Morning sunlight shone on Liam’s face the day after he’d spoken with Mina. The [Wanderer] who, apparently, had been looking for him for a very long time just to give him these… contracts?
He looked down at the sheaf of paper: a total of thirty pages, yellowed by age but still in pristine condition, all with that same message written on them. A proposal, a last glimmer of hope to give to anyone of his choice: a chance for the contractee to have their soul kept safe and sound, knowing full well that, were the contractor to fail, he would die with them.
Hope for a second chance, sort of.
Or a living hell. Well, it all depended on your point of view. Eternal life could be achieved, if one played their cards right, but would that be a blessing or a curse? Bah, that’s a question for the gods to answer. Or the Old Men. And they were known for avoiding the question like the crimson plague.
Liam walked out of his tent and found the [Knights] and Amarie looking around, searching for Mina.
“Well,” started the [Knight Commander], “It would seem that our guest has kindly decided to fuck off.”
“Least she didn’t steal anything,” agreed Neville.
“That’s [Wanderers] for you. When they feel the call, nothing can stop them,” joked Sir Pollion.
“You make it sound like she had to go take a long piss,” said Dame Giulia, making everyone laugh and causing the other [Knight] to blush, before he, too, chuckled.
“Oh my gods, Giulia just spoke? Everyone, take out the alcohol, we’re celebrating!” shouted Sir Pollion as he threw an arm around the Dame.
They bantered as they prepared breakfast, before they saddled up and began riding towards their destination.
That’s when Liam decided to tell Amarie about what had happened with Mina.
He rode closer to her, the woman turning to look at him with a raised eyebrow.
Liam opened his mouth to speak, but the words didn’t come out. For some reason his brain was screaming at him that this was a bad idea, that he should keep the knowledge for himself and bring it to the tomb with him.
It was, of course, a very stupid idea, and he knew that, but still he hesitated.
Amaries, bless her heart, noticed this and, after ordering her possé of [Knights] to move back a few meters, turned towards him and twisted a ring on her left hand. It was made out of pyrite, although Liam couldn’t know that and it just looked like gold to him, with a quartz gem at the top.
As she twisted it, the world around them went silent and a thin layer of fog appeared in front of Amarie’s face, obscuring her lips.
“We can talk now. They won’t hear us, and Giulia won’t be able to read our lips.”
“What is this?” he asked as he passed a hand through the fog in front of his face and felt the humidity cling to his skin.
“[Greater Silence] Spell, carved into this ring. Very useful if you want to have a private conversation, especially if you don’t want a [Mage] to overhear you. They’re so gossipy, those people.
“Also, Giulia can read lips, and while she won’t say anything to anyone, I think you want the conversation to be private.”
Liam nodded, sighing in relief.
“I take it,” she continued, “that this is about Mina, the [Wanderer] from yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“So, spill the beans.”
Liam rummaged inside the bag of holding king Tibur had kindly gifted to him and, after a moment, took out the sheaf of contract papers.
“Last night, when you all went to sleep, she entered my tent and gave me these. Said someone, an ‘old bastard’, had paid for these a long time ago and she was supposed to give them to me.”
What really scared him was that he had just arrived in this world not even a week ago: how, for the love of God, could someone know he would end up here and make preparations just it? It made no sense.
Then again, he was in a fantasy world. Things like [Soothsayers] were probably a thing. Could it be that someone had predicted his arrival? Yes, that must be it. Surely, it was that. Or maybe Mina had joked. That seemed like something plausible too. She seemed like the kind of person who’d make that kind of joke.
“What are those?” asked Amarie.
“These, I think, are… contracts to sell your soul to me. And I mean, like, to me only.”
He showed one to her, moving his horse closer to hers.
She read the page, blinked twice, then turned to look back at the road.
Then, twisting her ring back to normal, she shouted: “Guys, I believe we didn’t just meet any [Wanderer]. I think yesterday we met Mina the fucking First Dealmaker.”
Immediately the friendly chatter from the [Knights] behind them stopped as an unnatural silence dropped on the group like a boulder down a mountain ravine.
Someone swore.
The spell broke.
And everyone began talking over everyone else, trying to ask more information, to state their opinion. In general, it was pure chaos.
Until Amarie lifted her hand, the ungloved one, and snapped her fingers.
“[Sounds of Calm].”
The snap seemed to reverberate in the air around them. Little by little, the [Knights] began calming, their voices dying down to whispers of uncertainty and fear.
“Has anyone, in any way, while speaking to our guest, made a promise, signed a deal, even as a joke, or agreed to something binding in any kind of way?” asked the [Knight Commander].
Murmurs were her only answers at first, followed soon after by shaking or scratched heads, noes and maybes. There was uncertainty, because none of them knew for sure what counted as a deal. They’d all bantered and joked and spoken with the kindly [Wanderer], after all.
“If you have, even if you’re uncertain, I suggest you keep your word. Anything said in the name or in the presence of the First Dealmaker is binding.”
Everyone nodded their heads.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
In the next week, many of them would be washing dishes and preparing food for their partners or for an entire regiment of hungry [Squires] in training to become knights.
Giulia smiled as she thought about burning trees.
While Neville sweated, remembering the promise he had made to the [Wanderer]: that he would travel the world and see all there was to see.
As this happened, Liam asked the obvious question: “Who the hell was that woman?”
So it was that [Knight Commander] Amarie began telling one of the oldest tales in history.
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Once upon a time, in the continent of Aknos, long before the gods brought eternal misfortune on the lands, in the early days of humanity, when the System was still young (by godly standards), there was a village.
The village’s name is unimportant, for not even dust is left of it and its inhabitants. Only memory.
In the village, there lived a little girl, whose name may or may not have been Mina. Names, in those times, were pliable things that could be changed at one’s whim without consequences for the body and soul. They could be given freely and traded for anything one desired like money, and new ones could be forged from metals of thoughts and dreams.
A [King]’s name was worth more than a peasant, just as an Old Man’s name was worth more than anything of the earth.
In that forsaken village which name was deleted from any and all books, the girl known as Mina was poor and forgotten. Her mother had died upon giving birth to her, and her father had left town, leaving her behind.
For a while, she had been raised by the townsfolk, until she reached the age of ten and was left to fend for herself.
Luckily, though, she was saved two years later by a [Scrybe], who took her as an apprentice. There, she learned of the trade in names and of the books that were used to remember them. She learned, and became one of the greatest traders of the town.
But, as any [Historian] worth their salt will tell you, history is a vicious circle that repeats itself indefinitely for all of eternity, and sadly the world wasn’t young enough yet not to have formed said circle.
War came, and with it famine and disease.
Mina’s town was raided and destroyed, the people’s riches and names taken against their wills. Only she remained with her own name, hidden in plain sight, trapped in a wooden ring at her finger.
In poverty, the townsfolk tried to survive the harsh seasons to come.
And Mina decided to help them in her own way. She was, at the time, a [Bookkeeper of Names], a long forgotten Class now unobtainable. She chose to break the rules, and whenever a [Merchant] came at their town’s doors offering food and weapons, she was at the doors ready to buy his whole stock with names that were no longer hers. But they didn’t know. They didn’t have to. And, even then, the names had been theirs to begin with, taken against their will. She saw nothing wrong with using them.
She saved them.
When the war was over, her town was one of the few that survived and she was acclaimed a hero.
Until the new [King], who had won the war and conquered all that land, overheard what had happened and, after digging into the matter, discovered the girl’s ploy.
He came to the town and had her arrested. She would die in three days’ time, he decided.
And none of the townsfolk came to help her. A poor girl who had just reached the age of fourteen, she was left alone again just as they’d done when she was ten.
An [Outcast].
She escaped, though, and, in the woods outside the city, she used one of the Skills given to her by the System. It was simple and low level and its name was [Request Help].
But, as was stated, at the time, the System was young. Inexpert, even with all the knowledge it had been imbued with.
The girl used the Skill in the woods, in the cave she was hiding, but could think of nobody who could help her, for everyone had abandoned her. She thought and thought, and the System waited for her to say who she would request help from.
Until Mina remembered the stories their church used to tell about Larnos and Airm, about the servants and punishers of the Gods.
She looked to the sky. And thought that, if the Gods hadn’t come to help her and her city when they needed them most, they surely wouldn’t send someone to help her now.
She didn’t know that the Skill would’ve forced one of the angels to come help her, if she so asked. Rather, the System itself wasn’t certain, but thought it possible.
So instead she looked down, towards where Airm was supposed to be. Where the souls of the damned who had wrong the world lived eternities of pain, controlled by demons and devils.
She [Requested Help] from one of them.
And the System provided.
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“Wait, you mean that the girl just summoned,” he made a puff gesture with his hands, “A demon with a Skill? Just like that?”
“Indeed. An [Outcast]’s Skill, from a time when the System didn’t know balancing. Now shut up and let me finish the story.”
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The System summoned one of the devils of Airm at random.
It was, truly, all a matter of Luck, and during those times Luck still existed as a goddess.
The air in the cave became sulfurous and hot, the walls bending and twisting as reality tried to trap the summoned devil back into Airm. It broke apart into great chasms that could’ve swallowed the girl in a moment, but that would go against the Skill granted by the System. So the girl was safe, albeit scared.
The being that came out of the ground was none other than Rlobarocker, the First Devil ever made by the gods. And the most powerful.
“Why was I called upon, little girl?” it spoke.
Mina… wasn’t scared. Because what was there to be scared about? If she went back to her town, she would die. If she walked upon Aknos, she would probably be found and killed by that [King]’s soldiers. So what worse could this thing do? Kill her? Well, take a ticket and go back in line.
“I need help. I am hunted, and I will be killed when they do.”
The devil smiled: “You wish for my help?”
“No. I [Request] your [Help]. You don’t have a choice.”
The devil chuckled: “Alright little one, I will help you. For a price, naturally. Because you didn’t request charity, but help. And I am the greatest of all devils. So tell me what you offer, and ask what you need. I will see if it is acceptable.”
The girl thought: she had spent the last few years trying to survive and help her people: she knew how to get the best out of any situation.
She thought, and then named what she desired: “I offer my name in exchange for your power, all of it.”
The devil scoffed: “Your name? I have no use for a used and traded thing that isn’t even yours to begin with. Do you have any idea how difficult things get down in Airm? The paperwork requires a living being’s original name to be valid: without we cannot damn anyone to eternal suffering. And would you know it? Nobody seems to remember their original name,” he sneered.
And Mina smiled: “But this is my original name I am offering. I never traded it to anyone. It was the one given to me by my mother and father.”
The devil was surprised. He looked at her. And saw she was telling the truth.
“Acceptable. Your name, your whole being contained in a word, and with it your eternal servitude, in exchange for all of my power. It is acceptable.”
They shook hands.
The First Deal was struck.
The devil, Rlobarocker, became one with the girl, nearly killing her in the process, binding himself with her body and soul.
Mina’s very Class changed, from [Bookkeeper of Names, Trader of Necessities] to [Devilbound Dealmaker].
She went back to her town and burned it to the ground, taking with herself only the [King]’s black traveling cloak, a hunter’s old tombstone hat, a bag of holding from her old home and a hemp sack.
She left, having destroyed a kingdom in her wake, and laughed.
Then laughed even more when the time came for her to pay the devil who’s bound himself to her soul. He requested her name, and she told him that she did have it… in the wooden ring around her finger. Not bound to her body.
So it was that the devil remained bound to Mina, and she walked upon the world as the ages changed, striking deals just like the devil inside her would’ve done. For the rest of time.
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Amarie finished, smiling: “And they say I’m no good at telling tales.”
There was silence in the group. And there it remained for the hours to come.
By evening, they reached the capital city of Pemos. There, Liam met the man who’d be his teacher in the matters of magical crafts.