Orion's Sight

Setting: Warble

Far back as I can remember, I knew I was meant to be a night dweller. Daylight was painfully bright, and I could barely tell what I saw. Even as I stayed mostly indoors, it became clear that the quality of "color" that was described to me existed outside my visual domain. It seemed others possessed a greater acuity of vision as well. Learning to read was difficult, and I required larger text than others.

When my parents hired a healer-mage to try to fix my vision, we discovered that not only was the attempt unsuccessful, but I could perceive the invisible magic involved in the process. The healer-mage - Ivan, I believe his name was? - recognized this as the gift of Orion's Sight. Now, we didn't have an Orion in our little town who could train me, but the next town over, Belvedere, did.

My parents couldn't move- my father was a scribe locked into contract with the town of Sevath and he didn't have the money to buy it out. So, they left me at the door of an Orion known as Hanami when I was 12.

Hanami was a woman who looked at once middle-aged and ancient. She looked like she had stopped aging at 40 over 1000 years ago, and now age leaked through in nearly imperceptible ways. Her dark hair held streaks of white. She kept it short, shaving all but the top of her head, which she let only grow long enough that it would barely droop, with a straight razor.

She worked me hard, that's for sure. I spent 10 years learning the sword. Well, many different swords. She decided I had the most aptitude for swords that were long and thin, which I could use with 1 or 2 hands. I had to practice with swords of various materials selected for their magical properties- steel, lead, silver, bronze, glass, even wood. Besides the difference in balance and weight, some of these required different techniques and were optimal for different circumstances. Lead would dull easily, but it could sap certain magic. Glass would shatter if it hit something hard, but it was effective against some incorporeal beasts.

Wards were a must. Even though I had no magical ability, there were still certain substances that could protect against magic. Symbols drawn with blood and gypsum could offer some level of abjuration against spells. We borrowed what we could from knowledge of witchcraft and alchemy.

At 14 I got my own set of side-lenses. An improvement over my darkened goggles, these had different types of lenses which could be rotated in or out of place and combined for multiple effects. There were, of course, darkened lenses for use during the day or any other high-light situation. There were magnifying lenses and telescopic lenses. Finally, there were lenses that were mismatched between left and right. The left one darkened certain things, like skin or fire. The right one darkened other things, like the sky or leaves. Though it didn't let me perceive color the way most people could, using one or both of these lenses let me distinguish color to a small degree. That's very important when you have a bottle of blue vitriol and a bottle of red vitriol with no labels.

The first time I actually had to fight a beast was at 15 years old. Before then Hanami had been dealing with these things on her own. It happened when a doctor's student by the name of Teriac had traveled from Sevath to get help. It was late in the evening when I heard the knocker - tap! tap! tap! - at the door. I looked up from my work mixing a minium ink. Again - tap! tap! tap! - the knock came. I stood up, wiped my mildly stained hands on my protective apron, flipped my magnifying lenses to the side, and walked over to unlatch the door. The doctor's student stood there, holding a storm lantern. She introduced herself, and said she was looking for the Orion that lived in the house. I told her I was the Orion's apprentice, and invited her in.

She extinguished her lantern and shed her dark cloak.

"Elder is going to want some tea, so I'm putting the kettle on." I informed her. "Would you care for any yourself?"

"No, thank you." Teriac answered, subtly wringing her hands and glancing around.

"Just give me one moment to fetch her. Sit." I gestured at the chairs we kept by the hearth.

I picked up a candle and slipped out the door of the entrance parlor which led to the main hallway. I was fairly certain Hanami would be in her study, so I knocked twice and pushed the door open. My flickering candle spilled into the darkness, making shadows dance around the room. Hanami was at her desk, studying a tome holding faintly glowing script.

A sigh.

"Yes?"

"A client's here, from Sevath. She's waiting in the parlor."

"Is she now? You invited her in?"

"Yes, Elder, I did."

"Did it not occur to you that she could be a vampire, or any manner of demon, waiting for an invitation in order to be able to enter and kill us?"

"I didn't see any undeath or profanity about her."

"Did it not then also occur to you that she could be masking her true nature?"

I paused. "Is that possible?"

"Well no, but, had any monsters discovered a way to make it possible, we'd both be dead."

"Noted. I did put the kettle on. Shall I inform her you'll be a while?"

"No, no. I'll walk with you." Hanami stood from her desk, and picked up her walking stick.

Now, I knew that the walking stick was purely ornamental, but Hanami began to lean on it and slow her gait once we reached the door to the parlor. Teriac was sitting by the hearth. Hanami and I both took seats opposite her.

"I am called Hanami. My apprentice tells me you're here because you need an Orion. That would be me."

"Uh, yes. There is some beastly presence in Sevath. There have been... attacks. Victims found mauled by some sort of ferocious animal. Claw marks and tooth marks. The watch and volunteers have been patrolling constantly, and people are too scared to leave their homes at night."

Hanami engaged with doubt, as usual. "Could it not be a wild animal? Perhaps a bear. Some of them can be quite large and vicious."

"No one's seen any such thing. And we've all been vigilant since the first attack."

"What about a person using bladed knuckles?"

"The lacerations tear through thick cloth and wood as well as flesh. No one in Sevath has that kind of strength."

"That you know of. Well, Serran, what do you think this could be?"

"Perhaps something that appears human most of the time, but transforms when killing." I answered. "A lycanthrope, possibly."

"Yes, could be. Tell me" - "Teriac" - "Teriac, what was the moon phase when this started?"

"Waning, less than a half moon."

"Hmm. We are mere days past the summer solstice. This could be a Song phenomenon, not a Silence one." Hanami reasoned aloud. "Nothing left behind by the attacker? Fur, blood, bits of cloth, that type of thing?"

"Nothing of the sort."

"Very well. We don't have a lot to work with. Serran, pack a bit of each of the salts, vitriols, oils, and aquas from the alchemy supply. Pack some sage, belladonna, wormwood, and cedar from the witchcraft supply. Holy water, a few holy symbols. The blades. We depart in the morning."

"We? I'm coming with you on this one?"

"That you are." A pause. "Your memory of Sevath may prove useful in our investigation."

"Yes, Elder." I responded with a tinge of surprise in my voice. Hanami started to plod out of the room, and Teriac fidgeted.

"I'll show you out." I volunteered.

"R- Right." She stood up and followed me to the door.

"There's an inn just inside the gate of Belvedere proper, if you're not yet going to return to Sevath." I said, trying to be helpful.

"Thank you." She said through a half smile. I closed the door and turned around to see Hanami standing there.

"She looks to be about your age. Don't go getting ideas."

"Ideas, Elder?"

"Romance, lust, that sort of thing. Demons love that shit."

"Noted. I don't think I'm much of an ideas woman anyway."

The ride was uneventful. I had packed everything Hanami asked me to, and we set forth with a horse and cart the town of Belvedere had so generously let us borrow. I'm pretty sure Hanami coerced them somehow, perhaps guilting them into it after taking care of a few monsters, but when I asked her about it she only told me that being an Orion was a good job, and nothing else.

Seeing Sevath again was strange. It had been a good 3 years since I last trod this ground. Many things had changed. Many hadn't. We inquired with the watch about the attacks, but they had no additional information. They could, however, show us to the morgue.

I suppose seeing a mangled corpse would be much more distressing with unimpaired eyesight, but I always found the idea more distressing than the image. Dr. Haefril had enlisted the help of a mage to instantly cool the bodies down to just above freezing, preventing decay. This was quite a benefit as far as analysis of the corpse, but also left a haze of magic about.

Teriac hadn't been exaggerating about the strength of the attackers. Ligaments were torn through and bones were broken. Right away I could see a slight glow of magic on the body, but it was a hue I couldn't quite recognize. Similar to a transformation, but not quite.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Transformation aftershock." Hanami answered. "When a transformation ends and a creature returns to its original form, it leaves bits of aftershock."

"The attacker was in its original form during the attack?"

"Perhaps. Could be residual. Sometimes a feeder kills its victim, transforms back, then consumes its meal. These bodies don't look exsanguinated, or eaten, so I think that's unlikely. It may be that some inconspicuous animal, a rat, for example, was transformed to make the attack, but the transformation wasn't long-lasting."

"Well if that's the case, our course of action should be silver blades, right?"

"Silver blades will kill a transformed animal, but what about the mage that transformed them?"

"Silver blades work on people too."

Hanami chuckled. "That they do. We'll still take a walk around the town, see about anyone else got magic sticking to them."

We encountered Teriac again as we were exiting the morgue. I explained what we knew so far as Hanami rolled her eyes. Teriac asked to accompany us, justifying her request with the point that the townsfolk would be more likely to open their doors for a local. Hanami had no objections. So, the 3 of us went door to door just to see if we could spot any magic.

This was not fruitful. The residents of Sevath, being already paranoid, did not want to talk to us. Perhaps it would have been even worse without Teriac there. Mages, of course, had visible magic about them, but no one else did. All in all, we ended up wasting about 4 hours, and it was late afternoon by the time we had surveyed the area.

We had left our cart by the morgue, so we decided to find lodging, and maybe rest for a short amount of time before resuming our work in the evening. Teriac offered the space above the doctor's office. She and Dr. Haefril lived there, and they had a spare room where they could set up some cushions to sleep on. Never one to pass up an opportunity for frugality, Hanami accepted.

Once in our provided room, I locked the door and began setting up wards. I crushed belladonna berries and smeared it onto the cedar strips, arranging them to ward off beasts, fairies, and nature spirits. I burned some sage and wormwood to keep out spectral phenomena. I sketched an alchemical ward in gypsum on the door, and drew a small amount of intravenous blood from the back of my hand to react with aqua regia to paint a ward on the floor. These prevented the passage of most undead or profane creatures. Hanami and I each swallowed a few grain of green vitriol to maintain our magic resistance, and slept until dusk.

We arose with the sun's occlusion and prepared our silver blades, swallowed some more green vitriol, and set out. Both Teriac and Dr. Haefril accompanied us in hopes that they could provide medical aid to any potentially still-alive victims, as well us if it came to it.

We wandered around for hours, the 4 of us, each carrying a storm lantern. As midnight was approaching, we heard shouting a few streets away, toward the town square. We took off sprinting.

"Agatha! Agatha!" A man shouted out into the night. He kept shouting as we caught up to him, and it took him a moment to respond to us.

"Who's Agatha? Why are you shouting?" Hanami inquired.

"My wife. I was sitting by the fire, sipping brandy. I heard a crash from the other room, so I got up to see what was going on. There were dishes broken on the floor and I saw Agatha running out."

"Ah, uh, could this be related?" Dr. Haefril asked us.

"It's possible." I answered. "But even if not, she's in danger out in the night."

"You 2, stay with the husband, get him inside if possible. Serran and I will split up and look for Agatha."

I felt a pang of fear shoot through my chest, but I suppressed it. I could handle myself. I went east, Hanami went west.

"Agatha!" I called out as I searched. After I had traveled a few rows down, I heard a soft weeping nearby. I followed the sound to an alleyway, and saw the crouched figure of a woman glowing faintly with transformation magic.

"Agatha?"

Her head snapped toward me, then she leapt up and bolted down the alley away from me. I ran after her, gaining ground until she slipped through a tall wooden gate and latched it behind her. I rammed the door with my shoulder twice, but that seemed futile, so I jumped and grabbed a horizontal beam that spanned the width of the gate. I pulled myself up and over while the woman begin to scream, but by the time I had traversed the barrier it was too late.

She lay on the ground, flesh torn apart by enormous lacerations. Blood covered her torso, face, arms, and hands. The whole area was painted with transformation aftershock.

The husband, Thomas, identified the dead woman as Agatha. I relayed what I had seen to Hanami. She frowned.

"It may be some sort of siren's call. Only the victim can hear the attacker's call, and is mesmerized then lured to their death. All I can wonder, though, is how the attacker escapes. If they teleported or turned invisible, you would have been able to see traces of that with your Orion's sight."

"Could they be very fast, magically so?" Teriac asked.

"No." I answered. "I would have seen traces of that magical effect too. My only idea is that the attacker is miniscule, and becomes large temporarily. But I don't know what that could possibly be."

Dr. Haefril brought Thomas to the doctor's office, to keep him safe in case victims were chosen by association. We took the time to ask for any more detail he could provide. He told us about how Agatha's good friend Mirri had been killed the night before. Agatha had been visiting her when she became upset and ran away. Mirri was already dead by the time Agatha caught up to her. Dawn was near when we got to sleep.

I awoke before Hanami, and quietly slipped out to the living area. Teriac was awake as well, and asked if I needed anything.

"Some water." I answered. She retrieved a glass and turned the spout on the water barrel. Nothing but the gurgling sound filled a few moments.

"How have you been staying calm?" Teriac asked. "That was so frightening."

I shrugged. "I was fearful in the moment, but that's in the past."

"Really? I'm still... shaken." Her eyes glistened like she might cry. I stood awkwardly, not sure what to do, but eventually decided to step forward and put a comforting arm around her. She leaned her face into my shoulders and I could feel a few tears leak out and soak through the fabric between us. After a minute, she lifted her head up and took a step back.

"Sorry."

"It's fine." I mumbled, feeling extremely out of my depth socially. "I'm sure you don't have to come out with us tonight if you don't want to."

Teriac didn't answer, but she realized she had set down the water I asked for, so she picked it up and handed it to me.

Despite, or perhaps because of, our interaction earlier, Teriac did indeed accompany us that night, though Dr. Haefril did not. We started near the scene of last night's attack and systematically spiralled outward. We searched for hours, but found no corpses and no monsters. Hanami's expression grew increasingly annoyed. We returned to the doctor's office to find Thomas just outside, on the path, dead. Transformation aftershock painted the area in a macabre glow. Dr. Haefril had the area cordoned off. Teriac rushed forward, but Hanami and I stayed back a moment.

"Contagion?" I posited.

"Contagion." Hanami confirmed. "I'd bet my left eye Haefril's already been selected as the next target. But, this still doesn't tell us anything about the attacker, only how they choose their victims."

We joined the other 2 by the body. It was the same scene again: flesh torn through, blood everywhere.

"Thomas became distraught while we waited. I made him some tea, but he grew increasingly more agitated. He fled and I tried to restrain him, but he knocked me down. I got up and followed him, but by the time I got here he had already been killed. This occurred a little before midnight. Time of death 11:53."

"Just like Agatha." Teriac said, voice quavering. I squatted down to examine the body.

"You know, both of them were found with their hands completely covered in blood." I said. "That makes me think that death wasn't instant, perhaps they were holding their wounds, trying to stop the bleeding. I don't know what this tells us but... it's an observation."

"This violence seems infectious." Hanami stated. "2 nights ago Mirri becomes agitated, flees, and is killed. Last night Agatha, the last person to be in contact with Mirri, becomes agitated, flees, and is killed. Tonight Thomas, the last person to be in contact with Agatha, becomes agitated, flees, and is killed. I see 3 things we need to do here. We need to find out more about the first victim, we need to find a way to stop the pathogen or kill the attacker, or both, and we need to keep a close eye on you, doctor, tomorrow night. The way this has been going, I believe you have already been selected to die."

Teriac looked quite distraught. Dr. Haefril laughed nervously. Hanami sighed.

"Let's get this cleaned up." She voiced, suddenly sounded much more weary. "We'll need to get at least a few hours of sleep to operate tomorrow. Fatigue causes mistakes."

The first known victim had been Dorothy Mellow. She and her husband had worked at their butcher shop, but with both of them dead the shop had been abandoned for days. Teriac and I cautiously entered, silver blades drawn. Nothing. The interior was still. Some dried meats were in the glass case on the counter, next to a lockbox. Searching the pantry, living space, and kitchen were not fruitful, so we ventured down to the cellar. The sun's illumination did not make it far beyond the stairs, so we ignited our lamps. Various cured meats were hanging from the ceiling on hooks. There was a faint smell of rotting flesh.

We proceeded carefully and slowly through the charcuterie rows. The lantern's flickering light made the shadows of the sausages and jerkies dance disconcertingly. I could hear Teriac's breath shaking, and I must admit that mine was as well. There was a wooden door set into a tunnel through the earth behind the stairs, and a sign that read "open slowly - watch for live animals" was mounted to it.

I gingerly pushed open the door, and was immediately assaulted by the full force of the stench of rotting flesh. I tried to breathe shallowly and only through my mouth, and cast my lantern's beams of light into the room. Instruments of butchery lay on workbenches and shelves, and in the center of the killing floor was a ghastly scene. A pig carcass. Looking a bit like the bodies we'd seen. Next to it, chewed flesh and gnawed bones. Pig skin and viscera rotting in the dirt.

"Pigs are prone to eat anything." I said, my voice sounding strange even to myself. "Dead rodents, farmhands that fall asleep in the pen, each other."

I threw up. Seconds later I could hear the sound of vomiting behind me as well.

When we returned to the office, Hanami was not there. Dr. Haefril informed us that she had gone to attempt to recruit the help of a local mage, for the purpose of magical defenses. At her direction, the doctor had been drinking as much colloidal silver as he could stomach. The idea was that the silver could potentially make him an unappealing target to a beast affected by transformation magic. Hanami had left me instructions on setting up wards, so I got to work.

"Ah, doctor." I said as I was down on the floor drawing an alchemical ward in gypsum. "If you have any syringes and would be so kind as to provide me a few ounces of your blood for the wards. I can use my own, but yours will be more effective at protecting you."

"Right."

The doctor walked over to a cabinet, and rooted through a few doors. He pulled out a leather strap, bandage, needle, and syringe. He screwed the needle onto the syringe and sat back down.

"Intravenous okay?"

"Intravenous is preferable."

He set the syringe down and looped the leather around his upper left arm, and tightened the strap with his other hand and his teeth. He found a vein and slipped the needle in, slowly drawing up the blood. Once he had extracted a bit, he pulled the needle out and pressed the bandage to the hole in his arm.

I mixed the blood with the requisite amount of aqua regia and waited for the sputtering reaction to complete, then began to paint it on the floor. It was at this point that Hanami returned.

"No luck on a mage, not even for hire. No one wants anything to do with this. I suppose being asked for help by an Orion indicates enough danger to scare most people off."

I finished the blood ward and switched to belladonna and cedar for a witchcraft-style ward. Teriac relayed what we had found in the butcher shop. When I finished arranging the cedar, I stood up to make a suggestion.

"All of the victims, human ones at least, have met their death fleeing in terror from apparently nothing. Dr. Haefril, I think we should restrain you once it gets dark, to keep you in the wards and hopefully away from the attacker."

"I have a gut reaction that says I don't want to be restrained, but after what I've seen I think you're right."

The doctor sat in a chair in the center of the wards, tied to it. Hanami paced in circles around him, as if trying to keep an eye on every angle. I leaned back against the table, facing the 2 of them, and Teriac sat in a chair on the other side of the table. On the table were all of our blades laid out, for easy access.

It was a bit past 11:30 at night, and I grew more anxious with every passing minute. Suddenly, Hanami stopped and I stood up straighter. We had both seen a slight glow of transformation magic collect around Dr. Haefril.

"I'm beginning to feel anxious and trapped, like I need to escape." Haefril said with a remarkable degree of calm.

"I can see some transformation magic on you." I said. "All that silver in your body should help."

No one moved for several minutes, other than to breathe. Then the doctor began to wince. He gasped in pain and twisted and turned against the ropes.

"Can you describe what's going on?" Hanami asked.

"Something- need-" Dr. Haefril growled. "Get it out!"

His flesh began to ripple and distort. His skin appeared to harden and shift appearance to a glossy black over the course of several seconds.

Then, he tore himself free from the ropes, and, screaming in pain, began to claw at his own torso. His fingers had grown to at least a foot long, and took on the appearance of spikes.

He was killing himself. They had all killed themselves.

Hanami stabbed her silver blade straight through his left arm in attempt to pin it, but he swung with his right and knocked her down.

He sunk his spike-fingers into his abdomen and tore upward, shredding his own flesh.

He dropped.

An insectoid-looking spirit about the size of a fox rose from the corpse. Its wings buzzed behind it. It was somewhat ant-like, with a stinger.

"Glass!" Hanami shouted at me. "The glass blade!"

I glanced backward just long enough to pick out the weapon I needed, then rushed forward and stabbed upward, skewering the spirit against the ceiling. It twitched, then withered, then turned to ash. I dropped to my knees and let out terrified noises of every description. I was marginally aware of Hanami walking over to me. She helped me to my feet and over to the table, then found a bottle of whiskey in one of the cabinets and poured glasses for the 3 of us.

It took a while, but once my nerves settled I felt unfathomably exhausted. There was one thing I needed to find out before I fell asleep.

"What was that?"

"Ampulex." Hanami answered. "Nasty fuckers. An ampulex lays its egg in a mortal then dies. That egg rapidly matures over 24 hours, and the larval spirit connects to the host's spinal cord. This causes the host to go mad and kill itself, releasing the adult ampulex. It chooses its next host toward the end, just as the current host begins to panic. Cycle repeats."

"How have I never heard of these? How have you never mentioned these?"

"The last recorded existence of an ampulex is over 700 years ago. One appearing now... Something bigger is going on. I intend to find out what." She took a swallow from her glass of whiskey. "Beginning tomorrow. We need rest."

Teriac had fallen asleep at the table after crying for a while. I stood up and walked over to rouse her. She got up, but looked unsteady on her feet, so I put my shoulders under her arm to help support her weight as we trudged up the stairs to the bedrooms.

Hanami kept drinking the whiskey. Once I got to the bed I felt my body crash onto it. I slept through the night.