“Ben, as always, you are quite fortunate that we are here in this place to share such rare palaver, “ Amun mused while sorting through the organized stack of gilded scrolls, “these aisles are most sacred and not meant for bloodshed, so I feel less fortunate in this present company”. Amun sneered harshly at the wispy fellow.
Ben, in spite of his frailty and quickly blanching complexion replied resolutely, “Master Jaro, pardon. You’re well aware that you’re under investigation and hard-pressed under all of these abhorrent allegations! The company that you have been rumored to have conspired and hold counsel with….it is a grievous mistake on my part to continue to grant you access to the Arcanuum….”
Amun chortled, “I would be most amused if any of those fluff-topped bolsterers would dare openly charge these allegations to me in person. They murmur in shadowed conclaves and outcroppings, comparing the frailties of their “shriveled wands”, wagging them back and forth in school circles …projecting white misty animal friends at each other for amusement and claiming it to be the “mysteries of the eons”.”
“But Marigolds a lovely flittering sparrow….”, Ben resigned quietly.
Amun enjoyed the miester’s company, he would goad at Ben’s discipline to the point where the poor and dutiful soul would often reveal conspiracies and sidebars that proved quite beneficial for the grizzled and sigiled warlock to know proactively, not in response. To leverage such accounts against the spire’s inhabiters individually was as joyous as a youngin’s name day to him! The pouring out of panicked emotion from the meek and studious magicians with no field experience or shielding verses direct confrontation - it was an absolute delight.
He knew, of course, that the Choir grew weary of Amun’s delvings into their sacred vaults and the constant questioning and unsanctioned journies were a constant frustration, but they had yet to act directly against him, one of their own. Alas, the Arcanuum was is indeed building a case against his activities and grew wary of his alliances, but there was nothing definitive that Amun intentionally allowed to be revealed, on Laconian’s soils anyway. What’s a chalk circle and muttering in smokey candle din every now and again, after all ?!? Especially in his plain anchorite cell within the Spire, was nothing sacred? Within that round he was afforded, there were comfortable pocket realms of solace and shadow - removed from their worrisome hand wringing. Admitting his transgressions, flying his aptitudes and perceptions in the face of their ragged, blustering authority, his former colleagues? This was pure joy to the wily dark-artist. What sort of amateur would scrawl the old languages and planar summoning circles in open observation of their peers?! A simpleton’s characature indeed! To share secrets with the likes of these ninny’s who peddle their “achy joint elixirs” and “tonics that help fertilize grow their Ole Dobby’s smoking leaf”? No. Amun would kick their headstones effortlessly one day with the will of forgotten titans while they snored their studies away under influences of tome mold and scroll dust……”Ole Dobby’s”, “harumph! Everyone knew the Longbottom’s had a far better brand”, Storm-crow and Amun would often talk about the very thing before his pocketed hearth.
Ben was whispy-thin under the library’s assigned adornment of robes and access-permitting medallions, such weighty finery of station. He was no fool, just loyal and blind to truths that he never had interest in questioning. Ben was an amusing and peaceful thorn prick to Amun’s flank that never seemed to miss one of the his numerous internal excavations, apparently there were wards on the many halls within the spire that alerted Ben specifically when grim covenant maker tripped them. This wasn’t bothersome and surely Amun could take the time to avoid being detected, but these interactions were just so expected now. They were a novelty to him and mostly harmless, Ben would receive a berating of character and nativity of the outside world and sexual congress and Amun, in return, would squeeze valuable meisterly musings. It was an odd arrangement, Amun gritted within his mind.
Amun pulled the heavy drawer of indexing, trying to navigate Grand-Meister Dewey’s antiquated organizational system for the halls was indeed an inopportune chore. The necessity for personal grimoires, lexicons and codexes were it’s very causality, so one always had their own personal recipes and unravelings right where one needed and avoid having to habitually perform such perfunctory notions. The particular scroll he sought was here somewhere, hidden in the perfect blind - for it was hidden in plain sight. Not only that, this particular parchment itself was was one of the Oduum’s fabled sacred scrolls, literal language of the Choir getting it directly from the font of their knowledge, their dark intent. It was a most eldred and nasty thing that none had gazed upon for quite some time. There was reason for that too, for the warded script of the Oduum’s translated tongue would certainly maim those who gazed upon it’s secrets. Regardless of this known peril, Amun continued to search and Ben,…….constant Ben was now moving onto the next topic that was commonly covered in these interactions. It was a well accustomed dance by now, between the two of them, Ben would do his best to physically block or maneuver in front of Amun’s grasps and searching efforts, and Amun would firmly yet tenderly move him aside and continue. All the while, Ben would apologize and move through and almost scriptedly anticipated launder list of topics, reprimands, rules, orders, prefects and reminders exhaustively to attempt to steal some of Amun’s attention or beguile his intentions, to delay him long enough for reinforcements to arrive (they never did out of fear of old sulfer pot Amun) or relieve poor Ben. Ben was also quite intimidated by Amun’s sigil’s, grafted brands, and bodily marring tattoos, archaic modifications and piercings, and the odd smells and adorning relics were all quite off putting.
Ben had moved on in topical social tactic, falling for another “feint and juke” motion once again, “Ehrm.., Sara says hello and that you should visit the herbarium. She knows when you and I have had these treasured times together, see. She claims that she has a proper petalled wreathe that would cancel-out the sulfuric aroma of your , *ahem*, extracurriculars and travels…”.
Amun paused and grinned at the cautious prodding from his ever-present escort, “Ben, you and I both know that you lack the spine to speak to the lovely Sara. You claim this intimacy and conspiratorial enterprising against me together. But please, you mustn’t lower your virtuous practices to test out such tales. I know thee better, gentle Ben.”
He gave pause and allowed the lonesome monk there to ponder and to dwell upon the demasculination and the cruel simmer of silence paired with it was most welcome. Amun continued his labor, the bloody scroll had to be close, Amun could feel the old thrum through vein and sigil. Frustrated by the length of passing time the task was taking for he knew in every passing moment, as he was getting closer to his prize Agents would be alerted and those fiends wouldn’t be as easily thwarted with school ground antics and jests. Amun continued to cuckhold Ben because he had chosen to remain stuck to his side, “If I were to consort with such nefarious company, to copulate with the infernal: their concubines of the damned baring flesh of peculiar pallors, sirens of barest flesh who’s tongues know no mortal boundaries or hesitancies to ensnare soul or succor the stiffened male member, the horns and their tails. Oh, friend - I can tell thee tempestuous tales of the hinds of the infernal succubus and what lies beneath a raised tail like that! HoHO!”
If Ben was porcelain white, that time quickly passed with the flush of his face and one could hear the jaw drop in those quiet halls. Amun punctuated, “Three tits Ben. The fallen seraph and their carnal legends say true - three. Tits”. Ben left him there stunned, such a common tavern enchantment had been cast on simple Ben. Social spellbinding without requiring a spell at all, just the wonders (wanders) that whispered in the ears of the chaste. Amun chuckled and continued his search down further, leaving the better man of the two social paralyzed there, pondering life choices and paths.
The violating warlock tossed another rack of tomes back into place, causing a few of the jangling chains securing the revered bindings to become disarray and murmurs of disapproval and shame from far off. “Globos meos lambe!”, Amun swore to them off in their concealing corners where he was certain they were spying from, wicked little veils like so much shadowy spiders webbings, so appropriate to their likes before his magnitude - bugs. Steps approached, Ben coming to reproach his savagery and discourteous vulgarity likely, to enter the fray of friendly flogging yet another time ….and there it was. It must have been the slam of the metal rack that had jostled enough items loose, for one moment it was lost to the eyes of humans and grasping digits but now….it’s secrets would be his.
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The secrets in the scroll, perhaps a map, perchance sigils and rights that he could use against the many-eyed, slimy tentacled bastards. Those who supped on the minds and mortals memories of the young and unenlightened. They would come again and again, yes, to graze while we would cry to they heavens at them, at their magnificence, deaf to hymns for mercy as they gnashed into our skulls. Now, he held now another great trespass against them, something recorded from the past, perhaps unbeknownst to the Oduum, perhaps another radical priest of the Choir who had learned a Truth and needed to scribe such terror before being found out.. message in a bottle for hope in a future where humanity could rage, no not with bended knee, no, rage with open eyes and cry havoc in their final hour. If any should die ti their likes, it should be a good defiant death. Not one of supplication as the tendrils drank one’s mind like so much gray jelly.
“Most unwise, my master. Certainly your subtlety would aid you better than rage. This will likely draw unwanted attention from afar astral audiences..”, the confident voice reproached as it neared. Ben had apparently reinforced his spine and was looking for a cerebral rematch now, but Amun had found what he was searching for, as the day drew to a close, the sun became dusken - curiously sudden as a matter of fact. Somewhere far off, his mind noted the quickly dimming light was indeed odd but, he was utterly transfixed at the features of the sealed scroll. Locked and warded at the ends with beautiful, golden seals - he was working them out and dispelling it when….when what or who he had mistaken as Ben seized his neck!
Ben’s voice contorted, no longer needing the ruse, “I shall bring you before the yellowed king and let his priests have a go at you. The feint whispers of life I leave within this pruned vessel of yours. I expected a greater challenge….” She wrapped the tendrils of night about his neck and torso and legs, constricting the air out of him. The onslaught was most wicked, a psychic paralytic, his keen mind went slack and he fought for basic function, his breath, his bladder and his very beings survival! There was no time! The moments were so many dim puffs in his eye and he was indeed afraid, so Amun did something most desperate - he opened and looked upon the scroll, without any preparation. If the end cometh, it was granted passage on his terms, not on those of a shadowy avarice!
So many wondrous (wandrous) images of winding sprawling spirals, the calculations of the natural cycles and the ordering formulae of life itself panged through his head with a deafening force such he had not known. The countenance of thing foreign and familiar returned at once, such as a returning childhood terror. He felt his father’s and mother’s fears, he felt ancestral shivering in caves as they peered into the dark as an alien skylight bobbed closer and closer. He knew the enormity of language and mystical mathematical songs that unravelled minds. He felt the lash of a thousand spiritual whips ordering obedience and he felt power. He could call the soil and the rain and the winds and the sun and its shadow, balling it like a fist and decimate those who dared stand against his will. He saw fore in the distance and in this vision, it saw him as well…and it blasted his impudent eyes! Scorched, his mind writhed in pain and he cried mercy upon the sand that he was thrown into, so far from where he originally journeyed.
Sight was gone, his hearing deafened as a planetary force merged with his mind - an unprepared one set upon him in a collision course. He bled from ear drum, eye sockets, his very pores. The rush of insight and knowledge threatened his destruction ….but effectively obstructed the tendril’s paralytic barrage.
Adrestia’s other shielded her from sudden ambush of energy, yanking her mind from a mental abysmal ward triggered by the madman’s fumbling flesh - what in the nine hells had the bastard done? Indeed, even the shade that inhabited Adrestia noted remotely that it had never felt such an energy and her partner was for a time diminished. They had to flee, so the outsider acted fast as their quarry, Amun’s vessel, laid there motionless, bloodied and utterly vibrant with a mysterious ardor slumbering down deep. He was not over, so she kicked him in the side for a sign of life or reaction. There was none so she searched for a heart beat and felt for breath, also none. The memory was gone for him as she probed his mind, she felt for something, anything…to no avail…yet….yet a slumber in watery depths. Amun’s well was far too deep and even together the rope they cast to ensnare, journey to and find him, there wasn’t going to be enough time for this.
The psychic probe was broken with the blast of force from the guard’s blasting rod. “Release him, fiend!”, Ben shocked himself with the voice of command that had risen from within him. The huntress broke off their ambush and in a single bound flew through the colored glass far above with an otherworldly celerity.
Ben though awestruck knew what he saw with ghastly certainty. The virginal monk had seen a “feminine” outline, but when he hailed fâe-fire from his rod upon the bitch, some shade or aura that writhed upon her like so much mist of cloud reared what looked-like a many-eyed face back at him! The devil had its tentacles around Amun’s bodily circumferences, in his ear and up his nose even! But the shock of the slow turn of the other while the warlock was still in their clutches! They knelt over Amun, Amun who was currently.. , “Summon the guards! We’ve been attacked and must get Amun to the medical ward! Help me!”, Ben yelled at the huddled shadows that had just stood there. Ben couldn’t blame his yellow-bellied colleagues as grappled with his own emotional surgings, it had all happened so fast and with many unaccustomed to violence with their spiraled halls.
*****
In the quiet aftermath, as the dust of conflict settled and the echoes of psychic screams faded, Adrestia found herself grappling with an unforeseen aftermath far more jarring than the physical altercation: the flood of memories, not her own, that now surged through her consciousness. Among these stolen glimpses into Amun's past, one memory emerged with piercing clarity, unbalancing her with its emotional weight and intimacy.
It was a memory steeped in warmth, a stark contrast to the chilling violence of their recent encounter. She saw herself, not as the cosmic huntress she had become, but as a student, eager and wide-eyed, hanging on every word of her teacher. And there, in the visage of her mentor, stood Amun, not as the adversary she had just maimed, but as the guide who had once illuminated the path of knowledge and wisdom before her. This revelation, that Amun and her beloved mentor were one and the same, tore at her with a ferocity that no physical wound could match.
The memory was vivid, suffused with the golden light of late afternoons spent in the garden where her journey of enlightenment began. It was there, under the tutelage of Amun, that she first understood the depth of her own potential. His lessons, once the foundation of her growth, now served as a stark reminder of the chasm that had widened between them, filled with the tumult of their diverging destinies.
This was not merely a memory; it was a mirror reflecting the fragmented shards of what once was—a connection now marred by betrayal and the cruel twists of fate. The revelation that her vendetta against Amun was, in a twisted sense, a war against a part of herself, shook Adrestia to her core. It challenged the very essence of her resolve, planting seeds of doubt amidst the once fertile certainty of her mission.
Adrestia struggled to reconcile the mentor she revered with the adversary she was destined to destroy. The burden of this memory, heavy with the weight of lost camaraderie and the bitter sweetness of days long passed, became her most grievous trophy. It was a poignant reminder of the cost of her path, the sacrifices demanded by her quest, and the intricate tapestry of fate that bound her to Amun in ways she had never anticipated.
As she retreated into the shadows to nurse her wounds and contemplate the implications of her newfound knowledge, Adrestia could not help but wonder if the destiny she so fervently pursued was her own, or one orchestrated by the very hands that had once guided her. In the haunted silence that followed, she realized that her battle against Amun was far more complex than a mere clash of wills; it was a struggle to reclaim her identity from the specters of a shared past that refused to remain buried.