Eldritch Exorcist

The plane landed in the USA without much trouble. With a bit of creative bargaining on my side (threats of violence), I managed to convince one of the trafficking pilots to take us to the States. All three of us made our way from the airport, guided through the maintenance corridors by the paid-off guard.

We took a taxi to my apartment. I went up, assuring Miss Helen that none of my new friends were Steve, nor did they know where her cat was. And after a quick conversation, we went into my apartment. I took a couple of minutes to tie up the future sacrifice and make sure to gag him.

And then just the two of us went to the meeting place with Anna's father.

The moment we walked in, Anna jumped into her dad's waiting embrace. They both cried, many unsaid words exchanged between them as tears flowed from their eyes. I stood a bit awkwardly to the side and looked at the scene. Once their pleasantries were over, the man approached me and stretched his hand, taking mine into a firm handshake.

"Thank you for returning my daughter to me. Mr Samuel."

"It was a pleasure. Don't lose her again," I said, pointing at his chest as he chuckled. "And when can I expect the official ownership of the land?"

"Around a month for all of the procedures. Please understand that land with so many owners is not so easy to put up for sale to a private person."

"I understand that the bureaucracy is not fast. Just make sure no funny business, no joint ownership, no legal tricks. If my lawyer finds any, it won't be our negotiator in the middle of the night in your house."

"No need for threats, it's a small price to pay for family. And speaking of which, would you like to join us for dinner? I would really like to know the details."

"Thank you for the invitation, but I have things I need to deal with." One of which is currently tied in my apartment, I added in my head. "After an operation like that, there are loose ends in need of tying. Maybe some other time. You can get the details from your daughter, I'm sure she has a lot to talk about."

After that, we said a couple more pleasantries to each other, and I was on my merry way. I finally returned to my own apartment. The man was still out, lying on the floor with his hands tied behind his back.

It felt weird coming back home after that whole upheaval. It was still the same bedroom with white walls, the same kitchen with the same brown cupboard and brown table. But somehow it all seemed so much more vivid, so much 'more' in a weird sense, like a fog was lifted from the whole place.

I enjoyed the feeling one gets after unpacking from a long trip for a couple of seconds. The land seemed to be secured, even if the man tried to retreat from the contract, he unknowingly swore upon a chirograph. Even if the contract killed him, we would have a claim to the land.

I checked the restraints on the guy slowly waking from the spell. They held firmly. Sadly, as much as I wanted to enjoy the feeling of being back home, there was one more thing I needed to know.

I stretched a bit, breathing out, and went to my car to go to the storage, barely remembering to take the homunculus to check it when I had time.

I needed answers.

After arriving, I began to go through all the coffers and other storage areas I could access, looking for the journals. It took a couple of minutes to dig my way through all the family belongings to find them, but I finally got what I was looking for.

They were massive leather-bound books with numbers burned into the front cover indicating their order. They were written by my grandfather, Abdul Alhazred, a great wizard from Damascus and probably the most powerful member of my family who has ever lived.

Looking at the numbers, it seemed a few of them were missing, but those I had should hold the answer I was looking for.

I sat down and started reading. Turning the pages of the old journal at the massive desk was quite relaxing. It made me feel like a proper wizard, studying lost history. With every page turned, I relived the battles described. Tales of spells capable of leveling cities being flung mid-battle, just to be nullified by the enemy caster. Necromancers raising entire armies at a mere thought, just for them to be wiped out by a divine spell. I wondered if I would ever see something like that.

The trip down memory lane finally came to an abrupt stop as I saw the date on the pages.

7.17.13.13.8 Tzolk'in: 10 Lamat Haab: 1 Yax Night Lord: G 7

I did a quick conversion from the Mayan calendar to proper Gregorian, 2nd of February, 5th year of the mythical era. The mythical era referred to everything before the Shattering and modern era for everything after, or before and after Christ if you buy into the Vatican's bullshit.

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That should be 5 years before the Shattering and around a year after the peace negotiations broke for the third time. I flirted with the idea of continuing my mindless trip into the myth for a second, but then shook my head. No matter how tempting it was to relive the pinnacle of magic through the text, I needed to know.

I started reading.

We received a strange message from the Vatican, directly from the war command, with an invitation to the church for joint research. I was almost excited, if not for a chirograph the thickness of an encyclopedia attached. I told them to go fuck themselves.

7.17.13.16.19 Tzolk'in: 3 Kawak Haab: 12 Mak Night Lord: G 6.

So around a month later.

I talked with Sah'era today, and she received a similar offer. Word is, they are trying to lure in everyone proficient in the dark arts. What is the Vatican planning?

7.17.14.17.4 Tzolk'in: 4 K'an Haab: 12 Mak Night Lord: G 2

I got the invitation again, this time with slightly more reasonable terms. I checked with the others, and the same pattern continues. Everyone proficient in the dark arts, all wizards and researchers, no warlocks or even sorcerers, unless they have achieved notable accomplishments in the scholarly arts.

So another invitation after a few months from the last.

7.17.14.16.12 Tzolk'in: 5 Eb' Haab: 0 Mak Night Lord: G 8

My curiosity got the better of me. I'm going. If there is really some strange plot, then my wife can handle anything in my absence. That is assuming, somehow, the church could handle my last resort, hehehe.

I could imagine him chuckling as he wrote that. I had an idea of what the last resort was. The Atlas tragedy came to mind. That should be it.

I went back to the journals.

7.17.16.9.11 Tzolk'in: 12 Chuwen Haab: 9 Sek Night Lord: G 2

They called us to the Vatican's underground. We were never allowed this far down into the belly of the beast, the headquarters of the church and main command of the war. For a second, I thought that this might be another assassination attempt, some new moron in charge trying to make a name for himself, so I moved my mana to my hands as we moved through the corridors.

However, the guards did not react, maintaining their cordiality and pleasantries. Overly cordial. They tried to make us sign that paperwork about keeping secrets, but no dark mage with a brain will ever trust a lawyer, let alone one hired by the church. So they finally broke and allowed us in without it. Strange, what was so important to risk this?

Afterward, I met others in a big conference hall. Everyone invited is either an alchemist or a dark mage, all with backgrounds in curses. Now I'm excited. Did something new get invented? Will we get to study it? But a new curse without my knowledge? I'm an authority on curses, after all, and something like that going unnoticed by me is not likely. What is going on? Could it be something from the miracle people?

There it was. I could feel a restlessness as I kept reading. The next intro was from a month later, a month of studies, I assume.

7.17.16.6.10 Tzolk'in: 3 Ok Haab: 8 Wo' Night Lord: G 4

If I could feel fear, I might be experiencing it now. I'm writing to organize my thoughts out of helplessness rather than to share my observations. A month of studying has led to barely any progress. The subject appears to be a man in the third circle. Or was once at a third circle as he is now an undead of sorts, a walking vehicle for the strange spell. We have been observing the process of the disease spreading, which is something I have strangely never seen before, not like that. I would not believe my own senses if not for the fact that my observations were confirmed by the priests of the dead from Egypt. The curse behaves like a living thing. It was engineered by someone, I am sure. There's no way microorganisms are capable of magic, but it is as if it were a stand-in for the caster, as if the virus were both a disease and a curse at the same time.

Shit, I swore for once wishing my memory didn't serve me right.

It was fascinating to witness. We observed the process. Each time the healers tried to cure the disease, the curse would flare up, and each time a priest attempted to remove the curse, the disease would intensify.

The only way to remove this was for both curse specialists to eliminate the curse and for healers to heal the body. This can be performed on a single individual, but mass healing is not feasible. It is ingenious but also terrifying. There is a sense of a lack of purpose and flair in it. A type of weapon that just causes death on both sides. It is moving away from the beauty and mystery of magic and entering a field of mindless killing. But at the core is the strange technique. A curse should not have a stand-in for its caster. It's against the rules of magic itself. More rese-

The rest of the text was familiar to me. It would be filled with 'I don't knows' and 'how's it possible?'. I closed the journal and sank deeper into the massive chair, pressing my back into the leather backrest. Resting my chin in my hand, I let myself fall into my thoughts.

The living curse and a stand-in for a caster. The last time it was seen, it was in a much more sophisticated form of a disease, but according to the journals, the principle was the same as with the homunculi. It was a technique that no one had been able to reproduce throughout history. And the diseases created by it became a grim calling card of sorts. Sign of only one group crazy enough to release them: The Bringers of Miracles. They had many other names: The Chosen of the False God, The Accursed Ones, The New End.

The very people responsible for tricking the Gods themselves and shattering the veins, the people responsible for ending the mythical era.