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Thalamus Whisperwell liked his job. It made him feel good, serving his community. It made him feel safe, knowing that powerful forces had his back.
And yes, it made him feel important. Not just anyone could be a representative of the dreaded mystic cabal known as the Board of Directors of the Timely Tides Homeowners Association.
When wizards retire, they usually go one of two ways: either leaving behind the pursuit of scholarship in favor of hedonistic excess, funded by the triumphs of their younger days, or retreating from society into the depths of the arcane, swallowed by the mystic calling that has defined them as they fade from the world and into obscurity and legend.
When a cabal of wizards retires, that’s when things get complicated.
It leaves a power-vacuum. But worse than that, it leaves a bunch of stubborn centenarians with untold magical power, an addiction to control, and too much time on their hands. Frequently, such groups kill each other off in short order, warring over decades-gone slights and petty jealousy, leaving great mystical scars upon the land. Arguably, however, the worse outcome is when a retired cabal continues to get along – to do what they have always done, just on a much more limited scale.
That was how the community of Timely Tides had come to be. The Board had warded off several thousand acres along the equatorial coast, a great mystic Working that prevented incursions by bandits and roving monsters. They had brought in off-world contractors to construct dwellings and infrastructure equipped with conveniences seldom found elsewhere in the Hinterlands of Erde Nona, bought and paid for with the fortunes they had accrued over their long careers of scholarship and intrigue. They had established trade-routes with neighboring polities and fiefdoms, leveraging political connections and forbidden magicks to obtain favorable terms. They had sent mystic servants and invisible messengers out to communities of serfs, peasants and lesser merchants, offering a higher standard of living: paved roads, indoor plumbing, electricity and the conveniences it brings, even the deeds to their own land – in exchange for joining the Homeowners Association.
In the twenty years since, the gated community had thrived. Everyone played by the rules, living productively and well, but keeping within the bounds of the Community Standards Agreement, and other bylaws established by the HOA. Infractions were dealt with swiftly, but fairly, largely by the community members themselves – after all, it wouldn’t do to let standards slip. That was the difference between them and the people who lived out there.
Sometimes, however, a gentle reminder was needed. And when that became necessary, the first line of defense was an HOA Representative.
Towards that end, Thalamus had a clipboard. He had a number-2 pencil suitable as an arcane focus. He had a pair of khaki slacks, and sued brown loafers. He had a cell-phone clip on his belt and a button-up plaid shirt. He also had skin the color of the night sky in autumn, hair like spun silver and long pointy ears. He was, after all, an elf. Usually, that was enough.
Today, however, was going to be a challenge. Today, at around noon, a crenellated rectangular tower, one hundred feet tall and formed of overlapping slabs of thick black iron had appeared in place of one of the community’s many nigh-identical split-level three-bedroom homes. It was covered in shifting runes that glowed with the subtle and piercing blue of rural starlight on a cloudless night, and did not seem to have a door. In place of a garden, or shrubberies, there was a moat filled with softly radiant bubbling green liquid, and the property’s driveway had been replaced with what appeared to be a bottomless pit.
That alone was worthy of a hefty fine. The Board had Views on bottomless pits.
Standing on the sidewalk with a mere thirty feet of grassy expanse between him and the garish metal monstrosity, Thalamus clicked his tongue and shook his head in disapproval. According to the latest census, a copy of which the HOA rep had on hand (his clipboard was enchanted – it always had whatever paperwork he needed) this property belonged to Alanboum Haa’aarg and his three brothers. The name on the mailbox, however, was ‘Eff the Angry, Archmagus of the Ninth Circle, Conqueror of Death, Master of the Iron Tower, Esq.’
Someone had some explaining to do.
Thalamus stepped onto the lawn, noting with grudging approval that the grass, at least, continued to be impeccably maintained. In fact, it might actually be greener than the surrounding lots, though that could just be the fel shadow of the Iron Tower casting the property into darkness.
“Hello!” he called. “Excuse me! I would like to speak with the homeowner, please?”
Thalamus waited. There was no response.
The elf raised his pencil and began to prepare a spell – a simple cantrip, designed to inform a homeowner that they were expected at the door – when a figure appeared, quite literally, in a flash of sickly green light, atop the battlements of the tower.
A grinning human skeleton, skull lit from within by unholy green radiance, with a prosthetic jawbone forged of brass, scant wisps of ancient hair dangling limply from its skeletal pate, and desiccated flesh still affixed to its cheeks gazed down upon the HOA rep with naked disdain. The apparition was bedecked in finery: bracelets and rings of precious metals, jewels and chains, rubies and platinum, crimson-and-gold robes of the finest silk, with a blood-red circlet upon its brow. Diamonds were set within its rotting teeth. It was dead, it was terrible, and it was criggedy-crunk to a degree undreamed of by even the most shameless of hip-hop artists.
Thalamus stared. The figure was backlit by the afternoon sun, and some distance away, but even so his elven eyesight served him well.
He had never seen a lich before.
The creature placed its bony hands upon the black iron crenellations and leaned out over the edge of the battlements.
“Who the FUCK,” it called, its voice gravely and abrasive, “Is casting on my property?”
The HOA rep cleared his throat, made a show of consulting his paperwork, and declared himself.
“My name is Thalamus Whisperwell, and I am with the Homeowner’s Association. Are you the current owner of the property?”
The lich straightened up, the light in its eye-sockets flaring. “You’ve got to be kidding me. The name’s Eff, kid. Eff the ANGRY. It’s on the fucking mailbox. You wanna guess why they call me that?”
Thalamus thought for a moment.
“No,” he said. “Now, you’re new to the neighborhood, so you may not be aware, but –“
The lich interrupted him. “Well, then I guess you’re apathetic and intellectually challenged.”
The elf frowned. A moment of awkward silence passed as he consulted his clipboard, paper rustling as he looked for the relevant records. He flipped a page, and a sticky-note appeared, affixed to the deed-of-record for the property in question. It contained only a single sentence.
‘This shit’s mine now – Eff’
Thalamus felt a cold sense of disconnection with the reality of the situation. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Refusing to engage with the problem, he made an effort to get things back on track.
“You may not be aware, but your home is in violation of our Community Standards, as well as several of the association bylaws. While your lawn is in excellent condition, you are required to maintain a certain number of flowering plants, shrubberies, or small trees not exceeding ten feet in height in order to keep up with the declaration on community beautification and greening. Also, your home is in violation of the approved color-scheme for our community, as well as the HOA guidelines for –“
Eff adjusted the fit on his gold-embroidered crimson robes, tugging at his wide, rune-laden lapels. The heavy platinum chains around his neck, bearing a gold medallion emblazoned with his personal Rune of Power, clanked softly. The ancient skin on his desiccated brow crinkled.
“Kid,” he rumbled, his voice like the door of a long-sealed tomb, “I will straight-up turn your ass into stone. I will turn the stone into mud. I will put the mud in a bucket – and not a nice bucket either. I will summon an imp to pee in that bucket. Then I’ll disenchant the whole mess and send your still-living, piss-pickled goo back to the home-owner’s association in a gods-damn plastic bag if you don’t get off my lawn.”
Thunder rolled in the cloudless sky.
Still processing the elaborate threat, but on some level already appropriately terrified, the Home Owner’s Association representative took a step back, onto the sidewalk.
The elf was instantly ashamed. He was the authority here: this tasteless miscreant should not be dictating terms.
He still didn’t step back onto the grass, though.
“As I as saying,” Thalmus continued, again taking refuge in the familiar ritual of his job, “If you don’t change, well, everything about your residence, you’re going to be in serious violation of the terms of HOA membership, and -”
“Listen you little turd - I never joined any stupid fuckin’ HOA. ”
The representatives brain screeched to a halt. The individual words made sense, but he couldn’t resolve the sentence.
You couldn’t live in Timely Tides without joining the HOA. It was impossible.
“… what?”
Eff’s brass jaw rang like a tiny, muted bell as he clenched it against his rotted grill. The cold green glow blaring from his mummified eye-sockets dimmed and narrowed in such a way as to suggest a squint.
He growled, “I like it here, so I moved in. It’s a decent neighborhood. Quiet. Warded against monster attacks. Except for that one guy down the street who wouldn’t move his car when I asked I haven’t even had to imprison anyone’s soul in somethin’ embarrassing since I got here, and that’s usually how I gotta spend the first month. Do you know how many soul gems I got up here kid? Too fuckin’ many. Soul-gems for days, and half of ‘em are occupied by - and shaped like - dickheads.”
The HOA rep looked up from his clipboard, visibly flustered. “Ah….”
“I got ‘em at a discount two hundred years ago. It’s turned out to be way less funny than I thought it would be in the long run. Yeah, my enemies are wailing eternally inside a buncha crystal knobs, but now my laboratory’s just wall-to-wall cock-rocks. It kinda fucks up the atmosphere, and you wouldn’t believe how much some demons care about that kinda thing. Makes summoning anything except a succubus a total pain in my crumbling undead ass – and yeah, that makes for a fun afternoon, but I’m here to get some work done. Real work, not whatever the fuck it is you’re doing.”
The rep stared. He cleared his throat. This was not the way these visits usually went, not even remotely. He had many, many questions, all of them deeply troubling, and was convinced he didn’t actually want the answers to any of them – so he fell back one final time on what he did best: nebbish authoritarianism.
“Be that as it may. You’re in violation of our community standards, your homeowner’s agreement, and several association bylaws… and also probably the board’s Declaration on Sexual Morals. If you don't do something about all this I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”
Eff removed his withered and rotting hands, mummified skin and yellowed bones bedecked in rings of gold and enchanted jewels, from the battlements of his iron tower. He slicked back one of the scant few-dozen whisps of ashen hair that remained clinging stubbornly to his ancient skull. In a flare of crimson lightning he summoned his Staff of Power, Kataxus, to his grip: carved from the black heart of an ancient and cursed oak, graven with adamantine runes, languages unspoken since the forging of the world.
Eff began tapping it against his shoulder like an arrogant kid with a baseball-bat.
“Make me, bitch.”
And yes, it made him feel important. Not just anyone could be a representative of the dreaded mystic cabal known as the Board of Directors of the Timely Tides Homeowners Association.
When wizards retire, they usually go one of two ways: either leaving behind the pursuit of scholarship in favor of hedonistic excess, funded by the triumphs of their younger days, or retreating from society into the depths of the arcane, swallowed by the mystic calling that has defined them as they fade from the world and into obscurity and legend.
When a cabal of wizards retires, that’s when things get complicated.
It leaves a power-vacuum. But worse than that, it leaves a bunch of stubborn centenarians with untold magical power, an addiction to control, and too much time on their hands. Frequently, such groups kill each other off in short order, warring over decades-gone slights and petty jealousy, leaving great mystical scars upon the land. Arguably, however, the worse outcome is when a retired cabal continues to get along – to do what they have always done, just on a much more limited scale.
That was how the community of Timely Tides had come to be. The Board had warded off several thousand acres along the equatorial coast, a great mystic Working that prevented incursions by bandits and roving monsters. They had brought in off-world contractors to construct dwellings and infrastructure equipped with conveniences seldom found elsewhere in the Hinterlands of Erde Nona, bought and paid for with the fortunes they had accrued over their long careers of scholarship and intrigue. They had established trade-routes with neighboring polities and fiefdoms, leveraging political connections and forbidden magicks to obtain favorable terms. They had sent mystic servants and invisible messengers out to communities of serfs, peasants and lesser merchants, offering a higher standard of living: paved roads, indoor plumbing, electricity and the conveniences it brings, even the deeds to their own land – in exchange for joining the Homeowners Association.
In the twenty years since, the gated community had thrived. Everyone played by the rules, living productively and well, but keeping within the bounds of the Community Standards Agreement, and other bylaws established by the HOA. Infractions were dealt with swiftly, but fairly, largely by the community members themselves – after all, it wouldn’t do to let standards slip. That was the difference between them and the people who lived out there.
Sometimes, however, a gentle reminder was needed. And when that became necessary, the first line of defense was an HOA Representative.
Towards that end, Thalamus had a clipboard. He had a number-2 pencil suitable as an arcane focus. He had a pair of khaki slacks, and sued brown loafers. He had a cell-phone clip on his belt and a button-up plaid shirt. He also had skin the color of the night sky in autumn, hair like spun silver and long pointy ears. He was, after all, an elf. Usually, that was enough.
Today, however, was going to be a challenge. Today, at around noon, a crenellated rectangular tower, one hundred feet tall and formed of overlapping slabs of thick black iron had appeared in place of one of the community’s many nigh-identical split-level three-bedroom homes. It was covered in shifting runes that glowed with the subtle and piercing blue of rural starlight on a cloudless night, and did not seem to have a door. In place of a garden, or shrubberies, there was a moat filled with softly radiant bubbling green liquid, and the property’s driveway had been replaced with what appeared to be a bottomless pit.
That alone was worthy of a hefty fine. The Board had Views on bottomless pits.
Standing on the sidewalk with a mere thirty feet of grassy expanse between him and the garish metal monstrosity, Thalamus clicked his tongue and shook his head in disapproval. According to the latest census, a copy of which the HOA rep had on hand (his clipboard was enchanted – it always had whatever paperwork he needed) this property belonged to Alanboum Haa’aarg and his three brothers. The name on the mailbox, however, was ‘Eff the Angry, Archmagus of the Ninth Circle, Conqueror of Death, Master of the Iron Tower, Esq.’
Someone had some explaining to do.
Thalamus stepped onto the lawn, noting with grudging approval that the grass, at least, continued to be impeccably maintained. In fact, it might actually be greener than the surrounding lots, though that could just be the fel shadow of the Iron Tower casting the property into darkness.
“Hello!” he called. “Excuse me! I would like to speak with the homeowner, please?”
Thalamus waited. There was no response.
The elf raised his pencil and began to prepare a spell – a simple cantrip, designed to inform a homeowner that they were expected at the door – when a figure appeared, quite literally, in a flash of sickly green light, atop the battlements of the tower.
A grinning human skeleton, skull lit from within by unholy green radiance, with a prosthetic jawbone forged of brass, scant wisps of ancient hair dangling limply from its skeletal pate, and desiccated flesh still affixed to its cheeks gazed down upon the HOA rep with naked disdain. The apparition was bedecked in finery: bracelets and rings of precious metals, jewels and chains, rubies and platinum, crimson-and-gold robes of the finest silk, with a blood-red circlet upon its brow. Diamonds were set within its rotting teeth. It was dead, it was terrible, and it was criggedy-crunk to a degree undreamed of by even the most shameless of hip-hop artists.
Thalamus stared. The figure was backlit by the afternoon sun, and some distance away, but even so his elven eyesight served him well.
He had never seen a lich before.
The creature placed its bony hands upon the black iron crenellations and leaned out over the edge of the battlements.
“Who the FUCK,” it called, its voice gravely and abrasive, “Is casting on my property?”
The HOA rep cleared his throat, made a show of consulting his paperwork, and declared himself.
“My name is Thalamus Whisperwell, and I am with the Homeowner’s Association. Are you the current owner of the property?”
The lich straightened up, the light in its eye-sockets flaring. “You’ve got to be kidding me. The name’s Eff, kid. Eff the ANGRY. It’s on the fucking mailbox. You wanna guess why they call me that?”
Thalamus thought for a moment.
“No,” he said. “Now, you’re new to the neighborhood, so you may not be aware, but –“
The lich interrupted him. “Well, then I guess you’re apathetic and intellectually challenged.”
The elf frowned. A moment of awkward silence passed as he consulted his clipboard, paper rustling as he looked for the relevant records. He flipped a page, and a sticky-note appeared, affixed to the deed-of-record for the property in question. It contained only a single sentence.
‘This shit’s mine now – Eff’
Thalamus felt a cold sense of disconnection with the reality of the situation. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Refusing to engage with the problem, he made an effort to get things back on track.
“You may not be aware, but your home is in violation of our Community Standards, as well as several of the association bylaws. While your lawn is in excellent condition, you are required to maintain a certain number of flowering plants, shrubberies, or small trees not exceeding ten feet in height in order to keep up with the declaration on community beautification and greening. Also, your home is in violation of the approved color-scheme for our community, as well as the HOA guidelines for –“
Eff adjusted the fit on his gold-embroidered crimson robes, tugging at his wide, rune-laden lapels. The heavy platinum chains around his neck, bearing a gold medallion emblazoned with his personal Rune of Power, clanked softly. The ancient skin on his desiccated brow crinkled.
“Kid,” he rumbled, his voice like the door of a long-sealed tomb, “I will straight-up turn your ass into stone. I will turn the stone into mud. I will put the mud in a bucket – and not a nice bucket either. I will summon an imp to pee in that bucket. Then I’ll disenchant the whole mess and send your still-living, piss-pickled goo back to the home-owner’s association in a gods-damn plastic bag if you don’t get off my lawn.”
Thunder rolled in the cloudless sky.
Still processing the elaborate threat, but on some level already appropriately terrified, the Home Owner’s Association representative took a step back, onto the sidewalk.
The elf was instantly ashamed. He was the authority here: this tasteless miscreant should not be dictating terms.
He still didn’t step back onto the grass, though.
“As I as saying,” Thalmus continued, again taking refuge in the familiar ritual of his job, “If you don’t change, well, everything about your residence, you’re going to be in serious violation of the terms of HOA membership, and -”
“Listen you little turd - I never joined any stupid fuckin’ HOA. ”
The representatives brain screeched to a halt. The individual words made sense, but he couldn’t resolve the sentence.
You couldn’t live in Timely Tides without joining the HOA. It was impossible.
“… what?”
Eff’s brass jaw rang like a tiny, muted bell as he clenched it against his rotted grill. The cold green glow blaring from his mummified eye-sockets dimmed and narrowed in such a way as to suggest a squint.
He growled, “I like it here, so I moved in. It’s a decent neighborhood. Quiet. Warded against monster attacks. Except for that one guy down the street who wouldn’t move his car when I asked I haven’t even had to imprison anyone’s soul in somethin’ embarrassing since I got here, and that’s usually how I gotta spend the first month. Do you know how many soul gems I got up here kid? Too fuckin’ many. Soul-gems for days, and half of ‘em are occupied by - and shaped like - dickheads.”
The HOA rep looked up from his clipboard, visibly flustered. “Ah….”
“I got ‘em at a discount two hundred years ago. It’s turned out to be way less funny than I thought it would be in the long run. Yeah, my enemies are wailing eternally inside a buncha crystal knobs, but now my laboratory’s just wall-to-wall cock-rocks. It kinda fucks up the atmosphere, and you wouldn’t believe how much some demons care about that kinda thing. Makes summoning anything except a succubus a total pain in my crumbling undead ass – and yeah, that makes for a fun afternoon, but I’m here to get some work done. Real work, not whatever the fuck it is you’re doing.”
The rep stared. He cleared his throat. This was not the way these visits usually went, not even remotely. He had many, many questions, all of them deeply troubling, and was convinced he didn’t actually want the answers to any of them – so he fell back one final time on what he did best: nebbish authoritarianism.
“Be that as it may. You’re in violation of our community standards, your homeowner’s agreement, and several association bylaws… and also probably the board’s Declaration on Sexual Morals. If you don't do something about all this I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”
Eff removed his withered and rotting hands, mummified skin and yellowed bones bedecked in rings of gold and enchanted jewels, from the battlements of his iron tower. He slicked back one of the scant few-dozen whisps of ashen hair that remained clinging stubbornly to his ancient skull. In a flare of crimson lightning he summoned his Staff of Power, Kataxus, to his grip: carved from the black heart of an ancient and cursed oak, graven with adamantine runes, languages unspoken since the forging of the world.
Eff began tapping it against his shoulder like an arrogant kid with a baseball-bat.
“Make me, bitch.”
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