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Ch065-The Paved Road To Hell
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It was the middle of the night by the time Sylver reached the temple of Ra. He had traveled through the rain gutters so as not to be out in the open too much, and gained a new appreciation for the city’s water management system. There were very few instances where he had to cross the road, and even then there were enough cracks in the stone for him to slip through without much effort.
Now that Sylver was a little extra weaker to positive energy and holy magic, even getting near the temple of Ra made him uncomfortable. It wasn’t painful to be precise, but the feeling was very similar to walking through a spider’s web. Completely harmless, but irritating.
Thankfully the amount his mana increased by, was greater than the amount his weakness increased by. So all Sylver had to do was coat his skin and cloak in his own mana, and he was perfectly fine. A careful observer might notice a faint amount of white smoke coming off the very edges of his cloak, but it would be impossible to notice if you weren’t looking for it.
Sylver combed his hair into a presentable shape, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and used steam to get all the wrinkles out of his cloak. He had been careful enough not to get any blood on himself, but asked Spring to give him a look over just to make sure.
“I need to speak to Sofia Rala, it’s urgent,” Sylver said calmly, holding out the faintly glowing ring towards the guards. The guard took the ring out of the cloth Sylver was using to hold it, and disappeared.
Sofia appeared barely a moment later, dressed in a wonderfully revealing robe, with 4 guards standing directly behind her.
“The uh… I… Right. Demon worshipers, I found the demon worshipers, and they’re in the middle of trying to summon something, as we speak,” Sylver stuttered out, struggling to bring himself to look up and meet Sophia’s eye. Her eyes went wide at Sylver’s words, but she recovered very quickly and sent the guards away to get the other priests.
After telling them the location, Sophia pulled off the holy energy blocking bracelet and disappeared again. With everyone else following suit, Sylver grinned to himself as he turned into a fine smoke and made his way towards the demon worshiper’s base.
*
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The way someone moved when they could just teleport from one spot to another, was wholly different from someone who had to be mindful of walls and other physical obstacles. Although in Sylve’s case, he was just moving above the roofs avoiding everything altogether, as the various priests blinked from roof to roof below.
It wasn’t exactly a race, but Sylver was winning.
Most of it was due to the sheer fact that Sylver’s perk didn’t have a cooldown. Or a limit for that matter.
He could be a cloud of smoke for as long as he wanted with no repercussions, while the priests had to wait between their teleportations. The waiting time seemed to be relative to the range they could travel, but this only seemed to apply to certain priests, as others had no issue teleporting in succession, even if their range was shorter.
Sylver arrived just in time to see one of Sofia’s guards getting thrown out of the secret underground room, the blood on his pristinely white robe disappearing before he even hit the ground. The man seemed unconcerned as his broken arm twisted back into place and healed in a split second. He gestured with his other hand and a sword-shaped beam of light appeared in it.
With all their whining and complaining, Sylver had forgotten every single one of the sacrificial demon worshipers was an actual demon worshiper. But it did relieve him somewhat that his theory of a named demon controlling everything was wrong. This was the work of imps, at best, and by the discoloration of their skin, lesser imps at that.
Each one was easily 8 feet tall, their skin a faint dark red and their scalps bald and shiny. On a few of them, the transformation was slow enough that the skin remained intact as the limbs stretched and doubled in length. But the vast majority had exposed bone and muscle everywhere, raw bleeding sinew making a sound similar to a piano string tightening as the imps’ magic tried to connect everything back to gether. Their mouths were constantly open, screaming and sending frothy spittle flying everywhere, their cheeks torn open, and their jaws completely unhinged.
Sylver did a headcount as the priests moved around the creatures and formed a rough circle. Less than a fifth had managed to transform, but going by the eviscerated corpses a few of the transformed demon worshipers were chewing on, it wasn’t for lack of trying. They were simply too slow.
This was exactly what Sylver was talking about when explaining the difference between a ‘demon worshiper’ and a ‘demon summoner’. Never in a million years would a demon summoner ever allow anything demonic to posses him, never. They even have a suicide spell to prevent that very thing from ever happening.
Demon worshipers on the other hand? That was exactly what they were going for.
So what if it only lasted for however long it took for their souls to be burned up? Who cares about the fact that they lost their minds the moment the demon’s soul took over? Does it matter that once the demon managed to transform the body and flooded it with its mana there’s absolutely no return?
Sure the temporary power up may be somewhat strong, but you were as likely to kill your allies as you were to kill whoever you were trying to kill. It was a fate worse than death, in Sylver’s opinion.
It only now occurred to Sylver that he could have just killed all of the demon worshipers and arranged it to look like a failed demon summoning. Then again, this did give Sylver a bit more credibility.
Sylver watched from the roof as a giant glowing dome was erected around the area, trapping the priests inside, along with the transformed demon worshipers.
The transformed demon worshipers snarled and screamed at the priests, throwing balls of fire at them, but to call this fight would be wrong.
For one they were vastly outnumbered. There were easily 5 priests for every possessed demon worshiper. For two even one on one, they wouldn’t win. And for three, the priests could probably fight for days, while the possessed demon worshipers were on a very short time limit.
A small one on the very left suddenly stopped breathing fire and clutched at his chest. The creature lurched forward, landing lifelessly face-first on the floor, and started to turn into a pile of ash.
Right, I forgot they were normal people… Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything less than 1st tier mages do this… This will be over in 10 minutes at most…
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Sylver was wrong.
The whole ‘fight’ lasted for barely 2 minutes. Once the priests finished organizing themselves, it was simply a case of Sophia sending waves of pure holy magic at the demon-possessed bodies, paralyzing them where they stood, and then getting impaled by the spears and light swords of the priests.
Once all the demon worshipers were dead, they flooded the entirety of the dome with holy magic to purge whatever remained.
Sylver later learned that what had happened was that one of Sophia’s guards teleported directly above the secret room, felt something happening below him, broke through the floor and fell directly onto the fake demon alter Sylver had worked so hard to make. The guard attempted to subdue everyone in the room, but instead had his arm broken by a fisherman, and then was punched so hard that he broke through the doors and came flying out of the room.
There weren’t any casualties, at least none that couldn’t be healed in a matter of seconds, quite frankly, the whole thing was over and done with before the night was even over. Sylver didn’t quite understand how the temple of Ra functioned in terms of guards and the city’s hierarchy, but felt like the gist was that if demons or ‘evil’ magic was involved, they could do whatever they wanted.
While the other’s finished cleaning everything up, Sofia teleported up to Sylver to talk to him.
He had his story ready, double and triple checked it, even had Spring help him practice it, only to learn it was all for naught. The temple of Ra was just short of dead certain all the people inside were demon worshipers. This was as good of confirmation as they could ever want. Sofia wasn’t interested in Sylver’s story, all she wanted to know was if there had been anything he had done that required the temple of Ra to cover for him.
Sylver was tempted to say he stole a large sum of money from his employer Lola Aeyri, and have the temple of Ra pay her back in his place, but decided against it. It wasn’t worth it, if they caught him lying he could easily be the one being hunted down by them.
Even stranger Sofia believed Sylver at his word, when he said this was everyone. As far as the temple of Ra was concerned, they had just purged the city of all the demon worshipers.
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“I’m still not getting it,” Lola repeated.
“Imps. Lesser imps, they’re not even technically speaking demons,” Sylver repeated, as he gestured at the thin triangle in his notebook.
Sylver pointed at the very top of the triangle, “Demon nobility is up here, the demon king, queen, emperor, shogun, whatever the demon at the top of the foodchain calls itself. Along with all the lords and princes and what have you. They never actually leave their realm, so very little is known about them,” Sylver explained, moving his finger down.
“Here are the named demons, they can range from 1st tier to 10th tier. They follow a strict hierarchy and abide by the laws their rulers set on them. They’re smart, they can be reasoned with, and the kind most likely to make a deal. Their magic is also oddly similar to ours, but I’ve heard theories that go either way regarding who learned magic from whom,” Sylver explained, as he moved his finger further down.
“Here are the nameless demons. They’re usually all violent, animal-like, and can be as powerful as a 5th tier human mage. There might be such a thing as a 10th tier unnamed demon, but I’ve never heard of one existing, and all the people I’ve talked to who study them told me such a thing is impossible. In terms of raw mana they have about half the mana of a named demon of the same tier, but you would need about 15 nameless demons to defeat one named demon, purely because of how inefficient their wild magic is,” Sylver explained, moving his finger further down and now no longer inside the triangle.
“And everything else is down here. Misformed and mismatched demonic constructs, results of unfocused souls breeding amongst each other and creating abominations, that have neither purpose nor plan. Imps are somewhere down here, most demon summoners use them as disposable minions, but that’s about all they’re good for. Unless of course you’re a fucking moron demon worshiper and let them into your fucking soul and body to wreak havoc like a wild fucking animal,” Sylver explained, circling the area underneath the triangle and tapping on it.
“No, I understood all that, but how did they get into contact with an imp?” Lola asked.
“Nameless. The tiny piece of flesh he has that’s trapped inside the coin gives off a very faint signal. Its meant to be used when trying to summon a demon, but my guess is that it attracted an imp into a willing demon worshiper, and then the possessed worshiper, called more imps over, and let them possess the others. Temple of Ra came knocking, and the imps took over completely. I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t expecting them to actually have imps inside of them, I was near certain they weren’t possessed,” Sylver explained, as he closed his notebook and gave it to the shades to put away.
“You couldn’t tell?”
“Not as I am right now, no. There isn’t really a way to find them, but once the flesh inside the coin is gone, they should disappear too,” Sylver said, rubbing his chin.
“Should? As in, there’s a chance Arda will be permanently infested with demons?”
“Well, yeah. But the same is true for any place with enough people around. But the temple of Ra has a good handle on things, so there’s nothing to worry about. I promised to forget about the whole thing once Nameless leaves, but I think you might make something that could be used to track down demonic presences, and give it to the temple of Ra to test out,” Sylver explained gesturing with his hands as he slowly walked around the room.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, since no one but me actually knows how to summon a demon, a small part of it is going to be marking whoever is helping me put everything together with a completely invisible and untraceable marker. Except, once Nameless leaves, I’m going to show you how to make a device that will track down these markers, and you’ll give it to the temple of Ra under the guise of testing it out. Once they catch one marked demon worshiper, they can use the device to catch the others,” Sylver explained, doing a circular motion with his hands as he spoke.
Lola just stared at Sylver as he continued to walk around.
“What?” Sylver asked, looking up at her.
“Nothing. What did you want again?” Lola asked, clearing a space for her notebook to write down whatever instructions Sylver was about to give.
“Start selling the diamonds back into the market. How high are the prices inflated right now?” Sylver asked.
Lola pulled a different notebook from her desk drawer and looked through it.
“A little over 650% from when we started. And since you’re telling us to start selling, I’m guessing there’s about to be a massive amount of demand in the days to come?” Lola asked, already making notes on what to move where.
“Oh, you haven’t heard? The best time to summon a demon is on a full moon. And Lion told me they have everything ready, except for the diamonds. So unless they want to wait until the next one, in three months’ time, they’ll start buying everything up once the opportunity presents itself. Nameless seems to be loaded anyway, so why not take advantage of the fact? Plus, I want him out of my city as quickly as possible. I’m not entirely sure what exactly Poppy is doing, but it’s affecting everything,” Sylver said, as he went back to walking around the office.
“What do you mean affecting everything?” Lola asked, closing her notebook.
“I’m fairly certain she’s doing something to help Nameless. I don’t like to think about it, but there have been a few too many coincidences occurring around me. Probability related magic is extremely imprecise, so it wouldn’t be all that strange that someone like me, with such an infinitesimally small chance of being here, is also being affected by it. Same for you. We’re like lightning rods in a storm, and the same will be true for Ciege and his son if he comes here and Nameless is still around. I feel like it’s stopped after I spoke with Poppy, but who knows what exactly it is she’s doing, or how long it will last?” Sylver explained, pacing left and right.
“Can I ask something? Are you at all worried just shoving everything away from you is a viable solution? Because even after Nameless leaves and Poppy leaves, they’re still out there,” Lola said, leaning back in her seat.
“When it comes to gods, getting them as far away from you is the only viable solution. Unless you are prepared to fight and kill them, which I am not. And I have mo
matters, like the woman in white, and Tuli, and finding the man who plagiarized my work, and figuring out what my book was doing edited and at the bottom of a dungeon and-”
“‘My book’? What do you mean ‘my book’? Are you trying to say you wrote the book that Nameless found? Why would you make a demon summoning manual?” Lola asked, standing up and causing her chair to fall back.
“It-”
“Please don’t lie to me,” Lola said, her voice shaking slightly.
Sylver waited for a few seconds before speaking. He knew this was coming, but he wasn’t looking forward to it. Lying was on the table of course, Sylver was a great liar, but he had to trust Lola had known him long enough to understand.
“I wrote 21 books on demon summoning, included a piece of demon flesh with them to make it easier, and then spread them all around the continent of Fleiran,” Sylver said, standing up straight and turning to face Lola. Her face was pale. Everyone knew about the extinct continent of Fleiran.
“They came at us first. I don’t know why, or what they wanted but they burned their way through countless cities to get to us. Hundreds of thousands of mages all joined together. Maybe they were afraid, maybe they were greedy, I don’t know and I don’t care. When they nearly killed Adem and Edmund, I made a move,” Sylver said, his tone completely devoid of any emotion. The age in his words wasn’t physical, but Lola could hear it clearly.
“The red purge…” Lola said, her eyes widening at the thought.
“Yes. A whole continent reduced to a scorched wasteland, demons running amock and costing the entire world thousands of [Hero]s to stop them. And countless more to clean up the demons that remained,” Sylver explained, just staring at Lola who was looking down at the top of her desk.
“The red wars… The red king everything that-”
“I would do it again. Even if I knew exactly how much damage it would do to the world, I would still do it. I told you once I would burn this city to the ground if it tried to hurt you, and I meant it. The entirety of Fleiran tried to hurt everything I ever cared for. Maybe there were probably better ways I could have dealt with them, maybe I could have found a way to end the war without millions of innocents dying in the process, maybe I should have given it more thought before doing it. I was young, I was afraid, I was cornered and outclassed and outmatched in every way you can imagine. I have a million excuses, but the truth of it was that I would do a hundred times more if I had to,” Sylver explained, as he walked up to her desk.
“I did the same thing anyone would do if something came after those that he loved. The only difference is the scale,” Sylver concluded, staring at the top of Lola’s head.
“Sometimes I forget who you were,” Lola said with a slight chuckle.
“It’s not who I was, it’s who I am. The only difference between Sylver Sezari, the eternally undying ascended lich arch-necromancer, and the man standing in front of you, is power. I help the people I want more of in this world, and I kill the ones I don’t. That is all. There’s no ‘greater good’ I’m striving for, and there’s no grand ‘evil’ plan either. I want my family back, I want them to be safe, and I am willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that,” Sylver finished.
“I need to be alone for a while. I’ll have Tamay start looking to sell the diamonds,” Lola said simply.
Sylver waited for a few moments, thinking there would be questions, screaming at least something. But when nothing came, he left.
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Sylver’s slip up had cost him greatly. Even if it wasn’t really a slip-up.
Lola was avoiding him, and Sylver was experienced enough with this exact situation to simply wait it out and give her time and space. He had Tamay handle the delivery of silver from the temple of Ra, as well as get in touch with their priests to organize kickstarting Lola’s mana well.
The red purge, and everything that followed it was a natural disaster as far as the world at large was concerned. Something that ‘just happens’ like a volcanic eruption, or an earthquake, or a flood, or a gate opening.
Only 3 people knew what Sylver had done.
The first was Nyx. She didn’t congratulate him for it, she didn’t punish him for it, she simply accepted it as something that needed to be done and they never spoke about it. She helped Sylver find and destroy most of the books, but that was the end of it.
The second was Edmund. He was enraged by the act. That Sylver had irreversibly stained his hands in such a way. That he was capable of doing something like that. That he could even consider doing something like that. It created a rift between the two friends, that all the time in the world could never fully heal. It hurt Sylver to find out that for all their similarities, Edmund was simply cut from a different cloth than he was.
Aether was the third and the last. He didn’t just accept it, he understood it. He didn’t just ignore it, or pretend it was some other Sylver, some imaginary necessary evil Sylver, it was just Sylver. An action that was done out of love and a desire to protect and defend, nothing more, and nothing less.
And now Lola was the fourth. And Sylver could only hope he wasn’t about to lose his only connection to the past because of it.
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“You better know what you’re doing,” Wolf cautioned, as Sylver continued to grind the diamonds into dust.
“Let’s hope I do. Otherwise, I could forget a word, or a sigil, and then the demon would be summoned completely unbound and shred us and our souls into teeny tiny pieces. Then the demon would possess one of our bodies and use all the nearby ingredients to open a portal directly to his realm and actually come through. Not that any of us would be alive by that point, we would all be long dead if that were to happen. So like you said, I better know what I’m doing,” Sylver said, the malice practically dripping out of his mouth, as Wolf did as his nickname suggested and growled at him.
“Sir, we’re done with the platinum sheets, what’s next?” #4 asked. The none sacrificial demon worshipers all wore masks and all had a perk or a skill that was very similar to Sylver’s [Faceless] perk, in that he couldn’t even begin to guess their levels or classes.
Sylver waved #3 over to him, and showed the man how to use the alchemical grinder.
It relieved Sylver that there were still people who understood magic was more than just skills and perks and classes. This kind of geometry and attention to detail could only come from practice and hard work. Knowing the theory behind a fireball, and not just the requirements to unlock it.
“Please go help number 3 with the diamonds, and then double and triple-check number 1, 2, 5, and 6 are following the blueprints exactly,” Sylver instructed, as both 3 and 4 nodded and went to help the others.
There were 11 demon worshipers that were helping him with this, but the rest were currently busy transporting everything and would be arriving later.
“So no screaming virgins, no babies, not even a goat?” Lion asked, for the tenth time tonight. Possibly the 50th time overall, considering this was the fourth night Sylver had been working on this, along with his helpers.
“Not for the one we want. The kind of demon that would be attracted to something like that, isn’t one we could make a deal with. We want something powerful, calm, and willing to negotiate,” Sylver explained, speaking in a soft voice that could have easily belonged to a woman. Sylver was currently wearing a bright red robe, and a gold-colored mask, as far from inconspicuous as any man could possibly get.
Not for Lion or Nameless, but because Sylver didn’t want the demon worshipers to know his face or who he was. As talented as they might be, they were still demon worshipers. Which made them a threat in the long run, no matter how much Sylver liked them.
He would track them down later, once everything was over and done with, and do his best to convince them to work under Lola, and give up on Nameless’ cause. Sylver didn’t have a problem with demon related magic, per se, but in the same way, he wouldn’t let someone he didn’t trust work on a bomb right next to him, he wouldn’t let a demon worshiper exist in his city. It was too much of a risk, if they aren’t properly taught and guided.
While Sylver was busy preparing the summoning circle, the rest of the worshipers arrived. They carried the boxes full of gold and silver very carefully, and set them up in the room directly adjacent to the demon summoning room.
Once they were done, Sylver directed them to help him move the giant plates of platinum around, and had them hold them together while he welded them into one coherent piece. If not for the fact that Sylver had already been seen in public with his shades, he would have loved to use them right about now, but the steady hands of the extremely loyal demon worshipers was just as good.
Loyal to Nameless to be precise, although Sylver could tell by their tone of voice they at the very least respected him as the expert on the matter.
*
Sylver had all the demon worshipers gather together. He held a big copper bowl in his hands, and carved a faint framework into the inside of it using one of his scalpels. The things were so sharp, Sylver barely used a drop of mana to carve metal with them.
“Thank you all so much for your help. But now I will require you all to leave, and never speak of this again. One day soon, when Nameless becomes the high king, we will all meet again and celebrate, and the world will know of what you have all risked being here. But demons are tricky! They can consider a single strand of hair being present as an invitation to possess you! So I must ask that you all with a sharp knife, cut deeply into the middle finger on your left hand, and let it bleed into the bowl! So that the demon may know you aren’t to be harmed!” Sylver said, putting on as much flair as he knew these kinds of people expected.
They ate it right up.
Sylver swirled the blood around inside the bowl, chanting random bullshit in ancient elvish, and let the blood boil and bubble, until it formed into a small bright red bead. Sylver kept the bead in the bowl, and sent everyone on their way. All it needed now was a few drops of mana, and Sylver had a way to find every single one of them. And after he had a talk with them, the temple of Ra would be able to find the ones that weren’t open to Sylver’s peaceful methods.
*
The setup was relatively simple. A giant intricate circle was carved onto a sheet of platinum, which was on top of a carved square of gold, which was on top of a carved circle of platinum, which was on top of a carved square of gold. Sylver very gently filled up the lines he had made with diamond dust, and used a small brush to make sure there weren’t any overflowing and outside of the lines.
Small bowls were filled with the proper quantities of materials and were placed in specific spots on the various sheets of metal. Mixing them up properly, as well as turning them into a useable form was what had taken the most amount of time. As well as carving the circuitry into the metal bases, but Sylver had handled that by himself for the most part. The others simply helped with the simple, but tedious, parts of it. Sylver had obviously checked their works hundreds of times as they did it, but they did it perfectly.
The woman who had taught Sylver how to summon demons used a jagged piece of chalk and a vaguely flat rock floor. She was also constantly drunk the entire time Sylver knew her, but still could summon demons in circles around him. She was technically speaking a sorcerer, but Sylver figured out how to replicate her magic eventually. Even if it was never anywhere near what she was capable of, it was good enough for his purposes.
Sylver wasn’t a demon summoner, he was a necromancer. He just knew how to summon demons, but it was completely unrelated to him being a necromancer.
“So here’s where things get tricky,” Sylver said, as he stood up and stretched life back into his tired limbs. “I need to know what it is that you want from the demon, because there is a certain way that it must be spoken to,” Sylver said, as Nameless and Bear looked at one another, while Wolf and Lion just stood around looking somewhere between relaxed and threatening.
“We need it to find someone for us,” Bear answered, rummaging in his pocket and taking out a small piece of glass. Bear handed it to Sylver, and he saw a tiny droplet of blood sealed inside the piece of glass.
“I’m going to assume there’s a reason you’re going so far as to summon a demon, as opposed to simply hiring a divination mage, or something similar. Tracking by blood isn’t exactly impossible,” Sylver asked, holding the glass up to the light to see it better. It wasn’t even black magic, if you did it in a certain manner.
“We’ve tried, they’re being protected from any and all forms of tracking. This is the only way to find them,” Bear said. Sylver continued to look at him, but the giant of a man didn’t explain further.
“Would you recognize this person, if you were to see them?” Sylver asked after a sight.
“No.”
“Alright… Do you know this person by name?”
“No.”
“A general area they might be in?”
“No.”
“A vague direction?”
“No.”
“Is there anything at all that is unique about them? A birthmark, a tattoo, a ring, a scar, literally even the smallest detail can bring the price down,” Sylver said, as both Nameless and Bear shook their heads no.
“So to sum up, you want to track down a person, you don’t know the name of, you don’t know the face of, and all you have to go on is this teeny tiny droplet of blood?” Sylver asked, holding up the squashed and dried up splotch trapped between two small panes of glass.
All four of them nodded.
“I see… Would something like a compass that’s always pointing towards whoever this blood came from suffice?” Sylver asked.
“That would be acceptable, yes,” Bear answered.
Sylver was tempted to offer to try and make it himself, he only needed a living body to cultivate the blood a little and it was about a million times safer than summoning a demon. On the other hand, if what they said was true about the owner’s protection, Sylver was in danger of wasting their blood and getting killed as a result.
“In that case, please keep all your limbs well outside of the magic square at all time, don’t say your true name, or your soul will be taken, don’t say anything other than yes or no, and whatever you do… don’t insult it. Demons can be worse than children, so don’t say anything that it might take the wrong way. Any questions?” Sylver asked, rubbing his hands together and pulling his hood back up.
“What are you going to get from the demon?” Nameless asked, walking backward and very nearly touching the wall.
“Depends on what kind I manage to summon. And depends on what it will want as payment. In your case, I’m almost certain it will accept some gold. Also, I want to clarify, all four of you only want to find the owner of this blood, right?” Sylver asked, cracking his fingers and stretching his body.
“Yes,” Bear answered. The other three nodded.
“Nothing else, just something to help you find the owner of this drop of dried up blood?” Sylver repeated.
“Yes,” Nameless answered.
Sylver continued to stretch and quietly mulled it over. They had spent a huge sum of money to get all these ingredients, sacrificed their own followers to appease Sylver and make a deal with him, all to find the owner of a drop of blood.
To say Sylver was curious, was an understatement.
But if he asked he would be taking a step towards whatever it is they’re trying to do. Which in this case involved a god. Indirectly, granted but it was more than enough reason for Sylver to just suck it up, and mind his own business.
“Alright. As I said, don’t talk, and don’t stare at it too much. This might take a few tries until we get an amicable one, so please bear with me. There’s a good chance it will threaten you and make certain promises, but it’s all bullshit, they can’t do anything unless I let it out, or you agree to something. In essence, just stay quiet and wait. Let me do the talking, and in a few hours we will all be going our separate ways, and pretending this never happened,” Sylver said, holding his hand out towards Nameless.
The boy took the coin turned amulet off and threw it at Sylver, who caught it with one hand.
Sylver walked over into the circle, holding the coin in his hand, and placed it down onto the very middle of it. He walked out of the circle, within the square, within the circle, within the square, and took his place just outside of it.
The coin flipped over, flesh side up, then flipped again, then again, and again, bouncing around the metallic plate, sending a thin cloud of diamond dust into the air with its movement. The coin continued to jump around, as Sylver waved his hands at it, chanting quietly under his breath, his eyes glued directly onto the coin.
The coin landed on its side, and started to spin.
It got faster and faster, as the cloud of dust gradually turned into a vortex around the coin and started to hum and glow with a dull yellow hue. The small bowls full of unbelievably expensive ingredients started to bubble and overflow, leaking down onto the carved metal plate and soaking the diamond-dust filled channels.
Sylver stood at the ready, and waited for that ever so faint sound of the coin’s case opening, and the explosion of magic and power that would follow after.
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Ch065-The Paved Road To Hell
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It was the middle of the night by the time Sylver reached the temple of Ra. He had traveled through the rain gutters so as not to be out in the open too much, and gained a new appreciation for the city’s water management system. There were very few instances where he had to cross the road, and even then there were enough cracks in the stone for him to slip through without much effort.
Now that Sylver was a little extra weaker to positive energy and holy magic, even getting near the temple of Ra made him uncomfortable. It wasn’t painful to be precise, but the feeling was very similar to walking through a spider’s web. Completely harmless, but irritating.
Thankfully the amount his mana increased by, was greater than the amount his weakness increased by. So all Sylver had to do was coat his skin and cloak in his own mana, and he was perfectly fine. A careful observer might notice a faint amount of white smoke coming off the very edges of his cloak, but it would be impossible to notice if you weren’t looking for it.
Sylver combed his hair into a presentable shape, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and used steam to get all the wrinkles out of his cloak. He had been careful enough not to get any blood on himself, but asked Spring to give him a look over just to make sure.
“I need to speak to Sofia Rala, it’s urgent,” Sylver said calmly, holding out the faintly glowing ring towards the guards. The guard took the ring out of the cloth Sylver was using to hold it, and disappeared.
Sofia appeared barely a moment later, dressed in a wonderfully revealing robe, with 4 guards standing directly behind her.
“The uh… I… Right. Demon worshipers, I found the demon worshipers, and they’re in the middle of trying to summon something, as we speak,” Sylver stuttered out, struggling to bring himself to look up and meet Sophia’s eye. Her eyes went wide at Sylver’s words, but she recovered very quickly and sent the guards away to get the other priests.
After telling them the location, Sophia pulled off the holy energy blocking bracelet and disappeared again. With everyone else following suit, Sylver grinned to himself as he turned into a fine smoke and made his way towards the demon worshiper’s base.
*
*
*
The way someone moved when they could just teleport from one spot to another, was wholly different from someone who had to be mindful of walls and other physical obstacles. Although in Sylve’s case, he was just moving above the roofs avoiding everything altogether, as the various priests blinked from roof to roof below.
It wasn’t exactly a race, but Sylver was winning.
Most of it was due to the sheer fact that Sylver’s perk didn’t have a cooldown. Or a limit for that matter.
He could be a cloud of smoke for as long as he wanted with no repercussions, while the priests had to wait between their teleportations. The waiting time seemed to be relative to the range they could travel, but this only seemed to apply to certain priests, as others had no issue teleporting in succession, even if their range was shorter.
Sylver arrived just in time to see one of Sofia’s guards getting thrown out of the secret underground room, the blood on his pristinely white robe disappearing before he even hit the ground. The man seemed unconcerned as his broken arm twisted back into place and healed in a split second. He gestured with his other hand and a sword-shaped beam of light appeared in it.
With all their whining and complaining, Sylver had forgotten every single one of the sacrificial demon worshipers was an actual demon worshiper. But it did relieve him somewhat that his theory of a named demon controlling everything was wrong. This was the work of imps, at best, and by the discoloration of their skin, lesser imps at that.
Each one was easily 8 feet tall, their skin a faint dark red and their scalps bald and shiny. On a few of them, the transformation was slow enough that the skin remained intact as the limbs stretched and doubled in length. But the vast majority had exposed bone and muscle everywhere, raw bleeding sinew making a sound similar to a piano string tightening as the imps’ magic tried to connect everything back to gether. Their mouths were constantly open, screaming and sending frothy spittle flying everywhere, their cheeks torn open, and their jaws completely unhinged.
Sylver did a headcount as the priests moved around the creatures and formed a rough circle. Less than a fifth had managed to transform, but going by the eviscerated corpses a few of the transformed demon worshipers were chewing on, it wasn’t for lack of trying. They were simply too slow.
This was exactly what Sylver was talking about when explaining the difference between a ‘demon worshiper’ and a ‘demon summoner’. Never in a million years would a demon summoner ever allow anything demonic to posses him, never. They even have a suicide spell to prevent that very thing from ever happening.
Demon worshipers on the other hand? That was exactly what they were going for.
So what if it only lasted for however long it took for their souls to be burned up? Who cares about the fact that they lost their minds the moment the demon’s soul took over? Does it matter that once the demon managed to transform the body and flooded it with its mana there’s absolutely no return?
Sure the temporary power up may be somewhat strong, but you were as likely to kill your allies as you were to kill whoever you were trying to kill. It was a fate worse than death, in Sylver’s opinion.
It only now occurred to Sylver that he could have just killed all of the demon worshipers and arranged it to look like a failed demon summoning. Then again, this did give Sylver a bit more credibility.
Sylver watched from the roof as a giant glowing dome was erected around the area, trapping the priests inside, along with the transformed demon worshipers.
The transformed demon worshipers snarled and screamed at the priests, throwing balls of fire at them, but to call this fight would be wrong.
For one they were vastly outnumbered. There were easily 5 priests for every possessed demon worshiper. For two even one on one, they wouldn’t win. And for three, the priests could probably fight for days, while the possessed demon worshipers were on a very short time limit.
A small one on the very left suddenly stopped breathing fire and clutched at his chest. The creature lurched forward, landing lifelessly face-first on the floor, and started to turn into a pile of ash.
Right, I forgot they were normal people… Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything less than 1st tier mages do this… This will be over in 10 minutes at most…
*
*
*
Sylver was wrong.
The whole ‘fight’ lasted for barely 2 minutes. Once the priests finished organizing themselves, it was simply a case of Sophia sending waves of pure holy magic at the demon-possessed bodies, paralyzing them where they stood, and then getting impaled by the spears and light swords of the priests.
Once all the demon worshipers were dead, they flooded the entirety of the dome with holy magic to purge whatever remained.
Sylver later learned that what had happened was that one of Sophia’s guards teleported directly above the secret room, felt something happening below him, broke through the floor and fell directly onto the fake demon alter Sylver had worked so hard to make. The guard attempted to subdue everyone in the room, but instead had his arm broken by a fisherman, and then was punched so hard that he broke through the doors and came flying out of the room.
There weren’t any casualties, at least none that couldn’t be healed in a matter of seconds, quite frankly, the whole thing was over and done with before the night was even over. Sylver didn’t quite understand how the temple of Ra functioned in terms of guards and the city’s hierarchy, but felt like the gist was that if demons or ‘evil’ magic was involved, they could do whatever they wanted.
While the other’s finished cleaning everything up, Sofia teleported up to Sylver to talk to him.
He had his story ready, double and triple checked it, even had Spring help him practice it, only to learn it was all for naught. The temple of Ra was just short of dead certain all the people inside were demon worshipers. This was as good of confirmation as they could ever want. Sofia wasn’t interested in Sylver’s story, all she wanted to know was if there had been anything he had done that required the temple of Ra to cover for him.
Sylver was tempted to say he stole a large sum of money from his employer Lola Aeyri, and have the temple of Ra pay her back in his place, but decided against it. It wasn’t worth it, if they caught him lying he could easily be the one being hunted down by them.
Even stranger Sofia believed Sylver at his word, when he said this was everyone. As far as the temple of Ra was concerned, they had just purged the city of all the demon worshipers.
*
*
*
“I’m still not getting it,” Lola repeated.
“Imps. Lesser imps, they’re not even technically speaking demons,” Sylver repeated, as he gestured at the thin triangle in his notebook.
Sylver pointed at the very top of the triangle, “Demon nobility is up here, the demon king, queen, emperor, shogun, whatever the demon at the top of the foodchain calls itself. Along with all the lords and princes and what have you. They never actually leave their realm, so very little is known about them,” Sylver explained, moving his finger down.
“Here are the named demons, they can range from 1st tier to 10th tier. They follow a strict hierarchy and abide by the laws their rulers set on them. They’re smart, they can be reasoned with, and the kind most likely to make a deal. Their magic is also oddly similar to ours, but I’ve heard theories that go either way regarding who learned magic from whom,” Sylver explained, as he moved his finger further down.
“Here are the nameless demons. They’re usually all violent, animal-like, and can be as powerful as a 5th tier human mage. There might be such a thing as a 10th tier unnamed demon, but I’ve never heard of one existing, and all the people I’ve talked to who study them told me such a thing is impossible. In terms of raw mana they have about half the mana of a named demon of the same tier, but you would need about 15 nameless demons to defeat one named demon, purely because of how inefficient their wild magic is,” Sylver explained, moving his finger further down and now no longer inside the triangle.
“And everything else is down here. Misformed and mismatched demonic constructs, results of unfocused souls breeding amongst each other and creating abominations, that have neither purpose nor plan. Imps are somewhere down here, most demon summoners use them as disposable minions, but that’s about all they’re good for. Unless of course you’re a fucking moron demon worshiper and let them into your fucking soul and body to wreak havoc like a wild fucking animal,” Sylver explained, circling the area underneath the triangle and tapping on it.
“No, I understood all that, but how did they get into contact with an imp?” Lola asked.
“Nameless. The tiny piece of flesh he has that’s trapped inside the coin gives off a very faint signal. Its meant to be used when trying to summon a demon, but my guess is that it attracted an imp into a willing demon worshiper, and then the possessed worshiper, called more imps over, and let them possess the others. Temple of Ra came knocking, and the imps took over completely. I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t expecting them to actually have imps inside of them, I was near certain they weren’t possessed,” Sylver explained, as he closed his notebook and gave it to the shades to put away.
“You couldn’t tell?”
“Not as I am right now, no. There isn’t really a way to find them, but once the flesh inside the coin is gone, they should disappear too,” Sylver said, rubbing his chin.
“Should? As in, there’s a chance Arda will be permanently infested with demons?”
“Well, yeah. But the same is true for any place with enough people around. But the temple of Ra has a good handle on things, so there’s nothing to worry about. I promised to forget about the whole thing once Nameless leaves, but I think you might make something that could be used to track down demonic presences, and give it to the temple of Ra to test out,” Sylver explained gesturing with his hands as he slowly walked around the room.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, since no one but me actually knows how to summon a demon, a small part of it is going to be marking whoever is helping me put everything together with a completely invisible and untraceable marker. Except, once Nameless leaves, I’m going to show you how to make a device that will track down these markers, and you’ll give it to the temple of Ra under the guise of testing it out. Once they catch one marked demon worshiper, they can use the device to catch the others,” Sylver explained, doing a circular motion with his hands as he spoke.
Lola just stared at Sylver as he continued to walk around.
“What?” Sylver asked, looking up at her.
“Nothing. What did you want again?” Lola asked, clearing a space for her notebook to write down whatever instructions Sylver was about to give.
“Start selling the diamonds back into the market. How high are the prices inflated right now?” Sylver asked.
Lola pulled a different notebook from her desk drawer and looked through it.
“A little over 650% from when we started. And since you’re telling us to start selling, I’m guessing there’s about to be a massive amount of demand in the days to come?” Lola asked, already making notes on what to move where.
“Oh, you haven’t heard? The best time to summon a demon is on a full moon. And Lion told me they have everything ready, except for the diamonds. So unless they want to wait until the next one, in three months’ time, they’ll start buying everything up once the opportunity presents itself. Nameless seems to be loaded anyway, so why not take advantage of the fact? Plus, I want him out of my city as quickly as possible. I’m not entirely sure what exactly Poppy is doing, but it’s affecting everything,” Sylver said, as he went back to walking around the office.
“What do you mean affecting everything?” Lola asked, closing her notebook.
“I’m fairly certain she’s doing something to help Nameless. I don’t like to think about it, but there have been a few too many coincidences occurring around me. Probability related magic is extremely imprecise, so it wouldn’t be all that strange that someone like me, with such an infinitesimally small chance of being here, is also being affected by it. Same for you. We’re like lightning rods in a storm, and the same will be true for Ciege and his son if he comes here and Nameless is still around. I feel like it’s stopped after I spoke with Poppy, but who knows what exactly it is she’s doing, or how long it will last?” Sylver explained, pacing left and right.
“Can I ask something? Are you at all worried just shoving everything away from you is a viable solution? Because even after Nameless leaves and Poppy leaves, they’re still out there,” Lola said, leaning back in her seat.
“When it comes to gods, getting them as far away from you is the only viable solution. Unless you are prepared to fight and kill them, which I am not. And I have mo
matters, like the woman in white, and Tuli, and finding the man who plagiarized my work, and figuring out what my book was doing edited and at the bottom of a dungeon and-”
“‘My book’? What do you mean ‘my book’? Are you trying to say you wrote the book that Nameless found? Why would you make a demon summoning manual?” Lola asked, standing up and causing her chair to fall back.
“It-”
“Please don’t lie to me,” Lola said, her voice shaking slightly.
Sylver waited for a few seconds before speaking. He knew this was coming, but he wasn’t looking forward to it. Lying was on the table of course, Sylver was a great liar, but he had to trust Lola had known him long enough to understand.
“I wrote 21 books on demon summoning, included a piece of demon flesh with them to make it easier, and then spread them all around the continent of Fleiran,” Sylver said, standing up straight and turning to face Lola. Her face was pale. Everyone knew about the extinct continent of Fleiran.
“They came at us first. I don’t know why, or what they wanted but they burned their way through countless cities to get to us. Hundreds of thousands of mages all joined together. Maybe they were afraid, maybe they were greedy, I don’t know and I don’t care. When they nearly killed Adem and Edmund, I made a move,” Sylver said, his tone completely devoid of any emotion. The age in his words wasn’t physical, but Lola could hear it clearly.
“The red purge…” Lola said, her eyes widening at the thought.
“Yes. A whole continent reduced to a scorched wasteland, demons running amock and costing the entire world thousands of [Hero]s to stop them. And countless more to clean up the demons that remained,” Sylver explained, just staring at Lola who was looking down at the top of her desk.
“The red wars… The red king everything that-”
“I would do it again. Even if I knew exactly how much damage it would do to the world, I would still do it. I told you once I would burn this city to the ground if it tried to hurt you, and I meant it. The entirety of Fleiran tried to hurt everything I ever cared for. Maybe there were probably better ways I could have dealt with them, maybe I could have found a way to end the war without millions of innocents dying in the process, maybe I should have given it more thought before doing it. I was young, I was afraid, I was cornered and outclassed and outmatched in every way you can imagine. I have a million excuses, but the truth of it was that I would do a hundred times more if I had to,” Sylver explained, as he walked up to her desk.
“I did the same thing anyone would do if something came after those that he loved. The only difference is the scale,” Sylver concluded, staring at the top of Lola’s head.
“Sometimes I forget who you were,” Lola said with a slight chuckle.
“It’s not who I was, it’s who I am. The only difference between Sylver Sezari, the eternally undying ascended lich arch-necromancer, and the man standing in front of you, is power. I help the people I want more of in this world, and I kill the ones I don’t. That is all. There’s no ‘greater good’ I’m striving for, and there’s no grand ‘evil’ plan either. I want my family back, I want them to be safe, and I am willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that,” Sylver finished.
“I need to be alone for a while. I’ll have Tamay start looking to sell the diamonds,” Lola said simply.
Sylver waited for a few moments, thinking there would be questions, screaming at least something. But when nothing came, he left.
*
*
*
Sylver’s slip up had cost him greatly. Even if it wasn’t really a slip-up.
Lola was avoiding him, and Sylver was experienced enough with this exact situation to simply wait it out and give her time and space. He had Tamay handle the delivery of silver from the temple of Ra, as well as get in touch with their priests to organize kickstarting Lola’s mana well.
The red purge, and everything that followed it was a natural disaster as far as the world at large was concerned. Something that ‘just happens’ like a volcanic eruption, or an earthquake, or a flood, or a gate opening.
Only 3 people knew what Sylver had done.
The first was Nyx. She didn’t congratulate him for it, she didn’t punish him for it, she simply accepted it as something that needed to be done and they never spoke about it. She helped Sylver find and destroy most of the books, but that was the end of it.
The second was Edmund. He was enraged by the act. That Sylver had irreversibly stained his hands in such a way. That he was capable of doing something like that. That he could even consider doing something like that. It created a rift between the two friends, that all the time in the world could never fully heal. It hurt Sylver to find out that for all their similarities, Edmund was simply cut from a different cloth than he was.
Aether was the third and the last. He didn’t just accept it, he understood it. He didn’t just ignore it, or pretend it was some other Sylver, some imaginary necessary evil Sylver, it was just Sylver. An action that was done out of love and a desire to protect and defend, nothing more, and nothing less.
And now Lola was the fourth. And Sylver could only hope he wasn’t about to lose his only connection to the past because of it.
*
*
*
“You better know what you’re doing,” Wolf cautioned, as Sylver continued to grind the diamonds into dust.
“Let’s hope I do. Otherwise, I could forget a word, or a sigil, and then the demon would be summoned completely unbound and shred us and our souls into teeny tiny pieces. Then the demon would possess one of our bodies and use all the nearby ingredients to open a portal directly to his realm and actually come through. Not that any of us would be alive by that point, we would all be long dead if that were to happen. So like you said, I better know what I’m doing,” Sylver said, the malice practically dripping out of his mouth, as Wolf did as his nickname suggested and growled at him.
“Sir, we’re done with the platinum sheets, what’s next?” #4 asked. The none sacrificial demon worshipers all wore masks and all had a perk or a skill that was very similar to Sylver’s [Faceless] perk, in that he couldn’t even begin to guess their levels or classes.
Sylver waved #3 over to him, and showed the man how to use the alchemical grinder.
It relieved Sylver that there were still people who understood magic was more than just skills and perks and classes. This kind of geometry and attention to detail could only come from practice and hard work. Knowing the theory behind a fireball, and not just the requirements to unlock it.
“Please go help number 3 with the diamonds, and then double and triple-check number 1, 2, 5, and 6 are following the blueprints exactly,” Sylver instructed, as both 3 and 4 nodded and went to help the others.
There were 11 demon worshipers that were helping him with this, but the rest were currently busy transporting everything and would be arriving later.
“So no screaming virgins, no babies, not even a goat?” Lion asked, for the tenth time tonight. Possibly the 50th time overall, considering this was the fourth night Sylver had been working on this, along with his helpers.
“Not for the one we want. The kind of demon that would be attracted to something like that, isn’t one we could make a deal with. We want something powerful, calm, and willing to negotiate,” Sylver explained, speaking in a soft voice that could have easily belonged to a woman. Sylver was currently wearing a bright red robe, and a gold-colored mask, as far from inconspicuous as any man could possibly get.
Not for Lion or Nameless, but because Sylver didn’t want the demon worshipers to know his face or who he was. As talented as they might be, they were still demon worshipers. Which made them a threat in the long run, no matter how much Sylver liked them.
He would track them down later, once everything was over and done with, and do his best to convince them to work under Lola, and give up on Nameless’ cause. Sylver didn’t have a problem with demon related magic, per se, but in the same way, he wouldn’t let someone he didn’t trust work on a bomb right next to him, he wouldn’t let a demon worshiper exist in his city. It was too much of a risk, if they aren’t properly taught and guided.
While Sylver was busy preparing the summoning circle, the rest of the worshipers arrived. They carried the boxes full of gold and silver very carefully, and set them up in the room directly adjacent to the demon summoning room.
Once they were done, Sylver directed them to help him move the giant plates of platinum around, and had them hold them together while he welded them into one coherent piece. If not for the fact that Sylver had already been seen in public with his shades, he would have loved to use them right about now, but the steady hands of the extremely loyal demon worshipers was just as good.
Loyal to Nameless to be precise, although Sylver could tell by their tone of voice they at the very least respected him as the expert on the matter.
*
Sylver had all the demon worshipers gather together. He held a big copper bowl in his hands, and carved a faint framework into the inside of it using one of his scalpels. The things were so sharp, Sylver barely used a drop of mana to carve metal with them.
“Thank you all so much for your help. But now I will require you all to leave, and never speak of this again. One day soon, when Nameless becomes the high king, we will all meet again and celebrate, and the world will know of what you have all risked being here. But demons are tricky! They can consider a single strand of hair being present as an invitation to possess you! So I must ask that you all with a sharp knife, cut deeply into the middle finger on your left hand, and let it bleed into the bowl! So that the demon may know you aren’t to be harmed!” Sylver said, putting on as much flair as he knew these kinds of people expected.
They ate it right up.
Sylver swirled the blood around inside the bowl, chanting random bullshit in ancient elvish, and let the blood boil and bubble, until it formed into a small bright red bead. Sylver kept the bead in the bowl, and sent everyone on their way. All it needed now was a few drops of mana, and Sylver had a way to find every single one of them. And after he had a talk with them, the temple of Ra would be able to find the ones that weren’t open to Sylver’s peaceful methods.
*
The setup was relatively simple. A giant intricate circle was carved onto a sheet of platinum, which was on top of a carved square of gold, which was on top of a carved circle of platinum, which was on top of a carved square of gold. Sylver very gently filled up the lines he had made with diamond dust, and used a small brush to make sure there weren’t any overflowing and outside of the lines.
Small bowls were filled with the proper quantities of materials and were placed in specific spots on the various sheets of metal. Mixing them up properly, as well as turning them into a useable form was what had taken the most amount of time. As well as carving the circuitry into the metal bases, but Sylver had handled that by himself for the most part. The others simply helped with the simple, but tedious, parts of it. Sylver had obviously checked their works hundreds of times as they did it, but they did it perfectly.
The woman who had taught Sylver how to summon demons used a jagged piece of chalk and a vaguely flat rock floor. She was also constantly drunk the entire time Sylver knew her, but still could summon demons in circles around him. She was technically speaking a sorcerer, but Sylver figured out how to replicate her magic eventually. Even if it was never anywhere near what she was capable of, it was good enough for his purposes.
Sylver wasn’t a demon summoner, he was a necromancer. He just knew how to summon demons, but it was completely unrelated to him being a necromancer.
“So here’s where things get tricky,” Sylver said, as he stood up and stretched life back into his tired limbs. “I need to know what it is that you want from the demon, because there is a certain way that it must be spoken to,” Sylver said, as Nameless and Bear looked at one another, while Wolf and Lion just stood around looking somewhere between relaxed and threatening.
“We need it to find someone for us,” Bear answered, rummaging in his pocket and taking out a small piece of glass. Bear handed it to Sylver, and he saw a tiny droplet of blood sealed inside the piece of glass.
“I’m going to assume there’s a reason you’re going so far as to summon a demon, as opposed to simply hiring a divination mage, or something similar. Tracking by blood isn’t exactly impossible,” Sylver asked, holding the glass up to the light to see it better. It wasn’t even black magic, if you did it in a certain manner.
“We’ve tried, they’re being protected from any and all forms of tracking. This is the only way to find them,” Bear said. Sylver continued to look at him, but the giant of a man didn’t explain further.
“Would you recognize this person, if you were to see them?” Sylver asked after a sight.
“No.”
“Alright… Do you know this person by name?”
“No.”
“A general area they might be in?”
“No.”
“A vague direction?”
“No.”
“Is there anything at all that is unique about them? A birthmark, a tattoo, a ring, a scar, literally even the smallest detail can bring the price down,” Sylver said, as both Nameless and Bear shook their heads no.
“So to sum up, you want to track down a person, you don’t know the name of, you don’t know the face of, and all you have to go on is this teeny tiny droplet of blood?” Sylver asked, holding up the squashed and dried up splotch trapped between two small panes of glass.
All four of them nodded.
“I see… Would something like a compass that’s always pointing towards whoever this blood came from suffice?” Sylver asked.
“That would be acceptable, yes,” Bear answered.
Sylver was tempted to offer to try and make it himself, he only needed a living body to cultivate the blood a little and it was about a million times safer than summoning a demon. On the other hand, if what they said was true about the owner’s protection, Sylver was in danger of wasting their blood and getting killed as a result.
“In that case, please keep all your limbs well outside of the magic square at all time, don’t say your true name, or your soul will be taken, don’t say anything other than yes or no, and whatever you do… don’t insult it. Demons can be worse than children, so don’t say anything that it might take the wrong way. Any questions?” Sylver asked, rubbing his hands together and pulling his hood back up.
“What are you going to get from the demon?” Nameless asked, walking backward and very nearly touching the wall.
“Depends on what kind I manage to summon. And depends on what it will want as payment. In your case, I’m almost certain it will accept some gold. Also, I want to clarify, all four of you only want to find the owner of this blood, right?” Sylver asked, cracking his fingers and stretching his body.
“Yes,” Bear answered. The other three nodded.
“Nothing else, just something to help you find the owner of this drop of dried up blood?” Sylver repeated.
“Yes,” Nameless answered.
Sylver continued to stretch and quietly mulled it over. They had spent a huge sum of money to get all these ingredients, sacrificed their own followers to appease Sylver and make a deal with him, all to find the owner of a drop of blood.
To say Sylver was curious, was an understatement.
But if he asked he would be taking a step towards whatever it is they’re trying to do. Which in this case involved a god. Indirectly, granted but it was more than enough reason for Sylver to just suck it up, and mind his own business.
“Alright. As I said, don’t talk, and don’t stare at it too much. This might take a few tries until we get an amicable one, so please bear with me. There’s a good chance it will threaten you and make certain promises, but it’s all bullshit, they can’t do anything unless I let it out, or you agree to something. In essence, just stay quiet and wait. Let me do the talking, and in a few hours we will all be going our separate ways, and pretending this never happened,” Sylver said, holding his hand out towards Nameless.
The boy took the coin turned amulet off and threw it at Sylver, who caught it with one hand.
Sylver walked over into the circle, holding the coin in his hand, and placed it down onto the very middle of it. He walked out of the circle, within the square, within the circle, within the square, and took his place just outside of it.
The coin flipped over, flesh side up, then flipped again, then again, and again, bouncing around the metallic plate, sending a thin cloud of diamond dust into the air with its movement. The coin continued to jump around, as Sylver waved his hands at it, chanting quietly under his breath, his eyes glued directly onto the coin.
The coin landed on its side, and started to spin.
It got faster and faster, as the cloud of dust gradually turned into a vortex around the coin and started to hum and glow with a dull yellow hue. The small bowls full of unbelievably expensive ingredients started to bubble and overflow, leaking down onto the carved metal plate and soaking the diamond-dust filled channels.
Sylver stood at the ready, and waited for that ever so faint sound of the coin’s case opening, and the explosion of magic and power that would follow after.
