Acknowledgments
A special thanks to my friend Volcanica for suggesting the name Hyacinthus for the world the book takes place in. They suggested an academy for the background setting, came up with the idea that all Grimoire Girls should have some written phobias in order to help them survive, and came up with the idea that the naming schemes for the girls should be related to literature in some form.
Much gratitude to my friend A.A. Edmond who came up with Reed Englast's brilliant name. They came up with the idea that her passive ability should be related to speed. Their ideas gave me inspiration on how to develop Reed as a character and gave me an idea of what direction the story should follow. Edmond is a talented author. I recommend reading his occult horror ebook, Something Wicked: An Extradimensional Thief’s Guide which can be found on amazon.
I appreciate my friend "izjr.uu" who created the commissioned cover art for my book. They are a talented artist that can be found on instagram. Their work never ceases to amaze.
Preface
Tragedy During the End is a book that began with one intrusive thought after another. A few stray thoughts gave me an idea for a fantasy setting that takes place during the end of the world. A character guide for the main character Callie Graph Freed was written for fun before I had any intention of writing a book. I jot down a few of her abilities, characteristics, enemy monsters, and a rough idea of what kind of a world she lived in. I had a few discussions with Volcanica and Edmond to talk about some world building details as stated above. Then I realized that the setting had potential to become the setting for an entire book about tragedy.
Writing the book proved to be more of a difficult project than I was expecting. I would even consider the process a difficult struggle at times. The book went through numerous drafts and often affected my mood throughout the span of about a year. As the title promises, there are plenty of negative emotions to experience by reading this book.
Prologue
There is a world full of empty planes, treacherous chasms, boundless oceans, insufferable deserts, and overgrown forests. The inhabitants of this world have recorded many names for the world throughout history, but the most commonly used name is Hyacinthus. The name for this world survives through both oral storytelling and written records preserved throughout time.
There is a city named Marigold in the world of Hyacinthus. Although many races united to create Marigold, only one humanoid subrace remains in the city because the rest are extinct.
The reason for their extinction is that one day a catastrophic event occurred where all species capable of reproducing lost the ability to create offspring through normal means regardless of how fertile a couple was before the catastrophe. Deer, gnomes, pixies, wolves, and other species with short lifespans are extinct. Dwarves, draconians, elves, wyverns, and other species with longer lifespans survive only for the time being.
Countless cultures no longer exist. The books left behind and the memories belonging to the long-living species serve as the only proof that short-lived species even existed. The word ‘tragedy’ found new meaning by accurately portraying the misery caused by the catastrophe.
Mana is plentiful in Hyacinthus. Dungeons are born when excess mana condenses by chance. Dungeons are mysterious constructs that commonly form with a gem that serves as a source of magic and life called dungeon cores. These cores use virtually nothing other than mana to create monsters such as goblins, mimics, and basilisks with lesser gems known as mana cores present in their bodies. Dungeon cores tend to indefinitely create life that will run rampant if the cores are left unattended. They are a thorn in the eyes of humanoid races.
Dungeon cores used to be impartial by maintaining a balance between the amount of all living creatures that exist in nature. When the catastrophe struck, dungeons began to function uncharacteristically. Dungeons began to flood the ecosystem with numerous monsters and corrupt them to a horrendous degree.
There is a subrace of humanity called Grimoire Girls that are created through the same process as dungeon cores create monsters, but their bodies differ. Grimoire Girls are crafted in the image of humanity but have many discrepancies.
The metaphorical soul to their bodies are enchanted books called grimoire that use mana cores to create and control disposable bodies.
The temporary bodies of the Grimoire Girls cannot generate or absorb mana naturally. Grimoire Girls intake the mana necessary to maintain their functionality from interchanging the mana cores from dungeon monsters like batteries. Without mana, their temporary bodies will become empty vessels. Their grimoires will become nothing more than dormant books.
So long as their grimoire remains undamaged, every Grimoire Girl can create as many disposable bodies as their collection of monster cores allows them to. The disposable bodies bleed, wear, tear, and act as ambidextrous as a typical human body.
The pages in the grimoires act something akin to instructions to build up the mana-constructed body. Wandering too far from the book makes the connection between the grimoire and mana-constructed bodies unstable and dissipates within minutes. The pages on the living grimoires store memories, characteristics, body details, skills, and quirks. Portions of the grimoire have designated segments for every necessary detail.
The grimoires automatically update themselves as the Grimoire Girls live their lives, but forcing changes does not necessarily achieve the desired results. The grimoires tend to react negatively when edited by outside sources.
Most Grimoire Girls seldom temper with grimoires in order to avoid the potential loss of their personality.
Despite their best efforts, an average Grimoire Girl has a life expectancy of about 40 years in their grim world. Their life expectancy is expected to increase as more generations of Grimoire Girls are created with increasingly complex abilities, capabilities, and personalities.
New generations of Grimoire Girls have the advantage of having experienced predecessors. The predecessors bestow advanced magic to their descendants and share their expanding collection of resources. Older generations of Grimoire Girls tend to have weaker abilities, take longer to develop their personalities, and have fewer pages in their grimoires.
A Grimoire Girl's personality can die when their grimoire is destroyed or damaged. The remaining pages can be salvaged from "dead" books and are recycled to form another Grimoire Girl.
Sometimes the grimoire of a deceased Grimoire Girl is stored in an archive to serve as a tome of wisdom. Archived grimoires become a reference to replicate personalities or abilities for future descendants.
One of the reasons that Grimoire Girls tend to live short lives is that they all experience a certain level of derealization that varies between each individual. Grimoire Girls live with subpar instincts compared to the rest of the people from their world. Their instincts are muddled by woven layers of enchantments written in their grimoires.
Written phobias are introduced to create a sense of self-preservation that effectively counters a Grimoire Girl's lack of awareness; therefore, their phobias are based on the causes of their predecessors' deaths in the hopes of improving the survival rate of future Grimoire Girls.
Chapter 1: Marigold Academy and Greed
In the world of Hyacinthus, there is a lofty mountain range called the Vinderian Impasse that encroaches on the sky’s domain. The Vinderian Impasse mountain range provides a massive river that runs through a valley and eventually branches off into a distributary river flowing for several miles in differing directions. The mountain range cycles through natural wind cycles of cold air and creates a fog as grandeur as an angelic aura descending from the heavens. The generosity and gentle kiss of the mountain range provide for a diverse plant ecosystem in the valley.
There is a city called Marigold nestled a few weeks' worth of walking south from this lofty mountain range, past the fog, through the valley, and near where the distributary river parts.
For the most part, Marigold exists in a state of decay. Marigold is protected by moss-riddled stone walls on each side. The majority of the buildings within the city are unoccupied and in ruins.
There are only a few buildings that are maintained regularly by their inhabitants. The most breathtaking sight in the city is a castle located in the middle of the city mainly because there is no competition. The castle is surrounded by a second set of stone walls built on a hill.
The castle in the center of the city is several stories tall. The castle is a construct of peculiar architectural liberties. Some towers rise taller than others, some segments of the castle have a different aesthetic than the rest, and the layout is far from simple. Despite the castle's odd design, the castle is comfortably set on the hill and the architecture complements the scenery.
There is a tidy garden decorated with flowers ethereal in appearance; for example, the Gloriosa lily is a flower with red petals that end with yellow margins.
The appearance of the flower earns the nickname of ‘fire lilies’ for their striking resemblance to water. Just kidding, they are named for their striking resemblance to fire.
The garden serves as a charming buffer between the gate surrounding the castle and the castle's doors. A flush stone path leading from place to place completes the scenery.
The castle is the adopted home of a subrace of humanity called Grimoire Girls. The castle comfortably houses around 128 Grimoire Girls in groups of four girls per room—a number that makes up most of the ruined kingdom’s population. The castle contains a library, a banquet hall, a cellar, a laboratory, and several training rooms used to practice combat. The lavish castle now serves as a repurposed academy.
Headmistress Syl Lillie Koi lounges about in a luxuriously furnished room. She is seated on a carved wooden couch with cushions covered in red fabric. Two grimoires are settled on a cushion side by side.
The couch's slipcover is white and decorated with embroidery depicting floral patterns in red, green, and purple colors. Syl's auburn hair harmonizes with the color scheme creating a picturesque blend of color that accentuates Syl's beauty.
Her eyes are a hazel-brown color lighter than her hair. She is wearing a white nightgown with ornate red accents that complement her tall, voluptuous body type. Syl has a regal and well-put-together appearance befitting her self-established status as the headmistress.
- Syl's eyes are locked in a gaze with a similarly mature woman named Ahnvi sitting on her lap.
The shorter woman faces Syl. Her hair is a silver color, and her eyes are mint green. Ahnvi's eyes convey desire. Her heart beats enthusiastically at the sight of Syl as the target of adoration.
There are three more people at the other end of the room pouring white wine into glasses. The three are engaged in a conversation providing comforting murmurs that compliments the crackling fire in a hearth.
- The combination of cackling, whispering, and Syl’s soft touch creates a lulling atmosphere for Ahnvi.
- Ahnvi leans closer to Syl with a gaze focused on Syl’s lips. Ahnvi closes her eyes and puckers her lips.
- Syl meets the romantic advance halfway with a soft kiss.
The warmth of the kiss seemingly elevates to Ahnvi's cheeks in a flush when the two part away. Her eyes open when she notices a faint scent of white wine coming from Syl’s lips that she can almost taste. The scent oddly charms Ahnvi into wanting a second taste. She asserts herself for another kiss.
- Their tongues intertwine in a heated exchange.
- As they part, there is a thin and short string of saliva that gently nestles against Syl’s lower lip.
Syl licks her lip. She savors the moment. The rate of Syl’s heartbeat is erratic, but Syl is less enthusiastic overall.
Regardless of her indifference, Syl compliments her partner, "You must be an enchantress, for you have charmed me, Ahnvi."
- Syl’s hand gently reaches for Ahnvi's chin.
- She offers, "How about some more wine, my love?"
Syl thoughtlessly casts one of her abilities creating a pair of dark-elemental phantasmal hands behind the couch that reach around silently. They hover in the air as they presumably fumbling for a bottle of wine. The Phantom Hands spell is an ability that Syl has used perhaps a hundred or more times before. Casting the spell would normally be no different than casting a flame or light. Cast the spell and be done with it.
Ahnvi has no reason to feel surprised by the spell. In the heat of the moment, her eyes are focused solely on Syl. Everything happening in the room beyond Syl is a blur.
Ahnvi feels an inexplicable and unpleasant warmth coming from the back of her neck that she ignores. She is more focused on the conversation at hand.
- Ahnvi rolls her eyes.
- She replies, "How cruel of the seductress to compliment me in such a manner."
Syl has an infamous reputation among the academy’s staff. Ahnvi is aware of Syl’s snares. Ahnvi recognizes that she is nothing more than Syl’s latest fixation.
- Ahnvi's eyes quickly readjust to focus on Syl.
- "I'll have some more wine."
The motion of the phantom hands becomes more frantic as they blindly search; even so, Ahnvi pays the hands no heed.
Ahnvi remains in her distracted trance until she notices two bizarre chunks of white color slowly appear from behind Syl. Ahnvi blinks. Her attention shifts to the oddly located color. A ridge forms from the lower chunk of color. The odd appearance of color intrigues Ahnvi enough to make her stretch her neck for a better view.
- She states, "Your spell is falling apart. Cast the ability again."
Upon a second glance, Ahnvi notices that the top chunk of white color looks like a chalky semicircle with scarce black color filling empty spaces. The bottom chunk of white color looks like a triangle with a smoothed-out tip at the top.
The ridge of the lower chunk of white color forms into several uneven and a few sharp ridges branching off into four separate directions. The upper chunk of white and black spotted color slowly ends. The white color disappears, and a chalky light brown color of infinite depth steadily replaces the white color. The brown color fades away into a bottomless black abyss.
The previously unidentified object is now recognizable as an eyeball with a chalky-brown iris surrounding a pitch-black pupil.
- A few seconds pass when the entirety of the iris and pupil abruptly jolt lower.
- The black pupil widens with desire at the sight of Ahnvi and Syl.
- Ahnvi’s body is slowly and steadily riddled with as much fear as her mana-constructed body can feel.
The ridges forming from the lower white chunk of color are dull teeth the size of which can easily consume human-sized prey.
Both parties share an entire minute of hesitation and shock. They remain frozen in place and so utterly motionless that they seem lifeless.
The Phantom Hands spell is supposed to be a useful spell for moving objects around with a quirky name. There is no actual phantom nor hands involved, yet there is a materialized monster of unkown origin complete with a grotesque pair of hands dripping and oozing with a foul purple colored blood.
- The phantom eventually breaks the silence by reaching out with the intention of grasping Syl and Ahnvi.
- Ahnvi cries out, "Headmistress!"
In a moment of panic, Ahnvi firmly grasps hold of Syl’s arm. She rolls backward and forcibly carries Syl with her. Ahnvi falls down from the couch and falls flat against the floor with Syl slamming on top of her.
- Syl’s head bashes against Ahnvi’s chin.
Syl is visibly livid from the pain. Before she can utter a single complaint, her attention redirects to the sound of high-pitched laughter coming from behind the two of them.
There is a second lower-pitched layer to the laughter as if the entity laughing has a second set of vocal cords buried deep within its body.
Syl turns behind her to see an eye with a double iris and double pupil hovering in the air. Beneath the eye, there is a set of six coarse teeth in a continuously forming jawline. The entity peers through a cloud of mana that slowly increases in size.
The entity grasps the couch standing between them and throws it against a stone brick wall. The wall shatters from the force of impact, and the hurled couch disappears into the night. The grimoires resting on the couch drop to the floor of the room in the process.
- Ahnvi stands up and creates an icicle and fires at the beast.
- The entity protects its eye with a hand.
A spirited warcry comes from the back of the room from a Grimoire Girl wielding a bottle of wine. She sees a flat image of the inside of a floating eyeball from her perspective though the girl has no idea what she is looking at.
The wielder of wine rushes toward the phantom entity bashing the bottle of wine against the inside of the eyeball’s vitreous cavity. Instead of the bottle shattering against the eye, the impact makes a disgustingly audible squelching sound. Fluid oozes from the damaged eye and drips from the rift spilling on the floor.
The entity is distraught. The entity reacts by shrieking at the unusual form of pain. The eye disappears in a blur of visible movement through the veil of mana.
Syl takes advantage of the monster's distraught state to rise to her feet and protectively run for the fallen grimoires.
- Ahnvi realizes the rift the entity peers from is slowly closing.
She calls out to her allies, "Protect your grimoires! The mana is already dispersing! It will be forced to leave soon!"
As if on cue, another one of the entity's eyes reappears from another direction facing the wielder of the wine bottle. The second eye that appears is large enough for the pupil alone to occupy the entirety of the rift.
The other two Grimoire Girls in the room cast spells in unison. They launch a fire bolt and a lightning bolt aimed at the eye. The entity blocks the spells using one of its grotesque hands. The spells violently char the entity's flesh and cause grotesque purple blood to splatter across the room.
Curiously, the spells expand the veil of mana containing the behemoth for a second before they begin to seal faster than before.
The uninjured hand of the creature rises further above. The hand bumps against the ceiling and then slams down on the girl holding the bottle of wine. The entity's hand crushes the wine wielder causing her bones to creak and crack. The bottle she was holding shatters.
The entity drags the girl's body towards the rift. The entity causes a sudden wave of dark-elemental mana to flood the rift. The excess mana forces the rift to unseal momentarily; however, the uncontrolled mana surge forces the rift to close immediately after as if there were a power surge. The rift severs the Grimoire Girl's body along with a third of every finger belonging to the entity.
- The fingers fall to the floor beside the bottom half of the Grimoire Girl's body.
- Ahnvi asks the girls across the room, "Is her grimoire intact?"
The fire mage responds, "Her grimoire is fine! She left her grimoire behind on the counter. I will create another body for her in a moment."
The lightning mage chimes in, "For the time being, stay cautious! We don't know if that monster will reappear."
The four remaining girls in the room remain spread across from one another in groups of two. They spend a few moments locked in place while expecting the monster to attack at a moment's notice.
- All four girls are tense: they are afraid and intoxicated.
The room is inexplicably frigid despite the fire burning as if a glacier is forming beneath their noses. A mixture of fear and the harsh gale causes goosebumps to form on their skin.
- Fortunately for the girls, the entity does not reappear.
Ahnvi asks in a concerned tone, "What kind of monster was that? I have never seen anything like that before."
- Syl's eyes flicker across the room. She is still scanning for any trace of the entity.
Syl makes eye contact with Ahnvi, but her eyes do not remain on her for long. Syl breaks eye contact by placing her hand against her forehead and looking down.
Despite her stress she explains, "I don't know, I don't understand! What I can say is that was not the effect of my spell. I have used the spell for over a century, but that has never happened before. I have never created hands so grotesque as that. I have never created anything like that beast! Hell, the name of the spell is only a gimmick! That was not the effect of my spell!"
- Syl lowers her hand at the sound of footsteps across the room.
- The fire mage walks toward the grimoire belonging to the missing mage.
She grabs the book holding her hand on the lightly gem-encrusted cover. She begins to run some of her mana through the book to activate a complex process. There are three purple gems embedded on the grimoire’s hardbound cover. The gems gleam as the gems absorbs the mage’s red color mana.
After activating, the gem starts to gleam in a faint purple color. The fire mage opens the grimoire to check whether or not the process is working as intended. She sees veins of purple mana flowing throughout the pages of the grimoire.
- She musters a weak smile appearing to feel some amount of relief. The mage closes the book.
- "She is going to be fine. Another body double is going to form in a few hours."
She proceeds to offer, "I cannot imagine that you will sleep in these quarters, headmistress Syl. Considering what happened, why not spend the night in our room instead?"
The mage announces her departure, "I will carry the grimoire to our room. I will watch over the grimoire while she prepares a new body double."
The lightning mage chimes in to the sales pitch, "Grimoire Girls of lower ranks can stand guard here just in case the monster returns. I will fetch some of them to take guard duty. After all, we have to attend to some more important tasks tonight."
- The fire and lightning mages depart leaving Syl and Ahnvi behind.
- Syl stares at the corpse and the severed fingers. She notes, "What a horrendous mess."
- "Something is wrong with the earth, more so than usual. Something has changed. I need to understand the origins of this monster."
Ahnvi suggests, "We can worry about the monster tomorrow. I do not think the monster can control whatever rift that was so easily; otherwise, the monster wouldn’t have severed its own fingers. I don't know how we can go about tracing the monster's origins though."
Syl agrees to postpone the task, "Tomorrow then. I think I know a librarian that can help me."
