The Onyx Prince

File 2

March - 18 - 1979

Heidenskee, Eldora.

"Come forth."

Alex stood before a table in a cramped room. The dusty pages of the tome stirred at his command and a dark shadow emerged. It leaked from the pages like blood, and formed into the figure of a strange man.

The man looked around the room, passing over Alex, before he finally stopped to stare at the boy disapprovingly.

"Who dares summon Kuroni?" he demanded in a raspy voice.

Alex waved.

"Hey."

The room roared to life as a mysterious wind ripped through it, ruffling Alex's clothes and blowing the man's ghostly hair back. He grew more detailed as time passed, till Alex could make out his sunken orange eyes and his shocking silver hair. Alex also noticed the rune tattooed to his forehead.

Draw three lines. Pull the middle line up so it hovered beside the rest. Dot above this line. It was Futeram, the rune of immortality.

The man's disapproving frown only grew deeper as Alex stood his ground and refused to run away, or freeze in fear, perhaps.

"What is this nonsense? A child? Come forward." Kuroni demanded.

"Are you asking me to, or are you telling me what to do?"

"Ha! I take it you don't like being ordered around!"

Alex stepped closer and out from the shadows so it could see him.

"Not at all."

"You and I both. If I may ask you boy, what is your name?"

"Alex. Yours?"

The room swelled. "I AM KURONI, THE IMMORTAL MAN, DIMINISHER OF DEATH."

Alex took a step back.

"That's great. Neat, really. I can see Futeram on your forehead."

Kuroni scratched his chin thoughtfully.

"I suppose you did. But I won't hold that against you."

Why he ever would, Alex did not know.

"Now boy, tell me where your master is hiding. I won't hurt you. But whatever coward is hiding behind you...they will feel my wrath."

"Master? I don't have one. Why would I?"

"Because..."

Kuroni shuffled uncomfortably above the table. "You didn't summon me. There's no way you summoned me. Did you?"

"Of course I did."

Despite being translucent, Kuroni somehow paled.

"That's...dammit."

"What?"

"What could have possibly made you seek out the Prison Tome and summon me. You didn't know what you were doing, did you?"

"If I didn't know what I was doing, it would've been rather hard to do it."

"Ah...then I have bad news, young...Adam, was it?"

"Alex."

"Right. There is no easy way to tell you this child, so I shall be blunt. The Prison Tome is a parasitic phylactery for my soul. I lack a physical body, and I've been waiting for some fool- well, some young man..."

"What about my soul?" Alex shouted, visibly paling in the process.

"Payment to the Prison Tome. I am so sorry."