9th Light beneath the twelfth Moon

3761 Cycles beyond the Dark

722 Years after the Repentance

Entry: 1/060

Dear self,

Vamera started talking again today. She wouldn’t stop actually. It was a little hysterical, but I think she was something between a panicking and extremely happy. That or relieved. It was mostly about the little lights, which seem to mean something to her. Physically she was still as waveringly dim as yesterday, but everything else about her was quite energetic. She kept floating off chattering away and I lost her in the trees.

When I went back Rahph was sniffing at the starry black plant and scratching at the dirt surrounding it. I had to shove him off to discourage him, but he just opened his jaws and mouthed me. He was still much too large in the dream compared to his real height. I was also slightly smaller than I am in the waking world as far as I could figure, but with the foreign scenery I can only guess the relative height of the trees and my relative height in comparison.

He dragged me back to his territory like I was some snack. Threw me into his constantly flaming bonfire and came cuddling next to me. He was sitting on my foot, so I could not escape, and if I got too distracted the fire actually started to feel scalding since I had no way of pretending I didn’t know it was there. If it was a sudden event that lasted but a moment my surprise would have protected me in the dream, but pin someone down on the fire itself and they’ll eventually start imagining the sensation. Chanting a focus helped keep my mind on other things, but whenever I slipped the full meditation into distraction the fire burned at me. It was highly unpleasant, but less so for the fact that fully imagining being burned is beyond most people’s experience.

I confronted Anora about how suspicious she was being today. She relented after a few guilty pouts and then took me a ways into the woods to show me what she was up to. There was a rudimentary ward around a clearing that ensured it was difficult to find for anyone who didn’t know to look for it specifically. It even had a spell attached that clung to anyone passing through the barrier to erase their footsteps from the snow.

Approaching footsteps were the most conspicuous as a result, but animals and people were dissuaded form entering if they didn’t have a conscious reason to come to that spot in particular. It was done in Ancient magic, which means Anora was taking it seriously, and it also means basically no one else would be able to properly analyse it or be able to counter it easily.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

It was the Quislings. Them and the stupid Simulacrum that looked like me. It took Anora a long while to calm me down after that revelation and bribing me with a set of rare alchemy materials was more giving me an excuse to delay my rage than what brought me to reason. It still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but if I must deal with it I might as well take something as consolation.

She had met them at the Gate coming into the island, which is likely why her arrival had been delayed into the morning instead of what I would expect from travellers coming into Tintinnabulis. She vouched for them and was taking complete responsibility for the little imps. She even got them apologising quite frantically. I don’t know how they evaded Axl Rashplume and his divinations, but the constabulary was still searching for them, and keeping them was literally harbouring fugitives.

They only gave thin justifications for their actions. They apparently needed to hide from some war aligned asura and didn’t care about the methods. Having the Simulacrum just keep silent in understanding was beyond awkward as well as enraging in a completely new way.

I went to work on the doll with only anger filling my mind. I was furious. As silently furious as I can be. It worked too. I managed doing the framework for the control lattice in an hour so that a simple cantrip could control the limb movements and puppet the joints in unison.

After that I was still angry and out of work to do so I went with the evasion cloak next. I worked on the sympathetic link between the wearer and the projection that allowed the user to experience the projection’s surrounding as if its eyes and ears were their own. I found that the projection seemed to work well at all its functions including suppressing its own presence, even separated from the real cloak by multiple walls and across several spans of distance. The real cloak became less effective at supressing the user’s presence as the projection became more removed from it but having them in the same room allowed both to have their presence supressed partially at all times, and effectively suppressed on a temporary basis by focusing on the enchantment. Only supressing one of the two remained more effective in keeping at least one unseen, which also helps with deception more than two partially supressed presences.

It was easy to ignore my thoughts and just focus while I was angry. None of the aggressive intent even leaked into any of the items I worked on today. The only thing that came through was focus, and it was the type of focus you gained if you stopped thinking and started only acting. The cloak even seemed like its Opus has been refined a little from the exposure. After working on the cloak my emotions became too energetic to work on anything else. My affinities leaning towards being apathetic means I was not one of the people who could get a boost out of losing their head in intense emotions. Anora might, but even she generally goes for using the more balanced side of affinities rather that trying to get power out of enthusiasm or devotion or something.

Hope we fare well.

Regards,

Me.

~*M*~