The wind that buffeted my face was biting and cold. Above, the sky was overcast, full of dense, grimly churning clouds. It was the chaos that announces a storm. Beneath, men frantically moved about, perhaps as disorderly as the clouds high above them. In a way, that too seemed like chaos that announced a storm.

Even if either storm had yet to come, though, it was already possible to hear the occasional thunder.

Granted, none of it was much of a new sight, not by any stretch of the word. Yet, for some reason, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Of course, I was currently still far too young to take any part in whatever momentous events would come to pass, somewhere in the near future... But, I could already intuit the machinations of Ares and Fate, like a noose slowly closing in on my neck.

Hell, if I focused enough, I could almost smell War in the air. The Sulfur of rotten eggs, a bit like a fart, perhaps...

I coughed.

Too much like a fart, even.

“Sorry, my bad.” When I gave her a side glance, taking a couple of steps away from her, Grisella had the decency of looking somewhat sheepish. “Those beans you made last night...”

For an instant, I considered saying something, but decided against it. There was a decent chance the witch had done that on purpose and, not knowing what her goal was, the best I could do was not react at all.

I had to hold back a sigh, though.

Instead of protesting in any way, I focused back on the men and their work. We were standing on the tallest hill in the village. Just like she had for the last couple of weeks, Grisella -whenever she wasn’t preoccupied contributing to global warming- was preceding over the construction of the village’s new defenses. Which pretty much amounted to making sure that no Darwin-Awards potential nominee did something too egregious and ended up jeopardizing the rest of the men at work.

Not like anything the non-magical fellows could do would be proving of that much help against our would-be foes, of course. Never mind what a few peasants could achieve in the span of a few weeks, if dark mages had firepower anywhere close to Grisella’s, then even a proper stone fortress would prove about as useful as a flimsy tent... But, the witch in question insisted that rammed earth and wood would help against the undead and that she’d be dealing with anything arcane in nature.

Neither I nor the villagers saw any reason to doubt her claims, , so pretty much everyone -but me- had been hard at work for the last several months. Initially, that is. Spring had come and gone, as had summer, and with them, quite a bit of the tension that had previously almost been palpable among the villagers. Not like they could really be blamed. We had yet to see any other traces of the necromancers or their creations, and most folks simply aren’t built nor trained to remain vigilant and focused for so long. Hence, the need for Grisella to become a fastidious foreman.

As for what I was doing there... Well, kids were no longer allowed out on their own, and I was nominally still the witch’s apprentice. Even if I could no longer cast any fucking magic, and apparently would never be able to. I couldn’t even summon my glowing balls anymore.

Fuck you!

Allegiance: Self

As The Whole, so is the Soul! As the Soul, so are we!

Oh, deceivers! Oh, spurious wardens!

How could we then bear to be held subject to your middling mandates!

Effect:

Seeker of Balance: Vessel is precluded from voluntarily initiating external manifestations of Pneuma. In exchange, all Inherent Skills are significantly strengthened.

Scion of Opposites: Vessel may connect with Nodes on either side of the Spectrum.

Objector of Order: Unlock access to the restricted Alignment ‘Antinomy’.

Savant of Cycles: Vessel obtains an instinctive understanding of the ebbs and flows of Pneuma and subtler forms of Substance.

Agent of Flux: Vessel may physically interact with Pneuma and subtler forms of Substance.

No matter what I had tried, there was no getting rid of the damned thing. Grisella had no explanation for why I could no longer control ‘Breath’ either, nor had she ever heard or read about any precedents of someone ever losing the faculty. In fact, she hadn’t been inclined to believe me, until she realized I had become magically dead to her senses. And not “dead” like someone with no control over Pneuma, nor something inert like a stone, and not like the undead either. According to her, it was almost as if I wasn’t even there, to begin with.

At least I still have the Skill...

Not like I’d been able to do all that much with it so far. Grisella could not really leave the village anymore and, even if I supposedly was her apprentice, I couldn’t well just show up anywhere near it with a hundred spectral soldiers at my back, could I? After all, magic apparently wasn’t supposed to work like that. Not the kinds of magic that were allowed, anyway... On that note, the only reason the witch was giving me the benefit of the doubt was, precisely, because of my lack of any sort of aura. Not even the sort of ‘foul Breath’ that dark mages were supposed to always, inevitably give off. Well, that, and the fact that I didn’t seem to be ‘particularly deranged’...

And thank fucking god for that! I get a feeling my boys wouldn’t be faring much better than firewood against that thing she dropped on that ‘Diabolist’ asshole...

My eyes turned away from both the villagers and the comparatively pitiful walls they were building. Instead, I focused on something a bit more aesthetic; the mountains that loomed far in the distance, beyond the village. Unlike the empty steppe that was its counterpart, that mountain range allegedly hid impressive cities in its belly. Enclaves of peoples that weren’t fully human, part beast and part man, and whose skill with magic belittled what most human mages were capable of. Only most, of course, because the Imperial Dynasty was supposedly well and fully human, and these beast-men that Grisella spoke of were still beholden to the Empire.

Still, I couldn’t help myself from intently staring at the snow-covered peaks, wondering what was to come. How many individuals out there could, just like our local witch, wantonly summon a fucking small-scale thermobaric bomb on top of someone they didn’t like? Hell, how many were far more monstrous?

By her own admission, though her ‘Gifts’ were unusually potent and adept at temporarily leveling the playing field, the witch otherwise barely qualified to be deemed somewhat powerful by her fellow Practitioners...

Hell, more than that! The Realms above ours were supposedly inhabited by anything and everything, even gods themselves!

Or Aspects of the Source, as Grisella insisted on calling them.

For whatever reason, though, it seemed like every mythological creature, and every Pantheon I could think of was hiding, somewhere out there.

A part of me, I had recently discovered, lusted to see all of it! Even more so than I had wanted to see the New World, back in the day.

Shaking my head, I dismissed the thoughts.

Maybe, one day. If you manage to grow old enough, without first getting done in by the fucking necromancers, you senile turd.

Looking back at the village, and its decidedly mundane laborers, I did notice a little detail, though.

”...Come to think of it, I’ve never heard what this place’s called?”

“Hmm?” Having heard my question, but clearly not understood its content, Grisella distractedly regarded me with a raised eyebrow.

“The village,” I started again. “What’s its name?”

The old hag’s confused look still lasted for a few more seconds. Then, I could almost see as understanding finally dawned upon her. A grin gradually split her lips, until they blurted out a stupidly long word.

“Jurtehpirophiverelapirophactiehpirophovolertiztll.”

I just blankly looked at the witch. “What?”

Despite my will, the words ‘in the actual fuck’ could only go unspoken, because... Well, reasons.

Grisella, seemingly somehow privy to my inner suffering, turned her grin into a mocking smirk.

“Jurtehpirophiverelapirophactiehpirophovolertiztlln. That’s this village’s name, my friend.” By the latter half, her voice was pretty much dripping with mirth. “It means ‘Where Jurteh the strong, tall, and mighty first got lucky’. Used to be a small gnomish settlement, before the midgets left Zabal. We kept it as somewhat of an inside joke.” Her eyes turned back to the walls beneath us. “Well, used to, anyways. ’Bet most of the brats don’t know about it anymore. Folks around here have just been calling it ‘Jurt’, for a while.”

Honestly, I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just remained silent.

I’d never have guessed... Seems like gnomes are spiritually connected to Wales...

I couldn’t explain their naming sense otherwise.