A Skull Full of Souls

The life of an Adventurer ish, in itshelf, an adventure. In lessh pithy termsh, that meansh that it’sh poorly imagined and full of shlog, shcarsh, and shuffering. Everyone imaginesh the highlightsh. Fighting a dragon, disharming trapsh, taking all the treashure, and shpending it all on good drinksh while sheducing all the pretty localsh with your talesh of derring-do. That all happensh, eventually. But sho much more of the time ish spent preparing, practicsching, traveling, maintaining, and, of courshe, quivering in abject terror ash shomething you couldn’t even begin to fight producshesh nightmare-inducshing noishes shomewhere far too closhe for comfort ash it huntsh for prey. Sho often, for every campfire tale of hilarity, excschitemnt, and bravery. There’sh cold, wet, and dischcomfort. Alongshide the breathtaking viewsh and worldsh of hidden wonder. There’sh experiensches that dishturb shleep on even the quiet nightsh. Carrie, tonight ish one of thoshe nightsh.

Under a travel-stained blanket, a violently shivering bundle of what looks like feathers and leather opens a beady, bloodshot, predatory eye and fixes the portion of the leather blanket separating her from the speaker with a baleful glare. Unwilling to attract the attention of the chittering abominations still occasionally eliciting short but horrific throat-damaging screams of terrified victims in the forest, the vulture rumbles only the quietest of enraged sounds at the incessantly chattering skull she is sharing camp with. Communicating with absolutely no uncertainty that, at this moment, the only possible thing she wants, is silence.

The skull’s strange, eyes glow merrily. Purple stars are ringed on the left in red and blue on the right. Its smile remains fixed in place as it beams in the direction of the bird. Outwardly silent as it continues to mentally project its thoughts at its familiar. “Yesh indeed, my bone-picking friend. It’s theshe nightsh that truly tesht my mettle. I’m jusht sho bored. I think I might brea—

The sky burns red. A concussive wave rushes in from the east and causes many of the items left unsecured around the camp to launch after the wave. A particularly large pot falls from a stump and hits a huddled figure. Then the sound hits. A crackling, fwooshing, rumble with a depth of intensity that it vibrates inside of them even as it crushes them down and glares against their flesh with the intensity of a blast furnace. For half a minute, or eternity, depending on who is asked, the flames rumble and the heat grows. Several huddled figures grunt in discomfort as their blankets catch fire. The pressure gets worse, and then worse until suddenly, it vanishes. The heat largely remains and the air stinks of fire and ash, with hints of charred flesh. The silence stretches as curiosity smolders in the group. Some desperately want to see the aftermath, some really don’t, and some just really want to get out of the hot and smoky blankets. One especially charred blanket seems to be quivering. Big Moe silently tries to project his question into the maddening skeleton and is surprised as the skeleton answers. “Oh yeah, the shwarmsh are gone! Wow! They musht have gotten mosht of the army firsht! That fireball wash HUUUGE! I bet that part of the foresht is jusht gone!”

That thought does not comfort Borbigmos and he inhales deeply to begin shouting at Julius. Well, he tries. The smoke stops his breath short and he starts hacking and wheezing instead. To his credit, every sucking gasp and guttural hack just screams ‘ANGRY’ as his bloodshot eyes lock onto the eldritch irises of the grinning madman. Before he can recover, a shriek of outrage, meeting his intensity and eclipsing it, erupts from one more particularly charred and quivering blanket. “Ohmygods my hair! MY HAIR!” The blanket disintegrates in a flash of green light and reveals the form of a slightly smoking, beautifully dressed, irate human female. Her outfit, while still mostly made of sturdy traveling gear. Is stunning. Her traveling robes are tailored to look something between a kimono and a riding dress. The splashes of color on her petticoats seem to be actively engaged in a free-for-all conquest of territory. Her bangs hang straight and fade between forest green and light aquamarine. The left half of her remaining hair is dreadlocked with each fine lock transitioning between different colors. The locks are bundled in a way that the bulk is tied into a simple loop while the tips fan gently and are tied off with various stones, bones, gems, and wood. The right side of her hair is colored in molten shades of fire. It’s straight and full, tied into a side braid. Which is in itself tied similarly to the left except that the end cascades out of a golden ring and flows richly down her shoulder and back. Or at least that was how it had been pre-fireball. Now, there were holes. An enormous chunk of her dreads had been charred through halfway along with some of her braid. Her shriek achieves sonic damage as her hands come away with large portions of her detached locks. Her gaze focuses on the skull and a magical hand erupts from her own. It shoots across the camp and seizes the skull. Yanking him towards the irate woman and holding him inches from her burning amber eyes. “Julius.” She whispers, soft and icy, like fluffy snow landing on a gravestone.

The skull's eyes, rolling from vertigo caused by the contradictory sensations of his body sitting still and his head being yanked across the camp finally manages to meet the gaze of the terrifying irate woman. “Um, yesh Candii?”

“I spent like, five years getting my hair perfect. And you just ruined it in like, thirty seconds.” she whispers.

“Ah,” Julius mumbles.

Her eyes narrow. “Each ornament attached to my hair had like, been custom crafted to hold an emergency spell. By my hands only.” Her words are soft and smooth, like silk running gently along a sharp blade.

“Oh uh—” He starts.

“Shut up! Bone Bitch! I’m like not even done.” The glare in her eyes had gone so far through icy that they’d begun to burn again with pure molten cold. “Each and every charm had to be channeled through hidden channels in each lock. And like, each lock had to be carefully trained to handle each…specific…charm.”

“Mh-hmm.” The skull whimpers.

“So, not only did you ruin my hair. And cost me like, five emergency spells, bitch, those charms were corrupted by the mana that was like, in the flames.”

This time the skull just quivers a little.

She lets out a smooth chuckle, it slides from her lips like a katana from it's sheath. “Each charm requires about 100 gold’s worth of reagents and materials to make.” At this moment, nobody in the clearing dares move. Honestly, they usually had a bit of trouble taking the witch seriously. She had power, yes, but her ditsy way of talking and madwoman ramblings about the secrets of the Pathic arts were just so crazy. Her results were undeniable, but her constant ramblings about what they ate just forced them to tune her out. Not at this moment. At this moment even the unflappable Krop grips the haft of his axe as he leans away.

For the first time in all of their memory, Julius was still and silent. If not for his glowing eyes transfixed upon the witch they might have thought the skull was inanimate. Candii’s poisonous grin transforms into a snarl. “So, how about I like, give you the same thirty-second window to fix what you’ve done before I like, turn you into my new replacement charms!”

There was dead silence in the clearing. For one heartbeat, then two, then ten. Candii’s pert little nostrils flare as she starts to inhale. And Julius panic-blurts “Sho, how about when we get to town you get an all expenshes paid makeover shopping shpree and shpa vishit on my share of the loot?”

Candii stares for a few moments before reaching into a pouch at her side. From it, she pulls several sharp and dangerous-looking spikes. She holds her hands just under the pit where the skull’s nostrils would be. Julius breaks eye contact to warily observe the sharp tools just inches away from his floating head still gripped by a magical hand. She whispers an incantation and the spikes begin to glow. The more magically inclined party members flinch as they feel the deep power of her spell. Behind Candii, Julius’ body starts making clicking noises as his hands fidget and wring themselves. She slowly grips one glowing spike and it springs apart, turning into two sharp points attached at the base. She stares at him, not moving. Julius’ mana body literally starts forming palid sweat droplets, dripping down his bare skull and leaving shiny blue streaks along its path. Her hand suddenly lifts high over her head and he flinches, eyes looking away and to the side. Nothing happens. He looks back and sees she’s picked up the second spike and it springs open too. She reaches up again and this time he watches as she slides it into her hair just before she pinches the two tines back into one. To his eldritch sight, he sees the illusion magic flow out into a construct that seems to perfectly mimic her lost hair. “Sweet Jules. I accept your gift. I’ll even like, keep the tab under a thousand.” He projected a sigh of relief, a sigh that was strangled midway when she suddenly leaned in so close that the tip of her nose poked a little inside his own nose pit. “If you ever do anything so foolish ever again, I will turn you into crafting ingredients am I understood?”

“Um, Yesh Candii.”

“Groovy.” She giggles and drops the skull, ignoring the ‘ow’ as it impacts a rock. She skips off towards the blasted area east of the camp and calls. “Let’s see what’s left of our bounties. Hopefully, we can find proof of kill for the leader. Unless like, some dumbass Bony Bitch burned it all.”

Big Moe groans at that. “Yajtsa, that’s right, he just burned most of our payment. krovavyye goryashchiye sis'ki! Ahm never-ever going to let him bargain again.” He turned, doing a head count of companions. Julius, Julius’ body, Carrie Ann, his bird, Candii, Krop…he can’t spot Rick but you never know where Rick is, so that isn’t new. Sasha should be here though. “Where’s Sasha?” Big Moe turns and calls louder. “Sasha ye mad Mink! Where’d ye run off ta?” Inwardly, he groans. The more stress he feels, the more he sounds like his parents. He shakes the thought off. That mad little lass needs looking after. She’s strong, but never plans anything out.

There’s a very angry hiss from behind him and as he turns, a ruffled Vulture takes to the sky. Julius turns to him and grins. “Hey! Jusht shpoke to Shasha, she got shcare—AH! I mean irritated by Candii’sh uhh…Completely undershtandable and proportional demandsh for conshequenshes for my mishcalculationsh. Shasha decided to do a little shcouting.” Julius was beginning to backpedal noticing Big Moe’s glare, and Candii’s icy expression. Normally he had little ability to understand nonverbal language but the telltale creaks of Moe’s knuckles were only eclipsed by the lightning crackling along Candii’s fingertips. “Shasha shaysh that there’sh about fifty enemiesh remaining outshide the blasht zone. They’re in little huddlesh ranging from one to sheven in shize. Oops, shcratch that. About forty-five shtraggler’s remain. Rick ish hanging with her.

Big Moe laid one gray hand on Julius “Come on kostyak, let’s see what we can salvage from yer little bonfire. I hope for yer sake, we find at least enough to cover tha’ tab ye promised Candii. Ye know how she gets about oaths.” He chuckles. “Especially when yer dumb enough to mess with her hair. Do ye even know what happened to the last guy who tried that?” He grins down at his friend. “Turns out that shift spell o’ hers has an exploitable safety feature. The effects last longer if the shifted creature can’t turn back without dyin’. So he’s in a jar in her room, the jar is unbreakable, an’ he’s unkillable, so he just sits there gasping. Watching her change.” He chuckles at the skeleton’s wincing. “She isn’t heartless though, she is planning on opening the jar when she gets back.” He chuckles and starts marveling at how the ground seems shiny and crackles like glass. “Prozhiganiye dyr mochi Jules, how strong was that fireball?”

Julius beams, switching from nervous introspection to tsunamic levels of enthusiasm instantaneously. “Oh well, it really wash jusht amazhing luck you know? They did all the work for me. If they hadn’t left shuch an enourmoush ritual unprotected we would have been doomed. Greater Hungersh are no joke. If they outnumber you…well you’re probably fucked. It only takesh one to lock you down from a dishtancshe. With them outnumbering us four to one counting Carrie. Well, you can do the math.” Big Moe turns from slate gray, to silver gray as he listens. “Ritualsh are jusht way more powerful than the shimple shpell formsh they are derived from. Take the one that they were ushing for inshtancshe. The bashic shpell ish to shummon a shingle Hunger. At leasht that’sh what I’m guessing the key shpell tier wash at given how poorly protected the cshircle wash. There’sh a chancshe that the cashter wash at a tier high enough to shummon a Greater Hunger, but…they were far too trash for that.” By this point, Julius is waving his hands around to punctuate his words. He almost punctuates Big Moe’s eye in the process. Big Moe barely notices, horrified by the dangers being outlined so eagerly. “Sho you shee how the shpell is at leasht twenty timesh weaker than the ritual being casht?” He grins, he just loves talking about magic! “The act of empowering a shpell through the ritual makesh it sho that you can control the form of the shpell by creating a phyishical represhentation that is shemi-permanent. Therefore the shpell then goesh from being a temporary shurge of energy to…a loaded ballishta. At that point, all you need to do is maintain a minimum mana inveshtment and the shpell remainsh cocked and ready to fire.” Julius mimed finger-crossbows at Borbigmos and fired them.

Big Moe shook his head. “Hang on, that does nae explain how the spell got so big.”

Julius clapped—well clacked his hands together. “Indeed not Moe. Thish ish the fun part!” Big Moe was so unsettled by that sentence that he completely missed the shortened nickname.

“The, the fun part?”

“Oooh yesh!” Julius cried. Letting out a short cackle. “You shee, now that the shpell form is shtable and held in a physhical medium, you can, with shkill and care, alter the shpell. You can change the payload—or type and amount of creature shummoned—you can change the targeting method—that’sh making the shummoned entitiesh bound to obey reshtrictionsh before they leave the shcircle. You can even add new effectsh, like I did!”

Big Moe was flabbergasted. “So…So let me get this straight. Ye, just changed the spell? Just like that? That easy?”

Julius chuckled. “By the Eatersh no! Never put the word ‘eashy’ in a shentenshe involving magic. Thish ish jusht the highlightsh and way overshimplified concsheptsh that kind of excshplain what I wash doing and how without actually being accurate in any meaningful way. I haven’t even touched on linguishtic runic reshonancshe feedback effectsh, localizshed ashtral realm material and mental shynergishtic requriementsh, energy-to-effect load balancshing equashionsh, or even the inherent inshtability of multi mage-manage—“

Big Moe holds up a shaking palm “Stop! Stop, yer given me a headache.” Please go back to the simple but entirely wrong version.” Julius nods. In the distance, the endless expanse of blackened and shiny ground interrupted by nubs of trees and half-melted rocks is interrupted by some kind of ring on the ground.

“Okay, sho that shpell was a big loaded ballishta with a hugely enhanshed and upgraded payload that alsho had a pretty fanshy targeting shyshtem deshigned to take our party down. I went in and—I really musht shtressh that thish is extremely inaccurate while shtill conveying the effect of my actionsh—changed the payload to a different if shimilar creature. Then, I changed who it would target. Lashtly, I added in that anything killed by the creaturesh would be converted to energy that would power another, final shpell effect. Thush a big-assh firewall to burn all the shummoned creaturesh. In truth, I thought that shpell addition would be too complex for the shcripting I actually exshpected that they wouldn’t be able to kill enough people to power shuch a masshive unbalanshed effect. I wash exshpecting a shpell failure backlash to drain all of the creaturesh of their life and make the shircle detonate, killing any involved in powering the shpell. But it turnsh out that the Devouring Shwarmsh are excsheptionally effishient in harveshting an armiesh life forcshe for shpell effectsh!”

The skull was grinning earhole to earhole at the thought. “They overcharged the firewall and dishintergrated everything in a thoushand-foot radiush of the cshircle. The crazshy part ish that we were at leasht 2000 feet away. That meansh that the shpell had to have harveshted more than double the energy than needed!” He let out an excited squee and continued. “We really musht remember theshe little monshtroshitiesh if we ever need to do a shpell that we’re far too weak to do! All we need ish an invading army of living enemiesh and we can accomplish shpellsh meant only for Archmagi. Ooh, I’m jusht sho happy with how thish turned out!”

Big Moe had stopped walking by this point. He stands several strides away, seriously staring at the silly, oblivious, monster that is his friend. “Julius stop.” He calls.

Julius hums inattentively back at Moe. “Hey, I think thoshe figuresh are—“

“Julius stop right now.” Big Moe calls again. His tone is adamantine and devoid of any emotion but stern resolve.

Julius’ head flips around catching the seriousness of his friend's demand. Slowly his body turns to match the direction of the head and he walks back over to Big Moe. “What? What did I do?”

“Jules, I need ya to make me a solemn vow right now. I need ya ta make it exactly as I say. And I need ya ta mean it.”

Julius nods. “You know I will. I trusht you all.”

Big Moe exhales and nods. “I need ya te swear te me right now, that ye will never tell anyone outside our group how ye did this. I need ya te swear that ye’ll never try summat like this again without us asking ye to.”

Julius lays his hand on Moe’s shoulder. “Of courshe I’ll shwear. I trusht your moralsh more than my own. You’ve now heard shome shtoriesh of the one who made me. He wash…family, but he wash alsho pretty evil. I have sho many memoriesh and they often contradict each other. Sho I’ll shwear. But, can you exshplain it to me firsht? I’m hoping that I can learn how to be moral, or at leasht how to shpot how to avoid shcaring you all.”

“Sure bud, I’ll explain. First, understand that summoning nightmarish monsters to kill anything is a pretty dark spot in the gray area of morals te begin with. History is full of summonings gone wrong or summoners seeking increasingly monstrous beasties. Next, sacrificial spells are also considered evil barring self-sacrifice which is considered an honorable—if tragic final gift to those ya seek to help. Last, using monsters te murder others te use their lives te increase yer power is the definition of corrupting. It won’t take but a rumor te get every good church in the world te declare a crusade te end the life of anyone who would do what you did. With yer nature of bein’ undead. Ohh they’d try to smite you faster than a poxed vampire banshee.”

“Oh. I shee. That’sh unfortunate. It sheemed like shuch a logical method before. Um, yeah.” Julius raises his hands and begins making arcane gestures. A few reality-damaging words later he began to speak. His words were soaked in power and absolute binding. “Upon all of my shoulsh, I hereby swhear that I shall never repeat my actionsh to any outshide of our party. Furthermore, I shall never use thish method without the express permisshion of shomeone I deem morally shound enough to know right from wrong and hash had the entire proccshessh exshplained in at leasht ash much detail ash I have given Borbigmosh on thish day.” Julius glows and translucent blue chains erupt from his mouth binding his skull in a crown of chain and his wrists and legs with manacles. They begin to fade and disappear.

Big Moe sighs. “Thank ye. I know that Oath is an uncomfortable spell. But ye really scare me sometimes. It helps to see how far ye really do trust us. I wish there were a better way. But many cities employ truth spells that can detect even a slight hesitation. We can’t unreservedly vouch for ye if were worried ye might do something that evil.”

Julius smiles. “Yeah, I undershtand. I appreacshiate that you found a way to get me free passhage into mosht placshesh. You’ve no idea how hard shopping ish when everyone thinksh you’re a monshter. Heh, if we get to the part before our group starts forming in our shtory, you’ll undershtand why I don’t question your requesht. That wash’nt a very fun time.”

Big Moe turns, finally noticing the slumped figures in the clearing. “Hold on lad. Are they—?”

“Yup, alive. Carrie jusht flew over and I have to shay their armor ish pretty flashy. I think they might be leadership. I already called the othersh. They’re on their way. Well, exshept for Shasha and Rick. She really enjoysh hunting and Rick, well he’sh Rick. He’ll keep her shafe.” The silence stretches. Big Moe shifts uncomfortably.

“Jules, any chance you might continue the story a bit? I hate waitin’ on this blasted plain an’ the others didnae seem as interested as me in yer tale.”

Julius beams at him. “Don’t worry about them misshing out! I can jusht keep telling them from here!" Somehow, despite the distance Big Moe can hear a chourus of groans. "Sho, we lasht ended when Bob’sh trade with Vinny wash cut short ash a group of adventurersh kinda like ush, broke down the front gate. Now, due to a rather interesting phenomena involving undead, shoulsh, and memoriesh, that my creator dishcovered with thish very group, I have wayyy more inshight with theshe guysh than I should. I know we’ve mentioned memory shtonesh and I’ll get to that. But for now! We meet Shome of my favorite dead people. You could almosht call them, my parentsh…but you could alsho call them me—it’sh a complicated relationship.”