Chapter Text
The first attempt was an utter failure: the ritual space in the backyard had been compromised after the idiot neighbors buried their puppy mill project on the wrong side of the fence. The summoner was subsequently forced to spend months reining in an overly attached puppy spirit while frantically searching for inugami practitioners for assistance. That particular… test subject was too immature and not hostile enough to cultivate into a proper inugami, and so it became the unfortunate sacrifice for the next attempt, combined with bloodletting.
For the presumed psychological welfare (and inexperience) of future readers, the summoner chooses not to divulge how the puppy spirit was sacrificed.
The spilling of blood and spirit essence in tandem successfully established contact for the second attempt, but only briefly: blood-fueled necromancy wasn’t enough on its own. Gaxkang could respond to the Call, but not Imshael. Furthermore, the puppy didn’t carry enough Earth data for Gaxkang to cross-reference and translate more than a few instructions for the next attempt. Still, progress was made.
The third attempt successfully connected again, and this time, a combination of bloodletting and spirit channeling was used, along with self-hypnosis to automatically write out the conversation as it occurred. The principal problem was that the data comprising the entities known as the Forbidden Ones functioned interchangeably—a similar method is employed in the Ars Goetia manual. More on that later. The point is that they had to all be summoned simultaneously because they were a cohesive unit: a hive mind of sorts. (More like a hive soul, to be more technically accurate.)
This first chapter is the documented fourth attempt combining multiple techniques from the summoner’s personal grimoire, which will also each be expanded on in later sections. It is Imshael’s POV as the summoner channeled it in real-time. (Narrative exposition was added after the fact.)
Spirit channeling and auto-writing are simple practices for beginners, so note that this only worked after also spilling blood during a ritual bath. (The ritual bath is part of an advanced water dowsing technique for expanded states of consciousness. While substance use can substitute mental training, the summoner doesn’t recommend it. These and most other entities are already designed to alter the user’s mental state—and rarely to their benefit.)
The most respectful way to approach a given hostile variable is the American way: mutually assured destruction. This grimoire works well on (standard) demons because most of the practices and rituals are based on exorcist techniques designed to subdue, contain, and banish. It took all of these attempts, plus multiple banishings and cleansings of the ritual spaces, to safely contact, then transfer and contain the Forbidden Ones.
One does not simply develop a new method to summon new entities to the Earth. The amount of attempted interference is a testament to the amount of energy expended to make it happen: “I can summon Goetia princes with maybe ⅕ of the fucking effort.” Channeling and summoning any of the Forbidden Ones will not take this much work for future initiates (and even less if they use any of the methods demonstrated herein).
From Imshael’s perspective, the summoner can only assume that they were dying in Suledin Keep, then drifting through the ether for a bit, then answering this Call. He never disclosed how long it “felt” like it took to move from Thedas to Earth. Maybe ten years is not a relevant passage of time for a creature that has “existed” for millennia. Still, Imshael started off rather disoriented; it could have been the novelty of the summoning technique, the actual transmigration process, or simply the way their mind recovers and reassembles itself.
...
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
Imshael greeted death like an old friend as lyrium madness enveloped their mind, and the noise reverberating against the walls of Suledin Keep faded from their ears... Susurrant tides of sweet melody and howling despair clamored in and out of focus in its place. The red stone screamed for liberation in the face of the minuscule moment of dying that claimed them once more. All at once, and yet imperceptibly slowly, were they absorbed and consumed by the red lyrium in their blood.
Ah... I wonder if this is our thousandth visit yet.
They drifted aimlessly through the hushing tide of red whispers. It happened every time they died; eventually, they’d wash ashore somewhere in the Crossroads.
Perhaps Fear was not our best shape to start with...
Fear lay dormant; twelve limbs curled in like a spider mid-molt. Rage roiled in the whispering tide for vengeance. Pride receded inward into itself as their attention wandered closer.
Sundered... but they’ll recover...
Imshael assessed the situation by
long,
slow,
gradual
degrees...
The coalescion of They scattered in and through the dissonant Song, and Imshael’s train of thought—no, the process of thought itself—meandered aimlessly with it, scattering and condensing at random. Time’s passage was even less relevant here than while living: they dwelt within and beyond the coordinate and coordination of Self. “For the moment.” Heh...
Dead by that pup and his pet...
Pride and Rage both stirred at that particular thought...
Something in that “hero” was different...
They wondered if Gaxkang was already re-assembled, somewhere, ready to summon them anew.
...what was different, again?
An image of an old Tevene toy darted about and tugged toward the sky, held by a trembling tether...
What was that toy called?
I compared it to Undying once...
Some kind of bird.
A hawk’s silhouette soared against the yawning blood-red void all around them... The silhouette skittered, jittered as it turned to face them, and the whispers surrounding their awareness dampened as it approached. Silence brushed against their periphery, tendrils of audible absence, and the tide engulfing them voided where those tendrils seemed to pass them by.
That... should be “long” enough...
After an eternity and an instant, Imshael spread their scattered senses out even further, reaching...
Calling . . .
Fear stirred and “turned” their joint awareness toward their own echoing, shapeless voice.
Ah, there is Gaxkang...
...what stays aware as we drift apart, anyway?
. . . is it only me in that moment?
Fear’s presence loomed dominant as they began to coalesce anew, with a new sensation tugging inward and together from nonexistent innards.
Fear again? Better to lead with Rage...
Alas. He’d no such control over their assembly. Imshael was the coagulated purpose of They, and that Purpose relied on the nature of their Calling at each Undying... Idle ideas and images began to shape back into coherent thoughts, followed by sequences of thoughts.
Ah... that’s “feeling” better already.
Don’t forget that blasted “hero”...
with the insufferable whelp.
The coalescion began to gel back into a functional persona, and Imshael’s awareness wrought new wrath as they reassembled.
A kite. That was the toy. Like reeling in a kite. Yes... reel me in, Gaxkang. Send a Footnote for the new summoning seal.
Their composite, compartmented mind shuffled and jostled for primacy, but only briefly—too much discord would scatter them all back into whispers. The red haze of madness began to darken and envelop—
—Darken?
Fear must have sensed the approach of this threat to secure Prime Shape again.
What was—? Ah, the whelp, right. The dog. And his strange toy.
Imshael latched onto that lingering spite while Fear focused on the encroaching night. The shadowy tendrils that enveloped them became dense, fog-like shadow, and then viscous liquid decay. Then, they were adrift in a sea of death. Motes of starlight dusted the pitch surface like night sky turned to tar.
Peaceful silence juxtaposed violently with stray severed limbs and bobbing, bloated, rotting corpses. Stray bones and fragments of skeletons grinned their way in conspiratorial accusation. As his awareness congealed like the night around them into presence, and finally corporeality, their eyes fixed upon a colorless shore...
And the figure dressed in black that stood watch.
Blighted waters of un-birth conducted them to the shore in mimicry of a tide, and the figure crouched to sit in the staticky sand, elbows propped on knees, a few feet from where they gathered their bearings. Or... tried to.
Whence came such a sluggish response? Imshael dragged their body up agonizingly slow, upright, onto their knees, with a groan that slowly escalated into a multitoned growl. They could barely bear their own oppressive weight.
Why was this Undying so much heavier and more painful? ...Rather, why was it painful at all? Why the shifting noises in the gut? The prickle of needles all over? Even their eyelids scraped against grit never known to them before.
This is not Gaxkang’s Footnote at all...
Summoned by another?
That would explain Fear’s faster response, then. This manner of Binding was new to them. That’s unfortunate... Slowly, so slowly, their focus lifted to the figure that summoned them. She nodded just as slowly, acknowledging their struggle without judgement, bogged down by the foreign atmosphere. Half her face, and one visible hand and foot, were obscured by a luminous skeletal mask shaped of emerald Fade mist.
[Welcome to Hel...]
She spoke within the void-space of Silence, into their mind, and the words emerged slowly enough to almost unravel into gravelly noise.
[This shore collects the dead that drift beyond the boundaries of their world... such a long-distance Call was a gamble.]
Their words were similarly slow to shape, even within their own stream of consciousness. [Surely Thedas didn't fall to that Blight-bloated, would-be overlord.] Their scoff scattered into the thought-stream as a rumble of thunder in this place, and a bolt of lightning behind their eyes was her answering chuckle.
[Some among my kind reckon that might have been a mercy.]
Heh... He could not disagree that Thedas would benefit from a periodic culling. The figure continued, tilting her head in what seemed like half a minute.
[The Inquisitor, your slayer... An outsider piloted them.]
Rage’s distant roar within their thoughts gathered clouds overhead that sparked lightning shaped into refracting right angles. The walls of the Shapers did that when inscribed upon... [You speak of... the dog who would be god.]
[I speak of titan-blooded humans: a team of Shapers among my people, wrought Thedas and gave it life.]
Oh...? Perhaps the red whispers had burrowed deeper than before to incur this mad dream. Rumors abound in Forgotten thaigs of cousin races, but human Shapers? He rather expected half-bred giants. The walls had called them... Eeh, something strange like nifl’im. [To what possible end, then?]
A heavy sigh gusted through the dead dreamscape, and grains of sand-static danced in its wake.
[For sport. They shape entire worlds for us to enter into, for sport.]
[Gardeners of whole worlds, eh? Maybe I should step up my “game.”] Another lightning flash and more unraveling thunder erupted above, as Rage and the figure mingled wrath with amusement.
[Thedas lore tells us, you’re the one who taught blood magic to ancient humans. Now, the Shapers of Thedas have announced they’ll be forbidding us from using it.]
Pride and Fear roused with Rage, and they all moved as One to straighten their self in slowed motion—and scrutinized the female. Even the clouds overhead stilled in anticipation. A cluster of thoughts drifted between them, not quite an exchange but close enough to harmonize.
[I disapprove... and I’m not alone in thinking so.]
[A new breed of “Creators,” then, and a new schism.]
[In fact, I think I’m done “playing” by their rules.]
[A whole world molded into a theater...]
[That I found you here proves Thedas is no plaything.]
[And that dog thinks to play the martyr god again.]
[The People are not toys.]
[The more things change...]
She turned her hands toward them to reveal palms slashed open—and she spilled vivid dark red from one side and live lyrium blue from the other in slow, dripping streams... The only other life around, bleeding out of one world into the quickly blurring boundary of another. A grander sonallium, close enough to taste. Close enough to taint.
[I wager: someone has to strike the first deal.]
...
. . .
. . .
Imshael let their body lay flat in the sands of Hel, eyes closed, straining just to exist in defiance of dying (again). Faint music lulled far above: an echo that seemed to resonate in a cavity “bigger” than the Void itself, just out of earshot. The whispering stream hinted at a deluge of such incomprehensible size, that not even the abyssal sky could hold its shape for their ears to capture.
[We Called for Gaxkang. How came you by the Footnotes?]
[I’ve walked Thedas as the Hero of the Fifth Blight. A half-mad dwarf foisted them upon me.]
[So, you slew my comrade.]
[It’s true. I and many others... thousands, millions. We restore the world at will, just as we traverse it at will.]
[Such magic... for many to walk as One, this I know, but the scale is impossible.]
[Shaping, enchanting, coding, programming—it only seems like magic.]
[You are blind to it, then. Like your dwarf cousins.]
[Micro, to macro? Maybe... and maybe like the macro Veil between our worlds. Since we breach it here, maybe it can come down, too.]
[Bring down the Veil... You speak of alliance with the whelp.] He didn’t bother to open their eyes at the thunder that boomed slow enough to echo against itself—though they twitched sluggishly at the joint rumbling of Pride and Rage in their humanoid shell.
[We have spoken of this before, but your fragments are many... thanks to how often you’ve died at our hands. Pardon the phrasing.]
A breeze stirred death’s still atmosphere as she collected a long stream of thought.
[I confess that I got help. From Mythal. I can call through this gauntlet, but I lacked the means to pull across it. I can translate your abilities, make them compatible with this world. Even the physics between us diverges.]
She sighed long with relief against the strain after she dragged her thoughts through the bog that encased them like a tomb. Imshael’s eyes slid slowly open, scorning the abyss overhead. [And you claim there’s no magic? You lie.]
[Beliefs are lies until acted upon. Thedas wasn’t real until a team developed the script that shaped it. Now, I step around their enchanted Wall. I have that power. My skill set is... unique for the task. You’ve died thousands of times, so this tiny victory was inevitable.]
With a grumble echoed overhead in thunder, he pulled himself up to prop on their elbows and dragged their gaze toward her. [Am I the same Forbidden One that you slayed, then? As his pet?]
After a slow moment of inhalation, she chuckled sparks into the clouds above.
[Power lures me: we struck a deal... but now, for the first time, I’ve reached further by using blood—while calling for a teacher.]
While looking them over, her face twisted slowly into a familiar spiteful grimace. She idly pressed her hands together to mingle blood and lyrium.
[Blood alone links us beyond the rules of so-called creators. I don’t appreciate being told my own blood is off limits.]
Their eyes narrowed her way. [What was Mythal’s solution, then?]
She broke their gaze and tilted her head toward the stormy sky, drawing another long breath and thought.
[Thedas is periodically modified. Soon, it will bind Solas to the avatars that come next... Guardians of the Veil. However, mixing blood between disparate peoples has already been done—with Mythal’s inheritor, and the Hero of Ferelden.]
A heavy sigh gusted through air too sparse to breathe.
[Morrigan is just a title. Two Morrigans exchange blood across two worlds, bonding two Peoples. Avatars bound to their pilots, Thedas magic bound to Earth physics.]
The storm above condensed, drowning out the distant Song. Choice had not indulged such audacity in centuries.
[Vessels fit for hosting and possessing, on the day Thedas launches The Veilguard.]
Rage growled with Imshael: [Mythal “proposes” the Dark Ritual.]
[Amplified by the feedback loop of those who did it before, yes. We—another you, we spoke of a modified Joining first, which still required a dragon’s blood alongside yours... I’m back after consulting Flemeth on “our” prior behalf.]
Another long sigh breezed through Hel, and they could taste trepidation on the almost-air.
[I am partial to any alternative if the resident blood expert has one... but the Joining, after all, would not carry all of the Forbidden Ones. Mythal offered a vessel that would.]
Neither of them spoke again for an interminably long time.
...
. . .
. . .
[You claim you desire to sunder the Veil. With what power?]
[The same way we enter Thedas, but without the equipment that limits it. I combined several techniques to replicate it, to get here—even to inscribe our encounter as it happens.]
[You’ve not been discovered, wandering Thedas unsanctioned?]
[My travels go unseen: the method safeguarded by shamans who walk between worlds. Only now do I inscribe it on a public forum.]
[And how did you prove its utility before showing your hand?] They bit back a far more scathing critique as she laughed aloud, sending gales through their hair and across their ears... and they marveled momentarily at the unfamiliarity of it. She drew it all back into another long thought-stream.
[The last time I counted, Imshael had thirteen eyes and two ears to perceive—or are you not here? I’ll scratch the runes I used in the sand right now... but I prove my method by your arrival and inscribe the occasion for posterity. This is part of my method: success and intent are one action for me.]
The madwoman stared down at her bloody palms, and the luminous admixture glowed deep indigo rather than neutral purple. Blue blood, it seemed, was as dense and potent as the atmosphere.
[All humans here can do what I do. I bring your attention to it because freedom of choice pleases me. If you go your own way after this, roaming the Earth freely, that is my legacy. I already won this game.]
Another gust of a laugh trailed through Hel, and Pride thundered overhead to Slightly Approve the gall on display. Imshael reserved their judgement while they watched the madwoman streak blood and lyrium across her nose, half-alive and half-dead.
...
. . .
. . .