Date: First of June, year 810 Post Seminal War (810 PSW)

Location: The Ruins of Alexandria, Armageddon Reef, Sapphire Bay, The Jeweled Republics.

Job shook the dust of the Ebon Askavi Archives from his boots and stretched his arms to the rising sun. He could feel a certain tension in the air; something truly momentous was coming. As inevitable as the rising sun, as joyous as the first buds of spring, as transformative as Black Cloak’s Ascension shattering the ‘glass ceiling’ of Outsiders. He took a deep breath and tasted the ash and salt on the breeze. Job had almost gotten used to it, the bitter taste of ruin and devastation, but today it was… more was the only way he could think of to phrase it, with notes of sulphur.

Lady SiDiabolo twitched faintly in her own bedroll, still napping after the night watch. Job shook his head, content to let her rest in the face of another day scouring Alexandria for the ‘Anvil of Souls’. Such a legendary artefact would have been well-defended and hidden, so finding it in a single day of searching was not to be expected. They had preserved food for another week and easy access to the markets of the Jeweled Cities to buy more provisions if needed.

The sight of a battered and forlorn high elf walking down the middle of the street in a ragged blue dress trailing bloody footprints in her wake brought Job out of the concealment of the ruin where he had spent the night.

“Who goes there?”

The elf turned her head to stare at Job and set her hands on the shortswords at her hip, “I could ask the same in this wasteland.”

“Job, son of Arseoth, with party. And yourself?”

“Call me Blue, I guess, not like it matters anymore. I can’t recall much, not since the War anyway. What year is it?”

“Eight hundred ten PSW. Post Seminal War.”

. . . - - - . . .

Date: First of June, year 810 Post Seminal War (810 PSW)

Location: The Ruins of Alexandria, Armageddon Reef, Sapphire Bay, The Jeweled Republics.

Blue, as she now called herself, shook her head in obvious shock to buy time. Here was a human Sorcerer, though she couldn’t tell how powerful, with at least a partial transformation into a war-form, tough he did not wear the symbol of any God she knew of. “I knew time had passed while I was… trapped… in that spell, but over eight hundred years?”

“Yup. Bit of a shock, I expect.”

“Hah. You could say that Job son of Arseoth. I see at least some of the old Empire survived, given your hand.”

Job raised his metal ‘hand’, letting the sleeve of his shirt fall back to expose that was not just his hand that was metal. “Some of their knowledge yes, and a scattered few individuals perhaps, but the Empire itself…?”

She nodded somberly, “I expected as much, from the state of Alexandria. The rest of the peninsula can’t have fared much better either.”

“Ma’am, we’re on an island known as Armageddon Reef. If there was a peninsula eight hundred plus years ago, there isn’t one now.”

Blue had to sit down at that statement. “My Gods, an island? He must have… but how…?”

Job shrugged, “you’d have better luck asking my friend, a scholar learned on the history of this place.”

“Oh? Playing bodyguard are we?”

Job snorted, “you could say that… though I expect The Lady could kick my ass without breaking a sweat if she had a mind to. Let me wake her.”

He turned ad disappeared inside the ruined door of a building. Blue breathed deep and exhaled a load of worries. Eight hundred and ten years? Her old life was well and truly one, and she had a chance to start fresh, earn her redemption. It would be hard to find the descendants of her daughter…

Her breath caught in her throat as ‘The Lady’ appeared in the doorway. No way, she couldn’t still be so young, no half-elf lived for that long! And yet her features were unmistakable.

+ “…redeemed yoursself in the eyess of your descendantss…” +

Blue swallowed hard. Her assigned Penance had begun.

. . . - - - . . .

Date: First of June, year 810 Post Seminal War (810 PSW)

Location: The Ruins of Alexandria, Armageddon Reef, Sapphire Bay, The Jeweled Republics.

Ilelahne SiDiabolo frowned down at the elf who called herself ‘Blue.’ She was strangely familiar, though Ilelahne could not place her on sight.

“Come on over, let’s at least get your feet bandaged up. We can speak while you rest.”

Blue looked down at her feet, blinked in shock, then turned and looked back at the bloody trail she had left. “How...?”

“Did you not notice? Shock I'd expect. Just have a seat, I'll bring the medical kit to you.”

Ilelahne watched Blue sit down in a daze, uncaring of the dust and dirt in the middle of the road. “Job, go find us some firewood please, we're going to need more.”

Job raised an eyebrow and a finger, letting a silent magical flame pop into being above it.

Ilelahne shook her head slightly.

Job nodded his understanding and strode off purposefully.

Ilelahne knelt next to Blue, pulled a medical kit out of her pack, and unrolled a stretch of cloth bandages. “I know you recognized me from before, even without the old 'trappings of power'. I could say the same about you... If you had scales.”

Blue winced, “I had them once... daughter mine. I slept a timeless sleep, and when I woke... all that I was was destroyed, rejected, and cast out. I went for the Anvil to become... and even that was denied me, Zealotry of the Convert or no. All that I was is no more. Standing in the ashes of Alexandria... I let it all go, ashes on an ancient wind. Now, I am but Blue.”

Ilelahne nodded and cinched the bandage tighter about Blue's foot. “You were watching my room.”

“What mother would not? Especially when your father and I were both worried at what might... emerge. Looking upon you now, I can see that your father had the right of it. Your body was stable, and my worries were paranoid fantasy.”

Ilelahne started working on Blue's other foot. “He was not entirely correct. I Bound myself… and now seek to undo that Binding. This body is not what I am, this city only a chain of despair about my ankles.”

Blue gasped in pain, “but that would...!”

“I know. Heal quickly, if you can still heal yourself, because we will need to run.”

“I can, but not as I used to. You will need The Anvil of Souls.”

“Yes, and you know where it is. Will you light the path, or walk away?”

“I'll light the path. It is perhaps the first step to make amends for...” Blue gestured broadly, the sweep of her arm encompassing both the ruins of Alexandria and the people who had once lived there. “But I do not know if we can run fast or far enough. This is an island now, if Job can be believed.”

Ilelahne nodded, “we need only run to the beach and the boat we have there. Job will get us back to the continent intact. Or, at least, he has the best chance to do so.”

“You have a plan?”

“As much if one as I ever do.”

“Three above and nine below... give me a five-minute head start on that run then.”

. . . - - - . . .

Date: First of June, year 810 Post Seminal War (810 PSW)

Location: The Anvil of Souls, Armageddon Reef, Sapphire Bay, The Jeweled Republics.

Job Arseoth eyed the Anvil of Souls with suspicion. Even in the well-lit chamber, it dripped shadows and menaced with spikes of obsidian set into its mithril body. The face looked rusted at first glance, until you noticed that the 'rust' had a dull shine to it - dried blood polished to a shimmering hue. It was a large thing, with a face long enough for three men to lay head to foot with room to spare, and wide enough for the same abreast.

Job's scale-ringed left eye twitched and the space was filled with the sight of thousands of souls screaming in silent torment. He blinked and they vanished without a trace.

“Blue, Lady SiDiabolo, I have a bad feeling about this thing. It seems... evil.”

Blue nodded, “because it undoubtedly is. I know not how many bodies met their end here as their souls were transferred to new warforms. Not all of them made it.”

“And yet, you still pan to use it?”

Lady SiDiabolo nodded, “Evil or not, it is the fulcrum I need for this magical Working. It will probably not survive the abuse I intend to inflict upon it, which is just as well In the end. “

Job gulped and nodded, “I'll take Blue and find cover then. Wouldn't want to be in the blast radius when this thing blows.”

Blue looked at The Anvil, Looked at Job, and shook her head, “An Artifact of this magnitude suffering a 'sudden and catastrophic failure of existence' would have a blast radius measured in miles. There would be nothing left but glowing cosmic dust within that ranges, and utter normality outside of it, at least until the air pressure started to equalize and crated shock-waves fit to flatten cities in their own right.”

“Blue, I don't know about you, but for a moment there I saw...”

“The souls of the lost?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm, perhaps there is a bit of the celestial or the abyss to you then. 'The sight' as it is known, is common, even in the weakest of bloodlines.”

Lady SiDiabolo ignored their banter and focused on her own preparations.

Job rolled his neck, “such things are tested for nowadays, and the only thing they ever found about me was human and dragon. Common enough among Sorcerers.”

Blue nodded, “but has there been anything more recent, a ritual or spellwork that touched upon something else? The creation of your metal limbs, for example?”

Job started to shake his head, and then paused, “not my limbs, but perhaps my eye. Bahamut put in an appearance, by proxy at least, during the ritual to regrow it. An apology for vaporizing it in the first place when he used just a bit too much lightning while deflating my hubris.”

Blue bobbed her head in understanding, “that might qualify. Stay and watch Ilelahne's working, the ambient energies may enhance that aspect of yourself. I certainly intend to do so, that I might better understand myself.”

“How so?”

Blue let a ripple of iron flicker from her feet up to the tips of her ears, “near High Magic Rituals, and Workings in particular, the Weave of Magic flexes and flows. The warp and weft underwriting reality are frayed and remade by careful application of fundamental principles and raw force of will. In brief the caster is convincing the Weave, and by extension reality itself, to accept that what she wants to be always was.”

Job shuddered, “that sounds complicated and dangerous.”

Blue nodded, “Silence, It begins.”

Job looked about. The smell of sulphur and lilacs filled the air. Thirteen black candles spawned fractal runic circles. Etheric winds tore flakes of dried blood from the anvil and made rust-red dust-devils. All was silent save for the hum of bottled lightning.

Lady Sidiablo intoned “Fi Gwrthod Daar Gwir Ahrk Amnewid Dii Biau.”

Reality wavered like ripples in a pool. The black candles blew out and the fractal runes lit with both the infinite colors of light and the eye-hurting shades of void-blessed unlight.

Job squeezed his eyes shut against the pain-inducing sight. His ears went deaf to the rush of unsound. Job's whole existence turned inwards and his blood began to race. He could taste it on his tongue; the Iron determination of humanity, the chili-pepper spice of his draconic ancestry, and the raw, searing heat of the celestial influence. Job reached out to this new part of himself the same way he did to his draconic side, trusting his instincts to guide his magic. Parts of Job's self shifted in subtle ways and snapped into place with inaudible clicks. Job felt his new abilities appear in his subconscious mind, slotting into empty places that he had never noticed were empty.

"Holy shit, I can Fly?"

. . . - - - . . .

Date: First of June, year 810 Post Seminal War (810 PSW)

Location: The Anvil of Souls, Armageddon Reef, Sapphire Bay, The Jeweled Republics.

Lady Sidiablo intoned “Fi Gwrthod Daar Gwir Ahrk Amnewid Dii Biau.”

Blue sat cross-legged and watched reality crack and shatter at her daughter's proclamation. The space in which Ilelahne sat turned into a cocoon of absolute darkness. Reality trembled, and a small box in Job's pocket shuddered in sympathy.

The Working was going wrong, so horribly wrong, because her daughter had left out a reagent. The Anvil of Souls cracked with an audible snap. Blue didn't wait for anything else to happen, she tackled Job, ripped his pocket open, and threw the small box into the cocoon.

It bounced off, two small sheets of paper fluttering free and falling into the cocoon. It blazed with an inner light as the pieces of paper were absorbed by the Working. Light flared and faded, unlight shimmered. The Working began to stabilize. Four more pieces of paper rose up out of the box.

Blue recognized the minute designs on the pieces of paper. Why would a deck of cards be a critical reagent in a Working? Two of the cards snapped forwards into the cocoon, the other two falling back into the box. Blue's eyes grew huge as a seventh and eighth card rose from the deck.

A common deck of cards would have no value to a Working, but the SiDiabolo Deck was no common deck of cards. it was an Artifact in its own right, an agent of benevolent chaos meant to break traditions ossified beyond reason, to ensure that order would not claim a final victory in the eternal struggle. A life lived locked in the same patterns for eight hundred and ten years certainly qualified as a tradition, but to warrant so many cards?

Blue blanched in fear. She was not sure that she would like to know the answer to that question.

. . . - - - . . .

Date: First of June, year 810 Post Seminal War (810 PSW)

Location: ???

Ilelahne Sidiablo intoned “I reject this reality and substitute my own.”

She opened her eyes and stared out across a flat plane of black glass. There was no sky, no horizon, no wind, no sound. There was nothing to define place or distance, only the glass beneath her feet to determine up and down. Ilelahne's intoned proclamation rippled across the glass in a visible wave, a ground-tremor just shy of an earthquake. She found that she had no agency in this place; an amorphous body that refused to react to her demands.

+ “Well, this is... unexpected.” +

Ilelahne forced her perception to turn, ignoring the way it simply slid her eyes about her head. She perceived a female figure in a black cloak, cowl pulled forward and low to cover her eyes, arms crossed across her chest and hand hidden in the opposite sleeves, hem floating just above the ground without feet visible beneath it. “Who are you?”

+ “ Call me Black Cloak, though it be as much Title as name these days.” +

“I have heard of you, though always as a male figure...”

+ “I am what I am, and I appear in a form most comfortable for your perceptions. In this most intimate of spaces, you perceive a female figure as less of a threat, thus you see me as female.” +

“And why do you appear now, amidst my Working?”

+ “Because this is a junction-point, a minor nexus of fates, and you have a choice to make. I am but one option, so I will wait for the others to arrive.” +

“What others?”

An ancient dragon, his huge scales managing an iridescent platinum shine despite the lack of light.

“I avoided that particular failing, Lord of Dragons.”

Three large Naga coughed in gentle unison. Their bone-white scales cast gentle illumination across their forms and deformities: one possessed four arms, another a pair of leathery wings, and the third had living serpents for hair. “Ourselvess ass well, if you would permit our pressence, given our hisstory.”

“It would be folly to reject the Trinity of Denedar, Merrsshulk, and Sslyeth out of hand... and perhaps as deadly to heed the council of their self-appointed preachers.”

“We thank you for that distinction.”

“So, what do all of you wish with me?”

+ “To know what you will do. The others have some claim, given your past self, I hold a weak claim given your future self as an 'artificial' being. And yet...” +

“I have rejected all claims as to my service and devotion in the past. I still do.”

“And become a Warlock in your service? I think not Bahamut.”

“Then perhaps you intend to...”

“No. I Forswore your worship eight hundred and ten years ago, I will not break my word in this life or the next. You have your Chosen already, she does not need my assistance.”

+ “With each word you narrow your future and yet you have made no choice.” +

“But I have indeed, it is the essence of this Working. I reject this reality and substitute my own. I was the Anchor the kept Alexandria afloat. Now I have cut my chains and freed myself of all that I was to become other, to become more.”

The black glass cracked wildly, shattering beneath divine feet. Bahamut fell to the ground with an almighty roar, then took to his wings and fled. The Trinity slithered in panic before vanishing as suddenly as they had appeared. Only Black Cloak remained hanging motionless in the air.

+ “And so you have chosen, Paladin mine. I ask not for prayer or devotion, obedience or fear. You have, without knowledge or desire for reward, been following my Creed for the past thousand years. It is simple: Prevent the God War. Nothing else matters. Should you survive, your Raiment will be waiting for you.” +

“ 'Should I survive'? ”

+ “You forgot to include a Card from your Deck in your Working, so your Reincarnation is unguided, run wild.” +

“Heavens above and hells below...”

+ “Fortunately, your acolyte has noticed your omission, so that will be remedied after a fashion. Let us see what chance holds for you...” +

Ilelahne felt the impact of a small, heavy box at the small of her back, she spun in place and watched as two icons appeared: the faces of cards from the SiDiabolo Deck.

“the Five of Wands: the Heavens or the Abyss... and XV The Devil. The Abyss it is, but that combination...”

+ “Means more cards to come, choose wisely” +

The Five of Wands and XV The Devil vanished into Ilelahne's midsection with barely a ripple. Four more cards appeared, and she instinctively read them as they formed.

“III The Empress, femininity and landed nobility, XII The Hanged Man, an end to ageing, and...”

The two named cards blinked and flew into her heart, the other two fluttering away nameless into the void.

+ “A quick choice indeed!” +

“Perhaps foolish, for XII comes with two more cards...”

+ “You may never know, for I doubt that you will ever return to this place.” +

Two last cards formed in the emptiness, flashing their faces before diving into Ilelahne's reforming body.

“The Three of Pentacles, unforgettable hair, and XXI The World: A reincarnation contingency. At least that is the end of things and my body can reform now, according to my will.”

+ “Ehhh... Five of wands, XV The Devil, and Three of Pentacles might have something to say about that. I'd say probably some sort of succubus-kin... but then there's III The Empress, and succubae aren't fully female all the time, shape-changer thing y'know, so human-kin with an Abyssal template...” +

“What are you mumbling about?”

+ “Trying to predict just what is going to emerge from your cocoon when your Working completes!” +

“Well, if I'm going to have 'unforgettable hair' and I don't want to be recognizable as my old self, I may as well lean fully into it.”

+ “Oh?” +

“Watch and learn, Black Cloak, watch and learn...”

. . . - - - . . .

Date: First of June, year 810 Post Seminal War (810 PSW)

Location: The Anvil of Souls, Armageddon Reef, Sapphire Bay, The Jeweled Republics.

Job Arseoth opened his eyes as the light faded, exultant with the notion that he could fly. He opened his moth to proclaim his excitement, only to have it drop in horror. The Anvil of Souls, the centerpiece of Lady SiDiabolo’s Working, had cracked and split, held together only by the tiniest threads of cave-dark magic. A black seed sat at the center point of the cracks, its trialing roots both splitting The Anvil of Souls and holding it together.

The seed split and sprouted a humanoid figure with a pointed muzzle and pointed ears poked atop its head. Its body was covered in sun-gold fur, streaked with black spots, and clothed in a floor-length dress of black silk topped with a mithril chainmail shirt. It was not the decorative sort used by nobles or dancers, but the heavier vitals-protecting version used by adventurers and soldiers the world over. Red glowing eyes slitted against the encroaching darkness and searing light.

“L… Lady SiDiabolo?”

“Indeed, it is I. There will be time for questions later. For now, we should probably start running.”

Blue pointed a finger at The Anvil of Souls, “I hope you have a fast boat Ilelahne, because that is going to make one hell of a crater.”

Lady SiDiabolo nodded, “Job, lead out. We stop for nothing.”