#after this uhhhhhhh

[mushroompollution]

Chapter 48: Isla Yura

previous chapters: The Sablier Arc Masterpost (35-42) || 43 || 44 || 45 || 46 || 47

read the manga: imgur || mangaread (ad warning)

Despite his blindness, Break lays Oz out before their sparring is interrupted by Gilbert, who was able to copy Duke Barma's schedule by peeking at Reim's notebook while he was distracted. After all, Barma originally hails from the same foreign country as Yura. And, as it turns out, he has a meeting scheduled with the cult leader in the next few days.

During some sword training, Break and Oz discuss the mysterious Isla Yura and the symbol that had shown up in Arthur Barma's notes on the Sealing Stones. Isla Yura is said to be the leader of a small religious cult. However, he's also the son of a very influential person in a neighboring country with tense relations to their own, making it hard for Pandora to investigate and search for the Stone.

And so, two days later, Oz and his friends prepare to infiltrate Duke Barma'a villa in Reveil. A plan complete with costumes and everything.

calm down there Gil lol

Break goes off on his own, and the other three hide in a side parlor to eavesdrop on Duke Barma and Isla Yura's conversation. Yura reveals that their home country is nervous about Pandora's ability to utilize Chains, and had appointed him to research the Abyss and find a way to remove the threat they pose. That their scholars had drawn a connection between the Tragedy of Sablier and an earthquake that had split their own country in half a hundred years ago.

Duke Barma tells him to give up, that their home country can't hope to posess the power of Abyss and should worry more about taking care of their own domestic issues first. Surprisingly, Yura agrees, though Barma doesn't seem impressed. Yura confesses that the orders simply gave him a convenient excuse to meet with the Duke.

Duke Barma asks if that's why Yura invited the Duchess Nightray to join his cult, and Oz can't just ignore that. He sends Gil off to look for Alice and keep her out of trouble while he stays to eavesdrop.

The Duke recognizes that, much like himself, Yura won't give up what he knows for free. And so, Barma offers to introduce him to Oz Vessalius, and points him toward the doors where the hero is hiding. While Yura confront ls Oz, Barma slips out of the parlor to find Break and Alice in his archives.

Alice tries to eat a live chicken while Break and Barma talk, and so the Duke suggests she return to Oz, saying he'll probably need her help soon. She races back to the parlor, suddenly worried about her manservant, but Barma reassures Break it's really not like Oz is in any danger.

Now that the game is up, everyone changes out of their costumes and meets properly in the parlor. As they talk, Yura stares intently at Oz with wonder in his eyes, making the young hero a little uncomfortable actually. Finally, Yura admits he has a question he'a been dying to ask him.

Is it really true that the hero Jack Vessalius dwells inside his soul? Or is that just a story that Oz made up for attention? He's of a skeptical nature, after all, and it's hard to believe such a wild claim without any evidence.

Of course, if it is true, then Isla Yura says he would be happy to invite him to his mansion in his home country. And that's exactly what Oz and Pandora are after, a chance to search those grounds for the next Sealing Stone.

But Jack hasn't shown himself or answered Oz's calls for him since their trip to Sablier. So how is he supposed to prove the existence of someone without his own body?

Oz has to think quick.

The proud Rufus Barma falls to his knees in reverence, and "Jack" comments how much the Duke reminds him of Arthur from one hundred years ago. Fanatically, Isla Yura asks the hero to recite the pledge passed down by the guardians of the Sealing Stones. And he does, though by the end, Jack seems to have spent all his energy and collapses.

But that's enough to win Yura over.

Gilbert takes the unconscious Oz into another room, granting the heroes a few moments to meet with Barma alone, giving them an opportunity to reveal their setup.

Barma asks if Oz has his next move planned, and of course he does. And so they return to meet with Yura again to set it into motion.

[ihopeicanchangethislater05]

[lbhslefttiddie]

immediately she regretted asking

[majachee]

Screenshit redraw

[skitskatdacat63]

Google, play "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails

[petrichorium]

It’s his social media manager who sends Noa the video.

And typically that’s a bad sign, but this is through text—not an email with a subject line beginning with “URGENT”—and accompanied by a crying laughter emoji (he thinks, absentmindedly, of how he’d used that once in a text to you and you’d fallen off the couch in your tears of mirth) so he figures it must not be so bad.

The tiktok has views up in the eight digit range. It’s slow to load; Noa silently curses the existence of hotel wifi and opens the comments in the hopes of garnering some clue about the video’s content before it plays.

The first one is no fucking way. The second is NOEL NOA????? UR KIDDING.

The third is nothing but a string of the same emoji; a graphed line trending upwards. It has over seventy thousand likes.

Your voice speaks suddenly. Noa closes the comments, surprised to find that he recognizes the location of the video. It’s the living room of your best friend’s penthouse, four of your other closest friends lounging around with you. It’s clear that you’ve all been drinking wine, the flushed faces and hooded eyes all the necessary evidence (though the half-full glasses scattered about the room and held in hands would do well enough).

You sit against the side of the couch, legs thrown over a friend’s lap. The video has started halfway through a sentence.

“—just don’t understand it,” you’re saying, voice louder and energetic than he’s used to though it’s the only indicator of inebriation he can detect. “Like, no—no, I’m serious! He’s hot and all, y’know, that body, and like”—you wave your hand, mildly clumsy—“one of the greatest football players alive and all that. But they just don’t know how dorky my lame-ass nerd of a boyfriend is.”

Noa jolts up. He watches how all your friends giggle, how you take a sip of the wine in your hand and laugh yourself when a friend reaches over to smack your shoulder playfully. Something coils in the pit of his stomach.

Behind the camera, your best friend calls out, “Don’t be mean!”

“Oh, no, I’m not being mean. My boyfriend is so lame and nerdy and made a spreadsheet to ask me out and keeps another one of all our dates and it’s so fucking cute. He wears those hot old man glasses and he sits in front of his laptop to strategize about taking me to the beach. He might honestly have a spreadsheet for our wedding.” You pause, eyes glazing over, words slurring just slightly for the first time as you seem to lose your bearing. “If he does I might just sit on his face.”

There’s an immediate uproar. The camera shakes and then tumbles to the ground as your best friend doubles over with laughter. Over the din of glee and jokingly jeering remarks, you shout, “IT’S HOT! SPREADSHEETS ARE HOT! DON’T LIE IT’S CUTE—“

The phone shifts again and the video loops. Noa lays over the covers of the hotel room bed, staring at the repeating image of you and your words. He hears you mention him again—“my lame-ass nerd of a boyfriend”—and that low simmer burns hotter as his eyes are drawn to the sight of your bare legs, the way your hand curls around the bowl of your wine glass.

Lame-ass nerd of a boyfriend. Your lips are plush as you speak the words, quirked in a soft little smile that laces your tone with affection and crinkles the corners of your eyes.

His hand slips beneath the waistband of his sweats.

[raven--bones]

lil incubus drabble! got inspired and couldn't help but write it out hehehe

gender neutral mage apprentice reader characters: killer, nightmare (/reader eventually hehe) word count: about 2120 summary: reader practices summoning demons, but things don't quite go to plan.

You have a knack for magic. Something about it just comes easy to you. But refining that talent is still an arduous undertaking. Years of study have gotten you this far, slowly rising through the rankings and you’re at the last and more important stage to become an official mage– summoning. 

Your world is intrinsically tied to the demon realm, a plane of magical beings that can be called upon to fulfill requests by those skilled enough to summon them. There are many kinds to summon and you’ve spent years perfecting the theory behind it all. It was finally time to put it into practice. 

The rules for summoning are simple; follow the instructions strictly, never make a deal with a demon, never break the salt circle, and never catch a demon’s attention.

You had everything you need. Candles, charcoal, herbs. You cleared a nice big space in your little apartment so you can make the summoning circle and protective salt barrier extra big, just in case. You wanted to make sure you get the runes perfect, and you didn’t want the minor imp you were going to summon to be cramped. 

The sun was setting through your window, casting everything in beautiful shades of pink and orange. The perfect time for a quick little summoning, when the veil was starting to thin. So you got to work. 

Your pronunciation was perfect. Your layout was exquisite. If you were being graded you know you’d have top marks for going by the book.

And yet you made a mistake. Somehow. 

The skeletal demon blinking at you from inside the salt circle is not an imp. Your best guess is he’s a minor incubus, both from the way he’s eyeing the salt at his feet and the scarcity of his robes. He’s decorated rather finely in gold which is unusual for someone of his status, but if he was any stronger than a minor demon he’d surely have gotten through the ridiculously trivial protections you put in place. 

“Um.” You double check your book just to be sure. You’re still on the page for minor imps, the circle is identical to the one you drew, and yet the proof of your mistake is before your eyes. 

The demon’s already lost the surprised look on his face and is grinning at you, boney tail whipping back and forth at his feet. He cocks his skull at you, black ichor dripping from his eyes. The gold chain attached to the cuffs on his horns clinks softly with the movement.

“whatcha got there?” 

You ignore him. You’re still flipping through your notes, desperate for an answer. How did you mess up this badly? 

“aw, summon me all the way here and don’t even wanna chat. i’m hurt.” 

You groan when you finally see it. You can’t believe you made such a simple mistake. You drop to the floor with a huff, sitting cross legged while you sort through the many papers and books strewn about. You somehow copied the wrong incantation. The circle and pronunciation were perfect, but your words were entirely wrong. You make sure to highlight a big red circle around the spell you read and note it as ‘chatty incubus’. 

But… that still shouldn’t have summoned him. If anything it should’ve failed– there should’ve been a little puff of smoke in the circle signaling your error, not an entire incubus standing there despite it. 

The summoning circles are combined with incantations to help focus your mana when summoning, the complex runes and shapes combining into an intricate language that filters your demand into very specific instructions for the realm’s magic to follow. Without the proper circle an incantation should be worthless, your mana too unfocused to express your intent clearly. 

And yet. 

The incubus drops into a crouch, studying you. “you messed up, huh?” 

You look up, finally taking him in. Short but sharp horns, black liquid dripping from empty, half-moon sockets. A red soul hovering in front of his ribs, sharp teeth drawn wide in an easy-going grin. His tail moves back and forth behind him like a mischievous cat’s, the sharp, gleaming gold tip just barely avoiding the salt circle. 

You don’t want to admit your mistake to a demon. You weren’t prepared for anything more impressive than the weakest of imps– even a minor incubus is out of your scope for another few years. They’re tricky and manipulative and fully capable of making deals that humans will regret. 

You shake your head and keep your gaze down. No distractions. You need to get rid of him before you make another mistake and things get really bad. “I’m going to send you back in a moment. I just need to find my notes.” 

The demon whines, “but i just got here. wouldn’t it be easier to just give me a task to fulfill the summons?”

You perse your lips. That is true. Your intent behind this summons was to tell the imp to do something simple so they’d be automatically sent back. Even just asking them to jump up and down three times would’ve worked. But now… you’d rather send him back the official way, with an incantation. You don’t want to misstep and–

“i can give you a better summoning circle. one you won’t find in any lame textbook.” He sounds coy. You shouldn’t trust him. But… you have to admit, your curiosity is piqued. It’s not like him just giving you the circle would be bad, anyway. You don’t have to use it if it seems dangerous.

“Fine. Your task is to give me this ‘better’ circle.” It easy enough to find a spare sheet of paper and pen and pass it to him. “What is it?”

The demon mirrors you, sitting cross-legged and setting the paper down to draw. “it’s just a simpler basic summoning circle. more efficient. totally fool proof.” He says it easily but you don’t trust him. There’s no telling what his motivations are for giving this to you, and if his claims are true it’s not like you can cross-reference it in a textbook. “the protections you silly mortals want are included so you don’t even need to use the salt.”

“There’s no way I’m believing that.”

The incubus shrugs with a wink. “you don’t have to. keep using the salt if you want, it won’t help any.” 

When he passes the paper back to you the charcoal on the ground begins to smoke. 

“ah, looks like our time’s up. it was nice meeting you, mageling. if you ever wanna chat again, you know how to find me~” The deep black portal that opens up at his feet swallows him up before you can even speak, leaving no trace of him after it closes with a snap. 

You breathe a sigh of relief and take a look at his drawing. Sure enough, he drew a crude summoning circle. The runes are all placed correctly, but they aren’t any you recognize. It does look simple, though. You’re surprised to see he included an incantation. This one is written in script you do recognize, though it is decidedly ancient. The older incantations were never your forte. 

The incantation is short, barely longer than the imp incantation you failed to read, but you don’t understand it. You can parse a word here and there, but… surely you’re not actually considering it. But it seems simple.

You could be the first human to use this circle and incantation. The reports you could write on it could become award-winning. Maybe you’ll streamline a whole new method of basic summoning and have your name in the textbooks! It’s worth a shot. If you put the right protections in place, what could go wrong?

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Just to be safe you make an extra salt circle. You don’t see any breaks in the first one but you want to be safe. That incubus could’ve shifted it just enough when he was here and you might not have noticed. 

The new summoning circle really is simple. It has just over half of the runes of the basic imp circle, though the interlocking lines and circles are a bit more complicated. The demon’s drawing is crude so it’s difficult to get the angles right, but you’re pretty sure it’s correct. 

The incantation is another matter. The handwriting is terrible and you’re not as familiar with the old script so you do your best to copy it down clearly. If it doesn’t work you can always double-check it with an old dictionary from the library. 

By now you’ve been at this for hours. Your living room is thankfully bright from the ceiling light and all the candles, but you don’t want to keep at this for too long. Things get unpredictable the later you work. The veil thins at night, and especially on the full moon. 

You can see it peeking through your window, though the reflection from your ceiling light on the glass ruins the view. You can do a bit of stargazing after this last attempt for the night.

You double check everything one more time. Two perfect circles of salt, not a single grain out of place. The charcoal circle is pristine and accurate. Your incantation is… probably correct, give or take a letter. At worst it’ll fail and you’ll have to fan the smoke out of your apartment. 

You can do this. 

You haven’t yet taken the more advanced courses where the old incantations get worked into the curriculum–you were expecting to really study the ancient language and script in a year or two–but you’re passable. 

You speak slowly and as clearly as you can, but you still stumble over the words slightly. 

Things look promising as you work your way through the phrases. The candles flicker. You can feel the mana supercharged in the air, coalescing in the center of the circles. At the last word your lights go out, the candles extinguishing, and the charcoal runes on the floor glint with dull reflections of moonlight through the window. 

It’s so dark. You reach out for the switch but your hand brushes against something cold and unpleasant. It moves under your touch, pulling back towards the center of the room and away from you. You take a step back and stumble on a stack of books, tumbling to the floor ungracefully. 

It’s far, far too dark. The shadows around you stretch further than they should, made up of an inky darkness that looks like you could fall into it. You can’t see through the circles anymore. A column of shadow’s taken up occupation in them, filling them out to the thin line of salt separating you from whatever it is that you just summoned. 

The darkness blinks at you. A sharp cyan light, far above your head even if you were standing, pins you in place. The shadows move, deliberately, and suddenly you’re able to make out the shapes in the void. Large curving horns– one broken nearly at the base. That single bright eye in a socket like endless void. A relaxed grin of sharp teeth. Broad shoulders and a broad ribcage. Long arms of thick bone ending in large hands tipped in sharp claws. Fine silk robes, brilliant silver jewelry. Digitigrade legs ending in more sharp claws. Shadows curl around him and you realize you’re seeing the silhouette of four massive tentacles coming from his back. 

You watch as the demon takes a step forward, scuffing the salt circle like he didn’t even know it was there. The only thing that could’ve kept you safe is now strewn about at your feet. 

Not that something as simple as salt could save you from an archdemon. There is nothing you can do. You’re helpless.

That sharp cyan eye looks down at the charcoal summoning circle you so painstakingly replicated, then moves back up to the notecard clutched in your hands. He continues to examine your room; the furniture, the stacks of books, eventually stopping on the rough drawing the little incubus gave you on the floor beside you. 

A tentacle picks it up and deposits it in his claws. It looks so much smaller in his hands. He glances at it for only a moment before letting it flutter back to the ground. He puts a hand to his chin and rests the other against his hip, skull tilted ever so slightly as he stares you down.

The look on his face sends a chill down your spine, an icy pit of fear opening up in your stomach. It’s one of the most dangerous expressions to see on a demon. 

“Interesting.”

Curiosity. 

“Very interesting.”

[artandbrimstone]

something inside you is breaking

[splickedylit]

Can't believe I thought I was almost ready to start posting this GamKar winter soldier pastiche like two years ago on halloween it's grown by several hundred pages and 100,000+ words since then. Current count is 325 pages, 167,000 words, 15 chapters. fukkin UNIT of a fic

EDIT for my own personal satisfaction:

10/25: 167,000

10/29: 174,700

10/31: 180,460

11/7: 185,775

11/18: 189,500

[butchladymaria]

[quinn-pop]

mtdd week day 2 - first meeting

fingers crossed

[alangdorf]

Sorryyyy for dropping off the face of the earth; got kinda shy after that last post but mostly I’ve just been writing though I cannot guarantee that any of that will ever be finished (also I’m very insecure about my writing AAAH). Figure I might as well post the valentines I had done (like two months late lol); interestingly this turned into more of a hand lettering exercise than I was expecting lol

[clonerightsagenda]

Well I guess I have to stop joking that Barrayarans don't know about female sexuality now that that was a plot point

[bearforceone3]

finished my goji design

[gravehags]

natalie sinclair attends her first black mass (fic coming soon)

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

SURPRISE!! You’ve been blessed with the ability to summon ONE (1) fictional character into existence for ONE (1) week! Who is it and why?

a very special very short man Exclusively From My Brain, bc he's everything to me and i think we would get along <3