Bookbinding Page105

The next page is here: faile35.deviantart.com/art/Boo… . For more information on the entire series, read the "'Demon's Due' Defined" journal entry here faile35.deviantart.com/journal… or the "'Demon's Due' Plus" journal entry here faile35.deviantart.com/journal… .

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And then Elina feels the pit of her stomach sinking to her feet, as her uncle Anjerome relates: "My probing at the splinters of the Demon's consciousness showed me how extensively the being was scattered across our realm. In the Merwood, wisps by the hundreds all held the Demon's essence, and in the city and farmlands of Dernhem, a thousand jackrats likewise. Wormloat gremlins from the ruins of Eiger Village contained the supernatural spark, and the Demon's shadow even extended into the worms beneath the earth. The catastrophic shattering at the Harbinger's hand had been total, and no single piece of the ever-hungering being in our realm retained a great enough portion of the entity's essence to even answer to its own name..."

"But still," Anjerome's words read, "I called to it, and in doing so, I brought about my own inevitable destruction. For somewhere, scattered out there in our benighted realm, some portion of the Demon's essence became aware of me as I became aware of it. As is that being's power, that consciousness gained a foothold deep within my own, buried so deeply in my subconscious as to bypass my own protective runes inscribed at the outset of my research. Over the next few months, I began to sense the being's growing influence without recognizing where its new foothold lay, until one fateful night I awakened with blood on my hands--the results of the Demon's manipulation of me from within my dreams. A courtesan of the city lay murdered within her own bedchamber, and the recollection of the foul deed lay vaguely in my mind like a dream or childhood terror in the dark. Had there been more time, I perhaps could have found a way to expel the being's possessing essence from my mind, but I realized all too quickly what portals were now opened to the ever-hungering Demon by its taste of my own subconscious. A being that always yearns for more now found within my personal urges the hungering for intellectual pursuits, the knowledge and mastery of sorcerous power, the influence over humankind, and a primal drive to possess my female counterpart. But while my own heart has ever been devoted to Milady Maladyne, with all her attendant prides and flaws, the supernatural being began to crave the flower of all womankind, which it would hoard to itself with any and all powers it could acquire..."

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At long last, what's really going on is about to come to light. It's been difficult to hold on to these ideas for such a long time without spilling them as each page has been posted, one-by-one. They've changed some while I've worked, but much of what will be revealed over the next ten (7) pages has been locked in the plot-closet for several years, shared with a few people, but sparingly in order to hold on to it for as long as possible before the actual pages showed up on DA.

Elina was drawn from the wonderful references provided by Feathered-pics . As always, I am appreciative to Emily for her contribution and skill at providing me with good material. Annalae was drawn using Lindsey's reference material. Thanks, Lindsey!

Enjoy!

Note: Bookbinding and Demon's Due are a work of fantasy and fiction. The artist/creator in no way condones real mistreatment of this kind toward any woman or man, by living person, gremlin, plant, assassin, ratman, viscous fluid, programmed device, animated home furnishings, or otherworldly spiritual beings. Furthermore, the artist opposes the marginalizing and restriction of women in general by any institution, political and/or religious, including those which have individual women amongst their membership touting/promoting their own happiness within that institution as evidence that ALL women should feel the same way. This includes the religion I was raised in and which I have utterly discarded from my life over this and other issues.