The man clad in chain mail begins counting down. "I will give you to the count of three to surrender! One!"
"That Royal Knight came at me first. Are your couriers really that unreliable with their information?"
"Two!" Derek looks back and forth between the guards and the alley next to us, contemplating escape.
"Three! Attack!" The chain mail clad man begins moving his hands in some sort of odd fashion. The goggles of revealing tell me he is congealing Vis in his palm. I ready myself as a churning sphere of white energy is produced and shot from his hands. I point at it, sending a pulse of Flux towards the sphere before it can reach me. It helplessly fizzles out before it even touches me.
"Wh…" The man’s eyes widen in disdain. It is only momentary though. "Neat trick. That won’t stop our spears though! Charge men!" The division of soldiers begins their charge towards me. I look back and notice Derek has run off. Coward. No matter. This is a good change to test out one of the devices I designed. I pull a small pistol-shaped device out of its holster on my hip as the men run towards their doom. I point it at them and pull the trigger.
"YEEAAAGHH!" They all cry in agony in unison with one another as bolts of superheated Potentia (Energy, Power) pierces their hearts. All the soldiers fall to the ground synchronously as I holster the device. Victus (Life, Living) Conductor. Glad I made that. As I stare at the scene, I begin to hear screams all around me. Probably time to go. I focus and open a Flux Rift back to the rift the crew took to get here.
"Derek, if you can hear me, now is your last chance to change your mind." I wait for about 20 seconds before walking through the rift.
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Since I instructed the cultists to meet back here in a week, I still have to wait five days for them. I take this extended period of brevity to gather what I have learned in my mind. I still don’t know what allows these magic casters to utilize Vis. There’s no inherent law of nature that draws Vis to hand motions like that man used when he cast his spell. Perhaps a lesser god is manipulating it? This is when something horrible happened.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I could learn more about this all if I just took a research subject. I need to learn more about souls. I snap out of this terrible thought. How could I possibly think that? After my soul has been toyed with, how could I condemn someone else to a similar fate? Perhaps… this is the Warp affecting my mind? I have no time to dwell on it. I resolve to jotting down the incident in my notes.
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After five days had passed, I had made great strides in my thaumaturgical research. As I am writing, I see figures in the distance. I instruct my golem to be prepared for combat, but it is just the crimson cultists. "Welcome back," I say. "Did you find anything worthwhile on this mission?"
They all look at each other before saying, "We did, actually. We found a book titled the Aninomicon. We’re not sure, but we sensed a similar aura to that of the Thaumonomicon." They were indeed correct that this book had some sort of energy surrounding it; the goggles of revealing gave it away. "We tried to read it but we couldn’t make heads or tails of it."
"No matter. I will study it when we return to the tower." At this, I re-open the now naturally sealed rift we entered this reality through and return to the Emptiness.
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When we return to the tower, the cultists are so happy they throw a party. "To our new leader!" They shout it with joviality. Of course, since I cannot drink, I distance myself from the party and seclude myself in my study. I slowly pull out the book. Aninomicon. Latin for "Book of Souls". I’m surprised at myself. I never learned Latin.
I slowly open the book and gaze at its pages. When my eyes grace the first page, I experience something nearly identical to what I did when I read the Thaumonomicon. After the dizzying experience, my head is filled with unknown knowledge on the manipulation of souls. I can feel my Warp has greatly increased. I resolve to never using this knowledge for evil. I meditate on what the book taught me and shudder at some of the dark practices it outlined. Dear God. Some of this is worse than what happened to me. Who made these books? Why can only I use them? And what language was that book written in? The only way I’ll find out is reading more. I blink rapidly. No matter. All I can do for now is prepare for the next excursion and further my research.