The Call from Beyond the Veil
In the days approaching the last full moon of the harvest, a flame was born out of the ether. It appeared, sputtering and bursting into existence on a small farm in the middle of a turnip patch in front of a goat faced farm boy named Scratch.
He had never seen anything like it before, but didn't seem like it was going anywhere or dying out, so he went back inside to ponder what to do about it. A knock on the door came not long into his musings. A grinning yellow cleric with a flowing grey beard greeted Scratch and bowed low, introducing himself as Milton.
"Please let me handle this. I promise you'll be fairly compensated. Soon those that hear the call will come."
Over the next several hours the wizards came. At first slowly, then all at once. Every size, shape, color was represented in the masses. A legion of magical folk gathered on his family's rural land. Scratch resigned himself to the situation and to witness whatever strange ritual was occurring.
That evening the wizards were gathered around the flame and were enjoying socializing with their friends and acquaintances. When a sudden tense quiet fell over the gathering. A wizard past his years had stepped forward over the unseen threshold and into the circle of the flame.
Milton seeing this called the challenge out to the wizard, who seemed to be measuring his own resolve and strength in the moment.
"Wizard! Do you wish to burn in the sacred flame?"
"I DO" he answered back, finding his resolve.
"Dark magic is unpredictable. Do you understand that the results may be undesirable?"
"I UNDERSTAND" there was mania in the old man's eyes.
"It seems you can not be dissuaded. Do you submit yourself to the flame?"
"I SUBMIT" the wizard yelled as he burst forward with surprising speed towards his destiny.
Immediately the flame began to incinerate the clothes and flesh from his body. Stumbling forward, now crawling, reaching out with a burning skeletal hand, screaming in pain, the wizard touched the source of the flame. The heat became unbearable as the fire burned momentarily with an additional magnitude of intensity.
Then it was gone. Nothing remained but smouldering ash in a dark muddy field surrounded by a cohort of wizards who seemed to be in a state of mild disappointment. The magi slowly began to wander off, chatting quietly among themselves.
Milton stepped forward onto the smoldering field, where lay what remained of the one who burned. Bending down he sifted through the ash and pulled out a glowing yellow sphere.
Examining it a moment, the cleric looked over at Scratch who had watching from what was the edge of the circle. "Looks like this belongs to you now" the older wizard said as he tossed the orb into the air. Scratch moved to catch it, but the orb seemed to be floating. Momentarily illuminating his face, the orb fell softly into Scratches out stretched hands.
Milton jumped on the back of his pony. "Come see me when you want to learn what is beyond the veil of this world without the aid of self immolation" and burst into a long cackling laugh that echoed among the hills as he rode off into the night.
Entered by: 0x4D04…5487 and preserved on chain (see transaction)
