There are very powerful and mysterious forces working in this world, just beneath the surface. the issue is, while many believe in some element of these powers, few recognize the whole of it. An explanation is likely required. First and foremost, magic is real, in a sense of the term. This world does not have any power itself, so all forms of mysticism occur based around certain gateways, certain pathways to other worlds, other locales of existence, whose mystic essences leak into our world. Manipulation of these energies result in, with training, what has been called many things by different cultures: magic, curses, chi, miracles. These, though different, are all the same at their root.
Once these energies roamed free around the world, migrating from the origin at their origin, those paths and gates, then dispersing out to the rest of the world. This is why our stories from the past, our stories of heroes and miracles and gods amongst man, arise from all over the world. However, many years ago, people began collecting these energies, harvesting them, pooling them in places where the masses would have no access. And so, tales of the mystic history of the world became myth, rather than truth. Not a single person could believe such a thing to be possible, as they were now unable to do or experience it themselves.
Which moves into the present, to a single man's terrible plan for the future. Access to those energies is still restricted, but the youth found a small window in his wanderings. When he found the window, he knew there must be some way to find or make a door. Knowing this, he set out to do something that he, even then, knew was foolish. The easiest way to open a door, to form one of those gateways, as attested to throughout several accounts, is to sell your soul. To promise your being to some terrible force and in exchange be given powers beyond understanding, throughout the world. But, for his plan to work, a single deal would be insufficient.
First, the determined man travelled to the bowels of the earth. Performing a blood sacrifice with several, long-term ritualistic implications, one of the oldest lords of demons colloquially known as the Devil came. In a booming yet whispered voice, the devil asked the man, “What for have you called me?”
The man, nervous yet certain, cleared his voice. “I have come to make a deal,” he told the devil with utmost clarity.
The devil looked at the man. Looked him up and down. “You know my fee. What do you wish me to provide for the price?” the creature asked in his hushed shout.
The man’s confidence began to grow. “You misunderstand. This isn’t a request for my own benefit.” With a smirk, he added, “I am a lost cause, I already know.” His plan couldn’t be born that way, not from his own soul. The soul mark from the fist deal would prevent any further deals from going through.
The devil smiled a calm, angry, yet kind smile. “Then on whose behalf do you bargain?” the lord of demons asked the man of plans.
“My unconceived child. My firstborn, specifically.” The man’s confidence in the bargain, in his plan, was matched the world over by only his naivete about the implications of his plan.
The devil looked down at the man from below. “You understand it is bad business to give you things for a nonexistent future possibility.”
The man nodded. “Of course. As I said, it’s for their benefit, not my own. I just want to ensure they have the power to succeed in life.” His voice was unbreaking, his gaze unwavering, as he spoke his piece.
The devil frowned. “This is, unorthodox,” he said in an echoing murmur, a pause to indicate contemplation, or contempt, or both. However, he did draw from himself a contract for the man to sign. “I added a stipulation,” the devil explained with a wickedly cordial grin, “If you have no firstborn, your soul becomes mine for eternity.”
The man nodded to the devil. “That seems more than fair,” he replied. His plan required a child anyways. If he was childless, why would it matter what happened to his own soul. Reading over the contract in full, even the finest of print, the man found nothing overly objectionable. Nothing that could ruin his plan. And so, with a prick of his middle finger, he did sign away his nonexistent child’s soul for the first time. Though, certainly, not the last. With a sweeping of his finger, he ensured the birth of the child would open at least one gate to power. And the gates, opening them, keeping them open, are critical to his plan.
Leaving the halls of the demon lord, he travelled throughout the world. the man repeated this proposition to every mystic being on every mystic plane he knew how to find. Lwa, ghosts, gods, demons, saints, elders, monsters, ferrymen. All over the world he wandered, all over the world the man offered up his firstborn. Every one, without fail, agreed to his deal. It was, after all, a good deal, as far as any of them could tell. And, seemingly, a selfless one as well.
With his firstborn's soul sold to everything in otherworldly existence, the man began the next step of his plan. For the child to work properly, he would need to make certain the energy could not, or would not, be drawn elsewhere. This meant even more wandering of the world, this time to those sites which he had learned from the entities he dealt with to have pooling mystic energies. The man needed to learn the art of making such a pool. Some pools were naturally occurring, and therefore useless to his endeavors. But, there was one, one aged pool of mystic energy, in the heart of the Parisian catacombs. One pool surrounded by a series of skeletons, each bearing a single, distinctive sigil. The energy nearby seemed drawn to the area between those skeletons. Those sigils, so it seemed, caused a pool, so surrounding the child in such sigils would pool the energies around said child, or at the very least, prevent it from being drawn and pooled elsewhere.
This left the man with only one loose end. He needed a child. He returned to his home and began to live his life in partial earnest, getting a job and dating. Years passed without anything serious developing. Eventually, after several failed attempts, he found his lady love, they dated for a year, got engaged, got pregnant, and got married, in that order.
The newlyweds, just finishing their honeymoon, started classes birthing classes. The man, always mindful of the dangers of his old but not forgotten plan, paid careful attention. He was not going to let complications from his youthful idealism bring anyone he cared about to harm. Months of work, of classes, of fancy dinners and flirtatious chats, of studying any possible thing that might go wrong and how to fix it, the man finally felt ready for what was to come. He had no idea what his youthfully ignorant plan would bring about. Not yet, in any case.
Soon enough the time did come. With doctors and nurses, the man stood in that small room, holding the woman’s hand. “You can do this,” he did say to his wife, “You got this.”
The man focused on his wife, shutting out the noises of the nurses and doctors. The woman focused in on her doctor, listening to his directions and clutching her husband’s hand ever tighter. It took a while and much effort, but soon enough, the child was born. And, up until that point in which the child took a breath, it was done without any complications. The man was surprised. He had expected the problems to start during the birth.
Then, the child cried. The doctor took this as a positive and handed the child to the parents, and together with the nurses, left the couple in their room. The man smiled at his wife and at his child. There was a moment of great stillness. Only then did he realize the change. The room felt as though it was flooding. A series of rippling energies drowning out his very thoughts. The woman noticed this too, clutching her head. The child started to cry, more pained this time. The man, riding the waves of energy bouncing about the room, looked down at his child once more. The soul of the child, small as it may be, was indeed branded. In the branding spot inside the soul, a thousand thousand marks coincided, burned deeply in, overlapping and unable to be alone. The whole year he spent on the plan worked, he thought, confused about what to do. Looking down at his beautiful baby’s eyes, he wondered why he’d forced such suffering onto such a wondrous creature. Perhaps his darkest thoughts were right. Perhaps he was infected by the very corruption he had been fighting.
Worried about his child’s health, the man requested of the woman, “Can you call in the doctors, I think he might be sick.”
The woman looked at her crying baby and reached out a hand. The child did, indeed, have a massive fever. She called the nurse in and asked the nurse, “I think our child is sick, could you bring in the doctor to check?”
The nurse, taking up the child and checking, nodded. The man looked down at his wife. “I think I’m going to need some coffee to last through the night,” he told her.
“Get me some too,” she replied, “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep until he’s better.”
The man left the room and entered the stairwell. Checking to ensure no one was there, He dove into the flow from his child’s gateways. Dove into the chaos. He saw before him a great war. Everyone he had approached fighting among one another. As he did arrive, everyone turned to the man that started the war. “You!” the Devil did speak.
-this is your doing- The dark thought crept into his mind, un-spoken to him by the one who wasn’t.
Several others joined in, approaching the man. The man stood his ground. “I do not give a damn about your foolish war,” he told the entities about the war he started, “I care about that child. My child. He is sick, and you’re not helping matters.”
“So?” did ask the ferryman.
The man knew better than to plead to their humanity. Even those with empathy held too much rage right now for that empathy to matter. Instead, he appealed to their pragmatism. “If that child does die, none of you have claim to his soul. You’ve all seen it, the child’s brand is unique and none of yours. But, with him alive, you have a chance of winning this war and laying claim to that brand. More importantly, you have a mobile foothold through which you can influence the world, even if this war has no end. But only so long as my child is alive. Save him.”
The entities stopped approaching him, but made no move to help. The man grew impatient. “I said,” he slowly spoke, “Save. Him.” Harnessing the waves that this war was causing through the great gate that was the child, he pushed a fraction of that energy back through, and washed the pain over the entities. That made them move into action. Pulling himself out of the chaos, the man ran down the stairs, bought two small coffees, and rushed back to the room. The woman was holding the child. He smiled and lay her coffee beside her bed. “Is everything alright?” he asked his wife.
The woman, still staring at her child, smiled. “The doctor said he was already starting to get better, something about shock, I stopped listening when he said I should just hold him.” The waves were still there, but no longer overwhelming. The entities were clearly still at war, but knew better than to fight just on the other side of their gate. They could not afford to lose the child.
The man smiled at his child. “Of course he is,” the man said, “He’s strong. Nothing will be able to hold him down for long.” Tussling the infant’s few strands of hair, the man kissed the child atop the head. He then kissed the woman and went to sit down. Travelling to the chaos, especially during a war, drains any man. Especially one so out of practice.
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