"What do you mean by that?" Jason asked, as he looked at the woman in confusion.
"What I mean is that we are fucked!! This isn't some random nobody rising to power! This is fucking Carman!! The fucking Carman!! You've never heard of the Dark Witch??" Aaliyah questioned.
"No, I haven't. Please bear with me, as I was raised as a normie! I didn't get my powers or start my supernatural education until a few months ago!" Jason said in his defense.
"Does anyone else here know the threat that Carman poses?" Aaliyah asked, hoping she wasn't the only one who knew the gravity of the situation.
"I remember her. Or at least, the stories of her. My mother, Amaltheia, told me of the great blights that affected the people of Ireland. But it wasn't just them who were affected," Phalmina stated.
"What do you mean?" Xaera asked.
"Carman, who is most famous for everything that she did in Ireland, wasn't from Ireland originally. She was a Greek, from Athens, as far as the stories go and that is all the accounts from the witches who were there. What records we have at least," Aaliyah told them.
"We really need to find a way to restore the old texts, so we may have an accurate rendition of history! So much knowledge lost and destroyed, and for what?" Jason griped, shaking his head.
"Something I couldn't agree with more! But what knowledge we do have of her during that time was that she had a dark streak from the get go. She wasn't dark right out of the gate, but she had the capacity for it. It wasn't until she was fully grown and had her sons that she became the terror that was faced," the Witch went on.
"Wait, that woman had kids? With who?" Darnell wondered.
"No one really knows, but there were always tons of speculation about their parentage. Their names were Dub, Dorthur and Dian," Aaliyah told them.
"Their names don't sound so scary," Jason commented.
"The translation of their names is Darkness (Dub), Evil (Dorthur) and Violence (Dian)," Aaliyah clarified. "Once her armies were defeated, her sons, who were her generals, were taken. They couldn't be killed, so they were banished from those lands. No one knows what became of them, but there is no record of their deaths. There are rumors of what became of them, but no one can say for sure."
"Even on the field of battle, they couldn't be killed??" Jason questioned, his face full of disbelief.
"Nope."
"OK, they officially just became scarier!" he replied seriously.
"You think that's scary? Carman, who was their mother and the one who blessed them with these powers, was an even tougher fight. It took the combined efforts of four chosen of Gaia to subdue her and her magic!"
"Wasn't it Bé Chuille who was the one who defeated her?" Sheena questioned.
"Very good, Sheena! Yes, it was Bé Chuille who defeated her. To be fair, the others did what they could to distract Carman and disrupt her spells while Bé Chuille wore down her defenses. What stripped Carman of her powers was the final spell that she cast, which saw the Dark Witch rendered nearly powerless," Aaliyah stated.
"Nearly powerless? She still had some power left?" Xaera asked, mystified.
"Yes. She was one of the few who were chosen by Gaia to represent her here on this plane of existence. Carman had the inborn spark from Gaia, which isn't something that can just be stripped away by humans. So, the spell that Bé Chuille cast had drained Carman of everything except for that spark. But that wasn't the end of the Dark Witch," the ebony skinned woman went on.
"With her power gone for the most part, she should have been finished," Jason commented, shaking his head.
"You'd have thought so, except that Carman had another spell woven into her very being. A spell that would prolong her life for many years beyond what was normal for humans, even among the chosen of Gaia. This spell not only gave her a long life, but it also made her nigh unkillable," Aaliyah stated.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up!! Are you saying that Carman figured out a way to make herself invincible?" Sheena gasped with a shake.
"Basically, yeah! After using her magic to determine what had been done, Bé Chuille figured out what had to happen to end Carman. They took her to a maze of caverns beneath the lands they stood on, looking for the most dangerous and hard to reach ones. It took a while, but the chosen would eventually find one that was difficult to get to, and was suitably deep enough," the Witch continued.
"Once they got there, they created various stones of binding and wards, which would deter anyone from entering. They also went on to create an elaborate and heavy stone sarcophagus. It was etched with Gaian runes to contain Carman and to prevent anyone from opening it. They placed Carman inside of it, set the stones and wards and let her lie in her tomb, to live the rest of her days sealed inside it," Aaliyah finished.
"Damn! That almost sounds like something you'd hear about in a movie!" Jason commented.
"Where do you think Hollywood gets their ideas from? Most of the inventive and strange things you see on the screens is often pulled right from the annals of history," Aaliyah told the Druid.
"Huh! I'll have to remember that!" Jason smirked to himself.
"Anyway, as they were sealing Carman away, they learned of the curse she had placed upon the lands. The curse was something that couldn't be undone unless Carman herself lifted it. Being powerless as she was, it wasn't happening, and the chosen weren't restoring Carman's powers," Aaliyah went on.
"So, what happened then?" Xaera questioned.
"One of the Dark Witch's acolytes recanted her ways and confessed to being part of the ritual that enacted the curse. There was a way around it that would see the lands safe from any famine or blight and the Darkness would be kept at bay," the woman continued.
"And this was done... how?" Jason queried.
"By holding the Oenach Carman, a fair in her honor, during the harvest festival Lughnasadh, at least once every three years. By paying homage to Carman like this, it placated the power that would curse the land, ensuring that it would stay dormant. Doing so worked as they had hoped, so the celebration has continued. Since then, the people of Ireland have celebrated this peculiar holiday, never knowing the truth behind this celebration," Aaliyah told them.
"Damn! Must have been some seriously potent magic for it to persist since she was entombed," Jason replied with a shake of his head.
"Yup! Like I said, she was a chosen of Gaia, so her power was considerable! Had the heroes known of this curse beforehand, they would not have taken her powers away so readily. They tried for many years to undo the curse, but Carman ensured it was tied to the land intimately. To remove the curse would have resulted in the destruction of the island," Aaliyah stated.
"Fuck... me! She really didn't want anyone else holding that island! Any idea why she would place such a powerful curse on the land? I mean, what was the value of holding a place like Ireland back then?" Jason wondered.
"No one really knows. Even her acolytes didn't know what her reasons were. Only Carman and her sons knew the truth and that is something they took with them to their end," Aaliyah finished.
