The taproom at the Riverside inn was full to overflowing that night and a party was in full swing. They had lit a bonfire to ward off the winter chill and dragged long benches out front to accommodate the crowd. Some people had brought drums, flutes and other instruments and were playing a rhythmic but catchy impromptu tune, while others danced around the blazing fire, feet stomping and dresses twirling. Prād slid nimbly through the churning mass of people delivering food, mead and ale. Intoxication was against his monastic principals and he silently wondered whether he should be serving. He would meditate on this later. For now, his senses were engaged in moving as efficiently as possible, keeping plates and trays balanced while avoiding the chaotic surging of the crowd. It was as challenging as any fight.
"Oi Prād! Come 'ere!" called a man's voice. Prād recognised him as one of the spearmen and wove his way through the crowd. "You should see this blighter fight," he said to the man drumming next to him. "He jump-kicked one of them ettercaps so hard it went flying."
The drummer thought for a moment, his hands naturally following the beat. "Then Prād launched a flying attack and knocked the ettercap on its back! We can add that to the song."
"No," corrected the spearman, "it landed on its stomach!"
"But stomach doesn't rhyme with attack."
"Hey Prād," the spearman focused back on the young man, "what're you gonna do with your share o' the treasure?"
"I haven't thought about it prabhu." replied Prād, slightly embarrassed by the attention. "I don't mean to be rude, but I need to get back to my service."
"Well then make sure you serve them girls over there, they've been eyeing you out."
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"I'm bored." Elhandriel sat on one of the books on Sanjaya's desk, the drum beat from the party below pulsed through the room. Despite his desire to study immediately, Sanjaya knew that he would get little done and was instead enjoying beat while carefully arranging the stacks of books that they had brought back from the temple. "Shall I take you downstairs?" he asked. "There are a lot of people so you'll need to be careful and stay invisible."
"No," the pixie pouted, "I'll just get squashed." She stood up, walked to the edge of the desk and looked over. Suddenly, her foot slipped and she toppled over the edge with a shriek. Sanjaya lunged to catch her, knocking back his chair but he was too late. The tiny girl plummeted head first towards the floor, wildly flapping her wing stalks in an attempt to stabalise. Then, a moment before impact, she slowed, drifted and landed on her feet. "Hahaha," the pixie's tinkling laughter bubbled up from beside the desk, "you should've seen your face."
Sanjaya stared, adrenaline and a mixture of emotions flowed through him before he finally laughed with relief. "I see your abilities are returning."
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5 days....
It was late afternoon, Sanjaya sat in the warehouse double checking his lists, the wagon had been loaded with iron and was set to leave in the morning. Unless there was another merchant visit, there would be no more supplies before the eclipse.
This was the last of his major duties for a while. According to his agreement with Jack Slate, all he really needed to do was organise the daily information relating to the mine. Since he had already worked out the lists and ledgers, maintaining the system would be a simple task. He would make an appearance at the end of each day to tally up the stamps and provisions. He suspected that the work wouldn't take more than fifteen minutes, but had allocated an hour regardless.
The division of the treasure had been interesting, the small red jewels had turned out to be rubies -estimated to be worth between twenty and thirty Sovereign a piece due to their size. Larger rubies could be worth hundreds or even thousands. Each participant, including those wounded on the first raid, had received one with a few to spare. The other items were of indiscernible value and there were no merchants in town who could give a real estimate. The jewelry was valuable by the weight of materials alone but, considering its origins, it was certain that it would fetch a far higher price if sold to an interested buyer or collector. Therefore it was agreed that Jack would keep it in the safe until a suitable merchant came, though in a small town like this, it was more likely that someone would need to make a trip to Dragon's Rest to sell it. Although the helmet probably had collector value, they decided that it would be melted into small silver bars and distributed with any excess being traded into stamps. The smith was already busy with this task.
Some people had questioned the value of the books, but since nobody could read them and they were not in particularly good shape, Sanjaya offered to forfeit his share of the profit from selling the remaining rubies in exchange. Everybody present thought this to be a fair deal.
With the final checks done, Sanjaya sat back and contemplated his ruby. It is a well known fact that crystals and gemstones can be used to enhance various aspects of magic. Rubies are especially useful in magic relating to life force. While this was probably not the perfect stone for the project that he had in mind, he figured that it would do.
On his way back to the Riverside Inn, Sanjaya dropped off some drawings with a carpenter - if this idea worked, it could greatly assist his studies....
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4 days....
Sanjaya stood in front of his wardrobe mirror, his reflected face fixed in an expression of shock, desperation and horror. Startled, he examined the reflection in detail. The reflection's body moved when he did and the face was clearly his own, but the expression wasn't right. A moment later, laughter like wind chimes sounded from behind him. Sanjaya sighed. It wasn't easy living with a bored pixie. Still, he was impressed by the illusion. Sanjaya could also perform a minor illusion, but the pixie clearly had far more skill in its execution. "Prād is going to go visit Karya today to start on his garden. Would you like to join him?" asked Sanjaya, hoping to hand over this source of distraction so that he could focus on his books, besides, getting out would do her good.
"Yay!" Elhandriel gave a little dance, shaking a few particles of glittering pixie dust onto her pillow.
After breakfast, with all distractions out of the way, Sanjaya finally sat down to study. As a scholar, his language divination was his most used spell and, like many spells with longer duration, there were different ways in which it could be cast. He carefully drew a chalk circle on the surface of his desk and within it, two triangles, offset to form a hexagon. At each point where the triangles intersected the surrounding circle he drew a different rune, symbolising concepts. Understanding, knowledge, air, ether, the moon and mind. To cast a spell, one can visualise patterns and shapes and channel accordingly, though it is far easier and more stable to physically draw the sacred geometry. Another advantage of this approach is that he could have a spell running almost indefinitely without having to tap his personal supply of ether. The disadvantage of course, is that this method took time to set up, was clearly visible and easy to disrupt.
As Sanjaya placed a book in the centre of the hexagon, a thought crossed his mind. He didn't actually know how this spell worked. He could understand how it could translate spoken words by transferring the impression into his mind, but how did it translate symbols on a page? Surely any residual psychic impression left by the writer would have long since dissipated and yet there was a mystery - something in the spell that he used so often. Did magic somehow have a mind of its own? But how could that be? it appeared to follow strict rules and formulae, allowing spells to be crafted with entirely predictable results. Was some sort of entity contacted? He didn't see anything in the symbols, except maybe the moon.... He found his mind once again drawn to the familiar, unanswered question: What is the nature of magic?
At times like this, Sanjaya was almost tempted to join a magic academy just to get some answers. Almost.
Pushing his speculations aside, Sanjaya opened the book. It was the one that he had found on the floor of the room with the book shelf. As he ran his finger over the symbols, concepts formed in his open mind and a shiver ran down his spine. The title of the book was 'Demon Summoning Basics'.
An hour later, Sanjaya was pale and sweating. He had read the ritual and was double checking the information. It was too easy. Far too easy.
According to the book, all he needed to do was draw a pentagram from spirit to fire then separate the elements, placing a lit candle at the fire element in the lower right, a bowl of water at the water element in the upper right, a crystal at the earth element in the lower left and incense at the air element in the upper left. Then for spirit/ether, he could either use himself - resulting in an inverted pentagram from the caster's perspective, or he could use any other living entity. Finally, he would need to chant the name of the demon that he wished to summon three times.
And that was it. Nothing else.
The final page of the book contained a short list of names, some of them in different handwriting. Presumably these were the names of demons that could be or had been successfully summoned.
Reading over the text again, Sanjaya thought of a few things - firstly, a pentacle would probably be better than a pentagram since the circle around it was used to contain the separated energy. Indeed, he had found the book covering a portion of a pentacle. Secondly, using ones self as the spirit would mean that the ritual was using an inverted pentagram and an inverted pentagram symbolised spirit descending into matter. Chances are, he would wind up possessed if he were to do such a thing. But if he were to use another vessel with a bit more protection, maybe... he pushed those thoughts aside. This was far too dangerous with his limited knowledge. He didn't even know any summoning spells and here he was contemplating demon summoning. He was sure that the book was a trap, after all, a little knowledge was often more dangerous than a lot of knowledge.
There were no warnings, no explanations and no descriptions of the result, just a simple ritual with a list of names that one could call. Sanjaya felt the curiosity reach into his thoughts again and quickly shut it out. The seed was planted and he was terrified. He knew himself and he needed to know more.
Setting the book aside, Sanjaya selected another book from the stack. This one appeared to be scripture....
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Over the next few days, Sanjaya became absorbed in the books. There appeared to be two kinds of book which he had arranged into their respective piles. One was scripture, divided into twelve parts, but, starting at the beginning, Sanjaya felt that there was a large piece missing. The first book referenced people and events of which he had no knowledge and highlighted stories that he did not know.
The other kind of books consisted of rituals, manuals and practices drawing from the scripture. While Sanjaya could understand the words through his divination, it did not convey the relevant insight and he was not going to follow something that he did not understand.
The result was that he decided to read the scripture first. Although this would take weeks of focused effort, Sanjaya was grateful to have something to study and between the stories and anecdotes, he had already found some interesting ideas - the scripture mentioned seven increasingly subtle elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Mind, Intelligence and Ego.
Food for thought. He hoped that it would elaborate more later in the works.