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It was a calm, clear autumn day, one of only a handful recently that hadn't been bitingly cold. Very nice. Very peaceful.
In other words, it was the perfect day to summon a demon.
Tommy had been reading about the whole process for weeks, trying to figure out the best possible way to do so without immediately dying. There were a lot of warnings about that in the books he'd found. The one he'd finally settled on - a really old one, with enough faded bloodstains on the cover and some of the pages to lend it an air of authenticity many of the others lacked - was pretty adamant about the whole thing being not a good idea. That being said, it also listed step-by-step instructions on how to stay as safe as possible if one were to attempt it. So that was what he was doing.
His house didn't quite have enough space to draw out a summoning circle of the size required, so he'd gone to the nearest public park with a box of sidewalk chalk. That had proven to be easier than expected. It was a school day, so there weren't too many small children running around; he'd pretended to be sick that morning to give himself the opportunity to have the park mostly to himself.
Finally, he'd finished drawing the last of the runes. He closed the book and pushed it to the side, then stood up, brushing chalk dust from his hands and admiring his work. It certainly looked ominous enough. And now, for the last step.
"Sanguis Demonium," he said aloud, then watched the circle in anticipation to see what would appear.
Several seconds passed.
Nothing happened.
He huffed, checking yet again to make sure he'd drawn the lines correctly. Maybe he wasn't supposed to use sidewalk chalk? That might be it, but he didn't feel like redrawing all the little rune things just yet...
He turned to pick up the book and see if he'd missed anything. The spidery lines of text were pretty hard to read, after all.
Step 1: Draw the summoning circle. Yep, did that. It didn't look exactly like the one in the book, but that was only because he hadn't added the outer circles of runes. Those ones were optional, according to the book, and therefore unnecessary, and he'd been running out of chalk by the time he'd gotten that far anyway. He'd had to rewrite way too many of the damn things.
Step 2: Ensure nothing is inside the circle. Also done! Unless a stray leaf or something had blown in, but he'd been looking at the thing the whole time, and he was pretty sure he'd have noticed if it had.
Step 3: Declare the Name of the demon you wish to summon. There weren't any other steps listed in this particular section, so that had to be the part he'd messed up on. Maybe he'd pronounced the name wrong?
He flipped to the page with all the names, scanning until he found the right one again. "Sanguis Demonium. That's what I thought it was," he muttered, squinting at the name. "San-guis Dae-mon-ee-um? Sanguis Dem-"
"What're you doin'?"
Tommy definitely didn't startle at that, and he also did not almost drop the book. He swore violently, making sure to hold the book a lot more securely before turning to glare at whoever had startled him. "None of your business."
The stranger blinked at him, then looked down at the summoning circle Tommy had drawn, which he'd apparently stepped into without realizing. He leaned over a little to study the runes, pink hair falling in his face. "Is this a summonin' circle?"
"Yeah, obviously. Now go away, you're not supposed to stand there."
"... no? it's a public park, I'm allowed to be here. Also, why are you summonin' a demon in a public park?"
Why was this guy asking so many unnecessary questions? "Because I need someone to destroy my enemies," Tommy explained. "Go away."
"Enemies? You're like twelve, what enemies do you even have?"
"How dare you- I'm basically an adult, thank you very much."
The man nodded slowly. "Right. Sure. You messed up a word over there, by the way."
Tommy looked to where he was pointing. The word in question was one that hadn't actually been on the diagram; it was supposed to be the name of the demon he wanted to summon, which obviously would change depending on the person doing the summoning. It matched the rune version of Sanguis, though, so he'd probably written it correctly. Maybe. The random stranger seemed very confident in his ability to read runes, so there was a chance that was the thing he'd gotten wrong. "How so?"
"That says Sanguis." So it was right, then! "You don't want to summon him."
"Why not?"
"... because he's a really powerful demon? You'd be riskin' a lot to try that. Also, you don't have nearly enough protective runes here. Unless you want to die immediately, in which case, go ahead."
Hmm. Maybe that was what the optional runes were for.
"And besides that," the guy continued, "You have to have some sort of deal already in mind if you're gonna summon a demon. They're really good at finding loopholes, so thinkin' up something on the spot is usually not a great idea."
That hadn't been in the book, as far as Tommy could remember. However, he had kind of skimmed over most of the stuff in the book after the part where it described how summoning worked in the first place, so maybe he'd just missed it. "What kind of deal?"
"I dunno. What's your end goal here?"
Tommy sighed. This guy really wasn't listening very well, was he? "Someone to destroy my enemies, I already told you that."
"See, the problem is, that's kinda vague. You might as well give them permission to kill everyone who's ever lived. Which I'm assumin' isn't something you want to do. You're gonna have to be a lot more specific."
"Okay, fine." Tommy paused to think about that for a minute. It was true that he didn't have "enemies", technically, but it would be really cool to be able to call down a demon against anyone who was mean to him. So an alternative to that would be... "Alright. Okay. I want them to be my best friend."
The man stared at him for a second.
"What?"
"You're summonin' Sanguis. To be your best friend."
"Well- second-best, actually," Tommy amended hurriedly. "Tubbo's my first best friend."
"That's- okay. Alright then." The man didn't try to correct him, which was the only right thing to do here, because Tommy knew exactly what he was doing here. Obviously. "You're gonna have to give something in return, though. Something of equal value. Bein' a best friend doesn't really have a value attached to it, though, so you'll have to figure that out."
Tommy nodded, turning his attention back to the book so he could glare at it for being so supremely unhelpful. All this seemed like information that would've been good to have quite a while ago. He was pretty sure he'd seen something about equivalent exchange somewhere, though, so he shifted the book in his hands to flip through the pages. As he did, a sharp edge of one of the gilded corners on the cover cut across his finger, and he hissed a curse. Stupid thing. He'd already cut himself about a dozen times in the days before on the little piece of metal. His finger was definitely bleeding, and he shifted the book around again to make sure he didn't get any on the pages.
"As for settin' up the actual deal, you just have to somehow indicate you're startin' to give the terms," the man continued as he started turning through the pages. "Blood sacrifice works sometimes, but you can also just say 'here are the terms' and go with that."
The book wasn't proving especially helpful now, either. Its page on equivalent exchange only gave a few examples, and none of them really seemed to fit with this particular scenario. He was trying to summon a demon known for bloodlust, so maybe promising them the ability to stab anyone who tried to hurt him? That might be a good exchange.
"So... I'd say the terms are that Sanguis Demonium has to be my second-best friend - after Tubbo - and in exchange, he can stab anyone who tries to hurt me? That seems like it'd be fair."
There was a sudden burst of light and rush of wind as he finished the sentence. Little bits of dust and leaf litter flew up into the air, and Tommy quickly scrunched his eyes closed so as to avoid getting blinded by it. It died away almost as quickly as it had arrived, and he opened them again, only then noticing that his hand was no longer bleeding. That was good!
"You've gotta be kiddin' me- you couldn't have waited, like, two more seconds?"
"What?" Tommy looked up to see that the guy - still standing in the summoning circle, like an idiot - had a hand over his face with what appeared to be annoyance. "What did I do?"
"Summoned me from a perfectly good retirement, that's what," the man in the circle grumbled, brushing leaf dust from his clothes.
"Wait, so you're-?"
"Sanguis, yeah. But you can call me Techno if you want. It's easier to pronounce and you can't seem to get my actual name right."
Tommy squinted at Techno, trying to decide if he was actually being serious. It would explain how he knew so much about summoning demons. However, he looked exactly like a regular guy. Not the sort of person he'd expect to actually be a demon.
"... right. Prove it."
Techno blinked at him. "Why?"
"How am I supposed to know if you're actually the guy I was trying to summon?"
"You'd trust me tellin' you how to summon a demon, but not after literally seein' a deal get enacted?"
That... was a good point. Tommy elected to ignore it. "What can you even do, anyway? I thought you were supposed to be cool, with all the blood and war and stuff."
Techno shrugged, apparently ignoring the vague insult. "Like I said, I was retired. I mostly do potato farmin' now."
Tommy nodded slowly. This was incredibly disappointing, actually. Not what he'd expected at all. In fact, he was pretty sure this was the worst possible outcome here. "Is there any way to break the deal?"
"Nope. You didn't actually specify any conditions under which the deal is no longer valid. It just kinda keeps goin' forever. Congratulations, you now have a second-best friend and I have the ability to stab anyone who hurts you, which is apparently a fair deal."
"Why didn't you tell me that?"
"I didn't think I'd have to! Normal people don't make deals that fast! If you waited a little longer I would've been able to just leave, but noooo."
"Hey, you two!" Another voice broke in, and Tommy turned to see what appeared to be a police officer walking over to them. "Officer Paul. I've gotten a complaint about suspicious activity over here. Mind telling me what you're doing?"
"Nothing," Tommy said immediately, and Techno added, "Probably not anything illegal." Which was quite possibly the worst way to avoid suspicion, because anyone who said that was most likely doing something illegal.
The officer seemed to agree with that idea, because he looked around, then seemed to notice the summoning circle. "Is that- right. Okay. Ritual summonings in public parks are illegal here - disturbing the peace and all - so I'm going to have to take you both in."
Tommy glanced over to Techno, who stared back impassively, apparently perfectly okay with the thought that they were now getting arrested. "You're not gonna do anything about this?"
"Not really sure I can do anything. What with you bein' really bad at makin' up terms for a deal and all. See, he hasn't really hurt you, so..."
"Emotional pain?" Tommy offered.
Techno considered that for a moment. Shrugged.
Before he could say anything, though, Officer Paul cut in hurriedly, seeming at least a little shaken. "Right! I'm just gonna give you a warning this time, don't do it again, all that fun stuff. And maybe clear out the summoning circle. Other than that, you're good to go." With that, he hurried off again.
"Emotional pain probably counts, but I'm not stabbin' a police officer," Techno said once he was out of earshot.
"Why not?!"
"Because it would be funny to watch you get arrested."
"Screw you, too-"