spellplague.
“Drink the elixir,” Vraith commanded, her voice like slate. “It will protect you.”
This would be her second trial, Vraith had claimed. The first one had failed because the blue fire killed the pilgrims before the ritual could be completed. Gregor hadn’t asked how they had died, those pilgrims, but he suspected that it had been fairly painful and gruesome.
The pilgrims who came back sick from their pilgrimage to the border of the Plaguewrought Land were only exposed to tiny amounts of spellplaguemere brushstrokes on the canvas of their souls. Many of those were ill for tendays and often didn’t survive even that much exposure.
Gregor did not understand the pilgrims who came to the Plaguewrought Land. Too often, they were unpredictable and driven by unquantifiable forcesit wasn’t logical or even comprehensible for them to risk the integrity of their bodies and their lives by purposefully seeking exposure to the spellplague in hopes of gaining a spellscar and the ability that went with it.
His spellscar had happened by accident. He had not sought it out, and it had nearly killed him. He understood the power that came with the spellscarthe incredible clarity and vision he now had with potions and alchemical concoctions. Still, he would counsel none of these fools to follow his path.
In front of him now, Vraith had started casting a complicated and powerful ritual. She held a small, bejeweled dagger in her hands, pressing its shimmering blue blade to the palms of each pilgrim to make small cuts.
“Join hands now,” she instructed. “Blood to blood, you will form a seamless entity.”
The pilgrims happily obliged. Under her spell, Gregor presumed, they would do almost anything.
“Now, take one step forward in unison.”
Fascination and dread welled inside Gregor as he watched the half-circle move toward the border veil. The pilgrims at either end of the arc nearly touched the spellplague that undulated like liquid fire on the other side of the veil.
Abruptly, wispy tendrils snaked out from Vraith’s chest like red-tinged fog. Standing outside the ring, the wizard’s eyes went milky, and her body swayed in rhythm to her chant. The red tendrils snaked through the pilgrims and wove them all together with their magic. Vraith sang in a language that Gregor did not know. Her voice rose and fell, rose and fell, and as she sang, the acrid odor of the Plaguewrought Land in summer swelled until Gregor felt he was going to retch. He clamped down on his gag reflex, using all his self-control to remain stoic and anchored.
The veil moved, then the swirling magic inside the border jumped to the nearest pilgrims. Like flames to tinder, the blue fire leaped from pilgrim to pilgrim, burning through their bodies. Their clothes evaporated. Their hair and skin glowed with translucent energy of the palest blue. Like the finest gauze, spidery and ethereal, the spellplague engulfed the semicircle of pilgrims.
The vision returned then, the vision he’d experienced when the spellplague had first come to him, haunting him like it always did. Gregor reached out for support as his head split in pain for a moment. The world vanished around him. Even the stench was gone.
In his vision, Gregor walked through a landscape of fiat green fields covered at regular intervals by archways of blue fire. The spellplague was under perfect and exacting control, forming a lattice threadwork of geometric patterns through the flat, grassy plain.
Here was the possible futureone which was organized and controlled. One in which wild magic interwove with the
plane in knowable and predictable ways. No more random and irrational tragedies.
Just as suddenly as it had come, the vision faded, and Gregor found himself back at the trial ritual. This was first step to achieving that vision, one possible way that the changelands could be ordered.
The veil that marked the border of the Plaguewrought Land shifted then, moved to
“Drink the elixir,” Vraith commanded, her voice like slate. “It will protect you.”
This would be her second trial, Vraith had claimed. The first one had failed because the blue fire killed the pilgrims before the ritual could be completed. Gregor hadn’t asked how they had died, those pilgrims, but he suspected that it had been fairly painful and gruesome.
The pilgrims who came back sick from their pilgrimage to the border of the Plaguewrought Land were only exposed to tiny amounts of spellplaguemere brushstrokes on the canvas of their souls. Many of those were ill for tendays and often didn’t survive even that much exposure.
Gregor did not understand the pilgrims who came to the Plaguewrought Land. Too often, they were unpredictable and driven by unquantifiable forcesit wasn’t logical or even comprehensible for them to risk the integrity of their bodies and their lives by purposefully seeking exposure to the spellplague in hopes of gaining a spellscar and the ability that went with it.
His spellscar had happened by accident. He had not sought it out, and it had nearly killed him. He understood the power that came with the spellscarthe incredible clarity and vision he now had with potions and alchemical concoctions. Still, he would counsel none of these fools to follow his path.
In front of him now, Vraith had started casting a complicated and powerful ritual. She held a small, bejeweled dagger in her hands, pressing its shimmering blue blade to the palms of each pilgrim to make small cuts.
“Join hands now,” she instructed. “Blood to blood, you will form a seamless entity.”
The pilgrims happily obliged. Under her spell, Gregor presumed, they would do almost anything.
“Now, take one step forward in unison.”
Fascination and dread welled inside Gregor as he watched the half-circle move toward the border veil. The pilgrims at either end of the arc nearly touched the spellplague that undulated like liquid fire on the other side of the veil.
Abruptly, wispy tendrils snaked out from Vraith’s chest like red-tinged fog. Standing outside the ring, the wizard’s eyes went milky, and her body swayed in rhythm to her chant. The red tendrils snaked through the pilgrims and wove them all together with their magic. Vraith sang in a language that Gregor did not know. Her voice rose and fell, rose and fell, and as she sang, the acrid odor of the Plaguewrought Land in summer swelled until Gregor felt he was going to retch. He clamped down on his gag reflex, using all his self-control to remain stoic and anchored.
The veil moved, then the swirling magic inside the border jumped to the nearest pilgrims. Like flames to tinder, the blue fire leaped from pilgrim to pilgrim, burning through their bodies. Their clothes evaporated. Their hair and skin glowed with translucent energy of the palest blue. Like the finest gauze, spidery and ethereal, the spellplague engulfed the semicircle of pilgrims.
The vision returned then, the vision he’d experienced when the spellplague had first come to him, haunting him like it always did. Gregor reached out for support as his head split in pain for a moment. The world vanished around him. Even the stench was gone.
In his vision, Gregor walked through a landscape of fiat green fields covered at regular intervals by archways of blue fire. The spellplague was under perfect and exacting control, forming a lattice threadwork of geometric patterns through the flat, grassy plain.
Here was the possible futureone which was organized and controlled. One in which wild magic interwove with the
plane in knowable and predictable ways. No more random and irrational tragedies.
Just as suddenly as it had come, the vision faded, and Gregor found himself back at the trial ritual. This was first step to achieving that vision, one possible way that the changelands could be ordered.
The veil that marked the border of the Plaguewrought Land shifted then, moved to
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