Season of Bloom - 23. Fearsome Fount

“There’s an entire village here.”

Linzi’s voice echoed reverently through the bog, the halfling whispering loudly in the dark. All around them stretched several buildings and fences, a village abandoned to the ravages of time. A miasma of despair stretched over the whole village. Whatever happened here, this village had not been left willingly.

They stood near an old well, a wooden cover nailed down with iron. An iron horseshoe hung over the stone structure, and Lapis shivered at the sight.

“Fae,” Faes said quietly. “Whatever is in this well, it destroyed this village.”

“If it is fae, it has been tortured with the iron,” Linzi frowned.

A sudden scrabbling noise came from the well, the rotting boards rattling ineffectively against the heavy nails.

“I sense unimaginable anguish and suffering,” Tristian murmured. “This well is connected to the destruction of the village, as Faes said.”

“So nice to have people second guessing me,” the hollowborn grumbled. “There’s necromancy here too. A curse put against the village perhaps? Fae don’t do well with curses they didn’t make themselves though.”

“Are wisps fae?” Lapis asked, his earlier amusement turned to sudden dread.

“Aberrations. Iron would do little to affect them,” the half human said quietly. “Though how one could be trapped in a well… that is a mystery to me. If it’s a wisp, I can’t do anything to help. Magic is useless against them.”

“You are surprisingly knowledgeable about wisps and fae,” Valerie scowled at him.

“I am surprisingly well read, and well travelled,” Faes countered. “Not all of us can spend our childhoods in a cloister.”

“Electricity, invisibility, enchantments… if we open this well, we are going to be in for a tough fight,” Tristian murmured. “Lapis, can your gods protect us from electricity?”

The amurrun nodded absently, looking around the well.

“Then I say we take the evil in this well and see it destroyed,” the cleric said firmly.

Taking a deep breath, Lapis pulled the bow off his back. He heard a chorus of chanting all around him, Tristian, Linzi, and even Kiba murmuring words in various languages. Almost instantly, the air filled with the stench of magic.

Stepping up beside Khemet, Lapis began his own prayers, calling to the Celestial Cats for sharper claws and skin hard as bark. Khemet shivered as the spells went to work on him, his own pre-battle routine well under way as he stretched out.

“Goddess of Fortune, let your blessing keep us safe. Lady Luck Resplendent, protect us from the electricity around us, and let us resist the elements.”

The weariness of casting struck him quickly, his chest warming as the gods answered his prayers. Lapis always felt strange casting, as though he was drawing the effects of the magic from himself, not the gods. It was not something to think about as he prepared for a fight, and the amurrun focused on his next round of prayers as his companions began chanting again.

“When we open the well, I will pray one final time,” the catfolk warned, pulling a pry bar out of his bag. “Whatever is in there is going to fight back. I pray we are right about them being wisps. If we prepared wrong, there will be no second chances.”

“Best get to it then,” Valerie said, raising her shield. “There’s little sense in waiting to die.”

Lapis took a deep breath, and slid the bar under the rotting wood. The slightest hint of pressure had the cover shooting into the air, a magic seal broken, and the evil within released.

They were wisps.

Faes yelped as a bolt of lightning passed through his body. The thunder of electricity filled the air, his hair standing on end. He should have been dead… but the spells held.

All around him, missiles flew, Kiba, Khemet, and a giant Valerie charging into the midst of three wisps. Lightning struck again and again, each lethal blow resisted through Lapis’ prayers. A loud note from Linzi hit the party, and the world seemed to slow around them, each sword blow doubling.

Khemet became a blur as Faes watched. The tiger whirled between all three wisps, his enchanted claws sending bits of wisp flying even as magic daggers bounced off his toughened hide.

Kiba’s blade swung in a surprisingly elegant arc, the kobold another recipient of an enlarging spell. As Faes stepped around a wisp, trying to stay out of the line of lightning, he wondered if he could find someone to bottle that spell for him. No doubt Lapis would love an enlarged rod sliding into his ass.

This was ridiculous. He was just baggage at this point. The hollowborn made a mental note to pick up a crossbow the next time they were in Ismenia. Clearly his fire couldn’t solve every problem. Not that he expected it to, but he would have thought being around this many companions would provide enough bodies to hold off any enemies.

A piercing wail filled the air as a wisp erupted into ectoplasm, and the half human decided he had been right. At least in this case.

His eyes tracked a falling coin, the strange copper tumbling from the dead wisp to land in the dirt beside the well. Darting forward, the half human grabbed at the coin as another wail echoed through the desolate village.

“Wilbur?” Faes muttered, reading the lines carved into the metal.

His eyes scanned the area, and he moved to grab another fallen coin, clutching them close as the party battled the last wisp. There was a curse at work here; that was obvious.

“Callitropsia… a spurned lover perhaps?”

Names on coins, tossed into a well. It meant only one thing in the hollowborn’s mind. Someone had wanted these two dead for some reason, and their vengeance had resulted in the destruction of the whole village.

“And the last wisp falls. No thanks to you,” Valerie grunted, sheathing her sword.

Faes ignored her, his eyes scanning the ground. Three wisps had emerged from the well, three curses unleashed upon the village. That meant there was a third coin… there!

He stooped and picked the copper up.

“And Wilbur again? Someone really wanted this person dead…”

Valerie let out a disgusted grunt, her body shrinking back down to its normal size.

“Does anyone need healing?” Tristian asked, the cleric’s voice cutting into Faes’ thoughts.

“I think we’re good. That protection spell took all the pain out of the lightning,” Valerie added, looking at Lapis with something approaching gratitude in her eyes.

“I’m glad,” Lapis smiled. “The Celestial Cats protect, even this far north.”

“I’m happy at least some of the gods are helpful,” the fighter scoffed.

“Guys, I think I see smoke coming from that hut over there,” Linzi spoke up suddenly.

Faes looked up, following the halfling’s arm. Sure enough, there was smoke visible, even through the fog.

“The hag?” he asked. “Good, we can ask her about these coins.”

They stood in front of a well-kept gate, a scarecrow staring down at them in a silent wrath. It was more than enough to give the group pause, especially when Lapis mentioned a feeling of magic coming from the watchful guardian.

Kiba didn’t know what they were so scared of. They had just killed glowing spirits. And they had killed a wyvern not long ago too. There was nothing to be afraid of.

A bell hung from the gate, dull bronze waiting in the dark. While the group argued about whether the scarecrow was going to kill them or not, the kobold slunk forward. His hand reached up, grasping a yarn attached to the bell, and Kiba rang.

High, clear notes shattered the silence surrounding the village, the conversation falling dead as everyone stared at the kobold in horror. Eyes flicked back to the scarecrow, sighs of relief following as the construct remained motionless.

“What in damnation is going on out here?”

Kiba yelped at the sharp voice, scrambling back behind Khemet for safety.

A tall, slender woman stood on the other side of the gate, seeming like she had appeared from nowhere. A dark night shirt hid her body, and her grey hair looked mussed, as though she had just been woken out of a sound sleep. Green tinted skin was wrinkled with age, and her ears held the slightest taper to them.

“The hag? She doesn’t look that ugly,” Linzi whispered.

“Are you the witch of this village?” Lapis asked, casting a withering look back at the halfling.

“What’s left of it. Some call me the old Beldame. Others use less kind words,” the witch added, scowling at Linzi. “But what about you? What fool’s errand brings you out to the middle of nowhere, disturbing my sleep?”

Faes stepped in suddenly, holding out a hand. Kiba couldn’t see anything in it, but the hollowborn replied, “A curse. These three coins bear two names. I don’t suppose you know anything about them?”

“And why would I?” the old Beldame scoffed. “Do you think that because I am a woman in the middle of the woods I have nothing but curses in my throat?”

Kiba flinched under the venom in her voice, the kobold’s hand on the hilt of his scimitar. Faes seemed unaffected by her tone, the hollowborn staring right at the witch.

“No, I think you are someone who was here when the village was destroyed, or someone who has seen a grave around here that might bear a name,” he said coolly.

“Psh, as though I know every villager by name.”

“So you’ve never heard of a Callitropsia?”

The witch’s face twisted in recognition. Wordlessly, she motioned southwest. It was as clear an invitation as Kiba had ever seen. Just as silently, the party left, taking the dismissal as it was intended.

Kiba hung back with Khemet, a hand on the large tiger. It provided him a little more courage. Not that he needed it. He was Kiba the Wyrm Slayer. He was brave enough. But touching Khemet seemed to keep most of the chill of night away, and he was not about to give that up.

They crossed a tiny patch of water, electricity shooting through the group as they passed. Kiba yelped, but brought his sword up, answering with his own electricity. More glowing spirits surrounded them, Lapis’ spells holding just a bit longer as the group dealt with the attack.

As the last spirit faded away, Kiba’s eyes took in a corpse surrounded by lights. Fireflies, in a rush of warmth separate from the bog. They hovered around the corpse, as though guarding it. The girl was laying with caked blood on her dress, but other than that, Kiba would have thought she was brumating in the cold. Jewels adorned her, a glistening crown on her head and a gold band on a finger. Even in death, she held her beauty, as though time had stopped the moment she died.

“Get thee gone. Leave our Nyta and get thee gone hence…” a chorus of fey voices hissed.

“So sad and romantic. Whoever she was, someone clearly loved her dearly,” Linzi whispered.

“Nyta? Not Callitropsia then? The hag had her information wrong,” Faes scoffed.

“Show some respect for the dead,” Lapis scowled at the hollowborn.

Kiba approached the corpse, hand digging in his pockets. He pulled out the rock he had taken from the wyvern, kneeling beside the body to set it next to the lily on her chest.

All around him, the jeers and threats of the voices grew, until the rock touched Nyta’s chest. Suddenly they diminished, turning to shock and wonder instead, until they faded completely.

A light left the body, circling around the group. Kiba’s eyes followed it, a voice whispering in his mind as he stood up again.

“Follow…”

The kobold stumbled after the bug, the calls of the group going unheeded in a near trance like state. Through water and mud, the kobold followed, until he found himself in front of a barn.