WWW #19: Kith and Kin

This is the sound of Worlds Beyond Number.

Morning comes in early summer here in the heart of Wizardry in the Kamsarazen Empire, high atop the Erian in the floating court of Malakanth,

beside the domain of the Archmage Silence within the Tower of the Clove, so named for its position in shielding, guiding, and softening the hand of the Archmage by the Archmage's own right hand, the newly name-cloaked wizard Skye.

Now Sky's palatial suite and manner and her own wizardly bed, she is not in, for she is indeed asleep in her study.

Of many proud wizards before her engaging in some extemporaneous

unconsciousness, shall we say.

We will cut to a bedroom here, however.

There is a guest room some stories below, closer to the ground, although ground is generous here within the citadel with all of these floating courts.

Ame, can you describe your guest quarters in Suvi's Tower and how they have been appointed after just basically a day of you having moved from the old apartment that did not have a guest quarter into a place where you actually have some privacy to your own?

After

possibly less than 24 hours, it has already become once again a Sylvan kaleidoscope, just as the cottage was.

Where did all these trinkets come from?

Who can say?

Where were they being stored?

God only knows.

There's a

nest, once again, of pillows and blankets, and maybe a couple of mattresses over in the corner.

There's

little

stuffed

pillows that are in the shape of different creatures, both fanciful and real.

Hanging from the rafters

is

a variety of seasonal herbs and spices and flowers.

There are, it looks as if somehow, somehow it has, everything has a

tiny layer, a sheen of sort of comfy dust on it.

Not, not misuse, you know, not dust from misuse, but somehow it feels lived in already.

Over in the corner, there's a little wardrobe.

Uh, and if you open it up, there are a couple of little

dresses, all

very similar to one another.

The little red skirt and white

robed top that Ahme is used to wearing.

There is a

a mannequin in the corner, featureless, just a wooden dummy, that seems to be used for both crafting and draping of clothing and patterns.

There's a couple of marks on where the face and the heart are that lead you to believe that maybe it's been also used for target practice.

There's just

already whereas Suvi has an organized accordioning shelves of trinkets Ames are laid out in sort of piles and aesthetic,

you know, little almost shrine-looking setups.

They seem to have been meticulously placed, and yet it has, again, been less than 24 hours.

You see as you awake, Aame,

you know, it was a late night last night, but

you, I assume, went to bed, certainly before Ursulan and Suvi did.

Ursulan did out training late into the night.

You awaken to discover the fox sort of at the foot of your bed in a little pile of blankets, sort of curled up there, looking out through the windowsill at two little birds chirping at each other.

See, he's sort of staring out at them.

No, you're not real.

There's no reason to jump up and try to grab you because you're not real.

And yet, and yet, and yet.

What?

How would they know?

Maybe one real bird got in.

How would they know?

It's true, you never know until you try.

And you see,

and his, you know, fangs close around a bird that

doesn't even seem to really react for a moment to being bitten until it goes to fly away as it is approached.

Another failure, but that's just a data point.

I am told that is science.

What?

Good job.

Good job, Fox.

You did good.

And I

keep keep at it.

Keep at it.

They flew away.

Well, no, not with that ones.

Just, you know, keep on chasing your heart's desire.

You're happy for some reason that I...

Well, I'm glad that starving to death is funny to you.

Those little weirdos came in and left stuff for you on the desk.

I'm gonna go find some already made food, which is great.

I don't know why I'm so cranky.

And he walks out.

Give him a little pat as he does.

You see that there are three little scrolls on the thing.

Unrolling them, you see that the ink demons who have all been who are all you think the ink demons all have like deferred to Sufi as like the mistress of the tower, but you think they have all fallen in love with you.

You see that there is a little poem in blue ink that says, Where heart meets heart and hand in hand, the home of homes shall ever stand.

In humble hearths and temples grand, her heart's desire our command.

There is a scroll in red ink that says, buttass

with a little heart over it.

And you see that underneath that in black ink, it says a key to wizardly notation, grammar, and punctuation for our resident witch.

And that will allow you to re-roll one Arcana check.

It's a one-time, one-time single-use Arcana check re-roll, a very minor little magical item made by Enso.

Shout out to Enso!

The three little ink spirits

have left little gifts for you.

And I think you hear a door close up on, that's probably like on this level, actually,

because the fourth story is where the door to the tower goes.

So there's sort of like four levels of dungeon in this tower because there's no ground floor entrance.

It's like there's four stories that you can only get by going down as you enter this tower.

Ursulan, as you re-enter

after a night of sort of

working and training, where do you think you actually ended up sleeping this night in Malacanth?

On the training grounds.

Yeah.

In the shallow fake grass.

I think for the first time, you saw a little illusory rabbit come out from under a hedge, sort of sniff around, and then walk back in.

And then

after a time, as you like woke up again, just your own senses at the training ground, sort of the edge of the court, you saw the rabbit come out and trace its exact steps.

And there's sort of a moment where the birds are much more complicated the way the magic has been woven.

They actually do kind of act and make choices and fly around in a kind of interesting way.

If you grab them, they don't fly away right away all the time, but you know.

And I think just looking at the rabbit, there's a little element of like, maybe that's like an older spell.

It's just one of those things where the endless, boundless magic of of the Citadel, as you spend more time here, you become aware of, in their near infinite power, you become aware of, oh, I guess the wizard that made that

phonologue that made that unfamiliar rabbit

maybe wasn't as good as the wizard who made the birds.

And just see, you just see, like, in all of your love for the Citadel, you're like, oh.

That could have been done a little better.

And it's the first time, the first time you see anything here that you're like, oh, that rabbit's not as good as the birds.

Interesting.

What do you do as you re-enter the tower of sort of arriving here?

Like, basically, other mages came to the training ground.

I think you would have seen them too.

Like,

a lot of mages came to the training ground, and you see that there's like trainers waiting for them.

It's the energy, and you begin to notice that the energy in this shift following the attack.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think Ursulan's going to enter Sky's tower

and go to see if Sky, to go check on Suvi.

You walk up and see Suvi

snoozing gently,

a deeply ink-stained blanket

over her, on top of her, and

papers out in all directions.

Not only the thing that had the Battle of Starlings Ford and Badger written on it in her own own hand but you also

see lots of notes and things pulled from boxes stacked up in little piles that use the names aman and chandry

I know I shouldn't, but can I make a little investigation check?

Yeah, give me.

I mean, it's already been assembled into the most actionable information by Sufi.

So give me investigation with advantage.

That's a 19.

No!

If you spend enough time with a wizard, you learn a thing or two.

It's catching.

What kind of information are you looking for?

Is it just total curiosity and openness?

I think, yeah, I do think this is maybe the first time Ursulan has, Ursulan spent a lot of time with Suvi in this month, but I think everything has always been through Suvi.

And so I think this is the first time I have Suvi's information, but my own intention.

So I think I'm going to look.

I guess I'll start with anything that she had

about the battle at Starlings Forge, but maybe slowly drift over to her parents, seeing as they've been coming up a lot in the conversations her and Amay have been having.

You see

that in the findings of Soft and Stone, there's no reference to Starlings Ford.

That would be quite a potent bit of serendipity if, in like,

before having met, there was some connection between your deep and profound experiences in the ancient past and Suvi's parents in the much more recent history of the Citadel.

But you begin to look at Amon, at Suvi's father.

And by the way, I will say this actually, as you look out at them,

you become aware of something that must be true about name cloaks.

Because Amon and Chandri, you can read their full names here,

but even their sort of like shortened names, like without their last names or anything else, you can read those as well and wonder if a wizard's name cloak

ends at the ending of their own life.

That there is some ability to suddenly go, oh, have I heard their name before?

Or have I seen this thing?

That the name cloak sort of protects them during the course of their life and maybe not after?

Looking at these names here,

you see that Soft was a conjurer, and though he had a lot of use in the maintaining of traveling doors and the creation of permanent gates, was a teleporter of kinds, you see that Soft has a lot of drawings, especially as a young man, and there are a lot of drawings of spirits.

You see that he has drawings of like little trickster crow spirits, uh drawings of what look like some uh there's some in it like a shaky hand of like a 17 year old soft drawing like river nymphs and like see this sort of like distracted as he's drawing them as a young man um you see that there are

travel journals almost of him as an explorer as you realize that his specialty in conjuration initially when he was studying was about traveling to what wizards refer to as as the near spirit, parts of the spirit world that are the closest to

the mortal world, the world of Umora.

As I look over the near spirit,

is that somewhere my father ever tread or talked about or made reference to?

No, I don't think it is.

I think that you look at the near spirit and concepts of near and far,

I think you see, this is like

you're watching a a deep, you're watching

a foreign,

not only a foreign man, a man of the world of Umora, but someone whose ideology and worldview is deeply of Umora describe the places of your birth.

And there are elements of familiarity and then elements where you see that Soft's worldview was, so him saying like the near spirit, and you go like, oh.

I think to you, the idea of the near spirit would just be like, well, yeah, I suppose any place that you stumble into first upon arriving in the spirit world, you would see as being near to you.

But the spirit world moves in its own ways and keeping.

And you know how definitely possible it would be for a young mortal to stumble into a very dangerous or remote part of the spirit world.

I think you see the near spirit and see that wizards have cataloged this as being the parts of the spirit world closest to Umora.

And I think that you don't disagree with that assessment, right?

Wizards are smart.

They're probably right about that.

But I think that you're also, your intuition as a spirit would be,

well, it's the part of the spirit world closest to Umora that it's easy to come back from.

I think you see the survivorship bias.

You see the part where you're like, well, did wizards always come back from every one of these missions?

Maybe there's some near spirit that's really fucking nasty that you just didn't get the report back from.

So, you know what I mean?

It's like this idea of like, okay, like...

Near spirit is where we can go and be safe.

And be safe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, last thing I'll say, because it concerns Ursuline

and would be of interest to you.

Soft

was disciplined.

There are some disciplinary records here, which seems to be the only things that haven't been like...

Like, you know, Soft and Stone were double agents for the Citadel, so a lot of their shit's just not requisitionable.

So, a lot of this stuff is about them when they were very young.

Like, there's almost no recent stuff.

Anything from when Suvi was born on is probably not available here.

But when they were teenagers and young wizards, and like, like before Soft was the sage of the Fundament, before, or sorry, before Soft was the Provost of the Eighth, before Stone was the Sage of the Fundament,

there's a lot more available of them.

Soft was disciplined for accidentally releasing a bunch of bound spirits.

In the citadel?

In the citadel.

Many of them were recaptured.

Many of them were not.

He ended up being punished for

carelessness and recklessness.

And

I think you would also recognize, Ursulan,

that some of these spirits are

unfamiliar to you, which would not be strange.

Like, every spirit knows that the spirit world is much vaster and wider than the world of Umora.

Like, Umora has boundaries.

There's a set number of miles in the world of Umora.

The spirit world contains no such

finiteness.

But I think that this is your first time, this is your first time away from a calm.

And I think you see that there are some elements of this where you're like, where you look at the near spirit and begin to go, like, huh,

maybe certain places within Umora have different stories about the spirit world because of this near spirit, because of this idea that, like, there are some affiliations or resonances between places in Umora or peoples in Umora or stories in Umora and the spirit world that they are near in a magical sense.

So you go, like, oh, like, there's no reference here to the great bear or to Naram or to any of these other spirits, but you're like, maybe he wasn't going on these missions to the spirit world in a comp.

Maybe he wasn't speaking that language or telling those stories.

And so he's finding these other spirits.

Some of which you might, you might be like, oh, I think I've seen a crow trickster at some point.

But some of them you're like, no, I don't think I've ever seen a creature like that.

Well, I think there's like, and I think Ursulan thinks even to yesterday, where I think he sees the ink demons spirits not as spirits.

Like those don't strike him as honored friends.

Yeah.

They strike him as weird, like a spirit that only exists in the citadel and is kind of not of his, even his understanding of spirits.

Yes, absolutely.

And I think you see that too, looking at this idea of the near spirit and being like

your breath is here with you in the world of Umora.

And these ink demons and other things like that appear to be here rather than there.

And I think that there's probably a moment where you have a meditation on what is here and there.

How binary does this really get?

In your life, it's been incredibly so because of your

curse, because of your taboo, because of all of this stuff.

It's made incredibly real.

But

watching the fact that these humans seem to be able to go and come back, I don't know where that leaves Ursulan in this bright morning sunlight.

I think he's going to find a space in

Suvi's study and just, I think, continue to go through

Soft's notes.

And I think kind of start to parse for himself, I think, because he has approached it as such a binary,

kind of comfort that even a wizard of the citadel seems to have with entering and exiting the spirit world.

Ame, I think you have awakened to this point as well and can hear the noise of Ursulan and the rest, you know, upstairs.

Uh, uh, do you, uh, what do you do this morning?

So, by the time I hear the um

rustling upstairs, I am already all packed up and uh ready to go.

I am looking in the mirror and fussing with my hair a little bit.

And then I leave for the little ink demons.

One scroll

that has just tied bound up in it a little eraser and that's tied with a little black ribbon.

A little a scroll with a red ribbon that just says fart knocker in it and has a little heart with an arrow through it uh and then the third one uh that's tied with the blue ribbon uh

it reads uh rushing azure stream its flowing path unceasing indelible heart and it has like a tiny little pouch of sand in it um the kind of sand that you one would sprinkle onto ink to help it dry

and then i i head upstairs i love that.

You head upstairs and see Ursulan reading in the corner.

Suvie's still asleep at her desk with the blanket on top of her.

See the fox sort of pads in beside you.

You see, he's just got

a huge length of like sausage links behind him.

Going, oh, this is just in the kitchen.

Do you know that there's a kitchen in here?

I can't believe wizards even have it.

Suvi, you begin to awaken.

Morning, sleeping beauty.

Morning, Suvi.

A night of study.

All of these things come back to you.

Your father as a conjurer.

Your mother originally studying under the name Chandri Newell to join the College of Divination, being banished, or not banished, but like dismissed from the citadel, and shortly thereafter, some months after,

being readmitted and instead focusing to retake her examinations and join the College of Abjuration with a specific study on

counterspelling, dispelling magic, but sort of meta-magic, like the magic of magic itself, right?

It's like really intense.

brainy even for wizards it's like very brainy focus in and of itself right um

like if there's all kinds of like sciences and arts studied within the citadel this is like the most advanced kind of mathematics theoretical stuff like that um

she accused one of her teachers of treason which uh and and treason against magic itself and was basically dismissed from a point of view of like disrespect like disrespecting your teachers where like they were they were explained like that's not a thing that's not like you are i know that you're yelling treason but you're just a, you're just like a 19-year-old screaming treason and pointing a finger.

And if you don't stop screaming, we're going to dismiss you from the citadel.

And she wouldn't stop and then was dismissed.

Is there

a record of the teacher that she accused?

Yes, there is.

The teacher's name was Sleep.

Or the teacher was called the Wizard Sleep.

So she changed specializations

when she came back.

There's logs of their different stuff.

Obviously, these are are from when they were younger, before your mom became the sage of the fundamental

you see that there is nothing here.

There also is a small list of like artifacts that they were responsible for or created.

Uh, your mom's cloak is listed there as something quite powerful.

However, you don't see anything about

a pendant of any kind.

The last thing I will say is, you see that there is a um, there is a, an open letter that was written to the Ark Magi of the Citadel by her.

Um, and you see that it is, it is kept here.

It's like within a small file folder that you have to take and unlike, it's like old too.

It looks like it was handled many times over the years in relation to her dismissal.

And it looks like it was like this was like something that she delivered that you don't know if there's any record of like council getting it, but she certainly wrote it with the intention of it being read aloud to the Arch Magic of the Citadel as a 19-year-old.

This is truly way out there.

It's like, I know who I am now, and I feel like everyone should absolutely get off my back because I wasn't as bad as them.

Um, there is a long letter, and the final sort of stances of it basically arrive at this place where

Stone's words are:

of the three metaphysical axioms put forward to the mages of this citadel, the axiom of interpolation, the axiom of mediation, and the axiom of proliferation, this third axiom does not describe any actual truth of the lingua arcana, nor does it more broadly describe any facet of the greater binding.

Rather, this axiom is pure intellectual technology that serves a political purpose within the citadel.

Given as magical writ for the expedition of a citadel convenience, the ramifications of this being made magical law sully every instance of the lingua arcana that it touches.

Its danger to the future of wizardry, when the convenience of its acceptance has long since passed, the ripples of its effect on magic itself will still be felt.

Should the Ark Magi see it in their wisdom to reverse my dismissal, I will be happy to walk them through how I discovered this stain on the face of magic itself.

Good day,

the wizard Chandry.

The smoke on this woman is unreal.

Wow.

Okay.

You would know what these axioms are.

The axiom of, so the first two, the axiom of interpolation and the axiom of mediation are like simple kind of like laws that are given to young wizards about broad truths of spell casting in general, the type of things that are true across spells, even from different schools of magic.

The axiom of proliferation is essentially that

the more times a spell is written down.

You've learned this as like magical law.

The more times a spell is written down, the weaker the spell

You know, that if a spell is like written across multiple spell books or it's written, you know, it's like the more wizards that it's taught to,

it's not noticed.

The difference between 10 wizards knowing it and 20 wizards knowing it is not noticeable.

But in orders of magnitude, if a spell that were written down 10 times were to be written down a hundred times,

and then to be written down a thousand times,

it becomes less powerful.

and your mother seems to be saying that that axiom is not a part of the lingua arcana and it is not a if she calls it a stain on the face of magic itself

uh i i

the the new bent of my uh

curiosity about their work is now in sort of following or trying to figure out her train of logic on this.

Because, yeah, when you hit an axiom and you're like, a thing I have simply accepted is true.

I did a proof on this poorly several years ago and never really inspected it.

But is it,

is there, is this verifiably true?

Do is there anything I've read,

especially in working in and around the Archmage silence that deals with like

axioms and

the proliferate uh the axiom of proliferation specifically.

The axiom of proliferation is just one of those things where it's like you learn it, you move on.

It's like one of those things that's so foundational that you're like, yeah, you got to be careful about where and how you write spells down because over like if if you were to just hand spells out to everybody all the time, they would just the magic would degrade over time you write it down.

It's why knowledge is very special and sacred and have to be protected.

Give me an insight to check.

11.

I think you're left confused.

You make a connection to the thing.

You're like, my dad said that the indicative reflexive note was

magically unnecessary.

And my mom wrote this fucking missive.

to the Ark Magic of the Citadel after letting her mentor, the wizard, sleep, have it.

She, there was just this teacher she accused of fucking treason yeah uh treason against magic itself the term greater binding you know is kind of a theoretical term that refers to

a theory of magic that magic is the interplay of the spirit and the real or like this of the spirit and the mortal like there's sort of an idea of like oh

what the lingua arcana is describing is relationships between things and their spiritual reflection.

And so there's a binding of the spirit and the mortal, and that's what magic is.

But it's kind of like a theory of magic that there's seven other theories of magic you could name that describe why the lingua arcana works, right?

Wizards tend to be a lot more about

praxis and practice, and a lot more about, like, well, here are the rules that make the lingua arcana work.

And if you want to talk to a bunch of,

you know, sophist wizards about why it works, you can easily blow eight hours doing that.

Um,

the last thing I'll say, too, is you see that there are a ton of

uh letters, uh, love letters between your mom and dad when they were young.

Um,

they they met

at 18 upon their entry into the thing.

So, you know that they were already like dating or in love or had this or had some kind of romance.

They don't appear to have been wed until later, but they had some kind of romance or friendship.

And looking over different love letters, it looks like it maybe there were some ripples to it or a story to it over time of times of being stationed far apart and times coming back together over like five to six years of their young life.

And you see that they immediately

there's a lot of love for each other.

And just it's interesting to see, A, when they were younger, then you knew them as your parents, but you can see

right away, your mom has a degree of

patient clarity.

Like, your dad seems to pop off about smaller things and your mom, bigger things.

And yet they both pop off.

I love that they were just like, they radicalized each other.

It's just so good.

Well, you see that your dad, your dad, there seems to be a relationship over years of letters that you stayed up all night reading that were just like, that that were like your dad see was like your dad was an explorer and a teleporter who went to the spirit world and your dad would there's this constant train of in the letters your dad being like I saw this thing and this could be an explanation for it here or maybe it's like this in any case as we came back to it and then your mom will reping the letter being like wait the point you made that second

go back to that um

where your mom seems to like rest on a thing and go don't just throw throw this out there.

Like, this is where you should spend a year of time really studying.

And

also, you see that your dad seems to like pop off.

There's a couple of days where he's like, got in a fight, this relationship was soured, but then we made up later and it was okay.

And then,

and then your mom, your mom, that does not, she has like strong, deep relationships.

Like, your mom is friends with the artificer Gult, who she mentions at a certain point,

and things like that,

that come back and forth,

which is why Hana is someone you knew that your mom and Gult, like, but

when your mom sours on a relationship, it doesn't come back.

There is something where she's like, I have ruled that this person is not a good person.

Your dad points out in some of these letters certain things where he's like, he's like, you know, you see like an early thing of him being like, yeah, well, you know, he's like, he's like,

there's some frills on the edges of the lingua arcana.

And then your mom's like, you know, like, well, what do you mean by that?

And then,

oh,

and then you see, like, so they must have been together, or at least quite close when your mom was dismissed from the academy.

And you see that there are no letters during that time period between them.

And then she comes back as an abjuror.

And

all of this is to say, the indicative reflexive, these various axioms, the axioms of proliferation.

You see references in some of their love letters to a trip they took to the city of Cairo.

And they start making references obliquely, these are not, you know, they're not doing their business in these.

At this point, they're kind of like living together, it seems.

So like the letters begin to die off as they get closer to moving in together and being and like being wed.

But the last thing you see is there's a reference to something about, you know, like a joke your mom makes to your your dad where she's like, you know, like,

well, finding that would be easier than finding the antivole.

And antivole, I know these episodes in the Citadel, there's more made-up words than I love it.

You know the Antivole.

They're an incredibly important part of history.

Everyone knows the Antivole.

1423, the term lingua arcana is coined.

1440, the first college of summoners.

The earliest moment where there are enough wizards to get together and say, hey, in these other places, we've sort of discovered this language of magic, right?

1456 is the third College of Summoners, the founding of the Conclave of Magi.

The term wizard is largely accepted there to describe people that can use

that can use a language that they believe is the language the universe uses to understand itself.

And in 1464,

after about eight years of existence

of this conclave that is started in the city of Cairo,

the Syraz Imperium approaches the conclave in an offer of support, saying this is a great work

that we would love to support, to be the patrons of this effort.

And you have always known that

there were two big factions at the time within the Conclave of Magi called the Akordati and the Antipole.

That basically

the Akordati were people that were like,

you know, their stated philosophy was the lingua arcana should belong to all peoples.

It should be a part.

Like, if the Seraz Imperium wishes, and by the way, Sarah's Imperium at this time existed pretty much just in its homeland.

It had not spread that far out.

So basically, like some royalty came and said, we are going to give you money to make this effort possible.

And the Acrodati were like, you know, this is an incredible boon that will expedite our important work.

And does not our important work like benefit all people?

And the Antivoli were basically basically said, like, we should refuse this offer.

We should not accept the support of the Syrah's Imperium.

It was this really heated debate.

And three years later, in the cataclysm of Cairo, violence broke out between the Akordati and the Antivoli.

The Antivoli faction was defeated.

And three years later was the creation of the Irian and the White Desert.

But you saw this trip to Cairo that they took.

There's a reference to a trip to Cairo they took.

And just thinking about the antibole and the fact that all of that happened in Cairo.

Tons of stuff.

Subie.

That's a lot of reason.

You gotta reward the research, folks.

You awaken.

Where are you going?

Hi.

Hello?

Hi.

Hello?

Oh,

good morning.

I'm gonna put the notes down like I wasn't grieving with them.

That's okay.

You can.

Whatever you want.

Oh, yes.

Uh, why are we in here?

Well, I'm headed over to Pomeroy first.

Today's my day where I gotta meet all of Grandmother Wren's allies.

Would you like some accompaniment?

Um,

yeah,

I definitely wouldn't mind that.

Ursulan, are you do you think that you would be okay going?

Because I don't know what we're gonna find there.

No, I would very much like to go.

I've been

reading soft notes.

Oh, it's actually, I think,

I think I

don't know a lot.

And perhaps they could cheer some.

Yeah.

If it's not weird for me, I will I would love to come too.

Is that a

yeah, okay, of course.

Okay.

Yeah.

God, Long Night.

They were brilliant.

My parents.

Of course they were.

No, no, not like that.

They had causes causes and things that they were willing to put their career and their lives and their reputations on the line for.

They knew so much.

Of course they were.

Of course they did.

And Grandmother Ren always talked about them so glowingly.

She said your parents were some of the best wizards and the best people that she knew.

I'm glad you got to find out for yourself and kind of meet them in that way.

Yeah.

Been putting this off for a very long time.

I'm glad you're here, both of you.

Thank you.

Well, shall we?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What the?

Where the fuck did you get sausages from?

Hmm?

You heard me.

Your ears are too big and they're sort of pricked in my direction.

You have a kitchen.

I don't know why buildings here have a kitchen.

I've never seen a wizard cook.

I

knew I had a kitchen.

Where do you think the kitchen is?

Where do I think it is?

I think it's where I found it.

Down on the first floor.

Yeah,

it definitely is.

Suvi's going to turn and run down the stairs.

Oh my God, I skipped a floor.

You go down.

You see your page, Yulia, comes in and says, Wizard Sky, hello.

Is there anything you need me?

You're in the kitchen.

So if you need me to cook anything,

oh, thank you.

Good morning.

I'm, we all know about the kitchen.

I'm so good.

Thank you so much.

I have to give you tasks.

No, can you go have a day off, please?

Uh, okay.

Is that bad?

Well, I can if you would like, but also if there's anything you need help with, I'm here at your disposal.

If you're going to be studying here today, I can bring you anything you need from other courts if there's food or resources or supplies or anything like that.

Uh, what do we have?

I want histories of uh the cataclysm uh in Caro.

Anything you've got about how everything went down with the Acor Dottie and uh antivoli.

Oh,

okay, yeah, I'll go get that right away.

Thank you, Wizard Sky.

Oh, and uh, if it's not too much trouble, could I get some books, please, on um

anything you might know about

a spirit, a great spirit, known as perhaps the man in black or the stranger or the...

He has a number of titles.

Yes, absolutely.

I can go pull up anything relevant.

All titles

would be helpful in terms of getting the most information possible.

Okay.

I actually have this written down.

And then

hand her a scrap of paper that has all the appellations that I know about.

Gotcha.

Oh, and can you look to see if there's been any arrivals by

anyone known as ghost and a construct that goes by flicker?

Ghost and a construct that goes by flickering.

Yeah, I'll look into that right away.

Thank you.

And one more thing.

I still really love that shirt.

If there's any chance,

you might be able to do something similar.

Uh, I can leave it here.

I'm just gonna start undoing my shirt.

Oh, you want me to enchant your shirt?

To have the same illusory effect.

So,

to have a shirt that can bind to and accept a permanent illusion, I would need to work with an artificer to make it from scratch and then layer the enchantments on top of it.

Wait, is that what artificers do?

Oh, yeah.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

We're going to go to Pomeroy first.

Larger task for another time.

Thank you, Yulia.

And don't go in my study.

She says, understood, Wizard Sky.

I'll get those books and all those

necessary things.

And she rushes on off to go collect books for her wizardly mentor.

I love having a page.

I love it so much that it makes me feel worried about how much I like it.

I mean, it's nice to be cared for.

Oh, yeah.

That was pretty concise.

Damn.

Okay.

I mean, it's not much more than that.

You take off.

And so the first place that you head to is

Zhao Court, correct?

Yeah, is that what we want to?

Is that with an X or a C?

That is with an X.

That is X I A O

You guys wait until such time as it's easy to get there by Gallithopter, head out to the pier, take off from Malacamp, and arrive at Zhao Court.

Zhao Court is the College of Conjuration.

So this place is filled with permanent gates, different sorts of teleportation things.

You see that there are several sort of like platforms scattered around that have traveling doors.

This is actually the court that you come to when you take the traveling door to Silbury, that is here on Zhao Court.

Moving through

white sort of plaster walls, red roofs everywhere lots of white and red imagery all over the court you see that there are

numerous streets converging on gossamer plaza an enormous fountain in the center this enormous circular fountain uh that has a number of beasts roiling together sort of long dragons there are

different sort of like spirits all of them with big roaring mouths You see that there are like flowers and coins and swords flowing out of open sacks, like cornucopias, intermingled with the roiling beasts, all made out of heavily oxidized copper.

So the copper has become like green.

It's like mottled green all throughout.

The water spills out and around.

See that there are lily pads everywhere throughout.

As you look down into the lily pads, you can see

reflections rippling.

That as you look in, sort of the

the as the water moves it reflects banks and figures not present here in the court as though the water

carries the light of some other place far away uh gossamer court uh gossamer plaza so named uh for

the absolute swarm of illuminated butterflies flying everywhere around here.

One of the many species that is not an unfamiliar.

These butterflies are simply here in this place, and as they are illuminated, you see that they fly all over this plaza, landing on you.

Ursulan, as you approach, you are covered by butterflies

that all come to land on you.

And as they do, all of you see that they've changed to illuminated green and suddenly glowing brown and appear to

be

You see that they gather in a little clump where Ursulan's natural horns of his plumage are.

As they you can see that they are almost beginning to like recreate what Ursulan really looks like.

Um, Suvi?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is it uh, is it you neither one of you has as many butterflies as it feels like are on me.

How come they like you best?

Why are they making me look like you?

I'm sorry, what are they doing?

Hey, are we seeing that?

There's like a pattern happening.

What's happening?

And I'm just waiting

to start started to do it.

You shoo them away.

Conjuration is the school of magic most concerned with spirits.

And

it's concerned with being able to travel to other realms, but it's also the school of magic concerned with summoning binding spirits.

And as you look at these butterflies, a lot of the species that are native to the citadel that exist only in these places have to do with the magical residue of that place.

The butterflies of Gossamer Plaza, as you look around, seeing strings of small flags, multicolored rainbow flags with tons of arcane runes on them, some writ large, but surrounded by margins and borders of very small notes.

These butterflies that are kept at this court

appear almost to, as they touch the water, reflect,

like the water does,

various other realms of existence.

And you think, Ursuline, of the near spirit, you wonder if these butterflies are

attuned to

places outside of the Erian.

And you can even see, as you are like looking out at other streets, there are small glass jars and jugs that have some of the butterflies floating around within them that you see are being given or even in some cases sold

to some wizards that are coming by that hold on to them as almost like a little early warning system that the butterflies seem to be able to react to beings of the spirit before they are.

So you see, as they go to Ursulon, this is a good thing for a conjurer to have is butterflies that are highly sensitive to movements of the spirit.

Okay.

I tap Ursulan on the shoulder and cast sanctuary

just so that the butterflies like have to to kind of go somewhere else.

As you cast sanctuary, what is it you're saying to the butterflies in this court?

I say,

find another target.

And then I put, and then I put, take a little, a little vial of sugar water out of my pouch and I put it on me.

So I'm sprinkling myself.

You see that as you cast sanctuary and say, get another target, the butterflies leave your Ursula and all cover Ahmed.

I

put my arms out.

I am the Lord of butterflies.

Okay, okay.

Well, they have accepted me.

You see, as they do, all of them, the butterflies get this intense white illumination, and then they get a sort of orangey red around them.

Your hands, they go to a scintillating black until you realize that you are looking at kind of in shifting butterfly wings, a fox-like human image.

Oh my god, I wish you could see yourself.

Hold on.

What?

What?

And I'm going to use prestigitation to make a mirror so you can see what you look like right now.

But it's not reflective.

I'm just making the image that I see.

Like, this is what you look like right now.

It's like a butterfly.

Beautiful.

Oh, my gosh.

They show your true form.

You see, the fox looks up and goes, never look better, boss.

Are these, you see the fox looks over and says, these are like more flashy than the other illusory animals.

These aren't illusions.

Please don't.

Oh, it tickles your tummy.

Are they still alive inside you?

No, I don't.

You see, the fox slowly leaves the ground.

I've been just going to grab him and kind of tuck him under my arm.

Floaty, floaty feeling.

Do you want to keep floating or I need to?

The fox lets out a little toot and becomes heavy.

Okay, I'm not gonna eat this anymore.

Okay, I'm gonna put you down, bud.

There you go.

Ahead of you, you see that there is

an enormous building that is

almost like adobe.

It looks like sort of a like adobe place with like a flat roof.

It's white stucco kind of it's like white adobe, creamy white adobe walls, but with enormous

red murals of paint in like these very splashy

arcane glyphs and runes that are circular but made of lines of curving text on a very square building.

So the murals almost don't seem to fit to the specifications of the building, almost like they continue off the building into space unseen.

And

the massive golden double doors have curling long dragons at their like handles and can be like pulled open at either side.

You see that there are huge golden hinges on these deep, rich, like warm brown wooden doors.

Shall we?

Yes.

I reluctantly give me a little, give it a little shimmy.

Get the butterflies off of me.

The butterflies take off.

You open the door.

As you walk in, you see a couple of the butterflies kind of

off of the threshold of the door where they cannot enter.

Just a breeze aims down for you.

Yeah, one of the

choices

fan.

You walk in, and immediately the quality of light changes from the kind of bright red and white clay and multicolored, like

multicolored strings of flags hanging in the breeze, and all the butterflies in the fountain.

And you walk into a very cool,

deep blue place.

It almost has the feeling of walking into an aquarium.

It has like a

there are kind of ripples of underwater light as you walk in,

with columns of more neutral, still very soft white light on

single panes of walls.

This space is actually quite open.

There are not rooms in here, but

there are these sections of wall

that are only about eight to nine feet wide and that are free standing.

So you almost can think of it like an art gallery where instead of long sections of wall that would create rooms, the entire floor of this massive building just has little panels of wall that come down just holding single portraits.

So you could kind of get lost in here.

It's almost like,

you know, Plinko of like, if you were to like, if this place were to be on its side and you were to drop it,

it would like bounce off all these little panels of wall

in this vat.

But it means as you walk into it, you almost immediately become like lost.

It's like a, it's a warren of these different sections of wall that if you go deeper into it, you can just see other like, eventually,

it's like standing in a crowd, but the crowd is little panels of wall obscuring further panels of wall behind them with these lights pointed on them.

And you see paintings, many different styles.

Some are hung by pieces of string as they are painted on ancient parchment scrolls.

Others have beautiful wrought, gilded wooden frames and have images of like a beautiful woodland.

As you begin to look through, you know a little bit about formal painting, Suvi?

I dabble in oils.

As you move through them, give me

investigation.

Ten.

Ten.

What's your past investigation?

21.

Suvi, you become aware that

You know, one of these paintings is of a very ancient, almost like medieval style.

And you see that there is a roiling, eight-legged

horse with a sort of set of wings from its back and with two heads, each of which is breathing fire.

You see that this thing is like in a meadow.

The medieval style means that perspective is not really good in it.

It's sort of like the field is flat, but the horse is rearing up on it, almost like heraldry.

You look at another one, you see that there is

a

lion sort of lying on its side and that it has a long

pointed tail, almost like a devil's tail,

and a third eye closed in its forehead.

And as you begin to move around in this space, about half the portraits, you see there's a portrait of

a

meadow and this one is a little bit more almost like in what we would call like a Renaissance style.

It's a little bit more beautiful.

There's lighting, there's there's shadow.

It's a little forest glade through some thin trees.

You see a seaside castle way in the distance in the perspective of it.

There are four hounds that are leaping up and baying

at something that is not there.

The composition of the painting is

ready for there to be something that the hounds are pursuing.

but there is nothing in the painting.

And I think on that high passive investigation, you become aware that a number of the paintings, while still beautiful in whatever style they are from, and the age of these various paintings is very different,

have

focuses of the painting, like the one with the lion or the one with the two-headed winged horse,

have focuses that are not present in the paintings.

Are you okay?

Bless you.

What's wrong?

I just don't.

I don't like.

Is the collection.

The the paintings?

Um.

No, this is just an art gallery?

Okay.

What?

What's wrong?

I don't know.

It just doesn't.

I don't like it.

Okay.

Um.

That might just be because I don't traditionally care for art galleries.

Uh that's fair.

Uh

yeah.

I mean, this one's kind of weird with the dogs sort of baying at

nothing.

Many of the pieces require a certain degree of explanation.

You see

wizards.

You turn around and see

dressed in a beautiful vest of these sort of like silvery, enormous fish, almost like koi,

that are moving on a black silk vest, silvery, and then like little bits of teal vine and lily pad obscuring them in this repeating pattern.

A cream white shirt with these elaborate, beautiful arcane cufflinks that have runes of binding on them.

Sleek black pants.

A single monocle.

Sort of a wizened face and this very silky drooping kind of white mustache.

It's a very old man, paper white skin.

He looks like he has some form of albinism.

Sort of a little bit bloodshot, but otherwise bright green eyes.

It looks,

you know, very officious and sort of academic, approaches, and says,

For

reasons of safety, the definitions, descriptions, accreditations of the various pieces are kept aside from the portraits themselves.

However, I would be happy to serve as your guide.

I'd like that very much.

What might we call you, sir?

I am Pomeroy.

I am the docent of the Kasov Collection.

I just, uh, I think I just nudge Ame a little too hard.

Um, hello, I'm Ahme, uh, the Witcher of the World's Heart.

Ha, congratulations.

Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Armey.

If you have any questions about any of the pieces, I would be more than happy to assist you.

Isn't this a guy?

Oh, I um

I believe maybe you or

somebody that you know

knew my my

mentor.

Give me an insight check.

That's a 19.

Let's go.

Um, on a 19 insight check, you don't get any warmth from Pomeroy.

Remembering back, Grandmother Wren told you that there was a spirit called Pomeroy in one of the libraries of the Citadel.

And

you don't remember Grandmother Wren describing necessarily the relationship she had to Pomeroy.

She described Sly and Gult as like true friends.

Oh.

But you don't remember exactly what her relationship to Pomeroy was.

Damn.

What you do remember is she gave you Pomeroy's true name, which was Quinfarlumrathra here.

So this is like one of many connections.

This is like Grandmother Wren's connections to the Citadel were limited to, like, her closest hours were soft and stone and steel.

And then

after that,

there was other people she knew at the Citadel.

Pomeroy was one, but it was not someone that was like in her closest, tightest circle.

Oh.

So she just gave you, basically, Grandmother Wren.

You're now realizing standing here.

It means something that she gave you the name of a spirit and then also gave it its true name.

Uh-oh, I see.

I was given to understand that you knew my mentor, and I just wondered if you had any remembrances of her as she has recently passed on.

Yes,

Wren of Toma,

deepest and dearest condolences.

Her passing is a great loss for the world, and I hope that in time her memory shall be a light for all those who do as much in the service of the world of Umora as she did.

Please let me inside check that.

Uh, give me inside.

Yep,

yeah, 22.

Yeah, that's uh

24.

Seven.

Ursulan, I don't think you've clawed.

Like, you're looking at this guy.

This guy's glamour is really good.

He looks like a weird guy.

But he looks like a guy, you know, like, and he's standing here.

I think I've been waiting for him to do a spirit thing at all.

And he's just in a cream shirt hanging out.

Yeah, just in a cream shirt hanging out.

You see,

he looks over to

both on on a was it 22 and a 26 this guy hates you

he fucking hates you this polite answer this guy is scared and freaked out and angry and hateful wild

it is my sincere hope that you carry her torch brightly burning as it was forward with you if you have any questions about any of the pieces, you need but ask for Pomeroy, and I shall appear.

Thank you very much.

And you see, oh no, I have some questions.

Oh!

The subject of this painting:

the dogs, what are the dogs supposed to be

barking at?

Ah, so I see that you are unfamiliar with the Kasov collection

more intimately.

The subjects of all of the paintings appear and vanish from time to time.

The normal subject of this painting is itself a questing beast.

Does that peak

what I've heard?

Have I ever heard the word questing beast?

I don't think you have.

Alright, I'm going to look over at Sufi.

What is that?

Give me an Arcana check.

14.

You see, he looks at it and says,

and you see he creates an illusion in his hand of this weird, tall, lanky, draconic prey animal.

It is, it has a long and snake-like head that ends in a kind of

six-eyed, like three eyes along its head, weird antlers, long and furry ears.

You see, however, it has like leopard spots and digitigrade long feet, like some tall, lanky kind of leopard or jungle cat.

And its back two legs with that shaping end in hooves.

So clawed on the front and then hooves on the back, and a long, tufted tail, like a lion.

You see that as he creates the illusion of it,

well, of course, they are not, but real in this, not meaning non-existent, but simply of and pertaining to the real being that world of Umora.

The glattison, or questing beast, may be observed here in this portrait when it is here,

but it is called the questing beast because knights of old would seek it out and in its capture prove some sort of honor and receive a boon.

Very intriguing.

Was the Questing Beast, uh, wherever it is currently, obtained in Umora or

elsewhere?

I beg your pardon.

Can you repeat the question?

How was the Questing Beast acquired?

In Tales of Old, do you mean?

No.

This one.

Hmm.

You observe a painting.

The portrait behind you of the beast is not featured, but the Kasov Collection holds many paintings of many such creatures.

Where do their subjects go when they're not featured in the painting?

I believe you may wish to speak to some of the conjurers of the Kasov Collection themselves.

I believe we've departed from my areas of expertise.

So you're saying you don't know?

I am saying I am not inclined to share.

Good day.

Uh, and you see, he looks around and uh sort of heads off in another direction.

Uh, everyone here, give me a perception check.

I got a natural 20-oh perception.

Let's go!

I got a six.

How'd you do?

I got an 18.

We're on our way up,

Ursulan.

On an 18,

you see Pomeroy

walk quickly away and for a moment

see some shadows on the wall.

Little bit of a slip of his glamour.

You think he's enormous.

Ame, on a gnat 20,

the picture of the lion who is sort of lounging in ruins.

On a gnat 20, that third eye opens.

And you see the lion in the painting turns its head to regard you.

Goes,

this is not a kind place.

And you hear it in its head.

The lion vanishes.

What's wrong?

I point to the painting

behind.

I touch the painting where the lion was.

And you both all you now see the lion is gone.

Yeah.

Oh, that's new.

Are you.

I examine it.

The colors, the texture,

the smell,

the lines.

What what is this?

Well, on a nap 20, you can smell magic.

These paintings,

some of the brush strokes,

are layered.

But you think there's brush strokes underneath them based on slight changes in the height.

And you begin to see that what went on these canvases before the paintings

were exact

and very powerful runes and glyphs of binding and of capture.

The collection does not refer to the paintings, but what the paintings hold.

It's it's them.

The pain.

Yeah.

Makes sense.

So this

they are

within.

They're held here.

Can I use my divine sense

to open myself up to the presence of spirits in this space?

You take a step

with your breath into what you now know was called by Suvi's father, the near spirit.

You are surrounded

by your kin.

Far-flung are some and nearer are others.

There are some wild ones here, truly.

Some other honored friends and spirits stranger still, some smells and feelings completely unfamiliar to you from places of the realms beyond, farther than your father's footsteps ever tread.

You are surrounded, overwhelmed by the feeling of the spirits nearby.

And as you open yourself up to this sense, I'm going to ask for a stealth check.

10

moving through this place,

you begin to hear them.

Help me, help, help, help me, help, help.

Someone's out there.

Something rattling.

You

reach out.

You can't breathe as deeply as you could a second ago.

Something shortens your breath.

It feels like something's sticky, and then there's some tensile something.

Almost like some part deep inside of you has just touched a strand of a spider's web.

You hear a voice.

Deep within,

two floors below.

I can tell you of your father, little cub.

Tell you of your sister.

Tell you of your mother.

Whatever you wish, these secrets I am happy to share.

What is your name?

Long years in the world of mortals.

My name you cannot have, little one.

But you may call me Opal Finned.

I'm waiting for you downstairs you'd better hurry or Pomeroy is gonna roll you up and put you on the wall

Ursulan you have just heard that voice you know that this place is filled with spirits you also on that divine sense look at the empty paintings um

give me

perception or insight with advantage here

only a nine on insight

on insight

you look

at the absence of that questing beast and you see a little symbol in red and white that you can't understand

but it gives you a feeling like you're standing at the edge of a cliff and that with one little step you could fall forever

I'm going to close myself off to the divine sense.

You're standing in a cool art gallery.

Follow me, and I'm gonna take off to head two floors down.

What?

No, no, no, no, no.

What?

What's wrong?

I won't stop.

What's happening?

Ursulan takes off.

I sprint after him.

I'm going to interpose myself.

Like, hey, I'm going to push you.

Okay, okay.

Physical pushing.

Okay.

If you don't, if you want

to oppose athletics checks, here we go.

Four.

Oh, thank God, seven.

So it's not a huge titanic clashing of blows.

You go to interpose yourself relying on the status of that action to do the heavy lifting and find yourself getting in front of a big person walking fast and just get body checked off to one side.

The social reality of interposing does not happen here.

As Ursulan keeps walking, goes to a back staircase.

With the weird noise of you going this, you guys hear footsteps of an approach as like Pomeroy is walking up.

I'm gonna ask us to roll initiative.

Natural one,

far 11.

Ame, you hear the approach of footsteps that you know to be, on your passive perception, know to be Pomeroy's footsteps.

Ursulan's taking off, Suvi just hit the ground.

The fox looks confused and is looking to you for what to do next.

You are first to act in this tense moment.

Uh, I

grab Suvi's arm and start to pull her up

and

try to tear off after Ursulan.

Okay, you grab her, tear off after Ursulan.

The fox looks at you and in your mind says, boss, footsteps coming.

What do you want me to do?

Stall him.

The fox springs off of your shoulder to stand on a portrait and just starts pissing.

Immediately after that, Pomeroy comes in and goes, what?

You little Cretan.

And you see the fox goes, Cretan, I don't have a fucking monocle.

and then runs off

and runs away, and he says, Totally aesthetic, and runs off into the thing as Pomeroy begins to chase and says, Ma'am, please control your wild animal.

And Pomeroy is going to chase the fox into the gallery.

He does what he wants.

Ursulan, you are next to go.

So you just head off.

Just, I'm going down what I think, the nearest staircase.

The air is so cold but still down here.

You feel almost like an icebreaker ship moving through like icy oceans just to walk through the space here.

It is much darker down to this floor, and you see that many of the wall segments are are empty down here, like they have space for more paintings than they've made.

I now that I'm here, I will open myself back up.

Your little foxy friend, quite a help.

Keep Pomeroy at bay for now.

I'm at the very back.

Follow the sound of my voice.

And as you move, you

arrive

at a painting.

Seated on the painting

is

a

crouched

gargoyle-esque figure.

There is a throne of white marble covered in golden drapes.

A small table has been knocked to the side.

There is a goblet with spilled wine, red as blood, running down the steps.

And in the back of the painting, you see that there is the image of

city in silhouette, framed beyond it by fire, covering a countryside.

Seated in the chair, perched like a gargoyle, but still somehow in repose, so with the clawed feet on the seat itself, but still lounging back, a spined long torso curled in relaxation and pleasure, long black wings coming to either side, and face covered

by

a

gesture's mask held on a wand,

like you would see at a masquerade.

You find

this painting

way shadowed for a long time, it says in your mind.

Badger.

Funny word to find in a journal.

Did she speak to you?

She spoke to everybody.

Crying out day and night.

What they did to her in this place.

Here.

At the citadel.

Oh, well, you know it.

Does she remain here?

Hard to say.

She's no longer in the collection.

I know that much at least.

But she was at one point.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

She came here

looking for someone.

She had no business being in this world.

But she believed

that there was some

purpose to being here.

What do you call that?

A dangerous purpose that leads you far from home?

A quest.

Oh,

I suppose you do call it that.

I'd be more than happy to tell you when she was here.

To tell you how long ago she left and where she went.

I can't tell you if she's still alive, but

that's a dangerous world for you.

How badly do you want to know?

Oh.

You hear footsteps approaching of Suvi and Ame?

Badly.

What would you take?

Take my painting off the wall.

Fine.

Suvi, Aame picking you up off the ground.

What do you do?

Uh, sprinting down the hall, uh, Suvi is immediately back in Port Talon.

He storms off and does something, and the lack of control.

I remember everything that

Steele has said, and the way she speaks about spirits, that they are not always

to be negotiated with and simply managed, and I don't want to believe that about my brother.

And yet, in this place,

I don't

know if I can trust him.

So I will begin to cast Witchbolt

with him as the target,

but I want to hold back and use for the first time my secret of contingency.

Okay.

The secret of contingency.

One of the powers afforded to you.

by your research as a wizard of the citadel.

Describe to me what this secret allows you to do with your arcane magic.

Reaching back and looking over my father's research, the understanding of a null clef, things that are unnecessary,

the indicative reflexive, the way that you can bend the UX of the lingua arcana to play with the adjudication of a spell,

Suvi holds on to some piece of that witch bolt so that when the condition is met, and in her panic and fear that what happened in Port Talon will happen again,

if I see him move to

interact with any of these in a way that looks like it will disrupt the piece of this, the spell will go off.

You feel it almost like

a

ticking of a metronome that cannot finish its movement because it taps against something not yet present.

A clever, creative piece of spellcraft

where the spell is made whole

and yet part of what makes it whole has not yet occurred.

Waiting in a state of suspension between the universe where its conditions are met and the universe where its conditions are not.

Coming from prone, you've used, it takes half your movement to get up, so you're slightly behind Ursulan.

But

there was a conversation at the base that would have given you some time to arrive here.

We are going to roll initiative one last time

down here at the lower level.

This will be Ame, Suvi, and Ursulan.

Seven.

Six.

Seven as well.

You have the same initiative.

Who has the higher dexterity?

I have a 17.

I have a 16.

One point of dexterity will allow Suvi to shout before the spell goes off.

Ursulan grabs the painting on the lower kind of the lower corner and the upper corner, ready to pull it.

Just wait!

The wording of your contingency is very important here.

What was the wording of your contingency?

Any move to disrupt.

Any move

to disrupt.

Whether this movement constitutes a movement to disrupt, for there is no purpose in grabbing this painting outside of disrupting it.

But

it is also not a movement that commits one to disrupting it.

So we're going to roll a pure luck check if the wording of your magic was careful enough for this spell not to go off.

Shaking.

And Bria, you're going to have to roll.

No!

And I'm going to ask Lou to call odds or evens.

Fuck you, dude.

You're naming the role that saves you.

You're naming the role where the spell doesn't go off.

So what I pick, if it's that, it does not go off.

Correct.

Or we roleplay trauma.

Evens.

Eight.

Magic stays at your command.

Your control over the secret of contingency

means that your magic, like you, is clever enough to know that there was a moment before it had to act.

Ursulan has stopped.

Your spell's contingency is still there.

You actually cast Witchbolt already.

It's just that it's holding on a contingency.

Ursulan,

you have stopped.

There is a moment.

Ame, you are next to act.

I extend my hand to the painting and I shout, Truth!

As a command, spell goes off.

On a very low roll, you feel that the spirit within the painting is compelled to speak truthfully.

Who are you?

I am called Opelfin.

Creature of shadow.

A demon.

Why were you bound here?

I was bound here because

I suppose my aims and the aims of the wizards were not the same.

When you spoke with my sister,

is it true?

Please take your hand off the frame.

Shut up, Suvi.

This

sister of yours

was here

but

I have hinted at knowing more than I do

and you see that the demon sneers in Amé's direction compelled by the witch of the world's heart to speak the truth

take my hands off the frame

Are we not kin,

Spirit?

Will you leave me here on the wall to fester?

The wizards who trapped me here were cruel.

They have bent our world to their aims.

Your sister was here.

I could smell it on you as soon as you walked through the front doors.

Spirits, whose woods touched the same little island out in the sea.

A queen in green and a prince in blue and a lumbering bear.

Could smell the bear on the badger.

I could smell it on you.

So,

took a little creative liberty.

And I know enough about the bear to know that you probably don't know who your mother is.

Not all kin are kith.

What would you know?

Do I deserve to be here?

And where would you go should he free you?

My freedom is contingent on me playing nice,

Witch of the World's Heart.

How different from the wizard are you?

Come on, Spirit.

Take me off the wall.

You know what that wizard was ready to do to you, don't you?

What are you talking about?

Looks like the party's over.

Everyone, exit!

This is an off-limits area of the collection!

And Pomeroy walks up, just with the fox held by the neck, like scrap of the neck, just covered in fox piss.

Thank you, I'll

take that.

I scoop up fox.

You see, he says, Oh, buddy, he's so good.

And I give him a treat from my pack.

You look at the painting, and you see Pomeroy says, Please step away.

These paintings are

under restoration.

The last thing you hear in your mind, Ursulan.

Every bonbon,

every nap,

every trip down

to the wonderful market,

you've been one tick of the clock away from having a little portrait of your own.

Rest easy,

friend.

Ursulan's going to turn

and hand on Wavebreaker come to stand behind Amay and Suvi,

but kind of be looking downcast at the ground.

Extend a hand and I

try to place it in his.

I shake your hand off.

Well, I hope you've had a lovely time at the Kasov Collection, but

unless there's anything else I can help you with

No

All right, what were your dealings with Grandmother Run?

I don't think I know what you're talking about.

You cannot lie to me.

I am the witch of the world's heart.

Congratulations.

Is there any information about the paintings I can give you?

No, but there's plenty of information about you that I could give to others.

Know of what I speak.

Now tell me, what were your dealings with Grandmother Run?

Give me a persuasion check to like correct.

Actually, this is intimidation, but do it with advantage because of what you are insinuating.

21.

The incredible

use

of a true name in that you do not even have to speak it, but just suggest that you can give it to more people

is an incredible example of witchcraft.

And you see, Pomeroy goes,

Let's adjourn to the cafe.

And his shadow

flickers into many, many legs.

And that's all for this

reserve, the witch, and the wild one.

Oh my god.

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

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

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