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Agatha Harkness has been alive a long, long, long time. And while she isn’t partial to children--well, she’s not partial to raising children--she’s certainly taken the effort to…cultivate a small lineage seeded through most of the North American continent. It was an accident at first, but when she realized one of her sons had become a warlock, that she would get a mental summons when one of her blood gained power…
…well, he was an annoying cry baby as an infant, and just as much of one when she drained the energy and life from his veins. Easy come, easy go.
It’s not every child of hers that gains power. Some of them vanish, go to mystically defended places she has no access to. Some of them never gain power at all. But like is drawn to like, and enough, maybe thirty percent or so, provide her with a new magical resource; either their own magic, or some relic or knowledge she could use for herself.
And the trail of bodies is so spread out and obscure--when there’s even a body left--that no one ever picks up on it.
Occasionally she tracks her descendants, those that she killed but had children, and those that so far have yielded no magical fruit for her to pluck. Interestingly, it isn’t until the twentieth century--oh, how far she’s come--that two of her descendants finally meet up in a city. Amity Park, the most haunted place in America.
That makes her chuckle. Haunted. She’s literally created ghost towns and left spirits in her wake, and this little nowhere town thinks it’s haunted? Oh, how quaint. She even deigns to visit it briefly. The barrier between life and death is thin, but no more than certain graveyards or war-torn battlefields.
So she’s desecrated a few sacred sites to learn some secrets of the dead. She never claimed to be a good person. What with all the familicide she’s got going.
It’s later, though, that she feels it. A small mental ping. One of her descendants in Amity Park is just touching magic. Nowhere near enough for her to turn her attention to it, but enough to keep it in the back of her mind, to plan for a future date to show up as a mentor. For a while at least.
Until, almost a year later, that small mental ping screams out. That little witch-in-training has just been infused with great power. It sends shivers down her body and she can practically smell the magic, full of nature and decay and hunger and growth. Oh, she’s a little overwhelmed at the thought of what her little witch has found for her!
Except.
Except she can’t get there.
She tries her usual teleport spell. It fails.
She tries the walking across the world spell. It fails.
She tries the spell that once drowned a literal army in the ocean by teleporting them there. It fails.
With a frustrated scream she leaps to the air and flies to Amity Park. It’ll be longer but she will have that power!
Except.
She slams into a wall.
No, she slams into an invisible barrier.
She gathers the forbidden power within her hands, clouds of purple and black, and smashes it against the surface.
It blows back in her face, blasting her miles away to crash into the ground.
She returns and tries to wedge her fingers in and pry the damned barrier apart, muttering spells that once felled a fortress.
All she gets is a surge of feedback, the energy shattering every bone in both her hands.
She floats, powerless, looking upon a town with strange dark plants growing, consuming the buildings, the roads, the people. She can practically taste the depth and strength of the power, and some impossible wall is keeping her out.
Perhaps it’s her little witch. Perhaps she’s cleverer than she thought.
In the end, she stays close by, and observes as ice creeps over large portions of the plant life, forcing it to wither and die. Not all of it, but a large chunk. Less than an hour later all of the plant growth reverts, leaving little damage and practically no sign that anything happened.
She presses her newly healed hand against the barrier. It presses back, still solid, still threatening.
But not, as she trails purple energy over it to examine it outside of fury and frustration, of this world. She eyes it, casts a small spell to see beyond mortal sight, and as her eyes swirl with violet light it’s not a wall, it’s a grand dome--no, a sphere, for it reaches beneath the ground.
It’s not the workings of her little witch. It’s not even technology. It is, she thinks, something of the dead. She dismissed it before, this pissant town that considers itself haunted. She clearly missed something, because looking at this sphere, it’s necrotic energy, the power of the dead.
They have claimed this town, and all the living in it. Not just the simple dead, though. No, something…powerful. Something that gives her pause.
The secrets she could learn from whatever caused this would enhance her greatly.
It could also kill her.
She can’t draw power from the dead. Or rather, she can, but the Darkhold is very clear: draw even a bit too much, and you join them.
Her immortality would no longer be on this plane of existence. And she’s read enough of what lies beyond to know something with her power becoming dead would be a beacon to all beings of that world to come and consume her.
She could draw their strength, but so could they. In the realm of the dead, power siphoning is an even playing field.
She hates an even playing field.
More important is the question of if the dead know she’s here, or if this barrier is simply reacting to the threat she is. Looking to the road, she can see cars come and go. Even some strange government agents in pure white cars driving like maniacs, so this barrier doesn’t prevent the living from entering-
Wait.
She flies over to the nearest city and steals a newspaper, magic already shifting her clothes to just another housewife taking time out of her day to check the news at the local cafe. Reading through it she finds nothing about Amity Park. No massive plant growth consuming the city, no ice storm sending it into retreat. Buried in the back and bottom of the local news section is a warning that the road into Amity Park is under government observation due to a recent spate of road damage, but that’s it.
She shuts the paper and sets it on the chair next to her. A coffee and croissant appeared on the table while she read. The barista gives her a knowing look; not a come on, just a camaraderie.
She’s not a good person, but she’ll leave a nice tip to a fellow woman who recognizes when a soul sister needs comfort.
She sips the coffee and stares into the distance.
The barrier around Amity Park keeps most people from noticing what’s going on.
The barrier around Amity Park also keeps out external threats of great power.
But the government must be aware of it, which means it wasn’t always there.
She picks up another section of the newspaper and whispers a spell, having her magic subtly reweave all the articles within. As she nibbles at her pastry, she sees the first mentions of increased hauntings in Amity Park, almost a year before her little witch came on her radar.
If her descendant made a deal with a ghost, that would certainly trigger the beginnings of magic.
Which reminds her… She does a mental check, and finds that her little witch is just that once again. Whatever power boost she had, it ended with the plant growth in the city. Curiouser and curiouser. If it were her, she would be beyond frustrated at losing power. She wonders how her descendant is handling it after reaching such brief but dynamic heights.
Back to the articles, she sees that a concert had a haunting that ended a tour, some big Halloween scare prank, a ghost bounty hunt by some reclusive billionaire--not Stark, but a Mister Masters, she makes a mental note. And a gothic circus that also ends when the ghosts ‘got too real,’ so the reporter says.
There’s other little articles about the local weatherman playing up the hauntings for tourism and the local news outlets playing along.
Even before the strange barrier, people just…didn’t believe, didn’t pay attention. She rolls her eyes. As usual, people are ignorant fools when it comes to occult truths.
The next articles are after she got that first mental ping. The local tourism board created a great haunting event that made it look like the entire town disappeared for a day. There’s a note that the government is investigating the incident but has so far said it’s nothing more than a prank.
Then nothing.
Or rather, nothing much of interest on the hauntings. There’s a note of an Egyptian artifacts tour moving through Amity Park, and a new federal facility opening just beyond the city limits. Mister Masters, Wisconsin billionaire--ah, the one who laid the bounty--running for local Amity Park office. And a rather severe storm damaged some infrastructure despite the state suffering a severe drought.
And that’s it. Not even an oblivious hint of the truth like the earlier articles.
She goes back to the column where the city disappeared and taps her fingers against her cup. That sort of power is not small. For the dead to swallow an entire city, and then return it…
Only something truly powerful could do that.
For the barrier to still be there, creating this ignorance effect and keeping beings of magic like her out, either what caused the vanishing is still there, or something nearly as powerful--if not more so--is feeding that magic consciously or unconsciously to the power of the dead.
And suddenly, her little witch is much more interesting once again. After all, even if she only gained a blaze of power recently, it’s entirely possible she has a hand in keeping the spell going. A trapped powerful spirit, with the right circle, runes, and blood, would only require some occasional reinforcement, no grand magic.
It could also mean there’s a rival witch, one that’s either aware of her descendant, or aiding them silently.
Well, that won’t do.
She folds the newspaper up. Best not to leave such obviously magical remnants behind. She tosses forty onto the table and meets the eye of the barista as she stands. She gets a small smile in return.
Maybe she’ll come back.
After all, she’s got to find a way into Amity Park. There must be a spell to hide her true power and walk amongst humanity like a typical mortal. And if not, well, she’s always been very resourceful…