As the one with the most affinity for both illusions and mercurial magicks, Baethen was the first to brave the feyry river. He stepped onto it, feeling the ground move even as he stayed still atop the solid waters. Whatever ensorcelled its Bilröst surface also took hold of his shadow, shriving it from his body like a knife—the weight he’d been carrying from [Scarwright] vanished as a result and so did his ability to play [Lesser-Narguile-of-Night], seeing as he had no nothing to burn upon its altar.
Beyond these immediate effects, Baethen felt his tongue suddenly dry as the magicks therein fled like the doomed before the Grim Reaper. Drawbacks were not pleasant things, each one the taking away of a part of your very being, if only for just a day. Baethen couldn’t imagine how it must feel to be a card-mule or a card-surrogate, caring for and forming sets only to remove and give them to another.
Walking upon the shimmering water was strange and ungainly, the ripples he left in his wake making it all the worse the closer he got towards the other shore. Only then, when he reached solid ground, did he Redraw his Hand, the feeling of the arcana rejoining him like a second wind, like regaining a lost limb or sense.
The others followed suit, though without having to Redraw. Their own drawbacks were related towards less esoteric weaknesses, simple limits on daily casts and the like; Magus-investiture cards tended towards mastery over magic and thus also had to possess equally-magical drawbacks. It was only Escoriot who had a similar vulnerability like Baethen’s [Running-Water]—the man couldn’t, for example, wield either sword or shield nor could he armour himself beyond the decorative shield-pauldrons he wore as those didn’t do much to protect physically him in the first place, wrought of a fragile latticework carving of sandalwood banded with thin metallic rims of brass. A knife could part that flimsy barrier or simply pierce through one of the myriad, gaping holes.
‘Forswear your shield so that another may have it.’ Was his order’s motto afterall.
Once they’d all braved the river, not a single feyry fly or sprite waylaid them beyond those that were ever present within this part of Phantasmagoria. The buggers didn’t swarm them which only made the cadre all the more worried seeing as letting lying dogs lie in a place such as this might mean death.
Perhaps it could be interpreted as the group having to present a gift to the boggart that they’d fought before—fey erred on implicit rules of hospitality so as to deceive and rob and bind the foolish. ‘We’ve cleared the way for thee, O honoured guests. Please, come and eat with Us.’ Many a fool had forgotten to observe Wyrd and become the feasts for ravenous goblyns and trulls alike.
Once more, into the unknown the adventurers went.
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The next point of interest they’d encountered was the giant crystal chrysalis of some ancient, slumbering god-beast. It hung suspended across one of those great, circular chasms, floating with absolute stillness as if held aloft by countless invisible threads of gossamer.
The true form of the creature was ensorcelled in a veil of shadow that left only the vague suggestion of shape. Its size was comparable to the forefathers of mountains, so vast that it would dwarf Reordranhall a dozen times over or blot out the sun. That was without even counting the medium that the god-beast lay within—wrought, seemingly of moonstone, semi-occluded at sections as if hoarfrost upon metal left in the night. Veins of trapped starslight spread throughout the amaranthine amber, though what for was anyone’s best guess.
There was great discussion through finger-wagging about whether or not to approach the elder feyry—perhaps it could grant a wish or a card or the group could beseech it for its timeless wisdom; few could be said to have spoken with something older than most civilisations or even stocks of mankind. In the end they decided not to awaken something best left asleep.
So long as he had line of sight towards the slumbering archfey, Baethen felt the hairs at the back of his nape stand on end. If you could see something, most likely could that something see you.
He had been one of the few that had argued for them to leave the thing as fast as possible—him being a voice of reason had spooked Haviershan enough that they left soon after.
For the nights to come, Baethen would dream of a baleful, all-consuming locust breaking free from its cage.
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The Feywilds, though distinctly wild, were also home to many an intelligent fey stock.
Just as there were different stocks of Man, like the Nezarri and the Woedenites, there were varieties of fey. The first that they’d encountered upon entering Phantasmagoria were feyry-flies and sprites; the former tiny, featureless children wrought of alabaster clay and winged with insectile grace while the latter were wisp-lights like those of Seirios though distinctly more colourful, resplendent with rainbow blood and laughing with the tinkling of bells.
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Feyry-flies tended to bite and lay eggs inside their hosts, spurring fungal-ridden spiral-form sores that gestated more of their misbegotten kind. Wisps simply ate of sunlight and drank of darkness unless they were of the thinking stock—aged one-hundred-and-thirteen turns—which lured children to their deaths so that they might eat their eyes and gain souls.
Thus came the boggarts, a nomadic sort of spirit which flitted unseen through Eot from feyry-ring to feyry-ring, cleaning homes and doing hously chores to pay the wages of their sin lest they lose their stolen souls. Sometimes, though, instead of just eating the eyes, a wisp might enter through the open mouth of a babe and turn it into a changeling.
This was the fourth type of goblyn they now encountered.
Note the use of name—not just fey but goblyn. All goblyns are fey but not all fey are insatiable monsters with a penchant for human flesh.
The cadre happened upon a convocation of gobs, their redcap heads eyeless and with long knife-ears and even longer noses, curved and wicked and pox-marked with warts. Upon seeing the group, the buggers began to chitter and chat, waving about their javelins before they charged from their homes; furrows carved within trees, bulbous mushrooms hollowed-out, and even pots and pans of copper stolen from Eot and traded through Phantasmagoria as cold iron burned fey of any kind.
These redcaps were tall enough so that they pointy-hatted heads—which were really just fungal growth as goblyns did not wear clothing—reached Baethen’s waist. Though the gobs were just as weak as the children they’d slain and eaten, they were many in number as bairns are wont to disobey their parents and venture into the forest, unknowing of the danger that lurks and cavorts in wild places uninhabited by Man.
Were it not for the Evergaol trapping them within, suspended in time, this band of goblyns would have raided a settlement by now, their number large enough that they could break through the veil.
A lifetime of grisly feyry-tales and battle with such monstrosities made Baethen callous to the devastation he was about to wrack upon the fell, unwholesome spirits before him. Even if he hadn’t Redrawn his Hand after fording the river-of-Bilröst, he would have done so now just so he could draw more deeply of his power.
The Behemoth’s mouth opened, the jaws cranking against their grooves as the lower-melting metals within gave way and the magicks greased joint and cable alike. Baethen’s visor did not stop his use of the Language and neither did it impede the dragon-breath he exhaled through the worm-maw slitting down his throat. Hel came from the portal into the Heaven that there dwelled, Gehenna begotten from Akasha like blood from a stone.
[Forge-Maw]
[Cinderspark-Spit]
[Gullet-of-the-Sky-Gorger]
[Imp-of-Serpents]
[Kindlers-Breath]
In rapid succession and in concert, he drew upon all his cards, playing a singular spell the likes of which he’d not done since the sphynx awoke what lay at the deepest fathoms of his soul. He did not stir that which slumbered, only himself, the sheer human spirit enough to see through vengeance.
“[Spurn the Wicked. Burn and Shrivel. Torment and Woe upon Those Who Harm the Little.]”
All incantations benefitted from rhyme and what better use of a nursery-rhyme than in slaying the fey creatures that parents told their children to scare them to fitful sleep? Caricatures of tykes, wild and animal, told as cautionary tales to elicit obedience before fear, the shadow beneath the bed, the shadow of death.
From the Behemoth’s mouth came a balefire so hot that it stole away the breath of all those near, greedy for every scrap of air. It rivalled the highest and brightest sun and the deepest, darkest moon; worms’ flame tickled throughout, a verminous green and sulphur umber, miasma and ghostlight left in its wake.
Wherever Baethen’s breath touched, things died, dried like husks that left no ash nor dust when they fell to break against the ground. Thus was a new card-chain born, spurn-the-wicked; a wicked spell for wicked things. Thus, so too, was a new card born from the ashes of the old but now was not a time for reading words.
The backlash that followed on playing so many cards at the same time was like being hit across the head. Baethen stayed there, dumbfounded by the self-inflicted blow to his soul as the smell of burnt hair and rotten eggs assaulted him, digging into his sinuses like saltwater, scouring his senses raw. Had his attack not razed the first wave of enemies to nought, he would have been skewered through his bared throat.
Already, the others of the cadre were advancing on the coming host of goblyns, a wing-formation corralling them back as Narancan stayed back to guard Baethen as he got his wits about himself again.
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There was glee in being able to justify hedonism for blood in a righteous cause.
He pulled down his helm with his claws, puppeting the digits through the wires in his war-suit and charged into the fray. Couched in justice, he would slaughter with abandon and would only learn the lesson that there was no more dangerous draught than anger in five lifes’ time.
Because anger didn’t make you do anything you didn’t already want to do.