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    Arcane Advent Diaries: The Wolf's Doppelganger
    Arcane Advent Diaries: The Wolf's Doppelganger
    Arcane Advent Diaries: The Wolf's Doppelganger
    Ebook54 pages36 minutes

    Arcane Advent Diaries: The Wolf's Doppelganger

    By R Kain

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    About this ebook

    Actions have consequences, no matter the intentions. While he said he wouldn’t regret the actions he took to save countless others, Leidolf has come to know what it meant to damn himself by bearing the cursed grimoire. Haunted by nightmares his life continued to spiral further into the abyss as hallucinations followed and the dark hold of the Grey Leather grew stronger as it tried to drag him into the abyss.

    Desperate for a solution and his journey takes him into the birch forest of Iceland, where the grimoire hailed from. It was there he would find his salvation in the form of the face-stealer of lore: The Doppelganger.

    This [14,000+word] novella is a side story to the Arcane Advent series, taking place a few months after the events of The Dark Bible.

    EXCERPT:
    I stopped walking as a pinprick made my soul itch and the pressure of the grimoire’s taint lessened substantially. The bulk was still there behind layers of protection that the new mental blocks afforded, guarding my soul to an extent from the intrusion, but a noticeable amount was just gone. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. I turned around.

    It was there. Like my own reflection was taken out of a black mirror, a charcoal clone stood there in mimicry of me. Our gazes locked. The fighting started right then.

    A cluster of magical energy flowed through the channels that were nestled in my body, like a second cardiovascular system, towards my dominant hand. The fore and middle fingers formed the barrel of a gun and the back of the glove now had the rune of flames ingrained on it. The energy was converted into flames as it passed through the rune. “Ce—”

    “—en!” the Doppelganger said in unison with me, invoking the same spell with a flaming bullet of its own. It happened in an instant, but the moment they clashed the two competed over which could swallow the other and snuffed themselves out.

    The back of the projection gloves now shone with the orange hue of the rune of the aurochs. As it siphoned from the pool of magical energy I had stored up, Uruz converted it into primal and wild strength. Flooding me from head-to-toe, it would push my body to its limits and beyond if I willed it. I moved while under its power and sought to deliver a crippling strike.

    It matched me. My right punch was mirrored by its right. As my left arm came up to brush the strike away the Doppelganger’s left did the same. The blows were knocked away and we separated.

    What a pain. If it was mimicking my skills then it was a matter of time before either I got tired or some external factor changed the tide... at least that was what I thought until flames jettisoned from its feet and it exploded forward using the Flame Step movement spell. Damn, it was a trick to make me drop my guard because I assumed it would only move as I did.

    Now in front of me and just off the ground, the face-stealer drew its hands back. The air went from searing to chilly in an instant. Crackling followed in the process. It swept its arms towards me while now wielding a weapon.

    I retreated sloppily to the side out of instinct and got away with a graze along my cheek that drew blood. The tree behind me didn’t fare as well. It was cut clean in two from the Ice Sword spell that came from the grimoire. The Doppelganger was already coming around and brandishing it for an overhead smash.

    I drew my frozen knife and recited that same spell. Magical energy birthed ice and hoarfrost that overlapped the knife. It formed a blue sword of ice roughly my own height that rose to meet its opposite as it came around.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherR Kain
    Release dateJun 14, 2012
    ISBN9781476202594
    Arcane Advent Diaries: The Wolf's Doppelganger
    Author

    R Kain

    Author:R.Kain is an author of various short stories and novellas centered on Urban Fantasy in contemporary settings. These tales tend to be dark, where good may or may not triumph over evil, but the price will be high, and sometimes the line between them is non-existent. Heroes may be just as dirty as the villains, but in the end, the only one they must answer to is themselves.Hobbies:* Reading* Writing* Playing Videos GamesFavorite Genre Book: FictionFavorite Genre Game: RPG

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      Book preview

      Arcane Advent Diaries - R Kain

      The Wolf’s Doppelganger

      (Arcane Advent Diaries, #I)

      By: R. Kain

      Copyright © 2014 by R. Kain Fantasy

      Second Edition

      Published at Smashwords

      All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

      The characters and events portrayed in the book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons—living or dead—is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

      License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy.

      Ebooks are an economical pleasure that can be enjoyed time and time again at a low cost, so please support the author by legitimately purchasing a copy.

      Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Damnation

      No matter what type of spell I tried to use it wouldn’t vanish. When I looked over my shoulder it was there, loitering in the air just beyond the edge. When I closed my eyes it was there, an ethereal presence that was unmistakable within my soul. Staring into the bathroom mirror, I could do nothing but glare at the accursed grimoire Grdskinn that remained perched where it was no matter what.

      The phantasmal tome was something only I could see. The physical book was bound and sealed inside the Church, never to see the light of day again after the mission in Silverleaf that had ended up becoming much more complicated than we anticipated. What now haunted me was a ghostly copy of the contents that was engraved upon my very soul as the grimoire had recognized me as compatible and thus bonded with me. Although I would never admit this to any other living thing, I was terrified of it.

      The Gray Leather was a tome that held magick of the foulest nature, written and once used by a man driven to madness in the pursuit of power named Galdra-Louptr. As far as I knew it was one of the most evil grimoires crafted by mortal hands, its pages saturated by its author’s malevolent ambitions and knowledge. The ink was made from blood and soot, runescript containing the sum of the mad vitki’s power in the form of spells and rituals dealing with the dead.

      No matter how many times I reached towards it, I could never touch it. But all it would take was a few words and I could have the real thing in my hands in the blink of an eye rather than the mirage that shifted between the borders of reality and illusion. No matter where they hid it or what they bound and sealed it with, it would answer my summons. The temptation to do just that was there to be certain.

      I had seen a fragment of its power with someone who lacked the same compatibility that I now had. The benefits to be had if I harnessed it would be astronomical. The tome whispering in the back of my head told me so itself—using it, I could bend others to my will, crush their egos, raise their corpses, and command dark forces that would make even the planet tremble with fear.

      But I knew power had a price.

      It was already tainting me, trying to grasp my very sense of self and twist me into a suitable vessel. Pushing back that taint was already a massive daily effort. The moment I could touch it, the moment I called for it, I wouldn’t be able to go back to how I was before and would be corrupted by it. I would be a slave to the power and intentions that dwelled in it until my dying day….

      … Perhaps even then it would still have a hold on me.

      Even now its power made me stronger and faster,

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