Selected Excerpt #1: What separates a mere mortal from an archmage? Nothing more than the knowledge and skill to focus their own Lifeforce into magicka. What separates an archmage from a demigod? Nothing more than the ability to create magicka at will. What separates a demigod from a full god? Nothing but the strength of that magicka. Is it not a humbling thought that so little truly separates the least of men from the greatest of gods? Is it not also an encouraging thought? It as at the least encouraging enough to finally draw me out of my long and idle stupour. Too long have I been crippled by my own sense of fatalism. The belief that the past cannot be undone has kept me in despair, but the more I ponder the matter the more it seems to be merely a matter of engineering. I did not lose them because I dared to dabble in the occult, I lost them because I dared not go further. If all I need to become a god is more Lifeforce, then I need look no further than outside my window. Spread across all the world, within the beating heart of every man, woman and child, within every bird and beast and crawling thing, within every fish and plant and unseen animalcule, there is enough Lifeforce to challenge even the direst of the Old Gods! If only it could be harnessed and tamed. I pray that this idea has some veracity and is not merely the delusion of my shattered mind. If there is any hope that they could live again, I must pursue it.

Selected Excerpt #2: I've been seeking scholars in the Great Library who may aid me in my endeavour. Only my most recent trip proved productive. Alone in the dimmest corner of the Library with scarcely enough light to read, I found the Deathless Merchant of London. Dark they call him, when any dare to speak his name at all. I do not fault him for hiding in the shadows, for the little I could see of him was ghastly. What he lacked in beauty, he more than made up for in occult knowledge, especially in the runecraft that would be so vital in designing the wards. He claims to even have knowledge of the Chaos Tongue. We spoke for hours about my project, how it might be achieved, and why it was that I sought such power. I am by most accounts extremely privileged, wealthy and educated and privy to the secrets hidden behind the Veil. But that privilege was not enough in the end, not for those I had loved. What good is it to be privileged among men when men are themselves such pathetic and powerless creatures? I desire what one might call 'cosmic privilege', the privilege of an existence unbound by space, by time, by the laws of nature, filled with gnosis of the highest truths, so that not even the gods themselves may deny me what is my right! I was pleased to find that Dark was of a similar mindset. He agreed to become an investor, to fund my project! He would grant me his coin, his skill, his expertise, in exchange for a single wish from the machine once it was ready. I agreed readily of course, for what hope have I of bringing this mad dream to fruition without him? Though, it has occurred to me since that I perhaps should have asked what he will wish for.

Selected Excerpt #3: Dark finally showed up in person today. For months he's been sending me cryptic letters written in archaic, spidery scrawl and some arcane tomes to study, but today he was at my door. Only, he wasn't as he was before. He looked to be an ordinary man. A relative, perhaps? But, no, it was Dark. I'm sure of it. Whoever this Dark was, he claimed to be an expert on the matter of Lifeforce transmission. He presented me with plans for a spire that would absorb the Lifeforce from everything within line of sight. If we can make it a hundred feet tall, which seems reasonable, then it will have a range of a little over twelve miles. That's just far enough to reach [REDACTED], a fair sized city. It should provide us with more than enough Lifeforce to initiate the reaction. Together, Dark and I worked out how this power could be amplified by my Triskaidekal warding grid, which could then be used to extend the spire's range in a feedback loop until it was powerful enough to harvest all the Lifeforce from every being on Earth. I admit, I was so enamoured by the promise of unlimited magicka that I did not at first inquire if the process may be harmful. When I did, Dark merely chuckled and said 'If it is we can always wish everything back the way it was!'. I think of the city, my city, whose streets I once walked with my beloveds and now walk alone. I wonder if perhaps those people should have some say in this. It is their lives I will be risking, after all. Would those people still smile at me, still pity me for my loss, if they knew what I was plotting? But they could never grasp what it is I mean to do. If they could, they would thank me. When the project is complete it will not only be able to undo my heartache but everyone's. When the project is complete, they will thank me. Dark is right. No price is too great, for any price is temporary. I must begin work at once.

Selected Excerpt #4: After all these years, Dark came back. In the form of a woman this time, but I scarcely noticed. Her tone, her demeanour, even the way she moved reminded me of that ghoul I had met in the Library even more than the last visitor to call itself Dark. What are these things? No matter. He, she, whichever, wanted to review my warding grids. I've spent a lifetime writing them. More than a lifetime. I presented her with nearly a hundred bales of paper, and she passed them through some sort of contraption one ream at a time. She said she was 'digitizing' them. I had no idea what she was talking about. I have not left this place in so long. I've wasted so Nothing has been spent that cannot be reclaimed once the project is done. Soon I will have all eternity. Dark claimed her program was checking the wards for flaws. She found few, for this project has been everything to me, but not none. She noted that my more recent work had more errors. Whether it was my body or my conviction that was failing, I cannot say.



In any event, corrections were made and she declared we were now ready to begin construction, saying that she would send workers over as soon as possible. Oddly enough, I found myself hesitant. I asked her what she, or whoever Dark was, intended to do with their wish. I had refused to consider this question before, believing it to be only a distraction, but now I had to know. She said she didn't know for certain, but knew that neither she nor her counterpart were foolish or frivolous and so could be trusted not to waste their wish. They would not wish for wealth, for they had that in abundance and could easily acquire more. They would not wish for knowledge, for they had access to the Great Library. Their wish would be for something that they could never otherwise obtain. What could Dark not obtain? What could someone with their power, their skill, their knowledge and their wealth not obtain if they were truly intent on it?

Selected Excerpt #5: Now that the completion of my device is imminent, I find myself finally asking if I could actually be trusted with such power, since I clearly wouldn't trust it to another. Who would I actually be if was so preposterously empowered with nothing to rein in even my most outlandish urges? Can I trust myself not to be misanthropic enough to not annihilate all of Man in a single rage? Am I so selfish that I would idle in obscene luxury without ever bothering to better the world for my fellows? Might I become so megalomaniacal that I would rule humanity as an eternal tyrant? Worst of all, might I immediately be so intoxicated by power as to forget why I had bothered obtaining it in the first place, or for who? Does any of that matter? After all this time, I would have wasted my life to stop now. Would it not be a waste of the machine's grand potential not to build it? Tonight, as I fail to sleep, I hold the weight of all the horror I might do in one hand, and in the other, I hold the good that might be done. One cannot be tossed aside without the other, and no matter how hard I may try I cannot divine whether it is better to help people at the risk of great harm or refuse to help them to avoid any possibility of harm.



Somehow, I doubt that Dark is having the same quandaries.