Jafney turned towards the gaudy golden mike sticking out awkwardly from the front of the tugboat. The two rowls on either side poking their beaks at a translucent screen hanging in front of them. Jafney threw out his paws wide and bellowed out jubiliantly,

"Greetings you frayling echoes living on that bunched up bundle of realm remnants. The Wastling Horde has their hooks deep into that patchwork planetoid of yours! Reeling you closer and closer to The Grey! Where your records will be drained of Lun and converted into Greying propagation fuel and your very beings subsumed. Nomp Nomp Nomp! And then there'd be more Greylings which is horrible news for the rest of all of us. Your pretty much there. Oh no!"

Qynn felt curious how the tugboat had moved from being on a sea to floating over this blue planet with three moons. He moved over to look over the side at the closest moon when the boat lurched as Jafney had done a flip almost losing the mike in the process.

Well! Surprise! It's the Apokalypse!!! Well not quite. Haha little joke. The ending of everything you know was happening anyway. This is actually a Tribulation. Conducted by yours truly Adjudicator Jafney!!! How you ask is this different from the absolute destruction of everything you hold dear?! Well there are a few key differences!

First there will be magic! Your all the fading echoes of once great heroic beings! Or at least you possess the fragment of a record of such. Which is good news! If you can heal that broken piece of greatness inside you and strengthen it. Claim it as your own! You'll become Of Note and will be able to survive leaving!"

The rowls looked sideways at Jafney and both started developing a slight crease between their eyes. And had started to steadily glare at Jafney. Qynn started moving back away from Jafney to avoid his arms. Qynn started having slight doubts about all of this.

Jafneys eyes popped wide, "Oh yes indeed the getting out of here! The Lum flows freely beyond the Veil. You're all suffering from Lum deprivation and those shells of yours won't survive. So we've got to strengthen you which means saturating you with Lum. Immense amounts of Lum. Which will be excruciating and more difficult then anything any of you have ever experienced! It will be absolutely 💯 horrid!"

There was a disarmingly wide smile on his face and a wild look had entered Jafney's eyes, "Every Facet of the expanse runs by it's own particular rules and while the Veil has substantially cut you off from them, you are at least aware of the basics of this one. You are exposed to them during your dreams as this is the only moment that frayed thread of yours can reach beyond the Veil and touch briefly on the Greater Tapestry. So your literature, your art, and your "games" have at least semi prepared you for some of the massive changes coming. Huge giant changes! Some of you will be panicking but just calm down! Because super good news! You will have aid during this time."

Jafney gestured to either side of him, "We are blessed to have our very own fully accredited Rowls! Their great! They'll help with all the many many many micro record functions to help reweave your story. They got you! It's all so exciting isn't it!"

At that point the Rowls had moved back away from Jafney and next to Qynn. Jekard motioned to Qynn to lean close. And when he did Jekard solemnly spoke, "Listen youngling this dumbass is going to load almost everything on us while he frolics about setting up the portions of the Tribulation he enjoys. There is no way this goes smoothly. There's a reason Jafney's on probation and has a half star rating. We're the 80th Rowl pairing to be stationed with him and this is going to get rough. We're not new to this by any stretch but there is absolutely no way to handle everything he's going to throw our way."

The other Rowling Zemp leaned in on the other side and whisped, "Your a baby Drag'Nii how you ended up so far from the Origin and how you actually survived this veritable Luminary wasteland is a complete mystery. I know you want to know what is going on. And honestly the entire expanse kinda depends on you figuring that out. So yeah important. Really important. The thing is your here. A freakin Drag'nni. The second beings to come into existance. Your a Proginator and you have automatic access to subfunctions we can only bloody dream of. If we sneak you in past League oversight you may be able to tip the scales on this. Seriously Qynn, those echoes are so screwed otherwise. Are you willing to pitch in on this?"

Qynn flinched and stepped back. "I don't even know what that means. Being a Drag'nii? Any of this? I'm confused to all hell and up until a few.....what...hours ago I was dying in a hospital. And now what I'm able to save a....world?!"

The sound of a throat being loudly cleared echoed across the deck. Jafney was staring at Qynn with an annoyed expression on his face. His face twisted around like he'd tasted something distasteful, it quickly smoothed out as Jafney said, "Honored Drag'nii, I am in the middle of a little thing and I promise I'll finish up quickly and we can retire to the sitting room to cover any questions you have. This....public service announcement.....unfortunately can't be circumvented. I am sure like myself you find this tedious. I assure you, I will finish as soon as Sithly possible." Jafney twirled back around his purple tailcoat dramatically flaring out and spread his paws wide once more.

"I am not only the herald of the end but the captain of the ship getting you out of here. Rejoice...." As Jafney continued pontificating the two Rowls and Qynn tuned him out and once again started quietly discussing what to do.

Qynn asked, "Well where can I go from here even? You said this is a wasteland? What do you mean?" Jekard looked at Zemp and they seemed to come to some conclusion. Jekard motioned with his wing, "We know someone who works at the closest Dra'knn Anchor Isle past the Veil from here. They can get you in. The real answers you need, either the Dra'knn have them or you'll be able to find something in their archives. You can't just walk in however. Your.....a child basically. You've regressed to the Wyrm stage of your growth and that means your vulnerable, you don't have the strength to protect yourself from the many many beings across the expanse that would enjoy actually being able to hurt a bloody proginater. The last time one of you actually regressed back to a wyrmling was.....what..?" Jekard looked at Zemp who shook his head solemnly and held up a single wing tip. An expression of unease flashed across his face, " Seriously no? Yeah there's only one weaving we know of within the Tapestry when that happened and that led to that entire expanse being thrown all over the place by an out of control Sea. You Drag'nii manage the Ama'qii Sea which connects everything.....to everything basically. For every Expanse of a Facet there needs to be an Emperial Drag'nii to calm it and keep things copasetic. This particular weaving involved the Emperial Drag'nii of the Satura Expanse regressing back when they were damaged by the feedback of their particular Facet cracking. Why it cracked is a multiweaving of its very own. The point is when they regressed they were unable to keep the Sea stable and it started wrecking absolute havoc on the Satura expanse. The destruction.....alot of beings blamed the Drag'nii. What they had to do to survive until they could ascend back made the anger worse. They seeked shelter in the Mysts with the Fey and that.....it was with the Seelie Court of Summer and they are the absolute worst to owe. And did they ever collect. At least the Unseelie have a sense of basic honor, bloody as it is. When the Drag'nii finally left the Summerlands as an Emperial their debt was collected in realms and the Summer Fey brought the Mysts deep into Satura. Myst is pure Lun and unless there's a direct hereditary tie to the origin there is no way to survive that. So no being that isn't of the Fey or Proginaters can actually exist within the Myst. The majority of the Satura expanse became uninhabitable to all secondary and tetiary beings. They became refugees fleeing to adjoining expanses which meant they had to travel the between ways either through the Labyrinth which is.....extremely dangerous or through the Mysts which meant they needed a Fey guide which meant....they owed the Fey. Thus the blame.

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The Veil created the Sorrows which is where broken realms and shattered records end up.

And the Veil came into being when The Grey formed, up until that there was no end to the Sea. Some claim but no one actually knows how The Grey came to be. It is an area of condensed antiexistence. And it devours anything existantial that drifts into it, which then becomes the vile little soldiers it sends in waves to destroy everything that isn't it. The Veil is yet another dysfunctional defense mechanism created by the Dua Aett. A semi successful barrier to keep the Greyling from encroaching onto the expanse. It reflects back whatever looks upon it. The Dua Aett thought if the Greylings looked out and only saw themselves they'd just stay where they were. Everything the Dua Aett create seem to have some odd shifty side effect. In this case it created an area in between the Veil and The Grey that pulled anything broken or fragmented through the Veil from the expanse be that pieces of broken Realm or the fragmented echoes of beings Of Note.

The broken realms collide with each other as they drift through and clump up into a tangled mass of differing existences. A "world". And then there are the Echoes, trapped on these clumps slowly going mad, something inside them always telling them they are more.The Veil actively blocks Lum which is life. Anything with sentience will slowly go mad from Lum deprivation as their sense of self degrades. All the while in their dreams they see glimpses beyond the Veil of realms of fantastic whimsy and direst fear.

And yeah the Greyling Horde saw all this fuel and thought how nice of them to provide a buffet...and oh they must still be out there.

The Veil actively blocks Lum which is life. Anything with sentience will slowly go mad from Lum deprivation as their sense of self degrades. The realms go mad, the echoes go mad, and it all inevitably would self-destruct. That is if The Grey didn't reel the world in and consume it before it can. Which it always does, unless an Adjudicator and crew can tow it all out of the Veil back into the expanse. Only a restored realm with a Lumheart and beings Of Note can make that trip. So the Tribulation. Opens the world to the Labyrinth, the Wildes, and the Mysts. A massive amount of Lum floods in. The Greyling Horde is there too, those hooks of theirs lets them portal in their soldiers. It's a giant clusterfuck of a brawl between the Echoes, the Greyling Horde, Labyrinth creatures, and disparate realms waking up overcharged and confused. We're here to save the Echoes and Realmhearts.

Your kinda screwed if you cross through the Veil into this expanse as a Wyrmling. The amount of suspicion and concern that'll cause. Staying here thou just drifting on the Sea like you were just gazing down upon all the universes going mad under it's waves. But that's until the first Myst storm blows in.

Which is where you aiding us comes into play. This is good for you. If you can use the dense Lum influx of this Tribulation to break through, at the least from Wyrm to Drak'nn then you'll have the strength to handle yourself out there. We'll give you a lift out and the Echoes you aid into becoming Of Note may become allies that'll have your back. All good things."

Qynn looked down, "So my world is gone basically and this one isn't yet. And I'm not....human. And your saying I can help this world?"

Zemp nodded, "Yeah if your in play we can turn this around. Jafney tends to....misunderstand percentages on things. When he creates the challenges he can mix up the settings. And changing the gravity of a micro dimension from what those particular Echoes are used too.....to 5 times the amount. Is unfortunately par for course. And yeah the Lum increases equivalently to the challenge however baring an especially rare record most echoes aren't going to survive that off the bat. We're birds but that Cait Sith brings real meaning to the term bird brained."

Zemp glared at Jekard, "Not cute Jek, yes he's a freakin fairy cat so irony haha but not that term."

Qynn sighed, "So yeah it's weird but I can actually feel something.... about that story with Satura. So there's more there. Whatever else I do want to live so getting out of the Sorrows and through the Veil needs to happen. Drifting on the Sea within the Sorrows and dipping haphazardly under everytime I bump into a broken gate into basically.....doomed worlds sounds horrible.

Zemp smiled, "Thank Lun, we would have ended back without any Realm Isles to tow and a few new beings Of Note huddled on deck. The League would have been furious with us. The Horde would have a massive influx of new spawn to throw at us."

Zemp looks at Jekard and starts chuckling, " They really think we can 'fix' Jafney....it would be a Cait-astrophe!" Jekard throws his wings up, "9000 reweavings of the Great Tapestry and you still haven't figured out 'funny'. My trials never end!" Chuckling all three look up. "Well it seems like Janey is winding down..."

Zemp remarks.

Still waving his paws wildly in no decernable order Jafney droned on, ".....also my Adjudicator rating could really really use the full 7 stars! On the way out you can file a lolp review with the Lum'Naa League! I'd super appreciate it! So while your fate is absolutely in my hands no worries! Everything is in control! This will be the best apokalypse ever!"