Returning to the city: setting up an HQ
Egil led them to a (mostly) abandoned library on the outskirts of the city, far from the fires in the center. To keep incognito, he had the illusory create glamours for each member. With a bit of mischief in its intent, it gave Egil a female glamour. He didnt really care. Any glamour, which kept him hidden, was a good one.
The phase walker... now a cat... wasted no time keeping itself busy by ricocheting off the dusty walls of the library interior.
The gargoyle, now having the ironic appearance of a humble priest, disappeared between the shelves, into the 'Foreign Languages' section.
The imp was too small to warrant a glamour, so it was left unchanged.
The latest recruit... Logan, the summoner demon, insisted on using his own magic. For the most part, he created the image of a well-to-do man in a top hat and full length street coat. When no strangers were around, he dropped the glamour around his head, leaving a skull in a top hat. Even Egil had to admit, it had a certain degree of stylistic flair.
The illusory simply made itself invisible, even to the perceptions of the rest of the group, which was a bit unnerving to Egil. He might need to develop a counter to this, but at the moment, it wasn't a priority.
He thumbed through the books. Chaos magic: the art of breaking rules. Entropy, probability, and temporal magics all existed under this category.
"But what is chaos magic doing in an abandoned library?" The layman might ask. The bitter truth: "When was the last time the layman actually researched it?" Sure, there were various 'hidden knowledge' grimoires, but a lot of the knowledge was effectively 'hidden in plain sight.'
Want to learn how to channel like a mage? There is nothing blocking people from figuring it out. What Egil picked up on from the times he did study at formal institutions is the students studied the same books as in the usual library. The only difference was, the institution dangled the threat of 'failure' over the student's head, which didn't exist for a purely voluntary reader.
Even the taboo topics. They weren't censored, until you tried to practice their knowledge in a formal setting. There were plenty of authors persecuted for printing controversial books, without books themselves leaving circulation.
Much of the stigma surrounding some of the more controversial stuff, originated from people with only a passing knowledge of the topic, who then claimed it had potential to be threatening.
Maybe...
...after you figure out basic channeling...
...after you successfully navigate the logistics needed to acquire many of the necessary implements...
...after you figure out how to avoid being killed by your own summon...
...after...
...the list keeps going, especially when you want to develop crossover skills between topics.
There's a lot of ground to cover between picking up skills and using them effectively. The types of individuals most likely to pick up the more dangerous knowledge are usually under the employ of a guild requiring it, or too personally disciplined to waste the skill on random acts of violence.
For most people, especially the ones that live in fear of this stuff, its far easier to just get drunk at the local pub and wait till morning; than it is to 'chase power.'
Grabbing the chaos magic book, he had a flash back of a particularly nasty event, where he occupied two spaces at once. A bastard shot him point blank in the chest, causing Egil to automatically occupy the other space, unharmed. The pain was real though: a fatal wound endured, but never happened.
The other part the layman typically doesn't understand: to implement some of this magic, requires being able to endure. Magic is neither good nor evil. It doesn't care about helping or destroying humanity. There are prices to pay, but more often than not, the sacrifice lays with the caster and no one else.
He held the book in one hand and proceeded to walk towards the table, where Logan sat.
The even bigger misunderstanding is *why* temporal magic is pretty much chaos magic. Time travel pretty much isnt a thing. Mages tried visiting history, only to find their clocks moved forward the same amount of time it took to attempt the spell. Even Hell had the same trait... at least from the human perspective. However, that took a while to understand, and not worth eating up Egil's thoughts for now.
Instead, it all focused on outcomes. Playing a game? Rolled some dice? Needed one of two possible outcomes to win the game? Why not have both outcomes occur simultaneously? Even to achieve that, required being reasonably fast at channeling. The universe will only wait so long before wresting the choice from the caster.
As Egil reach the table to sit, his thoughts were interrupted by the expressionless skull staring(?) at him. Logan slid five cards, face down, across the table. "I want to get a feel for who I'm working for. The Jack of Hearts... please." No wonder he kept the glamour off his skull. It makes him nearly impossible to read.
The man split his intent amongst the five cards, and channeled from the entropic layer. To another person, they would only see him reach for one. It might not even be the correct one... but... Egil flipped the card... it would be the correct, regardless.
With the Jack of Hearts staring upwards towards the ceiling, he pushed the card forward.
Like a viper, the summoner demon slammed a knife blade straight down on the man's hand, impaling it, and pinning it to the table. He struck with such force, the hilt slammed into the now open wound. The pain was excruciating!
The man yanked his hand back, violently tearing the flesh, bloody threads that only a skilled doctor could identify, could be seen in various formations between the bone. The bastard made the sharp edge face away, so it would do more damage!
The demon took a bony finger and traced it along, where the blade met the wood. "Not a single drop of blood..." He said, observing his fingertip.
The area around the knife: clean. The wound? Non-existent. The phantom throbbing in his hand? Still very much there. Two outcomes the man worried about. He picked the one that didnt end with his hand impaled with that knife. As far as his mind was concerned, they both happened.
"...and, you got the card right." He tilted his head, causing the top hat to briefly align with the rest of his body. "Normally, I'd turn down the cash, and leave at this point. My clan might refuse to indulge in human death, but that's not an invitation to waste our time. I might actually enjoy this venture."
"Happy?" The man asked. Flexing his hand, trying to convince the baser parts of his brain that nothing was wrong.
"Positively ecstatic! Im sure the other demons will be as well. No wonder you're not afraid of the company you keep." His lower jaw slowly swung downwards, forming some weird facsimile of a shocked expression. "Were the spiders ever actually a threat to you?"
They were a big fucking threat! Their poison would have been a death sentence! Conservative answer: "I'd prefer not to experiment when I dont have to."
The skull gave off a dramatic 'hah!' "I like that answer!" I think he saw right through that answer.
"Do you want to know what a 'promise' is?" The skull continued.
"Shoot." The pain was finally subsiding.
"Think of as the label demons assigned to the event where they can choose between two outcomes. Even clockworks and corpse demons can do it. Demonologists can use it to assign multiple simultaneous requests to a demon. All of them executed at the same time."
Egil's breath stopped in his lungs. He focused almost exclusively on the macabre skull. This fucker is reading me like a book! Out of all the topics to suddenly whip out for discussion, this was the topic he specifically wanted to learn right now.
"No shit." He responded.
"I am... happy... to be at your service."
