Touch of Fate

The next thing Mike knew he was lying facedown on the ground. A fine, gritty dust was coating the front side of his body, irritating his nose and mouth. With a huff of disgust he sat up and tried to use Lifestyle Magic to clear the uncomfortable substance from his body. However, when he tried to channel his mana, he found that he couldn't.

"What the…" He muttered while turning his attention to his surroundings.

The place he'd arrived at was a vast, barren desert. Dark, slightly reddish soil, the color of an old scab, extended in every direction. Spires of slightly curved, black rock rose from the otherwise featureless plain, like the skeletal ribs of some ancient, titanic creature. The sky was a hazy orange, reminding him of the wild fire he'd seen in his previous life, although the hazy smoke of this place was seemingly omnipresent and he couldn't detect any sign of flames in his surroundings.

The only noise he could hear was the howling of the wind as it passed through the rock formations. A faint speck of light near the horizon seemed to be this place's version of the sun, and despite the particulates in the air, it managed to shine weakly over the plain, causing the rib-like spires of stone to cast long shadows.

While he was still getting his bearings, a voice rose over the sound of the wind, sarcastically calling out to him. "Well, well, well. Look who finally decided to pay me a visit. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

The speaker was a slender humanoid boy with an apparent age of 10 or 11. He was dressed in loose fitting red clothes that would look at home on a resident of a desert nation. The tunic-like top was thrown open enough to show a generous portion of his chest and display several gold necklaces. In fact he was practically covered in elaborate jewelry, from the diamond studded rings on his fingers, to the heavy golden armlets that covered him halfway from wrist to elbow, to the long pendant earrings which nearly touched his shoulders.

His bronzed skin and sandy blonde hair gave him a healthy, sun-kissed appearance. So much so, that if there weren't an obvious reason to the contrary, Mike might have been tempted to see him as the scion of a wealthy family from a desert country. However, there were a few glaring inconsistencies that made that impossible.

Two curved horns jutted from the boy's forehead, black near their base and lightening towards white at their tips. That combined with his eyes that looked like orbs of molten rock betrayed his demonic nature.

Standing, Mike dusted himself off without saying anything. This only seemed to amuse the demon, who jeered at him. "What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?"

Seeing no reason to put off the inevitable confrontation, Mike simply stated. "I have come to make a contract, Qemu'el."

As soon as the word left his lips, the world seemed shudder, as if the very mention of the demon's true name was enough to bring his inner world to the point of collapse.

The creature silently rose from his perch before leaping nimbly towards the ground. He stalked forward slowly, his sarcastic smile slowly warping into a grimace of rage. "How do you know that name?" He growled.

"I have friends in high places, but that doesn't matter. We will make a contract now, Qemu'el." The world shuddered again before he continued. "You don't have a choice."

The demon snarled suddenly, one hand whipping out towards Mike's face as if to gouge out his eyes, but it stopped just short of making contact. They stood like that for a few minutes. The human waited patiently while the demonic creature struggled to close the last few centimeters necessary to strike down his enemy.

Finally, he gave up, whirling in place and spitting curses as he kicked a few dust piles about his feet. "Argh! I was so close! Just a few more well-timed pushes and you would have been mine!"

Mike decided it would be best to let the ancient entity vent its frustration before trying to negotiate terms.

The demon continued to rage a few more minutes before once again rounding on him and demanding. "What fool dares steal my victory away from me?! I will strip the flesh from that interloper's bones, piece by piece until there is nothing left but a few scraps of sinew holding its pathetic frame together."

"Considering who gave me that information, I seriously doubt that." Mike replied flatly. It seemed to be about time to push this thing towards a conclusion. "That's enough of your temper tantrum. You will enter into a contract with me."

The entity sullenly regarded him for a few moments before finally sighing resignedly. "Fine, what are your terms?"

Mike blinked. Honestly, he hadn't thought too much about what he would negotiate once he'd succeeded in bringing the demon to the table. It had seemed that would be the major challenge and not what lay afterwards. Trying his best to look like he was in quiet contemplation, he hurriedly considered the matter for a few seconds.

[Alright, what did Tal say about her spirit contracts before? I feel like she never really talked about what they did for her, merely what they asked for in exchange for their services. Aren't these supposed to be somewhat standardized? But what if they aren't? Wouldn't I be tipping my hand if I just said something like, the 'usual' contract? Honestly, I would be happy with him just leaving, or at the very least not trying to possess me anymore.]

Finally, he decided to just grit his teeth and try his best to bluff his way through the process. "I ask that you serve me from now until the end of my days. Lend me your power when I require it, provide me advice when I seek it, and faithfully complete any tasks I give you."

The demon stared at him with his brow furrowed for a few moments before finally giving him a slight nod. "I can't tell if you are just a lucky beginner or a skilled veteran, but there are a wealth of holes in those terms. An untrustworthy being in a more typical contract might make use of them to subvert your intentions. Of course, it would be foolhardy of me to try and anger you while you hold my true name, so I would be forced to comply with your order to the best of my ability while simultaneously having enough flexibility that my options are not limited. Arguably that could be called the best possible outcome for you."

[Haha! Task failed successfully!]

"However," the demon continued with a slight grin, "we haven't gotten to what I get out of all of this. After all, you wouldn't be so tyrannical as to try and force me into a one-sided contract by trying to leverage my true name, would you?"

"That's-" Mike started before he was interrupted.

"Of course you aren't. Clearly, you were smart enough to lay out your conditions perfectly, so you should be smart enough to realize that attempting to force a powerful being like myself into such a contract would leave me no choice but to destroy myself in a manner that you'll find quite unpleasant."

After a few moments of silence, Mike asked, "Are you done? Good. As I was saying before I was interrupted, I plan on pursuing a fair and reasonable contract. While I don't intend to give you everything you probably want, I can make a few small concessions in order to foster the spirit of cooperation. Just don't push it."

The demon laughed while throwing an arm around him in a mildly unsettling way. "And here I thought we'd have to resort to more primal means of persuasion in order to see eye to eye…"

He made sure to bring his molten eye close enough to Mike's face that he could feel the heat radiating off of it. Shoving the entity away, he asked. "So what is it that you want?"

"Ah, yet another loaded question. Do I really need to explain to you why asking a demon for straight answers is inherently a problem?"

Mike glared at the creature. "No, of course not. I have first hand experience on how trusting your responses is a mistake. However, I don't know enough about your motivations to correctly guess what sort of contract stipulations might appeal to you. So, asking for your input was more of a starting point than anything else."

The demon began to pace in a circle around him in a vaguely predatory manner. "Hmm…that's fair. Even though you are admitting to a lack of knowledge which could be seen as a weakness, your position is strong enough that it shouldn't change the eventual outcome. That being said, you clearly lack an appropriate level of deviousness for a person of your power level. At this rate, the only way to get what you want out of others would be force, or at least the threat of force."

Mike took a few steps in one direction to move out of the creature's circle of pacing, and got annoyed when he simply adjusted course to continue his orbit. "That is not important. You are stalling."

"Am I? I suppose it can be seen that way." The demon hissed in amusement. "But what reason could I possibly have to prolong the inevitable. After all, I cannot decline a contract put forth using my true name, now can I?"

[This is getting me nowhere.]

"You want to play it that way? Fine. In exchange for your willing cooperation and the clauses I already mentioned, I'll give you my ability to sleep."

The demon stopped in place, staring at Mike with a strange expression on its face. "Your ability to sleep, is it? That's…unusual. Not being able to rest would normally drive a creature insane…But then again, it has been a few months since you last entered the world of dreams. Perhaps you are different…It would be interesting to find out..."

Finally, the demon sighed while casually dropping a dagger that he'd been hiding behind his back. The weapon shattered on contact with the group, breaking into hundreds of pieces before vanishing into the dust. He gave Mike a sharp-toothed grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Yet again you say exactly the right thing. For how could I resist watching to see if you slowly descend into madness due to your self-imposed exile from the realm of sleep. Even though I know I could get so much more out of you, I cannot do anything but agree to your terms."

"That dagger-"

"Ah, forget about that. It was merely an attempt of mine to buy some time to fully possess you. A fleeting hope in an otherwise hopeless scenario. If I had a few hours to reinforce certain underlying beliefs in you, this dagger would have been very real and very dangerous to you. Now, however, it is little more than a half formed concept that shatters when attention is directed to it. Oh well, it doesn't matter."

The demon stalked forward suddenly and slapped him on the shoulder. "Rejoice, mortal, for I have seen fit to join forces with you, even if only because you've forced my hand. And I shall do so with much less deception in my heart than I originally planned."

"...So you are still planning on being deceptive."

"Of course, it is in my nature." He answered off-handedly while summoning a piece of parchment covered in arcane runes. "To ask me to be completely truthful would be like asking a fish to breathe. In any event, just sign here and we can set aside the ugliness between us."

Mike looked over the document carefully, not fully trusting anything the demon gave him. On the surface, it appeared that the few clauses he'd laid out were included, along with several others that seem to be standardized for such negotiations. These focused on mainly preventing the demon from harming him in any manner, although there was a bit about treating contracted beings with a certain degree of respect that seemed to limit the ways he could employ his new servant.

"I hope you don't mind, I added the usual bits." The demon mentioned smugly while he was reading. "I'm sure you would have gotten to them eventually, so I hoped to save us both some time."

Everything appeared to be in order, and Mike was considering signing when he decided to look over it once more, this time searching for any hidden messages or unusual additions.

"...What's this part here?" He asked after noting a small smudge on the parchment. Bringing it closer to his face, he could just barely make out lines of text that had been carefully disguised as a smudge. "Something about giving you my soul after death?"

"Good eye! I'm actually quite proud of that bit. Since it's technically still large enough to read, it can be considered a valid part of the contract. Still, it's not like you'll be using your soul after death, so what does it really matter? You won't even remember this deal in your next life."

"...Change it."

"Oh fine. You can hardly blame me for trying."

Mike looked over the second draft, wracking his brain for any other method of disguising hidden meaning in a document. After successfully removing two more subtly added clauses, he finally felt confident enough to sign.

"Alright, everything looks in order."

"Great! Then why don't I sign first." The demon replied casually.

"Actually, I think I'm going to take a break first. I need some time to clear my head and think things over."

"Wait..what? No no, there's no need for that. We can just-"

"That's enough. Clearly, you have no intention of forming this contract in good faith. I'll need to reconsider the possible implications of your involvement and come back some other time."

A look of desperation passed over the demon's eyes, and Mike knew that he'd finally succeeded in throwing his opponent off balance. "But-but that would…be a waste! That would-"

"Don't worry. I'll be back." He shot back smugly while concentrating on rising back through the spiritual sludge he was apparently still floating though.

[These metaphysical concepts are giving me a headache.] He had time to think as the dusty plain and its resident demon began to fade, only to be replaced by the suffocating darkness of the pool. Through some half formed feeling that he wasn't fully aware of, he could tell that he was slowly rising through the muck.

After a few moments, his head broke the surface and he opened his eyes in the real world.