Chapter 3b- No One Knows What It's Like
I awoke to banging on the door, at least it felt so much like waking up that it took me a minute to realize that I was back in Oliver's guest room. That jerking motion got me again and it brought with it the ill feeling and headache. Oliver called through the door, "we don't have all day, we're going to need to move before they send new guards," he said, "I stashed the old ones under the porch out back. If you wanted to talk business, now's the time."
I got up and started woozily gathering my things. The room spun, "meet me in your basement," I said."I don't-" he began.I cut him off, irritably, having to steady myself on the bedframe, "The one through the trap door under the rug in your sitting room. I'll be down in a minute."
He didn't say anything, but I heard him heading down the stairs a few seconds later. Hopefully he wouldn't be too resistant to what I was about to do, it was going to solve his problems, but it could be considered in some circles- all circles really, as a profane act. If I used a moral alignment scale in my games, I'd be considered evil afterwards. But if I was going to be experiencing this solo, I'd need as much power as I could get. Plus, the idea of making a society that thrives on piracy clutch their pearls was amusing.
The sickness passed after a few moments. I walked downstairs, grabbed a few things from the kitchen, washed my face and went into the sitting room. The rug had been folded away, revealing an open trap door with steep narrow stairs leading down into the dark. I conjured a light orb and followed it down. The bottom of the stairs left me in a short confined hallway, floors and walls of cobbled stone, interspersed with wooden beams for support. The hallway opened up to the left ahead, where I could see soft candlelight flickering against the stone. It smelled slightly like mildew mixed with a spice cabinet, and I could see that there were dried herbs hanging from the floor supports above. Nothing I could identify by sight or smell, I've never really been a plant person. As I rounded the corner into the lit room, I pulled up short, shocked by the amount of wealth gathered here. There were treasures and chests of all kinds, some chests were small and made of dull metal, some were large and gilded, or carved from wood; some chests were so stuffed full that they were spilling their contents out onto the floor. Not just gold coins, though there were a considerable amount, but there were also gems, weapons fit for royalty, books, ornate scroll cases, gem encrusted staves and scepters; it was like Oliver shared a decorator with the cave of wonders from Aladdin.
Pretty much all of this stuff was valuable, but almost none of it was magical. Those books would have been great for what I had in mind in terms of a magic build, but I didn't have time for that. I was about to take a shortcut. Oliver had been shuffling around the room, trying to organize, stuffing things out of sight, and lighting the last of the candles. He squeezed by me, back into the hallway, muttering something about the rug. I heard the trap door close. He was back in a flash and I moved out of his way, my attention focused on the wooden box in the center of the room.
It was an elongated, hexagonal box, around 10 inches in diameter, carved from what looked like Obsidian. The carved symbols were inlaid with a silver material that shimmered opalescent when the candles hit it right. It sat on the floor and the top reached just above my waist. I knew it was a container, but there appeared to be no openings. I reached out-
"-Don't," Oliver grabbed my shoulder with his clawed hand, "don't touch that. Before you do anything, you're going to tell me why you're here." He said, "I appreciate you helping me out with those Rosa thugs, but that doesn't mean I trust you with this." He held his hands up as I turned, "I want to know how you got your information, no one, besides me, should know this room exists. I've taken every precaution, and three days worth of beatings, specifically to keep this out of the wrong hands. If I don't like what you're about to say, I am prepared to seal this room so neither one of us will be walking out of here."
"Alright," I said, "I'm here to kill the devil that's trapped inside it."Oliver barked a laugh, "kid, go home," he said, shaking his head, "you have no idea what you're doing. You can't kill a devil, not in the way you're thinking. Not here at least. If someone could manage to kill one, they'd just be sent back to the hells and come back later. And the person who 'killed' them would be at the top of their shit list, or it would go after their families. It's safer to trap them and hide the container well enough so you're long gone by the time someone lets them out.""Generally, that is the case," I told him, "you can't technically kill a devil here without a divine artifact or something specifically designed to do it, but I have an alternative. Granted, it's not something that you would want to do." I continued, "My circumstances require it though. It's not exactly killing, more like a transfer, but its body would be destroyed in the process, so it wouldn't be able to come back." I told him exactly what I intended to do.
I would perform a ritual that would bind the devil permanently to my own soul. They don't have souls in the same way mortals do; instead, they have something that's like the essence of a soul that makes up their whole physical and metaphysical being. When a devil dies on a mortal plane, their essence goes to the hells, just like the soul of an evil mortal, but since that essence also contains their physical form, it's more like a teleportation or banishment for them. That essence is composed of soul energy though, obtained by collecting the souls of the damned and distributing their energy based on a caste system. It's just trickle down economics with different currency, but like, if that currency was the only thing giving you an identity.
The idea behind the ritual was this: If a devil's essence, composed of dead mortal souls, is bound to a living mortal soul, the essence and the living soul would become permanently fused. The result would be a particularly powerful soul with a lot of energy. There was the risk that the mortal body couldn't contain that energy, in which case the body, soul and essence would all burn up and dissipate. Runes to reinforce the mortal vessel would need to be incorporated into the binding runes. The greater portion of the soul's energy would also need to be held in reserve somewhere nonessential, like an arm or leg, for the binding. The body should eventually become used to it.
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Oliver was quiet for several moments, retrieving a flask from the recesses of his robes and taking a great swig. I briefly thought that it was odd that wolf people would use something so clearly made for human anatomy, but then, I couldn't really think of a good design for a portable water bowl that was as travel friendly as a flask. "That would solve part of my problem, but I'd still have to leave home." He mentally worked the problem a little more, "okay, the theory behind what you're doing adds up. I don't know why anyone would do it if they had the choice, but I'll admit I'm intrigued. If you can safely remove the devil, I think we can stage it to look like those two boneheads intercepted its delivery, and let the devil out." He went on, "I get to maintain my innocence, deliver the empty vessel, and pin all the trouble on those dead fellas. And we can all just be happy that the thing didn't decide to stick around." He looked at the box for a long moment, "I wouldn't have agreed to have anything to do with this. I facilitate trade in rare objects and magical artifacts, and most of the time I don't know what I'm trading in until I unbox the package." He shook his head, "when I saw that, I knew I couldn't hand it over, but I didn't have a way to get rid of it without being seen.""Why don't you retire," I asked, "don't you have enough money?"He scoffed, "I don't do it for the money, kid," he told me, "I do it for the access. Access to magical objects and powerful people that I otherwise wouldn't be able to get. I'm in it for the research. This...this is a shitty situation, but trust me, it's all worth it. For the research," He said again and took another swig. Oliver stood abruptly, "Now, hurry up and get started before I lose my damn nerve."
I finished salting the circle around the devil's cage, "I'll need to use one of those fancy daggers, if that's okay," I said, "but you won't get it back." Oliver nodded assent from his place in the corner. I grabbed a heavy, jeweled dagger and started carving the runes into my left arm and hand, by the light of an orb. I had to get Oliver's help on the last one, as it was just out of my reach. Blood was dripping down my arm to the floor; I used it to coat the dagger. "Okay, stand back," I motioned to Oliver, "here we go!"
I slammed the tip of the dagger dead center in the top of the vessel, hardly scratching the mirrored surface "Katadō," I started chanting. The silver inlaid carvings started to glow, and fissures of white light light spiderwebbed from the spot where the dagger struck. "tēn pygēn sou," the fissures of light grew brighter and the vessel started shaking. I could feel the presence inside. It... It filled my mind with horrors. Dismemberment, slaughter, torture executed with a brutality I could not understand, depravity and excess that made my blood run cold, but it was worse than that... It had specifically sought out people who had inflicted suffering themselves, the kind of people I already hated; the devil punished Oathbreakers, slavers and abusers. It made me feel pleasure in these things, made me want to participate, to inflict this cruelty on others. Or were those my own feelings? I couldn't tell, I was starting to lose myself in the visions, I realized that if I had just let go, my soul could be bound to the devil instead; I could go with her to bring vengeance to the wicked. I locked in. I managed to regain my focus and continue chanting, "Katadō tēn pygēn sou!" My body burned from the inside, the vessel was splintering along the fissures of light, and it felt like my arm was splintering too. Another wave of cruelty and pleasure washed over me; I held on, letting the light fill my eyes and focusing on that blinding pain. Blood flowed from my wounds like rivers, down my arm, covering the dagger and pouring into the vessel. It drank deeply. The knife finally cracked, and then it shattered. The hilt smashed into the vessel and completely disintegrated. My palm rested flat on the surface, which was unmarred, and its light now gone. The runes carved into my arm glowed wickedly, searing with pain, then that too began to fade. I was left with tattoos of infernal binding circles on my arm, and the essence of an Erinyes in my soul.
"You...lock the devil in your FUCKING SOUL.. That is 100% going to have consequences. An Erinyes, known by some as a Fury, is a powerful devil of celestial origin. They are extremely charming, vicious on the battlefield and have an unquenchable thirst for making wrongdoers suffer. And since there is no other occasion where this has been done, the extent to which this will affect you is unknown."
Devils and celestials are always warring, and the war is always about mortal souls. Mortal souls are where all of their magic comes from. The fabric of reality that we mortals spin to work our magic, would never have existed if the gods didn't first have access to soul magic. The souls the gods have access to are freely given, while the souls used by devils are mostly taken as payment or won in wagers. There are some that freely give their souls to devils, but generally a person destined for the hells will attempt to get something out of it. Erinyes are fallen celestials, and may be the only creatures in existence that have operated on both sides of the cosmic battlefield. This had been a high risk, high reward situation in a way. When a player finds magic items that hold limited charges, there is a dice roll to decide how many charges the item has when it comes into the player's possession. I used a similar concept here. This was possibly the best result; if the devil had been any more powerful, the ritual would have failed and I'd have had to choose between losing my arm and the destruction of my soul. If the devil were powerful enough, it would have kept us alive, and id potentially wish I wasn't. It was an infinitesimally small chance of being anything besides an Imp, but I planned for a demigod powered devil all the same. Honestly the only move there would have been to make a deal. That would have been okay too, it's not like my soul would really be damned, right?
I was soaked in sweat, and I collapsed on the floor, "I thought," I said, catching my breath, "it would be a lower class devil." I laid down, my back flat on the floor, "don't get me wrong, this is better, but these runes almost didn't cut it. My whole arm almost blew apart, and then we'd really have been in trouble."
Oliver didn't respond, and I rolled to look at him. He was slumped against the wall, unmoving, hand against the side of his throat, a bloody dagger shard in his lap."Shit, hang on," I focused, laying my hands on his head, "hang on, I just need a second." My rune tattoos flared with silvery light, and I willed Oliver to wake up. He wasn't dead yet, so it shou- Oliver gasped and kicked his feet, eyes going wide, darting madly around the room. "It's okay," I said, "it's okay, you're fine. I got to you in time." His eyes went to my arm, "did it," he croaked, cleared his throat and finished hoarsely, "did it work?"I held up my tattooed arm, conjuring white flames that covered it from elbow to finger tips, "Oh yes, even better than expected, actually." Come on, we need to get you cleaned up and set the scene for the guard change. I have an idea.
I helped the old dog clean up