Completed Old Dreams and the Sea

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

A pale ribbon of sand cut across the velvet darkness, one edge made jagged by stands of beach grass and smooth on the other by its descent into the ocean. Elinyra walked the beach in thoughtful silence. She listened to the ceaseless crashing of waves, the song they brought from faraway places; occasionally digging up a stray seashell with her boot, or picking up a shred of beached seaweed with her staff to look for scuttling crabs beneath. The outcropping near her camp formed a barrier to walking along the beach in that direction, so she had begrudgingly come back towards town: towards the lighthouse, ever bleeding crimson across the sky like a fresh wound.

A blurred red beam caught her attention as she scooped up a chunk of driftwood that had been polished by the ocean into a perfectly smooth bead. Glancing past the object in her hand, she saw that it was the lighthouse light shining into the distance like a spotlight, leaving the remainder of the jagged rocks unrevealed to any ships that might be coming in.

Elinyra had an uneasy feeling that it was no coincidence that something had happened to the lighthouse - or its keeper - after her earlier visit. What had that madman done?

Dropping the water-shaped bead into the damp sand, she took off at a sprint towards William's lighthouse.

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Garrod held fast his sword, the blade long before him, and its pointed end gleamed with the red light that shone from the lamp above. His green eye fixed on Viktor's own.

Why do you hesitate, oh bearer mine? His demon asked, sweet with his concern. You know what that thing is made of. How it was made. You sensed it, the moment you laid your single eye upon it and saw its stitched together skin. A feint laugh. He could feel the demon's mouth spread through the ink of his psyche. Felt its lips pull back at the corners. Saw the glimmer of its teeth.

Product of necromancy. The sea winds howled, and the door to the lighthouse clattered and shook outside as Garrod's grip on his sword tightened, the great-blade trembling some as his muscles began to strain. He knew what he had to do. Yet. Product of that vile art that saw your party slain, Garrod. The voice grew sweeter. The teeth spread wider. Saw you forced to pact with me...

The hunter snarled. A growl rumbled through his bared teeth in a huff of hot breath.

"No!" came William's voice as Garrod lurched forward. But the lithe apothecary leapt toward the hunter, grabbed him from behind the back and with all his force, William tried to pull Garrod back. "No! Please! He is not lost yet! He is still there!"

Garrod strained, his eye bleared with a rabid urge as the point of his sword stayed aimed at the heart of the tree of twisted flesh and oil-slick blight.

"Maaaaaster!" Viktor cried out, and his large branched hands reached out, spindly fingers spread wide.

The hunter turned hard and sharp, an elbow cracked back into William's chest, a strong shove of shoulder and side knocked the man to the ground.

"Maaaaaster-" Viktor whined, worry in rattling out of his stranger form. The hands swiped for Garrod, tried to grab at him, like a worried child might a bully that had knocked down their friend.

Garrod's eye, wide and wild, turned and saw the spidery grasps reaching for him. His teeth bared beastly in his grin. His sword swung up.

A hand was lopped off clean, black ooze spilled across the floor. Viktor's eye widened with horror. "Kniiiiife! Kniiiife!" he cried in panic, and with his other hand swat at Garrod, quick.

The hunter was smacked across the room and crashed against the wall with a harsh pang and clatter, shelfs broken, jars and pots of plants fell in a chorus of shatters.

"Huurrrt, It huuuuurrrts!" Viktor cried out as his eye watered. He cradled his stumped limb close to his eye, the other large hand there to hold the wound. "Masterrrrr, whyyy heee hurrrt Viktorrr?"

William ambled up off the ground, hands trembling as as he blinked away tears. "Viktor, he... he doesn't understand, he is... he is a fool," William said through tears that ran down his eyes. He stood up onto his feet and raised both hands up, palms toward the strange tree caught in the gears still. "Viktor, now... please... calm... calm so master can help dear Viktor, yes?"

Viktor blinked at the apothecary. A viscous tear pouring from his eye. "Maaaasterrrr, Help?"

William smiled and nod. "Yes, Yes Viktor, Master help."

---

Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

A discord of shouting and crashing met Elinyra at the lighthouse's open front door. Keeping her staff at the ready, she entered, whereupon she found a scene from a tragic play unfolding. There was Viktor; crying and gurgling, his blood spilling out across the floor from this horrendous arboreal creature he'd become. There was William; tears streaming down his face, desperate and panicked in his attempts to save his servant from this strange fate.

There was Garrod; emerging from a pile of broken wood and clay, his gaze set upon Viktor with the predatory focus of a wolf about to tear the throat out of a deer.

"Garrod!" Elinyra exclaimed and waved frantically at him, trying to tear his attention away from the unfortunate creature before he ended it.

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

From the broken bits and shattered glass, Garrod did rise. All snarl and glare, with his great sword still in hand. That cruel slab of metal gleamed along its sharp biting edge, the red light of the lighthouse reflected there upon it, like a promise of blood yet to be spilled.

William stepped closer to the strange tree that was Viktor, hands outstretched as if a parent going to embrace their child. "Easy now, Viktor, I, I will have to use my knife to set you free from this tree, do you understand?"

Viktor's eye went wide and he raised the large spidery hand of his up to shield his eye and mouth. "Kniiiiife? Master, use, kniiiiiiiife?" the miserable creature asked with terror shaking the chords of his voice.

William laid an open hand upon the blighted growth with sorrowful tenderness. "Trust master, Viktor, master will help you," in his closed hand he held his sharp knife.

Garrod loomed behind the apothecary and his assistant, his eye wide and wild as he heaved heated breaths.

It is a monster, oh bearer mine. A monster, and a man who makes monsters. The demon tittered. Just like Yanomir. Garrod felt the demon's lips slip wide across his mind. Felt his teeth shine in the dark. You remember, Yanomir, don't you, oh Garrod mine?

The hold on his sword shifted. Strength flexed in his arm and the run of the great weapon flexed upward, its road carrying the red glow up to its very point.

End them, Garrod. Before they go and spread their horrors. Before they go and harvest more parts and components.

A hot growl rumbled out from the bottom of Garrod's throat.

Viktor's eye went wide, and with his strong blight branch arm he scooped up his Master, tukcing him closer. William yelped, his eyes wide as he raised his hands up, the knife still in one.

"Ooooafish Bruuuute," Viktor croaked out with scowl.

The hunter's blood boiled. And he stared down the distance between them. He could cover it in a bound. Yes. All it would take was a wind step. Maybe a bit of fire down first. Yes. He grinned, and shifted his stance, sword heald long and high, his gauntleted hand with claws balanced upon the wide flat blade of the weapon.

'Garrod!' the voice came clear. He blinked with his one eye, and turned to find Elinyra, waving her arms.

He blinked.

"Lady Elinyra! Thank goodness!" William called out, still in Viktor's grasp and some feet off the ground. "Finally, someone of reason! Please!" he stammered as Viktor shifted him back, and warded Garrod off with his handless tree-branch limb. "Viktor! Viktor! You are not helping!"

Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Elinyra took a cautious step into the fray, with little hope that she could diffuse a situation that had already escalated to bloodshed. Yet she held her hands up towards Viktor and William to demonstrate her peaceful intentions. She could see that Viktor was only trying to defend himself and his master, though he was clearly confused by his current state.

"It's alright. I'm not going to hurt you," she tried to reassure the wounded and distraught Viktor. Little good such words would do, she thought, when behind her stood someone who seemed so hell-bent on murdering him. Garrod hadn't struck Elinyra as a cold-blooded killer, but it seemed from her perspective as though the monster hunter had attacked them unprovoked. Elinyra hoped this wasn't the case.

"Please, stay your hand," she begged Garrod in the same breath. "Tell me what's happened." The request was directed at William in equal measure. As she aimed an inquisitive stare at the healer, another unasked demand presented itself clearly enough: What have you done?

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Rising and falling. Rising and falling, Garrod's eye struggled to maintain its focus, so tunneled onto his prey, the urge to look the creature down, to watch its twitches and movements. It burned in him. It pulled at the corner of his eye.

Look away from her, Garrod. Look at the monster. Look at that thing that madman created.

But Elinyra moved between them. Her words pulled at him too. Her face, familiar to him. He could see the light she had shared with him, if only just at the edges of his eye. That light he had seen those nights that felt so long ago. Upon the haunted hull of a ghost ship. A light of life that glowed bright as the cool moon's own silver wash. Soft as dandelion seeds, and cotton flower blooms.

Garrod's breath slowed. The great blade in his hand felt heavy as his blood cooled. The sword wavered, and Garrod let it down.

Pitty. He heard the acrid voice mock. We were so close, oh bearer mine.

"I, I... No, you misunderstand!" William sputtered, able to feel the judgement in the druid's gaze. "I didn't do this!" He motioned to Viktor, and Viktor but blinked.

"Masterrr... Loves Viktorrr," Viktor croaked, and held his master closer.

William's face purpled a bit. "Viktor," he wheezed. "Not so tight,"

Viktor looked down, slow and let loose his tight grip.

William took a hungry breath in, and rest a moment on Viktor's massive clutch. "Yes, much better, thank you, Viktor,"

"Get on with it!" Garrod barked with bared teeth. His sword, long and dreadful, rested upon his shoulder, its point hung high in the air, and its edge still ran red with the Lighthouse's violent light.

William scowled at the hunter. "Yes," he cleared his throat, and straightened up. "As I was trying to say to Lady Elinyra," he smoothed back his hair. "It was... It was the sample still in the needle," his eye looked down to where some of the glass components still laid shattered and scattered about. "I... I did not see it in its entirety, but... but I know Viktor had set to clean the apothecary, and... well," he looked to the shelves, where the other sample still float. Unchanged within the amber amnion fluid. "I believe that... there was some more potent part of your... condition still within the needle, Lady Elinyra, and it..." he looked up at the much bigger Viktor, torn apart and twisted into the shape he currently took. "Corrupted Viktor,"

Garrod huffed testily, and shifted the weight of his sword, as he leaned back. "He's oozin all over you, and you ain't changed none," the hunter pointed out.

The apothecary's winced, and smiled weakly. "I am... still living flesh,"

"Viktorrrr is liiiviing," Viktor corrected.

William looked up at his twisted servant. "Yes, yes you are, my dear Viktor, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise,"

Viktor's eye seemed to smile some.

"Fucking hell," Garrod said with obvious disgust.

Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

"Garrod, calm down please. Did you see what happened?" Elinyra asked. Her gaze wandered over Viktor's new form; it seemed impossible for the eyes to ever rest on any part of the contorted branches, the uneven hybrid of bark and flesh. She would offer to help them, though she strongly suspected that this corruption might be irreversible. Her sample had caused this? Was this what was happening to her?

"I don't know if I can help you, but I will try," she told William and Viktor once Garrod had the chance to respond to her first question.

The druid went silent for a moment as she came to a terrible conclusion based on Garrod's and William's shared observation that Viktor's corrupted blood had no effect on William. She flexed her afflicted hand, making a mental note that she could still feel the tendons and muscles, albeit stiffly. Cautiously she asked the healer,

"What do you mean by still living flesh?"

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Garrod huffed a hot breath. "No," he admitted, and grumbled to himself, his brow furrowed and eye squinted distrustfully at William and his... creation.

What do you mean by still living flesh? Elinyra asked.

And Garrod smirked a smirk most slick, as if coated with an oil made of malice.

William stuttered and tittered nervously, still between the flesh-bark clutches of the changed Viktor. "Well, you see," some of Viktor's ichor dripped down in a glob that splat against the ground. Like egg yolk turned pitch and oil black. "I... well it is only a hypothesis based on my observations thus far, and well, with Lady Elinrya's condition being one of the few samples of evidence I have to support my statement, but... well..." his eye looked to Elinyra, then to Viktor. "Viktor was.. is..."

Garrod clenched his jaw, and looked away from the strange apothecary.

"Viktor is a construct, my creation," he smiled fondly at the singular eye, that still smiled back at him. "I made him using... well..." he looked to Elinyra. "Corpses,"

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Having lost the fight to turn with Viktor's mass in the way, the entire mechanism powering the lighthouse ground to a halt with an unpleasant crunching noise.

The stagnant glint of red across Garrod's sword reminded Elinyra that there was more at stake right now than deciding what should be done about Viktor. She knew almost nothing about sailing, but she'd read a few stories detailing the importance of the lighthouse-keeper's duty and the tragedies set in motion whenever they failed to uphold that duty. The apothecary's admission of robbing graves and defiling the dead would have to wait until the danger of blind ships was remedied. She'd seen that the moons, though bright in the sky, were at a malign angle with the rise of the land to cast deep shadows beneath the craggy, ship-rending outcroppings along the shore.

"William, the light!" Elinyra pointed up at the lighthouse's apex, only too late. "There's nothing illuminating the rocks! I know Viktor-" could a thing made with stolen corpses and nwefre be considered to even have a soul? she wondered inwardly as she said this, "-is important to you, but there are lives in peril every moment that light is not turning. Do you have some sort of contingency for this problem? Can we help?"

She glanced at Garrod for support, though she fully knew that he would help: not because of some sudden reversal of his distaste for William and his undead servant, but because he was the sort of man who sought to protect others. He'd proven that much on the ship that had bore them here.

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

William blinked. Smiled. "Ye-yes," he admitted with a quiver of relief. "I, well, Viktor's head, you see," he pointed to the round eye that seemed to encompass all of the servant-turned trees head. "It... it is still alive!" William added with excitement.

"Aliiiive," Viktor croaked happily, large eye squinting . "Viktoorrr's head is aliiiive," and he bobbed it, even as the halted gears tried to grind up more of his tree shaped form.

"Y-yes Viktor, indeed, now," William pat the malformed servant's hand and eased his wretched grip open. "Master will... Master will have these fine people help you, help Master free you from this... this strangeness that has trapped you, ok?"

Viktor blinked at William, not seeming to feel the gears tear down into his flesh. Not feeling the carnage that had seized the metal work of engineered labor frozen behind him. Groaning as tension mount in the cranks and shafts that normally let it all spin without failure. "Freee," Viktor looked to Garrod, who looked back to the creature. Some pity in his green eye.

A trace of sympathy for the monster.

"Yes, free," William comforted the creature. His creation. "But, but first master has to use his knife, ok? And... well, it might hurt, Viktor, understand?"

Viktor looked on with a wide eye. Said nothing.

William gulped, as Viktor loomed large and horrible above him. Mangled, burnt-grease-slick branches twitched and spread, like agonized hands reaching out for anything near them. But they did not grasp. They did not grab. They but shook at William's approach. Like branches caught in the cold uncaring winds of a storm.

"I... I think..." William began to speak to them again. "I think I can cut him free, Viktor, his head... the only true part of him,"

Garrod squint with a glare. "What?" he hissed harshly.

"I... I'll explain when its done! Please! I promise!" William called out, scalpel still in hand. Viktor's eye tracked to Garrod, and the fingers of his branches seemed to clench into angry fists. "Calm, Viktor, calm, it's ok... he will help."

The branches eased.

"Lady Elinyra, G-garrod," William started. "Once I cut him, I... I don't know what will happen. You saw how Lady Elinrya's arm had reacted earlier in the day,"

Garrod shifted his weight, a slight change in how he stood, and yet, he looked a man ready for whatever came next.

"Right, well, I.. I am worried that he may still have a... similar reaction." William looked over his shoulder and smiled weakly at the druidess. "Lady Elinyra, I... I hate to presume, but, you have healing magick, yes? Gifts of the power of life?" he tittered. "If you could... if you could heal viktor, as I cut away his... changed flesh, if you could try and heal his still living flesh then... then maybe it will give me enough time to remove him, and... and we can destroy the body."

The Hunter looked to Elinyra, then back at William. "And if you fail, we destroy it all the same," he said with no room for argument.

Tears ran down William's face, and he showed his teeth in sorrowed acceptance. "Yes... quite right," he stepped toward the center of the great homunculus, stood before Viktor's single eye, cupped it gently in one hand, and Viktor squint his eye happy for the comfort.

"No cryyyy, Masterrr," Viktor said as he nuzzled William's hand with his wet slick flesh. "They... helllp, Viktorrrr,"

William's lip quivered, and he sputtered a pitiful laugh. "Quite right, Viktor, quite right." he put his head to the creature's eyelid with a soft squelch. "They help," he held tight the knife, and the tremble of his hand stilled. "Lady Elinrya, are you ready?" he asked, with clear sure voice. "On your count, I'll begin the procedure,"

Garrod let out a long breath, and his fingers came firm about the hilt of his heavy blade.


Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Elinyra felt her jaw clench as she positioned herself by William's side. This was going to be a long and traumatic process for both William and his servant. It would have been easier if she still believed that such a creature couldn't feel pain. Now she only hoped she could ease it.

She closed her eyes for a moment, digging down into her soul again for her own nwyfre, that sustaining life energy she could transfer to others to heal their wounds. Timidly, it floated upwards from the depths of her subconscious, a silver ribbon to her mind's eye that her will and focus took hold of.

"I don't know if it will work on Viktor, but I will try." She hovered her hands above where the first incision was to be made, trying to keep out of the apothecary's way as much as possible. Her hands began to glow with starlight softness.

She inhaled deeply and steadied herself. "All right. On my count..."

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

My oh my, Garrod. To think. Belephus barbed as the hunter looked on. You are just going to stand there and watch. Stand there and let them save that thing.

The hunter's brow twitched, and his one eye looked on. The weight of his sword all the more felt as Elinyra's light came to life. Gentle in its nightglow. It soothed his weary heart. Just as it had then. His breath pulled deeper. Fuller as he readied himself for what was to come.

The count.

Three.

William swallowed down some of the spit in his mouth.

Two.

Let out his breath.

One.

Elinyra's magick poured into Viktor in a channel carved by the life bolstering energies. For a moment, William but watched, wide eyed as the corruption seemed to recede, to retreat against the pulse of silvery light. But he regripped his knife and cut into the slick flesh.

Viktor's eye went wide, and he croaked out a howl. A wail.

William went on with his incisions. The blade quick through soft flesh, even as Viktor cried out. "The head! Keep the magick on the head!" William shout as vile black poured over the wounds.

Garrod snarled, as he watched Viktor's limbs twitch and shake and jerk about. His legs flexed their strength, felt his feet root to the ground.

As Elinyra kept her magick linked, visions, alien, would flash before her eyes. Of light passing through a mirrored surface, far above. A dapple of midnight and moons' light. There would come the froth and foam of and roil as currents churned and waves crashed against the land. Sand, gravel, warmth. It was the face of William. Large as it looked down. His hands, massive, reached down and scooped up.

The lighthouse. Tall upon the hill. Red light a beam that cut across the fog in a sear that warned all of the peril.

"Just! Just a moment longer!" William cried out. "I almost have him free!" William begged. One more jerk of his hand. The sound of something come to pop. "There!" He said as he let the knife fall to the ground with a clatter, and plunged both hands around the mass that was Viktor's head. A stretch of slime and flesh, elastic, pulled long as William ripped it out. "I! I have him!" he shouted with joy.

The tree of blighted flesh still stood. Writhed, and twitched and its branches lashed out with violence.

From the bubbling pit of pitch colored sludge vines emerged, thorn ridden and sharp. They punched out. Spiked william in the shoulder and the leg. He screamed as he lost his balance and fell back, hands still clutched desperately around the eye of Viktor.

Garrod leapt forward with an overhead swing, his sword come down to sever the vines clean and they shrieked as they withered back. The hunter wore an excited look on his face as he stared down the tree the wriggled and withed and wailed.

It wanted its head back.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

The estranged visions swirling in Elinyra’s mind melted away into stinging pain as she found herself trapped in an expanding bramble. At least Elinyra’s calloused hand was good for something; the thorns couldn’t pierce her palm as she grabbed hold of the tendril trying to stab her and deflected it. The offending vine went limp and collapsed as Garrod’s sword slashed through the overgrowth with vicious precision.

Standing defiantly between William and the tree, the monster hunter appeared completely in his element. Severed vines oozed black ichor all around his feet. The tree flailed; injured, but not defeated. It gurgled and sputtered as fresh fluid bubbled up from its trunk to slicken the floor, and new vines shot out of from its twisted visage. Singly focused, they made straight for whatever between them and the eye.

Elinyra was also making for William, who was screaming in pain and fear while trying to keep hold of what was left of Viktor. A casual glance told her that his wounds were not serious, but he was definitely in danger of worse.

“Come on! I’m getting you out of here!” she exclaimed as she reached down to help him up.

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

As vine and flesh and gooey growth shot out, Garrod stood defiant, large blade turned to shield him from the chord of twisted and abscessed tissue which panged off of the flat run of the great-weapon. Knees bent and arm braced behind the length of the weapon, the hunter did well absorbing the blow as the vine-branch tentacle whipped back from the ricochet of force.

William sputtered and nod and grabbed up Elinyra's hand with his own right, and clutched desperately at Viktor's slick mass with his left. He scrambled after the Druid as they broke for the door.

But the tree would not let it be so easy. Its many branches and growths rattled and fanned out wide before Garrod. As if all the fingers of many hands splayed their grasp and shook for all to see. A shudder, a flex, and the fingers sprout out in spiked and thorny ribbons that arced as they shot forward.

Garrod's eye went wide as he shift his stance, let his blade run long before him, tip pointed toward the ground as its runes glowed a zephyr green. With an upward swing, and a lifting step, he sliced at the many branches and a gale of wind so too followed his weapon's arc. The magick wind blew back more of the growths, and propelled the hunter back and away from the blight changed tree of carnage.

Still, the fiendish fingers streaked out in trails of dark spiked streams. They aimed for William. They aimed for Elinyra. One and two and three at least. They homed toward the fleeing pair.

They found purchase. Not in the druid or the strange apothecary, but deep in the flesh of the Hunter who shielded them. One in each arm, and the other through his thigh. Teeth grit and bared in wild grin, Garrod held tight his sword and uttered through clench teeth.

"Belephus,"

The demon gauntlet's eye shined bright with green light, and in Garrod's mind he heard a mad cackling laugh as the thorny vines pulsed and wriggled and dug into him. Lifted him up like a puppet on strings.

Elinyra Derwinthir

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Elinyra watched in horror as the tree picked Garrod up as if he was no more than a toy in a child's hand. She froze momentarily, torn between coming to his aid and getting William to safety as she'd promised.

Holding the apothecary's free hand in a solid grip, she urged him on faster. A vine that was not already engaged with Garrod lashed out towards them, striking the side of the druid's face and making her stumble not more than a foot from the door.

"Go! Get out!" she yelled at William, hot blood dripping down her cheek. The tendril struck again, coiling around her legs and dragging her across the stone floor. Through the blur of the room spinning and twisting around her, she had only a momentary glance of the apothecary's back as he fled towards safety. That was a better sight than the next split-second image of her staff rolling across the floor away from her.

Usually she could call out to the spirits within plants, even communicate in a limited manner with the few of them that were at least semi-sentient, but her brief druidic connection to this monstrous tree was akin to seeing through the mind of a rabid beast, maddened beyond all reason or saving. It would not stop until it was destroyed.

Her concentration shattered as she came to a sudden stop beneath William's desk, her breath knocked from her from the impact that broke the legs of the once-regal desk and sent its contents flying in every direction. Hurt, dizzy and confused, Elinyra could only groan as she tried to recover.

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Blood dripped down Garrods limbs in fat dark drops and drips as the vines worked into his flesh with wet grind and dig. His muscles spasmed and failed as he groaned and shout and let fall his sword that clattered harsh against the ground. His blood plodded against the floor of the ruined Apothecary's hut. Pooled there as he was raised up and pulled by the vines. The red light of the lamp light blazing above them as the tree went on with its violent thrash.

He went limp as his blood went on drip, drip, dripping onto the floor. The gauntlet, white and shimmering like chitin, flashed with a pulse that came from the jewel.

Garrod's body stirred. Shook and flexed against the pulling vines.

A voice, alien, and multi-chordal. Like knives whetted against cold stone mixed with the human smoke of Garrod's own spent voice, burned in smoldering laugh.

His very blood turned to fire. Green and wicked and hollowed. The vines pierced into him ran with the hungry flame, ripped out of him, recoiling with boiling screech as they quickly turned to ash. Garrod fell to the floor from where he was hung so high like a doll strung with rope. His boots clunked hard against the floor as all of him bent low into a kneel in a pool of his own blood. He clutched at his great-sword and took it up with ease, as sticky strings of burning green-red stretched beneath its run.

A green flame flickered about the ichor that was around him, washed across its surface as Garrod stood tall. His right eye shut, and a green phantasmal blaze burned about his missing left, long dagger teeth grinned before his face, like a shattered mask. Then and there, not again.

Garrod's right eye opened, and his lips peeled into wicked, wide, grin as his body hefted his sword up onto his shoulder. "My my," came a voice of metallic dissonance, only just Garrod's by a trace. A thread. "He makes me starve for so long, and then," the voice laughed.

The gauntlet at Garrod's arm seemed to have grown. Like an insect molted from old carapace. Its new segments looked raw and pulsing, as the gauntlet crept up to seal his entire right arm.

The tree thrashed at what was Garrod, and the hunter's body moved back with a quick dash. the vines crashed into the burning pool of blood, and the rabid tree of flesh shrieked as it recoiled. Hungry flame clinging to its slick mass.

"Well," the horrid voice teased. "That will teach you, won't it?" and Garrod's face grinned hungry.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Pain tore through Elinyra's head as she pushed herself back to her feet. Still dazed from the vine's wicked slam, the scene before her was not quite right. The voice that came from where Garrod was standing was not his. She was almost certain a demon had appeared where the monster hunter had been, a doppelganger wreathed in otherworldly flame. The blow to her head must have been worse than she thought.

"Garrod...?"

Flickering green firelight rose to meet the red lamplight from above, casting the lighthouse interior in disorienting shades of opposition. The blighted tree shrieked and flailed trying to avoid the flames. The jewel set into the gauntlet Garrod wore gleamed malevolently in the midst of the fire that seemed to sear the very spirit.

Elinyra looked away from it, focusing instead on how the tree was reacting to the small flames that had adhered to its body: not much more than sparks that could be stoked into something grander.

"Gwynten, dawnsi gyda mi." The druid closed her eyes for a moment and quietly implored the stagnant air in the building to stir. She felt the rise of the spirits around her in that space of a moment, and opened her eyes again to look - not at the monster that had focused its mindless rage on her ally - but at the invisible element all around it. She raised her hands slowly, and the air responded with a gentle updraft that encouraged the hungering flames to grow.

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

At hearing the name of the Hunter, the thing that wore his body turned to look at Elinyra, only, there was no flesh-made eye there. Only the black cloth that marked its absence, and a green flame that burned with demonic vision. An eye traced in fire. An eye that marked the bond shared between bearer and bared. Host and hosted.

"No... not yet," the voice reverberated with the snarl and snap of gnashing teeth. "Not quite yet," the way it spoke. Ringing and scraping. Like a threat. A promise left unspoken.

A green fire grin cracked there too. Wider as the druid whispered her words. Called to those spirits of life that still swirled about the doomed lighthouse, called on those spirits of gales and wind that filled all spaces connected to the open sky.

The fires grew. Their blaze burned brighter. Their tongues grew longer. And how the tree did thrash. How the tree did groan and lash as the flames ate at its flesh.

The thing that wore Garrod's flesh, with its chitinous arm spiked and bulging and strong, lifted up the runed greatsword, high over its head. Vines and branches lashed forward and down came the great blade, with the speed most vicious. The singular wrathful cut did away with the limbs, the whips, the branches that had tried again in fear and panic to subdue the thing that had appeared before them.

"Struggle on, struggle on, you wretched thing," the voice went on as it wielded Garrod's sword as the Hunter did. Point low and aimed for its heart, the road of the weapon set forward. "Struggle into my TEETH!" the thing that wore Garrod's flesh burst forward, flames of maddening green kicked up behind it as all the fires along the twisted branches and whipping vines sizzled and crackled and shimmered all the hotter for the stir of motion and whip of wind.

What branch came, what vine did smack and rake with thorn, could not stop the demon's press. The great sword sunk deep into the tree's trunk, just bellow the space of the missing head. And the thing that wore Garrod's flesh smiled all the wider. Elated. It laughed. Loud and hot and crazed as the burning tree howled and screeched in burning agony.

With a drive of wide eyed strength and lunatic smile, Garrods frame twist and surged to drive his sword's point in all the deeper. The tree howled louder. Garrod's body moved stranger. Joints and ligaments bending unnatural as it mustered brutal power. It drove the sword up, and up and up. Its fat blade ripped. Tore. Shred a wide and wicked gash up across the trees' trunk.

Split asunder. The tree wailed as it bent two ways away from the weapon's wake. Folded under its own weight as the fire went on. Eating. Devouring. Flesh and soul.

Still. The thing that wore Garrod's skin laughed as the greatsword came down from its savage arc. Its run smoking. Its runes burned hellish white.

As the tree still died. As the fire's still burned, the thing in Garrod's skin let the Hunter's sword fall. Climed up the felled tree's fleshy charred bark as bits and pieces of its flutterd down in ghostly traces of spectral flame.

Stones in the lighthouse walls cracked. The metal beams of the central machinery moaned in failing protest.

Boots dug into the vile mess that was the split open tree, knees bent, back hunched like a gargoyle upon palace walls, the thing that was Garrod began to rake its long clawed hand into the fleshy mess. Ripped out chunks and pieces and shoveled them into its mouth with happy bites and giddy laughs between joyous gnash and smack and slurps.

It was eating the still writhing tree.

From outside the lighthouse, William looked on in horror as stone bricks fell from the side of the lighthouse, and the green flame of madness licked and whipped out from those spaces.

"Lady Elinyra!" William called out, still holding on to Viktor's lonely head with tight and tender grip. "Lady Elinyra please! You must be out from there!" he cried out, his voice hoarse as tears ran down his face.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Howls of pain and terror drove the druid to the brink of madness as the demonic voice laughed madly within the carnage and chaos. She froze, unable to do more than look on in stunned horror as the creature within Garrod slowly - so agonizingly slowly - ripped the half-living tree apart. Then, in a visceral display that sent waves of nausea through her guts, it started to ghoulishly devour their former foe.

"Lady Elinyra!" William's pleading voice broke through her terror for a moment. She suddenly became aware of the bricks crumbling down from the surrounding walls as the lighthouse's integrity began to fail.

She made for the door with haste, making only a brief detour to reclaim her fallen staff on the way. Pausing at the threshold, she glanced back at the crouched figure illuminated in emerald hellfire as the flames rose and danced in the air current she'd called to for aid.

Elinyra drew in a deep breath and silently made a new request of the air spirits that swirled like a flock of unseen birds around the destroyed tree. The air pressure dropped suddenly as a blast of air soared upwards, momentarily buffeting the fire and carrying away the precious air needed to sustain it. Enough, she hoped, to quell the burning even of this unnatural blaze.

"You have to get out of here!" she reiterated to William as she met him just outside. She pointed at the sleepy village down the hill. "Go find help! Go!"

She didn't want to tell william that Garrod had somehow released a demon - something several times more dangerous to the town than the monster that Viktor had been transformed into. She had to trust that he'd follow her direction for his own good.

Elinyra dug her staff into the mix of sand and root-bound soil at her feet, and quickly drew a circle around the tower, adding the ancient runes as she remembered them; taking care of the falling masonry and whatever was left of the fire. She didn't know any rituals for protection against demons specifically. She'd have to hope that those that generally protected against evil spirits would work.

No time to do this properly; a loud crack from within told her the lighthouse was about to fall.

"Spirits protect us..." the druid muttered under her breath as a shadow emerged into the night.

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Ceaseless was the thing's hunger, and gruesome was its work.

Bone-white arm, coated in thick blighted ichor, dripped from its chitinous barbs and spikes as it dug and it scraped out the flesh from the tree's malformed trunk. What should have been its heartwood, and amalgam of viscera. Slushed as it was scooped out. Sloshed as the bone-white hand grabbed and tore and crushed in its grasp. Lifted pieces up, strips and chunks, and fed them into Garrod's mouth. Black bile dribbled over his lips like over-ripe berry's juice, and seeped through the gaps of his teeth like syrup.

"Hungry, hungry," the fiendish chorus voice said with wide and toothy grin. Like a child at play, full with the awareness of their whimsy and sing song as they played in the mud.

It grabbed another hunk of the tree with wet slap, pulled it so it stretched long and popped. Held it up over Garrod's face, and let the oily red drip and smear and run like foul paint across his face, half masked by the phantom flame. "This is what happens when you don't let me eat, Oh Bearer Mine," it laughed, and let Garrod's mouth come open wide, and the fluids from the hunk of turned flesh ran down the open gullet. It let the meat down slow. Gobbled it whole as the flames went on burning. It stopped, slurped down the last of the meat and burped with a mote of green fire.

William stared wide eyed as the druid worked, her silent words willed the spirits of wind once more, and the flame hollowed lighthouse howled with the surge of air that drew the fires up and up so high that its hungry tongue could not but dissipate. Starved for that flow they so ravenously needed.

William understood her words and ran. "I shall! I shall get help!" he assured.

With claw dug deep into the tree's stilled form, black ooze pooled about it, the creature in Garrod's skin turned his eye toward the door. Toward the outside and the open world as the lighthouse groaned and more bricks came free from the walls. The red light still burned bright above through it all.

It leapt from the tree, and landed hard upon the ground. Lifted up the great runed sword, and slow stepped toward the door. "Eliiinyraaaa," it called out. "Oh, sweet, delectible, Elinyra," it grinned. Bloody and horrible. "You..." it stood at the precipice of the lighthouse. "Have more," its eye of flame grew wide and hungry, as Garrod's eye too, grew wide and hungry.

But the spirits had been called forth. The ward set, and as it readied the Hunter's sword for the next clash, hands, ethereal and pure, the spirits of the land and sea, grabbed back the creature that was so rabid with hunger. It pulled against their chaining grasps, grin only growing wider as it made Garrod's muscles flex and strain and pull against.

"LET ME EAT IT OUT OF YOU!" its horrid voice scraped out.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

The demon stalked out of the ruin, bathed in blood and ichor, twisting Garrod's previously friendly face into an insane smile. Elinyra stood her ground just outside the periphery of the ritual circle, though she could feel her hands trembling as she drew another rune of protection on the ground: the forked symbol of the elk.

The laceration on the side of her face traced a crimson line down her cheek in coagulated blood. Her legs burned with similar wounds inflicted by the tree's blighted thorns, but she ignored them as she stared resolutely into his fire-lined eyes.

"You will devour no one this night, cerddwr croen!" she addressed the beast that threatened to eat her alive. The night's calm had been roused to a wind that whipped her long dark hair around her face. Far below them, the sea roared as it crashed against the rocks.

"Fod etri mynd! You do not belong in this world, skinwalker! Release him and be gone!" she commanded, trying to push her fear down enough to enforce her will on the hungry demon. She was fully aware that the friendly spirits she'd called forth were only barely holding it back. It probably was too.

The hunter's sword threatened as the beast struggled against its bonds. The salt-laden air was electric with gathering energy.

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

The thing in Garrod's flesh stilled its fury, as the grin it wore seemed to stretch, wider, if just a bit, wider to show more of his straight teeth, stained as they were with the mulberry stain of the tree's flesh and blood.

"Do not... belong?" the creature spoke, its white arm flexed, and the spikes upon its chitinous growth moved as it squint its eye of fire and the eye of Garrod's flesh with pleasured glee.

The armor's flared pointed moved like the spines of a living creature, adjusting its fins with the currents and flows. Sensing the air for those things bugs and bottom feeders sensed for with spine and whisker and hair. The spirit's hands still wrapped around Garrod's limbs, coiled about his neck and his wrists and his ankles, pulled him down to the earth as stone brick cracked loose from the wind and the shift of unstable weight.

"He has not told you, has he, cursed one," the way his teeth gleamed, with such satisfaction. "He called to me," the many layered voice reverberated with a low pleasured rumble. "Invited me," it hissed.

It snapped forward and gnashed Garrod's teeth. Green flames formed cruel jaws and crunched at the air before him, trying to eat at the druid. The spirits pulled back tighter, and Garrod's body fell to one knee. His eye still wide as it stared with carnal want at Elinyra, the harlequin flame that burned beside it wilder and truer in its desire to devour.

"I can free you, you know," the voice whispered sweetly, though its tone shook in that way that harshly struck bells shook one too close. In that way anvils and steel shook the mind of those who had seen battle, and knew of the weight of such cruel sounds. "Give your soul rest from that... thing you carry," the grin turned to something else. Hungry still, but, there was a cunning there. A kind of kindness used to twist and turn and play.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

She did not want to believe the demon's words, but seeing the way Garrod's gauntlet had come to life, how it had taken over his arm like a parasite - it left little room for doubt. Her gaze lingered on the runed sword as she wondered what amount of power had been worth the price of this man's soul.

"Spare me your venomous schemes. I do not bargain with demons," she retorted acidly, while making every effort not to flinch away from the horrid thing.

The spirits were holding fast, but she could feel their agitation at the demon's presence. Even the sound of the wind-blown waves crashing on the shore seemed angry. Her right hand had pins and needles all over it, as if whatever thing the demon suggested was inside her was prepared to lash out against it.

"I tell you again, you will go no further!" she warned and tapped her staff against the ground. "Return from whence you came!"

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

The creature laughed. Laughed harder and louder as Elinyra spat her caustic retorts at him. Bent back the spine of Garrod as it laughed in his changed voice, sword still clutched tight in its bone-white hand, and the blood drained right of the hunter as it contorted back so far, the spirits pulled it down all the more. Pulled it closer to the dirt. Though the sea itself raged and the winds howled at its presence, the demon went on as it laughed.

Its voice so hot it was as if it turned the hunter's enwreathed voice to ash. As if the ember of his chords crackled and split inside his shaking chest and would leave not but dust behind once the creature let go. It laughed, to show her, to show the spirits, how little they could do.

It growled with excitement and pulled against the bindings, up. Up. Though veins in Garrod's flesh bulged and flames of jasper green mixed with neon trails that forked and hissed and spit through gritted teeth and wide flaming eye, the creature raised up the hunter's sword, and stabbed it into the earth. Its strong white hand gripped it tight as the heavy sword sank into the soft earth. Just beyond the circle.

Garrod's framed heaved with exertion. "Very good, child of the cearcai ghràineag, very good," the voice went on. "You do not bargain with my kind," it chuckled, almost soft. "Yet," it grinned wide again. "You keep my company," its flame eye narrowed and so too did Garrod's own green eye. "You benefit from this life I have saved, time and time again," the flame grew smaller, and the fresh plates from the armor crawled back towards the bone-white gauntlet. "You do not bargain with demons..." the flames were near out. "If only this life were so simple, gwywedigaeth," it laughed small and smaller with each rumbling bounce of Garrod's shoulders.

The hunter's hand slipped from the sword, and the left side of his body seemed to fall limp. The flaming eye, sputtered out, and Garrod's eye came shut. He slumped forward under his own weight. Only the strength of his right hand remained. Cased in the bone-white armor of the relic. Its opalescent eye gleamed with the bright green light of the devouring flame. The Old Hunger. And the jewel seemed to smile at the druid with a glint, as the lighthouse stones crumbled more and the spirits blew away.

Footsteps and hollers came from the direction of the town.

 

[Elinyra Derwinthir]

Still as a statue, Elinyra stared at the sword planted mockingly in the earth outside of her protective circle as the demon receded, its taunting laughter and words still gnawing at her mind. It was disarming to face a foe that had such intimate knowledge about her. More disarming still was the word it had used against her:

Gwywedigaeth. The elvish word for decay, and for the birth of a stillborn child. The ancient druidic traditions of the Falwood used it to name the lethal wasting disease that afflicted all living things without bias; what other cultures called blight. Certainly the demon was toying with her mind, but with a terrible truth or a conniving lie, she had no way of knowing. Only a grim shadow of possibility.

She was expressionless as she turned her gaze to Garrod's collapsed form. She wasn't sure if she should move to help him, or if he was still possessed; she could still feel the demon's presence in the gauntlet leering at her.

"Form a fire line and send those buckets up!" a voice commanded from somewhere behind her. The cavalry had arrived, but too late; a skewed flash of crimson light illuminated the hill for only a brief moment before sinking into the lighthouse's smoldering interior with a loud crack and rattle of shattering timbers and stone.

"Shit, we've lost it!" the same voice lamented as the crowd paused to watch the spectacle. Elinyra didn't turn to see who it was. She couldn't tear her gaze away from the demon bearer.

One of the volunteers rushed forward to help the fallen monster hunter until one of her peers put an arm out to stop her.

"Wait!" the unfriendly kivren that Elinyra had accosted earlier for information glared between the protective circle and the elf with a small semblance of comprehension. "Something ain't right here. What sort of finger-waggling shark shit are you conj'rin up here?"

"They burned down our lighthouse!" someone yelled when Elinyra failed to answer. She didn't resist when the kivren grabbed her arm roughly and hissed,

"Answer me!"

The druidess finally focused on the angry face in front of her and said with a quiet but firm command, "Don't take your eyes off of him."

Garrod Arlette