"Demons are molded like clay by the powers they play with... in this way a demon can be molded to fit any role that they are deemed ready for, in body and mind. Their lords of course ussually decide when to give a demon new powers, or to take them away. The removal of power is the removal of identity for a demon, many consider it a fate worse than death, and for good reason. Imagine if your king had not only the power to clap you in irons or have you beheaded, but also the ability to take away everything that makes you who you are, you would do anything to avoid such a fate, absolutely anything.""On the Demon: a memoire."
Your sentence is the most horrible of your unnatural life, and you already deeply regret having your most recent of memories protected from tampering. You've lived thousands of years, seen mortal worlds fall, had experiences beyond count, and they are scoured from you almost in entirety. Nearly everything you've ever been... gone, forever, the insignificant soul-stuff that helped form those memories in your mind stolen from you and made meaningless. The lack of memory is a great void in your being, and while you cannot remember how you feel your personality and being irrevocably altered.
Your body too suffers abuse beyond mortal imagining. Your cruel master lays a hand upon your temple and sucks every hint of power he can away from you. You fall into a pile of pathetic goo, but maintain sentience, maintain awareness of *what* you are, worthless and weak. Slowly you coalesce into a form more suitable, a very human form. Even this body is weak and pathetic however, you are barely more than one of the husks that enter into hell by the thousands every day.
Your skin is drawn taut so tightly over your body that it tears in places, and the great heat of your environment begins to burn and slowly burn away that grisly encasing into even further disrepair. You are completely hairless, and movement is beyond pain, forcing you to crawl as you are led by chains to the void you will be cast into.
You pretend not to be truly aware, to be only a mindless husk without memory or understanding, but you are more than that, that much you ensured. You are a trader of favors, a bargainer among demons. Your first memories are of mastering your new power as a pact demon, power you still possess. Like all demons you can feed off of mortal excess, suffering, fear and cruelty all provide you sustenance and power, but unlike most other demons you do not metabolize these things efficiently, so you require more. All demons can consume soulstuff, though it is far too valuable to waste on common demons. At the height of your wealth you consumed a soul in a year, about enough to keep you satiated at that level of power. It is unlikely you will be able to manage such a luxury any more however, and so your thoughts turn to the power you possess that other demons do not share.
Debt is substantial, it is a thing with weight and power as all mortal ideas are. You can manipulate that debt, use it, store it within yourself, transfer it from one to another, and you can consume it. This is the power that afforded you status, and it could be the power that you use to rise to new strength.
Without ceremony you are cast into the void, among jeers and mocking laughter. You swear to yourself that this will be the lowest you will ever be, and that you will take vengeance upon those who brought you down.
With Sentience comes choice. Where will you go?
A familiar Forest.
A cavern system deep underground.
An abandoned watchtower.
Within a town.
In a vast desert.
Outside a goblin fortress.
On top of a mountain.
Next to the dark frozen ocean.
*within * the dark frozen ocean.
In a forbidden Tomb.
In a swamp long forgotten.
Author
Topic: Trader of Favors (SG) (Read 28788 times)