~SKYLAR AMBERLY VITALIS

---

After a long moment of panicked screams and lot of tossing and turning, I realised that I was floating calmly through the centre of the winding tunnel, being carried forward by an invisible force that was rather gentle and wasn’t causing me any harm.

My tails allowed me to easily righten myself, even if there didn’t seem to be a sense of up.

The tunnel was pitch black, it’s walls were lined with wispy dancing tendrils that resembled something halfway between spiderwebs and auroras.

The colours were more pronounced, wavering between lilac and aquamarine.

Even if I extended my hands and tails, I couldn’t touch the walls of this massive tunnel.

The force holding me in the centre only pushed me forward and turned me around the winding bends.

I was entirely relaxed by the time the tunnel pinched down around me and I was spat out of it with the same momentum I had fallen through with.

I was ejected from a wall. A full ninety-degree rotation from the floor.

I twisted mid-air and landed nimbly on my feet, the tails easing my orientation even though my mind lurched a bit.

‘I’m loving this new level of prowess already!’

I was three times… maybe six times more capable physically than I was when I was human.

I shook my head clear and took a look around me.

I was in a room. A large bland room, reminiscent of a police interrogation room.

And true to the similarities, there was a steel table in the middle of the room with two plain steel chairs on either side of it.

A door in the opposing wall opened and a man walked in, glancing at me before he took a seat.

“Please… Don’t remain standing.” he motioned to the other chair with a big clawed hand, and place the file he carried beneath one arm onto the table.

He had ram horns glowing yellow eyes, and when he spoke, purple licks of flames curled out from the side of his lips. It caused a sharp contrast against the dark red of his skin.

He wasn’t any bigger than a very well-built man, wearing a buttoned-up white shirt and long brown pants.

I paused for a moment, but nothing came to me.

I was obviously a bit surprised. However, other than that, my brain was far too tired to panic any further.

I was emotionally spent at this point and my mind was just going along with the weirdness.

‘Something like this was expected I guess.’ I shrugged to myself as I took the other chair and plopped down onto it.

“I’ll get straight to the point.” he stated professionally as he shuffled through the file in hand. “You’re an unregistered demon whose presence was detected in a non-magical dimension, and was brought in for questioning.” he eyed me for a response before continuing, “You can call me Nim. Yes, it’s an alias. Due to the nature of your case, you might be unaware that a demon’s true name can be powerfully binding in several ways, but I will need something to call you by.”

“You mean like, a nickname?” I asked.

He nodded and waited patiently.

It wasn’t hard to think of one, and that question wasn’t uncommon to me, especially when I was commissioned to do artwork.

“I go by the handle Nocturna, when I’m working.” I told him, “Feel free to call me that.”

“Nocturna…” He toyed around with the name for a second. “Do you mind explaining the nature of it? There is a translation enchantment on the room, but the meaning of the name isn’t coming through.”

“It means ‘of the night’, nocturnal if you will. Because I have a habit of working through the night.” I elaborated.

But even as the words were leaving my mouth, my mind was churning at the existence of enchantments and magic. Not to mention their prospects!

“Okay Nocturna…” He nodded, “I am the one they put in charge of your questioning to determine certain things before you are classed and registered properly.”

“How important is this registration?” I inquired.

“Hmm…” he seemed to go through an internal debate for a moment before answering, “In the best-case scenario, rogue demons are captured and imprisoned.”

“… and the worst case?” I arched a brow.

“Depending on the nature of the rogue, kill-on-sight orders may be issued.” he looked at me hard. “How powerful the rogue is, is determined based on their home dimension. And in your case, you’re a high-class danger in comparison to your dimension, since humans of your world don’t have any magic. Which makes you a lethal threat to all of them.” He sighed, “Which is also why you were called in such an abrupt way. When you’re properly registered – if you get properly registered – you’ll have to consent to the summons before you’re transported anywhere.”

“Seems fair.” I agreed. “I’m ready to begin.”

Nim nodded once more and peered over the file. Pulling out a pen that was hooked inside with the papers and began writing some notes.

Even if I looked, I couldn’t understand it. His writing and the notes weren’t in any written form that I recognised.

‘So, the translation enchantment has its limits…’ I thought.

“When did your powers first manifest?” Nim asked.

“Today.” I promptly replied.

He glanced an object strapped around his wrist, that at first, I thought was a wrist watch.

‘Lie detector probably?’ I told myself.

But the transformation had happened after midnight, so I hadn’t lied.

This was probably one of the tests to determine my worth, but no matter how subtle he would try to be with his gestures, my karate training had honed my mind to notice the slightest twitch of movement in an opponent that may spell danger for me.

It was a skill that merged pretty well in other aspects of my life outside the dojo, and I was thankful for it.

“Do you have a proper grasp on your capabilities?”

“You mean the demon thing?”

“Do you have other capabilities?” he narrowed his eyes.

“I understand the basics of it.” I answered the question before the current one.

“Can you lie?”

I was about to answer… but found that I couldn’t confirm his question.

I frowned.

“Ah, I see.” he smiled, “Because of the nature of a demons, and our strict adherence to the contracts we make… we cannot lie. So, confirming that you can lie, would be a lie therein of itself.”

“Well, up until recently I could lie.” I frowned again at my own words.

“You could say that because it’s true.” Nim said once he saw the face I was making. “Which also answers my next question. You weren’t originally a demon, were you?”

“Pretty sure I was born human.” I paused, “But right now I have doubts, my mind is in a bit of a mess.”

‘Was this an effect of the inability to lie?!’

After saying that I was ‘pretty sure’, I was compelled to correct myself because right now I wasn’t really sure of anything.

‘What a troublesome restriction!’

“No worries, your case isn’t as rare as you would think.” He tapped the tip of the pen to the paper. “Simply coming into contact with anything with a trace of magic – being or object – could trigger latent genes, no matter how old your ancestry might be. Your bloodline could have had a demon in it centuries back, spanning seven or nine entire generations.”

“I turned because I’m descended from demons?” I was sceptical.

“Nothing would happen if you weren’t.” he stated matter-of-factly.

I eyed him, but he paid me no mind.

“Do you have access to the aether?” he asked.

I gave him a puzzling look.

“It’s the primordial source certain beings pull their power from. It also allows you to quantify your stats, information and manage your evolution.” He monotoned. “Others may call it magic or chi or similar things, but it all stems from the same well of power. The aether.”

I noticed that what he was saying was probably a line he had rehearsed, or had to repeat over and again before.

‘Now this was going somewhere I actually liked.’ I leaned back in my chair. “What’s the correlation between the aether source and evolution?”

“Evolution is basically how well you can syphon and use the energy of the aether.” He elaborated. “The higher the evolution the stronger you are. It obviously comes with other aspects and drawbacks, such as physical changes. But our time here is short, and you seem smart enough to figure out the rest.”

“I’m being sent home after this?”

“If you qualify for your registration, then yes.”

“I was just confirming.” I said, “So, how do I access this aether?”

“You can more or less tell by the mental notification in your head sometimes. Like a cascade of voices.” Nim said, “But you can’t interact with it, you need an external magical artifact for that. All you can do is confirm that you have it.”

“Yeah… It warned me that I was being summoned before I ended up here.” I noted.

“Good, good. Then you’re eligible for an aether artifact after registration. It will help you manage your evolution more efficiently.”

‘This sounds a lot like using a computer.’ I realised.

“Are the logs tracked?” I asked.

Nim froze, “How- I don’t know what you mean.”

It was too late to correct his mistake.

“What’s the purpose on keeping tabs on registered demons?” I narrowed my eyes.

“Census, statistics… keeping track of the general trends of our race.” His tone wavered a little.

‘We can’t lie…’ I mulled over the thought, ‘But that doesn’t mean we can’t omit information… So, giving partial truths or deceptive truths, count as well…’

“I can work with that.” I said out loud in answer to my own thoughts.

Nim smiled, clearly thinking that I had taken his words as is.

This just confirmed my theory further.

Not being vocally able to lie, didn’t mean I couldn’t deceive people in other ways.

‘Well… that’s one demon stereotype confirmed.’ I internally sighed, ‘But at least there was an explanation for it.’

Nevertheless, I had to leave those thoughts for later. Right now, the situation I was in had taken a turn that wasn’t exactly sitting right with me.

I was smart enough to know that pushing the subject might compromise my chances of getting out of here.

It was best to keep myself out of any spotlight since I was new to this world and everything was still an unknown to me. I didn’t know the rules or if there were higher powers that be. I had no information on the workings of this society I had just dropped into…

Time would come eventually where I would gain the opportunity to get my answers. Of that, I was dead sure.

“Okay. I just need to fill up a preliminary paper so that I can hand you over to the registration department.”

Nim took another paper out of the file and started writing on that.

There was silence between us for a good while. Only broken by the sound of his pen across the paper.

I was contemplating the reasons as to why a society of demons, who had magical means, would use pen and paper in the first place, when it occurred to me…

“This room doesn’t feel any different to me.” I announced.

“Of course. We try our best to accommodate the interrogation rooms to the climate of first-timers. The enchantments copy the settings of the world you were transported from.” Nim didn’t stop writing as he spoke.

“Why is that?”

“Well… mostly for comfort. Not to mention that it minimises the disorientation.” He said, “However, we’ve long since discovered that the heavily saturated mana in this world is toxic to weaker demons such as yourself. Having it pressuring down on all aspects of your being could kill you outright.”

“Is it the nature of the energy or the physiology of weaker demons?”

“You ask very technical questions…” He noted.

I shrugged, “Just an inquisitive nature of mine.”

“Everything that syphons power from the aether each have an internal storage capacity. When you use up that reserve, it refills itself gradually over time. But since the energy one syphons is a fundamental part of one’s body – be it physical or incorporeal – an absence of that energy or an oversaturation of it can cause a lot of complications. Most common of which is called magica sickness, where your body fails you one organ at a time. And it’s painful too! Magica doubles as a secondary nervous and circulatory system for the power type one uses. We call it the magica circuits, and once the flow of power in it is disturbed in any way, you feel it. It’s mostly like a muscle, and you have to exercise it properly without overdoing it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I answered carefully.

Processing the information was taking up a lot of my mental space right now.

‘Is using pen and paper also due to this fact?’ I questioned myself. “Does that mean you would overexert yourself if you used magic instead of a pen?” I asked.

“Using magic in a low magical environment is simply inefficient. I would waste more than I use.” Nim smiled, “But you’ll enjoy the next room, I'm sure.” He nodded behind me with a knowing smile, “The registration office is far more… impressive than here than here.”

I frowned at his wording, but turned around anyway to see what he was hinting at.

The portal on the wall was opened once more.

And this time I got a good look at it instead of dropping right through.

Archaic sigils and glyphs outlined the undulating pool of blackness in the centre, in which occasional streaks of iridescent lightning danced within its seemingly endless depths.

“Your registration awaits.” Nim said. “It was good meeting you Nocturna. I have to admit that you were calmer about all of this than the others cases I have previously been assigned to.”

I got up from the chair and thanked him for his time before walking over to the portal.

When I was close enough, I could hear it.

Every ripple and web of light carried with it a voice that was quieter than a whisper. But I couldn’t decipher whatever they were saying.

A shiver rolled down my spine as I eyed the portal, before I steeled my resolve and leapt through.