Serpentine Squiggles

Plans 

Stage 0 (Outline) 

Stage 1 (Concept) 

Just as Team Duskborn found shelter from the wilds of the heartlands in the lakeside village of Wisterun, the death of its vesperbane ranger sends it reeling in fear and suspicion. With potential motive and no alibi, can Team Duskborn uncover the truth and prove their innocence?

In the shadows of this town, conspiracies and secret machinations are cast into light, and every suspect seems to have their own agenda.

Given Awelah’s violent impatience, Ooliri’s lack of confidence; and Makuja’s callous distance, they’ll never solve this mystery as they are.

Only when they commit themselves to uncovering the truth, in spite of the danger to their lives — in spite of an easier path to innocence — can they uncover the last piece of the puzzle in between the lines of the town’s history.

Along the way, Awelah learns to temper her violent impatience; Ooliri builds his confidence with Quessa as they grow closer; and isolated, Makuja discovers her commitment to her friends.

Yet even when they convince the the killer to confess, the rain doesn’t stop, and a deeper mystery awaits.

Arc 4: A Lakeside Investigation 

Chapter 4.1: A Sword Descending 

In the Mercure Ale, while returning from Tempit’s distraction, Yanseno panics at Quessa’s absence, yet two of Team Duskborn remain, so he breaks into their room, leaving sensor tags on them and contemplating interrogating them. He’s interrupted by Quessa’s emergency signal, so he leaves, hoping he can save her, his sensor abilities allowing him to navigate the ant‍-​haunted, nighttime streets of Wisterun to find and escort back a Quessa staggering in the wilderness, covered in dirt.

Meanwhile, in the direhound’s den, Ooliri tries to communicate with the direhound despite its cryptic, nonverbal responses, slowly piecing together Oocid’s handiwork, and the presence of a greater danger in Wisterun.

Hours later, in his room, half asleep keeping watch of Quessa, Yanseno meditating and refining his noudistortion [or reviewing the church incident?]. He’s awoken by a knock at the door — Ruby wants his attention and Yanseno doesn’t want to leave Quessa, but it’s too important: he follows her to find Ooliri standing besides Boleheva, dead on the side of the road. ↓

Yanseno kneels to investigate. In the sky above, barely discernible past the clouds, the sun is rising.

Dawn of Morrowane

10 days remain

Until Tenebra’s shadows fall

Chapter 4.2: The Wisterun Mystery 

At the roadside where Boleheva’s corpse lay, while looking over the body, Ooliri struggles to answer Yanseno’s interrogation. (He’s asking a lot of questions about Quessa.) Ooliri trips over himself to justify his innocence, refusing to reveal anything about the direhounds, and seems more suspicious as a result. Yanseno talks sense into him and gets him to cooperate. (Ruby mentions checking Boleheva’s body for the key to his office. “Otherwise, I have no way to get my work done.”)

Ooliri & Ruby have a small but significant interaction. Ooliri asks Ruby about the roaches in mudside, whether they’re mistreated. Whether they felt like Boleheva protected them. (“It seems like the ants didn’t think he was on their side. The council doesn’t like him either. I wonder if everyone feels that way.”)

On the streets of Wisterun, after leaving Ooliri under guard by town watch, Yanseno stands outside the Mercure Ale. Makuja and Awelah are gone from the inn, and tracking their tags takes him to a back alleyway — but this is a trap, and the pair ambush him, demanding to know what his intentions were.

Yanseno twists the conversation until he’s in a position to start subtly questioning them, asking a lot of questions about ants. Yanseno leaves them in limbo for a bit, before ultimately telling them they’re free to go; Ooliri’s waiting at the tavern.

Leaving the Mercure Ale, Ooliri reunites with Awelah and Makuja. They’re relieved to see he’s alive, but Awelah think Quessa has betrayed them, and argues Ooliri about whether they can trust her, or Yanseno (he put tracking tags on them!) after Ooliri explains what happened.

Awelah thinks, “The sooner we get out of this town, the better.” (After seeing what happened to Boleheva, Ooliri can’t help but agree). But they’re here to find the whereabouts of Lady Earthshaper.

Chapter 4.3: Ruby’s Rules 

From a corner of the tavern, Ruby watched the nymphs argue among themselves, and she’s the first one they ask about Lady Earthshaper. She doesn’t answer, and warns them of how pointless outsiders digging into their history is. They leave, and Ruby sighs.

Throughout the streets of Wisterun, Ooliri wanders with Team Duskborn, asking townsfolks about Lady Earthshaper, only to meet suspicion and distrust, and so they make no progress. They’re confronted by Tempit, who slings accusations that they vandalized the church, and detains them “by order of the council.”

Elsewhere in Wisterun, walking after Ruby as she heads to the town hall (she mentions needing to deliver some paper work to Syndic Eizelbrod), Yanseno asks her to help with the investigation, suggesting she take notes and such, and she rebuffs him. (“Don’t you psychic‍-​types have perfect memories?”)

Yanseno tries to use the death of Boleheva as motivation, and this pisses off Ruby. (Inwardly, the roach feels guilty.) They part ways at the town hall, and Yanseno leaves to go a smoke. In the lobby, he glances toward his partner’s office. Hang on Yanseno taking a step toward Boleheva’s office.

At the townhall, we meet the other councilbugs (among them, Syndic Eizelbrod), and lay out their demands. Team Duskborn have to leave town, or be detained in a dungeons. Ooliri argues, weakly, with half‍-​remembered civics lessons, that vesperbanes have certain rights, but Tempit bulldozes over it.

Ruby interrupts the meeting as established elsewhere, and whispers in the auricle of Eizelbrod, steering her to vote against the council’s motion. Ruby does some bureaucracy no jutsu to postpone the council’s ruling and let the nymphs go free.

Outside the courtroom, when the nymphs ask why Ruby did this, Ruby’s like look. You’re gonna skip town as soon as you give up looking for Lady Earthshaper, right? Like I warned you, nobody’s willing to talk. So why did I help you? The way I see it, the sooner you leave, the less paperwork there is for me. So you can thank me by getting lost.

But before they can leave, they four of them see Yanseno standing by the entrance waiting for them. He strides forth, and says nobody’s going anywhere. I went into Boleheva’s office, where I found this still in the door. He displays a brown‍-​crusted key, flakes of blood still falling off it.

“There are ten suspects,” he says. “And I’m looking at four of them.”

Chapter 4.4. Six Open Questions 

They’re back in the Mercure Ale, amidst the murmur of the crowd. Yanseno wanted to interview Ruby, but she demanded he buy her lunch first. (He make Ooliri pay for it, to the boy’s chagrin).

Ruby asks for a ridiculous amount of food, fit for a roach’s appetite. Petty bickering continues until it’s clear what’s happening is Ruby grasping for respect and control. They agree to make Ruby a part of their investigation (“But she’s a suspect!” to which Ruby replies : “And so is Yanseno. There’s only animals around to run this farm.”), and so Ruby finally answers the interview questions and gives her alibi for the night. (This establishes the pattern for other interviews to follow.)

After Ruby leaves, Yanseno performatively spars with Ooliri (see trainin notes), then reveals that he overheard Ruby telling someone to lie to corroborate her alibi.

Yanseno stops suddenly — he senses Quessa just woke up. So Yanseno runs back to the inn to ask her about last night. (Echoes some of the interview question.) She doesn’t remember anything, like usual. Yanseno offers to delve into her mind for answers. Scene break. (There is comes long silence via the audio log framing device.)

After a scene break, the recording resumes. (“Where was I?”) Along the streets of Wisterun, Yanseno searches, leading the investigation team down Mogs’s trail to try to get them to agree to interview, but they refuses unless the team gets her somewhere to stay.

The innkeeper at the Mercure Ale refuses under any circumstances to let Mogs back in. Then they talk to Tempit at the church, who refuses to house Mogs and also vehemently refuses to be interviewed by vesperbanes. Talk to the ants, who again refuse on both counts. Ruby eventually pulls some strings with her extended family. At last, they can interview Mogs.

Along the cleaner streets of northside, the investigation is walking to the house Karatikale is renting. He isn’t available when they go looking, but his wingless maid is. Argument with maid, maid refuses to answer questions. Hang on the observation that this all serves to makes Karat seem very suspicious.

Chapter 4.5: Underneath the Wheels Underneath the Wheels 

After failing to get any more interviews, Team Buskborn receive their first training session with Yanseno. It’s Ooliri pov. (See: training notes).

• Outside the gates of Wisterun, on their way to Fisher’s hunt,
  • here yanseno explains nerveboosting?
• After fisher rebuffs them, yanseno devises a training plan. but

Hang on an ant spying on them.

Chapter 4.6. While the Enemy Moves, We Wait 

Dawn of Waneshadow

9 days remain

Until Tenebra’s shadows extend

Yanseno sits in Boleheva’s office, having taken it over. He mulls over Tempit’s reports of welkinstone having been stolen while he waits for Karatikale to arrive for an interview. // do we see the interview?

On the streets, walking to the town hall for their scheduled training time, Ooliri watches Makuja & Awelah butt heads over whether to concern themselves with the investigation. They arrive before Karatikale’s interview is finished, and on his way out he reminds Awelah to meet at his house for their discussion.

• karatikale writes a story in the paper about the ants. It waxes dramatic about ants scheming in the woods on the night of Boleheva’s death. What were they planning?

• a friend of ruby comes forth, accusing/confessing about ruby’s secret scheming against boleheva

• Yanseno trains Team Duskborn in nerve boosting (which Makuja already knows). Also water walking lesson?

• Yanseno discusses the anthimati. (See passage)

Chapter 4.7. A Quiet Disappearance 

8 days remain (–03‍-​08)

At his house, while drinking tea and being waited on by roachservants, Karatikale is concerned about the disappearance of his maid, and discusses his interest in the investigation with Awelah.

Ooliri sneaks off to meet the direhound (framed with drawings in ooliri’s journal) and he ask if the hound is behind the disappearance.

Makuja asks about earthshaper? (Makuja writes with a knife in flesh). Get a note from Miss C complimenting her on his work.

// a recording of killer’s confrontation with boleheva is released, edited to obscure their voice

7 days remain (–03‍-​09)

Quessa works with ants? Introduction of ant board game

• Third Yanseno training scene happens, Yanseno pov.
  • Introduction of sworder draughts.
  • Yanseno reluctantly teaches awelah a basic sensor technique (bc she wants to find disappearer)

Chapter 4.8. Every Bug’s a Detective 

• Bites Water appointed head of the ant’s investigation
• Karatikale claims he’s solved the mystery
• the ants get ahold (some of?) boleheva’s stolen documents. Later, so does the council;
  • they could only have come from the culprit. Why give them away?

6 days remain (–03‍-​10).

Tempit rallies to town council to become suspicious of the investigation, and impatient with how long they’re taking to find the suspect. They get tipped off (by who?), and find mogs has several of the stolen goods in his room. He’s imprisoned, and Yanseno begins interrogating them.

5 days remain (–03‍-​11). Duskborn discuss plans for direanter slaying. Hang on them setting out.

Chapter 4.9. Hunting is a Sport, Politics is a Game 

• Mogs interrogation continues.

• fight against direanteater — what’s in play, at stake?

  • Yanseno is too busy to accompany them?
  • Find Miss C’s note & documents. (what?)

• Karatikale talks with Awelah, argues about justice.

• Makuja begins meeting with spooky figure.

• Finally, the interview with Bites Water.

  • Yanseno and Bites water are mutually interviewing each other.
  • The One Who Shapes the Sky below accompanies this one, and plays a string game with Quessa. This great one loses.

• 4 days remain.

• Strategizing/scoping out for erotyle fight. (Ooliri Water experiment happens?)

  • it’s not viable atm; they fail

• Hang on the coming storm. They’re out of leads, dont know who the killer is.

Chapter 4.10. A Failure’s Price 

• Mogs interrogation continues.
• Scenes of Makuja training with spooky figure. Revealed that Makuja’s technique (which?) can works on erotyles
• Makuja confronts Tempit in church?
• Ooliri & Ohannes scene happens
• Vision of astral plane; Uvema gives her a pep talk (You are Asetari) and Awelah finally pulls off the sensor technique yanseno taught her
• 3 days remain.
• Ruby pieced together the truth (sends out a roach messenger telling others to meet her tomorrow); then she’s found dead, her notes burned. Yet with this, Duskborn know how to find the truth.

Chapter 4.11: Black Shadows Haunting 

• Mogs interrogation continues.
• Erotyle puzzle. (the solution to erotyles puzzle isn’t trapping or killing them, it’s figuring out where they’ve layed their eggs.) Hang on finally being invited into the fisher’s cabin.
• Klepe writes to Ooliri, promising that anna will return. Letter explains mechanics of the demiplane and the sciachoron.
• Fishermant finally gives the town lore that pulls it all together.
• As they walk back to Wisterun, Awelah’s figured it all out, gives team duskborn orders.

Chapter 4.12: The Book of Karatikale 

• Awelah confronts Karatikale and Bites Water, talks down Karatikale. (bites water pov?)
• Ooliri goes to Karaikale’s house, searching for the book of Karatikale.
• mogs is freed, only for the debtors to return up. Makuja fights mogs’ debtors. Kills them? Interrogates them about khalko?
• Yanseno hears Karatikale’s confession, then sighs and takes a smoke break, watching the rain pour.
• Awelah confronts the One Who Shapes the Sky Below
• Makuja sits in the rain beside the hooded figure. (“You’re Miss C, aren’t you?”)
• Ooliri meets the direhound as it returns heralding Anna. (“You feel something big coming too, don’t you?”)

As the sun goes down on day seven, the rain hasn’t stopped. We hear thunder rumbling, and the clouds above are only getting darker. The lake writhes, and the shadows deepen.

End of Arc 4: A Lakeside Investigation

Arc 5: An Entcreek Deluge 

• Chapter 39: Karatikale dead in his holding cell, first sigil victim
• Chapter 40: Over the next days, two more sigil victims. Disappearances begin. First maul victims appear. Rain gets worse.
• Chapter 41: Yan begins investigating at the lake. Trio suspect him. Stop training with him. Argue about it, a&m argument happens. Awelah leaves to join Yan at the lake.
• Chapter 42: Rain gets worse. Town folks agitated. Nouetic Pressure begins. Riots over the refugees. Makuja quells them violently. Ooliri leaves with doggie, fetches Anna? Quessa disappears.
• Chapter 43: Night of the full moon. Water elemental emerges? Flooding begins. Everyone’s heading toward the lake. Yanseno defends Quessa, thinking the banes are here to attack her. Yanseno is killed, and Quessa sees this. This awakens her ophisrhodon. “I–I see now. I remember everything.” (why would ophisrhodon do this?)
• Chapter 44: Quessa explains the sigils. Ooliri explains the maulings. Awelah explains the disappearances. Makuja says fuck explanations, let’s get out of here. They flee the lake, try to save the town. Anna arrives, banishes the elemental.
• Chapter 45: Quessa joins the party, Anna becomes their teacher, they vow to raise money to restore to town.

Details 

// looking at ruby’s corpse

“From the look of it… she didn’t believe Mogs did it. She never did, did she? So she kept digging. Now she’s dead. There’s a lesson in that, I think. Sometimes you cut your losses, sometimes you pick your battles.”

“You don’t believe Mogs did it either, do you?”

“If I said I didn’t, that’d be grounds for a mistrial. My reputation would be dead in the water, if I knowingly convicted the wrong bug.”

“Just yes or no. You know this isn’t the whole story, don’t you?”

[Makuja pulls her back.] “You’re asking what he believes… but he’s a distortique. He believes whatever he needs to, doesn’t he?”

“I’m just a vesperbane doing business. This is the heartlands. We get a tragedy every damn shade.”

Boleheva is dead, his waterlogged body lying splayed open on the road outside of town. despite all the gore and viscera, there’s a startlingly lack of blood – as if it had all crawled out of him

// yanseno tells awelah and makuja about the direhound. Ooliri gets mad [incomprehensible, what did this mean:] “Hm? Oh, I fully expected you to answer and won’t if you should tell them or keep it secret, whether they’d really understand. Nymphs are stupid like that. They need to know, so I told them.”

“The thing about solving cases like this this… it ain’t enough to say a suspect had the means and the motive. At this point, it’s fair to say everyone wanted the bug dead for their reasons, and if you squint, you could see any of them on the other side of the gun, pulling the trigger.

“No, you need more than means and motive, you need to fit them together. You need to tell a story that can only logically end with the crime. Some think Boleheva is a monster, guilty and corrupted, and might kill him for vengence, for justice. But do you think someone so confident in his crimes would leave us scratching our head at just what they think he did wrong? This death doesn’t exactly send a message.

“Or maybe this was just an unfortunate, cruelly practical lever. They wanted his money, or to keep him silent. But then, if you’re trying to get away with murder, you could put more effort into it than leaving the body on the side of the road. There’s no misdirection here. Why not wait till he leaves town, then only months later are we wondering why no one’s ever heard from him again?

“No… when you line up all the clues here, there’s an unmistakeable throughline here. And that throughline is that this was planned, but it wasn’t plotted. It’s sloppy. It all feels like last minute improvisation. But who kills at the last minute? What I’m getting at here, is that I think our culprit didn’t want to kill Boleheva at all, but felt they had to. They were pushed, they were running out of time, they were desperate.”

// conclusion: “that’s why it’s mogs”

// Yanseno 

They had won, Yanseno thought. So why did he still feel a sword hanging over him?

“Vesperbanes die every day. Though I’d think you’d want to find who did this, if only to make sure you’re not next.”

Yanseno interrogates Awelah & Makuja. “Did you find him?” He refuses to answer. They demand to know what’s going on. “Meet on the south road. You need to see this.”

Boleheva’s corpse lays, exsanguinated as if the blood had crawled out.

yanseno’s like, first i have to evaluate if you’re worth training. I could do this on my own, after all. The test is simple: i’ve written a message on this sheet of paper. If you can figure out what my first lesson is supposed to teach you, then I deem you worth training.

“What’s the catch?”

He smirks. “It’s exactly what it looks like.”

“Let me guess. The test is whether we can take the sheet of paper from you. 

“Or guess what the answer is without seeing.”

“If you’re gonna be guessing, then new rule: you get one chance to tell me what the lesson is. Each. I’m only going to teach the ones who get it right.”

// they do have to fight him to get the sheet.

// they have to show off what they’re capable of, only to see it’s… blank??

// wtf does this mean is this a joke? Are we supposed to divine wisdom from a blank page?

// but no: there’s imprints on the page, allowing them to piece together what was written above

// it’s in code. Ooliri has to figure out how to break the cipher

// text is: encrypted text reads “page intentionally left blank”. Second sentence is in a different cipher? Reads: the medium is the message.

// a few scenes of duskborn arguing about it, trying to figure it out

// awelah’s answer: the page is a distraction. There’s no message. You wanted to see if we were strong enough to take the page from you.

// makuja’s answer: it’s an intelligence test. You wanted to see our problem solving skills. Given an situation with no clear answer, how do we search for a solution, and when do we decide there isnt one and give up?

// ooliri’s answer: i think they’re both right, but that’s not all of it. We needed to show off our skills to get the page, and exercise intelligence to figure out a solution. But if there’s no message, why use paper at all, and not just making us grab bells or something? But you chose to use a page. And the page could have been blank, if you wanted there to be no answer, but you left a puzzle we could figure out. I think… it’s a test run, of our ability to investigate. Using the clues to reconstruct the message is like using the clues to reconstruct what happened in the woods that night. If we can do one, maybe we can do the other.

// you know, i hate reading stories, yanseno says. ’But i love being told them. Especially when it’s a suspect spilling the guts, digging a hole they don’t know they’ll be buried in. the difference, i suppose, is that someone’s telling a story, it’s a conversation. You can ask them what they mean, but on the page, it’s a puzzle. The worst writers, you ask them what they mean and they’ll say it’s up to interpretation.” beat. “I say this to tell you how little respect I have for that sort of ambiguity where you throw up your hands and say all answers are valid. You’ll have to take my word for it: there was a wrong answer here. If you said ‘i dunno’ or cooked up something stupid, I’d have laughed in your face. But you aren’t wrong. None of you.”

// they look happy?

// “i didn’t say you pass. I hate intentionally ambiguous questions, and i hate intentionally ambiguous answers. If you said ‘you wanted to teach us how to be better vesperbane’, you wouldn’t have been wrong. In fact… you’d have been closer to being right! You forgot the question, didn’t you? All of this insightful analysis, clever frame challenges, thinking outside the box… You’ve figured out my motives. But I didn’t ask you what the goal of this lesson is. You already know how to fight, and I didn’t give you any pointers. You already know how to solve problems, and I didn’t make you answer better. Did any of you learn anything from this?”

// we learned what you wanted. It was a deduction puzzle

// ah yes, a course from the class of yanseno.

// you like it when you can just ask what people mean, right? Well, what did you mean? Which of us came closest to the answer?

// all three of you came close and didn’t figure it out.

// encrypted text reads “page intentionally left blank” you can peel back layer after layer, but some things are exactly what they look like.

// the medium is the message, what does that mean?

// what does anything mean? The meaning of a signal is just the set of circumstances that would make you send it. You say “ah, a bear” when there’s a bear. The content isn’t the most important thing. Sometimes, knowing that a message was sent can tell you everything you need to say.

// i still dont get it.

// here’s it is, as simple as i can make it: i sent a message. That’s it. Sending a message sends the message I’m trying to send. You don’t need to know what the message is to know that I sent a message. But back up, why would I send a message so empty of meaning? What could that mean? 

// i guess it’s this simple: it was a trap question. You can only figure out what I meant if you don’t understand it. It would have been even clearer, I suppose, if the encrypted message said: You’re looking too deep. I wasn’t hope you’d be good enough at puzzles to help with the investigation, i was hoping you weren’t.

“We failed to get interviews thrice in a row. The two interviews we did get only left us with more to suspect. Ain’t shit going my way. So I think I’ve earned having some fun kicking around a couple wretches.”

When yanseno dies: “Just as planned.” Beat. “Been playing at sword point since before it began. Of course I would lose. Just wanted to make that cost them as much as I could.”

Yanseno walking through the rain, his proxy field making all the raindrops roll off him.

// Chrysanthia 

“The problems in this town, dear Makuja, the rot that lies at its heart… They aren’t abstract. They have names and faces. They have addresses. Why not pay them a visit?”

“What are we doing? Oh, but you’ve figured out by now that Boleheva’s killing had a political animus, yes? It necessarily means, that when the killer is announced, well, it will have a political fallout. That fallout, it can play out in another number of ways. What we’re doing is planting seeds, engineering the pieces. I don’t what this to be some outburst of energy that quickly exhausts itself, I don’t want this to be something covered up. I want it to explode, and I want the foul fucking hierarchy this town is build on to be nothing but careening debris from that explosion. When the killer is revealed… then it’s all over.”

“We’re in the endgame, Makuja, the key pieces captured and sacrificed, the victor soon to be decided.”

“It doesn’t feel like justice, does it? Yanseno tortured a bug for confessions they didn’t have, and he doesn’t have to answer for it?”

(explaining why she does what she does:) “I serve to protect myself and my own. If I am to survive, and secure those I liege myself to, I shall brook no limitation for morality’s sake, nor pride. My part in Khalko’s plans ensures my place in Khalko’s future.”

// Chrysanthia invented the shock blossom as an assassination technique. “I’ve always wanted to kill someone with my hands alone.”

// Makuja accuses the hooded figure of being the killer 

“Me? Ha. Pulling the trigger is grunt work. Do you really think I don’t have better things to do?”

Makuja smirks. “Ah, you’d be too scared to kill someone.”

“Scared? Ha. No, I look forward to it, with anticipation. I have a vision of a glorious flower of death blossoming from the body of my foe. It’s an art I hope to render soon.”

Makujas turn to laugh. “My masters used to say the only ones who talk about death that way are virgins or they’re coping. Death isn’t beautiful, it just is.”

“What would you know? How many have you killed?”

“Must I keep count?”

“I don’t believe you. You’re younger than I am. You would remember every one”

“They aren’t all memorable. But yes. The answer is seventeen. Four imagos, the rest were pawns or fresh wretches. One of the imagos was my master.”

“You had a master, then?”

“Are you familiar with heroic exchange?”

“That lie we tell the laity so they sacrifice their children with pride?”

“I was taken, given the first pharmakon, so that my master might spare her then‍-​apprentice’s talents in healing a plague that had fallen over my village. I think she expected me to die in the ritual.”

“You didn’t, and then she was stuck upholding her end of the bargain?”

“I would think I was a better student than she could have expected. I was useful.”

“Is that all you wanted to be? I guess not, if you killed her.”

“I was useful even as I killed her. It wasn’t her.”

“Or you’re coping,”she echoes.

// Awelah & Karatikale 

“Boleheva died, was killed, and Makuja wants us to just… walk away from that. Without knowing why, without setting things right. But… I can’t. It’s too much like… She needs to be avenged, by someone. Someone needs to care.”

[Karat flinches.] “Do you think… every death needs to be avenged? Even for the worst, worse of all?”

“No every death. But some things need to be avenged. You can feel it deep in your throats. What happened with Boleheva… it’s disgusting to me.”

“It was a killing in cold blood. Is it any differ, different from what you plan for the One‍-​Winged Pheonix?”

“When I come for the One Winged Pheonix, everyone will know. It won’t be a mystery why they died, I’m not going to be sneaky about it. I’ll battle her in front of a crowd of people if I must.”

“So is it the witnesses that makes a killing just?”

“Justice… is about judgment. My reasons will be clear. Others can judge me. They’ll find that I was more than justified.”

“And if they find that you aren’t? If the cycle of vengeance continues, if the One‍-​winged Phoenix has a young cousin who’ll come after you in return?”

Karatikale is like “dont you think it might be better to pursue the truth, tell that story, and let the world judge? The judgment of one bug can’t supercede the rulings of the systems, right?”

Awelah’s like ’what systems? You’re just leaving it up to another bug. If i stand back and let someone else enact justice… I’m leaving it to the same system that ignored Duskroot’s cries for help even when we saw a world‍-​scar coming, that left us to die when mercenaries circled around its corpse. No, I’m not going to just find out the truth, just tell a story to whoever would listen. It’s not enough to tell a story, you have to write the ending. You have to win.”

// awelah is able to reach out to a resisting kara, culminating in:

“You asked me, days ago, about how far I’d be willing to go, for justice. If I’d be willing to kill to get it. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

“…Yes. I just. I wanted to know the truth. Wanted everyone to know the truth. There’s no closure on the lake incident, and I was just, convinced there had to be some unseen thread tying it all together, a dark secret I could uncover like some grand detective. But Boleheva, boleheva told me the truth, that night. I didn’t believe him. I didn’t want to believe him, I refused. And now…” Beat. straightening himself. “I said this was about justice, didn’t I? And it’s, it’s clear what the just path forward is, now. I, I’m the one who did wrong. I should be taken away. I won’t resist.”

// karatikale bragging 

“Aha! But I’ve already deduced who the killer is! Believe me, the truth will be, be quite the revelation!”

[yanseno unamused] “Who?”

“Oh, but I couldn’t, couldn’t say just yet. Do not doubt, I very well could! But the politics of this town are fraught, fraught with tensions. A careless accusation could very well provide an unneeded spark to this fire, and I would not want to be responsible for that.”

“So it’s a careless deduction?”

“Far from it! But the reasoning is too subtle, the evidence just barely sufficient. I am writing a grand article exposing the truth, and when I’ve made my case everyone will see — I’ll have no fear that cooler heads shan’t prevail with all of the logic arrayed before them. But here, now, where I will stutter over my words, struggled to organize them? No, I fear too greatly that it will be misunderstood.”

“I am almost finished with my article, but there a missing piece I am struggling with so greatly. If I could only answer this question, everything would be perfect and complete. Why? What was the motive, motivation for such an act? I could not have been wanton violence that animated it, for everyone is the hero of their own story. It was a political act, that much is abundantly clear, but what political end did it serve? What reasoning could explain, could justify a cold blooded murder?”

// yanseno mentions how vesperbanes arent mantids under pantheca law 

“Does that mean you can just… kill vesperbanes and get away with it?”

“No. Means the matter of persecuting crimes against vesperbanes is done by stronghold law, not the standard law syndics adjudicate. Standard law, that’s the enlightened, dignified rules a bunch of philosophers reasoned out from first principles. Stronghold law? Few centuries ago, it was clan law, and before that, it was the operating procedure of batslaying warlords.”

“I feel like you’re winding up to say it means they eat criminals alive, or something,” Ooliri said.

“There’s a few steps before that,” Yanseno said.

“What.” Beat.”That was — I hoped I was joking!”

Yanseno waves it off. “The word is trial by vesper. Think Pharmakon Rites, but the haruspex beseeches the vespers to judge the defendant.”

“I thought… vespers aren’t intelligent. How could they decide if someone committed murder?”

“No no, the think they aren’t judging is whether you did it. If you’re at the point of trial by vespers, a court of the laity would have found you guilty. No, the vespers judge whether you should live. And rot isn’t known for refusing a corpse.”

Ooliri’s mouth is open, but Awelah is nodding, then turns and twists antennae at the gray nymph.

“Silverbane’s a clan, isn’t it?”

“Well…” But his voice isn’t loud saying it.

“In Duskroot, those who transgressed against the Asetari had their trials in public, where anyone in the stronghold could see the judgment.”

“Tell me, do you know what a ranger is?” 

// Makuja doesn’t

“Right so, to understand rangers, the thing you need to wrap your head around is that the scale vesperbanes operate at. Do you know what it takes do be a vesperbane?”

// Devotion

// Willpower

// The dream? Proper offerings?

He laughs. “When you look into the sky, stare at the clouds, you see flies and flowers. But it’s just mist getting stirred around by wind. Nothing but a bunch of smoke. It’s random. Bugs don’t like random, and they’ll see any number of patterns, make up all sorts of comforting stories, before they accept that.” Shakes his head. “Go find some fresh‍-​fevered wretches — you don’t count — and ask them about their friends. The ones who didn’t make it, the ones the vespers refused.” (The stricken look on Ooliri’s face belied Yanseno’s dismissal.) “Ask if they had any devotion, any willpower, any faith in the dream. How much is enough? How can we be sure? Or do we take it for granted, and say getting accepted by the vespers is what it means to have those qualities? It’s all nonsense. But we’re getting off track”

“You were telling us about rangers.”

“I was telling you about scale. I asked, and none of your had the right answer.” [Dice prop? No, coin flip] “It’s luck. You three are alive and not fungus‍-​eyed corpses because you got lucky. That’s it.”

// Reactions? Outrage?

“This matters, because it means training up a population of banes is a numbers game. You throw people’s children into the fire, some of them die, and that’s the cost of doing business. But everyone who gets unlucky is a bane you don’t have.” Beat. “Point is, Boleheva got lucky, right? But he didn’t just get lucky once. After all, most bugs who live to nurse vespers die a few months later any way. They say half the bugs die with their first vespers. Two thirds die with their second. Three fourths die before getting promoted. And so on.”

“And Boleheva got past all of those hurdles.”

“And then went on to get promoted again. Now, don’t get it wrong: those numbers are bullshit, statistics aren’t that clean. But the shadows of it is right. The fraction of bugs that are banes, of banes that are fiends… It’s an exponential curve – exponential in the wrong direction. We’re a minority, a tiny one. And when something’s scarce…”

“It’s valuable.”

“Sometimes. My shits are one of a kind – how valuable do you think they are?” He smirks. “More than yours think. But the point is – what are banes good for?”

” Protecting people.” Ooliri

// Others answer

“Wrong again. Banes are for making money. No more, no less.”

“That doesn’t sound…”

// Noise about the pantheca being opposed to capitalism

“Ain’t noble, but it’s the truth. ’course, dead bugs don’t make money, so protecting bugs is good for business. And besides, the pantheca pays us to defend it. It’s our jobs.”

“Are you finally going to answer, then? Boleheva’s job was…”

“Protecting this precinct. Banes protect bugs, but fact is most bugs are ants growing mold and tubers, or roaches plucking grains. Farmers. The heartlands is big, and They’re all spread out. Couple that with high level banes being scarce, and you get rangers: one bane expected to patrol a whole swath of land year round. So they take regular circuits, landing in each village at least once a year to all the bugs there what troubles them and how their big strong bane can protect them.”

“Something funny about Boleheva is that clan name of hers. Redbane. Back in the warring clans days, when bugs reverted to feudalism and banes ruled bugs from castles, guess who owned this track of land?” Smirk. ” Castle Redbane still exists. The lay branch of the clan owns it now, but their vesperbane cousins get free lodging, despite being different lineages on paper.”

“So what, are the Redbanes supposed to be the secret feudal rulers of this land?”

“Oh, of course is suggest nothing so conspiratorial. The realignment was a revolution, after all, and now there are no lords, no masters, no nobility. But it is funny…did you know the ranger before Boleheva had the same surname?”

// ruby reveal 

// After ruby’s interview, yanseno instructs I’ve of the nymphs to cast spells at him in the middle of the street while he does the same. After wards, with a look of triumph and frustration, he explains

“That was a bit of theater, so that all the onlookers have a misleading story to tell. Those damn banes just had a duel in the middle of the street! And no one will suspect was I actually did.”

“Which was?”

“Eavesdropping. The useful thing about a niter affinity – about aerokinesis – coupled when my sensory specialization is that if I can be exceptionally sensitive to vibrations.”

“Your hearing is really good.”

“Precisely.”

He doesn’t elaborate, but he frowns thoughtfully

“So what, exactly, did you overhear?”

“Nothing more than our little roach invalidating her alibi and putting her back on the suspect list. Sure just asked a runner to tell [name] to lie about where she was last night. She’s got something to hide.”

// Awelah scents out her true death spot.  

// Awelah rubs the setae of her antennae to increase the scent she gathers.

// “Lotta fluff for a scent‍-​tracker.”

“Father wouldn’t let me cut it.”

“Stifling family, eh?” Yanseno sounds like there’s familiarity in his tone.

“Appearance is everything. He saved me from embarrassing myself, and my family.”

“Got look noble, right. Appearance is everything if there’s nothing else.”

// Ooliri in the cave with the direhound  

It makes that howling sounds that almost resembled his name, spoken through alien medium. The rhythm was there, the unmistakable ‘oo’ sound. The direhound stares at him, noses him.

“That’s my name. You’re — you’re not attacking.” Ooliri says it to himself more than anything else.

And then the direhound nods.

“You. Do you um, understand me?”

Another nod!

“Do you… are you friendly? But you attacked Makuja.”

The direhound barks. Then it makes that other familiar sounds. Awelah. The direhound swipes with his clawed paw.

“But Awelah… you ran from Awelah.”

A nod, but Ooliri’s mind is still working, and he hits on the piece that fits. The direhound attacked Makuja. But Awelah? And now Ooliri? “You want to hurt her, but not me or Awelah?”

Nod. There’s a jerking motion of the forepaw // imitation of a stabbing.

“But why?” Then realizing there’s no yes or no response to that, he tries, “Who? Who are you working for?”

The dog points at itself, at its [bloody skin?]. And it tries to make a sound. He recognizes the ‘oo’ sound of his own name — but there’s only two syllables.

“No,” Ooliri says. “No.” He’s putting force behind the negation — it’s a dam, against the hope that’s welled up, the terrible hope that could only be disappointed. “It can’t be. You’re not — you’re…”

There was one name that shared a syllable with his own, and one less syllable.

// yanseno on power 

“Which is more important,” Yanseno asks, “the potency of your abilities, or your application of them?”

“Potency,” Awelah says. “Only strength can overcome the strongest foes.”

“Application,” is Makuja’s answer. “I prefer patience and precision. Death without a sound.”

“It’s a mix of both, isn’t it? Without potency, there’s nothing to apply, and without application, potency is useless. There are problems that require more of one or the other, but you always need both.”

“How astute. Not everyone can look past a dichotomy,” he starts. “But you’re a fool for looking past what’s there. Didn’t ask you which you needed, I asked which was most important. [Can’t have a house without someone to build and someone to paint it], but they ain’t both important. Makuja’s correct. Potency can compensate for sloppy application, and clever application can compensate for potency, but if you’re aiming at the wrong target no amount of strength is going to save you. There are thing more power can’t fix. But with enough cunning and the right aim, heh. A small cut in the right place kills anyone.”

“A beast with a hide impenetrable to any of your weapons. A foe too evasion for you to land a single attack. A monster who could destroy entire teams of vesperbanes. You think a clever plan means anything against that?”

// Anna on prophecy: 

Every bane bears the seed of some ideal inside them, that blossoms forth with their acts. We are all prophecy in the flesh, and I have seen the prophets of many gods and have no interest in nursing another prophet of power, of suffering and death. Vesperbanes grown without ideals and hope, and that is what all of them become. So I will ask again. What is your prophecy?

Makuja is like i have doused myself in the blood of the weak and devited(?). I have seen the alien cruelty at the culmination of that path. I … would like to atone. Become something different. My prophecy… is redefinition.

Ooliri is like, all of us have lost so much. There must be a way to bring it back, or strip all this. I’d like to be.. Restoration.

Awelah…?

“What about you? What’s your prophecy?”

“When you have learned the fate of every prophet that ever strove, then I’ll share my own. Until then… please. Dream a little, before the dawn comes.”

// arc 5 epigraph: 

Oh no. It’s here.

A hideous claw stabs a hole in the rowboat and it fills with cold black water. She cries. She is going to die again.

Before her torch is doused by the waves, she gets a look at that terrible face. The monster’s ravenous maw and spikey palps and its eyes. The eyes are green. Just like hers.

She is going to be eaten again. She cries and cries. So many tears. It’s a lake of her tears. Her mistakes.

// Yanseno on anthimati 

// At one point Yanseno is asked to explain the curse or why the ants were asking about the Anthimati:

“The curse, eh? Fine. Do you know why I became a neurobane, trained as a distortique, despite the headaches, despite the risk of madness? I see it simply: you can lose tools, you can lose jobs, status, friends, you can lose all you love, lose all hope. You can lose your life. But the thing you can never lose? Your mind.”

“Even if you go mad?”

“If you go mad, either you’re beyond saving, or you’re not. If you are, that’s death as far as I’m concerned. Insanity, the concept, might do some bugs some good, but believe in it too much, and it just spooks you into going along with whatever wild thing we decide is sane. We used to think worshiping the bats that ate us was sane. Feel like folding your vise up for the lord emperor of the heavens?”

“He’s dead. Like all the vesperbats.”

“Ya. We changed our script. Today, going batty like that is a fast trip to the asylums. But till we did that, was it sane? Don’t know what the nymphs ten decades from now are gonna know is right tripe. We’re all insane, if you get straight to it.”

“What about the thrall spell?” Ooliri says. “The mantids that worshiped bats, they weren’t of their right mind.”

“Most were. Still got cults that tell it like vespers were a gift from the emperor, and the fall of the myriad kingdoms was all part of the holy plan — or a perversion of it to atone for.” Beat. “But you’re getting to my point by yourself, thinking like that. Remember where I was a minute ago? Your mind is the one thing you can never part with. It’s yours. It should be. Can’t let anyone do your thinking for you. But plenty will try, and not just with pretty words.”

“Nouprojection. Spells that warp the mind.”

“Nice. I get to skip that bit of exposition. If the connectique views another’s mind, and the distortique protects it, projectique completes the set. It’s not mind control — the brain is a physical thing, and true control, lasting change, means physical manipulation. I can manipulate your heart,” — Yanseno lunges forward, minutely, startling Ooliri — “if I do that. Now it’s beating faster. But I don’t control your heart. It’s not going to pump blood at more pressure or efficiency than you’ve trained for. If I injected some ichor into you, though—”

“What does this have to do with the curse?”

“Everything. But if this angle ain’t doing it for you, let me try a different track. Know any history?” He watches the nods. “Then you know the heartlands was a horror story before the Pantheca. Welkinist theocracy burning vesperbanes alive or impaling them on lightning rods before a storm. And where the vesperbane ruled, they made festivals of eating those they protected, like they were aping the bats that came before them. This was at its worse right before the second great arthropod war. Third Dominion had a few decades at the wheel, enslaving millions in waking agony and putting whole species and cultures to the torch. The vesperbanes watched it all happened and helped. But the good guys won. Third Dominion fell and we tried all the bastards at the the Vrilsekh tribunal.” Yanseno stopped there.

“And then?”

“And then there’s no happy ending. The great clans sat on top when atrocity was in full swing — Brismati, Ichneumon, Nibrssa, Culicida, Redbane — you run the ancestry back far enough you’ll find them sitting on the Third Dominion’s councils.” Yanseno held a smirk until it became ugly. “And they were all found innocent.”

“How!”

“They did what they were made to do. Their wills were not their own. The supposed masterminds and architects of it were on puppet strings. And the puppeteers behind it all was the great Anthimati clan. An entire clan raised for domination, a blood secret of mind‍-​control. Each one a projectique beyond compare.”

“But you just said it’s not mind control. They don’t change the brain, just influence it.”

“The next thing you find, after discovering a rule, is a blood secret that breaks it. But no, the Anthimati were different. You see, not all of the projection defense was made up for convenience of the noble clans. The Anthimati inheritance is an endowment, the cursed eyes of the beholden, the treacherous snake‍-​rose: in a word, the ophisrhodon. It looks upon a mind, and sees as it familiar as a face, every hard‍-​learned pattern a master connectique could learn comes as naturally as a mantis knowing how to hunt. The eye is ringed by fangs, and if it bites you, and you choose to relent, the ophisrhodon plants a seed within you, and you become beholden. It physically roots itself in the brain, and you can hear the voice of the ophisrhodon bearer as clearly as your own thoughts. If you swear loyalty and later betray them, they will know.” Yanseno glances away. “Does it go as far as actual control, or is it merely the ultimate tool of coercion? Might be an academic distinction. Best case scenario, it’s something terrifying I want nowhere near me.”

“What happened to the Anthimati clan? Were they, did they at least get punished?”

“The Thimithi clan delivered justice, torching the clan’s villa in a vespertine inferno. Called the technique the Eternal Flame Damnation, and you don’t get a name that flowery unless it’s serious business. The Thimithi control flames like you’d control a tamed beast, and there was a special sentience in this spell. It was a judgment, and it was left to the vespers to decide if any of the Anthimati were worth saving.”

“They couldn’t have all been in one place. Didn’t some survive?”

“Like I said, you don’t get a name that fancy if it’s just hot smoke. The Anthimati share a bloodline, and it’s already vespertine, as seen in the inherited eye. How it was explained to me is that a Thimithi haruspice blessed the flame to burn the bloodline itself — but haruspices are full of shit, so who know what they really did. So even Anthimati not in the villa burned — but the flame saw fit to spare two survivors. Sisters: Eothi and Chloris Anthimati.

“At first, seemed like the vespers made a good call. Eothi and the Thimithi heir presumptive, Theion, fought side by side in the Realignment, grew to be like sisters. Eothi’s speeches about forging a new future, a dawn for the whole heartlands, rallied thousands to the cause. She had an ophisrhodon, and used it to inspire, not control. All told, they built the Pantheca from the ground up. But when the foundations were laid, someone needed to perch on top, and the syndics picked Theion to be the first Overscourge of the wardens.”

// “Why?”

“Politics. Eothi thought the revolution would be eternal, that we’d should never stop fighting for a better future. Theion was optimistic, believed that the Vepserbane Stewartry and the inequality of vespertine over laity would go with it. It was placating and unambitious, and after the Third Dominion, everyone had a reason to be afraid of ambitious banes. So Theion became overscourge, but Eothi still had her supporters. Those who believed in her philosophy, or just liked being vesperbanes and liked that there’d always be vesperbanes in her world. So even went as far as thinking she was the rightful Overscourge.

“Then Khloris died on a mission the Pantheca forced him to take. Eothi felt betrayed. She refined her ophisrhodon till it could affect not only mantids, but bind world‍-​scars to her will. Somehow. Every scourge level bane is on some bullshit. Suffice it, Eothi was more powerful than any other, and her followers were only more devoted. So the lot of them were marked for death and sent on a suicide mission into the northern swamps, reclaim land from the therids. They didn’t die, and they didn’t report back to the Pantheca. Now Eothi had a whole land to arrogate control, and she became the first antiscourge: a vesperbane defector who was not just a military threat, but a political one.

“They needed Theion more than ever, but the Overscourge disappeared. For three years. As Eothi only grew in power. [Turns out], she’d pilgrimaged to the weevils in the wild south, sought enlightenment and got a power up. Now she wielded something called flourishing flame, and was the closest match to Eothi among all vesperbanes.

“They fought, and the good guys won. But Eothi or Khloris, one of them must have fucked somebody, because there came more Anthimati. Still are. And I guess the ultimate insult to Eothi’s memory is that the remaining Anthimati betrayed even her, and sided with the Pantheca. Even then, nobody really trusted them, and that’s about where we stand today.”

“Are they… are they all that powerful? The whole clan?”

// “Of course not. Eothi was the strongest bane of that age, maybe ever. Theion says she only won because the antiscourge still had a soft spot for her old comrade. Eothi had an ophisrhodon with seven fangs, and nobody before or since has seen an Anthimati with more than five. The closest we’ve come to a Anthimati anything like Eothi in power level is Edu of Three‍-​lakes.”

“That name feels familiar.”

“From the sound of that name, they weren’t Anthimati, were they?”

“So, back after the first grand trial — that’s what the called the situation with Eothi, because we’re too good to have plain old wars anymore — Theion didn’t feel up to leading vesperbanes anymore. Stepped down, and her sister stepped up, Immolata Thimithi. The Anthimati were still causing problems. Immolata thought the Anthimati were innately treacherous, and to prove it, passed an ordinance giving her administration the right to seize Anthimati children and raise them as public wards. Back then, the only scourgehold was the Three Lakes Stronghold. Hence, Edu of Three‍-​lakes.

“You might recognize the name because he was in a triumvirate: specifically, the three judges of the second grand trial. Uvema Asetari, Anna No‍-​name, and Edu ofThree‍-​lakes. Together, they fought Synthia Shadow‍-​crown to a standstill. Synthia, I don’t know if your history covered this, was a big enough deal she killed the second overscourge. So, Edu is at least in that ballpark of power, and that was when he was what, a few years past teneral? Scourges are on some bullshit.

“But remember, the orphan program was just Immolata trying to prove Anthimati can’t be trusted. Given that context, you can imagine Edu didn’t get along too well her. He eventually broke away from the Three‍-​lakes stronghold, went maverick, and changed his name back to Anthimati.

“The funny thing is that’s not what they call him. His usual moniker was Edu ‘Nophisrhodon’ Anthimati, because he never activated his blood secret.”

// Yanseno interviews Karatikale: 

“What was your interview about?”

“General vesperbane life. Most that gets written of vesperbanes focus on the city banes, the teams that operate in strongholds and capitals. But most bugs don’t live in city, so a lot of what they’ll see if vesperbanes, if they see of vesperbanes, will be interacting with rangers like Boleheva.”

“He seemed upset when he asked you to leave. Why is that?”

“I must, must have tripped over some old wounds, or classified mission info. I… I’ve been trying to get an interview with her for a while, so I was, nervous.”

“How did you feel about your reception?”

“I… ashamed, mostly. Disappointed in myself, frustrated at my ineptitude.”

“No negative feelings toward Boleheva?”

“I don’t blame her, for reacting how she did. I certainly wish she’d been more accommodating, but surely she would have cooled down in a few weeks and I could try again. I certainly can’t interview her now.”

// ooliri & ohannes 

// Ooliri shows up and ohannes is there, examining the direhound

“Who, who are you?”

“My, quite the question that is. Identity. Much to ponder, in a topic like that. Who am I. It’s fairest to say I would have difficulties with a question like that, and you would have difficulties with an answer. No, I think it best not to share my speculations.”

Ooliri backs up. “Well, I have to admit I don’t have a lot of trust for a name who’d dodge a question this simple. Not in these circumstances.”

“Believe me, I sympathize. More than you know. Your first true mission is always a tribulation. Harrowing. Still, I resent that my humility should be reason to distrust me, rather than the opposite. But, to truly treat you with fairness, I shouldn’t neglect that you do, in fact, have so many reason to distrust me, if you truly understood what I represent, and what I herald.” Beat, focus on direhound. “Here, allow me to grant you a olive branch. You ask who I am, but let me gauge what you believe. It has relevance, believe me. This direhound, is he your brother?”

// Ooliri taken aback

“You.. you’re… Someone’s memories?”

“I would avoid drawing too tight of a parallel. Certainly the difference are stark; I lack Oocid’s ingenuity, his sheer will to live. I could not do what he did, and I admire him for that.”

“If you didn’t…does that mean someone else…”

“I’ve told you the parallels aren’t so strong. But if you intend to walk this path, let’s skip to the end. The direhound and myself both exist for a reason. A purpose.”

“And your purpose had something to with what’s happening, doesn’t it?”

“Ha. No, this tragedy is so… awfully small, in the right scheme of things. No, my purpose is so very much greater than the lives that dwelled here. What happens here…is no more than a terrible lemma in the enactment of that theorem‍-​purpose.”

“So you are one of the bad guys.” // Pulls out baton

“If only things were so simple. No, I’m here because what binds me to the purpose… It’s looser than these ‘bad guys’ suppose it is — looser than they hope it is. This is both due to whom I once was, and because of whom I’m helping.”

“So you’re using that slack to help us at their expense. But…who are you helping? Am I that special?”

“Not yet. No, not yet, but you do have the attention of someone who is.”

“Who?”

“Who was all of this for? Why you’re in Wisterun at all?”

He thought. “…Lady Earthshaper?”

“I knew her by another name, once. A grand title she deserted, forsaking her duties, forsaking everyone. So much went wrong because she failed. But she was a hero, such a hero, such that even in the disgrace she now endures, I might defy my oathmasters just by dint of the goodwill she retains among the vespers.”

“Does that mean…can you take us to the Earthshaper? If you knew her, your could convince her to help us!”

“What? Ah, you didn’t know. Ooliri, child, you already met Lady Earthshaper and her companion wasp.”

“The old lady!? So it was all pointless, then. We didn’t need to come all this way. If we could have just figured out..”

“Oh, it wouldn’t have helped. If she let you continue on… she must have found you wanting, not worth teaching. How familiar. This business in Wisterun… it’ll be a test. You have a chance to prove you’re worth teaching. History seems eager to repeat itself.”

“A test! But someone died! More bugs might die!”

“Everyone might die. This whole town, consumed by the shadows.”

“Is that what they’re planning? Another—” Ooliri froze. “Another Duskroot?”

“If Anna knew what was at stake, she’d help you, perhaps. End her hermitage at once and save all these bugs. I think you should ask that of her. If you said the seal will be opened unless she makes her move…”

“Ask her? How? She’s far out in the wilderness, I don’t even know where!”

“I think your companion might have an idea. A dead lady and sealscribe would have a…distinctive scent.”

// Ooliri would be sending the direhound off, long enough it might be days before he returns… and that’s if this bane is to be believed, if any of this is to be believed.

“I guess. But, well, this all comes back to whether I can trust you, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose it does. Then how about this, to serve as a token of my gratitude?”

// Gives him the magic root that let’s him perform ledgersnare

“For me… I found ledgersnares, at their core, to be tools of bondage. But before they can binds others, they must be grown, and they are grown in one’s person. The method, then, is to meditate on one’s bonds, and let them become manifest, constricting around you physically.”

[Rhiza form: ledgersnare]

Ooliri frowned. “The books didn’t say ledgersnare required any esoteric components.”

“Take it from someone who understands the vespers as true companions. Every technique hungers for esoteric components.”

Ooliri’s antennae trained thoughtful.

“Hopefully, I will fail. But the dusk soon approaches, and I must be gone.”

“Wait. Will I, well, will I meet you again?”

“If we meet again in this prefeture… then it will be with myself as a reaper, scythe in grasp, as I harvest you alongside a town full of innocent bugs.” Something like a smile. “We are, after all, destined enemies. There’s no averting that. Pray yourself a little more strength before we meet again.”

// Ohannes melts into roots

// Later, a mushroom circle blooms here

// Ooliri reflects on the decision

// why didn’t anna do something sooner? 

// “I told you I was a coward. A coward, and a complacent one at that.” beat. “I saw the seal not long after it was first laid down. I am, perhaps, one of the few mantids in the heartlands that might recognize the type of seal it was, know its relation to the chorons. A few mantids, a damned few. So many of them dead. All of them supposed to be dead. What was I to do? I know of it, but the details? I knew not if the seal was meant to call forth or keep in, or something subtler still. Knowing the mantis who could scribe a seal like this, any pains I could take to obscure my identity or the source or depth of my knowing would be pierced through like child’s prey. I would be sacrificing the peace I’d earned after decades of strife, and for what? At the time, I would not know. If there truly was something amiss, anyone I could reach would be powerless to stop it. I could thwart it, if I needed to, if I managed it. But… I am a coward.”

// Scene from Anna’s pov; she and Klepé decide to head toward Wisterun?

// awelah having a heart 

// Awelah empathizes with Quessa about her anxieties, taking the Anthimati name. The aseterai are dead. Gone. whatever I build next, it will be different, new. A creation that must stand on its own. I do not trust the Anthimati that lived and their name as it stood. But you stand alone, in ruins, and what you become will be new, even if it wears an old name.

// would she say that though

// Ruby characterization notes 

Looked down all her life, rolls with the punches, will do anything to get ahead. She schemes, manipulates, but in a subtle way, making her familiar and useful. Her goal is to become a syndic and slowly make things better for roaches in Wisterun.

She works for Boleheva, but she works against Boleheva — she leaks his secrets (to the council? To the ants?)

She’s practical; she gets the job done. She’s neither cruel nor compassionate.

Ideas 

Ooliri gets his father’s notes from the direhound, and works on the cipher to decode them. This allows him to decode karatikale’s trivial cipher.

If karatikale really cared about justice, he could have written stories on the treatment of roaches, the duskroot refugees. Instead, he chases conspiracies. Ruby even approached him about this. He could have helped her run for prefect and change things. He didn’t care

Quessa plants miss c’s notes, alongside the documents they need (awelah’s info). Notes says ’hey, let mogs take the fall. You can walk away.” duskborn refuse.

Karatikale hates rain falling on him, reminds him of the shower of blood

Tempit giving a speech about how Boleheva was a devil struck down by the ancestors

Awelah needs to want to protect quessa → wants to get rid of chrysanthia

People trying to fuck off out of wisterun get restrained by mysterious ledgersnares (pre‍-​ch36)

Awelah confronts sky‍-​shaper, saying you knew all along, didn’t you? And you just moved pieces on the board, manipulating the odds, and for what?

The boleheva affair didnt concern her, she was fighting a greater enemy.

Awelah’s like Tell me who the greater enemy is

No. this nest is doomed, and telling you will not save us. You could walk away. Your foes allowed you to survive your nest’s destruction for a reason; they will allow you to survive again. But they will not allow us to leave so simply.

Ants refuse to allow bites water to be interviewed due to politics. Town council refuses to allow Tempit to be interviewed due to politics. Fisherman lives too far away. 

False evidence to mislead investigation

Growing tension between A&M — reveal of kuon?

makuja theorizes that mogs’s creditors encouraged him to kill boleheva. Creditors are the masterminds?

in the interrogation, yanseno comments that he knows mogs isnt smart enough to come up with a plan this complex on his own. What he thinks is that someone did most of the logistical legwork, and now they’re setting up mogs to take the fall for all of it. But you were the one to pull the trigger, weren’t you?

Yanseno explains chi surges (cant do them while maintaining a technique).

after days in the wild, having safety & people to talk to besides each other is a relief for team duskborn.

associate quessa with chrysanthemums

she says they remind her of her mother? Her mother loved these flowers

makuja points out they’re poison flowers. ‘Was she an assassin?’ she asks.

Yan takes bites water’s mycoweave to another ant for investigation?

ooliri cleans & heals the direhound, making it harder to scent.

Why do they need figure out who killed boleheva? Was something important stolen from the office? Money, definitely, and documents. Anything else?

Go see the spinners to pay respects for the dead? Ants have a library, and the killed ants were delivering something.

at some point, do research in the ants’ library, learning certain lore, such as the history of the anthimati clan and its foundational figure, Eothi, who sealed the choronic elementals.

// ants had the info and didn’t know, but with yanseno’s revelation, they know what to look, are able to grasp that eothi et al is relevant to what’s going on

ooliri & quessa go on a date

Mogs is interrogated after the archonblood connection is revealed. His memories are difficult to decode due to welkinflame exposure, implicating Tempit — had she sensed ‘something foul’ in him?), and his natural distortique/flickermind nature?

when yanseno turns his magical senses upon boleheva’s remains, he’ll find the most damning and suggestive of evidence: lingering traces of antiumbral residue, suggestive of welkinflame exposure. This exonerates all vesperbanes

fisherman feeds the outcast?

Suspicion falls on Karat when they investigate the outcast, and find out Karat had interviewed them before.

// ‘he had all the info we did, and somehow didn’t figure it out?’

direhound overhears Chrysanthia talking about seals? Finds anna & klepe to tells them. They put the pieces together, suspect a summoning ritual will be done

Makuja practice nouprojection by using her killing fear to spook townsfolks into giving her info

Duskborn write off the fisherman as not a priority suspect

Ruby figures out karat’s deal by talking with the fisher’s roach.

This motivates duskborn to do her questline

What secrets does every suspect have?

What’s boleheva’s background?

• Explain killing fear
• Explaing wall walking/nerveboosting
• Chi surges?
• Diagnose awelah’s problems
• Mechanics of distortion
• Quessa has a technique that lets her store a thought despite her memory. (“It’s like carrying an full glass on your head without dropping it.”)
• Quessa’s electrostatic techniques
• Elements?
• Ooliri’s barrel notices the lake’s pull
• Mastery of their training lets them find the father anteater and kill it

Notes 

it’s a story about justice and heroism. Karatikale’s problem is that he fancies himself the hero — he’s motivated by a story of wrongs he could right, but there’s no actual sense of, or care for real harms; wild conspiricizing holds the same weight to him as actual problems. Yanseno’s problem is that he doesn’t fancy himself the hero, and doesnt care if what he does looks bad, so long it benefits what he cares about

The duskborn are different: awelah is motivated by a genuine wrong; makuja knows evil from the inside; and ooliri tries to see the good from every perspective?

Yanseno is blunt in word, but this is due to understanding rather than simplistic thinking. He is subtle in action, used to being underestimated, and disregarded for his lack of strength. He is hard against criminals, but soft towards civilians. He wants to feel secure, but is willing to compromise on it.

Yanseno is in checkmate and doesn’t know it. He values the sanctity of his mind, and allowed himself to fall beholden to Kuon. Quessa came to him as a runaway. The beholden seed was a ploy to allow his guardianship of Quessa.

Mogs is a gambler, and views conning people as a stimulating risky venture/gambler’s fallacies into seeing patterns with his product? There’s a chance…)

how do their other vesperbane abilities help them in this arc? At all?

Characters

Kartikale

Desperate for a story, willing to do anything if history will vindicate him, seeks the aesthetics of truth and justice without focusing on actual harms, only dramatic narratives.

On paper supports the Duskroot refugees, does nothing to help them

Chrysanthia

Willing to do anything to secure her freedom and the safety of her better half.

Views the refugees as sacrifices

Yanseno

Willing to anything if there’s no other practical option. Does his job, and his job is finding the culprit.

Sucks for the refugees, nothing he can do, not his problem.

Ruby

Willing to lie, blackmail and manipulate, but draws the line at violence.

Calls out Karatikale’s refusal to cover the living conditions of roaches or refugees.

Tempit

Willing to do anything to root out the profane

View the roaches and refugees as filthy

Mogs

Willing to do anything to pay off her debt

Refugees are marks

Bites Water

Willing to do anything for the colony.

Refugees are bugs to be protected

Fisher

Unwilling to do anything

Refugees aren’t her problem

// yanseno’s initial reasoning 

the first conclusion to draw is that Boleheva was mauled to death by some direbeast or other. it seems almost plausible, but not if you think about it. (““The thing was scared off by fresh fevered wretches. You think ol’ Bole couldn’t take it?”) one of the first things we see her do it eviscerate the direbeast that had overpowered our heroes. she had help then, but still.

when Yanseno gets a chance to investigate the corpse, he’ll find that the most severe yet bloodless injuries are all along the thorax and abdomen – the body cavities with the greatest blood volume. they all look to have been left by claws or teeth, and there’s nothing of the sort on the limbs or head. but there is more than that – a stab wound that pierces the head, right into the brain. he may also find a bullet lodged in her, if he looks hard enough. he does not properly scan her body with magical senses yet, though

back at the lobby, the door to boleheva’s office proper is left locked, but Yanseno can probably just force entry. inside, he’ll find all the contents obviously disturbed, and enough empty space to suggestion things are missing. a burglary?

so to sketch out the progression of deductions that follow from the evidence presented, we’d have

• boleheva died, and was mauled by a direbeast

• actually, boleheva was killed with a tool, and the direbeast likely did the mauling aftering she was already dead

• before death, boleheva was exposed to a debilitating amount of welkinflame – suggesting with near certainty that the killer could not have been a vesperbane

but the most important fact is the raiding of his office. see, it suggests whoever did it had the key. they must have gotten the key from boleheva’s dead body. meaning, the killer must have 1) known where boleheva would be that night, and 2) known that boleheva would have the key. as we saw when boleheva first returned, her roachservant unlocked her office. which is to say, boleheva usually doesn’t have her key on her person.

the meaning of all of that is that the killer (or their accomplice) must have been in the lobby when boleheva left. those are the only people who knew she had the key. 

// Yanseno suspects the main characters. 

for Awelah: people were sent to kill her. if they discover she’s still alive, they’re sure to send more. Boleheva was unwilling to redact her reports to her superiors, meaning knowledge of Awelah’s continued existence would be leaked. with Boleheva dead, though, that conveniently won’t happen

for Makuja: somehow, her history gets leaked to the town’s rumor mill. originally (this comes up in the first arc) she had planned to follow Duskroot refugees to Wisterun, where they would be conveniently grouped together for her to kill. the only evidence she has deviated from that plan is her own saying so — and killing the person most able to stop her would be the first step she’d take if she were still adhering to it

Ooliri: his disappearance coincides with the killing and he found the body. Miss C’s note implicates him?

Yanseno teaches them traps n shit

// Makuja snaps: 

at one point, A whines about her clan being dead and M snaps. have you ever wonder what it would be like if your clan had lived – and you were still out here? M wonders what it’s like, to have the closure of them being gone, to be able to mourn them and move on. to be the princess avenger people bow to. if your family could see you now, they’d be proud of you. you’re a hero, righting wrongs. and i’m one of the wrongs. i’m the monster, the villain. my family is still alive, you know. the last time i saw them, i was spat on as they kicked me out the door. everyone you kill is one more step on your righteous path. everyone i kill is just more proof i’m a demon whom no one can love.

a runs away that night. m follows after her, and they have a big fight near the dam. A doesn’t do so well without her projection, but still out‍-​tactics M (does she have traps?). A says she doesn’t want to be like her, says she’ll let M live if she turns back now.

M looks back toward entcreek for a moment. then looks back at A’s spear. she takes a step forward

‘so be it. you could have chosen life’

M manifests her myxokora. ‘i could have.’ she lunges. ‘but i needed to prove to myself that i haven’t gone soft. at the ravine, i saved my life. i saved you from the anteater. but now? i’m saving no one. i needed to know i could use these claws just to hurt people. i’m gonna kill you’

(they damage the dam, knocking out supports?)

M with her myxokora is finally enough to best A. in her desperation, A claps and pours enervate into degraded coils, desperate to summon a projection.

she summons something, and it warps and shakes unstably. then it expodes, damaging the damn further.

M falls into the waves, and A goes down to save her.

// backstory 

Many years ago, there was terrible night of pounding rain but no lightning. It birthed a flash flood and from those black waters rose an alien monstrosity of crooked pentagons. Many mantids were killed and the thing could have destroyed them all, but their salvation came as a wizened old vesperbane who with mastery over the earth itself, used their power to raise a massive dam to contain the flood, and arcane magic to banish the monster. The town rejoices, and christens the bane the guardian of earth 

Then, some weeks or months ago, a vesperbane named Yanseno shows up in Wisterrun. While he stays there, he helps out the villagers with a few odd jobs, and earns a bit of respect. Some time after he’s gone, there’s a string of strange incidents, mantids appearing with magical sigils inscribed on them while they cling to life in a coma‍-​like state, and the townfolk can’t figure out why, and neither can Boleheva.

She encounters Yanseno some ways away from Wisterun, and since he arrived before the killings, questions him. Yanseno says he had been sent to investigate a concerning anomaly, and what he describes has a certain coherence with with the sigil phenomena. Suggestive, given that to all appearances, Yan had left town before the sigiling started. She lets Yan report back to his clients with promise to return.

Later, a mysterious figure appears to Boleheva, and offers them a possible resolution to the problem. It’s asserted that the creature of black waters and crooked pentagons was never banished, but remains sealed beneath the lake. But the seals wane. As they wane, its influence will only grow, and perhaps the entire town would be lost.

There’s a way to renew the seals though, and even save those under the sigil’s spell, if they act fast enough. The catch? It requires mantis sacrifice. Boleheva relays this to the town elders. As the bodies pile up, the elders agree to perform the ritual in secret. They will sacrifice a few to save the town.

After with the ritual, the sigilings stop. Now the elders rest uneasy, but feel they did what needed to be done

it would take a lot of investigation to uncover any of this, and if i’m already explaining the backstory, i may as well continue to how this ties into the actual plot.

After the ritual is done, the mysterious figure appears again, before a certain ostracized townsbug. They tell them about the mantis sacrifice. The outcast of course tries to inform others, but the story offered no actual evidence, and lacking any credence, the outcast’s fantastical and conspiratorial tale is dismissed. Next, the mysterious figure appears before another townsbug, a certain journalist who’s investigating the unexplained, unexamined disappearances in the wake of the sigil incident. To Karatikale,they reveal more of the truth, but importantly, they omits their own involvement, which serves to implicate Boleheva as the mastermind. Remembering the reception the outcast had gotten, Kara is convinced that they can’t speak out about this, certainly not when the elders themselves are involved. They might have to enact justice themselves. Karatikale wants to get in Boleheva’s office, suspecting there’d be evidence within, and the mysterious figure convinces them killing her is necessary.

a few things introduced early on take on new significance when the involvement of this figure is revealed:

• the sign was destroyed by the mysterious figure. the messenger ants, unfamiliar with the country, didn’t know to avoid anteater territory without the sign to warn them, leading them to take a shortcut through it, and getting eaten for it. why plot this? the ants had sent out a querry to other colonies for information on the sigils. but the thought‍-​weavings which encoded the response (which the ants wear) was burned along with their bodies.

• i dont know when the party notices, but the blood samples are stolen from their room. mogs’s archonblood elixer is made from that blood sample – and he sold it to the bees, which is what lead the anteater to them.

quessa.

she isn’t forgetful, and she doesn’t have trouble controlling her psychic abilities. rather, the reason she had so much trouble with the dual thought‍-​streams technique is because she’s already running two thought streams at all times. the other thought‍-​stream has a different personality, and exists to protect Quessa, think and do things she doesn’t want to. ‘kwessa’ was a childish mispronunciation of her given name that her mother found cute enough to keep as a nickname; her real name is Chrysanthia, and that’s what her alter ego identifies with.

why would Chrysa do all this, though? in truth she never ran away; she was sent away. her father is none other than the very bane who hired the mercenary to kill Awelah, mind control and all. (it’s not quite mind‍-​control, not really.)

but what are her father’s plans? (well, even the puppetmaster has a puppeteer, but let’s pretend the buck stops there). i mentioned there was anomalous weather accompanying the attack on duskroot. well, it takes a lot of magic to affect an entire meteorological phenomena. a single mantis cant do it, not really. so they enlisted the help of a choronic elemental of water.

you see, the ritual didn’t actually seal the elemental. it unsealed it, allowed them to use it to create the storm that besieged duskroot.

(the connection between elementals and duskroot and the conspiracy’s plans goes even deeper, but again, not relevant to the mystery)

of course, these elementals are utterly inhuman, and part of its promised payment for helping the conspiracy is that they’re promising it can drown the town like it had failed to do so many years ago. there’s more plot to explain how their plans lead to this outcome (for instance, all the welkinflame wasted in killing boleheva is welkinflame that can’t be used to dispell the magical storm the elemental will create to drown the town), but the actual mystery is sort of resolved before this point (whodunnit? karatikale). and it becomes more of a thriller after that.

// karatikale characterization 

karatikale says something about justice being cathartic in one of their talks

makuja makes up a story, and karatikale believes. He asks questions, but the questions he asks are only those that would make the story better, not ones that challenge the fundamental narrative

karatikale is annoyed that he cant talk with the duskroot refugees/roaches. He’s too pretentious. Awelah lacks that problem, even though her noble background lets her understand karatikale’s ideas

Karatikale is from a nearby city; came to wisterun after the wife died, chasing a story.

Karatikale complains of wanting to write an expose about the lakeside incident, but Boleheva keeps refusing to talk to him. Asks if team Duskborn are duskroot refugees — he’s working on a story on duskroot, and wants a scoop to get big city journalists’ eyes on his work.

Karatikale values truth, honesty and justice. He hates being stuck in a small town and wants to be a big name journalist. He’s young and easily influenced. He speaks pretentiously, but trips over his words. ( “Consider me an ally in the fight for full wingless equality”)

// karat history 

karatikale is interested in the history of duskroot and truth of what really happened, and there’s an interesting moment i’m imagining where Kara presses Awelah on just how far she’s willing to go to see justice be done. Awelah does already have a body count, though, and Kara is a bit startled to see a nymph matured (or at least hardened) in a way even she hasn’t

karatikale gets news from the city, and this is how we learn of Ooghesta and Tlakida’s alibi. Awelah wonders if her memory has been tampered with.

// umbracognition 

problem: the duskborn have enemies with mind control powers. But they have an ally with mind control powers. But he doesn’t really have time to train wretches. And learning neurodistortion is hard.

introduce Quessa as a natural distortique. currently working on the art of maintaining simultaneous, independent thought‍-​streams, which she can’t quite manage

“name’s quessa, eh? got a family name” / “I… I will put it this way. Inquire not as to my surname,” ‍-​she looks at awelah‍-​ “and I won’t wonder what you look like under that mask, Awelah.” // But Yanseno should say this instead.

awelah’s heritage means she learns thought splitting fast

“Don’t need to worry ‘less you’ll be selling your services. ’Connectique’ is nonsense, a political label. Same with reflectique. All it really means, a ‘connectique’ is a projectique you don’t gotta worry about. A ‘reflectique’ is a distortique with nothing to hide.”

“Isn’t there a difference between scanning a mind and changing it?

“Nah. That’s just a lie we tell the laity to let them sleep easy. You can’t look at a mind without touching it. You observe, you interact. Being a connectique just means you know how to break a mind and choose not to. It’s just a promise.”

at one point, yanseno notices awelah using these psychic abilities to suppress her emotions, and harshly reprimands her. he cautions that this sort of self‍-​induced pathology can be one of the most dangerous things for a psychic to do, and it’s too easy to spiral into madness. as a caution, he shares his hypothesis that quessa’s forgetfulness is just one such case – she’s had a traumatic life before she ran away, and through subconscious use of her abilities she was able to just… forget unpleasant things.

“And now it’s a habit she can’t break.”

karatikale leaves a psychic trigger in duskborn’s brains

// Interviews  

for Ruby, the ranger’s roachservat: she’s somewhat mistreated by boleheva. but it’s a weak theory – are her feelings that strong? if there were, why strike now specifically?

for Bites Water, the ant: might blame Boleheva for the death of the messengers. messengers were carrying a response to a querry they sent out to another colony, and it’s revealed the local ants had offered to pay Bole to escort their querry, but Boleheva demanded a higher price. Before the querry had left town, its carriers were attacked, an attempted assassination, and still Boleheva did nothing.

for Mogs, the rogue: they have criminal record, in debt and needs money to pay it – robbing the vesperbane would be enough to put a good dent in it. he certainly has no love for the ranger, having been caught by them before

// stolen money is used to frame mogs?

Mogs: Thug who gets into a barfight, stopped by boleheva. (yanseno gets a false confession out of them)

• Possible motive: wants to steal from boleheva’s storeroom
• Evidence: criminal background, sold the scent lure to the bees, inciting the attack which lured away Boleheva

for Tempit, the preacher: she hates vesperbanes. also, being the one who runs the church of welkin, she’s the one who controls the town’s welkinflame supply. she was spotted outside the night the crime happened

A vindicator/priest at the church. Mans the welkintower. Natural crystalmind. Passes out pamphlets (“just by existing: the price we pay for vesperbane occupation”). Is a dick to the main characters.

• evidence: Murder was committed with welkinflame assistance, the towns entire reserves get burned (rendering them vulnerable to coming storm). Tempit controls the welkinite supply

for Karatikale, the journalist: he was outspokenly critical and questioning of the vesperbane’s handling of the sigil incident. he’s been trying to investigate what happened, convinced there’s more to the story

for the fishermant: a family member disappeared in the sigil incident. They’d had come to the office to report strangeness at the lake.

// Stingers 

Dawn of Yesterwane

8 days remain

Until Tenebra’s shadows deepen

Dawn of Morrowbare

7 days remain

till Tenebra’s shadows grow

Dawn of Shadowbare

6 days remain

till Tenebra’s shadows arrive

Dawn of Yesterbare

5 days remain

till Tenebra’s shadows arise

Dawn of Morrowaux

4 days remain

till Tenebra’s shadows overwhelm

End of Arc 4: A Lakeside Mystery

Dawn of Auxshadow

3 days remain

till Tenebra’s shadows surge

till Tenebra’s shadows deepen

Dawn of Yesteraux

2 days remain

till Tenebra’s shadows surround

Dawn of Morrowcrest

1 days remain

till Tenebra’s shadows descend

Dawn of Shadowcrest

Only hours remain

Until Tenebra’s shadows engulf

??? 

Mogs scene is finding somewhere for her to stay. Doubles as establishing the people who can’t be interviewed. Ask the church to take her in, refused. Ask the ants to make accommodations, refused. Ruby congress through in the end.

Motif to characterize Awelah — she remembers someone telling her, to “Do what’s necessary.”

“Don’t trust the Pantheca. Don’t trust the strongholds. The Asetari never stand alone. You have to become strong enough to depend on no one else. We knew a storm was coming, and our clan, our stronghold waited for them to come and save us.”

Change ooliri characterization → uncertain, therefore hesitant & curious, but 100% certain about inner experience stuff

add a conversation beat somewhere where team duskborn discusses their plans for wisterun so there’s a better sense of plot direction

see if i cant get the old lady to say something to the effect of “three of you? why does that feel so familiar”

see if i cant get someone in wisterun to talk about the earthshaper so that plot thread isnt completely forgotten in arc 3

maybe retcon there to be the big wall around wisterun and say they erected it?

finally make ooliri’s googles not antimemetic

unodha backstory interlude maybe?