Never again. That is what Kenzo had promised himself, all those months ago. Never again would he allow himself to lose control and hurt someone he loved. Memories of Denna haunted him almost on a daily basis, despite his new life in the guild of Dies Irae. The image of her beautiful blue eyes staring emptily at the cold, uncaring sky floated before his vision whenever he closed his eyes. He had killed her. And now, he would ensure that it would never happen again.
The Demon Slayer had left the comfort and safety of the Throne Hall, trekking out into the wilderness to seek out a safe place to work on his idea. After around an hour of walking, he stumbled upon the ruins of an old house on the edge of a stream, possibly something belonging to the original inhabitants of Amber Island. It was hardly more than three walls and half a roof, and looked as if it would fall to pieces if he sneezed on it, but it suited his purposes just fine.
Moving with care, he entered the charred building, taking in more detail as he did. The house had never been particularly big, no more than a shack. The walls were of wood, and the remains of the roof looked to be clay tiles. Perhaps not belonging to the noble family of Minstrel that had once occupied the island, then. It had the look of a fishing retreat, maybe of a servant, or someone squatting on the island. For all he knew, it could have stood, half-collapsed, since before the attack that left the island uninhabited. It could have been no more than a few years old. The vines creeping up the walls, threatening to pull the last standing walls down on his head as he stood there, suggested that it was older than that. But, as he thought before, it was perfect for him.
He moved deeper into the little house, finding a small table and a chair. It would have to do for a desk. Before he sat, however, he made sure to test both the chair and the table, ensuring they wouldn’t collapse under his weight or the books he carried. Once satisfied, he sat gingerly upon the chair, carefully setting out the books. Before he had even joined Dies Irae, he’d spent time searching for a method by which he could bind the demon inside him. Over time, he had found four books that seemed as if they would hold the answer he sought.
The first was a book describing a type of magic known as Tattoo Magic. It wasn’t widely known, but it wasn’t uncommon, either. It could be used by civilians or wizards both. It allowed one to draw tattoos upon one’s body, using nothing more than a magic pen, or if one had sufficient talent, their finger. The tattoos could be manipulated at will, since they consisted of magic ink, rather than mundane ink. The color, design, and location of the tattoo could be changed with a mild effort of magic power. Civilians used it as an alternative to permanent tattoos, usually forming circles of users to compare latest designs. Wizards, who possessed greater magic power than civilians, could put the magic to more uses. Tattoos suffused with enough magic power could be used as familars, lying dormant upon the user’s skin until a spark of magic brought them to life. The tattoo would lift from the skin, gaining limited intelligence, depending on how much magic they were infused with at their creation, and would then act according to the wizard’s will. Lesser constructs would have their instructions encoded into their essence at their creation, and would act only according to those instructions when activated, until they ran out of magic power and crumbled into dust. Greater constructs could be instructed on the spot, giving the wizard far more flexibility, and could be ordered to return to the wizard’s skin when low on magic, where they could be re-infused for longer-term use.
The second book was a book of magical theory pertaining to Letter Magic, in particular Rune Magic. The book described many varieties of Rune Magic and the properties thereof. In essence, runes could be written as a ‘rule’, and anything the runes were applied to would be subject to said rules. The book theorized that runes of any language could be used, as long as the user had an intimate understanding of the runes used and a connection to them.
Pursuant to that, Kenzo had located an ancient tome that was similar to a dictionary. It contained every character known from a language supposedly used by gods, and detailed descriptions of meanings. With the knowledge contained within the book of theory, Kenzo hoped to turn said runes into a magic of his own.
The fourth book was an ancient grimoire, containing sigils meant to bind and seal, and the magic behind them. Of particular interest to him was a sigil intending to contain a demon within one’s body. Of other, secondary interest were sigils that could purportedly absorb magic and seal it away.
Kenzo’s plan was to combine all three magics into one, using tattoos to apply runes and to bind his inner demon. To start, he spent a few hours poring over each book, committing every detail to memory. His training with Almoth had somewhat prepared him for this, as the demon had forced him to memorize spells from old scrolls. When the light began to fade, he summoned a small flame to hover above his head, casting enough light to read by without drawing too much magic power away from him.
When he had finished his reading, he made his way back to the guild hall with the books, sleeping there for a time. When morning came, he trekked back out to the cabin, books in hand. ready to begin his second phase of training.
It began with learning the tattoo magic as a base. He had procured for himself a magic pen, which appeared to be nothing more than a piece of smoky gray crystal in the shape of a long, narrow obelisk with a pyramid elongated to a needle tip, but he planned to be able to use his fingers later. Following the instructions in the book, he placed the tip of the pen against the skin of his left forearm, fixing an image into his mind and trying to force the image through the pen and onto his flesh as he began to slowly draw the pen over his skin. It took him several tries to get it right, until finally there was a mild burning sensation and the pen left behind a trail of black magical ink. It took him the rest of the hour to complete the image, that of a snake with minimalistic details, and encode his desired instructions into it. When it was finished, he touched the tattoo with a spark of his will, and the snake peeled from his arm, lifting into the air and circling around his head twice before crumbling to ash. Kenzo gave a triumphant shout which echoed amongst the trees, his hands lifted into the air.
Over the course of the next few weeks, Kenzo mastered the use of the tattoo magic, putting in hours of practice whenever he could spare them. Fortunately, it was something he could do even when traveling for jobs. He forwent a good portion of sleep in favor of practicing, but never allowed the deprivation to affect him too deeply.
The next step was the rune magic, and Kenzo set out to master it as well. He started with the rune for ‘strength.’ Working out over the course of his life had allowed him to form a baseline for how strong he was on a given day. For the next three days, he repeatedly applied the strength rune, attempting to attach it’s form to its meaning in his head and force the meaning into it, the same way he’d needed to force the image of the snake from his mind to get the tattoo magic to work, and tested the effects of the rune by punching the bole of a nearby tree. On the third day, he finally felt the rune take effect, the sensation akin to a tightening in his muscles, a slight downward drag as if he’d suddenly gained mass. When he next punched the tree, the wood shattered, and he had to skip lightly to the side to avoid the tree as it fell, a triumphant grin spreading across his normally lax face.
It took him many weeks to master the rune magic, but he finally did so. Fortunately for him the grammar of the language he had chosen wasn’t terribly complex, allowing him to construct entire sentences with relative ease, combining the effects of multiple runes and adjusting them as needed. For instance, with a simple sentence he could tailor the effect of a strength rune, making it apply only to the limb to which it was applied, or dampening the effect. He could also combine its effects with the rune for ‘pain’, giving him a pain-resistance spell. He could already envision creating tattoo constructs with instructions encoded in runes, possibly allowing him to apply the constructs to other people and allowing them to use them whenever it was necessary. Supposedly the tattoo magic could be used on another person with enough focus, but he hadn’t yet tested it.
With that done, the final step was to master the sealing magic, and that was the step that concerned him the most. It was the reason he’d chosen a location as far from other people as he could. If a seal was applied incorrectly, it could have the opposite effect of what was intended. He could end up sealing his own consciousness away, rather than the demon inside him.
With a quiet sigh and a shake of his head, the Demon Slayer forced his trepidations away. His eye for detail was meticulous, and he had a steady hand capable of incredible fine work. He knew he could copy the seals from the grimoire exactly, as long as he wasn’t nervous about it. Keeping that in mind, he began his work with the simplest, least invasive seal in the book. It wouldn’t do to accidentally bind his magic entirely, and he didn’t necessarily need to test every sigil in the grimoire. So long as he knew how to apply the sigil, it would work. He hoped.
Taking a deep breath, he opened the book to the correct page and took up the magic pen, lightly pressing its tip to the skin on his left wrist. By now, he could apply his tattoos with his fingers, but the pen was capable of finer detail. Keeping his movements slow and stable, he began to copy the sigil that would bind his sense of pain until it was broken. It took him almost ten minutes. When he finished, he could immediately feel the sigil take effect. The slight burning sensation of the tattoo faded into nothingness immediately, leaving him feeling a little numb. Just to further test it, he set down the pen and drew his side knife, making a neat slice across the back of his hand. Nothing. No pain, only the slight tugging of the blade slipping through his flesh. With a satisfied smile, he set the knife down and sketched a quick healing rune across the back of his hand, which seemed to sink into his flesh and disappear as it mended the shallow slice. He then took up the pen again and slashed a mark across the sigil, breaking it and causing it to shatter and vanish as his sense of pain returned.
The next part was going to be tricky, but Kenzo had already taken the necessary measures. His left arm now bore an intricate tattoo of a dragon in the Oriental style, the tail wrapped around his wrist and the body winding around his arm, the head resting on his shoulder blade. He divested himself of his coat and shirt, then stroked a finger over the tattoo and whispered a word. The dragon shivered, then lifted from his skin, hovering in front of his face. He spoke to it in a quiet voice, giving it a complex list of instructions. When he finished, he touched it on the nose, infusing it with the magic power and investing it with the will it would need to carry out the task he had set for it.
It bowed to him, then picked up the magic pen in its mouth. As it did, Kenzo lifted his right arm to the horizontal, keeping it steady as the dragon construct began its work. Starting as his shoulder, the dragon etched a binding sigil into his flesh, taking slow and deliberate care. Kenzo winced at the stinging pain, looking away and taking a deep, steadying breath. He closed his eyes and forced himself to ignore the pain as the dragon continued.
After an hour’s work, the dragon dropped the pen to the table and wound itself around Kenzo’s left arm once more, sinking into his flesh and becoming inert once more. He would need to invest it with more magic power later. For now, he lifted his right hand before his face, inspecting the construct’s work. It had carved an elaborate, intricate design into his arm, covering most of his skin. It was comprised of a flame-like motif, encircling his arm all the way out to his fingers. Each motif was actually a collection of tiny runes, clustered so close together they seemed to be solid unless one looked at them with a magnifying glass. Similar to his dragon tattoo, the flame-like designs started at his shoulder and wound down his arm in a clear spiral pattern. Each flame was different in shape, but all contained the same runes.
He had designed the sigil himself. He had taken the basic shape from the grimoire, but combined it with runes for binding and sealing, ensuring the grammarye would keep his darker self from emerging without binding his magic itself. The dragon construct had performed it’s task perfectly, and Kenzo smiled, almost grimly, as he clenched his newly-tattooed fist. “Never again.” he whispered to himself.
TWC: 2396
The Demon Slayer had left the comfort and safety of the Throne Hall, trekking out into the wilderness to seek out a safe place to work on his idea. After around an hour of walking, he stumbled upon the ruins of an old house on the edge of a stream, possibly something belonging to the original inhabitants of Amber Island. It was hardly more than three walls and half a roof, and looked as if it would fall to pieces if he sneezed on it, but it suited his purposes just fine.
Moving with care, he entered the charred building, taking in more detail as he did. The house had never been particularly big, no more than a shack. The walls were of wood, and the remains of the roof looked to be clay tiles. Perhaps not belonging to the noble family of Minstrel that had once occupied the island, then. It had the look of a fishing retreat, maybe of a servant, or someone squatting on the island. For all he knew, it could have stood, half-collapsed, since before the attack that left the island uninhabited. It could have been no more than a few years old. The vines creeping up the walls, threatening to pull the last standing walls down on his head as he stood there, suggested that it was older than that. But, as he thought before, it was perfect for him.
He moved deeper into the little house, finding a small table and a chair. It would have to do for a desk. Before he sat, however, he made sure to test both the chair and the table, ensuring they wouldn’t collapse under his weight or the books he carried. Once satisfied, he sat gingerly upon the chair, carefully setting out the books. Before he had even joined Dies Irae, he’d spent time searching for a method by which he could bind the demon inside him. Over time, he had found four books that seemed as if they would hold the answer he sought.
The first was a book describing a type of magic known as Tattoo Magic. It wasn’t widely known, but it wasn’t uncommon, either. It could be used by civilians or wizards both. It allowed one to draw tattoos upon one’s body, using nothing more than a magic pen, or if one had sufficient talent, their finger. The tattoos could be manipulated at will, since they consisted of magic ink, rather than mundane ink. The color, design, and location of the tattoo could be changed with a mild effort of magic power. Civilians used it as an alternative to permanent tattoos, usually forming circles of users to compare latest designs. Wizards, who possessed greater magic power than civilians, could put the magic to more uses. Tattoos suffused with enough magic power could be used as familars, lying dormant upon the user’s skin until a spark of magic brought them to life. The tattoo would lift from the skin, gaining limited intelligence, depending on how much magic they were infused with at their creation, and would then act according to the wizard’s will. Lesser constructs would have their instructions encoded into their essence at their creation, and would act only according to those instructions when activated, until they ran out of magic power and crumbled into dust. Greater constructs could be instructed on the spot, giving the wizard far more flexibility, and could be ordered to return to the wizard’s skin when low on magic, where they could be re-infused for longer-term use.
The second book was a book of magical theory pertaining to Letter Magic, in particular Rune Magic. The book described many varieties of Rune Magic and the properties thereof. In essence, runes could be written as a ‘rule’, and anything the runes were applied to would be subject to said rules. The book theorized that runes of any language could be used, as long as the user had an intimate understanding of the runes used and a connection to them.
Pursuant to that, Kenzo had located an ancient tome that was similar to a dictionary. It contained every character known from a language supposedly used by gods, and detailed descriptions of meanings. With the knowledge contained within the book of theory, Kenzo hoped to turn said runes into a magic of his own.
The fourth book was an ancient grimoire, containing sigils meant to bind and seal, and the magic behind them. Of particular interest to him was a sigil intending to contain a demon within one’s body. Of other, secondary interest were sigils that could purportedly absorb magic and seal it away.
Kenzo’s plan was to combine all three magics into one, using tattoos to apply runes and to bind his inner demon. To start, he spent a few hours poring over each book, committing every detail to memory. His training with Almoth had somewhat prepared him for this, as the demon had forced him to memorize spells from old scrolls. When the light began to fade, he summoned a small flame to hover above his head, casting enough light to read by without drawing too much magic power away from him.
When he had finished his reading, he made his way back to the guild hall with the books, sleeping there for a time. When morning came, he trekked back out to the cabin, books in hand. ready to begin his second phase of training.
It began with learning the tattoo magic as a base. He had procured for himself a magic pen, which appeared to be nothing more than a piece of smoky gray crystal in the shape of a long, narrow obelisk with a pyramid elongated to a needle tip, but he planned to be able to use his fingers later. Following the instructions in the book, he placed the tip of the pen against the skin of his left forearm, fixing an image into his mind and trying to force the image through the pen and onto his flesh as he began to slowly draw the pen over his skin. It took him several tries to get it right, until finally there was a mild burning sensation and the pen left behind a trail of black magical ink. It took him the rest of the hour to complete the image, that of a snake with minimalistic details, and encode his desired instructions into it. When it was finished, he touched the tattoo with a spark of his will, and the snake peeled from his arm, lifting into the air and circling around his head twice before crumbling to ash. Kenzo gave a triumphant shout which echoed amongst the trees, his hands lifted into the air.
Over the course of the next few weeks, Kenzo mastered the use of the tattoo magic, putting in hours of practice whenever he could spare them. Fortunately, it was something he could do even when traveling for jobs. He forwent a good portion of sleep in favor of practicing, but never allowed the deprivation to affect him too deeply.
The next step was the rune magic, and Kenzo set out to master it as well. He started with the rune for ‘strength.’ Working out over the course of his life had allowed him to form a baseline for how strong he was on a given day. For the next three days, he repeatedly applied the strength rune, attempting to attach it’s form to its meaning in his head and force the meaning into it, the same way he’d needed to force the image of the snake from his mind to get the tattoo magic to work, and tested the effects of the rune by punching the bole of a nearby tree. On the third day, he finally felt the rune take effect, the sensation akin to a tightening in his muscles, a slight downward drag as if he’d suddenly gained mass. When he next punched the tree, the wood shattered, and he had to skip lightly to the side to avoid the tree as it fell, a triumphant grin spreading across his normally lax face.
It took him many weeks to master the rune magic, but he finally did so. Fortunately for him the grammar of the language he had chosen wasn’t terribly complex, allowing him to construct entire sentences with relative ease, combining the effects of multiple runes and adjusting them as needed. For instance, with a simple sentence he could tailor the effect of a strength rune, making it apply only to the limb to which it was applied, or dampening the effect. He could also combine its effects with the rune for ‘pain’, giving him a pain-resistance spell. He could already envision creating tattoo constructs with instructions encoded in runes, possibly allowing him to apply the constructs to other people and allowing them to use them whenever it was necessary. Supposedly the tattoo magic could be used on another person with enough focus, but he hadn’t yet tested it.
With that done, the final step was to master the sealing magic, and that was the step that concerned him the most. It was the reason he’d chosen a location as far from other people as he could. If a seal was applied incorrectly, it could have the opposite effect of what was intended. He could end up sealing his own consciousness away, rather than the demon inside him.
With a quiet sigh and a shake of his head, the Demon Slayer forced his trepidations away. His eye for detail was meticulous, and he had a steady hand capable of incredible fine work. He knew he could copy the seals from the grimoire exactly, as long as he wasn’t nervous about it. Keeping that in mind, he began his work with the simplest, least invasive seal in the book. It wouldn’t do to accidentally bind his magic entirely, and he didn’t necessarily need to test every sigil in the grimoire. So long as he knew how to apply the sigil, it would work. He hoped.
Taking a deep breath, he opened the book to the correct page and took up the magic pen, lightly pressing its tip to the skin on his left wrist. By now, he could apply his tattoos with his fingers, but the pen was capable of finer detail. Keeping his movements slow and stable, he began to copy the sigil that would bind his sense of pain until it was broken. It took him almost ten minutes. When he finished, he could immediately feel the sigil take effect. The slight burning sensation of the tattoo faded into nothingness immediately, leaving him feeling a little numb. Just to further test it, he set down the pen and drew his side knife, making a neat slice across the back of his hand. Nothing. No pain, only the slight tugging of the blade slipping through his flesh. With a satisfied smile, he set the knife down and sketched a quick healing rune across the back of his hand, which seemed to sink into his flesh and disappear as it mended the shallow slice. He then took up the pen again and slashed a mark across the sigil, breaking it and causing it to shatter and vanish as his sense of pain returned.
The next part was going to be tricky, but Kenzo had already taken the necessary measures. His left arm now bore an intricate tattoo of a dragon in the Oriental style, the tail wrapped around his wrist and the body winding around his arm, the head resting on his shoulder blade. He divested himself of his coat and shirt, then stroked a finger over the tattoo and whispered a word. The dragon shivered, then lifted from his skin, hovering in front of his face. He spoke to it in a quiet voice, giving it a complex list of instructions. When he finished, he touched it on the nose, infusing it with the magic power and investing it with the will it would need to carry out the task he had set for it.
It bowed to him, then picked up the magic pen in its mouth. As it did, Kenzo lifted his right arm to the horizontal, keeping it steady as the dragon construct began its work. Starting as his shoulder, the dragon etched a binding sigil into his flesh, taking slow and deliberate care. Kenzo winced at the stinging pain, looking away and taking a deep, steadying breath. He closed his eyes and forced himself to ignore the pain as the dragon continued.
After an hour’s work, the dragon dropped the pen to the table and wound itself around Kenzo’s left arm once more, sinking into his flesh and becoming inert once more. He would need to invest it with more magic power later. For now, he lifted his right hand before his face, inspecting the construct’s work. It had carved an elaborate, intricate design into his arm, covering most of his skin. It was comprised of a flame-like motif, encircling his arm all the way out to his fingers. Each motif was actually a collection of tiny runes, clustered so close together they seemed to be solid unless one looked at them with a magnifying glass. Similar to his dragon tattoo, the flame-like designs started at his shoulder and wound down his arm in a clear spiral pattern. Each flame was different in shape, but all contained the same runes.
He had designed the sigil himself. He had taken the basic shape from the grimoire, but combined it with runes for binding and sealing, ensuring the grammarye would keep his darker self from emerging without binding his magic itself. The dragon construct had performed it’s task perfectly, and Kenzo smiled, almost grimly, as he clenched his newly-tattooed fist. “Never again.” he whispered to himself.
TWC: 2396
