Trail 63 (Pt. 1): Path To Power (VIII) And DeSade’s Lesson on Summoning

Trail 63 (Pt. 1): Path To Power (VIII) And DeSade’s Lesson on Summoning

--- Jon Whitaker ---

“And is there anything I need to worry about before I put this on?” He asked Artemis as he eyed the now more or less completed black gauntlet. “Because it’s giving off… some kind of vibe right now.”

He was pretty sure it was Malice, but it might’ve been a really angry form of Madness. (It’s kind of weak, honestly but better safe than sorry.)

“That’s just some residual influence from the Horror.” Artemis assured him while looking completely unconcerned. “The enchantment process turned it into its own demonic entity, that while sentient isn’t actually sapient. Think of it as a… sort of a: it chooses its user restriction.”

“And we aren’t worried that it won’t choose Val or I guess me for this test?” He frowned in concern, because if Val wasn’t chosen then this last week was a waste of work on the arm.

“Given how the Scarecrow -a fully sapient and sophonanic fear Demon- I’m not worried about her getting it to respect her, and while I still don’t fully understand whatever semi-terror inducing thing you’ve got going on I’m pretty sure it’ll… do something here.” The arcane teen explained for him before adding. “Honestly, I’m mostly curious about what that something is. Val won’t care whether or not we actually tested it as long as it works for her, which like I said, it will.”

Figuring that he already knew enough about his own ‘semi-terror inducing thing’ he decided not to ask for clarification on that and to instead just take her on her word about Val. So instead he asked, “And going back to that demonic entity thing, it isn’t going to be a problem either, right?”

Artemis shrugged. “We’ve defanged it for the most part, so I’d deem it as dangerous as… a knife I guess. So I wouldn’t leave it with a kid but as long as you don’t do anything stupid with it, it shouldn’t be that dangerous.”

“Hmm… If you’re sure…” He frowned, before sliding the gauntlet onto his arm. (If worst comes to, I'll just cut it off and have Pix reattach it once we get the glove off.)

The moment the gauntlet slid onto his arm he felt a light pressure wrap around it as if the gauntlet was latching onto him, and he could feel the Madness and Malice of the thing as it tried to infuse him with a level of terror worth of an entity dubbed the Halloween Horror.

“Huh, that kind of tingles.” He blinked, completely unbothered by the (honestly kind of pathetic) amount of dark magic being pumped into him.

“Good tingles or bad tingles?” Artemis asked him with a notepad in her hand.

He considered it for a moment as the gauntlet seemed to almost redouble its efforts to subdue him before deciding, “Meh tingles. I mean my heart rate is up a little bit… but that’s kind of my default when around magic of any kind. I think it’s like a pre-fight or flight type of deal.”

Artemis nodded as she wrote something down. “So no fear or anything like that?”

The space around the gauntlet turned black and white as reality itself seemed to glitch under the sheer amount of Madness and Malice it forced upon its host.

“Not really… I honestly feel more anxiety when disabling the traps my ma leaves around the house on prank day.” He shrugged.

Artemis gave him a look before glancing at the gauntlet doing magic things to the air around it. “I see… Maybe you’re just desensitized to fear?”

“But I still get scared all the time.” (Like when ma was hurt, and I had to murder everything.)

The glitching stopped and the gauntlet seemed to start shivering on his hand.

“Is it supposed to do that?” He wondered, just barely noticing Artemis’s own shiver.

The Arcane Teen swallowed. “Did you do… anything different there?”

“I thought about the last time I was scared?” He shrugged.

Artemis gave him a look of some kind. “Would you say your fear response is… violence?”

He considered that for a moment.

(The Corrupted Corpse lunged from the darkness latching onto him and just barely giving him time to drive his knife into its throat.)

(As the mad wolf tackled him to the ground its snarling maw latched onto his arm, he used a trapped limb to push away its teeth before his own latched onto the beast’s throat.)

(Hundreds of eyes stared in from the void surrounding him, the ominous gazes shifting as the roots of the beast shifted unseen waiting for him to drop his guard and rip him to shreds.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

With tense fingers he pulled out a molotov ready to burn them all alive.)

“You know what, I think it is!” He admitted, a bit surprised since he’d never really thought about it.

He didn’t even notice how much worse the gauntlet’s shaking grew.

Scene Consequences

-Jon and Artemis have finished working on Val’s cut of the arm and can either present it now, or after they’ve finished the other cuts.

Demonic Guard

-Abilities:

--Royal Guard: Whenever Val performs a Guard against a Physical attack she’ll store the blocked damage up to a threshold. She can then unleash this stored damage as a special attack of the last Damage type.

--Stored Guard (II): Greatly increases the maximum storage capacity of the arm.

--Protective Defender: This unit can now use [Protect] as a reaction. Additionally, whenever this unit would take damage they gain a bonus to their Guard Check, this bonus is doubled if using [Protect] on another unit.

[Protect]: Whenever an ally unit within Move range would take damage this unit can intercept, redirecting the attack to this unit.

---

“I’m sure by now you’ve realized how much overlap there is between the various magical arts.” DeSade began his latest lecture as he began filling his circuit with a number of symbols. “Ritualism, Alchemy, Contracting, Enchanting, and so on all have developed to the level they have due to their overlaps allowing them to build each other up. Which is why any Arcane project of proper scale will require more than a singular art or craft to accomplish anything of true note. Tell me which subjects will we need for what we have planned here?”

“Given the whole point of this, I’m guessing we’re obviously using Script Craft to draw out a Summoning circuit to get whatever we’re summoning here, here. Then we’re using Ritualism to amplify it, while using Occultism to account for how Anima and Madness will mix.” He listed out as he copied some of the symbols DeSade was drawing on a piece of paper, less to add them to the ritual and more to learn how to draw them.

A task made more complicated due to the nature of the mystical and maddening symbols causing their image to shift and shake on the page they were written on, an effect that grew ever worse the more symbols he drew.

“Correct, though you are of course forgetting the Dealmaking portion you’ll have to go through when negotiating with whatever entity you summon forth.” The Dark Lord pointed out. “Most take that step for granted due to how most contracting catalysts include the contract within their summoning structure. Meaning that in order for a creature to be summoned from said catalyst they must have in some way agreed to the non-negotiable portions of the contract. A luxury we won’t quite have with this, but hopefully your affinity for Madness and the Core both will allow you to make due for now.”

“Wait, if they have to agree to the contract then how can people summon non-sapient creatures?” He frowned, looking up from the book DeSade had given him.

“The Arcane Nexus is an extremely powerful Spell Engine, one that easily dabbles in all forms of magic and all Deviant energies. A small infusion of psionics borne of mind magics or even a small dose of Madness will increase a non-sapient’s mind to the point of near-sapience, enough so for the consent aspect of dealmaking to become at least minimally applicable.” DeSade explained without looking up from his work. “I’m sure you’ve noticed your Miss Edna’s pet owl is not a normal owl, yes?”

“Yeah, she’s had Hoots for as long as I can remember.” He nodded, with a thoughtful frown. “I always knew owls were smart, but… I guess since he’s the only owl I ever interacted with I never considered that he might be an outlier.”

“Quite understandable given your youth.” DeSade assured him distractedly. “While many of the avian species are naturally intelligent, her familiar is even more so due to the previously mentioned phenomenon. In fact the connection created via a contract and the fact that she used a mundane earth animal instead of a magical creature is also why the small owl has managed to live for the last sixty years, well over thrice its natural lifespan.”

“An Anima overflow similar to how Arcane age at half of human, only increased because he doesn’t really use magic unless Miss Edna provides extra.” He realized on his own.

“Correct.” DeSade nodded as he stood from the circuit. “It’s actually common practice for one to take a beloved pet and contract with them. A feat easily accomplished without the Nexus’s mental enhancements so long as the animal is friendly with its contractor. From there many would apply a number of organic enchantments -that would go on to make up a fair portion of early Flesh Sculpting- to enhance said pets to be more valuable magical assistants.”

“I can’t see Miss Edna experimenting on Hoots like that.” He glared at DeSade.

The Dark Lord merely rolled his eyes. “It’s fully possible that she didn’t. The extended life span could’ve easily happened as a side effect of her contract, and from there due to the already intelligent owl’s extended lifespan it also could’ve just naturally grown to this level of intelligence.”

“That sounds more plausible.” He nodded.

“If you neglect your dear Miss Edna’s infamous impatience, a trait that was far worse fifty years ago than today.” DeSade scoffed before getting back to work.

Scene Consequences

-Gained 4XP to Contracting: Summons.

--Currently: Lv. 6 (10/14)

---

“You know when you two said you were going to play a game of hide and seek, this was not what I had in mind!” Miss Edna yelled from where she stood alone in the forest.

“We’re not that far from you.” His Ma’s voice called out from a bush near her. “Seriously we’re going easy on you, Eddy.”

“So what, if I wasn’t here you two wouldn’t be limiting yourself to this clearing?” His other parent scoffed as she moved toward said brush.

“No…” His Ma answered with a frown to her voice.

Miss Edna shifted the bush to the side revealing a cell phone on the ground.

“We’d be far enough that we couldn’t keep an eye on you.” His Ma laughed from beside him, her voice coming through the cell phone in front of Miss Edna.

The both watched through their binoculars as Miss Edna let out a string of curses -some probably actual curses- several hundred feet away.

“You know it kind of feels like we’re bullying her.” He admitted just low enough that the phone wouldn’t pick it up.

“Look Jon, if you could find me under these conditions at twelve then she can find us too.” His Ma assured him loud enough that Miss Edna could hear her.

“True.” He admitted, before wincing as Miss Edna blasted the phone. “Though I don’t think she realized the phone was to keep us talking so she could listen for us.”

“Her old age is getting to her.” His Ma sighed.

Scene Consequences

-Thanks to Ma gained 1XP to Stealth and Trapmaking.

--Currently: Stealth Lv. 7 (12/16) and Mobility Lv. 9 (11/20)