Of Rosey Cheeks and Onion Bread

"Truly, it is wonderful - splendid - utterly astounding honestly to have you within our company!", exclaimed Cherish Goodsoil. She set a platter of specially-prepared breads, cheeses, and jams on the table and poured her guest another mug of sweet ale. "Never had I ever thought such a noted personality would grace our humble home in the Parishes."

The doppleganger that appeared to Cherish Goodsoil like Tolman Greenholm - the celebrated and renowned hero who had only recently recovered the lost writings of Gammon Brandyford the Brave - graciously accepted the ale and brought the mug to his lips. Tolman the Doppleganger agreed with her. "Yes! It is indeed a magical day for you! I have plenty of stories to tell, and some of them are half-entertaining."

Cherish blushed and waved her guest away. "Oh, Mr. Greenholm, you're so modest. Re-reading the Journals with my son has been truly bonding. I've never seen a boy so proud and full of wanderlust. Your efforts to recover Gammon's lost work will inspire a whole new generation, sir!"

Tolman the Doppleganger was busy smearing a pasty smelly cheese across a slice of onion bread and then stuffing it into his mouth when Cherish finished whatever she was saying, and he nodded complacently in agreement before rapidly swigging down the last of the ale. He put the cup back on the table, wiped his damp mouth with his sleeve, and pointed at the mug as to insist Cherish refresh it immediately and - predictably - she hopped right to it.

That's the thing with people, the doppleganger noted. So accommodating. So accepting of what they see; they're so swift to believe it, as if the belief satisfies something they deeply want.

After eventually swallowing, the Doppleganger said, "My work has taken me from the frozen plains of Floreth and their Pax Arcana, through the pass of the Dhark Keep, through the Wildes and finally, here, in the Parishes. It's been a long journey. Yet having arrived just yesterday, I must tell you: I never expected such a warm reception from strangers like you, Ms. Goodsoil. Usually when I meet people for the first time, they just run away and scream their little heads off."

Cherish giggled delightfully and poured her guest more sweet ale.

Tolman the Doppleganger quickly consumed another slice of bread with a side of the sharpest cheddar he (or his previous host) had ever experienced, yet - curiously - that still didn't satiate him. It was curious. Here was a bounty of good food that he had quickly pushed into his gullet yet he didn't feel at all satisfied; a hunger of a sorts that made his bones ache, and the saliva pool under his lip. Tolman the Doppleganger had felt that hunger before when meeting random strangers along the road and - having spent a pleasant evening in conversation with them, and, in consuming the sustenance of their generous nature to share food - he awoke the next day deeply satiated and further along the road south than he remembered. Only twice before had he experienced these odd black-outs. He had dismissed them as a blissful, hard, satiated sleep. And he felt that hunger gnawing at him, swelling in his gut.

He smiled at Cherish. "You've been so kind. I'd like to repay you. A son, you said? Where's your boy now?"

"Oh," she smiled, "he's at the farmhouse. Chores and the like. He'll be here before sundown."

Tolman the Doppleganger nodded and cocked an eyebrow. "Before sundown. That's great. Well, when he gets here, I'd suggest we have a hot mug of hot chocolate ready for him, we retire to your sitting room aside that lovely fireplace, and I will tell you both the story of lost Dwarven mine I explored, far away from here, on the isle of Rhackdalia. Would you like that?"

Cherish put her hands together and sighed. Her red rose cheeks practically radiated a burning heat of their own that Tolman the Doppleganger was - strangely - acutely aware of. "Yes, Yes, Mr. Greenholm. That would be wonderful. Here, I'll just tidy up."

"Of course," the Doppleganger smiled as he took another slice of onion bread from the table and dipped it in jam. "Please. Call me Tolman."

Saille's Story

Saille was a beautiful tree nymph. A dryad.

She wore no clothes. Her skin was smooth, eternally youthful, and pale green; her hair flowing locks of brown.

Saille lived in a willow tree. It was her home.

Her home was deep in a very old forest far away from anyone.

Saille had responsibilities. She was a dryad, a guardian spirit, after all. She tended the forest, the trees, the birds and insects and animals. Saille helped heal the sick. And she kept the fire away.

It was this way for Saille since she could remember and Saille had a long memory.  She recalled when the towering evergreens were just saplings, and when the biggest elms fell to rot, decay, and produce acres of mushrooms; when the chipmunks' litters were due; when the each acorn would fall from the trees. She recalled exactly when the winds would blow and litter the forest floor with branches and leaves, and when the grasses would grow, and when the rocks would be dry. Saille knew exactly when the colors of autumn would explode, and when the new blossoms were exposed to the sun. And she remembered the day when the earth shook all around.

Saille remembered that day, that day the most.

She remembered that day because it was the last day that she felt good inside.

Saille awoke that day to many aches and pains. She felt intense cramps in her legs. Her home - her tree - had a coldness in its roots that spread throughout its trunk, branches, and droopy limbs. It shivered, as did she, for both of them were afflicted. She felt a sincere sadness deep within her, but yet not within her, for the sadness was projected from elsewhere; it was the culmination of fear, horror, terror, and grief that flowed south-by-southwest, through the roots of every tree in the forest, to touch her tree. Emotion transmitted instantly from hundreds of miles away. She felt an intensity of sadness from others of her kind, and from the grasses, the shrubs, the trees, the forest itself, just as the very earth violently erupted and convulsed. The earthquake shook the land. It uprooted and toppled both young and old tree. It bludgeoned the tendrils of tender roots and vines and plant stalks.  The forest writhed in pain.

And the pain manifested in Saille's body just as you or I might feel the punishment of a sledgehammer, swung high and brought down upon our bodies to smash, pound, break bone, and bruise flesh. She felt all of it - the fear, the pain, the terror - and she felt such immense sadness.

The earthquake would soon end and for days on end the aftershocks jolted Saille, made her flinch, disrupted her sleep. She couldn't shake the sadness, the feelings of fear and regret. In the moons that followed, the animals would sense the wrongness of things and pursue unusual patterns - walk when they should fly; sleep when they should hunt; hibernate when they should be shedding their fats; stay under the rocks instead of greet the sun. The whole land mourned and Saille mourned with it.

Then one day, the spots appeared. Brown spots that raced up her legs, over her hips and chest, and covered her arms. The spots was an aggressive fungus. A disease to Saille and to her home, for the willow also contracted the brown spots all across its trunk and leaves.

She concentrated, tried to communicate to the fungus to ask it, Why? Why do you harm me? But the fungus would not obey her. It ignored her, in fact, and spoke nothing to the nymph. It only wickedly tried to consume her. She tried to repel it, but it was too strong. She tried to undo it, but the fungus was too tenacious. It just kept on coming.

Moons would pass and Saille realized that her life was in jeopardy: the fungus was like a poison and it would literally end her physical expression unless that she took action. Realizing that her final days were upon her, she commanded her home to wrap her, strap her against the bark of her tree, to keep her flesh warm and close, to hold and hug her in the final days. At her call, vines wrapped about her and lashed her to her tree. Her body would soon atrophy, her flesh become bark, her skin the texture of leaves, as her body was absorbed into the willow tree.

Throughout those long, last days, as she endured the poison coursing through her being, she tried to reach out to her sisters, other nymphs who were connected to the forest as she was, only to realize - with fearful dread - that they, too, were under attack. That her sisters were equally the target of the encroaching fungus that consumed their physical beings. She would die soon, she knew it, and she reached out her mind into the forest.

Everywhere is pain, said the trees. Can you help?

Saille said. I cannot; I am dying.

The trees shuddered. Unfortunate. We suffer together.

I am covered in brown spots - a fungus attacks me and I cannot control it.

Wicked spots. Many of us are covered in spots. The spots burn.

On her deathbed, her body slowly being absorbed into her home tree, Saille concentrated with the last scrap of will that she could bring rise to.  

From whence come the spots? From whence comes the scourge?

Many of our kind suffer in the northeast, replied the trees. Their wails and intense sorrow and pain and fear can be felt all around. 

I feel it, said Saille.

Isn't it beautiful, asked the trees. It is a singular and most perfect horror.

The trees were quiet for a while.

Saille asked, What drives this pain?

And the trees said nothing.

Answer me, commanded Saille. What drives this pain?

There was silence.

Saille, weak as death was befalling her, poured the last of her energy into her question.

Answer me, she commanded again.

When the trees spoke, they spoke with a different voice. They spoke with the inflection of a separate, more alien consciousness, that was not that of the trees, but that of something more angry, more bitter and spiteful, than what any tree could possibly be, as if the voice of the trees were quieted and suppressed as another spoke:

Wytchweed, it said. It comes from ... me ...

And at that moment, Saille's physical form expired. Her body exhaled its last breath. Saille the Dryad was no more.

R

The Truth is Out There

It was the 13th of First Harvest in the 47th Year in the Age of Rose: summer in the northern reaches of the Shattered Isles, and at the deep-water port of Shyn-Valour, a squat three-mast Caravel named the Dreaming Goddess approached the cliff-side mooring points and was secured to the dock.

Its captain, Rheese of House Cantour, descended the plank to confer with the Harbormaster and pay her ship's slip fees. Behind her, members of the crew began the work of securing the vessel and preparing cargo for lifts; travelers from Floreth departed the ship carrying their belongings and gear.

Two travelers made their way up the long seven flights of stone stairs to finally reach the town's square. The statue of its Matron held a lantern out with an extended arm to the sea.

One of the traveler removed a parchment from the folds of his black and brown robes; his companion, a woman of smaller stature, wore similar-colored robes, and she let her leather traveling bag collapse to the ground. He glanced over the parchment, nodded, and put it away. "This is it."

His companion rolled her eyes. "That was the longest, coldest, waterborne transit that I've ever experienced. It's freezing here and it's the dead-middle of summer. We're on the northern edge of the Fathoms, Mully. What ever do you ever expect to find here?"

"Sculder," said the man, turning around to face the rest of the town. He examined its shops shaped out of the stone itself. "According to the record, the artifact was last seen here in this Shyn, last year, Wintertide. There - at that Inn - The Wayfarer's Landing. That'd be a good place to start. But not the best place."

His blonde traveling companion wrapped her arms around herself in an effort to keep herself warm. Her academic robes were better suited for the drier cold of the mainland. "Not the best place? What do you mean?"

"The best place to start," Sculder responded dryly,  "may be to ask the horse directly."

* * *

The bellows roared at the Four Dwarves Smithy. Whik, one of its proprietors, was busy slamming his hammer into the shoulder plate of a soldier's armor to shape it just right when the large barn doors of the Smithy slid slightly open to reveal two strangers to the Shyn, wearing the black and brown robes of teaching academics from Pax Arcana. Whik slowed his strikes and squinted at the strangers.

"Greetings," said the taller one, closing the door behind him.

The shorter one removed her cowl exposing her "It's quite warm in here. Very comfortable."

"Aye," Whik responded cooly. He set down his hammer and stalled his bellows. "Hot. That 'appens 'round here. Now, can I help ye?"

The taller fellow approached. "Yes. I'm Savant Mully and this is Savant Sculder. We're from-"

"-Pax Arcana, yes, boy, I recognized yer robes," Whik said, cutting him off. "I'm a dwarf, lad. I recognize yer uniforms. I asked 'ow I could help ye?"

Rolling her eyes, Sculder allowed herself to look about the shop and its many displays of tools spread across the wall - armor and weapons and shields hung there - while her partner continued and removed a parchment from his cloak.

"We are following-up on reports of an uncataloged artifact. Last year, at a Wintertide celebration held at Wayfarer's Landing, witnesses reported a singing amulet."

Whik's face flushed red and he waved his arms. "A singing what? Preposterous! I don't know what yer talkin' about."

"A singing amulet," Sculder stepped in, now looking directly at the flustered blacksmith, apparently becoming aware of his unexpected emotional response. "One that conversed freely with others and seemed to have its own will. It was supposedly made of stone yet it surprisingly demonstrated physical emotive characteristics. It reportedly even became intoxicated-"

"Missus Sculder!", Whik declared and brushed his hands against his smithy apron to smear black smut across it. He extended his arm to the door. "I swear to the both of you that I haven't seen no happy-talkin' drunk amulet 'round these parts an', if I ever run across it, I will notify the good folks at the university right away. Now, I bid ye a good day!"

The man named Mully interjected with a cool, dead-pan stare. "But sir, the amulet. It was reported to have been worn around the neck of a dwarf."

Whik's mustaches twisted into a knot.  "What're you sayin'? You're thinkin' that I've got some chatterin', obnoxious amulet shaped in the head of a dwarf around me neck? Right now? 'Cause I'm a dwarf? Here!" And Whik ripped open his shirt to expose a very fury, gray tuft of naked hair. "No amulet! Now get!"

Mully nodded at Sculder. "All right. We'll go. Sculder." And both of them exited the shop. The door slammed loudly behind them.

Sculder threw her cowl up over her head and marched down the path with Mully. She called out to him, "You heard him, Mully. We never mentioned that it was a dwarf's head. He's seen it before, that's obvious. So why are we leaving?"

Mully gave a sneer out of the corner of his mouth. "His testimony helped confirm some of the details that had been lacking in the initial reports."

"But Mully," Sculder replied as they made their way to the Wayfarer's Landing. "Shrunken talking heads isn't exactly new to magic. There are plenty of documented examples where rituals have kept severed heads alive post-death and enchantments that would both shrink the head and keep it talking, none of which represent true consciousness. They are common parlor tricks and not indicative of true infusement of both the spiritual and intellectual form, like what you're asserting is here."

Mully got a stubborn look about him and kept walking. "How else can these reports be explained, Sculder? An amulet that sung Wintertide carols? That told stories to small children and anyone who would listen? That reportedly conveyed unique experiences told from the perspective of a dwarven warrior? No, what we're dealing with here isn't common magicka in a role of trickery but in a role of transcendence.  This is unlike anything we've ever encountered, Sculder."

"What are you saying?", Sculder asked as they approached the Wayfarer's Landing. Mully rested his hand on the door and paused before opening it, and looked directly into Sculder's blue eyes.

"I'm saying that the amulet in question wasn't just animated, Sculder. It was birthed. It's a living, breathing thing. And it was here. I know it."

* * *

"Yah, I remember. Last year. Wintertide."

Ehren of House Hawthorne served both of the strangers a cold white ale in wooden mugs. Sculder found it oddly satisfying; Mully pushed it away and seemed to favor of the mug of water and bread they were served. He was showing the proprietor of the Inn rough sketches of the amulet.

Ehren's husbands busily attended to other patrons and managed the cooking in the kitchen. She pointed at the drawing. "It had a heavier chain. Brass, maybe. And it talked, yah, but it was, um, grumpy, you know? Always tellin' Gorbash to do this an' do that-"

"Gorbash?", Sculder asked, placing her hand gently on the hand of Ehren. "Any information would help with our investigation, miss. Who is Gorbash? Did this 'Gorbash' wear the amulet?"

"Did it look like he could take it off? Remove the amulet?", Mully interjected, looking seriously at Ehren.

"Yah, yah - he removed it, threw it in a mug, sure," Ehren said, withdrawing her hand cooly from Sculder's. "It sank in there and and it would talk. It made bubbles! It was kinda funny."

"But it was made ... made out of stone?", Sculder insisted. She looked bat at her partner. "Mully, this makes no sense. How could stone breathe?"

Mully took a long drink of his clear ale and he looked calmly at Ehren. "This Gorbash character. A dwarf himself? Or a local man? Which House did he belong to?"

Ehren glanced back at the kitchen to make certain her husbands weren't overwhelmed with the orders. She then smiled at her guests. "No, he was a dwarf of the Kingdoms. A freeman. He traveled with a companion, another dwarf. Her name ... her name was Tamroohk."

"Tamroohk?", Sculder said, looking back at her. "Another dwarf?"

She nodded. "Yep. Another dwarf."

"How do you spell that? T-a-m..."

"Excuse me," and Ehren went back to the kitchens to help expedite the dinner process.

Sculder leaned in over the table and looked directly at Mully. "What're the odds of so many dwarves converging in a single space in the cosmos at one moment in time?"

Mully washed down his last drink with a long pull on the water. "What're the odds of an animated shunken head being capable of befriending dwarven kensmen? Listen, apparently this Gorbash ... he could freely remove it-"

"-which would indicate a non-possessive, un-cursed metaphoric expression of the magicka," Sculder finished Mully's thought. She then took a long draw on her mug of ale. "But if there were numerous dwarves like Whik, and Gorbash, and Tamroohk, why did this amulet choose Gorbash?"

"Choice, free will, Sculder," Mully said. "Don't you get it? That's one of Anbar's First Principles. What we're dealing with here isn't an artifact or an item or a thing. It's an entity. An entity bound to a stone representation and suspended from a brass chain."

"What you're suggesting, Mully," Sculder shot back with a little bit of a drunken swagger, "is that our problem here is more of a possession than an enchantment. Perhaps we should be speaking to the Sister of the Shyn's Abbey-"

"Nonsense, Sculder. Magicka 101: the arcane isn't entirely isolated from spiritual. One man's spiritual possession is another man's cantrip. What can't be inordinately explained by the controlled wielding of cosmic forces can't be directly contrived as the workings of either deities nor demons-"

"-but nor can it be dismissed!", Sculder said, slapping the mug to the table. She frowned, apparently uncertain why she was feeling so light headed.

Mully cocked his eyebrow. "But the Abbey. That's a good lead. Let's go."

* * *

Sister Susyn of Gaia joined the pair marveling after the beautiful stained glass that hung in the Abbey. Susyn smiled and greeted her visitors.

"It's been too long since I've conferred with scholars of Pax Arcana. Especially so soon after the fall of Rhackdalia. It is a pleasure to meet with the both of you. How can I help?"

Mully bowed. "Rhackdalia's collapse unleashed a bevy of magical devices and artifacts into the wild and our order will spend decades to account for their loss and to re-catalog the inventory. But we're here today on another matter."

Sculder and Mully explained that they were following-up on witness accounts of a singing dwarven amulet at the Wayfarer's Landing over last year's Wintertide. They explained that they considered the artifact highly dangerous and needed to catalog it before it could do more damage.

"More damage?", Susyn asked. "You feel that it's somehow capable of manipulating its host?"

Sculder began. "It's possible that, originally, the stone amulet was by itself an innocuous stone amulet until a ritual was cast on it-"

"-cast on it as if it were a vessel-", Mully added.

Sculder continued. "-and the spiritual essence, a residue-"

"-a soul?", Susyn added. "A soul. You believe that the amulet trapped a soul within it? Or that it's somehow possessed? Why - that would be a feat of arcana and belief, plus the willingness of the subject to forgo eternal life with the Mother?"

"Willingness?", Sculder asked. "What do you mean?"

"A spirit is rarely compelled to remain somewhere that it doesn't want to be, Savant Sculder. Only the most cruel and powerful of magics can bind a soul to this plane. The subject would have willingly desired to remain and not pass to Mother's embrace."

Mully asked, "So you're saying that it's possible? That it's possible a malevolent spirit is trapped on this plain and suspended from a chain around some unsuspecting fellow's neck?"

Susyn shrugged. "I'm saying that a spirit - be it either malevolent or benevolent - could be bound or otherwise compelled to stay, given the right combination of will and sustaining magicka."

Sculder and Mully looked at each other.

Mully first said, "Sustaining."

Sculder then said, "Draining. But until what?"

Susyn looked at the both of them and smiled. "It is, um, rather spooky, how you complete each other's sentences."

* * *

"You know, boy," Vongur said from his hairy dwarven chest, looking out into the darkness and rain underneath a magical dome that kept them dry.  "This is cheatin'."

Gorbash had a very dwarven chest. It was the model of dwarvenness and would have been nearly pornographic to dwarven women who - if they were there and paying attention - would have drooled to put their face up to it, or, spend just a few minutes nuzzling in its awesome furyness. Gorbash, looking out into the darkness sporting a fake pirate eye patch, waiting for the darkness to suddenly sprout another hydra head, shrugged. "Whatchya mean?"

"Magics. Transparent domes. There's nuthin' a little bit of wet ever hurt," Vongur replied. "Does you good. Sleepin' under the stars. Snorin' in a mud puddle. The elements, lad, they toughen you up. Make you better. This here, yeah, it's like, well-"

Gorbash squinted at the darkness. He thought he saw it move. Gorbash felt tired; it'd been a long day. He's felt so lethargic lately. Must be all the sailing and sea-faring stuff.

"-unhealthy." Vongur finished. "And you need to be healthy, son. You need to be ... really healthy."

And then suddenly, Gorbash could make out a shadow in the darkness, human, walking along the edge of the camp ...

R