《Wired Phantasmagoria Grimoires Side!Re:Write》 Prologue: A Mysterious Night (Witch On The...) Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Layer 01: Turning 01: Rebirth A vast, parched gulf of deprivation. Split and screaming across the sky, a ripped seam through space. From beyond the veil, a torrent in scarlet. Red chords strung together a million tiny gears buzzing about the air. Deprivation plunged them into madness, and they tore each other apart for a drop of blood. They found none. The swarm was individually composed of husks recollecting parchment. Even the strongest of the swarm budged to the Styx for want. The bare material of Earth was carpeted in nothing, and the sky began to hum. From the deep, gentle resonance; deep, gentle waters, blue like milk. They swept the first life into new materia and coalesced into the seas. The sun-scorned Earth was nurtured into desert bloom. ¡°It was at this point I woke up,¡± the Man In Yellow muttered to no one in particular. He thought back on his wife¡¯s sleeping form next to him, how she rose and fell with each gently screamed breath; he remembered the soft, deep blue¨Cthe dye of midnight that crept, gently, through the blinds. He remembered the smell; the heather-grey smell of sleep from a lovely slumberer, the acrid stench of fear emanating from some forgotten cranial node of his own. And he remembered nothing more. As he walked, the Man in Yellow felt that broken haze calcify into a stone above his tongue, lumping into a stalactite from the roof of the mouth. Half from penitence, half from curiosity, he did not allow himself the liberty of thinking out loud anymore. He shut his mouth, captured the malaise within, and the stone formed. It leeched its sour taste into his mouth, the prelude to acid rot, eventual necrotic consumption, a million days of hell in a single second. He saw decay as an approximation of undeath and himself as the subject. The world he dwelled upon as an imperfect godcorpse. The The Man in Yellow collapsed under the growing pressure. His body impacted the meaningless street and the stone broke loose, fizzing a sweet scream into his tongue for a chalky haze of a crater in his palate. He pulled himself to his knees, dry heaving from his mouth and eyes. The idea of bleeding from either approached and receded with no catharsis. It pooled behind his face as he kneeled, in silently shaking deference to an agony caged within his body. His body. The characteristics of ¡°the form¡± which made it his. The face on his drivers license, the chest his wife lay her head on as she slept, the arms scarred from who-knows-what, the brain, a blade dulled by many trials. All degenerating in a desperate implosion of psychic vectors aimed at the core of his being. -----©\----------------------------------------------- It felt like induced nothing. The moment before pain registers, neurons as conscientious objectors aimed at coherent perception. Laying down arms, refusing to fire. Everything was so flat. The way space went numb laying sick in bed, staring at the ceiling for days, but from a second of the night sky. The almost sonic sweetness congealed into a mist almost tangible with a living warmth, the air around dreamed-in dirt. Something burned like angelsong behind my eyes for a sputtering few seconds before smoothing to a cool glow. I got up, dusted myself off out of habit (I was clean) and stood in a shocked stillness. Jolted by the glow. It may have seemed to an outsider as though I were basking in it, the sensation of incursion; anything transcendent about this came from within the Body. I heaved my vision forward, realigning vectors on my neck and wobbling like a compass, my face pointed true north, to the tree-like spire upon the horizon. It was shocking even in dulled bronze, an incursion against the blue midnight. It gleamed skyward with the same rhythm as a dead eye in a living socket. As a structure, it felt sick, and as sweet as it was, that node of nectar rhymed. It made no sense to me. It made sense, for reasons that did not. There was an almost physical sensation of degeneration within my brain, heated to a fever pitch by the dissonant rhythm of misfiring synapses. Faulty neurons clumsily laying threads on maps and tracks to follow, crumbling with the tacks and stakes. I could see it. I could see the hidden red, louder than my first memory and glowing twice as ardently¡­ It screamed. That scarlet nothing screamed. My head split in half bloodlessly. The sourceless ripping called my hands flying to the origin of my agonies, scrambling futilely against the unbroken scalp. It tired me far too much. The primal dive to the source of my agonies revealed no cause for concern. It was probably just a poorly-timed migraine,. Maybe stress. Probably stress. Nothing to worry about. Fibrous stray flecks of scarlet, nectary blood caught in water, dashed their roaming paths through my molars. Materia seethed warmly. Warm matter of the universe shot from my skin and scattered, dividing to nothing in the cool night air. It was the heat of a postphysical metamorphosis. I smelled metal. My scalp was not bleeding. A flash tore through my frontal lobe, and the roof of my palate became stone-dry again. Words like ¡°hunker¡± and ¡°trenches¡± and ¡°brimstone¡± and ¡°torment¡±, words I¡¯d heard, of course, but never known, resounding as if I had. Armored in entropy and fueled by the fumes of realization, I set out on a meandering path to the tower in the distance. This city was like nothing else; I had lived in Wintertree my whole life, grown up pacing these streets¨C And still, that tower¡­ It wasn¡¯t a new sight, but it was like one I had never noticed before. Almost familiar, like a structure from a strange dream or something with bones shaped significantly to humanity. It drew my eyes and comforted me in that fact. So it was, at that time. My bones were soaked to the marrow in a deep crimson resolve. Even if this path was paved in pain, I would cut my way to the tower. -----©\---------------------------------------------- Diary Of A Magician Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. ¡°In this world, there¡¯s an invisible magic circle.¡± These words ring out in my ears, a recalled sensation from a forgotten dream. There¡¯s not very much I can remember of myself aside from that. The otherness that comes with. Trying to list out my traits, likes, and dislikes distressed me, with how little there was to catalogue, so Alice suggested I do this to improve. ¡­I don¡¯t know how much it can really help me. Even trying seems like so little effort that it makes my face warm. But if it will help, if she thinks it will help, I¡¯ll keep at it. Maybe someday I¡¯ll look back on this version of myself more gently. ¨CAsh Nameless 02: Death I closed the notebook with a sigh. It¡¯s a good thing my handwriting is too bad to read anyway. A sharp pain dug itself between my scalp and skull, just above my left eye. My fingers twitched in a wave across my left hand, sending a slither to my shadow. My shadow¡­ It was a hazy thing, cast in the blue glow of my abandoned computer. But in that moment it sharpened with its movement, and then moved again of its own accord. I watched, perfectly still now. The edges spasmed like exposed muscles induced to movement, again and again, into a beating heart. The shape grew heavy, teetered to bursting, rippled within. The shape of its fullness in flux bent and snapped in gentle waves. The edges wavered as I stood, frozen and hyperaware. And with a silent crescendo, the form broke open. The fragments scattered in two dimensions, dancing with the peaceful chaos of petals in the wind. As usual, I was so lost in the beauty of my dissolving copy¡¯s song that I failed to notice¨Cher. Alice Nightshade. She jumped from out of that papery space like it was the floor and she was powerful as nothing human. With the delicacy of a butterfly in flight she landed silently, enduring the sound in a low crouch. I felt a horrible twinge of envy for her grace. She stood up¨Clooking straight forward¨Cand met my eyes. ¡°Hello.¡± She smiled like she¡¯d gotten away with something and my chest hurt. It wasn¡¯t unpleasant at first, but it grew to a glowish point; I recalled a beam piercing my sternum that never happened. It was somewhere like a battle, an unpleasant somewhere. I wasn¡¯t safe at all, the last time I felt like this. ¡°Hello? Ash?¡± She repeated. I jumped to attention. ¡°I¡¯m sorry! I¡¯m sorry! I know I¡¯ve been slacking and there¡¯s a lot that needs to be done if any of that is going to happen, but¨C¡° ¡°But you need to be here. You¡¯ve been working hard, rebuilding your fractured Ego Circuits and holding down the fort.¡± ¡°I need to be doing more. My work is just getting in the way. From the start, I shouldn¡¯t have had to rebuild myself.¡± There was a pause. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± I continued, feeling like I was digging my own grave. ¡°Don¡¯t be. I know. It¡¯s ok.¡± She didn¡¯t apologize. I loved that about her, and about anyone like her, with no reason and thus no desire to apologize. ¡°Have you noticed anything strange?¡± She continued. ¡°Have you noticed anything normal?¡± I strained to stay neutral without getting cold. ¡°Have you noticed anything ¡®glowing in the haze¡¯.¡± She worded it like a question but declared it as she spoke. I could feel vertebra after vertebra crumpling, coiling into a shameful spiral. I hunched forward against her like I was breathing my last and seeking comfort. ¡°Tch. So dramatic¡­¡± Breath (hers) hit my neck like numbly brushing against one¡¯s own skin. I only noticed for how little I felt and how much I felt I should have. She seemed equally listless and without intent. A jolt shot through my left arm. ¡°You¡¯re cruel.¡± I made a point to reply lightly, with the all-gentleness that absolutely abandoned the hand closest to my heart. The flesh¡­ I could feel it all start to temper and slough off the bone again. My gaze traced the path of an invisible and cornered animal about the room, resounding hollow and silent off the walls once in a while. Each hollow heartbeat, marking the utter unpresence. The inside of my skull was acoustic fuel. My brain seemed to burn up. In that unbearable light, my shadow could not exist. I looked through thick glass, smudged for my safety, back to that room bathed in pale blue. The lenses of my eyes grew sharp and smoky like quartz. Tangible dread sloshed around inside me, heavy water of mental pain sent floating in my unbalanced approach to the cold haze on the floor. I fell, and fell, and never fell. Instead I found myself in the depths of a heat unwell like a brain fever. The oppressive tiny motion in the air jostled the brain in extremely perceptible ways too small to see but just small enough to feel. The unempty peopleless streets watched me walk alone. My vision shimmered, my body shuddered, the world seemed to shift with dissonance, and and I kept walking. Though I knew myself pained and unwell, I kept walking. The blinding road and miles of light began to degenerate into dappled shadow. The hard slap of my boots on pavement eroded to a thin crunch. Scraggly gravel over packed sand. The trees grew dense and gnarled, the grass tall and thin. I continued down the path into a breezy hallway of green and black and husk-tan. The air was warm with loose life, a heat from decay drowned to odorless in the scent of a sea. I pressed on through the tightening trees to the light that smelled of tears. Eventually I was pushing past brambles on the path, then through them, seeing nothing but the unfiltered light ahead. The brush grew thicker still until it exploded to a low sky over a thin beach and past a sea, mountainous through the blinding gloom. It was a cavernous room, outside, before me; an organ of the body world filled with heavy water. The air held a communicable malaise throughout its vastness. I could almost see streaks of necrosis tracing still ribs gone soft with the weathering stillness. It stunk like a hum and touched me with The blinding road and miles of light began to degenerate into dappled shadow. The hard slap of my boots on pavement eroded to a thin crunch. Scraggly gravel over packed sand. The trees grew dense and gnarled, the grass tall and thin. I continued down the path into a breezy hallway of green and black and husk-tan. The air was warm with loose life, a heat from decay drowned to odorless in the scent of a sea. I pressed on through the tightening trees to the light that smelled of tears. Eventually I was pushing past brambles on the path, then through them, seeing nothing but the unfiltered light ahead. The brush grew thicker still until it exploded to a low sky over a thin beach and past a sea mountainous before the gloom. It was a cavernous room outside, before me; an organ of the body world filled with heavy water. The air smelled communicably ill, and there was this awful buzzing sound abojt, assonance to With effort, I swallowed the urge to hold my breath and survive. I drowned and saw a shawled figure, rocking slightly in an ordinary chair. It bounced from the soft sand like wood, even as I approached their veiled facelessness and my feet sank in the grains. The inconsistent ground was feathered in shards of yarn, and as I watched, new scraps floated down. The sand was so blinding¨Cand the wool, so gentle¨Cit almost looked like snow through the heat. Eventually a head poked through the cloth, a face unidentifiable and achingly beautiful. I am going through life with a sore hole in my chest. This person, and Alice, and who knows who else¡­ That girl from that book who can warp reality and her classmate with the link to the Data God. The lady knight I am in the dreams that don¡¯t wake me with tears. They all made my chest hurt to think about. I think that lady knight was from a game, or something. This person spoke in a voice that cut through my thoughts with a¨Cknifelike glass chime lyricality¨CI wished to emulate it more than continue the act of breathing. ¡°What has your notice? Are you alright?¡± She shuddered. The pile of cloth that seemed to indicate her being, as a body would, shook. I caught fleeting strained glances through lace after lace but did not recognize her beyond vague familiarity. I opened my mouth to assure her, I¡¯m fine, are you ok, out here shuddering and collapsing under a million veils and the sun? but when I opened my mouth it sang strange and acid. I gagged on dry air. My teeth seemed full to bursting with skimmed blood, throbbing in tune with the waves and in odd compliment to the deathly hum. Mentally, I¡¯d grown numb to the stench of the rotten sea; physically, it was absolute. ¡°Recollection¡­ That¡¯s my job too.¡± I jumped at how suddenly she spoke again, even so quietly. ¡°Can you tell me who you are?¡± Maybe that was blunt of me. ¡°Can you?¡± ¡°There¡¯s no time for this.¡± ¡°I agree,¡± she said, and in a red flash of pain, I was back on that street and on my stomach. Metal claws ribboned my back in razorblade stasis, gravel lounged in my mouth and blood flowed out of it. In this moment I saw nothing but knew all this. On that unseen street, in that mysterious city I had always known, I watched my form reach a point of absolute death or rebirth. Layer 02: Healer Mage "...It''s useless." "I absolutely won''t hear that." Alice always glows on. ¡°You must fight! You¡¯re rare! There aren¡¯t that many people who could ever survive what killed you!¡± ¡°How do you know that¡¯s true.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t. I only know you can survive at least once, which means you have a better shot at winning than someone who can¡¯t recover at all.¡± "So? What if there''s someone entirely invulnerable to the Manticore out there? Do I get to go guilt them for risking my life?" "How would anyone ever answer that? You''re being petulant." ¡°I¡¯m being scared!¡± "Ash! You have to act against the Manticore because you know about it. Whether or not you''re alone or scared is irrelevant.¡± ¡°It¡¯s crucial! What are you doing now but dying in pain?¡± ¡°Sometimes that¡¯s all you can do.¡± ¡°Not at all true. I saw you move your left hand in a puddle of blood. People can do incredible things when their lives are at risk. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve heard about people in car crashes lifting¨C ¡° ¡°Fill in a different blank. I don¡¯t need to believe harder.¡± ¡°Never belief. A little faith in yourself would go a long way.¡± ¡°It¡¯s possible, but I don''t need it. You want me to delude myself into thinking I¡¯m significant?¡± ¡°No, I don''t want you to delude yourself." "Sorry, ''believe in myself''." "Ash, we¡¯re running in circles and I don''t want to waste any more time. If you''re going to do something, it should be something you can believe in enough to hope it will work. But if you''re just going through hopeless motions..." "I should hurry up and die." Of course not. "No! Hurry up and..." She pauses. "Hurry up and stop wasting your precious time." What does she mean? What''s so precious about my time? My time? What¡¯s precious about my time? ¡°Precious¡± meaning ¡°significant and valuable?¡± My life has no meaning beyond zeroing out the heat I''ve displaced. That¡¯s wrong and I know it. I just need to try the best I honestly can. That¡¯s my best? I gotta turn back¡­ Offsetting my entropic mark is a futile effort anyway. We¡¯re all each counting down, ticking past distance we can¡¯t get back. Second steps past bleeding dreams lying, dead, to me. Probably could never see a better future coming. ¡°Precious¡± meaning ¡°treasured.¡± Treasured by who? If I kill the Manticore, if I tame the mystery¡­ I could see it now. ¡°My name in bytes forever. Carved in gold nanoangstroms¡­ Even with every easy day spent waiting for decay to settle in on the Manticore, I''d rather be remembered as its reaper. I want my name with every other monster hunter''s, written in those Grimoires for good.¡± Alice nods wearily. "They might be a good place to start looking." "I''ve been sitting around too long today. And yesterday." "When did you sleep?" I answer her question by ignoring it. "I''ve been at my computer most of that time. If anyone had put anything in the Grims, or even asked the boards, I would know about it." ¡°What did you find? Any patterns?¡± ¡°None. Nothing reliable.¡± ¡°Reliable?¡± I sighed. ¡°Not ¡®a rash of missing cats¡¯ or ¡®statues bleeding milk.¡¯ That level of ¡®scrying for the unusual¡¯ has a place of its own, but its more locational¨Cand we already know the Monster¡¯s range.¡± It¡¯s kind of perfect; the way my area of expertise comes in handy just this once, and yet the task is insurmountable as anything. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°What if they are out to get us?¡± Surrounded by men in suits with submachine guns. ¡°We¡¯ll be okay, I think.¡± ¡°What if we¡¯re not?¡± They know better and are armed with a horrible fate. ¡°Then the Manticore will kill a lot of people, and you¡¯ll be one of them. If there¡¯s no point then why not try?¡± A death of hope before a death of life? I forgot how to give up!!! A single razor-fine wire. It flares low, in a flash, counterclockwise¨Cfrom my left-hand circuit. Bullets spray into the air in a panicky misfire, and the encounter ends in a silent spray of blood. Or it gets stuck on too-thick cloth of trouser hems, does nothing. I get caught and die. Razor wire grows dull, so it¡¯s no good. Razor wire¡­ Razor wire¡­ The air was excised from my lungs by the weight of the man in red. This is all a memory, I remember, of course, and of course it doesn¡¯t help. He¡¯s a nightmare, weighing down my chest in sheer anger, the searing ache where his hands have my forearms pinned reminding me: you are awake. I glance to his right, my left, upon my would-be execution method; a garrote slicked with sweat, now just a waste of wire lying gleaming and abandoned. For all my struggles, I have no delusions of breaking free. My best chance right now, to move his hands to my throat, choke my life away like it means something¡­ I could be crushed by a dead weight like this. For all that counts, this self-styled icon might as well be a statue. My eyes roll up. I vaguely see his chin, nostrils, cheekbones vaguely outlined. The shadow of close-cropped hair and the waning crescent whites of his eyes. Gazing straight forward. Why won¡¯t you look at me? I think it, and mouth it, with the last shredded gasps. Spare a glance, shed a tear maybe, think a single thing about the life you¡¯re taking, breath by stolen breath. It''s never been death itself I fear, it¡¯s the indignity of dying alone. For all intents and purposes, that man is not here. A heartbeat. It hits my ears louder than it should be. Was it a tear? It sounded like ripping. My chest feels so warm¡­ ¡°Ow! What the fuck?¡± I blink. My left arm is awash in a painless pink glow, repulsive to the man in red. I¡¯m half free from his grasp at the cost of his full weight on my right side. Jab my hand to his throat like a knife on fire. A hopeful rage tears through my veins, reverse sickness. Lightning glows like blood in the air, arcing true to scar him in dark bursts. Pull back and get content with making him flinch. I roll and twist my right arm free. Create a barrier behind which the light-shape balloons pushes him off of me. The shape forms a wall and he fumes in the violet glow. He can¡¯t break my instant construct, but it doesn¡¯t hurt him like the lightning or the moment my heart felt funny. ¡­Did Augustus Caelid, the Red Dog of the Tower, just try to kill me? This spell is probably too much. It was a deeper color than the lightning or almost anything I could remember seeing; but something stirring faintly at the back of my mind, a deep pink marker labeled ¡°crimson¡±¨C blood-colored. Maybe it¡¯s a matter of Magica concentration, but this spell was that exact shade of ¡°blood-colored¡±. It felt alive, or at least possessed with a will of someone¡¯s own to keep me safe. The Barrier warped and wrapped around my mentor like plastic melting without a second thought. His hardened face cracked and flaked with fear of death. Maybe if I really wanted to, I could turn this whole wall keeping me safe into a murderous inferno. There¡¯s only one way to find out¨Cpour out everything I have into this singular killspell tracing a single bullet down the barrellines of everything good and magical within my form. Tear up the tracks before the train in the name of taking back nothing. In that moment, vengeance seemed so unworth it, and that feeling kept me alive. I should have been able to take his life without worry, no doubt about it, but it was more than enough to make it out okay. Through my ¡°light¡± his shirt looked freshly bloodstained. All magenta and alive. There was an almost visible sort of smoke, or steam, or fire, flickering off him¡­ but it was impossible to tell more than that through his royal-tinted prison. If I¡¯d hurt him enough to send a message, or if he¡¯d come poking around again once I collapsed in exhausted relief. The only place I thought I¡¯d feel safe enough to sleep was a pocket dimension made with the only spell taught to me by someone other than Augustus. The holding enchant usually only worked on bags, but it could be applied to certain doors by a skilled mage, or all doors to a certain person and her guests by an expert. I was lucky enough to know one, once. I collapsed in that same sense of safety as¡­ somewhere. It didn¡¯t matter. Years of memories pass in irrelevance. Freezing and a desolate isolation. Fear of a demon only I and it are able to be aware of. I¡¯ve put that aside before. The fact is that that once again there is a monster out for my blood. If I take the false blame and make it my fault, I¡¯ll quake until I fall apart¡­ Is this what all those stories I ignored, all about ¡°becoming the monster,¡± meant? So tired to me by now and yet; they warned against the same kind of dark quest of comprehension I found myself embarking on. The difference is, I have no choice. I must¨C ¡°Ash!¡± My eardrums seemed to flinch at Alice¡¯s voice, resonating with the ringing pain through my cheekbone. ¡°Did you just backhand me?¡± ¡°You jumped. Like, flinching, maybe seizing, hard to tell. I was worried you were¡­ choking, or something.¡± She looks sort of embarrassed. ¡°I tried slapping you with my palm first, but it didn¡¯t really do anything. I... had meant to do that again, but I was scared. Really scared.¡± For me? Or of the Manticore, when she¡¯s alone? ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I think I¡¯ll be okay. No matter what happens, I¡¯m not dying again without a fight.¡± ¡°Okay. So pull up the reports of missing persons and we¡¯ll go search those places for clues.¡± I shook my head. ¡°Aren¡¯t any.¡± ¡°Huh. Okay, murder cases. Reported bodies.¡± ¡°No animal maulings and all collisions are accounted for.¡± Alice sighs. ¡°Ash. Are you just saying that because you don¡¯t want to check?¡± I feel a grim smirk jerk across my cheek. ¡°No, the Manticore truly ¡®doesn¡¯t appear to exist¡¯. We have to fight it anyway.¡±