Heads or Tails

The Haunted Village, a place that had perhaps been named a bit too aptly.

True, a lot of aspects regarding the place seemed to invite the idea that they might very well be haunted, though in truth, the village itself did not seem that out of the ordinary. The surroundings were however quite optimal for whichever being might want to go bumping around in the night. With the temple not far from the village apparently being the place these people believed to be the cause of the hauntings, it made a modicum of sense to Thagirion why the people that dwelled here were afraid to venture too far from their village. The way they saw it, if they ventured too far, chances were that they would get snagged up by whatever it was that they believed might be out there. In that regard, staying inside was a rather sound strategy if the place had been more sturdy.

Ever since he had started blending in to the village in the guise of an old man, Thagirion managed to get quite a bit of information out of the people there. Among other things, he had managed to use it to fabricate a backstory as to where he had come from and who he was acquainted to, easing the great amount of distrust the villagers felt towards him at first. It also taught him that the people here were probably better of dead and buried.

Had anyone other than him made such a claim, it might have been considered to be out of the ordinary, though that was not the case with Thagirion. Given the kind of being that he was, the lack of a human soul and feelings towards such beings was not that farfetched. He did not experience feelings and emotions like humans did, allowing him to look at things in far more direct ways that some would consider black and white. With him judging these people to probably be better off dead, he based it on the fact that they were depending on other people, outsiders, to bring them food and other resources they needed to survive as the vast majority was simply too afraid to venture outside. That, and the things they actually did do were hardly productive as many just drank themselves half to death in the local pub while the rest was at home, cowering and planning new ways in which to protect themselves from the supernatural.

Part of him wanted to just put the whole place out of its misery, though on the other hand, it was the perfect location for him to work out a small plan he had devised. While it was likely that the people would end up even more scared, there was a fraction of a possibility that it might prove to them that merely locking themselves up inside of their homes would not be enough to keep them safe. It should show them that if something wanted to get to them, it would not be held back by a few wooden walls, doors and barred windows.

Sitting in a rickety old chair on the porch of the pub, the old man looked out into the distance. Usually, people from the outside world would stop by the place to seek their fortune in one way or the other. While some sought fame by quelling the spirits from the temple, killing supernatural creatures dwelling around the village’s borders or by simply seeing to the fact that they would be able to eat for a few more weeks, there were also those who just came for their own reasons. The temple did seem to hold some things that might have been of value to some, the hauntings being the sole reason why they had not all been looted yet. For his plan to work though, Thagirion would need to locate a bunch of people from the outside world that could either prove to the villagers that the world was less scary than they thought due to the people protecting them from the evil forces.

That, or they would end up proving that life out here was meaningless and that they should just go about taking their own lives before they could be brutally murdered by beings from the nether realms. Regardless of the outcome, Thagirion really just wanted to see how this would all end up. Comparing the situation he was soon going to create to the flipping of a coin, it was either going to end up heads or tails. Right or wrong. Good or bad. For now, he just closed his eyes and scoped out his surroundings through means other than sight as he simply relaxed in his seat.


787

appearance:

The Haunted Village was a notoriously Haunted place. The citizens were scared witless of the supernatural beasts which existed throughout the surrounding area, and locked themselves away at the first sign of trouble. If rumors were to be believed even the wind blowing too hard on a less than sunny day could clear the whole community back to the relative safety of their various hovels. If more ominous rumors were to be believed, all their problems stemmed from a nearby temple.

This temple had yet to be fully explored, since it was polluted with spirits, which scared off people seeking profitable, and more importantly, stable, income.  That of course meant that there was any number of valuable relic not yet excavated. Anything could be in there, from heiroglyphic slabs in an ancient tongue to secret superweapons that aught to be more securely contained.

Cue a stern yet exciteable upstart from the Silver Wolf Guild catching wind of this information. While there was no posted job for it, he figured that the limits of his exploration needn't be restricted by the comings and goings of clientelle. Clients, after all, were always after something. The promise of museum-worthy relics was never on the table if there wasn't a great sum of danger on the line, or there wasn't some greater, more museum-worthy or even dangerous relic that they wanted.

No, there was no way to ascertain the whims of a client until the very end of a job. At least, that's what his dad, a former Silver Wolf Hunter who had retired to Scholar, had told him. In honest truth, this upstart was not experienced in the real world in the least. The fact that he opted to do this adventure in lieu of, say, a job where a fourteen year old might not find himself in danger, was a testament to that.

Still, let none say that he wasn't gung-ho about his duties.

He strolled into the village having unsurprisingly bumped into no resistance whatsoever. Well, he felt like it was strolling, but in reality, he had this incredibly focused look on his face. The bubble gum colored mane on his head paired with this expression had somehow managed to look just predatory enough to scare off any wild animals that would have approached him. All without him noticing. To tell the truth he wasn't even dressed to scare, just some typical adventuring gear complete with a backpack.

As if to compound this humorous happenstance, he managed to scare a couple of citizens back into their huts as well. They dared not approach him, seeing the intent of a trained killer in his eyes. One almost brave soul would confront him near the middle of the village, "Y-y-you! W-wh-what business have you with us!?"

As if on cue, his expression lightened up, revealing that it had been a fourteen year old kid the whole time, and not some stone cold mercenary with more confirmed kills that the village's current population! Who would have guessed? His eyes lit up as though somebody had gifted him with his favorite candy, and he spoke in a raspy adolescent tenor, "Oh hey there! Uhh can you point me in the direction of the temple you guys are afraid of? I want to explore it."

With a totally straight face, innocent even, he said those most dreaded of words. "Wh-what!? No way a kid can go in there! That place is haunted you know!?" spoke the concerned villager in utter shock.

The young man nodded with a growing smile, "Yeah! That's why I want to explore it, you know!?" He spoke loudly, as if mirroring his conversational partner. After a beat, he would perk up with an "Oh! Maybe if I show you this." With a bit of fiddling he managed to expose a layer of his skin on his hip, containing a bubblegum pink tattoo shaped like a wolf, "I'm a guild mage, I can totally handle myself if I bump into any ghosts: Yogi Babel from Silver Wolf."

Without much regard for the blatant disregard for how strong ghosts can get and drastic overestimation of his own talents, "Y-yogi? But you've gotta be in your early teens..." An impasse formed with as little as that.

Sitting back in his chair, the old man seemed like he was asleep to most of the onlookers that wandered past, out or into the tavern. Even though his eyes were closed and his body was in an overly relaxed state, his magic was watching everything going on around him in a range wide enough to cover most of the village. Intricate enough to let him figure out ones magical power, their scent and even make a rough estimate as to what their weight might be based on the noise made by their boots pushing down on the pavement, it was a very effective tool for him to keep an eye out for any potential threats and worthwhile targets. As such, two people entering the village around roughly the same time did not go unnoticed by the elderly man, who just grinned a bit, giving off the appearance of an old man having pleasant dreams in his rocking chair.

Hearing and feeling everything going on around him up to almost an entire kilometer, the first name he heard was Yogi Babel, who seemed to be a member of some odd guild called Silver Wolf. While he was himself not at all familiar with it, the memories of his body seemed to have heard of them before, as was to be expected from a person that used to be a wizard saint. Judging by the overall vibe of it, it seemed that he had heard some less positive things about them during his time as a wandering mage. But that did not matter as it would not influence Thagirion’s reasoning in the slightest, he just used it as a bit of feedback. What made it somewhat more interesting was that this person was apparently interested in exploring the supposedly haunted temple. This was something he could most certainly work with, though he would hold off on starting things for a bit longer.

Based on the way he spoke, Yogi seemed to be a pretty confident person, albeit bordering on overconfidence. Again, this was something he could work with. Confidence was always something the old man could appreciate as it made situations so much more interesting. Turning his attention towards the other person that entered the village, he could not make a whole lot out of it. This guy did not speak to anyone, nor did anyone speak to him, meaning there was little to nothing to go on for the time being. But that did no matter much to him. Judging by the general trajectory, the two newcomers would likely run into one another soon enough. Whether they would strike up a conversation or not was not something he could plan for, but it was worth waiting around for. After all, Thagirion really only needed for the two of them to be in the same general area.

Whether one of them was just a fortune seeker looking to find something of worth within the temple or if he wanted to do something about the ghosts for the locals was quite trivial. The same could be said about the quiet person, whether he was a good or a bad person with heroic tendencies or not did not make a difference in the grander scheme of things. Once one got thrust into danger, they had to defend themselves, run away or get killed, that was more or less all there was to it. Time would tell whether these guys would be the kind that would look after the civilians, fend for themselves or would just run away like the cowards that most humans were. Biding his time, Thagirion kept up the charade of being asleep while he would closely monitor the situation before setting anything into motion.


1429

After a few minutes of trying futilely to convince a random concerned citizen that he was well and truly able to take care of himself, Yogi had decided that this was going nowhere and abandoned that conversation like the sinking ship it was. "Thanks for your time sir. No worries, I'll figure it out," he would say earnestly, before walking away. The man he'd been conversing with tried to reach out to convince him still, but he would give up fairly quickly as he was afraid of invoking the wrath of a guild mage.

Non-Legal status had its benefits, after all.

Still, bereft of an easy source of directions, he would pop open a nice, generic map of Fiore and a compass to get his bearings. A temple could be huge or it could be small and easily missed so he was relying on the accuracy of the map to get him at least close enough to see it. Of course, this distraction would  result in him paying no mind to his surroundings, and he wound up bumping into another person who happened to be out and about. Upon feeling himself brush against this person, he would jump as though startled and fall over onto his hind-end, dropping his map into a nearby puddle. "Aw dang..." he would complain as he scooped it out. The corner nearest his guild hall was soaked and the ink was running. "I knew I should've splurged and gotten the magic map..." Yogi lamented. At least his compass survived the tumble relatively unscathed.

He pulled out a towel and pressed the wet section of the map between its sections, while trying to apologize for his missteps, "S-sorry, Mister. I should've been watching my surroundings." At last he would look up and see the man's stature, and more importantly his amazing lab coat. Was he wearing leeks on his head? "Oh are you a researcher too?" Yogi asked somewhat innocently. Saying 'too' was a stretch, but since he was here to research the temple ruins, it wasn't as though he was lying.

The moment was almost at hand, and all it had taken had been a bit of patience mixed with sheer coincidence. For as fate would have it, the two bumped into one another entirely by accident after the Silver Wolf had managed to shake the person that was so hard at work to try and keep him from going to the temple and putting himself into harms way. If he had the capacity for compassion, he might find the concept endearing, but he clearly did not. At this point, it just seemed odd to the old man how someone would go through so much trouble to keep someone from getting into trouble when they so clearly wished to be doing what they wanted.

In his opinion, if someone wanted to walk straight into a fire-filled pit of death because there might be a few bucks at the bottom of it, they should be allowed to do just that. If they died in the process, it would have been the result of their own shortsightedness and greed, not of the person that failed to warn them. But Thagirion was simple like that. He was the kind of person who desired results more than worrying about how those results had been obtained. In a sense, that made him into very much of a grey area kind of person, though he understood humanity well enough by now to know that sometimes one had to stick to the white or the black areas too. Even if it was just to throw people off of his trail, which was something he had been needing to do fairly often during his first months on earthland.

Opening his eyes, the old man made it look like he just woke up with a fake yawn and a good stretch, taking to the streets only a couple of moments later. Making sure he did not move too fast on account of being old, he still kept things light as he was not “that” old either. Clearly hearing everything the two mages were saying to one another as he gradually approached them, he let them finish up their bit of the conversation as the distance between them was closing. As they spoke, he thought about what it was that he wanted to say to them, as well as what might be the best way to set things up for them to show him exactly what they were capable of and what they were willing to do for the locals. Keeping a fairly stern expression on his face, he stopped a few steps away from the two as he spoke out.

“Ah outsiders, we don’t get a lot of you around here most days. Usually, people are too afeared of the ghosts and monsters, though I’ve lived here all my life and I’m still kicking. The name is Rob, and I’ve been keeping an eye on things here since the two of you were still swimming laps inside your dad.”

Smiling as he cracked up a bit at his own joke, Thagirion figured that was a good way to start things off. In truth, he had always thought it strange that the creatures of the material universe had to commit to an act known as procreation in order to create offspring, which seemed like a very strange and unpleasant thing altogether. To have to squeeze out a small human as it grew inside of a person was not something he considered normal. But all of that did not matter right now. Opening the conversation with what most humans called “small talk” and “jokes”, he imagined the ice was broken up enough for him to cut into the cake a bit more deeply. From experience, it seemed that people were more likely to talk once some introduction had been provided, though only time would tell whether that would work out in this case too.

“What brought you gentlemen here, if I may be so bold as to ask such things. Normally, the only people who come here only deliver goods or pass along straight to the temple or the nearby woods. Fortune seeker or package delivery, which one are ya”.


2126

Yogi would catch the hint of a combined accent in the voice of his newly collided conversational partner, but didn't really have anything to say about it since it wasn't too thick to decipher. The man seemed to accept his apology indirectly by affirming his missteps with a smile that didn't seem all too malevolent. That was good, at least. For an instant, he thought he may have caught a crimson gaze but the man's adjusted position made it harder to verify that, especially since the young mage hadn't quite taken the time earlier to ascertain his suspicions. Those goggles, or were they glasses, were glaring in the light too hard to make heads or tails of what was behind them. Like two pale disks which contained no eyes at all.

Nonetheless he continued, and found that his suspicions regarding leek-haired man's status as a researcher was totally correct, as such analysis of a gentleman in a labcoat tends to be. Though it lead to the man asking Yogi a question that he himself was intending to ask. All he knew was that the temple existed, but it was tough to locate without a decent map. "Well, uhh, yeah there's this temple nearby that is supposedly haunted and—" he would answer the fellow researcher, though he was cut off by the intervention of a local old man.

This man was wrinkled with age, had the dull greys of experience, absolutely brimming with knowledge like a prune ripe for the juicing. Old people in remote places always knew the most about the surrounding areas, and thusly were just as invaluable a resource as textbooks and relics, though not quite as storable.

The old man introduced himself as 'Rob' which was a bland name, but Yogi rather liked it. He also seemed to be far more jaded to the concept of hauntings and outsiders, likely also due to old age. After all, an old man in a field where many die young is a sure sign of experience and power. There was no way to be certain but Yogi was already certain something was up with this guy. Not in a bad way, but he immediately gleaned a suspicion that Rob was a retired master swordsman or something.

"Good to meet ya Rob! I'm Yogi Babel, " Yogi would introduce himself cheerfully in turn. With a smile on his face, diplomatic relations were assured. Well, he thought that about the last local he talked to as well, but there was clearly a difference in values there that was irreconcilable. Here, though, this old man was certainly a more upbeat individual, and he seemed keen on getting the four-one-one on their intentions. The young mage had no real reason to hide his desires.

"I fall closest to 'fortune-seeker', though I just want to probe the nearby haunted temple for ancient relics any explorers may have missed. Even a slab of rock manuscript would be a huge find for my guild," he would reply to old man Rob's totally innocent question.

“So, a fortune-seeker and .. something else. Well, I can’t say that this place was not up for some fresh meat with a straight face. The people here are generally paranoid, believing all within the outskirts remains safe while everything outside of its borders is, well, up for grabs by the local spirits and monsters. Strange as it may sound, for all of the years I’ve lived here, I’ve be-”

Suddenly being interrupted mid-speech, a loud and high-pitched screech rang throughout the streets as it bounced between the buildings. Turning his attention towards it, the old man was fully aware of what was going on already as he had been the one to instigate it in the first place. At the start of their conversation, he had already initiated one of his spells which had gradually been spreading and most likely still did exactly that. Converting the soil into loose and swampy terrain, the people standing on top of it would find that the swamp itself was dangerous and quite deep. Easily being deep enough to drown people, those that did not struggle would normally find that they would sink a whole lot slower and would have more time before they would become submerged. But judging by the screaming, it seemed that these normally home-bound citizens did not possess that kind of knowledge.

Without saying a word, the old man turned himself around and started venturing towards the source of the screaming at a pace that seemed normal for someone his age. Once he got within visual range, it became clear to all onlookers that there was another hidden threat to this swamp that certainly seemed supernatural. Watching how some of the other citizens had grabbed ropes, chairs or whatever else they could get their hands on in order to help their relatives. Even though he had just started, Thagirion was already somewhat amazed by how some of these people that were normally afraid of their own shadows were now going out of their way to try and save others. On the other hand, the sheer amount of people that were running straight for the safety of their own home were about exactly what he had expected from them. While he would not physically show it, he already knew what he was going to do to these people somewhere down the line.

For the time being though, the old man grabbed hold of one of the ropes and helped some of the other villagers towards tugging someone out of the murky swamp which was starting to seem more and more alive. Tugging as hard as they could, it would become clear to those that were hard at work towards saving others that the people inside of the swamp were being held down by human-shaped hands made from the same swampy soil. At this point, more of the villagers were making their way inside of nearby houses that had not already been barred up from the inside. It was as Thagirion had imagined, people this superstitious only needed the slightest nudge in order to believe that a situation was beyond saving. With this crowd of people, that nudge seemed to be related to spirits and ghosts, which was not all that hard for him to believe. Still, it couldn’t hurt to get some confirmation on his beliefs, which was exactly what he had gained from this already.

“Some help would be much appreciated!”

Yelling out at the two new arrivals to get their hands out of their pockets and jump into actions, the old man himself just kept tugging at the rope that was attached to one of the various villagers that had gotten themselves caught up in the swamp. With the hands reaching out from the swamp making it much tougher on those trying to free the people, it began too look bleaker by the minute as people struggled to stay above the ground, which only dragged them in deeper. By now, it was clear that people possessing magical capabilities were very much needed as a means of backing up these civilians, if not taking control of the situation and seeing to it that any casualties might be avoided.


2826

The old man certainly seemed friendly, though he seemed to be the sort of friendly where he was looking for people to help him move or something. Yogi, unfortunately, knew the sort, since there was very few magics more suitable to moving houses than one which moved a house. Rob, nice as he were, wanted something done. That was probably going to be the price for information, which admittedly, was superior to an hour long debate on the ethics of agism in the mage-civilian dynamic. A bit of exposition was due, but it was cut off by an example lesson.

Suddenly there was screeching, a fearful sort which echoed throughout the village. Yogi whirled around to see what was up, and began running ahead to get into eyeshot, "Pardon me, sirs!" Once he got a good ways from that conversation, he could see quite the scene. It appeared that the swamp from the outskirts was encroaching into the Village proper and causing people to get absorbed into it like quicksand. Many panicked villagers were struggling against it, sinking quickly.

"Ah geez! That's a big problem!" Yogi would exclaim, also panicking though less for his life and more for the suddenness of the situation. The young mage would begin to think around the problem. What would Mathis have him do in this scenario? Observe, analyze, act: Three steps to solving problems. Okay maybe Mathis wasn't responsible for that one, but it was a process Yogi had been working on since starting his lessons with him.

First step: Observe.

Yogi focused, his eyes growing sharper and more concentrated, his brow line furrowing until a fierce wrinkle formed. That lion-esque face of a predator looking for every action and opening of his prey. The villagers who were yet to fall into the swamp were split between groups running home and groups grabbing stuff to help friends and loved ones. That much checked out, but there was more to this swamps. As people were managing to be pulled free, he noticed the slimey mud was shaped into hands which tried to drag them back in, like crabs in a bucket. That meant for every one person helping out there was many others in the swamp pulling back. The swamp continued to encroach further which meant that the helpers  with shorter sticks were endangering themselves.

Second step: Analyze.

The situation at hand was a bad one, but there was still ways that a kid like him could help. Mostly because a kid like him knew a fairly powerful larger-scale sort of magic suitable for a situation like this. Alright, he was still just a fledgeling and would be a lot more useful were he more experienced, but that wasn't going to stop him. He noticed that there were several people towards the middle of the encroaching swamp who would be too far out of reach for the layman. That was where he was needed.

'Some help would be appreciated!'

Last step, Act.

His face sprang back to normal with Rob's call to action. How did he get there so quick? How long had he been thinking? It didn't matter, he had a plan. "On it!" declared Yogi in affirmation of the dire situation.

The young mage would hastily run to the edge of the swamp, and snapped his fingers in a single whipping motion ending in pointing to the middle of this encroaching menace, "King's Call!" Suddenly a large puff of smoke some twelve meters high and eight or so wide would appear in a modest gap between civilians, before clearing away to reveal what looked like a giant rook piece from chess, crafted from stone with a single wooden door on the side and a hatch onto the battlement. Yogi's Palace. It began to sink somewhat but since it lacked the ability to struggle it didn't go very quickly. "Everyone in the middle, grab hold and link arms with somebody nearby if they can't reach!" Yogi shouted to the panicking civilians, as a series of long ropes would eject from the hatch and fall down the side of the palace.

When civilians grabbed onto the ropes they found them to be quite taut, likely tied onto a stairwell in the Palace. Yogi had been experimenting with stored material manipulation, and this situation certainly called for him to prove his time to not be wasted. Once every civilian who could hear and enforce his orders had been suitably secured via rope or arm link in a myriad of chains, Yogi would run several step away, having taken measure of the length of the chain they had formed.

"Alright, now King's Guard!" Yogi declared before two puffs of smoke formed, both considerably larger than before, one where his Palace was and one centered on Yogi's coordinates. When the smoke cleared, Palace was back on solid land, and so were a couple dozen terrified villagers who were splayed on the ground in a few clumsy circles around the Palace. The front door would open and Yogi would step out, with some swamp sludge leaking out onto the ground just outside his Palace's front door, and covering his shoes and socks. "Gross... this is gonna be so hard to clean..." he complained, before looking out into the still-encroaching  swamp.

How many more could he save?

TL;DR:

One by one, the two seemed to get into action in their own ways. When he said in their own way, it seemed that they both had some kind of preparation process which could have cost lives, something they had likely not been taking into their assessment. While Rob was pulling on one of the ropes, they seemed to both just be standing there, watching as the situation would unfold before blindly jumping into the fray. Whereas Yogi was just carefully observing and assessing the situation, the man that has of yet refrained from giving his name was doing so through magical means. While he could not be entirely certain, what he was doing seemed to be some kind of magical assessment that would help him deal with the situation in a way that would put himself into the least possible risk. Even though they risked lives waiting around, Thagirion respected their process, albeit for reasons most would most likely find grotesque.

Anyone could just go in guns blazing, though the chances of a situation backfiring on them without proper planning ahead of time were quite large. So while time was of the essence, going about saving others without putting themselves in harms way deserved at least some praise. Feeling a fluctuation in magic power again, this time coming from Yogi, a strange earthen structure had been summoned into the swamp. Uncertain as to the kind of magic that was being used, he could tell that this was not the kind of magic he could tap in through means of his own. In that regard, there was a rather solid difference between the magics of the nameless man and Yogi. Finally pulling the one attached to the rope he was tugging on, Rob took a few steps back to witness everything that was going in with the full extent of all of his senses.

The strange earthen structure was sinking due to the weight of it, though the fact that there were a lot of ropes attached to it that were helping the people get dragged out of the quicksand-like substance gave the victims some modicum of hope. With magical aid now being well under way, the earthen hands coming up from the murk were not letting up, making it a continuous problem that would need dealing with at some point. Taking a handful of people out of the swamp and onto the structure sitting in the middle of it all, Rob could see that the unnamed guy had also started dragging people out with his own, strange type of magic. On first glance, it seemed like what he was using was some sort of body modification magic which currently allowed him to extend his limbs quite far across the swamp. Gripping and dragging people out from a safe location, it was clear that the arms could not keep up with this quick method of dragging.

Cataloguing the magic he witnessed in front of him, at least the ones which were not outside the scopes of his own magical prowess, Rob watched as people were being flung from the swamps and unto the nearby rooftops. While the tossing seemed somewhat careless, they were at least tossed at a location where they would likely remain safe from the swamp beneath them. Turning his attention once more when the large structure suddenly poofed away with all of the people that had been gathering on top of it, it appeared again in the blink of an eye. Doing so at a safe location outside of the swamp, those riding the top of it made their way off and ran all the way to the other side of the village. Normally, one might consider not stopping there and running much, much further, though these superstitious folks were far too afraid of what might await them out there to even consider crossing the borders of the town.

During all of the hectic lifesaving magic action, the fact that the swamp was spreading underneath the surface had gone mostly unnoticed for some time now. So when the ground suddenly cracked open to show more of the murky liquid underneath came as quite a shock to most of the people who were still sticking around. Causing the foundation of two nearby buildings to falter, part of the structure broke off and fell onto the swamp. While the planks themselves would float and the bigger portions of the structure would take quite some time to actually sink, the arms reaching out had seemingly increased their reach and the strength with which they resumed their single-minded goal of dragging people down into the depths.

As this was really all his doing, Rob was just slowly increasing the potency of his spell whenever he felt the need for it. At this point, he felt like he needed to. Just moments before all of this, the mages and the citizens of the town had been given Hope, a powerful yet fickle thing that could make or break a situation. Believing that the mages here would be able to save them without any real problems, Rob had allowed them all to believe that that was truly all there was to it. Though they were very wrong in making such assumptions. The people thrown onto the nearby rooftops were the first to find out that hope was fickle when the structures they sat upon now went along with them into the swamp, putting them right back where they had started out. As hard as it might have been to believe, Rob had not done this for the sake of being an asshole, as there was a train of thought behind the otherwise senseless chaos.

When presented with hope, humans felt like there was nothing they could not do, that there was no obstacle they could not surpass. Present them with the exact opposite, and they would wilt like flowers. Where there had been faces filled with hopefulness before, they now expressed Despair. And that same despair was what Rob wanted to see. When faced with such hopelessness, would these citizens and mages continue to do their best in order to save others, or would they choose to be content with the people they had saved so far and call it quits before their own health became subject to change.

“Well fuck…. What do we do now?”


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While there wasn't what one might call despair on Yogi's face, due in part to a lack of empathy, the young mage did had a somewhat stressed appearance. He hadn't accounted for the swamp reaching underground, let alone so quickly. As some nearby houses began to have their foundations rocked by the ongoing tragedy, he needed time to think. Obviously, with very little if any time to think at all, the pink-maned mage was operating large machinery with no plan. The best he could do is act like a wrecking ball in this state of momentary upheaval.

"That's a messy turn of events..." he would comment in a half-deadpan tone of voice, "Alright folks, the ride's over, hit the bricks and get moving! There's a long line, apparently!" The rescued civilians, or rather those who hadn't moved by now would scramble to their feet and trot off. The palace was now cleared for additional use, not that it meant much. It was a sizable stone tower after all, it could have weight as much as one of these wooden village houses. Were it to put it too close to one of the houses, he could capsize both of them. It was times like these that Yogi regretted never picking up a magic that could be used for more precision matters.

"Stretchy science man! I can't do anything about the buildings without making it worse. I'll keep clearing out the main swamp, please help those who are trapped!?" Yogi would decide. He was a born tactician after all. Why would he go so far as to try and do everything himself  when there were perfectly serviceable alternatives? His leek-haired acquaintance was much smaller and lighter than a house, and could feasibly reach to rooftops from a safe position. Sure it wouldn't be as quickly as taking dozens of people at once, but it came without the risk of literally flipping an entire house like an unfortunate pancake.

Plus, both rescuers focusing on the roofs in a time like this would be leaving those still stuck in the main swamp to sink, and that was just objectively ineffectual. Yogi would start his process over again: He approached the main swamp carefully, looked for who needed rescuing and wouldn't be able to receive it from the helpers on the shore, and sent his palace into the swamp, nearby them, had them grab onto the ropes or the tower itself, and hauled them out with a position shift once enough people were secured.

The young mage couldn't pretend it wasn't a taxing process, but with the sheer number of people he could help at once with this combination of spells, he pushed through the accumulating fatigue. He could do at least this much, after all. Looking over it all, he thought of long term solutions, while he was catching his breath. "The main problem here is the swamp itself. If it keeps expanding, then the whole village will be consumed..." he would analyze, "If only we had some way to exorcise spirits on hand. Would that even work here?" Yogi wondered if any of these houses had some way to exorcise or banish spirits on hand. How else would the laymen of the village get rid of the local ghosts, right?

It was very much expected that many of the villagers were no longer in a helping mood as they realized just how unprepared they were when it came to dealing with these kinds of things. Looking around as the people in the muddy soil were starting to give up hope, Rob again looked towards the mages that were still figuring out what to do. Unfortunate, as he had hoped that the two would have come up with something that would at least turn the tide to be slightly less in their favor. If things continued as they went now, there wouldn’t be anyone left for them to save, and they risked getting themselves killed by just analyzing. Perhaps it was time for him to toss them a bone, both to make them hurry up and stop wasting time and to point them in the right direction. When Yogi brought up something the people of the village might have used to ward of spirits, Rob knew that now was the time to start doing some of the pointing.

“Legend has it that there is something at the heart of the temple, an old relic that keeps the spirits of the dead inside while drawing in wandering spirits as well. If there was to be anything out here that could have any hopes of stopping the spread, there is a good chance that it is down there.”

As if responding to the fact that a possible way out had been given for the two mages with which they could fix the situation, the swampy soil started bubbling and moving ominously. Followed by parts of swamp withdrawing in the form of some sort of sinkhole, it took a little while before they would fully disappear. During the time they were there though, the people around it were starting to sink deeper and deeper as two people already disappeared beneath the surface. Not long after they did, the places where the sinkholes had appeared seemingly exploded, sending bits and pieces of mud and goop everywhere in chunks of various sizes. Though not seeming like much at first, it was only when the mud started to move that the larger chunks proved to contain skeletal creatures within. Being roughly the size of your average human being, there were some portions about them that seemed off.

One of them had a pointy tail, one possessed clawed fingerbones, another had strange kinds of legs that seemed to allow it to move on both two and four limbs while the last possessed several sets of sharp fangs that were nowhere near human. Releasing inhuman howls that shot even greater levels of fear into the hearts and minds of onlookers and those that were already running for their lives, small battles were starting to erupt in the streets as one villager fended off another that was trying to forcefully enter their home for safety. To say that this situation truly showed the worst of humanity was perhaps a bit of an understatement, judging by how far things were escalating. With the swamp slowly but surely expanding, buildings starting to crumble along the edges of the marsh and skeletal creatures being regurgitated as the first villagers the mages failed to save started walking about, fear was perhaps the only legitimate sensation by now.  

As the skeletal creatures were starting to make their way down to the people, their purpose for coming down was quite clear. They came with the intention of killing whoever they could, the two mages being no exception to this rule. Knowing that there was no longer anything he could do, Rob made his way towards the pub as the first of the skeletal creatures jumped down the roof near him. Diving for cover, a loud crack could be heard as the old man hit the floor. Having hurt himself rather badly, the previously somewhat heroic behavior he tried to show had drained away as the pain set in. Crawling his way to the safety of the pub’s patio, he made sure to stay well behind the two mages while huddling among several other villagers that were also hiding there. All of this posed the mages with a few possibilities, as someone would likely need to venture towards the temple in order to bring back whatever it was that kept the spirits in check. Doing so, however, brought with it some complications.

If they both left, the villagers would be long dead by the time they came back, after which they would likely need to face much more of the skeletons, thus making the retrieval of the item rather pointless. If neither of them went, there was no way of knowing where or when the swamp would stop advancing, though they would most likely be able to protect the people, most of them at least. But if one of them went, they would leave the most equipped one of the two to deal with the attacking monsters while the other could go find the way to making the skeletal creatures and the swamp go away, thus turning the place back to normal. Hopefully, things had been made plenty clear for the two, for if they wasted any more time analyzing the situation, they would have far more deaths on their hands.


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Old man Rob would give a little bit of exposition to the local spirits, and how one might get rid of them. Though Yogi didn't really ask, it was the information he'd been planning on seeking out once the swamp was done misbehaving. Suddenly that joke appeared to truly be the case, and the young mage watched the swampy water slurp itself into a chasm. It wasn't long after the fact, that numerous globs of swamp goop were fired up onto the village's remaining landmass, filled with human remains like something out of a horror movie. This simile was only enhanced when they started to take shape, forming into shambling abominations.

"Monsters huh?" Yogi would note with a hint of disinterest in his voice. That settled it, there was definitely some kind of ringleader to this attack. This wasn't some normal kind of haunted event, the spirits playing tricks or stealing folks away. This was a whole cluster of targeted events, a calamity brought about on purpose.

The pink-maned mage would shake his head as Rob made his way to try and get some cover, only to break his hip or something when a monster was so close by. He didn't know what to do except for that relic in the temple. "Rescue operations have changed, I can't use my offensive spells with this many civilians in close proximity, but I'm not afraid to damage a temple a little bit, so I'll do that and find the relic. I'm trusting you to fend off those monsters while I'm gone," Yogi would blurt out with no real time to talk it out. Part of him wished there were some way to pause and consider, but now that more malevolent beasts were ready to actively cause some harm, they both needed to act quickly. Plus, he'd been here to hunt some relics anyways, so this would give him a pointed direction to work with.

The young mage would run while checking his map, needing to trust his sense of direction. Before long he was already inside the forest, headed in about the proper direction to reach the haunted temple. "Come on, Yogi, faster, faster," he told himself. His feet picked up the pace as he willed himself forward. It wouldn't be too terribly long before he reached the old temple, needing to curve his path once it was in eyeshot.

Yogi would slow down once he reached the temple stairway, looking around to make sure he wasn't about to fall into some lame pit trap or anything. The last thing he needed was to rush into a temple and get bumped off by the first trap the angry spirits had set for him. As he ascended the steps and made his way into the open front of the temple, he readied himself for any sort of resistance he may meet. "It's quiet here... too quiet..." he said as if purposefully invoking a particularly generic action movie trope for amusement.

Following up on the advice he had been given, Yogi made it clear that he would be heading over to the temple in order to come back with the artifact that would supposedly be down there. Delighted in the thought that these mages were of the kind that would willingly put themselves in danger for the sake of helping others by splitting up, and even took the advice from a total stranger for the sake of furthering their cause. While huddled together, one of the civilians managed to open the door to the tavern, allowing them to all start making their way into the building. As they all did so, Rob could see that after Yogi had left the place, the other guy used some peculiar means to just up and vanish. This did not sit well with him at all, because now, there would be no one left to protect the civilians from their now certain deaths. How very droll.

As the door got shut and locked with Rob safely inside, he closed his eyes for a moment as the people that had been submerged were returned to the surface by the same arms that drawn them in. At the same time, the swamp stopped moving as fast as it did to the point where it now nearly expanded itself at all. There was no fun in doing any of this while his designated targets were not even around, so he could care less about what happened here. That said, sooner or later, the two mages would probably return, so the swamp would need to stay in place and gradually continue drawing in more of the village. Or rather, one of them was bound to return while the other had just outright vanished, refusing to protect the village and leaving the people to fend for themselves. When he thought about it for a moment, it was not all that shocking that the guy who failed to provide a name was also the one to ditch people.

During all of the chaos inside of the building, Rob sank into the shadows as the darkness moved along the floor. Passing under the door and making his way outside, the skeletons noticed the shade moving away from the village at a very fast pace, making its way towards the temple. Slithering across the floor at high speed, the skeletons abandoned the village and followed it as fast as they could. The way he was now, the dark being could cross fair distances in little to no time at all, and since the temple itself was not that far from the village to begin with, catching up just in time to see both Yogi and the other guy entering into the old building one after the other was well within his current range of possibilities. Waiting long enough for them to make their way into the building, the crawling shadow split itself up into six equally large portions, with five of them making their way into the temple.

The inside of the temple was quite simplistic in nature, as it was a place meant to store the dead of the distant past, as well as the relic that kept souls indoors. As such, once one passed into the building through the short hallway, the two mages would venture into a large open room roughly forty meters far and wide with the ceiling being a good fifteen meters above them. In the center of the room, there was a large and old stone shrine in the shape of what could be a demon or a dragon, maybe even both. Adorned with many gems and oil-based fire burning in the eye cavities to provide the room with some light, it contained a small reliquary locked between its stone fangs. On both the right and the left side of the stone head, two tablets were inscribed with a warning regarding contents of the reliquary not being meant for the outside world, nor for human eyes as it was meant to remain locked away to keep the souls of this place inside. On the far right and left corners of the large room, there were staircases leading down into the catacombs where many people of the past had been buried, some along with their belongings and gifts to take “beyond the grave” and into the afterlife.

Passing into the building, the five shades moved up towards the ceiling, blending in naturally with the darkness and present shadows, they provided the dark being waiting outside with nearly 360 degrees vision inside of the room itself. With the skeletons arriving at the temple, Thagirion waited a little while longer, giving the two mages the time to properly investigate the inside of the place. Believing that they would most likely be drawn to the stone head and the reliquary it held between its teeth, he wondered if they would take the time to read the tablet or not. Obviously, he hoped that they would as he wanted them to make an informed decision. Regardless, it was the one relic that could stop the swamp from moving while protecting the village at the same time, if they figured out how to properly use it of course. Once the shades in the room would see that the mages had stopped inspecting and reading the room, that was when Thagirion would send in the four skeletal combatants.


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Indeed it was too quiet. There was a perfectly logical explanation for that. See, they say dead men tell no tales, and the reason for this, is because most people don't know a good necromancer. Much like Yogi, who was on-edge regarding this tomb. He was raised on tales of stirring spirits and deadly traps in places like this. The bane of many the treasure hunters, bad people toying with the bodies of the deceased were notorious for their misdeeds and greed, using tombs to hide and stock their workshops and treasure hordes. He would probably be shocked to learn of any necromancers working in mage guilds.

The room ahead of him was quite large, like a yawning chasm of the dead. There wasn't a whole lot of light to work with, most eminating from the fires in the eyes of an ominous ever-burning demon dragon statue in the middle of the room. Here he was, in the place he'd come to for his journey, now on a mission to grab a relic to absorb and contain the souls haunting the swamp and the village.

He approached the center of the room to get a closer look at this strange statue, which was gripping a reliquary in its stone fangs. The stone tablets to either side were covered in warnings, how this relic was not meant for human eyes and it was meant to keep the souls of the dead contained within this shrine. Yogi would look it up and down, an idea immediately shooting to the front of his mind, to the degree which required he consciously shut it back down. There was an easy way to capture that relic, for him at least, but that way was fraught with dark magics sewn into his bloodline eons ago.

He refused.

"Rob... probably meant this one, but now that I think about it, what would happen if I took this outside anyways?" Yogi mused alloud to nobody in particular.

Enter, stage left, a certain leek-haired white-coated researcher. He'd actually probably been there longer, but Yogi had let the thrill of the treasure get the better of him. Of course this was an altogether unpleasant turn of events. "Y-you! I thought you were at the village holding back the undead spawn or whatever those things were! Wait... I don't even know your name, why did I think you would listen to me giving orders? Stupid, stupid!" Yogi was at first geared to berate his fellow researcher, but moved onto a more self-abusive display, bashing his fists against his own head while he tucked into a sitting ball on the ground, calling himself ascending degrees of harmful intellectual insults (idiot, brainlet, neanderthal, etc). The people in that village were in danger because of his carelessness. He should have stayed behind to do it himself. Mathis was going to be so disappointed.

After several worrying seconds of noggin drubbing, without warning, he would spring back up into a standing position with a finger raised to the sky. "Solution! We just gotta solve the problem twice as fast, and take care of the haunted swamp!" Yogi would declare with sudden certainty. Indeed there was simply no way he was operating under false confidence wrought by his blind panic. That would be too psychologically accurate, and he was pretty sure that he was far too smart for the basics of child psychology to affect him.

"Which means, act now, root through ancient treasures later," he fired off with no real preposition. Though as he began to reach for the reliquary betwixt the fangs, quartet of skeletal beasts would come scurrying into the temple.

Suddenly it all made sense, everything clicked. His leek-haired companion didn't even need to explain himself, Yogi understood everything now. "Ooooh. You baited them here so we wouldn't need to take the relic outside, and the villagers were safe from this small horde of skeletal abominations. Now that's some big brain thinking! I could learn a thing or two from you," the pink-haired mage showered his companion in accolades, completely changing his tune.

"Still, this relic isn't for human eyes. You wouldn't happen to be some kind of fae would you?" Yogi would ask innocently enough, a gold-colored magic circle forming under him, still trying to avoid the option where he accesses certain profane magics he'd rather not entrust the lives of civilians with. If the skeletons approached to attack it would be a simple matter to repel them with the stoneworked castle walls of a sub-palace, just as good if not better than his original palace's walls. A snap of his fingers would summon forth the stone work of a palace nearly identical in every way to the one he'd left in the village, save for a lack of luxurious furnishings.

Word Count So Far (My Own Only): 4,294

By the time the skeletons marched into the temple, the eyes in the shadows were already affixed on the two mages wandering about inside. As per usual, they were taking their sweet time as they were doing more thinking and time wasting than actually keeping in mind that an entire village might die because of how slow they are being. If he were to be following an actual chart upon which he would need to fill in whether they were succeeding or failing, Thagirion would have to inform them that they had failed the moment they both abandoned the village. Were it not for him tremendously slowing down the swamp and letting the people he had dragged down get back to the surface for air, a quarter of the entire village would have passed away long before the two mages would manage to get back to save them. Though that wasn’t even all there was to it. While instructions had been given, they had still failed to retrieve the relic as they were both frightened of an old text that had been put up to keep superstitious folk from stealing it.

As far as they knew, it was the only way to shut down the swamp and end the incursion, but instead they kept dawdling as neither would pick it up. And it was for that reason that Thagirion had lost his patience with these two. He might have been an immortal being, though he did not look kindly towards those who wasted his time. As such, it was time for him to step up and make sure the two of them were pushed into a specific direction. Either that, or he would just bury them in this temple, thus making it their tomb. In a way, doing just that would be quite fitting, poetic even, though that was not something Thagirion was interested in in the slightest. For all he cared, he’d just eat the two of them and be done with it, but such a thing would just spoil everything. No, he had other plans for these two slowpokes. Utilizing one of his various shadows that had been placed in the room, he had it move down from the ceiling and up the stone statue, where it rose up and took an almost material form.

“Interlopers… the eye of Tiferet was not meant to be used by the likes of you. It belongs to the dead, and you shall not take it from us. The living hold no sway over us, nor do they have any influence in this temple. Leave now, before we-“

Before the shade could finish what it was saying, one of the four skeletons had leaped from the ground and sliced through it with its sharp talons, causing the shade to dissipate. Screeching at a high volume, the others were sent into high gear as one of them went for the unnamed mage and the other made his way towards Yogi. The third of them remained between the two of them, ready to step in in case one of the two ran into unexpected trouble. But as far as they had seen, neither of them truly possessed any sort of real offensive might, which would make it easier for the skeletal creatures to win their battle. While they were going on the offensive, the final skeleton sitting on top of the statue slowly made his way down to where the reliquary was locked between the jaws of the stone thing. His goal was quite simple: to destroy the reliquary with a few good strikes and crack it open like a nut.

Things had been delayed long enough, and now was the moment to make up for lost time and push things into the right direction. And if they kept failing him, Thagirion would no longer have any parts left for them to play anyway, meaning their survival or deaths would not mean much anyway.


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