Fable - Ask Pot of Greed

[Hazanko Miya]

With a rumble, and rasp, the eastern wall of Aembi's room opened next, and there betwixt the wooden frame stood Hazanko, the coiling body of a great serpent, scaled and azure, could be seen painted across the panels of the room's interior.

An assortment of clay tools were collected upon a tray, their blackberry glaze lustrous and artful, an iron pot sat amid a tall stone setting, and three cups there with with them. "Please," the shaman bowed his head to those in the room. "Wont you join us for tea?" he shuffled forward, stopped, and bowed as he closed the door behind himself. "You can change into something more comfortable in the Tiger's room,"

Above each panel door were the markings of each beast. The Tiger prowled down proudly across the wooden beam of the room directly adjacent to the Dragon's. And the Tortoise stood stoic across from the Phoenix.

A few more steps saw him stood before the table, and the masked lord, Aembi. Hazanko sat, as an attendant might beside a noble, and laid the set upon the table, careful and measured.

Whether or not the ironborne sat with them, Hazanko would begin to prepare the tea. His hand reached out to grab the small ladle, and dipped it into the iron pot of hot water, poured it neatly into the larger bowl.

"Why... is it, that... so many come to visit... but none come to... stay with me,"

Hazanko said nothing. But opened the finely crafted box that was part of his set of tools, and took a measured spoon to it. Scooped, and poured a fine green powder into the bowl for tea. With a bamboo whisk, he gently stirred the tea, until it became a creamy green froth.

"Why... is that?" The masked Aembi asked again. More sorrow in his voice.

He tapped the bamboo whisk against the large bowl, and carefully poured the hot drink into each cup.

"It is not for us to wonder such things, Great Lord," Hazanko said as he bowed low, and placed a cup before Aembi. "Ours is but to serve,"

The great yellow eyes upon Aembi's mask affixed their sightless gaze unto the cup and its bearer. "To serve..." he reached out a hand, and his long draping robes hung from his outstretched arm.

 

[Juusha Khuam]

Change into something....? Juusha gave the shaman an incredulous look. She didn't own any clothes other than the grey robes wrapped under her armor, the symbol of the Iron clan dyed in red upon her back. Fingers shifted around the hilt of the short sword still in her hands. Then, she let out a sigh.

"I will join you." The concession had little grace to it. That wily fox of a Mistborne was up to something, she knew it, but she could think of nothing to do about it.

And so Juusha knelt at the table, bowing her head to the great spirit only as much as she dared to look away from an enemy. The golden sheathe clacked against the table when she set it down in front of her. Across the reed mat, her tail went swish, swish in an attentive rhythm.

To Serve,

The great toad echoed the shaman's words. It reached out to the cup, and took the tiny vessel in its hand. For a moment, the tea steamed, alive with heat. Aembi tilted its masked head back, its maw half ajar, and poured the contents of the cup down the empty visage in one movement of the dark robes. The last spiral of steam peeled off the rim.

A gurgle. Wooden and unblinking, the eyes of the mask stared. A stem of green dripped down the side of the darkly glazed cup. It was set down.

"Not... enough," the spirit rumbled. Slowly, deliberately, Aembi's hand reached across the table for the second cup.

 

[Hazanko Miya]

A grim line sliced across the lips of Hazanko Miya. Gold sheath, and the blade within glint bright in his mind.

A bow of his head to the declaration. "Please do," he replied, without a beat gone by. She bent before them, a another body amongst their number. The Mistborne poured the steaming drink. Green tea, made to froth by stir of bambooed whisk. Thick and opaque, as rich spring's growth.

Aembi made sound. Mimicked those words that had come from Hazanko's own mouth. He bowed deep to the recognition. The reply. The repeat of his own work. What better way to say that you had heard a person's efforts, than to voice them with your own chords?

Words made to tell that more was wanted. More was needed.

Hazanko bowed again, when his head rose, he stretched out his nimble limbs, and poured gentle the steaming tea. A thick drink pooled steady within the clay confines of the great toad's cup. Within the clay circle that Aembi held within his clammy grip.

"Not enough, and so we must give more," the Shaman of the Mist said clear. "Give until there is but the tremble of limb left to move the vessel to your will. To give. To take. To serve,"

 

[Juusha Khuam]

The shaman groveled and bowed, metered out more of the opaque green, and repeated his words patient and clean to ambled Aembi.

Juusha could barely sit through it. She grit her teeth together, ears folded back against her head. She failed to see how any of this pomp and ceremony was getting them closer to recapturing the great spirit. And she would have said as much, were it not for that searching presence behind Aembi's mask. The raakgui was slow and aimless now, but even so she could feel feel the pressure building behind her eyes and the lurch of her guts.

Another crack crawled across the floor beneath them with a creaking sound, splitting the wood with black lacerations that stood out against the pale grain. Juusha shifted uneasily where she knelt. Trust did not come easily between the clans. It took all of her will to keep her sword sheathed upon the table, and give Miya hers for just a few moments longer.

The spirit did not raise the refilled cup right away. Its contents steamed in a swirl that dampened the air between them. "I have served..." Aembi's empty mask echoed. "Long enough. Do not... put me back... into that vessel."

 

[Hazanko Miya]

A pained look twist the features of the old Mistborne's face. His brow furrowed, lips turned down in strained frown and his eyes squinted.

"You have served, Great Aembi," he echoed. Unsure of how the Ironborne would carry on if all kept its sluggish pace. A second crack split across the sliding doors that were the room's walls. A red eye burned across the papered surface of one wall. Hazanko's eyes rose up, and saw the seal of rending. His own eyes widened, and he reached for the vessel which held the frothed green tea. "Aembi!" he shout, and spilled forward the murky drink from the bowl.

An arc of tea splashed across as the air, mudras cut and sealed with both hands till hands clapped together and curled fingers tore apart the air before him.

The tea shimmered, and spread, and when the red eye blazed a line forward, the spilled tea turned to sparkling shield, reflected the beam bonced and sliced a line across a wall opposite Aembi and the two Shaman.

---

Juusha Khuam

 

[Juusha Khuam]

Paper walls rattled and tore as the room shook. Wooden beams creaked, the crack widening. Fur bristling, Juusha leapt onto the table. Tea spilled, an arch through the air. She grabbed up the golden sheathe with one hand. and the Mistborne by the scruff of his scarf with the other, even as he shaped a protective barrier around them.

Red blazed, the line of light cut, redirected by Hazanko's mudras, but no less destructive. A void of black lay beyond, ragged white paper fluttering against that inky nothing. Aembi, behind his gaping mask, cried out in pain, and though the spell did not reach the spirit, its robes tore along with the room.

Against the other wall, another eye glowed, searing through the mural of the phoenix.

"Forget Aembi," Juusha growled out, hopping off the table and tugging the old shaman towards the last remaining doorway that was still intact. The Tiger of the West. "We need to get out of here!"

Hazanko Miya

 

[Hazanko Miya]

Teeth grit as Hazanko's heels dragged along the matted floor. His hands still locked in the sign for keep. His wrists twist about until Right was above left, bones pressed grooves against flesh. Veins came flat with one another. The pulse of his heart pound there between it all.

"Reach what cannot be grasped," words turned rushing river.

The Tiger of the West smashed open with the surge of green waters that spilled and washed across the same floor that fell away. Threatened to take them too.

The newborn river crashed against Aembi. Like currents alive, the green waters looped and twist about the noble toad. Ripped them from their place, and pulled them through the Tiger's Door, as all the room fell away.

Juusha Khuam

 

[Juusha Khuam]

As Juusha leapt through the archway, her gut lurched. Floor came away from feet, and the colorful room collapsed. A jumble of structure fell around them, a flat horizon stretched out below their feet, a folding of the world like a paper receipt inside a pocket. And Juusha still inside it!

Fool of a Mistborne, dragging Aembi along with that fancy spellwork of his. The great toad was an anchor, keeping them moored to the room even as its manifestation crumbled to ruin. If she could cut through, perhaps...

Juusha released Hazanko, let the two of them tumble free. She gripped tight the hilt of her squat sword, squared off against the nothing that surrounded her.

"Just let me go," she cried out, tugging at her sword. "I don't want to die here!"

The bell rang. The third rune upon the sword's sheathe glowed with a gentle pulse.

"No way, that can't be the answer," Juusha cried out in surprise. The sword slid frictionlessly out of the golden sheathe, and Juusha turned head over heels in the endless fall at the sudden give. "IT WAS SOMETHING SO SIMPLE!"

Another eye, gleamed out in the darkness, ready to swallow them with searing red light. Juusha brandished her blade. Cut through, cut through, she thought. Cut through the darkness, the red-eyed talisman, and the great toad's belly--!

A bright flash of white, solid ground underneath her, and Juusha landed hard on her feet.

Hazanko Miya

 

[Hazanko Miya]

The river raced behind her. All swell and surge, it carried the purple robed toad across its rapids, that rose and fell as spines along the back of some long beast. Slithered and slipped behind the falling shaman of iron, through the portal of paper sealed charm.

All the torrent waterfalled across the barrier.

A column of water come crash across the solid ground. A great purple bloat fell through it next. Bounced off the floor and jiggled in the air before they splashed back down. Where there was solid ground, now there was a rising pool of frothed, warm drink that whirled and spiraled about Aembi.

The last of the river trickled to its last drop. Spit Hazanko out for him to break through the calming surface of the bath.

Juusha Khuam

 

[Juusha Khuam]

For a single moment, Juusha stood victorious, and dry, at the bottom of the well she found herself in. Then, a swirl of warm, fragrant green swept her off her feet once more.

Curved floor and smooth, white walls confused her sense of direction. She held her breath against the buffet of warmth, searching for the flutter of light that would show her which direction to swim.

With clawing strokes and gasping breath, Juusha splashed to the surface. A miserable yowl left her lungs as she heaved herself over the edge of smooth, rounded tile. She found herself on the edge of a bathing pool on the last floor of the warehouse complex. Above her, several floors worth of destruction, and debris still flaking off in splinters of wood or chunks of ceramic. Had they crashed through the floor?

Water oft acted as a barrier, and portal, between the heavenly and earthly realms. Juusha knew that, but it didn't make the experience any less disorienting. She coughed up the warm wet, and flicked water free of her ears.

"Miya, where are you!" She called out, pushing to her feet and pacing the edge of the pool.

Had the old man gotten out, too, or was he still in the drink?

 

[Hazanko Miya]

In the green of the drink, frothy and foamy as it steamed, float a round purple toad. Ceremonial sash tied around its waist. Its belly up in the air, as its arms and legs splayed out. An odd colored lily pad, adrift in the pool.

Bubbles dotted around it. Pop, pop, popped. The purple toad croaked, and turned over with a wiggle of its arms to help it rock, and sway. Splish onto its belly. Its wide golden eyes took in the room around it. From beneath its belly, more bubbles spread about.

Little Aembi made a sound of surprise. Their eyes looked left, then right with small croaks come from each shift of their squat form. The steaming waters of the bath parted. Hazanko rose up from beneath the toad, who wiggled and scrambled, and grabbed with their sticky toes to Hazanko's wet scalp. Only his eyes showed above the water. The lower half of his face still stewing beneath the surface as Aembi settled on his head like a weird hat.

He swam to the edge. Practiced strokes that saw him at the lip of the pool.

 

[Juusha Khuam]

Juusha growled at the sight of the soggy shaman rising from the waters. Moreso she growled at the foolish part of her that had worried after his safety, however briefly.

"You'd better have a good explan--"

She began, but quieted down suddenly, scowl turning to startle. The sword at Juusha's hip rattled with wrath. Her other sword - steel instead of gold, the one that did not need to be coaxed out but instead, quelled. The long blade of death.

Hazanko was not the only Mistborne to come out of the pool. There upon the opposite edge, the fox-masked Kazumichi dragged himself from the drink.

A spirit lived inside the sword, a thing of blind justice, without the temperance of remorse. It asked for the young Mistborne's blood, the one bold enough to harm a Divine Raakgui. Juusha's hand went to the hilt of her sword, stopped its trembling.

Eyes tilted down, dark across the green expanse. Still, she hesitated, and did not bridge the distance. "Miya, I asked you before the value of that boy's life. This is your last chance to answer."

Hazanko Miya

 

[Hazanko Miya]

Kazumichi rolled, fell, smacked against the floor, and somehow got up. Limped. His mask, still on through it all.

"I shall not fall without a fight, executioner," he spat the word like a curse.

His hands already down at his sides to snap up paper talismans betwixt his fingers. Where the fine fibers of the stock were once rigid with spring, they sagged and flopped, so heavy with the tea.

Even the ink cured onto them, smudged and ran across their deformed plane.

Kazumichi grit his teeth. Whipped his hands down to his side, almost a bird snapping its wings. Water ran from the talismans in bolts. The paper rigidified once more.

Hazanko rose from the lip of the bath. All scowl and twisted lip. "Enough," he said, a low rumble from his throat. Little Aembi gave a croak. "There is no need for any more violence on this day," he looked sidelong at the Ironborne. "With the debt collectors gone,"

Something bubbled at the bottom of the drink.

A pensive sound. "Uh," The older Mistborne's eyes cut to Kazumichi, "I suggest you run,"

Kazumichi's eyes darted toward the Ironborne's, back to Hazanko's. A sharp motion saw the talisman's flicked to the ground beneath him. A cold mist detonated about him where the notes had bladed into the ceramic of the bath's edge.

Juusha Khuam