[IC] The Narrow Path

[Skinner35]

As he is studying his arm, all that he feels safe doing is adding an outer shell, additional armor. He then looks for shotgun shells, but he doesn't quite know where to look, they're not in his bag.

[Gardevoiran]

The sudden realization hits you that you never actually bought ammunition. Confound it all! The lunacy! The craziness! The absolute horror! How are you to defend yourself without ammun- "Oi, Skinner. Catch."

You see a small bag flying towards you at an alarming rate, you've got just a moment to react to it before it collides with your upper body. If you had to guess what was in that bag, you'd assume the bullets you forgot to purchase are in there.

[Skinner35]

The bag hits him in the side, then he picks it up. "Thanks..." He said as he opened the bag.

[Gardevoiran]

Opening the bag, you find a bag full of bullets! They seem to be similar to smaller buckshots, but that's just fine. It's already a wrist mounted shotgun effectively, so the perks definitely outweigh the benefits.

"You forgot 'em when we left Grodlar's earlier." Stride was quick with his conversation before he went back to speaking to Magdalene. He was invested with the conversation, interestingly enough.

Reinspecting your arm, you notice a random green wire on the side of it, and the wire is moving. It also smells like basil, so when a small little snake pokes it's head out of your arm and licks your nose, you don't really flinch. It's kind of cute, in a weird way.

[Skinner35]

He waved off the weird snake, he didn't care for it much, he really kept it around for Eve. He began reloading his arm, putting the bag of shells in his bag. Once he topped off his arm, he leaned back, hoping to get some rest.

[Gardevoiran]

You lean back only to rest your back against the wall of the pocket dimension, only to find the wall of the realm is somewhat uncomfortable. It's curved in a way so you don't get any real back support, but your shoulders are leaning against the wall. It's not the worst feeling of being uncomfortable ever, but you do think it's still pretty trash.

Suddenly, Eve slams back into the ground in front of you, clearly back from another trip up to the top of the pocket dimension. She climbs up back onto her knees before she shakes a bit, fixing her feathers and hair (is that hair?) into their normal ragamuffin appearance. Then she notices you there.

"Y-you didn't see that, right?"

[Skinner35]

He opened his eyes when he heard Eve, and leaned forward. "I saw nothing." He said, realizing that he probably wasn't going to be getting much rest. He, out of boredom, checked his arm again, just trying to pass time.

[Gardevoiran]

You inspect your arm again, only to find nothing else new about the arm. It's the same arm you had five minutes ago.

Eve backs off from you a bit before quickly saying "Y-you look kind of tired, there are beds over there for you to use..." She quickly turns around and runs off to a nest on top of the bedrooms, clearly a bit scared of you. Plus, you noticed her lip was bleeding a fair bit. Looks like she's not impervious to pain.

Aside from the bedrooms, you see a large runic table off in the corner of the realm. Well, it's more off to the side, because the room is circular. It's one of the more interesting items to appear there since you returned into the room.

Other than that, there's a firepit with a circular bench around it. You could probably talk to some people there. The nature of the fire being purple also indicates that you may be able to perform some weird supernatural acts with the fire in question. It's also calling to you, similar to how Brock's book did a while ago. Could be interesting.

[Skinner35]

As he sat there, he looked to Eve. "I'm fine, but thank you." He then began to feel the pull of the fire, as well as the pull of that damned book. He needed it. He needed to know what was inside of it. He was almost certain that whatever that book had, was meant for him to read... Now he just had to find it. He began with looking towards Jen, trying to see her bag. If it was anywhere, it was probably in there...

[Gardevoiran]

Walking over to Jen's forge, you feel the sickening repel of divine magic course through your body. The book isn't near Jen's forge, so where could it b- "I imagine you are searching for the dark tome." Jen stoically interrupts your train of thought before looking at you. The soot on her face from forging surprisingly fits her personality and passions, which shocks you a fair bit. "It is with Sinclair. You will have to converse with him if you want to get the tome."

Jen stands and turns towards you, wiping the soot away from her eyes and staring at you with a deep scowl. "The Light has told me I cannot stop you from reading the tome, but I must warn you. Whatever you shall read in that accursed tome is magic that is to be reckoned with. Tobias, please do not let the tome corrupt you and turn you into someone like Sinclair."

You see the two exits to the material world on each side of the pocket dimension. From the blurry images of the material world, you'd imagine that the one closest to you is the one you should take to see Brock.

[Skinner35]

"He won't willingly give it to me. He's smarter than that." He mumbles as he looks at Sinclair, and then walks to him. "Brock... I need the tome." He said, trying not to sound like he's being driven insane, which he is. The tome is causing his mind to deteriorate.

[Gardevoiran]

You stick your head out beside Brock, who calmly looks at you before sighing. "... listen, there's a reason that this book shouldn't be read. It holds centuries of magic that, in the wrong hands, could absolutely destroy the world." He reaches into his bag and pulls out the tome, a darkened violet surrounding his hands as the latch on the tome comes undone. Suddenly, your mind clears, and the tome in front of you is not as alluring as it was before. Whatever you thought was 'mental deterioration' had suddenly vanished. The sealing magic on the tome must have been what called you to it.

Brock places the tome in your hands. "What you may learn from this book may never leave you the same." Brock pauses for a moment to let that statement sink in. "A man died in my old sanctum because he dared to read it. If you are still willing to read it, please, read it up here. I can keep what you may unleash from destroying you, me, and everyone in that damn tent."

[Skinner35]

He feels a sudden rush of relieve, a literal release. "Thank you." He said as he looked down to read it. The words seemed to suck him in, and flood his mind.

[Gardevoiran]

As soon as you start reading the book, you feel the words rush into your retinas as if they were harassing you. You can't help but feel the knowledge flow into your mind and soul, tainting it with the darkened powers that you feel swarming into your brain. At first, everything seems surreal, but before you know it, you see a vision of what's to come.

The path before you is one of marrow and viscera. The carcasses of one and all lay before you, regardless of anything. Men, women, children, animals, everything around you is dead. You glance down at your arms, only to find them a transparent cerulean. You do not exist in this world anymore. You are merely an apparition, able to gaze into what may become of this world should you continue down the path of this book's grasp on necromancy.

As your vision starts to fade, you see the remains of a series of warriors, with two living figures amongst the crowds. There exists a pile of smoldering ash, a puddle of wasted dreams, a sword as red as the sky, an eyepatch, soaked in blood, and a sword, carried by the worlds most powerful mage. Behind all of the remains, you clearly see what is a warrior of divine wrath, though fallen to her knees and struggling to rise once again. What's beyond her, though, is even more terrifying.

You are barely able to catch a glimpse of an amputee mercenary, with black smoke and smog leaking from every orifice, before you find yourself wishing you were as far away from the sun as possible. For a moment, you cannot see anything but the color white, but as your vision returns, you find Brock holding onto your shoulder in an attempt to support you. "You okay? You went as pale as a beach for a moment."

Despite the words calling you back to the pages, you feel like you shouldn't reopen this book for a while...

[Skinner35]

As he regains sight, he begins to panic. "Dear gods never let me touch that book ever again." He says as he scrambles up and quickly shuffles away, struggling to understand what he just saw. He begins pacing, as he goes through the information, taking it all in. He felt like he shouldn't tell anyone what he actually saw, or that may be manipulation from the book... He didn't know anymore. All he did know is that he probably wasn't going to be able to sleep for a while.

[Gardevoiran]

Surprisingly, you felt much more tired than normal. Reading that book must've taken a lot of energy. On the other hand, you feel like you know something that you didn't before, something that isn't pertaining to that vision of what may come. It wouldn't be a good idea to test it in the pocket dimension, you think.

"You see why we need to destroy it?" Brock asks with his hands back on the book. "The necromantic knowledge this tome can give lets people see the future of what it holds. I saw... well... my own demise, ironically. Though, I subverted that long ago, also ironically, with this book."

[Skinner35]

He struggled to collect his thoughts. He felt as though he couldn't explain what he saw. But, he did feel as though he knew something new, he just didn't know what it was. "Brock. I need your help. Something's not right." He said, not knowing what it was, or why it was there. "We need to lock that thing away..."

[Gardevoiran]

"Now you see why I desire to destroy this wretched thing." Brock puts the book back in his bag as he continues leading the carriage. "Unfortunately, if not even the fires of Jennifer's hatred for all things necromantic can kill this beast, we need to expose it to something that might be able to. That's why we're heading to the largest elder-dwarven ruin I know of."

From your understanding, elder-dwarves were the great ancestors of all natural dwarves, and were masters of the forges. Their entire species was wiped out from a disease of unknown origin, so few exist to this day, and the dwarves of present aren't as good at forging as the elder-dwarves were, but they still have natural talent with metalsmithing.

"I wrote this thing decades and decades ago as my magnum opus. My ultimate dedication. My life's work. Now, I need to destroy it. Hopefully this rag-tag group of outcasts we've got can do just that."

[Skinner35]

"Good thing that you're life is over... Technically." He said, trying to lighten his own mood. "Are you sure that they'll actually help us?" He asked. He wasn't sure on how Dwarves felt about this kind of magic. All he knew, was that the book needed to be destroyed.

[Gardevoiran]

"No, they're all dead to my knowledge." Brock was blunt with his statement, but he didn't dwell on it too long. "That's not important, though. What is important that all their kind used pure magma to forge everything they owned. With any luck, the ruined forge should still be in working order so we can throw this book into it. From there, the book either dies to the magma, or it gets encompassed so no mortal can wield it's power ever again."

"After that... we go after Yashar."