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Sometimes magic was just plain hard work. The curse of the Lakeside Orchard was a prime example for this, next of being a premiere for Nox on several fronts. It was his first off-world case ever since he joined the Elbrin Cursebreaker Guild, but he did not mind paying a visit to the usually lovely rural area of Enscharys. It was also his first curse with such a environmental magnitude, which did scare the mirror-fox a bit. The resolution was not overly complex, if you knew how to do it, which Nox did. The owners of the Lakeside Orchard however, a group of young unicorns and undoubtedly skilled in the arts of magic themselves, did not find a solution for their problem. When Nox arrived on the site, it wasn't hard for him to see why that was.
The stench would already give it away, but somehow, in act of reckless arcane vandalism, the lake that gave this small enclave it's name had been turned into a bubbling tar-pit. Consequently, the now misnamed Orchard, formerly known for producing high-quality crops sought throughout the Seven Worlds was now on the brink of decaying. The loss of crops threatened the startup-company the unicorns had built up. And during his preparations Nox soon discovered there was more at stake than the unicorns would admit. Whilst examining the trees along the shoreline, he found them to be in a much better condition than they should be, given the presence of an obnoxious curse nearby, He quickly understood the owners had woven their magic into these lands in attempt to preserve the flora as long as possible, but being magical creatures themselves this also meant that the curse would begin to have adverse effects on their health as well.
The heavy, painful sounding coughs soon were unmistakable, yet they never had any concern about themselves. Much rather, when Nox developed a cough himself, from both the stench of the tar, and the ozone his magic was producing, they were concerned about his well-being more than about themselves.
There was a lot to do, and given the fact that the unicorns linked their magic to this orchard probably was the reason they specifically requested his aid, currently the only cursebreaker with forerunner-magic available. Other solutions would have lifted the curse as well, but harboured the danger of muting the unicorns magic as well. The sequence of arcane letters to cover the trees and larger rocks surrounding was not complex, yet, the kilometres-long shoreline basically needed to be covered in this in order to work.
As he worked through the shoreline, it dawned to him that he still need some kind of trigger for all of this to work. Without it, all the magic he had carefully set up would just generate some background noise. But there was an opportunity. Sometimes magic was also personal. Prefabricated magicka was easy to learn, and even easier to put into all sorts of trinkets, which might have been the reason for all of this mess. But lasting, precise magic as something else.
Day and Night, one of the unicorns was playing an exotic variant of a cello, the often hopeful and sometimes sad tunes echoing all over the orchard. Though the mirror-fox never enquired, he knew it was part of the magic weave they established. They had a complicated schedule to determine who of them would be playing for how long, but it did not matter for his plan.
Again, it was not particularly complex. All had he had to do was to find a nice spot where could see the former and soon-to-be lake and the coming sunrise, and his personal cursebreaker-sigil, an old-fashioned certificate of his profession.
There he sat down now, his jacket already discarded somewhere, after checking all the preparations in the night again. The silver-sigil laid in front of him, as he gazed at it. The night was beginning to fade away, and so did his stamina. Though it would not matter whether he fell asleep or not, he at least wanted to witness whether it all worked or not. He loosened his tie and coughed, his muscles aching from the physical exhaustion. The mirror-fox allowed himself to close his eyes while he listened to the unicorns tunes on the cello.
When the first rays of the sun emerged from beyond the horizon, a single, deep, immaterial pulse permeated the orchard. No plain device, or someone untrained in magic would ever notice this, but of course he did, and so would the unicorn, he was sure.
Even before he opened his eyes again, he could smell the lake, fresh water instead of the stench of tar, the pulse seemed to washed away all of it.
With a smile he opened his eyes again, looking upon the clear waters of the lake and the sunrise. Even if he wanted, he was not able to move a lot, the exhaustion demanding it's toll now, so he remained there, basking in the light of the early morning.
Sure, the lake was just plain clean water now, but the tele-empathic field of this world and the unicorns magic would restore the orchard to its former state quickly, he was sure of it. Not that he would witness any of this, his double-ended perceptrons isolating him from the fields effects, much to his regret.
"We are ever grateful, Mister Dawnsong.", he heard one of the unicorns next to him. He did not notice them approaching, he was way too tired now.
"You could have requested a special song for us to play during the dawn.", another unicorn said.
"Mhm, no need.", the mirror-fox replied, finding himself rather unable, or unwilling to give elaborate answers. "I know the songs are part of your spells to tend to this orchard."
Nox could not stay long, though they assured him he always would be welcome again. The bill was paid by the city-state this orchard belong to officially, though Enscharys always had a loose definition of nations. Despite their best efforts, the culprit responsible for the curse was never found, and Nox was not to contribute any further evidence that the ones they already had. The only thing that was proven was the fact that it was not an accident.
The entire incident did not generate a lot of publicity in the Seven Worlds as a whole, though certain communities followed the resolution of the curse with quite some interest. Most of them were delighted upon the simple elegance, and were quite curious about the particular cursebreaker handling this case, but Nox prefered to have his guild handle the fame.
He had reason for this, including some kind of self-preservation, knowing that many curses were cast on purpose, and indeed, a tiny fraction of spellcaster-communities saw the disruption of the "Progressive Durable Enchantment", their term for curses, with a lot of dismay, being all the more curious about the identity of the cursebreaker...The pace of my uploads is agonizingly slow, i know...
This is because i have the urge to write small stories for each piece, which, given the speed (improper term, i know) i write stories leads to these sparse uploads.
This is a wonderful patreon-sketch by
demicoeur Character & Story by me
Category Artwork (Digital) / Doodle
Species Vulpine (Other)
Size 972 x 1280px
File Size 144 kB
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