The one hundred and thirtieth edition of Shadows & Sorcery has busted its way into your house and it won’t leave!
Long time readers of this thing may wonder why I use both English and American spellings of certain words. Is it because I’m a dumb dumb silly man who can’t be bothered to remain consistent? No! It goes like this: center makes more sense to me than centre, but sombre looks much cooler than somber. Armour as a certain archaic je ne sais quoi that armor just doesn’t. If I could get away spelling it “emperour” I would.
Anyway, if you are new—hello!—or just missed last week’s edition, check that bad boy out HERE
I would also recommend all readers, as ever, to take a quick trip into the archives. There are some pretty juicy morsels in there, some of them are positively turgid even.
And hey, please take a second to let the stories know you liked them—tap that little heart button!
This week, we don and learn the curious nature of Memory Armour, we ascend into the curious heights of the Prophet’s Mountain, and we gaze upon an expression of Rune Sorcery…
Memory Armour
Beautiful, isn't it? The intricate scrollwork, the flowing patterns, all in low but clear relief, the dull silver sheen of the metal. The intricacy of the full one hundred plates across the entire suit, look how solid they are though, even on the fingers. Like a second skin, really.
A suit of memory armour is a real treasure, a real honour. Not everyone gets chosen for this. You've a real potential if your name came up. Aye, it is strange—strange but incredible. You've seen fighters in memory armour before, right? The way they move—the fighter, and the armour. Together. Oh that takes time, but that's the beauty of it. Well it's...like a bond, I suppose. Not in the sense that the armour is alive, that's, ah, hard to really get into. But rather it's like being...being in tune with the memories, as it were. The memories of every single warrior who has worn that armour is in there. Every single one, no matter how long or brief a time. That part is very much alive in that it informs movement, reaction, perception even.
I myself have not been lucky enough to be called to be clad, but I've known many memory warriors who shared their experiences with me. Like a rush in the brains, they say. Like you are being anticipated in your movements—you are amongst the memories of other fighters, after all. And sometimes, this is the real advantage, it will move for you. Fatigue sets on in waves on the battlefield. Lulls in the fight sometimes come with a sudden breathlessness, heaviness of the eyes, the excitement waning, the anxiety setting in, the whole feel of yourself changes. But the armour can carry you, it can help move, it can even help fight! Again, it isn't alive. Can't save you from further injury, either, and it depends sometimes on the individual suit's memories. But this has a built in failsafe: your memories will go into it, too. It'll remember what you won't in the moment. Absolute awareness.
Death? Heh, well...well, that's something I don't know about. But anything's possible with such wonders.
...
Qahem had thundered onto the battlefield with valiant stride, a thousand warriors of old stepping with him. Blades snapped, armour crumpled, enemies fell to a thousand skilled hands of old. Blood and vigor had raced through Qahem's body, his heart had beat like a war drum and laughter had flown from his lips as scores dropped to his and a thousand other's expert strokes. It was almost like the memories were overlaid with what was happening right there and then, and he—or the armour, had anticipated every single attack. He had nearly been able to see them at points, his predecessors, crowding around him, pointing, whispering, shifting him.
The enemy commanders had put up respectable struggles, and their techniques were, Qahem readily admitted, a marvel to behold. Bazuso's deft and terrifying greataxe swings, Shamia the Dancer's lighting-fast dual rapiers that sung through the air, and Dohzen's battle staff, banded and studded with shining platinum, was perhaps the most fearsome of all. But each one had been slain, surrounded by their crestfallen fellows, left in the barren dust. The battle was won, the enemy routed, the charge to secure the grounds begun.
But the armour kept fighting.
There had been moments where he had felt himself slipping, as it were, and had to wrench himself back to the moment. He thought it was just the rush of battle, the flitting of his mind. As each commander had fallen, his fighting had become more feverish. Again, he thought it was merely the excitement getting to him. But not now. The armour charged ahead, he inside it, every single instinct screaming at him to kill every last one. They knew his position, they knew his army's strengths, they were calling for back-up, a greater force in the trees and the hills, assassins ready to pounce, it was a trap don't follow them, they'll lurk on the road home, you're surrounded, ballistae and cannons any second now, each one was a liability he-
No, a liability the armour couldn't afford.
Qahem tore off the helmet and threw it to the ground, and roared for his paiges to help him remove the rest.
...
Josan felt herself going cold. The pulsing of the wound in her stomach had been the compass by which she tracked her ebbing life. Now it was little more than a mild thrum. But the armour kept walking. Something in this rotten jungle kept drawing her forward. She knew it wasn't really so, but it felt like it was searching for something through her.
Please, not here, Zholia, not now.
That it might stir of its own volition was something she expected, and had even come to hope for. It was like her big sister was right there, guiding her in the armour that had come back without its user. Josan had swallowed the resentment and had taken the charge. She was a perfect fit, though she wasn't a soldier. Not like Zholia. She supposed, in the heavy murk of the jungle, that had been her downfall.
Please, take me home. Do you remember how to get home?
It was the other memories keeping her upright, informing her how to hold herself, how to walk—countless wounds just as bad as this welled up and it took most of her strength not to panic when flashes came into her mind's eye. How many people had died in this armour? How many final memories were failures? Terror? Agony? How many actually came back? Was this armour a walking memorial fuelled by sacrifices? How many had to die in this armour and by its hands before it was perfect?
I can't keep my eyes open.
There was a tugging at her brain coming from a sodden clearing where sickly light filtered through the dense canopy overhead. The intense, infuriating familiarity of a place as seen in a dream that refuses to become clear. She stepped into the seeping mulch and spun around. Was that sound real? It was real, but did she hear it? She fought to just keep her eyes in focus as she slowly turned and peered down into the pooling rivulets of filthy water and black earth.
A human skull with stains that may have been the remains of hair stared out from the muck with a loose, hanging jaw.
This is where I died.
This is where she died.
Only three tears from somewhere inside the face plate before the limbs went slack. But the armour stood.
Prophet's Mountain
For close to a thousand years—very close now, in fact—people have been ascending into the Prophet's Mountain to gain visions and glimpses of divine wisdom. It has far outgrown being a local phenomenon, and reports have stated that folks come from half way across the world to climb into its mist-shrouded slopes. It began as a curiosity, hunters having dreams while seeking game in its heights, or lost travellers relating their inexplicable experiences to the little smatterings of huts that, over the the course of about two centuries, steadily grew into whole sprawls of loose settlements crowding about the mountain base.
It is a beautiful mountain, though. Tall and grey, stately in stature some might say, covered in drifting veils of light fog which snake through the rich, dark woods that people its broad span. The air which descends from it is perfumed with wild heather and that unique, inviting must of deep forests which casts a somnolent spell over those who breathe it deep on cold mornings just before dawn. It sits as silent as the dark behind the stars, rustling rarely even in high winds, and no call of bird or beast escapes its bounds. Those are for the woods and the woods alone.
You can tell when a new arrival is a prophet-in-waiting. They dress very austere—more how they think they should dress, and not what will help them survive the untamed wilderness. But prophets will be cared for, won't they? Their message must be delivered. Most folk who have been living in the area for generations never get tired of telling newcomers of all the hopefuls who clamber up into the crags and woods for days, months, even years at a time. If they ever return at all. The usual retort to that is the infinitely robust claim of their obvious falsity.
It's both amusing and good business for the locals when a prophet-to-be comes with a following in tow. They're always eager and excited, rarely sombre, maybe a little aloof, and even if the ale-house and tavern owners don't sell much, these little cults being sometimes a tad reserved or disdainful of worldly vices, decent coin is made on rented rooms. Some followings will remain on for a good while, checking the skies and clouds and birds and whatever else for signs and omens, some inns will get a full two weeks or more before conflict occurs and members being dropping off as faith is tested. Sometimes prophets are up there for so long they come back down to find their followers have left with another seer.
In this near millennium of existence, the mountain's reputation has come up and down, and when it has been up, there have been certain wealthy, pious, or otherwise folk of considerable means who decide to add the mountain and its surrounding locale to their nascent domains. The area is extremely rural and few of the great manors which hold sway in this part of the world can lay decent claim to the land. It's one of those antique curiosities where the land hasn't much to offer in terms of production power, and ownership has passed through hands in obscure ways so that no one really knows upon whose charter it sits. No one bothers to check, unless they believe the eminence blasphemous, holy, or a potential source of income.
Curiously, and this is one of the things which really makes the mountain notable, not a single force has ever been able to conquer it. Sizeable armies have tried just setting up camp, cutting back the wilderness, marching into the lower reaches, but they just never remain. There is no particular reason, sometimes it's weather, sometimes it's disease, sometimes it's infighting or new conflicts call them away, sometimes their captains and commanders just have a change of heart and attempt a coup against the baron or landgrave employing them. Whatever happens, they're never around for long, and quite quickly it's as if no boots but those of locals and prophets have ever been set there.
This, along with the constant waves of would-be prophets leaving the place speaking in tongues and alien metaphors, is the kind of thing that draws the attention of scholars and sages. Learned folk in the major cities have taken to documenting the rambling of prophets who do re-emerge from the mountain heights, recording their gibberings, allusions, exclamations, revelations, for study and for future generations. It must be said that there is remarkably little consistency to what these prophets say. They mostly describe visions of things no one can place, grand, ethereal, sometimes mildly unsettling glimpses of great beings, gods, demons, ancient ancestral forces, potential awakenings of things that slumber, the rise and fall of mighty figures, and pretty much all of this is clouded in esoteric speech of little use to most people. None of it fits into some kind of narrative, and several centuries later, one has yet to appear. Yet the visions keep coming.
The mountain is known to many in the world, of course, and most of the excitement surrounding the impending millennium—whose exact date differs depending on whom you ask—is mostly amongst the great rabble of the cities. The mountain has a reputation in some circles for attracting those of, say, overly zealous dispositions, if one is being kind. If one is not being kind, then the mountain attracts the gullible. Or the mad. But even then, those rare scholars of a truly impartial and inquisitive temperament are more than a little curious to see if that momentous date reveals anything, or if it'll be more of the same for the next thousand years and into eternity.
Theories abound. Could be that the mountain simply has an adverse affect on the mind as these poor souls are seeking answers that do not exist. Could be an active malevolence, or it could just be aught in the air or water. Though if this is the case, it should have affected locals at some point, which it has not. Therefore it is reckoned to be truly supernatural.
Perhaps it is something reaching out to the sensitive in mankind, those with eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts to feel in just the right way, but not right enough to make sense of it. Could be these prophets really are the heralds of a new god or gods, or the chosen of the true gods behind all the others. Some have pondered if all this isn't some kind of warning. The visions are strange, even frightful at times. Could some distant divinity be reaching out to those it can, telling us all to beware, and we laugh it off? Or, and few like to speak or admit it, could it be the first steps of an invasion? These poor fools do come out of the mountain not quite themselves—some emerge completely changed. Are they themselves? Or are they something else? Are they eyes and ears and hearts for something else out there, feeling its way around the realm of humanity?
The next few years will, well, hopefully tell all.
Rune Sorcery
A wizard's duel was the last thing the woodsman had expected to stumble across out in the hills past the Farsouth Wall. Yet there they were, sitting in a broad depression on the wide, lumpen summit, clad in shapeless black robes like two great mounds of shadow, surmounted by large, frightening masks. Probably they knew he was there, but didn't care. Around them were great arrays of strange instruments and magical paraphernalia. It looked like the woodsman had arrived just in time, too. The duel was about to begin.
A tendril of blackness strayed out to the side of the wizard closest to the woodsman—an arm, with greyish flesh upon the long-fingered hand. There was a length of thick, loosely tied rope on the ground next to it. The wizard picked it up, and with a deft flick of the wrist, undid the loose knot in a single motion. Within a matter of a second, the hair upon the woodsman's neck stood on end, and before he could turn to look, a single great gust of roaring wind that felt like some huge invisible form rushed past and around him down into the depression. About a dozen of the opponent's candles were snuffed out, and just as quick as it had risen, the air went silent.
It was that wizard's turn then. From the spread of things around them, the twitching fingers which emerged from the formless robes chose a small golden object the woodsman's keen eyes told him resembled an ornamental thunderbolt of all things. The icons and invocationary tools of weather gods. The wizard took it in hand, and suddenly threw it high into the air. Only the woodsman didn't see it come back down. A shade seemed, then, to fall across the landscape, as if a great dark cloud had come over all, but there was no cloud. Instead, in the light, wispy sky, a great bolt of lightning streaked followed by a crack of thunder so loud it could be felt in the chest.
The closer wizard didn't wait a second to respond. From a low, wide bowl on legs, the wizard removed a handful of thin, pale ashes, and with their other hand, placed a single finger into the burning wick of a thick candle. The ashes erupted in veins of flame, and the wizard threw them forward as they crackled and spat as spirals of fire in the air.
The opposing wizard responded even quicker by picking up and slamming to the earth a human skull whose every inch seemed covered in minute etchings and carvings, though from this distance the woodsman couldn't rightly see them. When it connected, there came a thunderous shaking all around as if a thousand soldiers on horseback were surging forth for one final desperate charge, whose fury was so great the earth itself tangibly shook. The woodsman slipped and stayed down.
Through all this, their masks and robes hid them perfectly, never betraying either wizard's countenance. The woodsman understood all of this as something similar to how warriors bellow and stamp and boast. Ritual posturing. It was like the wizards were building themselves up to something. Heaven's breath though, the woodsman had seen warriors do some truly incredible things, but this? What could they possibly be building themselves up to?
And then, the closer wizard pulled out a twisted length of black wood from within their robes.
It was like the world itself was holding its breath in that moment.
Into the very air the wizard now scratched the sign of a rune, and the woodsman almost fled on the spot.
That was the ur-power. The power whose primordial existence was attested to by the world's mightiest sages and archpriests. The foundation of the rune faith followed by every man, woman, and child in the whole world. The gods were only gods because they learned the runes first, and had kept them from man, or guarded them, as the priests would say. But before man, before gods, before the world, there had been runes. And when the world was over, the runes would be all that was left.
Now, truth be told, magical arts were many, and mostly they were simple things the people did, but they reached out, through the gods, to that original power. The woodsman partook of many, perhaps more than was strictly healthy, but such was his occupation. Wizards like this though, they stole secrets from the gods and used the runes themselves, at the risk of total obliteration. Such was the price of playing with the pillars of creation. Oh, the priests, and indeed the gods, are very free with such knowledge.
It all happened in a flash. As that final stroke was finished, the opponent wizard had but barely drawn forth their own wand as a searing, screaming radiance blasted them, their instruments, and the earth they sat on, from existence. The woodsman made half-rune signs upon his forehead, eyes, mouth, both shoulders, and chest, in that order, as he backed away. He wasn't sure what it was wizards did after things like, and had no particular desire to find out. And besides, there was nothing down there worth taking back to sell to a priest in town.
The Wizard's duel in the third story is super cool! I really felt like I was there watching it! 🤯
Prophet's Mountain was very interesting. Interesting to think about the nature of an md intersection of pkace, religiosity, prophecy and the human condition! Deep! And the end! Was not expecting that twist!