We watch you, sneaking through the alleys. You blend into the shadows with a combination of charms and carefulness. The secrets aren’t meant for you.
Your desire and curiosity woke us from our semi-slumber before you came. We watched you hone your skills, pursuing General Knowledge, then Advanced Magic & Rhetoric, then Masters of Sorcery.
Those weren’t enough. They’re never enough, for someone like you.
We watched and waited, until you discovered our location through whispers and back-door deals. Your appetite for more, more, more was insatiable.
A small part of us hoped you’d stay away. Your mind, your body—so fresh and strong, pulsing with power. One of the strongest we’d seen. We wanted you to help others instead of only yourself.
But here you are, inside our walls, ignoring your subconscious telling you go back; the wind whispering in a room with no windows; and the warning crawl of fingers down your spine. You’ve never lost before. You disregard the thought that maybe, finally, you might. You’re too proud of finding us to wonder what finding us really means.
You pause at the wax statues near the shelves, in the corners: figures of magicians standing tall and strong. Were they greater than you? You desperately want to be greater than them, than everyone.
Do you even wonder for a moment why everything’s made of wax, not stone?
The bookshelves draw you back. You pull down a tome. You open it.
That hardened seal inside the keyhole you unlocked, arrogance believing it was your skills that broke it so easily? The candles and lanterns that drip faster than they should, the statues that almost sigh with sadness when you start reading?
You’re not the first to think you’re smarter than us, stronger than us. To think you deserve our secrets, or try and take them.
You were too greedy to look closer at your surroundings, to think maybe our dangerous, volatile curses and rituals might have protections beyond what you could imagine or fight.
We stop watching, and act.
We melt, and we merge, and we creep with stealthy tendrils to where you sit, absorbed, focused on the wrong magic. We congeal around your feet, dig tenterhooks into your shins, climb the chairback to hold your shoulders.
We absorb you.
It’s delicious. You’re delicious. As we burrow through your pores we feast on the creamy taste of your curiosity, your cunning. The sour bite of your disregard for rules and proper channels. The crunchy shell of selfishness. It’s all perfectly seasoned with a dash of fresh fear, realized too late.
Your entire essence is now ours.
We remake you.
Another one for our collection.
In our own way, we love you. It’s because of you, and those like you, that we exist. That we survive.
Your statue is complex and beautiful. We place our new favorite in a position of honor.
And then: we wait for the next you.
