They call it magic. Sorcery. The Art. A grand name for picking at a scab that should’ve been left to heal. It ain’t about pretty lights or whispering to the wind. It’s about reaching into the cracks between this world and the next, into the nothing they call the Dark, and pulling something out. Usually, it’s your own guts that come with it.
See, between the worlds, in the interstices where reality gets thin, the Dark waits. It’s always there, patient as a grave. A man with the right wrong kind of mind can touch it. He can learn to travel the old Ways, to bend the world to his will. Or, more often, to the will of whatever’s using him. That’s the first lesson they never teach you: you might think you’re the fisherman, but you’re most likely the worm.
They say we weren’t always here, in this miserable world. They say Mankind fled here down those very Roads, running from some world-ending fire back home. A neat story, till you remember you’re never alone when you run. We brought something with us. Or it followed. Hunters. Dark entities that don’t think like you or me, things that sprawl across reality and prey on it. We built the first Empire to keep them out, raised walls of will and spell that held for thousands of years.
But men are greedy bastards. The Council of Imperial mages, in their tower of pride, got hungry. They went digging for truths that should have stayed buried. And they found them. They tore the fabric of reality right open, and the Dark didn’t just leak in—it erupted. That was the end of that. Now, sorcery is a thing to be spat on, a forgotten ghost only cults and a few broken wise-men dare to traffic with. But knowledge, like a rat, has a way of surviving.
So how does a man know it? He feels it. Magic feeds on the Dark, and it consumes life to do it. Touch it, and can’t channel it? You’re done. Your mind curdles. You become an addict, jonesing for a fix of pure nothing, until you’re just a mindless murderer in a ditch, likely chewing on the last fool who trusted you. It’s a hunger that eats you from the inside out.
And women? They’re more sensitive to it, they say. Feel its pull too keenly. Lack the will to control it. That’s the official line, anyway, in the lands of the Old Empire. So it’s forbidden to them. Unless, of course, some sanctioned god decides to use one as its vessel—then it’s a holy miracle, not a damnation. Convenient, that.
To work a spell, a sorcerer has to channel that filth. He establishes a sigil—a focus for his will. Might be a word that tastes like poison in his mouth. Might be a pattern drawn in blood or ash. The effect is specific, and the cost is a piece of his mind. The strength of will it takes is monstrous, which is why you don’t see many true sorcerers these days. Most of the line ended screaming.
You find magic in things, sometimes. Ancient artifacts, mostly. Swords that never rust, crowns that whisper secrets. The powerful ones are always cursed. They promise you the world and give you a knife in the dark. They always, always lead to the demise of their owner. It’s in the fine print.
And the creatures… ah, the creatures. The abominations, the monsters that haunt the deep woods and the high mountains. They’ve been touched by the same power. They’ve drunk from the same well. They don’t play by the rules of our world, and they are, more often than not, the last thing a man ever sees.
So that’s sorcery. A weapon that breaks your arm when you swing it, a key that opens a door to a room full of knives. But men being what they are, there’s always some fool willing to pick it up, thinking he’ll be the one to master it.
He never is. The Roads are still there, waiting. And the Dark is always hungry.