Role

Chapter 5

I left on the heels of the setting sun for the great library of Hamsah
Mu'tazz. I thought perhaps I might find some answers there and indeed, a way
has shown itself to me. The librarian did not know the glyphs when I showed
them to her and neither did she know any who might. It was quite obvious when
she bid me look into the stacks that she thought my quest quite hopeless.

For a time my search was quite fruitless, but patience always has its
rewards. I stayed long into the night and it was shortly after the moon began
to fall that he found me. A mysterious man wearing a dark cloak and a hood
that obscured his face happened upon me and offered his aid in my search. I
showed him the glyphs and he instantly seemed to know what they were. He
asked me where I had seen them and I confided that I had come into possession
of an old book that bore them upon its cover. Upon hearing my confession his
eyes gleamed with a malevolent light, I could not trust him. He wanted the
book, and I think he would kill me to take it.

He told me then that the grimoire was Sekhtan-Rah's 'Book of the Dead' and
that he would be happy to reveal its secrets to me should I bring it to him.
I declined and he smiled gruesomely at me. 'So be it then, but you know where
to find me if ever you should change your mind.' He vanished then but soon
after I could feel eyes upon my back and I left the city with haste. I ran
home to the temple and tried to put the confrontation out of mind.

It would not leave me and the book became a hot coal beneath my mattress. A
week later found me back in the city with a copy of the book's first page. I
found the dark man within a dark mausoleum and we reached an agreement. I
would bring him sections of the book and he would teach me how to read them.
A renewed sense of purpose fills me and I feel that with the power of this
forbidden text in my hands, I could make a true difference in our Order's
fight against chaos. I must be prudent and careful in its use, but the
possibilities make me think crazy thoughts. Perhaps there is still hope that
I may see my beloved brother again in this life. Some of the rituals within
this book make my stomach churn, but the allure of the power is undeniable. I
must read this book and take its power for my own, for good of the world, and
for my brother. I will have the power to make my mother proud... and make my
brother live the life that was so cruelly ripped from him.