I was standing in the middle of what was once a city street. My hometown, a small little city in Utah. Quaint and tiny, with a name no one would try to remember after they left. It had two grocery stores, one run down motel, and maybe a few thousand residents. Nothing special.
Until it had been set ablaze. And now I walked through the carnage that was left behind, abject horror frozen forever upon my face. The flames burned a hot crimson as they scattered across the horizon, unnaturally swirling and contorting across the place I once knew.
It wasn’t all, however. I knew it wasn’t all. I had seen this scene a thousand times. The terrain warped, segments pulling themselves and contracting in and out, contorting as if they were skin being pulled taut then snapped back to the position they had begun within.
It was an actor playing a role, now. Running through the streets, drawing out my implement, at this point, a wand made from ebony wood. Shouts of ‘Invicta Aqua’ and ‘Invica Sana’ filled my mouth, even if I made no effort to say them. Myself then could stomach to try, even if the version of myself trapped to revisit the scene couldn’t muster a lick of effort. Doused buildings relit. Healed people still died. I could watch the transformation on my younger face now, the apprentice in his grey coat and cape, slowly start to dip in his hopes.
That didn’t stop me from trying. Over and over again, fixing messes, burning through my energy and reserves quickly. But eventually, even my stubborn self couldn’t keep up. Which left trying to solve the source.
I ran forward, under the cover of sickly yellow moonlight which almost pulsed, revealing black tendrils akin to veins all around me in the air. A panic starting to set in when enough of them laced close to my flesh.
Still, I kept running. I didn’t yet have the eyes of the Sphinx, or any other bonds to draw upon to empower my sight, so I just relied on simple magic, following trails of these veins towards their epicenter, the town square, what had once been the most bustling area of the city now reduced to a pulsing throbbing crater. A platform in the center which resembled a massive bone jutting from the earth housed a small congregation of figures, and the crater itself seemed to bleed from it’s sides, as if it was a wound into the earth itself. The sides were a raw pink, and near the bottom I swore I could see protrusions that almost resembled teeth starting to emerge. It shook me to the core then, now, it was just another reminder of the horrors I was soon to see for the thousandth time.
It wasn’t an unobstructed path to the center, however. Multiple people stood in my way-worshippers of the thing. A comfortable image for many was to picture cultists of fell powers as people who wore occultist robes, perhaps with menacing masks.
But that was far from true. The people arrayed in front of me looked like passersby. People I recognized, in passing, from when they seemed like ordinary people.
Only half of them even wielded a channeling implement. Which made the spells they cast all the more shocking.
I narrowly avoided a gout of fire, overhead, and put up a barrier between myself and an incoming volley of launched stone. I countered back with a bolt of sheer force, which knocked one to the ground, and a concussive spray of water which knocked aside another two. I then drew an athame, a silver blade I used for rituals, as a secondary implement, and ran towards a fourth, cutting across his face.
None of them stayed down for long. And then, I still hadn’t consigned them to death.
So I ran. Shouting “Invicta Volare!” and taking flight, I propelled myself towards the central platform. Even then, I felt my energy running low. It was an act of mental aegis to avoid drawing upon the nearly endless reserves of power that surrounded the area. Chaos whispered at the doors to my mind, promising the power to do whatever I wished. And worse yet, the thoughts sounded like mine.
Yet I persevered. Only pulling on myself as a fuel source, I landed on the platform, launched a pair of stunning spells towards two of the cultists that stood between me…and him.
I tried to use every ounce of my strength to cull the hesitation the past version of myself felt, as he was put face to face with his master.
The man was warped. Different then how he had been. But I still recognized his blue eyes, and greying black hair. One of his arms had been consumed by his implement, and wrapping weaves of flesh. His ebony wood staff, a bigger version of my wand, was melded into it, the raw iron sphere atop it replaced with a glittering ruby stone. His legs had split into four, mandible like lower limbs which ended in claws, extending his height far over me.
And despite it, his face opened into a smile. His teeth glittering pearls nonetheless.
“You’ve finally come ascend, Percival?” He asked me, with an almost innocent tone to it all.
I gripped my implement. But didn’t take the first blow. Damning who knows how many in the process. Only one word escaped my lips, no spell components involved.
“Why.”
He looked at me, as if I had asked a stupid question in one of his lessons like I had many times before.
“We are constrained by the High Arcane, and his Council of Eight. You know this. You can feel the power. Let it in. And it will all make sense.”
I waited ten seconds. Ten, agonizing seconds of silence. When I finally moved, it was telegraphed, sluggish. But I managed to speak my words.
“Ivicta Letum!” I shouted, the spell of death roaring through the air, before I even knew what I was doing. My anger had gotten the best of me, and I’d thrown the rest of my reserves into one final blow. I had fired off a spell, with the intent to kill the man who had raised me like a son.
And I couldn’t bring myself to regret it. Because it struck him, and he didn’t die.
His flesh sloughed, his mutations warped even further, starting to eat at him even further, like water pouring through cracks in a vase.
And he held his implement out to me. He didn’t even have to speak, to launch the ray of red lightning towards me. I was struck, with no means to defend, and went flying. I felt the agonizing pain of my flesh burning. My flesh twisting. My flesh warping. I flailed midair, as I landed on the very edge of the slope, my eyes lulling, as I looked down at the most certainly maw which was opening up in the earth, it’s teeth stained red with it’s own blood. I hadn’t stood a chance. And I was about to die.
Like so many mornings, I awoke covered head to toe in sweat. My vision bleary as I sat up from a very familiar nightmare. I remembered every detail, like I always did.
I got out of the very nice guest bed that had been prepared for me, and changed out of my nightcloths, pulling on a very nice jacket and cape combination. I also set about making myself look presentable, even if I was about to be likely going very far from other people. I liked to look my best, even when I was theoretically going into a battle.
As I looked myself in the mirror, and made my beard and face as a whole look as I wanted, my thoughts drifted back to the dream. As they always did.
I knew how it had ended, of course. I had been saved-reinforcements from the Society. My master had been last seen falling into the maw he had helped open. I was brought to medical attention.
And the entire town had been consigned. A ritual performed to seal it away from the world, forever. It’s name erased from everyone’s memories, including mine. The people in it were a distant figment. Blurry shapes with memories assigned to them.
My master, a man I respected, had built a chaos sect in my hometown, and tore open the wall. For power. And I had been, then, helpless to stop him. It had given me resolve, motive to practice the way I did, mitigating chaos as much as possible. But still, it never felt like enough. There would always be another small town in the middle of nowhere, prime for a cult or just greedy people to take control.
Which made the prospect of what I may be doing today ever more important. I was going to bind a god to my whim. And I was going to ensure that it’s power didn’t tear open the wall, and was instead put towards ensuring those things didn’t happen.
The impossibility of the answer the spell the previous night had given me, still rung true. My all of my education, by all of my research, it should be impossible. Gods were entities of the past, long eroded and destroyed by a stronger rise of monotheism. The theories supposed that one point, deities existed, incarnized by the split belief of those who worshipped them. There was no direct proof of them, save for shaky testament of entities who stretched back that far, and circumstantial evidence such as the powers of the Olympic Court, fae which claimed to have stolen the names and powers of such gods.
One thing was for certain, however, they were all gone now. Chaos, the source of all things not natural to this world and it’s laws, could only manifest them while they were split across humanity. With the past few centuries of the consolidation of faith, they had lost power, and either been killed off, or depowered to the point where they were just as moral as everyone else.
However, if that scholarly and seemingly proven correct theory was true, how was a god kicking around Guatemala in the year 1984?
If it was truly a god, it would be a consolidation of chaos like they hadn’t seen in years. Which meant even more then before, I’d need to deal with it. This only sealed my resolution.
I’d sent out a few entities to search the country last night. My best scouts and trackers, to search for other supernaturals, along with the god. To the former, I had instructed them to inform them of my credentials, and to stay out of my way. To the latter, I had instructed them to return to me promptly. The ones which had returned already had turned up mostly empty handed, save for one, a refuse spirit I had forcibly named Mathias. He informed me of an old wheelchair bound woman who had seemed to know more then she should have. He also mentioned that she seemed to smell like something he hadn’t encountered before. He had passed on the message, however, so if she knew what the Council of Eight was, then she’d know to steer clear.
The ones I’d instructed to find the god, however, hadn’t returned yet. I had informed them to wake me up if need be, and they hadn’t.
No matter. I pulled my coat on, after finishing in the mirror, and walked out into the living room. Gale and Rhia had cleaned the place up, including hiding the circle from the previous night under some glamour-along with a few other things I’d prepared when I’d found out what I was going to be dealing with.
Speaking of, I went to check on those things, dismissing the glamour over them with a wave of my hand. A metal cube, which I have imbued with magic, as much of my personal reserves as I could. It could fit in my palm. The tablet I had been given, having been studied last night, was also revealed. The headache had only bothered me for a little while. The fang, the other item I had been given, it’s sides being now covered in a faint silver sheen, the only point where the venom flowed from being the very top. An enchantment, to suit my purposes. Finally, a scroll, made from fine paper, with script in the glyphs I had learned via the tablets inscribed on it.
With these four tools, I would bind a god. I would invoke it as I saw fit, and I would beat chaos at it’s own game.
It was soon after that this confidence would be put to the test. As a birdlike creature swooped in the still open window. It was about the size of my forearm, and looked almost entirely made from marble. Limerick, an animated statue with free thought, was a useful scout when I needed them.
They spoke through their beak, which opened and closed like a person’s mouth would, despite having no vocal cords.
“I found it. It’s in the Highlands, outside the capitol city. But it’s not along. It looks like some military group had found it. And they seem to be working together.”
I cursed under my breath in Latin. I sighed, looking to Limerick.
“Can you lead me there?”
“Yes. It’s not all that far. You’ll need some kind of traversal tool, though. It’s pretty high up. And the other people there look nasty.” They spoke with an empty voice, as if they didn’t care, one way or another. In some ways, I suppose they didn’t, without the binding.
“How long of a trip would it be on horseback?” I said, already going through my mental catalogue of creatures to call forth.
“Maybe four hours? It was about half that flying. Not accounting for complications.”
It was about ten in the morning now. I could get there by the afternoon. That would do. I’d need to scope out what I was dealing with anyways. I nodded, and moved for the outside. Summoning Gale to grab my things in the process.
I reached the open street, and after a brief utterance of ‘Invicta Offuscat’ I summoned a steed. I chose an equestrian elemental named Dawn, a steed which seemed to be composed of articulated light. Mounting, I took off down the street, following the marble bird which circled in the heavens above.
By the time I reached the highlands, I already had a small army at my heels. I’d slowed my approach once I left the bounds of civilization, the marble bird doing the same.
I had formed a large amount of forces from the chaos fragments. With enough of them, they could merge to form something resembling humanoid, and even detached, an arm could still throw a punch.
I had summoned others as well, of course. Atraxis had joined me, atop another steed of Dawn’s kind. He would serve as a useful lieutenant in directing things. I also summoned forth a few more fae, their glamour would be useful in hiding our approach.
In terms of more tangible things, though, I had more to offer. Mathias was back, the creature having two kinsmen with him, all formed from trash and refuse. More manifested chaos had been used as well. I had at least a dozen manifested creatures which represented suffering, or fear, things which were believed or not thought about, and shaped by chaos into something more tangible. They weren’t anything powerful, because if they were, they would be remembered. But they would serve as good foot soldiers, along with the limb golems. A few other oddities joined our bunch. A griffin named Rivertalon, a very small wyrm named Star, a few elementals in various forms (swirling water, roaring fire, shifting earth). And to round things out, about a dozen more meat shields-smaller, abstract spirits, manifestations, creatures which didn’t have enough power to have names. They were mostly invisible, until called upon directly.
It was a sizeable force, a non insignificant number of my bindings being brought to bear. I had also pulled upon two of my sixteen contracts, for an entity simply known as “Thomas”, who took the form of a man in a fine suit who kept up with me on horseback seemingly just fine. All he seemed to carry was a knife, but I’d seen him put it to good use. Our contract was that once every five years, I would allow him to shed blood, and this seemed like a good chance. His exact nature was unknown to me, and whenever I got close to answers, they always seemed to vanish. He operated within blind spots of perception, and was best when people forgot he was there. The other was a full ghost named Nyx, a preserved memory of a deceased individual given full sentience and control. Half incorporeal, half tangible, our contract mandated I visit and tend to her grave, along with ensuring her family was taken care of. Given the rarity of beings like her, people who had died close to strong magic, but not been corrupted by chaos, it was a deal I happily took. Her role was to shield me.
I still had fourteen contracts to call upon, and over fifty bindings. But this was a lot of my combat power. And as I approached the site, sending Limerick ahead once again, I felt reasonably confident in my chances. Easily, we traversed through the brush, staying low as we began to move around, to encircle the camp I knew was ahead.
Getting everyone into position took some time. But eventually, we had a decent view of what was going on. A somewhat ramshackle encampment, designed to be able to be hidden from a top down view and from anyone viewing it from anywhere but the relatively even ground I stood on. It seemed to house a fair amount of people, maybe a little under fifty or sixty. All of them seemed to be doing fine…though activating the Sphinx’s eyes, and scanning for symbols, found none that matched the government, despite all of them seeming to be armed. So that confirmed one theory, that this was likely one of the Guerilla armies. At the very least, it would be less to get hassled by Kraus over.
Though my eyes did pick up something else. Almost every person here seemed to glow with some amount of magic. Some more then others. I saw seven people meeting in the center of the camp, with someone with the lesser trace, but seemed to carry rank. The seven each glowed with some form of arcanum, a man near the center most of all. All but the man in the center seemed to have somewhat tattered clothing. Though the center man was different then the others in another way as well. He had a tether, a source of his magic…nearby. I followed it with my eyes, and that’s when I saw it.
The jaguar headed creature loomed over, wearing armor that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Mayan tomb. It seemed taken from time, compared to the camp below, as it loomed about fifty feet in the air. That would be my quarry. Though, concerningly, when I looked at it, the Sphinx’s eyes dismissed themselves. I prodded for an answer from the source of them, but was afforded no reply. What I had seen, for that brief moment, was a quite large amount of magic, too much to even start to identify in that instant. It was akin to what the center man had on him, but much stronger.
Out of fear of having been discovered, I was prepared to order my small army to converge and attack, when something else happened.
Four people appeared near the center of the camp, in a flash of radiant light. And I was surprised by what I saw.
Firstly, was the woman in the wheelchair. She matched the description Mathias had given me, grey hair, very old, European and based on how prepared she looked, likely the source of the transportation effect.
Secondly, was another woman, with more of a family resemblance to the one in the wheelchair, if not fifty years younger. She had orange hair, that didn’t look natural, but didn’t look like dye either. She wore a short sleeved blouse and shorts, and wouldn’t look out of place on the beach, if it weren’t for the massive white gold hammer slung over her shoulders. She looked stone cold serious.
Thirdly, a man, with tousled brown hair, and with a muscular build like the second woman. He was taller then her, though, and wore a similarly revealing outfit of a tank top and shorts. In one of his hands, a silver sword was held, lowered, and not pointed at anyone just yet. He lacked the same family resemblance the two women had. He had a similar serious look about her.
The fourth individual seemed to be Mayan, about the same height as the man. Her face was covered in scars, and a bundle of black hair was tied back into a neat and effective bun. Her gaze was firmly on the man who had glowed with the most magic in the camp, with the tether to the god. She carried several firearms, a pair of pistols, and a rifle, and I also spotted a few grenades on her belt. She had a hand on the handles of the older woman’s wheelchair.
I recognized the style of weaponry, at least. Angelic. Seraphim magic.
That made things complicated. I held off my attack for now, electing to watch and wait.
The Mayan woman called something forward, which I both couldn’t make out in language and distance. The tablet helped me parse some, but not all. Something about madness, and monsters.
The old woman then spoke, seemingly focused around the entire area. I heard her speak in English, which didn’t make much sense considering her audience. Was she stupid?
The man with the magic was the one who responded, stepping forward. I could notice quite a few people moving to this position, raising rifles towards their angelic guests. But not firing just yet.
The magic man and the wheelchair woman seemed to have a back and forth for a few moments, pointed and harsh with each other. But the man’s face seemed to be softening slightly. Guns were starting to get lowered. She was beckoned forward, towards the others, by a young woman with a wide smile.
And that was when the god lowered himself. Landed next to the man tethered to it.
And looked straight at me.
Before I could react, it held out a hand. A lance of dark energy, almost crackling like lightning, sprung forward, over my head, and to targets I knew.
All three of the fae that were maintaining our glamour fell to the ground, dead instantly, flesh looking paled and rotten. With a curse in latin, I directed the entire force forward.
A shout from the man, and the assembled insurgents began to attack.
Both me, and the angels in the center. All hell broke loose right about then.
The first few moments of the fray were almost impossible to follow. Bullets soared through the air, as the first of my numbers became visible through the brush, and all around the highland terrain. A few of them found purchase, and I lost maybe five or six within seconds. A bullet lodged itself in Atraxis’s bony shoulder, as the long dead mage let out a rattling cackle. A few strayed near me, but Nyx was easily able to deflect them, as the spirit swirled around me.
Meanwhile, Thomas was gone, reappearing in the blind spot of one of the six non tethered magical ones, plunging his knife into his throat with a flourish, before spinning, and stabbing deep into the chest of another. Both hit the ground fast, before he withdrew the knife, and pivoted towards the tethered one, breaking into a run. He worked fast.
However, not fast enough. I hadn’t kept track of the angels in all of this. A brief exchange in English (mostly just the old woman seemingly telling them to “Not kill anyone, capture one”) and another bright flash, before the guns could even be fired. Blinding anyone who would shoot near the Seraphim for a moment.
I had broken into a full gallop by now, along with Atraxis, keeping near the rear. I spent many of the opening moments trying to correct positioning, exerting tactical control with orders shunted to everyone who needed them.
In those few moments before the main collision would occur, the light cleared away, and the woman in the wheelchair was gone. The Mayan woman had taken cover behind some rocks, and drawn out both pistols. The brown haired man had seemingly summoned wings, and had taken into the air, seemingly moving towards my forces, as opposed to engaging the people shooting at him. An odd choice. His sword had also seemed to ignite into golden flame.
The woman with the hammer, however, made no such choices, running full forward towards the tethered one, the god, and his friends. Thomas had vanished from the area just as she laid eyes on him, however, even without landing a blow on the tethered one, he did distract him long enough that he likely wouldn’t be able to react in time to the incoming hammer wielder.
That would be, if the people around him didn’t all begin to transform.
Each of them had their flesh shift and contort at a rapid speed, taking on properties distinctly not theirs. The woman who had beckoned taking on the form of a jaguar, her form now easily ten feet tall, looming over all the humans present. A man next to her taking on the form of some kind of monkey, black tufts of fur forming all around. He too grew, and switched to his forelimbs, as he sprung backwards. The man on the ground began to grow leathery plated armor, akin to an Armadillo. The woman whose throat had been cut began to grow the maw of a crocodile, rapidly expanding in shape. On the outskirts, a woman sprouted massive wings, multicolored of a parrot, and a man’s legs forming into a snakelike tail.
The transformations started out fairly humanoid, but they weren’t nearly fast enough, save for the monkey and jaguar. The former sprung backwards, however, moving after the winged one, and the latter charged towards the hammer user, forcing her back with a mighty blow with a clawed hand, which should have torn her apart, but it didn’t even seem to hurt the blouse. She seemed to back off, squaring off into a combat stance, as the others continued to transform.
Meanwhile, my forces met a large chunk of the insurgents atop rocks. Bullets managed to fell a few more limb golems, along with a few manifested, before colliding. Many backed off, to utilize their firearms better, while others drew out knives, engaging in melee combat.
I began to notice, something, however, observing from the back of the fray. These men and women seemed to be doing better then they should.
Rivertalon tackled someone to the ground, the weight of a horse on them, but he still managed to not only knock the griffon aside, but managed to do so with his chest torn and ripped from the claws. He withdrew a pistol, and fired more then a few bullets into it, before Star swooped down, a gout of fire managing to send him tumbling off the rock.
But across the battlefield, a similar story. And the result was, I was losing people at too quick a rate.
Worse yet, the Seraphim weren’t helping. The hammer user was locked in a duel with the jaguar, and the man had sought to engage the wounded Rivertalon-even managing to use some kind of magic on them, striking them with a bare fist and causing them to vanish. However, seeing what I soon saw, he dove back down to the ground.
The rest of them had finished transforming. The crocodile, now a nearly story tall quadruped, with scales which seemed to almost glisten gold. The parrot, now with a wingspan to rival some small planes, took to the sky, and was moving to engage the winged Seraphim. The Armadillo, nearly the crocodiles height, had moved around, and had crashed into my left flank, allowing insurgents to scatter, and crushing many of my golems and other creatures underfoot. The serpent was easily fifteen or twenty feet long, and lunged to go help the jaguar.
The winged Seraphim dove, to try and intercept the serpent, but the monkey seemed to interpose, rearing up, and almost unnaturally unhinging it’s jaw, before letting out an ear bleeding howl, which seemed to do remarkably little to hinder the other transformed hybrids, but did send the Seraphim flying off course, into the intercept path of the parrot. The snake, however, wouldn’t be lucky enough to join the fray. One person had been keeping up the cover, that being the Mayan woman behind cover. A grenade landed at the serpent’s feet, detonating, and cutting into him with shrapnel. She then began opening fire on the monkey, who sprung backwards, almost surprised to see who it was.
She had seemingly managed to repel most of those who had been on her side of the battlefield, by shooting them in non vital areas. She was quite good at it, and the insurgent’s resistance to death seemingly didn’t help them stand on a shot out leg.
In the midst of this chaos, the tethered man and the god took to the sky, seemingly conversing back and forth. The god’s eyes settled on me, and raised a hand, with the tethered one following. We both launched spells at the same time.
A wave of hurled rocks moved towards me, each intercepted and blocked by Nyx. In return, a wave of summoned arms and legs appeared around them, and attempted to force them down in a swarm. Both of them seemed quite strong-the tethered one was swatting them away by the dozens, as a blade made from a black stone appeared in his hand to help cut them down. The god, however, was unbothered in the first place.
This fell into my plans nicely. As I looked to Atraxis.
“The crocodile, now!” I called, and he nodded, performing a small bit of magic. Even that was enough for me to feel the inkling of chaos, as he bypassed the order of components and signifiers to simply manifest what he wanted. Withdrawn from my bag, and hurled towards the Crocodile hybrid (who was just poising to lunge for the rocks the sharpshooter with the pistols was hiding behind) was the fang. The venom tipped weapon sunk into it’s side.
The creature crumbled to the ground, convulsing. This distracted the god, long enough that it wouldn’t be able to help the tethered one from being struck from the sky with a particularly forceful limb.
I acted quickly, withdrawing the cube, pouring all of the energy I had stored within it, before discarding it just as quickly, using a summoned limb to withdraw the scroll and present it upwards, as I withdrew my implement and shouted out.
“Nameless divine! I call to you, and demand your terror cease! The world will not be put out of balance by you. In the name of the High Arcane, the Council of Eight, and the forces of Order, I speak a binding, a compact, to ensure the protection of the world I inhabit-“
I began to speak the words aloud, the glyphs on the scroll starting to glow a vibrant white.
Just as the crocodile hybrid stood, and began haphazardly striking those around it, swiping the monkey into a cliff face. Just as Rivertalon reappeared, and dove down to tackle the serpent off the nearby ledge.
Just as my assembled army breeched the line, and poured towards the fallen tethered champion.
I would have my victory. I would have order.
Kindling And Miscellany 