Joe Striker sat in a plush, uncomfortably quiet waiting room, the kind of silence that felt expensive and judgntal. He’d sent his formal request for a consult on black magic to the University just yesterday; to already be sitting here, less than twenty-four hours later, was unprecedented.
In his long experience, a query like his would typically vanish into a bureaucratic labyrinth for months before being returned with a polite, useless rejection from a junior secretary. The newly ford Sleuth-Hawks joint unit between the city police and the university was clearly living up to its promise of streamlining cooperation, and the efficiency was almost unnerving.
Despite the swift response, Joe guarded his expectations. His obsessive investigation into Rob’s death had beco a maze of dead ends and maddening whispers. Every lead seed to double back on itself, offering more questions than answers. He was braced for more of the sa today—a polite academic who would listen patiently before explaining why his theories were forensically unsound or magically improbable.
The soft click of a door latch broke his reverie. A female secretary, dressed in a simple but impeccably tailored blouse and skirt, erged from a set of polished oak doors. Her expression was professionally neutral.
Secretary: “You will be seen now, Mister Striker,” she announced, her voice echoing slightly in the hushed space.
Joe rose, his joints protesting the long wait, and followed her. They moved from the modernized waiting area into the heart of the old building. The architecture shifted dramatically, the ceilings vaulting high above, supported by ancient, carved stone arches. Long hallways stretched into shadowy distances, their walls lined with portraits of serious-looking scholars and faded tapestries depicting arcane symbology. They passed a handful of students and professors, their robes and manner instantly marking them as mbers of Grayscale College.
Soon, they arrived at an open doorway. Through it, Joe could see a typical, if large, academic office—shelves groaning with books, a professor hunched over a desk littered with papers, diligently grading tests or filling out forms. Joe instinctively slowed, assuming this was his destination.
To his surprise, the secretary walked right past it without a glance.
A flicker of curiosity ignited in his chest. He followed her in silence as she led him further, turning down a narrower corridor and ascending a sweeping, marble staircase that spiraled upward. The air grew cooler, the ambient sounds of the campus fading away, replaced by an almost sacred stillness. They finally stopped before a massive, ornate door made of dark, heavily lacquered wood. It was far too large for a single person to open easily, standing as a clear barrier and a statent of importance. Emblazoned upon its center, rendered in polished gray stone that seed to absorb the light, was the symbol of the Grayscale College: a balancing scale, its silhouette imposing against the black wood.
Secretary: “Archmage Dakka will see you now,” the secretary declared, her voice resonating with a formality that seed to suck the air from the hallway.
“Wait. I’m seeing an Archmage?!” Joe’s internal monologue was a silent yell. His pulse quickened. He had hoped for a senior mage, a respected scholar from the Grayscale College, soone with enough authority to access restricted archives. He never imagined his request would land on the desk of the college's head himself—Dakka Vinko, a na spoken with reverence, one of the top mages of the Union. This was far beyond a simple consultation.
The secretary raised her hands, and intricate silvery symbols flared to life around the door's edges. With a deep, grinding sound, the massive door began to swing inward.
Secretary: “Ugh, these hinges have to be greased again,” she muttered, a jarringly mundane complaint that broke the tension for a re second.
Beyond the threshold lay a study that was less a room and more a fortress of knowledge. The walls soared twenty feet, every inch lined with bookshelves crafted from a wood so dark it seed to drink the light. The volus themselves were not rely placed on shelves; they were bound to them by chains of shimring, pale aetheric energy that pulsed with a slow, rhythmic cadence. Wisps of the sa energy coiled around the books like vigilant serpents. The ssage was unmistakable: the knowledge here was dangerous, guarded, and likely pertained to the very black arts Joe was investigating.
At the room's center, behind an enormous desk carved from a single slab of obsidian, sat Archmage Dakka Vinko. He was a figure swathed in the stark, gray robes of his office, but it was the man beneath that commanded horrified attention. From the crown of his head to the tips of his fingers, he was ticulously wrapped in clean, white bandages, his form evoking an ancient, entombed mummy. Through the narrow gaps in the linen, Joe caught glimpses of ravaged, crimson, and blistered skin.
Joe had heard the stories, of course—the legendary duel with the infamous pyromancer Alexandria Scarlett, a battle that had supposedly left Dakka badly scarred. The rumors did no justice to the reality. Seeing the evidence firsthand was a visceral shock.
Gods, he must have suffered near-total third-degree burns, Joe thought, a cold knot of sympathy and revulsion tightening in his stomach.
Dakka looked up from his work. His eyes, a startlingly clear and sharp gray, were the only fully visible part of his face. They held an imnse, weary intelligence. With a slight gesture of a bandaged hand, he beckoned Joe forward.
Swallowing hard, Joe obeyed, stepping into the sanctum. The secretary remained in the hallway, and the great doors groaned shut behind him, sealing him in. As he approached the desk, Dakka made another subtle, fluid gesture. A heavy leather armchair slid soundlessly across the polished floor, positioning itself directly before the obsidian desk.
Dakka: “Please,” the bandaged man said, his voice a dry, rasping whisper, like parchnt being rubbed together, yet carrying an undeniable weight of command. “Have a seat.”
Joe gave a curt, respectful nod and lowered himself into the offered chair, the aged leather creaking under his weight. The sheer presence of the Archmage was a tangible force in the room, a mixture of arcane power and profound suffering.
Joe: “I have to admit, I’m surprised that the Archmage of the Grayscale College himself is seeing ,” he said, voicing the thought that had been thrumming in his mind since he entered.
Dakka’s bandaged head tilted slightly.
Dakka: “It has to do with the nature of your query,” he rasped. “When it cos to the subject of Deadly Curses, there are very few within this entire university, even in my college, who possess any aningful knowledge. I am one of that handful. And…” He gestured vaguely at his own wrapped form, a clear and simple explanation. “…due to my recent injuries, I find my schedule regrettably clear. When your request crossed my desk, I opted to intervene personally.”
Joe: “I see. Well, thank you. And… I’m sorry about your injury. I hope you can make a full recovery.”
Dakka: “I will,” the archmage stated, with a certainty that brooked no argunt. “The burns, while severe, were not infused with a magic that places them beyond healing. I possess the aetheric capacity to nd the damage with healing magic. It is rely a matter of ti—likely a year, given that the Saints are currently sequestered and I am reliant on the university’s own healers. But that is not your concern. You are here about deadly curses.”
Joe: “Yes, that’s correct,” he replied, leaning forward slightly, his detective’s instincts overriding his awe.
Dakka: “Then, state your questions.”
Joe didn’t hesitate. This was the mont he had been pushing toward for months.
Joe: “Everything. I need to know how they’re cast. Can they be traced back to their source? Is there a way to break one, or at least block it? And most importantly,” his voice hardened, “who is capable of casting them?”
Dakka let out a slow, dry breath that whispered through his bandages.
Dakka: “That is a profoundly tall order, Detective. And I am afraid you are not going to like the answer. The truth is, for the most part… we frankly do not know.”
Joe blinked, certain he had misheard. He had braced himself for complex theories, for caveats and conditions, but not for this void of nothing.
Joe: “But… you’re the most knowledgeable mage on black magic,” he protested, his gaze flicking to the ominously chained grimoires lining the walls, as if to accuse them of holding back.
Dakka: “I am one of the most knowledgeable mages of proscribed black arts in the Union,” he corrected, his tone precise. “I am not, however, the definitive authority on every facet of it, least of all this one. If you sought the world’s leading expert on curse magic, you would need to speak with Archmage Alison Xata of the Obsidian Towers. His research into maleficent bindings and sacrificial taphysics is… was… unparalleled. He would possess far more specific knowledge than I.”
Joe’s heart sank.
Joe: “But isn’t the Obsidian Towers in Gix? The nation that’s been tearing itself apart in a civil war for decades now?”
Dakka: “Indeed. But the war is the least of your concerns. For so ti now, Alison Xata has been missing. Presumably caught in the crossfire of the war, or worse. Consulting him is an impossibility, even if you could secure safe passage to the Obsidian Towers.”
Joe: “Please, Archmage,” he implored, desperation clawing at his throat.
Joe: “You must know sothing. The man I’m investigating—his death matches the paraters of a deadly curse described in a text you authored yourself. The strange sense of dread and nightmares, the absence of aetheric residue from a conventional spell… it’s all there.”
Dakka held up a bandaged hand, a gesture of both pause and pained acknowledgnt.
Dakka: “I will help you as I am able, Detective. But you must first understand the fundantal reason for our ignorance.” He shifted in his seat, preparing for a lecture he had likely never expected to give to a city policeman. “We understand a great deal about common curses—the Jinx, the Malediction, the Lesser Blight—precisely because they do not kill their victims. We can observe their progression, analyze their structure, and develop counter-charms. We can trace their origins because they persist. A deadly curse, by its very nature, leaves no witness, no ongoing phenonon to study. The number of first-hand, reliably docunted and analyzed instances of a true deadly curse in all of recorded history, could be counted on one hand. And, even legends of deadly curses just don’t show up very much throughout recorded history in general. Our knowledge is based on fragnts, on second-hand accounts, and on theoretical extrapolation from lesser, non-lethal curses.”
Joe leaned forward, his hands gripping his knees.
Joe: “Well, what about those rare instances that were analyzed? What were the researchers able to glean from them? There must be sothing.”
Dakka’s shoulders, visible beneath his robes, lifted in a faint, weary shrug.
Dakka: “What they gleaned was, by its very nature, pure conjecture. Hypotheses built on a sample size of one, with no way to run controlled experints or validate findings. I only ntion them to illustrate that they are marginally more reliable than old wives tales.”
Joe: “I’ll take conjecture over nothing at all,” Joe insisted, his voice firm. “Any thread is worth pulling right now.”
Dakka let out a long, sighing breath that whispered through his bandages.
Dakka: “Very well. To address your earlier question about the source of such magic—and I must stress again that this is an unproven theory—the scant evidence points to two possible origins. We do not know if there are more, but these two recur in the fragnts we have. Deadly curses seem to emanate from either the influence of naless gods, or from magic remnants of the Mythic Era.”
Joe: “The naless gods were ntioned in your book,” he said, nodding. “But this is the first ti I'm hearing the Mythic Era discussed in this context.”
Dakka: “The Mythic Era is believed to have been an age of wonders that dwarf our current understanding of magic. It is not inconceivable that people from that era could invoke powers we now consider impossible, including curses of instantaneous, inescapable death. Our suspicion arises from a single, well-docunted incident where a researcher, delving into a sealed ruin from that era, inadvertently triggered a defensive trap that placed a deadly curse upon a laborer.”
Joe: “Did that person survive?” he asked, though he already suspected he knew the answer.
Dakka: “No. But his death was observed by a team equipped with scrying crystals and aetheric resonators. They were unable to determine how to break the curse, a failure consistent with all other accounts. However, in this specific case, the researcher posited that the curse had extrely strict, almost legalistic, conditions for its activation and fulfillnt.”
Joe: “You an for casting it?”
Dakka: “For its execution," he corrected grimly. “The curse was placed the mont the laborer entered a specific chamber. He imdiately began to experience the precursor effects I described in my text: horrific, prophetic dreams and an aura of palpable dread so intense that his colleagues reported feeling a physical chill in his presence. Yet, the curse remained dormant. It only activated the mont he attempted to leave the ruin’s boundaries.” his voice grew even quieter. “The laborer’s eyes began to profusely bleed, and he was dead within seconds. The researchers theorized that of all the people who entered that chamber, this particular individual t a specific, hidden condition that made him vulnerable. They believed it was because he had earlier read a stone plaque in an antechamber inscribed with the words: ‘To those who enter, may they never leave again.’ He had, in effect, fulfilled its condition by reading that plaque and trying to leave.”
A cold knot tightened in Joe’s stomach.
Joe: “Is that how all the victims in these accounts died? Bleeding from the eyes?”
Dakka: “No. The thodology is as varied as it is grueso. How did the victim you suspect die?”
Joe’s jaw tightened.
Joe: “He was… shredded to pieces. As if by invisible claws. Leaving only gore.”
Dakka was silent for a mont, his gray eyes distant.
Dakka: “Hmm. Not identical, but thematically similar to at least one other account I recall. In that case, the victim’s heart literally tore itself from their chest and detonated mid-air.”
Joe: “What about Naless God, how do you evoke these curses from them?”
Dakka steepled his bandaged fingers, the gesture slow and deliberate.
Dakka: “We are operating in the realm of supposition. Our knowledge cos from intercepted cultist texts—fragnted, chaotic, and often insane writings dedicated to one of the countless entities that lurk in the Vulvorian Sea. So of these grimoires contain rituals that claim to invoke a power similar to a deadly curse. However,” he emphasized, his rasping voice dropping lower, “these rituals are so profoundly unethical that they are considered cris to even transcribe. They universally demand a price in blood, often multiple, sentient sacrifices.”
Joe: “But you don’t know if they actually work,” he stated, seeking a firm answer in the quagmire of maybes.
Dakka: “Again, Detective, with everything I am telling you, I can neither confirm nor deny. These are the frayed threads we have to work with. It is entirely possible these rituals from the cults are rely scribbled nonsense. Yet…History suggests that so of their rituals have a terrifying efficacy. You, of all people, have first-hand experience with that, do you not? The recent… ‘sli flood,’ I believe the press called it.”
A cold wave of mory washed over Joe—the grotesque, pulsating pursuer slis flooding the streets, the panicked screams, the desperate fight to find the pulsating heart of the ritual and shatter it. The event was a stark, public testant to the fact that the mad ramblings of cultists could, under the right conditions, work.
Joe: “Yeah, I do. Um… another angle: could these deadly curses be traced back to their source using reverse divination? Follow the magical signature back to the caster?”
He saw one of Dakka’s eyebrows rise slightly, a faint shift in the linen wrapping his forehead.
Dakka: “I am surprised you are familiar with such an obscure branch of magic. But I doubt it would be successful. To the best of my knowledge, at least one researcher attempted precisely that on the ruined laborer. They found nothing. Unlike a standard curse, which maintains a faint but traceable tether to its weaver, a deadly curse appears to sever that connection upon activation, or perhaps it never creates one at all. It attaches itself so completely to the victim’s life force that it leaves no obvious trail back to its origin. It is a self-contained, perfect murder weapon.”
A new, chilling possibility occurred to Joe.
Joe: “You said soone can be afflicted, but the lethal effect doesn’t activate until a condition is t. Hypothetically… could soone be carrying a deadly curse on them for years?”
Dakka: “Hypothetically? Almost certainly,” he confird without hesitation. “Given how profoundly these curses can embed themselves within a person’s aetheric signature, an individual could harbor one for their entire natural lifespan. Though, I cannot imagine the experience would be anything less than tornt—a constant, low-grade dread and nightmares, waiting for a shoe that may never drop.”
“So there’s no ti scale I can rely on, Joe thought, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. Rob could have been cursed years ago.”
Joe: “And the trigger,” he continued, his mind racing back to the mont of Rob’s death. “Could it be sothing as simple as… saying a person’s na?” He rembered the sheer, unadulterated terror on Rob’s face the instant before he died, right after he had uttered the na ‘Mark.’ It had always stood out, a final, cryptic clue.
Dakka gave a slow, grave nod.
Dakka: “Anything, Detective. Anything could be the trigger that ets the condition. A specific word. A location. A thought. An emotional state. The fulfillnt of a prophecy the victim didn't even know they were part of. The paraters are limited only by the imagination—or the incomprehensible logic—of the entity that set the curse.”
A heavy dread settled in the pit of Joe’s stomach. Dakka’s words hadn’t provided a path; they had dissolved the ground beneath his feet. His fear was confird—he was leaving with a labyrinth of new questions, each more unanswerable than the last. The concept of a deadly curse that could lie dormant for a lifeti, triggered by sothing as mundane as a spoken word or as abstract as a feeling, transford Rob’s death from a solvable cri into a potential cosmic accident.
The conversation continued for a while longer, with Joe mining the Archmage’s vast knowledge for every remaining fragnt. He learned about theoretical aetheric resonance patterns that might indicate a curse’s presence, and the philosophical debate on whether such magic was an act of will or the invocation of a pre-existing, malevolent pri order. By the ti he stood to leave, Joe likely knew more about the academic theory of deadly curses than ninety-nine percent of the university’s own students.
Before his departure, he secured a commitnt for a follow-up consultation. More than that, Dakka granted him direct access, bypassing the tedious paperwork that usually stood between the city’s police and the university’s ivory tower.
Dakka: “Co directly to my secretary when you have new information,” the Archmage had rasped, a significant concession. Joe sensed the unspoken reason. Beneath the bandages and the professional detachnt, Dakka’s scholarly curiosity was piqued. He saw in Joe as a potential source of new raw data on a subject that had frustrated academics for centuries. Joe was being given a hunter’s license, but he felt more like a canary being sent into a mineshaft of unimaginable depth.
The walk back was a blur.
His mind was a storm of mythic eras, naless gods, and conditional triggers. He replayed every second of his final interaction with Rob, every word exchanged, every environntal detail. Had he said anything to Rob to set off the curse? Had Rob slled a particular scent? Had he rembered a forgotten dream?
Joe was trying to decipher the rules of a ga he didn’t know they were playing. The case had beco more complicated, and he was left sifting through the dust of the impossible, scratching his head not just over what it all ant, but if it could ever an anything at all.
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