Lili finished her story, silence hanging in the clearing.
“As tradition wills, the first story of the night is that of the Witch of Stories’ death,” said [Witch] Aria solemnly, “Thank you, [Witch] Lili, for your help in maintaining this tradition.”
She bowed her head slightly, tipping her hat, and was followed a moment later by the other witches and Alice doing the same.
“Now, I believe it is [Witch] Beria’s turn,” she looked towards the young woman through the fire, the flames seemingly stilling to allow her to look her in the eyes. She in turn nodded and, sitting straighter, began speaking.
“Once upon a time…
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… there were [Sailors]. Not just any [Sailors] though. This crew was composed of [Star Sailors]. Men and women who had somehow gained the ability to sail in the space among stars, their bodies made of starlight and wishes, their ship of moondust and wood grown in the deepest trenches of the oceans, soaked in darkness and hardened by the pressure.
They were blessed by both the Old Man by the Sea, for they had once sailed upon the great seas of this world, and the Old Man by the Stars, for she found them amusing and their company interesting in the days when the world was calm.
Why did they sail the stars? Because they could. Because they wanted to. Because they were sailors, and for that they were freer than most other folks in the world. After all, there never was a god of the seas to keep them in check. So, when they got bored of the water, they looked up at the skies and thought: ‘Hey, why not? After all, those stars are pretty far away. There must be endless wonders between them.’
Their Classes were strange and variegated, speaking volumes of the improbable necessities of travel outside the planet, in the dark void.
Chief among them, their captain, whose Class was [Captain of the Wandering Stars], for every member of her crew was made of starstuff.
The second most important member of her group was, of all people, unexpectedly, the helmsman, whose Class was simple in word but complex in concept: [Fractal Helmsman]. While the other crewmates of the ship were made of starstuff, the helmsman’s body was built of something else entirely, something that wasn’t of this plane of existence and, at the same time, wasn’t of any of the other Seven Planes. He was made of something in-between Nothingness and Creation, Void and Everything.
His purpose, again, was simple in all but practice: to ferret the ship and its crew from one place among the stars to another in a way that would cut the journey short, for space in the place he could bring the ship into, the Fractal, was different, wrong, and a pace in there was a thousand in Creation.
No normal eyes could see the Fractal, a place that cannot be described as anything other than a soup of colors both known and unknown to humanity, where space opened and closed, appeared and disappeared, like a lung expands and contracts with someone’s breathing, or like a beating heart’s chambers do. Such is the way that not-place works.
The captain and her crew (their names we have forgotten, for their stories were never written) were [Sailing on Ghostly Winds], getting ready to dive into the Fractal Sea, as they called it.
“Two minutes to the dive,” shouted the helmsman, beginning to take off his gear, slowly exposing more and more of his skin, eldritch colors dancing all over it in hypnotic patterns.
The rest of the crew and the captain, on the other hand, did the opposite, beginning to cover their bodies with three layers of form fitting clothes, putting on eyeless masks made of the same dark wood as the rest of their ship. The last layer of clothing was as colorful as they could make it in an attempt to mimic the Fractal. Or rather, to blend with it.
“Thirty seconds,” calmly said the helmsman, his face now the only part of him that remained covered by his own mask.
The last bits of clothing were put on and he slowly, carefully, took off his mask, revealing multifaceted and multicolored eyes that shone with a light of their own. An otherworldly light that didn’t belong to this plane of existence. A light that was, in truth, abhorred by it. So much so that it began to tear itself apart in an attempt to escape the once-man’s gaze.
“[Open the Passage]!” he shouted, and the tear in the very tissue of reality suddenly turned into a sort of doorway. It was, by far, a much kinder way to get through to that place, for thanks to the System what would have been a damage to reality itself became a safe way through that would close behind them.
Then the ship went through, and the captain spoke her Skills: “[Crew, Know Thy Ship]. [Ship: Colors of the Fractal].”
And in they were. They couldn’t see the Fractal and its colors, for that would probably lead to the end of their existence, the destruction of their bodies and their consciousnesses joining it to its fullest. Not even the System dared look into this place for fear of what would happen to It.
For that reason they had slowed down in their Leveling, but that didn’t matter to them: they already had everything they desired, and extra Levels would just make the experience less interesting in the long run.
Still, the crew moved around the ship and did their chores without uncertainty in their steps, for they knew every single plank of it. Not thanks to the Skill though, that one only gave them a sort of sixth sense of the position of things everywhere: they had actually memorized everything. That’s why it was only an Uncommon Skill.
“Captain, deactivate your winds Skill. We’re about to catch a current,” calmly stated the helmsman as, carefully, he changed the ship’s heading towards a patch of fractals that seemed to be expanding and shrinking faster than the others, like a palpitating heart. The moment the prow of the ship hit it… nothing seemed to change. Certainly the crew didn’t feel their ship speed up, what with their feet being [Firmly Anchored], their bodies [Immune to Friction] and, last but not least, the total absence of air and, therefore, wind. Still, they knew to trust their helmsman, and if he said they were about to speed up, they were.
And on they worked, more careful than they normally would because in the Fractal only Passive Skills, or ones that had been activated before entering, worked. Why? Because, as already stated, the System didn’t Observe the Fractal, so it could not bestow power to the Skills that the people called upon.
That is how they navigated for several hours, completely silent, for they knew there were things living in the Fractal and attracting their attention wouldn’t be a good idea. They’d had encounters with them in the past, and it had never been pretty. Luckily, none of them had died.
But then again, what story would it be without a problem? And, even better, what story for the Festival would it be if it didn’t speak of an ending?
So it was that, while traversing the endless tides of the Fractal, the crew heard a sound not unlike a deep groan… if it was mixed with the grumbling of a stomach and a thousand screaming voices of children.
“What the fuck?” whispered one of the crewmembers, only to be quickly shut up by someone slapping their hand on the mouth of his mask. Useless? Certainly. Effective? Even more certain.
The groaning grew closer and closer and, finally, the helmsman saw what it was.
A formless, ever reshaping, thing that, one moment, reminded him of a kraken from the ancient tales of mariners, the next some kind of tentacled whale, and the next again a strange one eyed fish, the gigantic pupil staring right at them, seeing everything.
He knew, in that moment, that they were fucked.
“Everyone! Get ready to row! Something big’s seen us!”
At those words activity burst all over the bridge and underneath as people ran and shouted, no longer caring about not making any noise, orders and information being launched from one side of the ship to the other.
And the giant thing that dwarfed their ship? The monstrous, formless, being that followed them groaned again, the pupil of its giant eye, now the only thing that remained unchanging in its constant shifting, beginning to expand in what was probably excitement, happiness, at seeing something new. A small thing with even tinier things moving on it? It had never seen such a thing! What would it taste like?
The monster, no, the behemoth, opened a gargantuan mouth filled with seething teeth and energetic tentacles, ready to chomp down on this novelty food, but as its mouth began closing with a loud groan, as if its jaws were made of metal, the thing sprouted some new small things on its sides (it was interesting how the central body didn’t change at all compared to all the rest) and began moving a lot faster.
So a chase it was! It had been a very long time since it had last found food fast enough to entertain it so.
Meanwhile the crew was… not panicking, surprisingly. They were experts, veterans one might say, and had become desensitized to true fear. What would have caused many others to freeze was, to them, only an adrenaline shot that made them work better.
Also, it helped that they couldn’t see what was actually hunting them.
On the other hand, the helmsman was actively swearing in enough languages and dialects to cause every single person in hearing range to somehow feel at home. He, too, was merely scared shitless, although he no longer had intestines to speak of, so did that count?
On they rowed, catching currents that made them move faster, aiding them in their escape from the leviathan sized monster at their backs, but it wasn’t quite enough. Whenever they managed to pick up a current they gained distance on the thing, but the moment they left it it began gaining ground on them.
“Captain, we’re doing nothing like this!” he shouted.
“It’s still following?”
“Doesn’t even look tired.”
Indeed, the Fractal Behemoth, for that was what the helmsman had decided to call it, wasn’t tired. It couldn’t really get tired, just like anything of the Fractal. And it most certainly wasn’t going to give up: this was too entertaining!
The fact that it was too big for the currents to really do anything for it was just an added challenge that made this situation better. And the speed it had to maintain to keep up with its prey certainly helped prepare its appetite. Oh, it was certain this morsel would be so worth all of this!
“Where are we helmsman?” asked the captain as she rowed near him, her paddle somehow entering the ‘water’ of the Fractal only when they met at the same level as the railing of the aft-castle.
The helmsman closed one of his eyes and put his mask over it, blocking out the Fractal completely.
In the darkness, he saw a familiar void, the blackness between stars.
And, in the distance, he saw an even more familiar, waxing, moon, a green and blue sphere right behind it.
“We’re nearing our home, captain.”
“Get us as close as you can, then get us out of here! This thing cannot follow us in Creation.”
“Aye aye captain!”
On they ran, and on they rowed, not in desperation, but close to it. They had no desire to find out what awaited them in the belly of such a beast.
It was nearly a half hour before they finally got close enough to their planet of origin.
When that happened, the helmsman shouted at everyone to get ready and, as fast as he could, began dressing himself up again, his exposed flesh disappearing from view. As this happened the ship began vibrating, as if, somehow, an earthquake had struck it.
It only took a minute, but it felt like an eternity. When, finally, the only part left to cover was the face, the helmsman shouted at everyone: “Get ready!”
Then, he put on the mask.
The Fractal shook slightly, which caused the Behemoth to slow down for a single moment in confusion: it had never felt such a thing. Was it the small thing? Could it be doing this? If it could influence this place in such a way, then it was possible it could actually be dangerous. Maybe it would be better to stop playing with its food and actually feed now.
The Behemoth, which had been holding back a bit during all this chase, used all of its strength to push itself towards the ship.
Meanwhile, the Fractal recognized that the ship inside it wasn’t meant to be here. It wasn’t unreal, it was stable. Why had such a thing happened? Or rather, why did it keep happening?
The Fractal contorted and distorted and, finally, with a sound like fabric tearing, an opening appeared in front of the ship, the currents around it all changing direction, fleeing to attempt to fill in the new available space.
The ship accelerated.
And then it went through.
As for the Behemoth? It was going too fast to stop. Nor did it realize that a doorway to Creation had opened in front of it.
So it was that, as the ship passed through, the Behemoth rammed at full speed into the tear in the Fractal.
The sailors screamed as the maw of the beast got locked into place for but a moment, looking as if the Fractal’s currents had gone against a [Bubble] Spell and expanded it.
Then, with an obscene pop that they shouldn’t have been able to hear in the void around them, the Behemoth went through.
And, for the first time since… the dawn of Time herself, a part of the Fractal ended up in Reality.
The System watched this happen.
The System, too, for the first time in its existence, cursed. It was a curse so powerful that a few [Witches] all over the world gained a Level in their Class with a Skill based exactly on that insult against reality, the dead Luck and many things the System had learned from the Spider and the Traveler. A truly specific Skill that had devastating effects on individuals who held exactly those Classes. And against spiders.
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And the Behemoth? It screeched. For it was not real enough to be where it was, it had no right to be here and it should’ve immediately turned around to leave, for its presence alone here kept that weft into the Fractal open.
Soon, though, pain became rage, and rage turned into stubbornness as the Behemoth did the one thing it had always been good at: it changed. It shed its fractal skin like a snake, black scales revealing underneath it. Tentacles disappeared and broke off, the single eye turned into many smaller ones, although considering its dimensions they were bigger than most capital cities were, while the teeth in its maws turned pearly white and became more in number.
The System kept sending queries and requests for help, for Intervention, to the gods, but every time it calculated that the time required for them to answer them would be ‘infinite’ seconds. Then, out of desperation, it activated an ancient protocol:
Hundreds of questions were asked, from the gravity of the situation to the calculated percentile chance of actual destruction of all life as it was known.
When all of these were answered, painting a truly horrifying picture, the chains of commands that held back the System were, momentarily, for but a few seconds, released.
And It began activating Skills and giving them away without having to follow any of its protocols.
First and foremost, It closed the weft into the Fractal, locking back in a few curious creatures that had followed in the wake of the Behemoth’s race: [Close the Tear].
Then, it thought for but a single moment, before assigning a Skill to the [Captain]. And a mission.
[Condition: My Crew was Forbidden from Home]
All these words flooded the [Captain] and her crew’s minds as, with a jerk, the [Helmsman] turned their ship away from the moon and their planet.
And the [Captain]? She looked back at the monster following after them, looked at the back of her mind, where the System’s words had been imprinted, never to be forgotten, and sighed.
“Prepare your weapons! We’re fighting that little shit.”
Said little shit, of whom much could be said, but not that it was little, got its first taste of pain a minute later as, from the ship, which had now turned to face it with its side, several strange tubular objects fired at a speed comparable to the speed of sound projectiles of moonrock.
“[Fast Recharge]! [Cannonballs: Airtight Aura]! [Shrapnel: Enhanced Damage]!”
She shouted Skill after Skill as her crew kept on shoving fragile cannonballs made from harvested moonrocks and pumped air into their cannons, or so the System called them. When, finally, the Skill that kept the cannons airtight couldn’t take it anymore and dissipated, the cannonballs were launched speedily towards their targets, and since there was no air in the void to slow them down, they hit harder than… she didn’t know. She’d never been hit by something that powerful. It would’ve probably killed her. She guessed it would probably hit harder than a giant going all out with his Skills though.
Multiple attacks like this kept coming at the Behemoth, who shrieked in rage. Luckily for everyone its body had adapted to this reality and made it impossible for the sound to actually reach them.
Then it ran towards them, opening its mouth wide, wider, wider, practically unhinging its jaw… until it actually unhinged, and divided into four parts, the opening now wide enough to probably swallow the whole moon in a single bite with space to spare.
That was when they knew it was over. They couldn’t outrun that.
So, instead, they kept on attacking, both in a vain hope to kill the thing and in a vindictive desire to leave a mark for the bastard to remember them by.
“[Sky-Shattering Speed]!” shouted the [Captain], using the Skill she’d activated once upon a time to start their journey into the void. Only, this time, she didn’t apply it to the ship, but to one last cannonball.
The moment the words left her mouth the little bits of weapon which had just left the mouth of the barrel… disappeared from sight.
A moment later though they saw something black begin to flow out of the Behemoth’s mouth, specifically around a single tooth which, a moment later, detached from its base. There was a good chance that the Behemoth screeched, but they couldn’t hear it. They only saw the tooth begin to hurdle away from the Behemoth, fly past them, and move away, towards their home planet.
Then the maws of the Behemoth closed around them. We presume they all died.
As for the tooth? It flew away and down to our green world. The System, again, panicked, knowing full well that it would be catastrophic. This time, though, It didn’t have to intervene, for Flatos, the God of the Skies himself, saw the threat coming and, with its power, slowed it down, depositing it down to the earth, near our chain of mountains.
They say, in fact, that Mount Soran, the highest peak of the Tiurna Mountains, the mountain that the greatest [Mountaineer] to ever exist scaled in an attempt to meet the gods themselves, is, in fact, that same giant tooth, turned into stone and minerals because of the parts of Fractal still inside it changing it to fit better in its new environment.
This is the story of how the highest peak of our mountains came to be.
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As the story ended Alice sat with her mouth hanging open.
“Close your mouth dear, you’ll catch a mosquito,” said [Witch] Aria by her side.
After she did and sat in silence for a few moments, as [Witch] Commodora began telling her own story, she whispered to Aria: “I cannot compete. That story was amazing.”
The old witch smiled a gentle smile at her and whispered back: “This isn’t a competition Alice. Not everything in life is. You should remember that more often. And as for you… your story will be one of hope, not one of endings. It has been a long time since someone last brought one such story to this Festival.”
Alice frowned: “Wait, how do you know what story I’ll be tell -”
“Shush, dear. I know not your story. Only what your heart harbors, and it harbors hope. I expect a story that will make me smile.”
And with that, they sat back in silence.
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Commodora told a story on the death of the last vampire [Knights], while Aria told one about the Witch of Mirrors and her hatred.
When the story ended the clearing was silent as all eyes were pointed at Alice.
She’d never suffered from stage fright in her entire life, her ‘it’s your fucking problem if you don’t like it’ attitude helping her get through a lot of things.
Still, for the first time in a decade, she felt under pressure.
That was when Av put a gentle hand on the small of her back, smiling encouragingly at her when she looked at him.
Taking a deep breath, she rummaged around behind her tree trunk and, after a moment, plopped down on her legs a small… probably doll was the best definition for it. It was made of sticks and long grass woven together half haphazardly, the figure looking like some kind of toddler with a too big nose with, of all things, some kind of animalistic ears that could’ve been a bat’s, a dog’s or a cat’s, or something else entirely.
“[Show Them The Past],” she whispered.
And suddenly the people around her could not just vision, but see all that she was going to say.
She began telling her story: “Once upon a time…”
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…there was a family.
Well, calling it a family would be an exaggeration: they were two people, a father and a son. The mother of the family had died giving birth to him, and the father, a kaldun, a mage, had been unable to save her even with all the spirits and demons at his disposal.
But this isn’t the story of a dark mage and his son. This is the story of a spirit living in their home. The spirit’s name was… Mikhavich, and he was a domovoi. Demons like him were protectors of the house, guardians of its inhabitants who kept away other demons and undesired guests, chasing away thieves and warily trapping other mages who hadn’t come bearing good will.
They were shapeshifters, sometimes appearing like cats or dogs, sometimes like old, hunched over, hirsute and quite ugly gnomes, while other times still looking like small men with big beards, not unlike a dwarf if they were smaller.
These events happened not long after the end of a great war, what was once believed would be the greatest war that would ever be fought by humanity as a whole.
During those times of desperation domovois like him were, all in all, considered a blessing, for they sometimes could even manage to keep soldiers away from their homes. After all, and this was something many had forgotten, once upon a time they hadn’t been devils, or chorts as they were called by their mages: there had been a time when they were called diedusca, or simply put, grandpa. Grandpa Domovoi. For they had once been the spirits of the departed, staying in their loved ones’ izbas, in their homes, in a desire to keep them safe.
They lived hidden behind stoves, even if once they’d lived inside the flames themselves, for they’d been made of fire. Oh, how the arrival of the churches and their beliefs had changed them, from helpful sprites to demons that had to be appeased with food and drink. And the worst part? They’d been forced to become… this, against their will. For stories shaped them as much as their memories.
The war, the greatest of wars, had ended, and they had won.
But while the wars among soldiers had ended, their blood no longer spilled, another war was fought in the shadows. Or rather, in an attempt to hide back in the shadows from a light that would destroy all it touched.
This story begins on the first day of that fateful war of shadows and light, and it begins with a domovoi hiding in the shadows behind a stove in a small home where a father is teaching his son the black arts.
That day began as many others did: the father was woken up just before sunrise by one of his devils coming back from a task assigned to it, and since the evil little bastard was, well, a devil, it decided that letting his owner sleep wasn’t on the menu.
Still, the father took it in stride: he’d been a mage for decades now, this was nothing.
He let his son sleep until the sun began shining from the windows, when he went to wake him up. After a small breakfast of grains and bread, a luxury for the country that had been impoverished by the war, he began teaching his son all that he knew: from spells to invocations to rites to names of devils that should never be called upon, such as Sitri and Azazel and Abadon.
While these lessons were taught, the domovoi heard screaming coming from the yard. Upon looking they all saw two things: the Dvaravoi, the devil protector of their yard, on the ground, screaming as his flesh was burned away, and a woman carrying a white tome in her hands, her hands clad in the same light that surrounded the dying devil. Indeed, not disappearing, but dying. For even devils could be killed with the right words.
The father shouted as the girl looked him dead in the eyes and he wanted to run, but there was only one way in and out of their home, for it was too small to need more than one door, all in an attempt to keep the cold out in the winters.
When, finally, the screaming stopped, nothing but ashes remained of the devil, and the girl began advancing on the home.
The father barricaded the door, told his son to hide anywhere he could while he tried to distract the girl, and while the domovoi had heard stories of mages saying those same words to their apprentices only to run away afterwards, he knew that this one would stay and fight.
The door opened, and the girl walked in.
“You are the kaldun Proshkin, right?”
The man narrowed his eyes at her: “And you are the holder of the White Book,” he spit on the ground at her feet at those final words.
The girl shook her head, looking forlorn: “That about answers my question then. I’ve come here to act on… the gods’ will.”
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Alice had to stop for a moment, remembering that this world didn’t have a single God, but many. It would’ve been suspicious for her to say anything else.
She took a small breath, then continued.
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“I will exterminate the plague of devils that infests this country, and together with them I will make sure that the knowledge of kalduns such as you dies with them.”
The father shook his head: “You’d try to take on all of… Airm itself? You are a fool, girl.”
“With the White Book in my hands and the gods by my side? It is not just possible, it is my duty. Now, where is your son?”
The father smirked: “Out of town, you second class viedma. You won’t get him.”
“We’ll se -”
She didn’t manage to finish her sentence as the kaldun toppled over a closed wicker basket by his side and seven devils flew out of it, in all shapes and forms, launching themselves at the… probably a priestess. Neither the domovoi nor the kaldun knew for certain.
At that sight she raised her hands, the Book flying in the air in front of her, spear of divine light piercing out of the pages, going straight through the devils and killing them.
She turned back to the mage, but before she could say anything else he threw a curse at her, one that would’ve caused her sickness by the hands of Karkusha, one of the aspects of Pesta, the pestilential facet of death. But where her skin should’ve started rotting it looked barely touched, if possible even rosy with health.
“Now, di -”
That was when the domovoi made his choice.
With a lunge, he flew out from behind the stove, a single item in his hands: a nail. One he had taken from the walls of his home. In its hirsute form, the scariest one, he bellowed at the priestess, distracting her long enough to allow him the time to plant the nail in her shadow, specifically into a node in the wood of that plank.
He recited an old incantation, and as the priestess tried to lunge at him, she found that she couldn’t move away from her spot.
“Run, Proshkin. Take your son and run, hide, and tell the others. Our end has come. Forget us, for she has killed your devils and you are now free from their chains and demands.”
The man looked the old, very old, domovoi in the eyes, then nodded and ran to his bed, getting his son out and running out of the door.
The priestess lunged for them, but couldn’t move. She tried casting a Spell, but the mouth of the stove opened and a single chort of the embers flew out at the house spirit’s command, taking the hit for them. They were too simple minded to do anything anyway.
When, finally, the people who had lived in this home for so long disappeared into the nearby forest, where a local, friendly leshi would probably help them, the priestess turned to glare at him.
“You damned!”
He sat down, taking out a stone pipe from inside the stove and beginning to smoke an ember. One last time, in memory of the old times.
“You call me damned, but it was your church who turned me into a devil. I used to be a benevolent spirit, you know? A fragment of the soul of a dead loved one, staying back to protect my family. But your church just couldn’t accept the existence of anything other than your gods, and so whenever you saw something different you labeled it as devilish.”
He took a deep drag: “Consider this my little revenge. Your job has just become… probably ten times as hard as it should’ve been. You no longer have the element of surprise. They will run and hide, and then, when you die of old age and the sigils of that Book form anew, we will come back.”
As an answer she chanted something in the language of her church and, a moment later, a ray of divine sunlight began shining over the old domovoi. He hissed in pain, but other than that did nothing. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.
“We will always survive, young bitch of the gods. It is only a matter of how many of us will.”
He felt himself begin to disappear into smoke, and even though the pain was endless, he laughed in her face.
That was the last thing he did as a spear of light went through his head, right between the eyes.
That day, the second to last invisible war began.
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Alice sighed as she ended the story. But it didn’t feel hopeful, at all.
So, for the first time since grandma had told her this story, she decided to change something.
“It is said that the girl lost her war and that, in the end, enough survived.”
She lifted her little puppet in her hands.
The fire roared, a distant memory of the Kupala Night bonfire coming to Alice’s mind, and she threw her creation into it.
The flames roared even higher.
She smiled.
And everyone who sat or stood in that clearing knew that she was telling the truth.
That night, the first domovoi of many woke up in one of the homes in that village in the mountains. Many would do the same soon afterwards.