ALX 221

Bracorax, near The Maw

The nights grew darker with each passing year. Maybe it was that azure ring in the sky that changed the hue of the night sky or the quieter streets under curfew, but the shadows seemed longer beneath the flickering streetlamps, the sudden movement of a rabbit bounding between tree-grown homes more alarming. Fattus Cattus didn’t mind the strange atmosphere. It kept him sharp.

And he needed to be sharper than ever. Ever since the High Council had disbanded, there had been a sensation of breathlessness amidst the Isles. A feeling that the ground had been swallowed up beneath them. Who could they turn to? Leaders were few and far between. Those who had showed promise no longer had a place to develop their skills, wasted in small town bureaucracies and swallowed up by small time smuggling operations.

He wiped clean his diamond claws, leaning against a thickly-grown gingko tree that had been grown into an alchemist’s laboratory. Even without the foul berries, the sickly scent of potions wafted through open windows and made his stomach turn. Beside him, a bard with a red jacket and finely tuned lute strung behind his back crouched down and looked around the bend.

“Are you sure this is where the kenku is now?” asked Fattus.

Link held up a hand to motion him to silence and Fattus Cattus tried not to roll his eyes. Like anyone would be able to see him if he didn’t want them to. There was barely anyone on the streets as it was, the shaman-infested kenku city of Medamu famous for taking advantage of the night to do sacred rituals to their goddess, Sidastrea. Barely anyone was about.

But then they heard muttering and the rustle of paper scrolls crumpled in a large bag.

“Do this, Stamper. Do that. You used to be so good at taking notes, why don’t you go to Helvestia’s and sort out that library? Almost as important as the Dragonborn Archives, Stamper.” The overburdened kenku snapped his beak and shook a fist at the sky. “It’s a glorified pig sty! They don’t have scrolls there, just recipes for love potions and stink bombs…”

Link was out in the grass-laden path before Fattus Cattus had time to think about whether another library was worth the cost of firewood. The kenku startled, scrolls scattering from his arms.

“Let me get those,” said Link, his voice as smooth as an actor’s. “Must be important, for you to be sent so late past curfew.”

The kenku hesitated, then took the scrolls proffered by Link. “Not so important. Just library business.”

“Ah yes,” purred Link. “The library. Not much of an institution since that member of the Six cut off all the main heads and pretended to be them, right?”

The kenku swallowed as Fattus Cattus circled behind him, cutting off his escape. A naturally nervous fellow, it seemed. Usually Link would have them chatting amiably by now.

“He’s carrying the ledgers.” Fattus tossed a scroll over the kenku’s head at Link. He’d already scanned the contents. “Looks like some of the stuff Terriex has been smuggling.”

“N-no, it’s not that. Just library fines.”

Link opened the scroll and Fattus saw his usually cordial smile shift. His canines glinted.

“Who are you? What are you going to do with me?” asked the faltering kenku.

“Thirik Cartax,” Link bent low, yellow eyes shining, “How would you like to make your mark on the world?”

________________________

Summalt, of the Floating Isles

The gambling den’s air was clogged with incense. Snik liked the feel of the playing bones between his long, feline fingers before casting them across the long table. They clattered against the opposite end of the table and spun to a halt, two triangle markings facing upwards.

“Another take for the Tabaxi,” yelled the dealer. “Second round! Second round!”

A long-feathered aaracokra leaned over the table, some of the red make-up on her pale feathers shaking loose over the wooden tableboards, a pipe in one claw curling smokey tendrils with flowery perfume. “Need a lucky charm, kitty cat?”

Snik scanned the crowd and caught a glint of a long metal finger picking a different tabaxi’s pocket and tipped his hood over his ears and tapped at the dealer to take his winnings. “Not this round. Maybe next time.”

As he slipped through the crowds he kept his eyes downcast, making sure to not give any cues to the people around him that something had changed in the room. He counted out his chips and passed them under the window to get his coin, holding his breath with anticipation. Assassinating for money? That was easy. Playing the role of the distraction? Not so much.

He could feel the eyes of the guards on him as he left the basement of the inn and moved between the evening revellers eating and drinking as if the whole island around them wasn’t going to crash into the next mountain range at the next altitude drop. The Floating Isles would not be afloat much longer from what he could tell. Already they sat low in the clouds, a constant fog filling the streets with dewy air.

But maybe….

He turned a corner and crawled up a gutter to settle on the predetermined rooftop. He watched the people who had been tailing him scan the alleys, then meet in the middle of the street and give up hope. They wouldn’t be able to find him. And he wasn’t even the one they needed to be looking out for.

Behind him, a whirring, chopping noise cut through the air and a tiny goblin popped out from under the lip of the roof, a strange mechanical device strapped to his back. As he descended, Snik noted with approval the sleek, portable thopter design Klib had made after spending the past few years studying flight travel. The goblin touched down with a few deft controls and the whole thing snapped back into his backpack once he’d landed.

“Did you get them?”

Klib nodded. Without being directed, a spider-like mechanical creature with a round body and assorted limbs picked its way down the goblin’s arm and towards Snick. Hooked onto one of its limbs was a set of keys, each one more flamboyantly decorative than the last. Snick took the keys and flipped through the jewel-encrusted items, almost smiling.

“How many does that make it now?”

“Twenty-one master keys,” said Klib. “There are six more to go, by my best guess.”

“Is the old Leonin representative still one of them?”

“Looks so, but Fattus and Link are on the trail now. Once we have his accountant, we’ll be able to take over his operation right under his nose.”

Snik tried not to feel the glow of satisfaction take away his drive. They weren’t done yet. The master keys that represented the power of those who controlled the Black Market had taken years to uncover, steal, and make their own. The last few might be even harder. There was a reason why smuggling rings had survived so long under the High Council’s reign and it wasn’t because they were careless. 

“What’s next, then? All this sneaking around innit much fun. I thought you said there’d be more fights, but so far all we’ve been doing is setting up secret meetings and blah blah blahing talk and stealing and other such nonsense.”

Now Snik couldn’t help the smile that itched at the corners of his mouth. “It seems X-Society will need a base, won’t it?”

The goblin cackled with glee, chanting with a vigorous fighting poem to himself while clapping with his metal spider. Letting himself settle into this brief victory, Snik felt his instincts honing him to the South, where the Unclaimed Isles awaited and the mysteries of their ancient ruins.

Yes. X-Society needed a home. And then Ritenus would have its masters once again.

The city of Excelli felt strangely muted to Brixx as he walked along its winding streets. He was used to the madcap chaos of inventors testing their creations, of the whirring of mechanical behemoths, of the cries of street vendors as they desperately vie for the attention of the preoccupied engineers. Today was different. The streets were still full of people, the mechanical lifts and vehicles still functioned as well as ever (that is to say, about 70 percent of the time), and the ramshackle buildings still leaned precariously over the streets, but the excitement had gone out of the city. Even the occasional distant explosion felt half-hearted and melancholy. While the world celebrated the death of the Six and the rise of a new World Dragon, Excelli mourned for the death of their goddess.

Brixx sighed and flopped onto his bed. He shared a room with the other engineering apprentices, but they didn’t seem to be around. They were probably down in the workshop reviewing the latest airlock designs. He was supposed to be with them, but Master Hzeck was still mad at him for losing that wrench, and Brixx couldn’t summon the energy to face him. Everything just felt a little pointless, now. 

His hand drifted toward the pendant under his shirt. He’d nearly died once, as a kid, when a piece of a motorized cart had broken off and come careening towards him. At the last second it had swerved to the side and slammed into a lamppost instead. Everyone had called it an act of Yl, and told him that he must be favored by the goddess. Ever since then he’d worn her symbol, a double-headed coin, on a cord around his neck. 

He rubbed it between his fingers for a moment, then abruptly yanked it off, breaking the cord. It tumbled carelessly to the floor as he stood to head downstairs. Something made him stop, however, and look back – and everything froze. The pendant had landed, somehow, not on either face, but instead perfectly balanced between them. 

He stared at it, hardly daring to breathe. Slowly, his shaking hand reached out and, almost against his will, tossed the coin into the air again. Once again, with a soft clink, it landed on its edge. He tried again. And again. No matter which way he threw it, the coin invariably ended up impossibly balanced between its two faces. 

Brixx sat down, excitement bubbling up in his chest. It can’t be, he thought. Yl died. They all said she died. But there sat the coin, obstinately refusing to tip over. “You’re supposed to be dead!” he said aloud. And for a moment, through the clamor of the city outside, he could have sworn he heard a faintly mocking voice whispering in his ear. “Since when have I ever done what I’m supposed to?”

Brixx leapt into the air with a whoop. A grin split his face as he dashed down the stairs, melancholy forgotten. Soon his story passed from neighbor to neighbor, friend to friend, until it seemed the whole city was buzzing with the news. Miles away, travellers stopped to watch the fireworks suddenly exploding from Excelli, illuminating the sky around the rising moon.

Theologians, politicians, and arcanists all agree (and they so rarely do) that Yl is dead. There’s simply no other way that the new World Dragon could have been born; the ritual clearly required six sacrifices. Her name was added to the lists of the fallen and struck from the records of the priests. But ask any goblin on Praxlarr, and they’ll smile, touch the coin hanging around their neck, and tell you a story about the god of cheating and her greatest trick yet.

A NEW MOON; A NEW AGE. Speculation on the origin of a new moon in the sky has led to unrest among the citizens of Ritenus. Many have called begun calling it “The Blue Dawn,” due to its tendency to hover near the horizon at both day and night. The High Council has not yet released a statement on the connection between the new moon and a recent invasion of the Library of Jakardia by a White Dragon (now missing). But one thing is for certain: the strange fluctuations in magic seem to have decreased, crops are flourishing, and the wars that seemed to grow by the day have suddenly ceased. While the Dragonborn Empire claims this to be Ouranos’s reincarnation, the religion has splintered into…

Somewhere on Summalt, a lone, female Kenku darted through the lengthening shadows. On the surface, the city seemed just as lively as before, but Arocle knew better. From the way the city sat lower in the sky to the clipped way the council members talked to the slight tremors that made their way through the island every once and again, things were wrong. No matter how much everyone pretended, tensions were high under the calm, cheerful mask.

Still, it seemed as though people were trying to forget what had happened but a few months ago. Approaching a loud and rowdy bar, she covered her beak against the stink of alcohol. How people found pleasure in the drink, Arocle had no idea. 

Out of a desire to maintain her sanity tonight, she tried to make her way past the establishment without interacting with the patrons. But quite unluckily, the door was rather rudely thrown open in her face just as she crossed, nearly hitting her in the beak. 

“If you can’t pay, kitty cat, then get out!” The words are tossed out into the crisp evening air, along with an extremely disgruntled Tabaxi rogue. The latter scrambled to his feet indignantly, all ruffled fur and raised hackles. Arocle backed away as he shouted back, “I swear those dice are weighted! ____ never loses, you hear that?!”

“Oh sure, sure, talk all you want.” She heard someone inside the bar scoff as she sidestepped around the man. Faulty dice, huh. Any other day, she would have simply brushed off the comment as the ramblings of a sore loser, but given that the Goblin’s god, Yl, had perished recently…

It certainly doesn’t bode well. And with that, she quickened her steps, hoping to reach her destination sooner rather than later.

It seemed like hours had passed when Arocle finally made it to her archives, located behind the room where she had posed as the Seer of Summalt. On a different day, she would have found the familiar, papery smell of the room calming. But not today. Closing the heavy oaken door behind her, she hurried toward the room’s little secret alcove. Reaching into the dim, dusty space, she seized the papers inside and brought them into the flickering candlelight.

Arocle skimmed the pages briefly, reading her hurried notes. These were from the last visions she had had before she left Summalt to see what was really going on. Her ominous scribbles about gigantic bugs, a dark emperor, living dead, and more, were all barely readable, even to her. 

However, it’s not her terrible handwriting that concerned her. These visions…never came true. Arocle mused, running her finger under one of the sentences. Which really should be impossible. Her visions were always right – they always came to be, one way or another. So why-

Enough. Arocle shook her head, firmly, as if she could banish her misgivings with that simple action. The enemies were dead. She had seen their defeat herself, played a part in that final battle. Ritenus had entered an era of peace. It would do no good to tell anyone about these old things. 

Nevertheless, she couldn’t quite bring herself to get rid of the papers. Perhaps, one day, they’d have a use. Instead, she settled for locking them away in a heavy metal safe, never to see the light of day again. As the lock clicked into place, Arocle finally breathed a sigh of relief. At last, the last bits of these horrible few months were taken care of. She turned away, ready to tidy up the front room to look presentable again. The Seer was back in business.

A fire mysteriously broke out in Summalt that night. No matter how thoroughly the matter was investigated, no source was ever found. Thankfully, it was contained easily and the damage was light. Yet Arocle couldn’t shake off a feeling of unease when she heard the news the next morning. As soon as she could, she made her way through the winding tunnels underneath the floating island until she reached her archive room. Throwing open the door, she felt crushing relief when she spotted the familiar racks of papers, safe and sound. There was no hint of smoke in the air, no singed pages. It seemed the fire hadn’t made its way here.

Yet still, Arocle couldn’t relax fully. Making her way to the back, she picked up the safe she had sealed just yesterday. It is better to be safe than sorry, she muses, looking it over. At first glance, nothing seems to be amiss, the box still as secure as before.

But when she unlocked the box, she caught a sudden whiff of smoke.

Impossible, she thought. The rest of the room, filled with dry and brittle paper, is untouched.

Even so, Arocle found her hands shaking as she opened the door of the safe.

The papers inside were burnt to ashes.

Somewhere, deep and dark and old, there was a snap, no, a clatter, like dice being rolled on a stone table. The sound rang out into the nothingness all around. With nothing to reflect off of, it simply continued, growing fainter, and fainter, till it all but disappeared.

Then slowly, achingly slowly, rivulets of iridescent liquid appeared, weaving their way through the darkness. As they carved new trails, the streams grew wider and faster, ripping through the space until each was a river in its own right. They trailed off into the distance, as if chasing the sound that had disappeared. 

Yet there was one strange thing about the rivers, that you might have noticed if you were, somehow, there.

They never touched.