The following takes place between the Talj Rip and roughly twenty five years before the commencement of the Battle on Une…
The large village is quaint before sunset. There are stone buildings along a cobblestone road that lead out of the center and into the rolling hills that are still lush even with the limited light that shines down on Theron from the comet that circles it. Zacchaeus is in a small tavern, brooding, his cloak obscuring his eyes and he leans over the bar resting on his elbows with an intoxicating beverage in one hand that occasionally disappears into the cloak and reappears lighter than it had been. The music that fills the tavern is jovial, active bongo drums and the rapid plinking of small lutes, and it makes a guy like Zacchaeus look out of place completely. The villagers are celebrating, villagers with round faces, their skin and hair vibrant shades of red, blue or green who dress in wraps and are unashamed of their bodies, and they celebrate the fact that they have persisted despite dark times.
Theron, home of the theries and their ruling gods, the Mao Ri, hasn’t been the same since the Baron arrived. It had been a quaint existence inside the walls of the step pyramid of Theron that was the size of a planet in Outer Spacetime with a comet that burned perpetually as it revolved the pyramid bringing day and night to Theron. The theries are the humanoid inhabitants of Theron who are not Gods. They have round facial features and wear little clothing but to cover the sensitive parts of themselves, and brown skin in shades from light to dark that is usually adorned in intricate black tattoos that cover the body. Normally, the tavern where Zacchaeus broods would be alive with theries, but since he had arrived to Theron with Issac Washington and Maria Moreno, the Master of Multiversal Arcana and Wazad the Transverse respectively, there hasn’t been a single theri in sight. Only these inhabitants of Theron with skin and hair in vibrant shades of red, blue or green. It was strange to Maria when she saw it, she’d been on Theron for a while and was used to interacting with theries in the center of Theron that was well kept and a picaresque part of Therosi life. Maria had learned that the atupa, as the colorful inhabitants of Theron are known, were often vilified on Theron and relegated to the shadowy parts of the world, which the theries used as proof of their sinister nature. Maria had interacted with the atupa and they had the same gentle nature as most theries but without the deep-seated fear and hatred for inhabitants of their world who looked different from them. In many ways, Maria preferred their communities to those of the theries that were organized around worshipping the Mao Ri who were often indifferent to them. But even with that bias, Maria found it truly odd that there were seemingly no theries on Theron and she went to the Emporium of the First Maria who lived on Theron to find out more. Issac, the Arcana Master, went in search of the Baron Criminel who had come to Theron and was most likely the catalyst for the strangeness that Maria was investigating.
Zacchaeus was hoping to find out whatever he could from the atupa and he wandered around the lavish center of Theron before he found this tavern. He’d been welcomed and mostly ignored as the atupa celebrated life. When the bartender, who is a stockily built green man who appears to be younger than Zacchaeus, asks him if he wants a refill, Zacchaeus nods, then looks over his shoulder, then back at the bartender pouring a frothy beverage into his large cup.
“This my first time on Theron,” Zacchaeus says. “What y’all celebrating?”
“Oh, if it’s your first time here, then you don’t know,” the atupa man says with an enthusiastic smile. “The theries are gone, got rounded up by the smiling bones that floated over the cobblestones of center city.”
“The smiling bones?” Zacchaeus asks curiously and he inches to the edge of the stool where he sits.
The bartender nods and leans against the bar, seemingly happy to talk for a while. Most of the patrons of the tavern are being served at tables, Zacchaeus is the only one at the bar.
“This big, grinning skull in a cloud of dark purple appeared just out there. I’ve worked here a long time, its good work and the theries don’t treat me nearly as bad as they do the atupa they’re not used to. And it is usually busy out here, there’s always something happening in the center, magicians and acrobats, jesters and actors, so a lot of people come and go and it’s not strange to see something fantastical here. But the smiling bones was strange. It danced around in the sky for a while and I was so distracted by it, I didn’t realize all the theries just walking away in the same direction, like they were all hypnotized. I tried to ask one of them where they were going, but they didn’t pay any attention to me, just kept walking. And they just walked out of town, out of Theron it seem like. And the smiling bones floated over them, dancing in the sky over the herd of them marching like simple beasts.”
“Where did they go?” Zacchaeus asks. “Did any of you follow them?”
“Some did and they didn’t come back. Seems like blessed Theron, the land itself, is trying to tell us something. Let it be. With all the theries gone, we moved on up, as they say, and it’s been a celebration ever since. You’ve come to Theron in a time of peace and celebration.”
“You ain’t worried at all that some smiling bones disappeared a bunch of people?” Zacchaeus asks. “What if it comes back?”
“It didn’t get us the first time,” the bar tender says confidently before he is called away to fill a glass.
Zacchaeus strolls from the tavern to the center city and it is nice, but it is striking how empty it all feels. Even with the atupa moving in to inhabit the abandoned village, there just weren’t enough to make it feel full as the bar tender had described.
Suddenly, Maria descends on the center in a haze of golden magic that rushes up and away from her with the wind as she lands. Her full, golden hued hair is thick and wild at her shoulders and her skirted uniform falls down around her thighs.
“The First Wazad is gone,” she says with concern, “I can’t find him. “
“Maybe he followed the smiling bones out of town,” Zacchaeus says and fills her in on what he’d learned at the tavern.
“The ones that followed them never came back?” Maria asks with wonder. “And the smiling bones never came back? That must be the Baron we came here for.”
Zacchaeus nods then puts the pointer and middle finger of his left hand to his temple as Issac had taught him to cast a mindlink spell using hand magic.
“Have you found anything?” Zacchaeus asks aloud as Maria broods over the mostly empty center.
“This arcana is strange to me,” Issac admits. He is high in the air, surrounded in an inky blob of dark, navy blue magic and there are shining silver lines on his exposed skin. His eyes are silver orbs in the sockets. “I know this for sure, Criminel doesn’t belong in Outer Space time. I can feel the reality here being warped by Death Magic, but there is no source of it that I can find. But I know that with more familiarity, I can understand and track it better.”
“We’re following a lead, a lot of people disappeared from here, we’re gonna retrace their steps if we can. Maybe that’ll lead to something.” Zacchaeus nods at Maria who shrugs.
“I’ll come with you,” Issac says and they see him descending in the distance as they take the cobblestone out of town.
The mass movement of the theries out of town and into the lush green hills was easy enough for them to see as they walked, there had been thousands of theries on Theron who marched the same path and they had left a mark on the environment that lasted the few weeks since their disappearance. The grass had been tread a clear path in the dirt that went up into the mountains that formed the step walls of Theron. The theries had marched into the cloud forest along one of the walls and never come back down.
“Zacchaeus, do you remember the finding spell?” Issac asked.
Zacchaeus looked at the palm of his left hand and the fingers were arched like he was clutching space in his hands. After a moment, he shook his head in disappointment.
“Look,” Maria said and she loved to stand next to Zacchaeus. “If you try to just memorize all of the hand magic Issac is teaching you, you’re gonna get frustrated. Hand Magic is the most intuitive form of magic out there, in every universe apparently. When you’re doing it, do what feels natural to accomplish your goal. When the Kazi taught me that, I was able to do so much more with hand magic. Pointer and thumb in a circle for looking, bend the middle and pinky for discerning.” Maria demonstrated with one hand and the golden magic activated around her right hand, then seemed to scan the clouds in the distance. “Hold the image of what you’re looking for in your mind and there you go,” Maria said as the magic from her hand shone a spotlight on the section of the forest in the dense clouds.
They all followed the golden spotlight and dived quickly into the clouds. The theries were in a large line in the trees of the cloud forest that led up to the wall of the pyramid.
“There’s only one way they could be going,” Maria says as they fly over the crowd that funnels into the cloud forest. The edge of Theron is like a large stone battlement that overlooks the sepia tones of Outer Spacetime and fluffy clouds collect and billow over the sides. “There!” Maria should as they fly, pointing to the smiling bones, the skull floating in a cloud of purple magic. The Theries marched to the edge of the stone battlements and spilled over like confused animals in a stampede.
Issac moved his left hand in gale formation and the silver lines sprang from his hands, containing pale grey magic that moved liked a wind and pushed the seemingly entranced theries off their suicidal course.
“They only run off that one side,” Zacchaeus says as they hover nearby as the theries regroup and then reform their line in the direction they had been going before the strong wind. Issac and Zacchaeus use the gale formation to frustrate the crowd that is resolute on jumping off one specific wall to their doom.
Maria is about to fly toward the smiling bones before they appear before the trio. The cloud of purple around it dissipates and the giant skull grows a body with dark skin and in form fitting suite and coat. He either has large scars on the skin of his new face or elaborate tattoos, and he appears to have white paint around his eyes like a half mask. He bows before the trio.
“Welcome to the front, I am the Baron Criminel. I assume you are here to do battle, seeing as you are wrecking my cannon.”
“Your cannon?” Maria asked.
“These things here, nice compact bullets of pattern magic that work well to explode with a death magic fuse. You from that Ame-tsuchi place, right? It should be destroyed soon if I can keep it up.”
“You’re using those people like bombs?” Maria asked with disgust.
“I got it,” Issac said, “I can break his hold over them. You two deal with him quickly. I sense another that we should turn our attentions to as soon as possible.”
Zacchaeus hands were already in invocation formation and he held them both high as they swirled with black magic that was lined in silver. Maria used hand magic as well since Zacchaeus had been so intent on learning it on this mission. Her left hand was extended in the two finger invocation and her golden magic that was streaked with silver bolts, expanded in front of her.
“Ready?” Maria asked.
“Y’all know I’m death, right?” Criminel said with a sharp smirk that was equal parts delight and malice. “Ain’t no killing me.”
“We don’t have to kill you, brother,” Zacchaeus said. “We just want you chilling until we figure this out.”
“Ain’t hard to understand. It’s a war. The Baron desires dominion.”
“Why now?” Maria asked. She cradled the large orb of her magic at her chest. “The Loa have never attacked the other powers of Outer Spacetime before.”
“I barely even know what Outer Spacetime is,” Criminel admitted. “Samedi came here and me and Cemetere go where he say. He say make this realm ours, we do that.”
“Who is the Baron on Arada?” Maria asks.
“La Croix, but he us know. He wanted death in this realm.”
Maria and Zacchaeus subdue Criminel and when Issac is done saving the theries, they contain him just as they did Cemetere before heading to confront Samedi and La Croix on Arada.
“What will death magic do to Outer Spacetime?” Maria asked Issac as they navigated Outer Spacetime to the Rings of Arada.
“It will disrupt the patterns that are its very foundation,” Issac said gravely. “I can already sense it. This place is becoming something else.”
“Is it becoming something bad?” Zacchaeus asked.
Issac just shook his head.
Check out the exciting conclusion of the War of Arcana in Death Magic – Issue 6 – The 4 Shades of Violet – 3 – The Spacetime of Deads and Wraiths!
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