Marco plunged inside the raging green-lighted whirlpool.
Instantly, he noticed that his whole body painlessly started to crumble inside the coiling portal.
The book flew away from his hands, flapping its papers all the way to match page 24. The black ink extending again in a cobwebby manner, delineating a heptagonal emblem with seven slots on each corner, and a relatively larger one at the center.
"Pantheon Glyphs?" Marco assessed not minding his pulverizing right leg. He recognized most of the symbols, save the one at the heart of the map.
"The eye of Horus? Or was it The eye of Ra—" He discerned, flipping his gaze to glance at other emblems.
"The letter Omega, which probably Represents the Greek Pantheon," He said, both legs vanishing from under him, "Hm, what was that symbol again—Eh, Maybe it's the Tomoe symbol of the Japanese Shinto religion,"
His body kept gradually fading away, "And the one at the top right must be the memorable Celtic Triskelion—"
Next to it, there's was three interlocked triangles. This one Marco was not sure about, "Might be of Norse origins?" he wondered. Proceeding to look at the bottom glyphs, "An Eastern dragon? This one definitely corresponds to the Chinese pantheon! And then, there's the Ollin of the Aztecs, And finally—Er?"
The book suddenly closed in front of Marco's bewildered face, revealing its densely wrinkled charred cover. Marco couldn't help but notice that there were two little depthless holes on its surface, right between them, the book cover protruded in the shape of a lengthy snout— below it a bow-shaped gash sat crooked.
"An old hag's face?" Marco expressed, his body almost completely vanishing.
"Not quite," The book opened its two slits, "But not far off," Marco heard one hell of a wicked voice.
"Oh that's what I needed," Face showing a hysteric grin, "A fucking hideously looking talking book—," Marco uttered the last sentence before his body ceased to exist.
...
"Boss, another kid died yesterday," a tall spindly man wearing a grimy vest and a pair of sandals, said to a stouter man holding a pickaxe.
"And where's the surprise? They die almost every day at this forsaken hell," The beefy man said.
"Um... The thing is— this one was initially dead or so I believed, yet just as I finished checking his quitting pulse, The boy suddenly bloomed back to life!"
"That's Ridiculous, the years of mining must be finally catching up to you," The man scoffed.
"But Boss, I could swear upon my life that he's heart stopped for at least a minute,"
"Rillon oh Rillon, do you even know how to check a pulse?" The boss laughed, swinging down his pickaxe and gripping Rillon from the shoulder.
"We have been drinking Wormbeer for far too long, come let me treat you to some scorpion poison wine," the boss said, wiping sweat from his heavily scarred forehead.
"Where is the kid anyway?" The boss inquired, he scarcely showed interest in his laborers, at least not the homeless kids scavenging for pitful remains.
"I left him where I found him," Rillon answered slightly shuddering. "Witches has been frequenting the town more and more, What if the kid held a curse of some sort,"
The boss laughed heartily, "Witches or even wizards won't bother visiting the brain mines, and besides who would waste a curse on lowly-birthed unmagical people like us,"
Rillon half-heartedly smirked, waddling their way to old Kallus Tavern at the southern section of the mines.
Meanwhile, Marco had had finally regained conscience, it felt like a lightning jolt ran through his whole body, recovering his senses and broking him from his eternal lasting reverie.
Eyes flaring Marco woke up with a heavy inhale, his heart was banging hammers on his chest, and his vision was all but clear.
"I did not wake up in my room after all," was Marco's first thought, he worried that his nightmare might be disguised in another one. But fortunately, it was all true, he did reincarnate into another world.
While his vision elucidated, he spent the next ten minutes trying to move his body, though to no avail. All muscles felt like budging boulders to him.
"It would take some time before I could use this body," Marco recognized, moving his pupils down his bare feet, and up to his arms.
"I'm a kid now?" Marco said. His body seemed like that of a boy no older than twelve.
"At least I get to keep my gender," he mumbled, now feeling a slight irritation on his arm, he looked below discerning a dark Heptagon stained right below his left palm.
Reminded by his toiling mission and the talking book he swore.
"What was the cursed book name again—Ah, the diary of truth," he said, "Would you be so kind to appear before me,"
Like the book heard him, Marco's heptagon buzzed and the book magically flew outside of it, propelling itself in the air and looking down at the prostrated kid.
"I didn't know I would be called for so soon," The book disapprovingly vocalized.
"Of course you would be, to your misfortune, your new owner is a demanding one."
The book grunted, oozy black substances seeping out of his mouth.
"By the way, could you tell me where the hell am I?"
"I'm a diary, not a map," The wrinkled book answered.
"Last time I checked, diaries could not speak either,"
"Well, then you did not see much diaries did you—Anyway we are in-universe-12, One of the ancient ones, ruled by Marlock the shadowless,"
"Universe 12? Aren't we supposed to be on one of the primal universes?" Marco probed.
"Well yes, but we needed a reincarnation place for you, away from the Seraphons and all that nonsense," the book said in a spittly manner, hovering above Marco while emitting an aura of black smoke.
"And before you'll ask me what's a Seraphon, I shall inform you that they are sort of patrols that oversees the strings of time and space between the universes— the whole point of your reincarnation is to give them the impression that you belong to the upper dimensions and not a crazy variant from a severely young and underdeveloped universe,"
"I see now—" Marco apprehensively said. "Anything else you might want to add?" he chimed in, feeling that the numbness began to fade away. He now could move his neck around and his vision considerably improved.
"Great, I knew I'm going to be worked like a dog from the first time I tasted you're rotten blood," The book grumbled trickling his black ooze on Marco's face.
Marco wrinkled his nose, writhing away from the slimy goo.
The book continued his rumble, "After the eons of time, I spent avidly noting the universes, my reward is getting to babysit one of the special needs kids, you tell me how I should feel,"
"I suppose the eons also made your mouth loose," Marco broke down laughing, this book was such a trip.
"Pff! Fortunately, the general outline of this universe is documented inside of me, We must have crossed in the Southern area of Evergreen, at the fringes of a small town called Mortemhill— Judging from your worn-out vest and the underground cavern, we must be in a mine, specifically, inside what people here call—"
"The Brain Mines," Marco said, sulking, Memories did not rush him with a surge of all this body's past experiences, but for some obscure reason, they effortlessly recollected if he delved for them.
"Even a lowly miner like this boy knew what are they extracting from here" Marco mumbled, circulated his gaze around the blue lighted cavern. He could see now that the tunneled rock walls are lighted by a web of blue vines resembling ivy in shape.
"The name says it all, it's a cavern where miners extract the first desolation deceased beast's parts, especially the brain, for it's considered to be highly useful in making magical potions." Marco pondered.
"Potions," Marco squinted his eyes, "This universe must be a world of witchcraft,"
"No shit Sherlock—it is not a world of witchcraft it's THE world of witchcraft," the book corrected, "it is said that Marlock the sole god of this universe created the first-ever spells—in one of his many experiments he tried to give his shadow a conscience of its own, the spell, however, backfired on him, and the shadow escaped with a lifetime of his owner's knowledge,"
"And the stinker scattered it all over the lower lands. I suppose," Marco expounded.
"Well partially yes, The shadow only managed to leak one spell before it got obliterated by Marlock," The book said, "The very first one, The spell that enabled people to use magic,"
"Clever enough, though, surprisingly tragic," Marco flinched.
"Marlock never found the hidden place of the enchanted words, at least not before Merlin a brilliant kid at the time accidentally encountered the spell and became the first-ever recorded wizard—his offsprings went on to make a new race entirely different than Mankind,"
"So you saying this newly attained ability is blood inherited?" Marco asked his final question.
"Unless one can encounter the spell, which had been abducted by Marlock, the answer is yes, though, wizards can occasionally give birth to unmystical people too,"
Marco clutched his fist, he could not feel anything special about his body, besides the fact that he looked much taller than most kids his age.
"Now, could you collect your torn rectum from the ground and get up, I sense people coming," The book exclaimed belting back to the heptagon.
Marco sighed, propelling himself up just before a group of boys stepped his location.
"M-Marco?" One of the boys incredulously said, stiffing his leg the ground as if it's a car break. He was a short Red-haired kid, with sharp facial features.
Marco for the second time felt the unusual sense of recognition, the boy's ominous name popped up inside his head, "Ulrike," he mouthed only now noticing that he stood on a pond of blood. It took him only a few milliseconds to figure out its original source, just as an unbearable rush of pain overtook his head.
At that moment, Marco was shown flashes of what happened to the previous owner of this body. Apparently, the kid have stumbled upon a 'Trekker's' corpse when he went scouring the other day—delighted by his finding he rushed back to inform his best friend 'Ulrike.'
Ulrike's greed sprouted to imaginable highs after peeking at the enormous beast corpse, and at that very instant decided to outlaw Marco.
He grabbed a large stone, and skidded behind Marco, clobbering his head with a terrible swing. The previous Marco jolted, glancing at what he considered to be his brother betray him with cold blood.
He was later dragged, blood seeping from his head, and left alone to die at the far Western section of the mines.
The vision stopped, leaving Marco with a wide grin on his face.
"Another Betrayal story," He sneered swinging his gaze toward the gaping Ulrike, there is no hate or resentment in Marco's eyes, only vigilance toward the boy.
"I did not expect I would be thrown inside the mouth of conflict so soon," Marco shrugged, He knew, he can't back down from this adventure anymore, and to be frank he does not wish to, the wasted years in the asylum, the days he spent high on medications, he was like a freed bird, a bird would never go back to his cage just like Marco won't come back to such life, this was his life now—in the body of a kid, he shared the same name with, though he vowed that he would never share the same fate.