Through the Veil Transcripts

Episode 15 - Aswang

You lived in the outskirts of the town. One of the farthest layers of the community.

Your mornings, most mornings, were spent walking to the market, speaking with your neighbors and enjoying a small breakfast with your family.

Your neighbors were all pleasant enough, but they did all look at you with the slightest of suspicion. Because you were apprentice and friend to one of the people who chose to live beyond the city, deep within the forest.

And that did earn you some amount of a reputation. Being friends to an outlier. But you would have it no other way. Your apprenticeship is teaching you how to heal, how to help.

And so, like most days, after your meal, you leave the town along the small path into the forest and toward your employment.

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Andrew Eagle
Episode 14 - Werehyenas

You know the person who lives on the edge of town has a reputation. A reputation for magic.

They provided a great service, plying their trade as a blacksmith, but everyone knew they could provide other services as well, for the right price.

They could heal, even afflictions that shouldn’t be possible to cure, they could curse.

But none of that superstition was why you were making your way toward their home at the edge of the village.

Your reason was more mundane. They did fine work with iron, and you had need of a smith, repairs to be made.

You’d never seen them cure, or curse. But you knew the stories, same as anyone. The story that they could wield a magical staff and become a monster.

You just assumed those stories were fiction, fantasy. You knew that they were. Had to believe that they were.

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Andrew Eagle
Episode 13 - Rakshasa

Your village has stood for a long time. For many years, its hearths and lights have cast away the shadows and darkness of the dense forest around it.

When you, or another member of your village, must travel through the forest. You must leave very early in the morning.

If you leave too late, you would need to spend a night in the forest, and that is asking for the wrath of a creature that dwelled deep within.

The creature which you and your village have had to bribe with tribute of food to prevent him from attacking the town and consuming the people.

You were tired… Many among the town were tired, of offering so much of the little excess you produce to appease the appetites of a greedy monster.

And you all decided you were done. You would not make an offering this time. Instead you would try to stand up for yourselves.

To stand against a demigod, to stand against the rakshasa.

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Andrew Eagle
Episode 12 - Werewolves

You sit quietly. The porch looks out over the pasture.

And the pasture is quiet. It usually is. Beyond it, there are the trees and the edge of the forest.

The forest is quiet in the way forests are. A thousand small sounds. The same as always.

Nights like these, peaceful nights, they were always your favorite. Time to sit and think. Time to listen and look.

Your herd wanders freely in the field. It’s a modest herd, not the largest in the area, but certainly not the smallest.

A sound interrupts your musing, a cry of some kind, out in the woods. There is a long silence following the call, before the woods resume their quiet sound.

Probably nothing. The woods have never troubled you or yours before.

Although the stories about it are less than pleasant.

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Andrew Eagle
Episode 11 - Sea Monsters

The waves and the wind carry the salt of the sea across the deck of your ship.

Your favorite sight, truly. The open ocean. The expanse of sea far beyond the sight of land.

Beyond the sight of most waters that have been mapped.

The only chart of any use in these parts is drawn by your hand, added to each day.

When you see birds, in the distance, you think that maybe you’ve found land.

Some new place, a land not seen by any eyes.

You call out an order to your crew and prepare to bring the ship about to face the new prospect.

Soon, you can see it. The dark shadow at the top of the water. Land. This is it, you’re chance.

Time to make your mark upon the world and plant a flag on something new.

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Andrew Eagle
Episode 10 - Mermaids

You spent the better part of your childhood watching the ships.

Watching them make their way into the harbor, their crews unload cargo and then venture forth again into the vast world beyond.

You always wanted to sail.

And now, you are. You signed on with a crew, and the ship is preparing to leave for the New World.

You pack the few possessions you have, hug your family goodbye and leave, to seek your fortunes.

The ship leaves at dawn, and as you and your fellow crew-mates work to sail it safely out from harbor into the sea, you gaze westward.

You gaze toward adventure.

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Andrew Eagle
Episode 9 - Atlantis

You have made your home upon the island for many years.

You and your family before you for generations have made their home in the wide fields and idyllic ranges of this place.

A place built for you by the gods, at least, one of the gods.

You know the stories are true, at least, in part.

Poseidon built this place for you and yours, for his mortal lover and their sons. For your king, Atlas, and all of his brothers.

He carved this island out of the seas to be a perfect utopia.

It, and the ocean around it, were named for that glorious family. It became the Atlantic, and this place, your home…

That became known as Atlantis.

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Andrew Eagle
Episode 8 - Ghost Ships

You close your eyes and breath deep.

You let the salt of the sea and the air roll over your tongue.

You exhale slowly and you let your eyes drift open.

Ahead, there is water. Behind, there is water. Not a hint of land in sight in any direction.

The voyage ahead is long, all the way to the New World, and you will be many months at sea.

Your homeland lays far behind you, but ahead is your true love… Your life at sea.

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Andrew Eagle
Episode 7 - Changelings

It takes some time, to notice that your child is different.

Different from other children, certainly, but also different than they once were.

As time goes on, you begin to suspect something. To fear something.

This is not your child after all.

Your child has been taken by those of the otherworld.

This is a changeling.

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Andrew Eagle
Episode 6 - Fairies

As the sun sets on a sleepy town, you prepare your evenings offering.

You place the saucer of milk on your front step, just outside the door.

You make sure the basin of water is clear and cold.

The eggshells from the morning’s breakfast are shattered finely, leaving no large pieces intact.

And finally, you check the remnants from dinner. Each wine glass has been left with a few sips, each plate with a few bites.

Everything is in order, and you make your way to sleep.

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Andrew Eagle
Episode 5 - The Banshee

Home.

Home is the place with which you are most familiar.

Where you know every hill, every nook and corner, every mound of the Aos Si (Ees She).

Home. Where your family has lived for generations. Able to trace your lineage straight back to the Milesians.

Your blood may as well flow through the hills and fields of this place.

In this place, in your home, you are comfortable. You are safe.

Perhaps because of this connection, because of this comfort, your family is haunted and served by a faery woman.

A child or servant of The Morrigan, if old tales are to be believed… A portent of death…

Your family is possessed of a banshee.

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Andrew Eagle
Episode 4 - The Tuatha De Danann

The battle raged onward. It burned and broke the land that had been so carefully tended.

The people of Nemed, your people, had fallen back, and fallen back.

Each time, with heavy casualties, as your ancient foe pressed ever onward.

The terrible Fomorian hosts, creatures of the deep underground and undersea, are poised to deliver a final, decisive blow.

And in that fall, your people were separated and scattered.

In haste, you load as many of your people as you can save into a ship and sail north, fleeing your ancestral home.

As the sun rises on your new exile, a fire burns in you.

A drive to return home.

You know to do that will require knowledge. It will require power. It will require talent.

Your journey has only just begun.

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Andrew Eagle
Episode 3 - The Oracle of Delphi

You have come a long way, with great purpose.

Your journey crossed land and sea, and carried you to the outskirts of a city.

Resting just outside the city is the large, beautiful temple to

Apollo, god of the sun.

God of music, of healing, of poetry.

And… the god of prophecy.

There is a line of supplicants there.

Waiting, hoping, praying, that the members of the temple will see fit to accept their query.

You join the line, and wait, your question burning in your mind.

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Andrew Eagle
Episode 2 - Tarot Cards

You shift uncomfortably in the small tent. The smoke-filled air heavy with the strange scent of incense.

The hunched figure across from you shuffles slowly.

Your discomfort is an easy price to pay for what the woman across from you offers… Fortunes read, futures told.

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Andrew Eagle
Episode 1 - Year Walk

You sit alone in a dark room. You avoid eating and drinking, and all attempts at conversation you meet with stoic, contemplative silence.

You must tell nobody of your plans

As the sun sets, and midnight approaches, you stand. Wrap your coat tight around your shoulders against the winter cold, and you leave your house.

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Andrew Eagle