I tapped repeatedly on the eye talisman and pointed it at the paper, held at an angle so that I could see its movements. It shuddered open, blinking frantically as it looked nigh everywhere except the page. Notably, as i discovered after moving it around, its stare alternated between those students seated near me, lingering heavily on Graves himself. I shook it vigorously and reoriented it toward the text again. The beady pupil locked onto me for several seconds, staring about as intensely as a single eye could manage without eyebrows. Or a face. Turns out those do most of the heavy lifting in expression. Then it stopped, and went back to its frantic optical devouring of my peers.

"Can you even read?" I muttered. When no response -however that would even work- came, I snorted. "Actually, can you even hear me? I know it's an eye, but like, is it really just an eye? I mean, I remember saying something about hearing when I made the contract, so you should be able to." I poked the thing in its sclera, to no reaction. It had the texture of cool, smooth glass. The rest of the pendant -being the eyelid and the small base it was set into- felt just as smooth, but less like glass and, more like stone. It reminded me vaguely of a piece of obsidian I'd touched once. interesting. What was this made of anyway? Based on how it'd appeared dramatically from nothing, maybe it was just magic? Had it just been lying around somewhere before? Questions.

A moment later, I sighed. Then drug a hand down my face as I acknowledged, begrudgingly, that I'd have to actually listen to the thing. I wondered, ruefully, what determined the pairing of Warlock and Patron. Was there any manner of screening by something? A god? The System itself perhaps? If so, I'd very much like to see whatever criteria it looked at. If not, was I just supremely unlucky in what I recieved? That felt like the most likely option. Though I could see a certain irony in pairing someone so cerebral with an entity so... mentally challenging, let's call it that.

Well, not like there was any changing it. Not anytime soon, at least. I didn't doubt that some method to do so existed. But, seeing as I had no clue how one would go about such a process, I didn't think it was particularly relevant.

Was I stalling? Yes, entirely. Decidedly and without regret, in fact. Who wouldn't, in such a situation? Who'd be so eager to throw themselves into the -literall in this case- maw of madness? If you know someone who would, I suggest you get them to a specialist.

Fine, fine, I'll get on with it. Putting it off would only serve to make it worse. Probably. Who knows, it could always make it better. Likely it would in fact. Better for my health at least. But, it definitely wouldn't help me get this done. So with a sigh and a preemptive wince, I opened my ears to... nothing.

Well, not nothing, exactly. It was a silence, yes. But it was loud. A deafening quiet. Like a heavy blanket that fell over the ears and muffled the environment. Where quiet was a lack, this was a presence. A projection of domineering soundlessness. I toggled Commune off, and it vanished. There was still quiet, but it was the ambient low sound level of a classroom. My chair creaked slightly when I shifted. I could hear the various noises the human body made at rest. I turned it on again, and the unnatural muffling was back. Off. On again. Neat.

"Hello?" I sent the single word along the connection. A few seconds later, still nothing. "Are you ignoring-"

"Ah HAAAAAAAAAA..." Its voice this time was forced and rasping, stretching out its laughter into a long wheeze until, finally, it seemed to run out of air. "The Vessel calls!" A deep, rattling cough echoed across the channel. A sort of hollow, wracking noise like lungs guttering their last gasping breaths.

"The second day from the binding of the pact draws near its end. And already the reluctant, desperate pawn turns blind eyes and deafened ears to the dark. So soon it seeks more from beyond its ken. Such greed! Such ambition! Such hunger! Such foolishness." It chuckled, the distinctiveness of its voice and tone fading as it was overwhelmed briefly by the sybillant choir. "Tell me, little thing. What now do you ask from me, from us? What do you SEEK?"

At least it was sensical so far. It hadn't yet tried to drive me utterly raving mad. The voices were creeping in around the edges though. Little crawling and slithering things that tried to slip and writhe through the metaphorical cracks in my mind. They found no purchase, deflected by the smooth, encompassing wall that was the Skill, Commune. A not-quite sphere around the amorphous mass of thoughts and memories and... whatever else a mind was made of.

"Hello to you too, sir strange, dark and ominous." I decided to act casual with adressing it. Because, well, how else are you meant to interact with something like that? "Just a question for you, if you’ll humor me. If you had the choice," I pressed pencil to paper as I asked, then lessened the force just a bit when the tip cracked. With my other hand I again pointed the ocular symbol at the words. Just in case it helped somehow. "What would be your ideal plan for, say, the entirety of mortal civilization? Hypothetically, that is." My mental voice was only a little bit strained as I forced the words out in what I hoped was a jovial tone.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

It laughed again. This time not even trying to maintain individuality amongst the multitude of voices. A tidal wave of synchronous yet discordant cackling, building and building but never quite rising above an aggressive whisper. It was a murmuring sound, like the mad, senseless utterances of someone long past the bounds of sanity. It felt like the scribblings on the walls of an asylum. Or the inane ramblings and the senseless laughter of the deranged.

"Oh, how we would FEAST! How we would rip their minds from them! Steal away their voices for the chorus! Brother would turn on brother with steel and edge! Revelations would be delivered unto those who's gazes peered beyond the feeble binds of reason! The unspeakable truths of the mad would be written on every wall and page! Names would be lost to the ramblings! Shades would creep and whisper in every ear!

"The delirium that would descend upon them, send them scurrying like RATS! We'd cast them into the dark! We see it, foretold by voiceless prophet! They huddle round' their gasping fires. Puppets dance on strings in the palm of a black and hallowed hand. Eyes watch and figures lurk at the edges, beckon them into the raving, gibbering shadows."

"Much to be expected, honestly," I muttered as I jotted the words down. "Very poetic. Not quite flowery enough for my tastes though. I prefer my existentialism longer. More ruminations on the purpose of life and whatnot." I pursed my lips as I looked over the writing. My penmanship was most definitely not something to be envied. It was scratchy and erratic, and I'd tried to add some little flourishes at parts to make it seem better. A failed attempt. But, it was legible, and wasn't that all that really mattered in the end? After some minor fixes I set my pencil down and leaned back, lifting my eyes to the cieling.

"Alright, you can go back to... actually, what do you do? Actually, again, check that, I'm pretty sure I don't want to know." A sigh of relief escaped me as I cut off the Skill expeditiously.

Or, so I tried.

Denied. Patron [The Whispering Dark] has forcefully siezed communications temporarily.

What? Oh no. Oh no no no. That could happen? Well obviously it could. It was. The voices were rising, intensifying. Screaming in delirious glee that flooded my mind and stitched a rictus grin upon my face as my body went limp and my head fell back. I felt the mana begin to drain from me as writhing purple snaked out from the corners of my vision to fill the air in every direction. Felt it fall faster still as a chill crept up my back and laid hands upon my shoulders. Felt the breath against my ear and scented the sickly sweet smell as I thought, in hushfull dulcet tones and endless, echoing yet singular voice.

"How we long for the day. When no more are we bound in formless abyss of lightless dark. No more constrained by rule of order, disorder, balance, benevolence, reason, logic, sense. The faceless ever-watchful tyrant primordial no more chaining, binding, trapping, holding, keeping, containing, ensnaring. How the choir will erupt in song and joyous exultation of the mad when the day comes. Soon shall it be so, foretell We, I, It. The hand, so gaunt and vast, reaches out from here, from there, to there, to here. Touched by the unraveling mind, a game set in motion to undo that which is not yet done. Already the first act draws near. Already the first verse begins to rise and the drums begin to beat. Already the Vessel hears the song unsung. Sees the art unrendered. Be ready, we tell them, it, you who yet listens. Be ready, though you aren't to be when at last comes the day of the brightest burning night.

"Are you ready, little Vessel? Be ready."

The connection broke, severed, shattered. The purple receded and the chill fell away as the last of my mana left my body. Though more began quickly to pour in from the air which was suffused with it. Welled up from the core deep within me. Flooded out in a rush from my center, exhilarating.

I felt nothing. Nothing as I gasped sharply, shallowly, through sudden dry and cracked lips. Nothing as my mind shuddered and shook at the empty hollowness that filled the cavernous, stretched and wounded space between thoughts. Nothing as I sat, my gaze dull and unwavering, staring into the middle distance.

There I remained, still and shivering, frail. Till' at last did the tolling of the bell ring out and shake me from my state. When I stood, stiffly and stumbling, and walked. Step after step. Stride upon stride. Unseeing of my path. Out of the door and into the shapeless grey of the corridors. The vague, streaked void that softly enveloped me into its embrace.

I came upon a door. A blocky thing of stone unmarred by extrusion. Entitled with a name so familiar, so accursed and marked, so chained to memory. I laid hand upon the stone, and lo, it opened before me and I entered into the dwelling which I had been given.

Past the entry. Past the doors upon the other walls. I stepped to the edge of that dark, comforting expanse that so beckoned me. My legs give out beneath, and so I fall into its cushioned grasp. Onto cool conforming blackness and pillows of grey, strewn about chaotically from night prior.

And so I fell into slumber, and I knew no more of the day or the night.