BT - Book 1 - Chapter 28 (Patreon)

This is a book that you should not be reading.  The knowledge contained within is dangerous and forbidden for good reason.  Summoning Daemon’s from Elsewhere, while a potent art, cannot be done with any measure of exactitude.  Even the most talented of ritualists could easily drain their entire lifeforce by accident or fail in binding a Daemon that they summon.  For those brave enough to actually use this book, many of them will die at the hands of their own creations.

Nevertheless, the reason why you have received this book is simple.  My path has always been one of discovery.  My brother Luxos believes that mortal society will evolve together, slowly achieving the perfection needed to rise above the nursery that is Karell.  Ankros believes that conflict is like a whetstone, sharpening the best amongst you.  As you seek to overcome progressively more difficult challenges, eventually you will grow past your humble beginnings and join us in the heavens.

For me the answer has always been knowledge.  Only through learning more about the world around you can a mortal purge their imperfect bodies and join us.  Unfortunately, this is a project that by any rights should take several lifetimes if each mortal has to gather the necessary knowledge on their own.

This is where Luxos has the right of things.  Society protects people, but it also protects knowledge.  Almost never for purely altruistic reasons.  No the rich horde books to give them an advantage in their petty little games with their rivals, and spellcasters create esoteric traditions to curate and protect the handful of secrets they manage to wrench from the cosmos in their short lives.  Still, it builds up over time as individual grains of sand gather to form a desert.

Ankros on the other hand makes his own compelling points.  Luxos’ pawns are too worried about their rules and games of power.  They amass knowledge but first they ensure that it’s safe, preventing anything with a modicum of risk from becoming publicly available.  Without occasional existential threats to their very existence, most mortals would happily go about their everyday life without ever making major changes.  That path is a dead end.  If mortals are to make the leap beyond their station, they will need a kick.  A reason to risk it all.

The path forward lies in giving mortals the tools they need to make something of themselves as well as the motive to use it.  If you’ve received this book, it is because I foresee dark times ahead of you.  Daemon summoning won’t necessarily solve your problems, in fact it might very well multiply them, but I suspect that you are running low on options.  

Remember no knowledge is truly forbidden.  Feared and respected?  Yes.  You should fear and respect your magcis just as your enemies fear and respect you.  Forbidden?  That is failing the fundamental task that we, Karell’s Pantheon, have laid before you as mortals.  You must learn and grow or die.  Ultimately, stagnation is just as fatal as an arrow or disease.

-Mursa, Goddess of Moon and Magic

Micah closed the book thoughtfully.  Even after reading it twice he kept returning to the forward.  Both Intermediate Daemon Summoning and Temporal Power were very clear about what they were.  A dangerous lifeline thrown to a drowning man. 

He sighed.  Theoretically he should be grateful that Mursa was this blunt with him.  Of course, that didn’t change the fact that her ‘brutal honesty’ was arriving in his third timeline.  Maybe he’d give the fickle Goddess more credit if she’d actually hinted at what was in store for him his first time through.

Of course, Micah massaged his temples as he continued musing, he probably wouldn’t be desperate enough to use the books if she’d given them to him in his first or second iteration.  Sometimes there was nothing to do but shake his head at the bright and cheerful version of himself that joined the Lancers, sure that he was destined for an ordinary life full of ordinary adventures.

He’d been almost as naive when he threw himself at the mercy of the Golden Drakes.  The implied promise of fame and security were all he’d needed to sign away his future, sight unseen, to a bunch of strangers that turned out to be calculating sociopaths.  Even now, his reliance on the books provided by Mursa was probably the same brand of naivete.

Through everything, his abilities were just too perfectly tailored to his circumstances. Hells, Mursa laid it all out in her forward.  Her plan was to give him the power and knowledge he needed to succeed and then force him into impossible circumstances until he surpassed them or broke.  

The time travel, his affinities, the folio of ages, everything slotted together too neatly, like the brightly colored puzzles that the woodworkers sold to children at the market.  Mursa was giving him choices, but so many of them were obvious dead ends that it would drive Micah to madness if he dwelt upon it.

He stood up and strolled out of the cave, pondering the books.  Really, they were too good to be true.  Intermediate Daemon Summoning contained the theory and basis for rituals summoning Brensen and Luoca, the fourth and third tiers of Daemonkind respectively.  Before he’d acquired the book, he’d only heard rumors of the Brensen, great clawed vultures that tore through veteran adventurers with ease.  The records didn’t even mention Luoca beyond speculating that higher tiers of Daemon likely existed.

As far as he could tell, each Onkert was more or less the equivalent of a level twenty human with a standard class.  Brensens were roughly as powerful as a level forty human, putting them around the level of most of the guild masters in Basil’s Cove.  Theoretically that meant that Luoca were as strong as a level sixty human, putting them on par with full Royal Knights.

Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be summoning a Luoca anytime soon.  Micah was skilled enough to summon an Onkert without too much difficulty, but the complexity and reagents needed for the higher tiered castings were on another level entirely.  Theoretically, he might be able to summon a Brensen, but he still wasn’t entirely sure of the formula.  Of course, the cost in life force to summon any of the higher tiered Daemons was astronomical.

That was where Temporal Power came in.  Quickly, Micah learned that the temporal ritual that he used, steeped in years of experience transferring temporal power, was nothing more than the fumblings of a dabbler.  The book contained no rituals or formulas itself, instead focusing on theory, but it opened doors to Micah that he didn’t even know existed.  

All ritual magic tapped into another place, helpfully referred to in the texts as Elsewhere.  Whatever Elsewhere was, besides the home of the Daemons, the fundamental laws of magic and reality there differed greatly from those on Karell.  Unlike Karell, where the deities created and regulated magic to make it safe for mortals to use, the magic of Elsewhere was borderline infinite.  So long as you created the right spellform, theoretically you could do anything.  

By carefully and methodically organizing and aligning Karell with Elsewhere inside a ritual circle, a caster could use primal energy to bridge the gap and use the untamed raw magic of Elsewhere.  The trick was imbuing the circle with the right spell form as any accidents could lead to dire side effects.

Apparently the life force usually used in ritual casting was actually the primal energy of order and chaos.  Temporal energy was similar enough to be used as a substitute, but a proper ritual utilizing temporal power would be designed to do so from the ground up.

In the week since he’d gotten the books, Micah already managed to increase the efficiency of the transference ritual five fold.  Even that increase just felt like a step along the path.  He could almost sense further refinements, just out of reach that could improve the ritual further.  With just a little more effort he could strain the ritual further, wrench just a few more dregs of effectiveness out of it.  

With a proper source, he’d be able to summon Daemons that would exist for months or years at a time.  Maybe Micah didn’t have the power to stop the Durgh on his own, but with an army of Daemons at his beck and call he would bury them before they managed to crawl out of their holes.

Even if by doing so he made himself the marionette of a Goddess, dancing at the ends of her unseen strings.

He sighed and exited his cave, carefully hiding both of the books.  GIven their value and the forbidden path they represented, he didn’t dare keep them in Basil’s Cove.  Having his Mother or Sister find them while sweeping his room for risque pictures or folios would be intolerable.  Both because it would spell the end to his plans, and because it would simply be too ironic an end for him to bear contemplating.

The stag padded up to him, lowering its antlered head for him to scratch it behind the ears.  Micah’s hand sank into its fur while he pondered his next steps.  Tonight was the night of his sixteenth birthday.  Once he was done burning the midnight oil in his cave he’d have to return to the City and make up some story about his blessing.

With a snort, the stag pushed its muzzle demandingly into his forearm.  Chuckling, Micah turned the entirety of his focus on it, smoothing its white fur with both hands.

“You want me to pay attention to you and stop moping, eh?” He smiled as the soft fur tickled his fingers.  “I have been brooding more than usual of late.  You do have a point.”

The stag chuffed in exasperation, pointedly lifting one hoof before tapping it on the ground.  Theatrically it turned its head and stared to the North East.

“You want to visit the grove?” Micah questioned the stag, his fingers still rhythmically massaging its scalp.  “We’ve been meaning to go there for a while and tonight’s as auspicious as any other time.”

It nodded its head, leaning its broad shoulder into Micah’s side.  Once again a smile flickered across his face.  No matter how dark things got, the stag was always there.  Sometimes supportive, sometimes insistent, nevertheless it provided a foil and counterpoint to his often morose reasoning.

“Let’s head out then,” Micah picked up his spear and trekking away from the cave, the stag following him.  “I’ve only got a couple of hours before I need to return home and get some sleep.”

The stag snorted behind him.

“Of course I’ll support you while you deal with the guardians,” he replied without looking back at it.  “You’re getting close to your evolution and I want to see what you turn into as much as you do.  Plus, I’m more in this for access to the trees.  You’re too young for me to safely draw temporal energy from you anymore.  Those six old growth trees have been there since before humans settled in these lands.  I’d bet anything that I can draw enough temporal energy from them to power an army of Daemons.”

Micah glanced up at the stars as he walked.  He was tired of repeating the same five years of his life.  He was tired of playing into the divine hands of his patron.  He was tired of the only real option laid out before him likely being a trap.  

Even as he marched to summon the Daemons he would need to fight back against the Durgh, he knew it was a poor choice.  Mursa herself warned against it.  The ritual could go awry, shattering his mortal form.  A slip of a word or a misplaced reagent and he could easily age himself to death as he tried to siphon the weight of time from the trees.  Worse, the Daemons could be summoned unbound.  They’d eat him alive before murdering their way across the countryside.

Still, what choice had Mursa left him?  He could try the summoning or he could pick death or slavery.  There really only was one path forward.