THE EXPEDITION HAD BEEN CHARTED TO REACH THE EVERGAOL ON THE EVE OF THE SEVENTH DAY OF THE ROUND-OF-RAGNVALD TURN 8067 AFTER RESHUFFLE, FOURTH-GAME-OF-THE-DEIFIC-TAROT. A JOURNEY OF THREE ROUNDS ALONG THE SOUTHERNMOST EDGE OF THE ISLE OF WOEDEN, FROM REORDRANHALL ALL THE WAY TO DEADMAN’S POINT TO THE SOUTH-EAST; THEY’D PASSED BY TWO MIDDLING TOWNSHIPS, NARY ENOUGH TO CONTEND WITH THE DAILY UPKEEP OF THIRTY-SOMETHING-ODD MEN AND WOMEN.
It took the caravan three days shy of four rounds to reach the tower. By then, the rations were beginning to thin and more and more members of the expedition had to resort to hunting and foraging lest they starve—wild kalegor dog was not pleasant in the least; gamey, stringy, lacking fat and uncomfortably chewy even in a stew. Lazarra had gone from grumpy to downright despair-stricken as she fed more and more of her spirit to Morophesh so that the train did not drink of the poison-water of the Dreadsea.
The Azure Forest did not thin slowly but rather all at once. The ground thereon became bare and scourge-stricken in a twenty league radius as the touch-down point of Rimare-Tul—Deadman’s point in more modern parlance. The tower was a great, big thing, reaching down from the heavens to just graze the earth with its inverted spire; it was as if a great divine spear had been thrown from on high to smite a wicked devil.
The tip of the inverted tower balanced upon a large, cubic stone replete with gnositc-glyphs and cartomantic imagery. These divine altars were the conduit which would carry a man to the interior of an Evergaol, the entrance to Babylon where the Twenty-One Gods dwelt from Unnumbered Loken all the way to Eot the Twenty-First; barring, of course, the Fifteenth, Scaduphomet which had been outcast from the heavens into Gehenna.
After so long and weary from road and war alike, the train celebrated that night around the Evergaol. They feared no monster as Gehenna does not trespass against Babylon, the presence of the House-of-Gods their bulwark against the Forsworn.
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“Alright. You’ve stuck with us so far so a reward’s in order. Each and every contractor will be given a two-star card tonight. Leasee’s don’t grumble—y’know that we take care of our own.”
The captain of the merry band of bastards was a native Woedenite, salt of skin and saffron of hair. He was a big ol’ bastard himself, son of a prostitute that was now the madame of some house of pleasure or another; Baethen did not know which one.
Okay, Baethen did know which one.
Now, back to the cap’n—Haviershan Bjoren was tall as he was wide, with a thickly-braided and downright-thick beard in the tradition of the pyrate. Clad in plate branded with Woedenite runework that sure-as-Nagalfaram did not come cheap, Bjoren struck an imposing and larger-than-life figure. That esoteric markings on his armour bound a card or two to it, arcana and all, functioning as a secondary deck; those were as expensive as they were dangerous as cards not anchored to the soul did not enjoy the same protection nor effectiveness nor efficiency.
Given that it wasn’t an artefact proper, a living weapon endowed with a card-spirit, Baethen doubted he’d ever use such a thing. It struck him as more liability than help, more crutch than stave—cards of the Hangman arcana could steal the runebranded armour’s bound card right quick and without much, if any, resistance.
“We’ll be making camp here and begin preparations for a curtain-wall. Towers’re rich in magic knicknacks of all kinds—black-alabaster ore, fallen Yggrdrazil leaves, ancient relic-cards and the like. We’ll plunder this beaut’ of everything she’s worth. Of that I am certain.
“Dismissed. Go an’ drink yer sorry selves stupid.”
After what Baethen had done, he’d never’ve thought that Miro would be the one to bring him his card-wage this time around but he was wrong. The veteran adventurer sauntered up to him, hung an arm around his neck and handed Baethen a card.
His eyes bulged when he read it.
“Morophesh wept.”
And so nearly did Baethen.
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Card Given: [Mercurial-Inksmith] ★★
Draw: [Three-of-a-Kind]
Drawback: [Riven-Asunder]
Arcana: [Night], [Mercury], [The-Sceptre]
Number: [IV//VIII]
Suit: [Sleight-of-Hand]
Portfolio Φ: [‘In the beginning, there was only a mirror of blackest alabaster, reflecting what could be if only it were riven asunder to free a world imprisoned within’. This {Card} grants the {Player} {Major-Dominion} over the {Arcana-of-Mercury}, allowing them to {Seal} a {Sceptre} into a {Font-of-Mercurial-Shadow}. {Sceptre} must {Possess} the {Player}’s {Mark} to be {Sealed}; {Sceptre} {Sealed} within a {Font-of-Mercurial-Shadow} incurs a {Brand-of-Sloth} upon itself which will {Stagnate} the aforementioned {Sceptre}. Once this {Card} is {Brought-Into-Play} to {Unseal} a {Sealed} {Sceptre} from a {Font-of-Mercurial-Shadow}, it is {Discarded} from the {Player}’s {Hand} into their {Archive} until the next {Hand} is {Redrawn}.]
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Baethen recognized the card as a fusion from the mercurial and inksmith sets—the former was the cornerstone of many blacksmithing and metallurgic decks whereas the latter was geared towards the arcane art of card-smithing. The thing about fusions was that, once they were formed, they could not be unformed without help of a cartomancer; easier to just rend asunder the set and hope that most of the cards came out at some semblance of functioning than pay a cartomancer’s steep price. Card shards, though useless to most, were the important raw material for token-minters and card-smiths; Baethen’s own [Run-like-the-Wind] had been implanted with a shard from [Torch-Bearer]. Clauses were easier to edit than, say, arcana, drawback, suite, or number, in that specific order of difficulty. Botched edits were little more than fodder for apprentices to get a handle on the basics—Mother, an assistant card-painter, worked with them to test various dyes and inks.
[Mercurial-Inksmith] was a card that had once been in someone’s soul, formed from three other cards given its three-of-a-kind draw. Taxman’s card, perhaps? Surrendered just before death to pay off a debt that would otherwise fall on the debtor’s next of kin. Either that or it had been taken from a corpse.
Given that this expedition had already seen the death of five people already, it was a grave-robbed card. No doubt about it.
“Wait, how’s this work?” Baethen asked. “How do you produce a font of mercurial shadow? I’ve never even heard of it.”
“Tis a confluence of shadow and mercury manifested through a rather specific lineage of arcana. Mercury as a copulation of water and silver which is a second-order of moon and war. Shadow, in this case, births from moon and night; both are aspects of the Eighteenth, Morophesh Weeping-God-of-Sorrow. I reckon that there be other ways to reach it that aren’t so convoluted though I’ve yet to happen upon it meself in either sight of eye or word o’ mouth.”
Baethen looked Miro up and down.
“Who are you and what have you done with my dear friend the obstinate country bumpkin? I’ve never heard Ahedmir utter so many syllables. Unhand him, O fell doppelganger or woe unto you until you shall rue the day in which—.”
Miro gave him an unimpressed look and began to walk away, muttering curses that would make a sailor blush under his breath.
“Oh no, whatever shall I do with a card such as this without guidance? To hold a gold chip but be destined to never buy with it, oh the humanity!”
A begrudging sigh later and Miro turned around and walked back.
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“Luckily for ye, I happen to know how to make the font. All ye need is a spell reagent—a single drop of pure, alchemical mercury placed in yer shadow. That way, it sticks with ye until ye’ve redrawn your hand. This card has no expenditure clause so it’ll be a relatively cheap way to carry a redundant sceptre fat on scrap metal.”
“Huh. I hadn't thought of that. I was going for throwing my club, catching it in its own shadow and then returning it to me. That way I could layer spell-cards and strike-cards together and make it into a masterstroke that would utterly annihilate anything three-stars or lower. While {Sealed} the stave will be, effectively, frozen like a winter river.”
Miro’s eyes widened as he looked around the devastation that the Evergaol had wrought and most likely imagined how said masterstroke would compare; the sheer destruction that a few Words from Baethen could reap wasn’t near enough to contend against the ruination of an Evergaol but it was more than enough to kill vast swathes of devil-spawn. Miro could, at most, kill one or two at a time whereas Baethen rained down fire.
Baethen having a fully ensorcelled sceptre ready to use at a moment’s notice was like him having a couple of dragon-powder bombs. It would be marvellous though perhaps that was the arsonist within Baethen speaking.
When next the adventurer spoke, he seemed all too content to skip over that moment of silence.
“The arcana yer dealing with, though heavily tilted toward the Tower-investiture, has clauses more fit for magicking and whatnot. Which makes it all the more baffling as to how it was fused to make use of a martial focus.
“First; because Tower will err towards the arcana of strength, justice, and judgement, and its corollaries, rarely taking mercury as a consort. Before ye go yapping on smith’s decks—aye, it’s common enough in many cards’ portfolios as a counterpart to iron or mars but as to actually appearing within their trinity? Not unheard of but neither is it common either.
“Second; when slotted as a card’s arcane trinity, mercury, generally, produces a communion-or-magus-card, what with it always having, at the very least, a magi’s element and sphere in its lineage; usually a number set of eleven and eighteen. The poor sap that formed it should’ve gone after a stave rather than a sceptre. It wouldn’t have such a strict {Brought-Into-Play} clause, otherwise.”
Baethen scrunched his brows and shook his head in dissent.
“I don’t think so—there’s something special about this card. Sceptres require action so most mundane blacksmiths will go after them whereas staves don’t and remain a card-forging staple. [Mercurial-Inksmith]’s previous owner was attempting to marry the two disciplines into one. Perhaps he was going for a rune-brander’s kit or even an actual, Gods-be-damned word-forger deck? It’d explain his choices so far and his unorthodox focus.”
That got Miro thinking but before the man could further entrap him in discussions over card lore, Baethen gave Miro an arm around the neck and then a pat on the back.
“Thanks, you old shite. That was mighty kind of you.”
“I ain’t even greying yet. I ain’t no codger.”
“Anyone nearing forty has a foot in the grave already in my book.”
“I am thirty turns of age, I’ll have ye know. I ain’t no old bones yet.”
That surprised Baethen for a moment until he realised that a mixture of Nezarri blood, the constant stress of the sellsword life, the self-inflicted scars and plain old sun exposure had made estimating Miro’s age more difficult than it should’ve been. Plus, the beard—Nezarri grew only mutton chops with a tendency to appear wan in comparison to a Woedenite’s black scruff. Nezzari hair was white at birth, darkening with age whereas Woedenite locks did much the opposite.
It didn’t help either that the man had a thick and downright-ancient sea accent…
“Wait a thrice-damned lick! You’re a py—”
Before Baethen could finish the sentence, Miro had a hand behind his head and another on his mouth. There were a whole lot of things that could be said on how Baethen felt then but four words were enough to express them all: rock-hard and confused.
“Don’t go around calling me a pyrate.” Miro said as he looked around to see if anyone heard. “They’ll hang, draw, and quarter me.”
After Miro let go of his stranglehold on Baethen’s mouth, he gave the man a solemn nod and then with his best, most charming lop-sided grin before he whispered: “No wonder I stole a kiss from you. Always had a thing for ‘sailors’.”
Miro choked on thin air and Baethen was far too amused at how easily he could get under the older man’s skin and rile him up. There was a certain satisfaction in knowing you could make another person speechless through sheer shamelessness.
Composing himself, with a dark blush on his ashen cheeks, Miro asked: “Ye want another one?”
“Wouldn’t mind one, no. You’ve a lot to make up for and I, man of the law that I am, shall take up the wages of your sins so that you may rest sound of soul and—.”
“Shut up and kiss me already, fool.”
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After having absconded away for a quick tryst in the forest, Baethen lay on a blanket on the limb of a great farœ tree by Miro’s side. The branch was twice as thick as Baethen was wide such that not even holding hands could both men hug its circumference.
Ahedmir snored, fast asleep face-down and Baethen could not help but give his naked, meaty rump a good smack. It jiggled like freshly-baked regalf-custard.
“Ow! What in Scaduphomet’s arse-cunt was that for.”
“I cannot abide by with such a smackable derriere before me.”
“Ye already got into me pants—stop speakin’ like yer a bard or somesuch.”
“Technically, I got you out of your pants. With my teeth if I recall correctly.”
With a few more grumbles, Miro sat up as Baethen took to the edge of the branch and sat down, having long since put back on his breeches.
With a quick flick of thought, Baethen brought up his Hand.
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({Archetype}: [Prime]) Selected; {Player}’s ({Hand}: [3//3]) {Drawn} as follows:
[Imp-of-Serpents] ★★ ({Four-Card-Set} - {Unlinked})
[Strike-While-the-Iron-is-Hot] ★ ({Two-Card-Set} - {Unlinked})
[Mercurial-Inksmith] ★ ({Single-Card} - {Unlinked})
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There was, currently, no way for him to play [Mercurial-Inksmith] without a spell-reagent. Or so Miro had told him. Baethen, ever the sore-loser, had other thoughts as to how to play the card without needing a drop of pure, alchemical quicksilver.
Alchemical elements differed from arcane ones in that they were physicalised without the use of a card, already present within the world. Fonts were the shadows of things, cast by the light of the soul and like puppet strings to that which they belonged. Move the body of darkness and the body of flesh responded in sympathy—as below, so above and all that.
The arcana of quicksilver embodied all metals as alchemical mercury could assimilate, amalgamate, all manner of minerals; blacksmiths, though lowly before alchemists, had use for that sort of knowledge. The temper of steels and alloys, alliage-ratios, melting points, weld-patterns and the like.
There were arcana of steel, silver, bronze, gold and probably even more but quicksilver held dominion over them all; this had been why it was a staple in most blacksmiths’ decks. Or, at least, the good ones, that is.
Where iron could only call to iron, mercury was a universal lodestone, born of Leizuziel, the Many-Faced God whose Divine-Number was Six. The metaphysics that underpinned the arcana was one of universal atavism, a return to the source.
The trick, Baethen intuited, was to use his arcanum to fabricate a font of mercurial-shadow—as above, so below and all that.
First, he manifested cinders atop his palm, casting the backside of his hand in shadow. With a twist of will, he converted those embers into molten wads of mercury, sizzling against his calluses. The transmutation was not completely efficient so it had generated smoke, metallic and sparkling vapour emanating from the font.
Secondly, Baethen expended all the superfluous fonts within the confluence he beheld to purify it and empower the resultant product—air became smoke, smoke became fire, flame turned cold and still. A single drop of living, liquid metal was all that was left, so miniscule it might have been the tear of a quicksilver-fish.
Thirdly, finally, this he did let spill into his shadow.
The dew was swallowed by the darkness and Baethen knew down to the marrow of his bones that there was a change about him. [Lesser-Narguile-of-Night], like all cards, endowed the player with intrinsic knowledge of its inner-workings, and through this, Baethen could tell that his cast-shadows were different than before. They’d still work for the card as mercurial-shadow, by namesake, held a constituent font of shadow.
Baethen rummaged around his pack that lay against the crook where the branch and trunk of the tree met. He took out a rough ingot of amalgamated scrap-metal and, using his cards, shaped it into a smith’s hammer. Then, he simply let go of the hammer from high above in the canopy.
It spun end over end, falling to the earth below where Baethen’s shadow lay. There was no dull thump of a heavy object impacting the loam. The hammer dove into the darkness like a quicksilver-fish into metal, the surface of the cast-shadow rippling as does a pool of stillwater being disturbed by a single drop of dew.
By Baethen’s side, a hammer arose from the tar-like coagulated shadows and he gripped it by the haft with a lopsided grin on his face. Miro clapped him on the back in impressed surprise.
“There’s a jest about being happy about shafts that I just can’t quite articulate.”