Ch: 151 Time In A Bottle
Rootedbear swung his massive club in a sweeping arc, laying waste to a swathe of the weak, shambling filth. Even a glancing blow of his weapon sent the wretched things tumbling to the soil, where they decayed into inoffensive, fertile earth in a few minutes.
His companions watched in fascination, as he swept the small wetland meadow of the restless dead like a farmer reaping grain. Vile, stinking, disgusting, squishy and moaning grain…
“That thing really is an enchanted weapon… I thought he was just mad…” Runningtree whispered.
The big man held what amounted to an uprooted tree. It began with a finely turned handgrip, comfortable and sensible. From there it was simply a long trunk of golden wood, studded and knobbed with branch stubs and ending in a jagged root ball.
Elaborate inscriptions in some foreign language spiraled up the first few inches above the two handed grip, inlaid in yellowed bone.
When the last filthy abomination had been swept into the beyond, he unrolled a scroll, comically small in his hands.
Hungry Root, enchanted club, spiritual enchantment. Rank, copper. Quality, rare. Elemental affinities: Earth, Light, Death, Decay, Entropy.
Effect: Deathly Vigor, while actively wielding weapon, stamina costs related to combat are reduced and stamina regeneration is increased. Wielder suffers minor mana drain while in combat.
Undead struck by weapon may contract Affliction: Spectral Decay.
Spectral Decay: Affliction, causes rapid dissolution of undead matter and energy. Base chance to inflict: twenty percent, scaled against: Rank, Will, Mind, Animus, Might and Resilience. Incorporeal or intangible entities can be affected.
“He said this was its information… but I can’t read.” The giant mumbled. Larksong was busily stringing the compact shortbow the mad boy had given her on the way out.
“Who’d believe him… it looks like a child’s first bow…” She complained bitterly. “Shoot down ghosts and the dead without any arrows, he said… madness…”
She came back with a tiny bow of golden fig wood, backed with delicately engraved, monster bone slabs and strung with braided trapdoor spider silk.
Reap The Wind, enchanted bow, spiritual enchantment. Rank, copper. Quality, rare. Elemental affinities: Earth, Light, Wind, Death.
For a minor mana and stamina cost wielder may conjure an immaterial arrow on the bowstring. Arrow impact is harmless to living entities and non living objects.
Non corporeal, spiritual, or undead creatures, regardless of physicality or tangibility may be struck with any projectile flung from this bow.
Any entity that is struck by this weapon or its projectiles may contract Affliction: Breath Of Life.
Breath Of Life: Affliction, victim gains a slow heal over time effect, at the cost of a minor mana and stamina drain. Stacking, additional instances increase strength and duration of all effects. Base chance to inflict: twenty percent, scaled against: Rank, Will, Mind, Animus, Might and Resilience. Incorporeal or intangible entities can be affected.
If target has no living or mortal essence, all effects are greatly increased.
Larksong scanned the treeline searching for just one more shambler, she was disappointed. Her brother was just too thorough.
“Could have left one or two… now I’ll have to wait. You know I love new toys!” She sulked at the giant and continued scanning the treeline.
Rummel’s pack of fresh greenies were spread out, tidying up any twitching remnants under the guidance of old man Lubu. That geezer had been putting unclean things to bed in nice clean soil longer than most people ever suspected.
His kids showed the benefits of that long experience as they moved across the field with shovels and machetes. Enough of them had those little bronze fresh air charms, that things were very pleasant, especially for being in a mangrove swamp infested with packs of wandering mindless undead.
Several of the kids had little leather belt cases with insect repellent cartouches on the lid and tiny cubes of violet wax inside. Those things were worth their weight in silver in the field.
They were followed by a number of local youths, who were all equipped with the insect repellent magic as well. Every evening the crazy swamp kids would take off their little brass moons and stars, take big nets on hoops and scamper through the wetland meadows.
They spent a few minutes collecting the skeeters that came to feast on their tender flesh, laughing and swinging their nets. Once they were unable to stuff any more of the wretched things in their big baskets, they retired to their camp inside the Adventurer’s perimeter to do whatever they did with the awful things.
Baskets of lumpy, grayish purple, dried glands landed in the back of Gannet’s cart every evening, to the absolute delight of the cleric of Healer in charge of the swamp urchins.
Larksong and Gannet were sitting on a fallen mangrove together, feeding a basket of skeeter remnants to the fish, swarming below their feet.
“This is the strangest undead infestation any of us have ever seen… even old man Lubu is at a loss…” She told her tradesman beau. “If you have to run, do it. You will not lose face in our sight, we are combatants, this is our work…” She giggled madly.
“Rootie is especially offended by this situation. He is equally enamored of his new toy… speaking of which… hold still lover.”
She eased back, slipping the silly toy bow from its case at her hip. It was only twenty inches of steeply curved wood and bone with a bit of silk. The thing felt absurdly light, yet it had a mass to it that spoke of careful craft and strength.
She drew a sight on some shadows a few dozen yards away, under a spreading willow. With a quick and easy motion she pantomimed flinging an imaginary arrow into the dark.
Something sped by Gannet’s ear… no doubt simply the thrum of a plucked string…
A soft, strangled gasp sounded from the shade of the willow, as a plump, charming, middle aged woman staggered out from the shadows, with a gleaming arrow of silver lodged in her eye.
She took a single stumbling step, giggled and evaporated into a glittering sparkle of silver motes that drifted into the clear sky.
“Was she... Smiling at you?” Gannet gagged and spat, horrified and deeply confused.
“She was a ghost, a moaning, reaching wraith… until I shot her with my new toy.” She said softly . “Oh, Gannet, your palms are sweaty… there’s vomit on your sweater…”.
#
“Mom’s spaghetti!” Gary sang with joy, as he crunched into a slice of garlic toast, slathered in red sauce. “You girls… How do you do that?” He sighed happily.
“Wasn’t easy, you were hardly ever there when she made the sauce…” Becky said with a smile.
“I only had one shot, one opportunity…”
It was nice to be home, especially since the big white yacht had cast off and moored along shore, across the way. The double wide, green one with the embarrassing name remained firmly attached, unfortunately.
Becky had conjured a thorny hedge overnight, since the sailors and guards kept tromping across the garden beds and flowers. Now there was a path from the moorings to the market road that skirted the waterside, with a very prickly boundary.
Once more the house was a tranquil oasis, despite being filled with wiggling, giggling kids. The public baths were too strong an attraction in the warm, spring midmorning.
Tawny’s flotilla of preggos and geezers still clogged the private pool, adding in a delightful savor to his aura, as Gary slipped downstairs to work on his projects in solitude.
#
Khan followed the baron and his four guards on their long trudge to Wheatford. He maintained a discreet distance, monitoring, not mothering them. At the mid range of bronze rank, the two late iron rank warriors, Amos and Orlando were not going to spot him unless he allowed it deliberately.
Their leader, Leroy, was early in copper rank and very skilled, that one at least suspected. Khan made a small game of encroaching on the utter limits of the young man’s senses, then gently withdrawing.
The older Warrior kept him at a high level of alert, without presenting any perceptible threat. Annie stepped delicately through the woods, preternaturally quiet while under the influence of his stealth gift.
What would he learn, could he read a printed description of his own gift?
If he could gain insight into its workings and discover how it muffled his steps and concealed both the warmth of his body and breath and his scent as well…
Those were thoughts for his evening meditation… Shai was as good as her word, She had promised to send one of her myriad cousins to give them a ride. A carter came rumbling up the South Farm Road, overtaking the trudging group.
The baron’s party flagged the farmer down and took a comfortable, if less dignified ride into town in his hay wain.
#
Leroy suspected they had been under friendly observation since the little family had vanished, but had yet to clearly identify his lurking watcher. Whoever it was, they were skilled and careful… and had allowed him to perceive them.
“Yes, my lord, we are still being watched. Whoever it is, they are stronger and more skilled than I.” He said, calmly, while secretly enjoying the challenge his elder was presenting.
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Holloman kept sulking, nearly buried in hay, but he was at least quiet. Leroy had few illusions that Timarch would learn from his near miss with a serious misstep in his lege lord’s liege’s lands.
Raiding that house and capturing the personal stock of the duke’s own household would have been at least a crippling scandal and loss of face… At worst, that was the kind of ‘misstep’ that got lords summarily un-lorded, at the shoulders.
It was a mixed blessing, that they would be in Wheatford by nightfall. He had visited Wheatford before and knew the hospitality of the orphanage there well. There would be good food and warm beds.
Perhaps even a bit of time off for each of them, since only one guard could accompany a baron in his lord’s town, by tradition. It seemed things might be looking up for a few days.
That also meant that they would be stuck taking turns following their lord around as he made a general nuisance of himself. The man was dull, duller than a hammer. His idea of a good time involved brothels, too much wine and passing out, none of which were likely to be happening in Wheatford.
His other great passion was indentured Adventurers. He had nearly impoverished himself in buying Leroy, a fact he pointed out while drunk and denied when sober.
Leroy had been head boy at the Port Fallon orphanage, where Holloman had noticed him on the practice yard working his sword forms under Old Lubu’s instruction.
Leroy had been touched by Wind and Light before he came to the orphanage and Lord Eglund had bargained for his contracts personally, intending to add him to his own guard. The bidding had been fierce, too fierce, the baron had been unable to purchase another top tier orphan since.
Leroy loved his team… but they were not warriors at heart.
Like most indentured Adventurers, they were just orphans, shoehorned into the mold of warriors and Contracted with the best the baron could afford.
Poor Orlando had it the worst. Holloman saw no value in a contract with Beast for the unfortunate warrior, that would require a shaman of that spirit travel to the baron’s seat of Fort Rye, to execute the Contract, War was much more conveniently located.
Now the poor lad’s gifts for horsemanship and equestrian endurance were a shattered curse, forever. He could urge any horse to unbelievable speeds and feats of strength, at the cost of the poor animal’s life, collapsing in a shuddering, gasping nightmare of wracked flesh.
The boy loved horses… all the horses.
#
Maple strolled the lonely hillside grove, caressing a tree here or a bush there, intoxicated by the vibrant energies tumbling and swirling through this tiny realm.
“This is something we have done before, Liam. For you, Axio and I will take this infant under my boughs and see what can be made of it. My grove will protect the local area from its influence and threat. Axio will contain it as it becomes more stable. If it truly has awareness we will guide it, for a time… we will need a day or three, to prepare a place.” She winced uncomfortably.
“Tell the boy to sew it into a bag of its own leather for now… that iron can is giving it nightmares.”
“A bag of its own leather, Maple? Now I’m going to have nightmares.” He sighed.
“You animates are so attached to your parts and pieces… were I to pluck one of your plums, Tawny would borrow that Ironmonger’s shovel…” She sang softly, while offering him a plum, plucked from her orchard of boughs, blossoms and fruit.
“Best you leave my plums alone then, lady Maple.” He answered wryly. I can’t thank you enough for helping with this project, as well as the rest of my forbidden grove.”
His golden fig up on the stoney hilltop was showing the first sign of forming a maw. Even from here, the spreading aura of forbiddance was faintly present. As it rooted, that aura would spread and deepen, repelling any thinking, self aware entity.
To ghosts, shades, wights and fragmentary souls it was a potent draw. They thrived in zones of forbidding and ominous mana, enacting their strange parody of the mortal life cycle. That bizarre phenomenon began with their death, ending with dissolution through the veil, into the waiting maw of the Devourer.
Until they passed from this world, the gaze of living sentients would agitate their energies, creating chaotic effects… commonly referred to as ‘hauntings’.
Left to their own devices, they would wander unseen in their tiny land of the dead. They would spend their time re-enacting mundane moments of their lives and eventually, either dissolve, or be taken by the tree and purified.
By summer, only non sentient beings would be able to wander freely around the little vale of mixed maples and softwood… Or those touched by something uncanny and steeped in outer realms.
On the hillside, a gallows pear was just rooting, Liam was unsure how it would manifest. Gary’s barely heard and hardly seen bat friend seemed excited, fluttering on the edge of his perceptions.
She perched in Maple’s tree, hanging upside down from an upper bough and chirped at him in tones that no mortal ears could hear.
“She says that the fruit this tree will bear can help stave off death’s creeping touch on mortal flesh… the translation is very imprecise.” Maple said apologetically. “I am not fluent in bat, her dialect is particularly rich in idiom and subtext”
“I envy Gary and Shai’s ability, even though I’d never known there were other tongues before…” He sighed.
“Your own gifts and boons will grow and expand… I sense you are ready to take another step, another Contract.” She stroked the chin of her puppet body thoughtfully.
“Perhaps it is time that you step into the outside, through your friend. Meet me by the waterside, where Becky dwells some night, sweet Liam.” She smiled brightly, like sunbeams through spring green branches.
“If you would become something new and beautiful, in this old world.” She waved him away, smiling still. “Run off, I will tend these young strays for you. Consider my offer.”
He and Luna rode back together in the late afternoon, coming down from the near foothills, as yet another boat pulled up to the dock. Esperanza made fast to the pier and waved up at the house, knowing that most likely, she was already under attack.
#
A shining blue projectile blasted through the air and caught her across the waist with a grappling hug, nearly pitching them both off into the water.
“Ranza!” Amy’s call rang off the water and seemed to circle in the sky, like raptors, wheeling above signs of prey.
“Careful love… modulate your tone, sing a counter… it’s good practice.” Becky whispered to the happy girl.
She sighed and raised her face from Esperanza’s skirts. The tiny girl let out a low, droning call, ending the strange echo.
“Those wern’t killin’ words…” She sulked. “I was callin’.” She buried her face back in those sensible woolen skirts.
“You know Shai worries about that, it scares her.” Becky soothed. “Come on, it’s naptime.”
“Nuhh, uhh! Ranza’s here…” She fussed and pawed at her eyes, as Wilford and Rio came toddling out.
“This one could use a nap… if only someone could show me the way… the house is so different!” She hoisted her azure assailant into a hug carry combo and followed the boys inside.
“Trade has been good… even with Gary’s chocolate deadweight... Gods and spirits… listen to this one! Even with the stricture to only barter for chocolate, we have done very well.”
She laughed softly while curling up with the little ones. “This one bears letters from half of the cities and towns in the region demanding we cease and desist our chocolate trade…”
She grinned sleepily and pulled Amy to her bosom. “From the other half? Demands for our trade… but that is talk for later, this is naptime.”
#
Falco the dolphin found the deep, slow moving pool ideal for his purposes. Before long, a small swarm of children had gathered on the embankment. He hammed it up for baitfish, doing stunts and tricks for bribes until Esperanza came out and scolded him.
Early evening was settling in for a long stay, the boat was unloaded, riding high in the water while she traded first at home, then tomorrow, in town.
Things were looking up for trade boat Esperanza and her crew. Dante had been iron rank for a year, now the other boys were on the edge of joining him.
Esperanza shivered with joy as she felt over her Contracts. One with Beast, finally complete and no longer causing a raging tempest in her emotions. One with Joy and another with Wind.
Three Contracts, for the illegal orphan girl, doomed to have none, or be enslaved. She shivered again, feeling that watery tickle left behind by that spirit’s visit. Soon it would be four. Things were looking up indeed.
She caught sweet Shai in the kitchen, cooking for her little ones with a smile of peaceful bliss on her face.
#
“Tis just crowded enough, methinks…” Shai muttered, surveying her domain. A half dozen round tables scattered near the bar, an open dance floor in front of the bandstand, bearing the drumkit and Pianoforte. Instruments lined the walls all around, on racks, hangers, shelves, even dangling from hooks.
Nearly every level, non danceable surface that was not a dining table had some kind of smallwares or musical instrument on display. Her family, comrades, friends and neighbors were mingling. Her children were playing on the stage, making a lovely noise under the direction of some spirit or other. Gary was… where was that boy?
She extended those strange, preternatural senses that had bloomed in her mind so many weeks ago. No Gary in the house, nor in the yard… Even out to the very periphery, there was no sign of him.
“Becky, where be that fool of mine?” She asked sweetly, making Becky’s blood run cold.
“Workshop… cultivating his aura he said… that was like… a few hours ago.” She felt out with her own connection to the house on instinct…. Nothing.
A subtle urgency spread over the Bathing club members, as they searched the house with physical and occult senses.
Finally, Ivy called Otho over. “Go find Gary, get him!”
The giant mutt strolled over to the workshop door and sat down, expectantly.
“In the workshop?” Becky asked in confusion. The dog seemed certain, he was also certain he was not allowed in the workshop anymore… even though they had all those tasty bones, sticks and hides down there.
They trooped downstairs and found… no Gary. Just a dark, empty workspace, with looming forms in the improbable distant darkness. Seahorse drifted by, all her lamps lit, seeming about a mile away.
“Ohhh.. I don’t like that…” Ivy muttered, looking ill.
“Yeah, it’s getting weird down here as he nears rank up. You can’t really stumble out of the universe down here, if you go too far you find yourself back at the stairs.” Becky called as they spread out to search.
“Too far is pretty subjective though, some people can go pretty far out there…” She stopped talking when Ivy took five unsteady steps and found herself looking up the stairs.
“Yeah, some people can walk pretty far…” Becky said, from a distant lumber rack, near his quarried stone supplies.
“Shh! Quiet!” Liam called.
Silence fell, just the soft sound of the air duct drawing above the forge and foundry… and a soft rattling moan.
“Loose baffle in the vents…” Tallum said with certainty. “I’ll track it down and fix it.”
“Aye, track it down… tis nae any baffle; tis me baffled fool, but muffled summat…” Shai followed her ears, skulking closer to the faint, rhythmic sound.
The whole tribe stalked through the dark… whatever the hell Gary was, together. They came around a huge stack of peeled logs and found him, playing his viola, dressed in shining white, loose pants and an open necked shirt, held closed with an emerald green sash.
His head was crowned with a flat topped, conical hat of gleaming white silk, with an emerald green tassel.
No, I’m never gonna do it
Without the fez on…
No, I’m never gonna do it
Without the fez on…
“Gods, more Steely Dan…” Liam grumbled.
“I be more concerned by the venue, Liam…” Shai complained, staring at her madman in consternation and worry.
The strange, compelling music was barely audible, because he was slowly twirling in place… inside Wicklowe’s giant apothecarie’s jar.
The lid was cracked open, with a stick of lumber, so he didn’t smother his fool self… otherwise, it was pretty intensely upsetting.
He finished his song, eyes closed, still slowly twirling in place, as he strummed the chords idly. Feeling their gaze he opened his eyes and smiled.
“Hi gang! Sensory deprivation training…” He shouted from so very far away.
“I’m having some creeping aura issues. Gotta get that on a leash…”
“Gary, me love, sweet man… Get thyself out of that great damned pickling jar, ‘ere I seal it shut an forget that ye are down here… fer a time.” Shai called in a tone that cut through six inches of enchanted glass and made his blood run cold.
The poor boy nearly fell over himself, pulling a step ladder from between his buttcheeks and clambering up. He shouldered the heavy glass stopper back on his jury rigged… ‘scaffold’ was far too grand a term.
He shoved the stopper back on his wholly inadequate hodgepodge of scrap lumber and climbed out of his suicide bottle.
“Ok, in hindsight that was probably stupid… but I think it helped.” He sang happily, once he had been decanted. “Ducky suggested I try completely withdrawing all my gifts… it’s harder than you might imagine.” He stretched and touched his toes a few times.
“That makes no sense, you just stop using your gifts and they stop…” Liam complained bitterly.
“Entrainment is the problem, your heartbeats are always tugging at mine, that makes it hard to keep in time… I already struggle with that.” He smiled happily as he spoke, though the smile failed to reach his eyes, or soften his rigid posture.
They ambled upstairs in a group, chatting aimlessly. Trying to ignore most of Gary’s input until he said:
“...so now my aura has slippery, sneaky threads of animal hunger and undying, parasitic need, that I can barely sense, never mind control…” The whole troop stopped cold as he marched on. “What?”
“Hungry… Parasitic… Undying. Those are not good words to string together Gary.” Tawny muttered quietly.
He glared at his suddenly silent friends. “Why do you think I was meditating in a damn corpse bottle? Even after I washed it, it’s still creepy.”
At the doorway he paused, whirling on them and waggling a finger. “No more sneaky nobles in my bath… Tawny, your friends, parents and patients are fine… stray nobles get the public baths. Especially that Holloman tool…” He growled.
“That other guy needs to get his big ass boat off my pier as well… Ritchy Rich is getting no more free mooring, if he can’t even come by to say hello…” He vanished into the private baths still griping.
“Maybe I should become the lich king of a dead and blasted land… Finally get some respect for the work I do…”
“Oh, he’s cranky… we’d better exercise him tomorrow.” Becky muttered.
#