[center][b]III[/b][/center] There was a Spitfire with green recurve wings, three on each side of its body, perfectly stacked. Its name was Green Recurve Wings. This is a good name for a spitfire. The spitfire Green Recurve Wings had once been a spitfire named Blue Recurve Wings, and before that, Recurve Tail. Recurve Tail lived in the paintings the caged fires had made, and whenever Green Recurve Wings approached these paintings, and asked where this pretty spitfire was, the caged fires said that it had been Green Recurve’s name, a little while ago. Green Recurve found this very interesting. The caged fires said that Recurve Tail was one of the very first spitfires ever made by God, and that Green Recurve Wings still looked a lot like it had looked then, which other spitfires would always confirm. This made Green Recurve Wings feel very special. For a little while. Green Recurve Wings liked following the caged fires around. Every morning it would do a lap of all one hundred and seventy-nine of them, including the ones deep in the forest, and later on, when it got bored, it would do another lap of them. This second lap was easy, since the caged fires didn’t move very much from where they were at the start of the day, but it was also hard, because if Green Recurve left it too long then it wouldn’t remember where they had all been, or how many there were. Green Recurve would have to go and spark at the other spitfires, gnawing and fighting over the cottontail weeds or the woolly moss, and ask them, how many caged fires are there? what do they do? where are the ones I can’t find? Some of these questions would have answers. Some of them wouldn’t. When Green Recurve Wings had found all the caged fires around the Pagoda, or most of them, it would zoom back and spark: one-hundred-and-fifteen caged fires! I found one with a hexagon hat far upstream! he was doing funny things to the water! And other spitfires would go and investigate, and Green Recurve Wings would fight over the woolly moss, and the cycle would repeat. [center][b]IV[/b][/center] The Lanternhead B5Y, whose number was fourteen and to whom had been given the name Hatboy, stood still and quiet between the splatters of a great wave, thrown up from the river and frozen in time. He spoke sentence number 48se28.4.m56.0df9t308c0i. This sentence was the introduction to a lesson. It silenced the spitfires onlooking. Hatboy tapped the fifth corner of his lantern-shade with his chopstick hand, as was his tendency, and the frozen wave collapsed, running back down into the shallow river and bouncing off an invisible umbrella as it went. The spitfires began sparking, and, by way of quelling their excitement, Hatboy raised between his chopsticks a smooth bauble of water, perfectly still and clear as glass, and let it rest in the air before them, unmoving. They chattered, and then murmured. A thin, green strip of something was raised in his other hand. Slowly he brought it to the bauble. A grave would not be quieter. This, said B5Y, using hand-signs, is what we call, [i]Mana.[/i] The bill touched the bauble, and a second later a perfect sphere of ice fell to the ground and shattered, snowflake patterns still perfectly visible on its surface. One of the spitfires began shrieking ecstatically, and was swiftly wing-slapped by another. When we toil in secret, said the hand-signs, we who are caged and destined to serve our Lord, this is what we harness. The vaults of God are many and of mystery, and within them lies great power. By riding on its ebb and channeling its flow, we release God’s power back unto Her. Sometimes, as now, She trickles it down upon us- when there is a need. Several feet away, between a tree and a leaf, hidden beneath the dappled shade, small mote of nothing fell into a fake black insect, which almost immediately crumbled into dust. The spitfires saw it clear as day. And Hatboy thought, thanks, Karamir. [center][b]V[/b][/center] Green Recurve Wings flicked its tail and watched the sun glance on the gold leaf enlaid thereon. Green Recurve did this often, because it was pretty, and because otherwise it would be easy to forget how much there was. Of the three thin bars of gilded glow on the spitfire’s tail, one was halfway finished, and the other two still there. Green Recurve Wings remembered when it had been painted with those stripes. There had been a hubbub of many instructions, and rituals, and dozens of its kin marked the same way, or almost the same way, and it had sat quietly, or maybe not so quietly, and the instructions had been perhaps superfluous between the grandeur of the demonstrations, or so it had been told, because the demonstrations really did have great grandeur, even moderated as they were, but all of this was rapidly fading, some of it already lost. It existed in the chorus of sparks flurrying between the spitfire circuits, but bit by bit it was wearing down. Still, Green Recurve Wings remembered when it had been painted with those stripes. It remembered, of all the words signed and sparked, these ones: [center][i]Granted to you by the grace of the Skewer Lord, this little wealth, That it be for your teaching, and your travel. May your flame shine brightly in the dark place to come.[/i][/center] Green Recurve Wings called the violent winds around it, and shot into the morning, the gold leaf on its wings shrinking little by little as it joined the flock that travelled south. [hider=Continued bits, assorted pieces] Starting with 12 native Might (five more than in the turn change b/c I didn't update the income on the spreadsheet, silly me) and 18 Age of Lords points, Chopstick backstage-spends some points to fund mana study among the Lanternheads and their spitfire proteges. We meet Green Recurve Wings, a pretty average spitfire who’ll represent the species while I figure out how the hell to write them. The observant Lanternheads have copied Karamir’s mana discipline, and Choppy has bankrolled them 1 Might to learn how to interact with mana, 1 Might to learn Rushing Waters, and 1 Might to learn (and teach) Violent Winds. These spells probably aren't as powerful as Karamir's versions, but they're still useful. For another 1 Might, they’ve developed Enfrost, a chilling spell derived from Rushing Waters. All from Age of Lords for now. Spitfires store mana as gold leaf on their wings. They don’t seem to have much of a capacity to regenerate it on their own yet. Lanternheads claim two Prestige for being important. [b]Chopstick Eyes | Butterwort in Midsummer 12 Might (Native) 14 Might (Age of Lords) Markets | Knives Kites (5/5) Lanterns (5/5) Cuisine (5/5) ----- Lantern Heads Knife-Eyed 7 Prestige[/b] [/hider]