Flowers of Corruption

How had she gotten here?

Travelling, she’d been invited to a festival by normal people, apparently called “nonmages” by supernaturals who were people (“mages”). They were grateful she’d slain the Crone, since they lived just north of the edge of the jungle and had been worried about it emerging and terrorizing them. 

The festival had food (alas that she could neither smell nor taste it), flowers, colorful ribbons (a new concept to her), and most noticeably, a giant wicker equine on a stone pedestal emerging from the water and surrounded by the wooden planks of the stilt town’s square. At “the Feast of Flowering,” offerings were sacrificed- usually personal mementos and food and goods- to what were called the Patrons (including Grace and Destiny, and a third called Fortune) for a good year. She’d needed this all explained to her, to the flabbergastment of the villagers.

Obviously she’d come at her smallest size, which was still quite big! It was a party, after all! But a little camelid girl had been incredibly excited to see her, and confused why she was “small.” Her father had explained the Weeping Colossus only stood high as a tree when she wanted, and the child and her friend had begged to see her use her power. The adoration was adorable, and it was sweetness to her soul to stand before them at her scariest and be admired and appreciated instead of feared. In the confusion of the crowd reacting to the fact that the blob of black tar standing in the water near the celebrations to avoid crushing the boardwalk was suddenly bigger than the effigy that was bigger than their houses, she’d somehow been invited by a local leader of some sort to light the wicker giant, and as the fire consumed the effigy her old, party animal self had been unleashed, though she couldn’t exactly partake of all the celebrations. Food? Hanging out on the fragile boardwalk?  Impossible, but she could dance (a careful distance away) to the music and soak in the frenetic energy of the gathering, the happiness, and the hope. Labrea loved dancing, wild dancing and wild music and colors and song and tales and art. And with a nice view too! It was funny to her to be head and shoulders taller than this creature of wood and sticks the townsfolk had evidently worked so hard to make huge. Children had joined her in the algae scummed water, and they had a (careful) splash fight. Flopsy frolicked, a friendly ghost, and while people usually responded to the predator with unease all such reservations were gone today.

And then everyone near her scattered, melting back into the crowd on the boardwalk, who hushed and stilled on baited breath as a man in a green cloak took his stand on the plank’s edge and stared up at her. A golden badge glinted on his breast, and a polearm was strapped to his back, not currently wielded. Silver chains glinted at the cervid’s side, and his hooves were covered in mud.

“You weren’t hard to find,” he declared calmly, fully encompassed in her shadow as she eclipsed the sun before him. He read the asphalt words she’d written on the wood when the children had spoken to her. “Labrea.” The Weeping Colossus had gotten a little weary of her given title now that she knew what it meant; it was fine, she was even proud of it, but she had a name. Introductions were hard when everyone assumed they knew what you wanted to be called and you couldn’t speak. Instantly she liked the stranger despite his vaguely threatening aura and the reactions of those who had been around her.

“So. I think you know the procedure. You’ve made no effort to hide, and you’re a wild mage at large in the lands of Ivras; it’s my job to escort you to Namarast for training and control.”

Labrea blinked, blanking on what that all meant, and wrote hi on the boardwalk at his feet with her enchanted tar brush. 

“Salutations. Do you understand Ivratian?” That was the language. She nodded slowly but also side to side, as a so-so gesture. “Good. Do you have any questions?”

Questions about what…? She didn’t understand what a third of his words meant. repeet slowly please she wrote, reabsorbing the old words with her magic.

“Is there anything you want to ask me before we go?” the antlered man asked, scraping a cloven hoof across the soggy splinters.

Go where? Labrea asked.

“Namarast, ma’am. City of mages.” City meant huge tribe with giant buildings, like Faline. A whole city of mages? “All mages must report to the Archon’s Order for regulation and oversight.” Order? That was a tribe of mages, or an alliance. Archon? What was that? It owned the Order. Then a lot of big words. Why did he want to take her to a city? Who was he to make her go anywhere? All mages went there? She’d met lots who hadn’t? Was this something to do with the portal mage’s party she’d been invited to and warned against? But she hadn’t gone?

“You seem confused. Is there any way I can clarify that would assist your comprehension- that would help you understand?”

Moon upon the sun, the world had turned confusing just by existing long enough. With an exasperated sigh, or rather, a simulation of one given she didn’t breath, she wrote not from this time from time long long time back all is confuzig woak up at Crone.

Eyebrow raised, the man read the scribbled, poorly written sentence and gained a thoughtful expression. “Perhaps I have been too abrupt. My name is Adromidus. Who are you?”

Nobody had ever asked her that before. Not in this life.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a rare witchfinder who’d take their quarry aside, buy them a drink, and listen to their life story by a warm fire. Adromidus wasn’t exactly a typical mage hunter. But he got results, and his superiors had taken to sending him to certain types of cases before resorting to those with more standard tendencies.

That certain type of case was powerful mages who hadn’t shown a proclivity to violence. When he wasn’t assigned to those, he was sent on more typical missions- violent witches, crying witches, desperate children he was to extract from their families, normal witchfinder stuff. And he could certainly be violent- but that was only because he believed his task was an important one. He preferred more humane methods first, and possessed a calmness and way with words that made people listen to him where they might simply grow angry at others.

This was a powerful mage- she’d be inconvenient, costly, and dangerous to apprehend without her cooperation. This meant he was busy with her until he could convince her or it was decided they needed to send in the rougher hunters. Which meant other cases were being handled with the brutality and tact of a boulder hurled by a giant, breeding bitterness and rebellion where it could have been avoided, but that only meant he had better make this as quick as possible, which was to say, he had better take his time and avoid shortcuts.It wasn’t his concern how others handled their quarry in the meanwhile.

Partly it was manipulation, but most things were. Hunted mages seldom were offered a listening ear, and tired and worn out by the chase, and sometimes years of secrecy as well, a bit of decency could melt them like frost on a hot stone with luck. He counted on that exhaustion. They would have their rest once they acquiesced. 

But he also listened because they always had interesting stories. That interest was genuine, the same attention he gave to anyone he came across. Magic was intriguing; the curse and the danger didn’t stop that. People were intriguing. He got to meet particularly fascinating individuals. In all honesty he liked his job.

The Weeper was ancient, born in another era, and only recently reawoken from death by the Nightcursed Crone. Labrea had explained that in her current incarnation she was a living tar pit, reborn as the very thing that had killed her when she’d tried to save a wolf long, long ago from a terrible death. That wolf was her companion, her familiar, “Flopsy” as she called him. Unusual, in that most familiars were new beings, not existing individuals incorporated into a mage’s magic, and they were generally more intelligent than animals. Flopsy was simply a wolf, albeit a ghostly one, or a living tar beast, depending on Labrea’s wishes. He frolicked about the fair. Now that the witchfinder had revealed himself, others were skittish of interacting with the beast, fearing its connection to the illegal, free mage.

He wasn’t worried about the townsfolk. As long as they cooperated, they had nothing to fear from him. Their hospitality to a wild mage was good and decent given what she saved the region from. It wasn’t as though they could apprehend her anyway, and it had made it easier for him to catch up.

He listened, or read, really, as the asphalt mage reminisced of times so far gone the temporal distance could not really be comprehended, when great beasts now extinct roamed the earth and Corrupted monsters, mages, and the strange beings, places, and phenomena that sometimes were created as a result of their magic were all a part of the great, supernatural unknown, clumped together and meshed into legends and myths until what was real and what was fantasy coalesced into tales forever. She told of festivals and art and warriors and gathering and of sickness and rot, the decimation of her people, of surviving with those who endured the trials and living life to the fullest, of her final sacrifice that had not been the end. She told of awakening in darkness and sorrow, and waging war against the supernatural terrors that roamed the earth and skies. And that she was now a hero, destined to use this new strength to defend the changed world she’d awoken in, and forge her own legend before rejoining her ancestors.

He often liked his quarry, and this woman was no exception. There was a fire to her soul that glimmered even in poor writing, her determination and spirit shining forth. And she certainly told good stories. When she was done he bowed his head. “I thank you for taking the time to tell me your story. I think you deserve what I have to tell you as well.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adromidus told her tales of a great chief who brought order to the chaotic peoples of this land called Ivras. Ever since this unification, the descendents of this king chief had worked tirelessly to bring together the tribes and clans, spreading the rule of order ever southward. Kings had tamed not only the peoples and land, but magic, directing it towards the good of the nation and away from spreading havoc and disorder.

He told tales of a great worm who had once been the greatest mage in the land, who Corrupted into a terrible monster after years of letting many forms of power fester in her soul. “Do you know what this means?”

Labrea shook her head.

“Have you ever experienced a tainting of your soul?

She paused.

“You know what it feels like, don’t you?”

Maybe, she wrote. Her heart was pouding faster in her corpse. She wanted so desperately to confide in someone about the shard in her very being left like a scar in the wake of the Crone’s death. Can I tell you something? 

“You may tell me anything you wish.” She didn’t…like all this king stuff. She liked this man, though. It was all wrong but he seemed trustworthy, empathetic, kind even, and he listened and he knew things.

Crone left a pee- piese of her in me when she dead died I killed her. Dark black sadness cannot go away. How get rid? She paused, again. Was sad in life not want to get rid but scared. Was she scared of it? Not exactly but…she opposed its reach into her soul. Remembered, but not embraced, these dreams from another’s mind, this hollowness in the corner of her mind. Not scared. But new. mistree. What is??

“That, Labrea, is Corruption. A threat to all mages and those around them. All who are touched by magic risk becoming the monsters of your legends, the nightmares of millenia. Even you. This is why we safeguard mages, and the nation from them. Your power comes at great cost. Any mage who lives long enough will eventually become a scourge. Give in to power’s call, to the cracks in your soul, to the dissolution of self and heart, and the faster it comes. Most mages die before that could happen. But I doubt you age in your reborn form.”

She processed that, horror sinking, believing every word he said, because it was right. She knew the Crone had been a person. She'd heard the Pyre had been a mage but scarce believed it. Anyway, two could be a coincidence! It was impossible to measure the supernatural, to bind it in rules. But this confirmed...a path. A path that these beasts followed, heading toward death and the stars out of sinister yet humble beginnings.

“So come with me, to Namarast, and master yourself. Join heroes, if you wish, the Mage Protectors, to follow your calling. Serve your nation, though you knew it not in your youth.”

Does this cing fit fight

Adromidus tilted his head slightly. Birds sang in the marsh beyond the planks and huts, twittering harshly, calling across the waters. “His task is to organize a nation and cement stability. As a result, he was taught as a child the way of war with armies, of commanding and choosing commanders.”

Labrea felt fire rise acrid in her throat. Heroes were not the slaves of far gone chiefs in invisible lairs beyond sight who sent others to fight their battles. Who took lands without even setting foot there! I fight for no cheef who hides where he cannot be met, she wrote firmly and carefully and defiantly.

“Hm. Unfortunate, as you haven’t really got a choice in the matter, Labrea. I am the one they send to offer the easy way, but there are others who, with force and numbers, will drag you away in barrels if necessary.”

They can try.

He ignored that statement. “I don’t want you to be a prisoner. I want you to be a student. And if it is meeting King Gladius that will make the difference, you are of interest to many persons of note, and it could likely be arranged. He is…fond of magic, and would likely find you interesting. I serve and report to Archon Miriam, head of the Mage Order which you must join, but she serves and reports to the king.”

That sounded interesting, but also like a trap, and she was growing tired of this conversation. Talking nice will not change my mind. I am not slave. I am Labrea.

The Witchfinder shook his head and sighed. “Do you wish to learn how to combat Corruption?”

What wuld you do?? she asked, irked. This stank of being…some kind of leash. I nasty, awful, wretched threat she’d just been made aware of so these dogs could offer a cure in exchange for her life, for her presence in the land. This Nmaarast? To the north! Away from her home, the jungle! She would not be caged there. How could a cage cure a soul? It went against everything she believed in.

“Teach you to control it. Monitor it. Avoid it. The Order teaches discipline, mastery over magic in defiance of its power to control you. I'm a Tempest. I may have no magic, but I do know deeply what it is to let the fire burn within you, and let it burn, kindle it even, without unleashing. If you desire I can teach you mastery of the soul, how to relish the exstacy of inner vibrancy while perfectly, harmoniously preserving outward peace.”

How get riduv it, she wrote with her brush of tar, slowly, deliberately, like a parent trying to get their child to learn a simple instruction when they were not cooperating. Curupshin

“Very difficult, or impossible. Once tainted you are never cured.”

 Crushing blow, to hear that. She would be alright with what she had, but what if she Corrupted more? What had she done wrong to break her own soul? Her magic was a gift, not a curse, despite all appearances to the contrary. Living like it was just a trick of the world, or a poison? A sickness?

No.

And maybe he was wrong, anyway.

“I sense you are raising your walls against my words.” It was true. Despite the colors of the day and the cool breeze and gentle sun, flames of indignation were rising in her chest.

Why was I alloud to go and be and fight befor but not now.

“A complicated matter, madame. Some believed communication impossible with you, and decided your bravery in battle made it a worthy risk to let you roam. I knew otherwise. You are no dumb brute, and though you are good you must still be apprehended. Powerful as you are if you ever corrupt it will be a disaster on par with some of the worse beasts of late, and as we speak you are still growing in power at an alarming rate.Usually not a good sign. Who is to tell what you would become given years and years without oversight? I spoke up. The Archon spoke up, but the king forbade action, desiring to see how things would pan out on their own, as you seemed a Mage Protector in all but name. When it reached the Archon’s ears you were gazing upon forbidden stars-” How was she supposed to know it was forbidden to look at the sky?? What a horrible rule. She would never join this tribe! They tormented their protectors and sought to tame what should not be tamed! “-the Archon persuaded the king to lift this exception, and pursue. I requested the job. I followed, and I found.Things will be different from now on…”

In the distance came the sound of a great horn.

Adromidus smiled ironically, tiredly. “It looks like we must yet again set differences aside, Labrea. You are needed. Those who answer the call suffer no wrath until they have time to disappear again, though you seem incapable of that. Will you answer?”

Ah. Monster. It was so soon. But lots of things often happened to heroes all at once. She raised her head, and, squinting at the Archon’s dog, she turned her gaze toward the south, along the river. Messengers relayed the call, villagers running inside to find heirloom horns passed down through generations to blow the call and spread the word. A series of notes and tones, zinging clear and harsh and beautiful and loud through the sticky air. Though she did not know the code as of yet, others would tell her along the way: Southward, just within the jungle, near the river: not one, but two Corrupted ones.

She answered the horn, chasing destiny, glory for her people, and salvation for those who could not save themselves from things twisted beyond recognition. She would not live in fear of this King, or this Archon, or Corruption itself. This was her path. She'd never expected it to be easy.