[h3][center]The Liaison[/center][/h3]

For the first time in a while, the Liaison was approaching a semblance of the thing called joy.  Though he leaned on contentment's precipice, unable to take that leap, he was not unsatisfied.  In a seemingly short time, a remarkable edifice of stone had come to stand tall over the huts of thatch and wood, and seeing the miracles of ice and restorative nectar, many had joined his Pallid Communion.  Against the marauding Dyun and Cimex the monks performed well, using their powers as sparingly as they could to avoid triggering too early the bug-race's natural adaptability.  In the hilltop temple, it was said, a man could become a servant of a greater purpose.

Today, however, things looked rather grim.  A snowstorm howled around the temple's walls like a pack of wolves desperate to invade and devour the Liaison's flock.  The entirety of the Pallid Communion had assembled today, to see if their powers combined couldn't force the inclement weather into submission.  At the Liaison's suggestion, thirty pairs of hands rose skyward, and pale mists swirled around their fingertips.  As one, they threw their hands forward, casting their magic into the cruel storm, and then...

Nothing.

Not a soul remained.  The Liaison staggered to see himself suddenly and inexplicably alone.  Beneath his robes, he opened with his cyan eye, and screamed in hatred to see an enormous hand of snow and ice, ephemeral as a flurry and as unstoppable as the cold season's advance.  So distraught was he that he hadn't even the chance to register that he'd just experienced an emotion altogether human.  Though he could see the hand of Svieand stealing away all of his comrades in one fell swoop, and could dimly witness its godly outline as it deposited them thousands of miles away, the Liaison was powerless to contradict a god's will.  Worse still than the disappearance of the monks, however, was that a crowd of mundane village-people had been watching.

Confused for a short time, they began to round on the Liaison, imagining that he was responsible.  The outsider attempted to reason with them, but the men who had vanished had been fathers, brothers, sons, and husbands, and there was no assuaging the villagers' panic.  Realizing that he was finished, the Liaison attempted to flee.  Though he leaped easily over the heads of the crowd around him, he stopped  short to find the temple's one entrance blocked by angry humans.  The Liaison raised a hand, one that brimmed with ice crystals just waiting to freeze and pierce, but he hesitated.  He couldn't harm a single one of them; to deprive even a single life of its wondrous gifts, of intellect and feeling and family, would be a sin beyond compare.

During that momentary hesitation, a fist connected with his face.  The white mask flew off to clatter along the floor, and the humans saw with horror that the Pallid Minister had no face.  Together they attacked him, pulling and striking, ripping off his robes to expose the pitch-black chitin beneath.  Revulsion coursed through them as they beheld the Liaison's huge, cyan eye, whose terrified and frenetic motions aroused no sympathy.  The Liaison continued to plead his innocence and beg for the humans' trust until a spearpoint meted out his fate.

[center][h3][color=C0C0C0]Escre - the Great Spirit[/color][/h3][/center]

A disturbance, like a prod in the back, caused Escre to awaken from its dreamless slumber.  Though aware that some time had passed since last wakeful, it felt oddly concerned about the strange pain that afflicted it, particularly since the Great Spirit lacked a body.  Sympathetic magic, perhaps, but then...?

With a sweeping gaze Escre looked around the Astral Home.  Spirits, tiny pinpoints of light of various colors and energies, seeped from the runes in the walls to unite with the Astral Home.  In turn, the spirits already within the huge, iridescent orb flared and vanished, reincarnated anew on the planet's surface.  Escre reached out its armored claws and lightly brushed a passing spirit, letting it resonate its swan song to him.  This particular spirit had belonged to a Spongeback, and been liberated by a famished Devourer Fish.  The life warden felt no upset at the demise of one of his creations.  Among lesser creatures, eat or be eaten was the way of things.

Another spirit, this one a familiar and soothing black rippling with white, caught Escre's attention.  This one...unique, and larger than the others, though nowhere near the size of a typical god's.  Such a spirit could belong only to one chosen by a god and endowed with a greater purpose, and according to the Liaison's latest report, only one other individual on Galbar -a human- had been made into a hero.  It did not take Escre long to figure it out.

Escre snatched the spirit with its claws, preventing it from melting into the Astral Home.  [i][color=C0C0C0]”My Liaison...the watchful guardian of mankind... slain by humans.  The Pallid Communion...gone.  No trace remains.  The balance shifts against humanity once again.  Tell me, unfortunate soul...give me one final report...”

“Who was it who smote you?”[/color][/i]

[center]-=-=-=-=-[/center]

Using the Astral Home as a medium, Escre telepathically contacted the god of the waters, and noted its fortune when Undasis responded.  With a softspoken humility it requested permission to enter her domain, and after receiving her consent, entered one of the Astral Home's nerves.  Through the crust the Great Spirit traveled, winding among rocks igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic, until it emerged in an underwater Fountain of Life in the Kraken's Crater—a sea vent.  It wasted no time in gliding to Undasis's side. 

[color=C0C0C0][i]”Greetings, Undasis, the Seas Incarnate, and thank you for granting me leave to enter your domain.  Greetings, Kraken, the Seas' Wrath...I am honored to meet you at last.  I am afraid I come bearing ill tidings, ones that perhaps have not yet permeated your depths.  From the oceans wide, the very domain that you and your fearsome anathema, the Kraken, claim as your own, there has risen another land.  Without even the common courtesy to let you know, let alone asking your leave as I have, this temperamental god of seasons has diminished your turf.  Not only that, but he seeks to impart to his people knowledge of how the seas may be tamed.  Navigation, sailing, fishing...arts that could rob the seas of their mystique.  Doubtless the might of the Kraken could send these marauders to the lonely seafloor, but even now the god of winter storms unbidden to this very spot, seeking to bargain with you to let his creations alone.  He wishes to trick you, so that you will spare his marauders, and ignore his encroachments, and not retaliate as your domain shrinks ever smaller.”[/i][/color]

Escre bowed its head.  [color=C0C0C0][i]”Of course, you may be wondering why I am telling you this.  As a god of Life and the Great Spirit, I am rested firmly on the side of order, and any practitioner of order learns to have a respect for proprieties.  It is why I requested your audience rather than barging in.  Svieand has disrespected you most callously, boldly taking territory and then beginning an endeavor that would mean the conquest of the seas.  All I ask for this knowledge is that you treat him, and his creations, in kind.  No god would think ill of you to deny Svieand's insidious request; I would stand by the Kraken's right to sink the new land, should he deem it fitting retribution.  It is not godly to allow another to take what is yours by fate.  Karma is the ultimate law in this world, one willed by the gods of gods.”[/i][/color]  The resonance of certain spirit reached Escre through the depths, and it bowed once again.  [color=C0C0C0][i]”Fare well, Deep Ones.  Should you desire it for something spectacular, I shall gladly render you my talent for creating Life.”[/i][/color]

Escre's insubstantial body melted away into ink, which in a world of water, was rapidly nothing at all.

[center][i]Might – 1 – 5 spent to attain a new level – 1 remains
1 free also remains[/i][/center]