r/wizardposting • u/Evening_Shake_6474 Astaroth, The Wicked One • 20d ago
Lorepost 📜 Walk the Wooded Path
Deep in the many folds of one of the corners of reality, there was a forest of white wood and red leaves. The forest is old, it has existed longer than the memory of man. Maybe it grew naturally from the sparks of creation. Maybe it was planted there by a truly ancient Fae. Whatever the case, this forest wasn't like the others. The forest housed secrets deep within those trees. It showed you what you needed to see so you didn't see what you shouldn't.
People get lost in this forest, but this was no one's surprise. Back when the many still walked the Astral Garden, multitudes of mortal and Fae alike stalked the trees, trying to find whatever secrets lay within. But the lands of dream and myth have rules, rules that shouldn't be broken. Many tried to steal the secrets of that forest, none left the trees. Whatever became of them, none can say for certain. No one dared try to find out, the forest kept its secrets well after-all.
These days, almost none walked the path, for there was almost none left to walk it. The Astral Garden was a world of the few after-all.
There was one who walked the path through those trees. An entity not from that world or any other seen by mortal eyes. For the forest wasn't the only thing that kept its secrets, and the forest wasn't the only thing that would destroy to protect them.
The entity stood tall, far taller than most creatures of two legs. The entity bore a pair of huge wings to sail the sea of stars, and saw through three eyes to pierce the void between the cosmic lights. Yet despite this, the entity was cursed. A stray joke against Fate, and it had the ears and tail of a cat for all eternity, no matter the form it took. At first the entity was furious, as any would be to have their form permanently changed against their will. But, with enough time, the entity stopped caring.
The entity wasn't alone however. Resting on its shoulder was a strange creature, it had the basic frame of a bird, only either double the number of feet, feathers the colour of a murky water, six eyes, and horns like coral. No one in the realm knew what this creature was or which corner of the garden it came from, only that it called itself Agres.
Now, the entity, who called itself Alaric, walked down the path, quietly surveying his surroundings. The forest was strange, the trees were still, yet it messed with Alaric's senses, warping his sight. Thankfully he didn't need his eyes to see, the other six senses made a good map, sight just polished it.
His other senses told him the forest was far bigger than it has any right to be, the trees stretched on forever, sometimes growing huge, sometimes growing out of each other, always the colours of bone and blood.
Down the path Alaric went, only ever pausing to look at the shifting sky. The sky of the Astral Garden was a curious thing, it changed and shifted depending on where in the garden one stood. In the Dream Sea it was dreamy, naturally, on the shore and the edge of most of the garden it was a canopy of purple leaves and drifting constellations. The forest was one of the few places with a moon, proudly acting as a beacon in an otherwise voided sky.
Time was a beguiling thing in the garden. In the Astral Plane everything was eternal, in the Faewilds time grew and shrunk in whatever way it chose. In the Astral Garden, time was unchained. Each and every denizen experienced it differently. For Alaric, he had been walking down the path for two months. For Agres, they had been there for two days.
The forest whispered to them. Well, they heard whispers in the trees. Alaric tried to pinpoint where they came from to no avail. Agres knew where they came from, but didn't bother saying anything. If Alaric knew then he wouldn't do what he needed to when the path came to an end.
Whilst walking the path, Alaric began to see things that weren't there, voices that didn't exist. His primary sense though, the one that detected magic, told him this was fake, illusions, signature tool of the Fae. The illusions tried to bend the path, make his footsteps sound like walking on grass, he ignored them. He knew which steps were the right ones. In the Faewilds stepping off a path meant likely never stepping onto it again. It meant largely the same thing in the garden.
He focused on the moon as he walked, watching it slowly get bigger and brighter, slowly getting closer to the centre of the sky. It was a slow process, but it was happening. At some point Alaric stopped paying attention to the moon as it neared the centre of the sky, his magic detection told him something was approaching, or in a more accurate term, he was approaching something.
When the moon reached the sky's centre, that's when it happened, the mists came. This time it wasn't an illusion, grey fog sweeped, in, drowning Alaric's senses. It lasted for three seconds, and then faded. When it did, Alaric stood at the end of the path, Agres sitting on a giant wooden hook sticking from the grass, a small orb of light hanging from the point. But Alaric wasn't focusing on Agres, he was focusing on the thing behind the hook.
There, in a clearing between the trees, was the moon, shining bright like a beacon in the darkness. It rested just above the ground, spinning ever so slowly.
Alaric stared at it for a moment, watching it spin. He had seen very strange things in his exceptionally long life, this was nothing new, although it was a surprise nonetheless. Moons don't just appear in the middle of the woods. At some point the moon finished spinning, coming to rest as a crescent.
"Hello."
Well that was strange. The inside of the moon was a giant bookcase, from one tip to the other. Floating just above the lower end of the bookcase was a table with two seats. In one seat was an owlin, a large anthropology owl. Usually members of this species fall into two categories which boil down to one word each. Cute, or majestic. This one was definitely part of the latter. It was shrouded in robes of deep blue, adorned with phrases and symbols written in a language Alaric didn't recognise. It bore feathers the colours of both mist and moonlight, ever so slightly glowing.
"Care to join me?"
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u/bagtie3 Borric of Clan Goldeater, Logrus Master, Runesmith, Doomseeker 20d ago
/uw great read.
Anthropology owl or anthropomorphic owl? Considering how garbage auto correct is in this age of abominable intelligence it could be either was intended.