Chapter 8-216: Bonds and Pacts, Oaths and Promises (1/2)

-Immortals are notoriously patient, but they are also big on cost-benefit. One soul for the loss of all that power is a horrendous trade, as my Hellpact is constantly protesting to me.- He also smirked. -It will come down to whether pride and saving face outweighs the cost... and potentially waiting a hundred years to get a soul just shows how much they want a soul, and will help scare off some of the fools.-

-The goal is lower turnover, at any rate. Whether that comes from people not swearing, or the Pacts being tied up for a century at a time, makes no difference on our end.-

-And all you have to be is understanding and nice about it. Strange, that.-

-Well, there’s always some deranged dogs who have to be put down, or zealots or fanatics. That never changes, either.-

-No, no, it doesn’t,- Master Fred /agreed fatalistically. -It is good talking to someone with an awareness of the metaview. Even most of the Heavenbound simply do not think about their job in overarching terms like this. They just want to go off and fight evil and injustice for the Good Guys.-

-Charisma and Constitution are the hallmarks of a Warlock, not Wisdom or Intelligence. Taking time to sit down and think things through when you could be about righting wrongs and doing good deeds tends to be something that happens as you get older, and realize that the why is more important than the what.-

-The Order of the Tome,- he /nodded. -Your progenitor was a member of that, as, I assume, was Grandmaster Sole?-

-Oh, very much so. Sole is also a Heaven-and-Hell Warlock.-

He turned his head slowly back towards me leaning there on his wide back. -Wasn’t he one of the gamers? How did that happen?- Leaving /unsaid that if it happened AFTER the game, it was total idiocy.

-He thought he’d be clever, trying to do it in game. He swore the Hellpact first, then bargained for a Heavenpact by only doing good deeds. Heaven agreed, at a price: He was bound by an Oath of Humility. He never received credit for any of his flashy victories, or great deeds... and that Oath still applies.

-He’s like one of the most important people on the planet, knows more Spirits than anybody, and everyone basically forgets about him all the time... and when they remember, it’s because he’s usually showing up just before a disaster does.

-He’s also got a faceless Hell Contract, which Hell finds DELIGHTFUL. They won’t get his soul, but they bind up his second Pact Slot, and he has to display their Sign. He ends up acting as an adjudicator for them with Heaven time and again, or between Hell’s parties on the mortal plane, despite not wanting anything to do with them.-

Master Fred didn’t know quite what to say to that, and finally just sighed. -They always find an advantage somewhere.-

-Aye. His drain on their power to vivus they just consider... an expensive payment for services rendered. It’s too convenient to have him on retainer, and he can’t stop it.-

-So stupid decisions in a game become stupid decisions in reality?-

-Don’t get me started on people who couldn’t choose decent character names.-

He even managed a small /chuckle at that one...

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We were up on an island cliff off the coast of Argentina and Chile, a random chunk of stone sitting there getting battered in the seas, looking out over the seascape ahead of us.

-That’s some impressive seas,- Master Fred /noted, -and I think this is a good day.-

This was literally one of the windiest places on the planet. Here the Pacific met the Atlantic, while the icy waters of the Southern Ocean threw everything into conflict, adding bunches of icebergs for excitement.

It was five hundred miles across Drake’s Passage to the Southern Shetland Islands off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Ten and twenty-foot seas were far from unusual here, even with the Haze, and down here, the Haze might just have made it worse.

-Any Pact problems?- The wind was howling, but he kept that at bay effortlessly as a Stormbound; it was just easier to communicate /tellepathically.

-Three oceans are arguing here in their sleep. It’s like they are having a gargantuan pillow fight in their dreams, or something.- I found myself snickering, despite myself. -The winds are using the excuse to really let go, working out some aggression under the Haze. I can see why the place is so off-limits to shipping since the Shroud arrived.

-But, to answer your question, no. I’m just passing through with a Wavebound Pact here, not bothering them or stirring up trouble.-

-And Antarctica?- I had to /ask.

-I’ll see when I get there. Storm and Heaven should be enough to let me pass without issue, but the Spirits love us multi-Pact Warlocks, and even if they don’t like Shvaughn, they still bug her when she travels.-

-Yeah, well, when you eat their Landbound and become a de facto Warlock of theirs who keeps ignoring them, you get what you deserve,- I /sniffed without sympathy.

-And yet she’s still around without any issues, like she knows how to smooth talk and mollify them on demand,- he /noted drily, and I had to agree. -Advise her to drop the Consumed Pacts and just swear a rotating Landbound Pact instead when she does so. Frees up the Pact for the Land and still lets them bug her when she’s around... and her to bug them.-

I didn’t like telling a Warlock how to run their Pacts, and Shvaughn being who she was especially, but that wasn’t bad advice. Monopolizing Landbound Pacts was not nearly as important as doing so to Dark Pacts, after all. She didn’t have to snuff the souls, who probably didn’t want to die, either. Picking them up as Secondary revolving Pacts was a good compromise on all sides.

I just /flicked it off as clinical, dry advice to her. She took it, noted it, thought it over, and /replied she would seriously consider it once she was done with her current project of starting an empire... and was there any way she could replicate the ability to administer Blessings, pretty please?

I smirked. She was Primos, but she could still Bind and Seal with the correct Patterns, and her Warlock abilities would suffice for the magic.

That being said, she wasn’t and couldn’t be an Ur-Priest, stealing the ability and cutting away the original.

-It’s derived from Binding and Sealing a succubus, and tapping their powers,- I /informed her calmly. -However, you’d be restricted to three uses a day, you’d get the lesser version, and it would be powered by demonic energy, leading right back to you if someone knows what they are doing.-