Enchanting was absolutely fascinating to get into. From a couple of the pieces I saw at the blacksmith, the only real limit to what you could accomplish was what you can imagine and convey to another person, whether by words or with an image. The engraving itself would be the most difficult part, as not all materials would work well. For weapons, armor, and tools it was easier, as you could just physically carve out the enchantment into whatever you’re working on, but for something like my cloak? That would need to be sewn in with mana conductive thread. Fortunately, the blacksmith had a lot of it and was willing to sell me a decent amount. I probably could’ve gotten more had I gone to a tailor instead, but I was impatient to start trying out.
Thankfully, I had crafted and kept way more bone knives than I could ever really use, so I’d be able to waste a few of them without hurting my pockets too badly. Bone was also a rather conductive material for mana, as demonstrated by how we run it through our bodies constantly. The first enchantment I wanted to try out was making a throwing knife that I could control completely telepathically. Yes, pure mana manipulation does allow you to make a sort of telekinesis, but it’s extremely inefficient. It’s kinda like trying to swing a stick around with duct tape mittens.
My first three attempts were massive failures. I had engraved the images of a mind, of two minds linked, and a chain. They all were technically successful enchantments, but created effects I had in no way intended. The mind engraving had given the knife a sort of pseudo-consciousness, which, big surprise: really wanted to stab things. I destroyed that knife so that in some moment of weakness it wouldn’t lead me to stab anything I didn’t want stabbed. The second one I had thought that maybe if I engraved a second mind and a connection it would allow me to sink my consciousness into the knife. Instead, the knife formed a pseudo-personality and then something like schizophrenia on top of that, where one of the fake minds really wanted to stab things, and the other one was fighting it and trying to make me realize it’s true potential by cutting things instead. Needless to say, I destroyed that knife as well. Learning my lessons, I hadn’t used a mind for this last drawing and instead made a chain design wrapped around the hilt. This one thankfully did not form a pseudo-personality, but was a little too… clingy. Whenever I threw it, the moment it left my hand it would immediately teleport back into my grasp. I thought hey, maybe I could use this as the ultimate hidden weapon, and tried to see if I could teleport into my hand from inside of my bag. The only problem was that it couldn’t leave my hand in the first place to put inside the bag, so I had to scrap that one too.
I found success on my fourth try. Rather than focusing on my connection to the knife, I instead engraved a pair of wings down the blade. I watched it zoom around the room for a bit until my mana pool went dry. Almost as strong as if I had held it personally and stabbed it, while only draining about half of the mana as an average spell would. This was my first actually usable attack that could be used purely with just mana. Excited, I continued working, only breaking every once in a while to replenish my mana.
Sophia’s POV
It had been a few days since Leo had discovered enchanting, and during that entire time he hadn’t spoken to me even once. I’ve seen this several times before, when my fellow demons get immersed in their projects. Sometimes we’ll spend years just tinkering, shutting ourselves away from the world. I actually know a guy who’s been doing nothing but spinning some weird thread and weaving it for over a millenia now. It was actually rather comforting to know that Leo had this side to him. Immortality is a long time to spend with very little to occupy your time. If you don’t have that ability to lose yourself in your work, to delve into obsession, then you are far more likely to simply drive yourself mad from the sheer weight of time.
I decided to leave him alone with the current object of his obsession, and do something I had been considering frequently ever since I met the human. For 5000 years I have allowed my relations with my fellow demons to be loose, neighborly. By no means antagonistic, but not particularly friendly either. My time with Leo had shown me that having someone to interact with regularly was actually rather pleasant, so I decided to try to find a demon who would spend time with me the same way.
For the first time in centuries, I left my home, and took a stroll around, taking in the hard, cracked earth, the sea of flames in the distance, and the sky; dark, ashen, and oppressive. While similar to the mortal’s rendition, there were also stark differences. For one, while torture was not exactly uncommon a hobby for demons to possess, Hell wasn’t exactly a land of suffering. What one must understand is that while angels are representatives of cool rationality and inner peace, demons are fundamentally beings of pure raw emotion. Chaotic, and intense, but not necessarily evil or antagonistic. When someone angers us, we are driven mad with rage, filled with an intense need to make them suffer, however in the same vein, if we are fond of someone, there is no other being in existence who can possibly show the same level of fierce, unwavering loyalty, appreciation, and acceptance. This is one of the two major reasons why demons are such solitary creatures, why we don’t generally actively try to befriend each other. When two demons have a mutual liking and respect for the other, the intense nature of our emotions will drive us to form our attachments tightly to a ridiculous degree, having the two demons essentially becoming two halves of one single entity. Codependent, unable to function in the slightest without their partner. Out of fear for this eventuality, and concern for that sheer level of reliance on someone else, we would mostly rather not form any attachments at all.
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The second major reason has to do with the tendency to lose ourselves in our obsessions described previously. Because we focus all of our being into our projects, we have very little interest in anything else. This is what causes us to only seek out other people when we have something we need from them, because as long as it doesn’t involve our obsession, why would we waste our energy and risk becoming vulnerable to someone else in an attempt to make ‘friends’?
For these two reasons, I knew that if I was to find a demon who I could interact with safely on a regular basis, it would almost paradoxically need to be someone I actively disdained to spend time with. Someone whom there would be no risk for codependency developing, and someone whose obsession had nothing to do with any of mine. Preferably one I personally find deplorable or ill-advised. With that in mind, the premier candidate was actually the same person I had previously mentioned to Leo. Veronica, the degenerate gambler. On a personal level, her flighty nature and tendency for betrayal and cheating dissuaded me from feeling any form of trust or attachment, and on a ‘professional’ level if you will, I had always loathed gambling. When we have an unlimited amount of time to step by step slowly but gradually accomplish anything we desire, so long as we possess a little patience, why the fuck would you risk everything you’ve built over thousands of years for the small chance of having more?
And so, I found myself outside of Veronica’s main residence. Due to her untrustworthy nature, she often made many enemies, so over the course of her life, she had built, maintained, and established the illusion that she lived in several different mansions, each more ostentatious than the last. However, Veronica had a few choice people whom she would never cheat or intentionally make enemies of. Not because of any positive feelings for them, but simply because they were too powerful, too dangerous for her to risk antagonizing them. To these people, she had told the location of her true house, the one she actually lived in, should we need her for anything. Now, it may not make sense for her to tell people who could kill her easily where she truly lived, but it’s understandable once you realize her path. For her to grow more powerful, she has to make bets with those stronger than herself, so if she ever truly wants to reach the pinnacle, she would need to be in a position to ask the top powerhouses of Hell to make a bet. As such, she would also need to be in a position where if they needed something from her, she would be able to provide, so that perhaps she could use whatever service she was giving them as leverage to make a wager.
I knocked twice then opened the door. Playing cards, dice, and various kinds of wheels were strewn about. Evidence of all the work she had done mastering various games and ways to cheat them.
“Veronica? You home?” I called out. Almost instantly, shuffling and crashes could be heard as she waded her way through the piles of junk to find me.
“Sophia? What the fuck are you doing here? You are by far the last person I ever expected to show up. You finally get that stick outta your ass and wanna play a game?” I grit my teeth at the insult. I had never exactly shied away from expressing my disdain for her hobby.
“No, and also never. You know full well how I feel about your ‘games’.”
Veronica adopted a business-like smile and asked: “In that case, what can I do for you?”
“Nothing.”
Confusion marred her face as silence fell around the messy room. After a few seconds, she replied: “So, you don’t want to play a game, and you don’t need anything from me?”
“Correct.”
Another few seconds of silence, before she finally broke down and asked, “Then why did you come?”
I gave a noncommittal shrug before answering, “No real reason really, just in the mood to try something new, remembered you, and thought, ‘well fuck it, let’s go’, then showed up.”
Her mouth fell agape as Veronica stared at me, accusing: “You sound really different than normal, the fuck happened?”
Do I? I considered it for a little before realizing that she had a point. Normally, when I enter a room I modify my speech and actions to intimidate and impress whomever I interact with, forcing them to acknowledge my power and dignity as a superior demon. It seems that my time interacting with Leo has been changing me more than I realized. Hell, even that thought process of ‘well fuck it, let’s go’ is something I had heard him say several times after theorizing a spell for awhile, before actually making an attempt to put it into practice. Usually to rather entertaining results.
“Aaaaand now she’s smiling, seriously, what the fuck is with you?”
Apparently, remembering Leo and his usual shenanigans had put a small smile on my face, causing poor Veronica to grow even more confused. I decided to explain myself to her, since I was trying to start interacting with her on a regular basis. I have no real idea what I’m doing, as this is entirely new to me, so I took the main strategy from Leo’s game plan and just shared whatever I happened to be thinking with no regard for how the other person might react.
“I made a friend. I’ve spent the past few months spending time with him and realized that actually having someone around to talk to is quite nice. But due to what we are we have to be careful about getting too close to people, and I thought if it was you, then no matter how much we talk and interact, we’d never mix well enough for it to get destructive or dangerous, seeing as how completely different we are. So yeah, I’m not here to gamble or because I need anything. Just here to spend time with you.”
Shock, concern, bewilderment, and disbelief flitted across Veronica’s face before she asked, “And who is this man who has been deemed worthy of the friendship of the esteemed Desire’s Flame?”
Unlike when Leo uses it, Veronica had the appropriate level of fear and borderline reverence as she spoke my title aloud. What he doesn’t know is that titles are not something unique to demonkind, nor are they something made up by others simply to sound impressive. A title is something that everyone has, almost like a true name embedded into their soul. Once you pass a certain threshold in your path, your true name is revealed to you in a process of shedding your mortal body, taking away many of your vulnerabilities and almost attuning you into a higher form of being. Not quite divine yet, but it’s the first step on the path to becoming a god. Or, in my case, given my demonic nature, a devil. People with titles will often shed their original names, as a way to announce to the world their new status of a semi-divine being.
I laughed casually at her misunderstanding before I answered, “A human.”