And so it went. The Healer of Seactir came to visit them several times; each opportunity the two of them spoke; of the Eras of yesteryear, never going back to the dealings of that first aborted conversation.

In time they began to regain things. Their [Affinity] as an divinity revealed itself like a sigh across the shoulders. [Divinity of Dreams]. They could remember that much now.

They began to change the cloudhome, this world that was the end and the beginning their sanity. The Healer instructed them in the effort, encouraging them even.

One day they tried recreate that memory which to them had been akin to an end, in doing so falling through a door best left unopened.

___

They stood on the red plain, their mind unspooling in manner of a bird’s eye. The legendary army stood there, its vanguard a Human with armor like slowly cooling lava, faces wroth. Zalin of the Ten Manors. Archmystic.

Spears tipped in bronze fell like a shower; their followers, the few of them left, retreated back.A name beckoned, for how were they called?

Cowardice spat the [Black Paladin], their paladin.”Surely—“they began.

“Traitor!”

The word seemed to echo across the red plain, growing louder with each rebound. The syllables made their way over the wall of the stronghold.

The [Black Paladin] stiffened.

Oh no.

A Goblin woman with a shade of skin that would never come naturally marched beneath the shower of spears.”Traitor!” Her ocean skin contrasted with the seashell-grey of her ornate armor.

“And you are the greatest traitor of them all, Maceren!”

Maceren. The god shivered. That had been the girl’s name. Before she become the [Black Paladin], before she fought the Chained Unity freeing so many slaves of all species; when she had walked with a garland of lichen above her horns and when both friend and allies had cheered her name; Maceren, [Defender of Dreams].

They watched as the girl-turned-woman spoke the name of a [Lot]. The fleeing warriors cried out. Through the window, lit by the shining eyes of their paladin they could see the whites of those warriors widen.

Their bodies were seized and turned around against their will, puppeteered by a skill that had ever been used against her enemies, their eyes blank with fear.

Maceren, who had once fought to free slaves, now repeated that old sin.

They could not bear it any more.

____

This time they made the cloudhome look like the Sparse Serenity. Trees like mushrooms with broad caps and veins of roots warred with small bushes for what little water could be found in the region; on the horizon a white hawk hunted a antelope. The ground was dusty and, well, sparse.

Did the Sparse Serenity remain? This what was it had looked in their time. What toll had time exacted since then?

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Both Humans and Goblin alike had desired the region. Goblins had found alchemical purposes for the trees and Humans would hunt anything that walked, slithered or leapt.

Perhaps it was all desert now. Suddenly they wanted know. The Healers words echoed:…nothing wrong with their body.

They walked up the trunk of an eucalyptus, the tree uncaring for the rigours of natural rules and found themselves glancing up at a dark sky. Stars showered like sparks; they could feel something.

They stretched out with their senses, trying to trace that elusive sensation.

To them it tasted of ennui. Of things growing and dying. Passage; passages.

Time.

That was what they experienced every time that starry vista took over the northern sky. A false clock, lulling them into believing that this was real.

They wept then, wept for Maceren, for what they knew deep in their heart but feared to recall; but most of all they wept for a sight they longed for. A real sky.

____

“…Hheso, and then later Morcossos were discovered in the Era of Adventures. Modern scholars speak of distance as the chief reason; but I was there, and I shall tell you: none, I say none wanted to make that journey without the power of steam.”

The garments the Healer wore today were out of outlandish make; no dress this, but a piece of garment that begun at her waist only to end in boots of a leather they did not recognise. The tunic worn was long, but these…these pants were simply outrageous!

They had known robes of sheer silk and veils that showed more than they hid, but that body-hugging garment, more than anything else told them that the world had changed.

And what was this talk about lightning? Harnessing steam for power was one thing, a power of the Five Elements, but what the Healer said about lightning was ridiculous. Copper wire? Bah.

“And this forest the first half-kin spoke of——“

“Half-goblin. They’re called Half-goblins in this modern Era.”

They paused.”The forest.. the Half-goblin spoke of, this Worm Forest. Why is it named such?”

Safe, this was a safe topic.

The Divine Continent of their time had carried its name due to its population of gods, and the Origin had been aptly named for being the cradle of Humanity. But what odd reason could there be for a forest named for worms?

In awaiting a response they reached out and shifted the cloudhome. Red grass became thick bamboo; a grey sky panorama rotated on itself before unfolding into a white sky without grief or unease.

A soft wind brought with it the scents of myrrh and growing things.

“…because of the original inhabitants.”

The Healer touched a bamboo-stalk.”This reminds me of the Great Northern Forest.”

“The black bamboo of the Eternal Forest still remains?”

She blew black hair through a curtain of hair, now known as a fringe.”It is so. The Golem has a treaty to make the merchants weep blood, and they can shake their bills of paper at mercenaries all they like, nobody is going to fight the State of Se without better cause than that.”

Paper? What had happened to coins? Equal change of goods?

A crooning parrot landed on a nearby bamboo thicket. It made eyes at them.

“This State, it is located in the Great Northern Forest?”

“Next to the Ubiquity, though however long that land lasts is anyone’s guess.”

Names, names. Names of lands, of things they knew not. How much had the world changed? They wanted to see this new strange world, wanted to walk its alien streets.

A mate of the parrot landed next to its friend and they began to sing a ditty that——they shook themselves. They could still recall that song, even if nobody else did. Yes. Even though few might remember, they did. A small comfort, but it would have to do.

“The mettle of Goblins must have languished in the millennia since I walked the Globe. There was a time when nobody even made landfall on Sardozil without the express consent of the Almighty Archons.”

The parrot took flight, soaring high above them.

The Healer stared at the bamboo swaying in the wind. The refusal to meet their eyes sang to them. Of other Eras she had spoken…

“We’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?”

“We have. In different shapes and forms. What I tell you at this step either hastens the process or dooms it entirely. In the Era of Ceremony and Bronze, the first Era we met, you tried to kill me when you learned what I speak off.”

“What…”

They were unsure if they wanted her to be quiet or to continue speaking.

A great roar echoed through the bamboo; the mating call of sabercat.

“Riddle me this, oh ancient steward. Is it better to live in ignorance or to face a truth worse than death?”

They flinched. Too close for comfort.

“It would have to depend on the person and whatever question posed. Some truths are dreams, others are nightmares and some could be both, if not forever.” I hope…

“I have often wondered at such. You see…”

The wind skittered over the thicket; white squirrels chattered above them as a hawk rode warm winds to the coast.

“The Goblins are no more. They are gone, never to walk the Globe again. I am the last of my kind.”

Each word fell like blocks of stone; the ancient god quailed.

“How——“

“It was the birthrates, and at the end, our Archons who so doomed us with war and treason.”

Over the warm wind of summer, a god stared unthinking, unknowingly at bamboo.