Dawn of Divinity

In the bustling streets of the Cove in Stormund’s Landing… The past 35 years have been wild. Clay-men, known as the argil-born, have revamped the economy. The Ido Society had been looking for alternatives to the dwarves’ monopoly on vessels and crossing the storm. The dwarves weren’t thrilled, leading to a group of pirate dwarves known as Tharkan’s Renegade. Rumors have been spreading that the Thorun Dominion has been exploring ways to travel to Vallina.

There has been a boom of religions, sects, and groups in Vallina, but the Ido Society discourages large public workshop in the city. Nothing can get in the way of commerce.

The captain of the Silver Legion made his way to the capybara farm. He was particularly interested in Yuu, who listened well to orders and didn’t talk much. Coins were exchanged, and then the owner of the farm indicated that the captain had work for Yuu.

Yuu would go on an expedition but would be privy to a set of instructions separate from the others.

Meanwhile, the captain of the Macmannon was told that for very good coin he would be hired by the captain of the Silver Legion to lead an expedition and the delivery of resources to the Renarin Isles, a small set of islands that are scarily close to the storm.

Serif had been honing her oracle skills to see a few minutes or days ahead of time. She’d been feeling pretty confident until… With a fever and chills, she had a vision three weeks from then of nothing. She was deeply convinced that it had to do with a group of eclectic people who had seen herself interacting with soon.

Somehow Romy found herself added to the crew of this vessel, but she didn’t question it.

Yuu was “secretly” instructed to find an item on the isle and to bring it back. Romy definitely overheard.

Romy noticed that Serif was the most well-off and skulked over. She soon regretted that as she witnessed Serif’s special brand of deterministic Schrödinger’s philosophy.

As they drew closer, they noticed a different, large Ido society ship anchored off the coast. Niamh activated the anchor, a dwarven trade secret that separately uses corporra with a timer. The ten crew members started the process of grumpily loading the goods on small row boats for delivery to the small fishing village.

As they approached, Serif and Yuu noticed a low, high-pitched ringing sensation that increased as they drew closer to the island. Niamh noticed that there was no noise coming from the other vessel. She told her captain, who grumbles and grunts in agreement that it wasn’t normal. As they examined it more with a looking glass, they noticed the signature dwarven filigree. “Storm Shadow” was etched on the side.

Serif attempted to see the future to determine if she would get on the boat and if she will give Romy a coin.

A somewhat rotund man with a stain-filled apron approached them as they neared shore. Naimh checked the order that she was to deliver it to fishmonger Konoe. The man said it was him, but that he had just received the order two weeks ago.

He told them to find themselves a room at the inn while they waited for the mayor to return in the morning.

Serif noticed that, while any legitimate house of commerce in Stormund’s landing would bear the Ido society sigil, none of the businesses here seemed to. 50-60% seemed to be abandoned or standing in some state of disuse.

After some discussion, they realized that the innkeeper and fishmonger couldn’t recall seeing the crew from the other ship. The manifest had been signed by a Captain Suda of the Storm Shadow.

The sun had just set. Yuu had been walking slowly in the forest until he found himself in the clearing in the woods. In the center of the clearing, he saw a lumped figure laying on the ground, an argile born immobile on the ground. Yuu walked over, but as he lifted up the body, he noticed that half of the face was missing like a clean spherical hole had been cut through.

He found a small metallic message scroll embedded in the thigh. (It was the fashion for argile born to embed objects in their body.)

They were instructions for the argile born to make his way to the island and find an object, signed by the Captain of the Silver Legion.

As he proceeded cautiously, the tinnitus sound ceased suddenly. The villagers all stood a bit straighter. It lasted about 23 seconds before the sound slowly started seeping back in. All Serif could perceive a minute into the future was a feeling of dampness. A minute later, the barmaid tripped, pouring a mug of ale on her head. She showed Serif to a room and offered her a change of clothes.

As the others slept, in the middle of the night the tinnitus sound died off again for another 20 something seconds.

In the morning, they made their way to the empty ship. It seemed like it had been cleaned up for the day, but not in a way to be abandoned. A few crate of salted fish had been loaded in from the village. There was no sign of struggle or fighting, no bodies. Niamh shimmied her way from the side window and into the captain’s quarters. Romy followed. Niamh read the captain’s journal.

It ended it with a large series of expletives that the Ido society would be so cheap as to send a ship of this size with only a quarter of the crew needed.

Romy poked through the captain’s chests and finds a sizeable stack of coins in a small chest. She tucked the chest away before anyone noticed.

Niamh called out for her captain, but none of her other crew recalled ever having a captain. She panickly returned back to the Storm Shadow captain’s journal. They comment about having a small crew was after having been on port .

As they return back to port, the tinnitus sound disappears again for two dozen seconds. Like an ear pop. The nearby fisherman drop their equipment momentarily.

The party realized that the innkeeper (the fishmonger’s wife) should have made breakfast… Not the fishmonger who burned the breakfast in his attempt. They pieced together that someone was being “erased” every time the tinnitus disappeared.

As they started making their way to the long boat to go back to the MacMannon, as they notice what was once anchoring the Storm Shadow was no longer anchoring it. It was drifting towards the MacMannon. They panickly sailed back to the Storm Shadow where Niamh anchored it temporarily with her corporra. She asked if any of the crew knew how to activate the anchor artifact, but they said only the captain knew.

The sound of tinnitus subsided for about two dozen seconds. They took inventory of their crew. Serif expressed her concern that the sound was still just as loud. Niamh didn’t believe Serif’s oracle abilities. So Serif foretold their impending collision with the MacMannon.

Niamh yelled out to the other ship, but it was completely empty.

Niamh spun the helm around to head back to the island.

Once they crashed into the island, Niamh and the group went to the inn.

Serif got Yuu to draw a picture of what he saw (an argile head) and a map of where he saw it. She tried to convince the others to go with her on an adventure there.

Serif acquired more paper for Yuu to draw, and Niamh took over the cooking after the fishmonger somehow burnt stew.

They decide to head out following Yuu’s map first thing in the morning.

Niamh practiced corporra before bed.

The smell of burnt gruel accompanied a long string of expletives and the morning sun. Niamh hurried down, throwing out his atrocity and using some of their supplies to whip up something more edible.

After breakfast, they prepared for their journey. The village was relatively empty as they made their way to the forest.

Upon the arriving at the clearing, Niamh noticed the tracks of four individuals, seeming to be the dead argile born, Yuu, someone following or accompanying Yuu, and a fourth unrelated coming from a third direction. There also seemed to be evidence of a struggle in the clearing. Upon questioning, Yuu conveyed that he wasn’t aware of having been followed or accompanied. Niamh rolled the bottom to the side to check underneath.

Niamh and Serif both knew that when argile born died that they generally fell apart and back to dirt.

They tried to follow the tracks in the forest. Eventually, they found themselves in front of a small set of squat buildings, hidden from view by the cliff of the mountain. It seemed to have been a well-trodden area with a trail leading to a potentially easier way down the mountain.

A cursory look told them that it may have been a month or two since it was inhabited. They went inside the compound. As they started to look at the different buildings, they noticed a common living area, and that it may have been a research output based on the notes. Yuu beelines for the building on the cliff side, and he found himself inside a small workshop. On the side of the wall was a series of clay masks. He immediately recognized it as a workshop to create argile born.

A door had been caved into the room from a dark tunnel in the mountain. There were holes in the padlocked door. The holes looked dissolved as if rusted over time. They peeked into the tunnel. It showed signs of being unnaturally dug, like someone wanted a hole in the ground.

As they delved deeper, they noticed side passages and further in a large circular tunnel. The walls were had a powdery white substance and runes were etched all over. There were papers and a spilled dried ink well.

Niamh picked up the notes. It felt as if it has been eaten by moths, wispy and thin. From the what she could make of the scribbles, there were equations and instructions for some sort of operation. Niamh showed it to the group, and Serif recognized this kind of room and architecture as being of the Vellock Empire. She recognized the stone walls.

Meanwhile, Romy spelunked and found pieces of clothing, robes wrapped around a small leather-bound journal. She shook the journal out for money. No money fell but a letter that had been tucked away tumbles out.

The letter bore the sigil of the Ido Society, specifically the Silver Legion. A specific character was expecting results and to hear back soon, and they were sending Captain Osskohva to inquire at Renaran Isles soon. The journal was from character (Knowledged Vasava). He was pleading to a man named Mallock to shut down the unholy experiment, but eventually, it detailed that the experiment had succeeded. But it also questioned who Mallock was. The experiment was about learning how to wield Perdere. They had been trying to retrace Vellock experiments.

Niamh knew the basics of Vellock, enough to get by on a ship. Not enough to interpret advanced mathematics and science.

Romy peered over at the papers again and called out that it had her name – Osskohva. Romy couldn’t recall if her parents would go by that title. She had been on the streets as long as she could remember.

They explored the side passages and found workbenches with small circular band of brass. Flat rings engraved with a variety of Vellock symbols. Hundred upon hundreds were scattered around. They all pocketed a handful. Niamh noticed that the quality of the brass was very high.

As they approached the next side passage, there was a rock table in a medium sized rectangular room. Attached to the rock table with large chains was a dead argile born with a large cavity hole missing from its chest. The hole would fit the largest of the rings that Yuu found so Yuu shoved it in. As he put it in, it snapped into place like a magnet, hovering a few tenths of an inch from the hole. It float and rotate with no rhyme or reason.

They scrambled to find more rings to attempt to make a gyroscope type thing. Niamh found three rings that each had two matching symbols. The rings were attracted strongly and started spinning in separate directions, slowly gaining speed. The rings created a high pitch grating sound that got in their heads.

An arc of electricity jumped from one ring to the next, and the outer rings started cracking. After a moment, the outer ring exploded, pieces embedding in the walls. The other rings began to float with no rhyme or reason again.

They reasoned that the rings may have been embedded in the body in the clearing and that someone may have attacked it and stolen the rings. They agreed that after exploring this compound they should follow the other tracks.

In the next room, they found a big ole stack pile of argile-born type bodies, but closer to terracotta. They also found cutouts and a tool that seemed to be used to excavate the specific cavity size. They couldn’t find any cutouts that looked like it would be a face.

As they made their way out of the small hut, the sound in the back of their mind seemed to echo. Both in their head and through their ears. At the edge of the forest they saw a figure, a lanky figure of burnt clay. Spikes instead of hands. Algae and dirt covered its chest. Black lightning filled the gyroscope. A sword is sticking out of its back, tapping against the gyroscope.

Its head snapped as it turned to look at Yuu and Niamh approaching. Niamh asked if it spoke. It opened its mouth with a hair-raising grating sound. A fleshy mass poured out of the gyroscope and splashed against the ground. Like a goopy mask of a woman. Yuu recognized it as the innkeeper.

He stomped towards it, and it marked towards him. Its movement was in staccato like it didn’t have full control of its limbs. As it walked, the chunks of its check grated against the rest of its body.

As it neared, the sword bounced off the mechanism. Serif recognized the sword as belonging to a captain or someone of similar rank in the silver region. Romy felt like she had seen the sword before.

Yuu lunged for the handle of the sword. The creature shrieked. Yuu pulled the sword free, and the rings started spinning faster and faster. The rings locked into place, and black lightning started lashing out. The tinnitus sound paused. Everywhere it touched on Yuu disappeared. Had he ever had a left-hand?

Niamh threw her dagger at the gyroscope. Sparks jutted out as it stuttered for a moment from the impact. The creature oozed viscous red liquid as the tinnitus sound resumed.

Yuu tried to stab the sword into the creature. It disjointedly jolted sideways to avoid the sword, but one of its long spindly arms snapped off in the process. Blood gurgled out of its chest as it doubled over onto the ground prone.

Niamh stabbed her knife at it. The knife skidded off the slick terracotta, splashing a bit of the warm blood on her. It was warmer than it would’ve been coming from a human body.

As Serif peered into the future, it felt more difficult than ever before. She saw her face being covered in blood and then nothing. Just nothing. Serif put a hand to her face, but there wasn’t anything there yet. She froze, overwhelmed by the unexpected fear of the incoming nothingness.

Romy attempted to throw one of the crappy improvised knives at the creature. The knife minorly nicked it.

The creature’s head snapped towards Serif as it skittered, quickly closing the distance between them. She barely managed to dodge its spike claws, but it knocked her to the ground, covering her in blood.

She could hear the tinnitus sound lessening. Yuu ran over and bashed into the creature, sending it tumbling sideways. As it tumbled, the outer ring was immobile and the second was slowing down.

As the creature was pushing itself up, Niamh chucked a dagger at the rings, lodging in the two outer rings. For a moment, it didn’t notice, and then they saw an eerrily human emotion as it looked on in horror. As the rings started falling more out of order the tinnitus sound diminished. A mini black hole sucks all the creature in before exploding chunks of clay left and right, leaving behind nothing but a garnet orb roughly the side of the rings. They all stumbled backways, feeling dazed like cotton in their mouths.

Serif gained a rank of author.

Yuu gained a rank of manipulator.

Romy gained a rank of illusionist.

Niamh gained a rank of chucker.

Serif tried to look a minute into the future and immediately get taken by a massive bout of vertigo. She saw copies upon copies as permutations of the future opened before her. The bout of vertigo passed as she selected a future, and the events foretold of her holding the crystal came to fruition. A flash of lightning was at the core of the stone. It grew and shrunk like a beating heart but with lightning and an irregular rhythm.

Niamh asked if Yuu wanted her to try touching the stone to his arm. He spoke that he would prefer not. That freaked everyone else out. Yuu didn’t talk. Romy exclaimed that it was the weirdest thing she saw all day.

Serif wrapped it up in cloth as Romy inquired how much they could sell it for.

Niamh chucked the rock into the air. There was an explosion of feathers as it clocked a bird in flight. She threw a second one a tree. It went through the tree, exiting and dissolving on the other side.

Serif thanked Yuu and asked him if he had intentionally not spoken to them before. He explained that he hadn’t “been at the wheel”.

Romy said that it was majorly sus and stared him down as she declared that the sword was hers. He said okay as he handed it over.

When Serif questioned it, Romy explained that she was obviously a captain of the Silver Legion. 🙃

Serif noticed that the blood on her smelled like and looked like blood. They discussed that there were three rings and three domains (cerrebra, corporra, and temporra) and the possibility that the creature having blood could mean that they were trying to create an artificial being capable of using all the domains.

Neither Niamh nor Serif could think of anything that affected memories. Yuu and Niamh recalled that black lightning is often seen in the storm. It wiped people out of existence. Weird shit happened in the storm.

Serif held out the garnet for Neimh to touch. The two middle rings were inside as if stored in resin. Nimah noticed that it was incredibly pure, a single element. She anchored the rock without issue even though it still grew and shrank.

The garnet reminded Serif of the blood anchor spire.

After a long time thinking, they decided to just go back to the inn to bathe and sleep. The villagers all seemed to be in a daze, a little like a weight has been lifted from their shoulders but also saddened without knowing why.

As Romy went into her room, she noticed something she hadn’t seen before. On the far side by the unoccupied bed, she noticed a backpack. She immediately went to open it, finding provisions and clothing for a full-grown woman. There was also a journal labeled as belonging to a Maria Osskohva. The last entry mentions going to the forest with Yuu to find an artifact as directed.

Yuu was talking Niamh’s ear off in the kitchen (before getting whacked with a ladle) while Serif bathed. Romy marched straight to Yuu.

She yelled that he was a traitor and waved the journal at his face. He gingerly picked it up and read it aloud. The journal detailed how she had convinced the crew to take her sister along since she had just gotten her off the streets.

Romy smacked him wildly all over, demanding him to un-eat her sister.

The fishmonger burst into the inn, asking if they had come with reinforcement. Three large gallons had anchored in the bay.

They ran outside. The galleons didn’t fly the flag of the Ido Society, but instead, the flag of Tharkan’s Renegade, the dwarven pirates. As Serif started looking into the future, she became overwhelmed by the permutations and started vomiting.

Niamh grabbed a long boat and prepared to intercept the pirates. Yuu joined her. The others took all the rings, suspicious supplies and journals, and their belongings and set off for the woods.

Niamh noticed a half dozen dwarves wearing various armor and weaponry in a small reconnaissance party. As they approached, she noticed a lady dwarf at the helm. Just beside her, leaning over the side of the boat, was a saans. The lady dwarf dragged the saans off the boat and tossed her aside, demanding her to figure out the mess.

Niamh chatted with the lady dwarf about the beached vessel. The dwarf snapped her fingers, signaling her sailors to start acquiring supplies for the villagers’ store.

The dwarf, their saans, and Niamh walked into the inn. The poor fishmonger shakily asked if they wanted any ale.

Niamh spun her tale of how she got abandoned and failed to sail the other salvaged ship that she then had to beach.

Yuu got pulled into the conversation and reiterated how much he loved potatoes.

Niamh pointed out the sick saans and kicked the saans. He mentioned how there was a saans on the island who was nearby and messing with their ability to see the events ahead.

They questioned Yuu. Who explained that they wouldn’t believe him and walked out.

A sailor burst in and explained that they had found something in the woods.

In the woods, Serif tried to periodically check the future and select the path that seemed safest. They walked in the general direction of the center of the island and the scientific compounds. Romy kept an eye out for tree crevices and grottos. Romy hid as two stout dwarves approached, swearing as they bumped into woods.

A faint tinnitus sound started creeping at the edge of their hearing. Serif panicked, hearing it loudly from the garnet.

She found a hidden grotto in the ground, a spot that would be easy to forget, and buried the garnet.

The lady dwarf approached Niamh, announcing that they found a dead argile born in the woods. She interrogated Yuu, who manipulated her into feeling a deep sense of hopelessness.

She tossed the saans as she told the other sailors to make their way back to the boat. Yuu asked to borrow a knife from Niamh, and Niamh panickly talked him down from stabbing them.

As the lady dwarf stepped onto the boat to head back, they heard loud cursing, “YOU MOTHERFUCKER!”

Meanwhile, in the forest, Serif and Romy watched as the dwarves walked back, explaining that the Captain would be excited by what they found. Serif and Romy hid with a vantage point of where the garnet was hidden.

The Captain yelled at Yuu. Yuu held the knife so that it glistened in the light. “I dedicate this performance to ME!” Yuu yelled as he walked confidently towards one of the confused dwarves,

Yuu stabbed the dwarf in the neck as the other yelled out and reached for his scimitar. Yuu sidestepped the scimitar and in one fell swoop slit the second dwarf’s throat.

“You have no idea how good this feels after having to watch myself shovel capybara shit for 35 YEARS!” Yuu yelled.

The captain charged at Yuu, hitting him in the stomach and sending him tumbling.

A battle started, and the sailors’ eyes furiously darted as Niamh chucked some brass over. The blood drained from the captain’s face as Yuu made her feel afraid. She sprinted towards the beach.

Serif saw a series of futures of her and Romy hiding and selected a future where they uneventfully remained hidden.

After a bit, Yuu and Niamh watched the pirates raised anchor and start heading off. Niamh searched the bodies, finding 43 dwals, a handful of knives, a scimitar, a pole with a hook on it, etc.

Niamh asked Yuu if he was okay, he only nodded and remained silent. He quietly helped her bring the bodies to the cemetery.

Romy was bored as fuck. She reached out to see through Niamh’s eyes where she saw them burying a body, so Romy announced that the others were done and convinced Serif that it was all clear.

Serif unburied the garnet and peeked at it, and she noticed that the garnet was cracked as the rings hit against it in their attempt to spin. Blood red liquid was seeping through the crack. It almost seemed to take the shape of fingers before falling back to the garnet. Serif yelled and dropped the garnet.

She recalled having heard once of a terrible event in the history of the Saans of when her brethren were first awoken from their long slumber. It was at the spot of a sadistic massacre of a being who had the ability to wield blood in the shape of a human body…

They set sail, bringing the cursed garnet from the village, and sailed Storm Shadow to Stormund’s Landing.

Niamh filled the port master in on how she had recovered the ship and how her other boat had gone missing.

Romy noticed that every since they came into port someone had been watching them from the edge of the pier plaza. An individual with a set of loose garments and a baggy hood.

She asked the others if they knew that bloke, and they all turned in unison to look at him. He was a very pale man, and the moment they turned around, he dusted himself off and walked off in a random direction. None of them recognized him.

Yuu had not spoken the entire trip. Romy asked what was going on, but he shrugged. Romy took a blunt object and smacked him in the head.

He explained that when he got hit on the head they changed who was at the “wheel”. She smacked him in the head again. He responded in a depressed, crestfallen manner. She smacked him in the head again. He smiled as he reached for a knife. He eyed the crowd with a dangerous look.

Romy asked Serif which Yuu she liked. Serif said the nice speaking one and to hit him two more times. Romy went to go whack him in the head. Yuu grabbed her hand with a knife to her throat and a warning.

Serif recalled that there were a handful of individuals who might know about what had happened during those terrible times a few decades back, including a lady in midtown who went by Madame V, Serif convinced them that they should first seek her out before handing the garnet over to the Silver Legion.

They tried to rush to midtown before the gate closed for the night. They ran. A sea of people were making their way through the gate, and they struggled to get through the gate. They pushed against the crowd, but all the short gals got caught up in the crowd. The doors closed on Serif, Romy, and Nimah.

Yuu tried to manipulate the guard into opening the gate to meet Serif, but he was unsuccessful. He tried again to convince the guards that Serif had an amazing joke.

The gate cracked open, and the guard singled out Serif. She grabbed Romy and failed to make a good case why she needed Romy and to get through the gate. Niamh also made her case by giving a sample of the joke.

The guard begrudgingly let them though.

Serif told a bad dad joke, almost getting them kicked back to the Cove, but Niamh came to save the day with a redeemable joke.

As they started walking away, they heard him retelling Niamh’s joke.

They arrived at Madame V’s where there were papers showcased over the storefront in a disorganized manner.

A small bell rang as a petite woman walks towards them. She appeared to be wearing a pair of glasses. Serif started to make a joke about a saans, a dwarf, a human, and an argile-born walking into a map shop, but Romy elbowed her. So instead, Serif mentioned how they had heard that Madame V had experience with humanoid beings made out of blood. Just as Madame V was questioning how they had heard that, Serif revealed the cracked garnet. Madame V muttered curses as Serif revealed the garnet, “Oh fuck.”

Madame V took a few steps back, bumping into the nearest work table, sending paper and quills tumbling down. A look of terror and curiosity filled her eyes as she demanded to know where they had gotten it. Serif recounted how the Silver Legion had commissioned some experiments. Madame V paled visibly as Niamh pulled out one of the rings. A series of curses flew from her lips as she cursed out the Silver Legion and their group for bringing it into the city.

She told them it was bad news, something that shouldn’t exist. She paced as she chucked books aside in search of something. She told them about Wayne, the argile-born’s forefather, and how he had tried to do something they didn’t understand at the time. A project. She shared with them a colored-rendering, a sketch of a mural.

The argile-born they arrested at the time seemed non-sensical in their insistence that there were more than three types of magic. The group reiterated that they couldn’t just throw the garnet into the sea because it had already wrought a creature that could walk along the sea floor. They also shared the details about the creature being able to affect memories and wipe away people from existence. Nimah told Madame V that they called the experiment Peredere.

As they word vomited more, Madame V took a step back and sat down in a stool. She asked if they had been followed. Serif promptly said yes.

Madame V recommended them to see Purusha to help them destroy it. They had moved north to live with the dwarves. Serif knew that northbound in the mountains of the Circlet (where the mountains met the sea north of Stormund’s Landing) was one of the two main dwarven cities.

Serif asked if they could stay the night at the workshop. Madame V reluctantly agreed, gathering blankets.

With their down time, Niamh helped Serif poke through the experiment journals to seek the origin and goal of the project. They had been given data from another team in Orosius (the city of knowledge) . They were charged with building a device called the key and to channel perdere. The word was circled with question marks, calling out that it was hypothetical.

Yuu took watch, and a few hours into the night, he could tell that someone was standing on the edge of his perception very still for a while. Eventually, they receded and left his range of perception.

Madame V muttered to herself in the morning as she noticed that they were still there. She brought a basket of fruits and tea. They thanked Madame V for her hospitality. They tried to pay her, but she told them that the greatest reward would be for her to never see them again and for them to destroy the garnet.

They weren’t even out the back door before she started cleaning up.

At the harbor, it was bustling. People were running left and right, shouting orders.

They approached the harbor master’s office. He was a dwarf with a pitch-black beard, slicked with fish oil. He was not optimistic about the money they could get for their run-ashore ship. However, after poking around, he found an old-make shipping vessel. After some prodding, they got him to look more, and he found a small ship that had taken damage preventing it from weathering the storm, the Onyx Mantle. It was owned by someone named Vasock at pier 43.

As they approached, it was clear that the ship had had a fire at some point. It had been patched up well-enough to be seaworthy, but not enough to traverse the storm. Clearly dwarven repairs.

A drunk human man sat at the base with pitchers of ale around him. He had a scraggy beard and grumbled as he asked what they wanted. Niamh attempted to negotiate with him, but as soon as she presented the paperwork from the harbor master, he accepted the deal and walked away with a pep in his step.

Niamh told her crew that they would be making their way to Huvulir. Romy reluctantly bankrolled the trip.

In Huvulir, Romy left to find a creepy little alley to ask around for Purusha. She found a group of homeless people. One in particular had eyes that were sharper than the rest. Romy waggled a dwal and asked for Purusha. After waggling a few more, he told her that he had heard of a Purusha at the Forge, particularly the Mint. She paid him an extra for “discretion”.

Niamh asked around for directions. The bystander pointed her to the Coin Quadrant, the central quadrant, and he said that the Mint had massive doors that they couldn’t miss.

They heard it before they saw it. The sound of low drumming turned into the beating of hammers. As they got closer, they could see heavily guarded steel wagons, pulled by groups of dwarves being pushed to the harbor. The guards of the Mint wore bronze armor.

The group asked if Purusha could come out to see them. The guards mentioned that it might be difficult because Purusha was one of the only ones who never left. However, after they sent a note with a single word “perdere”, an ornate tent was setup.

A palanquin ushered out a elderly woman, cojoined with two heads and two sets of arms. One human, one argile-clay.

Shivaun’s eyes grew wide eyed in terror for a moment. Purusha turned back and demanded the gem. Serif authored into the future, realizing that they would quickly be facing the guards if they didn’t hand if over. After further discussion, they confirmed that Purusha was an asshole. And super bigoted against saans. And dwarves. And argile-born.

She told them that it was a key to access the blood anchor and that they needed to deliver it. She promised them richest of their wildest dreams and mentioned that she could help repair Yuu’s mess of selves.

Serif asked how they were supposed to approach the blood anchor when it was notoriously impossible. Purusha told them to figure it out.

They picked up the key and left.

At the pier, a new boat had dropped anchor, and stepping out was the pale man. With a retinue of saans soldiers. They were in a heated debate with the harbor master.

Romy and Yuu swiftly stepped back into the shadows, but as Serif and Niamh stepped into the sunlight, the saans turned sharply to stare at them. The man barked orders at the soldiers which charged towards them.

Serif took a deep breath and put all of her focus into forging the future. She found a path through the city and working quarters where the saans would be less welcome. Serif moved in an unnatural way, following a script as she avoided people and obstacles she shouldn’t have been able to see.

After a few abrupt stops and sharp turns, she guided them to a dark alley before the shop of a brick maker. There were the sounds of shouts and alarm from the harbor.

Romy scouted, making her way through the streets relatively unnoticed. She made her way back to the harbor and saw a group of bruised and battered dwarves and saans. The pale man and the dwarf captain were in a heated argument. The pale man had a piece of paper that he tapped angrily. After a while, the dwarf captain made a pacifying motion, and there was the passing of coin as the dwarf seemed to let them through. As the captain passed Romy, she saw him passing the paper to other dwarven guards and something about “across the city”.

Romy returned with the news of what she saw.

Niamh and Yuu started walking around, whistling around nonchalantly, while Romy vanishes. She didn’t happen to find a good crate for hiding, but she did happen to find a teahouse. B’s Teahouse. As she passed, there was a sultry dwarf psh-ing for her attention.

She subtly made a deal to allow them to use the tunnel from the teahouse to the harbor for 5 dwal.

As they made their way into the teahouse, the dwarf called out Serif and how she would stand out. They negotiated for a cloak for Serif. Niamh also paid her to get a message to the crew to ask them to return to the ship with haste, regardless of if they were drunk.

Eventually, they were ushered to the tunnel and made their way to the dark alley ways between the warehouses of the harbor. The boat wasn’t too far, but there were two saans guards by it.

As they were pondering how to address it, they barely noticed a guard approaching and hid in time. He nailed a piece of paper, mumbling about how it was a waste of time.

Niamh snuck over and noticed that it was indeed a wanted poster, but there was only one face. Serif, wanted for crimes against the saans.

Niamh and Yuu wandered through the house and stumbled upon a body being stitched up by a machine. The mechanical arm seemed to break a tablet on the body, causing it to reanimate. The man apologized for not being more presentable before they arrived. He materialized cups of liquid as he produced water for himself and ale for Niamh.

The man became flustered once he realized that Yuu and Niamh were not from there. He dabbed his forehead with a silken handkerchief. He donned a very clean suit and fuzzy slippers as he hastily escorted them to a banquet hall. In the background were two very fancy argile-born in butler attire. He panickily shoved food in his face as he announced that they were all going to die.

Niamh tried to think about her mug being fuller, fruitlessly until the man instructed her how to picture a pitcher of ale pouring more into her cup. Niamh began to explain the situation and how they had arrived after finding the peredere key and opening the blood anchor. His ears perked up at the word “peredere” and asked if they had brought it with them or if the door had closed behind them.

He told them his name was Morleo. He paced as he told them that he could work with it.

Serif and Romy were face-to-face with the upset, humanoid Yuu. He told them that they don’t belong in Fasere. He manifested a spear and said that it would be easier to kill them then figure out the mess they had made.

Serif and Romy found themselves in front of a large gothic manor. It appeared to be night time at first, but then Serif realized that they were actually inside a large dome with gurgling fountain. Light was shining from stained glass windows.

They peeked through the windows of distorted glass. Candle light and shapes passed the glass. They tried to creep towards the back and approached the back door. As Romy reached for the door knob, the door flew open as the two argile-born constructs carried the dead body of an old man. They all froze and stared at each other, until Romy got out of their way. The constructs tossed the body into a shallow grave and before beginning to shovel the grave.

Romy and Serif slipped inside. They smelt and heard the noises and smells of a bustling kitchen. They poked into the kitchen spotting a few of the argile-born constructs. At first they seemed to be cooking a delicious meal, but they quickly realized that the beings were just doing the motions of cooking. They were on 30-second loops. Stirring. Putting logs in the oven. Fileting a fish.

They peeked behind a nearby mahogany door. There was a velvet curtain, but not too far off, they could hear the excited voice of a man and what almost sounded like Niamh. They crept forward cautiously.

Niamh and Morleo were still talking about how they arrived in the world. He excitedly shouted about Niamh’s use of Anchor and asked to see Yuu’s empath skill. It caused an intrusive echo of his own excitement. Morleo let Yuu (who was now murderous) that that wasn’t reading thoughts.

He mentioned that the entire inside world there was called The Utopia. It had everything they could possibly want, and there was no reason to leave. He mentioned how the sense of creation existed in Utopia and how it reacted to their intent.

Yuu got up to explore the manor for murder ideas, and as they opened the door, they revealed Romy and Serif listening in. They greeted the room awkwardly. Serif asked Morleo about Fasere, and he compared it to the ink that made up the book that was Utopia. He pointed her towards the library to explore further. She backed up towards the door he indicated.

Yuu returned with a bunch of torture devices. Morleo asked for the brain stem to be left alone, and the rest was fair game for Yuu. Meanwhile, Niamh attempted to ask about anchor and why it was important. Between screams of having his body removed in chunks from bottom to top, Morleo explained that removal was the opposite of Fasere which was creation. You could create but not remove.

When he revived, Morleo acclaimed Yuu as an artist. Meanwhile, Serif learned more about the origin of the saans as an experiment in the effort to make Utopia by creating begins that did not age through the control of temporra and being essentially a “blank slate”.

He mentioned how the spinning portal device was a crude attempt at temporra where it creates a future where you are at your destination. Dilana, who was good with temporra, created the devices. The group pondered more about the nature of all the magic in this world. Then, with Morleo’s intense assistance, Romy pictured a coin and tried to heat it. A ripple burst from her, scattering plates and silverware, as the coin grew warm to the touch.

After creating an image of Dilana, he showed them towards a hall with rooms for each of them to sleep. Along the way, he mentioned that in the beginning 213 of them went into Utopia, and now, there were about 176 last he knew.

Each room had a fireplace with a fire burning in the hearth, down pillows, and bowls of candy. With a final good night, he let them go to bed.

In the night as Yuu and Serif stood guard, Serif started getting particularly tired. Just as Serif was about to walk into her room to rest, the door to the kitchen area slammed open. Both quickly and slowly as time seemed to warble. One of the first mate of the ship was covered in blood, and behind him the manor appeared to be on fire. In his hand was the limb of one of the constructs. There was a lag, a delay between his mouth moving and hearing him.

Serif and Yuu pounded on the doors, getting Niamh and Romy up. It should have taken a fraction of a second to get to the crewmate, but it took nearly a minute as it felt like they were running through molasses.

As he threw open the door to the foyer, he revealed the broken body of Morleo pinned in weird ankles and the portal machine was broken into pieces, showing a hole.

As they followed the crew mate, they heard the door from the sewing room pour open as a half-formed Morleo demanded them to come back, saying that it wasn’t polite as he formed a long rapier. 

Fasere: Create

Peredere: Remove

Mutare: Alteration/Manifestation

Morleo dragged half of his half-formed body along as he raised the rapier towards them. Niamh reached for a metal cage from the air. She hefted it down over Morleo. The air hissed as the metal started to heat up and he laughed at the juvenile attempt.

Serif called to the others to put in their hands and pictured them with Dalaina. With a last glance, they saw the desiccating husk of Morleo approaching, rapier moving to impale Niamh’s face. 

In the blink of an eye, they found themselves in what appeared to be a glass desert. The sand underneath their feet were actually glass pearls, reflecting the omnipresent light. In the middle of the sea of beads, almost two hundred yards away, was a young woman in a loose white tunic. Her black hair was in a large woven braid as she sat in lotus position with her back to them.

They carefully walked around the woman to face her. The beads crunched loudly under their feet. Romy noticed something peculiar. The beads they were stepping on recessed and formed a foot print before their feet hit the ground.

The woman’s eyes were closed as she appeared to be in deep meditation. They all sat down in front of her until Romy asked, “Are you the time lady?”

As Romy finished speaking, the woman appeared beside her. However, the meditating form was still there.

Another version of the woman turned the corner and nodded in agreement as the Dalaina by Romy spoke. Another one strolling behind them asked if they were the ones who made all the trouble and set Morleo’s mansion on fire.

Every sentence Dalaina said came from a different version of Dalaina, except the meditating one. They recalled what they had gone through with the others that they had found and asked for help navigating the world in a reasonable manner.

She mentioned that Beldab would have explicit opinions about them manifesting items in their area. Serif finally gave in and manifested a cup of jasmine tea to sate her thirst.

Dalaina mentioned that they had “put a hole” in the wall of this universe. She mentioned that her “compatriots” would most likely want to take parts of this “infinite” with them into the other finite world that they have come from.

Niamh asked if they could close this hole. Dalaina mentioned that peredere and fasere couldn’t close the door, but mutare might be able to. She also mentioned that having a source of peredere (anchor) could be used to make more holes. Peredere was all-consuming and wasn’t used up in opening the hole. The infinite of peredere and fasere were combatting. 

Niamh asked if temporra could be used to access the door/receding wall. Dalaina mentioned the Zeno paradox and that they would be infinitely attempting to catch up. Niamh also asked if her anchoring power was dangerous to this world. Dalaina chuckled and mentioned that Niamh’s power was but a drop compared to the infinite ocean of the fasere.

Serif thought back to the experiments that had created the peredere they had. They hadn’t created it as much as channeled it from the storm and sucked a little bit out and put it into the device. There were mentions in the notebook of a “prism” indicating how the peredere had first been brought out.

Dalaina confirmed that alteration cerebrra was a form of mutare, but they would need a pure and infinite form. Something that is every changing.

They asked about the mural they saw at Morleo’s. Dalaina mentioned that fasere was blue/white, peredere was black, red for corporra, green for cerebrra, and white for temporra. Mutare was an inbetween. The space between fasere and peredere.

She mentioned that the world they came from was Mutare. Dalaina came from a time before the three primordial forces were part of the world. They were blended back then. They had to separate it, which create the rays like this tower. 

Dalaina explained that the others wanted out for various reasons – conquest, revenge, boredom. However, she confirmed that she didn’t want out.

Yuu asked about the other anchors. The anchor of peredere would be one of pure destruction. They reasoned the storm. The anchors of mutare would be what lies in between. 

Niamh asked if time passed the same way inside fasere as it did in their world. And as she asked, she noticed the sound of the wind over the glass marbles had stopped and she hadn’t heard it in a while. Dalaina mentioned that in fasere one could create anything, even time itself.

Serif reflected on the nature of the keeper skill and temporra. Keeper changed the flow of time. Dalaina wasn’t changing the flow, she was just adding more to it. Raw creation.

Yuu heated up Niamh’s iron ball, and Niamh asked if Yuu had used corporra or fasere. Dalaina responded, “Corporra was the medium; fasere was what you are doing.” She mentioned that they weren’t side by side, they were on top of each other.

Niamh asked about the ripple/blast. Dalaina mentioned that it was how they were attuning and that doing something for the first time here invited a certain type of attention.

Niamh asked if Utopia was alive, and Dalaina responded the Utopia was “creation”.

Declan had a golden, brass stick that he was using to push the glass beads around. He explained that he followed right after them when a man like Yuu gave him the stick which killed things you pointed it at. And then the man told him that they were going to get themselves killed and destroy the world before tossing Declan into the teleportation rings.

Dalaina mentioned that Balaiya had been trying to make another universe with stars and other worlds. Niamh attempted to make an illusion of a monkey. It was just like the one her old crew mate would have on deck. She waved her hand through it with no issue, but when she tried to end the illusion, it wouldn’t go away (to Serif’s dismay).

Yuu asked if there was a source of Mutare in this world, and Dalaina mentioned that a large amount of Mutare entered the world with them. Niamh went through her pockets and pulled out a dwal.

Dalaina found the dwal to be interesting. Niamh pulled out a few for her to examine. Dalaina confirmed that it was Mutare. She mentioned that they would need a few hundred. Romy clenched her chest closer to her. 

Umesh was the one who was closest to bringing Mutare into the world. Dalaina instructed them to bring pastries with them for interacting with Umesh and to try to find one he’s never had.

Yuu created a pastry that had the texture of marbles but tasted like a pastry. Serif tried to make a time pastry, but it instantly dessicated and molded before falling apart to nothingness. Romy made an empanada. Niamh made a beaver tail.

Serif asked for an image of Umesh, and Dalaiana generated a small bust of a man with a drooping mustache. 

They all put their hands together, and Serif imagined being at Umesh’s. But nothing happened. The version of Dalaiana that was meditating, gets up and stretches.

“Are you thinking of leaving already?” She asked.

She said that it was safer to take them off the proverbial board than to let them destroy the world.

She stared with a sad look in her eyes at the horizon. “There is no future. Everything beyond this point is in the past.”

Serif deduced that Dilana had used temporra could create a future where she said those words and just stacked versions of herself.

Serif focused on changing the events of the fast to alter her decision to bring them to Dilana and instead bring them to the wall. Nothing happened. Not even a shockwave.

They were dumbfounded, so Serif slapped Yuu. And then she immediately used Scribe to revert it. A second stoic Yuu, who hadn’t been slapped, appeared, but soon began to fade away.

Yuu tried to stick their finger through the time bubble threshold. The border started to shimmer as their fingers curled up against the barrier, and as they pulled their hand back, they only had nubbins. They reimagined their hand complete, and their fingers reformed.

Yuu asked Dilana why she wouldn’t let them go. As she ate her peach, she reiterated that they were too dangerous and couldn’t be convinced otherwise.

Yuu asked Romy for a coin, and Romy asked for something in exchange. Out of exasperation, Niamh passed Yuu a coin. They caught it and tossed it at the threshold.

It made it a few feet past the threshold before falling and lying on the ground. Niamh chucked glass beads (that she picked up from her ground) and rocks (that she made) through the threshold. The rock vanished but the bead fell to the other side. She made a glass bead and threw it, but it vanished.

Serif tried touching the barrier with one of the brass circles from the peredere experiment. As she pulled it back in, it became incredibly tarnished. Serif’s nose bled as she attempted to make a time bubble inside of the time bubble to protect a stick that she was poking through the barrier unsuccessfully. 

To stop Dilana from adding more time, Yuu tried to make her depressed and bored so that she’d go to sleep. She became deeply bored with all of this. She materialized a cot and fell asleep as the ninth Dilana fell asleep.

The eleventh Dilana faded as Niamh tested bringing back one of the brass rings. It would be fine going out but get tarnished as she brought it back.

After much more debate, the final, twelfth Dilana clone faded away as Dilana prime slept.

Yuu borrowed a dwal from Romy. They shoved the dwal through the barrier with their hand. The dwal fell quickly as their hand rapidly became a nubbin. Yuu disappointedly reformed their hand.

Serif tried to think about the time bubble around Vallina. Scholars believed that Vallina is 10s of thousands of years in the future and that the bubble unexisted the time between the two spaces. Serif felt like it was similar but not the same mechanism in play and that the “unexisting” of time wasn’t occurring here.

Dilana was surprised to still see them there as she woke up. Despite sleeping for a few hours, she looked exhausted. Yuu asked if she knew how unfair it was. She said yes. Yuu tried to make her feel guilty. She offered to leave them alone.

While doing corporra felt as easy as blowing on a feather, Niamh attempting to do temporra felt like pushing a large bolder up a hill. She felt the fibers of her muscles tearing. She felt blood coming out of her nose, eyes, and ears as a crushing weight pushed against her, but as she opened her eyes, everyone was moving ever so slightly in slomo. 

Dilana looked on in pure horror as she demanded to know what they were doing and questioned if they were mad. As time reverted to normal speed for Niamh, she felt like she had been bulldozed by an elephant. She was out of breath and saw stars.

Dilana looked terrified of Niamh. Yuu asked why. Dilana said that Niamh was an abomination. Dilana pulled out a knife. Niamh chucked a piece of brass as Dilana sulked forward. The brass shot forward forming a large hole in her chest. Dilana passed with a peaceful smile as Niamh yelled at her. 

Niamh used her newfound keeper powers to create a barrier to protect a stick. Meanwhile, Serif tried to funnel the time from the larger bubble into a smaller bubble within. Niamh created an arch with Gusts of wind blew in from the outside with large spikes of black lightning tendrils flung around. Yuu stuck a hand through successfully. The others yelled with excitement as he jumped through the arch.

Romy jumped through haphazardly and barely landed. Serif jumped through skittishly, with Declan in hand. The moment Niamh jumped through the arch collapsed on itself. Lightning coursed and reverberated along the outside of the bubble.

They decided to rest with the idea of finding Umesh (pastry man) in the morning. Yuu kept watch.

It was the morning, or the most morning you could have with perpetual sun and daytime. They woke up beside the time bubble with the dead body of Dilana, just bones. They pondered their pastries. Yuu produced a perfectly spherical, damp, milky croissant (filled with the most delicious thing ever). Niamh made a beaver tail. Romy made empanadas, and Serif made one that looked like a cute capybara. Yuu also made one that looked the same, perfectly spherical but the most unique filling possible.

Serif envisioned a future of them before the man Dilana had depicted. The world swirled around them, and they found themselves at the foot of a statue with the facial shape of the man. They were in a field of statues. Different people, faces, shapes, genders, positions, etc.

A deep growling voice resonated behind them. A neon pink wyvern looked at them with chameleon eyes. Yuu asked if he was Umesh. Serif offered up her pastry. He slithered around. After further discussion and them admitting that they killed Dilana, the wyvern started hacking and hacking until he hacked up a small man. His fingers a little too long. His ears almost like a mockery of the saans.

He approached Romy as she held out her empanada. With his long spindly fingers, he grabbed the empanada, licked it, sniffed it, and unhinged his jaw to eat it. He said that it was truly delectable. Niamh presented the beaver tail. A loud crack echoed as he turned towards her and cracked open, revealing a little girl with bright red pigtails. Niamh began to describe what beavers are: like a capybara but with a  long flat tail. To illustrate her point, Niamh produced a wooden statue replica.

She ran 15 statues and put the beaver on the head of a statue of an elderly gentleman.

The little girls eyes looked up wide, and hands crawled out of her mouth as a rotund gentleman pulled himself out, wearing a pink tutu. He removed his skin of his mouth to reveal a jaw like a shark with rows and rows of teeth. He thanked

Two heads popped out of his chest to reach for Yuu’s two pastries. The man grabbed the moist one and looked at Yuu and asked if it was breastmilk. The woman said that hers just tasted like cilantro.

That body collapsed as the man selected Yuu’s as his favorite and thanked them. Serif asked him about mutare and if he could do it. He exclaimed the woes of mutare being outside of his grasp. He said that to do mutare, you need to control both peredere and fasere.

He despaired at not being able to be more of a help and that his contemporaries have lost their minds. Romy asked if he had also lost his mind. He said that he had purposefully given it away but he knew where, confusingly pointing in every direction and indicating that he had stored it in one of the statues

Niamh gave him a tankard of ale, which he emptied on his head and then ran to put it into the hand of a statue of an older woman.  Yuu asked if all the statues were of him, and he confirmed that he had to live many lives and in many ways in order to get closer to mutare.

Yuu pulled out a dwal he had pocketed. Umesh gasped and bit of his knuckles in excitement. Yuu asked how they could take the mutare out. He tossed the coin to Umesh, who admired its ingenuity.

He showcased to them how to use intent to use mutare through the coin. As Niamh ate the pastry, the coin glew red hot, and the pastry morphed into red flesh, a real beaver tail.

“Everyone else wants to live forever. I just want to be different,” he told them.

They asked if he would leave if he could, and generally, they convinced him of the fun of a world that’s always different. However, he told them that he would probably forget them and the whole conversation in a few lives. (And he was going through them quickly from what they saw.)

They said their goodbyes as the group offered to come back if they found a way out.

Serif blinked them back to their campsite, and they discussed their learnings and next steps.

Romy gave another dwal to Yuu on the condition (for all of them) that every dwal they took for her incurred a debt of two.

Yuu had the coin in their finger. They felt every fiber of their being hurt. They felt sore.

Niamh moved a mug of ale. She focused hard on undoing her action using Scribe. She leaned over the table and stared at it. The air around her crackled with energy. She took deep breaths and focused all her intent. As she exhaled, she felt warmth coming from the pouch at her side, and the mug was at its original position. Niamh pulled the dwal out of her pocket and unfortunately heated up the bent out of shape metal to her disappointment.

She put her dwal aside and practiced breathing in and breathing out, rewriting the past where she didn’t move the mug. Serif tried to no avail.

They decided to spend 6 months learning and practicing all the skills they could.

They practiced, learning new skills, and putting more and more strain on their buddies. (They could each pick four with two skills each; Romy could pick six with one rank each. At the cost of 250 dwal from Romy’s war chest.)

Romy went through puberty during this timeframe, and most of them felt like utter shit.

The sky began to dim with the shape of storm clouds on the horizon. There was a pre-storm wind bellowing.

Serif grabbed the others and brought them close to the wall, and then she attempted to author a future where they were on the other side of the wall in Vallina and had closed the hole. The wind picked up, as she felt herself thrusted forward. In the past, she would just manifest there, but this time it felt like she was running on a treadmill. And then, she pushed through.

They were on the boat with Niamh’s crew, being pushed away from the blood anchor. Serif immediately tested creating water successfully.

They sailed for days. In the process, they found a journal belonging to Vilgar, one of the ship mates, but the pages were empty.

Yuu shared the empty journal with the others. Niamh revisted the captain’s log. They were just as she remembered. As she turned to look at the earlier pages from the previous captain, they were all as expected, records of various trips and cargo.

They were continuing to Stormund’s Landing. Meanwhile, Niamh tried to teach Romy chiller. Blood started pouring out of her nose from how hard she focused, but to no avail. Yuu checked the nearby dwal and then checked with Vilgar about whether he had written in the journal. Vilgar told him that he couldn’t write. Yuu conjured a book about spiders.

He flipped through the pictures with the others. None of them recognized the spider that he showed them in it.

When they arrived in Stormund’s Landing, they decided that they would go to see Madame V. There was an older gentleman. He said that he hadn’t see Vela in 20 something years, but they confirmed that it was the same year. His name was Oonzu.

After extensive back and forth, they pestered him about why they couldn’t see Vela. At least, he said said it was because they were dead. He had died so that Vela could live. Yuu asked if Oonzu could also use fasere by demonstrating conjuring a grape.

Oonzu gasped. He ran out of the bookshop and into the street announcing, “THE GODS HAVE RETURNED. THEY ARE HERE!” Within a few minutes, a crowd gathered around the outside of the bookshop.

Guards pushed through the crowd as a woman’s voice cut through. She was the spitting image of Romy but a handful of years earlier. She gasped when she saw Romy.

“What are you doing here?” Maria asked.

“We died… And are gods,” Romy answered.

The group asked Maria to share something about Romy. She did a poor rendition of humming a lullaby, and Romy found it vaguely familiar. She had a similar sword to the one Romy had from her. There was the sound of metal clanging against metal as they bashed the two swords together in test.

While they were hesitant, the people reluctantly agreed to show their new gods to the city of knowledge. The saan keeper there told them that the knowledge there could not be used, only collected. He gasped in horror as Niamh conjured ale. The others around gasped, and Romy heard murmurs. Romy asked, “What’s a Wayne?”

After badgering and wearing him down, he finally let them go in. However, he was shaking and expressed very clearly how afraid he was of Wayne in the world of the living and didn’t care about what happened as long as Wayne didn’t come to this world.

The argile born walking around were much more lively than they had ever seen before. The building itself was mostly operated by the argile born, attending to the rows and rows of tablets. A particularly tall argile born with a billowy gray cloak. Niamh asked about tomes about the world of the afterlife and about mutare.

Most of the books treated mutare, fasere, and peredere as distinct entities. Fasere and peredere cancelled one another, and mutare was used to shape the other two, not undo them. Life was the fuel for the magics. The tome suggested that with enough energy you could do most of anything with mutare. Some theorized you could even change aspects of fasere itself. You could also use it to separate them further in theory. Most of the comments said that mutare requires intent. The librarian told them that the creation of the spire happened after the creation of the library. This world was a mirror of the living. If a building was built there, it would eventually appear here. If it was burned down, it would eventually appear as ash here.

There was a theory that mutare was so available in the lands because it was between the storm (peredere) and the spire (fasere).

While the archivist departed to get them more books on peredere, a young woman with bright pink hair approached them. She happily patted the books on mutare and excitedly greeted them. They instantly recognized her as Umesh.

“OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS. THAT WAS AMAZING! HOW DID YOU DO THAT?” Umesh asked. “HIM!” She pointed to the archivist. “THAT! SO MUCH VARIETY.”

Her hair fell away and revealed a slightly obese Saans. She pulled out a pastry from the folds of her robe and crunched.

Yuu asked if they were in the blood spire. Umesh said, “DUH.”

“THEY THINK THEY’RE ALIVE. THEY HAVE PERSONALITIES AND EMOTIONS. HOW DID YOU DO THAT?” Umesh exclaimed.

Niamh corrected that the people thought that they were dead.

Upon Serif’s questioning, Umesh clarified that they did in fact still remember them because they were on the same life still. Serif also noticed that every time they changed shape, they no longer left behind a dead body. They turned into a tall woman with billowing hair. Serif asked how they were using mutare to change, and Umesh explained that of course the single coin was enough to supply them. It was as infinite as an ocean. Plus, the group had added mutare to the world for months on end.

Niamh ran over to ask a random dude for a dwal. It heated up. The stranger also confirmed that no one in that world could access corporra, and no one had been there more than 30 years.

The group had an idea. It seemed like this world was connected to the land of the living. Serif should look back 30 years.

Serif recalled that Madame V said that the different magics lived on their own planes and that the anchor anchored them to the physical plane. Like a needle piercing through planes of existence. The spire wasn’t containing anything; it was a doorway. A 4D object casts a 3D shadow.

Yuu hunted down the librarian to ask him questions. The man emphasized that mutare was everywhere but had never seen anyone in this realm do corporra, cerrebra, or temporra.

Wayne had theorized that there was away to make the perfect body, unaging and able to do all magics. He was willing to kill as many people as needed.

After altering an apple, Niamh took a rank in Primorra, a skill called Astreus. She felt like it was pure mutare and tapped into the life domain.

Yuu tried to dissolve the wall near him and gained a rank in Perses (peredere). To everyone but them, there had never been a wall. Even looking back in time, there had never been a wall. (They lost all ranks in their other magics, but gained ranks per other magic.)

Niamh could no longer create a mug of ale, but Serif could make her a mug and then Niamh could fill it up. But it felt lighter after. Niamh couldn’t turn air into a stick, but dirt could. She could turn a mutare-infused dwal into a mug of ale (infused with mutare).

Umesh mentioned that you act as a conduit to mutare through touch. Niamh stepped back a couple inches and turned a mug of ale into a rock. Umesh freaked out a bit about Niamh doing something in six months that he hadn’t done in thousands of years. She lied and said she used a straw as a conduit.

Romy was a little overwhelmed by the idea of being a god, and she was unable to change things the way Niamh did. Serif reflected on facere and about it being pure creation, to create all aspects of what exists. Pure facere was likely what created human with thoughts, intellect, and emotions.

Yuu ran away to cry into a corner because the others were worried about having peredere around.

Romy expanded her hand, attempting to make a living stinky fish, flopping. She created a bucket of water and put the fish in it. Niamh turned the fish into a wet kitten. Then she made it a dry kitten that made fish faces. Then she made it a cat mentally, convincing it that it was a cat. She made a little collar out of a dwal and handed it back to Romy. Romy didn’t feel any different.

Romy tried to make another version of her sister Maria. She expanded her hand and Maria Osskohva appeared. Maria casually asked what’s up. When Romy told her that Romy had created her, it didn’t go well, and Maria was in denial. Maria only remembered up until she died (not after). This all just confused Romy more. (She got an Eos skill – Primorra of Facere.)

Umesh was just very confused. Serif reflected on that the others had the ability to create, delete, and change matter. But there was a fundamental missing piece around knowledge. (She unlocked Pallas, a form of Scire.) Serif could look into the past, but she couldn’t author anymore. However, Niamh discovered that she now have the ability.

Niamh authored a future where she found Yuu, and with her newfound reality-altering abilities she (with Yuu’s consent) equally blended their personalities.

Umesh was still freaking out about Romy creating a person out of thin air. Niamh made Umesh and Yuu margaritas. Niamh (with Yuu’s consent) gave Yuu a mouth and digestive system. She also made it so that they could sense temperature. She also build out a whole set of cloth from dirt so that they could resist the chill.

Yuu carved onto a desk in Madame V’s shop (in the real world): V CaN YUu REd Thiss? CarvE HERE _

Serif could see into the past to see what Wayne had created this world for one of his machinations, and she could also see into the real world and see where Wayne was, locked away in his time cubes.

Serif watched as Madame V cursed and went to get an old chisel. Madame V responded; “Yes, Very rude. Who are you?”

Niamh made the desk new and separated Siobhan and Purusha. Yuu almost carved the next message when Niamh pointed out that Romy could make a note with a letter appear.

Serif reflected that nothing could be create, nothing could be destroyed, only transformed. Facere doesn’t create, it only bought things from other planes to yours. Peredere just removed it from your plane and put it on another. Death also just brought souls to another plane.

Niamh determined that Yuu could create a hole between the planes, and Romy could heal it. A circle of black crackling lightning showed up, revealing the same room. They stepped through, and Romy closed up the hole.

Niamh authored them to the Spire. The boat had been crashed into the rocks. The spire’s red surface had been marred with a large black crack. Smoke billowed out.

Niamh used mutare to pull the peredere out into a gemstone, and Yuu sent the peredere back to peredere. With his touch, it disappeared. Niamh also removed mutare from inside the Spire.

Reflecting on their new immortality, Niamh offered to make Romy immortal, but Romy wanted to grow up (without magical intervention).

Niamh authored them to the beach. Falling back into the stand, she stood up with wings, becoming a winged dwarf.

They removed everyone’s knowledge of peredere and how to create it.

Niamh finally asked Serif why they were gods. She told them that they fucked around with all the magics. They acquired all four primorras. Within Serif’s view, she didn’t see any other “gods”.

Their divinity had dawned.

Serif projected the dwal forge and found another being close to godhood. They had an aspect of pure mutare, like the embodiment of mason. Niamh, Serif, Yuu, and Romy were the forms, and the being was an essence.

The pantheon of Vallina made a floating city that overlooked the blood spire.

However, Niamh found that she could not change Wayne’s form to be flesh and blood. He did not consent.