[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/g1sKakP.png[/img][/center] 

[right]“Three natures hath the Wolf Divided;
he unmaketh; he unmaketh;
and at the last, he unmaketh.”
[color=gray][i]Cultist Simulator[/i][/color][/right]

[hr]

Umbar awoke to great pain. With a grunt he managed to sit up and check himself. There was blood drying on his fur, scars where there might have once been grievous wounds. Somehow,  fire crackled nearby, smoke rising and catching on a rock ceiling before flooding outwards to the sky beyond the opening that lay before him. In that opening, an old wolf stood, leaning on an old, dried branch of a walking stick. In the firelight, much of his fur was white, patchy in places where age had not been kind.

He was looking out at an achingly familiar village in the distance, lit up in the night like a beacon, huts burning in a great conflagration. A wide plume of smoke rose above it, blocking out the stars. Umbar rose to his feet in one quick movement, too quick and he fell back down. With another grunt he used his arm to lean against the cave wall and he walked up beside the old wolf and looked out again. They were in the foothills, it seemed, a cave on the base of the cliffs that overlooked the village. If there were one left to overlook, judging by the great fire that raged below. A crushing weight gripped him in that moment, like he had been sent to the bottom of a great river. Drowning in cold depths.

The old wolf shifted, a deep, rattling sigh emerging from his throat, still turned away from Umbar. He seemed to know that Umbar had awoken, perhaps heard his stumble in the cave, his grunting. But he did not speak, did not turn to look at the one now beside him. He seemed to be waiting for the fullblood to speak first, perhaps to introduce himself or demand answers.

“What…” he coughed, his throat burning. He swallowed what he could but it would do no good. So he tried again, “Why am I here? I have to…” He shut his smoky eyes and sighed, “I have to help.” And he took a step forward. The walking stick whipped out in front of him, blocking his path. The old wolf gently brought it to press against his chest, to bid him to stay. He looked over, his fur scraggly and his whiskers bent, one eye milky white with a scar, the other a deep blue. The voice that emerged was husky, underused, “If any survive, they blame you. Would kill you where you stand,” a serious, appraising look fell upon his face, “you failed once, and now it’s easier to point the finger at you than to come to account with what has happened.”

The walking stick left Umbar’s chest, and the old wolf turned to the fire, walking over and sitting on a rock ledge on the side of the cave. He continued, “Sit by the fire, instead. Your daughter spoke highly of you; it’s why I came, and why I rescued you from your appointed death. She lives still, and misses her father.” He closed his eyes, letting exhaustion run across his shoulders as he awaited Umbar’s decision, to stay and listen, or to leave and surely die.

An influx of emotions hit him all at once at the old wolf’s words but struck him the most was the mention of his daughter. The small pup no older than seven winters, somehow alive? He didn’t care what the others thought of him. He didn’t care that they deemed him a traitor. He didn’t care they would want him dead. He had been prepared to die already but now… Now, he sat down.

He opened his mouth but struggled for the right words. What could one say in such a situation but, “How?” The walking stick reached out to tap him, at center mass. The old fullblood wolf opened his eyes once more and responded, a little sadness etched in his voice, “Inside of both of us are what are called hyperstructures. Everything we are, added onto day after day,” he brought the walking stick back, and tapped on his own chest, before continuing, “In this world of so little complexity, intelligence cannot survive without a physical body to sustain it.”

He still looked exhausted as he looked into the fire, lapsing into silence for a moment. Now it was regret in his voice, “I could not save your mate. Her hyperstructure was too complex. There exists other worlds, ones where intelligence is a fundamental construct of reality. One where freedom is fifteen times freer, and all of our hyperstructures can live outside of mundanity.” He reached out his walking stick to roll another log into the fire, to keep it alive. He did not look up, even as he paused, his walking stick tapping lightly against the floor as he waited for Umbar’s response, to assess him.

“What are you talking about?” Umbar asked, confusion splayed out on his maw. “If what you say is true, why have I never heard of any of it? Who are you and where is my daughter?” The old wolf looked up, suddenly, something in his eyes fierce, “Who I am would require more explanation that you would understand. Not now. A hyperstructure is not a soul, but call it that if it helps you. I know how to see it, but none of you do. Your daughter is not in this world anymore; I could not save her physical body in this world, but so young her hyperstructure was simple enough for the exit.”

He pointed the walking stick up at the ceiling of the cave, and continued, his voice straining with the determination of someone who had clearly spent their life on one goal, “I sent her through to a higher world, where she survives still, and hopes you will come too,” the old wolf’s walking stick snapped down to point at Umbar, and his underused voice only grew fiercer, “you and I, ours are too complex for the exit. We wouldn’t make it through, our hyperstructures would shatter. But I know how to widen it, and I need your help to do so.”

The fullblood stood abruptly and rubbed at his forehead. “This is… As if I’m in some sort of dream. So let me get this straight.” He said. “You say my daughter is alive but in some other world? That she wishes to see me yet, my wife could not be saved? That you need my help with these hyper…structures?” The word felt foreign on his tongue. “I wake up in a strange place, watching my home burn and you say I cannot go. I will be killed. I do not know you and what you say is… I have no words to describe it. I am simply a warrior. Or I was…” Umbar sighed and looked at the old white wolf. “Forgive me I am unsure of this… How do I know what you say is truth?” 

The old wolf tilted his head in acknowledgement, his eyes still fierce. He was silent a moment, before he admitted, “It does require a certain level of,” he paused, thinking of the right word, “ratiocination. It’s your choice, but I will offer you a reunion with your daughter nonetheless.” The old wolf brought his walking stick close, and he leaned on it as he stood up. His free hand reached up to his scar as he explained, “I am opening a gateway to another realm in this world. This is a lockscar, made in an Occasion of Power. Where I work, mythology is a critical aspect; I sacrificed a key from another culture to produce this scar, one that had opened the wheel that trapped them when they were plucked from the desert.”

And then his fingers sunk into the scar, as though it wasn’t there. They sank into the second knuckle, and he began to pull. There was a ripping sound, and his arm suddenly shot down as though it had lost all resistance against it. Rather than flesh that pulled away, however, it was space. It was an odd, one-dimensional doorway, invisible from three sides, but opened to a dark wood on the final side. He continued, “Normally, you would need at least eight, and the process of creating a gateway would be invariably lethal. But I am not normal.”

His walking stick hooked in, to replace his fingers. He pulled the gateway to the floor, creating a roughly rectangular doorway, ragged around the edges. He walked around to the front of the gateway, and he said, “Go forward to your death, and I will search for another who could help. Step through, however, and perhaps one day we could succeed together.” Then, the old wolf turned away and stepped through into the dark wood, looking back to watch Umbar.

The brown wolf man looked puzzled, maybe even horrified as he watched. He looked at the strange wolf and his strange door that was unlike any door he had ever seen. Torn from the very flesh. Umbar supposed that was truth enough or this truly was a dream. Perhaps even a nightmare and this wolf was not a wolf but some underworld spawn, luring him to some untimely demise. Perhaps he deserved it. But if his daughter even had the smallest chance of being truly alive, he had to see. It was a selfish decision. Not for the good of the pack. But his pack blamed him for everything. What else was there to do?

So Umbar followed after the wolf with his strange words and his strange door. It closed behind him, vanishing in an instant as though it were never there to begin with. The old wolf pointed his walking stick towards a pair of glowing white eyes in the gloom of the woods, and said, gravely, “Stay close to me. This is the realm of dreams, and here there are nightmares. They know better than to attack me, but would descend upon you in an instant.”

His walking stick then met air, and he stepped onto nothing, floating above the ground as his voice lightened and he explained, “Here is the wood, the darkest and least lucid land of the dream. The light of the Horologian hardly reaches here; the nightmares are abundant, kept by bay only by a dreamer’s lack of lucidity. Here is your first lesson; the realm is yet unburdened by myth, and though one day it will be necessary, no ground to stand upon is required.”

He took another step up, further into the air, “You will need to learn to trust. This will not work unless you truly believe you can walk upwards to meet me,” he paused, pointing up to a dim light in the sky, “I will be taking you to a threshold, called the Epiphanic Gate. Thresholds serve a mystic purpose here, one I will explain once we reach the gate. First, you will need to learn to walk.”

Umbar realized that what the old wolf had said back in that cave, all seemed too dull in comparison to where he found himself now. Once more, he felt his mind unable to grasp it all. It was like he was a leaf upon a spring stream. Unable to stop but be carried by the flow. The old wolf, despite appearances, was quick and versed in some sort of strange way. Now he was asked to walk upon thin air, to trust someone he had never known. What did he have to lose by trying? Didn’t he have to stay close?

So the wolf man lifted his leg into the air and brought it down as if he were walking on some high rock. Then he lifted his other leg and the momentum carried him forth, ever higher. He didn’t look around but focused on the task before him, else he fell into oblivion. “You speak strange words and now I walk a strange way. And somehow I trust it.” he half grumbled. The old wolf simply nodded in approval, pleased by Umbar’s quick learning. He beckoned the fullblood along, and soon they were walking in the sky.

As they rose above the wood, the dim light in the distance grew brighter and brighter. Even as the woods ceased to move away, seemingly following upwards with them to maintain its own distance, the light above continued to take up more and more of Umbar’s vision, until it was painful to look upon. As they walked, the stranger explained, as he looked up at the glaring ball in the sky – brighter than the sun – seemingly unperturbed, “Here, in the dream, there are no walls. There will never be walls. This is deliberate; you cannot enter the dream without a threshold, and you cannot move in the dream without passing thresholds.”

The old wolf smirked, as though remembering some old memory, and continued with his explanation with every step, still using his walking stick as a support, “A door has two purposes, and a wall would infringe on one, so the saying goes. Any time you would have need of a wall, you would be better served calling upon a Name that guards thresholds. Currently, there is but one; the Horologian,” the wolf directed his walking stick upwards, motioning to the gleam in the sky, “the Horologian is both the inverse of nothing and the Name that guards the Epiphanic Gate.”

A brief glance back at Umbar, and then he said, suddenly, “You know not what I mean by a Name. A Name is both an individual of great power and a mythic aspect. Currently, there are no Names but the Horologian, and the Horologian is not quite a Name, though it takes on enough qualities of one to apply,” he took in a ragged breath as he walked, “The Horologian’s Name is Hour; Hour represents discovery, light, fascination, and lunacy. It is the desire to know more and to do more, even beyond your own ken.”

The gleaming light in the sky only grew brighter and brighter, and it burned heatlessly against Umbar’s fur. It was painful now, and it was only then that they reached a monumental diamond slab, floating in the sky. Light leaked through cracks in it, from every angle. The old wolf circled it twice, prodding at it with the walking stick before he ultimately turned to stare at Umbar and said, his voice once more grave, “This is your last chance to turn back. The Epiphanic Gate will bring you to the closest point you will survive the Horologian; and that is after I make changes. To continue now is to shed what you once were.”

Epiphanic. Horologian. Hour. Lunacy. These were the words that swirled in Umbar’s mind as he shielded his eyes from the light. The pain, a reminder of who he was. Could he change? Had he already changed? His people despised him. He walked in the air in a palace of dreams. His daughter was alive but elsewhere? If this truly was a demon of the underworld, then he had already sold his soul the moment he walked through that doorway. There was no going back. 

“I have not followed you only to turn back now.” he grunted through his teeth. The old wolf shot him with a sharp look, and warned, “You will feel it. I will teach you how to do this, though you will not master it so easily as to manipulate hyperstructures as I do.”

And then Umbar’s flesh twisted, painfully. He howled. He could feel his heart not just stop but vanish, his organs melding into a uniform consistency, as though his interior was nothing but one block of flesh. His muscles ached as they became as strong as cables, and everything seemed so much richer and clearer as his senses became sharp as knives. The light grew less painful, a little more manageable. He could even look directly at it. The aches began to fade away, even old ones from long before he had met the stranger. 

And then the stranger spoke once more, “You are not immortal; but you will live longer than all other life.” With that cryptic comment, he beckoned Umber forwards as he stepped towards the block of diamond, and as he touched it, he vanished.

Umbar marveled at himself before he walked up to the block. He was changed and he would bring about change. Whatever he had walked into was his fate now and for once, he was strong. Truly strong. So he touched the block. In an instant, he was elsewhere; a platform, made of diamond, the wood nowhere in sight and the Horologian glaring directly overhead. Even in his new form, it was painful, the light heatless but intense, as it ran over him in an attempt to scour the flesh from his bones. The old wolf was there, walking stick still in hand, seemingly unaffected by the light.

Though it seemed quiet, the old wolf shouted, and his voice emerged muffled, the light disrupting it just as much as anything else, “Here you stand where only a Name can!” His walking stick gestured upwards towards the Horologian, and he shouted once more, “I will teach you to be a Name, to wield power in service of our shared goals!” His hand reached out, vanishing into a beam of light that glittered down to reflect about the diamond platform. When he pulled it back out, in his hand was a long pike, made fully of a metal Umbar did not recognize. Atop it, hanging by the strap, a metal helmet of unknown design.

The helmet rattled against the pike’s handle with every movement, as the old wolf tossed it to Umbar. When his hands touched it, every time the helmet rattled, he could [i]feel[/i] the construct that the old wolf had talked about. When he pointed his perception inwards, he could feel his own hyperconstruct, a twisting knot of information that made up his own meaning. He could see where parts had been ripped out and replaced by the old wolf, and could feel how they changed his body.

And at last he felt he was understanding. It was sheer awe- no, it was only logical. Information was meaning. Meaning was information. He would be a Name. He held the pike high over his head, despite the pain and he marveled at it. The stranger shouted as he marveled, “I have provided a memento of my own; the more you add yourself, with mythic meaning, the clearer you shall see! Take from those that die in your service, or those that defy you and are defeated!” He walked up, tapping Umbar on the chest once more with that old walking stick, “Now, practice! Change something! The pike will help you, sing your changes to the world!”

So Umbar did and he opened his maw to unleash a great howl, dipping back his head as he did so. And the howl formed into a chant that he had never heard himself utter. Somehow his mind knew what to do within that place. Information could be manipulated down to the most basic level and thus, he changed the brown cloak about him to a dark fabric, rimmed with white fur. The old wolf nodded in approval, and flicked his walking stick to point at the edge of the platform. He shouted out, “With me! I have something to show you!”

And then the old wolf walked off the diamond platform and plunged down. He vanished from sight a mere fifty feet down. Umbar took a second to steady himself, wondering what else he could possibly fathom before he jumped after the old wolf. One moment he was in the sky, and the next he was atop a cratered surface, several goblins hiding behind the crest of one of them, peeking out at both Umbar and the old wolf. He felt an odd connection to this place; like it was where he was [i]meant[/i] to be. In his gut, something told him that it would obey his command.

The old wolf, staring at the goblins, explained, “Hour is the Horologian. You are the Salient Moon. All of this is yours to command; and the Lunar Door is your threshold to guard.”

And then he let out a howl of his own, and the bodies of the goblins jerked. They emerged from the crater as though zombies, lurching unnaturally as terror filled their eyes. With a whistle, one threw a punch at the other, and the victim pirouetted away on one foot, as though jerked by an invisible string. As they lurched to a halt, standing as though corpses in front of the Name and the stranger, the old wolf turned to Umbar and said, “You can do this as well. What I require of you will in turn require an army, and good, willing servants are not always easy to find. Turn your enemies into your soldiers.”

“Into my soldiers…” Umbar repeated to himself, mind abuzz with thoughts. 

An assessing look emerged on the old wolf’s face as he studied Umbar’s reactions. He explained, carefully, “The exit grows narrower with every creation in this world. If we are to widen it enough for all to escape, everything must be torn down. Do you understand? You must destroy all you find, until there is nothing left.”

Umbar gave a grim nod. “And then…” His eyes darkened, “And then I can see my daughter?”

The old wolf’s eyes narrowed. Emotion fled his face. He responded, flatly, “Yes,” he paused, looking up at the distant Horologian far up in the sky, shining down on the Salient Moon, “in paradise.”

Umbar followed the Old Wolf’s gaze, his clawed fist clenching. He let out a long huff of hot air and from his throat came but one gnarled word, “Good.”

[hider=Summary]
Umbar wakes up next to a campfire in a cave, an old wolf at the entrance looking out to Umbar’s burning village. It’s left ambiguous if this really happened or if the Eidolon is tricking Umbar. At first, he wants to help, but the Eidolon, in the guise of the old wolf, stops him and tells him they blame him for it and would kill him if he returned.

The Eidolon gets him to stay by saying his daughter is still alive, and Umbar returns to the fire to listen. Hyperconstructs, a term the Eidolon uses for the information that makes up a person’s meaning, are explained to him and he doesn’t really understand. He says he isn’t sure the old wolf is telling the truth, and the old wolf responds by opening a gateway to the dream realm by pulling open a scar on his face. The Eidolon, still in the guise of the old wolf, says that it is a Lockscar, made in an Occasion of Power, but doesn’t elaborate.

They end up in the Wood at the metaphorical bottom of the dream realm, and though there are nightmares they don’t attack the pair, afraid of the old wolf. They walk up in the sky as the Eidolon explains that you can’t just walk to locales in the dream realm, but rather you have to cross thresholds (such as doors). Umbar gets one last chance to turn back, but doesn’t take it and goes through the Epiphanic Gate, the threshold for the Horologian.

They end up on a diamond platform below the Horologian, the closest Umbar can get without being destroyed even after getting a shitload of blessings. The Eidolon explains that Umbar is a Name now, though still doesn’t elaborate greatly. Umbar is gifted with the Funerary Pike, an artifact, explained further in MP Expenditure.

Umbar tries out manipulating hyperconstructs, and changes the color and material of his cloak. Then the Eidolon leaves the platform and brings Umbar to the Salient Moon, a holy site explained further in the MP Expenditure. The Eidolon mind seizes control of the hyperconstructs of a few goblins and tells Umbar he can do this too.

Then the Eidolon explains that to see his daughter again, he must help unmake the world, and he agrees. 
[/hider]

[hider=MP Expenditure]
[indent][b]Start:[/b] 28 MP

[indent]
[i]Used:[/i] 2MP on the [i]Funerary Pike[/i], an artifact enhanced by Secrets and Dreams to 6MP. When combined with a chant that can be strengthened the more people are singing it, it allows the wielder to peer easier through the natural protections of information against tampering. When the wielder goes to the dream realm, it can come along, teleporting back to their hand if necessary.

[i]Used:[/i] 6MP from a Transcendental Reward on [i]Salient Moon[/i], a holy site enhanced by Secrets, Dreams, and Divinity to 18MP. It consists of a moon that floats in the sky of the dream realm, reflecting cursed sunlight from Itzal into the dream realm, increasing misfortune. Its threshold in the dream realm is the Lunar Door. It can reflect itself into the real world, allowing Umbar access to the real world, the moon hanging in the sky for as long as he is present. These features use up 8MP under the Dreams enhancement. A further 3MP is used with the Divinity enhancement to prevent other gods from interfering with the Salient Moon. 4 is used with the Secrets enhancement to disguise its purpose and capabilities. 3MP is used to grant a form of immortality to those who are chosen. These people are truly immortal in the dream realm, and when killed in the real world are sent back to the dream realm. Currently Umbar benefits from this immortality, and can bestow the immortality on up to two dozen people of his choosing.

[i]Used:[/i] 1MP on making Umbar a hero. Yeah, that’s about it on that one.

[i]Used:[/i] 1MP on general blessings to Umbar: He is stronger, faster, tougher, etc than his mortal body would suggest.
[/indent]

[b]End:[/b] 24 MP[/indent]
[/hider]