While Lucy patrolled the area, to make sure we were not disturbed, I prepared the ritual. I stayed in my black panther form. Claws were perfectly fine for carving the runes into the soil. In the end I placed a nice ruby in the centre with a drop of my blood. With that I could bind the demon to me. That would mean she would have to follow my commands.
One could simply summon a demon and then enter a bargain. That was by far the most popular method, since it did not require the true name of said demon. Binding was more advanced and came with certain risks. Mostly because there was a lot of misinformation about the process. If you used the wrong runes you would end up enslaved to your summon. You also needed enough power, or the ritual would fail. If you tried to bind a creature more powerful than you, by using mass sacrifices as fuel, the bond might work at first but it would degrade over time.
Even if you did everything right and forced the demon into your service you had to be careful. Orders could be misinterpreted and a bound demon would likely try to somehow break free again. A demon could only have one binding at a time. So you had to overpower any previous bindings in the process. That also meant someone more powerful could break your magic.
While I prepared the ritual a thought struck me. I knew more about magic than most people, thanks to my arcana knowledge. With my information I could change the ritual slightly.
“Lucy, come here for a moment please.” I called.
Shortly afterwards I saw a fox head pop out of a nearby bush. “What’s up?” she asked.
“I have an idea to modify the binding spell so we can both control Lilastheria. That should be more effective than me being her mistress and simply commanding her to follow you as well.”
“That is possible?” Lucy wondered.
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“Yes. A demon can only have one binding. So it will be one spell connecting the three of us, with you and me sharing control of her. It will even make the spell harder to break.” I explained.
“What are the downsides?”
“Well, the bond is harder to break as long as we are alive. If one of us dies it will snap. Also, there would be a magical connection between us. While the servant in such a bond cannot influence the master, since we would both be masters it would weaken us against mind affecting spells from each other. Most people who summon demons might not be so trusting of their fellow mages.”
“So this could be an upside for us? Like for magical communication? Would it make it harder for other people to listen in?”
“You might be onto something. That bond could have some other uses.” I had not thought about that. While I possessed vast magical knowledge I still had to think about something specific to recall the details.
“So why are we doing this whole binding thing in the first place? Could we not just summon her and ask for information?” Lucy wondered.
“The binding will ensure that Lilastheria can’t lie and betray our secrets. It will also ensure that she does not have any other masters. It’s going to be more reliable than forcing her to give us information with other means. Further, it will make it easier to summon her in the future.”
“Ok, how do we do this?”
“I need a drop of your blood on the ruby in the centre. We will activate the ritual together and both use a 9th circle slot. That might be overkill but it will ensure a rather tight binding that is unlikely to be broken by someone else.”
With all the preparations made we activated the ritual. The runes began to glow and the ruby turned into mist. The mist took the form of Lilastheria and solidified. There was a gasp and the succubus appeared, in all her naked glory. She was breathing heavily and holding her head.
“Hello Lilastheria.” I said.
“Wha… who… I… I am bound to you? To you both? How…”
“The most important things first. You are not allowed to share any of our secrets. Do not admit that we bound or summoned you. Tell no one that we are able to transform.” I commanded her.
She looked confused. “Transform?”
“Don't you remember us?” Lucy asked. “We met in a small village near Iron Rock.”
“Uh yes I remember that. Sorry mistresses for not recognizing you in your current forms. I am disoriented from the binding.”
Lilastheria looked rather spooked. Her tail was nervously flicking behind her.
“Don’t worry, we have nothing bad planned for you. We need information. And we need to make it look like demons were involved in the death of those soldiers.”