Account of Dealing with Eldritch Faerie
[The front cover of the book is bound in leather dyed violet. In the center is a golden frame box, and within it is a grey tree painstakingly painted. The tree is rotted, without leaves.]
CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION
This is an account of my personal experience and consequential findings as a result of my dealings with the Dark Fey - the Unseelie. Others who have had similar dealings may have entirely different experiences than mine, but I still find use in my study for others to at least be aware.
The Unseelie Fey are considered the opposite of the Fey -- where the Unseelie represent Winter, Darkness, Fey traditionally represent Summer, Light.
This duality is only useful for our mortal conceptual frameworks and does not represent a true essential nature of each. Unseelie are not fundamentally bound to only Darkness and Winter, and vice versa. However it is useful for us to remember this duality as the starting point of understanding their nature. Where the Fey may find their enjoyment in ultimately harmless pranks, the Unseelie thrive in harm. This does not mean that Fey will not harm you -- because this would be blatantly false. In general, the propensity for harm towards us mortals is simply greater in dealing with the Unseelie.
This account begins with what I thought was unfortunate happenstance. It is impossible to know whether the event that set in motion my time with the Unseelie was planned, or if it was simply random, however.
One day, I was walking in the woods. I sought ingredients to begin preparing a special meal for my family's Matriarch. Night quickly fell, and I made camp. I heard what sounded like a child crying in the darkness, around midnight.
I left my tent and followed the sound. It soon turned into a cat's yowling, and then a roaring. I stepped into a clearing, and I perceived a beast. It was a cat in form, but it had thick, leathery wings. It looked at me with red eyes.
It yelled, and my ears were filled with the mixed screams of children and the haunting yowling of cats in heat. It flew into the night sky and vanished as if in a puff of smoke. Below it, a mushroom lay on the ground. I approached the mushroom and found myself compelled to put it in my mouth. With each step I took near it, it grew long. Its head was grey, like dead flesh. I plucked it from the now three-foot long stem, and put it in my mouth.
CHAPTER 2 - TRAVELS WITH THE UNSEELIE
My body and mind were transported into a plane of uncomprehensibility. I am unsure as to the state of my soul at this point in my travels. In front of me was a large, apparently sentient mushroom.
It spoke to me, and referred to itself as my companion. It took pity upon me, and bid that I rest upon its large mushroom head. It had the mouth of a human man, a tendril from its bottom like a root, and the wings of a bird.
I was brought to a palace of bone and shadow. We flew high above many mountains, some red and shifting like sand dunes and others formed somehow of water that remained mountain-like without the constraints of land.
The mushroom companion left me alone for a time while it entered a gate. I saw may things while I waited outside the palace. The ground itself was hard, yet covered in grey grass. The forest that loomed in the distance seemed to grow before my very eyes, then fade away.
Many creatures of the Unseelie nature walked the grounds. Many leered at me, showing their teeth, claws, and anything else they had that could tear me. They let me be, though. Many laughed when they saw me.
Soon my mushroom companion returned, and offered me again that I ride on its back. It asked me for my name. I told him. Glee filled his eyes, and my heart felt constricted, as if the muscle was held by a fist.
A voice in my head whispered to me. It was womanly, shrill, and cold. It asked me my heart's desire, and offered power. What could I do, besides accept its offer? The mushroom below me shook with a fire, and we flew again into the air.
CHAPTER 3 - THE NATURE OF THE DEAL
The deal that was made between myself and the being of the Unseelie was voluntary, consensual, and to both our benefits. My mind and body were now the Unseelie being's. It knew me, and I was allowed a taste of its power.
I am unsure as to the status of my soul. I assumed that it was given up in this deal, and when my mind and body are finally destroyed through natural means and my time as dictated by Kelemvor has come, it will be sent to the Unseelie's plane of being. I do not know, and no longer care.
Of course, I have returned to the plane of the Material that we all inhabit together. This happened many, many years ago. I have been brought back to that existential plane a few times since then. Time does not pass the same there as it does here. Or I am simply unable to comprehend it. Regardless, this last time I found that forty years had passed without me knowing. My body and mind did not age. The status of my soul, again, is unknown to me. I feel it may be corrupted as well, and once the breaking point comes my Animus will fade away, unhinged like a skeleton with a broken spine. One day I may simply fall apart in a burst of fire. It is a risk I accepted.
I have gained certain eldritch powers for the submission of my being to this Unseelie patron. These powers are unnatural, weird, and serve the aims of the patron. I may at times force a subject to laugh, I may compell them to stand still, I may protect myself with the dark magicks in a ward, I may even simply control light. I do not yet know the extent of these powers, but as I use them and give myself more and more to the being, I gain more ability.
I cannot tell others how to gain this ability, given the ambiguous nature of how I entered the realm of my patron. If one wishes to call upon an Unseelie being, I recommend seeking the expertise of a hag. A hag may be recognized by their appearance and ability. They take the form of an old human woman, extremely ugly, yet incredibly powerful and well-versed in magicks that appear arcane in nature. They are averse to true Beauty, and revel in the Grotesque. You will know one when you see it.
CHAPTER 4 - BODY
As a result of my dealings with the Unseelie, a toll has been taken on my body. At times I find myself fading into an ethereal shade, but I do find its use in walking unseen. It lacks a substance that others, untainted, hold and use unaware of their privilege.
I am also bound to do what my patron asks of me. I am a chef by profession, and sometimes must fix meals that I would not have otherwise without their will. Foods that most mortal humans would not find appealing.
I do not know if they force this upon me from genuine pleasure on their end, or if they laugh at my misfortune. An example: I have found myself irresistibly compelled to eat a live maggot on a rotting piece of pork.
CHAPTER 5 - MIND
My mind has rotted from the taint of the Unseelie. While I now am able to access the eldritch magick they allow me, I no longer can sympathize with my fellow mortals. If one's dog was to die, I may rejoice inwardly at the fresh meat its corpse provides to the worms in the ground. If one breaks their arm, I find myself wishing both their arms had broken so they could gain a new perspective on the matter.
I have been able to curb myself from speaking all these thoughts aloud, for the fear of exclusion from society, but I have also learned to channel these new drives into creativity, passion, and power. I view it all coming together as a form of Art.
There are certain times when my mind is overcome with powerful images. Frequently I see rotten trees, the branches spreading out to me as hands grasping for a loved one. Another recurring vision is that of a bed of flowers, quickly dying and freezing over in their ground. Frost settles upon them as armies overtaking a country. When I look closely at this image, the flowers turn into creatures each with barred teeth and claws. My eyes burn and I cry out for God.
CHAPTER 6 - SOUL
I said before that I do not know the status of my soul. Perhaps this is in naive hope that my soul go to rest with my Lord, the Father of Hatred, Bane. Long has my family served the Lord with our actions and spirits.
It is forever a stain upon my soul that I have made this deal for power with the Unseelie, and I can only pray to God and act in accordance with his doctrine that I may find recourse in his Hate.
It is in hateful irony that I am able to do His work with the power of another entity -- I may be forever damned in his eyes, but I rejoice with each moment I bring fear into another's heart, for the Hate of the Lord.
[The last page of the book is marked with a large, painted symbol of a black hydra.] AUTHORED BY ALEXANDER TOOTH