Information

worrying has a minion!

the Bone Digger

worrying
Legacy Name: Worrying

The

Custom Marsh Yaherra
Owner:

atempause

Age: 6 years, 7 months, 3 days

Born: September 20th, 2017

Adopted: 6 years, 7 months, 3 days ago

Adopted: September 20th, 2017

This pet has been nominated for the Pet Spotlight!

Statistics

Level: 1
Strength: 10
Defense: 10
Speed: 10
Health: 10
HP: 10/10
Intelligence: 1
Books Read: 1
Food Eaten: 0
Job: Unemployed

I thought she was a benevolent witch. The kind who makes charms and sets you on the right path when you wander into the wrong part of the kingdom.

I was wrong.

So.

Very.

Wrong.

I had seen Emese in the market a few times, peddling herbs and small trinkets. She seemed friendly enough. Her prices (unlike the blacksmith's) were not enough to make one weep. Most importantly, her charms worked. I had a small bakery, back then. I'd purchased a repelling charm against roaches and rats and the like. I hung it up the night before baking up a dozen loaves of holiday bread. Not one loaf showed signs of bite marks.

I worried that I should never find love, for while I had skill as a baker, mine was a most homely face. Even the goose girl sneered at my professions of love.

Young fool that I was, I went and married the blacksmith's daughter. (She learned the arts of false modesty and greed on the lap of her father, no doubt.) Within a year, I had lost not only my livelihood and my respect within the community but I came near to losing my head. My sinister sweetheart made a cuckold of me, then had me chased out of the village, claiming that I had cast a spell on her.

The men of the village, men I had once called my friends, pelted me with stones and called me vulgar names. Her particular friends had the nerve to pelt me with bits of my own bread! I was humiliated, desolate and without even one coin to my name. Where was I to go? What was I to do? A baker is not some simple peddler of shoes who can just scrape a chunk of leather into something roughly useable and earn himself a nice purse. There are tools of the trade. Mine were now in the hands of my ex. My only relation lived nearly a hundred miles away, an uncle who was a known miser. He might let me work as a laborer and grant me one or two meager meals a day, for the sake of my poor mother.

Then again, the man had been known to starve his own horse halfway to death in the winter, when no plowing was to be done. Why waste good feed on a beast that was idle?

I would have to cross through the mysterious Forest in order to reach his lands. The place has no recognized names, though many stories of the place are told around the hearth on All Hallows Eve. Weird lights glitter in the dead of night and sounds that aren't quite screams or sobs but somewhere in between are often heard.

Right away, the path branched out in three directions. Two twists led into dark and sinister-looking stretches of ancient oaks, their nut-brown bark reduced to a sickly gray by the failing sunlight. I set out on the middle path where a few weak rays still showed. I wasn't learned, at the time, but I knew enough of ghost tales to know one does not go looking for trouble.

I wandered for days, faced with an endless series of branching paths that grew more and more sinister in nature. What little bread I had on my person had long ago run out and my water pouch had barely a few drops collected during one miserably rainy night. I would have given anything for one small, warm loaf fresh from the oven. I would have kissed the blasted blacksmith's feet and showered his fickle daughter with jewels. I thought sure I was going to die in that never-ending maze of trees. The place was cursed. Surely, it was cursed.

I had seen the witch lights once or twice. At the time, I'd resolutely closed my eyes and ignored all such temptations. Now the flash of pale violet was so soothing, so inviting, that I could not resist.

The cottage was a charming little structure that seemed to have sprung from forest floor. I worried that such a sight was too good to be true. Yet my hunger and weariness won out over fear. Even trolls would be a better fate than lying down and waiting for starvation to finish its wicked work.

Emese stood in the doorway, sweeping dirt and leaves off the stoop. Neither young nor old, hers was the sort of beauty one expects from a wolf or mountain cat. Graceful. Beautiful.

Dangerous.

"Be welcome, traveler. This is a place for the weary, a place where you can find your rest."

Her words were said with such kindness. The cup of tea she placed in my hands had an herbal, slightly nutty scent. The weariness seemed to slide from my body, as if I'd just come from a feast with the King. Well-being flowed through my body until the tips of my toes were glowing. I could not stop drinking the marvelous blend, tasting new flavors with every sip.

She made pleasant conversation all the while, talking of villagers we both knew. I was growing quite sleepy when a bolt of lightning shot through my core.

She gently peeled back one of my eyelids with a long-nailed finger.

"The brew is having its effect, I see."

Her voice was the soft murmur of a mother speaking to her sleeping babe.

Why?

My body was no longer under my control. I knew the words had not come from my lips. She must have read the question in my eyes.

"Any fool with a little power can use bones to make their charms but the truly powerful ones must come from the body of a creature that has a mind capable of more than recognizing the change of seasons. There are a few animals that will work in a pinch. The bones of man are best." Her eyes bored into mine, full of a terrible knowledge. "It was nothing personal. You must understand that. When the last of my charms is purchased and consumed, your spirit will be entirely free to settle or pass on as you see fit."

It was the last I heard with human ears.

I know the buyers of my remains, though they are oblivious to my role in their gains or great sorrows. I may not have been much in life but with the knowledge I've acquired since, I make for quite a powerful talisman.

I keep the story of my woe fresh in my mind, in the hopes that a sorceress more powerful than her will sense my presence in these last few shards of carved bone. Perhaps they will hunt down this wicked enchantress who plays with unwary fools as if their lives are hers for the taking.

Perhaps one day, we victims of Emese will be freed.