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Yves had forgotten most of the last days. He was travelling. He was crossing the Northlands plateau. As he did, he existed in a state of automated near unconsciousness. The Jabarrah kept him alive. Energy scavenged from the barren surroundings served as a meagre sustenance for his battered form. His mind, with none to claim for itself, became a void severed from coherent thoughts. Every once in a while, the blurred memories of the past week emerged. Elusive and indistinct, they slipped away just as quickly, like shadows drowning within in the dim recesses of his mind. He was quite content for them to disappear there.
After the shift, Yves had eventually emerged from the crater, where he was met with a bewildering sight. There was his Chest of Useless Artefacts, hurled onto a makeshift wooden sled surrounded by a bunch of other poorly secured artefacts. He understood that the sled was fitted for the barthar, and then he realised that the spillage of artefacts was a bounty of items collected from the cliff behemoth. The Vicha's consumption of the colossal creature had birthed an unexpected trove. The curse had shifted the living mass of the behemoth to another dimension, leaving everything material it had ever ensnared with its tendrils. All these artefacts must have simply fallen out of the behemoth as the creature itself had lost substance. It was, literally, unearthed history — a mountain full of treasure.
Yves could not estimate the lifespan of the behemoth; it must have surely existed for centuries or even millennia, shaping the cliff region long before it had turned into the desolate landscape of today. As far as Yves discerned from first glance when finding the sled and from various semi-conscious second glances throughout the week of travelling, the artefacts were an amalgamation of bygone eras — of forgotten seafaring voyages, Tairan cultures, and remnants of those ill-fated adventurers whose journeys met an abrupt end in the behemoth’s maw, whether on land or where its tendrils had extended into the ocean.
Yves, though in dire need of a healer, found himself caught between exhaustion and the compulsion of an artefact hunter's curiosity. He felt pulled by an urgency to scrutinise the spoils, to dissect the arcane. Items that resisted the corrosive innards of the behemoth hinted at exceptional quality or potent enchantments, most likely both. Yves did not know what the witch had done, but from the order of things, it seemed that she had basically trailed the Vicha and picked up whatever fell out left and right. That was so stupid that he could not believe it. It was absurd and sickening, a display of reckless ignorance. You did not simply pick up random artefacts from the ground — and then tossed them into a chest or pile with other artefacts, and then expected that absolutely fucking nothing would happen or activate. This was a surefire way to prematurely retire from your artefact hunter career.
It was foolish to carry the unknown without understanding. Proper examination demanded a controlled environment, protective measures, time, and above all, a presently non-dying body. Yves had none of those things, and none of the things he could pick up would be of any use if he died before reaching the north-eastern settlements.
Sensibility screamed for a pragmatic purge of the witch's sled and all that did not belong to him. And yet, despite the risk for arcane disaster, the hoarder in Yves could not bring himself to abandon the tantalising pile of treasure. He needed to make some alterations to fit all his luggage; rearranging his chest, tossing a trunk of herbs and repurposing a small chest of furs, but in the end, he had kept every single artefact the witch had collected.
As he sought distance from the crater in the days that followed the Vicha confrontation, Yves's mind, occasionally shaken from its numbness, returned to the behemoth. A creature capable of swallowing sea creatures and ships whole, it had embodied a living dungeon, a mountain brimming with treasures. In eras long past, it could have overwhelmed entire armies or seasoned adventuring parties. The witch, in the haste of the storm and the short time it took for her barthar to catch up, could not have scavenged every item strewn across the expansive path from the lighthouse to the crater. It was impossible for the familiar to zig-zag back and forth from one end of the wading mountain mass to the other. Most likely, they had randomly picked up whatever they stumbled across, and still they had gathered 21 items. Considering that the sled was filled to the brim, they might have even left some things behind.
The thought made Yves mad. Hundreds of artefacts must lay littered across the path between the lighthouse and the crater – an insurmountable trove of precious treasures and unique weapons just waiting for the next dumb-luck-idiot to stumbled upon. It was an infuriating waste.
Over the past eight years, Yves had crawled through dungeons, swamps and forests. He had braved battles with beasts, sprites, and giants, brushing death left and right, to maybe eventually find one singular item — which more often than not turned out shit painted gold, not even worth enough to end up in the Chest of Useless Artefacts. And now, he could have collected more than he had amassed in his entire lifetime and probably ever would by doing fucking nothing, by simply walking up and down the plateau. He could have gathered everything. He could have taken everything back to the lighthouse for proper examination. He might have found something that would have aided him in travel or with all his other issues —
But he had left, incapacitated and drained, incapable of action. He could not even walk properly. He felt that the Jabarrah was the only thing that kept his body from collapsing. But the Jabarrah was no healer. With each passing day, Yves’ body and eyesight deteriorated further, the latter a regression again aggravated after shifting back from the Mirror Dimension.
And so he traversed the Northlands, seated on his chest, which was in turn placed on the witch’s sled. His Levitation Staff could not affect living beings, but nothing stopped Yves from making the sled float forwards while he sat on top of it.
Yet, a pressing need to cover ground remained. Even with the Levitation Staff, the journey to the settlements stretched dauntingly long — over two months by foot, not significantly hastened by magical means. His advances were hindered by the ferocity of the savage Northlands’ storms, assaulting the cart and forcing Yves to remain low and move at a sluggish pace. At times, he drew up protective shards, but such walls, though they offered fleeting reprieves from the rain, demanded too much mental focus. When deployed as barriers and roof attached to the sled, they became additional vulnerable surfaces for the wind's assault. When conjured as floating shields, unattached, they were difficult to maintain. Yves needed to consciously move them along in tandem with the sled, while simultaneously balancing out the unpredictable shifts in wind direction and intensity.
Yves had never before used magic to travel the plateau, because any traces of foreign energies alarmed the buried and winged beasts that made these dead lands their territories. But now he dared, because his injuries and deteriorating eyesight left him no alternative, and because the heavy presence of the Vicha was still with him. The mark of the witch’s touch was not on the crater. It was on Yves. The gateway key to the cursed portal still resided within him; he had not been able to separate it in time before the shift. And with that, the Vicha still moved as Yves did. The horrid mountain mass continued to trail him; a sinister affirmation of the connection between the Mirror Dimension and his own dual reality, evidenced by the ashen wades corresponding to oceans and lakes.
It was a dark, oppressing presence. Yves did not know whether time exhausted it in any way. But he wanted, he needed to believe that it could not devour the shard structures constituting the Mirror World. What about the roaming entities that were so much more substantial? And what about the stalker? Yves remained uncertain whether this powerful entity actually touched the Vicha. The stalker had not touched Yves, that was for sure. The Vicha had been a barrier between them.
It was all a painful blur.
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---------------What had he said to him?
--
ℜ𝔢𝔞𝔠𝔥 𝔬𝔲𝔱 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔶𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔩𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱
---------------Yves broke off.
He could not revisit the moment. He could not go back there. He could not stomach the memories. He could not stomach anything. His stomach felt shredded.
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-----------------------------------------Still, he had survived.
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-----------Yes, he had beaten it.
He had BEATEN. A--FUCKING.-- VICHA.
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--
Was it still there?
Yes.
Did it still chase him?
Yes.
Did it feel fucking horrible to be in the literal middle of it?
Most definitely.
But it could. not. touch him.
And what was more, what mattered even more, its dark presence kept all beasts at bay. If you broke it all down, then Yves had basically DUMPED the curse in another dimension — a dimension that the stalker had proclaimed the birthplace of the Gods. Well, happy birthday! Here, have a Vicha.
Yves laughed at his own joke. He laughed for much longer than anyone should, but somehow, in the midst of burning lungs and aching body with every shaky breath, it felt like an immense relief. He could not recall the last time he had laughed, and he had weeks of desert travel ahead to entertain himself, so he might as well make every moment count for two, and pretend to enjoy his own company.
Well, he was not entirely alone. The barthar had followed him from day one, and so did the two marrels. After emerging from the crater, Yves had directed a set of shards to cut the barthar free from his saddle and then removed the overall shard prison. He had not been in any condition to safely examine the witch’s travel sacks. Though he should have destroyed everything she had on her, he had left the saddle and sacks within the crater untouched. It would have taken too much time, of which he had already wasted more than had been good for him on her.
The marrels, confined in a cage on the sled, seemed harmless. However, you could never be sure with anything that had been touched by a witch, even small critters. Instead of directly opening the cage, Yves had placed and fixed it on the ground. He had gained distance with the sled, before using expanding shards to bend the struts from several metres away.
Ever since, the marrels, along with the barthar, had trailed him, the critters perched atop the sturdy beast. Yves had left all three animals unharmed. He had reservations against killing familiars, so as long as they maintained a safe distance, merely following without displaying hostile intent, he let them be. He had expected them to return to wherever they belonged, or to wherever they wanted to be instead. They could have run for the next best coven or for their freedom, depending on whether they sought out the company of witches voluntarily or had been spellbound into servitude. In the end, Yves did not know the circumstances under which the barthar came to be the witch’s familiar and why the marrels were captured. You never knew with witches’ familiars. For now, Yves assumed that they trailed him to remain within the Vicha’s radius, and thus shielded from potential predators.
Somehow, their presence made everything worse. There were simply no words and way too many reasons for the surges of anxiety he felt whenever something or someone stalked him. Their silent presence also became a haunting reminder of Midnight.
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While witches obtain, bind and command their familiars through arcane rites, wizards are chosen by their familiars. Deep-rooted in fundamental wizarding lore lies the profound belief that every wizard is granted a familiar at birth. As a newborn draws breath, a familiar seeks him out. Most make their way into the infant’s room undetected, others, more politely, appear in front of the mother’s dwelling, patiently waiting to be introduced to the child. It was, in some way, comforting to know that even if a wizard child is born amidst the bleakest corners of existence, even if his mother does not live to hold him but leaves the earth as he enters it, he would be sought out, protected and cared for by his familiar.
The familiar is considered a reflection of the wizard's innermost being and a guide through his journey for power and purpose. Their first encounter marks the forging of a profound bond whispered to endure a lifetime — a pact not of servitude, but of shared destiny.
Midnight traversed the night unseen. As a pathera, her lithe form was an embodiment of speed, agility, and endurance, granting her the ability to travel swiftly through the vast expanses that separated the coastline from the forbidding Albweiss Mountain range. On her fourth day, she had left the heavy storms behind and entered the scorching desert lands. While small farming villages and isolated dweller settlements speckled the far North-Eastern landscape, the rugged terrain that made up the Northlands plateau between the ocean and the mountains was too treacherous and too barren for any humanoid races to endure. It belonged to the beasts of the wilderness.
To evade predators and potential pursuers, Midnight embraced the shadows and moved silently, her sharp senses ever alert. She manoeuvred through the rough terrain with ease, racing over rocks and roots jutting out from the ground with swift and nimble footing. Her nocturnal prowess extended to a reliance on keen olfactory senses to detect shifts in the rain-laden air that hinted at antagonising presences, while deep-rooted instincts, honed by a life of travelling in the wild, guided her to avoid even the most elusive threats. When alerted, she would pause, melding seamlessly with the darkness. Here, she would assess the scents and markings in her surroundings, meticulously placing each paw with deliberate care to avoid spreading her presence. She tread lightly for not to stir the beings that dwelled beneath. Yet, she was not always the sole fleeting shadow. At times, she felt detected or treaded upon the territory of an overwhelming individual or a powerful pride, and altered her path respectively. Sometimes she had to fight, facing her adversaries with a fierceness borne from survival and obligation to her wizard.
Like any familiar, Midnight transcends the realm of common beasts. Beyond being a pathera, she belongs to a kind known as midnight stalkers, beings endowed with the extraordinary ability to conceal their presence within the depths of the night. Her mastery of this ability allows her to vanish into the shadows and move undetected by both humanoid peoples and other beasts.
Midnight stalkers exist in various forms and have been known to roam the shadows of the world for centuries. They are highly coveted by wizards, as their unique abilities make them ideal companions for those who seek to explore the unknown and uncharted.
Legends enshroud the origin of these abilities. Some whisper that they were a divine gift from the elusive moon goddess Seyfara. To this belief add rumours of the midnight stalkers’ preference to emerge in the darkest of nights to then seek out wizard children born under the next full moon. Contrary tales paint them as offspring of Myr, the goddess of night. In these tales, midnight stalkers are destined to roam the world and capture moonlight to create the darkest and most magic-infused of nights. Yet, other narratives dismiss the existence of such goddesses entirely, leaving the true origin of the midnight stalkers cloaked in ambiguity.
You can distinguish midnight stalkers at first glance. They are imbued with potent Rothar from birth. Regardless of the common colours of their original species, their fur, scales, or feathers are always of a deep midnight black; a matte coal black that does not shine or show structure, but instead absorbs all light around them. Their eyes, akin to those of wizards who used second sight, gleam silver like the moon.
Midnight's dark fur transforms under the moonlight, which brings out elegant streaks of silver. When Yves was born, her silver strands concentrated just around her eyes, barely visible. As she matured, the silver fur gradually became more pronounced and extended from under and above her eyes to her throat, shoulders and the back of her head.
This silvery adornment is not merely aesthetic; it is an integral part of her magical prowess. The strands act as conduits for Adhar, naturally channelling and integrating raw energy into her body, which in turn manifests in her ability to merge seamlessly with her dark surroundings. Aligned with her role as the familiar of a Lightshifter, her fur can absorb light, rendering her but an indistinguishable, blurry shadow even when spotted in dim environments.
Beyond her camouflage, Midnight wields an array of other abilities. Midnight stalkers, whether avian or terrestrial, move with an uncanny silence, their wings making no sound, their land-bound steps exceeding the natural stealth of their common species. Midnight's padded paws, featuring thick, velvet-like cushions, facilitate such silent movement.
Her eyesight, adapted for nocturnal settings, allows her to distinguish a variety of colours and ethereal energies that are imperceptible to the humanoid eye. This renders her not just a companion but a formidable scout in the service of her wizard, whose visual senses are sub-par.
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Despite her innate abilities, the journey was strenuous. On the morning of her seventh day of ceaseless running, the towering presence of the Albweiss Mountains emerged behind the desert fogs that enveloped its base, where the plateau met the mountain.
This expansive mountain range separated the Northlands from the Midlands, stretching for hundreds of kilometres from west to east. At the base, Midnight traversed unyielding rock, eventually shedding the diverse hues of the plateau for the glistening white canvas of the Albweiss Mountains. The vast range of towering peaks stood as a steep bulwark against the tempests of the Northerlandic Ocean and the ferocious desert gusts of the plateau. Clouds and salt-laden rain, captured by the mountains, bestowed a chalky veneer on their northern face, settling in crevices and casting an otherworldly pallor.
The climb was steep. Footholds were scarce, forcing Midnight to constantly alter her chosen path. Zig-zagging across kilometres, she fought for each precious meter gained.
Finally, she reached a height where she sensed the boundary of the desert beasts' territory. In the neutral area between this border and the slopes marked by the mountain dwellers, just where the desert fog lifted and the breath of the mountain seized the air, Midnight found a moment's respite. She rested through the scorching midday heat before commencing the arduous climb once more as the afternoon sun waned and the moon started to rise in the north.
Her most significant ability is this connection to the moon, which has an impact on the development of the midnight stalkers' magical abilities. You cannot foresee when or if a familiar will develop distinct magical abilities. Some show initial competence at 15, others at 150 years. Both the race and age of the familiar, as well as the spectral disposition of their wizard, influence this. Midnight has only just begun to tap into this power, but as she grows in strength and experience, her connection to the moon will become stronger.
While they have unique abilities and can sustain themselves through Adhar, midnight stalkers are not invincible. They are sensitive to sunlight, and exposure to fire can cause them great pain and even blindness. They are also vulnerable to certain types of magic, particularly those that disrupt their ability to harness energy or blend into the shadows.
Midnight relied on crevasses and breaches in the rock formations to forge her path across the terrain.
Scaling the Albweiss Mountains was a perilous struggle, with the summit proving far more treacherous than the base. The peaks reached into the clouds, where the air thinned and temperatures fell drastically, along with ice and hailstorms retaliating against any intruders from below. The skies were not a domain for Midnight to trespass. She would climb the summits under her wizard's command, but given a choice, the earthbound caves were her preference. The skies belonged to the winged beasts and to the dragons.
Midnight belonged to the shadows of the night, to the dense foliage of formidable forests. A natural hunter, she craved open expanses to roam and run. Yet, faced with the decision between exposing herself to the capricious skies or delving into the constricting depths of the subterranean, the latter always held sway.
On her ninth day, having spent two days scaling the labyrinthine mountains, Midnight entered an inconspicuous crevasse that proved more than a mere forge between the rock face. It unfolded into the entrance of an expansive tunnel system. Sensing the ebb and flow of air, along with the myriad scents of numerous inhabitants, Midnight intuited multiple exit routes. The darkness of the subterranean tunnel beckoned, and she ventured into its depths.
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