Hoshi no Amaterasu

[Amaterasu]

“So, we’re now making an alliance with Amber and the others, and we aim to have the trolls and dwarves become involved in it”, said Oki. It had been about twenty minutes now since they had left Fort Amber. Or the growing town of Atlas, rather.

“Exactly. The only trolls we ran into were in the mids of a fight against dwarves… and you and I know that war can make decent person into a monster. Bloodlust, trauma, fear, the loss of comrades and many others can warp an individual, so our first impression of them was very disfavorable. According to the dwarves they’re a fight-happy group but in this world everyone is. We should give them a proper chance.”

“What’s to say that they will not just attempt to fight us over the lands that we want to take?”

“They might. We will have to prepare for that… the same goes for the dwarves, though. What’s to say that their greed won’t get the better of them and cause them to betray us over whatever resources we unearth? The same may go for Amber’s newly found red Dust, by the way… it’s a valuable resource that many may be interested in.”

“Ye know I’m right ‘ere, don’t you?” grumbled Urist. “It ain’t very nice to voice yer mistrust of a group yer befriended with, in front of one o’ ‘em, Ammy.”

“I’m aware, Urist”, said Amaterasu. “And I was not meaning to say that it will happen. I was merely hinting that it is a possibility… moreso for Amber than for us, since she is not befriended with the dwarves.”

“Aye, but the Fort is turning into a fairly profitable location fer dwarven merchants. It’d be bad if the outpost got destroyed.”

“They could just take it”, Fiara pointed out. “But for now it’s more beneficial to let Amber keep things though, and to keep a good relationship with her since she maintains the outpost and doesn’t impose a tax or anything, so I imagine that she’s okay for now.”

With that the matter was concluded and not spoken of again. Silence fell over the Nimbus, and eventually the four of them each sat facing a cardinal direction to keep an eye out for threats and dangers and thinking about their own matters. Like this, hours passed. Only when the sun began to set did they stop.

“This feels familiar”, remarked Oki as they sat down. Fiara and Urist had produced some dried foodstuffs from their backpacks and Amaterasu had made a campfire with summoned logs and a torch, to keep them warm and heat some water for drinking. “It’s not even been that long since the expedition but it feels like ages ago.”

“Aye”, agreed Urist. “It’s almost nostalgic. Although, ah’m lookin’ forward ta a good pint o’ ale an’ a proper bed after all that adventurin’. At least fer one or two nights.”

“Don’t worry, Urist. Once we build Hoshi you will have a perfect opportunity to sleep”, said Amaterasu.

“Since when do we know that our outpost will be named Hoshi?” asked Fiara with a frown.

“Wha’s Hoshi mean?” Urist asked before Amaterasu could answer.

“Hoshi means star. And like a beacon star in the sky that lights the path to lost travelers we will be a beacon of light in the Frozen Fields to help those who wish for it.”

“Tha’s symbolic… bu’ ah don’ think that the dwarves an’ trolls need any guidance or help.”

Amaterasu grinned. “Of course, that’s what they think… but what if I told you that I have ideas? With Amber’s help we can create something that everyone traversing these treacherous lands will need. Let’s see… we had a fairly safe, snowstorm-free day, didn’t we. And even so we have been traveling for hours, and yet we are far from our destination.”

“Aye…”

“What if there was a way to skip that journey entirely, in exchange of a small fee?”

“Ye don’ mean…”

“Yes. In my homeland of Nippon there were mirrors, called Origin Mirrors, which are imbued with magical properties. You can warp from one to another if you know how. All it requires is that one steps into the light reflected by an Origin Mirror and cast a secret Celestial Brush technique of Kasugami, the Celestial Brush Kami of the Veil of Mist technique. It should be an easy matter to imbue a piece of parchment with the secret technique so that it can be used by anyone, not just me. And if we make the Origin Mirrors big enough, it would also be possible to warp large items. Like say, carriages.”

Urist stroked his beard. “If tha’ worked out… ye could transport goods an’ people across the Fields without ever settin’ foot into the dangerous areas. Ye could skip tha treacherous thin ice crusts, tha snow-covered fissures… ye’d save on supplies fer the drivers an’ pack animals… it’d be a fortune. It’s simple, bu’ a genius stroke.”

“Thank you! In any case, it would create an incentive to visit our city, at least until others copy our concept, but by that point I hope to have established a presence and branched out to other industries too. But for this plan to work, we need to be somewhere accessible, where merchants would be able to come to easily and from where they would be able to reach Zul’gurand and Dwarfholm to sell their wares. Somewhere central, between the two areas.”

“Aye, bu’ the center o’ the Fields is formed by the mountains tha’ eventually turn into the Roof o’ the World.”

“That’s why we are not at the perfect location. We will be somewhat closer to the Nexus Gate than in the dead center of the Fields. There is a large plain that we passed, that would be well suited.”

“Ye know o’ such a place? We’ve been travelin’ fer days once we got outta Dwarfholm. How’d ye remember?”

“Oki, you know what I speak of, don’t you? I think you would be able to explain it better than me.”

“Yes… I do.” The warrior turned a bit in his seat and faced Urist. “Allow me to explain what Amaterasu refers to: the land we come from, Nippon, is an island of limited size, but with a large population. It is rare to find uninhabited land suitable for living, agriculture and such. As a result I suppose that our people have a sense for that type of place ingrained in our senses. Sort of like you have it in your blood to see where to best swing your pick when mining.”

The dwarf stroked his beard again, as he always did when thinking. “And yer sure ye remember where that plain is?”

“Absolutely. You see…” Amaterasu drew a circle into the snow, and a dot in the middle. Then she drew a small dot on the bottom of the circle, and one on its left end. “Here, closest to me, is Dwarfholm. Over there, on my left, is the Nexus Gate. When we departed for the Void Gate, we took a large detour… in the shape of an F, I guess. We moved slightly towards the Nexus Gate, like so… to circumvent the mountain range here. Then we turned away from the Nexus Gate at a sharp angle to the right, to reach the perimeter of the Roof of the World.”

“And?”

“And, that means that our journey to the plain, located very close to where we cut that angle, will be shorter from Fort Amber than it was from Dwarfholm. I estimate that we will be arriving there tomorrow in the afternoon.”

“Will such a short journey be enough to make merchants pay for the Warping?” intervened Fiara.

“You’re forgetting that we are moving very fast… merchants move slower due to their cargo, which means more days spent out. And even then, the minutes that they save rack up very quickly.” She drew a line from the dot representing Dwarfholm, to the Nexus Gate dot. “This journey would take, let’s say three days. If they come to Hoshi - “ she drew another, much shorter line - “let’s say it takes one day. Warping is instant. Another half day to the Nexus Gate from Fort Amber, one and a half days. In two directions, this saves them three days every time they do the trip. Three trips makes for nine saved days, ten trips is thirty… you get my point. They’ll readily pay up a fair amount considering how much they save, and that money can go towards improving our infrastructure and attracting more settlers.”

“Which increases the risk that one side will try to monopolize this advantage, by removing us from the equation”, remarked Oki sinisterly.

“Yes… but that is a risk we have to take.” Then she took a bite of the dried meat and they switched to a different subject. Some two hours later they each went into their tent to sleep as the sun set and the cold Frozen Fields were covered in even colder night. Fiara and Urist were the first to go, with Amaterasu and Oki staying behind until the fire went out. Just as the former prepared to go however, Oki held her back.

“You’re glowing”, he remarked with a serious tone. “Have you noticed?”

“Glowing? Oh, yes… I’ve noticed, but I have no idea where it’s coming from. It’s been there for a while but it keeps getting stronger.” She scritched her skin. In daylight, especially in an environment as bright as the Frozen Fields, it wasn’t noticeable, but now at night it was more appearant. The glow was seemingly coming from within her, a multicolored light of unknown origin.

“Do you think it’s a disease or something?”

“I don’t think so, I wouldn’t have any idea what sort of disease that could be.”

“Does it itch? I noticed you scratching yourself.”

“A little. But that’s more the Frozen Fields’ temperature shifts, I believe. Don’t worry about it, Oki. If I feel sick, I will be sure to let you all know, and seek aid.”

“Alright… just be careful, you’re our lifeline out here and I’d never forgive myself if you died because of my neglect to watch over you.”

“Thank you Oki, but I believe it to be the other way around… the kami watch over mankind.”

“That’s true”, said Oki and smiled. “But what about monks and shrine guardians who keep shrines and temples in good repair?”

“Our power is not bound to a building or a place of worship”, the kami explained and laughed as she slid into the tent. She carefully placed the Wover Tear, her most treasured possession, into her backpack and used that as a pillow, so nobody could steal it without waking her. The unseeming black orb was held in a leather bag lined with silk on the inside, to conceal it from prying eyes, and even then she was very careful with it. As she finished the preparations to sleep, she explained: “These places are kept in a good state to prove that mankind has not forgotten about us, that they know their place and that they continue to seek our favour and goodwill. But let us have this discussion another day. I feel tired from a long day, and I need to sleep before I explode of giddiness… giddiness at building the city of light.”

Explode. It was a strangely fitting word for the events that were to come in the following day.

[Amaterasu]

The night came and went far too fast for the taste of the weary quartet, but they allowed themselves no lazy morning time. After a quick breakfast they mounted up and departed once more. As with the day before, things remained mostly quiet, with each of them tending to their own thoughts. That is, until they arrived.

They only had briefly seen this area from a corner of their eye, and even now it was, frankly, unimpressing. As they stopped at the edge of the site, they oversaw a huge plateau spanning several kilometers in a roughly square shape, covered in snow. It was mostly flat, with a few animal burrows and tracks along its edges but as far as Amaterasu could tell the center was uninhabited. No surprise: there was nothing to be had, no animals living there and no plants growing. Years of snow and winds had flattened the land to be smooth like a calm lake’s surface and eroded away the earth, leaving only hard rock. It may have been a mountain in the past, with peaks overlooking the lands, but even now. as a plateau, it had a slight advantage in height to the lands around it.

In other words it was the perfect location to build.

“I can see it already”, said Amaterasu. “This plateau will need a lot of work… a water collecting lake will need to be carved into the rock, and of course we will need to clear the snow in order to build… and bring fertile soil in order to build farms to sustain ourselves. But, I can see it out there.” She held her arms out as if wanting to grab this entire landscape and pull it close. “Let’s go. We need to go to the center of this plateau… it is there that I will place the founding stone of Hoshi.”

With a mount as fast as the Nimbus it took them little time to reach the desired location, especially since the plateau was flat and void of obstacles. As they advanced Urist surveyed the area and when they stopped at Amaterasu’s signal he dug up some of the snow and examined it in his hand. He did not say anything, however, as the others dismounted and put their luggage on the ground.

“The snow goes ‘bout ‘alf a meter down”, he then said when Amaterasu began to dig with her hands. “Below tha’, ah presume tha’ the rock begins.”

“It will take time to clear everything out… should we build it underground? Or melt the snow? No… we will need to summon helpers. People to be the first settlers of Hoshi along with us.”

“Even then, tha’ would take days. An’ these people are gonna need somewhere ta stay… ah’ve got an idea, though. Ye can summon somethin’ like a metal box containin’ a house with all the necessities. Give it a wide base so it can’t topple over. It’s gonna sink into the snow an’ melt it with the heating. We’d need somewhere ta lead all that snow though.”

“A moat of some description to drain the water, maybe? Otherwise you’re right, we would end up with a mess. I’ve not thought of that. Very well… let’s begin with something simpler. I need to summon… a lot of stuff. And I can’t risk sinking into the snow while I focus, so let’s begin by clearing out everything in an area so we can make our base camp on the rocks below us.” With that said she sat on the Nimbus, so as not to freeze her butt while summoning, and reached her hands out to mentally grasp at the snow in the spot she wanted cleared. As she worked on pulling its essence, its Omnilium, out, the solid water seemed to liquefy into rainbow-colored light, it condensed into wisps that flew around the rapidly growing hole, then entered Amaterasu’s outstretched hands. It took longer than expected, as the snow was thicker than just a thin surface layer, having been packed together into a dense mass.

“Hey… isn’t Mother Amaterasu glowing?” asked Fiara after a while. Even in the light of the day, it was noticeable. Just as much as the discomfort visible on the kami’s face.

Oki frowned deeply. “This is not normal… Ammy?”

“... Oki? What’s the matter? Am I… oh, I’m done.” She bent her gloved fingers. “My hands are burning… I need to take these gloves off.” She promptly discarded the warming hand protections, and beneath that more glowing skin surfaced. What was worse though, the veins on her hands were bulging, and lines, thin as a thread, were forming on her skin, with the glow coming out of them. It looked like the intricate pattern on a leaf, but much more concerning.

“Amaterasu, something’s wrong with you. This isn’t normal!” exclaimed Oki as he saw her hands. But he needed not say it aloud, for Amaterasu had noticed as well. With wide eyes she looked at the bulging veins and the lines forming. Were her hands swelling and reddening now? No, this had to be the cold air…

“What’s happening to me? Why… I feel like I’m swelling like a balloon”, she said with a fearful tone in her voice. “Am I really sick? No, if… if I really am, I need to help you guys first!” Hastily she climbed down into the hole she had made, at the bottom of which a smooth surface of gray rock was to be seen, under about half a meter of snow. “If I die, I will ensure that you can last! I’ll make this hole bigger, I’ll absorb the extra snow, and you can place your tents here! I’ll come back as soon as I respawn! Quickly now.” Again she closed her eyes and focused her efforts on extracting the Omnilium of the snow around her. But as time passed and she absorbed the Omnilium she felt worse and worse. Midway through the extraction process she discarded her coat, her trousers and her boots, so she was dressed only in the miko dress she wore beneath that. And even then she felt hot and like she was swelling. Like she could explode any moment. This pain spurred her on and she tried to blurt out the voices from outside until Oki stood right before her and shook her by her shoulders to tear her out of it.

“AMATERASU!” he yelled, and this she could not ignore. When she opened her eyes, she noticed how much snow she had removed. Over twenty meters in every direction away from her, forming a huge circle, like a crater. The gray rock, perhaps granite, was all around her, laid bare. Then she looked at herself. She was glowing in all colors of the rainbow, and her skin was covered in rips and tears through which the light was escaping. It looked as if a massive creature of rainbow-colored light was inside her, trying to burst out. She screamed. Then she exploded.

A Prime’s Omnilium could not be stockpiled indefinitely. Though it was immaterial and weightless, it needed to be contained. And like a battery, a Prime could act as the container for the energy that was Omnilium. But every battery had its limits. Limits that could be expanded, of course, limits that could be trained, but Amaterasu had pushed her limits too far. For months, maybe years, she had only spent small amounts of Omnilium here and there, and as the mysterious energy, matter or whatever it was had naturally come to her, it had accumulated. She had absorbed and disassembled objects into Omnilium and used it sparingly wherever she could, never realizing that she was filling a container that would one day reach a point where it could hold no more. And she had reached that point, but then she had kept going, ignored the signs, and taken more and more.

Perhaps it was around the time where she had met Omni that she had come close to her limit. The Smiling God had given her a hefty amount of Omnilium as a reward for meeting him, and that had begun to push her. She had not summoned much since, but she had absorbed much. And accumulated much more. The Omnilium inside her had started to push back at that point, trying to find an outlet, for Omnilium was not there to be hoarded, but to be used. But Amaterasu had not realized that, and so she had not done anything to help the situation. It was like a dam whose maintenance staff ignored the signs of it straining under the pressure and kept the outlet closed so as to fill it more. And like any dam with excess water, it would one day reach and pass the limits of tolerance, then give out and break, and the accumulated flood would tear the dam apart as it escaped. In her case, the amount of snow she had extracted the Omnilium of was the one straw that broke the camel’s back, the one droplet that was too much. Amaterasu realized all that in this moment, and acted.

A split second before her body was torn apart under the unbearable pressure, Amaterasu began to release Omnilium. She opened the floodgates and allowed it to escape not just through her hands and in a controlled fashion, but out of every pore of her body, in a very much uncontrolled manner. Omnilium in quantities that some Primes could only dream of flooded out of her, blasting Oki, Fiara and Urist back and clearing out the snow in a wide area around Amaterasu, all accompagnied by an ear-meltingly loud thunder. Her clothing barely lasted a split second: the storm of what was both energy and matter tore her garments apart, reduced them to dust and converted them into Omnilium that joined the flood that came out of her, spiraling upwards.

That day, the trolls and dwarves, dragons and many other inhabitants of the Frozen Fields observed a strange phenomenon. From Zul’gurand to Dwarfholm, from Fort Amber to the highest peak of the Roof of the World, it could be seen: a strange pillar of rainbow-colored light, shooting into the sky as a massive beam, parting the clouds as it stabbed into them and giving view to the blue sky above. A thunder erupted through the frozen lands, and much like thunder it was a brutal sound that shook those who heard it deep within. Thankfully the thick snow covering the land absorbed most of it so that those who heard it only heard a distant, low rumble.

---

Not all that far away from the origin of the Omnilium Storm Sapphiron, leader of the Blue Dragonflight, raised his head from the resting place atop one of the peaks of the Roof of the World, and the slightest hint of a smile crossed his scale-lined maw. “It looks like the little Prime is awakening… it does not seem like she was torn apart by her power. This promises to be interesting”, he said as he watched the pillar stretching into the sky.

---

At the same time, somewhere in dwarven territory a group of well-armed dwarves were fighting a squad of equally well-armed trolls, a fight of the sort that happened on a weekly basis everywhere across the Frozen Fields. However, both the dwarven and troll squad leaders who had their weapons locked and were testing each other’s strength promptly stopped when the pillar of light brightened the afternoon sky. They briefly glanced at each other then split apart, each hiding behind their respective squad. The precaution, however, seemed unnecessary as the combatants, too, had all but forgotten about the fight to look at the phenomenon. Everyone knew what the light really was: the rainbow sparkle of Omnilium was unmistakable.

The dwarven squadleader was the first to recover from the daze. “Loric!” he shouted. “Give me yer Communicator! We need ta inform King Battlehammer o’ this!”

“Captain Heimskar? Just a… angh, second!” The second-in-command dwarf shoved back the troll he was fighting against and pulled out a smartphone-sized item that he handed over.

The captain hastily punched in a number, then while waiting for the other end to pick up stroked his beard and eyed the pillar. “Bruenor’s beard… ah’ve never seen anythin’ like it. Some sorta raw Omnilium geyser maybe?” he wondered aloud.

“It’d be worth investigatin’ once we’re done with these ‘ere trolls”, Loric remarked. “If it’s a spring o’ Omnilium it might be worth occupyin’, bu’ the trolls are gonna want it too.”

“We’ve got orders, I ain’t gonna disobey ‘em based on wha’ we think King Battlehammer would want. You keep an eye on the trolls while I’m on the call. Keep ‘em at bay at any cost… Advisor Ranmeld? This is Captain Heimskar speaking. There’s a phenomenon taking place outside, I believe that King Battlehammer will be very interested in hearing of it...”

---


On the other side of the battlefield the troll captain caught on too. He was an ogre-like giant twice the size of his subordinates and wearing protective gear patched together from pieces of dwarven armor as both protection and as a fear-inspiring trophy to display how many dwarves he had slain before. “Big boss Zul’Jin want know of big light-tower! Where Grug have speaksie-boxy?!” he yelled out as he began patting himself down. A much smaller troll wearing a bright red-colored hat approached him.

“Boss! You leave Communicator with Mudfoot, so it not get broken under armor!” he said as he produced a scratched-up Communicator and held it out.

Captain Grug took it out of the troll’s hand. “Grug know dat. Mudfoot is a bit stooped for think Grug not know”, he grumbled. Then he brought the speaksie-boxy to his ear. “Grug now talk with big boss. Mudfoot need keep eyes on dwarfsies if dey try to stick trollsies with stabbies. If dwarfsies take out stabbie chuckers den Mudfoot make trollsies run in!”

“If dwarves try shoot us with bows, Mudfoot order attack?”

“Yeah, is what Grug said. Mudfoot have to use earsies!” He cackled before starting to speak into his speaksie-boxy, all the while keeping his eyes on the shining pillar of light. “Dis is Captain Grug, who dis? General Kal’Jin? Grug have big stuffsies to tell! Big boss want to hear dis!”

---

Back at the plateau, Amaterasu knelt at the bottom of the crater of snow, helplessly letting the Omnilium stream out of her so it could rise into the sky. The floodgates were wide open, she could not close them until everything was out.

But that was not enough. Omnilium in its raw form was without purpose, without meaning, and it was not stable enough to exist in the Omniverse in its neither-matter-nor-energy form. It demanded to be used, to be given purpose. But no Prime could have coherently thought of dozens, of hundreds of things to summon into existence, all at the same time, not even a kami. And so the Omnilium grasped what figments of thought crossed her mind. Her dreams and hopes, her wishes and desires, her recent memories, still fresh at the surface of her mind, many things were taken and molded into existence. Not everything lasted however: under the Omnilium Storm the weaker ideas and wishes were quickly reabsorbed before they could truly be embodied into existence. It was a natural selection process that spectacularly displayed the ever-present struggle inside every person’s mind: what do they need and want, and how much do they need or want it? In Amaterasu’s case the strong ideas associated with her greater wishes and recent memories remained: her alliance with Amber and the wish to found a safe haven in the Frozen Fields, her desire for power to defeat evil and protect her friends, and many others. Figments of imagination came into being, and due to the exorbitant amount of Omnilium that needed to be formed the results were astounding. Of course, she would not know that until much later.

Minutes turned to hours and the Omnilium Storm raged on above her, but Amaterasu could feel that it was expending its energy as more of the Omnilium was cast into solid form. Her vision was obscured by blinding light in all colors of the rainbow that burnt even through her closed eyelids, and all she could hear were the sounds of rushing air as it was catapulted up by the rising raw Omnilium and more air flooded in to take the empty space.

Finally the flood had diminished to a trickle that she could contain once again, but as she did so the drain of what she had just done hit her. She collapsed on the floor, exhausted to no end and incapable of grasping clear thoughts for a while.

… the floor?

Sluggishly she felt her energy come back. She felt a breeze, but she did not feel cold. After a bit of focusing she noticed that she was not feeling the air on her skin, but on her fur. An oddly familiar feeling… she tried to stretch her fingers and found that she had none - all there was were paws. Finally she took in a deep breath and her world filled with colors and imagery, painting a picture in her head clearer than any human nose could.

There was no doubt about it: she had turned into a wolf.

As the energy returned to her limbs she opened her eyes to confirm what she had smelled: around her was a room of wood and stone of incredible splendor. She saw a study desk with a shelf full of scrolls and parchments, on an exotic rug. A luxurious bed, ready for its occupant to sleep in. Ornate paintings and nipponese writings on scrolls lined the the walls. All things that she remembered from her old home in Tamagahara, from the palace of the sun that she had inhabited in her days as a kami before descending to the world as a white wolf.

She turned her eyes up and understood where the cold breeze was coming from: the ceiling and the floors above it had a clean circular hole carved out, several meters wide, through which the evening sky could be seen. That was no doubt the result of the Omnilium Storm… even so, an amused smile crossed her maw. She would repair that later, though. Now that she felt the energy return to her limbs, she needed to leave this place and find her friends!

In her current form she found herself unable to open doors, so she crashed through one of the windows, shattering the glass panes in the process and falling several stories before landing on solid ground. Even in her worried state she could not help but to stop a moment and stare: she was standing in a formal nipponese garden in the midst of a square building, that looked better than even the most masterful gardener could accomplish. The building surrounding her was just as impressive: a palace fit for an Emperor. Had she thought all this up? She found a large pair of conveniently open doors and rushed out into the Frozen Fields.

On the plateau a lot of snow remained, even through the Omnilium Storm. There was no sign of the Nimbus, of their luggage and most importantly of their friends. She hadn’t accidentally…? No, she couldn’t have! They had to be alive! Amaterasu breathed in, then raised her head to the sky and let out a loud howl to make herself heard across the plateau. Then when nobody responded she howled once more, and finally a third time.

It was then that her howl got a response… in the form of another howl. She promptly rushed in the direction that it came from and saw the outline of another wolf, this one with brown-grayish fur, paint itself against the snow. It was Oki, and with him he was dragging someone. Amaterasu rushed to meet him as fast as she could.

“Oki! Are you okay?!” she asked with urgence as they came within talking distance. Now she could see that he was carrying Urist the dwarf on his back, and was dragging Fiara along by her coat, using his teeth. There was a trail in the snow where they had come from, at the other end of which she could see a deep hole in the snow. Had the three of them burrowed when the Omnilium Storm had happened?

“Yes”, growled the Oina warrior. “Slightly… hard hearing for a while… thunder sound got me hard. Fiara… too close, clothes got torn up. Had to wrap her… into mine, and turned… to wolf, so I would not… freeze to death. What… happened?”

“Oh, Oki, it’ll take a while to explain, but we have to care for you three first. Come, let’s go inside.” She passed her body under Fiara and lifted her onto her back that way, then stepped to Oki’s side. “What did you guys see?”

“You… exploded into bright light, knocked us all back… into the snow. Then there was… this massive pillar of light, it reached up into the sky. Could be seen far and wide, like a beacon. And slowly all these things… came into existence.” He nodded his head at the palace. “That… being the most notable. It went on for hours… and stopped half an hour ago.”

“I see… for hours, huh. That light must no doubt have been noticed then…” As they reached the doors, Oki returned to his human form and opened them to let Amaterasu in. It took them a little searching but they found a room with beds to lay Fiara and Urist in.

“They’re a bit cooled, but they’ll make it. Urist is tough as nails, and Fiara isn’t made of paper either, but I think a little warm sake could do them good.”

“I’ll summon some. I’ll figure out how to change out of this form later”, said Amaterasu.

“Heh… I can understand you in this form, I suppose that you’re not the same that you were when we first met in Nippon, then!”

“I’m really not. But, while I summon I guess it’s my turn to explain myself?”

“It is. I’m curious to hear what has happened… oh, and before I forget. There is a very different air about you. And that strange glow is gone.”

“Yes, that’ll make sense once I tell my part of the story. You see, I had so much Omnilium hoarded in my body that I suppose I suffered from an overload…”

[Amaterasu]

After administering first aid in the form of herbal medicine and sake to warm them from within, Amaterasu left Fiara and Urist in the care of Oki. As he was able to switch freely between human and wolf forms he was more up to the task than she, who wasn’t sure how to change herself back - if she even could. Fortunately Omnilium summoning went as easy as always, to summon medicine and sake for them. It was weird knowing that she had depleted her reserves not an hour ago to the last drop, and already they were refilling and she wasn’t even noticing!

The first order of business on her list was the repair of the hole in the roof and the window she had shattered in getting to the ground floor. The palace she had made would quickly cool if the heat inside wasn’t contained, after all. But, how would she open the doors that she could likewise not open earlier that day? As she stood before the sliding door that led out of the formal garden and into the building, she wondered that.

Her paws were no use here, that much was clear. They would fail to get a grasp on the frame. If she had her human form back it would be far easier, but could she transform like Oki? How did he even do it, was there some trick to transforming? Or was she stuck in her wolf form after having depleted her Omnilium? Should she transform her body to some new shape, using her replenishing reserves? The questions kept piling on until she concluded that allowing herself to be panicked would not make things any better. She calmed and turned her thoughts inwards. Breathe… calm. Let the worries pass over you, and think. Then she opened her eyes and looked at the pond in the garden. She was too far away to see her reflection, but it was enough to picture herself standing before it, looking at it, and watching how her canine features turned to those of a human again. Lo and behold, she felt her body changing rapidly not a moment later. Fur receded into skin, paws reshaped into hands and feet, her bones rearranged themselves and her perception changed. A few moments later she was back to her human form, but dropped on all fours - and naked.

“This is gonna be troublesome”, she murmured as she reached her hands out and weaved more Omnilium into a new miko dress. If she lost her clothing every time she transformed that would mean trouble, especially in a place like the Frozen Fields. A human’s body wasn’t suited to contain the heat it needed to stay alive, as opposed to that of a wolf. In the ten minutes it took her to summon more clothing she would freeze to death, and not every situation would have the luxury of time for her to summon something before transforming in order to get dressed right afterwards. Plus there was the problem of nudity - more specifically, humans reacted weirdly to other humans not covering themselves up. Well, Oki and Fiara would probably be okay with it, but what about Urist, or complete strangers? Then again, her dress had been destroyed during the Omnilium Storm, so that might be playing a role in this too. Some food for thought, in any case.

Only once she got dressed did she start to wonder why the temperature in the palace was so warm. The formal garden pond should have frozen over and she should be chilled to the bone after having transformed to her human form! Was that a side effect of the Omnilium Storm too? She turned away from the door she was going to open and instead turned her attention towards the open sky above the garden. It took a bit to notice, but there was some sort of layer, like transparent ice, there. Wait, hadn’t there been something like that in Dwarfholm?

“Gor… no. Glue? Gale… Glass! Yes, glass.” A dwarf had told her that it was the result of heating sand to very high temperatures and that it was a good thing to place into windows to let people see through while maintaining a barrier. Upon closer inspection she noticed that this barrier was like a roof over the garden, at the top story of the palace. But she also noticed the occasional snowflake dropping in through the smashed window. The heat probably escaped through that, through the hole in the ceiling and roof and the window. All the more reason to fix the damages.

When she began walking towards the door to return upstairs the next surprise presented itself: two suns hung in the sky, one on its way to setting, the other vertically above them, indicating noon. She hadn’t noticed them earlier because of the angle she stood at which had apparently superimposed them, but now she took a closer look... the latter was a little dimmer than the first though, and hung in front of the clouds, unlike the other one that was partially obscured by them. A second sun hanging this low? Was it she who had done that? She had to - there was no way anyone who wasn’t a Prime had the power to hang a celestial body in the sky like that. No, she had to find out. If that second sun was made by her she should have some extent of control over it, right?

After a moment of consideration Amaterasu took her hair-brush into her hand and drew a circle into the sky. “Taiyo”, she said, and the more distant sun, the one she speculated was the ‘real’ one, did not react. In this place she could not control the celestial bodies as she could in Nippon, so the lack of a reaction confirmed her suspicion. That was the real sun, and this other one had been added. Yet she felt it was as natural as the other…

Again. She painted a circle, this time on top of the new sun, and spoke the same word: “Taiyo.” And the sun she had ‘aimed’ at brightened and its warm light heated the garden a little more, while on its surface the 照 kanji - meaning ‘to shine’ - formed for a few seconds before dissipating. Amaterasu upheld the connection for a few minutes then severed it, and the sun darkened, emulating the same amount of light that the now more angled ‘real’ sun was dispensing at this time in the afternoon.

So this sun likely dispensed heat according to what she was habituated to… heat in the same measure as in Nippon. But it wasn’t just terribly ineffective, it would also pose a risk of changing the climate of the Frozen Fields on a wider scale if she allowed the heat to dissipate. The idea of containing it in some sort of enormous glass dome immediately popped into her head. But how much Omnilium would that take?

… well, seeing how she had a lot of snow and ice from the plateau that she could turn to Omnilium, maybe that problem solved itself. But she would need to employ a skilled architect to ensure that a structure of that size didn’t collapse under its own weight. A handful od skilled dwarves, maybe? She waved her brush around again, now drawing a crescent over the artificial sun, and spoke: “Tsuki”. And the sun immediately dimmed as a 宵 kanj - meaning ‘evening’ - formed over its surface for a moment, then it turned entirely into a gray and beige rock hanging above the palace, like a moon. Better to save the energy and keep it from messing up the local climate.

After finishing her experimentation with the new celestial body hanging above the palace, she finally got to do what she’d come here to do in the first place: to fix the smashed window and broken roof. In her human form she was able to open doors without any issues, and though the bedroom that she had to fix was fairly cold after having been exposed to the elements for this long it didn’t take long to repair. It barely took half hour of concentrated summoning to get everything into pristine conditions, and already as she was summoning she could feel the room warming again.

“Now, what’s next…” she wondered aloud, dangling her feet off the side of the bed. Should she go explore the palace a bit? See what was beyond all the doors? She was curious, wanting to find out more, but her thoughts kept going back to Urist and Fiara. No, she couldn’t go around having fun while the two of them were passed out because of her. It wouldn’t feel right. Not to mention, it would be so much more fun to see this palace between the four of them. Her feet touched the ground and almost immediately she broke into a fast walk, almost a slow run, back to her friends’s room. As she was running she transformed again, and by the time that she nudged the sliding door open she had to use her snout.

Oki was sitting between their beds, still holding watch over them. He looked up but remained silent, he just acknowledged her with a nod. Amaterasu hopped onto the bed and laid down on top of the blanket, stretching her body across Fiara’s legs and bedding her head on top of her paws. The Oina warrior shifted in his seat and by the little bit of his face that was not covered by his mask she could tell that his lips had curled into a smile. He reached out and gently scritched a spot between her ears, which sent a pleasurable calm feeling through her. She closed her eyes and let her mind drift away a bit.

“How do you feel?” Oki then asked.

“Mhh? What do you mean?”

“I worry that you may have been hit by the storm too. If you’ve hidden anything so that we don’t have to worry…”

Amaterasu raised her head so that with Oki having bent forwards they were now at eye level. “I appreciate your concern, Oki, but you needn’t worry. I did nothing of the sort, in fact I feel… good. Great, even.”

“You feel great?”

“Yes, I… I’m only just realizing it but I feel strengthened. I believe that the Omnilium I had stockpiled empowered me when I released it. No, allow me to rephrase that. I did not waste the Omnilium I had hoarded, but I gave it form and purpose. This wolf form, for instance… I did not revert to a weaker form, but the Omnilium formed it for me, based on my memories of the adventures I had when I was in Nippon.”

“What about the other items and powers that you used in Nippon, then? The Yata no Kagami, for instance?”

“I believe that they are somewhere nearby. I haven’t yet had time to explore the palace, but they might be somewhere in here. Or maybe they’re scattered throughout the Frozen Fields.”

“Scattered in a land as large as Nippon, possibly buried under snow and ice, underground or inside a cavern? That sounds as difficult as gathering the Stray Beads all over again.”

“It’s not like the Divine Instruments I gathered were handed to me on a silver plate either. Perhaps I will need to go seek them, just like the kami of the Celestial Brush.” She did a big, hearty wolf yawn and laid her head down again. “But not now.”

“You just want to be a tired wolf for a bit now?” Oki asked.

“It’s been a long day for us all.”

“Why don’t you go rest up in your bed?”

“I wouldn’t sleep anywhere but next to my friends when they might need me”, she replied. “You should lay down a bit too, though. I can feel that the two of them are recovering. They probably just need to rest up a bit.”

“Just like you I couldn’t leave these two alone. I’ll stay”, declared Oki as he changed to his wolf form as well and laid down so that his side was up against Urist’s feet and he and Amaterasu faced each other. He laid his head on the covers and closed her eyes, as did Amaterasu, and soon they joined their friends in the land of dreams.

Meanwhile, somewhere near the Frozen Fields Gate…

James eyed the butt of his cigarette, then dropped it into the snow and stepped on it before returning his attention to his new smoker-friend, a man in his mid twenties - a bit older than him - wearing a thick winter coat of the same brand as he did. “So, you’re not here for the whole religion bullshit either?” he asked as he adjusted his glove. Fucking hard to hold a smoke with these things.

“That’s right”, the other man replied. Just the way he talked made James wonder if he was wearing a suit and tie underneath that coat. “If an Omnilium leak is the cause of the phenomenon that was observed it would be a unique opportunity of business. If we take the big picture into consideration - which, without meaning to boast, I did - I am confident that the coexistence of this religious cult and a well-managed hospitality market could create a prime environment for organic growth.”

“Wha?”

“Without revealing too many of my envisioned mid-term goals, I understand that we - including you, my young friend - are the opportunists who could potentially pave the way for an as-of-yet untapped market in the tourist industry. We are doers after all, not thinkers who stay in the safety of their run-down offices. Am I correct in labeling you as such, Jamie?”

“It’s James, man. Look, I don’t really understand what…”

“Ah, that is not an issue. I feel that we are on the same wavelength, what with you being a goal-oriented out-of-the-box-thinking person, what does understanding the details matter? What I am saying is that the first wave, which we are a part of, can set the stage for future markets, and by exploring a business branch that has as of yet been unexplored we will be able to establish a monopoly before any competitors pop up.”

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

The other man sighed and shook his cigarette to get the ash off the tip. Then he rubbed his thumb- and the index-middle-ring-pinky finger-parts of his mitten together before James’s nose. “We could roll in the easy dough, man.”

“Ohh! Man, why didn’t you say so earlier?” He chuckled. “Would be nice though. I’m tryin’ to get outta my parents’ place and find a gig somewhere, my old man’s been on my back for ages now. Tells me I gotta stop partyin’ and shit. So, uh. You hiring for your gig, dude?”

“Indeed, and I would have a fantastic business proposal for you, Jamie. Let’s hash out the details…”



Not too far away from the two men, a troll bent forward to stare down a dwarf she was towering over. She bared her teeth for an evil grin, and the dwarf wrinkled his nose. “You probably won’t even last ‘til day two, stone-eater. Shoulda stayed in the safety of your fortresses and buried under a rock, where you belong.”

“Says the wampa-face tha’s used ta cowerin’ behind a man”, the dwarf replied and spat on the ground. “It true tha’ yer troll-men like ta take ‘em from behind so they don’ need ta see their faces?”

The troll-girl screamed and reached for the knife on her belt, but before the confrontation could turn violent a third individual intervened, separating the two of them with a gnarled staff that it thrusted between them. Out of all those present, this person’s clothing was the most eccentric: a robe of purplish brown color, not unlike a monk’s, covered their chest and most of the legs, fashioned out of leather and cloth. Where the sleeves and robe bottom ended one could see gloves and boots of the same color, adorned with claws and talons to look like the hands and feet of a great beast. Their head was hidden under a large helmet imitating the appearance of a boar, with two long tusks that left it ambiguous as to whether this person was a troll or the tusks were a part of the helm. They were covered head to toe in this mixture of a robe and armor, which made even their gender ambiguous. Until they spoke, that is.

“My friends, do not quarrel!” a male voice spoke from under the armor. “We are in this together now, the past should be left to rest and we must look to the future! If we fight among ourselves now, how are we to stand together?”

“He... called me ugly!” the troll-girl pressed out between gritted teeth, waving her hand towards the dwarf. The knife remained sheathed, however.

The armored man put a hand on her shoulder. “Sister Jur’Lin, you are a beauty among trolls, inside and outside. Let none tell you otherwise.” Then he turned towards the dwarf. “Brother Delnar, it is unbecoming of a member of a race as proud and honorable as you to insult another, even if you have been wronged first.”

“Ah may be proud an’ honorable, bu’ tha’ don’ mean ah’m gonna let a troll walk over me”, the dwarf replied. He looked aside as he said that, though.

“Does the mountain feel insulted if the wind calls it small? Allow the words to pass over you, brother, for an insult only means as much as the insulted is offended by it. And should your body fall on this journey, I will be there myself to help you to your feet, or carry you on my back.”

“Hah. Ah won’t be needin’ ta take ye up on this offer, Yer Holiness. Ah’ve seen the miracle an’ ah’m certain that the God of Light has sent a message ta the believers. Me faith strengthens me legs… not tha’ a dwarf ain’t hardy enough ta not endure such a journey.”

“Then I ask that you apologize to each other, and put your differences aside. In the eyes of the God of Light we are neither trolls nor dwarves, we are all equal.”

“Mmnh… fine. Ah’m sorry, Jur’Lin. Ah’m sure that any troll man would love ta be with a beauty as yerself. Jes’ ain’t easy gettin’ over wha’ ah’ve been used to me whole life.” With that, Delnar held out a gloved hand. Jur’Lin’s features softened, and she grabbed the dwarf by his lower arm, in turn allowing him to grab her arm. Like this, they shook ‘hands’.

“I apologize too, Delnar… prejudices are rooted deep in us, but if we are to stand together we must weed them out. I have no doubts that you will brave this journey without any trouble.” She turned to the priest after saying this. “Father Tah’Kar, what…”

The priest, apparently Tah’Kar - the very Zul’Garandian troll that had organized this meeting a few days ago, through the Dataverse Messageboards - raised a hand to stop her. “Sister, please. I wish to not use this name, for I am no longer the troll I once was. Call me Father or Warpriest, for as the devout priest of the God of Light I shall be ready to lead the fight in His name when the time comes. I will take on a name if I am permitted such by Him, but until then my title will be my identity.”

“My apologies, Father... I was wondering when we would depart. The merchant Ali is already raising his prices under the pretense of that his stock is running low, and we cannot afford much more.”

“That is true… I am quite saddened to see such an intelligent man bound by the chains of material wealth and the curse of gold. It is almost offensive to see him take our holy pilgrimage as an opportunity to sell coats and canned food overpriced.” He shook his head. “I have received word that another two individuals wish to join us tomorrow, and I would like to wait for them. If they do not show we will depart without them,” He looked over to the two humans, of which one was doing all the talking at the moment. “It would seem that some of us are quite eager to begin the journey earlier, though.”

[Amaterasu]

“Again! Lean, grab, step left, disarm, subdue… yes! Tomaru... and back to the base position.”

Fiara wiped the sweat from her forehead as she stood up and took a simple stance where she was standing, while Amaterasu adjusted her gi and stood back up. Both were dressed in the simple robes, a combination of white trousers and shirt-like tops held together with a colored belt, as was custom when practicing martial arts. The young kami was practicing under Amaterasu’s instructions - and with her as the “attacker” who she was to defend against.

The instant that she was back on her feet she stabbed the knife prop towards Fiara’s face, who reflexively repeated the sequence. Lean to the side, grab the wrist, step out of the way, disarm the attacker, get them on the ground, all in one fluid sequence. In three seconds flat, they were on the ground with Fiara holding her in a submission grip. Once more, they stood up and Fiara readied herself. This time however Amaterasu switched things up: she feinted an attack, dropped the knife into her other hand and landed a painful hit against the girl’s ribs. Of course, the knife prop was little more than a piece of wood shaped to vaguely resemble a knife with no cutting edge or stabbing tip whatsoever, but it still hurt.

“You’re getting better, but you’re preparing to defend against an attack that you assume I’ll do”, Amaterasu explained. “Don’t let repetitiveness become a habit… are you okay?”

“Yeah”, Fiara said. “Might leave… ow, a bruise, but I’m fine.”

“Let’s leave it there for today then. We’ve been at it for almost two hours anyway, long enough. You can do the cooldowns on your own, right?”

“Of course. But what about you, Mother Amaterasu?”

“I wanted to meditate to finish the foundations I’ve begun yesteray, that’ll be enough cooling down.”


It had been almost three weeks now, since the Omnilium Storm and the resulting establishing of Kyuden, the palace. Three weeks which, for the four of them, had been very busy. Urist was out every night using maps and complicated measuring tools to determine their exact location and map possible locations for quarries, farms and wells, coming back in the mornings to sleep during the day. Oki had taken to scouting the area after they had unanimously come to the conclusion that the Omnilium Storm might have been seen, and attracted the attention of potentially unsavory individuals. Fiara had gotten Amaterasu to construct a larger version of the Mobile Dataverse Device she’d acquired from that troll a while back, that remained in one place, to browse the Dataverse with and keep herself updated. In her spare time she’d taken up combat training: the feeling that she could have done better in Dante’s Abyss, that she could have survived, was like a thorn in her side. And so she trained, like right now.

And Amaterasu? She was using her new Prime powers to their fullest. She didn’t feel worried about accidentally overstockpiling Omnilium again, especially not so soon after having let everything out, but Hoshi was in its infancy, and like an infant it was small and vulnerable. It needed to be built up, to be strengthened and defended. Over the last three weeks she had continuously summoned for hours a day, as long as she could before her concentration broke. Then she took a little break to recover, drink some water and eat something light, and did it again, from sunrise to sunset.

Her efforts soon bore fruit. Careful planning and mapping of the area with Urist’s help ended with Kyuden at the center of a small town. She smoothened the roads so man, beast and cart alike could navigate them with ease and designated districts for commerce, residence, religion and one for traveling merchants that she named the “Port district”, for lack of a better word. She filled the districts, starting with homes for the residential district, then numerous other buildings: for the commercial district, an inn, a few shops, small warehouses and the like. For the religious district, a large temple taking inspiration from both shintoist and dwarven places of worship with plenty of room left to make it an interfaith establishment where other religious groups could practice as they liked, and a Hall of the Dead for the eventual deceased to be laid to rest. For the Port district, several warehouses of varying size and larger roads for carriages to traverse, plus an inn with high-capacity stables. She made sure that one end of that road would border Kyuden so that she could later implement a large Origin Mirror for merchants to teleport directly to Hoshi.

In the design plans she ensured to leave a few squares and plazas, some near the large roads, some more quiet and snug between the buildings. A few of them she decorated with stone statues as she had seen in Dwarfholm. More importantly for the city that she aimed to have one day, a city with a bustling trade economy, she left one particularly big road to form a straight line from where the city gates would be to the palace, to create a trade road where merchants could place carts and tents to sell their wares in without needing a fixed shop. Once more using Urist’s expertise she also drafted a sewer system to go under Hoshi and evacuate all the city’s wastes, which it would inevitably produce, into massive pits underground where the accumulated sewage could have its Omnilium extracted, or be retrieved as compost for farming.

Even with a preconstructed town this big it occupied a laughably small surface of the plateau. In every direction several kilometers of flat, snow-covered area remained, more than enough to eventually expand for things such as a leisure district, a Colosseum she was planning on using to see if the trolls would have their lust for battle satisfied that way, parks, crops (though these would require replacing a lot of the hard rock with soil and building greenhouses or other means to ensure that the climate was not an issue) and generally space for museums, guildhalls and of course embassies and military barracks. Come to think of it she would also need to organize things such as a firefighting force, guards and a court for law enforcement - and laws! -, someone to take and dispose of garbage that couldn’t be washed away with the sewage… ahh, this was complex. But Amaterasu took these things not as problems but as opportunities to learn and improve. She was going to be responsible for nothing less than a town, maybe even a city some day, after all.

Back to the present, Amaterasu descended into one of the sewers that she had left the other day and took a meditating pose, to resume where she had left off. To extract Omnilium was an easy process, easy to get carried away in fact, but she needed to be careful. Just like the other day when she had almost collapsed a handful of buildings due to disrupting their stone foundations: foundations that she was now rebuilding with meticulous care. She counted herself lucky that the process of Omnilium summoning allowed her to integrate new rock into the existing environment as if they’d never been apart, which enhanced the solidity of the entire construct. But to rebuild what she had destroyed before took longer and needed more careful concentration than simply brute-force extracting Omnilium, especially if errors could possibly set her back further yet, or injure her if she caused a cave-in that dumped a few dozen tons of rock and collapsing houses on her head. As a result it took much longer and got much less done.

When the new foundations stood her stomach grumbled audibly and her legs felt sore from having sat cross-legged for that long. She climbed to the surface and checked past the artificial sun to see how far into the day the ‘real’ sun was. Mid afternoon already?! No wonder she was hungry. Fortunately Fiara had saved her some of the day’s lunch - steaming hot rice with roasted vegetables. Very nice. In a corner of Kyuden’s kitchen she sat down with a plate and chopsticks, and ate until she was full.

Just as she was cleaning up the remains a low hum in her sleeve alerted her to that the Wover Tear sought to speak with her. Ah, the artefact that Tearen had left behind… she felt a little bad for neglecting it. She freed up some space on the table, removed the artefact from where she hid it, took it out of the silk bag it was in, placed the bag on the table surface and bedded the orb on it. Then she laid both hands on its surface. “Have you called for my attention, Wover-sama?” she asked.

The response came promptly, and did so not in words but in images and memories. They filled Amaterasu’s mind, and all were centered around one individual: a young woman known to Tearen as Jade Harley, and now to Amaterasu as well. A trustworthy Prime that was active here in the Frozen Fields, and would be worth speaking to regarding Heaven and Earth. As almost a side note, a Communicator number plopped into her mind.

Though only a split second passed in the physical world the Kami felt like days had gone by. She shakily withdrew her hands, then shook her head and placed them on the orb again. “You have my deep gratitude, Wover-sama, for this information. I shall make sure that it is not squandered.” This time the orb remained silent. Amaterasu withdrew her hands and, with the same great care for the incredibly valuable orb, returned it into the silk bag and hid it in her sleeve again.

A power that can kill the greatest of evils… the strongest, most dangerous Prime in existence. She shuddered at the thought of what such an unseeming item could do if its existence became known to the wrong people. Right now, excluding Omni and perhaps his entourage, only four people knew of the orb. How trustworthy were they? Could Urist possibly…? No. She shook her head. To question the dwarf’s integrity was inexcusable. He was as trustworthy as Oki and Fiara.

But what about Amber and her friends?

What about the powerful Primes out there? What about the innumerable Secondaries that lived everywhere in the Omniverse? Who among them could be trusted, who couldn’t? Who would sell her out and who was an agent of the enemy?

Was there any way to ensure that someone was well and truly trustworthy?

Could she even guarantee to herself that she wouldn’t break under torture if captured by an enemy, and spill a secret? Or have her mind invaded and memories torn from it?

Perhaps her sleeve was not a safe hiding place for the Wover Tear anymore.

Two hours later a safe was installed. Several meters below the deepest sewer line running under the palace, lined with solid steel walls and a massive door, with a numerical lock as she had seen in Dwarfholm once. It looked elaborate and complicated, but the truth was that it was a fake. The door’s hinges were fixed, the handle and code to open it were dead-end movable pieces with no mechanism behind them, the entire door just looked like one but in reality was part of the wall. The only way to get inside, short of using some sort of destructive force great enough to break through the solid steel walls, was to extract the Omnilium from it. This vault Amaterasu filled with all sorts of valuables that were easily conjured using more Omnilium: coins and ingots of gold and silver, necklaces and amulets, rings and bracelets, golden statues, scrolls of parchment with all sorts of imagery depicted on them, pieces of jade, chests of wood and metal containing more gold, a few Noh masks, a couple of cupboards with elaborately decorated ceremonial swords in them, and most importantly a large rock throne in the back with a rock statue sitting on it. She placed a jade crown on the statue’s head and a locked strongbox in its hands that contained a fake journal whose contents were loosely based on her adventures in Nippon. She spent an entire hour summoning words onto its pages and making it sound like a really valuable piece. A lot of the contents were embellished or straight-out lies, but she left out the really important things. That journal, presented and secured so well, was to be the bait. If someone broke into this vault despite all her protections they would see the journal and steal it believing that they’d made off with the most prized of her possessions.

Now to conceal the Wover Tear in plain sight. She summoned nine tripod stands made of wood that she put onto an empty cupboard’s top, and placed eight orbs into them: white, red, yellow, green, blue, indigo and purple. The ninth one, the one between the red and yellow ones, was enchanted: as soon as the artefact came near it the illusionary enchantment turned its black surface orange - as it did for her fingers, actually. This way it blended right in with the others for anyone that couldn’t see its supernatural power. However, as she took the Wover Tear out of its silk bag and held it in her hand, the Prime turned artefact handed her one parting gift: like a closed box, a recollection of all his memories and knowledge of the Omniverse cleanly packaged so as not to overwhelm her mind then and there was passed into her mind. It drove tears to her eyes.

“I cannot express my gratitude enough, Wover-sama”, she whispered. “I wish there was another way but you are our trump card, the one thing on which everything depends. If I lost you, if you fell into the wrong hands, it would be catastrophic. For that reason I cannot risk carrying you with me any longer… but be assured, I will return.” Then she eased the orb into the tripod and let her fingers linger on its surface for a bit longer before she withdrew them. He had nothing more to say and neither had she. As she withdrew her hands from the enchantment field they returned to their regular colors, but the Wover Tear remained orange.

She climbed out of the vault and summoned steel to stuff the entrance she had left to enter and exit. From this angle the big statue was eye-catching and the aligned nine orbs were barely noticeable. Just as intended. She climbed back to the surface and emerged in a corner of the formal garden in the middle of Kyuden. The entrance was a big hole in the ground, one she filled with a big rock. Placed like this it blended very well with the garden’s overall architecture, so much that none would suspect that there was a secret beneath unless they checked. Of course, that was all just the most basic of protections. It was but a matter of time before someone that knew where the vault was located would break into it. She would need to be very careful.

Sitting under a tree in the garden, she prepared the final deception: into her hand she summoned a new sphere, one looking exactly like the Wover Tear: its black color, its size, its weight, everything corresponded exactly to the orb she had been carrying with her for a while now. She even poured a little extra Omnilium into it to make it radiate some bogus magical aura. That fake artefact went into the silk bag which in turn was placed into its hiding place in her sleeve. Even Fiara, Oki and Urist would be none the wiser. As much as she hated hiding such an important detail from her friends, she saw no other way to protect them.

By the time she was done it was evening already. She raised her head just in time to see Oki approaching. “Amaterasu! What are you still doing out here? We’re waiting for you with dinner, Urist has made a dwarven specialty.” He held a hand out, which Amaterasu happily accepted.

“I’m sorry, I was a bit exhausted from summoning so much today.” She let him drag her to her feet.

“Don’t strain yourself too much. I know this is important for you but to overwork yourself is going to come back to bite you in the long run.”

“I know, I know. So, you were saying that Urist made a specialty for dinner?”

“Oh, yes! Roasted lamb with dwarven beer or something, it smelled delicious when he pulled it out of the...”

[Amaterasu]

Had she known what a day this would turn out to be, Amaterasu would have skipped breakfast and spent her time meditating to steel her mind. But of course, it’s easy to make better decisions in retrospect than when you don’t know what’s coming.

It all began like the other days in Hoshi: awoken by the simultaneous rising of the sun of the Frozen Fields and the artificial sun hanging over the city that slowly turned up its brightness, the Kami rose from her futon, stretched her limbs and performed the standard morning ritual of things to be done in the bathroom. Then she folded up her night gown, left it next to the rolled-up futon and opened the window to her bedroom to let the air cycle a bit. Then she stayed and looked over the town. It was such a weird feeling… from her bedroom she could see the streets and houses of the residential district and a corner of the Port district, and everything was silent and unmoving. That was to be expected of course, since nobody actually inhabited Hoshi, but with the good state of repair in which everything was it looked like the townspeople had just vanished one day. Not even abandoned the town, just disappeared from one moment to another. Poof.

She withdrew from the window and smiled. Right now Hoshi may look like a ghost town but what it really was was the foundation of a town that was just waiting for townspeople. Like a big machine that just needed to be filled with materials to process, or like a five-tier staircase arrangement for Hinamatsuri ready for the dolls to proudly stand on it. She would watch over Hoshi and see it grow, she would care for it and for everyone that came to live in it and she would work together with Amber to spread their vision of peace to the entirety of the Frozen Fields… and beyond, maybe.

While she descended to the ground floor her mind drifted off to work already. What was there to take care of that day? … oh right, the interfaith temple of worship in the religious district. If she remembered correctly that still needed its furnishings and an altar. And she needed to check if the Origin Mirrors had been correctly set up.

When she entered the kitchen she noticed, much to her susprise, that Oki was there. He sat by the fire, warming himself and just accepting a bowl of soup from the chef - a secondary that Amaterasu had summoned to man the kitchen - but when he saw her he stood up hastily. “Amaterasu!” he exclaimed.

“Oki! Is everything okay? I thought you were out scouting.”

“I was. There’s some issues. You have to come with me!”

“Alright… explain the matter on the way then.”

“Amaterasu-sama, a moment of your time if I may”, the chef interjected and handed her a small basket with several onigiri. “Here. I made these at Oki-sama’s recommendation, a breakfast for you to enjoy on the go.”

“Oh, thank you Kyusaku-san! To work on an empty stomach would have been a hardship.” That was all she could say before Oki impatiently pulled her away. There was no time for etiquette now, and Amaterasu soon understood why.

Leaving a clear trail in the fresh snow that seemed to point back straight to where the troll territories were a division of what were probably trolls were approaching Hoshi. They were too far away to distinguish in number, but it had to be a squad. Maybe a dozen or so individuals? “And that’s not all”, said Oki as he showed her through the streets of Hoshi to the opposite side of the plateau. A group of what were probably dwarves was approaching from that direction, which is to say from lands under the jurisdiction of King Bruenor Battlehammer. Both were coming straight towards the plateau. There was no way they hadn’t seen the town’s buildings yet, let alone the artificial sun hanging over it all.

“Well… I knew we would have to deal with this sooner or later but I’d hoped that it would be one at a time, not us getting pincered.”

“What are we going to do? The trolls are not going to be very friendly to us since we’ve affiliated ourselves with the dwarves and killed some of them, and we can’t risk upsetting the dwarves either, their relationship with us is delicate enough as it is. And if the two groups see each other a battle will break out.”

“Then we just have to ensure that they do NOT see each other.” She rubbed her forehead. “Let me think how we’re going to go about this… the trolls and dwarves have to be stopped as far away from the town as possible. We cannot allow either of them to climb onto the plateau… the trolls are a more martial race that respect strength, but they are also our enemies - if I don’t appear they’ll take it as weakness and attack. The dwarves on the other hand will respond better to diplomacy - they might take it as an insult if I don’t speak to them but send you guys to speak for me, like I believe myself superior to them... I’d say that the trolls are the greater threat right now, then. I’ll have to descend to meet them. Oki, you and Fiara go meet the dwarves. And have Fiara call Urist to join you guys. If they try to force their way into Hoshi warn them that it would cause a breach of trust with me. Don’t threaten them or physically get in their way, but if they refuse to listen to you call me. I’ve my Communicator on me.”

“You’re forgetting that I earned my place in the dwarven hall too”, Oki pointed out with a grin. “The dwarves will hopefully see me as someone too important to ignore. I’ll give it my best.”

“Don’t hesitate. I’d hate to sacrifice a good relationship with the dwarves over this but we have to establish ourselves.” With that they split ways and Oki ran back to the palace to find Fiara while Amaterasu hastily summoned a pair of snowshoes and a Fur-Selkie mount as soon as they were in deep enough snow. The trolls were far out yet and she wanted to keep it that way..

They apparently noticed her - not that a Fur-Selkie with a person on it was easily missed - because they stopped for a bit, seemingly speaking to each other, then began to move towards her again. Despite her concerns to keep them away from the plateau she stopped at a distance and let them cover the remainder of the distance so as to not appear desperate or panicked. Around her neck the Yasakani no Magatama hung, their weight reassuring her. And she knew that at a moment’s notice she could produce the Kusanagi no tsurugi if things got violent.

Now as for her opponents, they were an interesting bunch. A group of ten, all going on foot and carrying most of their items in huge backpacks. They had a pack animal with them, a strange four-legged creature similar to a horse but with wide feet, that carried more supplies. Of these ten, five were trolls of the sort that she had seen before: the dark-skinned kind with tusks coming out of their mouths. Three were brute humanoids with gray skin that reminded Amaterasu of oni: they looked incredibly dim, as if even their brains were replaced with muscles. And two looked like fat humans with large teeth protruding from their lower jaws. Of these two one was wearing a decorated helm on his head which tipped her off as to who the squad leader was.

“Ho there, strangers!” she greeted them as they came within hearing range. “What’s a group of trolls doing so far out in the wilds?”

“None of your business, human”, one of the trolls replied. They didn’t so much as slow down, clearly intending to just circumvent her.

“Sunny day, isn’t it?” she asked undeterred. “You’d almost think there’s two of them.”

“Two brighty-shinies not be normal”, the squadleader responded. “You know why there two now, little creature?”

“One of them’s a fake. It’s just to brighten our day if it’s cloudy.”

“Who ‘us’? Little creature have friends here?”

“Maybe. What’s it to you?”

“Gruwsh is here to to claim glowy-beam land for trolls. You go away and Gruwsh leave you alive today.”

“Glowy-beam land?” Amaterasu asked and chuckled. “You mean the beam that’s been shining into the sky a few weeks ago?”

“Yah, is what Gruwsh meant. It big Omnehlum source for make chief Zul’Jin stronger.”

“There’s no more Omnilium to be found here than anywhere else, Gruwsh. I’ve been up there. All that’s up there is a little ghost town.”

“Har har! Ghosties no scare Gruwsh. Gruwsh bring mighty troll shaman for ghostie-shoo-shoo.” He tilted his head to the side. “So, why little creature not gone? Does it want to die?”

“The plateau doesn’t belong to the trolls. If you try to pass you’ll regret it.”

“Kill her”, the single troll next to Gruwsh said apathetically. One of the ones in the back promptly raised a wooden staff that became enveloped in green light while another pointed a bow at Amaterasu. The kami ducked to the side and rolled off her Fur-Selkie just in time for a blast of green energy to miss her chest. A moment later an arrow buried itself in the snow next to her. Had she rolled further it would have hit her square in the chest.

The next instant the two trolls that had attacked her were knocked on their backs as two jade beads hit them square in the foreheads. Amaterasu waved her hand and returned the beads to her necklace. “Those two are just dizzied a bit. But try again and I’ll smash your kneecaps next”, she told the troll that had spoken.

Gruwsh laughed and clapped his hands, which sounded like someone was knocking two heads against each other. “Har har har! Little creature is strong, Gruwsh like! Zan’Kar, you know better than interrupt Gruwsh when he doing the talks.”

“This woman is standing in our way. I won’t allow her to delay us. We can’t-”

The squad-leader reached behind the smaller troll, apparently named Zan’Kar, grabbed his head with his massive brutish hand and smashed him face-first into the snow at their feet. Even though the snow absorbed most of the hit, Amaterasu shuddered as she heard the crunching sound of rock against skin and bone and saw as the snow turned a little red. Gruwsh then held the other’s head under the snow against his struggles for a bit, before letting go. The troll pulled his head from the snow and gasped for air. There were bloody cuts on his face and his nose was bleeding.

“Zan’Kar will not tell Gruwsh what Gruwsh can and can not do. If Zan’Kar unhappy with that, Zan’Kar can challenge Gruwsh to battle.”

The smaller troll gritted his teeth but didn’t reply. He just crawled backwards. Gruwsh returned his attention to Amaterasu as if that had never happened. “So, little creature say we regret going up?” he asked.

“There’s nothing up there to get that you can’t find anywhere else. I can lay out how the glowy beam happened if you like, and you can go back to tell your chief about it. But the ghost town up there belongs to me and I’ll defend it against intruders. Tell me Gruwsh, do you want to risk dying over a hunk of rock and some abandoned houses?”

“Har har har! Gruwsh no risk dying because Gruwsh strong!” The huge troll then paused, took a moment to think and ‘hmm-hmm’ed loudly. Then, in an almost frightening display of intelligence for a creature looking this dim, he said: “How about little creature let trolls go to glowy-beam land and see if there really nothing for take? If there no big Omnehlum source then trolls leave glowy-beam land again.”

Amaterasu crossed her arms. “The ‘nothing to hide’ route, I see? No.”

“Why little creature say no?”

“Tell me Gruwsh, do you go away from your squad when you need to poop? Do you hide behind a rock when you do it?”

“What dat got to do with glowy-beam land?”

“Just tell me.”

“Yah. Gruwsh go hide behind rock.”

“But you’re not doing anything forbidden or wrong, right? Why do you do it anyway? You’ve got nothing to hide from your squadmates.”

The troll frowned so hard that his leathery skin wrinkled. “Aghhh, little creature is confusing Gruwsh much. Why little creature talk about poop when it got nothing to do with glowy-beam land? Gruwsh no longer want to talk with little creature.” He began walking forward threateningly. “You leave now or Gruwsh make you.”

Amaterasu flung two beads at the big troll’s chest. They bounced off without leaving so much as a dent and the troll didn’t even slow his steps. She stepped backwards to maintain a distance and continued to pepper him with attacks, aiming for whatever weak points she imagined that beast to have: his eyes, mouth, knees, elbows… nothing. Not the slightest flinch. Her only success was that she got him to close his eyes and let the lids deflect the attack.

“Little creature fight or run!” Gruwsh demanded after a while with annoyance in his voice. “No fair if run and fight at the same time!”

With every bead that bounced off the troll’s body Amaterasu grew more disheartened. And this was just one of them! There still was another brute that looked much like the one now wildly swinging at her whenever he believed to be within range, not to mention the ten other trolls. Well, nine perhaps since the one had had his nose smashed in by Gruwsh.

Did the Prayer Beads not have the force to finish the job? She reached out to summon the Kusanagi no tsurugi but had to stop for a moment to focus, and the trolls used that to their advantage. She didn’t see the arrow coming and flinched when it dug itself through her dress into her shoulder. Her concentration was broken, the half-formed blade disappeared again, and Gruwsh darted forward, getting close enough to grab her. She was a split second too late in withdrawing her arm from his fingers closing around it.

Once her hand and half her lower arm had disappeared in his iron grip the troll began his assault. Amaterasu’s vision exploded into red as his first punch hit her square in the face. She heard the crunching of bones breaking. His next punch sunk into her chest and forced the air out of her lungs, and she felt her ribs break. The third hit landed a bit lower and the breakfast her stomach had begun to digest came back up. That was when the adrenaline came rushing in and numbed the pain.

Reflexively Amaterasu transformed. In her wolf form her paw, being much smaller than her hand and arm, easily slipped from the troll’s grip and she fell to the ground, rolled over and turned away. Then she ran.

She knew that every step she took would make it worse for her once the shock wore off. She winced as she felt the bone splinters pierce parts of her body that she didn’t even know existed until now. She bled from her snout and the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth as the red life-juice dripped down the sides of her maw and into the snow. If she got caught again she was done for. And she would get caught again. The troll had already injured her beyond where she could feasibly fight or run. And she knew that she was on borrowed time: as soon as the pain set in she’d be unable to do a thing.

She turned around to look at the trolls. Gruwsh was just recovering from his surprise. “Little creature became dog? How you do dat?” he asked. As he did, Amaterasu coated her tail in golden ink and drew a horizontal line into the air.

“G-g-giru”, she pressed out.

The sound of steel hitting rock rung through the Frozen Fields and Gruwsh howled as his stomach was cut. Amaterasu could see that it was a shallow injury though, enough to draw blood but little more. Even her deadly Celestial Brush technique was insufficient to inflict great damage against this brute? No matter, she had achieved what she wanted. The troll doubled over with pain and the others rushed to his aid.

She hid behind the nearest rock and transformed back to her human form, trying to ignore the painful throbs that were now starting to form. It wouldn’t be long now. She frantically searched her pockets until she found the Communicator and mashed the button to quick-call Fiara. Fortunately the phoenix girl picked up after only a few seconds.

“Mother Amaterasu? What-”

“No dime do dalg, Phee-Phiara…” Curses! Her broken nose was making it hard to speak. “Dell de dwarves do… run. Drolls addacked… doo many, doo sdrong. Fedch Kyutha- Kyutha…”

“Kyusaku? The chef?”

“Yedh, im. Fedch im from Hothi abd ude de… de Fur-Thelkieth do ride bag do... do Amber’s plathe. Dob’t waid for me.” She tried to hold the blood pouring from her broken nose but nothing helped. Her dress was already soaked.

“And we abandon Hoshi? And leave you to be murdered?!”

“Hothi ith judt… a down. Downs gan be rebuild! Abd I’ll be bag id a few dayth if I die. Bud nod you, if you die…”

“... no more. I understand.” Fiara’s voice was tearing up.

“Good. Be quig. Grab only foodth and ethentialth. I…” Hearing heavy footsteps, she stopped speaking. “I ave do go now. Dake care, Phiara.” Leaving her no time to reply, she hung up and pressed the button that turned the Communicator off. Then the shadow of the big troll obscured the snow around her, and she closed her eyes.

“Little creature cannot run from Gruwsh”, the troll said as he grabbed Amaterasu’s head. So big were his hands that just one could wrap around most of her skull.

“Dere’s noding for you do find in Hothi”, she said and closed her eyes. Her friends would be safe, that was all that mattered. She could hear the snow parting as the Fur-Selkie she had come with ran away from the smell of blood, probably back to the stables in Hoshi. Smart animal… she hoped that Oki, Urist Fiara and Kyusaku would find it. “Give me de merthy of… a thwift death, Gruwsh”, she then pleaded with her last breath. The troll, not being one to savor torture and gloating, obliged. He unceremoniously clenched his fist until the kami’s skull was crushed like a ripe grape.

As her lifeless body fell to the side he shook his hand and passed a hand over the fresh scar on his stomach. All the way across, from the far left to the far right, a mark to be proud of although it felt undeserved. This little creature had barely put up a fight. He’d hoped for a greater challenge.

“Now we go to glowy-beam land. Is up on big-flat-rock, so we find way to scale.” He pointed out the plateau while his eyes already scouted the surface, searching for possible pathways. “Once we up dere, we…” And that’s when he stopped speaking.

With no Omnilium reserve to keep it burning the artificial sun hanging over Hoshi had depended on Amaterasu’s presence to supply it all that time. Now cut off from its supply, its bright shine rapidly diminished to orange which in turn quickly died out, leaving only a huge black orb with reddish fissures and scars zigzagging across its surface, like a giant ball of smouldering ashes. The trolls gasped and pointed it out. One said that the gods were voicing their disapproval.

“Graaah! Shut up!” Gruwsh yelled and stomped his foot which made the others fall silent on the spot. “It big shiny-lantern with no smelly-burny oil left. It coincidence dat burn out now.” Granted, he felt a bit uneasy. What if the big troll-god was indeed showing his disapproval that he had tained the shiny-beam land with the blood of such a weak opponent? What if they were angry that he had not won their match in an honorable duel because Wartnose or Stinkfoot, one of the stabby-chuckers, had hit the little creature with a stabby?

No. Right now he needed to focus on what chief Zul’Jin had ordered. Occupy the territory with his trolls, dig up the source of raw Omnilium and alert Zul’gurand as soon as he’d found it. “We go now. You come with Gruwsh.” And because no troll objected they all followed him, towards the plateau.


On the other side of Hoshi Fiara, Oki and Urist had thus far had a somewhat pleasant conversation with the otherwise stubborn dwarves, explaining to them what the real reason behind the pillar of light was and that there was no Omnilium to be had here - or if there was, wouldn’t Amaterasu have harvested it already? - and that while sure, they could force them to let them into Hoshi, that would be a pretty hard act of aggression against an allied Prime who might not take it too well. Not to mention, they were building an outpost here that would be very beneficial to Dwarfholm if the dwarven faction remained in good standing with Amaterasu. Once the dwarves realized that the stories told by all three of them matched and that they were risking the alliance of a Prime over an uncertain amount of Omnilium, they were a bit more polite.

Until Fiara’s phone rung.

With the call set to speaker, Oki and Urist could listen in. The Oina warrior clenched his fists as he realized why Amaterasu’s speech was like that and wanted to go, but Urist held him back. They remained silent throughout the conversation. Then the sun went out.

“These trolls will pay”, Oki said bitterly.

“We can help ye”, the dwarf captain said.

“No”, Fiara responded firmly. “Mother Amaterasu’s orders are clear. We are not to throw ourselves into a pointless battle… if a Prime cannot stand up to these trolls, would we have any chance?” She turned to the dwarves. “We will be in touch with Dwarfholm soon… Hoshi has just suffered a major blowback but we’ll drive these trolls out and finish what we started… or start anew elsewhere if we cannot. Even if we won it would be a fruitless effort as long as we don’t have the manpower to defend from the troll’s reinforcements.”

“Hmm”, the captain mumbled in reply, and nodded. “Very well. We’ll report back ta Dwarfholm about this all.”

“Please do. Hopefully the next time we meet will be under better circumstances”, said Oki. He had already brought the Fur-Selkie closer and now helped the dwarf climb on. As the dwarves readied to leave the trio began their rush back to Hoshi. “Once we get to the city, Fiara goes to find Kyusaku and Urist stays with the animal. I’ll see if Amaterasu has sent her Fur-Selkie back to the stables… riding on two of them will be better than if the four of us climb on one’s back.”

“I’m already calling Kyusaku”, Fiara responded and held up her Communicator. “Keep it down a bit… Kyusaku? No time to explain. Pack all the food and drink you can and the absolute essentials for cooking! We’ll be there in five minutes and departing in ten! Amaterasu has been killed, we’re evacuating Hoshi!”

Under the dead sun they rushed into the city as soon as they arrived. Fortunately the three of them had no important personal belongings in their room, nothing indispensable - they had brought their weapons in case things escalated, which was all they needed - and Kyusaku had sufficient time to hastily pack up what they would need for the next week. With a Fur-Selkie it would take a day of travel to reach Atlas, but they could never know what issues might come up.

Strange… despite how this was but a ghost town without actual inhabitants, and what was much worse, it was an above-ground ghost town, Urist felt sadness as he overlooked the plateau from the Fur-Selkie’s back as he waited for the others. He’d grown attached to this place over the past weeks. He’d helped with designing it, so in a way it was his brain-child too.

How long did it take Primes to return to the living again? Something about a week, he remembered hearing. He felt like his guts were forming a knot out of a sudden. She would come back, right? No, of course she would, she was a Prime. Primes came back.

Five minutes later the four Secondaries fled Hoshi, leaving the plateau in their wake. Only once they were at a fair distance did Oki sign them to stop and looked back through a pair of binoculars, before bitterly having them go on. “The trolls have found a way into town. I just saw one of them kick in a door”, he said.

“We’ll get our payback”, promised Fiara. “For now, let’s just make sure that we remain safe.”

“Yes. We have to depart towards Atlas. Amaterasu will hopefully meet us there… let’s go.”

And so they departed, leaving the infant town behind not seeing the plumes of smoke of fires that the trolls lit from what wood they could find, to keep themselves warm. After all, without the artificial sun there to provide heat the Frozen Fields’s cold winds were quick to reclaim those lands.