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Arcana Unlocked Book Three
Gregory Blackburn
Copyright © 2021 by Gregory Blackburn
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Newsletter
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Epilogue 1
Epilogue 2
Epilogue 3
Epilogue 4
True Epilogue
Afterword
Author’s Note
About Gregory Blackburn
About Mountaindale Press
Mountaindale Press Titles
Acknowledgments
For my wife,
Without whom none of this would have been possible.
You mean more to me than you will ever realize,
And you will always be
The Nadja to my Laszlo.
Newsletter
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Chapter One
Unidentified Suburb, Earth
The world was different here, and he was unsure if he liked the change. When he had first entered the world of his father, he’d thought it was all white light and softness for resting meaty bones and strange, see-through walls called “glass.” They did not live in tunnels? How could they go to new places if there was no earth to dig through?
When he’d been taken out of that place by his white-clad captors, he had marveled at how short-sighted he had been. These massive structures, like and yet unlike the crypts that his kind scavenged for tasty, dried bones, were tunnels to humans. They lived in a world where bright, blinding lights hovered far too close to black, oily stone paths, and strange metal monsters whirred along on round feet. He had longed for the feel of dry earth beneath his claws, for the quiet of old tunnels, and for the comforting hissing his brothers made when they smelled prey.
He had not imagined that even such a strange tableau would not be the true face of this world. Now, he stood in a new place, where the darkness was not pushed back so far by the harsh lights. They were fewer in number near him, leaving pools of comforting blackness in between, but somewhere in the vast cavern above, thousands more burned. They were so far away that they were mere pinpoints of light. He despaired to think of what would happen should those lights come down from that high, high ceiling. Surely, their fiery glow would burn him alive!
Beneath him, though, was soft, dark soil, the likes of which he so rarely saw in his own world. This was living soil, meant to be opened into pits and filled with corpses. These humans had covered it with plants! Each time he thought he could not be more disgusted by this place and these bags of meat, he found something like this.
He could not help himself. It had been so long since he had felt the black earth part before his claws. He knelt next to a line of white stakes that had been plunged into the ground and tore the green mat of living matter away. The smell of wet earth hit his weak human nose, and a fat earthworm wriggled in surprise.
With a practiced snap of his good hand, he grabbed the worm and tore it from its burrow, then popped it into his mouth. He chewed noisily, savoring the taste of the mucus and the feeling of the grasping setae against his too-short tongue. As he ate, he pushed his stubby fingers into the earth.
He missed his true hands, with their killing talons meant for digging and rending. He heard more than felt the snap of one of the weak nails that this body sported in their place.
He took a handful of earth and shoved it into the pocket of his blue garment. It squished pleasantly against his flesh as he crept toward the largest glass-covered hole in the man-tunnel before him. Light burned within, but it was the yellow light he had come to associate with human comfort. Someone lived here. Someone was home.
The humans who lived in this dirt-filled area favored short, squat tunnels with only a few glass holes, and they wore finery that meant they would be buried with gold and jewels instead of the simple cloth that his own body wore. The not-quite-darkness here was more peaceful than in many places he had seen, and that gave him courage.
He growled, his empty stomach twisting. He had spent many hours sheltering in whatever dark place he could find while the hateful eye of the True God blazed overhead, hiding in plain sight among the other sacks of meat. He was searching for something he had seen only in dreams. His knowledge about the world of beating hearts and disgusting fresh air had grown, and so had his desperation.
He needed real food. Scavenging for moist scraps of rotting food had kept him going, but forcing the meat he rode in to destroy the sickness such fare often brought was taxing and often unsuccessful.
He crept toward the tunnel on all fours, then raised himself so he could barely see through the glass. This part of the tunnel held light, but no meat. Some slatted mechanism was meant to obscure one’s ability to see through the glass, which was the height of foolishness, as far as he was concerned. Why even have the glass at all?
This tunnel had six glass windows by his count, so he crept to them all, one by one. The next three were obscured by the slats, and the fourth looked in on a dark room that reminded him of the conveyance belonging to the white-wearers. It was clean and filled with strangely shaped white objects. Here and there, metal sparkled in the faint light.
The final glass hole showed him his prize. A human lay upon one of the soft resting pads, a strange crown upon its head. It seemed to be asleep, which was something the humans did during the time when the True God’s Eye hid its face. This, too, mystified him.
A single small light burned on one small table, and one of the light-squares he thought was called a monitor flickered on another, though he could not see what the light showed. Something about the crown was familiar. It seemed to call to him. The sight of such riches, coupled with the thought of sustenance, drove him into a frenzy, and all concern for stealth left him.
His weaker hand shattered the glass, creating an unexpected noise as dozens of tiny shards tore at his body’s flesh. He watched the bright red blood well up, along with a familiar, sweet smell of rotting flesh that reminded him of home.
He gouged a few more red lines into the flesh he wore as he crawled through the hole, but it was a cost he paid gladly. All was well; the meat had not heard him. Something hummed gently in the quiet room, and it was this sound that called to him.
It came from the crown the meat wore. He saw now that it was connect
He grinned and grinned, wanting to split his body’s mouth open wider to show more of his elation. These words were a part of him! He had known them from his birth, though they had only gained context once he had begun his trek into this place. Those words meant home. They meant family.
He reached into his other pocket and drew forth the silver claw he’d taken from the white-wearer. How long ago had that been? He could no longer remember, but he knew it was long enough ago that he had grown hungry once more.
He looked from the monitor to the figure on the cushioned platform. The crown, he thought. The words were his own, but they were part of him, part of the instructions that formed during the union between his Holy Mother and his father, and they came with knowledge.
He went to the monitor, then to the square of metal and glass and tangled wires beside it. He fumbled for a moment before he found the button he somehow knew was there. As he reached out to touch it, the dripping red made mesmerizing patterns on the table. He took a moment to admire them before he turned his attention to the flickering lights that criss-crossed the table’s surface. The ruby light formed a series of squares that each contained a glyph, and when those glyphs combined in certain ways, he could craft magic stronger than any mage or necromancer.
He held down one key and pressed another. The monitor shimmered, then went dark. A single character appeared in the blackness, glowing green.
>
He pressed one glyph after another, careful to match the whispers in his head that told him how to craft a mighty spell.
>admin_console_access_emergency_override -auth localadmin B3h01DmYw0Rk5Y3m1GhTy&D35p@1R!
He hit one more glyph, and the screen formed its response.
> Emergency Override authorization accepted. Please provide a command.
He felt something lurch inside the red life chamber. This was… excitement? He carefully laid out the glyphs once more.
> temp_disable_usr_exit -300 ; overclock_emitter -theta 8Hz -alpha 15Hz ; mu_emulation -full ; GABA_Glycine_Stim -output +30 ; purge_device_memory -flash -reset ; suppress_usr_memory -verify=yes -legalaccept=true -period=36000000 -forceonverify
He sent the incantation and waited.
> Commands accepted. Use of command: suppress_usr_memory manual verification flag present. Legal indemnity form is filed in non-volatile memory module and cannot be erased.
>*NOTE* The presented commands may cause irreparable harm to an attached user. Please verify the user is safely disconnected before continuing.
> Accept personal liability for command? Y/N
He pressed the appropriate glyph. Within moments, the humming grew louder and louder. He felt the room’s warmth increase as the crown grew hot. The meat on the bed twitched once, then jerked its limbs violently a few times before growing still. The light on the crown turned from green to flashing amber. He waited for three thousand heartbeats, his silver claw clutched in his fist, in case the spells had failed.
The monitor bloomed with light, and he saw upon its surface home, and family. New words joined those words in a glittering flash.
No user detected. Please put on the headset and begin your journey!
Giggling furiously, he gnashed his teeth in excitement, relishing the feeling as bits of them chipped away. After all this time searching, he had finally found what he needed to fulfill his destiny. The crown would take him home, and his siblings would welcome him with open arms at last.
He lifted the crown from the meat’s brow, ignoring its wide, staring eyes, and placed it on his own head. A few moments later, he was home.
Chapter Two
Dungeon: The Veil Between Endings, World of Nightfall
Niccodemus stretched out his hand, carefully carving the Soul-Anchoring hieroglyphs into the pale corpse lying on the dark stone floor. As the world’s most powerful Transcendental Necromancer, it was a simple matter to layer the complex impressions on the dead flesh. Green light played on the body’s still features, and the moans of the damned could be heard from somewhere far away. To him, it was an old, familiar song.
His hand jerked as that song was obliterated by a shrieking cry that almost burst his eardrums as it sent wild oscillations through the Dolorous Shores and the living world alike, scattering his gathered power and ruining the corpse in the process.
As the echoes of the unearthly wail began to fade from the physical world, all he really wanted was to replace them with his own. That had been the last corpse which was even remotely suitable for conversion to a Thrice-risen Revenant! He’d have to venture out into the world to collect more, and he did not have time. He was ordinarily a very serene sort of person, but this spirit’s constant agitation was driving him toward the brink.
He walked slowly toward the emerald prison he’d forged to prevent her from going off to find that foolish boy she’d died for. He’d twisted her love for him into hatred easily enough, but it was a different matter entirely to change her personality. The girl she’d been in life had not been patient.
Without warning, she rippled toward him and crashed against the binding field, leaving after-images in her wake. The air flashed green and rebuked her, but he would have to waste another soul to reinforce it. With a sigh, he waved one hand, and a mote of wispy energy detached from its orbit around him and floated toward the hieroglyphic circle on the floor.
“Let. Me. Out.” The spectre’s mouth no longer moved when she spoke, instead hanging open in a permanent rictus of rage that stretched it grotesquely out of proportion. Only blackness resided there; no teeth or other features were visible. Nevertheless, every word seemed bloated with anger and pain. “He’s not here. Let me go. Let me find him and end this!”
He shook his head, wearier at her constant badgering than he’d ever been with an enslaved spirit before. He could not subdue her essence or warp her affections without ruining her fitness for the task he required of her, no matter how he might wish to do so. Normally, the dead were silent in his company, or at least respectful.
He looked at her, his eyes cold and as dead as her own. After a long moment, he turned and headed toward the chamber’s door, being careful to avoid the area around the Plinth of Amenti. The magic he was building there was something no other student of Soul Necromancy had ever dared to craft before: a bridge across the Yawning Deeps that would take him to the Gossamer Isle where souls were said to be born.
He just had to weather a few more weeks of this insufferable dead woman. He paused with his hand on the door’s latch and turned his head slightly to address her.
