It took Seph less than a day to grow tired of the new landscape he, Nax, and Lume had found themselves in.

The forest around them was cold and dark, the other end of the axis from Omata's lush, vibrant jungles, and though they didn't have to worry about large predators, there was also a distinct lack of game.

Seph had never been to Poltare, but he hadn't imagined it would be this empty. Even the forest was open, the massive trees and sprawling canopies choking the sunlight out of any undergrowth that might attempt to spring up. Despite growing up in the city, he and Nax had taken the occasional short trip into the jungle near Tuwallo.

He'd always been struck by how alive it was. The color, the movement, the sound, the flowing water of the many rivers; it all came together in a symphony of life.

Here, it was like the music had stopped a long time ago, and now the last echoes were fading. The forest was more empty than full, and there was a somber feeling here that he'd never experienced on Omata. His home's jungles were dangerous, that much he couldn't deny. But they were also beautiful.

Nax seemed unaffected, as usual. Lume felt it the most, having lived in the jungle until a cycle ago. Every footstep seemed unnatural, and the way her eyes flitted around made it clear that she was looking for whatever predator had buried this place away from the sun.

He didn't know if finding out the forest was unnatural would make it better or worse.

Despite all that, their priorities were simple: food, water, and shelter. Food was, if not easy, doable. They were on the coast, even if the beach was rough, and there were fish in the waters around them. The water was cold, yes, but they weren't in the icy wastes of Terundria.

Water was the real problem. The irony wasn't lost on Seph, that they could be next to the largest source of water in all of Asin and still be thirsty. But he'd seen men in Tuwallo after they'd drank deeply of seawater, and he knew the end of that road. Drinking the ocean was out.

That left rainwater or finding a stream, both of which proved difficult. The stony beach meant there was a good chance there were storms here, but making a container for water was an exercise in futility. He and Nax had tried to use a sharp stone they'd found on the beach to scratch one of the enormous trees around them, and they rubbed their hands raw without leaving a mark on the wooden edifice.

Finding a stream was still a work in progress, but they didn't want to leave the coast to do it. Not that they had much choice if they wanted to live.

Nax solved the problem for them on the second day.

"Thinking of climbing one," he said, gesturing to the tree they'd tried to mark.

They were sitting around a fire Lume had managed to make with downed wood. None of them had found a fallen tree yet, but it looked like they dropped branches, albeit rarely. Lume had found the crater where one had fallen the night before.

Seph turned, staring at Nax across the fire. Their clothing was in ruins, and while the chill wasn't severe, they could feel it. Or he and Lume could, at least. Nax looked like he'd woke from a good night's sleep. "Do you think you can make it to the top?" Seph asked.

"Sure. Bark has enough handholds. Unless there's something nasty up there."

Seph hated the idea, but it was the only one they had. He and Lume watched anxiously as Nax made his way up the tree, the larger boy climbing with an alacrity that made him jealous. He heard Lume chanting under her breath, some sort of mantra he imagined was a prayer. Lume hadn't talked to them about the Ojentus' beliefs, and they hadn't pried.

His eyes continued to follow Nax until he disappeared into the canopy.

The moments stretched, and Seph began to grow worried.

Lume apparently felt the same. "Should I go up after him?"

Seph shook his head. "If Nax couldn't handle it, you'd just be climbing to your death. Give him time. He always comes through." The last Seph said as much for himself as he did Lume.

They waited anxiously, the silence turning time into a slog. Finally, after an agonizing few minutes, they saw Nax climbing back down.

Only, he was on a different tree. And his clothes were torn. And he was descending rather quickly.

Nothing followed him from the canopy, and once he realized it he began to slow. When he was within shouting distance Seph called up to him.

"Should we be worried?" He shouted. "You look like you got into a fight with a thresher!"

"Found the locals," Nax answered, continuing to descend until he was only a few times his own height above the ground. He dropped from the tree, rolling a few times to bleed off momentum, and then laid on his back with a groan.

"Forest isn't dead. Just... up there," he said, pointing to the treetops.

Seph took that in for a moment. "You're telling me all the wildlife is fifty stories above us?"

"Yep," Nax sighed. "Nasty stuff, too. Climbed up right under something's nest. Didn't get a good look, but it was sharp," he said, indicating his clothing.

"So we're back to where we were before," Seph said.

"No. Spotted a clearing while I was up there. Maybe a day's walk east. Two for you," he said, looking at Seph.

"Whither and die," Seph replied cheerfully. "Do we go?" He didn't like moving for something so ambiguous, but they had nothing else.

Nax spoke, sounding resigned to his fate. "When I can breathe again, yes."

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They set off within the hour. The only real possession they had to pack was the orb. Everything else of note they'd lost when the boat went down, including the thousands of chips they'd hoarded.

Seph tried not to think about that. It would've been a lot harder if not for the fortune in Nax's hands.

His friend was carrying it, which seemed most appropriate. Seph trusted himself least of all to keep possession of the orb.

"Why do you look like you're expecting the sky to fall?" He asked Nax.

Nax kept glancing at the canopy, orb cradled protectively, and his eyes scanned things Seph couldn't see. "We're holding chum under a frenzy of sharks. You tell me why I'm looking up."

That was an uncomfortably accurate point. If the orb were as valuable for vulcanites as Hileria had made it seem, it would be a veritable feast for a beast on the ladder of ascendency. Seph had wrapped the orb in the remnants of some of his clothing, hoping to conceal it when they returned to civilization, but he had no idea what kind of senses the treetop denizens might use to find something like this.

Nax was right. They were walking around with the juiciest lure in maybe a thousand miles.

"Fair enough. I guess we... walk faster?"

"Walk faster is good," Nax replied.

The steps blended into miles, and Seph was consistently struck by how uniform the forest was. The great trees that rose above them were spaced near-evenly from each other, with barely any undergrowth to speak of, and the trees' branches seemed to reach out from their trunks at the same height for miles. It felt as though they were burrowing under the real world.

They reached the clearing at nightfall, and Seph was surprised to see a village there. Though calling it a village was generous. It was more a collection of dwellings, perhaps thirty strong, right in the middle of the massive forest. As Seph approached, the first thing he noticed was the sunlight. The entire forest floor thus far had been shaded to twilight, the intertwining branches above having choked out the sun stories above their heads.

The village was the opposite. A ring of light surrounded the humble collection of buildings, the halo illuminating well-made but simple homes. The reason for the lack of shade was clear: three of the massive trees lay on the turf around the village, their age obvious. Time and nature had stripped the trees of their color, and they were long dead, branches shorn from top to base on one of the fallen trees. The lumbering had progressed halfway up the second, and the third was untouched. Where the massive limbs had gone to, Seph couldn't tell.

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The village proper overflowed with greenery, thick grass and shrubbery carefully cultivated around the homes. It looked like one of the more affluent areas in Tuwallo, though on a smaller scale, but the architecture shared little with the hard lines and right angles typical of the city. Here, the homes were soft and inviting. Golden wood and paper panels were the majority of the construction, each painstakingly maintained from what they could tell. It looked like the idea of a perfect village instead of a real one.

All of that, however, was second to what he saw in the city center.

A well.

The spigot protruded from an obsidian monolith in the center of the village, ten paces wide with a basin underneath. Seph could still see a few drops at the bottom.

He started forward eagerly before Nax stopped him.

"What?" He hissed, turning to Nax.

Nax stared at him, gaze dead and posture tense. "Look around. Notice anything?"

Seph pushed down his annoyance and did his best to listen. He looked - really looked - at the village in front of them.

The lights were on in all the homes. A glow from the windows, fresh logs in the sheds, and the gardens looked recently watered. By every indication, this was a populated village.

So where was everyone?

Before he could respond to Nax, they heard a sound.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

A man rounded the well, stepping into view with a woodcutting ax on his shoulder. His beard was a gnarled gray hanging down to his waist, braided into control and tucked into his belt. His hair was much the same, a dirty gray that looked to be the precursor to white. It braided down his back, hanging in a great tail. His clothing was clean and well-made, though simple. Cotton, Seph thought. Everything about the man was utterly ordinary, save for his hair, except one thing.

He was barefoot, and around his left ankle, there sat a chain forged of metal in purest white. Seph didn't recognize it, which was concern enough. He'd been studying to become an artificer for nearly a decade and was familiar with most materials used for constructs. He'd never seen anything like this in his life.

He regretted that now. The chain was a masterwork, no question, though how much of one he couldn't tell at a distance. No exposed runework to speak of, no seams, no imperfections in the metal; it was as though the chain had fallen from the heavens fully formed.

"If you're waiting for an invitation, you have it." The man called, his stance heavy. The voice that emerged was softer than Seph had expected for a man with such a grizzled appearance, and the longing in his eyes was unmistakable. "It's been quite a while since I've had a visitor other than Tun Tun. I'd hate to see you go without a cup of tea."

Seph, Nax, and Lume exchanged looks before Nax stepped forward. "You get many people looking to visit a man in chains?" He asked.

The man chuckled at that. "The opposite, I find. You're the first souls I've seen in centuries. Come, you look thirsty. It's quite a walk from the coast. Have a drink."

He trundled over to the well heavily, dropping the axe and setting it against the monolith before pumping the spigot twice. Water flowed from the well to fill the basin, crystal clear and inviting. If Seph had any moisture left to give, he might have salivated.

Nax paused, but he'd worked far harder than Seph over the last two days. He needed that water, and Seph knew it. He nodded to the man and began striding forward, tossing the orb to Seph as he did.

Seph thought he caught the man eyeing the orb as it flew, but he couldn't be sure.

Nax moved forward toward the boundary around the village, and as soon as his foot hit the lush carpet of grass, the man disappeared.

From one blink to the next, he was there and gone.

Seph found him again standing in front of Nax, axe extended in a one-handed blow that had stopped a hair from Nax's forehead. The man was trembling from exertion, his face red and sweating, and his arm bulged with muscles that looked to be chiseled from stone.

Nax stumbled back before Seph had taken a breath, forearms rising in an x to block, but he was far too late. This man could have killed Nax before Seph had even seen him.

"Ah," the man sighed, releasing a breath and letting the tension in his stance ease. "I'd hoped the strictures had faded. I suppose I can't feast after all."

Seph wracked his brain for an answer, and the chain was all he had. It was stretched taut so the man could stand at the edge of the grass, and when he'd moved, Seph had felt the briefest vibration from the orb in his hands.

The chain was clearly a powerful anima construct, but limiting someone from violence? He'd never even heard of an artefact capable of doing such a thing. The mind was inviolable, according to all of his research. Then again, if a vulcanite found out how to subjugate someone with artefacts, he supposed they wouldn't be shouting it from the cliffs.

"It's alright. I can't hurt any of you. Unless, of course, you'd like to spar. Would you like to spar?" The man asked, his face perking up at the prospect. "I have some staves somewhere around here..." He trailed off, stomping back over around the monolith.

He rounded the other side after a moment, frustration in the lines of his face. "Damned staves are missing. I'm sure Tun Tun took them!" He shouted, slamming a fist faster than Seph could see into the monolith.

The impact didn't even make a sound.

The man let out a breath in what looked to be a practiced rhythm and let his hand drop. There wasn't a scratch on his knuckles.

"I'm sorry," he sighed. "I just get so lonely, and... well, enough of that. How about that tea?" He asked, moving to one of the nearby houses. He disappeared inside, and Seph could hear him rummaging around.

Seph's gaze turned back to Nax, their eyes meeting.

Nax looked more terrified than Seph had ever seen him. He stood, moving back toward Seph and Lume, and when he was within whispering distance, he spoke. "Never saw him move. Was there one moment and in front of me the next. Felt the wind from the strike. Something stopped the blow before it cracked my skull like an egg."

Seph leaned in to respond, Lume doing the same. "Vulcanite, of course. But he couldn't hurt you. Do we risk it?"

Lume looked horrified. "You can't be serious. He almost murdered Nax while I was blinking. You want to walk into that? How do we know he's telling the truth?"

"We don't," Seph sighed. "But do we have a choice? Have you seen water anywhere? Especially with everything Nax has been doing lately, he needs water. We all do."

Lume hated it, he could tell. The idea of walking into the Leviathan's maw didn't sit right with her, and he felt the same. But if this man wanted to kill them, and could, they'd already be dead. And they needed the water.

Finally, she nodded. They stepped forward together, striding to the edge of the sunlit ring of grass. As they did, the man emerged from the home with a tea set that looked to be made of porcelain. It was a brilliant white with red-painted accents, abstract designs on a sheet of ivory.

He paused for a moment on seeing them at the edge of the grass, and Seph noticed the hunger in his eyes before it faded into what looked like acceptance.

"Would you care to join me at my table? Or we could drink out here. It'll take me a moment to prepare the tea. I'm afraid I haven't done so in some time."

Seph stepped forward onto the grass before his nerve failed him. "We'd prefer to stay near the well. Do you mind if we drink while you make the tea?"

The man licked his lips on seeing Seph cross the green circle around the village, but this time he seemed able to restrain himself. "Please. What's mine is yours. The water is cold and clear."

They did, moving on to the grass with reluctant steps that became increasingly more courageous. Seph was thirsty, no matter how foolish he felt. And the man had turned from a violent beast into the perfect host. "What do we call you?" Seph asked as he came to the well.

"Aog, at your service," the man said, bowing at the waist. The tea set never trembled, nor did it when he rose. "Welcome to my home. Might I know to whom I speak?"

Seph, Nax, and Lume exchanged glances before giving their names, turning to the well after.

Seph waited until Lume and Nax had gone. They'd done most of the work the past few days, and despite his thirst, he knew weakness on his part meant little.

Every time he thought he'd made peace with being useless, the heavens mocked him.

When it was Seph's turn he opened the spigot, letting the water flow clear and strong. He pressed his mouth to the stream and drank deeply.

He'd never tasted anything so wonderful in his life. The water was ice cold and delicious, and he filled himself until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

It was Aog, his eyes burning with a feverish light. "Careful now, Seph. Drink too much and the anima will ravage your body." Seph had never heard him move.

Nax pulled Seph from the well, pushing him behind his body. "Might've said that before we drank."

Aog laughed. "I didn't need to tell you, did I? Or the girl. You both knew better." He stood from his crouch and turned to the well, filling a container with water. He trundled over to one of the nearby gardens, chain clanking behind him as he did.

"I find the water refreshing, especially after so long without being able to use my crucible," he said, pulling leaves from one of the plants to prepare the tea. "It makes me feel alive again, if but for a short time. Then the world goes cold." His brow darkened at that until his face was devoid of any warmth or emotion.

Then the affable persona returned, as though the dead man had never been. "But enough about that! I have company now, and young company at that! Tell me, where do you hail from? And how have you found my island?"

That hit Seph like a hammerbeak. "Island?" He choked out, leaning forward. "This is an island?"

Aog looked confused. "Of course. It must have been quite the trip from Poltare. My island isn't on most maps, Tun Tun has made sure of that, so I imagine you stumbled your way here. But why land?"

Seph felt like he'd been slapped. They were trapped on an island with a madman, leagues from Poltare if Aog was to be believed.

"We were shipwrecked," Lume supplied, her body strung like a tightwire. "We swam to shore, but we couldn't exactly navigate."

If Seph didn't know better, he would've thought Lume had told Aog they'd come to give him a fortune. His face lit up.

"What wonderful news! Not the shipwreck, of course. Terrible business that. I felt the girl from here, and I'm guessing she caught you in her wake. But to stumble upon my little home! Truly, we are both fortunate. The heavens smile upon us, my new friends."

"Aog..." Seph said, trailing off. Finally, he found his courage. "Just how long have you been here?"

"That depends. What cycle is it?" He asked affably.

Seph started. "The cycle is Frod 347. It's been more than a cycle since you've seen anyone?"

Aog sighed, the excitement he'd shown earlier fading. "Yes, though I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with your calendar. When I was chained here, it was 7452 after Darkest. I stopped counting the days a long time ago."

That didn't sound right. After the first High Table, all of Asin used the same calendar. When the Lutetiums got together and established order, time was one of the first items they'd clarified. No one knew what the era names meant, save for the Lutetiums, but the world had been using the same calendar for almost a thousand cycles now. And Aog's imprisonment might date long before that.

"We're unfamiliar with your calendar as well."

"A shame," Aog breathed. "But we are together now! You must be tired from your journey. Would you like to rest? I'll prepare a meal for you all in the morning."

The sun was beginning to fade, and the rigors of the day's journey sat heavy on Seph's bones. He agreed on their behalf, though Lume insisted they sleep outside the ring of grass.

Seph felt Aog's eyes on him as his mind faded into sleep's embrace.