//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: The deal // Story: Machinations of a Trickster // by Deviance //------------------------------// The piles of strewn-around books around the little house appeared to have tripled in size during the last few days. Many shelves previously crammed full now stood half empty and instead their previous inhabitants had been carefully read and ultimately discarded. With a frustrated groan the mage threw the latest tome to join its fellow brethren upon the floor and slumped down into the couch. He winced as his back hit the spine of a book laying open on it, reaching behind and tossing it away like the rest with a sour look on his face. Every attempt so far had failed. Not every attempt at bringing the spectral unicorn back to her home dimension, no. Every attempt to figure out a way how it could even be done in the first place. No matter how many angles he pursues or ideas he cultivated, it all ultimately lead nowhere. Even pursuing contacts in the spirit world had gone awry when without exception every single being he conjured had flatly denied him immediately- some of them mentioning something about the presence of 'higher energies' or some such. That one had caused a frown on the mage's face. Was the higher powers meddling in this work, guiding him along some unseen destiny? Or was it just the 'locksmith' as he called himself doing his best to isolate him, hoping the mage would come crawling to him begging for help when no other options were left? Whatever the case may be he was now clearly a persona-non-grata in the ethereal. No spirit wanted to have anything to do or even talk to him now. Well, except one. One particular spirit refused to leave him alone, or even shut up. And with that in mind he rose up again and walked over to the little kitchen area in one corner of the room. "What's that?" the disembodied unicorn asked for what might have been the thousandth time that day. "Energy drink," the mage replied tiredly in a slurred voice, reaching inside the mostly empty fridge to pull out the can. "You have bottled magical energy here!?" The shocked reply came instantly, the telepathic pulse so strong it made the man's head ring. Grimacing the mage rubbed his neck and sighed impatiently. "No, it's just a drink with some compounds that makes you feel less tired." "Oh... that doesn't sound very healthy," she responded after a few seconds of blissful silence. "Neither is ignoring sleep for three days straight," he told her dryly, just barely managing to avoid tripping over a large book at his feet. "I've been telling you for the entire time to go to bed!" she protested. "Yeah, I'm not eager to find out how dreaming is going to turn out with you rattling around in there," he told her blearily. During their time together, the mage had discovered quickly it was much easier separating the voice and influence of the unicorn if he himself focused on the physical and spoke out loud. Every time he had talked or focused on her telepathically their minds seemed to mingle to the point it became difficult knowing whose thoughts were whose. Once was enough for the both of them to realize they were quite different individuals, not just in dimension or species, but also in temperament and personality. The thought of the mage becoming more... unicorn-y didn't sit well with him, and he doubted the unicorn found his own particular version of humanity very appealing either. Besides, the closer the two grew in resonance the more difficult it probably was going to become separating once he found a way to send her home. If he found a way to send her home. That thought he knew was entirely his own. The damned unicorn had remained indecently optimistic and cheerful the entire time during her stay in his brain. And he'd started calling her his little joy-tumor for a brief period, before he realized their mingling energies might produce an actual tumor if he kept projecting that idea between them and promptly stopped. "If you're tired, can we watch some more TV again? I really wanted to see the next episode before I leave forever," her pleading voice came. The only response the mage gave was putting the cold can up to his forehead, then drawing in a deep breath and loudly counting to ten before exhaling. He kept breathing deeply and calmly, focusing on making the alien energy of her presence fade into the background of his mind. Her loud voice vibrating through his skull muted until what she said next became a muffled indistinguishable warble of impressions, and he felt himself relaxing. Letting the thoughts of the last few days flow more freely, letting himself sink deeper into them in the sudden quiet and calm. And before he knew it the arm holding the can sank down to his side, and he fell asleep. **************************************** He found himself standing in a grand library, lit by huge chandeliers bathing the interior with a warm golden glow. The walls made of a dark wood the bookshelves blended into perfectly, the floor lined with crimson velvet rugs on top of white marble tiles. A large arched window stood in the middle, opening up to a dark landscape outside with stars shining brightly and a distant full moon glowing in silvery light. A smile spread across the man's face as he looked around the familiar sight, his eyes roaming over the well worn tomes on the shelves. "Hey, what are you doing here?" a high-pitched voice asked from behind. He froze completely as all color drained out of his face. Slowly the mage turned around and looked at the owner of the same voice that had haunted him for days without rest. "For fucks sake..." he breathed in a voice of pure despair. "Rude," the unicorn mumbled under her breath just loud enough to hear, then tilted her head. "So, I take it you didn't come to visit me then?" "You mean come to visit you inside my own mind?" the mage asked her in return dryly. "Well... I mean... just forget I asked," she sputtered, then looked around herself with the expression of someone looking for an escape route. "So, are all these books your memories since it's part of your mind?" she asked hurriedly, motioning towards the rows and rows of tomes. "Yeah, most of it, anyway. The parts I know how to access directly," he told her offhandedly while looking around himself. "It's a good construct when I need to dig a little deeper than I am able when awake." "Is that why you came, to see if you can find anything you've missed?" Twilight asked, a hint of something eager to her voice. "Something like that," he said, then started scanning the shelfs one by one while scratching his chin. "Great, I'll help!" she told him gleefully and trotted off to the nearest shelf, her eyes moving over the spines of the book titles. "What exactly are you looking for?" "That's the issue," he told her with a sigh, his hand moving from his chin to rubbing his eyes. "There is no damned way to open a pathway to your body directly since you're anchored into mine now. Which means I got to go along physically, but that is also impossible since there's no way I can locate what fucking dimension or world you're a part of and how to connect to it with a ritual... and that's ignoring the fact I'd need to sacrifice something like a hundred virgins to gather enough energy to open a goddamned physical gateway for me to get there," he quickly ranted, letting out all the frustration of the last few days. "But if I don't, your presence in my head like this is either going to kill me, or grow a brain tumor, or... just something really bad," he added finally, letting his hand fall down to his side. Twilight stopped her searching and looked over towards him sympathetically. There was more than a hint of guilt in her eyes, but then they turned hard and she looked back towards the menagerie of books. "Well, lucky for you then we just got to find the right bit of knowledge to solve this problem. And if there's anything I'm good at, it's rummaging through piles and piles of books!" she proclaimed confidently. The mage couldn’t completely suppress a smile. “Sounds familiar,” he said, and for the first time looked at her with eyes seeing another practitioner of the art he had devoted his own life towards. “It’ll be a cold day in Tartarus before I ever admit not being able to find something in a library,” she said cheerfully. Her horn lit up in a soft purple glow as tome after tome levitated down to hover in front of her face, eyes skimming over the work as pages rattled by in a quick succession. And so the mage continued, one book after another. The man stood watching her with an amused expression, then frowned slightly as he realized something was nagging him in the back of his mind. Something important had just occurred and he’d missed it. “What?” he mumbled to himself. “Her horn glowing? Her being a bookworm? Her not being completely annoying despite looking like the lovechild of a Disney cartoon artist on LSD?” The last comment he smiled widely at. He could sense the emotions and small echoes of the thoughts of the unicorn as it rippled within his own mind. The horn of the unicorn mage acted as a natural focus, letting her express her power in an almost intuitive way. He considered that for a moment, then realized his own fingers served much a similar function as far as magic was regarded. Difference was, of course, that his own ten fingers had more dexterity and numbers than her own single horn.   “So she probably finds it easier to use direct or simple forms of magic, but more complex designs she’ll need to use some other kind of focus so as not to have anything mangled in the execution,” he mumbled while he crossed his arms and reached out with his senses towards the mage.  She had a lot of power, but there was something empty and hollow-feeling in the way she drew upon it. Like the majority of her own spirit was reaching out and grasping for something, but only catching empty air. “Maybe it’s because her body is somewhere else… or because this isn’t her world, and so she has no connection to any source of power to draw from,” he considered out loud, his index fingers drumming against the bicep of his mental body.   Then another thought struck him. If she was just drawing on the miniscule connection to her body and world still keeping her spirit alive, across the vast distance of dimensions separating them, then she would be stupidly powerful once back in her own element. “Well, shit, who thought it was a good idea to give that much power to someone that would screw things up so badly?” he asked rhetorically. But then again, wasn’t he someone who’d been praised for his potential once, and managed to screw that up just as horribly? The last thought came to him almost like a physical whisper, so strong it would not easily be dismissed or overlooked. And involuntarily the mage found himself glancing towards the far end of the library.  There stood a massive wall of dark gray concrete, so dark it looked like storm clouds of black, gray and bruised brown. Dirty-looking, like something slapped together in a hurry, breaking the aesthetics of the library completely, and only its far distance away from the chandeliers at the center allowed it to remain mostly unnoticeable. And in the middle of the wall was a pitch black metal door. Its surface was uneven and mottled, like it had been melted over and over then settled into a blotchy shape once cooled down; there was no handle or keyhole visible upon it.. Across the frame of the door hung several large, heavy looking chains locking it down even tighter. With a shudder the man tore his eyes from it and turned them towards the unicorn still gleefully prancing around the library of his mind. A soft smile graced his lips again, as different as they might be they did still have some things in common it seemed. In common? The nagging thought in the back of his mind exploded in sudden realization, and the mage’s eyes widened. “Eureka,” he whispered with a smirk, then called out towards the unicorn, “Hey, yo-... hey, Twilight!”  “What is it?” she called back without taking her eyes off the latest book she was busy skimming through. The man hurried over, and when Twilight put the book back into its place on the shelf and glanced up at him she blinked at the sudden gleam of mania present in his gaze. “Before,” he began, voice straining to contain itself, “you said something about Tartarus… what do you know about it?” “Uhh,” she responded, having to take a few steps back from the intensity in his eyes. “Well, to be honest, not much. It’s just this really bad place filled with monsters and stuff. Also, I guess I’ve heard it’s somewhere the souls of terrible ponies or other monsters go when they die,” she said, scratching at her head absently. “Hell,” the man hissed while Twilight flinched and took another step back. “Uhh, are you ok? Maybe you should get some real sleep instead of being here,” she said with a note of concern in her voice. “No, no, no… no time for sleep,” he told her with a wave of his hand, looking down at the floor while his eyes darted back and forth rapidly.  A silence fell between them, lingering awkwardly in the air while the man silently mulled over his thoughts. Twilight kept looking around herself, shifting her body restlessly as she moved, uncertain of what to do. The silence dragged on for several more minutes until she couldn’t take it anymore, and she cleared her throat. “So, you wanna share what you’re thinking?” she asked in a carefully neutral tone of voice. The question didn’t seem to register with the mage at first, then he blinked and snapped his eyes up to her, a wide grin spreading over his face slowly. “Yeah, I might know what to do…” he said. She waited a few heartbeats for him to continue. When he didn’t she motioned with her hoof in an encouraging motion, “And…?” she drawled slowly. His smile widened to unnerving proportions. “I’m gonna send us both to hell!” he proclaimed giddily. **************************************** The smoldering embers of the fire glowed dimly in the dark room, the thick forest canopy outside keeping any light from stars or moon from trickling in through the window. The man sat upon his couch, one leg drawn up where his arm and chin rested atop his knee while gazing into the dying red light.  It was quiet, not just within the room but also within his head. But after the grand shouting match that had ensued from his proclamation it was reasonable even the pathologically curious unicorn needed some rest.  She had not liked his idea. And neither had she been discreet about just how much she disliked it, giving him so many reasons why it was insane that for a while she had hunted for paper and pen to start writing him a list. Ultimately it had failed, though, because regardless of how many reasons for why it was a bad solution, it was still the only one possible.  If things continued as they were now for much longer, they’d both perish, or he’d go insane and she’d follow along soon after. Which was why after she had worn herself out shouting at him mentally, he’d simply pointed out to her that either they both venture into hell and find a way to her home through there, or they'd both get stuck in one of their own creation when his sanity shatters. It had shut her up- but only just barely. Enjoying the brief period of silence the man had lounged in the comfort of his home from dusk far into the night. The idea should terrify him, and he’d seated himself expecting a rush of emotions to flood his mind after the regular noise of the unicorn had ceased to distract him. But nothing happened. He’d stared into the fire -imagining it as hellfire he’d be trapped within forever- and there hadn’t been even a twinge of concern. “Maybe I’ve already gone insane,” he quietly whispered into the empty room, a wry smile touching his lips.  But then again, hadn’t his life already been a kind of hell now for years? Trapped in a limbo, unable to move forward on his path, and yet it was unthinkable to abandon it. There came a deep drumming inside his head from that thought, a deep, reverberating beat. For a second the vision of a dirty gray wall with a dark chained door flashed before his head, which he firmly pushed down into the dark unseen corner of his mind.  “Fix this, and I can fix it all,” he spoke again into the empty air while his hand opened and closed repeatedly into a white knuckled fist. “One trip through hell, chuck the pony back into her body and finally it will all be over.” His voice carried an undertone of desperation so obvious his face cringed when hearing it. He leaned back and relaxed, his expression smoothing over into a neutral look while the last flickers of the embers struggled to stay alive, reflecting in his eyes as a tiny light in a pool of black and gray.  “The problem,” he began, looking up at the ceiling while mumbling to himself. “is how I’m supposed to get into hell and out.” Getting into hell itself isn’t complicated, it’s among the easiest things in the world you can do. But getting out is the real trick. But there've been those who've done it over the long ages of its history; the traffic of souls in and out of hell looked a lot like an interdimensional highway, according to what his master had said once. No, the real problem wasn’t getting in and out, the real problem was getting in and out in his physical body. An act that would be violating the very nature of that plane, but somehow needed to be done. And preferably without actually damning his soul in the process.  As a matter of fact, it would be best if no one ever found out about this.  And yet, after hours of scheming the only real option he’d been able to come up with included bringing someone else into this mess. When it came to the figure calling itself ‘the locksmith,’ the mage seriously doubted his ability to keep such juicy gossip to himself. He had his suspicions of who his true identity was, and if he was correct then he’d be exactly the kind of being useful for this task.  But… he did already owe him. One deal he was just barely beginning to solve, and he knew without a single doubt if he called upon the spirit -or perhaps god- that there would be a price tag attached to any help. Maybe this whole thing was just a setup, knowing the mage would need more assistance and only one place to go, burying him deeper and deeper in a pit of debt.  “If it was, it worked,” the man spat into the dark, then sighed and rubbed his face sleepily. He let the hand drop and his eyes unfocused into a far distant gaze, mouth open and words pouring out of it seemingly on their own. “So even if this was all a scam to get me into indentured servitude to the asshole, what would be the point? I can’t be that useful to him, anything I can do for him he wouldn't need any help with in the first place… unless he’s looking for a scapegoat or a cat’s paw for some scheme he’s got going.” The sound of grinding teeth was audible. And to make it worse there was a distant pounding inside his head, a mounting pressure constantly reminding him that the clock was ticking. In the end, what choice was there? “Insanity or a pawn in an unknown game,” the man sighed as he threw one arm up in the air, then let it fall down with a dull thud in a final gesture of surrender. He stood up from the couch, briefly arching his back before taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. His own energy was easily within reach of his mind, no longer so overwhelmingly mixed with the unicorn’s. Although the background resonance was still there, it was pronounced now in its separation and didn’t muddle the signal of his own spirit. It flowed easily up at his calling, charging his body and making the tips of his fingers tingle with the growing static.  He allowed it to build for a few moments, then opened his eyes halfway and whispered slowly, letting the energy flow into his words and charging them with intent. “Locksmith I call thee, locksmith I call thee, Locksmith I call thee.” The words hung in the air for a moment, vibrating with a subtly humming power as it filled the room. And when nothing happened the man simply continued, chanting the calling three times over and over, leaving a brief pause in between each to let the words and intent behind them find resonance. Each turn building the power in the room, reinforcing the calling as it grew and making it less able to be ignored. In each turn his voice grew a little louder, matching the tension building until he was eventually almost shouting. “Locksmith I call thee! Locksmith I call thee! Locksmith I CAL-” “Calm down, you shrieking loon!” came a sudden voice behind him, and the man spun around to find the familiar face of the one who called himself the locksmith standing there. There was a faint scent of something acidic, or was it pungent, about him. A faint trickle of smoke rose from his body, and upon his bare chest and face tiny beads of sweat were visible in the faint light of the room.  “I thought you were ignoring me,” the mage said, narrowing his eyes slightly. “Is that… sulfur I smell on you?” In response the man’s eyebrows rose, and for a flicker of a second something satisfactory gleamed in his eyes. “Well, well, well. Aren’t we quick on the take. Yes, among other even less pleasant smells your nose isn’t even capable of perceiving; be happy you don’t have a dog,” the figure answered him, dusting off his arms in exaggerated gestures. The mage stood silent for a few seconds, observing the charades as the being made a show of removing the infernal road dust still clinging to him. Then he opened his mouth and spoke in a dry and weary voice without any inflection. “You already know exactly why I called you here.” The locksmith absently waved a hand at him dismissively. “Of course. You’re not hard to predict, I’m afraid,” he told him in a voice just as dry. The mage sighed. “If you already knew this was the only solution to the problem YOU tasked me with fixing, why didn’t you just save us the time and tell me to begin with?” The locksmith stopped his theatrical motions and locked over at the mage with naked disappointment on his face, speaking to him in a tone of pure disdain. “Even you should find the answer to that question blatantly obvious,” he told him. The mage’s eyes flickered from side to side for a few heartbeats, then locked on the figure. “Because… I had to earn it, and it functioned as a test of some kind. That if I wasn’t capable of finding the only answer, then I wouldn’t be capable of performing the journey, either.” “Congrats, you’ve reached the mental capacity of a pseudo-intellectual,” the locksmith said with a few brief claps of his hands. “And for the record, there’s at least seven pathways to getting the stumbling equine back into her body- the pathway through inferno just happens to be the riskiest but simplest solution. So obviously you were gonna pick it.” The mage’s jaw dropped ever so slightly. "Seven!?" What the fuck are the othe-” “No, no, no. You've already made your choice. Test over. Time to pack your bags and put some lotion on because where we’re going it’s gonna be hot, hot, hot!” The locksmith interrupted him giddily, a wide grin accompanying his words. “We?” the mage asked, his own eyebrows rising in surprise this time. “You called me because you have no way to get there or make it through without my help,” the locksmith told him calmly, crossing his arms while facing him. The mage narrowed his eyes. “You mean get there, make it through, and make it back,” he said, firmly emphasizing the last part. A crooked smile spread over the locksmith’s lips as he rolled his eyes. “That’s a tall order. And one I am not inclined to offer. No, you want a deal and I will give you one. Whatever you get out of it will depend entirely on you. I won’t guarantee you’ll make it back home, or even guarantee you’ll make it to the unicorn’s home world either. I’ll just make sure you can, whether you pull it off or not is entirely up to you.” The mage considered his words for a moment, then nodded once slowly. “Do you swear this deal will give me what I need to get there and home safely?” The locksmith considered the words for a moment, his eyes gazing into something distant searching for the answer. “I will offer you this deal. Surrender your life to me and I will make it so that you will have the power to transport yourself and the unicorn into hell with you, and power enough it CAN last for you to travel to her homeworld and make it back to this world. As part of this deal I will journey with you, not physically but connected to you still to give you advice when or if you ask for it. However, I will not protect or grant you additional power once you are there. You’ll gain immense energy once you go through, but how you wield it while making it last will be for you to decide,” he said, drawing out each word slowly and firmly.  The mage didn’t miss a beat. “‘Surrender your life to me…,’ what the hell does that mean, exactly?” he asked. The locksmith tilted his head while regarding him patiently. “Exactly what it sounds like. You want to get into a place made for the dead, can’t do that while you’re still the living, breathing flesh-bag of your current self. You gotta give your life to get there, but as part of your deal you’ll get a chance to return it- if you pull it off and come back to a land of the living,” he said, speaking in the soft patient tone a parent uses for a stubborn-but-not-so-gifted child. Silence followed the condescending proclamation, lending room both for the mage’s furious thinking as he began pacing back and forth across the floor, and for the locksmith’s amused observation as he did so.  There was a catch somewhere, for sure. The entity had been up front about giving no promises of success, and the mage knew that he couldn’t lie when making such a deal as far as providing the necessary power was concerned. No, the real issue was with the ‘surrendering his life’ part. It sounded logical he needed to do so in some way to enter a kingdom of the dead without actually dying. Still, there was a catch somewhere within that sentence… he just didn’t know enough about how life and death worked to catch it. But he couldn’t show the entity that, no matter what. For a moment, he wished Twilight was awake so he could seek her advice on the matter. Although the whisper in his mind had been an annoyance so far, a part of him had actually gotten accustomed to it in a strange way, and she might have had something to offer him. “Hey, are you awake in there?” He asked, carefully sending a subtle mental impulse towards the cloud of energy he’d gotten to know her by. Fully aware the locksmith might eavesdrop on their conversation if he wasn’t careful about it. There was a sensation of something stirring in the far corner of his mind. For a second there flashed an image in front of his eyes, of a purple unicorn raising her head from the divan she laid on top of within the grand library of his mind.  “I am now,” she answered blearily in a tone dripping with sarcasm.  Before he continued the mage made an effort of will, splitting his attention in two; one part of his mind loudly focusing on the issue of getting into hell, what dangers might await there and how best to make use of the locksmith’s offer of power. The other part he quietly let slip into the background, covered by the noise of his thinking while he continued the conversation with Twilight. “Look, I’m not gonna be able to keep up this charade for long before this asshole notices,” he projected towards her, already feeling a tension building around his forehead from the strain.  There was the impression of someone shaking their head and rubbing their eyes, then the response came, clear and focused this time. “What’s going on?” “I called upon our mutual friend. He’s offering help at a price, but I’m not sure exactly how he’ll end up collecting it, but I don’t wanna let him know that.” “Ohh,” came the surprised response, tinged with equal measure of hope, suspicion and fear. “What did he say, exactly?” “That he’ll provide a way into hell and enough power to get you home and back for me, but only if I ‘surrender my life' to him.’” “Wait, what?! He wants you to die for him?”  “No, I figure he means I’ll be handing over my lifeforce for him to keep. If we try to enter hell with my aura flashing big neon signs of ‘living breathing soul’ energy in it we’ll get noticed instantly and caught.” “Ok, I get that. So it should be fine, then, as long as you make him promise to give back your lifeforce once it’s over… right?” “Yeah, that is the obvious solution. I’m just worried I’m missing something and I’ll be playing into his hands somehow when I make him promise that.” “Well, he doesn’t exactly strike me as the most trustworthy kind of pony. But as long as you don’t leave any loopholes he won’t have a choice but to keep his end. Right?" “Mmm, so can you see any obvious loopholes I gotta close? I got maybe another minute of this before I faint from the concentration.” “Why didn’t you tell me so before! Ok, ok, let me think for a second…” The mage kept pacing, eyes glued towards the floor while repeating thoughts of what he knew about hell and asking himself general and vague questions to keep his surface mind occupied. The bubble of energy created between him and Twilight’s conversation felt like a pressure cooker rumbling threateningly. He let the seconds pass him by, each of them more arduous than the previous one. “Well?” he projected towards the unicorn with gritted teeth and a pounding in his temples, getting more and more intense with each breath he took.  “Well…” came the slight response, and he could feel the cogwheels of her mind spinning furiously, the blob of energy that was her signature flickering erratically. “I think that you need to add another detail to your contract. That you can at any time decide to reclaim your lifeforce from him. He didn’t say anything about time or place after all, so it’s probably smart to get a clause so you can get it back when you ask for it.” Unable to hold on to the split concentration any longer, the mage let go and allowed the isolated mental bubble to shatter and returned his full attention towards the rambling thoughts about hell he’d been repeating. He allowed the thoughts to run for a few more moments while he slowed down his pace, then stopped with his eyes still turned down at the floor. The last words Twilight had spoken surfaced gradually, and he tenderly grasped them one by one without allowing his mind to make too much of an effort the Locksmith might have picked up on. Eventually he turned his eyes up from the floor and shifted himself to face the Locksmith, still observing with wry amusement twinkling in his eyes. A nagging twinge at the base of his spine told the mage that perhaps all his efforts towards subterfuge had been completely in vain, that the entity had overheard everything the two linked souls had said to one another. But even so, it wouldn’t change anything if he had.  “I was getting worried for the health of your floor with all that pacing,” the locksmith said, conjuring an apple from thin air and biting into it with an audible crunch. “I’m not in the habit of accepting deals with strange beings lightly,” the mage told him dryly, eliciting a smile from the chewing entity. “A wise policy, never know what weirdos the ether might spit out every once in a while. But speaking of deals, do we have another?” The locksmith asked in a tone of perfect beneficence. “With a few clauses,” the mage answered after a heartbeat. “Such as…?” the locksmith drawled, motioning for him to continue. The mage took in a deep breath, then spoke in a careful voice enunciating every word precisely. “Our deal is this: I will surrender my life to you in order for you to bring us into the domain of hell unharmed, where upon your sacred oath I will have access to enough power sufficient to transport the unicorn Twilight into her home domain and reunite her with her body, as well as for me to return home. In addition, you will provide guidance and support mentally throughout my journey through hell, and my lifeforce will be returned to me at any time or place that I ask for it…” The Locksmith smirked, and opened his mouth so to speak, but before he had the chance the mage interrupted him. “Also… also, I require of you to firsthand teach me a technique with which I can wield this power and shape it in such a way for me to blend into hell and remain unnoticed,” he added quickly, giving voice to the sudden thought that had struck him. The entity raised a single eyebrow, letting the silence hang in the air for a moment while waiting to see if there was anything else. Then nodded his head and held out both his hands, palms up in a gesture of innocence. “A fair deal, I don’t object.” His hands blurred and the apple disappeared, and instead he held a single parchment in its place. The Locksmith held it out towards the mage, who reached over and grasped it with eyes narrowed in suspicion. The contract was outlined in a simple way, quite literally stating exactly what the mage had just said a few moments earlier and nothing else. The only addition was the dark line at the bottom for him to sign. Or so it seemed, and the mage proceeded to spend several minutes looking over the parchment looking for hidden symbols, fine print or any hint of a hidden clause or catch that might doom him. Reading it over and over, looking it up and down, backwards and sideways, even sniffing it and reaching out with his senses to scan it for any hidden energies. But there was nothing. Throughout the process he could feel Twilight’s presence rising to the surface of his mind, having finally sorted herself through whatever confusion she’d been left in when their little bubble of energy had dispersed. But she sat silently, allowing him to proceed while she silently observed his attempts until he was done. “Did you notice anything?” He asked her, keeping his thoughts as discreet as possible. “Nothing,” She answered back in a thought so quiet it appeared to him as a whisper, and he couldn’t suppress a brief flash of a smile. The locksmith yawned loudly and looked at him expectantly. “You know, if you keep fondling that paper any more I might need to charge you for it,” he said. Not dignifying the remark with an answer, the mage looked down at the straight black line and kept his eyes on it, waiting for some realization to strike him. But nothing did. So he looked up at the Locksmith instead and asked simply, “Got a pen?” The entity shook his head. “Ink isn’t enough for this kind of deal. You know what you gotta do,” he answered with a shrug. The mage stared at him for a second, then turned around and went over to the nearby table and began rummaging around, shuffling books around until he found what he was looking for. He grasped the hilt of the old athame, the two-edged dagger engraved with a swirl of tendrils teaching from the base all the way to the sharp tip. The bone handle slipped into his palm comfortably, its edges yellowed with age but the center of it still a fresh white almost the same color as the pale skin. The time for hesitation was over, so without a word the mage flicked the blade and cut a red line across his thumb. The blood welled up quickly as he laid the parchment down on the table, then pressed his bloodied thumb against the dark line, marking it with his sanguine thumbprint. There was no explosion of wind or sound of distant thunder. Nothing dramatic to signal what had just occurred. So he picked the parchment up and went over to the Locksmith, who waited for him with a wide smile of satisfaction on his face. He reached out languidly and took the contract, and simply said. “We have a deal. Midnight tomorrow, we’ll venture into hell.” Then he vanished. Silence reigned in the room while the mage absently sucked on the blood trickling down his thumb. And he felt the unicorn’s voice fill his mind, tinged with concern. “Can you hear that ominous music playing?” The mage couldn’t help smiling, and he closed his eyes with a sigh as the taste of his blood filled his mouth. “Wasn’t just me, then.”