2 - A Toll Free Call
The first of the twisted creatures charged at him, it was quick like the previous one, but this time Fenn was ready for it. He recalled his older brother's lessons, the spirit before him was no tree, but he would cut it down all the same. One heavy stroke sent the broken body of the creature to the unmoving. The sight emboldened Fenn, and sent some of the other spirits faltering in their charge. Most however stayed their course, an icy fury in their eyes. Another creature came, this one carrying a branch fashioned into a club. Fenn lined up another strike, but the spirit ducked the swing, stepping closer, and throwing a strike of its own. The club connected with Fenn’s shin with a crack, pain shot through his whole leg and he struggled to keep his feet beneath him. Shifting his weight to his good leg, he brought his axe down on his foe, along with an ear splitting cry of anger and pain.
Three more stood before him now, these monsters empty handed. The one to his left darted in at his unprotected side. Fenn tried to bring his axe around, but found it lodged firmly in the corpse of its previous victim. With nothing else at hand, he swung his torch out in desperation. The flame made contact with the creature's face, releasing a terrible hissing noise as its skin began to boil and burn rapidly. The others reared back from the flame as the one he had struck collapsed to the ground writhing in pain, face alight with quickly spreading flame.
Fenn let go of the handle of his stuck axe, and brandished his torch at the growing number of spirits approaching from all around. Two of them charged him from opposite sides at the same time. He managed to bring one of them down to the ground, slowly being engulfed in flames, but couldn’t bring his torch around quick enough to prevent the other from bowling him over in a rushing tackle. Hitting the frozen ground hard knocked the air from his lungs, and, more concerningly, the torch from his hand. As he grappled with the spirit that had knocked him down the others took the opportunity to stomp out the petering torch with great prejudice. The small monster’s claws scraped and scratched at his face and neck drawing lines of blood through his skin. In the final flickers of firelight from the fading torch Fenn caught the flash of Morigant’s blade just within reach. He stretched his arm out as the dark consumed him and the spirit's claws threatened to take his eyes with them, grasping at the ground where he’d seen the sword once, twice, there! He whipped the blade around and pushed, under the spirit’s chin and through its head. The creature stilled, he rolled it off of him and pulled the blade from it’s head.
The dark was all consuming, the crunch of twigs and stomp of feet all he could sense. He long left his designs on magic behind, but the pendant he had worn always, as a simple memento. He hooked his thumb around its leather cord as he stumbled to his feet again, pulling the amulet from beneath his coat and tunic. As the trinket broke free of his clothes it brought with it a light like the rising sun, and the spirits shrieked and scampered back away from him. They feared the light it would seem, or more likely the sun that it resembled. It was then that he saw them truly as the pendant's light reached far, not dozens of the creatures like he had initially thought but hundreds of them stood deep in the trees to the northwest, some standing as tall as a man with great branches in hand as weapons. Even with the fear the pendant engendered in the beasts, this was not a force that the village would be able to repel before dawn.
‘Maybe…’ Fenn thought, ‘If such a simple piece of magic that could be bought for three copper has this great an effect then magic may be our only chance.’
The beginnings of a plan were starting to form in Fenn’s mind, it was just as likely to make things worse as it was to make things better, but the way things were going so far the village would be dead to the last man, woman, and child by the night's end. ‘It would have to work’ he decided, and so he set about making it so.
“Hey uglies! Follow me!” he cried, in the hopes of drawing their attention away from the village as he ran for their ranks among the trees. One of the spirits snapped out of its frightened stupor in time to lunge at him. Bringing Morigant’s blade to bare Fenn swung out, slashing the creature across the chest from shoulder to waist. It was not a clean or deep cut, but it didn’t need to be. Fenn seized the opening running through the gap in their loose formation to skirt past their numbers westward into the forest. Towards where he met Lem all those years ago. Some number of the monsters followed after him, more than enough to give the village a fighting chance until he returned, he hoped.
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The Night of Distant Dawn had been largely uneventful for Glen, so far. He hoped Fenn wouldn’t be too bored. The boy was incredibly excited to finally contribute to the defense of the village, Glen just hoped that reality could stand up to the kid’s expectations. It was the source of much strife when he was younger, that it often could not. His brother’s watch fire was to the west of the village, under a mile north of his own which sat to the southwest watching over where the forest met farmland and the trees scattered. All was quiet but for the crackle of the fire, and nothing moved but the trees, shaking gently in the wind. For a long moment all was still, serene, and peaceful. And then it was not.
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“SPIRITS! FROM THE WEST! DOZENS!” Glen froze, that had been his brother's voice, worse still the news it brought. It would seem it was time for the watch to do their job. The moment’s hesitation gone, he quickly lit his torch and ran towards the source of the call, his late father’s axe in hand. He had to hope that his brother would hold on until he arrived. He wouldn’t even bother entertaining the thought of anything else. Glen wouldn’t lose him again.
He ran past what would have been his brothers watch fire with haste for the barest cinders remained and he could see no one nearby. The call had come from further north, likely at the next watch fire. Then, he heard a piercing cry, part anger, part pain, his brother was fighting for his life. A few more agonising moments passed before Glen noticed what looked like a faint torchlight in the distance. Then, much to his horror, it went out. His breath caught in his throat, and a dozen long terrible heartbeats rang out, waiting. It was sudden, as if dawn had broken... in the middle of the night… from the north. Something had happened, he wasn’t sure what, but it was a sliver of hope if nothing else.
He began to see shapes on the horizon, one the size of man, and a dozen the size of children. “Hey uglies! Follow me!” the taller one, Fenn he assumed, shouted out while darting forward towards the smaller shapes. The sunlight seemed to follow him, though Glen hadn’t the slightest idea why, as he struck down one of what he could now just barely see were twisted little imps of frost and fur, and ran past it into the forest.
‘Why was he running into the forest?’ Glen wondered, ‘And why does he want them to follow him?’ The closer he got, the easier it became to tell that Fenn was favoring his left leg. ‘If he’s hurt wouldn’t staying put be safer? Or at the very least running back towards the village where he might find help?’ It was then that Glen saw the two to three hundred more of the creatures waiting in the trees to the northwest, illuminated by the sunlight that followed his brother’s form. ‘He’s trying to draw them away from the village!’ There was something else odd about the scene before him. There was hesitation in the movements of the near half of their forces who turned to chase after Fenn. They were afraid of him.
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Fenn ran faster than was reasonable or safe within the dense undergrowth of the forest, but going any slower would see him dead in seconds. He had been running for a few minutes already, and the only reason he could discern that they hadn’t caught him yet was that they were still afraid of his pendant to some degree. Regardless they were growing bolder minute by minute. One of the spirits behind him quickened it’s pace to close the gap, but a quick duck behind a tree, and a well placed sword strike to meet his foe as it rounded after him, ensured the less adventurous of the monsters that they had the right idea.
A root nearly caught his foot and he slowed to stop from falling over, a fatal prospect at the moment. He was slowing, he could feel it. Every single step shot a jolt of pain up through his injured leg, and he’d been running or fighting for his life for almost fifteen minutes straight now in the freezing cold. Fenn could only count his blessings that it had been unusually dry this winter, so hadn’t had to contend with snow as well. Then he noticed a familiar tree, he was near where he had met Lem. His only chance at survival hinged on a fairy he’d only met once eight years ago being willing to help him, but he would take uncertain death over the certain variety any day of the week.
“Lem!” he cried, “Lem, I need to use the artifact!” he continued on for several more heartbeats waiting for a reply. “LEM!” he tried again, grasping desperately at his only remaining hope.
“Pipe down, will you?” Lem chastened, as Fenn stumbled across a line of sprouting mushrooms that hadn’t been there moments before. He quickly looked around as he stumbled to a stop in the sunlit idyllic grove which looked the same as it had nearly a decade ago. Fenn’s pendant dimmed in the new space a faint glow, the only reminder of its brilliant dawn. “Well, come on then. You know where it is already, and I know you’re in a hurry.” they grumbled slightly annoyed.
“Ah… right.” Fenn muttered quietly. He followed Lem down along the creek shore, and down into the cavern. He hesitated at the caves entrance, if he screwed this up it would mean that his whole village would likely be wiped out. He steeled his resolve and stepped forward to the pedestal. If all went well however, not only would his village be saved, but he would be able to learn magic. Fenn allowed himself to feel a little bit excited at the thought, quickly stymied by the severity of the night's events. ‘The fairy warned me not to call upon a name whose owner I do not know of, but I am truly desperate and if I enter a random name with enough confidence, then what Lem doesn’t know won’t hurt them.’ He lifted the hook like contraption to his face, this was the part that he was supposed to talk through. Then he looked down at the circle of strange runes, and he began dragging the runes around its circumference one by one to spell a name he did not know. A hollow ringing sprung from the crescent shaped piece in his hand and he started to sweat. This was the moment of truth, the crux between magic power, and the loss of all he loved and his own life. The ringing stopped as abruptly as it started, and a voice called out.
“Hello! You’ve reached the phone of Kaleepo Andersmith Esquire, how can I help you tonight?”