---

A red ruby shimmered faintly in the dim light of the moon. It hung upon a slender neck, leading up to a soft face with a charming smile on red lips. Amber colored eyes stared intently at the oddest sight imaginable, as she made herself look presentable. Standing before her, a fire between them, illuminating their green faces were two of the forest people. One with a slender face, a bosom, the other a man. They wore simple clothes and brandished spears that glinted from the flame.

Nalla had heard of their kind before, but had never believed they would be real. Stories loving parents told their children to make them in awe of the world, or if one was lucky enough, a travelling druid would tell the tale of the green people who wandered the woods. She had never expected them to be wearing clothes and sitting by a fire with a pointy stick. Yet, here they were.

The man spoke to her again, accent thick and heavy of some foreign language. She knew not what he said but his meaning was clear- Leave us alone.

Yet, his tone betrayed him. He was unsure. He was fighting her charm, she could tell, they all did at first. He kept glancing at her chest and gazed at her face longingly. The woman plant kept glancing at him, her face unsteady, almost blushing as if she was embarrassed when she looked over at her. Nalla tilted her head at the green woman, wondering why she was so afraid.

Then again, who wouldn’t be?

The vampiress tilted her head up as she felt her hunger begin to grow. She shut her eyes and relished in the memories, wrapping herself into a hug as she let out a satisfied sigh. Neiya’s gift was the best thing she had ever received in her life. Her sister’s memories were still there, yes, but steadily drowned in a tide of bliss.

Nalla could smell them, the plants and they did smell so good. Theirs was exotic blood. A chance of a lifetime and she had been such a good girl. It had been at least two days since she had sated her thirst. Who was she to pass up such an opportunity?

With unnatural speed, her head snapped back down and she flashed a toothy smile, her sharp canine’s on full display.

“I’m sorry.” she whispered to them and in a flash she was before them, eyes inflamed with hunger. Before they could react, Nalla used her momentum to slap the woman away. She hit the ground just outside of the fire's ring of light, losing her spear in the process. She then turned on the man, who was quick enough to use his spear as a block, his face grimaced into a look of betrayal. Nalla grabbed the spear, feeling his attempt to back her into the fire, but she was too strong. The wood snapped under her power and she grabbed him, placing her arms firmly around the struggling, but soft plant.

“I can’t wait for the charm this time, I’m just so needy.” she breathed, taking in his floral scent. He head butted her, his skull impacting such a forceful blow but this only irked Nalla. She frowned visibly, before head butting him back with enough force to knock him out cold.

“What a bother.” she complained, before whispering Neiya’s words into his ear. The man began to twitch as she sank her teeth into his soft skin. The consistency was the same as human blood, warm and thick but that was where the similarities ended. Blood, to her, was like a flavored drink, hit or miss. Some tasted delicious, some did not, but that never stopped her from drinking. This blood however, was the sweetest she had ever consumed and it was so delicious. She forced herself to breath, rearing back as a golden liquid coated her mouth. She licked her lips, about to go back for more, until she felt a painful sting in her side.

She screamed angrily, dropping the man as she turned to see that the plant woman had recovered by stabbing Nalla with her spear. The plant’s face was twisted by anger as she shouted something but so too did Nalla flash a look of anger. Once again she broke the spear, causing the woman to lose her balance and fall right into Nalla. The vampiress pulled out the spear, as she grabbed the plant woman by her arm. She struggled, punching Nalla in vain. The vampire looked at the plant in disdain, before licking the blood coated metal tip of the spear. Her own blood was sour, even revolting but she did it to frighten the plant into submission and the girl’s green eyes grew wide. She then plunged it into the girl’s shoulder, an audible scream escaping her lips, only for Nalla to cover her mouth forcefully.

Nalla pressed her to the ground beside the fire, twisting the spear head, golden liquid flowing from the wound as a muffled scream could be heard. Nalla then whispered into her ears the words, the plant going limp from the ecstasy of Neiya’s love. Nalla opened her mouth over the plant’s neck but stopped before she sank her teeth in.

Her moist breath fell upon the plant’s cheek and Nalla reluctantly pulled away. Though she was angry for being stabbed, that didn’t mean she should let such a delicacy go to waste out of anger. She looked over at the male, now out like a light but still breathing. A pair of plants, perhaps an endless supply of such sweet blood. The thought was tantalizing. She stood up, taking the spear head with her and placed it into the fire.

She looked up at the night sky, moon high overhead. She had time and plenty of it.

When the spear head was nice and hot, she placed it over her wound with a hiss, almost blacking out from the pain but no, it was nothing compared to what she had endured before. Nalla then looked down at the plant woman and did the same. Her small face grimaced but she did not wake. With both in a stable condition, Nalla grabbed their things and them, before dragging them off into the night.

---

Nalla arrived back in the village of her birth before the sun rose. She had been busy since Neiya had bestowed her gifts. The village people now knew who was in charge. It had been years ago that she had ousted Petyr and Hansa as the ones who murdered the chief and Yiosalda had been their leader, all brutally killed like the Iskrill they were. She had quickly learned of her necklace’s power but she also learned it didn’t last forever. She had to be decisive about who she let view her and what their influence would be over others so that they would retain loyalty. If not to her, then to their trusted leaders.

Humans were greedy things, lusting for anything they could not readily have. She had been human after all, who was better to know? She found it was easy to exploit that base need. With Yensen as her second and other village heads following him, she controlled everything. Long ago she had gotten them to erect a wooden palisade around the village. For safety and defense she had said and now it was well kept and constantly expanded upon, some parts were even being switched for stone. They were also building her a new home, very much a work in progress but it had started years ago as well. Hewn from rough stone, it was beginning to stand large over the other houses, which were also seeing improvements. They had razed the old chieftains lodge, for Nalla had said the memories of the old deserved to be born anew in their ashes. Just poetic words to spark any sort of joy in her workforce. People liked inspiration.

She had also told her pawns to start spreading mention of her powers. They had slowly but surely built her up to be some sort of god blessed being and many needed that in troubling times.

Her excuse for not being seen in the day, was that her powers meant she was to be active at night more so then the day. It was hard for many to buy but reassurances were made. Plus, she had made an agreement with Yensen and the other heads. She would stop her consumption of the village people and protect them as long as she had a fresh supply to drink from. Outsiders, she told them, were the key.

Indeed, who would have thought a simple message to outlying villages, to band and unite, could be so persuasive. The land was full of brigands and danger, after all. Especially the fiend in the night who was killing chieftains, leaving a smile upon their faces. It seemed their offspring were far more susceptible to such unification and if they weren’t, well… She had other ways to persuade, else the killer got them too.

Divine ecstasy was no laughing matter to creatures of blood and flesh. It worked wonders on the mind, spawned addiction in several cases. So much need to please her, just to get another taste. It was delicious.

And now, she had plants!

To ease suspicions, she had the guards grab her a cart with a blanket. They did not question her and she made sure they got a healthy dose of her charm. That helped too, you know. She had two of them walk the cart up to her new home.

Though it was still under construction, she had first sent in the miners to dig such a large hole, and then build her rooms upon rooms. For safety, for protection she told them! Much of it was done but improvements were being made constantly and the upper levels of the house were incomplete.

It had taken a long time to gather the necessary supplies, trade and manpower, but when blessed by a God, one usually got what they wanted and if they didn’t there was always the other option- by force. Ketrefa would not have her, she knew this, so the only alternative was to build up her own land. As such, her once village was now a bustling town of trade and growth, brought about by her many deals and forced persuasion. It hadn’t always gone to plan, more often than not, but it was all coming together.

They arrived at her empty home and she dismissed the guards. The sun would be up soon and she had plants to settle in. Away from the prying eyes of the sun.

“Oh! I almost forget,” she suddenly exclaimed as she removed the blanket to view the sleeping plants, “Welcome to Nallan.”

---

Sanya’s second day in Ha-Dûna began when she was stirred awake by the sounds creaking wood, giggling, and feet rapidly approaching her room. She barely had enough time to sit up in her bed and hesitantly reach for Sorrowsting before two young girls with grins on their faces barreled through the curtain that partitioned her off from the rest of the world, carrying with them all manner of devilry - but also breakfast. Lured by the promise of food, Sanya tiredly allowed the two village girls to give her a quick wash, brush and straighten out her dark locks and pick out her clothes. Before she knew it, Sanya was dressed in local finery; with a long green dress that made her feel like they were trying to make her look homely, and a leather sash strapped around her waist so tight it was hard to breathe. It was cloying and restrictive, but at least it wasn’t anything like eastern fashion - or worse, prairie-like.

Breakfast was as much an exercise in eating as it was answering a lot of questions. Who she was, how she met Lucia, how long they’d known each other, what it was like knowing a helgen. Sanya did her best to reply, but in most cases the two girls only cared about the most succinct answers; any that would immediately give them new and interesting tidbits about Lucia. In return, they seemed determined not to answer anything but the most basic questions about Ha-Dûna and its peoples, answering most of Sanya’s questions with a shrug and a knowing glance between the both of them. That was fine. She’d take her questions up the chain. Kaer Pinya had brushed her aside during the feast, but now the bustle of their arrival would surely have died down. With that in mind, Sanya finished her late breakfast alongside two local chatterboxes, and then headed out to meet up with Lucia.

As it turned out, however, finding Lucia was a challenge all in its own. She wasn’t in her room, wasn’t in the town centre, or any of the buildings the townsfolk suggested they’d seen her at. For the better part of the early day, she felt like she was chasing down a mirage. Her friend and travelling companion was missing - swept away by some mysterious force and held aside on some secret project that it seemed Sanya was not privy to. That was fine. She was a special woman after all, not just to the druids, and Sanya was sure they’d do all they could to glean as much as they could from her in what little time they had. When the sun stood at its highest in the sky, Sanya resigned herself to examining the village instead, and resumed her previous inspection of the palisade that made up the inner wall, making the circuit around it from the outside; and politely greeting all the people she met on the way.

Even a cursory investigation lent more credence to her initial doubts from the previous day - there was no way this sanctum with its gate - would be able to save more than a piece of the population in the case of an attack before the gate came down. If they waited to pack people in, Sanya doubted they’d have time, or space, to move in defense. In that regard, even the wicked city in the east was more safe. They certainly seemed to have it peaceful enough, yet Sanya knew that a sense of peace would more often than not lead to slaughter. Starting with her own village, all that time ago. She stopped herself with a sigh, rubbing at the bridge of her nose as she gathered her thoughts. She’d come here on good terms, without pressure to do anything but accompany her friend. They didn’t need her security investigation. Still, she filed away a few new questions she’d ask at a later date.

Not long after her investigation, she caught wind of Lucia on the far side of the village, trailed by a whole procession of white cloaks trailing her every step reverently. Sanya grabbed her spear, a poor complement to her outfit even by her own standards, and moved as quickly as the long hemline on her dress allowed her to finally join the procession.

Her old friend seemed happy as ever to see her, and though there wasn’t really time - the druids insisted - to fill Sanya in on what exactly was going on more than a brief explanation, nor time to exchange more than basic pleasantries or quips in the small breaks they were afforded, Sanya quickly found herself in the role she was most comfortable with - letting Lucia guide the way. Dress ill-suited for the purpose or not, she calmly trailed their object of worship, warded off a particularly hands-on fan, exchanged the occasional friendly barb to lighten the mood; which the druids did not seem to find as funny as Lucia did.

Sanya was restless, but still at peace. It was a marvel watching Lucia work her way through each stop on their tour. She was confident, brimming with an unbridled happiness for each person who fell on their knees at her feet. Lucia was what Sanya could never be: a compassionate and loving person. She watched with a sad smile from the sidelines as Lucia helped an older man up off the ground, talked about the Sun Mother, radiated that burning smile that seemed to come naturally. Sanya did not know how many of their kind there were, ageless landwalkers, but each time she saw that smile she felt blessed to have met this one.

When Sanya and Lucia separated for the evening, Sanya felt at ease. She had forgotten to ask her questions of the druids - she’d do that in the morning. She also hadn’t really talked properly to Lucia since - well, come to think of it, they hadn’t really had a chance to talk properly, even before Ha-Dûna. But tomorrow would be different. When the warrioress stowed her millennia-old spear to creep back into bed, it was a positive outlook for what was to come. Perhaps Ha-Dûna could truly work as the refuge from the wickedness of the world they both had sought. She’d help them prepare against the threats of the world. Do her part.

Yet when the next day came, Sanya found her assistance unwanted. When she got the chance to speak with Kaer Pinya, or indeed any other druid that appeared to have authority, they gave her bland pleasantries or suggested she talk to someone else. She queried them on Iskrill sightings, waterfolk both horned and foul, raiders, slavers, dangerous wildlife. Each was rebuffed in its own way. Sanya tried to lend her expertise in other ways, and again she was met with at best awkward silence or brief tokens of gratitude. As she walked with the others, she quickly realized again what she already knew - they were not interested in her. Even when they spoke on matters of which Sanya had knowledge, they did not truly listen nor care unless Lucia first gave her the word. Even then, Sanya felt, they only did so to please Lucia, rather than any value she might be giving them. It was draining. The day passed by her in a blur, and after a good few hours of participating, Sanya felt her old mood shuffling back in like a rainstorm threatening the peace of the village.

The pattern did not change over the coming day - and Sanya found herself less and less motivated to endure the brief lip service that was paid to her. They crowded Lucia like a pack of wolves around a lamb, and there was no threat in sight. Sanya was superfluous. What was worse was that she had started to feel a growing sting from the group, both in reaction to her own presence, and a more insidious build of anxiety, pain and frustration. She and Lucia didn’t really talk; there wasn’t time to stop and talk during the tight schedule they seemed to have planned out in Sanya’s absence. No moments together, and during the few they were, Lucia seemed distant. She seemed caught up in her own world.

So when the sound of the two village girls barreling towards her room woke her up for yet another day of the same, Sanya had already decided. Even from her room far apart from Lucia’s she could feel the growing intensity of frustration. She didn’t need the added burden of continuously forcing the villagers to include Sanya. At this point a lot of them tried to pretend she didn’t exist. Or they genuinely did not care. Sanya was tired of it, and she was sure Lucia was too. So she’d spare her that, let her be pampered. It didn’t bother her, she thought and simultaneously tried to wipe the frown from her face.

Sanya dressed herself in her own loose clothes, took Sorrowsting, dodged the girls’ continued onslaught of questions about Lucia, and simply exited the hovel to face the day on her own. Given the many tours of the village area, she now had a fairly good idea of the layout, and the dark-haired warrior sought herself away from the bustle of the village without a sound. A serene walk later, and she’d found her way to a fallow field on the outskirts.

Out here, in the quiet whip of the wind, away from others, she finally found time to do something she had been putting off, and went back to training with her ancient weapon, half in thought, and half focused. The last time she’d allowed herself to truly practice was… in the north. The memory of the Weike sent a chill rippling through her spine. That night was hazy. A blight on what could have been a new life, however short. Her breathing shallow, she forced herself to remember their faces as she struck air with her spear. She was a coward. A fool. A violent thug. Other faces flushed back into her mind unbidden. People crying, begging for mercy, spitting in her face. Angry men, violent murderers, innocents begging for their lives. How could anyone stay around a monster like her without becoming like her? She had thought she only brought death when she went north, and the Weike had proven her right.

When Sanya broke out of her daze thanks to a growling stomach, the sun was already starting to crest the hills. Lost in her own misery, the ancient woman headed back towards Ha-Dûna.

Over the following days, Sanya returned to the meadow. She could feel a dark haze looming over the village, a niggling pain in the back of her head. A recognizable and unpleasant gloom that burrowed deep and stirred her heart. Still, Lucia was surrounded by allies. She didn’t need another troubled ageless bringing her down with her issues. Trying to fit in. No, she would seek her out if it got worse, but it wasn’t the first time she had felt this way. Lucia was smarter than her, and a better person. She just needed space and time to think. Just like Sanya.

Sorrowsting swept through the air with a precision and power that surprised the warrior herself. She hadn’t had the time to reflect on her skills in a while, hadn’t given herself the space to do anything but live in the moment, but there was no denying that she was stronger than before. She always tried to stay in excellent shape, but something felt better. The spear was lighter, and she could keep training longer at high pace before running out of breath. Come to think of it, she had barely felt the heavy terrain as they traversed the land towards Ha-Dûna. Was this the true touch of the Sun Mother, or something more? In fact, she couldn’t feel any of the old injuries that lingered after her foray into the north. Mind set on the physical, Sanya grasped her spear with both hands, secured it safely against her body, and then set off to run and exercise. She would test her limits properly.

When the sun had begun to set on the day, Sanya finally made her way back to the village once more. She’d barely broken a sweat during a regular run. She felt stronger. Better. Perhaps she had been this way for a long time. Perhaps it was the Sun Mother. She did fight two different trolls in the span of a few weeks. Sanya’s thoughts drifted towards the Weike once more, before they were disrupted by the growing pain building in the back of her head. The despair radiating from the centre of the village was becoming rough to handle. She felt her own emotions mingle with the influence of others, stirring up old anxieties, making even the air feel like a personal slight against her. Sanya hurried back to her lodgings, avoiding the eyes of others. She’d speak to Lucia before it got any worse. First thing in the morning.

Morning came, and with it the two girls who arrived to once more dress Sanya and doll her up according to the local beauty standards. Sanya allowed it, head focused on the discordant emotions stirring her to her own pain. It was awful. It was frustrating. She gave the girls nothing more than gruff agreement as they once more trapped her in a cloying emerald dress with restricted movement. She grabbed her spear, and headed straight for Lucia’s room.

But Lucia was not there.

A bustle of druids flocked all around Sanya, moving around the lodgings. Throwing off her sensation. How she wished she could truly pinpoint emotion. She grabbed a druid at random, a little too forceful. A frustration built up inside her gradually, radiated at her from afar like a taunt and infected her thoughts. ”Where is Lucia?” she croaked, frowning at the scene. The druid gave her a mild sneer, and Sanya imagined breaking his nose for his insolence.

“The great helgen Lucia is with Kaer Pinya.” he responded matter-of-factly, offering a smile that Sanya could’ve sworn was malicious, and then continued on his way.
Sanya looked around as best she could without pushing through the crowd, then moved back outside. Someone bumped her side and went on without talking to her, and Sanya felt the irritation stir to a boiling blood. With long, deep breaths, she tried to calm herself. It wasn’t her emotions. She was fine. She wouldn’t hurt anyone. Not again. Her gaze fell around the town centre, but she could not see any procession, and the next person she asked just shook her shoulders. She couldn’t take it. It was like ants crawling all over her body. She hated the people around her, looking at them made her angry.

She’d come back when she was sure Lucia was present, instead of risking any problems. They already didn’t like her, Sanya decided, and stormed off towards the meadow for another day, putting as much distance between herself and the roil of emotion as she could. Sanya hurried out into the relative lonesome of the edge of Ha-Dûna, tried to center herself. Still, the entire village felt like a thunderstorm encroaching upon her mind. She’d have to fight to keep any of her mind to herself.

Briefly putting Sorrowsting aside, Sanya leant down to grab the hemline of her emerald dress, and rolled up the fabric slowly over her knees, tucking the hemline firmly into the tight sash around her waist. She loosened the small linen straps on her arms and rolled up the sleeves. Pleased with her makeshift work, she grasped her spear, and resumed her heavy training from the previous days. All she had to do was lose herself in the motions. Don’t think. Just do.

Sanya closed her eyes, and got back to practice. Try as she might, the emotions would not fade from her mind. The focus on her training was not enough, merely a weak and thin shield against the building storm. Sanya forced herself to focus on her form, on her movements, but still she felt the pestilence of rage, frustration and despair growing in the back of her mind. Almost as though it steadily approached her even here, and threatened to drown her in its entirety.

"Sanya!" came Lucia's anger filled voice. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"

Sanya stopped in her tracks, eyes shooting open. She felt it more clearly than ever now, confirming her own fears and suspicions. It was like standing in a storm. Still, she turned to face Lucia, whose face was masked in angry tears. ”Lucia? What-.. Why are you out here?” She offered at first, and then immediately inspected her long-time companion closer. She asked, though she knew the answer already. ”Are you alright?”

Lucia shook her head and wiped away her tears as she kept on walking. "We're leaving this… This place." was her reply, more emotional now then enraged.

Sanya parted her lips to reply when Lucia powered on straight past her, and she cleared her throat. ”Lucia? Lucia, wait!” she managed, turning to follow the woman in the field. ”Did they hurt you? What happened?” Sanya asked with uncertainty, feeling her own emotions warp and twist under the spell of another. Still, she followed with spring in her step, dropping Sorrowsting to skip forward and catch up to the escaping Lucia. Her hand stretched out quickly, reaching for Lucia’s arm. ”Lucia.”

Lucia halted at the touch, head low as she began to speak. "I don't… They were…" her voice broke. "I'm just a person." she whispered, beginning to sob.

Sanya wrapped around quickly to face her, and then closed the distance to pull Lucia into an embrace without a second thought, a deep and centering breath escaping the shorter warrior as she focused on offering Lucia some measure of comfort. She felt the bubbling emotions tear into her, and a building rage that was most certainly her own, as she stared back towards what she could see of the village. ”I’m here.” she uttered quietly.

Lucia let herself be held as the tears came.

---

_{Kho and NF present}


Cadien was circling Antiquity, much as he always did. Lost in thought, he did not pay much attention to the portals that drifted by him as he passed, but as he walked by one particular portal he glanced something odd - just in the corner of his eye - that gave him pause. He couldn’t help but notice that there was something rather… off. When he turned his head, he found that the portal was pitch black. Now this may have simply implied an unmodified realm, but something about the portal made him doubt that. He turned and stepped swiftly towards it, scanning it for any oddities before finally placing his hand into it... only to meet a solid surface rather than the amorphous swirl that was the norm for portals.

Ah. It’s not dark, he thought. It’s blocked. He supposed he could not blame a god for blocking off their realm. Some of the gods were, as he had learned secondhand from Neiya and firsthand from Aicheil, obnoxious. So it was perhaps a sensible measure to block the door so that unwanted intruders could not force access. Still, he found himself rather curious as to the god who would seal their realm in what seemed to be solid ink.

His curiosity piqued, he decided that seeking an audience with the owner of this strange, sealed-off realm was in order. And so he rapped his knuckles against the inky surface and spoke. “Hail there! May I come in?”

At his touch, the ink rippled and its colours shifted, and what had been a blank and peaceful barrier began to ripple slowly, and the ripples became more agitated. The surface roiled and turned, whirling now into a small gyre of colour and now bulging and growing outwards until it hovered dangerously, uncertain of whether to plunge or rear itself back in. It hung there, on the verge of bursting, for a few moments more... and burst it did.
Ink and song erupted suddenly and violently from the portal, drenching Cadien. The torrent of many-coloured ink flooded the ground all around the portal, and the variegated pool began swiftly expanding while song and poetry fluttered off in the form of inky birds and leaves carried off by some unknown breeze, and little flitting faeries and fluttering butterflies.

Some of those kaleidoscopic oddities fluttered about the Cadien’s head and began to whisper and sing in overlapping feminine tones.


The fluttering birds circumambulated Cadien’s divine head and flew away, only to be replaced by others who circled once - and only once - then went off on their way; some bursting into a cacophony of melody and verse, while others leapt sighing and dancing into the realms of other gods.

All of this did Cadien bear for a few silent moments, but soon an indignant rage welled up in his chest as he finally wiped away the ink which had splattered him... but he was able to suppress it at the last. “I am Cadien, the god of Perfection,” he breathed. “Could I perhaps inquire as to the owner of this realm?”

Annoyingly, there was no immediate response to his words and the outpouring of ink from the walled up portal continued. The only response to Cadien’s question were the odd inky flyers who continued to flutter and dance and sing about his head. They varied their song slightly, but the general theme continued to be that that there was nothing here, that it was empty and that there was nothing to be found.


“I find that rather hard to believe,” Cadien remarked in response, “considering you are speaking to me right now. And why would this realm be sealed if there was not something inside of it?” But there was no response to his words this time. The birds and butterflies flew off laughing and dancing, and all about Cadien was silence and the gushing inky cascade.

“Hmm…” the god stood still for a moment, deep in thought. Then he took a step back from the portal, and cleared his throat.


For a moment nothing happened beyond the gushing of the ink from the obsidian portal and the flow of the growing inky pond across the floor of Antiquity - having now already reached the noticeboard of the gods. The silence dragged on for a few uncomfortably awkward, heavy moments... and then a cacophony of noises - wood being sawed, planks being hammered, bricks being baked and swiftly put up - sounded. The high-pitched shriek of what might have been metal being shaped and drills at work was ear-piercing, and the sound of engines roared and chainsaws rattled as the barrier appeared to be enforced by all means possible. When all of this was done, a suspicious feminine voice spoke out with finality, ‘nobody’s home!’

“I propose a challenge, then,” Cadien suggested to the voice. “If I can break down your barrier, I can come in. Do you accept?” His proposal, however, was met with a cry of fear and the scuttling of feet back and forth… then what was undoubtedly the sound of furniture being moved and jostled around.

‘N-no, please! Please! If you huff and you puff and blow my house down I would be ever so upset!’ The panicking voice cried out.

“Hmm. Very well then,” Cadien shrugged in resignation. “That wasn’t a threat, I should clarify. ‘Twould have merely been a test of your barrier’s integrity. But, if you do not wish for it, then I shall not do it; you have nothing to fear. But anyhow, now! May I please come in?” He asked once more.

He heard the voice behind the barrier sigh with relief. ‘Thank you, kind sir! That is most gallant and gentlemanly of you. But I fear that it would go against all etiquette and propriety to l- let a stranger inside for no good reason and without a chaperone. Is there anything I can do for you? Perhaps I can take a message?’ There was the rustling of paper, what seemed to be quick scribbling back and forth on a page before there was an exasperated groan about ‘these things keep running out of ink..’

“Would you happen to be the owner of this realm?” Cadien asked.

‘Realm, sir?’ The voice asked in response.

“Oh no,” Cadien whispered, and then sighed. “Have you made any attempt to set foot outside this portal after it appeared?”

‘F-foot, sir?’ the voice asked with audibly increasing horror.

“Is there anybody else in there that I may speak to?” Cadien snapped at last.

‘Oh, I will check for you, sir. Just a moment.’ There was once again the sound of scuttling feet, whispering, a number of people muttering and shouting in surprise in the distance, before the skidding and sliding of scampering and running feet. ‘I’m sorry sir, everyone else appears to be asleep. The Lady is not to be disturbed, she is currently at a very delicate point in her… uh, whatever it is she’s doing.’

“And who is this Lady?” Cadien asked.

‘Wh- who is the Lady?’ There was a musical note of dawning realisation, ‘you don’t know the Lady, sir?’ Suspicion had returned. ‘And yet you come knocking at the door! You are surely a miscreant with incredible panache attempting to charm us of our honour! Woe is me!’ Cadien frowned, and once more there was hammering and drilling in an apparent show of reinforcing the barrier even further.

“I am no miscreant, churl. I am Cadien, the god of Perfection. Do you treat all visitors with such suspicion?”

‘You will have to pardon my suspicion, sir, but you are a highly charming individual - perfect, in fact! - attempting to beguile and dazzle your way into this empty box, for no reason at all! You would forgive me if I suspected such a perfectly charming stranger - one with such overpowering words and logic, at that - of some kind of ulterior motive; especially when the Lady is sleeping inside! Oh, the humiliation of it! A stranger getting inside! It’s most irregular! What will the people say of us?’ The voice continued melodramatically for a good while before finally coming to a conclusion, ‘so, please do pardon me sir, but I can’t simply roll the red carpet out for you, as it were.’

Cadien stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Ah,” he said after a moment. “But am I perfectly charming, or merely perfectly mannered? If you turn away all who demonstrate such refinement, then they will stop coming, out of respect for your policy. Then only the brutes and churls will be left, who will not be so easily turned away. Would you rather have them knocking at your door instead of I? I think not. The mere sight of such disreputable figures outside your door will surely tarnish your Lady’s reputation.” He shook his head. “No. Better to let me in. I give you my word that I mean no harm to you or your Lady.” Shuffling and whispering followed Cadien’s words, and a heavy silence descended as though the person behind the barrier was deep in thought... until at last the heaviness could not be retained and a sob sounded.

‘Oh sir! You have frightened me beyond measure! Even now I am imagining all the fiends out there, all your Casanovas and Don Juans and other such incredibly handsome but fast and loose libertines. It’s incredibly frightful - oh! Oh my heart! It’s going to give out, any moment now! Oh! Oh! Sir! I will let you in but you must promise me - you must promise me this. Oh! That you will stand gallantly and boldly against all those vile philanderers who will come knocking at the door!’

“Very well. I promise.” Cadien smiled in triumph.

‘Right! Good! I am relieved! Let me just move all this,’ and for a few moments there was the noise of shuffling and jostling and the removal of the assortment of barriers that had been put up, before that all stopped suddenly. ‘But oh! Oh me!’ The woman cried, ‘how am I to trust your word alone, kind sir?’ Cadien huffed, closed his eyes, and brought his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose for a few moments, before returning to a upright position.

“All I have done is assure you of my own character. If a charming figure surely sought to gain entry via deception, they would have diverted conversation away from themselves and instead plied you with flirtation and flattery. They would have issued false praise and claims of devotion to your Lady, without knowing who she was. But I? I have focused only on what I can speak the truth about. My merits, and my intentions.” He snapped his fingers and hastily materialized his suit of armour around himself.

‘That is all very well, sir, and I am sure you are very honest and sincere, but it remains the case that I do not know you, truly. What is to say you are not an exceedingly cunning and dashing young Romeo who is well-aware of the normal tricks of such young adventurers, and so have refined your art to the highest degree so that naive ladies-in-waiting like poor little me will let you in? Surely you can offer some kind of boon as proof of your sincerity? Something you cannot do without so that even the great beauty and nubile form of my Lady, and her captivating song and dance, will not shake your gallant and pure intentions.’

“I can offer you my cloak?” he suggested. “It is of my favourite colour, and it complements my outfit rather well. I simply wouldn’t be able to leave without it.”

‘But sir!’ The voice on the other side gave out an indignant cry, ‘if I didn’t know any better I would think you are making fun of me!’ There was a huff and the sound of a stamping foot, and then the song of arms being crossed, pouting lips, and furrowed brows slivered through the barrier.

“I would never do such a thing,” said Cadien. “I am the Lord of Perfection. Fashion is a very serious matter to me. I would not freely offer an accessory if I did not hope for its return. Nor would I do so with intention to mock.” There was a gasp the moment he had mentioned fashion, and a great racket as the barrier was dismantled at bizarre speed.

‘Sir! We are experiencing what one could term a fabric crisis, for want of better words. You simply must help us resolve this pressing and, well,’ there was a pause, ‘somewhat embarrassing state of affairs. I assure you that you will be rewarded most handsomely for your assistance!’ And with that, the final lock was removed and the bolt drawn open, causing the barrier of ink to collapse and reveal a world of incredible colour and sound, mesmerising and beautiful beyond words. Colourful Songs took on the form of enchanting young maidens with sweeping hair who leapt about laughing and giggling, birds and little faeries flying about them and singing and reciting poetry in adoration of their perfect forms of colourful ink and dance.

The world itself was a breathtaking sweep of majestic rolling mountains of shifting ink, through which streamed endless rivers and cascades. The skies roiled and shifted like the glorious breath of the cosmos, and wherever the eye fell it found beauty, and whatever fell upon the ear was cause for joy and delight. An inky woman stood by the barrier, covering her shame with her endlessly flowing liquid hair. The fabric crisis she was referring to was all too clear, for all the Songs that laughed and danced across the sensational realm were unclothed. The woman, who Cadien immediately knew to be the troublesome lady-in-waiting, extended her hand to Cadien, inviting him to take her hand and step within.

I hope Neiya doesn’t find out about this, Cadien thought, as he took her hand and stepped inside. As he stepped through, ink rushed about him and he looked back to find the portal slowly sealing up behind him. No doubt it was to ensure that no dangerous villains would take the opportunity to sneak inside. He turned back to the smiling lady-in-waiting and found that she had flushed all kinds of red on contact with the manifestation of manly perfection that he was.

She led him slowly through the realm, and about them the clouds of ink parted and a pathway of rocky red and orange and yellow inks formed beneath their feet as they walked, and it led to a great pavilion furnished with all manner of soft cushions and carpets - though Cadien knew not how they were kept from staining those reclined on them - and as they entered the pavilion graceful Songs approached softly and eased Cadien’s cloak and armour from his athletic, sinewy form. Then the lady-in-waiting led him inside and seated him amongst the biggest cushions where Cadien immediately felt that the acoustics were clearer and that the verses and lays drifted towards him in a relaxing and peaceful manner. Lithe, wide-eyed Songs brought bowls of fruit and sweatmeets and honeyed nuts before him, and he heard the lady-in-waiting say in her sing-song voice that he was the first stranger to ever set eyes upon them, and he the first they ever set eyes on.

Many of these Songs, as the lady-in-waiting called them, gathered about the pavilion and strained to catch a glimpse of Cadien, and he could hear them whispering about ‘the thing of beauty that everyone is whispering and talking about,’ and all about Cadien fair maidens threw themselves and sat and lay adoring every aspect of his form. As they gently delighted in inspecting him, now massaging his shoulder or feeling a bicep or admiring his calves, the lady-in-waiting sat herself on some of the cushions and looked to the god.

‘It is our duty to offer entertainment, but I fear that all my Songs are far too shy to sing and dance before you without something to cover themselves. Are you, perhaps, able to offer them some clothing that will enhance their beauty and hasten our ability to entertain you as you deserve to be entertained?’ The god of Perfection glanced at the lady-in-waiting as he basked in the attention, and then offered a single nod. With a snap of his fingers, each Song was suddenly clad in a low-cut form-fitting dress, in colours that perfectly complemented the hues of their skin, and long silken sashes were draped about their shoulders and tied about their waists. The sudden change drew melodious cries of astonishment and delight from the Songs around the pavilion and across the realm, to Cadien’s satisfaction, and their enticing and lyrical song rose like a great wave about the pavilion and came crashing down to fill the place with a flood of harmonious yet inspirited sound.

Those Songs around Cadien’s throne of cushions threw themselves in his lap and about his shoulders in delight, now planting kisses and now stroking one aspect or another of his perfect physique. And even as those did so, others sat themselves around and began strumming lutes that materialised from the inky ambience and beating drums and playing flutes, and others let loose bursts of exquisite sound in a full-hearted celestial song that called on the souls of those present to rise, awaken, and dance. And many of those Songs leapt up, putting their newly-clothed ripe forms into the twirling dance, and bells about their ankles and wrists gave their every movement a tight tension and emphasis, while whirling sashes leant the illusion of a barrier, distance, mystique.

The singing went on, and the dancing, and jugs full of deep-crimson wine was brought forth and poured into bejewelled goblets. Songs competed to be the ones to bring their cup to the god’s waiting lips. Others raced to plop a grape into his mouth or slice apples that they may be the ones to place the sweet fruit between his perfectly symmetrical lips. And the dance intensified, inundating Cadien with sensory pleasures; the song seeming to only grow ever upwards, ever on the cusp of reaching a climax yet never doing so.

Cadien could not deny that he was enjoying himself, and yet through the haze of pleasure he grasped at though and knew that he had come into this realm with a purpose, and as tempting as it was to lose himself in the beauty that surrounded him he knew he could not. He gently pushed away one of the Songs attempting to kiss him. “My apologies,” he said, glancing at the lady-in-waiting, “you are all very beautiful, and your skills at song and dance are unmatched, but could you withhold such intimate gestures? I have already committed myself to a woman, and she would not think it proper if I were to let things go on like this.”

The lady-in-waiting nodded at his words and signalled for the Songs who were being too intimate to control themselves. They did not refrain from pressing themselves against him, though the kisses decreased considerably and they contented themselves with massaging his knotted muscles and releasing the tension wherever it lay as the dancers continued their graceful stepping and gyrations in synchrony with the music all around, and good foods continued to be served. ‘Even from here I can feel that it has been very long indeed since you simply relaxed and enjoyed some good entertainment, my lord,’ the lady-in-waiting said, ‘pray tell, what are these matters that keep you busy from the good company of dancers and singers who would delight in easing you of all tensions and worries?’

“Interactions with my fellow gods, primarily.” Cadien explained, as he accepted a sip from golden goblet. “Most are pleasant company, but some have been quite rude and churlish. Then there is the plight of my people to consider. And as I said, I have already committed myself to a goddess. I love her, but she is quite possessive - not that I blame her for that, I suppose. Still, it would betray her trust if I fell too deeply into intimate company with others.” He glanced at the lady-in-waiting and found that she was frowning at this and clearly puzzled by some of what he had said.

‘I must say, my lord, your lady’s possessiveness is understandable - but it simply is not right. Women are monogamous by nature, but great men have many lovers - and they can love them all the same, for that is the mark of their greatness. I am sure that your lady will come to understand this with time - the greatest display of love is to allow your beloved to seek happiness in every sense. It does not take from a lady’s joy any if the great pillar and pole of her life is the support of many others. If anything, that is the evidence of his desirability. But I digress! You have said this word many times now - “god.” I have not heard it before. What is it?’

“You do not know what a god is?” Cadien furrowed his brow in confusion. “Hmm. Well, a god is an immensely powerful being, capable of creating life, objects, and all manner of things from nothing. The act I just performed - granting you all clothes - was but a small display of such power. What we are in right now is called a realm. You and all things in it were created by a singular god, and it was that god I came in here to meet.” The lady-in-waiting’s eyes widened as he spoke, and then she looked around as though the god that he had just spoken of would appear out of the ether.

‘Y- you are mistaken my lord! There are none of these powerful and mighty creatures in here. And you say that there are many such gods? And that some are not so good as you?’ Her brows seemed to crease in worry.

“Oh, fear not,” Cadien waved a hand, “your realm may still have a god. They might simply be absent, or hidden. As to the others… a few are unpleasant, yes - I did try to warn you of them. But from most you have nothing to fear. Rest assured, I’m certain that neither they nor your realm’s creator would allow any harm to befall you. And I did agree to stand against the unpleasant ones, did I not?” The crease of worry slowly lifted from the lady’s brows as Cadien spoke, and when he made his confident declaration she flushed crimson and looked away.

‘Y- you did my lord. I thank you for your kindness and generosity in this regard. I see now I was wrong to doubt, you are truly as gallant as you said. We shall have no need to fear while you are with us and protect us.’ The other Songs sat about Cadien nodded in agreement, and though they respected his desire not to be kissed, they continued caressing now his hair - and now his arms -, while staring at him with what appeared to be ever-growing adoration. ‘And you say you have been interacting with these other gods - if you pardon my ignorance, my lord, why do you do so? Is there some great and noble purpose that calls on you to risk life and limb in this manner?’

“Indeed,” Cadien nodded. “It is my own curiosity. I cannot determine which gods mean well and which ones mean ill until I speak with them to ascertain their motives.” Despite his earlier desire, Cadien now found himself sinking further into his beautiful companions’ attentions and returning their caresses, which garnered delighted giggles from them and responses in kind. “Now, should you ever find yourselves in danger, simply think of me, and whisper a message. I will hear it, and if your realm is open, I shall come to your assistance if you need it.” He smiled at the lady-in-waiting, but almost immediately the ripple of worry had returned to her inky visage.

‘Y- you mean that you cannot stay with us? Have we displeased you my lord? Please,’ she paused and swallowed, her glistening chromatic eyes meeting his, ‘do not leave us...’ Her plea caused her anxiety clear, and almost immediately her words were echoed by the others, and one or two held his hands desperately - but with a certain softness that sought neither to cling or force but only to implore -; and their touches and words made no secret of how his departure so soon after his arrival would pain them beyond measure. ‘You promised you would protect us, and we cannot feel safe now knowing that such evil beings exist outside. Please do not leave us to their predations, my lord.’ The songs looked from their worried lady-in-waiting to the majestic god who had blessed them with his presence, and for whom Cadien could see each now betrayed no small degree of growing love and devotion. ‘If we have made you unhappy with us then we will mend our ways, if only you would stay, my lord,’ despite the clear imploration in her words and voice, and on her flushed red face, the lady-in-waiting looked away and attempted to retain what dignity she could before the regal god, ‘protect us, take joy with us, and allow us to joy in your company and hear your tales and serve you in all ways.’ The lady bit her lips and furrowed her brows, bringing a hand to her shoulder as though bracing herself against a blow, causing Cadien to frown.

“It is through no failing on your part that I must leave,” he reassured, which immediately garnered melodious sighs of relief and smiles from the gathered Songs. “I merely have obligations elsewhere. Although…” the frown faded, and he took on a thoughtful expression. “If your creator is indeed absent, then I suppose it would be irresponsible of me to leave such beautiful damsels unattended. Mmm… yes, this is quite the dilemma,” he said as he stroked his chin. “Hmm. I may have an idea. But first, I’m going to need to meet this Lady that you told me of.” At mention of the Lady, a hush overcame the gathered Songs and they looked to the lady-in-waiting, with worry, and the lady too seemed somewhat at pains.

‘The Lady sleeps, my lord. No one ever disturbs her, for her sleeps is a delicate affair. Even we only go by her on tiptoes and barely breathe at all,’ she pursed her lips and sighed, ‘but why is it that you need to meet her so urgently? You have said that you do not know her after all. Is there something that, perhaps in your foresight, you have kept to yourself about our Lady?’ The lady-in-waiting leaned forward slightly, her eyes widening with hope; though her rippling brows spoke of uncertainty and doubt.

“Not at all,” Cadien shook his head. “I merely wish to invite you all to join me in my own realm. It would resolve the dilemma of me needing to leave while you desire after a protector. It seems only fitting to bring such a request to your leader before I do so, however.” The lady-in-waiting perked up almost immediately at his words, and the gathered Songs also looked about themselves excitedly - to travel with their Lady and remain under the protection of Cadien, it seemed, was a prospect that called for delight and excitement. The lady-in-waiting was on her feet almost instantly, and she stepped towards Cadien - and even though her steps were hurried, that essential lithely grace did not fade - and came on her knees before him and placed a kiss on his palm; and where her lips made contact with his skin she blossomed crimson and all her body glowed with it as she looked away.


‘Thank you my lord, to join you and be ever safe, and to frolic and joy in your presence and hear your manful tales, is all we desire.’ Her chromatic eyes peeked shyly up at him, her eyes hovering now on his chiselled jaw and now on the lips that more than a few fortunate Songs had savoured during the earlier entertainment and revelry. She swallowed and cleared her throat, ‘we will have to prepare you, my lord. We will wash you of these ink stains - much as ink, you will be pleased to know, complements your divine form - and we will ready you for approaching our Lady. It may be that your sublime presence will awaken her at last - and what better could she hope to awaken to?’

Cadien nodded his assent at this, and the lady-in-waiting and all her Songs gathered about the god with knowing smiles, stripping him of what clothes he yet wore and leading him gently away.


Had the bath-house where the perfect god was attended to by those enchanting beauties any ligneous beams or treen chattels, it need not be commented on that many lacerations would have been present there when at last the lady-in-waiting led him out, every aspect of him properly cleaned, his body oiled, and in all ways cared for. No marks of the offensive inks that had sprayed him before his entry into the realm were to be found, though looking on his form the lady-in-waiting said once more, ‘your form, my lord, calls out for the artistic touch of ink. It would be…’ she paused and looked away, attempting and failing to hide her reddening face, ‘perhaps you would allow me, sometime…’ she intoned.

“I think not,” Cadien shook his head slightly. “I do not doubt your abilities, but I am satisfied with my form as is.” He shrugged. “Then again, I have a tendency to change my mind. But for now, there is a more pressing matter at hand.” The lady-in-waiting looked like she had been struck, but she bit her lip and hid her face with a hand.

‘S-sorry my lord, of course. I meant no offence,’ her hand slipped from his and she placed it humbly at her side as she led him along the inky path that formed up with each of their steps. Every now and again she glanced at him with furrowed brows as though to check he was not angry with her.

“No harm done,” Cadien said in a reassuring tone as he idly examined his surroundings. The inky clouds of colour drifted past them on wings of song, and every now and again a little fae creature went whizzing by while loosing energetic jingles, or an inky thrush would land on the shoulder of one Song or another and bring forth a full-hearted evensong that purged any thought of gloom and caused the lively Songs to giggle and laugh melodiously and kiss and caress the bird of ink before it fluttered off. One such Song leapt beside the walking god and locked her arm in his, looking up at the far taller being.

‘My lord, you never did tell us what your realm is like. Everyone is so curious! We can’t wait to go and live there with you,’ she released a sigh, ‘can you tell me about it?’ The lady-in-waiting shot the little Song the slightest of irritated glances, her eyes hanging on where she held Cadien for a few moments before turning away and hurrying on.

“My realm? It is a lovely place. An island in the midst of a vast ocean, with a great fortress full of luxurious furniture and tasteful decorations. No doubt I will have to make some alterations to accommodate all of you, so there is more to be added still.” Cadien smiled. “You could consider it to be a… not a blank canvas, but one that is still in progress. Always ready for new additions.” The smaller Song seemed to eat up the talk of luxury and decoration, but perhaps what made her most curious was-

‘A vast ocean, my lord?’ The lady-in-waiting asked suddenly, bringing herself closer and timidly reaching for his free hand again, ‘what is that? And are there other gods in your realm?’

Cadien allowed her to take his hand with a reassuring smile, and the lady blushed crimson and looked at her feet. “An ocean is a large body of water,” he explained. “As for other gods, I am my realm’s sole owner, though others do visit from time to time. Including the goddess that I love. Assuming you do join me there, I would ask that you not disturb her when she appears; she enjoys solitude, and being alone with her own thoughts.”

‘Oh, my lord!’ the small Song cried, ‘that is beautiful! There must be many who love and adore you just as she does. I cannot wait to see her - she must be beautiful for you to love her, and she must have the most beautiful song, and I am sure she dances more wondrously than ever we danced!’

“Many adore me, it’s true,” Cadien agreed as they walked. “But none adore me as much as her. And none adore her as much as I.” There was a wistful tone in his voice. “She is beautiful, but I have never seen her sing or dance. Though such things are charming, she never needed them to draw my attention; her other attributes were enough.” Though the Song seemed stunned by a lover who neither sang nor danced, she appeared to understand immediately what the god meant.

‘That makes sense! For you don’t sing or dance my lord, and yet we all a- ah,’ the Song clamped her mouth shut and tightened her grip about his great arm, ‘and are there goddesses other than her, my lord? Surely they must love you too, and you them? A lord like you must have as many loves as there is ink in the world!’

Cadien frowned and shook his head. “There are many other gods and goddesses, and I consider many of them to be my friends. But I only have one love. She is all I need.” His frown faded. “You do things differently here, and I have no intention of making you change your ways, but outside of this realm, most view love as a competition. A man may only love one woman, and a woman may only love one man. My love believes this too, and I have accepted that.” On what seemed to be a startling revelation for the duo, the lady and the Song let out stunned gasps and for a moment neither seemed able to find their tongue so as to respond. It was the lady that found her tongue first.

‘But my lord, that is simply terrible! What will happen to all of us here who have given ourselves to you? How can you love us also when you will only love one? How can you bear to break so many hearts!’ The Song hanging onto his other arm nodded in agreement with the lady, her colourful eyes glistening at what seemed to be a horrible thought.

‘You said you would take us with you, my lord. We don’t mind how many you love, so long as you love us too,’ she added, smearing away an offensive teary droplet and sniffing back any more.

“Ah, I misspoke. I meant romantic love,” Cadien corrected himself. “There are different forms of love, you see. Love between friends, love between family. I hold love for what I create, and for those who choose to serve me. I am fully prepared to love you all; just not romantically.” The smaller Song’s frown deepened at these words, and she looked to the silent lady who seemed resigned to what, from her manner, seemed a terrible declaration. Perhaps it had never occurred to any of these isolated maidens that such different - and perhaps to them tragic - rules could exist.

‘Are you expected to seal off your heart and fight off every other possibility of love, my lord?’ the Song asked, ‘because that is only what dutiful women may do! Great men should not mimic women!’ the Song blurted at last, ‘it’s only us who are meant to do that - and you are meant to love us all. B- but. But if you can’t love us in your heart then…’ she placed her cheek against his bicep, ‘can we not at least take some joy of your form; surely that is separate from the matters of the heart? Surely your beloved will not deny you that if she loved you as we do?’

Cadien realized he was getting nowhere with this line of logic. His frown returned. “Where are these ‘great men’ of yours, then? Why have I not seen any?” The duo looked to one another and giggled, and then the lady-in-waiting slapped the god lightly on the arm, as though to bring his attention to the obvious.

‘He’s right here, my lord!’ She smiled, and the other Song laughed melodiously in agreement.

“You mean to tell me that I am the only man in this realm?” He asked, tilting his head slightly, and the lady simply nodded.

‘There need only be one, after all,’ she gave him a timid smile, though the other Song had no such inhibitions or shyness, leaping up gracefully and planting a kiss on his cheek, and then somehow managing to hang there hugging his neck for a short period before plopping back down and resuming her embosoming of his arm.

“Hm. There lies the heart of our issue, then. I don’t understand how you even know what men are if you have none, but when you accompany me to my realm, I shall create some for you. You may enjoy their attentions in place of mine.”

‘Will they be like you? With interesting stories and a love for dancing and singing and frolicing?’ The Song asked, her previous qualms forgotten. ‘And will you still love us even when we love them?’

“They will never be as great as I,” Cadien shook his head. “But they will be handsome, and they will be charming. They will dance, they will sing, perhaps even frolic. As for love, I shall love you as a protector and a leader would. They shall love you in all other aspects you require.” The Song opened her mouth to protest once more, but the voice of the lady-in-waiting cut across her, and there was a coldness there.

‘That will suffice, Herraiya.’ She said, and sound seemed to catch in the smaller Song’s mouth, who slowly closed it and contented herself with caressing the god’s arm. The lady then turned her gaze on the god with a small, soft smile, ‘if that is your will my lord, then we will accept it with pleasure. Your happiness is our delight and to see your will done is cause for joy.’

The god’s smile returned, brighter than those that anytime before. “Excellent. I look forward to hearing your songs echo through the halls of Meliorem. Now, let us press on.” The lady-in-waiting’s eyes hung on his smile for a few moments, seemingly dazzled, before she shook herself free and nodded.

They continued onward, making light conversation and joking as they went, and every now and then the Song at his side began rendering harmonious melodies that almost seemed to carry them forth along the ever-forming path of ink. And as the path climbed higher and higher into the inky clouds, there encompassed them a serene, monotone intonation that slowly became a trilling and quavering chant, which was soon transformed into a beatific chorus and strumming.

And the clouds of ink parted to reveal a small inky plateau where no Song wandered, and at the centre of the strange island of ink was a strange feminine figure. As they approached, it was immediately noticeable that her lower body was a miniscule storm of roiling ink, twisting and turning tirelessly on itself, and from her waste upward she seemed perfectly formed except for the odd tear or gash that revealed bubbling ink of variegated tones and colours. She was upright, though reclining backwards on air, her arms slightly spread and elbows bent so that her hands hung up by her hanging head. Her eyes were closed and she did not seem to breathe, though across her black skin golden tattoos shifted and turned, and her straight golden hair seemed to float here and there against any gravitational pull.

After a few sombre moments, the lady-in-waiting turned to Cadien and, wordlessly, presented what was clearly her Lady to him with a small gesture. Cadien looked at the strange sleeping woman with somewhat widened eyes. She was like no other he had encountered in this world; and it seemed clear to him that this was no ordinary sleep. Aside from her bizarre physical appearance, there did not seem to be anything extraordinary about her, though the sounds and songs which emanated from her were a strange mixture of joy and pain. “How long has she been like this?” he asked his companions. The lady-in-waiting brought a finger to her lips in thought, before speaking in a very low voice.

‘I’m not sure, the early days are not so easy to remember - but she was always off in her own world. She used to sing a lot more - and it was something incredible to behold, beyond anything I have seen or felt. But those occasions were very rare, few and far between. I care for her and protect her as I can, and the Songs all help me do that too,’ she paused and sighed, sadness and different shades of blue shimmering across her body, and she added more to herself, ‘but now I see how foolish I was. It was never possible to keep her safe from all the evil gods out there.’

“Does she ever wake?”

The lady-in-waiting looked at him and nodded. ‘Yes my lord, but as I say it has been a long time since she last did. We have never sought to disturb her - she wakes and sleeps as she pleases,’ she whispered.

How strange, Cadien thought, setting his gaze back on the sleeping Lady. This did not strike him as an ordinary sleep by any means. But at the same time, he had never seen this species sleep until now. He stepped closer to her, garnering a nervous gulp from the lady-in-waiting, and placed a hand on her cheek. “It is time for you to wake up,” he told her. Cadien could feel the lady-in-waiting and the other Song staring wide-eyed into his back for a few moments, clearly unsure of what would happen next. A strange stillness settled on the area, and all song seemed to fade. The lady-in-waiting and the Song looked around nervously.

‘My lo-’ the lady-in-waiting made to speak, but almost immediately the world around them seemed to roar and twist and turn, previously peaceful and harmonious inky clouds growing and expanding violently. The inky plateau beneath them rumbled and shook also, and the solid foundations it all stood on seemed to shift suddenly and begin to slip away.

Cadien stepped away from the sleeping Lady and instinctively thrust his fist into the ground, and the ink enveloped his arm up to the elbow. This was not his realm. It was not his home. It was not him. But that did not mean he was powerless. He forced his power and his will into the inky ground beneath him, and suddenly the shaking stopped. “Go!” he shouted to the two Songs standing nearby. “Gather… everyone…” he grunted, as he felt the realm begin to push back against his efforts to control it. “Bring them… here... “ his voice became increasingly strained. “I’ll get us out…” he gasped. The lady and the Song jumped to, looking at their unstable surroundings with fear.

‘B-but my lord, this ha-’ the Song began to protest, but the lady-in-waiting cut her off.
‘We will gather everyone as fast as we can my lord. I’m so sorry, this hasn’t happened in a very long ti-’ and leaving her words trailing off, she grabbed the Song and leapt onto the path, tripping here and there where where ink had collapsed or was flowing profusely. Ink droplets rained everywhere, pelting any yet-solid ground and all on it, and the song of the lady-in-waiting sounded across the turmoil, a siren’s call to safety.

Even as the lady-in-waiting leapt to do as Cadien asked, the god felt the realm rumble and groane against the restraints, and here and there a great simmering mountain of ink formed and spewed its contents like some horrendous volcano. Cadien noted, however, that the sleeping Lady did not seem to stir, though the slightest frown could be spied on her brow as though she had seen something unpleasant or upsetting in a dream. Though Cadien’s efforts meant that the inky plateau was now mostly stable, all around the world of ink swirled and thundered, great inkdrops pelted the plateau and the two figures on it - though where they struck the Lady Cadien was surprised to see the inkdrops simply slipping into her. And soon the world around them was not simply roiling and twisting and thundering and turning, but was sending forth inky tendrils that began to snap and grab at the immobilised Cadien, perhaps having identified him as the foreign element and source of the restraints.

With one arm embedded in the ground, the god of Perfection was forced to kick them away as he waited for the Songs to return. But while he was kicking at them, he noticed that other tendrils had now wrapped about the Lady and were already dragging her into the roiling horror of ink beyond the safety of the plateau ( which even now was fighting and straining against him to lose all form).

The god of Perfection slammed his legs together, and the two appendages merged into a tail, which began to extend as the rest of his body grew in size. His skin took on a violet hue, an extra pair of arms grew from his torso, and a pair of rainbow-feathered wings sprouted from his back. But it was the tail that mattered most, and with it he lashed out towards the Lady, wrapping the tip around her in an attempt to prevent her from being pulled away. Almost immediately the tendrils shrieked at his attempt to foil their mindless action, and they began to twist and turn violently to contest his tai. But it soon became apparent that it was a losing battle, and so the tendrils stopped attempting to pry the sleeping Lady free of the god and instead began enveloping his tale instead. Thicker tendrils joined the fray and encased Cadien’s mighty appendage, tugging to bring him whole into the chaotic whirling wind and ink, and latching around more and more of his form; the tighter he now held onto the Lady, the more tendrils seemed to join in the attempt to fling him from the plateau and envelop the realm in eternal inky chaos.

Cadien cursed inwardly. It was clearly no use, and so he swiftly shifted back to his human form, shrinking out of the tendrils’ grasp and abandoning the Lady to her fate. But his grip on the ground remained steadfast and unyielding. He looked up, steeling himself for further assaults, but the roiling chaos seemed to ease now that the Lady was gone, and though the realm continued to resist his restraints - thundering and pelting the world with inkdrops - there was no longer a targeted assault on the plateau or Cadien. Every now and then the ground attempted to shift beneath him, but a mere strengthening of his hold ensured the ink held; though the longer the Songs took to arrive the more precarious his hold became.

It was only when there seemed no possibility of holding anymore that the ululations and cries of the Songs sounded as they leapt and ran across the collapsing pathway that cut through the inky cloud; somehow managing to maintain their footing and places even as they gracefully leapt over one another and slipped by each other to reach the plateau. They continued flooding in as the lady-in-waiting arrived at last and flung herself by Cadien’s side, her multicoloured eyes searching the place where the Lady had been.

‘M-my lord? Are you well? W-’ she paused and looked around, her face collapsing into anxiety and fear, ‘where is our Lady?’ But Cadien could not respond. The realm tore at his mind and muscles, as it resisted his attempts to hold it together. He could barely spare enough power for what was required next, and he desperately hoped it would not be met with resistance. He raised his free hand and waved it in a circle. Then, he pointed. A portal appeared, leading to a sandy island and to safety.

The Songs let out gasps and cries of relief at the sight, and a few rushed forth before coming to a pause and looking around, unsure. ‘My lady,’ one of the Songs said, looking to the lady-in-waiting with an anxious frown, ‘what of our Lady?’ The lady-in-waiting looked to Cadien, her face the palest white and somehow ashen, but she it seemed to dawn on her that the god was in pain and so she did not say anything. She steeled her face and looked to the one who had spoken.

‘Our lord has opened a door for us at great pain to himself, now is not the time to be churlish. Go!’ The Songs all stiffened at her reprimand and seemed regretful for having wasted time on such doubts when their lord was indeed clearly in such pain, and almost immediately they made for the gateway and flowed through like a great cascade of ink - though, just as they had done on the collapsing pathway, they seemed to slip past and over one another without effort or detriment to each other, truly as though they were flooding through. When the majority had gotten disappeared beyond te gate, the lady-in-waiting placed her hands under Cadien’s arm and helped him up. ‘I’m with you, my lord,’ she uttered.

Cadien’s arm slid out of the ground, completely coated in ink, and in that moment the burden of stabilizing the ground was lifted. Yet he knew just as well that also meant the ground would cease to be stable for both of them. So without wasting any further time, he seized the lady-in-waiting by the waist and dove through the portal; the lady let out a cry of fear, instinctively shutting her eyes and wrapping her arms about the god and did not let go. The plateau went crashing down in their wake.

The two crashed down on the sands of Meliorem. Cadien quickly disentangled himself from her and rose to his feet, just as an inky tendril snaked its way through the portal. With a wave of his hand the portal closed, severing the tentacle at the tip. It fell to the ground, writhed for a bit, then ceased moving and disintegrated back into ink.

With the danger gone, Cadien fell to his knees gasping. Never before had his life been so endangered. Was this what mortals felt when death seemed certain? Could even he have died? It was a sobering thought. He knelt there, immobile, and still in shock at the harrowing experience he had just endured. The Songs circled all about him, asking after him with their harmonious voices, and though they were concerned their very voices soothed him. Not far from him, the lady-in-waiting slowly rolled over and got to her knees, looking to the now closed gateway wistfully for a few moments… and then her attention snapped back to Cadien. Almost immediately she was by his side, whispering soothingly and gratefully, tidying his disheveled white curls and ridding his body of inks and stains where she could, planting reassuring kisses on his shoulder. ‘It’s done, my lord, we’re safe,’ she murmured.

“I could not save your Lady. Forgive me,” Cadien said, unsure of why he was asking forgiveness from a mortal, but did so anyway. His words seemed to shatter whatever attempts the lady-in-waiting had made to keep from thinking about the loss, for almost immediately little drops of light blue ink began to plop onto the god’s arm.
‘I- it’s not your fault, my lord. I should have warned you,’ her tears intensified and she sat back on her knees, wiping the inky streams away only for fresh ones to take their place, ‘it had just been so long since it happened, I didn’t think,’ her brows furrowed deeply and anger flashed across her face, ‘didn’t think!’ she muttered, smacking herself on the forehead again and again, ‘I’m an idiot, it’s my fault. Stupid!’ Her outburst seemed to affect all the gathered Songs, who also began to cry and blubber.

But Cadien shook his head. “If anyone is to blame, it is the god who made such an unstable realm in the first place, and I for accidentally triggering it. It was I who insisted on meeting your Lady, it was I who carelessly approached her, it was I who failed to save her, and it was the god who was supposed to protect you that didn’t prevent any of this from happening.” He shook his head. “Blame whoever you wish, but your Lady was wounded, and in great pain. I did not know her, but if she endured such a cost to keep your realm stable, then I can’t imagine she would wish for you to fall into despair now that you are finally safe.” The lady-in-waiting considered his words for a few moments, then nodde and wiped her tears away.

‘But you’re wrong my lord - and I ask your forgiveness for being so bold, but you are,’ she leaned forward and placed a hand on his cheek, ‘you were as bold as you told us, gallantly put yourself in harm’s way to defend and protect us, and ensured every single one of us made it out safely. You promised to protect us, and you have, and…’ she paused, her eyes softening through the new flow of tears, ‘you will. I have no doubts, my lord.’

The god placed his hand over hers, and nodded. “I will,” he declared. “You all have a home here, if you still wish it.” The lady-in-waiting blushed a light hue of pink through her whitened face of ash and broke off from gazing into the god’s eyes, and then - seeming to remember that he had commanded them not to seek him in any romantic way - reluctantly pulled her hand away from his face. Her eyes swept across the realm, and Cadien did so too. After the experience in the realm of ink, he now found the colours oddly still and everything so… firm, steady, stable. In so many words, so very solid. The lady-in-waiting now gazed in the other direction, and her breath caught as she was struck by the great liquid expanse. Cadien smiled softly at her reaction. After all, this was not a liquid that whirled up into the heavens and down into forever; here too was a certain stability and firmness, a this is my place and I shan’t be moved kind of certainty. It was without a doubt unlike anything she or any of the Songs had ever seen, and it seemed to awe them into silence for a time.

At last the lady-in-waiting managed to snap herself out of it, only for her eyes find themselves hooked onto those of the god. Her breath caught visibly for a few moments before she managed to inhale. ‘I-’ she stopped, eyes wide as she fumbled to remember what he had said, ‘we would be honoured, my lord, if you would suffer our company after all the pain and trouble we have caused you,’ she looked timidly at her knees, which were clothed in the beautiful, ornate fabrics the god had conjured up for them what now seemed like long ago.

“Suffer?” Cadien asked, surprised. “Your company has been nothing if not pleasant,” the lady-in-waiting blushed further and smiled at his response. “Now, I believe I have one more promise to fulfill…” Cadien said, causing the blushing lady to look up questioningly.

‘One more promise, my lord?’ she asked, confused but curious.

The God nodded. “Of course. I offered to create men for you to partner with, did I not?” Though these words caused the gathered Songs to giggle and flush all hues of pink and crimson, the lady-in-waiting did not seem to share in their pleasure and looked away.

‘You did promise that too, my lord. They have known the joy your form brings and would not be denied it again,’ her solemn gaze returned to the god’s face, ‘but I would beg of you to exempt me, for I- I-’ she swallowed and bit her tongue, as though deciding against saying something, ‘for I now find no desire in myself for such joys.’

“What would you desire, then?” Cadien asked, his brows furrowing ever so slightly. The lady-in-waiting seemed taken off-guard by his question, and for a few seconds her eyes widened in embarrassment and her entire body flashed scarlet. She swiftly covered her hands with her face.

‘J- just... I desire whatever you desire, my lord,’ she paused and took a moment to compose herself, ‘though if it is at all possible, my lord, I would like to be able to go back and seek out my Lady once it is safe to do so, if you permit it. I will not be able to rest at ease until I do.’

“A reasonable request, if a return to that realm is in fact possible,” Cadien nodded. He looked around. “Now then, before I fulfill my promise, I do believe this area has gotten rather crowded as is. Allow me to remedy that.” The god began to move, stepping away from the lady-in-waiting and through the crowd of Songs.

He stared out at the sea, then raised a single hand up into the air. A new island rose from the depths. It dwarfed the original island in size, and sent forth a massive ripple in all directions. The Songs cried out in surprise and many leapt back as the great wave came crashing towards the shore, but Cadien raised his other hand and the large wave stopped before reaching the first island, as if it had struck an invisible wall. Eventually, the water settled, and the Songs sang out in admiration and awe.

Then Cadien made gesture again with his hand, and a marble bridge formed between the two islands. A new stone path appeared, connecting the bridge to the main pathway between Meliorem’s gateway and its castle. Then with another wave of his hand buildings of varying sizes and colours began to appear upon the new island, all of them well-decorated and well-furnished. Most of them were residential, but others were communal. There was a bathhouse, much like the one he had been tended to back in the realm of ink. There was an amphitheatre, which served as a place for music and performance. There was a library, with shelves of empty books waiting to be inked. There was a central square - a place for gatherings and festivals in the open air. All these buildings were connected by an organized network of cobblestone roads.

The areas of the island that weren’t covered in roads or buildings were rife with vegetation. Lush green grass sprouted from the ground, followed by fruit trees and bushes. Fruit plucked from these bushes would immediately regrow, ensuring they would never want for food. Not that these beings needed food, of course, but it was a luxury they would surely appreciate.

“Some of you will be permitted to reside within my castle,” Cadien told them. “But the rest shall live here. Do not fear; there will be ample opportunity to visit one another. Now, I hope that your new home is as comfortable as your previous one.” The Songs crowded about Cadien and some leapt out onto the bridge and spread their arms wide to breathe in the sea air. There were melodies of gratitude and songs that begged to be allowed to serve in the fortress - and soon those cries became arguments as this or that Song insisted she would be better up there.

The lady-in-waiting stepped up beside Cadien and frowned at the petty clamouring. ‘That’s quite enough. There is no need for all that. I am sure our lord will provide all of us with ample opportunities to serve him in the fortress. But he has wisely and generously seen to provide us with homes - he has clothed us, housed us, and provided for all our needs. This clamouring is not the way to show our thanks.’ The Songs crowding about the god bent their heads and looked repentant, and then songs of gratefulness and praise rose up, and Songs sidled up to the god and now embraced a leg or an arm or clamboured lithely to place kisses on his shoulders and neck and cheeks; and once they had showcased their gratitude sufficiently they began to flow across the bridge to the new island and their town of divine making. With that, the lady-in-waiting turned to the god. ‘How can we ever hope to thank you, my lord?’

“Good music, good conversation, and good service should all suffice,” Cadien told her. “I’m not all that demanding. This realm has been long overdue for some proper inhabitants anyhow - it’s always just been myself and the occasional visitor, until now.” The lady-in-waiting smiled and nodded at his words.

‘I will do my utmost to fill your realm with all these things and more, my lord. And I will take care of sending Songs up to serve you, and rotating them so that they do not pester you with complaints,’ she looked up at the taller god and shifted a few dishevelled locks off of her face, ‘and we will care for your guests too, and make your honour and generosity the things of ballads and epics, for that is the least we can do.’ She stepped towards the bridge and then paused, looking out to the sea and appearing deep in thought. At last she turning around, a question shining in her eyes, ‘you said not to disturb your beloved, my lord. Does she dwell in the fortress? Is there no way we can serve her too?’ She stepped back towards him and gripped one of his hands with both of hers, her eyes seeming to brighten at the prospect of being useful, ‘is there perhaps anything we can do to deepen her love for you even more, my lord?’

Cadien shook his head. “She does not dwell in the fortress, no. She has her own realm, and we visit each other from time to time. She loves me more than she loves any other,” he spoke with confidence. The lady-in-waiting smiled wistfully at Cadien’s words, and her grip softened on his hand. “But your offer is appreciated nonetheless. Perhaps I will one day have you sing to her. I will ask her which type of music she prefers.” The lady’s smile became a beam at this, and she nodded vigorously.

‘It would be a great honour and joy to sing for the one you have made the sole possessor of your heart, my lord. I will wait on that day with great pleasure and anticipation,’ and with that, her grip tightened about his hand for a few seconds as though she hoped against hope that his touch would not end, and then she sighed and let him go. ‘I will go see to the Songs now and ensure they are well-settled and well-behaved. I look forward to visiting you in your home and attending to you soon, my lord,’ with a graceful curtsy - which was at a loss for neither dignity nor gravitas even in the low cut, form fitting dress the god had chosen to array her -, she took a few steps back, turned around, and began the long walk across the bridge.

As the last of the Songs journeyed across the bridge, Cadien’s gaze shifted to the spilled puddle of ink that the severed tendril left behind. Analyzing it now, he could determine that there was nothing malicious left with in it; it was a material, like any other, malleable and ready to be used. The female Songs had been crafted from the realm of ink, and so the their male counterparts had to be made from the same substance.

The god knelt, placed a hand in the puddle, and focused on the substance. The first thing he did was duplicate it, creating several similar puddles scattered throughout the beach. Then, those puddles began to glow, and from them emerged new Songs. Men, each one adopting their own colour scheme. They were in all ways like their female counterparts, only that their base form was modelled off that of a human male rather than a female. And while he was at it, he bestowed a small modification upon the species as a whole: their form would now appear slightly differently to each mortal they came across. It was nothing major, but adjusted minor aspects of their appearance in line to an individual mortal’s perception of beauty. It would do little to fundamentally change their shape or remodel their body.

These newly-created Songs stared at their bodies with a mixture of awe and wonder. Then, one by one, their gazes fell on Cadien who was the only one who was not like them, as if asking for an explanation. The god merely gestured to the other end of the bridge, where the rest of their kind awaited them.

• Summary [+]

  Cadien comes across Meghzaal’s realm and finds the portal into it blocked. He attempts to get in and, after a very lengthy back and forth with the Lady-in-Waiting who guards it, is allowed in when he promises to protect a mysterious person referred to as ‘the Lady’ and the inhabitants of the realm from evil gods. And if he provides them with clothes.
  
  He finds inside an orgasmic harem, but they are suffering from a lack of clothes and ask him to clothe them; and with a click of his fingers it is done. They see to his every need and desire, presenting him with food and entertainment and pleasant company. Cadien tells these isolated Songs - as they are called - many things about himself and also mentions the other gods, though none by name.
  
  He tells them he will have to leave, but they insist that he promised to protect them, and so he decides to bring them into the safety of his realm which they are all very ecstatic about. But before this, he tells the lady-in-waiting that he must speak to their god. She does not know what gods are and when he explains it to her she assure him that no such being exists here - he is the first god they have seen and who has seen them.
  
  As mention had been made of ‘the Lady’, Cadien asks to speak with her, but he is told she is asleep and no one ever disturbs her. As this Lady appears to be the mistress to whom the Songs look for leadership, Cadien insists he must ask her. And so they bathe Cadien so he is clean and take him to see the Lady.
  
  Along the way they talk some more and Cadien reveals that he cannot love them all as he already has a girlfriend. The Songs don’t see why that is a problem, but Cadien does and promises to make male Songs for them. With that, they reach an inky plateau where an ink-black blonde woman with golden tattoos hangs sleeping in a simmering storm of ink, her body gashed here and there to reveal bubbling ink beneath.
  
  Cadien asks about her, and it becomes clear that the Lady has been asleep for a long time, and never having really spent much time awake in the first place. When Cadien touches her and tells her to wake up, this causes the realm to destabilise and begin collapsing all about them. Cadien stabilises things while the lady-in-waiting gathers the Songs to get out of there, but he is unable to prevent the sleeping Lady from being claimed by the realm.
  
  Eventually the Songs all arrive and they rush through the gateway to Cadien’s realm, with the lady-in-waiting and Cadien the last to leap through as Cadien finally stops stabilising the realm and it collapses all about. Back in his realm, Cadien and the lady-in-waiting blame themselves for what happened, though the lady ultimately offers Cadien comfort and assures him he protected them as he promised.
  
  Cadien then expands his realm, creating an island on which is a town furnished with all their needs. The Songs thank Cadien and rush across the bridge connecting the second island with the first, and things end with Cadien assuring the lady-in-waiting that he will one day have her sing for Neiya, and then he creates male Songs who also rush off to join the females in the town.
• Might [+]

  Cadien
  Beginning MP: 5
  Beginning DP: 5
  -2MP to alter a landscape: Cadien temporarily stabilized a portion of Meghzaal’s realm.
  -1DP for Cadien to maintain a strong enough grip on the ground to make it more difficult for him to be dislodged (+1 toward Strength portfolio.)
  -2DP toward creation of a sapient species: the Songs (also known as Sirens, Muses, or Succubi.)
  -3MP to claim the Strength Portfolio.
  Ending MP: 0
  Ending DP: 2
  
  Meghzaal
  
  | 5MP and 5DP | 1MP & 3DP towards Wards | Next Domain: Art |
  
  Consecrate a Hero: The Lady-in-Waiting.
  

  1 MP - Queen of Song I: The Lady-in-Waiting is the effective queen of all Songs, and they defer to her ultimate judgment without argument or complaint, being obedient to an unnatural degree. This allows the more restrained and level-headed Lady-in-Waiting to keep some of the more excitable Songs in line. (+1 Puppetry)
  2 DP - Actress II: The Lady-in-Waiting is a masterful actress, capable of putting on marvelous, convincing performances and managing other actors. (+2 Acting)

  
  
  2 DP to Create a Sapient Species: Songs aka. Sirens, Muses, and Succubi. (+2 Inspiration)
  
  | 4MP and 1DP | 1MP & 3DP towards Wards | 1MP towards Puppetry | 2DP towards Acting | 2DP towards Inspiration | Next Domain: Art |
• Prestige [+]

  +5 Points to the Lady-in-Waiting (~68,700 chars.)

---

Noon tended to be the best time to hunt trolls.

The sun was at its highest. Shadows were at their shortest. The only place the trolls had to hide were directly underneath something. They were easy to root out.

This day was no exception.

Thirty mercenaries brazenly ascended a hill, making no attempt to be silent or to hide their presence. Boots crunched against the discarded bones of their fellow humans. The plan their white-haired leader devised had depended on being detected. The slope they climbed led up to a wide cave entrance, at the base of a mountain.

The prey slept soundly within… all except a single pair of eyes, which saw the humans approaching, and let out a roar of warning to wake the rest of its kin.

“Forward!” shouted Carn, pointing a spear at the cave. The mercenaries climbed the hill at a quicker pace, even as the trolls within the cave began to rouse themselves. They came to a stop just before the cave’s mouth, as Carn ordered them to form a line of spears two ranks thick. At the head of the line stood Carn himself, along with a trio of mages, one of whom was the red-headed sorceress he had spent the past two years adventuring with.

“Hold!” he held up a hand, letting the mages know that the time was not right. He listened closely, taking note of the sounds within the cave. The ranglefants let out cries of alarm at first. Then he could hear the scraping of rock and the occasional grunt as they began to form up.

Then, he heard a series of roars and the sound of feet stomping on stone, as the creatures began their charge. “Now! Fire!” he said to Aurielle.

She outstretched her right hand and summoned an orb of fire in it. Her two mages, the young Solenia and the older and pompous Kalhin began to chant next to her. The wind was picking up. You could hear it in the rustling of the trees. Auriëlle kept her eyes on the cave’s exit. As was decided. Only when she saw the first trolls emerge, she would unleash her wrath. The mere seconds that passed felt like hours. Then she saw it, the eyes and the first bits of skin. Combined with a deafening roar. “Stand your ground!” She shouted, though Kalhin next to her needed no encouragement. It was Solenia who began to tremble. “It’s okay.” Auriëlle said, much more reassuring now. “We can do this. On my mark…Now!”

A surge of fire erupted from her hand blasting straight towards the hole. A fierce gust of wind roared from behind them and fed Auriëlle’s flame. Fire raged into the den, filling it up. Screams of hate and pain echoed from the cave. One burning troll even managed to make it out of the cave. Though not far. The flames clung to his skin. He stumbled, and finally fell. Dead. Auriëlle couldn’t maintain her sorcery for much longer though. As her mages saw Auriëlle’s flame die, they both stopped their wind spells to feed the fire. Solenia looked tired by the effort. While Kahlin looked as if he was ready for more.

“That should be it.” Auriëlle said with a cocky smile as she turned to Carn. Then she heard a roar that made the hair on her arms stand up. “Impossible!” She said as she turned around. More trolls were charging out of the still slightly smoking hole. “Kahlin, Solenia, get out of here! Carn kill them!” She shouted as she ran over to protect her mages.

There were five in total. The wall of spears advanced forward, stepping past the mages and closing back into formation. The lead ranglefant wasn’t particularly impressive by the standards of its kind, but one thing which caught Carn’s eye was the tribal necklace around its neck, consisting of various beads, fingerbones, and even a silver sapphire ring. But now was not the time to think of loot. The trolls were upon him.

The spears thrust forward. Three of the five trolls were skewered in their guts, but even as they died the momentum of their charge carried their bodies forward and forced portions of the line to step back. Carn and two others lunged for the lead troll, but to Carn’s astonishment it was able to seize all three spears in a single lightning-fast swipe.

The three weapons were yanked from their grips. Carn’s hand instinctively went for his sword, just as the troll suddenly took one of the spears, flipped it around with an elegance never before seen in its kind, and thrust it at Carn’s chest. He raised the shield, and although he successfully blocked the blow, the shield nearly splintered, and the beast’s impact forced him to stagger backward.

The two men who had stood beside him drew their swords and charged forward. The troll swatted one aside with a swing of its massive arm, while the other was able to sink a blade into its side. Enraged, the troll placed both hands on the attacker’s skull and squeezed, crushing it.

In that moment Carn rushed forward, driving his blade into the troll’s gut and ripping it through its stomach. Carn felt both his nose, jaw, and nearly every single one of his teeth break as the beast violently backhanded him away. He landed on his back and slid several feet, looking up just in time to see the troll collapse and die as its entrails spilled onto the floor.

Meanwhile the final troll had managed to plow through the line, knocking several men aside. It set its gaze on the mages, the ones who had scorched so many of its kin, and rushed toward her with a vengeful roar.

Auriëlle and Kalhin had been carrying a weakened Solenia away from the fray. Though they hadn’t gotten far. When the roar from behind them came, she knew she had no choice. She released the young mage and turned around. Point two fingers at the face of the troll. It heaved it’s heavy arms over its head. Ready to slam her into the ground. “Die.” Auriëlle said as lightning arched over the wooden vambrace on her arm. The arcs grew in intensity until they reached the tip of her two fingers. A bolt of lightning shot forward and struck the troll in its face. It staggered backwards, clutching its face. Auriëlle didn’t give him any time to react though. She outheld her other hand and began to gather her power in its palm. When the troll regained its bearing it roared at her, just in time for her to release her sorcery.

A visible wave of fire burned the whole troll from head to toe. Blackening its skin. After releasing a final grunt, it sunk to its knees and fell before her. Auriëlle kept her eyes on the other dying trolls. “Kahlin, go check on the wounded.” Kahlin did as commanded with silent obedience. That’s why she liked him. He was dependable. Solenia though, Solenia was weaker than him. Perhaps less talented. Still, she had the same conviction as Auriëlle back when she was still in Acadia. It was why she took Solenia under her wing.

She got up and walked towards Carn. “How many were killed?” She asked.

Carn held up a hand as his nose snapped back into place and his jaw reset itself. He spat blood onto the grass. “Three,” he said with a shrug, his voice sounding odd due to the fact that his teeth were still regrowing as he spoke. “A few might have broken bones.”

She winced at the sound of his face reconstructing itself. It was impossible to get used to it. It just felt wrong. Then again, she would rather have it perfect and heal itself than have him lose all his teeth several times over. She then looked at the people around her. “A druid in the nearby town can heal most of those injuries. Kahlin can try but-“ Behind her a soldier screamed in pain. “-I don’t think I want to subject too many of the men to him.” She finished before she turned to the blackened hole of the cave. “That ran much deeper than the king told us.” She said with a strange suspicion. Had the king played them or really just not known? Maybe his retinue was right behind them. It wouldn’t have been the first time some king sends in a small group of mercenaries to weaken their foes so they can then deliver the finishing blow.

Carn shrugged. “I doubt he explored this cave himself. Anything he knew about it would have come from some hunter or forager, going off their memory. There were a few more trolls than expected, though. Might be able to justify the King giving us a bonus, but I doubt it.”

“Kings don’t give bonuses.” Auriëlle said. It was a vexing thing, working for nobles and royals. But they generally paid better than villagers binding together. Their little mercenary group had garnered enough fame that those higher echelons would hire them. Which was impressive enough considering they weren’t in the mercenary business for longer than three years. It wasn’t enough though. “I want something bigger, Carn.” Auriëlle said, betraying her anxiousness.

“Hm. Never heard that complaint from you before…” Carn smirked. Others were already tending to the wounded. For those who were in too rough shape to be healed, splints and makeshift stretchers were already being fashioned from broken or discarded spears.

“You should listen more? I’ve said it several times.” She returned with the same smirk but then she became serious again. “I mean it though, Carn. Do you really want to burn out troll dens for fat creeps on glorified chairs for another five years?” It was clear that she didn’t. Life was too precious, as was time.

“What do you have in mind, then?” Carn asked her. “It’s not like we can storm the walls of Ketrefa and set ourselves up as King and Queen.” He shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d love something more. The only problem is finding it.”

She would never be a queen. The idea of being chained down to a chair disgusted her. Sure she wanted a home. A place where she wouldn’t be chased out after a week but instead would be welcomed after years of traveling. “Ruling might be your thing but you know it isn’t mine. I just want to be part of something bigger. There has to be something bigger, something more worthwhile going on somewhere? Like a big war.” In the last few years, violence and fighting had become Auriëlle’s life. Strangely enough she enjoyed it. Sure she had bled and screamed in pain as well. Yet it all made her feel alive. She couldn’t imagine what a heady drug a war would be for her.
Carn quirked his brow. “Wouldn’t we just be helping a fat creep on a glorified chair fight another fat creep on a glorified chair?”

“At least I’d get to kill one of the fat creeps.” Auriëlle said as she turned around. “Get your men ready to return. Those trolls are beginning to stink.”
“One moment,” Carn said as he rose to his feet and stepped over to the troll he had gutted. “You three, help me turn this bastard over!” he ordered. Three men moved to comply, helping him flip the large creature over. Carn’s gaze found the primitive necklace on the beast’s neck, then he drew his knife, cut the string, and plucked the silver ring free.

He examined the ring in its palm. The craftsmanship was unlike anything he had ever seen, and the sapphire quite literally seemed to glow. No doubt this would be of immense value. “Alright,” he said. “Redspears!” He shouted, using the company’s official name. “Sweep the cave for anything valuable, then form up. It’s time to go!”

---

“So,” Carn said, approaching Aurielle’s table and taking a seat. “The King is set on paying on us the agreed upon amount. Despite the fact that he was mistaken regarding the number of trolls.” The sellsword shrugged. “But, pay is pay, I suppose. He’ll have it delivered here shortly.”

He better, Auriëlle though. “We really should just be overcharging them anyway.” She said as she took a gulp from her watered wine and then ripped a piece off her chicken. It wasn’t every day that she could eat such a delicious piece of poultry so she would enjoy it. “So did the soldiers find anything in that hole? Other than that sapphire ring.”

Carn shrugged. “Bones and corpses. Some with pouches and equipment attached. Nothing worth mentioning.” He took the ring out. “This thing is a beauty, though. I have to wonder how much it’s worth.”

“It’s enchanting as well.” With a quick move of her hand she took the ring off Carn and held it in front of her. That gem was definitely glowing in a weird way. She couldn’t feel any magic coming off of it though. At least none that she knew of. Instead she felt something different. “Actually…” she said slowly as she held it closer. “I think it really might be enchanted.”

Carn reached out and gently took the ring back. “If it’s enchanted, how do we figure out what it does?”

“Put it on. If something bad happens I’ll just cut your finger off.” She took a big swig of her watered wine, it was her third tankard and she was beginning to feel its influence a little now. “And I promise I will try to not cut off your whole hand.” What did it matter, it would regrow right?

“You are a paragon of mercy,” Carn remarked as he slipped the ring onto his finger. “Hm. Can’t say I feel any different.” He waited a few moments, then took it off. “Perhaps you should try?”

Auriëlle took the ring but look at it for a moment. “What if its cursed but it doesn’t work on Helgen?” She asked, mostly to herself though Carn probably heard it as well. Slowly she put it on, ready to rip it off should she feel anything dangerous. Instead she just felt cold silver. It didn’t do anything indeed. Though she held her hand out to see the ring on her hand. It was gorgeous. Even more beautiful than the ruby amulet she was given some two years ago. Then she realized what a ring on a finger meant. Instantly she took it off and laid it back on the table. “Maybe it only works when you do something. Like running or lifting something.” She quickly added.

Carn shrugged and slipped the ring back on. “Only one way to find out, I suppose,” he shrugged. “Anyhow, I heard something that might interest you. Apparently there’s tension between the western Highland kingdoms and the eastern Lowland kingdoms. More than usual, I mean.”

Auriëlle’s face lit up. “More than usual? As in a war? Are you telling me there is war!?” She was getting visibly excited now.

Carn shrugged. “Not yet. But there might be. Kings, chieftains, lords, and merchants are all getting tense. Hiring more mercenaries. Even if things don’t devolve into open conflict, we’ll have no shortage of work.”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to find a merchant who goes to either one of those kingdoms and then go from there!” Auriëlle said.

He nodded. “That is what I was thinking. Now, from what I’ve been told, these tensions are over the usual issues. We Highlanders want the Lowlanders’ grain. We’re bothered by the prices they charge; they’re bothered by the tolls placed on their caravans. You’d think there’d be an easy solution for this, but apparently not,” Carn shrugged. “They also say that bandits from the Highlands are slipping into the Lowlands to raid, and the local leaders aren’t doing anything to stop it. The Lowlanders also want free access to the Sunlit Temple, and… well, there are a lot of issues. But… definitely wealth to be won. And plenty of action for us both.”

Act Two, Scene Four: The Pit of Yamashin

Yamat walked through his prison, its winds wiping up the dirt and ash, he had another plan for his beautiful play, he just needed the right place.

He came upon a wide open area of the wastes, surrounded on all sides by the grey fractured mountains that dotted the desert, shielding it mostly from the piercing winds but not from the black sun ever present in the sky and with nary a ruin or bone pile in sight, perfect for his little idea.

He began by drawing a circle in the dirt, a massive one, encompassing the entirety of the open area, a deep gouge into the ashen dust of his realm. It was nearly a mile wide and a mile long, it would be enough for his plan.

He stood at one end of the pit, raising his hands, his runic skin glowing once more. In an instant the dust inside the circle vanished within seconds, forming a deep, deep, deep, pit, so deep that one could not see its bottom, even Yamat had to admit he himself did not know how deep it was, but that did not matter, what mattered is what would be put inside.

Yamat continued conducting, and the pit began to fill. A thick black sludge began to fill the pit from the bottom up, eventually coming just to the edge of the top where it seemed to bubble and shift as if alive, then it began to grow red eyes, thousands upon thousands of them, blinking at random iterations and darting about taking in their newfound existence. The sludge now existed as a being, tentacles covered in red eyes formed and sloshed about, grasping the edge of the pit or waving in the air.

The sludge was alive, not in a traditional way though, it was not some singular being, that would be, far too much effort for the god, instead, the sludge was made up of thousands and thousands of tiny, tiny, little organisms, by themselves these organism were practically useless and completely innoticable, but if enough gathered they could form themselves an autonomous colony that acted like its own singular being.

Yamat had no name for them currently, he instead figured he would allow the mortals to name when the time came, of course, he needed to give mortals the ability to summon forth his newest creations, he once more raised his glowing runic arms, conducting a gift for the mortals down upon Galbar.

---

Two servants, one in Toraan, one in Kubrajzar, going about their duties, unaware of both each other and of the great machinations of the gods far beyond their perception.

Suddenly, they gained a vision, images being branded into their mind and whispers detailing the actions. It was a ritual, one to summon portions of the sludge of the great pit, A bowl of water, some blood, a simple spell, from that would come the beings who could be used as devoted servants, so long as they were fed some mana.

The two servants were not the only ones amongst the two continents to get the visions, but they were amongst the select few chosen to know how to summon what would come to be known as “Demons” first, the technique would expand of course, but it would have to take its time.

Tales would emerge regardless, those with magic accompanied by strange creatures, black goo-like bodies and oftentimes countless red eyes, some taking shapes similar to other beings, other times being strange and entirely unique. Demonmancers became a strange yet known sight across the two continents, they were still rare, but the sight of one would leave an everlasting impression to many, the sight of the strange creatures rarely left their memories.

---

Yamat was pleased with his new children, they were already leaving their mark upon Galbar, while they were not the most direct of his creations in regards to the great play, he was sure they would play their part soon enough, he just had to make sure to check on the pit every now and then.

For now though, his mind turned elsewhere, his mind ever racing and filled with countless ideas, he had another great idea, he just needed the perfect candidate, for now he paced once more across his endless plane, his great play ever being worked upon, the playmaker’s work never finished.

“Wooooow. What iz that!” Silandrazz the Vespian Servant asked as she pointed at a startlingly tall creature that towered over the forests below. It was so freakishly tall that it had to bend its long neck downwards to actually reach the tree leaves it was grazing on.

“It’s a tall, long necked rat” Kallak replied, as he dusted off a stray piece of sand off of his Cloak of the Commoner. The pair had left the desert behind after Silandrazz had eventually managed to convince her sisters to let her go study and Kallak had sworn multiple oaths to both Atrifex and Tekret Et Heret that she would be safe. Now the two were halfway through their journey across the dormant volcano splitting the interior desert from the warm semi tropical forests and verdant plains that covered the east of the island. They were traveling across the rocky ground of the mountainside, a sparsely vegetated place unfit for living, though not one that was unoccupied.

From her spot sitting on Chompy the Civitas ant’s thorax Silandrazz had already marveled at the sight of far away Sancta Civitas, its white walls unmistakable even at this distance, and at the crashed remains of the second of the three Vespain craft that had hit the island some 1400 years ago. Now she was taking in the wildlife she could see in the forests that they would be traveling though after they got down from the mountain.

“That’s a weird name,” Silandrazz said, when told the epic creature she was looking at was called a tall, long necked rat “,What else iz in there?

“Well there's long rats and knife-toothed rats and snaggle toothed rats and hoof rats and”

“Sensing a pattern here”

“Well there's also wolf ants. Legends also tell of a mysterious creature with ashen wings, obsidian fur and a long tong that it uses to suck out the souls of-”

“what even iz a rat?” Silandrazz asked, still on the previos topic and disinterested in Kallak's ghost story.

“You know those little furry things. Run around. Squeak alot?”

“You mean marmots”

“If it has skin it's a rat” Kallak explained, “Sure out here in the wilds you might give them non rat names for some reason, but to a Civitian, a rat's a rat.”

“What. Really? So what, are Goblins just green rats then” Silandrazz joked

“What. No. Do not go around calling them that if you want to keep your legs un-stabbed” Kallak said, turning round to look her in the eyes to make sure she understood how serious he was being.

“Does. Does that happen a lot?” Silandrazz asked, suddenly worried

“The stabbing or the insults? Either way neither that much, you just have to not fall into the wrong crowds to avoid that in the city. Now out here, there's a bit more tension”

“Coz of the swarmlingz right”

“A bit. There’s also some Goblins who are still holding onto the ‘we here first' mentality despite the one thousand four hundred and two years its been since the ships landed”

“That... iz a really specific amount,” Silandrazz noted

“The Queen has been counting the years since Artifex left” Kallak said before moving them back to the gobblin issue “anyway, we’re coming up on a goblin mining camp, so try not to cause a scene. I think they’ll be ok with you, most of the tribes that trade with the city are, so just don't go around insulting them and you’ll be fine”

“Alright. No calling them rats. Got it” Silandrazz retorted, right before a nearby rock yelled “oy. Who callin us rats”

Both of the insectoids screamed in surprise at the sudden intrusion into their conversation, Kallak literally turning white with shock while Silandrazz took off into the air in a panic, brandishing her trident. The two got a hold of themselves however when a goblin stepped around a nearby rock formation and revealed himself to be the source of the words “ahhh oh hello there” Kallak said, rolling right out his surprise into a greeting before asking “why were you just hiding behind that rock?”

“Snuck up. Investigate noisy people.” The goblin, who had a sling by his side and was dressed in a mix of furs and fabrics, explained, before looking the pair up and down “You bee bug? Kallak?” he asked Kallak “no wasp with Bee bug last time”

“I am indeed Kallak, and I did pass though the nearby town seeking the elusive Earth elemental bee some time ago yes” Kallak said, once he’d parsed what the goblin was saying

“I’m not a wasp” Silandrazz corrected up at the goblin

“Not rat” the goblin retorted with a hint of malice

“Deal” Silandrazz replied

The goblin blinked in surprise, and then laughed, “Deal. What name?”

“Silandrazz”

“Good. Am Gosyor. Chase Perfection Silandrazz.” The goblin greeted her

“May your work stand ever strong Gosyor” Silandrazz replied

Gosyor the goblin nodded and then pointed at Kallak and told him “You. Kallak. Elders will want speak with you.” before waving at them to follow and running ahead.

“Is that a good or a bad thing?” Silandrazz asked. Kallak wasn’t sure

---

In Silandrazz’s opinion it had turned out to be a bad thing, because after a brief conversation with a pair of the goblin tribe’s elders they ended up deep underground.

“You don’t have to come, you know. it’s my issue to deal with.” Kallak told her as they crawled through the goblin sized mineshaft. The shaft was a natural formation that had been widened, smoothed and carved in places to make it easier to navigate down into the depths of the mountain. The six limbed Mantarin scuttled along with relative ease, and was having a better time of it than the Vespian, who was stuck shuffling forwards on her knees

“You’re heading down to deal with an issue they’re have with the earth beez you… found, and I’m wanted to see them. I just wish these tunnelz weren't so horribly small”

“Silandrazz little taller than goblin. Vespian dig hive underground. Why bad?” Gosyor asked. The goblin who’d found them had been tasked with leading them down into the mines his tribe owned, and unlike the other two was happily walking through the short access tunnel. He claimed his people have navigated it in the dark, but both the insects had insisted that Kallak be allowed to use a light spell to light their way.

“We make them big enough to fly in” Silandrazz replied “or at least pole walk in.” the Vespian had brought her tribes signature trident with her, but the tool was proving more a nuisance than a useful crutch in the crammed tunnel.

“Not perfect” Gosyor said, insulting her tribe’s tunneling skills in the worst way possible “is fine. Almost to big cave.”

“Thank the prophets” Silandrazz sighed

Sure enough, after only a touch more crawling they emerged to a wonderful sight. Before them a vast cave system sprawled out, one made from the eroded remnants of the volcano’s old magma tunnels (though none of those present knew that was what they where). Kallak’s light spell bathed the large tunnel in a cool blue light. Water ran down across the rocks, flowing to and from places unseen and unknown. In a place deeper down they could see the water had pooled, and within that pool ghostly white creatures could be seen swimming. Moss and fungus grew in small amounts against the cave walls, and insects roamed the caves, feeding on the plants and each other.

“I didn’t know anything could live down here.”

“Do. Good for snacks.” Gosyor explained before setting off up the cave and away from the fish “Come. This way”

The trio headed upwards now, following the flow of the water and a rope guide through a veritable maze of natural tunnels. With the light of Kallak’s spell they could see where various parts of the cave had been dug out by the miners and as they traveled further they could hear them working, metal clinking against stone up ahead.

They found the miners in an oasis of light provided by a few stone braziers that kept their burning contents up off of the water soaked floor. The goblins were busy extracting silver from the cave walls vie a process of heating the ore using fires lit from the braziers, then rapidly cooling it again using splashes of the running water to crack it free from the surrounding stone and finally using heavy hammers to smash the ore the rest of the way out.

“Stoshri. How Bees?“ Gosyor yelled once they’d passed most of the mining team, attracting the attention of one of the goblins who was keeping watch over an area further up rather than mining, before explaining “Stoshri get bees somehow. Tell when about to make rocks angry”

What agve the goblin his insight into the mana bees became rapidly clear when Silandrazz saw his eyes. “You’re like me!” she gasped, before buzzing far too close to the goblin’s comfort before he could even start talking, his rainbow flecked eyes blinking rapidly in surprise as she stared into them.

“Am not. Am Goblin”

“No no. I mean you are, but you're also a Servant like me!”

“Am not servant of anyone” Stoshri insisted

“That’s what they all say” Kallak said as he stepped past the pair, “you two clearly have a bunch to talk about. Me and Gosyor will go on ahead and I’ll show him how to deal with the Earth Bees”

“Good. Mine Boss come too!” Stoshri said, before getting another goblin to come join them.

“Make dig hard. Nest on metal. Wear metal as armor. Is strange. Come close to miners and get angry. How deal?” the leader of the miners said after he joined the pair, the three of them moving on ahead, leaving the pair of Servants to get to know each other.

After some convincing Silandrazz dragged Stoshri up and away from the miners to a dry spot in the cave. There she rapidly bombared him with what she knew about what they both were.

“-and Kallak says they can talk to each other using just their mindz! There’s two in the city and he sayz they do it all the time and that people kept bothering them to get them to send messagez to and from the dockz and I’ve been trying to contact them but maybe they are to far away or something because I haven’t been able to do it but maybe I can with you!”

“Stop. to much” Stoshri interrupted the young woman’s word vomit, rubbing his temple as he tried to process what was, to him, a very inefficient manner of speaking “you. Me. talk with mind?”

“Yeah!” Silandrazz replied “Wanna try?”

“Sure?” he agreed in a manner that expressed neither confidence nor enthusiasm

“Ok! I’ll try now,” Silandrazz said before lapsing into silence for the first time since she had met the goblin Servant. Stoshri sighed with relief, and was left to listen the clinking of hammers behind him and the angry buzzing from further up the tunnel.

“Did you hear anything?”

“No. try more.”

A pause

“Now?”

“No”

Another pause

Now?

“No”

“I didn’t say that out loud. Oh by the Prophetz it actually workz.” Silandrazz gasped, before mentally bombarding him with more messages hello! Hey! say something back

“I. What. Is not” Stoshri, who had mostly just been humoring the trident armed wasp woman for most of the time, gaped in awe at the voice shouting at him in his mind.

...hello? he tried tentatively

It workz! It workz “it workz it workz!” Silandrazz cheered first mentally and then out loud, before hugging the goblin, who was still gobsmacked by the whole thing. What followed was the pair running around to test the range of their new found communication(which they did not find), Silandrazz getting lost, panicked and then using the only bit of magic she knew to shoot sparks into the surrounding dark caves till Stoshri found her and lead her back to the fires where they got to talking again.

In quick order Silandrazz had managed to teach the goblin servant how to cast the spark spell she’d used, much to the amazement of the other goblins. The pair’s Servant abilities had made the process of teaching far quicker and more straightforward than the evening it had taken Kallak to teach Silandrazz the spell in the first place. Working together they’d even managed to teach one of the miners how to cast it as well and the three of them were gleefully acting as a fire hazard by the time Kallak returned, smelling of Frankincense and carrying a jar of grey earth mana honey he’d harvested once the smoke had made the bees drowsy. The spark lobbers got themselves yelled at by the mining boss once he’d gotten over the shock, which brought an end to the magical tomfoolery for the time being.

“Well that was quick. I knew Servants were supposed to be good at teaching but this is absurd.” Kallak noted

“Maybe you’re just bad at it.” Silandrazz replied, her ego soaring through the clouds

“Rude, but seeing as we’re heading to the library for exactly that reason, also fair.”

“The library?” Stoshri asked

“oh oh oh. Yeah. The Library. It’s this big building in the city that has two other Serventz and big frog people called Eloxochitli who teach and loadz and loadz of spellz.”

“Many spells? Useful spells? Like light?” Gosyor asked, pointing at the smokeless globe of light Kallak had been using to light up the caves around him, while the mine boss nodded along. Both of them had instantly seen the benefits spell casting could bring to their tribe.

“Oh there's already a lot of spells, and this is a fairly basic ‘tier one’ spell.” Kallak explained, “There’s people who know ‘tier three’ spells that can shoot balls of fire and command the winds and all sorts of other incredible things.”

“You should come, you should come.” Silandrazz told Stoshri “Think of all the thingz you could learn to do there”

“Leave tribe?" Stoshri said uncertainly "Do Servants mind thing instead?”

“I couldn’t reach them before, but maybe we can now that we figured it out?” Silandrazz said

Try as they might however, the pair could not contact the Servants in Sancta Civitas

“Lifeblood’z curse, it’s not working. Is it still too far?” Silandrazz swore

“So,” Stoshri said “stay or go”

“Should go, should go,” Gosyor suggested, slapping his brother on the back encouragingly “Learn strong spells, come back, teach tribe”

“Will elders allow? Is long way”

“Elders see wisdom” Gosyor said, before scratching his chin “ore go soon? Go down in boat! Not so far.”

“Suppose. Hmmm,” Stoshri replied, still uncertain

“I come with”

“ok,” Stoshri nodded, “To Library”

“To the Library!” Silandrazz cheered

“Don’t suppose you could take us too? Be a lot faster than slogging back through the forests. I can introduce you to the Library and set you up for selling this stuff too them,” Kallka asked, before shaking the bottle of magically infused honey.

“Big ant come too? You pay. Put good word with elders. maybe not pay much.”

Kallak sighed and then nodded, before the four of them began the long trek back to the surface to discuss the plan with the tribe’s elders and to hitch a ride on an oar shipment down to Sancta Civitas.

Nothing was going on. Nothing happened. Nothing has happened for several weeks now. Auriëlle lost count. The days of guarding the Redspears’ bit of wall were blurring together. The wall itself was just two wooden palisades, the space between them packed with dirt and earth so that the defenders would have something to stand upon.

The last memorable thing that happened were the people of the city trying to riot and seize the granaries. She never had an issue with killing trolls or armed brigands but she thought she would have drawn the line at mothers and fathers. Apparently not. Their blood was still on her hands. On slow days, like today, the memory came up again and again. Auriëlle had convinced herself that she had been lenient and careful. That she had only wounded most. She also told herself that what she did was necessary. It had to be. With those thoughts churning through her head she watched over the field beyond the walls. Further away she could see the silhouette of the enemy’s camp in the darkness, marked by torches. Closer to the walls were the various barricades. Put up just outside the range of archers.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Carn wordlessly stepped up beside her, and offered her a waterskin.

She took a small sip before she handed it back. Rationing was important now. “Slow day.” She said as she tried to break the silence. “Almost makes you wish they’d attack.”

“Not quite as exciting as we expected,” Carn remarked. They had only been able to participate in a single battle, under the banner of the King of Jalka, who had seen fit to attack the Queen of Merok. Neither of these monarchs controlled anything beyond a walled town and a few villages, but they both coveted each other’s lands.

That battle had ended in a defeat, even despite Aurielle’s magic. Fortunately the Redspears had been well-positioned, and were able to withdraw with minimal casualties. The same could not be said for the rest of Jalka’s army. Only one hundred or so made it out, not counting the Redspears or the other mercenaries. Now most of those mercenaries were gone, having deserted against the unfavourable odds. The remainder had been absorbed into the Redspears. They had withdrawn back to Jalka’s ‘capital’, and now they were under siege by a force of nearly one thousand men.

The Jalkan King had desperately recruited some of the townspeople into a militia, but even then, that only brought them two hundred additional warriors, all of them inexperienced and poorly-equipped.

“A pity there aren’t more fun ways to use our time,” Carn said wistfully.

Auriëlle scowled at Carn. He was fun for most of the time but sometimes she just wanted to sear his skin off. “I could’ve killed that hag.” Auriëlle then said, further ignoring his remark. She couldn’t even touch the queen on the battlefield though. Not with the rainbow-eyed mage beside her majesty. He had blocked all her sorceries. The fact that half her magics were stopped by some pompous noble who just happened to have been born with a talent for actual spells had vexed her more than she admitted.

“I still don’t understand how that fireball managed to only hit me and nobody else,” Carn remarked, wincing as he recalled a rather painful experience with one of the enemy’s mages.

Auriëlle’s thoughts went to Acadia for a moment, where she read about how some spells were more complex than others. She hadn’t told Carn about Acadia yet. He hadn’t asked either. Just as she hadn’t asked about Thyma. Luckily Acadia hadn’t tried to kill her just yet. “Complex spells can be very precise.” She remarked. “The fact is that someone really wants you dead. Seems like that hag knows who you are.”

“She didn’t know enough, clearly,” Carn remarked. It had been a simple enough matter of dousing him with water, and then a minute later he was back in the fight - even if his armour had been a bit charred. “At least we’re going to be relieved soon,” he said. “Perhaps-”

His voice was cut off by the sound of a horn from the enemy camp. “Oh,” he said, his relaxed expression turning grim. Hundreds of shadows sprang forth forth, heading toward their section of wall. Carn could just make out what appeared to be the shapes of ladders and ramps, each carried by several men. He pulled a signal horn from his belt, brought it to his lips, and blew, warning the town of the impending attack. Then he drew his sword. “Prepare for battle!” he shouted.

Mere moments later, more horns were heard elsewhere in the town, where the town’s gate was located. It was a double-assault, Carn realized. But he could not be in two places at once. All they could do was hold position here and hope the men at the gate did the same.

Auriëlle smiled and then even grinned. “Finally!” She exclaimed as she saw the torches beginning to move. She quickly checked her vambrace’s straps to see if it was secure, then looked up again. Her happiness quickly faded. “That’s…a lot of torches.” She said. “Really a lot of torches.” Her heart began to shrink in her chest. But then the man rose up and ran up next to her. Ready to fight. She took a slow breath and steadied herself. “Mind your men Carn. I’m going to do everything I can to slow them down.” She said as she walked up to the nearby tower, which was really nothing more than an elevated wooden platform, and climbed up to it. The four archers of the tower were right behind her. Solenia and Kahlin took position further away from her, with the rest of the Redspears.

Carn shouted orders, alerting his men and bringing them to the wall’s edge, with spears at the ready. The mages instead prepared their spells, ready to fling fire and ice down upon the enemy.

The attackers didn’t look like people. They looked like a moving black mass. The torches made them look even darker somehow. Auriëlle’s heart was beating faster now, even though the only thing she could hear was the occasional horn. The four archers around her strung their bows and knocked their first arrow. Then they joined Auriëlle in waiting. She had imagined there’d be more noise. More yelling. Instead everything was far too quiet. “Archers at the ready!” Some veteran yelled. She forced herself not to turn around and find him. The archers around her did as he commanded and pulled their arrows back. The seconds felt like minutes now. Her mind was already anticipating the order. When will it fall? Let it fall. Let him yell it. Let the arrows loose. Let her loose.

“Loose!” She heard the veteran say. Combined several twangs coming from the bows. Before she knew it, all arrows were loose and the archers were already busy nocking their second arrow. There was no loose now. Just archers releasing their arrows as fast as they could. For a moment she was frozen. Then she outstretched her arm and began to release her own bolts of fire.

It was like throwing darts into a river. A few attackers fell with the first volley, but there simply weren’t enough archers to make a significant enough dent in the invading army. The firebolts were considerably more successful, each one setting one or two men alight and sending their nearby comrades into panic. But the rest of the army pressed on, stepping over or around their struck comrades, even as those who were on fire flailed and screamed.

The fire bolts suddenly stopped, though the drizzle of arrows continued. For a second the attackers thought they were safe and pressed their attack. They ran faster towards the wall. Some tripped and fell over the uneven, highland terrain. Then a small bolt of fire was lobbed from the walls. They readied their shields, assuming it was another bolt. It wasn’t.

From the elevated platform Auriëlle could see her fire explode from the tiny orb, coating six guys in searing fire. She let them burn for a moment until she raised her hand. The flames flared up, catching two more who came too close. It wasn’t enough. She prepared another fireball between her hands. “Carn!” She yelled from the platform. “Get ready!”

Meanwhile, the militia had finally been roused, and climbed the wall to support the mercenaries. There were nearly a hundred of them, under command of the King’s own brother.

The attackers then began to raise their ramps and ladders, swinging the heavy pieces of wood against the wall. Carn and his men attempted to push them back, while the enemies on the ground tried to hold them in place so that their comrades could ascend. And ascend they did, scrambling up single-file. From time to time one would fall, struck by an arrow or simply losing his grip, but the men below him carried on.

A wall of spears awaited the besiegers at the top, lunging out to strike the attacking soldiers as their heads and torsos came into view. The first to make it the top always died, but once again, the men behind them carried on. Some were able to deflect or block the spear thrusts, and began grappling with the wall’s defenders. Carn held back one ladder by himself, keeping the attackers at bay with swift and precise swings.

Elsewhere, one man screamed a prayer to Cadien and threw himself forward, impaling himself on the spears but successfully driving the defenders back long enough for the man behind him to get his feet on the wall. By the time he was killed and his body pushed out of the way, two more men were behind him. They were beginning to make a foothold.

The shouting Auriëlle imagined she would’ve heard began in earnest now. She didn’t relent though. Fires were raging down on the ground. Engulfing enemies. Every time she used her magic she managed to kill at least a handful. Every time her heart beat a little fuller. Then one of her orbs she lobbed bend away from where it should’ve landed. Instead it fell amid a burning patch of the ground, harming exactly nothing. “Cadien’s curse.” She said as she prepared another orb. When she lobbed it, it too suddenly changed course and fell away from her target.

She stopped her attack for a moment and squinted her eyes, trying to find her quarry. It was hard to focus. She never saw from where the first bolt of fire came, though she managed to create a momentary ward. The bolt fell upon a crystal-like dome which quickly vanished again. “Come on. Come on. Show yourself.” She kept saying to herself. After the third bolt she found her prey. When he tried to make another bold she reached out towards the fire in his hand. She poured all her rage into it. The mage’s bolt exploded in his hand. Fire surged around him. Auriëlle raised her hand again and the fire flared up even higher. Making it visible across their front.

The mage served as an example. All who would dare defy her would die. The screams began to sound like a chorus now as she continued to rain down fire upon her foes. Followed by simple bolts of green light that fell down upon the enemy. When it hit their shields, roots sprang from the wood and entangled their arm. The thin roots tightened around their arms, cutting into the flesh and drawing blood. Small pebbles fell harmlessly from the raised platform as well. Once they hit the ground though, jagged rocks sprang forth from the earth. Crushing and blocking the attackers.

It wasn’t enough. She couldn’t break the tide and her magic began to wear down on her. “Where are you.” She said to herself as she flung her sorceries. Her eyes tried to find her true targets amongst the fray. They kept eluding her though. Despite her fatigue she also felt a power she hadn’t felt before. Not even on the battlefield. She felt untouchable as she rained down death from above. Was this how gods felt?

Back on the wall, the foothold had expanded. A small knot of warriors was engaged in a brutal, grinding melee against the local militia. Carn saw this in the corner of his eye, and cursed. He lunged his blade into the gut of another attacker, then turned his head. “You lot!” he shouted to a small group of men that had just arrived. “Hold here!”

They complied, one skewering the man who just replaced the one that Carn had slain. Carn himself disengaged, moving toward the mob of militia that was slowly being pushed back. Casting aside his shield, he drew a dagger and pushed his way through the mass of men, until he came face to face with the enemy.

The sapphire ring on his finger began to glow. Carn had learned long ago what its purpose was: it greatly improved his reflexes. And here, on this wall, it proved its worth. Time seemed to slow down. He slashed, stabbed, jabbed, and parried. He spat in men’s faces and kicked them in their most vulnerable regions. Red liquid ran through his hair and down his face. Soon, it became difficult to maintain a grip on his own sword, for his hand was slick with blood. He let out a wordless battlecry as he became lost in the madness.

Auriëlle had fallen in the very same haze of blood as she threw her own wrath down upon the enemy. She was so focused upon bringing death that she never saw the blue light further away. It was too late when she saw the bolt of lightning being released at her. She could only turn her right arm at it. Arcs of lightning burned across her vambrace, tracing grooves of smoldering wood in them. The lightning then shot away from her, to the right. Hitting the two archers beside her and killing them instantly. Despite her deflection, the strength of the spell slammed her back..

It felt like she woke up from a dream and was thrown straight into hell. The smell of burned flesh and smoke hit her hard. Her ears were ringing, making everything sound distant and mute. Something felt like it was burning on her arm. She looked. The vambrace was still smoldering. She ripped open the straps and released her arm. Light flashed over her. It was instantly followed by another deafening crack of thunder. Which made her curl up on the platform with her hands over her ears. Her heart felt like it would break her chest as her body was locking up. She didn’t want to die here. Not like this. Tears began to flow from her eyes as the pain and fear crippled her. Behind her she felt two more bodies dropping to the floor.

Down on the wall, the attackers were pushed back. Carn and the militia, the latter inspired by the former’s example, were beginning to kill them faster than they could climb up. Then Carn pulled his blade free from a warrior’s guts, only to shove the man aside and find himself face to face with another foe who was still in the process of climbing the ladder. There were no more attackers left on this section of wall.

With a grin, Carn deflected man’s clumsy attempt at a slash, and swung his own blade across the attacker’s throat. He then seized a pitchfork from one of the militia behind him, and attempted to use it to push the ladder back. Those around him saw his efforts, and pressed their own spears, scythes, and pitchforks against the ladder’s top rung. Every muscle in Carn’s body strained until, finally, the ladder fell backward, sending the dozen or so men still on it hurtling to the ground below. Carn and the men with him cheered.

But the triumph was short-lived, for Carn’s gaze was drawn elsewhere, and he saw that two more footholds had opened up. With a yell of frustration, he made his way to reinforce the nearest one.

Something was scaling the ladder. Auriëlle felt the faint shaking on her platform. Were they on the walls already? Was she going to die by a simple dagger? A fist grabbed her by her collar and dragged her over the edge of the platform. She fell down on the tough ground beneath. The wind was knocked out of her lungs. A sudden pang of pain pushed all other sensation away again. She clutched her arm, it was bleeding. The pain was excruciating. Though her fingers could still move. That was good.

“You’re a’right lass.” A grizzled, old man said as he suddenly appeared before her. He held a piece of cloth which he was rapping around her arm. She looked above. The platform was burning up now. “You’re a’right.” He repeated. Her heart slowed down a little. Enough to get a bearing of her situation. When he was done, he offered her his waterskin. This time around she took a few greedy gulps from it. It was water, just water. Yet it tasted like the best wine she ever drank. “Now listen up lass. They’ve got a mean one down there. You know what I’m talkin’ about. None of us can kill him. You can. You understand lass? You kill him.” With those words said, the veteran vanished again. In truth he followed Carn into the next fray. To Auriëlle, he just vanished.

She knew she was in pain. Her body wasn’t right. Yet all sensations began to feel distant. Muted. The pain just wasn’t that important anymore. Slowly she managed to get up and flexed her right arm. The bandages had faint lines of red on them but that was the worst of it. Lightning flashed overhead, followed by deafening thunder again. It didn’t rattle her as much. Her heart began to race but she was determined to see it through. She began to scan the field below. In the distance she saw that now familiar blue light.

Her hate flared up. She would punish all who dared to use magic against her. That was the promise she made at the beginning of the siege. She would see it fulfilled.

Galdezor had been queen’s faithful servant even before she knew he was born. As a man of 45 now, he had learned about the many mysteries of magic. With the help of his brothers and sisters. Many of them asked to travel with him and find distant lands with different magics or to find the sun’s daughter and her legendary teacher. He refused every quest. All that mattered was Merok and his queen.

So he would be damned if some upstart sorceress would best him in the field of battle. He almost had her, though through some miracle she managed to deflect his lightning. At least he hit her because her crude sorceries stopped. Now he was scanning the walls in search of her. When his rainbow eyes found her, he smirked and charged his bolt.

Then he heard an unfamiliar sound. The sound of air being sucked towards a single point. He barely caught it beside him. A wave of translucent heat came surging at him. It didn’t hit him fully, no. It hit his left side. His entire left arm and a big chunk of his side were gone. Turned to ashes in an instant. He was flung through the air by the sudden force hitting him and landed hard. Then the pain came.

Auriëlle breathing was ragged now. She dropped her arm. The power had worked. The lightning stopped, yet her foe wasn’t dead yet. She knew it. She wanted it that way. She wanted him to feel what she had felt.

The fall of the mage sent a wave of panic through those who were still on the ground. After seeing one of their ladders fall, and the others displaying very little in the way of progress, the army finally began to break. Men turned and fled for the safety of the camp, out of the range of Aurielle’s spells or the archers’ arrows.

The men still on the upper halves of the ladders carried on upward, oblivious to their routing comrades. Though they climbed for victory, they would find only death. The footholds no longer had reinforcements, and their numbers were eventually worn down until the last handful who remained tried to surrender. But no mercy was given. Soon after, the remaining ladders were pushed off or knocked over.

The wall had been defended, but at great cost. Corpses were piled before the ladders, and some men collapsed in exhaustion. Carn could count maybe twenty survivors of the original thirty men in his company. Twenty other mercenaries had stood with them, but were now ten. Of the hundred militia who came to their aid, three quarters of their number remained. But the attackers had fared far worse. For every defender that had fallen, three or four foes had been slain.

Cheers began to ring out, and a weary smile crossed Carn’s face. He was spent. The sounds of battle carried on in the distance, as the fight for the gate continued to rage. He cast a gaze in that direction, wondering if he should go to support them.

Then the King’s brother approached him. The Prince of Jalka was clad in copper and leather, with a fine bronze blade commissioned from distant Ketrefa. He saluted Carn with that same blade, which was now stained red. “You fought well,” the Prince complimented.

“The battle still continues at the gate,” Carn warned.

“My brother will see those fools off, have no fear,” the Prince said. “He has a better position, and more men. I sent the other half of the militia to him.” He gestured to the fleeing figures. “We have to stay here, and prepare. Those wretches might launch a renewed assault.”

“I see,” Carn noted, hoping that would be enough.

“Is the hag dead yet?” Auriëlle sounded thoroughly out of breath. Yet that wouldn’t stop her. Carn clearly wasn’t the only one targeted. She would have the queen’s crown for the orders she gave her wizard.

The Prince shrugged. “If I had to guess, she’s with the force attacking the gate. If she led from the front, she might be.” He frowned. “Don’t get any ideas. You’re in no state to go running halfway across the town, and we still need you here.”

A sorceress’ look could kill, especially Auriëlle’s. Anger flared up in her as the prince told her she couldn’t get to the gates. In fact she took two steps towards the ladder with all intent to prove him wrong. Just to spite him. Then her body refused to make the next step. In fact she dropped to a knee and then slowly sat down. Her right arm began to burn fiercely and her back felt as if it was broken. “Fine.” She sneered. “The king better pay us a bonus for all this crap.”

Carn sat down next to her, and the Prince said nothing.

---

Eventually, the noise from the gates did settle down, and soon a messenger came to report that the assault there had also been repelled. Carn, Aurielle, and the rest of the company were sent back down to get some much-needed rest.

The next morning, the Meroki army retreated, and the siege was lifted.

The Queen had survived. Most of her army was still intact, but she had taken too many losses to risk another attempt. Even if she took the town, holding it might be rendered impossible. So instead she withdrew from Jalka, burning and pillaging all that lay in her path.

The Redspear company were hailed as heroes, notable as being among the few warriors for hire who did not abandon the town when the situation turned dire. They were given their payment in goods, as was often the case, with a small bonus, and then sent on their way. Carn had been bitter at losing a third of his warband, but fortunately he had been able to convince several other fighters to join him and replenish their numbers. The King had attempted to hire them on permanently, offering further rewards, but he was refused.

---

“Well,” Carn said three days later, as they passed through the gate which had been broken by a battering ram during the assault. That same battering ram lay discarded to the side - a large tree trunk, stripped of all branches. “I hope we can both agree we never want to be put in that situation again,” he said to Aurielle.

Auriëlle remained silent. The sight of mothers and wives mourning their sons and husbands was burned into her mind. She had traveled from Acadia all the way to Evenstar. In that journey she had seen many upstart kingdoms like Jalka. Was the same happening there? The bandages around her arm were still white now. The bleeding had stopped. Even more important, after the battle she had found her vambrace. The lightning had carved deep, black grooves into the piece of wood but it was still entirely in one piece. It was still on her arm.

There were many peasants around the gate and in the field. Some of them were still looting the dead. Others were busy digging mass graves for the nameless dead. One stood out. A man clad in a thick cloak. His face hidden by a hood. He held a gnarled staff in one hand. For some reason he just stood next to the road, watching the gate. Waiting. Until he caught sight of Auriëlle’s vambrace. He hurried over her, betraying his younger age. “My lady…” he said. “I beg a moment.”

“what is it?” She sneered.

“I come to deliver Galdezor’s final words.” He said, as he reached for his hood.

Auriëlle summoned fire to her hand. Ready to burn what she assumed would be an assassin. Though the name Galdezor meant nothing to her. Not until the stranger’s hood was removed. Revealing the man’s rainbow eyes.

“Find the sorceress.” The unhooded stranger said. “’Find her and ask for her truth. Her power is not something a mortal could have. I beg of you, brothers and sisters. The world should know.’ Those were Galdezor’s final words. He told us what you did, my lady. He even showed us all your annihilating power.”

“You want to kill me now? For killing your friend.” Auriëlle asked. She didn’t let her guard down.

The stranger shook his head. “On the contrary, my lady. I’ve come to ask you how you became blessed by the god of magic.”

“Wait… what?” asked Carn, who had barely been paying attention until now.

Auriëlle repeated Carn.

“Blessed, my lady. Surely you know. That wave you unleashed upon Galdezor. We all saw it. We all agreed such a thing is not possible, not even with the strongest spells we know. It is such a pure manifestation of destruction that none of us could even imagine creating it.” The man kneeled before her. “I- No. We, my brothers and sisters everywhere ask you how you were blessed by Aurius.”

People stopped and formed a half-circle around Auriëlle, Carn and the Servant now. Curious of why a generally powerful wizard was now kneeling.

“Get up. Get up!” Auriëlle said as she pulled the Servant to his feet by his arms. “I’m not blessed, you hear me? I’m not blessed. He is! Ask him! Alright? Ask him!” She was pointing at Carn.

Carn frowned. “A bit bold of you to assume divine intervention,” he said to the stranger. “Just because you haven’t seen that sort of magic before doesn’t mean it must be the work of a god.”

“We are certain divinity is involved, Lord Carn.” The Servant held his ground. Then turned back to Auriëlle. “You must have realized by now that you are no common sorceress. Sorcery is not that strong. If you are not blessed by Aurius then surely you were blessed by another.”

“I-I don’t know.” Auriëlle said. “I don’t remember a blessing.” The memory of the obelisk flashed through her mind. Before she couldn’t even make fire. After she could burn animals. Now she could literally erase people.

The Servant frowned for a moment. “Druids could know.” He muttered, though he clearly didn’t like his own idea. “They have a…closer connection with the gods.”

Memories flashed before Carn’s eyes, of all the druids he had met. Starting with Kaer Mirh, the useless old fool who lost his brother. But others had been considerably more helpful. “They have magic of their own, which they claim comes from the gods,” he shrugged. “It might be worth a shot.”

Something deep inside of her told her the rainbow eyed man was speaking the truth. Her powers hadn’t been normal in the last two years. She had won far too many mage duels. Slowly she reached behind her neck and took off the ruby amulet Carn had given her way back in Evenstar. She handed it over to Carn and said: “I’ll be back for that so don’t lose it.” With those words she quickly walked away from the group. She never looked back, even though it hurt her heart. This was her first goodbye. Goodbye to the Solenia, Kahlin, to the Redspears and Carn. She assured herself a quick leave was just for the best.

Carn furrowed his brow at the amulet, and then watched her leave with an expression of bewilderment. “Where are you going!?” he called out to her.

“I don’t know! I’m going to find a druid.” She yelled back, without turning away. She guessed she should find a druid, though the bastards were constantly on the move. There was one place she had heard about though. Somewhere far off into the north. A place where there were always druids. Competent ones, even.

The answer only confused him further. Carn opened his mouth, but closed it, as he couldn’t think of anything to say. She wasn’t telling him the full truth, and she clearly wanted to be alone. And yet… would she come back? He stared at the ruby amulet in his palm, and closed his hand around it.

He hoped so.

---

Gibbou’s face twisted into a knot as she shuffled another step forward. She had made it a total of three paces from her portal, clutching her stomach as though it was about to fall out. Baggy eyes and hair like an overgrown jungle made up only a small share of the whole wagon wreck that was the moon goddess recovering from her past days of celebration. A hardened mess of unspeakable things trailed from her lips down her chin, covering her moonlight markings, and formed a sickly beige spot on the left leg of her pants. She had only managed to put on a single bat slipper, and her usual overshirt had been switched out with a ragged midnight tank top that somehow managed to smell nicer than its wearer. A burp choked her for a moment and she hesitated in her shuffle.

“... Oh, nuh… Orey, hehlp…” She leaned into a nearby bush and did terrible things to it. She straightened back up and wiped her mouth with a slimey backhand. “Mush find Orey…” She kept shuffling forward.

A figure popped up from behind the bush, limply holding... soiled shears and wearing a disgusted grimace, “Uh...” Illyd Dyll forced a flawed smile, “Hello?”

Gibbou’s tired eyes did their best to widen and she staggered back, though it was hard to tell if it was different from her previous stagger. “Oh, sssshhoot, I’m so… Nuh, my hea-... I’m ssso, so sorry… Here, lemme…” She tried to fish a handkerchief out of her breast pocket, only to realise she was wearing the wrong top.

“Um,” Illyd Dyll wiggled his fingers and the shears disappeared only to be replaced with a wooden cup filled with a beige looking liquid. He repainted his smile and held out the cup, “For ye belly.”

Gibbou narrowed her eyes at the cup. “That’s not more firewater, right?”

“It’s a blend of ginger roots and citrus fruits.” He paused, “But only a little of each, made without fire!” His exclamation was a little loud at the end, making him wince in empathy.

She closed her eyes and nodded slowly, accepting the cup and sipping its contents gingerly. It warmed her mouth and throat with a gentle burn, and the acidity immediately waged war against the sickly sweet aftertaste of carrots in her mouth. She nodded with gratitude at her saviour. “Hey, thanks… That feels so much better.” She took another sip. “Sorry about the, uh… The thingies, shears. I sorta just… Came up.” Blinking away sheepishly, she followed up with: “Say, uh, have we met? I’m Gibbou from the moon. Who’re you?”

Illyd Dyll smiled, “I’m Illyd Dyll, from the...” He looked clouded for a moment, “Well either way, ye should follow up with a nice starch diet -- can I interest ye in a potato?” He held up a potato. Gibbou took it, inspected it and bit into it with a juicy snap. She chewed wearing a hard frown.

“Is it supposed to be this… Hard?”

“Normally I boil it first,” Illyd nodded, “Makes it like a nice pillow.” He paused, “Ye got a pot?”

“Oh.” She eyed the potato with a mixture of embarrassment and betrayal. “Yeah, hang on…” With a snap and a poof, a pot appeared out of thin air and smashed against the stoney floor of the Antiquity. Gibbou covered her ears and mumbled, “ow” over and over again. She got over her agony and snapped some firewood into existence, too. As that, too, clattered against the ground, she snarled. “Damn gravity…” She looked up, turned back and followed the three steps she had taken away from her portal with narrow eyes. “... Hey, Illyd? You mind if we head back to my place? I’m missing my beanbags and the, the, y’know, empty vacuum of space.” She started dragging herself backwards like a zombie.

“I’m a big fan’o beans myself,” Illyd happily accompanied, pulling a harp out of nowhere but then slowly thinking better of it. The two of them subsequently headed through the portal, passing through time and reality until the gentle background noise of other gods’ conversations in the Antiquity disappeared into memory, being replaced by a deafening silence. They were inside a glass dome, the eternal stretch of space filling the view above. Darkness was everywhere, and even divine vision had issues making out the shapes of things, much less their colour. Gibbou snaked her way over to a messy pile of pillows and beanbags and crawled inside like some animal entering its nest. The pot and firewood magically arranged themselves somewhere else. The pot filled with water and a pocket of oxygen appeared between the wood and the pot so fire could be made. A snap lit the wood, and the first light that had graced the dark side of the moon in a long time proceeded to cook the pair some potatoes. “Make yourself at home…” came a drowsy drone from inside the pillow fort.

“Oh, thank ye,” Illyd leaned back into a hammock that had materialized behind him. He slowly fell into its embrace -- swinging gently over the ground and held up by two happy looking apple trees -- sized perfectly for the indoors. He nestled until he was cozy, letting out a soft question, “So how are ye, Gibbou?”

“... Regretful. How about you, Illyd?”

“I’m not always too sure, these days,” Illyd answered honestly, “But what’s life without a little mystery, yeah?” He let his hammock swing, fiddling with something in his fingers.

A blue, dark-blue-haired head popped out from between the pillows, the fire casting black shadows across it that contrasted heavily with its white tattoos and moonwhite eyes. “You… You wanna talk about?” She paused. “I, I mean, I know we just met, but… I, at least, feel like it helps to talk to someone whenever you’re feeling down. It’s helped me now a few times.”

Illyd looked over from his hammock, the earthen brown eyes just peeking over the lip, “Ye know, I couldn’t agree more.” Another pause, “Ye mind if I play a little somethin’ first? Soft and smooth, don’t ye worry. For my nerves.”

There was a shuffle of pillows as the moon goddess shrugged. “Go ahead - soft and smooth’s all good.”

“Stop me if ye heard this one before,” Illyd leaned back in his hammock. There was a long silence ended by the smack of lips and then a long pull from a sorrowful flute. The notes were soft and caring, yet quiet and long. The cry of the flute swirled over the hammock, slowly filling the dome with its passive sob. A fluttering of happy notes began to freckle it, goading a memory from Gibbou.

Two thousand years had filled her head with an eternity of memories, but few came to her easier than this one, and a sting of nostalgia and dissonance clouded her head. “... I, I have… Where did… Where did you heard this?” She slowly pushed herself up to a seated position, pillows and bean bags rolling off the pile and out onto the floor.

The flute stopped and Illyd peaked back over, “In a way, I kinda wrote it. Ye like it?”

Gibbou frowned. “How could you have-... I mean, I like it - I really do, but…” She drew a stiff breath. “I heard it for the first time a long time ago. Did you teach it to him back then?”

“Nah,” Illyd seemed bashful, “Ye were... that is to say... well ye see... ye were the first one to hear it... from me.” He sat up, “Ye know I am sorry for not introducin’ myself earlier.”

She stood up and approached him slowly, all semblance of her earlier ailment seemingly gone. A quivering breath filled her lungs and she asked, “... Who are you, really?”

Illyd Dyll tucked his cheek in and nodded, “I’m Illyd Dyll -- but ye first knew me as one third of a greater being. Ye locked me up behind a gate.” He held out a hand, “But! But! That was all necessary ‘nd I have no bad feelin’s towards ye, in fact if it wasn’t for ye I wouldn’t be around.” He paused, “Listen, ye out of all people in this here crazy world deserve the full story ‘nd when you bumped into me in the bushes, I figured the sooner the better. Now I understan’ if ye don’t want to hear it, but if ye do -- I’m more than happy to explain everythin’.”

Gibbou staggered back and dropped back down in her pillow pile, staring a thousand yards ahead. “... Wow… That makes… What, two gods that claim I’m their reason for being, huh.” She rubbed her face with roughed-up palms.

“Now, hol’ on,” Illyd shook his head, “I existed, you have no responsibility to claim for that. Ye simply... er. Well Gibbou to be frank you sorta cut me up into a lot of pieces, but I arranged for that before ye even met me -- so that’s my own fault, see? Maybe if I start from the beginnin’ this will make more sense...” The god bit his finger in thought.

Gibbou nodded slowly. “... Yeah… Yeah, do that if you, if you would…” With that, she conjured for herself a mug of something hot and shuffled herself around among her pillows until she was comfortable again.

Illyd spun in his hammock so he was facing the goddess, “Right, so... erm. Ye know it’s kinda funny... ye think about this moment for so long that ye never actually get around to figurin’ out how to start it.” He perked up, “Right, okay. So ye know about the lifeblood, yeah? Well there I was inside it as an entity with real blurry lines -- jus’ a personality really, and a love for the flute, but I wasn’t exactly alone.” He concentrated, “I was in part, just a speck in a larger pool that began to form over the Sacred Groves. I decided to make little people to perhaps learn a better way to cope with a growing freckle of misery I had but in reality my form in the lifeblood simply started to reflect all their negative emotions! It was horrible. So ye see, I figured I would jus’ keep moving along as I do and made them as comfortable and happy as possible -- I really loved em, see and selfishly my love for ‘em bounced back and they showered me with all these lovely good emotions.” The god took in a breath, “But ye know I figured this can’t last forever, the anger and sadness and misery was still there attempting to take over. I knew, er figured, that in time this great rage would infact be me, and in the case of the power I wielded, I couldn’t let that rage hold such reign -- so I devised a prophecy, nudged fate just enough to make sure that someone such as yerself would find me... and ye did!”

The god took a breath, “Now I knew that this new stimulation comin’ from you would in the end introduce my lil Thumblings to perhaps negativity that they could not handle and it really broke my heart. To this day I cannot remember if I was in fact a good person doing a bad thing or a bad person trying to do a good thing -- I still can’t tell which one I am.” He furrowed his brow and gulped, “But I did it, I allowed this introduction knowing that it would save myself and hopefully prevent a being of pure anger to reign with the power gifted by the lifeblood... except my nudge against fate wasn’t exactly spot on and well... I trapped myself instead and let loose this being of anger.” He sucked in a breath, “My brother, Joab-Balaam.” He tapped his chest, “A piece of him still beats in my heart, even. But, I managed to nudge fate one more time and made a second prophecy -- even forcing Joab-Balaam to make a girl to try and warn you and little Adrian! It didn’t work out exactly as planned, but ye remember poor Basil?”

Gibbou coughed up some tea. “The prophet, you mean?”

“Yeah!” Illyd Dyll snapped his fingers in confirmation, “She was s’pose to tell ye all that it was gonna be okay and not to feel so bad but I think it got jumbled somewhere... either way she did manage to keep the night elves, your children, away from Joab... just as planned.” Illyd nodded, “I was uh... trapped for about 1536 years after that. Then my lil nudge fell into place -- Did ye ever meet the night elf named Oyticon? Nuh, I don’t think many did -- ‘specially with Joab-Balaam trying to kill him. Either way he fulfilled the prophecy and reopened the gate -- became a Saint to the Thumblings and friends, as well as the very nudge I needed to escape and switch places with Joab. I s’pose most of Joab-Balaam died after that, just like the thousands Joab themself had killed -- save for a freckle that lingers inside of me of course.” Illyd’s face turned sour, “So there ye have it, the full story up until this point -- er barring a short summary of what I’ve been doing up until now from then, which is to say not too much.” He forced a smile and held up a tiny berry, “Houlin berry?”

Gibbou accepted it and popped it into her mouth, closing her eyes in pleasure. “Oh, how I’ve missed this flavour…” She swallowed. “So, you were part Joab… Then you split up… And now you’re a… Wait, did you ever say what you do? Also, what’s a saint?”

“Right, so this one isn’t of my design,” Illyd explained with his hands, “But I s’pose my interactions with the Thumblin’s at such an early primordial state of the world had long reachin’ repercussions that I only recently learned about... namely the worship of the mixture of Joab-Balaam, myself, and the lifeblood known as the Golden Light. It was my state when we first met, see?” He twisted his lips in thought, “But now it’s a bit more complicated, but so is the religion it seems. They honor faithful representatives of their religion by lookin’ back at those representatives teachin’s and attempt to...” He paused, “What’s the word? Emulatin’? Well either way, they call these representatives their Saints.” He sat back, “From what I gather, this uh... religion has four major Saints and countless tiny ones.” He held out four fingers, and counted off each, “Bartholomew, the first Thumblin’ I made... known as their elder.” He folded the finger down, “Adrian, ye know him. Basil, ye know her. ‘Nd finally Oyticon.” He nodded with a proud grin, “Lookin’ like my researchin’ is payin’ off, eh?”

“... Adrian…” Gibbou’s stare glowed blankly. It took her a moment to recover. “... Anyway, thanks for answering that question. It sounded stupid in my head to ask… But again, what is it that you do now? I remember the Golden Light being something, something goodness and peace and all that, but… Are you some sort of… Of peace god now, or?”

Illyd Dyll seemed to relax as the topic slowly started to shift away from the past, “Ye see, I made ‘em houllin berries, ‘nd now I make-” He raised his hands and the dome filled with tall shooting sugar canes mixed in a sea of wheat and poppy flowers. A smile formed on his face, “The harvest!” He nodded, “Oh ‘nd this.” He snapped his fingers and the tiniest bolt of lightning zipped into the palm of his other hand.

“Ooo.” Gibbou snapped off a sugar cane and gave it a chew. Its sickly sweet, yet oddly wooden flavour got stuck between her teeth, and she seemed to taste it long after she’d swallowed. “But wait, I though Orey handled plant growth and all that! Or Genesis, maybe.”

“Maybe!” Illyd nodded, “But I do it too!”

“Huh…” An idea seemed to punch Gibbou in the jaw. “Hey! How would you like to become a druidic god?!”

“Sure! I do like having friends,” Illyd smiled warmly, “What’s uh... what’s is it, exactly?”

“Oh! Uh… Hang on, how did I explain it back then, uh… Uhmmmm…” She gave her messy hair a thorough scratch as though she was trying to claw it open. Eventually, she snapped her fingers in realisation. “Right! So it’s this magical system that I invented aeons ago that basically lets mortals use a teeny, tiny bit of your power in exchange for their servitude, prayers, loyalty, whatevs. You technically don’t have to do anything other than bless this artifact I made called Hir, which should be riiiiiiight… No wait…” She conjured forth a globe mapped with Galbar’s lands and seas using moon dust. “Here! No? No, there it disappeared again, uh… Here! Okay, okay, okay, I think it’ll stay there for a while - the people there usually take their time anointing new--... Oh! No, must’ve been accidental. See, it teleports all over the place wherever people pray for help. It’s…” She hung her head. “... It’s not always very convenient.”

“Oh,” Illyd Dyll nodded and studied the map with a polite intensity that the explanation didn’t deserve, “I think I can find it if I do a lil lookin’.” Looking up from the globe he held out a sincere hand to Gibbou, “Listen, I’m glad ye figure I’m a friend enough to help in ye projects. I was a lil worried that ye wouldn’t have been much too happy hearin’ all the nudges and shadows left in the past. So this all means a lot to me, ‘nd I should also be a thankin’ ye for all ye did on my behalf, as well.”

Gibbou blinked. “No, I’m…” She smiled timidly. “... I’m happy the light Adrian and his people loved so much is still around. Here I was still thinking - even a little bit - that I was responsible for the light dying in their grove. Heh… Even though Adrian kept insisting we’d both screwed up.” Her smile broadened. “So no sweat, Illy! Happy to have you here!”

“Ah no,” Illyd held up his palms, “All them years ye thinkin’ and feelin’ such pains in my place is fit for more than simple apology and forgive, I says. This simply won’t do ma’am, I insist I make you at least a pie before you consider us square.”

“I have no idea what that is, but it sounds delicious.”

“Awh miss ye don’t know what ye are missin’!” Illyd hopped out of his hammock. He wiggled his fingers and the wheat began to crumble into flour, the cane began to shake off its sugar, and the poppies sprinkled their seeds. “Hup!” Illyd tossed a sudden smattering of apples into the mix and with a couple zaps of lightning... a sizzling pie landed before Gibbou. She gave it a few sniffs and sighed.

“This smells better than my sister… I think, I mean, I-... I don’t-... I’m just gonna eat.” She cut herself a slice with a knife appearing and disappearing in and out of reality and gave it a bite. “O-hoooo, my siiiss-haaa… What did you put in this?! This is the most amazing thing I’ve-!” She took another bite and hummed triumphantly.

Illyd knitted his brow in concern but hid it behind a smile, “Not ye sister.”

Gibbou stopped chewing and then let out a snickering “pfft!” that made her spit pie crumbs all over the floor. “Oh, horry, ih ‘ust…” She swallowed. “Don’t make jokes like that when I’m mid bite!” She spent another thirty seconds or so calming her giggle.

“At leas’ someone gets it!” Illyd slapped his leg and sat down in a mixture of victory and a huff, “Ye the first person to actually ‘preciate one of my jokes. Usually I get a ‘hmm’ or some weird reference to some inside joke I was not a part of.”

“Oh, that sucks!” She stuffed the last piece of pie into her mouth like a snake swallowing its prey whole. “Yoo’h a’h a-... ‘Ang om.” Swallow. “You’re a funny guy! Then again, some of the other gods are suuuuuuper weird. Like, wow, not even getting -close- to you again!”

Illyd jabbed a finger into his own chest, a hurt look under his smile, “...m...me?”

Gibbou gasped. [colour=lightblue]“Oh no, not you! I didn’t mean it like--!” Her eyes narrow in suspicion. “Waait… Oh, you’re bluffing again! ‘Course I didn’t mean you!” She punched his shoulder in a friendly manner. “No, you’re, you’re really nice. Like, I can’t think of the last time someone made me a pie… Mostly because it’s never happened before, but still. People usually just… Come over and tell me that the stuff I’m doing’s either wrong or could be better. Nobody except my sister and, well, you just sits down to have a peaceful chat like this.”

Illyd beamed at the compliment, “Yeah well... ye know.” He cleared his throat, “Oh wait I think I have a sayin’ for this... er... how’s it go?” He looked at Gibbou for help, as if she would know before he finally snapped, “I... er... can’t remember but it was something along the lines of being like-minded, being sympathetic, loving one another,” he was counting fingers now, “Er... be compassionate and be humble. Either way, I guess what I’m tryin’ to say is there isn’t much use for ol’ judgement when ye plan on reservin’ yer time for carin’.”

“Couldna said it better myself!” she cheered in response. She plopped herself back down in her beanbags and patted her belly. “Oh sister, that was sooooo goooood. Man, the druids’re gonna love you if you bring them -this- kind of stuff!”

Illyd beamed, his smile summoning curling vines throughout the dome. Little reddish purple grapes began to sprout, “To our new beginning then!”

The cityfolk of the Upper Azumai, it is rather safe to say, were not too fond of death. At the heart of everything they did and were lay the constant need to savour all that life held - in many ways, it was a desperate race, a constant endeavour to uncover life's joys and pleasures and taste each and every one. A life well lived, after all, is a life enjoyed to the full. The ancients had declared - and the ancients were in all ways wise - that the eye of death can never bring such joy; when the ghouls consumed your husk at last all happiness was come to an end. And so those cityfolk of the Upper Azumai, as though to prove that ancient declaration true, all sang with a collective spirit: before we'll let that Dead-eye drag us low, we'll perish in the wine cup's afterglow!

The Shade, a deepborn spirit of ink and dirge, had distantly noted the region as it flowed in the sunlit empyrean high above the strange world it had been birthed into. Basking in the mesmerising song of the flowing clouds against the strikes of the sunrays, only the premonition of a truly wondrous song and dance could hope to tear the Shade from such exquisite sight and sound - and the song and dance that reverberated from this small valley nestled away amidst the mountains of the northwestern Hreelcii was just that. And so the song-gripped Shade descended from the coloured heavens and congealed into a swirling ink blot that streaked across the skies and took in the artistic geography of the region - and why, there was a richness to it! This was a land that reverberated with an unstilling song; here, it was all too clear, was a place where the eye of art knew no sleep.

Countless tributaries gushed down from the forested hills and mountaintops into the verdant valley, and there the hushed song of the flowing waters mingled and intermixed into the mighty Azumai; whose song encompassed the whole valley and called to the far mountains and crooned at the rolling skies. And from those skies came squealing zephyrs, their laughter ringing everywhere as they brushed the tops of trees and rained kisses and flirtatious words down; and the trees giggled and sighed and brought their leaves and branches about them in embarrassment and pleasure. All about the great valley forests gave way to bare plains, which then again gave way to jungle and more forest, which gave way here and there to wetland. And at the heart of it all was the great Azumai that snaked its way from the far mountains, through the valley, and to the sea; where it formed up into a complex delta and poured its waters and sediment into a bay of not inconsiderable size.

And there was life aplenty here - that, the airborne Shade could hear. The grasslands were home to herds of strange bovines boasting hides of sharp quills and to sheep that leapt to absurd height; and here and there a flame-headed deer could be spied dashing across the plains and between the hills. The wetlands and the jungles alike were home to all manner of deers and monkeys and blinking leeoli wisps; and there were big cats here and so too on the plains, though no creature could boast the size and magnificence of the winged leons that stalked the grasslands all across the valley. Where verdant hills gave way to rock and mountain, the Shade could hear the lazy, bubbling song of the rock-eating salamander. The shade sighed, a small sound bubbling through its form and escaping into the whirling worldsong in the form of a moan. It rippled gently yet powerfully through all things, brushing and embracing the song of the butterflies and the bees, wetland and jungle snakes, and the jaguars lazing in the trees. Here and there it went breezing by tapirs and tatous slumbering peacefully beneath their armour. Gorillas sat in the thick jungle undergrowth turned their heads, blowing their lips out at the song that tickled their spirits, and great crocodilians bathing on the riverbanks and drifting in the great Azumai drew open their reptilian eyes momentarily before closing them again. Herds of hammerhead landsharks that lazed in and around the Azumai and in the wetlands, as well as packs of their smaller wolflike cousins, observed the passing of the rippling moan with dull resignation and energetic yapping respectively. Falcons and kestrels screeched in union with the flowing song, and high above the glorious harpy eagle rose and rode the canvass of the skies alongside the gentle wave of soulsound.

And yet it was not this life, alone, and the vibrance of the worldsong emanating from it all, that drew the song-lured, deepborn Shade - for it had flowed in the deeps of the world and heard the song of all that dwelled beneath the waves; endless corals teeming with melody, rumbling with canorous song, pulsing and rippling and bursting with musical vitality. Those living things above the ocean waves were beautiful, of that there was no doubt, but they could not hope to match those of the deeps for sheer volume of life. Though be that as it may, the song of the shrimp and the song of the termite alike were a wonder to behold; and beneath the waves or above them was the worldsong a thing to shake and waken souls slumbering in the depths of unsweet, suffocating nescience.

No, it was not the taut strains of the hunting jaguar that drew the Shade, or the nervous airs of the dashing mara in the grass; but it was the collective song emanating from the sapients dwelling here. It was an exquisite, deeply rooted thing, refined over unknown aeons by generation after generation of feasters and revellers and singers and dancers, generation upon generation of inkweavers and performers and musicians. Oh it was a song that constantly praised and saluted the endless beauty of life and clung to the joys contained in that too-often tragic and swift-fleeing thing; a song that hailed the coming of dawn with the sunrays and wept for their passing away when the hand of dusk carried those prancing things into the gaping maw of night.

The Shade slowed in its descent, sighing past solitary branches and congealing at the bank of the great river, where the moans of the flow welcomed the shade of ink & melody. But at that very moment it was no more a shade, but a dark humanoid of broadly masculine form whose surface was a gently shifting kaleidoscope of colours.

The Shade looked around, and found that it had landed amidst a motley band resting beneath the tree, who were staring at the Shade with great wide eyes. They were all disheveled, with long wild hair that reached their shoulders. Some wore pieces of cloth on their heads, kept there by a string of grass, while others had timeworn rags rapped about their foreheads with tufts of hair spilling out above and below. A few had straw sandals on their feet, though most of them were barefoot, and beside a loincloth or shoddy kilt they were largely unclothed. While the majority were seated, there was one man with small bells wrapped about his wrists and ankles standing. Each of them held an instrument of one sort or another - stringed instruments, drums, cymbals, flutes.
A few tense moments passed, and no one moved or made a sound, and so an inky hand reached forth and pried a tiny two-stringed instrument from the hands of one of the frozen men. It plucked one string, paused, then plucked the other. Tremors of colour swept through the Shade, and there was a giggle as bright eyes widened and looked at the men gathered about. The Shade kicked the earth and brought the instrument to bear, and its liquid hand swept across the strings to weave into being a high-pitched strumming that brought immediate energy to all those gathered around. Their fear and confusion was immediately swept aside, cymbals sounded and drums were beaten; and alongside that one of the men began to speak slowly and melodiously.



Then the single standing man began to move, slowly at first. With his movements, the speaker's words became more melodious and transitioned into a dance song. The dancer beat the earth and shook his hands, his bells ringing high and true and his hair spinning beneath the singing sunrays. And the Shade beat its feet against the earth too and swayed with the rise and fall of the singer's voice, strumming the two strings in union with the growing song and dance. And the singer was joined in song by the dancer, and each of the musicians began singing too so that the melody swirled and blossomed before them all.



As the song rose and the dancer intensified his movements, he began to move off, spinning and dancing his way along a beaten path on the riverbank. The others rose too and went dancing after him, clanging their cymbals and beating their drums still, sending their voices out to the wide heavens. The Shade leapt after them too, his fingers dancing still across the two strings. And they went on like that, unstilling and untiring, for hours; until at last they reached a gathered crowd and silence fell upon them.

The crowd parted and made way as they trundled through, and they found that everyone was gathered about a strange woman, smiling while tears flowed from her eyes. In one hand she held a one-stringed instrument, not dissimilar to one held by a member of the Shade's motley band, and at her side was a small drum. She was strumming the instrument, and from time to time moved her feet here and there and walked about and spun slowly so that the bells about her ankles shifted and clanged and her great ankle-length dreadlocks spun around her as though they were the far-flung arms of the cosmos and she its heart.



She stopped and her eyes fell upon the tall Shade of shifting colour, eddying melodies sloughing off of it and whirling into nothingness away. She trembled on seeing it and seemed unable to look on it for long, however, though the song that emanated from the Shade seemed to inspire her to heightened fervour and an intensity of tears.



She continued to strum her strange instrument and beat her drum for a few moments after the last verse left her lips, and then she spread her arms wide and began to turn slowly, causing the bells at her feet to release a great cacophony of sound. The sound of bells mingled with the continued strumming of the one string, and the tearful woman raised her head skyward and let out a melodious pained cry that rose and fell as he spinning grew faster and faster and her great dreads of hair spread further and further.

The Shade trembled and moaned as the spinning grew faster and the strumming quicker and the bells louder and louder yet, beginning to strum at its instrument too. Her cry rose and her spinning reached a climactic constant that caused the world to seemingly erupt when she came to a sudden halt, facing the Shade, and all sound ceased at once. The memory of the awesome sound and the jarring enormity of the silence seemed to mix at once, and the Shade let out a sob and fell to its knees before her, prostrating itself low.

It was only then, when the world had fallen silent and the spell of the song was finally broken, that everyone gathered took a moment to register the odd being among them, giving it a wide berth. There were murmurs, and then the word 'itralla' was mentioned, causing fear to blossom in their hearts and songs. Sticks were brought to bear against the Shade by some, others turned about and put distance between themselves and the strange beast, and others yet - dishevelled and with instruments at hand - looked on with a mixture of curiosity and bemusement. Some of those the Shade had danced and sung with raised their voices in protest, but it did not stop the sticks from landing on its inky form and its melodious cry of pain and fear to rise.

As the blows landed again and again, the Shade looked up at the woman who had been singing. She was observing it with distant eyes, her song now flaring and now quieting. She stepped forward at long last, reprimanding those who beat the Shade.

'But adi Rinaas, if we let this itralla free it consume entire villages and towns and cities!' One of them protested.

'And if he could consume entire villages and towns and cities, what is stopping him from consuming you who have humiliated him?' Came her question. 'Do you think your sticks have beat him down? Your shouts and growls and frightful frown?' She sang.

'Yes adi Rinaas, you must be right!' One of them said, nodding vigorously, 'maybe the sticks and the frowns did it, and when you danced as well that made it cry and fall down! The itralla hate joy!'
'And they hate the Hulaiya's light!' One of them added, pointing at the sun, 'that's why we always light the fires at night!'

'Then consider this, my zealous friend, and mend your way - why is he out among us here if he fears day?' Rinaas sang, her eyes growing distant as her voice gave way to the tune. The members of the impromptu lynch mob frowned at one another, and a few of them mumbled something incoherent and moved off.

'So...' one of those remaining said with brows furrowed in thought, 'this itralla must be especially dangerous because it doesn't fear the light,' he looked down at the Shade and shook his head at it, 'it's good we caught it before it attacked a village.' A few of the others nodded with varying levels of enthusiasm, and the Shade whimpered as the sticks began landing again.

'And would great Hulaiya let evil dwell beneath her sky? Does not corruption cry in pain before her glare and die? So if it walks among us here the reason's one of twain - it may be something good, so then why should you cause it pain? Or it may be Evil great that not even light can tame - think what will be of you, who brought such Evil pain and shame!' The lynchers looked at the Shade with sudden fear and took a few steps back.

'O- oh! F- forgive us!' One shouted, and then joined those who had chosen to wordlessly flee. Rinaas watched them go with an absent-minded smile, and then she turned back to the Shade and extended her hands to i- him. The Shade looked up at her, the little rays that had passed for eyes until now forming up and shifting until there were defined eye-lids and inky lashes, and within them chromatic irises formed and pale sclerae. He took her extended hands in his and placed his forehead upon them in humility and submission to the mistress of lovelorn song and dance, and where he touched her ink slipped and flowed into her, twisting and curling across her arms and neck before concentrating in a tiny spot at the centre of her forehead, just above her brow. There, it formed into the shape of an extended hand.

The woman looked down at him for a few moments more, and then she gripped his hands and pulled him up, and he rose as she bid him and he looked once more into her face - it was not aged, but the creases here and there betrayed that youth had long passed, and the odd streak of white in her dreads sang lowly that the white wave was soon to sweep the black shore for eventide. And yet, for all the death of youth, did the Shade find the resplendence of beauty all in her, and he wept some ink tears and bowed his head once more.

'What is your name, fellow songknower?' She asked him. The Shade brought a finger to where a mouth should have been, and where his finger touched lips formed up and he took a breath, then sighed.
'Mi- mistress,' he trembled, the words coming heavy, 'I- I don't kn- know.'
'Then I will call you Ganisundur, Beautiful Song,' she told him. A smile spread across his newly formed lips and he bowed his head.

'Th- thank you... ah, Adirinaas?' He looked to her questioningly. She laughed - revealing a small gap between her two front teeth - at his confusion, her black eyes twinkling.
'Rinaas hli Awqar is my name; there should be no titles between friends,' she told him, and he smiled timidly and nodded.

'I- I wish to learn,' his grip tightened on her hands slightly, 'to do as you do.' She smiled widely and freed her hands from his, gesturing to all the others who remained.
'We are all learning, Ganisundur,' she began, and then her words picked up tune - erupting from her as though the mere act of speech broke the dams holding her melodies at bay, 'learning never stops! We walk the way to find and weave all of wisdom's dewdrops. Of arrogance we've purged our hearts and never deign to mock the wisdom of the labourer or worker at the dock; the merchant who comes sailing up the Azumai from far may carry words more valuable than all his riches are, and strangers who come bowing low, seeking to learn our ways, may yet in time teach us to dance and great poetic lays,' and with that she began to walk away; and all those dishevelled young men and women - for, indeed, they were all young and looked upon adi Rinaas as disciples did upon their master - picked up their instruments and began to follow in tow.

The Shade - now no longer the Shade, but Ganisundur - stared after them for a few moments, and then he picked up the two-stringed instrument he had dropped and went walking after them.

• Summary [+]

  ¹ An adaptation of Vipuli Rikhi's translation of Kichhu Din Mone Mone (For a Few Days), as sung by Parvathy Baul.

  
  The Deepborn Spirit of Ink & Dirge, Meghzaal's avatar, travels over the Hreelcii Isles and is attracted to go down and explore it by the beautiful song being emitted by the sapient inhabitants of the Upper Azumai. On descending, he comes across a dishevelled band of travelling musicians and, after some initial fear, they go off singing and dancing together. In time they come across a great mystical singer and dancer, called Rinaas, who has a great following of disciples. She sings and dances before a great mixed group of people, and when she is done they notice the Shade. Some believe it to be a creature known as an itralla and try to beat it with sticks, but Rinaas eventually sees them off. The Spirit converses with Rinaas, who completely assumes his gender and gives him the name Ganisundur, meaning Beautiful Song. He makes known his desire to learn from her, and she more or less - in so many words - accepts him into her band. Then they all set off.
• Might [+]

  | 4MP and 1DP | 1MP & 3DP towards Wards | 1MP towards Puppetry | 2DP towards Acting | 2DP towards Inspiration | Next Domain: Art |
  
  1 DP to Consecrate Rinaas as a Hero
  

  Of the Open Hand I: The tattoo of the Hand of Ink & Poetry, downside up, lies between this person's brows; alongside the other powers of the hand, her one also protects all those who hear her song from violence or harm and physical harm. The effect of this weakens quickly after her song is over. (+1 to Wards)

  
  3 MP to claim the Wards portfolio.
  
  | 1MP and 0DP | 1MP towards Puppetry | 2DP towards Acting | 2DP towards Inspiration | Next Domain: Art |
• Prestige [+]

  +5 Points to Rinas hli Awqar (~22,000 chars.)

---

Down the cold steps she went, a sleeping plant in either arm as she hummed a tune. It wasn't a terribly long trek into the darkness but it was enough for the ambient temperature to drop a little. The chill air gave her goosebumps but she would get used to it before long. At the bottom of the steps there was a dimly lit hallway, leading to an open doorway where she could hear shuffling and conversation. She walked forward, her bare feet making not a sound. She gave a happy little smile as she gazed upon the start of her home. The stone that lined the walls was well kept and the floors were swept daily. She liked things nice and clean nowadays, there was no room for messes.

As she entered the central dining hall, Nalla was greeted by the sight of a few of her servants. There was Tirn, a young man who had been a part of a neighboring village that had joined them, Yarce, a young woman who had been traveling with her betrothed (and boy had he been delicious), and Tulla, another vagrant without family or home. As soon as she entered and Tirn noticed her, she pushed through Yarce and Tulla with a wide, needy grin. Yarce and Tulla followed. Tirn was skimply built, with messy black hair in front of green eyes. Pretty on the eyes, with blood to boot. Yarce was also thin, with muddy blond hair and a small, precious face. Tulla was a brunette, a little thicker than the other two and perhaps a bit plain looking, but she made up for that with her taste. All of them looked rather healthy, if a little cold. All of them wore simple white garments, with a brown string around their waists. The clothes covered their delicate parts and were a tight fit. It was enough to make her mouth water slightly.

"Nalla! Welcome home!" Tirn said eagerly, "I've missed you sooo much." He whined, stopping in front of her like a pup quillat. Yarce and Tulla quickly followed, coming up on either side of Tirn, who flashed an annoyed look as he glanced at Yarce.

"Nalla, Nalla! Did you enjoy the night?" Tulla cooed happily, as she swayed to and fro.

Tirn opened his mouth to speak but Yarce pushed ahead and exclaimed, “Are you thirsty Nalla? Please-please pick me!” she said quickly, tilting her neck backwards to show her lovely veins.

Tulla and Tirn then voiced similar opinions and were quick to show their necks, Old Bite marks still healing, towards Nalla.

She flashed them a lovely smile and couldn’t help but feel a sense of satisfaction. The need to feel bliss was an overpowering one, leading to such behavior. Oh how she loved it and she was tempted to grant it but had other matters to attend to.

“Tsk tsk tsk.” She began. “So needy, so quick to want. Don’t you see we have guests?” She then placed the two plants on the floor, turning them face up to get a better look at them. The smaller female was colored green all over, save for highlights of yellow leaves in her hair and face. The male was built stoutly and was colored in many shades of green. His face, deep verdant compared to the lighter green on his head. Both wore smiles on their faces as they slept peacefully.

The three human servants looked down in a mix of disgust and awe.

“So… Uh… Green.” Tirn muttered.

“Forest folk! Where did you find them, Nalla?” Tulla asked as Yarce bent down to touch the female’s leafy head.

“It matters not where, only that they are here now.” She then clapped her hands together twice. “Come come. The forest folk will be well cared for here, isn’t that right my dears? Since you’re here, be good little servants for me and wash them, cloth them, and place them in a room together. One with a gate, mind you. We wouldn’t want them to get lost down here, would we?” she flashed a wicked smile.

All three smiled in return, nodding in agreement. “Of course Nalla, anything for you!” Tirn was quick to say.

Tulla elbowed him in the side and Tirn winced before helping Yarce lift the male. Tulla went for the female and leisurely picked her up. There was strain on her face but it didn’t look like she would drop her- yet anyways.

“Uh, Nalla?” Tulla asked as she looked down at the plant. “Should we care for this wound as well?”

Nalla was quickly behind Tulla in a blink, looking down at the charred leaves. She caressed Tulla’s cheek with a finger before saying, “Good eye my darling. Yes, care for this one's wounds. The male should be fine. Afterwards, their items are upstairs. Why don’t you bring them to my chambers later, Tulla?” she half whispered in her ear, just loud enough for Yarce and Tirn to hear. The two visibly grimaced, jealousy in their eyes but they did not protest. That was against Nalla’s wishes, after all.

Tulla visibly grinned and nodded excitedly, almost dropping the plant lady. Wishing to avoid any further blunders, the trio carried the plants off, wherein they started bickering with each other. Nalla in the meantime walked down an adjacent hallway, caressing her tender side.

She passed her storage rooms, mainly for her servants. They did need to eat after all, which seemed like such a strange thought to her. She had once needed to eat as well, but the passing of time had hazed her memory of what food tasted like. Now it was just blood.

She passed her servant quarters, rows and rows of fur lined cots, with many sleeping bodies in underneath them. She paused as she sniffed the air… A familiar scent, one that she encouraged. She smiled, walking away. Another ‘loyal’ human, would give birth to a pliable offspring. One that would be raised to love her and her charm would only amplify that feeling. She needed agents outside her small domain, those who she didn’t need to constantly show her necklace too. She should have started the practice years ago but she had been very careless with her appetite and most of her servants had died before they could sleep with one another.

Now, large bellies were beginning to pop up and soon enough, children. She didn’t really like children, per say, but her annoyance at their hungry screams would surely be worth it, she hoped at least.

It all just… Took time.

It was a good thing she had plenty of it.

Right before her quarters there was another room. An actual servant resided here. She peeked her head in to see Parn hunched over a stone slab, various items scattered about. She walked in, a strong smell of blood permeated the area as her eyes fell upon rows and rows of urns lining the walls. Some were blank, while others had intricate runes wrapped around their necks.

"Parn!" She shouted right next to him. The man screamed as he jumped up, looking at her with his rainbow flecked eyes angrily. His face was haggard with a scruffy beard and he wore black robes.

"Nalla! How many times do I have to tell you not to do that? My work is important and one simple mistake sets back my progress by days!" He said, his voice gruff.

"Oh cheer up Parn, it's not like this work is back breaking. Besides, you're just so good at it." She cooed, moving to rub his tense shoulders. "You're doing me a great service you know." He seemed to relax slightly and sat back down as she leaned her chest into his back, wrapping him in an embrace as she rested her head on his shoulder. "How does go the progress? Any breakthroughs?" She whispered.

She could feel him shiver slightly as he began to speak, his voice no longer quite annoyed. "Yes and no… These runes… They're difficult to write but I think i'm getting closer. The last batch just spoiled and they've been sitting for… a couple weeks now I think?"

She sighed, thinking of all that wasted blood. "Well as all things… Time is key. Now, take a quick break, I need help with something." She said, letting go of him and taking off her cloak, to reveal her blood stained side. She quickly removed that article of clothing as well before Parn even turned around. He gave a surprised look before noticing her wound.

"W-what-" he cleared his throat, "What happened there?" He asked getting strips of cloth from the slab.

"I found some forest people, the female wasn't happy I took a nibble of her mate." She said, rolling her eyes. Parn began to clean and wrap her wound as they traded places.

"Forest people? Oh you mean Sylphi?" He said, glancing at her body as he worked.

"Sylphi? Is that what they call themselves? An odd naming choice but the again…" she mused. "I brought them back Parn. Their blood is sweet and I want more of it. We'll take good care of them right?" She said, rubbing his hair.

"Yes Nalla. I'll add them to the list."

"Good." She said quietly.

Parn was nearly done when Nalla heard footsteps fast approaching from down the hallway. She eyed the door, knowing news at this hour was seldom good. Much to her surprise it was Yarce, out of breath and blushing as she looked at Nalla.

"N-Nalla! The-the plant woman awoke and she won't stop screaming 'Genesis!' And she won't quiet down. She's gotten super warm as well and it hurts to touch her."

Nalla was quick, grabbing her cloak and donning it. A shirt would have to wait. "Then let us go greet her properly then." She said, eyes stern on Yarce.

---

Nalla arrived in the torch lit room, flames flickering off the walls, painting a grim picture. Tirn and Tulla had cornered the Sylphi woman, who was now unclothed, and she lashed out as soon as they got close to her, keeping them at bay. The male Sylphi had been binded but was still asleep. As soon as the plant girl eyed Nalla she let out a yelp.

"No no! Stay away, or I’ll burn you!" She spoke in a heavy but exotic accent, voice quivering.

Tirn and Tulla looked to the entryway and shrinked, immediately going over to Nalla with heads hung low. Nalla eyed the situation and put on a reassuring smile towards the Sylphi as she took another step closer. The woman did not like that, it was visible within her posture but Nalla paid no heed.

"Genesis, Exodus, Whoever! Please! Don't let the monster charm me!" The woman yelled as Nalla loomed over her. She got up to attack but Nalla firmly caught her hand. It was warm, very warm but such pain drove her. “Noo, get away, get away!” The plant woman repeated, attempting to strike at Nalla with her other hand before growing hotter and hotter, until the air itself started to waver. The heat only lasted a short time however as after a few seconds, the woman’s eyes rolled up into her head and she went limp and fell to her knees, panting for breath and gagging while sweat practically poured off of her.

Nalla guided the Sylphi's arm down to her and looked her over. It was strange, she hadn't noticed it before but she felt… Terror and sickness. She turned to the others and said loudly, "Go fetch us some cool water and quickly!" All three of her servants bolted out of the door, as Parn stayed and watched with curious eyes.

"You can feel it too, can't you?" She asked him. He gave a sullen nod.

"It's a strange feeling. A mix of contentment, fear, sickness. I think… Yes I remember this. These beings… I believe they can share what they're feeling with others. Passively or not. Strange isn't it?" He scratched his beard.

Nalla turned back to the plant and said softly, "I'm not going to hurt you. I was never going to hurt you in the first place but then you stabbed me. I mean, honestly, I can't help that you taste so sweet."

The plant woman struggled to even look up at Nalla, “What… Will happen… To us…?”

"Oh my sweet thing, nothing at all. You're safe here." Nalla mused, before the trio returned carrying a bucket of water each. They brought them over to Nalla where they set them in front of the plant and bowed, backing up. "Shall I help you cool off?" Nalla asked.

“H… H…” The woman tried to speak but couldn’t get the words out and instead crawled up to one of the buckets and dipped her face into it, drinking as much water as she could. It was almost a minute before she lifted her head out of the bucket, gasping for breath but in a different manner than before. She had drunk almost half of the water that had been in the bucket, easily twice as much than a normal human would drink in a day. She looked much better after that, but still she was wobbly and gagged occasionally, so she crawled back against the wall and tried to relax. “Pour… It on me.”

Nalla flashed a smile, easily lifting the bucket with her hands and pouring the water over the plant girl. “There we go.” She said as the water flow ended. She grabbed the other bucket and went slower this time. “I’m sorry I stabbed you.” She whispered. “Hey, look at me. I won’t bite. Well, poor choice of words there. I mean- I won’t hurt you again.”

It took the plant woman a while to recover, keeping her eyes closed and twitching the leaves on top of her head every few moments to make sure the cool water got everywhere it needed to go. Not once did she look at Nalla during all the time she spent cooling down. “... I’m Aurinia, he’s Chio.” She finally spoke, took one last deep breath and stood up slowly, making sure her wobbly legs wouldn’t give out. “We were looking for the White Carpet Lands, if you point us in the right direction… Then we’ll get out of your leaves.”

“White carpet lands?” Nalla said, rising to her full height as well. She looked back at Parn but he just shrugged. White carpet she wondered before it clicked. “Oh you mean snow? Where it snows? Well you made it already, it’s just spring now, so much like you, everything is green.”

Aurinia huffed and leaned against the wall, crossing her arms over her leaf-covered chest. “This is not it--Snow melts, right? The story goes that Ilex and Nymphea were taken to the Land of Eternal White Carpets. If we were speaking of snow, it’d definitely be a kind of snow that never melts. Eternal Snow! Chio and I wanted to go there and find the places the Siblings escaped from. They say if you find the Ice Giant and remind it of how it failed to turn the Siblings into its dinner, it will grant you a wish. So, we’re going there as soon as we can.”

Nalla furrowed her brow as she listened. She had not a clue what Aurinia was even saying but she did know that they definitely couldn’t leave. She needed them. Nalla gave a half smile and crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh I seeeee.” she began, “You’re talking about the far, far north. Past all of the roving bands of brigands, past the slavers, past the human cities, through troll lands, and snake holes. A dangerous journey, indeed. Tell you what, since I made an error of judgment, I would like it if you stayed as my guests until your wound heals completely. No harm will come to you, or Chio while in my care. I can’t say the same for the outside world. But for now, what do you say? You will be my esteemed guests, with access to all my comforts.” she said sweetly. The servants behind her each gave a frown before looking to the ground again. Parn continued to stroke his beard as she watched Aurinia, who furrowed her brow.

“... Okay, all right. Until we heal. Since we’re here, we might as well share our stories, right-”

SMAAAASH

Suddenly what sounded like several large pots breaking echoed through the structure, then silence for a long time as everyone in the room stood in shock, listening.

’Uh, sorry.’ Came the tiny voice, which was followed by… Scratching, and slithering along the floor and walls and ceiling outside. Eventually, the door to the room began to creak open very slowly…

“UGH, would you just push the door open already!” Came an irritated soft voice, followed by the door slamming open and revealing the floating figure behind it. It was a woman, about the same height but with a much more perfected shape as Aurinia. She was, evidently, of the same species as Aurinia, with leaves for hair and leaves over her shoulders and upper back, but her colors were too cold. Her skin was almost perfectly white, and her leaves were a light, pastel pink, the same colour as her irises.

She was just… Floating there, eyes half-lidded and frowning, with several dozen smaller tendrils slithering across the walls, floor and ceiling, spreading all over the room and prodding at the feet of everyone present but Aurinia and Chio.

Suddenly, the floating plant woman’s frown vanished, replaced by a raised eyebrow. “Oh,” She gasped lightly, floating closer to Nalla and inspecting her very carefully with squinted eyes. “You’re not a troll,” She declared confidently, perking up and smirking. “Well, it seems like everything’s okay around here. No one’s missing any limbs or chunks of flesh and Auri is wetter than that time she had a nightmare when she was six. Exodus is leaving now, thanks for calling but please only call me for important stuff… You’re lucky I was close enough or I would have not been able to come in time. I will now check out this palace, since it’s the first time I’ve been in one. Yay.”

And just like that, Exodus went to everyone present and patted their head, leaving Nalla for last, at which point she played around with her hair for a bit longer than usual, then finally left, the small roots that had stretched over every surface slowly retracting. Ball remained dumbfounded as she watched the white Sylphi begin to leave. At the point her mind began to move again and she hissed to her servants, "Clean this room up and show our guests hospitality. Now!" And they immediately got to work, even Parn.

Nalla meanwhile took off after the newcomer and cleared her voice as she approached. "Oh hello there! Welcome to my home, uh… Exodus was it? You have lovely leaves." She said calmly, fluffing her hair. Her own heart was beating a bit faster, as she remembered who exactly Aurinia had prayed too. Was this a God? But the gods were all gone? She needed to tread carefully, that much she knew. Too much was at stake.

”Thanks! They’re pink. I like your hair colour more, though, I had no idea humans could have red… Uh, orange? Hair.” Exodus said, not stopping and only glancing a couple times at Nalla. ”What’s your name, anyway? What breed are you?” She asked as she turned a corner and saw the mess of broken clay pots on the ground swept to one side of the hallway and chuckled.

Nalla blushed slightly at the compliment. "Why thank you, Exodus. As for your question, I am a… Human Vampire. The rest here are humans and the two Sylphi of course. They'll be taken good care of here before they leave. I assure you." She said quickly.

”Ah, that’s good to know. Make sure they get enough sunlight, water and meat... You still haven’t given me your name though, Human-Vampire-Whose-Breath-Smells-A-Little-Bit-Like-Bloodsap.”

"Oh apologies! I was distracted by your beauty. I am Nalla, ruler of Nallan." She said proudly. "As for my breath… Well you see, your Sylphi taste good but I didn't harm them when I fed. I gave them a taste of ecstasy so they could feel something wonderful." She continued, taking note of what Exodus said about their care. Sunlight would be a problem but she'd make do.

”That’s fair. A trade, some would say. Anyway, what’s the most interesting room in this structure, Nalla?”

She seemed to sigh in relief at those words. It seemed she'd save herself yet, but the exchange wasn't over yet. "Oh well, much of this place is still under construction you see. Upstairs will be perhaps better suited for guests but down here would have to be Parn's room or mine. There is also several pits for those who have… Upset the peace in Nallan with much more to come. Humans, while efficient at some tasks, are much slower at others. Especially building. Rather fragile creatures really. Oh I am also open to any suggestions or improvements from one of your stature." She said, putting on her best display of elegance.

”Pits, huh? Why not consider exile or forcing rule breakers to work for the community until their debt to it is settled?” Exodus asked, going up a flight of stairs and finding herself in a storage room. ”Hmm… If you believe Auri and Chio will be staying for long, then I think you could feed them blood. Liquid or as powder in the form of seasoning on something else that isn’t a fibrous vegetable… I didn’t see much in the way of grazing livestock on my way here.”

Nalla raised an eyebrow at that. "Rulebreakers are… Difficult. Mainly they aren't missed when they disappear. As for the Sylphi, now that can be arranged. Their nature is much different than humans, even I. Could you perhaps tell me more about how they work? I want to make sure Auri and Chio are most comfortable here, after all." She said, giving a sly smile.

”How they work, huh? I will tell you, but I have a few questions of my own for later. Okay,” Exodus nodded, looking around as she floated into the big central room, then going over to sit on the first chair she saw. ”Sylphi were created by the Tree of Genesis thousands of years ago. They were born close to humans and therefore can reproduce with them. They require at least eight hours of solid sunlight a day to perform well, plus four times the water a human would normally drink in a day, and the equivalent of two fists’ worth of meat every week.” She explained, holding her balled up fist for Nalla to see. ”They are an adaptable species, and so far I’ve identified four subspecies all used to different climates and locations. It is a certainty that, if Sylphi were to settle this far north for an extended period of time, those settlers would become a new subspecies.

”Not to mention it seems our fellow Gods of Firinn and Aicheil have granted them a, uh… ‘Blessing’, which lets them share their feelings and sometimes even memories with others and vice versa. It is quite a handful but honestly, it is also the reason wars and large scale conflicts like that don’t happen down south.”

Nalla listened intently, finding a chair of her own. They were in a servants hall, an area where her humans ate and made small talk. There wasn't any there now, though. Nalla brought a hand to her chin and asked, "So how do they have babies then? And why exactly do they need meat to survive? And you mentioned using blood to feed them in place of… water?" She asked, her voice full of genuine curiosity.

”No, in place of meat from livestock. Though blood does have quite a lot of water in it, they’d still need fresh water to survive, I imagine.” Exodus said, then hummed as she tapped a finger against her chin.

”Babies well, we have two sets of reproductive organs.” She said and patted and rubbed her shoulders. ”Our shoulders as well as those you must be familiar with,” She said and cupped her crotch through her long leafy dress, ”Regardless of which set we use, females will make one or two walnut-sized seeds that pop out of the same place as human babies do. Those seeds have to be planted on healthy, fertile soil and will grow into a watermelon-sized pod that after a few years will be ready to harvest. By having a Sylph place their hands on it, it will open and reveal a newborn Sylph, which we call a Sapling.” She finished and nodded, then took her hand off her crotch with a chuckle.

”I never would’ve guessed I would be giving a Human a lesson on pollination, reproduction and my race’s sexual traits today.”

Nalla smirked. "These are strange times we find ourselves in. Do these saplings grow about as fast as human children do?"

”Saplings come out of the pod walking and talking, at around the same stage as a human child who just learned to do those things, both mentally and physically… I haven’t really noticed any differences in the growth speed, actually, but they will invariably die at sixty-five years old should they hit that age, and it seems they are always painfully aware of how much time they have left, down to the second.”

Nalla smiled slightly. They grew old! And they came out walking. She could do without the talking but that was good. "That's… Sad." She eventually said before continuing, "Oh, one final question from me, are they all able to heat their bodies up like Auri? It was a strange sight indeed." Nalla mused.

”Huh? No.” Exodus answered and looked around, at the tables, the ceiling, the pattern on the tiles on the floor… ”Those are Traits. I take it humans this far north have probably never heard of them--It is a natural talent for a specific kind of mana manipulation that those with Sylphi blood in their veins are born with.”

Nalla perked up at that and opened her mouth to ask another question but stopped herself and then slowly wrapped her cloak around her torso as she said, "Thank you for answering a mortal like me. Now if I remember you wanted to ask some questions? I'd be happy to answer any."

At that, Exodus perked up and nodded, sitting up straight on the edge of her chair. ”This is an impressive building, I don’t think even the best goblin architects at Arborea can make something like this--Did you make it yourself? The way every stone has its place and the way they have so artfully been carved into, it’s- It’s quite cool. I’d also ask the same of the tiles you adorn your floors with. What material are they, how are they painted on?”

Nalla scrunched her nose and thought for a moment. "Well you see… I persuaded some men from Ketrefa, which is the giant human city to the north of here, to come construct this for me. They've trained some of the locals here to help and better understand stone. We used to live in wooden lodges but now clay bricks are being used for several houses in Nallan. As for the tiles, I'm not sure either. I just said make it look pleasant and they obliged. If I were to guess, probably just stone from the local query. Which is where they've been gathering the materials. It's a lot of manpower."

”I see. It’s impressive either way. I might have to spread rumours about Ketrefa’s architecture back in Arborea… Oh, another thing! Nalla, do you believe in… Life on other worlds? Do you? Like, like life out there in the night sky or somewhere else.”

She looked at Exodus puzzled. She then said, "I've never put much thought in it, if I'm honest. People around here have a hard time thinking Sylphi exist and even then they don't know what they're called. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. But I'll keep myself occupied here, where I'm at and that's the truth." She said.

”Ah. A stock answer. But really, think about it, what if there was life out there, life that not even the lifeblood created? What would that mean for us? Would it be even possible? Am I just asking questions because I’m bored? The answer is yes. Perhaps I should leave.” Exodus sighed and slumped back in her chair.

Nalla was even more puzzled by Exodus' words but kept her mouth shut for the time being. She had no idea what she was talking about. Life on other worlds? Lifeblood? She blinked and looked at Exodus, tilting her head. "I get bored too. There's so much to do and everyone is just so slow. You can stay as long as you like but if you want to leave, I won't stop you. Our conversation has been fascinating."

Exodus stared at Nalla for a long time. It felt as if she was looking straight into Nalla’s soul. Then, she stood from her chair and walked over to her, stopping right in front of her and looking down at the redheaded vampire with her pale pink irises glowing intensely, glowing dangerously. ”Don’t tell me- Your kind cannot survive sunlight? Don’t you want to feel the dance of light across your skin? Doesn’t it kill you knowing you may never feel that? Don’t you wish to one day have a lover to watch the sunrise with? To oversee your subordinates working during the day?” The Avatar asked, suddenly looking like a completely different person, who looked down at Nalla with cold, piercing pity. ”... I can make that happen for you, if you say the word. No one but those of irreparable hearts should live in mortal fear of the warm embrace of the Sun.”

"You… Can tell?" Nalla murmured, remembering Hekti turning to ash at the first rays. She had forgotten what the warmth of the sun had felt like on her face, and the thought always did cross her mind if she should ask Neiya but… What was Exodus after? Why help her at all after what she had done to the Sylphi? She looked up at Exodus, longing in her eyes as her heartbeat quickened. She at last spoke, making up her mind, "It would be nice to see the Sylphi in their natural habitat…"

”Yes, they are a marvel aren’t they? Sit still.” Exodus placed her hands on top of Nalla’s head and closed her eyes. ”This will hurt, I hope you don’t mind feeling like your skin is melting. But it should be safe.” Right after saying that, Exodus began to glow slightly, and light started to accumulate beneath the skin in her veins, lighting up brightly. For a moment, the avatar’s skin turned a deep verdant green, and light seemed to accumulate deep in her chest next to her beating heart.

Then, the great accumulation of light slowly made its way down Exodus’ arm and then to her hand. ”Here we go.”

In the split second that followed, when Exodus began to pour her energy into her, Nalla felt as if her skin was being peeled off and put back on, as if it was melting in some parts, and even the flesh underneath felt as if at any second it would burn off. She screamed in pain, it was the worst feeling she had ever felt, but she remained awake no matter how much the pain wanted to take her. She couldn’t help but stare at her body, ripping the robe off because of the heat. Indeed, at one open she saw her fingers take on a grayish hue like that of ash but then quickly disappeared and was replaced by a much livelier skin tone than before. And as Exodus finished pouring the last of her energy, the pain disappeared. Nalla lay on the floor, gasping for breath.

At that Exodus took a step back, tilted her head for a few moments each way as she observed Nalla, then shrugged, ”Well, you look a little livelier now. As if you could pass for someone that occasionally goes out into the sun. I gradually exposed you to varying levels of sun-like light and then adapted your body to be better equipped to resist it in the future. Should be able to last a handful of minutes out and about in the sun with no protection completely safely now. What do you think, Nalla?”

The vampiress looked up at Exodus with a wicked grin, before she stood up on shaky legs. She looked at her arms and legs, noting the slight color in her limbs. She looked at Exodus again and fell to her knees before her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your generosity knows no bounds. This is a wonderful gift.”

Exodus stared at Nalla for a while longer, then huffed and walked back to her chair, leaning her back over it and looking at the ceiling with slowly blinking eyes. She was back to normal. ”Do you think kneeling and grovelling will protect you from those more capable than you? How boring...” She almost whispered, deflating a little. ”Do you need anything else? Or, uh, do you want anything else? As thanks for housing my little plants. Really, being bashful when I wanna thank you kinda pisses me off so don’t hold back, I can make whatever happen.”

Nalla sat upright, a twitch in her eyes as she half smiled at Exodus. It was strange behavior, for sure, not wanting to see grovelling but who was she to judge an avatar? She slowly stood up, eyeing Exodus the entire time with hunger in her eyes. She could ask for anything?

“Well, if you insist I dispense with the niceties, then I shall. Hmm.” she began to walk back and forth as she held her chin in deep thought. “There are many things I want, but what is most pressing? My sunlight issue is taken care of, my blood problem is practically fixed. Well if you really will grant me anything I want.... I need a weapon to protect them with, in case ever a need arises. Yes, my body is a weapon, but like you said, grovelling and kneeling won’t protect me from capable foes who wish me dead. This is what I need and the ability to use it properly.” she said, slamming her fist into her palm as she stopped in front of Exodus.

Exodus stood a little bit straighter and raised an eyebrow while smirking at Nalla, ”What kind of weapon would you like? Ranged, melee, hand-to-hand? Huh, memetic perhaps?”

“I need something that I can use up close. I’m fast and if I can use that to my advantage, I could kill swiftly. Perhaps a dagger or a sword?” She mused. “Or perhaps something ranged so I can strike from afar? Or… What about both, but together?”

Exodus pursed her lips in thought, but eventually nodded and clapped her hands together. When she parted them, a bright green light spilled from them and a beam of light stretched between her palms. It grew as her palms grew further and further away until the beam was about the length of one of Nalla’s arms. At that point, the green light dissipated and what was left behind was a floating sword. Yet it wasn’t made of metal like others, this one was made of sleek and extremely sharp wood like the ultra dense wood cores that served as the Sylphi’s bones. It was polished perfectly, the wood grain almost invisible. The sword only had one edge, however, with the other edge being relatively thick and solid and its handle looked soft and comfortable made of currently writhing green vines.

Exodus floated it over to Nalla and the edge made a tiny whistling sound as it cut through the air even at such a low speed. When the blade was in front of Nalla, the vines around the handle parted way, showing an ergonomic handle made of carved woodcore, much like the blade. The vines stretched towards Nalla’s hand, begging for her to hold the blade.

”A blade made of a material close to Sylphi bones, woodcores. The vines along the handle will wrap around your hands and wrists when you hold onto it. Those little guys are pretty strong for their size, so make sure you don’t excite them too much… I know you’ll ask me to elaborate, so...” Exodus stood up and pointed at Nalla’s hand that was stretching towards the floating sword’s handle. ”Nalla, the moment you hold the blade for the first time, the vines will grow thorns and wrap around your hand. They will taste your blood and recognize you as the blade’s owner. This will unlock the blade’s transformative properties. By channeling trace amounts of mana into the handle, the blade will shift into a thorned, barbed vine. You will be able to use this second state as a weapon with more range than a simple sword… It should reach a maximum length of about five arm’s lengths, which pretty much turns it into a whip. You will be able to switch it back to being a blade by channeling mana through the handle again. It’s a toggle function.”

”and before you ask, no the blade doesn’t float, I’m just making it float right now. After you claim it, it will be affected by the laws of our world again… Well, as much as a divine artefact can be affected, at least. Uh, also if you feed the vines too much blood they might crush your hand due to excitement. So try to not get any fingers cut off during a fight. And if it ends up happening, make sure to drop the sword right away.”

Nalla eyed the blade suspiciously, then greedily. She was hesitant to reach for it, but when Exodus finished speaking, she found herself with vines wrapping around her hand as she gripped the handle. Then came the thorns and she hissed as they began to taste her blood. The blade then shifted into the whip and Nalla marveled at its design before turning to Exodus with a smile. “This will do.” she said simply. She then shut her eyes and felt the handle with her palm before pushing her thoughts to it and mana. She had learned a bit from Parn, hopefully it was enough.

With a click, the wine snapped back into a blade and Nalla opened her eyes. “Wonderful.” she mused.

”Don’t think about using the whip state for punishments, the thing will likely pull out chunks of flesh instead of leaving measly scars. And finally, no one but you can trigger the whip state now. If you want someone else to be able to use the sword to its full potential, feed the vines around the handle a mix of your blood and the other person’s blood. I will also leave figuring out how to use it up to you. Get a soldier to teach you basic blade forms, then get a torturer to teach you whip technique. I hear you have lots of those in human lands, for some reason.” Exodus said with a shrug and floated herself off the ground, then began making her way out of the building. ”I’m going now, Nalla. Since you’re immortal we may meet each other again, no promises though. I’ve already gotten like seven prayers during the time I spent here, ugh...”

Nalla gave her a nod. “I’ll make sure to do those things and hey, it was nice meeting you, Exodus. Farewell for now.” She then looked down at the blade again, the corners of her mouth curling into a smile.

It was good that the Curators’ efforts were bolstered by new Akua, Vespian, and Mantarin members. Especially now, when suddenly all Eloxochitli retreated into their compound. They even locked themselves into a singular chamber. The door was barricaded from the outside and guarded, at all times, by two Itztli. Requests to meet with the venerable toads were politely but clearly refused. This suddenly isolation was because of a singular thing. In the midst of the five Eloxochitli sat a small bowl with golden glowing ink. There was only a little of it, yet it was very clearly magical.

Yet the Eloxochitli could not comprehend its nature at all. Their very orderly minds were obsessing over the substance in silence. Ruminating over its possible complications. It wasn’t made by their god, that was for sure. Sadly, it would be utterly impossible for these creatures to understand the ink. Their minds were devoid of almost all emotions. Pure reason ruled, which would override any chaos that could birth artistic inspiration. The ink itself was brought before them by a mere goblin painter when he had slaved, for years, to depict the sun in all its glory.

Eventually, they all confessed their resignation with a single grunt each and went to pray.

Qael’Naath was not prayed to. His name was not well known in the world of Galbar. Which was by design after all. Yet when five of his most beloved children settled down to pray in unison to him, he knew he had to answer. His avatar sped across the world. In a flash, it was over the compound, then it sept through the knocks and crannies into the meditative chamber. In the midst of it he could see the ink. Even he had to marvel for a moment, for to him it felt like the very essence of the world laid before him. He prodded and examined the ink with his divine senses, trying to get it to react to his own creation. Everything failed. He scanned the minds of his servants for knowledge. There he found it. The ink was produced by an artisan in the most mystical ways. Qael’Naath’s understanding of art was quite different really. He saw art in ratios and geometric shapes. To him a beautiful spell was a sequence of perfectly defined instructions. Even if their effect was nigh invisible.

This expressionism was something very different. Qael’Naath could trace back its origins to a state of emotional chaos. Yet it wasn’t malevolent or hurtful. The god pondered deeply upon the ink and the certainty that more of its kind could be created. Even though it was not born from order, it perhaps could still be fruitful to learn about it.

The decree was received with joy. The barricade was lifted and plans created. The many unfinished hallways and open plots surrounding The Library now showed their purpose, as a few of them were being filled in. However, the new building was not designed solely by the desires of the Itztli and Eloxochitli. Renown Mantarin and Vespian designers were consulted. Each lending their own touch to the sprawling new building. It would be smaller than the first hall, but far more open. With galleries and even workshops inside. Questions were raised about the often odd placings of walls but left unanswered.

the permission from the queen and her bureaucracy was given and the construction of the new extension of The Library began. Like before, all races that shared Sancta Civitas joined in to help raise the creation. Stone was imported en mass and chiseled to perfection. Meanwhile food tokens were freed up by the Curators in an effort to acquire more samples of ink. Study of these substances were left to Mantarin and Goblin Curators. The more artistically inclined amongst them bore exceptionally fruitful results.

When the new hall was complete, it was ceremoniously opened. Inside though, the influence of The Library outstretched itself towards the new extension. The once peculiar walls that should have been windows shimmered and apparently changed form until each wall showed a majestic landscape. Roiling hills, majestic mountains and tranquil oceans were all shown. The doors to these galleries and were thrown open for all with artistic talent to be inspired by the endless illusions. The upper chambers of the domed hall featured open air solariums and the illusionary walls. Lower levels held galleries with large open windows where paintings, sculptures and the now newly made plaques containing hauntingly beautiful poems would be shown. Other rooms on this level served to research the various inks that were slowly trickling into the building. Most of those inks were stored within the vaults underground though, so they wouldn't be stolen.

---

Ketrefa was growing into a sprawling city with a very keen interest in magic. An interest Qael’Naath took notice of. Unlike Acadia, Ketrefa had no immediate danger. Their mages did not have to be trained in the arts of self defense or destruction. Instead they seemed to have focused on runes and icons. The Winds of Magic remained hidden within the inky sky and observed from above. Despit the focus, the runes were still of an abysmal quality. He couldn't fault the carvers though. They were working with imperfect materials. Still, like Acadia they too deserved a little gift.

Helian had been up all night carving his runes in an artisan’s statue. The statue was meant to radiate heat but be more durable than the usual poles they placed during the winter. In fact they wanted the statue to remain there for many years. Helian had been practice on stone slates in an attempt to refine his technique. To no avail. He tried everything: wooden rulers to guide him, a smaller chisel and even putting the hammer in an apprentice’s hand so he could focus on keeping the chisel on track. All was in vain. The imperfections remained. Sure, some runes were carved very well. They could’ve lasted for maybe a full year. It wasn’t enough though.

Exhausted he dropped his chisel and mallet as the rune chipped again. Making it imperfect. “It’s impossible.” He said to himself in resignation. The statue had to be done by tomorrow afternoon, yet here he was. Not even started. The fact that he barely slept caught up with him now as he slowly closed his eyes for just a quick nap.

He woke up with the sun in his eyes. Panic gripped his heart. There was no more time. Whatever happened next, it was in the hand of fate and the gods. He grabbed his chisel and hammer and moved over to the statue. Upon which he began to slowly but surely carve the rune. To his surprise, it didn’t chip. Every bit of stone removed was the exact bit that had to be removed. Panic slowly replaced itself with joy as he managed to finish the project just before sun reached its peak.

by Lord Zee & Enzayne.

---

His wing was torn, wet blood ran down the side of his face, obscuring his vision. His golden hair was caked in mud and debris. He was battered and scarred all over as he ran through the world of light. Most of the dried blood covering him, was not his own. He held his broken arm, every jolt sending shocks. He gritted his teeth in frustration. He had been cut off from the others, who were now probably dead or fleeing. He wished he could fly, but it was no use. His fresh orange blood would give him away like a perfect trail to follow. He could only hope that Oraeliara was there with him, because the Neiyari were close behind. Even now, he could hear sticks breaking and the rumbling of angry feet. What scared him worse, was what he could hear up above.

The oppressive beat of wings thundering through the grove were inescapable. A particularly cruel Neiyari, bright white and with wings tinged with black and red, had hounded him from above whenever he had the audacity to try and catch his breath. She’d already descended on him once in a clearing, smashing him to the ground like it was a game to her. Dense vegetation had been his only reprieve - but her wing-beats were never far, nor were the echoing, hollow words she cried to his pursuers whenever she spotted him. However many braved the vegetation to follow on foot, their angry cries closed any avenue for reason. With crude implements and raw strength they seemed determined to annihilate all traces of him and his kin. He knew many of them were injured as well, but it seemed to inspire nothing more than hatred in their hearts. The bright lights all around them worked both ways - their discordant colouration was easy to pick out amidst the colourful flora, but hiding from them turned out to be something of a nightmare. And yet, anything was preferable to the alternative.

So he ran.

Deeper and deeper in the land he knew as the Luminant. Since the injuring of Soluri, his people had flocked in many different directions, running from the Neiyari threat. Aveira had been ruthless and spread the word of their hated mother, the betrayer, the terror-made-flesh- Neiyara. He could still hear wing-beats nearing closer, so he veered left into a thicket of thorns, which cut into his flesh greatly. He let out but a whimper. He couldn’t give his position away. Once through the thicket, he doubled his pace- his breath becoming labored but he needed to get distance between him and the oppressors. He ran straight on into a particular dense bush and lost his footing, beginning to tumble down a steep hill. He felt his good wing break under his weight as he tumbled further. That time he couldn’t repress a scream, and so scream he did. The pain was near blackout in intensity and much of the rest of the fall he blanketed out on, hitting something wet.

The fuzzy haze lifted from his eyes almost instantly as she looked to find himself in a stream of clear water running beyond a bend. It was somehow refreshing and he felt better despite the pain. That was until he heard the ‘WOOSH’ of furled wings. He clambered up and dove out of the way onto dry land before she splashed down into the water where he had been standing. He looked back to see her snarl, beginning to pursue him once more as she shouted for the others. He cursed again and ran, following the stream’s edge as she took flight once more into the air.
He could see a glow in the distance, a curious thing and he got so close to see that it was a la- She tackled him from behind and once again they tumbled down a sandy embankment into the cool waters below.

Nails dug and clawed painfully against his skin as they rolled in the water, a desperate set of hands hatefully clinging at his face, his wings, anything they could find brief purchase against in the water. She clung to him with an iron grip, and he felt himself ripped up and out over the surface of water briefly as her wings desperately tried to pull at least herself out of the cool liquid. It was a brief reprieve before they both crashed down under the water once more, her own flailing and refusal to let him slip away only serving to drag them further away from the bright world beyond the surface.

But even her hatred and vice had it’s limits. The urge to hurt him changed to panic before long. He felt her combative grabbing and pulling lessen as the pale Neiyari instead began to battle the water, and the urge to survive overtook her desire to complete her cruel hunt. The water would claim anyone without the strength to return to the surface. It should have been his end.

He drifted deeper, eyes open to the surface as his strength waned. How silly, he thought, to die by drowning. But it was at least better than being tortured. There was a sudden SNAP that jostled him to conscious thought.

He could move his wing again, albeit slowly in the water. He began to feel better, alert and another SNAP could be felt as his other wing mended on it’s own. He hit the bottom of the lake, his lungs about to burst, and upon his two powerful legs he oriented himself to touch bottom and with a mighty kick, began to frantically kick off towards the surface. The light from the surrounding landscape struck his face like a guiding lantern welcoming him back to life as he broke through the surface and reunited with the air beyond, allowing him to breathe once more. Strength still returning to his battered body, it was a far simpler - if primal - struggle to battle back towards solid ground.

His vicious opponent was already clawing at sand and mud by the embankment, thrown entirely by their shared near-death experience. Her mottled wings beat helplessly against the water, half-submerged yet and struggling to even lift properly. For all her cruel bravado, she was no more fierce than a child when her flight was stolen away. Perhaps in that moment, she understood how he had felt during their chase. Yelling from beyond resurfaced when he could finally hear something other than his breath and the splash of water. Trampling sticks, the thud of feet. At the same time, she crawled up onto the mud with what strength she had, gasping frenetically. Despite all this, he was not free of them.

He began to run through the water, tripping over his feet, sputtering and flailing as he ran like some animal quick to escape a predator. Upon the bank however, did he stop when he looked in every direction, gaze faltering on a most peculiar sight. There further up the lake and across it, sat odd structures. Some large, others small, illuminated by viney growths along their sides. Something sat upon the water, drifting closer. A small… Creature… held a large stick and guided it closer. It was accompanied by several others on board. He looked at it with a puzzled face, before looking back to see where the Neiyari were.

No less than three new Neiyari - two men and a woman - had broken through the bright and thorny bushes, each speckled with different skin tones and wing colouration. Even the shortest of them, a ruddy blonde that could have passed for an Oraeliari from afar - was given away by the black pattern running over his wings like cracks in marble. Two of them were pulling their comrade up from the embankment, and the blonde man was staring after him, seeming similarly confused by the approaching shape floating across the water. As they hewed their fallen friend out of the water at last, he pointed across the lake, and all four of them stared in silence, momentarily awestruck.

His heart began to beat faster, knowing full well what the Neiyari were capable of, what they had already done to his people. He began to wade back into the water. “No! Go back! GO BACK!” he shouted at them but they drew nearer still and it was then he saw them clearer- faces so alike, yet so small. They all wore things on their heads that covered their faces in shade and they gave him an extremely puzzled look as they pointed.

He stopped as the water reached his chest. His white toga stained and ripped. He began to point back at their village, then to them. “GO BACK! YOU HAVE TO GO BACK!” he shouted as he pleaded. It was too late. At first they pointed at him, then beyond him. He saw a few of their faces shift with the same horrified realization as his own kin had, that creeping unease that wanted to bury deep in his head. Between the splash of the water, his own voice, and the shout of one of the small creatures on the water, he heard the beat of wings rush through the air.

One by one the dark and speckled wings of the Neiyari took to the skies, and a single glance back towards them confirmed they had all left the bank. His earlier tormentor laid draped in the arms of another, unable to fly on her own, and the second woman hovered nearby ready to lend support. They stared down towards him with a hateful glare, and a bothered glower towards the strange fixtures in the distance, before they lifted higher in the skies - until the lights of vegetation began to interfere with their silhouettes. With their comrade downed by water, it seemed they had lost their immediate appetite for the hunt.

The last of them however, the blonde Neiyari, beat his patterned wings defiantly as he flew out over the lake in a powerful arc, zooming overhead of both the strange creatures and the lake itself in a single sweep of his wings. He too gained altitude, stopping on the far side of the water to view the strange structures from above. Confused and disgusted, he seemed to hover there with intent, burning the image of each of the structures into his memory with an intent stare.

He stared at his kin, with frustration on his face. He beat his wings, but they were still too wet for flight. His attention turned back to the strangers, who were fast approaching him now. He sighed as they came upon him. He was weary and he kept glancing at the betrayer-spawn, until their faces came in view, properly this time. Large eyes, brimming with knowing intelligence. He felt… Somehow akin to them, like a spark had been lighted inside. An older man by the looks of it, pressed through the crowd. He wore clothing that looked very different from what he himself wore, with bright colors entwined into the fabric. His bronze colored arms could be seen, and he took off the object upon his head to reveal grey, curly hair. He opened his mouth to speak and the words that poured out were entirely strange to him.

He did not understand the old man and that meant they did not understand him. The others huddled on his little vessel were torn between watching him, and glancing nervously at the Neiyari hovering in the sky. He could tell even now that they knew in their hearts - as he did - what the betrayer Neiyara had done to their flying kin, as their small faces could not bear to look up in the sky for more than a few moments before their features flushed with worry, anxiety and fright. From beyond the water’s edge, chaos stirred on the ground as someone screamed with a shrill voice, barely audible in the distance.

It was enough to capture the Neiyari’s attention as he lingered, and he spun briefly in the air before lifting even higher. The hateful desire to chase seemed to have subsided, as he too turned and returned from whence he came, following his betrayer kin into the sky. Peace, and confusion, befell the lake and it’s guardians, as he remained alone with the strange figures. His wings could not only move - even if the water had soaked them beyond use - but also barely hurt from before.

He sighed in relief as the Neiyari left but he knew it was a fleeting hope to think they would not return and with greater numbers. He saw how these small folk could feel the fear, and it broke his heart. He could not- He Would not, leave them to the same fate as his kin. They needed to be protected.

He pointed to himself and said, “I am Tevuri.”

“Te-Vuri?” the old man spoke, before pointing at himself. “Yeano.”

“Ye-An-O.” He said the word, the man’s name? The man grinned back, before putting out his hand, gesturing to Tevuri to take it.

Tevuri was hesitant, but slowly he reached out and the Yeano shook his small hand giddily.

Tevuri could not help but smile.

---

---

The world had once seemed so small to the woman who forsook the name Rahma. There was Serrah, there was the Murtagh, and there was her idda-ti--and beyond these few peoples, little else had really ever seemed to matter. It hadn’t been until the day that her understanding of reality had been shattered that she’d ever considered there was more to her world than what she could see, what she could remember, and the stories that she had been told. Now, she was aware of so much more--she was aware of other landmasses, of the kayhins in distant lands, and the world of unformed ideas and desires that lay gently cloistered beneath this one. For the first few days, it had been positively maddening--she’d done nothing but sit still astride her camel, meditating, and trying desperately to withstand the deific deluge of information poured into her mind by the one called Fìrinn. Serrah had watched over her, of course, and she had watched over him as he slept and the same world revealed itself to him beneath the light of Qibbar Husnu. The transition from the mundane to the--comparatively--divine had been absolutely staggering.

Then, as they’d reached Tekhen, she’d met the first of her… siblings? Compatriots? She knew not what to call them other than those who had similarly been chosen for a destiny beyond the mundane. Naomh Chruinne, as he’d introduced himself, had brought to her attention eight wondrous mirrors through which Naomh Cagairean could see the endless Dream itself, glinting slightly in half-remembered light and just beyond recollection. She had heard the almost-voice of their God ring out in her mind, telling her what needed to be done with those precious artifacts. She’d had little choice but to go, immediately, and used one of those strange gateways to enter into the world of the Dream and walk through the world she imagined Serrah experienced when he slept. He’d guided her across the endless Dream, leaving her to focus upon the manipulation of the great slab of crystalline mirror that she’d been ordered to deliver so she didn’t drop it or otherwise damage it. After two days of walking she’d placed the mirror down, walked through it, and found that both it and she had arrived in a landscape wholly unfamiliar to her.

The sun was mild (by comparison), grassy hillocks stretched out before her, and it was so cool and airy that she felt chilly by comparison. An involuntary shudder wracked her body before she shook herself off and placed a hand upon the mirror, causing it to levitate slightly and follow behind her. She had little in the way of direction, but each step she took seemed to anchor her mind more firmly to this new land that she had found herself in and she could feel the distant minds of others across the Collective Unconscious, perceptible but currently out of reach. She directed her tentative footsteps--wholly unprepared for the sensation of so much grass against her feet and the smells of this strange land--towards the mass of minds she could distantly sense, and withdrew into the confines of her mind as her feet moved her ‘cross the world. In the far distance, the mass coalesced ever tighter, as hills and stone eventually gave way to beaten paths, surrounded by moss-grown protrusions in the rocky ground. Wild green grass gave way little by little to sapling shrubs and stone fences surrounding verdant little spurts sown haphazardly across a hand-ploughed field. On one of the fences some fifty paces away sat a group of five men, each with pipes in their mouths and smoke in their midst, exchanging jokes and stories after a hard morning’s work. When the woman once named Rahma walked by them, however, the laughter stopped, and narrow eyes followed her every step. As she approached the town proper, the working farmers grew more numerous, and evermore stares fixed on the amalgam entering into Ha-Dûna.

A guard wearing a loosely sewn fur hat, a brown, dirty linen shirt, long hide breeches, with bark tied about his feet in place of shoes, raised his hand with a flat palm in response to her approach, his red and green tantan-patterned woolen cape gliding off his arm as he did, falling to the spring-cold grass. ”Brehmse, ingkjaenning. Cad dorran Irh seo?”

Naomh Cagairean cocked her feathered brow as she was brought back to focus and her reverie slipped away. She hadn’t quite heard what the man had said, but it only took her a moment to slip into the details of her implicit memory and reconstruct the words he’d spoken. Unfortunately for her, she did not understand even a single word of what he’d said.

”Anasif, nahn alkalam te allughar?” came the reply, instinctively, in her native tongue. She felt as though she’d picked up a few bits and pieces of the intent behind his words, but it wasn’t something that she could rely on--and certainly not something she was confident in. She paused for a moment, seeming to stare listlessly, as she focused. She needed to tap into the Collective Unconscious to be able to actually interact with these people, but it wasn’t as if she’d been taught when she became a Seeker--the knowledge was just… sort of there, embedded within her skull, and working out how to actually access it in a practical way wasn’t something she’d really turned her mind to as yet.

She made a point to nod to the mirror behind her, now sitting on the ground, and from within its depths a brief glimpse of the Behindling, Faileasiar, could be seen. She hoped that such a display might be something they were familiar with--after all, Fìrinn had told her in no uncertain terms to deliver the mirror here--but she suddenly had a vivid recollection of her first time seeing the monstrosity of glass and claws that the God of Truth called its avatar and shuddered, wondering if it had been the right thing to do after all.

The guard looked up at the glass behind her and almost reached for the trusty stone adze at his belt. He took on a nervous stance, more of the farmers approaching to marvel at it and the stranger. Some of the farmers took on strange gestures and turned to one another accusingly, as though something unspeakable had been said by their neighbours without a single word being spoken. The guard gestured out to the crowd with explosive pointing. ”Houphokke, houphokke! Ihr, yah…” His expression mellowed and he cast a glance over his shoulder before gesturing for her to come along. ”Tehl druïthanas, eg burdan tapa met Ihr. Gengange heg, ingkjaenning.” He turned and followed the dirt road street towards an open palisade gate.

Naomh Cagairean took a moment, gesturing rapidly with her hands to signify that she needed a moment, as she turned to the mirror and placed a hand upon it. After a couple of seconds of deep concentration she caused it to lift itself just barely off of the ground once more and moved to follow along. This time, she’d actually understood a few of the words--it seemed that perhaps proximity to the natives of the land was enough for her to intuit the meaning behind what they were saying--but it did not leave her any closer to actually being able to speak with them herself. She elected not to say anything else, simply following along with an intense furrow of concentration upon her feathered brow. The more she focused, the closer she was able to home in on their thoughts and their Truths--but levitating the mirror and attempting to come to understand them and their language simultaneously was an arduous process for one with as little practice as she. She figured that she had the rest of the journey to move the process along, however, and decided to simply concentrate upon what she was doing until such a point as the connection was fully made.

The guard stopped and frowned. ”Ingkjaenning - druïthanas jakr oyenstirra kosenan Ihr soem tapati met. Om molict, gengange betta.” Among the farmers, short-lived brawls and general looks of disgust and embarrassment swept across the crowd. Other guards approached from the palisade walls, armed with sticks and hard eyes. Anxious stares fixed on the mirror, and everyone seemed more and more eager to just get it to the druids.

As if struggling to concentrate, the woman gave a slight nod of her head and simply continued as she had been previously--the amount of focus required was proving to be quite extraordinary, after her several-day journey through the Dream and the current assault of unfamiliar sensory input she was experiencing within this new world. As she scrunched her eyes, first squinting and then closing them outright, she became more and more keenly aware of a humid, uncomfortable heat building up within her--the heated gaze of the villagers around her flooding her with an anxiety and caution that she only recognised from one other place--when they’d first seen An-fhuras. That particular encounter was markedly more distressing than this one, but even now she could feel the culmination of those heated stares building up within her, as if transferring the feelings associated with them across the air, and for a second it almost felt like home before the reality of the emotions struck her. She focused on her breathing, in and out, as she tried desperately to maintain her focus and followed the guard as she’d been bidden. The guard nodded and the two of them passed by some of his colleagues jogging to the crowd to break up a fight. Inside the palisade walls, the marketplace was bustling, though merchants and customers soon turned away from each other and to the massive mirror instead. The guard made way for the two of them to pass through, and as the Collective Consciousness leaked into the people around them, they, too, seemed to grow increasingly uncomfortable at its presence. Eventually, though, they arrived at the archdruids’ longhouse, situated next to the holy circle of monolithic statues. The guard raised his hand to Naomh Cagairean and spoke, ”Fanacht seo.” Then he stepped up the two stone steps and dipped under the animal skin curtain door.

As the guard disappeared into the house, Naomh Cagairean found herself drawn to the circle of standing stones. Her gaze drifted over to it, and soon she felt herself walking towards it as if drawn by some strange force. She, and the mirror behind her, drifted steadily towards the circle--and as she got close enough to examine them fully, she smiled to herself as she remembered her idda-ti’s exaltation of the Gods above.

“Qibbar Husnu. Ura ‘Aliaa. Miġra Zaʿl. Buʿr Iynas. Zharuuʿ. Kiʿranuʿjaza. Jinasa. Fìrinn.” She went over their names, one by one, speaking each as if a tempest of song brewed within her lungs and soon she found herself humming along to the tune of the song that Zahna used to sing to them when the kayhins were due to come and teach them. She offered a prayer to each, placing a hand delicately upon the carved stone, as she walked the perimeter of the circle and she stopped before the statue she recognised as her own patron. Before that statue she knelt, focusing in solemn prayer, and something in her mind clicked--she fully attuned herself with the Great Weave around her, and tasted unfamiliar words upon her tongue and strange memories tattooed across her eyes.

”Faltep, langtvaysturasingkjaenning!” came a voice from behind her. A white-robed man bowed curtly and shifted between her and the massive mirror in her tow. ”Eg an Kaer Togen, dûnaska erkdruïthe. An aere agat Ihr hos linn, scaythanhelgfolging. Ihr an scaythanhelgfolging, ya, noi?”

”Pralmir, vrient. Eg an Naomh Cagairean aug, sànnleg, an scaythanhelgfolging - sànnsòker, tapatat seo helgingskvia fòr bònnikt daoinan.”

Naomh Cagairean extended a hand slightly out and gave a friendly wave, before awkwardly turning back to the statue and the mirror for a few seconds. She completed the last remnants of her prayer and then turned back to the archdruid, the barest hint of a smirk upon her face.

”Peklaigan egi fattegi ordtòngan. Skellig snakka le lànti kunnana.” she cobbled together, a little nervously, before straightening her back and gesturing to the mirror once more.

”Scaythanhelging Fìrinn ordratat heg tapata helgingskvian tehl Ihr aug Irhi. An draumverdportan, aug an Dhá mar Aon sett ónskan fòr kopla le annanan.”

The elderly man nodded and approached the mirror. He hovered his hand over its surface with closed eyes and sucked in a slow breath through the nose. ”Ya… Kosenan an scaythanhelging Fìrinn sett hverke... Fòlelsan - moth mar Hir sin dukkopper. Shonhetran, unteran. Eim korleis allreie faat aeran?”

Naomh Cagairean took a step back and then to the side, removing herself from direct line of sight to the strange mirror, before laying a hand against its edge and giving Kaer Togen a slight smirk--though his eyes were closed, he would feel the slight spark of mirth within him through the strengthened collective unconscious around them.

”Eg… Eg vàgakan ik forstanda scaythanhelgingan sena ònskanan, féinom snakkan met heg. Linn. An ocht scaythana, oan fòr kvar druïthanhelging, aug eg trûr ònskan kopla le annanan helgenseoanan. Kosenan an dhátma setyatat.”

She could practically feel how uncomfortable it would make the Druids to mention directly receiving orders from a god that they worshipped--but given the circumstances, and the mirror, she hoped that it would not vilify her already tenuous standing with these people too much. She let her hand rest upon the edge of the mirror gently as she waited for a response, and let the conscious element of her focus drift out towards the wind and the grass, and the faint flurry of song she could hear emanating from it all. This place was utterly foreign to her, in practically every way, but she could still feel the Worldsong and for that she was infinitely grateful.

Kaer Togen bowed curtly again, and a small posse of his colleagues shuffled over to the mirror with pots of fresh water, clean rags and improvised fine brushes fashioned from cattle fur. [aggr=”Understandable. Whatever the Mirroring God’s intentions, we are eternally grateful for this gift. Please, allow my brothers and sisters to brush off the dust and soil that the wind and rain no doubt have cast upon it.”]”Forstandlikt. Oanstirrat scaythanhelging Fìrinn sen rún, eim an eivigi raibh fòr brontaphet. La egi kaer bròra aug kaer sòra nigha scaythanan fri fòr gaothsproyti jorda aug stòvi betta.”[/aggr] The druids knelt down and started wringing rags.

”Eg kun gengangan helgingsord, ach, ah… Fáilte! Eg jakr làra Irh korleis penytsa aon gang, ach eg vàkanatat dhá lána aug reistatat seo. An kvilaseomra?”

Naomh Cagairean asked the question with a sheepish grin on her face, but as soon as she’d finished it was immediately clear that a great deal of exhaustion was being kept at bay--her fairly bedraggled appearance, grimy feathers, and suddenly slumped posture gave away her body’s need for sleep even if her words and tone--borrowed though they were--didn’t. She took another moment to herself, stifling a yawn, before taking another look around the settlement as she awaited a response. The druids about the mirror’s feet began to clean with care and precision akin to handling a newborn, and Kaer Togen approached Naomh Cagairean with an outstretched hand.

”Feinsagt - helgingsbûd mar Ihr fòrtyenan eimi fearriska seomra i Traochtashallan. La heg fòran Ihr feinlikt. Gengangen heg betta.”

”Scaythanan an draumverdportan, Ai’jaal sen verd. Giennam reistikan langi standana gearr tïd -- eg komat bhailebykdan Tekhen aug seo kun dhá láa, da. Eg veitan ik kor langi seo ann. Talamhan oyanstirran heilt annleisi. Hòrt bròran seia seo annanan mór-roinn. Trûr bròr seiat sà, ach eg ik sikr.”

It was clear that Naomh Cagairean was making an effort to tell the archdruid as much of the information necessary as possible, but the speed at which she spoke and her still-tenuous grasp of the language did her no favours and by the time she’d finished speaking it would likely have made more sense if she’d just stayed silent. She followed along dutifully, though, and made passing comments about the things she saw that were new to her--much of the technology they used here was completely foreign, and she couldn’t even begin to conceive of what it might be used for in the state she was in. Eventually they would arrive, however, and Naomh Cagairean very hurriedly made her way to the bed provided for her and promptly fell asleep, fully clothed as she was.

---

The next morning, the druids in town, as well as an exclusive selection of members from their families, came to witness the great mirror, supposedly a portal between lands and worlds. At all times, there were at least two druids guarding it, and two more praying to it while also making certain not even a single bypassing speck of dust could settle on its surface for longer than the blink of an eye. Kaer Togen cordially led Naomh Cagairean into the courtyard to behold it - it had been placed in the middle of the circle of the gods, reflecting the dawning sun onto the buildings and wall before it. Kaer Togen gestured to the mirror and spoke, ”Kaer vrient, peklaigan egi otòlmodka tavir, ach korleis penytsan helgingsportan?”

Naomh Cagairean had barely had time to adjust to the area--somehow feeling strangely tired, despite the fact the sun was rising here--before her awakening by the druids. Naturally, it was something she made sure not to complain about, but by virtue of her inherent blessings as a Seeker of Truth there was no doubt that those nearby would feel some small inkling of her persistent tiredness and grouchiness.

”Tja, pekynnan le aektbònn tehl Dhá mar Aon. Tar oppatnà sannsinnan, minna burdan rúna tehl portan fòr isteach -- minnan anakan alt, eg trûr, ach brehmsa oppatéaning ou fàr hielpatat mathr oppatnà oppatéaning ònskas. Nuair minnan gittat, mathr isteachkan tehl dreaumverdan. Ihri ciorcal làran draumganga heil tatt?”

Naomh Cagairean attempted to keep her explanation simple, but her present tiredness perhaps made her a little more curt than she would ordinarily have been--and though she tried to punctuate her points with little fragments of her knowledge and experience through the Collective Unconscious, it was challenging to focus upon that and borrowing the druids’ knowledge of their language simultaneously while not having had as much rest as ordinarily required.

A young druid came to her with a cup of water, kneeling down as she offered it up to her. The water looked energetic and sparkly, as though it tried to skip out of the cup. The druid didn’t say a word during her gesture, and Kaer Togen offered a deep, thoughtful growl. ”Eim mottatatu scaythanhelging Fìrinn sene syn aug drauma - billetta mar afbiltikan draumgangan Ihr snakkatat om. Ollikvàl, an fyarnkommatti tèllinga mar si an vìsmanta reistikan ûkalangi reisa pà uairs. Eim restikan ik mar dei, ach anat druïthe nastan draumatat vekk sinnan se.” He chuckled to himself before his brows collected into an earnest frown. ”Kor mór burdan minnan ana fòr reista?”

Naomh Cagairean took the water with a grateful smile and a mouthed word of thanks, bowing her head deeply and drinking from the liquid as she did so. The water was refreshing in a way she hadn’t experienced in a long time--living in the badlands as she did--and she was taken off guard by its fizz and its vigour. She was sure she could see the young druid stifle a smirk, and she returned a smirk as she noticed it. As she swallowed, the shroud of tiredness that had hung over her seemed to lift immediately, and her mood seemed to improve immediately--far beyond the level of refreshment that an ordinary cup of water could provide. She could almost taste the gold of the sun upon it, and gave silent thanks to Ura’ Aliaa as she did so, making a wry mental note that it was about time she gave her something to renew and refresh her, instead of assaulting her with the full fury of the desert sun.

”Hm… An kun giannam scaythananan mathr reistikan langi standana giannam drauman, ach grûnvoll an verdkringi vismantana tou koplans saman giannam dei draumana aug telyan dei tellinga. An ik overaskandi Ihr hòrtat slik. Làratat draumganga an skellig - eg anat aldrei flinki fàr Fìrinn scaythanhelging valktat heg pli sànnsòker… ach eg frògakan men bròran, Serrah, besòka Ihr nuair Ihr kvilan aug hielpa Ihr? An mór draumganging.”

Naomh Cagairean rubbed the back of her head, a small and embarrassed smile playing on her lips as she admitted her lack of proficiency in that particular art.

”Minnan burdan ik ana saer stòrsmà… ach om Faileaslar ik synsan an brah, jakr ik iseachan. Eg peklaigan gittakan ik sikrari sanninga -- scaythanhelging an unvikani, féin le heg.” ... needlessly cryptic. she thought to herself.

Kaer Togen scrunched his nose. ”Ya, an slik, an slik. Ihri bròran làren heim, dà - eim jakr raibh!”. He snapped his fingers and another druid, most likely an apprentice, came over with a bowed head. Kaer Togen gave the apprentice his staff without even looking at him and approached the mirror again. His face then seemed to twist and turn slightly, and he shot sideways scowls at some of the other druids surrounding him. ”... Aug om eg frògakan, brehmsakan draumsceitheadan? Egi sinnan líona fremetshíla aug eg bónna kosenana svinn.”

”Ah, peklaigan, kosenan an men skylt. Mórteppan an sterkar thart heg, aug mathr mar ik kiennan styrka iomaí styrakan ik sen penyttgrûnevnan. Ihr fólan sà sterki petyran sannleg scaythanhelging an kry -- kun styre Ihri minna, fóle tràdna kopla tehl andrana, aug stenga dei Ihr lalekoman ik. Mathr burdan cleachtadha, ach om Ihr kann pendan eg an seo, Ihr burdan hàlda evnan nuair eg faer.”

Naomh Cagairean offered a wan smile to the Archdruid, nervously clutching at her hempen robe as she did so. She focused enough to not let her doubt seep out of her like blood in water, but her face still expressed her anxiety against her will.

”Eg jakr fròga Serrah besòka Ihr nuair kvilan. Serrah burdan làra Ihr kosenanan Ihr làran burdas. An noe meir Ihr ònskan?”

The druids around all closed their eyes in deep focus, Kaer Togen included. A time passed, during which a few of the druids grit their teeth audibly to push out any distractions. After a time, though Kaer Togen bowed. ”Eim burdan cleachtadha meir. Tehleg Ihr agat bûdt pà, eim frògakan ik meir. Ina eim rausikt tehlbûdan Ihr kvila hos eimi sà fada sà ònskan, eimi vrient.”

”Hm… Eg jakr ik reista giannam drauman pà láa -- utan sànnskytning aug dúlagara an mór skellig. Scaythanhelging an tanksomi om mathrsinnanan, ach draumhelging… mykki mindri. Eg jakr passa tïd minntanka, aug kantarlú plûtsaligi kosena oppdukkan. Kantarlú scaythanhelging jakr snakka le heg, ou le Ihr giannam heg?” Naomh Cagairean found herself already lost in thought as she considered the implications of returning. It would take at least a number of days to recoup her strength and allow Serrah to teach the druids, and to then guide her back through the corridors of the Dream. Perhaps she could use the time to divine what the Druids needed to know, what divine purpose beyond the delivery of an artifact had guided her to this place. If nothing else, she was quite certain that the Mirroring God had greater plans for her and for this place than a simple delivery.

---

Fe’ris dozed. As of late, he had found everything to be so tiring. So many mortals with wants and needs, always crowding his mind with their pleas, but almost never making actual prayers. Or building temples in his honor. Or making pilgrimages and sacrifices in his name. Great Lifeblood, what were his devotees even doingdown there? He had half a mind to possess that damn avatar himself, see what was really going on.
But it was all so tiring. No matter how he sprawled his limbs and tucked his wings and wiggled around on his spiny back, he couldn’t get comfortable. The imperfect moon grinned down at him. And Galbar kept spinning. No matter what he did, life would go on. Civilizations would rise and fall. And Oraelia and Gibbou would circle their little planet, for eternity. It kept going and going, never changing, matching forever forward.
The bat dragon’s eyes snapped open as he filled with an energy he hadn’t felt since being shut out by the Lifeblood. It wasn’t that Galbar never changed; it was that Galbar always changed! Change was inevitable. Change was life! And he needed to help it along.
Fe’ris sat up and stretched, for the first time in a long, long time. He pictured Galbar, as it looked in the sky of Antiquity. The vampire churches on Kubrazjar were simply not cutting it. He needed to create something new, something still rooted in the power of the Shifting Font. With a single thought, he forced even more energy into its waters, liberating it from being just any liquid. Those that possessed it would find themselves able to manifest their will in the world around them, modifying it to appear however they wanted. It would not be easy, and it would not be common, but it would be a method of making reality reflect ambitions.
Tired once more, Fe’ris slumped back onto his dais, casting his consciousness toward his avatar. In one final action before he slept, he let the avatar know what was newly possible.
Then he returned to his slumber.

---

An endless miasmic storm of color and experience, a maelstrom of intent and knowledge vast and endlessly expanding--compounding upon itself. The echo of the Lifeblood's mind, its essence writ into a realm--connected to the Subtle Web--wielded by the Dreaming God. Like a typhoon, its waves beat against the shores of the Endless Dream, sending swirling patterns throughout. Ripples of intent, altering consciousness, invoking madness here and there, but causing other phenomena as well.

Bleeding past the pale veil through the stars and air the essence of that Dreaming Realm it cast out beyond its shores unseen. Into minds it dripped, causing dreams and fits of maddened insight. Inspiration, intimated through cascading songs of psychic might, its source seeming forever out of sight.

Like a twisting, coiling tempest it struck against many minds, until finally through cracks and seams it spilled past mind and into the flow of space and time. Wounded, that endless expanding fabric--ever-compounding 'pon itself--it seeped out from the severed threads and pressed like blood into the world.

Yet shriven by the too-real pressure of Galbar, that endless flowing essence was shriven and cast out wide and far.

---

A gentle breeze, a passing cloud, birdsong in the air. A human sitting idly 'gainst a tree, using trunk in place of any chair. Calm, content, and filled to brimming with quiet happiness, that human enjoyed the world around him almost in a state of bliss. The fluttering of dewdrops against tanned, delicious skin. Flecks of water from storms now passed, the pattered onto him. Kiss of wind, and sun and sky. Leaves crumpled beneath his thigh. Eyes closed, a warmth felt from all around, and altogether a thoughtless, drifting--nature's quiet calling sound. Songs they hummed just beyond his mere mortal perspective, and though unheard eyes opened when their tune changed.

The slightest crease of brow, a slight tension in his neck, then a glance from here to there, searching for something suspect.

"Who's there," he said, his voice like a whispered shout. Yet no response came, for to him the song could not be heard--it did not exist and so its tune-filled him only with a strange, displaced doubt. A twisting knot, a grasp at leaves colored with autumn oranges, reds, and greens. The human Annheil could not hear that subtle thing.

Again it shifted, the unheard call of Worldsong's hymn, and so a greater uneasiness began to be felt by him. He rose to feet which shook beneath, though the soil was calm and stable. He raised his voice, and took a step, desiring a return to calmness if he were able.

The thunder without lightning, it shook the sky and the trees. He felt its pull, and the song struck out, pushing him down onto his knees. Shocked, stunned, and caught flatfooted he stared blankly at the ground, as finally he heard it, that fate-spun dreadful sound. It twisted its way into his ears, like slithering, sickly things. Many legs, fangs, and eyes it pressed inside his brain and reared as if to sting. Its maw opened, its claws were bared, and blades were drawn against his flesh. Yet outside his mind and in the world, he remained untouched as the Worldsong screamed at the intrusion of this strange unreal emptiness.

Slowly lights within his mind they colored from prismatic to black and sickly green, the warped, and boiled and twisted until his mind was made unclean. Annhein's eyes were filled with darkness then as if drained entirely of color, for in them one could see a thing which mortals would wish they'd not discovered.

Vile malice, hateful bile, a stinging nonsense song. It was a palid corpse, or a shadowed silhouette, hidden in forest's tangled branch-wrought throng. A figure in the night, one which haunted dreams. Images caught at vision's edge, or rhyming unheard voices, weaving song. Whispering suggestions from beings who did not exist. Hallucinations and fabrications which only to an individual had substance and truly persisted.

A breath of silence....



...it did not last for long.

Annhein rose to his feet and set out to join his kin.

He had to return to the village, after all...they were surely awaiting him.

---

Eyes gazed down upon creation with a maddened haze of rage, wrath unleashed unto the world, as if it were a plague. A twisting smile, a writhing hum, claws like cutting blades.

Neo-Àicheil pressed its awareness outwards and into Endless Dream he reached. Threads plucked to toneless tunes, music unheard except by one type of entity.

The Chomhlionachd.

Twisting skulls, crystal drillbits, bone, and gnarled wood. Burning flame. Oilslick skein, and minds like vast churning maelstroms, hungry and insane. Each a chimera of thoughts, bound by singular concepts, leashed to terrible hunger. Beautiful and vast, narrow in focus, but deeper than the minds of any other thing. Immortal and oft unseen.

They gathered to the presence of the Dreaming God, attracted by his eldritch song. Its melody it wove into their minds and is it did they coiled and fled back into the Dream's endless churning space-time.

Without a mouth, without a face, with only its dreaded gaze, the Eldritch Twin, the Dreaming God it smiled and laughed for an age. Slowly, its laughter receded into the aft as above it rose--prismatic gaze closed--Ѻs-fhìreach's distinctive lack. For in him madness could not swell and beneath his will though wrath did churn, its hold to him was but a far of knell.

The Dreaming God turned its weighted gaze away from his realm, a quiet smile in his soul. To the threshold, he moved so that he could pay a visit to another deity, a god who upon the world made sure Tragedy took its toll.

Six faint orbs glowered through the waters up at the silhouette above. In them lay all the malice and disdain the ocean could muster. A hunger roiled within them like a storm waiting to be unleashed, hanging at the very edge of violence. Nevertheless, they waited patiently, unmoving.

Graalusxarulz was an odd sort of vrool. Though he possessed all the finer qualities of his sunken brethren like rage or self-absorption, Graal wielded a very rare weapon indeed; he was thoughtful. And so it was that the Tyrant-that-Wasn’t watched and waited in the waters, several tentacles holding tight to the rocky outcroppings of the riverbottom to keep him completely still. The river water galled his skin, like excessively hot and dry air might discomfort a land dweller, but in the end it was nothing but a small irritation. Below him, lower into the river, the riverfloor moved.

A tide of vrool swam upriver beneath him, gliding across the riverbed with arms and armor in tow. Each one bore the scars of their conquests, unhealed through intentional, repeated harm to the wounds so that their scars earned would not be stolen by their well-made forms. Each and every one of them was a unique sort of vrool, different from the masses that made their homes deep in the oceans. At least, that is what they told themselves. They were all veterans of dozens of battles, if not hundreds when massacres were counted. Their panoplies displayed quite clearly this mercenary lifestyle. Unlike the vrool retainers bound to the depths for petty wars between pathetic tyrants, these vrool were bedecked in far more exotic kit. Bronze weapons and plates clung to their forms, thrusting swords, stabbing spears, and other tools of killing made up their metallic menagerie.

They were Voduun. His Voduun.

Out of safe harbors in the Imperial Holdings back in Aopoa, Korok, and Uovou the Voduun of Graal and vrool like him were free to ravage the whole of the Toraan coastline. Coastal villages had been the purview of these raids for some time now, hundreds of years in some cases, but that was where most vrool stopped. There was a distinct awareness of just how far vrool could travel inland and the risk of being caught out in the open and baked to death was a dread one indeed. With the vrool’s natural weakness as an unintentional defense, the deeper into the continent a settlement was the safer the warm-bloods would be from the predation of the vrool. That, of course, was only the case when the monsters below lacked the clarity and cunning to find other means.

And so it was that the Voduun of Graal found themselves in a river, travelling upstream like a salmon filled to bursting. It was a mental image that entertained Graal greatly.

With his warriors passed Graal left the silhouette above the waters to its devices; no terrible death in the river that day. Onwards and upwards they went, striving with ease against the gentle current of the river. The city was soon left behind them, so-called Acadia if the Reshut traders were to be believed. There had been discussions about raiding the city directly but the reshut clan they had dealt with had given them reason for pause. Evidently the Acadians were fine warriors, trained as such at fighting some scourge of the warm-blood surface. Though there was little doubt that with serious effort the defenders could be overcome, especially by surprise, there was far greater risk of harm. With only two dozen warriors with him on this particular raid Graal felt it was far more reasonable to hunt for easier prey. Acadia would be spared, at least for now.

---

Further up river, a good several days swim from Acadia, the band had found their prize. With rations nearly burned it was time enough besides. The river, yet unnamed by the vrool and their undersea lot, had proven to be a far more different mistress than expected. First and foremost was the density of food; though they had expected some edible things, they had not expected whole schools of river fish. Though their meat paled in comparison to the taste of sea-fish and they were riddled with parasites, it wasn’t all bad; their bones had a nice crunch to them and parasites just meant more protein to a vrool. The next point of note was the sheer size of the river. Though it was no sea, it was wide enough to hide and glide quite easily throughout.

Graal’s voduun had found for themselves an inlet on the river’s edge, sizable enough to serve as acceptable lodgings for a vrool warband and their several Akuan companions. Though they had little need for true shelter the ability to simply lay on to the river bottom without constantly fighting the currents was an appreciated respite. They had waited on for a few hours before perpetual vrool curiosity got the better of the party. One after the other eyes were turned upward and outward, looking at the surroundings above the river inlet with animal cunning and terrible interest. What faced them was particularly surprising.

“What… did some voduun get here before us?”

The entire band had now raised their heads above the surface, staring blankly out at it with deepening peculiarity. It was a city, that was for certain, but it was not like any they had seen before. Most notable in that distinction was the fact that it was in ruins and there were absolutely no people. Scattered bones, cracked for marrow, were dashed about here and there and the darkened splotches that smelled of blood and gore were fairly visible in some places but mostly this place was empty. In fact, it had been empty for some time. Several vrool could be heard offering little prayers, tossing their meals back to the river to hand off as bribes to Gods of this and that; this was certainly a bad omen.

“Of course no one got here before us,” muttered Graal, voice grating and ferocious, “Something else got to this place…”

There was a murmur of agreement from several vrool as they continued to look into the city from what was evidently the makeshift docks of an old city. The long pause was finally broken by an Akua, the druid brought around with the voduun band for good luck. Akamai tapped away at the edge of the river, mumbling to himself before finally speaking up.

“Big he’e, fair warning. Gods aint right with this place. Something worse en’ you showed up here. No-no work of Gentle Currents nor kahuna gods neither.”

Graal looked to the Akuan man for a moment, eyes flashing anger before calming. Graalusxarulz was not known for his lack of self-control and his trust, as far as a vrool could trust, for Akamai was fairly high. If the Akuan kahuna said something worse had come to this city he spoke honestly. Nevertheless, Graal was no coward and vrool curiosity ever burned in his heart. All he needed do was wait and remain silent and his curiosity could be sated without blame sitting squarely on his bell.

“Wait here, cowards,” said a younger vrool by the name of Rusx, an admittedly sizeable bull well-fed on siblings and servants back in his petty home-reef, “The ramblings of a witch do not frighten me.”

With that the other vrool had been taunted. One by one, irrespective of their feelings, they pulled themselves from the water and moved with surprising efficacy into the city. Graal clicked inwardly with enthusiastic glee; he loved how predictable his race was, after all. Now if something bad happened it was on Rusx, sparing him the normal conflicts of leadership among a band of vrool. Quite pleased with him, Graal placed the large, bronze helmet down onto his head and drew his numerous killing implements. Even if his own curiosity pulled him inwards, he still fully trusted Akamai’s assertion and he would not be caught unawares.

---

The city was outwardly as empty as the party had first seen, their several dozen numbers clearing through it at a fair pace. Much to the band’s enjoyment much of the loot from the city remained untouched, free for the taking. Shiny things from the surface and materials rare deep below were nabbed or broken off from their furnishings and jammed into hide bags. Even as they stuffed their pockets Graal was beginning to feel uneasy. Though he hadn’t believed it for a moment, this confirmed it was not Vrool who had done this. He had heard from Drighina servants back in Aopoa that their larger cousins haunted these parts but there was no sign of destruction such monsters could wrought. There was battle damage, of that Graal was certain, but it was far less put together than one would expect from an intentional attack by warriors.

Just as his pondering was reaching new heights Graal opened a door into a room and was struck with surprise. A disgusting creature, reminiscent in some ways of Akua or men, stood hunched on the inside of the chamber. It scrambled to stuff its mouth with some rotted meat-stuff, all of its attention set to gorging itself. The sickly, pallid color of its flesh offend Graal deeply and its form lacked any of the grace found among Akua that even vrool could admire. It was just a vile little thing, like a shore jackal that got mange. Just as it began to turn about to face Graal the massive vrool acted.

In the span of less than a second one tentacle surged forward, stabbing blade in hand punching right through the creature’s deformed skull and into the wall behind. With a contemptuous flick Graal tugged his blade free and whipped the carcass against the wall. A moment of pause flashed before his eyes before Graal used a free tentacle to grab the corpse by the leg and pulled it out into the street.

Just then a roar of surprise rumbled through the city. Rusx howled in vonu, knocking apart a fountain and spilling its contents all over the cobbles. Half a dozen of the little monsters scurried about his shape, like a swarm of oceants bringing down a whale. In a handful of seconds they all died, either ripped apart by tentacles, hacked to death by gripped weapons, are ironically devoured by the thing they sought to eat. There was a pause as Rusx collected himself before the boastful high-born whelpling raised his weapon proudly, waving it towards the rest of the band. A collection of bloodcurdling screams went up in the direction of the city center, suddenly followed by hundreds more. Soon the cacophony reached a fevered pitch as the first of the iskrill began flooding over roofs and out from tight alleys.

“To me! Bind close!”

The order pulled the voduun warband inwards, each well-armed vrool knowing full well that battles both below and above required unity far beyond simple might at arms. Nearly two dozen vrool pulled inwards, arms to the teeth and hacking in all directions as they came. Lances and thrusting spears were the most common, easy to use underwater and only increasing the immense reach advantage vrool had upon all races. Thrusting and hacking handweapons were similarly used, from short spikes of blade-coral to rarer bronze weapons taken as payment or as loot from the surface. Even a few shields could be seen, bronze faced with numerous breaths cut into them to allow for easier movement in their native environment.

From all directions the horde of ravenous, gibbering monstrosities came. They moved like waves, more a liquid than a pack of individuals, and Graal got the instant sense of a shared cunning amongst their kind. Where the current ebbed close to the mob of vrool tentacles would lash out, their range deceptively long. Though they died in their droves to the panoply-armed myrmidons, the unknown creatures were relentless. The continued pressure from ever increasing numbers, however, was beginning to worry Graal; he could see the tides of this odd foe beginning to flow around the formation instead of straight into it.

“Back to the river! Make quick work of it!”

Howling out orders in the holy vonu, the warband began its measured retreat. Occasionally a vrool would get distracted, their own monstrous nature getting the better of them as they broke off to slaughter nearby branches of the horde. Though this usually meant little to the band, one by one each vrool breaking off took a little longer to return to the formation. The gibbering continued, the creatures organizing in a way Graal could recognize, and soon enough they made their move. Rusx, that ever impetuous youth, was the first to go down. Straying a little too long away from the formation, kept busy by iskrill playing at the edges of his fighting distance, he was soon enveloped. The last thing Graal saw of the whelp was him killing dozens of the creatures crawling about his person, stabbing with improvised or stolen weapons and razor sharp claws. His death throes and the cries that followed confirmed it.

At long last the band slipped into the waters of the river, iskrill diving in after them only to be butchered in their attempts. Even those that remained at the water’s edge were tugged inwards to be throttled or stabbed to death. Even Graal took part in that particular slaughter, animal curiosity driving him to drag one down below and watch carefully to see if it drowned. With lungs full of water and life rapidly leaving its eyes, Graal’s hypothesis was proven adequately correct. For nearly an hour the creatures continued to harry at the river’s edge, having brought down three of the vrool in their retreat; no small feat, to be sure. The raid, if it could be called one, had gifted the vrool with some treasures and plenty of fresh meat for a further trip upriver. Perhaps, Graal hoped, to less infested towns.

With that the Voduun of Graal swam onwards, deeper into the highlands and the lands of men.

---

Klaar watched through the inward eyes of his perception at the world below. His kith and kin, that ferocious kind, had done much since he was away. He had watched the battle unfold with deep and growing fascination, the unity of these odd vrool something else to behold. Watched through the eyes of the disembodied mind, so-called Mawar, Klaarungraxus had been free to simply absorb the knowledge. More interesting than the unity of these vrool or the oddling forms of the iskrill was the prayer he received. An Akua among the vrool, a druid-kahuna, had prayed for him to lead the man to safety. Klaar had pondered on this, for according to powers of the Hir this was not entirely outside of his purview. Indeed, he could have likely flooded the entire city given enough effort.

But he had not answered. Not for lack of interest or a desire for the man to suffer harm but instead, simply, because he did not realize how best to do so. A tidal wave could have killed the man just as thoroughly as it would have killed the iskrill and a gentle, slow raising of waters would not have saved the Akua fast enough if danger had been truly present. The Old Growth Below ruminated on this, rumbling in his dark-world of Saxus.

A ping of thought brought Klaar’s attention back to the work at hand.

Perhaps a new solution is required?

The thought, one of the more cognizant ones now being pinged to him by Mawar, was an enlightening one. The image of storms, of the Mother’s Heart west of Kubrajzar, caught his attention above all else. This was a gentle storm despite its appearance, a remembrance of a mother’s love more than anything. But what if something similar could be done, to present the total wrath of nature upon the foes of those who prayed to the God of Oceans? An interesting proposal. The knowledge of such storms belonged to Klaar now, gleaned from the making of the Makuakane Makuahine. Vonu, the holy deepspeak, could shake the very world with its intonation. Perhaps this would be the path to such boons.

Klaar turned his attentions towards Saxus and outwards beyond its limit, to the ever roiling lifeblood of the universe. He could draw this power from it and so he would; just as sorcery had been mantled by the God of Oceans, so too would storms.

---

---

“Be calm, you are safe now,” In a thousand voices Thaa cooed the words to the newly arrived souls of the dead. Now that they were in his realm he brought them to restful peace, contained into bliss as he spoke individually to them to start working through the trauma that was life.

In truth, Thaa had been ruminating greatly on the matter of souls. True he was the supreme deity of Death, as was his moral obligation, but he worried that his focus purely on his realm of Death might allow others to inflict suffering upon the souls to which he claimed to guard. For truly he did not have much influence on them in the mortal realm of Galbar, he knew that the evil deities of life truly would like nothing more than inflict suffering, for what other reason would they be deities of life?

Thaa could of course extend his control over souls in their entirety, both as a measure of acquiring greater ability to defend souls from the terrible grip of life and its evil-hearted guardians, and to strike out against life itself through the core measure of souls. Yes that could work. If he could work to separate souls from the mortal coils that so entrapped them on Galbar, it was possible he might start making good progress to bringing moral order to evil that was enveloped Galbar.

---

“First he wants us to go to the Vescii Temple and set things up, well that's just fine. Then he was us go down to this stinking cesspit of life he calls a planet, fine! But making a Sword for the damn mortal things? Do you even realize how many souls could be saved from all this mess with the effort that’ll go into this overcomplicated gilded shit-storm?! It's a terrible plan!”

Without a moment's pause, “As I was saying this is core to developing trust and connections with the mortals and without drawing the extended ire of any of their immoral guardians! Simply killing a load of the mortals is not only certain to draw out the ire and response from other deities- something I might remind you despite your lack of interest in Thaa’s perfect plans that we are likely to be on the receiving end of their ill intentions- but also utterly inefficient given the rates of reproduction that these mortals so enjoy!”

Guul supposed she should not be surprised that the two heads that she shared her body with hadn’t developed a new favorite pastime with what they had been doing. Which was to say they hadn’t been doing much of anything at all, keeping an eye on this or exploring that, mostly all from the safety of the relatively small golden craft they were on now. Kiim complained a lot if they even had to touch most living creatures, which of course meant Jaav took great pleasure in eating the occasional thing he could reach.

And again Guul was left to do the work of Thaa as Kiim and Jaav bickered about it, not that they got in the way of course. The current bout of ‘discussion’ had been set off by Thaa informing them of the plan they needed to enact, that he had claimed domain over souls and such, and an update on numerous newly acquired souls he had taken an interest to, followed by the occasional rant on the evils of life and its guardian deities. Guul sometimes wondered how often Thaa actually got out anywhere, or even talked to anyone else really.

“Perhaps we attack their rates of reproduction then!”

“...that is not a bad idea actually. Sterility would be quite the effective measure and in appropriate usage could help limit the evils of life. Good job Jaav, you have quite the ideas sometimes I must say!”

“Why thank you! You are not so bad a thinker yourself you know.”

Even as she worked Guul took a moment to scratch a third mark into a relatively flat rock she had picked up, she had started keeping track of when Kiim and Jaav actually agreed on something or had a positive and pleasant interaction.

“Why don’t we celebrate some for coming up with such an idea? We could fly back south of those mountains a while back and pick up a few of those Rainbow birds huh?”

“Absolutely not! I won’t debase myself by such a thing as eating one of these mismade caricatures of good creation! What are you trying to pull?”

“I was just trying to be friendly you misbegotten lackey of Thaa! You haven’t even thought to try it and you wouldn’t unless Thaa suggested it anyhow!”

As usual they were back at it soon enough anyhow. Guul set down her rock and continued to work. Now, she had already gotten the sharpness and durability down, and made it golden in color as Thaa had specified in any case. The extra abilities while a bit more complicated at least were not so incessantly physical, that was always a trouble trying to work with her claws, hard to be delicate in construction sometimes.

And of course there was the specifics of soul management that had come with the Sword in the final case. Bit of channeling the specific interests and specificities Thaa had uncovered after putting the effort in to be master of Souls more than just his Afterlife.

A Golden Sword that would not be broken, could cut most things as swords did without losing its edge, allowed its users to speak to the dead, and keep their soul in the Sword, as well as be resistant to death energies, and finally the ability to rip souls from the mortal coil and set them free to go onto the Afterlife. Great, mission accomplished, one Aquibeophatian Sword done. Now she just needed to send them the right way to drop it off where Thaa wanted it and she could get back the blissful activity of doing nothing.

Guul looked up at the rising sun and thought? Did it rise in the east or west? Well Galbar was a sphere so could just start heading that way and figure out later. Figuring things out later did sound appetizing, Guul turned the craft to the rising sun and set it out flying above the waters away from Toraan, hopefully they would get to Mydia before Thaa changed his mind on where the Sword should go.

In the days and weeks that followed the coming of the Songs into Meliorem, the realm knew sound as it never had before. Inky songbirds sloughed off the Sirens and flew off into the realm's heavens, releasing trilling sounds that seemed to carry far and wide, and the ocean all about them seemed to breathe and sigh more audibly, its waves charging up the shores with vigorous sound before letting up a laugh and retreating, all coyness and giggles. And the Songs themselves had been making full use of the town that Cadien had erected for them.

While the Songs had no immediate need for it, the bathhouse had been thoroughly explored and prepared for any guests who may come by. Its exterior walls had been painted a deep, sunset orange, while the tiles that made up the roof has been inked a dark green. Inside, the Songs had gotten to work on bringing into being decorative tiles with all sorts of geometric patterns and designs. They were made up of very simple units, for the most part, but the sprawling nature of the whole made it an aweing thing to behold. Pillars were sculpted with flowers and leaves and vines, and the stony forms of nude Songs frolicing them could here or there be spied.

But it was not the bathhouse alone that received such treatment - although it was the first -, and all of the village was slowly made colourful and beautiful, teeming with the vibrant energy of life and activity. The library was painted with calm, reserved hues of brown and deep reds, its walls and shelves sculpted and carved with the forms of lovelorn poets and long-bearded scholars, shy maidens hiding at the foot of this shelf or in that far corner with book in hand or a letter from some secret admirer. And while libraries - as it is known - are meant to be places of quietude and reflection, the Songs that gathered here milled about and found one source of inspiration or another to sing their lyrics to, so that soon it was perfectly normal to walk into the library to find one Song or another reclined upon a great central podium with others sat about reciting poems or singing songs or scribbling away in inspired fits.
The central square had quickly found use with impromptu dancing, singing competitions, Songs offering to paint or sculpt the most beautiful and resplendent of their kin; and it was the great arena where the Songmen sought the hearts of the women. It had not been many weeks, and yet none of those poor newborn artists that Cadien had formed from the vestiges of the great flailing tentacle of ink had succeeded in wooing to them any of the women, who were generally dissatisfied with the lack of inspired works the men produced.

'Ah! But can you blame us, poor artists that we are, for the lack of inspiration, or should you blame the muse herself - coy and merciless, unforgiving and distant, displeased with all that we humbly lay down at her feet. Will the husk of my living form please you, lady? Will it be art enough, pray tell?' One had melodramatically declared at one point when one woman had refused an ornately crafted flower of inky gems and natural petals.
'And what is life that you should think it dearer than art? If your corpse is the way to my heart, then better by far is death than life,' had come her pained response, inky tears gushing suddenly from her eyes.
'Ah! She spoke and smote my being with speech - my lady who is out of reach. And though her words have caused my death her tears at once restore my breath; and I shall fight and toil and die so that you'll never need to cry!' And with that, he rushed away on the wing of sighs and moans, reciting verses and lyrics in an attempt to find the key to his muse's frigid heart.

The lady-in-waiting had watched over all this in silence and sighs, and had allowed her Songs to drag her now to the bathhouse, to see their handiwork, and now to the library and the square, and she had praised their good work before returning to her small abode. When she did venture out of her own volition, it was to visit the amphitheatre. There she would sit and watch as numerous Songs with plays they had toiled over for a day or two brought together troupes to rehearse. A few performances had been shown, though the reception was generally lukewarm and audiences were not too impressed - and the lady-in-waiting could not say she was particularly impressed either.

But now a number of promising plays were being shown, and the lady-in-waiting sat waiting as the sets slowly filled up with melodiously murmuring Songs. When there was a respectable gathering, a drummer amongst the orchestra began drumming, and it was followed by a long harmonious vocal note from the musicians, and on the stage a white-clad woman appeared.

'The night was dark when Brin was born / His form was grand, so too his horn / Which on his head a crown was worn!' She declared, and on the stage there appeared a grandly dressed Songman, wearing a singular wooden horn. What followed was an overwrought tale detailing Brin's dissatisfaction, despite the grandness of his horn and the great respect his people afforded him. And so he sought out the Mad Nomad in the Fruit Tree, who bid him journey across the isles to speak with the One Who Soothes All Hearts - and that he must get to her in seven days or tragedy will strike! And so brave Brin set out, but on his way was swallowed by the charging waves and found at the bottom of the ocean the Man of the Sea, who was on a journey to unite the six tiles that held the island above the water. The tiles had been stolen by four mischievous seabirds, and the Man of the Sea could not leave the water and fly after those vile thieving birds.

'If you will aid me, Great-horn Brin, then I will show you the way out of the sea,' the Man of the Sea declared. And so their pact was sealed and Brin was shown the pathway out of the water. But on reaching the shore he reneged on his promise and instead continued his journey to meet the One Who Soothes All Hearts; and when he reached her it was just within the seven day time period the Mad Nomad had set. The One Who Soothes All Hearts welcomed the hero and offered him hospitality and care, and Brin found himself in all ways joyous and at peace.
'I will remain here, with you, for the rest of my days!' He declared. The One Who Soothes All Hearts reacted with great ecstasy, sweeping across the stage now on this side and now on that.
'But!' she cried, 'I must first look into your heart - for only he of unstained heart may stay with me,' she said, and she idled up to Brin and looked into his heart, and on doing so wept inky tears. 'Oh my, oh Brin! Where have you gone and where have you been? - for you've slaughtered me with your one sin.' And with that she let out a great pained cry and collapsed on the ground dead. The horned Brin let out an anguished cry and held the One Who Soothes to him, and he carried her weeping from one side of the stage to the other, and he spoke for long of his broken heart - ah, sinful, blackened thing! - and of his woe and of the joy he never would know. And he determined then to take the body of the one who had brought him joy - if only for a short while - and bury her among his people.

But as they journeyed across the waters, the Man of the Sea spotted the horned Brin and came at him with great rage and fury, and he so smashed Brin that he dropped his beloved and watched her fall to the ocean floor. 'Oh Man of the Sea! Oh Man of the Sea! My heart is broken, of joy I am free; all of your rage and all of your fury can't add to my pain and nothing can cure me!' The teary-eyed Brin cried.
'That is good, betrayer, great thief! You turned your back on me, betrayer, stole my friendship who are my foe!'
'Oh have a heart, Man of the Sea; return, return my love to me.'
'Not until the sea flows over, and all the stars grow dark,' the Man of the Sea rumbled and dramatically exited with the body of the One Who Soothes in his arms. Brin remained alone on stage, and he raised his arms to the heavens and cried out, and then fell to his knees and crumpled into stillness and silence. The musicians in the orchestra hummed dramatically, and a deep bass of finality sounded, and the show came to a close.

There were a few moments of silence following the end of the play, and then a cheer went up and there was clapping and whooping. The lady-in-waiting herself nodded in approval. This was a breakthrough play, there was no doubt about it. All that had been written and performed to date had been about the town here, and the plot generally rotated around a Songman's ultimately successful attempts to woo his muse. This here was something completely different, and the lady-in-waiting could already sense that this was only the beginning of the saga of Brin - for there were already Songs mumbling and asking about what happened next.

'What did you think, my lady,?' A Song seated next to her asked breathlessly, 'it was completely unexpected, don't you think? Who would have ever thought that his unkept promise would catch up to him in such tragic and terrible ways? I was stunned!' The lady-in-waiting glanced coolly at the Song, who winced and coughed. 'S- sorry, my lady,' she said, her bubbling exuberance replaced by a sharp-eyed sobriety. The lady-in-waiting smiled, however.
'No need for all that, now,' she said, reaching a hand out and moving a stray inky strand from the Song's face, 'it's good to stay in-character after all, don't you think?' A mischievous smile played about the lady-in-waiting's mouth, and the Song echoed it and bobbed her head.
'Yes, my lady,' she purred. The lady-in-waiting looked down to the stage where the cast was busy bowing and basking in the crowd's adoration.
'It was a good performance,' she uttered thoughtfully, 'and I like nothing more than a good performance, my dear,' and with that she rose and left the amphitheatre. As she crossed the great square on her way to her abode, a Songman called out to her.
'My lady! My lady!' He cried excitedly, 'here!' She turned as he leapt lithely towards her and, getting on his knees before her, held a little object up to her for inspection. She looked at the thing with raised eyebrows. 'For you, my lady,' he said as she plucked it from his extended hands and turned it this way and that.
'What is it? Some kind of face sculpture?' She asked. The Songman shook his head with a knowing smile and stood up. Turning it around, he brought it to her face.
'No, my lady, it is a mask.' She looked through the eye-slits for a brief moment and then moved his hand and the mask away.
'Oh, very nice,' she said, and made to move off.
'Please, my lady, keep it!' he said desperately. She turned back to him with an irritated sigh and snatched it gracefully.
'Oh very well, I will,' she said, then turned around and hurried off. When she was indoors, she took the opportunity to inspect it. It was not particularly beautiful - though, of course, the features etched onto it were pretty enough -, mostly white and decorated here and there with patterns, the odd ornate tuft hanging off; but there was something about it... she could not put a finger on it, but as she stepped out and looked into a mirror hanging on the wall, holding the mask over her face...

she knew she liked it.

• Summary [+]

  Things are going well in the Song town, and all kinds of artistic innovations are going on. The Songmen have not been successful in wooing the women, however! The lady-in-waiting watches a play in the amphitheatre and it's quite good - the first that's not just about the going ons in the town itself. As she is going back to her abode, a Songman comes over and gives her a mask. She pretends not to think much of it, but when she gets home she looks at it and likes it.
• Might [+]

  | 1MP and 0DP | 1MP towards Puppetry | 2DP towards Acting | 2DP towards Inspiration | Next Domain: Art |
  
  1 MP to create an epic saga of the Songs, that will be told in plays, songs, poems, sculptures, paintings: The Epic of Great-horn Brin! (+1 towards Acting)
  
  | 0MP and 0DP | 1MP towards Puppetry | 1MP & 2DP towards Acting | 2DP towards Inspiration | Next Domain: Art |
• Prestige [+]

  +5 Points to the Lady-in-Waiting
  10 in total (~12,000 chars.)

---

At long last, her palace was completed. It had been years in the making and it took a great deal of manpower to complete, but at long last it stood in Nallan as a seat of her power. It was a two storied building, but the second level only occurred in a few places. The structure itself was very large, but not enormous by any margin. It wasn’t the Keterfa wall by any means, but it worked. Outside of the palace resided a low wall, still being worked on and built up, but inside that wall there resided a garden of sorts and many dense thickets of foliage. A stone path wandered all the way from the gates to the main doors. The masonry work was by no means exquisite, but it was above the cut anyone would see in those parts. Columns large and small sat silently, in key areas around the entrances, courtyards, and overhangs.

The palace’s interior was smooth, furnished moderately and was rather plain. There were many rooms with various purposes, mainly chambers for guests or servants. Perhaps the most impressive feature on the first level was the large throne room, also acting as a dining hall. There in the dark hall (For Nalla had taken great care to get rid of most of the natural light with large furs and cloths), resided a stone throne. Nalla had it adorned with furs and blankets as well as a pillow or two for when she sat down. It sat upon a raised platform from the rest of the room.

There were also two courtyards, each housing different plants, and multiple Sylphi seedlings. For Aurinia and Chio had decided to stay after all, much to Nalla’s delight. And really, it wasn’t like they had much of a choice once her charm took hold of them. She had gotten to work, mainly out of boredom and reeling to see what type of traits could manifest within the saplings once they emerged. Ten grew within one courtyard and the other nine grew within the other. She expected the first two to be born any day now, for they had been put there around three years ago and the others had come sporadically within the following years.

It had taken a while for Nalla to convince Auri and Chio to bring her little ones, but once she coaxed them enough, it was easy work from there. Nalla made sure to pamper the two Sylphi as much as she could. She also made sure they were cared for every day, the seedlings, and had gone to great lengths to ensure their survivability. She also put Exodus’ words to the test, and watered them with fresh blood. Always fresh. They received most of their actual water when it rained.

Her more fleshy based servants also had multiplied and shortly after the first children were born, Nalla moved those families outside of her palace. Their parents could still come and go freely, for they were her servants after all and no one liked to be away from Nalla for too long. That she was assured of. They were also spreading healthy rumors about her and the love she gave out in the name of Neiya.

Down below was where Nalla spent most of her time however. A place where her most devoted resided, where Parn’s testing of magic was put to the test and where she conducted most of her business. The lower level of her palace was constantly being expanded into the stone and dirt below, making sprawling tunnels and more pits for nefarious purposes. It was the most furnished of her home, the most decorated and the most coveted. Artistic works were everywhere, of Neiya's symbolism, to blood red leaves and her own symbol, A blood red heart wrapped around a ruby that closely resembled an eye. Her servants had created it as an act of obsession and Nalla didn't found it amusing so she adopted it.

Outside of her palace, Nallan was booming. The once small village of her birth had turned into a sprawling town. Nothing like the four city states, but it was growing as more and more flocked to her for safety from the surrounding areas. She had quickly followed Exodus’ advice and had found herself a soldier to teach her how to fight and though she wasn’t the biggest fan of it, she learned anyways. Torturing was far more her style and she took to that far more. She still knew she just couldn’t kill people outright or too quickly, for the curse was still upon her, after all. But her powers were still incredibly useful and those she could incapacitate, could be swiftly killed by her men at arms.

Parn had also made a breakthrough with his pots, and now with a short rune placement, any pots that contained them were capable of keeping liquids fresh for around five years. His brother and sister servants had leant their aid and they had achieved a great feat. It quickly became sought after, and Parn was usually busy teaching low level magicians how to inscribe the pots. It was a good little business she was making.

There were still frequent visits to local chiefs and other rulers, those who needed assurances or those who needed replacing. Then there were the occasional bandits and brigands making a ruckus, which annoyed her greatly, for they learned to attack during the day for fear of what night brought. She had a few close calls with the sun during that time.

But all in all, things were going well for Nalla, but she was weary as always. She heard the rumors. Wars, trolls, iskrills, a winged beauty with a sword made of sunlight- All taxing on her mind. There was always a chance something would come, something unexpected like Exodus. But this time, she didn’t think it would end in her favor. She had to be prepared.

---

Nalla lounged on her throne, sipping a day old blood in a copper cup. The metal added a unique flavor, but it wasn’t like a throat with fresh blood. How could it? She pouted a bit, but remained. A bit lazy really. It was midday and her palace was bustling with activity as usual. There was still so much to do it seemed. She liked to keep herself busy, after all.

“Well,” A voice suddenly rang out, seeming to leach through the room and Nalla’s very mind, “You’re doing better here than I expected, kid.”

She sat upright, hairs standing on the back of her neck. She looked around but she was alone in the hall. Was it another God? It had to be. "Oh, hello? Who might this be?" She asked tentatively.

“Someone with an interest in you, kid. I’ve been watching you for a moment, and I have to say I’m impressed. Though,” The voice paused and then spoke again with some genuine concern, “You might want to watch out for that. It’s usually nothing, but when someone prays to every deity like one of your little plants did it can attract attention, but I’m sure you got an idea about that from your last visitor. Anyway, impressed.”

She stood up from her throne, running her hands through her hair as she began to pace. So it was a God. "Yes, I should take note of that… It was three years ago give or take but one can never be too careful I suppose. But… You are impressed? With me?" She asked with genuine curiosity mixed with disbelief.

A booming laugh, one that sounded more like a choir than a person, filled the room before the voice deigned to speak again, “Surprised? Well, you should be. In thousands of years I’ve only ever done this a few times. It’s not as dramatic as it was when I could walk around down there, but what can you do? A personal audience with the divine is something enough people pray for on a daily basis, though those people don't usually tend to found states. Especially in spite of their, eh, condition?”

Her eyes widened a bit at that. Well of course they would know her affliction. "A condition I have worked around and used to my advantage. I wanted to be chieftain but why stop at something so small, you know?" She mused.

“I imagine I do,” The voice joked, “But still, well done. Neiya’s gift certainly helped, you have no idea how poorly most take to the memories, but I can’t ignore your own work. In spite of a divine curse, not to mention one which promptly ruined a perfectly good means of succession for everyone, you’ve managed to come out on top. Better yet, you’ve actually managed to expand your authority.”

There was a long pause, but a weight in the air compelled silence until the voice spoke again, “Which brings me here. I suppose I’d better introduce and explain myself. The name’s Tekret et Heret, and I’m here with something of an offer.”

"Tekret… et… Heret?" She breathed, bringing both her hands to her cheeks in surprise. "The King Maker? The Crown Giver? Tekret speaks to me? I am humbled." She gushed happily.

“That, and the God of Contracts.” The voice grew rich with amusement, “Plus a thousand other, less relevant, titles. So, the offer. You’ve turned one of the highlands rather fetid cesspools into a thriving little community, and good on you. If you want a crown, you can have it for that alone. Or. You can swear to allow my House of Order full autonomy within your borders, and get something with a little more behind it. Up to you, of course.”

Nalla took a deep breath, thinking over the offer. She could hardly believe it. Not one, not two, but three gods bestowing gifts? She could hardly refuse but she did have a question. "If I might ask, before I decide, your House of Order. What do they do?" She asked.

“This and that. Uphold the laws of the land, take in criminals if they’re clever enough to devote themselves to me instead of running, and generally make sure little projects like yours here last longer than a minute.” There was a hint of gravity in the voice now, and as it continued it only grew more intense, “They’ll help you, so long as you keep doing what you’re doing. I won’t have them answer to anyone but me, though. Kings and Queens have an unfortunate habit of meddling where they’re not needed, often to their own detriment. So, do we have a deal? Or will you take the smaller offer?”

She thought on it and then said, "We have a deal, as long as they understand my affliction and that I won't do them harm." She said.

“I’ll make sure they’re on their best behavior,” With those words a small weight began to press on Nalla’s head, “And I’ll be looking forward to what you do with this, kid.”

With that the gods presence faded from the room, and Nalla’s mind. The thickness in the air vanished, and atop the Vampire's head sat a bloody red crown. It shifted and moved as whatever material made it up flowed, but to the touch it was firm as stone. There was no explanation, or instructions, but such things weren’t needed.

The Blooded Crown had been forged by a gods will, and that will made itself known. She touched it gingerly, her small smile widening with wicked glee as the crown, her crown, imparted upon her its will. She let out a small giggle at first, before she could hardly contain her laughter.

---

Evette awoke to the creak of a floorboard. She opened her eyes just in time to see a blurry figure standing over her.

She rolled off the bed, just as a dagger came down with lightning speed and embedded itself in the straw mattress. She collided with her strange assailant, knocking him over, then fell to the floor. Her hand shot under the bed. Time seemed to stand still, her hand a blur as it rapidly grasped for where she knew her sword was hidden. She couldn't see it...

Then a strange sensation washed over her, and suddenly, she could.

Her hand closed around the blade, just as the vampire pulled his legs out from under her. Quickly rising to his feet, he seized her by the hair and hauled her up to a sitting position.

He was just about to sink his teeth into her neck when Solfury was unsheathed. The light blinded him and lit up the room. He shrieked, released his grip on her, and staggered backward. Evette leapt to her feet, turned, and thrust her blade into his ribcage.

Concentrated sunlight coarsed through his body, roasting him from the inside. Over the coarse of a single second, his eyes melted and while his skin began to rapidly blister and crack all over. Then, he disintegrated into a pile of ashes.

Evette glared at the pile of ash with disdain. "It's so much easier when they come to me," she remarked, sliding her blade back into its sheathe. She glanced around for some clothes - no doubt somebody had heard the fight, and would be up shortly. She briefly wondered why she was able to see so well, despite having had no time for her eyes to adjust. Then she shrugged. Probably just a one-time occurrence.

---

---

Meanwhile in Meliorem...

Cadien stroked his chin in deep thought.

He could use some new furniture...

Yes, something that he or Neiya could rest in. Perhaps together...

So, the God snapped his fingers, and made it so. A Klinai appeared; bright purple with soft, luxuriously comfortable cushions. It was made of fine mahogany wood, and had an enchantment bestowed upon it too. Yes, this would do nicely.

The God strode forward and unceremoniously dropped himself upon it, sinking into the cushions.

This would do nicely indeed.

---