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"Don\'t go tight-lipped on me now, Rosa," Rafel said when she hesitated.

"I don\'t mean to hold back, sir. Just...promise me you wouldn\'t use the book until you\'re strong enough, until your Mana Core is reinforced and stable. Promise?" Rosamunde looked from the tide of the Cold Sea, which now appeared black, to Rafel. Her stance said she wasn\'t budging until he gave in.

Beside their dialogue, Sekhmet and Aya stayed close, keeping arms locked with Rafel. Ravenna had quit kicking at loose beach sand and also came to listen in. Blue, the [Guardian] wolf wagged his furry tail at her feet. Rafel looked round at all the women, perhaps seeking help with Rosa. They offered none.

He sighed audibly. "I don\'t even know yet what this BOOK OF SOULS does!" He freed his hands from the ladies just a sec to make air quotes. "—but yes! I promise."

"Say it?" Rosa urged.

In that moment, Rafel mused that if he was ever one to roll his eyes, he would. Was what it with these mortal women? In Hel, no woman would test his patience so; and they were Gorgons, and Vampiresses, and fucking [Mummies].

\'I\'m really lax with these girls. I must be getting soft. But I feel so hard. If they weren\'t so easy on the eyes.\' Rafel battled with his subconscious.

"Fine," he muttered aloud. "I, Hell Prince Israfel BlüdThïrste make this blood oath to thee, damsel of earth, Rosamunde Spears, that I will not use of the mystics of the so named Book of Souls should I happen upon it, until I am of full health, both in Mana Core and soul points. Happy now?"

Rosa made a puzzled face. She only asked for a promise.

Rafel seemed to read her mind. And as a floating, gray finger suddenly materialized and drew a crisscross fleshmark into the area just beside his heart, on the spot of his visceral demonic [Core], he moved to explain to her. "We don\'t to promises. We do blood oaths," said Rafel.

"Weird, but okay. . .I suppose I shouldn\'t be peeved by a little Underworld tradition. I sometimes forget what you are, you know?—looking the way you do." Rosamunde responded and joined her hands together. "But back to the Book;

As I was saying, this Book of Souls exists, but it isn\'t general knowledge. I stumbled upon the tale of it on a particular case I worked in Nokmaar: a young actress was murdered behind the stage and her benefactor wouldn\'t let her body be taken away; said she owed him one more scene. Anyway, the idiot stage manager gathered a bunch of Druid Acolytes and tried to summon the book.

That was the first I heard of it.

Obviously, the invocation spell didn\'t work, but in their whispering, I learnt that the Book of Souls is a forgotten relic of the Old Gods, from before Agrippa the Wanderer. It was written by the divination of your only known [Supreme Mage] in existence and penned down in the blood of a white stag by a Grand Scribe, this Magus\' rumored disciple.

The Book of Souls is rumored to hold in it\'s vast, leathery pages the death keys to many roaming souls. As many as a thousand souls for each line in a page. As the tale went that night in Nokmaar, the book was hidden as soon as it was created. Bound to the back of an [Uluvian Tormentor] so that no sane creature who wished to keep breathing would search for it.

The Supreme Mage found that the Book held more wisdom than should be made available—at least to the living.

There are after all mysteries that are left veiled until death. Such lines should not be crossed.

Since only a suicidal fellow would approach such a beast of utter blood madness as a [Uluvian Tormentor], the stupid Acolytes fetched by the stage manager were in the hopes to summon it right off the giant demon\'s back. I mean, how dull brained could they be, right?

Don\'t you think the SUPREME MAGE would\'ve thought someone would possibly try that shit in the future?

Their hopes to resurrect the deceased actress for her final act remained just that; hopes. I guess they were depending for at least one soul in the Book to hold the secret of resurrection. The actress\'s body was released to her family after three long hours of failed spellcasting. The stage manager fumed at the ears.

I heard much later, when I\'d solved the case that he recieved a ban for his untoward behavior."

Rosamunde stopped to check Rafel\'s poise. She adjusted the cane to hold more of his weight. Thank heavens the skull handle was sturdy brass. He had been standing for far too long. But Rafel\'s own thoughts were so distant from his wellbeing.

He was thinking about some particular words of Rosa:

...as many as a thousand souls for each line in a page...

Boy, O, Boy! The math of it!

The ancient papyrus scrolls had at least fifty lines for a page. Two pages made a leaf, surmounting easily to [100 000 souls] a leaf.

A hundred thousand bloody souls!

Damn!

He could make his current [Arcane Rune] pouch in quarter the book\'s length. Imagine what all those many bound ghosts had to say. All the wisdom of the ancient world. Souls that could range from country Barons to Valhallan Kings, all with a story to tell, with something to offer. Locked for so long in an inanimate rotting paper on a fiend\'s back, Rafel knew the souls would give anything to be set free.

To find peace.

The Book of Souls itself was torment.

A dark creation of [Limbo].

A few stars twinkled in the night sky like diamond clusters. It lit the sands of the beach like grains of silver and the sea beyond like a mirror. Sekhmet offered warmly to Rafel. "How can we be certain this BOOK is real? And that the benefactor and his swindling cohorts were not just looking for a means to gain full price on the poor actress\'s death?"

"I guess we don\'t." Aya replied glumly.

"No, my dear," said Rafel. "We infact do. System! Bring up all analysis on the Book of Souls. Visible, please."

[DING!]

A fancy gold hologram shimmered into the night. It stole the wonder of the stars above in its own hue. It produced results on a screen that was clear for all to see.

[HOST REQUEST NOW SHOWING!]

[Stats on the RELIC \'THE BOOK OF SOULS\']

[EXISTENCE: Mortal Plane.

DOMICILE: Earth.

CREATORS: The Wiccan Clave.

LONGEVITY: +3500 Years.

CURRENT LOCATION: ...calculating.]

Rafel held his breath.

[DING!]

[CURRENT LOCATION: The Abbey of St. Tomasina.]

"Abbey? Saint Tomasina?" Rafel looked around. "Anyone know where the hell my system\'s talking about?"

Ravenna said, "At least we\'re spared a face-to-face with the Uluvian Tormentor."

"I do," Rosa added softly. "I know where the Abbey of Saint Tomasina is."

Rafel smiled and started walking for the trees. "Of course you do, pious Rosamunde! Come, love, you can tell us all about the Abbey once we are back in the warm harbor of the cottage. Let Myreen keep patrol for the night. Unlike us, she had literal fire in her bones."

The women laughed as they moved with in. In moments, the beach faded behind them.

They were moving over the stone bridge when Rafel asked, "who was the killer?"

It took all the girls a while to route his off kilter question. But then Rosamunde bent her head with a smile. "Oh the actress! It was her make-up artist. The actress was fucking her fiance."

"Shit." Rafel muttered.

"Yeah," Rosamunde said. "—stabbed her in the fucking eye. You don\'t see many murders like that. A kill of passion."