“…Ending? The world is ending?” Pink looks a bit shocked. “W-what do you mean by that, Goddess?”

Time to lay some things out.

“First, it's 'What' do something about that stutter, it's intolerable. Second, my name is Alexandria and if you feel exceptionally brave you may call me as such, if not 'mistress' or 'milady' will suffice – I am no God. Finally, yes, the world is ending. Or more accurately something or someone or someones is driving the world toward an inevitable end.” With that I smile at her, really showing her all of my teeth “Which is why I've called upon you. You and I are going to fix the world. Mostly you hopefully.”

Nice. I think that covers all the important bits. Struggling to contain a triumphant cackle I instead cover my mouth with the back of my hand and flare my wings a bit – my victory pose. Pink is so stunned by my brilliance she's speechless. Her mouth is hanging open a bit, she's gaping like a fool, what a stupid expression on her face! It's hilarious. Haha! But after a moment she's schooled herself back into expressionlessness, tch as expected of my Chosen, she recovers quickly.

“Not a God? I see, apologies for my lack of consideration mistress. I understand the need for discretion. But … what do you mean by the world is ending? Forgive your ignorant servant, I do not understand. And what exactly do you expect me to do about it?”

Her stutter disappears without a trace, a succubus can't help but be a little theatrical I guess. It's in their nature. And she seems to have reached or own conclusions about my divinity but as long as she doesn't call me Goddess it's technical compliance – which will have to be good enough. That aside I narrow my eyes at her a bit, wondering if she actually doesn't understand – or is she mocking me? Impossible to say, succubi are notoriously hard to read – a race with completely unbeatable poker faces – not people you should put any trust in if you can help it, generally speaking. That said she looks innocent enough so I decide to indulge her.

“Come now are you really saying you can't feel it?” I ask, genuinely incredulous “It should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of ability to sense mana – like a cheese-grater running across your skull.”

Pink hesitates, her brow furrowing into a cute pout, before responding “…My ability to passively detect ambient mana is somewhat lacking mistress. It is not a skill that I am practiced in. I can only apologize for my incompetence in this matter.” So saying she lowers her head into a bow.

“What? Really? I didn't think something so basic needed practice … Nevermind that doesn't matter. To give you the broad strokes, it seems that there is currently a lack of demons – as you have hopefully gathered from the spell I had you cast – and that is leading to an imbalance in the ambient mana?” Geh! Why did it turn into a question at the end? Focus me! “Right. An imbalance in the mana that makes up the foundation of our world. Because of that various annoying things are happening that will inevitably lead somewhere unpleasant. Into a 'world-no-longer-able-to-support-life' kind of unpleasantness.

In fact the unpleasantness has already started! It's what's making it so damn hard to sleep. Like a terrible itchy sensation all over your body all at once. I'm amazed you can't feel it really. Also … other bad things. Miasma. Corruption. But most importantly it makes it impossible to sleep properly. Which brings us neatly back to you, Pink, you will fix this and restore my ability to sleep! …er and save the world too maybe. Who knows it's already pretty far gone...”

I started monologuing a bit there and trailed off at the end but whatever I hit all the main points I think. Pink looks astounded at my awesome intellectual prowess as usual. That wide-eyed goldfish look is cute too but I hope she's properly absorbing my wisdom. Speaking for so long is tiresome after all.

“Then, mistress, what do you recommend we do?”

Huh?

“Huh?”

Pink just looks confused.

“That's your job isn't it? I even went to the trouble of explaining the problem, didn't I? Now you fix it. I've decreed it so! That's how this works, remember?”

Honestly. How could any servant of mine forget the basic premise of our relationship? It's baffling. I give the orders. They do the work. That's how its always been! I mean, admittedly, its been a while since I actually gave an order. So maybe this succubus just isn't too familiar with the process? But still. This is the very basic of the basics, if she can't even manage this much, forget absorbing my wisdom she probably won't even be able to remember my name, or her name that I gave her.

“But how? How am I supposed to 'correct an imbalance' when I can't even sense what you're talking about?” Pink looks lost as she tosses out that question. Pressing on she continues “What does that even mean? There aren't enough demons? Should I be making more then? Or-”

“Dunno.” I say cutting her off before she can gather too much steam “Figure it out Pink. That's why you're my Chosen. If you need my incredible might and beauty to smooth the process, you can come beg me a bit, but I'm leaving the planning stages of this operation to you.”

“I see. I understand, mistress, but I am still terribly ignorant. I do not understand what it is that I can do to help in this situation. If you could deign to give your loyal servant a bit more guidance…” Pink trails off hopefully, her eyes gleaming with that low form of cunning every demon is possessed of. Right. Not unexpected. She is a demon – and one of my Chosen at that – it wouldn't be in her nature to just roll over and accept the unreasonableness I'm forcing on her. Not if she thinks there's an iota of a chance that she doesn't have to.

Internally sighing, I begin to circulate my mana inside my body a bit. The effect is immediate, even for someone with such apparently worthless mana-sensing capabilities as Pink, as a huge amount of magical pressure forms in the air around us. The world around us goes quiet, all sound drowned out by the raw sea of my magical power, and a dangerous energy thrums in the air – just waiting for a gesture or thought to set it loose. I glare at her, letting the silence play out between us. Making sure she can feel the unspent power crackling along her spine – a stark reminder of the gap between us – just waiting for an errant thought to lead to … ignition.

Then with a thought I still my mana. The pressure disappears as if it had never been. Released from it Pink immediately collapses to her knees, no theatrics involved, just an honest response to the sudden relief from impending death. It's important to remind your subordinates why they are subordinate from time to time. Especially the demonic variety – who are endlessly prone to mutiny and betrayal, backstabbing and front-stabbing their way to the top of any situation they find themselves in. I've had enough experience with all of those things for one lifetime.

“Tell me when you have formulated a plan.” My voice is icy even to my own ears.

***

Some time has passed, Pink has gone silent since my little show of force – appropriately cowed into submission. Cowed into submission and thinking up a brilliant plan I hope. So while she does that I've decided to investigate the tower below. My castle was built into the side of a mountain, I can't remember the mountain's name though I do vaguely recall the grand ceremony when the Demon King Himself bestowed it upon me – some thousands of years ago by now – I was appropriately awed by the honor bestowed at the time. How naive I was back then. That stupid Demon King didn't even live to see past the next millennium after bestowing me the mountain. A bit of a commentary on demonic society as a whole really. They build kingdoms in this land of dust and ash always full of fire and fury and always quickly burning themselves into nothing. An endless stream of stars streaking across the sky, each bright and beautiful – each fragile and fleeting.

I can feel myself frowning. Gazing upon this land again for the first time in so long, seeing it so unchanged, its put me in a melancholic mood. Well there is a change of course. That endless stream of stars seems to have ended while I was resting my eyes. I didn't think I would care, I never liked other demons. Over so many years of interacting my kind I can only say that they are occasionally useful at best. But looking around now. My castle silent and abandoned, utterly devoid of life, a microcosm of the entire continent of Artas. It's distressing, almost as much as the infernal prickling feeling of the mana surrounding me being imbalanced, and I don't know why. I don't know why and I don't like it at all. It would be much easier to just sleep these sorts of things away, ponder on the fate of demonkind another day. Ruminate on old friends and old enemies…

Shaking my head I try to focus. Clearing away my useless and tangled feelings on the state of my species. Instead I begin to walk down the black steps, cut into the side of the mountain, which connects my castle to the outside world. I can hear Pink following behind me, a model servant, moving quickly and quietly to match me like a shadow. Nearly a thousand steps later and we've reached the base, where a road used to lead out into Artas, but it is now completely blocked. The tower is planted squarely in the middle of the road, its sturdy wooden door facing my castle. Some sort of watch tower planted to keep an eye on me maybe? Whatever its initial purpose it is now little more than an oversized lawn ornament, I can sense from this distance that the tower is as devoid of life as anything else I've thus far encountered.

Well it's not entirely uninteresting. For one there are a great many poorly-formed Rune Formations around the exterior of the thing. They are of the same variety as the ones surrounding me when I first awoke – so-called sealing, or in this case 'barrier' might be more appropriate, Runes. But with such poor construction it's a wonder they function at all – certainly they are not enough to bar even Pink from entry. Their presence does confirm that whoever built this tower was also responsible for “sealing” me, the tower is likely just further vigilance on the part of my unknown assailants. Though it seems a bit wasted if they don't even bother to man the thing. Without ceremony I put my hand on the door, I feel it reacting, some sort of defensive enchantment springing to life but it's quickly crushed as I infuse the ancient wood with a massive quantity of my mana – overpowering whatever defensive magics were in place – and incinerating the door with a thought.

Actually my mana pushes out a bit wildly, guided only by my thoughts it is not very cohesive, for a lesser caster lack of cohesion means the spell will fizzle and fail. But I am Alexandria. My magic does not fail. Instead, lacking proper guidance but infused with the purpose of 'destroying the hostile enchantment', the magic runs a bit wild – broadening the range of the effect. To my left and right – all around the exterior of the tower – the poorly scribbled Rune Formations are igniting, bursting into green flame and burning away. I can sense something similar happening inside the tower as shoddy magical defenses are overwhelmed and destroyed by my errant magic. Oops. Its been so long since I last willingly manifested my magic, I can't help if it gets away from me a bit. Also the capacity and density of my mana is much more massive now compared to the last time I cast a spell – really I should be praised for this level of control.

Magic is an exercise in creativity after all. It requires imagination, focus, and clarity. To simply will what you want into being relying purely on mental image is immensely satisfying. It's not something I've always been able to do, of course, traditional magic is more reliant on verbalizations – called incantations – Rune Formations and eventually for the top tier practitioners voiceless incantations. No matter what kind of mana you're channeling ultimately you're going to be using those tools in traditional magic.

A proper magical teacher would imprint upon a student how very necessary it is to spend untold amounts of time memorizing the various Words Of Power, words with meaning gathered from various languages, stringing them together to form incantations and then spend even more time memorizing those. And on and on in a viscous cycle of learning the Words and the incantations until the student can vomit up some eight character string, properly enunciating all twenty-seven syllables, on command and make a flower bloom or something. Or a ten character string with fifteen syllables that creates a fireball. Until the student has the vocabulary to realize more or less any effect they want with their magic – constrained only by the limits of their magical power. It's an efficient way to learn magic – at the end your student is both powerful and flexible if limited by the fact that incantations are generally huge mana hogs that will leave a caster drained of their powers after a handful of spells, especially as the complexity increases. Aside the cost the only limitation is vocabulary and imagination – it is the magic of spontaneously working miracles.

Rune Formations on the other hand are basically the written form of the Words of Power, with certain stylistic liberties taken for the sake of increased efficiency; little flourishes and asides discovered over the years by magical researchers to improve spell performance. By writing your spell out ahead of time it reduces the load on the caster considerably, specifically in the department of conceptualization, no need for imagination when you can just carve a “Fireball” rune, infuse it with mana, and get a fireball. It is something flat and standardized, each “Fireball” from a “Fireball Rune” will be exactly the same as the last – the only imagination happens at the moment of creation of the Rune. And after the rune is created and inscribed on something permanent enough, it can be used at any time with just the infusion of a bit of mana – much less than trying to spontaneously work the same magic – as many times as the material it's inscribed upon allows. The downside being a crippling lack of flexibility and a great many poorly understood but rigidly enforced rules of the grammatical variety. After all Words Of Power are borrowed from a dozen different long dead languages, trying to write them out into something cohesive can be borderline impossible, and in some cases the written form of the language isn't even known.

Thus your theoretical magical student would be learning Rune Formations alongside Words Of Power to give them the proper balance of rigid control over their magic and flexibility in its application.

But isn't it boring to always speak your magic aloud? Or to gather it into proper little magical channels that optimize efficiency of use and imprint it with meaning? Much more exciting to spontaneously impart your own meaning into it, not limit yourself to what can be conveyed with words – just will what you want into existence. It's faster and better able to impart your precise intent. The only drawback is it requires a correspondingly high degree of concentration – well and it requires a massive amount of personal magical power to use, massive enough to overcome the limitation of having nothing directing your power except your will. It's my personal brand of magic I've developed over the years – it beautifully exploits both my massive mana pool and my personal hatred of doing difficult things like reciting incantations and drawing up Runes. Occasionally I compromise and spontaneously form the Rune Formations out of pure demonic energy to direct particularly complex spells, it doesn't even count as work really considering how intimately familiar I am with Runes – I doubt there is anyone who could match me in ability to create Rune Formations entirely with imagination.

The only downside is when I don't focus properly and end up casting a spell not exactly as I envision it. For instance destroying every defensive enchantment within a mile of this spot instead of only the one on the door that I was targeting. Any of my old Rune Formation teachers would surely lecture me at length about controlling my magic if they could see this. Ugh I'm cringing a little thinking about it, I can practically feel their judgmental glares on my back. It feels so real I even peek behind me, but there it's only Pink and she doesn't look very judgmental – in fact she's doing her goldfish impression again eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar, so cute! Maybe she felt the excess mana from that spell while it was running wild a bit?

Bah! I don't need to worry about the ghosts of old teachers. I don't need to be good at control anyway, it's not like I'm going to run out of magic. It replenishes itself in my body faster than I can use it – all those years of sitting around doing nothing but absorbing ambient mana are paying dividends now. So let's not worry about it, instead what's inside this tower? With powerful strides I step through the gap where the door used to be, flaring my wings behind me as I come, letting my gaze roam over the interior. Radiating my status as a powerful Demon Lord for a moment, in case I was wrong and someone is inhabiting the place. Sadly there is no one inside to be impressed by my entrance save a handful of old dust and cobwebs. The tower is obviously abandoned at a glance.

I've entered some sort of common area if the low stone table surrounded by the rotting remains of wooden chairs is any indication. A single stone goblet sits empty on the table. To the left a staircase wraps up and around the inside of the tower, leading up to the next floor. Aside those things there is nothing in this room but dust. Well dust and a handful of scorch marks where my ill-conceived magic did its work. I'm starting to regret that a bit – seeing the inside of the tower it seems those chicken scratch Rune Formations might have been the most important clue this place held. Well let's not give up just yet, we still have the other floors to explore.

…

…

…

Well. That was a waste of time. The tower has four floors and I walked through all of them and discovered nothing of interest. The second floor was the remains of sleeping quarters for a half dozen people – the remains of six bunks scattered around. The third floor was unknown, there was nothing there, just a large empty room. The fourth room was a bit more promising, there was another wooden door that I burned away, and behind it was a stone chest. But what was inside was disappointing, a bundle of papers and a small mithril plate, emblazoned with a crest – a crown with a bird superimposed over it. When I reached down to pick up the plate the bundle of papers under it crumbled, apparently they were so old they'd rotted to nothing? It had nothing to do with me touching them. Probably.

Anyway the point is whole tower was abandoned, all I found was the lousy little mithril plate. A trinket which probably had some worth – mithril is rare after all – but it's not like I was looking for treasure. The crest is a bit more promising, it might be related to whoever built this tower and with it I might be able to track them down. Maybe. More likely Pink can do the tracking – that sounds like an awful lot of work after all. With that in mind I handed it off onto her telling her “It might be important.”. Having explored the tower I've learned nothing of use. It's irritating. That I may or may not have been responsible for the destruction of the most important clues this place held is not helping my mood any. Of course, if the solution to all the worlds problems had actually just been sitting around in this tower, that would have been surprising; but I admit was hoping just a little bit. Just a tiny bit.

Well since my plan seems to have stalled, I turn to Pink.

“So. You have a plan?” And asked her that.