WWW #52: No Loose Ends

This is the sound of Worlds Beyond Number.

The bright light of early afternoon fills the majestic columns, faunting arches, emerald and cream,

tiles of blue and ruby and emerald.

The Pyrrheon Dome,

Five Thrones, the Arch Magi, Saber, Sand,

Sorrow, Serenity, and Silence, smiling at his apprentice archmage.

In recognition of your field promotion to Sage of the Penumbra, you are welcomed amongst the leadership of the Citadel Wizard Sky.

A quick ascent befitting the honored heritage of your name cloak.

We are sorry to see your staff has been sundered.

A replacement will be requisitioned for you.

Appreciated.

Thank you.

Suffie takes a deep breath.

No notes,

but

even in the brief time she's had to try to organize her thoughts cohesively,

it's still the waffling back and forth.

She knows

and remembers everything

that she said she was stepping back from and away from.

But at the end of all things,

this is my home.

I will protect it.

I will save it.

And I know enough to save it from

what I know is coming.

And Subi's hands immediately like go to

clasp themselves and you can just see that her thumb is running across the space on her other thumb where her father's ring, where her ring would be.

Don't forget the things you put away,

but know why you are willing to put them away.

Standing a little ways behind you towards the entrance hall is the smiling Wizard Steele, who's brought you here directly from Lucent.

She a little bit impertinently leans against a column, mostly due to exhaustion rather than a reverence, but is happy as she watches you address the assembled Archmagi.

Archmage Silence,

Archmagi of the Citadel.

My time away from the Arian in Akam and the North Pole and the Shroud Mountains has been both personally illuminating and essential for the preservation of our home as an imminent threat has made itself known.

A great spirit who counts among his many appellations, the man in black, king of night, pilgrim under stars, the stranger, Lucio the Ferryman.

has formed a coalition whose goal is to attack and destroy the citadel, calling it, and I quote, a knife plunged plunged into the heart of the world.

The Coven of Elders, whose conclave I attended in the retinue of Ahme of Toma, witch of the world's heart, has voted three to two to join themselves to the Man in Black's crusade.

While unanimity would have had a multiplicative effect on the power they would lend, this remains a cause for concern.

Other members of this coalition include two great spirits, Arima of the Reaching Green and the King of Storms.

Their inclusion seems at first glance an act of vengeance for the capture of Naram of the Gentle Sea within the

Calibel Notomantic apparatus in Port Talon, given their relation to this great spirit as partner and parent, respectively.

It is worth noting that Naram himself is not counted alongside them.

Additionally, Some unknown but likely sizable amount of the forces of Ruve are aligned to this purpose as well, though I have not yet surmised the connection between the Man in Black and the Dominion.

The witches that voted for war on the Citadel are Hakea of the Woodland Green, an ancient and powerful forest witch that formed the coven long ago.

Her grudge likely stems from an abundance of nostalgia for the forest that predates the Aerulean Desert.

Grimor of the Wild Hunt, the hyper-violent patron witch of predators, and murderer of the wizard's straw.

Her potential weak points include her very young apprentice, Aksha, her Wolfman spirit, Paramore Heinruhl, and her own impatience.

Marara of the Waning Moon, second youngest but physically strangest of the Coven, and Paramore of the Men in Black.

At the conclave, she was shocked to discover that she was also to be destroyed alongside Ame of Toma to preserve the balance of the Coven's ability to create a majority vote, meaning her shaken loyalty to her sisters is a potential point of exploitation.

Those that voted against war on our home are Ame, the witch of the world's heart, and Indri, witch of the wind and stars.

It is imperative to note that Indri possesses the ability to bypass our wards and scry directly into the Erian.

I witnessed her doing so the night of my name cloaking when she additionally sent a pair of ice fairy spirits to contact Ahme directly on Gavril Court.

They spoke of long lancing spells and vexing hexes of old, being made many to pierce and plunder through the guises and guile of wizards, and seeing into this hidden place through crystal and through cause.

What little I could parse magically at the time placed a star as the scribe's point of origin.

I apologize for the appearance of withholding this information until now, but I lacked context for the import of the occurrence.

Given my subsequent journey to the palace at the North Pole, I've ascertained that her library of stars is the means of her surveillance.

The mechanism is devastatingly simple to work, which I managed even in the limited time I had within the library.

A little polite giggle from the Arch Magi at this last statement.

But back to my broader point.

I believe that the Man in Black and his retinue's best chance to lay low the Citadel with maximum casualties to both the global population of Citadel-trained wizards and key figures in the Imperial administration would be a surprise ambush during our bicentennial later this year.

It would be the highest risk, tactically, given the added security protocols we would have in place to support such a gathering and the aggregate strength of the personnel in attendance, but would yield the highest reward if successful.

It would tip the scales of war in our enemy's favor, but it would also send quite a message to all of Umora about the fragility of young, impetuous wizardry compared to the magic of witches and spirits.

Pageantry in the service of cowing mortal striving.

An intoxicating draw.

If Indry is persuaded to join their cause, her library of stars could be the key to bypassing or dismantling our defenses.

Unfortunately, without some means to remotely access it or replicate it and create countermeasures, my best proposed course of action would involve somehow tampering with or completely destroying hers.

To that end, I have drawn up the best map of the Palace of Winds and Stars that I could manage in the brief and heavily monitored time I spent therein, as well as outlined the abilities both inferred and witnessed of all relevant figures.

May this knowledge stoke and safeguard the light of the tower.

And CV just gives a little nod and a salute.

Silence goes, Brava, brava.

An exceptional report marked for posterity at the opening of the office of the Sage of the Penumbra, who is tasked in the utmost with protecting the citadel from the enterprising and cunning of witches.

Well done, Wizard Sky.

Saber says, A question then, if you would.

This

coven of elders,

what weakness of theirs

have you come across?

Is there any source of their magic or power that may be interacted with directly other than

engaging with them as individual combatants?

Yes, sir.

Every coven is magically marked by the presence of a wand of covenant.

It binds them together, and their rules for the numbers they must maintain is a part of the magic that keeps their coven

magically

tied and powerful in their agreement and unanimity.

The wand of covenant

when I departed from the conclave

it was in

the top of a tall tower in the Palace of Wind and Stars.

I assume it is still there.

Sabre turns to the Archmager.

Then it is more important than ever that we mount some assault on that frozen north and the witch who lies at the top of our world.

You see, Silence nods and says, Archmage Apprentice and Sage of the Penumbra, we thank you for your report in this endeavor.

Please turn your attention to the amassing of any information you can give about the nature of this wand, its construction or discovery, as it may hold the key to breaking the cavern's strength without need of individual combat.

For indeed, with apprentices, it seems that these witches may be able to repopulate even if defeated hand to hand.

Understood.

When I was giving information about the Library of Stars,

Can I make an insight check to see if there was any sort of like reaction to Suvi's discussion of the Library of Stars.

Give me an insight to check.

13.

These Ark Magi

aren't familiar enough with the details of your mission to know what you're talking about.

Nope, that was very good intel.

Got it.

You suddenly realize the sword of the Citadel is holding a lot.

Oh, that's interesting.

Okay.

At that,

Suvi

takes that like big, you just gave a big presentation.

Thank you.

You are dismissed, Wizard Sky.

And Subi gives a deep and respectful bow.

As you turn to walk, you see that Steele smiling at this incredible report that has just given all this wealth of information to the Pyrrhion Dome, winks and flicks something with her thumb to you.

Oh, yeah.

I'm going to like do a little like adjustment of clothes to try to hide catching it center mass instead of like looking like she's catching something.

Gotcha.

You just get it to your body.

Yeah.

Your father's emerald ring lands in your hand.

Hard to throw away.

She puts a hand on your shoulder.

You knocked him dead, kid.

I do feel like everything I said, you might already know.

Well, no, you told me a bunch of this in Bracken, but the laying.

It's important to lay it out for them piece by piece by piece.

Like, we got the covering up about the stars because you told us that.

But

it's all good.

Yeah.

Everything's good.

You see that she starts walking with you through the gardens of Malakanth towards the Tower of the Glove.

I have a lot

of work I have to go manage following up on these battles, so I'm going to go head off and do that.

Go get the curse taken off of your arm.

The fuck.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, I'll go get that.

I am in the army.

Also, why aren't you dying of that?

Old lady's got some tricks.

Okay, okay.

Old lady's got some tricks.

Okay, too mean to die.

Oh, you haven't seen me be mean.

I mean, I think I have.

I think me and all of House Routines are.

How about it?

You see, she looks in and says,

Amay and Ursulan.

Where did they head?

When did you part ways with them?

We got separated in the garrison.

And here, Suvi gets a little slow

and scrambles to

like editing film to create a truth that cuts out

their participation as much as possible.

I

was moving through the halls

and a shadow jumped out at me.

And when I ducked from that, I got arrested.

So,

somewhere in the garrison.

Give me deception if you feel that's appropriate.

Yeah.

12.

Steel's rolling disadvantage with a level of exhaustion.

Oh, God, thank God.

She just sort of goes, yeah.

Well, we should talk about that because they're uh

with with the coven and everything, Ahme is going to be very

important

in

what is to come and um

Ursulon as well.

It's interesting.

Let me be so clear.

I ran it by them.

It was a big old no,

but I know you're not surprised by that.

What's a big old no?

Oh, their

continued existence.

Oh, got it, got it, got it, yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand.

I understand.

Hey, real quick, just last question before I let you go off and again, not go to work, go get a curse taken off of you.

I know, for sure.

What was Slate gonna do?

Oh, arrest them.

All right.

Uh, give me an insight check.

Why worse?

Nine.

Wizard Steel looks at you.

Uh, arrest them if she could, but who knows?

I didn't know, you know, I didn't, I didn't know what was happening.

I didn't know you were.

I knew you were alive because I saw the flare go up, but I didn't know if you were free or captured, or the Ersline captured, Amy captured, the Coven.

I didn't know, I didn't know what's going on.

Okay, oh,

uh

Wizard Keen.

What's his deal?

Wizard Keen, I don't know who that is.

Who is that?

Oh,

just meant a weird dude in Braggin.

Guild mages are

trash.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He was weird about the prince at me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What do you know about the prince?

What I know about the prince, I'll never tell.

I will not tell you.

This is my one chance to win this fight.

Uh-uh.

And I'm going to grab her and be like, you tell me.

You tell me if I have a shot.

The prince.

Ugh, if I tell you this,

the prince is.

the prince was impressed.

He likes me.

I knew it.

There was a moment on the ship.

Yeah.

All right.

Go, go, go away.

They don't marry wizards.

And you see this.

Okay, I could be the first of a lot of things.

She smiles.

As she's turning, she says,

and he brings you to the Tower of the Glove and just goes.

The

curse.

Taking care of business, looking into things.

Well done in the dome.

Get any books.

Do get started on work.

This is your position.

It's yours to make what you will.

We're counting on you.

And it's really, you want to hit the ground running.

You don't want to get.

Don't become one of the hustlers.

Don't become one of the people who's making connections with other wizards.

Be someone who gets things done.

The Ark Magi, they're not interested in the people that wheel and deal.

They're interested in results.

That's who they reward.

It's your opportunity to make the most of.

This witch war is being put squarely on your plate.

I think your ace in the hole here is probably Ame, and I know that she doesn't want to help, but Toma does not have the amenities of the Citadel.

If we were to bring her into the fold, there's a world where maybe she's a coven of one.

Who knows?

Gotcha.

Get Yulia to get anything for you.

Get your ink demons to get anything for you.

Because

what I want to remind you of is

I'm still cleaning some things up.

So I would

just stay

seated in the tower for the foreseeable future.

And just because we've had this problem in the past, I really mean it.

Yeah, okay.

Okay, I hear you.

Is there any way to spare Silver?

You look at a very tired woman.

I know, I know, I know.

Please, I am already responsible for the destruction

of a wizard.

I don't want to

on my ledger.

We have magic.

We can take away the conversation

and take away him having my name and it will be fine.

We can excise excise the bad and save the rest of him.

He's good.

He didn't do anything wrong.

Give me an insight check, Subi.

Five.

Rolling with disadvantaged steel rolls in that one, and you look at her face

and see her looking

horrified as she wonders why you seem so familiar with the magic of modifying memories.

Fuck.

What do you mean,

Subi?

I don't know

what

happened to me.

But I know at some point

my memory was modified by magic.

I don't know what I lost,

but I assume that I agreed to it.

The timelines don't work if that wasn't the case.

Steele looks like her bells rung.

She's so tired.

Get in the tower.

I'll figure everything out.

Just get in the tower.

I love you.

I will not survive another disappointment.

And Sevi turns and walks and goes into the tower.

Striding across the sky bridge into the tower of the glove,

Suvi arrives back at her wizard's tower.

Much changed, I think, since last you were here before boarding the meridian to fly to the far north.

God,

those first few steps in,

remembering the emotional

sort of timbre that I left in, I like peek into the rooms

that were assigned to Ami and Ursulan.

I had Yulia pack them up immediately.

I was mad at the way they left.

I understand better now.

And it all feels just so big and still unfilled and unfamiliar

and really,

really lonely.

It does not get less lonely as you stand in that feeling.

I'm gonna go up to the very top of the tower, my little sanctum, the only

room

that

is warded and locked so that

I alone can decide who goes in and out of that place.

And just kind of sit in.

And knowing that I had just asked to have the illusions taken away, I'm just going to enjoy kind of laying down in the middle of the carpet that still has the stains of Cyril's ink from his poetry.

And just look up at the illusory sky

and feel how different I feel

from the last time I did this.

Just

a month ago?

Yeah.

You see, your effects have been left in a beautifully carved wooden chair outside of your sanctum.

One of which is Vandal's book, his little empty glass bottle next to it there.

Oh, that's a thing I can do, or

I guess try to.

Uh, yeah, I'm gonna go for the book,

and I don't want to interact with the rest of my objects because that reminds me too much of

that awful interaction with Slate

and go back in.

And

I know whatever happened in

that altercation with Keen and the other guild mages

put Vandal into some sort of torpor, but I know

if I had my magic back,

this would be a simple

ritual to bring him back.

And I move over to one of my ritual circles.

Chalk lines meticulously drawn out.

When you have plenty of time and you want to make it extra pretty.

God.

God, me a month ago.

So fussy.

I still don't know if I

can

do

magic when I try.

And I haven't put the ring back on yet.

Because the ring is still a snitch.

I want to reach for my magic again, but I'm scared.

Because I don't know what I am if I reach for it and nothing comes back.

This is all I've ever known.

This place and the achievement that comes with

moving into this tower is all I've ever known and all I've ever known to want.

I don't know who I am

if I'm not

the wizard sky in the tower of the glove.

And I don't know who I'm supposed to be.

But I don't feel like any of it right now.

Because I'm too scared to try to cast a spell to bring back Vandal,

who has saved my ass

so many times.

Give me a history check.

Natural 20.

Empty glass bottle.

Book open.

That line of wet red ink resting in torpor near the spine of the book.

On a Nat 20,

Subi, what was your favorite color when you were young?

It was red.

Even though I remember.

I remember one of the first things I ever told Ahme when we met that my favorite color was lilac.

But it was red.

Even though no other mortal or spirit in the world knew that, because for some reason you would not tell them that was true.

What is true?

A Nat 20 history,

you have to rely somewhere on something solid.

Finding the truth is maybe impossible.

You feel the yips, this impossibility, this terror of reaching out for something that defines you and it not being here and wouldn't that in a sense destroy you.

You can't find the truth right now.

You're too shaken.

Are you the person that shattered the glass staff in the smuggler's cave?

Are you the person that felt an embrace from an uncle you never thought you'd have?

Are you the person that walked arm in arm up an invisible staircase with a woman who was going to show you the world?

Those can't be the same person, can they?

You can't find the truth, but you are brilliant, and on a NAT20 history, you can find lies.

You said the only thing you'd ever wanted was something like this achievement in the tower.

That's not

true.

On a NAT20 history, I want you to remember the things that Sufi has wanted in her life.

There were things long ago that she wanted.

You have to remember them.

I wanted to learn magic.

I just wanted to know

how many ways

I could touch and know and be known by this world.

So big and magical.

And before I could touch magic and cast it,

I wanted to know about the plants,

all the trees, all the leaves around

in the forest around Grandma Wren's, around Ahme's cottage.

I wanted

to be able to keep my family safe and together.

I wanted to play with my friends.

I wanted to know magic.

I want to know magic because I love magic.

I love this world so much and I want to understand it.

And I don't know when I stopped asking

any questions

and just listened

and did what I was told.

That's who you were

before you stopped asking questions.

This

was not all you ever wanted.

You wanted to know how to catch a rooster under a bucket with your true friend.

You wanted to know what kept your mother and father up at the kitchen table, excitedly jabbering with each other about some minutiae of a spell that found spirits, the tiniest criticism of one another in the way that intellectuals do about the working of a shield spell.

Their love for you, their love for the world, your love for the world, your love for those you hold close.

It cannot be separated.

It is an insult

to wizardry to insist on its cold sterility, on its perfect geometry.

The geometry of wizardry is a love letter to the mathematics of creation, to the music of the spirit and the real and where they dance together.

This is art and science.

It is magic true.

This is what you love.

And you loved it more than you loved any tower.

I look down and I'm holding Vandal's book.

Then my eyes kind of flash to that little bit of sand in an old vial.

The white sand from the shattered glass staff.

And just looking at it, it shatters.

And just with her eyes, no hands, no gestures,

she wills the sand to trace over the chalk outline of the sigil that she's sitting in.

I love my magic.

I love magic.

I can do this

because I am not limited.

By the things I have learned and have to remember.

My friends are magic and so am I.

The sigil lights replicates surrounding you in light.

The white sand of the Aerulean desert covers you, and

you see the sand shoot towards the bottoms of your hands and under your fingernails.

And suddenly, light is pouring out of your eyes, and you are lifted up in the air, and it pours out of your mouth.

You feel a tickling sensation of something cold and effervescent, like the bubbles of a carbonated drink, or something like the cool breath of like a mint medicinal bomb that makes you suddenly the hackles of your neck rise up,

moves through you and throughout.

You are hanging in mid-air in your wizard's sanctum as this magic is called to you.

Do you want to level up right now?

Yeah,

Fuck yes.

You level up to fifth level.

In front of you, your own spell book opens wide and you instantly scribe the rest of Counterspell.

It just starts burbling out of you.

It's flow state.

You can't help.

The writing is effortless.

And immediately you need ink.

You need ink to finish this writing.

And

a vandal pops out of the book, surrounded by glass hand, and begins to bring you suspended in air, vials of arcane ink from your shelves.

Oh dick, this is great.

I fucking love you.

Let's go.

I fucking love you.

And

roars to as lights shine even in broad daylight from below.

People can see the light of the Tower of the Glove as spells fire off from within in an act of pure discovery, creation, craft, and wizardry.

Some time later, having descended from the sudden burst of magic as you finish transcribing the last,

it's so not what was immediately pressing to you.

But finishing Counterspell, it's just the first time that you allowed passion to dictate flow state and move you into like, wait, what I love is spells.

I think it's that.

I think that's what the moment is.

Like, Suvi putting that together and finishing and feeling like

joyful and in sync with the things that she wants and that she cares about and that she wants to know more about.

She thinks one more time back

memory to the thing.

She learned a wrong lesson when she was very young.

And she thought that when her father was telling her about where magic began, she thought he was gesturing to his ring.

She thought she needed that.

That was the thing that would allow her to cast.

And it was just her hands.

What will you take into them?

What will you care about?

What will you craft?

What do you hold?

And she looks down at like the splotches of ink

and

looks over at Vandal.

And the ink on her hands is red.

Because her favorite color is red.

And she thinks

of Ahme.

And she realizes,

where the fuck are my friends?

Coming to

having slept a deep, exhausted slumber on several sacks of flour in a dark closet, Ahme, witch of the world's heart, awakens hiding in a supply area of the Candle Street bakery, the fox snoozing beside you.

Having alighted to Malakanth's court, you immediately wended your way to find a safe place to rest after almost 20 hours of flying.

Morning.

Morning, boss.

It sort of nuzzles up at your neck and...

How you feeling?

feeling

a little hungry.

It's not too much meat around here.

I ate a mouse, but

that is it.

Oh, like your breath is so great in the morning.

Okay, well, let's see if we can rustle up some grub for us.

The door opens, and Mr.

Callum pokes his head in.

Hello, hello, Miss Witch.

Good to see you again.

How was your slumber?

Oh, thank you so much for letting us sleep here.

Oh, it was a delight.

It was a request that I had no idea how to respond to, so I defaulted to the affirmative.

Yes, you know, a lot of times they don't make rules until somebody crazy enough to do it does it.

Well, I can't report it yet until my shift is done.

When's that?

In about six hours.

Oh, okay.

Well, six hours.

Great.

Um, I hope you enjoy the new berry, the the berry tart recipe.

Yes, and your little fuzzy friend here, would he launch something along the lines of uh we have some cured meats?

I think he'd appreciate that very much.

Those meats will cure me, am I right?

Mr.

Callum!

Mr.

Callum!

And Mr.

Callum turns around and walks off, gets some meat, and tosses it to the fox.

So, boss, what's the plan?

So, first, I think that we should investigate into what happened to the Artificer

I think

we have some time yet before the Epiphany arrives back in Malacanth.

Oh, the Epiphany's back.

Oh?

Yeah, Epiphany's back.

Don't worry, I didn't wake you up.

What?

Okay.

I knew you needed your rest.

What?

When have you ever...

Okay, all right.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, yeah,

Task freaked out.

He was freaking out.

I was like, don't you wake her up.

Where's Task?

I don't know.

You don't know.

Yeah, he was like, he was like, ticky, ticky, ticky, ticky, ticky.

And he was like trying to wake you up.

And I was like, get out of here, you bug.

I slept through all of it.

Okay.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Callum.

And I grab my things and I

head out,

disguising myself once more.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, where are we?

Where, where, where, where are we going?

Can we pick up, can we pick up the scent of gulp again, by the way?

Go ahead and give me a survival check for the fox.

16 total.

He goes.

Not Gulp, but maybe the.

I got the scent of the guy,

the one we followed from Adam.

Marshmallow Sandwich.

Yeah, whoever marshmallow sandwiches, I have his scent.

I could probably follow him somewhere.

But, boss, listen.

When you charge down a hole, it's not always just rabbits down there.

What's the plan if we find where Gult is?

Well,

hmm.

Amei

rifles around in her bag for a moment and pulls out a sheaf of papers.

In the storeroom, she lays out the correspondence she found in Grandmother Wren's cottage after her flight from the Citadel.

There's some sort of blueprints or schematics here.

I know that whoever Marshmallow Sandwich is or was working for was looking for it.

Perhaps that can elucidate a bit.

Go ahead and give me investigation or arcana.

That's a nut 20, baby.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

You begin to look at the pendant and you see

that

these schematics were drawn up.

in a particular

ward of the city.

There's one of the one of the courts of the citadel is called Tuckland, and it is a secretive artificing ward that is not with the general mill production down in Haverward.

It looks like these plans were originally drawn up in Tockland.

It's where a lot of theoretical work happens, blueprints, schematics, things that they don't want to leave lying around in Haverward.

It looks like Gult at times, if he drew up these schematics there, as you believe he did, would have been working during that chapter of his life, not in Haverward, but in Tockland.

And

you look at the schematics and see that these are copies, and that anyone that would have been able to attach Galt to this project may have been able to pull the originals of this from records, likely in that court.

Do I know where the court is?

You see that Mr.

Callum nearby goes,

Well, are you looking forward?

Talkland Court?

Talkland Court.

It will be one of the beautiful bronze and copper with it will have many various clock towers on it.

It's about, I think, seven courts behind Malakan.

Oh, excellent.

Thank you.

Is there any chance that you wouldn't have to report this?

Give me a preservation check.

Uh,

perhaps in exchange for a recipe for a glaze for the tart, and that is 21.

Why?

A new recipe?

Well, I would love to see a new recipe.

All right.

And do you produce a recipe for a nice sugar glaze?

That's right.

As you produce it, you see he says,

very well.

Normally, I am absolutely given to report any strange occurrences in the bakery.

However,

new recipe research is actually one of my directives, and therefore, this is completely pro forma.

Thank you.

Absolutely not strange at all, I say, as I finish, as I finished copying down from memory a beautiful lavender sugar glaze.

Gorgeous sugar glaze.

So, the fox has the guys sent, and you know the court that you think has some connection to these schematics there.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Also,

hmm,

Can I do a little cursory search for for Task or see if perhaps he's left a note or give me an investigation?

13

It does not appear that Task has left anything here by way of an investigation.

Hmm.

Well, I assume that he went to go find Suvi.

Oh, okay.

Let's chase this down first.

Okay, talk.

You and the fox head back out.

It is now, having slept, it is getting into the late hours of the afternoon.

The sky is darkening a little bit.

And you get aboard your Gallithopter with your artificer's gloves and fly all the way back up.

Because now Malacanth is lowering, so you have to fly up towards Tockland, which is up near to the height of the citadel at this moment.

I am in the form of a sandy-haired older man, very gruff and with rough hands.

You arrive in Tonkland go ahead and give me a survival check

that's another nat 20 oh my god that's crazy witch of the world's heart you are fucking cooking with gas and you realize

you are

exactly in wren's footsteps a witch who came to the citadel as a friend many times as a friend so that she would be able to come here and occasionally steal, pilfer, and rescue.

And as you arrive in Tockland, it is a massive copper court.

Pneumatic tubes shooting schematics and missives back and forth, just rife with clock towers.

The sounds of ticking make stealth effortless here.

There is so much noisy clockwork everywhere.

Cuckoo clocks going off all around as you and the fox dive into the shadows and begin to move.

Of course, actually, and the fox is in front of you, sort of sniffing away, but you look just like a blonde artificer moving through this space.

You arrive at a massive palatial,

very

embossed and filigreed.

There are like stone flowers and leaves, but it's almost a civic bank-like structure or like a big civic courthouse with many clock towers above it.

And you see

at floor floor level on a nat 20 that there are in the basement of this place

some iron barred windows

it looks like it might be a courthouse something like that obviously this is not a long-term prison but what you suddenly think or realize to yourself if you were able to follow the

the marshmallow man the guards sent here

you see the fox looks up at you and says boss I'm getting gulp again.

He's nearby.

All right.

He's in the temporary jail.

On that NAP20 survival, I'm going to say you realize the reason he's in the temporary jail is not that he's there temporarily.

He's in the jail of the building where he that has the research.

Like he's being kept here and basically pressed for schematic information review.

They've dragged him to a location to squeeze what he knows out of him

In a place where that information can go to immediate work.

Alright, what do the

defenses look like in this place?

The bars are magically sealed.

You see, the fox looks at them and goes,

dang it.

If only we knew

someone who could break bars or chains or something like that.

Hmm.

Ame is going to look around

for a door.

I'll say on that Nat 20 survival, you see that there are a number of shops and places nearby.

You see, in the middle of a three-street intersection, so it's like one of those little whimsical three-part intersections.

In the middle of that, there is a tiny little one-story

gift shop that sells watches and clocks and wind-up toys and little dolls.

And you see that it has a door that goes into the shop, and there is a smaller, like closet door in the back over the kiosk counter.

Is it manned right now?

Yes, it is.

You see that there is an old grey, sort of broom-like mustached man who's standing there at the kiosk.

As, you know, it's not very busy.

It's getting sort of later in the evening, so only a few carts are going by.

It looks like he might be wrapping up for the night pretty soon.

When you say pretty soon, I think I can

wait for a moment.

Okay, you wait, and after a while, he locks up.

It's now true evening.

The sun has set as you stay here,

and you feel yourself

looking at that shop.

He walks away, leaving the kiosk unattended, and a little iron grate lowered to cover the front.

After the shop has been closed,

how easy is it for me to find my way in?

The door inside is locked and the iron grate closed, but there is an interior deadbolt on the kiosk door, and the grate, while it would keep a person out, would not keep a fox out.

Oh, hey, fox.

Yeah.

Can you go on in and get us in there?

You got it.

You see that the fox

pops through the iron grate, skitters around.

Something falls.

A bunch of little wind-up monkeys scatter on the ground.

He hops up onto a counter and gets his paw and pushes the sort of swinging mechanism of the dead bolt and the door unlocks.

I slip inside, lock it behind me.

Hell yeah.

You get inside the kiosk and you see that unattended, very plain wooden closet door.

Is the door locked?

I try it.

You open it and see there's some small supplies, various refreshments of some of the, you know, packaging for some of the wares sold here.

I duck into the closet and close it behind me.

I start taking out the doorknob and replacing it with the doorknobs of common cause.

Go ahead and give me a tool proficiency check, and the fox will help you here.

Another Nat 20.

Footsteps

on the road

from Starling's Ford to Toma.

This road has been here for centuries, dirt-packed, ditches on either side,

broad,

wide.

It's a dark forest,

well past the hours of night where some would stay wakeful.

A lone spirit walks down the road in the dark.

A spirit of freedom,

a wild one,

an honored friend.

How does it feel walking down a road alone at night?

How does it feel walking back to the cottage

after

all that noise and merriment,

knowing that there will not be a single waking human waiting there for you?

The cottage will be silent when you return.

Ursulan's head hangs low as he walks along the road,

his eyes fixed on his feet,

focusing on his steps,

making sure he doesn't fall

as he replays the moments in his head.

The man in black

on his ferry,

Sukurin

bleeding,

Neath,

the children,

Neron.

The moments play and replay.

Ursulan lost in thought.

There would be feelings that most would have walking down a dark road in the middle of the night.

Ursulan's

wild eyes perceive the forest perfectly here in the dark.

As any nocturnal creature would

you've come down this road before you came down it as a child truth is for ursulan it's usually been safer to walk in the middle of the night it's a time for spirits time when humans

their spells and cages are less likely to be out and about

And yet there is something so strange about hearing the echo of footsteps off the little embankments, the pastoral fences.

There's that windmill up on that hill.

You've seen that a couple times.

This is about as close as you got to Starlings Ford the first time you came by here on your way away from Grandmother Wren's cottage.

It's so

quiet and pleasant in the countryside on your long walk back.

You just saw two great spirits.

You just saw

a ghost.

You just saw those children waving to you

with every ounce of gratitude for the spirit that saved them all.

Heartbreak, triumph.

Your quest achieved.

And yet,

new horrors abound.

What moments do you come back to over and over again on the long walk to Toma?

Ursulan attempts to dwell and focus

on the children and Neif

being carried away by by that wave

headed for Rhymers Bay.

But again and again

the memory is muddled and interrupted

by the insistence of the man in black that Sir Curran tell Ursulan how he died.

Ursulan fixates not just on the strangeness of the request, but also the tone

and the insistence

of the man in black that Sir Curin tell it to him

you have to keep going back to that

it is a side of that spirit you had never seen

Orima had clearly kept her word.

Naram was ready to answer the call of Wavebreaker.

Something made you turn around and go back to Toma, even when the man in black had laid out that he would transport those children home.

Something made you turn around.

Perhaps it was simply

you had grown tired of not staying dedicated to your purpose.

You had set out to speak to Arima, and to Arima you would speak, but was there something else?

even then,

beneath your awareness but still present in your heart that said you must speak to another?

Arima,

inviting you to eat of the offering, for you are a spirit too.

You are not a cub, you are a warrior, a hero, a knight.

If you may indeed be called that.

What else is one who completes completes a quest to save those that cannot save themselves?

To choose danger for themselves over another.

To seek a brighter day.

The man in black spoke to Curran in a way you had never heard him speak, always in speaking to you.

In the forest of fire, in the near spirit of the citadel, in the grove of the well when Badze swallowed you up,

and on the river before Twelve Brooks, each time he had spoken to you, there had been

calm,

understanding.

There was something there that you've never seen before.

On the long walk back to Toma, I'll allow Ursulan to make three separate skill checks as he replays those moments in time.

I'll let you roll the numbers before you assign them, but you must pick three different skills for each one.

19 Insight

11 Survival

5 Religion

You walk by

some old moss-covered statues, weather-eroded.

The faces aren't even visible anymore.

They're covered in lichen.

But the statues were of some kind of humanoid figure.

On that five religion,

you just wonder.

Man in black is a great spirit.

He

is present here in a calm, but he is worshipped by a different name in the Shroud Mountains.

It is the rare great spirit that is truly omnipresent.

Those chalices on his vest,

they even seem to sing his songs in ruve.

On a five religion, you don't find any answers.

Just a vast and mighty spirit.

On 11 survival, you look at the road here.

What did he say about Wren?

Was he trapped on this road?

You start to piece something together like you're tracking some prey somewhere.

Because he did, right?

He tried to kill Wren.

He said it was desperate.

But you know what attacking a witch can do.

Was there something Wren could do to him as a result of his effort to strike strike her down?

Was he trapped?

Why did Wren tell Suvi

never to set a foot on the road?

Why was it Suvi's foot that mattered?

What is it about her

and her alone

that was the thing Wren couldn't stop?

You don't have answers there either, but you know that there's a trail.

On a 19 insight,

why does Ursulan think the man in black

spoke the way he did?

It was different.

How?

What was different about it?

You know it was different, but what did you hear in his voice at the river?

Replaying the memory, Ursulan

fixates

on the aggression, the insistence.

The man in black wanted Ursulan to know

that moments, hours after he was inspired by Sir Curran,

that he fell

and fell in a way that was not honorable.

It was a show

for you.

That you know.

The aggression,

the display of it

was

for you.

But on a 19 Insight, it wasn't directed at you.

He wanted you to see it.

What could that mean if it...

if it was meant for you to see, if it was all a show for you,

but that you weren't the source of it?

What was the source of his fury?

He called Curran a dog.

You've never heard the man in black speak like that.

You've never heard him offer a word of insult to anybody.

What is that

give me one last

check with advantage and i think this is whatever check you feel like would be purely accessing your breath whatever you think that role should be on your character sheet

19 survival

He degraded him because he hates him.

In Ursulan's long experience as a spirit trapped in the world of mortals,

what are the things that make you hate something?

Why hate?

Why would the man in black hate Curran?

Ursulan

begins flipping through memories

times

he has experienced or witnessed

what he believes is hatred.

He thinks of the peddler

at the tavern.

He thinks of the soldier in the village under the waterfall.

He thinks of the citadel and the casoff collection.

And I think his mind rests on this idea of

hating

that which you do not understand,

that which you cannot comprehend.

When Ursulan first came to the world of mortals

and saw something he could not understand,

what filled his heart?

Excitement, joy, wanting

the wind picks up and rustles all the branches of the trees of these woods, whips at your cloak.

The wisdom of your breath comes to you.

Spirit of freedom.

You came to a world and saw what you did not know

and loved it.

You came to a world and saw what you did not know and deemed it fair.

You were wild of the woods, so far from the world of mortals, and you came and saw what was good, and true, and noble.

And though it cost you your home and wayshadowed you in long years of heartbreak and sorrow,

always

within you, your breath rested on what was good here.

The King of Night

is in many ways

not only distant from you,

but now you realize perhaps the most opposing force you could know.

The Man in Black hates

what he sees in Curran.

He hates it because he cannot know it.

And in this moment you know the truth.

He is a spirit of the world of men and represents a deep truth of them.

The cottage comes into view.

What do you do as you approach?

Ursulan stops a moment to raise his head.

From his boots in the road to the stars, taking in the the beauty of the night sky.

Looks down,

again at the cottage,

begins walking,

and that walk becomes a run.

That run becomes him on all fours, charging to the home.

You land, feeling free and strong and wild as you arrive at the cottage.

At the front door, that door you walked in all those years ago.

Opening the door to step inside, to fill your belly with some food after the long travel.

You hear another door open up just beyond in the hallway.

Erica, you want to come on in?

Oh, hello.

Hello, hello, hello.

Look at that.

We're back.

We're back, baby.

Look at that.

No more of this solo shit.

No more of the solo shit.

No more contemplating the stars by my damn self.

I know.

We did so many episodes of All of Us.

Hello.

Ursulan, you step into the quiet cottage.

You don't see Download or the spirits.

It seems the spirits might have returned to their shrines and places because Neif is no longer here.

There is no, yeah.

There's no mortal, so they're just in their spiritual forms.

And

just the buzzing, the bees are quiet, it's nighttime, the goats are in the shed.

You see, Hannah Henamohe's up on his pole, like it is a place of time of rest here.

But as you walk in,

there's nothing light lit.

The cottage is perfectly dark because no one has had a fire going or anything.

But as you walk in, the door in the hallway closet opens.

Hello?

Hello?

Ursulan!

I'm gonna run to Hagama.

Where is Zooy?

Are you um the fox rushes in and rushes to the kitchen and starts scarfing down some cream.

Oh, where is everyone?

It's so dark in here.

Yes, uh, everyone is uh gone.

Um, Neif.

I snap my fingers and uh light lights go on.

A little fire in the hearth.

Oh, and some candles in the kitchen.

Where's Neif?

Uh, Neif has taken the children to Verak on Reimers Bay.

Neif?

Yes.

Took the children?

Yes, Neif is a...

Neif now has a familiar.

What?

Yes, and a hat.

Wow!

She's a real witch!

Yes,

very much so.

Oh, that's wonderful!

Are you okay?

I'm.

I mean.

It's.

It's been quite a few days.

But the children are safe and on their way.

I

sought help to return the children from the man in black.

From

as he has been a friend and kind to me in times before.

However, not in this case.

A friend to you in past.

Okay.

And

he was not a friend to you this time.

This is the important part?

Yes, I.

I do believe he understood what I was asking for, and yet hoped to use the children to serve his own aims.

But of course, you didn't allow that.

No,

and I fought his champion.

His

Sir Curran of the Hawthorne.

Immediately, Ame, you are filled with a rush of the whispering of wind on the branches.

You hear chimes outside going in the breeze, and the water, and all of the landscape of Toma tells you that quite near to here, a spirit of the dead walked this place.

A ghost?

A ghost?

You fought

the knight

who

I chased into this world.

Oh, Ursulan.

Ame tightens her hug.

You are a knight true.

I'm so sorry.

And you're alright?

I am.

Physically, you're alright, at least?

For the most part, yes.

Oh.

And

I think I have a great deal to to share with you about

where I'm going and

what I think I can do next.

But I also, Neram,

I could not stop the man in black and Sir Karun alone.

And Neram

interceded at great cost to himself.

And he is the one who is seeing the children home safely.

And he will see me to Gauthmai

to be with Gallio.

Wonderful.

I had been.

Well, I.

Hmm.

In light of this, I.

I was hoping to borrow your assistance in a

bit of a prison break.

Not Suvi's.

I still haven't found Suvi yet, but a true friend of Grandma Ren's.

But I.

Well.

The fox looks up with a mouthful of cream.

Like 80 feet that way through the closet.

I understand.

We're in the citadel.

The citadel.

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

Through that door is the citadel.

I hope no one comes to that kiosk.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

That'd be so bad.

Kiosk.

Yes, a gift shop.

Let's attend to your wounds quickly.

And so as I go start rummaging around in cupboards, pulling poultices and

salves and powders,

I...

fill him in on everything that I'd done so far.

Yes, and then we stole the papers from a clam cellar, and then uh, we went into Haverword, and then I disguised myself and went to Hannah, and then Golt.

And

I update him up until I walk through the door.

Yeah, and honestly, Ursula, as Ami's getting stuff and heals, are you going to cast cure wounds?

Yes, yes, cure wounds.

Give me a medicine check, by the way, here.

12.

As you rush in and begin to sort of affix the medicine to Ursulan, Ursulan, you can feel the wound healing back.

Go ahead and roll and let me know if you are able to heal all the damage.

There will be an additional effect.

Eight points is the total.

Cool.

So you need to get at least eight points healed in this spell to achieve an additional effect.

That's a seven on the die.

Let's go.

As you are healed by that potent spell and that medicine check from Ame, your attunement to Wave is restored.

You can feel even mentioning Naram that like your feeling of attachment to that blade comes back to you in this moment.

Peeking your head out, go ahead and give me a perception check.

Nat one.

Look crazy out there.

It's noisy.

There's a lot of clocks.

Where in the citadel is this?

Oh, it's a Talkland Court.

It's

sort of an artificer's.

Well, we're near the courthouse, and uh i think that uh galt the artificer is being held there uh in in order to extract information from him about something about suvi's pendant

makes sense you you've said that the sapphire was crafted with grandmother wren yes grandmother wren and uh stone and with galt's help in procuring the sapphire

And

I suppose he was picked up shortly after we visited him.

Understood.

Um, I can help you in this army.

Okay.

Do we know or do you understand the nature of Suvi's dilemma?

Or where she rests after all this?

Not yet, and I have lost track of Task.

I think the Epiphany has landed again, and Task has gone to find Suvi.

Hopefully, he'll find us again to try and tell us her whereabouts.

Okay.

We can talk more later, but I

the man in black, I he had offered you

the sword.

Yes.

Some sort of prophecy in the spirit world.

And he chose Sir Curran instead.

The ghost of Sir Curran.

It seems it must be the son of a great bear.

Oh.

Ugh.

Prophecies.

It seems like some sort of a cruel

needling for him to do such a thing.

I do not believe the man in black takes pleasure in choosing Sir Curan over me, though I do believe

in our meeting,

mine and Sir Curran's destinies were intertwined forever.

And you're saying that Naram is going to take you to Kalias?

Yes.

He will send an emissary or a messenger

in some day's time.

Okay, so you have some time?

Yeah.

Well,

I'll leave a note anyway.

And

I'm going to.

I think I'll just leave a note.

Great.

Fully just leave a note and

say that

we are

nearby and shall return shortly.

You leave the note on the kitchen counter.

You stand in

the hallway of the cottage of the Witch of the Worldsheart, looking through the closet door to the interior of a gift shop, an iron grate, and see the sky of the Arulean desert on the horizon.

As I step through, once again, my

disguise shifts me a little taller, a little

wider and

sandy hair don't be alarmed it's a disguise

we're doing disguises then

Ursulan is going to

step through and resume his glamour

Ame

you feel

on that nat 20 check you made before to install the doorknobs

Because the normal space beyond this closet door that is filled to all these these little magical toys and bric-a-brac is suddenly unaccessible, there's no way to get to it because it's on the other side of a door that can't open there.

The minute you install the knocker and there is suddenly a way to open that, there is a weird warping of extra-dimensional space as you open the door and a bunch of tiny little

monkey toys, like wind-up monkey toys, just

all shoot through the door into your satchel.

and the space around the echo, you hear a rushing of water under the cottage.

And the tiny little monkey toys all go,

and uh, okay,

sorry.

You see, the fox goes, These guys are tickling me.

And you can add a bunch of wind-up magic animated monkey toys to your inventory.

Yes!

Hell yeah.

Thank you.

Ursulan, once having passed through the door, is going to turn to Ame.

Ame,

are we entering the jail soon, or is there some sort of observation element you're hoping to include?

The fox has a NAT-20, had a NAT-20 survival to track him.

Yes.

You know the exact window that you believe Galt is in.

Oh, no.

Actually, no.

This is going to be pretty simple.

We know exactly which window he's in.

And I just need the bars to be cut.

Understood.

Thank you.

I'm going to need both of you to give me a stealth check as you approach the courthouse.

Ursulan is going to attempt to again call the shadows to our side and see if they respond.

How does Ursulan feel as he calls on the shadows?

I think Ursulan has a moment

of wondering

if the gifts given to him by the man in black, he should abandon those because they are now truly foes.

Can I do an inside check?

Sure.

18.

What does Ahme see on an 18?

I think Ahme sees Ursulan

conflicted.

I think there is a part of Ursulan

that admits that the man in black is truly his foe, and that using the powers and gifts that were given to him by the enemy means that those gifts and powers

should be rejected.

And conflicting those feelings is a sense that

maybe

this cause is not lost, and that perhaps someday

that foe could be made friend, and that these gifts could be worth having.

Seeing

the conflict that Ursulan feels in calling shadows

are you

hurting anyone by

using these uh

these

resources that seem so dark?

I mean, I d I do not believe so.

Then

I say that, you know, once a gift is given,

it is yours.

Ursula calls the shadows to our aid.

As you call them, you remember that they follow the command of the King of Night.

And what you can see

is that the King of Night has not ordered them otherwise.

The shadows move to your call.

Whatever there is to be said about the events of this past night,

the man in black knew your intention

to save those children by bringing them to their families in Rhymers Bay.

But what he did was adhere to your word, which was simply to bring them home.

He seemed happy to give that his own meaning.

A sword cuts both ways.

You can hold the king of night to his word.

You walk unseen in shadows.

Give me the stealth check.

16.

Plus 10 for 26?

Yes.

28.

You guys are gone.

You walk through Tockland, the clocks ticking, your sounds so muffled.

You're also rolling with advantage from your boots.

Wow.

Oh, yeah.

That's it.

33.

33.

Shadows.

Ursulan, you are a spirit fully possessed of your breath.

Ahme, you are a witch with a flying broom.

You walk through shadows.

The fox ahead points out to a set of bars.

You look down,

completely sure that you are settled and fine.

Ame, do you leave the you have the brass knocker up on the doorknob?

You look down and see in chains is Gulf.

The issues that it face you, solid iron bars, also with an arcane lock upon them.

So there's a spell across the iron bars as well.

And then through the narrow window opening, you see that Gult is also chained with similar arcane manacles on the other side.

Erston is going to gently remove Wavebreaker to dispel the magic on the iron bars.

Holding the sword of the Wave Lord aloft.

You hear the crashing of a wave and the magic leaves the bars.

Second level arcane lock dispelled with no need for a roll.

Yes.

Now the bars need to be removed so that we can get through.

Yeah.

Ursulan is going to put hands on them and give them just a good nudge.

Give me an athletics check.

Strongest man in Silvery.

We'll see.

And Arme, if you want to give a help action, yeah, you can do this.

Absolutely.

Just put your back into it.

Yeah.

Wow.

Here you go.

Rolling with advantage.

Natural 20.

Let's fucking go.

We're wrapping the story up, baby.

As Ahmed gets behind you, you have unveiled so much of the truth of this world.

You've called the shadows to you.

You've seized your breath.

As you reach down, Ursulan, are you the strongest man in Silver?

It has been said.

Boom!

Surrounded by shadows covered by the ticking of clocks, you kick the bars in.

Oh shit, kick.

You can hardly push the nudge.

Push them in.

Ursulan, I will allow you to receive in this moment on this Nat 20 straight stick.

You can either take a boon from me as a DM as you embrace your breath, or you can renew the dispel on Wave Break.

I will renew the Dispel on Wave Break.

Boom!

There it goes.

You kick in, and both of you can squeeze into the room as Gult alone.

I'm gonna die.

I dropped my

I dropped my disguise.

Gulf, it's us.

Oh, bear!

Yes.

Oh, God.

We're here to get you out.

Okay.

He holds up the chains.

He says, I can't get out.

I get the chains on my, on my, uh, I'm going to cast knock.

Or do I get, do I get this as we could pick these?

You could probably chop through.

It's because it's a spell on an on a lock oh can i chop yeah

let me chop okay uh here go ahead and give me an attack roll

18 18 hits go ahead and roll damage

21 points of damage

The links of the chains shatter as the spirit of freedom unbinds Gulf.

He has both manacles around his wrist with that spell still on them, but the chains are severed.

So there's a few links on the end of each chain around his manacles.

Oh, oh, oh, thank you, thank you, Peter.

Oh, my goodness, you chopped right through that spell chain.

What was that?

Um, why does it smell like honey in here?

It's uh

I

am a spirit.

Wow!

Ah, yes.

All right, let's get out of here.

Agreed.

We gotta go!

We gotta go!

You guys head back out.

Group stealth.

Can I extend past without...

I know it's.

I'm supposed to want to give you give me survival.

Give me a survival ship.

Call it DC 15.

18.

Great.

You envelop him in shadow.

Everyone stealths out of here.

No roll necessary.

The bars are broken.

The chain shattered.

Gult is gone.

And you are headed back towards the kiosk either to go through or to retrieve the doorknobs.

You see, he looks good.

You got my gloves.

Yes, thank you.

I've been able to use them to get where I need to.

You are a criminal.

I am so grateful.

Yes, absolutely.

This is not your first time committing crimes.

Right, and you're not.

At least not to the extent that we are, so you don't deserve to be there.

I kind of pushed-I pushed the envelope with some of those side projects, but sure, yes, absolutely.

Uh, all right, my daughter, my daughter has no idea where I am.

Do you need to go get her, or should we get you to safety first and then send word?

They'll come back for me.

I don't know where we go.

I don't know.

I don't know where I go.

Have you been to Grandma Wren's cottage?

A long time ago, is that open to me?

I don't know how I'd get there from here.

Oh, yes.

Well, we have a way.

The back of this delightful gift shop.

Huh?

All will be explained.

I think both of you just shove him through the door into the cottage.

He goes, Please get my daughter.

And you can disassemble the doorknob and the knocker, no problem, and take off from here.

The question is:

Are you both on this side of the door when you take the knockers off?

Do you want to come with me in case we need to jailbreak Suvi?

I will come.

Okay, I promise that we will get you back in time for the messenger.

Good.

The doorknob and the knocker comes off, and you rush off to your Galithopter.

In beautiful, flowing red ink,

Suvarin Ked Barraquet, Archmage Apprentice, Wizard Sky finishes the final marginalia, putting her own touches and improvements on, shall we say, the base crass

edition of a classic counterspelling measure taken from a spell book of a Guild Mage of the Glass coronet.

Vandal hovers around overhead, flipping and wheeling, happy to be alive and constituted once more, and holds his little glass bottle in his hand.

Oh, oh, bud.

Hey, I asked your boys for one last favor before shattering the bottle.

But it's yours to shatter.

Thank you for everything.

Thank you for helping my friends.

I want you to do whatever you want to do.

His gaze softens, and he holds his little bottle in his hand.

You gotta be fucking with me.

I shit you not.

He prepares to raise the bottle over his head to smash it when you hear a knock at your sanctum door.

Okay, hold that thought real quick.

Coming!

And I'm going to, like,

without having to physically interact with my spellbook, flip it to

the page I have taken or I've written about my father's writings on the null clef.

And I'm going to pull back the rug in my sanctum so it's just the bare floor underneath.

Can you copy that down here?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's my last favor.

Yeah, done.

All right.

Shatter that shit when when you're ready.

And I'm going to run.

He starts writing this glitch and doing a very careful job at it.

Uh-oh.

You open the door, and Yulia, your page is there.

Oh.

Hi.

Wizard Sky.

Welcome back home.

I can tidy up any of your effects if you'd like.

Wonderful.

And I wanted to check again about the.

You seemed displeased when I gave the report on the books, on the astronomy books.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah.

come,

no, I'll, and I'm going to like step forward and then kind of close the door mostly behind me.

It wasn't disappointment.

I was just a little confused.

There's a book that I know of that I didn't see make the list.

Oh, I'll find it right away.

Yeah, okay.

You can, deep breath.

You're doing great.

Stars of the Southern Skies.

Stars of the Southern Skies.

I am on it and I will get it for you as fast as I can.

How odd that, I mean, that stars right in the title.

I cannot believe that I missed it, but missed it.

I must have and I will get it.

Hey, let's operate from the place where your thoroughness

and

you know what?

I think I've, yeah, I probably have like the list sort of rolled up somewhere in a pocket on my person, and I just hold up the sheafs of parchment.

This is a pretty exhaustive list.

I cannot imagine that this would have missed your

fastidious

notice.

So let's assume the next thing.

Why wasn't it around?

Oh,

redacted or something like that.

Yes.

Okay.

I'll look into it right away.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

She scurries off and as she does, you hear a noise from inside your sanctum of Vandal going.

Brothers!

What?

Oh god.

Yeah.

And immediately go in, shut the door, and sprint back up.

You can break up into your sanctum and see Vandal at your arcane-locked window with tiny little Cyril and massive Enzo

hovering outside of your study.

Come in, let them in, let them in.

You open them up.

Hello again, mistress.

This is the sky.

Yes, just sky.

Just the sky now.

Cyril goes, this is where we were born.

Vandal!

And gives him a big hug.

And Vandal says, I blow blow puke.

Vandel tasked with a little bit of arcane calligraphy.

Yeah.

Doing quite well.

You see that Enzo turns and says, we had come here to collect our brother.

Oh,

wait, so you guys.

There's like a unit.

I like.

I like that a lot.

You see that neither of them has their letter on them.

Oh, did you...

Did you...

Were you able to.

As a courtesy to you, Wizardsky, I will let you know that we were in pursuit of you for some time aboard the Epiphany, though we did not realize it.

Oh, I'm so...

That's right.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I didn't have a way to.

Yeah, they ended up being where I was.

That's on me.

Who could have predicted the fog of war and all of that?

But our missive took us after the Epiphany for some time, and we parted ways.

He turns to Cyril.

You see, Cyril says, I want to tell her.

She's so nice, she freed us.

You see, Anzo shrugs and says, Free as we are to say our peace, we may.

We came into the company of the witch of the world's heart.

Ami!

Mid-sky astride a broom.

What?

Since when could she

could she always be on a broom?

The fuck?

It seemed novel to her.

Oh, okay, great.

Well,

good for her.

She traveled in the company not only of of her familiar, but Task the Spider as well.

Task.

The moment I hear Task,

I have connected with the Ink Demons over distance before.

Yes.

I just instinctively reach in that same way just to see if I can Bluetooth connect with him in the same way.

Task is in Malakanth searching for you.

Ah!

Buddy!

And immediately feels it.

And

basically

says, I'm looking, like, you can feel, it's not full language, but you can feel in your heart basically like, I'm looking for you.

Should I come find you?

Or is there anything you want me to do?

I immediately like try to mentally send back, like, it's actually kind of relieving to not have to filter things through like the precision of language of

just imagining my tower and then backing up connected to like silence's tower and trying to give a like widening aperture view of exactly where I am and then zoom back into the window that Enzo and Cyril just came in and I'm going to like leave it cracked.

So if he can make it back.

Oh great.

You leave it cracked.

Task

sort of communicates back like, I am on my way.

And you feel, give me an insight to check.

13.

13.

Task says, I am on my way.

And I think on a 13, you go, like, oh, on your way.

On your way is such a funny choice of like expression or like feeling in this regard, rather than like, I'm coming straight there.

Yeah.

I'm on my way.

And I'm just sending back, like, even without intention, just like so much, like, ah, could be safe.

If you need anything, ping back.

You see, Enzo says,

seeing the Epiphany and its heavy defenses, the Witch of the World's Heart took it upon herself to beat you to the Citadel by way of Caro and the gate.

Oh, oh, that's so smart.

I mean, wait.

Oh, I think a cannon fired at her.

Uh, me.

Oh, you good?

The witch of the world's heart saved my life.

Oh,

that's wonderful.

I'm sorry you almost got shot.

Well, what are you going to do?

However, we parted ways with her in Havaward.

So she's here?

Yes, in the Citadel.

Oh,

amazing.

Where is she headed?

Is she headed?

This what is she doing?

Why is she here?

I believe that she did not.

She had only what task could tell her of your fate that befell you in the castle of 12 Brooks.

I believe she is here because she

wants to make sure you are all right.

That's my friend.

I said it was a trap.

Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Do you have...

I'm so sorry.

Thank you for delivering the letters.

The letters are delivered.

The letters are delivered.

It is true.

Cyril looks to you and says, I delivered my letter to the Wizard Sworn.

He read it at once and departed for

the court of Gavril.

Why?

Did he say?

Did he say anything to you?

He thanked me for my service and said something about needing a drink.

God damn him.

Okay, okay.

Uh

thank you.

Thank you.

Noted.

Uh Enzo, did it go?

Oh, God.

How'd that go?

Enzo turns and says,

More strange than my companions was my encounter with the Wizard Silver.

I

deemed it best to give the missive to him in a time of privacy.

and did not arrive upon him in a time of privacy.

He was in hushed conversation, tense in nature, with the Wizard Slate

outside of his home near Alabaster Hall.

Today?

Today, following the docking of the Epiphany.

The conversation was tense, and at a certain point, the Wizard Slate laid a hand on him in, I think, what I would say, an aggressive manner.

What?

I gave the

message to

the wizard Silver, handed it to him, and he would not take it.

So I inserted it into his coat and asked him to acknowledge its receipt, which he would not.

Did it seem like he just didn't want to take it or that he couldn't take it?

It is very challenging for me to say.

He observed my approach, making contact with my eyes, and I thought would recognize me given the role that all of us played in his rescue from Abbasin.

He made no verbal remark to me of any kind, and as I offered

the missive, he would not extend a hand to take it, but neither did he prevent me from placing it into the inside pocket of his robes.

I said that my business was done, and if he disagreed, he should make some remark of it.

Making no remark, I considered my business concluded and flew to recover my brother and now Vandal.

That's

strange.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

One last thing.

Is there

anything I can offer you

in order to ask you one more favor?

Do you like money?

No.

Yeah, okay.

I like words.

I have books.

I'll take them.

And Suvi's going to gesture to like the prize of her collection.

Not just books that she's checked out, but like anything precious that she's found a way to collect over the years.

Take your pick.

Thank you.

What favor would you ask in exchange?

Can you

find

Ame?

If she's still here and tell her to come to the tower?

The tower of the gloves?

Yes.

Yes.

In exchange for the books, I will do this favor for you.

Thank you.

And

she's going to reach forward and like put her hands on his shoulders.

Thank you.

That non-detection protected things that are so precious to me.

I didn't know

what I would do.

Thank you.

I am sorry you were ever bound, but I am happy to have known you.

Enzo smiles.

Vandal finishes his glyph in this moment, looks up, goes,

and smashes the glass on a tall scorpion-tailed, sort of matching,

not quite as tall as Enzo, but a little bit taller than Cyril.

You see, Vandal looks at.

Enzo smiles,

pointing to his smaller brothers to retrieve a few tomes dealing with abjuration.

He actually doesn't go for anything that is like super dear or critical to you, but you see that there are books of abjuration there, of dispelling and counter-magic.

Give me a perception check, actually.

We're going to call it a DC 15.

Okay, okay.

She did not get there with a five on the dice.

Cool.

Great.

Some other books, non-magical in nature, also move to Vandal's side as his unbound brothers and he stand here.

I think I'm just lost looking at Vandal's truer form.

Yeah.

Vandal looks up at you smiling.

And what you see is his face, his little devil's face, as he grows taller, it's quite beautiful.

It's not small and impish, it's kind of handsome with these red horns, but it's a scorpion tail.

And you see that he smiles and chatters.

And

Enzo turns to look at you with these books assembled.

He and his two brothers, now with this repository of knowledge, who you see

with everything you've seen and loosened,

you see these three brothers

who seem to be the exact opposite in that

the great imagination of wizards to concoct spirits of their own,

and these spirits were born completely naturally, as if to show that wizardry has always had a part true in the world of spirits.

It is my dearest hope, Wizard Sky,

that you live a life as free as the one you have given to us.

Away, brothers!

I'm gonna go try to tackle Vandal on the way out.

And just blotches of red ink all over you.

Get the fuck off me!

Nope, and try to pin him down and just go,

hey,

thank you for everything.

And I'm gonna come up with newer, crazier curse words.

For you.

And you see that he whispers something in your ear.

And you see

profanity, vulgarity,

something from the dawn of time.

But you see the very first person in the wild woods of Umora in the early days of mortals walking under spirits.

And you see one of the first acts of wizardry as this mortal

stubs their foot upon a stone and calls out a word that makes the injury hurt less.

Wizardry has always lived side by side with mortals in this world.

Words and language have a power all their own.

And I'm going to cast protection from evil and good on Vandal.

He gives you a kiss, can't help himself, licks your cheek a bit.

Hey!

Weird energy!

It's weird that you're hot now.

All right.

Out the window he goes.

As the ink demons rush away,

you stand there wondering what you have heard and what it can mean.

Triumph, joy, your library, the books away.

Take a moment, knowing that they are going to go speak to Ahmed.

You walk through the halls.

It's time to get something to eat.

You've forgotten how to eat.

You need food.

You need sustenance.

You need rest.

And as you contemplate that,

you hear magic from outside the tower.

War magic.

The firing of a rule in bolts.

Screams.

I sprint to the window.

You arrive at the window.

Flashes flashes of magic everywhere.

A crowd gathered outside of Silence's tower.

Silence has collapsed on the ground.

Injured, being held by wizards calling for a doctor as he clutches a wound at his side.

His attacker lies dead on the ground, riddled with bolts.

The wizard silver.

No!

That was Lou Wilson as Ursulan, Erika Ishii as Ahme, Abria Iyengar as Suvi, and Brennan Lee Mulligan as Everyone and Everything Else.

Worlds Beyond Number is edited, designed, and scored by Taylor Moore at Fortunate Horse with additional sound design from Michael Gelfie Studios.

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