Flashback I feel so Domineered, Part 3

[Ialari Pythone]

Continued from here...

Ialari awoke a short time later. She was in her Dominion which was still surrounded by the massive cavern and enormous blood-red waterfall that turned into the river that surrounded the stone that she lay upon. With a long stretch, Ialari sat up. She then stood and slowly walked around. She almost thought her surroundings hadn't changed much until she turned and saw a familiar, unsettling sight on looming above and positioned just beyond the reach of Ialari's Dominion.

The ancient looking oak tree, multiple bodies hanging from the limbs by their crushed necks snaked its way in the air from the stone below. The most disturbing as well as curious aspect of the tree was that the bodies all looked like Ialari. Past the rotted, blackened skin, it was obvious that the hanging bodies all resembled Ialari. She found it difficult to avoid looking into several bulging eyes staring lifelessly back at her. Over the past few days, she had almost forgotten about the tree. It had been there to greet her the first time she established a Dominion and had been close ever since. The more she thought about it, even though she hadn't seen it in awhile, it had always been there. She approached the tree until the invisible barrier allowed her to move no further. The corpses on the lowest branches looked almost identical to her. The one that looked closest had a crushed skull and wore the same black robes that Ialari always wore. At least fifty dead copies of herself hung from various branches. Ialari had wondered the purpose of the tree the first time she laid eyes upon it yet until now, she did not have the time to give further thought to it.

She looked further up the tree, past the bodies that looked most like her. They were older and more mature looking; perhaps future versions of her? One wore the robes of a full instructor at the Silver Tower, a master of the arcane. She looked to have had a number of daggers piercing her torso. Another Ialari was bloated as if having drowned and rested in the water for an extended period of time. Yet another looked to have fallen victim to some opposing manipulation of djed or gnosis while another looked to have been the subject of some gruesome surgery. As she gazed upon her many deaths, both past, present and future, she saw once more the strangest of all of the bodies. Perched at the top of the tree was the copy of her composed of the same material as her metallic arm.

Still she wished she could understand why the tree was there. At first she thought it a to be a test. She thought it may stand just beyond her reach, taunting her and pushing her to expand her Dominion in order to discover the tree's true meaning. As she looked at it now, the gruesome visage of many deaths looking back, she began to consider that perhaps there was something about it that was completely different that she originally thought. "I stand here looking upon what? My possible pasts and futures? To what end? What does this have to do with me or my being here?" Ialari held her arms out as to motion to her surroundings.

"It's not as if it were within my Dominion..." Ialari then began to realize that the tree was likely not associated with her actual Dominion. Perhaps it was someone or something within the Ukalas, maybe the Ukalas itself, sending her some sort of message. It all was maddening as Ialari quickly turned away from the tree else lose the rest of her dwindling patience.

[Ialari Pythone]

Ialari attempted to pull her thoughts back into focus. Perhaps her original idea that the tree was a test wasn't all that far from the truth. It tested her patience with its presence, its silence and the dozens of dead eyes staring down at her. Speaking aloud, she returned to her conversation with her Dominion. "I've come this far, I won't let a tree and my death a hundred times over stop me." It sounded rather ridiculous when she stopped to think about it yet who did she have around her to think of it that way.

"So let me think, where did we leave off. Oh yes, faith. Ever since I was old enough to speak, I've known of the gods and especially of Izurdin. He has always been there for me even if I can't see or hear him. He is the father of my race and their icon; the one we aspire to please." The last statement brought pause to Ialari as she remembered the terrible extradimensional scar that tore through the Ukalas.

She recalled what she knew of the Domineers of the past and how they abused the Ukalas and sought to make it their own. She recalled the teachings of her mentors that told her of how the humans, in their greed and selfishness, angered the gods, Ivak in particular. Of how his divine wrath crippled the world and left the peoples that lived there scattered and broken. "Mortals have indeed caused so much harm to themselves, their world and the worlds beyond. I like to think that my people are different, that they serve the gods rather than defy them. For the most part, I still think this is true. I wonder however how many of them were like me. My faith was strong yet my own selfish hatred held me back. It prevented me from fully embracing my faith as well as the truth laid out in front of me. We all caused the Valterrian, the gods, mortals; humans, isur and all the mortal races of the world." It was sad really. Ialari stood in a place filled with infinite possibilities. She gazed upon a realm that most mortals would never experience in a hundred lifetimes and remember it. Yet for all its beauty and potential, the Ukalas suffered the same wounds as the material world. Even with her tiny sliver of knowledge regarding Dominion, she could feel the pain hovering in the background; an ever-present droning of hurt similar to what she felt on a quiet Summer's night in the material world. If she closed her eyes and listened, not with her ears but with her soul, she could feel it.

"Let me see, more about me. What is there to say? I left home in search of things that I felt Sultros could not provide. Things such as knowledge of the outside world, of humanity and of a way to eliminate them once and for all. It took me over two years of travel to finally arrive in Sahova. Each place I visited, Riverfall, Syliras, they all provided stories of the Island of the Dead where terrible things happened and no living being ever returned from. Their were stories of forbidden arts; magic taken to such extremes that it infected the island itself. Of course, with such stories, how could I resist?" Ialari was really getting into it now. She paced around the confines of her small Dominion, speaking her mind and stopping periodically to take deep breaths of the moist, crisp air while running her fingers through the warmth of the stone at her feet.

[Ialari Pythone]

"Why would someone like me, embracing living strength and life itself, want to seek out knowledge possessed by the undead? Although they are fragile, single-minded things, the nuit have a focus and a patience that transcends death. As sad as they are, they must be admired at least in a small way for those specific reasons. Sahova has the tools and overall resources to help prepare me for the journey that awaits me. That journey, my destiny, still eludes me though I understand that Sahova plays a big part in it. There is of course, Drainira. Now that I've acquired Dominion, there is no doubt that her focus will return to me and we will meet sometime in the future. Sahova will prepare me for that meeting." Ialari considered her words as she spoke of Drainira. Since she stood within the Ukalas, she was afraid that speaking the name of Drainira's master, Sagallius, would somehow turn his attention to her. Such a thing was not on her list of things she wished to have happen right now.

Her stomach began to cramp a bit signalling her hunger. She was almost out of rations and needed to figure out some other alternative for food. There were still several days left until the ship returned to carry her back to Sahova; she needed to survive and maintain her health until then.

She walked over to where she had laid out her gear. She gathered it into her pack, took one last look around and made her way to the door. She took a step through it and was greeted by the rising sun. She had lost track of time while in her Dominion and hadn't realized an entire day had passed. Her hunger growing, Ialari took a trip down to the beach. The sky was a light gray slowly turning blue as she took her first steps on the sandy beach. The waves were gently snaking their way up the tide line as Ialari walked around in search of something to eat. Thankfully, she spied a number of small crabs skittering about. Quick and agile, they were no match for Ialari's growing hunger as she ran them down and snatched them up one by one. She put them in her belt pouch for the time being and continued searching. As she scoured the beach for more food, Ialari ran across a handful of dead fish. Though hungry, she wasn't that hungry. After awhile, she gave up looking for anything else on the beach. She had five small to medium-sized crabs which would be quite tasty. As she made her way back up the beach to the small forest and back to the Retreat, she caught sight of a large bird's nest up in a nearby tree. Perhaps I could throw in some eggs as well. She thought as she sat walked over to the tree and looked up.

It was a tall tree however there were a number of branches that would aid in the climb to the nest. Unfortunately, the branches were out of her current reach. She didn't have any climbing gear and rigging up something to help would take more time and energy than it was worth. With a heavy sigh, Ialari reached up with her metallic arm and dug her fingers into the trunk of the tree. Pulling herself up, she used her other hand and feet to hold onto to the tree bark wherever she could before using her metallic hand to again reach up and sink her fingers in. She did this a number of times until she was roughly 20 feet up the tree and was able to reach the first branch. It was barely able to hold her weight as she pulled herself up onto it and then to the branch above. Now 30 feet in the air, she was at the branch with the nest. She couldn't see any birds in it but was too far away to get a good enough look to see any eggs. Wrapping her legs around the branch, she scooted forward down its length toward the nest. As she got closer, she saw that indeed there were three large eggs resting within. Scooting closer, she finally came into arms reach of the eggs. She gently plucked them out of the nest one by one and put them in her belt pouch. She then reversed her direction and backward scooted on the branch toward the trunk.

When she reached the tree trunk, she slowly and carefully descended. At one point, here hand slipped leaving her barely able to catch herself with her feet on the branch below. When she stabilized her footing, she checked the eggs to make sure they were intact. To her relief, they were good so she continued climbing down the tree. Finally, she reache the bottom. Brushing the loose bark off of herself, Ialari returned to the Retreat.

[Ialari Pythone]

When she got back to the Retreat, Ialari gathered a bit of wood from the nearby dwindling pile and put it in her little fire pit. Unfortunately, she realized then that she was out of fresh water. So she removed her belt pouch and hung it on a nearby tree before taking one her half-barrels on a trip to the fresh-water pond. She made the trip short, not stopping for the scenery as she filled up the barrel and then went back to her camp. She then used her flint and steel to start up a fire and poured water into the iron pot that hung above the flames. She waited for the water to come to a boil before she took the crabs out of her pouch and dropped them in. She then retrieved a battered metal pan recovered from the nearby shipwreck and cracked open the three eggs she had gathered into the pan. She then held the pan over the flames while periodically stirring the eggs with a bent metal spoon.

After a bit of time had passed, the eggs were finished and the crabs had been boiled out of their shells. Ialari proceeded to devour the eggs as well as the crabs. It was a meal that she hadn't had in such a long time. She ate the crabs whole, legs, shell, everything. As they crunched in her mouth, she savored the flavor and juices. The eggs too provided much needed sustenance that was not simply a dried up old ration. When she was finished with the meal, she leaned back in front of the fire as the early morning was well in swing. As much as she wanted to return to her communing with her Dominion, she had to take care of her basic needs. She hadn't bathed in a couple of days and she was barely making it by with food. Taking things one step at a time, she returned to the pond for a bath.

Shedding her meager clothing, Ialari waded out into the center of the pond. The cool water was almost too cool as the chill was present throughout Ialari's body during her bath. Something about the coolness of the water reminded Ialari of some of the small cavern streams back home. As she casually waded about the middle of the pond, she started thinking about how she would find food. Of course there would be the crabs on the beach and perhaps a few more eggs but she needed to expand her potential food sources. Although she hadn't done more in-depth exploration of the beach beyond casual trips across the sand, she recalled the intertidal zone that was revealed when the tide was out. There were countless exposed rocks, small tidal pools and likely a wealth of potential food. It was then that Ialari thought of the sounds of animal life surrounding her in the pond. The croaking of frogs reminded her of their presence and brought another possibility for food. After a short amount of time in the pond and she felt sufficiently clean, Ialari made her way to the edge of the pond, stepped out of the water and dressed. Autumn was upon her and it was never more apparent than in the cooler water of the pond. Leaving the pond, she returned once more to the Retreat.

She was no hunter though and the idea of tracking her prey and killing it just wasn't feasible. The tide pools were sounding more and more like what she would be exploring next in her search for food. While she was out, she could take the opportunity to gather more crabs as well.

[Ialari Pythone]

Back at the Retreat, Ialari prepared to set out for another trip to the beach; this time she would attempt to explore the tide pools. It was approaching midday and the sun overhead showered the area with warmth and a slight, salty breeze whistled through the trees from the direction of the beach. Ialari donned a short black skirt, the fabric beginning to show no small amount of wear from her time in and around the Retreat and a simple chest wrap. She strapped on her belt pouch placing in it a couple jars and a number of small vials from her poisoncrafting kit. With her dagger, she cut a good-sized piece from the netting she salvaged from the shipwreck. She doubled up the netting to create smaller openings before tying off the ends of the netting in a way that formed something of a bag to carry whatever things she may be able to gather from the tide pools. Stowing the rest of her gear in a small nook within the ruins surrounding the Retreat, she tucked her dagger into her belt, grabbed her staff along with one of the half-barrels and set off for the beach.

During the relatively short trek to the beach, Ialari stopped several times to examine the various roots of plants she passed along the way. Although limited in their uses, the roots would serve as a plentiful supply of ingredients for crafting all manner of minor poisons. One of the first collection of roots she was able to find would be suitable for refreshing her supply of blue whinnis. As she searched through the light underbrush, she also came across a single plant with roots that would offer a few doses of blootroot. Gathering the roots was rather simple as it required only digging up the roots and cutting them off at the right spot. She didn't want to spend much time gathering roots as she wasn't sure exactly when or how long the low tide would last so after gathering the few roots that she did, she continued on to the beach.

When she arrived at the beach, she was in luck, the tide was out and a new landscape welcomed her. Patches of exposed rock, covered in tiny mollusks, starfish and moss, spread out for many yards toward the sea and stretched the length of the beach for as far as Ialari could see. Gulls flocked overhead, taking advantage of the wealth of food trapped in the tide pools. Holding her staff with a firm grip in one hand, the half-barrel in the other, she walked into the intertidal zone. She used her staff to help brace her footing on the slippery surface of the rocks as she took one careful step after another. The first rock she stepped up on had a large, rough basin in the center. She filled the half-barrel with a bit of seawater and sat it down on the rock. She knelt down to look at the variety of shelled creatures attached to the stone surface. They were countless numbers of them, all about the size of the tip of her finger. Though interesting to look at, they weren't enough to serve as any real source of food. Ialari wasn't even sure they were all that safe to eat to begin with. As she knelt on the rock over the pool in the center, she observed a number of small fish most about the size of one of her fingers. She noticed their spiny dorsal fins and a unique pattern of colors. Some had black faces, yellow bodies, and yellow fins rimmed in bright blue while others were a blend of browns and grays which made them blend in a bit with the surrounding rock. While individually, they would serve no real food purpose, there were roughly half-a-dozen of them in that particular pool. Also in the pool were several snails, most them about the size of Ialari's thumbnail. She spotted three however that were about the size of the palm of her hand. The rest of the pool was lined with a bit of green algae.

Realizing that time was limited, Ialari quickly gathered the three larger snails and put them in the half-barrel before trying to catch the small fish. The fist proved to be much more difficult to obtain. They were quick and agile and avoided Ialari's hands with moderate ease. After several attempts, she managed to grab two of them before acknowledging that it would take too much time to catch them all and for little comparative reward. Leaving the half-barrel on the rock, she carefully continued exploring the other nearby pools. If not for her dense flesh, she would likely have cut her bare feet many times over. Instead, she received a few light scratches and a bit of discomfort as she tried to grip the rocks with her feet as she moved. Between the next two reasonably-sized pools, she observed a number of small to mid-sized crabs which she was quick to snatch up, grabbing five in all. She also saw a variety of strange, star-shaped creatures. She thought she remembered being referred to as sea-stars. She couldn't help but marvel at their shape and variety of colors yet their hard, rough bodies were not what Ialari want to try and eat. There were also several more snails to be found, a dozen of varying sizes big enough to provide a small but adequate meal. The crabs were large enough to put in her net-bag while she returned to the half-barrel to hold the snails.

[Ialari Pythone]

Also among the pools, Ialari saw a number of colorful, flower-like creatures with numerous short arms that drifted freely in the water. When she touched one, it instantly sucked in its tentacles and shrunk to a much smaller size. Though not much of a water person, she couldn't help but giggle like a small child at the strange, alien creatures she was finding in the exotic environment that was the tide pools.

The tide was still quite low but for how long Ialari didn't know. She didn't know how to swim past the light wading she did in the pond so getting caught in a rising tide was not her idea of a good time. She figured however that she still had a bit of time left so she ventured further into the tidal zone to areas that were only briefly exposed during the low tide. She was getting closer to the large rocks that had caused the shipwreck back on the beach though they were still quite some distance away. As she made her way further into the tidal zone, she found the variety of life was much greater and even more diverse. The sea stars were even more plentiful and their coloring mixed with that of the strange flower-like creatures to create a virtual rainbow of exotic hues. The algae and various aquatic vegetation was much more plentiful making the rocks more slippery. This forced Ialari to focus even more on her footing as to not fall. As she explored the pools in the area, she found a wealth of oysters, clams and something akin to lettuce. Tearing a leaf from one clump, she put it in her mouth and chewed a bit. She didn't swallow immediately instead taking a moment or two to test the taste. She was pleasantly surprised that it tasted much the same as actual lettuce though obviously more salty. She gathered a large number of lettuce heads and placed them with the numerous clams and oysters in her net bag.

It was when she had lost track of time and noticed the tide was coming back in rather quickly that she started her return to the beach. At that point, her net bag was full of clams, oysters, snails, crabs and sea lettuce. With the bag slung over her shoulder, Ialari made it back to where she had left the half-barrel. The tide had caught up with her and by the time she retrieved the barrel and made it back to the beach, the sea was once more lapping at her heels. Seeing little need for the two small fish she had caught early on, she tossed them back into the sea and put the light contents of the barrel into the net bag while keeping the barrel filled with a bit of sea water. She then returned to the Retreat to take stock of the goodies she had gathered.

[Ialari Pythone]

With enough food to get her by until the ship arrived to return her to Sahova, Ialari set to sorting and preparing it for storage. She didn't have much experience with such things which brought her no small amount of pause as she considered potential options. Back home, the majority of the food she ate consisted of various forms of subterranean mushrooms, fresh fish and a light variety of other meats and fruits brought down from the surface. Much of the food preservation that did take place involved freezing it in small, specially designed caves.

As she sorted out the various snails, clams, oysters, crabs and sea-lettuce, she fell back on her training in preparing poisons and gathering herbs. One of the methods for such preparation involved drying various ingredients. Although the temperature was noticeably cooler now that Summer had given way to Autumn, there on the coast there was still a plentiful amount of sunlight. If I can dry a handful of roots on a rock with some son, why can't I do the same with this stuff? Ialari thought to herself as she picked up a large snail and stared at the coils of its shell.

Of course drying would only go so far. She needed to preserve the food for longer than simple drying would accomplish. You don't want to waste precious time looking for more food everyday when there is so much more research and experimentation to do within your Dominion. Ialari reasoned to herself. She recalled something she saw during her travels from Sultros to Sahova. There were people in a city called, Riverfall, who she saw using smoke to preserve the fish they caught. To Ialari, the concept was sound. If she could dry the food in the sun and then smoke it, she would have enough food at least for a few days which would allow her more time to spend in her Dominion.

With a goal in mind and some ideas floating around her head as to how to approach it all, Ialari set to cleaning her catch. She separated meat from shells and did her best to discard any undesirable parts. She put the shells aside for possible use later. Unfortunately, due to her lack of experience with such things, she probably destroyed more edible parts than she saved yet she was still left with a serviceable amount of food in the end. When she had done all she felt she could with cleaning and initial preparation, Ialari gathered up what was left. There was still a good amount of sunlight left, especially at the beach. Collecting a few of her things, she then made her way back to the beach one more time.

When she arrived at the beach, she searched for some larger rocks that bore somewhat flat surfaces. It took a short while to located the right ones. Finally, a small collection of decent sized rocks with flattened surfaces presented themselves. Ialari set up a small camp next to them before laying out her gathered meats on the rocks. The sun, still relatively high in the sky, beat down upon the beach unrestricted. This should work just fine. She thought to herself as she leaned against one of the rocks while flexing her toes in the sand. Step one: start drying the meat, complete. She would wait until nightfall so that hopefully there was enough time to dry the food. Of course her inexperience was such that she wasn't sure if drying was sufficient enough to preserve the food. Perhaps also smoking it was not needed yet she didn't want to take any chances of getting sick from eating spoiled meat.

So she waited for the next several hours until the sun started to hang low on the horizon. While she waited, Ialari spent the time fighting off the countless sea-birds who tried to steal her food. They were more than persistent with every one of them Ialari fended off, four more returned in their place. After nearly an hour of this, an idea dawned on her. Picking up a nearby piece of driftwood, Ialari employed her isurian arm to quickly peel away unwanted material while shaping the piece of wood into a rather nasty looking club. With a narrow handle and a wide, flat head, she carved what she affectionately called, her 'Bird Stick'. Holding it in both hands, Ialari exercised her grip and tested the balance of the Stick. It was rough to say the least but it would work well for its purpose. The first bird that came next to steal her food came in contact with the flat side of the Stick. Swung with the strength of the isurian arm, the Stick killed the bird on impact. "Filthy vermin! Go catch you're own meal!" Undaunted by the death of their fellow, the birds continued to hound Ialari and one by one, the number of dead birds grew. When the sun finally began to set, Ialari had lost almost half of her drying sea-food. In exchange however, she now had nearly a dozen dead birds that would provide a great amount of meat.

Exhausted from a day of food gathering and bird fighting, Ialari gathered the remains of her failed experiment at drying food in the sun along with her successful bird bashing session and made her way back to the Retreat. So much for food drying. Hopefully smoking will go better. She thought with a mix of failure and pride as she walked back. When she returned, she started a small fire and flopped down on the ground next to it. She then began the messy, disgusting task of cleaning the birds she had killed. As with the sea-food, she had little experience with cleaning a bird for eating. She clumsily pulled the feathers from each bird before slicing open its belly and pulling the innards out. She kept the innards in a small jar from her poisoncrafting kit thinking it would be useful for something later. By the time night had drawn deep, she finished cleaning the birds the best she could. A good portion of the meat was mangled from her ministering but appearance was of little importance to her. The feathers she stored in an old shirt salvaged from the shipwreck and the mess that she had created in the cleaning process she tried to clean with the saltwater she had in the half-barrel next to her. It was not the greatest cleaning job she had ever undertook but it would have to do.

Too tired to continue any more food preparation for the night, Ialari collected all of her food and walked over to the door of the Retreat. Key in hand, she inserted it into the lock and turned. It took a moment of shimmying the key to get it to catch but quickly the latch was unlocked. She opened the door and was greeted with the sight of her Dominion. As she stepped inside, the sight that stood before her was a view from a towering mountain taller than any she had ever seen on Mizahar. It rose high above the clouds and as she stood on a large outcropping near the summit, she looked out on a sea of clouds. The confines of her Dominion remained thus she was only able to move about in a small radius from her doorway. Just out of reach, always out of reach, stood the tree of death with its dozens of pairs of dead eyes looking down upon her.

[Ialari Pythone]

Finally turning her attention from the tree, Ialari, as tired as she was, couldn't quiet her mind. The air was frigid although within her Dominion, the chill was dulled. Throwing on her robe and wool cloak, the cold was more than tolerable as she sat her food down next to her before sitting against the stone wall of the mountain at her back. Though such an environment would be intolerable and deadly to most, Ialari found it soothing to her exhausted body. Perhaps it was the fact that it her Dominion was responding to her or perhaps she to it. It was something she pondered as she nibbled on bits of dried clam and snail meat. Realizing that sleep wasn't going to come as soon as she would have liked, Ialari retrieved the scrollcase that held the Dominion Scrolls.

Pulling the scrolls from the case, she looked through them until she found something new, something she hadn't studied before. The strange characters written on the page began to move as she looked at them. It looked like the parchment was covered in hundreds of tiny insects crawling across the surface. The writing, unreadable at first, quickly turned into words and sketches that Ialari could understand. This was the nature of the Dominion Scrolls. They would respond to the initiated Domineer and allow themselves to be read regardless of the Domineer's knowledge of languages.

The parchment described the process of Vouching. While it was a concept of Dominion that Ialari was not yet ready to attempt, becoming familiar with it early on would allow her an easier time of actually performing it later.

The scroll spoke of the past Domineers and how they were known to claim immense amounts of space within the Ukalas without restriction. They became so invasive with their Dominions that the Gods themselves began to feel crowded in their own divine realms. With the reintroduction of Dominion to mortals, the Gods placed heavy restrictions on the future Domineers when it came to how much of the Ukalas they could actually claim for themselves.

Ialari commented to herself as she read, "Humans...makes me wonder why the Gods ever allowed them to have Dominion in the first place."

The restriction placed on future Domineers involved the need to gain approval from the Gods to claim even the smallest increase in the size of their Dominions.

"At least the Gods finally saw the flaws of humanity." Even though according to the scroll, Ialari would need to gain approval from the Gods, she saw it as a fair price to pay for such a gift.

The scroll continued by describing how new Dominions will begin to fail upon the death of their Domineer. The claimed space will breakdown and grow wild thus rejecting attempts of lesser Domineers to reclaim it. It will grow dangerous and even deadly. Eventually, the magic becomes lost and the Dominion is reclaimed by the Ukalas. The greater the Dominion, the greater the Domineer's skills needed to reclaim it. Only those who have gained relative expertise in shaping a Dominion could hope to reclaim a lost one.

Ialari paused in her reading and thought about what kind of Dominions, if any, still remained after the discipline's removal from mortal hands. Would it be possible to restore them? What would she find in them? Turning her attention back to the scroll, she continued reading.

In order to attempt to claim greater space in one's Dominion, personal vouching wasn't sufficient enough for the required oath. Instead, a God's personal permission was needed or at the very least, calling upon the Domineers gnosis and marks from the Gods would be needed. Through the use of the marks, it was assumed that the god themselves endorsed the Domineer's claiming of the greater space. Of course, the use of the extra space had to either fall in line with the god's agenda or at least not oppose it. Such a vouching was only possible for a single dominion and such an oath was unbreakable short of the Domineer's demise, the loss of the Dominion or at the hand of the God who endorsed the vouching to begin with.

The scroll also warned that such vouching should never be done lightly as it is essentially making a deal with a god and going against such a deal by abusing or misusing the Dominion could be unhealthy for the Domineer. Also, by calling upon divine vouching, the Dominion may take on unique properties and appearances directly related to the God who supported the vouching either personally or through their gnosis.

The scroll provided a number of small diagrams detailing the various ratios and folding equations involved in the vouching process. The greater one's bond with their deity and the more they are marked by a particular god or goddess meant that they could claim even greater space from the Ukalas through their marks. Ialari considered her own connection with the two deities she had already been marked by, Dira and Izurdin. She looked at her hand baring Dira's mark on the palm. She traced it with her fingers before looking at her metallic shoulder. There, an elaborate etching of Izurdin's mark extended down to her elbow. "Divine Father, when I am ready to expand my Dominion, I will welcome your support and approval. If it brings me closer to you, no price is too much to pay."

Exhaustion was finally sinking into Ialari's mind just as it had her body. She put the scrolls back in the scrollcase and leaned against the stone wall behind her. Unable and unwilling to fend off sleep any longer, she allowed it to overtake her.

Continued Here...

[Gossamer]

The Fates Have Spoken.

Player: Ialari

XP: Dominion +5, Observation +5, Philosophy +3, Rhetoric +3, Research +3, Wilderness Survival: +2, Foraging +3, Hunting +3, Climbing +1, Planning +5, Food Preservation +1

Lores: The Tree Of Death: A Reoccurring Theme In Ialari’s Dominion, Dominion: Domineers of the past sought to take over the Ukalas, Self-Awareness: Knowing ones own mind on the past history of the world. UKalas: Ukalas suffers the same wounds as the material world, WS: Finding Crabs & Capturing Them As Food, WS: Finding Birds Eggs, WS: Tide pool Foraging, WS: Sea Lettuce Tastes Good, WS: Gathering Oysters and Clams, Food Preservation: Drying Seafood, Hunting: Killing Seagulls with a stick, Dominion: Dominions fail upon the death of their domineer, Dominion: Domineers became so invasive that they crowded the gods out of the Ukalas. Dominion: Future Domineers need a gods permission to claim parts of the Uakalas, Dominion: Lost Domains Can Be Claimed By Greater Domineers Than The Ones That Created It, Dominion: A Gods Gnosis Marks Count As Permission For Claiming Additional Space, Dominion: Vouching

Loot: blue whinnies root


Notes: This might not be evident to the reader, but the dominion article is very clear that when you talk to a dominion – commune with it – you are bonding with it and you have to do this a lot to connect to it. A Domineer must connect to a Dominion to get to the point you have the ability to really manipulate it. I just wanted to note this here in case anyone didn’t understand the high dominion reward on this thread with no actual flamboyant throwing around of djed.

I did not note the perishable foodstuffs as “Loot”. I did however, give you hunting when in fact you were defending against stolen food. Seagulls are tasty, no?

As to the rest of of the thread, I really enjoyed when Ialari was going through the survival sequence, gaining food and learning how to deal with it. It was also nice when she went back and studied her magic scrolls more. Those are starting to become my favorite part of this sequence of threads.

As always PM me if you have issues.