Information

Archaism has a minion!

Pendulum the Calucko

Archaism
Legacy Name: Archaism

The

Nostalgic Noktoa
Owner:

Cipher

Age: 4 years, 11 months, 1 week

Born: May 24th, 2019

Adopted: 4 years, 11 months, 1 week ago

Adopted: May 24th, 2019

Nominate Pet for Spotlight

Statistics

Level: 102
Strength: 253
Defense: 229
Speed: 251
Health: 235
HP: 235/235
Intelligence: 181
Books Read: 175
Food Eaten: 1
Job: Unemployed

archaism (noun). a thing that is very old or old fashioned.

01.

This is not the name he was born with, but it is as good a name as any, now. Fitting.

Archaism, they call him: old-fashioned, and they think of faded lace, cracked teacups, postcards folded over and worn to an inky pulp; they think of delicate many-toothed combs, copper pocket watches on rusting chains, fragile old things collecting dust.

These are fine.

He does not mind that these are the things his name has come to mean.

02.

What they do not think of are these:

Old magic and older gods, forgotten relics waiting for prayers of thousands of years past; the tongues of the dead making the shapes of spells and curses. Great, ageless things that have always been, lost in the buzz of modernity, the hum of a thriving universe that has forgotten how to see them — but not powerless.

Kept alive by him, smiling a calm smile, dipping his fingers in old remedies and summoning spells, a silver-tongued dealer of promises and favors and back-alley cures.

03.

The Hallow exists and does not exist, an in-between place, a composite place. In San Francisco, a cool doorstep and a wooden sign, appearing politely within the ferry building; in New York, a graffiti-painted wall and an iron door, tucked down the streets of the financial district; in Beijing, bright and glossy and shining new amidst a dirty alley, incongruous and ephemeral; in London, a heavy dark door and a brassy knocker, a grim rain-streaked window—

The inside is always the same: A darkly wood-paneled shop, lined with neat trinkets, old artifacts, vintage curiosities, and the shopkeep himself seated behind a large wooden desk, patient and vigilant, wearing an angel’s wings and an ageless smile.

04.

What is it that you are looking for?

Choose:

a. A trinket. Small, and perhaps charmed, a little luck magic woven into the threads or the ore, a spell for love shining like stars out of cracked jewels and beaded eyes.

b. Information. A name, perhaps; an old god more powerful than these new ones; a ritual or spell lost to the ages, but not to him. What you mean to do with the things he tells you, he does not ask. He does not need to know.

c. Something else. The dark things that are whispered of him. An angel with the power to make mortals forget. An old half-forgotten thing himself, watching the world uncoil at his fingertips, touching the strings that make hurricanes and tsunamis; a god of ugly truths and silver-spun lies.

A placid smile, a golden stare: A shopkeeper awaiting a response.

05.

The first name they ever called him was Thiel.

The Architect.

It is a name he has not heard for eons, but he does not miss it: Names are human, and he is not.