> “A ruler draws their life, at the end, from the people. For no matter what methods used to maintain control, whether vile or principled, covert or brash, through force of arms or skill with words, when the blade of the revolution is held to your throat, the eyes of the many will decide whether you will see another sunrise.”

* Vannur Stoneheart,

Everyone else was asleep upstairs, the four of them camped out in bedrolls around the low hearth, speaking in low voices in the midst of the night, plotting. “We can’t defeat His Majesty through force of arms, that’s for sure.” Bim said. “He has a massive level advantage, and a literal battalion of level 10-15 and at his beck and call in this city alone. But while he has beat in raw strength, he’s obviously not entirely stable, and we can use that. He’s only going to get stronger as he solidifies his position and becomes more ambitious, so we need to strike as quickly as possible, while he’s as weak as we can get him. Which means drawing him out, making him confused, blinding his agents, everything we can do to make him question and stumble.”

“You’re suggesting psychological warfare?” Greg asked, eyes intent.

“Something like that. A war in the shadows, undermining and upsetting his hold on Esultare.”

“He might not be a master of information and sabotage, but his pet is. How are we supposed to subvert his power when he has that accursed man by his side?” Helena asked.

Bim steepled his fingers together. “The answer is simple to say, but will be a momentous thing to do. We must remove Caspian Devoleon from the picture, either through converting him to our side, blackmail, kidnapping, or murder.”

Zara raised her head, frowning. “Andrium was a murderer and a sick, twisted man, and his death was an execution we deemed necessary. But Devoleon’s crimes have never been confirmed. We can’t act with such prejudice, such questionable methods, against a man who I have not even judged properly. Our actions must be measured, and just, lest we become mere instigators of more pain .”

Bim stopped, staring at Zara for a time, eyes thoughtful. “You know, you didn’t used to talk like that.”

Zara blinked, then had a strange look on her face. “Everything’s changing. I can feel the earth, beneath me, stretching out to the edges of the sea, and beyond, to other continents, more dimly, a vast expanse of land, of Land.” She looked at him, anxiety suddenly in her gaze. “It- They- whatever-- wants to speak through me, mold me. I wonder… I wonder if the Archons do the same to everyone else, those that follow the Sky. To you, and Helena, and Greg, and everyone I’ve ever known. And… It ends. My sixth sense reaches to other continents, and beyond, but eventually it hits a dark ridge, a horizon, on every side. Old, rusted gears, grinding away, clinking away, a system long abandoned, the oldest and biggest of the children scrabbling and tweaking, picking at a machine so large that even they cannot grasp its enormity…”

None of them had seen her like this before, tears streaking down her face, quietly sobbing, seemingly overwhelmed by what she felt. “Show me.” Bim said, grabbing onto her hand.

She blinked hard, clearing tears from her eyes and then closed them, breathed slowly, deeply, and said: “I don’t know if this will work, but… .”

Worms crawled in the dirt. Thousands- hundreds of thousands- millions of critters, from the humblest mite, to the noble elephant-- what was an elephant? Grey hide, heavy feet, yet so strange, nose stretched-- feet stomping, creatures burrowing, water falling, an entire ecosystem encompassing an entire world, every piece of information flowing into his mind, scope expanding further and further into it was a cacophony of sensory input, so much he had never seen before. A billion precious moments, each never to happen again exactly the same.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Zara-- Zara-- he could feel her, the . Uncertain in her new strength, but her presence towered taller than the eldest tree, roots as deep as the mountains’. He could feel others, too, who stood tall. Somewhere far in the west, yet not so far in the eyes of the Land. Another far in the north, another by water and birdsong. Three in total, and Zara was least among them. His thoughts collected slightly more coherently as she guided him, firmly, towards what she had spoken of. Their focus traveled swiftly across land and sea, everything becoming a blur, until finally it was only ocean, cold, dark brine as far as his “eyes” could see, in this strange layer of perception. He felt it approaching, or them approaching it, like a great gloaming at the edge of reality, and he flinched, pulled back from it. The , the Warden, guided him forward, gentler, but insistent. He opened his senses as they reached their destination in fullness.

Her description had not done it justice. Gears made of metal so coated with rust that they clunked along at a snail’s pace, a cosmic engine barely managing to limp along, flakes of rust a thousand feet tall falling away into an endless abyss infinitely larger than the world around which the Great Machine was constructed. The smallest of gears rose as tall as the greatest mountains, taller even. The scale on which the Mechanism existed was beyond what Bim was capable of fully perceiving, larger than anything Bim had ever, and quite likely would ever, see. The ancient adamant machine, ever turning, ever straining to continue after tens of thousands of millennia. So much time had passed them by. And as Bim looked out, a gear halted, stuck, and for a handful of precious moments he could feel the heartbeat of the very world in his throat, could feel darkness and fear at the enormity of nothing clouding the edges of his consciousness, before the gear turned and the system chugged on again.

Taking as much in as he could, as his mind struggled to wrap around the enormousness of what he was bearing witness to, he felt the hairs on his mental neck stand straight up, and felt fear crawl down his back.

There was six Giants made into one beneath, but above, in the Heavens, the rafters of the world, perched six great blood-soaked carrion birds, there feathers as black as tar, stained with the gluttony and hubris of that only the oldest and least wise creatures had. In the next moment, they were great angels, towering things, each of them with a golden-white wingspan as wide as a continent, their bodies made of light and a higher grace, their-- Their?-- faces as bright as the sun, like six stars with twelve wings and the bodies of molten bronze, colossi of a different kindred than anything but their siblings that lay beneath Man’s feet. In the next moment they were six kings, resplendent in the finest, most prized gemstones, heads adorned with crowns of golden and silver glory, hands covered with gaudy, shining rings covered, each set with a gemstone as grand as a city. And in the next breath, they were vultures, corpse-pickers, all over again. They were many things, but always huge, always as large as the peoples they ruled from high above.

And as Bim looked up to see even a fraction of their greatness, he saw one, the largest, the nearest, its claws/hands/teeth/beak/face splashed with blood and gore both dark and dried, and bright and fresh. A visage of carnage, a crown of the emperor of emperors, the unending hunger for conquest and power that held tight like a vice around the worst mens’ hearts, that is what gazed upon Bim, first with confusion, then with a kind of intrigued, horrific curiosity.

“You Can See Me?”

Four words, each as tall as the clouds and as wide as an ocean, ringing out with such momentous, nearly divine power that Bim felt his self, his identity, his very nature, fray at the edges, scoured by the force of this being’s short inquiry.

Against all reason, in the face of potential calamity, Zara’s protective instincts took over, and she swept his mental projection up and traveled, in that hazy way in this trance-like state, back to where their bodies resided, in the greatest city of their age, which felt much smaller from this angle.

The creature, the Archon of War, flapped its wings, making to draw closer. Zara raised one hand in forbearance, and in the next moment Bim’s eyes snapped open, and his view of the world was changed.

Class Variant unlocked!

🠊 !

Talent — earned!

Zara’s eyes opened a few moments later, and a mixture of fear, trepidation, awe, despair, and determination pooled in them.

Talent — earned!

Talent — earned!