#the spell is large metal object being thrown directly at his head

[lolathepeacocklord]

Strange unusual man whom I cast a spell unto

[poly-carbon-based-lifeform]

Inspiration Chapter Two: “The Traveler”

The New Sun Fair occurred in Lacerta every year on the summer solstice.  The tradition had begun nearly two hundred years ago by royal decree as a way of giving thanks to the Old Sun King for creating humanity.  Since the Old God no longer lived, the people could not thank him directly, so instead they gave thanks by living their lives to the fullest, accentuated by the Fair.

Nicolle pressed west in the direction he’d last seen the old traveler walking, but in the crowd it was easy to lose someone, especially when one is distracted by beer,  miniature ships swinging from thick ropes, axe-throwing contests, and turkey legs that vendors are trying to sell for seven moons or more.  Just charge a sun and let it be that simple, Nicolle thought, and even though the turkey legs were vastly overpriced, crowds of people still lined up to buy them.

Nicolle rolled his eyes, and he thanked Canopus he did because they landed directly on the traveler, who seemed to be on a lightly trodden path out of the fair and towards a small copse of trees bordering the village of Beconnue.  Nicolle tried to run over to reach him, but the traveler ventured beyond the trees before he could get there.

Nicolle’s run slowed to a jog, then a walk, then a stop just beyond the boundary of the woods.  He glanced over his shoulder at the festivities, then back at the trees.  The small forest couldn’t be more than a mile in diameter.  Did that count as a forest?  Nicolle tried to distract himself by thinking about the definition of a forest and whether this qualified, but everytime he thought the word “forest” his mind would refocus on the trees before him and his nerves would frazzle again.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, pressing a hand against his diaphragm and feeling it expand and shrink again as he breathed.  He attempted to steel himself; it had been over a decade since he’d entered any forest, but this one was certainly safe.  He opened his eyes, and started cautiously walking into the woods, muttering to himself, “She stood on the balcony… inexplicably mimicking him hiccuping… and amicably welcoming him in…”

He walked through the broadly spaced trees until he saw a different wooden barrier: a circular structure, walled with logs pointed at the top.  There was one opening, at which a pair of men with swords- not official city guards like at the fair- stopped a small line of men from entering.  These thugs searched each individual, patting them down before letting them inside.  Nicolle didn’t see the traveler.

He looked around.  Whatever was going on here, the guards didn’t know about it, and that’s probably how the people here liked it.  He ducked behind a tree to analyze the situation.  He’d seen a dirty old man who didn’t like his show, a traveler, wander into the woods where there was some illicit business going on.  The fair is a quarter mile back, and this place is concealed by woods, ergo the only people here were people who knew what was going on already.  Except Nicolle, who’d followed someone else here.  So, the traveler knew what was going on here… Nicolle still didn’t have enough information to go on.  It probably wasn’t gambling or prostitution, they probably wouldn’t let a dirty old man ruin the aesthetic.  So something less… refined?  There was lots of shouting coming from inside.  An illegal boxing match, or something like that?  Were sport fights illegal in Lacerta?  Nicolle couldn’t remember.

Nicolle needed to get inside.  But also, he needed the sword on his back to be ready, in case something really bad was going on.  In order to do that, he needed to work a little magic.  

Hoping the managers of the establishment didn’t have some kind of headcount system or a really good eye for faces, Nicolle took a deep breath, still paranoid of his surroundings.  In a way, he felt it might feel more relaxing to be surrounded by whatever disgusting, dirty men were inside those walls than out here in the open woods.  “By the light of the New Moon, let me pass unseen,” he whispered, letting his heart feel his breath with magic as he let the air escape his lungs.  He looked down: nothing.  Perfect.  He was invisible.

Nicolle slipped past the thugs at the entrance.  He found there was only a few feet of grassy hallway before a rudimentary wooden ramp started to angle upwards.  As he walked carefully up the creaking ramp, he found the source of the shouting.  Dozens of men had crowded around a second, shorter circular wall of logs that rose to about waist-height beyond the raised floor that surrounded it.

Why are we so high up for an arena that’s still on ground floor?  Nicolle wondered, taking special care not to bump into anyone and give away his position.  There was no safe place to resume visibility, so he hoped that whatever happened would happen before the spell wore off.  Is it just for a better vantage point?

Nicolle peered over the edge.  The arena seemed to have its floor covered with sand, and there were small sections of it where blood had splattered.  A single wide door was on the other side, under a red tapestry.  He started to have a very bad feeling, just as a man spoke up on the other side of the arena, standing over the tapestry.

“Alright, you motherfuckers!” the bald man with the goatee and no shirt shouted into a conical tube that amplified his voice just enough for the crowd to pay attention.  He was frighteningly strong.  Could lift an ox, Nicolle thought.  “You’ve waited long enough, and I think just about everybody who’s gonna show up already showed up!”

Nicolle suddenly realized he’d forgotten to look for the traveler.  He scanned the crowd, but though the floor space between the walls was only about five feet wide, he didn’t see his old man anywhere.

“Let’s get this shit started!”  The crowd cheered, and the door opened.  A wooden cart with wide wheels was pushed through the door out into the center of the arena by six strong men.  It was a flat platform, on top of which sat an iron cage where a black bear was held captive.  Nicolle’s heart sank.  He immediately knew where this was going.

The bear had a metal collar attached to its neck, and that collar was attached to a long, thick chain that hung out of the front of the cage between the gate and bars of one side.  A man grabbed the chain while another man grabbed an iron spike and a large hammer, and they carried it all to the wall underneath the tapestry.  One man placed the end of the chain against the wall while the other man held up the spike and nailed the chain in place with the hammer.  They and three other men left the arena while one last man pulled out a key and placed it in the lock of the cage.  He nodded up at the announcer, unlocked the cage, and then ran out the door which was closed behind him as the bear crept out into the sand.

“You know the drill, one of you lucky sons of bitches is gonna get to tame this beast or die trying!  Spear, sword, or mace, your choice!  And you get a fight a veritable monster of the Old Forest!”

The crowd cheered the prospect of bloody combat and jeered at the bear, shouting offensive names at it in a ridiculous attempt to insult an animal with no concept of what these Etullian words meant.  Nevertheless, the bear was angry.

“And this hour’s competitor is…” it appeared that someone passed him a note with a name on it.  “Mathieu du Becconue!  A fucking rhyming native!”

Nicolle and many others watched through the cheering crowd as a man seemed to jump for joy.  He was balding, a shining head ringing by the bare minimum amount of hair to avoid being flat out “bald,” with a much less flattering figure than the announcer’s, and he pushed through the crowd to head for the exit.

“While we wait for Matty to get all prepared- hey, you!”

The crowd’s attention was pulled back to the arena, and Nicolle’s eyes invisibly widened when he saw the dirty traveler standing in the sand opposite the bear.  He had lost most of his gear except for the sack slung over his left shoulder and the walking stick in his right hand.  Nicolle couldn’t see his face from here.

“Someone get that guy out of the arena!” the announcer shouted before placing his bullhorn back to his lips.  “Hey, bearfucker!  You can wait your god-damned turn like everybody else!”

The traveler slumped his sack off of his shoulder and onto the sand.  He knelt and began rummaging through it.  He pulled out a small tuft of brown fur and a sprig of some berry plant.  Holly, maybe?  He pressed them together and seemed to pray over them.  The noise of the crowd was lost on this man- the audience, the announcer’s anger, the half-full bottles of beer being thrown from the balcony.  They all meant nothing to this man.  Nicolle watched in bemusement as this man simply ignored the audience perspective and proceeded with some unfathomable task.  

He set the mismatched objects back into the sack and stood up, raising the walking stick off of the ground and letting it go slack by his side as he walked towards the bear.

“Seriously you unwashed mass of shit!” the announcer frothed at the mouth.  “We have rules!  You will follow the rules, or you can die right here!”

That caught the traveler’s attention, who raised his head slightly to give an irritated glance at the announcer, but never once stopped walking towards the bear.  Soon he was just out of range of the animal’s chain, made clear by its lunge at him, barely restrained by the radius as a claw narrowly missed the man’s nose, at which point he stopped moving.  Nicolle couldn’t see the man’s face, but he made slight gesticulations similar to those made during conversations.  He was… talking to the bear?

Suddenly, four men barged through the doorway, two of which were the thugs from the entrance, each holding a metal club.  Nicolle’s hand instinctively moved to the short sword sheathed on his back.  His eyes and mind darted in various directions.  The door was closed when the thugs entered.

The four men moved to encircle the traveler, keeping a wide berth between them at first, and then closing in slowly.  Before they got very close, the traveler moved closer to the bear.  The four men flinched, raising their weapons to ready themselves for a fight.  Perhaps they thought the bear might become agitated, but instead it remained calm.  Complacent.  Even as the traveler grabbed onto its left side and pulled himself up.  The man was now riding the bear.

Nicolle didn’t understand what was going on.  It seemed that neither did the brutes who had come to beat down the traveler.  One of them didn’t care; a man on the far left stepped forward and raised his club to swing at the bear’s face.

The traveler raised his walking stick into the sky.

The shouts were as immediate as the assault.  All around Nicolle, sprouting from the wood that had been used to construct this arena, massive roots grew and branched like trees.  Roots also burst from under the sand in the arena itself, each root grabbing or slamming into a nearby thug or patron.  Nicolle didn’t have time to watch what was happening in the arena as he was now busy trying to dodge the thicket of roots and vines strangling and piercing the flesh of the people around him as he tried to push back towards the exit.  A body thudded on the floor in front of him, a wooden vine wrapped around his throat, his eyes blank and horrified and dead.

Nicolle started hyperventilating as he ran, and he could just barely see his transparent hands by the time he was out.  He was losing focus, his vision blurring, his magic fading.  

He became totally visible when he heard a SNAP! Of wood breaking, and he turned to see that the roots had wrapped around the outside of the arena as well, breaking down the very structure they’d been grown from.  A log had broken in half and was starting to fall towards Nicolle, who barely had time to jump out of the way and roll off to the side.

The forest was quiet.  Nicolle rolled onto his back, trying to catch his breath, until out of the corner of his eye he saw a man casually riding away on the back of a black bear.

[the-phyrexian-is-a-part-timer]

Fanwalker Bio: Xelos Vekka (re-cont.)

Part three in something that was just supposed to be one post. Oh boy.

As Xelos and the others on the ship fall, he notices the island in it’s entirety. The entire back and sides are blocked by a mountain range, leaving the only beaches on the side they were coming to. The rest of the island his a heavy jungle. The shape is not unlike a stretched crescent. The crew, and the ship following, land far into the jungle. While most are dead, injured, or incapacitated, Xelos, Ampelio, and 5 others survive mostly unscathed. Almost immediately they are surrounded. One all sides and up in the trees, elves with weapons are posted and ready. Immediately, the only commanding officer starts a fire with a flash of magic and Xelos using his own makes it surround the party on all but one escape to give them cover. After brief skirmish and a interparty discussion, all besides the officer give up. They are taken to the elves wooden citadel, a huge tree woven with magic to create a nigh impenetrable building. All of them are thrown in the prison. While trying to figure out a way to escape, one of the other survivors who was not captured comes and convinces the elves to let them free, but with some stipulations. The first is that they may never enter the forest thicket again, only to take the main trails on the island. The second is to investigate whatever made that shockwave that destroyed the invasion fleet. They are to report back within a week or all the survivors will be no more. As all agree, they are let free and are escorted out of the forest and towards the beach, from there they try to make plans and see what the others can do.

There were only 4 others besides Xelos and Ampelio who were capable and willing to start looking for the cause of their misfortune(besides their country). Bojack was a half-horse half-man who can “hear the trees” and see the flow of magic. Vee was a dark-elf practised in canetimancy, the magic to subtly influence others with sound. Ulfgar was a dwarven soldier before the civil war who sided with the opposition. Percival was a beginning apprentice to a magical entity who still has ties to the magic his master wields.

With help from Bojack and Percival, the group heads towards their best guess at what it may be, some large magical energy off towards the west side of the island. As they get to a cave entrance, they are attacked by a griffin. The battle is fierce, as the griffin is both large and resistant to the magic thrown against it. After Ulfgar is able to land a substantial blow, the officer from before shows up. His armor is missing in places and he is bleeding but alive. The griffin, seemingly furious at Ulfgar but unable to retaliate, kills the officer and leaves.

No one mourns him.

They enter the cave where deep within they find a magical gem. They take it and hurry back to the citadel to report their findings. Apparently that gem, when they found it, stopped masking another strong source of magic that is on the island. As they are given more time to gather the next source, it too was guarded by a magic creature and was again a gem, this time a different color. This process continues until they have 6 gems, all the colors of the primary and secondary colors. The last one they uncover also leads the reveal of another source of power on the island, one far more powerful than the rest. As they go to it, it leads them on a hike into the mountains to a hidden grove with a mansion in it. They use the gems to open the gate to allow them to enter the mansion and its surroundings. While exploring the outside, they come across a fountain with 7 notches it it. Percival and Xelos study it and determine that 6 of the notches are for the gems and the last one is for some sphere like object. They leave it alone, as Bojack says that it is not the source of the magic. They enter the mansion and Bojack continues to lead them through. They enter a room and almost immediately the door behind slams shut. In front of them is an female elf dressed in hooded robes and carrying a large staff with a white orb on the end. The elf demands to know why they are there and who sent them, questioning them on their actions during their stay on the island. Seemingly frustrated because they didn’t tell her what she wanted, she goes to kill them. Using magic reversed engineered from their previous captors to subdue spellcasters, the party stabs into her little pieces of sigiled metal to hopefully bring her down. It does, but not to the extent they were hoping for. The aftermath of the battle is brutal. Everyone in the group is beaten and scarred, Percival succumbing to his wounds. The room they were in is fried, water logged, and frozen. The sorceress, her name never known to them, a mess of blood and flesh with bits of metal sticking into her entire front in part thanks to Xelos. They take their time returning to the citadel. Explaining the situation and the events that transpired, the elves say their servitude is over. When asked about the gems, though, the group says they are nothing more than a way to mask and redirect the magical energy the magician in the mansion had. The group returns to the mansion and places the gems and the orb in the right place in the fountain. Nothing sees to happen inside the mansion grounds. Outside, though, the entire scenery changes. 

They are in a different sort of woods than before, in a different climate even. They check their surroundings and see a road heading off from in front of the mansion towards a town far away. The group checks the mansion again to see if anything else had changed, but nothing has. As they explore the mansion more, the find a chest withing a bird cage in the lower levels.  Wanting to know what’s inside, they open it up only to unleash a smoking bat like demon out which starts heading towards the town. The chase after it and try to fend it away from the town. Water, it seems clears the smoke away from it’s body, allowing things to hit it for a short time until it “regrows”. Not knowing any aquamancy, they check the town to see if anyone does. In the bar, they meet an aquamancer by the name of Solty who claims to be a decendant of a water god. Seemingly a bit unstable, but still their only chance, they recruit him to hunt down the beast. After about of month of tracking, helped greatly by Bojack, they ambush it and lead the demon to a river. There, they destroy it.

For about a year, the party continues to help out the town and try to find out how the fountain works. One day, after a string of kidnappings causes Ampelio to go missing, the party directly intervenes with strong suggestion from Xelos. Bojack lead them to a cave system with a pool of water at the end. Sensing the presence of something big and evil, Bojack warns the rest of the party. Solty and Xelos combine their energies to purify the water before they continue. After a few moments, a large centipede like being crashes out of the water. It runs past the group, obviously trying to escape out of the water as it scalds the creature. Xelos uses his sword and plunges it through the monster, keeping it pinned with its body still partially submerged. The group quickly makes work of the abomination and start exploring the pool. They soon find a underwater tunnel leading to a cavern where the creature had made its nest. Among the things in their is a pile of body parts and gear. Among the roughage, Xelos finds his son’s gear and a few of his scales. At age 40, Xelos mourns the loss of his son.

The trek back to the village and then home is all a blur. The staking of Ampelios’ grave is crystal clear. The next two month, though, are an indecipherable haze of alcohol. When Xelos finally becomes sober, he realizes he’s on a boat. The rest of the group is with him, with a new companion. Apparently, the mansion was burned down and the group recruited a gnome mechanist and wizard to help them figure out the gems. He has been tagging along, apparently. The group is just escorting him home now. When they get there, the gnome turns heel and seals them all in a chamber. He tries to sacrifice them in a ritual to gain power, sending his robotic minions to subdue them. The destroy the minions, and capture the gnome only for the room to quake and heave. The room splits in two and lava starts pooling at the bottom of it. Desperate, they free the gnome and work to dig themselves out of the cavern. In the calamity, Ulfgar loses a leg and a few toes and Vee an eye. Taking as many people as they can, they board their boat and sail away from the erupting island.

With the gnome now a servant. Xelos begins to force him to make replacement limbs for the injured. He also starts forcing the gnome to give him tutelage into the darker arts of magic. As the voyage progresses, Xelos starts treating the injuries of other with less sympathy and more experimentation. He works towards finding some semblance of immortality so he loses no one again. The gnome, seeing his progress, gives his most into the work, delighted to have another doing work like his. They group, after going through a storm and fighting off a sea monster, find an island in the center of said storm. Going onto it, they find a cave system with signs of civilization. In it, they end up finding another mansion hidden withing a large chamber. It’s identical to the first, except it seems to be more of an empty shell. They try the fountain out at this one and are transported to a city. Within a few hours, the “Queen” of the city comes to their mansion and puts it under seige. After taking care of her guards, she is all that remains. It seems, though, she is a sorcerer just like the elf from before. Projectiles are of no use against her, magic barely effects her. To stall time, the gnome uses a spell that phases her out of existence for a while. The group then makes a plan. Using the same anti-magic sigils from the first time around with a few added features, they make a binding circle to lower her resistances. When she phases back, the circle seals her and they use a spell to polymorph her into a chicken, which they kill. A large amount of energy is released when they do, and her mortal form returns to normal. They see an orb on her body that resembles the white orb but it’s black. Grabbing it, Bojack starts energizing. To try and save him, everybody else in the party grabs onto the orb to divert the current of energy. What ends up happening, though, is a huge explosion of energy and they all die.

Well, technically.

When the light fades they are beings of pure energy. None of them knows how much time passes, for they have lost the concept of it. Their bodies are as amorphous as thought and they drift in emptiness. Some time later they all feel a tug, they are being pulled back to mortal form. It takes years, something they are now becoming knowledgeable on again, before they return.

When they do, they are naked and the party is split, with some in an area wet and some in a desert. When they meet up, they realize two things. The first is the form they had in the ethereal state is the form they came back in. Xelos himself resembled a taller version of his younger self, with an extra thumb on each hand opposite from the first. Vee became and the gnome became more human-ish women. Ulfgar became a giant. Solty remained the same. The second thing they realized is that they can’t feel magic. They met in an underground human settlement and thus go to the library to research what is with this place after they get dressed and reaquainted. Apparently 3000 years ago, the gods left. With them, most magic did too. The only magic that did work was the runes of the world, symbols that when you will power through them they work magic. It’s only used in basic thing nowdays, as most magic creature also died out and humanity had relied more on their scientific advancements. The humans come in contact(or raise) a race of buglike creatures. The bugs, while being more physically and martially  strong, protected the humans, the humans fed and took care of infrastructure for the bugs. This worked well until the humans found a way to fend for themselves and stopped providing for the bugs. Outraged, the bugs and humans raged war on each other until the humans were banished underground and the world above withered into dust. While researching into the runes and finding a place in this strange new world, the group hears a siren. Seeing soldiers run towards the outskirts of the city, they follow. This leads them to come face to face with the bugs. Large humanoid insects that look like a cross between a grasshopper and an ant. With martial prowess leagues ahead of the soldiers their, the group makes quick work of the intruders with nothing but staffs before more soldiers need to arrive. The group is taken before the high chairwoman of the human settlement. The party is amazed at what they see. Hanging around the neck of the chairwoman is the white orb. Eager to try and find out more about what happened to this world and how to “fix” it, they agree to join the human military to help destroy the last bug warcity.

Preparations are made. Two weeks of them getting accustomed to the new weaponry, technology, and trying to learn runes and about “life energy” is side by side with the entire human city seemingly packing up. At the end of two weeks, the human city rises out of the ground and starts walking towards the bug warcity. When they get close to it, they launch an attack. After boarding the bug city, they fight their way through the lower decks and into the engine rooms of it, melting them down one by one. After ransacking the bug city and killing all the ones aboard, Xelos take some of the bug eggs and smuggles them onto the human warcity. When they return, weird things start to happen.

During the night, they are ambushed by a faceless figure who dissolves when he dies. They keep getting followed and stalked by more of them, though when they look back to them faces appear. They find that everyone on their platoon who helped them with the bug attack has been murdered. Finding a rune in a book that helps with showing hidden things, they put on glasses treated with the rune and see the faceless are everywhere. Trying to act nonchalant about it, they go to the chief guardsman of the city try and get someone to help. Unfortunately, he’s in on it and they have to escape the police station and hide in the lower levels of the city. They play a little guerrilla warfare against the faceless to no avail. Finally, in one all out attempt to do some good out of all of it, they plan to escape the city with the chairwoman. Xelos sets up the bug eggs he got in one of the artificial habitats on the city and they go for the plan. It immediately backfires, as she is in on it too. They narrowly escape the city and head in a sandsailer towards a structure in the distance. It leads to an abandoned city that has fresh vegetation, if not rude. They find a house with a tunnel in it and start trekking through the tunnel. Eventually they hear a roar. Barreling towards them is a huge wurm. Knowing they are going to die, with no way to stop the wurm, Xelos throws some canisters of flammable gas and poisonous gas towards the gaping maw of the wurm and shoots it. In the fireball that kills the wurm, his spark ignites and he planeswalks away.

Wow, really going to make this four parts. Ok then, tomorrow definitely the final part. Goodnight