Closed [Anniversary Event] Wisped Away

[Luke]

Spring, 1, 125

Kage entered a local forge. He could smell the hot breath of the furnaces, the stone surrounding these same furnaces, the smell of the metal being struck. He was nostalgic for it. He had learned, not long ago, that there was a forge around the corner. He had put in a request for a quote for something related to his work and had decided to swing by to see whether this place was all it was cracked up to be as well as get an update on the order. He was mildly surprised, noting how the designs were mildly different from what he would expect from the Basin. He still had to remind himself that he had moved across the country so some differences were to be expected.

He saw various faelnir running around doing work with one aelf standing and doing the important tasks by himself. In the corner Kage recognized the work of a grovewright – a series of engines worked to do something that Kage would probably never understand – completely automation of some kind of smithing process.

The size was such that it could accommodate 7-8 blacksmiths in activity without any problem. He approached one of the furnaces. The fire was already crackling there. He saw one of the faelnir arm himself with an apron that he'd put on, a hammer, and the bag of ores that he had bought in. He threw the ores into the fire and they began to crackle.

Kage watched and waited for a while. The ores had come together and formed a sort of silvery liquid. He saw the faelnir pour the hot liquid into a hollowed-out anvil. It slowly took the shape of a blade then he blew the bellows. The liquid hardened before his eyes.

It had been a while since Kage had last been to the forge. The closest thing had been a workshop that he'd converted part of his old house into to suit Abraia's needs, but he didn't think she had ever forged anything in it. Not that he had paid much attention. She had been one of the least utilized of his pets and he had a lingering regret that he hadn't had her cast a few more spells for him. He hardly remembered what she looked like anymore.

He yawned and for a moment thought that he might leave and come back later when the aelf was less busy. Kage was patient, but he didn't have all day to sit around and wait. Nor did he want to interrupt important work being done.

Kage turned to leave and only got a few steps out the door when he suddenly felt a loss of control of his faculties. He groaned and dropped to his knees, holding his head with both of his hands. He didn't scream, but he steeled his body and mind for what he suspected was some kind of mental episode. Those were not common for him to have, even when all the voices in his head had appeared last season. It'd been weeks if not months since he'd last heard them so he didn't think it was that.

Realistically he probably would have immediately suspected that he was being possessed if he hadn't been in a major city of AElheim. Only because it was such a stupid thing for a malicious entity to try. But as soon as he realized that he was fighting for control of his body, he gritted his teeth and said firmly, "NO."

He forced the presence from his mind and within a few moments a wisp materialized in front of him.

"What is the matter with you?" Kage asked, clenching his fist. "Do I look like a young aelf to be toyed with?" In that moment he felt like an old grandpa reprimanding a young aelf for treading on a garden bed. He felt a grumpy rage come onto him but he steeled his mind and suppressed it. This wasn't the time or place to act out.

"I… apologize," it said in a slightly embarrassed tone. "I have been watching you for some time… I want… I wanted to learn more about you. But your mind is powerful. I did not think you would notice…"

"…" Kage stared at the wisp, sizing it up. "I think you will find that having a discussion with someone and befriending them is a much more effective strategy. I cannot fathom what information you sought to gain that you could not have learned by following me… but I am willing to let this pass with a warning. You should especially refrain from possessing those involved with our nation's security."

"I… I am sorry." The wisp floated from side to side. "I can make it up to you. I have something you may enjoy."

Kage frowned, but he said, "oh? Do tell."

"F… Follow me."

812

 

[Engill]

Engill's feet moved of their own free will.

All day she had walked, smiling at familiar faces, nodding at passing acquaintances, even stopping to speak with Hjaldra and Roskva about the progress of the mining tools and treants. It was all normal seeming, so painfully, eerily so. But she knew that she was not the one in control.

At first it had been subtle, a murmur of unease in the back of her mind, the sound of awakening from one dream but never quite remember that the fog of sleep had been lifted. She had moved her limbs, heard her own voice answering others, but all of it had not been hers. She had touched things she had no interest in, she had formed words she did not mean. And yet, no one had noticed.

No one had noticed that she was not herself.

Engill should have gone home when the moon dropped below the trees and the air started to warm. The routine was work, a drink, sleep. Her feet took her somewhere else, down an old path she seldom ventured down, further into the woods where the lanterns grew dim and the shadows stretched long.

Her voice whispered in alarm in the back of her mind. This was wrong. She was not supposed to be here.

Yet she walked on.

She pushed through the leaves, the rustling of them as her fingers brushed the rough bark of an ancient tree. It had a small opening hidden in its gnarled base, through which a person would barely fit. Almost indistinguishable from the rest of the forest floor, it was covered in thick layers of leaves and moss.

She knelt without hesitation and pushed them aside. They moved with a purpose, not her purpose, but a purpose.

The air inside the hollow was damp and thick with the smell of earth. The cramped space was dim and pulsing, its light flickered like a trapped breath. The air stirred lazily with wild wisps of energy that curled around them as if beckoning them.

Her body responded as if this was exactly where she was supposed to be. She stepped inside.

The heavy silence of the small space swallowed the world outside the hollow. The only sound was her own breath, slow and steady, unfaltering. Crouching, she pressed her fingers against the damp wood of the tree's interior. Under her nails, she felt the roughness of it, grounding and real.

Then the presence inside her stirred.

Her skull felt the sharp, electric pulse of a fire sparking to life. For a second her vision blurred, then came into focus with a clarity she did not recognize as her own. Finally. It was not a thought of hers. The smoke slithered through her mind, covering it in circles. She shuddered, then was still. She knelt, hands on her thighs, breathing slow, not her own.

She had been patient with the wisp inside her. It had waited all day, leading her with gentle nudges, allowing her to think she was herself. It no longer had to pretend here, in the quiet, away from prying eyes.

A coldness came over her thoughts, numbing the parts of her that screamed to resist.

"Today was fun wasn't it?" Neither spoken nor truly heard, the voice curled inside her skull. It was a sense of weight, a feeling of presence staring in on her mind.

It was like pushing against the tide and Engill fought against it. Her fingers twitched. Lips parted, a breath escaped, not hers.

The influence of the wisp inside her wrapped tighter around her mind, shifting. Her hands that had never frittered once trembled to regain control. Her body did not move to leave, but. She extended her arm instead, fingers stroking the throbbing light at the center of the hollow.

Energy rippled through her. She saw something, for a moment, something beyond herself. Flickering lights, formless shadows and whisperings kept up, figures shifting in the dark. The wisp had come from there. She was the one it had wandered, slipped through the veil between worlds to find.

Now it waited for something. Waiting for her to break. But her body didn't react, her pulse quickened. Held still by the wisp, she was anchored in place.

She had to fight.

She pushed back with all the willpower she had, trying to get her limbs to move. It was cloying thick mud trying to move. Her own body was a prison, every inch of her was restrained.

The wisp laughed, quietly, breathily, not cruelly, not kindly. "You struggle. But it is futile." She gritted her teeth. She would not be a vessel.

She reached for something familiar, deep inside, past the cold grip of the wisp's influence. A flicker, a spark of her own power, the way she had spent months on creating those trees, moving one of pieces of energy her, into every branch and root.

Words: 822

 

[Luke]

Kage followed the wisp to a strange looking hole in the side of a tree that he never would have thought was occupied. There wasn't all that much open land in the aelf city. He'd had to pay an arm and a leg for his own home that he could only afford because he'd traded the property for someone who wanted to move into the basin. He was surprised to see that the hole led to a path that brought him to some sort of room. Inside the room was…

"Engill?" he asked, suddenly a lot more worried than he'd been when he himself had been possessed.

He knew what Engill looked like, and she looked like she had more saol inside of her than usual. It didn't take a genius to figure out that she had also been possessed.

"Wisp, that's enough. Exit her," Kage said with a commanding tone.

The wisp exited and floated aside, annoyedly.

"Ienarn, you were supposed to possess him…" that wisp said to the one that was beside Kage. It occurred to him that he'd never asked for its name.

"He was too strong for me," Ienarn said. It twirled in the air and continued, "we wanted to bring you here to experience what only two lovers can. We have been waiting to be reborn for thousands of years. It gets tiring being stuck like this." For a moment the wisp projected what it used to look like when it had been alive. "It's not the same, like this."

Kage shook his head, "I've nothing against your desires, but they should be projected onto humans. You are playing a dangerous game doing this to aelves. Ienarn, thank you for bringing me so I could put an end to it."

The wisp turned back to its spherical form and floated in a circle. "Please don't tell on us. I promise we will only possess faelnir from now on." It was probably a promise it had made many times, and Kage didn't know whether or not he should make a big deal of it. He'd likely mention it to someone in his inner circle, but it wasn't like he was going to harm these wisps nor did he have the tools to confine them on his person.

So, he said, "I will consider your words. Engill, let's go."

"Wait," Ienarn said, "I can give you a present… a bribe."

"Why am I not surprised?" Kage asked as he rubbed his temples.

"Just wait…"

Inarn floated off and came back a few minutes later in the body of an inari. "I keep this one locked up where it cannot escape. It is a Galsterei and I could offer its powers to you. Or I could offer you some alkahest that I've collected. I have quite a lot..." it pulled out a box that had large amounts of alkahest sectioned off into groups.

Kage was genuinely interested in the amount of alkahest offered. His mine's resources aside, he had many ideas for what he could do with that. "Fine, I'll take aetherite, if you have it." Inarn pointed to one of the compartments and Kage withdrew one of the sacks.

The aelf nodded to the wisps, then left, hopefully with Engill.

1342

 

[Engill]

Her nails dug into her palms as she clenched her fists so hard. She was seething. How take her body; her will; how dare these wisps treat as trinket to be borrowed? It was infuriating. Violating. How long would she have been their puppet if it wasn't for Kage finding her? Would they have chipped away how much of her mind before she was nothing but a hollow shell?

Her chest burned with anger but she read the room. It wasn't now to lash out, not when Kage had already taken control of the situation. Instead then, she gave a sharp glare at Lenarn and the other wisp as they continued to chatter about what they want, how they had waited so long, their excuses.

At that moment she should have struck them down. She should have tried to punish them. She forced her fury down, but instead took a deep breath. But she wouldn't act rashly, not here, not now.

She took her own sack of saolite and slung it over her shoulder without a word when Kage nodded for her to follow. The wisp had tried to take everything from her. The least she could do was to take something back.

Finally, as they stepped outside, she allowed herself to speak, her voice sharp as a blade.

"You should report them." Expression set, she glanced at him. "They say they will only have faelnir, but you and I both know that's a lie. As has been the case before, it'll be so again."

She exhaled, shaking her head. There was still rage, but it was not blinding rage. Not anymore.

"They need to be dealt with before someone else falls all the way down into themselves."

Words: 1100

 

[Luke]

It had certainly been a strange start to his day. Kage emerged from the tree unscathed with the pouch in his hand and Engill right behind him. "Yes, they will need to be dealt with, but I would think that they have been dealt with before. At the very least I believe a Deep One ought to wipe their memories. There's no way to tell how much it saw of my mind before I noticed what was happening."

Just what he needed, more work. He was already so busy with the mine and getting his familiar set up in Jian. He didn't need to add wisp drama to his worries. "At least we were able to get something from them," he said with a forced smile. "One can do a lot with this much alkahest."

Kage had been amassing quite the impressive quantity of aetherite over the past seasons. He imagined that he would end up making some kind of weapon with it. Something to do with fulgur, most likely, so that he could further his interests in Jian. Oh Jian, how it interested him. But his travel assistant needed to be paid and he was tiring of paying her time and time again. And even then, she was only a faelnir so her reserves were kind of pathetic. He would ordinarily turn to another aelf, but he wasn't exactly advertising what he was doing over there.

As he walked home he thought about whether or not he ought to just learn how to teleport on his own. It couldn't be that hard, plus now that he had ascended, death wasn't all that scary. Sure he would probably have to answer why he'd died, but there was nothing inherently wrong with taking a galdr.

He thought to discuss it with Engill, but he didn't think she would support him doing something so dangerous. So, he told her that he "had some other things to attend to," before splitting off to go talk to an exodus mage that he knew.

"Aelfrick," Kage said, approaching one of the portal mages that was working near the market area. He had four portals open beside him and people were filtering through them one after another. It seemed like a fairly relaxing job, especially since portals lasted a week and only needed to be recast when they took on too much weight.

"Kage," Aelfrick said with a nod, "where are you headed today?"

"The Aetherium," he replied ominously.

The response puzzled the exodii for a moment then his eyes widened. "You mean, you are seeing a galdr? I would have never expected that from you."

"Yes, I think it's time," Kage said with a smile.

"Yes, yes, it might be. I assume you wanted me to do the honors?"

"I couldn't think of anyone more qualified," Kage replied.

"Hmm, yes, me neither. Let us go to your home where we can have some privacy."

A few minutes later and they'd portalled to his house and made their way to Kage's bedroom. Kage laid down and AElfrick marked the bottom of his foot with his blood. Kage started to tense up almost immediately as his Other tried to ferry him across planes and into the Aetherium. Once he was pulled into it, Kage's mind went blank. He couldn't remember how long he'd been there or even how he'd gotten there. All he knew was that there was a piece of him that he had to find in order to become whole. He felt like he had been travelling through an endless space for hours before he reunited with his Other which led him home.

When he woke, he found that AElfrick wasn't even there anymore. Roskva was, however. He'd forgotten he'd asked her to come over. She was still having sleeping issues so she looked as tired as he felt.

"Ugh, must have been out for a while," he said, sitting up.

"Hours since I got here," Roskva said. "I was worried about you."

"Was nothing to worry about," he replied with a cough. "I suppose I can use exodus magic now. I shouldn't try it out yet though… I need to find that aelf and convince him to give me some lessons." He stretched out his hand and then clenched it into a fist. It'd been so long since he'd been bad at using magic that he didn't know if he would even know where to begin.

"You can go home now, I'm fine," he told Roskva. He knew she was going through her own issues and it would take him a little while for him to build up his physical strength again.

When she was gone, Kage laid back down and focused on one of his treants to puppetter with deadsight. He had constructed this one seasons ago – it was a vokhai that had attacked Paradise. It had been severely underutilized for the longest time so Kage had sent it to go work at one of the faelnir prisons.

With a hopping step, the former vokhai walked around the prison grounds, his trusty shovel on his shoulder. Suicides, torture, sundering… who knew what dark activities were happening there. All he knew was that there were always bodies to bury. He didn't care about that in the end. He was incapable of feeling emotion at all. He had already buried three bodies this morning in the forest, they would make fertilizer, but he still had a lot of work to do.

When he opened the door to the prison, he grabbed a chained up faelnir and took him away without saying any thing. Kage had not seen to add Haerpsi to its body so it literally couldn't talk. This was the point where Kage tapped into the former Vokhai's mind to take control.

Kage clenched the treant's fist around the faelnir's arm hard enough to break bone until they got to where the other bodies had been buried. The faelnir looked brave until he saw the holes in the ground.

"Wait, please! We were hunting, him and I, we were young and our father was not there. We saw a deer, my brother decided to kill it, to taste the meat. Someone else took their shot and accidentally shot an arrow in my brother's head. In a fit of rage, I killed them..."


Kage cocked the treant's head to the side, as if asking "so what?" He laughed inwardly at the prisoner's words. He kind of enjoyed listening to the hopeless beg for their lives. He didn't give a damn about their stories. And yet, he found himself listening to his story out of boredom.

"Shortly after my escape from the guards who tried to arrest me, I met another hunter. I made a small camp, I was still close to this town, I was very resentful. Once night fell, I began my normal activities, fishing with a makeshift rod to catch small fish, making a fire to cook the fruit of my harvest. I finally breathed the air of freedom. Then a guard approached my camp. I thought that if he ever found me, he was going to raise the alarm for sure. So, I took one of the branches that I had cut into a spear then killed him too."

Kage could tell where this story was going. This faelnir must have been on the run and killed many people to try avoid facing the consequences of his actions. It was a shame to have him killed when he was supposedly so good at fighting. But Kage knew the rules – if a faelnir was in that line, they were marked for death. So he took his shovel and whacked the man on the back of the head and buried him.

Kage then let go of his connection to his treant, allowing it to resume its automated gravedigger duties. Killing a faelnir had been fun, but now he wished he hadn't sent Roskva away.

2672

 

[Engill]

Engill stepped out into the crisp night, taking a deep breath, trying to get rid of the feeling of violation still clinging to her skin. Her muscles were coiled with the ghost of forced movement not her own, tense. For now the wisps were gone like a bitter aftertaste.

She forced herself to relax. She had dismissed her concerns to Kage who had instead focused on other things. That was his prerogative. She didn't intend to let this go so easily. But she had to shake this feeling, reclaim herself.

Instead of heading straight home, she wandered through the less populated streets of the city, her feet going mindlessly one way or another. She wasn't ready to go back to her home, to be alone with her thoughts.

She had been helpless. What burned the most was that. She still could not remember exactly when the wisp had slipped into her, even now. She had made her walk, talk, be as if nothing was wrong. And she hadn't even known.

How could she avoid that?

Closing her eyes, forcing herself to think only of the sounds around her instead, the hoot of an owl far in the distance, the humming of the insects nestled in the foliage, the rustling of leaves; the usual sounds of her forest, the lovely sounds of her forest. It was always a place of solace to her and she let its presence anchor her back to herself.

She eventually stood, stretched out her limbs and went on her way home. It was a relief in its own way that the walk back was uneventful. She had no need for another surprise tonight.

However, when she stepped through the door of her home she immediately knew something was wrong. There was something wrong with the usual quiet of the space. It wasn't peaceful silence, the way she liked it when Kage wasn't around, but too still. Too heavy.

Kage was in bed and he looked awful. She applied that sliver of exasperation to a flat voice. "What stupid thing did you do now?"

Words: 1447

 

[Luke]

Kage smirked as he sat up and looked at Engill. "I'm an exodii now. That's what I wanted to get done before you could talk me out of it." He held up a hand preemptively to continue, "don't worry, I don't have any plans on taking any of the elemental galdr," though he couldn't deny that the idea appealed to him. Only time would tell just how far he would go.

He slowly got up to see if he even could. It'd been hours and the worst of the effects were gone by now. "See? I'm fine." Seeing her expression, he wondered if she was still upset about what had happened earlier. "And now we can go report on what those wisps have been doing."

He should have gotten that done already, but he had gotten distracted. His mind was already wandering to all the other things he needed to get done. He had to stop by the mine, meet with Roskva again… As much as he liked Engill he couldn't spend all day with her. Perhaps she was getting tired of his busy lifestyle. He wouldn't blame her if she was starting to have second thoughts about being with him. That was why he gave her a big window to turn down his marriage proposal.

"What are you planning to do with all that saolite by the way?" Kage asked. He genuinely could not fathom why someone would need that much, unless she had a particular interest in one of the other glamours. Nobody needed to ask why he needed aetherite, that was fairly straightforward.

Regardless of her response he would go to his desk and fill out a report on the wisps and then send a treant to go deliver it to the right personnel. After that, he needed to get some more rest. He felt like he needed to rest for around a week before doing anything super strenuous, but at least he could still work his puppets from bed.

3000

 

[Engill]

Engill's arms crossed so tightly that her nails dug into her sleeves, her eyes narrowed. Exodii. Of course. Kage was always reckless, and never failed to surprise her.

She shook her head gesturing that he was an idiot. "I am truly upset with you. For the second time in months, you've made a monumental decision without even a conversation."

She breathed in sharply, reining in her irritation. He was alive, at least. That was something.

"Fine. You're not dead. Congratulations." She waved at him vaguely and then toward the door.

She scoffed at his question about the saolite. "I have plans but I am not in the mood to discuss them with you."

Turning on her heel, she said that. "Come on, Exodii. Let's get this report over with."

Words: 1576

 

[Luke]

Thread Title: [Anniversary Event] Wisped Away

Thread Summary: Kage and Engill both get possessed by wisps and led to their little hiding spot. Kage gets onto them about being naughty and the wisps bribe them with some alkahest for their troubles. Kage gets initiated into exodus and Engill gets mad over their relationship issues. Then they go to report on what the wisps have done.

Expected Rewards:
See Event
Engill: 16xp, 243g saolite, Free Minor Merit
Kage: 30 xp, 243g aetherite, Free Minor Merit, Exodus not using Kage for the event

Thread Link: https://antarok.net/threads/anniversary-event-wisped-away.564/#post-2996

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