[center][h2]Witches in the land of the Dead[/h2][/center]

Just above a plaza of dark stone, a young croaker child found himself floating. He was, he was quite sure, dead. For one, there was the whole floating thing. For the other, he still had his gills, and should presently be suffocating in the air he had never entered before his untimely demise.

He was not alone in this place, and in coming to this realization. Even as he came to his senses other people were being deposited around him by the same unseen hands that had brought him here. Ahead of them all was a path, stretched out the front of the plaza, leading over a bridge crossing a dark moat/river that surrounded the large island. Around the moat were fields and forests of faded yet still beautiful and serene flowers and trees of a myriad of kinds, within which other spirits, other souls, seemed to frolic or laze contently.
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The bridge did not lead there however, but instead to another island surrounded by its own moat, this one containing a manor of black polished marble, one as equally beautiful and as it was intimidating to even consider approaching. Yet where else was there to go? Certainly not into the water; as the tadpole watched, an avian beastkin attempted to fly over it, only to seem to be repulsed by some unseen barrier and to tumble to the ground. They rose, unharmed, but as their futile attempts to even walk into the river proved, there was no way forwards that way.

So, after making some conversation, and shouting at the spirits across the river who simply pointed them across the bridge, they took the only path available. They crossed the bridge and entered the manor.

Within was a maze of rooms, far more than it seemed it could hold on the outside, which linked to each other nonsensically. There were exits, ones leading out onto more bridges, but these were shrouded in mists, and no one who ever crossed one ever came back. Still, time, impatience and some unknown pull to a specific bridge caused the group to dwindle, till only the tadpole was left, wandering the halls, pressing deeper and deeper till, at last, at the heart of the great house, he finally found him. Sat upon a simple stool before an easel holding an impossibly detailed painting of the realm, pallet in one hand, paintbrush in another with which he was adding yet more detail, was Death himself.

Then the cry of a babe shattered the memory, and the true state of the land of death came into view. Gone where the souls living afterlives in eternal peace. Gone were the forests, fields and gardens of plants reborn after death replaced by a blackened ruin of scorched craters, more desolate even than the outer regions once were, while the labyrinthian home which once stood was gone in its entirety.  

In its place was nothing. Just a hole, blasted down into the veil between realms, which a goblin in a pointed hat had just recently climbed out of with a babe carried at her breast.

“Shh shh shh little one, it’s alright” the Mother said, caressing the beastkin infant’s down feathered scalp till it was soothed and calmed. Then she pressed a finger lightly to its forehead and caused the source of the memory to reappear.

The tadpole-like mortal hovered before her, or rather, a representation of it did, for its soul was the same as that of the child. To it she asked, “and what happened then?

“I told him I hadn’t had time for much when I was alive. That maybe I could have another go at it instead of staying wherever this was,” the child told the goddess, “he told me that it was a rare thing to be gifted, but that that was a fair reason, and then just like that, I was someone else.”

The tadpole faded, and was replaced with a dwarven warrior. “It was a good life. Long life. Till the beasts came and I fell in battle. That time, no one took me anywhere. Well, the beasts tried, but El’zadir and me kin dealt with them. After that, me and everyone else, we just sort of, floated about. Not that that’s unusual apparently, a lot of the other dead did that for a bit and then ended up being born again, having never heard of the place I’d been to. Bit of a long wait this time, seeing as so many died during the attacks. So I thought I’d go try and find this place myself again.”

“And found this”

“Sure did. Then I got caught and turned into one of those for a bit,” the dwarf said, as he pointed out into the plain of death at a mist of spectral warriors riding out towards them from the edge of a kingdom that had been built on the ruins of the land of the dead, “got killed again in some war, got out of there, and then came to find you.”

It had been something of a roundabout method, The Mother knew. He’d come to Tricity, having heard the goddess favored it. Then conspired with the ghosts hanging out there to get him reborn specifically into the body of a spiritual family. They had then brought their newborn to the soul speaker as per family tradition, and via that the dwarf had managed to get out a call about the existence of and fate of the land of the dead.

And thus (after she had borrowed the dwarf’s next life to act as her guide) they were now here, at the border of a kingdom of the fay that had begun squatting upon the ruins of the lands of the dead, and they did not seem exactly peaceful. Watchtowers dotted the land with balefire burning atop them forming great eyes that had set their gaze upon her, marking out her location.

Towards it rode a unit of wraiths, cold spectral figures formed of souls bound in glamor, sat upon the backs of similarly undead steeds. The diminutive master of these, fluttering above them and directing them with a handful of spectral chains bound to their necks, was one of the new fairy creatures, wearing a spectral cloak over form fitting leather armor.

“Well well well, what have we here? A lost little goblin? Best you run along home now, lest you end up joining the Witchfeighd’s legions of the damned!” The fay declared as she fluttered above, her wraith-knights forming a threatening circle around the goblin, rather preventing her from running.

Not that the goddess was at all inclined to do so.

“Witchfeighd hmmm? I happen to be something of a witch myself,” the Mother replied, tipping her hat in greeting and entirely unperturbed by the strange copper, gold, and black lances being pointed at her, “more of one than this Witchfeighd, if this is her idea of hospitality. Assuming you are acting under her orders I mean.” She raised a questioning eyebrow at the little fairy and asked, “are you?”

“I am a wand in her arsenal, and her magic flows in my veins,” the fairy replied proudly, though she was in part boasting to cover how unnerved she was by how unconcerned this goblin witch, who had a baby sashed to her chest no less, was about being surrounded.

“That a yes? Good, then you shall take me right to her. I have traveled far to meet the new lord of this land. Or should I be going over there somewhere?” She asked, waving a hand casually towards a differently themed set of fortifications, ones watched over by bounded astral beings, that sat on the opposite side of the massive hole she had just exited from the realm this fay hailed from.  

“Them? Hecate rules this land, not those interlopers! We’ll be tossing them out soon enough, her malevolence will see to it sure as death,” the fairy insisted, sneering over at the foe who was camped out on the opposite edge of the great hole into this realm, only to be quite surprised to find the goblin witch sat side saddle on the back of one of her wraith knights.

“Excellent, then let us waste no more time, yes? We don’t want to keep her waiting after all,” the witch stated, and at that point she’d already won.

The confused but smart-enough-to-know-not-to-pick-fights-with-people-exuding-so-much-casual-confidence fay promptly transported her guest as requested. As they did, the guised goddess got a further picture of the nature of the fairies of this realm, who seemed to be between campaigning seasons and preparing for the next. They were preparing such things that would have made mortal armies quail in their boots. Great wells of magical power were being filled from what little remained of the realm of death, its very essence being squeezed from the soil into great cauldrons. Undead legions were being formed, lost souls snatched away from the masses of dead created by the outer beast invasion, bound in spectral facsimile of their former selves, or even their own bones. Blood was drained from captured beasts, inner and outer, and used to prepare profane potions or paint the five pointed stars that seemed to be the basis for much of their equivalent of runework.

Most of their living space seemed to consist of barrows made up of the byproducts of their draining death from the land, transforming the dark substance into a pearly white stone and soil. Their queen lived in the grandest of these mounds, one decorated with great pillars of white stone that curved in like ribs, and at their center held the greatest of the balefire beacons. It's great burning eye stared down at them as they approached.

It wasn’t the only eye upon them, for those of many of fay around had been drawn to the strange goblin riding brazenly towards their lady’s parlor, and the rest caught on when she slipped off and casually strolled inside.

The insides contained the classic witch’s hut essentials, but scaled up to the quantity and quality befitting a witch queen. Racks of strange and rare ingredients lined shelf after shelf (both wooden and those that in an actual barrow would have held the dead), from eyes of newt, snakes oils and bones galore, along with numerous trinkets and artifacts stolen from all across the realms. Nets full of exotic herbs hung from the ceiling, drying in the heat produced by a great balefire burning beneath an even greater cauldron filled with outer beast bile, blood, and even viler fluids, along with a host of ingredients off of the shelves.

The Witchfeighd Hecate herself, rendered wretched and hideous by her deeds most foul, was perched upon the shoulder of a beautiful elf clothed in rags and chains who she was forcing to stir the vial bru with a ladle that contained more power than some fairies had in their whole bodies.

“Ah, I see our uninvited guest has been delivered straight to my doorstep in one piece,” Hecate observed as she ceased her slave’s stirring, before she insisted “this had better be worth my time,” as a clear threat to the fairy who had brought The Mother to her, causing her to back away half a step in fear even as she swore it would be so.

“Greetings, witch Hecate.” The Mother greeted the fairy in lieu of being greeted herself, stepping forwards and tipping her hat to the other witch in such a way that it obscured the fairy that had brought her here, a subtle manner of insisting that she was very much worth the time, and she herself would prove it.

“That’s Witchfeighd to you, stranger, whoever and whatever you think you are, stumbling into my realm like this, thinking you can command my minions to do as you please.” The witch replied with unmasked hostility, for, to a fay like her, there were only kneeling peons and enemies to be crushed, and the simple matter of her guest’s attitude was swinging her rapidly into the latter camp already.

“They call me Rose back in Tricity, and I’m just a simple mother, come to learn the fate of the land of the dead, and see the ascension of its new liege.” The Mother replied with words that were all technically true, seemingly now buttering Hecate up a bit, which the fay found just a touch suspicious.

Still, she was not one to turn down an opportunity to gloat.

“Well you have come at an auspicious time then, Rose of Tricity, for within the hour, my latest brew shall be complete, and when it is, the very earth of this realm shall swallow up my foes, and bury them in a shallow grave,” she declared, earning a cheer from the observing masses.

“Witch Rose, if you’d kindly,” The Mother replied politely, before saying that, “and I must say, you have quite the fascinating demesne,” using the term to refer to a witch’s combination of laboratory and living space, functionally a far more dignified and generalist name for a witch’s hut, “so many fascinating odds and ends you have here, though none less than that,” she said, pointing to a humble paintbrush sitting upon a shelf just behind the Witchfeighd, gathering dust.

This strange selection of interest prompted whispers of speculation among the many fay who had gathered around the outskirts of the large room, peering down from the shelves where they sat amongst the ingredients. One in particular caused one of the goblin goddess’ pointed ears to twitch, a whisper of, “wasn’t that the only thing we found here?” confirming The Mother’s suspicions about the artifact’s quiet power.

“And why is that, Rose?” The Witchfeighd asked with disrespect before asking accusingly “have you come to steal it?”

“Not at all, I’ll gladly barter you for it.” The Mother replied, before offering, “I have many pieces of fine runework from my home city that might interest you. All made with wondrous r’kava to boot.” As she pulled out a knife with the runes of pain painted on its blade, another with a scroll tied around its length that described an intricate transformation into a monstrous beast, and a third that simply had the rune for sharp on it.

“Bah, paltry offerings, you insult me with such base magics,” the Witchfeighd replied, rejecting her outright, “I wouldn't trade a thimble of glamor for the things made by dirt dwellers.”

“Then how about this?” The Mother asked instead, before reaching for a locket around her neck, opening it, and revealing the shrunken heart of Egrioth, one of two greater outer beasts, still beating, its power bound by innumerable runes. In response, all breaths went still for a moment, as its bounded power hurt the eyes of those who looked upon it.

Lesser fay flinched away, but the Witchfeighd’s own stayed locked on it for that moment, before flicking to the paintbrush and back again. She chose, as The Mother had expected, greed. What she had not expected was quite how deep that greed ran, as the fairy flicked out both hands and tried to claim both the heart and the brush, whose value she had clearly underestimated.

The air rippled as a deadly curse ripped forwards, only to crash into the witch’s hat, runes on its rim flaring to life as she used it not to protect her divine form, but instead the babe she carried against her bosoms.

“One of my grandsons got me that as a gift, you know,” she complained, as the hat disintegrated, magic spent protecting her from a single strike. Then she was forced to leap to the side, one hand steadying and protecting the infant in her care as she avoided another deadly curse. When she landed, she thrust a hand over her back and into a satchel she was wearing, out of which she pulled a second hat, informing the fairies with the air of a teacher that, “a proper witch always has a spare,” before popping it upon her head.

“Seize her, bring me that heart! Whoever does so becomes my apprentice!” The Witchfeighd barked at the spectating fay, prompting many to rise up into the air, drawing weapons and wands galore. This did not include the fairy who had brought The Mother here, whose eyes the goddess met and then to whom she gave a quick nod of approval before making all the rest regret rising against her.

Spells and sorcery flew, bolts of death, screaming skulls, balefire, and spectral scythes all raining down on the goddess, who stepped and leapt to avoid them and keep them from harming a feather on her ward’s head. As she moved, and countless shelves and nicknacks around her were destroyed, she retaliated using the heart, forming needle thin lances of pain that lashed out and skewered fairy after fairy, sending them tumbling from the air in bouts of unspeakable pain.

Other more martial ones darted in when the spellcasters failed, sickles and swords at the ready, but the goddess drew the mortal made knife marked with runes of pain, which extended a sword length aura of suffering from its material form. Wielding it, she caught and paired their miniature weapons with the metal blade, before slicing them with the aura of pain, forcing them back or down.

“Idiots! Fools! Are none of you worthy?!” The Witchfeighd castigated from atop her elven slave, even as she began to weave a wide reaching curse that would lay waste to both her foe and any fay who happened to be trying to take her down at that moment.

The Mother promptly tossed the scroll wrapped knife at the elf of all people, skewering her in the chest. Yet instead of killing her the blade pumped power into her, draining wells of r’kava and using it to twist her as the scroll described, transforming her in an instant into a creature like a howler monkey wrapped in chitin armor. In the process of transforming she shattered her chains and threw the Witchfeighd from her shoulder, and the first thing she did with this new freedom was to scream at her captor and tormentor with a voice that could shatter eardrums, or in the Witchfeighd’s case, make concentrating on casting mighty difficult.

Having distracted the Witchfeighd, the goddess continued to fight, happily taking hits to her own body while doing everything she could to prevent even a scratch from landing on the crying infant. The next to try were a squad of wraiths sent in by the fay, spectral forms of undead immune to the pain she had been inflicting on her living foes.

Given that the the souls within were living half lives of suffering due to being bound in these forms however, she had little issue with drawing the blade marked simply as sharp and cleaving into the wraiths with it, the concept of sharpness it was imbued with cutting them far more than the the metal that would have gone right through them otherwise. The undead shattered, freeing the souls from their prisons, all of whom called their thanks and cheered on the goddess as she used the space she had cleaved to unleash another barrage of pain inducing-needles upon the remaining aggressive fay.

She turned then as a new scream came, the elf slave turned monkey knight crying out as the Witchfeighd managed to finish a spell that left her slave a withered aged husk on the brink of death. Sparing her victim not a second glance, the Witchfeighd turned to meet the Mother’s eyes.

The two witches faced each other down, surrounded by the groaning forms of all the rest of the combatants, and watched only by those too cowardly or too wise to not get involved.

The crying infant rather ruined the dramatic atmosphere however, and the Mother was given only a moment to try and soothe it before balefire flames ripped forth from the hands of the Witchfeighd, threatening to wash over everything, minion and goddess alike.

In response she tossed her hat, the second rune-engraved head garment scything through the green flames, devouring the spell and then vaporizing like its predecessor had. In that moment however, the Witchfeighd had time to leap for the paintbrush all this had started over, which she proceeded to toss into her cauldron, causing it to explode with power, much to her cackling delight.

“Realm of death, rise up and claim these wretched lives in the name of the Witchfeighd!” She commanded, prompting the paintbrush to rise up out of the cauldron, and then for power to spear down from it into the earth. This prompted the inert soil of the realm of death to come to life, taking the form of endless grasping hands which grabbed hold of every being but the Witchfeighd, before attempting to drag them back down into it.

“Cease this!” The Mother commanded at the same time as she launched a titanic spike of pain towards the Witchfeighd, but the fay was no lesser minion, and though she suffered there was no breaking the spell that was sure to slay all in her demesne.

Again the Mother speared her foe, but she was holding back, unwilling to inflict deadly pain upon her foe despite the way the hands were close to breaking past her swatting hand to reach the baby. She frowned, began to try to step forwards, only for her eyes widened for just a moment before her form was replaced by that of a woman as old looking as the Witchfeighd, yet also one who had aged far more gracefully.

“Enough of this, if you won’t do it I will!” The Breaker declared, as she flicked a finger across her brow, causing a third and final hat appeared upon her head, this one not mortal made, but undeniably divine in nature. The Witchfeighd’s own eyes widened for just a moment as the Breaker shattered all the Mother’s pretense of being mortal, and then closed forever when in an instant the goddess had crossed the room, wrapped her hand around the tiny fairy, and crushed the life from her, ending her life to save all the ones she was about to claim with her foul sorcery.

The Breaker’s lips were covered with an ever so slight smile as Asheel took her first (natural) mortal life, only for a moment of confusion to cross her face before the Maiden appeared with one of horror on her own.

“She has no soul!?!?!?!?!?!” The youngest of them cried out in horror, as the magic came apart in her hand, and revealed this inexplicable exception to the law she had written in the Khodex.

“No no no. I can fix this. I just need to… I just… I can… I…” she tried and tried, but it was no use. The Witchfeighd was no more, and there was nothing left of her to bring back, at least nothing that would matter. She could build a perfect replica, this she knew, simply by looking back at what once was, but it would not be the same. Her cycle was broken, and there was no way of continuing what had already ended.

And so the Maiden, shocked, gave way for the Mother, who shed tears even for a monster like the Witchfeighd, who gave way for the Breaker, who opened her hand and let the magic both the others had been trying to hold onto, that had once made up the Witchfeighd’s body, drift away.

“The Witchfeighd is dead!” A fay cried out in panic upon seeing this, before above them there roared a mighty explosion as the great baelfire eye of their dead leader fell apart without her, letting the whole realm know of her death and that all her foul workings had been undone.

Her slayer cared not for their plight, instead bending down and pulling the blade she’d thrown at the now mutated withered elf out of their chest, causing the transformation to reverse, and the aging curse having already been undone by the Witchfeighd ‘s death. It was only when a second shout came that, “the armies of Eirgwyn are on the match! They’re coming! We’re doomed!” that she paid attention to the fairies again.

“I’ll lead us to victory!” “No I!” “No I!” called out several fairies who were recovering from the pain the Mother had caused and near-death their former leader had inflicted, all shakingly drawing weapons with clear indication on how they were going to resolve the question of succession.

“None of you will,” the Breaker broke in to say, before pointing at the one who had first met and then brought the Mother here, “she was the only one wise enough to not try and fight a goddess, so she will lead you,” before imbuing her chosen champion with the magic of the old Witchfeighd, and crowning her with a tiny witch’s hat.

“Meanwhile I suppose I will prevent the Mother from shedding any more tears, and make sure no one else dies today, not before we correct this mistake, and you are all granted souls by the Maiden,” the Breaker said as she unstrapped the babe she’d been saddled with, instructing her champion to protect it. Then, grasping the paintbrush all this had been about, she strode back out of the barrow.

As she emerged, she pressed two fingers to her lips, and whistled, causing a mono-wheeled motorcycle with bladed wheels to burst out of a poor snouter’s field, punch into the veil, leap through the hole into the land of death, and to then land perfectly before her, ready to be mounted. The Breaker did so, and then rode her machine forwards at lightning speed, scything across the land of the dead, and dragging the paintbrush across the borders of the fairy nations found within.

Where she brushed it, rivers like the one from the tadpole’s memory of the old land of the dead formed, ones which no mortal being, living or dead, could cross, caring not for how the fay who’s armies she was locking into their kingdoms tried to stop her and, in an instant, halting the advance of Eirgwyn’s armies, and forcing an armistice upon the war for the land of the dead.

Then Asheel, not Maiden, not Mother, not Breaker, Asheel, the Wheel, the Cycle incarnate, rose up above the hole in the land of the dead, and in three and one voices spoke thusly:

“Hear me, o tiny sparks of life who war for this realm: you have been made wrong. As the Maiden decreed, all things that live are to have souls, such that they will live on after death, and be reborn as new lives, to live out new experiences in a cycle that will continue till the end of time. Yet you and you alone will not, for you have no souls and so your death is the final end. This crime against the Khodex we will set right! Yet time it will take. So cease your wars, lay down your arms, put aside your grievances till the day that I grant you what you have always been owed, lest you face the wrath of a goddess who now holds the realm of death in her clutches!”

As the final words boomed, the wheel spun around the handle of Death’s paintbrush, and the fallen god’s realm was granted a new mistress. Bombed out craters were swept away, and in their place was laid a foundation of endless pristine white triangular paving stones, a fresh canvas upon which she would paint her own image of this realm in time.

For now, however, the wheel descended, and then three in one became one of three again, the Breaker riding back to the kingdom of the Witchfeighd. The new Witchfeighd. Whatever she was named before (a suitable name for a follower, no doubt) was swiftly forgotten. Now she was the Witchfeighd, and her name was [url=https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/a1e4bb73-33fc-449e-b320-b351d9060290/dfziy1c-d5b833d4-a102-471d-bb8e-d5edc4a612a1.png/v1/fill/w_900,h_1346,q_80,strp/morgan_le_fay_by_wickeddual_dfziy1c-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.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.nGQ8_g-HoiAllqMX-556V50ge9SVSujZll6t3Tfck3Q]Morghein.[/url]

It was not the new Witchfeighd the fay were hailing upon the Breaker’s return, however, but instead her patron, chanting, “hail her malevolence, hail her magnificence, hail the matriarch of souls!”

“Matriarch, hmmm? I can work with that,” she said to herself, before commanding the fay to clear away and to leave her in peace as she took over Hecate’s barrow, and making it her own demesne, within which she began concocting a brew to grant the fay the souls she had promised them.

After she returned the baby to its parents, that was.

[hider=mp]
Start: 28 mp
1 mp boosted by wheels to make the Super Cycle able to be summoned to Asheel’s side whenever she desires
1 mp boosted by witchcraft to make the new Witchfeighd, Morghein, a hero, mainly by boosting her magic levels up massively using the corpse of the old one.
1 mp boosted by witchcraft to make a holy site and home in the land of the dead, named simply Asheel’s Demesne, within which all manner of potion ingredients from across the realms are readily available.
End: 25
[/hider]

[hider=summary]
The Mother, guided by a one of the few souls to have been taken to the land of the dead and then allowed to reincarnate, travels to that realm, and finds it a desolate wasteland with a massive hole punched from it into the veil in the center.

She meets the Witchfeighd Hecate, attempts to barter for a paintbrush which the former lord of the realm had designed it with, only to end up fighting her, and for the Breaker to take over and kill her. Permanently. This causes her to discover fairies have no souls, which she is not pleased about, so she first puts a stop to the war for the land of the dead via river styx like borders, and then demands they all stop fighting everywhere till she can make them new souls.

She promptly takes over the Witchfeighd’s demesne (which is a fancy name for her witch’s hut) and prepares to brew up a way to give fairies souls, but not before returning the baby she had borrowed to guide her to the land of the dead.

She also crowns a replacement Witchfeighd, Morghein, functionally making the Witchfeighd’s kingdom her vassal in the process due to her patronage of their new leader. The Breaker gets a new name for this act of conquest, the Matriark.
[/hider]