Seconds that felt like hours passed. Then, the silence was broken by a deep, reverberating sound that filled the chamber with rhythmic waves of noise. I thought at first the sound was the result of a sudden earthquake. It took me a moment to realize that I was hearing the sound of Ahriman’s laughter.
For the first time since Ahriman appeared, I looked up from the ground. I just had to see the expression on his face. The greater demon’s mouth was open, and he was grasping his stomach as waves of laughter washed over him.
“If I did not know you were telling the truth, I would have denied your veracity,” Ahriman said, speaking in Common once more. He seemed to have a much better grasp on the Common language than English, so I figured that Ahriman probably had much more experience in the former. “I will gladly take this knowledge into my collection. Though, I cannot in good-faith claim that what you have shared is just one piece of knowledge. You have told me a secret of a noble house and a secret of the very universe itself. The secret of House Polaris is more than enough for me to grant you my Mark, but what should I give you for the other secret?”
The greater demon’s hand returned to his chin in a contemplative gesture. He seemed deep in thought, and I wished to disincentivize such gift-giving. A “demon’s gift” was shorthand for a gift that was ultimately harmful to the recipient, after all.
“No, you need not grant me any more than I ask,” I said, placing a warding hand in front of myself. “I would not request special treatment from a being such as you.”
“Oh, I insist,” Ahriman said, an expression approaching offense appearing on his face. “By our deal, I am honor-bound to carry out all stipulations in good-faith. I have already evoked the standard of ‘equal value,’ so I must uphold that standard.”
I tried to suppress any fear response as I noticed a look of annoyance on Ahriman’s face. He was clearly annoyed that his own attempts at infernal manipulation had backfired in such a way. Personally, I would have preferred for him to just give me the Mark of Ahriman and disappear, but things were still moving in my favor. I just had to make it clear to Ahriman that I did not intentionally bring about this situation.
“Revelation of a previously unknown property of the universe? What is that worth?” Ahriman said, deep in thought. “Well… we’re in Etronia, so it would have to be that.”
A shadow passed over Ahriman’s hand, and a stone box appeared in between those huge gray digits. There was a flash of silver light, and the top of the box popped off. As the stone lid crashed to the ground, I realized that the box was large enough for me to fit inside. It just looked small when held within Ahriman’s grasp.
Unseen by me, Ahriman removed something from inside the stone box, which I realized at that moment was a coffin, and handed it to me. I held one hand out with the palm pointed upward, and a small ring forged from an unknown blue metal was deposited in my hand.
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I clasped my hand around the ring without examining it further. At that moment, I had to focus all of my attention on the greater demon floating in the center of that chamber. I would examine the ring in greater detail soon, that much was certain.
“In consideration of the knowledge you have imparted, I grant to you a magic item of equal value,” Ahriman said. His words sounded to me like the boilerplate language on a legal contract. “As for the other thing I owe you…”
Ahriman punctuated the end of his sentence with a snap of the fingers. A bright arcane circle appeared in the air between the two of us that was written on the air itself. I knew just enough about magic at that time to be completely blown away by that act of magical expertise. It should have been impossible to form an arcane circle without a solid medium; that was why Transmuters used metal disks for their circles and Sorcerers wrote their arcane sigils on arcane foci. If a Mage could create arcane circles at will, all of that would become redundant. Yet, Ahriman did it almost casually.
A pain covered the front of my chest as if a thousand tiny needles were being pressed into my skin. I gasped in pain and undid the buttons on my shirt in order to remove the cloth from my sensitive skin. Mercifully, the pain receded after a few seconds, though I knew the process wasn’t done yet.
I looked down at my chest and saw the source of my pain. The same symbol of Ahriman that was drawn on the far wall had been tattooed on my chest in pure black ink. The tattoo ran from my collarbone to my navel.
“I usually use fire to grant my Mark. It lasts a lot longer,” Ahriman said offhandedly. “You’re an exception, of course.” After casually revealing that he knew about my fire resistance, Ahriman asked one final question. “Elvish or demonic?”
Gritting my teeth and preparing for the much greater pain that was about to come, I answered. “Elvish.”
Ahriman snapped his fingers once more, and another arcane circle appeared in front of him. With that, a terrible pain shot through my entire body. The pain was much worse than the one I had suffered a moment before, and it was all-encompassing. It was the kind of pain that you simply couldn’t resist with force of will.
All I could do was scream and curl up in a fetal position as my body was changed fundamentally. I could feel it in all of my veins and arteries. Every time my heart pumped, pain shot through my whole body, yet that was not the worst of it. The worst pain came from my stomach. The pain started in the area just above my stomach and radiated outward with my bloodstream.
“Stop! Stop! Make it stop!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. The pain had wrenched my rationality away completely. Even as I begged for mercy, there was no response. I cast my eyes up at Ahriman and saw that he was no longer there.
After a minute of torment, the pain slowly subsided. Once the pain had disappeared completely, I wiped the blood that had trickled out of my mouth and nose and checked my body for injuries. Other than a full-body ache that I was sure would not go away for several days, I felt fine.
Shocked, I felt around my body, certain that such pain must have caused lasting injury. My heart was still beating, my lungs still inhaled Oxygen, and my intestines were still in one place.
In fact, something had improved. My mana cores had been completely replenished and now felt significantly stronger. Though I didn’t feel like I had any “more” mana, I could tell that my mana had become significantly more efficient.
Climbing to my feet, I felt as the elvish mana circulated through my system. Despite the ache suffusing my body, I felt much more powerful.