EPISODE 17: Spellbinder
It was 1904. A decade since Orem Black called for an audience with the Order of Wormwood, since returning from his isolation in the Abyss, since his attack on what his father had built...and he hadn’t aged a day. Crossing planes of existence, Orem, like Broderick Zayne and countless others, was bestowed the gift, becoming Eternal...
And in the ten years since, his life was decidedly altered, Orem was at the height of power. A changed man, manifesting his fate. He and his Knights of the Black Serpent were no longer a hidden cult, but an expanding movement. His following was comprised of young men, adrift in a world shifting too quickly, hungry for purpose. Some offered themselves as loyal foot-soldiers, others craved forbidden knowledge, seeking magic for fame, for fortune, and for an impending war that lingered somewhere in the future on an unnamed battlefield. Orem sold the terror of the unknown and gilded it with displays of near-limitless power. At first, he whispered in shuttered rooms to the anxious. Soon, he thundered in crowded halls, then roared before stadiums of the faithful — each gathering swelling his wealth, his influence, his dominion. He did not merely speak as a prophet. He became one.
His message and meaning stitched by prophecy and guided by dark ritual. Orem began a relentless hunt for every surviving copy of the Book of Amar, each volume seized and added to the Knights’ growing library. With every acquisition, they edged closer to unraveling the final secrets of the Processions. Joseph and the Oracle communing with dark spirits to aid them.
Though Orem sat atop the heap of the wicked, teeming with strength, tenacity, unending life. And he was surrounded by new and eager recruits ready to do his every bidding...But Joseph Frost was the opposite. While he was still Orem’s second in command, he wielded no power, knew only some fleeting magic he digested from his scouring of the Book of Amar, and was only in charge of the Oracle. Though he was really more of a babysitter, for the horrid, gluttonous demon, wearing his father's skin. Joseph missed Fredrick, pining for a simpler time before all of “this” happened. He’d often peer deep in the eyes of the Oracle’s shell, hoping to hear his father’s voice from beyond the grave. Wishing he could change things back....
JOSEPH: Father? Are you in there?
But, the response was always the same...
ORACLE: (in Fredrick’s voice) MORE FOOD, MORE LIBATIONS, MORE WOMEN...AT ONCE!
Frustrated...this is what Joseph sold his soul for? And while Joseph did his best to wrangle the Oracle, and extract useful information regarding the Processions...the full design of the prophecies would take time to unfold. Orem already held key fragments in his grasp. The hoarding of books of magic was more than scholarship, it was supremacy. By controlling knowledge and information, he controlled power. By erasing rivals’ access, he ensured no one could ever rise against him. And as the years crept forward, there was no one to stop him.
The Order of Wormwood was beyond fractured. What remained of its once, proud brotherhood was scattered and broken. Forced into the shadows, its elders withered, dying one by one. The younger initiates, untested and weak, could not hope to withstand Orem’s growing storm. Worse still, with Fredrick and Joseph Frost joining the enemy...and with Banerjee and Veera still missing, the Order’s heart was hollow. Its soul extinguished.
Far away from the waking world, in the shapeless domain of the Abyss, Banerjee, Veera, and the warrior Herakles pressed on in their ceaseless search for escape. They found scarred seams in the void, places where the darkness seemed thinner. Banerjee and Veera would weave their powers, straining to tear it open. When that failed, Herakles hurled his strength against it, rending, clawing, battering, but always to no avail.
And with nothing but endless expanse in front of them, the three wandered on. Following scarred fault-lines in hopes of finding a way out. In the long march, Banerjee and Veera’s magic grew -- honed by constant use, their strength stretching into something vast. Yet still, it was never enough.
Through their powers, they created enough light in the suffocating dark to spread far and wide against the horrors that crawled ever closer, but it couldn’t damage the void...but what illumination they did create, they noticed there were more and more lost souls and wandering demons than ever before.
Banerjee, through his continual necromancing of demons in the void, uncovered more of the dark’s masterplan...Orem chipping away at the meaning of the Processions. Satan marshaling an army to march upon Earth, seeking generals, as Herakles had warned. He also discovered the Abyss itself was once a thriving existence, not unlike our own, that ceased and collapsed in on itself after a war like the one Satan was seeking.
The fragments were forming into a single, terrifying design. If only they could escape, they might yet warn our world, and prepare it for Armageddon.
As they pressed on, the Stygian air around them began to shift. The glow of their powers, once fragile, now seemed to brighten of their own accord.
BANERJEE: Veera, my boy...what are you doing to strengthen the light?
VEERA: That’s not me, Uncle. I thought was you.
Herakles was the first to see it, leaving him speechless. Veera noticed the warrior’s expression and saw what it was.
VEERA: Look -- ahead!
Out of the void, a shape began to form. Above them, a stretch of sky, blue, dazzling, with sunlight pouring down. Beneath their feet, sand. Palm trees swaying. A thatched house beside a stone platform...
Paradise in the Abyss - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
The men froze. Could it be salvation? The end of the nothing? Yet Banerjee felt it immediately -- though parts of the vision were real, it was woven like a mirage, constructed from memories, with some intent. Maybe meant to trick them? To lure them in? Still, Veera sensed something else...a current of positive, radiant energy, unlike anything he had ever known. Drawn and wary, they moved forward, hearts caught between hope...and dread.
Inside the dwelling, they found a woman seated cross-legged, her form radiant, her skin glowing with the soft shimmer of starlight. Her name was Aolani -- a kahuna, a Hawaiian sorceress and healer, whose life had been cut short in 1731. She told them how, as the great Mauna Loa roared to life, her village elders, deceived by a demon in disguise, cast her into the volcano’s mouth. They had believed her sacrifice would still the mountain’s fury. They were wrong.
Aolani in the void - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
It was a ploy by dark forces to capture Aolani, as her soul, embodiment, and power were kept intact, tucked away in the Abyss for safekeeping. There, in the dark, under the watch of a demon named Srel, she was instructed to sharpen and strengthen her abilities -- as Satan had designs to make her the Spellbinder. The most potent of diviners needed to open a portal big enough to the earthly realm, so that when the time was right, Satan’s army could enter our world to begin the Absolution.
When asked about Srel, Aolani only smiled. With a snap of her fingers, she said, she had cast him into a mirror dimension, a prison from which it would take millennia to crawl free. Since then, she had remade her corner of the Abyss into a refuge, weaving paradise from the dark without even intending to, her power projecting sky, sea, and sunlight into the void, reminders of home.
Aolani’s abilities were potent as she could bridge any realm across space and time. But, betrayed once by her own people, she had no desire to leave the Abyss. Banerjee and Veera exchanged looks. They knew she was the key. If they were ever to return home, to warn the world of the darkness rising, they would need to win Aolani to their cause.
TO BE CONTINUED…