The origins of Konoha

For as long as they’d written its history, Elysium’s great magical houses had self-organized themselves like families — without bond save that of power — each ruled by whoever best wielded the various affinities, those endless mixes between light and dark and earth and moon.

Some of them still quietly practiced the dark power of familiar amplification, a cruel and ancient technique that required the recruitment of untrained but magically sensitive young beings, ideally ones lacking a dream. Devoid of hope. Orphans worked best. They would be offered the chance to live their miserable lives out in comfort, whatever remained of them after their terms, of no less than one-half century, were up. In return, they would be trained in attunement and amplification of their house’s affinities, then forcibly shifted into a beast’s form in order to serve as familiars for the house’s most powerful members. Though their natural forms didn’t age while they were serving their terms, most survived about three years in the job.

Konoha had grown up as a tengu in Elysium. Even in that great city, he was always at arm’s length from most. On top of that, anyone who came near him couldn’t help but fear him, despite his warm and wry wit — but not because of the brick-red mask of his face. It was something they couldn’t put words to, but that flowed from Konoha like a river of lava. The roots of Konoha’s magics ranged deep and wide into this world and the next… he could see its roots shift when he closed his eyes, flashing like lightning.

Inevitably in Elysium, in cases of such powerful but untrained hexerai, the putative wizard would be sensed and recruited by one house or another, depending on their staffing needs. In Konoha’s case, it was a house of middle standing that first contacted him. He’d been so desperate to leave the shadow alleys of Elysium that he’d accepted immediately.

During his decade of training at the house, he’d fallen in love with a servant who’d been brought there during his third year. She’d never had a name, she told him, when he first approached her. He called her Bug. They would spend evenings together studying and laughing at his jokes in the unused pocket dimensions of the house, drinking the immaculate potions Konoha would brew for them behind his guardian father’s back. As his training progressed, Konoha’s magical connection became greater than any of the house’s wizards could control. He was to be assigned a familiar, so that his sorcery could be guided more carefully.

Bug knew that the truth of her recruitment and assignment as Konoha’s familiar would be too much for him to bear, and likely destroy them both in the process. Their house was ancient and cruel, turning like a mill through the centuries across the lives of Elysianian orphans like her. Konoha’s life would be extended unnaturally through the centuries, as a wizard — for one as powerful as he would some day be, she might even survive all the way through her conscription. Maybe, just maybe, they could be together then.

Konoha nearly went mad from broken heart left in the wake of Bug’s sudden disappearance. His guardian father told him the servants would sometimes run away to other houses, or get it in their head that they’d soaked up enough magic to turn a coin on the street.

After the assignment of his familiar, though, he felt much better. He named it Bug.

Entered by: 0xd26E…6A0E and preserved on chain (see transaction)