“Pant, You dare seduce Mazelda, filthy peasant? You go too far! Pant, I will tolerate your witch presence no more!” an infuriated youth vehemently wheezed, thunder emphasising his words. The flash of lightning illuminated his silhouette garbed in shining armour, water trailing down the surface. Flesh strained the fabric of the protective undergarment as a rotund belly protruded out from under the over-polished chest plate. The fat youth scratched away a piece of peeling skin, exposing a pockmarked layer underneath.
“Cough, stomping your feet and throwing a tantrum like a child not getting what they want, Joff. I only gifted her a flower. Who could have guessed me intervening with your crush on your own cousin and would result in you chasing me up a mountain waving a pig sticker around…” A drenched youth flippantly replied, thunder drowning out the rest of his words. He had a relatively handsome face, with his most defining feature being perceptive eyes. Even in the current circumstance, he exuded an air of magnetic confidence and unshakeable nonchalance.
Lightning crashed again, much closer this time, outlining the scene. The pair were alone atop a cliff amid a raging storm. They sheltered beneath a solitary mountain tree of a hardy variety, devoid of any leaves. The fat armoured young man hunched forward, obscuring the view of the youth pinned against the gnarled trunk in front of him. He violently twisted and attempted to pry his bared blade from the other’s gut.
“Uh um, you don’t understand. You should have kept your nose out of it! The Unifier teaches us that we can only rely on family in times of strife. A stronger bloodline only tightens the bond. Why am I wasting my breath explaining myself to a heretic? You caused an entire orchid to bloom in the dead of winter using blasphemous magic. Your evil heart must be expunged. Unifier sanctify this disgusting flesh before me with your holy light Joff ritualistically declared.
This long-winded buffoon seems to have discovered his true calling after running off to join a cult. He never knew when to shut up. Being the Mayor’s son, no one had the guts to tell him. Seems it’s only gotten worse once he got home.
I go away for two summers to learn the old ways and when I’m forced to come back early because Grandmother has been bedridden after a nasty fall, this blighted cur’s turned positively murderous…
Golden flames suddenly sprouted along the length of Joff’s radiant blade. The unfortunate youth felt the pain from the elaborately crafted sword abruptly subside into numbness. Unnatural peace descended over him as his eyes fixated on the symbol of the Unifier, a coiled serpent biting its own tail with a dragon head and a single wing on the outside of the circle.
The boy became aware of the familiar creeping sensation he felt the day he made the orchid bloom. His mind began to wander to the stories his grandmother always told of the Old Folk nestled in forgotten places, ready to be called upon by those gifted with the Quirk.
“Yawn, spare me this tedious lecture before you bore me to death, Joff. This was nothing worth panting after me in the middle of a thunderstorm. Cough,” the youth distractedly replied, hackling up blood into the infuriated knight’s face. He unexpectedly reached up to clutch the decorative hilt of the holy sword, plunging it deeper and penetrating the blade into the bark behind him.
“Jax!” a feminine voice shrieked, Mazelda, the prettiest girl from their small village. The youth turned to look towards the sound of his name through drooping eyelids. A worn-out smile formed on the edge of his lips at the sight of the beautiful girl coming up the mountain trail. She carelessly lifted the mud-stained hem of her skirts as she pleaded. “Joff, I want you to stop this right now. I’ll do it, I’ll marry you. Just please stop this madness!”
The girl desperately threw herself grovelling at her fat cousin’s feet, gripping his legs. Tears mixed with rain, streaming down reddened cheeks and falling onto her torn bodice, evidence of her reckless pursuit of the pair.
“You won’t be married to just me, Mazelda. Under the Unifier’s teachings, a brood mother is married to the clan. That way jealous bloodshed can be avoided among men,” Joff informed her, completely oblivious to the irony of his words. The perverse expression on his face clearly showcased his vulgar thoughts of his obese body pressing down on hers, stinking of sweat. “The old ways are dead, this foul heretic must be sanctified just like I did to his filthy witch grandmother. But I need to go back and finish the job, the Unifier demands it. You will learn this is best.”
“Never, you disgusting fat pig!” Mazelda screamed, drawing a knife hidden among the folds of her skirt and burying it into an exposed piece of Joff’s skin underneath his armour.
“Reeee! You little biter!” Joff shrieked with a sneer of contempt, dropping the hilt of his flaming sword to grip hair in both hands. He savagely lifted her petite body from the ground as he spun, mercilessly launching her over the edge of the cliff.
A bright flash of lightning illuminated her plummeting figure towards the sharp rocks below. Joff staggered backwards in a stupor, as the sound of thunder drowned out the sound of her unwilling scream. He ripped the dagger from his side with a grunt of pain, briefly looking at the blade before tossing it on the ground. He whimpered and fussed over the wound, pressing both hands against it in a panic, attempting to stop the blood.
“Hearken to me, my god! Unifier, in your name, this child offers these heathens as sacrifice upon your altar… oomf!” Whatever Joff had to say next was lost as he was propelled into the air by Jax’s stomping boot. “Ahhhhhhh!”
“How about I send you after your would-be lover, you thorned prick. I can’t believe this swine is who hurt my gran. Rest easy, Mazelda. Your bravery saved you from a fate worse than death, cough. I’ll intercede with the Old Ones on your behalf when I join you, cough,” Jax whispered to the wind through teeth gritted with indignant fury. He took hold of the blade wedged in his chest with one hand, pushing behind him with the other. He growled in defiance, pushing himself further up the bloodied blade towards the hilt.
Immediately following Joff’s assisted descent, another bolt of jagged lightning struck from above, homing in on him and obliterating him from existence. An earth-shattering explosion accompanied by a deafening boom tore stone from the mountainside after making contact with Joff’s armoured shell. A cascade of rocks submerged the bodies beneath a landslide, leaving them unrecoverable in the valley below. Jax stared over the edge with an incredulous expression.
Did that idiot just smite himself on the way down, or does his god just dislike him as much as I do?...
Jax’s body lost its strength and he involuntarily slumped backwards. He leaned against the rough bark, painfully aware of it pressing into his back. Unable to regulate his ragged breathing, Jax allowed his tired eyelids to begin drooping with a resigned sigh. He was going to die here alone, with the only person left to mourn him already on her sick bed at home.
“Looks like this is the end, Bluum,” Jax muttered quietly, fingering a talisman made of strange material hidden inside his shirt. It was the source of his current dilemma of being labelled a witch, a Hex-Charm.
The moment the mysterious word left Jax’s mouth, the Hex-Charm pulsed, vibrating obediently beneath his fingertips. A subtle glow enveloped his iris and expanded out to distort the world around him. The bare tree branches above him began to sprout budding leaves at a rate visible to the naked eye.
The tree was soon covered in foliage far denser than it ever had in the entirety of its solitary existence atop the barren mountaintop. It didn’t stop there, soon small blossoms speckled the surface of the tree. Jax’s mind was filled with a sense of wonder and awe that never lessened as black began to creep into the edges of his vision.
While his consciousness quickly faded, the familiar feeling radiating from the tree only grew stronger.
There’s an Old One here, I may as well conduct the Rite of Remembering before I go…
Jax locked onto the feeling, trying to read the impression it gave. A growing sense of hope started to form in his chest as his heartbeat quickened. His vision narrowed further and further until the world travelled to the other side of a distant tunnel, totally unreachable. That was when he began to speak, barely more audible than a gasp.
“Born of a solitary tree rooted in cracks of stone, forced to brave high winds alone. You are that which lives where life should not exist. I name you… Xero!
The world suddenly snapped into sharp focus, subtly different from what Jax was used to. He could see the gnarled tree alive with colour and specks of light. It all began to swirl into a frenzied vortex, coagulating into a basic outline of a recognisable shape right before his very eyes. The Hex-Charm taking form was flat and rectangular with curved edges, similar in appearance to cards read by conning fortune-tellers in secluded back alleys for the price of a single copper piece. Their origin was rooted in these talismans but the old ways were now dying with true practitioners becoming few and far between.
The Many, I can see them. I guess most would have me call it mana nowadays. Wow, my mind is really starting to wander… I hear the Cult of Unification has begun capturing a myriad of magical critters shaped by the Many to transform them into weapons.
I’ll always be grateful that Gran took me in after a wild basilisk got my parents… I wonder if she’ll ever manage to get rid of that pesky chicken terrorising her vegetables… It’s the most fearsome beast in the neighbouring area. My parents' search party found it pecking out the basilisk’s innards...
The only true race belonging to the Many would be the Old Ones, a Hex. Their powers can be called upon by their charm by those of us with the Quirk. But this is my first time being able to see the embodiment of an Aspect... Does that mean my spirit’s already crossed over into the Nether?
“The many become one, a forgotten Aspect of which cannot be undone. Next, don the Mantle and then the Key as ordained by fate’s decree. From a Creed sworn, a new religion is born. This is the path one must take or their soul will break. Cursed to wander for Nethermore…”
An alien voice cryptically spoke, dragging Jax’s attention away from the completed Hex-Charm amid the branches overhead as it began to manifest a mysterious womb of light behind it. With great force of will, he struggled to turn his gaze towards the sound. A strange creature stood in front of him, grinning knowingly at the radiant holy sword piercing his chest pinning him to the tree. Jax couldn’t muster the strength to ask his questions aloud, his life fading away with every ragged breath.
