The Amulet: Origins

The full moon hung in the cloudless sky like a wide-open, grey eye. It's surface features were as brilliant as the surrounding landscape; craters visible creating a simulacrum of a human face, winking yet indifferent. The chill in the air was thick and cloying, numbing bodies to their bony core. Warm clouds of exhaled breath wafted in the light breeze, spewing constantly from the collection of cowled adults gathered in a complete circle around a hundred candles and a chilly stone tablet set atop a marble altar. Though the atmosphere was brittle, the heat radiating from the chanting men and women could almost be seen as shuddering waves cascading into the night. Chanting, low and murmuring, rose in a baritone crescendo. United ancient words melded together in one, coalescing tone into the brisk, crisp air. And on the pedestal, in the center of the tablet -undulating in rich, deep reds and chromatic pewter- sat an amulet; pulsating, thrumming, beating... alive.

Six men, six women. Their circle complete. Their order was offset; one woman, one man, one woman. Each wore a black, woolen robe with a hood that completely concealed their faces save for their chanting, moaning mouths. Underneath their robes, they wore nothing, as was the way and the law of the Sayer. The Sayer had many rules: each member must be united with the next, and he united with her, and so on until all twelve had become, essentially, one; and each single member, though afforded a meager dwelling, had to spend every sixth night with another member. Often times, this meant several with one, so said the Sayer, and all believed this inter-mingling to be an accepted way of life. The sixth month, on the six night, for six hours beginning when the moon was high in the sky, the twelve returned to their sepulcher and prepared the Amulet for 'The Variance': the combining of their souls into the 'Eye of the Sayer'. The formed their circle, they repeated their chant, and they lost themselves to The Sayer and its Eye

Each of the twelve was a respected member of the society of their village: Engruu. They all held lofty positions in the hierarchy including judge, treasurer, chief hunter, village elder, and war general. Each, as well, was a receptacle for pure evil. They willingly opened themselves to darkness, sorrow, hatred, disrespect, anger, and callousness. They each became a vessel for each and every feeling and desperate act that would otherwise cripple the village. And so, imbued with these feelings, they led their tribe and waited, patiently, to purge themselves at the Sayer's Eye. For days, weeks, and months, the twelve absorbed every ounce of evil, and every bit of deviltry only to expurgate in the circle. And so the Amulet; the 'Eye of the Sayer', supped at the people's negativity as it ebbed and flowed into it like a tide. The Amulet grew into an object of such unspeakable horror and ghastly repugnance that it soon began to extrude its consumed power over everyone and everything in Engruu.

It was time to find others.