Interlude I – The Vaunt

The Demonic Plane - Domain of The Vaunt

An enormous shard of basalt floated aimlessly, orbiting through a sky tinted azurite—evidence of the tens of thousands of cycles spent in the presence of The Vaunt. His overbearing pact aspected power carried an aura that kept the entirety of his domain cloaked in never ending whispers.

Around, other fractured slices of blackened rock orbited. While not nearly as large as the one that held The Vaunt’s Chancery, they were still quite enormous. They served as secondary islands and spaces, sporting a multitude of libraries, residences, and archives.

Yet, despite the auditorial power The Vaunt’s domain held, less than ten thousand called it their home. And of those, even fewer were truly demons.

But all of them held one thing in common.

Protocol.

***

With careful eyes, The Vaunt monitored several dozen tally newborns skittering about. They climbed the shelves of charter stones, pausing to check readings before continuing on. Holding The Board seat of pact came with certain privileges. One of which was the ability to monitor some information that was not released to the rest of The Table.

The Vaunt leaned back in his chair, letting the atmosphere absorb him. The ceilings held up by columns of parchment. The shelves of stone and scrolls. The pages that fell from the ceiling like snow, overleaf and clauses peeling off at his very whim.

His domain. And it reeked of pact. So very, very sweet.

Though, a curious thorn reared its ugly head. A feeling that meant something was… off.

“Him again…” He beckoned, and a bright orange charter stone slid towards him. It was that of The Creator, chair of forge. Of all the board members, his outputs were declining the quickest. Yet, without the proper project charter filed by The Creator himself, The Vaunt was powerless to see what he was doing.

There were… workarounds. But they left him exposed, and he wasn’t willing to go that far. Not after such a powerful demon. If it came to blows, he was under no illusion which of the two would remain on top.

“Molten fool.” Hissing in frustration, he tossed the stone back. Three tally demons squeaked, pouncing to catch it and return the orange stone back to its place in the line.

He’d hardly let his attention stray elsewhere when yet another tally keeper shrieked.

“Anomaly! Anomaly!”

“I just returned the—oh. A different stone? Now what…” One of the newborns had paused in their work, skittering appendages tapping at a stone on the opposite side of the wall.

“Show me.” The Vaunt gestured, and the words peeled from the stone. They floated in front of him, becoming legible at his will. Unlike The Creator’s stones, he could peer further into this one. It was of a low ranking table member. While it didn’t name which—he could find that in a moment—the energy it gave off made it clear it was not one of significant power.

Wrath disparity identified — amount nominal.

Brood disparity identified — amount nominal.

“Two disparities?!” That caught The Vaunt off guard. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen one disparity in an aspect, nominal or not. But two?

Rage began to seethe in his parchment lined skin. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.” With another thought, the stone turned, and he began parsing what little the plane gave him.

It took some doing, but The Vaunt had been at this for a very, very long time. He knew how to weaponize protocol. And, at this moment, it pointed at a very specific chair holder.

“Obi!” he snapped.

Obiseus, keeper of ledgers and lurker of that which was hidden, rose from The Chancery’s floorboards. An uneven sphere of sapphire flesh, sporting dozens of eyeballs on all sides.

“Pact master. You called,” said Obiseus.

“Tell me of Emmeth.”

The floating demon paused, half of his pupils closing. “The demon of youth. Tri influences. Pact, Void, and Brood. Auditorial activity scheduled on all investments for 28 days from today after accelerated intervention during the last table meeting.”

“I know this, Obi. What I’m asking is what I do not know. Has the same discrepancy on his disbursement schedule held true?”

“Pact master, I will remind you that demonic regulatory statutes are quite clear on this subject. Without a fully completed audit, we have no bearings to peer into the—”

The Vaunt slammed down a fist on his oversized desk, symbols and scripts peeling off it and bouncing away. “What have I always told you, Obi! You fool! Protocol is best served when paired with properly motivated initiative. Yet here you are, doing the same dance. Spitting the most obvious statutory guidelines at me as if I’m but a child of the pact!”

Obiseus blinked slowly, hovering back and forth. He just gave The Vaunt that same, tireless expression.

The silence in the room stretched on, only the skittering of the tally demons breaking it.

It took less than a handful of seconds before The Vaunt once again lost his patience. He threw up his arms in exasperation. “A double aspected disparity. A double one, Obi. The fucker.”

“That is quite irregular, pact master.”

“Quite indeed! I wonder if the little rat thought they’d simply balance out.”

“They do not, pact master. The disparity would compound, further compounding the values in question.”

“Yes I—gah. See this is what I mean, Obi. Look here. Do you see?” He gestured at the stone.

“Unlike you, this child understands initiative. He, however, does not fully comprehend the importance of protocol. And that will be his downfall, Obi.”

The pact master flung the stone from his desk, watching it clatter to the floor. This time, no tally demon was there to catch it. They could sense their master’s ire.

“Yet,” he continued, “for the life of me, I can not comprehend why the fool would pursue un-sanctioned investments. Emmeth must know the plane would catch on, even if he thought I wouldn’t. Does he think he has a way to deal with those consequences?”

“Pact master, are you actually, as you say, certain?”

“Am I?” The Vaunt chuckled. “On top of the dual disparity flag, his last monthly report at the table had shrinkage. Shrinkage! I saw it with my own eyes. Have you ever even heard of such a thing on the ledgers?”

Obiseus thought for a moment, before slowly answering. “I… have not. But that does not mean it can not be. Just that it has not.”

The Vaunt snorted.

Unfazed, his servant went on. “And you believe this shrinkage to be of..?”

“Of things the child should not be doing,” snapped The Vaunt. “And if he does have a plan, the more time we give him, the more likely it might actually result in… something. As to what that something is, the plane only knows. But I won’t have it. I won’t, Obi. I’ll tell you this now, I haven’t sat on this board for thousands of cycles only to have my record marred by that of a freshly named chair holder.”

Obiseus blinked his dozens of eyes at his master. “I do not know what you wish of me, pact master. But this seems to be more of a reaction than such a newly born demon deserves.”

“Obi. You’ve known me far too long for that. The table is everything. And it can only be everything because protocol exists. It’s how I formed my ascension.”

“As you say, pact master.”

The Vaunt stared at his servant bitterly. “You know, Obi, I wish you’d just show a little modicum of initiative on matters like this…” Sighing, he turned to the wall of charter stones and metrics. “But we digress. I admit I do not like the child. He has no respect for protocol, and I mean for him to learn the error of such. Even if it costs him the chair he sits upon.”

His old friend shifted, before hovering away from his master and towards the wall of glowing stones. “I know that look, pact master. What is it you are contemplating?”

“Getting an early peek. I fear that waiting until this plays out might allow this whole thing to spiral beyond what protocol dictates. That would be… bad.”

“Without the start of an audit, we have no bearing to gain any additional information of substance.”

“Yes, yes. You’ve said as much already. However…” With a snap of parchment, The Vaunt called upon The Demonic Compendium on Auditorial Conduct. He let the glowing tome thump to his desk. With precise, purposeful movements, he began shuffling through the pages. Then, finding what he was after, he paused.

“Obi. Are you familiar with Section 88, subsection three?”

Obi blinked twice. “Interim Disclosure?”

“Correct.”

His servant blazed bright, before dimming. His blue skin turned darker and darker, until it was practically purple. An aura descended. Not as powerful as The Vaunt, but that of a peak fifth tier demon. He uttered two words.

“Leave us.” They resounded throughout The Chancery, the walls of scrolls shuddering.

Dozens of skittering forms halted, turning to stare at Obiseus. They took a fraction of a second to parse the meaning of his order, before immediately wheeling around and fleeing towards the multitude of vents set in the floor. In mere seconds, the room was vacated.

Only the shudders of its walls as it orbited the stretches of The Vaunt’s domain broke the silence of the chamber.

“Was that really necessary?”

“Vaunt,” rumbled Obiseus. “You are pact. Pact is you. But everything has a cost. Do not forget this.”

The domain’s lord took a moment to absorb the shift in his servant’s demeanor. It didn’t change what he intended, but he did find it a fresh change of pace. How such an old demon could have such varying emotions. From recitation to frustration. That’s what that purple meant, after all. Frustration at his master.

It did not matter.

“Obi. Protocol will be observed. And any demon at The Table will learn this. Especially Emmeth.”

“But at what cost?!”

“Whatever cost protocol demands!”

“Pact master…” ground out Obiseus. “Have you read the section in its entirety?”

Rolling his eyes, the old demon cleared his throat and recited it verbatim:

‘Where an accelerated audit schedule stands active upon a member’s holdings, the scheduling authority may petition the ledger for interim readings of said holdings in advance of monthly Table disbursement. All figures so disclosed are strictly preemptive. Any irregularity found therein allows only the scheduling authority to enact an accelerated timeline on relevant auditorial actions.’

“If that was all, this clause would have been invoked far more frequently. What of the last line, pact master? What of the price?” Obiseus grimly stared at him.

Rolling his eyes, the demon continued on to the final line of section 88, subsection three:

‘Petition shall be placed by direct line, toll payable upon connection.’

“When is the last time you paid a toll, pact master?”

The Vaunt did not reply. Instead, he shifted his attention to the antique phone sitting on his oversized desk. Like the speaker, it too had old, yellowed plastic. From it, a cord dangled off the desk, vanishing into the floorboards. On it, a small tag read four words:

Board Member Toll Phone

Moving an old, weathered hand, the demon grabbed the phone and held it to his ear. With the other, he typed two numbers, signifying the section.

88.

Three long tones sounded. Obi watched on, disappointment evident in his features. The Vaunt, however, just licked his craggly lips and waited.

Beep.

“Pact master, I… I believe you should hang up.” Then, after a brief hesitation, Obi added one last word. “Please.”

Again, The Vaunt did not reply. Instead, he inhaled deeply before reaching forward and pressing another number. The subsection.

3.

Together, the call was complete.

8-8-3.

“What a number,” mumbled The Vaunt. He himself had never even dialed it before. Yet, here he stood. Doing just that. After all these years, a new number dialed still got his blood flowing.

The moment he pushed that last digit, Obiseus only shook his head, before letting the whispers of pact swallow him away. He slid from the room, leaving it entirely devoid of any creature save its master.

A loud, robotic request came from the line.

You are connected. Toll payment due. Processing. Processing.

Unlike beings of flesh, The Plane did not waver. It did not hesitate. It followed a process. And when the process said act, it acted.

Internally, a sensation like having a limb torn from his body filled The Vaunt’s mind. Externally, the sound of ripping parchment sliced through The Chancery.

Pain like no other invaded the pact master. It snaked through him, blazing the fury of void and pulling its price from his very being.

In moments, it was done.

A tiny chunk of his mind, his most sacred forest, was now blank. Like the words of pact had been erased in a single footnote of a single subsection. A tiny, minuscule part of the sprawling mindscape that was The Vaunt. But it was there, and that alone was enough. A grating, voidful emptiness that the demon lord was quickly finding maddening.

Hissing, he toppled from his padded desk chair. He called upon the power of his domain, and with a shudder, it replied. Symbols and clauses peeled from the walls, before coating his body like armor. Like serpents, they slid within his mouth, his ears, his eyes, his nose. Any orifice that allowed them to access their master’s internal workings.

Slowly, very slowly, he applied a bandaid of parchment and script against the void in his mind. New text did not appear, but for now, a coating covered that missing piece of him.

For a time, being was all that was. The Vaunt, the pain, and the bandaid.

Despite it all, his hand never moved, even sprawled out as he was on the floor. Old, dried fingers of flesh still held the phone against his ear. The winding cord reached, allowing him to stay put, and wait.

And wait he did. Until, at last, the answer came.

In his free hand, a glowing parchment appeared. Just like the ones each demon received every month at the table. Only this time, it read a name that was not his own at the top:

Emmeth The Youthful

Without waiting, The Vaunt cast his gaze down and down the report. Past the executive summary, and right to the disbursement report where…

“Hah! I knew it! Obi! Obi, I knew it, that little fucker. He’s trying to fuck us! The shrinkage isn’t gone. It’s growing… Ten per day and now… Now… Seventy?!” he roared. “Seventy?!”

Parchment began to pour from the wall, making what once was a light flurry turn into a blizzard inside the great Chancery. He had paid a price. But for it, he now had the standing to abide by protocol and call upon a secondary acceleration.

Which meant both a faster audit—and more importantly, a paper trail. One he could invoke should Emmeth truly stray too far from the path.

Then, with a great heave, The Vaunt screamed an order into the toll phone.

“As the pact master, board member of pact and the authority granted therein, I invoke a second auditorial acceleration on the basis of compounding irregularities from interim disclosure!”

A burst of static came from the phone. So sharp The Vaunt nearly dropped it. Fortunately, he didn’t. If he had, he would have missed the delicious reply.

Secondary audit acceleration.

Processing. Processing.

Accepted.