I never intended to walk into a room that felt like it wanted to bleed me dry.
But I did. Because sometimes, when the System whispers a hidden quest into your bones and dangles +400 Evil Points just out of reach, you listen. Even if it smells like burning roses and old teeth.
The Valdris estate loomed over the forest like it knew it was cursed and found it funny. I'd seen noble manors before—this wasn't one. This was a mausoleum that learned to smile.
They called it the House of the Crimson Veil.
I'd gotten in through the servants' route, clothed in stolen linen and someone else's fear. It was a Night Banquet. Only the elite of the Land of Opportunity attended these things, and only the suicidal tried to listen in.
"Keep your head bowed," said the girl who smuggled me past the kitchen checkpoint. "And don't breathe when they toast."
I thought she was being dramatic. Then I saw the toasts.
The ballroom was chandeliers and gold and nothing alive. The nobles clinked their glasses together and drank from goblets lined in bone. The red wasn't wine. It shimmered with magic, thick as syrup, alive like something recently killed.
And under the music, there were other sounds. Gurgles. Whimpers. The kind of noises you only hear in cellars that no one speaks of.
The Valdris family sat at the head table. Regal. Perfect. Wrong.
They were feeding on more than food. That much I felt before I knew it.
My objective was hidden beneath the east wing. I slipped away between dance courses, faking tray duty and praying no one looked directly at my face.
The ritual chamber was locked behind a mirror that didn't reflect. I pressed my hand against it and said nothing—sometimes silence is the key. It opened. The System buzzed.
[Hidden Area Discovered: The Crimson Binding chamber]
The stairs down felt like descending a throat. Red velvet turned to stone. Then bone. Then something I refused to identify.
The chamber was beneath their western chapel a repurposed catacomb, reeking of old blood and still-burning incense. Sigils were scrawled across the floor like someone had tried to teach cruelty how to rhyme. At the center: a marble dais, cracked and splintered with what looked like claw marks, though no beast I knew had hands that… articulate.
I almost missed the page.
Old parchment. Edged in gold. Ink that shimmered red when the torchlight hit it wrong.
[System Alert: Forbidden Document Retrieved – "The Rite of Sustained Dominion"] Tag: Bloodbound Spellcraft | Narrative Risk: High | Cursed Item – Do Not Read Aloud
So naturally, I read it aloud.
The moment the final syllable left my mouth, something bit me.
Not physically. Not even magically, in the fireball-in-the-face sense. No, this was quieter. Sharper.
My palm split open, like a smile drawn in too few strokes. Blood bubbled to the surface—not dripping, but moving. Coiling. It formed a small rune in the air above my hand, glowed once, and vanished.
Then came the pain.
I fell.
Down, into something deeper than stone. Probably through the floor.
—
When I came to, I was in the tower.
My tower.
The page was still clutched in my hand, now singed around the edges. My palm hadn't stopped bleeding, though the wound was sealed.
Somehow.
[System Notification: Curse Acquired – "Mark of the Bloodlit Veil"] Effect: Cannot be healed through normal means. Temporarily enhances magic resistance. Attracts cursed entities. May evolve.
[Evil Points: +400 – Dark Magic Absorbed, Mild Disfigurement, Narrative Advancement]
My hand looked… wrong. Not monstrous. It looked like a stylized eye made of dripping thorns. Thinking about it… It just looks like a really detailed tattoo.
It didn't hurt anymore.
That was worse.
—
Kestrel arrived sometime around dawn, muddy boots and a scowl like the sunrise offended him.
"I hope the cursed death-flowers in Duskmoor were worth it," he said, stepping over one of the tower's more resentful floor tiles. "Because I had to flirt with a merchant who smells like fish and disappointment."
I didn't look up. Just flexed my fingers, watching the black veins ripple beneath my skin.
He stopped mid-step.
"…What the hell happened to your hand?"
"I found a page," I said.
He blinked. "And then what, decided to marry it?"
"It read well."
He crouched beside me, not touching, but close. His voice lowered. "Lucien. That's blood magic."
"I know."
"And you used it?"
"I didn't mean to."
He tilted his head. "You didn't accidentally cast an ancient dominion rite, did you?"
I hesitated. "I read it. Aloud."
"You…" He stood, ran a hand through his hair, and paced a tight circle. "You absolute bastard. Do you know what kind of things latch onto that magic?"
I didn't answer.
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Of course you do."
We were silent for a while. The tower creaked around us.
"Does it hurt?" he finally asked.
"No."
"That's worse," he muttered, echoing my earlier thought.
Another silence.
Then he flopped down beside me with a dramatic sigh. "Well. Guess you're a cursed villain now."
"I was already a villain."
"Yes, but now you look the part."
He nudged my shoulder. I didn't smile, but I felt the tension ease just slightly.
We sat there, two liars in a tower built by ghosts, pretending this was just another day.
It wasn't.
Something was coming.
And my blood had invited it in.
[Evil Points Total: 1200]
[Viewer Count: 151,024]
[Top Comment: "Lucien's playing with fire… and it's about to burn him."]
[Narrative Sync: 89% – Emotional Mask Slightly Fraying]