Quoted By:
Markolab quickly chimed in.
"Eeee, wrong. Erymanthoi is the plebeian choice. For construction you want a hopping puppeteer. Easier to handle too, no blood tax. But be careful. They don't like being summoned at all."
"Actually, could you call for a hopping puppeteer?"
"Hmmm? What's that?"
Both Jet and his coadjutor felt their words fail them. Hopping puppeteer is only what other demons call those ones.
"U-uh, it's uh- something I read about in old scrolls at the Academy. Apparently they were used for construction during the Shogunate?"
Jet lied in his fit of panic.
"Oooooh. You mean Marottes? Oh yeah, how could I forget about those? We used them all the time. Thank you! That’s way better than apes!”
Finally Ena cut open her palm just as the sun set over the horizon to use her exalted blood as a key to begin the ritual. She began chanting scriptures in an old, forgotten tongue. Kaya did not seem to get much of it, nor did she care. But to Jet they felt familiar somehow. As Markolab explained they are a retelling of the events of the First War, when the demons were vanquished and bound eternally in hell. As the ritual went on Ena pumped more and more of her essence into it, causing bubbles of water to start floating all around her and the sound of the raging sea to emanate around the forest. Strange glyphs materialized around her and disappeared at the same rate. Even the light of the moon seemed to change to take on a blood-red hue over time. Finally as midnight came Ena spoke with a voice of authority that made the ground shake, crack and erupt with green flames.
“By my command! Demon of the First Circle! Show yourself! Appear before me and obey the terms of your surrender! Marotte!”
Hellfire exploded in the ritual circle and a pair of spindly limbs crawled out from the hole that appeared. The creature was unlike the other demons Jet had seen before. It was nothing more than a tangle of gangly legs, each between about 50 and 100 yards in length, with a “knot” in the center serving as its core. Made of phlegm-soaked cords woven from coarse hair the limbs grasped at the air and tried to support the rest of the body.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! Ooooh you just HAD to do it! DIDN’T YOU?! Couldn’t let a poor sod finish his rotgut in peace! NOOOOO! You NEEDED a slave NOW! Didn’t you? ASSHOLES!”
Ena grimaced and tried to assert herself, channeling even more essence than before.
“You. Will. Obey. ME!”
“Oh? You just want to go, huh? Fine, bitch! Let the contest begin!”
