Knights of Anathaeum Light of the Day's Star

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Standing against the ancient oak that bore the suspicious tailor's shop, Elinyra thought for a moment that she felt an odd emanation from the earth below her feet; some kind of nature magic was at play. She couldn't be sure of what was transpiring at the warehouse, but whatever it was had thrown that whole part of town into a ruckus. An alarm bell pealed across the sleepy town from the direction of the docks. Apparently the distraction had proven effective... perhaps too effective.

The disturbance gave her pause. Had something gone wrong for Dejan? Did he need her help?

"I think we need to change our plan slightly," the druid whispered to the barn owl perched on her shoulder. The owl, of course, didn't respond, only turned its head to stare down a dark alleyway. She held one arm out and the bird hopped down onto the thick leather wristguard of her armor.

"Be swift!" she said under her breath as the owl alighted into the air on silent wings.

Elinyra pulled the cowl of her hood close around her face and leaned more heavily into the tree. She turned her focus to the coarse bark of the mighty trunk, imagining that epidermis was growing over her. Though there was no physical change in the tree, the elf's skin and cloak took on its colors and textures. To the passing observer she might seem like a no more than an odd growth of wood or a large patch of moss. The old wood elf trick of forest camouflage, the bane of any who invaded their forest home.

Hidden in plain sight, the druid fell back into a light trance. A pack of feral dogs lounged in a nearby alleyway, gnawing on discarded bones while keeping watch around her. Elinyra focused again on the owl and a vision of the shady streets appeared to her, suddenly awash in luminous starlight that only the owl's eyes could perceive. She had originally planned to have the owl assist her with the search of the tailor's shop, but Elinyra gently directed her towards the warehouse instead to ascertain what was happening there.

The Everwatcher Bebin Theros Dejan Damir

 

[Dejan Damir]

One had become three; two become six. The old knight watched with careful consideration as his opponents slowly closed the distance. Dejan had exhausted most of his mana with the previous spell and suspected Lady Min knew as much. Yet still she remained cautious in her approach. The Pursuant supposed he should've been flattered. He was granted a small mercy in that he no longer need worry about the other cultists for the time being. Not having to fight them off before allowed him to preserve crucial energy for the fight that was to come.

Dejan allowed his stance to relax as he focused on what little magik he had left.

Lady Min and her hazy dopplers hesitated.

The ground to the right of Dejan began to shift and rumble as if something sought to burst free. Cobblestone crackled until inevitably giving way to the earth below. An amalgam of dirt, stone, and root twisted upwards from the ground, latching onto the stump of Dejan's missing arm. What was once lost had now found form, albeit temporarily. Gnarled roots of fingers found the hilt of the sword at his side as the knight drew the blade in one swift motion.

"One arm or two, it makes no difference. The advantage still lies with me," chided Lady Min. As if to demonstrate her point, the trio lunged forward. Dejan responded with two, wide-arcing slashes to keep his opponents at bay. The Pursuant was not a small man, his reach was one of the few advantages he held. So it went for the next few minutes; Dejan defending while Lady Min attempted to probe his guard.

But she was not the only one who was looking for opening and the knight was quick to strike. His blade found purchase in a doppler but something was off. He was expecting his blade to either pass entirely through or find something more akin to flesh. Instead it was as if his weapon was being dragged through silt. The other doppler pressed the attack during this momentary confusion. Dejan jumped backwards to avoid the brunt of the attack, but winced as the spiked censer scraped his side. The knight grimaced in pain as he looked down to the wound. What should have been a normal wound instead was similar to an acidic burn.

Dejan looked back up at Lady Min, her grin widened.

Bebin Theros The Everwatcher Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[Bebin Theros]

A form without form shimmered and shook as the formation of sightless encroached. Unified, and disciplined as they were guided by their ocular priest. The eye for them all. They took step after steady step, blades drawn, cudgels cruel in hand. Spiked and jagged with old iron red from rust.

"That's it, that's it!" the ocular priest grinned, a smile like a sickle run sharp across his rune-scarred face.

The rippling form spun betwixt them all like a whirlpool of water. The curtain pulled, a cloak, like waters' mirrored surface, spilled away from broad form. Bow in hand, arrow knocked, its broad tipped head bright as a star.

A dull twang of bowstring. The sharp whistle of arrow slice through the wind. Once. Twice. Thrice.

Three points of a star sailed up into the sky and glint with celestial light. They sailed down and sank into the space about Dejan. The Crippled Bear, at the center, served as the locus to the rune-carved arrows. The heron quills that fletched the arrow shafts rippled with the wind.

Three lines of ley traced out from three planted arrow shafts. Their blue light spread across the cobble stone road. Flowed like a river towards the Pursuant of the Wylds. Towards the locus of communion that was his anchored flesh, and his root born arm.

A flash of silver colored steel cut through the dim of night. The Basilisk had drawn his fang. Leapt to one man, Bebin's fang plunged deep through the soft flesh of one sightless' nape.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

A lone barn owl swooped over the battle, taking in the chaotic scene of Dejan and Bebin's battle before returning to Elinyra.

He's outnumbered, but not alone it would seem, she thought as she left the safety of the tree. She stared up the crooked stairs leading up to the tailor's shop as she considered her options. Once again she wondered if she should abandon this post to come to their aid, but it would take too long to get there. No, she had to trust that Dejan and his unexpected ally could hold their ground or escape. Their risk couldn't be undertaken in vain.

The owl made a quick circle of the exterior, and finding no sign of guards, alighted on Elinyra's shoulder with a soft squeak. Quick steps brought the druid up the staircase to the balcony surrounding the silent building. She was certain the door would be locked, but she tried the carved handle anyway - as expected, fully secured.

She'd made a plan for this, though she didn't like it at all. Removing her right glove, she pressed her afflicted hand against the door and focused on every fiber within it that was once a growing tree. Having been a door for quite some time, the old wood had no remaining life of its own - that force she could normally coax to sprout and warp the form it had been cut into. But there was something else, spreading from her palm like a creeping mold. She focused it towards the lock, disregarding the urge to pull her hand away.

The wood around the lock rotted away. Elinyra caught the metal parts before they could clang to the floor with her free hand and set them down gently before pushing the remains of the door open.

To use a power so defiled filled her with disgust, though it seemed she was forced to rely on it more and more frequently of late. With a final concerned look at her morbid handiwork, she passed into the darkened room beyond the threshold.

The owl flew up to perch in the open rafters. Her eyes would be Elinyra's in this unlit room further darkened by shuddered windows. Elinyra herself could only barely make out the standing frames of looms and rolls of finished cloth spread throughout the workspace as she crept across the creaky floorboards, looking for something.

Another locked door stood at the far end of the room, but it proved to be as futile a barrier as the first. The room beyond looked like an office, a desk set in its center and cabinets against the walls. If she was to find any information about the missing knight, it would probably be here.

The Everwatcher

 

[The Everwatcher]

At the warehouse . . .

The two shadows of Lady Min stepped ever closer, hedging the Wyld Knight in against the warehouse wall.

"Hoping for an explanation, are you, Damir? An excuse?" The real Min said as she swung her censers wide. The dopplers responded to the movement, lunging in arrhythmic unison, one high, one low, one leaning in with the left and the other with the right.

"That was always the problem with you, old man. Always wanting to make sense of things."

A jagged smile could be seen on the doppler's faces, too, splitting open the smokey ash that gave them form. Revealing nothing within.

---

The Other . . .

The man who had made his body an ocular clenched his fists, half raised in front of him.

"Look, my brethren!" He urged his companions. The bands of runes around his arms glowed blue. The scars upon his body cracked and bled fresh. "Look with the light of the day's star!"

A flash of brilliance flowed out from the man, cutting through night and illusion alike. Then it ebbed once more. The man collapsed to one knee, gasping for air.

The five that still stood turned their Sightless gaze upon the Basilisk in the shadows, hidden no longer.

The one whose neck was bleeding cold in Bebin's grasp, reached up and wrapped his hands round Bebin's arm. He gurgled and growled, words lost to him. But his grip was stronger, and the eye etched upon his brow gleamed. As he smiled his last bloody smile, he bulled backwards, dragging Bebin with him, and plunged into the dark waters below the docks.

---

At the tailor's shop . . .

A single candle burned upon the desk at the center of the tailor's office. Its flame was low and cold, abandoned, as if someone had left recently and forgotten to blow it out.

In a locked cabinet behind the desk, there was a book bound in red cloth, untitled. Flipping through the pages would reveal sketches of clothing patterns, lists of supplies, and hastily written notes. It was workbook and journal for Mr. Boghan, the tailor that owned this shop.

Some of the entries were unclothed, anatomical disections of the human body and eerie rune maps.

The last written entry reads:

A tailor, who'd run out of gold thread, once painted silk to match, and wove a garment for the King of Cortos. And he was beheaded, for the king cannot be fooled.

Precision is tantamount. We will never discover why the vessels fail to hold the spirit, unless we can reproduce every part of them, fully, and exactly. No substitutions.

Min is not able to understand my requests. I will go to the warehouse myself to choose suitable material, though that place disgusts me.

Elinyra Derwinthir Dejan Damir Bebin Theros

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

It took her some time to find the book, but find it she did, leaving behind a cabinet with a rotten hole in the drawer where the lock used to be. Once she'd gotten past her initial reticence, she had to admit that the strange ability had a certain feeling of power to it. How easy it had been to dismantle their locks and walls.

She quickly read through the cloth-covered book beneath the fading candlelight. No mention of the missing knight, but some of the contents were disturbing nonetheless. Towards the back of the book, beyond the usual patterns, she came upon his notes and sketches of bodies. Someone was attempting to create an artificial body, but why? Some sort of twisted attempt at resurrection?

Some sort of necromancy, she suspected. Certainly not the rare harmless sort. At least it seemed so far to have been a failure; but it begged the questions of where these vessels were and who they had been sourced from.

Pocketing the journal, Elinyra returned to her search, but found nothing else of interest in the shop. The owl's eyes spotted nothing unusual inside the building either. The druid decided it would be best to take the information she'd found to the relative safety of The Skittish Skiff before the tailor returned.

The shadowed streets here remained quiet as she descended the crooked stairs from the shop. The owl flew ahead to scout for patrols and Elinyra followed, changing her course several times when the owl's haunting cries warned her of unwanted company. She couldn't see through the owl's eyes for more than an instant while moving around, but she caught a brief glimpse of a solitary figure carrying a lantern and a satchel in the shop's direction.

---

She parted company with her avian companion at the inn's door. The owl returned to her hunting, as was her wont. Elinyra thanked the bird for its services and cast a troubled look back towards the warehouse before entering the inn to await word from her ally.

The Everwatcher

 

[Dejan Damir]

"True enough," conceded the old knight. Logic was something that only applied to the sane. The Sightless had surrendered reason along with their eyes. He silently thanked Lady Min for reminding him of this irrevocable truth, steeling his will in this dark place. He had little else other than his resolve at this point. Dejan was attempting to mask his labored breaths but his opponent already seemed wise to his condition.

His mind was struggling to keep track of the swinging censers, differing movements proving most problematic. The knight was only a few feet from the warehouse wall. Death was surely to follow if Dejan allowed himself to be backed into a corner. A knowing grin rested on Lady Min's face. They both knew the stakes. Dejan steadied himself, knowing he could not afford any further mistakes.

He burst into motion and could hear the censers slice through the air in response. The knight parried the first, then the second, but third seemed guaranteed to land. A tangle of roots sprang from the ground forming a makeshift shield. The censer crashed through the summoned flora and connected with Dejan's chest. Fortunately the shield had done enough to blunt the force of the strike. Dejan stumbled backwards but into the open street of the district.

That was where the good news ended. His mana reserves were completely spent while painful acidic burns laced his body.

Lady Min stepped forward, then paused. A trio of whistles echoed in the night. Moments later Dejan found himself surrounded by a calming azure glow. Mana raced into his body, saturating his starving soul. The familiar taste of the magik all but told the knight who had come to his aid. Dejan stood straighter now even as the pain continued to lance through him.

"It seems the other rat is still scurrying about." Lady Min seemed more annoyed than worried. She pressed forward once more, finality followed with every step.

Bebin Theros Elinyra Derwinthir The Everwatcher

 

[Bebin Theros]

Dark waters swallowed him whole. The weight of his kit. The weight of the cultist, who scrabbled at his back, clutched and raked at his leathers, at his neck and turban as bright bubbles of air trailed up to the distancing surface.

A shift, a jab of hard elbow and prying of fingers, desperate to have the weight released. But the mad man hooked ankle over ankle, arm under arm. Bound the Pursuant with sinew and bone. So Bebin shut his eyes. Fell into his mind as his body fell deeper into the depths.

Fell into the Loch.

Beneath its surface, that space of dreams, sailed a being as luminous as star's light, traced about the undulations of water's surface. That being was a bright reflection of Syr Theros. A specter within his own mind, who moved freely of the constraints presented by the waking world. A mirrored self, to that physical being that float above the Bebin of light. Threatened by drowning.

There too, was a phantom of loch for that sightless man. Arms wrapped around him, threatening to constrict. To bind.

But in the Loch, Bebin swam free. His form stretched and changed, his body turned long and glittered with black scales. His mouth shift and turned to scaled maw as turban unfolded and fell away to reveal the span of wide hood.

The Basilisk swam free of the cultist's grip. Turned and struck at him with bared fangs.

In the waking world, the sightless man fell limp. Bebin's eyes came open, changed and serpentine, and he pried the motionless hands of his enemy from his figure as scales bristlex across his cheek, and his form began to change.

From the surface of the river, by the docks, the Ocular grinned wide as he peered over the edge of the docks and saw not but bubbles. Saw a shift. A shimmer. Like moonlight come across a cloud of billowing murk.

Bright blue eyes burned there in that darkness.

A torrent errupted from the water, and fangs bared in horrid hiss as a great serpent snared the cultist in its maws and dragged him down into the murk with a whip lash that sprayed the field in cold mist.

Dejan Damir Elinyra Derwinthir The Everwatcher

 

[The Everwatcher]

At the Skittish Skiff.

A lone woman entered through the door of the inn, shortly after Elinyra's arrival. She walked with heavy gait. Thin, silvery scars lined her skin, barely visible in the firelight. One of her eyes was closed shut, the other burned strange and pale white. She did not look injured - rather, she looked unfinished. A garment incomplete.

The innkeeper was out and about, busying herself with clearing the tables for the night. At this hour, even the most dedicated of patrons had settled their tabs and slunked off to bed. As the strange woman approached, the innkeeper squinted her eyes up in recognition.

"Merrycourt!" She exclaimed, surprised but cheerful. "I wasn't expecting ya, though I suppose it explains all the excitement today. Could you tell those others that came by to do their business more quietly?"

"The others," Merrycourt repeated with an even cantor. "Where are they?"

"They're staying upstairs. One of them's just come back. Should be around here, somewhere." The innkeeper turned away from the other woman. She dipped the rag she'd been using in a bucket of water on the table, twisted her hands as she rung it out.

The sound of a knife slicking from its sheathe whispered through the empty dining room. Merrycourt's hands moved smooth and sure as she slid her finger's around the other woman's throat. Blood dripped into the wash bucket in heavy plops. The innkeeper fell, a chair clattering against the wood floor as she grasped for anything near her. A gurgle left her, and then nothing more.

"Thank you," Merrycourt said. She stepped over the innkeeper's body, and went towards the staircase.

____

At the warehouse.

The Ocular was swallowed whole. There was no one left to bolster Lady Min. As Dejan caught his second wind, she should be running on vapors.

Except the incense in her censors seemed not to run out. She kept her eyes focused on the old oak of a knight, stepping forward at a self-assured pace. The chain slid through her hands, and both the burning twin heads of the censer clanked against the ground. The flames snuffed out. The moment they did, smoke plumed from all directions, obscuring everything it surrounded. Eyeless as she was, Lady Min continued to press forward. Her cold, sharp laugh echoed from that blind haze, and then all rolled into silence.

The smoke swirled to the left of Dejan, as if something moved behind it. From the right, the dark form of Lady Min appeared. In her hands were brandished twin daggers, aimed to kill.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

The single window in Elinyra's room offered her precious little view of what was happening at the warehouse. In the dark, and from the building's angle, all she could see of it were whirls of smoky haze made into floating specters by the light of street lamps. She had glimpsed the battle well enough through the owl's eyes; enough to know that the situation had probably grown dire since she left the tailor's shop.

She shuttered the window and grabbed her gear in the light of a dim, grungy lamp. She'd waited a good half-hour or more for Dejan's arrival, by her estimation, and her concern had grown into a panicked urgency. She was depending on her companion's experience with the cult to provide some answer to the questions raised by the tailor's journal. If he was captured or killed, she expected that she would have to bring it back to the others at the monastery and let them decide if they would risk another rescue expedition.

The druid prayed that it wouldn't come to that.

A creaking caught the attention of sensitive ears more accustomed to the footfalls of animals and the creaking of trees than the sounds of a city; measured footsteps on the old staircase down the hall, too light to be those of the giant man. Just another guest going to their room, she figured. Still, she kept her bow nocked and half-taut as she waited near the far window for the patron to pass by.

The Everwatcher

 

[Dejan Damir]

Smoke enveloped the area and Dejan braced himself for the worst. Fortunately the acidic nature of the haze had withdrawn along with the fire, and also his visibility. The old knight raised his blades defensively as he waited for the inevitable blow. A measure of mana was restored but that hardly made him omnipotent. He shifted his weight slightly, glancing to either side; still he he could sense nothing.

A sudden disturbance to his left had him ready to turn his full attention and yet his mind sought days long past. Instead he spun in a stationary circle, blades cutting through the air. One only found smoke but the other was met with steel and surprise. Lady Min hit the ground, her sneer almost audible. Dejan raised his guard yet again, knowing he may not be so lucky a second time.

Haze shifted once more and the knight again swung in deadly arc. This time he was not so lucky as the dagger nicked the pommel of his main-hand, sending the blade the cobbled ground.

He was now seemingly nothing more than fodder in the tall grass. Dejan spun to his right, the blade in his makeshift arm deflecting the first dagger. His outstretched palm bore the full brunt of the second. It pierced through the center of his hand and yet she was not allowed to pull the blade back. Wyld magik surged through his arm and his grip grew greater. Lady Min winced as her bones began to crack under the force of the Eldyr's power.

"It did not need to come to this," lamented the haggard knight. He heard her final words and then descended his raised blade.

Dejan pulled the dagger from his palm, his simulacra arm returning to the earth shortly after. The Pursuant found himself stumbling towards the warehouse wall and collapsing against it.

Hopefully his two comrades fared better.

Bebin Theros Elinyra Derwinthir The Everwatcher

 

[Bebin Theros]

With their ocular priest devoured, those Sightless left scattered across the field were wholly in the dark. Their movements erratic, their blades sought purchase wherever the wild swing of their weapon could find it.

Hard black scales repelled the biting edge of their tools, and a heavy thrash of serpentine mass saw them thrown back with bone breaking force. One nice sunk betwixt the scales. Saw a wicked hiss errupt from the great basilisk's maw, its sapphiric eyes found the hand that had delivered the painful blow.

Maw opened wide, and down came the great snake's bite. Fangs like daggers popped through flesh, and worked with the shift of bone.

A stillness settled upon the docks. As the horrible serpent coiled about its last kill. Bones popped beneath blackberry sheen, struck by red ribbons that spilled from red mouths.

A sound, felt through the stonework beneath soft scaled belly. The crushing stopped. The fangs unhooked, and the coil unwound. A long, and languid mass slithered before the one armed knight. A head like the run of a shield pointed its blunt snout toward the wyld walker. The eyes, cold and calculating, studied the eld knight. Fork tongue flickered.

With so much bloodshed. A man consumed. Who could say if the waking mind of Syr Theros was there in the beast he had turned into. The beast that rose tall before Dejan, and splayed its wide star speckled hood.

---

The Everwatcher Dejan Damir Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[The Everwatcher]

At the warehouse.

Lady Min's final words were not for Dejan. The blindfold slipped from her face, as scarred and empty sockets turned their gaze upwards. To the stars above.

"Everwatcher," she pleaded to her god. "I gave you everything - my family, my vision, my future. Please, don't let this be my end!"

The sky was bright and clear, and the stars were silent in their vigil. Crumbling dirt fell around Lady Min, as the Knight's magic was released back to the earth. It was all the burial she would recieve.

____​

"Why, aren't you a beautiful monster," a voice spoke out into the darkness near where Dejan stood and Bebin coiled. In the threshold of the warehouse entrance, stood the tailor. A bloody bundle of cloth was tucked under one arm.

His eyes were fixed on the starry scales of Bebin's hood. A mad grin spread across his narrow face. "To shed one's skin as a snake does... what transformative power..." he said, in awe.

---

At the Skittish Skiff. The two defensive wards placed by Dejan earlier that day still pulse steadily with Wyld magic.

The knight's rooms were the last two doors down the hall, furthest from the staircase.

Merrycourt walked down the hall with slow, measured steps. She opened the first door that she saw, half-ajar already. The room was unoccupied. Footsteps thudded across the floor for a few paces as she investigated the space, and then she returned to the hallway.

Another door swung open, and Merrycourt leaned into the darkened room. A strand of her golden hair dangled off her face, slipped from the tie that pulled the rest of it back.

"Whuh? Who're you?" a bleary-eyed man said, half-rising from bed. He was not a knight.

"Sorry, wrong room," came Merrycourt's voice in response. She left, and closed the door behind her.

The next door, the last one on the left, was shut. Her hand reached out, but stopped to hover just above the handle. Merrycourt's head was low. Her gaze was bent downwards, single cold eye gazing intently at a certain spot.

Her hand closed into a fist, and her knuckles rose to rap against the door.

"Excuse me," she called out, voice light and sweet. "The innkeeper had mulled cider leftover from the day. She wanted to see if you'd like some?"

Elinyra Derwinthir Dejan Damir Bebin Theros

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

She tensed involuntarily as someone knocked on her door, then relaxed slightly when she heard a voice. Just one of the waitstaff from downstairs.

Without realizing her error, she called back politely, "No, thank you," and set herself to checking she had all of her things. She meant to depart as soon as this unexpected visitor went on her way.

An errant thought cast a moment of doubt over her assumption. Wasn't it a bit late to be waking guests for cider?

The Everwatcher Bebin Theros Dejan Damir

 

[Dejan Damir]

The old knight focused on his labored breaths, each seemingly more difficult than the last. Even so, he forced himself to focus on the pain. Agony soon gave way to clarity, blurred vision finally finding focus. Dejan was greeted by the sight of a sinister serpent, splayed hood and all. His gaze remained even in the face of this terrible entity. Drops of blood fell from forked tongue and still the knight did not react.

A sigh. "We don't have time for this Syr Theros. One yet remains." Dejan would force himself to his feet, assuming the basilisk did not make a meal of him first. His bones cried with every movement but his suffering was minor compared to what had transpired in this warehouse.

Dejan glanced at Bebin's serpent form again, not surprised at the other man's awe but rather lack of fear. Was it confidence or was he simply too enamored to care. The Pursuant remained silent. On these occasions the initiative generally lay with the giant basilisk.

Bebin Theros The Everwatcher Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[Bebin Theros]

Eyes like sapphire stars blazed against the blackberry scales about them. Stared strange as pools with refracted light that rippled and shift amidst their glowing waters

One yet remains. The man familiar to the beast spoke. The terrible serpent remained tall as it gazed down upon the man. Haggard and weak from his wounds. Full of power still, left burried, deep below the roots of his flesh. In the hollows. In the marrow of his soul.

Why...

Come the new voice, strange and stranger still as it went on. Speaking. The eyes of the serpent shift. Stared. Baleful. Hungry.

It had been long since last it had gotten to eat. One man was hardly a meal.

Beautiful. Shed. Power.

The serpent that was Bebin splayed its maw wide and bared its curved fangs at the man. Waited no more.

Eyes with the light of the stars themselves burned bright amidst the many black gems that rippled across the Basilisks' changed skin. The pools there in, pulsed, hypnotic as they tried to trance the tailor into a stupor.

Only a moment's glance.

Massive head struck forward to skate across the streets upon slithering belly. A bite of hungry fangs sure to come for the tailor who so admired the beast that Bebin had become.

The Everwatcher Dejan Damir Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[The Everwatcher]

The Skittish Skiff...

The woman on the other side of the door was not of Anathaeum. Her voice was not familiar to Merrycourt.

The floorboards creaked as Merrycourt shifted her weight away. She did not speak, did not respond to the polite decline, nor keep up the ruse of having hot cider to share. Her eyes shifted instead to the last door in the hall. Wooden steps took her to the threshold, and she placed a hand upon the handle.

Lines of green traced along the frame of the door, pushing and cracking through the wood as roots through soil. The oak door burst once more to life. Vines peeled off the boards and tangled their way around Merrycourt's limbs.

Strings of memory, deeper and more ingrained than even instinct, tugged Merrycourt's hand to a space at her side. Cut through! the memory urged her. Sword belt, scabbard and hilt had once rested upon her hip, a familiar weight. Now, dead air.

Her hand swept past her side as she corrected her momentum. Jumping backwards, she retreated a few steps down the hall.

The violent burst of growth was loud and unsubtle. Blindly, the vines sought purchase on anything nearby. An oil lamp clattered off an end table, the tattered carpet that ran the length of the hall rippled and tore as plantstuff tried to root beneath it. The door to Elinyra's room cracked and splintered, and vine-knives dug into the thin wood. They peeked through the other side into the dark room, ending in soft, leafy fronds.

---

At the warehouse...

The snake waved forward, on the hunt, and the wonder that first flushed the tailor's cheeks bled pale. "W-wait, we need each other!" he cried out. "You want to keep me alive!"

The snake struck. Stumbling over himself, the tailor fell backwards, through the threshold of the warehouse and into the building.

The entrance was just narrow enough to give the wide, rearing head of the basilisk pause. Fangs flashed and dripped with venom. The tailor kicked and pushed away deeper into the safety of the building, helpless in his defense. "I know where Merrycourt is! You're looking for her, right? Your lost lamb. Kill me and you won't get her back!"

Dejan Damir Bebin Theros Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[Dejan Damir]

Dejan watched with mild satisfaction as the basilisk that was Bebin struck forth. The old knight was not one to revel in the fear of others but the Cult had caused the Order much grief and sorrow. He knew that despite his best efforts, there would still be more to come. Such was the nature of war. They could only hope to deal with the Sightless and their iniquitous master before the cost became too great.

The Pursuant glanced at the entrance of the warehouse before stepping in after the tailor. He hesitated for a moment at the mention of Merrycourt's name. Before Dejan could make any further deductions, he was assaulted by the depraved odor within the structure; a forsaken combination of putrefaction, decay, and dark magik. His vision had yet to adjust to the darkness within but knew the sight to come would haunt him for day furthermore.

Instead he turned his attention back to the quivering man on the ground. "I suggest you speak quickly then sir, lest you become a serpent's meal." Dejan stepped forward and made to reach for the tailor's collar. Even with all his wounds, it was clear the large knight could easily toss the cultist back towards the maw of the beast. His hard gaze spoke volumes to which option he preferred.

Elinyra Derwinthir The Everwatcher Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

Jaws snapped shut, just short of flesh and bone as the cultist whimpered and kicked across the floor. Backwards he scrambled as much as he could to gain every inch he could away from the shimmering scales and star-fire gaze of the basilisk come through the warehouse door.

A second snap, come just a bit closer. A flicker of tongue, and the great serpent swayed away. Out the door like so much spilled oil made to flow back into the streets.

Where the beast left, came Dejan. Sure as he entered the precipice. Sure as his shape, bright white, yellow, and orange within the eyes of the cold blooded creature.

Its great head swayed as it watched the Pursuant lift the Tailor, and slam him against the wall as all the scents of death tasted thick upon the serpent's flickering tongue.

Like endless fish, bellies split and gutted, and eyes gouged to leave skulls as empty vessels for the sickly sweet scent of rot to hide there in. The tang of copper there too. Thick as vats of dye in which marrowed bones were dunked and stewed.

Cold, blue things. Lumped and clung. Twisted and rung. Like so much cloth, waiting to be stitched.

Within the tapestry of all the scents and sites, the mind of Bebin waited. Veiled in the Basilisk he had become. A monster to kill monsters.

The Everwatcher Dejan Damir Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[The Everwatcher]

The Warehouse...

Boghan the tailor took the knight's advice, and spoke quickly.

"The Sightless paid me to put her back together for them," he said, then squawked as the second snap of serpent maw menaced him through the doorway. "Bu-but I'll give her to you, instead--!"

The tailor squirmed in Dejan's grip, but it was not fear that had his eyes darting to and fro. He peered out the door, searching for a glimpse of dark scales rippling in the dark night. Only the threat of the knight's hold on him had the tailor stay on topic. "I was to deliver her to the Sightless on tomorrow's eve. I'll tell you where the meeting place will be. Then, you can intercept these cultists and take your knight back. But you must let me go! Merrycourt 's body will not survive in its current state. Let me go free, and I can finish my work."

---

The Skittish Skiff...

The glyph of growth, the warding magic that Dejan had placed earlier, began to slow down. Vines creaked to a stop, and leaves found stillnesss with a soft rustling. The last two doorways at the end of the hall were completely covered in foliage.

Merrycourt stood in the overgrown hallway. She grabbed a vine in her hands, and tried to tug it loose from the splintered door. Before she could get it to budge, a sound stopped her work.

A scream came from the ground floor.

"Oh gods, the innkeeper!" A man's voice called out. "Someone get help!"

When the tenants of the inn awoke and left their rooms, Merrycourt was no longer in the hallway. Curtains fluttered at the breeze that filtered through an open window inside an empty room. And if one had glanced out the window, they might see ribbons of golden hair fall over the face of a young woman, as she turned down the streets below.

Dejan Damir Bebin Theros

 

[Dejan Damir]

Grip tightened at the tailor's words. Merrycourt was dead, at least as far as the living were concerned. Dejan desperately sought lies in the man's eyes but found none. Hope extinguished, replaced by something far more sinister.

His grip tightened on the man's throat. It was not a thing of moment, but rather permanence. A hold worthy of the very roots Herself. Powerful, unyielding, and without a modicum of forgiveness.

This so called 'tailor' would be sewed into the very fabric of Dejan's spite.

"My roots dig deep, tailor. Tell us of this meeting place, your twisted works mean nothing."


Bebin Theros The Everwatcher

 

[Bebin Theros]

Blackberry scales shimmered neath the stars. Rippled with the shift of muscle and bone as the Basilisk coiled in upon himself. Mass ebbing and flowing with the wrap of ribs and fibers.

"The meeting," he hissed from his place outside the warehouse.

Though the beast stilled. Its great head turned. Its eyes scanned the darkness of the night. Its tongue flicked the air.

"Merry...court...." came the cold hiss from the Basilisk.

Dejan Damir The Everwatcher

 

[The Everwatcher]

Fingers around his throat, eyes bulging, the tailor choked on Dejan's grasp. Truth flooded through him as the air left his lung, the light-headed realization that he would not be bargaining with the knights. That he had nothing they wanted, except his death.

Boghan stopped squirming in the Pursuant's grasp, resigned, grabbed the air that he could to speak. "How wretched, to be an artist amongst brutes and snakes," he wheezed out.

But the snake spoke, words of comprehension, where the one-armed knight only tightened his grip. Black scales against the fabric of the black sky, reflecting lanternlight from the docks beyond like gold embroidery floss.

Did the creature understand? The beautiful kind of transformation that could only come after a death?

"Very well, I leave it to you," he said to the snake. A dullness came over the tailor's expression. "Old Sterth's house, on the outskirts of town near the West Road. They were expecting me to come alone, with the vessel prepared. The body is... in my workshop..."

Dejan Damir Bebin Theros

 

[Dejan Damir]

"I can think of worse company to keep," he said, snapping back with uncharacteristic vitriol. Fresh horrors frayed on an already beleaguered mind. His grip tightened as he attempted to gain focus. Dejan was thankfully not alone in this particular endeavor as hissed demands followed. Finally. Finally they had ascertained a truly solid lead. Happiness would not be found at the end of this road but, critically, there would be closure.

A hint of wry amusement danced in the eyes of the old knight. It wasn't lost on him that the tailor only deemed Bebin worthy of response. Dejan himself being nothing more than an annoyance. The novelty was not lost on the Pursuant.

Information retrieved, Dejan released his grip on the tailor. He then reared back without delay and knocked the man out cold. "I believe there is still much we can learn from this man about the Cult's activities. You know better than I how efficient our deep-scryers can be," he explained to the serpentine Pursuant. Dejan muttered words of power as thick roots broke through stone, encasing the tailor. There he was likely to remain until a retrieval team from the Monastery arrived. "Let us head back to the inn and see what Elinyra has discovered of this workshop."

He stepped into the night air and tossed a furtive glance back at the large basilisk. "I believe a more traditional appearance would be better."

Little did the two know that their return would be met with tales of tragedy and golden-hair.

Bebin Theros The Everwatcher

 

[Bebin Theros]

His brother's words came ephemeral. His mind, in the form of a thing far older, and far colder than any man could ever hope to be. Keened onto something visceral and rooted to the core of his mind. A flicker of flesh. Tines snicked and snapped, a vortex of scents pulled into his maw.

"She is here," he hissed. The scent of something familiar there in his maw. The scent of something dead there too. "Merry...court..."

The black serpent, hooded by white stars, turned its head away from the warehouse. Away from his brother, and turned his eyes toward the darkness that encroached around them.

Dejan Damir The Everwatcher