[@Arty Fox][@Affili]
[u][i][b]
Charles, Dimitri, and Twain[/b][/i][/u]

Twain, of course, would take his fair share. He was less refined than Charles, preferring to gulp his alcohol down in large swigs. 

“Damn Dimitri. That’s good stuff! We need to figure out this rift thing so that we can have a tap line from your world into ours!” 

Then he sat across from charles, spun the book on the desk three times. 

“Behold. Our Book Of The Dead. It is made from the skin, bones, and ligaments of the first wizard who defied death!” His presentation was very dramatic, perhaps because of the drink… He took another swig, then opened the first page. This time the ink could be seen upon the pages. Dark red ink.

“This, my padawan learner, is my---[i]our[/i] lineage!” He made a grand sweeping gesture with his arms. The first few pages were now full of symbols. Rows and rows and rows… 

They were all about the same size, there would be ‘trends’ and themes for a few characters, sometimes there would be a gradual shift in the symbols themes and every so often a dramatic shift would be noticed. One who could examine handwriting would say that none were written in the same hand, nor with the same pen, nor at the same time.  Intermingled there were also symbols that were smudged or scribbled out, as if struck from the record. (In one instance there were 12 of these in a row), these were [i]nearly[/i] illegible. Twain impatiently skipped a few chunks of pages to the last page, half full. The second to last symbol was one of the smudged-out-symbols, and it was very similar to the last symbol. Both had a ‘T’ base, some of the smaller details were different including a sweeping crescent on the second skewed off to the right instead of to the left. 

“The first thing we are gonna hafta do for you is to make you a ‘wizard’s symbol’. Do you remember the nail in that guy on the mountain? What was his name… Ah… you know what I mean right?” Twain’s mind was slowed by the drink, his speech slurred. “The head of the nail had a symbol on it. It was a Wizard’s Symbol. That is the symbol of the guy who cast the spell. Let me explain. It was kind of a binding spell.”

He mimed hammer and nail motions clumsily with his hands. “The wizard bound the man’s soul to himself. [i]*tink tink tink*[/i]. Attached it to a loooong ethereal string. Sooo Normally when someone dies, their soul hangs around a bit before crossing over. When Mikkel died, his soul was pulled back to the wizard by that thread.” Twain made a sudden yanking motion, then grasped an invisible pole, and began to reel in an invisible line as if he were fishing. “[i]Yooooooink![/i] That’s why I couldn’t get at ‘im when he died. Tricky! It was very clever actually!” He laughed. “If your lackeys don’t live to tell the tale… Well… They have to anyway!” He lauged for a few more minutes before composing himself. 

“So, anyway, you’re going to need one of those soon. I mean a symbol not a lackey. Not yet anyway…” he grinned like the chesire cat when he was drunk. 

He pointed to the last symbol. “So this is meeeeeeee. [i]Dimitri don’t look it’s a secret![/i] And yours will go right here!” He gave Charles an even look. “I have veto power if what you come up with is totally laaaaame.”

He pulled out a black bag from one of his many pockets. “And this is for you. A starter set.” Inside the bag was six crystals, they would fit in his palm, they were all smoky quartz.