Reflections of the Summoned

The world of man is a canvas of paradoxes filled with absurdity and contradiction, stretched apart taut between light and shadow, the known and the unknown.          
         
There are those who walk in this mundane world, this reality might seems as solid as stone, but in truth, it is porous.          
         
Unseen to mortal eyes, the spirits of the  Goetia roamed the peripheries of existence, their essence seeping into the cracks of human desire, fear, and ambition.          
         
In the chambers of their ethereal court, the 72 gathered as the night deepened. These spirits each a king, a duke, or a marquis of the unseen realms and each had their unique domain, they had talents honed over millennia to twist or elevate the fates of men.          
         
The Summoning          
         
It began, as it often did with human desire and with a summoning. In this story there was once a man named Elias who in his quiet basement knelt within a sacred circle etched in chalk along the uneven surface of the floor, Elias had drawn the five pointed star, sacred pentagram and lined the circle with ancient symbols that were long forgotten to many , symbols older than time and language itself.  
   
He surrounded himself with dull burning candles, each one careful placed on a point of the sacred star, these candles flickered softly in the dim lit room, their light trembling as if they were afraid of what was to come.          
         
Elias's hands sweaty shook nervously and his voice quivered, almost choking on his own saliva as he read aloud from the ancient grimoire, he began reciting the incantation, his breath fogging in the cold stillness of the air.  
   
“I call upon thee, Bael, the King of Secrets, and to come forth, to leave your thrown of your high court and grant me knowledge beyond my mortal grasp.” For a moment, silence pressed against him, suffocating and absolute.          
         
Bael heard the call, as all summoned demons do. But his appearance was not immediate; no spirit hastened to serve. Bael, his form a triune amalgamation of man, toad, and cat, resting on a spiders body materialized slowly, his presence filling the room with an otherworldly pressure.

“Knowledge you seek,” Bael’s voice intoned with a slithering, a sound that seemed to come from everywhere at once, “but what price will you pay, Elias? Knowledge is a blade; it cuts the wielder as easily as the foe.”

Elias hesitated. He was no fool; he had read the texts. He knew the Goetia did not deal lightly. Yet desperation was a heavier weight than caution. “I offer my service, great King, and my loyalty for the secrets you reveal.”          
         
Bael’s laughter was like a stone dropped into a fathomless well. “So be it.” He extended a clawed hand and touched Elias. The pact was struck. Elias’s journey began not with light but with shadow, for Bael taught him the art of obscuration, how to hide, how to listen, how to make the unseen visible.          
         
The knowledge Elias gained through hiding listening and being unseen gave him great advantages and power over his enemies and friends, but it came with a heft cost, this knowledge isolated him from others, each secret he learned carving another barrier, creating an unfillable chasm between him and the rest of humanity, for this was the price of knowledge which now confined him.          
         
The Temptations          
         
In the courts of the Goetia, Elias became a pawn in a game far greater than his comprehension. The demons were intrigued as they watched him, their interest piqued by his ambition.          
         
Botis, the Reconciler and revealer grew eager, he loudly declared to his sixty under demons he was the next to approach Elias. Where Bael had shrouded, Botis would uncover.          
         
Elias had many sleepless nights after learning all the worldly knowledge, he realised what he had learnt could not be unlearned and questioned the price he had paid, however on one particularly peculiar evening he drifted off into a rare and uneasy slumber, it was on this night that Botis made himself known to Elias and appeared in his dream.          
         
"Elias, Elias," Botis whispered in this dream,  "Who's there ?" Elias asked, It's I Botis and his demonly snake-like visage suddenly appeared softened by a halo offering otherworldly calm.          
“You are estranged from your family,” Botis hissed softly. “I can mend that for you.”          
         
Elias woke in a sweat, the dream so vivid in his mind that he could not forget what the snake with the halo had said.          
         
The next day, he found himself compelled to write a letter to his estranged brother seeking to repair and reconcile. To his surprise, the response was warm. Slowly, Botis worked through Elias, guiding him to restore what had been broken, But reconciliation came with a cost, all of Elias secrets were unearthed as they clawed their way to the surface, old wounds reopened, and his vulnerabilities were exposed to others, this left Elias questioning whether it was better to have left the past buried and had he been tricked.          
         
Meanwhile another demon named Forneus, the Orator, observed these events unfold with a calculating eye, he saw Elias with a different purpose. Seeing potential in the man’s eloquence, he whispered into Elias’s ear during a public debate, filling his mind with perfect arguments and irresistible rhetoric. Elias’s words mesmerized his audience, earning him fame and influence amongst his peers. Yet, as his reputation grew, so did his dependence on Forneus’s whispers. The line between Elias’s voice and the demon’s became indistinct, and with it, his sense of self began to erode, Forneus slowly took control of Elias.          
         
The Struggle          
         
Not all temptations came with immediate rewards. Marchosias, the warrior cloaked in flames, came to Elias at his weakest moment. Beaten down by the consequences of his growing power, Elias was on the verge of abandoning his pursuits.          
         
“Rise,” Marchosias growled, his voice a molten command. “Truth is not for the faint-hearted. You wield power now. Use it to burn away the lies that bind you.”          
         
Elias stood, fire rekindled in his eyes. Marchosias taught him the discipline of strength, the courage to confront his fears, and the will to endure pain for the sake of truth. But as Elias grew stronger, he became colder, his heart hardening with each truth revealed. His relationships frayed, and he began to wonder if strength was worth the isolation it brought him.
 
The Lesson        
         
The demons of the Goetia did not see themselves as villains. To them, humanity was a forge, and they were the fire. They tempted and taught, lured and led, their pacts a crucible for mortal souls.
 
Phenex, the phoenix of knowledge, was the last to visit Elias. He came not in fire but in song, his voice a melody that stirred Elias’s weary spirit.
 
“You have sought secrets, reconciled with the past, wielded the power of words, and embraced the strength of truth,” Phenex said. “But tell me, Elias what have you learned?”
 
Elias was silent. The knowledge he had gained was immense, but so were the scars it left. He had risen high, yet he had lost as much as he had gained.          
         
“I have learned that power is hollow without purpose,” Elias said finally.          
         
Phenex nodded, his eyes alight with an inner flame. “Then you are ready. The greatest secret is this: the demons you summoned were not your masters. They were mirrors. Each temptation, each lesson, was a reflection of your own soul. What you sought from us, you already possessed. We merely helped you uncover it.”  
 
Elias awoke to an empty room. The chalk circle was smudged, the candles extinguished. The weight of the knowledge he had gained was both a burden and a liberation. The demons of the Goetia had left him, their purpose fulfilled.  
 
But their whispers lingered in his mind, a reminder that the line between temptation and enlightenment is as thin as a razor’s edge. In the end, Elias was left with the greatest power of all: the choice of how to wield what he had become, there lies many truths in this story Elias thought to himself, that we all have our demons and how we use them and let them use us is what matters and through this, it will determine what we become and how we will wield it.