A somewhat peculiar and tense silence followed after that last statement. A staring match between Cumulus and Tom, both not moving their gaze from one another. Which was strange, since Cumulus should be completely blind. The rest of the room’s occupants seemed to have decided to ignore the two of them, for now. Garmon had turned his back to them and continued to stare at the book, Verek could hear some murmurings about doors but nothing beyond that. The neurophage and the necromancer simply kept on being unmoving statues, but now Verek had a feeling they were not paying that much attention to Cumulus.
Vector had turned to look at him, her expression shifting. The awkwardness on her face melted into a slightly exasperated smile, then shifting once again into a mischievous smile. A shifty expression crossed her face, a quick sidelong glance at Tom that told him at once that she wanted to let him in on a secret. She quietly stepped on closer to him, eyes gleaming brightly, her right hand rising up to cover her mouth from Tom’s direction.
“What about me? What will happen to me?” Her face immediately curled, upon hearing his uncle’s hesitant voice. She spun on her heel, face filling with anger as she did so. Her right hand raised, he pointed an index finger at him. For a moment, Verek thought she was going to kill him, a shock of emotion passing through his body at the thought. So quick he was completely unable to preferably feel them, know what they meant.
“You—” She spoke, voice raising into a pitch before being interrupted by a much more authoritative tone.
“Will die.” Said Garmon, his voice deep and uncaring. It then took a decidedly threatening tone. “You will die. You filthy heretic. That is your fate. Come to peace with it, because it is all you have, and all you shall have forever more. I will make sure of it, your death will cleanse you of your mistakes, your sins. Your sacrifice will help us all, all the people of the Library.” Whatever feeling Verek had before, it was completely gone, as if it had never existed.
“Oh.” His uncle said, voice tinged with hopelessness.”I see, You are a lunatic.” He whispered, more to himself than anyone else. His voice trembling like a candle’s light, like he was about to splurt out into crying.
“Nope! That’s me actually!” Tom said, pointing at himself with both thumbs. A large and wide grin spreading across his face, like he was expecting applause and adulations. Cumulus actually smiled at his exclamation, smiling was something that was somewhat rare on the older man’s face, which only made the sight all the stranger.
His uncle opened his mouth again, but before a single sound could escape from his lips, he was stopped. Tom snapped his fingers, pointing his index at the man and his thumb up, toward the ceiling. His uncles disappeared, just like Tom did a few moments ago. Verek felt curiosity bubbling inside of him.
“What did you do?” He asked. He had seen no, not felt any gramaryes at all, both times that Tom did his disappearing act.
“Oh, that? A simple trick, nothing more, nothing less.” He said, smugness radiating off of him as he adjusted his fancy black jacket. “I simply made him cease to produce sound, smell, heat, reflecting light. This and that, and a lot more. Simple enough, really.”
“Was, was that a spell?”
“Yep! Why, I could even teach you, when we have the time!” Verek lit up at that.
“Really?” He had to ask. He didn’t doubt Tom, necessarily. It was just that the idea of someone simply handing out a spell, any spell, to him, and such a powerful one, filled him with disbelief. A small part of him couldn’t happen but be suspicious of this. But he dismissed it quickly. Tom and his band were clearly beyond whatever reality Verek inhabited, they had to have come from deep within the library. Verek didn’t doubt Tom’s wild claims from before, who knew what happened in such dark depths?
“Really, really” Tom said, jovially. Before he once again turned to Cumulus. “That won’t be a problem, correct? You have nothing against it?“ Verek felt immediately confused, why would he have a problem with it?. Cumulus never taught Verek his spells, but that was because he couldn’t. His uncle would have never allowed it. Although…why did he obey his uncle? It seems clear Cumulus is not who he seemed to be, who Verek thought he was. The frail old man, the one who couldn’t help but love fanciful stories, was that really who he was? Did he never help Verek because he could not, or because he would not?
“No, not a problem at all. Though you should try your best not to corrupt him with your teachings.” He turned to Verek, milky pupiless white eyes met green irises. “He is an honest boy. He cannot lie like you, will not be able to. I think.” Verek didn’t know what to think of that, he had lied plenty of times, many times to survive, or protect himself. Cumulus should know that he had been there and heard many of his lies, even corroborated with some of them.
“You would be surprised. The first step to a good lie is lying to yourself.” His carefree smile suddenly sharpened into a vicious grin. “‘To Lie to God, You Must First Lie To Yourself.’, you would know about that, wouldn’t you?” Cumulus said nothing, but closed his hands into tight fists.
“...I guess I would.” He spoke at last, each of his words slow and strained, they were like blood being drawn out of a stone. Tom seems to take pleasure in that, he nodded with clear contentment, like he had won some kind of unspoken debate.
“Aha!” Vector was now elbow deep inside of a tiny little purse, a golden purse. A purse that was decidedly too tiny to even fit her whole hand, much less her whole forearm. With her other hand, she snapped her fingers, Verek couldn’t help but notice that this time the sound was utterly normal.
“Here, for you!” She pulled her forearm from her tiny golden purse, that must be her favorite color or something. In her hands she presented him with an object, it was long, yellow and slightly curved. Verek’s mouth fell open as he stared.
“Is that a—”
“Banana! Yep, for you.” She shoved it in his direction. As he went to grab it, he almost skewered her again.
“S-sorry.‘ He stammered, embarrassed how many times he made the mistake.
“No, worries! No, worries! It’s nothing! Seriously, don’t make that glum face.” She shrugged. “It's not like you can hurt me or anything.” She said, smiling confidently.
“I…I can’t? Are you sure, this is really sharp.” He said, slightly raising his crystal fragment.
“Oh, I am very sure. It doesn't really matter how sharp it is either.”
“Really? Is…that your spell? How does that work?” Vector’s smile widened at his question.
“Yes, it is a spell! And how it works is simple, really. Simple but profound. It is the art of truth: Mathematics!” She squealed excitedly.
“Math?” He tried to keep his voice from sounding as confused as he felt.”You mean, like, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division?”
“Yep, yep, yep, and yep!” She nodded each time.” All of that and so much more! I can teach you if you like. Show you the wonderful world of geometry! The mysterious depths of—”
“No, absolutely not!” Cumulus’ voice cut through Vector’s cheer like a blade slicing through paper.
“Oh, please, C’mon. I can understand you not wanting Tom to teach him. But what’s your problem with me? Math is nothing but simply explaining the truth, and only the truth! There’s nothing untowards with it!”
“That is exactly the problem!” He shouted, voice filled with pitched fervor, unlike anything Verek had ever seen before.”You want to take an endless infinity of abstractions, of nature and reality itself and cage it in axioms, rules and theorems! You want to take the spirit, the soul, the divinity within all things and categorize it! You want to take truth and falsehood, mystery and knowledge and use it as mulch to grow a tree of death! And a top the crown of the tree will sit a D—”
“Careful now. Don’t say anything you might regret. And I won’t do anything I might regret, okay?” Vector said evenly. Cumulus was breathing hard, taking in great gulps of air, his chest rising and falling with each strained breath, his shoulders heaving up, almost to his ears, and falling down so low it felt his fingertips should brush the ground. Verek just felt…so confused about all of it.
Why was he so worked up? What was it about Tom and Vector that he found so abhorrent. Was math truly such a terrible art? How did addition create a tree of death? More importantly, why was he focusing so much on these two. Never in his life did Verek hear that math was a terrible thing, well, except from children. Yet here was Cumulus going to such lengths to stop him from even being interested in it. Why? Why is he screaming at the only two nice people among this group? Why not the scream at the two monsters in the group, the brain devourer and his friend the corpse defiler? Verek knew the ‘two nice people’ he was talking about also seemed to be friends with the two monsters, but still…he just felt confused. Deeply, deeply confused.
“I just—I just don’t want him to be led astray. I have not, will not teach him my path.” Cumulus admitted, weakly.
“Yeah, sure. I believe that.” Tom whispered sarcastically.
Vector stared at him, he expression clearly stating she didn’t approve his comment.
“You two are so similar, probably why you both are so bothered by each other.” Both men proceeded to open their mouths and begin voicing their protests, before immediately noticing each other and promptly shutting their mouths. Once again Verek was struck by how Cumulus seemed to be able to rapidly perceive his surroundings. All his life the old man had old failing senses, was it all a lie?
“Two old men. Unable to let go of their pasts, their preconceived notions, even though they do not square up with reality anymore. Have not in generations.” She then sighed deeply. Tom and Cumulus actually looked chastised at that. For a second it felt like Vector was the old soul, dispensing some wisdom to the two squabbling younglings. Then she clapped her hands, and the moment was over.
“Anyway! He is not a kid, he can make his own decisions.” She turned to him, hand hiding her mouth from Cumulus’ direction. “We will talk later.” She whispered. Then continued in normal volume, her hand dropping to her side “Like, if he wants to eat the banana now!”
Oh, right! The fruit, he forgot about it.
He quickly brought it closer to his face. His first time seeing a banana, or any fruit in general. He knew they were cultivated by monkeys or something, did that mean there were monkeys inside the Library? A scary thought, he learned they liked to hunt babies. From what he knew, you were supposed to peel the banana.
He always felt like that was a waste. He brought it closer to his nose and smelled the yellow fruit. Now that he thinks about it, he never had a proper description of what fruits smelled like. Pretty much all of them just stated that they smelled like fruit. Strawberries had a strawberry smell. Lemons had a lemon smell. And so on and so forth, he was getting excited to truly smell a fruit.
He frowned. It smelled like burnt flesh.
Wait, he turned his head, towards the burnt corpse of Nadros.
The smell was probably coming from it, not from the banana.
“I uh…Don’t have much of an appetite right now. Sorry.” He lied. He did have an appetite, in fact, he just now noticed how hungry he was. All he ate all day was page pulp, air, sighs, fear, screams and saliva. He felt like a pit was opening up inside his stomach with how hungry he noticed he was. But he was also sure he wouldn’t be able to keep anything he ate down in his stomach. Especially now, after experiencing the delightful fragrance of the handkerchief the terrible smoked odour from Nadros’ dead body felt particularly disgusting.
“By the way, what is this smell coming from your handkerchief?”
“Oh, it's sunflowers!” For some reason, Cumulus flinched at that. Verek decided to ignore it, he had more pressing concerns.
“There are flowers in the sun?” Wouldn’t they get burned?
“Uh, no. There are not. Sunflowers are these big yellow flowers, they follow light. Supposedly, outside, they would follow the sun.”
“Oh, they must be really fast to keep up with it, then. Doesn’t the sun orbit around the Outside?”
“What? No! It’s the other way around, hey old man, what have you been teaching him?” Cumulus just lifted his hands. He wasn’t quite sure what the gesture meant. If it was meant as a defensive gesture on his part or a silent pleat to leave him out of it.
“Ah, I see. I understand. Of course” Verek quickly says, feeling a heat spread to the tips of his ears. He does not understand at all, but he feels a desperate need to not seem stupid.
“Ugh, so be it. We can talk about it later. Right now I have another thing for you.” As she finished talking, she turned on her heel and did a single hop towards Nadros’ corpse, or rather his mostly intact upper torso. He noticed now that that torso…didn’t really look like one. I actually looked like an old burnt piece of wood.
She touched it in the golden symbol, her small palm barely enveloping half of it. There was a flash, swift and blinding. The flesh, bone and viscera between the armor burned into white ash. The armor then folded by itself, changing shape and becoming a book, the white ash solidifying into pages.
Vector picked up the book and brought it to him. He stared at it, holding his breath. This close he could see the details. The pristine white pages, the deep crimson of the book cover. The way the symbol stamped in its cover reflected his face. Vector presented the book with both of her hands, eyes shining as she looked at him expectantly. He grabbed it with both of his—he stopped before he touched her with his right arm.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Once again. Can’t hurt me, don’t worry.” She said, sounding entertained.
“Can I really have it?” He wasn’t quite sure what it was, earlier she called it a proto grimoire. He didn’t quite know what that was, but he wanted it.
“Sure! It’s yours by any right, you were about to kill that nasty guy anyway, plus it didn’t really like him. Not that it likes you all that much, but I’m sure it's just a matter of time!” Verek frowned.
“I’m not sure I could have killed him. Whatever spell he casted at the end, where he self immolated. I was not expecting that. If we had truly fought…who knows what could have happened. Also what do you mean about the book not liking me?”
He suddenly heard an unsettling weird sound. It sounded like…rats, like when he heard rats squeaking and sneaking around. Scurrying through wood, squeezing their almost boneless body inside the tiniest crevices. It sounded like that, except the rats were trying to squeeze through metal. A scratching echoing sound, a scraping chitter. Verek slowly turned to the sound, eyes falling on the tall necromancer, who stood completely still.
Verek decided to turn away and ignore the sound.
“Don’t worry, she’s laughing.” Vector said, smiling to herself. ”And you don’t have to worry about it. What he did at the end was not technically a spell, it was a miscast. Oh, right, you probably don’t know what that is. When you cast a spell, there are several things you must do right and several ways it can go wrong. That guy tried to cast a spell, he had no gramaryes, or rather, very little gramaryes. So he pulled the rest from the grimoire.” She lifted the book to the side of her face and tapped it twice. ”The grimoire, for its part, didn’t really like the guy, and so decided to…do several things, actually. First, it sent him the wrong gramaryes. Second, it forced him to cast the spell with them, this was technically the actual miscast. Third, it casted a spell of its own, well two actually, one to make sure he wouldn’t be able to control or stop the fire and the second to make sure the fire would stick to him until death, kind of redundant, but again, it didn’t really like him. Fourth, and we are getting to the end here, it used fire to consume pretty much everything he had a value, whatever little the man had. And finally, at last, it protected itself and the piece of flesh it was around.”
“So yeah, I think that’s all. You got all of that?” Verek nodded, slightly overwhelmed.
“So, the book, this grimoire, did all of that?”
“Yep, and this is not a grimoire. It’s a proto grimoire, an important distinction. You see, you know about spellbooks?” He nodded his head. ”Good, good, you know about living books?” She shook his head.”Alright, so. Living books. They are not really living books, well most of them are not. The more correct term for the majority of them would be Animated Book, they have a facsimile of life, it is actually related to necromancy. Anyway. Living books are spellbooks that for some reason are able to move around, most likely because of the spells inside of them, or because an idiot wizard was too lazy to get up and grab the book from the shelf, or cast a spell to pull it towards themself. You would be surprised at how common it is for unlimited power to create unending laziness. Okay, still with me here?” He nodded again, more animatedly than before, she smiled at that.
“Right, so the difference between a living book and a Grimoire is this: Grimoires are truly living, unlike living books. Both can move around and cast spells, both have personalities. But only grimoires have true intelligence and wisdom. Think of it as the difference between insects and us.”
“Consciousness versus Sentience versus Sapience.” Grumbled Garmon, not looking up from the iron book, which now had a ridiculous amount of scribbles drawn onto it.
“Sapience.” Whispered Cumulus at the same time. If either man heard the other, they didn’t seem to want to acknowledge it.
“Right, consciousness. I guess I should probably also say that technically any spellbook, anything with a spell bound to it, technically has consciousness within it. Though really, that might depend and change on what is considered consciousness, or whatever. This is getting too close to philosophy and no one here is in the altered state of mind that makes it fun, so let's just skip that for now.”
“Anyway, back grimoires. Grimoires can be born in a multitude of ways, but realistically you will generally find they exist in two different camps. The two most common are these: One, they had a really big, really awesome spell. Two, they have a bunch of tinier, weaker, but still cool, spells. This proto grimoire here is closer to the tinier but still cool camp. Though, it is also a bit of a rebel, doing its own thing.” She then put her hand deep within her tiny little purse and pulled out a silver flask. Seeing something on her person that is not gold felt incredibly incongruous to Verek, even though he has only known her for what is at best a few hours.
“Yeah, I know. They only had it in this color. What can you do?” She gave a shrug, unscrewed the cap and knocked back a long drink from the flask, tilting it straight up without hesitation.
Verek felt the veins in his eyes exploding upon seeing that. Vector noticed it and wordlessly gave the flask to him. He knocked it back exactly as she did, and felt the cool water flowing down his parched throat. He could have sworn he felt his body immediately absorbing it, like he was made of parched paper.
“Drink as much as you like, it's endless.” Verek stopped drinking and stared at her.
“What happens if you turn it down and just…let the water keep flowing out?”
“Not endless like that. I mean it holds a crazy amount of water and refills every spin. Though I guess if you wanted you could make a really big pool somewhere, though I think there are easier and faster ways to kill yourself if you want.”
“What do you mean?” He frowned, curious.
“Right, I guess you would have never seen it here before. This place doesn't really have seasons or weather up here. Sooo, most water just tends to evaporate, but if you created or summoned a truly ridiculous amount of water, the library would actually just absorb it and transform it into ink, which would then rain down where the water was absorbed. This is bad news because the blue woman can appear in any ink rain., but she especially likes to show up in artificially created Ink rains.” She raised her palm to him, right as he opened his mouth.” The blue woman is a being made of Ink that is immortal in pretty much every way it counts, also you can’t really trap, restrain, seal or use any of the other ways to deal with immortal things to deal with her. So, yeah. Don’t screw around with large volumes of water if you want a long life.”
“Anyway, back to Girmoires. You can keep that by the way, I have several because of a failed business venture.”
“Thank you.” Verek said quietly.
“You are very welcome! Alright, where were we? I legitimately don’t remember.” She snapped her fingers.”Oh! Okay, so. This little guy does things differently, only slightly. It attaches itself to a host, learns what spells they have just as it gives them its own spells, and then it copies the host’s spells for itself. With a spin that it can only make heat spells and the like. Once it has enough of them, it will become a full fledged Grimoire.”
“That was probably why it decided to attach itself to that nasty guy. He had some very tiny sliver of a magical bloodline on him.”
“He had a magical bloodline?” Verek interrupted, Vector simply nodded absentmindedly.
Verek froze, his mind whirled with that last tidbit of information. Discovering that Nadros had some sort of mystical heritage felt oddly fitting. It slotted into place in Verek’s mind with an almost suspicious ease, like a scrawled note inside a book hidden between glued pages.
“Yeah, probably some kind of magical minor fire creature. Or most likely some distant relative was a powerful spellcaster. Maybe a pyromancer, nothing really too impressive. This proto grimoire probably thought it could latch on and mutate or gain some inspiration. But in the end, that guy was pretty unimpressive, so it didn’t really gain much at all.”
It made a strange kind of sense in Verek’s mind, not in any logical or enlightened way, but only in a bitter childish way. Because if anything, it only made the man even more infuriating. Of course Nadros wasn’t just some needling child of a man with illusions of grandeur. The man had a heritage, maybe one of power mages, Verek refused to believe that.
Instead he immediately wondered if he was related to trolls, creatures that live under bridges in squalor. Who thought of themselves as kings, demanding tithes from all who pass through. Petty kings in petty kingdoms of their own making. That certainly fitted the image he had of the man. Or maybe manticores, creatures with barbed poisoned tails and expressions of eternal dissatisfaction, always grumbling, never always demanding more. Pricking all those around them, bullying and stealing from the weaker.
Perhaps Nadros was descended from an even worse creature. Something more terrible than trolls or manticores. Verek’s mind couldn’t help but wander down that path. His imagination conjured dark, twisted ancestors, each one more formidable and menacing than the last. It was easy to picture Nadros as part of some vicious and terrible bloodline, cursed to be as irritable and petty as the creatures of myth. But eventually, the wandering thoughts began to settle, and Verek had to face something else, something much more uncomfortable.
The reason this revelation hit him so hard wasn’t just because it made sense. No, the real reason was much more personal. In the quiet corners of his mind, Verek realized that what he was really looking for was an excuse. An excuse for himself. Because as much as he hated to admit it, Verek hadn’t just been afraid of Nadros, he had been terrified of him. It wasn’t that Verek was a coward. It wasn’t because he had been beaten into submission by everyone else in his life. No.The truth was worse. The truth was that he was afraid of Nadros because there was something bigger, something mystical about him that Verek couldn’t fight.
That’s what he wanted to think. He knew it was a lie. A false cover applied to Nadros, to make him into something more than he was. It didn’t matter in the end, Vector had just said that it was a minor thing. And most importantly, in the end Nadros had been afraid of Verek. His feelings settled down at the memory of Nadros backing away from him in fear. In the end, he was the one alive, not Nadros. In the end, he was the one with the book now, not him. It felt right in a way. Verek suddenly desired the book even more now, it went beyond a simple want for power.
“So you two can teach each other a lot of things! And you don’t have to worry about it killing you, like the other guy. Sure it doesn’t like you very much, but it doesn't like anyoooo-okay that’s not true. Out of everyone in this room it only dislikes the zombies more than you. But that’s because we all have a lot more spells than you. When you two get some time alone, it will come around to liking you.” She said, sounding only slightly awkward when she explained that this book basically saw him as slightly better than a zombie.
Makes sense, I probably weigh as much as one. He thought.
“Plus it's not like any one of us here actually really wants it. I don’t really have time in my life to raise this little guy! Siph is already a dad of way too many to count. Gideon is too young to be a mom and too focused on being a necromancer. Garmon would be a terribly emotionally distant father and Tom is too much of a carefree older brother to properly raise someone.”
She took a deep breath.
“So, what do you say? Do you want this little grumpy guy? Do you accept this responsibility?” She asked, presenting the book to him.
This was it, this was his first step towards becoming something more than a coward.
He nodded, lifting his hands and—His right ‘hand’ was a big sliver of crystal. His left hand was occupied by the water flask. And his right armpit was holding the banana. And his sword was now held between his knees, mostly because he didn’t want to put the naked blade against his bare chest.
“Okay, let me just. Uhm.” He grabbed the banana with his left hand, it was a bit awkward with the flask, but still easily doable. He then stabbed the banana with his sliver. Then he put his flask under his right armpit.
Then, finally he held the book. He would have preferred to hold it with both hands, but only one was enough for him. He had a grimoire, well a proto grimoire. But still, it was more than he ever had before. How many spells does this little guy have? What spells can it create with Verek’s own?
The book felt so warm in his hands, his book, his spells. I will be a part of you, and you will be a part of me. I will grow alongside you. I will learn all of your spells, and give you all of mine. He promised with as much heartfelt honesty as he could. He felt a slight shift, as if the book now felt…cozy, instead of simply warm.
It might have been his imagination. Vector said the book didn’t really like him all that much, compared to the rest of them. Was it really all that it took, a few simple words for the book to warm up to him? Verek had said them with all his heart, did the proto grimoire feel that? Did it feel how much he meant it, how much this meant to him? Verek couldn’t help but feel that maybe, just maybe, the book was lonely, just like him. Maybe he felt like a kindred soul, Verek wished to believe that.
“I have a suggestion.” Said Tom, raising his hand.”This little guy can become chest armor right? Aaand.” He pointed around to the pieces of brass armor that had been unlocked from him before.”And also, that.” He finally pointed to the bisected corpse of the insect.
“Oooh, good idea! Verek, go stand between the pieces of that bug. No, hold on a moment!“ Her eyes widened. ”Actually, I have a better idea, just stand still. I can’t wait!” She exclaimed, cheerily clapping.
Suddenly, every piece of his discarded brass armor, and the two severed halves from the insect, began to move on their own. For a brief moment, he heard the metallic scraping of the armor dragging along the ground, the sound harsh and grating. Accompanied by the sound of chitin also being moved, for a second his body flinched, just at the recent memories of the sound. Then, without warning, the fragments lifted into the air, taking flight. They hovered eerily along, as if held aloft by unseen threads. Their movements however were delicate and precise. Perhaps it was because of the present insect body, but Verek almost felt as if he could see a giant predatory spider pulling along all the pieces with its invisible silk, moving its long and delicate legs like an artist with a paintbrush.
The imagery summoned by his mind, it so felt strangely fulfilling for him. Seeing the creature that had maimed him, spoiled his flesh, taken his essence and finally been felled by him. Seeing the armor made from a broken armillary sphere, by a man who only wished to use him as bait, as a step for his own ascendence into a petty tyrant of an encampment. Both had tried to use him for their own gains, both had failed in the end. Now the clock has spun, now their bodies, their spells, their very beings are being given to Verek, to fuel his own growth. It felt strangely macabre, but then, so was life in the Library.
The armor and body kept on drifting slowly, each piece guided by the unseen force, glinting dully in the dim light as they floated with uncanny purpose towards him. It felt so simple, but so much more magical than what he had seen before, but perhaps even more macabre because of it. More wondrous than his Wounds, more mystical than Nadros’ fire. He wanted to see more of it, see more of magic, more of spells. It was so worth it, he decided, all that had happened to him felt almost justified now that he stood here, amidst floating magic.
He would do all of it once again, if he had the choice, perhaps would sacrifice even more.
“Okay, now. Just put your hands, erm, hand and big knife, on both sides of the insect.” Verek felt a slight pull and leg go of his book. It floated off his hand delicately, letting his fingers brush against its smooth cover. He felt a unique sense of loss upon feeling the book leave his grasp, feeling its slight heat leaving his palms. It took less than a second for Verek to miss its warmth, even though he had only known it for a few seconds, even though the book was still within his view and touch.
Verek put the strange feeling aside, gingerly resting his appendages on the top of the things shell, doing his best not to touch its insides. This close once again to its viscera, and now without the benefit of exhaustion and adrenaline, he could feel the strange metallic smell coming from the creature's organs, even though they looked fully organic. ”Alright, so it’s me and the proto grimoire guiding this, so don’t worry about it, everything will be fine and dandy!”
The thin red-leather covered book floated in front of him. Its cover flew wide open, its pages flapping into motion like a bird taking flight upon the fiercest of gales. They transformed into a rushing cloud of white cinders, shining brightly like tiny stars upon a cloudy sky. He felt gramaryes flushing his skin, felt them being called, summoned by the book. Felt as the proto grimoire released gramaryes of its own, the words trailing through the ash cloud towards him, stopping halfway, waiting.
Waiting for him.
His mind became hyper-focused. The heat that is both searing and comforting. The rushing cloud cinders, painting all that he sees in a river of rushing white and grey. The tiny embers all around him, shining brightly through the chaos like guiding lights, like shooting stars. He focuses on all of it at once, somehow neither part overwhelming him. Each component only enhances the other, he focused on that feeling, the heat all around him.
The noise, it sings along with his blood. The heat, it beats with his heart. The cinders, they pulse along with his blood. The embers, they look like fireflies dancing around him.
He sees the flash of his gramaryes leaving his body. His heart beats into sharp notes, blood dancing through his veins. He opened his mouth and exhaled, gramaryes sang along with his voice. They moved along his arms and legs, touching everything he touched. They marched along the brass armor, stamping their marks on it as they went. They nibbled on the insect’s body, like ants cutting leaves. They travelled through air and met the gramaryes of the floating proto grimoire. The two met in the middle and bonded, gramaryes, fire and blood connecting for a moment. All of it moving along to a single unceasing, unheard song, beating as one unstoppable heart. Verek could feel the grimoires’ inquisitive mind, asking him, challenging him on what he could give.
Everything.
He let go of everything, he let go of the weight he had been holding since forever. Gramaryes exploded from him, filling every part of his body, touching and overwhelming even the ash storm. So numerous were they, that you could not even see the boy beneath the storm of letters. The proto grimoire responded, it greedily swallowed all that it could and got to work.
White ash swept over Verek like a living tide, coating him from head to toe, guided by the fireflies. Verek felt safe inside, warm, the white color of the ash made him feel like he was inside a cocoon. The rags he was still using, his wound all of it was burnt away and covered by pristine white cloth. Woven alabaster garments made of immaculate silk, smooth and seamless and unnaturally pristine, as if any stain would be burnt away by merely touching it. Across from him. the brass metal shone and warped around his body, the shiny brass fragments gleaming with renewed luster from their heat treatment and ash blasting, twisting around his body and wrapping around it. The armor clung to him in an intricate, layered pattern, its segments fitting together with uncanny insectile precision. It encased his back, shoulders, and legs in overlapping plates, each one shaped like a shell of an insect; hard, organically curved. It left his chest completely unarmored, only his pristine white shirt covering it, Verek felt he knew why. The insect’s severed halves were then burnt and consumed, its organs crumbling into ash. From the remains of its carapace, chitinous shoes emerged, sculpted to his feet with an insectile elegance.
A flexible, segmented layer of under armour was formed, creeping along his body like a crawling shadow. It formed over his clothes, covering the pristine white cloth with metallic black, slipping below the formed brass armor with seamless precision, like an insect squeezing between cracks. The armor clung tight, yet it didn't feel uncomfortable, it molded to his form and he was able to move with ease, almost as if not wearing it at all. It also covered his chest, he couldn’t help but notice it move along with his rising and falling chest, it almost felt as if it was breathing along with him, as if it was still alive.
On his left hand, a pure silver gauntlet solidified, perfectly fitted to his hand and soon it expanded to cover his whole entire right arm. His right hand, however, was wholly transformed. The blue chandelier fragments and the bronze insect parts were drawn into it, merging into a mass of deep purple crystal.
The mass kept pressuring in on itself, each time cracking and shattering, before reforming and caving inward again. Each time becoming harder and harder, each time causing the crystal to grow and cover his arm in a thin layer of faceted glass, somehow perfectly conforming to his muscles. From the wrist down, the arm tapered into a single, enormous blade glimmering, brutal, and unmistakably alive with power as it glowed with a soft violet light.
At last, the book’s red leather drifted down and gently pressed itself against him, covering his chest. As it made contact it stood still for a moment, as if resting, or hearing his heartbeat. It then stretched and expanded, began to fold outards covering his chest, stomach and his back entirely, melding with the segmented armor, wrapping around and connecting to his back armor plates. It formed a snug and seamless cuirass, embracing him in a tight, protective hold. The book pulsed faintly with warmth, matching his heartbeat. It didn’t feel like armor. It felt like being held, the sensation of a long-lost embrace.
With each slow clapping beat of his heart, he felt the armor shifting, changing further. Making subtle, precise adjustments, as if the armor was learning about his body, adjusting itself to him as much as he was adjusting to it. Then, the golden symbol embossed on the book, its shining Sigil, stirred. It glowed faintly before slowly moving from the center of his chest, almost shyly. Quietly aligning itself with his own silver emblem, the one etched into his chest, into his very heart.
After a breathless moment the two symbols overlapped. Verek felt a gentle prod into his being. It was like the book was asking for permission, pointing at something inside of him. It pointed at his Wounds, the ones he had just created in testing. He nodded, an unneeded gesture when they were so united. He saw as the book’s own gramaryes entered his body, his being. They took the Wounds, half of them, into itself and began to change both the one it held and the ones Verek held.
It was breathtaking. He watched as the gramaryes all started to change, warped like under extreme heat. Words and symbols being replaced, fused or broken apart. Slowly the spell changed and began to take shape in his mind.
Wounds turned into Brand.
