Chapter Text
Aw, there’s no need to be so upset, doll. They were bad men, and I’ll protect you. You don’t have to worry about me, none of this was your fault. You’re just a child, it isn’t like they gave you a choice in worshiping those twisted idols. There’s no reason for you to share the fate of those who forced you into that path. Take my hand and we can move on to a better future, alright? A safer future.
Are you really going to abandon your family and community over some twisted sense of duty? I thought you were better than that. You’re just a pawn to them, you know. Just a tool to further their twisted agendas. But if you really want to leave I won't stop you.
You’ll see how little those precious spirits of yours will help you in the wastes.
You’ll be back.
The meager light of the candles was obscured as smoke filled the dark area. Pinpricks of golden light broke through it like stars through wispy clouds, suggesting a bipedal form with their constellations. A thick scent permeated the air, fragrant greenery weighing down her lungs and the metallic tang of blood hitting her tongue. A wide opening full of gleaming white teeth cut through the darkness, the only bright thing in the desiccated room. She took a step forward towards the circle.
“Well now, this is certainly i͏n̢͞te͝r̸̶ę̡͝s̸̢t҉in͠g̷. It’s been a very long time since anyone's actually summoned me with a proper ritual,” the figure in the circle said. “And such a… traditional location for it. To what do I owe the honor?”
“Demon Alcor, I would like to make a deal with you,” she said, stepping forward and tightly clenching her fingers into fists.
Alcor looked down at the young woman tenaciously meeting his eyes. She was tall and built like a brick house, with a tangled web of scars and scratches covering the dark sepia skin of her arms and legs. Thick bangs covered her forehead, freed from the bindings of the loose braid that held back the rest of her greasy black hair. Her tattered shirt, which may once have been a wide array of light colors but was now a beige camo of miscellaneous stains, was covered in colorfully embroidered protective sigils. Next to her, within reach but outside of the candle’s illumination, was a large and carefully packed bag. He could see waves of excitement and apprehension pouring off her, pulsing over the tightly held core of fear and anger. Her bright aura surrounded him like a blanket on a cold night, a familiar and comforting warmth, calling out to some primordial part of him.
“Oh?” he responded.
“I want you to help me take over the world.” She grinned widely, keeping her dark eyes locked onto his.
Alcor blinked.
“Yeah, alright.”
“Wow, really? That was WAY easier then I was expecting! Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but I had this whole speech planned out and junk.”
“Eh, it’s been a pretty slow couple of centuries. ‘Bout time someone came and stirred things up a little.” He stretched his arms and drifted out of the circle. “So, how exactly do you want to go about this? I give you control of the world -”
“No,” she injected. “I’m doing this the right way or not at all. None of that stupid hand-wavy crap. That’s just begging for something to get corrupted!”
“Alright then, what is it you actually want me to do then, Mizar?”
“Mizar?”
He blinked again. “Right. You wouldn’t… um. Sorry about that. What is your name by the way?”
“No no, that’s actually perfect. Mizar. I think I like it. I think I like it a lot! New life, new name. Mizar. Mizar the Empress. Yeah!”
“That might get confusing,” he said, raising an eyebrow.
“Who cares? Anyway. Anyway!” She punched her palm. “What I want. I want you to come with me. I want your endorsement to those who can be swayed by words, and your magic for those who will be swayed by force. I want your knowledge to help combat the corruption. I want to take this world by storm, to unite the scattered communities, to restore what was lost in the calamity. And I want to do it with you.”
“Well that certainly sounds entertaining. You definitely have my interest. What would I get in exchange for helping you with this?”
“A dedicated following of everyone in the areas I control. Regular sacrifices and a large influence in the eventual system of governance.”
“So you want to start a religion.”
“That’s the jist of it. You give me, and eventually us, protection and advice, and in exchange you get general devotion. Seems pretty fair to me!”
“I never did like other demons… maybe it is about time I stopped tolerating the competition. You got yourself a deal, kid.”
He reached a jet black hand down to her. She grinned broadly, baring her crooked teeth at the demon, and grabbed his smooth hand into a crushing embrace. A cool blue flame erupted around their united hands, and Mizar felt a hauntingly familiar surge of energy briefly pulse through her.
Mizar walked purposefully through the ruined bunker, breaching the thick darkness with an old flashlight with a lopsided crystal awkwardly taped to it. It looked like nothing had originally been in the hallway, which was once presumably empty with smooth white tiles. Currently the cracked, faded tiles were peppered with debris from the fallen ceiling, broken wall, and the leavings of various small animals and other miscellaneous organic matter. It was largely navigable, but occasionally Mizar would have to give Alcor her flashlight to help her climb over a pile of debris.
“How did you find my circle, anyway? I haven’t seen anyone use it in centuries.,” the black figure asked, drifting behind Mizar in the air.
She kicked a piece of charred door out of her path, watching it splinter from the force.
“I’ve been taking whatever old books on magic I can get from ruins since I started stormwalking,” she replied, striding past the peeling grey wallpaper of the ruined corridor. “Information is pretty scattered, but this bunker thing I found is amazing! There’s a whole library that's largely preserved! It looks like the really cool stuff is deeper, but the structural damage around the stairs is completely impassable, so I’m stuck on this floor. There were a bunch of rad skeletons though, so it wasn’t a total waste.”
“If the stairs are out of operation, how did you get down here?”
“Well, I noticed that the corrupted avoided the weird abandoned town above here, right? So I investigated the area, trying to find what might be deterring them. Something that would repel the corrupted would be a pretty big deal, after all. Also I really didn’t have anything else to do while waiting for the swarm that had been chasing me to move on. Anyway! I was looking around, testing localized mana levels and junk, when the ground caved in and I fell through the roof. Guess no one has tromped around up there in a long time, huh?”
Mizar looked into an empty doorway. Rows of tables interspersed with sinks were in various states of decay. The far half of the room was largely caved in, and the furniture near it was heavily charred. Shelves full of amber jars line the walls.
“So… you’re stuck here, is what you’re saying?”
“Yep!” She laughed loudly. “So far at least. There’s probably another way out somewhere. This place is huge!”
“Are you looking for a way out? Cause the central stairs were the only way to the surface.”
“Nah, I got better things to do than leave right now. I still know where my hole is, anyway. Worst case I can climb up some stuff. When I was poking around earlier I think I saw some old junk that could be useful.” She walked through a broken wall and looked around. “Oh man jackpot! Do you think that any of this is still edible?”
Her flashlight illuminated a large vending machine laying on its side. Ancient coins spilled out from a long tear in the rusted metal.
“Edible is a relative term.”
“Damn straight. The question was pretty rhetorical though, no way am I passing up the mystery ancestral banquet!” Standing to its side she detached a short staff from her large backpack and smashed the thin glass of the decrepit machine. “You’re super old, right? Anything here you would recommend?”
“The stripey ones are largely honey. There’s a minute chance they survived the centuries enough that you won't instantly get food poison.”
“Those are the kinda odds I like to hear,” she said, scooping up a black and yellow hexagonal container. She dragged a wooden table to where the machine lay and perched on its metal side.
“There’s a tear tab in the corner.” Alcor mentioned, after watching Mizar futilely struggle to part the two halves of the plastic shell.
Mizar carefully took the seam out of her mouth and glared at him. She slowly set the snack on the table, and without taking her eyes off of his, she detached a large blade from its hilt on her thick leather skirt and stabbed the container, embedding the knife into the old wooden table. Honey oozed out of the hole, seeping down the blade into the crack in the table.
“Or you could do that. Never let it be said that you can’t solve your problems by stabbing them.”
“What can I say? Sometimes the reassuring, constant presence of knives is the only thing that keeps a person sane in this ever-changing, chaotic world.” She grabbed the leaking container and licked the stab wound.
She stared at the hexagon in her hands. “Oh. My stars. This is the sweetest thing I’ve ever had? It’s kind of disgusting? I want more? Was everything this gross before the calamity? I’ve read that people tended to have sweeter things, but this is a bit much, isn’t it?”
“You’re not really suppose to just eat the honey. There was a separate pocket with like, cookies or something. It would have been really obvious if you had actually opened it.”
“Eh, it’s better this way. Tastes like victory! Whatever ‘cookies’ are is probably super boring.” She pulled her knife out of the table and stared at the sticky blade. “You want anything while we’re here?”
“I think knowing what these things are suppose to taste like would probably ruin what little appeal rotten vending machine fare ever had.”
She shrugged. “Your loss, then! I think it’s time to move on.”
“You know where we’re going?”
“Of course! We need to find something to clean my knife! Or possibly find those neat machines I saw earlier. But mostly to clean my knife.”
“Just the sort of well thought out plan I would expect from a future world leader.”
“Hey! Decisive action is important.” She rubbed the flat of her blade against the corner of the doorframe as she headed out. “As are clean knives. Clean knives are actually one of the most important parts of leadership.”
“I’ve always liked bats as weapons myself”
“Bats are pretty limited use, though.” She ducked under a flat light fixture dangling from the ceiling by fraying cords. “Knives have all sorts of application. Pretty hard to get a controlled amount of your own blood with a bat, for instance.”
“But bats have style.”
“Anything has style if you have enough adhesive. Oh hey! The things!” She stepped into a small, relatively intact room. Plastic bins full of something rotting lined the walls on shelves. The far wall was occupied by a long metal table with two bulky machines on it. “Once, back when I was a part of a wandering community, we stopped by a village that had one of these. My exponent showed me how to make it work… They’re really great!”
“That’s a sewing machine.”
“Yep! Like I said, I’m doing this the proper way. Gotta start with the basics.” She grinned widely at Alcor, pulling a glistening banner of shining golden fabric from a side pocket of her backpack. “It’s time to establish our brand.”