Joe Striker sat in a plush, uncomfortably quiet waiting room, the kind of silence that felt expensive and judgmental. He’d sent his formal request for a consult on black magic to the University just yesterday; to already be sitting here, less than twenty-four hours later, was unprecedented.

In his long experience, a query like his would typically vanish into a bureaucratic labyrinth for months before being returned with a polite, useless rejection from a junior secretary. The newly formed Sleuth-Hawks joint unit between the city police and the university was clearly living up to its promise of streamlining cooperation, and the efficiency was almost unnerving.

Despite the swift response, Joe guarded his expectations. His obsessive investigation into Rob’s death had become a maze of dead ends and maddening whispers. Every lead seemed to double back on itself, offering more questions than answers. He was braced for more of the same today—a polite academic who would listen patiently before explaining why his theories were forensically unsound or magically improbable.

The soft click of a door latch broke his reverie. A female secretary, dressed in a simple but impeccably tailored blouse and skirt, emerged from a set of polished oak doors. Her expression was professionally neutral.

Secretary: “You will be seen now, Mister Striker,” she announced, her voice echoing slightly in the hushed space.

Joe rose, his joints protesting the long wait, and followed her. They moved from the modernized waiting area into the heart of the old building. The architecture shifted dramatically, the ceilings vaulting high above, supported by ancient, carved stone arches. Long hallways stretched into shadowy distances, their walls lined with portraits of serious-looking scholars and faded tapestries depicting arcane symbology. They passed a handful of students and professors, their robes and manner instantly marking them as members of Grayscale College.

Soon, they arrived at an open doorway. Through it, Joe could see a typical, if large, academic office—shelves groaning with books, a professor hunched over a desk littered with papers, diligently grading tests or filling out forms. Joe instinctively slowed, assuming this was his destination.

To his surprise, the secretary walked right past it without a glance.

A flicker of curiosity ignited in his chest. He followed her in silence as she led him further, turning down a narrower corridor and ascending a sweeping, marble staircase that spiraled upward. The air grew cooler, the ambient sounds of the campus fading away, replaced by an almost sacred stillness. They finally stopped before a massive, ornate door made of dark, heavily lacquered wood. It was far too large for a single person to open easily, standing as a clear barrier and a statement of importance. Emblazoned upon its center, rendered in polished gray stone that seemed to absorb the light, was the symbol of the Grayscale College: a balancing scale, its silhouette imposing against the black wood.

Secretary: “Archmage Dakka will see you now,” the secretary declared, her voice resonating with a formality that seemed to suck the air from the hallway.

“Wait. I’m seeing an Archmage?!” Joe’s internal monologue was a silent yell. His pulse quickened. He had hoped for a senior mage, a respected scholar from the Grayscale College, someone with enough authority to access restricted archives. He never imagined his request would land on the desk of the college's head himself—Dakka Vinko, a name spoken with reverence, one of the top mages of the Union. This was far beyond a simple consultation.

The secretary raised her hands, and intricate silvery symbols flared to life around the door's edges. With a deep, grinding sound, the massive door began to swing inward.

Secretary: “Ugh, these hinges have to be greased again,” she muttered, a jarringly mundane complaint that broke the tension for a mere second.

Beyond the threshold lay a study that was less a room and more a fortress of knowledge. The walls soared twenty feet, every inch lined with bookshelves crafted from a wood so dark it seemed to drink the light. The volumes themselves were not merely placed on shelves; they were bound to them by chains of shimmering, pale aetheric energy that pulsed with a slow, rhythmic cadence. Wisps of the same energy coiled around the books like vigilant serpents. The message was unmistakable: the knowledge here was dangerous, guarded, and likely pertained to the very black arts Joe was investigating.

At the room's center, behind an enormous desk carved from a single slab of obsidian, sat Archmage Dakka Vinko. He was a figure swathed in the stark, gray robes of his office, but it was the man beneath that commanded horrified attention. From the crown of his head to the tips of his fingers, he was meticulously wrapped in clean, white bandages, his form evoking an ancient, entombed mummy. Through the narrow gaps in the linen, Joe caught glimpses of ravaged, crimson, and blistered skin.

Joe had heard the stories, of course—the legendary duel with the infamous pyromancer Alexandria Scarlett, a battle that had supposedly left Dakka badly scarred. The rumors did no justice to the reality. Seeing the evidence firsthand was a visceral shock.

Gods, he must have suffered near-total third-degree burns, Joe thought, a cold knot of sympathy and revulsion tightening in his stomach.

Dakka looked up from his work. His eyes, a startlingly clear and sharp gray, were the only fully visible part of his face. They held an immense, weary intelligence. With a slight gesture of a bandaged hand, he beckoned Joe forward.

Swallowing hard, Joe obeyed, stepping into the sanctum. The secretary remained in the hallway, and the great doors groaned shut behind him, sealing him in. As he approached the desk, Dakka made another subtle, fluid gesture. A heavy leather armchair slid soundlessly across the polished floor, positioning itself directly before the obsidian desk.

Dakka: “Please,” the bandaged man said, his voice a dry, rasping whisper, like parchment being rubbed together, yet carrying an undeniable weight of command. “Have a seat.”

Joe gave a curt, respectful nod and lowered himself into the offered chair, the aged leather creaking under his weight. The sheer presence of the Archmage was a tangible force in the room, a mixture of arcane power and profound suffering.

Joe: “I have to admit, I’m surprised that the Archmage of the Grayscale College himself is seeing me,” he said, voicing the thought that had been thrumming in his mind since he entered.

Dakka’s bandaged head tilted slightly.

Dakka: “It has to do with the nature of your query,” he rasped. “When it comes to the subject of Deadly Curses, there are very few within this entire university, even in my college, who possess any meaningful knowledge. I am one of that handful. And…” He gestured vaguely at his own wrapped form, a clear and simple explanation. “…due to my recent injuries, I find my schedule regrettably clear. When your request crossed my desk, I opted to intervene personally.”

Joe: “I see. Well, thank you. And… I’m sorry about your injury. I hope you can make a full recovery.”

Dakka: “I will,” the archmage stated, with a certainty that brooked no argument. “The burns, while severe, were not infused with a magic that places them beyond healing. I possess the aetheric capacity to mend the damage with healing magic. It is merely a matter of time—likely a year, given that the Saints are currently sequestered and I am reliant on the university’s own healers. But that is not your concern. You are here about deadly curses.”

Joe: “Yes, that’s correct,” he replied, leaning forward slightly, his detective’s instincts overriding his awe.

Dakka: “Then, state your questions.”

Joe didn’t hesitate. This was the moment he had been pushing toward for months.

Joe: “Everything. I need to know how they’re cast. Can they be traced back to their source? Is there a way to break one, or at least block it? And most importantly,” his voice hardened, “who is capable of casting them?”

Dakka let out a slow, dry breath that whispered through his bandages.

Dakka: “That is a profoundly tall order, Detective. And I am afraid you are not going to like the answer. The truth is, for the most part… we frankly do not know.”

Joe blinked, certain he had misheard. He had braced himself for complex theories, for caveats and conditions, but not for this void of nothing.

Joe: “But… you’re the most knowledgeable mage on black magic,” he protested, his gaze flicking to the ominously chained grimoires lining the walls, as if to accuse them of holding back.

Dakka: “I am one of the most knowledgeable mages of proscribed black arts in the Union,” he corrected, his tone precise. “I am not, however, the definitive authority on every facet of it, least of all this one. If you sought the world’s leading expert on curse magic, you would need to speak with Archmage Alison Xata of the Obsidian Towers. His research into maleficent bindings and sacrificial metaphysics is… was… unparalleled. He would possess far more specific knowledge than I.”

Joe’s heart sank.

Joe: “But isn’t the Obsidian Towers in Gix? The nation that’s been tearing itself apart in a civil war for decades now?”

Dakka: “Indeed. But the war is the least of your concerns. For some time now, Alison Xata has been missing. Presumably caught in the crossfire of the war, or worse. Consulting him is an impossibility, even if you could secure safe passage to the Obsidian Towers.”

Joe: “Please, Archmage,” he implored, desperation clawing at his throat.

Joe: “You must know something. The man I’m investigating—his death matches the parameters of a deadly curse described in a text you authored yourself. The strange sense of dread and nightmares, the absence of aetheric residue from a conventional spell… it’s all there.”

Dakka held up a bandaged hand, a gesture of both pause and pained acknowledgment.

Dakka: “I will help you as I am able, Detective. But you must first understand the fundamental reason for our ignorance.” He shifted in his seat, preparing for a lecture he had likely never expected to give to a city policeman. “We understand a great deal about common curses—the Jinx, the Malediction, the Lesser Blight—precisely because they do not kill their victims. We can observe their progression, analyze their structure, and develop counter-charms. We can trace their origins because they persist. A deadly curse, by its very nature, leaves no witness, no ongoing phenomenon to study. The number of first-hand, reliably documented and analyzed instances of a true deadly curse in all of recorded history, could be counted on one hand. And, even legends of deadly curses just don’t show up very much throughout recorded history in general. Our knowledge is based on fragments, on second-hand accounts, and on theoretical extrapolation from lesser, non-lethal curses.”

Joe leaned forward, his hands gripping his knees.

Joe: “Well, what about those rare instances that were analyzed? What were the researchers able to glean from them? There must be something.”

Dakka’s shoulders, visible beneath his robes, lifted in a faint, weary shrug.

Dakka: “What they gleaned was, by its very nature, pure conjecture. Hypotheses built on a sample size of one, with no way to run controlled experiments or validate findings. I only mention them to illustrate that they are marginally more reliable than old wives tales.”

Joe: “I’ll take conjecture over nothing at all,” Joe insisted, his voice firm. “Any thread is worth pulling right now.”

Dakka let out a long, sighing breath that whispered through his bandages.

Dakka: “Very well. To address your earlier question about the source of such magic—and I must stress again that this is an unproven theory—the scant evidence points to two possible origins. We do not know if there are more, but these two recur in the fragments we have. Deadly curses seem to emanate from either the influence of nameless gods, or from magic remnants of the Mythic Era.”

Joe: “The nameless gods were mentioned in your book,” he said, nodding. “But this is the first time I'm hearing the Mythic Era discussed in this context.”

Dakka: “The Mythic Era is believed to have been an age of wonders that dwarf our current understanding of magic. It is not inconceivable that people from that era could invoke powers we now consider impossible, including curses of instantaneous, inescapable death. Our suspicion arises from a single, well-documented incident where a researcher, delving into a sealed ruin from that era, inadvertently triggered a defensive trap that placed a deadly curse upon a laborer.”

Joe: “Did that person survive?” he asked, though he already suspected he knew the answer.

Dakka: “No. But his death was observed by a team equipped with scrying crystals and aetheric resonators. They were unable to determine how to break the curse, a failure consistent with all other accounts. However, in this specific case, the researcher posited that the curse had extremely strict, almost legalistic, conditions for its activation and fulfillment.”

Joe: “You mean for casting it?”

Dakka: “For its execution," he corrected grimly. “The curse was placed the moment the laborer entered a specific chamber. He immediately began to experience the precursor effects I described in my text: horrific, prophetic dreams and an aura of palpable dread so intense that his colleagues reported feeling a physical chill in his presence. Yet, the curse remained dormant. It only activated the moment he attempted to leave the ruin’s boundaries.” his voice grew even quieter. “The laborer’s eyes began to profusely bleed, and he was dead within seconds. The researchers theorized that of all the people who entered that chamber, this particular individual met a specific, hidden condition that made him vulnerable. They believed it was because he had earlier read a stone plaque in an antechamber inscribed with the words: ‘To those who enter, may they never leave again.’ He had, in effect, fulfilled its condition by reading that plaque and trying to leave.”

A cold knot tightened in Joe’s stomach.

Joe: “Is that how all the victims in these accounts died? Bleeding from the eyes?”

Dakka: “No. The methodology is as varied as it is gruesome. How did the victim you suspect die?”

Joe’s jaw tightened.

Joe: “He was… shredded to pieces. As if by invisible claws. Leaving only gore.”

Dakka was silent for a moment, his gray eyes distant.

Dakka: “Hmm. Not identical, but thematically similar to at least one other account I recall. In that case, the victim’s heart literally tore itself from their chest and detonated mid-air.”

Joe: “What about Nameless God, how do you evoke these curses from them?”

Dakka steepled his bandaged fingers, the gesture slow and deliberate.

Dakka: “We are operating in the realm of supposition. Our knowledge comes from intercepted cultist texts—fragmented, chaotic, and often insane writings dedicated to one of the countless entities that lurk in the Vulvorian Sea. Some of these grimoires contain rituals that claim to invoke a power similar to a deadly curse. However,” he emphasized, his rasping voice dropping lower, “these rituals are so profoundly unethical that they are considered crimes to even transcribe. They universally demand a price in blood, often multiple, sentient sacrifices.”

Joe: “But you don’t know if they actually work,” he stated, seeking a firm answer in the quagmire of maybes.

Dakka: “Again, Detective, with everything I am telling you, I can neither confirm nor deny. These are the frayed threads we have to work with. It is entirely possible these rituals from the cults are merely scribbled nonsense. Yet…History suggests that some of their rituals have a terrifying efficacy. You, of all people, have first-hand experience with that, do you not? The recent… ‘slime flood,’ I believe the press called it.”

A cold wave of memory washed over Joe—the grotesque, pulsating pursuer slimes flooding the streets, the panicked screams, the desperate fight to find the pulsating heart of the ritual and shatter it. The event was a stark, public testament to the fact that the mad ramblings of cultists could, under the right conditions, work.

Joe: “Yeah, I do. Um… another angle: could these deadly curses be traced back to their source using reverse divination? Follow the magical signature back to the caster?”

He saw one of Dakka’s eyebrows rise slightly, a faint shift in the linen wrapping his forehead.

Dakka: “I am surprised you are familiar with such an obscure branch of magic. But I doubt it would be successful. To the best of my knowledge, at least one researcher attempted precisely that on the ruined laborer. They found nothing. Unlike a standard curse, which maintains a faint but traceable tether to its weaver, a deadly curse appears to sever that connection upon activation, or perhaps it never creates one at all. It attaches itself so completely to the victim’s life force that it leaves no obvious trail back to its origin. It is a self-contained, perfect murder weapon.”

A new, chilling possibility occurred to Joe.

Joe: “You said someone can be afflicted, but the lethal effect doesn’t activate until a condition is met. Hypothetically… could someone be carrying a deadly curse on them for years?”

Dakka: “Hypothetically? Almost certainly,” he confirmed without hesitation. “Given how profoundly these curses can embed themselves within a person’s aetheric signature, an individual could harbor one for their entire natural lifespan. Though, I cannot imagine the experience would be anything less than torment—a constant, low-grade dread and nightmares, waiting for a shoe that may never drop.”

“So there’s no time scale I can rely on, Joe thought, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. Rob could have been cursed years ago.”

Joe: “And the trigger,” he continued, his mind racing back to the moment of Rob’s death. “Could it be something as simple as… saying a person’s name?” He remembered the sheer, unadulterated terror on Rob’s face the instant before he died, right after he had uttered the name ‘Mark.’ It had always stood out, a final, cryptic clue.

Dakka gave a slow, grave nod.

Dakka: “Anything, Detective. Anything could be the trigger that meets the condition. A specific word. A location. A thought. An emotional state. The fulfillment of a prophecy the victim didn't even know they were part of. The parameters are limited only by the imagination—or the incomprehensible logic—of the entity that set the curse.”

A heavy dread settled in the pit of Joe’s stomach. Dakka’s words hadn’t provided a path; they had dissolved the ground beneath his feet. His fear was confirmed—he was leaving with a labyrinth of new questions, each more unanswerable than the last. The concept of a deadly curse that could lie dormant for a lifetime, triggered by something as mundane as a spoken word or as abstract as a feeling, transformed Rob’s death from a solvable crime into a potential cosmic accident.

The conversation continued for a while longer, with Joe mining the Archmage’s vast knowledge for every remaining fragment. He learned about theoretical aetheric resonance patterns that might indicate a curse’s presence, and the philosophical debate on whether such magic was an act of will or the invocation of a pre-existing, malevolent prime order. By the time he stood to leave, Joe likely knew more about the academic theory of deadly curses than ninety-nine percent of the university’s own students.

Before his departure, he secured a commitment for a follow-up consultation. More than that, Dakka granted him direct access, bypassing the tedious paperwork that usually stood between the city’s police and the university’s ivory tower.

Dakka: “Come directly to my secretary when you have new information,” the Archmage had rasped, a significant concession. Joe sensed the unspoken reason. Beneath the bandages and the professional detachment, Dakka’s scholarly curiosity was piqued. He saw in Joe as a potential source of new raw data on a subject that had frustrated academics for centuries. Joe was being given a hunter’s license, but he felt more like a canary being sent into a mineshaft of unimaginable depth.

The walk back was a blur.

His mind was a storm of mythic eras, nameless gods, and conditional triggers. He replayed every second of his final interaction with Rob, every word exchanged, every environmental detail. Had he said anything to Rob to set off the curse? Had Rob smelled a particular scent? Had he remembered a forgotten dream?

Joe was trying to decipher the rules of a game he didn’t know they were playing. The case had become more complicated, and he was left sifting through the dust of the impossible, scratching his head not just over what it all meant, but if it could ever mean anything at all.