The door creaked open to reveal a lithe figure, just above average height, his advanced age signalled by the tufts of white hair that shot out from either side of his head, the top of which was hairless, and glistened in the torchlight of the hallway.

His face was characterised by a large bulbous nose, underscored with a scruffy white moustache, and, most notably, thick spectacles that fell somewhere between reading glasses and engineer’s goggles, the rims chipped and marked with a faint scoring.

He wore a simple grey robe, this one with black stripes across the shoulders.

“Ah yes yes my boy, come in come in. Thank you, Reginald. We’ve got it from here.” said the master excitedly, as he ushered Wellynd into the study.

The guard, Reginald, apparently, looked askance at Selkis “I’m not supposed to leave any delivery folk unattended.”

“Delivery folk? Ah yes. No, not to worry Reginald. The boy’s been here a million times. We have further business to discuss before I send him on his way. Hmm yes. So I’ll call you when he needs to leave, yes? Some sort of escort is required or something?” rambled Selkis, fiddling with a small brass spring that seemed to appear out of nowhere while looking around in wonder at the hallway as if he had just discovered it.

The guard eyed the man strangely. “Yeah. Like always. Just ring the guardhouse and we will send someone up. Make sure you do. Also, the name’s Burke, and I…”

“Yes, very good.” said Selkis, slamming the door shut.

“My boy! Wellynd? Welly was it? You’ve brought goods no doubt, yes?” exclaimed Selkis “And how are you? Well, I hope.” he looked around conspiratorially “the rock. It’s here, yes? Not too much trouble I hope?” The man rubbed his hands anxiously as he asked the last question, his bright eyes darting around Wellynd’s cloak.

Wellynd grinned as he approached the large oak desk at the far end of the office and, not without some theatricality, fished the skald out of his pocket and placed it on the desk’s edge.

The man’s eyes lit up hungrily.

This hunger was different from the one that Wellynd’s other clients often displayed, who generally used the stones for either profit or destruction. Selkis Bardov, Master Observer at the Revenshore Observatory, however, looked at the stone as if it was some untouched land to be discovered, its secrets untombed, the light of knowledge cast to illuminate its shadowy unknown.

“Oh my boy very good, very good” he said excitedly, eyes never leaving the stone as he walked over and opened a drawer in the desk.

He fished around for a moment before pulling out a small brown leather pouch and tossing it to Wellynd.

Eyes still set on the stone, Selkis then leaned over and pulled up a small iron chest. In one fluid motion, the master pulled a key out of his robe, unlocked the chest, and pulled open the lid to reveal a small pile of different rocks and gems. Some were skald, others common gems like topaz and sapphire, and some were other metals that Wellynd didn’t recognize, their mysterious shine and colour alien to him.

Selkis placed his newest addition carefully in with the rest, taking one more vociferous look at his hoard before closing the chest and placing it back in its hiding place.

When the man came back up he flashed Wellynd a mischievous grin. Wellynd glanced curiously at the spot where the chest just sat, while Selkis brushed his hand against the desk.

“Master Bardov, if you don’t mind me asking, if you aren’t using the stones right away, but you have the money to afford so many, why don’t you buy more than one? I’m sure the Captain would give you a discount if you bought more.”

“Ah. A very astute question. And as I said, it’s Selkis. Selkis boy. When you come here and take classes with me then all the formality is to be expected, but no need right now. I hear enough of it. Hold on.” He glanced over to a circular wooden chart nailed to the wall. “Magisters should have passed through here by now. Did you pass the test my boy? I’d gotten the feeling that I might see you in these halls soon, no?”

Wellynd cringed before holding up his hand and flashing the symbol to the old Master and bowing his head for a moment.

There was no response. The room remained silent.

Unsure of how to react, Wellynd looked up at Selkis. The old master wore a look that Wellynd had never seen on him before.

Confusion.

The man often wondered, often investigated, and was always probing. But he was never confused.

Unsure of what to say, Wellynd sputtered “they say you never know…”

After another strained moment, the man’s face returned to its usual happy demeanour.

“Well I’m sorry to hear that boy. Very sorry. I was actually quite certain that I’d be seeing you in the upcoming class. How odd…I thought…yes well nothing can be done of it now. Don’t stop practising my boy. Never stop learning. There is more than one way to feather a sulfhawk, eh? Well maybe I can…no..that’ll have to wait…well we’ll just have to see...yes.”

Wellynd stood and let the man have a conversation with himself. This was a common occurrence, and while the man’s ramblings weren’t exactly helping quell his anxieties about his failures, there wasn’t much he could do at this point.

Eventually, Selkis stopped talking and began to stack papers on his desk, barely making progress toward organising the miscellany of objects and scrolls that sprawled across its surface.

“To answer your earlier query...academic funding is a strange beast. Yes, very strange. You see I only get a certain amount every month and the war makes it a hard case for me to press for more, you see my boy? So I have to spread my money thin and get what I can. Hmm, yes. There is also the added danger of the stone itself, yeah? Did I already say that? Either way, I’m not sure I’m even allowed to have it!”

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He furrowed his brow.

“Of course, my research is of dire importance. Dire importance, my boy. But alas, Vertan bureaucracy eh?”

Wellynd nodded along. He sometimes forgot that Selkis was Vertan. He had been at the Observatory several years before the occupation, but he imagined the old master wasn’t particularly well-liked by his peers. For Wellynd’s part, he didn’t care about that. He found the man fascinating.

If he was being honest with himself, Selkis was one of the reasons he was so ambivalent about the Vertan occupation in the first place.

He looked around the study for a moment, which was cosy but small, the walls lined with bookshelves, the source of light being a large ocular window in the ceiling, sunlight pouring through and reflecting off of a series of mirrored surfaces on its way to the chamber below. Wellynd couldn’t help but notice that he could see Arthus floating high above in the now clear sky.

The far end of the study held two mahogany doors crammed between the continuous bespoke shelving. Wellynd looked back at Selkis to find the man eyeing him curiously.

“Do you want to see something wonderful?” asked Selkis.

“Sure”

Selkis gestured to the left door, following after Wellynd as he pushed through it.

If he hadn’t come from the office, Wellynd would have guessed the room he now occupied was in a different building altogether. Constructed of smooth stone, the walls shaped into an arching dome lit overhead by another ocular window at its centre. There were several shelves carved into the stone, and Wellynd noticed several peculiar looking shapes covered by white sheets on the far side of the chamber. All of this, however, paled in comparison to the magnificent structure that stood in the centre of the circle.

It couldn’t have been wider than his thigh, but the structure stood about four yards tall, composed of hundreds of coiled brass wires, all twisting and coiling upwards, like a thousand snakes all ambling to taste the light above. At the top of the coil sat a small brass mounting, almost like a small claw, its fingers open, pointing upwards. Halfway up the sloping walls, two more, less impressive coils shot out from opposite ends of the room connecting with one another, just beneath the claw. Wellynd stared, unsure what to do.

“Quite the sight, ain’t it my boy?” said Selkis, his voice echoing in the chamber as he too marveled at the strange mechanism.

“What does it do?”

“It does several things my boy. Yes, yes. It is connected to many other things in the Observatory. But its purpose in this room, what it does best above all else, is provide insight. Yes, what we’ve discovered in a relatively short time is remarkable boy, wonderously remarkable. But we still see very little. And because we see very little, we know very little. This device gives me a glimpse.” he rambled, finding his way into a small recess on the left side of the room that Wellynd hadn’t noticed.

“Aha!” He made a victorious cry after several moments of rustling and came back out from the recess holding something in front of him.

Wellynd made it out immediately. It was another skald. Or, a piece of one. It was very small. He even remembered which one. He had brought it to Selkis over half a year ago.

“Still have that thing? You really are building a stockpile eh?” joked Wellynd. Selkis chuckled before ambling over to a small stone panel and pressing on it, causing it to swing open and revealing a storage closet of sorts.

He pulled out a small step ladder and pushed it over to the coil before pausing, and glancing at Wellynd.

“Want to do the honours my boy?”

The eccentric master smirked as he held out the stone. Wellynd felt his stomach do a tumble before nodding and taking the stone, carefully wrapping his fingers around the familiar coarse surface.

He walked over to the step-ladder, and, after testing the first step, confidently climbed it until he could reach the top. He took a hesitant glance at Selkis, who was staring at him intently, before reaching up and placing the stone into the mounting. He wiped his hands and walked back down, shuffling backward to properly survey his work.

“Good, good, my boy” chirped Selkis before walking over to the bottom of the spire, pulling on one of brass wires and placing the small spring from earlier somewhere inside.

Selkis then ushered Wellynd over to the small recess and behind what appeared to be some sort of console facing the centre of the room and pulled on a large wooden lever.

A loud creak echoed from above as a large, black-tinted glass panel appeared above Selkis from a unseen compartment and slowly descended.

Wellynd shuffled his feet as he couldn’t help but recall the stone door at the Mox hideout.

The brass spire was still visible from behind the tinted glass, and Wellynd thought he could detect a faint glow in its foundations.

“All set my boy?” flashing a maniacal smile before walking up to the glass and facing his back to Wellynd.

Wellynd saw the man’s shoulders slump as he placed his hand on the glass.

Suddenly, the glass changed colour, and the black tinted faded into translucent yellow. It was what was beyond the glass, however, that had Wellynd stunned.

The brass spire looked exactly the same, but all around it swirled dancing colours, flowing about the room. The most dominant of these colours, by far, was an ethereal blue, but there was also an abundance of gold, some green, a hint of deep black, and very occasionally he made out a speck of deep red.

“What…what is that?” stammered Wellynd, walking up to the glass.

“Kose, my boy”

“Kose? What is that?”

The master arched an eyebrow at Wellynd but didn’t answer. He walked back around the console and, without hesitation, turned a large brass knob.

The whole room began to shake.

A hum began to reverberate from the brazen spire behind him. It was, at first, the faintest noise, almost as if the tiny brass coils were minutely vibrating. The sound began to grow, and Wellynd found that the sound now came from multiple points, not just from the spire but, from what he could guess, the perpendicular coils as well. Within a few moments, a great whirring noise vibrated the air, growing steadily louder as a secondary high-pitched squeal joined in.

Wellynd began to sweat. He looked back at Selkis, who was now stretching his hand out towards the spire.

Wellynd’s heart began to race faster. The entire stone chamber now echoed and whirred, the sounds reverberating rapidly around the concave walls, the drum of the now booming noise seemingly intertwining with the rapid beating of his heart.

He could also make out faint distortions in the air around the spire as the colours continued to swirl about it. He watched on as the distortions seemed to climb the final segment of the structure, bracing himself as they reached the claw.

The whirring hit a crescendo as the skald exploded with light, distorting the air around it, bending the sunlight pouring in from the window above. Abruptly, all the colours stopped swirling, their ethereal essence hanging in the air like high-flying clouds that blanketed the sky.

Wellynd turned back to Selkis again to ask what was happening, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out.