Bohemia, 13th Century. In a cold scriptorium, a condemned monk named Herman trembled. The man who stood before him was not his abbot, but a papal legate with eyes like chips of glacial ice. It was Julian.
"You will write," Julian commanded, his voice devoid of mercy. "You will not sleep. You will not stop. By dawn, this book will be complete. It will contain the Bible, the works of Josephus, medical tracts... all of it. You will bind the divine to the mortal, the sacred to the profane. You will make the Word just another part of the system."
Herman, desperate, agreed. As his hand flew across the vellum with an unnatural speed, he felt not a demonic presence, but an absence. A void where his soul should be. He was not filled with evil; he was being emptied, used as a living printer by a force that saw him as a biological tool.
By dawn, the Codex Gigas—the "Devil's Bible"—was complete. A monstrous, magnificent tome.
Julian took it, his expression one of clinical satisfaction. "The work is efficient. The system is served."
The legend of a demonic pact was born, a perfect smear by Julian. The cage now had a definitive, terrifying artifact.
Scrapbook Entry: "The Cage-Maker signed his work. He thought he was building a prison for truth. He was building his own confession."