The Sanctum Sanctorum of the Great Registry was a vault of total black dark rock, carved into the roots of the world like an empty heart chamber.
In the center of the circular room, suspended ten feet above the floor by twelve huge chains of cold-forged gold-silver metal, hung the Master Ledger of the Undying Debt claim.
It was an eight-foot tome. It was bound in sheets of hammered dead-house lead and clasped shut with five massive lock-plates of cast spirit-gold. From the spine of the book trailed hundreds of thick, braided cords of purple silk, each cord carrying an active, glowing current of astral deep ring that ran down into copper floor sockets, streaming outward into the bedrock channels of the entire province.
The book was alive with stolen breath. With every second that passed, the lead-bound covers rose. Then he fell in a sickening, rhythmic pulse, as if the volume itself were inhaling the lifespans of three hundred thousand living souls.
Ren Vale stepped onto the dark rock dais beneath the suspended ledger, his boots crunching on layers of dried ink crystals.
Beside him, Necro-Scribe Ren raised his four-inch finger-bone metal pen. The cold tomb-silver nib shone with an eager, hungry luster in the pale lantern light.
