Chapter 1: Another stylish entrance
Gellert wandered through the gardens of the Weird House, stopping every few steps to inspect the green shoots and buds of new growth. His familiar, Petal, flitted amongst the nearby trees, hawking for insects. He took a deep, contented breath of the damp air that hung over the lowlands.
Though he always had a miniature water rune primed and ready in the back of his consciousness, Gellert rarely needed it for these gardens. The fertile valley was nestled between the Snowcaps to the north, the Mount of the Sacred Pillars to the east, and the northern reaches of The Salt to the west. It was kept well-watered by the condensation sweeping in from Alchemist’s Archipelago. The moisture built up into swollen, pregnant clouds on the slopes of the mountains, bringing rain for long periods of the year.
The garden had been here long before the Weird House was built, and it still gave him solace to wander the grounds – a welcome relief from the ruthless, twisted, and frequently deranged prisoners within those crooked walls. The ramshackle construction didn’t look like much from the outside – barely more than a cabin. The interior was equally nondescript, thanks to Gellert’s Fairy Dazzle. But take away the enchantment and the true magic of the Weird House became instantly apparent: row upon endless row of magically fortified cells, stretching in every direction.
Because the Weird House, at least a significant portion of it, was a prison for some of the most diabolical minds in the Runiverse.
Gellert sighed. Yes, it was nice to get back out into the garden from time to time. A few orderlies in white coats were escorting some of the Weird House’s harmless inmates along paths intersecting the manicured section of the garden. This well-tended area was the outer façade of the Weird House, the only part that visitors saw. Not that they had many visitors…
Gellert far preferred the wild tangle of unkempt wilderness behind the house, where Nature was left to her own devices and the plants interwove, collaborated, and built their own thriving ecosystem.
As he bent to examine a sickly-looking shrub he paused, pricking up his large, pointy ears. He could sense a faint crackling in the humid air. As he straightened up, the bells on his curly-toed slippers jingling, Petal chirped a burst of sonar at him; the Forever Bat had also picked up the disturbance, and flew over to join him as he waited with finger interlaced.
“Well, here we go again, Petal…”
With an ear-splitting crack and a thunderous rumble, multi-coloured light streaked across the sky in a broad arc that lanced into the midst of the garden.
“BEHOLD MY QUANTUM STYLE!”
“Yeah baby! Behold it! Then bask in the rapture of my prance!”
Gellert arched an eyebrow at Petal as the group approached. “Well that’s new…”
“Archmagus Gellert!” Wizard #777 boomed. “We’ve brought you some new recruits!”
Gellert bowed his head graciously to the Key Master and flashed a polite smile at his sidekick. He of course would never dare to call Bathsheba a sidekick out loud. Then he cast an appraising eye over their companion, who trotted along beside Haze the cosmic vixen.
“My spells, this is an honour, Dream Pony! Welcome to my humble gardens. It has been many aeons since the last of your kind paid a visit here. Please, allow me to procure some extra sweet sugar cubes for your enjoyment.” Gellert gave Ishtar a deep bow, nose almost touching his knees. The Dream Pony looked impressed, if a little taken aback.
“Hey, you’re one dapper delight, Archmagus. You sure know the way to a pony’s heart! I’ll take those sugar cubes off your hands, no problem.”
Gellert raised his hands self-deprecatingly. “It is the least I can do, Mr… uh?”
“This, Dazzle-Fingers, is Pony #77… Dream Pony, Lord of the Prance, Weapons Grade: Unicorn,” broke in Bathsheba.
“Fabulous,” smiled Gellert. He knew better than to react to the girl’s teasing. At least she didn’t have Derek here to egg her on. Besides, he couldn’t deny the fact that his fingers did sparkle.
Sweeping his yellow elven cloak over his shoulder, he clicked his fingers and tiny motes of Fairy Dazzle puffed up into the twilight. He made a series of gestures to a group of nearby orderlies. A young lady with hair tied back into a tight bun went scurrying off towards the house, while two burly men came over and scooped up what appeared to be a Shaman from the gravel pathway where Sacred Key Master had deposited him. A fourth orderly with a pencil-thin moustache hovered nearby, uncertainly.
“Ah of course, silly me,” chuckled the Key Master. He reached into the sack hanging from Ishtar’s armour with the tips of his thumb and forefinger and pulled out a terrified-looking blue rat.
“Here you go, lad,” he said, and flicked the rat through the air. The young orderly jumped in surprise, but regained his composure just in time to pluck the flying rat out of the air before scuttling after the others.
Gellert began walking towards the Weird House, motioning for the group to follow him. “Come my friends, let us retire to the study and you can tell me all about my new charges.”
“Ah yes… Archmagus… um, we do also have another shadowkey.”
Gellert pinched the bridge of his nose, relieving the pain that had just sprung up between his eyes. He took a deep breath and turned, taking in the natural scenery of the garden. It was probably going to be a while before he was able to spend any time out here again.
“Very well,” he sighed. “Follow me.”
Chapter 2: A soul reclaimed
The group stood in a ring around the shadowkey, which lay on the carpet in the middle of the study.
“Err… sho wha’ now?” asked Ishtar, sucking on a sugar cube.
“Now it gets really entertaining,” murmured Bathsheba.
“Well if you don’t mind, Ishtar, a Dream Pony may be a little bit, uh, overwhelming at first, so if you could maybe just take a few steps back?” asked Gellert apologetically. “You see, they’ve been through rather a tough time I’m afraid. Clinging to sanity by a thread, usually, if at all.”
“Hey, sure, wha’e’er you ’ink is be’t, Ah’mayjus!” The pony skipped daintily backwards.
“That’s useful actually,” noted the Key Master. “He’s blocking the door.”
Bathsheba turned to Ishtar and gave the pony an enthusiastically-exaggerated thumbs up. Haze watched on serenely from amongst the plush cushions on one of the room’s high-backed armchairs.
Sacred Key Master seated himself cross-legged on the floor, closed his eye and began to hum rhythmically. He placed his right hand palm downwards over the key, and raised two fingers of his left hand in front of his face. As he drew his fingers down in a straight vertical line, his body slowly floated upwards and a glowing white Infinity Rune appeared below his right palm.
Gellert was unsure how long Sacred Key Master remained in that position, the rune revolving slowly in the air. The Key Master never wavered though. After some time, the rune stopped turning. Gellert leaned forward, mesmerised as usual by this part of the spell. A stream of rune after-images poured forth. The leading image merged with the surface of the key as the remaining images caught up to it, imprinting the glowing pattern onto the metal. Gellert could see the energy flowing in endless swirls on the key’s surface.
The key shuddered on the carpet, bouncing erratically from side to side.
“Here they come,” whispered Gellert, readying himself.
A tiny black prism encased in purple light burst out of the shadowkey and skittered over the carpet. It lay still for just a moment, then began to stretch, simultaneously growing minute arms and legs. A head popped out on a stalk-like neck; eyes way too large for the size of the coalescing face stared around the room wildly. As a mouth formed from the jumble of features, the creature swallowed a deep breath and let out a high-pitched scream that became deeper and deeper as it swelled in size.
“Hoo-wee, isha boy! Uh… cong’a’ula’ions, I guesh?”
The naked old man tried to scramble backwards, bumping his head against the feet of Sacred Key Master, who was still levitating above the floor. The man’s eyes were wild with terror and his long matted beard and hair stuck out in all directions; the scream caught in his throat, and he began gibbering, tears rolling down his cheeks and leaving clean trails in the dirt.
As Gellert approached him slowly, hand outstretched, speaking in low, soothing tones, Sacred Key Master cast a floating shroud of light and draped it gently over the man’s head. As the shroud settled onto the man’s face his gibbering subsided. Archmagus Gellert flicked up a handful of Fairy Dazzle and blew it at the man’s face, coating the shroud in a sparkling sheen.
The freed wizard’s eyelids drooped, and he slumped to the floor, mumbling inaudibly.
“Sho… Wha’ now?” piped up Ishtar.
“He won’t stay docile for long,” said the Key Master.
Gellert nodded. “Let’s get him down to the soul rehabilitation sector. It’s going to be a long journey to bring him back to himself.”
Chapter 3: Familiar faces
Bathsheba and Haze followed Gellert through the mazy subterranean tunnels of the Weird House. The Key Master had taken his leave to return to the Gate to Seventh Realm, while Ishtar had graciously accepted Gellert’s suggestion to go to the kitchen pantries with some orderlies to stock up on sugar cubes.
As they passed the bars lining either side of the corridor, some of the captives cowered into the corners of their cells. Others raged at them, shaking the bars and yelling obscenities at the young Hex Mage.
“Do not be alarmed, they have all been detached from their runes, and any other powers they may have possessed,” Gellert said over his shoulder.
“I’m not alarmed, Gellert,” she said lazily. “I put many of them here in the first place. Have you forgotten?” She turned and looked stonily at a snarling wizard; his mouth snapped shut and he shrank backwards into the shadows, muttering to himself, until all that could be seen were the whites of his eyes.
Gellert gave a slight bow. “No, of course not, Bathsheba. No offence intended I can assure you.”
The short mage gave a curt nod. “How far to his cell, Gellert?”
“Nearly there now. He is held in maximum security, obviously.”
After a short time, they came to a door made of thousands upon thousands of interwoven strands of multi-coloured light, that pulsed intermittently. A guard with the Rune of Water sewn on the high collar of his long coat stood aside as Gellert traced complicated patterns across the surface of the door. The threads of light unravelled, and they walked through, the guard following behind them.
In the cell at the end of the corridor, a deeper darkness shifted in the shadows. Metal rang on stone as the inmate stepped into the pool of light spilling from one of the torches that hung in brackets outside the cell. Light flashed off the gleaming silver curve of his skull. He spoke in a reedy voice.
“Wizard #3914. I never thought to see you again.”
“The pleasure is all yours Zagan,” she replied. Haze curled her upper lip at the naked silver skeleton that stood before them, exposing her canines.
“Ah yes, and the cosmic vixen, I do hope you don’t begrudge me those lost teeth. They were not designed to pierce metal, you know. I can’t help what I am.”
“You’re going to do something for me Zagan,” broke in Bathsheba.
“Oh am I?” The skeleton let out a mirthless laugh. “And just why would I do that? Please enlighten me.”
Bathsheba approached the bars. “I’m going to give you your magic back.”
Before Gellert could move, Bathsheba had cast a glowing green Mercury Rune over him, binding him to the wall of the corridor. She muttered a curse under her breath, and the Archmagus’ mouth sealed shut. Haze leapt at the guard, spinning in mid-air and exploding into a ball of red smoke that enveloped his entire body, then shrank back into a vixen-shaped cloud. The guard was left lying pinned to the floor by glowing bands of mist.
Bathsheba turned back to the prisoner. “You will return to the Quantum Downs. There is important work to be done in the south. There are several wizards there who have pledged themselves to me, and they are headed for the Quantum Shadow. When you find them, you will do exactly as I tell you. You know, I’ve always found my hexes work best on other Hex Mages.”
As she finished speaking, Bathsheba began to cast another Rune of Mercury with her left hand. With her right, she channelled the weight of her Hex into the rune, then stepped back to watch as the rune splayed Zagan’s limbs out, tightening around him as the Hex sank into his metallic bones.
When she was done, Bathsheba turned to Archmagus Gellert.
“You’re a good wizard, Gellert. I’m going to do you a favour. I look forward to seeing you again.” She took his hand, tracing her fingertips across his palm. As she pulled her fingers away, a glittering stream of golden dust flowed after them; she brought her hand up to her mouth, then blew the infused Fairy Dazzle into the Archmagus’ face. He blinked, then looked at her calmly, his memories updated.
Story Arc Index:
Prologue: Wizard #3914
Part 1: Pony #77
Part 2: Wizard #2877
Part 3: Wizard #1175
Part 4: Wizard #3901
Part 5: Wizard #4841
Part 6: Wizard #2885
Part 7: Wizard #3917
Part 8: Wizard #6084
Entered by: 0x24D7…e52b and preserved on chain (see transaction)
