Marius's private study stank.
Not of dirt, smelled more of rancid incense covering a rotten stench.
Marius dragged his feet over the Persian carpet.
His fingers gripped the edge of his mahogany desk until splinters dug into his skin.
He wasn't alone, but for the goddess he wished to.
In the deepest corner, the darkness had physical weight.
A humanoid mass of shadows stood there, it devoured the little oxygen in the room.
Marius took a shaky breath, his mind was a total mess.
He thought about the boy.
Raziel Celeste.
A nobody, just a piece of trash from the slums, he should have died quietly.
But everything spun out of control because of him.
Marius opened his mouth, his throat was dry and irritated.
He coughed and stared at the bottom of an empty wine glass.
"Raziel is a problem."
The answer didn't arrive through the air.
It vibrated directly in Marius's molars, a low-frequency hum gave him an instant migraine.
"A problem?" The voice creaked heavily. "Explain yourself."
Marius let go of the desk and walked in circles. He needed to move.
TAP!
TAP!
TAP!
He needed noise, the silence of the entity crushed his ears.
"The Inquisitors are onto us." Marius wiped a hand over his neck, cold sweat soaked his clerical collar.
"They are watching him. Prince Aerion, Paladin Odessa. Their eyes are on him, That damn novice attracts all the attention!"
He stopped in front of the shelf of forbidden books. He turned his back to the shadow and trembled.
"Our agreement required discretion! Shadows! But Raziel's mere existence pulls all the threads toward him!"
He shouted and turned sharply. His eyes projected pure panic.
"He is going to make everything collapse!"
Marius ran to a side table and poured wine with shaking hands.
The crimson liquid spilled on his sleeve. He ignored the stain.
GLUG!
He drank it in one go.
He remembered the Bard test. The dissonant, terrifying song Raziel played.
It wasn't the music of a devout follower that was more like the sound of the abyss.
Then the Scribe test with perfect High Zhalyrian.
Better than scholars with decades of study.
'He knows too much, he sees too much.'
"He is just a novice." Marius begged. His lips were stained red.
"An extra, a pawn. Is it worth burning our whole operation for him?"
The candle flames flickered in unison and turned a sickly green color.
The temperature dropped fast.
Marius exhaled vapor.
"The gears are already turning, Father Marius." The entity remained static.
The shadow at its feet stretched toward the priest.
"The pact is sealed, and there are no refunds in this narrative. There will be edits."
The figure's hood rose slowly.
There was no face, only a void swallowed the light.
"He is more than a pawn, he is a glitch. A continuity error that attracts the Player's gaze and the gods'."
The air in the room grew cold and warped.
The entity raised a hand of swirling, dense smoke.
What it held wasn't made of shadows, bone, or dark magic.
Marius squinted. His mind failed to comprehend the object.
It was a jagged shard of dark crystal. Its edges shifted constantly and broke apart into tiny, glowing square blocks.
It didn't hum with mana. It buzzed with harsh, synthetic static.
A single drop of blood leaked from Marius's ear.
BZZZT!
The air around the object distorted violently. Unnatural, piercing colors flashed.
Bright crimson and deep black hurt his eyes.
It was a literal hole in space, a physical tear in their world.
"What is that heresy?" Marius whispered.
He stepped back, till his calves hit the desk.
"A temporary override." The Shadow entity replied.
The vibration in Marius's teeth turned into a sharp, drilling ache.
"A proxy channel. A gift from the Player who truly observes the board."
Marius shook his head. He refused to understand the words.
'Player? Board? Proxy channel?'
The vocabulary was alien. It belonged to no ancient text or forbidden grimoire.
It was madness. It was lunatic rambling.
But the power radiating from that glitching, pixelated artifact was absolute. It suffocated him.
It dwarfed the corrupted divine magic of the Church.
"The one who watches from above grew tired of this continuity error." The entity hissed with metallic distortion.
"She granted us a fraction of her frequency. A digital contagion to ensure the execution."
The entity extended its smoky arm and offered the static mass to the priest.
"You will give this to your best hunting dog. When the assassin corners the boy in the dark archive, this override will activate."
Marius stared at the pulsing, static-filled object, the sheer wrongness of it mesmerized him.
"And what will it do?" He asked with a breathless voice.
"It will allow Her to speak. To look through the assassin's physical vessel. To correct the error personally. The boy's mind will shatter before his body hits the floor."
The entity stepped forward. The room shrank.
The shadows coalesced and hid the glitching artifact.
They replaced it with something Marius understood.
SHIING!
A silver dagger materialized in the entity's hand. It slid over the desk and stopped in front of Marius.
"Kill him." The entity ordered and Its tone allowed no objections.
"Tonight. Before he finds the hidden items in the archive."
Marius looked at the dagger.
It was beautiful and deadly.
He reached out with a trembling hand and took the weapon, the metal froze his skin.
"It is madness." Marius whispered.
His fingers squeezed the handle.
He squeezed hard. The sharp edge of the guard cut his palm.
He didn't flinch.
"If we kill a novice inside St. Celeste, the Inquisition will turn this place upside down."
The entity laughed with a dry, harsh sound.
"Let them. They are just background characters, they wait for their turn to die. They are stepping stones and you, Father Marius, have the privilege of pushing him down the stairs."
Marius looked at his reflection in the ornate wall mirror.
Usually, he saw a pious man. A strict but necessary guide for the flock.
Now he saw the truth.
He saw his own eyes.
Sunken.
Feverish.
Desperate.
He saw a man past the point of no return.
The fear remained.
But underneath the fear, pure ambition bloomed.
If he did this and survived, the power from the Cult of the Source would be divine.
He thought about the glitching artifact.
A direct connection to a god-like entity.
With that backing, nobody could stand against him.
Not a spoiled noble, not a crippled Paladin.
And definitely not a fifteen-year-old rat from the slums.
He closed his wounded fist and the sharp pain cleared his mind.
His blood mixed with the silver.
'It is already done. I did it the moment I opened the door to this thing.'
Marius straightened up.
He wiped the blood from his hand on his tunic, leaving a brutal, dark trail on the sacred white fabric.
"We will sacrifice him." His voice held firm.
He turned to the entity with a twisted smile on his face.
"And we will make sure the blood splashes directly on that heretic novice, Raziel."
Far away, in the dark archive, a fifteen-year-old boy dropped a dusty scroll.
A crimson screen shattered his vision.
[WARNING: LETHAL ANOMALY DETECTED]
Raziel stared at the red glow.
'Fuck me.'