Worlds Beyond Number - WWW #16: Everything

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

Reunited, the gang must now face, waste, and taste the avalanche of revelation and experience that the Citadel provides. This is why we run.Miss us? We missed you! Look, we got you something: The Witch Class for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Yeah, the one Erika plays! You HAVE been listening! It's really fun, it's beautifully put together and it's one of the many, many incredible things you'll get when you join our Patreon. Come on in comrades, the water (Witch Class for D&D 5e) is fiiiine.Worlds Beyond Number is:Brennan Lee MulliganErika IshiiAabria IyengarLou Wilson and is produced, designed, and scored by Taylor Moore at Fortunate Horse.Transcript of this episode coming soon! You can find transcripts of all our episodes here, for free, on our Patreon.Our album art is by the great Corey BrickleySome additional ambient sound design comes from Michael Ghelfi Studios. You can get their sounds and music for your home games and VTT as well, which we enthusiastically recommend. .

This is the sound of worlds beyond number. Crystal glass, flawless and completely clear. A spire in the center of a white desert pointing towards the stars. Endless fine white sand blowing in the breeze under perfect, clear stars. No cloud nor vapor hanged. in the air. So at night the Tower of the Citadel, the Eurian, is illuminated in a quality of light silvery but as clear as broad day. Small yellow lanterns flicker heatlessly in trellises of rose and vine in brick buildings and a vast marble balcony with a

A mica-flecked balustrade overlooks the edge of Malacanth Court, one of the 24 courts of the citadel. Each of the courts timed to the hour floats up and down, one helix spiraling down, the other spiraling up, and pausing for the briefest of moments when one court lands in Havreward, at the ground, and the other ascends to the apex of the very pinnacle of the Irian. The dance of the floating platforms of the Citadel marches inexorably to the steady beat of progress, innovation, exploration, discovery, learning, the secrets of a world of endless magic unveiling themselves with the steady, ticketing. of time. Gazing out over the white sand,

Amé, the witch, sits in a slender, shining wheelchair with a sleeping fox, his little black-socked paws splayed out off her lap in that way that cats will do when they're like on their stomach

and the legs like shoot out on either side of their head and are completely straight, but they look somehow comfortable doing it. it. In his glamour, the tall, red-braided hair and broad shoulders of Ursulaan with Wavebreaker at his side, dressed in, go ahead and describe like your Marshal Cadet's uniform. Like, what is a wizard sword-wielder cadet wear at the Citadel? I mean, I'm sure, I feel like it looks like a kind of downgraded version of Suv's attire. Like, it lacks all of, it's all the same colors and tones, but lacks all of the kind of finishes.

Like it's pretty rough-hune tunic with, you know, I feel like kind of like little shoulder plates on top. I think you can tell Ursulaan is maybe wearing the paldron underneath it. But yeah, with, I think maybe like a little, a little one of those like half cloaks that kind of like hangs off the right shoulder.

And then I'm assuming I would have some kind of simple, that suggests that I'm the protector of someone as important as Sufi, be it either for her or for her patron silence. So one of your sort of half cape has a clasp of a brooch on it that simply just has the tower of the citadel on it. A simple symbol of a crystalline structure with a curving line behind it, the curved line representing the sand of the desert and the ordered angular symbol of the city.

this geometric shape imposed over it. It is the most simple symbol and form of saying, this person is here at the invitation of the Wizards of the Citadel as a guest. Like, the wizards themselves don't wear this pin because they have more refined delineations of their tasks and stations. So this most recognizable symbol of the Citadel is actually what guests wear. And you've seen, I would say that somewhere, under 10%, but over 5% of the people you run into at the Citadel do wear this.

The Citadel is an important of institution that there are some significant number of non-wisards here going about their business. Wizards have, you know, occasionally wizards will fall in love with someone who is not a wizard, as shocking as that may be to some. They will have representatives of the Imperium or other people here on official business. So you do see these emblems around from time to time. And yeah, your tunic is like a one-quarter robe. It like ends, it doesn't end at your waist, but it does end above your knees still. So you look a little bit more athletic than someone walking in full rows. You know, I could run and it doesn't, it's not going to get caught in my knees.

Yes, exactly. And I also say, you have been out for a month. in a magical sort of coma. So you're being transported right now because you are, don't have your full strength returned to you yet. But in some, as the doctors told you back in the infirmary, probably with like a little bit of time and recuperation,

you should be back to your old self. And I sadly looked down and notice that my muscles are gone. The rings when they were taken back have left me not as swole as I once was. Right now I'm just wearing a kind of a plain white shift to get from the infirmary back to wherever we're going. And I have my things all in a little pack attached to the wheelchair. Yeah. Suvie is absolutely leading you. Less panically back to her home dressed in sort of just nice green satin, a little pant, like a little button down with a man matching flowy pants. Yeah, she looks, I look cool all the time. Stop it. She's here and trying to impress you. And I think there is that sense of all of the panic. of getting to you and seeing Ame and confirming with her own eyes that Ame is okay is now giving way to like the sort of mental, super long list of things that she, like, Suvie wanted to go over with you once you were

awake and she's getting lost in that immediately. Like, ah, the dopamine of you are fine is okay. Now it's like, okay, I have no idea. She'll probably want to leave right away because she didn't want to come here in the first place. And I don't know what mood she's in. She seemed really for a net. So I got to give her, like, her gift before she leaves. And then we have to talk about these things. But she has things to talk about. So Suvee has gone sort of radio silent and is just pushing the wheelchair and leading you back to her place on autopilot.

Suvi, with your staff of the Citadel gleaming, a full apprentice archmage, as you wheel Amme off in the direction of your suite. moving silently through this place, you hear the soft little snores of the fox. You should see me like tenses up. A little sleeping angel. I say sort of half-thaying attention. I just, it's, there's so much here around at the beautiful marble and the, these floating wonders. This is where you grew up.

This is. Yeah. You've been here for a month. But welcome, welcome to my home. It's amazing, Arbe. You haven't even tried the food yet. Oh, the food is good. Oh, we got a snow cone. I can wait. I can wait. No, we can do that. We can do that. It's all right. He comes once a week and he'll be back next week. Do you have questions? We, uh, I have so many questions, but I, I, uh, Ursula and you look so good. Thank you. It's, uh, I've been working with Steele. Uh, and she is a great, albeit incredibly mean, trainer.

That is very true. Suvi is making the exact same face as you right now. Like, I have learned a lot, but it has come at quite a cost. Uh, a lot of early mornings and push-ups. fucking push-ups. Yeah. Oh, I missed you both so much. I, where?

Do you have a sense of the time that's passed? Or do you just remember a sword being swung and then waking up here? I remember everything. That's so ominous. You arrive at Sufi's apartment. You see, As Abria described, hanging, like, fabric. And again, there are, like, many different artifacts and, you know, objects of importance.

Papers spread out in a work area. A unmade bed. Ooh, yeah. I'm catching, like, a distance presidigitiation. It's the one where you start casting outside of the range because you're waiting to hit the range to clean it the moment you can. I'm like, Oh, got it.

Hey, what, don't sniff. Don't, like, sniff. His name is silver. Oh. He's very handsome.

Oh. Yeah. Is he your boyfriend? Yes, you've never, is it, Wow. Is there,

do you have other labels? There's, uh, no, no, labels are, we could all die, so. Oh.

Oh, Oh, of course. Tomorrow is never promised. Oh, you got to just roll with how things are. It's so good that you're back. Let's go one more step. And I think there's some papers around in the suite, but the majority, and like Suvi's running around and kind of grabbing them,

and then leads you to a door that just, I think it looks very plain, like just hewn wood in the side of a wall, but somehow just looks unopenedable. And she draws a small ruin across the frame of it and unlocks it. And I think this is sort of the vestigial wizard tower where you hide all of your secrets and your true study as she opens the door to her study. And it's just a big sort of dark oil,

like analog oil lamp lit study with a big dark desk and just built-ins all around covered in books and vials and objects and in the center of the floor on top of a like dark red rug a big circular sigil made of like salt spread in the center like please don't kick that please don't kick it You have to be careful in here. Yes. It's filled with delicate things that I have already, that I've broken many of. Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. We can fix things. Just try. This is, wow, all the, um, he's, yeah, I can't.

You can touch whatever you want. You're fine. Good. She will fix it. She won't be happy that she has to do it, but she will. Oh my gosh. There's so many limbs on this thing. Yeah. Um, so they don't, uh, that's a spider that doesn't, come with that many, but if you can find a spider with an 11th sort of leg, it will lead you to, their webbing is actually like a very good component when you're trying to stitch in, just magical, it's a reinforcing. What's this formula?

Oh, well, okay, so you know how when you look up at the sky and you kind of want to know, I was looking at the transportation circles. Okay, that's... Blue. Yeah, don't... This is a really nice blue. Give me a dexterity savings from? 18!

You, as you blow the sand, it circles back up and almost goes into your eyes for a minute but you swat it out of the way, and the sand moves off and hides in one of the books on Sube's desk. Fuck! Hold on. And I walk away from the... It's all right.

I've done it before. Oh. All right. I'm glad it didn't get in your eyes. Oh. I'm just staking a book wildly. Trying to dump this blue sand out. Like, falling around a little bit.

You guys watch the sand sort of fall out, go about halfway to the floor before it bungees and goes back up into the book. Stay down. All right. Okay. Are we, is this, are we safe here? Yeah. Flick of the, flick of the wrist, the door slammed shut. And I think you can hear that, like, sound is dampened to just this.

room. We're good. Okay. I want to know everything about your protectorate and about silver and about like snow cones and everything. But what does the term Akedator mean to you? To the night that Amé was first moved to the infirmary. And Sufi arrived at the tower of the sword, the tallest structure in Malacanth that overlooks the rest of the court and the vast deserts beyond the Erian. On a tall balcony, a small limestone bird bath sits in the wall surrounded by flowers, burbling softly as a gargoyle's mouth conceals a small copper pipe. water gushing out from it.

And for one of the rare instances, you see steel unarmored. She is in a soft, comfortable-looking white robe, hemmed in gold, and with a sort of a deep collar that comes down to show a small white, pearlescent stone clasped in gold hanging around her. neck from a thin gold chain. Her hair is partially let down, like tied up a little bit on one side behind the ear. There's like a small braid there. White streaks on her face, the sort of partially whitened iris, the white through the hair. She sits at a table acknowledging your arrival.

You hear the voices of her children and husband inside. her children are largely older now. Her eldest daughter, Kadila, who is 18 years old, just a few years younger than you, who has, like, sort of soft brown skin, very,

covered in freckles over the bridge of her nose and her cheeks, uh, with a kind of, um, deep brown with little highlights of, like, dyed blonde and red and other things like that, up through this very curly hair tied up in a bun.

You see that she's got a sword at her side. She smiles with these sort of hazel, intense eyes with like a little ring of gold around them. Comes out to you as you arrive and goes, Suvi, you're back. Hi. Hey, how was it? Oh, oh. And I give a weird little look over at Steele and lean in. It was intense, but good.

Awesome. I heard you got like a protector out there, and you can't. came back with a witch? Oh, my God, yeah. So they were friends from... Yes, yes. He's the strongest man in Silbury, and she's in a coma.

But that's okay. She'll be better. It's fine. Oh, my God. It's wild out there. I can't believe you got to go on an adventure. Mom said that you were supposed to be back after, like, a week. Yeah, it was...

Okay, so literally the first day, I see this, like, big... Oh, monster. And it broke. And I think this is the first... first time. Steve he's like, uh-oh, has not locked in a cover story for any of this yet. Uh, you see Steele, the balcony says, Cadella, you need to be studying.

Oh. And you see that, uh, the, uh, your basically, I mean, Cadella, you grew up. Yeah. You're her sister, essentially. Like, um, she smiles and says, okay. Um, uh, well, listen, I, I'm, um, it's about two months away from my final. exams. Let's go.

So if you have any time that you want to help me, get around. Okay, awesome. I'm around. That's great. And she gives you a big hug and says, I'm glad you're not dead or captured. Yeah. Oh, God.

Yeah. Yes. Same. No. Thank you. And I'm going to try to trip her as she walks away. Success. Yes.

It's not fair. And you see that yells out. The sword is keeping you off balance. Maybe take it off while you're in the house. You see. Steele says, Shirley! Kadila, that's good advice.

You walk out to the balcony and you see there is a plate of fresh baked, like, small pastries and fruit tarts, some fresh strawberries and a little bowl of whipped sugared cream. You see that there is a small bowl of like spiced green nuts and two cups of very small cups of coffee. It's like just becoming evening. So this is like a little almost like a pre-dinner. Wizard stay caffeinated all the time. All day. All day.

Steele looks at you and says, I got word that Amaz all set up at the infirmary. Dr. Tamry is an incredibly proficient alchemist. Do they know anything? How long? Things. It's the best people are working on it. I know that town.

We don't know how it's going to go right now. I've trusted to you. In life, there's usually the right way and the fast way. But I understand that you had worked very hard to recover Wavebreaker. So that's summer. I came up. That's the little bull. Now, I'm not trying to come for you as the sword of the citadel, but we have to agree that it was weird that the little boy that you met that looked a lot like me was running on all fours, right?

The running on all fours actually didn't bother me as much as you might think. That's wild. You didn't have Ovi yet. No, no, no, no. But it's grandmother rents house. Fair. I saw a little boy run on all fours, and I went, well, that's not a little boy. That's maybe a demon or some other kind of thing.

But I assumed it was grandmother Wren's business. I didn't know that, in other words, I didn't know that he had a connection to you. I know that he looked like you. But I assumed that he looked like you because he could disguise himself or something like that and had chosen to look like you as a trick or a joke, but it's not a trick. It means something. It's his glamour. I don't think he gets to change it.

No, but he did choose it. Yeah. It's kind of my fault that he's stuck here. So it feels like a very specific reminder. So he's fully way-shadowed then. Yeah. Does he have any idea of how he can get back? And this happened when you were children.

This happened that summer. Yeah. Okay. Well, he's welcome here. He'd be far from the only spirit at the Citadel. Yeah, should we introduce... Is it weird to introduce a spirit to other spirits? Also, some of them are...

Not great. There are spirits who are bound here. There are spirits who asked to come here for our protection. There are spirits who work here. There are spirits who visit just to say hi. The world of spirits is vast and broad, and there are many reasons to come to the citadel. Got it.

Well, I'm sure he'll find his way around. He's good at surviving. But he has no other connection to the business in Port Talon. He has no other connection to what happened with the escape of Naram or did Morrow know he was a spirit. Oh, God, no. Maro was an idiot. Yeah, I know that. No.

Naram got out. We did our best. Galani really, really kind of led the charge on... We tried to get as many of the Empire's forces working in the right way as possible, but Maros... Maros' click didn't know when to cut their losses. Yeah, that could be a real problem.

Gambler's fallacy, good money. after bad. Yeah. He spent years. I get it. It was a nightmare. What? What would you have done?

I would have listened to me. Okay. I meant if you had arrived and everything had gone normally, what could you have done? We would have freed Naram in such a way that it wasn't a crisis or an emergency. We would have freed him with the abjurations in place to just get him back out. back out to sea without losing the Derek or the lives of the people who are working on it. Presumably he wouldn't have flooded the wishfire plane if we'd been prepared. And then Morrow would have been tried, and we would have found his collaborators,

and we would have found who in the Imperium had signed off on this, as opposed to where we are now, where we don't know. And because it's a catastrophe, now nobody will admit it. and everybody that would have had their ass hanging in the wind now has a chance to cover themselves. That makes sense. Suvi is very subtly kind of working her fingers to kind of remember this wasn't accusatory. She's trying to figure out like what is the right protocol for when you see something wild out in the world. Huge.

Steele sees you sort of working this out and just goes, when you encounter enormous, enormous horrors, the emotional response to destroy them makes a mess that often doesn't teach you how to stop it from happening again. And in a world where you can unravel something slowly and carefully, you can actually learn what happened. Right now, all we know is that there was a guildmage named Mora who had an idea what happened. what happened to his research. We already, you know, by the time I arrived, that chantry of the Scepter's chorus had been cleared out. You know, that guild protected itself.

Whoever they were working with, you know, in the crown and the Imperium, you know, no one will take credit for it. You know, maybe they'll clean house internally if it occurs to them to do so. And I can put pressure on them to do so. You know, I wrote a letter. to the Imperium saying that the Citadel disavows magic this dangerous, and we've already received response back saying that they agree it was a horrifying error never to be repeated. So handling it fast and dirty got us a letter.

Okay. I don't mean to be oppressive in castigating, and I'm not... What was the jaunt out of Port Talon? Okay. Um, so you know how you can't, like, our honored friends can do sort of whatever they want and then we just sort of maneuver around that. I have found in my time that witches are the exact same. that they kind of do things with good intentions and because they have, it's their thing to, their balance. She went to the shrine of Arima to plead sort of for mercy on the city, and we went to go protect her. Yeah, that checks out.

Yeah. Makes sense to me. probably better that you went than not. I mean, I wish you had followed my orders. But in the end of things, like what Ame did was very foolish and she shouldn't have done that. But in the world where she did that, I still would have preferred you followed my orders and stayed. But it ended up being good that Ame came back to the city. Yeah.

And Aremas probably where everything got hashed out with... I still, the, the whole relationship of, so the sword, the sword was from your childhood with grandmother Wren. Yes. Okay. Sword with Wren. A small child trying to be very like, here's a symbolic thing about our friendship, gave a sword that didn't belong to me to an honored friend who took it and kind of lost track of it over a very hard life in a very harsh world. And then we went to get it back because it was.

break the curse and it it was hard to do that but we did it and it was fine and then yeah so a witch sees oh there's witch fires and obviously an angry spirit and then whatever the hell was happening on the Derek and ooh they are like we gotta do the right thing and I was like no I gotta listen to Steve

and that didn't really that wasn't great but I think they did the right so many people to have A lot of people died, Suvi. And you also attacked an imperial soldier. Okay. Yeah. So we're going to get your name cloak set up a little bit ahead of time.

After that, by the way, I'd love to show you your parents' names. Really? Yeah. you their names and where they're from. I like that very much. Okay. She touches your arm and smiles. Yorin.

Yorin is a shapeshifter. And to the best of our knowledge, he's still alive. I know you remember him from childhood. Yeah. Your parents were incredible heroes of the Citadel. Their heroism in battle was very well known. 90% of the battles they fought on behalf of the Citadel are not well known at all. The battles that they were distributed in publicly were the tip of the iceberg.

Because your parents were some of the most effective double agents the Citadel has ever had. What? To this day, There are entities within Gouthmi and Rove that believe that your parents were traitors to the Citadel. And those relationships are still providing dividends many years after your parents' heroic sacrifice. What? I'm going to slam both her and my little things of coffee. Okay, from the beginning.

with you, ah, you have been bearing the lead for years. Everything. The summer that we left you in Silbury, there had been an attack on the citadel from Rove. The wards, not only around the citadel, but the standing stones around Temen Rove, the crystal lake of Ketz,

which is, you know, near the capital of Gouthmi, the Canterranot, all of the various castles of the royal family of Golvang, these far-fling places. And importantly, the citadel itself, a movement was made in the relationship of the celestial paths to Umora itself that affected every single barrier. for teleportation and the creation of gates. Throughout the history of Uymorea, times have come where magical travel was made more or less difficult. And when you were born, we were in an age of incredible safety

in which teleportation was very easy to have juror, it was very easy to stop, and during the first three or four years of your life, all of that changed. as the celestial path shifted ever so slightly, and that slight, slight shift meant that all of a sudden you could teleport anywhere, pretty much unstoppably, very easily.

So all of a sudden, this world that we had been living in, and this is similar to, you know, if you said of your history, you'll know that the first gates of Star and Sun were created by the sorcerer kings of the Gouth Diet. which created the first great travel. Those gates were set up all over the world. So there have been ages of teleportation within Uymoor's history for a long, long time. This was just the one that happened when the world was already at war.

And so it was not an age of enlightenment and trade like several hundred years ago. It meant that anything was possible, militarily speaking. So we moved from this position of deeply entrenched lines and huge battalions to this incredibly violent couple of years where small groups of wizards or sorcerers or warlocks could appear in an instant inflict devastation, cripple, you know, logistical linchpins. And we had to figure out what we were going to do. When you were six years old, an enormous group of powerful warlocks from Rove. appeared and attacked the Citadel. They were wielding a type of power that we had some idea was coming, but it had advanced so rapidly.

These were our first encounters with chalices. Yeah. The captain that attacked us on the boat was a chalice. They're extremely active. They had gone underground for some time. You know, around when you were, you know, I think seven or eight, the objurers hall figured out how to stop most of this teleportation. And we're in an age once again where it's for the time being, the wards are holding fast. But that couple of years was incredibly dangerous.

That attack on the Citadel where we had to leave very quickly. And we, you know, Yorin was here. Yorin, theoretically, Yorin is a revolutionary of Gouthmi. The Kantarinot, the great houses of Gouthmi that oversee the Protectorate, are powerful sorcerers. And historically, the sorcerers of Gouthmi have always tried to eradicate shapeshifters like Yorin.

After that summer, I'm no longer certain. I mean, Yorin is a shapeshifter, but that ancestral feud between them, it is my belief that Yoran is responsible for the death of your parents. They died from an attack in Gouthmice, searching for a dangerous sorceress named Nahani. This was a type of mission they'd gone on many, many times before.

The only difference this time was that instead of me tending to the safety and security of that mission, side by side with Yorin, it was left solely to Yorin. So the first time that it was just the, three of them was their last mission. I'm going to ask the questions now that I think are why you didn't tell me this story earlier. You think he's still alive? You haven't found him.

Do you know where he is? I'm telling you now because I have come to the certainty that I cannot find him. I think that there are means that he has at his disposal to keep. keep him hidden from the citadel. Obviously. We have tremendous power at our disposal. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The thing, you sent me with stuff for Grandmother Red.

One of them was diagrams that looked like you're in. Why? What were they? Why? She takes a long drag of the coffee. There's only a little at the bottom of the cup. I drank half of hers. What happened to my...

Oh. She looks and goes several weeks ago. I made the determination that urine was still alive. Something that I was unsure of up until recently. Realizing that he was still alive, it led me to... Even when I believed him dead, there was a part of me that thought he might be responsible. learning that he was still alive, I became certain that he must be. If there's no world in which Soft and Stone would have died and he would have made it out alive,

unless he wanted them dead. Not even because of any virtue on his part, just because he's such a violent, deranged lunatic that I don't think he would have left a fight unless he'd won it. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah. Yeah. the diagram that was going with you to grandmother Wren was me conceding defeat

and asking for help from one of the world's most powerful witches to find him. So you think grandmother Wren could find him or the witch of Toma? If magical power could solve this, then the Citadel could solve this. What we're dealing with is something outside of our sphere of understanding. He has some form of abjuration on him. But we have probed around the edges.

We've talked to all of the Diviners College. We've seen everything we can trying to go after him. We've found locked doors, which is not the same as finding a wall. Yeah. So it's just about who has the key. And to our knowledge, and grandmother ran when she was still alive, there was a chance that she would tell me it was impossible, in which case I never would have told you to have you go berserk

with something like this hanging over your head. Okay. Instead, with her gone, we're left with an open-ended question. Perhaps a witch could find urine. Perhaps a spirit could find urine. perhaps soft and stone gave some ability to you to bypass these locked doors. I don't know. What I do know is this, and I need you to hear me, urine would kill you as you are today.

I hear you. Okay. So I'm out of options, and there's elements of this left to explore, that we can explore when Amé is awake again. We'll put some more coffee on. I'm going to stay up. She should be up soon. Okay. She gives you a kiss. And we come back to this present moment.

Suvi, Amé, and Ursulaan, in the private study of Suvi's quarters, small flicker of warm light from a lit lamp, there is a maybe a little bit of incense or some flower petals, rich smells of a wonderful dwelling place, having come back from this memory, Ame, in the process of sharing what she now remembers with Sufi. And about like snow cones and everything. But what does the term Akkadator mean to you?

I know that your parents were part of it. And so was Yoran and Steele and Graeme Renn. And that Grimerin believes that Yorin's loyalty was in question. and that I give a whispered rundown of everything that I remember about them. Self-deputized individuals within the leadership of the Citadel. They were chasing, which I believe they jokingly referred to as the League of Whisper's, was dedicated to the downfall of the Citadel. They believed there was a corruption within the Citadel.

It resulted in a prolonged series of secret. violences across Umura. Suvi was brought here because they thought they had more time. They were intending on coming back. Steel has often asked me if I had any idea where urine was. I have my suspicions about... It's all, it's all, it's all a lot, a lot to process right at this moment. Oh, yeah, do you, I'm being a bad host, do you need something to drink or eat? Yes, I was going to ask, where is the dessert wine? Yeah, actually, I'm, I'm, okay, um, I'm really hungry.

Yeah, I'm really hungry. I haven't eaten food in a month. I think they did some sort of tube deal, but that's not real food. I want to eat food. Yeah, okay. Um, let's go, we could just go get food. Let's go, let's go get food. Let's, okay.

Is that good? Oh, oh. Well, what is there to eat around here? Well, it depends on if we eat in Malacath Court or if we go somewhere else. Yeah, that's fair. Can we do both? Um, I mean, I'm... Very hungry.

Okay, all right, okay. I'm going to let you leave this, because I'm kind of a... I go to that, like, one little cafe that's sort of at the bottom of this building. Well, we'll start there, because they do have nice treats there, but it's not a real meal. You know? It's more like snackums. Snackams? Yes, that's a word.

Somebody else told me that I really like. So we'll go start with snackums. Yeah. Okay. Also, by the way, I remembered everything that happened between when we last spoke and now. I've traveled the world and I know I'm the witch of the world's heart and also kids are dicks. What? Duh. Okay.

Snacks first, though. Yes, snack. Hey, are you sure you don't need to... This is a big energy. Do you want to get this out while we're in this room? Yes, that's what I'm praying. Okay, here. I guess I said, I push you to you out of the little room first.

Okay, and I shut the door. You're not going to close the door with this. That's my room. I start, I start primally screaming. Hi. Is everything all right? I scoop them up and I squeeze them and I just don't want to let him go. Fox.

Oh. How's it going, boss? You're awake. Oh, you sweetheart. Oh, I love you so much, Fox. Yeah. Well, we're unraveling a conspiracy. And also, we're going to go, apparently the eating's great here.

I hear you were in my room the whole time. And so you didn't get to have any of the treats that the Citadel has to offer. So we're going to go get you some snacks. and then snack snack ems snack em snack em and also i'm going to tell you everything that i remember uh that was cursed out of me okay this is a lot to process and so i'm just going to kind of take it one step at a time food first food first um ursulan food first malacanth court is the sort of the uppermost it is the highest clearance class of it is the apex of the 24th. floating courts of the Citadel.

What does Ursulant's go-to snack spy? Well, I think if I'm taking the one that Suvi likes, which is in the bottom kind of area, like right as you enter, it's cute and it's open all night. It's the kind of place you can always go, and there's a lot of, like, grab-and-go options. You know, they have two tables out front,

but nobody really sits and eats there. But it's a lot of stuff that you can take and carry two. wherever you're headed to work and do those sorts of things. Like a lot of the bonbons and baguettes and things that I had been eating earlier were all from this spot. That you can always, that is always open and always available. Ursulaan leads you to this all night 24 hours spot. It's reason for four hours is you see that there is a long stone pier that goes off with that Micah Ballastrade that borders the edge of the platform.

The platforms of each of these places tend to be perfectly circular with either two, four, or eight stone piers coming off of them, where you see there are these long, thin sky boats called galathopters. They are about 30 feet long, but only at their widest about like five or six feet wide. so that you can like sit kind of like two to three people on a little bench. And that's if you're like squeezing in. And there are these long gossamer dragonfly wings that come off the side of them. There's about eight of them. So four that are lined up on each side. Rather than being spaced out, they are all centered.

But the wings joint out. So when it flies, it almost is like a circle of buzzing with this long gondola across the center. Almost like if you were looking down at a galapter flying, you would see a weird buzzing circle of dragonfly wings with like a long cat's pupil of a wooden gondola in the middle of it. They have small lanterns hanging from the front and back, which is more of a safety thing. As you can see, the night sky within the arian

has them sort of flying out to and fro. But you also see that they are, there are people waiting at them, even at this late hour, it's probably like 10 p.m. or like 10.30. There are people waiting for them who are waiting for the next platform to get closer to make the flight shorter. So it looks like they're like not the most reliable for long flights up and down the irion to faraway platforms. And that those are better served by waiting for one of the true zeppelin or airships to happen. or given that 95% of people in this place are wizards

just teleporting or dimension during, or flying under your own power, which seems very popular. These are much more, it looks like, for, you know, it's like a public transportation option in a place where everyone has magical ways of getting around themselves. Ursula, you approach your favorite spot, or Suve's favorite spot in Malikant,

a Candle Street bakery, which is the very first building at the end of the pier, where the long avenue that circles Malacant, so Malacant Avenue, takes off that follows the balustrade around the edge of the entire court at the edge of the platform. And then Candle Street is the little street that goes up into the heart of this place. The two tiny little tables, little cafe tables outside, a standing counter with like a gold bar near your shoes on the inside to like rest to drink and have a little bait good or a snack or a bonbon,

and then a counter big glass with like gilded letters up on top saying Candle Street Bakery. And you see that there is a warm wood, like that kind of like highly varnished orange wood counter, big glass showing the different bonbons and baked goods. And you see that there is a sort of smiling looking baker who is partially translucent behind the counter. And that seems like our best bet for actually meeting up. But an injury of the wind and stars, and she just walks the halls of her crystalline palace,

and that's her job, I get. I like that. Well, okay, and remember everybody that we only get one little treat each from here so that we have room for the other places. Hello? You see this figure turns to look at you and says, Oh, hello that. Oh, Mr. Bair.

It's a pleasure to see you again. Good to see you. This you recognize as Mr. Callum, who is one of the bakers here. You see that he is partially translucent. The only part of him that is opaque, and he is sort of a powdery robin's egg blue translucent. The only parts of them that are opaque are his eyes, his smile, a kind of decorated, sparkling orange mustache

and a little Van Dyke goatee. I have a type. Yes. His clothing is opaque. So he's got a white shirt, a white baker's apron. He's got a little sort of paper hat that has sort of like a little folded hat. And he has a sort of humble brass watch on his wrist.

It looks like a real watch. But you see that the palms of his hands are opaque as well. But his skin, of his forearms, his fingernails, his face and head are partially translucent. When you look through a part of him that you can see, like when you look at his head, for example, you can see it's translucent in a way that you can see the back of his head as well, if that makes sense. So he's not like a vapor because you're like, ooh, there's almost like a trance. translucent glass at the front of your head, but I can also see the curve at the back.

Like looking at a light bulb, like looking at a frosted light bulb. Yeah. See? Dope. Mr. Bear, and the art made you British. Hi. Tom for a little cheeky light night treat? Yes, you know what I like that.

There's this, okay, Amé, so my favorite, if I have to pick one, so there's this cute little, it's like a baguette, and then there's like melon and cured meat and bone marrow. And that's my pick. That's what I get every time. Every time. Every time. This is so fancy.

I love it. Well, it depends on your mood, but I like the croissant with chocolate and marshmallow. But then there's also the zucchini sandwich. It's light, so I need about three or four, but they're excellent. Okay. Why don't we each get one of those, and then we'll share a little bit of each? That we can do. Okay.

Okay. You see the fox list up and goes, what's wrong with your head? Oh. No. What's that? I don't know. Uh, what, why's your head so good? Is that better?

Yeah, that's actually better. Why is your head so good? You see, uh, you see that, uh, Mr. Cowell, I'm turning. I'm Amme. Amay. Oh! Yeah. Up and about the Witch of Tova.

Oh. Well, welcome to the citadel, Miss Arme. You must understand that, uh, the Archmaid's friend, you know, there's a lot of, studying going around here so something as dramatic as a witch in a deep slumber has caused some bit of a stir happy to see you up and about yes i'm very glad to be up and about and i am starving mr callum looks down at the fox and says and uh it need not trouble you that i am a little bit more translucent than some might say is normal of my type i am tamori and uh sufi uh you would know this very well uh mr callum is a living spell.

He is a construct of pure magic. You would actually know him as a very common type of Tamori here at the Citadel. He is a he is a mage hand cantrip made material. That's so cool.

Yes. And you see those opaque palms on his hand. And he is working here as a baker. Have I met sentient spells? You have never met a sentient spell? Well, then that's wild. Yeah, I'm in your ear absolutely just leaning down and be like,

Tomori, it's like if you have a spell and you make it like a whole person. So do you have free will? Oh, my God. You see, the fox looks at you, Amay, and says, that's got to be worse than my question. Hey, let me be clear. It's super is. It is. You see that Mr. Callum looks at you and goes,

Do I have free will? Begues the question. do you? I don't know either, but my questioning it, I feel like probably, you know, is a bit of an answer, right? Well, I'm interested in the same. Here's the issue, and I understand that you might feel sort of strange about this. I was born this age and of this temperament, and I love baking. I love to bake.

I also love baking. Now, you may question whether being. created to love baking is an abrogation of my free will, but my free will did not exist before my creation. So there would be no free will to abrogate. So it's complicated. You know, you can feel about it however you wish. It's true. I was born a witch because, you know, they had the powers, but then I love being a witch, but then that, you know, is that my destiny or is that just, you know, how I was born? Or is it the thing that I, that I love and that I just pursue.

You know, it's, it's, we have those questions too. Yes. I understand that, that there are some, you know, there's, we have a lot of, they don't come up to Malacantala, but my other friends who, uh, my other friends who, you know, come by sometimes and have those, yeah, have those interactions. There's always about, like the 12, 13 year olds come around and they always have a big thing. They're like, yo, it's your free will. And it's sort of like, well,

Do our gifts define us? You have a gift for magic. Is it really, was your choice to embrace the thing you were good at really a choice? You know, that sort of thing. So in other words, a good way to think about it, Ms. Arme, is that I struggle with the same things you do. Hmm. And that makes us very similar. It does.

I think that, yeah. I'm going to lean over to Suvie. Wow, it is, I forgot what it is. It's like to hang out with our men. Yeah, right. I don't think I've ever come in here and been here for more than two minutes. I got the food and walked out. It's a clean interaction.

Exactly. And then this. We're back. Chocolate marshmallow croissant, Mr. Bay. Yeah. You see that Mr. Callum walks over, prepares a croissant with marshmallow and chocolate. I look over and says,

and, uh, Miss Suvie, what can I do for you? I'm not going to get the same thing I normally get. No, no, no, no, we should get it. I want to try the thing that you always get. Yeah, can I get that melon, the melon prosciutto baguette, that little sandwich? Absolutely. Oh, and can I get an extra little dish of the marrow for Fox here? You see, the Fox says marrow.

And you see, Mr. Callum goes off and takes out this huge, massive, like, sheep's bone and cracks it open, scoops the marrow out and puts a bunch of it on a plate. He says, here you go, my fun furry friend. puts it on the ground, uh, and prepares a melon and prosciutto sandwich for you. It says, and for you,

Ms. Omay. Um, I like one of the, the light sandwiches. The zucchini fritter sandwich. The zucchini fritter sandwich, please. A fraud zucchini sandwich coming right up.

And you see he goes over. And yeah, you see like all of the tasks that Mr. Callum is doing here, they're all less than five pounds. It's just this, you know, all of the things that he's,

everything he's lifting is sort of in these places where he can lift and interact with it. Um, as he moves around. And you do see, I think, Ami, give me an insight check if you would be so kind. That's 19. I think there's something interesting happening with Ama here as you look at Mr. Callum. Mr. Callum is happy, clearly intelligent, clearly sapient.

But you also do get the feeling from his sentience that he is more similar to a spirit than to a human. There's a part of him where you're like, oh, you're talking to me about struggling, but I can kind of tell that you're not struggling. I can kind of tell that there's something that's like... There's sort of like a primary instincts that you go with. And I think that it is okay for some parts of this to make Amme almost a little bit uncomfortable. You recognize that he is a spell, that there is something not human here.

I just think about all the times that I've cast spells and, where did they go? And did they create anything? Like, you know, anytime I mended, was that somebody mending something? And then are they there? And then, you know, I mean, are they happy doing the mending?

And are they happy doing the mending because I made them happy or because they just genuinely enjoy mending, which I do? Yeah. Here's the thing. A bunch of us tend to meet our first Tumori when we're like 10 to 12. those guys throw like half of the first years in the crisis and they bomb out

because they can't really reckon with what it means to yeah has mr callum been here like my whole life give me a history check uh 23 on a 23 history check um mr callum you've not only known your whole life uh this is not the only mr callum in the citadel do i tell um yeah there's a couple Mr. Callum's. I don't know if that makes it better or worse for you. A couple. Mr. Callum, are you friends with all the other Mr. Callum? Do you, or can you tell what's happening?

How can you be a friend of anyone if you're not already a friend of yourself? And I'm friend with all eight dozen of me. They all have different mustache colors. Suvie mouthed that answer along with him. We all ask it and we all get that answer. It's kind of on a loop. So you see, yeah, Mr. Callag, I think that there is this world for Amé that's like a little bit of a task of expanding your own empathy to allow for a type of being an intelligence that is worthy of respect and empathy in consideration, but is a spell. A working of magic.

Sure. A little sort of like arcane construct. It sort of reminds you in some ways of flicker. who was also deeply humanized by ghost, but Flickr, of course, was not human. Flickr doesn't require sleep or a soft bed. Flickr doesn't need to eat food. But, so it's basically about, like,

what are the right types of consideration to extend to a thing that doesn't participate in the world like me? I guess I'll just have to ask. Every time? I guess. Well, I mean, all the Mr. Callens might have, they have different mustache colors. Maybe they have different.

preferences or joys, you know? Maybe some of them are better at making the prosciutto sandwich and some of them are better at making the croissons. They're all the same spell. Explain the different moustaches. And one fried zucchini sandwich. Oh, thank you. Okay, we'll each have like a little bite of each other's.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We get like a little nut. No, I could use magic. So Ursula's considering Ursulan's favorite place to eat at the Citadel is the night market in Haverford. Haverward, yeah.

How long will it take us to get down there? Is it worth, like at 10 p.m. You're almost down there now. You're an hour and a half away. Fast timing. Sophie, we should get one of the, what are they called the? Galapters.

Yes, we should get one of those to take us down. I know you don't love to go there. but I feel like Amay should see it. Yeah, it's so, it's busy. It's very busy, but I mean, it's Ames for you. You'd love it. You would, you would probably love it. I really do like Nightmarket.

Yeah. Okay. Everyone should see everything once. Once, yes. But yeah, let's get a copter. Yeah, okay. I'll go get it. Stay here and enjoy your sandwiches,

and I just run off with like half of my weird sandwich. And I'm going to go figure out. I know how. how to hail a galithopter. Yeah, of course. You run up to one of the galathopters, and you see that there is a lantern set into the front. And as you approach, you see that small illusory images

of the various platforms of the Citadel appear, rotating slowly in space, and you need but interact with the lantern and gesture to where you wish to go. Yeah, it's definitely the, like, walk up and then turn back over the shoulder, interacting with the same interface for years. Like you kind of remember where everything is.

So I like gesticulate arcanely at Haverward while looking over my shoulder and sort of seeing my friends in the light of the Citadel. Like I have dreamt about this for a decade. It's very, very cool. And I can't believe it's happening. And then I look up and I actually hit the wrong platform. So I'm going to correct that. And we will go to Haverwood.

Have we? Like we were always going to. You look back and see Candle Street Bakery. The bakery's exterior, it's small little patio with those two tables. There are, it has a wall of wax that kind of goes up where like a vine trellis would of thousands of melted candles.

And it's covered in little wicks that all are burning with different colors of light from the different wax of the candles. It just looks like a beautiful candle sculpture that's been going for like 100, 100 years. And you see through the window, Ursulon and Amé happy, smiling, even a little contented fox licking his lips.

As Mr. Callum, like, leans with his translucent forearms and sort of laughs and talks with them in the beautiful starlight. Your galithopter is ready to go? The night market. Pushing Amé's wheelchair way too fast. You get up to the galathopter, The wings kick up and you look down. So each of the platforms of the citadel are enormous,

but they are not so enormous that like, so if you think about the width of the citadel as being probably like between like a quarter to a half a mile wide. So these various platforms do pass each other within the citadel. So each of these sort of neighborhoods is almost like somewhere between like an eighth to a quarter of a mile wide. So tons of buildings within them, you know, there are like small neighborhoods unto themselves. And Haverward at the base is actually like a city. You can see it fills all the way to the edges of the crystal tower of the Aryan.

There is one central place that you see has this huge number of spiraling towers, huge beams and platforms. and you see that there are retracted bridges, almost like these platforms that have been wound up in huge spools. And as the galathopter descends, you see that these towers are where the platform lands, that people can come up the staircases and the bridges insert. And you see there are wagons and gondolas and terrestrial vehicles and all that stuff. And down in howeverward, you see that there are a number of enormous gatehouses.

The gatehouses are glowing with a kind of scintillating orange energy that go to Cairo and the seat of the Imperium and a number of enormous metropolises. These are permanent portals to go throughout the empire to other places. So this is where all of the vast resources, it's like, yes, there are skyships that fly and enter the citadel like permeating through the glass magically. but that's a hard way to get like water and food and all this other stuff into the citadel so that these permanent portal in these gatehouses. But the main thing you see is hard-packed white sand streets. So the streets themselves are pure white glittering with a kind of crystalline diamond energy to them. There are still little bits of sand that have like blown in from other places that are sort of piled up in various areas.

and you see this multi-story neighborhood of wild, almost Susian wizard towers that are like partially built but maybe not stacked evenly. So like there's overhangs and there's roofs that come over on top with enormous trails of paper lanterns overhead with various arcane ruins described on the outside of the lanterns. you see this multi-story descending market built into various bridges of like rope and plank and there are like hanging bars and little crepeeries and noodle shops that are being pulled up and down on ropes throughout the night market as these different platforms move both vertically and horizontally through this cluster of towers. I've never seen so much magic. together before.

I mean, it's just all so cleverly done. Wow. It smells incredible. It only gets better once you're inside. There's a specific stand that I would like to take us to, that's a seafood stand, that I feel like I go to probably after every training session with steel. Hell yes. Nice.

One second, we just have to find it because things are constantly moving around. That's the one thing I don't like about this place. Yeah, it's kind of more for show and less for convenience, right? No, yeah. I mean, it is cool. Because once you find it, there is a satisfaction. Yeah, it's worth the journey. Everything's a quest.

Yes. Creaking ropes, swinging bridges, and you see suddenly as, being pulled up to another level in anticipation of the next, of actually of, of, of, uh, of Malacant making its landing to get all of its, you know, resources and various things and let people come and go. Um, you see a big shop with a bright wooden sign and a kind of splashy, it looks like with a huge paint brush was used to paint the words on the outside that says Chura Chowder. And you see there's an enormous sea bass on ice, behind them. There's some lobsters. There's like multiple massive cauldrons brewing with different

like seafood soups and stuff like that within them. You see there is a small row of ice on the central counter. There's like five or six bar stools as it comes up. But you do see that they are stopping and just having little crowds of like five to ten people wait to just pay them some imperial marks real quick and just get a bag of something fried off the back of the counter very quickly. You see there is an older man here and also what looks like his sort of middle-aged adult daughter.

You would know this as Anton Chura and Mariah Chura. Anton has a sort of olive skin white peppery long beers rebalding head, but sort of wild white hair coming over his ears.

His daughter, like sort of black brows, black hair tied up in a bun with sort of a bandana over it. They're both working Anton looks up and says, Second time today, huh, Ben? Why you come back? I can't get enough, Anton. And you have to meet my friends.

I'm going to pick up Amay's wheelchair. This is Amme. Hi. I wave. He says, oh, you eat as much as your friend. You drive me out of business. I give you on fire a little. What do you want this time?

I'm going to do, I think, what Ursula comes to eat here, which is not. The chowder is delicious. But I think they offer a weird, almost like food challenge-esque kind of like almost like massive clam that it's like a stew cooked inside the clam and you get to break the clam open with your, I think they give most people a mallet

but I think Ursula does it with his hands but it's this giant like almost like maybe two foot like two foot wide one foot tall clamp open it up the smell of like rich savory broth like salty fatty It's swimming with like spices and little scalyans and green shoots and vegetables. And this cut up the actual meat of this massive ocean mollusk is in there. But there's shrimp in there.

There's other little oysters and clans. It's like basically this huge gumbo. But you can see the liquid that looks like rich Romani. I'm salivating so much. I know. Why would you do this? But you see in that first thing that goes down, underneath. that layer of stew, you see

rice that has been marinating. So there's like a rich risotto-esque or like, it's this it's just soaking up. Like as you do the food challenge, the thing waiting for you is just the rice that has soaked up all of the goodness that they've been cooking in this massive stew. Fox not like each other. The fox goes, I need it. I need it. I need a whole one to myself.

Mariah says that these are normally shared between families of four to six. Yeah, but I'm like Ursulant. I eat as much as Ursuline and I'm as big as Ursula. Okay, yeah, but right now we're going to like save rooms so that we have, can go to all the other places and try all the things. Those other places might be gone. You don't know that the other places will be there.

This is the only real place. Right in front of us. Honestly, the fox is not wrong because I have seen a place, wanted to go there, eaten somewhere else and then lost it in the shuffle. Oh, no. Yeah. Stokey's looking at the horizon, looking for like the big purpose. sign that is a bar in

motion across. Okay, all right, well, you eat as much as you can, but keep your mind that we're going to still have delicious things to eat later. Okay, if you, you know... Consequences. Listen, I'm going to eat all of

this, and I'm telling you right now, I would bet all of my money that there will be no consequences. Okay, how much you got? I don't have any. I'm going to pass the Fox 3. Three imperial marks. Oh.

The imperial marks is there's no consequences. Okay. I'm about to get twice as many as three imperial marks. Yeah. Yeah. I know how betting works. How does he know how betting works? We've gambled before.

You see, as you get distracted, you see a purple flash as a massive. It looks like a fucking, like, Viking long ship. But instead of a dragon figurehead, there is, like, like, you see. like a painted wooden horse. And you see there's tents, you hear people screaming, a little rain of like gin cocktail falls on you all as this massive purple sign that says,

La Calcelle moves around the corner. And it leaves a purple streak hanging in the air fading behind it as it just swings down the street from ropes attached to something you kind of can't see. I got to go. I found it. And then Suvie just takes off.

Two more enormous of these like massive ocean stews land in front of you. Boom. Anton asked for some exchange of Imperial Marks here, or we can probably put it on Suvees tab.

Yeah, that's, I think I, yes. I think I come here often. Just put a lot on Silences tab. On Science. On Science. It lands. Fox goes to work. Stops for a second.

Coughs. And a baseball side. pearl falls out of his mouth. That's good luck. You get your next one is free, fox. Good luck. Getting a rock is good luck. There was a rock in my food. It's a pretty rock that humans like.

Okay. Congratulations to humans on loving rocks. What did a rock ever do to you? So much. Rocks have been a constant problem for all of my life. Sometimes they shoot up out of the ground and you can't get past them. Sometimes they're in your way when a rabbit's running.

I say no rocks. No rocks. I'll put that on the list. You see, you have this, Suvi, you take off running. And Ami, you find yourself here with Ursula, the stew is rich and filling. You can feel yourself having the first real meal in a month's time. This is, like, extravagant. Now Ursula, who's like physically exerting himself every day, eating one of these every day, it feels like it makes sense.

But for you, even like a few spoonfuls into this, you were like, I want, it's like the feeling of I want to eat this whole thing and I know I do not want this tomorrow. It's too much. You don't have to finish it on me. Oh, yeah. It's more about the spectacle. I just wanted you to feel. I mean, this is, it's been amazing here. It is very spectacular.

You see. You seem so well. This place suits you. It's, well, I understand now what Suvi was talking about. This place is every, the first couple of days once, you know, the doctors told us that you wouldn't be waking up anytime soon. I just kind of wandered, you know, just looking, moving around and checking in with Suvie occasionally. And it doesn't stop. It's the strange thing.

It's been a month, and I still feel like there are places and things I haven't experienced or seen. It is truly wondrous. It is. I feel like, of course, you know, a whole city full of Sufis, like working overtime full of caffeine. I mean, it's... Would absolutely take some marvels. Yes. But people are being kind to you?

Yes. You know, I gesture to the kind of pain on my chest. I think this goes a long way here. You know, I mean, I haven't had to do a, I haven't had to like pull a sufi with anyone and like stamp around or anything like that. You don't have a staff you can slam on the ground and say, do you know who my father is? But you won't believe how often I hear that. Like, I'll just be walking around and then you'll just hear a kerfuffle and give it like five to ten seconds before somebody goes, do you know? and then, you know, fill in whatever proper nouns you'd like there.

But... And still, but I'm glad that that grace extends to you. Yes. Thank you for visiting me while I was... I heard that you were there every day and that you were the only reason that the Fox could catch a nap. Yeah, well, it's weird because I can... There are a bunch of other trainees, I guess, but because I'm training with steel, I don't have to do all the normal stuff.

So I have a lot more time in my day than some of the other people who are kind of coming up. Is it because she knows? She knows? I think so. But, I mean, I think it's also just the Sufi connection. Oh. It's, you know, I don't have to. They do a lot of running here. It's unbelievable. And it's not even, it's not even for, towards something or from something? No, it's just running to run.

I don't know, they all talk about some kind of high they get once they pass like mile three. Ah, high? And I just don't fucking get it, man. It's like, they love it. As a mile three? Right? Exactly. Nothing is chasing them.

I honestly asked Steele because Steele was like, you should start to work on your endurance and things like that. And I was like, well, can you give me any sort of stimuli? And she was like, well, you should just want it. What? What? Exactly. Exactly. I don't understand.

Okay, well, and so, oh, and so, oh, so you're like running towards this food. Well, exactly. I would love that. I was like, I tried to get that going. I was like, can we put something at the end? Like, essentially the race that I do for myself. Yes. But I don't know.

Steele then started talking about discipline and I just started dreaming about this fucking beautiful meal. Well, it's a good. It's so good. Also, I think Suvi was there at my bedside a lot, huh? Yeah, I mean, we both. Suvi's been more busy with the name cloak and all those sorts of things, but we came often. Yeah, but she, like, I could smell, you know, the incense. I could smell it.

There was, like, a spot on the bed. It was just... absolutely drenched in it. She said, she always said that she did it because she could get away to read, but I think she also just wanted, we wanted to be there. Nice. Hug you again. I'm coming back over.

Sufi's already a little drunk and has just like a giant purple bottle with like shot glasses stacked on top. I found it. Oh, good. I found it. I never think it's worth the chase, but whenever Sufi's, here. This is why we run. Yeah. Oh. And we are now adding alcohol to the equation.

Okay. Alcohol gets added. Are you having any of the stew? I think I have one bite. I didn't know I was getting my own. I have like two bites. Gotcha. So you give me a Constitution savings row as you guys start drinking because for everyone with stew,

that soaks up all of the... Eight. Hey, uh, smoothie's feeling good. I'm great. This is so good. I think there's a cigarette somewhere comes out. Just like, hey, yeah, we're good. Yes. Nightmark, I like, it's got calm emotions in it. Calm down.

We're great. This is so good. I love this. This is so nice. It's been a minute, yes. God. I'm Eric Aisha E. Known Tabletop role-playing game enjoyer. All my life, I wanted to play in a dundice.

Dungeons and Dragons game as a witch. A little studio jibli-esque cutie. A powerful enchantress in a tower. Or just an eccentric old lady that fucks with the villagers' milk. I tried so many home brews. A hex-blade warlock build. But that was just a violent sugar baby. Druids were too powerful.

I even tried a wizard. But as we all know, wizards are nerds. That's when a friend told me to try the playtestable witch. class from Worlds Beyond Number. Designed by Maisie Veselac, Brand Stoddard, Brennan Lee Mulligan, and Hannah Rose, it gave me the perfect mechanics for witchy crafting and consequences. Just try out the Coven of the Heart for a cozy cottage core experience. Or perhaps you're all about the verdant growth of gardens and forests like the Coven of the

Green. Or dare to dip your toes into the Coven of the Wicked, complete with redemption mechanics. Don't like what the designers have crafted? Tell them about it, but politely, lest you invoke a retribute of curse. Access 14 pages of beautifully illustrated new spells, features, and subclasses by subscribing to the World's Beyond Number Patreon right now. Make your witch fantasies a reality today. You see, so as far as that night goes, see if you get to a big meal, you hear the noise of

music playing in the distance. You see a sort of like hovering party barge, sort of moving through the air that has a club and some dancing going on. You see, you see there are people that are sort of, there's one that feels like very raucous. You see that there's another tall tower, though, where you can see that there are some people drinking and there is an actual live band of musicians playing, and there are people who are sort of slow dancing and waltzing. you hear sort of rowdier noises as you go down

into the darker recesses amongst the towers you think you hear a sort of carnival barker for something that would be more like games of chance and maybe even

you hear some rowdiness of people shouting at some kind of sport or like they're gambling or betting on something all of this unfolds here in Haverward which is

Haverward has the most human like people can live in at the lowest level of clearance from the Citadel. So there's lots of humans that are non-wisards here that are like just working and doing jobs and go to and fro from the cities that the gates are connected to. For all of you that are here, however, you know, like, Amé, how are you feeling having just woken up from a coma?

You've had a sandwich and a bunch of stew. You see that the fox looks up at you and goes, I feel, bud? I Um Yeah Want to get some dessert Can you get some ice cream

Yeah Yeah I'm so hungry Oh great I'm glad because I still got so much room For other Maybe some more fried treats Well I'm not done with my stew yet Oh okay

All right well I think yeah I said you can have as much as you wanted You ate all the fish, but the rice is still there. Yeah. Rice is the better hard. You need all the rice. Can you guys tell me what rice is? What is that?

Yeah. The little bits of grain at the bottom. Yeah. So, oh, it's plants. Yeah. It's plants. But it tastes like it has fat. Yes.

It's been soaking in the fat. Okay. You know, some animals swallow little rocks to help with the digestion. Oh. There's any chance you want to... Well, I don't like rocks. Okay, well, look at that. And I said that.

And something that feels like people do it is if they say something, people get, people make fun of them. We'd never. I'm going to pour some alcohol and just put a little shot glass in front of the fox. What's that? That doesn't smell like meat. It's not. Do you remember wine? Oh.

It's like wine. It's like double wine. You see he laps up a bunch of it and goes, That's not like wine That's different than wine It's way spicier Hey, why the fuck did you bite me Huh?

You bit me Oh I was cranky It was really cranky I wasn't sleeping at all No, I know why I get it Okay

Um You gonna eat your rice Or are you going to pay up? He looks down at the marks and he looks at the rice. His stomach is a ball. It's just a full ball. And you see he goes, wait a minute. I'm going to lose because this gold I can't eat.

And you see he nudges the pieces across the thing and goes, I don't even care about this. And he falls over on his side and says, if he'll excuse me, I'm going to be breathing hard. So good, little buddy. Thank you. I know I did. And I-and- I-blood the three months over and into one of my pouches. Hell yeah.

Do you think I could teleport the stew out of his stomach? Because I feel like I could. Fox, how do you feel about maybe getting the food out of your stomach real fast? No, no, no. They'll kill me. Don't get the food out of my stomach. I need it to live. No, no, no, no, there'll be more food later.

I promise. No. No, I believe the promise, but what if something terrible happens and I didn't have food in my stomach? I get that fear. Yeah, okay, you just, you just lie there. I'll be here. Oh, okay, okay, okay, yeah. Wait, put me on your lap.

Okay, yeah, okay, here you go. Okay, it'll be okay. No one look at me. Well, I mean, are you, are you tired? No. We can keep going if you want. I've been sleeping for a month. I'm fine.

Yeah, let's keep going. I had, when we saw one of the club ships passed by, I had stood up really quickly, and I was like, dancing. And I sat right back down immediately. My legs are still a little wobbly. And now we have a little fox asleep on my lap, and so I can't really move too much. But yeah, let's just show me some of your favorite places.

And, you know, have you made any new friends? Yes. Some of those places are only open during the day, so I can take you tomorrow. But, I mean, there's awesome shit we could do here. Let's go. Shit, what do we do? We could do that. Yeah, I will say.

this. Who is someone in Haverward that Ursula has befriended and really loves in the time that you've spent? Hoverward is very interesting. I think there would be a lot to Ursulaan that appeals there. Even though Wizards are like, oh, Hoverward is, that's the, that's the industrial, that's like the sort of grimy, there's griminess in Havard. But for Ursulaan, Hoverward is a friendly, lovely metropolis filled with interesting people. It's like to you, in the places you've spent time. Haverward is actually kind of nice because your your appearance is never questioned there. No one ever at like you walking around in Haverward are like met in a friendly nice way by everybody who's there. So who's someone that you know in Haverwood that you, handing the reins over to you for a second?

There's a boxing promoter who runs a pit fighting thing that is constantly trying to get me to go there and fight. I don't fight, but he does give me free drinks anytime I show up. So I think Suve's provided alcohol. So now Ursula is like, I know a place actually where we can drink for free, and it's not even because of the badge. And so I'm going to take them to this really scummy, scary pit fighting, illegal pit fighting ring where I hang out sometimes because the drinks are free.

You head to a place. Let me be clear. Flying vehicles cannot get here because this place is so deep in the stacks of towers that it is effectively subterranean. Personal just keeps going, no, this is the way. Yeah, no, this is the right way. Yep.

It looks like a dead end. No, well, see, this door opens. Oh! You walk into a door and arrive in an extra-dimensionally large, interior place within the Citadel. So this is like if a catacombs was squatted in by a bunch of circus performers. You see that there is a, there are like, there are tiles on the ground that are a steely gray

lapis lazuli kind of color and then a very light, creamy teal. All of them a little bit metallic, a little bit reflective as you walk. the arches are those kind of catacomb arches where everything is like domed. So there's not a flat ceiling anywhere, but just either square or hexagonal or octagonal kind of like quarters and weird little places in between. Some of them get so large that suddenly there are lights and tents and strings. You see that there are stilt walkers and fire breathers moving around in this place. There is a man who is about six foot four, enormously muscular.

He has very baggy pinstriped trousers with suspenders over what looks like a red and white striped like swimming suit top. Again, I have a type. I have the type. Hang out with mustaches

and fucking guys in wild outfits. You see this guy, I will say, mustaches are very common in this kind of facial hair very in vogue. So this guy has a... Oh, he's just changed the whole tenor of the campaign.

Now you have to imagine everybody like, Naram with that... With the mustache. Typically, guys with mustache is worth mentioning, all right? I don't go for any mustache. This guy has pure Salvador Dolly, like two big points

coming off his face. Brendan, I'm so sorry. How hot is he? He's incredibly... He looks like freaky. Tom Hardy Oh, no. So he's got he's got the little

red and white striped A-frame, suspenders and baggy trousers, and a cocked forward top hat with a gold sash around it. Mustache coming out, handing out flyers. He's got a lot of rings and bracelets on his hands. And you see he goes,

Come on up to the bloody carnivals. Step up one and all to see the fight of the century. This guy's name is Losario Racamanti. And you see, he comes up and says, he is a man who knows his way around a fight. Losario. Strongest man in Silbury.

We're going to just like fake box for a second. Oh, right, okay. But not today. Not today, Losario, and not ever. You see, he says, A Wizard of the Citadel enchanté, Archmaid apprentice. You see, he bows. He says, he says, I can feel the property values going up just to your mere presence.

Suvi is chain smoking these cigarettes to remain chill with the situation. And now has clocked how hot he is. And I'm glad we're here, actually. I'm very, it's so nice to meet you. I'm very happy to be here. What was your name again? This is Mr. Rocomonti, but you can call me Losario. Look, yeah.

Okay, okay. He says, have you ever been down to the bloody carnival? before, I'd be delighted to show you. Yes, please. And he says, he says, Madame, all of the sights and, he said, gesturing to Amma, he goes, Madame, with all of the sights and wonders around here, would you like a little bit more of a vantage point? Oh, I would love that.

He hoists the wheelchair up onto his bicep and just rests it between his, like, like, so you're on his shoulder, an outstretched arm, as the fox goes, oh, moving too fast. And he says, come in for the fight of your lives. And he says just starts to gesture you to a prize fight. Bear, the fact that you have not mentioned this band, is a point of contention between us. Well, I feel like any time you come,

I ask you to come down here, you're like you don't like the smells, you don't need to busy, the chairs are all plastic and not made of metal. It is a funky smell down here. Like, for all of the, there's the smell of like the fluids that the fire breathers are using.

to breathe fire. There's like, it's like, oh, that's like a great smell of a snack somewhere. And someone threw up. And then there's, okay. And then it's, it's, we're in a, like, all of the wonder of like, oh, it's Candle Street bakery. How incredibly charmed. This is like, oh, no, this is, it's rowdy.

We're in a rowdy spot. I just didn't know you would, I didn't know you would be excited about this, but now, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I've been with holding. Oh, it's okay. This is so good. I love this so much.

I love you. I say, I love you. You all right. Do you need a break? If you try to take this bottle from me, I will fight you. Okay. You see that as it goes up, do you have any of any, have any snacks survived with you throughout your trips? Any other stuff still here?

Like bonbons or anything else like that? I mean, I probably have just, even not from tonight, but just whatever pockets I have have some snacks. You see that as you're going along, a, there's a flitter and a tiny, winged marmoset. It's about as tall as your thumb. Flies in, grabs a crumb of something out of Ursulant's pocket, and flies up towards a little fatched nest where a number of so small little winged marmoset

with these big, like, sort of like, dull, warm brown, orange-y eyes begin to, like, pass and break out crumbs from amongst each other. You see those little scraps of popcorn bags up there with them, and you see Lassar. Sorry, listen to you and says, not cute, not cute. Pests. They're so cute.

Pests. No, I'm sorry. I should award you guys. Yeah, it's not, you can't bring any food down here that you don't buy inside. Yeah, you see that, you look up, you would know these as Imchin, which are some of the few, the vast majority of animals that you see up on the courts. Like, especially, basically, have a word being terrestrial for whatever reason and the amount of food and working and this like that. has a whole little ecosystem of very weird magical animals. There are more than 200 species of animal that are native exclusively to this one city

because of all the weird magical energy going on in this place. You could be a biologist and just study animals of the Citadel, but they all live in Haverwood. Most because they maintain for pests very carefully amongst like the hovering courts of the citadel. And all the animals up there. are illusory, yes. And the actual name for them is faunologue. They are phonologue animals. Fond.

But the sort of slang term for them is unfamiliars. That's great. You watch a prize fight begin. There's popcorn. Life is good. I think the evening continues with this and much more adventure. What time of night is it when you guys finally make the decision

with your freshly recovered friend? I think we fully lose Amé's wheelchair. Like, I think we're carrying Amé back up. I'm like back on top of Ursula's shoulders. It's like a full kind of piggyback situation. We lost it in a fight, you know. Things got raw outside the bloody carnival. Yeah.

Oh, my God. Fox is on top of like soupy. Yeah, oh yeah. I'm wearing fox like a little stole. Like an overly full soul. Wine and good cheer, snacks and wonders, music. You get back. The question is this.

Do you get back in time before Malacan's court takes off? No. No. Is the song rising by the time? We lost the wheelchair We lost the wheelchair We lost the wheelchair We will see the day star

And that would tell us to the whole Fuck that wheelchair We can get more You can have a hundred Yes Ambe demanded I throw it Give up the chair You guys get woken up at about

1130 in the morning On a straight up bench in a massive sky station airship terminal as a voice projected magically from a central kiosk says The 1130 from Malakhan's court Departs in five minutes from platform four

Please have your tickets ready That's us That's us Oh my mouth tastes terrible Ten more minutes We have to go I'm a good shot I'll go We gotta go where's Ami's chair

No I threw it Um, Uh-huh. Throw it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember? Amma, you gotta get up. Arma, you gotta get up.

Carry me. I'm going to, but you have to, you have to put your legs over my shoulders, and I just need to, just hold onto my forehead. We gotta go, come. It's just sling me over your shoulders. Okay. All right. Similar fox.

Yeah. All right. I got, Amet. You have the fox? Yeah, I got the fox. Let's do it. I was on the fox. Let's do it.

Uh, at about, at about 12, 15, you arrive and see in broad daylight Candle Street Bakery and the mocking horror of busy wizards, mostly walking, some levitating, a few teleporting, some flying, all going about their busy day of work here in the Citadel as you sort of harried and partially unkempt, stumble back to Alabast Hall.

What are the final thoughts as each of you get into the cool, welcoming shade of Suvi's lovingly appointed abode. As they carry me past, I see some wizard, you know, looking at me judgment, what I think to be judgmentally. And I say, it's not a walk of shame. I'm not walking. I feel busy myself with the important business of the empire. And I feel no shame. Wander's off. Before you drift off into unconsciousness after,

I'd say you probably got like 90 minutes like at sunrise in the terminal and you get back either hungover or still drunk. What are your final thoughts before drifting off to slumber all together here in Suve's home? I think Suvee's thought was just that was the, last night of my life. Easily. I think Ursulaan's thought is that this was

awesome. And God, I hope it lasts. As I cuddle up, think about that this is everything that I ever hoped for and wanted. And I'm going to do whatever it takes

to protect these people. Loving noises of illusory bumblebees on flowers that never lose their scent in a deep, soft, red home. With sheets and cushions scattered across the floor and off of the bed and a constellation of beloved friends sleeping restfully in the glorious day.

That was Lou Wilson as Ursulon, Kiyishi As Amay, Abria Ayangar, as Suvi, and Brennan Lee Mulligan, as everyone and everything else. Worlds Beyond Number is edited, designed, and scored by Taylor Moore at Fortunate Horse, with additional sound designed from Michael Gelfy Studios. For even more like this, join us on our Patreon. We'll see you there.