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Chapter 59 - Knowledge, part 2
Erich was home for the first time in three days, was what Viktor knew. He was sitting at the attic table with the usual half-empty bottle uncorked, and he was swirling the wine in the container. His grungy ginger cat sat smugly on his lap, stroking his ears.
Emboldened by the swig of wine Erich had poured him, Viktor began to speak. And once he started, the words just came out like a torrent and he found himself telling his friend everything… everything except the fact that the chase had caused a wave of emotion in him.
When he was done, Erich simply sat in the chair, motionless, his mouth open and his expression stunned.
"My, my, you are a black sheep, right Viktor?" Erich said at last. “The black sheep of the family, huh? Well, I don't mind telling you, peasant boy, that I didn't think you were capable of something like that. You are full of surprises, right? "
In the course of a few minutes, Viktor had completely changed Erich's opinion of
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World Of Darkness Chapter 60 - Knowledge, part 3
The house was as run down as it looked from the outside. The room they were in was completely devoid of furniture. The floorboards were bare and bristling with splinters; the walls covered with damp peeling stock.Erich, regaining some of his earlier bravery, led the way and left the room.On the other side of the door they found themselves on an equally bare stair landing ... To go up to the upper floor there was a staircase with some steps missing and others half broken.The air was thick with the smell of mold ... It seemed that no one had inhabited the house in a long time, and yet he had seen some kind of servant open the door to the two body snatchers just a month before.Erich surveyed the flight of stairs that led up into the darkness of the upper floor. Convinced that there was no danger that could come from there, he cautiously peered over the railing. Viktor followed suit.The light from the street lamps that entered the building through
World Of Darkness Chapter 61 - Knowledge, part 4
The simple black-skinned book was a scholar's chronicle of his search for lost knowledge at the time of the coming of the Dark Gods, and while it was an interesting read, it didn't really teach Viktor anything very useful.The book titled only Anatomy, on the other hand, fascinated him and he had to acknowledge that the concepts and detailed information it contained were easy for him to assimilate and integrate into his own knowledge. In fact, he seemed to have a strange affinity for the ideas presented in the book. He attributed this to the long relationship he had had with death by growing up as the son of a priest of the death god.After a week without any sudden and unexpected visit from the guard or worse, Viktor dared to go out into the street again. He even dared to return to the School to continue his work there. When Professor Ulbert Hinsteil asked him where he had been, Viktor replied that he had suffered a bad summer cold. Lying was another thing he was not
World Of Darkness Chapter 62 - Post Mortem, part 1
It is a common misconception to believe that necromancers hate life because of their dealings with death. There could be nothing further from the truth!Those who practice the art of necromancy may well spend years looting the graves of the dead, abandoned cemeteries, fetid ossuaries and ancient burial mounds, avoiding the light of day to take advantage of the protective shadow of the night and the relationship with the living in favor. From the company of moldy corpses. But what motivates this behavior is the desire to hang on to life for longer.Some actually reach necromancy by mistake. They want knowledge for its own sake, or they are trying to save their own life or that of a loved one. Perhaps it is also true that many of those who come to practice the dark art are prone to madness and dark desires because what else could lead them to study the lowest and vilest form of the art of magic? Yet there is something in their forbidden quest that inevitably leads them o
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Viktor continued to descend, the voices that seemed to be casting a spell clearer with each step. He still didn't understand the words they were singing; they seemed to belong to a language he did not know. But as he listened to them he felt his scalp tighten and his hair stand on end. Sound leaked like icy liquid from every pore.Suddenly Viktor realized his teeth were chattering, so he clenched his jaws. Was it really from the cold under the house, or was it due to something else?The stone steps ended and he began another corridor, this one made of crumbling bricks, glittering with algae and water. The ceiling was covered with cobwebs where the skeletal corpses of their owners could be seen. The light flickered at the other end of the hall. By going down that path, Viktor risked coming face to face with whoever was casting the spell, probably Doctor Tepes, but now he couldn't help himself.Before he knew it, he was peering around the archway at the other end
World Of Darkness Chapter 64 - Post Mortem, part 3
The doctor had finished sewing the opening of the corpse and was now making strange gestures with his hands on the body; as the spell increased in intensity. This curious procedure made Viktor's stomach turn. Every gesture the doctor made was burned into his memory. The incomprehensible words of the spell reverberated in his mind as if they were familiar.As the mantra continued, the atmosphere in the laboratory cellar changed perceptibly. Viktor felt static electricity build up inside his own body as if he were trapped in the middle of an incipient electrical storm. He felt the shadows thicken around him. The air itself had taken on a suffocating quality. He looked greasy and tainted.Seen out of the corner of his eye, as he watched the doctor and the ritual taking place below, the impenetrable darkness that refused to disappear from the corners of the vault seemed to run like oil across the ceiling and ruined walls and gradually envelop the room, as if the shadows we
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