The Devil's Dealer

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Karakui

The Slightly Villainous One
Original poster
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Invitation Status
Posting Speed
  1. 1-3 posts per day
Writing Levels
  1. Intermediate
  2. Adept
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Female
Genres
Fantasy, Modern Fantasy
He doesn't appear to everyone, just one in forty thousand. The circumstances don't matter; it's different for everyone - there's only one thing common to every appearance: He offers a power. Maybe he grants you invisibility, perhaps it's flight or even fire control. It's not without cost though. The price for power? Why, your life becomes reality TV. See, there's a parallel world out there, one filled with sadistic monsters whose Friday evening entertainment is the hit TV program "Gifted", in which the magician known as "Devil's Dealer" grants humans abilities then films their life, unbeknownst to them. But what does this mean to our world?

Well, it means that there are a couple of hundred thousand people running around with special powers. This isn't the only thing though - since the inhabitants of the Parallel Earth (from hereon known as Hell) can pay to have an influence on the course of the program, these magical people (known as Gifted) find strange things occurring in their lives that can't just be considered coincidence (of course, none of them are aware they're on TV). After gaining powers, people seem to encounter peculiar obstacles on a weekly basis, and have an unusually high rate of meeting other Gifted, despite them being so rare. And of course, the particularly popular Gifted are granted unusual items and occasionally even extra powers, provided the residents of Hell can meet the price.

But how does the Devil's Dealer choose, you ask? He makes offers that won't be refused. Creating contracts is costly, and he has to provide a constant stream of entertainment, so he has to make sure every offer is accepted. Thus, he chooses people who are desperate - people who are about to die if they don't accept the power, people who were wholefully wishing for such a power...

There is another part to the abilities, though. While they're all fine and dandy, and on the surface they appear much better than being killed in a car crash, they all have critical flaws - maybe the fire manipulator can only manipulate fires that are set on his own flesh? Maybe the teleporter can only teleport 96% of their body, and has to leave 4% behind? They're not just limitations like not being able to use the ability for longer than 30 minutes, they're proper disadvantages - almost like punishments for using them.

So, where do we fit in? We're the next generation of Gifted in a certain Nameless City, who have been invited to a tea party hosted by Lady Cumberworth, the city's mayor. Of course, normal humans have no idea that Hell or Gifted or the Devils Dealer exist, but Cumberworth is no normal human. The power she gained was the power to "reveal truths". Though rather impractical in day-to-day use, she did find one thing with it - she discovered that "Gifts are not of natural origin". Nothing more, but since you turned up to the meeting, you feel it's certainly a start in figuring out what your powers are.
 
Interested.
 
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