lord of an infernal fiefdom, with properties and servants of your own, something not one in a million demons can claim. However your ambition for power reached too far too quickly, and now your lord has called for your execution. Fortunately you had prepared for such a possibility.
You are -or were- a pact-demon of the highest rank, only a step away from negotiations to be turned into a demon of greater power and influence. You have the power to make magically binding deals with mortals, and the debt from those deals in itself is a form of power that you carry within yourself. You can transfer it and use it as currency, or use it to alter the very nature of things, not least of all the indebted. You had amassed a great collection of this power, more so than one of your stature had any right to collect, and you used every ounce of it to trade, bribe and persuade, all to the end of keeping you from utter annihilation. You secured a trial with the judicial system of hell, rather than one presided over by the very lord who would destroy you, and were found guilty.
Your guilt was not in question, but your punishment was. You narrowly avoided being sentenced to death or slavery, and were instead granted a rather unconventional punishent, your status as a citizen of hell revoked.
You are still a demon, but your memory, power and properties are all to be taken from you. You are to be sent to a mortal plane without recollection of the politics of Hell, without any of the power you have ever gained, little more than a husk of soul-stuff. You don't plan on allowing this to be the final word however. Though it defies infernal law you expend all of the debt you have collected to arrange for some of your memories to be protected, for some small tokens to be reclaimed for you, and for a little power to be provided to you once you touch down in the mortal realm.
It is time for the final arrangements to be made, your debt to be spent.