Shadows & Sorcery #202
! CURSED !
Yes, sadly, your health bar has been halved you didn’t buy that one special item from the sketchy vendor back in the sewers, so all that’s left to do is forge on.
Three tales of dire curses stand before you. Overcome each of these dark forces and cleanse your curse. Could be, though, you’ll learn just how tenacious a curse can be once it has taken root inside of you…
You can alleviate some effects of the curse by checking out last week’s triple bill of vampirism, for vampiric forces do not discriminate in what they consume.
Offer your thanks to the incantations hereby inscribed with a like or words of praise and receive a random blessing.
This week, we delve into just what birthed the Armour of Curses, we secretly search for Forgotten Curses, and we come face to face with one of the Sorcerers of Curse…
Armour of Curses
The Lord Archon was staring death in the face. His seers scryed nothing but disaster. The dust cloud kicked up by the ceaseless march of the enemy could be seen on the horizon. Morale among his legion was at its lowest. Soldiers looked for every opportunity to flee. One or two men vanished every day. They had lost faith in him, and those who remained had returned to the idols he thought he had finally cleansed from their minds. He couldn’t stop them. He wouldn’t even bother. He looked out of his tower at night to see in the sickly orange campfires their servile obeisances to rough, graven images.
Come the next pallid morning, when even the sun itself seemed to be dying, the Lord Archon went out arrayed in his ceremonial armour, hefty kopis blade in his hand, and wandered as if in a daze to the front gates. He looked to his palace walls, where archers, slingers, and spearmen stood. His palatinate had once been famed for their mastery. Further archers remained within alongside heavily armed troopers just behind them in the great courtyard—it was as he passed these he noticed their armour had been daubed in the symbols of the old gods, where their last hopes lay. He passed into the fields past his palace gates, the great gardens now housing the amassed remnants of his legion. Each and every one of them had painted and even carved upon their armour the signs of gods. He wouldn’t be surprised if the moment the enemy arrived, they all turned on him and his godless heresies.
When the Lord Archon stood at the head of a roaring horde of exultant warriors chasing down the pathetic remnants of a routed and thoroughly decimated enemy force, he wasn’t at all sure he had even woken up that morning. If so, the dream continued, and he watched as his soldiers fell to their knees in reverant prostration and bellowed thanks to the gods for their deliverance. The Lord Archon smiled and congratulated his worthy soldiers, and in a speech in the middle of the courtyard to a barely contained baying legion, he renounced his misguided abandonment of the elder faith, and promised great rewards for his faithful people who showed him the true path to victory.
He, of course, did not believe a word of what he said, and during the three nights of feasting that followed, he retired each evening early to his inner chambers, and there began to draw up not mere plans of survival, but of conquest.
The enemy had initially clashed with his forces in what had seemed such a blow that he feared an all-out slaughter then and there. What he had the clarity to perceive however, was that it wasn’t the fearful, desperate strikes of his soldiers that turned the tide, and nor was it divine guardianship, no—it was the symbols on the armour. The pious, superstitious fools had legitimately been afraid to strike the symbols of the gods. The more they saw, the less they could fight. They tried, but acute fear of reprisal and blasphemy stayed their hands, and that hesitation had been just enough for his legion to slay the enemy by the score, and finally wash over them. The fruits of faith indeed. He couldn’t believe it had been so simple. Religion wasn’t a scourge, it was a tool! A means to shape, to direct, to control.
A month passed, and holy icons infested the palatinate. They hung in profusion over every doorway, off doors themselves, under arches, were wrapped about pillars and monuments of every kind, the people were bedecked in massive wooden and clay tablets hanging from their necks like absurd millstones with faces and figures and abstractions of every conceivable sort stamped, carved, and painted on them. The Lord Archon himself made sure to wear a specially commissioned breastplate composed of eight holy symbols during public appearances and official meetings, choosing to wear a simple necklace he called “more modest” during the rest of his days. But he was far from idle, and he commended himself for not only maintaining the initial fervour of the defense of the palace, but amplifying it with carefully spaced proclamations that chartered new temples, priesthoods, and religious holidays. During the month’s anniversary of the victory, he marched at the head of his legion upon the neighbouring savage chiefdom of raiders and utterly flattened them in a mere hour. His soldiers had born upon their scale and leathers the icons of gods that the barbarians couldn’t even bring themselves to tear off the invading force.
The Lord Archon repeated this no less than five time, and by the end of the year, his palatinate had become a kingdom in true, with newly appointed lords paying tribute to him who was a king under heaven.
Upon the third year’s anniversary of the victory, a holiest of holies, the King announced that the finest forges of the capital and the kingdom had been hard at work on a commission of the utmost sacred secrecy. To every standing soldier in the holy legion, a suit of plates hammered to bear the very aspects of the gods as a skin upon them, and to be risen to the station of paladin, with land and title and slaves, and to all those other folks of the kingdom, able and filled with zeal, join the march upon the enemy of old and prove yourself worthy, and you too can be clad in the very gods themselves.
To say half the kingdom was empty when the army marched across the border would not be an overstatement. The sound of boots and chanting might have been heard from a league away. The warning could not have prepared the still recovering Palatinate of Pheranes, the enemy of old, for what was to come. The horror in their hearts was born more from what they saw, than from what actually happened to them. Faces of the gods in burnished bronze iron leered down with the furious eyes of madmen behind them, and arms with iron-hewn muscles of an unflinching storm-grey swung down singing arcs of rough and terrible blades, over and over again. Each plate upon the breast and torso bore gems in their mouths like flames. Cloaks and sashes of brilliant vermillion and richest purple rippled and whipped in what seemed like unearthly winds that drove forth the stench of warfare.
Perhaps they thought themselves invincible, untouchable, irreproachable behind their holy skins. The gods whom they represented certainly didn’t think so.
The once Lord Archon of a middling Palatinate had vigorously eschewed what he had seen and truly believed to be the servile worship of gods so distant they may as well have never existed. Wherever they may have been, and in whatever form they have had, in a fitful, aeon-weighted slumber, a mind stirred, and an eye was turned upon the Lord Archon and his god-clad legion once and no more. So he wanted his soldiers to wear the immortal, undying, unerring flesh of the gods? Let them do so, and let them be hated, let them be the focus of ire and destruction and abhorrence, let the world want to destroy them, and let them want to be freed, but never shall they be so for all time to come.
Forgotten Curses
He had stolen prestige, deceiving the dear old master, who was wise and mighty in spirit, but far from a worldly fellow. He had gained unwarranted access to esoteric texts the rest of the college hungered to devour to further their cultivation. And everyone knew he had his eye on the inner cores of the venerated masters of old. He abided by no codes, acted with no honour, he was a serpent in the grass. He could not be allowed such power. And so it was with a dire oath under the crimson radiance of the twin red moons, Calici decided that the thieving bastard Maraglio must die.
It wasn’t so much that Maraglio came from a powerful merchant clan, or had certain friends in certain places, or hadn’t a measure of power himself, it was that Calici simply did not have the strength to plunge a dagger through his chest. So many years in the college cultivating inner power had done much to dull the once smouldering embers which had for so long threatened to rise into an inferno. The flame of ambition had been replaced with a strong and steady stream which ran past and over the stones along the path. No, one spark of the old fire floating over the water’s surface wasn’t enough to make him tear open Maraglio’s throat in the night, and deal with everything that came after. But it was enough to shed a red and angry mote of light upon a dormant hatred for everything the rotten city represented, gathered together in the form of Maraglio.
Calici was no fool. He was an earnest believer in the doctrine that one might gather within themselves a core that bestowed long life and incredible power. He was also a diligent student of no small renown of its practice and history. Sometimes he read more than he cultivated, but such sessions were not without their fruit. In fact, one particular session in an old part of the labyrinthine library sent Calici to his quarters with mind aflame, and a plan already in motion.
In an age now approaching long ago, cultivation, when it came to the southern lands, had little guidance or formal practice. So it was in the southern lands that they experimented in ways that the northeastern peoples had long consigned to history, and had never warned of. The body was like a furnace, and cultivation transformed medicines, tonics, inhalants, and more to create, alongside one’s own essence, a seedbed of blessing within the self, and that seed, that inner core, could be indirectly used to advance the cultivation of others through presence and minor application. That was the entire purpose of the dogma, its aim to result in a core of deific proportions for the good of all the world. But one could cultivate more than longevity and strength and wisdom. And so had curseforging become a powerful art which spread so fast that half the southern realms were brewing curses within their flesh for the secret destruction of their enemies in war and commerce. That righteousness prevailed and so thoroughly forbid the practice is a miracle unto itself, but it was successful, and curseforging was left where it belonged, in the past, its memory eroded by the passage of generations. But it was never truly gone.
Calici could think of no more fitting an end for the thief Maraglio than to be slain by a curse. Alas, the method of their creation had not survived. Hints of whispers on the cultivation of maledictions, to be grown and held within the self, were scant to the point of non-existence. All he really knew was that they existed. But Calici was not himself without connections, either. Truth was, few hands in any southern city were ever clean of even a little blood under the fingernails, no matter what waters they were cleaned in, and Calici had not always been a man of faith.
It took a great deal of hard work, and was at dire cost to his cultivation, but in the personal lounge of an old business partner and paramour, Calici drew out a few snippets of certain old rumours, which led, over the course of a few moons, along a line of whispers to the sparse back rooms of a small pleasure house. Behind the silken incense in a low stone room, a masked figure stated in a strange, buzzing voice, a price. It then laughed when Calici said that, no, he wished to do it himself, he just needed the tools. The price was doubled. He would soon learn why.
The southern land was, as they said, an old land. All land was old, of course, but some lands had only known human tread for a few centuries. The south and west had known it for millennia. The earth below certain spans was practically hollow so excavated by human hand had they been. But there were tells as to which were of worth, either to the archaeologist, or to the assassin. It was a test of his mettle, to be sure, seeing the light he manifested creep over the hideous carvings nearly a mile below the earth. But those carvings held secrets, and meanings. They were not, he would have otherwise assumed, ancient writings of the cursemasters. These were not secret lairs he was in. These were catacombs. The script, a kind of hieroglyphic, were warnings in a language dead even by the time they had been chiselled into this stone. That they had retained their clarity of purpose was a testament to how desperate the people of so long ago were to seal what was down here away forever.
A cultivated core could resemble a great many things. It acted as an empowered source of vivacity, mental fortitude, stamina, celerity, and of course, longevity, unto levels often considered superhuman, as well certain abilities that definitely tread past that threshold. They tended to have an organic aspect. Calici wondered, as he forced open the heavy stone lid of a sealed, free-standing tomb near the back of a chamber even his level of cultivation was struggling to lift, what form might a core of concentrated hatred and malevolence take.
Calici had a certain amount of lee-way in the college, but he feared they might begin to suspect his absence meant something. It did, but he would rather have as few eyes on him as possible once Maraglio turned up dead. He considered that a forgone conclusion. The black sediment he had scraped away from within the sunken, desiccated torso of the ancient cursemonger had gone completely untouched, as per the tip he was given, and would make for an incredibly transformative poison. The process of its creation, and the hideous stench that clung to him for hours afterwards, was a price he was more than willing to pay.
Maraglio was a third-rate cultivator with a first-rate ability for smart talk. He had no chance against such a condensed pellet of malefic sediment. College ordinators found him the morning after the poison was slipped into his evening meal as black smear only recognizable as Maraglio by the clothing upon it. The college was alive with nervous chattering. But very little lamenting. Calici looked on, thinking it had been worth every penny not only against the college’s enemy, but against anyone else who harboured such notions as he had. And sure, Maraglio would have resorted to curses sooner or later. Better a righteous soul to get there first. Indeed, Calici was left thinking, some of that sediment still remained. He hadn’t really made a curse, either. He returned his chambers in the college then, unwrapped a small packet in a low drawer, and thought to himself that it was time to experiment.
Sorcerers of Curse
She was born a child of serfs, bound by ancient land to a bloodline that stretched back into an immemorial age. She was born on that land, but unlike her mothers of a hundred generations, she would not die on that land. She had been chosen, by virtue of skill, for the privilege, no matter what she had heard, to walk these corridors, and to live in these walls.
They did not own the land she was born onto. They did not even own the land the castle was on. But they owned the stone, and everything within it. They were supported almost entirely by the other families of the realm, and those families supported those like her own. This was, again, privileged information, because her new position was not a normal one, and it required her to know a few things so that she may perform her duties to a particular standard, and to stamp out any lingering curiosity born by rumour and hearsay.
She was a serving girl. The full and absolute extent of her duties was as a castle courier, from kitchen or library or cellar, to antechamber, and back again in ceaseless tread of the hushed halls. This brought her, however, quite close to her masters. The same stories, and the same words, entered her head without fail every single time she approached the tall, peaked doors that led to the cramped yet densely furnished antechambers, just beyond which, the inhabitants dwelt. “Ten thousand curses upon your bloodline...”
She saw few other servants in her first few weeks. Perhaps two or three people, always different, worked in the kitchens, some men attended the tottering stacks of the libraries, and a small team dwelt in the winding passages of the vast cellar. But in the hallways, it was only ever in the distance, and only ever one. Tapestries, tattered and faded, sometimes shifted where no movement had been. The castle was in a shocking state of disrepair in almost every aspect, and she assumed it all just draughts of air through forgotten crawlspaces or sunken stone. But in lonelier moments, she was inclined to wonder.
There was a strict and intricate hierarchy to the servantry of the castle. Every meeting was a test of etiquette and deference in which she was expected to correct her comportment if in error, and over time found that she, somewhat without her knowledge, was rising through the ranks. It came with few perks, mostly more responsibilities, of which she was expected to be glad to perform. Yet, as she began to understand the routines and their general shiftings, she was able to defer a few tasks to her inferiors, if only on occasion. It came, too, with looser tongues. Allusions were made, rarely, but they were made, in answer to veiled queries. Curiosity never truly dies, not in a place like the castle, and elder servantry understood that newcomers needed satiation for the sake of comfort and focus. She cobbled together a sort of short history, and a few confirmations of suspicions that had leaked outside the castle. They bore a terrible burden, yes, and each successive generation was bidden take more, some take less, and there was shame in that, yet dread in taking more. Dread more than she could ever understand. Why? For what came with it. The line would never die, not while the burden was upon them, it was sad to see—ah, so, she had asked, they had been seen. The elder who had slipped in that moment said yes. But he did not look at her. What passed over his eyes did not make her question further.
The thunder of the wind’s thousand hooves galloped over the battlements, rattling the dust off the high walls, and making the air hum. On her way to her meagre but dignified quarters, just as she had bidden a hasty goodnight to he stark-eyed front gate watchmen, an elder servant appeared before her. The older woman’s face held a tension. She spoke in a manner that seemed well-rehearsed. There was a task. It was urgent, the final word stressed as weariness was seen to creep into the girl’s eyes. She straightened herself up and asked what needed to be done. The look that met her reply was one of relief quickly repressed. She was to take this parcel to a castellan. Not an antechamber. Go immediately and directly. Pass it by hand. A very learned man, he was, a very wise man, the elder servant made sure to say, who was in desperate need. The girl knew what those words really meant: sorcerer.
They knew things, these people, these castellans. They had to. She had no doubts about that. It was always old stories, but the more...human of their number, it was said, they did things, or could do things. Cursed they were, yes, but a bloodline rotten with evil magicks held affinity for its affliction, and would do anything they could to remove it. Maybe use it. Gods, what was in this parcel? The weight of it suddenly seemed to make itself known. Some horrid old tome? Her arms closed around it lightly, trying to feel something beneath. How close away were her fingers from the names and signs of things best left forgotten? The breath shuddered in her chest. Images came to her. Things nobles were said to be into, and more. Bargains made with robber barons before wars. The grim truth behind swift victories in battle. Darkened chambers behind secret doorways. Velvet curtains to muffle the sounds. Girls going missing in the night. What was she delivering? Was duty worth aiding in whate-
There was the sound of a great door opening. Wood on stone. Hinges rasping. Something else in its wake she didn’t recognize.
Her legs stiffened. She couldn’t move. The corridors felt cavernous at times, but now they yawned, mouths all around her, ready to close. Something moved up ahead in the twilight. It filled almost the entire threshold. Not entirely. Just enough. They knew she was out here, right? Performing this task? They had been told she was here? Not all of them. There was no way. What did she expect to see? It was only ever whispers. She stood, animal fear welling up and washing over the discipline she’d had to instill in herself. Whatever it was, phantom or otherwise, she got the idea that it had seen her, too, and when it did, it suddenly fled, far swifter than she’d have thought something that large could move.
She had to drag her feet forward, feeling as if every movement gave her away. This wasn’t your home, she told herself. You just live here. Hundreds have been here before you, hundreds will be after. What’s one serving girl to an entire bloodline consumed by darkness? One accident? She could not help but feel that the echoes of her footfalls were more than that. And then, looming out of the darkness of the naked candles which shone their pallid constellations across the castle halls, the tall, iron-banded door she had sought emerged. It jut out from the stone around it—that was the antechamber. The ever-present veil between servantry, and them. She stood before it, looking back down the passageway. If anything stood there, if anything stared, she couldn’t see it. She tried the knocker, shaped like a clenched fist, but had merely lifted it before it opened.
She gave a short bow, but never left the eyes. The hand was covered in thick black gloves of a rippling material, and the arm was shrouded in a great drooping sleeve bound with a bracer of scuffed and faded gilding. She tried to not take in as much as she could. Seconds later, without a sound, the door was closed, the shape that had encompassed all her vision was gone, and she was alone to shiver as she wound her way to her quarters, not even realizing she had fallen asleep when a hand gently shook her in the dawn’s dull pallor, and said she was to be told her conduct was “most impressive.”
Thus began a new day in a new light.