Vicious Cycles ~ Archie & Typhon
@ofjustinian
Typhon Ilios was a merchant...and a smuggler...and he was very good at both. But as good as he was, there were some things even Ty couldn’t plan for...like witches, for example. Three of them...all blind. They were only able to see via a large, faceted diamond...and the smuggler had been promised good money...very good money...to get that gemstone. Fooling the old crones was easy enough...but what his client had failed to tell the sly red-head was that they didn’t need the damned ‘eye’ to do their magic. The curse they placed on him was...creative. If it had been on anyone else, he would’ve been impressed. Horrified...but impressed.
That evening, as Typhon sat by the fire, wolfhounds at his side, his sister singing softly in the kitchen nearby, a door appeared. He blinked as the dogs began to growl...but the door remained. Standing, the red-head strode to the door and flung it open to reveal a flight of stairs that traveled down into darkness. Never one to shy away from the unknown, the smuggler descended. At the bottom he found the three witches...and the curse was placed. His sister was the first victim...and her death nearly broke him. But he couldn't stop. The curse wouldn’t let him. And so, after each victim, he’d leave a new ad in the local tavern. No one seemed to question it...perhaps the curse saw to that. He didn’t know or care. Typhon simply tried to live his life...his smuggling efforts, although they didn’t cease, become more mundane. The man had had his fill of magic. The curse had seen to that.
So he went on with his life...and quietly began to search for a way to break it. The red-head knew there had to be a way. All magic had a counter, he’d learned that much in his travels. The trick was to find it. And so he went about his business down at the docks, and prayed each time that he brought someone new into his home - be it a wife, or a servant, or a groundskeeper - that they would someone be different...they would somehow have the one thing he needed to end the curse once and for all.