#obey me nightbringer lesson 2

[emmys-grimoire]

Nightbringer - Lesson 2 Summary & Analysis

We scheme with Mammon, and learn a bit more about pacts.

The Story

Leviathan is shrieking. Lucifer had strung him up as punishment for bringing a snake into the house. Mammon and Asmodeus are there to mock and torment him, and Asmodeus points out Mammon was the one actually responsible for conjuring Henry 1.0 in the first place. Levi protests, claiming he only saved the downsized snake from Satan and Mammon chastises him, thinking he should suffer even more for that. He spins him from the ceiling.

Solomon strolls by and asks what we’re doing. Since it’s late, he came by to escort us back home. He asks where Lucifer is, and Asmo reveals he’s still out searching for the giant snake. Leviathan continues to protest his innocence. Solomon reveals he’s magically shrunk the snake and it’s in his posession. Levi fawns over it and it slithers into Levi’s pocket. Henry 1.0 has arrived. Mammon calls it a worm and Levi angrily corrects him.

Solomon says he found a pamphlet about the Devildom. It mentions a legendary creature which dwells in the Demon Lord’s castle. Anyone who tames this creature is rewarded with the title “Ruler of the Underworld”. Naturally, it piques Mammon’s interest, who was seething about the disrespect they were shown in the last lesson. You can express a desire to check it out yourself, and you get affection with Solomon and he compliments your ever-present fearlessness.

Asmo wants to get back to the snake. He says Lucifer is going to be mad once he returns if it’s in Levi’s possession. We can suggest he ask to keep it as a pet. He thanks you, but insists he doesn’t actually like you.

On our way out with Solomon, we encounter Belphegor and Beelzebub. They have a big pile of complaints from the neighbors about the giant snake rampaging around the house. Apparently Solomon blew the roof off someone’s house when he shrunk it and they’re demanding compensation. Solomon brushes it off.

Belphegor notes Mammon is acting weird and not his normal obnoxiously loud self. Mammon denies he’s scheming though he clearly is.

On the trip back to your dorm, you tell Solomon that Diavolo wanted to make you a founding member of RAD. And the giant snake story. He says you had quite a rough day and he’ll make you something to eat when you get back home. Thankfully, you can suggest you eat out so you don’t get an early game over.

You head to a restaurant and Solomon marvels at the menu, stating the staples existed even this far back. He claims you’re adapting well to your new situation. You can thank him or the brothers for that. He tries to comfort you when he mulls over how the brothers don’t remember you. He talks about how your bonds remain even across time, and we just need to take things one step at a time.

Mammon texts you and tells you to be at the House of Lamentation tomorrow. He thanks you for cheering up Leviathan.

You run into Lucifer when you enter the main hall. He asks what you’re up to, and you can either confess that Mammon asked you to come or claim you’re here to see him because you missed him. If you do the latter, he sees through your lie and tells you that Mammon and the others are in the library. He correctly deduces they’re scheming, and reminds you that you’re their attendant (though you have to drag that part out of him).

You head to the library to meet up with the others. Asmo is enthused to see you, but Beelzebub and Belphegor are surprised that you’re actually going along with whatever Mammon’s cooked up. Satan’s nearby napping. Mammon shows up and gives his pitch: in order to acquire the respect of the rest of the Devildom, he wants to raid the Demon Lord’s Castle so they can find and tame this fearsome creature – Cerberus. 

In Greek mythology, Cerberus is a multi-headed dog that guards the gates of the Underworld. In the original game, he's Lucifer's pet, so we can deduce how this will end.

The brothers are less than convinced. Levi says it’s just a rumor, but Mammon points out a section in the pamphlet that claims that the creature is real and does exist and names the beast. Beelzebub reveals that even the Celestial Realm has heard of Cerberus, lending more validity to the claim. 

Belphegor reads further and they learn that Cerberus is protected by a complex charm that prevents would-be tamers from even reaching him, which wakes Satan up. Satan says he’s read a book about the spell protecting Cerberus and he knows how to dispel it. 

Mammon’s thrilled, and you get the opportunity to compliment Satan and make him blush.

Naturally, they soon get carried away with the compliments and Satan gets offended.

Fast forward to the next day. We meet up again to review the plan. When then run into Solomon trying to get Lucifer to make a pact with him (he does this frequently in the main game). Lucifer refuses, naturally. He tries to sweeten the tea by offering daily deliveries of the finest teas from the human world, but Lucifer isn’t interested. Lucifer spots us and asks us where we’re going, and we tell him we’re dropping by the castle. Solomon makes a remark about us and Mammon having grown close and Mammon immediately blushes, stutters, and denies – all but confirming that he has.

He drags us off in a huff.

We get a one-on-one conversation with a flustered Mammon, where we can ask him to make a pact with us. He thinks it’s crazy!

Apparently demons can’t make pacts with other demons. Good to know.

It seems like this time around they’re emphasizing the consequences of making pacts more, so Mammon’s not likely to just make one over a credit card any more! I like this change. We also learn angels can be a guardian to one human and one human only.

You can ask him how he feels about humans and he doesn’t care one way or another. When he was an angel, he never was a guardian to one of them. He’s also never had a romantic interest in one. He asks why you’re asking all these strange questions, and you have the option to indicate your interest in him if you have any.

If you just say he’s funny, he calls you his servant and orders you around, naturally.

You finally arrive at the castle and Mammon realizes he never thought what the next step might be. He suggests we just go find Diavolo and ask him where Cerberus is, but Barbatos interrupts us and demands to know why we’re here. Mammon struggles to remember his name and Barbatos reminds him. Mammon claims all demon names sound the same (ironic considering they’re much more varied than the typical angel names tbh) and then we have the opportunity to introduce ourselves as either Solomon’s romantic partner or apprentice.

You soon learn that Barbatos and Solomon do *not* have a cordial relationship at this point in the past, in sharp contrast to their friendship in the present timeline.

Barbatos leads you into the ballroom but tells you that Diavolo is not present at the moment. You choose to ask him questions instead, but before Mammon can ask him where Cerberus is you interject and tell Barbatos that Mammon wants a job at the castle. Mammon initially freaks out, but deduces you mean to find Cerberus by posing as employees. Barbatos refuses at first, because Mammon once tried to infiltrate the treasure vault previously. He reconsiders when you suggest he hire both of you, so you can monitor Mammon, but insists on giving you both a job interview first.

We go outside and get drilled with questions about tea etiquette. Naturally, I fail every single question but still pass.

He starts us off with cleaning duty. He summons a Little D to instruct us, and Mammon asks if he knows where Cerberus is. They don’t recall seeing anything like Cerberus in the castle but they know a rumor that if you hang out in the gazebo you can hear a dog howling in the distance. 

The lesson ends there, but you can guess where we’re going!

Thoughts and Analysis

Pact Lore, Guardian Angels

It’s not very significant and doesn’t change much, but this lesson we learned that demons cannot forge pacts with other demons. This is relevant because at no point does Solomon tell us this pertinent fact even though he tells us we must reforge our pacts with the brothers in order to get back into the future. This tells me that, at some point, he anticipates the brothers figuring out we’re human -- because they’d have to know that to even consider making a pact with us in the first place. Right now, the brothers think we’re a fellow demon.

Additionally, while demons can make multiple pacts, angels can only choose to be the guardian angel of one mortal for all of time. There’s a good chance that becoming a guardian angel is not exactly the same as forging a pact with a demon, though: it probably doesn’t give a human the ability to control the angel, unlike a pact with a demon. They’re both significant in different ways and require a profound amount of trust between human and supernatural entity.

The game does acknowledge how carelessly Mammon dived headfirst into a pact with us just to acquire Goldie by giving you the opportunity to bring that up as one of the dialogue choices. I am glad they’re reminding us what a pact exactly entails, though.

Cerberus

Cerberus hasn’t been tamed at this point in time, and he’s presumably guarding the Underworld, but I’d like a little elaboration on what the Underworld exactly is in this cosmology? Now that Reapers have been introduced through Thirteen’s introduction, it sounds like something that should be in her domain, but perhaps it just functions differently than it does in mythology.

Barbatos and Solomon

The most relevant revelation in this lesson is that we learn that the Barbatos in this timeline does not like Solomon. This is in sharp contrast to the present timeline, wherein it’s clear that Barbatos trusts and admires Solomon enough to lend him his grimoire -- which, admittedly, is a fake... but he’s at least comfortable with others thinking they’re that close.

So why the shift? I have a decent idea: as I’ve highlighted in this ask, Solomon was given the Ring of Wisdom and the ring came with the power to control demons. Solomon himself admits he went a little crazy with it, and in later lessons we find out just how crazy these exploits supposedly were. There’s yet to be an explicit mention of him abusing Barbatos’s power, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had -- and he did it much more recently at this point in time. My guess is he got the ring, built his demon army and waged war, and in this timeline hasn’t patched things up with Barbatos yet. And if he forced Barbatos to use his powers against his King, well...

While his character profile insists he’s an ally, Nightbringer Solomon is genuinely shady and we’re finally touching on his past -- unlike his OG counterpart, who other people allude to being shady and demonic but he doesn’t really do many morally gray things. I’m all for it, honestly. Flawed characters are fun.

That’s pretty much all I have for this lesson. I think it would be fun if actually failing a quiz or test would have actual consequences, but Solmare just doesn’t have the tech to go that far, unfortunately.

[impish-ivy]

Just a heads up, they changed Nightbringer’s chat dialogue

Here’s the old one;

Here’s the new one;

The reason stating being “to make the game more enjoyable for people who haven’t played Obey Me!”

The chat is shorter and has less dialogue options. Nightbringer’s dialogue has also been turn red at the end for emphasis.

They also changed lessons 1-1 and 1-2, if anyone has screenshots of those lessons before they were changed please let me know!

Opinion:

Not sure why they changed it tbh, maybe it makes more sense with the edited lessons but I personally find the old dialogue easier to follow. And while I don’t like edits, this is the best way of doing it. They edited it so new players to the ObeyMe franchise have an easier time starting. This is a good reason to revisit previous dialogue. Many new players and returning players had a hard time adjusting to Nightbringer. They also told us what they edited and why. If you’re gonna go through the trouble of editing the dialogue Id like to know what you changed and why you changed it. This is much much better than their previous shadow edits in the OG. Good on ya Devs.

[nocreativityfornames]

Welp, THAT'S a case of late realization if I've ever seen one...

I mean, the brothers have known that we're looking for a way home for what, almost twenty lessons? Since you know, during that meeting at the Council Room we told them that we were brought to the Devildom by someone else and that Solomon was helping us find a way back.

I'm guessing that Levi ( and probably the others too ) didn't expect things to happen so quickly ( in the brothers' perspective, at least, since to them we haven't been there for long ), and knowing that we only have four pacts to go, and could very soon leave the Devildom, he got overwhelmed by all of it.

Which is totally understandable, by the way.

The only friend he has outside his brothers - and romantic interest if your relationship with him goes that way - is leaving him and it fucking kills him.

[misc-obeyme]

omg okay this was originally going to be an ask about what you think the ring of wisdom may look like because i wanted to try and hunt something down that was similar to buy (mc has both the ring of light and ring of wisdom by season three I think, and i own the ring of light irl)

BUT THEN i went on the wiki and found out it's made of brass and iron, and also learned that u treasure created the ring of light look since it never appeared in canon (i can dream of them making the other half but unlikely as Solomon is a side character, sad)

AND THEN i was reminded that Michael gave the ring of wisdom to solomon so he could control demons more easily and not have the giant strain. But why give it to him? Why this specific sorcerer? Why aid in that?

So now I'm in a rabbit hole of wondering WHEN solomon got the ring. And if it was after the brothers fell, did Michael do it on purpose? Was he aiming for solomon to become powerful enough to even control the seven of the brothers? AND HOW DID HE FIND SOLOMON AT ALL? I have so many questions now

- ✨ anon

Hmm well if I remember correctly, Solomon gives MC a ring when they become a full fledged sorcerer, but I didn't think it was the Ring of Wisdom that he gave them? Perhaps I misinterpreted that part??

(Side note, I'm almost glad they aren't like to make Solomon's Ring of Wisdom just because OH THE TEMPTATION.)

Anyway, the question is how the heck did Solomon end up with that ring in the first place??

Oh, friend. You have unlocked a CC Solomon Theory because I've thought about this a lot.

I'm going to put it under a read more because of OG and Nightbringer spoilers!

We know almost nothing about the Ring of Wisdom. I can't remember if it's been mentioned in Nightbringer at all. And there may be more instances of it in OG that I'm not remembering. But here are two of the relevant parts:

This is from Lesson 2-2 of OG. He says he used it to create pacts with the 72 demons. Now, it's obvious that Asmo is one of those 72 demons, which means Solomon wouldn't be able to make a pact with him until after Lucifer & co fell. However, I don't think that means that Solomon didn't start making all his pacts before they fell.

This is from Lesson 29-5 in OG. And he says that Michael gave him the ring at a point in his life when he was lost, etc.

What does that mean? Is that before or after Solomon met Barbatos?

Now, there is also a part in Nightbringer where Solomon says that he met a friend back when he was locked up in the basement. He says that his new friend's family came to get them, but that they would come back from time to time and talk to him. He promise the friend he would be a good sorcerer so he could protect humanity.

What if that was Michael?

If it was, maybe Michael gave him the Ring of Wisdom around this time. Maybe Michael did it because he wanted to help Solomon protect humanity.

But this is also the story Solomon couldn't tell MC entirely. He stops part way and says he doesn't have the courage. Which means something else happened then, too. Probably something bad.

So I dunno, this is just a theory. But it could explain why Michael gave Solomon the ring to begin with. If it happened before the brothers fell, his motivation could have purely been to help Solomon protect humanity.

Of course, it's possible that wasn't Michael at all and was actually someone else. In which case we would be back to square one with the question of why Michael gave Solomon the ring.

It would be rather sinister if Michael gave it to Solomon after the brothers fell for the sole purpose of Solomon being able to control them.

It makes sense that Michael would need a human for this because he can't make pacts with the demons himself. But maybe Solomon didn't want to do what Michael wanted him to do and therefore decided to do his own thing instead. He only has a pact with one of the brothers, so he's not exactly going through with that idea.

If Michael is Nightbringer, this could explain why Solomon said that Nightbringer made him who he is. At the same time, it's pretty clear from Solomon's conversation with Nightbringer that he disagrees with Nightbringer and is kinda defiant.

But if Michael is Nightbringer and he's always wanted to control the brothers, that could explain why Nightbringer wanted MC to make pacts with all of them. Perhaps by creating pacts with the brothers in the past, MC has strengthened their pacts with the brothers in the future, too. That could make it easier for MC to control them, especially to control them all at once.

Which is kinda the point of the Ring of Wisdom. As you said, it's meant to allow someone to control multiple demons without it being as draining on the body.

Unfortunately, I still feel like I don't have enough evidence for any of these theories to say for sure that I think they're right. I kinda always thought Solomon's friend was Michael because to me that seems like the scenario that makes the most sense and fits with the Ring of Wisdom situation.

But in the end, I'm hoping they will reveal more about this part of the backstory. Even if I'm totally wrong, I would still very much like to know why Michael gave Solomon the Ring of Wisdom. Because that feels like a really big deal and so far all they've done is just kinda mention it briefly.

ANYWAY well you see I spend too much time thinking about this stuff. But I also have many questions! Here's hoping we get the answers soon!

[melverie]

In case you missed it: the Little Ds took over for a bit and did not get banned!

Dec 17th

Dec 18th

Dec 19th

Dec 20th

[hallowxiu]

YES THATS MY MAN POP OFF BITCH YOU TELL EM

[leviathans-watching]

HES SO FUNNY

[snakeoid]

I just know when lucifer said I'm going to my room he went in there to cry. his youngest sister died + lost a war and became a demon + gave birth to an angry baby + taking responsibility for six brothers in a realm that hates them + feels guilty about dragging his brothers down with him + now his brothers keep saying things that (usually unintentionally) make him feel guiltier like personally i'd throw up

[spiocean]

before lesson 11 has come out

Solomon: You really just gave him the grimoire....

MC: I invested it in trust that will reforge my pacts.

Solomon: Well... I think you can call it the way, yes. Though you could have done more.

MC: You know, I don't even need it to control them.

MC: ...And if the grimoire was your version of a knife under the pillow I recommend you to remember who you sleep with. :)

Solomon:

Solomon: I—

Thirteen: You two, get out of here!

[gifti3]

I was trying to do a little catch up in nightbringer

I finished lesson 20 and they like joke(?) about moving to the human world and staying at the MCs home if they cant stay in the devildom

And i just wanna seriously consider the logistics of MC trying to house 7 other people

Most of us are probably living with other people (who may not be okay with sharing a space with so many strangers suddenly) and/or dont have a giant sized place

And this is assuming the mc is staying at a house and not an apartment....

[impish-ivy]

Lucifer’s biggest fear, above losing his family, is one day when he’ll die and wake up back in the celestial realm. It’s his biggest fear. And we know he’s being honest because Mammon chastises him for being too serious.

And in NB that’s so close to happening. He and his family are literally being threaten with war and violence if they don’t come back. To the place that they were unhappy, the place that killed their sister for the crime of being in love with a human.

Lucifer’s worst fear is so close to coming to fruition.

He’s being forced to choose to retruamtize his family by forcing them back into fighting in a war or forcing them back to a place that killed their sister, threw them out and would separate them from their newest family members.

This fear is also brought up as specifically being afraid of Father in Lesson 58(?) here

[otome-on-the-side]

honestly even knowing I had plans with the brothers from lesson 14. 13 asking MC out for coffee filled me with unmitigated delight 

[satanswrathussy]

what vengeful force in the universe gave me the same three types of UR cards- this is why i keep getting stuck on pride/sloth boosted lessons 😭

[hebimoonlightwrites]

I think I'm going to clean my bathroom and then work on the requests💜 I've already prepared the first 3 I received in my drafts so.. Can't wait!

Also, requests are still open! If you have any, feel free to request! 💜

I'm so anxious for the exam.. It will be in 5 days.. Oof. QwQ 💜

Stay hydrated, sweethearts💜💜

[cupidssblood]

stooopppp i am so not ready

[tortor-sauce]

Obey Me! Nightbringer Lesson 10 part 2 (spoilers)

fem!MC (Tohru)

finally got around to continuing this little comic i’ve been working on. pls check out part 1 if you haven’t already :3