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Yillix removed three fingers from his scalp and rolled his eyes dizzily, swaying high-up in an unhealthy-looking gnarled tree. As his vision refocused he felt a sharp prodding in his back accompanied by a hiss — "so wassssit?" Yillix yelped and moved around the tree trunk to a smaller limb on the other side. His lips trembled slightly as he peered his pale red face around the trunk and muttered. "Why gon ya stab me? Doin' good work for yas, I is."
Wendsworth Templeton scowled deeper and waved his bladefingers around menacingly. "I'm the one askin' questions 'round here. Doncha make me repeat meself." The tree trunk groaned reproachingly in the moderate wind as they bickered. Yillix winced as he felt at the cut in his lower back. Superficial, but irritating all the same. This cursed Templeton bloke. He used a minor bloodcharge to knit the skin back up, and the familiar feeling like an insect burrowing into his flesh crawled over his back. "Some old crone, methinks — hurt. But judgin' on the fog 'hind her, must be a powerful witch o' some kinda sort." Wendsworth narrowed his eyes and nodded brusquely while weird hypnotic kaleidoscopes danced in his irises and his pupils glowed dark red. Suddenly, Yillix shuddered involuntarily and assumed a glazed expression. "We'll be goin' down now," he said unnaturally. Wendsworth's mouth contorted itself into an evil rictus and the duo began climbing groundward.
"V'yissa has been gone for a long time," drawled a thin man in a dark, billowing cloak. A pyramid of tent sagged above and behind his gaunt face, seeping fleshlike through the invisible poles that held the flimsy structure up. Weird smoke and fog clouded the cold air that flowed in through tiny tears in the tent fabric towards the cyan antifire in the middle. Another man — stout, pale, and fat, crouched around a flat circular cook-surface grimy with the remnants of some very questionable repast. He simply grunted and spun his eyes hideously for a reply. "Come, Zugg," drawled the thin man, "do not dare to ridicule me by your silence. It is not I who am stating the obviousness of V'yissa's absence. It is Blood Yod speaking through these reedlike pipes. Do not forget we hold the fate of the dimlands in our bony hands." Crowlike cackles and the howling of wintry wind intervened in the tense silence.
After a lengthy pause — "She gone dead, X'il," uttered Zugg with simple finality, while poking at silvery-blue coals with a black iron poker. Impossible antisparks were crawling up into the air and dissipating into bluish fog as he stirred the antifire. The tall, thin man bristled and worked his mouth as if to speak, yet shut it again without a word. His body trembled and his whole bony form was beginning to shrink and contort hideously. His reddish hands became talons, his face turned furry-black and his tattered cloak became webbed wings upon his now batlike frame. A horrifying shriek issued from X'iliqua's mouth and he rocketed through one of the cloth sides of the tent, causing an enormous influx of cold to surge within. Ice crystals began to materialize upon the organic matter in the tent, turning Zugg's thick black beard quickly crystalline. Zugg stood up in terror and his powerful frame shook with effort as he sewed the tent back up with a dark air-stitch of blood adhesion before collapsing back down upon the low wooden bench beside the fire.
Original writing and images
by Daniel Pendergraft
— created for HIVE —
published on Jan. 1, 2022.
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Writing is fully original
and can be considered a first draft/blueprint
towards eventual completion of a piece
shared and preserved immutably on blockchain.
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Images are generated with Wombo Dream,
scaled up, and further processed using Deep Dream Generator,
then finished using Final Cut Pro for editing/combination.
