WWW #20: Later Than You Think

This is the sound of Worlds Beyond Number.

On a small outdoor patio, partially shielded from the bright sunlight by trellises of jasmine and violet, a small cafe

with several Mr.

Callums carrying drinks to and fro from a small rack of samovars, mixing stations, a silver tureen filled with ice, and a number of decanters of various and sundry lemonades.

A small table

seats Ursulan, Suvi, Amay,

and a peevish-looking pomeroy who, even near sunlight, seems to wither as you notice that the skin hanging from his temples, the tops of his hands, inflate and deflate slightly with his breath.

A little bit of patchy work on his human glamour.

Little of ruckus inside.

Cafe is a nice

place for us to engage in conversation.

Witch of Toma.

I understand you have some questions you would like me to answer, and I would be more than happy to

end this interaction as swiftly and helpfully as I possibly can.

I thank you for your graciousness.

graciousness.

Well, first of all,

were you bound here by Grandmother Wren?

Bound here by Grandmother Wren?

No.

I was not bound.

Grandmother Wren

knew my

private business.

And

in so doing, I believe, if I am allowed to speak freely in front of present company, you may.

may.

I believe, Archmage Apprentice Skye, that it might be of great interest for the Citadel to know that both the previous and current Witch of the World's Heart seemed to see fit to have the knowledge of my private business give them a huge insight into the workings of the Citadel, which I believe the Citadel may well have been unaware of,

and that I was forbade on the cost of such private business from ever communicating to them.

In other words, your

witchiness,

your mentor, seemed quite happy to leave a little foothold in the vastness of the citadel.

Not exactly so kindly in that regard, was she?

Interesting.

Suvi's very like tight-lipped and just pulls out a very small notebook and makes a note.

Certainly believe that now that I am allowed to speak more freely, at least to present company, it might be worth mentioning to someone that this huge oversight in the defenses of the citadel has been allowed to fester for seemingly quite some time.

What's the nature of the information that you would pass to Grandmother Anne?

Well, it's nothing worth passing to her now, is there, that there is a new successor to her station.

I mean simply to say that the previous Witch of the World's Heart made frequent use of the fact that an important member of the Citadel's

private business had fallen into her hand, and she visited many times

and made

such

impressions on me.

Like...

Good impressions?

She used the power she held over me

to do her own private biddings within the collection and forbade me to ever speak of them until now when the witch of the world's heart yet again commands me yes and now I would love to be updated on the sort of business that she had here

You see his shadows kind of squirm behind him

on a number of occasions,

the Witch of the World's Heart

took business in the citadel

and would have,

under her intentions, once or twice, stopped by

to remove certain paintings from the collection.

How would she know which ones to take?

She did not share that information with me.

Do you know which ones she took?

Do you have a list?

I can supply you with one if you wish.

I would wish so.

When was the last time she took a painting?

I would say it was not a frequent occurrence, perhaps seven years ago.

Noted.

Did anyone else know of this?

Besides yourself?

No.

No, they did not.

In each instance that a painting went missing,

the Witch of the World's Heart timed her efforts with

some or other criminal act of punishment within the citadel.

So there are certain wizards who were already set to be banished or dismissed for actual crimes that they had committed.

That the former Witch of the World's Heart was clever enough to pay to confess to the stealing or destruction of these paintings.

Wow, Grandma Wren.

Interesting.

I believe that my companion also

has some questions for you.

Ursulon?

The badger.

Before my time,

but I believe

that the spirit

Kalia

was released from this place

some 22 years ago.

Released?

By whom?

As I've said before my time,

this collection used to be guarded by human conjurers, wizards of the citadel.

One such wizard

committed an act of extreme oversight and carelessness, and over...

Several dozen spirits were released from the collection.

And I would know that is soft?

I don't think Suvi shared it.

I read the notes.

Oh, you did read the notes.

You would know that's soft.

Yes.

It takes a

spirit.

And this is the first time you've seen Pomeroy refer to himself as such.

It takes a spirit to think like a spirit.

And my gifts...

And here you see shadows of spider webs behind him.

Of entrapment.

are many.

It was a wise and benevolent offer to place me

in the charge of these

captives.

No such mistakes have been made since, with the exception of those

hateful times throughout the years that Grandmother Wren made her appearances here.

Certainly, no escape in an order of magnitude similar to when

gifted and wise human wizards were placed in charge of the collection.

However,

having researched the escape so as to shore up whatever holes caused it,

I was able to discover

how we came into the charge of the badger spirit

the badger spirit was discovered here at the citadel under a human glamour

at the time 22 years ago she had been at the citadel already for 52 years

going by the appellation of the wizard stripe Do you know how she was found out?

That information was not deemed of significance to the collection or my previous human predecessors.

So the Bacher Kaliah

was a wizard?

No,

no.

But certainly was gifted enough in those ways of the breath that you and I possess.

That she was able to pass as one.

Pass as one under the watchful eyes of an entire citadel of wizards for some decades.

I think Ursulon has been incredibly tense.

And this, I think, honestly, is the first time he is.

Like, I think softens and relaxes just a little.

Pass you a little tea cake.

I use one finger just to scoop a little bit of it.

And to you,

heir,

strongest man in Siddlebury, have I given you the information you were seeking

at this time, yes.

You don't have to answer this one if you don't want to.

But why.

Why are you here?

How did you come to the Citadel?

Are you happy here?

in a thousand years

of waiting in the darkest dankest places of the world of spirits

i could have never hoped

to have caught this many feasts within my web

and though i am not given to feed upon them here

The pride I feel sustains me more than blood ever did.

To the humans of this tower, will I be forever loyal?

I am not bound here.

I serve here gladly of my own free will and know a pride brighter than the sun.

You see, he moves his hand back as the sun touches his skin.

Well, I am glad that you have found your heart's desire.

Please,

if you could, send the list of paintings to the Tower of the Wizard Sky.

It will be done, Witch of the World's Art.

You mustn't speak of this.

I forbid you from speaking of this to anyone else.

The shadow of legs,

moving thread,

twitch

in frustration as a knot is tied in shadow across the neck of the humanoid figure of Pomeroy.

Speak of what?

What here has occurred, but an explanation of some of the most captivating pieces of the collection.

The research you've requested shall be sent.

Am I free to leave?

You may.

Jerry squeaks.

He gets up and walks away wordlessly.

Interesting.

How are you both feeling?

A little out the loop, if I'm being very honest.

I didn't quite catch everything myself.

I heard nothing.

You mean the painting?

I.

Yes.

Whatever you were interacting with was silent to me.

Is it your necklace?

And CV's hand reaches up

and just sort of strokes the necklace sitting under her clothing.

I don't know.

Maybe.

He told me

of what you and the other wizards do here

in terms of trapping spirits.

Now he told you

his version of of what it was, Rusalon.

And then when you commanded him to speak truthfully, he reiterated it.

Admitting he'd embellished,

but suggesting that part of what he said was true, and that there was trapping

against

the spirit's will.

I don't wish to anger you.

I'm not angry.

That's what he said.

I said as much when I asked if you wanted to come here.

That not every spirit in the citadel was there.

Was here.

Of their own volition.

Yes.

But you failed to admit that someone like

my sister, Kalia.

I didn't know.

I didn't know.

Oh, okay.

I had no idea.

I...

I don't spend time here.

If I had known, I would have come to you.

The moment I read the name Badger, i ran to you with that information and

i

am sorry

my anger is misplaced in you suffie but

it is i thought

what we saw what moro did

i thought that that was

of a different kind of wizard

but it seems that all of you

feel some sort of entitlement

that makes me think perhaps I do not belong here.

I respect that.

But I think it's worth mentioning that the event twenty-two years ago that freed her

was your father.

Yes.

Your father?

Soft was written up for an act of carelessness and recklessness.

In allowing that great escape?

In

enacting it.

Suvi's affinity for spirits is very much in her blood.

Oh.

I wish you could have met your father and mother.

You and me both.

Yeah.

Do I know when we spoke about Kalia,

did he say, so the timeline that he said was that for 50 years she was living here in a glamour.

She wasn't trapped here.

She was passing as a wizard.

Correct.

But then

she was released.

She was discovered.

She was discovered.

Captured and then released during that great escape of spirits from the collection.

And that escape was 22 years ago.

That escape was 22 years ago.

All of which

prior to Ursulan's second venture into the mortal world.

The first one of which was three centuries ago when you first met a human knight, Sir Curin.

And the next, and then the last one of which was 14 years ago.

I don't understand.

Did your sister

when did she come through?

I don't know.

I

she was

chasing me.

When I was a child, and I had come back to the spirit world, and told my father of Sir Kurin and my desire for

honor.

He instructed me to bury the pauldron, and I touch it up on my shoulder,

to bury it,

and that it might grow a tree, and that I might find rest beneath it.

Kalliah accompanied me as I went to do so, but then I...

I

ran

and

ran back through

the gate that had let me into your world.

Kaliah, I believe, followed me, but I

lost track of her.

So perhaps in that chase she also crossed over.

I.

I'm not sure.

So maybe she was looking for you?

But now she's back in the spirit realm.

We don't know.

We don't...

Above the table, we don't know if she's back in the spirit realm, right?

We just know she escaped the citadel.

Yeah, Ursulan has explained everything as well as possible.

When Ursulan came back, you leapt through the portal and Kalia was right behind you.

Now,

you leapt back into the mortal world and were trapped within

that rotting log where the thing had been.

Remember when Ahme's foot came above you when little Ahme and little Sudie were playing in the woods during that summer?

You kind of wonder how long

you might have been in that log for.

I mean, crossing over into the world, you know that something happened with time,

but

you spent so long in the dark coming back with the pauldron, hearing your father's voice saying you had, you know, that any future time would come with a price, you know, that you've been to the mortal world without paying a price for the final time and you went back anyway.

Kaliah was right on your heels

and you wonder,

did she end up right behind you?

No, because she would have come across Grandmother Wren's cottage.

It was the nearest thing to that part of the world.

And then you wonder about all the other ways of

crossing over from the spirit to the mortal world.

You don't know what age Kalia might have been when she got here.

I mean, what did Ursulan say about the mortal world when you were there?

You talked about knights, you talked about the pauldron and honor in Sir Curran.

Kallia might have found a way to find Sir Curran.

She could have been in the mortal world for 300 years.

You have no way of knowing.

But you know that at some point in the last century,

a badger spirit bearing her name, which, goddamn, that's gotta be her, right?

Showed up at the Citadel, disguised herself as a wizard, and was able to live here for decades.

What was she doing here?

I would say the other thing you know

where Kalia's

thread goes cold, or where Kalia's trail goes cold for you again, is in this escape, where basically all these spirits got out of the citadel, And

if they made it somewhere findable, then they'd be back in the collection.

So, in other words, you know that they're not findable, and that's a good thing.

They made it out far enough where the wizards couldn't track them down, which means the trail's gone cold for you, but

that's not necessarily bad.

It means that your sister, if she is still alive,

at least made it out of the citadel.

We have to find out what she was researching here.

Fun fact: fact.

In an environment like this,

competitive though it is, everything you research and look up is noted by others.

So,

we might be able to find out what she was looking up,

but if

there is a record still available of what the Wizard Stripe cared about,

then us looking those things up is incredibly suspicious.

Hmm.

I don't want to put any kind of target on Bear's back.

Isn't there some way to

have somebody else's name down in the card at the library's?

Or

I don't know how it works.

Can we just take the books?

Don't look

lawless incredibly quickly.

Look.

Laws

are not always meant to protect you.

They're meant to make people do things that the powerful people don't want you to do.

Hear, here, says the fox.

All right, calm down.

You compelled a spirit to silence.

So I think we can all talk about

volition all day long.

But he sucked, so

um,

see, and the fox, again, flawless.

Hey, yeah, hey.

So, where do you head to next?

Do you head to Kibani or Haverward?

Two of the...

Well, one of which is a court of the Citadel, and the other, which is the city at its base.

What's the next bummer on our list, Ahm?

Well, it's your friend Hannah's dad, Tilliver Mill.

I do want to do that, but it's at the bottom, so do we want to

finish there or go there next and then bounce back up to a platform?

Oh, do you know Sly?

No, but I just assumed any wizard with an S name would be up here rotating about.

Oh.

I don't know everyone that goes here.

I just give him a little like nod.

I feel like everyone knows you, though.

Yeah.

Legacy.

Ursula?

I wouldn't mind swinging by Tudor's chowder on our way back.

See, the fox goes, ooh, yeah.

So perhaps we end in Haverford.

Oh, yeah.

Maybe

we can slip in a little bit of fun and food and friendship down there.

Got to make the most of all this time.

Yeah, fun.

Okay,

let's go to the divination or the apocalypse guys.

Yeah.

You head over, and Zhao, being the conjuration port, you don't even have to get a Gallithopter.

You walk up and you see that there are these guys that for a small fee, there are these young wizards that are just dimension door specialists.

They have these little circles of so it's a big stone platform at the edge of the court.

These young guys that are just sweating.

They're shirtless.

They're like wearing aprons.

They're like wiping their foreheads off.

They have these huge torches on long iron poles.

And they're dumping bright red and orange sand into these kind of ash covered depressions in the stone.

Whispering some words, lighting the sand on fire, and a fiery door appears to anywhere else in the citadel.

And it looks like some very busy mages are like, you can hear people being like, what's the galloper is not till eight o'clock?

God, okay,

you know what?

And the guys hold out hands and they seem to be making a killing, these young conjuration wizards.

They walk up and they go, hi, where do you want to get to?

Where are you trying to go?

Kibani.

Okay, we can put you right where you want to go.

Is there an office you're trying to go to in Kibani?

The Diviner's Court.

Can you get us right up to Disjunction?

Yeah, gotcha.

Hold on.

And they start pouring some sand, whispers a couple words.

You see that he actually nudges a little circle of stone with his feet rotating it, like a little dial in the stone platform, lowers the giant sort of fiery staff.

Whoosh, this door appears.

He goes, okay, go, go, go, go.

You walk through.

It's only open for about like six seconds.

You got to like walk through as the door starts diminishing.

Fox leaps through, uh,

that's wild, I don't like that.

Suvia immediately pulls out like a small jar of like poultice and starts, like it's weirdly humid, even though it's fire.

Uh, and her hair has gone incredibly frizzy, and it's just kind of pushing it back into place.

Like, I don't love that.

And then I'm just like, Fox, come here, you're a little, you're a little floofed.

Huh?

Oh, I am.

She's gonna pat him down.

I'm so wet.

I'm still hot, right?

The court of Kibani is the court of divination.

And you see, this place is covered in astronomers' domes and bridges everywhere.

There are these beautiful clay buildings that have little sort of like ramparts.

It looks like the entire court is hanging out on a roof.

It's like a whole dominion of roof parties.

Just ruse everywhere, people drinking out on a roof, looking out on a roof.

And you can even see that, like, as much as insofar as there are buildings, the buildings almost all lead to courtyards.

And the temperature here, there's like a lovely light breeze blowing by, but for the most part, this place seems really

active and open.

There's not that much oppressive architecture here.

And you walk around and there's a lot of like glass floors.

So you'll walk under like an arch or a bridge and be able to like look up and at an angle like see people up through another place having a party up on another ledge.

The only sort of thing that's very bright, like the white clay on everything is very bright and the paintings as you can see them appear to be

patterned.

So there's like jigsaw patterns or seesaw patterns, rows of dots, rows of dashes, lots of all like bright colors, like greens and reds and yellows primary colors.

And you'll see the other big sort of architectural theme of Kibani is water everywhere.

Fountains, waterfalls.

You see, there's like a 20-point waterfall stopping at the height of the architecture in the center of the court that comes down, races down like a mirrored slide, hits a fountain.

The fountain like pops across, making like a watered archway that goes into another part of a building.

Lots of aqueducts.

So the sound of like burbling water is everywhere in Kabani.

Walking up to another courtyard, there's just a small, humble wooden door, and above it, an imperial, you see that it says the Office of Preemptory Catastrophic Deviation.

The courtyard outside of this is

stuffed with crates, enormous crates everywhere.

Crates that are marked like private, confidential, top secret.

There are things that like clear, you see that there's one small crate that's been opened, and priceless rubies are just scattered on the like sort of like soft yellow sand outside the doorway.

This is why we put our rubies in a jar.

It's so fucking messy.

So, who is the wizard Sly?

Sly.

Yeah.

Hey, did you guys know?

Sorry.

There's no way you would know.

I just found out.

My mom used to be a diviner.

Oh.

Previously to becoming an Abjur?

Before her name cloaking, she actually got kicked out.

She got kicked out.

Your mom got kicked out.

Mom got kicked out of school.

Is that hard to do?

Or easy?

Do people get kicked out often?

Uh, once you're kind of graduated through, I think it's kind of hard to do.

Wow, so she really, she really stuck her foot in it.

Yeah.

But then was brought back in a different way.

Wouldn't she get kicked out of it?

Okay, stop it.

Stop it.

You're too excited.

I don't want to tell you because you're too excited about it

yeah okay

really just really quick hold on and i'm just like nudging the rubies i hate mess

i'm just like hold on let me just and i lean down uh and as i'm picking him up she accused her mentor of treason

yeah

against the citadel

yeah

did he do it did she do it you would actually know they do it it.

It was not against the Citadel.

It was against magic itself.

Yeah.

Weirder.

Just against the platonic ideal of magic.

What does platonic mean?

Here it means something very different.

Oh.

No, against treason, against the very idea of magic.

Yeah, can you do that?

I don't know.

I mean, you can, and then you get King Magic.

Again, it's not like a guy.

Well, yeah.

Crazy.

Firecracker.

Big reaction from Bay.

I mean,

she clearly immediately

was so good, she got brought back and continued to kick ass.

Yeah, that's what happened.

Anyway, sorry, we should go in the thing.

What's this guy's name again?

He's the Wizard Sly.

He is the head of the peremptory catastrophe

deviation.

Yeah, it's the sign right here.

Oh.

Do you is there anything else about him that

we should know about Grammar?

Like, is this another spirit?

No, and we're gonna get

this one is

well, this one is a very old wizard, and I think she had said that he was a true friend.

Oh,

so, yeah, okay, yeah,

sure.

Well, after you, hopefully, a better experience than this morning, yeah,

don't push me again.

Open the door, don't get in my way.

As you go go to open the door, the door opens.

And a kindly old man, you see, there's an older black man.

He's got a snow-white beard, a long coat, which is unit's not used to seeing wizards wear.

There's a lot of wizards here that have robes.

Deep crow's feet around his eyes.

It looks like his eyes are kind of shut, like it's too bright.

And you notice that his eyes are seemingly all pupil.

Like, they're just black.

They look like he doesn't have any whites to his eyes.

So he's just like focusing very intently and sort of squinting against the light.

This sharp looking cream colored coat, high collar, the collar banded in a little bit of like gold embroidery that's like a little bit like leaves curling.

Crisp white shirt.

sort of charcoal slacks and you see that he has matching his sort of cream almost like camel hair coat he's got a little matching flat cap that he puts on a shaved head as he looks out.

He opens it right as you're there and he says, no one's gonna take the rubies.

And you see,

he looks out and says, oh,

oh, little Amy.

And he goes and just gives you a big hug.

I return the hug.

I know you won't remember meeting me, but

you were about this high.

I had come by the cottage.

How is uh,

oh, I know.

Sorry, just the moment I asked it, I knew it.

It was dead.

Nicholas, what a piece of work that goat was.

You knew the...

I forgot, I'm sorry.

I never actually met Nicholas, but I knew him.

Nicholas, wait, you never met him, but you knew him?

You see, he points to his eyes.

And as you look,

you get both mesmerized for a moment as you see stars.

You're looking at a night sky.

You see, he goes, I see it all.

And you see, he takes out some very funky little circular purple sunglasses and puts them on.

Uncle, I love you.

You see, he looks over and says, Let's go.

And you see, he just leaves the door unlocked and ajar.

Nope, nope, nope.

I've got to close it.

Do you have a key?

I've just, and I just do like the most minor locking.

It doesn't no one's going to try to break in for another year.

And you see, he walks away.

What?

So these, okay, diviners.

Take a ruby.

I'm taking a ruby.

I want him to be wrong.

Lean down and take one.

You lean down and take a ruby.

Go ahead and put a flawless ruby in your inventory.

Oh my God.

Is everyone here?

Does everyone here eat meat?

Everyone eat meat here?

Yes.

Great.

Oh, yes.

Very much so.

He says, all right.

You see, the fox says, I eat meat.

And you see, he goes, great.

And he walks over and you see that there is a small,

it is just a circular hole in the wall that has a beautiful little broad red paint pattern around it.

And inside there's just a small kitchen where you see Mr.

Callum is making what look like some sort of like pita sort of, like donor sandwiches.

And there's like a spicy, zesty kind of coleslaw thing going in them and it looks like cabbage and different oils and some spices and things like that.

Ah, that smells a meat.

It's so good.

He goes, oh, this is good.

I like to eat standing out.

They don't have seating here.

Is that okay?

Oh, yeah.

Well, I'm happy you were able to stop by.

The.

Oh,

condolences, congratulations.

I'm sorry, and welcome.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Her memory is still such a light to me, and I'm so wonderful to be here.

Do you know

Sudie?

Er, yes.

Hi.

The Wizard Sky.

Oh, yeah.

It's a pleasure.

Nice to meet you.

Wizard Sly beat Wizard Sky.

Oh, look at us.

We run.

This is nice.

Bear.

Bear?

Oh, unless my eyes deceive me, the strongest man in Silwa.

Word has gotten around.

It actually hasn't, but that's all right.

I have business later today, but I was holding off until you got here.

Do you have anything you need from me?

Or do you have, or do you not know what you need from me yet?

No, it's mostly that last one, yes.

I think that I would love to hear some of your business with Grammar Wren.

And

she said you were a true friend, and

I need anything that I can

do to prepare for

joining the

elders of the the coven the coven of elders that the elder coven

well that's gonna happen sooner rather than later um I would say you probably only have about three days before it's too late three days for wait to do late for what's too late for what well before

uh the coven meets without you

this is just what I've seen is definitely going to happen

oh

is this one of those

immutable prophecies or sort of

perhaps it could be

some sort of a monkey's paw, like

a wording situation is all throwy?

No, no, no, no.

This is right in the pocket of what I call prophecy and common sense.

And where those two things meet, it gets hairy quickly.

What am I supposed to do to prevent that from happening?

Well,

if you uh too late, meaning that the they will meet in conclave without you.

Okay,

okay,

okay.

Uh,

I can give you the warning of what they're going to try to do.

Yes, yes.

Okay.

They are going to try to destroy you, and in so doing, destroy the station of the Witch of the World's Heart.

What?

What?

One of your sisters is going to make the argument that your existence threatens the nature of magic in the world of Umora.

And the only way,

in the majority of cases where you win that argument,

you win it because

in order to get rid of your station, they would probably magically have to get rid of another.

So, Ahme needs to defend herself.

Well,

you will fail in defending yourself, but you will succeed in maybe convincing them that there's not another station that they can also get rid of.

Wow.

Uncle, your delivery is wild.

Yes, I must say, for someone as

wise, it would seem as yourself, your ability to communicate this information doesn't seem like it's improved over the many years you've been dividing.

I'm getting a note on my bedside manor very much so, but not your food recommendations.

This is very good.

This is actually delicious.

This is so good.

Good.

The zesty coleslaw is certainly.

Yeah, the coleslaw is really brightens it up.

It brightens it up.

It's a crunch because the meat is heavy and musky.

Yeah, okay.

Okay.

She's kind of cry-eating.

Okay.

That's okay.

It's going to be okay.

Look,

we will get you.

We have three days.

Yeah.

I've found that bedside manner doesn't actually make a difference.

I'm screwed.

People have the information or they don't.

And once they have it, my job's done.

I've been really sweet, and people haven't listened to me.

I've been really brusque, and they have, and it saves more time and effort for me to be brusque.

I got a lot of people to tell a lot of bad news to.

Can I have a piece of bad news?

You're not ready for it.

Can I have a piece of good news?

Yeah, you're on the right track, kid.

See, no, why can't it always be like that?

He just starts walking back towards his office.

He's like, he's like, I moved my office here three years ahead of when they opened up that donor spot.

Nobody knew why I put in a bid for it.

He,

as you walk to his office, you walk in, funky smell in here.

You see that there is an incredibly ugly, like,

like,

there is a,

in a birdcage, you see that there is a gawky, lanky kind of pheasant with macaw colorings on it.

Like, scarlet and royal blue kind of lanky pheasant hanging from a massive wicker birdcage.

Its smell, the smell of like cracked seeds and pungent bird waste, kind of fills the office in an unpleasant sort of way.

This place is littered with treasures.

There's a lot of like ripped up arcana in here.

There's like a lot of

complex spell engines that are partially disassembled.

There's also newspapers from all over the empire and in many languages.

You see a straight up Ruvian newspaper.

You see that there is some kind of like a pamphlet like mass printing pressed thing for like Gauthmai in here.

They're sort of scattered around.

There's a musty paper smell in this place.

You see that there is a massive orrery used for complex divinations that is lying sort of out of its packaging and looks like it's never been assembled.

And

in his office, everything is a fucking mess.

Just stuffed drawers, unusable, so much workspace covered with stuff.

There's just a tiny little clear space that has an arcane clay tile heating block that just can heat up as a little ceramic block with a word of power.

And there is a much-beloved tea kettle on it.

And the place is scattered with little teacups with leaves clumped in sort of different states of drying out at the bottom,

all over the office.

See V looks like she's on the verge of a mental breakdown.

I have to clean this.

Don't, don't, don't.

Can I help?

I know where everything is.

I know where everything is.

Right.

Yeah, you can't just touch somebody's workspace.

I'm asked, can I at least set up your orrery?

Why was no, the orre, I already got all the good parts out of there.

Look, do you want me to get rid of the rest of the part?

No, it's fine.

It's never gonna come up again.

Don't worry about it.

I'm worried.

Okay, so where are they meeting?

Huh?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think you good and damn nowhere they're meeting.

They're meeting at the North Pole.

No thanks to you.

They're meeting in a giant fortress of ice, which is going to be the second time in the century that they've met at the Witch of Wind and Stars domain, which is throwing everything off balance because you were out getting blasted at a beer garden after inheriting inheriting one of the most important witches stations in the world.

An art form and a domain that is directly tied to whether Umora will survive the coming conflagration of magical elements.

And if you don't do your part and get it together, then there's nothing I can do.

Damn.

I just can't resist a cider.

Okay?

I can't.

I

am entitled to a little bit of fun occasionally.

Yes.

On the days where something critical isn't going to happen.

Isn't something?

It's always dire times.

Yeah, but you got to get the days right.

He sort of begins to scrawl something on a little note of his.

Anyone who wants to, give me like an investigation or some other check in this space if your attention's wandering anywhere.

Mine's gone.

Can I use my passive?

Yeah.

Thanks.

What's your passive investigation?

21.

21.

I'd like to make a check.

Why isn't this the most important man in the entire citadel?

I think Ursulan has just watched this guy tell us

essentially Amay's entire life story.

And

this place smells awful.

And I'm trying to figure out why does the guy who seems like he could tell everyone everything that they should be doing, like that they're on the right track, kid, not the most important man to hear?

It's a 13.

Is Ahme making a check or no?

Or is she just having a panic attack?

Fine.

Okay, so, okay, okay, okay, so, okay, I don't know.

Uh, okay, I don't know.

Um, I am looking around the room.

Okay, I'm gonna look around the room, and I'm gonna find uh six colors, and I'm gonna find five textures, and I gotta get uh four cents, and I'm gonna get two tastes, and I gotta get one.

I'm gonna need a wisdom saving throw from you.

A 19, a 19, I gotta see that.

You should come down.

What does not help you is you look down and see that your fox is bug-eyed with his ears flattened on his head.

As the fox has not like cracked a joke in a couple minutes, you immediately intuit from your fox that he's like a guy making the decision at a comedy club to not like laugh too hard or the comic will roast him.

Fox is like, I I don't want it.

I don't want the smoke at all.

I don't want any of it.

Another point for the fox.

I want this guy to tell me about my life.

Ursulan, you on a 13, you just have to ask that if you want to know.

You just literally, as sly, is like writing something down.

You're looking around.

Yeah, his office smells bad.

It smells like bird poop.

He's got like a button.

There's a bunch of seeds.

He's got tea everywhere.

There's like little scraps of notes around, but most of it is like newspapers.

Officially, you notice that he doesn't doesn't have like big arcane tomes His writing looks to be all of the world.

There's like you see there's like manila folders and dossiers and there's different stuff There's like there's machine schematics for like airships and stuff in here.

It looks like

I Think on an intuitive level you're like a guy that can see anything would have to know what stuff meant.

And if you if you get information and you don't have the knowledge to process it, that's when the heartbreak can happen.

But yeah, you don't know why he's in this little office getting donors on the street.

You don't know why Grandmother Wren liked him, and you don't know why Suvi heard of this office as being kind of a waste of time.

As you consider whether or not you want to just straight up ask this guy, why is your life like this?

Why are you like that?

Why are you like this?

On a 21 investigation, Suvi,

you look

and

see

a

report

that has been like preemptively approved

from

the Citadel

for a budget for a quarterly report from Sly, where Sly basically says, like, I have detected another anomalous event in the ending of the Saraz family line that will occur in 213 years from this point forward.

My solution to avoid the vast majority of circumstances that would lead to this unfortunate result that is not in the interests of the empire would be the following set of rituals.

And you see that he has a list of rituals occurring under the Office of Preemptory Catastrophic Deviation that he needs like

820 pounds of gold to pour into a runic inlay that would da da da da da and he would need a bunch of rubies to do x y z other thing da da da da da he would need this amount of whatever and you're just looking around at this office and going like where the fuck would this runic inlay even

happen

and uh you see that it just has a big stamp approved on it the budget he's asking for for this quarter he has like that's the big thing and he's like and there are these like three smaller catastrophes that, like, a dam is going to break in eight years that's going to make this area harder to defend

when Gauthmai attacks here.

It's just all this stuff that he, this diviner, has ascertained.

And he's asked for somewhere in the neighborhood of 85,000 imperial marks of resources,

which in the budget of the citadel is almost like nothing.

But you're looking at it.

It's 85,000 Imperial marks.

And I think on a 21 investigation, you're just like,

where is this?

This guy's just like, literally, there are loose rubies in the doorway of this guy's office.

Something doesn't add up.

Cool.

So Sly's finishing writing something out.

Ursuline, as you're standing.

The wizard Sly.

Bear, strongest man in Silbrey.

Can I ask you a question?

Ask a way.

Now, do you already know what the question is?

So will you save me the rudeness of asking it?

You see, he smiles and says, I didn't see this moment, which makes me think that I thought it would be funny not to see it.

But...

Well, you are.

Okay.

Context clues.

I take back the bedside mana thing.

You're pretty great.

You're pretty great, Bear.

Why aren't you the most important man here at the Citadel?

I don't do anything they like.

I can see that.

You see, he looks at you and says, to answer your question honestly,

stopping catastrophes

is something I've dedicated my life to.

And the biggest problems of the Empire aren't catastrophes.

What are they?

If you were the Empire, what would your biggest problems be?

The existence of Galthmei?

The existence of Ruv?

Sorcerers, Warlocks, Witches, Spirits?

I see the future.

I see places far and near, and the things that my magic finds as problems.

He looks at everyone here.

My timing might be off on this one.

But

I trained myself to see far and wide, to find problems and try to solve them before they could happen.

The Empire came to me and said, these are our problems.

And my magic didn't agree.

So, I'm in an office

trying to stop catastrophes that never come.

And when you stop catastrophes that never come,

there's never any proof that you're important.

I took a ruby.

I'm sorry.

See, he's just staring at everything.

Yeah?

Yeah, I'm sorry.

I'll put it back.

Then you sort of didn't take it, did you?

Actually, I hated the Citadel this morning.

Now,

I'm coming around.

If I ask ask you about a thing, will you know?

I don't know.

Maybe.

Never hurts to ask.

Inquiring minds learn more.

How's Fort Kieran doing?

Fort Kieran is faring pretty well.

They should have it secured again, probably in the next 24 hours.

The Wizard Steel will be on her way back to the Citadel after that, I would imagine.

Fort Kieran is not a place place that I can't tell you about individual wizards, but that should tell you something in itself.

Fort Kieran and the attack on it has never figured that much in my visions.

Your boyfriend's gonna be fine!

I just, what do I need to do to prepare for this meeting?

Who is the other witch that's gonna get canned?

Uh, what, uh,

how do I get there?

How do I get to the North Pole?

Is there like a gate or a portal or something?

Uh,

what do I do?

Please help.

Don't worry, don't worry.

It's all been handled.

Suvi, you see him walk over.

He

goes out into the courtyard with all the boxes, takes a crowbar.

You see, he actually takes his nice coat off and hangs it up.

And he's got his sleeves rolled up.

He's got a big pocket watch and some suspenders.

You see, he puts a crowbar in, pops this crate open, looks inside and sees something wrapped from Haverward.

And he rolls out this thing

that is about as big as like a dinner plate and you see he

hands it to you Ame

that should do the trick

you'll hopefully have some time to get back to Toma and set your affairs in order

and then

you took one of the one of the door of the sand doors in from Xiao Court right

yeah

same situation just drop that uh how you get back from the North Pole, that I don't know.

But that'll get you to it.

Just drop that

and speak the words.

You know,

I am the witch of the world's heart.

I seek conclave with my sisters.

You'll be able to walk right through that.

And you'll be able to take your entourage with you.

So I would assume if your friends want to come, they can come.

In all the versions of this, where you go without Suvi, you die.

Oh,

straight up die.

Yeah.

Yes.

Subie?

You want to come?

How crazy of it would it be if I was like,

he's so crazy.

Oh, you're having a whole breakdown.

Yeah, I'm going.

Hey, uncle.

Also, you're my uncle now.

I've decided.

I love that.

Great.

You knew we were going to come.

The witch was going to melt down.

And you had a platter ready.

Did you requisition that last quarter?

He smiles, and there's a different energy in the air.

This is a very glib and funny man

who goes,

treason abounds.

And to set you at ease, so I don't seem like too wise of a wizard.

Some of these things are due to what I have seen.

And he gestures at the plate and squeezes Ame's arm and goes,

And others,

are favors done for an old friend because she asked.

Thank you so much.

I,

you know, the shouting was obviously not at you, more about the things that were said, and I assume that you get that a lot.

Thank you so much, and thank you for the sandwich.

And

I like your outfits.

Oh, that's very kind.

Thank you.

You see, he turns and

looks at the rest of you.

Says, Wizard Skye,

everything I've said is true to the best of my knowledge.

The Witch of the World's Heart will not survive the conclave with her coven if she does not have you as an advisor and counselor.

You will not receive permission to accompany her.

The citadel

is vast.

So vast.

In many ways, too vast.

Who knows

what creatures can accomplish with a hundred, hundred arms and legs?

He leans down.

begins to scoop rubies with a shovel head into a little traveling bag, takes it.

You know from inside that these rubies are for a ritual that has not happened.

He looks at Ursulan and says,

you asked why I wasn't the most important person here.

And I think you meant it in terms of

great halls and deeds and accolades and respect.

But real importance

lives equally in every thread of the tapestry of existence.

You are important, my friend.

And he squeezes your arm and says, no matter if you walk in field or forest, in great halls or high castles,

your choices,

you,

Your actions in this world,

and all the worlds there are,

they matter.

Importance doesn't live on the lips of the powerful,

but by our words and deeds.

And you see,

he takes the bag of rubies in his hand and says,

If you don't get a shield, both of them will die in the next year.

And he

vanishes.

Yeah.

Flash of teleportation.

Fuck.

Wow.

Farewell.

Leave it unlocked.

I didn't bring a key.

I liked him.

I agree.

Of the two friends we've met today, I much prefer Sly.

Yeah.

As

you look at each other with your sort of sandwich wrappings here, his unlocked door to his office, some dust, some rubies, a crate opened up with this ceramic sort of...

little plate platform to stand on and get to the North Pole with.

What is it that you do next?

Wherever we're headed, I am going to go return the ruby.

Nice, nice, nice, nice, nice.

Nice.

Are you?

Okay.

Nice, nice.

No, I'm not.

I like the processing moment.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just say, um, um, um, yeah, nobody talk to me for two minutes.

Otherwise, I will uh snap and say something that I will regret later.

Okay, okay, okay, okay.

All right, how are you doing?

Um, honestly, better.

I'm on the right track.

Hey, that was nice.

What's nice?

We gotta get you a shield.

Yeah, well, I actually already have one.

Oh, I made it from the legs of a broken chair.

So I'm not sure he had seen that.

Perhaps he had not.

Oh!

Yeah.

I heard it's so fashionable to have multiple shields.

Is it?

Yeah, because what if

different materials you would block?

So maybe you have

the chair, I'm assuming, is made of wood.

Yes.

So let's get you maybe a metal shield just to block some more metal-specific things

also.

Fair.

Two shields, it is.

I'm going to spend all the money I've ever had on your shield.

And that's because it's tied to your very life?

A little bit, yes.

Okay.

I'm better.

I am

still scared and unprepared, feeling,

and I

realize that I have been really putting off going back to Toma because I don't want to leave you two.

And because the place that I'm going, that I grew up my entire life with, the only person who ever cared about me,

who is gone now, is gonna

be mine now.

And I have to take over solving everybody's problems all the time.

But I have a purpose now and that is to not be destroyed and also have another of my sisters not destroyed and you two get to come with me.

I'm not equipped to help with what you're feeling in your heart.

But I love you and it's gonna be okay.

I'll take it.

Let me hug you around your middle.

Yay.

Okay, okay.

Hey, this isn't that hard.

You can.

That was good.

I think I did good.

I think I said good words.

I agree.

You'll make a great advisor.

Yeah, let me be clear.

There is nowhere you need me that can keep me from you.

Either of you.

You travel back to Haverward.

It's...

You can either go find Galt during the daytime at Tilliver Mill, or you can stop by his home if you want to.

Whatever you prefer.

And then, you know, there's Tura Chowder not far away over in the night market.

But Chura Chowder probably won't be open for a while.

So.

I feel like food after.

It seems fitting that it would come at the end.

Yeah, let's have something to look forward to.

Also, maybe Han is there.

Hmm.

Let's go straight there.

Do you guys want to go back to the bloody...

No.

The bloody carnival?

Yeah.

To see handsome Losario?

He was handsome.

I'm spoken for.

Well, yes, let's visit Galta at work, and perhaps we can invite Hanna out for chowder.

Yeah, great.

You

love to do that.

Ursulan, I have never known Suvi to not be speaking for herself, so I don't know.

Oh, and that she is spoken for?

Yeah.

I believe it's colloquialism.

Well, meaning that she's attached.

It's not, it's not, I don't believe Silver speaks for her.

Thank you for that illusion.

Did I say

that?

Yes, you did.

That was fine.

Down in Haverward, there are a number of large industrial buildings.

Brick and stone, mortar together, tall chimneys.

You see, above the chimneys are themselves small hovering disks

that banish the smoke and off put

off further into the desert outside of the glass of the Erian.

You see that in these massive mills, there's a huge one that has in bright silver, almost a chrome, this huge plaque above the door that says Tilliver above it.

And within, you hear the so

of large machines set to work polishing, carving, cutting, refining.

There is a hiss of steam, the pouring of liquid metals.

You walk in and it is piping hot in here.

This industrial factory is a small factory.

It's only about like 20 to 30 people at a time can work in here.

It's not this massive, you know, yawning airplane hangar of a place.

But you see that there are tall arched windows of frosted glass that have sort of iron bands in between them.

So there's panels of glass, but the windows themselves are quite large, letting lots of daylight into the factory.

You see that there is

a series of workstations where liquid metal is being poured out of 30 foot tall silver crucibles.

The crucibles themselves are inscribed with some sort of evocation rune.

And you can see there's fire at the base of the crucibles and liquid metal pouring out, but around the bands of the crucible, the runes are producing frost that exists on the outside of them.

So some wild bit of metallurgical magic is happening.

You look out into the area here.

burly gorilla looking guy with these huge

he has blonde hair uh blonde mustache these thick blonde hairy forearms many rings thick leather apron is walking around big beard He's got the classic of the age, mustache over the beard.

I think I'm gonna like him.

Farther up from him, you see that there is a raised platform over the sort of curing beds that are setting the molds for the liquid metal being poured out.

There is a raised catwalk, but kind of a full thick platform with multiple looms spinning at the same time, or almost like sewing machines or some kind of thing.

But you see that they are weaving liquid metal, and you see that there are a number of young artificers up there.

Each artificer is seated pumping a little foot pedal in the metal spinning machine.

And you see that each of them has a young wizard in Academy cadet clothes who is layering in the spells as the artificers actually make the material good that is getting layered in with magic.

The man you recognize as Gult,

and up in one of the desks up there, you can see

with a

degree of like with her bone white hair

and a

deteriorated

musculature along one side of her neck and jaw.

You see that there is like an intense sort of withering there on the side of her face.

But she has the same sort of like steely blue eyes as her father, Galt, and a little bit of a similar aquiline profile to him.

Galt calls out and he says, keep that hot.

I don't want to see that needle dipping into the orange.

You see that he turns around as the door opens up and you see he says, thank God, get it into the back.

Oh, oh.

What?

Oh.

He looks and says, hey.

Oh!

Sky!

Sky!

Hey!

Good to see you.

Good to see you, kid.

How you doing?

I'm so good.

What was I supposed to be bringing?

You're not supposed to be bringing anything.

Uh, to the side!

And he rips you over to the side as just huge pallets of like raw silver ingots begin to come in on a wheeled sort of like dolly behind you.

He says, all right, get it in the back.

Start dispelling it.

Get it out of here.

And you see that there's a moment where he looks out and says no no no no and you he gets a huge bellows and starts spraying this poison smoke people start coughing as a bunch of iridescent little gem

it looks like gems are springing out of it until you see that they are crickets they're these little gem like insects get them out of the fucking factory get them out um look at those they're pests and he's poisoning them as fast as he can I got cantrips out and I'm sending little aruley info to light them up.

As I pull out a little tiny cage

out of my pocket.

Give me a little sleight of hand to catch.

We'll call it DC15.

That's a 14.

No!

What can you give me for a 14?

I think you get a little jewel hopper right in your right in your palm.

You can squirrel it away.

However, anyone with a passive perception above that notices Ahme catching it.

I notice.

Oh, wait.

Oh, what did it?

Oh, wait.

And I'm just miming like, get rid of it.

I put it in both hands and I slip it into a little vial.

Is it alive?

Is it

a little bug?

It's a little buggy.

A little native bug to the city.

Suvi, you would know that jewel hoppers

are able to bypass enchantments to

slowly sap the color out of different gemstones,

which can absolutely change and warp the magical effects on enchanted jewel-based things.

Ooh.

Yeah, those suck.

I'm running around firing off pantrips or trying to step on them.

They're easy to step on, but they do make a sound like glass shattering when you step on them.

Oh, I don't like it.

Ah.

You see, Gult goes in and says, God,

loose crates.

Get the silver out of here.

Check every bit of silver for these jewel hoppers.

Ah, kid, busy day.

What can I do for you?

Hi, Hi, yeah.

Uh, more of a, what can we do for

me, the witch of Toma.

I'm the witch of Toma.

I am the new uh Witch of the World's Heart, and Grandmother Wren said that you're a true friend.

Oh,

oh, yeah, Grandma Ren!

How is she?

Oh, uh, she passed

three months ago.

Oh,

I feel like a real heel.

I hadn't stayed in touch with with her.

I'm sorry.

My condolences.

That's quite right.

You seem quite busy here.

Yeah, we sure are.

God, no, you know what?

Oh, is there one under the desk?

He goes and pulls a whistle, and people start shouting in dismay.

Like, oh no!

And he says, Work stoppage, jewel hoppers getting into the mill.

Everyone, clear your station, look around.

Uh, let's talk for a second.

We got to take, we got to shut everything down.

If one of these things hides somewhere and lays any eggs, we're fucked.

Subi, you see Hana approaching.

I'm gonna do my best.

Uh, if Hana, did like, does she look sort of alert and looking around or mostly distracted before the whistle was pulled?

She was focused before the whistle was pulled.

I'm gonna do my best to try to like sneak up on her.

I think she also like tends to hyper-focus, and there is definitely a game of uh hey, what you doing?

Ah, she goes, ah, and fucks something up, and she goes, Ah!

don't do that!

Sky, what is the matter with you?

She stands up and looks over and says,

well, congratulations.

I'm glad you're.

I heard you were moved into the tower.

You got your name cloak.

Hi, thank you.

You seem to be doing manual label down here.

Very charming.

I love you.

And I'm just going to give her a little hug.

She gives you a hug hug as well.

You see that she looks and says, yes, happy to be toiling away down here.

Is there anything I can help you with?

What are you looking for down here?

Oh, your dad and my friends need to chat about some stuff, but

have you been?

What have you been up to?

I don't know.

Good.

What are you working on?

Oh,

we are getting a bunch of these prepared.

You look down and see that there are

actually

Lou,

give me a luck check.

Let's say that you really want a 13 or higher.

I got a 17.

You see that she's looking down and saying,

staff caps for the most part, but we actually just got in an order for a bunch more of these.

And you see that she lifts up one of the big industrial molds that's in like a 30-foot long

sheet.

There's a sort of massive stone press, almost like the cover of a piano.

And she lifts it up, and steam rises, and you see shining steel shields.

A row of about 20.

This could not be more serendipitous.

May I introduce you to my friend Bear?

Hello, Hannah.

Hello, how's it going?

Well,

I'm Hanna.

I'm Suvi's protector.

Oh.

And was actually...

I had gotten into shield-making myself.

But Suvi had hoped that...

Are you an artificer?

No.

I'm the strongest man in Silsbury.

Oh, where is that?

It's near Toma on the Isle of Akam.

Not one of those words hits for.

It's all right.

It's a place, and I'm strong there.

But

my proficiency in shield making is not up to snuff for my friends, so she was hoping you might be able to provide.

Oh,

Skye, the um

just for you to know, I mean, all of these are, we don't make anything that

we don't get.

Everything here has been paid for.

I mean, this has all been requisitioned to buy the Citadel.

Yeah, absolutely.

Commerce, I'm here to also buy a shield.

Uh, you want to buy one shield?

Is there a bulk discount?

Well, we're a male.

We're an artificer's male.

No,

you always have to round up when you make them, though.

Do you have an extra?

You see, she looks at him and says, Let me go talk to my dad.

You can make a choice.

Make your own choice.

She walks away and says, Always do.

My friend's sad.

She walks away.

Ame, you walk over into a little office with Gulk.

Boiling hot little brick room with a bunch of papers.

There's a little, a bunch of small drawers that have like contracts and order forms.

There is nothing readable in here.

Unlike the wizards' places you have been that are like lores and histories and narratives and diagrams and explanations.

Everything here is like numbers and sheets and ledgers and books kept and amounts and quantities and transactions.

This is a place of, you know, these are the people that do the grunt work of wizards.

On the way there, I am also looking at the, you know, the wizards weaving spells into metal metal fabrics.

And I mean, this is somewhat akin to what I do.

And I never got a chance to examine those matchsticks.

You know, are these like for realsies permanent spells?

It looks like they are for realsy permanent spells.

And what you see is it takes

you can make

magical tokens.

You look at these and see

that there is a lot of work

going.

into this.

The first time you saw the matchsticks, I think part of you was like, how could you make this much magic?

Like, how much time would it take for me to do this?

And now looking here,

you're looking at it and being like...

Every station has a wizard and an artificer, and they are working hard.

And the things that they're making this out of seem like they might already be magical.

Like the silver that they're putting in here already got enchanted somewhere else.

So I think you're seeing this thing of like the end result was so impressive to you, where you were like, I could never do that.

Well, no, because it's an assembly line deal.

And I think you realize, like, oh, I could never do that, and neither can they.

Like,

as individuals, each part of them is only responsible for one small piece of the process.

And even they don't seem to have eyes on the origin of the process.

Oh, that's amazing.

That's fascinating.

I wonder if there's a

interesting, interesting.

Because Grandma Ren could make things and make them permanent.

But it took a lot of hard work.

Oh, that's so cool.

That's so cool.

Oh,

Ame.

Well, so you are the new witch of Toma.

Well, listen, I'm an old friend of Grandmother Wren's, an old friend of Soft and Stone, and of course of Skye.

Whatever I used to call her.

I didn't used to call her Skye, but I loved her all the same.

Thanks for that.

I

have to leave for Toma soon, and then from there, I must go and meet with my sisters in the in

a conclave.

I'm

deeply unprepared as I have only recently come into the inheritance of my knowledge

as the witch of the world's heart.

I I don't know if there's anything that you'd be able to pass on that Grammar and told you, or any sort of

advice that you could have.

I

wish that I had more time to sit with you and find out more about your connection to her and some of your adventures together.

And,

you know, of course, your

time with Soft and Stone.

C smiles and says, I, you know,

when I was a journeyman,

artificer, many years ago, I helped build the traveling door to Silbury.

Wow.

You know, this was...

I don't know, what, 25 years ago, something like that?

And

I met Grandmother Wren at that time.

I was a punk kid.

I didn't know my left from my right.

But

she was always kind, and she was a great help because there were some kooky kind of things in a calm where some of our

some of the engineers, the celestial engineering was a little bit off, and she helped us figure out a couple different parts of building the door there.

Oh,

what do you mean, off?

Well, there were some interesting sort of hemispheric differences there.

I mean, just some of our orbits were slightly off.

So she helped us kind of figure out where our math had gone wrong a little bit and make the doors travel to the right place.

They just weren't reliable

at first.

But she gave me a bunch of great information about it.

And actually, that's when she, when that project started to go a little haywire, that's the first time I met Stone.

She had come back and started working as an abjuror, was helping us figure out some of what might be going wrong.

As an abjurer, she wasn't there to ward it.

She was sort of about figuring out sources of magic, you know, and where the sort of source of the energy was coming from.

And that's when she first, I believe, befriended Grandmother Wren in those initial sort of meetings when we were expanding out and the Empire was having its presence sort of become firmer within Accom.

Yes.

She was a very kind woman, Grandmother Wren.

And I remember she gave me a lot of information, and she gave Stone a lot of information as well.

There was one...

Where was that?

I don't have it here.

I don't have it here in the office, but the.

She talked a lot about

the taboo of passage, which is some more witchy disciplined stuff than I'm used to.

But it had a lot to do with magical definitions of roads and what roads are.

Yes.

A road is a path that has felt the s the iron of a horse's shoe

or the wheels of a wagon.

Banded wheels.

Yeah, exactly.

Uh

here, give me an insight check.

That's a dirty 20.

Ooh.

You see, he looks

as he hears a little

from your pocket.

Are you making the noise of the jewel hoppers you have in your pocket?

He sort of thinks for a second here.

You see, he says, eh, jewel hoppers.

Look.

You see, Hanna sticks her head in right before he's about to say something and goes,

Dad, Sky's asking if we have

shields, extra shields.

You see, he goes, extra shields?

And you see that, give me an insight to check here.

14.

You see that they quickly fade into a non-imperial language.

Each of them speaks a couple sentences of Tuscavi, which is another sort of like a vassal state of the empire.

And there is a quick...

There's a quick exchange back and forth where you see Hana looks pretty

bleak and kind of like you just see something kind of a sort of smoldering something on her expression as she sort of argues with her dad and say their language for a second.

And her dad looks very quick, realizing that it's what they're doing is rude to you.

And you see that there's a little bit of a

desire for him to move on.

And you see, he does at some point, you hear him say,

in this language, you do hear him reference the name silence.

He was like, silence.

And you see that she shrugs.

And you see, he says, just get the shield, Hannah, and

sends her out.

He turns to look at you and says,

sorry about that.

No, no, I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to intrude.

No.

He's hearing that.

He smiles.

Oh.

I can get rid of it.

No, well, you should.

I mean, it'll eat up any magic gems that you have.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah,

that's true.

I mean, it's in a little

bug jar.

Usually it's pretty bug-proof.

Oh.

But yeah, it'll be safe in a jar.

Just make sure you get it some rhinestones or something.

There was a period of time when I was a younger fella, the grandmother Ren was very kind to me.

You know, artificers' wages, especially as a journeyman, are not

grand wages.

And

much of the material that we were required to provide at the time, we had to acquire ourselves.

And Grandmother Wren

was very helpful in that regard.

Out of trust and respect for Grandmother Wren, I'm just going to be honest with you in that occasionally artificers that are on hard times will make the very stupid mistake of doing some work outside of their contracts with the Citadel, just to try to make ends meet, and honestly to fund the work they're doing on behalf of the Citadel.

Grandmother Wren requisitioned some work for me, speaking of jewel hoppers,

of providing a...

I provided a flawless sapphire to her.

I don't know where it is.

Grandmother Wren had it, so it might be somewhere in your home, but

have I do I remember a flawless sapphire or do I remember what it might have been used for?

No, not off the top of your head.

In any case, I owe a great deal to Grandmother Wren, who was an incredibly kind woman.

And I think Ursulan and Suvi, you guys are both led to wait, but you can see the office where Hana is telling you to wait.

You're like right near the office with Ahmed in it, and you can see her talking to Gult.

Um, so you see, Gult says,

Work here at the Citadel keeps me very busy.

We need to make these shields are going to be

sent up to Gavril to create more shield Tamori.

Um,

but

uh, if you have a spare one, um, you know, I'm sure we do.

Um,

well, I appreciate that because

our protector Ursulon's ownership of his shield is apparently integral to Suvi's and my very survival.

Well, most shields are.

And you see that he

smiles and says, sorry, I couldn't give you anything more substantive, but just know that, you know, if you're ever looking for the scuttle butt and what's going on down here in the boonies of the Citadel,

happy to give you a hint.

You see, there's a whistle that goes outside, and he's like, okay, well, that's the jewel hoppers.

Please keep that in that jar.

Don't let it out.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you so much for your time and for your advice and for the shield.

And I'm sure that if there's ever anything that you need, that you can, of course, call upon the wizard Skye and her mentor.

We certainly will.

He walks out and says, all right, you dogs, that was lunch.

And he walks out.

He kind of nods to you, Suvi.

But, you you know, as funny as it is, that was also lunch.

And he goes out and you see a bunch of people kind of wince at the thought of having to work for another however many hours that they're going to be working down here.

And they get back to it.

Hana looks up at her station.

opens sort of a vault door and says,

look, we don't we don't have spare shields is not really a thing, but we have some prototypes in here that at the very least were tests.

You can check them.

I can't vouch for any of them.

They were prototypes.

So they're, you know, these are these are first pancakes in the griddle.

But you can go take a look.

Yeah, yeah.

Is that good?

Cool.

Each of you go ahead and give me an investigation check.

15.

18.

21.

Let's go.

15, 18, 21.

Each of you describe a prototype shield.

You would find,

you guys know about how good those numbers are.

Give me a group of shields you would find.

These are largely undecorated.

And with each of them, there is an incredible degree of craftsmanship and

know-how put into these shields, but they remain unfinished.

And there was something that made them not want to continue with making the shields in this way.

Let's start with a 15.

Yeah.

I'm going to look at some of like the smaller like buckler looking guys that would be a little lighter for me to interact with.

Is there a chance I can stack a cast of Detect Magic on this to try to see what...

Give me a Detect Magic.

So casting casting detect magic on it, those runes appear in your eyes for a second.

You can see

that

there are probably

a dozen shields in here.

And only about 25%, so about like three or four shields are

sufficiently well crafted enough.

that they are enchantable.

But because they were made by artificers, they are basically set here waiting to receive an enchantment that would settle into it and become permanent.

They have been made with materials of high enough quality and with enough skill and precision to receive and store a permanent enchantment.

Perfect.

The thing I wanted was the blank.

So I'm just going to grab a little blank one with kind of a smooth cover.

And if there's, I mean,

Galt runs a tight ship, but if there's just any sort of a

loose screwdriver, I'm going to go up and see like how malleable the metal is.

I actually am proficient with carpenter's tools.

So this bad boy is going to get decorated while I'm hanging out in the north.

Hell yeah.

So you get a small blank buckler that is one of the three or four shields that is actually capable of receiving an enchantment.

Yep.

Cool.

All of them would work as a normal shield, right?

But only a couple of them are possibly enchantable.

Ursulan, on an 18, what kind of shield do you find?

I think Ursulan finds a...

These shields were meant to be used by

Tamori that were the shield spell.

So I think Ursulan finds several like truly oversized tower shields.

Like not for a normal sized person, not for a even not for a frail person.

Like a true like heavy, like a straight up steel door of a fucking shield um

almost like uh that kind of like wrought iron it's got those like uh you can tell all these like bolts along the side that have kind of uh are being used to reinforce it uh i think uh

like i feel like him holding it almost it covers like from his knee all the way up to his shoulder it's just like a giant piece of metal uh and i think he's gonna like pick it up and kind of uh work with it uh

and you know uh probably take it out to wherever Suvi is.

Hell yeah.

Ame on a 21.

What kind of shield do you find?

The shield that I find is a little bit tucked away in the corner.

I

look over and it's

behind another one of the shields.

I pull it out.

It's cobwebs come away with me.

I blow the dust off of it.

And it

has

a metal,

a golden metallic sheen to it.

It's still a little dusty,

but it feels

lighter than what I imagined a shield might be of this size.

And it's a little...

it looks older.

It's in a sort of unfashionable style.

It has a heraldric

vibe to it,

with the

point at the top and the sloping bottom edges.

I pull it out and it looks like it can hold an enchantment.

I bring it out to Ursulan and Suvi.

Oop, nice.

These are all shields they can shield.

Great.

Though wait, they can shield?

Yeah, I'm not really.

Yes.

I'm nervous now.

Again, the whole no shield and you'll die.

Shields that can shield.

Yeah.

I'm going to roll.

I said three or four enchantable shields.

I'm going to roll one for the fox just to see if the fox.

I'll say the fox.

The fox has to be able to beat a.

I'll say the fox has to be able to beat a 10.

Otherwise, there's only three enchantable shields in here.

That's a two.

Fox doesn't do it.

There's only three enchantable shields in here.

Poor bud.

What are you doing?

Huh?

There's no food in here.

Oh, no.

Uh, okay, uh, Hana, we will take these three.

Give me a number.

Oh, you want, oh, you want all three of these?

Oh, is that weird?

Should we not?

Should only be one.

Maybe you should just try one, because I'm not gonna use one.

And I think Ursula, he already has his wooden one, so he can't need more than.

Well, Suvi made a good point earlier that two shields is important.

Two shields for different or multiple shields is important for multiple effects.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh.

Okay, I don't need mine.

We could just get the one.

How much will one shield be?

My father would consider it an honor to donate a shield to the cause of the Wizard Sky.

Hannah.

Can I roll a quick insight check?

Yeah, give me an insight check.

18.

What is Suvi feeling in this moment?

Like, what has Suvi been able to communicate to Ahme about her relationship to Galt and Hana?

Ooh.

Uh.

Maybe, maybe it's nothing, or maybe there's just whatever, whatever an 18 insight could get off of Suvi in this moment.

Wait, it's off of me?

Uh, just the interaction.

The interaction, yeah.

Yeah.

Uh,

that Suvi

has not clocked the sort of difference in our status in a meaningful enough way that Suvi's casualness is now pointing downward in a way that she's not engaging with.

Hanna,

her posture is like a kicked dog.

And

there is an element to her relationship to Suvi,

which is a source of incredible pain for her.

Suvi had mentioned her hair that had been discolored by an accident in one of the Aerith depositories.

Hanna's injuries from that are not

redecorated.

They have like partially withered her body.

And

this

place

is hot and loud.

And it's interesting to be in here for this small amount of time that you're all interested to be here.

But you will walk out of this door, and Hanna will spend a hot, noisy lifetime in this room.

She

cannot get out

of this room or this life

or this friendship.

Hannah, I deeply appreciate your father's generosity, but it is the custom of witches

to

return such gifts with boons.

We.

It would be the honorable thing to do.

Is there anything that we can do for you?

Or perhaps it is a boon to be held in reserve in time of need?

Oh,

a boon, a boon from a witch is

great payment indeed.

I will let my father know.

You see, she runs out, grabs her dad.

Galt comes back in and says,

a shield for a boon?

Yes.

Oh, take all three.

Yes.

Yeah.

I think one would suffice.

Two will do.

Okay.

Two shields for a boon.

And you see, he extends a hand to Yu, Ame.

I take it and give a little curtsy.

He smiles, he bows,

says, Thank you again for visiting the Tilver Mill,

Wizard Skye.

You see, Hana says, it's wonderful to see you, Skye.

It's good to see you, too.

Thanks.

Uh, well,

uh,

back to work.

Uh, stop by any time.

And we were going to go get uh dinner after this.

Did you want- would you care to join us?

Uh, what what time uh were you planning on going?

Oh, gosh, uh, right after sunset at Tura's Chowder.

Oh, they've got this, like, big seat.

You have to go.

It's so good.

Yeah, no pressure.

No pressure.

Pressure.

I'll, I'll, uh, I'll, uh, if, if I'm out in time, I'll send a messenger your way.

I'll, I'll send a little cantrip.

Oh, thank you.

Uh, I wouldn't, uh, I wouldn't hold your breath.

Okay.

Well, hope to see you there, but if not, it was an absolute pleasure.

Thank you.

She smiles

and you walk out of there.

Suvi, on a passive investigation,

you see crates being packed in the corner.

And as you walk out and see,

it looks like an order got doubled last night.

And as it got doubled, their timeline is still the end of this week.

And you look at a clock up on the wall that

ticks slowly by.

She's not going to make it.

Well, we can send, I mean, those clams you can just pick up and send, you know, send anywhere.

It's the perfect to-go container.

We can

send her food.

Yeah.

As you guys are leaving Toliver Mill, you see that young class of wizards that were up there that were actually laying spells, all looking kind of exhausted.

You guess they've like cast sort of their spells for the day.

You see they walk out as a new group of about 12 wizards walks in, kind of shaking hands and being like, Oh, you know, I'll see you on the next, you know, the next one.

And you see they walk in.

You see no such replacement for the artificers as you all head off to Tura's chowder.

I might have two clems.

It's so sad.

We had so much fun in the Citadel in the earlier episodes, and now we're remotely discovering that it's not always great here.

It's bad in parts.

Did I make an insight check just to clock?

How bad it is, actually.

Give me an insight check.

It's a DC-20 insight check.

It's a 17.

I make it with a dirty 20.

Oh, wow.

You got exactly what you needed.

I want to know.

This is another one of those bad knowledge roles.

Why do you do this?

I wanted the dice to tell me it was okay to not notice.

I just think, well, I think what happens is this.

Because you've graduated, you've got your name cloak, you're an adult, you have been putting things on silence's tab.

And the idea of a tab starts arriving to you as you think about fucking

sly shoveling rubies and a court filled with paintings, and and the paintings need to be restored.

And it all just occurs to you that this is not the world.

This is

it's not happening.

It's being done.

Childhood is the experience of the world happening.

But big parts of the world happening are the world being done.

Someone restores those paintings.

Someone sends those rubies.

Someone signs off on the rubies getting sent.

Someone puts an order in, and someone puts time up on the wall.

And I think that for the first time, you walk out of there going,

you

put things on Silence's tab, and it's never a problem.

But you also think for a second and go, well, all I ever put on there is big clams at Chura's Chowder.

And then I rent out books that I'm allowed to rent out.

I wonder what could go on that tab that would make someone come talk to me.

And then you think about the idea of you being like, let me get a shield, and an artificer looking at you like you had just asked her to do the impossible.

And the idea of a person living at the base of the citadel for whom every minute,

every second, every pound of silver, every gem on every hilt of every sword counts.

Oh,

the shiver that goes through Suvi as she walks outside, she is grateful that she can blame on like the evening air and the difference in temperature between inside the mill and outside.

Uh um

I'm glad we got that handled.

And I hope you don't mind, Suvi.

I did not choose your shield.

It's fine.

What it was the shield.

What were the two shields that you chose?

I'll take my shield and Ame's shield.

Beautiful.

Suvi's shield is too small.

You guys go to Chura's Chowder,

have a lovely dinner.

I think that you've been here with Ame awake at the Citadel for like a week.

Ah,

what's going on with Ame emotionally the second time you eat at Chura's Chowder?

It's the and I think you realize, Aame, this is the first time you've done something at the Citadel for the second time.

I'm no stranger to routine.

I mean, you know, being at the at a farm and also being a witch, your life is full of ritual and repetition and,

you know, little details and taking the time to perfect things.

This feels like

to visit a place like this

again

feels

decadent.

And I have

I have been putting everything off.

All of the ritual and the repetition and the hard work of being a witch and living in Toma.

I've put it off while I explored with my friends and, yes, did some research, but I

knew.

I knew what I was avoiding.

And now that the novelty is over, I think

I know,

even if

the wizard sly had not so deeply impressed upon me,

it's time to go.

But I still, oh, I still am so happy with this stew.

It's so

good.

But I definitely try a little bowl of chowder as well.

You enjoy your chowder.

You enjoy the stew

and spend some wonderful time walking the streets of the night market in Haverward

in time to join Malacanth as it touches down at midnight and begins to head back up

as it ascends, slowly pulling away from the ground.

You clear the tops of the buildings of Haverward and look up into the nighttime sky

over the desert,

lights

appearing appearing in the sky.

Rippling in the side of the glass of the Erian.

Iridescent like soapy water.

Skyships enter.

One, two,

three,

a dozen, two dozen, four dozen.

You have never seen this amount of military presence at the Citadel.

This many soldiers or skyships coming.

You didn't even know there were this many in the fleet.

And at the head of them is Steele's flagship coming home to her citadel.

That was Lou Wilson as Ursulan, Erika Ishii as Ahme, Abriya 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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