But it Always Ends Widdershins

Content Warnings:

Violence, using cleaning magic to murder/dissolve insides, blood and bone weaving magic,

By the Cracked and Riven Moon this place smells horrid. Like… centuries of decay and death freshly shat upon!

Which… from what I’ve seen of the strange creatures living down here that just might be the case.

This is why I'm glad I decided to twist and edit my cleansing spell patterns now. I will not spend the next few weeks digging through the remains of this old archive while dealing with… with all this!

Nasty creatures made their home here. Strange shelled… things. I’ve not spent much time studying all the weird and wonderful creatures that dot the realms, but if I had to guess these look to be… insect based? Possibly some kind of sapient beetle family or tribe that either burrowed into these tunnels or wandered in after the previous residents left.

I… do not care. I just need them gone. And the quicker the better! I do NOT need to think about just how likely it may be that they breached the archives and might have like… fed upon the books and records!!!

“M– Mistress?” Stammers such a soft and obviously nervous voice from behind me.

I spare a glance over my shoulder to regard my first and last Doll.

It’s shorter than me by about half a head, and dressed in simple traveling leathers that wrap tightly around a frame of only slightly smudged pale porcelain in a female shape. Hair pulled back in a bun, and eyes glimmering a gentle hue of sapphire.

“Yes dear?” I hum as I draw back my Physis from the bubbling spell’s working. Content that the three beasts before me are not just dead but cleaned free of all the gross meaty bits inside.

“I… Um…” It moves to hop over a pile of very empty corpses. “Is um…” It pauses, a touch of anxiety bubbling up to stop a very honest question. Then, when I don’t interrupt, it forces the rest out. “Are you sure it’s wise to spend the extra Physis on cleaning them out instead of just killing them?”

I fight the urge to sigh, and instead give it a reassuring smile. One that sings of confidence and patience with the silly worry in their head. “Of course. It’s as I explained three tunnels back… We can carry and sell the chitin in one of the towns above and cleaning them out by hand would be just… horrid.”

It opens pretty lips to protest in the same way it did before. ‘But Mistress, I’d be happy to clean them out by hand! It’s no trouble!’

So I cut that off as gently as I can. “We’ll both be very busy scouring this archive. And besides! I won’t have my Doll dirtying itself with foul guts and gore when I can spend a pittance of will and Physis to do the same.”

It nods, the anxiety stifled a bit with sound logic.

At least for another two or three tunnels. It truly is tiring sometimes to have it pester me.

I could fix the quirk, of course. Would be as easy as baking bread. Just slight alterations. But… Not today. For now it’s good to have this nervous little thing worry over my wretched health.

Four more long segmented tunnels, all wriggling through the depths like some old snake’s carcass with each hiding pockets of waiting monsters. Most simply hid behind the odd collapsed pillar or stone, but a few did have hidden spaces burrowed into the side or ceilings or beneath their gross dung-built homes.

For someone who couldn’t sense Ousia this would be such a dangerous and costly task since these weird little bug people’s shells were almost as hard as iron and seemed to easily shift and click about their form as needed to block a physical blow.

But… I can sense Ousia. From quite a silly distance away actually. And I did take a small peek into the first of these things to gauge where I should always start my spell’s deadly cleaning work to ensure they died right quick.

It’s after clearing out this final little grouping of them, that I sense it.

“Alright Doll.” I speak a bit quieter. “I sense what might just be the guardian of the archive.”

A pause, and I hear its heart click and whirr with sudden worry. “But… But Mistress I thought you said the guardian would be long gone! Broken and defeated!”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

I shrug in an attempt to hide my own growing worry. “I did, but with how odd this thing’s Ousia is it seems I was mistaken. And from what I’m sensing… hm…”

Ousia is twice the size of any of the weird bugs, and normally I’d just assume it was the pack leader or maybe… queen? Riven moon, maybe I really should have gone back to the villages above and searched for a book on these things. Possibly even purchased the evening of an expert’s time to–

I shake my head. Too late for that now girl.

“What?” my Doll shuffles up to my side. “What are you sensing, Mistress?”

“Its Ousia is strange. Tinted with odd enchantments.” And then my lie and my own anxiety spoken aloud. “Nothing to worry about. But I trust you remember your emergency instructions well?”

It nods and repeats the edict. “Go back to Zauberei Königreich. Find Evelis. She’ll take care of us.” A pause, then. “I… Mistress. I don’t want to go to her. I want to stay with you.”

I step over to it, reach up to cup its cheeks and pull it close to kiss that soft forehead. “Knowing you remember settles my mind and will let me incant with crisp efficiency. Well done. Good Girl.”

When I pull back it gifts me such a smile of pride as that little clockwork heart thrums and clicks about.

“Now… Stay here. And remember that command if what comes isn’t me. No crying or stumbling about until you’re back above, understood?”

It nods, the smile fading a bit. “Yes Ma’am.”

Then I turn, and make my way into what very well might be the entrance proper to the archive I seek.

The creature is already waiting for me, sitting at the edge of the elevated stairwell leading up the grand platform that holds the outer gate to the archives proper. Almost like… hmmm…

No, I don't think it can sense my Ousia. If it could, it would already be attacking.

I twist my Physis into a little weaving to nibble up the sounds my feet make as I move forward. Wanting to get a look at this odd thing to ensure the magic I plan to use to end it is as efficiently as possible. Careful to stick to the shadows, I step up to peer over a mound of fallen rumble and into the chamber.

Weeping stars, what a lovely Ousia this thing has. It’s still just like… only an ugly bug on the outside, only… wielding some kind of quarterstaff or… no. No, that's a spear of some kind.

So… a guardian wrought from an organic sentient? I’ve heard of odd things from current Witches and Warlords but not the old Dynasties that build this archive. And… ugh the grand door collapsed inward. Nothing has spilled out but…

Deep breath, murmur the incantations to save time and let’s just… melt this thing’s brain and hearts. Worry about what we can salvage after this last barrier is dead and cleaned out.

Bubbles pop and wriggle and rise up around the creature’s face, then press against its chest and slide between chitin and–

And then pop and melt away.

My spell… the cleaning magic wrought with subtle flesh melting death… is pricked and countered like it was no more deadly than soap bubbles. Such a quick and silent counterspell is… is barely possible for most witches!!!

I myself wove expensive Ousia wards to avoid such indignant death in blood and even some bone marrow, purchased with at least a decade of my precious life, because to so quickly and effortlessly do what this little creature just did is… it’s only barely this side of possible without one!!!

A clicking hissing spitting sound emits from the creature as it unfurls and rises from its stupor. Eyes glimmering and rolling about and…

And locking on me.

Ousia flaring and beginning to writhe in fury.

Spell of hiding dropped, I hiss my Physis into a spell of energy. Heart thunders, body floods with thrumming force, and I run as fast as I can.

Think think think! You stupid girl!!!

A click clack echoes, and I feel that the guardian bug has reached my old hiding spot already.

Dredging through all the tomes my Mistress forced me to memorize, I search for… for anything I can use.

Could drop a few tons of rock on it but… that would risk a cave-in.

Around the bend, and the thing slams into the wall not twenty feet back. At least twice as fast as the other bugs I’d unmade, and they were so much quicker than I’d expected.

Or… I manifest something more solid. Ugly inelegant flame or… No. Lightning is a bad idea. Learned that the hard way. Lost half a decade of Ousia and half a year coughing up blood for that foolish loss of my temper.

Leaping and bounding over rumble and ruin, I feel the thing closing in. Only slowed when it decides to just… crash through an obstacle a little more sturdy than it expected.

So… what’s left?

I want to curse my own rotting luck at the unavoidable answer.

“DOLL!” I yell down this last tunnel as I reach for my needle and small pouch of bone marrow dust.

“Y– Yes Mistress!?!” Comes a reply filled with equal parts joy at my return, and such worry at the thing it hears coming up behind me.

“Be a dear and call up your sister!”

A pause of… maybe half a heartbeat passes. But when a bug with the Ousia like an angry multi-tendrilled Denizen is at your heels every one of those feels like an eternity.

But then there is that horrid crack of joints, a whirr like a hive of bumble wasps, and a sort of… snipping sound.

“Good morning Mistress.” Comes a voice of such Icey regard. “Where–”

“No time!” I cut it off. “Defend and Subdue!”

And then, from around this final mound of rubble, my Doll leaps.

Leathers torn very nearly off, two arms split into four with fingers unlatched into razor sharp talons, and lower jaw unhinged to make room for the twin rows of fangs.

At least it didn’t unfurl the rotted quills…

It lands at my back just as the bug’s weapon would have skewered me, kicking the shaft aside as talons rake down the thing’s chitin.

I twist and turn, bouncing a few steps to keep my balance as I watch my Doll and this thing begin to dance.

If not for my weaving of fury I’d be unable to even keep track of their movements. The spell is basically just… a doubly strong infusion of the body's natural reaction to danger. Laid out and kept under its Witch’s control.

The bug is fast, and that spear is deadly, but… my Doll is faster and sticks close. Removing the advantage that long-reaching blade gives it. Also… Riven moon does this bug have no clue how to wield that weapon. Just… swings it about like a pointy club with all the grace of a drunken fool.

But… even my Doll’s razor claws are unable to rake through its chitin. And while given enough time the creature should tire where it will not… I don’t want to give this bug the chance to find an opening to break it.

So I look down to my needle and bone marrow, and begin to sew the end to this fight into the flesh of my left palm.

Hoping that this isn’t a stupid investment of my precious and incredibly limited Ousia.