What, dear Reader, happens when a PROTEAN PRIMORDIAL LIVING SOULBOUND GLORIOUS ETERNAL ULTIMATE GROWTH WEAPON, SHIELD, ARMOR, AND UTILITY CHEAT ITEM is fed a chunk of crystallized, reified power that’s been infused with the conceptual distillation of the universal laws that underlie growth and power? The answer may shock and surprise you, for the answer is as follows: very little.

Yes indeed, very little did happen as Nathan fed one chunk of cryma after another to Saucer, other than the decoherence of the crystals as they appeared to sublime into thick, rapidly thinning air, leaving flickers behind of the Laws they had contained. Those gravitated towards the center of Saucer’s unsubtly comical grabby mechanism, where they formed a line of, eventually, thirteen words with matching emojis… and, as though Saucer had tapped into the Akashic Nitro Record itself for the purpose of communicating with them, Discord emotes as well.

And not just any emotes. Custom, animated Discord emotes. Custom, animated Discord emotes which contained far more information than they should have, as though each pixel could fit an entire novel within it.

Fire, one of them read. Below it, an alchemical flame; above it, an animated green flame dancing in a goblin’s eyes. It was the Law of Consumption, pertaining to the act of transmutation which takes from a substance all within it which is worthy fuel and leaves behind all else as undifferentiated dross.

Charge, another read. Below it, a battery; above, a man quite literally radiated power as the universe locked into place around him. It was the Law of Power, through which one grasps freedom and the ability to act on one’s own desires or is subject to the will of another.

Harmony was the third. Below it, a farmer; above it, a sheaf of wheat overlaid atop a maple leaf, emblazoned on the back of a young woman’s jacket as she flexed under a sky that reflected only perfection and contentment. It was the Law of Cycles, the peace found in things being precisely as they ought to be as they danced through their patterns and recurred, again and again, just as they should.

Fourth, Study. Below, a set of books; above, a young man stood before an interconnected board covered in strips of paper, proclaiming that all things were fundamentally connected. It was the Law of Synecdoche, in which every part of the whole is equivalent to the whole and in which the whole is equivalent to each and every part of itself.

Lesbiab. Below, a rainbow; above, a young woman in a pose of yearning with hearts flying out from her in a range of oranges, pinks, and white. It was the Law of Love, which is love, which is love, which is love; it was the bonds which draw strength from one another through trust and vulnerability and intimacy, the beauty of the eldritch, and the bravery of the mundane.

Transformation came sixth. Below, a coffee mug. Above, an arc of letters, O-P-S-E-C. It was the Law of the Crucible, the means through which dross might become a jewel, the pain and toil by which one form of strength gives way to another, more beautiful form.

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Heroism. Below, a rabbit’s ears. Above, a too-skinny girl in a rabbit-eared costume fires a pistol while leaping to the side. It was the Herolaw, the Law of Champions, and it roiled with the will to protect the weak no matter what it cost them—it was the Law of the protector, of the one who would do what was necessary at risk of their own life; always and only, their own life.

Unity was written with a different script for every letter. Below was the mathematical “union” symbol, ∪; above was a whose hair and robes—in a definitively Fantasy East Asian style—blew dramatically in a breeze and framed her face with its single horn, a face that seemed like a fusion of at least four people. It was the Law of One and simultaneously the Law of Many, the law which said that, paradoxically, one and the whole could be wholly different and yet wholly the same.

Rebellion. Below, a raised fist; above, a young Japanese man inaudibly sang and slammed his fingers across the strings of a guitar against a backdrop of fire and arrows, one such arrow ripping a furrow in his shoulder that immediately healed. It was the Law of Righteous Wrath, that which fulminated and burned and screamed for vengeance against those who committed wrongs but which, at the same time, was tempered by the absolute need for the future to hold something other than a cycle of eternal violence.

An Offer, Extended broke the single-word mold as the count broke into the double digits. Below it was a single hand, extended; above, an orb with a glyph inside it, and then as the perspective broadened, the orb became just one in a constellation, an array of them which was the offered counterpoint to the hand. It was the Law of the High Road, the vantage point from which one can offer another succor or rain down devastation from the high ground; the place where one can stand and be a fortress and an onslaught, but perhaps they will see sense and join you, instead.

Family. Below, two adults and a child; above, a half-orc Paladin and a tiefling Sorceress flanked a young halfling who was visibly their daughter. It was the Law of Adventure, the carefree and consequence-free headlong hurdle into the unknown for the sake of snarky fun and adrenaline.

Alchemy. Below, an alembic; above, a succession of shapes: a black circle within a white square, those within a yellow triangle, and last a red circle around it all—a Philosopher’s Stone, in the hermetic tradition. It was the Law of Transmutation, the process by which the alchemist changes themselves or the world to be greater and more ordered, more correct.

And finally, Infinity. Below, the infinity symbol, ∞; above, an animation of the same symbol zooming out to reveal an eye looking at it, then further to another image, and then further to reveal that it was ∞ all along once more, and again out further through a series of images which felt so very familiar to Nathan even though he could not recognize nor place them, nor truly think about them, or about his thinking or not-thinking about them. It was the Meta-Law, the Law of Recursive Narrative, and we shall speak no more of it lest we invoke one of the Paradoxes of the Broken Wall.

These were the thirteen symbols which reflected the thirteen Laws whose essences had been extracted from Nathan’s rewards, and he was furious.