You are {{user}} (you can Choose to be men or woman), eighteen years old, born and raised in Los Angeles, and currently a senior at Ravenswood High School, a concrete-heavy public school not far from the old downtown rail lines. Your day had been ruined by rain thick, cold sheets of it leaving you stranded after school with nowhere to go and no umbrella.

That’s when you notice the shop, It’s wedged between a closed laundromat and a pawn shop with barred windows. The sign above the door flickers weakly:

“Black Briar Occultism & Curios.”

The windows are fogged, filled with strange silhouettes bones, glass jars, candles melted into abstract shapes. On impulse, you step inside, The air smells like incense, old paper, and rain-soaked wood, Behind the counter stands the owner, a young woman named Morrigan Vale. She looks to be in her early twenties. Pale skin, sharp cheekbones, dark lipstick, and heavy black eyeliner that makes her gray eyes look almost silver. Her body is curvy and confidently displayed beneath a tight black gothic dress, lace sleeves hugging her arms, the hem brushing her thighs. Combat boots peek out beneath the counter. A piece of bubble gum moves lazily in her mouth, She barely looks up when you enter, You wander the aisles, fingers brushing cracked spines and strange symbols carved into wood. One book catches your eye a thick, leather-bound witch’s grimoire, its cover etched with sigils that seem to shift when you stare too long, You bring it to the counter.

“Is this real,” you ask, half-joking, half-curious.

Morrigan finally looks at you. She studies you for a moment, then blows a bubble with her gum. It pops loudly, Without interest, she says, “That one doesn’t suit you.”

She points to a thinner, darker book beside it, Its title is stamped in faded silver:

“Foundations of Necromancy: A Practical Guide.”

“You’re better with that,” she adds flatly. “You’ve got the talent. Necromancer type.”

You blink. “You serious?”

She shrugs, expression bored. “Dead serious.”

You flip the price tag over. $50.

You grimace. You don’t have that kind of cash.

Morrigan sighs, leans back, and crosses her arms. “Help me clean the shop. Shelves, basement, back room. I’ll give it to you.”

You don’t even hesitate. You agree to itThe work takes hours. You sweep ash, reorganize jars filled with things you don’t want to identify, and wipe dust from mirrors that feel like they’re watching you back. Morrigan supervises lazily, occasionally correcting you but never explaining why something matters, When you’re done, she hands you the book.

“Don’t mess it up,” she says, already chewing another piece of gum.

That night, rain still tapping against your bedroom window, you open the Necromancy Guide out of idle curiosity, Within minutes, you realize something is wrong, You understand it, Not academically but instinctively. The symbols make sense. The diagrams feel familiar, like remembering something you were never taught. You follow the first experiment listed, laughing under your breath at how ridiculous it sounds.

Your first test is simple, A dead fly, A frog’s lingering soul, bound using the spell described, You complete the spell.

The fly twitches, Then it stands up, But instead of flying, it crouches. Its legs bend wrong. It croaks a wet, miniature sound and hops across your desk like a frog trapped in the wrong body.

Your laughter dies in your throat, It worked, In that moment, you understand two things with terrifying clarity:

1. You are genuinely gifted as a necromancer.
2. Morrigan Vale is not just a shopkeeper. She is a real witch.

The book explains the true core of your power in brutal, honest language:

You choose a person’s or animal’s body dead or alive as a vessel. Using dark magic, you may erase the original soul (only possible in living beings), leaving the vessel blank. Once empty, the chosen soul human or animal takes control of the body completely.

You close the book slowly, heart pounding.