I don't know how long it had been since my little writing experiment with the book, but I hadn't moved from my chair since I found my way back into its embrace. Time was not a consistent thing within my sanctum, and it was the kind of abnormality that I quite enjoyed. Had a day passed? A week? A year? I could only wonder.

Jami had gone silent, though she was never truly gone. The only sound filling my ears was that of my own tapping against the desk. My fingers tapped, one after another, slow and steady. Whether my eyes were open or shut was irrelevant to me, as I knew my sanctum so very well that I could navigate with ease no matter the situation. Time passed.

It simply passed.

For reasons I couldn't quite pin down, I found my mind wandering into my past. I recalled how grand it felt to first learn magic and experience the rush of casting your first spell. Back then I wasn't a Black Mage, though it was only a matter of weeks before I became one. I listened to the call and I heeded its words.

To explain to a non magic user exactly what that means is a little complicated, but essentially magic was a living being. Or beings, perhaps. Nobody could say for sure exactly what it's identity was, but it was a living thing all the same. It called to its wielders, who had the talent and the body makeup to manipulate it. It allowed them to use it and they in return respected it.

Cared for it.

A Black Mage, however, was one who tore from that magical essence around us and forced it to obey us. We did not respect. We did not ask for its favor. We shaped it into our own image and used it as a mere toy. This was somewhat of a poison, not to the body, but to the soul. Not that seeping poison into ones soul wasn't also bad for the body, as our appearances often showed.

In those first few days of magic, I felt more alive than I had ever felt before. The chilly air of Brighton, the place of my birth, did not bother me. The fact that I hadn't eaten in what seemed like an eternity did not bother me. I was happy and free, with my heart pounding loudly to prove it. Such a simple time.

These memories came to mind because I had felt a similar thrill as I did when I ran my hand across this book. It was growing increasingly obvious that it was hiding something powerful, and it was a dangerous path I'd be treading to learn its secrets. But much like the young me who braved into the unknown, so too shall the older me walk the same path.

I would break it as I broke the essence of magic around me.

"But..." I trailed off with a sigh. "I don't know where to start."

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I did not particularly want to start jabbing the book without some sort of protection. The blast didn't kill me, but if there was a stronger magic that I was unprepared for... Wulfram Azalea is not actually an invincible man. I had to be careful, and that meant setting up wards, getting conduits and perhaps even gathering a slave or two to use as bait.

It meant I would have to call upon my peers and their spheres of influence, to gather what I needed. Things I knew the Tiers from Upper to Lower did not contain. In many ways I found that far more daunting than meddling with an ancient and potentially deadly book of magic. At least the book of magic seemed upfront about its attempts to kill me.

I began to sort through my peers to figure out who I had to speak to. Iris was useless to me, I didn't need to throw spiders at my problems. Beni was useless, because Beni was always useless. Aragor would rather die than help me and all he had to give me was lip and advice on how best to kill my enemies.

It couldn't be Monk. I didn't need advice on my garden... not that he ever spoke to begin with. Vale, ever the narcissistic bastard, would just give me a painting of himself and be done with it. That left one person who could possibly help me gather what I needed. The man who was rumored to have a tight grip on the throat of every merchant within our borders. And out, for that matter.

Freyjadour Cythis.

That, of course, meant I had to find the so-called Purple Shadow. I let out a sigh at the prospect. I was reclusive, sure, but Freyjadour was just plain annoying to find. He did not have a place he called home and he certainly never stayed in one spot. To make things worse, I couldn't "reach out" as Aragor had done to me. Freyjadour was a black spot on our collective magical senses.

But it was clear he'd have access to things far outside of my reach. Wards and the like, that is. Things that I'd have to go and get myself otherwise, which was a little too much effort for my taste. He was also a little easier to deal with than Aragor, not that it was too big of a hurdle to overcome, as I knew I'd merely have to pay him in coin.

After some grumbling about where to start looking, I made up my mind to find Vale first. It felt like pulling teeth when he talked about how great it was to be alive and free. To be beautiful as the gods intended. I found it a little more than hypocritical, because we were abominations to nature and both of us had eaten from the flesh of Mone. A god we had killed.

But despite it all Vale was Freyjadour's main associate. The two travelled the most out of any of us, so it made sense they'd share a few common goals. More importantly, Vale was incredibly easy to track down. That is to say, he barely left the home he had been given in the Upper Tier unless he was on a mission for the Sun Emperor.

I knew for a fact that he was not. I knew this because the egomaniacal bastard liked to flaunt his aura as hard as he could, and I could sense him from where I was sitting quite easily. Placing the book back in the drawer, I stretched my limbs and decided to begin my journey. Despite it all, my curiosity for the books contents were growing ever the more fierce.

I stood up and slid the staff from the wall to my hands with practiced ease, feeling the feeling I usually got when Jami was stirring. I opened my sanctum door and left my personal fortress behind. All in the hopes of finding a man who could truly be called a ghost. All in the hopes that ghost could help me obtain the secrets of an old book.

All in the hopes that those secrets could entertain me.