The eye, the size of a small pond, was not merely a pupil or an iris; it was a solitary orb, a swirling pool of violet and black that swallowed the marsh's lantern glow. Its surface rippled with unseen currents, and from its fathomless depths, a silent, all-encompassing *scream* erupted, not into the air, but directly into the minds of all who perceived it. It was the screech of tearing iron and forgotten epochs, grinding against the marrow of the skull. Oksia Miersa rooted her boots into the peat, her pulse stopping dead. Black spots flecked her vision as the mental screech drove spikes into her temples. The ancient Calamity whispered of in the capital's nurseries had surfaced to devour Zemora whole. Tevis, her gentle god, had stirred its ancient rest. Her hand instinctively flew to the hilt of her sword, a futile gesture against such an end, yet she would meet it protecting him. She would stand as a shield of flesh and steel until her ribs gave out. Across the crash rim, Bogumil’s dry joints rattled with shrill delight. The silent scream tore across his withered mind, peeling back centuries of mouldered memory. He dropped to both knees out of pure, covetous thirst. This was beyond anything he had anticipated. The Empire’s petty squabbles, his own convoluted plans to usurp their thrones – they were dust before *this*. He had hoped for an explosion of power, a cataclysm that would reshape Zemora, but this… this was the *undoing*. The raw, unquantifiable energy emanating from the eye would fuel his ambition beyond all reckoning. He just needed to survive its awakening, and then, perhaps, he could bind it, or at least harness its residual might. Tevis, however, merely hummed a tune, deaf to the howling despair boiling out of the rift. He squinted, tilting his head. “Well now,” he murmured, scratching his chin. “That’s a rather large swamp-toad, isn’t it? Been a while since I saw one that big. Must’ve been sleeping deep.” The sunken eye pulsed, and the mental shriek sharpened, driving Oksia to her knees with her fingers clawing her temples. Bogumil, too, leaned heavily on his staff, a thin, rattling gasp escaping his throat. Tevis took a step closer, his brow furrowed with concern. He noticed the mud and grime clinging to the edge of the massive ‘toad’s’ purple-black surface. “Looks a bit mucky,” he observed, reaching into the mud hut’s porch where he kept his cleaning supplies. He pulled out a coarse, bristly scrubbing brush, the kind he used for cleaning his fishing traps. “Can’t have a critter covered in muck, now can we? Might get an infection.” Before Oksia could call out, before Bogumil could croak a warning, Tevis stood right at the drop. With the casual posture of a man hosing down an ox, he leaned out with the bristles and began scrubbing the gargantuan surface. He hummed again, a simple, earthy tune, as the bristles made soft, scraping sounds against the primordial entity. The mud, infused with Tevis’s divine essence, glowed faintly as he worked. With each stroke, the mental scream cracked, sputtered, and thinned. The agony rounded into a low rumble that rattled the bedrock of the Gloommires. It became a drone of colossal contentment, thrumming up through the peat and the soles of their boots. The vibration rolled through the bog moss as though the land itself were being stroked. The slick orb, free of sludge, rolled upward to fix entirely on Tevis, its dark center softening into warm violet. Oksia, still on her knees, could feel the dread recede, replaced by a bizarre, comforting vibration. She stared without a word as the monster that had driven dynasties to ruin leaned into the scratch of pig bristles. Her god was truly beyond all comprehension. Bogumil staggered back, his jaw, what remained of it, hanging agape. He had envisioned chaos, annihilation, a world-ending struggle. Not… *this*. A primeval terror, pacified with hog bristles. His skeletal knuckles twitched. If the farmer commanded that beast, no court could resist him; Bogumil's stratagems snapped into a fresh alignment. Just then, a ripple in the fog behind them solidified, revealing a figure of silent menace. He was clad in dark, form-fitting leather, adorned with obsidian-shard gauntlets, and moved with the predatory grace of a night-gaunt. His face was carved basalt, his irises clouded with the pallid shimmer of mind-binding runes. The court's shadow-stalker had arrived to clear the pit, and Tevis, warm and bright in the gloom, made an unmistakable mark. A needle-thin bodkin slipped into the killer's palm. Without a whisper, the stalker lunged from the gloom straight at Tevis’s spine. He had been drilled in the capital's cellar-schools to strike without stirring the air. But Oksia, her senses honed by a warrior’s instinct and a lover’s fierce devotion, was faster. Even while the toad's drone hummed in her teeth, she sprang. Her curved saber met his dirk in a spray of sparks. Bone jarred against bone. The assassin recoiled at her speed, the pale script across his temples brightening under the strain. He had not prepared to meet royal steel in a marsh trench. “Back, court hound!” Oksia’s voice was a snarl, her eyes flashing with a protective fury. Her steel drew ringing arcs, batting aside his thrusts and driving him off Tevis's flank. Tevis, who had merely turned his head at the sound of clashing steel, sighed. “Oh dear,” he mumbled, noticing the fierce glint in Oksia’s eyes and the assassin’s rigid posture. “Another misunderstanding, I suppose. There’s enough tea for everyone, you know.” He walked over to the mud hut, retrieved his largest teapot, still steaming gently from breakfast, and two more chipped mugs. Returning to the impromptu duel, he held out a mug to Oksia, mid-feint, snapped her off-hand out to catch the clay handle in one clean motion. Then he offered the second cup to the intruder, whose blade hung cocked above Oksia's shoulder. “Here you go,” Tevis said with a cheerful smile. “It’s a lovely blend of swamp-root and ginger. Very calming.” Zevran’s attack faltered, less from Tevis’s offer and more from the baffling, utterly derailing sight of a man holding out a teacup in the middle of a death duel. The sheer lunacy of the gesture, paired with the steam of steeped roots, shattered the assassin's focus. The chalky glyphs over his cheekbones dimmed to ash as the mental geas fractured. He stared at the proffered mug, a flicker of genuine confusion, then something akin to exhaustion, crossing his face. His hand, still clutching the dirk, slowly lowered. Oksia lowered her point by an inch. The man, eyes fading to slate grey, glanced from Tevis's pleasant face to the venom on his blade, then down into the tea. He took the mug, his fingers trembling slightly. The warmth permeated his gloves, and with one cautious sip, the last coils of imperial compulsion washed away like silt in spring water. He blinked, a strange clarity returning to his eyes, and then, for the first time in years, he simply *felt*. And what he felt was a profound, aching weariness. He looked at Tevis, a new, dawning comprehension in his gaze. “My… my apologies, Lord,” he whispered, dropping to one knee, the poisoned dirk clattering to the mud. “I… I was lost.” Bogumil watched the entire exchange, his eye sockets burning with renewed, hungry light. An assassin, brainwashed from birth, now a supplicant in mere moments. This was not magic as he knew it. This was… fundamental. He needed to understand it, to control it. His gaunt, bony hand clutched his staff tighter. “Well, that’s better,” Tevis said, patting Zevran gently on the shoulder. “Lost souls always find their way home eventually. Now, about this large swamp-toad…” He pointed toward the rumbling trench. “It seems rather comfortable. But I’ve noticed the mist around the edges of the mire has grown a little… thinner since it woke up. And the ground feels a touch drier.” Bogumil cleared his throat, a dry, rattling sound. “Indeed, Master Tevis,” he said, his voice laced with feigned concern. “The Slumbering Calamity, as the Vyraki call it, draws upon the very ambient magic of Zemora to sustain its awakened form. It drains the mist, the earth’s vitality, the very essence of the Gloommires. To keep it awake and purring, as you have done… it is a grand feat, but it will slowly, inexorably, turn this marsh, and perhaps even your fertile farm, to dust. You must choose, Master Tevis. Your pet, or your pond.”

Petting the Apocalypse