Latter Days of the House of Theophania

Prologue

It was a common misconception that the spookiest part of Kingstown was deep in the old catacombs. Surrounded by bones of long dead lords and saints, far from the light of the sun and the open sky, dripping with the blood and dread power of forgotten sorcerers and the arcane artifacts with which they were interred, the dark and closing walls of bone beneath the earth could give a layperson the idea that some grotesque animatronic of bone and dead flesh wielding a rusty iron battle axe could turn around any corner and rip their head off.

They were mistaken.

It was up, at the edge of the woods: a copse beside the Royal Healer-Herbalists’ magic garden, at the bend of the river Mardu. Under the burning light of the sun and the silver light of the full moon. Where the hawk moths fluttered so thick in the air it seemed like you were drowning in a sea of eyes, and the phosphorescence of the blood beetles that carpeted the broad-leaf elephant ears so thick on the ground that it looked like a parade of Fae at the midsummer lantern festival. It was not the loose undead raised by errant necromantic power that threatened, but the wild and untamed Bigfoot, Manticore, and dread beasts of the woods that had lingered since the dawn of time that threatened to step out from behind a tree at any moment. It was the scarecrows and totems, the curse-markers planted every few hundred feet, the silently spoke that it was not just rumors, scary stories for children, imagined unlikely horrors; but real threats, so real that the Shamanic wing of the Palace Guard had sought talismans and fetishes to ward off their predation.

It was here, in the autumn twilight, that the small procession stood. Many masked and hooded figures stood in a circle around a damaged tombstone. The tombstone bore a badly weathered epitath, and all that could be read now was “Carry on my w…”. One figure carried an intricately carved stick, festooned in runes and pentacles, channels of energy, and planted it onto what might have once been a burial cairn. Despite the hard-packed earth and stone, the wood sank in easily without resistance. One carried an ancient, basilisk-jaw-visor helmet, which gleamed beyond what the sinking sun should allow, and placed it atop the post. One carried a deck of prophecy-cards, a set far more ornate than the sort you would expect from a common itinerant fortune-teller separating superstitious villagers from their coin. A gold-inlaid card was drawn, 0 The Fool, and it was wedged behind the plume-holder of the helmet.

Offerings were placed before the helmet: a cooked anglerfish and Karamjan deep-sea octopus, fetched directly from the distant sea and conveyed by fast horses in an ice-chilled chest; two glass flasks, one of a hearty yellow potion, brewed from ingredients taken from the Healer-Herbalists’ garden, and the other a blighted purple ichor, stopped and sealed with lead, drawn from dark pools in the northern wilderness; a twisted bracelet of hemp and brightly-dyed linen, worn and crudely woven as if by an anxious teenager.

The leader of the group, having been muttering continuously while her compatriots prepared the ritual, pushed her hood back. The gold and gems of her crown glimmered in twilight. Queen Theophania, first of her name, chanted to a final crescendo and pointed a ring-studded finger. The stone of the cairn buckled upward in a shower of dust. A hand, then another hand, rose from the dirt, and with a loud crack the very earth split open where the helmet had been placed. The prepared wooden totem had morphed, somehow both slowly and suddenly, and beneath the notice of mortal perception, into a living head, perched atop bony shoulders and emaciated chest of a dark figure that pushed its way out of its tomb.

The naked, androgynous, creature stepped out of the pit, dripping with dirt and worms and all sorts of unwholesome things. It stretched and twisted, as if working actual rust off of abandoned iron machinery, and then spread its arms. One of the cultists stepped forward with a crimson velvet cloak to drape upon it.

The raised being worked its jaws, and rasped out in a grating, wheezing whisper, “….ssss Thiiiaaa…”

Theophania stepped forward and embraced her old companion. “Welcome back Ophius. We have work to do.”