"This would be our first contract." The grand elder interrupted the awkward silence, "It is a symbolic gesture from the both sides. We don't want there to be any misunderstandings. Would it be acceptable if we discussed between ourselves and made the deal after?"
"Discuss away!" Nick waved his hand, "Just bring me back to my room. I want to eat and take a nap. This was already too exhausting."
After he was brought to his room, elders sat around the large table and had another discussion.
"Your opinions?" Such were the grand elder's tactics.
He loved to hear out the others before expressing his own thoughts. It usually helped him deepen his understanding of the particular situation and formulate own views. In fact, this was a normal practice in many offices and workshops on 21st century Earth.
"I think there are some underwater stones. There are definitely tricks involved!" Elder Silvio said, "We just have to figure them out. It all seems too easy."
"In the beginning I was thinking that too. But you are wrong." Elder Agnes shook her head, "Both of you are just too smart for this and he is using that. Didn't you say that Belial's favorite thing is to make deals and cheat others? If he is Belial, he is just fooling around and testing us if we'll take the bite and agree to make this deal. It is normal for people to sign more contracts and make deals after the first one. It gives the feeling of successful collaboration. This demon is extremely dangerous! I can't imagine he could be anyone else than Belial himself!"
The grand elder scratched his bald head, "I understand all of that myself. The question is – how do we deal with the situation? Do we agree or not? The contract itself looks harmless."
"Exactly!" Elder Silvio nodded, "And because of that we will agree to it. He might think we are stepping into his trap, but there is three of us. This contract is harmless, but the danger lies in the next one or the one following after the second. We shall use our advantage to avoid all of his traps and there has to be a rule that before discussing and unanimously agreeing we will not accept any other deals. That way, even if he manages to fool one or two of us, the third can always enlighten the others."
After two more hours the tired elders finally came to a conclusion.
Nick, on the other hand, was fresh, full of energy and ready to learn. He loved two things in his life – studying languages and running. He could not run yet, but was about to learn to read and write in a language that was not known in his previous world!
When elder Agnes carried him into the library, Nick immediately said, "All set? Can we close the deal now?"
"Cough." The grand elder coughed and continued to look very serious, "Lord Baal, we would like to specify few things, if that is fine with you?"
"Sure, let's get this over with."
In the grand elder's eyes the Primeval demon Belial was in a hurry. 'Were we wrong? Is there really something hidden deep within those rules? I must be careful!'
He coughed again, "We would like to know if, while this contract is active, we can make other deals with you?"
Nick looked back at him stupefied and thought to himself, 'I gave them way too much credit. These people may be talented in this Qi thing and alchemy, but other than that they are dumb as wood.'
But to the grand elder he said, "Sure thing, if both sides agree, we can make more contracts, make addendums to this one or even terminate this contract. It is not a big deal."
"Good." The grand elder seemed to heave a sigh of relief, "Then we are ready to make the deal."
"Ok, shall we shake on it?" Nick stretched out his little hand.
"What?" The grand elder was confused.
"What do you mean 'what'? When the two parties sign a contract, they shake their hands. We are not signing anything, but we can still shake hands as a symbol of concluding the deal." Nick was really baffled.
'Don't these people understand such basics? Or is he afraid I will break his hand?' Nick looked at his small palm in confusion and moved his tiny fingers a bit.
'Aha! There it is!' All three elders looked at each other, 'This must be the trap!'
"How does it work? Is that some kind if procedure you do in Hell?" The grand elder tried to probe.
"Hahaha!" Nick started to laugh hysterically. He finally understood!
'These people don't have the hand shaking tradition. And the old freaks are afraid that as a demon I will do something bad. This is beyond hilarious!'
Nick laughed at startled elders for a bit, then calmed down and said, "I am sorry, I didn't know you don't have such tradition here. It goes like this." He pretended to shake his left hand with the right one, "And it is harmless. Don't worry, it won't hurt you."
The grand elder looked at elder Silvio, then said, "It is natural to have cultural differences between the Hell and surface. We are ready to conclude the deal. Elder Silvio will perform the handshake ritual with you."
Elder Silvio nodded towards the grand elder and slowly approached Nick. The latter saw how elder Silvio's palms were covered in very thin white mist. He also noticed the same with the grand elder. And then he suddenly felt warm Qi flowing through his body, just like during his meals, except this time elder Agnes didn't hold back at all.
Nick snickered to himself, 'These freaks are really afraid of me. This feels so good, hahaha!'
"Elder Silvio, the right hand please." Nick instructed as both of them slowly completed the 'handshaking ritual'.
"Great, that's it!" Nick smiled.
Elder Silvio heaved a sigh of relief, then smiled back and said, "Nice doing business with you, Lord Baal. We already have a short list of questions and the first question would be …"
"Stop!" Nick shouted, "What the hell are you doing? Our deal was – you will ask me a question right before I will read a book. You even proposed this condition yourself!"
Nick looked at the shocked elder and laughed, "Hahaha ... How do you expect me to read a book if I don't know how to? Teach me first how to read and then ask away!" He really thought is was obvious – they all knew he could not read.
The three elders were looking at each other in daze. It took them a couple of minutes to comprehend what just transpired. They had gotten the short end of a stick in such a simple situation! This was the finesse of Primeval demon Belial! He was leading them by the nose all along, letting them focus on unimportant things, making them look for traps without having any, even threatening with, possibly, mental or physical assault, just to cheat out a simple small thing. These elders … they were way too young to go head to head with a thousands of years old demon who had a hobby of making deals and cheating others! Belial harmlessly tricked them and was doing it to amuse himself!
"Hahaha!" The grand elder began to laugh along with Nick, even he had to agree this was funny, "Thank you, Lord Baal, for your teachings. To honor the deal from our side, elder Agnes will now start your first lesson. Elder Silvio, please 'remind' all the elders about our 'regular' meeting in the evening. And make shore they don't 'forget' to show up. Lord Baal probably will be finished with his lesson at the time and we won't be bothering him."
Elder Silvio understood the obvious hidden meaning. They have gotten another load of information and it was crucial. Although nothing dangerous happened, they were playing with fire! They needed to urgently gather together to discuss and understand the situation better, maybe even take some preventive measures.
Nick didn't know what the old freaks were thinking and, while he saw the hidden meaning in the grand elder's words, he didn't really care. Up until now he was trying to learn the local language, or as he called it – 'Freakish' – via 'audio lessons'. It was hard, slow and he was certain he misspoke often and misunderstood many words. But now all of it will change – he was starting to learn how to read and write in 'Freakish'!
During the next days Nick was passionately learning, but elder Agnes seemed to be more and more exhausted every morning. She explained that they had their monthly set of meetings with the other elders, and it usually took them few nights to go over everything. There were some time consuming questions like the investigation on the sabotage and elder Dinnar's breakthrough in the rune research, but all should be resolved within the next few days, or rather, nights.
Nick did not really believe her. He found it more plausible that the old freaks were ganging up on the witch, at least judging by the muffled shouts and screams that from time to time were coming from the library at night. But he couldn't care less about their fetishes and as long as they didn't touch him, he was fine.
On the sunny days Nick was practicing on the balcony, but on rainy – in the library and not only reading and writing, but also doing physical exercises. He had decided to make the full use of the steroids these freaks were pumping into him and deal with the aftermath later. He knew he could not become strong enough to protect himself from the expert Qi masters anytime soon, but he had to develop his body as much as possible while being a toddler. This period was the most crucial for any child after all.
Talking about the Qi masters, two days after 'making the deal', elder Sonor began to be present on the balcony at all times. He was mostly just sitting there, meditating, but the badly hidden hostility was really unpleasant for Nick.
While elder Sonor was always on the balcony, the grand elder was always in the library. Well, at least this one was pretending to smile and be friendly. Other than them, elder Agnes always had elder Silvio within two or three meters. Nick understood these people were guarding against him for some reason, but soon he got used to it and did not pay attention anymore.
From elder Agnes's lessons first thing Nick learned was that they called this language the 'Mainland language'. It was the dominating language on the Mainland continent. There were jungle and desert tribes with their own languages, but those were very few in number. Mainland language had few dialects as well, one spoken by the barbarians of the Northern empire in north-western part of the continent and southern dialect used by the nomad tribes in both Lori and Sand kingdoms in the very south. Nola kingdom, except for the jungle tribes, was using the 'standard' Mainland language along with the biggest country on this continent and the world – the Sun kingdom.
Holy Order was located on a thin long stretch of territory that went almost up to the base of the Corbus mountain – the highest mountain on the continent. This long piece of land belonged to Lori kingdom and was bordering with Nola kingdom in the north, Sand kingdom in the east and it had a short borderline with the Sun kingdom that had this enormous natural barrier called Corbus mountain.
Nick already got confirmation that in the sect there were people present who spoke dialects of Mainland and even languages from the other continents. He noted that it was important to 'milk' their knowledge if he remained here for a longer period.
The Mainland language had a writing system similar to the English alphabet with addition of several words that were written as hieroglyphs. They called them rune-words and they were mostly used to describe important things like the Sun, world, cardinal directions etc. According to elder Agnes these rune-words were important part of the rune-crafting and rune formations. Apparently they could influence the Qi flow in some peculiar way, but she did not go too deep in to this topic.