As time stretched on and as countless books, scrolls, diagrams and practicums were consumed by his mind, Amun went about the task of reading the extent of Laconian knowledge. All written knowledge that other minds had produced visual records of, the products of experience and experimentation, the notes from the works of their hands all funneled into his mind.

He had quite a head start after all, from both the days of his youth spent hungrily consuming, pondering and processing the findings of others - seeing the thread of connection in the sacred geometries and esoteric sigils lining the Cradle itself. Amun understood their relationship with the material planes, the feet upon the terra, the ground being broken by the gardener, the seed being spread by the winds, the ignorance and egotism in the philosophy, mysticism and the respect for time and fear of the doorway to the next plane if one’s sould may be freed of the coil. The pantheon of theologies, the babbling idiot god and its flute, entertained by its playgound of mud and effigies writhing within, Shiva and all of the armaments, one to combat each evil.

The scrying and scratching quill to papyrus, somehow his supplies never seemed to require replenishment, the candles would sit lower and lower without extinguishing. Time bent around that space, consecrated it, for it was Determined so long ago to happen this way. Vanessa had prepared him well. The heavy ink never weakened or went thin, no need to retrace the strokes in the calligraphy for it seemed to be there already, his lines just brought them to the forefront, to reality. The ink went under nails in hours, staring fingers over days, got rubbed into weary eyes as sun’s set and the moons dance illuminated blank page after page after page. It was already all there, the table set for a meal made for him to consume, a language whispered by the ancients, always present, that could now be comprehended. The harmony of the Continuum was actually quite dissonant he noticed, a conflict upon the natural order of Lacon. The saps and waters rejected its energy, it was a font of energy, but an affront to life itself. The Continuum was a trapped surplus of energies composed of the dead, all deaths of the material Lacon drifted there waiting to be harnessed or consumed by a practitioner of the Intellectus, the masters who hoarded this secret (among others) within their high spire.

Amun sat up and stretched, he was caught-up in a pondering of how the other two disciplines upon their trials accessed and harnesses the Continuum. He rubbed at his jawline, he had been clenching that for quite some time as he did when concentrating. He adored the ache all over, this was what he was made for, he purpose. His skin felt different, his hands stained and swollen from the crawling, but otherwise inactive. He decided a walk in the halls was in order, even if there were side-eyed gazes of judgement and loathe, so be it. The judgment’s of the ignorant would be a constant, he was destined to be the dissonance in their harmony after all.

The words and passages, the lore and mythology, the songs and soliloquies, ode’s to the Oduum, praising the enlightenment as they drilled into their effigie’s soft tissues behind the ear, stimulating the third eye and forcing its awareness, as if to permanently suture its lids open…ignoring the need to blink, ignoring its cries for wetting and rest, be damned if the light is too bright and if rest was necessary …..the third eye forced open to the deluge of insight.

The diagram and diorama, the ritual simulation and simulacra of gestures and preparation, the words…..all there, rehearsed and made mantra in the low vocals that shook the bones and hearthstones. Amun knew it was his birthright, the Jaro’s were once revered for its relationship to Gaia, her tree, the root and the snake all coiled there…waiting for him.

The beard was stained, the flesh was weary and dry, the blood in his very veins racing up his arms, he noticed on his pacing in the rounding halls…why were these lines so dark? He rubbed at his scalp, the hair rubbed to stubble, he would need to shave it again soon or risk having to pay to have it done. Be damned paying good coin to have someone perform a task that one can do themselves, “frugality is the Mother’s virtue” and all of that…..

How to prepare one’s mind and very being for experiences beyond comprehension… all of these and more to unravel and relate to within his own mental mechanizations. It was so familiar and just was lying there in wait, the comprehension was limitless. As boundless as the ocean’s depths and as vast as the night’s sky, he would learn and ride both of their currents to the creatures residing in their depths, to ones that were benevolent he hoped to learn from, he would listen because he felt they wanted to tell their tales. To the malevolent, the consumers, the one’s that forced themselves into dreams of terror and laughed at humanity’s cries…they would be smote upon the hearth of his ancestors.

His thoughts paved new programed paths and tracks in his creativity and emboldened his curiosities. He would seek more, learn more, go further and make as many damned covenants and pacts necessary to ensure that he could use this coil, he resurgence, the price of his power, to be reborn again and again until the road unfolded out from upon his steps no further. Perhaps by then he would be the paver and the one who would walk upon his work first?

Of course he had access to the common books available to most folk in his region. He enjoyed the treks to neighboring ones as well, displaying his signet at guard posts and feeling the pride and privilege of access to come and go as he pleased. Amun was often questioned at the rate he would come and go, elders inquiring about “why such a lad would presume comprehension of the Lördenkain’en’s tome of foes” and of course after their courtesy of lectures (such a pleasantry!) they would test his comprehension with startling responses coming from this ink-stained youth. Thus, the beginning of the side-eye wondering (wandering) of what this boy could be up to or used for in the name of mighty Lacon. What a weapon he could become, indeed.

The wanderings and pacings were a commonality, so he thought. To and fro up and down the stairwells and passages that his learning caste was allowed admittance. Doorways, archways, portals here and there, sits upon window sills and shits upon commodes, his mind grappled and unraveled, unlocking mysteries that would cause glee and then he would race back into his den, for he hadn’t accesses the pocket dimension yet, to scry more and more upon the scrolls and pages, more and more scryed upon the very grey matter of his mind….the sigils erupting there too, though he knew not. In the blood, in the marrow, and in the bones, the magicks were contaminating him.

Oft was the reflection upon what to do at dawn, his favorite time to create. He would wrest with the decision to wander the yards and paths and get some exercise or push away from consuming the text and ponder a new crafted recipe himself from the evenings deciphering. Through Vanessa’s tutelage, they would grapple and race, practice with the knife (blunted ones when he was young) and learn the lethal strikes, parries, repostes, slashes and coupe de gras. The point of Vanessa’s spars was equal parts mating ritual and to end the fight before it began, Amun was not to be a physical fighter after all.

The morning warmed his robed shoulders and he was spry and engaged with the natural world, greeting and respecting her gravity, in awe of her power. He would inspect the local fauna and work into his cerebral scribing when he would come across something he wanted to capture the likeness of analytically. The vine that would creep and marry to certain trees, but not all. The duality and mutual benefits of the conjoining and hybridization to produce something new. His craft would be the same, a new design a new formulae that would be emitted on the inhalation instead of the forced exhalation. Opponents trained in Laconian Intellectus combatry would not expect this. So he went and so it would go, while collecting a leaf sample or perhaps pondering the complexity of a spiraling petal pattern, he could feel it there, the weave in all things, a connection that yearned to be understood and marveled at as he did. This was his inertia, he knew he was meant to comprehend such marvels.

The likeness he produced and journaled didn’t do much impress dear Vanessa during her teachings but she began to relate the patterning of why he was drawn to such images, their interrelatedness. She could form the words he was craving to come across that would reveal paths to new doorways. Her barbs to his desires and needs to learn and comprehend caught him in the most dire of places and soon they found that their live’s meanings for that time that they shared in her hovel were both intimate and destined.

Of course, threads of memories like these, of the supple tutorages of Vanessa were painful vapors to reflect on. Though there was much to learn from their revisitation, the experience was unnerving albeit a necessity. The smoke in the everlasting candles got into the eyes and he rubbed them with the stained hands. When had he slumbered last?

So, oddly Amun (they were all so fond of that behind his gaze (though if they knew the truths and angles of his actual acuity….oh, to see the looks upon their daft faces!)) with stained fingers learned and learned - voracious and deep was the well he drew knowledge from, until the day the bucket drew too deep and the waters there began to sour, as curious cats so often find out.

He had been asleep, had he though? He knows that he had stirred or even jolted from something adrift, as one would slumber. Was it a voice he heard? The candle was stubby now when it had yet a moment ago stood so proud….he was looking at his fingers. The stains there, something wasn’t right. Perplexed but not yet bothered, he rose and stretched and strode to the basin to have a wash…how long had it been he amusedly pondered to himself. It wasn’t as though he was apt to practicioning unsightliness or smelling of foul cheeses. Lo’ he harbored an affinity for a look all his own, broken-in perhaps, but always utilitarian and demanding a certain attention and respect. His auburn robes fell around his feet and he washed his face, his tired eyes appreciating the cool refreshment. He then washed his pits and his balls, the remainder would wait until he traveled to the stream. He needed to piss but he hesitated for even after the vigorous washing, the stains remained.

He returned to the candle and found it diminishing and unsatisfactory. “Illuminate” he willed at the candelabra chandelier above (speaking no audible sound), dangling within his turret contained in the spire of the Arcanuum. It yielded to his authority and lit, casting a warm yellow luminescence into an all too often dim space, it almost coughed dust from its many wicks. He examined his hands and began to unravel a truth, what was decades of ink from so much papyrus and cloth….it was beneath the skin, in fact some of the webbing of veinal workings beneath…..

“Yes”, the magick whispered to him, “You have sought us out and we have found you worthy. Is this not what you had been seeking? An audience? A relationship?”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Amun bore down and raised his will not fully comprehending, not wanting to accept his circumstances - this opportunity, this entity was like nothing he had learned in of….

“No Amun, we are a truth. We are a voice within the torrent of the very Continuum. We are a communication channel that you can interpret - there will be others as you continue. As we continue, for we are with you now and cannot be separate. You have an affinity for the gifts of the Occum. We will continue to monitor and guide your progress. Together we will do great works and you will be a paragon of ours. You will be a harbinger of the great return.”

Amun’s body jolted, as though he had been rigid and every nerve had gone white with electric energy. He was sore all over, his eyes, his mind, his feet were sore as though he had been standing in one spot…for how long? He wondered (wandered) upon that but could’t recall. He was certain that it had indeed taken place though. He felt it there on the periphery of his mind and he knew he had access to something cerebral that was attune with what was once thought and taught to be forbidden, a vault opened to him, a well spring font that he could drink from….trepidatiously.

The elders of the Oduum, those who had come before always spoke of prices and balances. Energies were always, had to be, held upon great scales just as light and dark, feasts and famines, ethics themselves. What debt had he garnered now, he pondered woefully. He also wondered if this was part of Vanessa’s doing all along, had she known this was his calling and thereby making him more susceptible to its partnering? Was her prowess with shaping and understanding the weave of the Continuum’s mysteries a debt she paid by handing him over somehow? The seed he spilled for her - it wasn’t as if he didn’t notice how she extracted and saved some here and there in vials. She claimed to make him a fetish of hers but he now knew that perhaps this wasn’t the case after all.

He again felt the need to wash, thoroughly. He felt a need to go first to the stream and them straight to the hovel and demand answers, perhaps even to extract them by scribing upon her flesh for a change.

“No Amun Jaro. The witch to the south is not to blame, only yourself. Accept that simply that this is what you wanted all along and leave her be. You owe her a great many things to leading you to such doors.” Amun sat heavily, still naked but not alone. No, he would not feel that way ever again it seemed.

So it was and as time spread forth across many planes, Amun’s companionship deepened and the magick poured into him and through him. It was quite fond of him and his need. He drank of it and saw realities far beyond the mortal senses. He cam to understand the untold senses beyond his physical territory. It taught him languages and how to cross thresholds. To smell colors and hear the many voices of the natural world…..among the grievances of the whispering dead. He saw doorways and was warned of may passages to dooms he could not fathom, yet. His short hairs prickled at sensing of energy, for the song of the continuum sang in his ears now…..it made him grind his teeth now and then, he noted that he should not let this tell become a habit for his jaw had begun to ache from it.

His vessel was so tired, often now as he studied. It was though he would not know rest so often he would not. He would practice or wander (wonder) in wildernesses hidden down shady path where none but shade would dare tread. His sponsor, the companion, this other now always talking with him and discussing the new findings. Amun found that he needed this and that it sped his mind’s energies forward rapidly - it would ache and spin from time to time and when this symptoms rose he would indeed prostrate himself and meditate….becoming lost for awhile.

It was during one such period that he projected and saw himself from the outside looking back in for a the first time. He had changed so much! He could see the marks and sigils all over his body, his hair…well, his beard anyway. Even the white of his eyes, there was a shadow there now. The magick was in the very root and bone of him - the damned Continuum was augmenting his vessel to its needs and Amun indeed had unraveled quite a revelation. At that moment, though he could not secret it to the other, the relationship hit a discord. He would refuse to become lost or taken by the Continuum, a partnership was assumed by he would not be it’s slave.

The magick had other things in mind and its need to be learned was great. It had been so long, it craved in a wanton way this relationship with Amun’s ability because he was so good, so ready and plainly had the very rare ability to withstand its meteoric might upon him. When he spoke to it, which was rare indeed, needless to say the Continuum was suspicious.

Their wills clashed and in these moments, fissures in stone and waves within still waters would erupt. The precursing wind that told those who toil with seed and soil that “A helluva storm’s afoot” would go from gentle zephyr to a sheering shove of wind would happen. Amun knew not of these frictions and byproducts yet though because these altercations of will took a lot of his focus. In time, he would learn to use the friction, the upset of balanced energy could be harnessed in a word or in a shift of his will. The products of nature be it wind, water or a lash of lightning or billowing surge of fire could be called forth. And just as this vexed his mana and physical stamina, in another breath he was remade and remodeled and healed by the Continuum. It was a willful and persistent lover, it seemed. He would dread the day he lost his focus to it and resigned that this must not ever happen.

It had happened once, or at least came damn, damn close to it. He could suffer the vibrations and build-up no longer. It had been days since he had blown off some steam, vented a bit of tensed energy. The studies had gone well and he had walked several paths, old and new and reflected on the weave building in his mind. The magic sang on and on in his being and his bloody circulation felt like a storm within his system. He had not eased up on his jaw either, it had become quite a habit and his head often ached from the tension.

Really, the remedy that he required was not a meditative respite within some monastic refectory, no he wanted to rage and to be tested. Immature as the need was, he sensed it was a temptation in fact, none the less…

Amun came upon a merry soldier who ought to be standing post somewhere but was trodding in an uneven way up the path towards him singing proudly,

“Thou art the rulers of the minds of all people,

dispenser of Laconian destiny.”

Amused and already desiring distraction from the edge within his own mind and muscles, Amun stepped off the path as the soldier went on.

“It echoes in the hills of the mightiest mountains,

It mingles in the music of the mouths of ‘ole and is chanted by

the waves of the Seas.

They pray for thy blessings and sing thy praise.

The saving of all people waits in thy hand,

thou dispenser of Laconian destiny,

Victory, victory, victory to thee…..”

At that the soldier tripped on loose footing, sensing that he had an audience. Gracelessly he went down but Amun didn’t think he had been hurt, more than startled and mayhaps flushed in being caught-up in such sunny emotions.

Amun approached the lad, who was straightening helm and reclaiming his lance, perhaps to prop himself back up to a more proud stance. Amun spoke as the warrior did this, summoning some impromptu merriment in his gravely voice, “Bravo, bravo to this fine youth in giving the land such high praise and to dance with such grace. Truly, what an honor.” He clapped at him in an earnest way that probably drew more attention than the young man wanted in the moment.

“Forgive me elder. I must be quite a dishonorable sight, indeed. I have been most recently relieved of my station and was making my way to..”

“Tut, tut, my strong-arm”, Amun inposed “think nothing of it, you have quieted song bird with your joy and if thou wished it, the secreted memory is but ours and to the charmed birds. You have pulled me from a most miserable miasma and I am better for it. I only thank you. May I ask your name so that we may know one another for awhile and not as strangers?”

“My name is Ar-juna, Master. I thank you and musn’t hold you up from your meditations today. May your sun’s rise be many to come and merry will be your nights to follow.”

Amun was relieved that the lad was so pleasant, perhaps it was just that he had not spoken to anyone but himself for awhile externally? He insisted a prolonged engagement, “Ar-juna, I praise your loyalty and service. To give rise to song all the while shouldering such burden, risking your life if asked. How can this be?”

Ar-juna’s reacting was a beaming smile that Amun would not soon forget and said with a voice that perhaps was of another, “My soul is eternal and it’s life will go on and on, even if I were to give my vessel to this world. I am silly today and sing because we are but figures in the god’s creation and it’s wonder is a most riveting act to perform for their amusement. Good day, Amun.”

Amun had not shared his name with this odd lad and he was gone from the path. No song bird, no merry soldier, there was quiet and stillness. Amun’s nose had begun to bleed and he started back hastily for the tower was far from here.

Ben was fixing-up and dusting a cabinet of alembics, calcinators, retorts, cornariums, mortars and pestles of varying sizes and materials when he heard a bustling and crash down a corridor not far off. Concerned and true to his duty as a young meister of the Arcanuum, he went to investigate.

Huddled around a waste pot, he found a bloody and teary faced Amun Jaro who’s pallor had all but run out. He was muttering to himself, sickly and shaking violently as he did, “I cannot bear it, I question whether it should have been me to do so! I cannot bear your tutelage but the cost. THE CONSEQUENCE….”

Amun wretched again…calmed after a bit, smeared his hand across his miserable and soiled face. He the looked up and noticed this new person in his occupied water closet. For moments they just stared at one another. Amun spoke quietly and weakly, “Do you plan to hex me with your feather dusting wand or could you perhaps help me up?”

Ben found himself, belted his dusting implement nervously (for he knew to whom he was speaking to by reputation only) and offered his slim hand. Amun grasped it firmly with his soiled one and hauled himself up….and abruptly sat upon the clay throne. He wasn’t going anywhere unaided it seemed.

“Ben” the mousy meister said after a moment, perhaps waiting to see if Amun needed to be sick again. “My name is Ben sir. When you are ready, I will return you to your cloister and prepare a skin of broth.” Amun spun and heaved, he heaved many times and all went dark.

Amun spent several days in bed, Ben never left for long, only for fresh linens to replace soiled ones and to prepare his bland broth - much to Amun’s dismay.

On the fourth day, aided by staff, Amun found the young meister outside of his room, a clean basin had been set down while Ben was obviously transfixed on something below.

A young maiden tended to a long mule down below, removing its pack and sale, now brushing its coat. The girl’s name was Sara and Ben, Amun noted, was breathing a bit more rapidly at her sight. Sara’s meadow berry hair shone in the light of day and neither of these men who spied upon her now from far above could recall something so picturesque in many a day.