Acquisitions

Mud and gravel squelched underfoot as Symon navigated the sodden hillside. His initial planeswalk had been uncharacteristically off- he'd landed in Stensia, and had to pick his way southeast along the foothills for three days before gaining sight of his destination. The Farbog, a mist-shrouded expanse of dead trees, murky shallows and Zegana knows how many stalking undead, languished ahead of him. Somewhere within, he would find what he was after- a lost temple, a remnant of one of the desperate cults that sprung up on the planes from time to time. And within, the hallowed object that was ferried across the plane in an attempt to regain the attention of some dark entity.

By his best estimates, it was about mid-morning by the time he reached a rocky precipice overlooking the swampland. Casting off his bulky traveler's pack, he took a moment to let the vista ahead of him sink in. His breathing slowed, he let his senses wash over the landscape, taking in every curve and cleft in the earth and the patterns of foliage that protruded from the blanket of mist. His trusty scope was of little use in such conditions, so he would have to rely on a more thorough survey. Symon measured a few paces away from the ledge, turned, and lowered into a dead sprint towards the precipice.

And he threw himself into the void.

As his momentum dropped off and he began to plummet, Symon tightened his mental grasp on the skeins of blue and green mana he had called upon, and reached out below him. A familiar form took place, growing in size as he funnelled more and more energy into the summoning, until finally a creature appeared in freefall next to him. A wide, flat body caught Symon in midair, and then extended a pair of leathery, green, sail-like wings, pulling up mere meters from the marsh and rocketing across the surface. Symon had always enjoyed watching the Nimbus Swimmers that coasted in the air around his father's Zonot, back in Ravnica. They could be as big or as small as the summoner needed them to be.

It took another hour of coasting on the banks of fog over the Farbog before he found what he was looking for. The landscape was dotted with the crumbling remnants of bridges and walkways, failed attempts to navigate the expanse, but one ruin loomed above the rest. A narrow promontory loomed out of the mist, the ruins of archways leading up its face like the spines of a rotting behemoth. Symon came in low, willing his Swimmer to abruptly pull up before dismissing the summon, dropping only a few meters onto the slick cobbles and tangled undergrowth. Before him, the decrepit husk of what was once a chapel sprawled, a maze of rubble and dingy corridors. Hardly an inviting place, but Symon had rummaged through worse. All the same, he kept a few tendrils of mana coiled around his mind, ready in case of a surprise.

The scene within the walls was certainly a surprise. After making his way carefully up a crumbling stairway, through an antechamber and what he surmised was a service passage without resistance, he emerged in the nave of the church. The aisles remained free of dust and mildew, upright and arranged in an orderly fashion. The ceiling was collapsed in several places, and a low wind moaned through the gaps, disturbing the tattered remains of tapestries that clung to the walls, deep scarlets and whites faded with exposure. Some twenty or twenty-five humanoid figures were seated among the pews, all clothed in the same white robes, tarnished with soot and dirt, heads bowed.

The entire room was silent. Slowly, cautiously, Symon stepped into the room. The dull thuds of his boots echoed, and the figures did not stir, all facing forward towards a raised dais at the other end of the chapel, draped in scarlet cloths. As he got closer, Symon's suspicions were confirmed. The figures were all dead, withered and dessicated as if they had been mummified on the spot. Some sort of vitality-draining magic, he supposed, strong and fast enough to take them all by surprise and end them simultaneously. Gingerly, he reached out to the cadaver closest to him, which appeared to have been a middle-aged male with a short ginger beard and rounded features, and gave it a gentle prod. The body keeled to the side, and as it hit the seat of the pew it collapsed, sloughing into tatters of dry flesh and corpse-dust. Symon tried not to gag. At least it was unlikely he'd be surprised by them any time soon.

Sensing no immediate danger, Symon shuddered and drew his coat tighter around him before turning his attentions to the dais. The crimson cloth he had noticed earlier was cascading down from a slender podium, atop which what appeared to be a football-sized hunk of unrefined silver sat. While the shape was irregular, the object stood upright, balanced on a single point on the more rounded end. As he approached within a few feet, the hair on his neck stood on end and he felt a coppery taste in his mouth. This is what he was after, for sure. He cast his eyes around. The draped cloth drew his eye, and he noted that their brilliant red faded about a pace away from the altar, forming a clear circle within which no decay had taken hold. Some protective ward, then. That was okay, though- Symon liked a good problem.

"A conundrum, yes?" A voice, gravelly and somehow oily at the same time, cut through the silence. Symon spun around, searching for the source, but was met with the vacant stares of the withered cultists and the silent walls. The voice continued, dripping with scorn. "But one that has been laid claim to. I suggest you scavenge elsewhere, Mister Haskel."

"Have we met?" Symon continued to turn in place, scanning the recesses and shadows of the room and its points of egress. Part of him wanted to flee, but curiosity held him, as did his unwillingness to revoke his claim on the shard. "You seem awful familiar, for a super spooky disembodied voice."

"I don't believe so, no... but we have some mutual acquaintances." A leathery sound and soft footfalls drew Symon's attention, and a figure emerged from the shadows of a crumbling side entrance, stooping slightly to squeeze through the doorframe. The speaker was a reptilian humanoid with hunched posture, a swept-back pair of horns on a brow above two pinpoints of cold, greenish light that must be eyes, dressed in robes of murky gray. A pair of tattered wings were folded on its back, and a thin, whiplike tail with raised spines coiled behind it. Revealed in the light of the main chamber, the dragon-man paused, regarding Symon with his head turned to one side like a bird of prey. The biomancer felt uncomfortable. "My name is Belloski, one you may have heard of. I am something of a, how to say... procurer and purveyor of useful oddities. Such as that which lays before you." He gestured with one long claw towards the silver chunk.

"I've... heard a thing or two. In passing." Symon remained on edge. Not all of what he'd heard was good. He tried to keep the dragon distracted, turning to the altar as well. "So... is it true? Is it a piece of the Helvault?" The dragon let out a gurgling chuckle, shaking its head.

"The church snatched up any significant fragments of their precious guardian's prison, I am afraid. This... it is a shallow imitation. An attempt to replicate the craftsmanship of one of the most powerful planeswalkers still in existence. It failed, of course, but as you see... it is not without potency." Belloski gave a crocodilian smile. "Not what you were seeking, but a worthy addition to my collection. It will fetch a high price from the right customer... unless you have something to offer?"

Symon took a step back into a more readied stance. "No offense, Belloski, but I'm not sure I can trust you." The dragon's eyes narrowed to slivers of light.

"Your words wound me, friend... surely you would see this resolve peacefully?" Symon could sense it more strongly now. The same lingering shades of mana that felled the cultists was swelling within Belloski, a roiling mixture of white and black. His actions betrayed his words.

"Like what you did to these folk? I'm sure you resolved them -real- peacefully." Symon spat, drawing on his own reserves of mana in response to the threat imposed by the dragon merchant. He would be hard pressed to find an advantage in the middle of a swamp. Belloski had the home mana advantage, and the biomancer had no idea what he was capable of.

Belloski raised one clenched fist. "I merely performed a public service... you would not have liked their plans, I think. But if you insist on being an obstacle..." He thrust his hand open palm-first, and a torrent of energy erupted from his position.

Symon threw up a screen of vines that exploded through the flagstones, trying to defend himself as the wave shot through him. The spell didn't tousle so much as a hair- however, he felt his chest tighten and his muscles grow weak, the magic siphoning his vitality. Stupid, he thought, expecting a physical attack. Channeling his own focus, a pair of humanoid figures in long coats and tricorns stepped forward from the aether flanking him, facsimiles of the trackers he had worked with, each brandishing a pair of gleaming blades. The two darted forwards, buying Symon some time while he reached out to distant streams and woodlands.

On the other side of the dais, Belloski chanted in a gurgling tongue Symon didn't understand. With a sweep of his claws, he beckoned forth a trio of incorporeal figures, shrouded in tattered cloth similar to the cultists who had died in the chapel. It seems the old drake made good use of his victim's spirits, at least, Symon thought. The spirits wafted among his trackers, darting away from their blades and swooping in only to be parried in turn. Growing in confidence, Belloski unleashed another torrent of draining energy, but the biomancer was prepared this time, darting to interpose the Altar and its stasis field between himself and the dragon. As he had hoped, the spell crashed and fizzled around the field, and he heard Belloski curse through the dissipating magic over the clash of their summoned creatures.

"Come on, come on..." Symon wracked his memory between ragged breaths, trying to think of something that would give him an edge. The dragon wasn't physically imposing, but that first spell had hit the biomancer like a baloth and there was no way he could take another. He'd been lucky the field had soaked up his second attempt.

Aha, he thought. A bit of a gamble, but what choice did he have?

Belloski snarled as one of the trackers pirouetted and sliced through a spectre, the form shrieking as it dissipated into vapor. He raised a hand and made a cutting motion, and the offending human contorted and twisted in the grip of an invisible claw before going limp with a sickening crunch and collapsing. The other two spirits circled the biomancer's remaining summon, and ignoring it, he stalked around the dais, preparing another roiling mass of draining energy. This little spat had drawn on long enough, he thought. He had business to conduct elsewhere, and if he kept toying with the naive explorer then he may lose a future customer. Better to incapacitate the lad now and make amends later. Maybe give him a discount coupon for the store or something. Seeing a lithe human form in the swirling dust ahead, he lunged with his magic, hitting the biomancer square in the chest and kicking up another cloud of dust. He felt a sliver of vital energy flow through him, and a flicker of doubt. Perhaps he had hit the boy too hard.

As he approached the figure in the settling dust, his concern quickly turned to confusion and frustration. The body he had struck was even now unravelling into skeins of mana, as he had struck yet another tracker. The mage was crafty... as he swung his head, scanning the room, he did not see Symon. What he did see, however, was a hulking quadrupedal beast at the far end of the nave, which was barreling towards him. Pews splintered under the baloth's feet, and the ground quaked as the thing drew closer. Belloski turned unafraid, and willed more of his own servants into being, decaying bodies and translucent spirits erupting from the ground to place a small horde between the charging beast and himself. He let our a bark of laughter. Was this the best the child could do?

And then he saw Symon behind the Baloth, hands outstretched and muttering. The dragon began to move, to let his summoned creatures take the brunt of Symon's attack, but the beast's image suddenly warped and folded in on itself, disappearing. The undead horde he had summoned paused, unable to follow his directive to defend against the monster.

"Amateur! You mean to say you can't even sustain a-" Belloski's taunt was cut off as the Baloth exploded back into being on the other side of his minions, mere feet away. Suddenly, he became all too aware all too late that the artifact's stasis field was only a few paces behind him. As time seemed to slow and his vision filled with the leathery hide of the Baloth, a calm voice murmured in his mind.

Oh, it said. You cheeky bugger.

The multiple tonnes of Baloth slammed into him, and he felt himself fly back and impact the field surrounding the artefact. He felt energy course through his body as if he was struck by lightning. He hung in midair for what seemed like an eternity, and once the field relaxed its hold on Belloski, he unceremoniously dropped to the floor, wheezing. His strength had left him.

Symon took slow, deliberate steps towards the altar. The chunk of silver had toppled from the altar, the field protecting it rendered intert by the massive overload. The creation was capable of draining and storing energy, but it was too small and amateur in design to deal with the reserves of mana a planeswalker could call upon. Kneeling, he picked up the silver lodestone, and it thrummed with a small fraction of the energy Belloski had been hurling around. A lucky break, he thought, glancing back to where the dragon man was trying to prop himself up, wheezing heavily. The merchant's pack had torn from its strap at the impact, and a few loose bits of parchment were strewn across the cracked flagstones. He picked one up.

"Belloski's Bazaar," he murmured. "Purveyors of the finest curiosities and equipment for the curious. Buy, Sell and Trade. Address... wherever you need it most." Intrigued, the biomancer pocketed one before continuing on down the aisle. His right side was still numb and he thought the dragon had cracked at least one of his ribs, but he didn't want to press his luck with the downed merchant. His pride had been wounded, he was sure, and perhaps he owed the dragon some serious spending as an apology. That could wait until their wounds had healed and ill will subsided. In the meantime, though, maybe Zix's boss would have some use for his trinket.

Slowly, Belloski eased himself to his feet. He felt space warp on the periphery of his senses as the biomancer planeswalked away. An egregious insult, he thought. He would exact a heavy toll on the arrogant child, in time. A lesson would be taught. All he had to do was wait.