Sounds good to me!
@Tinker, I’m gonna add myself to the backup list - still trying to track down the object I’m thinking of. (I moved to the east coast three years ago and still don’t know if things I own are with me or my parents. 
) I think we have enough to start for now, and if no one else signs up for the last spot, either @Sapphire or I can take it. Sound like a plan, everyone?
I am thinking waiting on the order might lead to lots of lost days. I think we should make sure someone goes each day if someone hasnt responded in a while.
That’s true…I was just trying to avoid confusion and make sure we had each day covered (and reduce the risk of double-posting). But as long as everyone makes sure no one has posted for the day before they go, we should be fine
I understand, and it’s a great plan. You’re doing great organizing. Just think we need a stopgap to make sure we don’t miss a day. We don’t want to miss our appointment for explosion-ville.
To add to this, it may be good to cease posting in this thread once the spell starts and only post here for the daily post. This way, there’s never a question of if an object has been posted on that day.
Random chatter/comments/organizing could go here.
Sounds good. Somehow has to start then and we have an hour left in the day. Shall I?
I would say go for it. We don’t have a lot of time before the veil closes in on us.
I had put in date placeholders with the purpose of having a reminder of assigned dates…but it could also be edited to show when someone posted, as another check against multiple posts per day
My grandfather was a quiet man, stared a lot into the distance sort of guy. I take after him a lot. I’m told he wasn’t that way before serving in World War 2. He passed when I was 22, and I didn’t have enough ‘adult-time’ under my belt to talk to him about things like that. I have to take their word for it.
After the war he returned to his family in Philadelphia and drove a city bus for 25 years before retiring. My parents would let me ride his route sometimes, and I was incredibly fascinated with the giant vehicle that I might have thought was a dragon at one point. Probably all the smoke.
This item was his change maker that he carried every day he worked. He’d store it on a small table by the door, and I’d play with it endlessly, thinking it was my own personal puzzle box. Whenever I played with it, it was always empty. I asked him where the money was and he’d laugh and tell me it was the city’s money. They just let him hold onto it while he worked.
While I held it he’d tell me stories of the passengers he had that day. My grandfather saw a lot in these people, and many shared their stories with him. The nervous young man on his first day of work. The blushing couple on their first date. The lonely old woman who’d ride the bus just for someone to talk to. The exhausted workers just hanging on for another day. The teenagers who knew no fear and didn’t care about tomorrow. All these people, with all their emotions, and all their hopes and dreams in wherever they were going, handed my grandfather coins that ended up passing through this changer.
Once he told me about a middle aged man riding the bus to turn himself into the police for something (as explained to me, as a child, he took something that hadn’t belonged to him). My grandfather said he was sure the man was going to jump out of the bus at any moment and run. He held up his regular route and went around the block an extra four times while he kept talking to the man, whose nerves eventually calmed enough to be dropped off and face his own past. That’s who my grandfather was. I still miss him.
When I was nine or so, a candy store went in around the corner from the small row-home he lived in downtown. When I’d visit on weekends I’d ask to go, and get a piece of candy. He would always smile and say he had no change, he left it all at work. But he asked me if I had been good. Of course,I always said yes. He said good children are always lucky, and if I was really good, maybe there’d be one coin left in the changer by accident.
I’d push the release and out would come a quarter. At first I believe it was just me being lucky. As he’d perform this trick for me dozens of times over the next ten years I eventually settled on him setting up the changer with one loaded, or just some slight of hand he did. He was always pulling quarters out of my ear, so why not out of a coin changer?
When he passed away, my father told me his father had specifically asked for me to have that coin changer. It’s been my most prized possession ever since. Whenever I move it’s the last thing I pack, and the first thing I unpack. I still play with it once in a while. As an adult it’s a simple mechanism to understand, but I just remember all his stories and all the people who’s hopes, dreams, and coins, passed through this that I always find it fascinating.
A few months back I told my daughter to get ready to go, as we were about to head to a nearby restaurant. A diner really, nice place, low key. They have one of those prize machines in the lobby where you put in a quarter and get a plastic ball with something in it, an eraser, a little plastic doodad, stickers. She loves that machine, it’s endless wonder to her. She asked me if she could play the prize machine, and I told her I didn’t have an coins but I’d see what I could do.
I don’t know why but I pulled the coin changer off the shelf and had an idea. I asked her if she had been good. Of course she said yes. I said well, good children are often lucky, and if she was really good maybe there’d be one coin left in this old thing. She laughed and bounced over and pulled down the handle. Out came a single quarter.
To whomever set up this veil…if this gets destroyed…I will end you.
Token, you are bound
Your power now promised
Vowed token unbound
When need of you has ended
You are claimed for a time
And tethered by my telling
Onward to the source
Until you are released
For most of my childhood, I lived within about five miles of the beach. My mother has always loved the shore (despite her equal love of the movie Jaws), so it was common, when the weather and daylight savings allowed, to go visit any given evening after work and school.
On those occasions, it would always be transitioning from low to high tide, so the coquina I would try to climb on was underwater and inaccessible. Instead, I would look for shells and, as I got older, sea glass.
One day at dusk, just before heading back up the beach to go home, I bent over to grab one last bit of glass I saw poking out from under the sand. It was shaped like a heart, and I’ve kept it ever since (my old photography assignment featuring it says it’s been 13 years).
Back then, it felt like the ocean was saying it loved me. Only recently did I realize it as about the most Ebenguardian sign you could possibly get. About a dozen years before I found out about all this.
Token, you are bound
Your power now promised
Vowed token unbound
When need of you has ended
You are claimed for a time
And tethered by my telling
Onward to the source
Until you are released
2 years ago, my father went off on a trip to las vegas, and brought me home a watch for christmas. See, my father isnt the type to be overtly thoughtful with his gifts, but it had just so happened i needed a new watch desperately after my old one broke to pieces through water damage. It may be boring and old and cheap, but it was my first analogue watch. It went with me to mexico, and travelled on most busking runs i did for several months. When it stopped working, i was devastated, but i kept it. Recently we took it in and got it fixed, and now, watching it tick away on my wrist, i find myself reminded of dad, and the bond we have.
Okay, so this story is going to require a bit of context.
As you guys know, I’m pretty big into the whole pen pal thing, and it’s kind of taken a life of its own in some ways. Letters became packages and I get pretty enthusiastic about sending cool little gifts to my friends.
So anyways, I’ve been doing the sortings for Mountie Mail for quite some time and most of us regulars know eachother pretty well. So sometimes I’ll just be walking around town or browsing online and I’ll see something and go “Oh, this is such a Raven item” or “Dey would find this so useful.” And inevitably I end up buying them and storing them away like a little hamster shoving seeds into its mouth. And then when I get enough things, I’ll send them out, make them look cute. Little acts of friendship to brighten the days of people I love and respect.
Well, to that end, one person who I penpal with is @Deyavi. I try to think up cool art supplies for her to try, she shows me the coolest pens. It’s just something fun and sweet we do from time to time.
Or…so I thought? It didn’t occur to me until the Neithercouriers that we might have, inadvertently, been practicing some small bit of magiq. You see, Dey, being her beautiful self, sent me a wonderful package. Filled with tons of goodies, including this awesome fountain pen.
The thing is, though, I’ve been having a pretty hard time lately. I honestly crashed and burned artistically after the semester ended. I don’t even know what happened, but I’ve been having a hard time doing much of anything.
Not with this pen, though. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s so easy to draw. I’ve been spending hours just…working. And it doesn’t even seem to be running out of ink. I mean I have other fountain pens, I’ve used them before, and even eyedropper pens should not last this long. And it’s started affecting my other work too… I’m doing so much more digital art than the last three weeks combined.
I don’t know. Maybe something just changed in me, but there’s a part of me that wants to think a small bit of magiq leaked into this little act of friendship.
Token, you are bound
Your power now promised
Vowed token unbound
When need of you has ended
You are claimed for a time
And tethered by my telling
Onward to the source
Until you are released
As far back as I have memory I’ve longed to be around horses. But my mother is afraid of them and riding lessons are expensive, so she did everything in her power to discourage me, and her power was considerable. Still, the interest persisted, even if I’d learned to keep it quiet around her.
When I was nine, we went to visit my grandparents who lived half a country away in the shadow of a sleeping volcano. On one grey and mistful day we all took a boat out to one of the islands-I don’t recall which, or much of what we did there beyond being delighted by the seals in the harbor. We stopped at one of the town’s many gift shops on our way back. My brother and I were allowed to choose one item each. I chose this.
It’s a key chain, technically. My uncle made some wisecracks about me not needing keys yet and guffawed with my dad about the inevitable age of sixteen (all of this weirdo grown-up chatter that made no sense to me at the time.) Back at my grandparents’ house my mom found a black cord and turned the key chain into a necklace that I would wear for the rest of the trip.
That cool summer day was my first time on horseback, riding through the woods with my grandma and my mom, who came along even though she was afraid. I don’t know if my parents had planned the surprise from the beginning, or if the medallion had summoned the notion but it became my talisman. I wore it as a necklace for years, and did eventually use it to mark my keys until the sad day that the metal twisted apart. Since then it’s rested on my altar and been carried with me in a charm bag. It has twenty-two years of luck and hopes and childhood dreams bound up in it by now. Time to put it to good use.
Token, you are bound
Your power now promised
Vowed token unbound
When need of you has ended
You are claimed for a time
And tethered by my telling
Onward to the source
Until you are released
Ever since I was little I have been in the kitchen. My Gran has always been one of those people who can work absolute wonders making foods, and I was eager to learn. As I got older though, my interests turned away from the food. I found myself obsessed with the tinctures and salves she would make, would sit with her talking for hours as she grinded herbs and poured wax. These odd folk traditions from her native Ireland made sense to me, and I was so excited the first time I was allowed to help her make something.
For a few years it was a tradition, after school, to go to Gran’s and help her with whatever she was cooking up that particular day. We made gingerbread men with a recipe that was supposed to bring luck in the coming year, sewed dolls that were supposed to keep the members of our house healthy, and wove dream catchers out of willow and twine to hang above our beds. Growing up, those were my favorite and most treasured memories. I was expressing myself, freely and without judgment, and allowing my wonder to take flight. Both my parents were practical people who didn’t put much stock in folklore, it was my Gran who told me tales of Changeling children and selkie women.
On my ninth birthday she gave me my own mortar and pestle, a smaller replica of her own. I’ve kept with me all these years as a reminder of those times, and still imploy it in my craft. All these years later and I actually run a service providing these folk charms and remedies to people, all born out of those years spent in my grandparents kitchen.
Token, you are bound
Your power now promised
Vowed token unbound
When need of you has ended
You are claimed for a time
And tethered by my telling
Onward to the source
Until you are released
So, I haven’t told my parents much about this whole magiq thing, but I get the sense that Flinterforged tendencies have always run pretty strongly in my family, and especially in my great-grandmother, Thelma. She lived to be a hundred and four years old, and she was sharp of mind (and fairly deft of hand for a lady of her years) right up to that day.
Thelma wasn’t obviously “witchy” in the way some grandmother figures are. She was neither a Mary Poppins nor an Agatha Cromwell. But she was resourceful, having raised three kids through the Great Depression and worked as an aide in children’s homes throughout her life. She loved crochet and embroidery, which she taught to my mother, because her daughters (including my grandmother) didn’t have the patience or determination to do it right. And she always seemed to have a gift for seeing more in things than what was on display.
She made this pendant out of re-purposed beads, safety pins, and thread. It came to me when she passed away, along with many shoeboxes of things she had crocheted or created that my grandmother didn’t have a place for, but didn’t really want to get rid of. She assumed it wasn’t anything important.
It isn’t the sort of jewelry I normally wore at the time, but as soon as I picked this up, it felt like something I should hold onto, for some reason. I told myself I was amused by the idea of something being held together for so long just by safety pins and thread, and I would just keep it in my jewelry box, maybe as a neat trinket to show my own kids one day. But when my high school did a “Decade Day” during homecoming week, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to trot out my own authentic piece of retro costume bling. I put together a forties-style outfit, did my hair, and put on this pendant as a finishing touch, the first time I’d ever put it on.
As I wore it around school that day, at certain moments, ideas seemed to appear not just in my mind, but in my vision. I would zone out gazing at my blank notebook and ghost-like words would appear on the page. The apple in my lunch sliced itself and set me recalling a recipe for apple crumble pie. I’d stare at the hair of the girl sitting in front of me in class, and suddenly I was seeing six different ways of styling her hair. It was as if I was seeing not just the things I was looking at, but the ghosts of their possibilities.
The effect isn’t consistent, and I’ve tried not to wear it much because I’m not sure how it works. I don’t know whether my great-grandmother did something to the necklace on purpose, or if her will at the time she made it just infused something into it, or if something happened when she died that passed her influence along through this pendant. I have no details whatsoever about its powers except my own experience. But if nothing else, I have a little piece of my great grandma, still holding things together with safety pins and thread.
Token, you are bound
Your power now promised
Vowed token unbound
When need of you has ended
You are claimed for a time
And tethered by my telling
Onward to the source
Until you are released
This is a story about a woman I met when I was a child who became like family to me. Her name Diana Thomas but even one called her Old Lady Thomas. She was an old lady that lived alone in a cabin out on the bayou. I was 8 I think when I first met her. My friends and I were playing a game we made called “Ose-tu” it was a dare game where we would draw lots and the one with the longest lot would would dare the one with the shortest. I was dared to go to Old Lady Thomas’ door and knock. Keep in mind that at this time the kids at my school had a rumor that Old Lady Thomas was a voodoo witch who would kidnap children from the bayou to make her gumbo. So I accept the dare and went to her house.
There where only two ways to get two her house. The first way was by the hour and third minute walk on the dirt road and over the old bridge that lead to the house. The second way was to use the wooden dock that was behind her house. I choose the latter. So I pulled up to the dock in my pee row, and creeped up to the house. The first thing I did was look for something to give my story evidence and I saw a chain and medal hanging from a hook I quickly grabbed it and stuffed it in my pocket then knocked on the door and bolted. When I got to the back dock I heard someone shout “hey what u doin’ dare?” (Trying to make it sound Cajun) I turned to the voice and there she was Old Lady Thomas. She was a short, old, African American woman and she was coming at me with a vengeance. She was M-A-D. I got in my pee row and started back down the river away from the screaming woman.
The next time I saw her was the very next day. She showed up on my doorstep, and she was not happy. In hind sight I should have knew she would find me because beside my brother I’m the only red-head in small town where everyone and there grandmother knows where you live. Not to mention I doubt there was another red-head within a 500 miles radius of that place. She told my parents that I stole her medal. I returned the medal and was grounded for a month.
After the month was up I felt really bad about stealing the medal. So I went back to her house. She answered the door and just glared at me. I told I was sorry and that I wanted to make it right. In the end I end up doing her yard work for the rest of the summer. As years went by, I visited Old Lady Thomas every so often. I grew to like her. She was stern but kind and she had so many stories. She told me about her two boys and how they fought and died for their country, the civil rights movement, the freedom summer and the raid, she even went to DC and got to meet Martin Luther King face to face. She told me about anything and everything. Sometimes I wasn’t even sure what she told me was even true. But I will never forget the last time we spoke.
I was 18 and the next day I would be at college. So I decided to pay Ms. Thomas one last visit before I go. She brought me inside and reach into this old jewelry box and pulled out a chain with a medal on it. I recognized it as the same as the one I stole when I was 8. She told me that it was a st. Christopher medal. He was the patron saint of children and the journey and this medal was meant to protect someone who was going to make a long journey. She told me that her father gave it to her when she got married and told her same thing she told me. She said that she was happy be a part of my journey but now it’s time for me to leave and find your path and I pray it’s a good and happy one. I flatly refused the gift I could not take something so important. She just smiled and said “I won’t need it much longer besides you have along journey ahead so you need much more than I do. I do pray you find a man that make you happy like my Roger did for me.” I missed the meaning of the first part because what she said about me finding a man. I am gay but at that point I had told no one that ever. It was the first time since I was a kid that I thought she was a genuine witch. I left that the next day with the medal around my neck looking forward to the journey that was to come.
I returned to my home for thanksgiving, and, found out that a week after I left, Diana Thomas past away. I finally knew what she meant by she didn’t need the medal much longer. She was very sick for many years long before I met her. She knew she didn’t have much longer so she gave the medal to me. I was torn. On the one hand I was glad she was no longer hurting. On the other I missed her dearly. But one fact remains. I’m glad I met her.
The witch of the bayou
When I picked it up, I knew I had to have it right away. It’s weight was comfortable in my hand and the tarnish in the sides seemed mysterious, as if it had a story to tell. I carried it to the man in a camping chair with a cash box in his lap. He looked up from his phone briefly to glance at the jewelry box I was holding.
“Two dollars.” He turned back to the game on his phone.
“Are you sure? Look at the tarnish. I think it might be silver. It’s probably worth quite a bit.”
“It’s tin. Two dollars.” He didn’t look up from his phone this time.
It didn’t feel right to pay so little for something obviously so precious, but I was also eager to have the little box in my possession. It would be right at home on my dresser, I thought, so I handed over a toonie as quickly as I could before the man would come to his senses and change his mind.
As soon as it was home, I cleared a space for it and filled it with the jewelry I wore most often. I own three other jewelry boxes, but this was to be my go-to. I carefully filled the box with my most beloved necklaces and rings, and that seemed to be the end of it. Right up until my favourite necklace went missing.
The necklace in question was a simple cord with a scorpion charm. I wore it with most casual outfits, and so had thoughtlessly wore it to the beach, where I had (somewhat predictably) lost it in the water.
I fully expected never to see it again. I’d lost jewelry at the beach before, and I knew how it went.
When I open the silver box however, and saw the scorpion nestled in its usual place, I was completely baffled. Was this a dream? I was sure I’d lost that necklace.
After pinching myself, counting my fingers, and suspiciously poking at the scorpion pendant, I concluded that I probably hadn’t worn the necklace after all, seeing as it was safe at home, rather than at the bottom of a lake. This kept happening though. Earrings that fell off while at a dance, necklaces that broke, and rings that simply seemed to disappear were all found safely in that box.
There is one more strange coincidence regarding the silver box. I didn’t realize this until a week or so after I bought it, but it also plays music.
Every music box I had ever purchased before this had always played the same song. Somewhere Over The Rainbow had been a favourite of mine since childhood, and I only bought music boxes that played that song. I hadn’t noticed the little winder on the inside lid of this one, though, and so hadn’t thought to check.
Apprehensively, I wound the mechanism. I was worried somehow. I’d never had a music box that played a song I didn’t recognize. What if I didn’t even know the song?
I’m going to post a short video instead of finishing the story. I think hearing the box sing will show my feelings better than if I just wrote them.
Token, you are bound
Your power now promised
Vowed token unbound
When need of you has ended
You are claimed for a time
And tethered by my telling
Onward to the source
Until you are released
I don’t recall how it arrived. I have no memory of buying it, or of being gifted with it. I just remember it being there one day, at some point after high school.
It’s sat on my bedside and my dresser, never far from me in sleep. It’s been a companion for my tarot deck, and my most favorite pendants. Perhaps it arrived on its own, waiting for this day. I do remember its color being darker, and deeper in depth than it is now. I can feel that its time with me is not longer.
So if this spell destroys it, there may be tears in my heart as I say goodbye.
Token, you are bound
Your power now promised
Vowed token unbound
When need of you has ended
You are claimed for a time
And tethered by my telling
Onward to the source
Until you are released
It seems all of you have got this very well organised and have a strong list of support. If you do need help I’m still a little uncertain about some of the details of the spell however I can make time with warning to help if the chain is at risk.
