To say that Orison was baffled would be an understatement. Though it had only happened twice, he was certain that such an illusory phenomenon should only occur in the presence of a miasma spot. Still, it had happened and all any of them could do was wait to see what would come of it.

From the distant illusory sky faint voices chanted in unison as a more distinct and clear voice intoned, "Devouring darkness, go back from whence you came in the name of $%#Eu0026^$ and u0026%$*^. To their divine glory I abjure and banish thee. Return and plague us no further!"

First it started as a light rain of invisible mist, then a drizzle. Orison and his companions looked at each other as signs of being "rained on" was evident but everyone was dry. Just as Orison thought that whatever was happening didn"t seem to warrant the overreaction his instinct had sent him into other than for secrecy, the intensity reached a hard pelting rain with occasional semi-solid chunks. .h.i.tting with enough force to sting.

Once again the voices chanted and the old man in charge intoned more exorcism lines. Above them, an unpleasant and dangerous scene unfurled as collections of random things from weapons and armor to coins and gems were mixed with gelatinous ma.s.ses that squirmed and writhed. Soon, an eldritch horror version of whack-mole began with the four dashing and rolling out of the way as they ran and slipped, taking the random cut or bruise when they scrambled a little too slowly or ran into previously dropped detritus.

The elderly voice beyond the fake sky reached a trembling crescendo. An angry ball of dark, azure streaked energy flattened and spread into a pulsing ring whose center bulged outwards towards them ominously. Of one mind, they all ran as far towards the outer edges of this ghostly realm as s.p.a.ce allowed.

As a vulgar display of expulsion from the ring took the shape of a thick coiling rope of chaos flashing impossible geometric patterns within, Orison screamed, "Don"t look directly at it!"

To his right Gan screamed back, "Who wants to? I feel like a rat that fell into a latrine right now. Did the G.o.ds just sh*t on us!?"

As he closed his eyes, Orison thought to himself, "Don"t listen to him. It"s just a giant cup of mad G.o.d soft serve, chaos flavored ice cream."

Done with it"s task, the portal began to close and the old man"s voice grew fainter as it bellowed, "Hundreds of years worth of star well magic reserve, gone just like that! If you weren"t my sister"s only child, I"d flay your skin for book covers."

The last thing Orison could hear before the voices became too faint was a woman begging for a chance to explain why she kept the growing "energy source" a secret.

Morrel broke the silence. "Well, what now? That "thing" we have our backs turned to moved when I looked away."

Orison muttered to himself, "How am I supposed to take that in? In just a moment, it"s going to lock on to me and try to squeeze itself in until I pop. Then it"s going to move to them."

Using his spiritual sense, Orison tried to sort out what all was actually contained within while trying to "listen" to Beta"s intuition delivered advice.

As the first tendrils of fuzzy edged, super condensed miasma groped towards him, trying not to completely freak out, Orison said, "Try very hard to think about the perfect you, Morrel. That and nothing else the whole time. Out of all of us, you have the clearest picture of who you were, are and always wanted to be.

"Rithus, my intuition is telling me that you should trust yours. The "shadow in your bones" sounds eerie and scary but I have no idea how to guide you... Gan, best moments of your life, replay them in your mind... I don"t care if I"m screaming, laughing or saying things you don"t understand. Focus on yourselves and don"t interfere with each other. If someone looks like they are in trouble, trying to help them will only make it worse... It"s going to be fiiiii ahhhHHHH!"

For an eternal microsecond, Orison became a white nothing. Then it was over. The four of them were in the cave, slumped in random positions like they were rag dolls thrown into a closet. They just laid there reeling and recovering from an event they had no way to describe. Most of it, they couldn"t even recall.

Having difficulty pulling in his spiritual sight well enough to see normally, Orison asked, "Is everyone alright? To my other vision everyone looks fine but I can"t see well yet."

Gan asked, "Does anyone else feel like they were ripped apart and put back together again?"

Morrel grunted an affirmative and Rithus slowly nodded as Orison said, "I think that might be an understatement."

Orison"s intuition was telling him that their gains had been tremendous but looking within and without, all he could sense was that all of them were "more", though the way Morrel was "more" wasn"t quite in tune with everyone else. For himself, he couldn"t sense much new growth but that was unsurprising considering that if he had "grown" much more it would have killed him. There were several new mysterious "feelings" about things in his s.p.a.ce but all that would take time to explore.

So would the large collection of less mystical items in his s.p.a.ce but, if anything, he"d be more stingy with them because everything down to coins had a trace of the sensation that his mask had. That wasn"t to say that they were all boundary items but Orison was intuitively aware that they had "staying power". It might be short or a long time away but one day he"d leave this place and those items would mean a great deal more then than they did now.

While Orison was taking stock of his "loot", Rithus yelped out a worried warning for Gan not to leave this inner cave. "It is not safe for us to leave here. The world will not accept us as we are yet. The shadow in my bones is covering the seed of who I might be and soon I"ll be safe but you do not have this, Gan."

Gan put on a worried expression and said, "Then how long will I be stuck here?"

Morrel added what he knew. "I carry something with me that I have been communing with for the last two days. It will suppress the parts of you that the world will not accept but it will also make you much the same as you were before... Orison, you will need this as well."

Orison looked at Morrel sharply and said, "That"s what I felt was off. Morrel, what did you actually focus on when the miasma came to you?"

The elf answered, "I appreciate the meaning behind your advice when this began but what you wanted for me was not what was important to me. It took no more than a moment"s thought to realize that what the three of you would do, if it succeeded, would bring you into disharmony with the world. The world is more than a collection of laws, Orison. It has a will of it"s own as well and that will desires its own growth. This is common understanding to those of the Emerald Vale.

"I appreciate that you kept to your intent and honored our will as more important. Because of this, I was able to hold the world"s retribution away and was given the means to allow you all to safely move within it. If you accept it, your outer self will be brought into alignment with what the world allows, with no thought or effort on your own behalf."

Orison stumbled over to Morrel and placed a hand on the elf"s chest to see Morrel"s "inner world" more clearly. There was a moment of resistance from the elf"s spirit before it relented and allowed the blunt, and in retrospect, rude intrusion. Orison "saw" a lush and verdant s.p.a.ce filled with plant and animal life. Through it, Orison could understand a bit of the world"s laws and will directly but his real purpose wasn"t this.

Within the living ark that was Morrel"s chosen conduit there was an immaculately preserved biosphere and beyond the center there were other, more rarefied, environments with their own host of spa.r.s.e life. Within each environment there was one or more special plants that shimmered and hummed, attuning this inner ark with the outer world. Through this process, constant minute changes took place to keep it aligned.

Orison looked at the elf sadly and said, "So while we forged a key, you created a collar for yourselves to buy our freedom?"

In a rare paternal smile he usually only reserved for Rithus, Morrel said, "No, Orison. I"ve given myself a purpose... One day the will of the world will raise beyond its vessel and I will be called to the west, along with all other creatures who will not belong to the next age of this world. Unlike Gan"s budding spirit of exploration, my little tadpole"s spirit of calm contemplation or your spirit"s hunger to unravel ever greater mysteries, I have much humbler desires... What I posses is still a key. It"s just one that requires patience and perseverance to wait for it"s door to present itself."

Gan broke the somber mood. "It"s not like we"re parting ways as soon as we step out of here... Little Boss, it might have slipped your notice but we"ve been in here for a while. For the life of me, I can"t figure out how we haven"t messed ourselves or woke up dying of thirst."

With that sudden realization, Orison asked Morrel, "Do you know how long it"s been?"

The elf nodded and said, "Nearly a week. I came out of trance only long enough to start attuning two days ago. There was a lot to take in and I was the only one who had help outside of what Orison was providing. I sense that Droya is well but worried."

Orison said, "Then we should probably get attuned, or whatever, and get back."

Morrel summoned out what looked like a small stone bowl of slightly luminescent aloe gel, applying as he spoke. "This will seal away the parts of you that threaten the laws. In return for this compromise, what exists within you will no longer be subject to those laws as well. While you are on this world, what you can express out into it will be limited to it"s allowed boundaries and the exchanges between yourself and the world will follow it"s laws. As long as you follow that covenant, the laws of this world will not be exercised against you to fit its patterns or work to remove you.

"You will be recognized as a new life within it which means that any past transgressions will be absolved. In place of the warnings that you may have received before when attempting to express the forbidden, you will simply find yourself unable to. Forcing yourself to overcome that resistance will break the covenant and the world"s retribution will be swift and final."

Once the elf was done, he gestured for Orison and Gan to step out and give Rithus and himself a private moment. As interested as Orison was in returning to let Droya know they were alright, he felt that what Morrel was about to do was hard for the elf and waiting for the return trip back home to be over might cause Morrel to lose his resolve.

While they waited outside, Gan asked, "Rithus told me that you put the other dead thing in there... Did you?"

Orison said, "Uh, yeah. Why?"

"Because it"s not in there anymore," Gan said and shuddered.

The "father and son" talk didn"t last long but whatever had been revealed during it left Rithus silent and introspective on the way back. Orison was glad to see that nothing had changed in the way they treated each other but it was obvious that "the big reveal" wasn"t something easily processed. To take the focus off of the private moment between the two and whatever secret it held, and to satisfy Orison burning curiosity towards it, the young mage proposed a round of "show and tell".

For Orison, initially at least, it seemed nothing had changed aside from the feeling of being more and the increase to his spiritual sensitivity that was as much of an annoyance as helpful since he had to repress it to see properly. It wasn"t until he removed a small soul crystal and saw the majority of it"s essence evaporate into the air, leaving behind a fingernail sized piece of eternium crystal, that he realized just how "more" everything in himself had gotten.

As soon as Rithus saw the piece of eternium crystal, the look he shot Orison reminded the young mage of a child seeing a stranger with candy they wanted. Seeing no harm in it, Orison handed it over to Rithus and the Marshlander immediately placed it into a satchel that Orison hadn"t noticed before and couldn"t detect after. When asked about it, Rithus just called it a "craft bag" and shrugged to any further inquiry. The only other information that Rithus could say about his new condition or anything else he may possess was that "it" was hiding within the shadows in his bones.

Gan was even more perplexed about his changes. After a heavy round of trials, it was an accident that revealed a small edge of his mysterious changes. He summoned a map or at least he saw one. It was apparently very detailed but not only was he the only one who could see it, Orison couldn"t sense any changes within or outside of Gan. The young mage had a sneaking suspicion that most of what the two had earned from the ordeal was locked away for the moment and only a long time spent in personal exploration would allow them to discover what else they were capable of in this world.

To work out what kind of physical limitations they now had, and to get back faster, Orison suggested a long distance run. It became obvious that their old paces weren"t even enough to make them breath heavy. When they reached about half of their maximum speed, which Orison found to be fairly even, all of them started to lose stamina. All of them except for Morrel. Apparently, the world was biased towards people who toed it"s line. As New Fvaris came into view, Orison tested out other physical limits to discover that the world"s limits were stacked a bit unfairly against them on an individual ideal but in a balanced overall, it could barely be considered fair... if you didn"t count Morrel.

As they closed in on the city entrance, Orison thought, "Just great. My brother is the real main character and now Morrel is the secret boss."