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1.
Mugul the priest watched them in the mystical puddle on the floor of his study, located in a secret wing of the royal palace. Thanks to that magical body of water he could see with the eyes of his creature: a wooden golem. He had sculpted that wooden warrior with a hasty spell, without paying attention to details: the humanoid had to serve only to convey his gaze and, if necessary, to fight roughly. Together with the golem Mogul had sent the barbarian Zighir, a skilled and glacial mercenary, to the missions. Zighir was part of a secret unit of shadow-soldiers directly employed by the priests.
Mugul could see in the magic pool in real time what the wooden Golem saw. And the Golem saw Zighir’s mighty shoulders as he marched the rugged paths of the Valley of Persistent Mists. Though the vegetation was sparse, the slimy grass and dense fog made walking difficult.
Mugul had heard rumors that a tribe of mountain kobolds had settled in the underground crypts of the ancient cemetery at the bottom of the valley: it was an isolated place where, devoured by moss and lichens, tombs from a so archaic era stood that nobody knew who they belonged to. The cemetery had been registered by the Priests as a Passage: a rift in the earth that overlooked Hrkgkrh the Unpronounceable, also known as the Negative World: the forbidden space in which the human laws are upside down. Sealing the gates to Hrkgkrh was the mission of the Church of which Mugul was a priest and faithful servant. The one in the cemetery subterranean crypts was a small Passage, an isolated and inactive fissure. However the security protocol required Mugul to intervene: it was necessary to free the area from the unwary kobolds before they caused any damage and then seal the Passage: an easy task for Zighir’s sword, Mugul thought while he lit a crystal pipe to enjoy the show.

2.
Mugul made a brusque movement in surprise. The pipe slipped from his hand and fell into the pool, rippling the vision. The wizard waited for the water to settle in order to confirm what he had seen. A few minutes ago, Zighir had struck down a kobold with a mighty hit that had slashed its side, now that same kobold was on his feet again and, although his flesh was hanging and in tatters, he had dealt a brutal blow with a club on the barbarian’s back. Mogul saw Zighir as surprised as he was and winced when a dozen humanoids that his two warriors had easily slaughtered a few minutes earlier emerged from the dense mists. What witchcraft was there in that place? Mugul saw the barbarian, stained with blood up to his eyes, shouting a peremptory order to the golem accompanied by an unequivocal gesture: cut off his head! Mugul was pleased with the idea of ​​the barbarian. The golem and Zighir began to pry the heads off the necks of the downed kobolds with brutal blows, before they could return to life on the wings of that dark curse. The two hurriedly advanced into the basement of the main crypt: they knew the opening must be somewhere below. A long corridor of dark, slimy stone ran in the darkness. Suddenly the golem’s vision rotated to frame the companion behind him. The barbarian Zighir was bleached in the face: at the neck, arms and ankles five severed heads of kobolds sank their teeth into his flesh. They were bites of steel, so much so that blood had begun to flow copiously from the wounds. The golem did everything possible with its squat wooden hands to free its companion from the feral mouths, but there was nothing to do: Zighir’s jugular had been severed from the kobold’s canine fangs. Mugul had programmed the golem for him to retire in the event of his companion’s death, so the wodden figure started running at full speed towards the exit of the crypt.

3.
In the cemetery everything seemed quiet, but the golem had stopped: in the thick fog, two red eyes could be distinguished, as if suspended in the air in the Golem’s visual framework. In a moment, two tongues of fire emerged from those eyes. Now Mugul could only see flames, and a sudden cloud of steam rose and sizzled from the magical puddle, draining it. Mugul now could no longer see anything. His contact with the Golem was definitively lost, leaving him with atrocious questions and the certainty of having intervened too late to face the case. Evidently the kobolds had found the Passage before him, unleashing things as horrible as they were unknown.

4.
In the following days Mugul was gnawed with doubt: to report his failure to the priestly council (only God knew what would happen to him) or to keep quiet, secretly sending a new agent in the hope that he would solve the problem. He mulled over this as he walked through the alleys between the palace and his home, on a foggy night. As he turned the corner of the deserted alley, the creature appeared before him. The wooden golem was charred from the chest up, its features were completely disfigured, the body was chipped and furrowed. His face was a deformed log of coal, but what really terrified him were the two holes placed in the place of the eyes where, by a mysterious witchcraft, shone two red burning embers. It was those eyes, the ones he had seen in the cemetery! The golem’s mighty wooden hands tightened around the priest’s wrinckled throat. Mugul was stunned as his creature snapped his neck.

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from HDK 102 † HDK Dungeon​​​-​​​synth magazine # 3, released July 31, 2021

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Heimat Der Katastrophe Milan, Italy

DIY label focused on ambient punk, minimal-synth, dungeon-drone, wartime music and post-nuclear wave. Managed by a creative punx collective from Milano city.

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