The air is dense with sweet smells and the sounds of celebration, echoing off the stone of the streets and buildings. No expense has been spared! For my birthday, I’ve filled the streets around Gore House with every festivity available, complete with importing my own Cirque Ziebub and some of the best performers from Rix Maadi below, and my fight club through the omenpaths. Food and game stalls fill the gaps between and before the foundries, workshops, and storefronts that fill Precinct Six, each strewn with banners, bunting, an oddly high number of doors, and glittering confetti enchanted to constantly swirl and drift through the air as though it were just released. Needing more than the space provided, a few probing tendrils of celebration are pushing into Precinct Two.
Bands are playing in pageant wagons, though Cannibal Voyeurism has been given a proper stage with proper pyrotechnics. Performers from my Cirque and various Rakdosi troupes are plying their various trades in booths or in the street, complete with, somehow, the rapid installation of a carnival wheel that reaches above most buildings in the district.
Following Rakdosi tradition, each Guildmaster and everyone else who’s anyone has been invited, in addition to everyone I like personally and everyone who happens to be nearby. For those of us with means, that tradition has grown with the omenpaths, and invitations to my party have been sent out to such positions of interplanar power as Queen Marchesa, those sitting on the throne of each little faction of Eldraine, the heads of the Capennan Families, even a few names I’ve never heard of such as the Lord Skitter and someone named Morcant. Many, of course, will not deign to show up.
Unlike that fateful party so many years ago, I am not starting the celebration hidden. I am instead stretched languidly across a litter carried by several strong and trusted low-ranking Rakdosi, my hair aflame, my makeup perfect, my hooves polished, my skin oiled, my upper half entirely exposed but for the chains wrapping around it in the style of my father. Surrounding me at all times are a buzz of servers bearing trays of snacks and drinks, always available to me and the crowd around me as I ride around the party.
Cecurro Ayere stood in front of the Omenpath to Torrezon that Vasro had summoned for them, leaning heavily on the nanotech cane that Koda had made for him along with his new prosthetic leg, arm, and fangs. He was about to go home for the first time in thirty years.
He’d face consequences for his frenzy before his sparking. He’d have to face his grandfather. But he would get to see his mother, his stepfather, and his half-sisters again. He would probably have to deal with the fact that his best friend, ruthless as she was, was now working for the Betrayer. He would finally get to tap back into the mana of the land he missed.
He barely heard Vasro and Koda speaking to Lazaro and Arturo. Something about his tremorsense and letting him adapt to the earth again. Not to touch him until he was ready. Which was fair – Kamigawa alone overwhelmed him, stepping back home for the first time would probably hurt.
It would open up well outside of Alta Torrezon, to give Cecurro time to adapt before they got into the city. Arturo and Lazaro went through first. After a moment to steel his nerves, Cecurro stepped into the Omenpath after them.
The first thing that greeted him was the night sky.
The first step onto Torrezone soil dropped him to his knees.
His hands hit the ground to keep himself from falling face-first into the dirt.
Something large. Eight wings, many touching the ground. Deep in a cavern. The Betrayer. Here. In Cecurro’s home.
Emrakul in his mind, louder than ever before. Even facing down Hanweir had never made her song pound through his mind like a Legion charger on a rampage. She echoed, calling to him. Calling for him to give into the madness.
Combat. Fighting everywhere, many against foes that couldn’t be seen in tremorsense. He couldn’t tell who was who, but he could tell when each hit the ground and stopped moving. Most of it was far off, but Alta Torrezon’s defenders were at the wall.
His heart pounding in his chest, no longer still as it should be. His breathing heavy, something that he had trained himself out of years ago. His head ached from the echoing song assaulting his mind.
The collective fury of the mountains’ elementals. They were furious about the strongholds, about the Legion, about the demons. They knew that Cecurro could feel them. He pushed them away for a moment, keeping them separate from the echoing of Emrakul’s song.
The ground under his hands, flesh and metal. The ground that eased up against him, cushioning him like it had when he was young and when he escaped. He dug his fingers down into it.
Cecurro surfaced out of the flood from his tremorsense with a gasp, his eyes flicking up to meet Lazaro’s concerned gaze. A thousand thoughts ran through his head, past Emrakul’s song. Finally, he bit out two questions. “Are we aware that the Betrayer is literally in a cave here? And why do the mountains fucking hate us?”
I like Magic the Gathering. I started playing in high school, as a sort of replacement effect for my love of Pokémon cards ('cause those were for kids and when you're a teenager there is nothing worse than being perceived as being younger). I was not great at it. I loved the slow, ponderous flyers in blue mana, specifically drakes, which were pretty much always outclassed. I sucked at deckbuilding but it was still a fun thing to do with friends.
Then several years passed and I never touched those cards. Then the commander format became a thing and all my friends were playing and I've pretty much been at it ever since.
But in the last few years while I enjoy Magic I have become, at best, unimpressed by the company that produces it. There's a lot of reasons for this and I'm not here to go into them in detail, but I find myself reaching for cards and game modes that are, frankly, beyond my ability to afford. I think large parts of this game are beyond most fans' financial means. Magic Arena is an absolute joke, limited printing of format staples mean you can't keep up without significant investment, and different booster packs and limited packs like secret lair make this game feel more like a video game full of randomly seeded lootboxes than something printed on cardboard that the company actually controls.
But I said I wasn't gonna get into all that. Instead I want to talk about how I've been enjoying Magic the Gathering recently:
It's a new format I'm calling Punk Magic.
Punk Magic is all about using up those cards in your collection you are never going to touch. The ones that lay in white cardboard rows and old deck boxes. The ones that you love but never make their way into your commander decks. The cards that are just one more power or toughness away from being playable, from resembling the all-stars that you see across different formats.
Punk Magic is full of single player mini games: betting on mana racing against other punks, competing in junk fights in improvised arenas against booster packs of random cards, and going head-to-head against the Wizards of the Citadel, those vile wealthy mages who rule all the lands around you and charge you bonkers rent for the privilege.
Each mini game awards you coins you can spend on zining spells: taking parts of Magic cards and pasting them onto other cards for powerful spells, as well as unlocking special abilities to augment your chances at success, and even making custom spells that break the Laws of Spellmaking.
Punk magic is also a multiplayer format. Build a cube you can draft with friends, and let them change, destroy, and add cards so the cube is always evolving. All you need is some scissors and glue, and some markers to let you and all your friends become adept spellmakers.
Want to play commander too? No worries. Make a deck then zine a spell to represent your commander and play in free for all or head-to-head.
Worried your zined spells will be too powerful? So too are the Wizards of the Citadel, who stick wanted levels on powerful cards, banishing them to the citadel jail until you decide to free them, or break them down into parts that can live on with other spells.
My own cube has evolved in many ways through testing. There's the tried and true archetypes like cats, elves, and red/green ramp, but also oddities like lizard/wurm tribal and black deck wins. It's messy and unbalanced and represents my time spent in this hobby and will reflect the tastes and art of my friends and I couldn't be happier with it.
The staff was in place for the event. Old Lady Hanako and her waitrons were working the event in Arán Park, with the shop closed down for the day. Itachi’s Noodle Bar was the VIP area, with Itachi and his kami employees handling anyone who might be a danger or allergen risk for other suitors. Oak-Paw’s studio was open for both tailoring duties and as a changing room.
In the park, everything was set up. Security personnel – members of the Grim Fleet, the Hyozan Reckoners, the Okiba Reckoners, and the Dokuchi Reckoners (some of whom were disguised as staff for the event) – were in place. The food tables, including four of cheese alone, were set up near the entrance of the park, while the performing stage was set up in the relatively flat area. A relaxation area was set up near the waterfalls and hidden by a curtain for anyone who needed to get away from the hustle and bustle.
Koda’s personal security detail was also present, dressed as formally as they wanted to be. Most notably for the suitors that would arrive later, Satoru Umezawa of the Hyozan Reckoners and Greasefang of the Okiba Reckoners were positioned at the entrance. They had dressed similarly, entirely on accident – button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, armored pants, and a vest. Greasefang’s vest was armored, and her overall color palette leaned more into whites, yellows, and light purples, while Satoru’s vest was tight (on purpose, knowing him) and his colors stuck pretty closely to dark blues, dark purples, and black. Both had also picked out “I’m Here To Work” buttons, with Satoru wearing a purple one and Greasefang wearing a yellow one.
Lily of Thyrsus, likewise, was helping out as something akin to Koda’s honor guard alongside Leta and Biilziebub. She was dressed just as simply for the base, with a long, unpatterned blue dress and a formal black vest over it, but she also finished off the look with a dark green cloak for the drama of it all. She was wearing both an “I’m Here To Work” button in purple and an “I Am Koda Hayashi” button in green.
Koda himself was wearing his new Reckoner armor, made of deer leather and steel plating dyed a nearly-black purple. There was a serpentine motif detailed across all of it, mirroring the snakes and clouds of Koda’s Dokuchi Reckoner tattoos, and is was missing the left sleeve to keep his tattoos apparent. There were only a handful of places where the serpentine motif did not appear: across the metal and across parts used by other designs. One such place was the leather across Koda’s upper chest. There were two intertwined flowers over his heart. One was the Vazante rose, all of its petals and leaves and thorns accounted for, to honor his dads Arturo and Lazaro. The other was an iris with the kanji for his surname on the primary visual petal, to honor his mother Ayame. On the other side of his chest were two rats, a snake with four arms, and a mountain with three eyes, honoring Lethaltooth, Silentsign, Shigeki, and Shimatsu. To top it all off, he had a purple “I’m Just Hoping For A Fight” button affixed to his armor.
7 AM, One Hour Before The Party...
Koda and Lily’s old adventuring party from Odithis arrived to help out. There were five of them, just as strange as the two had described.
The first one of note was the undead woman who didn’t look that undead. She was as pale as death, and the elaborate gothic dress she wore helped to sell it. Her long black hair was pulled back into a braid with a few strands left out to frame her face. Her eyes were such a dark brown that they were nearly black. She had finished her outfit with a purple “I’m Just Here To Steal From Rich People” button. This was Tabitha O’mally, the adventuring party’s necromancer and lich, according to Koda and Lily.
On her arm and much taller than her was a half-dragon half-human woman with red scales and deep tan skin. Her hair was just as vibrant a red as her scales, and she had clearly put in effort to at least brush it. Her eyes, also red and with cat-like pupils, seemed to glow on their own. She looked like she could rip open metal with her bare hands. She was wearing a full suit of silvered plate armor with golden detailing, looking like the knight to her wife’s princess fit. It had taken her a moment to get the red “I’m Just Hoping For A Fight” button secured to the armor, but it was now displayed proudly. This was Beatrice O’mally, the party’s barbarian and frontliner, as well as being Tabitha’s wife.
Compared to Beatrice, the rest of the party seemed to disappear into the background, especially Gideon Valkea. Half-human, quarter-demon, quarter-frost giant, but he looked like an average guy – tan skin, black hair, black eyes, average in height and build both – except for the horrific scarring around his eyes and his perpetual scowl. He was wearing a uniform of some sort, which was black, dark grey, and dark red. He had capped off his outfit with a green “I’m Just Hoping For A Fight” button. He didn’t look like what someone would assume a demon hunter should look like, and he didn’t take an issue with the presence of demons at the suitor party.
His cousin, Lohiarm Valkea, was practically neon white in comparison. Lohiarm was half-dragon in place of half-human, and his skin, scales, and hair were all such a stark white that one would think he had albinism. He had one green eye and one blue eye in the form of total heterochromia, which – based on the fact that he had Benoe practically glued to his hip – was probably the only hetero thing about him. He also wore a uniform similar to Gideon’s, though his was white and ice blue. He had picked out an orange “I’m Just Here For The Cheese” button to cap it all off. He was the party’s sorcerer and rogue.
And finally, Benoe the ranger, who by all accounts didn’t have a surname. He was just a normal guy. A handsome guy in his late 20s, but a normal human dude. Even his chosen clothing for this event – leather armor with a dark green cloak – seemed extremely easy to overlook compared to the rest of the party. He never drifted too far from Lohiarm and had picked a green “I’m Just Here For The Cheese” button, because he had his priorities in order.
Koda and Lily hugged each of them and greeted them as old friends, and introduced them to everyone else. Despite the strangeness of the adventuring party, they were easy enough to get along with.
8 AM, Start Of The Party...
The suitors had arrived, and it was go time. Koda took up an initial position at the center of the park to deal with the first wave of suitors, but luckily there would be a lot more moving around as the day went on.
He just needed to survive the first few hours when the most formal ones would give their offers first. Which meant he had to survive a bunch of Imperial nobles and their brats.
Ever since the opening of Omenpaths, the town of Breathold have experienced many changes. First off, the omenpaths to the Sokezan Mountains, found in the center of the town square, naturally would allow the visit of foreigners. Tourists from the urbans and rurals villages could come forwards, curious at the event of this exotic plane: Harvesstide.
The doors and walls quickly were invaded by glowing pumpkins with candles. Tables and cauldrons were disposed at the borders of the forest, as the cooks brought the delight of the festivities: Pies, cookies of honey, lamchops bathed salt, cidar for the childrens, soft drinks for the adults. The locals of Innistrads, with the coming festivals, quickly wore their cloaks and masks, mimicking the usual fauna of the forest. Tought, a few innovators weavers and tailors, have found upon their curious hands, a few "luminious dyes", coming from exotic insect and mushrooms found in the caves. Soon, people dressed as geists joined the tumult, mixing among the locals geists and new kamis. An strange scene indeed, was for the old monk, perched on his lonely cabin.
Gouvle clenched his mask: Of rough carpenter work, it was supposed to look like an ram, yet the snout was too plain, while the horn was too thick, while the other too thin.
"Looking with intense sorrow, won`t transform it Gouvle" An old witch interrupted his toughts, Katarine, wearing an canine skulls of bones as her mask.
"I couln`t accept the generosity of the carpenter this year, Katarine. I desired to do this work on my own." Excused Gouvle, as he accomodated the mask alongside his priestly hat.
The witch laughed in endearment, as her curious eyes fell in the strange visitors. "Mmh. You managued to contract the services of an witch Gouvle?" She asked, as the monk observed the scene at the east of the town. Floating candles akin to the Coven Dawnhart, decorated the road, leading to an collection of crimson tents.
"Biilziebub" Whispered the monk in annoyance.
"One of your many new friends?" Asked Katarine nonchalantly.
The monk waved his head, diffuminating his angry tought.
"Bah. I made an truce with the demon prince for this day. I doubt that he will break it, specially with the visit that will arrrive soon." Gouvle grabbed his staff, descending to the town alongside Katarine and his geists.
"Mmh, such as the goats that you lost?" Asked Katarine.
"Goats? Wich go--" Gouvle interrupted himself, once he regconized an goat. It was the animals that they sacrificed to the boggarts, the one filled with cheese. Looking pristine and alive.
But, Gouvle tought, if the goat came back? Did the devils too?
An rambuctious laughs was proliferated over the goat`s back, from a family of five goblins, as the ran toward the banquet.
The monk sighed, as the witch laughed. This wold be an interesting night.
The active battlefield was, ultimately, a small portion of Amonkhet’s desert. It was to the west of the Kasmut River. The magic of the local nagas had purified part of the river despite the towering structures of Pronoia, which was half-settlement and half-foothold.
Sisters soared through the sky catching the suns’ light only to clash in battle with a flying ship known to others as the Silverwing, manned by five individuals and some cleaning robots of great bravery. The ship was aided by clouds of locusts who chewed their way through any Sisters between them and where they wanted to go, yet the locusts fell through either illness or magic in greater numbers than the Sisters.
On the ground, Imoti pulled her purifying magic from the river and turn it against the Pestoxy and had created a protective aura around the river for fleeing individuals to fall back to. Many of the nagas had already evacuated due to the citadel’s sheer scale. The ones that remained were helping Imoti hold the line. Alongside them were other extraplanar helpers, including a large cicada and the human who was calling more locusts to bolster the defense. It was unclear to both sides how long this line could hold.
Menea the Phármakon and High Marshal Celino Guitirre stepped out of the Omenpath with their respective weapons at the ready. One simply did not need to breathe and would not be harmed by the disease. The other was both the Champion of Pharika and the embodiment of Her teachings. And right now, those teachings had one simple order: find and kill the Pestoxy member known as Thermophagy.
Bright and early, Capenna's Mezzio was bustling, as per usual. But there was a constant pocket of space everyone seemed to avoid. Falco Spara's ward had been working. Gesserith's location was known to all that had the means, and they stayed far clear of him. But those without the means of knowing couldn't prepare for the destruction.
Gesserith got to work, laying out a perimeter around a temporary encampment, set up in a slightly run-down building. The Maestros refugees and others called it home, however broken it was. However broken it would be. He stood, halberd in one hand, lighter in the other. One move, and finally, Capenna could be safer.
The morning sun hung low in the sky, illuminating the abandoned town of Gorgia on the conquered island of Skathos.
Sophrosyne was perched upon a chair near the Omenpath. It had been password-locked, and while her divinely-granted power allowed the hydra to push a neck and head through, she did not order it to do so again. There was no sense in launching her attack through there. Not until she got confirmation that Kalleis – poor, sweet, misguided Kalleis – was close on that side. Even with all of her griffins, who flew around the island claimed in Heliod’s name, she did not want to charge through yet.
Her hydra snarled. She turned towards the east, towards the blessed rising sun. Her eyes scanned the waters, until-
There.
An Ixalec ship, not unlike the one she had taken Kalleis from, was coming towards Skathos. A ship bearing the flag of Kalleis’s misguided fleet.
Sophrosyne smiled. It reall had been only a matter of time before Kalleis returned to her. That made this all easier.
Captain Lannery Storm stood on the deck of her ship as they drew close to Skathos. She had a cutlass on each hip, and the small metal box in her pocket felt alarmingly heavy. One click and it would make all of the magic in a ten-foot circle completely stop. The Odithian gods knew what they were doing when it came to this device.
Her half-brother, Captain Marciano Guerra, stood at her left side with his hammer. On her right side was none other than Huehue, the offensive little gnome. Somewhere behind her, Menea was telling Malkonia how to make a triage center, Aoidi was getting a weapon, Mavren was...honestly who knows what the hell Mavren was doing, and Storm’s crew were preparing cannons and other weapons. Once the first shot was done, the crew would have to focus on the griffins. But that was just fine.
“Ready, Lannery?” Marciano asked, hefting up his hammer.
She had learned much about bringing about a reckoning from her time guarded by Tony Fangando. So she offered her brother a grin. “Ready, Marci.” She drew both of her swords and pointed one towards the hydra approaching the ship. “FIRE!” she shouted.
The boom of cannons, of reclaimed freedom, was a beautiful sound.
