Though Claire kept paying the fee for the stall, she spent the whole first week of her contract with Carlos at home. She did some light experimenting with rituals, but the majority of the time was spent on sleeping, video games, and masturbation.

  God, I am so fucking touch-starved. She thought for a millionth time after she finished one of such "sessions". Summoning a succubus sounds more appealing by the day.

  She rejected the prospect yet again, as she'd have to pay the lust demon with soul, a resource she couldn't afford to spend for the same reason the succubi wanted it. A regular prostitute is an option... but she knew from experience that didn't actually solve her problem either.

  She didn't just want physical contact and pleasure; she wanted closeness, intimacy, and while she could easily lose herself in a purely sexual scenario, she couldn't suspend her disbelief about the sex lover actually caring about her, no matter how good of an actor they were. The fact that she knew it would end when the hour was up prevented her from enjoying the artificial affection.

  She tried to meet up with Julliette, the security officer from Draxon Inc., but the gargoyle woman was married to her work, and the relationship was deeply monogamous. The opposite of Claire, on both accounts.

  Claire-as-Day: hey someone come fuck me and love me and cherish me pls

  Marahcle: Girl you know I would but you love in the fucking atlantis

  Marahcle: *live

  Marahcle: not only it's far away, yall don't let tourists in because your government thinks theyd steal your precious mana crystal plants

  Claire-as-Day: fuuuuuuuuuuck

  Claire-as-Day: you'd think after they invented teleportation it would be easier for trans girls from different sides of the world to hook up

  Critically-acclaimed: bigotry fr

  Claire-as-Day: I guess I have to run for the government to get some dick finally

  Osteoporosis: I'd vote for you

  Venting to her friends didn't help her mood much. She put her phone down, wrapped herself up tightly in her blanket to emulate getting hugged, and stimmed by floating pens in the air until she fell asleep.

  The days passed in this too-fast-yet-far-too-long manner. Since she wasn't going out, she neglected to shower herself, which made her feel miserable, which robbed her of energy to take care of herself. A familiar vicious cycle.

  At some point, she was just staring at the ceiling for hours on end, dissociating. A knock on her door woke her up from the stupor.

  "Yeah?" She asked weakly, barely glancing in the direction of the door.

  "Can I come in?" Her dad asked.

  She sighed. "Yeah."

  He sat down in her computer chair and turned it so he would face her.

  "Are you doing okay?" He asked.

  She took a second to respond. "Of course not."

  "You need something to do." He immediately identified the issue.

  "Yes, but I don't want to, even if I know it's good for me, but also I'd hate it and I'd have no energy for anything else, and..." She rambled.

  "Not anything big. One thing a day. Mom told me you were learning some ritual magic. Maybe try one every day?"

  "Hm." She responded non-commitally.

  "Come on, Claire. I know you're going stir-crazy. Remember when I got into that mana overload accident at work, and I had to stay at home for two months? When I couldn't use magic for two whole months, I thought I was going to explode. Then mom got me those paint by number pictures to do."

  "You always filled them out wrong on purpose." She recalled. "They looked awful."

  Her dad chuckled. "They did. But making them was fun, and it kept my hands busy. So, yeah, maybe do rituals."

  "I would have to get ingredients..."

  "Use whatever's lying around. We both know mom has a hoarding problem. There's so much stuff in the basement we haven't touched in years. Probably better to make those there anyway. I remember how upset she was when you summoned that demon. Which, for the record, was incredibly irresponsible of you."

  Claire wiped her face with her hands, and took a breath. "Okay, yeah, you're right, I should start moving again. Tomorrow, though. I'll shower today though."

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Probably a good idea to shave, too. Dysphoria is not doing your mood any favours."

  Claire did a double take. Did her father research trans issues? Then she remembered the whole pact thing. Of course he would. They love each other.

  ...was her sudden willingness to oblige him also due to the contract? She decided not to think about it right now, or ever, preferably.

  "Yeah, I'll do that. Thanks, dad."

  "Of course, Claire. I'll leave you to it, I gotta go to sleep now."

  Oh right, he comes home pretty late usually. Damn, I slept through the day again. I really do need a structure. Which sucks, because I hate getting constrained, and UGGGHHHHHHHH

  She managed to get up, strip, and throw herself into the bathtub. It took her at least an hour to actually wash her body, but with reduced grime on her skin and clean hair, she really did feel much better. She shaved her face, too, which was an even greater relief.

  The next day, after she woke up, she remembered to try some ritual magic. She put on a day-old ensemble which would have to be washed anyway, grabbed the box of chalk she'd used when summoning the Huntmaster, and went down to the basement.

  The shared basement floor of the apartment complex reminded her of a prison. Grey walls, each room isolated by metal grates, all lit by bare bulbs. A miserable life sentence for junk unloved enough to get it out of sight, but held back from banishment into garbage by the people's hoarding tendencies.

  She took out her key and opened the "cell" assigned to her parents' apartment.

  It was a wonder she was even able to step inside. The amount of baubles, trinkets, and unread books was astounding.

  She scanned the shelves, taking note of items that might hold meaning enough to be useful in a ritual. Then, she opened her ritual book and continued reading where she last left off.

  The second chapter explored the shapes a ritualist drew, and why those in particular. The answer to the latter was largely tradition; since the shapes have long been associated with certain concepts, leaning on these meanings offloads the strain on the caster's mana and concentration onto the weight of the collective subconscious.

  "The astute reader might realise that it is therefore possible to shift these paradigms by shifting the beliefs of the local populace. Such endeavours, however, are beyond the scope of this book. If you wish to explore this avenue, I do implore you to avoid doing so in the Republic of Minnesota, as I don't fancy the prospect of relearning the system every dozen years." A footnote added.

  As last time, she finished reading by opening up a random ritual recipe.

  "Mana Gathering Circle." She read out loud. "Draws ambient mana into the designated spot, and condenses it into a more easy to absorb form."

  The design offered a lot of flexibility in terms of reagents, proposing a couple different assortments of concepts. On the other hand, the circle required a lot more precision in drawing the shapes and symbols. Any mistake could cause massive inefficiencies.

  She first looked for the reagents. A box full of fridge magnets embodied "attraction" quite well, with the box itself serving as "containment". Now, she needed something for "etherealness" or "magic", and something that would convey "compression".

  With little thought, she used the ritual book itself for the former. The ritual wasn't destructive - it didn't consume the objects used, they simply served as aids to concentrate the will of the caster.

  The concept of "compression" was more difficult. She was hard pressed to even come up with any object that might qualify, let alone something in the garbage dump before her.

  "Compression. That's when lots of matter gets put into a small space." She said, using the wooden bunny statuette on the top shelf as the rubber ducky for her monologue. "I dont have any results of compression here, though. No deep rocks or anything. A diamond would be perfect. What if I use a compressed file? It would have to be on a USB stick, and I'd have to go back up, and then back here... last resort. Hey, while im on track of just making the reagent, I could just grab one of those bags, stuff it until it bulges, zip it up, and that would be tightly packed matter! Perfect!"

  One luggage overfilled with books and old shoes later, she had everything she needed.

  Now, the hard part.

  She spent entirely too much time on drawing the circle. And it had to be a perfect circle; any other shape would not convey containment and creation of a boundary well enough. The symbols responsible for filtering and directing the energy were a mixture of European alchemical symbols and the international electronic circuitry notation. Fascinating.

  She was meticulous, but only up to a point. Without the guidance of her [Beginner Diabolist] Perk, drawing the lines was much less intuitive. There was no flow state, just careful copying over of the schematic, while trying her best to keep the scaled up proportions intact.

  And so many do-overs. Ugh.

  Just as she was about to rage-quit, the circle was complete. She carefully laid out the reagents, and pushed a bit of her mana into the main intake glyph. Now that her soul was more developed, she could actually feel the mana travel down her hand from her mana core, which from the way it felt, must have been located somewhere both right next to her brain, but also her heart, while also being a few centimeters sideways from where her body actually was. What were the terms for 4-D directions? Kata and... something. My core is a few centimeters kata from my brain, and only a few millimeters kata from my heart. Wouldn't that necessitate a fifth dimension? Oh god, I don't even want to think about that...

  The circle was finally filled with energy, and its feedback loop established, using up a portion of mana it gathered to perpetuate itself. It would only have to be refilled manually if she turned it off, or if the ambient mana grew too thin to sustain it.

  When she took a step back, the lines kept glowing. She waited a few more seconds to be sure, but the ritual showed no signs of failing.

  "I did it!" Her first ritual without the guidance of a Perk was a success! And now that she had seen the process through, some of the theory she struggled to understand now made much more sense.

  She could tell her work was far from perfect, despite the attention to detail. The intent! I fucked up imbuing intent into the symbols. Yeah, that part is flickering instead of the uniform glow on the outline...

  She then spent some time erasing the less stable parts of the ritual array and redrawing them, now pouring mana colored with meaning into the chalk. After every correction, she had to restart the ritual, but slowly, she got rid of any instabilities she could find.

  "This is good, this is really really good..." She muttered as she spotted no irregularities in the glowing chalk.

  She stepped into the activated circle, and sat down in the middle. The constant re-imbuing and restarting had cost her the vast majority of her mana reserves, and she felt strained, and empty. Like if a sore muscle had been hollowed out. The feeling was quite unpleasant, and so she took advantage of the fruits of her labor.

  She could all but taste the mana in the air as she breathed in deeply. As she held her breath, the essence of magic began diffusing into her body. When she released her breath, it slowly got absorbed back into her core.

  This meditative state felt calming, soothing. Like no world beside her and the mana-rich air existed. She didn't know how long she sat there, but eventually, her trance was broken by a call.

  It was Carlos.