Y’shtola had lost track of what hour of the night it was, though as she was sifting through another bundle of sealed documents from the library shelves, it was hardly a concern of hers. The inquisitive Scion had been given permission by a disgruntled but thankful Sharlayan Forum to peruse their private archive rooms of the Noumenon to aid in her investigation of the Thirteenth Shard and its traversal. While the recent discovery of the portal in Alzadaal’s vault had been a very welcome surprise, she considered it the height of short-sightedness to rely on a single means for her research, especially when said means was only allowed through Vrtra’s judication. If she was to further the field and uncover a true breakthrough – not just for her own sake, but for the sake of Runar and the Night’s Blessed – then she had to find a method which she had full control over, and her search would leave no page unturned.
That said, as Y’shtola sat alone in the private chamber’s vacuum of silence with towers of well-thumbed tomes littered on her table, she was beginning to wonder if even the vaunted collections of Sharlayan would be any help here.
Lifting the veil on the Void was a dangerous art (if one could even call it that) blackened by a history of visionaries who thought themselves wise beyond compare, only to wind up on the receiving end of serrated teeth and scythe-like claws for their efforts, and the stories were typically enough to turn away most entrepreneurs from such a potentially-lethal endeavor. Even Y’shtola had been no exception in her younger years, preferring to leave such doors unopened during her tutelage with Master Matoya, lest she be eviscerated by ravenous voidsent (or subjected to the far more grim and terrifying fate of being scolded by her cantankerous teacher.) Fortunately, Y’shtola was now much more experienced and Master Matoya was on an entirely different continent, so Y’shtola was confident that she could pursue such curiosities without any severe repercussion (although she still found herself keeping an eye out for any spying Poro Roggos ‘just in case.’)
Personal progress aside, the grand endeavor still left Y’shtola with the challenge of harnessing an actual method of creating a voidgate. As dedicated as she was to her goals, most of the methods that she had found in these confidential materials insisted that the most reliable method to open a way to the Thirteenth was through the act of sacrifice or offerings – a tithe of blood to pay the toll. Even if the dubious documents were telling the truth, the Scion refused to settle for any solution built on suffering. She wouldn’t take the easy road. She’d find another way. She was sure of it.
The Mi’qote’s doggedness seemed to be rewarded when, as she returned to the shelves once more to see what she may have overlooked, Y’shtola felt something brush against her fingertips – the faintest feathery touch of a scroll, its corner reaching out to her as it lay trapped beneath several of its bulkier book breathren. Tutting at the lack of proper care and making a note to chastise the next assistant mammet that she saw, she rearranged the research materials and took the scroll as her compensation for the good deed.
The wording and diagrams on the scroll spoke of an incantation wielded by the mages of Mhach before their fall from grace – a painless and seamless way to pry open a portal directly to the Thirteenth. ‘Ancient scrolls’ and ‘legendary grimoires’ of this nature were not unheard of, but most were merely the works of charlatans trying to lift some easy Gil from those obsessed with occult paraphernalia. It was for the reason that Y’shtola frowned as her pale-white eyes skimmed over the scroll. She was almost certain that this ‘valuable artifact’ was hardly worth the ink that they used for their elaborate ruse. However, the map which had led them to Alzadaal’s legacy had proven itself the genuine article despite some reasonable reservations, and ‘almost certain’ left a slim but not negligible margin of error.
Well... nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Y’shtola traced her hands across the aged paper and began reciting the incantations per its instructions. The specific wording was a familiar dialect but arranged in an alarmingly convoluted manner, like the lyrical equivalent to playing familiar notes but in a completely different sequence and tempo. For a moment, Y’shtola wondered if man was even capable of making some of these sharp syllables or if it had been mistakenly mistranslated (or, worst of all, if it was some centuries-old prank purely meant to make mages tackle an infuriating tongue twister.) When she finished the incantation and was met only with the stony silence of the Noumenon once more, she worried that it was the latter.
Nymeia smiled on the Scion as Y’shtola felt a ripple in the aether across the room. Past the empty tables and chairs near the opposite wall, inky motes began to coalesce into a single point, magnetized by the ancient magicks. Within moments, the globule of darkness quivered like a pulsating heart before finally bursting outwards into a portal frighteningly alike to an Atomos, coated with dark purple energy and radiating with a sinister chill. Y’shtola found herself uncharacteristically dumbfounded at the display.
I- I can’t believe it. Was this scroll truly the genuine article..?
Assured that she was alone in the private chamber, Y’shtola saw no reason to hide her wagging tail as her excitement began to rise. It seemed that some of the Warrior of Light’s serendipitous luck must have rubbed off on her. With this opportunistic find, she could begin to piece together the fundamentals behind the portal conjuration and hopefully understand and even make advancements on it.
One step closer, Runar. One step closer.
As Y’shtola placed the scroll down on her table with a newfound reverence and began obsessively penning a complete copy as perfectly as she could, she found herself so caught up with her short-term victory that she failed to consider a fundamental rule of gateways such as the one which she had manifest across the room: they open both ways.
Time was unimportant to the voidsent lord Sionnan. She was aware of its passage – that she had once been something less, that now she was something more, and that she would one day be even greater – but she saw no use in its measurement. Charting time was a difficult endeavor in her hell, where the sun was but a distant myth, but even if Sionnan had the means to do so, what use was it to her? It did not matter what time of day it was, or even what a day actually was, for Sionnan’s hunger and power was eternal. To the numerous voidsent who were either cowering before her in her domain like lame lambs before a bloodstained wolf or reduced to aether coursing through her rich veins after her latest supper, trying to fathom how long Sionnan had ruled over the complacent or devoured those who would not kneel was, ironically, a waste of time.
Still, as Sionnan licked the lingering essence of a particularly delicious ahriman from her scissor-like fingers, she at least found the new worthy of her attention. As such, when the frightened imp crawled at her feet and meekly informed her of a strange swirling portal which had emerged in her domain, she thanked it for its service (by allowing it to live) and stepped over its squirming body to seize upon the opportunity. Sionnan had graced the mortal realm a few times before whenever a foolhardy mortal had dared to drench their hands in blood and summon her forth like some common lap dog (and consequently ended up being the one she sank her teeth into instead) and she was salivating at the chance to do so again.
As Sionnan soon found the open gateway near the edge of her domain, the scent of fresh flesh seemed to waft through the otherworldly aperture and she felt all the tastebuds on her forked tongue shudder with excitement. She had already consumed a dozen voidsent from her latest raid on a neighboring domain, but how could she possibly pass up this opportunity for an exquisite mortal dessert?
I could help myself to some more…
Y’shtola was just nearing the final set of words on her copy of the scroll when her feline senses picked up a noise from the conjured portal. Now acutely aware (and somewhat embarrassed) of her poor prioritization, she swiftly placed down her quill and picked up her staff, eyes narrowed and focus sharpened on the creature pulling its way through the voidgate.
A tall voidsent stepped through the portal with her head held high as though she were an empress entering her throne room, her ‘high-heeled’ talons of bleached bone clacking against the library’s tiled floor to announce her arrival. A demure lady-like face did little to mask the ravenous look in her four red eyes or the python-like fangs threatening to slide out from her curled lips at any moment. Fins and crests ran along her head all the way down the spine, culminating in a whip-like tail both long and prehensile enough to wrap itself around a neck with crushing ease. Lesser men might have been distracted by the indecent display of her bare torso, though Y’shtola remained unfazed as she was far more concerned about the long razor-sharp nails on each of her four arms – no doubt what the demon’s weaker-willed prey failed to focus on before she cut them to bloody ribbons. As the portal snapped shut behind her, a tongue that seemed far too large for the mouth it was housed in snaked its way out of her lips and her quartet of eyes centered directly on the steadfast Mi’qote across the room to her.
Y’shtola was not one to be intimidated by a single voidsent, but she was still frustrated with her prior oversight and wouldn’t disregard caution a second time (especially against an unknown opponent.) The tip of her staff locked onto the intruder. “You. Identify yourself and stand down or return from whence you came.”
Y’shtola’s tone of authority washed over the vain voidsent like running water. Sionnan knew nothing about the mortal standing before her who barely reached her abdomen in height, and she cared little for its name or its race or its meaningless words. All that mattered to Sionnan was that it wasn’t bowing before her and that it was edible. Her snake-like nostrils trilled as they honed in on the source of that delectable scent from earlier – fresh flesh, ripe for the taking.
“I am Sionnan.” The demon’s shrill voice sounded like sharpened steel against a cutting board. “And I am your end, little thing.”
The private chamber was as silent as the grave, save only for the exhilarated breathing of the hungry demoness. Y’shtola had specifically asked to be left undisturbed during her late night sessions, so the only potential allies within earshot would be a few library attendant mammets or maybe some insomniac student of the Stadium if she was lucky and they would probably provide nothing but a brief amusement to the voidsent after it was finished picking her bones clean. She could escape by dissipating herself into the Lifestream with Flow once more, but that would leave the voidsent unchallenged to escape the Noumenon and feast on the citizens outside, which was something the Scion couldn’t possibly allow, no matter the danger posed to herself. Whatever her plan was to be, it needed to neutralize the voidsent quickly and cleanly.
As Sionnan began to take steps towards her with a deliberate slowness, as though she was daring the Mi’qote to turn tail and flee for the thrill of a good chase, her mocking words echoed in Y’shola’s mind.
“Little thing…”
While her ‘threat’ to shrink the Warrior of Light down back in Alzadaal’s vault had been merely a playful jest, a variation of the Mini spell was well within Y’shtola’s power, even if the magic required could be difficult to harness at times and exacted a heavier toll to her aether than the other far more reliable spells in her repertoire. A tactical strategist might have implored to her that whisking the beast into a sudden slumber with a swift Sleep spell and then dropping a Flare down on its unconscious head would be the wisest option here (potential damage to the books notwithstanding.) However, even with her very life on the line, Y’shtola was willing to once again court death for the sake of discovery, and she was compelled to know if this spell could successfully debilitate a voidsent. If it did, then it could be a great boon for herself and her allies for their upcoming excursions into the Void. If it did not, then… Well, she could always fall back to Flare.
Plus she really didn’t want to ruin the books if she could help it.
“Now now, mortal, stay still…” Sionnan’s legs tensed as she seemed fit to pounce like a coeurl at any moment. “I prefer my food to-”
Y’shtola immediately thrust her staff forward (before Sionnan could fully comprehend that this insolent worm had just rudely interrupted her) and projected the chosen spell directly at the voidsent. Magical energy visibly rippled through the air like a raindrop on a puddle, with each pulse centered around the surprised voidsent… but as the pulses quickly subsided, it stood as tall and as imposing as it had before. Several rows of teeth greeted Y’shtola in a vicious grin to foreshadow the fate she had now sealed for herself.
Something vaguely resembling a laugh bubbled its way out of the demon woman’s throat as Sionnan made her move across the chamber towards her meal of choice. Y’shtola stood fast to her spot as she began summoning the strength for a Flare, hoping to cast the spell quickly enough that she could place it square between the voidsent’s eyes (and ideally as far away from her research materials as possible) before she became fresh meat for the encroaching predator.
However, the sorceress felt the words of her incantation peter out and flutter away – not because she had forgotten the process or been paralyzed with fear, but rather because she could see that it was no longer needed. As the demon had begun to close the distance across the chamber, it had almost seemed like it was the same size despite its approach and Y’shtola had quickly realized that with each step it had taken, it had dwindled in size to compensate. The effects of the Mini spell had been delayed but potent as the voidsent was only halfway towards its target but would only reach up to about her hip. Perhaps the demon was too fueled by blind bloodlust to perceive the change in its surroundings (or, as Y’shtola hypothesized, maybe it just wasn’t especially bright) but after several more steps, the eager hyena-like snarls lessened as the demon slowly but surely noticed that something was amiss.
The mortal was definitely closer than before, but now Sionnan stood only up to its knees – and that measurement was becoming more and more inaccurate with each passing second. Sionnan howled in confusion, paused in place with pure perplexment. “Wh-what is this mortal trickery..?!”
It was now Y’shtola’s turn to cross the distance as she confidently strode towards the diminishing demon. Sionnan bared her serpentine fangs with a confident savagery, but with Y’shtola steadily approaching while Sionnan’s shrinking persisted, the mortal was quickly magnified at a pace that Sionnan thought impossible, and within a few scant seconds, Sionnan could even feel the very ground trembling.
As a large cat-like shadow stretched across her, it became evident that this was not Sionnan’s domain. She was not the apex predator here. Not anymore.
For the first time that she could remember, Sionnan’s legs failed to heed her commands. Even if she could convince them to move and flee back towards the portal (which had since closed behind her regardless) her rate of shrinking made the distance she had crossed moments ago now an indomitable length for her doll-like stature. Only when she was equal in height and significance with some of the discarded books on the floor did Sionnan finally stop shrinking, and only then did she truly comprehend the sheer distance in size and power between herself and this despicable witch. Even one of the mighty Arch Fiends would easily fit beneath the sole of her tall black boot – a fact that the mortal only seemed to punctuate as she tapped her foot, sending tremors through the tiles each time she did so.
“Hm, so it does work…” The mortal seemed to be voicing her thoughts to herself, as though the ‘bug’ by her boots was beneath both her notice and her concern. “Although it seems that there’s a brief delay when the spell is applied to voidsent. I’ll have to make a note of that.” Lips curled, and they were certainly not Sionnan’s. “Now then, hold still…”
As the mortal knelt down and her hand reached down like a five-limbed monster swooping from the sky to ensnare its prey, Sionnan became reacquainted with a primal sensation that she had thought extinct, picked apart and cut away from her cold shell like so many others: fear.
The clacking of Sionnan’s minuscule bony heels as she tried to flee in the opposite direction was barely audible in the vast ceramic desert she now found herself in, and they were swiftly silenced altogether when she was plucked from the ground by the approaching monster that was Y’shtola’s hand. The once-terrifying demon lord was now squirming and wriggling between the Mi’qote’s digits with all the power and grace of a baby oglop.
“Well, while the spell’s delay might be cause for concern, I dare say its effects are still quite potent.” Y’shtola wedged her thumb tightly against the bug-sized demon to pin the worming tail of her predator-turned-prisoner. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
Sionnan chose to engage with the healthy intellectual debate by howling and snapping her jaws into the giant’s skin (to no avail.) The sorceress felt barely a sliver of pain from the tiny voidsent’s struggles – as a matter of fact, the only real pain that she was afflicted with was the aftermath of the Mini conjuration seeping through her, lethargy and famish arriving right on time and just as expected but no less unwelcome. The aching of her muscles and the pains in her stomach were hardly a grievous wound, but it was enough for her to question if minimizing the voidsent instead of just reducing it to ashes was actually worthwhile.
Depowered and humiliated as the demon lord was, Y’shtola knew that she couldn’t afford to let even a creature as puny as this persist in her world. While its chances for survival were certainly slim when the likes of a common squirrel could easily prove its match, leaving the voidsent to sup upon crumbs or insects and possibly regain its former size and strength could prove a costly mistake. Y’shtola’s current affiliations and ‘disregard for proper authority’ had already left her with more than a few detractors in the Sharlayan Forum (despite the whole ‘saving the world’ business) and accidentally unleashing a demon to snack upon its members certainly wouldn’t help matters.
I need to resolve this, here and now.
As Y’shtola’s eyes drifted from the voidsent to her boots as she wondered if it was worth sullying Tataru’s fine tailoring to snuff out such a weak foe, Sionnan seemed to sense the hostile intent looming over her. “…N-Now wait! M-Mortal, surely there’s something you want, yes? I-I can give it to you! Whatever your heart desires!”
Y’shtola’s mind on the matter was already made, but her curiosity compelled her to at least tug at the thread. “Oh? And what exactly could you offer me like… this?”
“P-Power! More power than you could possibly imagine! S-Strike a bargain with me and this world will be ours- yours for the taking!”
“Hm…” Y’shtola pretended to entertain the notion. “Tell me, if you have such an abundance of power to spare, wouldn’t you be using it to break out of this situation right now?”
“I- No, of course not! You’ve bested me, fair and square, and I’d never dream of raising a hand against my better! I’m merely… reserving any power I have, just for you!”
Y’shtola gave her one and only gift to the voidsent in the form of a single dry chuckle. She’d met first-years at the Studium debate club who had more composure than this. “And here I thought voidsent were meant to be cunning and deceitful. How disappointing. I’m afraid you’ll have to try again.”
Sionnan frantically sought a change in strategy. “Th-then I could serve you! However you wish, my…” Sionnan frantically grasped for the word that the other voidsent called her all the time (as she had never actually used it herself before.) “…Master! Y-Yes, just ask away!”
Y’shtola couldn’t deny that demoting a demon lord to a common pet for cleaning her footwear or fetching her biscuits was, at the very least, slightly amusing. Alas, no amount of amusement would let her actually consider such a frivolous and pointless arrangement. “I already have no shortage of familiars for my chores, and they’re all many times more effective than you would be in this sorry state. So was there anything else..?”
Sionnan’s dignity was now thoroughly outweighed on the scales by sheer desperation. “I- Just name your desire, mortal! I-I’ll do whatever you please!” She refused to arrive at the same simple conclusion that Y’shtola had – that she had nothing of value, and that she was nothing of value.
The silence in the library’s chamber hung over them as Y’shtola rolled the petulant voidsent between her fingers, toying with the demon as well as its proposition. She didn’t trust a word out of this cornered beast, so an interrogation would be ultimately fruitless. She pondered if she could gather at least some meaningful information with how she chose to ‘exorcise’ the voidsent for when she next faced its kind in the Thirteenth, but there was hardly a thesis to be written if she just clapped her hands together like she was swatting a fly or slammed her staff down on it with the thunderous wrath as though she was Ramuh made manifest.
The aetherial drain from the Mini spell made itself known as Y’shtola’s stomach grumbled… and suddenly, she was struck with an idea. An awful and terrible idea rife with poor judgment and possibly horrendous consequences, but an idea nonetheless.
The history of the Thirteenth was littered with voidsent who had engorged themselves on mortals to replenish their aether, and yet across the ages, had anyone been daring enough to ask: does it work the other way round too? Small as the voidsent was, its aether was still very much intact, and while it was saturated with darkness, that didn’t technically make it any less edible to a mortal palate. And what if she or her fellow Scions were to find themselves trapped in the Thirteenth, where there is no natural food or drink to sup on? What if they were left with no choice but to explore more drastic options to stave off starvation? Y’shtola knew that she should admonish such a ridiculous notion, but her hunger for knowledge was just as tangible as her hunger for something – anything – to fill her aching belly.
I mean, it can’t be any worse than Archon Loaf, can it..?
With that thought, her fingers clamped tighter around her prize. Now she just had to know.
“Very well, voidsent. You can provide me with an answer to a question.”
“Y-Yes! Ask away, mortal! Whatever you wish!”
Y’shtola leaned forward and a warm breath escaped from her lips as she spoke: “What do you taste like?”
Sionnan was cold-blooded (in every meaning of the term) but even she felt the chill run down her spine as the words left the lips filling her entire field of vision. “I- N-No, there’s no need- I d-don’t-” Sionnan stammered to a complete stall, too aghast to formulate an adequate answer for her giant captor. Despite asking much of the same to so many other voidsent that she had long since lost count, she was completely unprepared for how to save herself now that she was finally on the receiving end of this encounter.
The witch’s expression remained unchanged, but her disappointment was easy enough to read. “Hm. Very well. I suppose we’ll just have to find out.”
As soon as the hand began its movement, Sionnan increased her struggles twicefold, thrashing against the Mi’qote’s grip like a worm on the end of a hook. Y’shtola parted her lips as her hand drew closer, and while she lacked the dagger-like incisors or forked tongue of a voidsent, Sionnan found the giant maw before her no less fiendish and terrifying. “N-No, st-stop! L-Legions at your beck and call! My whole domain, y-yours! Everything, take it, just-!”
Y’shtola had indulged the voidsent’s irritating attempts to bargain for its freedom for long enough, and instead chose a different indulgence as she dropped the hysterical demon into her mouth and closed it tight to finally shut it up.
The Mi’qote’s tongue was immediately ready to greet the alien arrival and just as ravenous as the panicking demon that it was feasting upon, eager to learn all that it could by running each and every tastebud against the otherworldly texture of the sacrifice it had been offered. Sionnan’s thrashing refused to relent as she swiped and clawed like a feral beast trying to break out of its cage, but all that her sharp nails found were globules of saliva and the tongue contorting around her – a muscle far too thick and blubbery for her minuscule attacks to ever meaningfully dent. The negligible nipping sensations were hardly a concern to Y’shtola, who was far more engrossed in sampling every facet of her unusual supper.
I had never thought voidsent would be so… salty, of all things.
The tongue flipped Sionnan with ease before hoisting itself and its passenger upwards, the voidsent now mercilessly wedged between the roof of the mortal’s mouth and her tentacle-like tormentor. The tip moved its way over the demon’s spine as Y’shtola practically painted her palate with her prey, trying to register the crisp feeling on each fin and crest on the creature’s back against her tastebuds. Sionnan’s struggles only served to further humiliate her as her tail found itself wedged beneath the rows of teeth and the Mi’qote couldn’t help but play with her food a little more as she swished the morsel around with her newfound tether, embracing every amount of its bizarre (but not entirely unwelcome) flavor.
“R-Release me!” Sionnan tried to cry out over the churning spit and the erratic tongue. “S-Stop! M-Mortal, free me and- Just do it, I c-command you! I am Sionnan, g-great and powerful-!”
The ‘great and powerful’ Sionnan was muted by the closed gate of teeth and lips barring her escape, which left Y’shtola with little reason to pause or relent until she eventually found herself fully satisfied with her sampling of the voidsent’s surprisingly-salty texture and fully exhausted with its unwelcome presence on the Source.
Well, I think that’s enough playing with my food.
While Sionnan may have taken as much excruciating time as she wished to draw every ounce of delicious terror from her victims, Y’shtola was a far more practical and ‘merciful’ predator, and so there was no fanfare or theatrics when she simply pushed the demon to the back of her mouth and swallowed it whole with a single gulp. The pressure of her esophagus pressed all four of the devil’s limbs too tightly for them to even move and slice away on the way down as a last act of vengeance before transporting Sionnan down into the world of darkness below.
In the past, Sionnan had dined upon a proud hecteyes who had arrogantly paraded his ability to see with total clarity through even the darkest of shrouds. As she fell down into the horrid pool and looked at the wobbling cage of undulating flesh surrounding her, she was no longer thankful for this ‘gift.’
Hysteria piloted her legs as best as it could as Sionnan struggled through the swamp of stomach juice around her. Terror forced her four arms to try and climb the slathered walls so that she could somehow make her escape, but she found no precipice. Is this the fate that had befallen all the voidsent that she had engorged upon? Was this what they experienced before their aether finally dissipated into her own? How many had endured this-
No! This couldn’t be how her legacy ended! Her legacy had no end! She was immortal and endless and above all things! She had made legions of the damned bow at her feet! She had plucked the eyes and ripped the limbs of all who opposed her! She had razed whole domains and drenched herself in the blood of her prey! She was Sionnan, the great and powerful demon lord who would carve the Void in her image until even the mighty Cloud of Darkness was just another insignificant insect to be devoured!
With a ferocious roar of defiance, Sionnan lunged at the stomach wall with every ounce of strength so that she might rip and tear her way through this mortal’s flesh to the freedom and eternal glory waiting beyond… only to be repelled by its slime-coated lining and knocked off her balance, falling back into the vile witches’ brew pooling all around her. The belly mocked her with a churned gurgle that sounded almost like laughter.
She was just an insignificant insect to be devoured. All that she had accumulated – from her insidious birth to this humiliating finale – would be lost and forgotten. The only legacy that she would amount to was providing a few calories for some miserable mortal scum.
Sionnan did not know how long she was in the mortal’s stomach, as charting time was a difficult endeavor in her hell, but she screeched and cursed as loud as she could to the bitter end (unaware that her last defiant shrieks would be left completely unheard.)
Y’shtola was already putting quill to paper as, after finishing her copy of the scroll’s incantations, she was now recording what she could perceive as a result of her peculiar ‘taste test’ experiment.
Admittedly, the sensation tickling against the walls of her belly was causing Y’shtola some modicum of discomfort (if she was being very, very generous with that definition – she had felt ladybug bites with more lasting impact than this.) However, the sensation was also so strange and unfamiliar that she was almost hypnotized by the sheer unusual novelty. The voidsent’s futile efforts to escape her innards weren’t causing her any pain – if anything, Y’shtola felt a minor but nonetheless tangible amount of pleasure instead, as though she was privy to the world’s most utterly bizarre interpretation of a massage.
By the time Y’shtola reached the third paragraph, the sensation had stopped altogether.
Afterwards, Y’shtola made certain to run checks on her aether, her temperature, her senses and any other faculties in case there was any nasty side effects, but all seemed well. In fact, as she had hypothesized, some of her prior hunger from the Mini conjuration had indeed been satisfied by the demon lord’s ‘generous contribution.’ Y’shtola chuckled.
It seems that the voidsent had something of value after all.
After a few further rounds of spellcasting to ensure that no trace of the voidsent or its portal remained (and double-checking that there were no prying mammets or Poro Roggos around so that nobody had to know about her foolhardy misdemeanor here today) Y’shtola placed her copy of the incantation in her attire for safekeeping while placing the original back on the shelf. Satisfied with her results and her late night snack, she sat back down at her table and returned to the buffet of books on her table, eager to see if they had any clue to the scroll’s origin or which historical figure in Mcach had created such a valuable tool.
As Y’shtola reached for another book, her stomach groaned once more. While it had been briefly sated by its recent meal, it yearned for something less insignificant – especially since, as Y’shtola was now ashamed to realize, she had forgotten dinner and supper altogether today amidst her fervent research (and this whole ‘incidental demon summoning’ fiasco.)
The Last Stand won’t be open at this hour, and I’d rather starve than taste Archon Loaf again. Perhaps G’raha and Krile are still awake at the Annex? Or…
Y’shtola’s eyes drifted to the incantation copy in her robes. She bit her bottom lip.
I could help myself to some more…