Shadows & Sorcery #195
S&S is kinda like a weird spaceship flying through an interdimensional wormhole, and you look out the portholes and the wizard flying the contraption slows down for a second so you can see all the weird stuff happening in different realities. Then it happens two more times, and you get more of this every week.
We’re actually doing a huge U-turn and revisiting three of our tried and true worlds this week, including the team-up of the century, someone’s morning commute, and some tentative development of one of my favourite new settings from last year. By the way, it’s pronounced “ver-may”.
For anyone who missed them or just got here, don’t forget to check out last week’s Path of Poison chapter, or the very first S&S of 2026!
And as ever, chooms, please let the stories know you enjoyed them!
This week, a knight seeks a vision from the Sepulchre of Communion, a Castlegrand agent and dragonmagick sorcerer face a problem with a Draconic Pilgrim, and lay cleric Lyza shows us the ropes on getting a gig in City Crypt…
Sepulchre of Communion
Deep within the mist-laden heartlands, amidst the cold halls of Castle Sever, a grave calls for its dead, and a knight must answer.
A mournful bell’s toll cascaded through the shadowy passages that lead to the Sepulchre. The lone tread of a figure in vermeil armour of pale gold and silver veins, face hidden by a tranquil, slumbering mask, was all that disturbed the brown, tattered tapestries which told the legend of Castle Sever: all those who die on their quest shall repose in this cool stone, so swore the ancestor...until the last line of every legend is written, will the scions of this house seek out their bones...so to this end will the grave that calls them grant us a flash of death, for the dead travel fast...
In the middle of a chamber of dark, twisting pillars, lit by seven curved candelabras issuing forth trailing coils of silver smoke, was a low, thickly-walled pentagonal structure set into the wide flagstones. Its five sides were of bare stone, smooth, even, and well fit, but showing their antiquity. Atop them was a dome of darkish marble. One of the faces bore a squat archway into which the vermeil-clad figure ducked and vanished in a pool of darkness. An iron gate upon which seven somnolent faces like that of the knight were engraved slid down and locked into place, sealing the Sepulchre.
A full night of prayer and dream followed as the immured communed with the grave. In the hazy morning light, the shape emerged to retrieve their black steel falcata sword. No castellan bore witness to the knight’s awakening, as was custom, so the sword had been prepared in advance. Broad of blade and gently curving forward, it flared out at the mid length only to sharply taper to a wicked point. And so, armed, and having been touched by death, the knight strode into the fog-drenched country in search of the stolen bones of a dead knight.
The Rannevaux Chalice. The Karlov Seer’s Font. The Cyrdane Temple Grove. The Mitrevarre Sacred Sword. The Serragur Bleeding Lance. A mere handful of quests to whom countless lives had been lost over the long ages since their ancestors swore to walk the path. Countless bones of many lineages rested within the embrace Castle Sever’s gravekeeper knights. But, to their shame, not all. Not even close. Knights died on their quests and laid forgotten in marshes, ruins, barren wilds, battlefields, and frigid peaks. But bodies did not always remain where they fell, and no castellan of Sever has ever been quite sure what to do about the practice of reliquaries. Bones retained a measure of the blessing they enjoyed in life, however minute, and this was attractive to the people for whom castle legends were stories to remain outside their grasp from cradle to grave. Merely being in their presence could sometimes have an effect.
And yet, many scions quashed the practice once it began to grow outside the bounds of individual discretion, for although it seemed an ultimately harmless practice, and it was the obligation of those who carried the greatest share of their quest’s blessing to do good with them in the world, the grim truth was such powers were attractive to more than the wholesome labourers of the land. One could only guess what petty warlords or bandits kings, seeking to establish false lineages, would do with the stolen blessings of ancient quests.
Or, and the thought made castellans shudder, unscrupulous wizards from small castles with ailing quests, or those who never graduated from the station of journeyman, or those who fled their offices, or were exiled, and still hungered for power.
Alas, this was exactly what had happened, and it was amidst the whipping winds of the arid, rocky highlands of the northern realms, numb to hunger, thirst, and exhaustion as were the dead, did the knight face off against a frightful enemy.
Sacred strikes from a long, leaf-shaped sword marked the wizard as having undoubtedly fled from honour-bound Mitrevarre. It was the gilded reliquary, however, shaped like a peaked falcon’s cage, in which hung by golden wires a jawless, bejewelled skull—remains of a Seeker of the Lorica. This was what marked the wizard as the one from the visions granted by the Sepulchre. Castle Vongraal was spoken of in the Great Chronicon of Sever, where the quests of all the interred were recorded, as a house of warriors who were as eternal rivals of Mitrevarre. The Lorica was a complicated conception, variously a suit armour, a martial art, even a set of prayers, forming a counter or compliment to the Sacred Sword of Mitrevarre’s strikes and calls. The mere scraps of strange old plate possessed by the scions of that house were the very foundation of Vongraal’s legend and blessing, to make their bodies as like armour. Vongraal knights clothed in naught but flowing holy tapestries and parchment wrappings, fending of axe and arrow with twists of their bodies, were a strange and striking sight on the battlefield.
Evidently the wizard fancied himself a warrior fit to transcend his origins. Whether purloined from some hamlet now bereft of its reverent focus, or from the vaults of Mitrevarre itself, was not the knight’s concern, but all the same, should any small settlement dwell nearby, they might avail of its blessing one more time, for the sake of justice and mercy. Such was the knight’s confidence, for the faltering feints and blows cast forth by the wizard’s meagre echoes were as naught to flesh that, for the moment, was beyond their grasp, and the vermeil-clad knight’s broad, curved falcata shattered the thin blade of the enemy, and clove through to the bone whose imitation of Vongraal’s Lorica was poor indeed.
In the dew and mist the reliquary glimmered, and it and its golden value were left behind for the small village, while the skull slumbered within its appointed niche among thousands in the walls of Castle Sever.
Draconic Pilgrim
When Kastaine was told by the high councillors of Castlegrand, center of all humanity in the overworld, that he was to be paired with a wandering dragonmagick sorcerer for the capture of a traitor, he freely and openly voiced his reservations. Even the most virtuous magicians were never quite free of draconic taint, of the whispers, the mutations, and the threat of losing the mental battle of wills against the sources of their power: the blood of dragonspawn, if not dragons themselves. Why not a greyfolk paladin or ranger? Because, he was told in hushed tones, this was a...delicate matter. The traitor was a Castlegrand councillor, and not only that, but a scholar of renown in his circles. Someone, it was put to Kastaine bluntly, who might know enough to do damage if he made it to the dragons. War ever loomed, and every scrap of intelligence could turn a tide not yet arrived. Well, that was enough for the agent. He was no lapdog. Kastaine fought for ideals, and knew he had enough sway with his skill in battle that the councils, lords, governors, or whoever was leading Castlegrand, worked for him more often than he for they.
But as it turned out, the pairing was fortuitous, even miraculous—not only had they met once before, but their goals, they soon found, were in perfect alignment. Kastaine admired the fearsome, bronze-skinned warrior-mage who introduced himself as Alzared. He swung his silver sceptre more as a blade than an instrument of sorcery, and had thoroughly cowed the monstrous blood he wielded. They fought for the overworld, just in different ways. Likewise did the sorcerer find the agent a fine companion and comrade—only those of true worth and valor were gifted a piece of spectral kingsmail, and in this case, Kastaine had received a full arm to replace his own lost one. The agent’s implacable and passionate nature complimented the wizard’s savage mirth and vengeful melancholy, each one feeding into and balancing the other. In another life, they would have been brothers, but right now, brothers in arms would do.
That was, until they found and captured the traitorous councillor.
They sat under a high, rocky bluff in the cool hinterlands of the equator. Some leagues off, the ice belt rose into the pearlescent heavens, and deep fogs rolled from its beetling heights and into the crag-laden vastlands at its feet. Shoots of thick, deep green vegetation peered over the bluff and hung with the weight of heavy rainfall that had only half eased off. The scent of damp stone was carried on chill breaths of wind. At the back of the overhang, beaten and tied, sat the pale-faced councillor. Before him, the two warriors, engaged in difficult conversation.
The facts were thus: they’d sprang upon him expecting, not unreasonably, that he would have had some trick to defend himself, some draconic gift. But he hadn’t—in fact, he hadn’t even fought back. He had ran, but neither had he called for aid nor even sprung a dagger. He tried to escape once, but stopped pretty quick when Alzared’s sceptre pinned him to the ground with dragonish force. In the slurry of sharp shale and mud he’d been interrogated, his resolve eroded by the power of the dragonblood and the flexing of Kastaine’s kingsmail arm, before being placed against the back wall of the bluff. When he said he hadn’t hurt anyone, they believed him. It was in the voice. Oh, yes, he’d sought out serpent-men and draconians, but at no point had he “colluded” with them, as accused. He even went so far as to tell the duo where to find the cults and nests, because, quite frankly, he believed it didn’t matter, not to such superior beings.
Alzared had studied those last few words with great intensity while Kastaine looked on with growing hate. The wizard had heard folk speak like that before—speak such words as they with zeal, with spite, but never with defeat. What befell him, the sorcerer asked, to so crush his will? To resign him to such a certain fate? The answer was, well, nothing. He just realized one day, looking around him at the mess that was Castlegrand, the insular greyfolk, wars which ever leered from beyond the ice, the squabbling of human tribes and clans, ever in disarray. It wasn’t a master that he sought, but certainty. Mankind was better under the dragons—Kastaine smacked him with the back of his kingsmail hand, sending blood flying. Alzared hadn’t been far behind, and the blood in his sceptre knew it, but the words had piqued his inquisitive sorcerer’s mind with their sheer boldness. Aimless was mankind, but they had purpose under the masters of old. A place. A goal.
Alzared stood back and said quite plainly he should probably be slain. Kastaine, said that, though filled with pity and disgust, and despite being in total agreement, he might prove too useful for that, seeing as he clearly had been told things. The councillor said he understood, for after all, they two were his enemies now. Alzared ran a hand down his great black beard, trying to hide the disquieting nausea that filled him at that remark. This man had made his choice, as he was free to do. It could be over in seconds, and quite frankly, there was little Kastaine could do to stop him. Kastaine had, at that same moment, been thinking exactly the same thing. How most swiftly to wrest the sceptre from his friend’s grasp—his friend, bah, that was a bitter feeling in this moment.
Kastaine eyed the sorcerer’s grip on his bared silver sceptre, the globe of crimson atop it subtly pulsing with the desire to express the power within. He suppressed a flinch as he watched the sorcerer replace the instrument in his wide leather girdle, and turn to leave.
“He’ll probably die in the ice wastes, soft city councillor that he is,” came the thunderous rumble of his voice. “We who would drag him by his heels back to some Castlegrand cell to be beaten and starved, for his use as a tool, are no better than his beloved masters. A waste of a life, but it’s his to waste.” With a hand held over the dragonblood orb, a flick of his wrist severed the councillor’s bounds, and he then laid a hand on Kastaine’s shoulder. “I understand if you have orders, my friend. Castlegrand, nay, mankind needs every advantage it can get. But consider the price.”
Alzared left with a ragged sigh, and did not look back to see whether or not Kastaine followed, nor did he try to listen through the rain for footsteps, or a cry. He’d look back in about five minutes, but even then, didn’t dare to wonder, or even hope, what he might see.
City Crypt
Lyza lived in one of the modest little housing units, unkindly called hovels by those with no respect, which sprouted up around and were maintained by various temples. She earned her keep as lay clergy in the Temple of Lumerios, reckoned a minor sun god of none too great an antiquity, as well as earning coin as a freelancer for the local branch of the vast Mason’s Guild. Her particular temple district was one of countless little clusters of sanctity throughout the whole of the city, forever fighting for space and funding from the bigger, guilder-favoured churches which just kept growing and growing. Lyza had never really met a god she didn’t like, but frankly, she thought little of those great gaudy basilicas.
She passed through a dozen cramped passages of old, pale brown stone which wound and ran more like cracks that had opened up in a parched, sundered earth, than streets that had been built. Porches with thin doorways of flaking paint jutted into the streets in rows at odd angles, while beside them there were sometimes short flights of chipped stone steps leading down to several squat bare wooden portals, and yet in other places winding steps led up to tall, slender, iron-banded doors receding far from the actual streets. In other places were claustrophobic, weed-choked courtyards with age-worn pillars or faceless statues or dry fountains. These eventually opened into wide, bustling thoroughfares off which scores of other streets ran. This continued for several leagues until the city walls were reached, and after those, the Wilds.
Today, as it was most days, Lyza was looking for the contractor’s offices, which lay in the center of a great mass of residences. They were two low, thick buildings, with a wide alley—more a side-street really—between them, through which passed, at every hour of the day, labourers, deliverers, contractors like Lyza, and adventurers—they who skirt the law of guild and gang alike at every turn. To some, beacons of defiance and freedom, but to others, dangerous and unpredictable thieves and killers for hire.
Under a long series of arches opening out into the side-street were long boards upon which gig postings from guildsmen, locals, and more were hammered as slips of parchment. Even this early, a good many were missing, or perhaps hadn’t been replaced. The slips contained the short, general details of what was wanted and what was rewarded, with more details to come on acceptance. The overwhelming majority were to clear out the undead from old or newly discovered tombs and ruins—from this came the popular name for casual, surface-level freelancers like Lyza: tomb and ruiners. But interesting gigs did appear from time to time that could give one an idea things happening in the city, and these were often worth investigating. They might be hits on no-name gang leaders, assaults on gang hideouts, things like that, often posted by other gangs, or sometimes there were postings for labour needs, and depending on where they were, you could tell if something had happened, if rumours had come to true. This was all small time stuff—not necessarily easy or safe, just small time. The real big stuff happened inside the offices between certain parties. She’d even heard whispers of guilders themselves offering very special gigs. Intrigue, espionage, assassinations. Nothing she’d ever be interested in, of course.
Lyza spent a short while perusing the boards, looking for opportunities for good deeds, and listening to chatter. She sometimes joined up with small groups that way. Most of the time she took undead hunting gigs, a holy war that never seemed to end, but there were some gangs she had a strong dislike for, even though she knew getting involved there was always risky, and their slaying was against some several dozen dogmatic and liturgical purity laws. Some other gangs...she looked the other way. She knew they operated well outside the law, and sometimes overstepped boundaries, but she knew the pious were among them, they just showed it in a funny way. After some deliberation, she ended up ripping from its nail the last of what had been several long slips seeking a small party to clear out an old tomb that had opened up under a tenement in a rather poor neighbourhood. Now that seemed like good work, and she probably had team mates ready and waiting to see if anyone else was going to take the last slip.
Lyza was lucky to have a weapon of her own: a mace built of black iron from head to pommel, chosen as the result of a long theological inner debate on the spilling of blood. It was on the shorter side as maces go, but had fairly thick flanges battered thoroughly dull to reduce the risk of spilling living blood as much as could be managed. Even so, she always took a look through the armouries from which folks could rent weaponry and armour, either directly or deducted from a fee (or a team’s fee if someone didn’t come back). She happened to know a bunch of her friend Verrus’ weaponry was in here, and was always glad to see them missing and being used in the field. He had a particular style to his smithing, everything had a peculiar heft, couldn’t miss it.
Today, she decided, would be a good time to check out a decent shield—she was pretty handy with her mace, if she might say so herself, but a few close calls against armed undead had her reconsidering travelling so light all the time. A solid wooden shield fit her best, she thought, with a metal boss in the center, a strap for her arm, and metal bracing around the rim—a good back up weapon, well built, and fairly cheap. She signed for it, paid in coin, and stepping outside, stopped, and made sure to pass across a few of the little alcove shrines so that she might press her free hand against the idols there, for good measure.
Satisfied, Lyza turned about to remind herself of where the tenement was, and went on her way for a couple hours of laying the dead to rest, followed, maybe, by a decent lunch in the temple back chambers.