It’s looking a lot like Shadows & Sorcery (one hundred a forty three) in here!
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And THAT
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So you all like dark fantasy stories, right? I hope so, because that’s what’s down there. Waiting for ya. A classic wander through three strange worlds awaits, with all that weird imagery and wild prose you desire.
Now, if you just signed up or missed it (or wanna read it again), last week we had a three part tale of vampyric black magic and horror in a lonely, sundered world. Check it out below, now with a handy new embed!
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This week, the veil is pierced and strange forces descend from the Spire of Miasma, we learn what happens when a monk fails the Prophet’s Crucible, and we get a look into what strange complications arise after the Death of the Sorcerer…
Spire of Miasma
No one could really imagine the world any other way. But another way it had been, incalculable epochs ago. A grey desolation in which withered shapes, bent with eternal age, shuffled about the undulating expanse, consumed by the stillness and the silence, perhaps themselves only fleeting ghosts of the dust. And then, the spires stretched into the sky, piercing the veil, and the waters, or the winds, or whatever they may have been, flooded across the ageless solitude.
By what hand or will they were raised was an answer sought after for a thousand lifetimes, gladly undertaken by the multitudes of spire scholars, sorcerers, and spiritists who gathered in sprawling cities around their bases. They were popularly believed to be the last remnants of the old world of dust, for although the parted veil brought with it countless unique forces, the spires remained strange. That which remained just out of reach was always the most tantalizing of mysteries.
What did not remain out of reach, however, were the spires themselves. They were free for all to see and feel, as were the wild powers which descended from them. Humankind knew what came down was of another place, and knew dimly how they had vivified the stark vastness of before, and so came to hold a reverence, and eventually, a devotion towards these currents, birthing innumerable spiritist groups. It was held by the humans who massed around the spires that these forces were alive in some form. Though perhaps, as a number of scholars put it much later, they were simply reactive. Such voices became a distinct minority.
The powers which spilled from the spire points engendered fascination in the best and zealotry in the rest. Such a spire as the latter was the spire of flame, the point from which fire itself entered into the world from the oft-dreamed of maelstrom beyond the sky. Few could withstand its blazing radiance and cleansing light, though its devoted followers, who came in a thousand and one different names and with as many proclamations, bathed themselves as much as their flesh could bear in the glory of flame. They enwreathed themselves in it, pushed back the ice of the frozen spire, and seared into clouds the black waters of the spire of the deep. They were heroes and heralds and ordinators, and welcomed wherever they went.
Alas, far more than the processes of the natural world emanated from on high. Sorcerers envisioned a spire of faith somewhere in the world which enflamed the minds of men as much as the guessed at spire of madness stoked that flame into ruin. Suns emerged from the pinnacle of the spire of the stars only to be devoured by tendrils from the spire of darkness, locked in eternal combat. And, from the spire of miasma, came what looked to mankind to be every rot that ever afflicted flesh, every degradation that touched the earth, and all descent into putresence. But in truth it was nothing less than the touch of Decay itself, living things merely withered to its touch the quickest. In time all the world would fall under its spell.
The spire of miasma fostered a peculiar fascination in some minds, and an intense hatred in most. For leagues around it was the land twisted and half-drowned in pools of its down decay. Day and night and seasons ceased to flow correctly, the order for which they fought undone by the omnipresent touch of miasma. Heat and cold came as their own exhalations, and rains fell more like spewing droplets. Yet any semblance of virulence in the malformed landscape vanished in its deepest regions, where nameless rot cults who were committed to the mystery congregated to have blasted from their very bones the illness, weakness, and if word could be trusted, death which otherwise plagued them. The rot could truly consume all, if one had the courage.
None hated them with so much intensity as did those who held flame in their hearts.
The irony that flame and miasma ultimately fulfilled the same purpose was lost to all but a few. All things could burn. All things could decay. And they would continue to sear and rot each other until the end of time. But even if they recognized it, they would fight for the glory or righteousness of their own demise, against the ignominious end of the other. To this end, crusades departed from the spire of flame, its warriors clad in shining beacons of purifying fire, wielding molten blades in their bare hands.
The horizon beyond which the spire of miasma dwelt glowed red from the flaming steps of crusaders, and black, oily smoke was the tell tale sign of combat. There never was a real victory for either side in the centuries they met in battle. The crusaders were inevitably depleted of their numbers, stricken with illness, or forced to burn themselves to ash to hold back the miasmatic waves from on high which reacted to the rites of the rot cults. And for that latter faction, fire burned quicker and harsher than even the most virulent decay. They were all but wiped out each time, with only one or two of their elder members fleeing to continue the spread of their faith.
Crusaders who survived were more often than not marked by their experience. On the return journey, it ate from within, slow and steady, just beyond the reach of fire. By the time they reached their home and their beds, they were more of rot than aught else, and they would have tasted what the miasma had to offer. Deathbed confessions and final wishes were sacrosanct among many peoples, and the spiritists who revered fire were no different. And it was to their horror, shame, and dishonour that rot-stricken crusaders admitted before the end that "there is peace in slow, quiet decay, in serene dissolution..."
Such bodies were, every time, incinerated until even the ash fell apart.
Flame clad bodies screaming war cries of glory and sanctity will march into the rotten vastlands forevermore where they will become holy dust or harbingers of darkness, and congregations of those given to the maw of entropy will be delivered to swift absolution, or will bathe in miasma until their souls are laid bare, to flake away into eternal, senseless serenity. The rest of the world will look on.
Prophet's Crucible
A monk in the Temple, so they say, has taken the road to becoming a prophet. It's a momentous occasion, once in many generations, that one of the thousands who dwell within the storied walls, which the city dwells in the shadow of, has taken the first step to a purpose that has long needed to be fulfilled. Whoever this monk may be, a long path awaits them—the Crucible, as it is known. As every would-be prophet before them has endured.
And failed.
People tell stories even now of when becoming a prophet was a joyous, hopeful time, that a new voice from the outer world would live among us, but the Prophet's Path and Crucible has become about learning enough to kill even one of the previous aspirants.
The five thousand year old vast corpus of divine writings, from the time of the last true Prophet, that the monks of the Imperial Temple devote their lives to the study, interpretation, and application of, decreed that a monk who would be Prophet must acquire wisdom, and that naturally, wisdom comes from experience as much as it does diligent study. Hence, monks would be thoroughly screened, and if found wanting, were cast out of their order. But if not, they would be freed from the Temple with their superior's blessing, to go into the world and indulge in every decadence and darkness they could find, to feel the touch and lash of sin and horror, but remain un-corrupted, to satisfy the soul's curiosity, to ensure the unwavering strength of their flesh, and to know that no desire tethers them to the world.
The things aspirants partake of surpass even the most ribald and deviant myth and rumour. They delve far beyond the twisted horrors and pleasures of the senses, and into the spirit. Every path must be followed. Every degradation and blasphemy and detestation must be performed if it presents itself. Blood must be spilled. Black secrets which fester in lightless places must be glimpsed. Powers come to be held by aspirants that, simply put, becomes too much to bear, and they are lost to the mire of corruption that their faith has deemed they must dwell within.
Aspirants of the latter days are spared much of what their predecessors were bidden to do. The Temple is desperate, and produces brutal ascetic magicians more than anything else now. Anything to kill their past failures.
The city itself might be safe from another failure thanks to the Temple, but great wars of conquest swarm about in the lands beyond, peopled by the enslaved subjects of demi-divine False Prophets, voices of the most base powers. A true Prophet might be able to kill at least one, but the city can only remain sheltered for so long. An example must be set for the future. The roar of rampaging demon hosts, the silent march of shackled corpse-soldiers, the noisome remains of rites of desecration which litter the blasted landscape, nameless horror and wretched death precede and are left in the wake of war, and too many aspirants have been consumed by it, another set of bones to pave the road to ruin.
A monk in the Temple walks the Path, endures the Crucible, partakes of absolute darkness, and a shudder runs through the souls of all those who hear of it.
Death of the Sorcerer
Someone who struck so many bargains, made so many pacts, commanded so many elementals, was host to so many spirits, who sent out their soul on nightly excursions to lost lands and past barriers living flesh could not cross, who carried on and sometimes within their person amulets and trinkets and artefacts—these things changed a body. There was not a single power any wizard wielded that was obtained by healthy or wholesome means. But such was what the world called magic. No land banned its practice. Nothing that useful could ever be outlawed. But it had to be controlled as well as could be managed.
Cities, wealthy merchants, princes, and more acted as patrons to a resident sorcerer. Sometimes to their cabals and academies, if the magician be so inclined, and some were. But it always rode a fine line, as few folk were comfortable with the thought of whole groups of wizards in their midst, let alone one, practicing who knew what in the dead of night, right under their noses. Many times this resulted in sieges on wizard's quarters, stealthy murders, or exiles followed by killing. Sorcerers provided services many were eager to take advantage of, and were paid for handsomely in coin and secret supplies, yet not even the most power-hungry aristocrat could truly mourn the loss of one.
But as often as not, a wizard was likely to die by their own hand, paying the greatest price of all, finally making one fatal mistake. A murder could be followed up on and dealt with accordingly, these wizards were under watch and contingencies were in place should something happen to them. Not every wizard found themselves with a noble's or governor's generosity and interest, though. These were the ones no one could control, or keep an eye on, and who, when they inevitably died, caused the worst problems.
One such example was what Selíz had been dispatched to seek out.
The sorcerer Ankhoth was a devil human skin. He dwelt in a barren bogland, a cold and sodden lair wracked with shiftless, moaning winds that carried bad dreams, and he was possessed by nameless dark spirits with whom he lived in communion. But the unfortunate reality was that no expert on the outer worlds could rival he who half-lived in it, and it was for this reason the hands and blades of many were stayed. Not all, though, which accounted for the cracked, bleached bones which sometimes peered from the restless mire, and also for the report from a would-be assassin that Ankhoth had finally met his grisly end.
That was bad, Selíz knew. It had been days since the report, but the wizard could have been dead for a while before that. That meant any number of things could be waiting for her. All she had to do was look, but that could entail a lot of things. For one, his curse may have already settled on the land. Wizards were fond of parting curses. They persisted. Or it had already been set, hence the treacherous rot-brown wilderness. Either way, one of the temples would have to cough up a relic to bury here. Maybe it was his humors that had leaked into the soil, and it would need a fortnight's burning to purify. Maybe his ghost was wandering, having clawed out from whatever hell it had promised itself to for the sake of a spell. She didn't envy the hierophant who would have to sit out here alone and send it back.
Or it could be exactly the one thing everyone feared most.
Ankhoth's lair was a squat tower of stone, very much unlike anything else in the putrid, silent expanse. It had revealed itself quite suddenly from the hazy, unclean air on the slope. She knew it the second she saw it, despite the stringy moss which clung to every surface, and the gaping hole in its face, from which thin wisps of smoke still trailed. Neither she nor anyone save the damned soul of Ankhoth himself would ever know what really happened here. Better off not knowing. But it wasn't the damage, its dim implications, or grim surroundings which finally set her mind screaming as she crept closer from behind a scraggy growth of thorny shoots.
Rather it was the six or seven figures which crouched near the aperture, the several dozen candles arrayed on the earth, on blocks of stone, and carried in hands, and the sundered corpse of Ankhoth strung up with ropes and stakes driven between the stones. She was just close enough to glimpse the expression on his face, and wished she hadn't. Something was squirming inside his split open belly. Had it not been for her training she would have bolted away, likely alerting the gathered cabal.
Most wizards survived on their reputations, and Ankhoth's particularly unpleasant one preceded him by long ways. But that reputation only came with real power, and a lot of people were desperate to seek it beyond the regular channels, beyond even the secret channels, and they would worship him, or whatever hung there, for a taste for it. Most like there would be more, Selíz thought. She had seen two other shrines akin to this, one stumbled upon quite by accident many years ago, and one her captain had brought her to see in the final leg of her conditioning. She hoped she never got used to seeing things like this.
The creeping wind blew a denser bank of haze across the slope, making the candles blink like eyes, before flaring into life again. She didn't doubt something saw through them. She took stock of the scene, steeling herself to pass her eyes over every detail just one more time. Gods, she thought, did his expression change? They were muttering something—chanting. Six or seven? Eight. There were eight. She couldn't tell if one had appeared, or joined, or what. She stuck to eight. Dressed like him, they were, shapeless brown sack-like robes. This scene was the reward of a lifetime of diabolism. She stood up slowly, shifting her weight on the uneven ground which moved with her. She remained bent, slowly sliding her gaze around the misty air, never darting, never snapping about to the cracks and calls which sometimes shot from the distance. Her feet never actually left the seeping mud, but pushed through it, minimizing sound. Before she knew it, she had done a full circle about and was loping away while the muttered incantations of the cabal died in the thick haze.
Come nightfall, fifty six mailled feet, no more and no less, would trample the corpses of acolytes into the loam and make a bonfire of Ankhoth's tower, and Selíz could rest for a few days before another sorcerer was torn to shreds, burnt to a crisp, or strangled by invisible hands, and this would play out all over again.
Nice stories, my friend! I particularly liked the last story!