The Starpath Staff - an Artefact game

 The Starpath Staff

I was made from a sapling oak grown in a lonely field, possibly from an acorn buried by a confused squirrel. My wood was stripped, treated and used as a walking staff, passed down from father to son over generations in the Treue clan, worn smooth by the hands of many men of the same blood. I eventually ended up in the hands of the sixth son of six sixth sons, a wizard of remarkable natural ability called Macsech. Once he achieved power as a fully fledged wizard, Macsech decided to imbue me with magical power, since I was already a remarkable object both in history and make.

First, he had me planed into a hexagonal shape, and shod with meteoric iron. Then, taking me to a place of natural leylines, where mages of old had erected a stone circle, Macsech planted me into the centre of the circle on the night of the summer solstice. After ceremonially cutting his palms, he grasped my shaft with both his bloody hands and called out words of power, binding me to the Treue lineage. Once the ritual was complete, the places where Macsech gripped my shaft had dark wood marks of the wizard's fingers and palms; otherwise, the rest of me took on a redwood lustre.

I quickly became known as Macsech's Starpath Staff, because it was obvious where the wizard had walked when one looked on the ground and saw my hexagonal mark left in the ground. I was always said to have a SERIOUS air, as though to say I should not be messed with; I had a kind of WARM pulse, reminiscent of heartblood; and I was known to be incredibly LOYAL to my maker, never leaving his side, even by force.

Eventually I would just become known as the Starpath Staff. But I'll always think of myself as Macsech's: it is his hands that still grip my haft.

One day, the king grew paranoid at the growing power of the Treue family - due to its powerful heritage and large landholdings supporting the large family - so he marched against Macsech and the Treue clan. Standing atop his tower, Macsech called upon the power in me to protect the Treue, and struck my butt down upon the roof of the tower six times. In doing so, he summoned six winds that pushed back the armies of the king, until they were simply unable to enter the Treue lands. The spell burned my butt with scorch marks that could never hence be removed.

As an object of magical power, I have a better sense of the true nature of magic which eluded even Macsech in the heights of his power as an archmage. Because at its heart the essence of magic is chaos which wizards strive to bring into order, I always feared that this chaos, if too deeply tapped, would overcome the Treue and plunge them into chaos, destroying the family. My purpose is to draw together and protect, strengthen and empower the Treue. I am of their blood; I am part of their family. Indeed, aside from their land itself, I am their longest lived member. So they must never discover the inner chaos of the magic they wield.

After many years and more adventures, Macsech finally passed on, and I was passed on to his sixth son, Vol. Like all sixth sons, Vol was quite independent of the family, and also had the natural magical ability of his fathers. Scarred by the attack of the king on their lands as a child, Vol decided that it was time for a change of government; one which would place his family in a position of safety, prosperity, and comfort. He was also an ambitious young man though, and felt himself more intelligent than the average person, and more deserving to rule than the present line of kings. In fairness, they were unhealthily paranoid, and probably slept with their sisters or something.

It was in the hands of the wizard Vol that I struck down the king himself. Vol entered the king's presence, and of course was made to relinquish all weapons before entering his court. However, when the king and Vol came to blows when arguing about the king wishing to resume control of the Treue lands, I found my way into Vol's hands, and struck the mighty blow that smote the king in his place, using the fury of the Treue to extinguish not only the king himself, but his entire lineage to the sixth degree of separation. Apparently this was a little bit excessive - there were a few cousins of Vol who had been married into the royal line in generations passed, who suddenly disappeared - but since many of the king's royal guard were also his family members, it placed Vol onto the throne almost immediately and without contest. It seemed efficient at the time.

Vol never really lost me... but I had become FEARED. My power was now considered both legendary and terrible. As a symbol of Vol's power and right to rule, I was mounted above his throne. And there I stayed. Vol never touched me again.

It was 10 years and six days later that I would again feel the ground under my butt, and the touch of Treue fingers around my shaft. This time, the enemy was a foreign power, seeking to invade the country. Of course, now, the whole country was the domain of Treue blood - crown land and all that - so when Vol's sixth son, Riarra, was called to lead the armies of the land into battle to protect its borders, he reached over the throne and took hold of me. He was but a boy when his father became king, but he knew full well my power; he knew that I had made his father king. He did not take me lightly.

Riarra was too much a sixth son, however. Oh yes, we went to war. He still felt loyalty to his family. But he was an independent soul, and he resented having to go into battle when he would have much rathered spending his time in the substantial library of his wizard-king father. He knew that, though he might carry the mystical heritage of his father, his eldest brother would inherit the political rule. And this was what Vol always wanted - he was politician first, wizard second. Riarra, on the other hand, just wanted to lose himself to the magic.

This meant he was also much more discerning in his use of my power. He knew that his own people feared my power. And so, weaving his magic around him, he snuck unseen into the enemy camp, planning to use my power to weaken the entire army. He was successful - of course he was, with my help. From the middle of their camp, I sent the enemy soldiers into a chaotic frenzy. They drew their swords and struck at each other, seeing themselves all as their own worst enemies. The night was one of screaming and blood. The army destroyed itself before the next sunrise.

Unfortunately, I am the Starpath Staff, and although Riarra was invisible to the eye, I continued to leave my stamp upon the ground where he trod. The enemy general - a woman by the name Condur - saw these marks, and struck out wildly towards Riarra. He blocked the blow with my own shaft, and I did my utmost to protect him. He survived, but the sword split me in two. The explosion was devastating. It wasn't my fault: I was not built to be broken! I was attempting to arrest the chaotic power of the magic. But this was too much, and it all came out.

It would be a long time before I was reformed. Riarra dropped me like a piece of garbage - well, two pieces - and ran. I fell into the trampled mud of the enemy camp, and there I stayed. Blood fell about me as the soldiers continued to vent their bezerk rage on one another. Then rain fell, turning the ground to mud. Then snow fell, and remained until the next spring. Finally, after the snow had thawed, I was found again.

The man who found me was Deyflin, leader of a group of bandits who had stumbled across the deserted camp of soldiers and the carnage which had been covered through the winter. As the frost thawed, it revealed bodies to be looted and tents to ransack. I had sat there alone for the winter, but not lonely - my warmth meant there was a little patch of grass around me free of the winter chill, which attracted small animals scavenging for food among the snow and ice. Deyflin also came to me with a hunger - a hunger for wealth and power. In that he reminded me of Macsech's son, Vol. Upon seeing my two halves sitting on the bare ground, where not even snow dared to fall, he felt the same fear that my power had inspired in others. But if you want to lead a group of cut-throats, you quickly learn that you can't show any fear. So with a display of bravado, he called out to his fellow bandits, exclaiming that he had found some obviously powerful item, and then once he had ensured they were all watching, he reached down and grabbed the two pieces of my shaft in each hand.

He awoke a few minutes later in a tree. I had to make sure he took me seriously. The second time there was less bluster, and a bit more respect. After all, I did sense in him a hint of Treue blood - the grandson of an illegitimate union - and since I was getting bored, that was good enough for me. Besides, I needed to be repaired and brought back to my former glory.

Deyflin took me back to his "court". It was a far cry from Vol's actual kingly court - a ramshackle longhouse, a few wattle and daub huts, and now several more tents than they had before looting the decimated soldier camp. Deyflin was no stranger to violence or battle, and upon sensing the power in my halves, he made the decision to have me turned into two fighting shillelagh instead of trying to reform my original staff form. Having my head shod with cold iron - I suppose meteoric iron is hard to come by as a bandit - I now had two heads, and he carried me holstered upon his belt.

Now, I've got to say that before this I had only very rarely been wielded in anger. Macsech was the type to walk softly and carry a big stick. But Deyflin walked softly and carried two big sticks. He was a master at cracking heads. He was ruthless, but not unnecessarily violent. He knew that if you crush the snake's head the body goes limp, and together we travelled the dark paths of the night, finding the dens of thieves, pirates and other low-lives, catching their leaders unawares, and beating seven colours of refuse from them. Some had to die - you know these leader types: they can be very stubborn - but others were willing to cede their groups to Deyflin after a good enough beating. After a few years of consolidation, he had really earned his title King of Bandits, and had groups under his control up and down the countryside.

It was at this time that my name changed, as did my reputation. No longer did I leave my star path in the dirt; now I travelled the paths lit only by stars. And I was no longer one, but two - in the hands of Deyflin, I became the starpath staves.

But alas, all good things come to an end. As Deyflin's power grew and consolidated, he needed my power less and less. We sat atop a makeshift throne more and more. Despite the pivotal role I played in building up his power base, the stories increasingly spoke of Deyflin and his power and his skills, and the starpath staves didn't really factor in. I became just another set of weapons in the arsenal of the bandit king - weapons that were used less and less.

Ten more years! Ten long years went by, ticked by, inched by in the flickering light of a scarcely used armoury, before I saw the sun again, and felt the warm touch of Treue skin upon my hafts once more. Apparently Vol had made numerous promises to his nobles that he would take care of this bandit king menace, and so one day the king's knights came crashing into the longhouse, there was chaos left and right, and I was cofiscated - confiscated, can you believe it?! - and, collected up with all the other weapons, we were assigned to the king's armoury instead, for the use of his fighting men. I dreaded sitting in an armoury for more years, and I very nearly took it out on the knight who grabbed me, but when he touched me I could tell that he was the son of Tezzer, who was the son of Yeltsin, who was the son of Framlin, who was the father of Macsech. So I showed him some mercy.

Of course, knights are not mages, and to them I was just a stick - well, two sticks. They like swords and spears and lances and the like. I was easily the most powerful weapon in the armoury - I had killed a king's whole family in one blow! I had crushed the skulls of some of the biggest badass bandits out there! But no, I wasn't shiny and sharp enough. I wasn't an axe with delusions of grandeur; I wasn't a kitchen knife gone mad. Well, it didn't matter to me anyway. I could bide my time.

Turns out I didn't need to wait that long. It turns out that Tezzer's son - who was named Framlin also, after his great grandfather - was given a quest to go and slay a horde of undead which had been raised by an evil necromancer in the swamps to the west. Apparently these skeletal warriors were unharmed by swords and spears, because their blades simply glanced off their magical bones. Enter the starpath staves. I knew how to crush bones good. I mean, er, well. I spent a long time in the hands of warrior types. They are not known for their good diction. It rubs off.

Framlin the Younger was dispatched as part of a circle of knights to go and face this undead menace. Young Framlin wasn't as confident fighting with two hands as Deyflin had been. Knights are more of a sword and board - that is, shield - type of warrior. At one point, Framlin had even been considering leaving half of me behind, to use me as a club. Can you imagine? A club!? What am I, a slab of wood dragged across the field by a neanderthal to club a woolly mammoth? No thank you. While dual-wielding might seem awkward, when done properly it is a thing of finesse and fury. I made sure that once he had one half in his hand, the warmth of his family blood called to his off hand to take my other half. I gave him a few pointers - just little tips in muscle movement and weight distribution that I had learned from my time with Deyflin - and together, Framlin the Younger and I went out to face the evils of the swamp.

Now this circle of knights were a proud bunch, and they called themselves the Light of Men. They were going to fight supernatural darkness, after all, and they felt they had the blessing of their god on their side. They started off haughty and light-hearted. But once they faced their first platoon of skeletal fiends - warriors who neither tire nor fear, who fight until each bone is broken, whose eyeless sockets and baleful grinning skulls would strike fear into the most hardened heart - after they had lost their first friends to the rusty blades and bony clawing hands, the Light of Men darkened considerably. Simple warriors were no match for the dark mysticism against which they fought, yet fought they did; with Framlin wielding my might, they were eventually victorious, driving back the darkness of the necromancer's foul magics into the foul swamps where they belonged. I protected Framlin every day he was in that awful swamp: not only from skeletal warriors, but from the cold, the damp, the biting flies and the diseases that travelled on the putrid air. I kept his spirits high, allowing him to combat the unholy fear these undead soldiers brought with them. Framlin and five of his fellows returned victorious to the castle, thanks to me.

Together with all the other weapons and armour of the returning heroes, I was BLESSED by the king's archpriest. It was only at this point, as I was brought into court for the ceremony, that King Vol recognised me! I was returned to my position above the throne, and there I stayed, watching over the king's rule, his good and bad decisions, his victories and defeats. But I played no part in them. I just sat there, back on the wall, and watched.

Tol gave way to Tem, who passed the crown to Sestus, who had only daughters and left the throne to Cyrele, who ruled a long, long time. Cyrele's grandson inherited the throne: his name was Tongor. Then there was Ellin, then Nifal, then Elcede. Centuries of peace and prosperity passed. Not only that, but while the bloodline of Treue grew broad, it seemed to become more shallow. The wealthier and more successful the family became, the fewer children they seemed to have. Several generations passed with no sixth sons, and I feared that magic might forever leave the bloodline.

Eventually, peace becomes the norm and the watchword; the treasure more valuable to the kingdom than gold. Meanwhile, the name of the starpath staves has become a byword for power, violence, infamy and bloodshed. Despite being blessed by the archpriest of old, I was considered an object of a bygone era. Magic was dying, and with it the influence of all things magical. Eventually it was decided that it is unseemly for me to be left above the throne as I symbolised outmoded concepts, and so after hundreds of years I was removed, relocated to the vault of a small church in the outskirts of one of the king's towns.

I suppose my next keeper would be the historian, Balarriel. He was an old man, a priest by trade I believe, though his love was objects of old far more than people of the present. He became the curator of the collection of sacred objects of which I was part, and when he realised that he had me under his care - the actual starpath staff, wielded by the legendary Macsech of the royal family Treue - he became more than a little besotted with me. Of course, he never wielded me - he knew better than to touch the staff of Treue blood when he was of some inferior family - but he treated me with great respect and care. The small rear hall of the chapel that all we holy artefacts called home was hidden away from the public - no pilgrims came to see the relics that time and culture would rather forget - but Balarriel was intrigued with stories of my maker and the magic he wielded. Macsech and I had traversed the length and breadth of this land, after all, and there were scant few square miles which had not at one time felt the imprint of the starpath staff in their soil at one point.

But Balarriel cared less about Macsech than he did about unlocking the secrets of the power of the magic he had wielded. I had been around; I knew the destructive power of the chaos, and I was not going to let this befuddled old historian unleash it on the world. He was not worthy. He was no sixth son. He was not Treue. So I led him astray. I never spoke to him, and he never laid a finger on me, but all it took was a flickering of the candlelight to highlight some passage on a scroll while shadowing another, or a chance gust of wind to flip a page while he was off making his tea, or a warming of the hearth fire to lull him to an early night's rest. I led him down the wondrously ludicrous path of alchemy, and within a few years he had lead on the brain and hemlock under his fingernails. He died of something - I don't even know what, I didn't much care. It was only once he was gone that I realised it was unlikely anyone else was going to come and pay attention to me. I had relegated myself into the past. I had become FORGOTTEN.

It's difficult to know how much time passes inside a room with no windows. After Balarriel died, there was the occasional visitor into our room, but after a few years there wasn't even a light under the door. Time passed. It stayed dark. That didn't bother us too much: it's not like we have eyes; we just know what's going on. The sounds of dereliction and decay were our only companions. We could hear the other sacred items tarnishing, fading, tearing, falling apart. It came to be that whenever something actually broke, it was such a break to the monotony of nothingness that we would actually briefly glow with the dull, red light of our warmth. We started talking to ourselves. Don't call us crazy: it's easy to talk to yourself when you are actually in two parts already. Thankfully, we aren't identical - the break from the wretched sword blow by that enemy soldier woman - what was her name again? - didn't cut us cleanly in half. So now we are the long and short starpath staves. Long staff mostly talks about our time with Vol, with Deyfrin and with young Framlin. Long staff likes to remember the battles, the victories over foes. Short staff is more reflective. Short staff reminisces about the chaos we sewed when Riarra took us into Condur's camp - Condur, that's her name! - or when Balarriel spoke of Macsech. Then we get sad. Both of us miss Macsech. The best times were always with Macsech.

Though we have travelled up and down the land, we began to dream of returning to the ancestral land of our family, the Treue - to the field where our sapling first grew, where Macsech's tower first stood, and where the Treue generations long called home. They probably don't even live there anymore. They made the castle their home. They probably gifted their ancestral lands to some minor nobles by now. By now our brother and sister oak trees in the neighbouring copses are probably gigantic - or they have been turned into houses, or boats, or seige weaponry, or other mundane uses. What was that? Oh, it was the tapestry wearing through and falling to the floor in a cloud of dust. Good guess, short staff! Long staff had predicted the next thing to go would be the collection of religious texts, but those little worms have a few years to go yet.

All of a sudden there is light. And it's not sunlight, nor is it the light of a flame. It is some strange, unearthly light, almost as if lightning had been captured and put inside a flask. It is too white, too clean, piercing among the dust and cobwebs (even that family of spiders had long since passed away, once the other insects had precious little to feast on). And what's that? There is a person! No, wait, two people! A man and a woman, or at least that's what it seems. We can't tell from what they are wearing - so strange! They must be foreign. Both wear their hair long, but only one has a beard. We assume the one with the beard is a man. The other has a slighter build. We assume she is a woman. Although their argot is nothing we have heard before, the manner in which they talk reminds long staff more than a little of Deyfrin. It has that cruder air, that dash of bravado, that hint of desperation. But who cares who they are: it's real live people! Amazing!

He - we're calling him Flin, because he reminds us of Deyflin - is off investigating the tomes. They look more like Swiss cheese than they do books anymore. He doesn't seem impressed. But the girl - we'll just call her Missy for now - she seems more interested in the table upon which we rest. She might see us! She's got to see us: most of the other things here have rotten, decayed, rusted. But not us. No, long staff and short staff have the Treue blood imbuing us with warmth, with energy. She probably would have noticed our faint glow if those awful, garish white lights they carry didn't flood out everything else. Regardless, her eyes are sharp enough, because she does notice us. Missy says something, loud enough that Flin interrupts his endless nattering - probably complaining that everything looks like rubbish here - and he comes over to look. Yes, it's definitely us they have seen. We're the best objects here by far. Missy seems curious; Flin sounds more dismissive. We can just imagine what he's saying: "What, two sticks? Worthless." He probably prefers swords.

But Flin was still the first to pick one of us up - long staff, of course – probably compensating. Missy, not to be left out, picked up short staff. Flin starts swinging long staff about - he's obviously got no idea what he's doing - and long staff remembers young Framlin, remembers helping him out by adjusting the weight a little here, quietly suggesting a direction there. Long staff is enjoying the memories of battle so much, long staff is almost trying to convince Flin of how worthwhile we are. We can't think of anything worse than being left in this sacred crypt, this mausoleum for forgotten holiness. Flin just didn't seem to get it though: it was as though he'd never wielded a weapon in his life. He just couldn't seem to appreciate our fineness.

So when Missy picked up short staff, short staff decided to also go all out, to convince her that the starpath staves were worth rescuing from this dank place. At first, short staff filled her with warmth. She was confused, intrigued, but still not quite coming to terms with our power. So short staff decides to show how serious we are, and levitates her off the ground. It's a relatively low level magic, but Macsech found any number of uses for it back in the beginning. Besides, we don't want to expose the new keepers to too much magic all at once; not with the chaos it so often brings.

Funny, Missy and Flin seem absolutely astonished at the little bit of levitation. Flin is pointing his torch at Missy and making it go click. Strange little box torch. Long staff says it actually shows a picture of Missy floating off the ground on its side. That's a novel magic! Why would they be so impressed with a little levitation when this Flin can control such fine illusions? No matter, short staff did the trick, and certainly got both of their attentions. Missy is now holding short staff in both her hands, her own torch box sitting in our place on the table, and in the light can see the original imprint of Macsech's left hand in the wood of short staff’s shaft.

At the same time, Flin is looking over at Missy, and thoughts are clearly running through his head. He looks down at long staff, gives another experimental swing, and then looks back at Missy, particularly at her head. He takes a few quiet steps forward - very much like Deyflin now, quiet and malevolent - slowly raising long staff up higher. He clearly sees the value of the starpath staves now, and long staff was never against the occasional crushed skull, so why not? We don't want to be split up, after all. Closer and closer Flin stalks, coming within melee distance. And at just the moment the blow is being struck, Missy places her left hand into Macsech's mark on short staff.

There is a lurch, as though years, decades, centuries flash past. Missy's mother, you see, was a Hastings, but her great great grandmother was a Berdwyn, and her great grand aunt had been a Vauxnell, and her great great grandmother had been a Rombi. A Rombi by blood, but by marriage she was a Treue. Macsech's wife had been a Rombi before he married her. This girl, short staff suddenly realised, is a daughter of their master! She is of Treue blood! She is family! And long staff was now a hair's breadth from her skull.

We dig deep into our memory, and remember the magic that protected the family from those who long ago would harm them. We remember the bad king. We remember Vol. Long staff clatters to the ground, the hand which had been holding him having disappeared into the dusty air. Along with his entire family. And their families. And probably their gardeners and mathematics tutors. No matter: for when Missy Hastings turns around, she will only think that Flin had left, left and dropped long staff at her feet. So she reaches down to pick up long staff. Why shouldn’t she? She has nothing to fear. After all: she is family.