A Mage Responds to the Calling

One of my favorite things to do is worldbuilding. I'm working on a world, and this image I built in Procreate for ideation in that world. He is a mage being seduced by a demon.

This scene is happening in a universe where magic exists and is known to humans and is practiced by them, but it's very rare. Generally in the shadows, and unseen. Many humans believe it is myth or madness.

The mage has been brought to this land where demons like this one are suddenly active. It is during an event where an ancient eldritch endless one beneath a mountain has called all living creatures to come by emanating a frequency or an incantation of a continent-sized spell that living beings aren't really aware of. For a thousand miles, humans as well as creatures great and small, feel they must come. Given our psychology, humans are inventing reasons to go, thinking that they decided on their own. It is a sort of mass psychosis, but one created in response to a signal with a specific purpose - to attract living beings to the mountain so that the waking creature there may consume them.

At the calling from the mountain, all living beings are called, creating a regional catastrophe. In the area around the mountain, a zone of increased magic energy has formed, due to the forces emanating from the nameless one under the mountain. A secondary effect is that magical creatures, such as this demon, are especially subject to "the call".

Here this demon is using its attack as a form of seduction, like a Greek Siren. A human subject to the attack will become entranced and amazed and will fall into the thrall of the casting demon. The subject of the attack is our mage. Is he in danger and doesn't know it? Is he a thousand years old and has seen this all before, and finds it amusing that this sweet creature thinks it will devour him? The viewer of this image does not know yet.

This is in the first act of a story arc. Humans are called, and this mage quickly responded as he has a studied awareness that picked up the "pre-quake" early emanations. He responded and upon arrival in The Zone he has come upon this demon which proceeds with its entrancement. This is happening all over to humans who have no knowledge or magical ability, in and near The Zone.

At the end of Act One, we learn that these "demons" are not the mortal enemies of humans. These attacks are what is happening as a natural accident: rare contact between species that generally exist on different planes of existence and are prone to their own natural defenses in the face of potential threats - which each view each other to be. The nameless evil under the mountain has blended dimensions into one sphere around the mountain, forcing creatures from different planes to contend with each other in ways that they aren't evolutionarily prepared for.

Later on, humans figure out that these "demons" aren't their enemy, and some tenuous alliances form, which will be necessary in the coming war against the horror that lies below.