My dream after that fight had me naked, clean but naked, standing among a foggy forest with shapes and shadows moving around me. The fog was so thick, I only knew it was a forest because a mighty pine rose behind me, and a few others dotted the areas past the shadows. I spun around looking for anything I can improvise as a weapon. Then he stepped forth from the shadows. Me, skinny, pale, long brown hair tickling my, or rather his, shoulders. A scar running over his chest.
I remember getting that scar from when I fell from a pillar. One of the massive iron pillars that dot the Ironlands. The smallest talked about is five foot tall and nearly a perfect three foot by three-foot square. Some tower larger and girthier. They are all discerned by their shiny metal gleam.
At that, one formed under me and my copy then shot up into the sky. The fog collapsed in and nothing could be seen around us except the washing grey. My copy’s eyes, deep green, flashed purple for a second and black veins began trailing his head. Voices whispered in the mist.
“He’s awakening.” One said as another said, “He’s Corrupting.”
“He’s seeing/blinding” They spoke in unison again.
I found myself mute and then the pillar rumbled in my dream and a big chunk of it collapsed. My copy plummeted and I looked over the edge. There was no way I could see if I, or he rather, survived. The mist had gotten worse and from the pillar something dark seeped out. Corruption every mystic saw and fought. But also, something else was being confined by this corruption, or with it. I’m not sure. The pillar rumbled again, and that world went dark to me.
I took a heavy breath to steady myself, but couldn’t shake that dream so I kept my eyes shut as I let my surroundings return to me. The sound of a crackling fire was the first thing that came to me. Then the feeling of the reed bedding under me and the rough fibers of the blankets tickling my skin. Clothed now in simple sleeping cloths. Then Racha’s voice came through the wall beside my bed.
“You can’t be sleeping with swamp rats young man. They bite hard…”
There was a grunt from the other side of the wall and Parkik’s husky voice bleed through the wall.
“I wasn’t sleeping with them…they insisted to attack me as I was sleeping!”
“Sounds like you forgot to put the lemon grass in your bed.”
“Lemongrass?”
“Yes. It keeps the neighborhood Swamp Rats away, especially from the people who hurt Tallyden.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well…our young Tallyden has a way with animals. Swamp Rats, Alligators, Boars, there is rumor that he even talked to a Basilisk at one point and convinced it t-”
I let out a startled noise and I heard Racha get up and shuffle to my door, which was just a cloth hanging from a frame. I sat up pretending to be startled awake.
“There were, whispers, soft, and subtle…” I said.
“Don’t worry about those Tally.” Racha sat on the edge of my bed and continued, “All mystics hear them. We learn from them, or let them whisper to us, but they can’t harm us. Do you remember what they said?”
“It’s fleeting but something about awakening, or was it corrupting?”
Racha smiled, “Maybe both? At once?”
I smiled. “Yeah! That. How’s you know?”
“Oh, it’s the same words we all hear in the beginning. You’re transitioning. It’ll all become clear in the future.”
“Were you just talking to someone?”
“Oh yeah. Parkik decided to sleep with Swamp Rats and one got feisty.”
I got out of bed and grabbed my staff for a bit of support. There was no marks left on my leg but the pain was there, not as sharp, and healing, but there. I walked over to the door and peaked my head into the main healers room, with beds lining the walls and a long fire down the middle of the hut.
“The lemongrass is for the bed, not tea.”
Parkik was pale faced and had a cover over his lower body. A small blush formed on his face as I sat on the bed next to him. He was shirtless and laying on the healer’s bed. He didn’t seem to have any armor around him, nor his daggers. I propped my leg up. Racha went over to her apothecary table and began mixing herbs and liquids.
I asked, “So. How bad was it? Swamp Rat bites hurt. Like a lot!”
“It hurt but nothing I can’t handle. A-Are they really your friends?”
“Friends, is a loose term” I responded.
As he opened his mouth, Ithella came into the healers hut and he bowed his head, respectfully.
I looked at her and stood up with the aid of my staff. “Welcome Mystic Ithella. What brings you to the healers hut?”
“You.” She said. “Trial Two isn’t as easy as the first…”
“Figured.” I looked over at Parkik and said, “Not that you made it easy…It definitely was NOT easy.”
She looked down to my ring and held out her hand. I handed it to her hesitantly and she said, “There is a threat within our village…I need you to find it and fix it. Swear to help.”
The holds a bit of the band and I touch it. The blue glow radiates cold this time. “I swear to find and fix whatever threat is within our village.”
The rings glow didn’t happen as brightly as with the previous vow to beat the trial of strength but it was a successful vow. Parkik shook his head.
“You mystics have an interesting connection to the magic in iron.”
I look at him as I slip my ring back on. “What do you mean?” I ask.
He says, “Iron doesn’t usually glow when vows are made. It only seems to do it between mystics.”
Ithella says, “It’s a sacred act and as such, the bond Tallyden and I share creates a bridge through the iron.”
“Bond?” he asks. “Like teacher and apprentice?”
Ithella laughed, “No. I raised Tallyden.”
“He’s your son? I thought mystics were chaste.” He said.
I jumped in. “No, Mystics aren’t chaste. We’re people like everyone else. But I’m not Ithella’s blood son. I am adopted by her. According to the villagers, she found me by an iron pillar and I was brought into steadfast to be cared for.”
“The winds howled that day.” Racha said as she walked over to Parkik with a potion that she handed him. “I remember having to help the village shutter everything then Ithella brought me a small bundle wrapped in her cloak.”
Ithella shrugged and walked out, “I need to go out with the hunting party today. Tallyden. Find the threat and take care of it.”
I watched her leave. Parkik stood up after drinking the potion and flexed a little bit. He was just in his undergarments and I saw the bite marks all along his legs. I shook my head. I looked at Racha, “Any advice?”
“It’s your trial. Good luck! I’ve gotta prepare potions for the hunting party. If Ithella is going, it’s going to be dangerous.”
“Good thinking. I’ll figure it out I guess.” I said.
Parkik said. “Well. If you need me. I’m here. I’ll just be training, trading, and learning your swamp culture.”
I left the hut after some small goodbyes and then looked around my village. The plaza at the center of the village was empty. I began my investigation into the trouble in the town. Everyone was preparing for winter, so the wood was being chopped and stacked inside of the store house. After an hour of asking around and getting nowhere I walked into an ally between two houses and found a passed-out traveler. He wore a set of armor that had a weird insignia on it. The insignia had eyes over a tree line. I turned him over and felt for a heartbeat.
It faintly beat against my hands, and I looked over his body. I notice a cold hand print on his chest. His eyes flicked behind his closed lids. I put my hand over his heart and leaned over to his ear.
“I pray to the iron pillars. May their hard exterior fortify your health and being.”
Then I put some of the healing herbs that Racha had given me for the pain in my leg into the man’s mouth. They glowed with the prayers magic, he swallowed them and I saw the light through his throat then disappear under his shirt. He woke up and deep blue eyes looked up at me.
“Sir,” I began, “How’d you end up laying here?”
“A-A horror, haunts the abandoned home…” He said as his body trembled.
I took him under my arm and lead him back to Racha’s healing hut. She immediately began working on him. She told me through her quick work that I saved this man’s mind with my small prayer. The man was fast asleep by noon. I left the man in the healing hut to be taken care of by Racha. I moved about the city noting any abandoned houses. There were four around the town that were confirmed abandoned because of families merging houses or the war. But one was confirmed to be a house where the family died tragically. That was probably the house that had the Horror in it. Now, I don’t know the nature of the horror, nor how to stop it. That is the next steps on this trial of spirit. Outlined here:
- Figure out the nature of the horror in the house.
- Figure out how to “deal with it.”
- Gather the supplies needed.
- Go into the house and deal with it.
It seems easy enough. I would ask Parkik to join me in this journey but Ithella said I had to do this alone and I also promised to protect him. That promise doesn’t include facing a horror, which could be anything from a haunt, to a bone walker, to an Iron Revenant. I shudder to think of the last one. Unremovable from this world while they had a vow holding them to it. They’re attached to their metal armor, killing anything in their way. I know this problem needs to be solved but writing down these events helped to put it into perspective. I’ll need to thank Racha when I get back to the healing hut tonight. For now…it’s time to explore an abandoned house.
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