Limewah’s Hypnovember 2025

 Day 1 - Smoke (SteampunkZappa)

 "Do you think you've figured out what sort of ritual it was used for?"

 The snowy owl peered closer at the brass artefact, surrounded in its nest of unwrapped brown paper. Celia was wearing a mask over her beak, and her brown hair was tied back. Donations to her museum were always welcome, but normally those were small banknotes or little paintings found in attics. Not something like this.
Its main chamber was shaped like an indistinct figure, wrapped in octopus-like tendrils that were pierced with tiny holes(presumably from which the smoke would escape). The figure was reaching upwards, as if it were trying to escape the morass of tendrils beneath it.
It was made of bronze, well-burnished and untarnished, and it almost looked brand new. The indistinctness of the figure seemed to be design, not due to wear and tear.

The owl was examining the censer in her Museum's restoration room, an austere white workspace with sterile workbenches and harsh lights. With her was one Clive, one of her employees - not to mention a close friend of hers. The white cat was an inventor with a keen interest in art and artifacts that had a purpose to them - there were few people Celia trusted more to be an extra pair of eyes.
 Clive noted some bags under Celia's eyes, a slight glaze to her eyes. She looked exhausted. He elected not to pass comment on it.
 
 "It's an impressive piece," Clive said, keeping a respectful distance so as not to crowd Celia. "You must've spent all night poring over this thing."
 "How could I not?" Celia chirped. "Look at it, Clive…"
 "Did a local artist make this?"
 "No, this thing is far older than us," Celia replied, her pace quick and excitable. "Far older than this museum… maybe even this country. If this was made using modern metalworking techniques, it'd be very obvious."
 Clive clicked his tongue. "Begs the question why they got rid of it in the first place. Did the donor tell you why?"
 "No, I didn't even receive a note from them. I had to do a little digging of my own to figure it out."
 "And?"
 "There are similar artifacts like this from a small island off the coast of Galicia. And seeing as those tentacles look like those of an octopus, I think that perhaps this was used for protection for fishermen before they went out to sea."
 
 Clive hadn't taken his eyes off the censer. He focused in on the face in particular. It was smooth, featureless, earless… sort of bulbous too, with a tiny, hooked beak where the snout ought to be. It certainly didn't look like a bird, though… He certainly hadn't seen anything like it, and he'd had his fair share of run ins with the supernatural.
 
 When a little wisp of white slipped out from one of the tendril's holes, then another… for a moment, he thought it was just a trick of the mind, an expectation turned into a hallucination.
 When he blinked, the smoke was gone again. Confirmation, then. It was in his head.
 Although…
 "Do you want to give it a try?" Clive asked. "We might as well use it for its intended purpose before it's put behind glass forever…"
 "You know, I was just thinking that myself," Celia agreed. "Why not?"
 "Really?" Clive wasn't expecting that. Celia was usually way more protective of her museum's possessions… how peculiar. "I mean, I was half-joking, but…"
 "It'd be a shame not to," Celia replied. "I've brought some incense, too."
 
 …She was well-prepared for this.
 She'd buried the lead a little. As part of her research, she had tested the thing out, just to see how the smoke curled and fluted out of each of the little intricate pockmarks in the tentacles.
She needed him to see. He needed to see. It was so important that he saw for himself.
She lit a long match, and slid it gingerly into the bottom of the censer. The distinct cherry colour of the charcoal's smoulder flickered from within.
She removed her mask, and gestured for Clive to do the same.
"Oh, this is exciting," Clive giggled. "Do you think you've figured out what sort of ritual it was used for?"
"Just watch," Celia said. "It'll make sense."
White smoke started to weep upwards from the holes - first little tiny threads, then longer strands, then plumes.
A floral, sweet aroma started to slip into the room.
"It's mint and rosemary with a little anise," she said, idly. "And a little sea salt, if you can catch it…"
Clive hummed, straining his senses to pick up all the tones. It smelled like liqueur, but also of the sea… like some sort of strange potion.

The white smoke curled upwards. An understanding of physics might have made one expect to see it continue towards the ceiling and disperse. But it began to hang in the air, a little lower than that.
The smoke seemed thicker, too, like the curls of vapour within a hookah pipe.
The head of the figure was starting to pour smoke too, a hidden compartment having been forced open.
"What the-" Clive gulped. "Do you see that-?"
"Shhhh," Celia said. "Just watch. And breathe that in.."
As some of the smoke spilled upwards, more spilled downwards like a heavy fog. It washed over the pair. It slid into their noses and bloomed to take up space.
Clive tried not to cough as it tickled his throat… and failed. He tried to wave the fog away from his face, but it seemed to dodge somehow, sliding around his paw before heading straight for his head.
"What the- bloody hell, how much - koff koff - did you put in there?"
"The right amount," Celia said, taking deep draughts of the smoky fog. She was perfectly still, drinking it in without so much as a twitch. "It's wonderful, isn't it… the first time I didn't use quite enough, and She wasn't able to sustain Herself for very long..."
 "The First time?!" Clive asked.
 The look in Celia's eyes was strange. And the way she said She… his brain only registered it as such, but it didn't match the sounds from her mouth. Trying to remember the sound, to piece it together from a beak-reading, made the cough sting a little worse…
"She will be here as long as She wants to be this time," Celia sighed, the expressiveness draining from her face, and her voice. "She will be pleased."
"What do you mean-"
There was a sudden roar, like a wave coming into shore, and a thick gout of smoke hissed out from the bronze lamp. The smoke-tendrils twisted upwards and pooled into a thick, anthropoid form. The smoke swirled within, and a translucent, bubble-like film came over it, giving it shape and containing it. It was taking on the same shape as the figure on the bronze chimney, the one rising out of the tentacles.

This being made of smoke, still attached to the censer, bloomed upwards and loomed over them. The smoke swirled and pooled within it. Two rainbow gleams sat in the middle of its bulbous head, and a pearl-white beak peeked out from the thin membrane holding it together.
The beak opened, and a voice like a rush of cold water, like a finger down the back of the spine, issued forth.
"Hello again, little bird,"  it hissed. "You've brought me another, as bidden. Good…"
"I do as I am bidden, o Meiga…" Celia said, the voice hollow, yet worshipful.
The creature's oil-spill eyes turned towards Clive. The cat felt as though a hand had emerged from the depths of a sea and pulled him inwards by the tail. He was surrounded by the smoke, and it pushed against him, rushed closer like a crashing current.
The rush of the witch's words continued, carrying with them a siren-like chime that made every atom of Clive's body shiver.

"It has been too long since I have been properly venerated, feared, as a Meiga must be. Your voice must rise in praise of me."

Celia took a deep, shuddering breath in, and a thick beakful of the strange fog poured into it. It seeped from her nostrils, wept from her eyes, and she drank it in with her whole body.
 The octopus reached out a long, slender, sharp-clawed hand, and revolved it, curling the fingers upwards. Celia's feet left the floor, buoyed by the ensorcelling smoke - was she levitating, or were the smoke tendrils powerful enough to lift her?
 This was… bad. It was too pleasurable, too potentially addictive… 
 
 "W…wait…" Clive groaned, foolishly opening his mouth and allowing the vapour-smoke to rest on his tongue with a sweet, salty touch. "W-wait- kchkkh…"
 A tendril of smoke-tentacle wrapped around his throat. Its conjured suckers squeezed against his neck and locked in place.
 His throat squeezed, and he coughed. Smoke rushed in like a constricting snake, filling his lungs and stealing his breath… and he too was lifted, up into the air. The smoke's sea-salt and herbal scent invaded deeper, short-cutting to his brain and gripping it in a tight pleasurable embrace.

As he exhaled, smoke belched out of his mouth… along with a twisting wisp of light within, like a lightning strike within a storm cloud. That wisp curled and braided towards the witch's opened mouth.
 "My magic fills the gap your soul leaves behind, little one," the Meiga sang. "And your soul sustains me in turn…"
 
Clive's arms were bound to his side by another gaseous tendril… not that he had anything within arm's length to free himself with. The inventor had no gadgets to save himself with. All he could do was breathe deeper, his lungs losing their need for oxygen and gaining a craving for the Meiga's essence. 
The bird and the cat were brought close together, held up towards the wide open beak. They opened wide. Wisps of sheared soul slipped from their mouths and into the witch's waiting mouth…

Clive felt lighter with each exhale. The space her essence took up made him realise just how empty he had been. How his rational mind, his desire to understand the world and invent new wonders, was that way due to a deficit of belief. A deficit of worship. Though he'd met gods before, he'd never felt a need to worship them.

But now, with the witch lashing his will to hers, taking a part of his soul into herself… it was like he was drawing awe and worship from the smoke's internal caress. His heart was beating faster. The inside of his head was dancing. His body felt like it was glittering and shining, like a treasure… a treasure that he had to offer to his Mistress.

"You offer yourself unto me."
He panted, his mouth opening into a wide, dazed grin.
"I… o-offer myself unto you…"
The smoke no longer stung. Its harsh hot sting turned to a cool, submerging caress.
Smoke and fog continued to pour into the room until it was completely smothered in it. 
At the same time, the owl and the cat's minds were trapped, too - in the glisten of the Meiga's multi-limbed body, in the nebula whirls of her eyes.

 The beak was unsmiling. But the witch's pleasure was tangible; one could taste its sweetness on the smoke. Her tendrils squeezed tighter, weaving and twisting the two thralls into a closer embrace. Their mouths were so close to her beak, and as she opened her mouth wide, she took deeper gulps of the mortals' essences. The light of intelligence and free thought was fading from their eyes, replaced by a thick occluding gout of smoke - first a spiral, then a film, then a full fog that turned their eyes an opaque white.
 "Yes… give more of yourselves, little mortals… You feed me, you sustain me, you give me new life…"
The Meiga's throat bulged as she sucked at the air. As the thick dregs of the mortal's souls disappeared down the witch's throat, she grew in size. She pressed against the ceiling of the room, hunching forward slightly. She grunted with dissatisfaction.
"This place will not be large enough to hold me before too long." She clucked her tongue, coiling her two thralls tighter, and making sure they paid close attention.
"It seems I cannot finish my feed tonight. But tomorrow… you will bring me to your museum and put me on display… to lure more mortals to feed myself upon. Will you do as you are bidden…?"
"Yes, O Meiga…" the two moaned. "We will…"
A new exhibit would be coming to the museum. And its grand opening would be one that none would soon forget…