The blinding flash, and a fall through the floor - through matter then through space and time. The adventurer fell, far from the demon’s burning eyes and his floating contracts. He woke in a bast chamber, filled with glittering gold.

No one else, was there with him, his feeble voice bounced off the walls harmlessly; he was alone with. His reward for trading his soul, or spark or whatever - all this treasure.

All his.

He wondered how he could possibly carry it, or hide it? Someone would come and find his treasure. he tried to stuff the money and gems e into pockets that could not hold them. The fabric soon filled to bursting, and seams ripped, spilling the treasures back out. He wanted to despair, and even considered eating the gold, at least some of it, though he did feel unusually full already - when something caught his eye.

There, above the mountain of gold sat something dark. Strange in this glittering hall, a great gray shape above the piles of treasure - he had to get closer.

He’d need to climb to see it. Trying to gain purchase on the coins was hard, but as he struggled, he found his hands becoming more used to it, weak human fingers becoming great wicked claws, and pale skin, hardening to stronger stone impervious to the damage from the sacred hoard.

Which was good, it was his money, and he didn’t want anyone scratching it. As he came in more and more contact with it, he grew, making his journey both easier, and harder to the dark shape, his body became larger, which made it harder to lug his body up the pile, but stronger, and his feet changed to grasping claws, all the easier to get his greedy bulk to the summit.

Eyes blazing with greed, and body swollen with gluttony, the former human reached the top, and saw what caught his eye from the base, a great seat for the master. A throne for the lord of the hoard of this darkened hall. This was no mere hoard, this was a temple, to wealth and its unseen lord of greed.

The new demon seized the throne for himself, and settled in. The lord was here now, and he was about to make some changes when his worshippers arrived.

First…More gold.

*****

Great wealth indeed, the demon mused. He needn’t see any more. He’d fulfilled two agreements today. First that adventurer’s contract terms, and secondly his allied bishop’s from a fortnight past.

The friendly cleric was facing a schism in his church, as a dangerous heresy was wracking it from the bottom up. The dissidents were in for a surprise when their lord’s “empty throne” now had an occupant in it. Agezazel snickered, theological speculation was a lot a more fun when one side had a much weaker ground.

That schism would probably end itself now, one way or another.

---

Commission: ELEPHANTBRO
Theme: Demonic Contracts 
2024

~Age