Dantalion of the Goetia: Taste the Obsession of a Demon - Page 32/108

The North wind greeted an early winter. The remaining leaves of autumn, still clinging for their lives, settled to the frozen ground surrounding the Realm of Goetia.

Condemned, Dantalion remained in exile outside the stone walls of the Courtyard of the Undead, confined within shadow, absent from the human eye. He used the grimoire still, shape shifting between his realm and mine, drawing into his world followers of the dark arts. They were neither angelic nor demonic, but seekers of ritual magick. For two ages he awaited evocation, and although he himself did not serve under Satan, his brother demons of the Goetia's servitude rested with the dark Lord.

Dantalion's entire realm was of stone, and kept far beyond the forest's canopy, stretching for miles. At the opposite end of its borders it met the banks of a shallow pool. Above its base, a once cascading waterfall, now stood frozen. The Realm of Goetia faced North outside the Courtyard walls, extending as far back into the woods as to hold chambers for seventy two demons of the Goetia and their legions. The demons of the Goetia consisted of Kings, Marquises, Presidents, Dukes, Princes, Earls Counts, and Knights, each a ruler of their own legions. Dantalion forged sigils of gold for his brother Kings, silver for Marquises, mercury for Presidents, copper for Dukes, tin for Princes, both copper and silver for Earls and Counts, and lead sigils for Knights. His claws hot with molten fire, perfected each seal with their corresponding metal upon seventy two chambers, each chamber divided into nine sections or houses.

The stone hallways leading from one chamber to the next were simplistic in structure, illuminated throughout by Dantalion's eternal fires. Each of the seventy two demons' names were etched into stone above their chamber:

Bael Agares Vassago Samigina Marbas Valefor Amon Barbatos Paimon Buer Gusion Sitri Beleth Leraje Eligos Zepar Botis Bathin Sallos Purson Marax Ipos Aim Naberius Glasya-Labolas Bune Ronove Benith Asteroth Forneus Foras Asmoday Gaap Furfur Marchosias Stolas Phenex Halphas Malphas Raum Focalor Vepar Sabnock Shax Vine Bifrons Vual Haagenti Crocell Furcas Balam Alloces Caim Murmur Orobas Gremory Ose Amy Orias Vapula Zagan Volac Andras Haures Andrealphus Cimejes Amdusias Belial Decarabia Seere Dantalion Andromalius

To Dantalion, this was not a realm of Kings, but a house of the undead. He knew that when the moon waned in the sky, although one end of the realm remained sealed, this was when its inhabitant came forth.

Dantalion's penance, his punishment for transgression was the 'Succubus' Gwynnedd. She was his counterpart, who also bore a seal of the undead. Harsh was his punishment, and he learned to hate the gift of mercy that was his curse.