~o0o~

THREE YEARS EARLIER. . .

. . . IN THE FRONT BAR ROOM OF AN INN, SITUATED IN A SMALL VILLAGE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, SOMEWHERE IN THE FORESTED COAST OF MAINE. . .. The Great Gale of 1846 had just arrived in Saco Bay and Quaraun, was seeking shelter for the night:

"Do you have a room for hire?" Quaraun asked the innkeeper.

"We do," the innkeeper answered. "Four."

"Four rooms?"

"Four rooms. Ten beds a piece."

"Tens beds? In one room?" Quaraun did not conceal his disgust at the suggestion of ten beds in a single room.

"Aye-yep. And if we are full, which we are, it being harvest time, you see. All the transient potato, blueberry, and orchard pickers are here for a few weeks. But in busy fall season, like now, ten beds per room ain't enough, so we lease space for mats on the floor. Hay provided for under the mats. You furnish your own bedroll."

"I see."

Quaraun looked around at the crowded room. Busy season was an understatement. Dozens of the apple orchards' harvest hands sat around the inn's public room.

Some talking. Others drinking.

Most, like Quaraun, were only in here to wait out the hurricane. The massive storm slammed the Gulf of Maine and trapped itself in Saco Bay, dancing circles through the massive sandbar horseshoe.

Four hundred acres of apple trees bordered the largest of the Saco Bay beaches. And if this storm had any say in the matter, most of Maine's apple harvest will have floated away in the Atlantic Ocean by morning.

Most of America's entire apple production grew on this one beach. The livelihoods of near every family in the area depended on the sale of the apple harvest. To lose the apple harvest, days before it's sale to the out-of-state merchants, would devastate the economy of every town in this region.

Merchants from around the country recently arrived here expecting to load up their ships. The ships owned by fruit merchants lined up along the Saco River Delta. All the merchants waited to load their ships' hulls full of apple barrels. They too gathered in the room, worrying about their ships, fearful of losing not only their cargo, but their ships as well.

This topic of conversation spewed from every labourer and transient picker in the room. Hurricanes rarely reached this far north, but when they did, they hit hard.

No one expected the storm.

No one knew it was coming.

Quaraun struggled to understand the Human astonishment over the storm's arrival. In his mind, it had been easy to see the storm was on its way.

Crickets stopped chirping their night time songs several nights ago. Sea gulls, pigeons, hawks, ducks, geese, and shorebirds flew inland, fleeing the coast in droves.

The brackish, salty smell of the ocean permeated the air with the sharper, heavier, rotten egg stench of sulphuric gases being churned out of the gravel. While, the already thick coastal fog became denser with each passing night.

The normally cool autumn air had become hot, thick, and humid days ago, making every sweltering day unbearable.

These signs and many more told Quaraun an enormous storm was brewing.

How had the Humans not detected the signs this storm was coming? These uneducated, backwoods Humans were all so dreadfully unprepared for this.

Quaraun marvelled that a species as stupid as Humans could massively spread across the planet like an insufferable plague of parasites. He concluded that their stupidity was precisely why they were becoming so over populated. They were too stupid to know how to do anything other than fuck each other.

The old Elf listened to the Humans in the room talking and marvelled at the levels of their sheer stupidity.

Quaraun predicted the storm's arrival a week before it showed up. But he never considered that Humans lacked skill in deciphering the symptoms of weather.

Being an Elf, reading signs of nature was natural for him. His soul's proximity to nature made it difficult for him to remember that Humans were as distant from nature as he was close to it.

Also, being a Moon Elf, especially, made it easy for the ancient Elf to foretell the weather. Moon Elves were born properly adapted to knowing the phases of the moon and its effects on the tides.

And thus, Quaraun had known weeks ago that a gale would soon arrive. Thus why he had veered off his normal coastal route and headed inland.

Like a tremendous tornado, it raged up the coastline, ripping up every house, tree, cow, horse, and boat in its track and hurling them across the sky.

The smell of salted crab and slippery uprooted kelp filled the air. The storm churned up everything laying at the bottom of the sea, and spat it out onto the sandy shoreline.

Men, women, and children huddled, frightened, in every corner of the lodge. They feared the building itself would uproot and crush them. The fierce storm beat the walls with every tree, goat, and boulder it could find to throw.

Completely oblivious to the rain, there were some children who continued to play outside, while their mothers fussed and worried frantically at the front door of the inn, begging them to come in out of the raging thunderstorm. The high winds whipped their long hair out of their buns and veils. The minister nearest the door raged that demon where carried in on the wind, to tear the cloths off of their women.

More men and women were making their way towards the building. Their arms around each other, they bowed their heads and walked on against the wind, barely able to stand.

This inn sat several miles inland, away from the coast. When the storm hit, every fisherman, merchant, farmer, and hired hand grabbed whatever they could carry and ran in a mass hoard away from the waterfront. Many stopped here, while as many more kept running further inland.

Quaraun listened to the conversations.

Farmers worrying about the loss of their apple, blueberry, and potato crops.

Merchants terrified for the safety of their ships, precariously bobbing around in the port, knocking against one another, rocking in the raging tides.

"Along the way to my friend's house," one woman said to another. "I saw several lilac bushes in bloom. Just the other day. This time of the year. When winter will arrive soon. Can you imagine? I told her it was witchcraft and do you know what? She agreed with me, that's what. It a bad omen telling us that witches are in the area. Lilacs got no right to be blooming this time of year. Spring flowers they are. But we had an Indian Summer we did, just last fortnight, and it caused all the spring flowers to bloom, when they should bury their heads under the leaves and getting ready for winter. Damned Indians cursed us with this heat all over again. Witches. Witches and Indians. Bastards. Every one."

"It's a hurricane," Quaraun interrupted the woman.

"A what?"

"It's not a curse from witches. It is a tropical storm, from the south. That is why it has been so hot. No one sent a curse to your town. This kind of weather is normal down there. Winds shifted and sent it up here. Hurricanes happen in these parts about every ten or twelves years. Just because they are uncommon up here in the north doesn't mean they were caused by witches or curses. There are no witches involved in this."

"Are you from the south?"

"No, but. . ."

"Than you got no business telling us what the south is like, do you?"

"I have been there. I resided in the cloud forests of Rupa-Rupa for a few years."

"What sort of gibberish nonsense, childish baby talk is that?"

"Rupa-Rupa? It's a country in Peru. In the Amazon Forest. In South America. I lived with the Indians down there and they are nice people. As are the Indians around here."

"And I suppose you've lived with them filthy savages too?"

"I have."

"How could you stand living with such horrible, filthy savages?"

"They are good people. Not filthy nor savage."

"Well, I just find that hard to believe. They live in tents, sleep on the ground. Keep their horses inside with them."

"Their horses will survive this storm, while the horses of this town will all be dead by morning. They care about their livestock."

"Do you suggest we should bring the horses in here with us? How revolting a notation! Think of the smell!"

"You consider not smelling them for a few hours to be more valuable than keeping them alive?"

"Horses smell. I don't see how my husband can stand them. They stink to high Heaven!"

"I wonder how your husband can tolerate the smell of you. You madam, stink from having not bathed. You simpletons think bathing is a sin and bath only once a year and you smell bad because of it. The Indians are clean and well kept, unlike the bulk of your white men are. One has only to look around this tavern to see no one in this town even knows the invention of soap happened. I can not fathom how any of you can live with yourselves, let alone with each other. It's you white Europeans who are evil and full of hate, daning to bring harm to one another. You think just because your own hearts are full of evil thoughts that everyone else's must be too. Not all people are cold-hearted, bigoted, and cruel like you, you know."

"The nerve!"

"After I lived in the south, I travelled the coast back up here again. It took me over a dozen years to walk the coast back up here. I saw several hurricanes during that time. They are fairly common in the south. Tropical storms push the heat ahead of them. There is absolutely no magic whatsoever involved in any of this. You shouldn't blame people for things they didn't do."

"And I suppose YOU would know magic if you saw it?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact I would."

"An expert in weather and magic? How do we know you're not the witch who cursed us?"

"Madam, I assure you, I am no such thing, nor have I done any such thing."

The two women snubbed their noses at him, got up from their table, and stormed across the room, where they could continue their gossip and busy bodying away from Quaraun.

Quaraun sighed and continued to make his way through the terrified crowd. He continued to eavesdrop on the conversations as he roomed around the room, looking for a quiet corner to sit in. One preferably free of Humans. The problem with being the last Elf on the planet was, there was no one but Humans around to talk to.

The majority of the crowd, who were not apple growers, were fisherman worrying that dead fish from the storm would pollute the water for months, and leave them with no fish to sell to market.

Quaraun felt no concern for the economy of this Human village.

The old Elven wizard was just wanting shelter from the rain for a few hours. However, the witch accusation brought up by those two women earlier bothered him greatly. So much so that the pink robed necromancer began listening to see if others had similar ideas.

Quaraun was a mage.

A wizard.

A necromancer.

The Pink Necromancer.

Deemed the most evil mage to ever walk the earth.

And in the minds of most Humans, this made the lonely little Elf a witch. A wizard was just a male witch, by Human logic. And Human logic in this region, stated that witches were evil and must die. They had to be burned or strangled to death. Witches did not deserve mercy. If one was found guilty of such things, they would be burnt at the stake for their crimes against society. The people called them ‘Witches’. It was a name given to them by their own kind, from whom they came.

Drowned.

Stoned.

Hung.

Burned.

Crushed.

Humans devised many ways of executing witches. And here in New England, killing witches was as common as the white steeple church congregations who did the killings.

Witches had no place in this world. Witches were a danger.

They were killed without thought for the consequences; they were killed because it was fun to do so.

A witch’s life wasn’t worth the cost of one human soul that could be saved by the Lord. It was only the right way to go, so said the ministers.

The more attention Quaraun paid to the discussions in the room, the more unsettled and disturbed the nervous Moon Elf became. And the less he wanted to be in this town at all, let alone in its over crowded inn. For the jelly-brained Elf quickly recognized that most every Human in the building maintained a witch's curse caused this storm. Many spoke of gathering pitchforks and heading into the swamp to kill the local witch and end the storm.

"Killing the witch will kill the storm," one man reasoned to another.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Aye, we gotta break the curse to save our harvests," agreed the fellow across from him.

Several more men cheered in response. Each adding his own comments of killing witches and removing the curse.

Quaraun shook his head as he listened intently, not paying attention to what they were saying. He couldn't listen for more then a few minutes without zoning out, lost in thought, unable to focus on anything but thoughts of being back at his home, back at Ivujivik, back with BoomFuzzy.

BoomFuzzy.

The memory of BoomFuzzy drove Quaraun to everything he did in his life.

Quaraun's thoughts of BoomFuzzy were broken by a couple yelling.

A couple argued about the weather as it was. Another arguing over who would win in a battle between the two.

Quaraun felt uneasy.

Talk of witches and witchcraft and evil curses filled the room.

At every table.

In every corner.

These frightened people believed a witch's curse had produced the storm. IA spell that would destroy the earth, kill all living creatures in the land, and then burn down their houses and leave them to wander the streets for years, decades to come. t was a cruel thing, to think such things and to believe them so. No one knew why the storm happened or when it started. All they knew is that it did and they feared for their lives in a way that few ever do.

And so it was with great caution that Quaraun walked among them.

A young girl with long black hair stood alone on the stairs, her hands clasped tightly around a pillow, as she stared at the wall ahead of her. Her eyes red and puffy, cheeks wet, but tears did not fall. Her terror too great to cry any more as she listened, trembling, to the minster's tales o demons crawling up out of the earth to reign fire from heaven and slaughter the wicked.

A small boy lay on his side with an arm over his face, trying to stifle his sobs and failing miserably. His mother stood behind him, her own head buried into her hands as she rocked back and forth slowly. Both more scared of the minister's tales of holy terror they they were of the raging storm.

Quaraun became more uneasy the more he listened to the hysteria filling the room. Should anyone discover the old pink robed silk merchant was also a mage, they'd murder him.

As Quaraun paid closer attention to the conversations, he also realized that all the local church congregations were here as well. None felt safe in their churches as the howling winds ripped up buildings and tossed them into the sea. They feared the monstrous Atlantic waves would sweep away their parishes.

Various groups of highly paranoid Christians sat clustered about the lodge.

Some praising the lord.

Others cursing the devil.

All had different reasons to be here. None of which involved Jesus.

All glaring daggers at each other. Huddled in opposite ends of the room from each other. Each group keeping their distance to avoid contamination by opposing doctrines. Their hatred for other Christians, more vehement than their hatred for witches.

One man was sitting at a table, staring intently at the Bible that lay before him. It was opened to Psalms. He and his wife stared at the page. He didn't speak. His hand didn't twitch. He stared in blind silence. Stricken with terror. He'd been frozen in this spot for the past hour.

Each religion claiming to be God's chosen people, while condemning the other sects to eternal damnation.

Nothing terrified Quaraun worse than Christians. Especially the extreme, hyper radical, fanatic super-Christians of northern New England. They loved to praise the Lord while also hypocritically slaughtering their neighbours.

Praised the Lord, while slaughtering innocent old women on false charges of witchcraft, voodoo, and black magic.

Murdering innocent young girls on charges of sorcery, simply for the sin of having been born with red hair or green eyes.

Every time the elegantly dressed necromancer set foot near one of these Christians, he risked his life. For Quaraun, hiding the fact that he was a wielder of magic was vitally imperative for his survival.

A minister stood in the doorway, casting demons out of the weather.

One minister was yelling at a man, accusing him of being a witch, based on the fact the man was chewing tobacco.

Another minister stood on a table raving that witches and warlocks walked among them and must be found and executed. He was waving a book over his head as he screamed out lists of ways to tell a witch. At first Quaraun thought the man was reading from a Bible, but as he stopped to listen to the passages, Quaraun soon realized it was not the Bible this preacher was reading. It was Heinrich Kramer's Malleus Maleficarum. The treatise on witchcraft, and the only book ministers, valued more than the Bible itself.

Quaraun cringed as he remembered the smell of burning flesh. He'd walked through towns, where dead witches were left hanging crushed and burned, strangled and mutilated, unburied and on public display. Left as a warning for other mages to stay away. The charred stench of the publicly burned bodies was horrific. It gave him nightmares.

The pastor on the table bothered the old Elf quite a lot. Quaraun was a mage, a wizard, a necromancer, and a priest of what this minister would consider a Pagan religion. Listening to this minister brought to Quaraun's mind many terrible old memories.

Thoughts he didn't want to think.

Quaraun just wanted to stay dry. He did not want to be reminded of dreadful events of his past. The Hanging Tree.

Memories of his father and the Moon Elves.

Horrible memories of their contempt for all things not deemed good and righteous, by their standards.

Memories of bullying and teasing, that got out of hand, and led to torture, mutilation, and murder by public execution.

Loud, angry mobs.

Violent mobs that rose out of fear.

Fear deliberately being placed in their minds by radical, charismatic fanatics.

Fanatics, not unlike the minister, who right now stood on the table, trying to rile up the locals into witch hating hysteria.

It was one of his favourite pastimes. Watching these people react in fear to his words and actions. He loved being the one to break them apart from the inside out.

“I know I'm a bit young for such an age of cynicism and distrust," the minister screamed. "But this is a war! This war is not just between two countries, it's a world of difference between them! The only reason you are here at this time of day is because we need help! You need the help of the Lord to set you free! Free from the witches who hold our town hostage this very night!”

Fear filled Quaraun's mind and soul with dread, as he took notice to the minister's hate filled words, furling hate filled furies, in the angry eyes of the men and women whom had gathered around the terror crazed preacher to cheer him on.

Quaraun made a mental note to not let anyone in this area to find out he was a mage. The last thing he wanted was to be huge up in yet another tree. Quaraun pulled his mind away from the radicals and focused on the words of the merchants instead.

Sailors.

Pirates.

Privateers.

Scurvy.

Rickets.

The sea gods, punishing land dwellers, by sending demons to stir up the cold ocean.

Goods trapped on ships in danger of sinking.

Goods stuck on docks in danger of flooding.

Perishable goods delivered to the wrong port, and not being able to get to them because of the storm.

The need to take the ships away from shore to save them from being crashed on the rocks.

The harvests, not yet gathered, and being mercilessly destroyed by the storm.

The need for a miracle, a way out. A chance.

Anything that would keep these people alive, keep the ships safe.

Money lost.

Ships lost to transatlantic gulf winds.

Even more money lost.

Money being lost seemed to be the biggest worry of the Humans. Quaraun wondered why the Humans worried so much about money.

Though Quaraun was quite wealthy and had more money than he would ever need, he also never used it. The wandering wizard appeared to most people to be both homeless and penniless. Humans laughed when the old Elf asked to buy things, thinking he could not afford them, but they then gawked when he dropped handfuls of gold coins in their laps.

Quaraun could not count. He knew nothing of math or numbers or years or dates. It was the reason Quaraun never knew his own age or what year it was, or how many days had passed from one event to the next. Why he sometimes said week, when he meant year. Why he sometimes said he was 400 years old and other times said 800. This was also why the old mage did not realize that gold coins were worth much more than common coppers. And also why he did not understand that he was giving Humans way more money than they asked for whenever he paid for anything.

Money was the biggest, number one worry these Humans possessed right now. Witches were the second.

Superstitions of sea monsters and sirens, mermaids and mermen, silkies and roans.

Curses cast by witches.

Tales of terrible squalls and suffocating typhoons, sent by evil witches to destroy the mercantile economy, force the people to not buy from grocers and instead buy from charlatan apothecaries. Or so said several of the merchants who, right now, sat in the bar.

The conversations of the merchants were not much better than the conversations of the ministers.

Equally hysterical.

Equally pointing fingers at magic casters.

Equally ready to kill any mage in the area in order to end the hurricane and save their harvests.

The farmers and fishermen were no better. Tossing around tall tales of sea witches and swamp hags, skulking around at night, poisoning water, killing fish, spiking apples with maggots and rot.

This was a superstitious lot. Anti-mage topics were spewing from every table.

There was talk of dark elves, of wyverns, and of the Dark Lord. The more people that spoke, the more they seemed convinced of the evil lurking in the forest.

There were also talk of demons.

Tales of them being the cause of the storms.

They said it was some kind of cursed curse.

It was clear no one here knew anything about nature or natural sciences, knew nothing of how weather worked, and was ready to tar and feather anyone they deemed a witch. Or wizard. It was clear to see no one here had any idea who either is was, let alone what their role could be in society, let alone in the universe itself.

Listening to the overall conversation of the majority of the crowd, Quaraun felt uncomfortable in this inn. Worse, than just being a wizard, he was a necromancer, who practiced blood magic, raised the dead, dealt in soul exchange, and summoned demons. If anyone in this room discovered what he was, these people would turn into a lynch mob fast.

Clearly, superstitions and fear of witchcraft ruled supreme in the minds of these people. Several tables sported me, gathering up self-proclaimed adventuring parties to brave the storm, head out into the swamp, and kill the Swamp Hag who lived out there.

One orchard grower was shouting, offering to pay top coin for the Swamp Hag's head, if they could kill her before the storm destroyed all of his crops.

Three merchants were haggling over the price of one self-proclaimed mage hunter whom they each wanted working for them and not the other two.

The people of this region were terrified of witches and were blaming every ill fated event they meet on one witch: Ghirardelli, The Swamp Hag.

The price for her head was being bargained over drinks, as more and more men, stumbling drunkenly forward, bragging tales of how they had once killed this or that witch and were well qualified to rid their town of the scourge that was Ghirardelli.

Quaraun knew of Ghirardelli. She was a friend of Finderu's. Finderu was the leader of The Guild of Wizardry. Ghirardelli and Finderu were responsible for most of the wanted posters of Quaraun.

Ghirardelli the Swamp Hag was well respected in the mage community. If she lived long enough, she likely would take over as leader of the Guild one day. Quaraun was looking for Finderu. And if anyone knew where to find Finderu, it'd be Ghirardelli. And thus Quaraun had come to this region looking for Ghirardelli.

But Quaraun was old, and in frail health. He moved slowly and walked with a cane. Aching bones and creaking joints kept him from travelling as far or as fast as he would like. And so, Quaraun had wandered these parts for several years, moving from town to town, village to village, swamp to swamp, sea port to seaport, in search of anyone who knew the whereabouts of Ghirardelli the Swamp Hag.

Everywhere he went, the story was the same: everyone had heard of Ghirardelli, but no one knew for sure where she lived, or even if she was actually real at all. Many believed her to be nothing more than a bedtime story, parents told to naughty children to scare them into staying out of the swamps at night.

And so Quaraun had meandered through the swamps and forests along the coast, searching in vain these past several years for any hint of where Ghirardelli might live.

It was by sheer luck and pure accident that he wandered into this random inn and found it rife with the conversation of gathering parties of heroes together to hunt down and kill the infamous Swamp Hag.

Heroes.

Off to kill the wicked old witch.

Heroes.

Murders of the innocent.

Masters of slaughtering elder women.

Elderly women, branded as witches, for no other reason than young people, inherently hate the elderly.

Elderly women, murdered at the hands of thug like gangs of gold hungry men, killers for hire, killing in the name of doing good deeds.

Skilled at killing the so-called changeling children.

Mentally disabled children with learning disabilities, branded as demons and changelings left by Faeries, branded as evil, by incompetent parents who couldn't be bothered to admit their child was retarded. Easier to claim some elderly woman was a witch, and hire a pack of greedy, bloody thirsty hero to kill them both.

Children, branded as monsters, slaughtered by heroes, murdered by killers for hire. Gangs of 4 or 5 men banded together under the guise of being an adventure party. Singing bards and drinking pints, with the blood of the innocent still dripping from their swords.

Off to kill the big, bad, terrible monster, returning with tales of glorious conquests. Quaraun had seen plenty of these so-called bands of heroes in his lifetime. There was never a genuine hero among them. Nothing but ravenous packs of bullies, greedy, money hungry bullies, who hired themselves out as warriors to rid your town of evil.

Quaraun wondered what made heroes think they were heroic.

What was more heroic?

Killing the elderly after falsely accusing them of witchcraft?

Or killing the mentally retarded children falsely accused of demon possession?

Heroes. That's what every self-righteous killer called themselves. Quaraun found these so-call do-gooders to be the most repulsive life forms of all. Using religion and hysteria as an excuse to commit murder.

Though he admitted he couldn't complain too much without being a hypocrite. Quaraun had killed enough of these adventure parties in his lifetime. They were always adding his name to the list of big bad boss villains in need of battling. He hated them and their ego evilness, that they paraded around as heroics and bravery.

Quaraun liked to be left alone, left to do his own thing. Weaving and sewing silk. But he was old, and he had eccentric habits and quirks that branded him as evil. A witch. A demon. Endless groups of warriors, rouges, rangers, bards, and assassins had hunted him down. Travelled great distances to seek him out. Seek him out and kill him. The big bad super boss villain. That's what they always called him.

Idiots.

Though Quaraun rarely used magic and preferred to live life as a normal unmagical being, he was, in fact, the most powerful mage the universe had ever known.

Foolish Humans.

Four or five of them would arrive.

Taunt him.

Tease him.

Bully him.

Threaten him.

Challenge him to a duel.

A fight to the death.

Expecting to win.

Expecting him not to flay their minds with a simple thought.

Expecting him, a psionic Elder Brain, living in the body of an undead Elf, to not obliterate their brains, with nothing more than a blink of the eye, a twitch of the nose, or a wave of the hand.

Quaraun's powers were incomprehensible.

In nearly a thousand years of life on this Earth, no one had yet defeated him. They branded him as the world's most feared evil super villain. The world's most feared and most powerful sorcerer.

And yet these silly bands of Humans, calling themselves adventure parties and heroes, continually hunted him down, expecting to kill him, expecting to take him down, expecting to be the one to defeat the infamous Pink Necromancer.

Quaraun shook the thoughts of past adventurers he'd killed out of his mind. Right now, it was more important to focus on the mob like citizens who were organizing groups of adventurers to seek the supposed cause of this massive storm: Ghirardelli, the Swamp Hag.

"She's usually hanging around that Finderu," a man said to his buddies at the table.

Finderu?" Quaraun whispered.

The old Elf spun around and approached the table. He knew caution was needed here, as Quaraun must find Finderu without these people discovering who he was.

"Excuse me?" Quaraun addressed the man who had mentioned Finderu. "When you say Finderu, do you mean the sorcerer Finderu the Masked?"

"Aye. That's the one."

"Does he live around he?"

"Who wants to know?"

"I do."

"What'cha want him for?"

"What? I WANT to kill him."

"What'd he do to you?"

"He killed my friend. I've been looking for Finderu for years."