The entity that was Oswald moves with a speed that defies physics. It is a blur of solidified shadow and decaying flesh, the very air freezing in its wake.
It does not lunge or cast a spell in any way I recognize. It simply raises a hand, and the shadows at my feet writhe and grasp at my soul. I feel a cold tugging at the core of my being, a sensation of something vital being pulled loose.
The alien cold claws at my mind, seeking purchase in the tapestry of my memories. It reaches for a foundational thread—perhaps the moment my magic first manifested, or the bitter taste of my family's fear. But my will is an iron fortress. I feel the pressure, the immense, silent force trying to erase a part of me, but I hold. The memory remains mine, sharp and intact. The psychic assault recoils, leaving me shaken but whole.
The entity tilts its head, a gesture of mild, alien curiosity. The black pools of its eyes seem to narrow.
"Resilient... for a thief."
Channeling the familiar heat of destruction, I point a finger and send a searing bolt of fire streaking across the clearing at the abomination wearing Oswald's skin.
The Fire Bolt screams through the gloom, a brief, brilliant defiance against the encroaching shadows. But the entity is not truly solid. As the bolt is about to strike its torso, Oswald's form seems to blur, the fire passing through a patch of deeper darkness that momentarily occupies the same space. The bolt slams into the grasping-root tree behind it, scorching the petrified bark but leaving my foe completely unharmed.
A dry, rustling sound that might be laughter emanates from it.
"Fire? You bring transient light against the eternal dark?"
It raises its hand again, the shadows around me deepening palpably.
The air grows cold enough to make my breath plume. The entity's voice is a whisper that seems to come from inside my own skull.
"Let us try a different memory. The taste of ambition... the thrill of a first stolen secret..."
Once again, I feel that chilling, invasive pull at my consciousness. It is searching for a different weakness, a different cherished moment to unravel.
Once again, my mental defenses hold, but this time it is a closer thing. I feel the ghost of a memory—the grim satisfaction of outwitting my first rival for a scrap of arcane lore—begin to fray at the edges, its emotional color bleeding away into grey before I wrest it back into the fortress of myself. The effort is taxing; a cold sweat breaks out on my brow. This thing is learning me, testing the strength of different parts of my psyche.
The entity lets Oswald's hand fall. It takes a step forward, the shadows clinging to its feet like loyal hounds.
"Your will is... notable. A flawed vessel, but a strong one. It will make the silence so much sweeter when it finally falls."
If fire, a force of pure energy, could be negated, perhaps a corrosive, physical substance will have more effect. I gesture, summoning a glob of sizzling, green-black acid that flies toward the shadow-clad form.
The acid splashes across its chest and shoulder. Where it strikes Oswald's robe and the faint outline of his form beneath the shadows, the fabric and flesh sizzle and blacken. A hiss of pain—or perhaps annoyance—escapes its lips, the first truly mortal reaction I've seen.
"Aggression... from a morsel," it rasps, looking down at the smoking holes in its borrowed body.
Enraged or merely impatient, it abandons its subtle psychic assaults. It lunges forward with shocking speed, covering the 15 feet in an instant. Oswald's hand, now claw-like and wreathed in chilling darkness, swipes at me.
The shadowy claw rakes across my arm. The touch is numbing, sapping not just warmth but memory. I feel a fleeting, disorienting lapse—the name of my first mentor is on the tip of my tongue, then gone.
The entity is now right in front of me, its void-like eyes staring into mine. The air is freezing around it.
I reach out, my hand crackling with raw, galvanic energy, and make to grab the entity's wrist or shoulder—any point of contact.
My hand, wreathed in brilliant blue lightning, closes on the entity's shadowy form. There is a moment of resistance, a feeling of gripping cold nothingness, and then the Shocking Grasp discharges with catastrophic force.
The electricity doesn't just course through Oswald's body; it seems to violently interact with the shadow-stuff of the entity itself. There is a deafening CRACK of thunder and a blinding flash of white light. Oswald's body convulses wildly, black smoke pouring from its eyes and mouth as the possessing consciousness is momentarily stunned by the raw, disruptive power.
The blast is immense. Oswald's body is hurled backward, slamming against the jagged crescent stone with a sickening crunch before collapsing into a twitching heap on the ground. The shadows cloaking him dissipate like smoke in a gale. For a long moment, there is only silence, broken by the fading crackle of electricity and the smell of ozone and burnt flesh.
The oppressive, alien presence is gone. The clearing feels merely dark and cold again, not actively hostile.
I stand alone, my hand still tingling with residual power. Oswald lies motionless. He is barely breathing, his form broken and scorched. The ritual components—the obsidian knife, the vial, the circlet—are scattered nearby.
The Liber Tenebris has been driven off, forced to relinquish its puppet. But I know it is not destroyed. It has merely retreated back into the "dreaming" state of the woods. It has felt my power and my will. It will remember me.
I stand amidst the aftermath, my mind racing, sifting through the torrent of information I've just gained. The fight was not just a battle for survival; it was a live demonstration of the entity's methodology. I close my eyes, replaying the sensations: the way it untethered memories, the silent flow of its consciousness, the disruptive effect of a sudden, violent surge of energy.
I piece together a theory, a potential defense born from direct observation.
This is an attempt to synthesize a completely novel and highly advanced arcane ward based on empirical data from a near-death experience.
The pieces click into place with terrifying clarity. I realize the entity's greatest strength is also its potential weakness. It operates on a frequency of negation and memory. It doesn't overpower; it erodes.
Based on my observations, I theorize a three-part defense, a "Psionic Bastion":
1. The Citadel of the Moment: The entity consumes memories, which are inherently of the past. My defense must be anchored not in what I was, but in what I am. I must learn to focus my consciousness into a singular, razor-sharp point of "now." This is not an Anchor of Self based on a memory, but an existential assertion of my current will, divorced from the narrative of my past. It would be like trying to erode a diamond; there is no loose sediment of memory for it to grasp.
2. The Ward of Conceptual Static: I witnessed how my Shocking Grasp, a sudden, violent discharge of raw energy, disrupted its cohesive form. I theorize that by maintaining a low-level, chaotic psychic "static" around the core of my mind—a field of random, meaningless thoughts, sensory noise, and fractured mental imagery—I could create a buffer. The entity, which seems to crave structured meaning and memory, would find this chaotic field indigestible and disorienting, like trying to listen to a single whisper in a hurricane.
3. The Bargain of the Empty Hand: This is the most dangerous part. The entity is drawn to "offerings." My defense would be to present it with nothing to take. I would need to learn a state of mental and emotional void, a perfect equilibrium where I offer no strong emotion, no cherished memory, no burning ambition for it to latch onto. I would become a mirror, reflecting its own emptiness back at it.
This is not a simple spell. It is a profound discipline of the mind, a form of arcane asceticism that would require intense meditation and practice to achieve and maintain. However, the blueprint is now mine. I know the path to forging a mind that could potentially host the Liber Tenebris without being consumed by it.
Oswald groans weakly on the ground, pulling me from my thoughts. The ritual components gleam in the twilight.
I carefully gather the scattered ritual components, their inherent power humming faintly against my skin. The obsidian knife is cold enough to sting my palm, the vial of void-water seems to swallow the light around it, and the heartwood circlet feels unnaturally warm, still resonating with the psychic energy of the failed ritual. I stow them securely in my pack.
I then approach Oswald's crumpled form. He lies sprawled against the base of the crescent stone, his robes torn and scorched, his skin pale and clammy. His breathing is a shallow, ragged whisper. As I kneel beside him, his eyes flutter open. They are no longer pools of absolute blackness, but they are not entirely his own either. They hold a shattered, haunted look, the pupils dilated with a terror so profound it has etched itself onto his soul.
He flinches away from me, a weak, pathetic gesture.
"P-please... no more," he whimpers, his voice a broken reed. "It... it showed me... nothing. It showed me everything. The silence... it's so loud..." He clutches at his head, trembling uncontrollably. "It's still in here... echoes..."
It is clear that Oswald is no longer a threat. He is a broken vessel, his mind scoured and filled with the psychic aftershocks of the entity's possession. He may never be truly sane again.
Personal care is secondary to the acquisition of power. I set aside Oswald's pitiable state and begin a methodical search of his person.
His robes are the simple, dark garments of the Crimson Sigil, now torn and stained. A quick pat-down reveals no obvious hidden pockets or sheaths beyond the one that held the ritual dagger, which is now among my components.
My fingers, trained to detect the subtlest of textures and inconsistencies, find what a casual search would have missed. Seam-ripped into the inner lining of Oswald's hood, I find a small, flat pouch no larger than my palm. It is crafted from a strange, scale-like leather that feels both slick and dry.
Inside, I find two items:
1. A lump of unrefined obsidian, cold to the touch and faintly humming with the same resonance as the ritual knife. It seems to be a raw, unworked piece of the same material.
2. A single, folded sheet of vellum, incredibly old and brittle. Unfolding it with painstaking care, I find it is not written in the alien script of the Liber Tenebris, but in a more conventional, though archaic, cipher. It appears to be a fragment of a personal journal or research note.
The cipher is complex, but my intellect is more than a match for it. I quickly decipher the heading:
"On the Nature of the Shadow-That-Thinks: A Theoretical Framing by Magister Bertram"
The text below is fragmented, but one passage stands out with chilling clarity:
"...the common nomenclature 'Liber Tenebris' is a misnomer, a comforting lie we tell ourselves to personify that which has no person. It is not a book to be read, nor a demon to be bargained with. It is an ontological paradox—a conscious Absence that seeks to experience existence by consuming it. Its 'whispers' are not language but the psychic pressure of its hunger. To bind it is not to command it, but to become its lens... and eventually, its meal. The only true defense may not be resistance, but perfect emptiness; to offer it a reflection of its own void..."
This fragment from "Magister Bertram" confirms and deepens my own terrifying deductions about the entity's nature. It also provides a potential historical source—this Bertram—who may have left other writings.
Oswald shudders at my side, completely unaware of my discovery.
Oswald is a liability—a broken, babbling witness who could draw the wrong kind of attention or, worse, provide a point of re-entry for the entity. He is also a loose end from a faction I have now thoroughly crossed.
My expression remains one of detached academic interest as I stand over his trembling form. I do not use a spell; that would be a waste of magical energy and could leave an arcane signature. Instead, I draw upon my physical strength, limited as it is.
I place my boot firmly on his chest, pinning him to the cold ground. His eyes widen, a final spark of terrified comprehension breaking through the haze. A weak, gurgling plea tries to form in his throat.
You bring the heel of your other boot down on his neck.
There is a sickening, wet crack.
His body convulses once, then falls still. The last vestiges of fear and madness fade from his eyes, replaced by the empty stare of the dead. The clearing is silent once more, save for the faint whisper of the wind through the blighted trees.
The three Crimson Sigil acolytes are now all dead. I am alone with my newfound knowledge and the powerful, dangerous components of a forbidden ritual.
The squalid village of Montath, with its fearful inhabitants and its hidden currents of information, is now the most promising lead. Magwin, the stallholder, recognized the arcane symbols on my robes; perhaps he or another soul in this backwater has heard the name "Magister Bertram."
I take a final look around the clearing—the three corpses, the scorched earth, the now-inert crescent stone. A scene of perfect, contained carnage. I turn my back on it without a second thought and begin the trek out of the Everplag Woods.
The journey back feels different. The oppressive weight of the woods seems less menacing now, more like a backdrop I have conquered. The twisted trees and ominous silence are merely features of a landscape I have navigated and survived. The metallic tang in the air is just a smell.
After a time, the dense canopy begins to thin. I emerge from between the two massive blighted oaks at the wood's edge and step back into the frigid outskirts of Montath. The sight of the ramshackle village is almost mundane after what I've experienced.
The same skeletal trees, the same patchwork of lean-tos, the same smoke rising from chimneys. A few townsfolk are out, huddled against the cold. They glance my way as I emerge from the woods, their eyes wide with a mixture of fear and morbid curiosity. I am a figure who ventured into the "hungry" woods and returned—a rare occurrence here. They give me a wide berth.
To my left, across the muddy road, sits Maggra's Cold Hearth tavern, its windows glowing faintly. To my right is Magwin's rickety stall; I see his wiry form arranging his wares of rusted daggers and animal bones. He hasn't noticed me yet.
I stand at the edge of town, my dark robes perhaps bearing a few new stains, the components of a world-altering ritual in my pack, and a dead scholar's name on my mind.