"My name is Wilson Koorb."

My words were but a whisper. But the response of my sentient self-scribing pen was louder than the wrathful wails of a God. Slowly. Dramatically. It carved the letters of my name, squirting a bit of my blood-turned ink into the grooves until the inscription was complete, bringing a sourceless voice to echo my name with a deliberate malevolence.

"W I L S O N. K O O R B."

A legion of horrid screams and psychotic cackling accompanied the call. Scaring, it seemed, the book into a ferocious tremor until it had no choice but to take solace in my left hand, darting from its perch to my palm like a spark of lightning.

Startled beyond belief, I attempted to toss it, only to find the tome clinging to me like a spoiled child.

"Why the rush?" The countless whispers echoed, but the pen was the one to float before my eyes, dipping and diving while the echoes whispered. "Why run after your tumultuous journey, Wilson? You've already gone through the trouble of coming here. Why not sit? Rest. Read. Who knows what you may learn."

I found the words more tantalizing than all the sex, gold, knowledge, and drugs in the realms. So, of course, I couldn't fight against my hand drifting towards the cover. On the contrary, I aided it. I thrust the cover open with a ravenous hunger. But what I found were not words. I saw countless tendrils of darkness pouring out of the parchment akin to an abyssal waterfall plunging toward the basin of my mind. Energy and material composed these falls not, however. They were composed of symbols and glyphs. Languages and characters I'd never before seen. Numbers, equations, and formulas beyond anything the greatest minds in the realms could begin to ponder.

My tongue and my hands were the places where those languages and characters were branded, implanting a new realm of research into the fabric of my being. My senses were where those symbols and glyphs were inscribed, giving me the means to find these eldritch materials- these elements and compounds, as easily as I could detect Marsha's bread in the airs of Shavew. My mind was the place where those numbers, equations, and formulas were planted, giving me a new tool to measure and come to terms with reality.

All, at a cost.

Each page turned brought a probing sensation into my mind, spirit, body, and soul. Each bit of knowledge gained left me feeling a little colder and emptier. Every awe-inspiring revelation brought on existential despair-inducing realizations that no mortal should have possessed. But it was intoxicating, that knowledge! I couldn't help but turn! Read! Absorb the darkness into my mind until a strong vibration came through the book, snapping it shut in my hands.

"Dear, Wilson Koorb, your trial period of the Book of Madness has ended." The whispering voice of my self-scribing wand grinned. "To continue reading, please submit a one-time payment of your soul."

My eyes went wide. I snapped my eyes up, noticing not just the self-scribing wand, but the sarcophagus, braziers, and sconces appearing much larger than before. "W- what?"

"Please choose one of the following. One: I accept, please take my soul. Two: I'm not interested right now, please give me some incentive to help me decide. Three: I'm not interested at all. I will now attempt to flee. How would you like to proceed?"

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As if I gave it an answer. The torch in my hand extinguished the moment the whispers died down, causing me to thrash about in an attempt to retain my bearings. And, being adhered to my hand, the book went flailing with my arms.

"So, you have chosen option three? Very well."

I froze in place, For it was not the self-scribing wand whispering to me, but a horrid gasp from the far side of the room. Piercing and grating like metal-on-metal, but smooth like a silken robe. I wanted nothing more than to get away from it. This fiendish wand, however, was not on my side. It buried itself into my right hand the moment after I turned into the gloom of the braziers, bringing about the sudden realization of my potions remaining in effect just before I lunged.

As I darted across the chamber, the braziers and stone blurred into a field of orange and black streaks. Then, a blade arcing down to dig into the stone directly before me came out of nowhere. A sudden shock made everything distant. It was almost as if the sourceless blast had slowed time. I felt both disconnected and extremely aware of my body all at once. Ignorant of any pain or fatigue but in full control of my motions. Awkward and uncoordinated though they were.

I somehow made it past the bladed blockade and was about three-quarters of the way up the steps. Perhaps I forgot the book was stuck to my left hand or the pen was impaled in my right palm, but I gazed over my shoulder with a sudden fear gripping my heart. Not a fear of death but a fear of loss. Like I was forgetting something. And somehow, I spotted it- my old grimoire. My old life, guarded behind an adamantine skeleton wreathed in a fleshy suit of amorphous darkness that bulged like muscle as it withdrew its blade with ease.

My old life was now an afterthought. A new fear gripped my heart when the umbral skeleton charged, spurring me forward and up the stairs as fast as I could move with my new spellbook- my new life, clenched against my chest, increasing the numbing pain in my right arm. That gave me pause but I refused to slow entirely. A part of me refused to even look, demanding I only acknowledge the blood gushing over my new life and onto the floor, reducing the traction of my boots until the stairs decided to ascend into my mouth.

Cursing, shaking, screaming, I fought to right myself and clear the metallic taste from my mouth. I clawed to pull myself up one more stair. To make it into the light. But alas, there was only darkness to be found.

That realization pulled the weight of the Abyss around my ankle, dragging my gaze to the gilded teeth of a metal skull that burned with eyes of blue-green fire, where it was held for a short eternity before the world turned on its head.

Corner after cold corner smacked against my body and skull as if to harmonize with the metallic clangs of armored boots descending the stairs. Each thrum of the ear-splitting march sent my senses to some further away place; leaving, eventually, the most putrid and moist air warring against the biting sterilization of the cold for the conquest of my senses. The cold won, beating the harmonic drum of my heart into submission to have it replaced with a steady crunch paired with a gliding hum. A slow and short song meant to end in a concussive drum of flesh against wood then puttered out into a cacophony of hardly perceptible groans and growls.

The growing silence soon brought back the pains of the flesh. The piercing cold in my side. The gelid line across my throat and the wet warmth it outpoured. The crushing force around my ankle. The empty numbness of my right arm. The tug from my left hand, bringing about soul-consuming waves of fear, desperation, and rage. Everything returned in a life-giving surge that filled my vision with snow and the emotionlessly hateful gaze of the undead.

As quickly as they came, those feelings faded beneath an overbearing wave of gelid darkness. The moment I began to try, I found I could no longer pull against this malevolent force- this… undead knight. All I could do was scream in spite and rage and bubbling blood and try; try my hardest to retain my Book of Madness before the darkness consumed all.

"NO!" I gave all I had, unleashing it into a wail of denial toward the timeless abyss.

"No!" The wail echoed through the void for eons, dissipating into a whisper with distance and time until it was a hardly perceptible, "no."

Then, eons later, the void screamed back. "Y E S!"