Morvyrkrad and ancient tombs of unspeakable horror

Someone sent me a nice email praising SOUL OF SORCERY (Demonsouled #5), in particular the chapters that center around the ancient tomb of Morvyrkrad. The reader particularly liked the sense of dread and foreboding around Morvyrkrad, of finding something horrific sealed away in an ancient place, and wondered if I had any particular experiences that inspired it.

Well. Let me tell you a story.

A while back someone brought me a desktop PC repair. A desktop PC, one of those old beige Optiplex GX400 towers Dell used to manufacture before they tried (and mostly failed) to do cool designs.

“You have cats, don’t you?” I said, dusting off the top of the case.

“Yup,” said the client.

“I bet you smoke, too, don’t you?” I said.

“Yup,” said the client.

“How long have you had this computer?”

“Nine years.”

“And in that time,” I said, “it’s never been moved?”

“Nope.”

I nodded, took a deep breath to steel myself, and then opened the computer case.

An inch of smoke-scented gray fur.

Covering every single component. Like 1970s shag carpeting from hell.

The fact that the computer turned on at all was astonishing. The fact that the client’s house had not burned down was proof that the age of miracles had not yet passed from the Earth.

And that was when I learned all I needed to know about finding something horrific sealed away in an ancient place. 🙂

-JM