A/N - Welcome to Tall Tales About Jacob (Which is technically more Patreon Snippets)! There will be five stories about Jacob in total (two in today’s entry, three in the next). Your job as readers is to guess which ones are true and which are made up once they’re all out! Now obviously, it would be too easy to pick out ones where Jacob did something bad as the fake stories. That’s why each story ends with a Crossroads-accepted addition detailing their version of the story, wherein the foul Necromancer gets something selfish out of his actions. So the bulk of the story is the generally publicly accepted ‘not all Alters are bad’ version and at the end you’ll see what Crossroads adds to it in order to maintain their narrative.
Sitting in the backyard of their student house on the Fusion Station, Avalon ran one hand along Salten’s flank. The presence of her old Peryton friend always helped calm her down, especially after a year of barely getting to see him. And yet, in the time since Felicity had been forced to travel into the past by that Dragon Heretic, it had become increasingly difficult for even him to calm her down. Though he did try his best, as did Aylen. They all did, all the people who… who cared about her. Which was still a hard thing for the girl to understand, to be honest. She wasn't accustomed to being around so many people who wanted to make her feel better. It was just a little weird.
The truth was, what Avalon really wanted was to punch that man as hard as she could. Not that she expected that to do anything to him, strong as he was. But she could give it the old college try, damn it. God knew he deserved it. Even if he was ultimately on the side of stopping the Fomorians, that didn't mean he wasn't an arrogant jackass. An arrogant jackass who had gone gallivanting off with Felicity, without allowing her to take anyone with her. Well, anyone besides Percy, and the Revenant’s reputation for staying out of trouble wasn’t much better than Flick’s. And that was honestly what really bothered her the most. Avalon knew what kind of trouble Felicity tended to get up to at the best times, even on her own. If this Ehn fucker was taking her into actual, intentional danger for ‘training purposes’, there was no telling what sort of apocalypse they might find. What if he didn’t protect her? Not because he was physically incapable, but because he was more busy doing something else? Or just wanted her to do it for herself and didn’t step in soon enough. He didn't care about Felicity the way her family and friends did. She was nothing more than a tool for him. There was no doubt that if she did die, he would find some other tool to use and just move on. Maybe without even telling the rest of them what had happened. It wasn’t as though he seemed to care that much about communicating with people he deemed unworthy of his time, after all.
So, no, Avalon was absolutely not comfortable with the situation. Especially not now that they had found out… well, some pretty dangerous things that made her want to punch Ehn even more than she already had. If this kept up, her subconscious might just find a way to rip open a hole in space and time one minute to really pop him one.
Or at the very least, she could keep fantasizing about it.
With that in mind, she gave Salten another pat before turning her gaze to take in the others around her. Aylen, Sands and Sarah, Shiori, and Columbus. The boy was fiddling with Amethyst, his combination porcupine and armadillo cyberform, in his lap. Porthos, Avalon’s own lizard-gun cyberform, was doing his own bit of target practice in a corner of the backyard now that she had helped upgrade him to be able to use his own tail as a rifle as well as a sword. It was a gunblade. From the triumphant sounds he was making, it was an improvement he definitely approved of. Which, honestly, helped calm her down almost as much as petting Salten did.
Unfortunately, right now there was far too much for her to completely relax. Still feeling tense, she focused on Sands and did her level best not to let her anxiety show too much. “So they aren't sticking around here for long, I take it?”
The other girl shook her head. “Robin--err--Med, I guess. He’s the one with the green eyes, right? He said Stasia and Judas wanna head back out there and start tracking down leads as soon as they're refreshed and re-supplied. And as soon as they're satisfied that Rasputin won't be going anywhere. Or at least as satisfied they can be. I mean, apparently he's pretty slippery. Look how long it took them to track him down this time. But if they're going to trust anyone to keep an eye on him, it's Athena.”
Shiori grimaced, shifting around anxiously. “Can we go back to talking about this other guy they’re supposed to find, please? You know, this super-powerful, super-dangerous Necromancer whom we've never heard of.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Sarah put in quietly, looking up that way. “We have.” Her finger gestured back and forth between herself and Sands with that amendment.
Sands gave a quick nod. “Yeah, we’ve definitely heard of the guy. But… I mean, most of it’s not actually real. Just stories people tell around the campfire or whatever. Hell, I didn’t really think any of it was real, but if he actually exists then I guess some of it must be. No matter how impossible it sounds.” That last bit came as a muttered aside.
“I’ve heard of him too,” Avalon put in, though a bit reluctantly as conflicting thoughts drifted through her mind. “Some people swear they fought him, saw him, were rescued by him, chased down by him--it’s all just so… contradictory.”
“Yes,” Aylen agreed softly, looking somewhat distracted. “Some of the stories do conflict with one another. Yet I believe my mothers have both encountered him before. More than once, most likely. Not that they talk about it very much. I’ve tried to get them to tell me more, but they always insist it’s not the right time for those stories.”
That made Avalon blink over at the girl. “Bastet and Sonoma know him? Is he a friend, or… or an enemy?”
Aylen’s eyes rolled. “That’s a very good question. Sometimes they seem pretty tense when he comes up, but I don’t know if that’s because of him, or situations they’ve been in with him, or… something else. As I said, they don’t tend to get into details.”
“Yeah, that seems to be going around,” Avalon muttered. “Everything about this ‘Necromancer King’ or whatever is a contradiction. There’s just so much confusing stuff about which side he’s on or what kind of person he is. Then there’s that stone of his.”
“What stone?” Columbus asked, frowning uncertainly. “He’s got a magic rock?”
“I heard it was a stone eye,” Sands noted. “You know, a gem in place of his eye.”
Sarah, however, shook her head. “A monocle, or maybe glasses with gem lenses.”
“A rock he holds up, glasses, a monocle, a stone eye, a looking glass, I’ve heard all of them,” Avalon confirmed. “That’s part of the problem, everyone has a different story about what it is. But one thing they do know, he judges you with it.”
Shiori and Columbus exchanged uncertain glances, the latter hesitantly speaking up. “Judges you with it? What’s that supposed to mean? How does he judge you with a rock? Or whatever it is.”
Sarah was the one who answered, voice flat. “He looks at you through it. He looks at you with his stone and judges your soul, whether you’re worthy to continue living or not. Or whether you should be conscripted into his own army of the dead.”
Gulping at that, Shiori put up a hand. “S-so he really is like a Necromancer? Like Flick?”
Avalon, for her part, glanced away to frown at the distant fence. “Some people say he’s more like a god of Necromancers. Or at least the strongest one anyone’s ever heard of. Like I said, there’s a lot of contradictory stories. Sometimes he comes off perfectly reasonable, other times he’s more like a vindictive force of nature. He uses his stone to judge you, then either kills and banishes you into the nether realm, the void, the beyond, hell, whatever you happen to believe in, or conscripts you to join his army. An army he’s going to use to… maybe attack the afterlife, or take over the world, or defend it, or… whatever. Everyone has a different theory. Most of them are bullshit. Maybe all of them. Remember, I didn’t even think he was actually real to begin with. Or at least, I figured he was a bunch of different people all being lumped together as one man. Seems like the only way he could be around for so long. There’s stories about him appearing all over history, but no firm confirmation about his existence for certain? He never put down roots or left tangible evidence that he’s a real person even though he’s been around for… I dunno, thousands of years according to some people?”
“Maybe we should start from the beginning?” Columbus suggested uncertainly. “I mean, there’s stories about this guy, right? If Robin and those others are supposed to go find him, maybe we should try to figure out how to help. Which means starting with narrowing down what parts of the story are real and what parts are made up.”
“We can share some of the stories we’ve heard,” Sands offered. “No matter how contradictory they are. Just share what we know and go from there.”
Assorted murmurs of agreement met the suggestion, before Aylen, Avalon, Sands, and Sarah began to take turns telling stories to the other two. Stories about the Necromancer known as Jacob, spread throughout history.
The only question was, which of the stories were real, and which were simply tall tales?
***************
Southern California - 1852
Sitting around the campfire outside the mine they had been working in for the past three months as they tried desperately to find enough gold to make their long journey to the western coast of the United States worth it, six men struggled to bring one another’s spirits up. The truth was, if they didn’t find something valuable soon, it would be too late to sell the prize and send the money back to their families. Some of whom might not survive the coming winter without help. There was precious little food and medicine to go around back home as it was, a fact that had driven these six to cross over two thousand miles to reach this place and stake their claim. A claim which had, thus far, turned up nothing useful. Even the local game was running low, giving the men precious little to eat. As it was, they were cooking the only rabbit they’d been able to find that day, and would make a meal of that and the biscuits they’d made out of the last of their flour. Tomorrow… well, they would find gold tomorrow. They had to.
One of the men, Charlie Spooner, had just turned the rabbit on the spit and was about to suggest they try a song, when something caught his attention. The entrance to their mine was about fifty feet away, and he’d just seen some sort of light coming out of it.
Quickly shushing the others, Charlie picked himself up and whispered that they had claim jumpers. All six men grabbed their weapons, an assortment of rifles and pistols, and quietly made their way to the entrance. This mine may not have paid out yet, but surely it would soon enough. Besides, rich or not, it was their claim. Anyone who thought they could sneak in and steal from them wouldn’t live to regret that choice.
Once they reached the mine entrance, the group peered inside, weapons raised and ready to shoot. But they saw no one. Then, deep down there through the darkness, another light appeared. It was faint, and seemed to be more green than white, but it was a light nonetheless. Which meant someone was there. Someone really was trying to steal from them.
There was only one thing to do: work their way deeper inside. The six men rallied their nerves, checked to make sure there was no one else in sight around the entrance, then began to creep as quietly as possible down through the mine they had dug out. Soon, they had entirely left the light from their campfire and the stars, leaving them in darkness. But the shaft only went one way, and they could see the dim green illumination in the distance. All they had to do was keep walking toward it.
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Finally, the group reached the spot where the mineshaft curved a bit. The light was coming from around that bend, so the men knew they had to be close to the source. It was then, as they oh-so-quietly crept forward, that they saw… a large hole in the tunnel wall. This wasn’t just any hole, however. It glowed faintly green, the source of that emerald light. And through the hole wasn’t more of the cave, but what appeared to be the inside of some grand cathedral. A beautiful, ornate golden altar lay directly ahead of them, past rows of wooden pews and across lush carpet. Bright sunlight streamed in through windows of stained glass along either wall. A statue of a great bird-man holding a sword in one hand and a hammer in the other towered over twenty feet high behind the altar, nearly reaching the fall ceiling. The low droning sound of chanting reached the men, revealing the presence of parishioners in those pews. They were hard to see, in their brown robes and doubled over with their heads against their knees.
That droning sound seemed to grow louder the longer the six miners stood there in slack-jawed disbelief at what they were witnessing. It reached deep into their minds, becoming all they could hear, all they could think about. They forgot their own confusion, their fear, even one another. They forgot everything aside from the overwhelming urge to walk forward. The guns clattered into the dirt at their feet, as the group began to trudge toward the hole leading into the church.
“Ahhh no, that’s just about enough of that.” The new, entirely unexpected voice abruptly cut through the chanting. A figure walked right through the dirt wall next to that hole. He stood about five feet, ten inches tall, with short dark hair and a face that was astonishingly, ethereally handsome in a haunting sort of way. He wore black boots and pants, a black tailcoat with gold trim and buttons, matching vest, and a frilly white shirt that was barely visible at the sleeves and near the collar. He was, in a word, entirely out of place here.
The young man’s sudden appearance might have taken the group of miners by surprise and briefly distracted them from the chanting, but that didn’t last. As soon as they had processed his presence, the six began to trudge right toward the portal once more.
“Wow,” the dark-haired figure muttered, “those people really are good at the mind magic.” His hand rose, before a long red and black staff with a six inch long golden bracer at one end appeared there. The staff glowed with energy, as the man called out, “Would you mind holding these guys here?”
By that point, the miners had almost reached the hole in the wall. Before they could step through, however, glowing, ethereal spirits rose from the floor and descended from the ceiling. They caught hold of the men, dragging them back away from their destination. The miners struggled, but with three ghosts per man, there was no escape.
“Good,” the newcomer announced, “now if you’ll excuse me for a minute.” With that, he turned and walked right through the hole, emerging into the church. His staff rose, then slammed down into the floor as he spoke a single word. Immediately, dozens more ghosts poured out of the staff itself, quickly filling the room in a wild swarm. That swarm launched themselves at the chanting parishioners, who only just then seemed to realize that something had gone wrong. Swords were quickly drawn, but they were overwhelmed, disarmed, and torn through by the ghosts. There was no option for surrender, no real fight. They were simply ripped apart, killed almost where they sat without warning or mercy.
Once that was done, with the chanting over, the miners came back to themselves. They stood there, trapped by the ghosts, watching the figure through the hole as he pointed his staff and said another word, summoning some foul-smelling liquid to spray all around the church. Then he turned to walk back out, and just before stepping through the portal once more, tossed something small over his shoulder. Instantly, flames erupted throughout that church. The screams of those who hadn’t been quite dead yet joined the crackle of fire.
As the man stepped back through the hole, it vanished. The dead or dying chanters, the rapidly burning church, it all disappeared and left behind blank rock and dirt. The tunnel was still illuminated by the ghosts, who continued to hold the miners until the dark-haired man gave a flick of his fingers to dismiss them. The gesture made the ghosts release them.
“The name’s Jacob,” he introduced himself while they were picking themselves up. “Sorry, I’ve been trying to track those damn cultists down for awhile now. Turns out it’s really easy to make you gold rush people disappear without anyone really looking too hard. Makes for good sacrifices to their… ehhh I don’t wanna say god. Big snake with wings and delusions of grandeur. Not that you’ll all retain the details anyway. Do you all remember who you are?”
That prompted a deluge of questions from the men themselves about what was going on, who this Jacob was, how there was a hole in the wall leading to some church, and so on and so on. Hearing all of it, Jacob finally shrugged and turned on his heel. “Yeah, you seem to be okay. And you’ll be even better if you dig right… there.” He picked up a loose pickaxe partway through that, before hurling it straight into one of the walls. “X marks the spot. I promise, start there in the morning and you’ll get what you need. Anyway, time to go. Sorry, but there's a lot of you miners out here, and five more churches trying to resurrect Mr. Snake.” With that, he walked right back through the rock wall before any of them could stop him.
Almost immediately, their memories of the event began to fade. But the men quickly started writing down the details as best as they could. Soon, they saw the scribblings in their journals as little more than a campfire story they had all made up. But the writings, and those like them from other miners, remained.
Story One - Jacob saved over one hundred gold miners spread across several hundred miles from being sacrificed by a cult attempting to resurrect a powerful snake-Alter they saw as their god, destroying the cult and their temples in the process.
Crossroads-Accepted Corrections - All one hundred gold miners had already been employed/infected by Jacob to spread disease amongst the population in order to grow his army before proper authority could be installed in the area, and his intervention here was meant to protect that investment.
*******************
Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean - 1672
George Lawrence, of the British Ship Of The Line True Faith, stood at the edge of the deck alongside the rest of his fellow sailors. Even for a ship this size, they were crowded. There were over a thousand men gathered up as close as they could get to the edge so they could see what was happening in the distance.
They had been making a simple trip to the dark continent, still several days out from their destination, when the call had gone up from the lookout. That had brought a few people to see, followed shortly by even more. Now the entire complement of sailors were standing on the deck, gazing out at the ocean. The captain had appeared on deck to order them back to work, but even he had fallen silent when he saw what they were staring at.
A metal sailing vessel of some impossible sort. It was at least twice the size of the True Faith, with hundreds of strange-looking weapon emplacements. Its own crew, who appeared to be well-armed amphibious creatures straight out of the darkest of sailor stories, stood on the deck of that ship, cackling and taunting Lawrence and the other humans. They shouted detailed threats about what they were going to do to the other men, as well as to their families back home. Soon, despite the terror of what they were looking at, and the certainty of how impossible it was to assault a vessel made entirely of some sort of demonic steel, the captain gathered himself and began to bellow an order to man battle stations and prepare to fire. Whatever those creatures were, wherever they had come from, they would soon regret doubting the capabilities of British sailors!
“Yeah, you don’t wanna do that,” a voice abruptly spoke up, interrupting the captain in mid-sentence. It was a voice that made every sailor on the ship spin, only to behold a man who had appeared seemingly from nowhere. An achingly handsome dark-haired figure wearing a strange dark suit and silk shirt, and holding a red and black staff with a gold metal band at one end.
No sooner had the strange man presented himself to the already anxious sailors, than he was struck by no less than nine musket balls. That was how many men managed to point their flintlock pistols and pull the trigger even before any orders could be given. And yet, the man stood through the barrage, seemingly none the worse for wear. The metal balls impacted his suit before dropping to the wooden deck to roll away.
If the man even noticed the attack, he gave no indication of it, simply continuing his warning. “That ship over there is crewed by people known as the Nauchtaune. They have what you might call a very unique code of honor, and they stick to it no matter what. As long as you don't try to fight them, they can't hurt you. They can talk and threaten you all they want, but they can't lift a finger to actually hurt you. The moment you fire a single shot or try to swing a blade at them, they will tear this ship apart, and kill everyone on it. They’re trying to goad you into taking the first shot, so they can kill you all. And--wait, really?” His head turned a bit as though he was listening to someone else, before grimacing. “And eat you, apparently.”
“Now you listen to me, whoever--or whatever you are,” Captain Backhouse snapped, “we know nothing about you, or what--”
“Jacob,” the stranger put in with a slight smile that made George and at least half the other men on the ship feel stirrings deep within. “My name is Jacob. And don’t worry, Captain. I’m going to deal with this so you don’t have to. But I can’t do it from your vessel or their code will allow them to see me as part of your crew, and I don’t want to endanger you. Right now, I just wanted to explain why I have to stop you from doing anything dangerous.”
That, of course, simply prompted the captain to snap that he would not be told what to do on his own ship, that he didn't even know anything about this Jacob or where he came from, and that he certainly wasn't going to stand down from a threat, no matter how otherworldly and strange it might be. But Jacob had clearly stopped listening almost immediately. Instead, he raised his staff over his head, somehow summoning several dozen ghostly figures around him. The sight of the ghosts made the sailors stumble back and even fall to their knees in some cases. They murmured prayers, some crying out for absolution. None could take their eyes off the spirits. Superstitious as sailors were at the best of times, literally seeing ghosts on top of everything else that had happened in the last few minutes completely broke their resolve.
“If any of them try to attack, stop them,” Jacob ordered. He then took a step forward, ignoring the sailors entirely as he focused on the other ship. The taunting there had fallen silent once the stranger appeared, only to start up again, directed at the man himself as they had apparently decided he was in charge.
If Jacob was bothered by their taunts, he didn't show it. Instead, the dark-haired man lowered his head to stare at the water between the two ships. The sailors, still cowed by the ghosts and their overall fear about these bizarre circumstances, stared as well. The only sound came in the form of the taunting from the other ship as those amphibious monsters bellowed their insults and threats. But even that seemed as though they were going through the motions, while just as confused as the human sailors about what was happening.
After a few long moments like that, another sound began to drown out the half-hearted taunting. None of the sailors could figure out what it was, but it seemed to be coming from the ocean itself. Soon, a shout went up from those nearest the railing, and even more men crowded in to see the dark shape rising into view. It was an enormous thing, almost like a small island. The cries of sea monster and kraken filled the air, only to be drowned out by screams of terror as the figure fully broke the surface of the water.
It was a whale. But not just any whale. This was the single largest one any of the men had ever seen. In life, it had been what would eventually be called an Antarctic blue whale, stretching a full one hundred and ten feet long, and weighing over three hundred and thirty thousand pounds. The thing had been dead for quite some time, its body half-rotted, with large chunks eaten out of it. But those holes were filled in by glowing green ectoplasm energy, leaving it mostly solid. Dead, but solid.
The dead whale breached the surface between the two ships, before slowly turning to face the middle one. The dark-haired stranger, Jacob, took a step forward before vanishing. He reappeared just as quickly, standing on top of the monstrosity he had summoned. The human sailors watched in terrified awe, while the amphibian pirates seemed to realize something was very wrong with their plan.
And then it got worse, as the whale opened its mouth, and dozens of other dead sea creatures that had been hidden within came pouring out into the open water. The sea was suddenly alive with undead monsters. Before the pirates could react, the whale launched itself forward, crossing the distance faster than it should have been able to. With a terrifying crash, it slammed into the side of their ship, denting that impossible metal hull inward.
The cry to battle filled the air, but it was of no use. George and the other human sailors watched over the next few minutes, guarded by the ghosts, as the zombie whale, sharks, barracuda, and other fish ripped the metal ship apart piece by piece. They watched as Jacob ensured the complete destruction of that vessel, down to the last bit. They watched as he stood atop his undead whale, looking back toward them.
They watched as the dark-haired man simply raised his hand in a salute, before vanishing from sight. And with his disappearance, the whale and all the rest of those creatures sank back under the waves. The ghosts vanished from their vigil on the deck, leaving… silence behind. Silence which stretched on for so long, the men of True Faith almost believed they might have passed as well.
But they hadn’t. They had survived. Their certainty of what they had seen soon faded into myth, stories they told one another. They thought they had all made up the events.
All save for George himself. He remembered. He didn’t know why he remembered, but he did. He never forgot. He wrote down his experiences, publishing them as fiction once it was clear that no one else remembered the truth of it.
And somehow, he wasn’t even surprised almost thirty years later when Jacob himself appeared on his doorstep, looking not a day older and requesting that George autograph his copy of the book.
Story Two - Jacob rescued the entire crew of a British Ship Of The Line from an invading crew in the late 1600s by raising the corpse of a giant Antarctic Blue Whale alongside a fleet of other zombie fish.
Crossroads-Accepted Corrections - At this point, Jacob was secretly transferring his undead creations across the ocean aboard the True Faith, and couldn’t afford to allow a rival to destroy its precious cargo. This was purely a battle between Jacob and one of his opponents as they attempted to stall his rise.