2 Years ago, January 1824
“I summon thee, oh great serpent of knowledge, tempter of Eve. I beseech thee, grant me the power to learn what I desire. Grant me the knowledge divine.” Cece muttered, feeling vaguely embarrassed. She had no idea if this ritual would work, especially considering her complete inability to use magic. She had heard that the abilities of a daemon were not magic, it was the only reason that Cece was even trying this harebrained scheme, but she found it hard to believe that she could commune with a devil by simply saying some words in front of a circle of blood. She took a deep breath of the winter air, she was performing the rite in a small clearing by her family's estate, but the old house did nothing to quell her worry. Night had long fallen, and its intimidating silhouette was still visible past the trees. Shaking her head she got back to her work. A daemonic sigil was in front of her, it had taken quite a bit of work to make it look exactly like the one in the text she had acquired, but she had done it, and was only short half a liter of her own blood for it.
“This better be worth it.” She thought to herself. Especially after the channels she had gone through to get the book she was referencing.
The censors really did try their best, but daemonic pacts were still legal in some parts of the world, so long as they had printing presses books like these would persist, even if they were much harder to acquire. She stared expectantly at the circle, waiting for it to do…something. She wasn’t quite sure what, maybe an ominous glow or the chime of a bell, just something. Disappointment welled in her heart. She sighed.
“I guess it really was too much to hope that it would work.” She turned around and began to walk away from the small glade she had performed her work, luckily it was a full moon so the light should be enough to find her way back, except…it was dark. Too dark. She turned around and found herself not in the stretch of forest outside her estate, but in pitch black darkness. She stepped forward and almost shrieked when her foot splashed on the ground. She was standing in a shallow pool of water. Above her was a humongous obelisk, she saw several scripts she knew, Cunisian pictograms, the dead Lasque script, and of course the Atrini script use by her native Astraeveau. It would have been an intriguing sight, if she was not distracted by the giant snake curled around it. Its smooth scales were blacker than pitch, and its glowing red eyes, with constantly changing patterns, stared directly into her own. Its titanic form dwarfed her, it appeared almost too large for the obelisk which was bigger than any structure she had seen before.
“Welcome to my domain, child.” It hissed with an androgynous voice. Cece was afraid, despite her appearance and demeanor, she was a deeply anxious person, something she hated, but could only be thankful for in this moment, a lifetime of fear had prepared her for this sensation, and a lifetime of mage etiquette had set the stage.
“Thank you for having me.” She replied with a deep curtsy. Faltering only once the snake hissed a deep laugh.
“So polite, how rare. Tell me little one, what do you wish for and what are you willing to trade for it.”
She swallowed. “I want power, power to avenge my family. What would you wish in return.”
“If you want power, then why did you not beseech one of my siblings? I am the devil of knowledge, perhaps wrath or pride could get you further.”
It was a good question, something that Cece had considered herself at the start of this journey, wouldn’t it be easier to obtain a more straightforward type of power. Details were always difficult to get, but she knew some about devils. One for every type of sin, the powers they wield: various, their motives: incalculable, but she chose this one carefully.
“Do you think that wrath or pride can let a 16 year old girl kill multiple gold elementals?”
There was a long silence, before an eruption of noise, Cece almost ran before she realized it was yet another hissing laugh.
“Tss, I doubt it, you truly are ambitious, we’re much alike. Now what do you have to trade, I accept souls, remains of powerful creatures, precious and unique items, and similar things.”
“I was told Devils usually require the souls of their Daemons?”
“Tss Tss.” It chuckled. “The church likes to spread its lies as always, no taking your soul would kill you easily, it is merely the force that animates your feeble bodies. Other’s souls are always appreciated however, they can be quite useful.”
“How do you harvest them?”
“Tis a simple sulfur spell, although I suppose you can’t cast it.” The snake hummed.
“I can create a scroll for it.”
“Ahh, an Alchemetrix, I see. Come closer.”
Cece did as it asked. Slowly its brought itself toward until its nose, the size of her head, gently bumped against her forehead. The sensation of an icepick being driven into her skull shocked her to her core. She wanted to cry, to scream, but she refused, she needed to maintain composure. Information flowed into her mind, magic inscriptions she had never seen before, simple as they were. The sulfur spell was made known to her mind, its uses and how to best employ it.
“You have a strong mind, good, you should be very fun to help.”
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Cece reeled, but let no anger at the intense pain. Pain had always been the price for knowledge in her life.
“Now do you have anything worth trading.”
Cece cursed herself for not coming in with more to barter with, she had relied too much on assumptions.
“I doubt it is worth as much as a soul, but would a teleportation scroll be of any interest?”
“Normally, no.” The serpent hummed. “But it has been quite some time since one of your kind made a pact with me, so I’m eager to see how your field has progressed. How about this, I will take this scroll as collateral, and you will get it back when you bring me two souls or comparable materials the next time I see you. Do you accept this deal?”
“Next time?”
“Of course young lady, you will need multiple boons from me to acquire the strength you need.”
“I see.” Cece swallowed. “I accept these terms, thank you.”
“Of course my new daemon. Now select your first boon. I don’t want to insert information into your mind again so soon, so I have put a list of your options at the base of the obelisk.”
Cece, thankful to not have another spike driven into her brain, felt her feet start walking before she could even think to do so. A list was there, just as the serpent said. It contained at least a hundred options, and if her hunch was correct she thought they had been arranged in order of usefulness to her specifically. She thought this might be the case as she saw none that had to do with magic. She gave the list a once-over, but settled on the first boon she saw.
Daemonic Mind: Grants eidetic memory and allows the user to reshape their own mind in the way they desire. Practice can improve strength.
“A good choice my Daemon, the best choice indeed. Now to finalize the contract, may I know your name?”
“Cecilia Silva, but my friends call me Cece.”
“The contract is sealed Cece, may Solastria burn at your feet.” It hissed with a wicked grin.
Cece’s face twisted in shock, she had hinted of course, but there were far more gold families than just Solastria. Her surprise however had no witness, she found herself lying in the field of her estate, twigs in her hair, dirt and snow on her dress. It was well and truly day now, and she would have found that detail disturbing if not for the fact that she was currently shutting her eyes and screaming in pain.
Her head was on fire, it burned like molten lead was being poured into her skull, and it was all she could do to stay conscious. She didn’t know if all daemons received this information or if it was a special privilege of her particular patron, but as the pain wormed its way through her brain, the knowledge of what was happening to her made itself known. It was disturbingly clear, as if she had always known it. When a devil gives you a boon they alter your body, in some way, shape, or form, they make you like a devil. In most cases this was something that could be seen with the naked eye, at least to a trained observer, in Cece’s case it was her brain though. She stifled a whimper as her brain was reshaped by foreign, infernal energies. They were making her mind stronger, more structured, what was once a shallow pool of water was now a castle of ice. Most important was her memory, her accursed memory, it sounded so useful when she picked the boon it really did, “eidetic memory”, to never forget anything was something that could not only enhance her day to day life, but to revolutionize her work as an alchemetrix, a study that necessitated the tracing of intricate inscriptions to create scrolls and transmutation circles, that necessitated having an extremely large volume of knowledge. It was supposed to be so useful. She was sure it would be if she could ever bear to open her eyes again. The simple scene of her estate in the afternoon sun that she had been met with when she woke had seared itself into her mind like a branding iron. She would never forget that moment, the way the light reflected off the second window of the west wing, the faded cornflower blue paint that was peeling slightly on the east, the cold on her skin, the sensation of snow melting onto it, of a thousand infinitesimal water droplets dripping from her hand to her elbow. Every sensation, every sight, every sound, was merely information to be logged in her mind. Only the fact that it was winter saved her from going mad, the frost numbing her sense of touch and preventing any birds or insects from making noise. She sat and breathed deeply, trying and failing to ignore what little information was streaming into her awareness. After a long while and the pain began to subside she decided to risk opening her eyes, hoping that her mind would have somehow adjusted.
She was wrong. Another ten minutes of screaming later she had finally managed to control her breathing again. She was glad she had fired the staff of the estate last year, it meant there was no one here to see her in such a state. She wracked her expanding brain to figure out how to proceed. Was she just supposed to expose herself to the flood to inure herself to it? She couldn’t imagine that to be true, the second time felt just as awful as the first, something she remembered vividly, accurately, and completely against her will. Or did that devil simply expect her to die? That also didn’t make sense, why would a devil care enough to kill a random human girl, especially when it hadn’t even gotten a proper soul out of her. She wished the description of the boon had warned her.
“Wait… the description of the boon!”, She realized. The obelisk said the boon would allow her to reshape her mind. An intimidating prospect, but her it seemed her only real way to fix the situation. She willed her mind not necessarily to forget the information, she had the sinking feeling that wasn’t even possible. Instead she tried to brush past it, to make her mind ignore the information it had. It was slight, ever so slight, but she felt the pain subside. She continued, but found she was making little progress, so she switched tactics, and decided to try a mental model of sorts.
A strong mental model was extremely useful for mages, and although Cece was not a mage, and had no potential for it, she was a daughter of one of the strongest silver mage families in the world, so they had at least trained her enough to try and make her less of an embarrassment on the bloodline. It took her several minutes to decide on an appropriate one, one that meshed with how her new mind felt. She closed her eyes.
In the pitch black darkness of her mind, Cece stood in a hallway. On either side of her, barely visible without light, were corridors stretching toward infinity, she willed rows of shelves along their walls and they had them. She took her memories, the raw data of her every sense, for the past hour, and made them into a book. She set the book gently on the nearest shelf, and simply let go. Immediately the pain in her head subsided. She was sure to have a headache for the rest of the day, but it was down a normal human level. She opened her eyes, was predictably assaulted by pain, although less so, and she immediately closed her eyes to repeat the process. Open eyes, walk forward, close eyes, log data, open eyes, walk forward, close eyes, log data. She repeated these steps until she could get inside. No longer under threat of dying from exposure, her slight panic subdued itself.
“What a hell of a night.” She muttered.