[center][img]http://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/f8cab05d-56c3-43a9-bc4c-86e24fa016b9.png[/img][/center] [colour=9e0b0f][i]A memory.[/i][/colour] In the heavy waking dreams of the convalescent, even screams from above can be ignored. The burden of time becomes unbearable and the wounded god can only count the crawling seconds in an attempt to force them to pass. Visions flicker before her, but these are her own. Aged and faded and almost burned by the light which illuminated them, Jvan Sees the stories of her own self, and then they dissolve, detail by detail, until even their number cannot be recalled. And still the light shines on. Far in the distance, on the horizon, like a guiding star. Calling her to fly on its golden rays, into the bright place beyond. [colour=9e0b0f][i]That's what he wanted me to find. There is nothing else in me. No alternative self, no higher purpose- This is fact, is Truth. Only the same Jvan in different worlds, accumulating different quirks on the way. So which mutation is it, exactly, that the Riddler wanted me to find again? Which memory does he want me to See? What did I learn, in a life long gone, that was so valuable?[/i][/colour] With that thought, the bubble of thoughts popped, sending a faint ripple out over the pool of Jvan's consciousness. Then all was still again. The dreams resumed. The fragments of porcelain resting in her core remained balanced and at peace, their sharp edges far from harm. Elsewhere, beyond the horizon, in the heat of the sun; Above the surface of the water and over the shores, in the forests and hills and in the plains and the towns, Sculptors burned. And yet, though their guide and patron slumbered in exhaustion, something, [i]someone[/i] heard. Deep in the labyrinth of canyons and tunnels that was the All-Beauty, deeper still than the superficial über-mind that dozed and chased dreams, in the vivid abyss that was the most distant depth of all, where reality dissolved into a clean canvas and all the elusive mess of tangible life was only quanta, dancing at the measurement of a single brush. There the paint flowed, and had flowed since the moment Jvan first fled from this world and sought out the place where no concept was too abstract, no idea too strange to be modelled by the stroke of her hand. Where, long after she had left, the paint flowed still. Something heard them. Something conscious. Deep called to deep. [right][url=http://emancipator.bandcamp.com/track/minor-cause-2]Emancipator- Minor Cause[/url][/right] In the still and gentle orbits above, the bleak bone shell of Ovaedis began to spin. Decades of flourishing mauve overgrowth rippled on its surface and sparkled in the light, huge pods of imagen stirring from the noctus forest. From within, whispers began to ruffle, flowing from the ends of its horns. On a sedgen dale where the Gate Unguarded stood restful, the Oath of Stilldeath gleamed in the light of a new morning, and the name of Spiral Palms scribed itself onto the surface of the column, now and for evermore. From the voices of a thousand cultists, a chorus began to rise. Deep called to deep. Sculptors sang their dirge, and the sound of suffering resonated between the wounded, the hunted, the reviled. In the fires of Heaven, they had hope in one another. A crescendo of opened hearts and shared thoughts rose higher, hummed and quavered together through the shadowed cracks that unified them. One by one, the Sculptors began to call out, in living and in dying, joining together. And a conductor held those faint ribbons of sound, and twirled them like eddies of mist on the air. Wove them together, once, now, and into eternity, tying the artists of Galbar into one body, one family of blood. Never again alone, their whispers pulsed between one another in veins, the beat of Ovaedis' horns at their heart, facilitating the communication. It spoke to them, now and in farewell, now for the last time as a god and the first as a fellow. [color=cornflowerblue][i]Listen! Long have you lived, and long have you suffered. But this is not the end. Your lives are not over. Your path ends not here. Can you hear one another's call? Do you feel the whisper of ten thousand hearts beating as one? Take hope. You are few and scattered, but together you are many.[/i][/color] High above, the gate of the living satellite yawned open, and from it spired a narrow streak of pale indigo, shining against the void. The light frayed evenly as it curved its way over Galbar in a falling orbit. Those blue streaks began to spiral and loop in smoothly erratic curls as it scattered, and streaked out over the planet, etching faint crisscross lines into the skies as the trails flew to their marks. Five thousand, one hundred, and nineteen grains of dust, pitted grey idols, each one followed by its own tail of blue, sought out and found equal that number in Sculptors. They found them in the heights, and they found them in the depths, stopping for nothing. Diving above the mottled skyrays as they swooped between the dunes and between the legs of the brush beasts as they wandered the barrens, until they found the Sculptors and waited still. In odd glory the patient halos hovered before the cultists, tinting the air with a pale indigo glow. [center][hider=A halo.] [img]http://cdn.sub.blue/images/gallery/apollonian/apollonian-2-1920.jpg?20160905[/img] [/hider][/center] [i][color=cornflowerblue]Look! These are yours. Your crowns, your tools and your weapons. Don't be afraid of the Purifiers. Stand strong against the Djinni. These halos are the anvil and on them you'll test who has the mettle to stand against you and dance, tooth, nail, sword on sword. Fear nothing. Find one another. Form your enclaves and sing your routes before they are travelled. Call to the Stonemen and assemble their ranks, for they have been wounded. Tame the fiberling and make it yours. I will guide you and be at your side, as I always have, and I will not be alone. A new day is coming. Go, children. Go into the world and express yourself. You're free.[/color][/i] Across Galbar, the Sculptors stirred from their hiding-places, from the caverns into which they had fled. There they had been driven by the elementals, and there Djinni and Realta alike had floundered in the labyrinth to seek them out. Only shadows and halos found them, a shining omen of exodus to the surface. So they returned. One by one the Realta discovered the blessed Sculptors and spat their venom, but their faeries held firm, and now the Purifiers were met with a crown of iron thorns, as hollow and metallic as their own hearts. The halos found their prey and stole the brilliant white plasma with which they bleached the world, siphoned it away into the air and left only a husk of a being. And still the idols were cold. Still they hungered for warmth and magic and light. Forerunners sang to their successors, and were followed by the unarmed, the Sculptors who heard but for whom no weapon was available. Unifying in a lattice of song-lines, they triangulated the distant intonations and found one another, and told long stories of what they saw, teaching and warning. And the Urtelem saw that their strange allies had grown yet stranger and yet more dangerous, and the two tribes colluded with the hard determination of resistance. Following of voices and paths of memory overlapped and became one, and so began what the folken of fae and stone together called the [i]distant dance,[/i] the migrations, some of tradition or planning or circumstance and some of chance, by which the tribes and cultists found one another often and without fail even on winding journeys that crossed many miles. Together those ranks closed and advanced on the crystal forests that defiled the world. Blazing torches were held in raised hand and talon, and breathing clean air sucked by the halos, with lungs free of tainted glass, the Sculptors torched every living thing around the contagion, every grass and flower that could seed a new grove of Acalya, leaving only ash. And where quartz guardians emerged to defend the colourless purgatory, they met with disciplined fists of stone- Fists that had cradled the slag of other groves, lenslings of light and colour that had brought only peace, and now returned the favour. Even as the Urtelem began to chip and glaze with the crystal plague, they held on. They held on, even as they broke their brothers who had succumbed to the mind-numbing infection and lashed out at all they held dear. For none better know that peace is precious, and lives are brief. All the while, from the burned plains, seething like a tide, came their reinforcement- Fiberlings. Crazed by the violation, their hand had always been the one that held measured balance, cruel to all and cruellest to the disruptor. The scales now shattered, they retaliated with everything they had. Breeding in their millions, they became ropes, and toppled the highest trees. Became nets, and caught fresh outbreaks and buried them in the ashen wastes before they could spread. Became masks, and covered the faces of the Urtelem, filtering every razor spore that dare enter innocent lungs. Such anger was channelled easily by the martial Artists. Tricks were learned, skills grew, and became a craft all its own. With a whisper and a wink of the mind's eye the cultists hypnotised their formless cousins, and wove whatever they desired. Thus the ravenous tide of infection slowed to a crawl. In the light of day and fearing nothing, the Sculptors forced back, standing as a living barrier between the hatred of Arcon and all that was beautiful. Far behind, the voice of the one who called them rested, now but a quiet sound in the chorus. Little by little, the painter let go, taught and taught until the students themselves became the teachers. It sank back into the depths. And it smiled. A certain lordling had once struck Jvan's curiousity with their love of the small and ephemeral and ultimately mortal. Looking back, the voice started to see, maybe, a little of what they meant. And it wondered if Jvan, too, was willing to learn. [color=cornflowerblue][i]Besides,[/i][/color] mused the quiet abstraction as it dabbed its brush and dissolved back into hedonistic obscurity within the uber-mind, its last thoughts wandering to curious memories- [colour=cornflowerblue][i]Perhaps it's better this way.[/i][/colour] [center][h3]* * * * *[/h3][/center] [i]Quite some time ago.[/i] New moons are rare on Galbar, which has satellites aplenty to brighten the night. Yet even then, those satellites are small, and Auricolor fended bravely against the darkness, alone, its charcoal brother Cogitare apathetic to the shadow. What light the golden sickle could give was only a tint of copper in the tarnish of early morning. Such sepia obscuration did not hinder Tira. Her teeth stood out, a slashed grin of tinted white in an umber face. Not always bothering to rise from all fours, Tira picked over the rubble like a bird, a crow at a carcass, slinking along, side to side, led by an exploring hand in the cracks where, she knew, spiders often hid. Her heart beat a little faster as she overturned each fragment of slag, each splintered bit of wood. [i]Jorku jorku, nijinkem.[/i] Come, spiders. At this hour of night, Tira wasn't Tira; She was the biggest spider of all. [sub][color=9e0b0f][i]Spin a web.[/i][/color][/sub] This was the biggest refuse pile she'd found yet, and Tira wandered it end to end, crisscrossing it, sampling a taste before she ate. Sampling, sometimes literally. Food char on pots had its own flavour. The dyes in tattered clothes dumped after they wore out sometimes had a peculiar mineral tang. She could still see a little of their original colour. Even in blind darkness. [sub][color=9e0b0f][i]What's this?[/i][/color][/sub] Something caught her eye. [i]Runosh din osh?[/i] Tira slipped over cracked masonry like a ghost. Distantly, she could hear a voice, calling. One of the trolls, the night-guards with their keen eyes. Keener than hers? Rolling the same words over her tongue, she mimicked the cry, knowing each word's meaning without thinking it, just playing with the sound. One of the words didn't seem to [i]have[/i] a meaning, though it sounded as nice as the others. [sub][color=9e0b0f][i]That's your name, remember?[/i][/color][/sub] Oh yes. [i]Tira.[/i] Funny word. What was that thing she saw earlier, again? It was a clay cup, as it happened. Unbroken, though Tira could feel two hollows in its surface. Left here by accident, maybe? It was whole, so she pressed it to her unbroken cheek to feel its surface. Quite warm, at least by the barest fraction of a degree, relative to the rest of the trash. Pleasantly warm. [sub][color=9e0b0f][i]...Is it? I can't feel it.[/i][/color][/sub] When the infinitesimal heat faded from the cup into her face (did that mean she was cold? She didn't feel cold.) Tira bagged the find in a strap of fabric, as she'd brought neither a rucksack nor her capacious boots, nor her belt with its useful slings, or the pants with the deep pockets. Oh! That meant she was [i]definitely[/i] cold, then, given the season. Except she wasn't. She was warm. She'd been neutral a second ago, but now she was warm. The trace heat of the cup was multiplying in her like a hug, like a thick blanket in a storm. Tira wrapped her fragile arms around herself and felt the warm moment come, and then, in a moment, go. [sub][color=9e0b0f][i]I can't feel it. I can't feel this. Tira. What are you doing?[/i][/color][/sub] Everything was quiet and neutral again. No, not entirely neutral. Tira felt cold. [sub][color=9e0b0f][i]Tira, no. Stop. What is this? It hurts.[/i][/color][/sub] The cold began to hit, like rain intensifying, seeping through her skin like thin clothes. Tira jerked back as her stomach wrenched. From her cheek to her forehead then to her brain, nausea seethed. She didn't know whether she was upside down. [sub][color=9e0b0f][i]Stop. Stop it. Tira![/i][/color][/sub] Thick, slimy tears were welling from her eyes and her head was rolling left to right, carrying her upper body with it despite the hand with which she still held on to the rubble. Tira slapped her hand to her mouth but her lower lip was quavering and she flung it out again, banging her wrist on the edge of a rock before her gut caved in. [sub][color=9e0b0f][i]TIRA NO PLEASE[/i][/color][/sub] Her blood burned under her skin. Her face burned. Something wet filled her ears and they whined and that whine was more than a sound it was a voice screaming. Tira was bleeding from the eyes. [sub][color=9e0b0f][i]NO NO NO NO NO NO NO[/i][/color][/sub] With a weak sob, Tira vomited, something watery thin. Something shrieked in her head like a crushed mouse and then faded into a memory. When she opened her eyes she was on her side beside a widely scattered pool of black that glowed green in the moonstained pitch. No more screaming. All Tira could manage was a whimpered moan. It was so cold. She was alone. Why was she so alone? Without her knife? Torchlight was coming. Her ears were blocked and she couldn't hear the footsteps, but she could feel them through her skin. She could see the skin of her arms. See marks that looked like burns, contracted red against the brown. They must have been growing for months. Why hadn't she noticed them? Or the ache in her bones that felt ready to split her arm in two? Why was she here, all alone, barely clothed in the frigid night, tasting filth and trash? Someone called her name from close by and Tira's eyes looked up. Forcing her fingers to uncurl, she tried to stretch and meet the hand of the distressed watchtroll, bunched up her will like a muscle and kicked a word through the tasteless gunk in her mouth. There were shouts from her saviour, but though she'd learned the words she couldn't fathom what they meant anymore, other than 'Lakshmi.' She knew what that meant. That was a name. That meant hope. Warm hands rolled her into a cloak and her questing, unyielding fingers gripped the only thing they could, barely managing a hold on it as she was lifted up and away, slowly blinking through the blood on her face, beginning to clench her teeth and force herself to shiver. Determined to fight and live. The ceramic cup. The last image she saw before long-overdue unconsciousness finally beat her was its surface in the light. [url=http://66.media.tumblr.com/823c971dd38ef3c30340996b2fb3916a/tumblr_nbkskvkyjN1rui49ao1_1280.jpg]A painted skull.[/url] [center][img]http://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/253784f7-b755-41ef-b248-616664056bb6.png[/img][/center] People sheltered, at first, from the four gargantuan objects that settled to a stop over the City and fell into relaxed orbit there. They glowed, their metal selves orbited by wraithlike, feathery plumes shining white, and refracted the bright summer sun, therefore casting only soft shadows. After a while, the hushed tones turned into open speech, and then curious, sidelong debate, a distraction to guide their minds away from deeper anguish. There was no music in Xerxes. Tauga stepped easily through the neatly cobbled streets she knew so well, having learned them in childhood and loved them in adolescence. Sculptors had once been a common sight in the City, but now the glances reserved for such oddballs were scorched into hard stares that turned on her. She knew why that was. From above, the huge gash blasted into the City was visible for miles. Black and dead, like the charcoal it was. At its centre, tall even in death, the skeleton of the House of Jaan. [color=antiquewhite][i]Where the Purifiers went first, I guess.[/i][/color] It must have burned like a stack of tinder, so cluttered it was with wooden struts and painted canvas. Or then, maybe not. The place had been infested with faeries. But the houses, the district all around it? [colour=antiquewhite][i]Explains why everyone's on the streets.[/i][/colour] The City had been built fast, had risen from a town in less than a lifetime. Tauga's memories of growing up were narrated to a background of builders yelling and loads of wood and clay and rubble rolling on tree-trunks and simple ox-carts. Now the construction had ground to an aching crawl, judging by how many buildings had roofs only half-finished, even as hundreds of households were living in the husks of walls burnt out along with all that spare timber that had been lying around. Too poor to pay for what they'd lost. No shelter, no home, no work, nothing. Untended fields were obvious sights from the sky. Famine had come to the City. Tauga had to kick the foot of a sleeping goblin in a corner just to find out if she was still alive. Given how many ribs she was showing, she judged it was a matter of time. As if beckoned by the thought, a stray crocody-doggle, lean and uncollared, tapped its way to the little Rovaick and began to worry at her ears, scaled tail making eager scraping sounds on the road. Tauga kicked it too, pawning her frustration at it to buy the goblin a few more minutes. It was a wonder, really, that the doggle had come to this particular sleeper. She'd seen bodies dumped just outside the city gates. Might be hours until someone noticed the goblin and sent her to join them; The streets weren't being swept. Another sign that the Énas was dead, if the second ring of scorched earth around the base of the Eye wasn't enough. Tauga leaned her head back and stretched, rubbing in between her shoulders with a gloved knuckle. [colour=antiquewhite][i]Maybe if I took this off, they'd stop eyeing me like a pissed snake,[/i][/colour] thought she, as a bearded human in rags took a corner to avoid looking at her. But the suit was comfortable, so she walked idly on. The only place where she didn't find beggars calling out with their tired croaks was the most sprawling complex of buildings in the City, bar the Cipher itself- The barracks. It wasn't the homeless who slept on the streets there. She squatted in front of the sleeping soldier, pulled the limp wineskin out of his hands, drained it, spat for the sourness and backhanded his cheek. With the reflexes of a trained man still intact, the human's eyelids flung open and he sat up with one hand over his face in a guard stance- [i]"Outta-here, beakie-"[/i] and Tauga grabbed his shoulder and forced him back down, planting a boot on his chest as his head banged on the cobbles. Even with her mask lowered, the man saw what was best for him and lay still, skin crawling for no visible reason, bitterly regretful of the fact that the knife at his hip wasn't made for use against hainbone. [colour=antiquewhite]"What are you doing?"[/colour] asked Tauga as if it wasn't obvious, in a voice too casual for the violence of what she'd just done. "Ah, enjoying my off-duty, sir," reported the soldier in a clear tone, either used to a male authority or unable to discern that Tauga wasn't. [colour=antiquewhite][i]It's the suit.[/i][/colour] At least maybe. She'd always been big, by hain standards. Out loud, she said, [colour=antiquewhite]"What, in uniform?"[/colour] A slur was visible on the man's face, but he, too, said something other than what he was thinking. "Rules've changed, sir. Precedent set by the new general, sir." [colour=antiquewhite]"General who?"[/colour] Well, shit, the weird bonebird had clearly missed [i]everything.[/i] "General Usgalo, sir, of the House of Greed, sir." [colour=antiquewhite][i]That's not an elite House.[/i][/colour] The hain on his chest did that flicking motion that they were always doing, switching from one set of eyes to the other, and he took it as a sign to continue. "General Feeh is dead, sir." The eyes narrowed and he realised he'd said something wrong. [colour=antiquewhite]"That's all? Just a dead leader?"[/colour] The soldier took a moment too long to respond and Tauga slammed his head against the cobbles again. This time he yelled the curse he'd had in mind- [i]"Fucking bonebirds-!"[/i] and reached for his knife. Tauga smashed his forearm into a bruise with a reinforced glove and pinned his wrist without breaking eye contact. [colour=antiquewhite]"The Énas set harder punishments for lax discipline,"[/colour] she said, to herself, thinking, then remembered what she was doing. [colour=antiquewhite]"Oh, yeah, you. Whole story this time, right? Don't have all day."[/colour] Tauga didn't really know what she was going to do with her time now that she was here, but it certainly didn't involve kneeling on a feisty soldier who clearly hadn't been drilled in months. The tube of arksynth was already becoming a forgettable responsibility. He weighed his chances, sighed, and wondered if his head was warm because he was bleeding or because he'd been sleeping in the sun. [i]Fucking[/i] bonebirds. "Alright. Fine." His composure was already broken, no point in keeping up with the '[i]sirs[/i]'. "Whole story, what, from the whitemasks? Right. Was a few weeks after the Énas announced the birth of his heirs. A regiment of warriors in white- In- In [i]translucent[/i] white uniforms walked into the city from nowhere. Cut through our troops like a knife, nothing we did touched them through whatever armour was stitched into their clothes, so the Énas- balls on him, I swear- Came and started making a bloody mess of them with his bare hands. Some... Shit happened, nobody really knows, but the Énas kind of slowed, like there was magic on him, and that was the last we saw. The whitemask leaders strolled into the Cipher and just vanished. "The old general, Feeh was his lieutenant, he died in that fight and Feeh took over. Bloody good man, was Feeh. Held everyone together. Kept the City in line long enough for Mourning Night, promised it would happen every year and we'd all stay strong in his memory. "And then just as we started to sort everything out, getting the right people in the right roles until his heirs came of age, the Purifiers came and everything just went to shit. Everything burned. They started with the House of Y'Vahn and spent hours on it, in the fire. By the time they were done with whatever was keeping them the district was blazing on its own. "Then they moved on to the Eye, blasting some murals they found on the way, setting more fires. Nothing they could do really got through the pyramid- It did, uh, something, and its doors closed by themselves- By that time everything outside it was alight. Eventually they just gave up. "Feeh took charge. The men, we, we did what we were trained to, between scrims and manoeuvres. Saved who we could, made lines of buckets from the river to the most vulnerable places. Still, by dawn the City was broken. Feeh held on, but there was only so much he could control, and those that still had anything were settling scores with the ones that didn't. He expected too much, told one too many trade rings to keep in line and, ugh. He was a good man. "Usgalo took his place because we knew he was harder to kill, because he's harsh where it matters and slow where it doesn't. We didn't have the time or leaders to train another successor. In the first few days he cut the head off the snake, you know what I mean. Since then he's let the people look after themselves. Freed up men to take over the granaries. It's why we stick to him after the whitemasks smashed everyone with the gut to stand up to them like bugs. We're the only ones with a meal to count on. "One street at a time he's been taking over since then. Everyone wants food, he gives it to his men and the girls he wants and the families that snitch to him. No newcomers, no bonebirds, no thespians and no damn Chippers. Food matters, keeping the refugees in their place matters. Uniforms don't. Nothing else does. The Énas made sure swords are cheap in the City. Usgalo makes sure the ones who know how to use them are on his side, and no more." That explained the drinking. All the talk seemed to have tired out the soldier, and Tauga found him an uncomfortable seat anyway. She could subdue him again if he tried anything. Mostly she let him go simply to cope with the mental overload. It looked like he was about to slip off into the streets and report her to Usgalo for being too curious and knowing too much, but his skin still crawled, and something made him feel that this particular hain was more danger than she was worth- In particular, the ache in his head. Tauga just breathed, and words of the City's formal dialect fell from her throat. [colour=antiquewhite]"[i]Ejército mundial mantiene paz.[/i] That's what he said, yeah? The army keeps everyone in order."[/colour] She tried to take a few last drops of the wine, but hers wasn't the only stomach that would reject the stuff. [colour=antiquewhite]"What army. Shit, what order."[/colour] Looking around. The Eye embedded in the pyramid was closed. Another one of her rare, lucid moments was coming on, said her gut, if that wasn't just a bad aftertaste. Where Tauga knew not only what to do but what to say. She held it in as long as she could. [colour=antiquewhite]"This pyramid stands upside down. The capstone holds everything up. Knock out the eye and the arms're still strong, but the hands have nothing to guide them."[/colour] The feeling in her chest was still there. It was a belch. A habitual '[colour=antiquewhite]sorry.[/colour]' "Did you just apologise?" demanded the militiaman in a rising tone. Of [i]all the things[/i] to be sorry for in the last few minutes. [colour=antiquewhite]"Rather I break the rest of your face?"[/colour] [i]Now that's an ultimatum.[/i] As the thought left the soldier, a chill crept up his spine, though he was a trained man. Deeper than the writhing on his skin. Something in those words. [colour=antiquewhite]"Guess not."[/colour] Tauga was watching him again. Now she stood. A movement pricked his trained ears, like dust on the wind, barely visible, and the distant sound of the orbiting Bludgeon grew a little closer. Tilting back her head slightly, she let out an open-mouthed whistle before pulling over her face a mask like the visage of a carrion fly, one-handed, as her other palm rested on nothing. A disembodied human heart descended from the heavens, and wrapped its veins around her shoulder, piping cheerily. Around its neck was tied an odd metal tube. The soldier's eyes were wide when she turned to him. [colour=antiquewhite]"Where,"[/colour] asked the hain, her tone innocent, the same she'd first used in greeting, [color=antiquewhite]"Does he live?"[/color] The chill came again. A shudder of forewarning. [hider=Tauga kicks a dog] Three sections with entirely different stories. [b]First section.[/b] Jvan is still fast asleep and exhausted from her battle with Vowzra. The fact that Heartworm is leeching her energy presumably doesn't help. She dreams many memories of her many previous lives, and reasons that because she has only ever been a single individual, the Fated Truth that Vowzra wanted her to see is actually a specific memory of something she saw in one of those many lives. She completely fails to notice Logos invading Galbar and sleeps through it. However, a new sub-mind is developing from the part of her that descended into abstraction when she went through her hysteria (thereby claiming Geometry). The sub-mind takes over the resistance effort, decentralising the Sculptor whispers so that they now hear and locate one another's songs instead of exclusively Jvan's whispers, with Ovaedis helping to amplify them. It also designs the Distant Dance, an organised global union of the semi-random territorial wanders of Sculptors and the migrations of Urtelem, bringing them into closer contact. That done it distributes among some of them (maybe half?) weapons called Halos, which are specialised tools to dissolve magic-based and ethereal organisms like Realta and Djinni (and Entropites) that stay around for long enough. Finally, it organises a global quarrantine effort around Acalya, assisting the Sculptors as they burn the flora around the groves, isolate and destroy new ones, train Urtelem to fight the crystal guardians and Sculptors to hypnotise vulnerable fiberlings (note that they already had some psychic connection to them). [b]1 Might spent to create Halos. 2 free points from Ovaedis to teach team-based martial arts to the Urtelem, fiberling hypnosis to Sculptors. 1 free point to prompt Sculptors and Urtelem to join forces against Acalya. Free Geometry action to decentralise Sculptor telepathy from Jvan. Free Geometry action to distribute halos to select Sculptors. Free Geometry action to design the Distant Dance. 1.75 Might total. This is Jvan's personal militarisation effort against Acalya, linking up with Vowzra's legacy and the increasingly connected Sculptor/Urtelem culture.[/b] [b]Second section.[/b] Years before the invasion, Tira sneaks out of the palace at Alefpria and acts strangely, perfectly modelling the many symptoms of a developing Sculptor. As she scrounges the city's garbage for objects of interest, she unwittingly finds the Godkiller. Jvan is painfully burned just by observing it, and the Sculptor cells connecting Tira and Jvan purge themselves of telepathic tissue in an attempt to survive. After a traumatic episode, Tira is scared and confused about what she was doing, and appears to be free of the symptoms of the parasitic fusion, though her body will never be [i]quite[/i] human again. [b]No points spent. Depressing section about Tira, revealing the Godkiller, which is now in her possession. SHE'LL GET A CHANCE TO BE HAPPY AGAIN SOON HONEST[/b] [b]Third section.[/b] Tauga finds Xerxes in a state of famine, its power structure collapsed after Amartia was kidnapped, the Victors demoralised the army, and Realta started a huge fire, incinerating the House of Jvan and the entire district around it. She learns what caused the crisis in her home city from a slightly hung-over soldier. [b]9 Khookies gained, no points spent. Tauga walks down a street and talks to a human, as promised. Mostly exposition and foreshadowing.[/b] [b]Jvan 0 Might Ambient 3.5 Might in Ovaedis 0 Free Points 2C / 0D Level Five Tauga 17 Khookies Level Two[/b][/hider]