RP:Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad

Part of the What You Leave Behind Arc

Part of the Through A Glass, Darkly Arc

Summary: After parting with Valrae, Callum finds himself in an inner struggle as to whether or not he should embrace the bismuth skull's influence, in an effort to protect himself against the witch hunters that threatened him and others in Lithrydel. He finally removes the skull from its protective box and asks it for help, to which the he receives his answer. Caiburne, the Catalian that once held dominion over the bismuth skull, just so happened to be nearby and the two battle once more for the title of master of the crystal skull, leaving both of them forever changed.

Arkhen's Forgotten Temple, Sage Forest

Lionel || The creature finished urinating on the statue of Arkhen and pulled up its leather trousers. Its face was covered in uneven patches of coarse fur, and where skin was visible between the patches it was putrid green and bubbly. The creature snorted and grabbed a bundle of overgrown vines from a decayed trellis beside the statue. Its hands were hook-shaped with needles for fingertips and what little of its wrists could be seen ahead of full bronze plate armor seemed scaled, like a fish’s fins. A steel ax hung from a strap on its back, bloodstained. Yet for all its brutishness, its most surprising attribute was eloquence. “Let the past die,” it snarled at a young elven slave chained to a stone pillar. “Piss on it if you have to.” It laughed lowly as if in on some cosmic joke. “Might I trouble you to shut up,” General Caiburne murmured scornfully from nearby.

Lionel || The aging alchemist hadn’t been himself since that fateful day many months ago in which he’d been outplayed at his own game, trapped by his ghastly alchemical creations and suffocated almost — almost! — to his end. When Lord Kahran saved him, his conditions were clear: redouble his efforts. The work must continue. So Caiburne, more plant now than man, writhed his way into Kahran’s good graces and was given command of an army. But even the thought of it made him scoff. What good was an army to a man of science? Then it dawned on him, the crystal-clear and graceful answer — they were fresh bodies one and all. Some were killed, of course; an experiment was only as successful as the number of variables it contained. But some of those that survived, oh, how sweet they had become.

Lionel || The etrenank before him now was proof positive that his work hadn’t been for naught. Every inch of it was deadly, and every thought cunning. At least, that was the ideal. This one thought itself some base philosopher on occasion; there were still kinks in need of address. Regardless, it showed promise. In time Caiburne would fuse more and more orcs and elves and basilisks like the ones he used as raw material to forge this prototype, and if his alchemical formulae runneth low, well, he’d make them do it the old-fashioned way. “Please,” the young she-elf begged between thirsty coughs, and not for the first or even the twentieth time. “I just want to go home. I won’t do you bad, I promise, I won’t speak nothing of you and yours.” Her eyes, Caiburne noted, were like a doe’s. They charmed him, in that special way in which a man such as him could be charmed; his mind raced to consider the boons and flaws involved in morphing an elf and a deer together as one. He shook his head with a chuckle. “No, I don’t suppose so,” he mumbled. “Relax, my dear.” The pun was almost too much. He grinned, and out from his mouth cave vines like tendrils which only retracted when he sealed his lips. The elf passed out with fear.

Lionel || “This one should be cooked only briefly,” The etrenank told the general, evidently unaware that Caiburne intended to experiment on her rather than consume her flesh.

Callum || The walk from the west side of the forest seemed far too long and far too arduous. Smoke still curled up from the house that had been infiltrated by witch hunters. Green flames had been made to devour the house and the unfortunate victim inside it and blessed rains had been called down soon after to douse the fires and keep them from spreading. But despite the fact that the old witch Melba had been seemingly released from the tortures that befell her kind in Lithrydel, Callum hadn’t felt any better. He was constantly looking over his shoulder and continuously wishing he’d gotten a ride back home from Valrae; Cal had made his choice unfortunately, and the Red Witch was now far from here, to return to Cenril.

Callum hadn’t taken up his bismuth skull back at that house, despite the possibility of witch hunters showing up. It hadn’t quite called to him from his home within that enchanted box; maybe there really hadn’t been anyone around besides him and Valrae. He pondered whether or not he should even keep it in that box anymore. Without Meri around to be concerned about him, he wasn’t even sure if he cared at all. The pentagram charm the old woman had been clutching in the last moments of her life and well on into death was pulled from the pocket of Cal’s waistcoat as he passed through the southern part of Sage Forest. He looked to it for answers, but it gave him none. At this point, he was feeling as much of an atheist as the other Catalians that made their home in Lithrydel.

Callum || Still no answers were to be had as the raven-haired witch headed home, getting ever so near to Arkhen’s Temple. The lack of help from whatever higher powers might assist a witch and thinking about the witch hunters and that poor old witch’s demise tainted the Catalian’s sorrow-filled heartstrings, shifting them vengeance-seeking vines. “Fine,” he muttered at length. The star pendant was shoved back into his pocket and the bismuth skull’s box retrieved from his satchel. Unlocked and unneeded, the box was cast aside and the skull held in Cal’s hands for the first time in a long time. “You want to talk so much, then tell me what the hell I need to do to stop them.”

Callum || The skull did speak, but it wasn’t what Callum wanted. Energy from the skull pulsed, the rainbow hues of the crystal flooding the area briefly, like an aurora borealis brought down from the heavens. It spoke, but it spoke to its former keeper, who was not so far away in that temple. Callum, for his part, could only stare at the skull and wonder just what the hell happened, and whether or not he was actually going to get his answer.

Lionel | “Have the gods come to save me?” Evidently Caiburne’s she-elf lab rat hadn’t been unconscious long. “No,” Caiburne said. “The gods are not for you.” The etrenank tilted its abominable head toward its master at that line. “What is it?” The question sounded more like a growl. “Destiny,” Caiburne answered, “a thing I scarcely cite or believe in. Follow me.” The etrenank gestured its right hook. “What of the flesh?” Caiburne shrugged absently. “It is no longer relevant.” The words had clear meaning and the beast knew that meaning well. The girl’s mangled scream was bloodcurdling and sad. Caiburne didn’t bother turning around to see how the etrenank had chosen to kill her, nor what it intended to do with what was left of her. Caiburne, listening to the haunted, sweet, sickly melody of his long-lost skull, hardly heard her scream at all.

Lionel | It was the etrenank, with its sharper vision, who first spotted Callum at the edge of a nearby clearing. The creature crouched low, lifted its ax from its strap, and pointed the steel in the interloper’s direction. Caiburne didn’t bother to look. He felt the skull calling to him. He knew exactly where it was and he bet he knew who was carrying it too. “You will not strike,” he told his guard. “You will wait. You will cover me if necessary. You will not kill the Catalian unless I give the order.” The etrenank blinked almost comically. “The -other- Catalian,” Caiburne sneered, sighing. He stretched his wrinkled old arms out toward the trees, watching as his limbs stretched impossibly. They wrapped around one tree, and then the next one, and then the next, all the while growing in length exponentially and developing a thick wooden protective bark. When at last Caiburne had wrapped his vine-like tendrils around nearly a dozen trees — some close enough to Callum’s location that he might have seen the act in time to do something about it — the wicked general flung himself forward at breakneck speed to body slam into the spot the skull had called from. His torso was now as hard as rock, but made of densest greenery, and he withdrew his arms in an ear-piercing snap so that they landed back beside his shoulder blades like ordinary limbs again. “Come out, come out, wherever you are! I’ve got all kinds of plans for -your- skull!”

Callum || Was Cal some strange mashup of spider and man? Did he have some sort of spider sense that told him something bad was going to happen? No. No, he did not. But, there was a odd sort of tingling sensation that emitted from the skull now as Caiburne flung himself through the forest to reach the very spot where Callum stood. The hair on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end like evergreens, frozen in the winters of Frostmaw. He heard the rustling of leaves, and soon the shouting--Cal knew immediately whose voice it was.

Callum was certainly wishing he’d ask Val to take him home at this point. He’d be nice and safe and sound, and could hide away for the rest of his days in the panic room he’d had built beneath the house. But no. He just had to go and do the stupid thing and pull out the skull. Maybe it’d been wise for Meri to leave him? He was clearly an idiot, no matter how smart he acted. The bismuth skull was shoved away into his bag and mere moments were taken to try to come up with a plan as he ran behind the nearest tree. He wasn’t safe, even there, and he knew it, but did the thing anyway. Those same rains from not long ago were called again, the storm worse than before. Thunder boomed and lightning crackled, threatening to strike and burn down trees in the forest; Callum himself was feeling a bit sparky again, the static electricity around the storm-calling witch becoming more apparent as he grew more on edge. He kept quiet as Caiburne made his unfortunate entrance, praying to that newly-acquired pentagram that the long since dead alchemist didn’t find him.

Lionel | Caiburne slammed into the dirt with speed. Rather than crashing, he bounced. The hardness he’d willed upon his body had given him tremendous fortitude, and that fortitude had effectively manifested in the form of a stone. Like a stone, he skipped across the loamy earth several times before stopping. The alchemist spat grass from his mouth and coughed. A bit of dirt had lodged itself down his trachea uncomfortably. While his mouth was still open Caiburne tasted the first raindrops and squinted. He started to speak but was rudely interrupted by thunder. When the thunder had briefly subsided, he rolled his grey eyes up at the dark clouds contemptuously and tried again. “Prototype! Do not engage.” As much intelligence as he had successfully managed to imbue upon his beastly creation, he hadn’t yet found the key that imbued wisdom. The etrenank would surely have rushed that accursed storm mage soon if he hadn’t been told otherwise. Caiburne’s voice didn’t carry especially well on a good day, and now with all this rain it would hardly be audible to Callum. But the etrenank, who stood its ground a considerable ways past him, had a hawk’s keen hearing and growled in understanding.

Lionel | Caiburne coughed again and hobbled a few paces, showing his age. “You’re quick on your feet, boy. I’ll slice those good legs off and stick them on an ogre!” Like the worst kind of comedian, he laughed at his own joke. His hobble was suddenly gone. He planted himself into the dirt — which was fast becoming mud — and took literal root in the soil. He siphoned rich nutrients which hardened his body even further, enabling it with a thick crust which would prove resilient even to magical bolts of lightning. Suddenly he pulled his roots out and sprung forth high above the trees like an unhinged Olympian jack-in-the-box, landing a scarce six meters from Callum. He lifted his arms in the air in a mock display of peace. “Please,” he said. “There’s been a terrible misunderstanding. Why don’t you come inside…” His arms extended into vines, which pulled themselves apart and became more vines, which repeated the process until an elaborate fence surrounded Callum on all sides. The storm mage would be able to see the grey sky far above him, but he needed to find a way through his entrapment if he wanted to escape in any other direction. “Come inside my vines, I mean!” Caiburne spat out more grass when he tried to laugh. The vines began to close in on Callum menacingly. “I think we should become closer, you and I.”

Callum didn’t speak of course. He didn’t dare. But, he did scowl at that ridiculously cheesing joking around Caiburne did. Clearly, the other Catalian was off his rocker. The fact that he was a few crayons short of a full box and not dead was well… it was entirely concerning. Cal had been preeeeetty damn sure that Caiburne died all those months ago in Rynvale, otherwise, he would’ve never suggested the witches go there for their meeting some time after. They had possibly been in danger the entire time they’d been there, albeit from a different source. The younger Catalian cursed at himself inwardly, angry that he’d even ventured so far as to give Valrae a place for a meeting. Nowhere was safe; they might as well have been in a farmhouse in the middle of a wide open field waiting for the oncoming collision from a tornado.

Callum || Nevertheless, that whole thing was done and dusted--and if Callum didn’t think of something soon, he’d be done and dusted too… or something worse. Cal didn’t quite tap into those powers of the bismuth skull just yet, for he was still too fearful of what the bad effects might be. He did, however, grab hold of one of those vines before they closed in on him completely. The strongest surge of lightning the Catalian’s ever conjured up was sent through those vines, regardless of whether or not the vines themselves might have some sort of hidden defense mechanism--his own vines had had those thorns and poison spewing flowers, the last time he used the skull. Cal didn’t care. Anything was better than being crushed by a giant net of vines and made to feel like some sort of beached merman. All the while, the rain poured harder, grew colder, and felt like tiny daggers on the flesh of any person that wandered into the area.

Lionel | “Eheheh,” Caiburne hammed it up unapologetically. “Eh?” He blinked. Callum’s lightning had burned a crisp through a chunk of the mad alchemist’s arm-vines. The wound seared but Caiburne did not feel it; there were no nerves coursing through those vines, no veins to speak of. With the wiry little bastard’s escape from his clutches assured, Caiburne no longer bothered to maintain the rest of his nest trap. Instead, he hoisted what was left of it up overhead to shield himself from hail. “Alright, I admit, I deserved that one.” He chuckled dryly. Perhaps too dryly. Outgrowths of wood protruded from the edges of his vines in oddly small sizes. They were guided skyward by more vines, securely lodged into indentations in the vegetation. “But by the same token, water boy, you’ll be deserving this!” The wood-speckled vines reached out as far up as Caiburne could will them -- several meters at least -- and slithered with incredible speed toward the next of Callum’s lightning strikes. They caught fire dramatically, each and every piece of wood igniting and scorching the vines underneath. “Some like it hot! Us Catalians know a thing or two about heat, don’t we?” He laughed so hard he snorted. The vines flew downward in a fiery swoosh. The hail cooled them as best hail could cool, but the fire was so immense there’d be plenty left when it reached Callum’s latest location. All-the-while, Caiburne snaked more green tendrils across the shrubbery. They sought to latch onto the bag his precious skull was enclosed within -- and to yank.

Callum || It was not often that Callum desperately wished for a fire sword like Lionel’s or terribly powerful fire magic like Brand’s. It was not often at all. Usually when he felt like being lazy and didn’t want to use a match to light the kettle for tea or when leaves piled outside and he needed to burn them to get rid of them. Today wasn’t a lazy day though. Today was a day filled with death and destruction and pain. Lots of pain. Especially the pain from his clothes catching on fire. Callum’s rains never seemed to be able to quench the fires of evil; they hadn’t the day Valrae was burned and likewise, they didn’t now. Cal questioned his own abilities as a mage as the flames seared pant leg to flesh and heated the metal cufflinks and buttons on the left side of his shirt to an unbearable temperature and left scorched skin in their place before melting from the shirt entirely. There was one thing Cal definitely couldn’t decide on which was worse: bleeding out from getting shot by arrows several times or getting set on fire. It seemed to be the latter, as Cal let out a shriek that rivaled the one he let out when the witch hunters attacked and an arrow had gone through one side of his thigh and out the other. It wasn’t even just the fact that he was on fire and in pain--it was literally the thing Cal feared most.

Callum || The scream could be heard even above the din of the rain, but once the flames were taken care of with orbs of water, Cal was soon jerked away from those fiery vines by others that sought the skull in Cal’s satchel. Much like the night Kahran attacked Larket, something snapped in Cal’s head. The line between pacifism and violence wasn’t quite as thick as Cal had thought, and now it was apparent as adrenaline coursed through his body and the pain from the fire subsided with it. He removed the satchel from his person, as well as the skull from the bag itself, letting the unscorched vines take what was given. The hail was bigger now, leaving dents in trees and the ground; Caiburne’s prototype might even hear the sound of breaking glass from nearby. Was that Cal’s house? Probably. It didn’t matter, however. What did matter is that Cal finally decided to use that crystal skull of his. Those same rainbow hues from minutes ago pulsed again as the Catalian called on its power, begging the roots from so very deep in the earth to spring forth and grab Caiburne. He even asked the vines that the alchemist controlled to turn on their master. Cal’s own vines sprouted up, with their beautiful flowers spewing poison where they may. The raven-haired witch put every ounce of his strength into asking for help from the skull, sending as many kinds of flora towards Caiburne as he could, to snuff out he who should’ve died long ago.

Lionel | Caiburne tasted victory on his wrinkled purple lips. Even the hail felt blessed. “I bless the rains down in Southern Sage,” he cackled. The hail that breached his covering vines stung his scalp nevertheless. It caused him to flinch for the briefest of moments. Alas, that moment was thoroughly inopportune. Yellows and greens and fuchsias and blues hummed to life between the men, Callum’s rainbow in full bloom. Caiburne lost his grip on his fiery vines when he instinctually attempted to shield his eyes; after all, his arms were still stretched and coiled up dozens and dozens of times over. What Caiburne ended up doing instead gave Callum more than enough opening to succeed. Caiburne’s folly brought his vine-arms down upon himself, brushing dangerously close to a lethal whack. He managed to stop them mere inches from his head; they rushed through his greying hair and brought hot wind where they landed. “Sticks and stones, good lad.” His laugh turned into a hacking wheeze. “You don’t know how to use that. You are a child grasping at things far beyond your control. That skull only shines for its true master.” Flowers of every conceivable color blossomed from the earth with such density that they smacked into Caiburne’s hardened torso with enough force to knock him over. He spat blood, lungshot, and thrust himself back up as fast as he could afford. He called upon his vines to forge a barrier and protect him, counting on their fire to melt Callum’s own fast-encroaching vines. But Kahran’s general vastly underestimated the hail. It had cooled the flames to slightest sparks. What remained of them was no match for something imbued with the powers of a crystal skull. They were shorn like butter beneath a torch.

Lionel | “Protype,” Caiburne called. Yet he was so far beneath a vast tapestry of deadly stems that even the etrenank’s heightened sense of hearing could not discern his anguished cries from all the other havoc. It grunted and tore the other leg off the slaughtered elven lass. It knew it would still be hungry after the feast. If its master did not call for it and the dust settled and his target appeared victorious, the prototype would simply clutch Caiburne’s teleportation orb, which lay upon a nearby pillar, and return to Kahran for more food. “Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten,” it carried on philosophizing. “It matters not who is killed. It matters not who is eaten. There are so many lambs. Perhaps even you were naught but a lamb, Caiburne.” It threw aside the bones of the girl’s leg and pulled her arms from their sockets with ease.

Lionel | As the flowers and the vines wrapped around him, suffocating him, Caiburne wondered whether Kahran believed in second chances. The roots rapidly emerging from the soil beneath him pierced through his stomach on their way to a tree’s instantaneous creation. The roots widened, forming a stump, and Caiburne felt himself ripped asunder. He had his answer.

Callum || This entire time, Cal’d said nothing. But the more he got angry at Caiburne and the predicament he was in, the more that Catalian blood of his boiled, making the witch want to lash out with words, in addition to magic. Caiburne just talked and talked and talked, like some terribly cheesy villain from a comic book. It grated on Cal’s nerves until finally, “It’s got a new master now, you frakking asshole. Do me and everyone else a frakking favor and don’t come back again this time around.” He watched as Caiburne was pulled down and embedded into the newly made stump. Maybe he should send for Valrae to come back and set it on fire? No… no. The anger that had resurfaced in the Catalian brought with it a hint of malice and the thing that came to mind when he asked himself ‘Now what should I do with this?’ was to leave it. He would leave it and return as often as possible. He would come back and he would will that flora tighter and tighter around Caiburne’s corpse. Callum would do so until the other Catalian’s bones disintegrated into dust and mixed with the earth and would go on to help other plants take its place. Caiburne had been a plant in his unlife and he would remain so in death.

Callum felt that flare of magic from the teleportation orb and he soon headed towards where the magic had come from. But, whatever was there had gone, leaving that bloodied mess of an elf behind. The hail subsided, turning back to rain, the storm washing the blood away. More vines would pull down whatever was left of the elf, into the dirt below, hiding the massacre from sight. And then… as if nothing happened at all, Callum went home. The Callum that would be entering that now somewhat destroyed house would not be the same that left it hours ago.