Stag asked, "Where did these come from?"

The young mage sighed and said, "What was left over of the tokens after I got your gear... So the breakdown... We get your necromancer training and get followed by Guild of Flesh people. We get your druid training in Daub and drum up Sek a.s.sa.s.sins.... That puts us one for one.

"When we pa.s.s through Fortune for your pugilist training, you don"t even have a chance to get your feet back under you before we"re ran out by an angry mob. That"s on me but the Nunos man waiting for us to show up in Snow Cap was all you. And that"s the one that f***ed us up! How do you even get grand summoning artifacts!? I mean, a giant grim reaper pouring stewed mire mouth juice at us? I"m almost flattered really."

Stag looked at Orison like the mage had lost his mind. "Would you be saying that if you didn"t have these fancy cure all thingies?"

Orison said, "No, I"d be apologizing to you before we died. I thought transporters were supposed to remove status effects."

Stag said, "Apparently not when the royal family in charge of the healing trainer removes that privilege."

"I have the "Equal to Heaven" t.i.tle. How does that even work?" Orison bickered.

"They didn"t target you. They removed the effect from all transporters. It"s only for an hour or two at most but still, wow," Stag added, almost sounding impressed.

Orison yelled in frustration, "Vivian, f*** your grandmother!"

Stag said with a guarded face, "You know Vivian?"

Orison said, "We have history. Very little of it"s happy history but I don"t hold that against her... much. Mostly, I just wish she"d grow a backbone against the matriarch."

Stag said, "Considering everything, I should probably just come out and say it. The girl sent from the family, it was her."

Orison shrugged but then other things that Stag had said sunk in. "You mean... with Pete"s... Does the poor guy at least know? When they find out, his life might be in danger!"

The wild fey blooded man took his own turn shrugging. "It"s probably safer if he doesn"t. Don"t underestimate just how much he doesn"t care about anyone"s rules or opinions but his own. If he found out, he"d probably brag about it and definitely get himself killed."

The young mage hung his head. "I just need a place with peace and quiet for a couple of days. I"ve got it all up in my head and a little salvaged from the construct. I"m pretty sure I"m going to crack the mysteries of that family and reveal another bit on my understanding of a major concept. After that, all the petty concerns of this world can go f*** themselves."

Stag looked around and said, "Why can"t we just stay here?"

Orison said, "The air will run out in a few hours and we"ll wake up resp.a.w.ning in Daub. Mo might get to us first but he might not be able to hold up to the pressure he"d face trying to keep us safe. Emris would do it but considering that his older brother is already hot under the collar to end the Guild of Flesh, he"s got more on his plate than he might be able to handle as it is.

"I have three sets of allies who should be all I need to quell this but Emris and Mo are dealing with so much and have so few strong supporters, they aren"t overly reliable, might even get themselves a.s.sa.s.sinated trying to help me. I won"t do that to them. I"ve never even seen the Reach"s royal family. They"ve expressed some pretty strong goodwill over message but they can"t be in a great position either."

Orison"s eyes lit up. After sending a message, he waited for a response as he casually flipped through a stack of paintings and a bundle of old letters.

"Why do you look so calm all of a sudden?" Stag asked, mystified.

The mage chuckled and said, "I"ve got family too. It"s a distant cousin but whatever... Hey, how messed up would you be if you found out you had fallen in love with a girl who was your past life"s granddaughter? Poor Danny... Oh, if we ever meet him in the future, pretend you didn"t hear that."

Rolling his eyes, Stag said, "I"m trying to forget I"ve heard it now. Do you like snooping into other people"s dirty laundry?"

Orison shook his head. "I pretty much hate drama because I hate building up sympathy for strangers and hate chaos in my life. Thing is, this isn"t dirty laundry, it"s a secret that could possibly free this whole world from Osomo"s control and it revolves around this crazy family... Not to sound like a bad guy but I just want to solve the riddle not save the world. If I have a chance, I"ll let someone know, though."

When Orison got a response from Pelenel, he was disappointed. His "cousin" was deep inside the dark continent, far away from Osomo controlled anything. They had found the center of an empire that fell a little over 600 years prior. The anti Osomo empire was eventually destroyed but at its heart was a great construct that might have something much older than that within. It was something that they needed for whatever it was Pelenel and his uncouth comrade promised to do.

For giggles, he asked Pelenel if the man knew anything about Daniel or the family who had made the constructs. The response of "What do you know about Daniel?" nearly made Orison bust out laughing as he explained how not but just after they had parted ways, Orison"s group traveled with Daniel"s reincarnation due to the memories on the trainer that Pelenel himself had unlocked.

In a spit fire session, Pelenel and Orison relayed information back and forth. Sifting through the stack of letters and subtle hints within the portraits and sketches, Orison pieced together a multi-generational conspiracy. One so deep, the people involved didn"t even realize how their whole life of ambition and fulfillment was to serve in creating their own contribution to the end goal.

Without Pelenel"s pieces of the puzzle, Orison"s understanding would have just been of the central people but not the whole thing. A fourth step outsider had been sucked into it without even realizing it. Four generations of a family and an entire country had been drawn in down the centuries. The perpetrators? Four sisters who saw that their family was about to suffer a catastrophe.

As the air started getting stale within the temple, Pelenel and Orison continued to answer each other"s questions and share personal insights into hazier, less defined portions of the puzzle. Stag was tempted to interrupt, to remind the young mage that their current location was becoming not such a great place to be. The only thing that stopped him were tiny jumps of slow building static around Orison.

For the various ties that bound Pelenel and Gravat to the sisters" will, even after their death, the two were about to make their way into the resting place of an artifact capable of jamming Osomo"s control over a large expanse of area. The artifact would need a place with the ability to imitate Osomo"s functions to unlock access into the First Family"s floating city. The end goal would be to wrest control of the world away from the device for a brief moment, temporarily releasing all the soul cores inside. Securing the soul cores and memory crystals of the four sisters, Pelenel and Gravat would usher in the last act of a nearly 2000 year old plot.

The last piece that would have taken who knows how long otherwise to achieve? A great construct under Fortune that only required a person to be of a certain power degree with the models of a beginner artificer. With a little sharing and instruction, Pelenel and Gravat"s oaths would be fulfilled thanks to Orison. With a little sharing of historical events and knowledge of people they had met, Orison had managed to see the whole picture of a family caught in the webs of a First Family intrigue meant to initiate itself at the beginning of the next Astral Cycle.

Due to Orison"s interference, blessed royal families would still exist. Danny would no longer be a clueless wanderer ready for the four sisters to toy with whether it was love or self interest. Due to Duran, there would be a significant amount of boundary items missing too. That last fact was something Orison didn"t feel like sharing with his distant cousin, however.

The most important to Orison wasn"t the information on the family, it was the implied information revealed through the sisters" plot. Necromancer, summoner and artificer weren"t actually separate branches of studies at their root. Each did have other understandings and applications mixed in but at their heart it was all a type of conjuration meant to subsist outside of the creator.

At the base, it was a triangle. At the theoretical foundational corner of no self awareness or independence laid the artificer starting point. At the theoretical corner of no self awareness but complete independence was necromancer"s beginning understanding. At the theoretical corner of full self awareness but no independence was the summoner"s initial attempts. Finally, at a theoretical pinnacle above the three is a state where independence and self awareness reach an ideal balance that still maintains obedience to its prime directives or its creator.

This was the understanding that lead to the creation of Osomo. This was the legacy that kept an entire reality in thrall long after that which it was made to serve no longer existed. However, Orison wasn"t so sure the First Family itself no longer existed. With the four sisters as an example, there was no telling how many had memory crystals stored in the floating city"s vault with their spiritual cores hidden deep within Osomo. It could explain how an entire living group of people could suddenly cease, especially with so much power and resources at their disposal.

There were many unanswered questions left surrounding the First Family and the power which inevitably existed behind them but none of that concerned Orison any longer. If his companions had stuck around or needed more time, he would have been interested in pursuing more of the remaining mysteries. But since they had moved on ahead of him, he was worried about Gan and curious how Duran was doing. There was a pressing desire in the back of his mind that drew him to inevitably return to Amoril as well.

With a rea.s.suring smile at his slightly oxygen starved companion, Orison was enveloped in a beam of light. With sub-mind a.s.sisted speed, the young mage reached through Stag"s mark and pulled with all the supernatural strength he could muster. For a moment, his own ascension was halted, capable of failing. Right before both he and Stag would have returned to Osomo, badly hurt if not dead, a small bit of a.s.sistance from elsewhere gave him a little more lift.

Unsure and unable to determine where or what the a.s.sistance came from, Orison thought, "Thank you from all of us at "I almost screwed myself". Please come again. We"ll be keeping the light on for you."

With the flash fading, Orison looked around at the astral light as he floated. Clinging to his leg, half scared out of his mind by the lack of directional gravity, Stag said, "Where are we?"

Orison replied, "I don"t know really. The s.p.a.ce between places is as good a label as any, I guess."

Within moments of concentrating, They were standing on an invisible floor Orison had conjured from will. Nearby, two portals silently churned, a contrast of duality. One was the dark and dying reality, vaguely reminiscent of a 1940"s setting from what could be seen. The other, a bright and still slightly more real than Orison felt, bustling late 90"s metropolitan city.

In spirit sight, Orison felt signatures from Ivan, Gan and even Duran coming from the bright portal. A small part of him almost wanted to jump into the dying reality portal anyway. There had to be a reason why Lily said step fours and higher viewed such places as treasure but all his companions had made their choice. It wasn"t really the wrong one either.

Just as curious as Orison, Stag had been looking around at everything as well but turned as the young mage said, "Can you see the bright portal right there?"

Looking to where Orison pointed and back, Stag said, "The one with the strangely shaped flying ship and magic carriages? Yes, I... Are you shrinking?"

Orison hadn"t noticed until Stag had brought it to his attention but he was indeed shrinking. More accurately, he was being returned to his "true age" which was not much past newborn. With an exercise of will, he arrested the regression but sighed in exasperation at the loss of his hard earned young adulthood. Such a thing wouldn"t likely have happened if his strengthening spirit blood gave a more solid impression of what his physical form should be but it didn"t.

The episode had unlocked a fairly powerful fact about the place they were in and that was a fact Stag happily took advantage of to skip a year or so of physical conditioning while restoring a slight touch of youth to his features. Orison was having a little more difficult of a time since the change he wanted seemed to run contrary to a portion of his subconscious that saw maturing as "losing time". Sadly neither of them got everything they wanted as a terrifying view of the colossal ball of astral murder came onto the scene again.

With a shout to dash towards the portal, the young mage was merely two feet behind Stag when the green haired man pa.s.sed through. Orison didn"t make it further. A hidden menace, the thing responsible for their successful escape, had a different idea. Rousing from its hiding place in a dark corner of Orison"s s.p.a.ce, a black silk purse that had avoided Osomo and Orison"s detection for some time, wrenched the young mage right into the darkened portal.

For a moment, Orison wondered how the silk purse had managed to recover enough for such a thing until he remembered that not long ago, his s.p.a.ce had been filled with decompressing miasma. The evil thing had nipped a little for itself somewhere along the way. Whatever its purpose for yanking him into a dying reality, the young mage highly doubted it was going to be something he"d be happy about.

Orison "fell" through a boundary baptism so painful, he nearly let himself lose consciousness, even under the threat of the purse. It was nothing like the first time"s initially gentle then somewhat rough but brief cleansing. It was more like an acid bath delivered with a wire brush. It was during this horrific scouring that the purse escaped from his s.p.a.ce and turned to devour it.

The young mage roared in defiance. Reaching out with his s.p.a.ce to pull it back in, Orison fired up the one chunk of condensed eternium he had acc.u.mulated to attempt roasting it. It wouldn"t be the first time he played a game of "who can eat the other faster" and he was determined not to lose.