One Day and five Nights since she’d stepped foot in Tidereign, Serac looked out into the Realm from one of its crumbling landmarks.
Oriole ere’Quinlan the local guide had led the Upheavers on a hike up Veilwatch Hill, well beyond Duskpool’s city limits. Serac had fresh (yet oddly vague) memories of taking the exact same trip on a reindeer-drawn carriage. She tried in vain to communicate just how trippy this was to her friends. But the only other soul in all Tidereign who could relate was dead and gone—smited by Serac’s own hands.
Atop the hill stood a dilapidated brick building, much larger than a typical Duskpool house but nowhere near as imposing as its Temple counterpart on the other side. And wouldn’t you know it? The locals called it the Observatory, named after its historical function for watching the veils. Just how on-the-nose could the similarities get? It was like the two worlds were really one world…
And that’s kind of the point, Serac mused to herself. Recent events had forced her to reckon with the Realm’s intricacies—the whys, the hows, and the what-nows. Her ponderings hadn’t drawn out any degree of clarity, but she thought she at least had a direction to head toward. When in doubt, go up.
The first point of order was to set down a Waystation, newly designated as [Nightbound Observatory]. The intent was to tether the traveling party. The Upheavers were about to venture forth into literally uncharted territory. Worst came to worst, they could ‘restart’ from the outermost edge of civilization.
And while Serac was at it, it was also a good time to ingrain some built-up Karma.
[Karmic Level: 65 -> 72]
<
[Substance: 16 -> 20]
[Integrity: 20 -> 23]
<
>
[Physical Mitigation: 26.1% -> 28.4%]
[Infernal Mitigation: 23.9% -> 25.6%]
[Zealous Mitigation: 21.6% -> 23.9%]
[Erudite Mitigation: 23.9% -> 25.6%]
<
[REVOLVER Physical BAV: 153 -> 162]
[Infernal BAV: 177 -> 183]
[Zealous BAV: 190 -> 194]
[Primal BAV: 162 -> 176]
[Erudite BAV: 148 -> 151]
[Martial BAV: 158 -> 169]
[Deific BAV: 177 -> 180]
Serac had seven points to level, which she again split between [Substance] and [Integrity], favoring damage over resources. Many of her recent fights had been less wars of attrition and more who could hit harder faster. With no way to actually forecast the future, she could only bet on the trends to continue.
As she came out of meditation, Pathsight hit her with what had quickly become its most annoying feature.
[TIDEWATCH: You now have one hour to reaffirm your OATH.]
Serac sighed, then scanned her vicinity for her [Oath]-ing ‘partner’. Predictably enough, Renna was deep into her impromptu astronomy session, negotiating the telescope with her wide-set amphibian eyes.
“See anything interesting, Renna?”
A pause, followed by a hesitant and somewhat grumpy: “No. I don’t think this eyepiece was designed for the likes of me.”
“That’s rough. Shall we, uh, do the thing?”
The frog looked up, oblivious to the dusty imprint of the eyepiece on her pink face. It was all Serac could do to keep a straight face as she waited for her and Renna’s Nightly exchange.
“Will you tell me a secret, Serac?”
“Hell yes. Oh, I’ve been sitting on this one for a while. Did you know Zacko’s deathly scared of ghosts? In fact, the first time we ran into some back in Naraka, he curled up like a baby and didn’t move until the fight was nearly over!”
[TIDEWATCH: Your OATH has been reaffirmed.]
The NINEFOLD master, who’d been pretending to take a nap at the foot of the telescope (Who’re you trying to fool, Zacko? You can’t fall sleep mid-cycle!), suddenly bulged his eyes at Serac, scandalized. The man looked about ready to pipe up in his own defense, then thought better of it, eyebrows still knitted in consternation. Serac flashed him an apologetic smirk, knowing full well his [Oath] required him to roll with the punches, even of the sucker variety.
Now that she’d done it a few times, this [Oathbind] thing felt to Serac more like a chore than a key to unlocking Primal power. In fact, she could say with certainty she’d never felt more alive and powerful than when she’d knowingly breached her [Oath] just the other Day.
But was it the act of breaching that had empowered her? Or had it been the oneness and synchronicity with her self—the surging, almost euphoric confidence of knowing who she was and what she stood for? And was that what had first drawn Gladiolus ere’Branagh to the dark side of his [Oath] and profession?
Much as the mad doctor needed to be put down, both for his and Tidereign’s sake, Serac rued her missed opportunities. If only she’d ascended sooner—had met the man before he’d taken his obsession too far—maybe the two of them could’ve shared their Paths a while. Put their heads together and puzzled out this paradox of a Realm that refused to be true to itself.
“Let bygones be bygones, Serac,” Trippy, long since reinstated from his ‘time-out’, offered his monotone advice. “Your Path doesn’t point backward. Nor do you lack for companions to share it with.”
Trippy was right, of course. And it was good to have him back and in her corner. Assuming…
You are Trippy, aren’t you?
“? Whatever could you mean?”
Never mind. This messed-up Realm’s got me asking all sorts of weird questions. Yet, even as she deflected, Serac allowed herself the briefest of recollections. A flash from an inscrutable dream. The back of a lone Rakshasa man, and the nameless name on her lips as she called—
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“Right,” Zacko said with excessive cheer, jumping to his feet. “Now that we’re all squared away for the Night, time to get set for toMorrow and beyond, eh? Let’s take stock of what we know and what still needs investigating, then work out the nuts and bolts of how we’ll go about it. Bubblegum, start us off?”
Renna stepped off from the telescope’s raised platform, to then join the circle around the lotus flower.
“What we know,” the frog woman began, getting straight to the point, “is that the worlds of Day and Night are—or at least used to be—one and the same. We have evidence of that from the deep underground portions of the Duskpool Infirmary. As well as stories passed down through the generations, like the ones Feverfew ere’Tully shared with me.”
At the mention of Feverfew, Serac felt a twinge in her chest. No matter where she went, she reserved a soft spot for the old, wise souls who wanted above all to serve their community and guide the young. Ravi the Rakshasa, Inge the Yaksha, and now Feverfew the Tiryaga, who she’d only met briefly as she came out of her [Serenity]-induced coma. The tortoiseshell woman had herself been reeling from the tumultuous events of the last ‘week’, but she’d put her grief aside to welcome Serac to the neighborhood, with a ready smile and a delicious bowl of stew.
Indeed, it was Feverfew’s parting gift the Wayfarers munched on now—her famous hotchpotch paired with hardtack for the road. The old woman expected nothing in return, but Serac intended to gift her something all the same. Namely the truth veiled by the Gloaming sky for untold generations. And with it, the key to freeing Duskpoolers from their Nightbound prison.
“What we’ve excavated from the Infirmary,” Renna continued, “belongs to a civilization advanced far beyond Duskpool today, and also beyond Serac’s description of the Day-side world. There’s any number of possible explanations for this, but I think it’s safe to operate under several assumptions.
“One: Tiryagas and Mrigas used to coexist within a unified Realm, so prosperous as to nearly match Manesfera in technological progress.
“Two: whether because of something the resident souls themselves did, or perhaps due to the intervention of a higher power, Tidereign split at some point in its history.
“Three: that split has not only ‘reset progress’ for both sides of the divide, it also disproportionately affected each side’s ‘circadian rhythm’. Day is unconscionably long and only grows longer, whereas Night is punishingly short and shrinking still.
“If we take these assumptions to their natural conclusion, eventually, nothing would remain of the Night while Day would become exclusive and endless. I don’t know what the time scale of that might be, but should the current patterns hold, it’s a matter of when, not if. In other words—”
“Both Tiryagas and Mrigas would go extinct,” Serac finished the thought with a slight shudder, “one from losing the time in which to exist, and the other from never taking a break from existing. Sheesh. More and more, I’m convinced Mount Meru is one big, sick experiment…”
“Speaking of,” Zacko cut in, doing a Trippy-esque job of keeping the group on topic, “Serac, wanna share your notes on this ‘experiment’ where you were the only subject?”
Serac nodded, only too eager. Her methods hadn’t been scientific by any stretch of the imagination, but they had yielded peculiar results that were hard to ignore.
“Strictly speaking,” she began, “I wasn’t the only subject. VOIDLING was also involved. In fact, I believe my Breachspawn is the only reason I’ve been able to cross the Day-Night divide. Twice.”
Zacko and Renna listened impassively. Which made Oriole’s shudder of revulsion stand out by comparison. Better get used to it, tabbycat.
“Back on the Day-side,” Serac continued, “I met a Mriga called Jasper. That’s—”
“Brain Cell’s interdimensional crush,” Zacko cut in again, as Oriole visibly blushed. “We know. Go on.”
“Right. Jasper has this beautiful, er, rose garden for an Instrument, and she normally uses its magic to help a whole city-ful of people get a good night’s sleep. I know, sounds hokey, but trust me. If you’ve seen what I’ve seen, you’d agree they need it over there. But that same magic can also be applied at an individual level to keep you up at night, or during the ‘Gloaming hours’ as the locals would call it. That’s what happened to me, and that’s how I experienced being one with one’s soul.”
“It’s a strange way of putting it,” Renna interrupted thoughtfully. “Are we ourselves not ‘souls’ to begin with? Is there a separate component we’re not aware of?”
“See, I actually think we are aware of it. Almost all the time. It’s more that we don’t think of it as something that ought to be a part of us. Our inner demons. The intrusive thoughts that are so powerful and feel so right in the moment that it’s hard to say ‘no’ to them. And sometimes… it’s okay to say ‘yes’, you know? I think our inner demons are every bit us as the person we strive to be by constant, conscious effort, or by affirming an [Oath] and sticking to it.”
Thoughtful silence from all three companions. It was Oriole the local who broke it first.
“You’re saying our Oathborns are what we strive to be. And Breachspawns are the inner self we reject, made manifest. But it’s only by recognizing these Breachspawns as core to our very own being that we can truly be our unified, whole self?”
Whether it was the way Oriole put it, or because it really was a far-fetched idea, Serac was almost tempted to share in the tabbycat’s skepticism. But she knew what she’d felt and more importantly what she’d been, during that brief hour [Anointed] by [the Keeper’s Balm]. She wouldn’t stray from it now, whether it spelled thrill or spill.
“Something like that.” Her words couldn’t quite match the conviction in her heart. “In any case, if this union is what gives souls protection during the hours when they should be asleep, or gives a Rakshasa like me and my oddball Breachspawn the ability to cross the veils, I think it speaks to what the Keeper intended for its people, you know? Maybe this split Realm wasn’t its idea at all. Maybe all this time, the Keeper’s been waiting for its people to find themselves again.”
She expected more skepticism. But Oriole looked deep in thought, wringing his multiple brain cells for all they were worth as he tried to square a veil-crossing outrealmer’s observations with the truths that had seemed self-evident all his life.
“So, that’s your big plan, is it?” Zacko asked with one of his sardonic grins, clearly tickled by the idea. “Don’t know what the Keeper’s thinking, so why not go and ask? And you think you’ll find it in the uncharted hinterlands past this Observatory.”
Serac nodded, perfectly earnest.
“I stood at this exact location on the other side,” she explained, “but over there, this whole area”—she spread her arms wide to indicate the wilderness that stretched beyond Veilwatch Hill—“was covered over by thick layers of the skyveils. The only way to navigate it was by one particular Wayfarer’s magic, and according to him, only when the Keeper gave him the okay to do so. Well, for whatever reason, we don’t have that restriction on this side. Let’s take full advantage—go as far as we can and see what we see.”
“We’ll have to carefully heed [Tidewatch].” Renna invoked the dreaded T-word. “I assume Ashvanaga would serve as shelter to protect us from [Unmooring], but we must position ourselves accordingly at the end of each cycle.”
Serac nodded again, mood slightly dampened.
“Definitely. But I really do feel it’ll be worth the risk. I think… even Jasper’s letter is pointing us in that direction. Isn’t that right, Ori?”
At this, Oriole spread a crumpled piece of paper in his hand and showed it to the group. The handwriting was coarse and hasty, out of keeping with Serac’s image of Jasper aft’Hanafin (not that she was one to judge!). It read:
The answer is cloaked in shadows. Beware of the mooring.
It was a brutally short letter, and needlessly cryptic besides. Again, rather jarring in light of Serac’s brief interaction with the wise, soft-spoken young woman. But it was definitely what she’d smuggled through from the other side, conveyed to her first by butterfly WINGS.
“The ‘cloaked in shadows’ here has to refer to the Gloaming barrier, right?” Serac reasoned. “And I guess we should ‘beware of the mooring’, as in make sure to shelter as we make our way through untamed lands?”
This, if anything, was the flimsiest part of her argument. Zacko apparently thought so too, as he was quick to point out, “Even if your interpretation is correct, why would this Jasper chick just know we’d be looking for the Keeper? And if so, why use such roundabout language to give her advice?”
“Dunno. Maybe she just likes riddles?”
Even as Serac offered a helpless shrug, she couldn’t help but steal a sympathetic glance at Oriole. The tabbycat did a good job of hiding his disappointment, but she knew it must’ve stung to receive such a curt and decidedly unromantic response to pouring his heart out. Even now, he turned the paper over in his hand, as if it might reveal a hitherto hidden message.
“What happened to the envelope?” The question came from Renna, leaning in with her discerning wide-set eyes. “The one [Marked] by THE PLEDGE?”
“Huh?” Oriole murmured distractedly. “I… don’t know. Must’ve lost it. Erm… anyway, I reckon Serac’s instincts are correct, even if J—Jasper’s ‘letter’ might not have anything to do with it. I’m happy to trail along you Upheavers if you’ll have me. I need something for my nose to follow, and a potential meeting with the Keeper is as good a prize as any.”
Another round of silence, somewhat mixed in its character. This time, it was Zacko who broke it, wearing a sardonic smile that was a little gentler than his usual fare.
“You sure you don’t wanna bring Caraway along? We’re happy to wait a cycle or two if you change your mind.”
“Huh?” Oriole looked up, pupils quickly filling his dusky hazel eyes. “Cara—of course I’m sure! This ain’t—isn’t—a quest fit for an Anchored soul. She’s much better off waiting in Duskpool. Besides… I doubt she’s done giving me the silent treatment…”
Zacko chuckled mildly, but perhaps only to hide a rueful sigh. Serac watched the interaction in bemused silence. This was one arena the Rakshasa couldn’t quite step into, knowing almost nothing about the young calico in question who, in point of fact, had been giving everyone the silent treatment.
The meeting had taken a strange turn. But time’s relentless march gave the Upheavers little room to course-correct. It was up to Serac—the de facto leader of her party—to take charge of the proceedings.
“Right,” she said with excessive cheer, “let’s call it here and all get settled into Ash. We’ve got an early Night toMorrow.”
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