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the-remainder · 3 years

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Greetings weary travelers, did you know, as a budding magus, Ilar has traveled across the Serpentine Coast and witnessed many bizarre and fantastic tales. On quiet afternoons, Ilar and Vyn would share some of Ilar's special blend of tea, freshly baked pastry, and tell a tale to each other. If you've donated to The Remainder on itch or ko-fi, you'll have access to the mini interactive fiction - Story And Tea with Ilar - where all these short stories can be read.

But we'd also like to reward people who've supported us in other ways by releasing some of these stories.

Here is the first in what we hope to be a series of such stories, as told by Ilar to Vyn.

Enjoy!

If you're not sure what I'm talking about, this is a bonus short story that takes place in the world of The Remainder, a dark fantasy visual novel, you can play Act 1 by clicking here.

Tale of the Fog Children

Part 1 of 3

Voices often came to me when I sat in inner silence and simply felt the Currents brushing against my heart. Most of them were only noise, shallow thoughts from shallow realms, the regret of something done, or bickering over garlic skin. But this one was different, it yearned fiercely, single-heartedly, as only a human being could, and yet it has a hollowness that no human being could have, not the least a child.

Curious, I went to a balcony on the upper tower and peered over the foggy shores to the South. A commotion was brewing in a village a few leagues away, nestled next to a Seamouth, a fogdune had barged into the huddle of houses and swallowed one of them. Peculiar, I thought, and bad news. I looked with closed eyes and saw the sense of longing waft from the fogdune.

A thick channel of Currents was carried by the cloudstream to the tower, teasing out memories of my home, of the smell of mud and chicken feed. There was something else in the undercurrents too defused to disentangle at this distance. It was no ordinary fogdune, the magus mentee of that village was out of their depth. I checked my schedule and saw that you would be in a ritual for another three days. I packed a few necessities and headed for the village.

Arriving, I found that everyone who dwelled there gave the fog-engulfed house a wide berth, and little wonder, the Currents gushing from it was debilitating. I felt the longing tinged with sorrow and desperation before I heard the faint sound of howling wind emanating from the fog despite the still air. The energy was so dense that it would’ve turned an undyed - a commoner with no magick training - into a sobbing heap within minutes of close contact. A little more and they'd do anything, anything to end that despair.

“Stay away, traveler!” Someone shouted to me from their yard. “Bad luck that, do ya no good to linger, ya hear?”

Striding toward them, I replied. “Where are the people who lived here?”

“Oy, the Milborns, sunken luck if it could be said o’ anyone. They’d be stayin’ over with the Ashborns there.” The leather-skinned man pointed with his mushroom hat.

“Bad luck, you say? What sort, if I may ask?”

The man stopped chewing his straw for a moment and studied me up and down, clicking his tongue.

“My, pardon me, you’re a magus, ain’t you?”

I nodded, saying. “Indeed, I sensed something afoot here and thought I might help. Now, tell me about this bad luck you mentioned.”

“Aye, real pitiable. First, one child, nary a babe, passes from the winds, then a scant few years later, the other one goes missin'.” He spits out the straw he was chewing and made a face as if it was bitter. “Born on a Howling Eve, they were, and there ain’t no helpin’ that.”

I listened, puffing on my pipe, recalling. “Howling Eve? Do you think the children were…”

“Aye, ‘twas the low ones, Luccasi, the temple mentee said as much. Howling over the skies all that night, lookin’ for souls to snatch. And the children? Twins, ya see? Was s’pposed to be just the one. But he was so scared of the sound that half of him tried to run back to the Waters from inside his mama’s womb, and done got split right in two.

That’s how they were born twins. Sickly, only enough Waters for the one life, forced to be two. Skin the color of mildew. Poor kids, the folks too, what’d they e’er do to deserve such a thing?” He shook his head.

I nodded again, thanked the man, and left for the Ashborn’s house. I’d heard enough to have a theory, and if I was right, there was no time to waste.

Thick incense filled the little room when a young man with hollow eyes and a scraggly goatee opened the door to my knocking.

“Who are you?” He asked stiffly.

“The name’s Ilar, Magus. Are you the Milborns?” I nodded to the young woman sitting next to a makeshift altar that she’d just been praying to, where incenses burned. I recognized the herb. “May I?”

He stepped back to allow me in. “Duma, and my wife Sestra. We don’t got much, you’ll have tea?”

I nodded and entered, sitting by the firepit. A cursory glance showed no Devarna present. I knew then… But they’d just lost another child. I needed to be direct, yet without touching upon an open wound. “Sorry to hear about your child, I’d like to help. When did he go missing?”

“A week ago. He was playing with the other kids along the shore over yonder.” Duma’s voice was hoarse. “One blink he was there, right? Then he was gone, just like that. We looked, depths, we looked everywhere, right?”

“I see. And how long have you been burning the Longing Leaves?”

The young man’s forehead wrinkled into a mass of grooves as he looked down.

He glanced at my magus’s mark nervously and said. “The mentee said we should use it, right? They said no more than three days, if that’s what yer getting at, but there couldn’t be no harm, right?” Sestra began to fidget visibly as he spoke.

With a soft but firm voice, I said. “Devarna of Longing are usually very effective, but after three days, they will have grown disenchanted with the herbs. Further use will net you no boon. If you don’t stop now, you risk attracting something else, something undesirable. Do you understand?”

Duma stiffened, hands gripping at his loose leggings, lips pursed. Sensing this, Sestra leaned over and gently laid a hand on his arm while looking at me with something akin to pleading in her eyes. She wanted to say something, I realized, but—

“What are we to do? Just give up? Our only child, that boy! The mentee said these would call him back, well where is he?” Duma was nearly shouting at me. His wife flinched. Truths were left unsaid, and a lie was told. Tides were unfavorable here, I decided.

I stood up slowly, went to the door, and said. “I’m not your enemy, and neither is that fogdune. It’s getting too dark to Work, I’ll make camp outside the village. By next dawn, I will have a plan.

I hope you’ll consider listening to me when the time comes if you want what’s best for your child.” I threw a glance at them, letting the Waters shine from my eyes, holding the woman’s gaze for the briefest of moments, then departed. That should be enough to let them sense my power, and hopefully for Sestra to take the hint.

I built a fire and erected a simple tent with twigs and mushroom cappings in a copse on the edge of the village and waited. I’d seen fogdunes behaving like this in my youth. Could it be the same thing that happened to me? Another of Fate’s jokes, I chuckled.

To be continued...

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#the remainder #story and tea #fog children part 1 #short fiction #short story

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