What We Do to Survive

Pacing slowly around my room, I tried to hide my nerves as I meticulously triple checked every inch of the intricate ritual circle. I’d cleared out a large section of my room, moving all of the furniture and other obstructions to one side to leave a large clear area. The space was further encased in a powerful isolation ward that would hopefully prevent any outside influences from impacting the magic. It wasn’t exactly a dedicated ritual room, but it should do in a pinch.

A naked Rea knelt at the center of the circle, several symbols drawn in an alchemically treated mixture of our bloods precisely positioned on her hands, feet, forehead, and across her back. For the first time in over a week, she was mostly unrestrained, though the manacles themselves remained tightly clasped around her wrists and ankles. Despite her lack of bindings, she sat nearly motionless inside a small circle, only the trembling of her hands and the slow rising of her chest giving away that she was anything but a statue.

I took a deep breath and stepped through the ward, carefully placing my feet to avoid smudging any of the runes. It had taken most of the previous day to prepare them and the ‘ink’ required time to set. Screwing them up now would put me back a painful amount of painstaking effort.

Rea perked up at the sound of my quiet footfalls, eyes rising from the floor to stare fearfully as I slowly moved towards her. I nodded approvingly and her body relaxed slightly, a tiny trace of tension vanishing from her shoulders. I’d laid out very clearly what I would do to her if she disobeyed me now. My next command had been to stay in her spot without moving, something she’d done a commendable job at for the last several hours.

I felt slightly bad about it, I imagined it had not been at all pleasant to kneel on cold, hard stone for most of the morning, but I wasn’t taking any chances with this. I would have preferred to wait another week or two, to give her more time to understand her new reality, but Miranda’s report had made me accelerate my plans.

I wanted to snatch Briella and her companions at the end of the week to give me the most time possible to break them in before someone noticed. That meant I needed to prepare their bindings, plan how I would capture them, and practice the magic I planned to use on them. Thus, I had to move forward with Rea’s binding as soon as possible. Not only would it give me much needed experience with this sort of ritual casting, but a magically bound servant would be very useful in the coming days.

To that end, I had decided to cast the binding ritual on Rea today. It was Saturday, which meant that as long as everything went well, I would have most of a week to prepare. Over the last few days, I’d dedicated most of my free time to practicing the casting components and modifying the ritual sections of the binding I’d chosen to use on my new pet. I was rather confident the magic would work, that wasn’t even a question. My concern was that Rea was insufficiently worn down and would be unable to swear a binding oath. If her conviction to obey was insufficiently ‘honest’, the spell would fail no matter how well I executed the ritual.

In order to maximize my chances, I’d given the poor girl something of an ultimatum. If she swore the oath truly, obeyed my every order and fully cooperated with my casting, I would ensure she had a comfortable life as my slave. If she tried to act up…

I stopped directly in front of the girl, looking down on her with hard eyes and an expressionless mask. “I see you are at least marginally capable of obeying orders today. I’m glad to see it.”

I crouched down beside her, moving slowly to ensure my bare feet did not brush the edges of the arcane symbols. I reached out with one hand, cupping her chin and raising her head to meet my eyes. “I’m going to get started soon. Do you remember what I told you?”

She nodded quickly, then froze again. Her skin felt hot and clammy, sweat beading on her forehead despite the chill of the air. I could almost taste the fear wafting off her, a palpable energy that just barely brushed against my magic.

“Very good dear. Would you like to remind me what I’m going to do if you decide to be a bad girl?”

She nodded shakily, then opened her mouth and whispered, “You- you said you would- peel off my skin like an apple. Rub salt and acid on my b-bare flesh. Burn my limbs and tear out my teeth one by-” she whimpered loudly, trying to both stay still and shy away from the hand resting on her face.

I nodded slowly, “Very good dear. I think we would both prefer it if I didn’t have to do that, hmm?” More whimpering was my only response, but that was good enough. Fear of torture wasn’t quite good enough with more powerful bindings, but for something like this, it should be sufficient. As long as she truly believed I would go through with it and that she was desperate enough to do anything to avoid the punishment, the oaths would take root.

I took no pleasure from her fear, but it was necessary. I’d heard of people who took gratification from the suffering they caused, but that wasn’t me. Sure I’d enjoyed being a little rough with Mistletoe, but that was different. Just thinking about doing some of the things I’d threatened Rea with made me slightly uncomfortable.

Still, if she forced the issue, I would go through with it. I didn’t want to get into a habit of not following through on my promises. That sort of thing had consequences, tiny shifts in your soul that could build up over months and years and weaken certain forms of magic. I was willing to go through some personal discomfort to help enforce Rea’s terror.

I gently patted her cheek, then stood up. “We’ll be getting started in just a moment. Do you remember your part?”

“Ye- yes sir. This one remembers.”

Right. I turned away from the girl and took a deep breath to settle my nerves. I could do this. Just like I’d practiced…

I stepped into the other smaller circle and briskly undressed, careful to not damage any of the symbols drawn on my own skin. I was wearing only a light linen robe to ward off the chill, the thin material well suited to not scuffing runes drawn under it.

Balling up the fabric, I tossed it roughly in the direction of my bed. It didn’t make it, but that was fine. I would have to wash it later anyway and it had gone far enough to land outside the ritual area. Still, that would be another thing to account for next time. I would have to remember to disrobe before entering the circle, lest a poor throw screw something up at the last moment.

I took another deep breath, scanning over the ritual circle one last time before I began. Everything looked just as it should. A large circle drawn in Rea’s blood and alchemically infused ink enclosed most of the open space. The circle was split into five even sections, each section containing twenty-five carefully drawn runes. At the center of the circle were two more circles, separated from each other by just a few feet. Both were clear of runes, with Rea kneeling in one and me standing in the other.

It was a somewhat standard design, more complicated then the three by three by three design I’d used back in the day for Miranda’s binding, but not nearly as intricate as some of the rituals I’d seen in the grimoire. I’d made some minor modifications to the circle, adapting it slightly for my specific goals and target, but I hadn’t changed anything particularly important. Professor Williams had always stressed the importance of personalizing rituals, but still admitted it was often fine to mostly work off of predesigned spells like this one.

Exhaling, I let my mana expand out from my body, rapidly flooding the entire enclosed ritual circle with my presence. The magic in the runes reacted to my mana, starting to glow with a dark red inner light.

I stretched out my arms, carefully directing the diffuse energy to follow the loops and whorls I’d drawn out across the floor. I marveled slightly at how… easy it felt. I remembered this part being agonizingly difficult, my puny reserves struggling to encompass the much smaller ritual circle as I painstakingly traced out the symbols I’d drawn with my mana. Now? It was almost trivial.

Two years ago, it had taken me half an hour to charge a twenty-seven rune ritual. I’d had to go one at a time, touching each symbol to individually charge it with my mana. I’d been wiped out afterwards, barely able to stand for several hours and unable to use any magic for two entire days.

Today, I charged the entire circle in a matter of minutes, mana sweeping outwards to fill each symbol until they all shone brightly in the dim light of my room. I left the runes on Rea’s skin for last and the girl winced in pain as I flooded them with mana. Since it was my own mana powering them, I could barely feel the runes on my own skin, but I’d heard it was much less pleasant for other people. Judging from her expression, it was even worse than I’d expected, but for my purposes, that was actually a bonus.

With the circle fully charged, I began to weave my mana into the spell construct that would direct the ritual’s power. A corner of my mind was sufficient to control the power in the runes while I focused the majority of my attention on carefully forming the fourth circle spell matrix.

Finally, I felt the spell snap into place, and began the final portion of the spell. “Oh captive of mine. You kneel before me in appeal, seeking an end to suffering.” My voice echoed strangely through the air, lines of mana twisting as they reacted to my words. The lines felt somewhat strange on my tongue, but I’d avoided messing too much with them. The ritual I was using was Gulivine in origin and used the nation’s overly formal grammar for the oath. I’d slightly adapted the words, but had kept the tone. That sort of thing could be surprisingly important to the performance of a ritual, and I wasn’t confident enough in my skills to modify them too much.

Rea responded just as I’d taught her, voice trembling but clear, “Oh just master, this petitioner begs for relief. Oh just master, free this worthless soul from torment.”

“This lord hears and judges. Through service, you may find salvation.” The air in the circle trembled and the lights dimmed. The symbols on the ground shifted and writhed like live snakes, tendrils of my mana swirling through the air like schools of fish.

“This worthless sinner is blessed by your judgment. Its mind is yours to command, its body yours to use, its soul yours to serve.”

“Oh slave of mine, I hear and accept. Your will serves mine, your heart serves mine, your spirit serves mine. Rise and find a new world of meaning.”

Mana surged through the air, converging on Rea and piercing through her body as it wrapped tightly around her spirit. I felt the link snap into place a moment later as she weakly pushed herself to her feet.

I let my shoulders sag as I gasped for air. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been the last time, but that had still taken a lot out of me. I would have to prepare better next time. The binding I planned to use on Briella was a seven section ritual, which meant nearly three times as many symbols to charge and maintain. I would have to commission a few potions of focus from the academy, otherwise I doubted I would be able to maintain so many separate mana constructs all at once.

I’d never used one before, but I’d heard that their effect was rather miraculous for some things. They were based on one of the most useful and well known eighth circle spells of all time, ‘Boundless Focus’. It allowed the caster to split their attention in a way that was a strict improvement from the simple techniques I’d been taught in my first year to do so.

It would be costly, but after my recent windfall I wasn’t as worried about that as before. At the start of the year, I had received twenty one Avalon points at the start of the semester, putting me to twenty seven when combined with the six I still had from the past two years. I expected the potion to cost me anywhere from one to five points, depending on the potency, but that was manageable since I could not afford to purchase some materials from outside the Academy.

Avalon points were the internal currency that students and alumni used to purchase valuable materials, aid, and items from the Academy. At the start of each year, ten-thousand points were distributed evenly across each grade at the academy. Since there were just under five hundred people left in my year, I received twenty one points. I knew I could also get more by selling my own products and services, but it was typically recommended that lower year students not bother with such things. There were hundreds of alumni with far more experience and insight always eager to earn points themselves.

Still, that was something to think about later. For now, I would focus on my newly bound slave. I stepped forward, gently placing a hand on her shoulder to steady her. “Well done,” I said in my most calming tone, “I’m very pleased with your performance.”

Stretching out a hand behind me, I summoned a warm blanket I’d left folded on my chair, the isolation ward having collapsed with the ritual’s completion. I wrapped the heavy fabric around her shoulders and guided her across the room towards a small cot I’d set up in advance.

“You’re probably exhausted after all those hours on the floor. Feel free to relax for the rest of the night, stretch your legs and get some sleep. I’ll outline your new duties in the morning.”

She nodded mutely, sinking onto the thin mattress I’d gotten for her and wrapping her arms around her chest. I patted her lightly on the head and left her to her own business. With the soul bond in place, she couldn’t even think about trying to hurt me, so it was perfectly safe to leave her unbound from now on.

I would remove her collar in the morning, though the manacles would stay. I liked the visual effect and I expected I would still need to occasionally punish her. Miranda had shown that even with magical slave oaths, it was sometimes important to… discipline your servants.

As I began to move my furniture back into place, I gave a meaningful look at the hooks still embedded in one wall. I’d rather enjoyed how she looked hanging up on those. Perhaps she could serve as a decoration sometimes. If nothing else, seeing something like that might be good for breaking my next target’s spirit. I would have to enchant them to make sure she didn’t asphyxiate, or something else of that nature, but it was an intriguing idea.