//------------------------------// // 7: Farsight // Story: Diary of the Dead // by AppleTank //------------------------------// 1152 years ago Wally sent me to Agatha’s room, and a brief explanation of her schedule. Which was that she wandered around and tended to FutureSight her way into getting to meetings on time. I went to check out her room anyways to familiarize myself with where the place was located: attic. There was a small note pinned to the wall. It read “I will be back in a short while. Watch the hourglass.” I cautiously pushed the door to her room open, and saw a hourglass hissing away. I watched it for a moment to judge how fast it drained, then went off to make a simple snack. A few moments later, I returned to her room. I stepped in, glancing at the hourglass, drained. Huh. Still not here?. The door behind me creaked open. A glowing purple iris stared back. “Yer late.” The fur on my neck started to stand up as I froze in surprise and trepidation. She laughed, stepping the rest of the way into the room with me. The old Barn Owl seemed to have gotten slightly more grayer, and though her voice was still full of energy, there was a noticeable gingerness in her movements, a slight twitch of reflexive pain. “Just kidding,” she said, grinning widely. “I waited an extra minute for you to get back. Agatha, team Seer, at your service.” I took a moment to shake myself out of my stupor. “Uh. Right.” I pulled a clipboard out of my saddlebag and a sheet of parchment. A quill and ink was placed besides me. “So, Mr. Falcowolf told me to ask you about your relation with the Honeycomb Club and how you got involved. I want to record our story for future generations, you see.” “Of course, of course.” Agatha stepped over to her bed and sat down on the edge, loosening up. “A bit of background first. I was known as Agatha over one-hundred and ninety-five years ago. Obviously, griffons don’t normally live that long, but we’ll get to that in a bit. “When I was young, a long long time ago, a ... another caught wind of my talents. They invited me to their institution, to learn from them, to train, to grow. They strengthened the meager flashes of insight I had as a child, into something that let me read the ebb and flow of possibilities, and dance in between.  “The stronger I became though, the more frustrated I was at my enforced limitations. Say, imagine a tree. Like the myriad of possibilities in the timeline of the future, they both start out with a main trunk. Current events. Not much happens unless you do something drastic. Very few branches are here. The higher you go though, the more branches there are. To me, though? I can still see that tree, obviously, but with nearly all blacked out. The better you get, the more you realize how blind, how helpless you truly are. “It was a good few decades, but we started to clash the more and more I brought up my issues. I found out in the end that ...my teacher knew. They sit and philosophize while the world spins away ever further with each passing day of uselessness. I wanted more out of life. We had the power to live out in the wild and unexplored, but they squandered it!  “I quit. They put up a token effort to search for me, but I was already long gone. I hated Destiny, being forced along some other’s whims, and wanted to carve my own path. I traveled for a lengthy period. Saw new sights, Learned new tricks. Was on the run from that day, but I enjoyed it. However, it still wasn’t enough. I was just one ... griffon. Anything I did would soon be lost to the passage of centuries. I was only a Seer, and one that needed direct contact to affect anyone other than myself. “I ran for a long time. Found adventure. Travelers. More enemies than I should have. They made an attempt to punish me through disorientation ... but I managed to avoid madness. “I ended up settling in Hearthstone for awhile. The capital of the Griffon Kingdom up north. Still wasn’t able to find anyone at a crossroads of fate for a significant number of others. I offered my services to the military out of boredom, and a hope to see new faces. Had to run after six years of service. The then current warlords of that period were ... displeased with my cautionary advice, and declared me a traitor. In the end, I’m alive, and they were killed by their own greed. I couldn’t care less about those hot-headed idiots. “I left the capital entirely, not willing to deal with their soldiers on a constant lookout for me, and still frustratingly empty-handed. Found a cave system I could hole up in, and exercise my trade to those brave enough to find me. I was over ninety-two years old when I found a dark-aura’d interloper landing outside my residence...” 1255 years ago Agatha, “the Seer”, aged 92 Outskirts of town, inside the Ender’s Hills. A foreboding aura landed outside my residence, an unused cave. This was not a surprise. Every morning, after I got up, I meditated for a few hours, to check for threats against my life. This occurred more often than one would think. They think I’m old, feeble, and absent minded. Those arrogant ones, flaunting their dark magics like they were immortal? They stopped coming after I reminded them they weren’t invulnerable. That morning, I foresaw a lost soul, his steps weighed down by despair, seeking revenge, destruction, annihilation. He was desperate for anything that gave him an edge, no matter the danger to his own life. He found a file about me.and, with nothing left to lose, decided to test his luck by visiting me. There were multiple warning signs nailed or hung in various places around my entrance. The largest read “Those with Ill Intent Beware: Death Traps.” the implication being if that if I thought you safe, I would leave the traps off.  I had already made plans to perform maintenance on the traps that day, and due to the delicate nature of the task, his arrival slipped from my mind when he spent so long flitting outside the entrance trying to find it. Though when he found it, he slipped in almost immediately, with only a half hearted glance at the warnings.  I had an entire hallway wired up with traps ranging from trip wires and spring loaded darts all the way to boulders and recessed guillotines. Almost all over them were held in place by heavy rope, prevented from activation. Safety catches diverted the triggers sprinkled liberally along the path to abode. I had spent all morning dissembling one of the safety catches. The clutches that held the traps from activating kept slipping, causing the trap to activate whether I wanted it to or not. Then I caught notice of the ropes further away from me shuddering as the safety catches activated. Those traps were all safe. Except for the one I was still oiling.,which was missing the safety clutch altogether. I dashed out of the basement, scooping up a slingshot along the way and a fist-sized sandbag lying in a pile of spares. There was no time to reassemble the safety by talon, nor physically hold it back without tearing my shoulders out. My wings spread slightly, flapping where I could to get me to the exit faster.  I punched the trapdoor off with a clenched fist, my wings slapping me out of the square hole, sending a brown rug bouncing off the ceiling. As my upward velocity slowed, I pulled the slingshot’s band back, sandbag loaded. My eyes locked onto the red eye-pits of the surprised griffon with my own glowing violet irises. My magic blinded me with hallucinations, branching possibilities and blurry trails. I started a countdown I hissed under my breath. Milliseconds whirled past. I fired the bag, knocking him flat on his back. The bag bounced, and landed straight onto the pressure plate he narrowly avoided. We shared a moment of heart-pounding silence at the massive guillotine pressed into the floor.  I hissed in pain, having to catch myself with my wings. But he was alive. Damn fine line, I thought to myself as I heaved myself out to observe the visitor.  Obviously, it was Wally Falcowolf. He was marginally less decayed than he is now. The massive gash across his face was already there, but he could still mostly pass as possessing a heartbeat that day, if one could look past the multitude of scars he had already accumulated.  He was right outside the main entrance-hallway, which led to the hub of my cave system. The hub held the trapdoor to the Trap Maintenance hallway, a small table for receiving guests, and a few sorted piles of simple tools, like pebbles, explosive slingshot ammunition, some knives, and ink bottles. Two other hallways led away from the hub. One was my nesting area, though it only consisted of a thick carpet where I meditated on, a spare slingshot, and an emergency spear. The other room led to a kitchen of sorts, with an icebox and bookshelves filled with assorted equipment, from shovels and hoes to cutlery and washcloths. And a few books, for reading and writing. A few wall-mounted mana globes kept the chambers and the rest of my abode lit a soft orange.  Wally had just managed to sit up, but his eyes were still boring a hole through the blade in front of him, staring at black stains from victims not perfectly cleaned off. I went to the small side table and picked up my mask. It was a bone white skull design, something I bought off a vendor for some festival long ago. I generally wore it around visitors, to decrease the chances of people remembering my face. It also gave me an otherworldly vibe, which suited me just fine. “Hey chick,” I called out, “that's the last of them. Go around the ropes and out of the tunnel. It's warmer here. I’ll leave them deployed, fix them later so you won’t accidentally stumble on them again.” I watched impassively as Wally shook himself out of his stupor, and timidly shuffled around the blades. “You’re ... Agatha?” he whispered. I tilted my head. “Of course,” I said my eyes glowing violet. With Wally still twitching at every move I made, I fired up my magic, to investigate the clouded figure I had foreseen earlier this morning. My eyebrow raised.”You’re a lot different from those earlier ones,” I murmured.  A few years back, I was met with a similar oppressive aura that Wally extruded visited my doorstep, and I ended up having to chase them off with a spear, which led to me being blacklisted by the Enlightened forever. But instead of being tossed and flared about in pride, Wally’s aura was suppressed, held tightly in control. It was a soul that had seen the abyss, and was terrified that it looked like himself.  All the power, yet suffocating restraint that desperately sought for answers. It was the answer to my quest for excitement. I needed to keep him alive for as long as I could, and this didn’t just mean a century or so. He had become a lich merely a year prior, and that instantly granted him with a greatly extended lifespan. Might even have something to keep myself alive, as well. More time to supervise. His future was clouded too, and it felt unnatural. Almost as if someone or something wanted to lower my chances of finding him. I dug deeper, wanting to know exactly how he ticked, and how he could be ... convinced to follow my lead.  “Thirty years old,” I murmured, my mouth going on autopilot as I pushed my magic to its limits, grasping at the flickers of paths set in shadow. It's strange, how I seem to be able to look forwards in time with ease, yet barely backwards. I can see the flicker of possibilities changing with each breath I take, but the days long past set into unchanging darkness.  “Intensely driven, flycakes...” A heart that can be switched off on a beat, both literally and metaphorically. “A nightmare of a warrior, surrounded by praise but forever lost.”  He was my ticket to getting out of my stalemate. I needed him under my guidance-- “What do you want?!” he squeaked out, interrupting my thoughts. I looked at the cowering Potoo, and felt a momentary stab of guilt. It was quickly buried by the determination that kept me going for all these years. I will survive, and they won’t be able to do a thing about it. But... no reason to be a dick about it. I called, “You have a mission I hear you want some assistance with, yes? I’ve been cooped up for too long. I am very willing to listen.” Wally slowly stepped into the mage-light, tail between his legs and trying to make himself seem smaller. “Right. My mission.” He took a deep breath and held his head high. “I would like to request assistance in taking down the Enlightened, and ensure their legacy be ground to ashes. They are a corrupting force, selfish, and have no-” I nodded, my eyes pulsing briefly with magic. “Yeah, I figured. Dealt with them before, if you haven’t heard. Don’t really care that much about your motives. Even if you did nothing, they will fall by the end of the decade. Bloodier, too. But that’s what you wish to do, isn’t it? Direct their anger all on yourself until its too late.” I tapped my chin. “Alright, if you wish to guarantee success, ignore the first congregation you see in five years and ten months. Two months later, an extremely well-connected individual will arrive. I am willing to help you prepare for a perfect run, along with a momentary dip in security that will let me get in to assist you more directly. For this, I ask ... a favor.” “What ... what do you need,” he droned out despondently. “Do you need me to retrieve something? Kill? Torture--” I rolled my eyes and cut him off, placing my talons on his shoulders. His dead, blank eyes slowly looked up towards mine, surprising me, sending me searching for words. Looking directly into his shivering eye-flames, I said, “Just ... I mean, don’t worry. I am near certain that you, I mean we can end the blight that is the Enlightened from these lands.” He exhaled softly, slumping under my grip. He looked up, apprehensive. “Then, what about that ...” “Oh, the favor.” I stepped back and chuckled. “That’s what you’re worried of?” He seemed to find some sort of resolve within him, straightening up his posture. “I’ve already spilled oceans of blood. I am willing to do anything to guarantee your assistance.” “So dramatic.” I smirked at him. “I want to help you. I haven’t been able to get in myself, they keep a very, very tight watch. You, however, can saunter right in. I merely want to ask you to ... try to stay alive, yeah?” Wally paled. “....why? I am a monster. I don’t deserve existence! I want to die!” I scoffed, sitting on the edge of the low table. “How selfish of you. You claim seeking redemption, but just stop here?” Wally froze, and shrank in on himself, his eyes blank. “All you’ve done is kill, kill, kill. There are lives you can save outside of your petty dreams of honor. Lives that will be lost if you continue seeking your ‘glorious’ death.” I spat. “Nothing’s glorious about death. No one will care. “However, if you would let me guide you, I will ... ensure that your talents can be used to save lives. Change the course of history. That is worth fighting for.” Wally slowly stood up, his eyes facing the ground. “... I understand your simple request, and I am able to carry it out. Tell me what to do, Seer” he said, bowing down.  I smiled wide, teeth flashing. “Good, good. Now, you remember the layout of your hideout, correct?” A week later, Wally quietly returned to his residence, the den of Enlightened hiding away inside his hometown of Dirchland. Every once in a long, long while, when a hallway or room is quiet for longer than twenty minutes, he hides away, leaving later with a faint coating of sawdust. On any other day, he attended his duties as required, further staining his soul. Only regular visits to Agatha and her assurances of the mission’s path kept him from breaking and starting the slaughter early. It was a long, long five and a half years. Wally sat in his bed, listening to the hustle and bustle outside. There was a big event happening, but Wally had stopped paying attention long ago, merely going through the motions. The only thing he knew was that today was the day. The Founder was going to be here today. He won’t leave, not if the plan played out correctly.  He slid a ratty diary from underneath his cot, and flipped to the early pages. His punctured heart echoed reflexively, despite being filled with dust for years. He read a few entries before he close his eyes and snapped it shut. No matter how hard he tried, he could scarcely remember the joy and optimism he felt when he felt like he was home.  Perhaps it was fitting, in a way. The old Wally Falcowolf had died. Only a walking corpse was left. He slipped the worn papers back underneath his bed, right next to a softly pulsing orb, and stepped out of his room. In exchange, Agatha had given him a gift. It was a mask similar to the pale white one she owned, but with faded grey markings on the top, a talon reaching down to hunt the mountains they owned. The crest of the Griffon Royal Army. The one he was never able to get in. Agatha told him it was an older one of hers, and might help distract those he encountered. He additionally marked it with a thin red line through the left eye socket, a reminder of the day that saved him. The hallways were near empty now. No one would dream of missing this event if they could help it. The only ones left were those who dealt with maintenance and guarding locations of importance. Already accounted for. Nothing left to do but wait. He squatted near his room’s door, and peeled back a sliver of wall to reveal a glowing wire. He touched the tip of his talon to the end, sending a brief pulse of mana through it. A second later, it pulsed back. They were ready. Wally stared at it, unblinkingly. Then it pulsed again, twice. He slapped his mask on, then wrenched his room’s door open, and sprinted out, wings flapping to boost his speed. A startled cultist nearly dropped a small pile of papers in surprise, almost running into Wally’s tail. He didn’t stay startled for much longer, seeing as the wall next to him instantly detonated. 5 minutes previously I sat outside the hideout, hidden behind trees. Seeing as these griffons weren’t stupid, I was forced to wait quite far away due to the utter lack of cover. Wally was still able to subtly lay a line through the grass into the hideout, one end of which I was holding. Griffons, all trailing that oppressive aura, buzzed right beneath its surface, sending uncomfortable tingles through my senses. In my bags I carried a slingshot, and four large talon-fuls of smaller versions of the mana-orb bombs I directed Wally to plant all throughout the hideout. My mask rested on top of my head. Finally, after a few hours of waiting, I felt the tingle of magic tickle my talons. “Right on time.” I whispered, smiling. My heart began to dance in eager anticipation. My free talon started tapping the ground to a private beat, in time with the aura of magic dancing around my closed eyes. I sent the signal through the wire. My eyes snapped open, purple flames trailing eyelashes. I pulled my mask over my face, letting only the purple glow of leaking mana escape its shadows. “Let’s dance.” A shockwave blew through the cultists home, sending the guards to their knees. They recovered quickly, and calmly pulled open the door to figure out the situation. They flew out an instant later in a tangle of limbs and aerosolized blood. I darted out of the trees. Slingshot gripped between my beak. I spread my wings and pushed to unearth a embedded spear flung from the entrance as I closed in. There was a bloodied head, struggling to stand up.  I landed on top of him, purple flames dancing off my mask as I leered down into his horrified eyes. I stabbed downwards onto the nexus of dark energy, and shattered his Soul, his Phylactery[1], and he was no more. I glanced at the gaping doorway, smoke trailing from the shattered doors and screams of surprise and pain echoing through its corridors. I laughed. “All according to plan,” and ran in, slingshot readied. I paused briefly at an intersection, at the flicker of light underneath a closed door. Ha! Found you, I thought, before moving on. I jumped onto a corpse, sliding on blood with my slingshot stretched. I skidded to a stop at a T-section hallway, and locked eyes with a dazed griffon trying to wake a fellow.  Twang I looked ahead, hearing sounds of fighting. Seems like Wally found some survivors. He had a tendency to slow down to stabilize himself. I merely had to deal with stragglers, easily incapacitated with a explosion through their torso. Seconds after the bombs went off, I managed to catch a sight of his tail turning around a corridor, pink-tinted smoke in his wake. I half-spread my wings and loped after him. Eighteen ... Nineteen ... Twenty. As if seeing an invisible wall, Wally froze right before an intersection. A heartbeat later, the hallway in front of him exploded into a shower of splinters and ash. A corpse smoldered in the clouds of burning mana, her phylactery shattered from the directional shockwaves. Good, I thought. He remembered the timings. Then again, there wasn’t that much to keep track of. Wally stepped forwards calmly, sparing a brief glance at the pitter patter of furious talons sprinting up behind him, then ignored him completely.  Twenty-four, twenty-five, six. Another blast sent the Enlightened’s body sliding across the red floor, splinters the size of pencils embedded everywhere. He might have survived if he took no more injuries. I hopped on top of him and stabbed a borrowed spear through his skull, piercing his soul. Blue mist quietly dissipated. And now, thirty seconds left. Wally began to speed up, blades of red buzzing by his wings as he sent piercing blows against any confused and terrified soul unlucky enough to still be alive in his path. One minute Wally pushed through the doors to the hideout’s auditorium, and had to pull back a bit to let past an escaping cloud of embers and shrapnel. My bombs had done their job, but it couldn’t cover everything. Those standing on stage were at best badly dazed and at worst turning red with fury. The boards of the stage were too thick, too well constructed. Our targets were too experienced, too paranoid. Any attempts at modification would take too long, and be too obvious. I trailed silently, watching Wally launch himself off the back and plow the giant griffon in the middle into the backstage. The rest of the Enlightened stare in shock before gathering their wits and raise swords and crossbows.  Wally snapped his head at them, a red glow glaring out through his mask, and leapt into action. He ducked underneath a bolt, and slapped the head of the crossbow away from him before stabbing a needle through his stomach crack Purple smoke. He grabbed the crossbow from the griffon’s limp claws and quickly finished the reload. He saw the glint of steel from the corner of his eye, and quickly made a rolling jump, flipping over the griffoness’s stab. I watched a memory overlaid over her body, and Wally tracked it with the crossbow, as if he had future-sight, not me. The trigger was pulled. The bolt embedded itself underneath her shoulder crack Emerald mist. Wally crouched and gathered two pillars of flies to his sides, and shot them up. Two corpses flew overhead, their battle cries cut off.  Wally slowly exhaled, his limbs falling. He gave the cold corpses a tired glance, the crossbow slipping from bloodied talons. “The age of Ganada is over! This is our world now!” And then a giant bloodied griffon stepped out of the splinter’d mist, grabbed Wally’s head, and flung him face-first into the auditorium wall, sending a spray of wood-dust; Wally’s head ricocheted violently. His mask crumbled to pieces, leaving his face bare as he clutched a near sheared beak, and his neck lolling violently from what was sure to be a broken neck. The massive griffon roared in anger. It wasn’t hard to miss the empty-socketed eye. “TRAITOR! What made you turn from the true path!?” Wally hissed wordlessly, unsteadily standing on all fours and flexing his claws. The griffon I never bothered to learn the name of sneered. “Then you will die with the rest of them.” He lifted a claw and gathered a point of boiling heat. That was my cue. I grabbed a mana-sphere and glided down on quiet wings. Wally blinked at the glowing explosive in my palm, and gathered a meager buzzing shield. “You think that is enough?” The griffon asked, incredulous. “If shielded by your body,” Wally rasped back. I let the orb release.  A moment later, I landed on the dusty stage. There was still a red glow deep within the shredded flesh that was once the coordinator for the entirety of the Enlightened, and to my surprise it was still wriggling. “No. None of that now,” I muttered. I grabbed a dropped crossbow, its bolt never fired, and fired it at the pulsing shine within. clink I tossed the weapon aside, grumbling at the blood staining my talons. “So uncivilized,” I muttered. I walked around the cooling/cooled corpses towards the crater in the wall. “Wally, you still there?”  Two points of ghostly flame lit up, accompanied by a scratchy groan. A talon grabbed at his skull, and forced it back onto his spine with a loud snap. I grabbed his outstretched talon and helped pull him out, brushing off a few of the splinters embedded in his back, while he worked on making sure half of his shattered bones could hold until he could work on fusing them solid again. Wings looked like a lost cause for now, seems like they took the brunt of the impact. “Time?” Wally said, a faint mist of blood wafting out of his beak. “About five minutes or so before we need to book it,” I said, “plenty of time.” He sighed, and took off for the last place left untouched. When he had passed through the doors of the shattered auditorium, I laughed. Back in her room in Plan P, Agatha laughed harshly. “And that’s how the Falcowolf was made.”