With Pudge still clutched tightly in her left hand, and her new satchel in her right, she stood unsteadily from her place on the ground to walk toward the old building. Night was quickly approaching, and she needed a safe place to gather herself before continuing to investigate her new situation any further. Even with the gaping holes in her memory, she knew staying outside at night in a foreign place was a bad idea, that she would need quite a bit more time to get herself settled into her body and circumstances.
Upon closer inspection, the house wasn’t as structurally unsound as it had appeared from a distance. Moss and vines crept up the side of the building, and small plants seem to have sprouted from some of the wood paneling on the side and ground, but as she stepped onto the small front porch area to peek through the window she noticed that the interior was still decently intact. The second of the three steps creaked loudly, echoing through the valley for miles, but it didn’t buckle under her weight.
The glowing runes she spotted from a distance were more intricate than she first assumed, a faint pulsing glow emanating from their place etched along the frame of the door and in a strip up the entire length of the building. Without much thought, her fingers traced along the runes, captivated by the flow of their magic and the beauty of the runic design. As soon as she made contact, she heard the faint pang of notification only a split second before the box appeared in her sight.
DETECTED: UNCLAIMED WARDS
These home protection wards are old and left long unclaimed by their previous owner. These wards must be reclaimed through magic before they allow alteration or entry.
Mana Requirement:
2000/750
She understood the concept of wards in theory. Through her previous life she’d seen many different iterations of them, all fictional, yet still relatively consistent in their usage. Depending on the media, they took many forms and had countless functions, but even with so much conflicting information, her mind was able to provide a general consensus. Home protection wards were most often used in fanfiction of a wizarding variety, and could do anything from concealing an area from outsiders to actively preserving structures from damage.
As she mused, the notification disappeared from her view. There were no other boxes that appeared as she expected, something asking her to confirm or to instruct her on how one would claim the wards. Instead, she once again heard that soft chime she was unable to identify the purpose of previously and was left standing on the porch without any further progress. A small wave of frustration rose before she disregarded it, focusing instead on the well of determination that surfaced at being faced with something unknown. It was of no use to be irritated by things she didn’t understand in a completely foreign world, as the feeling would likely never dissipate. Instead she put her focus toward investigation of her circumstances.
She ran her fingers along the runes once more, hoping it would cause the notification box to appear again. When it did not, she sighed audibly and looked toward the quickly setting sun nervously. Being stuck outside would not be ideal. She examined her hand, watching as the faint swirls of magic that radiated from her skin and into the air, dissipating as they joined the wild magic until they became indistinguishable.
Unsure of her actions, she tried to focus on the strands as they left her skin, using her own will to attempt pushing them directly into the runes before her instead of letting them fly freely into the air. While she was sure she was able to direct them ever so slightly, even upon contact with the runes nothing further happened. After several failed attempts, she finally gave up and slumped minutely from the mental strain. Clearly this wasn’t the correct course of action and something else was required.
After a moment of deliberation, she decided to try something a bit more straightforward. She took a deep breath and turned inward once more with the intent of shuffling through her memories for the right words. Thousands of ideas swarmed and twisted, giving context to her intent before she finally spoke the chosen words aloud, “I wish to reclaim these forgotten wards as my own using my own mana.”
Immediately she felt a rush of energy leave her body, leaving a mild exhaustion in its wake. So distracting was the foreign sensation of her mana leaching from her body that she hadn’t a moment to consider how different her own voice had become in this new life. How the timbre had changed to a much higher register, becoming soft and melodic in a way she never could have achieved in her old life. How when she actually vocalized her intent, the magic in the air and her body jumped to her call, reacting on instinct to her demand.
Instead her focus was on staying upright against the rush of magic in her veins. It was a high unlike any she’d ever experienced in her old life. A tidal wave of something primal and all-encompassing. The sensation woke something inside her that she would never be able to fully articulate, a love unlike any she’d ever felt before. Magic was the most beautiful thing she had ever experienced short of her own God, and within the span of a moment she’d become addicted to the very concept. In the before she had already had an affection for magic, but to experience firsthand the rush had left her panting.
So new to this world she was that she had no context to understand the level of magic she performed in that moment, how in a singular act she’d used more mana than most inhabitants of this world could generate over the course of two days. How her direct patronage under a God had given her a magical core ranked as Mythic quality, which allowed her to store more than double the mana of the average inhabitant of this world. She had no frame of reference for the addictive rush of power that coursed through her body as she managed to instinctually direct the flow of her mana through her voice, immediately finding her own affinity toward tonal magicks without effort or training. So natural was her understanding of herself as a bard that it came to her as instinctually as the heartbeat in her chest or the air that filled her lungs.
Eventually, the sensation subsided and she heard the unknown chime in her head once more. Small aftershocks from the magical high left her full of adrenaline, twitching from the excess energy as her magical awareness merged with the wards that expanded across the entirety of the house and grounds. She could now feel how the surrounding twenty acres or so had been shrouded in protection magic, keeping not only creatures but other living people away. How if she’d appeared in this world anywhere but within the wards she could have walked right past this location and never known the house existed.
The feeling of the wards in her mind was both overwhelming and comforting. It was as if she had another set of eyes with which to perceive the world beneath the wards, both a soft blanket of comfort and love and an ardent knight to protect her from harm whilst she was in her home. She shook off the sensation quickly, leaving her standing on the porch anticipating something. Something that didn’t happen even after standing dumbly on the porch for a few more minutes.
Eventually she shook off the sense of anticipation and opened the large oak door. It was heavier than she’d have assumed, thick and oaken in a way that doors just hadn’t been in her previous life. It creaked loudly, echoing through the entry room of the house in a way that could have been ominous if not for the comfort of the wards settled into the back of her mind. The entry room was small, about double the size of her old walk-in closet, lit only by the traces of remaining sunlight streaming in from a room she couldn’t see.
The impending darkness sped up her actions, she closed the door behind her and stepped further into the space, trying not to become overwhelmed once more with all the new information she was categorizing. The interior was not what she had been expecting. Memories of old buildings surfaced in her mind, leaving ideas of dust and broken down old furniture. The outside of the building being so obviously reclaimed by nature had left her assuming that the interior would be similar, and while it was certainly not in its prime state, the interior was still fairly well held together.
There were a few cracks in the floor which had flora sprouting from, paint cracking, and a few crumbled bits, but it didn’t seem in bad enough shape to have been condemned. There was an old rug right inside the door that depicted a lush forest that was clearly aged and dirty, but otherwise showed little wear. Passing through the little entryway left her in a small hallway heading to her right and left. Without much thought she followed the incoming light to the left instead of toward the darkness of the right path. The hall was sparsely decorated, with a couple of paintings and sconces that had long since burned out, with a long running plain rug that stretched the entirety of it. There were a few squeaky floorboards, but she felt sure footed as she passed them over, unconcerned about them breaking beneath her feet.
Her every step echoed loudly through the house as she proceeded toward the lit room, the loudness of her travel likely the reasoning for the rugs placed by the original owner of the space. A small grin pulled at the edges of her lips as the irony of having to travel to another world to have a chance at owning a home crossed her thoughts. A grin which bloomed into a full smile as she took in the room she’d been heading toward.
It was similar to how she would have imagined a receiving room to look, though less well appointed than her imaginings had ever been. The trend of rugs had continued, though this one was more intricate than the other two she’d seen so far, black with gold embroidered beasts she’d never seen before sitting directly in front of a stone brick fireplace. All along the far wall were bookcases, though they were practically empty with only a few tomes left behind to age. Directly in front of the fireplace was a long settee, in better condition than she could have ever hoped, with only a thin layer of dust over it.
The condition of the interior had to have something to do with the wards. Had they protected the inside of the house from decay as much as raging beasts and brigands? A small mental prod at the wards gave her no definitive answer, though she couldn’t have fathomed another reason. She eyed the books on the bookcase speculatively before shaking off the urge. As much as she wanted to investigate the rest of the house, her magic, and these wards, she was running out of daylight and this room was perfect for her needs.
She dropped her satchel onto the settee, placed Pudge atop it, then headed over to investigate the fireplace. If she wanted to go through the rest of her bag and read anything tonight she would need to figure out how to start a fire. Luckily, she remembered well enough the concept of how to do so, though having never actually started a fire in her last life without the convenience of lighters and matches she assumed it would be a bit of an ordeal.
Before losing her nerve, she turned back toward the entryway and went outside on a quest for kindling, firewood, or something she could burn through the night as she settled herself in. It took about twenty minutes for her to gather enough sticks and dried grasses, and another three trips gathering larger branches for once the fire was started.
Darkness was quickly closing in as she piled up her kindling in the fireplace, hopefully dry enough to catch fire but completely unsure. These things always seemed easier on the internet than they were in real life, but she didn’t hesitate as she tried to replicate the process from her fragmented memories. It wasn’t long before she was able to produce a small amount of smoke, but repeated failures didn’t allow for even the tiniest spark of flame before she was already bathed in darkness.
As much as she wanted to be frustrated, her memories left the impression that starting a fire with nothing but friction was actually quite a difficult task. She kept trying until her hands ached from the movement, then slumped onto the floor in the darkness to think. Clearly this wasn’t working.
Frustration had her grabbing for Pudge before she was even aware of what she was doing. Just as the notification had implied, mere contact with the totem leveled her out as if she’d smoked a bunch of weed or taken a handful of mood stabilizers. She relaxed into her slumped, cross legged position on the floor and considered her options. It was almost too dark to see, and one peek through the opened window on the wall to the left of the fireplace showed the beginnings of a cloudy and dark evening.
Getting a fire going was a requirement if she wanted the chance to get anything done tonight. She wasn’t feeling tired despite the eventful nature of transmigration, and it would be hell just sitting in darkness with only her thoughts as company. If the muggle means of starting fire weren’t working for her, and they clearly weren’t, then she would need to further explore her magical options.
She’d read thousands of books and played just as many games in which people used magic to produce fire. Surely one of those options would work? She’d been a staunch believer in the idea that no matter the world, magic was a resource without limits, its only limitation being in the mind of the magic user. If her theory on the nature of magic in the before was true, then she had no need of learning specific spells from this particular world to perform magic. Only her own belief and intent were required for her to become the spark of magic needed to accomplish her task.
Her mind had a plethora of memorized spells from her life before. Some were simply hand movements, others required incantations, others required entire rituals using components but those were swiftly discarded. She outright refused to accept that magic in this world would be locked behind an ingredient paywall, and if that ended up being the case she would burn the entire realm to the ground to prevent the capitalist hellscape from spreading and profusely apologize to the Void upon her return to it.
Shaking off the odd and most vicious thoughts that had slipped in to distract her from her musings, she turned back toward the fireplace. Her first attempts were futile, simple hand gestures she’d taken steps to learn from a television show about magic users didn't work at all. After she’d run through the gamut of hand signals she pointed a finger and screamed out ‘fiendfyre,’ which she regretted immediately and thanked the Void didn’t work.
The sound of her own voice shocked her into silence, for all that she’d spoken earlier she’d not noticed how foreign it sounded, how melodic and beautiful. And for all that the shouted destruction spell did not work, she had noticed how her own magic had roiled up at the sound of her voice, ready and primed to do something. She also noticed how after she’d stopped speaking, it had settled back into her body, a calm water as if it had never been disturbed at all. She also noticed how the natural magicks had seemed to flex in anticipation for that split second, before following along with her own magic and settling down as soon as she quieted.
For all that this new information was surprising, it really wasn’t. Somewhere deep down she’d already known what she was, what that meant. It had been one of the first solid memories that had returned to her in this new world. Something about her so fundamental that it couldn’t be forgotten, even as she was only drifting disconnected thoughts crammed fresh into a foreign body. She was a bard and she was a warlock. It was an inextricable part of her being, even in the world before that did not have magic. It was who she was and who she is, etched into her very soul regardless of the realm she lived in. Hand gestures alone would have never produced magic for someone like her, it was foolish to even try.
Instead of running through her mental list of fire producing spells, she began testing her voice. It was so different from what she was used to, the soft tones as she hummed delicate in a way her old body could have never produced. In a detached sort of way she decided that the change made sense. Her body now was smaller and more delicate, better suited to the types of girls who she would have claimed to hate but had actually been secretly jealous of in the before.
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For all that she wanted to pretend that she was above such things, for what little she remembered of who she had been, she knew that even this was a gift from her God. A chance to be what she never could have been, and had always silently wished to be in her old world. A chance to bypass her self consciousness and become the soft, delicate, petite girl she had always envied in her previous life. It was vain, something she had always ardently claimed not to be, but reality made fools of all, she supposed. She couldn’t find it in her to be upset about the mirror being held in front of her.
A small tug on her magic emanating from Pudge pulled her from her thoughts. Apparently she’d been spiraling a bit. She gave the little seal a squeeze, muttered a thanks to the Void, and continued testing her voice once more. This time she kept her attention on the task at hand, watching as both hers and the magic of the world reacted to each sound she made. The random making of sounds evolved into singing a bard song that she remembered, and felt entranced as with each lilt of her voice magic twisted and danced in the air along with the tune.
There was something to this, she was sure. Just as it had with the wards, her voice was what magic reacted to. She began to experiment with the sound, making attempts to direct both her own and the natural magicks using her pitch and tone. Progress was slow, and she stayed sitting on the floor singing at nothing for what must have been hours as by the time she finished with her trials her legs ached from her unmoving position on the ground.
She was sure that she was making progress, but not nearly enough to do what she was attempting. Directly controlling the magic using her voice was certainly possible, the evidence was clear on that, but she was also sure that it couldn’t be the only way. She decided that directly singing magic into the form she needed was most likely to be a difficult, high level activity in a similar vein to crafting one's own spells. Something she would work toward in the long term, but completely useless to her current situation. It was time to try something else.
She stood and stretched from her spot on the floor, wiggling and extending her legs to get the tingles out and release a bit of the strain from having sat as long as she did. Since she was finally feeling calm again, she placed Pudge back atop her satchel and paced the length of the room once before settling back onto the floor in front of the fireplace once more. It was almost too dark to see, so she leaned in close and began to whisper to the kindling.
The whispers started as polite requests, 'I'd like it if you were on fire, please,’ but quickly devolved into pleading, ‘Please, please, please give me fire,’ and then into threats, ‘If you don’t set yourself on fire I’ll make you regret ever having been a tree in the first place!’ Eventually she gave up and tried one more time to use spells she’d learned in her last life. If wand waving spells weren’t going to cut it, she’d have to try another franchise and there was only one in which she had similar encyclopedic knowledge.
She was honestly ashamed it hadn’t been what she tried on her first attempt considering that it was the franchise in which she spent most of her time. Flashes of the twelve year long campaign flitted through her mind, reminding her more solidly of what had made her a bard in the first place. Yes, this was shameful, and she quickly covered the feeling and cut herself a bit of slack. Honestly, she’d just been reborn, was struggling with keeping track of the rush of memories and having a body once more, there was no reason to be hard on herself for taking so long to try the obvious.
She steeled herself and pointed to the small pile of kindling, trying her best to focus her intent and visualize her desire. Once she was sure she had a solid picture in mind, she hummed a little in an attempt to get her magic primed toward her desire. Then she whispered, “Ignis.”
A beat passed where nothing happened, but before she could feel the disappointment settle in she heard the minute crackle and leaned forward. Right at the center of the kindling was the tiniest spark. She gaped at it for a beat before immediately jumping into action. She coaxed the tiny flame, feeding it small bits of kindling and softly blowing on it until it sparked and small wisps of smoke and flame emerged. Leftover traces of her magic danced in the air with the natural magicks, the same as the magic from her satchel had, dancing together until it dissipated into the atmosphere like some kind of background radiation.
She stayed focused obsessing over the little spark until one of the larger branches she’d foraged finally started to burn. At the first proper crackling of fire she let out a loud yell in celebration, jumped up excitedly, and grabbed Pudge for a little dance around the space. She’d done magic! Finally, she wasn’t feeling so completely out of her depth. Once the high of pride calmed, she grabbed her satchel, threw a few more branches onto the fire, then settled herself at the hearth to investigate her belongings.
If her God had given her Pudge, something she was sure was lost to her forever, what else had he provided for her as starting equipment? Basking in the warmth and accomplishment of her task, she leaned back a bit with Pudge in her lap and reached into her bag. Like before, it felt as if reaching into an empty yet textured space. Her hand moved and searched into what felt like nothing until they grazed over something that seemed to simply emerge from the small Void. She wrapped her fingers around it until she had a good grasp and pulled it out, unable to discern what it was until it had been fully removed.
There was no need for a notification to describe the item, she thought as a sensation which may have been one incoming faded away into nothing. She knew what this was and required no context. It was a small waterskin. She jiggled it a bit and felt that it was full, and as if the action had triggered the sensation she immediately felt an overwhelming thirst. She chugged down nearly a third of her supply before she was able to stop herself, pointedly putting the waterskin to the side as she let out a pleased sigh. She would need to ration the rest until she was sure she’d be able to get more. Dying of thirst didn’t sound like a good time, and she was sure her Void would not be pleased if she was that incompetent.
She reached back into the bag, all the while wondering if in the future it would become easier to pull out specific things instead of just blindly hunting through empty space. It was faster this time, but it still took longer than looking through a simple backpack would have. The next item she pulled out was about the size of a large textbook, and upon examining was a set of neatly wrapped individual squares. She was able to count out forty before the notification appeared in her vision.
Travel Rations [Common]
Nutritious but otherwise without flavor, a serving of travel rations will keep you alive and nothing more.
The notification disappeared and she paused for a moment, as if waiting for an uncontrollable hunger to overtake her. When it didn't, she placed the wrapped package to her left and reached into her bag to continue her perusal. The next few items she pulled out were self explanatory. First was a long wool night dress and matching set of underclothes, clearly for lounging around the house or sleeping. The wool was thicker and scratchier than clothing had been in her previous life, and the thin linen of the underclothes was textured in a way that was definitely foreign to her. She did notice, however, a faint pulse of magic emanating from each piece, but was unable to identify it nor force another notification to appear.
After the single set of clothes, the next item she was able to pull from the bag was a long black cape. Unlike the underclothes, there was nothing faint about the pulsing of magic on it, nor the aura of something energizing that seemed to radiate off it in odd patterns that reminded her of smoke. She only had to stare at the odd cape for a moment before the notification appeared.
Performers Cape [Bardic Implement, Common]
This cape is a staple among traveling bards. +5% Mana regeneration while playing an instrument
Interesting. She stared longer at the cape, singling out the energizing aura from the rest of the ambient magic and tried to study it. The aura was clearly responsible for the mana regeneration on the cape, and the part of her that had been so enjoying exploring this new world surged forward to study it fully. If she was ever going to be able to truly understand the magic of this world, she would not only need to be able to recognize auras of this nature on sight, but would also need to be able to replicate them in some way.
Allowing herself to be distracted for a moment, she pulled the cape over her shoulders while looking inward to see if she noticed any changes to her own magic. The moment the cape was fully attached she noticed that the aura had changed. Previously it had been radiating outward similarly to what she had earlier called the background radiation of her bag. Upon her shoulders the direction of this radiation switched, and instead of dissipating into the air, began to radiate into her own new body.
Her own magic swirled defensively around the intrusion for a moment without her input before settling to allow the faint but steady flow. It had only lasted a moment, one she could have easily missed if she hadn’t been paying such ardent attention, but she was sure that her magic had definitely pulled a small portion of the aura into itself and integrated it before spitting a small amount of its own self into the cloak. It was as if they’d shared in some kind of back and forth communication with each other through the action. She wasn’t sure, but something about the prospect pleased her greatly.
When nothing else interesting happened after a few moments, she removed the cloak and continued searching her bag. Honestly, this all would have been much faster with a normal bag, but perhaps these limitations and the time it took to remove items was the balance for having spatial storage through the internal Void. It made her wonder if anyone else in this world had something similar. Were spatial rings and the like common in this world, or was her bag singularly unique from having passed through the Void? It was yet another interesting observation she had, and at this point she’d noticed so many interesting things that as she was waiting on the next item to materialize she wished she had a way to record them.
It was likely this thought that caused the next item to appear in her hand. It happened almost instantly as she thought it, and after pulling it out to find that it was a blank leather bound journal tied closed with a hide string. It had what looked like a carved wooden fountain pen pinned between the pages, etched with runes that glowed faintly. It had somewhere around a hundred pages, which was definitely a good start, though she was sure she’d be filling many of these journals over the next few months.
She placed the book down and gave herself a moment to think. She had definitely manifested the journal into her hand while reaching to her satchel's Void. The question was, had it been because the item had already been in the bag, or because she’d literally manifested her desire into this world? There was truly only one way to find out, so she reached into the bag and whispered, “Whiskey, whiskey, whiskey.”
When no item appeared, she tried a couple other requests; Her phone, a pizza lunchable, a pillow. None worked, which was disappointing but not unexpected. That was probably a bit too much power to give someone, even in some magical video game world. She’d have been running some kind of highly addictive drug empire within the week, surely, and while she couldn’t remember much of her actual morality in the before, she was quite sure the person she used to be would have disapproved greatly of doing such a thing. Regardless of how efficiently such a route would have gained her followers for the Void.
She shook off the thought and reached back into the bag to continue her search. Upon feeling the item that appeared in her hand, some instinctual part of her knew that it was the last item. Some deep seeded piece of her magic and psyche understood in that moment that this was the extent of what her God was able to do for her. Her new magical body, this small scattering of items, the clothes on her back, and the contents of this long forgotten warded house was the entirety of the advantages that the Void was able to provide in this new life.
She knew it so fundamentally that she was partially dazed as she pulled the final item out. It took much longer than it would have for her to notice the shift that the item caused in the magic surrounding her. She missed the first moment of the rush that followed, coursing into her body and the air around her making all the natural magic in the area pulse and jolt frantically. Her own magic was vibrating in excitement, humming and singing out to what she finally noticed was a book in her hands.
The book was the blackest thing she’d ever seen outside the Void itself. Pristine and bound in a similar textured leather-like material as her satchel. Unlike the journal or what she’d noticed from the books left on the shelves in the room, the pages were in perfect alignment. Crisp and clean, nearly as black as the cover, and trimmed with gold. The cover of the book was textured into a sigil. A large circle with etchings of script lining the interior edge, like hours on a clock there were smaller circles inside which broke up the etchings, each with a different phase of the moon.
Almost as if it were another layer underneath, there was a large crescent moon with another smaller one resting in its center. They stretched the entire length of the circle's interior, pointed north. Within the center of the smallest crescent and between the two were more etchings, then at the center of the design rested a triangle broken apart by four even smaller circles, creating what looked like a series of seven slots. Within those slots was nothing but empty space, but some part of her knew that runes were meant to be placed there.
Overlaying it all was a delicate golden script which looked painstakingly placed. It looped and curled, precise and perfect in a way she was sure couldn’t be man made, despite it trying to imitate professional calligraphy. It was titled, Courting the Void, and it radiated the seductive magic of her God at shocking levels. She’d described things as pulsing with magic many times since she’d arrived here, but at this moment she knew that she’d been overestimating those things. It was the book that pulsed, like a heartbeat, pumping itself into this world with what could only be considered deliberate fervor.
Her hands shook as she cracked the book open and leaned in closer to the fireplace to better see. A single sheet of paper fell to the floor upon opening the book, but she ignored it, completely enraptured by the intense feeling of Void that she’d been missing since becoming corporeal again. It was a shard of her own God concentrated in a way that she’d thought her satchel had been. The satchel was nothing but an echo in the face of the book. The cold dark emptiness flowing from it comforted her in a way that even Pudge could not, and she had to actively hold herself back from squishing her face into the pages and deeply inhaling as if it were a scent. Instead she turned from the empty cover page to the next, relishing every moment of contact with the dark pages. On the first page was a single line of text, written in that same looping font from the cover, though in silver instead of gold.
The chosen Harbinger is the voice of the Void in all realms.
The next few pages were a complex and confusing looking guide for crafting rituals using the sigil from the cover of the book. It detailed how to draw each component, the wording and meaning of the script, which positions each phase of the moon represented, the flexibility of placing runes into the correct slots for different effects. From what she could discern, the book assumed the reader already had a basic understanding of how rituals worked, often referencing terminology and practices she had no context for. This meant that for now at least, the book was fairly useless to her outside of the general comfort she felt in its presence. The rest of the book was full of empty pages that seemed endless, each time she flipped to the end more pages would appear, only to disappear again when she flipped back to the beginning.
This book was clearly important to her God, but likely not an immediate concern. She placed it gently into her lap and reached for the sheet of paper, hoping it had some kind of guidance on it. In the same looping script was a single line of text, though not etched with silver nor gold, instead it seemed like it was written with a normal pen. Even the paper looked like what she’d been used to in her last life, instead of everything else which resembled parchment of some kind.
It’s an exciting new religion that I started!
As soon as she read it the paper dissolved into dust. Confused, she simply stared into the fire until it clicked. She knew those words. It was a matter of moments before she was able to locate the memory. Those words were a reference to a horror musical she’d liked. One in which a Lovecraftian horror chose a small town Karen to become its Prophet and help it break through dimensions into the world. It had left her to organize the followers independently, as far as she’d known from the show itself. The only true goal was rebirth.
It took a few minutes for her frantic thoughts to come to a conclusion. The book was powerful, impactful, and mostly blank. She’d been brought to this world to live a new life and to bring new followers to the Void. The chosen Harbinger is the voice of the Void in all realms. It’s an exciting new religion that I started! She was to create a doctrine and bring people into it. That was likely what the ritual creation was about. Like she had in the before, she was to create a proper religion for the Void and this book…it would be their Bible.
Her magic crackled with excitement as a vicious grin stretched across her face. Oh this was perfect. Reverently, she picked up the book once more and stroked the cover with barely concealed awe. She would take her time with this. She would learn everything about the nature of this realm and she would use its shortcomings to make Void sound like the only answer for the people. She may be in another world but she understood people. She understood marketing, propaganda, and cult mentality. There was someone in this new world who was being disenfranchised, and what perfect targets that would make them for someone like her to swoop in and save.