Continuous Alchemy Story (game)

[deviadah]

Let's lighten the mood up with the epic story of an Alchemist. I go first and you all continue the story - write as much or as little as you like!

In the middle of a deep entagled forest, at the darkest hour, a child was born into this world.

[nemrog]

The child, though unbeknowest to him was to fulfill a great prophesy, for he bore the sign of the snake devouring it's tail upon his back.

[monkeyblood]

Unfortunately the people of the village in which he lived,having fallen into ignorant ways,had no recognition of the insignia he bore upon his shoulder.

[Gunderic Mollusk]

"Oh for the love o' Pete." The physician, a generally surly fellow, scrutinized the marking with a healthy crease in his brow, glaring like an owl at the marking. He'd some idea, some inkling from a margin etched in one of his innumerable medical manuals that practically acted as pillars in his home, yet deep within his heart he could practically hear the lead-minded accusations of an infernal nature to the newborn. He wiped the amniotic fluid from the crowing child with a cloth and sighed. The child would find no purchase in village life, especially just after a massive contagion and a series of desperate edicts from the Church to assuage the fury of the masses. He swaddled the child, handed the boy to the midwife and whispered, "Get 'im outta here."

The boy's mother groggily dragged her eyes open. She'd been completely exhausted from a painful birth, having finally caved to the physician's insistance on inducing labor and putting her under with a special concoction of valerian. Her muddy brown eyes moistly set upon the doctor, who wrung his massive square-palmed hands before him, penitently averting his gaze. "Ma'am.. I... I'm afraid yer boy didn't make it. Complications with the cord... got strangled an' died. I'm... aw shucks 'm just plumb sorry."

At first, she stared at him blankly, as if told a basic item from a trip to the market. Gradually, she fell into tremors, her dewy eyes finally overflowing. The midwife could hear the wails of a child-bereft mother, hear the cries derived from the loss of an heir, the loss of all familial status of the mother's family. Her jaw clenched and she pressed on, kicking herself onto her horse with one vault and riding off to hide, once more, and now with a new addition to their strange granfalloon of the extraordinary.

[monkeyblood]

Alithea awoke from her drug induced sleep listlessly.It seemed as though the nightmare went on uninterrupted.To go through a pregnancy,nine months of nausea and tiredness as your body slowly thickens while new life grows within you,with fear and hope intermingling as you approach the birth only for it all to come to nothing seemed too cruel.
She lay in her bed,silent tears trickling down her face as she recovered from from the birth.It had been a difficult one and the tearing took long to heal.But as she began to recover her strength a conviction was growing in her.Her child wasnt dead,she'd have felt that.As hazy as her memory was she remembered the child cry when it had been born.
Her suspicions sharpened for she was a woman who trusted few.She said nothing.And waited.When she had recovered she waited until the night of a new moon and went to the burying ground.She had been ill in her bed when they buried her child.She dug up the small grave and found the evidence she had been looking for.The body of a cat had been substituted for that of her son.'Right,we'll see' she said to herself between clenched teeth.
It had been a hazy night but the doctor felt quite light of heart.It had been a fine time he'd had at the tavern and he swayed as he walked.He turned up a small lane that was a shortcut to his home.Suddenly he was thrown against a wall with a knife at his throat and a voice hissing in his ear 'What have you done with my son,you poxy bastard!'

[Gunderic Mollusk]

The doctor's large, boxy hands looked so clumsy and slow, as if carved from sandstone. However, like many things, the doctor's hands were not what they seemed. The young lady's wrist felt a constriction that could crush coal into quartz and a sudden, unnatural twist as the physician deftly manipulated her arm behind her back and took the knife from her hand. "First off, Pa died of infection but my parents were in wedlock when they had me, so I ain't a bastard. 'n my skin's a damn sight clearer than that walking boil you call a husband, so I ain't poxy." He set the blade in a nice, neat underhand grip, fixed nicely between the two ribs nearest to her heart. "So if y' ain't talkin' t'me, don't go tryin' to ply my trade of seein' what goes on unner the skin!!"

With a firm press of his boot to her back, he set her reeling to the other side of the street, away from prying ears and watchful eyes. He couldn't help it if he looked not unlike one of the oft-told stories of Fomorians, with his steel blue eyes and wild, shock-white hair. That said, he still locked up her joints with those surprisingly workable hands, cupping her mouth as he wispered. "That kid y'popped out. Got some crap on 'is back. Not stuff the numbnuts of this burg'd unnerstand. Y'd be shaved, debased an' humiliated before gettin' burned, an' some schmuck'd boil the boy. Yer husband, bless his heart, would be either beaten t'death or stupid enough to follow along. Now I'm guessin' the baby ain't his, as you got the fire in yeh, an' he's a squamus layabout o' noble stock. Either way, I'd hate t'see a foolhearty young lass who's too smart to tussle with a fella of my stature end up with a pike in her unmentionables on account of keepin' her baby here. I'm a rough ol' bastard who's fond o' the aquavit, but I'm help."

Sensing a quiescence, he released his hand from her mouth and undid the intricate knot he made of her arms, handing her a rather oddly-sketched image. "Keep a lookout for starlings in yer yard. Mind their scratchin's and maybe they'll lead you to a nest. Maybe Midweek..."

[monkeyblood]

Alithea waited until the sound of his footsteps died away before she got up.She spat the dirt out of her mouth and inspected a jagged scratch on her arm ruefully.Well,she hadn't seen that coming.His shambling walk,rheumy eyes and yokel accent had made her underestimate him.Still it angered her he had spoken so her so contemptuously,he'd pay for that.Mention her unmentionables to her again and he'd end up choking on his own.
And he'd taken her babe,however good his reasons were,he'd pay for that too.He had no right to take over and deal with her and the child as though they were of no consequence.For their own good he most probably thought.He had no idea what he was dealing with.After all,she had survived all this time with her own mark without discovery.
At the thought of the child her breasts began to ache for they had still not completely dried up of milk.Another grievance to lay at the doctors door.And now some riddle to do with birds to puzzle through at his leisure while her arms ached for her son with an intensity only a mother of a newborn would know.And did that old pisshead care that she grieved and her son grieved.No,because men did not think like that.Maybe her son,if he was the one child,would change all that.

[Gunderic Mollusk]

"Prophecies don't say anything about poo." The "midwife's" needly eyes stared down to the changing cloths that seemed to be in constant demand. "You'd think that somehow the kid blessed by Unspeakable Deities would be without the need to make the night soil, but no. Nurturing isn't my calling. Transitions are my calling. Coming into the world, going out of the world, I can do those damned well. This is fucking ridiculous, why isn't the mom here, I want to scream."

The physician's hand shoved open the door to the cozy little cabin, bedraggled and lumbering his way to the foyer. "The mom's gonna try to kill me. She has the mind of a rabid shrew." The overcoat and shirt piled on the floor as he trudged towards the simple straw mat on which he slept. A snap of his fingers and the oil lamp next to his bet illuminated, casting light on his stocky, scarred torso. His eyes slipped to his left shoulder for a moment, eyeing his own mark. Raised melanin etched into the symbol of Saturn, which was now bleeding from a nail scratch the mother had so kindly offered. "She might. If she does, don't let her endanger this kid for selfish reasons. That boy belongs to the World." His lungs filled and hollowed like bellows in a massive sigh, his eyes falling closed. "Now, lessee. Starlings're already talkin'; have Spica record some o' the baby's gurgles so's she can hear her kid. Gotta find Rashid to get this kid on his journey. Make sure all knowledgable players are in order, cuz ol' Saturn's gotta die in the retort to get this started..."

[monkeyblood]

'What does a starling look like?' she thought as she hestitantly stepped out into her muddy yard.The mysteries and knowledge of nature had been of no interest whatsoever to Alithea beyond what she liked to eat.And she liked to eat bird but as they always had no feathers when she ate them she was a little lost.
'Is it that black and white one or that little one over there with the muddy,brown feathers and yellow beak?' she wondered.Damn that old fool,he shouldve been more detailed or provided her with a book but then again that would've been useless as she had as much time for booklearning as she did for nature.
One of the birds began to warble a song that sounded like a baby's cry.She winced as she felt the pull in her breasts and cursed as the milk began to flow,staining the front of her dress.Irritated,she swiftly bent down to grab a rock to throw at the annoying thing but stopped and went still as the mark on her hip began to itch.It always did this when something fey was about and so she narrowed her eyes and watched the bird like a cat.
It was soon clear it was no ordinary bird,like its master,it just masqueraded as one.
It hopped from branch to branch as she watched it impatiently.Her preferred option would've been to gut it and read its entrails but she guessed that it would earn her further disrespect at the hands of its master so she decided to follow it when it moved,if and when,it ever decided to do so.
Eventually it left the tree to fly towards the woods.Looking to see that no one was watching she ran after it.

[monkeyblood]

Within half an hour she was hopelessly lost,without the bird to guide her she would have never found her way.After two hours of stumbling through undergrowth a thunderstorm of expletives was cascading through her head.She'd never had anything to do with nature if she could help it and this was too much.
Her grandfather had sighed when she was born.He was a priest and he'd had high hopes for the newborn of his favourite illegitimate son.He'd immediately recognised the raised symbol on the body of his new grand daughter but,as he confessed to himself later,it was not the one he would have preferred for a girl.
By the time she had reached a clearing leaving behind the interminable trees Alithea was in a high temper.Fortunately for the doctor,as soon as she saw the rustic,strangely shaped dwelling her mood lightened.Stepping forward she crossed the clearing and reached the door of the dwelling.She raised her hand to knock......

[Gunderic Mollusk]

The door didn't seem to open on its own accord as it had seriously done so. The tone within the cabin was a bit dark, as if the sun were setting within and the vast primordial darkness were ready to eat the dwelling from the inside out. The more permanent creature comforts of mats and beds were long gone, leaving behind a Spartan layout for a table and kitchen. The floor was painted with a massive circle of glyphs and idiograms of multiple origins, their meanings and placements possibly becoming clearer later.

"Huh. Thought you'd have a shiv an' a phlegmatic regimen of frilly cronies from yer husband." The physician gave a broad grin, showing surprise in a way of complete divorce from the outcome. His grubby clothes had been replaced with a series of dark, lightweight fabrics, shot through with black and red. He sat in the center of the room with his legs folded, as if waiting for this very moment. His squared hand arose to break the silence with a snap. "Now then..."

Although he chose silence, anything he would have said became drowned out by the huffs and gurgles of the newborn, freshly swaddled and cradled in the arms of a slender gentleman of Moorish descent, clad in contrasting fabrics of white and blue. His very presence, from the smooth mahogany skin, to the gently tapering beard, to the endless glimmer of his eyes, radiated the serenity of a trappist monk. "Mother of the Living Waters, as salaam aleykum. Your boy has been very well behaved since his arrival." He approached the bewildered mother with a measured step, as a handler would a formidable wild animal, such as a bear or wolf. "Hold him, but do not leave with him. You may, if you wish, join us. I apologize if my physician friend was... well, unbecoming. It isn't his way, yet here we all are. Please, join me for tea and pilaf. You'll enjoy it."

[Anibis]

The watcher stirs on the sill.

It over hears, through the open window, all the words which are spoken in the meagre hut this night.

Inside it sees.

I see the ole' doctor, I do. And that dratted magician, him again. And what? Who's this? Ahh yes a girl. A girl... and also... yes... a child....

Dead still, hidden in the shadows of the window sill, the little bird watches this reunion. Watches and listens.

A child? The child? Who's child? Who is this child? who?

who?

hooo.. hooo... hooo....


The owl blinks. Its master will be most interested to learn of these events.


And farther away still, another watcher is seeing through the eyes of a 3 inch tall brown barn owl with a band of steel on its left leg.

She moves in the darkness of her home.

There is a unpleasant smell.

[monkeyblood]

The door swung open before she had a chance to inform those within she was there.As she stepped across the threshold,her senses quivered.Neither the dark nor the complex pattern of glyphs on the floor disturbed her,in fact,she found them quite comforting for at her core she was a primeval creature.
The things that encompassed her world were quite simple,food,shelter,sex,birth,rearing of the young and then,death.All else was just furtive whispering that fearfully tried to block out the sound of the encroaching dark.
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise at the doctors transformation,even though she knew he was more than a simple countryman,and she grinned at his irreverent sally even though she hadnt forgiven him.
But then the world stopped and the doctor receded into nothing when the slim Moor approached with her son and spoke to her.
'Aliekom salaam' she murmured automatically and held out her arms to take the babe.
She didnt hear anything else he said as the world shrank to just her and the bundle in her arms.She sank to the floor and with a shaking hand undid the laces of her bodice then guided the childs mouth to her breast.He started to nuzzle and as the milk began to flow,her womb started to contract.
She sighed with relief and bent her head over the child.

[Anibis]

And all the while the watcher watched.

[Gunderic Mollusk]

"Uhhh... huh." Something certainly unnerved the physician as he continued his seated vigil, brows knitting in concentration. "Hey... Alithea. There's some more comfortable seatin' in the other room... y'might be more comfy feedin' the squirt there." The metallic glint in his eye shone for a moment as he turned his gaze to the bonding mother, lips pulling in tightly as the tension in his form implied the urgency that he dare not speak aloud.

The midwife leaned back against the back wall of the hut, dressed in her rather unceremonious trousers and allowing a rumbling belch from between her lips as she sipped from the flask at her hip. The bonding process was something that always made her uncomfortable, in spite of her profession. She'd never say why. Confiding in others wasn't much her forte. Her amber eyes slid left and right in the twilight, unblinking. Almost as instinct, her fingers went to the shockingly red hair that in some locales would have her shaven and drowned, braiding a healthy portion of it into a thick, functional bun. That transitional warble brought a shiver to her petite frame as she realized that none of the starlings had returned. "Ugh." With an impossible backwards step, she slid through the wall, careful to move into a secretive area as not to disturb the mother, or really deal with the maternal process unfolding before her.

Rashid moved in his careful, whirling dance as he prepared the rice and tea, gently tossing in herbs here and there, maintaining an illusion of absorbtion in his task. The others were rattled enough for six people; no need for him to be nervous. Yvgenyi, Olwen and the others were awaiting them. Whatever would happen in the twilight of this locale, whatever history echoed in the eaves of the cabin, the whole would be served. Nevertheless, Rashid looked over his shoulder to the Physician, his beatific expression breaking for just a moment to frown sympathetically at the man who would sacrifice his name and his life, all traces of himself just to make sure that the child would grow without agenda.

[Anibis]

And far away, the old witch, watching through the eyes of her little brown owl, laughed to herself.

"Thought they could just slip it past me, eh? Well, we'll just see. I've been watching for a little varmit like this one for a long time.... longer than this ... little cabal... Yes... perhaps a visit from 'Auntie' will be just what the moment demands... yes..."

The old woman, like a neckless, hewn mass, turned away from her scrying bowl, and walked... seemed to hover... across the foor of her old, yet well scrubbed hut. The floor quivered and shook for a moment. Three cats darted out from under a curain, chasing one another.. She just managed to give the last of them a sharp kick, and it yowled.

"The'll be more for you later, Nicodemus..." She crowed, not without a certain malevolent fondness for the animal. "Yess, kill us some vermins, Nicodemus.... Auntie has some visiting to do."

She hovered her way towards a door way, and through it to another room, lined with books... A hovel she lived in, yes, and yet room after room, hallway after halways seemed to unfold, as if the little house, on it's strange foundations were larger by far within than without.

She came into a last room, crowded with shoes, and attended by a dirty, wide eyed girl of eleven, who lowered her gaze when the old woman entered.

"Go tend to the cats, little wretch... and clean out the chicken coop..." The child pressed herself to the floor as if trying to push herself through it.. "Yess... work, little wretch, or I may be peckish, eh?" She cocked her milky eye at the girl, and grinned her smile showing sharp, carnivorous teeth. Three rows of them... The child curtsied, without raising her gaze, and hastily exited the room.

"Aunti Baba's got a house call to make..."

She turned to a corner of the small room in which, covered by an old burlap sack, was an enormous mortar and pestle. With a glower and a gesture, the witch gave a sharp command, to which the mortar and pestle responded, jerked, danced, and jumped into life before her. Frighteningly nimble for a hunch-ed hag as she was, the old woman lept into the stone mortar, and gripping the weighty pestle, as if it were a twig, she pounded the ground and propelled the vehicle spinning out the door into the sunlit yard.

She raised her nose to the air and her yawning nostrils twitched. With a sneer, and a sharp cry, Baba Yaga sped away into the forest in a mortar and pestle, to meet her quarry.

A murder of crows took flight.

[monkeyblood]

Satiated,the child had fallen asleep at his mothers breast.Moving carefully,so as not to awaken him,she readjusted her clothing and focussed her attention back to the darkened room.She sniffed appreciatively at the smell of the food,redolent of spices.
She got up and went to seat herself at the table in the middle of the room.As she glanced at the doctor she noticed he had trouble meeting her eyes.
Realising why,she laughed.'So you don't turn a hair when you're ferreting around a womans unmentionables which are gushing blood but when she's suckling you don't know where to look.'
The thought of the doctors discomfort put her in a good humour and inspired further revelation.Pointing to her son.'You know,I can almost admit you did me a favour taking him.With his colouring I'd have never been able to pass him off as my husband's.'
At this admission,the doctors increasing sense of urgency faded slightly as his interest was piqued.'Hah! I knew that lamheaded squall wasnt the father.So,come on,lass,spill the beans...who fathered this get of yours?'
She paused.Then she looked him straight in the eyes as she answered.'My brother.....He was sent to me when the great malefic and benefic conjoined under the aegis of Aldebaran.'
The doctor was rarely lost for words but this was one of those times.Lost for a rejoinder his eyes met the Moors who gazed back steadily,willing him to regain his equilibrium.

[monkeyblood]

Mistaking their silence for judgement,irritated, she went on to explain.'We are an ancient people......and our ways are not the ways of others.'

Turning her head to the northeast she said dreamily,'My brother makes his way here.....he is very close.Do not be concerned that he will take the child for you are the Allies foretold.....are you not.....he only comes to see his firstborn.'

[Anibis]

Softly, a thumping in the distance...

[monkeyblood]

The wind whistled through the trees

[Gunderic Mollusk]

The physician's posture relaxed a bit, moving from the stoic, meditative posture to a more relaxed lounge, the tree-trunk arms crossing over his chest. "See, I toldja I was help. 'n the whole sibling-born kid's not that unusual, considering who 'n what he's gonna be."

Rashid still had to take a moment to absorb the data. He was a man of civilization and refinement, yet he still nodded in unfailing propriety as he dished out the pilaf for the guest and poured two cups of tea into very intricate blue cups, the interior wells etched with black suns. Notably, he was abstaining from offering food to the physician, who seemed just fine with the matter. "I do greatly welcome the arrival of your sibling, if only for his safety in the inclement weather blowing over our locale."

"Byelad!! Dermo!! Grandma's gettin' on her way!" The midwife had mobilized almost immediately into fetching armaments for herself, namely a heavy scimitar and a few arcane knives strapped to her side, dancing around the markings on the floor. "Stupid old ljarva ate the hearts of the forest's owls, killed Spica and the other birds, and she's going to eat the baby because she's an obsessive-compulsive old turd. I'll eat her house's legs one day."

The familiar, harsh series of cackles coming from the massive black songbirds flying overhead caught the physician's attention for but a moment. "Hm. Now, Alithea, if you've eaten, Rashid will take you to the caravan with yer son. I got friends in the air, an' they'll catch up with yer brother. Hopefully he likes games an' shiny black birds. He'll know where to find you."

The midwife's eyes narrowed and turned to an unused spoon left on the counter, one she had stolen from a burning house back in Ukraine. True to form, the spoon lifted and spun, gradually slowing before narrowing down and bursting through the window. "Grandma Yaga calls to the spoons of the mother country. She comes from the northwest. We go south. Hot, wet, busy. Olwen's that way." She softly laughed before turning to Alithea, her fingers waving in an informal little salute. "Oh, and I'm Svyeta."

"Krakrawwgh!" The crows swooped and cackled together, muttering in their own strange way as they hopped above and through the branches of the forest, beady eyes spotting a happily land-bound silhouette. But, of course as being friends of the physician, their ominous composure gave way to something far less decorous. One of the birds, larger than the others and sporting a strange white blaze upon his throat, bounded to the front of the murder. "Yeehaw! Looks like we found 'im, hombres! Giddyup!"

[monkeyblood]

Alithea smiled at Syveta's greeting but the smile rapidly drained away as the import of her words made their impact.As the magician helped her to her feet and took her arm to lead her out to the waiting carriage her distress was visible.To already be under threat when she had only just enjoyed the sweetness of the delayed reunion was causing a reaction she was hardput to control.
As violent as she was she could hardly conceive of the horror that was threatening her son.....to eat babies!....what abomination could be capable of this.Her muscles were twisting and writhing under her skin as though longing to be free of its containment.Her breath grew laboured and perspiration stained her brow as she fought the change.
Capitulating she turned to Rashid and said,'Please take my son and get into the carriage.Do not witness this,its a distressing thing to watch.Take care of him and tell the others not to attack the wild cats they'll see.'
As the magician closed the door of the carriage,she breathed in relief and leaned her head against its side.The familiar nausea came over her and as the ripping,tearing agony began she lifted her head and let a bloodcurdling snarl burst forth from her throat.
The unearthly sound that echoed in the forest sent the riders horse into a bucking frenzy.'Fuck.'he said as he sought to control his mount.Then as he felt his own change begin in response to the fear and anger he recognised in his sisters yowling call he gave up all thought of trying to control the horse and leapt from it completing the change in mid air.There was a visceral tearing sound as he landed on the forest floor.He shook his head and charged towards the source of the scream.

[Anibis]

Meanwhile, Baba Yaga pounded through the forest on her mortar and pestle. Time seemed to contract as if somehow she offended its very prescence, and yet commanded it to her will. Old she was, stern, and cruel... and hungry. Around her and ahead of her ran her three knights. The Red knight ran out in front, blazing like a lazy day's glow, or a gorge-ed ember. The Black and White knights, atired as morning and midnight, rode at her flanks, each of the three a third of a circle away from the other forming a moving triangle which seemed to maintain its form matter how fast the old witch sped. Behind her a broom danced, whisping away the marks she left as her heavy pestle thump, thump, thumped the earth beneath her.

Wailing winds rose up all around her, bullying the trees which bowed and ached and groaned at her passing. And all about a rich, dark, chorus of crows...

She was almost there.

"Come, come little friends"... She wheezed to the forest around her... "Come come."

The leaves quivered in the lips of the wind...

"There's a new one in the world... Goblin, goblin... Goblins listen..."

...

The forest moves, like a mind of hornets.... A buzzing chorus of unspeakable, innumberable, cacaphonous malice.

"There's a baby, yess yess. Bears a mark, indeed it does. Bring it presents, yes we will."

And so the hosts of the shadowy places, cooed on by their sinister mother, arose like a storm of chitterering locusts and drove, with ever loudening thunder towards the little house.

[monkeyblood]

Three times the size of a normal panther his sleek form emanated a brutal malevolence that was more human.Or rather,inhuman.
Rushing through the undergrowth on his way towards the cottage he was set upon by a swarm of goblins.Unsheathing his claws he set about ripping through them.Unleashing his murderous rage,heads parted company from their owners body,limbs disappeared as the goblins were torn apart.
The smell of blood was heavy in the air as he surveyed the carnage that satisfied his soul.The clearing was strewn with the bodies of dead and dying goblins.'Plenty of food for the birds' he thought laconically and continued on his way.
Another panther,smaller than the huge male, stood in front of the carriage guarding the precious bundle within.She made no move as she waited for the battle to come to her.

[Gunderic Mollusk]

"Lady of the Moon, I shall veil him for now. Tell him when he can understand speech, please." With the sparse reply, Rashid dashed out of the house and into the caravan, tossing a small pyrite stone into the besieged cabin. "Physician!! I know your part, but get this to the Mother!"

The inside of the cabin continued to darken, vast sections of the interior becoming totally indistinct, half-lit memories. The Physician still sat in the center, uncharacteristically unnoticeable amidst the external chaos. The pyrite caught in mid-air and gravitated towards the seated, shadowy man, orbiting him as he remained still as a carved altar. "This is it."

"Feedin' time, muchachos! Vominos!" The crows dove in ungodly formations, shredding through the insectoid hordes that spat out from the hidden places in the forest. The parents were reunited, yet as easy prey, they were loathe to convene upon them, instead thinning the onslaught as best they could to relieve the cause of their transformation.

Svyeta perched quietly in the branches of the forest, amber eyes constantly shifting, constantly adapting to the changing lights of the forest. The three riders were all set in their triad, as clockwork as the tales she remembered as a child. White shall die first. The Day's life becomes hemmed by twilight. From its lodging in the tree below her, she loosened the spoon that had flown from their kitchen, tying upon it a tiny satchel with an idiogram etched upon the leather. She released the spoon on its course to the corrupted Grandma, her lips tightening as it closed in on the three soldiers. With a snap of her fingers, the satchel burst into a sickening blue fire, the explosion's usual punch replaced by a caucophony of screams. She lept swiftly away: her sifting between worlds seemed unwise, as Grandmother choked both worlds with bogeys, strigoi, and other unholinesses. "Veles blessed my birth. I shall not die by these hands, this night." The shadows beneath her cracked, fissures forming in the air around her, spilling forth serpents of blackness. Svyeta nodded to herself as they enveloped her form, whisking her away.

"Three horses, two riders..." Staring glassily before him, the Physician readied. The entire interior of the cabin had become a pall. The massive samsara upon the floor began to glow, an unforgiving, hungry red. The sounds of hoofprints quickened, the infernal smells of the Grandmother's sorcery scorched the air, and the Physician smiled. "May naught be left but my bones as proof. I stand awaitin' my fate. This flesh I cast away, and to the worlds of Bone and Lead I entreat them. Might I drag these wayward spirits with me, I entreat. Impede. This imperative has been placed." Hooves kicked in the door, and the fundament shook with a subsonic warble. The red rider charged the servant of his seasonal foe, sword raised, flame spitting from between the eaves of his armor, and downward he swung.

Square hands caught the blade between them, and then all was pandemonium within the cabin. Thunder, Fire, Luminous Fluid, Flesh, Song, and Angels, an eternal moment, a fleeting eon, all things were One and Nothing within the cabin. All things Began and Ended in fits and spurts. Time and boundary were no more. Red became a collapsed gray sphere. Black simply faded into an indistinct, ethereal vapor, then to elements unseen.

In the aftermath, a single skeleton sat, hands clasped around a hot blade, a piece of pyrite still nestled before him.

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