To be a hedge mage in the age of Ewetube and Facebuck was a frustrating affair to say the least. In silico-illusions had the frustrating quality of mimicking real ones. Acts of arcana mistook for special effects. Summons by cell-phone conjuring goods from afar and AI intervention answering any offhanded inquiry. How was an honest unlicensed mage supposed to make a living when all the corners of the magic market were well…cornered?


Kaitain knew the unpleasant answer was of course, adventuring. It was always adventuring. But gone were the glorious pursuits of old. The quests and cavorting about realms unhindered – mere tabletop fantasies. Ride down main-street with a sword in hand and see how far you get. Nowadays the adventures were more of expeditions. Excursions into brownfields and unkempt cellars and (more often than not) private property where the path to the fantastic lurked in plain sight. The paved over ruins of occultist shrine. The hurriedly hidden stash of a Salem witch. A pocket plane by the bookstore or subterranean cavern bisected by a sewer.


This is what brought the monochrome vulpine mage to the disparate wilderness. Golden eyes scanned the phone in his hand, comparing the wildly inaccurate GPS against the colonial era vellum map he held in a ziplock beside it, checking landmarks against the scouring stare of a stalwart sun above. The dry heat battered down over him, its suppressive breath tanning the tall grass. Cypress green shores of distant overgrowth bloomed in a cool emerald sea that oozed across the mountainous terrain. The map mused of a trail, but centuries of neglect has swallowed the nascent lead, leaving him to sort out the details himself.


He felt like it was the right way though. Rocky crags gave way to sandy soil. Uncommon clays that powdered beneath his stride as he flicked his ears at the inquisitive hum of dragonflies, while the arid hiss of cicadas softened to a more muted revere. Verdant humidity and untouched old growth had an entrenched ancientness that palpable. Humus that broke into bleached layers at the trespass of his step; liberating the fresh scent of decades old decomposition and sending skittering beetles away from the invasion of light. An increasingly distant and faint light at that. Narrow shafts of gold that wormed through a far-flung canopy. Long fingers of the sun that painted particle rich beams – randomly dispersed spotlights, fought over voraciously by underbrush and sapling alike. The trunks around him grew wide and wider still. Root networks like jealous pythons, etching out boundaries in the hilly soil – each tree drawing its own border in the war for resources. Gnarled limbs coiled skyward. Higher and taller. The scars of scampering squirrels and insufficient lumberjacks scabbed over into knotted murals. Kait was too busy looking up at the patterned leaves to notice the hard weight of a decidedly firm stone bruise upon his foot – sending him tumbling forward under his own momentum.


Catching himself just barely, pitted slated gave his palms rough kisses. Tiny teeth that stun his fingers even through the lacquer of green and moss patches. The rattle-tattle of his pack clattered noisily in the stillness of the wood - like a crack of a glass bottle in the hush of twilight, snapping him (albeit sorely) from the mystique of the untouched space. The rock onto which he has oh-so-artfully prostrated himself stretched out to form a slab. Its bluestone surface the victim of creases and cracks alive with moss and liverwort that traced the wounds in the smooth surface like veins. A break in the canopy above permitted rainfall to wash aside the tides of leaves, revealing the bony fingers of stone stretching up. Some duets hosted broken partnerships – a stone standing and the other tumbled over. Others stood in defiance of gravity – their insurmountable weight an island in the overgrowth. But all of them pivoted upon an angle. Standing or kneeling or lost to dust, the hushed stones formed a circle.


Satchel in hand, Kait checked his map – though he hardly needed to. The weathered page indicate with a horse shoe stamp what was plain to see around him while his phone was beyond useless. Its positioning painted him somewhere in the UK before it readjusted by flinging him somewhere south of Florida in the middle of the ocean in stark rejection of reality. Dusting himself off he scanned across the ruin and the archaic made more apparent its arcane nature with every inspection he probed it with. Those moss littered cracks and creases revealed themselves to be patterned in turn. Not cracks and creases – but reliefs and impressions. Fine detailing chiseled and preserved. A language of images and unspoken words. When the fluorescent gleam of his phone painted over them, they changed their appearance before his eyes. Senseless patterns of ᛈ, ᛀ and ᛞ. Secrets. Hidden away from the invasive gaze of a false sun. He could read the runes beneath with his fingers. Feel out the phonetics of their message. A wise treasure hunter might have pushed a cloth against the stone and made a charcoal relief to read later. But Kait was a modern one. He turned his phone around and let the bright light of day reflect off its casing and sure enough their message was revealed.


Broken prose and prophecy. Interesting archeological quandaries and plenty more than he really wanted to know. His hungry gaze fluttered from passage to passage. Yes, yes ancient treaty. Blah-blah number of solstices (or was that sacrifices?). The deer-centaur looking summoning rite would have be a nice find if it wasn’t half chewed upon. Half a rite was not all right. Standard druidic fiddle-faddle. He really didn’t want to have to go brushing off the stones that were covered in leaves. A mirror network would be an absolute bitch to set up and he’d need it to be noon to even work, which was a narrow window. Camping in old woods was an invitation for trouble. So it was a bit of a blessing when his impatient eyes found what he was looking for. On a central pillar, clear as day. ᚹ and ᚠ. A gift of wealth. Or power. He could do with either really. It seemed more the former though – if the jade figurines set in the stone just beneath were an indication.


Palm sized and myriad; their smooth surfaces unscathed by the ravages of the ages. Gemstone pieces shaped into a course grouping of animal-life that might once upon a time roamed these lands. Bear and elk. The hoary puffed shape of a buffalo or some ram. Their sunken eyeless gaze observed him as he hoisted himself upward. The still sharp beak of a raven grazed upon a knee and made him hiss a wince of pain at the sting. Still he climbed before coming face to face with a seated wolf figure. Its regal gaze regarded him contemptuously. Intruder. Scavenger. Soon to be richer.


Kait placed his hands around the figure and gave a heave – but it defied his dainty thievery. He put his back into it until he felt the mild crickle-crack of his spine before gritting his fangs. Feet pushing against the pillar he have pushed outward. Entire body a fulcrum – he strained until with a great, reverberating CRACK the figure snapped loose sending him tumbling down to the forest floor below.


His landing was rough. Rougher than a toss from a step-stool height should have been. The cushioning of the leaves beneath seemed wholly inadequate. Like he’d been thrown from a rooftop. He felt the echoing clatter of that SNAP in his ears like a gunshot. It rumbled through his bones as the serenity of the glade shattered in its wake. The cool liberation from the heat of the day evaporated from his skin and he felt the piercing weight of sunlight lance across his gut. Felt the disturbed wet of the humid soil against his back. Winded from the tumble, he wheezed and his breath was sour and dense with the broken stink of bark and phyto-green of chlorophyll all around. He looked in his hands at the spiteful gaze of the wolf figure in his grasp. . Had that ᚹ been a ᛒ or a ᚦ? That was probably an important detail. He was resolved to double check, when an entirely different trembling rumble quaked beneath him.


An aftershock of a quarry blast. The distant sonic thunder of a jet. The pebbles around him jumped and cavorted, possessed by an energetic glee that was summarily draining from him as he gulped nervously. There were no quarries in the county. There were no air traffic corridors overhead. Closer still another duet lurched, echoing in his ears with dreadful nearness. Forceful enough now that the stone monoliths around him trembled and groaned. They wobbled and wandered and leaned and tilted. His gawking eyes watched that very pillar he had been scaling pivot forward, then back then forward again – teetering dangerously before the gravity they had long denied seized upon them.


Yelping gracelessly he pushed himself to the left, squeezing the figure to his chest as he rolled out of the way as the thrice his height pillar th-THOOMed beside him. A shockwave of force undiluted by the slate beneath, pulverizing the remaining figurines into a priceless shrapnel that pelted his side and face. He felt their dagger fingers pierce his back and only the reflexive twist of his head spare his eyes a similar perforation. Groaning he stumbled to his feet, only to wince under the cold shadow of another pillar tumbling his way. Like dominos the entire ruin was thrust forward with he, the dreadfully squishy fox in the center of it all.


He bound and cavorted, clutching his prize as he danced between the shadows of slate. Bluestone fly swatters – thooming down and lifting him up for a milli-moment of sickening freefall before his paws could find purchase again. He heard the rattle-clattle of his phone slip from his pocket and made the double misfortune of glancing backward. Polymer and glass swallowed beneath the corner of a fallen pillar. It detonated in a puff of splinters and circuits with nary a hint of resistance. He whined. And his throat jumped up an octave as he found his foot catching on a loose stone. Lifted up he yipped – thrown forward into the leaves and briars.


Thump-Thud. BOOM. He closed his eyes and braced. The stones fell one after another. Resonating their final fury into the earth. But after a dozen fell they kept falling. Nearer. Closer. More violent and dreadful. Long after they ought have stopped, he felt the terrible cool weight of a shadow encompass him and linger. It was then that Kaitain, Hedge Mage of Pennsylvania, Saucy Sorcerer and Ruin Raider squeaked open his eyes and screamed.

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A long awaited piece, staring darling arcanist fox  Kaitain up to no good in Ramona's neighborhood,
done by none other than the fantastic and astounding  Shnider

Ending 2017 and starting 2018 with a bang - look forward to more in the year to come!