Shimmering eyes of iridescent blue stared through the vastness of infinity. A weathered, wrinkled brow tightened in contemplation, tightened further into frustration, before releasing in tired exasperation. An exhausted sigh left the lips of the exhausted ancient.
“Vestri corpi, vedveci.”
“This is it, then.”
He whispered in a tongue not heard by mortal ears in countless millennia.
The primordial wizard produced a pipe from the starry void he currently occupied, took a few choice puffs, then slumped into a comfortable armchair. The void glimmered, dissipating from around him. Scrolls and tomes took it's place in an innocuously quaint room awash in warm hearth’s firelight.
The oddly shaped hat atop his head, made of down from some fowl or another, tilted forward by it's own volition to cover his eyes. Bony fingers pinched leathered nose bridge as he shook his head.
“Two, perhaps three days.”
He considered, briefly, taking a nap… but thought better of it. No, although plans and machinations had been in play for longer than the Second Moon had formed around this dying world in a dying realm, there was still much to do before eyes could finally rest.
Much to do.
With one final huff, followed by a prolonged puff, the wizard stood. Power gathered, eyes shimmered, and reality itself contorted at the behest of the eldritch eternal.
*****
Miguel sat in the middle of his dorm room, papers strewn across the floor in haphazard piles, in nothing but a festive scarf and underwear.
Three papers due by 8 am, two discussion board posts by 9, and a partridge in a pear tree - he hummed to himself.
“It's fine. I pass with B’s even if I don’t do anything for the rest of the semester.”
Placing his thoughts of questionable priorities aside, he refocused on the task at hand: finishing the campaign he'd been writing.
He folded over himself, outstretched in an awkwardly defiant pose that refused standing and gravity alike, snatched his laptop off his bed, and turned the volume up to max.
Mariah Carey serenaded to holiday cheer even louder, crackling the cheap laptop’s speakers.
Miguel set the laptop beside his criss-crossed legs and grabbed one of the many sourcebooks from the pile. “Of Myth: Myth Maker’s Manual” the hardcover read.
Flipping through the guidebook to an earmarked page, he jotted down a few notes in the open document on his laptop.
His phone buzzed from atop his bed as he finished.
Deciding olympic-level acrobatics and contortionism to be impractical, he instead stood, stretched, and grabbed his phone.
Vic:
Hey y'all, can't make it tomorrow. Failing chem and need to do a bunch of makeup work. Sry 😔
Jarrett:
Lmao you literally have me shit for saying I want to cancel the session! But actually tho, I'm cool with that I'm pretty behind to.
Jarrett:
*gave
Jarrett:
*too
Kathy:
😆 you are NOT an English major.
Jarrett:
I knooooowww 😭 RIP 💀
Vic:
Lol okay now I don't feel like such a jerk!
Kathy:
Nope, still a jerk. Apologize to Miguel.
Vic:
I'm sorry Miguel!! I promise to make it up to you! Can we reschedule for after break?
Miguel stared at his phone for a few minutes, the song coming to an end in the background.
He began to reply… He deleted the message. He started typing again, frowned, then held his phone for several seconds. His gaze wandered to the corner of his room where an equally disheveled mess of wrapping paper, ribbon, and tape laid cluttered around three perfectly wrapped boxes. Each was topped with an immaculately tied bow.
“To: Victor”
“To: Kathy”
“To: Jarrett”
Backspace.
Backspace.
Backspace.
Miguel locked the phone and tossed it on the bed. He walked over to his nerdy nest of notes and began organizing everything into neat piles while putting pencils, erasers and cardstock into his desk drawers. The next song started to play. George Michaels’ voice cut through his melancholy like a stocking slap from Santa to the face.
He walked back over to the bed before unlocking the phone.
Miguel:
Don't worry about it guys!! We’ll finish up after break, but no complaints about the theme not working (I planned for a Christmas spectacle and refuse to change it 😤)
Kathy:
I hope we liberate sweatshop gnomes making toys in a factory from their hill giant boss Mr. Kringle.
Well now I have to change the entire premise, thought Miguel.
Jarret:
I'm brimging eggnog!!!
Jarret:
Autocorrevt hates me 😞
Vic:
Nah you just have meaty fingers 🖐️
Vic:
Thanks Miguel!! Have a good break y'all ☃️🌲
Kathy:
❤️
Jarret:
🍖👋
Miguel smiled at the phone, then closed the group chat. He opened his camera app, was briefly horrified by his long-haired and unkempt reflection peering back at him through cracked screen, and swiftly opened the images album. He scrolled for a bit, but found what he was looking for near the bottom.
A man. A woman. Two children, both boys. The older boy was maybe 10, the younger around half that or so. They all wore disgusting, matching Christmas sweaters. It was a family tradition, or so Miguel had been told. The woman wore a familiar scarf. Miguel buried his face a little further into it.
It was the last year they wore the sweaters. It was the last year for a lot of things.
Christmas was always the hardest time of year. While he didn't remember the ugly sweater tradition, Miguel’s most vivid memories were of Christmas. That last Christmas.
He put the phone away.
Miguel laid back on his bed and stared up at the ceiling fan.
How did my socks get up there?
He jumped up on his bed, shakily stood on his tippy toes and snagged the pair of socks draped over the fan blades.
They were long and red with small gingerbread man cookies patterned evenly about the surface. He slipped his feet into each one. He liked these socks. They matched his mother’s scarf.
Miguel got down from the bed and went to continue cleanup. Then, in the same way a person can't be truly prepared for a nuclear detonation, brain aneurysm, or a sudden car collision that kills half their family and leaves the remaining broken in ways that can never truly be fixed… it all went bad. All at once.
There was a tearing sound. Maybe. Miguel had no time to decipher any meaning from any of it. He remembered smelling the color blue. Or maybe the idea of the color blue. There was definitely the color blue. Then pain. Then three men, in his room, in front of him. Or maybe the three men were first, followed by the pain. It didn't really matter the exact order. Pain.
They each were holding something - a spherical object in their hands. The spheres glowed blue with intricate patterns spiraling across their surfaces. Tendrils of blue plasma emanated from the objects, forming together into one cohesive mass, and passed right through Miguel’s stomach. Pain.
Miguel had never felt pain quite like it. He'd been in physical pain before, sure. Multiple life-saving surgeries that a 5 year old should never have to experience. Miguel knew physical pain. This was worse. Bright lights flashed, a wailing car horn, screeching tires, his mother screaming.
The pain returned him to the present.
He still heard, his mother screaming? Oh, he thought in brief lucidity. I’m screaming.
The three robed men had looks of shock and horror that nearly matched Miguel’s own. They stood, in a triangular formation, staring directly at Miguel.
They stared… And stared… Antonio’s eyes stared through him in the backseat. Miguel forcibly shut his own to shake the image from his head. He opened them once more. He was back in his room. Back in the present.
Miguel realized, despite the searing agony, the three men weren't moving. No, that wasn't quite right. They were moving, but at an almost imperceptible pace. Their eyes blinked as if they were in a slow motion scene in an action film.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
He started to hyperventilate.
Pain. Pain. Pain. None of this made any sense. Was he dying? Dreaming? Did he die in that car all those years ago? On the countless operating tables? Was any of this real? Where’s mom? Where’s Antonio? Why, dad, why?… Who in the what are they why are they here in the how can I no, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO, MOM, N-
Miguel felt something brush against his consciousness, like cool water poured from delicate hands on a small burn. The pain eased. Not completely gone, but… lessened. Enough that he could breathe. Enough that he could think.
“শান্ত, ডেকা।”
An inhuman voice echoed in his mind. It spoke in words that were not words. It made sounds that his brain could not parse. Sweat trickled from his forehead as he struggled to focus. He tried, and failed, to form words - to reply to the voice. It was like parts of his body couldn’t keep up with his mind. Although the pain ebbed, Miguel felt panic creeping back into his thoughts.
“Do bist Njo. Bjonne dit der vurden dyo't jol brûke?”
The voice in his head returned. It sounded similar in pitch and tone, an androgynous sounding voice with an almost melodic quality, yet the words spoken were almost recognizable as speech.
He felt… he didn’t feel it in the literal sense, but Miguel “felt” hands gently touch his mind. It was invasive, but not entirely unpleasant. If he had to put it in words, for simply the sake of relating something to the experience, it reminded him of when his mother would put his shirt on for him in the mornings. Forceful yet tender. Feminine in form, or perhaps maternal in nature. After a few moments of caressing rummage, the imaginary hands retracted.
There was a long, deep, contemplative pause. Miguel realized he was afraid the presence was gone, for good. He wasn’t sure why he feared this. However, the moment passed and the voice spoke.
“Curious, young one. A curious language, a curious world…. A curious mind. So much pain. So much confusion. Hush painful thoughts now, young one, and listen.”
Miguel’s eyes went wide - almost bulging. It was his mother. Or at least, it was her voice. It spoke… in HER voice. He thought he had forgotten what she sounded like, but there was no mistake: this was HER voice. He felt his face go hot. His eyes blurred. Wetness trickled down cheeks. Then flowed.
Mom?! He thought in panicked confusion. He couldn’t speak the words, although he desperately tried, so instead thought the word as hard as he was able. He willed the thoughts to reach her, or at least he hoped they would. They had to. He didn’t know what was going on, but he had to reach her.
“Shhhh,” the voice carassed his mind with understanding hands again, “No, young one, I am not her. Not she who you long for. This voice, beautiful and kind, I borrow now to converse with you. We have no time, young one, and you need listen and hear me. Steady your thoughts. Relax your heart. Listen.”
The hands stayed lovingly wrapped around his mind like warm blankets. Miguel felt suddenly drowsy. If it meant he could hear her voice for a minute, a second, a moment longer… then he would listen.
“Good. You have calmed. This is good. Ease your thoughts for but a moment, for the next will try you again, young one.”
Who are you? Where are you?
“Behind you, although you cannot see me from where you gaze. Try not. The magic speeds our minds, but not all of our bodies.”
Magic? Is that what all of this is?
“Indeed. I have seen into some of your thoughts, although not all. Your world appears not to have any. Curious, although not unheard. Perhaps your realm is devoid. It matters not. Not now. Only concern yourself with the next moment.”
He began to reply, to ask more, but he was abruptly interrupted.
“I shall answer what I can, young one, but we are running out of time. The men before you have trapped me, long ago, to steal that which does not belong to them. They weave magics to bind me, to speed my mind and power, to force growth. They seek to turn it into something more whole and complete. To then steal that power from me. I know not how we arrived here in your realm, but it seems you were caught between the spell.”
Miguel had no idea where to begin with that information. His eyes felt so, so heavy. He just wanted to fall asleep while listening to his mother talk for the next 13 years. A year of her voice for each year he went without hearing it. He blinked slowly. This must be a dream.
“You dream not, young one, and I am sorry for your loss, but you must listen. The shackles that bind me have loosened. The spell that shapes power is within reach. My kind’s power grows according to our Story. Our Story is told over thousands of years. Our power grows, our Story is told. This spell tells a tale that is false. I can whisper words to it now. The Story can be written, but I am not long for this world. The spells that shackle and the magics that grow have taken tolls irreversible on my body. I feel myself fading even now. You though, young one, are connected to the spell, to the Story, and I can grant this gift to you.”
Such a pleasant dream. I don’t really want to wake up. Miguel’s eyes closed. He was hardly even listening to the words. He just wanted to hear his mother’s voice.
“Please, young one. I can only hold for so long. I need a Story to tell. A Story to shape. Have you no stories, young one? I can whisper words for you, but a Story should be something true to the one bearing it. Please. A Story.”
Stories? Miguel knew stories. His groggy mind couldn’t think of them, though. His eyes, droopy with sleep, opened slightly and he looked over to the floor where the men stood. He stared down at the laptop and sourcebooks.
“I see. Stories in books. I will try, young one.”
Glowing tendrils of pink vapor snaked into Miguel’s vision from behind him. They enveloped the sourcebooks:
“Of Myth: Myth Maker’s Manual”
“Of Myth: Myths of Monsters”
“Of Myth: Player’s Fieldguide”
The books lifted into the air as the pages rapidly turned. The laptop followed, the screen flickering to different documents and online resources. Digital character sheets, item descriptions, Miguel’s own created resources and campaign notes all rapidly flickered across the screen. Then, the books began to fizzle and disintegrate in a plasmatic pink burn. Pink smoke rose from the laptop, and the screen went black. The tendrils retracted.
“Such a curious world… Tales of heroes and legend. You are a storyteller, young one, and great stories do you weave. This will indeed do. A great Story of a great storyteller I can whisper. So novel, and so powerful. Yes, I believe this will make quite a grand Story, unlike anything my kind has heard before.”
Power filled the air with a hum, like a guitar amp being slowly twisted to maximum gain. The hairs on Miguel’s body stood on end - lightning before a strike. Pink sparks and pops of magenta fireworks burst into reality from random points throughout his room. As the power built, time began to slowly return to normal.
The burnt laptop, despite the damage, began to play the next song. A guitar sounded, drums beat, and the Jackson 5 belted through crackling speakers.
The men opposite Miguel looked down toward the laptop in surprise. The blue magic piercing through Miguel’s abdomen suddenly changed to pink, following the streaks of blue back to the metallic orbs. The orbs flashed in brilliant light, then promptly exploded in their hands. Shrieks of pain came from the men as blood splattered across the room. One of the men in the back, a chunk of the metal orb lodged through his left eye, immediately collapsed on the floor. Blood began to soak Miguel’s notes.
The other man wailed while coughing up flemmy blood before falling to his knees.
The man in the front, eyes wide in horror, quickly placed his spouting wrist to a gem-encrested medallion around his neck. A blueish light pulsed from the medallion’s gems. The man’s gaping wounds stopped bleeding and crusted over in thick, red scabs. His face was pale with shock and blood loss. His eyes hardened as he looked up toward Miguel.
Miguel looked back at the man. Then he threw up.
“Oh my god, what the fuck?!” Miguel shouted. He tried looking up again, but the chunks of flesh painting his room in a fine red spatter had him keeled over once more.
He could hear the man staring daggers at him panting heavily.
A cold chill ran up Miguel’s spine. He didn’t have the mental bandwidth for this. What the fuck is going on. Mom?
He turned around. He looked at his bed and saw a creature lying upon it. It was small, perhaps the size of a small child. It had long, pointed ears, no nose, and incredibly long, pinkish and red hair covering its naked form. It was so thin. Frail. It had shimmering, pink eyes that looked back up to meet his with great effort. He felt the warm hands around his mind hug tighter, and suddenly the nausea faded.
“Be… behind you, young one,” his mother’s ethereal voice struggled to say.
Miguel spun around just in time: while the man coughing up blood in the back was now splayed across the floor and unresponsive, the man in front knelt on one knee, had a nubbed arm raised toward Miguel, and used the other handless nub to touch a small object on the ground. Blue light flashed from the object and something shot from his outstretched arm. It hit Miguel in the shoulder. More pain.
He looked at his throbbing left shoulder and saw a shard of ebony material jutting from it. His head snapped back toward the man just as another pierced his right leg. Miguel screamed in pain as he fell backward, slamming his head on the edge of his bed frame.
A lance of pink energy darted from over his head and slammed into the man, only for a barrier of blue to form, causing the energy to harmlessly dissipate into the air.
“I am… fading… young one. Th-the Story is with you now…. It is.. Forming within you as we speak… a…..and I only have remnants of its power within. It fades fast…. With me… But I may be able to… use it… to form.. Relics…. V-vestiges of power.. For you… to use..”
Miguel knew next to nothing about them, but a gun was the first image that popped into his head. Maybe it was the shards of something in his body, or the pain, or the general confusion, or the building blood loss, but having a gun seemed really nice right then. An easy and instant solution to a complex and dangerous problem.
“I do not know this weapon, b-but… I sense it conflicts with your Story… It must be something of your Story… or else I would need much more… P-power to form it.”
His story? The Of Myth campaign? He thought of the Bow of Unmaking. The most powerful mythic artifact in all of the official Of Myth source material. He had never used it in any of his campaigns, but he had read forum posts about how ridiculously overpowered the weapon was. A single shot from the bow could kill anything. Literally anything. Full stop.
“While such a relic w-would be quite…. Powerful indeed… I do not th-think I have nearly the power to craft it. Perhaps The Originator could achieve… such a feat.. b-but that matters not… Something less p-powerful… Quickly, young one… I…. I…”
The voice went silent, and suddenly the gentle hands around his mind slipped. It all came crashing back. The fear, the agony from his new wounds. Mom’s screams. Antonio’s dead eyes staring through him. The blood dripping down his face as they hung upside down in the wrecked car. The pain. The pain. The pain. Mom. Mommy. Why? Dad, why?
The robed man, panting even heavier now, struggled but held his arm up once more. He aimed at Miguel. Blue light flashed.
A metaphysical and delicate finger shakily touched Miguel’s mind.
Through the confusion, through the pain, through the panic… For some reason, Miguel thought of Michael.
He was a new friend of Miguel’s that ended up dropping out of college at the start of the semester. He played several sessions in their group’s campaign, and had come up with an incredibly weird combination of magical items.
“I’ve always wanted to try it! It’s ridiculous, I know, but just go with it and you’ll see it’s pretty badass.”
He thought of the items. They were only of rare quality, and while they weren’t necessarily easy to come by, they were by no means impossible for a level 10 character to obtain. He indulged his friend, and over the course of five sessions, their party had eventually found, purchased, or stolen each item in his eclectic set. And Michael was right: ridiculous, for sure, but incredibly badass. They all had a laugh every time Michael’s character entered combat after that. He only played two more sessions with the group, but it was a memorable experience.
This, for whatever reason, was where Miguel’s mind went. An ebony shard formed.
A quiet, almost inaudible giggle resounded in Miguel’s mind. His mother’s laugh. It hurt to hear it and filled him with longing happiness in equal measure.
“An unusual set of items, but unique in their confluence. I believe I can forge such vestiges. Let this be my last gift to you. My protege, my Blessed child. My Story lives on through you. The Myth Maker, a new Lord is born….”
Her voice faded to nothing as phantasmal lips gingerly kissed Miguel’s mind. An ebony shard spiraled toward his chest. A pink vapor swirled around his body. The shard struck…. And to his astonishment, Miguel was fine. Mostly.
Black ribbons made of thick cloth wrapped around the shard. The very tip, perhaps a few centimeters, stuck into his chest. The same black ribbons snaked around Miguel, and wrapped tightly around his exposed flesh. He was wearing brownish bracers around his wrists, and he felt a weight resting on his back. Several ribbons from different locations moved and flowed around the two shards that penetrated his shoulder and thigh, wrapped around them, then yanked. Miguel hissed in pain. As soon as they were removed, shiny metal pauldrons formed around his shoulders and arms, and black iron grieves formed around his legs. The ribbons tightly bound the wounds, stanching the bleeding somewhat.
The handless man before him, mouth hung open in shocked stupor, could only silently stare.
Miguel looked at the bracers, the grieves, the pauldrons, the ribbons of black. He slowly stood, favoring his uninjured leg, and used the bed for balance. He looked at the small creature on the bed that gave him his mother’s voice one last time.
It was shriveled into a husk. Her skin no longer held the luster and shine it had moments ago. Her hair was completely white. Miguel felt something, deep in his stomach.
He knew this creature wasn’t his mother. He knew she borrowed her voice. He knew he was suffering from blood loss and that his mind was a cloudy haze. It didn’t really matter to him though. It felt like his mother, somehow, had been stolen from him again. It was an irrational thought. It made no sense, he knew it, but that’s how he felt regardless.
This creature, whatever she was, gave him a piece of his mother again. This man, whoever he was, aided in taking that away. He tried to kill Miguel, and almost succeeded.
It felt like 13 years of intense therapy had gone out the window with the rest of the sanity from this insane situation. Logic be damned.
He looked back at the man.
Half the man’s beard had been singed off in the orb explosion. He was deathly pale, breathing heavily, eyes sunken. He was missing both hands. His companions lay in pools of their own blood.
Miguel looked at the hilt slightly peeking out from behind his back. He recalled what Michael would say whenever he used the weapon. Its “activation” word.
“Slice.” Miguel said. The blade whirled out from the scabbard on his back, tumbled and twirled end over end in haphazard and wild patterns before colliding directly with the man Miguel stared down. Viscera hit Miguel. The blade wildly flew back into the scabbard on his back, nearly knocking Miguel from his feet.
Miguel gazed dumbly at the result of his actions - and immediately threw up yet again.
“Wh-what the fuck did I just do?!” he started to sob. The Jackson 5 concluded.
A pink light flashed in front of his eyes. He blinked the tears away. Miguel looked at the object floating a foot or so from his face. It was a pink rectangle, with darker magenta text in the middle.
Player Sheet Generation complete.
Level Up!
You have gained one level in the class Myth Maker!
You have gained the following items from the special perk “Miz’rah’s Final Gift”:
x1 Reiner’s Wrapping Ribbons.
x1 Grieves of Infinite Levitation
x1 Handhold Bracers
x1 Slicing Silver
x1 Druvir’s Iron Pauldrons
Miguel stood in his room, surrounded by four corpses, looking at a semi-translucent dialogue screen floating in front of his face. Sirens blared from outside his window. Screaming and shouting could be heard from nearly every direction. A bellowing roar rattled the entire building. Vomit dribbled down his chin as Miguel sat on the floor beside his bed in a daze, laid down, and blacked out.