Magpie’s frustration wrecks his face’s gaunt allure. Suddenly, he appears to be just a person, no special mysticism or power, just a man.

Thinking back on everything that had happened, Magpie rubs the crease that mars his brow. 

He sets off in the direction of the jail, lost in memory.

————————————————————

Six Months Prior

A thin, less frustrated version of Magpie clutches a golden seal marked with the rune of Victory. A handsome man that seems to emanate a warm, golden light stands before him.

Warm. 

Gold.

Magpie’s claws clutch the medallion with trace remnants of the Head Holy Imanjar’s body heat even tighter to himself, as once he clutched the body.

“Vaza…” Magpie’s voice whispers with a rasp.

“Hmm? Did you say something?” Vaza replies. A carefree smile adds a casual grace to his otherwise ostentatious appearance. Ornamental charms clink as he steps closer to Magpie, a hair’s breadth away. 

A gentle hand reaches out to smooth the ruffled raven feathers of the cloak. Long, delicate fingers decorated with a ring- a heavy, ornate ring used to create seals. 

False images flit into Magpie’s mind.

Red wax, like blood dripping from that ring down those warm, gentle instruments. 

Blazing heat wrapping around tanned skin, still freckled from laboring in the sun.

“Magpie?”

A sense of dirtiness pervades Magpie consciousness. A wrongness thrums in his heart, nudging a spiritual thread that promptly pulls taut.

That easy smile, that trusting, warm smile shines upon a dead heart, tricking it into thinking its beats are the same as those of the living.

“Remember to stay safe, Magpie. Don’t get into trouble I can’t get you out of- I’m quite a whiles away you know. Do you have your mirror charm?”

A slow, pecking motion indicates yes. The downward tilt of the head conceals a strange pained look, one that speaks of a trapped creature, scared yet violent. Only a calm face appears with the uptilt.

“And, you know your mission don’t you? You won’t forget?”

A sharp caw of laughter splits Magpie’s beak. “How could I?”

“Be back in time for the council meeting; there’s only a couple of the more remote Imanjar that haven’t responded to the summons anyway. Loneliness, Magic, a few of the wandering ones without steady temples…”

“Tch, I know, Vaza.”

“You’re as flighty as your namesake! Don’t act as if you don’t need reminded of everything.”

“I will be back. Even if you want to be rid of me.”

A warm gentle laughter and a raucous cawing echo out in a discordant harmony. 

————————————————————

Two Months Prior

Days blend together as Magpie travels alone. A dwindling list of Holy Imanjar remain to be contacted. 

The traveling swordsman, Imanjar of Valor, had been a particularly annoying encounter… so many corpses lost to that do-gooder. 

Not that Magpie could express the loss to anyone- anyone except the Goddess, that is, but She already knew. Luckily, many vagrants were tricked to early graves to answer for Her lust for Death. Those corpses had been successfully driven to the Temple of Magic.

Time continues its unending, unfeeling march, and soon only the Holy Imanjar of Solitude remains.

Feathers fall from the now weather-beaten cloak, as Magpie walks into the wind, following the path to nowhere.

————————————————————

One Month Prior

With a thump, the mug of ale comes smashing down onto the counter. The foamy liquid sloshes over the side as the old man balances precariously on the rickety three-legged bar stool. An old man clears his throat and begins with his classic phrase: “Load of garbage if you ask me”

“No one asked!” yells out a considerably younger bartender. Younger, at least, in comparison to the inebriated gentleman—the bartender, you see, has already lived the better half of a century.

While the chorus of laughter from his fellow patrons fades away, the elderly farmer clears his throat and begins again. “It’s still a load of garbage, those Holy Imanjar. Ya’ll telling me that we pay those louts to give up free will… the darn nobles took my ancestors’ free will away and are still taking away mine! The only way anyone has any free will in this place is if they have the money. I can’t even afford this swill!”

Heh. Magpie sneers into his hood. His twig-like figure is draped in a large black swath of tattered fabric, his once proud cloak now sharing more points than not with the burial garments of abandoned wanderers. As if these people could ever understand. 

Another slam of the mug, more sloshing of liquid, and another quip from the bartender follow like clockwork. 

“If you can’t afford the swill don’t drink it! Go home you lousy drunkard!”

Magpie, so far the silent observer, finds his chance to interject. His quiet voice interrupts this well choreographed dance:

“Then why do you not journey to the Temple and devote yourself to the deities? There is nothing to lose by henceforth devoting what little free will one such as you possess to the great cause of the Holy Imanjar. Then, once you have been enlightened, you can share your new perspective with your fellow common people.”

The pompous, pretentious statement ill-fits his natural tendencies, but it seems to do the trick. He knows these types. Backwater believers. Self-righteous, ‘open-minded’ misers. Well-meaning wastes.

Underneath Magpie’s intellectual guise, vitriol bubbles. Wishes, wishes, wishes. Yes, that’s it! Be greedy, be jealous, be cowards too fearful of retribution to ever do anything about anything. When you’re made into mangled monsters at least you’ll have semblance of virtue- you’ll be useful.

He throws a handful of gold ingots on the bar to display wealth, the only symbol possibly able to convey merit in these parts. Stretching across the counter to the shelves behind, Magpie grabs a bottle of some vile, murky house-made liquor that promises nothing of taste but is most definitely strong. 

Not that the alcohol will help much, he thinks bitterly. After all, a soul untethered from the body remains in turmoil even should the flesh find rest.

Magpie continues his lecture: “The prerequisite to buying what you want is the ability to actually wish for something. You do not have the means to fulfill your will. Those divine puppets have no will to enact. Perhaps we should consider whether we are paying the Holy Imanjar for their service or making an offering to the dead.”

A sense of irony twists his soul.

When your wish is twisted into something the old you never would have wanted, when you can no longer differentiate where you end and Their will begins, when the blood of life freezes in your veins, will you still envy me?

The bartender huffs, “A bunch of philosophers we have today. At least the pay is good.”

Magpie’s questions go unspoken and unheard by man, but they do not go unanswered.

Yes.

Because You will be their Better in every way. Just as you wanted.

In the tavern, life continues to thrive, loud with the voices spurred on by alcohol and good company. 

Meanwhile, a small click is muffled by the ragged, billowy clock. A mechanism inscribed with runes loses its glow as the entity trapped within makes its way into the shadows under the bar counter, flicking between areas of darkness, until reaching the blackness of a nearly empty alleyway.

Magpie’s eyes are filled with a swirling darkness with flickering electric sparks of magic as he views the scene from the safety of humanity’s outpost. 

His maw twists into a grin with little resistance as he spots a matronly woman as well as a young lady sharing the burden of carrying the corpse of a young man. 

Foolish creatures. Caring, but foolish.

As clouds eclipse the light of the moon, the entity containing Magpie’s vicarious connection swallows the body’s shadow. 

Ecstasy floods him as the black ink possesses the stiff limbs locked in rigor mortis. Beady intelligence appears as the eyes are consumed by black sclera. 

“S-son?” The older woman calls out, quivering in her terror. 

First, the old one.

With wicked delight, the beast leaps towards the sound, grasping at the form of Mother. He cradles the living woman with inhuman force, nails piercing the skin, blood dripping down the twisted arms.

Still, the woman’s cries out with joy. 

“Son, son! You’re back, see, you’re back, I’d never let you go-“

Her rambling, her sweet reunion is cut off by the sight of her own still-beating heart. Black tinged fingertips, clawed and murderous, drip with blood. 

“I accept your heart’s feelings, Mother”

With so much delight, he brings the organ up to his lips, and, gentle as a lover’s kiss, consumes it.

The young woman looks on in horror, slowly backing up towards the old brick walls of the alley. With creeping, unsteady footsteps she attempts to make her way towards the open, towards the light, towards people- real people, humans.

“Sister? Why do you not welcome me?”

Tears fall down the woman’s face and a small sob escapes her lips. She continues creeping backwards, too scared to turn her back to the break into full flight.

The sensation of wriggling flesh fills his mind as the body contorts into a disgusting homunculus, a hideous mockery of humanity. 

The jaw breaks through the skin of the mouth, growing into a bone beak. The tongue swells into a bloated appendage, while smooth teeth become sharp and jagged.

The blackened fingertips are now donned with the hooked claws of predatory avians. The limbs remain humanoid, although the muscles now swell, bulge and pulsate ominously.

The monster turns towards the mother’s corpse and, with trembling claws, rips apart the corpse. The beak tip tears into flesh, the teeth crack and crush bones, and the claws hook into the body to hold it in place. 

Hungry.

HUNGRY.

With increasing speed desperation, the homunculus begins to swallow larger and larger chunks of flesh and bone, no longer savoring any one piece but rather seeking to consume it whole.

The young woman watching retches in the decrepit alleyway, falling to her knees. Her eyes are red and full of tears, psychological or physiological or perhaps both. She gasps, just barely catching her breath. 

A singular claw reaches out, parting her hair. 

“Sister”

…

A guttural screech echoes throughout the dark alleyway. Blood runs freely from the stump of what used to connect to a perfectly healthy leg. A young woman’s face grows ghostly pale from lack of blood. Her eyes are glossing over from pain and terror, but yet she cannot wrench her eyes off the ghastly form in front of her. 

The beak lined with teeth seems only able to snap at the remains of her leg, cracking the bones. Consuming her flesh is a long and arduous process for the deformed creature. Its humanoid limbs grasp at the leg still clenched in its maw, ripping away the excess. It smashes its twisted hand down its own throat, shoving in the mangled flesh. As it removes its hand and opens its beak to repeat the process, it coughs up a mixture of blood. The same blood can be seen on its long claws— red from the human woman and a rotten rusty black from its own. With each bite and shove it cuts its own throat, but the creature does not have the capacity to care. The horrible hunger is the worst pain of all. The bursting stomach of the creature, pierced by the bones of its victims, cannot digest the unsavory meal, and so it continues to grow ever more stretched and bloated. 

Distracted by the ecstasy of the meal, the homunculus does not notice the addition of another being in the alleyway.

With a silver flash, the creature’s neck is cleaved in two. Its humanoid arms attempt to push the flesh in the throat down into the stomach, unwilling to allow even a single morsel escape. Slowly, slowly nature takes its course once again, and the body stops moving, falling to lie next the the grotesque head.

Beady, glistening, intelligent eyes fade back to dull orbs as a silver figure reflects in the puddle of blood spread across the alleyway.

In the mind of a monster flashes a single emotion: “Lonely.” 

…

The body of the creature bubbles and dissolves into the ground, leaving behind the digested bones and flesh. Back into the shadows flees the small entity, back to lively bar full of lights and life, back into the small puzzle box where the runes now glow.

The thrum of the Goddess of Death’s pleasure sounds out within Magpie’s souls as his eyes return to the present, his ears still echoing with a whispered cry for help.

 He rubs his sunken stomach, savoring a sense of fullness at odds with reality.

“Click.”