CHAPTER 5: ECHOES OF THE FORGOTTEN

 *Following the ritual rehearsal the previous day, Damian is unable to sleep, haunted by the sensation and whispers he experienced during the ritual rehearsal. Damian was driven by a desperate desire for answers, because since he stepped foot into the mansion everything he knew about his grandfather was just a make believe. He returns to his grandfather's study and begins to search through the room, obsessively concerned, there must be something he missed, he thought to himself. He began to search the lab, during his search he caught sight of Nerrisa journal, it looked like his grandfather's journal. He flipped the pages open to check if she tour out some of the pages to hid secrets from him. To his greatest surprise the pages of Nerrisa's journal was intact and perfectly numbered, the arrangement of the numbers in numerical order caught Damian's attention, as he remembered that his grandfather's journal has some missing numbers which means some pages were perfectly removed and hidden somewhere in the lab. Damian's searched every angle of the lab and he discovered a dusty locked obscura chest that's been hidden from the rest of his grandfather's collection. The chest is engraved with alchemical symbols and sealed with a strange rusty old padlock. Damian picked up a hammer and hit against the padlock on the chest and it opened, Damian found notes that are unlike anything he's has read before, complex diagrams, formulas written in Latin. 

 Alchemical symbols and diagrams of mysterious figures figures could be seen all over the chest, Damian brought out the notes and placed them on the table, he compared the notes to his grandfather's journal and with Nerrisa's journal. Through fragmented entries, he pieced together that his. Grandfather had conducted countless rituals to capture and control a powerful spirit, experimenting on anything that has life in it, animals and people where all victims of his alchemical practices. His grandfather had only one goal in mind, this goal was to create a bridge between the living and the dead, one of the texts from the pages made Damian's blood run cold, his grandfather wrote that to create this bridge, he had to bound part of his own soul to a Tenebris Malum, hope of gaming access to immortality. His grandfather was trying to preserve his life but he lost it after so many experiments and rituals, he was not merely experimenting out of curiosity, he was searching for a way to escape his own death, to live on as an eternal alchemical entity. The Tenebris Malum they had summoned is not just any spirit, it is a twisted form of his own grandmother's dark essence, after realizing and understanding these grave mysteries, Damian feels the weight of his family dark legacy pressuring around him.The entity that has been haunting him is not a random spirit, but a corrupted piece of his own family's past, driven by ambition and madness. Every part of the ritual now takes on new meaning, as Damian understands that the Tenebris Malum goal is not just to escape the spirit realm ,it wants to reclaim its place in the living world through him. Nerrisa finds Damian as he pours over the journal, and he shares his discovery with her. She grows visibly disturbed, her normally calm demeanor cracking. In a tense moment, she reveals a piece of information she has been keeping a secret from the very start , " I think I its about time i tell you this Damian",she told Damian that she was aware of his grandfather's experiments and knew that the entity was connected to him. She had hoped that by assisting Damian, she could finally sever her own connection to his grandfather's twisted legacy and free herself from the shadows of the ritual that tethered her spirit. She apologizes for not telling Damian about this earlier because she thought he had to find out by himself inorder for him to fully understand everything without asking more questions, she then tells Damian that they have a chance to end it all if he is willing to complete one final ritual, a ritual that could trap the Tenebris Malum for good, but she warns Damian that thus ritual is dangerously unstable; if it fails the Tenebris Malum may fuse permanently with one of them, claiming their body as a vessel. As the prepared for the final ritual, strange occurrences intensify around the mansion. Damian begins seeing visions of his grandfather, flickering like ghostly projections in mirrors in darkened room. At first , the visions wasn't clear, Damian was trying to find meanings to this projections, he was more confused, but s the day progresses, the vision became more clear and his grandfather seems to be watching him, his eyes dark and filled wiyj a twisted form of pride. Nerrisa warns Damian that this vision was not natural and it wasn't coming from his grandfather, " it knows we're about to banish it, he is trying to feed into your memory of your grandfather!", she said. These visions were simply signs that this entity is growing strength and if they do not act quickly the Tenebris Malum will soon be powerful enough to fully manifest, merging it's spirit with Damian or Nerrisa as an act of final possession.

 As evening falls , Damian sat down reflecting on his choice's, trying to create more options for himself, " there must be another way?, He whispered to himself, he walked down into the lab and picked up the journal as he reads further he learned about an absorption alchemy, this ritual helps to extract life or energy from another being, after the absorption the energy becomes one with the alchemist, seeing this Damian called out to Nerrisa, she came down, " Nerrisa i found another way ", he said, Damian asked Nerrisa if it will be possible to conduct this ritual on the entity and since it's connected to his grandfather, the absorption might grant him his grandfather's knowledge amd alchemical mastery. "Okay let's give this a try, we will start once the moon is at it's fullest!!, She said.