Avishraa Reloaded

Within the Citadel, mentalists were among the most spoiled for choice in jobs that made good use of their powers. Being able to read and project into other minds was a talent that had wide and flexible applications. The value of a network of mentalists as a sort of warning system had been long ago recognized, and the people of the Citadel slept soundly knowing that, were there a fire or a torrential downpour or a game of boulder-ball gone wrong, a psionic shout would go out to alert all those who needed to know.

It had been one of the mixed blessings of the age that, in recent cycles, it had been recognized that the same method could be used to provide other information as well. People, it was argued,often took an interest in events from beyond their own lives, but how to get news of them aside from gossip, which moved slowly and changed in the telling? The outside world had town criers, of course, but voices had such limited range. And so, some canny mentalists had formed a sort of guild, whose members dedicated themselves to calling out to the minds of passersby the news of the day - in effect, the world's first 24-hour broadcast network, had they thought of it like that.

On this particular vigil, as the sun still hovered close over the horizon and Einriss ventured outside, he would have undoubtedly been subjected to the gentle buffeting of psionic noise upon the walls of his mind as he passed through any vaguely public space (after a certain amount of complaint, the criers' guild had been asked to keep the strength of their broadcast below a reasonable level). After a certain level of exposure, it was usually easy not to pay attention to; but today, there was a piece of news that seemed to be getting everyone's attention.

~…I repeat. The Oracle Dlyss has been attacked while sojourning to the Sheathetalon Outpost southwest of Oldstone in an apparent attempt at banditry. The Oracle remains unhurt, but one of her three companions was slain while driving off their attackers. It appears that all surviving members of the band are now dead, having fallen upon each other in dispute after the failure of their attack.

~Members of one of the Oracle's groups of followers, the Friends of the Future, have decried the attack upon their idol and have blamed the Council for failing to devote sufficient attention to activities in the hinterlands of the Citadel. Prominent Friend and firebrand Mortoth commented in a public speech: “The Oracle teaches us of the need for unity and purpose in the face of the threat from the Unchosen. How much more obvious the need when Chosen besets Chosen for the purpose of petty crime?”

~The Oracle was seen arriving safely in Oldstone with her surviving companions several rests ago. When questioned about the attack, she declined to comment.~

But that was not why Einriss was heading to the Oracle today.

Granted, it would not have been the reason he would have headed to the Oracle on any other day, either - she was fine enough to 'decline to comment' and no longer in any immediate danger, rushing to her side seemed awkward when his skills seemed an ill fit to the situation.

Of course, there was the question which of her companions had died in the attack, but Einriss knew only a few of her associates in the first place, despite his projects (or, more likely, because of them). In all honesty, he could not even claim to know Enneth enough to mourn her if she died - and had the Oracle herself fallen, Einriss would have been concerned more for the death of the associated talent and the implications for Chosenkind.

So it was one of his projects that brought him in - a regularly scheduled saunter, bringing with him some seeds, finely catalogued assorted samples of insects, and a box of ashes to mix into soil - leaving any comments on the attack for if someone broached the subject and wanted his opinion.

When he arrived at the Third Level, Einriss encountered a slight hindrance in the form of an unruly crowd gathered in the hall outside Dlyss' residence. It appeared to be composed of an eclectic mix of Dlyss' supporters and the merely curious, along with a sprinkling of guards employed by the wealthy residents trying fruitlessly to move everyone along. It was very loud, with the supporters furiously holding forth on the sorry state of the Citadel to anyone who would listen.

A narrow, tenuous track was being maintained by both the guards in the crowd and the ones at Dlyss' gate, and as Einriss slipped through these last, recognizing him, ushered him in - to a few sudden cries of protest from those busybodies that had not been granted similar access - and toward the audience room.

“Sorry,” one of them muttered. “Things are a little tense right now. I'm not sure if she's still-” The guard paused, and then motioned for Einriss to stop. There was the sound of loud discussion emanating from the audience room, and among them was Dlyss' voice, measured as ever but with a definite sense of raggedness around the edges: “Councillor, asking the same question in a different manner does not change the response. I have no intention of-”

“Ah,” said the other guard. “Er, she said to have you wait in the library if her discussion with Councillor Jorith went overlong. I'll take you.” He motioned Einriss along, while the other one went back toward the entrance.

The library was - or rather, looked as if up till recently it had been - relatively modest. Magic made many things less expensive than in the world beyond the Citadel, but even here books, at least well-made ones, were still not cheap, because of the labor of bookbinding and scribing if nothing else. The reading material on the shelves appeared to consist mostly of either religious works and tracts or utterly practical books on estate management, child care, and economics. There was a large, ornate desk and couch at one end of the room, and a few less-adorned couches arranged in the middle of the floor. But through an arched opening, which look like it had been freshly shaped from the rock, was another, somewhat larger room.

“The Oracle asked that should she not be able to meet you immediately, you should remain here in the library and she would be along shortly.” The guard nodded toward the archway. “And that you might be interested in what's through there.” He turned and left, quietly closing the door behind him.

Beyond the archway, the walls of the other room were rough and unfinished, though some decorative work had been begun. More interesting was the floor, inlaid in which, with strips of metal, was a large symbol enclosed in a double circle. The symbol looked like the same one in the seal on the letter that Enneth had delivered to Dlyss when she'd first sought him out. In the border formed by the circles were a series of numbers of unclear purpose; surrounding the whole were a series of arcane glyphs of even more unclear purpose.

Around the edges of the room were hastily-constructed shelves. Most of them were empty, but on some of the shelves near the entrance were a few rows of rather large, heavy books, with new and high-quality binding. The spines bore titles that did not seem like standard book titles, like “Starrymere” and “Talons” and “Bubbles in the Dark”.

And, on a pedestal between the archway and the symbol in the center of the floor, was an open book, open only to the first page. In the middle of a border formed of strange glyphs, there was a sort of swirling pattern upon the page, and it moved, curling into shapes and out of them again - shapes of mountains, and sky (if the sky had a shape!) and distant trees and rivers.

The quiet aggravation of the inconvenience swelled in Einriss as he maneouvred through the crowd - the phrases 'excuse me', 'would you mind', 'sorry, I work here', 'i didn't mean to-' and 'could you please' all found repeated use, spoken calmly and politely chiefly because Einriss knew almost no other inflection. It began to affect his posture as an tension when he was barred from the audience room - a matter he would normally simply shrug off, but greatly reduced his perceived freedom of movement now, what with the way out of the building clogged with a crowd - and as the guard guided him to the library blossomed into a deep annoyance.

There were other places other than the library where he was better kept in the interim. He couldn't exactly put his errand items to any use on books - and even Dlyss' library did not contain any that could advice Einriss on his particular projects, threatening to make the whole matter an unpleasant wait.

And then, all of that evaporates. What's through there. What, indeed? What could possibly be stored in a library that the Oracle, in her quaint wisdom of past and present, would consider relevant to an Alchemist Lifegiver.

Quietly, he sets down his strange inventory, box first, into the room past the archway, one side of the box closing off part of an empty shelf. With a bridled curiosity, he approached the open book, watching the abstract forms crawl across the surface of the page. Life. The association came strong, both immediately and obviously false, and just as transparently true. Vivid, pulsing, real. Not an illusion by any measure. No, it took no Lifegiver to sense the energy - though perhaps the one or other who came across this phenomenon might be so fatigued by illusionist works that they might not at first realise-

He paused short of touching the rim of the book.

Dlyss had always erred on the side of being permissive - an easy generosity for her to give, blessed with her ability to assess the consequences and to guide her associates into situations where it was unlikely they would interfere with matters. There was no reason for him to think the book was off-limits for him to explore. He knew better than to simply tamper with the face of that whispering page, that obvious magic, but no Chosen raised in the Citadel was easily intimidated by magic and Einriss was no exception to that rule. Magic followed rules. It was extremely unlikely Einriss would cause any harm by touching the edge of the book.

But he did not try.

This was, he felt, much like a science project on display. It was someone else's work and it was clear from the guard's wording that he was to be introduced to it. He could be patient, both to find out what it was that he was seeing, and to understand why the Oracle thought it relevant to him.

And yet: Life. That odd certainty nibbled at his demeanour, imbuing his subtler motions with what might be mistaken for nervousness by those who did not know the forms his polite curiosity. What a fun riddle this would be: That which made me lives / That which I come from lives / That which now adorns me lives / But I do not breathe / I do not grow / And there is no life in me to be found.

Curious.

As Einriss contemplated the book, there was a- not a disturbance, possibly that was too strong a word, but a change, a faint breeze and a noiseless noise, as if the air was being gently moved aside, and then Enneth faded gently into existence in the center of the room, standing on the symbol; a faint halo of dull light faded in with her, then faded out of existence, leaving her there.

She looked… not exactly upset, but as if she had been and a few rests' calming-down hadn't quite been enough to erase the effects. She blinked as she finished fading in, and started as she spotted Einriss. “Ah! Oh. Hello? Dlyss sent you in here?”

Einriss' surprise settled into its mild equivalent and lingered on the light. Like an outline. She had not happened upon invisibility, lest his appearance would not come as a surprise - even if such a trick blinded the wielder, he had made enough sounds that she would have known him to be here. Teleportation, then. Related to the book, perhaps? If so, was it a portal or a world unto itself, perhaps even too strange to comprehend, where 'travel to' lost much of its meaning? If not, did it contribute to the process with whatever was contained within? Given its aura, he doubted it played a passive role.

He could pepper her with the same questions he would ask Dlyss once she appeared, about the nature of the book and its precise functionality, about where she had come from, about, if she had any guess, why it felt quite so alive and whether that was why it was relevant to his life's narrative. Paradoxically, Enneth's appearance tempered the very questions it might have answered, for if Enneth was involved, he had no lingering doubts about being adequately informed.

“Not personally. She appears to be tied up in a shouting match with a politician,” he commented, his own voice subdued, almost withdrawn, having slid back to leave Enneth ample room. His gaze lingered on her face well past its welcome while the glacial processes in his mind picked apart the signs,cross-referenced them, and finally concluded that the initial impression had a high probability of being relevant. Softly: “Are you quite all right?”

“Oh… yes…” Enneth looked around distractedly. “Well, no, not really. Not when I narrowly missed being a witness to a bloodbath and then failed to miss pushing through the midst of that crowd out there - I've been around crowds before, but they were audiences, not mobs on the verge of riot. But being able to get away for a little while helped.”

She meandered over to the book Einriss had been examining and glanced at it, as if checking to make sure it was the right one. “We'll be going as soon as she pulls herself away from Councillor Jorith, I expect.”

“Were you at Sheathetalon, then?” Einriss surmised, his gaze automatically drifting to take in the rest of her form, searching it for wounds that might not yet have properly healed. “Were you hurt?” The crowd, meanwhile, deserved no further mention - they had both lived through that one, after all, though Einriss took fleeting notice of that he'd missed the 'mob on the verge of riot' subtext, as per usual. At least that had made passing through it only mildly unpleasant, rather than distressing; it seemed that occasionally, there was some benefit to his ignorance.

Enneth stared blankly at the book. “No,” she replied in a hollow voice, “Dlyss sent me and the scholar we were traveling with away. At the time, I had thought maybe she just wanted us to be the ones to work in the cold, but she must've seen the attack coming…” She trailed off.

Oh. Oh. That brought Einriss' thought processes to something of a halt, making a mess of the dynamic he usually saw between Enneth and Dlyss - a wonderful mess, potentially stirring empathy into entrenched mental habits.

And yet, if Dlyss had sought to protect Enneth, what did that do with Enneth's unmistakable latent pessimism in regards to her employer's plans? 'What did she rescue me for?' could not possibly be a pleasant question to ask oneself even if one felt attuned to one's saviour… and it was unlikely the Oracle would answer such a question if asked, if she had not spoken an explicit warning upfront.

Given such foresight, it was strange anyone by her side had died at all, for that matter.That just went to show that sufficient force was to some degree a threat even to an Oracle. A lesson to learn. Perhaps it would behoove him to have greater concern for his employer in future.

A thought struck him. “I heard that… someone died,” he commented, hesitantly, well out of his depth as to how to approach voicing his errant thought, his antennae attempting futile approximations of knots. “Someone… close?”

“Oh. No. Sakuth was Dlyss' psionic guard - even seeing the future only helps so much if people can reach into your head, I suppose. People in that job tend to mix more with each other - I only spoke to him once or twice.” She shook her head. “But I think I would rather not talk about it.” She looked around at the mostly-empty library. “I suppose you've never gotten to see a linking book in person?”

Einriss was in the process of opening his muzzle to remark on Sakuth's demise when Enneth's comment stopped him short. It clacked shut, just barely audible. It took effort to wrench his concentration away from the topic of Sheathetalon to the admittedly far more interesting topic she was proposing. Of those, one of those was casual conversation that he might yet express genuine interest in, the other a tangle of social tripwires - his preference was clear. Unfortunately, it was in the nature of tripwires that it was difficult to get oneself untangled from them, so that he spent a few heartbeats awkwardly muted.

“My curiosity is greater still,” he finally said, thawing out of the quiet that his inner scramble for a path from one topic to the other had tipped him into. It took only a few spoken words for all of his body language to convey his interest. “In fact, I'm afraid you may have to start at the beginning - what is a 'linking book'?”

Enneth supposed, somewhat sourly, that she shouldn't've been surprised. Linking books were not completely unknown, but most Chosen had even seen one, much less used one; it wouldn't be too hard, with the right lack of attentiveness, to not hear of them either. Einriss, it had to be said, struck her as exactly that sort.

Aloud, she said, “It's a book with enchantments drawn into it, so that if you also write in a description of a place - if it's described well enough - it allows you to travel there. That's what the page with the moving image is for - you put your paw on it, and you go there.”

A portal! Einriss' antennae effortlessly betrayed his full attention. “How far does such enchantment reach? Beyond Sekhaa?” he asked, driven by his curiosity, trying - badly - to tamper his enthusiasm for what he was beginning to imagine. The sense of life had been sufficiently alien that he wasn't at all inclined to think the enchantments were even restricted to Avishraa, but it could, hypothetically, be a mere artifact of the way the magic worked; perhaps by some measure, the book indeed 'had a life of its own'.

“It, er, there's no real 'how far' limit that anyone's found, as such,” Enneth replied lamely. “There are other limits, other requirements… but distance, no. Unless you're very specifically describing a place you know of personally, you're as likely to get a different world entirely as not.”

With different organisms? He resisted the urge to ask the bland question. Enneth had more than insinuated that they would travel to one of these worlds soon - if it was the one on the pedestal, he could judge for himself how much of the emanating vividness was what he hoped to find. Nowhere, perhaps, where one could easily survive, but all the more fascinating for it. Inspiring, perhaps. Useful to sample. But in any case, if they were to set foot on other worlds, he was already rapt.

But perhaps it was best to confirm his impression. “And it's one such wholly 'different world' that we are going to once Dlyss finishes her… debate?”

“Oh, yes.” Enneth tapped the book on the pedestal. “This one. It's not the most interesting one I've done, though.”

“It isn't meant to be,” came Dlyss' voice from the outer library. Enneth stiffened up, then grimaced.

The Oracle strode in. She looked… unusually uncomposed, though 'annoyed' might have been more to the point; her usual serenity had been replaced by an expression that suggested that she was tired and hungry and, after having been dragged slowly lengthwise through a conversation she would rather not have had, was no closer to remedying either state. The look that she directed at both Enneth and Einriss had a strong 'do-not-argue-with-me-about-anything' component to it.

“Are we ready?” she snapped. Enneth tried to look dutiful. “Um. Yes, whenever you are.”

“Good.” Dlyss strode past them. That was the other thing odd; she wasn't wearing her usual robe, either. She was otherwise unadorned, except for her marriage-necklace with the three charms hanging from it. She was heavyset, with a broad, barrel-shaped chest and thick limbs; but remarkably trim for all that, though some padding around the stomach testified to the fact that she had borne children. Marching up to the book, she added, “I had originally intended to have the experimental plants tested on the bounds of the Citadel, but in light of the attack, it is clearly no longer safe to do so. This location will be more secure. Enneth, help him bring his things through.” She brought a paw down on the moving image, briefly gained a glowing outline, and then faded from sight.

Enneth stared after her, then shrugged and sighed. “Yes, O Oracle,” she murmured, before going to pick up some of Einriss' things by the doorway without damaging anything in any obvious way. “So, er, when you're ready, make sure you have a tight grip on everything and touch the image on the page. There won't be any acceleration or anything - unless things went wrong, of course - just some disorientation, maybe. From your point of view it'll look like the destination is fading in while the library is fading out.”

“…testing the–?” he asked, startled, as though he'd been thrown into a completely different context. “I am not exactly fully equi–” But Dlyss was already fading away, leaving Einriss to stare at the spot where she had been and ponder whether he should be bumbling to the lab to get the rest of his things that may or may not prove necessary for planting, nurturing and tuning the test subjects. “I greatly appreciate the primer,” he says, finally, to Enneth. “Unfortunately, it appears I ought to acquire the rest of my inventory first. Do you mind waiting or shall I just trail after Dlyss and you on my own time?”

Enneth shook her head. “Just… bring what you have, and explain to her why it's not time for testing when you get there. There's storage there, if it would help to start keeping anything there beforehand.”

Enneth hesitated, then added, “I wouldn't take this as expert opinion, but I have the feeling that's less likely to make her angry right now than delaying. She seems to really like being offworld, it calms her down.”

Einriss, not having been concerned about Dlyss' displeasure as much as an inability to do the work requested, is about to object to the suggestion, when he's struck by one of his rare moments of insight: Maybe not now. It takes effort for him to accept that verdict - the idea of leaving his tools behind to hurry into a thus likely pointless affair was as easy to hold in his mind as it was not to sink in a swamp, but he gave it a valiant try. Ultimately, it takes him a few eternal breaths to thaw out of his subdued, sour posture, and speak: “Fine.” Inwardly, he vehemently disagreed with the word just spoken, but pushed the thought aside enough to begin collecting what he had brought in today for the voyage… if it could be called a voyage at all. A pause in his motions, then: “…what is the soil composition where we are going?”

Enneth examined those things that Einriss hadn't picked up yet, and picked up the box of ashes in an effort to be helpful - so long as she didn't drop it, she doubted she could destroy ashes. She understood that Einriss was not happy, and while she was not familiar with everything he would have to go through for his experiments, she was nonetheless not surprised.

“Coarse,” she said. “Mostly sand, small percentages of loam or clay. Loose. Dry. Not much organic matter. Lots of gravel mixed in.” She meandered back over to the book. “It's about the same as what we have on our mountainsides here. The main reason for the trip to the outpost was to confirm that I got it right in the book. It's even weathered from the same kind of rock.”

As Enneth details what Einriss could expect their destination, his tension gradually begins to dissipate. At least that was one fixed variable in all this mess. He composes himself, his air transitioning from 'disgruntled child' to something with significantly more dignity. From there, it takes only a moment for curiosity to find him again, and his antennae betray as much as he approaches the enchanted book with the rest of his things - and then it clicks, having been lost to the drama of Dlyss' entrance earlier. “This is your work, then?” he asks. There is as much surprise in the question as a certain delight - he's had enough interaction with Enneth to have a higher than average trust in her diligence and reliability, after all, so the prospect of using a book of Enneth's design to teleport somewhere inspires plenty more confidence than the work of a random takma would have.

“Yep.” She sniffed. “It does its job. Bubbles is more interesting, from a flora sort of standpoint. …Now, so you know what to expect: when you go through, you'll be in a cave. It's heated, at least enough to be habitable, and it has smaller chambers for storage leading off of it.”

She hesitated, and then added, “If you'd like to go through first, you can. Just, er, step out of the way once you arrive. The enchantment seems to try to avoid placing someone where another person already is, but I prefer not to take chances - we might end up close enough to knock each other over, anyway.”

“How does that–?” Einriss began to say, then stopped himself. It was probably nothing at all like a plant ranking itself around an obstacle and if it was too physical a description he would rapidly lose interest anyway. Instead, he paused for a moment, regarding the enchanted book with a different curiosity - so Enneth had made this. He could think of no intelligent question to ask on this side of the portal, but presumed he would have plenty once he passed through. Currently, his arms were wrapped around his impromptu inventory, but it was trivial to ease one away enough to touch the page. For a moment, he hesitated, glancing to Enneth as if to ensure that he was truly welcome in what he now considered her territory - then glanced back toward the page and touched it.

The experience was… strange. There probably wasn't really another decent word for it.

The library spun around Einriss and was sucked into some distant void, and it took his body with it; and all around him was… not darkness, really, but neither was it light. It was a vast expanse of some strange, swirling something that the brain perceived without the intervention of the eye. He hung there among it for a moment, drifting, and then his body and surroundings spun back into existence around him-

…but this time, it was different.

He was in a cave, but it was not the library, nor was it even in Dlyss' home - it was a plain, natural chamber, with only a few adornments. An ornate symbol had been carved into the floor, and a small shelf had been crudely hacked into one wall; it had a book sitting in it. There was also, held in something like a metal bracket or cage attached to the top of a short pole, some kind of crystal; it glowed a fierce orange, and it appeared to be emitting heat.

This was evidently necessary. Of the four passages that led off of the chamber, one upward-angling one was producing a cold breeze, faintly scented with pine, though no light could be seen from the entrance.

The displacement process gently flayed his synapses and laid them bare. He felt a disembodied form of nausea, a confusion that grappled with itself and tried to determine, desperately, whether it was really a panic. Then, just as his disappearance from Avishraa had brought those feelings with it as though through a deep inhale, his coalescing formed the corresponding exhale, evaporating his immediate unease. A physical breath followed, awkwardly, having erroneously assumed itself to have been caught up in his chest. It jittered lightly past his teeth. His tongue followed, lapping at the sharp edges - tangible. He felt himself, conscious of his full proprioception, and regained his composure, just in time to remember Enneth's words. His lips pulled back in a silent expression of displeasure at himself and he hurried to the side.

Privately, he decided he did not like this mode of travel. It felt too much like it was stripping him of all essence and he did not trust that it would always - as it had this time, and as was evidently orderly - give it back.

After a few seconds, Enneth faded in, standing in a place only slightly different from where Einriss had been a moment earlier; her forepaw was still extended out, palm down, where it had been touching the book. Aside from a few blinks afterward, she appeared unfazed by the experience of the journey, though of course she had doubtless experienced it countless times before.

“Okay,” she said, glancing around briefly. She pointed at one of the passages. “That's sort of the storeroom through there, so we can put these things down there. There are some small shelves, though I'm not sure all these will fit on them.” She meandered toward that passage, but gestured toward the others. “That one is a privy, if you need one while we're here. That one has some cots for sleeping on, I doubt we'll be staying long enough this time to need it now, but it might come in handy if extended work needs to be done here. And the last one with the cold breeze coming in is the way outside.”

As the shock of the displacement itself wears off, letting Einriss focus on his environment and its traits, his circumstance begins to chill him - not in a literal sense, though a prolonged stay would likely cause as much, but emotionally. The sense of life that the book had given him felt almost amiss here, as though he had been kicked onto an arid plane after being promised a rain forest.

The strong sense of life was still there as an emanation of the book in the shelf, vivid, alluring - but it seemed like an empty promise all of a sudden. Perhaps it was, then, as words were - a summary. If there was life in the destination world at all, perhaps even if life could thrive there at all, then the summary would speak of it, loudly advertising the fact in its very aura… but the immediate destination could easily be more coy? Not that he could rule out that there was a lush world outside and the arid taste to his immediate surroundings simply came as a whiplash effect from the travel through the enchantment.

Absent-mindedly, he petted the shallow box of assorted insects and hugged his arm to the bag of seeds strung together with rope. The scent of pine promised there was more to explore, either way - at least some life for his mana to attune itself to.

For now, he followed Enneth quietly, still sorting the sensations of travel and trying to make peace with all the unusual input.

Enneth glanced at the shelves, which had been hollowed out of the rock and not entirely squared off, then at the box of ashes she'd been carrying; after experimentally putting it on the shelf and seeing how far it hung over the edge, she decided to place it in an out-of-the-way spot instead. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Crude accommodations. But coming in inside a cave at least makes sure you have the weather off you, and it's easier than building a structure.”

Hesitantly, Einriss sets the rest of his inventory aside. Instinctively, it feels like a poor idea to let go of the items, even though they conveyed no practical advantage - but right now, Einriss was far away from anything that could be considered 'home', and in some way, his measly gear felt like an anchor back to all he was used to.

No matter. Without the rest of his 'kit' from Avishraa, he wasn't going to get any useful work done any time soon - and if it was 'talking to Dlyss' that needed doing, dragging these seeds and insects along was only going to make things awkward.

“And whereabouts might Dlyss have run off to?” he asks, finally. Then, in afterthought:“…I do find myself confused, actually. Why did she claim this location to be more secure? Surely anyone with the wit to break into her abode would similarly have the wit to follow us through the open book.

“She went outside. She always goes outside,” Enneth added mournfully, “even when it's cold. Even when it's snowing.” She led the way out into the main chamber and through the upward-sloping passage.

“You do have to keep books either well-protected or well-hidden,” she added. “But Dlyss' house isn't exactly easy to get into - it's carved into solid rock, it's not like there's a window to climb into. There's only two entrances into the whole house, and they're always guarded. Uninvited people turn up all the time, and they don't get in unless Dlyss tells them. And Dlyss herself… I mean, she is an oracle, she can probably foresee if someone's going to try something.” There was a pause. “Most of the time, anyway.”

The breeze drifting down the passage became colder, and more strongly scented… and darker, away from the light back in the chamber. There was a faint, washed-out light ahead, but it was not clear what it was until the roof retreated behind them, revealing a sky full of stars - crammed to overflowing with them, in fact, for there were far more than in the skies of Avishraa. Directly above them was a bright orb - large and off-white, like Kastun, but not quite the right size, and not quite the right color; it was faintly reddish, a very washed-out pink.

And spread out around them was a rugged landscape, stony mountains embracing deep valleys, the very deepest full of tall, coniferous trees, all dimly reflecting the light of the planet above. And, lying on a rock overlooking the landscape, was Dlyss. She was… almost slumped there, in the manner of one who had let go of a terribly heavy burden and was having a well-deserved rest.

Enneth glanced at her, and then shivered. “Lucky for her it's warm for a night right now,” she muttered.

At the comments about heading out into the cold, Einriss involuntarily shuddered - the prospect of following Dlyss into the chilly weather was hardly a delight. Not even plants, Einriss reasoned, were typically fond of frost.

Then came Enneth's elaborations. “Hence my point,” Einriss observed. “Surely this place offers a negligible benefit over simply remaining… home?” He was hesitant to refer to where they had come from as 'Avishraa', as though speaking it so plainly might remind this world that it was unfathomably hostile toward its visitors, and the ground open as to grind them in Uvuun's maw. Superstition? He was hardly the type for superstition. But there was an elegance in describing his emotions with the pantheon - a useful shorthand for the unease the form of travel had infected him with. It didn't have to be literal to be descriptive.

The very end of his question coincides neatly with his realisation what form of light is permeating this world. Starlight. A whole ocean of stars in the firmament, crowned by another far closer, pleading to be a sun, pitifully falling short of its own aspirations.

His surprise hitched into an abstract displeasure. No, no, this wasn't going to do for the plantlife, was it? How could anything from Avishraa grow here? The colour of light was important for optimal growth! Oh, if only they'd asked him before they'd decided to move the experiments here–

Enneth's musings about the temperature yank his attention back down, and into the chill. For a moment's confusion, he's unsure what Enneth is referring to - then he sees Dlyss. Wrapping his limbs around himself to keep as much of his warmth to himself as possible, Einriss stares across at the Oracle. There was no subtlety in the Oracle's air - and had there been, Dlyss was one takma that he at this point had a decent grasp of body language of.

It did not look like a posture that sought their attention.

“She seems rather uninterested in an audience,” Einriss mused, his voice respectfully subdued.

Though Einriss' voice was subdued, Dlyss' could be clearly heard, weary though it was. “There is an unreasonable probability,” she said, “that you both will continue standing there without speaking to me until I change stance. I must tell you that this is not likely to happen immediately. Come forward and speak, if you prefer. I am not unwell; I am merely… in an unaccustomed state.”

An Oracle being in 'an unaccustomed state' seemed like such a misplaced concept - even though there was no particular reason why that should be true. Being able to potentially predict rare moods made them no more accustomed, after all.

They could crawl back into the relative warmth inside later, then.

“Prefer to be inside,” Einriss corrected as he approached, although without any resentment in his tone - it was a fact like any other. “Prefer to be back home, in fact, at the very least to get the relevant rest of my laboratory. Inventory. Tools. Subjects, even, perhaps most accurately.”

He eyed Dlyss, trying to discern her thoughts from her body language alone - he knew fine well it was doomed to failure, but it did not stop him from trying anyway.

With only little delay: “What do you need? And how may we assist you with it?”

Dlyss took her time in answering; she looked out over the landscape, as if looking for something and not being sure she wanted to find it.

“I suppose,” she said slowly, “I suppose that my talk with the councillor made me inattentive. I foresaw you bringing supplies and sprang to the conclusion that you might be prepared to move forward with something… no matter. It is better that you were introduced to the concept and experience of the linking books at this stage.” She turned to look at him. “Enneth, and others of my acquaintance, assure me that this place-” She paused, flicking her gaze forward into the future. It annoyed her to have to ask questions of people, but in this case she was disappointed; there was no answer to be foreseen. “-this place, which has not yet been named, is as close a replication of the environment around the borders of the Citadel as Enneth can achieve, especially on short notice. The attack at Sheathetalon has thoroughly drained my confidence that plantings on our world would be safe from sabotage.”

Dlyss turned to look back at the landscape. “It has its own drawbacks. But unlike an open landscape on Avishraa, which may be approached from any direction, a saboteur would be required to penetrate my home and avoid my guards to reach the book, of which there is only one copy. The guards know that you are to be admitted without ceremony; you may enter and leave through the book as you need.”

She slowly rose to all fours, and then indicated that she (finally) was ready to move back inside. “I can allow myself only short sojourns away from Avishraa,” she said, “but being on a mostly uninhabited world, where the future is not so weighty, is… useful to my state of mind.” This explanation appeared to be an apology for making Einriss stand in the cold, or at least the closest he would get (Enneth knew it was not directed at her).

Of course it would take an Oracle's preoccupation with politics for her to completely miss that he was capable of doing nearly everything with the hybrids indoors, short of growing them to any formidable size. Suddenly the whole aggravating to-and-fro made sense.

Einriss was annoyed.

But no, he told himself. It was unreasonable to expect an Oracle to know everything, as humbling as it was to be confronted with just how non-omnipresent she really was. This had happened before, of course, but never with anything relating to the projects. He'd never taken it as seriously as now.

“I was going to bring the rest of my things, but I was–” Led to believe that the Oracle would not tolerate delays. Perhaps it was more polite not to call out Enneth's misconception while she stood right next to him. He grimaced and kept it to himself. “Nevermind.” A sigh. Then, belatedly bewildered: “Who in the Citadel would sabotage defensive weapons?”

The air got warmer again as they trooped back down the tunnel. “There are those,” Dlyss stated, “who would. Some are… unreasonably aligned with the interests of the Unchosen, traitors to their kind. Others merely have political reasons for seeing those of us concerned for the Citadel's future to fail in our efforts.”

Politics. The more Dlyss spoke of it, the more Einriss realised with dismay he didn't understand even a lick of it. It seemed like such an intractable emergent phenomenon of social interaction - he had a reasonable comprehension of individual interactions by now (although mimicking it was another matter), owing to his occasional but obsessive observations, but politics still escaped him completely.

“Then they're idiots,” he said, bluntly. “No Unchosen will get hurt unless they try to invade. But if we have no defenses, those who oppose us ”for political reasons“ would suffer in the attack just like any others. In either case, sabotage makes no sense at all.”

“Of the drawbacks to oracular sight,” Dlyss stated grimly, “one is the realization that even non-oracular forward thinking is a surprisingly scarce resource. My foes would say publicly, and possibly even believe, that no attack will be forthcoming. They will learn differently, in time.”

By now, they were back in the relative warmth of the central chamber. Dlyss sat down for a moment on the floor. “This space was… hurriedly made. I am not certain how well it fits any of your requirements, but I can hire a trustworthy elementalist to have it altered, if need be.”

“There is no harm in the project even if there is no attack, though!” Einriss huffed. “The project isn't drawing from any resources that would better befit a different endeavour.” His antennae couldn't quite decide what to emote - he was clearly in mild distress about the whole thing beneath all that stern muttering, no doubt amplified by the alien environment.

Once inside, the worst of it dissipated in favour of a more subdued air - a trace of tiredness, of resignation, but also of gratitute. “I'm unsure about the interference of starlight and spectral composition of the daylight outside, and what that might do to… Avishraan vegetation,” he admitted. “But the inside is, of course, quite sufficient, if indeed you want me to do my work here. As you know I don't need much - this is a generous space by any measure.

“I was perhaps hoping we might work together a little more closely, what with how invaluable your predictive insights have been in cutting time off the project, but if… politics forces you to segregate the project from Avishraa, I certainly understand.” A pause. “Well, maybe I don't, but not in a way that–” He cut himself off and exhaled markedly. “Apologies; I'm telling you things you already know.

“Beyond an efficient use of this… area, for furthering the project, might there be anything else I can do for you?” Dlyss was a grown takma and more capable than most - but her frayed mood made it impossible for even Einriss' empathy not to engage. “I realise my skills are likely best focussed, but if I can assist, I hope you know you can ask almost anything of me.”

The ”almost”, Dlyss was likely to know, simply was a precision most takmar would not use, rather than evidence of insufficient loyalty. Einriss was lucid, for example, that he wasn't going to kill himself at Dlyss' command and in his typical manner of speaking was unwilling to omit as simply implied.

Dlyss had not seen any particular evidence of unhelpfulness in Einriss' future, but his statement was pleasing (not comforting, the future shifted too often for much to qualify as “comforting”).

“In time, perhaps,” she said aloud. “Necessity, I think, will require us to seek other measures of defense, but those will come later. Should I foresee any other matters in which I require assistance, I shall inform you. But I shall visit regularly, as my schedule permits. The books make these chambers only a few moments away, so as long as you are present here when I have spare time, it will not be a great inconvenience to come.”

She paused, and glanced at Enneth. “And should you require biological material that cannot be easily obtained, Enneth may be able to write a world that has some-”

Enneth spoke up, slightly distressed. “It doesn't work that way, ma'am. I can write a world, I can't write the life in it.”

Dlyss waved vaguely. “Should you require biological material,” she started again, still looking at Einriss, “which might possibly arise from a particular environment, Enneth may be able to write a world with that environment. I would, in any case, recommend you to see Bubbles in the Dark in your own time, should she be willing to show you. I imagine you would find it intriguing.”