Worlds Beyond Number - WWW #18: Between the Lines

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

Wars and rumors of wars. Thrilling new weapons to titillate the thanatos urge of even the most inured imperial citizen. Heroes-to-be assemble and depart. While the Citadel mobilizes for battle, the gang hits the books. Names ancient and new swim to the sun dappled surface of understanding, the grand picture ever clearer. Careful though: the books do, occasionally, hit back.Worlds Beyond Number is:Brennan Lee MulliganErika IshiiAabria IyengarLou Wilson and is produced, designed, and scored by Taylor Moore at Fortunate Horse with exquisite design and editing help from Jared OlsonThis episode featured additional music (the mellow groove in Sunder's salon) by Will Savino. Catch his fantastic tabletop scoring at  Band Camp, Youtube, Spotify.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. Golden banners. Crimson penance. A rack of wands and war staves. A smell of singed incense. Some food beyond in a small kitchen, some ripe fruit hanging in the air, and a musk of someone who stays in peak physical condition.

and a home of someone who is here and lives life to the fullest in the moments that he is here, but then is gone for long stretches of time. Suvi, you stand in the doorway looking at Silver, a pack ready to go that he keeps packed in a closet of his chambers, is on his shoulder as he holds a scroll in his hand. Silver's brow is set and a vacant but determined expression hangs on his face

as he re-accept that his life is given over to a great cause. This is a fact of his existence that spares him some great deal of turmoil for all the freedom he has given up means that he need but be loyal to forces he believes are working great wonders upon the world.

It looks up at you. Fort Kieran was overrun last night. They had to abandon the garrison. Forces are mustering about a two days march away. They had to shut down the gate at the fort before anyone could use it. The Archmaic Sabre is already there. Why? When do you have to be now? Has to be now.

Suvie runs through a list, a litany of things that she wants to do here in this place where she's been vulnerable so many times for the last month for a little more time and to be cold, foolish, and emotional all away. because if he could and she watched his face as he became the version of himself that she is so fond of she doesn't want to fail him in this moment either. You like an escort?

Insight to check. So what you don't see or rather what Silver does a adequate job in disguising the hope that you would succumbed to your emotions and ask for something so that he might be able to be strong and yet give in to such a request. Instead, his stoicism is met by yours, and he says, yes. As you march through

Gavriel, court of the citadel, white gravel stones under your boots, he shoulders a Citadel war staff, something a little bit more meaningful over his shoulder. You see the staff glows with actually some spell energy already contained within it. The work of wizards and artificers are plenty. And he has his emerald ring on his finger, some armored bracers that not only give him some small benefit like the braces of the Azure Battalion, but these Citadel evokers, braces protect from a fair amount of the horrors he will see. As he marches towards a area assembling in front of a traveling door stone

off towards the edge of one of these platforms, see a small scintillating golden light arcs overhead as a temporary roof is created to, even from the sky above, cover up the coordinates that are being placed into the sliding circles of stone underneath. You see other war mages gathering here, silver nods to some of them as he approaches. You also see there are new Tamori here. The Tamori appeared at the Citadel during your lifetime. You were a little kid when the first ones were around.

You remember meeting Mr. Callum on the first day that he existed, where you were like, like nine years old. You are now 20, what, you're 20. Yeah. You're now 20 years old. You see you new tomorrow for the first time. Several of them smile with a deep kind of lava red glow. Like at the base of their throats as they open their mouth.

They look as though they are lit from within. And you see there are others near them that are, radiating light about sort of a powerful, icy, hot, white, blue light. And each of them you see have just matchsticks on them. They have the sort of normal imperial war staves. But you see they are Tamori that are fully armed. Much like Mr. Callum, they look identical, but they don't have any distinguishing feature on them. You see that they have maybe, like, across like a patch, across their shoulder, like under the epaulettes of their coats, they have a long sequence of numbers written out, stylized by the lingua arcana.

So a number as numbers are notated within that language. And the sort of hot, icy, white, blue ones have a small sort of jam around their wrist on a bracelet that any. with concentration, that the red, more fiery ones do not. Can I cast, detect magic, and try to figure out what spells these Tomori are? Uh, give me a sleight of hand-checked, disguise the casting from these beings here. Fine! Uh, one of the red Tamori looks over at you, says, uh, Silver, you see, is busy talking to a commanding officer.

And sort of right one smiles, eyes burning like hot coals in the bottom of a campfire. Oh. Yes, I am. What's your name? Please. You see, there's a, as one of the hot, I see sort of once over, and there's a crackle of electricity. And these sort of smile and. walk off together as silver comes back.

You detect magic. You detect another. There's about 15 of each here. They are ninth level in D&D terms. They are fireballs and lightning bolts upcast to ninth level. You see

associated with them Mr. Callum is a cantrip. Yeah. So he can cast himself over and over and over and over and over again. And you see that these Tamori here, like the matchsticks are for casting cantrip, so they must have the ability to cast some kind of cantrip of themselves. You would guess maybe like a firebolt or witch bolt. But you get the sense that if they cast their true spell, it's the last thing they do.

Oh my God. And I've never, there's, is this the first time I've seen an execution of something like this walking? Yeah. Wonders never cease at the Citadel. Okay. Silver. Hold on. Yes.

Sky. And I'm going to reach under my glove to like a bracelet that's been hanging so low on my wrist that it's been obscured by my blue gloves. And remove it. and it's just a really simple, like, white gold chain with a couple stars on it and a little moon. It's not very special. It was just, and now it's very corny that I got myself a little cloaking gift, but I really want you to have it and bring you back. Silver takes the gift, gives you a kiss, Wizard Sky. You have my word.

And I think she leans up and kisses him again before. remembering that there are so many people around and everything's happening. And this isn't the moment she wanted it to be or where she wanted to be. Yeah, as you pull away from here, you see the sort of the discomfort of this tender display in this place. Silver walks off towards some other wizards. You see one of the fiery Timori look over at you and just go. You got a fucking problem? If I've got a problem.

Do your job. I think that's the thing that, like, gets Suv's blood up enough that she turns and leaves. You see a couple of these Timori sort of laughing at each other. And it looks, the feeling you got from these ones is very different than you've gotten from any Tamori before. These are the most powerful spells. You've only seen Tamori that recreate either, like, cantrumbs or in some cases first-level spells. Yeah. These are like higher, more dangerous, more volatile spells.

And the fact that the first time you're seeing these beings, they're being shipped out. Yeah. You also know that it's, like, you don't need to know any, just based on magical theory alone, the fact that these guys are shipping out without names is not good. Yeah, everything in Suvie's mind is she's walking away. Fort Kieran fell and they're falling in immediately in taking out, like, prototypes of high-level Tamori, this feels

like a rush job. Is there anything I know about like the military importance of Fort Karen? Fort Karen is in a region called Chabal. It's in the far north. And

I think on the way there, Silver would have told you if you'd asked, that the garrison was taken by a number of great beasts. And by the time that they were able to come back, a company of sorcerers from Gouthmi had already set up within, and you know that Gauthmi is to the far south? Yeah. So, and they believe that the Red Fleet is on its way to that coast, towards the coast of Chabal. Knowing that my friends expect me to be gone for the night, I will instead, uh,

I'm going to go to whatever library I frequent the most and look up anything I can on the shapeshifters of Gouthmi and what they've got going on. And I will go and spend the night in Silver's Room. If I still have the key, I would have tried not to remember to give it back. Give me a nature check. Eight. Looking for material on the shapeshifters of Gouthmi, you go to your normal library. to research and find vanishingly little about the actual practice or substance of those shapeshifters.

There's lots of information about how to fight them. And basically what it says is the normal instinct to deal damage. The normal instinct to kill through injury will be poorly served fighting a shapeshifter. That you are much better off trying to do something clever like. Like, to use D&D terminology, you're way better off making them make a savings row against something like a hold or a banishment or something like that that like in a pure fight, a shapeshifter will likely win. This is the kind of information that your most frequented areas of the Citadel have on shapeshifters. Yeah. Which is like, you want to know about shapeshifters?

Well, here's how you kill them. Yeah. And there's very little about their history, their goals, their ambitions, their achievements. But they are sort of centered on Gouthmite. Yeah. More interesting searches will happen in the daylight. Right now I think she's just trying to comfort herself with anything that she knows feels like a transitive Silver would know and he will be okay and it will be fine. The next day comes Ursulaan Amé, the Fox, Suvi, and a number of hovering platforms, basically just little lines of light. the shape of beautiful ornate carriages. So it looks like carriage is made of glass,

but where half the glass kind of ripples into and out of existence as they move along, just sort of pure force. These carriages of force trundle along over the beautiful streets of Malacanth Court as it is moving day for the wizard's sky. The beautiful red room of Alabast Hall gets

all sort of boxed up, you know, real higgatous, figetist vibes up in there. Shout out to the sword and the stone. A mean little owls just there, heckling me. Who do you go to? If wizards had been meant to move, they would have been born with U-Hauls. You see the, as you arrive, there is the massive, one of the five main Arkmagi towers. And this is the Archimage Silences Tower, which looms large over Malacanth Court.

And there are several buildings that buttress off of it. And there is a much smaller, like only about, I would say, like an eight-story tower that, which is still... It's so cozy. I would say that Silence's Tower is probably a, let's call it, a, like, 40-story tower. This little eight-story tower, this little eight-story tower, a butts from a single sky bridge, and there is no door on the ground floor. Oh, you've got to be shitting me. What?

What? What? It's a starter tower. I'm sorry. How long until you get another one? Uh, I don't know. If I had to give, like, a number less than a decade, he's so old. Wow.

Wait, you'll take his? Yeah, that's what I'm training to do. We don't have to talk about. He's a very nice man that will live a long time. How are you going to furnish this whole place? I do not have enough furniture. It is going to look crazy for a while. Okay.

Well, um, I can grab a couple of the old milk crates from the bakery for some temporary furniture. Oh, you're so sweet. Please do not do that. Thank you. I will buy furniture. I can do that. But thank you. That's so, you're so sweet.

Um, Can we get, would you guys want to decorate, like, do you want a little room? And we can all stay together? I was assuming as much. Yeah. The protector must have a room in the Wizards Tower. Agreed. And Ami, and you'll have a room too.

And we'll all stay in the tower and we'll figure out a way for you to get in and out that's more convenient than the door through the rest of the tower. We'll figure it out. Yeah. I, that sounds good, but I... I do need to go check back into the cottage soon. Oh, okay. I mean, I still have some business to conduct here, and we still have a lot of things to investigate for you.

But I should definitely at least go back to the Silbury Gate as soon as possible. But, like, just for a little, right? Because you could do, I mean, Grameran. She was always. out. Well, she was, but she was the witch of Toma. And and so am I. Well, no, no, no, no. You're the witch of the world's heart and this is part of the world. So maybe

be here? You always know how to drive a hard bargain. So let's a week. All right. Let's at least put this on hold for a week. I have a like a big meeting to be studying for and to I need to gather allies about. Yeah, how are you doing, by the way? Oh, God.

Terrible. So I went over and Silver got deployed. So we're doing great. It's fine. He'll be fine. He'll be back. But that's happening now. So it seems like the lull in the war is.

is unlawling in a way that feels bad for me in a personal way that I don't want to process yet. I'm going to stop talking now. Let's move things. Yay! Yeah, I'm the lift stuff. You guys begin moving, and we actually, as you're moving stuff, you see sort of walking up through hallways carrying boxes, you see a number of, sort of, sort of, like, stone constructs. begin to also help carry some of the heavier bits of furniture.

You guys are more carrying boxes and tomes and things like that. These are a little bit more fragile and require a little bit more care. The fox sort of panting along next to you. You see, he has just one little basket of potpourri in his mouth from the bathroom. You see, he goes up and looks at you, Amé. Boss, do you think, what happened last night in that bathroom? Well, the reckoning came for me. It's time for me to take on my responsibilities as the witch of the world's heart.

And we've got to get back to the cottage, but also I don't know quite how to leave here. Do you remember what you said to the little fairy? Yes, I do, actually. I said that I sent my apologies and my regards, and then I'm newly witch of the world's heart, and I let her pick the location of the meeting. No, which is not something that I'm supposed to do. Oh.

Uh, well, oh, tell her that the fairy lied. And then... But I wrote it. I wrote it to my handwriting. Oh. Well, tell her that that's not your handwriting. And then she says, well, and then she'll ask you to do handwriting. But then I'll just do it. But then hide your hands in your sleeves and say your hands got cut off.

I could just actually write with my left hand. maybe and then she wouldn't be able to understand the handwriting and be like oh this is clearly not your handwriting but she wouldn't be able to understand any of it because you'd be writing it backwards

Hey Fox I think that maybe actually it might be time for you to learn to read No yeah No I don't want to learn or read Spits the popery out

Oh you were being so much My popery! Yeah You witness moving in here. The Archbache silence appears. You see, he goes, Oh, wizard sky. Welcome, finally, with your name, Clark, to the Tower of the Glove.

I hope that you enjoy you. Stay here. You'll be so much closer. to the comings and goings, it is ever busy here in my Tower of Solimity, where in the business of the citadel is conducted. Come, come, I shall show you. Objects of note. This will be your page, Julia.

And you see that there is a young girl who's about like 16 years old. You see that she has a white sort of crisp robe, with a small, tight sort of blue vest over the corset. You see that illusory powder white clouds move reflecting the sky above on her vest. And she has a little bright sun pin, a little golden pin. And she smiles. You see her eyes as well. The irises are very intense sky blue.

You also believe her reflecting the sky with like some reddish strawberry blonde hair tied up behind her. Oh, she goes, pleasure. Hi. I'm very happy to report. Thank you so much. You see, silence goes, Yoli comes directly from Banners,

which you went to Banners. Banners is the court for kids that are going to make it to the Citadel, and Demings is the court of kids that are not going to make it to the Citadel. There's some deviation, like about 5 to 10% of Banners drops out, and about only 5 to 10% of Demings makes it into the Citadel. So she's from Banners. What was your name again? Yulie?

Eulia. Yulia. Hi. I'm Sky. And I very much like what you've got. This is nice. I like this. I'm studying to take the entrance exam for the illusion discipline.

Oh, that's fun. If there's anything aesthetically in the tower that you want to be changed, I am happy to change it. on a temporary basis until a permanent artificer's solution can be achieved. You are very eager. Do I know any of your family? My aunt is the sort of the Citadel. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Hey. Yes, this is. Yulia is a cousin, but there are a wiser. weird delineations because Steele was taken in childhood to come join the Citadel. So her siblings are non-wisards. And this kid came to the Citadel and maybe had some relationship with Steele like coming up through the things, but did not live at Steele's house. Amazing.

Yes. Oh, yeah. Okay. The resent. That's great. You're great. Yulia. Oh, we're going to have a great time.

Yes. That's so fun. Thank you so much. I, if there's anything. and to bear and to Amé, your honored guests, your honored friends, the guests, sorry, if they require any thing, then I will get it as quickly as swiftly as I am able in service of the wizard's guy. Hey, Julia, I really like that top. Could I have one like yours? because I too am a servant of the wizard's guy

Oh, servant, big word, nope, nope I mean, I protect her, I mean, you know, hey, it's not a word, it's a word, I just thought it sounded more official, you know? Oh yeah, no, you know, I'm like, serve, I don't have servant, we're all, yeah, I'm a shut up. You see that she, she looks over and says, I would at once, but, and you see, Looking over at the door to the tower of the glove, you've crossed this little sky bridge up on the fourth floor of the Archmaid Silences Tower, you see that there is a massive, almost like three feet across emerald gemstone set into a brass basin within the wall. She gestures to it It stands just inside the doorway

Almost like the receptacle of like holy water If you were to like walk into a church or something In the shape of almost a bird bath or some other kind of basin She gestures to it and says I just actually have donated to the You see the Archimaged Silence says Important actually This Arith Depository

Is actually claimed by you first. I was instructing Julia as to use it. From this point forward, Julia, I would use it only at the ending of the day on your way home. You may actually be required to use some of that energy and service to your wizard. However, there is a timer on this,

so it will remain at your disposal until such time as you have referred. fresh to your day. The fox would like you to explain what an heiress depository is. Yes. For the fox, an eryth depository is where... Pretty sure. I thought it was an eris.

See, the fox looks up and says, yeah, I heard heiress. Yeah. Okay. The depository is where wizards can put there. We have a finite number of uses of men. magic before rest and recuperation are required. And if another mage puts their magic into there, I would be able to access it and use it if I need it. It's nice.

We're not wasting here. Do you understand that there are wizards at the front line of the empire's war for its own freedom and salvation from enemies abroad. Those wizards have but the same fraction of Arith that their potency at this arcade art affords them. Meanwhile, here at the Citadel, we busy ourselves with study and research, with an equivalent portion based on our own potency, accumulating day by day. They have great need, and we have relatively none. The act of spellcasting occurs mostly for frivolity, recreation, or in some cases an aid to study here at the Citadel. So a system of these depositories and of the great arith turbines and gathering pools within the center of the citadel,

that that energy might be shared across our vast empire through this, and you see he taps the emerald ring, much like Subis on his own finger, throughout the empire, from all to those whose need is greatest. So you do spells with other people's juice? If I need to. Can you save your juice for later? Do you send yours to this depository? I do.

If I don't, towards the end of the day, if I have excess, I will send it forward in hopes that those of us fighting could use it. Oh. Please don't call it juice. I'm so sorry. It's all right.

It's all right. This is just not what it is. You see, he looks and says, the argument's silence looks over and says, and to your question, witch of tumor, the necessary, it is generally speaking frowned upon to dip into the community coffers, while one has one's own personal resources available.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, that makes sense, that makes sense. Can anybody use it? And is it, like, do they, how do you keep them fresh? Because, you know, sometimes, you know, it's going to be great. I'm going to tell you a story, not. around my boss or the impressionable youth next to me. What does it taste like? What is it, does it have a smell?

Kind of tangy. I will, you say kind of tangy. And this is the fox says, it's juice. And you see that the Archmage Silence says, be quiet. And you see that as he says it, the whole tower kind of echoes as the Archmaid's silence says, be quiet. And you see there is a moment where you feel almost against your will flung into a state of meditative reflection. As you realize that this archmaid,

doddering old man, though he is, is some incredibly high-level wizard. And he goes, to the solarium, Eulia, please assist the constructs. The boxes are all clearly labeled. See, Sinuskulovrid and says, How happy I am. sky and silence

a pair for the ages and when you are settled in you'll come upstairs and I will give you a tour of the main tower a tower that you will spend much time in I am sure and he gives you a hug

Oh I hug him back so gently This is the greatest day of my life a little bit Thank you He takes two steps and then looks around, and you see, uses his little green ring to make a dimension door. Look through it.

The fox looks over and says, so it's juice. And I do the, like, is Yulia gone? Yulia has walked off to help direct the constructs. Hey, it is juice, and the reason I dye my hair is because I played in one of these once, just to see how much I could channel out,

and I almost killed myself. So whatever you're thinking, Don't do it. It's a bad, it's a bad, it's a bad time. How old were you? Oh, 14? Ooh. Oh, my looks at the fox.

It almost killed one of my best friends here. So I understand that you guys have a beautiful, like, sneaky moment. Please don't make me mourn you. Yeah, okay. Don't drink the juice. Don't drink the juice. If you drink the juice, You will be cursed with the knowledge of how to read.

I'll be sticking to milk. Abria, please describe the area of Subi's new tower that has been set up for her to do the majority. There are so many empty libraries in this. They have actually, like, your books from your old place come up and fill half the shelves of one story of the library space available to you. And basically the whole rest of the Citadel is open. Like, this is a place for you to call books up. It'll be recorded that you've called them up from the greater libraries. But you don't have a limit on how long you can check out scrolls and other books for.

The Citadel's resources are available to you. If something has to live at your library because you want it to, that's totally fine. And basically only an Arkmages intercession can get that book released out into, like, other sort of coverage. I've had a list for two years of the books that I'm calling up, and I'm going to say 40% of them are spite two friends. Oh, were you excited to get to read that one day? It's in my library. They start, so books start honestly coming in even early.

Your moving is like a fraction of the moving that's happening this day. It's mostly just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, like new books coming in and around the citadel to fill up your Wizards Tower. Describe what your actual... It's not the storage area, what your actual, and you would have a couple of work spaces, depending on if you're doing alchemy, you're creating a constructor. But like, where does your most, like, persnickety spellcraft wizard workstation, where is it in the tower and what does it look like? How is it arranged and laid out? I think there's no universe in which it's not the sort of tiny sloped roof, like attic space at the very top of the tower.

The one that's above the main room you would use for either like your sleeping quarters. It would just be a storage area, but that's going to be my favorite space because I've been, again, I've had time, especially in the last year when most of my duty was make sure some. violence is awake or when I can allow him to be asleep and then just daydream about what I will do when I'm here or in his tower later, I start casting illusory enchantments. I want to always be able to see the sky above me. Incredible. The conical top of this wizard's tower is replaced with a... a beautiful scintillating glass, much like the glass of the Arian, the sand of the desert. For those that are gazing into this space from above, what do they see on the surface of the glass tower top?

Looking down, I think this is where all of the red lives. I think it was very nice for it to sort of be in her apartments and to live in this space where, like, that color, that it's been my favorite color for, so long lives, but it's part of a life that I only want to reach to in private. It's my secret color that's just for me. So things that were like rugs and wall hangings and duvet covers, all of that becomes tapestry around the wall. And this room is again like buffered and soft and swoopy and full of fabric and comfort, and yet that, like, center just has, I'll go back and do it later, but I'm just going to kind of chalk, block out my sort of ritual sigil where magic that I will cast again and again that is mine will sit at the center of a room that reminds me of the person I used to be in the sky that watched it

and everything on the floors below will be perfectly appropriate for the apprentice Archmage sky. You look up and see sort of in one direction the towering might of the Archmage silences main central tower, which is a castle unto itself. But out beyond, silence is towards the edge of Malacanth court. So you also realize that quite nicely, basically, the only way you can see into your tower is from Silence's Tower. For the most part, you're just looking out at the edge of the area in the beautiful white desert. It's a bright, sunny day. You can tell that at night, especially as you, like, you know, are floating up, like, as you get up towards the

top and the later hours, you're going to see, like, incredible vistas of stars and constellations here. Your gorgeous desk, which is sort of, like, rounded to the round edge of the tower, So it's almost like the cockpit of a star. It's like the bridge of a starship in here a little bit. Like it's a rounded room. But there's this great workspace where you have surface as you turn in all directions. And you see that there are a number of shelves that from the conical roof just descend slightly. And accordion out into perfect tiny shelves full of, you know, almost like the hinges of a tackle box or one of those jewelry cases that like.

complicated little machines that it goes and suddenly you're looking at multiple shelves and the shelves have drawers and the drawers and the drawers have compartments and within the compartments are tiny little nautilus shells and miniature insect horns dried and iridescent small scarab uh little scarab compound eyes and then next to that you see little elements of volcanic ash mixed with glitter and glass you see there's like all sorts of vast and sundry treasures coins there's an entire

drawer that's just coins of dead empires and kingdoms. Just a stocked wizard's sanctum. And hanging from one of those, you see, as they come down, hanging from string are three corked and stoppard labeled bottles of ink. You see that one of the, you know would know exactly what these are. One of them to the left is a bottle of blue ink, deep sort of. of like rich royal blue. Its bottle has a slender neck,

but it is angular and multifaceted, like a gem. Hanging from the cork is a little tab that says Cyril, C-Y-R-I-L. In the middle is a squat black jar of regular black ink, and the little name tag there says Enzo. And then to the right,

you see that there is a, it looks clearly like a little bit larger, and sturdier. It's also the only one that's not clear glass, but you can tell the ink inside is red through this kind of like amber old liquor bottle, it looks like. And you see that one has a name tag from it that says, Vandal. Vandal.

Hey, Bear. Bear. Yes. You want to see something crazy? It would be unreal if you could continue to surprise me. But go ahead. Give it a shot. All my pops are head ahead in the room.

Did you say crazy? Yeah, come on, come on, come on. Okay, you can't always come in here, but today we're coming in here, and it's going to be great. So check this out, and I'm going to go to, let's go middle bottle. Okay. And you can also make a history check or an arcana check, or you know what these are. Yeah. But you can make a different kind of check if you want.

Yeah, let's get a little check. My instinct is to play with the black ink, but let's look. Let me just, can I get a little glance, a little arcana to see? Yeah. Is this the biggest mistake I've ever made? Give me an arcana check. 22. Hell yeah.

You can see from it that the black bottle is the oldest of these ones here. Oh. You see that, and I think on that 22 arcana, you could tell that the bottle on the right, the red one that's in the amber bottle, that is not a well-prepared republic. So that's not an arcane ink bottle. That's just a bottle that has that ink in it. Oh, okay. And then the one on the left, the blue bottle, I think you can tell, has the least amount of ink in it. I should probably open the blue one.

It will probably be the safest as I reach out for the black bottle and open it. You open the black bottle and you see that the ink swirls around and it attempts to cross. all up over the lip like it's looking for a surface. But it can't quite get up out of the lip unless you pour it out. I'm going to tilt the bottle towards Ursula. What are you doing? What are you doing, Suvie? Yeah, look, do you want to meet Enzo?

Uh, what? Who? Uh, and I'm just going to reach behind me and grab. This is one of the petty books that I took from my roommate that I don't like that ended up doing a bunch of transmutation and she was so excited for a book. So I'm just going to grab it by the spine, crack it open, and in the middle of some beautiful diagram about how to turn. It doesn't, I don't know what it says.

I'm not even looking, and I just pour this bottle out onto a book. All of you watch as the ink falls through the air. An old face with like long ears of ink and a long, impish nose, and two big eyes appear in the ink. As they open, there are whites in these eyes that appear in this jet black ink that as it hits the book, and a little, probably like eight inch tall imp. It has like wings of black ink, spindly arms and legs, this like incredibly long pointed nose. It looks sort of an distinguished old man's kind of face with these long pointed ears back.

every shape within the shapes of him is triangular, with the exception of two big eyes, and you see that he sort of looks around, sort of almost like mosquito-looking. He's like a little mosquito-ink guy, and you see he looks down at the page that he hits, and looking at it, he goes, oh, diagram of some sort of whale.

No, no, no. And you see that he takes a finger and begins to mark something, and he's like, ending with a proposition. And you see, he begins to update the margins of the book as he just starts writing in it. You would know he's getting stuff wrong. Yeah. He's not, like, you immediately see, he turns a page and says, diagrams grammaticus incantatum, no, no, no.

Oh, okay. This is great. Enzo? You see, he whips around and says, Enzo, I. Hi. Hello. Hi, I'm Ami.

Ami? Hello, Ami. Oh. Amet. Are you in? A.M. Yeah. You see, he just has a toe behind him and writes it in the book behind him.

Are you an ink spirit? Yes, I am. I am a spirit of ink. Some call me an ink demon. I call him an ink demon. Hello, little demon. Hello, her. Oh, who?

The wizard of the tower. There we go. Do I now behold she of these many tomes? Yes, yes you do. Um, Sufi, who is this? So sometimes when you do a bunch of magic, it kind of gunkes up a little bit. Like, you know how you can get like lactic acid and you make your muscles sore after you work out? Sure, Steele's tried to explain that to me before.

Yeah, I also didn't listen when she explained. Yeah. But it works well for this. Magic and spells and research kind of have that too. And when they build up too much, they make a nasty little fucker like this guy. You see that Enzo has moved over to you and to you, Amay, and said, I'll may. And correct me if I'm wrong, but a spirit always knows you are a witch. That's correct.

And I believe, hey. A great witch, yes? Well, I'm a pretty okay witch. You see, he goes, well, the world must know. And he writes on your dress in huge staining ink. He goes, A-M-E, P-R-E, T-T-Y-G-W-D-W-I-T-C-H, pretty good witch. Do you find this charming, or shall I make him stop? Oh, he got me pretty good.

And he says, you there? Yes. You see, he flits up to your face. Okay, all right. I'm going to think I'm going to put a handout. You have been edited. What? Ah!

Where's the group A? Suvia, am I allowed to smoke a sword in here? You cut him straight in half, and ink scatters all over the ground. Enzo? Oh, my God. Are you okay? Suvio. The fox licks him.

All ink tastes bad. Don't eat the ink. Yeah, don't do that. Um, shit. Well, you killed him. I was that... Oh, sorry. I pressed to digitate my dress clean and everything,

but I try to scoop up the piles of ink. Oh, no, that's okay. I've got two more. What? Is he like dead? Dead? I'm sorry, I didn't. I just...

No, that happens. Is he... Uh, no. Like, ten gold pieces of materials and you can bring him. Yeah. He's dead for a little bit. Okay, he's just, you know, he screamed about how he wanted to edit me, and I was like... Yeah, that's...

Why did he... That was weird. I'm assuming the glamour. That was my first thought. Oh, that makes perfect sense. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Well, yeah, but we're wearing makeup and he's not like, oh, you're edited.

I'm, this isn't, this is my natural. Yeah, I'm wearing makeup, yeah. Just a little bit, I can tell. I can tell. All right, pretty good witch. Oh, my gosh. So, yeah, those are in those bottles. Generally speaking, you want to give them stuff to do,

or they'll stain your dress and, ruin Lettie's book that she's been dreaming of reading for two years. I do not fix any of his weird marginalia. I close the book and put it back on the shelf. You can see

Amay looking at this why ink demons would be such a huge problem at the Citadel. This one has one of the more beneficial instinct and is still just updating books with wrong information. All right.

Are we going to do that again? Oh, no, we don't have to. Are you okay? I'm fine. Okay. I just, I want to be ready so I don't kill any more of them. Oh, no. I can, I'll get him back in a little bit.

That's fine. What are that? I mean, okay, wait, so there's byproduct of magic, like, like magical runoff for wizard spells. I don't, I don't think there's not like this for any of my magic or any spirit's magic that I've seen. Well, I, I, I think, give me actually, give me a religion check. You can give me religion or an arcana.

12. I think what Sufi is referring to as a byproduct doesn't gel with your understanding of the spiritual world. I think that to you, I think that Amé's initial reaction of like, oh my God, an ink spirit is exactly right. Witches do not limit the world of spirits to exclusively spirits of nature. There are spirits of the celestial heights. there are spirits of, there are ancestor spirits. Like, there is the idea of people going to, you know, people have different visions of, like, what an afterlife would be or being able to look over their family from some celestial or nature-based paradise. Like, lots of different cultures within Uymore have different ideas of what happens to you.

Like, there is a spiritual dimension to all things, and there are a lot of things which are of artifice. So the idea that, like, ink, even though it might be man-made, would not have some spiritual dimension to it. Of course, there's a spiritual dimension to ink. Yeah. So it's not like extra, right? I mean, it's just an ink spirit that you kind of... But I understand our differences in perplexed taxonomy.

Yeah. That you summon or that you... Well, he kind of... exists and if not corralled properly will ruin everything. You've seen, this place is 140% books. So we sort of have a sense of when you see an ink demon, grab them, bottle them, give them stuff to do, keep them busy, and then it's a sort of mutually beneficial. Hmm. Relationship.

Great. So you're also now going to have a little guy? Yeah. Yeah. I have a little. Is that? No, it's just another little guy who hangs out with us. Hey, Ursula? Yeah? Don't make me, I'm not like that. What, a little guy? I'm not a little guy.

I mean, I'm a pretty big guy. You're all big. I'm normal. I'm regular size. All right, Fox, I apologize. You're a regular size. So we're going to have another regular size guy? Yeah, we'll have another regular size guy.

Thank you for apologize. This is really healthy. I like this. We're getting better. We had a great time with those sausages the other night. Yeah. Oh, God. I'm really good at words about smells.

You are good at words about smells. And weird at describing sex. What did I get ruined? I'm not attracted to anybody here. You can talk about sex. Aw. No, it wasn't sad. It wasn't aw.

Like, oh, that's cute. All of you have enormous weird bodies. Okay. All right, okay. I don't like this anymore. Hey. No, you watch it. I'm saying the truth.

Okay. Yeah, that's your normal size guy. And I've got a couple little guys. They're not the same. A familiar is very cool. Fox, you're very cool. Thank you. And these are just little kind of just things that we have stewardship over.

and it's nice and they'll make a nice cup of coffee, whatever you need. It's great. What? You just make you coffee? Oh, not yet. Those are brand new. Do your proofreading? No, they don't do.

Excuse me. I would never let a demon proofread by my word. Are you kidding? Fox? We are, come on. If you learn to read, I will get you and feed you anything that you can read. Do you want me to eat books? No, no, no, no, no.

Any words that you read. You want me to eat words? What can I do to incentivize you to read? I got to go to sleep. You see he lies down. Oh, he went to sleep. When does the... Is he going to call it interheat?

Like, now? Oh, no, no, no, no. Never again? So he has to be celibate with you? Well, I just think he... It's hard for him to find someone else, you know? What do you mean? Now that he...

You see foxes all the time. Well, but they're not foxes like him. Oh, oh. Yeah. Oh, because he's the one that did. Oh, that's weird. Yulia walks in and goes. Hi.

Oh, Wizard's Guy. I see one of the ink demons. Do you want me to, I can actually take care of. You're good. Okay. Hi. If you're busy with important matters, I can reconstitute the ink demon with some of the, we have some of the resources necessary.

You don't have to bother yourself with it. Oh, that's really sweet. Thank you. Yeah, if you can get that done, it doesn't have to be now in the next couple days. That'd be great. Perfect. Yes, I will do. Enzo's the oldest one from the tower.

So the other two are more relatively new. Yeah. Do you have any intel for me on Vandal? Vandal is very aptly named. And I believe Cyril writes poetry. Oh my gosh. Can we open Cyril? Can we open Cyril? Can we open Cyril? Can we open Cyril, please?

Okay. And you see this, she goes over and opens the blue one, pours it out. A similarly constituted, but this one has more of like a porcine. He has more of like a porcine snout and little tusks, little gargoy-esque, wings are a little small. So he goes, Oh, hi, bud. A poem for my lost. Come, Brad Enzo. And you see, he begins to just scrawl on the wall Like, a spirit made Of jet black ink, A friend for all

Who yearned to think Of marginalia, Proof and Pen, Who lived and died To live again. Oh, that was really good. Well, done, Cyril. You're going to clean that off the wall right now.

Thank you so much. Please let my poetry live forever. but on the wall so that other people might come and discover that I was a great poet Interesting How about a little deal? Okay

Are you getting coffee? Yes. Are you lying? Yes. Okay. If you can make... I'm bad at making coffee, but I can't make it. If you get good at making a little latte

for me, I will let you put your poetry. places that I will not immediately claim and I will start presiditating this one off of my favorite rug. You see, he goes, my poem. My rug! He goes, I shall away to the library to collect vast resources on how and whence great lattes might be made. Is there any part of making a latte which you would describe as creative?

Oh, I think so. Latte art. You can write poetry on the front. Oh, and you can put little poems on the napkins under the coffee. You see, honestly, Cyril says, I shall away, mistress, to find and figure out from whence the great lattes may be made if I might. A poem. One more, let's believe. One more.

The wizard's sky of blue and black. Caffeine she needs and yet does lack. Cyril Demon of the ink To better now He must go and think And see He wings I shall learn to make great

Latins It flies out the window I'm leaving that one I feel like the first one was better It was but this one was about me Oh that's fair Also I think that a lot of their poetry Is going to be very

Ink and Think heavy Yes Just because it's like a very easy rhyming scheme Yeah I like it I like him a lot. I like Cyril a lot. That was great.

I mean, he didn't attempt to edit me. Yeah. Wow. I'm all thumbs up. We're all in the clear with syrup. You want to see a vandal for a different day? You want me to open it now? I mean, we should open it now.

Let's go three for three. You open it. Okay, fine. Just huck it. A little red, he's got no-nose, fanky devil horns, comes out and goes, shit-ass, and fly them. down the hall. Okay, sorry, sorry.

I'll get that. He's my favorite so far. I'm going to go chase. I'm going to take care of this. Thank you, kill him. You have to go climb out of a window the entire side of the tower in huge red ink. It just says cock. All me starts running down the hall after a fuck weasel.

First day, first day, first day. You say fuck weasel and this demon flies back in says, what you say? Fuck weasel. A new one, I love you. Yeah. You see, you see he writes butt poop on her head. Vandal, Vandal! Uh, shit ass.

I said that! And you see, flies away. Motherfucker! You see, he like whips out a little forked tail as he's flying. And he's like flying a face that's barely legible. You think he's writing penis on the floor of the hallway as he flies down. What do you? Vandal, go get us food.

Huh? Go get us food. Dunghead! Stop giving him ammunition! I love you! I love you! You see, he says, really? Yeah, I... He flits over and goes,

I'm Vandal. I'm a monk demon. I'm Amme, and I'm a witch. You are a witch. You see, he does bow. You speak for the spirits and to the spirits. I do my best to do so, yes. Then you have my respect.

Thank you. Fuck-o. Turd muffin. Ah, she's great. You see, he looks over and says, You. Sky, you're the wizard of the tower, aren't you? Yeah, I am.

What's up? Well, you like what I'm doing? I don't. I don't enjoy it. Ah! Ball sack! And you see he flies away and writes ball sack as well. Okay, okay.

I need to do stuff! I gotta do stuff! What the fuck task do I give him? Uh, Vandal! Yeah? Ask him to go get some croissants. Yeah, dog, I need you to get me some... Okay, you got to go to, uh...

What is the candle? Candle Street Bakery. Yeah, go to Candle Street Bakery. You need to ask Mr. Callum, very rudely, for you. Nicely for you? You could ask him however you want to ask him. I'm not going to micromanage you. Uh, I'm going to need a bunch of...

Crescents, and whatever. Do you eat? Huh, do you eat? Yeah. Are you lying? Yeah. Okay, great. Three bottles of whatever you come across.

Tell them it's on the Wizard's Guys account, and then come straight back here without writing anything, psychotic on anything. Oh, you did the last part. Yeah, yeah, sorry, bud. You see, he flies out the window towards Candle Street Bakery. I don't like that one fucking... Not at all. It's zero.

It's zero all goddamn day. Later that day, Vandal comes back with some croissants. Enzo's reconstituted. You see that they are all... It's very hard to manage when there's more than two of them out at the same. It's very quickly like, oh, I could come back and have a lot of books ruined in a big, big way. And you see that also you realize that, like, as the ink settles, it becomes hard. harder to press to digitate and clean.

It's like, you're like, okay, I can erase the ink, but some of this ink needs to stay on the page because that's what a fucking book is. So I can't just like erase the ink. It's like it gets a little bit hairy. But eventually you get all three of them back in their bottles. And you also see that there's nothing about them being. They're like immortal things that don't eat or sleep. So being in a bottle is a state of relative comfort for them.

They're not trapped. It's just sort of a neutral state of being as they kick it in a bottle. Kick it in a bottle. And actually, I think you would know, as you sort of perceive them with some witchy sensibility when they're in the bottle, these ink spirits are very tied to the concept of potential. They want to write. So being in the bottles, even though they want to write,

isn't bad. You almost feel like when they're in their disembod, their body just becomes liquid, that they're just kind of in their dreaming of the things they might say one day. Aww. Sweet. Okay. All right.

All right. All right. You're settled in here enough. I think I should do some research and go see some people, I think. Okay. For what it's worth, if you ever need any books, I can just work. I know you like to go out, though. So if you want to go, but you can always just ask for them and they'll come here.

Yeah, I guess books have helped before. Yeah. You've never Wounded me so much. By the way, I'd like to, I think I still have With My Things, the book of the Stars of the Southern skies

And the charts With the shapeshifters came with us. Yes. So I just, I spread them on the floor You have them. A little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh.

Oh. I'm wondering now if these mean anything more to me, now that I have the benefit of my training with Grandmother Wren. Sitting on the rug in your study, and your study for being a workspace is quite comfortable. Deep soft, high back, armchairs, rugs everywhere, cushions. This is a place for long-term study, which means that it is not sterile. It's actually quite comfortable filled with charms. many candles are lit floating. Yulea's gone home for the day,

and stars are overhead as you are finally finished moving in and spread out stars of the southern skies along with the diagram of urine. Ami, you get a smell like the bile you expectorated as your curse was broken back in Port Talon as the scroll is like opened up. It smells like, are you okay? Like, that, like, like, the curse and like, like, ugh.

Oh, bile. Oh. I'm going to lean over and delicately sniff. Give me perception checks, Ursula. And Ursula, I think you are here, too. The fox is snoozing. You're here. There's croissants and food laid out.

You have one of those, like, melon and prosciutto sandwiches, like. And like the Chinese takeout containers. A hundred percent. You guys are kind of, especially with Silver's sudden absence, a sudden feeling of like, I think Suvi, you have a sudden sort of feeling of, well, here I am. I'm a mage of the citadel. I have some obligations to the Archmaid's silence that take about an hour out of my day each day. And other than that, I am beginning to be trusted. with the management of my own time.

And there is a degree of horror in the realization that your mark upon the world, the powers that be are assuming you will make it and that you will make it on your own time under your own initiative. So there's a certain degree of like spreading these books out where you realize there is no finger above you pointing at where the next step. is you're just in your study trying to figure your own world out. Looking at stars of the southern sky and looking at the diagram, what did we get in our perception checks? 13. 10. 23. You smell that bile.

It's a, it smells like iron and blood. It's mixed in, it's the accurate smell of bile mixed in with iron and blood. There is something about it that smells, for lack of a better word, it's like, it's like, like pungent, even though the ink is long dry. And there's almost a smell, like, obviously it has iron in it. There's a smell to it that is artificial, this saccharine, weird, sweet, like, there's some kind of feeling to it of like, oh, this doesn't feel like natural in a weird way. The diagram is an intense one that shows a kind of like almost divinion. she asked like anatomical man and one of these animals.

This is a diagram of shapeshifters. It's old. This was made in the first 50 years of the citadel. So this is like a 150-year-old document. Really old stuff like this. Obviously, wizards know how to care for this stuff. But the Citadel has dramatically increased in the past 100 years. So you're in one of the situations where like 80% of your books come from the

last 40 years, right? Yeah. Like, think about, it's just like, oh, it's spinning up. The engine spin up. It's an asymptotic increase in the power of wizardry, right? Ursula, you actually know that this beast form, and the diagram is one of a shapeshifter. This is a beast that you have always thought of Suvi as being, like, just a form. Shapeshippers can take.

This is actually a creature. that exists in the world of spirits. You remember from your childhood, called a G-A-R-R-A-N. So you recognize this as a type of animal that no... That's someone is shifting into. That someone's shifting into. I mean, maybe it existed on U-Mora at one point.

But so you would... You just have a knowledge of beasts and wild things that goes beyond. So you would have a name for this type of animal that doesn't even exist on the page. Anything? It's a garin. It's a, I'm sorry. It's a garin.

And I immediately looked at the page to be like, where is that written? I didn't see that. It's a garin. We have them in the spirit world. Oh, it's like an actual, like a thing. Creature. What would I know about garons from? They're incredibly tough.

They're basically like these like, you know, fucking Clydesdale-sized hyenas that have opposable thumb. So they're like arboreal. I think that you would know that they're really scary, dangerous, predatory animals. But I think you'd make the connection that for a creature that's used to having hands, they're about as dangerous as a beast can get while still being able to manipulate things with a set of hands. That's relatively... So you think of it as not necessarily like what is the nature of this creature. It's a creature.

It has the same instincts that all beasts have. It's predator. But you're like, oh, if you know how important to, like, humans having hands is. So it's like, I think you would isolate that as that's an optimal choice if you wanted to be able to fight but didn't want to give up the ability to hold or carry things. They're incredibly dangerous and still have, they're still dexterous, still able to use tools and those sorts of things. but very, very scary. Are they all humanoids that shape shift? No, they are garrant.

They are born gaurin and die gau. I think, Ames, we cut over to you, too. You're like testing with your alchemist supply. You touch the page and are able to see and tell that the smell has been added to this page. It's the smell was added to the page Afterwards, perhaps to... You said that the curse smelled like your parents' friend urine.

Yeah, like blood, but worse. Give me a little, like, Arcana check here. 15. 15. I think you see... I think 15 is high enough, where you say, And you remember how wildly that name was spelled? Yeah.

And you wonder if it means if there is some etymological connection to the type of creature and what he is literally named, or if that was the name he was born with. Name, his name is a weird name. Cyril, write this down. Of course. Oh, incredible. Yes. Do I have any license? Can I write it?

I mean, I'll get the point across, but you know. Sure. Purple and then we'll check out on it later. Okay, but it will. Sweet. Be prosaic. Wait. Spell urine.

He goes, E-I-O-G-H-O-R-A-I-N. And I think you immediately, linguistically, yeah, connect it as like either of, the or son of the or something like that connected to Garin. Okay. His names are so important. Yorin's name talks about what he is. Thank you.

This puts, it's a piece of the puzzle. They added this, who added the smell? What are you doing? Why are you sniffing that? The scent was added in later, potentially. to clue somebody in and how a garin smells? That makes sense. Almost everything in the Citadel involves identification

and usually a route through which you can destroy it. Do you know all garans smell like this? Give me perception advantage. We'll take the 15 on the die plus perception for 17. This doesn't smell like garrent. You. I mean, it does partially, but I think Ursula, you got close enough to Garin in the spirit world. This is a long time ago, but smell is so connected to memory. The smell of iron and blood and bile, no. There is a deep musk on this page that you do recognize as that smell,

but you're good enough at layering smells together that the blood, you've smelled blood on shapeshifers before. Some shapeshifers, that process is very violent. And it's just that there is like literal injury or even internally that you smell fresh blood or bile as their body changes underneath them. The iron, you can't place at all. An iron has been, I mean, blood has iron in it, but there's this strong thing to it of like, is that extra. And Suvi, you remember from your childhood that that smell was always at the front of the smell when you smelled urine. Did you see? I'm sorry to make you.

Did he ever have iron on him? Iron is traditionally used to hold spirits and... Oh, on his tusks. He had iron on his tusks, and he's a son of Garan. Is he a way-shadowed spirit in some way? I don't know. I don't know, but maybe steel replicated his smell so Grandmother Wren would know him specifically?

Well, I mean, if it was Steele who added the smell, then we can simply ask. Steele brought all of this via me to Grandmother Wren because she was out of... Oh, that's where she had given up. Yeah. But who made, did she, if she made these charts, then surely she has some insight.

Oh, she didn't make these charts. These are very old. 150 years. You also see on the diagram, that there is no indication of iron on the diagrams. I mean, if we follow the logic that Arme is putting forward about him being a spirit, is there anything to... Or the son of a spirit.

Or the son of a spirit. Is there something to the iron being used to anchor him here, or connect him to bring him to this plane, hold him here in some way? The iron seems to be very important. And knowing that he's the son of a spirit, that would be a good tool. You said Steele says they can't find him. You know, they have all of the tools of the citadel

and they can't use Divination to find him. I wonder if that's in any way connected. I think you all also see at this point that up in a box on the desk are all of the assembled notes you have. Speaking of, because you have this stuff on your end here right now, you also have all these. I think you probably have five different boxes alone of just the things you've gathered from the Citadel on Soft and Stone. Yeah. I think looking at Stars of the Southern Skies, you don't see a connection in this book to Suvie's very powerful memory of her namesake as the Wizard Sky and anything like that.

Give me an insight check. 22. Okay, Sufi. As you read Stars of the Southern skies, you are reading a incredibly, for lack of a better word, like basic to intermediate book on constellations and astronomy

for wizards and you know, astronomers looking at the southern sky, the hemisphere of the southern sky. You don't see anything related to what was going on in the attack on Roof or the attack from Rove to the Citadel. Nothing's relating to a timeline. All those things you're looking for do not exist in this book. This book exists to define a number of movements reliably from celestial bodies throughout the southern hemisphere of Umore.

Nothing. I mean, looking at it. over the book. Does that, that clocks as, oh, this is pretty, this is pretty intermediate. Like, this isn't high level anything. Right? Like, I would know that. Yeah. Yeah, okay. I remember reading something.

Like, Did Steele say... Did she still say... Pretty smart. Well, but did she still say why she sent these, sent this one to Grandmother Run along with it? No, I didn't know why

she sent the diagrams of shapeshifters. Not until now. She told me when we got back. We should ask her about the stars. Yeah, we can ask her about all of this. But do you think maybe there is something in this book or the information or why she would send a normal, not very enlightening book to the smartest, oldest person in the world who's probably very good at Starstaff? Do you think it was like some other kind of message?

Well, I remember when we first saw it, we looked for any sorts of codes or signs or anything. I mean, this doesn't mean anything to you or salon, right? No, not at all. Where is Steele? Can we ask her? Oh, she's probably in and around her tower. Or? She doesn't go out on like normal deployments, correct?

She does from time to time. It actually occurs to you that she may very well be dealing with Fort Curran. Fuck. Whatever happened to Fort Curran was sudden and terrible, and they sent a lot of troops and experimental efforts along with. So my guess is they sent Steele also. But we can go check. She's got a whole tower?

Yeah. You go over to Steele's Tower. It's not even late at night. It's like 9 o'clock. You see answering the door is Isra. Isha is a sort of 15-year-old daughter, the first daughter of Steele's second husband. Her hair is very close-cropped.

She's bleached it. She's sort of very pale, a little bit sickly looking. You see she just opens it and goes, Oh, hey, Skye. Hey. Hi. I'm Isra. Hi, I'm Amay.

Bear. Hi, Bear. We were hoping to speak with steel. She flew out. She took a sky ship up north. Yeah. Okay. Oh.

She said to, you see that there's an noise behind her. She walks inside. And you guys see an older kind of wild-haired man. He's got like real bristlebrush, gray and white hair, sort of madcap, long beard, sort of a high-arched Roman kind of nose with a pair of little golden spectacles sitting on it. He looks a little bit older than he is. Like he's probably only in his early 60s, but he looks like a little bit older than that still. The wizards. You see, he's sober.

You recognize this as Sonder. Hey. Hi, Sonder. Hi. He goes, oh, hey, hey. How you doing? He goes, Wizard. He's like, he looks over at both of you and he says,

and do we hope for clear Suvies tomorrow? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Hey, come here. That's very fun. Hi, hi, you're very funny. It's very good. Give him a kiss on the cheek.

Okay. Oh, I like this, this is this Sufi light. Up here. Okay. Okay. It's a very good. You know what? No.

I like it. This is nice. I have a different name now. You see, he says, oh, she didn't get a chance. She sends her apologies. She had to head out. Like, kitty split. But big night last night.

I know today was the tower. She was going to run by and meet you today. Sondra has big house husband of important women energy. Yes. And, you know, he's like an. okay wizard. He's in his early 60s and you would bet that he can make, like,

maybe he can fly. You know, like, it's like, you know, he hasn't like hit the books that hard, you know? So he goes, he goes, she wanted to meet up with you and do it at the tower. She felt like that would be

very special to do, but she left them upstairs. Yeah. So you can go take a look. He takes off immediately. Thank you. He looks and says, okay, peppermint, chamomile, hybiscous.

We got, you want, yes, you want a little... Oh, my goodness. He's offering cake. Yeah, I actually brought some two if you want to, you want to do some tradesies. Oh, oh, Loua, a little tea merchant came in the front door. Well, it seems like you like a lot of decavenated ones. I can't stay up.

Everyone in the Citadel is buzz, buzz, buzzing around. Yeah, yeah. It's a... I found that I really got a lot of blends these days, you know, and I like doing ones that are sort of based on the seasons. Based on the seasons. Talk to me a little bit about seasons and witchcraft.

And do you guys want to sit? Oh, where do we start? Okay, uh-oh. So Juan's kicking off. Here we go. And you see he goes... The Juan's kicking up. You see he goes into a little area.

He like spins a crystal that starts to play some sort of ethereal quiet music. And it's just sort of a crystal bubbling on a little fountain of water. He looks over, Ursula, he goes, bear, you hungry? We have a little bit of honeycomb hanging in a basket over here. I'll take just a bit, Suvi, if we can keep it quick. Yeah, got it, got it. Thank you. You walk upstairs.

This is Steele's little sort of like home office. This is not like her tower. This is not the tower of the sword, but it is the residence. Yeah. And there is a book that is a private sort of journal, and you see that there's a ribbon left in the middle towards the front. One second. Immediately open it. There is a scrap in the middle of the book that has been torn out of some other ledger and left on this page here.

the end of a sentence saying, All our hearts, X-O-X-O, X-O, Shandri Nul, Amon Kedbera-Ket. Beautiful. Resist the urge to leave the scrap. Fold it and folded and folded again and jam it into the palm of my gloves. Me, she could have put it in something else

if she wanted it in something else? What's the journal page? open to. Give me an investigation check. Can we give Suvi advantage if we're willing to listen to this man, talk about T, just a little longer? I will say you can, but you have to say something that this guy would find genuinely interesting. Steele's been asking me to try yoga. We've been doing a lot more stretching. Do you like to stretch? He looks at you and says, buddy, you don't know the first.

first thing about how to stretch, okay? My, I have to, when the sword of the Citadel gets back to the residence at the end of the night, I got to get into those shoulders like I'm building the foundation of a new tower. Do you understand what I'm saying? Goodness, but do you do your flow in the morning?

Oh, I'm loose as a goose. You could pour me down the steps. I could, oh, easy. Here, come do something. We've got a great, come over this arch. Yep, all right. Okay, put your hand out in front of you. And I want you to just walk your hand up the wall, walk it up the wall, walk it up the wall.

That feels so good. And now lean in and just feel that stretch your chest. Can't you just feel like your diaphragm open up? Okay. Hey, I just remembered some huge news. We got ripe cum quots in the kitchen. No kidding. You know that it's so funny that the peels are actually the sweet part of it.

The inside is far more tart. You know, one time I had one growing right next to a small lemon tree, and they just crossed the two branches crossed. See, this is the kind of stuff I'm interested. I should have been a witch. This is the kind of stuff I'm interested. Sir, you would make an amazing witch. Botany is such an underserved science here at the Citadel.

And I'll tell you, let me show you. Can I show you something? I have some lemon saplings. And you see, he walks out. Thank you so much for your survey. You may roll with advantage. There we go, 17 on the dice for a total of 23. I'm so sorry.

No, it's all right. It's all right. It's all good data. You see a list of books called up by deal to her tower and something given to, she's sort of written out in this journal. And you see that it's clearly not what she actually ended up writing. It was like her scratch in a journal of books that she would need. And as you flip through looking for all these different books, you see a lot of them have to do

with the history of spirits that have been bound or captured within the citadel. And you get back to the first page, you got a 23, right? You see that there is a note. And these are almost notes that she's keeping as she's going through some of these texts. You will light at one of them and see a word that I don't know if you would know the significance of, but you just see that it is underlined. you see a line of a number of different creatures. There's a lot here.

You see there's sort of like a couple different names, a couple different titles, and you just see one that says Badger. On two pages before that, you see that she gets a, there's something crossed out in a requisition of histories. And underneath it, she writes Hawthorne, Crest, Battle of Starlings Ford.

Sukkurin. Oh my God. And I will... I'll rip a page out of one of the blank ones in the back with a little note next to like the torn edge. Like I didn't get a clean tear. I never have. I never will.

And in the like little torn airs like, Suvie took this. Yeah, right, Suvie. Suvie took this and I love you and I'm sorry. I'll do it again with a little heart and then start writing down Badger and the Battle of Starling Ford like anything in and around

those words on it was on two pages right? Yeah, separated it and there's lots of notes in between them but they're just like these are ones that your eyes sort of alighted on for whatever reason, yeah. I'll just sort of mental map like the stuff around those words that pulled me and just write it down. Yousu jam,

Usu ice cream, Yuzu candies. Oh, great. Yuzu drops. Everyone's going to have one bite of a leachy frozen yogurt that I... What are we doing? Hi.

And I made it, not with magic. I made it by hand, because I think there's a part of it. There's certain little lost arts, and if you're doing things magically, you don't know how they happen. Everyone's day right here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Moment he leaves. Straight up for the first time, I don't want to eat. Like, I'm a... Honestly, this man keeps feeding me little bites. Yeah. He loves little bites that he makes by hand. Exactly.

Because even every time he offers me one, I just want the whole damn thing. Right, right. Oh, I'm so sorry. Saunder, you're the sweetest. I love you. I have to go. What? I'm having an emotional reaction to information.

Oh, got it, got it, got it. Oh, okay. Everybody take Gorp and go. Oh. But I grab a little baggie. Yay. We'll share. Yeah.

And hey, bear, strength. Yes. But it's flexibility. Of course. You know, it's flexibility. Motility, motility. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you so much.

We have to go. Bye, bye, bye, bye. All right. Everyone get home. Congrats. Right. Thank you. Wizard Sonder.

Like, it's cool that we're both like the same. Gotta go. You guys head out from there. Did you make you have tea? I don't know. I'm not going to process anything. It's great. It was good to read and I liked it very much.

And if I stopped to feel any emotion from the last 24 hours, I'm done. But we're focused. I see. Well, if you ever at any time, okay, go. Oh, yes? No, you go. Oh, okay. If you ever at any time, you need to chat.

You know, please, feel free to find me. We can just have some tea or booze. Oh, thank you. Talk, doc, doc. about feelings. I love spending time with you and you are my true friends. And that sounds very bad to me to have a time where you have to dedicate to feelings. But I will talk to you about anything.

Sure. Because you're the best and I treasure you. And our time, I don't know how long we'll have. Woo. Ooh. It's so, there's mint in the air. We got to go. There's always several oils he wanted us to rub on ourselves.

He suggested they would reduce stress. You arrive back at the Tower of the Glove, adjoining that Tower of the Arkmaid silence. I cannot wait for dimension door. Walking with your feet sucks. Okay, a couple things. We're walking it back. Parents' names are not the pro-win. There's some notes here, and I'm just going to unfold what I've read.

written and fully hand it to you about the names and words, Hoffhorn, all those things around Sir Curran and the word Badger, which doesn't mean anything to me, but... This is from Steele's notebook. Yeah, I almost took the whole thing, and then I realized I am in good graces, and I've got to keep that for just a while. Well, of course, the Battle of Starlings Forge is where I, met Securin in my...

The Battle of Starlingsford is where Sir Curran died. The night that you met centuries ago when you first wandered into the mortal realm, you met in the days preceding the Battle of Starlingsford. So that's that badger. Me and Sir Curran never spoke of a badger, but... My sister Kalaya took the form of a badger, but I'm not... I think this perhaps in some way relates to Steele. Steele made an offer at one of our trainings,

maybe a week ago with regard to helping me return to the spirit world. Can you do that? I don't know. Do you... What did you do you do? Tell her. I did not wish to speak about it at the time, and I assumed that perhaps the matter had been dropped. Well, do you want to?

We would understand. Uh, if you, of course you, I... It's not a matter of... I mean, it, I did have a desire to return. I tried many times, many, many times to return, and was unable. And... had closed myself off to the idea. So it has been difficult to imagine a world in which it is possible.

So I have not... I have very much put it from my mind. So I don't think I have an answer for you as to whether I do or do not. Do you want me to also? There has to be something, anything I can find on wayshadowing? I mean, even more... Is there a chance that my sister is here? Is there any list for the book that Steele was reading?

Yes. What was the context of Badger being written? Oh, I was kind of working my way back to front, and there were a list of books that she's been requisitioning, and it was sort of just in a pile of thoughts. It was amongst a lot of things, but this felt important. Well, I mean... You don't have to have an answer right away, of course.

This is something worth thinking about. You've had to sit with this a long time. Take your time, of course. Well, I mean, perhaps we... If Amay's betrayal that Amay was on earlier is correct, and you're in perhaps in some way hiding in the spirit world, I mean, mayhaps, I won't have a choice. Oh, humans go?

Have you? Had you ever met a human before coming through? No. No, no, never. But I would also, I mean, perhaps there are parts of the spirit world that are more welcoming. But the great bear would not be somewhere that a human could survive for long. Oh. Well, maybe not ordinary humans, but, you know.

A witch can, yeah, Amay would, ooh. No, I'm not saying. He would love you. He'd be like, hey, little witch, oh. You could be Bear's new stepmom. Suvie, stop it. Suvie, stop it right now. Is he attractive?

Is your father attractive? Amet, you stop it right now. Don't we have important wizard business to discuss? What is this? You arrive back in Cuvie's study amongst the red cushions. Oh, can I make one quick stop? Yes. As we were getting back into the room, I would have stopped at the Ayrrith.

And just hold on, I'll catch up with you. And I think a new ritual is starting at the end of the day. It's normally an afterthought for Suvie. She forgets things constantly. But she will begin a deliberate at the end of the night when she knows there is no more. great work to do, that she will pour all the remnants of her magic in and hope that any of it reaches to silver and can protect him. Give me an Arcana check. Please, guys, don't fuck up my moments.

Natural one. Oh, my gosh. You send this heiress, this power, source of your magic. Deep into the emerald, thinking only of silver, wanting it to go to him. And you know unshakably and without question that that magic goes to the heart of the citadel to wait, disappearing endlessly into the rest of that source below. The citadel will see it used, how the citadel will see it used. Let that be enough.

and I go and meet my friends. A more somber Sufi enters the chamber here. It is having traveled to the Tower of the Sword, which is pretty close. These Archmagic towers are, you know, Malacanth is not the biggest neighborhood in the world, but it's getting to be a little bit like after 11 o'clock at night. Is there any other studying you do here in this place?

There are, you have the Yorin diagram, you have the stars of the southern sky, You have all the things about Soft and Stone and your research there with this new information gleaned from Steele's journal, which as you go back to think about it, you must warrant some conversation with Steele. Absolutely. I mean, it's like it was on a to-do list on her desk that she left your parents' name in. So clearly this is not top secret classified whatever. but it's interesting because it's so close to you. Wanted me to see it.

She wanted me to help. This is what I'm good at. This is what I do. I will look into this. If I have anything to report, do you want to know? Or is it? I would like to know, yes. And I go over to the ink, the ink bottles, and I will let Cyril back out.

Great. Right. One an energy just immediately. Oh. Don't be sad, Cyril. But within my melancholy moans, there lies a great untapped heart which beats with such passion. He's so sensitive. Don't say that. No, no, no, no, it's a good thing. It's a good thing.

You're hurting him, Ahmed. No, no, no, no. I mean, the soul of a poem must needs be sensitive. Of course. To be wracked with the urban flow of life's many maelstroms is the destiny and curse alike of each great poet. Honestly? Good words, the delivery makes me feel crazy. Latte, new chance. It's a new day.

I need... It's 11.15 p.m. Okay. New day for you, you're out of the bot. Hey, don't question me, bud. I've simply meant to inform the great wizard's sky, lest her spellcasting be rent a thunder by miscalculation of the hour of the day. We appreciate your fastidiousness. We do. Coffee so much. Please.

Capucino, macchiato. Oh, hey, make a new. What do you think I would like? I think. Read me like one of your poems. Then I shall read. you while crying. Oh, wait. I think you'd like a flat white.

All right, to make it too flat white. Two, going for three? Oh, I would love some green tea, please. Some macho. Two flat whites and a green tea. Coming right up. Thank you. Oh, my.

Blasies out of the room. Okay, I have so much work to catch up on, and I am not going to reuse. books. I just, I can't, like, I can't, I don't have the attendance fan to sit and read about it. So I'm going to go and, uh, tomorrow, uh, oh, God, it's late. Okay. Um, I guess maybe tomorrow I'll go out and I will try and find some of grandma, grandmother, grandmother, runs allies here in the Citadel. Um, the two of you, of course, are. I don't know if you've actually mentioned the out, because you would know some of these people in the Citadel. Oh, I'm a... Oh, I see. I'm sorry. I neglected to give you the actual names of the contacts.

But yes, I apparently have friends and allies all across the world of Amora. But specifically in the Citadel, apparently there's a Golt the Artificer who's at Tilliver Mill, Slive's Abroach, Head of Divination, Pomeroy and Quina Thrananinir, who are spirits. And I just, I kind of want to check in and see how I can prepare for my duties and to see what they know about Grandmother Wren. And perhaps they know something about the League of Whispers and the Huckett. Those names, did any of her allies that she mentioned for me? So Pomeroy is what the spirit is called. You don't know Pomeroy the name offhand because Pomeroy is a spirit that works.

in the court of Zhao. Zhao College is the conjuration college. You know some of it because your father, Soft, was a conjurer. You know, he was a teleportation specialist, and your mother's stone was an abjurer. The Kassoff collection is specifically a collection at Gossamer Plaza at the center of Zhao College, which is where the conjurers study. It's one of the 24 courts. Pomeroy, you've maybe heard of,

but you know that if they work at the Kastoff Collection, that's a collection that basically keeps tabs of and manages all of the bound spirits and entities within the Citadel. So your knowledge, if you're a spirit working at that place, you're almost like a spirit working as like a, for lack of a better word, like keeping tabs, on the other spirits that are being housed, invited to, or kept and bound and imprisoned within the citadel.

Galt, you know, Galt is Hanna's father. Oh, Galt? Down in... Delivermill? Yeah. Oh, I don't think you got to meet her. I don't remember if we... If she was even there last night, my friend, Hana, the person I told you almost died when we were playing in the wells.

Oh, the one who you said could make me a shield and then we shouldn't bother her about making me a shield. That, Hannah? I think it's time to bother her about a shield. Oh, lovely. The last person you would know, the wizard sly. Sly is in Kabani, which is. is the diviners court. Sly is the

head of the office of preemptory catastrophic deviation, which is one of the old, Sly is a very old wizard. He's over a hundred years old. Whoa. And he's been around for a long, long time, but

he's just one of men. There's a lot of life-lengthening things that older wizards do. So these offices that there's kind of I think a young wizard would sort of go like, ooh, they get old and they congeal and there's kind of a film at the top of the hierarchy where you get put in these offices where now you do this

and this is why you're still helpful. The Office of Preemptory Catastrophic Deviation, your understanding of that office is a bit of a joke because it's an office dedicated to, averting apocalypses and world-ending events that are in their pre-nacency,

where it's like they have a 0.001% chance of happening, and when it moves to 0.002, there's this office that's like, ah, something appears on the horizon. Like, it's an office of like, this one diviner, this, like, one soothsayer

is responsible for things, that are huge risks that have less than a fraction of a percent of a chance of happening. Oh. Oh. Sly? Are you sure that's your ally?

That's what Grandmother Run said. Okay. Either Grandmother Run has a penchant for sticky old wizards doing bullshit in the corner or Sly is, secretly the coolest. My money's on the first one. He does, he's just, he's, he dreams of

apocalypses and wonders if they'll have, look, bias, bias, I see it, I see the look in your eyes, I'm sorry, we can go find any and all of them in the morning if that's what you want to check in with. I would very much like to do that. And it sounds like we could also get a shield for Ursula, and also with Pomeroy, perhaps inquire as to other spirits. It's going to be, I don't think you're going to like it there.

You might not like it there. I'm not going to tell you how you're going to feel. Why won't I like it there? The Cassoff Collection is kind of where we store all the information about the spirits that are here both with and maybe a little bit against their wills. Interesting. Now when you say against their wills Sometimes, okay, look, I know the way you're both looking at me and I'm going to explain. No, no, no, no, I just...

Please explain. Sometimes there's big, mean spirits that wizard taxonomy would classify as a demon that cause problems. And so we grab them. Trap them? So they don't cause problems? Mm-hmm. Look, it feels thin now. It feels thin.

It felt like it made more sense. But I get, I get, I get how it sounds. I get how it sounds. Well, we'll go and have a look. Okay. Yeah, I think we got it. And if we need to, pull out wave breaker. If we need to.

Please don't. Please don't. I still, it's my sword. You gave it to me. The next day, you all awaken. I didn't sleep. Suvi did not sleep.

I also slept as little. I, as late as felt appropriate, I snuck out to go train. Nice. Went out and trained that night. Coffee all night, and I'm going through my parents' death. And I'll sleep in the training room. In the training room. Amé, as you drift off to sleep,

you see the fox comes over and crawls on your chest. He looks up at you. Hey, boss. Hi, Fox. I'm getting a little antsy. Why? Been away from real grass for a long time. I know.

To be honest, me too. I really like being here with my friends, and right now we have some important work still to do here. But we're going to go back to the cottage. Soon. I told Suvi at least just a week, which we have that much work to do, possibly even more some. But then we're going home. A week. Okay. Yeah. We can do a week. Do you think those other witches are going to get mad? I hope not. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. There are three colors. There's, oh, there's a little. red in the rug, there is blue on the tapestries and green on that.

As Ahme drifts off to sleep, Ursulaan, you train down below. Where is Ursulaan as he trains, having heard about the Kasov collection? Uh, I think Ursulaan is in, is in him in Steele's training room. and has pulled out one of the dummies and is just hacking away at it just a little bit more I think the form gives way to wrath and I'm going to say that

I bonus action cast wrathful smite and I'm just giving it to this training dummy your training are you wielding wavebreaker Oh, yeah. The smell of honey and mist. Sever the mannequin in half. I go get a second one from the cupboard.

And we moved to Suvi. You're up all night. Cerels back in his bottle. There's a little cappuccino. The cappuccino on top of it, the words are all messed up. But on top of it, it said, A wizard's studies ever late

Her shoulders heavy burdens great Yet light will ever meet the sky For one who always wonders why I really like Cyril And slam back the whole drink If his magic is a place I cannot reach Then my mind will extend in every direction here.

There are so many mysteries. One's for me and ones for my friends. And I know I am selfish, hoping that they'll stay. I know they can't. And I'll apologize tomorrow for selfishly asking. There's always going to be more time. But I need to spend whatever I have on figuring this out. I can figure it out.

Give me an investigation check. 11. Pouring over these. Remember, you now have a homunculus. Go ahead and roll with advantage. Oh, look at that. What is a fucking wizard's homunculus for? If not exactly this, the caffeine does its job.

23. There we know. I'm zero. There is more stuff, you know, these five boxes, the notes are so small in prosnickety. Give me a question. Suvie is trying to answer. here in the research that she is staying up feverishly this night to accomplish. Where is the focus of her study?

There are so many answers to questions in here. You just need the context to know what they are answering. Like you look at their writings and you don't always know what the writing was for or what the spell they were researching was. Something seems brilliant but disconnected from something else because you don't have them to consult with and say, why did you put this here? What is the question you were trying to answer in the negative space of creating your parents from the record they left behind.

Looking at my parents, that sort of race between conjuration and abduration, creation and pushing forward and defending. Who was in a bigger rush? Were they trying to find something new to find a new edge or shore up a defense against something that they saw was coming? Going through their scraps. You find a message of dismissal from the citadel for a name that you only just learned was your mother's.

Prior to her getting her name cloak, you see that she was dismissed and banished from the citadel and that the order was later rescinded based on an outburst against one of her teachers, whom she accused of treason against magic itself. And that's all for this episode of the wizard, the witch, and the wild one. That's fucking rude, dude. Why are you like this?

That was Lou Wilson as Ursula, Erica Ishii as Amé, Abria Aynagar as Suvi, and Brennan Lee Mulligan as everyone and everything else. The On Number is produced and scored by Taylor Moore and edited and designed by Jared Olson and Taylor Moore at Fortunate Horse. Welcome to the team, Jared. Your staff of the Fortunate Horse is in the mail, I promise. Thank you to Michael Gelfy for additional sound design and to Will Savino for additional music in this episode.

Will is a terrific tabletop composer, and you can find mountains of his wonderful music on Spotify and YouTube and Bandcamp and anywhere else you care to search for. for it. Check out the show notes for links. For even more like this, join us on the World's Beyond Number Patreon. You'll see you there.