I turn my gaze from the ritual components to the trapped acolyte.
"Oswald. The whispers you have communed with. Describe the consciousness behind them. Not its promises, but its nature. Its patterns of thought. Has your faction's lore recorded what becomes of those who complete the binding? Not the fables of power, but the aftermath."
Pressed against the stone roots, Oswald's eyes dart nervously. He knows I am asking the only question that truly matters.
"The... the whispers," he begins, his voice hoarse. "They are not like a person's thoughts. They are... old. Impossibly old. They speak in concepts, in memories that aren't yours. They offer power, but it's always framed as an unmaking. Not creation, but the simplification of what is complex. Turning light to shadow, sound to silence, thought to... nothingness."
He swallows hard. "Our lore... it's fragmentary. Those who were said to have succeeded... they vanished from history. Not in a blaze of glory, but quietly. They stopped leading, stopped seeking. The most powerful account we have is of a sorcerer-king from a fallen age, Lorian the Grey. He performed the ritual and gained the power to shatter armies with nightmares. But within a year, his kingdom fell into silence and shadow. Chroniclers say he just... sat on his throne in the dark, whispering to something only he could see, until the stones crumbled around him."
He looks at me, a desperate earnestness in his eyes. "The book doesn't want a master, Magus. It wants a... a conduit. A window into our world. It wants to experience reality through a mortal lens, and it pays for the privilege with power. But the renter always loses the house."
He has given me a crucial data point: historical precedent suggests a slow erosion of self and ambition, a descent into passive communion with the entity rather than active mastery over it.
The ritual components lie before me, the convergence approaches.
I close your eyes, shutting out the oppressive grove and Oswald's terrified breathing. I dive into the vast repository of my arcane knowledge, sifting through forbidden tomes, fragmented histories, and the harsh lessons of my reclusive mentor. I am not looking for a way to stop the binding, but for a way to control it—to forge a chain for this god-like entity I wish to invite into my mind.
This is a question of profound metaphysical defense, a challenge of willpower and arcane fortitude.
My entire plan, and perhaps my very soul, hinges on what I can recall or deduce.
My mind races through esoteric texts and half-remembered theories. The knowledge is not a clear "how-to" guide—such a thing likely does not exist for an entity as unique as the Liber Tenebris—but I piece together principles from similar, albeit lesser, phenomena: demonic pacts, psychic invasions, and lichdom rituals.
I recall three potential, albeit untested, methods of constructing a psychic defense:
1. The Anchor of Self: The most common failure in such mergers is the dissolution of identity. I would need to create a powerful, unassailable mental anchor—a single, core memory or belief so fundamental to who I am that its loss would mean my end. I must fortify this anchor above all else, making it the bedrock of my consciousness that the entity cannot erode.
2. The Warded Mindscape: Advanced abjuration theory suggests building complex mental constructs before the binding—imaginary fortresses, labyrinths, or oaths of self—to serve as a designated battleground. When the foreign consciousness enters, it is forced to contend with this pre-established architecture, giving my will a "home-field advantage."
3. The Symbiotic Bargain: This is the most dangerous and cunning approach. I would not try to dominate the entity outright, an act of pure arrogance against something so ancient. Instead, I would enter the binding with a specific, limited proposal. A partnership. I offer it the unique experiences of a mortal life—sensation, ambition, emotion—things it presumably lacks. In return, it grants me power. By framing the relationship as a transaction from the very beginning, I attempt to create boundaries and rules where none are meant to exist.
None of these are guaranteed. They are theories, desperate plans forged by mages who likely still failed. But they are a starting point. A thread of hope in an endeavor that promises damnation.
Oswald watches me, seeing the intense focus on my face. "You... you're actually considering it," he breathes, horrified.
The leather-wrapped kit lies at my feet. The convergence draws nearer; I can feel the veil thinning like a stretched membrane.
A surge of dark, thrilling ambition courses through me. Why choose one path when I can walk all of them at once? I will not merely bind the entity; I will enslave it, building a cage for a god within the architecture of my own mind. This is the pinnacle of hubris, and the only act worthy of my power.
I look down at Oswald, I have a decision made.
"The theories are sound," I state, my voice devoid of emotion. "But they require a crucible. A test subject."
His eyes widen in pure, unadulterated terror. He understands immediately. I are not going to use Anthea, the woodcutter's daughter. I am going to use him. I will force him to undergo the ritual, to become the vessel for the Liber Tenebris. And I will observe. I will study the entity's method of invasion, its points of entry, its patterns of subjugation. I will use his destruction as my blueprint for defense.
"You... you can't!" he chokes out, struggling uselessly against the stone roots. "The sacrifice must be willing! The memory must be given, not taken!"
A cold smile touches my lips. "Who said anything about taking it?"
I have the obsidian knife.
I have the vial of void-water. I have the heartwood circlet. And I have a mind well-versed in enchantment and illusion.
I will not persuade him; I will surgically remove his loyalty and implant a new, overriding devotion to my own cause.
I pick up the obsidian knife. It is unnaturally cold in my hand, seeming to hum with a silent, hungry frequency. I approach Oswald.
"No... please... the ritual requires a true emotion! A profound memory! This... this will be a lie!" he pleads, his voice cracking as he struggles against the petrified roots.
"The book desires the substance of memory, Oswald," I reply calmly, my voice low and focused. "The raw emotional energy. The 'truth' of its origin is irrelevant to a being of pure thought. It will consume the offering all the same."
I kneel beside him, the black blade poised. "Now. Show me your devotion. The memory of when you knew, without a doubt, that you would give your life for the Crimson Sigil."
He tries to resist, to clench his jaw and turn his mind away. But he is broken, terrified, and utterly in my power.
The knife in my hand grows colder. I channel my will, focusing all my arcane training into the delicate act of psychic surgery.
As I bring the obsidian edge to Oswald's temple, I whisper a siphoning incantation, a thread of energy connecting my mind to his. It is a violation, a trespass into the deepest recesses of his being. I feel his terror, his pain, his desperate resistance. But I push through, guided by the memory I seek.
I find it: a moment of fervent initiation, bathed in the crimson light of a Sigil ritual. Oswald, young and zealous, swears an oath of unwavering loyalty to the Crimson Sigil, his voice trembling with fanatical conviction.
With a surge of will, I sever that connection. The obsidian knife flares with dark energy, carving the memory from his mind like a physical object. It is agonizing, a psychic amputation. Oswald screams, his body spasming against the stone roots.
But I'm not finished. I now hold the excised memory—a raw, shimmering essence of devotion. It is not enough to simply erase it; I must replace it. I focus my intent, shaping the raw emotional energy into a new allegiance: absolute, unquestioning loyalty to me.
It is a dangerous, precarious act of mental manipulation. I am rewriting the very core of his being. But I press on, driven by my insatiable ambition.
Slowly, agonizingly, I graft the new memory onto the open wound in his mind. I see it take root, blossoming into a dark, twisted imitation of genuine loyalty. His struggles subside. His screaming fades into whimpers. His eyes glaze over, fixed on me with a hollow, unwavering devotion.
Oswald is no longer a Crimson Sigil acolyte. He is mine.
He stares at me, his voice a vacant whisper. "Master... what is your will?"
I have taken the first step. I have broken a man and remade him in your image. But the true test is yet to come. Can you now make him willingly sacrifice himself to the Liber Tenebris?
The command is simple, absolute. "Your purpose is to serve my ambition. You will now undergo the ritual. You will offer your memory to the entity. You will become my window into its nature."
Oswald—or what remains of him—does not flinch. There is no fear in his hollow eyes, only a vacant, programmed devotion. "Yes, Master. I am ready."
The preparations are swift. I place the heartwood circlet upon his brow and anoint it with a single drop of the void-water from the sunless pool. The air in the clearing grows heavier, the twilight deepening as the celestial convergence begins. The veil is thinning.
I hand him the obsidian knife. "The memory you will offer is your loyalty to me. The moment you swore yourself to my service."
He nods, a slow, deliberate motion. He brings the cold, black blade to his own temple. There is no hesitation.
As he begins to whisper the incantation I provided—"Lux est umbra dei, et memoria pretium est"—the shadows in the clearing begin to writhe and coalesce. They are no longer mere absences of light, but a presence. A consciousness vast and ancient turns its attention toward this small grove.
Oswald completes the phrase. The knife flashes.
A silvery, viscous tear wells from his temple where the blade touches nothing physical. It is not water, but pure emotion given form—the memory of his newfound, artificial devotion to me.
The moment the "silvered tear" falls from his face, several things happen at once:
1. The tear is absorbed by the heartwood circlet, which flares with blinding black light.
2. Oswald's body seizes, his back arching violently against the stone roots that still partially pin him. A silent scream is frozen on his face.
3. The shadows in the clearing surge forward, flowing into him through his eyes, his mouth, his pores. He is not holding a book; he is becoming the vessel.
His form begins to flicker and distort, phases of solidity and utter blackness alternating rapidly. I can feel the psychic shockwave of the entity's arrival—a wave of cold, alien intelligence that washes over me.
I focus my will, extending my arcane senses like invisible tendrils toward the swirling vortex of shadow and consciousness that was once Oswald.
I am not attacking, merely observing—trying to analyze the "frequency" of the entity's invasion, the method of its psychic subjugation.
My mind touches the edge of the maelstrom, and for a fleeting, terrifying moment, I perceive the process with crystalline clarity. It is not a battle of wills; it is a dissolution. The Liber Tenebris does not conquer—it unmakes.
I see it happening in real-time within Oswald's psyche:
- The Anchor of Self: His artificial loyalty to me, the memory I grafted, is the first thing to be targeted. The entity doesn't fight it; it simply... untethers it. The memory loses its emotional resonance, becoming a flat, factual recording without power, like a story about someone else. His "self" begins to fray at the edges without this central point.
- The Mindscape: Any mental structures he might have had are being smoothed away like sandcastles under a tide. The entity's consciousness is a vast, silent ocean of negation, and it simply flows into every space, offering nothing to push against.
- The Bargain: There is no negotiation. The entity accepts the "silvered tear" not as an offering for power, but as a key that unlocks the door. It is consumption, not commerce.
Most crucially, I identify the vector of the takeover. It follows the pathways of memory itself. The entity uses memories as roads to travel deeper into the psyche, consuming them as it goes, leaving only hollow silence in its wake.
This observation confirms my theories and provides a terrifyingly specific blueprint. To defend myself, I wouldn't just need an anchor; I would need an anchor that exists outside my standard memory architecture. I would need to create a psychic citadel that is not connected to my past.
The vision lasts only a second. As I pull my consciousness back, I feel a tendril of that ancient, hungry attention brush against my own mind. It has noticed me.
In the clearing, Oswald's flickering form solidifies one last time. His eyes open. They are no longer hollow with artificial devotion. They are pools of absolute blackness, deep enough to swallow stars. They fix on me.
A voice that is not Oswald's rasps from his lips, dry as dead leaves and cold as the void between worlds.
"Thief of moments. Weaver of lies. You have brought me a puppet and think to learn my secrets."
The thing wearing Oswald's skin tilts its head. The stone roots holding him crack and turn to dust.
"Come then. Let us see what memories you have to offer."