Phantasma Story

Episode 0a: Cobwebbed Construction

A powerful wizard has invited you to Cobweb Castle. To research, train, learn spells, meet your fellows...

Episode 0a2: Expansion & Contraction

"Abd, you old rogue!"
Honest Abd, merchant extraordinaire (or extraordinarily desperate), started in surprise. He looked up with a righteous retort on his lips--then his face lit with a smile, and he stood to meet his visitor.
"Hermes, my friend!" Abd said expansively. "So good to see you again! I take it you got my missive."
"Indeed I did." The Greek shook Abd's hand with a smile of his own. "This is your establishment, is it? I like what you've done with the place."
"Oh, it's nothing." Abd sighed. "Of course modesty guides me to say such a thing, but truly, it is nothing! I've had neither the time nor the finances for more than the barest of decorations..." Abd paused, then shook his head. "But perhaps you, my friend, might be able to lend assistance!"
"You need my help, no question of that," Hermes replied gravely.
Abd stared at him. "Pardon?"
"You have no grasp of the economics of this situation," the Greek said. "Word of this castle is beginning to spread. Citizens are coming from miles around, wanting a bit of magic for their lives." His deep-set eyes glittered. "Coming with money."
Abd took a deep breath, then let it out. "Amazing," he murmured. " Perhaps I should raise my prices?..."

There was a knock at the door.
The man who currently went by the name "Ursus" leaned back in his chair. He pushed it back from the desk, turning slightly to look back at the door. Reaching up, he manipulated a device attached to his forehead, causing a small lens to swivel out of his line of sight.
"Enter."
The door opened slowly, revealing a figure that seemed almost luminous. A young man stepped forward, letting the door close behind him. He had dark, curly hair, and light brown skin with a translucent quality. "Ursus?" He had only a slight accent, reminiscent of the East.
The other nodded. "Arikos?" came the reply.
The young man glanced around the room. "Curious," he mused. "I have seen this scene many times, in my mind...yet it is still much different from my expectations." He nodded at the contents of the room. "The...apparati. The equipment. I did not expect..."
"When we use our eyes," Ursus rumbled, "we interpret the light around us. And thus, to fool the eye, it is only necessary to fool the light. Ah, but when we look with the mind..." A grin spread slowly across the wizard's face. "The mind often fools itself."
Arikos was silent for a moment. Then, "We should talk."

Barbulon let out a sigh as he carefully ran a finger over the floor, one last time. A wisp of smoke trailed after, the stone darkening in a precise line. A line which formed the merest part of one corner of a design covering the entire floor...
The wizard took his hand from the stone, then stood up. He surveyed the circular design carefully.
A grin split his face.
"Now we're gettin' somewhere!"

The globe of energy cast a lurid glow over the bare stone walls.
Midnight Star pressed closer to her companion. "I still don't like it," she murmured in a soft, musical voice. "It strains the world around it..."
Reason reached up and ran his fingers gently through her pink hair. "You don't see the larger picture," he replied, face turned unerringly to the globe even though a thick black cloth was wrapped around the top half of his face. "The wizards are here, whether we wish it or not. By inviting them here, confining their magical excesses within the space I have created, their machinations can be kept from affecting the world at large. In the long run, this will benefit the world immensely."
Midnight Star made a low, worried sound in the back of her throat. "Assuming you really can contain..."
She trailed off.
Without even a sound the globe grew bright. It doubled its size in an instant--then shrank back to normal, patterns whirling over its surface. Its light now had a distinctly greenish hue.
"This is new," Reason commented after a moment.

Episode 0a3: International Flavor

"A wasp approaching the front of a beehive will be attacked with all the mercy nature shows any of its creatures," the young man said. "But a wasp that can find another entrance, once inside, will go unchallenged."
Reason leaned over the table and rubbed his high forehead, then trailed his fingers down over the black cloth covering his eyes. "I enjoy riddles as much as the next guy," he said. "Or even more. But sometimes, Arikos, even I..."
The Grecian wizard sighed. "We do not give children flames to play with," he replied. "Not that they may not burn themselves, but that they may not burn the whole house down."
Midnight Star, her chair set back a bit from the table, quirked her face in a smile. "Only we can prevent forest fires?"
"I suppose the point is well taken," Reason admitted. "The unrestricted magical power available in the castle has led to some...curious manifestations."

The man who called himself Ursus walked cheerfully through the halls of Cobweb Castle, or at least in that state of pleasant calm which was his closest approximation thereof. But suddenly he stopped, keenly developed occult senses sounding an alarm. He paused in the middle of a corridor, sampling the air for several moments.
Then he knelt on the floor and leaned down, sighting along the ground.
Several odd, very small creatures scurried across the corridor. One was carrying a scrap of paper several times larger than itself, scrawled with eldritch calculations.
Ursus blinked.
"Curious."
Taking a long, metal, very sharp instrument from his coat, he crept down the corridor.

In a nearby corridor (or was it very far away?), another wizard was also having a strange encounter.
Barbulon had just stopped his usual stalking of the hallways to sniff the air in suspicion. There was something new in the castle. A smell. A scent of herbs and flowers, that brought back to him memories he had thought long since forgotten...
"Noble sir?"
Barbulon started and spun around, the words of a powerful elemental spell coming to his lips. The apparition confronting him was...a girl. A slight, young woman, clad in a diaphanous pink and white dress. She put him in mind of an imperial court, far to the east...
"Noble sir, could you assist a humble woman in navigating these curious halls?" Her voice was soft and musical, a hint of an accent giving it an exotic air. "The lord of this castle graciously invited me, yet I cannot seem to find my way through these fascinating halls..."
Barbulon swallowed, then ran a hand through his hair. "I, uh," he coughed and started again. "Of course I would be happy to escort you...uh..."
"My name is Diao Chan." She took his arm and smiled.

Episode 0a4: Safety in Numbers

Abd hoisted one crate on top of another, then wiped his brow. He whistled tunelessly through his teeth, a habit he had picked up from the infidel sorcerers of the castle. (Not that he could really brag about the state of his own faith, of course...)

"Hello, Abd. Anything new today?"

Abd assumed his brightest smile and bowed before the woman entering the shop. It looked like it was impossible to see anything through those thick glasses she wore, but it was always good to be in the habit of treating customers courteously. (And you could never tell what wizards could really see...) "Ah, Miss Prin!" the merchant exclaimed. "So good to have your presence gracing my humble shop! I regret I must inform you that there is, in fact, nothing new today. Although if you cared to browse my art gallery, I'm sure you'd--"

Prin snorted and began to rummage through one of the crates, eliciting a wince from the long-suffering Abd. "Oh, I'm sure there won't be anything too new there," she commented. "Some talented sculpting, maybe, but I wanted something a bit more, hm, exciting." She pulled a large, round orange thing from the depths of the box. "Abd, have you been holding out on me?"

Abd grinned desperately. "Miss Prin, I--if you must know, I just now received this new shipment, and I have not had the time to sort through and price these most interesting goods. Please, you know I value your patronage, but you must realize that I need to verify the quality--"

Abd made a grab for the object, but Prin deftly moved it out of way. "Oh, I know what this is," she said, face lighting up. "Here, hold it a second." She tossed it to Abd, who staggered as it impacted with his chest. The merchant stumbled over to a stack of boxes and set down his burden, then turned to stare at his customer. Prin was flipping eagerly through an extraordinarily large book.

A fiery bird flapped into the room and settled on Prin's shoulder. It turned and regarded Abd with an unimpressed eye. The merchant blinked.

"Aha!" Prin exclaimed, making the bird and merchant jump. "Cucurbita pepo, a variety of winter squash. Centuries hence it will be used as part of an elaborate folk legend justifying seasonal creative expression around harvest time." She slammed the book closed.

Abd smiled weakly. "You don't say?"

Reason sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers.

"I have gathered you here because you all have a stake in this endeavor."

In a shadowed room, a distracted-looking girl lights a stick of incense, then sits back to meditate. A small tortoise looks on uncertainly.

"This castle, this gathering, represent an opportunity. An opportunity to discover extraordinary knowledge, to create hitherto unseen wonders. An opportunity, perhaps, that none in history have had before."

A young man in a long gray coat chiseled carefully a stone figure on a slab in front of him. He paused to wipe his brow, and green light played over the slab.

"I hope you all see as I do in this matter," Reason continued. "I hope you all will join me in this great undertaking. Because together, our diversity will be our strength."

"I must confess that I am slightly surprised that both of you are willing to assist me," Ursus said.
"What will be, must be," Arikos intoned. "And vice versa."
"I don't know what he's talking about, but I could never resist a secret," Barbulon added.
Ursus smiled. "Neither could I."
The room flashed green and red around them.

Episode 0a5½: Friends in Strange Places

"Oh Aaaaaaabd..."

Abd sighed in resignation and turned, an ingratiating smile on his face. "Yes, Lord Reason, what is it that MERCIFUL HEAVENS, IT'S A RAT!"

Reason managed to look offended behind his blindfold. "Really, Abd, this is hardly cosmopolitan of you," the wizard said. "My friend Kipatsu here has some similarities to common rodents, in the same sense that you or I have kinship with monkeys. But really, he's harmless."

The gray-furred creature crept out from behind Reason, its nostrils flaring and whiskers twitching wildly. "This wasn't exactly my idea," it squeaked.

"MERCIFUL HEAVENS, THE RAT TALKS!"

Reason sighed and reached forward to grip Abd by the shoulder. "Abd, you know I'm not speaking Arabic, don't you?"

The clueless Arab reached up to his neck, as if feeling something through his clothes. "Y-yes, Lord Reason," he whimpered. "You explained that much to me. But...rats...don't talk!"

"How do you know?"

Abd slumped. "You just have to understand," the merchant muttered. "Rats are the natural enemies of merchants. They're always getting into the stock and eating--NOT MY IMPORTED KADAIF!"

Reason shook his head. "Magic is easy," he muttered. "People are hard." He sighed, watching Abd rant at the ratlike creature, then walked over to a set of boxes. "Speaking of monkeys," he said, and pulled open a crate. The wizard glanced in, then frowned. "Abd, I thought you said these would be spider monkeys."

Abd turned again, smiling desperately. "They look a little spidery, don't they, my lord?" he wheedled.

Dark Phoenix wiped his brow sweat dripping from his fingers. Months...years, and still his experiments would not work. He had been trapped in this undeveloped worked for almost 3 years now. All his attempts to create a portal home had failed...but he was close, so close. If only he didn't have to follow Reason's rules...but he had experienced the wizard's fury firsthand and had no wish to do so again. Currently, Dark Phoenix was in a room he had constructed within the castle, an extesion below his atelier. Not dug out, precisely, but inverted or perhaps introverted, the fabric of space twisting to allow this new area. Either Reason didn't know what he had done, or he didn't care; neither alternative seemed likely, but Dark Phoenix was almost finished with his thirty-first experiment.

The centerpiece of the room was a large pedestal encrusted with greenish crystals, the curved things pointing toward the air above. Dozens of wires sprouted from the pedestal, linking it with 8 small spheres around the room, each filled with a liquid of a different type. From animal blood to glowing magma, each sphere held some kind of life force. The arrangement was enveloped by a spiral of runes inscribed on the floor, each glowing ghastly green. At one side of the room, the other focus of the runic design, was a metallic chair adored with more wires and controls.

Dark Phoenix checked over the equipment one last time, a look of grim determination on his face. Two silver handles flipped up from the chair, set with precious gems, all glowing with power. Satisfied with the state of preparation, he undertook one final task; taking up a quill and paper, he began to scribe a letter by hand.

"I wish ackbarnith to have X," he murmured to himself. "Xavier will probably find a new master; Prin can have my books. I wanted you to have..." He sighed and finished the letter. With a snap of his fingers the forsaken wizard summoned an ariad, which quickly disappeared with the paper.

"Let's get this show on the road."

Dark Phoenix gripped the handles tightly and closed his eyes. He began to chant, softly, but the words thrummed with dark power. In defiance of physics, a wind picked up in the room and began to blow bits of junk into the air. The glow of the runes grew tenfold and the liquid drained from the spheres. A whiteness appeared above the pedestal, solidifying into an orb that grew in size and opacity. Dark Phoenix himself was covered in multicolored sparks, desperately channeling power through the machine.

Suddenly the greenish crystals began to glow. The sphere flashed red and green, faster and faster, turning in place until it was spinning with a low whine. It shone with a new light--from inside itself.

Dark Phoenix had just enough time to grin before a blast of power threw him out of his chair and against the wall. The light redoubled, searing his eyes. A concussion knocked against him, like a blast of thunder, more crushing force than sound. He had an impression of space itself buckling and writhing in pain before he blacked out.

When Dark Phoenix finally regained consciousness, a glorious sight met his eyes. A creature floated above the pedestal, curled into a fetal position. Mostly humanoid, in fact female (he blushed slightly at the thought), skin and hair of the purest white. Dark Phoenix cautiously stood and walked over to the pedestal. He conjured a robe and was about to place it over "her" shoulders when he noticed her wings! If he hadn't known better, he would have called her an angel. Draping the robes over her, the wizard pulled her into his arms, finding her extraordinarily light. As he carried her into the main atelier she opened her eyes.

"Father?" she whispered.

Dark Phoenix smiled with joy. "Yes."

She smiled and closed her eyes.

"It's times like this I reconsider my line of work," Reason muttered. He glanced over the white-skinned figure, eyebrow raised. At almost seven feet, she was taller than even her "father". "So, you...created her?"

"Yes," Dark Phoenix replied stoically.

"How do you see with that on?" the girl asked suddenly.

"Years of practice. Well, she appears to be sentient, so logically we must treat her as, well, a human. This experiment--"

"Her name is Amber," Dark Phoenix put in.

"Yes!" the girl said, looking surprised. "That is my name!"

"Amber," Reason mused. "I see. Amber." He gazed at her again. "A name is an important thing. Those who wish to help you can use your name, Amber, to give you guidance. You must let them, if you can decide no destiny of your own." He watched her pick up a glass globe from his desk and peer at it, and he sighed. "Sometimes I wonder if we go too far..."

Episode 0a5: Gathering Forces

"It's a curious, unforeseen effect," Kryten said. "The material is mostly invulnerable, but too heavy for the animating spirit to deal with..." He stood in front of a large, blocky, humanoid shape made of metal.

Reason stretched out his hand and ran it over the golem's dark surface. "Lead, hm? I guess there are things about golemics not even you know, my friend." The figure's eyes regarded the wizards impassively.

Kryten laughed and rubbed the back of his head. "This is assuredly so," he replied. "There is much any of us does not know--except perhaps you, hm?"

"I make no claim to omniscience," the lord of Cobweb Castle said. "Far from it. The best way to learn is through experience, and it seems this experiment has taught you much."

"Oh, no doubt about that." Kryten nodded. "But I'm afraid this being has no real use to me..."

"Mostly invulnerable, you said?" Reason rubbed his chin. "Perhaps I can find a use for...him." Behind his blindfold the wizard raised an eyebrow. "Does he have a mind?"

"A rudimentary intelligence, but no thoughts or desires," the golemicist replied. "It was originally designed for combat..."

"Combat. How interesting..."

A man in tattered robes stumbled to the floor. He breathed heavily for several moments, then pushed himself up and stared wildly. "Please, this helps nothing!" he cried. "We must always be ready, prepared for anything--"

"Yes, I get it by now," Barbulon growled, walking up behind the first man. "Preparation, vigilance, all right already! You can prepare all you want, Quags, but maybe if you cut down on the insane ranting you'd actually get along with people better!" He grabbed the wizard by the collar of his robe and propelled him forward.

"Oh, those pointless peasants don't matter!" Quags looked quickly back and forth across the dank hall. "It's the other invading forces that--"

"I've heard all this by now, and I can't bring myself to care anymore." Barbulon reached a set of bars and fitted a key into a rusty lock, his other hand still keeping a tight grasp on Quags' robe. "Reason says this is only until you calm down and stop ranting at people who don't specifically ask to be ranted at. Personally, I'm all for sticking you here for good...but anyway, as soon as you're ready to calm down, you just let us know."

Quags' eyes finally focused on the cell in front of him. "You're...putting me here? In this...cell?"

"Glad to see you're paying attention." Barbulon rolled his eyes.

"Here, in this...room with sturdy iron bars and heavily fortified walls?"

"Yes, here, in this cell."

Quags was silent for a moment more. Then he straightened up, brushed off his robes and walked inside. "Well, why didn't you say so?"

"Abd!"

The merchant spun around, backing up against a pile of crates. Then he exhaled and relaxed. "Sir Reason," he said, quickly stepping forward and executing a bow. "What a pleasure it is to--"

Reason waved him silent. "Abd, excessive deference gets on my nerves," he said. "Really, I'm only your landlord."

"Aheh," Abd laughed...nervously. "Whatever you say, o mighty--merciful Allah!" The merchant stumbled backward in horror.

"That's definitely going too far," Reason deadpanned. The wizard bent down.

"What...what is that?" Abd asked. The two were staring at a creature crawling along the floor. About the size of a cat, it was black and slightly hairy, looking like nothing so much as a giant spider though with only four legs. A scroll was perched upon its back, hiding most of its body.

"It's an ariad," Reason replied, untying the scroll from the thing's back. "You haven't seen them before? Spider spirits, they help me out by delivering mail and other such chores." The wizard stood up, unrolling the scroll and glancing over it. "Hmmm, I see. Yes, of course."

Abd stepped tentatively closer. The ariad stared up at him with too many beady eyes. The merchant glanced over at the scroll. "Good news, I hope?"

"Completely unsurprising." Reason rolled up the page before Abd could see its front, then grinned. "Anyway, I was just checking in, Abd. How's the castle treating you?"

Abd opened his mouth, hestitated, then smiled weakly. "I'm fitting in well enough, if that's what you mean." The merchant offered a shrug. "Even in a wizard's castle, the rules of trade are the same. Buy low--"

"Sell high! Buy low, sell high!"

Reason stepped past the merchant and approached a tall perch. A bird sat there, its plumage bright red with long tail feathers. "Curious animal," the wizard commented. "Or is it a finely made golem?"

"Actually, it's a completely natural creature," Abd replied, sidling around behind the perch. "I'm told it learns to mimic sounds in its environment. Aheh..."

Reason stared at the bird for long moments. The creature looked back, idly blinking. Then the wizard leaned back and smiled. "Even without magic, the world holds such interesting secrets." Nodding to the merchant, Reason turned and strode from the room, intent on his own thoughts.

"Multy wanna soma wine," the bird squawked. Abd stared at it.

Githe's footsteps echoed through the hall. The stone corridor stretched in front and back of him for what seemed an impossible length. Of course, in Cobweb Castle little was truly impossible. Along with walking he did several other things; he pored over a parchment in his hands, mumbled to himself and repeatedly took pinches of powder from a sack at his hip to scatter over the floor.

Reaching an intersection Githe paused. He looked along the corridors stretching in each direction, then shook his head and turned around.

A small black creature was eating his breadcrumbs.

Githe stared.

The spidery creature stared back. After several moments it stepped backward toward a wall, slipped its thin body between two stones and was gone.

"Without deviation from the norm, progress is impossible," Ursus said tranquilly.

"Lack of progress, stasis, leads to nothing but decay and death," Barbulon added, smirking.

"We are the chick, the egg is the world," Arikos said dreamily. "Break the shell of the world..."

The other two wizards stared at him.

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