The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

Black roots stretched out across the sky. They formed a circle around the crater that Grand Meridian once was. Every scout mark that hadn’t fallen over still stood in silent vigil across the region. Each of them pointed towards the ground where the First Feast would be held, intersecting roads halfway to abandoned crowns and busted doors with strangers names carved over older scripts. The ground itself hadn’t been made for armies.

It had been made to harvest choices.

Austin Veyron’s group arrived at the outer ring of feeder roots just as the first horn of black was sounded.

Candidate circles appeared across the crater floor below them. Lia’s and Mara’s signatures glowed white where they materialized beside two of them, each pair safeguarded by portable ledger roots. Austin Veyron and Calder had marks above a central seat. Sable’s crown pulsed on the far edge of the ritual grounds, caught between acceptance and denial of the Emperor’s command.

The road harvest commenced.

Lines of blackness shot across the open ground toward border settlements, toward hospital routes, and straight toward Grand Meridian itself. Every living soul with a white signature on their wrist became a potential voluntary extraction point. The common ledger exploded in brightness while Nahlia and Elena fought tooth and nail to keep those routes voluntary.

"Split the field." Austin Veyron commanded.

Veyra, Rin, Maelis, and Sarielle bolted for candidate circles closest to them. Calder and the scribes sprinted for the trench where the road’s command feed poured out. Austin Veyron charged toward the black throne materializing from the center of the crater.

It wasn’t empty.

The Hunger Emperor loomed over it.

[ACCEPT SOURCE. END FEAST.]

[ALL WITNESSES PRESERVED.]

The offer was cruel, beautiful even in how fair its terms were presented.

Take this and everyone gets to live.

Except the source would ensure the Feast occurred again. Everyone who drew breath would be preserved at Austin Veyron’s discretion, fed to him as fuel until he absorbed their names and everything they walked on top of.

"You have proven you can protect them." The Emperor spoke through its roots.

’NOW PROVE YOU CAN KEEP THEM.’

Austin Veyron said nothing.

Instead he sliced through the first black route line tethered to throne.

The crater erupted.

Road wardens sprang forth from every side, thousands upon thousands of shapeless shadows woven from crown roots and ancient debt paid to it by kingdoms that no longer recognized their place in this world. Veyra intercepted them at Lia and Mara’s circle. Rin carved through crowns that tried to latch onto Lia and Mara. Maelis and Sarielle built a wall of flame and silver between the scribes and command-by-command choice Calder made severing road links.

Sable stood alone on the far side of the field.

The Emperor pounced at her moment of hesitation.

’HERALD. ENFORCE THE SOURCE.’

Sable raised her hands.

For a moment longer blackness rushed towards Austin Veyron.

Then Sable shoved it back into the ground beneath the throne.

The attack obliterated the central seat.

"You belong to me." The Hunger Emperor rumbled across the open field.

She fell to her knees, a bright red line tracing down the base of her neck where her crown sat half swallowed by her skin. "I belonged to fear," Sable whispered. "Not you."

The black road writhed across the field.

Austin used the distraction to close the distance. He planted both hands atop the throne itself without immediately consuming it. Instead he ate away at the root command word linked to the throne by the Feast, the line of succession that proclaimed only one person could preserve life by taking ownership over it.

White lifelines flared across the crater.

Candidate circles burst open.

Lia and Mara stepped away from them.

Calder cut the last command thread linking the trench to Grand Meridian but the mark on his wrist flared black in response. The throne had sacrificed one contender to Austin Veyron, now it tilted itself to make a meal of Lia.

The Hunger Emperor revealed itself upon First Feast grounds.

Far past the horizon of the crater, an incomprehensible shape shifted into existence. It took more than one body to house such hunger, an amalgamation of everything stolen by crowns and hungry ghosts and miles of roads funneling desperate people into deals made in darkness. Its voice invaded every volunteer’s mind with cruel simplicity.

’ONE CANDIDATE WILL LEAVE HERE AS MY SUCCESSOR.’

The First Feast had only just begun.

It didn’t step forward to take the claim.

Instead it unfurled from the sky like spilled ink.

Every black road connected to a crown ritual on the field tore from the earth, tendrils absorbing themselves into something that consumed the hollow north from every angle. Border settlements stretched across its hide like scrapes. Crater remnants of the broken court cities marked its surface, hospital roads, and every road connected to the Crown Road blinked out of existence beneath its gaping maw. The Emperor had fed on place after place after hollow dream after hollow moment people were told they had no choice but to accept.

The Emperor had been fingers.

It now extended its hand across the sky, an open palm comprised of thousands upon thousands of people’s worst choices.

The Hunger Emperor regarded Austin Veyron and Calder as if it already knew they would comply.

’THE FIRST CANDIDATE MAY TAKE THE SOURCE AND PRESERVE HIS WITNESSES. THE SECOND WILL REFUSE AND ALLOW THEM TO BECOME FUEL.’

It split itself in two.

Calder felt the mark on his wrist flare black.

Tendrils of darkness reached for him, trying to wrench him forward into the seat built for the second contender.

Austin caught him then but the struggle didn’t subside when they braced themselves against each other unwillingly, candidates picked for consumption.

"Don’t make me another notch in your bedpost." Calder growled through clenched teeth.

Austin released his hold on Calder.

They were both wrenched away by the force of will behind their choice.

The black roots shook.

People made their choice on every road that criss-crossed the field of vision. Scribes rebuilt the portable ledger network as fast as they were shot. Lia and Mara knelt where candidate circles opened around them, chanting their names whenever darkness threatened to suck the life out of them. Veyra beat back road wardens from the children while Rin carved clean through feeder roots trying to entangle the escape tunnel they’d led everyone to. Maelis and Sarielle cast their flames against every encroaching black tendril that crossed a white lifeline.

The Feast decided desperate people wanted someone to rule them.

When the entire ritual sequence buckled and retracted on itself the Emperor realized people were willing to preserve each other outside the terms it could regulate.

Sable straightened, the base of her throat smoking from slamming her crown into the ground.

"The Emperor cannot understand why two people would willingly shoulder a burden." She said. "Which is why it brands it weakness."

She crushed her crown into the black throne seat.

It screamed.

Sable’s body lurched backward as though it intended on pulling her under. An arm snaked around her waist then, anchoring Sable upright but not taking control of her decision. Vharra loomed behind Sable, sword hand dangling lazily at her side.

Choose." Vharra demanded.

Sable stared up at the maw of hunger dangling above them.

"I choose against you." She said.

The black throne split apart.

Austin and Calder saw their opening. Neither of them attacked the throne outright. Together they severed the command root chained to the seat that dictated Austin and Calder’s struggle had to be some sort of competition.

Instead they spoke as one.

"I refuse the source."

White lifelines ignited across the field of vision.

Every crown turned dark for a single moment on the field.

Then the Hunger Emperor spoke, its voice laced with disappointment.

’REFUSAL ACCEPTED. SUCCESSOR SELECTION CONTINUES.’

A third throne blossomed forth from the crater.

It did not open its roots towards Austin or Calder.

It opened them for Sable.

Her arms shook.

Sable stared up at it, eyes panicked. For the first time since the ritual began taking victims she appeared afraid of what she was about to do rather than angry at the choice being forced upon her. The black crown encasing her throat tightened further. It wasn’t subtle with its suggestion, tugging Sable’s eyes away from the future she was envisioning and back towards a life where she let ownership consume her once more, became the successor and saved everyone by using its gaping hunger against itself.

That future was bright.

Peaceful.

Clean.

Owned.

"You are not what you allowed to happen." Vharra said, gripping Sable by the shoulder.

"What if I am though?" Sable squeezed her eyes shut.

"You define your choices now." Lia added while kneeling next to an opened witness circle.

The third seat’s black roots whipped towards Sable.

Its tone softened, conspiratorial even.

’SABLE. TAKE THE CROWN. NO ONE WILL EVER HURT YOU AGAIN.’

She looked out over the Hollow North at everyone clawing for lifelines, at Austin and Calder refusing two black thrones that wanted to own them, at Lia and Mara chanting their names so the darkness wouldn’t take them away. She looked into their eyes and saw all the choices they’d made to get here, every sacrifice laid upon the altar of consensus before this day.

Then she turned away from the throne seat and began walking toward the open witness circle at her feet.

"I would rather leave them than own them."

The third seat screamed.

Roots slashed across every person on the field of vision.

Austin Veyron, Calder, and Sable crumpled to the ground as it pierced their wrists, the Hunger Emperor finally severing true lines of succession on each of them.

The First Feast wasn’t over.

Far from it.

The ceremony had merely made its selection.

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