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The rain started to fall. It was as expected, a rainy day being forecasted for today. So those prepared used their umbrellas or went under the buildings as soon as the rain seemed to start, while the unfortunate ones who forgot, had to get soaked by the rain while forcing themselves to arrive at their destination or waiting underneath a building too, still a bit soaked by the rain.
But for the special few, arcanists given the ability to use arcanum, were able to see something was very wrong. The world around them started to become distorted and weird, as the raindrops that were falling slowed down before stopping, and straight up going upwards back to the sky. Those who knew what was about to happen was terrified.
The storm.
The arcanists that knew tried to hide in foundation buildings, and if not whatever one they found, praying that this building would allow them to live through the storm. But in the middle of the devastating phenomena were two beings, Vertin the Timekeeper , and Voyager a Beyond, who was smiling behind her.
A relatively large gold colored circle was drawn onto the ground beneath vertin, surrounding her. Symbols were etched inside the circle, having various colors that were either red, green, blue, brown, yellow, or purple. They weren’t shining before, but now as the storm was happening, they gave a slight shine of their respective color.
Vertin sighed, preparing herself to start the ritual. She closed her eyes, ready. She started to chant. “Mutationes inmutent et evertent,” she paused for a second, as the raindrops and mutations paused, before continuing. “ab influentia superna ducti,” Voyager put her hand on Vertin’s back, the hand shining like a galaxy as she said that part of the chant. “permanentiam mundo reddant, tem- pestatem forent!”
Vertin finished chanting, as she breathed out a sigh, pulling out clear drops, throwing them up into the air, that then stopped in midair, converging with many of the pauses raindrops into a vast amount of gold colored shining liquid, as voyager pulled her hand back, waving it towards the gold shining liquid, stardust and other space particles coming out of her hand, the hand no longer shining, as the stardust and space particles were now being absorbed by the liquid, as the vast amount of liquid now looked like they had mini galaxies within them, now colored like the galaxy instead of gold. They diverged into many pieces of needle shaped liquid, each retaining the same shine, color and look.
Vertin looked back at voyager, as she nodded at her, voyager nodding too, with a smile. The many needles now stabbed into vertins back, as she groaned, still keeping a standing posture, sweating as she felt the repeating stabbing pains. As the needles finished stabbing into her back, she groaned once more, before falling on her knees, as voyager walked up to vertin, patting her on her head as if saying ‘Good job!’.
Vertin gave a slight smile, as the liquid needles absorbed into her, her body then becoming distorted, before exploding into countless particles of starlight. Some of the starlight particles converged into large pieces of starlight, these large pieces of starlight being 4 in numbers. The storm and the mutations now stopped being paused, now continuing, and eventually finishing.
The tiny particles of starlight now each went to every human and arcanist she knew, being absorbed into them. As for the 4 large pieces of starlight, they each went into different places, which each went to a different place, with a higher density of affected people by the ritual. So 1 of the large starlight pieces went to a place where 30% of the people there gained the tiny pieces of starlight and were therefore affected by the ritual, 1 other piece went to a place where 25% of the people there were affected, and etc for the 2 other pieces.
All that was left, was now vertins clothes, which voyager took, carrying into her hands, as she went into the suitcase with a smile.
Those that gained a tiny starlight particle, for unknown reasons felt like they could ‘brave the storm’, even if they didn’t know what this storm was, like an instinct.
Though those with a deeper connection to vertin, those close to her knew. For whatever reason, they knew what vertin did now. Because of her sacrifice, they could now ‘brave the storm’ like she did. But, now they had lost vertin as a price. But there was a way to get her back. Somehow. If they could just gather those 4 large pieces of her back.. then they could at the very least have her ‘self’ back. Though, they’d have to find a solution for giving her a body.
But there’s another problem. They had a timer inside, that let them know how much longer those 4 large pieces of starlight could stay before it dissipated. …and it was exactly as much time as until the next storm.
And all the while, voyager was humming a song, holding vertins clothes in her hand, as she wandered the wilderness.