Vigil VII: Strife Amidst the Clouds

[Shadowcaller]

[Library]

In Anika's experience, most demons were out to either conquer or corrupt the world so if this was different than that it had to be very different from what she was used to.

Alright, Cass-demons, what were they like?
Anika puts her long ears at high alert. Let's hear it.

"They're much simpler beings in general, actually. They're... fragmentary beings, from the realm of Chaos. Some people think they're all the leftovers and little shards of spiritstuff that didn't get born in our world as the soul of a mortal person, and most of it just floats around, formless and everchanging in the eternal flow of Chaos. Some of these little fragments drift close to our world, where they come into contact with echoes from our world, thoughts and feelings and emotions that bleed from our world into theirs. The stronger the emotion, the more likely it is to bleed through from our world - particularly intense emotions like wrath, passion, terror, desire, grief, despair, joy - these attract the little spirit fragments and causes them to develop into the kinds of spirits that people commonly refer to as 'demons'."

Fragmented beings, from chaos. Kay', kay'.

Leftovers from people... like souls? Sounded more like spirits. But obsessed with emotions... she guessed that kinda made sense with demons. She had never heard of one that feed on joy though. Those would be way better.

"Over time, these demons feed more and more on these emotional echoes that come from our own world, and they become more complicated and more individual. At some point they stop being content with just feeding off the echoes of the really intense emotions that can drift from our world to theirs, they want to come into our world to experience and feed off them in all their varieties. They don't experience these emotions-

Wait, Cass did definitively look different! Anika could just tell by looking at how her lips moved. The more she looked at her talk the more it became clear how different she was.

Did this mean that she was actually a demonic infiltrator that was attempting to deceive her? No, this was definitely Cass. In fact, in might be too much of Cass considering how she just kept talk-

****.

She had stopped paying attention hadn't she?

-are useful to mages because they are connected to the Chaos they come from. Chaos is a powerful source of magic, but for many mages it's difficult to control or channel safely. Demons are more attuned to it than we are, and that's why mages form pacts with them and take them as familiars, so we can access Chaos through them-"

Crap, she had missed so much already.
So chaos was demon energy and a powerful source of magic... so fel energy? Hopefully it wasn't corruptive. Like, why would you even call it 'chaos energy' in the first place? She had never seen 'chaos' being used in a positive sense. Especially when people accused her of causing it. So it really felt like there were some major negative vibes here.

But maybe she had misunderstood something? She had just missed quite a lot since she...

hadn't
been
listening.

Gaaah!

Anika quickly focused back on Cass who she now noticed was blushing!
Oh no! She was the worst listener ever!

"Uh... so I guess the point was, demons can be dangerous, but they also have predictable wants and urges, and can be controlled and used as well, the same way fire is dangerous, but can also be controlled and used. And most of the time when demons cause problems, it's because the mage that summoned them wasn't able to control them, or worse, intentionally uses them to achieve evil and self-serving goals. A demon that feeds off rage and wrath has a natural urge to kill and destroy, but if let loose to do so then the responsibility surely lies with the mage that summoned it for that purpose, the same way the responsibility for a fire that burns down a building and kills a lot of people belongs to the arsonist that lit the match."

So demons were like fire? Was that the short of it?
Did that mean they were like... emotion elementals?

Anika raises a hand as if she was a student in a class. Dutifully waiting for Cass to gesture for her or call her name. Resorting to even waving her hand if Cass didn't do it right away.

"Okay, uh, question..." She speaks as soon as the mage has pointed her out. "Can I call your demons 'cemons'? Since you start with an C and it probably would make me less confused."