Low-Fantasy Occultist

The flight through Toneburg's streets was a blur of smoke, shouting, and constant pain, as his scorched side throbbed with every movement.

Fortunately, no one followed them, so they managed to slip out of the noble district.

By the time they reached the dilapidated warehouse in the lower rings, his vision was swimming. Gaelen threw the iron bolts shut, sealing them inside the safety of the cellar.

Nick staggered in and collapsed onto the dusty stone floor, unable to even reach his cot. The darkness rushed up to swallow him as he heard shouts of surprise, pulling his exhausted consciousness down into a feverish void.

He found himself standing on the precipice of nothingness.

Above him, the Almighty Star blazed with unforgiving light. It bore down on his skin, demanding confession and the total eradication of every secret he held. Beneath his feet, the Void bubbled and churned. A thousand overlapping voices whispered from the abyss, promising absolute power and begging him to let them consume the light above. At the periphery of his vision, horned shadows paced hungrily, their fell flames licking at his heels.

He was trapped between the crushing judgment of the heavens and the insidious rot of the abyss. His soul strained under the pressure. “Focus on yourself, kid. Let us not speak of them, but look and pass.”

The voice cut through the horror like a hot knife through butter. It was gruff, steady, and deeply familiar.

Like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline, Nick turned away from the blinding light. A worn wooden workbench materialized in the void, its surface strewn with scattered tools and half-finished projects. Behind it stood his grandfather, holding a chisel as he worked on a gem, though the details were blurry.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but don’t stare at the sun or look down the well,” Aleister Crowley instructed, tapping the hammer against the wood. “Keep your eyes on the workbench. Build your foundation. One nail at a time.”

The overlapping whispers of the Void shrieked in protest, but the sound faded. The Sun's burning glare dimmed to a manageable warmth. Nick rested his hands on the phantom workbench, feeling the rough grain of the wood beneath his palms. He matched his breathing to the rhythmic tapping of his grandfather's chisel, and he began to feel more in control.

Slowly, the horrors beyond mortal comprehension faded, unable to take hold. Only when the last whisper had gone did Nick open his eyes again.

He was staring at the cracked stone ceiling of the cellar. A damp cloth lay across his forehead, smelling strongly of healing herbs.

With some regret, he filed the memory away, as he’d wanted to speak to the shade more. It wasn’t the first time his grandfather had appeared to him in a time of need, and he doubted it’d be the last.

There is something going on there. Something more than my subconscious deciding he is the personification of protection and stability. If I’m right, I’ll have an answer sooner rather than later.

It was just a matter of time before he broke through the limits of mortality, after all. He strongly suspected he’d get to talk with Aleister again when that happened.

But for now, he had other matters to take care of, starting with the insistent itch at the back of his mind.

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It was a staggering amount of experience for simply waking up, yet it underscored exactly how close he had come to total spiritual ruin.

Failing a ritual was not something he’d really concerned himself with in this life, as his power and control were more than enough to keep hold of the wildest energies, but if these were the consequences, he could only be grateful it hadn’t happened earlier.

I sincerely doubt I would have survived something like this before I crystallized my soul.

Rhea leaned over him, her face tight with worry. She pulled the cloth away, checking his pupils for signs of dilation.

"Your temperature is dropping," she noted, her shoulders slumping in relief. “It seems the fever broke. I was worried you were going to combust for a moment there, with how warm you were getting.”

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"I'm alright," Nick rasped, his throat dry. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, wincing as the skin over his ribs stretched tight. The burn was mostly gone thanks to a minty paste his friend had applied, but it would be a while before he didn’t feel it, given that it was caused by demonic fire.

Gaelen passed him a waterskin, watching him with surprising worry.

"You passed out the moment we locked the door," he said. "You were muttering in a language I had never heard the whole time.”

"A side effect of the ritual breaking abruptly," Nick explained, taking a long drink of water. "I pushed myself a bit too hard afterward, but at least I got what we needed.”

He had no intention of explaining his nature as a reincarnator now, especially after his mother’s warning. If he’d truly been speaking during his ‘dream’, they could believe it was an obscure magical language. It was a much more reasonable explanation than it being his original tongue, after all.

Fortunately, both siblings were far more interested in his findings than in solving the mystery.

He closed his eyes, navigating the stolen cluster of memories. They were surprisingly clear, underscoring just how talented Nestor had been. For a man without a purely magical class, he was far better than many mages.

Nick took a moment to organize the snippets and, once he was sure his mana coils wouldn’t rebel if he cast an illusion, began speaking. "I saw the lower levels through his eyes," he said, projecting the details for the siblings to see. A map of the estate took shape in the air, then zoomed in on the lower levels, where runic chambers and mighty wards were visible. "Nestor was incredibly jealous. He spent the last ten years trying to replicate your family's masterpiece and failed each time. The silver tesseract in his laboratory was his crowning achievement, requiring immense resources, but it was a hollow shell compared to the true might of the Elpen Forge.”

“As expected,” Gaelen muttered with a hint of smugness, then moved on. “I suppose that is why Ephor brought in the Circle, then?”

“Indeed," Nick answered. "Nestor’s memories confirmed that Ephor's true goal is what we believed it to be. He is bound to a Greater Demon and wants to bring it into the physical plane permanently, bypassing the usual tethering limits that keep such beings contained. For that, he needs the unparalleled conceptual binding power of the Elpen Forge, or the demon will be little more than a ghost haunting Toneburg.”

Twice before, Nick had felt the presence of such beings, and both times confirmed Nestor’s belief that it would be impossible to materialize a Greater Demon without an appropriate anchor.

The first time, in the Temple of Inari, it had barely managed to force a fraction of its power through the trap it had laid a century earlier and hadn’t even tried to push through the layers of reality. The second time, in the Tower of Alluria, it had been set upon the Genius Loci, seeking to use it as an anchor point.

With it gone, it had been banished back to the deepest layers of the ether, where it belonged.

Nick had no doubt that Ephor could have found another way to grant the Greater Demon a temporary corporal state, but the man’s ambition was far greater. He wanted his patron permanently anchored to the World, which required much higher standards.

Rhea shuddered, likely recalling the terror of That Which Corrodes. “I can’t believe he would go that far. Ephor was always a ruthless man, capable of any horror to advance his cause, but summoning a being like that… I don’t see what he thinks he will achieve beyond turning the entirety of Berea against him.”

“You forget that rebellion was always his plan," Nick corrected. “But that is an issue for another time. More importantly, Nestor distrusted Alexander deeply. The Ephor tasked the Circle with cracking the Forge and designing the summoning ritual, and assigned Nestor to review the ex-vicar's work. When he analyzed the cage and the blood runes Alexander had painted in the subterranean levels, he realized they were only tangentially related to their stated goal.”

In fact, the Artificer whose memories he’d stolen had initially thought Alexander a charlatan, given that the enchantments he was weaving were far too general to apply to a Greater Demon, but with time, he’d come to a different conclusion.

“The structure is apparently unsuited to abyssal energies, yet it is undeniable that Alexander is building something. Nestor believed he was trying to craft a cage strong enough to hold a piece of a god, possibly even Sashara herself.”

Silence stretched across the cold cellar. The sheer scale of the blasphemy was hard to grasp.

It was not so much that Alexander would do something like that as that Nick had long since shared what he knew about the man’s past and motivations. They’d even agreed that the invasion the goddess had forced upon him was reasonable grounds for leaving the priesthood.

But mortals were considered gnats before the divines for a reason. For someone to believe they could cast a god down and butcher them was almost unthinkable, yet Alexander believed he could do it.

"There is more," Nick added softly, shifting his gaze to Gaelen. "We knew your grandmother bound her soul to the Forge to lock out Ephor. Raul confirmed it. But Nestor’s recent memories showed a change in the Forge’s power.”

Gaelen leaned forward. "A change?”

"The soul-ward over the Forge has become active over the last three weeks," Nick explained. "It is apparently no longer just a dormant lock. Nestor believed there was only one explanation for the sudden activity: that it was reacting to something.”

Rhea clamped her hands over her mouth, her eyes widening.

"He was certain that Rosmaria Elpen had returned to Toneburg," Nick finished. “In fact, they’d been expecting an attack of some sort, which is why Ephor was able to move so quickly. It had just been long enough since then for them to lower their guard, which is why we were able to slip through their defenses so easily.”

It was enough to make Nick wonder whether they hadn’t interrupted the old woman’s plan. She might have been biding her time, waiting for the right moment, just for them to swoop in and force Ephor to lock down the Elpen estate.

Or maybe it was just his overactive imagination.

Gaelen seemed shaken by the revelation that his grandmother might be nearby. "If she is here," he said in a low voice that did little to hide his turmoil, "Ephor will tear the city apart to find her. And if he catches her, he can force the Forge open. We need to do something to prevent that.”

"Ephor just dropped a Prestige-tier dome over the estate," Nick reminded him. "He is clearly preparing for the endgame. By now, he knows we are here and that someone is hunting his officers. I doubt we’ll be able to take him by surprise.”

Rhea sighed, her hands dropping to her sides. "Then how do we stop them? You said yourself we can’t break those wards, but we can’t just sit still while they keep working!”

"I can't break it, yes,” Nick admitted, rising slowly to his feet. He walked over to the makeshift map of Toneburg, spread across a wooden crate. "But a sufficiently motivated army might.”

He traced a line from the merchant district to the Elpen estate, the route they had taken with the cart, which was also quite close to the Black Hounds’ territory. "We need to split up," Nick declared, looking between the two heirs.

"I am going to find this Commander Varg. He is bleeding his men dry fighting the Duke's watchmen and the loyalist nobles. If I can prove to him that Ephor orchestrated the murders to frame the mercenaries and show him the wealth locked behind those gates, I may be able to turn his army toward the Elpen Estate. The sheer volume of their assault will strain the wards to the breaking point far faster than I can, and it will leave us fresh for the subsequent fight.”

He didn’t add that the majority of the mercenaries were unlikely to survive such an assault. They’d already sealed their fate when they started rioting, after all.

"And us?" Gaelen asked.

"You know this city's underbelly better than anyone," Nick replied. "You know the old retainers, the safehouses, and the codes your family used. You need to find your grandmother before Ephor does."

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