"It appears your words were prescient," István said to Celistar.

We weren't even half the way to the next city - if the road signs were to be believed - and we'd come across quite the grizzly scene. Off the side of the road, there was a disturbed area in the woods. It wasn't directly visible from the road; instead, Viktor had… smelled it… or something. I wasn't exactly clear on what he'd done.

He just stopped walking, made basically a right-angle turn and waltzed off into the woods, his fists already in punching position. Elder Mountain seemed to have a sixth-sense for conflict, the same way that Elder Scholar had one for knowledge and I had one for finding creative ways to trip over my own feet.

I'd have more time to be impressed if I weren't so busy trying not to fall on my face. It's a full-time job, you know!

Anyway. He led the rest of us (as though we'd pass up following his instincts) off the road and into a glen in the woods. All the dead were in the guise of the Umbral Covenant. Whether they were all truly from the Covenant wasn't something we could determine. What we could determine was that a nasty battle had broken out. The last two victims of the melee had somehow died still at each other's throats, both succumbing to some vile-looking energies that were still eating at the corpses.

"All's well that ends well," said Celistar, cheerily.

Brutal.

Noticing a piece of paper on the ground. I picked it up and realized that it was parchment, not paper. Every so often I would catch myself reflexively thinking of things like I was still in my old city, where paper was the de facto writing material. Not so here.

I examined the writing on it, then promptly handed it to István upon realizing what it was. It looked superficially similar to the one that I'd seen in the previous town, the one with that good sass drink.

He made some thinking noises while he was looking at it, flipping it around a couple of times, as though trying to determine which way was up - although it occurred to me that in their typical round format, a seal might not actually have an 'up'. After a few minutes of intensive thinking during which he started at it with such a heated gaze I was worried it might light on fire, he seemed to have come to a conclusion.

"This is similar to the one that you dispersed," he said, giving me a pointed look like I'd done something wrong, "and I would say that their purposes are related, in the sense that is designed to affect a whole area rather than just the local space.

"It is also missing the concealment glyphs that would create the illusion from before," he continued, rotating the parchment one more time. "I'm not sure what the outcome of using it would be though. The effects from the energy the Umbral Covenant uses does not map well to the typical uses of Nebula I am familiar with."

"It's not Nebula in the traditional sense," Celistar informed him, before pausing and looking thoughtful, "or at all, really. I'm not sure what exactly it is, but it seems to be on a different plane from everything else."

"It's the vibes, man," I said, looking at the Moon Fairy and giggling at her confused face. "The frequencies are different."

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"Frequencies?" she asked.

"The amount of times it oscillates in the same second," I gave her the textbook definition while at the same time not being entirely sure of where I got the definition from in the first place.

"I know what frequencies are," she said, although not unkindly, "But I don't understand the relation."

"I can't help you there," I told her, being honest about it. "Just gotta trust the vibes, man."

"I'll try, but I'm not a man."

I will admit I laughed a little too hard at that response.

"Why is it that they are only building larger Seals?" I asked, trying to think of reasons while I spoke to István. "It doesn't make any sense that they would use them only in that way, right?"

"There are many uses for Seals," István said. "So you are right; this uniformity of purpose is unusual."

"Normally, you'd be right." Came Celistar's voice. She was leaning over István's shoulder to look at the parchment in his hands, but she was close enough that I'd have been uncomfortable if I were in his position. He didn't seem to notice nor care, however.

It stood out to me just how tall she really was, standing there next to István - who himself was taller than me. Was moonlight some sort of fertilizer for fairies?

Questions about fairy gardening notwithstanding, we were still in the middle of the woods surrounded by bodies. It was a less than a pleasant place to be.

Viktor had made himself busy rifling through the pockets of the dead, looking for other information. He'd check out each one and then stack them up like so much cordwood. I realized that the comparison was even more apt when, at the end, he held out his hand and a few small sparks fell from it, falling like ash across the pile.

Where each one touched, it immediately and aggressively sprung up as a large gout of flame, burning an intense red evocative of his Nebula. At first I thought they were Motes, but it became clear after watching that it was instead some artful use of his power.

The more I was around him, the clearer it became that while my Elder Mountain seemed a paragon of simple uniformity, his massive visage, as geology from which he drew his name, held many secrets and much history.

And punching. Lots of punching. Couldn't forget the punching.

I moved myself upwind as the smoke rose, and the four of us left, with Celistar hanging back and taking a look at the impromptu funeral pyre, her visage stony and expression opaque.

The noises in the forest returned after we left 'Sass City' - which is what the name had evolved to in my head. Not that I had any real idea what it actually was, I'd neglected to pay any attention to the road signs and was too embarrassed about that fact to ask.

I wasn't sure why the animals had come back, as I couldn't feel anything beyond the normal ebb and flow of the ambient Nebula. Neither could any of the others, so we gave it a collective metaphorical shrug and went about our way.

Which led us to where we were at now, setting up the tents for another night. With our cultivations, we could likely keep going for days, but there was something refreshing about the rest, and I don't think anyone was really keen on skipping it without reason.

I was coming to enjoy the idea of the fresh air, and with the noises of the night returning, I was quite sure I would enjoy my rest.

The sun set rather quickly, and when it did, I realized there was something new above. While the blanket of stars had stunned me the first few nights, there had never been anything quite like the neon palette I was seeing up there now.

"What is that?" I asked no one in particular, as curtains of reds, greens and blues danced in the heavens.

"The Moonweave," Celistar said, gazing up at the show. "A gift from the Will of the World."

"Where I grew up," István said, "We called it the aurora, and there was a more mundane explanation." He looked over at the Ancient One. "I like yours better."

Celistar held up her hand to the sky. "The truth is always better." She gently waved her hand back and forth, and the colors danced in response, with little Motes of color forming and dropping from the curtains of light to descend to their Fairy.

These formed a new, more intimate rendition of the artwork above, dancing around all of us in a slow motion. I heard the sound of waves, an almost satin sound that caressed my ears and felt my eyes grow heavy.

I curled up on my bedding and let myself drift away to sleep.

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