Having completed his other business, Tolben rends space once again, rendering himself to Sothis to examine the body left behind by Stars Falling. The body itself is still maintaining its odd effect on local gravity and atmosphere, and has a large uninhabited zone around it now, the locals having learned by experience where the edges of safety lie.

Tolben manages to cut off a sample of the body, and finds the properties extend to severed pieces, in proportion to the sample's size. Some further examination finds that it's in effect shunting air inward, pulling it into the "flesh." It appears as though the air is removed at this point, sent elsewhere by some means or completely unmade. The whole effect is mediated by gravitational pull that keeps the air, like everything else, moving inwards towards the body.

After a bit of trial and error and some minor setbacks that destroy what's left of a house, he works out a way to modify this gravitational aura, based around the life bubble spell. It's a simple fix to implement, and results in air being kept around the sample in a gravity field, but not being pulled in enough to actually disappear. The implementation is relatively straightforward and quick; it doesn't require that much skill, either, though obviously figuring it out in the first place would have been a good deal harder.

As Tolben delves into research once more, he returns to something of an equilibrium. Nonetheless, urgency drives him onward.

"It can be done, then. I can make this thing, and once I have forged the path, others may follow. Others must follow, if Golarion is to be made safe."

With little understanding of what a "marketing campaign" looks like, Tolben decides that a demonstration is in order. He fabricates a small boat from battered timbers, affixing a piece of Primordial to its bottom. Standing atop it, he allows the gravitational magic to hold the boat to his feet as he flies into the inhabited part of the city.

Aside from Stars Falling, the rest of the magic is temporary. Nonetheless, this demonstration shows that Voidcraft can be made from the corpse for far less than the king's ransom which would normally be required.

The people look at Tolben with a mixture of awe and confusion in Sothis. People are struck by the ease of its flight and the way that he seems to cling to this torn-off piece of a nigh-godly power, a power that left them breathless merely for coming too close to it. How does it work, they mutter, and after he has landed a handful of enchanters and scholars come to ask him that exact question. He shows them the basic nature of the process he used, and they leave with excited ideas about days to come.

Tolben gathers several more samples, distributing them for experimentation. Then he makes for the palace of the Ruby Prince. In all his finery, it is not long before he finds a functionary to address.

"I require an audience with the Prince and the Council tomorrow. We will discuss the use of Stars Falling to rejuvenate the city and protect the planet."

The functionary looks at Tolben, winces, and gapes for a moment before stammering out an agreement. She immediately looks as though she regrets having agreed, but isn't willing to actually argue with Tolben, not when half the city witnessed him fly through the air on a carved-off piece of the Primordial's manifestation.

Without another word, Tolben cuts open reality and retires to his demiplane for the day. After taking an hour to regain his equilibrium, he turns his mind to information gathering.

Invoking the power of his bonded ring, he casts Greater Scrying to view the Abyssal Rift and check that particular ember has not yet reignited.

Then he turns his mind to another problem. He has not had time to develop a specialized divination for spacetime warping, as the denizens of the gas giants have, and so once again he allows the infinite to pass through him. Though he cannot contain it, once again he clings to the answer to a single question.

Where shall the next Primordial attack?

Though the process is draining, he repeats it. Why stop at a single pass?

Will Golarion be destroyed this week?

Even as the waves recede from his second moment of omniscience, he prepares to undergo a third - only to stop himself. Though he has a third question, it is better left unanswered.

Following a troubled night's rest, he makes an early start in returning to Sothis. His first stop is with the crafters and researchers, to see what progress they have made in their first night with the new materials. After an hour, he proceeds to the palace.

The Abyssal rift in Tian Xia does not appear to have reopened just yet. The first question yields only jumbled chaotic not-patterns in his head, not enough information available to draw conclusions confidently. The second, however, yields a complicated array of patterns and formulae ultimately resolving into a single result: Golarion may be fundamentally and irrevocably altered, but is very unlikely to be genuinely destroyed this week.

After returning to Sothis, the artificers are making good progress, starting to develop suits designed to survive and mitigate the effects of Stars Falling's atmospheric influence. Tolben finds the palace under heavy guard, but he is escorted in by a cautious person in heavy plate armor who moves like she knows how to handle herself in a fight. Once inside, he is escorted to the throne room, and finds Ruby Prince Khemet III sitting on his bronze throne.

It's an old throne, and sturdy enough that it seems it could bear up under the weight of the roof above it. The prince is less sturdy, but his pale brown eyes are surprisingly intense in his youthful face - though he's well into middle age, he still appears to be in his early twenties physically. He nods to Tolben as the wizard walks in.

"My servant told me you wished an audience, Wizard. Be welcome in my hall."
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:56, Sun 20 Sept 2020.

Tolben looks at the Prince with eyes which have calculated his value in a dozen ways - and that value stubbornly remains at zero.

"Thank you. As I am sure you know, your artisans are experimenting with some magics I provided to make use of the remnants of Stars Falling. This new industry, if carefully managed, could be the salve your wounded city needs."

The wizard politely, if impatiently, waits for Prince Khemet to absorb his words and formulate a response.

Prince Khemet considers the wizard's words carefully, nodding slowly at the end. "I take your meaning, Wizard. You are sure that it is safe, for my city, that people so use the body of this being?" At the assurance that it is, he nods again.

"I will take your word for it, then. You are well known to be educated in such matters. Access will have to be regulated, and the proceeds taxed, but I think I am in agreement with you as to the correct course of action. It would be foolish to simply ignore such a possibility." The prince smiles. It's an expression that would look quite at home on a lion about to pounce on some unsuspecting impala.

Tolben inclines his head, managing not to look or sound condescending.

"That is sensible of you. I do have a request, however - one which will require international cooperation. Recent events show that we need an early warning system to ensure that threats to the world can be discovered before they arrive. I am particularly concerned by the risk of errant asteroids.

Craft built from the corpse are well suited to exploration, and so their captains are the most likely to get wind of these threats. An organization to coordinate threat detection and response, accept reports and offer rewards will be needed."

Khemet nods slowly. "Yes, that makes sense. I doubt we can coordinate everyone, but I can talk to Queen Thrune of Cheliax, maybe contact Qadira, Absalom...yes, this seems like something that should be fairly easy to convince people to coordinate on."

"Excellent. I will leave the matter in your capable hands. Now, if you'll excuse me, my divinations have so far failed to discern the location of the next attack. I must return to that task."

With a nod, Tolben turns to leave, choosing not to teleport directly from the throne room. At a second thought, he turns back.

"Oh, and if you should receive a visit from the gas giants, do pass on my regards."

"Gas giants? Ah, I will do so, if I see someone from such a place," Khemet says, seeming a little taken aback. "Go with the grace of...well. Go with grace." He nods his head at Tolben's receding back.

Tolben's demiplane is a great tower. Beyond its windows nothing can be seen, but the interior is lit by a warm, soft light remniscent of candles - though much brighter.

The bookshelves lining the round walls produce an endless quantity of nuts and berries, the overripe ones falling to the ground and decaying to nothingness in a heartbeat.

On this particular occasion, the wizard is in his ritual chamber. Chalk symbols cover the floor, pulsating rarely as they pick up the slightest hint of a wave in space and time itself. The demiplane serves as an acceptable experimental base, since the only local Primordial manifestations are controllable - the pieces Tolben bears, within and without.

He places a dozen grains from Small Made Large in a pattern to the right of the main circle. Ripples propagate as their influence is felt. Then he carefully removes a single grain, leaving precisely eleven in the pattern.

Tolben counts the grains of Small Made Large to twelve in the pattern. He removes one and counts again and...there are only ten. Add the single grain back, count again, and there are twelve. Rearrange the pattern, repeat the process, and the same result is seen, as though it is not possible for eleven grains to be present, somehow. Every other number from one to twelve is possible. But eleven grains refuse to be present.

"What? Impossible! The numerology of the Primordials gives a result in my own domain? I must have contaminated the experiment. Well... probably."

Tolben goes off on a low-key rant featuring terms such as "corrupting the vectors" and "nexus of non-energy", as he redraws the diagrams within his chamber. This time, he uses tiny slices of Stars Falling, cut from a carefully-contained sample. Once again he tries the number eleven, and records the result.

"To think I was just planning to complete the divination the Void-walker suggested, with a little side test into relevant numbers. Truly, the greatest discoveries come about by happy accident. Ah, but I must repeat these tests on other planes; I've performed enough experiments here to bleed into the demiplane's nature by now."

The wizard quickly goes through the levels of his tower, pulling a dozen tomes from seemingly random shelves as he prepares for a little field trip.

The same pattern happens with slices of Stars falling. Ten, twelve, and no number in between. It doesn't seem to matter what plane the experiments are done on. It is, quite simply, not possible to have eleven component pieces of a Primordial, by any means that Tolben is able to find. Even in an antimagic field, the eleventh component in the pattern is always able to not be present.

After a thoroughly exhaustive round of experiments proves beyond doubt that the phenomenon is entirely Primordial in nature, Tolben returns to his tower-plane for some theoretical analysis.

"Eleven, eleven... represent fundamental properties of existence... shuttering planes... I see."

A heavy tome leaps to his grasp, and he turns without hesitation to page 363. The text is just as he had remembered.

... may shift without notice. The essential nature of the Elemental Planes is more fixed, but some scholars[9][10] have suggested that they would be just as changeable if their contents were altered. There is no practical way to test such hypotheses, but they do speak to the...

The next book, rather bizarrely, is one of idioms, and on page 15 it describes help arriving at the moment of crisis as "at the eleventh hour". A survey of wind patterns following magical intervention gives some insight on page 289. Crystalline structures, wave patterns, silk production, and other disjoint topics are slowly woven together into a coherent hypothesis - at least in as much as Tolben's thoughts could be considered coherent.

The number eleven is an essential element of the Primordials. The Primordials represent core components of the universe. Even so, the universe does not obviously run on elevens. Thus the number is an attack vector.

To destroy a Primordial would have unlimited negative effects. But if the Primordials were to be twelve, not eleven...

Finally, Tolben subsides into inactivity. He would almost seem asleep, if it weren't for the lack of snoring. After hours of thoughts so intricate they may never be thought again, he comes to knowledge with absolute certainty.

"There is no eleventh Primordial."

The pivot on which the others hinge, missing. No fulcrum for the lever. With such disarray, the trouble they make is inevitable. But that leaves a new question.

"Why are we still here?"

If a concept is so core to existence that even the Primordial concepts revolve around it, its removal must surely leave the universe unviable. Perhaps the concept yet persists, even as its Primordial manifestation does not. Or perhaps the discord of the latest decades is rooted in that absence.

"This is as far as I can go with this mystery. Tomorrow I will report my findings to the others, but for today..."

Tolben sighs, and stands to get back to the much less interesting problem of divining the next attack location.

Tolben manages, with difficulty, to replicate the divination spell that the gas gianter communicated to him telepathically. With two casts, he is able to triangulate the strongest locus of space-time warping to be in Kyonin. Consulting maps, the only settlement of note in the right place to be the target is the mercantile port city of Greengold.

Once again, Tolben treats the strictures of space and time with contempt. He does, however, respect the bare minimum tenets of diplomacy by choosing to transit to Greengold rather than the Queen's palace in Iadara.

Tired from a long day of research, the wizard does not immediately speak when he arrives at the Mayor's estate.

The Mayor's doorman, surprisingly, requires more persuasion than the Prince's had to be convinced that Tolben is allowed entry. But eventually, he yields, and shows the wizard inside.

The mayor, a tall, thin elf with narrow features (even by the standards of his people) and golden eyes looks at Tolben with slight disdain on his features. "Yes, what is it?" he says, in the tone of someone who is already planning his next meeting.

Tolben barely seems to notice the Mayor's sharpness. The wizard's fatigue manifests as an unwillingness to move or speak more than necessary. His expression is neutral - perhaps empty is a better word.

"This town will soon be a Primordial target."

The mayor simply stares for a time before speaking. "A...Primordial attack? Are you certain? How do you know?" His expression is rapidly shifting to panic.

Tolben shakes his head dismissively.

"I don't have ten years to teach you the advanced divination theory. Suffice to say, it is coming, and you should prepare. I suggest evacuation; your city is smaller than previous targets, and the population can get clear on time."

The wizard then takes on a harsher tone. "Stop panicking!" he snaps. "I'm not going to do your job for you!"

"But...how...we can't..." the mayor says, and then a remarkable thing happens. His features firm, and he sits up straighter. "You're right, of course. We'll have to evacuate everyone who we can. But...the aiudara. It must be protected, or the entirety of Kyonin will be in danger."

Tolben looks approvingly on the suddenly resolute mayor. His words, however, offer little comfort.

"Each Primordial has a new set of tricks. I cannot guarantee the aiudara's safety. You should prepare to destroy it in extremis; the town may struggle thereafter, but the network will be secure."

The mayor closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them and nods tightly. "Yes, agreed. Better to lose one aiudara than risk an enemy force subverting the entire network. It requires quite powerful magic to destroy an aiudara, however. We have no mages in Goldengreen who are able to cast such a spell."

"That's not fu - "

Tolben stops, seeing that the elf isn't joking.

"Really? You're on a gate network. Bringing in experts is easy, and your Queen will be far happier if you send a request for help than if you ask me to do it. Help you should ask for anyway, considering the trial at hand."

"Right, because I can certainly contact a master capable of disjoining the aiudara and willing to do so and easily convince them that it's worth doing so on the basis of little more than an unsubstantiated claim by a human wizard." The mayor rolls his eyes. "I'm sure that will only take a day or ten of the copious time we have available to us."

Tolben speaks condescendingly. He clearly has not been impressed by the Mayor's sarcasm.

"The answer is very simple. Take this."

He casually tosses a contained sample of Stars Falling to the elf, treating the dangerous Primordial residue as little more than a toy.

"Send it to your Queen with the message. Tell her that Tolben of Nothing predicts the attack, and that you cannot stop me from looking at the gate if I am to close it. Honestly, if I'd known you would be like this, I would have gone straight to her - and damn all diplomacy."

"Oh, please do. You can explain to her that you want her to disjoin an aiudara yourself, I'm sure she'll be delighted to hear it. Never mind that there's not a mage in Kyonin who can reliably do so." The mayor's smile is a rictus. He catches the container of Stars Falling, and manages not to drop it despite the disproportionate weight.

"Really, not one?" The wizard laughs.

"Stars around, what possessed you to rely on such artifacts when you have no hope of controlling them? Fine, I'll close your gate when the time comes. I can surely not be blamed when no one else will do it."

Without another word, Tolben begins an incantation. In seconds, he is whisked away and back to his demiplane. Finally, he has a chance to sleep after a very long day. He does not dream, his sleep long since emptied as a defense against the past.

The next several hours pass in oblivion, before being woken by a sending. It appears to be Cassie. "Tolben? We need to talk. Meet me in Korvosa, as soon as you can. This is urgent."

Tolben wakes, and takes mere seconds to get his bearings and parse the message. He keeps his response short, his only concession to the circumstance being the use of Cassie's name.

"Cassie. Understood, arrival twenty minutes."

No need to ask questions when a fresh Sending is unlikely.

The wizard prepares his spells with unrivalled speed, finishing five minutes before his stated arrival time. He shrouds himself with his usual morning protections, and then taps into Primordial power to hasten a Sending of his own - this one to Shovash.

"Next attack Greengrass Kyonin. Primordial nature unknown. Meeting Cassie stated urgent. High risk; check survival."

With that Sending delivered, Tolben prepares to travel. He first uses a Greater Scrying to check for threats in his intended arrival zone, then cuts through to the Prime Material.

Failing to see any particular threats, Tolben teleports himself to Korvosa, and lands outside of a small, seedy inn. Inside, he sees Cassie sitting and holding a cup of wine that she's not drinking from. She looks over through a window as he arrives, and stands urgently, tossing a handful of coins onto the table that could pay for anything that inn serves five times over with room to spare. She doesn't look back as she walks outside.

"We need to talk about Cho." Her voice is low and urgent as she walks up to Tolben. "Something's gone very wrong. Damien might be dead. I know you don't trust me, but...we can't ignore her friend any longer."

"Just like old times, then?"

Tolben grimaces as his attempt at humour falls flat.

"All right, let's find somewhere private - that belltower looks suitable - and sit down, and you can tell me the details. Then we can decide on a course of action."

Cassie nods, and flies up to the tower, settling in just out of Tolben's reach. "Damien came to visit me a short time ago - not more than a day, I think. He told me that Cho had been behaving...strangely. They found that ruin they had been looking for, the one with the staff in it that he wanted. Cho wanted to look at some tablets, but when they got there, she just started smashing them. Wouldn't talk to him. Attacked him when he tried to stop her. Very unlike herself."

She sighs. "So I went with him to the ruin, to look at it. Found the shards of the tablets. Not enough left to repair, but I was able to make out enough to see that they had a Thassilonian ritual spell as part of what they contained - it was an archmage's tomb, had to have been. The ritual was some kind of binding or exorcism. I think that those tablets had information about Cho's friend. I think that they had information about how to stop it, and a reason why we'd want to. I told Damien and he...reacted rashly. Teleported to find her, said he'd talk some sense into her. I haven't heard back since, and he's not responding to sendings. Can't find him by scrying." Her mismatched eyes are troubled.

Tolben goes stone-faced.

"That is... You know Damien, always dying. We'll get him back, just like usual."

The wizard doesn't sound entirely convinced himself, but he's still putting on a brave face for Cassie.

"You know, I've always wanted a good talk with Cho's 'friend'. The insights she derived from it were quite simply fascinating. Of course, that would never have worked without hurting her. That may not be a concern any more."

He pauses.

"I've recently found out that the eleventh Primordial is... absent. Perhaps Void-aligned. If it was hiding within Cho all along..."

The words trail off into nothingness.

"That would be very bad, I think." Cassie's tone is completely even. "We need to be able to work together on this, Tolben. Cho is too dangerous and too possibly volatile for me to feel confident in either one of us being able to contain her long enough to determine what exactly is happening. But after our last talk I know that you don't trust me not to stab you in the back."

She pauses, holding her hands out, examining them. When she continues, her voice is a little shakier, less steady. "We're much alike, in some ways, you and I. We both operate by intellect and reason. Information is our weapon. It is, quite naturally, one that we tend to hold close. But we're at a point where that is no longer feasible. So here's my offer, old friend. Ask me for what you need to know, in order to feel that you can rely on me, or be sure that you cannot. And I'll answer. No more secrets, not today."

Tolben gives a hollow laugh without an ounce of humour.

"Cassie, you know it doesn't work like that. I trust you - when you're thinking rationally. Yes, you have secrets, some of which I would dearly like to know. But I don't need to know them. If I did, you would already have told me. In that, I trust."

The wizard's pause is brief, not really leaving room for a response.

"Emotion is much harder. If someone, say - "

The wizard swallows, a tremor in his voice.

"If they threw a weighted glove at me, and I reached in to find that the weight was... Damien's hand, my equilibrium would be disturbed. But how far would that disturbance go? Could I wait, think carefully, and postpone vengeance in a calm and rational manner? Or would I recklessly throw myself into an unknown fight? I believe the former, but I can never be perfectly sure. The trust you want to build is one I cannot extend even to myself."

Left unsaid is the precedent for Cassie's more... extreme responses to emotional attacks.

"You don't feel emotions the same way, when you're dead," Cassie says softly. "I've noticed that, recently. There's no heart to race when you're afraid, no stomach to tie when you're excited. Blood pressure doesn't go up with anger. It removes a lot of the feedback."

She smiles sadly. "I've been dead for a while. You must have wondered about it. How did I survive that last fight with Rovagug's minions? I should have died, right? And I suppose I did. But I wasn't ready to go on, and so here I am. Not alive, not precisely dead, just...a hungry ghost haunting the world as it moves on around me."

"You paid a heavy price for survival. It was no surprise to me; you've always been more resilient than anyone credited you with. To outlive your own death is impressive, but hardly unreasonable coming from you."

Tolben pauses to refocus.

"The price was high, though. Dealing with an unfamiliar emotional environment, in an already stressful situation, and with a new and ruthless set of instincts... it's really no wonder that you escalated dangerously. I was luckier; the only price I paid was my dreams, and the loss of too many friends. Which brings up another point - I fear I may hesitate. Cho has been my friend for a long time. If the darkness within really has claimed her, and she is no more than an empty shell, I think I could break that. But if she remains locked inside..."

"Killing friends is hard," Cass says. Her tone, like her face, is empty. "I've done it enough. My hands are so stained, that to turn back would...I can do it." She lets out a bitter laugh. "Gods below. I might enjoy it. I live on minds, Tolben, I feed on them. Souls, spirits, whatever. Cho...she burns so bright. Like you..."

She trails off, a sad smile playing across her lips.

Tolben carefully suppresses a shudder.

"That almost sounds like a reason for you to stay away. Don't want to compromise your progress. It may not be an option; I don't think I can face her alone. Not unless... well, depending on what exactly her 'friend' is, I may be able to contain it - inasmuch as an empty box can be said to contain anything. Nothing matters, after all. But if it is the Primordial, well, the box is too small to contain that infinite absence."
This message was last edited by the player at 11:49, Sun 31 Jan 2021.

"Progress? Tolben, I can't not. Of I don't consume minds, I starve to madness and worse than death. I tried, believe me." She looks pained.

"But I agree we both need to be there. Your teleport or mine?"

The wizard sighs.

"There is a difference between devouring enemies and those you don't care about, and those you do. But I suppose needs must... You have the location. Cast when you're ready."

Tolben steps into Cassie's reach, expertly concealing his trepidation at such a dangerous approach.