Egil flooded the dark library with light orbs. It was still dark, but the floating light sources made a world of difference. And now, he was in the study with Logan, the summoner demon, and a clockwork, figuring out: "demonic promises."
Egil wasn't exactly sure how the conversation got to this point, but he was now being training on how to give demons multiple, simultaneous requests.
"Keep your intent split over the link!" Logan instructed...
Egil focused on the expendable clockwork, channeling his intent through it, as it scribed a document. Not exactly the most interesting of acts to use a demon for, but when attempting something complicated, it paid to keep these acts mundane.
"...but its blocking me." Egil responded,
"No." His teacher interrupted. "You're not limited by it, its limited by you. Split your intent!"
A 2nd clockwork flickered into existence, only to flicker out. "Use the same mindset you used on the cards... the same mindset you used to heal..."
Chaos magic? For splitting intent? The man stopped his original approach. He instead focused on creating multiple simultaneous outcomes. The demon needed to both write, and read a separate book at the same time. Two separate choices available to the clockwork, and it was directed to take both of them.
Weakly, the 2nd demon appeared at the bookshelf. "YES!!!" The skulled instructor cheered.
"But how does this work? Its all the same demon."
"It all contributes to a single outcome. As long as there's a final, desired outcome, then the individual contributions to the act with re-converge at that point."
This was feeling like the reverse of how Egil healed: rather than pick the best of possible outcomes, this approach took the options available to completing a task, pursued all of them simultaneously, and used them to feed a single outcome.
He tasked the demon with copying a page from its book. Rather than read the page first, the clockwork read as it wrote. Both 'choices' happened simultaneously. Collaboration between two of the same entity. It was a simple act, but it all starts this way.
"Now, materialize the demon in another library, and have it read a book from there."
"How do I actually make the demon appear some place I cant see?"
"This is what most summoners... and humans... get wrong about demons: space is meaningless. You summoners dont need to worry about your summoning gate's location in Hell, because they are both nowhere and everywhere simultaneously."
"Do angels obey these rules?"
The skull chuckled. "Not in the slightest. Without drowning you in details, where demons' true power lies in infinity, angels are very much about the finite and constants."
This kind of hit Egil rather hard. "Wait... you know about their motivations?"
"Yeah... somewhat. Demon society figured out a lot, but they're still pretty 'secretive' if you could call them that." The skull responded.
"There's an angel at the palace. Near where the fires are."
"Hmmm..." Logan suddenly sounded thoughtful. "Did the fires come into existence before, or after it was summoned? ...wait... its sort of a moot point. They're still burning?"
"...yes. What are you thinking?"
"Angels take, what amounts to a snap shot, of the status quo at the time of summoning. They then seek to maintain it."
