The Suffoning
A terrible accident unleashes an ancient evil upon an unsuspecting world
I’m a big fan of improv games. So when I watched as a spontaneous improv game started unfolding on SubStack, following the curious urban legend of the “The Suff,” the temptation to play was strong. The genres that the Suff was drifting through were pretty different than anything I write, so I mostly felt like this wasn’t a game for me.
Until The Suff crossed the barrier of time and space into an alternate reality.
Alternate realities?
Game on.
For a complete? timeline of the “The Suff”, you can check out this note by The Chronicler with links to the other legends.
The Realm of Armaviri, 779 AOW (After Odin’s Wrath)
Giranian Arcaneum, Summoning Room
When casting a spell, there is a moment known as Aistriúnghlor, or “The mystical point of no return.” A magical event horizon, where enough magic has been collected to ensure *something* will happen, but that magic hasn’t been shaped by the will and power of the magician. This moment can be a microsecond, minutes, or hours depending on the spell or ritual.
During that moment, a disruption can have catastrophic results. It depends on the amount of magic gathered, the number of definitions applied, and… well… the whims of the gods.
Some wizards are just unlucky.
“How much longer until the ritual is complete?” Pietra asked the apprentice wizard beside her.
They were both sitting and waiting for the ritual weaver to complete his summoning of a minor daemon messenger, commonly called an “Imp” or “Homunculi.” These were frequently used by members of the Arcaneum for sending messages or packages to faraway places. It was a demanding service, but necessary as long distance transportation hadn’t been invented in this world. The postal service was limited, and mostly to the wealthy or the nobility - and even then, required inconvenient things like “horses” and “avoiding bandits.”
Yvtir looked at the hourglass beside him, “He started about half an hour ago. Not too much longer I’d say. Five to ten minutes I think.”
Pietra sighed.
“I don’t know how you do it. This has to be one of the most boring assignments, sitting and watching Jeffon summon messenger imp after messenger imp all day.” She said, staring at the hourglass as if she could will it to speed up. She was supposed to deliver the package to the imp along with the instructions.
"It's fine. I usually get my coursework done during these summonings. Since protocol requires a second person present, and it's just an imp, there's rarely any trouble. So, I read." Yvtir said, holding up the book he was leafing through.
Pietra leaned forward to look at the book he was reading. “What is that, “Parazoology & Ancient Reptiles” by Madame Ygliadry? Wasn’t she the one who kept turning her students into exotic frogs?”
Yvtir snorted, getting a strong whiff of Pietra’s perfume in the process. “Yes, she had a thing for ahh…. uhh…. froogggsss….” His nose started twitching, feeling his eyes begin to water. Pietra looked at him in alarm.
“Are you…” She began. Yvtir sneezed. Hard. He convulsed, reacting to the aroma of a rare flower essence that his body perceived as a hostile biological agent. Pietra back-pedalled from his explosively moist outburst. Multiple sneezes erupted from his nose and mouth in succession, and while flailing, he knocked a large obsidian sphere off its stand.
The sphere rolled to the edge of the table, and tipped over the back.
It landed with a loud bang, its reverberation felt throughout the room, and began rolling down the steps and into the ritual circle.
Jeffon’s face furrowed with concentration, ignoring the loud disruptions, holding his ritual like a true professional.
The sphere rolled across the floor, and then crossed the chalk line of the ritual circle. And like a bowling ball, it knocked over a candle in the 5th isosceles triangle. The point facing north - representing spirit. The candle holding space for containment.
Jeffon’s eyes opened wide as he felt the spell’s spiritual containment rip from his concentration. He turned to face Pietra and Yvtir, who were now staring in open mouthed horror at him.
“What have you…” he yelled at them, his eyes wide with panic.
His admonition was silenced by a loud ripping noise that caused all three of them to clap their hands over their ears. It didn’t help. This wasn’t a noise of physical sound, but of spirit, and each felt like sharp nails ran down the chalkboard of their souls. They shuddered in pain as something entered the realm. Pietra and Yvtir screamed, while Jeffon collapsed on the floor in the centre of the pentagram.
“Ttttthhheeee ssssssuuufffffffffffffffeeeerrrriiinngggggg…….” came the low groan of a thousand dead voices from above the circle.
A black line had appeared in the air above Jeffon as he rolled back and forth, his hands clamped over his ears, tears streaming down his face. Fingers, dark and pallid pushed their way through the line, and began to spread the opening like curtains parting to view the opposite of a sunrise. The light of the room wavered and all the candles seemed to bend towards the opening portal of darkness.
Pietra and Yvtir looked on in terror and silence as two hands opened a doorway into… something… dark and alien. They could see shadows moving in the darkness behind the hands - things writhing with the intent to escape their domain. A face appeared, with empty eyes, shrouded in dark and semi-translucent cloth.
“Thhheeeee sssssssssuufffffeeerrrrrinnnnggggggggg…..” the voice spoke to them, the two apprentice wizards screamed in horror, their minds breaking as their gaze met the eyes of the creature. Long dangling arms reached through the widening hole and grabbed the thrashing Jeffon. His body buckled and writhed several times before finally going limp. They saw wisps of light leaving Jeffon’s body and fly into its opening mouth.
Empowered by Jeffon’s life essence, it ripped the hole wider, stepping through, showing its horribly disproportionate legs. It was clothed as if in a burial cloth, looking everything like what someone would expect a dead and vengeful spirit returning to wreak havoc upon the world it despised for living.
The door to the room banged open and a loud booming voice shouted, “What the blazes… By Odin’s putrid eye!”
Pietra and Yvtir looked over to see Arch Chancellor Colton looking with horror upon the scene of the broken ritual, his dead colleague and an extra dimensional horror.
Colton reacted quickly, shouting words of power while tracing his finger in the air in front of him. Blue & silver runes flashed in the air, lingering as he drew out the magical commands.
“BE STILL” He shouted, throwing his hand out towards the creature. A cage of silver light slammed around the being, who was holding up its absurdly long arms wide, as if to embrace the senior wizard.
“Ttthhhheee SSssssuuufffffffff…..” The word was cut off as the silver glowing cage wrapped around the being, paralysing it. Turning it into a statue of horror and suffering, glowing with a silver light that amplified the darkness of its being.
The tear in reality behind the creature slid shut, sealing itself off.
And yet the creature remained.
“So what did you do?” Said the Dean of the Faculty of Long Numbers to the Arch Chancellor.
They were sitting in a pair of armchairs, well into the whiskey that night, the air in the chamber full of smoke from the pipe tobacco they’d been sharing. Arch Chancellor Colton had gone through many pipes before he had begun to open up about the events of that day.
“What else could we do? Jeffon’s ritual had pulled something out of purgatory, and there was no way to send it back. We tried destroying it, but our spells of spirit disruption simply slid off it. We performed a book binding ritual on it, sealing it away.” Colton said to his friend, while shaking his head in disbelief. “But the book binding had begun to fail within the hour. It was simply too strong.”
The Dean took a long drag from his pipe contemplating this. “So… you sent it away?”
Colton nodded. He knocked back his glass of whiskey, and sat silent for a moment.
“Yes. We located a low magic realm and sent the book there. Hopefully it’ll be sufficiently weakened that it won’t be able to escape. And… if it does… it shouldn’t be as strong as it is here.” He said in a grim tone while shaking his head. “I can’t help but feel we made a mistake. But we were running out of time and our options were limited.”
The Dean shrugged. “Sometimes all you can do is mitigate the damage. And Jeffon?”
“Very dead. His spirit was consumed by the creature. Horrible way to go.” Colton said, grimacing. “Pietra and Yvtir have both been remitted to the para-psychotherapy wing for treatment. Hopefully they’ll recover from what they saw.”
“Well, as my father always said. That which doesn’t kill you gives you another reason to get drunk in the evenings.” The Dean said, offering the decanter of whiskey.
Colton held out his glass.
“Let’s hope everyone in that realm is illiterate.”
Earth, 1813
A field somewhere
There was a crackle of light and a loud pop.
A leather bound book lay in the grass. Waiting for someone to find it.
This is superb! Now I'm wondering who will pick up the book on Earth in 1813.
I am a sucker for this style of storytelling. Amazing!