Worlds Beyond Number - WWW #20: Later Than You Think

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

Tick tock. Tick tock. What time is it? How much is left? Can we have five more minutes? The gang's investigation has pierced the veil of the Citadel, and peering back at them through the penumbra is the great iron face of a clock, hands moving up and down, rotating and returning like the silent islands in the sky. Hands that hold you back, spin you round, or throw you, gasping.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 OlsonSPECIAL THANKS TO: Tazer Army, Shannon, and Amanda Freberg!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. A small outdoor patio partially shielded from the bright sunlight by trellises of Jasmine and Violet. A small cafe with several Mr. Callums carrying drinks to and fro from a small rack of samovars, mixing stations, a silver tureen filled with ice, and a number of decanters of various and sundry lemonade. A small table seats Ursulae, Suvi, Ame, and a peevish-looking pomeroy, who even near sunlight seems to wither, as you notice that the skin hanging from his temples,

the tops of his hands, inflate and deflate slightly with his breath. A little bit of patchy work on his human glamour. A little bit of ruckus inside. Cafe is a nice place for us to engage in conversation. Which of Toma? I understand you have some questions you would like me to answer, and I would be more than how.

to end this interaction as swiftly and helpfully as I possibly can. I thank you for your graciousness. Well, first of all, were you bound here by Grandmother Wren? Bound here by Grandmother Wren? No. I was not bound. Grandmother Wren knew my private business. And in so doing, I believe, if I am allowed to speak freely in front of present company, you may. I believe, Archmaid apprentice, Sky, that it might be of great interest for the Citadel to know

that both the previous and current witch of the world's heart seem to see fit to have the knowledge of my private business give them a huge insight into the workings of the Citadel, which I believe, The citadel may well have been unaware of, and that I was forbade on the cost of such private business from ever communicating to them. In other words, your witchiness, your mentor seemed quite happy to leave a little foothold in the vastness of the citadel. Not exactly so kindly in that regard, was she? Interesting. Ooh. CV's very, like, tight-lipped

and just pulls out a very small notebook and makes a note. Certainly believe that now that I am allowed to speak more freely, at least to present company, it might be worth mentioning to someone that this huge oversight in the defense of the citadel has been allowed to faster

for seemingly quite some time. What's the nature of the information that you would pass to Grandmother-in? Well, it's nothing worth passing to her now, is there, that there is a new successor to her station? I mean simply to say that the previous witch of the world's heart made frequent use of the fact that an important member of the Citadel's private business had fallen into her hand, and she visited many times and made such a... Impressions on me. Like, good impressions? She used the power she held over me in private biddings within the collection

and forbade me to ever speak of them, until now when the witch of the world's heart yet again commands me. Yes, and now I would love to be updated on the sort of business that she had here. You see his shadows kind of squirm behind him World's heart and saw twice stopped by

certain paintings from the collection How would she know which ones to take? He did not share that information with me Do you know which ones she took? Do you have a list? Supply you with one if you wish? I would wish so. When was the last time she took

a painting. I would say it was not a frequent occurrence perhaps seven years ago. Noted. Did anyone else know of this besides yourself? No.

No, they did not. In each instance that a painting went missing, the witch of the world's hearts timed her efforts with some or other criminal act of punishment within the citadel. So there are certain wizards who were already set to be banished or dismissed for actual crimes that they had committed,

that the former witch of the world's heart was clever enough to pay to also confess to the stealing or destruction of these paintings. Wow, Grandma Wren. Interesting. I believe that my companion also has some questions for you. Ursula? The Badger. Before my time, but I believe that the spirit, Kalaya, was released from this place some 22 years ago.

Released? By whom? As I've said, before my time. time. This collection used to be guarded by human conjurers, wizards of the citadel. One such wizard committed an act of extreme oversight and carelessness, and over several dozen spirits were released from the collection. And I would know that is soft. I don't think, Suveh shared it. I read the notes. Oh, you did read the notes. You would know that's soft. Yes. It takes a spirit, and this is the first time you see in Pomeroy refer to himself as such.

It takes a spirit to think like a spirit, and my gifts. And here you see shadows of spider webs behind him. Of entrapment are many. It was a wise and benevolent offer to place me in the charge of these captains. No such mistakes have been made sense, with the exception of those hateful times throughout the years that Grandmother Wren made her appearances here. Certainly no escape in an order of magnitude similar to when gifted and wise human wizards were placed in charge of the collection. Having researched the escape, so as to shore up whatever whole, holes caused it. I was able to discover how we came into the charge of the Badger Spirit.

The Badger Spirit was discovered here at the Citadel under a human glamour. At the time, 22 years ago, she had been at the Citadel already for 52 years. going by the appellation of the wizard's stripe. Do you know how she was found out? That information was not deemed of significance to the collection or my previous human predecessors. So the bachelor Kalaya was a wizard? No, no.

But certainly was gifted enough in those ways. of the breath that you and I possess, that she was able to pass as one, pass as one under the watchful eyes of an entire citadel of wizards for some decades. I think Ursulaan has been incredibly tense, and this, I think, honestly, is the first time he is,

and, like, I think, softens and relaxes just a little. I'll pass you a little tea cake. I use one finger just to scoop a little bit of it. Strongest man in Siddly. Have I given you the information you were seeking? At this time, yes. You don't have to answer this one if you don't want to.

But why are you here? How did you come to the Citadel? Are you happy here? In a thousand years. darkest, dankest places of the world of spirits. I have never hoped to have caught this many feasts within my web, not given to feed upon them here. The pride I feel sustains me more than blood ever did.

Men's of this tower, will I be forever loyal? I am not bound here. The sun. He moves his hand back. the sun touches his skin. Well, I am glad that you have found her heart's desire. Please, if you could, send the list of paintings to the Tower of the Wizard's sky. It will be done, which of the world's heart?

You mustn't speak of this. I forbid you from speaking of this to anyone else. The shadow of legs moving through. thread, twitch in frustration as a knot is tied in shadow across the neck of the humanoid figure of Pomeroy. Speak of what? What here has occurred but an explanation of some of the most captivating pieces of the collection.

The research you've requested shall be sent. Am I free to leave? You may. Cheers, Squeaks. gets up and walks away wordlessly. How are you both feeling? A little out the loop? If I'm being very honest.

I didn't quite catch everything myself. I heard nothing. You mean the painting? I, yes. Whatever you were interacting with was silent to me. Hmm. Is it your necklace? and CIV's hand reaches up

and she sort of strokes the necklace sitting under her clothing. Maybe. He told me of what you and the other wizards do here in terms of trapping spirits. Now he told you his version of what it was,

Rousselaun. And then when you commanded him to speak truthfully, he reiterated it, admitting he'd embellished, but suggesting that part of what he said was true, and that there was trapping against the spirit's will. I don't wish to anger you. I'm not angry. That's what he said. I said as much when I asked if you wanted to come here, that not every spirit in the citadel was there, was here.

of their own volition. Yes, but you failed to admit that someone like my sister, Calliah? I didn't know. I didn't know. Oh, okay. I had no idea. I don't spend time here. If I had known, I would have come to you. The moment I read the name Badger, I ran to you with that information, and I am sorry. My anger is misplaced in you, Sufi, but I thought what we saw, what Morrow did.

I thought that that was of a different kind of wizard. But it seems that all of you feel some sort of entitlement that makes me think perhaps I do not belong in. You. I think it's worth mentioning that the event 22 years ago that freed her... Was your father. Yes. Your father? Soft was written up for an act of carelessness and recklessness.

In allowing that great escape? In enacting it. Suvi's affinity for spirits is... very much in her blood. Oh. She could have met your father and mother. You and me both. Do I know when we spoke about Kalaya,

did he say, so the timeline that he said was that for 50 years she was living here in a glamour, she wasn't trapped here, she was passing as a wizard. Correct. But then she was released. She was discovered.

She was discovered. Captured. and then released during that great escape of spirits from the collection. And that escape was 22 years ago. That escape was 22 years ago. All of which is prior to Ursulon's second venture into the mortal world. The first one of which was three centuries ago when you first met a human knight, Sir Curran. And then the last one of which was 14 years ago.

I don't understand. Did your sister, when did she come through? I don't know. She was chasing me. When I was a child, and I had come back to the spirit world and told my father of Sir Curran and my desire for honor. He instructed me to bury the paltren, and I'd touch it up on my shoulder.

to bury it and that it might grow a tree and that I might find rest beneath it. Calliah accompanied me as I went to do so, but then I ran and ran back through the gate that had let me into your world. Kalaya, I believe, followed me, but I lost track of her. So perhaps in that chase, she also crossed over. I'm not sure. So maybe she was looking for you? But now she's back in the spirit realm.

We don't know, above the table, we don't know if she's back in the spirit realm, right? We just know she escaped the citadel. Yeah. Ursula has explained everything as well as possible. When Ursula came back, you leapt through the portal and Kalaya was right behind you. Now, you let back into the mortal world and were trapped within that rotting log where the thing had been. Remember when Amay's foot came above you when little Ami and little Sui were playing in the woods during that summer? You kind of wonder how long you might have been in that log for.

I mean, crossing over into the world, you know that something happened with time, but you spent so long in the dark coming back with the paldron, hearing your father's voice saying you had, you know, that any future time would come with a price, you know, that you've been to the mortal world without paying a price for the final time, and you went back anyway. Calliah was right on your heels and you wonder did she end up right behind you? No, because she would have come across

Grandmother Wren's cottage was the nearest thing to that part of the world. And then you wonder about all the other ways of crossing over from the spirit to the mortal world. You don't know what age Kalaya might have been when she got here.

I mean, what did Ursulae say about? about the mortal world when you were there. You talked about knights. You talked about the paltren and honor and Sir Curran. Goliah might have found a way to find Sir Curran. She could have been in the mortal world for 300 years. You have no way of knowing.

But you know that at some point in the last century, a badger spirit bearing her name, which goddamn, that's gotta be her, right? Showed up at the Citadel, disguised herself as a wizard. and was able to live here for decades. What was she doing? I would say the other thing you know, where Calliah's thread goes,

or where Calliah's trail goes cold for you again, is in this escape, where basically all these spirits got out of the citadel, and if they made it somewhere, findable, then they'd be back in the collection. So in other words, you know that they're not findable, and that's a good thing. They made it out far enough where the wizards couldn't track them down,

which means the trail's gone cold for you, but that's not necessarily bad. It means that your sister, if she is still alive, at least made it out of the citadel. We have to find out what she was researching here. Fun fact. In an environment like this, competitive though it is,

everything you research and look up is noted by us. others. So we might be able to find out what she was looking up. But if there is a record still available of what the wizard stripe cared about, then us looking those things up is incredibly suspicious. I don't want to put any kind of target on bears back. Isn't there some way to Have somebody else's name

Down in the card at the libraries Or I don't know how it works Can we just take the books? Don't look... You're lawless incredibly quickly Look Laws

Are not always meant to protect you They're meant to make people do things That the powerful people don't want you to do Here here, says the fox All right, calm down. You compelled a spirit to silence. So I think we can all talk about volition all day long. But he sucked, so.

And the fox, again, flawless. Hey. Yeah. Hey. So where do you head to next? Do you head to Cabani or Havardward? Two of the, well, one of which is a court of the city. Delt on the other, which is the city at its base.

What's the next bummer on our list, Amé? Well, it's your friend Hannah's dad, Tilliver Mill. I do want to do that. But it's at the bottom, so do we want to finish there or go there next and then bounce back up to a platform? Oh, do you know Sly? No, but I just assumed any wizard with an S name would be up here rotating about. Oh. I don't know everyone that goes here.

I just give him a little, like, nod. I feel like everyone knows you, though. Yeah. Legacy. Ursula? I wouldn't mind swinging by, Trudeau's chowder on our way back. See, the fox goes, ooh, yeah.

So perhaps we end in Haverford. Oh, yeah. Maybe we can slip in a little bit of fun and food and friendship down there. Gotta make the most of all this time. Yeah, fun. Okay, let's go to the divination or the apocalypse guys. Yeah. You head over, and Zhao being the conjuration port, you don't even have to get a galithopter.

You walk up and you see that there are these guys that for a small fee, there are these young wizards that are just dimension door specialists. They have these little circles of, so it's a big stone platform at the edge of the court. These young guys that are just sweating, they're shirtless, they're like wearing aprons, they're wiping their foreheads off. They have these huge torches on long iron poles.

And they're dumping bright red and orange sand into these kind of ash-covered depressions in the stone, whispering some words, lighting the sand on fire and a fiery door appears to anywhere else in the citadel. And it looks like some very busy mages are like, you can hear people being like, what's the, the galaphyra's not until 8 o'clock? God, okay, you know what? And the guys hold out hands, and they seem to be making a killing these young conjuration wizards.

They walk up and they go, hi, where you want to get to? Where you're trying to go? Kabani. Okay, we can put your right where you want to go. Is there an office you're trying to go to in Kabani? The Diviner's Court. Can you get us right up to disjunction? Yeah, gotcha, hold on.

And they start pouring some sand, which was a couple words. You see that he actually nudges a little circle of stone with his feet rotating it, like a little dial in the stone platform, lowers the giant sort of fiery staff. Roosh, this door appears. And he goes, okay, go, go, go, go. You walk through, it's only open for about, like, six seconds. You got to walk through as the door starts diminishing. Fox bleeps through.

That's wild. I don't like that. Suvi immediately pulls out a small jar of like pultus and starts like, it's weirdly humid even though it's fire and her hair has gone incredibly frizzy and it's just kind of pushing it back into place. I don't love that. And then I'm just like, Fox, come here. You're a little, you're a little floofed. Oh, I am. Just going to pat him down real quick.

The fire is so wet. I'm still hot. Right? The court of Kobani is the court of Dibon. And you see this place is covered in astronomers' domes and bridges everywhere. There are these beautiful clay buildings that have little sort of like ramparts. It looks like the entire court is hanging out on a roof. It's like a whole dominion of roof parties. Just roos everywhere, people drinking out on a roof, looking out on a roof.

And you can even see that like as much as instant. as far as there are buildings, the buildings almost all lead to courtyards. And the temperature here, there's a lovely light breeze blowing by. But for the most part, this place seems really active and open. There's not that much oppressive architecture here. And you walk around, and there's a lot of, like, glass floors. So you'll walk under, like, an arch or a bridge and be able to, like, look up and just at an angle, like, see people up through another place, having a party up on another ledge. The only sort of thing that's very bright,

like the white clay on everything is very bright, and the paintings, as you can see them, appear to be patterned. So there's, like, jigsaw patterns or seesaw patterns, rows of dots, rows of dashes, lots of, all in, like, bright colors, like greens and reds and yellows, primary colors. And you'll see the other big sort of architectural theme of Kibani

is water everywhere. There. Fountains, waterfalls. You see there's like a 20-point waterfall stopping at the height of the architecture in the center of the court that comes down, races down like a mirrored slide, hits a fountain. The fountain pops across making like a watered archway that goes into another part of a building, lots of aqueducts. So the sound of like burbling water is everywhere. Walking up to another courtyard, there's just a small, humble wooden door and above it in a Imperial, you see that it says the Office of Peremptory Catastrophic Deviation. The courtyard outside of this is stuffed with crates, enormous crates everywhere. Crates that are marked like private, confidential, top secret. There are things that, like, clear, you see that there's one small crate that's been opened, and priceless rubies are just scattered on the, like, sort of like, soft yellow sand. outside the doorway.

This is why we put our rubies in a jar. It's so fucking messy. So who? This is the wizard, sly. Sly. Yeah. Hey, did you guys know? Sorry, there's no way you would know.

I just found out. My mom used to be a diviner. Oh. Previously becoming an abjura. Before her name cloaking, she actually got kicked out. She got kicked out. Your mom got sad. Dad, sister.

Mom, I'm kicked out of school. It's not a school. Oh. Is that hard to do or easy? Do people get kicked out often? Uh, once you're kind of graduated through, I think it's kind of hard to do. Wow, so she really, she really stuck her foot in it. Yeah.

But then was brought back in a different... Wouldn't she get kicked out? Okay, stop it, stop it. You're too excited. I don't want to tell you because you're too excited about it. Oh, yeah, okay. Really, just really quick, hold on. And I'm just like nudging the rubies.

I hate mess. I'm just like, hold on, let me just, and I lean down. And as I'm picking him up, she accused her mentor of treason. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Against the Citadel? Yeah.

Did he do it? Did she do it? You would actually know. Did they do it? It was not against the Citadel? It was against magic itself. Yeah. Weirder.

Just against the platonic ideal of magic. What does platonic... Here it means something very different. Oh, no. Against... Treason against the very idea of magic. Yeah. Can you do that?

I don't know. I mean, you can and then you get kicked out. Macs not like a guy. Oh, yeah. Crazy. Wow. Bear Cracker. Big reaction from Bear.

I mean, she clearly immediately, she was so good, she got brought back and continued to kick ass. Yeah, that's what happened. Anyway, sorry, we should go in the thing. What's this guy's name again? He's the wizard sly. He is the head of the peremptory,

catastrophe, deviation. Yeah, it's the sign right here. Oh, yes. Is there anything? else about him that we should know about grammar and like is this another spirit? No, I think this one is... Well, this one

is a very old wizard and I think she had said that he was a true friend. Oh. So, yeah, okay. Yeah. Sure. Well, after you. Hopefully a better experience than this morning. Yeah. Don't push me

again. Open the door. Don't get in my way. As you go to open the door, the door opens and a kindly old man. You see there's an older black man. He's got a snow white beard. A long coat, which is not just to seeing wizards wear.

There's a lot of visitors here that have robes. Deep crow's feet around his eyes. It looks like his eyes are kind of shut, like it's too bright. And you notice that his eyes are seemingly all people. Like they're just black. They look like he doesn't have any whites to his eyes. So he's just like focusing very intently and sort of squinting against the light.

This sharp-looking cream-colored coat, high collar, the collar banded in a little bit of like gold embroidery. It's like a little bit like leaves curling or cool. Crisp white shirt, sort of charcoal slacks. And you see that he has matching his sort of cream, almost like a camel hair coat. He's got a little matching flat cap that he puts on a shaved head as he looks out. And he opens it right as you're there. And he says, no one's going to take the rubies. And you see he, uh, divination.

He looks out and says, oh, oh, little army. And he goes, just gives you a big hug. Oh, wow. I return the hug. I know you won't remember meeting me, but you were, I, you were about this high. I had come by the cottage. How is... Oh, I know.

Just the moment I asked it, I knew it. It was dead. Nicholas, what a piece of work that goat was. You knew the... I forgot. I'm sorry. I never actually met Nicholas, but I knew him. No. Nicholas, wait, you never met him, but you knew him?

You see, he points to his eyes. And as you look, you get both mesmerized for a moment as you see stars. You're looking at a night sky. You see, he goes, I see it all. And you see, he takes out some very funky little circular purple sunglasses and puts them on. Uncle, I love you. Damn.

You see, he looks over and says, let's go. And you see, he just leaves the door unlocked in a jar. No, nope, nope, I'm going to close it. Do you have a key? And I just do like the most minor locking. It doesn't. No one's going to try to break in for another year. And you see, he walks away.

What? Okay, diviners. Take a Ruby. I'm taking a Ruby. I want him to be wrong. I'm not lean down and take one. You lean down and take a Ruby. Go ahead and put a flawless Ruby in your inventory.

Oh, my God. Is everyone here eat meat? Everyone eat meat here? Yes. Great. Oh, yes. Very much so. He says, all right.

You see, the Fox says, I eat meat. And you see, he goes, great. And he walks over. And you see that there is a small, it is, just a circular hole in the wall that has a beautiful little broad red paint pattern around it. And inside there's just a small kitchen where you see Mr. Callum is making what look like some sort of like pita sort of like donor sandwiches. Oh. And there's like a spicy, zesty kind of coleslaw thing going in them.

It looks like cabbage and different oils and some spices and things like that. Wow, that was amazing. It sounds so good. He goes, oh, this is good. I like to eat standing out. They don't have seating here. Is that okay? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Well, I'm happy you were able to stop by. The, oh, condolences, congratulations. I'm sorry and welcome. Thank you. I appreciate it. Her memory is still such a light to me, and I'm so wonderful to be here. Uh, this, do you know, uh, suvi?

Or, yes. Hi. The Wizard Sky. Hi. Pleasure. Uh, I was to meet you. Wizard Sly beat Wizard Sky. Oh, look at us.

We run. This is nice. Bear. Bear. Oh, unless my eyes deceive me the strongest man in silver. Word has gotten a route. It actually hasn't, but that's all right. I have business later today, but I was holding off until you got here.

Do you have anything you need from me? Or do you not know what you need from me yet? It's mostly that last one, yes. I think that I would love to hear some of your business with Gramer Wren, and she said you were a true friend, and I need anything that I can do to prepare for, joining the elders of the coven, the Coven of Elders, the Elder Coven. Thanks.

Hmm. Well, that's going to happen sooner rather than later. I would say you probably only have about three days before it's too late. Three days? Wait, too late for what? Before it's too late. For what? Well, before the Coven meets without you.

This is just what I've seen is definitely going to happen. Oh, is this one of those immutable prophecies or sort of perhaps it could be some sort of a monkey's paw, like a wording situation is all screwy? No, no, no, no. This is right in the pocket of what I call prophecy and common sense. And where those two things meet, it gets hairy quickly. What am I supposed to do to prevent that from happening? Too late for what? Too late, meaning that they will meet in conclave without you.

I can give you the warning of what they're going to try to do. Yes, yes. Okay. They are going to try to destroy you, and in so doing destroy the station of the witch of the world's heart. What? What? One of your sisters is going to make the argument that your existence

threatens the nature of magic in the world of Umura. And the only way, in the majority of cases where you win that argument, you win it because in order to get rid of your station, they would probably magically have to get rid of another. So Amai needs to defend herself. Well, you will fail in defending yourself. but you will succeed in maybe convincing them that there's not another station that they can also get rid of. Uncle, your delivery is wild.

Yes, I must say for someone is wise, it would seem as yourself. Your ability to communicate this information doesn't seem like it's improved over the many years. You've been dividing. I'm getting a note on my bedside manner? Very much so. But not your food recommendations. This is very good. This is actually delicious.

It's so good. The zesty coleslaw is, totally. Yeah, the cold slas. Really brightens it up. It brightens it up. It's a crunch because the meat is heavy and musky. Yeah, okay. Okay.

She's kind of cry eating. Okay. That's okay. It's going to be okay. Look. We will get you there. We have three days. Yeah.

I found that bedside manner doesn't actually make a difference. Okay. That's true. People have the information or they don't. And once they have it, my job's done. I've been really sweet and people haven't listened to me. I've been really brusk and they have. And it saves more time and effort for me to be brusk.

I got a lot of people to tell a lot of bad news to. Can I have a piece of bad news? You're not ready for it. Can I have a piece of good news? Yeah, you're on the right track, kid. See, now, why can it always be like? like that. He just starts

walking back towards his office. He's like, I moved my office here. Three years ahead of when they opened up that donor spot. Nobody knew why I put in a bid for it. As he walks to his office, you walk in, funky smell

in here. You see that there is an incredibly ugly like, there is a in a bird cage, you see that there is a gawky, lanky, kind of pheasant with macaw colorings on it.

Like scarlet and royal blue kind of lanky pheasant hanging from a massive wicker birdcage. It's smell. The smell of like cracked seeds and pungent bird waste kind of fills the office in an unpleasant sort of way.

This place is littered with treasures. There's a lot of like ripped up archaunt. in here. There's like a lot of complex spell engines that are partially disassembled. There's also newspapers from all over the empire and in many languages. You see a straight up Ruvian newspaper. You see that there is some kind of like a pamphlet, like mass printing pressed thing for like Gouthmi in here. They're sort of scattered around. There's a musty paper smell in this place. you see that there is a massive orrery used for complex divinations that is lying sort of out of its packaging and looks like it's never been assembled. And in his office, everything is a fucking mess.

Just stuffed drawers, unusable, so much workspace covered with stuff. There's just a tiny little clear space that has. has an arcane clay tile heating block that just can heat up as a little ceramic block with a word of power. And there is a much beloved tea kettle on it. And the place is scattered with little teacups with leaves clumped in sort of different states of drying out at the bottom all over the office. CV looks like she's on the verge of a mental breakdown. I have to clean this. Don't, don't, don't.

Can I help? I know where everything is. I know where everything is. Right, but... Yeah, you can't just touch somebody's workspace? I'm asked, can I at least set up your ornery? Why was... No, the orrery, I already got all the good parts out of there.

Do you want me to get rid of the rest of the part? No, it's fine. It's never going to come up again. Don't worry about it. I'm worried. Okay, so where are they meeting? Huh? Yeah. I think you couldn't damn know where they're meeting. They're meeting at the North Pole.

No thanks to you. They're meeting in a giant fortress of ice, which is going to be the second time in the century that they've met at the Witch of Wind and Stars domain, which is throwing everything off balance because you were out getting blasted at a beer garden after inheriting one of the most important witches stations in the world. of an art form and a domain that is directly tied

to whether or more will survive the coming conflagration of magical elements and if you don't do your part and get it together, then there's nothing I can do. Resist a cider, okay? I can't, I, I am entitled to a little bit of fun occasionally. Yes, on the days where something critical isn't going to happen. It's always dire times. Yeah, but you got to get the days right.

He sort of begins to scrawl something on a little note of his. Anyone who wants to give me like an investigation or some other check in this space if your attention's wandering anywhere. Mine's gone. Can I use my passive? Yeah. Thanks. What's your passive investigation? 21. 21. I'd like to make a check. Why isn't this the most important,

man in the entire citadel. I think Ursula has just watched this guy tell us essentially Amé's entire life story. And I'm, this place smells awful. And I'm trying to figure out, why does the guy who seems like he could tell everyone, everything that they should be doing,

like that they're on the right track kid, not the most important man to hear. It's a 13. Is Amet making a check or no? Or is she just having a good panic attack? Fine. Okay, so, okay, okay, okay, okay, so okay, I don't know. Okay, I don't know.

I am looking around the room. Okay, I'm going to look around the room, and I'm got to find six colors, and I'm going to find five textures, and I'm going to get four cents, and I got to get two tastes, and I got to get one. I'm going to need a wisdom saving throw from you. A 19, a 19, I got to see it. You start to calm down. What does not help you is you look down and see that your fox is bug-eyed with his ears flattened on his head.

As the fox has not, like, cracked a joke in a couple of minutes, you immediately into it from your fox that he's like a guy making the decision at a comedy club to not, like, laugh too hard or the comic will roast him. Fox is like, I don't want it. I don't want the smoke at all. I don't want any of it. Another point for the fox. I want this guy to tell me about my life. Ursula, on a 13, you just have to ask that if you want to know. You're just literally as sly is like writing something down.

You're looking around, his office smells bad. It smells like bird poop. He's got like a bunch. There's a bunch of seeds. He's got tea everywhere. There's like little scraps of notes around. But most of it is like newspapers. You notice that he doesn't have like big arcane tomes.

His writing looks to be all. of the world. There's like, you see there's like Manila folders and dossiers and there's different stuff. There's like,

there's machines schematics for like airships and stuff in here. It looks like, I think on an intuitive level, you're like, a guy that can see anything would have to know what stuff meant.

And if you, if you get information and you don't have the knowledge to process it, that's when the heartbreak can happen. But yeah, You don't know why he's in this little office getting donors on the street. You don't know why Grandmother Wren liked him, and you don't know why Sufi heard of this office as being kind of a waste of time.

As you consider whether or not you want to just straight up ask this guy, why is your life like this? Why are you like this? Why are you like this? On a 21 investigation, Sufi, you look and see a report. that has been like preemptively approved from the Citadel for a budget

for a quarterly report from Sly where Sly basically says like I have detected another anomalous event in the ending of the Saraz family line that will occur in 213 years from this point forward

by solution to avoid the vast majority of circumstances that would lead to this unfortunate result that is not in the interest of the empire would be the following set of rituals. And you see that he has a list of rituals occurring under the Office of Preemptory Catastrophic Deviation that he needs like 820 pounds of gold to pour into a runic inlay that would da-da-da-da-da. and he would need a bunch of rubies to do X, Y, Z other thing. Da, da, da, da, da, da. He would need this amount of whatever. And you're just looking around at this office and going like, where the fuck would this runic inlay even happen?

And you see that it just has a big stamp approved on it. The budget he's asking for for this quarter, he has like, that's the big thing. And he's like, and there are these like three smaller catastrophes that like a dam is going a break in eight years that's going to make this area harder to defend, when Gouthmi attacks here, da, da, da, da, da. It's just all this stuff that this diviner has ascertained. And he's asked for somewhere in the neighborhood of 85,000 imperial marks of resources, which in the budget of the citadel is almost like nothing. But you're looking at it's 85,000 imperialism. marks. And I think on 21 investigation, you're just like, where is this? This guy's just like,

literally there are loose rubies in the doorway of this guy's office. Something doesn't add up. Yeah. Cool. So Sly's finishing writing something out, Ursuline, as you're standing there. The wizard's sly. Bear, strongest man in Silbury. Can I ask you a question? Ask away. Now, do you already know what the question is? So will you save me the rudeness of asking it? You see, he smiles and says, I didn't see this moment, which makes me think that I thought it would be funny not to see it. Oh, but.

Wow, you are, okay. Context clues. I take back the bedside matter thing. You're pretty great. You're pretty great, bear. Why aren't you the most important man here at the Citadel? I don't do anything they like. I can see that.

You see, he looks at you and says, says, to answer your question honestly, stopping catastrophes is something I've dedicated my life to. And the biggest problems of the empire aren't catastrophes. What are they? If you were the empire, what would your biggest problems be? the existence of Galthmy, the existence of roof, sorcerers, warlocks, witches, spirits.

I see the future. I see places far and near and the things that my magic finds as problems. He looks at everyone here. My timing might be off on this one, but I trained myself. to see far and wide, to find problems, and try to solve them before they could happen. The empire came to me and said, these are our problems.

And my magic didn't agree. So I'm in an office trying to stop catastrophes that never come. And when you stop catastrophes that never come, there's never any proof that you're important. I took a Ruby. I'm sorry. See if he's just staring at everything. Yeah?

Yeah, I'm sorry, I'll put it back. Then you sort of didn't take it, did you? I hated the citadel this morning, but now, I'm coming around. If I ask you about the thing, will you know? I don't know. Maybe. Never hurts to ask. inquiring minds, learn more.

How's Fort Kieran doing? Fort Kierin is faring pretty well. They should have it secured again, probably in the next 24 hours. The Wizard's deal will be on her way back to the Citadel after that, I would imagine. Fort Kieran is not a place that I can't tell you about individual wizards,

but that should tell you something in itself. Fort Kieran and the attack on it has never figured that much in my visions. Your boyfriend's going to be fine. I just, what do I need to do to prepare for this meeting? Who is the other witch that's going to get canned? What, uh, how do I get there? How do I get to the North Pole?

Is there like a gate or a portal or something? Uh, what do I, please help? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Don't worry, don't worry. It's all been handled. Suvie, you see him walk over. he goes out into the courtyard with all the boxes, takes a crowbar,

you see he actually takes his nice coat off and hangs it up, seriously. And he's got his sleeves rolled up, he's got a big pocket watch and some suspenders. You see he like puts a crowbar in, pops this crate open, looks inside and sees something wrapped from Havoured. And he rolls out this thing

that is about as big as like a dinner plate. And you see he, hands it to you, Amme. That should do the trick. You'll hopefully have some time to get back to Toma and set your affairs in order. And then

you took one of the sand doors in from Zhaocourt, right? Yeah. The same situation. Just drop that. How you get back from the North Pole? That I don't know. But that'll get you to it. Just drop that. And speak the words.

You know, I am the witch of the world's heart. I seek conclave with my sisters. You'll be able to walk right through that. And you'll be able to take your entourage with you. So I would assume if your friends want to come, they can come. In all the versions of this where you go without Suvi, you die. Oh. Straight up die.

Yeah. Yes. Suvie, do you want to come? How crazy of it would it be if I was like... He's so crazy. Oh, you're having a whole breakdown. Yeah, I'm going. Hey, uncle.

Also, you're my uncle now. I've decided. I love that. Great. You knew we were going to come. The witch was going to melt down. And you had a platter ready. Mm-hmm.

Did you requisition that last quarter? He smiles, and there's a different energy in the air. This is a very glib and funny man who goes, trees and abounds. And to set you at ease so I don't seem like too wise of a wizard. Some of these things are due to what I have seen, and he gestures at the plate and squeezes Amé's arm and goes, and others are favors done for an old friend because she asked.

So much. I, you know, the shouting was obviously not at you more about the things that were said, and I assume that you get that a lot. Thank you so much. And thank you for the sandwich. And I like your outfits. Oh, that's very kind. Thank you.

You see, he turns. and looks at the rest of you, says, Wizard Sky, everything I've said is true to the best of my knowledge. The witch of the world's heart will not survive the conclave with her coven if she does not have you as an advisor and counselor. You will not receive permission to accompany her. Understood. The Citadel is vast, so vast.

in many ways too vast. Who knows what creatures can accomplish with a hundred, hundred arms and legs? He leans down, begins to scoop rubies with a shovel head into a little traveling bag, takes it. You know from inside that these rubies are for a ritual that has not happened.

He looks at Ursula and says, you asked why I wasn't the most important person here. And I think you meant it in terms of great halls and deeds and accolades and respect. But real importance lives equally in every thread of the tapestry. of existence. You are important, my friend. And he squeezes your arm and says, no matter if you walk in field or forest in great halls or high castles, your choices, you, actions in this world

and all the worlds there are, they matter. Importance doesn't live on the lips of the powerful. but by our words and deeds. And you see, he takes the bag of rubies in his hands and says, if you don't get a shield, both of them will die in the next year. And he vanishes. Flash of teleportation. Fuck! Wow.

Farewell, leave it unlocked. I didn't bring a key. I liked him. I agree. Of the two friends we've met today, I much prefer sly. Yeah. As you look at each other with your sort of sandwich wrappings here,

has unlocked door to his office, some dust, some rubies, a crate opened up with this ceramic sort of little plate platform to stand on and get to the North Pole with. What is it that you do next? Wherever we're headed, I am going to go return the ruby. Nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice. Nice.

Are you? Okay. Nice. Nice. No. Do you want to have a processing moment? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just say, um, yeah, yeah. Nobody talked to me for two minutes. Otherwise, I will, uh, snap and say something that I will regret later. Okay. Okay. All right. How are you doing? Um, honestly better.

I'm on the right track. Hey, that was nice. Well, it's nice. We got to get you a shield. Yeah, well, I. actually already have one. Oh. I made it from the legs of a broken chair.

So I'm not sure he had seen that. Perhaps he had not. Oh, yeah. I heard it's so fashionable to have multiple shields. Is it? Yeah, because what if different materials you would block? So maybe you have the chair, I'm assuming he's made of wood. Yes.

So let's get you maybe a metal shield just to block some more metal-specific things. Also. Fair. Two shields, it is. I'm going to spend all the money I've ever had on your shield. And that's because it's tied to your very life? A little bit, yes. Okay, I'm better.

I am still scared and unprepared feeling. and I realize that I have been really putting off going back to Toma because I don't want to leave you too and because the place that I'm going that I grew up my entire life with the only person who ever cared about me who is gone now is going to be mine now and I have to take over solving everybody's problems all the time But I have a purpose now, and that is to not be destroyed, and also have another of my sisters not destroyed. And you two get to come with me. I'm not equipped to help with what you're feeling in your heart, but I love you, and it's going to be okay. I'll take it.

I hug you around your middle. Yay. Okay. Okay. Hey, this isn't that hard. You can, that was good. I think I did good. I think I said good words.

I agree. You'll make a great advisor. Oh, yeah, let me be clear. There is nowhere you need me that can keep me from you. Either of you. You travel back to Haverward. It's, you would, you can either go find Galtz during the daytime at Tillever Mill, or you can stop by his home.

if you want to. Whatever you'd prefer. And then, you know, there's Chura Chowder, not far away over in the night market. But Chora Chowder probably won't be open for a while. I feel like food after? It seems, it feels fitting that it would come at the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll have something to look forward to. Also, maybe Hana's there.

Let's go right there. Do you guys want to go back to the bloody, no? The Bloody Carnival? Yeah. to see handsome Losario. He was handsome. I'm spoken for. Well, yes, let's visit Galta at work, and perhaps we can invite Hannah out for Chowder.

Yeah, let's go love her. Ursula, I have never known Suvie to not be speaking for herself, so I don't know. Oh, and that she is spoken for? Yeah. I believe it's colloquialism. Well, I... Meaning that she's attached. It's not, it's not, I don't believe Silver speaks for her.

Thank you for that. Did I answer the question? Yes, you did. That was fine. Down in Haverwood, there are a number of large industrial buildings. Brick and stone mortared together, tall chimney. You see, above the chimneys are themselves small hovering discs that banish the smoke and offput run off further into the desert outside of the glass of the irion.

You see that in these massive mills, there's a huge one that has in bright silver, almost like chrome, this huge plaque above the door that says Tillever above it. And when in, you hear the zoo-blum. of large machines set to work, polishing, carving, cutting, refining. There is a hiss of steam, the pouring of liquid metals. You walk in, and it is piping hot in here. This industrial factory is a small factory. It's only about 20 to 30 people at a time can work in here.

It's not this massive, you know, yawning airplane hangar of a place. But you see that there are tall arched windows of frosted glass that have sort of iron, bands in between them. So there's panels of glass, but the windows themselves are quite large, letting lots of daylight into the factory. You see that there is a series of workstations where liquid metal is being poured out of 30-foot-tall silver cruciples. The crucibles themselves are inscribed with some sort of evocation ruin. And you can see there's fire at the base of the crucibles and liquid metal pouring out. But around the bands of the crucible, the ruseable, the ruins are producing frost

that exists on the outside of them. So some wild bit of metallurgical magic is happening. You look out into the area here, a burly gorilla-looking guy with these huge, he has blonde hair, blonde mustache, these thick, blonde hairy forearms, many rings, thick leather apron is walking around. Big beard!

He's got the, classic of the age. Mustache over the beard. All right. I think I'm going to like him. Farther up from him, you see that there is a raised platform over the sort of curing beds that are setting the molds for the liquid metal being poured out. There is a raised catwalk, but kind of a full, thick platform with multiple looms

spinning at the same time or almost like sewing machines or some kind of thing. But you see that they are weaving liquid metal. And you see there are a number of young artificers up there. Each artificer is seated pumping a little foot pedal in the metal spinning machine. And you see that each of them has a young wizard in Academy Cadet Clothes, who is layering in the spells as the artificers actually make the material good that is getting layered in with magic. The man you recognize as gult, and up in one of the desks up there,

you can see with a degree of like with her bone white hair and a deteriorated musculature along one side of her neck and jaw. You see that there is like an intense sort of withering there on the side of her face. But she has the same sort of like steely blue eyes as her father gult and a little. a little bit of a similar aquiline profile to him. Golt calls out and he says, Keep that hot! I don't want to see that needle dipping into the orange! You see that he turns around as the door opens up, and he says, thank God! Get it into the back!

Oh! What? Oh! It looks and says, hey. Hi. Sky! Hey! Gold! Good to see it. Good to see you. Good to see it, kid. How you're doing? I'm so good. What was I supposed to be bringing? You're not supposed to bring anything. Up! To the side! And you see you, Rips you over the side as just huge pallets of like raw silver ingots begin to come in on a wheeled sort of like dolly behind you. He says, all right, get it in the back, start dispelling it, get it out of here. And you see that there's a moment where he looks out and says, no, no, no, no.

And he gets a huge bellows and starts spraying this poison smoke. People start coughing as a bunch of iridescent little gem. It looks like gems are springing out of it until you, you see that they are crickets. They're these little gem-like insects. Get them out of the fucking factory. Get them out. What are those?

They're pests. And he's going to poison him as fast as he can. I got can't trips out, and I'm sending a little aroon boat to light them up. I got to catch one. I got to pull out of a little tiny cage out of my pocket. Give me a little sleight of hand to catch. We'll call it DC-15. That's a 14.

No. What can you give me for? 14. I think you get a little jewel hopper right in your palm. You can squirrel it away. However, anyone with a passive perception above that notices Amé catching

it. I notice. I put it away, and I'm just miming like, get rid of it. I put it in both hands and I slip it into a little vile. Is it, is it alive? It is. A little bug. It is a little bug. A little native bug to the city.

Suvie, you would know that jewel hoppers are able to bypass enchantments to slowly sap the color out of different gemstones, which can absolutely change and warp the magical effects on enchanted jewel-based things. Ooh, yeah, those suck. I'm running around firing off cantrips or trying to step on them. They're easy to step on, but they do make us sound like glass. pattering when you step on him. Oh, I don't like it. Ah. You see Gult goes in and says,

God, loose crates, get the silver out of here. Check every bit of silver for these jewel hoppers. Kid, busy day. What can I do for you? Hi. Yeah, more of a, what can we do for? Aye. Please meet Amme, the witch of Poma.

I'm the witch of Toma. I am the new witch of the world's heart, and Grandmother Iran said that you're a true friend. Oh. Oh, yeah, Grandma Wren. How is she? Oh, she passed three months ago. Oh, I feel like a real heel. I hadn't stayed in touch with her. I'm sorry, my condolences.

That's quite right. You seem quite busy here. Yeah, we sure are. God, no, you know what? Oh, he said one under the desk. He goes and pulls a whistle, and people start shouting and dismaying. Oh, no! And he says, work stoppage, jewel hoppers getting into the... the mill. Everyone clear your station. Look around. Let's talk for a say is we got to take, we got to shut everything down. One of these things hide somewhere and lays any eggs were fucked. Suvi, you see Hana approaching. I'm going to do my best. If Hana, like, does she look sort of alert in looking around or mostly distracted before the whistle was pulled?

She was focused before the whistle was pulled. I'm going to do my best to try to like sneak up on her. I think she also, like, tends to hyper-focus, and there is definitely a game of, uh, hey, what's you doing? Over-dust. She goes, ah! And fuck something up, and she goes, gah! Don't do that! Sky! What is the matter with you?

She stands up and looks over and says, well, congratulations. I'm glad you're... I heard you were moved into the tower. You got your name cloak. Hi. you. You seem to be doing manual label down here. Very charming. I love you. And I'm just going to give her a little hug. She gives you a hug as well. You see that she looks and says, yes, happy to be toiling away down here. Is there anything I can

help you with? What are you looking for down here? Oh, your dad and my friends need to chat about some stuff, but have you been? What have you been up to? I don't know. Good. What are you working on? Oh, we are getting a bunch of these prepared. You look down and see that there are, actually, Lou, give me a luck check.

Let's say that you really want a 13 or higher. I got a 17. You see that she's looking down. and saying staff caps for the most part, but we actually just got in an order for a bunch more of these. And you see that she lifts up one of the big industrial mold

that's in like a 30 foot long sheet. There's a sort of massive stone press, almost like the cover of a piano. And she lifts it up and steam rises. And you see shining steel shields, a row of about 20. This could not be more serendipitous. May I introduce you to my friend Bear?

Hello, Hannah. Hello, how's it going? Well... I'm Hannah. I'm Suve's protector. Oh. And was actually... I had gotten into shield making myself.

But Suvi had hoped that... Are you an artificer? No. I'm the strongest man in... Sillsbury. Oh, where is that? It's near Toma on the aisle of a calm. Not one of those words, Hitzberg.

It's all right, it's a place, and I'm strong there. But my proficiency in shieldmaking is not up to snuff for my friends, so she was hoping you might be able to provide. Oh, Sky, the, just for you to know, I mean, all of these are, we don't make anything that we don't get, everything here has been paid for. I mean, this is all been requisitioned by the Citadel. Yeah, commerce, I'm here to also buy a shield. You want to buy one shield?

Is there a bulk discount? Well, we're a mill. We're an artificer's mill. I know. You always have to round up when you make them, though. Do you have an extra? You see, she looks at and says, let me go. talk to my dad.

You can make a choice. Make your own choice. She walks away and says, Always do. My friend's sad. She walks away. Amay, you walk over into a little office with gulp, boiling hot little brick room

with a bunch of papers. There's a bunch of small drawers that have like contracts and order forms. There is nothing readable in here. Unlike the wizard's places you have been that are like lores and histories and narratives and diagrams and explanations, everything here is like numbers and sheets and ledgers and books kept and amounts and quantities and transactions. This is a place of, you know, these are the people that do the grunt work of wizards. On the way there, I am also.

looking at the, you know, the wizards weaving spells into metal fabrics. And, I mean, this is somewhat akin to what I do. And I never got a chance to examine those matchsticks, you know, are these like for realse's permanent spells? It looks like they are for realsy permanent spells. And what you see is it takes, you can make magic. tokens, you look at these and see that there is a lot of work going into this. The first time you saw the matchsticks, I think part of you was like, how could you make this much magic?

Like, how much time would it take for me to do this? And now looking here, you're looking at it and being like, every station has a wizard and an artificer. and they are working hard. And the things that they're making this out of seem like they might already be magical. Like the silver that they're putting in here already got enchanted somewhere else. So I think you're seeing this thing of like the end result was so impressive to you where you were like, I could never do that. Well, no, because it's an assembly line deal.

And I think you realize like, oh, I could never do that and neither can they. Like, as individuals, each part of them is only responsible for one small piece of the process, and even they don't seem to have eyes on the origin of the process. Oh, that's amazing. That's fascinating. I wonder if there's a... Interesting, interesting. Because Grandma Wren could make things and make them permanent.

But it took a lot of hard work. Oh, that's so cool. That's so cool. Oh, uh... Ahme. Yes. So you are the new witch of Toma. Well, listen, I'm an old friend of grandmother Wrens, an old friend of soft and stone, and of course, of Sky, whatever I used to call her.

I didn't use to call her Sky, but I loved her all the same. Thanks for that. I have to leave for Toma soon, and then from there, I'm... let's go and meet with my sisters in a conclave. I am deeply unprepared as I have only recently come into the inheritance of my knowledge as the witch of the world's heart. I don't know if there's anything that you'd be able to pass on that Grandmaun told you or any sort of advice that you could have. I wish that I had more time to sit with you

and find out more about your connection to her and some of your adventures together and, you know, of course, your time with Soft and Stone. You see, smiles and says, I, you know, I don't think I ever really adventured with Soft and Stone, so to speak. When I was a journeyman, artifice, many years ago, I helped build the traveling door to Silbury. Wow.

You know, this was, I don't know, what, 25 years ago or something like that. And I met Grandma Wren at that time. I was a punk kid. I didn't know my left from my right. But she was always kind. And she was a great help because there was. were some kooky kind of things in a calm where some of our, some of the celestial engineering was a little bit off and she helped us figure out a couple different parts of building the door

there. Oh, what do you mean off? Well, there were some interesting sort of hemispheric differences there. I mean, just some of our orbits were slightly off. So she helped us kind of figure out where our math had gone wrong a little bit and make the the doors traveled to the right place. They just weren't reliable at first. But she gave me a bunch of great information about it.

And actually, that's when that project started to go a little haywire, that's the first time I met Stone. She had come back and started working as an abjuror, was helping us figure out some of what might be going wrong. As an abjuror, she wasn't there to ward it. She was sort of about figuring out sources of magic, you know, and where this sort of source of the energy was coming from. And that's when she first, I believe, befriended Grandmother Wren in those initial sort of meetings when we were expanding out and the empire was having its presence sort of become firmer within a calm.

Yes. She was a very kind woman, Grandmother Wren, and I remember she gave me a lot of information, and she gave Stone a lot of information as well. There was one, where was that? I don't have it here. I don't have it here in the office, but she talked to. a lot about the taboo of passage, which is some

more witchy discipline stuff than I'm used to. But it had a lot to do with magical definitions of roads and what roads are. Yes, a road is a path that has

felt the iron of a horse's shoe or the wheels of a wagon. Banded wheels. Yeah, exactly. Here, give me an insight check. That's a dirty 20.

Oh. You see, he looks as he hears a little from your pocket. Are you making the noise of the jewel hop or do you have in your pocket? That's what I'm doing. He sort of thinks for a second here.

You see, says, and jewel hoppers. Look. You see, Hana sticks her head right before he's about to say something and goes, Dad,

Sky's asking if we have shields, extra shields. You see, he goes, extra shields. And you see that, give me an insight to check here. 14. You see that they

quickly fade into a non-imperial language. Each of them speaks a couple sentences of Tuscafi, which is another sort of like a vassal state of the empire. And there is a quick, there's a quick exchange back and forth where you see Hana looks pretty bleak and kind of like, you just see something kind of a sort of smoldering something on her expression as she sort of argues with her dad and so their language for a second. And her dad looks very quick, realizing that what they're doing is rude to you. And you see that there's a little bit of a desire for him to move on. And you see he does at some point,

you hear him say in this language. You do hear him reference the name silence. He was like, silence. And he's a, and you see that she shrugs. And you see he says, just get the shield, Hannah and sends her app. He turns to look at you and says, sorry about that. No, no, I'm sorry I didn't mean to intrude. No. He used to hear that, and he smiles.

Oh, I can get rid of it. No, no. Well, you should. I mean, it'll eat up any magic gems that you have. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's true. I mean, it's in a little bug jar. Usually it's pretty bugproof.

Oh. Well, yeah, it'll be safe in a jar. Just make sure you get at some rhinestones or something. There was a period of time when I was a younger fella. The grandmother ran was very kind to me. You know, artificers' wages, especially as a journeyman, are not grand wages. and much of the material that we were required to provide at the time, we had to acquire ourselves.

And grandmother Wren was very helpful in that regard. Out of trust and respect for Grandmother Wren, I'm just going to be honest with you, in that occasionally artificers that are on hard times will make the very stupid mistake of, doing some work outside of their contracts with the Citadel, just to try to make ends meet and honestly to fund the work they're doing on behalf of the Citadel. Grandmother Wren requisitioned some work for me, speaking of jewel hoppers,

of providing a, I provided a flawless sapphire to her. I don't know where it is. Grandmother Wren had it, so it might be somewhere in your home, Have I, do I remember a flawless sapphire or do I remember what it might have been used for? No, not at the top of your head. Huh. In any case, I owe a great deal to Grandmother Wren, who was an incredibly kind woman. And I think Ursula and Suvi, you guys are both led to wait, but you can see the office where Hana is telling you to wait.

You're like right near the office with Amme in it and can see her talking to Galt. C.C. Gould says, work here the Citadel keeps me very busy. We need to make these shields are going to be sent up to Gavriel

to create more shield to Mori. But if you have a spare one, you know, I'm sure we do. Well, I appreciate that because our protector Ursulans ownership of his shield is apparently integral to suvies and my very survival.

Well, most shields are. And you see that he smiles and says, sorry, I couldn't give you anything more substantive. But just know that, you know, if you ever looking for the scuttle butt and what's going on down here in the boonies of the Citadel, happy to give you a head. You see there's a whistle that goes outside and he's like, okay, well, that's the jewel hopper. Please keep that in that jar.

Don't let it out. Absolutely. Yes. Thank you so much for your time and for your advice and for the Shield. And I'm sure that if there's ever anything that you need, that you can, of course, call upon the wizard's guy and her mentor. We certainly will. He walks out and says, all right, you dogs, that was lunch. And he walks out. He kind of nods to you, Suvi.

But, you know, as funny as it is, that was also. lunch. And he goes out and you see a bunch of people kind of wince at the thought of having to work for another however many hours that they're going to be working down here. And they get back to it. Hannah looks up at her station, opens sort of a vault door and says, look, we don't, spare shields is not really a thing. But we have some prototypes in here that at the very at least were tests. You can check them. I can't vouch for any of them.

They were prototypes. So these are first pancakes in the griddle. But you can go take a look. Yeah. Yeah. Is that good? Cool. Each of you go ahead and give me an investigation check.

15. 18. 21. Let's go. 15, 18, 21. Each of you describe a prototype shield. You would find, you guys know about how good those numbers are. Give me a group of shields.

These are largely undecorated. And with each of them, there is an incredible degree of craftsmanship and know-how put into these shields. they remain unfinished, and there was something that made them not want to continue with making the shields in this way. Let's start with a 15. Yeah. I'm going to look at some of like the smaller, like, buckler looking guys. That would be a little lighter for me to interact with. Is there a chance I can stack a cast of Detect Magic on this to try to see what... Give me

a detect magic. So casting Detect Magic on it, those runes appear in your eyes for a second. You can see that there are probably a dozen shields in here, and only

about 25%, so about like three or four shields are sufficiently well crafted enough that they are enchantable. But because they were made by artificers, they are basically set here waiting to receive an enchantment that would settle into it and become permanent.

They have been made with materials of high enough quality and with enough skill and precision to receive and store a permanent enchantment. Perfect. The thing I wanted was the blank. So I'm just going to grab a little blank one with kind of a smooth cover. And if there's, I mean, Galt runs a tight ship, but if there's just any sort of a loose screwdriver,

I'm going to go up and see, like, how malleable the metal is. I actually am proficient with Carpenter's Tools. So this bad boy is going to get decorated while I'm hanging out in the noise. Hell yeah. So you get a small blank buckler that is one of the three or four shields that is actually capable of receiving an enchant. Yep. Cool.

All of them would work as a normal shield, right? But only a couple of them are possibly enchantable. Ursulaan, on an 18, what kind of shield do you find? I think Ursulaan finds a, the shields were meant to be used by Tamori that were the shield spell. So I think Ursulaan finds several, like, truly oversized tower shields, like, not for a normal, sized person, not for a even, not for a frail person. Like a true, like heavy,

like a straight up steel door of a fucking shield. Almost like that kind of like rot iron. It's got those like, you can tell all these like bolts along the side that have kind of are being used to reinforce it. I think, like I feel like him holding it almost, it covers like from his knee all the way up to his shoulder. It's just like a giant piece of metal. And I think it's going to like pick it up and kind of work with it.

And, you know, probably take it out to wherever Suva he is. Hell yeah. Amé on a 21. What kind of shield do you find? The shield that I find is a little bit tucked away in the corner. I look over and it's behind another one of the shields. I pull it out. Some cobwebs come away with me.

I blow the dust off of it. And it has a metal, a golden metallic sheen to it. It's still a little dusty. But it feels lighter than what I imagined a shield might be of this size. And it's a little. It looks older. It's in a sort of unfashionable style. It has a heraldric vibe to it

with the point at the top and the sloping bottom edges. I pull it out and it looks like it can hold an enchantment. bring it out to Ursula and Suvi. Ooh, nice. These are all shields that can shield. Right. No, wait, they can shield? Yeah, I'm not really.

Yes. I'm nervous now, again, the whole no shield and you'll die. Shields that can shield. Yeah. I'm going to roll, I said three or four enchantable shields. I'm going to roll one for the Fox just to see the Fox. I'll say the Fox has to be able to beat a, I'll say the Fox has to be able to beat a 10. Otherwise, there's only three enchantable shields in here.

That's a two. Fox doesn't do it. There's only three enchantable shields in here. Oh, poor bud. What's you doing? Huh? There's no food in here. Oh, no.

Okay. Hauna, we will take these three. Give me a number. Oh, you want all three of these? Oh, is that weird? Should we not? Should it only be one? Maybe you should just try one and go, I'm not going to use one.

And I think Ercelon, he already has his wooden one. so he can't need more than... Well, Suvi made a good point earlier that two shields is important. Two shields. For different... Or multiple shields is important for multiple effects. Yeah, yeah.

Oh. We could just get the one. How much will one shield be? My father would consider it an honor to donate a shield to the cause of the wizard sky. Hannah. Can I roll a quick instance? Insight check?

Yeah, give me an insight check. 18. What is Suvi feeling in this moment? Like, what has Suvi been able to communicate to Ame about her relationship to Galt and Hana? Ooh. Maybe it's nothing, or maybe there's just whatever an 18 insight could get off of Suvee in this moment. Oh, wait, it's off of me? Just the interaction.

The interaction, yeah. Yeah. that Suvi has not clocked the sort of difference in our status in a meaningful enough way that Suvi's casualness is now pointing downward in a way that she's not engaging with. Hannah, her posture is like a kicked dog. and there is an element to her relationship to Suvi, which is a source of incredible pain for her. Suvi had mentioned her hair that had been discolored by an accident in one of the Aerith depositories. Hana's injuries from that are not redecorated.

They have partially withered her body. And this place is hot and loud. And it's interesting to be in here for this small amount of time that you're all interested to be here. But you will walk out of this door and Hana will spend a hot, noisy lifetime in this room. She cannot get out. of this room or this life or this friendship. Hannah, I deeply appreciate your father's generosity, but it is the custom of witches to return such gifts with boons.

It would be the honorable thing to do. Is there anything that we can do for you? or perhaps it is a boon to be held in reserve in time of need. Oh, a boon, a boon from a witch is great payment indeed. I will let my father know. You see she runs out, grabs her dad, Gult comes back in and says, a shield for a boon? Yes.

Oh, take all three, yeah. I know. Yeah. I think one would suffice. Two will do. Two shields for a boon. You see, he extends a hand to you, Hame. I take it and give a little curtsy.

He smiles, he bows. He says, thank you again for visiting the Tidal River Mill, Wizard Sky. You see, Hana says, it's wonderful to see you, Sky. Good to see you, too. Thanks. Uh, well, uh, back to work. Uh, stop by any time. And we were going to go get, uh, dinner after this. Did you want, would you care to join us? Uh, what time, uh, were you planning on going?

Oh, gosh, uh... Right after sunset, a churice chowder. Oh, they've got this, like, big, c-sh, you have to go. It's so good. Yeah, no pressure, no pressure. Pressure. I'll, I'll, if I'm out in time, I'll send a messenger your way. I'll send a little cantrip. Oh, thank you.

I wouldn't, I wouldn't hold your breath. Okay. Well, hope to see you there, but if not, it was an absolute pleasure. Thank you. She smiles and you walk out of there. Suvie, on a passive investigation, you see crates being packed in the corner. And as you walk out and see it looks like an order got doubled last night. And as it got doubled, their timeline is still the end of this week.

And you look at a clock up on the wall that ticks slowly by. Well, we can send, I mean, those clams, you can just pick up and send, you know, send anywhere. It's the perfect to-go container. we can send her food. As you guys are leaving to Liver Mill, you see that young class of wizards that were up there, that were actually laying spells, all looking kind of exhausted.

You guess they've cast sort of their spells for the day. You see they walk out as a new group of about 12 wizards walks in, kind of shaking hands and being like, oh, yeah, I'll see on the next, you know, the next one. And you see they walk in. You see no such replacement for the artificers. as you all head off to Chura's Chowder. I might have two clams today.

It's so sad. We had so much fun in the Citadel in the earlier episodes, and now we're probably discovering that it's not always great here. It's bad in parts. Can I make an insight check just to clock how bad it is, actually? Give me an insight check. It's a DC20 insight check. It's a 17.

I make it with the dirty 20. Oh, wow, you got exactly what you needed? I don't want to know. This is another one of those bad knowledge roles. Why do you do this? I wanted the dice to tell me it was okay to not notice. I just think, well, I think what happens is this. Because you've graduated, you got your name cloak, you're an adult.

You have been putting things on silence as tab. And the idea of a tab starts arriving to you as you think about fucking sly shoveling rubies and a court filled with paintings and the paintings need to be restored. And it all just occurs to you that this is not the world. This is, it's not happening. It's being done. Childhood is the experience of the world happening. But big parts of the world happening are the world being done.

someone restores those paintings. Someone sends those rubies. Someone signs off on the rubies getting sent. Someone puts an order in and someone puts time up on the wall. And I think that for the first time you walk out of there going like, you put things on silence as tab and it's never a problem. But you also think for a second and go, well, all I ever put on there is big clams at Chura's Chowder.

And then I rent out books that I'm allowed to rent out. I wonder what could go on that tab that would make someone come talk to me. And then you think about the idea of you being like, let me get a shield. And an artificer looking at you, like you would just ask her to do the impossible. And the idea of a person living at the base of the citadel for whom every minute, every second, every pound of silver, every gem on every hill. of every sword counts. Oh, the shiver that goes through Suvi, as she walks outside, she is grateful that she can blame on, like, the evening air and the difference in temperature between inside the mill and outside.

Uh, um, I'm glad we got that handled. And I hope you don't mind, Suvie, I did not choose your shield. It's fine. What were the two shields that you chose? I'll take my shield and Amme's shield. Beautiful. Suvi's shield is too small. You guys go to Chura's Chowder.

Have a lovely dinner. I think that you've been here with Amé awake at the Citadel for like a week. Ami, what's going on with Ambe emotionally the second time you eat at Chura's Chowder? And I think you realize, Ami, this is the first time. You've done something at the Citadel for the second time. I'm no stranger to routine. I mean, you know, being at a farm and also being a witch, your life is full of ritual and repetition and, you know, little details and taking the time to perfect things. This feels like to visit a place like this again feels decadent.

And I have been putting everything off all of the ritual and the repetition and the hard work of being a witch and living in Toma. I've put it off while I explored with my friends and yes, did some research, but I knew what I was avoiding. Now that the novelty is over, I think, I know, even if the wizard sly had not so deeply impressed upon me,

it's time to go. But I still, oh, I still, I'm so happy with this stew. It's so good. But I definitely try a little bowl of chowder as well. You enjoy your chowder. You enjoy the stew.

And spend some wonderful time walking the streets of the night market and Hoverwood. In time to join Malacanth as it touches down at midnight and begins to head back up. As it ascends slowly pulling away from the ground, you clear the tops of the buildings of Haverward and look up into the nighttime sky over the desert. Lights appearing in the sky, rippling in the side of the glass of the Arian, iridescent like soapy water.

Skyships enter. One, two, three. a dozen, two dozen, four dozen. You have never seen this amount of military presence at the citadel. This many soldiers or skyscups coming. You didn't even know there were this many in the fleet. And at the head of them is Steele's flagship coming home to her citadel. That was Lou Wilson as Ursuland, Erica Ishii, as Amé, Abria Ayngar, as Suvi, and Brennan Lee Mulligan, as everyone and everything else. World's Beyond Number is edited, designed, and scored by Taylor Moore at Fortunate Horse with additional sound designed from Michael Gelfy Studios. For even more

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