This story was at the same time a blast and a great effort to put together. I can say quite honestly that the idea for the story itself came quickly to me, but it was hard to write it in such a way as to make full justice to the character. I hope I've accomplished that and I also hope you can all appreciate the story. Criticism and impressions are always welcome
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Ghoulcaller Gisa
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Innistrad, after Emrakul’s imprisonment.
The Morkrut marsh, port of Selhoff, Nephalia.
“And then we were circled by all those figures in hoodies with squishy little tentacle-things, just with my shovel to protect us and-”
Ruuuuwwwrg, interrupted the zombie that was sitting in front of Gisa. Marsh flies flew around the zombie’s eyes, catching the creature’s attention from time to time.
“Alright Dad, maybe Geralf helped a little. He was holding a pitchfork or something. Can I go on now?” Without really waiting for the decaying corpse of her father to comply, Gisa Cecani continued to tell her story, “we were circled, and then I started to sing. It was a beautiful and sad song Dad, but that was not the best part. The best part is that they tried to attack us in Trostad Dad, Trostad,” Gisa emphasized her last words as if they were supposed to mean something to the zombie. Her father just kept staring at her, mouth agape, worms coming out of an earhole. The ghoulcaller sighed.
“Trostad dad, the village that Geralf took to build that stupid lab of his. There was an awful lot of fighting when Geralf got there, lots of lost limbs, spilt blood, boring skaabs, and… oh well, doesn’t matter. The whole place was a diregraf Dad, much like this one, and that’s what matters.”
Ruughhhrww, mumbled the Cecani patriarch, his head tilting to one side. His breath smelt like two dozen rotten eggs inside a decomposing pig’s carcass, but Gisa seemed to barely have noticed.
“Exactly Dad. I went there to boast about how I had helped my new friend, Nahiri. Geralf let me in when he saw I didn’t bring my usual army, and that’s when we were attacked by the squid-villagers. However, the place being a diregraf, all the ghoulish zombies were there, just six feet under. Well, not that deep of course, most didn’t even have a common burial, but their hands showed up from under the ground and soon there was a fight between my dead mates and the fish folk.”
Gisa’s father just maintained a blank stare while making a gurgling sound, a pitch dark liquid dripping from his mouth.
“Yes, I did it all on my own. I asked Geralf to pull his weight a little, but his skaabs and homunculi just reached us after my zombies had done most of the hard work.” Gisa stretched her back, feeling tired of her conversation with her father. The good thing about zombies is that they were wonderful listeners, at least in the moments when they weren’t trying to eat your entrails. However, they weren’t very eloquent talkers. She missed chatting with someone after spending so much time with Nahiri, and still couldn’t understand why her friend had left.
“Anyway Dad, Geralf stayed back in Trostad to work on some dumb project with that old pal of yours, Ludevic. Stupid necro-alchemist. Now I’m without my partner for necrowarfare and my friend to build suspicious-looking stone rings that call forth beings from other dimensions.”
Her father’s corpse appeared to try a nod with its head, but that took him off balance and made him fall face-first on the ground. The ghoulcaller sighed again.
“Well Dad, I think I’m going. I can’t get Mom back for now, I sent her to Geralf and-”
Gisa stopped herself at mid-sentence when she heard the sound of chatter nearby. That was certainly exciting. Very few people visited the Morkrut, and fewer still did so with good intentions. The ghoulcaller walked slowly towards the noise, closely followed by her zombie father, until finally reaching an observation spot where she could see a big carriage covered in mud with the coachman still holding the horses’ reins. Beside the carriage, two men all dressed in highly-concealing clothing were dumping four corpses into a nearby quagmire. The quagmire, the carriage, and the men were all at the base of a downward slope from the point Gisa was standing, which gave her a privileged view of the whole scene. She could see that all the corpses had signs of multiple stabbings, and seemed to have been just recently killed. Exciting, just as predicted. Maybe she could befriend them, whoever they were.
“Hey!” Exclaimed the ghoulcaller, walking away from her hiding spot, all covered in mud herself. Gisa Cecani was a strange sight to behold. She was always wearing a dark funeral dress that had become shredded and ragged due to her incursions in the Moorland. As it turns out, dresses weren’t the appropriate garment to wear in swampy areas riddled with sinkholes and thorny vegetation. She also had a metallic headband that held together a thin mourning veil, wore a pair of solid leather boots and carried around a grafdigger’s shovel. Add to that her almost perpetual maniacal smile and tantalizing grey eyes and one can understand why most people that see the ghoulcaller immediately think she’s insane. It was no different in this case.
“Cursed hellhounds, who are you supposed to be?!” Asked one of the two men dumping the bodies, in a state of complete disbelief. Of all the things he was expecting to find amidst the Morkrut, a woman dressed to a funeral ceremony holding a shovel was not high on the list.
“I’m Gisa Cecani, nice meeting you,” Gisa talked while she approached the two men, going down the slippery terrain of dead leaves and mud. Both men seemed very nervous with her, but the ghoulcaller – apparently oblivious to the oddity of the whole situation – didn’t stop smiling.
“The boss said no witnesses,” spoke the coachman in the carriage, “it’s better if we just take care of her and leave this place, the horses are getting spooked.” The man in the carriage looked at Gisa, who just returned a smile and a wink to him.
The two men looked at the woman unsure as how to proceed, until Gisa’s father showed up shambling from behind her, dragging his corpse down the slope. This was too much for the men, and they drew their knives, pointing it to the rotting animated corpse.
“Calm down boys, this is just my dad!” Gisa stretched her arms standing in front of her father’s zombified body, “I called him forth again so we could spend some quality time together. You know what I mean right? Father-daughter bonding, opening up the channels, all that good stuff.”
The two men stared at each other for a brief moment and shook their heads.
“Alright freak,” spoke one of the men, pointing his knife back at Gisa, “we usually just kill for the money, but you’re completely off your rockers, so I suppose this is a ‘putting-you-out-of-your-misery’ type of situation”. Both of them started to walk towards the ghoulcaller, weapons drawn. So much for a lasting friendship.
Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
Gretchen Cecani stretched her neck while carefully knitting the body parts together. Her dark hair was combed and tied back so as to not interfere with her movements, and her grey eyes stared intently at the incision points while the bulk of her work was almost finished. She had to modify the shoulder blades with brass bands so as to hold more than one humerus to the collar bone. Skaabs with multiple functional limbs were a complicated business, and few stitchers managed to properly knit the right nervous fibers so as to get an adequate fluidity of movement. As she finished the suture between skin and cartilage under the armpit, the third and fourth arms seemed to be properly fixed in their places. The rune-bands reflected the dim fire produced by the oil lamps. Patin Ligitus. Without the use of arcane symbols inlaid in the rune-bands, disparate body parts that were sewn together started to reject each other. The results would be accelerated putrefaction, coordination problems and, at last, total loss of function.
The stitcher proceeded to prepare the vital fluid to perfuse the inanimate skaab. She mixed the right parts of lamp oil and angel’s blood, careful not to exaggerate any component. Too much lamp oil and the skaab would ignite with the slightest spark, becoming a flaming ball of death. Too much angel’s blood could cause unexpected consciousness problems, where the skaab would grossly remember aspects of its previous life, losing control over the body parts that weren’t theirs. Both were crude malpractices on the part of the skaberen, and were considered utterly unacceptable. After she punctured the left ventricle with a high-caliber needle and cut the right atrium, she turned on the perfusion apparatus that clicked and buzzed with the sound of electric currents running inside. The vital fluid started to move from its jar towards the skaab body. Viscus Vitae. Nobody knew exactly why that mixture was effective for skaab creation, but out of all the things that were tried, oil lamp and angel blood produce the most reliable and controlled results.
Finally, it was time for the most delicate part in skaab creation. Vox Quietus. Gretchen would recite a lengthy incantation, also known as “the silent word”, to reanimate the creature as a blank slate. Silence and concentration were paramount to the success of the operation – one misspelled word, one forgotten sentence and the creature could turn into a violent unruly monstrosity. The skaberen took a deep breath and got close to the creature’s ear. There, cupping her hands around her mouth, Gretchen started to recite the incantation. “Ab ovo usque ad mala, fiat experimentum in corpore vili, hoc est enim corp-”
“Mooooom!” Screamed Gisa Cecani in her high-pitched voice, while barging into the manor’s basement and interrupting her mom’s work, “Snot-faced Geralf is locking himself up with Spot, but I was the one that found Spot, I should be playing with him!”
“No, that’s not fair!” Screamed back Geralf Cecani, closely following his sister through the door and down the stairs while holding in his arms the black cat named Spot. “I take much more care of Spot than her, she shouldn’t be th-”
“LEAVE!” Cried Gretchen Cecani in a state of panic, noticing that the skaab’s four arms were beginning to twitch in a convulsive manner. The consequences of the misspelled incantation were always unpredictable. “Leave the room! NOW!” Gisa and Geralf got scared by their mother's imperative tone, and Spot hissed towards the reanimated zombie corpse. The black cat jumped from the older brother arms and ran up the stairs, Gisa racing after the cat to try and capture it. Geralf, still in shock, looked at the whole scene where his mom was working: viscous liquids dripping from rubber tubes and brain vats, bronze and copper machines humming to the tune of electric currents while small blue sparks jolted across their surfaces, surgical instruments orderly arranged by function in a silver tray and an incredible stock of body parts properly preserved in glass tanks full of formaldehyde. Geralf had never seen anything so amazing.
“I said LEAVE Geralf!” Scolded his mom, snapping the older brother out of his state of befuddlement and hurrying him out of the room. Before he left though, Geralf could see his mom getting a huge butcher’s cleaver to start chopping away at the creation she had so thoroughly worked on. A shame indeed, and it was all Gisa’s fault.
…
The Present
“Wait boys, wait,” Gisa spoke while raising her hands, as if to show that she meant no harm to her attackers, “why don’t we get a second opinion on this?”
“Enough talking, we have to leave this place quick, but not while you are in one piece,” replied one of the man starting to go up the slope to reach the ghoulcaller.
“Alright then,” Gisa continued, “let’s get a second, third, fourth and fifth opinion then!” The ghoulcaller was talking excitedly, raising fingers of her hand while counting the opinions she said she would get. The men ignored her, but Gisa cleared her throat and started to sing a low, melancholic tune. The song made both attackers stop in their stride, as if it reminded them of a very sad moment in their lives. However, they quickly snapped out of the trance and raised their knifes higher, ready to take care of the crazy woman dressed in black and the zombie she called her father. But by then it was too late. The coachman tried to warn the two men to look back, but each one of them was quickly attacked by two pairs of arms each. Before one of them could even turn to see what was happening, his neck was bit with furious intensity, making him cry in pain while trying to fight off his attackers. Four zombies, the four people that the men had just killed, were raised from the dead to get their vengeance.
“You know,” Gisa spoke while both men struggled to slash and stab their zombie attackers, but the creatures just ignored their wounds while overwhelming them with ferocity. Both men fell to the ground, which made the zombies jump on them and proceed to eat their faces. “Usually they don’t get back so mad,” continued the ghoulcaller, “talk about keeping a grudge huh?”
While the men with knives were being brutally murdered by the people they had just murdered themselves, the coachman instigated the horses to leave. However, the carriage had been there for too long, and its weight got the wheels stuck in the mud. Realizing he wasn’t going anywhere by horse, he tried to jump from atop his conductor spot directly to the ground, but fear made him fall in an awkward angle and twist his ankle. The coachman cried while dragging his body through the mud, trying to get away from the woman and her zombie minions.
“Please!” Cried the last surviving man, “I’m just the coachman, I have a family, I won’t say anything!”
The ghoulcaller slowly walked towards the man, carrying her shovel on her shoulders and smiling back at him. Then she turned back to her zombies, “you hear that folks? He is just the coachman! He has a family and he is not going to say anything!” Gisa smiled one more time, her disturbing grey eyes fixed on the man that was trying to escape from her.
“Please! Not like this!” The man was sobbing, his face a mix of sludge and tears, “I’m just a nobody!”
“He’s just a nobody!” Exclaimed Gisa, stopping in her tracks and turning her back on the man, “that’s fine then, let him be.” The zombies, already moving to get one more meal, stopped in their places. They were under complete control of the ghoulcaller.
“Thank you! Thank you! You are so merci-”
“Oh, but wait a minute,” Gisa continued, her back still turned to the man, “you are not nobody!” The ghoulcaller spoke louder and louder, the zombies stirring to the sound of her voice, “I know what you are! You are a witness. And, if I recall correctly, the boss had said no witnesses.” Gisa turned again to the man, her face with an ominous grin, and the zombies moved once more. The coachman tried to scream for help, but nobody in the Morkrut marsh was interested in going towards the sound of people screaming.
That little interchange with the men in the carriage was fairly common to Gisa. Most people just thought she was mad, and that made them act in a foolish or dismissive way towards her. Some would end up as zombie feast, as it was the case there. The ghoulcaller sighed. She was thinking that she would quickly dive into boredom again, but something else drew her attention. There was the tip of a letter coming out from an inside pocket in the coachman’s garment, and Gisa couldn’t help but pick it up to see what was written on it. The ghoulcaller loved to exchange letters.
“Tobias,
The list below contains the names of the four merchants who are competing with my product in the Erdwal. Get Clayton and Ronnon to take care of them. Dispose of the bodies in the Morkrut, no witnesses. Those weird monsters body parts are selling like water to the stitchers, and I want full control of the market.
The Boss.”
Gisa couldn’t believe what her eyes had read. There was an actual black market for the jellyfish people parts? That made the ghoulcaller remember of something. She remembered seeing a giant mother jellyfish flying in the sky towards Thraben, and hearing something inside her head… maybe a voice. Well, it didn’t matter because whatever mother jellyfish was, it had disappeared leaving tons of little polyps behind. She never thought about the idea of reviving the fallen polyps to see what happened. The idea made the ghoulcaller all giddy with excitement. They would certainly make excellent soldiers for a necrowarfare army, and they would pose a challenge she was sure her brother couldn’t ignore. Yes, it was decided, Gisa would go after this “boss” to get some new playthings for her army. They would be wasted becoming skaabs anyway. Oh, what a lovely plan.
Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
Gretchen was in her study making an inventory of the body parts she still had. The previous experiment a couple days ago had been a complete failure, and she barely managed to cut the skaab to pieces before it could stand on its own. The Cecani mother sighed. It was difficult being an applied necromancer while also having kids, especially with a husband that was travelling all the time. Maybe she would have to put them in music lessons to get some peace. Even before she could finish that thought, there was a knock on the door.
The skaberen rose up and opened the door, to see her little daughter sobbing and rubbing her eyes. “What happened Gisa my darling?”
“It was Geralf Mom,” the little sister cried, “he took Spot and killed him. He killed him! He said it was my fault, that I had not taken care of him and had ruined your experiment. He said he would make it up to you by doing it on Spot! But that’s not fair! I took care of Spot, and I found him, and I played with him, and… and…” Gisa couldn’t go on, tears rolled down her cheeks while she wept for the loss of her pet.
“Oh, come here darling, come here,” Gretchen Cecani gave her daughter a warm hug while also stroking her hair. When Gisa got better, her mother asked to see what Geralf had done to Spot. The younger sister was reluctant, but she finally agreed and took her mom to the backyard. There, mother and daughter saw the mutilated body of the cat that had been crudely torn apart and awkwardly put back together. The eyes of the cat were of a lifeless milky texture, and Gisa was about to cry again when her mother sheltered her daughter’s face against her dress. Despite it being a gruesome scene, Gretchen couldn’t help but notice that her son didn’t do a bad job for someone without any training or experience in the dark arts. He had potential.
After digging a small grave for Spot’s body in that very backyard, Gretchen promised Gisa she would have a serious conversation with her brother when they found him. Apparently, he was frustrated that the cat didn’t come back to life — he had picked some books about animal revivification in the manor and left to someplace else. The younger sister got a better hold of herself after being reassured that there would be consequences for her brother and that she would receive a new pet. Gretchen was about to leave and go back to work again when her daughter grabbed her by the hemline. Gisa had one more question to ask.
“Mom, why do things die?” The younger sister asked her question while looking at her mom, whom she considered the source of all the wisdom in the world.
“Ah Gisa, darling, that’s a difficult question,” the skaberen spoke with an empty gaze, realizing that her daughter wouldn’t leave without the answer. “Things just get naturally older and older until they finally break. The stuffed doll that you had that lost her cotton filling, or the merchant’s wagon whose wooden beams started to get rotten, or even the cathar’s blade whose edge turns dull and hilt turns rusty. Everything that is in the world gets old and tired at some point, even me or your father… or Spot, if he lived until there. Then we all reach the Blessed Sleep and rest forever into eternity.”
“But I don’t want to rest!” Cried Gisa, “and I don’t want anything else to rest either! I want to play with them, forever, as friends.”
“Well darling, death is a part of life that all of us have to learn to deal with.”
“That’s a lie!” Gisa spoke pointing one accusatory finger, “if that is so, why do you keep training to bring things back from the dead?” She freed herself from her mother’s arms and went back up to her room, stomping the ground in anger.
The Cecani matriarch thought about calling her back, but just bit her lips. She was surprised on how perceptive her daughter was. Gisa also had potential to become someone important one day.
…
The Erdwal, somewhere between Selhoff and Havengul.
The Present.
The wooden planks of the underground tunnel creaked to every footstep of Gisa’s. The sound intensified a thousand-fold due to the small zombie horde striding ahead of her. The zombies were staying in front of the ghoulcaller to work as a meat shield of sorts, but their role was now merely symbolic. Most of the shady figures and drunken sailors had already evacuated the first level of trenches, and the few that tried to stay were quickly added to the ranks of the horde. It didn’t take long until Gisa and her zombie minions were left to wander that first level of tunnels in the Erdwal completely unchallenged. The network of tunnels that connected the three main cities of Nephalia was heavily guarded against the likes of werewolves, geists and zombies alike, and anyone fool enough to try and invade the place would need a small army. Unfortunately for the metzalar, Gisa was familiar with the concept of commanding small armies. Zombie Tobias – the walking corpse of the coachman who had been so rude to the ghoulcaller – was guiding the way towards his former boss main hideout.
Standing in the path of Gisa’s zombie horde was the first real obstacle – an elevated wooden barricade with pointed wooden tips, guarded by a number of mercenaries holding spears. The ghoulcaller saw the mercenaries atop the barricade grappling their weapons loosely, laughing with confidence that they would be able to repel any climbing zombies. The creatures would have to squeeze themselves into the crawlspace between the barricade and the ceiling. Gisa could barely contain her own laugh. She had laid siege to Thraben – the greatest city on all of Innistrad – even managing to breach its outer walls. Those group of idiots really believed that a couple feet of wood could hold her back? With a small call of hers, the zombies in the front threw themselves in the barricade, their flesh getting pierced by the wooden beams. Then the next zombies in line did the same, and the next ones, and the next, until a pile of undead creatures had formed between the barricade and the floor, one that allowed the remaining zombies to just walk up to the mercenaries guarding spot. The mercenaries, seeing what was happening, quickly left their posts and ran for their own lives. No amount of money was worth facing that.
That scene repeated itself for most of the way, with no amount of spells, guards and barricades being sufficient to stop the ghoulcaller. A zombie horde alone might be too dumb and clueless, it might be easily dealt with, but a horde guided by an experienced necromancer was a force to be reckoned. Gisa didn’t leave one nook or cranny unexplored, making sure all doors were rammed and all crates, boxes and cages were opened. She searched for the corpses of the squid-villagers or fish folk or jellyfish people, known elsewhere as eldrazi drones. However, despite her finding jugs of vampire blood, coats of werewolf fur and rows of chained homunculi, she couldn’t find a single eldrazi body part. It seems that the boss had managed to control the market after all, but not for long. She was about to bring the competition back.
A couple more minutes spent tearing down walls and interrupting questionable business deals until zombie Tobias finally stood still, gawking at a locked door that stood at the end of a dark alley. Gisa smiled and started to slowly walk towards the entry, whistling a playful tune while her undead minions ran past her to hit the door head first. There was a sound of wood breaking and a metal bolt being forced. The zombies burst through the door, quickly filling all the spaces they found while letting Gisa pass. The ghoulcaller was still whistling when she entered the room to realize the place was much bigger than expected, a big underground structure carved out of solid rock with platforms and access points made of timber boards. The ghoulcaller herself was in a balcony that projected two store levels above the ground floor, where a number of products were exposed as if they were for sale. Gas lamps placed at strategic locations made it easier for Gisa to identify some familiar items – including jars of eyeballs, witchbane orbs and even skaab corpses that hadn’t received the silent word. In the center of all that were three crates surrounded by men with crossbows, presumably the store place of the special corpses. The access to the ground floor from the balcony was made through two flights of wooden ladders, but they had been removed. Standing beside the crates and surrounded by bodyguards with great swords, a man with a grease gray beard was looking up to the ghoulcaller. That ought to be “The Boss”.
“You’re the one causing trouble for my business,” spoke the man in a heavy coastline accent, chewing tobacco leaves, “only a demented person would do what you have done. Do you realize how many enemies you made today?”
“Oh, yes,” answered Gisa, grinning from ear to ear, “who do you think is filling the ranks of my army?”
After the ghoulcaller said that, the man with the grey beard squinted his eyes and paid more attention to the zombies crowding the balcony above. All of them were wearing noble garments, sailor uniforms and heavy assassin clothing. Some of the biggest names among the metzalar were now shambling along Gisa’s zombie horde. The boss’ forehead started to sweat, but he didn’t lower the tone of his voice.
“Is that supposed to scare me? Your army is going to be riddled with holes until they get down here.” He gave a sign with his hand and the men surrounding the crates lift their crossbows, aiming at the balcony.
“I really don’t think so,” replied Gisa, moving her shovel forward. The undead horde grunted and groaned, moving over the rails directly into a free fall. The zombie bodies spun in the air and hit the ground with a heavy crashing sound, two store levels below. That drop would kill or heavily cripple a living person, but zombies were less stringent with their wounds. Some of the creatures broke spines, hips or legs, but that didn’t keep them from moving. They would crawl and limp and falter, but most of them would still move. And there were a lot of them.
“Fire you fools!” Screamed the boss towards the men holding crossbows who had frozen in a state of fear. “Fire NOW!”
Some of the men snapped out of their trance and a volley of arrows crossed the space between the zombies and the guards. Many hit their targets, piercing their flesh and coming out the other side, but that didn’t stop the undead. Some were effective enough to kill the creatures again, but not nearly enough of them were brought down.
“Idiots! What I’m paying you for? Chop their heads off!” The boss screamed to the bodyguards who jumped into the fray, bransidhing their swords. The crossbow men were reloading their weapons in a nervous frenzy, hands sweating and arms shaking. There was one more thing about an army of the undead controlled by a necromancer that made it so deadly. The bodyguards were well-trained and disciplined, capable of holding their ground well while dispatching the zombies. However, even the most disciplined army will experience losses. One of the guards blocked a zombie arm and swung his sword in an arc chopping the creature’s head, but he didn’t see the crawling torso of another zombie that grabbed onto his legs and pulled him down. The guard screamed while breaking from the formation, dragged down by a mass of undead. Gisa then would sung a melancholic tune, and the fallen man rose with his head tilted and bite marks all over his corpse. Despite his wounds, he was still capable of holding his sword.
As soon as the boss realized that every fallen bodyguard become a new zombie in Gisa’s army, he felt true panic clutching his throat. “Fire! Fire NOW!” He screamed to the men with crossbows, despite some guards still standing in the line of fire. “What are you waiting for you idiots? They’re all going to turn on us! Kill them NOW!” Some of the men hesitated with that order, but many shot another volley of arrows. Zombies and men were hit alike, and the bodyguards’ formation finally broke for good.
It didn’t take much longer until the zombies overran the hired muscle that protected the boss. He climbed up a platform and stood there, cornered, zombies slowly piling up to capture the crying merchant of eldrazi body parts. Gisa had tied some ropes to the rails of the balcony and descended to the ground floor, her minions making way for her to pass.
“You’re an aberration,” cried the boss, trying to hold onto his place while some zombies were scratching the border of the plataform, “a total freak. And you’ve made one serious miscalculation.” The man talked with a bloated red face, spitting the tobacco leaves he had been chewing. He knew his end was coming.
“Oh, and what’s that?” Asked Gisa while covering her mouth with a hand, feigning a state of shock.
“You mock me now witch, but I know why you came. You want the monster corpses.” While the boss was talking, other zombies attacked the crates that were left unprotected, the prize Gisa was longing for. The boss continued speaking, “you think I was only dealing in body parts, but I also had live specim-”
Before he could finish that sentence, a wooden board of the platform he was standing cracked, and one of his feet went under. The zombies grabbed onto it and pulled it down, while the boss cried and screamed. The sound of bones cracking and clothes ripping was heard, while the man’s body was pulled from the gap in the platform. The boss was quickly overwhelmed and torn into pieces. Blood splattered onto the stony walls, while the rest of the zombie army occupied itself in breaking the lock that held closed the crates with the merchant's products. All three of them were finally opened, and Gisa was about to get her reward when something made her stop in her place. She could have said it was a hunch, but it wasn’t a hunch. It was a howl.
The ominous sound came from inside the crates, and Gisa sent zombies to investigate. The undead dragged themselves grunting and groaning. Not much later, the audible sound of bones being broken and an animal chewing upon something could be heard. Complete silence ensued. Not many moments later, the rest of the zombie bodies came out from inside the crates flying through the air. More howls mixed with a strange clicking sound coming from inside the boxes, and then there was just the sound of wood creaking to loud footsteps. From inside each crate, a mass of coiling purple tentacles appeared, wrapping themselves arund the edges, and a bizarre latticed snout sniffed the air. The creatures coming from the inside made growling sounds while projecting a lupine head in angles that their necks shouldn’t allow. The tentacles they possessed came out from their back and ribs, piercing the flesh in a way that should’ve killed them. Gisa stood still, staring at the alien monstrosities that made snarling buzzing sounds. All three of them had no eyes and a jaw that opened in four different points, filled with rows of pointed teeth. Maybe, for the first time in a long time, the ghoulcaller remembered what it was to feel afraid.
Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
Gretchen’s husband, Anton Cecani, was back from one of his long travels, and he brought a bishop of the Church along with him. She was always annoyed by how he could never stay out of the political game even at their own house. At the moment, Anton was trying to cut a deal of increasing donations to some chapels of the bishop’s choosing and, in turn, the bishop would kindly suggest to the Lunarch and the council that the Church should buy its wine and clothing from the Cecani. That quid pro quo was all too common among the Nephalia metzalar, and it assured that the richest of them kept their privileged position. The skaberen felt bored, but she tried to smile back at the bishop whenever he looked at her. She was about to get up to prepare more tea when the living room’s door was opened, and Gisa showed up singing a song her mom never heard before. Closely following the child was the dead corpse of her buried pet, Spot.
“Look mom!” Spoke the young girl, “you don’t need to get me a new pet anymore! Spot is back and we can now play together!” Her voice was full of joy and happiness, while Anton was completely petrified in seeing such events unfold right in front of the bishop. The cat’s corpse was rotten and decayed, mostly just a walking skeleton with bits of muscle and cartilage stuck to it. Gretchen’s eyes had widened in seeing the creature, but the bishop had quickly moved his hand to cover his nose while making a face of contempt.
“What is that thing?” Asked the bishop, pointing to the dead cat’s corpse, “an undead animal? You know these things are strictly forbidden by the Church.” Now the accusatory finger moved towards her husband, and the bishop increased his feigned repulsion. Anton Cecani looked at his wife as if he was about to have a fit of rage, and Gretchen quickly dragged her child and the pet out of there.
The skaberen knew that the bishop was just doing political posturing to increase his gains. Everyone in that land was cognizant that Gretchen Cecani was an accomplished necromancer, and the parties that the Cecani threw usually included figures like Ludevic of Ulm, another well-known dabbler of the dark arts. However, there was a silent agreement of keeping those kinds of activities away from the sight of members of the Church, and the simple fact that the bishop had seen the dead cat would certainly cost her husband a significant increase in his donations. All that just so the bishop could keep his mouth shut about something everyone knew about. Gretchen hated politics.
“What’s wrong Mom? Why aren’t you happy for Spot?” Asked Gisa, confused that her mom led her to the basement, where she was preparing her table to examine the pet.
“Gisa, darling, I need you to tell me exactly how you found Spot this way,” while she spoke, Gretchen had picked up the cat who offered no resistance, and started to check for any signs of vital fluid or rune-bands. There were none.
“I didn’t find him like that. I went to visit his grave and I felt sad. I wanted to do something so he could… rest better, so I tried to sing a happy song. But I wasn’t feeling very happy, and I started to sing something else and then... he just… got out.”
If there were any doubts left to the skaberen, they had been quenched with that account. Her daughter was a ghoulcaller. She didn’t know if she should feel excited, disappointed or scared. At the moment, a mix of all these emotions were swirling in her insides.
“Mom, did I do something wrong?” Gisa asked, “can I play with Spot now?”
Before her mother could answer that sentence, Anton’s footsteps could be heard on the stairs, the Cecani father was livid.
“Gretchen! How could you do that to me?! I had to almost double the donations so the bishop would agree to the deal, and he got the wine off the table.”
“Don’t yell at me Anton,” Gretchen replied in her cold calculating voice, “I didn’t give you that right.” Her husband stared at her with veins pulsing on his neck, but he took a deep breath and managed to calm himself down. Even in his rage he knew when to recognize that his wife was right.
“I’m sorry,” Anton replied, “but that was a very important deal, and now I’m just barely going to make a decent profit margin.”
“I’m sure your business will live on,” replied Gretchen, sick of the political concerns, “and what’s important here is that it wasn’t me that brought the cat back Anton, it was our daughter. She is a ghoulcaller.” The Cecani father stared at his own kid as if realizing just now that she was there.
“You…” he spoke while looking at Gisa, “you got this cat back from the dead?”
“I-I did,” stammered the child, unsure of what was going on, “I just wanted a friend to play with.”
“She is powerful Anton,” Gretchen intervened before he could say anything else, “I’ve never heard of a ghoulcaller able to raise them back from this age. She has to be taught.”
“Absolutely not,” Anton Cecani replied, “I already have too many problems to deal with thanks to my wife, the stitcher. The members of the Church are breathing down my neck, and I’m being robbed blind on briberies alone.”
“Anton…” Gretchen tried to speak, but her husband was already going up the stairs.
“That’s all I will have of it. Make sure Gisa brings no more zombies to this house. And get rid of the cat.”
“No!” Cried her daughter, holding to her mother’s arm, “you can’t do that! He is my friend, I got him back!”
Gretchen took a deep breath, pondering the options. She, like most skaberen, found ghoulcalling a gross misuse of the necromantic arts. Maybe it would be best if she just tried to suppress that in her child.
“Listen, Gisa, my darling, we can’t keep Spot here. He has to go back to the Blessed Sleep.”
“No! But he is looking just fine! I found him, Geralf killed him, and now that I got him back you want to take him away from me again! That’s not fair!”
“Darling, I-”
“I hate you! All of you!” Yelled Gisa, tears rolling from her eyes while she moved up the stairs, “you don’t want me to have any friends!”
Gretchen couldn’t say anything. She knew there was nothing that could make things better. She just hoped her daughter could overcome her own feelings.
…
The Present.
The eldrazi werewolves knew, somehow, that Gisa was the only living creature among them. And that made her, for some reason, their only target. The tentacles sprouting from their bodies extended in multiple directions while acting in unison with what had remained of their original limbs. Their movement was unnatural and hard to understand, as if their muscles had been moved to all of the wrong places and the limbs didn’t do what they were supposed to. And yet, they were moving.
If it weren’t for Gisa’s zombie horde, she would have died on the spot. She commanded her minions to grab a hold of the tentacles and limbs and muzzles, to try and overwhelm the creatures with numbers. However, the werewolves were not only strong, but incredibly fast. They bit and slashed and ran, making grotesque sounds while jumping to the walls and back into the mass of undead, brawling their way towards the ghoulcaller. Gisa was singing to all of the remaining fallen soldiers, increasing her army, but the eldrazi were eliminating the zombies while sustaining very few injuries. She wasn’t sure there would be enough zombies to kill the creatures before they killed her.
The ghoulcaller tried to move back up, but there was only a rope dangling from the upper balcony for her to climb. There was no way she could make that climb. Gisa started to desperately search for the ladders when the zombies managed to drag down one of the creatures and pile up over it. However, the trapped werewolf emitted a dull humming sound that made the other two come to its aid, freeing it from the masses of undead bodies. One of the eldrazi would have almost gotten to the ghoulcaller if weren’t for a zombie holding a greatsword that cleaved off one of its tentacles. The unnatural appendage went flailing on the ground, and that made Gisa take some steps back and stumble on a big table full of undead skaabs. The stitched bodies almost fell over her, and she felt a strong smell of oil lamp coming from them. That gave her an idea.
Gisa had found the ladders hidden below one of the tables, but now there was no way of escaping. The werewolves had torn most of her army apart, and she was trapped in a corner near the skaab tables. Only two lines of zombies were left to protect her while the latticed tentacled werewolves made clicking and buzzing sounds, mixing it with a rasping growl that seemed to come from the movement of their jaws. Gisa was looking at the skaabs and the gas lamps, and she knew that her only chance was to do to the werewolves what had once been done to her. However, the eldrazi were too far away, and she knew that skaabs didn’t rise to her call. Her only option was to recite the silent word. Vox Quietus. Ah, if only Geralf could see her now.
Jumping from their positions, the three eldrazi werewolves went with claws and teeth into the few remaining zombies. Gisa hurried to move all the skaab bodies as close to her as she could, cupping her hands around her mouth and starting to chant the incantation. Ab ovo usque ad mala, fiat experimentum…. When the werewolves had slain the last of the zombies, the skaabs had finally risen from their tables. They were stitched creatures without anything in their minds, useless and stupid blank slates. Fortunately for Gisa, she wasn’t asking too much of them. The eldrazi drones stood still for a moment as if looking at the skaabs, knowing there was something different about those zombies. That was when the ghoulcaller grabbed a gas lamp nearby and threw it on the undead creations. The stitched zombies immediately ignited into a flaming ball of death, and Gisa manage to make them go forward with a shout. The drones were caught by surprise when their opponents were not only in a state of combustion, but also much faster than the regular zombies. Each skaab came into contact with a werewolf grabbing it as if by pure instinct. The swirling mass of tentacles and fur that were the eldrazi quickly lit ablaze in the hands of the flaming zombies.
Gisa didn’t look at the howling and buzzing that was happening just a few feet from her. She was occupied going up the ladder she’d found and put in place. The werewolves were thrashing and rolling on the ground while producing high-pitched roars, but the skaab bodies were too flammable of a material. They would never put that fire down. The whole place started to burn and get flooded with dark smoke when Gisa managed to reach the balcony and escape. She was tripping and trembling, barely holding on while coughing from all the smoke she inhaled. The howls of the eldrazi echoed through the Erdwal, and much like the Morkrut, nobody dared to follow the screams.
…
The rain that came from the shore was pouring through the broken roof of the old Cecani Manor. Ghoulcaller Gisa, sitting in the living room, didn’t seem to notice her soaked clothes while her own vision was blurred with tears. She never felt so alone. The only thing she wanted was to have friends, people that didn’t call her a freak all the time. She had Geralf, but he had abandoned her, and then Nahiri, but she had left too. Now even her plan of getting back to her brother had been a complete disaster.
Gisa was tired of talking to zombies. She was tired of being hunted and chased by the cathars, and of not having someone to count on. She had to give up even on Spot, all because her stupid father was too worried and her mom was too lenient. It wasn’t fair. The ghoulcaller was looking at her own grafdigger’s shovel, thinking about when she would finally die and reach the Blessed Sleep, when she would rest alone without anyone, forever. It wouldn’t be different from her current life, she supposed. Then there was a knock on the door.
That was weird. First, because she didn’t even know there was something left of the door to be knocked on, and second because she couldn’t believe someone would actually come to this place to knock on a door. Gisa rose to her feet, wondering if it was one of many enemies that the boss talked about, coming to take her life. She didn’t even feel like fighting it anymore. A voice came from the outside, a grave and deep voice.
“Gisa? Gisa Cecani?”
The ghoulcaller moved with uncertainty. If it was someone intending to brutally murder her, they were being very polite about it.
“Yes, it’s me. Over here in the living room.”
Metal hinges creaked, and an older man holding a tricorn hat showed up on the room. He had mostly grey hair and a dark beard, and seemed to be somewhere between middle age and his senior years.
“Sorry to interrupt,” the voice of the man was really deep, and it occurred to Gisa that he might be a good singer, “my name is Jadar, and I am too a ghoulcaller.”
Gisa opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, but she didn’t know what it was. So she decided to just remain quiet while the man kept speaking.
“I was an acquaintance of your mother when she was still alive. We had our differences, but she wrote me a letter a long time ago asking me to mentor her daughter in the art of ghoulcalling. I tried to reach you after the incident here, but you had moved away to Gavony and the Moorland, and I didn’t know how to find you. Now I’ve heard about another incident in the Ditch involving a ghoulcaller, and I thought about coming here. I knew it was a long shot, but-”
The man stopped himself when he saw Gisa’s face turn from confusion into happiness. “You knew mom? And you are a ghoulcaller too?”
Jadar, feeling more at ease, smiled. “As a matter of fact, yes, I am.” The other ghoulcaller kept rubbing the tricorn hat he was holding while speaking, “and… well… listen, I know a lot of time has passed, but if you are still interest in exchanging some ideas and having me as a friend, I could-”
Gisa jumped over Jadar, hugging him around the neck. She kept the hug for a while, finally breaking free of it and putting her hands around his face to answer.
“If I would like a friend? Of course I would! That’s wonderful!”
The visitor smiled once again, speaking once more, “oh, well, we have all the time in the world to get to know each other better. Tell you what – I’ve heard there was a storm in the coast and there was a shipwreck, what do you say of going there to sing a duet? See who raises more drowned sailors?”
Gisa, her maniacal smile returning to her face, was grinning from ear to ear.
“I say that you have a new friend Jadar, and we are going to have a lot of fun together.”
Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
Another hit Ashiok! You definitely hit homeruns on Innistrad,really capture the feel. I have a few personal questions for you that I'll hit you up via PM.
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I had a wordy signature here once.
URGRiku, Sorcerer SupremeGRU Who needs permanents anyways? WUBRGDeckbuilder's ToolboxGRBUW Warning:Contents include 34 decks and growing
I am still reading this when I find free time. This is quite good and much appreciated. This is far better than what WotC wrote.
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"Whatever style you wish to play, be it fast and frenzied or slow and tactical, the surest way to defeat your opponent consistently is by dominating him or her in the war of card advantage." - Brian Wiseman, April 1996
Definitely enjoyed the Harley Quinn vibe I got from Gisa here. Seems fitting for her personality as well. Her dialogue and portrayal again were quite well done. The nods to the more Vorthos-aspects of the Innistrad geography and Nephalian hierarchy were also nice additions.
Other than a few spots where the conjunctions and phrasing felt a little off, namely in the weredraziwolf section of the story, the story was another great read, Ashiok. One note i do remember from the Cecani lore: I think its describrd thst the parents hated each other quite heavily. Not that that in any way detracts from this great story; just a note if a Geralf story in the future ever comes up. If this story had just added a letter from Gisa to geralf ala the story Games, I think it would have been perfect. But I'm always a sucker for a good moment of character expression, either in dialogue or action, so that's just a preference thing. I'm quite enjoying your takes on these legends and looking forward to all of the ones yet to come!
Vorthos-player with way too much time on his hands and a love of thematic decks.
EDH - Yes, Each One is Named After a Song. I love tying music to my decks.
Another hit Ashiok! You definitely hit homeruns on Innistrad,really capture the feel. I have a few personal questions for you that I'll hit you up via PM.
Thank you man. I'm not sure as to why, but I do enjoy a lot writing stories on Innistrad. The mix of ghotic horror and fantasy world is quite interesting to me, and I enjoy writing about gloomy and dark landscapes.
I am still reading this when I find free time. This is quite good and much appreciated. This is far better than what WotC wrote.
Thank you very much man, I hope you enjoy the full story once you're finished!
I did try to develop Gisa considerably more than WotC by giving her motivations and a clear personality. She is a very interesting character and I'm happy for the results.
There is a lot of good stuff here, but I'm particularly pleased to see the single best part of the Innistrad lore: The Gisa-Geralf banter!
Hah, indeed, this is one of the best parts. I enjoyed writing about the whole Cecani family. To be honest, family dynamics is a thing that I think goes quite unexplored in standard fantasy world building (Game of Thrones being a notable exception), and only the fact that these characters exist in Magic Lore already makes me happy.
Definitely enjoyed the Harley Quinn vibe I got from Gisa here. Seems fitting for her personality as well. Her dialogue and portrayal again were quite well done. The nods to the more Vorthos-aspects of the Innistrad geography and Nephalian hierarchy were also nice additions.
Other than a few spots where the conjunctions and phrasing felt a little off, namely in the weredraziwolf section of the story, the story was another great read, Ashiok. One note i do remember from the Cecani lore: I think its describrd thst the parents hated each other quite heavily. Not that that in any way detracts from this great story; just a note if a Geralf story in the future ever comes up. If this story had just added a letter from Gisa to geralf ala the story Games, I think it would have been perfect. But I'm always a sucker for a good moment of character expression, either in dialogue or action, so that's just a preference thing. I'm quite enjoying your takes on these legends and looking forward to all of the ones yet to come!
Thank you very much man! When I started reading what I wrote for the first time, I realized the exact same thing: I gave her a Harley Quinn personality. It felt very appropriate, to be honest, heh. I do try to keep some references to the Vorthos folk, that's why the research takes a considerable amount of time. About the werewolf part - I think writing actions scenes overall is quite difficult, and that may have reflected in that partciular scene. Fortunately goldnight's blade offered a free revision help, and that means future stories will probably come a little more tidy and organized.
Thanks a lot for reading and sharing your feedback, I'm already working on the next story, let's see if I can make it come out soon.
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Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
Innistrad, after Emrakul’s imprisonment.
The Morkrut marsh, port of Selhoff, Nephalia.
“And then we were circled by all those figures in hoodies with squishy little tentacle-things, just with my shovel to protect us and-”
Ruuuuwwwrg, interrupted the zombie that was sitting in front of Gisa. Marsh flies flew around the zombie’s eyes, catching the creature’s attention from time to time.
“Alright Dad, maybe Geralf helped a little. He was holding a pitchfork or something. Can I go on now?” Without really waiting for the decaying corpse of her father to comply, Gisa Cecani continued to tell her story, “we were circled, and then I started to sing. It was a beautiful and sad song Dad, but that was not the best part. The best part is that they tried to attack us in Trostad Dad, Trostad,” Gisa emphasized her last words as if they were supposed to mean something to the zombie. Her father just kept staring at her, mouth agape, worms coming out of an earhole. The ghoulcaller sighed.
“Trostad dad, the village that Geralf took to build that stupid lab of his. There was an awful lot of fighting when Geralf got there, lots of lost limbs, spilt blood, boring skaabs, and… oh well, doesn’t matter. The whole place was a diregraf Dad, much like this one, and that’s what matters.”
Ruughhhrww, mumbled the Cecani patriarch, his head tilting to one side. His breath smelt like two dozen rotten eggs inside a decomposing pig’s carcass, but Gisa seemed to barely have noticed.
“Exactly Dad. I went there to boast about how I had helped my new friend, Nahiri. Geralf let me in when he saw I didn’t bring my usual army, and that’s when we were attacked by the squid-villagers. However, the place being a diregraf, all the ghoulish zombies were there, just six feet under. Well, not that deep of course, most didn’t even have a common burial, but their hands showed up from under the ground and soon there was a fight between my dead mates and the fish folk.”
Gisa’s father just maintained a blank stare while making a gurgling sound, a pitch dark liquid dripping from his mouth.
“Yes, I did it all on my own. I asked Geralf to pull his weight a little, but his skaabs and homunculi just reached us after my zombies had done most of the hard work.” Gisa stretched her back, feeling tired of her conversation with her father. The good thing about zombies is that they were wonderful listeners, at least in the moments when they weren’t trying to eat your entrails. However, they weren’t very eloquent talkers. She missed chatting with someone after spending so much time with Nahiri, and still couldn’t understand why her friend had left.
“Anyway Dad, Geralf stayed back in Trostad to work on some dumb project with that old pal of yours, Ludevic. Stupid necro-alchemist. Now I’m without my partner for necrowarfare and my friend to build suspicious-looking stone rings that call forth beings from other dimensions.”
Her father’s corpse appeared to try a nod with its head, but that took him off balance and made him fall face-first on the ground. The ghoulcaller sighed again.
“Well Dad, I think I’m going. I can’t get Mom back for now, I sent her to Geralf and-”
Gisa stopped herself at mid-sentence when she heard the sound of chatter nearby. That was certainly exciting. Very few people visited the Morkrut, and fewer still did so with good intentions. The ghoulcaller walked slowly towards the noise, closely followed by her zombie father, until finally reaching an observation spot where she could see a big carriage covered in mud with the coachman still holding the horses’ reins. Beside the carriage, two men all dressed in highly-concealing clothing were dumping four corpses into a nearby quagmire. The quagmire, the carriage, and the men were all at the base of a downward slope from the point Gisa was standing, which gave her a privileged view of the whole scene. She could see that all the corpses had signs of multiple stabbings, and seemed to have been just recently killed. Exciting, just as predicted. Maybe she could befriend them, whoever they were.
“Hey!” Exclaimed the ghoulcaller, walking away from her hiding spot, all covered in mud herself. Gisa Cecani was a strange sight to behold. She was always wearing a dark funeral dress that had become shredded and ragged due to her incursions in the Moorland. As it turns out, dresses weren’t the appropriate garment to wear in swampy areas riddled with sinkholes and thorny vegetation. She also had a metallic headband that held together a thin mourning veil, wore a pair of solid leather boots and carried around a grafdigger’s shovel. Add to that her almost perpetual maniacal smile and tantalizing grey eyes and one can understand why most people that see the ghoulcaller immediately think she’s insane. It was no different in this case.
“Cursed hellhounds, who are you supposed to be?!” Asked one of the two men dumping the bodies, in a state of complete disbelief. Of all the things he was expecting to find amidst the Morkrut, a woman dressed to a funeral ceremony holding a shovel was not high on the list.
“I’m Gisa Cecani, nice meeting you,” Gisa talked while she approached the two men, going down the slippery terrain of dead leaves and mud. Both men seemed very nervous with her, but the ghoulcaller – apparently oblivious to the oddity of the whole situation – didn’t stop smiling.
“The boss said no witnesses,” spoke the coachman in the carriage, “it’s better if we just take care of her and leave this place, the horses are getting spooked.” The man in the carriage looked at Gisa, who just returned a smile and a wink to him.
The two men looked at the woman unsure as how to proceed, until Gisa’s father showed up shambling from behind her, dragging his corpse down the slope. This was too much for the men, and they drew their knives, pointing it to the rotting animated corpse.
“Calm down boys, this is just my dad!” Gisa stretched her arms standing in front of her father’s zombified body, “I called him forth again so we could spend some quality time together. You know what I mean right? Father-daughter bonding, opening up the channels, all that good stuff.”
The two men stared at each other for a brief moment and shook their heads.
“Alright freak,” spoke one of the men, pointing his knife back at Gisa, “we usually just kill for the money, but you’re completely off your rockers, so I suppose this is a ‘putting-you-out-of-your-misery’ type of situation”. Both of them started to walk towards the ghoulcaller, weapons drawn. So much for a lasting friendship.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
The Past.
Gretchen Cecani stretched her neck while carefully knitting the body parts together. Her dark hair was combed and tied back so as to not interfere with her movements, and her grey eyes stared intently at the incision points while the bulk of her work was almost finished. She had to modify the shoulder blades with brass bands so as to hold more than one humerus to the collar bone. Skaabs with multiple functional limbs were a complicated business, and few stitchers managed to properly knit the right nervous fibers so as to get an adequate fluidity of movement. As she finished the suture between skin and cartilage under the armpit, the third and fourth arms seemed to be properly fixed in their places. The rune-bands reflected the dim fire produced by the oil lamps. Patin Ligitus. Without the use of arcane symbols inlaid in the rune-bands, disparate body parts that were sewn together started to reject each other. The results would be accelerated putrefaction, coordination problems and, at last, total loss of function.
The stitcher proceeded to prepare the vital fluid to perfuse the inanimate skaab. She mixed the right parts of lamp oil and angel’s blood, careful not to exaggerate any component. Too much lamp oil and the skaab would ignite with the slightest spark, becoming a flaming ball of death. Too much angel’s blood could cause unexpected consciousness problems, where the skaab would grossly remember aspects of its previous life, losing control over the body parts that weren’t theirs. Both were crude malpractices on the part of the skaberen, and were considered utterly unacceptable. After she punctured the left ventricle with a high-caliber needle and cut the right atrium, she turned on the perfusion apparatus that clicked and buzzed with the sound of electric currents running inside. The vital fluid started to move from its jar towards the skaab body. Viscus Vitae. Nobody knew exactly why that mixture was effective for skaab creation, but out of all the things that were tried, oil lamp and angel blood produce the most reliable and controlled results.
Finally, it was time for the most delicate part in skaab creation. Vox Quietus. Gretchen would recite a lengthy incantation, also known as “the silent word”, to reanimate the creature as a blank slate. Silence and concentration were paramount to the success of the operation – one misspelled word, one forgotten sentence and the creature could turn into a violent unruly monstrosity. The skaberen took a deep breath and got close to the creature’s ear. There, cupping her hands around her mouth, Gretchen started to recite the incantation. “Ab ovo usque ad mala, fiat experimentum in corpore vili, hoc est enim corp-”
“Mooooom!” Screamed Gisa Cecani in her high-pitched voice, while barging into the manor’s basement and interrupting her mom’s work, “Snot-faced Geralf is locking himself up with Spot, but I was the one that found Spot, I should be playing with him!”
“No, that’s not fair!” Screamed back Geralf Cecani, closely following his sister through the door and down the stairs while holding in his arms the black cat named Spot. “I take much more care of Spot than her, she shouldn’t be th-”
“LEAVE!” Cried Gretchen Cecani in a state of panic, noticing that the skaab’s four arms were beginning to twitch in a convulsive manner. The consequences of the misspelled incantation were always unpredictable. “Leave the room! NOW!” Gisa and Geralf got scared by their mother's imperative tone, and Spot hissed towards the reanimated zombie corpse. The black cat jumped from the older brother arms and ran up the stairs, Gisa racing after the cat to try and capture it. Geralf, still in shock, looked at the whole scene where his mom was working: viscous liquids dripping from rubber tubes and brain vats, bronze and copper machines humming to the tune of electric currents while small blue sparks jolted across their surfaces, surgical instruments orderly arranged by function in a silver tray and an incredible stock of body parts properly preserved in glass tanks full of formaldehyde. Geralf had never seen anything so amazing.
“I said LEAVE Geralf!” Scolded his mom, snapping the older brother out of his state of befuddlement and hurrying him out of the room. Before he left though, Geralf could see his mom getting a huge butcher’s cleaver to start chopping away at the creation she had so thoroughly worked on. A shame indeed, and it was all Gisa’s fault.
The Present
“Wait boys, wait,” Gisa spoke while raising her hands, as if to show that she meant no harm to her attackers, “why don’t we get a second opinion on this?”
“Enough talking, we have to leave this place quick, but not while you are in one piece,” replied one of the man starting to go up the slope to reach the ghoulcaller.
“Alright then,” Gisa continued, “let’s get a second, third, fourth and fifth opinion then!” The ghoulcaller was talking excitedly, raising fingers of her hand while counting the opinions she said she would get. The men ignored her, but Gisa cleared her throat and started to sing a low, melancholic tune. The song made both attackers stop in their stride, as if it reminded them of a very sad moment in their lives. However, they quickly snapped out of the trance and raised their knifes higher, ready to take care of the crazy woman dressed in black and the zombie she called her father. But by then it was too late. The coachman tried to warn the two men to look back, but each one of them was quickly attacked by two pairs of arms each. Before one of them could even turn to see what was happening, his neck was bit with furious intensity, making him cry in pain while trying to fight off his attackers. Four zombies, the four people that the men had just killed, were raised from the dead to get their vengeance.
“You know,” Gisa spoke while both men struggled to slash and stab their zombie attackers, but the creatures just ignored their wounds while overwhelming them with ferocity. Both men fell to the ground, which made the zombies jump on them and proceed to eat their faces. “Usually they don’t get back so mad,” continued the ghoulcaller, “talk about keeping a grudge huh?”
While the men with knives were being brutally murdered by the people they had just murdered themselves, the coachman instigated the horses to leave. However, the carriage had been there for too long, and its weight got the wheels stuck in the mud. Realizing he wasn’t going anywhere by horse, he tried to jump from atop his conductor spot directly to the ground, but fear made him fall in an awkward angle and twist his ankle. The coachman cried while dragging his body through the mud, trying to get away from the woman and her zombie minions.
“Please!” Cried the last surviving man, “I’m just the coachman, I have a family, I won’t say anything!”
The ghoulcaller slowly walked towards the man, carrying her shovel on her shoulders and smiling back at him. Then she turned back to her zombies, “you hear that folks? He is just the coachman! He has a family and he is not going to say anything!” Gisa smiled one more time, her disturbing grey eyes fixed on the man that was trying to escape from her.
“Please! Not like this!” The man was sobbing, his face a mix of sludge and tears, “I’m just a nobody!”
“He’s just a nobody!” Exclaimed Gisa, stopping in her tracks and turning her back on the man, “that’s fine then, let him be.” The zombies, already moving to get one more meal, stopped in their places. They were under complete control of the ghoulcaller.
“Thank you! Thank you! You are so merci-”
“Oh, but wait a minute,” Gisa continued, her back still turned to the man, “you are not nobody!” The ghoulcaller spoke louder and louder, the zombies stirring to the sound of her voice, “I know what you are! You are a witness. And, if I recall correctly, the boss had said no witnesses.” Gisa turned again to the man, her face with an ominous grin, and the zombies moved once more. The coachman tried to scream for help, but nobody in the Morkrut marsh was interested in going towards the sound of people screaming.
That little interchange with the men in the carriage was fairly common to Gisa. Most people just thought she was mad, and that made them act in a foolish or dismissive way towards her. Some would end up as zombie feast, as it was the case there. The ghoulcaller sighed. She was thinking that she would quickly dive into boredom again, but something else drew her attention. There was the tip of a letter coming out from an inside pocket in the coachman’s garment, and Gisa couldn’t help but pick it up to see what was written on it. The ghoulcaller loved to exchange letters.
“Tobias,
The list below contains the names of the four merchants who are competing with my product in the Erdwal. Get Clayton and Ronnon to take care of them. Dispose of the bodies in the Morkrut, no witnesses. Those weird monsters body parts are selling like water to the stitchers, and I want full control of the market.
The Boss.”
Gisa couldn’t believe what her eyes had read. There was an actual black market for the jellyfish people parts? That made the ghoulcaller remember of something. She remembered seeing a giant mother jellyfish flying in the sky towards Thraben, and hearing something inside her head… maybe a voice. Well, it didn’t matter because whatever mother jellyfish was, it had disappeared leaving tons of little polyps behind. She never thought about the idea of reviving the fallen polyps to see what happened. The idea made the ghoulcaller all giddy with excitement. They would certainly make excellent soldiers for a necrowarfare army, and they would pose a challenge she was sure her brother couldn’t ignore. Yes, it was decided, Gisa would go after this “boss” to get some new playthings for her army. They would be wasted becoming skaabs anyway. Oh, what a lovely plan.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
Gretchen was in her study making an inventory of the body parts she still had. The previous experiment a couple days ago had been a complete failure, and she barely managed to cut the skaab to pieces before it could stand on its own. The Cecani mother sighed. It was difficult being an applied necromancer while also having kids, especially with a husband that was travelling all the time. Maybe she would have to put them in music lessons to get some peace. Even before she could finish that thought, there was a knock on the door.
The skaberen rose up and opened the door, to see her little daughter sobbing and rubbing her eyes. “What happened Gisa my darling?”
“It was Geralf Mom,” the little sister cried, “he took Spot and killed him. He killed him! He said it was my fault, that I had not taken care of him and had ruined your experiment. He said he would make it up to you by doing it on Spot! But that’s not fair! I took care of Spot, and I found him, and I played with him, and… and…” Gisa couldn’t go on, tears rolled down her cheeks while she wept for the loss of her pet.
“Oh, come here darling, come here,” Gretchen Cecani gave her daughter a warm hug while also stroking her hair. When Gisa got better, her mother asked to see what Geralf had done to Spot. The younger sister was reluctant, but she finally agreed and took her mom to the backyard. There, mother and daughter saw the mutilated body of the cat that had been crudely torn apart and awkwardly put back together. The eyes of the cat were of a lifeless milky texture, and Gisa was about to cry again when her mother sheltered her daughter’s face against her dress. Despite it being a gruesome scene, Gretchen couldn’t help but notice that her son didn’t do a bad job for someone without any training or experience in the dark arts. He had potential.
After digging a small grave for Spot’s body in that very backyard, Gretchen promised Gisa she would have a serious conversation with her brother when they found him. Apparently, he was frustrated that the cat didn’t come back to life — he had picked some books about animal revivification in the manor and left to someplace else. The younger sister got a better hold of herself after being reassured that there would be consequences for her brother and that she would receive a new pet. Gretchen was about to leave and go back to work again when her daughter grabbed her by the hemline. Gisa had one more question to ask.
“Mom, why do things die?” The younger sister asked her question while looking at her mom, whom she considered the source of all the wisdom in the world.
“Ah Gisa, darling, that’s a difficult question,” the skaberen spoke with an empty gaze, realizing that her daughter wouldn’t leave without the answer. “Things just get naturally older and older until they finally break. The stuffed doll that you had that lost her cotton filling, or the merchant’s wagon whose wooden beams started to get rotten, or even the cathar’s blade whose edge turns dull and hilt turns rusty. Everything that is in the world gets old and tired at some point, even me or your father… or Spot, if he lived until there. Then we all reach the Blessed Sleep and rest forever into eternity.”
“But I don’t want to rest!” Cried Gisa, “and I don’t want anything else to rest either! I want to play with them, forever, as friends.”
“Well darling, death is a part of life that all of us have to learn to deal with.”
“That’s a lie!” Gisa spoke pointing one accusatory finger, “if that is so, why do you keep training to bring things back from the dead?” She freed herself from her mother’s arms and went back up to her room, stomping the ground in anger.
The Cecani matriarch thought about calling her back, but just bit her lips. She was surprised on how perceptive her daughter was. Gisa also had potential to become someone important one day.
The Erdwal, somewhere between Selhoff and Havengul.
The Present.
The wooden planks of the underground tunnel creaked to every footstep of Gisa’s. The sound intensified a thousand-fold due to the small zombie horde striding ahead of her. The zombies were staying in front of the ghoulcaller to work as a meat shield of sorts, but their role was now merely symbolic. Most of the shady figures and drunken sailors had already evacuated the first level of trenches, and the few that tried to stay were quickly added to the ranks of the horde. It didn’t take long until Gisa and her zombie minions were left to wander that first level of tunnels in the Erdwal completely unchallenged. The network of tunnels that connected the three main cities of Nephalia was heavily guarded against the likes of werewolves, geists and zombies alike, and anyone fool enough to try and invade the place would need a small army. Unfortunately for the metzalar, Gisa was familiar with the concept of commanding small armies. Zombie Tobias – the walking corpse of the coachman who had been so rude to the ghoulcaller – was guiding the way towards his former boss main hideout.
Standing in the path of Gisa’s zombie horde was the first real obstacle – an elevated wooden barricade with pointed wooden tips, guarded by a number of mercenaries holding spears. The ghoulcaller saw the mercenaries atop the barricade grappling their weapons loosely, laughing with confidence that they would be able to repel any climbing zombies. The creatures would have to squeeze themselves into the crawlspace between the barricade and the ceiling. Gisa could barely contain her own laugh. She had laid siege to Thraben – the greatest city on all of Innistrad – even managing to breach its outer walls. Those group of idiots really believed that a couple feet of wood could hold her back? With a small call of hers, the zombies in the front threw themselves in the barricade, their flesh getting pierced by the wooden beams. Then the next zombies in line did the same, and the next ones, and the next, until a pile of undead creatures had formed between the barricade and the floor, one that allowed the remaining zombies to just walk up to the mercenaries guarding spot. The mercenaries, seeing what was happening, quickly left their posts and ran for their own lives. No amount of money was worth facing that.
That scene repeated itself for most of the way, with no amount of spells, guards and barricades being sufficient to stop the ghoulcaller. A zombie horde alone might be too dumb and clueless, it might be easily dealt with, but a horde guided by an experienced necromancer was a force to be reckoned. Gisa didn’t leave one nook or cranny unexplored, making sure all doors were rammed and all crates, boxes and cages were opened. She searched for the corpses of the squid-villagers or fish folk or jellyfish people, known elsewhere as eldrazi drones. However, despite her finding jugs of vampire blood, coats of werewolf fur and rows of chained homunculi, she couldn’t find a single eldrazi body part. It seems that the boss had managed to control the market after all, but not for long. She was about to bring the competition back.
A couple more minutes spent tearing down walls and interrupting questionable business deals until zombie Tobias finally stood still, gawking at a locked door that stood at the end of a dark alley. Gisa smiled and started to slowly walk towards the entry, whistling a playful tune while her undead minions ran past her to hit the door head first. There was a sound of wood breaking and a metal bolt being forced. The zombies burst through the door, quickly filling all the spaces they found while letting Gisa pass. The ghoulcaller was still whistling when she entered the room to realize the place was much bigger than expected, a big underground structure carved out of solid rock with platforms and access points made of timber boards. The ghoulcaller herself was in a balcony that projected two store levels above the ground floor, where a number of products were exposed as if they were for sale. Gas lamps placed at strategic locations made it easier for Gisa to identify some familiar items – including jars of eyeballs, witchbane orbs and even skaab corpses that hadn’t received the silent word. In the center of all that were three crates surrounded by men with crossbows, presumably the store place of the special corpses. The access to the ground floor from the balcony was made through two flights of wooden ladders, but they had been removed. Standing beside the crates and surrounded by bodyguards with great swords, a man with a grease gray beard was looking up to the ghoulcaller. That ought to be “The Boss”.
“You’re the one causing trouble for my business,” spoke the man in a heavy coastline accent, chewing tobacco leaves, “only a demented person would do what you have done. Do you realize how many enemies you made today?”
“Oh, yes,” answered Gisa, grinning from ear to ear, “who do you think is filling the ranks of my army?”
After the ghoulcaller said that, the man with the grey beard squinted his eyes and paid more attention to the zombies crowding the balcony above. All of them were wearing noble garments, sailor uniforms and heavy assassin clothing. Some of the biggest names among the metzalar were now shambling along Gisa’s zombie horde. The boss’ forehead started to sweat, but he didn’t lower the tone of his voice.
“Is that supposed to scare me? Your army is going to be riddled with holes until they get down here.” He gave a sign with his hand and the men surrounding the crates lift their crossbows, aiming at the balcony.
“I really don’t think so,” replied Gisa, moving her shovel forward. The undead horde grunted and groaned, moving over the rails directly into a free fall. The zombie bodies spun in the air and hit the ground with a heavy crashing sound, two store levels below. That drop would kill or heavily cripple a living person, but zombies were less stringent with their wounds. Some of the creatures broke spines, hips or legs, but that didn’t keep them from moving. They would crawl and limp and falter, but most of them would still move. And there were a lot of them.
“Fire you fools!” Screamed the boss towards the men holding crossbows who had frozen in a state of fear. “Fire NOW!”
Some of the men snapped out of their trance and a volley of arrows crossed the space between the zombies and the guards. Many hit their targets, piercing their flesh and coming out the other side, but that didn’t stop the undead. Some were effective enough to kill the creatures again, but not nearly enough of them were brought down.
“Idiots! What I’m paying you for? Chop their heads off!” The boss screamed to the bodyguards who jumped into the fray, bransidhing their swords. The crossbow men were reloading their weapons in a nervous frenzy, hands sweating and arms shaking. There was one more thing about an army of the undead controlled by a necromancer that made it so deadly. The bodyguards were well-trained and disciplined, capable of holding their ground well while dispatching the zombies. However, even the most disciplined army will experience losses. One of the guards blocked a zombie arm and swung his sword in an arc chopping the creature’s head, but he didn’t see the crawling torso of another zombie that grabbed onto his legs and pulled him down. The guard screamed while breaking from the formation, dragged down by a mass of undead. Gisa then would sung a melancholic tune, and the fallen man rose with his head tilted and bite marks all over his corpse. Despite his wounds, he was still capable of holding his sword.
As soon as the boss realized that every fallen bodyguard become a new zombie in Gisa’s army, he felt true panic clutching his throat. “Fire! Fire NOW!” He screamed to the men with crossbows, despite some guards still standing in the line of fire. “What are you waiting for you idiots? They’re all going to turn on us! Kill them NOW!” Some of the men hesitated with that order, but many shot another volley of arrows. Zombies and men were hit alike, and the bodyguards’ formation finally broke for good.
It didn’t take much longer until the zombies overran the hired muscle that protected the boss. He climbed up a platform and stood there, cornered, zombies slowly piling up to capture the crying merchant of eldrazi body parts. Gisa had tied some ropes to the rails of the balcony and descended to the ground floor, her minions making way for her to pass.
“You’re an aberration,” cried the boss, trying to hold onto his place while some zombies were scratching the border of the plataform, “a total freak. And you’ve made one serious miscalculation.” The man talked with a bloated red face, spitting the tobacco leaves he had been chewing. He knew his end was coming.
“Oh, and what’s that?” Asked Gisa while covering her mouth with a hand, feigning a state of shock.
“You mock me now witch, but I know why you came. You want the monster corpses.” While the boss was talking, other zombies attacked the crates that were left unprotected, the prize Gisa was longing for. The boss continued speaking, “you think I was only dealing in body parts, but I also had live specim-”
Before he could finish that sentence, a wooden board of the platform he was standing cracked, and one of his feet went under. The zombies grabbed onto it and pulled it down, while the boss cried and screamed. The sound of bones cracking and clothes ripping was heard, while the man’s body was pulled from the gap in the platform. The boss was quickly overwhelmed and torn into pieces. Blood splattered onto the stony walls, while the rest of the zombie army occupied itself in breaking the lock that held closed the crates with the merchant's products. All three of them were finally opened, and Gisa was about to get her reward when something made her stop in her place. She could have said it was a hunch, but it wasn’t a hunch. It was a howl.
The ominous sound came from inside the crates, and Gisa sent zombies to investigate. The undead dragged themselves grunting and groaning. Not much later, the audible sound of bones being broken and an animal chewing upon something could be heard. Complete silence ensued. Not many moments later, the rest of the zombie bodies came out from inside the crates flying through the air. More howls mixed with a strange clicking sound coming from inside the boxes, and then there was just the sound of wood creaking to loud footsteps. From inside each crate, a mass of coiling purple tentacles appeared, wrapping themselves arund the edges, and a bizarre latticed snout sniffed the air. The creatures coming from the inside made growling sounds while projecting a lupine head in angles that their necks shouldn’t allow. The tentacles they possessed came out from their back and ribs, piercing the flesh in a way that should’ve killed them. Gisa stood still, staring at the alien monstrosities that made snarling buzzing sounds. All three of them had no eyes and a jaw that opened in four different points, filled with rows of pointed teeth. Maybe, for the first time in a long time, the ghoulcaller remembered what it was to feel afraid.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
Gretchen’s husband, Anton Cecani, was back from one of his long travels, and he brought a bishop of the Church along with him. She was always annoyed by how he could never stay out of the political game even at their own house. At the moment, Anton was trying to cut a deal of increasing donations to some chapels of the bishop’s choosing and, in turn, the bishop would kindly suggest to the Lunarch and the council that the Church should buy its wine and clothing from the Cecani. That quid pro quo was all too common among the Nephalia metzalar, and it assured that the richest of them kept their privileged position. The skaberen felt bored, but she tried to smile back at the bishop whenever he looked at her. She was about to get up to prepare more tea when the living room’s door was opened, and Gisa showed up singing a song her mom never heard before. Closely following the child was the dead corpse of her buried pet, Spot.
“Look mom!” Spoke the young girl, “you don’t need to get me a new pet anymore! Spot is back and we can now play together!” Her voice was full of joy and happiness, while Anton was completely petrified in seeing such events unfold right in front of the bishop. The cat’s corpse was rotten and decayed, mostly just a walking skeleton with bits of muscle and cartilage stuck to it. Gretchen’s eyes had widened in seeing the creature, but the bishop had quickly moved his hand to cover his nose while making a face of contempt.
“What is that thing?” Asked the bishop, pointing to the dead cat’s corpse, “an undead animal? You know these things are strictly forbidden by the Church.” Now the accusatory finger moved towards her husband, and the bishop increased his feigned repulsion. Anton Cecani looked at his wife as if he was about to have a fit of rage, and Gretchen quickly dragged her child and the pet out of there.
The skaberen knew that the bishop was just doing political posturing to increase his gains. Everyone in that land was cognizant that Gretchen Cecani was an accomplished necromancer, and the parties that the Cecani threw usually included figures like Ludevic of Ulm, another well-known dabbler of the dark arts. However, there was a silent agreement of keeping those kinds of activities away from the sight of members of the Church, and the simple fact that the bishop had seen the dead cat would certainly cost her husband a significant increase in his donations. All that just so the bishop could keep his mouth shut about something everyone knew about. Gretchen hated politics.
“What’s wrong Mom? Why aren’t you happy for Spot?” Asked Gisa, confused that her mom led her to the basement, where she was preparing her table to examine the pet.
“Gisa, darling, I need you to tell me exactly how you found Spot this way,” while she spoke, Gretchen had picked up the cat who offered no resistance, and started to check for any signs of vital fluid or rune-bands. There were none.
“I didn’t find him like that. I went to visit his grave and I felt sad. I wanted to do something so he could… rest better, so I tried to sing a happy song. But I wasn’t feeling very happy, and I started to sing something else and then... he just… got out.”
If there were any doubts left to the skaberen, they had been quenched with that account. Her daughter was a ghoulcaller. She didn’t know if she should feel excited, disappointed or scared. At the moment, a mix of all these emotions were swirling in her insides.
“Mom, did I do something wrong?” Gisa asked, “can I play with Spot now?”
Before her mother could answer that sentence, Anton’s footsteps could be heard on the stairs, the Cecani father was livid.
“Gretchen! How could you do that to me?! I had to almost double the donations so the bishop would agree to the deal, and he got the wine off the table.”
“Don’t yell at me Anton,” Gretchen replied in her cold calculating voice, “I didn’t give you that right.” Her husband stared at her with veins pulsing on his neck, but he took a deep breath and managed to calm himself down. Even in his rage he knew when to recognize that his wife was right.
“I’m sorry,” Anton replied, “but that was a very important deal, and now I’m just barely going to make a decent profit margin.”
“I’m sure your business will live on,” replied Gretchen, sick of the political concerns, “and what’s important here is that it wasn’t me that brought the cat back Anton, it was our daughter. She is a ghoulcaller.” The Cecani father stared at his own kid as if realizing just now that she was there.
“You…” he spoke while looking at Gisa, “you got this cat back from the dead?”
“I-I did,” stammered the child, unsure of what was going on, “I just wanted a friend to play with.”
“She is powerful Anton,” Gretchen intervened before he could say anything else, “I’ve never heard of a ghoulcaller able to raise them back from this age. She has to be taught.”
“Absolutely not,” Anton Cecani replied, “I already have too many problems to deal with thanks to my wife, the stitcher. The members of the Church are breathing down my neck, and I’m being robbed blind on briberies alone.”
“Anton…” Gretchen tried to speak, but her husband was already going up the stairs.
“That’s all I will have of it. Make sure Gisa brings no more zombies to this house. And get rid of the cat.”
“No!” Cried her daughter, holding to her mother’s arm, “you can’t do that! He is my friend, I got him back!”
Gretchen took a deep breath, pondering the options. She, like most skaberen, found ghoulcalling a gross misuse of the necromantic arts. Maybe it would be best if she just tried to suppress that in her child.
“Listen, Gisa, my darling, we can’t keep Spot here. He has to go back to the Blessed Sleep.”
“No! But he is looking just fine! I found him, Geralf killed him, and now that I got him back you want to take him away from me again! That’s not fair!”
“Darling, I-”
“I hate you! All of you!” Yelled Gisa, tears rolling from her eyes while she moved up the stairs, “you don’t want me to have any friends!”
Gretchen couldn’t say anything. She knew there was nothing that could make things better. She just hoped her daughter could overcome her own feelings.
The Present.
The eldrazi werewolves knew, somehow, that Gisa was the only living creature among them. And that made her, for some reason, their only target. The tentacles sprouting from their bodies extended in multiple directions while acting in unison with what had remained of their original limbs. Their movement was unnatural and hard to understand, as if their muscles had been moved to all of the wrong places and the limbs didn’t do what they were supposed to. And yet, they were moving.
If it weren’t for Gisa’s zombie horde, she would have died on the spot. She commanded her minions to grab a hold of the tentacles and limbs and muzzles, to try and overwhelm the creatures with numbers. However, the werewolves were not only strong, but incredibly fast. They bit and slashed and ran, making grotesque sounds while jumping to the walls and back into the mass of undead, brawling their way towards the ghoulcaller. Gisa was singing to all of the remaining fallen soldiers, increasing her army, but the eldrazi were eliminating the zombies while sustaining very few injuries. She wasn’t sure there would be enough zombies to kill the creatures before they killed her.
The ghoulcaller tried to move back up, but there was only a rope dangling from the upper balcony for her to climb. There was no way she could make that climb. Gisa started to desperately search for the ladders when the zombies managed to drag down one of the creatures and pile up over it. However, the trapped werewolf emitted a dull humming sound that made the other two come to its aid, freeing it from the masses of undead bodies. One of the eldrazi would have almost gotten to the ghoulcaller if weren’t for a zombie holding a greatsword that cleaved off one of its tentacles. The unnatural appendage went flailing on the ground, and that made Gisa take some steps back and stumble on a big table full of undead skaabs. The stitched bodies almost fell over her, and she felt a strong smell of oil lamp coming from them. That gave her an idea.
Gisa had found the ladders hidden below one of the tables, but now there was no way of escaping. The werewolves had torn most of her army apart, and she was trapped in a corner near the skaab tables. Only two lines of zombies were left to protect her while the latticed tentacled werewolves made clicking and buzzing sounds, mixing it with a rasping growl that seemed to come from the movement of their jaws. Gisa was looking at the skaabs and the gas lamps, and she knew that her only chance was to do to the werewolves what had once been done to her. However, the eldrazi were too far away, and she knew that skaabs didn’t rise to her call. Her only option was to recite the silent word. Vox Quietus. Ah, if only Geralf could see her now.
Jumping from their positions, the three eldrazi werewolves went with claws and teeth into the few remaining zombies. Gisa hurried to move all the skaab bodies as close to her as she could, cupping her hands around her mouth and starting to chant the incantation. Ab ovo usque ad mala, fiat experimentum…. When the werewolves had slain the last of the zombies, the skaabs had finally risen from their tables. They were stitched creatures without anything in their minds, useless and stupid blank slates. Fortunately for Gisa, she wasn’t asking too much of them. The eldrazi drones stood still for a moment as if looking at the skaabs, knowing there was something different about those zombies. That was when the ghoulcaller grabbed a gas lamp nearby and threw it on the undead creations. The stitched zombies immediately ignited into a flaming ball of death, and Gisa manage to make them go forward with a shout. The drones were caught by surprise when their opponents were not only in a state of combustion, but also much faster than the regular zombies. Each skaab came into contact with a werewolf grabbing it as if by pure instinct. The swirling mass of tentacles and fur that were the eldrazi quickly lit ablaze in the hands of the flaming zombies.
Gisa didn’t look at the howling and buzzing that was happening just a few feet from her. She was occupied going up the ladder she’d found and put in place. The werewolves were thrashing and rolling on the ground while producing high-pitched roars, but the skaab bodies were too flammable of a material. They would never put that fire down. The whole place started to burn and get flooded with dark smoke when Gisa managed to reach the balcony and escape. She was tripping and trembling, barely holding on while coughing from all the smoke she inhaled. The howls of the eldrazi echoed through the Erdwal, and much like the Morkrut, nobody dared to follow the screams.
The rain that came from the shore was pouring through the broken roof of the old Cecani Manor. Ghoulcaller Gisa, sitting in the living room, didn’t seem to notice her soaked clothes while her own vision was blurred with tears. She never felt so alone. The only thing she wanted was to have friends, people that didn’t call her a freak all the time. She had Geralf, but he had abandoned her, and then Nahiri, but she had left too. Now even her plan of getting back to her brother had been a complete disaster.
Gisa was tired of talking to zombies. She was tired of being hunted and chased by the cathars, and of not having someone to count on. She had to give up even on Spot, all because her stupid father was too worried and her mom was too lenient. It wasn’t fair. The ghoulcaller was looking at her own grafdigger’s shovel, thinking about when she would finally die and reach the Blessed Sleep, when she would rest alone without anyone, forever. It wouldn’t be different from her current life, she supposed. Then there was a knock on the door.
That was weird. First, because she didn’t even know there was something left of the door to be knocked on, and second because she couldn’t believe someone would actually come to this place to knock on a door. Gisa rose to her feet, wondering if it was one of many enemies that the boss talked about, coming to take her life. She didn’t even feel like fighting it anymore. A voice came from the outside, a grave and deep voice.
“Gisa? Gisa Cecani?”
The ghoulcaller moved with uncertainty. If it was someone intending to brutally murder her, they were being very polite about it.
“Yes, it’s me. Over here in the living room.”
Metal hinges creaked, and an older man holding a tricorn hat showed up on the room. He had mostly grey hair and a dark beard, and seemed to be somewhere between middle age and his senior years.
“Sorry to interrupt,” the voice of the man was really deep, and it occurred to Gisa that he might be a good singer, “my name is Jadar, and I am too a ghoulcaller.”
Gisa opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, but she didn’t know what it was. So she decided to just remain quiet while the man kept speaking.
“I was an acquaintance of your mother when she was still alive. We had our differences, but she wrote me a letter a long time ago asking me to mentor her daughter in the art of ghoulcalling. I tried to reach you after the incident here, but you had moved away to Gavony and the Moorland, and I didn’t know how to find you. Now I’ve heard about another incident in the Ditch involving a ghoulcaller, and I thought about coming here. I knew it was a long shot, but-”
The man stopped himself when he saw Gisa’s face turn from confusion into happiness. “You knew mom? And you are a ghoulcaller too?”
Jadar, feeling more at ease, smiled. “As a matter of fact, yes, I am.” The other ghoulcaller kept rubbing the tricorn hat he was holding while speaking, “and… well… listen, I know a lot of time has passed, but if you are still interest in exchanging some ideas and having me as a friend, I could-”
Gisa jumped over Jadar, hugging him around the neck. She kept the hug for a while, finally breaking free of it and putting her hands around his face to answer.
“If I would like a friend? Of course I would! That’s wonderful!”
The visitor smiled once again, speaking once more, “oh, well, we have all the time in the world to get to know each other better. Tell you what – I’ve heard there was a storm in the coast and there was a shipwreck, what do you say of going there to sing a duet? See who raises more drowned sailors?”
Gisa, her maniacal smile returning to her face, was grinning from ear to ear.
“I say that you have a new friend Jadar, and we are going to have a lot of fun together.”
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
URGRiku, Sorcerer SupremeGRU
Who needs permanents anyways?
WUBRGDeckbuilder's ToolboxGRBUW
Warning:Contents include 34 decks and growing
I̟̥͍̠ͅn̩͉̣͍̬͚ͅ ̬̬͖t̯̹̞̺͖͓̯̤h̘͍̬e͙̯͈̖̼̮ ̭̬f̺̲̲̪i͙͉̟̩̰r̪̝͚͈̝̥͍̝̲s̼̻͇̘̳͔ͅt̲̺̳̗̜̪̙ ̳̺̥̻͚̗ͅm̜̜̟̰͈͓͎͇o̝̖̮̝͇m̯̻̞̼̫̗͓̤e̩̯̬̮̩n͎̱̪̲̹͖t͇̖s̰̮ͅ,̤̲͙̻̭̻̯̹̰ ̖t̫̙̺̯͖͚̯ͅh͙̯̦̳̗̰̟e͖̪͉̼̯ ̪͕g̞̣͔a̗̦t̬̬͓͙̫̖̭̻e̩̻̯ ̜̖̦̖̤̭͙̬t̞̹̥̪͎͉ͅo͕͚͍͇̲͇͓̺ ̭̬͙͈̣̻t͈͍͙͓̫̖͙̩h̪̬̖̙e̗͈ ̗̬̟̞̺̤͉̯ͅa̦̯͚̙̜̮f͉͙̲̣̞̼t̪̤̞̣͚e̲͉̳̥r͇̪̙͚͓l̥̞̞͎̹̯̹ͅi͓̬f̮̥̬̞͈ͅe͎ ̟̩̤̳̠̯̩̯o̮̘̲p̟͚̣̞͉͓e͍̩̣n͔̼͕͚̜e̬̱d̼̘͎̖̹͍̮̠,͖̺̭̱̮ ̣̲͖̬̪̭̥a̪͚n̟̲̝̤̤̞̗d̘̱̗͇̮͕̳͕͔ ͖̞͉͎t̹̙͎h̰̱͉̗e̪̞̱̝̹̩ͅ ̠̱̩̭̦p̯̙e͓o̳͚̰̯̺̱̰͔̘p̬͎̱̣̼̩͇l̗̟̖͚̠e̱͉͔̱̦̬̟̙ ̖͚̪͔̼̦w̺̖̤̱e͖̗̻̦͓̖̘̜r̭̥e͔̹̫̱͕̦̰͕ ̗͔̠p̠̗͍͍̱̳̠r̰͔͎̰o͉̥͓̰͚̥s̟͚̹̱͔̣t͉̙̳̖͖̪̮r̥̘̥͙̹a͉̟̫̟̳̠̟̭t͈̜̰͈͎e̞̣̭̲̬ ͚̗̯̟͙i͍͖̰̘̦͖͉ṇ̮̻̯̦̲̩͍ ̦̮͚̫̤t͉͖̫͕ͅͅh͙̮̻̘̣̮̼e͕̺ ͙l͕̠͎̰̥i̲͓͉̲g̫̳̟͈͇̖h̠̦̖t͓̯͎̗ ̳̪̘̟̙̩̦o̫̲f̙͔̰̙̠ ̹̪̗͇̯t͖̼̼͉͖̬h̹͇̩e͚̖̺̤͉̹͕̪ ͚͓̭̝̺G͎̗̯̩o̫̯̮̟̮̳̘d̜̲͙̠-̩̳̯̲̗̜P̹̘̥͉̝h͍͈̗̖̝ͅa͍̗̮̼̗r̜̖͇̙̺a̭̺͔̞̳͈o̪̣͓̯̬͙̯̰̗h̖̦͈̥̯͔.͇̣̙̝
Other than a few spots where the conjunctions and phrasing felt a little off, namely in the weredraziwolf section of the story, the story was another great read, Ashiok. One note i do remember from the Cecani lore: I think its describrd thst the parents hated each other quite heavily. Not that that in any way detracts from this great story; just a note if a Geralf story in the future ever comes up. If this story had just added a letter from Gisa to geralf ala the story Games, I think it would have been perfect. But I'm always a sucker for a good moment of character expression, either in dialogue or action, so that's just a preference thing. I'm quite enjoying your takes on these legends and looking forward to all of the ones yet to come!
EDH - Yes, Each One is Named After a Song. I love tying music to my decks.
B Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief B - Fear of the Dark
WG Sigarda, Heron's Grace WG - Strength in Numbers
RG Xenagos, God of Revels RG - Fullmoon (It's werewolves)
RW Archangel Avacyn // Avacyn, the Purifier RW - The End is Nigh
60 Card Kitchen Table Decks
WUB Avacyn, Spirit Ferrier
RG Arlinn Kord's Howlpack
I did try to develop Gisa considerably more than WotC by giving her motivations and a clear personality. She is a very interesting character and I'm happy for the results. Hah, indeed, this is one of the best parts. I enjoyed writing about the whole Cecani family. To be honest, family dynamics is a thing that I think goes quite unexplored in standard fantasy world building (Game of Thrones being a notable exception), and only the fact that these characters exist in Magic Lore already makes me happy. Thank you very much man! When I started reading what I wrote for the first time, I realized the exact same thing: I gave her a Harley Quinn personality. It felt very appropriate, to be honest, heh. I do try to keep some references to the Vorthos folk, that's why the research takes a considerable amount of time. About the werewolf part - I think writing actions scenes overall is quite difficult, and that may have reflected in that partciular scene. Fortunately goldnight's blade offered a free revision help, and that means future stories will probably come a little more tidy and organized.
Thanks a lot for reading and sharing your feedback, I'm already working on the next story, let's see if I can make it come out soon.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).