Solstice Flames Summon the Hunt
Even though it was a rider meant to chase away grudges, he was only pretending to pull the cart loaded with the straw effigy—it wasn't actually moving on its own. The straw effigy was less a doll and more a giant, boasting an enormous size. Though made of straw and thus seemingly lightweight, the symbols of misfortune packed inside were another story. Even with cartwheels attached, its sheer mass gave it considerable weight. So when the rider shouldered the rope and took a step forward, the villagers would all push together to help guide it out the gates.
But Kriel started striding forward without waiting for them to catch up. It was a rare display of brute strength. They cheered wildly, treating it like a spectacle of power. Kriel didn't let his expression waver, but in his head, he was thinking something else entirely.
'This is weird. Isn't it about time for the others to start pushing from behind?'
Outside the gates, a field had been prepared days in advance for burning the straw effigy. When Kriel finally arrived through sheer willpower alone, the villagers' cheers grew even fiercer.
Even if it feels like they're just treating their lord's efforts as mere entertainment, deep in their gazes lies true reverence. It's not all bad. As the only sword sharing this moment with you, it moves me deeply.
Kriel brushed off Tuon's white noise as usual. Heartless bunch. Help a guy out. His stamina wasn't even taxed much, but it was still a matter of pride. Not a single one of the people who'd been chatting with him earlier bothered to lend a hand. Was this how they treated a thief stealing away the county's eldest daughter?
'It's a fake engagement, and Armed proposed it first.'
But such intimate details weren't for public ears. With all these eyes on him, he couldn't afford to frown or act undignified. So Kriel simply stood silently by Armed's side. When she naturally took his hand and hooked her arm through his, the crowd's cheers thickened even more.
Armed flicked her empty left hand. A red ember formed at her fingertip. Holding the flickering flame before her face, she evoked the image of some ancient prophet.
"Today is the longest night of the year."
"The night when the grudges harbored in our hearts and the unsoothed resentments wandering about sink deepest. When heaven's wails and earth's sighs connect, casting the deepest, coldest darkness."
"Yet once this night passes, the night's dominion retreats. Just as we burn away the misfortunes we've woven ourselves, the celestial order above sweeps away the shadows it has cast. Here and now, let us cast off a year's worth of grudges and welcome the new spring and fortune to come."
Armed's address ended briefly. Everyone knew the straw effigy burning wasn't the highlight of this solstice festival—the real key was the announcement to follow. The countesses and their children watched from a step behind Armed and Kriel, eyes fixed on her speech. An uncomfortable position, but what could be done? For the formality of proposing the lordship's succession and Armed rejecting it, they all had to be present.
Kriel glanced at the two countesses and their offspring. No "advisors" by their sides this time. Could it be because the lord's possessions couldn't leave the castle?
Amid the villagers' gazes brimming with anticipation, the flame at Armed's fingertip shot toward the straw effigy.
Armed had grown weary of the retainers' obsession with her "neglectful daughter" image and sought to escape the family politics. But not all vassals had fixated solely on succession and the power shifts it would bring from the start. Even the two countesses.
The countesses wanted to heal Count Ket. "Fetch an aging priest," Dein advised. "Summon a mage," Nayd suggested. Wise counsel from the advisors, which the countesses heeded. Priests came, mages came, but the illness didn't improve. Resignation grew heavier by the day.
Then came the moment when resignation and ambition outweighed duty. And subtly fanning that impulse were Dein and Nayd, the two automatons.
The distortion began when the two, who should have offered differing perspectives, united in deeming Armed—who had abandoned the succession struggle—the utmost threat. Yet no one suspected the advisors. The cause of automaton rampages was their controlling hive mind, the Automaton Totality. Dein and Nayd had been severed from it since discovery, repeatedly purging any traces of connection through resets. Thus, the advisors became fully independent from the automaton network.
For the Totality to subsume them, it would need to send vanguard units for direct contact—but with the western army holding the front, it couldn't breach the county to reach the advisors nesting there. Over a century of repeated verifications and service as the count's advisors built unshakeable trust. On that foundation, the advisors persuaded with eloquence. Their words weren't mere flattery.
They stoked the countesses' maternal instincts. If Armed seized the family, would she leave scraps for the other children? A daughter who took after her father so strikingly. Didn't the countesses know how the current Count Ket had treated his own brother? The Ket succession criterion: "magical prowess." Measured most accurately through duels between heirs.
Count Ket had mercilessly crushed his brother, who then vanished somewhere. "Vanished," they said—but everyone believed the count had made a ruthless call. Thus, the countesses' hearts gradually warped.
To be precise, not the countesses plural, but one. Esarg Countess's change came slowly, but Hekedian's mother, Helbrinke, never got the chance. Helbrinke was a scion of a dwarf artisan lineage, naturally a master craftswoman. She wouldn't pass up handling and modifying ancient relics with her own hands. Countess and chief automaton mechanic—that was Helbrinke's title.
Thus, she was most likely to detect the automatons' corruption early. Anticipating this, Dein—or whatever dwelled within—ambushed her. The screws embedded in a row along Helbrinke's spine bore ancient dwarf forbidden arts. Arts projecting the Totality's dominion from deep underground in the west. Techniques never meant for living flesh.
Helbrinke, skilled dwarf artisan aware of this, lost control of her body in horrified realization. Time passed. Tensions between Armed and the countesses peaked, and the offerings for summoning the Wild Hunt over recent years reached their limit. The consciousness dominating the automatons knew: it was time to enact the plan.
Summon the Wild Hunt. No one barred the automaton heading to the lord's bedchamber. Tireless, betrayal-proof machines were ideal for tending a comatose lord. Dein had hidden yew shards and a vial beneath nursing tools like wet cloths. Extreme dilutions of a certain poison. Diluted or not, a drop would kill—but this poison wasn't meant to slay humans.
Today was the day Count Ket's soul would be harvested by the Wild Hunt.
The moment the flame touched the straw effigy, Armed sensed something off. A strange scent.
'Poison?'
No. Even poison wouldn't be dispersed in such an open plaza. Just douse the fire, right? Armed immediately began suppression magic, shelving her analysis of the odd smell for now.
Kriel also found the scent foul but couldn't pinpoint it. The Dark Knight's cravings simply savored the screams lingering in the aroma, intuiting only that it wasn't the smell of proper kindling burning.
Tuon alone recoiled in horror.
Evil Dragon's poison scent...! Master, extinguish the fire now!
Armed was already dousing it with water magic. Kriel drew Tuon, exhaling frost-laced fighting spirit.
"Evil Dragon? What's that got to do with anything?"
The Evil Dragon slumbers with its fangs embedded in one of the World Tree's deepest roots.
The Wraith King's past. He was once a knight who swore to guard the World Tree.
Kriel recalled Tirnanog RPG's lore. The three great calamities shared threads of continuity. The Evil Dragon that scorched the World Tree. The Wraith King who repelled the dragon and felled demons. The ancient abyss-corrupted betrayers of the Wraith King. Automatons built to purge those abyss fallers.
All plants hold some World Tree power, but yew most resembles its form.
Kriel had heard that on Earth too. The World Tree in Norse myth as a yew bearing nine worlds. The more Tuon explained, the heavier Kriel's premonition grew.
That tree, tainted with Evil Dragon poison, now burns. Here, where yew ashes have scattered for years, the Wraith King's oath is breached.
Uh. Kriel blanked for a moment.
That story?
He will come.
From a distant graveyard, a banshee's wail echoed.