9 Bury me with it

Cerberus and Lucky arrived to find the home empty. Cerberus brought Corvis to the lab and then returned to the living room to recline on the chaise. Exhausted Cerberus fell asleep only to wake up to Lucky chirping right in his face.

Blue-green smoke swirled its way up in plumes from under the door which then swung open and Zion, covered in dirt, floated through. Hastily tossing magical objects from their cloak on the floor while naming them: "Ok eye of Horus" as the object fell to the floor it made a thud. "Unicorn hair in an amber box" thud. "Dragon scales" thud thud. "Hey Cerberus can you check lab for the siren wail? It would be in a magical box labeled Charybdis."

Cerberus went to check the lab as Zion continued searching their cloak when Lucky hopped on their leg and crawled up their cloak. In her mouth was a magical box labeled Charybdis. Zion smiled at her and gave her a pumpkin seed. "Why thank you, Lucky, where did you find this?"

Lucky chirped eagerly between bites of the pepita.

Zion had a curious look and then said "Oh, interesting. As far as the label it's a reference to the famous epic called 'The Oddessy'. In it Odysseus finds himself stuck at sea between the proverbial rock and a hard place. The rock was a monster called Scylla who would snatch sailors from ships and eat them. Charybdis represented the hard place. Some people refer to it as a monster while others say it was a whirlpool which would also prove perilous for his ship. Odysseus had to decide which one he wanted to brave, but both posed negative impacts. The story represents selecting the lesser of two evils. In the story Odysseus decided to select Scylla because she would eat only six of his crew while Charydbis would pose a threat to more. As you might have guessed I have another box labeled Scylla. They're magical boxes that generate magical ingredients to achieve the lesser and greater of two evils in any given scenario. Sometimes morally and ethically it can be argued to choose opposite Odysseus. Which is what I've done with a very distinct purpose."

Lucky chirped again.

"The evil I'm up against is so vastly dense and full of itself that a lesser evil would be too good for it to even affect its trajectory." Zion answered.

Cerberus walked back into the living room having only heard part of the conversation. With an angry tone he barked "Who are you planning on cursing?"

"Oof that's not a good sign." Zion turned to Lucky, "How long has he been barking?"

Lucky chirped.

Zion gestured and all their things were put away and their cloak was cleaned by magic. They then sniffed the air and a pink thread of smoke lead to Cerberus's pocket. Zion grabbed the magical object therein and waved their hand over it. It changed from a glowing rune to a crow skull, some harpy feathers, a centipede, and condensed and sweetened starlight inside a minotaur hoof. A look of concern came over Zion's face. "Where's Corvis?"

Lucky chirped.

"Lucky, I need you to hold on to my cloak and stay inside the circle." Zion said and then cast a large blue glowing circle around them. Zion set the objects in the center of the circle and walked around the inside of the circumference chanting. Each time the chant completed Zion would drop an octave and start the chant over again. A second, smaller white glowing circle began forming around the objects. As the chant continued the circle wrapped over the top of the objects creating a dome. Inside the dome a fire started burning magenta. Outside the circle Cerberus began howling as his face and body started changing into his wolf form.

Zion drew a small red circle above the dome which opened a portal to the lab and pulled Corvis through. Corvis was now suspended above the dome in the circle. His eyes started to glow red. Cawing, maggots crawled out of his body and were consumed by the circle as they tried to exit. Flesh started to regenerate where Corvis had decomposed. His red glowing eyes slowly started changing to black. His feathers filled in and he began to just look like an extraordinarily large raven. Zion chanted something else and a magenta smoke started pouring out of Corvis. As soon as it would hit the circle it would collect in the dome.

Zion grabbed sage from their cloak and started burning it while smudging themself and Lucky. Then they smudged inside the larger circle. After this they took the sage and placed it above Corvis, said something in a foriegn language, and blue-green fire that traveled in waves reverberated through everything.

When the first wave hit Cerberus he howled, but his voice and his face started to look more human. When the second wave hit the fire pulled out Cerberus's human form and burned through it. As the third wave hit, his human form, consumed with flames, turned and looked back at his wolf form. His wolf form began growling and gnashing its teeth. His human form extended his hand slowly to the wolf form. At first the wolf barked and growled but as the hand got closer it began to calm down until Cerberus's human form was petting his wolf form on the head. As this happened the fire began to consume the wolf form and the two began to meld together until Cerberus was standing there with human form and burning wolf eyes. As the fire died down his human form was completely restored and he fell to the ground. All the circles, except for the dome disappeared. The dome became very dark and foggy, but 2 very distinct, figures became apparent within looking like zombified, tiny apes.

Zion spoke in a different language until the dome elevated itself from the ground forming a sphere. The figures inside the sphere became erratic and frantically clawed at the sides. As Zion chanted they drew their index and middle fingers together on each hand while curling the others back into their palms. "What hath been joined was a mistake." Bringing their extended fingers together in front of them even with their chest they drew one hand up and the other down while saying "Now soul and curse separate."

Lightning from above and below tore the dome in half as the earth claimed the left and the sky claimed the right. A shockwave of lighting ravaged through everything from the separation and afterwards everything sparkled.

Zion heaved a large sigh and sat down. Lucky crawled into their hand as Zion handed her a fresh blackberry. "Tell me everything that happened." Zion said.

Lucky chirped with food in her mouth.

Zion chuckled. "You can finish eating first"