“The Eight Calamities? I figured you’d ask about one Archon, not a whole group of them. It’s fine. We would need to go over them at some point just to keep you from getting yourself killed. I’ll be right back. I need to get some things to explain this group,” Elle said as she walked off.

She returned five minutes later with a few books and the map from our first lesson. She puts down the map in front of me and sits across the table.

“The first thing you need to know about the Eight Calamities is that they’re all Archons. Each one belongs to the most powerful rank a Forchunae can be. Each of them is a vile criminal wanted in every nation. There is a standing bounty on their heads worth five hundred thousand gold pieces. This amount was pooled together by every kingdom and empire together. That’s how dangerous they are. That opposing countries were willing to pool their coffers to make the bounty,” Elle said.

Five hundred thousand gold pieces. A council member in the Strakken Empire makes a thousand gold pieces a year as salary. “That’s an insane amount of money, and that for each individual? What do you have to do to be worth that much? They must all be super strong. What are their Words?” I asked.

“Slow down. I’ll explain if you’ll let me. The first thing to know is that Archons live longer than the rest of us. We don’t know the average because most Archons don’t die of old age; they die in battle. The calamities are all in their hundreds if not older. It wasn’t until the last century that they became known as the Eight Calamities. Their leader and the one who gathered them is Abraham ‘Storm Lich’ Barros, an undead skeleton from Master Gabriel’s days. When he was still alive, his Word was Bind, and he Bound his soul to his skeleton to become immortal. This had the unfortunate side effect of making him lose access to his Word. Using his newfound status as an undead, he forced a Forchunae to turn his skeleton into an Artifact. The Word attached to him is Storm, and ever since then, he’s been able to conjure great storms and control them. He is fascinated with experimenting on Forchunae and has an insatiable appetite for knowledge. His greatest crime was turning the country of Bonali into the Whirlpool Islands. There are no firsthand accounts of what happened, but Master Gabriel says that the loss of life had to have been in the tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands. And he has not become softer in the last couple of millennia. He may be the leader of the Eight Calamities, but he isn’t even the strongest nor the cruelest,” Elle explained.

So many dead. I cannot imagine that large of a loss of life—a terrifying undead is wielding the forces of nature to kill and ravage. I’m at a loss for words. I don’t know what I thought the leader of a group called the Eight Calamities would be like, but this is madness. How does one man nearly sink a country? I don’t have any questions about him, and Elle continues.

“Next up is Cassandra ‘Queen Of Ash’ Ashanti. Her kingdom exists somewhere in the Wylder Lands, where she has abducted hundreds to build and live in her kingdom. Her Word is Ash, and she can manipulate ash completely, allowing her to create objects, weapons, and even soldiers. Her crimes include multiple counts of regicide. She also has been known to blanket a town in burning ash if anyone questions her. She is the youngest of the calamities and is extremely unstable. There is no reasoning with her, and do not question her delusions if you ever find yourself in her presence”.

“A mad queen living a terrible fantasy. I'll go along with whatever she says; I have no desire to be turned to ash." I promise to Elle as much as myself.

I watch as she pulls out a drawing of some sort of beast. It’s a four-armed humanoid with six eyes and thick fangs in its mouth: a flat nose, and loose long hair on its head. It has a pointed tail like a scorpion, sharp claws on its fingers, and is covered in what looks like scales—double-jointed legs ending in talons complete the creature. This is a monster ripped from nightmares, a beast created to slaughter. This is just a picture, and I'm already feeling scared.

"This monstrosity is called Amon. Some Words can change a Forchunae physically. His Word is Monster, and this is what it turned him into. That picture can't properly portray the terror he is. Standing around twelve feet tall and well over a thousand pounds, he is a massive creature. Besides the physicality his Word gave him, he also has several other abilities. His saliva is a highly corrosive acid allowing him to eat almost anything. His regeneration is at a higher level than the rest of us, and there are records of him losing limbs and showing up at later times with all of his limbs intact. The scales that cover his body absorb nearly all the light that touches him and are incredibly durable and fireproof. He is a Monster in every sense of the word. His crimes include countless acts of cannibalism, infanticide, and family annihilation. He eats people for fun, Tyler," Elle said.

"He eats people and murders children? Excuse my language, ma'am, but what the fuck? Why isn't there a party of strong Forchunae or an army out there hunting this beast?" I asked.

"Because of the nature of their group. The Eight Calamities aren't friends or family or anything like that. They are a group created to protect each other from outside interference. If you send an army after one of them, three will show up to help. Do you wish to stop? It won't get any better from here," Elle asked.

"No, I want to continue. I asked you to tell me about them. I won't back down now."

"Alright. The next person I'll tell you about is the strongest of the calamities; Ezekiel 'Sword God' Marshall. His Word is unknown to the world, but it's believed to be related to swords, given his title and powers. He might be the strongest Forchunae alive. He is the strongest swordsman and is obsessed with combat. He will do anything to grant him a challenging duel. A single swing from his sword can split mountains and create ravines. His crimes are mostly associated with the other calamities. He has stated his reason for joining them is to guarantee himself worthy challengers. But make no mistake, he is just as bad as the rest. By joining up with them, he's made it almost impossible for the rest to be brought to justice. He is an Archon, the absolute strongest of us, and he wastes his powers by joining up with criminals," Elle growled.

She seems especially upset about him. I don’t know what to say. Should I comfort her somehow? Should I just leave? Elle was quiet for a couple of minutes after her outburst. I stayed in my seat and waited to see what she would say.

“The next calamity goes by their Word, which is Wraith. Do you have ghost stories in the empire?” Elle asked.

“Yes, we do. Even with all of our advances, we still have superstitions and folk tales. My parents used to warn me about ghosts that would take bad children who didn't behave away into the darkness.” I responded.

“Wraith’s abilities align with what you’d expect from a ghostly specter. They can turn intangible, turn invisible, fly, telekinesis, and have a power that lets them scare people to death. They are an assassin for hire. They’ll take any contract regardless of who it’s for. As long as you pay the price, they’ll hunt anyone down. Their name, age, and gender are all unknown. All of their victims are found dead, with their faces frozen in terror. Even their abilities aren’t fully confirmed; it’s all secondhand stories. Their confirmed kills list is as long as a novel. The truth is that most nobles use their services, so they aren’t too committed to trying to catch Wraith,” Elle explained.

“An unknown silent killer for hire who can strike at anyone at any time. It’s almost as scary as that monster from before. Who’s next?” I asked.

“The next calamity is the cruelest of the lot by a large margin. His name is Ian Richter, and he is known as the ‘Puppeteer.’ A ruthless, terrible man, he is the worst that humanity has ever created. He takes great pride in torturing people. His Word is Puppet, and it allows him to control people’s bodies from afar. He can control other Forchunae and their powers. Helena has taught you how trumping works when it comes to our Words; you will just lose if you cannot trump him. He has had custom mechanical constructs made that he can use to fight. The puppets contain all kinds of nasty surprises and dangerous weapons. No one is sure about the limits of how many people he can control at once, but it is at least twenty. He likes to force people to kill their loved ones using his Word or do even worse things. He is a sadistic psychopath who needs to be wiped off the face of the world. His crimes are a laundry list of despicable acts that I won't go into. He is the only calamity with a group of Forchunae who work under him called themselves the 'Seven Virtues.' That man and his cronies are a mockery of all that is good. He and his ilk are cancer upon humanity and will all rot one day," Elle said.

She's getting more and more worked up as she tells me about them. I started to wonder if asking about the calamities was a mistake. She doesn't wait for me to ask a question or say anything before she continues.

"Leon 'Copycat' Vidal has the most versatile Word of all of the calamities. It is Mirror, and it grants him a multitude of powers. He can create duplicates of himself and objects, reflect things at attackers, travel great distances similar to Helena, and most scarily of all, he can copy other Forchunae’s abilities. He is an army onto himself and capable of destruction you cannot possibly imagine. He is best known for being the reason Death Island is called Death Island. He used a collection of abilities he copied to cause an eruption of Mount Aiz, covering the island in fire and lava. There wasn’t a single survivor, and he destroyed an entire island worth of plants and creatures forever. He has left his mark upon the world, which will remain forever,” Elle said.

“Who is the final member?” I asked hesitantly.

“The final member is Iris ‘The Quiet One’ Remedy. Wherever she appears, silence follows. Her Word is theorized to be sound-based. She moves without a sound, and no one knows what she sounds like. She awakened in the Veldori Empire after the murder of her parents. She then walked across the empire, leaving towns and cities exterminated. Corpses everywhere but not a sound escaped; those places are still perfectly silent today. The route she took is called the Trail of Silence now, an ominous scar on the nation of the Veldori Empire. She hates the Veldori Royal line and kills anyone belonging to that family on sight. Like Ezekiel, it doesn’t matter what their Word is, but what they can do with it. These eight are the worst monsters the world has ever known, and I hope this lesson has tempered your excitement on Archons,” Elle says as she quickly packs up and leaves.

She doesn’t sound real. None of them do. What are you meant to do when faced with evil incarnate. The Strakken Empire was wrong to group all Forchunae, but they were right about one thing; there are terrible monsters among us. The Eight Calamities are Deforchunae.