Fall, 1325
Suddenly a head stuck itself into the side of Logan’s field of vision.
“Hello hunter-man” Glib stated simply.
Logan stopped. Glib was an annoying bastard, but the hunter could use the ropemaker to get away from his brooding thoughts. Logan turned to face Glib, already grinning like a fool.
“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with the rest trying to kill your dragon?”
The short man laughed.
“Nah. Don’t care about that thing, especially since I can now come to you and ask for a favor.”
“Why would you do that? Don’t you know I’m crazy?”
“Sure. Same thing here, only I’m short too.” Glib laughed. “I reckon I am a little crazy, after that whole wolf thing and all; life just works funny that way.”
Logan threw his hands up. “Fine. So why do you need my help?”
Glib suddenly turned serious. “Well you see, I dabble a little in alchemy.”
“And Father McKenzie is happy with that?”
“He’s never stopped me. Besides, you can find out the very essence of life itself, not to mention get rich.” Glib again chucked in his annoying manner. “Anyways, with everyone busy with the dragon, I think this is the perfect time to go on a quest away from prying eyes.”
The ropemaker almost danced before continuing. “One of the key ingredients of crysopoeia is the philosopher’s stone, a crystalline material with magical properties. Now no one is certain about the identity of the philosopher’s stone, but I believe it may come from the heart of the cockatrice.” Glib paused, before asking, “Do you know what a cockatrice is?”
“Yes.”
Glib continued explaining as if he didn’t hear the hunter.
“Cockatrices are strange creatures the size of a small dog with the head and body of a rooster, the tail of a dragon and the wings of a bat, renowned for their ability to turn any living creature that look into their eyes to stone.” Glib explained anyways. “Everyone knows hatches when an egg is laid in a heap of dung by the light of a full moon.”
“Cockatrices aren’t real; they’re just stories. Fairy tales told to children at bedtime.”
“Everything story has at least a grain of truth in them, oh speaker to dragons.”
“Shut up.”
Glib laughed. “Anyways, I’d like to employ you to help me find and kill that creature. Some farmer mentioned that a cockatrice had been killing some of his livestock, so there’s one fairly close around. I have a few dozen gold coins and a full barrel of ale: apt payment for your work.”
“And why should I?”
“Glib shrugged. You don’t seem to have anything better to do.”
Logan thought for a second, then emptied his mug and slammed it down on the table.
“Fine.”
***
In an hour Logan found himself with his hunting pack, wearing his armor and wielding his awlpike again, while Glib was beside him whistling along. The only thing the ropemaker brought seemed to be a series of medallions and charms attached around his neck, a knife, and a bulging pouch.
“Are you fine chatting for a bit?” Glib asked almost as soon as they hit the road.
Logan shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”
“Great! It’s good to have someone to talk to, people these days don’t seem to do more than live and die.” The dwarf laughed, pulling out some knuckle bones and rolling them in his hand, before continuing.
“So what was it like, being captured by the dragon?”
“Awkward. The dragon took care of me, fed me, helped me heal, in exchange for listening to it.”
“Did you? What did it want?”
“It wanted me to tell the Town of Stanton to leave it alone, and it’ll do the same.”
“Seems like a fair trade.”
“Hm.”
“And I guess you come back here and promptly break your agreement and now there’s a bunch of people that are gonna try to kill the dragon. Nice!”
Logan fell quiet. An awkward silence pervaded between them before Glib decided to change the subject. Slightly.
“Do you think that Warren’s group will be able to slay the dragon?”
Logan thought about it for a bit. “No. Warren’s party is ill-disciplined, ill-trained and leaderless. Warren seems like a good guy-the heavens bless his soul- but I think those people will meet with disaster.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Someone will though, sooner or later. Maybe the sheriff. He seems driven enough.”
“Heratio?” Glib laughed. “Wilcox will slam his head through a wall if he thinks it’d get him what he wants.”
“And what does he want?”
“He wants the hand of Sonia Potter, and undisputed control of Stanton.”
“Has anyone else expressed any interest in Sonia recently?”
“You lose your motivation to kill things and immediately jump to trying to fuck? Eh, we’ve all been there.” Glib laughed, before continuing: “Well, she’s well liked around here. Not the most beautiful woman in Stanton-that’s probably Charlotte, but she has her looks. Not the wealthiest heir like Emma, but certainly can’t be poor there. And the daughter of the Elder, too. That means she’s literate and knows the power of the town. Many dudes are after her, but she plays them off. People say you have to impress her by protecting her father and Stanton in a meaningful way. I dunno. Wilcox has the best chance, but I don’t think she likes his brutality and hardheadedness. Who knows. Now Thetis, she would have been a good match for Heratio. Do you know about her? Hero of Moyta? She’s from originally from Stanton and believe me people are thrilled about hearing her stories up North fighting the Other Men...”
Glib droned on and on and Logan gradually tuned out the dwarf and focused on the trail ahead.
***
“There’s the den.” Logan pointed at a small hole in the ground at the bottom of a slope, surrounded by wilted plants and grasses. They had been searching for hours near the field where the farmer had encountered his livestock woes, cows frozen stiff like they were statues. The hunter got down on his knees and grabbed his awlpike.
“I wouldn’t do that.” Glib cut in. “They’re supposedly so poisonous that the poison could travel up the shaft of your polearm.”
Logan frowned and replaced his polearm with his hunting bow.
“Any other advice?”
Glib kept his distance, tying a knife to a piece of rope.
“Well we could bring a rooster along.” The ropemaker replied. “Rooster calls were said to kill cockatrices, though Heavens knows why. Or was it a weasel? I forgot.”
“Too troublesome and I guess it’s too late now.”
“I can shout out more advice as you go in.” Glib unhelpfully added.
Logan put on a large coat, wrapped a piece of cloth around his mouth, placed on some gloves, placed his helm on and grabbed his shield and bow before slowly descending towards the cockatrice hole.
“Oh! Don’t breathe its air!” Glib suddenly called.
Logan tightened his mask as he descended towards the hole. A rooster head abruptly stuck itself out of the hole.
“Don’t look at it!” Glib warned.
The hunter immediately looked away.
The cockatrice crowed angrily at the two hunters.
“Don’t listen to it!”
Logan pushed helmet lining closer to his ears.
“How am I supposed to fight this thing?” Logan yelled to the ropemaker.
“You’re the hunter!” Logan barely heard the muffled response.
The hunter frowned some more, lowering his head behind his shield as he advanced towards the little bird monster.
Maybe he could bash in the little thing with it.
As he moved forward, the cockatrice saw its reflection in the helm and suddenly screamed, puffing up and angrily attacking its potential rival. Screeching, the monster charged at Logan’s helm again and again, throwing up a flurry of feathers as the hunter gamely used his shield to keep the cockatrice away from him.
“Aargh!” The hunter swore.
“Are you okay?” Glib yelled unhelpfully in the distance.
And then suddenly the monster screamed and dropped dead.
The attacks stopped, Logan peeked out from behind his shield to find the cockatrice limp on the ground. The hunter took of his helm and looked at Glib, also looking at the dead monster. They looked at each other.
“Well that was easy.” Glib concluded.
After a few minutes, the hunter climbed back up the slope, the dead cockatrice in his gloved hand.
“What the heck happened there?” The ropemaker asked.
“I think it just got a heart attack.” Logan replied as he tied the cockatrice to the tip of his awlpike.
“What a strange little creature.” Glib concluded.
***
Singing randy old songs, the two figures took the hills back to Stanton, the dead cockatrice hanging by a handy stick slung over a shoulder, its eyes covered with a leather strip; it was as if they had won their own little war against a dragon.
“Now what are you going to do with it?” Logan asked as they got to the back of Glib’s home, which was a large yard filled with all sorts of broken equipment, timber and rubble.
“Boil it in a pot.” The ropemaker replied. “I heard from someone that if you boil the body of a cockatrice in a pot, with mare, women and children’s urine, it will lead to a philosopher’s stone.”
“And what, prey tell is a philosopher’s stone?”
Glib shrugged.
“It is said to turn mercury into gold, restores youth, all the good stuff.”
“Fine.”
Laboriously picking through the yard, the two managed to pull out a large cauldron from the debris. Glib gathered the scattered wood, ignited it, filled the cauldron with buckets of well water and slowly brought it to a boil. With the liquid bubbling heavily, Logan carefully cut down the body of the cockatrice and dropped it in the pot. Glib took out some flasks and poured them in, giving the area the entire area the stink of ammonia.
With a frown, Logan stepped away.
Within a few minutes, the entire solution began to nucleate furiously a cascade of bubbles erupting from the solution.
“It’s happening!” Glib’s smile was as big as Logan had ever seen it.
The solution boiled over, cascading over the lip of the cauldron and producing a cloud of steam. Hunter and ropemaker stared as the solution slowly disappeared, finally leaving an amorphous black mass at the bottom of the cauldron.
Nothing came out. The ropemaker looked at the smudge of cooked cockatice with some disappointment. Logan shrugged, and with a cloth picked up the charred remains of the monster, fumbled through the gullet, finally fishing out a tiny black rock.
Glib’s eyes grew big.
“Is that a Philosopher’s Stone?”
“How do you tell?”
“Gimme.” Glib snatched the rock, and after shuffling through quite a few objects, pulled out a flask of liquid silver from his pouch. Carefully opening the cap, the ropemaker picked up the stone by his fingers, then dropped it in the solution. The cap was carefully closed, and then Glib began swirling the solution.
The rock sat inertly in the liquid silver, despite Glib sloshing the flask increasingly violently. Finally the ropemaker sighed, stopped and stuck the flask back into his pouch.
“Guess cockatrices don’t make Philosopher’s stones.” Logan finally stated.
Glib shrugged. “Eh. It was worth a shot.” He chucked the cooked remains of the cockatrice into the distance.
Steeleye Span - False Knight on the Road
Work by bosmaths!
Suddenly a head stuck itself into the side of Logan’s field of vision.
“Hello hunter-man” Glib stated simply.
Logan stopped. Glib was an annoying bastard, but the hunter could use the ropemaker to get away from his brooding thoughts. Logan turned to face Glib, already grinning like a fool.
“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with the rest trying to kill your dragon?”
The short man laughed.
“Nah. Don’t care about that thing, especially since I can now come to you and ask for a favor.”
“Why would you do that? Don’t you know I’m crazy?”
“Sure. Same thing here, only I’m short too.” Glib laughed. “I reckon I am a little crazy, after that whole wolf thing and all; life just works funny that way.”
Logan threw his hands up. “Fine. So why do you need my help?”
Glib suddenly turned serious. “Well you see, I dabble a little in alchemy.”
“And Father McKenzie is happy with that?”
“He’s never stopped me. Besides, you can find out the very essence of life itself, not to mention get rich.” Glib again chucked in his annoying manner. “Anyways, with everyone busy with the dragon, I think this is the perfect time to go on a quest away from prying eyes.”
The ropemaker almost danced before continuing. “One of the key ingredients of crysopoeia is the philosopher’s stone, a crystalline material with magical properties. Now no one is certain about the identity of the philosopher’s stone, but I believe it may come from the heart of the cockatrice.” Glib paused, before asking, “Do you know what a cockatrice is?”
“Yes.”
Glib continued explaining as if he didn’t hear the hunter.
“Cockatrices are strange creatures the size of a small dog with the head and body of a rooster, the tail of a dragon and the wings of a bat, renowned for their ability to turn any living creature that look into their eyes to stone.” Glib explained anyways. “Everyone knows hatches when an egg is laid in a heap of dung by the light of a full moon.”
“Cockatrices aren’t real; they’re just stories. Fairy tales told to children at bedtime.”
“Everything story has at least a grain of truth in them, oh speaker to dragons.”
“Shut up.”
Glib laughed. “Anyways, I’d like to employ you to help me find and kill that creature. Some farmer mentioned that a cockatrice had been killing some of his livestock, so there’s one fairly close around. I have a few dozen gold coins and a full barrel of ale: apt payment for your work.”
“And why should I?”
“Glib shrugged. You don’t seem to have anything better to do.”
Logan thought for a second, then emptied his mug and slammed it down on the table.
“Fine.”
***
In an hour Logan found himself with his hunting pack, wearing his armor and wielding his awlpike again, while Glib was beside him whistling along. The only thing the ropemaker brought seemed to be a series of medallions and charms attached around his neck, a knife, and a bulging pouch.
“Are you fine chatting for a bit?” Glib asked almost as soon as they hit the road.
Logan shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”
“Great! It’s good to have someone to talk to, people these days don’t seem to do more than live and die.” The dwarf laughed, pulling out some knuckle bones and rolling them in his hand, before continuing.
“So what was it like, being captured by the dragon?”
“Awkward. The dragon took care of me, fed me, helped me heal, in exchange for listening to it.”
“Did you? What did it want?”
“It wanted me to tell the Town of Stanton to leave it alone, and it’ll do the same.”
“Seems like a fair trade.”
“Hm.”
“And I guess you come back here and promptly break your agreement and now there’s a bunch of people that are gonna try to kill the dragon. Nice!”
Logan fell quiet. An awkward silence pervaded between them before Glib decided to change the subject. Slightly.
“Do you think that Warren’s group will be able to slay the dragon?”
Logan thought about it for a bit. “No. Warren’s party is ill-disciplined, ill-trained and leaderless. Warren seems like a good guy-the heavens bless his soul- but I think those people will meet with disaster.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Someone will though, sooner or later. Maybe the sheriff. He seems driven enough.”
“Heratio?” Glib laughed. “Wilcox will slam his head through a wall if he thinks it’d get him what he wants.”
“And what does he want?”
“He wants the hand of Sonia Potter, and undisputed control of Stanton.”
“Has anyone else expressed any interest in Sonia recently?”
“You lose your motivation to kill things and immediately jump to trying to fuck? Eh, we’ve all been there.” Glib laughed, before continuing: “Well, she’s well liked around here. Not the most beautiful woman in Stanton-that’s probably Charlotte, but she has her looks. Not the wealthiest heir like Emma, but certainly can’t be poor there. And the daughter of the Elder, too. That means she’s literate and knows the power of the town. Many dudes are after her, but she plays them off. People say you have to impress her by protecting her father and Stanton in a meaningful way. I dunno. Wilcox has the best chance, but I don’t think she likes his brutality and hardheadedness. Who knows. Now Thetis, she would have been a good match for Heratio. Do you know about her? Hero of Moyta? She’s from originally from Stanton and believe me people are thrilled about hearing her stories up North fighting the Other Men...”
Glib droned on and on and Logan gradually tuned out the dwarf and focused on the trail ahead.
***
“There’s the den.” Logan pointed at a small hole in the ground at the bottom of a slope, surrounded by wilted plants and grasses. They had been searching for hours near the field where the farmer had encountered his livestock woes, cows frozen stiff like they were statues. The hunter got down on his knees and grabbed his awlpike.
“I wouldn’t do that.” Glib cut in. “They’re supposedly so poisonous that the poison could travel up the shaft of your polearm.”
Logan frowned and replaced his polearm with his hunting bow.
“Any other advice?”
Glib kept his distance, tying a knife to a piece of rope.
“Well we could bring a rooster along.” The ropemaker replied. “Rooster calls were said to kill cockatrices, though Heavens knows why. Or was it a weasel? I forgot.”
“Too troublesome and I guess it’s too late now.”
“I can shout out more advice as you go in.” Glib unhelpfully added.
Logan put on a large coat, wrapped a piece of cloth around his mouth, placed on some gloves, placed his helm on and grabbed his shield and bow before slowly descending towards the cockatrice hole.
“Oh! Don’t breathe its air!” Glib suddenly called.
Logan tightened his mask as he descended towards the hole. A rooster head abruptly stuck itself out of the hole.
“Don’t look at it!” Glib warned.
The hunter immediately looked away.
The cockatrice crowed angrily at the two hunters.
“Don’t listen to it!”
Logan pushed helmet lining closer to his ears.
“How am I supposed to fight this thing?” Logan yelled to the ropemaker.
“You’re the hunter!” Logan barely heard the muffled response.
The hunter frowned some more, lowering his head behind his shield as he advanced towards the little bird monster.
Maybe he could bash in the little thing with it.
As he moved forward, the cockatrice saw its reflection in the helm and suddenly screamed, puffing up and angrily attacking its potential rival. Screeching, the monster charged at Logan’s helm again and again, throwing up a flurry of feathers as the hunter gamely used his shield to keep the cockatrice away from him.
“Aargh!” The hunter swore.
“Are you okay?” Glib yelled unhelpfully in the distance.
And then suddenly the monster screamed and dropped dead.
The attacks stopped, Logan peeked out from behind his shield to find the cockatrice limp on the ground. The hunter took of his helm and looked at Glib, also looking at the dead monster. They looked at each other.
“Well that was easy.” Glib concluded.
After a few minutes, the hunter climbed back up the slope, the dead cockatrice in his gloved hand.
“What the heck happened there?” The ropemaker asked.
“I think it just got a heart attack.” Logan replied as he tied the cockatrice to the tip of his awlpike.
“What a strange little creature.” Glib concluded.
***
Singing randy old songs, the two figures took the hills back to Stanton, the dead cockatrice hanging by a handy stick slung over a shoulder, its eyes covered with a leather strip; it was as if they had won their own little war against a dragon.
“Now what are you going to do with it?” Logan asked as they got to the back of Glib’s home, which was a large yard filled with all sorts of broken equipment, timber and rubble.
“Boil it in a pot.” The ropemaker replied. “I heard from someone that if you boil the body of a cockatrice in a pot, with mare, women and children’s urine, it will lead to a philosopher’s stone.”
“And what, prey tell is a philosopher’s stone?”
Glib shrugged.
“It is said to turn mercury into gold, restores youth, all the good stuff.”
“Fine.”
Laboriously picking through the yard, the two managed to pull out a large cauldron from the debris. Glib gathered the scattered wood, ignited it, filled the cauldron with buckets of well water and slowly brought it to a boil. With the liquid bubbling heavily, Logan carefully cut down the body of the cockatrice and dropped it in the pot. Glib took out some flasks and poured them in, giving the area the entire area the stink of ammonia.
With a frown, Logan stepped away.
Within a few minutes, the entire solution began to nucleate furiously a cascade of bubbles erupting from the solution.
“It’s happening!” Glib’s smile was as big as Logan had ever seen it.
The solution boiled over, cascading over the lip of the cauldron and producing a cloud of steam. Hunter and ropemaker stared as the solution slowly disappeared, finally leaving an amorphous black mass at the bottom of the cauldron.
Nothing came out. The ropemaker looked at the smudge of cooked cockatice with some disappointment. Logan shrugged, and with a cloth picked up the charred remains of the monster, fumbled through the gullet, finally fishing out a tiny black rock.
Glib’s eyes grew big.
“Is that a Philosopher’s Stone?”
“How do you tell?”
“Gimme.” Glib snatched the rock, and after shuffling through quite a few objects, pulled out a flask of liquid silver from his pouch. Carefully opening the cap, the ropemaker picked up the stone by his fingers, then dropped it in the solution. The cap was carefully closed, and then Glib began swirling the solution.
The rock sat inertly in the liquid silver, despite Glib sloshing the flask increasingly violently. Finally the ropemaker sighed, stopped and stuck the flask back into his pouch.
“Guess cockatrices don’t make Philosopher’s stones.” Logan finally stated.
Glib shrugged. “Eh. It was worth a shot.” He chucked the cooked remains of the cockatrice into the distance.
Steeleye Span - False Knight on the Road
Work by bosmaths!
Category Artwork (Digital) / Fantasy
Species Human
Gender Male
Size 1056 x 1280px
Funny how media we've seen before influences how we perceive others. As soon as the philosopher's stone was mentioned I was picturing a reddish crystal.
Yah, the Philosopher's Stone has a pretty long illustrious history, red actually being a common description in many sources. Others claim it is more symbolic than anything.
Don't get me started on elves and dwarves lol.
Don't get me started on elves and dwarves lol.
Uncultured swine that I am, my main experience is through Fullmetal Alchemist.
I'm guessing that a lot of people just base their elves and dwarves on Tolkien?
I'm guessing that a lot of people just base their elves and dwarves on Tolkien?
Lol. I thought your experience would be through Harry Potter (and the Philosopher's Stone).
Tolkien certainly was influential in modern fantasy, but perhaps a little too influential in my opinion. A professor of English and Literature, he certainly knew the background of most of the mythological creatures that he derived his races from, but I don't know if many do anymore. There's a lot of strange and somewhat pointless (no morals, no conclusions) local stories and legends related to the fey/fairy/spirit creatures throughout the World, of which orcs/elves/dwarves/kobolds/goblins/imps/brownies and also yakshini/yōsei/yaoguai are related to (and can be quite similar to each other). Too many people seem to work in Tolkien's shadow, but giant though he was, he still based his fantasy on only a fraction of the richness of the legends and mythos out there.
Tolkien certainly was influential in modern fantasy, but perhaps a little too influential in my opinion. A professor of English and Literature, he certainly knew the background of most of the mythological creatures that he derived his races from, but I don't know if many do anymore. There's a lot of strange and somewhat pointless (no morals, no conclusions) local stories and legends related to the fey/fairy/spirit creatures throughout the World, of which orcs/elves/dwarves/kobolds/goblins/imps/brownies and also yakshini/yōsei/yaoguai are related to (and can be quite similar to each other). Too many people seem to work in Tolkien's shadow, but giant though he was, he still based his fantasy on only a fraction of the richness of the legends and mythos out there.
Well, yes, Harry Potter was my introduction to the philosopher's stone (though it was some years later that I learned that was the proper name for it), but the stone itself only appears briefly in both the book and the movie. It's much more prominent in FMA.
I don't know much about the original folklore myself, but I understand that vampires and werewolves have suffered similarly due to their depictions Dracula and (I think) The Wolf Man. That's actually something I've been meaning to ask about. You've said you've done a lot of research into folklore for your stories, and was wondering if you might be able to recommend some source material for that kind of information.
I don't know much about the original folklore myself, but I understand that vampires and werewolves have suffered similarly due to their depictions Dracula and (I think) The Wolf Man. That's actually something I've been meaning to ask about. You've said you've done a lot of research into folklore for your stories, and was wondering if you might be able to recommend some source material for that kind of information.
Yes, I think Hollywood has a major role in standardizing a lot of legends (also D&D).
I think I acquired a lot of information just from sheer osmosis of hundreds of books and websites and storytellers, but the ones that most come to mind are:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man,_Myth_%26_Magic_(encyclopedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulfi.....%27s_Mythology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_H.....Thousand_Faces
The internet is also great, sometimes you come across really odd stories:
http://www.coolstuffinparis.com/wol.....s_of_paris.php
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articl.....-ice-volcanoes
https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/11468
Let me know if you would like to chat about more detail. Like werewolves? That's a long and fascinating subject.
I think I acquired a lot of information just from sheer osmosis of hundreds of books and websites and storytellers, but the ones that most come to mind are:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man,_Myth_%26_Magic_(encyclopedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulfi.....%27s_Mythology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_H.....Thousand_Faces
The internet is also great, sometimes you come across really odd stories:
http://www.coolstuffinparis.com/wol.....s_of_paris.php
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articl.....-ice-volcanoes
https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/11468
Let me know if you would like to chat about more detail. Like werewolves? That's a long and fascinating subject.
Thanks for the links.
Oddly, despite being into transformation, I haven't looked at werewolves that much. As I've mentioned, kitsune have long been a favorite of mine, and I've looked at a few things on that subject, but not really at the related Chinese and Korean tales.
It would be nice to chat about these things, perhaps on Discord some time?
Oddly, despite being into transformation, I haven't looked at werewolves that much. As I've mentioned, kitsune have long been a favorite of mine, and I've looked at a few things on that subject, but not really at the related Chinese and Korean tales.
It would be nice to chat about these things, perhaps on Discord some time?
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