Silk's Personal Journal

Within the pages of Silk's personal journal are short submissions of her encounters, kept in greater detail since the end of the Invasion of Wu-Jian.

## Spirits and Spirits

After the final battles of Wu-Jian's independence simmered, the Peleps fleet pulled out, forming a loose blockade a fair distance outside of the island. They are unable to go farther thanks to Silk's sorcerous working, causing their food to spoil if they do. As such, though the invasion is over, goods and products are still being denied to the island, and food is scarce. Sesus Nemoia invites Ruby Labyrinth to a meeting to discuss what to do about the shortage. Ruby and Silk (in the guise of Jharum Dakar) attend, and the city architect, Ravana Quinn, shows up as well, uninvited but impossible remove regardless. Sorcery is considered, as well as attending the Court of Drowned Promises and beseeching them for aid. Considering that the Court may also help in the short run, so Silk and Ruby decide to visit them. Ravana tags along.

Silk entreats the court with pleasantries and introductions, giving the floor to Ruby who requests their aid in feeding and keeping the people of Wu-Jian safe. Each god, save Xiphia, have some ideas and requests that they require to provide their aid. Most directly, the god Deung requests of them to vandalize some Peleps ships, and if possible, get a crew or two drunk enough so people get pushed overboard. After a quick stop on Wu-Jian to acquire the liquor, the trio head off to the blockade to enact some chaos.

Ruby, with some intel from her network, picks out a less-disciplined ship, and playing the part of a downtrodden sailor, barters with the captain, offering some drink to the crew in exchange for a way out. Ravana and Silk take the form of sailors, and Ravana begins to get the sailors riled up to drink even more. Silk, taking her leave, goes to commit the vandalism, marking over any Peleps mons she can find and adding the V'Neef crest where she cannot. Ruby, having caught the romantic attention of the captain, leads him to his quarters for some private time alone. Once there, she takes her Direlash from around her waist and garrottes him to death. Ruby's sailors, having not been drinking, take the offensive and start shoving people overboard. Ruby and the crew loot the ship of all valuables and foodstuffs.

Ruby and Silk continue to vandalize other ships, which pleases Deung, and the nations of Sumbawa and Coral begin to ship foodstuffs in through the assistance of Deung's elementals. Back in Wu-Jian, Ruby sets work immediately to attempting to rebuild the temple of Golden Actinar, and Silk considers the nuances of the sorcerous working that will help feed the city to come.

## Initiations

Silk's manse is relatively utilitarian, created seemingly explicitly for the purpose of tapping a locus of geomantic ability. It consists of a tiered building with a large underground bunker-type section, full of pockets of dead air that circulate throughout the underground, which is mostly "creepy spider land."

Here lives a demon-touched former Lintha Captain, Unrelenting Siaka. Silk has been in the process of psychologically breaking her down to creating her into something new, but the invasion of Wu-Jian and other more pressing issues have kept them away for longer than usual. Returning to the manse, Silk works harder on turning the ex-Captain to her side, eroding away any loyalties to the Lintha, and toning down the lust for violence and greed, shaping them instead to be something closer to an ambition for power. They are interrupted by a metaphorical knock on the manse's door, as Silk is alerted to Dusk's presence on the island.

Dusk Thrashing Princess has been spending time with Flickering Manta Crown, trying to come to understand the emotions surrounding her Lunar mate and the echoes of events that happened thousands of years ago, even though these emotions are not, explicitly, emotions that they themselves possessed. Leviathan is talked around, and not about. His name is only brought up in terms of future business, conspicuous in its absence in terms of his involvement in their past. When not reminiscing, Dusk spends a lot of time laying in the sun and exploring the area, relaxing and trying to enjoy the comfort of her current location and place in life. Eventually, the responsibilities of life loom, and Manta suggests that Dusk should visit her "friend," Silk Veils the Necropolis, to help her remember. After some hijinx involving the wrong island and a very delicious sea monster, Dusk eventually finds her way to the island.

Spinner Island is full of low scrub forest, lots of relatively short trees and an excessive amount of spider webs. At frequent, but not regular, intervals, great thin trees, something like inverted weeping willows, poke up from the basic tree line. The tall trees are almost like skinny anenomes, with upturned thin branches designed to catch the wind. Silk meets with Dusk in lemur form, stealing some fruit and dashing off intentionally towards the manse, forcing Dusk to chase her in the correct direction. Dusk explains her purpose for being here, and Silk claims that they had waited for this moment, and leads her inside. They travel into the manse's wide underground, moving down a wide spiral staircase, into the heart of the manse's power. Here, the winds remain constant, forcing even particulates of sand and dirt to remain suspended in air. Silk commands their Anuhle to bring along a work of Dusk's original persona, suspending it in the air with pages constantly rippling from start to finish. From here, they begin the training for Dusk's sorcerous initiation.

Silk deduces that it is Dusk's connection to writing that will unlock her true sorcerous potential, and prepares her to be ready to write. The moving essence of the Manse aids in the mystical nature of the Initiation, with its focus on past lives and the emotional movement of the written word. Within the circular chamber, which appears as if it has been carved from the spiraling dust, there are papers laid out and weighed down with rocks. Some papers scatter around, and Silk takes on her hybrid form. She takes her place on one side of the room, and Dusk takes the other. The first part of the ritual is to write the Old Realm word for "Origin." This requires not just the mechanics, but the intention, a type of focus not unlike calligraphy. As Dusk begins to write, the room begins to take the form of a water-color apparition of itself. Both Exalted, in the character, get a sense of being a weapon, in a world like and unlike Creation, full of powerful if not predictable forces. This is their Exaltation, where the gods warred against the Primordials by forging weapons to fight in their stead. They become immersed in the flow of time, becoming unmoored from themselves.

Dusk's grasp of language is more complex than Silk's, and she comprehends how characters in Old Ream can blend into each other in ways similar to synonyms of more recent languages. The second character, Silk deduces, is "Ascension," but Dusk, looking at the blending, interprets it in her own particular fashion. She cleans off her brush, reaching over and dipping it into Silk, taking a bit of Silk's nature of sorcery to paint the word as an Ascension towards a new, different, or better being. The writing is incredibly slow, but Dusk feels its necessity. She experiences her essence as an impossibly ancient, impossibly powerful shard of conflict, and it is only through this conflict that Ascension feels possible. Silk also experiences these feelings, gaining insight into past lives, particularly how short and relentless some of the early reincarnations were. There were times, in millenniums past, where each of them died and were reincarnated in the same battle. The two come to learn how the incremental process of ascension comes just as much from the great hardships and pain and they faced, as much as comes from what they learned and gained along the way.

The third word is "Rebirth," discovered by Dusk and filled in by Silk, who fills the connotation with concepts of positive disruption, a pulling out of stagnancy to become something even greater, a breaking of the cycle even while remaining part of a far larger one. They are capable of seeing the threads of their past lives. Silk remembers being madly in love, ready to abandon their duties to return to their bond mate, when their skyship was hit by a living storm of the Wyld, killing this incarnation at the hands of a swelling of sorcerous energy that one with better grasp of sorcery may have been able to prevent. Dusk envisions a past self, obsessed with their talent, who wrote rules into the Wyld to impose stability upon it. The act of writing and the poetry of the stories became a kind of Ouroboros, devouring itself until it winked out of existence, ending the incarnation in a "black hole of word-weight."

The ritual begins to take on an existence outside of Silk and her guidance, becoming its own beast of creation. The characters begin to appear: "Passage," "Rupture," "Return." Both characters become aware of the essential qualities of their Exaltations, concepts that have carried through multiple lives in ways that begin to bleed into each other in the images filling what once was the inner chamber of the manse. For Dusk, moments of her past lives begin to exist as actual memories, giving the sense that the prior self refused to remain still. For Silk, the process is more about the metaphysical transition, about embracing what Luna has made her, about her ability to pass from one state to another. The fourth character is very difficult. Silk recalls a past incarnation, attempting some type of sorcery they should not have by circumventing the circles to pull directly from an elemental pole. Her attempt to create a great earthen servitor to take a city upon its back, but instead of pulling the raw earth essence from its pole and animating it into a giant turtle, she instead turned the whole city, and all of its inhabitants, to stone instead. Dusk relives an incarnation that returned home, to a land she remembers as home, only to find herself not welcomed as expected. She looks around to see an overgrown courtyard, and an estate that contains a group of people that are essentially strangers to her, her great-granddaughter instead of the daughter she expected. The homecoming she expected did not come, and the continuity she expected would continue without her has been broken in her absence.

The next character, "Return," invokes feelings of stability as Dusk inks it with the intention of anchors, the opposite of a Rupture, a touchstone that can be returned to at any time. Through it all, both sorcerers experience their lives as an Exaltation, rather than as an individual within a cycle of individuals. They grasp concepts not only of what of them remain unchanged, but what has changed and how those things shaped their progress as well. There is a profound insight here, but it is not enough. To be enough, there must be another element, which is where the character of "Action" reveals itself.

Silk associates the character with acting, as one might play a role. They imagine the ways that people interact with and shape each other to live beyond themselves. This brings about a doubling feeling for Silk, how their own actions and skills brought shape to this ritual, but through doing so, it is also something that brings shape to them. They laid the groundwork for this, and yet they feel acted upon by Dusk, their past, and the ritual itself. Meanwhile, Dusk finds herself caught up in the physical aspect of action, feeling the weight of her history of movement, of running from and to, of motion itself, punctuated by the stillness of writing, and the dichotomy between the two. Though she tries to convey physicality, momentum and chaos into the strokes, the calmness of the writing overtakes her and shows that the character merely suggests those strokes, instead. She completes the character, realizing that the word will stay, a completely static image devoid of the motion she envisions.

Dusk, ultimately, recalls her past of learning martial arts, or at least attempting to without legitimate training. She imagines herself with the wisps of motion, with shades of understanding of moves that have no real form. Eventually, she merges her own concepts and self with these shades, making the image of motion become motion itself. Dusk, in understanding these motions, feels like she becomes capable of writing channels in which the powers of energy can flow, that she can create words that produce actions in ways more profound than normal.

Silk envisions the world as a cocoon, as a reflection of herself and those around her. She realizes that she has some level of control over these reflections through her understanding of them, which is how she distorts the reflections of others, causing them to grow and change in reflection of who Silk wishes for them to be instead of who they themselves wish to be.

The chamber comes back into focus, and the written characters are now glowing. Dusk sees the glowing characters, and knows what character comes next. Silk realizes that she did not tell Dusk how next to act, but that Dusk is still acting exactly in the way she needs to. A surreal sense permeates the scene, it is hard for anyone to believe that they could truly make sense of what has happened. Dusk begins to pen the character for "Unwitnessed."

The next character, "Self," is without its own inflection. There is no connotation of the word that speaks louder than that of all the prior characters and their shades of meaning. The final character, then, is the character for "Essence." The character exists, positionally, between both "Self" and "Origin," is required to complete the circle of the ritual, which it does. Nothing dramatic happens as a result, but the world feels inevitably shifted for both, even as they stood exactly where they began.

Dusk and Silk both reach the next level of their sorcerous initiations. In this ritual and series of character, Silk sees the groundwork for what is essentially a "blueprint" for sorcerous initiations in general, ie, a sorcery textbook.

But there is still the matter of Unrelenting Siaka. Silk appears to her in her full Spider Witch form, instilling with her a tie to Silk as a Mentor, and a principle that "There are many things to learn before death."

## Dusk and the Hidden Fortress

Dusk and one of her most ardent disciples, a man named Beach Strider, take a launch to the shore to procure water for the next step of their journey. Dusk has been traveling the West to lay low after the events in Wu-Jian some months prior. Upon landing, Dusk spots some smoke in the distance near a beached ship and suggests they investigate.

Closer to the source of the smoke, the two travelers spot a pair of figures within the remains of the ship. One is a man aggressively holding a blade in their direction, while the other, an attractive young woman, remains behind him. When Dusk greets them and displays no aggression towards them, the sword-wielding man relents, and the woman greets Dusk. They introduce themselves as Captain Ko and his Second Mate, Dep. They explained their situation, having participated in a pitched sea battle not far from shore. Though they gave as good as they got, they were ultimately forced to run the ship aground to escape certain doom. Ko mentions needing to reach the other side of the island, and when asked what is over there, Dep simply explains "Safety."

Dusk, ever the helpful sort, offers to assist them in their task (especially after finding her launch having been stolen by the Peleps navy), and she, Beach Strider, Ko and Dep all take to the island. Ko leads the way, clearly taking charge of the situation like a captain would. They are beset upon by a battlegroup of 50 Peleps Legionnaires, and attempt to hide. Unfortunately, due to nothing more than circumstance, Ko and Strider are discovered and a battle ensues. The battle is short-lived, of course, as Dusk wipes the floor with most of the forces, with Ko and Dep taking care of a small few and even the Heroic Mortal Beach Strider managing to take down a fully-armed Legionnaire on his own. After the battle, Dep is impressed with Dusk's fighting ability and inquires more about it and her history. This makes Beach Strider suspicious and he, in turn, accosts Dep about her own history. She explains that she and Ko are privateers, employed to fight Peleps forces on the open ocean. Strider asks what they were before, and Ko begins to launch into what sounds like it might end up being a lengthy bit of exposition before realizing the necessity of haste, and urging them all onwards.

The group comes across a huge, sorcerously-raised wall of dirt separating the island, seeming to be expressly put up to stop people from crossing it. Ko attempts to leap up the wall with some difficulty, and Dusk, in an amazing feat of athletics and acrobatics, leaps up the wall herself to help him get up the last few feet. She then lands on their side of the wall again, just to do it all over once more, this time carrying the not-so-Exalted Beach Strider upon her back. Dep is, once more, very audibly impressed by this, and also easily makes her way up the wall on her own.

They do not have long to celebrate their crossing, however, as the earth starts to rumble behind them, indicating the presence of something large moving in their direction at rapid speeds. Ko cries out for them to run, and all follow suit. Beach Strider, under the tutelage of Dusk, almost casually leaping from the trees, takes an early lead in front of everyone with an impressive start, and Dep looks behind her to see what is chasing them and nearly stumbles, only to be rescued by Ko, who instead falls behind in her stead as a result. As fast as they're going, their pursuer goes even faster, crashing through the trees and revealing itself to be a First Age Warstrider, stomping through the forest to reach its quarry.

The chase takes them to a rocky expanse, and while Beach Strider begins to lag, Dusk helps Ko towards the front of the pack and Dep uses her staff to easily launch herself through the rocks in a series of pole-vaults. They cross the rocks and see the beach on the far side, with a launch on the shore and a number of ships flying the V'Neef mons in the distance. Dep gives a sigh of relief as her feet hit the sand, but Dusk stops, turning around to face the Warstrider. Dep looks at her, confused, and asks what she's doing when escape is so close at hand.

"I think I'm going to fight it," Dusk replies, "make sure Beach Strider gets out okay." Dep is almost too stunned to move until Ko drags her away, and she in turn makes sure Beach Strider pulls away from his Sifu. They make it to the launch, where the people waiting for them treat the two privateers with an unusual amount of reverence, particularly Dep. Beach Strider notices this, but there is little else to do but get into the boat and watch the fireworks as Dusk takes on the massive First Age weapon of war. As the mechanical monster steps up, a voice rings out from within its cockpit, magically enhanced: **"YOU."** It's a voice Dusk recognizes: General Peleps Charoi, leader of the Wu-Jian invasion attempt, who has already suffered defeat at Dusk's hands once before.

The battle is fierce, as Dusk darts around, staying out of the Warstrider's attack range, but also finding herself having a difficult time making any damage to the machine in turn. The Warstrider attempts to split its focus between Dusk and the escaping launch, but Captain Ko, or whoever he is, quickly takes charge of the navigation, deftly maneuvering the small boat away from its thrown blades. Finally, Dusk is able to visualize the cockpit's general area by focusing on where the aura energy is coming from, and pries it open to stab into the machine's cockpit, wounding Charoi once again.

While Charoi attempts to retreat, Dusk swims out to the launch, her Exalted abilities allowing her to easily overtake the small boat and leap into it. Her anima is fully glowing as a result of the battle, and the boat is instantly awash in watercolors from it. The Realm officers inside, clearly seeing an Anathema, are extremely nervous and hesitant. "Ko" tries to assuage their fears, but "Dep" takes a different approach, standing up and demanding that this individual be taken to the ship, taken care of, and delivered wherever she might desire. The immediate deference by all reveals Dep to be more than simply a privateer's second mate, but the V'Neef herself, head of her household. Dusk is able to reconvene with her ship, with a newfound favor from House V'Neef for having saved the matriarch from certain death at the hands of Peleps forces.

## Drums of War

There is a meeting of the minds on the Eagles' Nest, Kurgan's mobile base of operations that was once a Lintha Ark. The demonic influences and insignias of the Ark have been replaced with banners of Xiphia, the gods of Sumbawa, and the Eagle motif itself, representing Kurgan of course. Kurgan comes onto the landing atop a giant flying crocodile, Buaya-Suci, in full beast mode form.

Blood-Dimmed Deep, the Moon-touched daughter of Leviathan, has called this meeting, going around her father's back in a way to reach out to the Circle, inspired by their direct action against Peleps and the Realm. Ruby is also present, she has gained more territory in Wu-Jian but lacks the total authority to declare the entire city a Lunar Domain just yet. Antero Staghelm has converted to full Xiphian worship, but Wu-Jian at large lacks a local government thanks to the fall of House Vedan.

Blood-Dimmed Deep wants to punch through the Peleps blockade in Wu-Jian and take the fight to House Peleps directly. Kurgan wishes to unite and leverage the various pelagothrope tribes and make use of the First Age artifacts in Luthe. BDD refutes the artifacts, claiming that Leviathan wants little part of this potential conflict, but offers some assistance in working with the pelagothropes. They break for lunch and Dusk joins the group. Blood-Dimmed Deep swears that one of the servants at lunch is a familiar face from Sunken Luthe, but when she accosts the servant, the servant denies such a thing, looking rather scared of the large orca-woman. Deep finally relents, a little embarrassed at her outburst.

After lunch, the meeting continues as the group decides how best to go about taking the fight to Peleps. The Circle is mostly in agreement that action should be taken, but the largest discussion centers around how much and how much quickly they want to move from asymmetrical guerilla warfare to full-on symmetrical warfare. Much talk is made of uniting the pelagothropes and other tribes, and even the Skullstone Peninsula is brought up, but rather quickly dismissed as no one wants to work with necromancers.

Leviathan and his own assistance is brought up. His daughter, who knows him better than any, believe he can be swayed to their cause, but they would need a good argument to do so. Options include leveraging Dusk's status as his Solar Mate, or presenting him with a lack of options and forcing him into the one they desire.

Dusk catches someone watching from a position that they should not be able to, way out in the water at the edge of her vision, and seems startled when he is spotted. Kurgan and Blood-Dimmed Deep give chase, easily overtaking the Water-Aspected Dragonblooded spy in the waves. Kurgan's mighty fists alone are enough to knock him out, and the two drag the Terrestrial back to the Eagle's Nest for Silk to interrogate once they finally deign to attend the summons they had received previously.

## Breaking the Blockade

The action opens with Dusk Thrashing Princess standing on the deck of the Viceroy's Decree, the flagship of the Peleps Blockading Force, facing down a force of Dragonblooded officers. The scene flashes back to Dusk engaging in a battle of writing with a spiteful Library Spirit, Thrice-Ringed Ink Seraph, that results in her turning the library into a giant tome. With that done, she turns her ship, the Mist Breacher, towards the blockade to do her part in the battle. As she does, she looks upon a letter, given to her by the Princess V'Neef herself. The letter, written in a formal yet wistfully fascinated tone, expresses gratitude and offers a boon to be claimed in return later.

In the present, a horde of Pelagothropes climb aboard an unknowing vessel, with a striking leader at the fore. Kurgan, in his pelagothrope form, tosses the captain overboard. In flashback, Kurgan spends time with the different pelagothrope tribes, learning their customs and becoming part of their people. Once integrated, he offers them ideas of increasing their tribal spaces and opening up trade with the surface world. Though some Elders of the Tribes disagreed, their dissents were quickly silenced at the end of Kurgan's Direlance. Though this began something of a schism in the tribes between those who would follow their new hero and those who cleaved to ways of old, and though many smaller disputes, such as a territorial spat between the Eels and the Pufferfolk, have been put aside on rocky premises, this does signal the beginning of the Webbed Horde that now ascends upon the blockade.

Ruby leads the naval aspect of the charge, sending her ships swarming upon the most easily-intercepted Peleps boats. Flying a new flag incorporating the mons of Wu Jian amidst a minimalist rat design, her fleet surrounds singular ships to keep them from escaping as she leads boarding parties to eliminate their command structure from the head up to mitigate casualties, particularly those on her side. A flashback reveals a meeting with Sesus Nemoia and Throne, who want assurances of Wu Jian's safety in the wake of a blockade being lifted. Throne, in particular, argues for trade concessions to keep the people fed and for the threat of Anathema and a Wyld Hunt to remain off of Wu Jian's radar. Ruby heartily agrees, the plans of which lead into the blockade she currently participates in.

Silk stands over the body of a Peleps Ship Captain, having taking it for herself after completing a Sacred Hunt. In her new form, she begins to foment rebellion amidst her crew, demanding a life of adventure and action instead of holding a blockade. As she convinces the crew to mutiny and the ship begins to sail free from the blockade, they are beset upon by another Peleps ship who wishes to put a swift end to mutiny. A flashback shows Silk training their agents of intrigue, placing them in positions within the attacking boat to wear V'Neef mons underneath their official Peleps uniforms. On cue, they begin to attack the rest of the ship's crew, causing chaos in both ships as a significant hole in the blockade begins to form. Other agents are sent to the Wavecrest Archipelago, involving themselves with the local noble houses to serve as informants for what is to come of the Peleps invasion there. One of these agents encounters Dusk Thrashing Princess during her travels, whose sheer skill in combat causes two of the noble houses to collapse in attempting to out-bid the other for her services. The agent takes this news to the next house, warning them of destabilizing forces in this new Peleps-dominated world they live in.

Back in the present, Silk climbs to the crow's nest and, crying death to the V'Neef invaders, launches the Thorn of Cold Rebuke into both ships, capsizing them both and forming an iceberg to further keep the two halves of the blockade from engaging and intervening with each other. Dusk, now full of knowledge of different fighting styles and possessing of the ability to process them, uses this knowledge to remain mostly unharmed in her battle. Once damaged, however, she quickly turns the offensive, driving those who can drown from the boat and stabbing their Water Aspect leader through the heart. Kurgan battles with a Water-Aspect of his own, direlance to direlance, utilizing his prowess in martial arts to overcome him underwater, and Ruby mops up the forces as the blockade scatters, choosing specifically to chase after and eliminate only those who may have seen her in action. With most of the Peleps forces either dead or retreating, she captures the remaining ships, using those she can crew to bolster her own navy while gifting the others to Sesus Nemoia to potentially spearhead a navy for the soon-to-be-independent city-state.

Finally, the Circle meets again at the Customs House in the Earth Quarter, the same one their story originally began at all that time ago. Silk, bearing the countenance of an older man, is knitting idly to the side as Dusk enters and greets them immediately. The two speak casually on fixing the tears in Dusk's clothing until Kurgan asks of them, "What is it you want?" Silk's response is to simply smile and say, "I want everything," which elicits some manner of concern from Kurgan. Little is elaborated on, but the group discuss moving their fight forward. Now that Wu Jian has been mostly wrest from Realm control, there is still the matter of the Wavecrest Archipelago, where the House has instead set up operations to gain control of the West. Though Dusk's goals remain more self-centered, and Ruby is mostly content with her major stake in Wu Jian, the two still agree to assist Silk and Kurgan in the continued resistance of Peleps invasion throughout the West.

## Nightmares and Soulmates

(5/27/2023)

As the boat drifts closer to Skullstone, each member of the Circle finds themselves trapped in a unique nightmare.

Ruby is a captain on a ship in a past life facing a mutiny. She (He) has just outed himself as a Celestial Exalted aboard the Fortunate Jade. His first mate, however, is a Terrestrial Exalted and wants him dead. Ruby achieves a momentary peace with the first mate but the rest of the crew has obtained weapons and calls for mutiny. He tries to take to the wheel of the ship but the crew rebuffs him. He attempts to escape but the first mate catches up and they must fight. Ruby, in the ensuing scuffle, winds up having to sink the ship, which becomes the Ghost Ship that haunts them in this day. She does not quite conquer the dream state, but merely exits it when the effect is complete.

Kurgan is his younger self, engaging in battle with an undead Tepet Winglord. He defeats the zombie, ripping out his heart. The scene restarts and he goes down to attempt to offer tea to the zombie this time instead. Instead of Tea, Kurgan finds a flask of Southern Fire Rum, and shares a drink with the dead man. In this strange moment of peace, Kurgan asks of the Tepet Winglord if there is any hope for coexistence between their people. The zombie responds, "Can Creation hold without us?" Kurgan finds this acceptable, taking the zombie's arm in a display of unity, and conquers the dream state.

Dusk is on a strange beach and begins labeling things. She is between The Lord of Lost Promises and Flickering Manta Crown. The figures discuss the end of the world, which Dusk only feigns familiarity with. Things get real abstract real fast. The Lord of Lost Promises came after Dusk for breaking an Oath, and Dusk and her Lunar Mate fought and killed the Lord. She tries to work out the legalese of the oath that binds her, undercutting the metaphysical spine of the spell by growing in understanding of the duty required of her rather than the guilt of killing the Lord of Lost Promises, and thus conquers the dream state.

Silk is a different person, in a library full of knowledge that is speaking to them. A woman interrupts their learning and Silk shoves them away before throwing a book at them. Taking in the pattern, Silk and the person that Silk is experiencing both have a simultaneous understanding that what has happened to the woman before, will happen again. Her own pattern is interrupting the grand pattern and must be removed. Silk, as the perceiver, begins to understand this experience without embracing it, and in seeking to embrace the obstacles in the pattern rather than the pattern itself, Silk conquers the dream state.

After the dream state, the Circle wakes up exhausted, with the pall of death clinging to them. An oared trireme, manned fully by zombies is found to be sailing alongside their boat. A tall, rakish figure stands at the head of the boat with a soulsteel daiklaive, next to an attractive but ominous figure in dark, funerary drapery, with a sense of symmetry that is worryingly perfect. Ruby recognizes the rakish figure as Moray Darktide, an extremely famous captain of the West, and Ruby's Solar Mate. Silk comes out of the dream state alert enough to recognize the significance of connection between Moray and Ruby, and also that the spell that enthralled them was almost surely the work of the ominous figure, the Consul of Bleached Reefs. They begin to work at undoing the spell while Ruby and Kurgan negotiate their passage. Negotiations seem to be breaking down as Silk finishes the disruption, which further ruins the attempt, and the Circle prepares for battle.