[center][b]VI[/b][/center] When the winter wind breathed its way across the plateau, the caged fires clutched their robes to their sides, then let go again, laughing perhaps, or wondering why they of all beings should feel cold. Then they continued their walk. They had a long way to go if they were to keep up with the spitfires. Little by little, the green hill was growing duller, its grass getting short as the alpacas grew fat. Green Recurve Wings was one of seven spitfires directing about fifteen of them, driving them on as far as they needed to go if they were to find fresh fodder. Too often the animals got lost, when they were alone, caught in the irregular swathes of ashen grass left behind by the rain of motes. Not so with the inseparable spitfires guiding them, of course. Between the seven of them, they knew exactly where they were, and where they were going, and could see far into the horizon where they had previously been. All day and all night they enjoyed themselves, singing sparken songs about what had over just a few weeks become their sole role in life. Sometimes they sang too long. Green Recurve Wings had ducked between the legs of the wandering animals many times before, many, many, and come away safely from its little stunt every time but once. It was only one, brief encounter with the lead animal’s hoof, but it was more than enough, and it didn’t take much more than a bent wing to be lethal to such a being. Stay here, said the choir of seven minus one. Stay here. That’s what the song says. You just stay here. We won’t come back. You won’t come back, said Green Recurve Wings, dying. I’ll just stay here. That’s what the song says to do. And so it was. The night became very cold, and awfully dark. Green Recurve Wings lay there and wondered what it would see if there was no light at all, not even its own. Would it see the things that animals jerked at when they shut the flaps that hung over their eyes? Would it see the Goddess? You won’t see the Goddess, said the 8.6.17a3y82d9-0.6th sentence, which Green Recurve Wings almost understood. You won’t see her tonight. Only one, small part of her will you see. The caged fire knelt over Green Recurve Wings, the gilded trim of its robes shining brightly beneath its glassy face. Everything was brilliant, now, shining and beautiful and bold under the gaze of the divine guide. How did you find me? Said Green Recurve Wings. Who are you? You are so pretty. The lanternhead laughed, and lowered its wooden hand over the spitfire, and lit the censer in which it carried its holy mana, and as Green Recurve Wings felt its bent steel and dew-soaked silk righting itself, it knew that, by the grace of God, it would fly again. By the grace of the Lantern God, and the mercy of her Guides. [center][b]VII[/b][/center] Chopstick stood up on her balcony at the top of the Official Pagoda, stood up from her work with the intricacies of another god’s craftsmanship, and looked out towards her own. The sky had darkened with clouds and night, but she could see lights everywhere. From the faint, magic aura of the myriad eyekites rising from the tower and the gardens, and the bright, leaking rivulets of mana from the Generator complex below, and above all from the swarm of Spitfires screaming across the distant terraces, fueled by the winds of golden magic. Behind and below them lay a glittering swathe of pure white ice, frosted in thin layers on every living twig of the mar trees that sprawled through the wounded forest. Wounded and not dying. She saw the shine of her secretaries reflected a thousandfold under the canopy as they walked through that scene of desolation, looking for errors and finding none. In such a large group, the spitfires were frightfully keen in their spotting, and in no real risk of forgetting their objective. Within the hour the trees hosting that outbreak of decay would be frozen to death, and their motes would spread no further. She looked down to the Generator that fueled this display, slowly retracting its next set of kites. The spitfires liked these, though they were strictly forbidden from playing with them. Every hour a new set of polymer wings would slowly ascend, as guided by the lanternhead and spitfire wind scouts according to the state of the weather, some to the high winds and some to the low. There were huge kites, small kites, rotary kite-like turbines and kite balloons, photovoltaic kites and lightning kites, deployed day after day to pull the turbines and conduct the electricity that would be stored by the machine. Chopstick Eyes fiddled with the ivory necklace she had taken to wearing over her furs and feathers. She had spent a long time thinking about what the generator should actually generate. Gold was dandy and [i]ever[/i] so classy, but tricky enough to move and work. Tusks had shared the same issues, nice as they were. Paper bills were a rather unstable form of mana, not one she was inclined to let her workforce play with too often. Shells were too weak. Powders and liquids were the name of the game, then, and colour, flavour and aroma were always in thaumaturgical demand. Even now the Lanternheads rolled out heavy barrels of spice, brilliant dyes and heady incense, fizzling with currency mana. They were good at it. They had learned. [colour=olivedrab][i]This bird still wonders, ‘til late hour, What will be done with all this power. The ash and death will soon be done. Not long will we yet hear the Stellar Hum.[/i][/colour] [colour=wheat]“We’ll find a use for it, Liv,”[/colour] Chopstick assured her. [colour=wheat]“We’ll sell it for something. And we’ll find a use for this, too. The lampnoggins can figure it out.”[/colour] She crouched down again beside the device she had made, stroking the crooning Alma beneath the chin. There were a lot of mechanisms in the bird that she hadn’t really understood, and had left alone, but there were useful ones, too. And the more she studied the fragment of broken sun that had washed up in her Bazaar, dusty with centuries of seabed silt, the more she understood of that brand of divine handiwork also. She poured a canister of magenta mana into the enormous lens’s many maintenance tubes, and counted tics on a stopwatch as the shining and the shaking wound down. [colour=wheat]“I think it works,”[/colour] said Chopstick Eyes. [colour=wheat]“Call Glassy and Hatboy. It’s time to head south.”[/colour] She stood up. Another swarm of spitfires was returning over the hills, hungry for fresh soot and wool. [i][colour=wheat]I did this,[/colour][/i] thought Chopstick Eyes, seeing for the first time. [i][colour=wheat]I am the Lantern God.[/colour][/i] [hider=Let’s throw Might around] Choppy claims the Lanterns and Kites portfolios in the process of doing a bunch of cool spitfire-related stuff. 5 native Might on each of those. The rest is from the Age of Lords. 1 Might to teach spitfire society how to herd the camelids on the Kick, which can provide fibre for the spitfires to eat. 1 Might (after Lanterns discount) to give lanternheads the title, ‘Guides’. They shine brightly both literally and figuratively for their spitfire followers. 1 Might to teach the lanternheads Karamir’s spell, Mend Clothes, except it’s Mend Kites now, and functions more as a healing spell when applied to spitfires. I guess I could discount this, but I don’t think there’s any need to be frugal so let’s just make it potent 3 Might (empowered by Kites) to build the Kite Generator, a Monument complex near the Abacadarium that converts wind energy into relatively stable mana. Choppy being Choppy, this mana is disguised as / takes the form of valuable commodities, such as dyes and spices, in powder form. 1 Might (after Kites discount) to give the lanternheads the title, ‘Fliers of Kites’. They have to be good at it to operate the Generator and make the most of their eyekites. 3 Might (empowered by Lanterns) to build a lens-like artifact that converts mana into light, based on a fragment of the Luminous Garden sun that exploded, and also on the beam-generating machinery in Alma. I WONDER WHAT THIS THING DOES. I had to pay native Might for an earlier Age of Lords artefact, so I'm gonna hope that once I give this one to the Lanternheads to play with, the AoL spending is legit. I’m going to officially call this a Quest now since the focus has been on dealing with Mar Tree motes for a while. Lanternheads gain 1 Prestige for a role + 1 for questing. They immediately spend it on the title, ‘Magicians’, for obvious reasons. [b]Chopstick Eyes | Butterwort in Midsummer 2 Might (Native) 4 Might (Age of Lords) Markets | Knives | Kites | Lanterns Cuisine (5/5) ----- Lantern Heads Knife-Eyed | Guides | Magicians | Fliers of Kites 7 Prestige[/b] [/hider]