The barrier outside the opening to the hollow glows a strange gold color.
Jesse watches it, interested both by the fact that the sound of the moving beings below is muffled to the point of nearly being inaudible, and the fact that the glow looks like a soap bubble, iridescent and and swimming in light.
Ivor sits next to them a moment later, making them look over at him curiously.
(It's interesting... the demon lords Jesse has met so far don't exactly feel like lords. Perhaps Ivor feels more powerful and a bit scarier than Romeo does, but he doesn't feel like a lord to Jesse.)
"The barrier's up, so we should all be safe for the night," he murmurs to them a second later.
Jesse glances back out the hollow, frowning at the moving figures below.
The moving, inhuman figures below.
"What... was that thing? Just now?" Jesse points out the hollow. "The one with purple eyes?"
Gill sucks in a brief breath, eye widening. He's not the only one with that reaction; Maya's head snaps up from where she's sitting against the wall next to him and Aiden briefly stops sharpening the blades on his whip to look up at them. "Shit, you saw an Enderman?"
"A- huh?"
Lukas crosses his arms. "When night in Cosmos falls," he begins to explain, "the world begins to emit negative energy, kinda like the stuff stuck within the dimension within the door. However, unlike the dimension within the door, Cosmos has plenty of things that the negative energy can merge with once it's concentrated enough, and once the negative energy merges with something, it creates a mindless but still dangerous creature of darkness."
Petra nods, leaning her hand on her cheek. "Thankfully, most cities have barriers of light magic from heavy enchantments and a lot of weird laws about magic that I don't understand even though Ivor's tried to explain them to me-"
Ivor gives a tired sigh at that, which makes Jesse giggle.
"- so they can't get in. But anything outside of any of the cities is fair game for the negative energy; a loose brick, a plant, an animal of some kind, even corpses that aren't buried properly."
Jesse's giggle has turned into politely repressing the urge to turn seventy shades of pale.
"Once they've merged, they create different types of monsters. Some are spiders the size of tables, some are these weird things called creepers that blow up when you get too close, some are zombies, and... some are Endermen, which are just a complete pain in the ass."
At Jesse's questioning tilt of the head, Gill elaborates. "They teleport and they start spazzing out if you make eye contact with them."
"Oh."
"You can try to kill them, and it'll dissipate, but it'll just reform shortly afterwards," Maya chimes in. "The only way to get rid of them is to purify them with light magic, but full demons can't use light magic, not without jumping through about sixty magical loopholes, and that takes way too long."
Ivor nods, jerking his head at the half-demons in the room. "Since those five are half-demons, they can use light magic. But they're not very good at it yet, since it's not like the demons can teach them, so the night is still fairly dangerous for them."
Aiden shrugs, making Jesse blink at him. "'Course there's a ton of other dangerous things out at night, like criminals that just don't give a damn about the monsters or even just the fact that's dark as hell and difficult to see, but that's the main threat."
Jesse thumbs the corner of their lip. "I see..."
He grunts in return, which causes the conversation to fall flat and a somewhat awkward silence to come across the room.
Jesse thinks about it, before looking at Lukas. "Did you say somethin' about magic needing setup earlier when you summoned the horse?"
Lukas, apparently not seeming comfortable with the silence either, jumps on the subject enthusiastically. "Yeah. Magic in Cosmos, depending on how much knowledge you have on it and how well you can handle it actually requires a lot of setup to harness. Some of the really huge spells even require extra components."
Jesse presses their lips together, pondering this. "I see... so you can do a lot of small illusion spells without chanting and bringing up that thing with all the words 'cause you know how to do those well?"
"Yeah; but in part that's because my aptitude for those spells are just higher as well."
Upon spotting Jesse's somewhat perplexed expression, and also being the magic expert in general, Ivor chimes in a bit gruffly. "Think of types of magic in Cosmos as living creatures. Some of those creatures will absolutely love you, and will bend easier to your will, determining your intuitive aptitude for it- the aptitude you have immediately without ever practicing. Others will be more difficult, and the larger ones will be harder to control."
Jesse's expression clears. "Ohhhhh."
The blonde half-demon gives a sheepish laugh. "Ahh, that's much easier to explain than what I was trying to say."
"Well, that's how I've come to think of it."
Ivor gives Jesse a wry smile a moment later. "I've worked with all different types of magic; enough to at least gain a rather high aptitude in all of them without necessarily having to have intuitive aptitude for that type. They get easier to control over time as well, hence why as your aptitude gets higher you don't have to do as much magical setup."
Reuben snuffles, butting his head into Jesse's stomach. The teenager giggles and rubs him on the head with their thumb. "That makes sense. Thanks for explainin' it to me, I don't think I would've gotten it otherwise."
"Of course." The demon lord gives Jesse another tiny quirk of a smile. "You don't have magic in your world, so it never hurts to explain what's going on."
Jesse bobs their head at him like a bobble-head doll. "Thank you."
He nods at them, and the room falls into silence again, except it doesn't feel as stiff as before.
Regardless, silence has always bothered Jesse (except it hasn't always bothered Jesse, has it, there used to be a time where they didn't mind it at all) and so they pull out the book of spells that Romeo gave them before they were about to leave.
Petra blinks when she sees it. "You have a Cosmos spellbook?"
Jesse bobs their head again. They really are beginning to feel like one of those creepy bobble-head dolls you stick on your car dashboard. "Yeah, Romeo gave it t'me just in case before we left the Underneath."
"Why'd he give you a spellbook? It's not like you can do magic."
Jesse tries not to shy away at Aiden's rather sharp tone. "Uh... he mostly said someone should have a basic spellbook on hand, in case somethin' went wrong."
"Oh yeah, he tried to offer it to me, too," Maya confirms after glancing at the cover of the book. "Honestly, I think he's been looking for someone to pawn the book off on; Ivor got him this limited-edition version that had some removed spells that I think he prefers."
Jesse shifts Reuben into their lap, leaning against the branches that make up the wall and still clutching the book tightly. "Oh... why were the spells removed?"
"They're technically forbidden spells."
Jesse blinks at Gill. In fact, most everyone's looking at Gill. He's not the magic expert. "Spells can be forbidden?"
Gill shrugs when he sees the gobsmacked looks most everyone's giving him. "Romeo was reading one time while he was training me and I asked. Ended up knowing more about the spells in that book than I ever needed to know."
"You mean you knew that they existed?" Maya asks him, in a mock-innocent voice.
Gill smacks her.
She promptly smacks him back, and the two of them get into a little slap-fight, with Aiden watching them in slight amusement.
Sensing that their question isn't going to be answered, Jesse opens the book, flipping to the table of contents and finding a huge slew of spells, categorized by difficulty, then type, then alphabetical order. It's actually a very organized volume, considering it's big enough that Jesse struggles to get it in and out of their inventory.
"Yes, some spells can be forbidden."
Jesse peeks up from the book's table of contents at Ivor, who is watching them read with faint interest. For a moment, they're unsure that he's spoken, but in the end they decide what the heck and decide to ask him to elaborate on it. "Why?"
"The spells that are forbidden... they could be used for good purposes, but they're not being used for good or constructive purposes," Ivor says, slowly. Jesse gets the feeling he's dumbing down a lot of things so that they understand what he's talking about. "So some of them are forbidden because of that."
"Some of them? What about the rest?"
Ivor frowns, considering the question, before looking back at Jesse. His red eyes make the dark blue pop even more, and Jesse feels a small chill go down their back at the look he is giving them.
"Well... some spells that are forbidden in Cosmos now are soul spells."
He predicts their question coming, and raises his fingers. "Many of the ancient demons in Cosmos wanted to keep their soul around so they could better keep Cosmos in relative order and assist the new lords. So, they used some very complicated, very difficult soul spells in order to keep their souls persisting after death."
Jesse blinks at him. "Oh... that sounds nice."
A pause as they consider his words.
Soul spells are forbidden now.
So the outcome was...
"... what happened?"
Ivor's shoulders drop slightly as the demon lord grimaces. "The thing is, the spell worked. It allowed their souls to persist after death... but not without a price."
A deal with the devil.
"Their souls, while retaining some semblance of the beings they once were... twisted, and changed to create a sort of spirit that's worse than the ones formed from negative energy."
Jesse's eyes grow rather large. "They're worse?!"
"Yes. At least the ones formed by negative energy are mindless. Those spirits that remain after the soul spells have been cast and the demons have passed still have their minds." The demon lord looks rather grim. "They're smart, they're ruthless, and they will do anything to get more souls into their realm in order to feed."
"... oh."
He relaxes a moment later, spotting the wide-eyed expression on Jesse's face and giving them a quirk of a smile. "Don't worry; most of them have been neutralized or at least can't harm other demons. And the soul spells have been wiped from many books, and being difficult to perform it doesn't particularly matter if anyone tries to cast it- it's just so exasperating to cast that most people would probably give up."
They fidget, running a hand over Reuben's back. "... that's- that's good."
"Yes." The demon lord shifts again, giving Jesse a strange look that makes Jesse feel like the demon lord's almost appreciating the attention, even as Lukas finally tugs Maya off of Gill in the background. "Well... do you have any more questions about Cosmos magic that you'd like to ask?"
Jesse looks at the table of contents, which spans four pages and has enough text crammed onto it that they have to hold the book an inch from their nose. Then back at Ivor.
If he's offering, then...
Jesse looks back at the big book again, before scooting closer and opening the pages a little more so that he can get a better look. "Mm... what's some of the more helpful spells in here?"
Ivor gives them a vague smile at the question, but leans over the book and takes a closer look. Only a few seconds passes before he reaches up and presses his finger to the page. "So, you're not going to be able to perform this magic, but healing spells are certainly going to be a caster's most important spell list in their repertoire..."
Petra can't help but stare.
Jesse is asleep, head resting on Ivor's lap from where they've been slowly listing over to look at the book while also getting progressively more and more sleepy (with even Reuben dozing off before Jesse does) before finally conking out and dropping their head onto his lap.
You'd expect the demon lord to shove Jesse off or even to shift them off to the side carefully so he can do other things. In fact, Petra probably would've gently shifted Jesse to the floor and found them a blanket or something.
Instead, he's got one hand resting on their shoulder while he absentmindedly swirls the other one in the air. Petra can vaguely make out Ivor tapping away and doing some work in midair using magic as visuals, but it's hard to see what he's actually doing.
Primarily because she's looking at the tiny human currently fast asleep while using his lap as a pillow.
Lukas glances at Jesse, completely zonked out, before looking back at Ivor. His eyebrow quirks above his blindfold. "You don't wanna move 'em or anything?"
Ivor shrugs, still focusing more on his work. "I'll do it later. I don't know how deeply they sleep."
"I don't actually think they sleep that deep. They get up a lot at night."
Everyone looks at Gill again.
Gill shrugs. "Their room is right next to ours at Romeo's place."
By which he means his and Maya's, if the way Maya's cheeks are slowly starting to flush a bright pink are any indication.
(Petra files that information away as leverage against Gill later.)
"They tend to get up at whatever time of night and then move around."
Ivor considers this for a moment, glancing down at the human sleeping rather soundly in his lap, before giving a nonchalant hum and returning to making markings in the air. "Well then, all the more reason to let them sleep."
"... you just really like the fact that they're interested in magic, huh?"
The demon lord gives another little shrug, being careful not to move around too much in fear of waking Jesse up. "Well, I don't dislike the fact that they're interested in magic despite being unable to cast it."
"Can't blame them. Magic is cool." Lukas straightens up a bit, regarding the tiny sleeping human in Ivor's lap. Their rather fluffy hair is dangling in their face.
Ivor brushes it out of the way automatically and almost gently. Besides a little twitch of their nose, they don't stir much.
Satisfied that they're not waking up, he looks up again, Petra keenly aware that everyone will have to go to sleep if they're going to make it back to the Underneath and hurry back to Champion City the next day without getting caught outside. His lips twitch up in a smile. "You're not wrong."
Lukas gives Ivor a thoughtful, almost confused frown, Petra noticing this out of the corner of her eye and diverting her attention from Maya currently arguing with Gill about not being noisy and waking Jesse up.
Ivor catches the look too, if the way he pauses and shifts slightly in thought is any indication.
After a moment of thought, he barely, barely gives Lukas the tiniest shake of his head.
She can't help but wonder what the heck that's about.
A/N: Aaaah, can't wait for the next few chapters. Champion City is interesting.
I love being tired. Which is to say, today is opposite day. I love homework and being stressed.
Anyway, responses to reviews!
Toni42: Hoorah x3 And the monsters are created with negative energy. :3 / Hehe :3
NinaNaranja: I remember you! It's been a long time, lol. Good to see you! / Hehe, to say the least xD / Don't worry, same here. / Thank you!
TheAmberShadow: What do you think? / Hehe, indeed they do xD / Yep! Although Lukas might know something about it. / They do, but not AS the Order. / Yeep :3 / Nooo, that'd be creepy xD / Technically not. To be a lord of demons, you have to be a demon.
Darkbeast Dend: Maybe! / Ah... I don't really have one, honestly xD / The sequel is called Composite.
IntrovertedAnon: Ahhh, thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying it.
That's all for now! See ya, so long, and g'bye!
x.X. A.L. X.x
