A Bookstore for the Forgotten and the Damned

The rain had a way of making things drown without ever touching water. It blurred the edges of the world, swallowed distant voices, and softened the filth of the city into something almost poetic.

But The Quiet Quill was already a place where things vanished.

Standing at the farthest end of the unknown valley, it was a place that did not invite visitors, it simply waited for the right ones to find it.

Nestled in a crooked alley where the city's forgotten roads met, it stood with the quiet patience of something that had always been there, even before the street itself existed.

The wooden sign above the door was carved with fading gold lettering, its edges worn soft by time and weather, as if it had once belonged to a shop that no longer remembered its own name.

To the unknowing, it was simply an old bookstore, its proprietor an odd, sharp-faced man with a habit of reading books that no one else could decipher, and a drunk who cannot talk straight.

But those who whispered the right names or paid in currencies beyond gold knew the truth—The Quiet Quill was not a place of business. It was a gatekeeper of knowledge too dangerous to be left in the open.

Not all who wander through the crooked alleyways of the Obsidian Wastes find The Quiet Quill for the real reason it served behind the facade of books. Only the desperate ones do it. And desperation comes in many forms.

The people that come to it for purposes are mostly The Lost Scholars, the seekers of truths best left forgotten.

They arrive with shaking hands, clutching frantic notes, eyes hollow from sleepless nights. They reek of old parchment and burnt candle wax, their minds frayed by questions they should never have asked. Some seek a spell from a dream, others chase knowledge their masters forbade. Scholars, exiles, madmen—all drawn to a truth that will ruin them.

Viktor always asks:

"Are you certain you want to know?"

Those who do not hesitate, who lean in, hungry for damnation, he lets them pay their price and take their ruin. Most never return.

Second are The Hollow-Blooded, they are the cursed, the marked and the unwanted. They arrive bundled in scarves, gloves tight, hiding the wrongness beneath their skin. The Hollow-Blooded—once human, now becoming something else. Some were born cursed, others made, their bodies warped by magic too powerful to bear. They do not seek spells or knowledge. They seek salvation.

Viktor watches, patient as ever.

"There is no cure," he says. "But there are ways to live with it."

Some believe him. Others don't. Those who refuse the truth leave behind only empty skin and a whisper between the shelves.

Third are The Silent Hunters, killers with questions. They arrive with blood under their nails, presence sharp as a blade. Some kill for the Duskwatch Dominion, others for the highest bidder. But the worst? They don't come for contracts. They come because they've seen something wrong. A body with no corpse. A man who died twice. A name erased overnight. They do not fear death. They fear what does not die.

Viktor never answers outright.

"If I tell you, will you leave it alone?"

No hunter ever does. So The Quiet Quill hands them the shovel— and lets them dig.

The owner of The Quiet Quill, Viktor Graves did not inherit The Quiet Quill. He found it.

Or perhaps it found him.

No one remembers what Viktor did before the shop. Ask him, and he will give a different answer every time. A disgraced scholar. A grave robber. A man who died once, but came back wrong.

The truth is, Viktor Graves knows things he shouldn't. He speaks languages no living soul remembers. He can pull a book off a shelf and tell you who last touched it, even if it was a century ago. Sometimes, when the candles burn low and the shop is empty, he pauses mid-sentence, as if listening to something no one else can hear.

And once in a while, a book moves on its own. Not in a grand, haunted way, no floating tomes or slamming pages. Just... a slight shift. A book no one touched will be found open to a particular passage, its words suddenly relevant to a question not yet asked.

Viktor never acknowledges it. Neither does the shop.

Viktor wasn't a traditional necromancer. He didn't summon skeletons, didn't raise the long-rotted dead to do his bidding. His magic was stranger, older, more insidious.

He was a conduit.

Spirits clung to him like candle smoke, pressing against the edges of reality, whispering secrets through the gaps in his ribs. Some were memories that had never faded, playing like echoes trapped in time. Others were voices that did not belong to this world anymore, their presence flickering in and out of his mind like a poorly tuned frequency.

It made him… disconnected.

Half here, half somewhere else.

To most, he appeared drunk or lost in a permanent daze, his eyes unfocused, his words slurred as if he were caught between conversations with the living and the dead. Sometimes, he would laugh at jokes that no one had told. Other times, he would pause mid-sentence, turning his head slightly, listening to something no one else could hear.

Lucian hated it. Not because it scared him, but because he knew Viktor wasn't faking it.

The rain drummed against the glass of The Quiet Quill, slow and rhythmic, like fingers tapping against a coffin lid.

Viktor lounged behind the counter, his coat draped around him like a king's robe—or maybe a beggar's blanket, it was hard to tell with him. His shirt was half-buttoned, his vest had far too many pockets, and his mismatched boots made it unclear if he had dressed in the dark or simply didn't care.

His white hair was a mess, sticking up at odd angles as if he'd been electrocuted or had just lost a fight with a particularly aggressive book. His eyes, a shade of pale gray that looked too washed out to hold any real color, flickered with something unreadable.

Dust and shadow made a home among the shelves, curling in the spines of books written in languages that had been buried with their authors. The scent of moldy parchment, burnt sage, and something darker hung in the air like a second layer of silence.

When Lucian entered, Viktor was laughing softly to himself, staring at the ceiling like it had told him a very good joke.

"Who are you talking to?" Lucian asked, his voice flat.

Viktor slowly turned his head, blinking as if he'd forgotten Lucian existed.

"Oh, you know," he said, waving a hand vaguely at the air. "The usual. Dead poets, lost kings, a woman who swears she buried something under my floorboards a hundred years ago."

Lucian stared at him.

Viktor grinned. "I'm lying about the poets. They're actually quite dull."

Lucian sighed.

"Are you listening to ghosts again, or just losing your mind?"

Viktor stretched, bones cracking in ways.

"Yes."

Lucian dragged a chair across the floor, ignoring Viktor's exaggerated wince at the screeching sound, and dropped the contract file onto the counter.

"I need information on a mage," Lucian said. "Darius Vale."

For a moment, the air in the room shifted.

It wasn't obvious, but Lucian felt it. The way the candle flames flickered. The way Viktor's fingers, which had been loose and lazy, suddenly tightened around the edge of his teacup.

The moment passed.

Viktor exhaled through his nose, flipping open the file too casually.

"Darius Vale," he murmured, skimming the pages. "Mage. Formerly Oathbound Legion. Rogue. Blah, blah, blah."

Then, Viktor stilled. His pale gray eyes, usually distant, distracted, somewhere else, suddenly sharpened, locked onto something unseen.

Lucian watched as the man's lips parted slightly, his fingers twitching as if tracing words in empty air. His gaze turned glassy, unfocused, staring past the file, past Lucian, past the world.

Then, under his breath, a whisper, too quiet to be meant for Lucian.

"...I see you now."

Lucian leaned forward. "Viktor."

Viktor blinked, as if returning from a dream.

And then he looked up, his grin sharp, too bright. Too forced.

"Oh," he said, tapping the file, "they didn't tell you, did they?"

Lucian didn't move. "Tell me what?"

Viktor sighed dramatically, setting down his cup. "You know, I don't think people appreciate how exhausting it is to be the smartest person in the room. And the handsomest. And—"

"Viktor." Lucian's tone was stern, demanding.

The necromancer's grin didn't fade, but his eyes flickered.

"Darius Vale is already dead."

Silence.

Lucian barely breathed.

Then, very carefully, he said, "Explain."

Viktor sighed, running a hand through his wild, silver hair.

"Well," he said, stretching lazily, "normally, when people die, they stay dead. Simple, clean, very polite of them. But Darius? Mm. Not so much."

Lucian's brows furrowed in confusion, "Meaning?"

Viktor exhaled, staring at the contract file as if the ink might shift into something different if he looked hard enough.

Then he muttered, almost too quiet to hear,

"The dead are never really gone."

Lucian's fingers twitched toward the dagger at his hip.

Viktor noticed. He grinned.

"Ooooh, now you're interested," he purred, resting his chin in his palm. "See, that's the problem with people like you, Lucian. You never care about the 'why' until the 'why' is staring at you in the dark."

Lucian leaned in, voice low, cold.

"Then let's skip to the part where it stares at me in the dark."

Viktor held his gaze.

Then, softly, "It already has."

Lucian didn't blink. "What does that mean?"

Viktor took a slow, careful sip of tea. Then, in the tone of a man who was about to ruin someone's week, he said, "Oh, darling. It means you're hunting a ghost."