(Updates everyday)
Power demands what it's owed, and souls are its favorite currency.
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When museum curator, Lena Goodwin, receives an anonymous package containing damning evidence of a mistake she thought she buried years ago, her carefully built...
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Hugh traced a fingertip along the entangled symbols on the cover of the Codex. The worn-out leather was rough and battered like he was only one of thousands who caressed it, admired it, and sought to unlock the knowledge - the power - within.
But, he had very little understanding of how to perform the sacrificial ritual. That was why he and Roran had gone to that dark, gloomy, and cursed cave, hoping that the answer was with the Necromancers. It was all he had to go off of. It was the only new piece of information he had gotten in months, and it was because of Lena.
As much as she annoyed him, she had been useful. Of course, that did not take into consideration her betrayal. He wouldn't be able to forget what she had done. It wasn't just her making his plan her own, stealing the Codex right out from under him, and that damn feisty attitude of hers that bothered him the most. It was all those years ago when she just gave the artifact away, when she knew how dangerous it was.
After everything that had happened to her father, Alric, he understood why she was so scared. But that gave her no right to hand it over to that collector and start the horror that he was currently dealing with.
Hugh had hoped that by researching all these recent deaths and observing Lena's father's corpse, there would be some sort of information that gave insight into how to perform the ritual. He had found none. What did he expect?
Not very many knew how to work the Codex. Not very many knew what it could do.
The more he thought about Alric's death, the more it dawned on him that perhaps his ritual had been accidental. That whoever had done it didn't know how they did it. Maybe they still didn't. All the other ones that followed were done with intent, with purpose, and were very likely performed by the same person.
Unfortunately, no amount of research had given him any indication of who that was. He wasn't ignorant. That person could also be looking for the Codex. For all he knew it could be more than one individual. He wouldn't be surprised if his parents had a hand in it. That somehow they had lost the Codex, and it was put up for auction without their knowing.
Hugh had no proof of that though. There could be another player, another enemy that he would have to worry about. In either case, he would keep his options open, and he would be prepared for any unknown.
That was the least of his concerns at the moment. He needed to figure out, to solve, how to make the necessary sacrifices to complete the thirteen-symbol sequence to open up the book. He was short on answers.
Which led him back to square one. He knew all these different things, but not enough to put it all together. He knew about the unlocking mechanism, he knew that he could bring his wife back through the Codex, and he knew the cost - of what it would take to do the unthinkable.
But, he was missing something important, something vital. He hadn't asked Lena enough about her father and his work, and maybe there was something that could help him put everything together.
