So magic is real . . . Weird, but cool! While you would never openly admit that magic was real before, you had always thought that there was a chance, a small chance, that it was. You had read and watched a staggering volume of movies, books, comics, and shows that displayed the fantastic and unexplainable, but what really opened your eyes to the possibility of devilry was your brother. Yes, your seemingly perfect, run-of-the-mill quarterback star, older brother was the one to introduce you to the dark, macabre world of the supernatural.
It all started when you were five or six; it's been so long. You were walking back home from a long day of school when you stumbled across the carcass of a street cat. At that point, you were vaguely aware of the existence of death, but your interpretation of death was the same as that of every little kid: a long sleep that no one wakes up from. You were never happy with this explanation: why can't they wake up? Do they have dreams like regular sleep? Will you sleep like that too? Why are people sad when they go to sleep? Aren't you supposed to sleep? Your parents were nowhere to be seen when you returned home; the only person that could possibly answer these questions and more was your brother.
When you confronted him, he acted like every other older brother when annoyed at their young sibling: by acting dismissive. "You're too young to understand," or, "look it up yourself," he would say, but that wouldn't deter you. Eventually, your pestering would break him into giving in, but instead of explaining life and death, heaven and hell, he would simply say to follow him, and as a dutiful brother, you did.
He led the two of you to what your city had called a "library." The reason for your hesitation to call it that is the simple fact that it was once an abandoned warehouse, filled with various texts and called one by the man who occupied it. The squatter called himself Earl, although most called him Duke, and was without question the local oddity. He was ancient—so much so that the only ones who actually knew his age had died long ago—lived alone far from everyone else, and forbade all modern technologies like cellphones because, and I quote, "The spirit didn't take to 'em none, no sir." This "spirit" was the very reason that your brother had taken you here, for the old man claimed that his extraordinary age was caused by this very spirit and other unholy magical connections that he had. You can now guess that the reason your brother brought you there was in hopes that you would bother the old man instead of him, or maybe scare you and have a good laugh about it. Probably both.
I'm telling you all this because when you fell into hell, you learned quickly that knowing and not knowing how to use magic divided the big boys from the small fry. You tried desperately to find something, anything, that could teach you the secrets to unlocking magical abilities for yourself, but they were all scams of some sort, or just raving lunatics yelling gibberish. It seemed that those who partook in the dark arts held its secrets close to their chest, leaving you floundering in your fruitless attempts. That was until a flyer was hammered to the apartment's front door.
The flyer was some kind of ad for a "Magic Club" hosted by—and this is exactly what was written on the paper—"THE GRATE, POWERFULL, FEERED MASTER OF THE DARK ARTS AND DEMONS BELO, LORD TAKNALL THE MAGNIFISENT." The advertisement was riddled with these types of typos and was crudely written in black crayon.
Now, normally you wouldn't even take a second glance at this joke and would just crumble it up and move on with your day, but you were damn desperate. So you visited your apartment's boiler room in the basement, which of course is where this meeting was taking place and of course it was set at three in the morning.
As you reached the bottom of the basement, the darkness seemed to swallow you whole, pierced only by a feeble, dying bulb casting shadows that clawed at the walls. The room was vast, stretching further than it should have, like a cavern dredged from the depths of some forgotten place.
But it wasn't just the darkness. It was them, the people in the basement.
At first glance, they seemed ordinary, almost like people you might pass on the street when you were alive. But that's what was so utterly wrong. In hell, nothing looked "normal." They were mockeries of the living, assembled in their seats like puppets abandoned by the puppeteer. Each wore an unsettlingly wide grin, teeth gleaming in the dimness, faces stretched in expressions that were far too... *joyful.* But it was a joy stripped of life, twisted into something grotesque.
Their bodies were as thin and skeletal,jusr like you had been when you first dropped. They slumped in their chairs, limbs dangling lifelessly, yet their eyes were wide, staring—empty but alert. The longer you looked, the more you realized they weren't merely sitting. They were... waiting.
They sat in a silent circle, each face locked on the other, eyes unblinking, their bodies caught in a static eternity. You could almost hear the faint echo of something sinister in the silence. Their toothy grins glimmered with a predatory glee.
Before you could further question what you were seeing, a cold hand grabbed your shoulder as a greasy voice spoke into your ear:
*"We have beeeeeeeen expecting you, heheheh."*
Turning around, you saw that no one was there behind you. Turning back again, your face was mere inches away from an open mouth filled with fangs and nails.
"AHHHHH!"
Dropping to the floor, you tried to crawl away from the figure that now stood over you. His figure was shaped like that of a bat, with a short, snout-like nose and protruding ears that had blood-red flames on their tips. He lacked any sort of fur; instead, his lanky body was covered with a smooth, almost wax-like skin cloaked in an inky black robe to match his monochromatic skin. Like mentioned before, his mouth was filled with nails that glimmered with a gleeful hunger—whatever the hell that means.
"We are so happy to have you. Please, have a seat."
The strange man, who you guessed was the TackNail, gestured strangely to an empty chair, seemingly there for you and just you. The second you sat, all of the people there immediately turned to watch you—*watch you* with their dead eyes.
"So . . . Nice weather we've been having, right?"
After a long bow of silence, they all broke into a synchronized cacophony of laughter so loud that it forced you to cover your ears. The man-bat raised one hand and slowly lowered it, silencing them instantly. His nail-riddled smile somehow stretched further across his ghost-pale face.
"Yes . . . The sky is beautiful this time of year, with it being the same color as blood!"
He chuckled gleefully, his shoulders weirdly timed to rise and fall with every laugh.
"Now . . . For our first lesson, I need a volunteer. How. About. YOU!"
The man instantly pointed toward you with a long black claw.
"Humm, sure. What's the lesson?"
You questioned nervously as you stepped toward the cloak-wearing bat.
"Oh, don't be afraid my lovely dear, for are starting simple; Our first lesson will be the secrets of DEATH!!!"
"Wha—"
Before you could properly react, Nail exhaled, releasing a thick cloud of smoke that poured from his mouth and engulfed the entire basement, swallowing you in shadow. The air was acrid and suffocating, blinding you instantly. You coughed, eyes watering as shadows flickered within the fog. Silence fell—then, a cold breath caressed your neck, right at your ear. His whisper clawed at your mind.
"Don't be worried my dear, this won't hurt at all"
He finished by dive bombing straight for your neck, fangs, nails, and all; But he would never reach you. You don't know what it was, maybe it the training for Rocket that made you better honed in better control over your body, maybe it was just being in hell itself had changed you to be more aggressive, maybe this violent side had always been there, but before Nail could bite you, your hand instinctually went flying and smacked him across the cheek, sending him crashing onto the floor. Before you could fully realize what you have done, lightfloored the basement as the rest of the bulbs flickered on with a click, and the voice of your landlord assaulted your ears.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING DOWN THERE?!?!" The old lady screeched to you from the up stairs door frame.
"Uh . . . I'm . . . Having sex?" You shrugged, praying to God up above she believed it.
"Well... just keep it down, and clean up when you're done. If I have to clean another cum stain..." she muttered angrily as she closed the door with a huff.
With the boiler room now being fully lit by all of the now activated lights, you saw just how baren and dirty it was: soild concrete walls and floor, and pretty much everything else, caked in a thick layer of dirt and dust. You now saw that the odd and creepy people were actually . . . DOLLS!?!??! but how?!? You saw them moving and laughing just a couple of seconds ago and now you could cleary see they were made cloth and cotton; maybe Nail did actually know magic? Speak of nail, the bat was now currently on the floor, crying and whined while holding his face. Looking closer you saw that the other cheek you didn't slap had a nail now sticking out of it; the force from your blow must had propelled a nail in his mouth to shot out from it. His eyes met yours in a teary glare as he whined out,
"You slapped me! What's your problem?!?!"
"MY PROBLEM?!?" You shouted half in disbelief and half in rage. "MY PROBLEM IS THAT YOU TRIED TO BITE ME!!!"
"I wasn't going to bite you! I swear, I was going to stop right before my nails reached you. honest"
"Scare me?!?!, you did all of this, the ad, the fake people, the lights, smoke, everything, all to just scare me?!?!?" You couldn't believe what you were hearing. Was this guy insane?!?
"I get lonely, okay..." he mumbled, his shoulders slumping as his eyes dropped to the floor, his hands fidgeting against each other.
"My go—wait a minute . . ." You inspected the rest of the basement and saw that right next to the boiler itself was a sleeping bag and piles of liter and trash.
"Are you living down here?"
You questioned as the man had now risen to his feet, still holding both of his cheeks.
"THE GREAT, MAGNIFICENT, AND ALL POWERFUL NAIL, LORD OF THE DARK ARTS, is currently homeless . . ." Nail finished beneath his breath.
"How have you been getting food?"
" . . . ᶠʳᵒᵐ ᵗʰᵉ ᵈᵘᵐᵖˢᵗᵉʳ . . ." Nail whispered and you could only slap you head in disappointment.
"Cheese and rice"
"HEY, don't you dare look down me, or I'll curse you!."
*stomach growl*
"Look man, how about this: you actually teach me how to use magic, and I'll feed you. Deal?"
"And You won't slap me again?"
"If you won't "scare" me"
"Heheh, no promises"
And that's how it went for the next month: you'd visit Nail after your workout with Rocket and "learn" magic in exchange for a packet of noodles. "Learning" was a stretch, though, since he only half-taught you and half-tried to scare you. But a quick slap always put him in his place. Over time, however, the annoyance faded, and the two of you formed an odd friendship. You couldn't say if you were truly learning spells or just learning to dodge his "pranks," but somehow... it worked.
You didn't learn how to actually perform magic, or "curses" as Nail called them, but you picked up a thing or two. You even felt a strange connection to your latent powers just from being around him. Nail once explained that magic behaves like a wave, unique to each person, but when two waves are similar enough, they amplify each other. He theorized that your magical waves were doing just that, which might explain why simply being near him was raising your chances of unlocking your own magic.
But beyond all that magic talk, Nail himself was... different. Odd, no question about that, yet he was nicer than you would have expected. He had a dark and sometimes black sense of humor that was strangely endearing, and he had his own way of showing kindness—like how he healed you for free when you got jumped by that annoying imp gang. Maybe you hadn't unlocked magic. But you'd found something even better: a friend.
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Congratulations! You have my another friend with the strange and horrorifying TackNail, or just Nail for the sake brevity. You will be able to recruit him as a hero unit next turn.
Sadly your magical "lesson" didn't really teach you much, but not nothing! Your Occult knowledge has been risen from -15 to -11.
