“New item acquired,” said Wilkes. His voice sounded distant to Emma, who was still on her knees, reeling. “The Eldritch Book: Necrotas.”

Bartok grabbed a knife from his belt with each of his hands and Barb clapped her hands together.

Five enormous ropes of flame, much brighter and hotter than the ones she had produced earlier, erupted from Barb’s hands and surrounded both her and Professor Bartok.

Emma got to her feet and staggered back, her heart in her throat. Two of the flame-ropes began to rush directly at her. She glanced first towards the dagger she’d been given, which was still on the ground several feet away. The flame would reach her before she could grab it, and she couldn’t beat either of them in a fight: plain physical prowess aside, their levels dwarfed hers—whatever that meant.

Then she looked towards the cliff, which (her limbs felt heavy as she thought about it) she might be able to jump over, if she could outrun Barb’s fire spell. She hesitated. Was jumping from a mountain really a less painful way to die than burning to death?

The flames reached her before she could make her decision. Their heat was so close and so violent that she thought she felt her arm hairs burn away as she held her hands up to her face.

She closed her eyes in the blinding light, bracing with a sense of resignation for the third time in the past twenty-four hours (according to the memories she had access to, anyway) to die painfully. But the heat, rather than hitting her directly, seemed to snake around her body, warming her back instead.

“Emma, over here!”

It was Barb’s voice. Emma opened her eyes. The flames, rather than punching into her, had looped around where she was standing and back towards Barb and Professor Bartok, where they connected again like the protective ropes of a boxing ring.

Relief and confusion filled her in equal proportion as Emma made her way towards the teacher and student, their eyes trained on the book laying on the ground a few yards away where Emma had thrown it. The flames followed her closely behind. She stooped down and picked up her dagger on the way over and held it out, blade first, towards the book, feeling a little foolish now in addition to the confusion.

“What’s going on?” she asked when she was standing side by side with Professor Bartok and Barb. Whatever confusion the appearance of the book from Emma’s apparent previous life in Hell had produced in her was pushed to the side, for the moment, by the alarming alertness of the University researchers.

“That’s an Eldritch book,” Bartok said, his focus still trained on the book. “Specifically, it’s called the Necrotas. I wasn’t sure until your Orb confirmed it. It’s a fairly potent weapon.” His eyes moved towards Emma, who thought she discerned surprise and a little bit of new distrust in his expression. “And an extremely rare one. There are only a handful of Eldritch books in the world—and only one Necrotas.”

Emma looked away uncomfortably, back towards the book. In spite her companions’ alarm, it lay motionless in the dirt except for the darting of the narrow pupil from the circle where the folds of the cover broke to form the whirling eye in a pool of red sclera. The idea that the book could pose a threat seemed absurd, but it wouldn’t be the first absurd thing she’d experienced since she’d died in the bathroom at work.

Patrick, whom Emma had forgotten about, was prowling outside the rings of flame, inching closer to the Necrotas, his nose crinkled and his sharp, dagger-like teeth bared at the inanimate book. As he inched closer, a strange buzz filled the air, barely discernible over the crackle of the flames.

“What’s that sound?” said Emma.

All three of her companions turned towards her, their expressions a bit odd.

Emma.

She thought she heard the word spoken somewhere through the low din of buzzing, which seemed to be growing a little louder each second. She almost told Bartok and Barb that the book had said her name, but then stopped. Would revealing that she had heard it speak her name, when evidently they had not also heard it, put her further at risk? And she couldn’t be hallucinating the voice and noise in her head; the timing was too precise.

She thought of telling them to just destroy it, but if the Necrotas were as powerful as Bartok had claimed, it may be worth keeping. Besides, given the degree of caution with which Patrick was approaching it and Barb and Bartok had defended against it, it seemed entirely possible that they couldn’t destroy it, anyway.

Emma took a deep breath.

“Can someone please explain what’s going on?” she said, as Patrick stopped a few feet away from the book as though it were a bomb the wolf-creature was intent on eventually diffusing. “You have no reason to trust me, but I promise I don’t know anything about this.”

Barb opened her mouth, but it wasn’t her voice that spoke.

“The Necrotas,” came Wilkes’ voice from nearby, making all four of them flinch, “is a book containing instructions for Eldritch spells and rituals. The semi-living weapon is regarded as a class 4 in most jurisdictions, and is known to include certain illegal spells. Nobody but the rightful owner is capable of reading it, and even then its language must be learned over time.”

“Thanks, Wilkes,” said Emma, feeling awkward. Bartok and Barb still hadn’t moved. “So what do we do now?”

“I’m not trained in how to deal with the Eldritch books,” Bartok said to her carefully. “I’m assuming you must be its rightful owner, but I’ve heard these sorts of weapons have a way of tricking people. They’re an uncommon class of weapons that seem to have a mind of their own.”

Emma hesitated. It seemed they weren’t going to hurt her, though their tension and combat-ready stances suggested it wasn’t off the table. But she wasn’t a threat—and, even if she had been a threat, she was effectively a different person now that she had respawned and lost her Hell-memories and stats, so she couldn’t hurt them anyway. Surely they knew that. So it was probably best to be honest and learn what she could.

“I think it said my name. Should I try going to grab it? Or is that dangerous?”

The mood shifted palpably again as Bartok and Barb looked at each other, and then at Patrick, who was still poised a few feet away from the book, sniffing in its direction.

A few seconds passed which felt like minutes. Finally, Barb shifted her fingers - still clasped together in concentration, her forehead sweating - and the ropes of flame in front of them broke apart just enough to allow a person to walk through.

Taking the hint, Emma stepped towards the makeshift exit. She waited to hold up her dagger until she was a little bit past the flames, which licked her skin a little as she stepped past them, to avoid alarming the others. She could feel their eyes on her, and thought that any sudden movement could cause them to snap.

The Eldritch book lay a few feet away. Its single eye stopped swivelling and stared directly at Emma as she approached, and the whispers became more noticeable. They grew stranger as they grew louder: it was clear, now, that they were not coming from the air, nor from any discernible point in space. Instead, the murmurs were rising in her head, tangling a little with her thoughts, interjecting words as she thought of phrases or sentences that would normally pass through her head unnoticed.

Careful, now, she thought, but between the two words a tangle of incomprehensible thoughts, visuals and sounds - there was no better way to describe it - slid up between them, as though inserting a strange pause of black static that jittered her concentration. She thought of strange black lines like yarn weaving around between the two words, somehow both obscuring and revealing something at the same time. Was the Necrotas already in her head? Why did the sensation of it feel so familiar?

It was as though strange thoughts and ideas that had always lay dormant in her, unnoticed, were suddenly highlighted - or, rather, the mystery of them was highlighted by the strange noise and shapes, though they still masked something beneath them. It was like being given a treasure map leading the way to something unknown that lay buried right under her feet.

Nearby, Emma saw Patrick’s saucer-sized red eyes trained on her, but she no longer felt afraid. The Necrotas felt like an old friend, comfortable and safe.

That should concern her, but at the moment it was a relief to feel some hint of familiarity.

She stepped up towards the Necrotas and, locking eyes with it, bent down to pick it up. In response to her touch, it seemed, it began to vibrate again, and its eye swiveled - not into blank space, but to the others watching them, as though noticing them for the first time. Emma carefully slid her finger along its spine; it responded by raising the leathery exterior a little exactly in concert with her finger as it moved, as though it were connected to the precise moment in time with her feelings and intentions as they arose.

Like a cat, really.

She placed a hand on either side of the book. It was a little bigger than a normal hardcover book, but with a very smooth leather on the outside, along which she could discern bumps and crevices like those one would find on skin. It felt comfortable in her hands, in both size and weight. She ran her finger along the edge of the pages, which were coarse and poorly-cut. Black charrings colored the tips of the pages here and there.

She placed her fingers on the front and back covers, intent on opening the book, but then paused, suddenly remembering everyone watching her.

She turned and looked at them, careful to hold the book aloofly.

“Well?” Bartok prodded, his expression intent. Emma noticed that the opening Barb had created in the ropes of flame for Emma to pass through had been closed again, placing Emma on the outside.

“Nothing dangerous so far,” Emma said, her voice quieter than she’d have liked. “But weird things are happening.”

“Weird in what way?”

“Um.” Emma paused, not entirely sure how to describe the thought-feelings she’d never experienced before, nor to someone who’d also presumably never felt them. “It’s… reacting to my thoughts and touch. But,” she added quickly, “I can’t really understand most of what it’s saying. It’s mostly whispers and images that feel familiar, but… aren’t, I think.”

There was a pause.

“I think we can trust her,” Barb said, unexpectedly.

Bartok lowered his two daggers a little, looking at Emma, who met his eyes with as much honesty as she could muster. It was odd, Emma thought, to try to convey honesty. In the moment of trying to project honesty, it feels like anything but.

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Bartok, though, apparently agreeing with Barb, sheathed his two daggers. Barb brought her hands apart and the flames dispersed again instantly, leaving brief rings of light where they had been.

“I think we can, too,” said Bartok. “Though if she tries anything, Patrick, you have my leave as a University faculty member to eat her.”

Emma laughed, and Barb smirked, her arms a little stiff at her sides. The joke had the double effect of lightening the mood while also tightening the shackles Emma felt around her with the first promise of genuine retaliation. This, she had no doubt, was the intended effect.

Patrick sneezed behind her, which sounded like an entire corpse breaking in half.

Bartok strode to Emma with slow steps, Barb close behind, and they each bent down to examine the book as Emma awkwardly held it up. She wasn’t sure what to do with her hands, so she tried to quell her slight shaking and hold the book steady.

“I never thought I’d actually see one,” Bartok said, his guardedness replaced at least in part by bare curiosity, or even amazement. “The eye on the front is nothing like they describe in the texts I’ve read.”

“Does it feel,” Barb said, looking closely at the spine of the book, which had no words on it but was badly tattered in that area, the pages mostly having peeled away from the exterior, “as though you’ve always known it? Like it talks to you like a lost friend?”

“Yeah,” said Emma, surprised. “That’s exactly it.”

She didn’t like her complicated thoughts, which she had only just began to process, being summed up so easily.

“The Eldritch books are a fascination of mine,” Barb said, peering even closer at the book, her nose almost touching it. “They always said it was made of flesh, but it isn’t clear from what creature.”

“That’s not a mystery I’m sure I’d like solved,” said Emma.

Bartok and Barb examined the book for a while longer, muttering to each other every now and then and poking a finger at it but stopping just short of touching it, as though they were worried it would burn their skin. Emma wondered vaguely whether it would burn their skin. It seemed, somehow, like something the Necrotas would do, despite her having only just made its acquaintance.

Or… re-made its acquaintance, as the case may be.

“What does it mean that I have this?” Emma said finally, when Bartok and Barb’s interest in the weapon seemed to wane a little. “I feel so much like I just spawned here, but doesn’t my possession of this suggest I’ve been in Aporia before?”

Bartok and Barb exchanged another look (which Emma was getting rather annoyed with) and walked back towards the extinguished campfire, where they each took a seat on a rock and beckoned her over. Emma did as she was told, sitting near where she had earlier in the morning. Above them the sky had grown bright, and the sun - far more enormous, Emma noted, and redder, than the sun on Earth, by at least three times - had risen mostly above the tall mountain peaks.

“Try opening it,” Bartok told her. “That will help us figure out what’s going on.”

Emma, who was quite glad to follow his instructions, as her curiosity had been nagging at her since she’d first laid hands on the book, pinched the cover in her hands and then, very slowly, lifted the cover to the first page.

She was surprised, and disturbed, to see black squiggles exactly like the ones she’d imagined earlier, when the Necrotas had first touched her mind, filling up the page. They seemed simultaneously to be utterly random, as though a toddler had scribbled them, but also, at least to her mind, presented some sort of code to be cracked, or logic to be understood.

“What do you see?” Barb said.

“It’s… gibberish.”

Emma was both disappointed and excited by what she’d seen. She had hoped, now that she stopped to think about it, that she would be able to wield the book as a weapon immediately upon opening it. After all, the notion of being a spellcaster - an eldritch spellcaster at that, apparently a rare breed - had been exciting. But something about the odd lines, too, seemed also to present promise, or potential. She didn’t understand why, but Emma had hardly been more sure of anything than she was that those lines, once translated, held immense power.

She flipped to another page at random and blinked in surprise. Rather than being a chaotic yarn of lines, this one was mostly empty, with only a handful of odd angles set equidistant from each other around the middle of the page.

“The fact that you can’t read it,” Bartok said, watching Emma as she examined yet another page, this one filled with nothing but a circle that looked like a mouth, “as well as the fact that the respawn disc only gave you the book back and nothing more - no food, clothing, tools, or anything else - suggests a few things. First, that you somehow came into possession of this thing shortly before you died, either directly after a previous spawn - perhaps your very first spawn - or after some sort of punishment that stripped you of everything you owned. My money is on the former. If it had been road bandits, for example, why would they take everything else you owned and leave you with the Necrotas? The respawn disc only returns unlooted items. Even if they didn’t know what it was, there is no doubt that it is clearly of great worth, or at least great mystery. No bandit, and especially no institution, worth the name would leave it behind.”

Emma tried to think. The Necrotas had calmed somewhat, but it was still interjecting odd shapes and noises between her thoughts.

“And,” Emma said, “it feels familiar. If I had it and then died, wouldn’t I forget how it felt to wield, like I forgot everything else?”

“Possibly,” Bartok said, “though, based on my own reading on the subject, it seems possible you would maintain your connection. I admit research on these objects is hard to come by, and it isn’t my job to find them anyway. But my understanding is that knowledge-based weapons bond with their wielder, rather than the other way around, and Eldritch books are partially sentient. In other words, your respawn only affects you, not your possessions.”

He narrowed his eyes in concentration, looking up towards the rising sun that poked through the strange clouds. Barb lit another cigarette with her fire gloves and looked off into the distance.

“This presents another mystery,” he continued. “How did you come to possess the Necrotas so shortly after your presumed spawn? The Hinterlands are a vast, unexplored space, to be sure. But where we are, near the border, is one of the common spawn areas, and to my knowledge there are no dungeons, temples, or anything else nearby—in this area or any other spawn area—that would house such a powerful, ancient weapon.”

Silence descended over the early morning camp once more as the implications of Bartok’s words sunk into them. Barb finished off her cigarette and pulled out another as she wiped her sleep over her still-sweaty, red face, and then under her bandana. Then she flicked her wrist and an Orb rose from the ground, as Bartok’s had done earlier, and she poked it, bringing up her inventory, which was filled nearly to capacity.

She reached into one of the inventory boxes and pinched what seemed like ground-up leaf, pulled it out, and then deposited a little bit of it into the tip of her newest cigarette, which she then lit with a fluid hand movement that produced a precise spark where the tip of the cigarette was. Emma, who was beginning to feel the exhaustion of the sleepless night and her injuries again, watched in fascination.

“Well,” Bartok said, “as fascinating as this all is, we’ve really got to be going soon. You’re clearly not a threat, and—as a low level—you couldn’t do much damage even with an Eldritch book even if you wanted to.”

Huh?

“But -” Emma began, surprised at her reluctance to leave them and the suddenness of their departure after discovering the Necrotas. But what more could she ask of them? They had already done so much. But she still had so many questions, and had no idea what to do with the Necrotas, or how to use it. Would they really leave her like this? “Can’t I come with you?”

“That would be lovely,” said Barb genuinely, “but our current mission is extremely dangerous, and we only have enough provisions for the three of us. We would love to escort you, especially to the University, where we could study the Necrotas further. But our current task is also of extreme importance.”

Bartok nodded, the sadness now visible on his face.

“I’m afraid we don’t know how to help further,” he said, summoning his Orb again, which rose from the ground. “But I know someone who might be able to provide a little assistance not too far from here.” He looked up at Emma. “Is your goal really to try to get out of this place?”

“Yes,” said Emma without hesitation.

“Well,” Bartok said, his voice still doubtful but, to his credit, not patronizing, “you’ll probably want to go to the University, then. I don’t know how much it could help, ultimately, but you have a much better chance of finding what you seek there than anywhere else I can think of. Be warned, however, that entry isn’t granted to just anyone, and Pandemonium is an unforgiving city. Be prepared for that.”

From his inventory box on his Orb, he pulled a furled piece of paper.

“First, here’s a map of this region,” he said, holding it out to Emma, who took it. “It isn’t fully-rendered, but it will give you some idea of where you’re at. Follow the path East, through the mountains, towards Telegrad. At the Telegrad Sleep Merchant’s, ask for Jerry Graves. He’s a colleague of mine. Tell him Bartok sent you, and show him the dagger - which, I should admit, bears my identifying seal. He might be able to help you out by giving you directions to the University and offering some insight into the Necrotas. I should warn you, though, he is extremely eccentric.” He smirked to himself. “I would say be prepared for that, but nobody ever really is.”

“Poorly-drawn map acquired,” Wilkes interjected.

“Okay,” Emma said, taking the map and unfurling it. It was, indeed, poorly-rendered: drawn in pencil and marked with locations written in the same handwriting as had been in Bartok’s notebook, it depicted tall mountains surrounded by dark, mostly unmarked land, and a small series of towns near the rightmost edge of the page.

“It looks poor, but I’ve gone to great lengths to make this map true to the distance measurements,” Bartok said, reaching a finger towards the legend in the top right hand corner. Then he slid his finger into the thick mountains and pointed to a valley near the eastern edge. “We’re here, thereabout. You can find your way after that. Be warned that these mountains have a tendency to distort space, and even shift in odd ways. But as long as you go East, you’ll be fine.”

“Thank you,” said Emma, feeling strange. The matter of the mountains defying physics didn’t bother her as much as it should have. She wanted to ask about them, but there were still many, many other things she needed to ask as well, and on such little time. When she arrived at Telegrad, she would go in search of answers.

She owed Bartok and Barb (and Patrick) a great deal, yet could think of no way to repay them. She quietly made a promise to return their favor one day, if she was accepted into the University.

“One more thing,” said Bartok, and he pulled out a vial filled with blue liquid from his inventory. He handed it off to Emma, looking sheepish. “That’ll heal you the rest of the way. I did say you needed us to finish up healing. This will stop the infection and patch up the rest of your injury.”

“New item acquired: super potion,” Wilkes said. “Useful for healing mortal injuries.”

“Ah,” said Emma, understanding. “You held off on giving this to me until now, then, so you could question me.”

Bartok smiled and winked. “I told you, there’s protocol.” He stood, and Barb and Patrick followed his lead. “Farewell for now, Emma. I hope to see you at the University when we return, should you get accepted. Though I have little doubt you will be.”

He reached out his hand to Emma, who took it, and then did the same with Barb’s sleek, metal-gloved hand. Patrick stepped up next, towering over her, and held out a single claw. Emma, feeling awkward again, very carefully pinched and pulled the tip of the sharp claw up and down. Barb laughed.

“Gather up some souls on the way that you can sell in Telegrad to buy some damned clothes,” said Barb, a motherly, matter-of-fact look on her face. “There’s also flint you can collect around the mountainside so you don’t go cold. Next time I see you - and I’d better see you again - maybe I’ll teach you how to summon a flame. The spell isn’t part of an eldritch spellbook, but we may be able to figure something out.”

“I’d like that,” Emma said, grinning, her eyes stinging a little. “I hope to see you both again soon. Thank you very much. For everything. I’ll pay it back to you one day.”

“I have no doubt,” said Bartok. “Be warned that Hell, as you might expect, is a uniquely bad place for company. Not everyone will be as personable as we have been. Stay near the main path to help avoid monsters, but I would recommend hiding if you see anyone else on the road.”

“Not to scare you or anything,” Barb said. “Best of luck, Emma.”

Patrick reached out to each of them with his enormous claws and, with a barely-audible grunt, picked up Bartok and Barb. He nodded at Emma, who grinned at the absurd scene, and turned.

As she watched them disappear over a rocky bend, Bartok cradled in Patrick’s paw and playing a calming melody on his flute again, Emma’s grin faded. She suddenly felt very, very alone. More alone, in fact, than she ever had. It was as though the brief human companionship had reminded her that such things were still possible, even in the farthest reaches of Hell, and losing that highlighted her loneliness. With a longing to feel that again, she turned, with renewed determination, towards Wilkes, who was hovering quietly a few feet away.

The determination masked a far darker emotion, but she would deal with that later, just as she always had.

Beyond him, down a slope, opened a path snaking through the shadowy early-morning valley. She would follow it, and it would doubtless introduce her to many more enemies and friends, as she traveled to Telegrad, then Jerry Graves, then to Hell University, and then, finally, to her family.

If she survived.