The second floor of the Guild had a lounge similar to the one on the bottom, but less populated and more lavishly furnished, with soft couches and a huge noticeboard filled with carefully arranged advertisements. I ignored it all, focused only on the door on the side labelled as “Magic Shop”.

Behind it was a room, cluttered by many glass cases showing off all sorts of items and the prices for them. There were pieces of armour and weapons, utility items and trinkets the use of which I could only imagine. Some of them glowed, some smoked, and some were just made of weird stuff. ​​

The shopkeeper here was, to my slight disappointment, a man. He looked about as young as I, and awfully bored until I appeared. As soon as his eyes registered my approach, his lips widened in an insincere smile.

“Hello, how can I help you?”

“I’m looking for contract paper,” my eyes rowed over the showcases until I noticed a thick roll in one of them. I pointed at it. “Is that it?”

“Yes, mister,” the shopkeeper nodded and took out a long ruler from where it stood in a corner. “How much do you need?”

I leaned closer to read the price. The tag stated, “60 sil/meter”. Sil, short for silver? Silver coins? I only had brown coins… I bit my lip, torn between asking the shopkeeper and showing myself as strange and asking Pest and risking an untruthful answer (and having to suffer though an answer at all).

First, though, I had to know if it made sense to buy it at all. “Explain how it works, first. And why do you sell it in meters?”

“Sure, mister.” The shopkeeper put his ruler down and took a deep breath before reciting like he told this a thousand times before.

“This enchanted paper allows people to enter contracts that are absolutely unbreakable! It’s also very easy to use. First, you write the text of the contract on the paper. It’s alright to erase or scratch things down before the contract is signed. You must also always name or nickname and mention all the people who want to sign the contract. Then, you and all the other people wishing to enter the contract, have to put their hands on the paper and agree with it. As soon as the paper detects their intent, their names will be added to the contract. When all sides sign it, the magic happens! The contract splits to your character sheet, while the original paper loses all its magic properties. Now everything you wrote in it becomes magically binding. If someone tries to break the contract, it will start draining their stats with increasing speed, until they reach zero. If the contract is fulfilled or can’t be continued because of the death of someone involved, it will simply disappear! Do you have any other questions about the mechanics, mister?”

It took me a minute to absorb everything that was said, but when it was, I shook my head and looked at the paper roll with new appreciation. Such a simple, but effective thing… One that forced people to comply on the fear of death, because that’s what happened when someone’s basic stat, no matter which—STR, DEX, CON or INT—reached zero. Though even before that, you would become unable to lift your own body and turn into a vegetable barely able to remember your own name.

And if Pest sucked out my EXP, then he had a character sheet and at least some stats. If he had a memory, he should have at least INT, though I was unsure about the others. He didn’t have a body, after all.

‘Voren? So do you agree? Look, I wasn’t lying about the fucking paper. It will bind the hell out of me! And you can afford… three centimetres.’

That annoying, snide voice again. Well, he won’t be so annoying after what will happen. And if Pest dupes me… I can still exorcise him later.

I pulled out my meagre savings and counted them again. There turned out to be exactly sixteen brown coins. If they afforded to three centimetres of the paper, then it meant that ten brown coins equalled to one silver coin. I counted out fifteen browns and put them on the counter.

“Give me three centimetres of the contract paper.”

“Three… centimetres?” The shopkeeper blinked, then stared at the heap of coins in front of him. “Isn’t that just a little too few?”

“It’s enough.”

“Well,” the shopkeeper opened his mouth, but under my stare, closed it again. “Sure. Sure. Just wait a moment.”

I watched impatiently as he counted the coins and then fumbled to measure five centimetres with his awkwardly long ruler. The paper, when I took that small scrap in my hands, felt weirdly smooth, and when I looked closer, had a strange pattern of circles and triangles glimmering within. I put it on the counter and lifted my eyes to the shopkeeper.

“Can I borrow something to write with?”

I watched how disdain fought with fear on the man’s face, but in the end fear won and he wordlessly passed me a short, but heavy, metal stick with a sharpened end. When I scratched the paper with it a little for experiment, it left a dark grey streak.

With a smile on my lips, I began writing in tiny letters. “Pest will follow all the commands Voren will give him, to the best of his ability and in a way Voren intended him to.”

When I finished, I mulled over the wording for a little while longer before returning the pencil and grinning wider. ‘Well, Pest, are you ready to become my slave until death do us part?’