Craft of Bone and Art of Djed (Wrenmae)

by **Rayage** on August 18th, 2012, 9:01 pm

Summer 19 512 AV

The nuit waited in his classroom. He had already dismissed one class, and he wasn’t particularly waiting on another, no, just one person. The man he wanted to talk to has been acting strangely towards him ever since they went their separate ways once arriving at Zeltiva. Did he have a score to settle with the nuit? Ray hoped so. Nevertheless he would get to the bottom of this once and for all, besides he did have a little favor to ask of him. He grinned wondering if he could talk the man into accepting it. Oh he had a plan, and it was going to be set into motion today.

You see, back in Sunberth Shroud let out a little secret. While Ray taught him the basics of Alchemy the man also let out that he knew a few world magics himself, one of them being Malediction. An interesting craft, yes, one that he wouldn’t mind knowing, but today wasn’t the day to ask for lessons. No, today was the day to ask for a favor. For days ago he had acquired himself a pair of particular bones from a wild cat. A little research revealed the cats appalling speed. The nuit wondered if given a bone could it be worked to the nuits advantage? And that was exactly what he was going to ask the man.

Sitting at his desk he had the one bone carefully wrapped in fabric. He set it upon the desk like some glorified paperweight. The nuit leaned back into his chair only to get up when the man entered the room, ”Im glad you decided to come.” he said, his voice sounding somehow mocking as if he expected the man to have shown up at all. Which, in Rays mind, would have been a pity, but this meeting he half wondered if it wouldn’t be a bigger mistake. The thought crossed his mind and he brooded on it, ”Please, have a seat” he motioned to a chair set between the desk and himself. It was a rather formal setup, but what better way to have a talk? Maybe it looked condescending, the way Ray conducted the meeting. Then again he hardly cared. They wanted to talk openly, now was their chance.

by **Wrenmae** on October 10th, 2012, 3:46 am

We never go where I want.

You never want to go anywhere but 'different places'.

Different places IS a place!

Technically I haven't walked down this hallway before.

This hallway is boring. I remember asking to go somewhere interesting.

Are you never satisfied?

How can you be?

Sighing heavily, Murdock pushed into the office of Professor Rayage. The enigmatic nuit had summoned him for some reason, but there had been little faith in the hypnotist when he answered the call. The creature had allowed him a silent prison within Wrenmae's mind for nearly a season before release. Now he wanted him for some reason.

Fury had motivated the murderer here, but now curiosity held him.

"Professor," he said, drawing out the word as if sampling a particularly distasteful wine, "What can I do for you?"

by **Rayage** on October 17th, 2012, 2:16 am

Rayage frowned when his offer for a seat wasn’t taken. The man remained standing, and didn’t sound too pleased. He could only wonder what this is about, but he had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly what this is about. ”You could at least have a seat.” he said gesturing towards the chair again, ”Try to remain pleasant.” he said, noting the angry aura about him. Nothing was going as he had quite planned it to. Well, luckily for him there are other ways to solve problems that did not involve angry voices or hushed tones. ”Why don’t you have a drink?” he asked, pulling open one of his desks drawers and pulling out a bottle of wine and a glass. The nuit set them on the desk in front of him gently, ”Everyone likes a good wine, no?” he asked, concealing a smile, ”Unopened too.” he commented on the condition of the wine, ”Not cheap, but I’ll gladly share it with you.” he said, almost mockingly, just how he has shared about everything else, even his knowledge. What is a bit of wine compared to that?

Closing the drawer he waited to see if the man was interested or not, if so he’d pour him a glass, if not it would remain on the desks surface, a constant reminder of what he could have if he so wished it. ”Now, there is something that has been just eating away at me inside. I swear its making me rot faster.” he laughed at his light commentary, ”Remember those seasons ago, I believe it to be two, when I told you the story of my life?” he asked trying to invoke memories from where he could start the conversation, ”Im a horrible liar, I hope you know that,” he joked, ”I lied to you.” he said point blank, looking the man in the face. With all his words of worry and guilt there wouldn’t be the slightest trace of emotion on his being.

”I am actually much older than five hundred years.” he told him, making it sound like this fact was, well, obvious, ”In reality, I am really around seven hundred and fifty. The exact number eludes me.” he said, for once not sounding like himself, but like an old man looking back on his life. It seemed that the nuit was going to open up to him, ”You see as time passes it gets harder and harder to remember things from that time. It was a different age back then, a different world.” he tried to explain, ”and memories from this life and my other life get intertwined with the passage of time. With the numerous bodies I’ve taken, I have found it gets harder and harder to remember what I looked like, and what I was.” he said, reaching in and around his neck he pulled off a chain usually hidden under the fabric of the nuits garb. Pulling it off from around his neck he revealed it to be a necklace, a small heart-shaped locked attached to one end.

The necklace was golden colored, but there was a silvery lining to it, and if one could feel such a thing, a slight magical presence, ”This was the only thing I bothered to keep all these years, and I, myself, don’t even know why.” he said, he lied, setting it down on the desk in front of him. In fancy, but small lettering, a name was engraved on one side of it: Rayanne. On the other side of the locket, if one were to pick it up, would be a floral design around the edges, ”It’s just always been there.” he said, leaving it at that. Just like that.

OOC :

by **Wrenmae** on October 19th, 2012, 10:10 pm

Murdock stared at the wine glass suspiciously, already on edge from the onset of meeting the enigmatic nuit. Hesitating, he finally took a seat and let Rayage pour him a glass. From his street life in Alvadas, the murderer had not cultivated a refined taste of the vine, but the year spoke for the dry citrus flavor and he knew at least enough propriety to sip rather than gulp. Placing the wine back on the table, he listened to his professor. At first it was the usual surly sense of superiority that ebbed from his voice. Lying, of course he was. Why wouldn’t an immortal man lie to a mortal he had seen age and die a hundred times before in his eternal journey.

Murdock stared at him. How many bodies had he been in since his death? Nearly a thousand now? More? How many faces had Rayage worn? What was Rayage but a series of borrowed cadavers, expended refuse given foul purpose by some undead ambition?

But the tone changed. Was there…a hint of restless there? Nostalgia? Sorrow? Murdock twitched, a sharp reminder that his partner was perhaps more human than he had given credit. Of course. After all, were not all nuits once breathers? Were they not all like him at one point or another?

Taking the locket, respectfully, certainly with more reverence than he had treated anything before, Murdock took the chain and teardrop locket. The metal felt strange. Almost like gold, but a different color. Alchemy perhaps? But from what he learned of the art, there was a half-life to all items. Was this made so well that it had lasted over seven hundred years?

Nimble fingers played at the clasp, opening the tiny object. A portrait was there, delicately painted with care and concern. A man looked back out at Wrenmae. He was a distinguished looking man, strong jaw and piercing blue eyes. They seemed to bleed off the background, burning a hole through Murdock’s forehead and opening up his mind. Combed brown hair distinguished him as a man of status. Certainly the meticulous care to his appearance denoted a certain superior attitude and perhaps, rank. He was wearing black robes, shoulders steeped in shadow. But the picture was smiling and that alone mitigated the other intimidating aspects of the painting.

Shroud snapped the locket shut and pushed it back to Rayage. “What was it like,” he asked quietly, “The Valterrian.”

by **Rayage** on October 19th, 2012, 11:47 pm

The Alchemist watched as the other took ahold of the locket, ”Rayanne made that.” he commented, ”She was much more a skilled Alchemist than I was. Though we were both equally driven by our shared desire she had an intellect to rival even mine today.” he laughed, ”Just like her to outclass even a centuries old being. She could do it too, mind you.” he talked while the murderer inspected the locket. Talk like this, well, Ray hasn’t talked like this in quite a long a time. Then the locket was put down and slid back to Ray, he made his final comment, ”When she died I promised her that I would finish our research. Now, back then Alchemy was at a whole other level. There were circles that made even the finest ones you can find here, in the present day, look like children’s toys.” Perhaps that was why the locket still was in such a good condition.

Then silence fell between the two when Shroud asked about the Valterrian. It took Ray back, but of course he would ask about that. It was the single most important event in the history books. It was the reason they all were blasted back into the dark ages. Ray pondered and tried to think of how to best explain it. Shifting a little as if the thought disturbed him he smiled and nodded, ”Very well.” he said as if confirming that he would talk about the subject, ”You DO remember the Djed Storm that passed by this Spring?’ he asked, ”Well if you take that and multiply it by one hundred, no,” he was quick to correct himself, ”by one thousand, even greater than that, you will get the destructive power and sheer magnitude of the Valterrian.” he said.

”You can’t imagine, but the entire world was destroyed and reshaped in that one day, that one event. Thousands upon thousands of people lost their lives as building crumbled and gave in like paper to the flame under the sheer magical pressure of the holy war. The sky was dark, and the world itself shook, lit aflame by the gods. Nowhere was safe, no one was safe. There was screams and cries, and then silence, nothing, because they were no more. All you could hear was the warring power of the gods fighting amongst themselves. Underground proved to be just as dangerous as the surface. The shaking and rocking of the earth collapsed many of the tunnels people fled to on top of them. Magical barriers were scattered as easily as sand to the wind. The rocking wasn’t the worst part, no, was worse was when the earth itself opened up and spewed its molten blood.”

”Civilization was effectively destroyed. Now, rank, status, superficial power meant nothing. No, nothing to the cause of survival. Once important people were knocked off their high horse, and it seemed that the world was spun on its head. Once knowledge was revered and those who had more of it along with them, now brutes took control and organized, or tried to, and through their methods of survival mankind survived. There was no longer a caste system, the many vanities which we enjoyed and took for granted so long ago, gone, without a trace. Survival was hard, and the knowledge that so much was lost, so much… There was so much that will never be recovered. Mizahar was sent back to the dark ages. Even I was lucky to survive that day.” he said, falling silent for a chime.

”Though I do remember it like it happened just yesterday. I was in my lab, I was happy, I finally thought that I can cracked it and finished the search that my wife had started. I was the at the peak of my performance, and in the blink of an eye everything changed. I first noticed the darkening skies, as the light which I was using to write with disappeared. The ground itself shook, and things started to fall off the shelves. Fire erupted and the entire lab was gone. The earth had swallowed it and by some miracle I was alive, alone, in the dark. Disoriented, confused, I got to see the dark sky one last time, its night reflecting the fires which overtook the world. It made painted the sky with a darkness, a smoky ash color, faintly lit by the fire giving it a surreal look. Such destruction, such beauty all at once. It made a younger me want to reach for it, grasp it, and hold onto that very sky.”

”Once the confusion died down, I was overtaken by grief.” he said, ”All my research, indeed, all her research, notes, everything, gone. The knowledge was lost forever. I had to start over, but I didn’t have the resolve, I wanted to give up right there, but then, in my darkest moment, I saw her again.” he said, ”I saw dear Rayanne, there in the sky a streak of light.” he said moving an arm across himself as if to illustrate a shooting star, ”A star fell, and I was comforted. I felt her. I don’t know why, or even how, but she was with me in that ray that pierced even the overwhelming darkness of that day. Rayanne was my star, my hope, my Ray of light, and that day I saw her fall, a single tear dotting the heavens, crying for the centuries of lost work...” Of course this was all before he even knew about the existence of the Eth. He stopped his story there, as a certain realization befell on him.

by **Wrenmae** on October 23rd, 2012, 4:56 am

Quietly, he listened. Indeed, it was the greatest honor he could afford the old nuit. His mind unfettered by forgone conclusions or opinions, his eyes locked on the dead sockets of the professor. Murdock gave all of himself to the description, imagining the time so different now than it must have been then. He tried to imagine the woman Rayage described, failed, instead likened her to bright light...calming golden light washing fear and caution from his body like dirt in the seaspray.

He felt, more than saw, the cascading waves, the destruction of the Djed storm that had him locked in the temple of the unknown god in Sunberth. How it must have felt, to feel the wrath of the gods vibrating in your bones.

How it must have frightened the nuit.

Murdock had no one to compare to Rayanne. Those who drew close to him faded and died, or hated and reviled him. That sort of intimate companionship was nothing any longer, a dream without cause. But to see this man speak of it, to see the ordinarily taciturn nuit moved to what he might assume would be tears...had they any ability to cry...it stunned him. Here he had expected a man with no humanity, who had cast off the vestiges of his mortality like tired skin and sloughed into some other guise of a demigod, ageless and peerless.

But he stared into the pockmarked imperfections of Rayage's psychosis.

He had chosen to show them.

And all that anger melted away in an instant.

"You study alchemy to rediscover what she left to you, then?" He asked quietly, "I think I understand your pursuit a little more, now...and a bit of your personality. To have someone of such worth torn away, I don't think I could bare to care for someone like that again...no wonder you seem so aloof, so distant."

He cleared his throat, masking the weakness in his own voice by gulping some wine.

"I'll help you," he said at last, "Rediscover her work, I mean. If your lab sank into the sea, I will dredge it up for you. If her work was on paper, I will assist you in rewriting it. I may not be an alchemist of your caliber, but I have talents that may prove invaluable to you."

He looked down at his hands. The first lesson in hypnotism was never to reveal your powers...they diminished if the person knew.

"I'm a hypnotist," he said at last, looking up, "The most skilled I've met to date. I have the power to look into your memories, make you recall them vividly. Perhaps you saw her research on a page for an instant. I can immortalize that instant, let you recreate it."

His body began to ripple. He stood and removed his shirt, skin shifting and hardening, motes of metal showing through it as his left arm grew dense, black, with silver veins. HIs body changes, seconds of morphing his model of the Isur and a different man...a different species...stood in front of Rayage.

"And if it lies on the ocean floor," he said, his voice deep and gravelly, "I'll steal the body of a sea monster and drag it up for you."

by **Rayage** on October 31st, 2012, 9:12 pm

Rayage calmly listened to the man in front of him, ”It’s a fools dream.” he said waving a dismissing hand at the ideas which were presented to him, shutting the doors that this man was to open. ”I can tell you it won’t be as easy as you make it sound.” he said, staring the now transformed man in the eyes, deadpan, ”Have you not thought that I, over these hundreds of years, have tried to rediscover some of what was lost so long ago?” he asked, ”What better a person to do it than one who had lived before the great event?” he asked, ”And all I have got to claim for my efforts,” he said opening a drawer in his desk and removing a tiny bird statuette, and from one side of his desk he pulled an ancient looking sword, ”Is a small statue, and a sword which I cannot use.” he said, placing them both on the desk in front of them.

”I’ve traveled the world.” he said, ”I’ve traveled to places which were long forgotten, even whispers of the buildings have been silenced by the passage of time. Yet,” he shook his head, ”hardly anything to show for my research.” he told him, ”Like most archeowizards out there, I am also a failure.” he laughed at his assumption, ”And to think that I, of all people, would have a sort of advantage in things like this. Wrong.” he said, his voice growing increasingly frustrated with the situation, the thoughts, the memories. ”The Valterrian has changed, and remolded the land. Time has covered ancient structures in dust and forests, sometimes even burying it within Mizahar itself!” he proclaimed boldly, ”Little of what existed pre-valterrian exists today, and what does is just broken fragments of the past.” he said, ”You cannot paint a picture with only half of it envisioned. In history there is no room for assumptions, no room for personal opinion, for that may or may not be accurate. I am betting on the latter.”

”My memories won’t help, even if you are as good a hypnotist as you claim to be, because the world I once knew is gone. Gone because of the Gods!” he pointed skyward as if accusing every last god and not caring what they thought of him, ”Gone, in an instant, in a day everything changed. Do you not understand?” he asked, lashing out at him, though not purposely, ”No higher power can ever restore what was lost, no, no god will take credit for their actions, for their doings. No god can restore what was lost.”

He fell silent for a moment before muttering two words that one would never think Rayage to ever speak. Words which if one met Ray would have thought that he had forgotten, ”Forgive me.” though those words were spoken, it was almost spoken with silence, barely a whisper left his lips, ”Before the Valterrian Rayanne and I were very devote to the gods.” he explained, ”Not just one or two, but we tried to worship all of them.” he explained, ”In foolish optimism, we thought we could represent and live in perfect harmony with the natural forces which ruled Mizhar.” he said, ”Back then, they were what gave us life’s meaning, what prompted us to look at every day as an opportunity, as a blessing, be it a good day or bad we tried to see the world for what it was.” he laughed remembering something, but it was left unsaid. ”You know, it was actually Rayanne who converted me to that train of thought. Not some priest or priestess.” he said the last two titles with disgust. ”And we were happy that way...” he told him.

”If you want to help me then you should know that Rayanne did not have just one lab.” he told him, ”She had several, spread all throughout Alahea. My own lab was destroyed in the valterrian, any trace of it gone. As I told you, I was lucky to survive.” he said quickly falling back into his own ways, ”She was quite accomplished, but one should say that the competition was tough back then when it came to magic.”” he nodded, ”Not like the second-rate wizards one sees stalking Mizahar today. What a joke.” he said, bragging about the greatness of the land which once was.

by **Wrenmae** on November 8th, 2012, 6:41 am

Shroud frowned, saying nothing. The only answer he had to Rayage's tirade was to pour another glass of wine, raise it to him, and then drink from it. Placing the chalice down, the hypnotist crossed his legs and sat back against his chair. For a moment, he closed his eyes, as if weighing some momentous decision.

"So old and so hopeless," He said at last, cutting Rayage off at the end. "I'd expect more from a man who defies the gods with his magic." Grinning, Wrenmae tipped one of the glasses, the untouched one, and it fell to the floor, shattering.

"I broke that glass. Like the Valterrian, that senseless, destructive, event, I have left the scattered pieces of your life, this glass, on the floor." Nudging them with his foot, he nestled his chin in one of his hands, "They have not gone anywhere, merely scattered. The pieces exist, and they remain to be put together. Are you not a master of Alchemy, Rayage? Are you not like to a god? Do not sit there and tell me you've done all you can. If you had, you would have found the answers by now."

He stepped on the shards, stomped on them, ground them into the floor. "Even if her work was scattered to a dozen pieces, a hundred pieces, a thousand pieces, a million...you have eternity to fit every last one back into its appointed place." He stood, scattering the glass beneath his feet and reached across the desk, grabbing Rayage by the coller and pulling him over it. The nuit tottered on his legs, straining to keep his balance, dead eyes inches from Shroud's own blazing dark orbs.

"Listen to me, old man...eternity has daunted the very thing that was so great about you at the first. You have human spirit, you have drive, ambition, desire. Anything you want, we can create from the earth. Domination? Possible. Creation? You know better than I. This world is not run by those arrogant pig-headed gods. They are run by the mortals. Gods can play their charlatan games of politics, but we choose our own destinies, we decided our own fates here. Tell me to search with you and I will. Tell me to kill someone and I will. I swore I would work with you so long as there were lessons left to learn, ambitions left to see through."

He let the nuit go, kicking his chair over. It echoed dully in the chamber. "Don't sit there and prattle about impossibility. You are a dead man standing before me who turned wool into steel."

Whipping around, the hypnotist glared at him.

"Nothing is impossible."

by **Rayage** on November 23rd, 2012, 5:32 pm

The sound of the broken glass shook Ray. He did not quite know why or even how, was it the air in the room the charged static that emotions brought out? Though it rang, clearly, cutting the air and the silence, Wrenmaes words cutting more than just the air, his words ran deep, their meaning augmented by the symbolism of the broken glass. The Valterrian was senseless, it was uneeded, it was the event which changed the world forever. It showed the power of emotion and what a grip it held over the members of this world. Not even the nuit were free from emotional grasp. No matter how hard they fight it, or how much time as passed, emotion, to some extent, will always be present. That is the curse of being of a higher function that is the curse that came with the blessing of thought and individuality. Emotions are the things that the gods prey on, toying with them, and manipulating the humans and other beings into submission. It’s the madness that comes with genius.

Casting his gaze down at the broken glass the nuit nodded. The pieces have just been disassembled. They were still there, just destroyed and scattered. They were there. They are there. They are still present, just hidden in the mist of the new world built atop the ruins of the old one. It is a new age, but fragments of knowledge are still there, they are sitting, dormant, waiting to be picked up and pieced together. Though like the broken glass, piecing it back together wouldn’t be the easiest of tasks. No, not at all… He had not done enough, he had not found any fragments, he had just collected what he could and started over. There are many ways to solve this, and it seemed, for the last five hundred years Ray has been content with just crafting a new glass from just a single fragment of the old one. He didn’t even have a complete picture to look at, just from memory, one flawed and having experienced a lot of time. He had admitted so himself.

To emphasize his point the man stepped and further crushed the glass under his foot, grinding the many shards into the woodwork itself. The sound almost made the nuit cringe, his eyes slowly drifting upwards and to the hypnotists as he started up again. Then something rather unexpected happened. It caught Rayage off guard when the man reached and grabbed him by the collar almost dragging him over the desk that separated them. He struggled to keep his balance as the man held onto his collar, looking him in the eyes as his own voice changed if only a little, a bit more dominating, commanding, controlling. It was a slap in the face, a wakeup call, it stunned him as he was talked to like that and grabbed. Never before since he became a nuit had anyone dared to take such liberties with him.

”We are all more human than what we’d like to admit.” he said, responding to him, breaking the stunned silence.

When he was released the nuit fell back into the seat behind him, as he was supported mainly by the grasp of the man. With an ungraceful landing the nuit almost fell backwards as the chair started to tip, but immediately went on all four feet again. Though at the same time the chair Wrenmae was sitting in toppled over as he kicked over his chair… For once he wasn’t sure what to do, what to say. He was unprepared for this situation. It was actually quite daunting to him to realize just how human he really was. No, he wasn’t like a god. He was just an alchemist. Just an alchemist. Just a delusional wizard. Just an alchemist. The thought repeated many times in his head before the glare of the man snapped him from his thoughts, his final words stating everything that was needed. Nothing is impossible.

A couple chimes passed in silence, the nuit was trying to react. The nuit was trying to think what he could do, what he could say to gain control of the situation again. His gears were turning, but emotions were clouding his mind. Quietly he responded, ”It looks like we are adding another thing to our list of things to do…” he said, words barely a whisper. This was so odd. Why did he feel so much like a chastised child? Why did he feel so young, so ignorant, so stupid? Why did he feel so… less… it made no sense to him. Where had his confidence gone? Was it so easily shaken away by a man wielding the weapon of words? Was he that weak? Was he that pathetic? No. No. No. This cannot be this cannot be his destiny. He would not accept this.

Stunned face twisted into one of defensive anger, ”One should reflect upon himself before judging others.” he said, leaning back into the chair which had caught him, ”What have you done to advance this world? You are only out for yourself. A typical human only staying around if it is profitable.” he spat. He really did not mean to say the things he was saying. It was just his way of retaliating, of dealing with the shame that he felt boiling up inside him, ”Given twice the amount of time I have been alive, I doubt you would have made any swift discoveries. Despite the shards being present they are buried, they are buried under five hundred years of ‘advancement’. he said the last word with scorn, throwing his arms on his desk and shoving the papers and things off of it onto the glass shards under it, burying them. ”Sorting through that mess to find a tiny shard, a fragment of knowledge, is harder than you make it sound. If it is so easy, if it is so possible, why is the world in the state that it is in currently? Why haven’t we collected all these shards so easily? Why haven’t we done something about it?” he asked, talking faster and faster. ”With age dust builds and the fragments become unrecognizable, almost indistinguishable from common trash. There are forces at play here more numerous than you can comprehend. There are so many variables.” he went on, ”There is so much in this world that you are ignorant to.” he finished, staring him down as equally as the man was to him.

by **Wrenmae** on November 23rd, 2012, 10:31 pm

Shroud stepped back, as if slapped. His eyes burned, narrowing after a moment of surprise. Without warning, he stepped forward and leaped up onto Rayage's desk, scattering papers and reports everywhere. His hand went to his blade, pulled it free, menaced the nuit from his perch. Shroud was scowling, a black bubbling hatred burning inside him, wrestling with the debate of whether to stab the nuit or not.

Rayage was frail, so frail, and without a means to defend himself.

And yet he talked like he knew it all.

"Look at you," the hypnotist mocked, menacing the nuit with his blade, "What has your immortality bought you? Time? Patience? Look at you. If I wanted, I could dissect your body into a hundred pieces, grind them into the floor like so much glass. What then, Rayage? Would you be proud of your centuries? Your dusty wasted years? Without me, now, you're defenseless, weak. You've agonized more than ten times my lifetime and you still have no advancements to show me. Where is your created life? Where is your lost love's work? Where is anything that bares the name of Rayage that people will remember?"

He kicked papers and weights across the desk at the nuit, spitting,

"Your legacy is a dried up job as an alchemy teacher, a nameplate. Given even a quarter of your lifetime I would make the world bow to ME...I wouldn't waste it complaining about the impossibilities of a godly tantrum. I wouldn't speak down to a man of only twenty two years of what I could not accomplish in my CENTURIES of time. You are no alchemist if you seek to regale ME about the impossibilities of the time. I have grown in it, I have adapated in it, and I make strides with magic few will ever reach. I may not know what you know, but I will do more with my limited knowledge than you have with your ageless timeline. I WILL BE REMEMBERED!"

Spittle glared at the corner of his mouth, and he kicked the remaining papers from his desk. "Pick them up, nuit. Pick them up. Find the glass beneath them. They are only papers, right? Only centuries. You have an eternity of time and you haven't bothered to lift one. No rediscovery, only reinvention."

He jumped off the desk, landing in front of the seated nuit, pushed over the chair to send the teacher sprawling.

"You let her rot. Her achievements rot. Her memory rot. Everything she accomplished...rot...because you dare to tell me it's too hard for an eternal man to accomplish...an eternal man who dreams to spit in the faces of the gods."

Shroud sheathed his blade, stepping back around the table and tearing paper from the floor, scooping up a pile of the ground glass and pouring it on the tabletop.

"Here is your dreams, Rayage. If she was so much greater than you, then let's find her work and bring it back to the world. If you are so weakened by your immortality, then let me put a number on your unlife."

With the work of a single movement, Wrenmae drew his cold iron Dagger and buried it into Rayage's desk, blowing the powdered glass across it like glittering sand.

"Two years. You have two years to make strides in the effort of recovering knowledge lost to Mizahar...knowledge that could benefit us all. Make peace with your projects and set your course." He yanked the blade from the desk and pointed it at Rayage, gaze hot, eyes narrowed. "Because in two years I will come for you...and no doors or barriers will stop me. I will end you if you refuse to use your gift to advance us all."

Turning from the nuit, Shroud strode toward the door...pausing at the entrance.

"You seek to create life. Is it because you think you can do better than Mizahar's gods?" He chuckled.

"In my eyes, that's the most selfish goal of all."

And he stepped out, leaving the nuit in his ruined office.