All I have to do is open my eyes. Should I do that, the nightmare will end.  Just open my eyes. Just this once. Please. Please, my body. Don't fail me now. Please. Please, don't fail me. My lungs, my heart, the organs I had grown so used to fixing, had already collapsed.  If so, isn't it time for me to move now? One last time? I just need to look at them. The explosion had damaged me beyond what I could tell and likely obliterated my local research. The person responsible for this — I had to see them.  Just this once — but I can't move my body at all. How fickle, humanity. Even I, after so long, could not escape the indistinguishable frailty that comes with the very title, the very concept, of being 'human'. With my chest burst open and my eyes shut, I could do little but contemplate this pathetic end of mine. I had already lost far

In life, I had employed the services of many creatures through Conjuration. Fey, Demons, Devils, Spirits of the Dead… though my work was mainly centered in the manipulation of life and death, I had found very early on that it was smart to consult creatures with access to information and experiences I would never truly have. It doesn't help that Conjuration Magic doesn't really need Magic Cores after the first contract is established. Beings such as Lurline were different from you or I; their names were parts of their conceptual existences, and they were aware of anyone who said them at all times, usually merely choosing to ignore a call. Instead, the actual Conjuring was made to impress a creature by forcing it to manifest, using your Magic Circles as a means to define its existence magically. I had thought myself safe, for now, because I believed I would still have access to my Summons, with whom I had maintained a good working relat

I walked out of the library feeling remarkably refreshed. Though the world had changed and I had lost many of my resources, it felt good to have an objective in my heart. To have befriended that eel in the very city I had been slain in… He knew. He had to know. What she had done to us, what she had done to me… Raphael Varisis knew, and had chosen to stay silent. I hope the years of fortune he undoubtedly enjoyed were worth the kind of death I was going to be giving him as soon as he told me what I wanted to know.  Still, as I cast my eyes upon the city's landscape once again, I was forced to pathfind my way back to where I knew the Varisis Manor was. 50 year ago, it had been positioned next to Sulfusius Park — but gods only knew how much the city had changed since then. I had to take it slow. I wonder… would I even know to walk back to the laboratory I had been slain in now? What had been

I was putting him in quite the situation, I knew. And here's why.  Viscount Raphael Varisis was a loyal man, I could tell that much. But that loyalty didn't seem to extend to Duchess Anastasia... strange. And here I thought they were friends. Still, he would preserve what honour he had. Men like him loved, lived and died by their honour.  "Convince you?" He mimicked my words, bitter and confused. "Are you mocking me?"  But I shook my head, a curl to my lips like acid. Lurline's presence was fluttery, almost proud as she put her hands on my shoulders from behind with a wicked grin on her lips, looking at me almost approvingly for the first time in a bit.  She'd always been like this — it was in her nature. The Fae were fierce and loyal, but their unusual cruelty was what earned them their fame.  Read more