Curselock

Chapter 242: On Watch

On watch and with the others asleep, Leland toiled about, looking much more interested with the forest than he actually was. Were there monsters in these woods? Creatures with teeth the size of forearms? Yes and yes. But he wasn’t afraid of them, he hadn’t been afraid of the usual monsters in a long while by this point.

With the true monsters he’d faced, the small fries just didn’t cut it.

But still, watching the forest was an important job. If a monster did show up, he’d never hear the end of it from his friends. But that didn’t mean he had to watch the forest.

Crow Massacre:

Rank: 23 (B)

Call upon the ethereal familiar of the Lord of Curses.

Summon a full murder of 15 ethereal crows to attack targets for up to 2 minutes.

Promote a single crow to lead the murder. The leader is larger, faster, stronger, and more real. If permitted, the leader can stay summoned for any given length of time.

Leland had yet to fully utilize the promoted aspect of the curse. Sitting there, bored out of his mind, he experimented a bit. High above him, the leader crow circled. Even against the dark night sky, the outline of the bird was somewhat noticeable. Not because it stood out or basked in ethereal glow, but because of the aura it leaked.

Like High Inquisitor Rushwin, Harbinger Ashford, or even Isobel to a certain degree, the crow oozed magical authority. It was, in part, Leland’s own power that dripped from the bird, but also foreign augmentation of the Lord of Curses.

What did this mean in practical terms? Leland wasn’t sure, but he also figured most people wouldn’t be able to feel the aura his crow radiated. Maybe it was his time spent with the Lords, maybe it was his experience with contracts and pacts, or maybe it was the repeated abuse his body had taken by beings far too powerful for him to compete.

He shivered at the thought, his guts feeling like grated cheese where the Toy Maker Harbinger lacerated him. Or maybe it was how his neck stiffened and his breathing hitched when he remembered how the Undying Harbinger clamped his throat closed.

Either way, those battles ended similarly.

Soul Fire.

It was a plague, as far as he was concerned. A curse that broke the rules of magic, a calamity gifted by the Lord who oversaw terror and justice. The heatless flames of the curse still echoed in the back of his mind, a curt reminder of just how powerless he truly was.

“I know you are listening,” he whispered just loud enough to over take the crackle of the campfire.

He paused a moment, his chin low. Above, his promoted crow flew, circling round and round, its eyes darting through the canopy and tracking movement.

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There was one more being Leland had been exposed to. Lords, Harbingers, they were one and the same by some human metric, beings with thought, reason. A goal to strive for, a hope to achieve. Even if they were monsters, their thoughts were easily discernible compared to some: Parasitic items.

Lodestar.

Leland could feel him hibernating on his back, a black tattoo with steel-silver luster. A ring, or rather, a portal. The weapon took the form of a hole, one that led to Oblivion – where life meets end.

During their battle with Ashford, Lodestar had started out assisting Leland. From Oblivion, Lodestar summoned a swarm of bug-like monstrosities. They rushed from the darker than dark portal, entering the battlefield like a true force of nature. Alien creatures, ones not meant for this plane, this realm, that’s what Lodestar could achieve.

But of course, that wasn’t what Lodestar wanted. Being a parasite – a former human whose soul was willingly tempered into a weapon to assist someone else to transcend – it was hard to understand what it was he truly wanted. Most would consider parasitic items to be a double edged sword lying in wait to ambush their host.

They fought and helped, usually at the command of the host, waiting for the perfect moment to consume their host’s soul and body – transcending, somewhat, themselves.

But that wasn’t exactly what Lodestar wanted, at least that wasn’t how Leland understood the weapon. Created from the soul of the Lord of Souls’ brother, Lodestar spoke. He acted. He had his own will, one that didn’t always fall in line with parasites.

He abandoned Leland against Ashford, he spoke to others like they were prey, he had emotions far further than biding time.

But most importantly, since Ashford, Lodestar had not spoken once. He had not appeared from Leland’s back. He has not responded to any of his host’s calls.

“I know you are listening,” Leland said again, emphasizing a bit more.

Again, there was only silence.

“Is this the way you are going to be? I don’t want the powers you offer, I don’t want to fall into the trap you have carefully tried to lay before me. But I don’t hate you. I understand—”

Leland stopped himself. Truthfully, he didn’t understand – another fault of his. There were many, many things he didn’t know. Schools of magic, inter politics, the will of the divines. The feelings of a parasitic item were just as foreign to him as breeds of ducks. He could learn, sure, but there was only one duck breeder around, and he was tattooed onto his back.

“Your brother…” Leland began again, “it was obvious to me that he still cares for you, even with the corruption you have faced. You know just as well as I do the pact the Lord of Souls made with me.”

He opened his grimoire to that page.

Cursed pact of the Lord of Souls:

For showing the parasitic item “Lodestar” mercy when transcendence is achieved, the Lord of Souls offers the use of his cloak for the duration of this pact.

If broken, the result is death for either party.

He had only ever opened this page once, and while the threat of death hung over him, Leland had never once worried about that particular aspect of the pact. Lodestar had shown him that he was just as much of a person as any other human. A human with a mangled, twisted soul, but one whose original goal had been noble.

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To assist someone else’s transcendence.

Where that went wrong, Leland didn’t know. So, he figured to heck with it.

“What happened to you, Lodestar? Help me understand you? Maybe… maybe we can be proper partners.”

Nothing. Not even a tingle crossed his back.

But he did feel something. Not from Lodestar, but from his crow overhead. Movement, the leader informed him. Three somethings, humanoid, moving fast toward the group on foot.

For a brief moment, Leland dismissed the notion that something was coming for the simple fact that his crow passed that much information to him so well. The descriptions were sorely lacking, but the bird was able to explain that one carried a sword and the other two held bows. They were obviously human, humans who knew exactly where they were camping.

People didn’t B-line somewhere with their weapons drawn if they weren’t expecting a fight.

But still, Leland’s jaw shifted open slightly and his eyes widened a bit. A heartbeat passed before he smirked. Experimenting with a promoted crow was definitely the correct choice for tonight. And as he sat there thinking about how to go about dealing with these newcomers, he couldn’t help but smugly acknowledge his watch shifts were going to be easy from this point on.

“Glenny?” Leland asked, his voice loud enough to wake the young man beside him. “Trouble coming toward us. I’ll deal with it, but figured I’d let you know.”

Deliriously nodding, Glenny rolled to his side, pulled at his blanket, and promptly fell asleep.

From there, Leland stood, flipped a few pages of his grimoire, and pressed his palm into two contracts, then two more right after. In but a brief moment, his back sprung to life, six wings appearing with a plume of white and black feathers. Next, his body flickered slightly, space moving around him rather than him standing in it. And lastly, his eyesight sharpened, the dark night becoming more akin to a shadowy cellar with a dozen candles lit within.

“Lord of Crows, Lord of the Seraph, Lord of Space, and Lord of Chameleons,” he muttered to himself before quietly whistling.

Magic pooled from his lips, bending the fabric of reality to allow his flock to enter. Leland grinned at the sudden deluge of crows, wondering why a flock of crows was called a “murder.” But as the already summoned leader crow began to chirp out orders to which the others quickly followed, he couldn’t help but see bloodthirsty birds ready to gore eyes and puncture bone.

“Maybe this will be a misunderstanding,” Leland said to himself. “Otherwise, I’m going to have a few more souls to add to the soul cloak.”

He took to the skies, his speed only limited by the proximity of tree limbs he was forced to dodge. Above, his crows moved, intercepting but not engaging the incoming humans.

Through his connection with the leader crow, Leland understood that the humans had stopped, suddenly hesitant as the branches they were about to pass were covered in crows.

He landed a safe distance away from the trio, his hood pulled up over his head. Shadows cast from within the cowl, and yet, one of the archers picked up on him immediately. She yelled something to her friends and everyone turned to face Leland, despite two of them not actually knowing where he was exactly.

It was quite a dark night.

“Heading somewhere?” Leland asked, imbuing a bit of mana to his throat as he spoke.

The trick was hardly worthy of being called a cantrip and was more inline with a mana manipulation exercise, but the effect was rather grand. Not only was his voice louder, but it also trebled with a dull whimsy. Like his vocal cords were made of stone and his words like chisels, the simple question made the perceptive archer lurch. The swordsman and other archer both hesitated as well, but far less than the woman who could actually see.

Leland found that odd. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Still, when no answer came, he asked again, a bit more aggressively.

“Heading somewhere?”

His words echoed, the trees suddenly just one more hazard for the trio to watch out for. One of the crow cawed, causing the perceptive archer to flinch. Another cawed, this time opposite the first. She flinched again, eyes darting from branch to branch.

She muttered something to her friends, but through the leader crow who sat nearest the group, Leland was able to hear it.

“He’s alone. Summoner, just the birds I think. He can fly.”

“Yes, I can fly,” Leland announced, causing all three of them to stumble a bit. “I ask one more time. Why are you headed toward my camp with weapons out? Am I just unlucky, or are you coming to attack?”

The archer bit her lip. Another crow cawed. “Just unlucky, I’d say. We’re hunting. Tracks came this way about an hour ago.”

“Did they now?” he asked instantly. “Because I’ve been on watch for the last hour and a half. Nothing of note has come this direction, unless you are hunting rabbits. But a sword is a strange weapon to hunt rabbits with, isn’t it?”

He paused a moment. “Are you hunting rabbits?”

Another crow cawed.

And another.

“Woodlin Hydra. We’re hunting a Woodlin Hydra,” the archer declared, her hands slipping to the string of her bow.

Leland saw this and decided to give the group one last out. “No you’re not. Woodlin Hydras hibernate this time of year. Not to mention, I haven’t seen one tonight and let me tell you, I see all.”

All of his crows cawed at his sentence’s end, flapping their wings and bobbing up and down to shake the branches they stood on.

“I ask, for the final time, where are you headed with weapons drawn at this time of night? I see you pulling back on your bow, archer.”

She hesitated, her arm stiff and locked in place.

A crow darted down, clipping her elbow. Blood spilled at the same time she cursed. Her friends shifted around her, protecting her despite being nearly blind.

“Maybe some light would help you three in this situation,” Leland said, his hand flickering with sudden flame.

The cantrip was one of the first he learned. Create Flame. Simple, easy, strong enough to light a candle or start a campfire. It was nowhere near the strength to illuminate the forest.

That was if Leland had cast the cantrip the way he was taught. One perk of being a warlock rather than a mage was the use of lifeforce in place of mana. For him, the loss of stamina was negligible for the effects lifeforce had on normal magic. Augmentation was the simple explanation, but he preferred the simpler.

It made magic stronger. It made it different.

The fire Leland created hovered just above his outstretched finger. Being a bit larger than the fire of a torch, it took on the properties of creeping violet and otherworldly chill. It was heatless, purple in color, and was bright enough to cause sickly shadows to stretch into the forest.

All of a sudden, thirty odd eyes stared at the trio, each small orb reflecting the unnatural flame. The crows cawed again, this time causing all members to flinch and ready their weapons. Even the woman bleeding from the nasty gash on her arm prepared for battle.

But Leland didn’t attack right away. No, instead he studied two things. First was the swordsman’s Legacy Tattoo. He’d seen the bear-trap depiction made of ink before and recognized the Lord in question. Lord of Poachers. While not a Vile Lord, the Poaching Lord had few friends among the heavens, least of which the Lord of the Hunt.

Frostford had been plagued by a gang of poachers nearly a year ago, Leland surmised these must be the last of their ranks.

But he hardly focused on that. Instead he stared at the “W” brand the bleeding archer wore across her face. For as dark as it was in the forest, and despite heightened perception from the contract with the Lord of Chameleons, the dark-scarred brand was something he’d missed. If he had seen it when he first appeared, there wouldn’t have been any questions or preamble.

“Kneel before me,” he whispered, the words bleeding into reality like water being absorbed by a sponge.

No sooner did violet flame erupt from the ground, surrounding the trio like cornered beasts. The swordsman charged Leland, but the heatless flame seared his skin on contact. He bounced back, green mist leaking from his skin. The archers loosed a volley of arrows at him, but each failed to hit their mark, warping around him like space itself bent for his will.

Less than twenty seconds passed before the trio fell to their knees, their final words being pleas for mercy.

Leland gave them no such thing, taking and adding their souls to his bare collection.

Through all of this, Lodestar watched silently.