Go on vacation — it was a command his master gave him, a reward for the productive dinner with the demoness.

Where do I even go?

He had spent most of his life in service to the Elswind family — and free time was not something he wished for. He preferred activity and constant tasks. His master gave him too little, so he took it upon himself to keep busy with every mundane task possible.

Now, with so much free time, there was only one thing to do — run.

Sebas heads to Forge. Walking the distance usually took five or six hours, but the butler was determined to get there in two. Training speed was necessary to get out of bad situations — especially when mobs start wielding pitchforks.

They passed three towns before settling on Bountiful — if by passed it meant driven out. He sometimes wished his master didn’t choose to go incognito. A bit of prestige and influence would have certainly made their life easier — but iron needed to be tempered in order to become steel.

At least, that was what he told himself.

His master simply didn’t want to use the influence of the House of Elswind to make a name. He certainly made one for himself — just not what the butler expected.

Bountiful was a backward town — even if it was a city. In the capital, his master’s life ward or aura of death would have raised very few eyebrows. Wizards were known for their eccentricity, and very few would raise rumors regarding the Blackstaff’s illegitimate son.

There were certainly rumors — but most of them were assumptions on who the mother was. The lady of the house didn’t seem to mind, so who were the other nobles to judge.

Sebas picks up speed.

The road would have been easier, but he chooses to run parallel to it. Loose rocks and mud train his balance, as well as break the monotony of his run.

“Swiftfe—“

He starts chanting magic but quickly stops it. There were times when training the body was necessary, and using a spell would have cut an hour from his travel time.

He was an accomplished mage from a certain perspective. His spells were more utilitarian and less fire and lightning. They helped him perform his tasks with great efficiency — something that he was particularly proud of.

He often wondered if his peaceful nature would save him from the taint of mana. Unlike his master — his transformation to a vessel involved massive mana infusions. His body and mind changed, giving rise to baser instincts that he only keeps in check through work and activity.

Was he fated to turn evil?

The question is what made him follow his master. The hordes of hell were within him, yet he still maintained a sunny disposition. Master Jeremy was naive, socially awkward, and sometimes childish — but he never crossed the line of good and evil.

There were summonings — a lot of them — but his master made sure his summons were contained and powerless to harm anyone.

Sebas fears one tragic mistake would lead his master down a spiral of dark thoughts and self-loathing, but he could never imagine him going full evil.

However, he could imagine it for himself.

Even now he felt the pull of the world, clouding his vision and making him look down on lesser beings. It was a subtle urging — insidious and unrelenting. Work allowed him to expel the dark force from his system, but mana trickles in ever slowly with his open channels.

It was a losing fight — he knew it.

For now, he runs.

Not to escape fate — but to defy it.

***

Jeremy expected to find the answers to his problems on another plane — most likely in an infernal or abyssal one. He didn’t expect it to be the astral plane.

He needed skeletons, and lots of them.

They were a tireless workforce — capable of absorbing the world’s mana to sustain themselves. They don’t eat or sleep, and if you took care of them properly — they won’t even become rowdy.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not necromancers who turn skeletons evil — although some could command them to do evil acts.

Like swords — or at least, non-magical ones — skeletons are mindless. They follow orders, but they don’t think for themselves — at least for the first few years or so. Since they sustain themselves with mana, they eventually get corrupted by it. Control over them becomes thinner, sometimes requiring daily rituals to sustain. They develop a craving for violence and death, seeking to turn the living into their brethren.

Of course, evil necromancers would welcome the development — especially if he was building an army. What were a few disorderly troops? He could just send them to the front and be done with them. Fresh and malleable troops were always available from the other side once a battle was over.

Jeremy wanted skeletons — but his reputation as the Scourge made obtaining them a bit complicated. Almost everyone already thought of him as some sort of necromancer. Digging up graves would have them bringing out the pitchforks.

He needed to conceal his skeletons — but first, he had to get some.

From a pouch, he takes out chalk and powdered dust. He starts drawing.

Gate * Complex Ritual

Effect: Creates a portal to a specific plane. The caster is required to be familiar with the plane either through research or a previous visit. The ritual requires diamond dust worth 1,000 gold or more.

Jeremy could feel his soul shatter from the ritual. 1,000 gold lost in a single day! That was most of their earnings over the past week — and it was the best week for the Corner Shop™.

The ritual needed diamond dust to create the spell’s circuit. He could have used wolfram if he was opening a gate on the same plane — but the massive forces required to warp reality required a tougher substance. Diamond provided that. Its inherent qualities — fortified by the faith of the masses of its value — made it quasi-magical, particularly for rituals involving sacrifice.

The gate opens — a circular rift in time and space.

He crosses the rift and checks the time.

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It is always important to check the flow of time when leaving your own plane. It would be problematic to spend a few hours in an unfamiliar plane, only to find out years — or even decades — passed in your own.

A variation of 10 seconds per minute, minus.

It wasn’t bad. He could spend an hour in the Astral and lose 50 minutes in the Material.

He opens a small notebook to note it down. He was searching for worlds where time flowed slower as a side project — one where a day there was an hour in his own. He could have fresh troops ready for battle any time — especially if a healer or two was stationed on the slower plane. He could also perform research at a faster pace, but he doubts if he could employ anyone other than elves. Growing older faster than your loved ones just wasn’t that appealing to most other races.

Aside from the time fluctuation, he also finds himself weightless.

The weightlessness was expected. A little bit of research was always prudent when going off-world. He tries moving in one direction — and the mere thought of motion propels him at high speeds.

This was the Astral. A place where stout warriors were laid low by the weakest of wizards in terms of strength. The force of one’s will determined how strong you were and how fast you moved was determined by how fast you processed information.

Jeremy is a Demigod on the plane in terms of strength. His will — tempered by decades of demons hammering at his soul — gives him the strength to rival a dragon’s. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come with resilience of body.

He thinks about all the hours toiling in making a single dagger — when he could have made it in minutes in the Astral.

Maybe he should set up camp somewhere secluded? A beacon should allow him to open more precise gates — no, it was too dangerous. The Astral Sea might seem empty, but there were denizens who could easily sense a magical waypoint.

Opening a gate and immediately falling into a trap was not impossible. Demons would often take the souls of travelers they find in the Astral back to the infernal realms — and his magic held a distinct signature that would call to them.

He reaches into one of the folds of his robes to take out a piece of bone, a gift from Elmindine. He holds it up, feeling it pulling towards the southeast.

Jeremy wills himself to fly.

It was a disorienting feeling. There was no ground to serve as a reference — everything was a sea of gray. There were a few lights that seemed like stars in the distance serving as markers, but he knew well enough not to fly too close.

There were no stars in the Astral — only portals to different planes, some of which had very unfriendly denizens.

Demons.

He could sense them the way they could sense him. They were distant, but he was headed close to their direction.

A dozen dots begin moving in the horizon, marking the start of their encounter. A few more appear behind them.

30? Maybe more...

Jeremy picks up speed through grim determination. Demons were difficult to face unprepared, but he still had a few aces up his sleeve — in the literal sense. He pulls out an iridescent pearl tied to a feather. It was an item for emergency use, though he would rather not use it so close to his goal.

If only these were your normal demons.

The Astral was no place for brutes, making it inhospitable for the more slow-witted of their kind. However, demons came in many forms — and some of them were spellcasters.

A tingle in his mind makes him aware that these particular demons were not familiar with him. Mind control spells were quite ineffective on a person somewhat possessed by demons for the past two decades. Their whispers of control get lost in a din of demands, threats, and screaming.

Mercenary demons?

Their lack of coherent form singles them out as denizens of the Blighted Waste.

Some of them had claws and tentacles for appendages, while some were amalgamations of human and ooze. They were diverse in appearance — but not temperament. Demons of the Blight were slaves to avarice, and their greed extends to collecting souls.

“Leave this place!” Jeremy roars while unleashing the constant streams of infernal consciousness that permeated his mind.

The palpable bloodthirst and malevolence would have stopped most beings at their track — but he was facing demons.

The familiar presence of their brethren made them pause — but within the chattering voices and raging screams, was the familiar voice of Mammon.

Take him. He is the path to freedom.

The demons roar and charge, heeding the call of their master. They were demons of greed and avarice — and the wizard was the biggest treasure of all.

Getting their hands on the human would mean a chance for plunder. This was a living gate to the mortal realms, all they needed was the key.

Jeremy ran — or flew, in this instance. While he expected a reaction, joy and exultation were not on the list.

He could easily outrun them if it was a contest of speed — but he senses fluctuations in his surrounding, and that didn’t bide well.

“Trakt!”

Detect Space * Basic Spell * Conjuration * Spacial Magic

Effect: Gives the caster an awareness of his surroundings. Allows the caster to know his location relative to known or visited places. The spell also gives the caster the ability to determine the sizes and shapes of objects within 50 steps. When the spell is crafted with higher amounts of mana — warping and spatial rifts can also be detected.

The spell gives him awareness of multiple points of teleportation, allowing him to avoid the incoming demons.

Explosions of sulfur dots the Astral sea as more than a dozen demons teleport to strategic places to block him. Jeremy expands his awareness, pumping mana into his existing spell — first to a hundred steps, then to a thousand.

There.

He speeds into an area where space was thicker. Teleportation would be blocked — bet he still had more than two dozen demons hot in pursuit. He notes the speed and direction of each demon.

Most of his pursuers lose momentum as their attempts to teleport fail. Now they were bunched in one direction.

The demons were too diverse for a resonance effect, forcing Jeremy to do things the hard way.

“Seinis!”

Disrupt Time * Compound Spell * Alteration * Time

Effect: Disrupts the flow of time on the targets — delaying their movements by up to 2 heartbeats. Affected creatures are not aware of the effects, and the time dilation makes them less vulnerable to damage. Crafting the spell with more mana allows it to affect more creatures or increase the time delay.

The spell was a simple one meant to give the caster and his allies an opening to attack or flee — but Jeremy is not using it in its basest form. Multiple strands of the spell target different demons, with each strand holding varying amounts of mana. The fastest demons get hit the hardest, while the slowest ones are barely affected.

Jeremy’s casting was not meant to delay every demon — only to have them moving in sync.

“Bye, bye, and bye.”

The wizard throws the pearl towards the incoming demons, opening a gate to a plane with normal gravity.

The speed of the approaching demons, as well as the pull of the opened plane, sucks every demon inside before closing in the span of two heartbeats.

Jeremy dusts off his robe of imaginary dirt, thinking all things went well.

He wonders if the demons would be happy where he sent them. More than a few humans strive all their lives to reach that place — the Heavenly Halls of Elysium.