I stand at the edge of a clearing. The air is sharp enough to cut. The trees here are twisted sentinels, their branches clawing at a sky bruised purple and indigo. Silence hangs over everything—a heavy, waiting quiet broken only by the wind’s mournful sigh through skeletal leaves.
At the clearing’s heart stands an ancient oak. Its trunk is scarred by a spiral of blackened bark—old, violent magic. My silver eyes, gifts from a being of cosmic patterns, see what others cannot. Without effort, I perceive the faint, fading orange-red aura of Evocation clinging to those burns.
And at the tree’s base: an effigy.
It’s a crude thing of bound sticks and rotting thatch, shaped like a man. Carved into its wooden face is a spiral sigil daubed in what looks like dried blood. To my sight, it pulses with a sickly purple-black glow—the resonant stains of Necromancy and Abjuration. The same symbol from the forbidden tome. The one that brought me here.
The ground tells other stories. A ring of burnt-out candles. A toppled iron cup stained with something dark that refuses to freeze. And leading away from this site, northward into the deeper woods: fresh bootprints in the frost-mud.
Then—a sound. Not the wind.
A low, muffled cry, human and full of despair, seems to rise from the very earth to the north. It lasts only a moment before being swallowed again by silence.
A heartbeat later: snap.
Dry twigs breaking. Close. To my east, within the tree line. Something is moving in the shadows just beyond my vision.
The effigy watches.
The footprints beckon.
The woods hold their breath.
I summon my familiar. I know the ritual by heart. The words are not spoken aloud but etched into my mind—a series of precise mental sigils and invocations. I trace a circle in the frost at my feet with a piece of charcoal from my pack, sprinkling it with a pinch of herbs and a drop of my own blood from a pricked finger.
The air within the circle grows still, then cold. A point of darkness forms at its center, swirling like ink in water. From it steps a raven.
Its feathers are not merely black but the color of a starless void, absorbing the fading twilight. Its eyes gleam with an intelligent, silver light that mirrors my own. It tilts its head, regarding me silently. I feel the bond snap into place—a thin, psychic tether connecting our minds. It can understand my simple commands and can share what it sees and hears with me over any distance.
The raven hops onto my outstretched forearm, weightless. Through our bond, I sense its alertness, its sharp awareness of the surroundings. It too heard the snap in the woods.
From deeper in the forest to the north, that muffled human cry comes again—a little clearer now, more desperate. It’s definitely a voice.
The something in the eastern treeline goes quiet for a moment, as if listening… then there’s another rustle. Closer.
I send a silent command along the psychic tether: Scout. East. Stay hidden. The raven's silver eyes gleam in understanding. It launches from my arm without a sound, its dark form melting into the deepening gloom as it glides toward the eastern treeline.
As it flies, a sliver of its perception opens to me—a dizzying, low-angle view of the forest floor rushing beneath, the stark clarity of its avian sight cutting through the twilight.
Simultaneously, I whisper a single arcane syllable and make a warding gesture with my left hand. The air around me shimmers briefly as an invisible barrier of magical force snaps into existence, wrapping me in a protective layer. I feel the potential energy humming just beyond my skin, ready to deflect a blow.
<
Through my raven's eyes, I see it perch silently on a low branch just inside the tree line. It scans the undergrowth.
There.
Movement.
About thirty feet into the woods, hunched behind a thick holly bush, is a humanoid figure. It's dressed in ragged, earth-toned clothes that blend with the forest floor. It holds a crude shortbow, an arrow nocked but not drawn. Its face is pale and drawn, eyes wide with fear—not aggression—and they are fixed not on me in the clearing, but northward, toward the source of the cries. It hasn't noticed the raven.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
The figure looks malnourished, desperate. A peasant? A poacher? Not part of any organized guard or militia.
Then, from the north, the cry comes again—a man's voice, strained and pleading: "...please... no more..." It's cut off abruptly.
The figure behind the holly bush flinches at the sound but doesn't move.
I keep a fraction of my awareness on the raven's shared sight—the frightened figure hasn't moved—and turn my full attention to the effigy.
Up close, the details are more disturbing. The thatch and sticks are bound with what looks like human hair, coarse and dark, braided into the rotting rope. The "blood" on the spiral sigil is thick and flaking. My silver eyes pierce its aura. The purple-black glow is a complex weave: a shell of Abjuration (a ward or binding) wrapped around a core of Necromancy (a siphon or anchor).
This isn't just a symbol. It's a component. A focus.
I crouch, examining the ground around the tree's roots. The burnt-out candles are tallow, cheap. The cup... I lean closer. The dark residue inside isn't blood. It's too viscous, too sweet-smelling—a syrup made from grave-earth and belladonna, perhaps. A psychotropic component for a ritual.
The bootprints leading away are deep and heavy, as if someone staggered or was dragged.
As I study, another choked sob echoes from the north, followed by a low, guttural chant that raises the hairs on my neck—it's not in any human language I recognize.
The figure in the eastern woods finally moves, shifting nervously but still hiding.
The pieces click together in my mind with chilling clarity. This isn't just a ritual site. It's a Warding Anchor, and a particularly vile one.
The effigy isn't an idol to be worshipped—it's a siphon. The Abjuration shell acts as a metaphysical lock, creating a bounded field around this clearing. The Necromantic core is the engine: it draws latent life-force—not enough to kill, but enough to cause lingering weakness, despair, and vulnerability—from anyone within its radius and channels it elsewhere.
The bootprints leading away? Likely the ritualist, carrying the "harvested" vitality northward to a primary site. The cup of psychotropic brew was for the caster, to heighten their connection to the necromantic flow and perhaps to commune with whatever entity they're feeding.
The spiral sigil is the mark of The Coiled Promise, a nihilistic cult that believes unraveling the sanity of the world will invite "the True Dreamers"—eldritch entities sleeping between realities—to awaken and consume all creation. Their rituals always involve tripartite structures: an Anchor (here), a Conduit (the caster), and a Focus (the primary ritual site where the power is used).
The man's cries to the north... he's not just a victim. If this Anchor is active, he might be the Conduit, physically tethered to the Focus site, his life-force being forcibly drawn through him to power something far worse. Breaking this effigy would sever the siphon, likely freeing him from that immediate drain... but it would also alert whoever cast it.
My raven sees the hidden figure shift again, peering north with unmistakable terror. They know what's happening. They might be a failed initiate, a escaped victim, or a lookout.
A guttural chant swells again from the north, louder this time. The air itself feels heavier.
No hesitation.
I step forward and bring my boot down hard on the crude effigy's chest. The dried sticks and thatch crack with a sound like breaking bones. I stomp again, grinding the twisted form into the frozen earth. The braided hair rope snaps.
The moment the central bindings give way, the purple-black aura flickers violently. A silent, psychic shockwave pulses outwards. The air in the clearing suddenly feels lighter, cleaner, as if a suffocating blanket has been yanked away.
From the north, a man's voice cries out—not in pain, but in sudden, ragged relief. "Ah! Gods... it stopped..."
Then, a new sound cuts through the forest.
A roar of pure, inhuman fury.
It doesn't come from a beast's throat. It sounds like stone grinding against stone, layered with a chorus of whispers. It originates from the same northern direction as the chants and cries.
My raven's vision shows me the hidden figure in the eastern woods. At the roar, they panic. They scramble to their feet, abandoning all stealth, and begin to run—not toward me, not toward the north—but back east, deeper into the forest, away from everything.
The psychic tether with my raven thrums with its alertness. It awaits a command.
The Warding Anchor is broken. The siphon is severed.
Something at the primary ritual site is now very, very angry.
Description: Not a being of flesh or thought as mortals understand it, but a fundamental force of cosmic structure. It perceives reality as an infinite tapestry of interlocking patterns—stellar orbits, cellular division, the spread of madness, the repetition of history. It grants power to those who can perceive and manipulate these underlying patterns.
Gifts: Enhanced perception (like the silver sight), predictive abilities, spells that bind or control fate/space (like Hold Person, Arcane Lock, Slow).
Drawback: The recipient begins to see everything as deterministic patterns. Spontaneity becomes alien. Emotions feel like predictable chemical reactions. The risk is becoming a cold, calculating observer, devoid of humanity.
Patron Gifts so far:
The Silver Sight: Your eyes permanently gleam with the light of distant, dying stars. You see the world not just as it is, but as a tapestry of interlocking magical and cosmic patterns.
Pattern Sense: You have an intuitive, almost subconscious understanding of systems, routines, and cycles. You notice when something is "out of pattern."
Unraveling Glance: By focusing your silver sight on a creature or object, you can perceive the weakest point in its metaphysical "pattern."
Mind of Ordered Chaos: Your mind has been restructured along alien but logical lines. The maddening truths you uncover are filed away as data points in a vast internal catalog.
Ritual Affinity: Rituals are the ultimate expression of imposing order on chaos through precise steps. To you, they feel like solving an elegant equation.
Predictive Flaw: You sometimes see patterns too clearly. You perceive probable outcomes based on current trajectories.