At the centre of the sanctuary, Baethen knelt, his hands on his knees, meditating on the new weight that he now bore within his soul. Where [Stigmata-Mundi] levied the shadow and made the breath shallow, this was like wind in the hair and lightning in the spine; invigorating and utterly intoxicating.
His mind’s eye illuminated the words like light passing through a thousand-coloured mosaic. Rather than the fair white of the previous cards or the ashen script of the Devil’s arcana, the gnostic-glyphes shone with Bifröst, rainbow radiance shimmering through the artefact-card’s gnosis.
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[Cruciata-the-Curse-Fire] ★★★ ({Three-Card-Set} {Artefact} - {Unlinked})
[Budding-Bifrost-Blossom] ★★ ({Single-Card} {Relic} - {Unlinked})
[The-Blade-Alone] ★★ ({Single-Card} {Relic} - {Unlinked})
[Fourfold-Cruciform] ★★ ({Single-Card} {Relic} - {Unlinked})
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Artefact-cards occupied a separate Hand which also possessed a limit of three. Physicalised vessels for cards also used this very same Hand, that of the Right like with, say, [Petty-Femur-of-the-Eoten] or [Pagats-Shadow]; those were not ‘real’ artefacts seeing as their power was paltry, temporary, and they could not be dephysicalised to fit within the Right-Hand. True artefact-and-relic-cards could be borne within the soul and manifested at will; they couldn’t be taken or stolen or broken without either the consent or the death of the wielder. You could balance a mountain atop an artefact-blade’s point and you would be the first and last to break.
The process of manifesting an artefact held within one’s Hand was similar to removing a token from the Tabula or semi-materialising a card to play it through [Echo-of-Alabastron]—the universe tricked into believing your illusions real, thus making them so. Sleight-of-hand was needed, usually a flourish, or through the use of the cast-shadows as a summoning medium. Scabbards functioned as both and could be fit with a hilt so as to hold a relic-blade; an artefact need not be conjured in its entirety, afterall.
To make use of the artefact capstone, that was required, but for the individual pieces?
No, not at all.
At his hip lay a bladeless hilt scabbarded in a single mass of steel. A thought and a touch of influence was all that was needed to heat the metal that bound the weapon; in a flash of fire and mercury, [The-Blade-Alone] manifested atop the guard, pooling like liquid into reality.
Baethen performed a simple sequence of martial forms, immersing himself in the feel and balance of the feyry shortsword. He was no swordsman, no master truly, but the weapon would make even the feeblest of serfs into a formidable warrior so long as they did not think themselves invincible and overextend. It imparted no intrinsic knowledge on how to wield it as a martial tool but its power alone left nothing to be desired.
Should he take the time to learn the more mundane side of warcraft from his companions, the artefact’s true potential would be reached. Not in a single turn of Eot, mind. Byzantium was not built in a day and all that.
The relic’s shape was like that of the damascene gladius that had been used in its forging. What had changed was the texture, the metal roots subtly shifting to the sight yet still to the touch and paradoxically smooth as if the blade was a portal into a different realm, one in which an ocean of iridescent quicksilver dominated. Baethen recognised the substance as the very same that constituted the feyry rivers they’d forded to get to the present altar-of-refuge.
Just as Yggrdrazil’s roots connected the realms of the Gods below the firmament, so too did Bifröst’s band bind above. What this meant for [The-Blade-Alone] was not explicitly said—feyry-fire could blind the senses with visions, could change the natures of things it touched, and all sorts of other even stranger effects.
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Relic-Card Forged: [The-Blade-Alone] ★★
Draw: [Three-of-a-Kind]
Drawback: [Cold-Mercy]
Arcana: [Hoarfrost], [Feyries], [Burning]
Number: [X//XVI]
Suit: [Sleight-of-Hand]
Gnosis Φ: [‘The Bridge-of-Ice-that-Binds-All-Things is wrought of the reflection of the mirror primordial, severed to shards that seek to mend what cannot be’. This {Relic-Card} possesses {Intermediate-Dominion} over the {Arcana-of-Wyrd}, {Imbuing} its {Vessel} with the power to {Manifest} {Feyrie-Frost-Fire} along its {Edge}. So long as this {Relic-Card} is {In-Play}, the {Player} incurs {Brand-of-Sloth}, {Chilling} their {Blood-of-Vein} until the next {Hand} is {Redrawn}. After this {Relic-Card} is {Brought-Into-Play}, the {Player}’s {Reflection} incurs {Brand-of-Sloth} which {Freezes} their {Reflection} until it is caught in {Thrall-of-Sight}.]
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At rest, [The-Blade-Alone] was hypnotizingly beautiful and sharp enough to cut through a falling leaf without dulling or catching in the veins. Owing to its status as a deific artefact, a deified object, it would never rust or collect dust or dew or hoarfrost.
That is, until Baethen sent his will into the shard of Bifröst and it froze over with subliminal, quicksilver flame. Whatever the fey tongues tasted began to crawl with rainbow hoarfrost. His hand chilled in contact with the relic, even with the hilt in between Baethen and [The-Blade-Alone].
The [Cold-Mercy] drawback could not be avoided—to summon frost-fire, Baethen had to pay in blood. The heat of his blood to be specific, submerging himself in hypothermia.
To offset the chills and shortness of breath, the flames were not actually cold. They had all the same effects as ‘mundane’ feyry-fire—if it could ever even be called mundane—though slightly muted in favour of the more fiery aspects. Paradoxically, any ice created by the shard of Bifröst did not douse actual flame but rather strengthened it as if the same thing.
Weaving the relic-card into his fighting-style was easy seeing as it did not interfere with his Left Hand’s cards. At his current level of mastery, be it martial skill or arcane insight, over the relic, [The-Blade-Alone] was nothing more than a direct enhancement to his arsenal. Baethen had yet to find anything more to it than what lay at the bewytching surface, as it were. The {Brand-of-Sloth} did not inhibit him either—Baethen did not need his reflection for his magicks beyond having to avoid it being held in thrall.
The only true problem with the relic-card was that Baethen couldn’t use it as a sceptre, its martial focus evident—it was a sword and no more; too sharp to be a wand, too short to be stave. A minor, easily-forgettable problem as Baethen could simply call upon [Budding-Bifrost-Blossom] which he did just then, sheathing the rainbow shard.
As for the stave, it unfurled from around Baethen’s waist, having hidden itself as a belt of roots. It stood about the same size as that of the behemoth bone from which it was wrought, only that it could be elongated at will and so bore form only so far as it could draw from Baethen’s imagination.
At its top was a sleeping bud with metallic skin that shimmered a pale imitation of [The-Blade-Alone].
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Relic-Card Forged: [Budding-Bifrost-Blossom] ★★
Draw: [Nine-of-a-Kind]
Drawback: [Day-Dreaming]
Arcana: [The-Fulcrum], [Balance], [Syzygy]
Number: [X//XVI]
Suit: [Sleight-of-Hand]
Gnosis Φ: [‘Born of a confluence of Yggrdrazil’s root and Bifröst’s ice, this sleeping bud is neither and both’. This {Relic-Card} possesses {Intermediate-Dominion} over the {Arcana-of-Syzygy}, {Imbuing} its {Vessel} with the power to {Conduct} {Fonts} and {Arcana} through its {Spine}. So long as this {Relic-Card} is {In-Play}, the {Player} incurs {Brand-of-Hypnagogia}, which {Empowers} {Liminal-Arcana} but {Hypnotises} them until the next {Hand} is {Redrawn}. After this {Relic-Card} is {Brought-Into-Play}, the {Player}’s {Reflection} incurs {Brand-of-Hypnagogia} which {Glamourises} their {Reflection} with {Figments-of-the-Imagination} until it is caught in a {Body-of-Darkness}.]
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Relic-cards of [Budding-Bifrost-Blossom] were known quantities, cultivated by orders devoted to the Celestial Lotus, the one and only sleeping, stillborn child sired between Zartaxia and Fata-Morgana, known as Aurora in the Sunbreak. Even before being forged into artefacts, they were prized as alchemical reagents for grand workings of sorcery and the like.
On the rare occasion that such a sleeping bud well and truly blossomed, losing its {Budding} prefix, it ascended directly to five stars. The Matriarch of the City-of-Mirrors was said to possess a true [Bifrost-Blossom]; whether there was truth to that, Baethen would only find out in another life when he ventured beyond the Dreadsea and across the alabaster shores to the Queendom of Assiah which still yet venerated Loken as Goghiel the Moonless.
The stave’s slumbering blossom gave it the status of sceptre, too, the Investitures of Magus, Communion and the Tower evident in its physical trappings. It was a thing that wanted to be seen, to be witnessed and so it performed as a tool both imperial and martial and magical.
The {Conduction} clause seemed to be underwhelming at first glance until Escoriot asked Baethen what happens to a dart put into a pipe. It, essentially, functioned as a means to generate pressure and condense magicks through itself. With it, Baethen could cast a bolt of molten slag with nearly twice as much power at the cost of a longer channelling time as he gathered arcana inside it—this dragged on the spirit, sapping him of will faster than he was used to. He had no cards to bolster his mind against the rigours of spellcraft so he would take care to disabuse himself of the notion that he was a sorcerer proper.
As for the dominion it granted, liminal arcana was any arcana that dealt with thresholds, doorways, and in-betweens. So far as Baethen was concerned, it wouldn’t really help him beyond being a way to counteract the {Brand-of-Wrath}; {Brand-of-Hypnagogia} being its opposite in many ways. He could employ one rune-brand to fight in melee and the other to do so at range, switching between the two to bleed-off either sleep or rage but that might be too much to handle in the heat of battle.
Most of his arcanums now focused on singular, tide-turning effects as their magnitude prefix grew ever more encompassing—not necessarily bad and not necessarily good. Losing access to minor dominions meant not being able to do simple magicks, losing subtlety in favour of grandiosity. He would have to buy cards for arcana fodder and cultivate them into a Jack-of-All-Trades deck to aid him in day-to-day tasks but that would only come into play, as it were, once the boggart and Guardian of this rung was slain.
If it were, Baethen corrected himself.
Last and certainly least was the [Fourfold-Cruciform], a relic-card that was disappointing if still useful in its own manner. Baethen wrapped the living, rainbow root around his bicep before he removed the folded cruciform from his pockets—it did not fit inside them but that was easily ignored so far as the universe was concerned.
The crossguard’s quillons—or better said, tines—bent around a tight circlet to meet at their tips so as to appear like the skeleton of a roundel, its metal flesh flensed to bare the structure. A clockwork of feyry machination was the backbone of the piece, providing the axis upon which it could rotate.
Rather than by physical mechanics, Baethen could will the cruciform to depress into a fourfold cross or fold back into a roundel. Its metal, though duller than the other constituent relics, shared their iridescent lustre, shimmering as if dipped in oil.
It was a barbaric, brutal weapon that would leave ragged wounds in its wake.
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Relic-Card Forged: [Fourfold-Cruciform] ★★
Draw: [Four-of-a-Kind]
Drawback: [Balance-the-Scales]
Arcana: [The-Fulcrum], [The-Scales-and-Blade], [The-Jurist]
Number: [VII//XV]
Suit: [One-at-Dice]
Gnosis Φ: [‘Just as there is no honour among thieves, there is no justice among men’. This {Relic-Card} possesses {Intermediate-Dominion} over the {Arcana-of-Law}, {Imbuing} its {Vessel} with the power to {Negate} an {Attack} upon the {Player}. To bring this {Relic-Card} {Into-Play}, the {Player} must be {In-the-Right}; if the {Player} is {In-the-Wrong}, the {Attack} is instead {Doubled}. After this {Relic-Card} is {Brought-Into-Play}, it is {Discarded} until the next {Hand} is {Redrawn}.]
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Where the last two relic-cards were sleight-of-hand suites, this one was an ace or one-at-dice. It was similar to a triumph or trump in that it would take precedence over other cards in playing order, even discounting its numbers, but differed in execution. Aces and trumps both tended towards once-per-Hand clauses but aces were, always, stronger and less versatile.
[Fourfold-Cruciform] was not a back-pocket suite because its powers need not be brought into play should their bring-into-play clause be activated. Besides also not providing a always-inplay passive ability to qualify as one, the relic-card was absurdly powerful for its stellar parity—back-pockets tended not to exceed expectations.
Baethen could wield the relics by themselves, bind them in different combinations such as using the crux’s roundel as a spear-head and the Bifröst root as the stave, or assemble them into a singular artefact. Just as sets required all their constituent cards to be brought into play, so too did artefacts proper—to call upon [Cruciata]’s gnosis, it would need to be wrought in its entirety.
Like second nature, Baethen threaded the rainbow root through the cruciform, the tines opening through will alone and the hoarfrost blade beneath blazing into existence. When sheathed at his hip, [The-Blade-Alone] was not really there, only using the scabbard as a summoning medium. For so long as the universe was concerned, it did not exist until he wanted it to and provided an excuse for it to look the other way.
Cruciata was a spear-blade with a fourfold guard, a strange and fey mixture between clockwork fishing tool and stunning implement of war. Tongues of subliminal, feyry frost-fire licked along its edges with a promise for only the coldest of mercies.
Being more adept at the forms of a stave, Baethen executed a common cadence taught to him by the expedition’s many members and men-at-arms. Subtly, even though it was not explicitly writ within its gnosis, the artefact made him swifter of foot and stronger of arm so long as it was to further an act done through it. The spear would not make him run faster unless he was charging with it to impale someone and even then the advantage was minor.
For all that they appeared fortuitous boons, the age-old adage of “if it’s too good to be true, it’s only good enough to be a lie” came to rear its ugly-if-honest head.
Well, maybe that was a bit rude. Haviershan was not an eye-sore—more like a sight for sore eyes, actually, but maybe that was just Baethen’s lust speaking. He found that his reservations in regards to taste in bedfellows dwindled right quick when the pressure mounted.
“Don’t trust in that thrice-damned thing, lad. What the Gods give in one hand, They take away with the other.”
“Aye. Don’t trust it more than I can throw it.”
The jest cut through the tension just enough to elicit a few chuckles and then they returned to silence, saying nothing more of the topic lest they wake the mind in which they walked. Haviershan simply observed as Baethen practiced with the spear-blade, giving pointers on form and stance and execution as they were needed.
Whenever Baethen held the artefact in his hand, he felt it bending his path, subverting his fate to whatever design Fata-Morgana willed—this was the subtle feeling of having eyes at the nape of his neck, of spiders crawling along the edges of his skin, of shadows at the corner of his vision. Each step erred not where he wanted but rather always towards some hitherto-unseen horizon in the distance. Frequently, without thinking to do so, he found himself at the threshold of the sanctuary, having walked there without memory, rhyme or reason, Cruciata in hand.
How vexing it was to have exactly what you wanted and it taste bitter rather than sweet. Here, he was, with a divine relic of a bygone age in hand and he loathed its very presence, recoiling from it like a hale man scorns the red-leper. The dragon-greed that drove him to delve into the Evergaol in the first place saw the reward as nothing but a justification to gather more power while his better sense knew that it was the herald of his end.
Baethen threw the spear-sword to the wayside like refuse, the holy object falling under the shadow of a shrub. But, alas, it would never disappear, not truly. When no living soul had sight of it, the artefact would return to him, would slither back into his shadow like a parasite into a wound. He could not remove Cruciata from himself, the artefact-card binding itself to his very soul—just as removing a card too long left within the psyche could incur a rivening, this accursed thing was stitched tight to him, bound through act and thought and spirit; to excise it, he’d have to wound himself in ways that none but the Gods Themselves could heal, this he knew down to the marrow of his foolish bones.
He’d much rather the God he knew than the one he didn’t so Baethen did not pray to any divinity to save him. There was no instead, seeing as he felt hopeless and would tread this path until the end, whatever there lay.
His father might have raised a liar but he did not raise a coward.
This deific artefact was not a boon but rather a Damoclean blade hanging over his neck. Like the sword of legend, the wages for [Cruciata] could be exacted at any time; a poison gift. Rather than a single strand of horse hair, the thing that forswore the falling sword was the fickle amusement of capricious Fata-Morgana.
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Nightmares of a suffocating golden mask awoke him earlier than the others.
As of late {Stigmata-Mundi} itched something fierce at the back of his mind. Ever since he’d taken up its wages, his sleep had been fitful but now it was piecemeal. The weight dragged at Baethen’s wits, dulling his sense of self such that when he roused from slumber he forgot who, when, and where he was for a blink.
The fugues never lasted but they left unease in their wake all the same as he found himself at the threshold of the refuge, ready to stumble asleep into the Feywilds with a single misstep. There, beyond the dark of the treeline, moth-eyes looked back at him; that of the boggart.
Relief came only once Baethen invoked [Lesser-Narguile-of-Night], burning away the last shreds of his shadow so that he could breathe without the burden put upon his shoulders. He’d taken to doing so ever since crossing the Gate to Phantasmagoria—even if he could no longer make use of the smoke-burst card-chain, he could at least breathe.
To keep his mind occupied from the unnerving spook that’d he just been subject to, Baethen took to his hands, doing the last bits of maintenance on Behemoth. It was mostly smoothing out any crags leftover from the field-repairs, nothing much.
He’d already scrivened his stars and prepared his spell reagents for the coming battle. Baethen would leave nothing to chance if he could help it. Unfortunately, Lady Chance had Her own opinion on that matter.