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Why do I always make a mistake and not pick it up on second reading? *sighs*

I've just found myself without a lot of time. However, for those of you still thinking about teams and wondering what kind of teams to create, here's my advice. Pick a concept or a move or an ability and build your team around it. Use weather, use Trick Room or one of the Terrains, use Tailwind or Ability Swap, use Follow Me or Rage powder to let one of your Pokemon set up hassle free to switch, use Discharge and Lightning Rod/Motor Drive/Volt Absorb, or Surf and Storm Drain/Water Absorb/Dry Skin. If it's a viable concept to build a solo team around you can build a double team around it, if you think it's slightly crazy and may not work, go for it and see. My MonoElectric team was built around Discharge and those three abilities I mentioned, or you could go with other 'mons, it doesn't have to be a Monotype team. You can also just pick and choose 'mons that complement each other, covering each others weaknesses, for example in my main team I often use Genesect and Tapu Fini together, Tapu Fini threatens off the Ground and Fire type Pokemon from taking out Genesect, while Genesect can take out the Grass Pokemon which threaten Tapu Fini.

Use combination you want to use, with perhaps a little help from: https://www.smogon.com/dex/sm/formats/doubles/ and https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/usum-doubles-ou-viability-rankings.3623347/ if you're not sure and you never know, you might be able to ladder up to the top 500. I know I did.

Novastorme

Dax's character sheet—Dex score and all—are going to be referenced pretty heavily at least a few times. I like to imagine Medical has a copy of his stats as part of his records. No guesses as to where his Charisma score is sitting at... :P

They're definitely going to have to talk some stuff out. Maybe not in an interlude, but in a future mission (after I do another with the Aviator and Zeb, probably).

I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)

Dax and Lorson have a funny banter dynamic going, and their clashing personalities (and Lorson's utter newbieness) led to some good lines throughout ("Doctor what" and the Dex score scene are standing out to me right now for some reason).

And then the ending happened, and ... hoo boy, I wonder what Lorson's in for in the inevitable followup interlude. Not gonna be fun.

- Tomash

The eye adjustment was actually one of the later additions to the mission! Before I was just going to have Lorson do the usual eyes go out of focus deal, but I like him fiddling with his eye a lot more. If he's ever without it, though, he's prooobably gonna have a hard time. :P

I'm glad the end did what I wanted do, showcasing that there's a bit more dimension to these two than "flirty" and "cranky". Lorson's definitely rather reckless, especially compared to Dax. He's not used to operating by rules like this, and rules are made to be broken anyway, right?

(I knew nothing about Padmé's family before this, too, so yay for Wiki research. Seriously, how do you get the names right but the genders mixed up? I ask you...)

Ah, this was a nice, calm mission. A good example of a more experienced character leading a newer one through the ropes, and letting them learn about missions first-hand. I'm amused by Lorson learning to read the Words by adjusting the settings of his prosthetic eye.

And that nice, calm set-up sure gets ended with a bang. I did not see that coming at all. On Lorson's side, it shows both the level of confidence he felt when operating in his previous role as a part of the Star Wars canon, and the fact that those experiences really didn't prepare him for PPC missions at all. On Dax's end, I like that he broke from his usual lighthearted, flirty tone to display to Lorson how serious his actions were. It's fun because it shows that the serious agent of the pair has a careless side, while the easygoing one has a duteous side.

—doctorlit knew nothing about Padmé's family before now

Also, I am now tempted to read the books - if only to find out what's going on with Bran! =V

Or possibly just place. =P I hear that happens sometimes when the Formless Void gets too bad for a world.

I hope that Coke gets to be useful, if not drunk...

http://theloudhouse.wikia.com/wiki/Userblog:Bobbybooboobear/Fanfiction-SubstituteRoommate has a Sue!Luna depressed over her roommate Luan leaving for a camping trip. And she gets the Loud Kids to kidnap Luan and bring her back.

Instead of posting one thread asking if anyone was interested, and then posting a new thread (and taking up Board space) to start a new game when only one other person expressed interest.

It all came to a head one clear, spring-like afternoon. Marisa's 6th-grade Science class was, for whatever reason - even she couldn't remember right then - watching The Sandlot.

Marisa had always detested live-action films (and television), especially when the humans within went through painfully obvious (and, equally important from her point of view, easily avoided through 'cutting the Knot'-like measures) emotional weakness. In cartoons, with plain physical violence, or even in compelling tales, it was another matter. Through the perspective of someone who wasn't human, animal, or plant, though, it all felt different - and that was what she treasured.

So the class was watching the Sandlot, and throughout Marisa became increasingly upset that she couldn't just go elsewhere - a wizardly solution would have been too hard to explain, and anyway she just wanted to leave.

At a particularly emotional moment in the movie (possibly when someone hit a baseball through some glass), Marisa concluded that she would do just that - and she did.
In the loudest manner possible, screaming inarticulately in an effort to let everyone know that she was not taking this anymore. Oath and makeshift therapy were forgotten; all the lessons she had learned from fanfic and Manual recording alike went the same way. For a brief second, Marisa imagined cutting through the 'forest' across the road from her school, finding someone who could raise her outside civilization, from all these other people who did not think like her and therefore Could Not Help Her - or care about her, either.

---

She made it out to the woods, but not much more. The hill was too steep, and she'd drained herself of energy with all the yelling. Marisa, again, began to cry, knowing there was nowhere feasible to turn, both fearing there would be punishment and, oddly, accepting it.

Her IEP handler - a Ms. Hill, if Marisa's memory was working right - had come out to fetch her with a gentleness she found annoying; she didn't deserve it after all. Didn't the quacking duck get shot? She had read that somewhere. And anyway, if she had to stay in a classroom and watch films when she could be reading, then this was what everyone else would have to deal with.

So went Marisa's thoughts, as her parents were called, her punishment worked out (she would, in fact, have in-school-suspension for two weeks for that class period, as well as counseling sessions to attend), and they brought her home. What explanations for her behavior Marisa could cobble together baffled her teachers, the principle and, of course, her parents. 'Sensory overload' was still too complex a concept for her to convey, even with how precocious Marisa was.

Along with those punishments came what Marisa had been expecting, and dreading.

"No computer for a week. No TV for two." At this point Marisa didn't care what happened to the TV; she just knew she had further explaining and apologizing to do to her "AR Program", and that if she didn't get that started now then that circus would be as bad as if she'd managed to convince the school to not call her parents, only to have them find out days later when they learned she had in-school-suspension anyway.

"Why two for TV, but one for the computer?" Marisa managed to ask - one of the most coherent sentences she had managed since running out of school.

"It broke," her Dad roughly explained. "We're going to have to get a new one, anyway. And if you're going to lose yourself like this over TV, then you can clearly stand to lose that longer."

Marisa, however, was no longer paying attention.

"It broke?" Marisa whispered, eyes wide.

"How?"

Her Mom sighed, as Dad admitted he was stumped - something Marisa had thought near-impossible to achieve.

"It wouldn't turn on at all today; booting it up brought up a screen of gibberish. I don't know where you picked up a virus, but it's completely trashed the hard drive. I could try to access a restore point-"

"NO." Marisa interrupting, rushing off to her room.

"You are NOT hurting him! I need to-" The computer was still in her room - her brother sitting on the bed, getting an expression that reflected that he knew he was going to have to vacate it before any arguing started - but a quick survey and mashing of the on button revealed nothing, and the adrenaline and sensory overload of that afternoon gave way to a very different kind of fear.

"What are you doing? Get back here, I said NO touching!" Her Dad roared, having followed her into the bedroom with her Mom close behind (leaving her brother trapped, sadly. The room felt too full to Marisa, now, but at the same time too empty). "And which he?"

"My computer! I ne- I need to apologize!" Her parents' anger at Marisa disobeying a direct order now mixed with pure confusion. Maybe something was wronger with their daughter than they thought?

"I- I took an Oath, and now I need to own up to m- my mistakes!" That confusion became even more evident, combined with suspicion (which her brother chimed in on), not that Marisa noticed. She had eyes on only one being in the room, and that being wasn't responding.

Had she killed him, it? Had the Lone Power gotten to her Manual with a simple virus, destroying it?

Or had it just left?

((AN: Yes, Marisa casually gave her Manual pronouns - she DID ask beforehand if it had a preference, and since it hadn't complained, she went with her first instinct. It doesn't change too much of the story, mind; just gives her family more reason to think something is Wrong With This Picture. ;) ))

I was getting the these out at that speed because the first one ended in failure.

I'll stop, but I only counted three.

Anyroad, it's a good place to set a story in the Young Wizards universe, because let's be honest - if you're marrying someone you repeatedly call cousin, you'll fit right in. =]

I wanted to do something a bit weird for an Ordeal like hers, where there's a lot more wizards involved than is usually the case. It's taking cues from Ix's story in that regard; while it has a large cast, because I like writing stories with a PTerry-esque Full Supporting Cast, it's also a very personal Ordeal set to a slightly surreal backdrop. We shall see more of this in the next chapter. Probably. =]

As in, the Atrebates who became a client kingdom of the Romans? As in, the ones who built Fishbourne Palace?

Neat! =]

That's not a chapter that capital-B Bodes at all, is it? :D

I'm definitely looking forward to this.

hS

I've been to Norwich, like... once. I wonder where that came from?

(Ironically enough, my own Chapter IX notes that my Name mentions the lower Thames, so if I'd posted earlier, you could probably have worked out that I wasn't. But I didn't, so you didn't, so n't n't or something.)

I'm enjoying! And Naaaaarch certainly seems like a place that would have a wizards' pub in it. ^_^

hS

Jacob grabbed Lise's arm before she could open her Manual. "No, don't," he said. "I remember this scene - it's going to be fine. Bran comes and banishes the creature - look, here he is now."

Sure enough, the pale-haired boy who had been with Will had appeared over the far rim of the valley, charging down towards the girl by the lake. Jacob leafed through his copy of Silver on the Tree and held it out. "See? The creature - the Afanc - tries to threaten Jane, but Bran kicks it back to Llyn Cau; it's a lake on Cadair Idris, this big mountain over…" He turned, trying to get his bearings.

Lise shivered as she watched Bran confront the monster. "I still think we should help," she said. "I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well…"

"But is it ‘right to do so’?" Jacob asked, quoting from later in the Oath. "If we change the past - or the plot, or whatever this is - then who knows what could happen?"

"I guess." Lise pulled her jumper tighter around herself, her face filled with misery. "But I don't like it."

"I get that." Jacob sighed, checking against his book as Bran continued to speak. "Neither do I. But it's nearly over, look."

Down below, the Afanc had fallen silent, but Bran's voice seemed to echo unnaturally across the valley. "Go, Afanc!" he cried, and the valley seemed to bend around him. "Go back to the dark water where you belong! Go back to the Dark, and never come out again! Ewch nôl! Ewch y llyn!"

And the Afanc…

… laughed.

Lise shook her head, eyes wide, as the sibilant laugh echoed through the valley. "This? This is not fine."

"That's not right." Jacob flicked back and forward through his book, as if by checking again he could find a different version of the plot. "That's not supposed to… did we change something? Is this our fault?"

"How could we have?" Lise demanded. "All we did was talk to Will; Bran barely even noticed we were there."

"Something did." The Afanc was still laughing, stretching forward again from the lake towards Bran and Jane. "We need to do something."

"That's what I was saying." Lise jerked her Manual open to an incomplete spell diagram. "I used this to clear out some roaches back home; if we boost it enough, it might do the trick."

Jacob cast another look towards the lake. Will Stanton was there now, and he flung his hand out towards the creature. The Afanc recoiled, pulling back to the edge of the water.

"Leave this place!" Will shouted, and Jacob wasn't sure if he was using English or the Old Speech. "I am the Sign-Seeker, and these people are under my protection!"

"Your protection." The Afanc drew itself up again, rallying against the Old Magic Will had brought to bear against it. "But the signs are not here, Old One - and you have no power over the Wild Dark."

"We'll need to feed power to Will." Lise was deep in her spelling; the page of her Manual had unfolded to four times its normal size, and glowing Speech characters were writhing across it. "He knows what he's doing, so… but his name, his name." She flipped to the back of the Manual, trying to peer past the incomplete spell to the character lists. "Argh, what's the symbol for the Thames Valley?"

"'Catuva'," Jacob supplied, then shook his head. "No, he's from further upriver - it's 'Atreba'. It's a kind of squiggly… here, let me." He reached over and sketched the character onto the page, flicking it into place with a finger.

Lise glanced up at him. "You're really good at that," she said. "And you understood Will's Old Speech…"

Jacob shrugged, still studying the diagram. "'Catuva' is in my own name, and 'Atreba' is obvious from that, right?"

Lise blinked. "Um, not right?"

"Oh. Well, I've always been good with languages," he said absently. "I guess that applies to the Speech, too." He tapped a finger on the centre of the diagram. "This is wrong."

"What's wrong with it?" Lise glanced down the hill: Will and Bran together were barely holding the Afanc at bay, while Jane stood frozen by the lake, and her siblings watched helplessly. "We don't have time for perfectionism."

"It's all wrong," Jacob insisted. "The whole shape of it… it needs a fourth node."

"No, not with a creature like the Afanc." Lise traced her finger around the outside of the spell circle, bringing the characters to glittering life. "You don't give a creature of the Lone Power a name-circle of its own, you embed it in the body of the spell."

"It still needs another node," Jacob said, staring at the diagram. "It's not going to have enough power…"

"Isn't that what the Afanc said to Will?" Lise ran her finger over the diagram, adding a few more characters to Will's name. "So we feed him the magic from the spell, and it boosts his own…"

"It wasn't 'not enough'," Jacob muttered. "It said 'no power'..." No power, no power… the words chased each other around Jacob's head, sparking off other memories, books and films and--

"For my will is as strong as yours," he whispered, "and my kingdom is as great…"

Lise broke off her spelling to stare at him. "What?"

"We've got it backwards," he said, slapping his Manual over hers and taking over the spell. "It's not Will we need to focus on, it's Bran. Will has the power, but Bran has the authority." He pulled at the spell structure, throwing a fourth circle in, right under the space where the Wizard's Knot would seal the wizardry. "Look, if we mix our magic with Will's and feed it all to Bran…"

"It could work," Lise breathed. "It could-"

A scream echoed across the valley, and the pair whirled to see. The Afanc had lunged for Jane, and only her brother Simon's intervention had gotten her out of its way in time. The creature reared, seeking its target.

Lise opened her Manual to a section ominously entitled 'Combat Spells'. "Get it working," she told Jacob. "I'll do what I can, but we need that spell."

"I will," Jacob promised. "... good luck."

Lise flashed him a quick smile. "Thanks." She rattled off a string of syllables in the Speech, so fast Jacob only got the vaguest impression of what they meant, and then with a bang she was down at the water's edge, standing defiant between Jane and Bran. For a moment Jacob stared down at the young girl, black hair streaming behind her in the wind, facing down a monster out of legend with only a book in her hand. Then he bent once more over the spell.

The four names were coming together now. Lise's had come over with the spell from her Manual, and his own had joined it on the page. Will's was almost complete now, but strangely sparse - a name that seemed to belong not to a human being, but to something simpler, or perhaps so complex that it could only be described in the vaguest terms.

Bran's name, as Jacob threw down symbol after symbol without even fully understanding them, was even stranger. It was a name caught out of time, a name that shared characteristics with wizardry itself - but also a name that offered itself an exit, a chance to become something lesser but so much more.

The last few terms settled into place, twisting their way into the complex lines of the outer circle. Jacob made a few more tweaks, then smiled thinly as he saw the shape the spell diagram made. "But of course," he whispered, tying the Wizard's Knot to complete the spell. "What else would it be?"

Down in the valley, Lise was fighting off the Afanc with increasingly desperate spells. Jacob considered trying to replicate her teleportation spell, but it would take too long - knowing which characters to use was no help without a basis to work on. He folded his Manual closed, tucked it under his arm, and started running.

There was no time to catch his breath when he reached the lake-side. Opening the book, he plucked the spell circle from the page and flung it to the boggy ground. "Lise!" he gasped, stumbling into the circle that marked his name.

The girl looked up, loosed one last spell - one that froze the water of the Bearded Lake, miring the monster in place - then ran over to her own name. She nodded to Jacob just once, and then began reading the spell into reality.

Jacob joined his voice to hers as the Welsh landscape fell silent. Across the circle, standing just beside his own name, Will's eyes widened at the sensation. The spell grew in strength, the words filling with golden light as the two wizards spoke.

Together, they worked through the circle describing Bran, the recipient of the power they were offering. Then Jacob fell silent as Lise spoke her name, before taking up the thread for his own.

Her voice rose again to join him as they completed the final arc, towards the last and most crucial quarter of the spell. The golden light of the working spell reached the knot at the cusp of the final name - Will's name - then suffused the circle with its magic.

"Will Stanton!" the two wizards cried together in the Speech. "Youngest of the Old Ones, Sign-Seeker, child of the Thames, son of Roger and Mary and of the Old Magic! Seventh son of a seventh son, the High Magic implores your aid! For the sake of Bran Davies, the Pendragon of old, will you give of your power?"

The spell hung in the air, the silence of the listening world holding it in crystal. Even the Afanc was powerless to intervene in that single frozen moment.

"In the name of the Light," said Will Stanton in the Old Speech of magic, "and in defiance of the Dark, I give freely!"

The spell took, flaring to full light, and between the four circles that made it up blazed the sign of the Light: the circle, quartered by a cross. Then the Knot at its apex caught aflame, and the power poured out of the wizardry, out of Jacob and Lise and Will, and into Bran.

"This is not your place!" the boy proclaimed, his tawny eyes glowing bright. "Afanc, I cast you out! Ewch nôl! Ewch y llyn!"

The Afanc screamed as Bran's command took it by the scruff of the neck and hurled it from Llyn Barfog. The spell circle blazed amid the ferns, and then broke, and Jacob and Lise found themselves flung up, up, up...

---

Author's Miscellaneous Notes:
-As is hopefully clear from this, Jacob needs something to work from. He can't construct a spell without references, and he's best at finding a word if he has a way to get into it.
-The Catuvellauni and the Atrebates were (apparently) two of the tribes living along the Thames valley in the pre-Roman era. I'm so sorry.
-Speculation on what I'm doing with Will and Bran's names is entirely encouraged. ^_^ It's all cosmology.
-We're not out of this yet...

hS

Hence my apology - I was sort of slagging it off a bit, and then it disappeared at the end of the cliffhanger. =]

Hopefully it's up to snuff. =]

I can't even count them any more.

I don't think Jacob the Senior will be getting another phone-call just yet, though it's always possible. And I'm not sure what you're apologising for? (Unless it's sending the Bonsai Mallorn on a day-trip, which I am assuming on no evidence is what happened.)

(I am also assuming the legionary is Plastic Rory.)

hS

If and when I get my hands on Young Wizards and refresh my memory of the canon, I'll see if I can remember to come and revisit this one. :)

"That's an object." Purple was looking at Wombat with an increasingly frantic cast to his face.

"Yep." Siobhan popped the 'p' sound.

"You made the object move around."

"Yes."

"You made it intelligent."

"Wouldn't go that far, mate," Wombat said, his voice languid and slow like an old river. "I'm not a wizard, after all. Just magic."

"This could be bad, chick. This could be really... skree, this could be bad." Purple took to the air again, flying around the battered lampshade hanging from the ceiling. "Siobhan, we have to get out of here. Grab your manual and let's wing it!"

"Er, er, okay, er." Siobhan looked around for her manual, the spells it contained, the history it lied about. She stuffed it into an old green rucksack that really was too small, but it would suffice - as would the change of clothes and the slightly incongruous pair of wellies. A final rummage produced a rolled-up clip of banknotes, an electric-blue raincoat that was so vast it looked like it could double as a twelve-man tent, and a scattering of energy bars and packets of dried fruit.

"I remember when you were putting those together," said Wombat, "and that doesn't make a lot of sense because I wasn't sentient at the time."

Siobhan's arm twitched. "I was in a bad place, but I'm okay now."

"I remember you teaching yourself how to say that, too."

Purple looked at them both and mumbled something inaudible about being too old for this skree-aaah.

After a few minutes, Siobhan straightened up, coat on and rucksack over the top. "Okay, I'm ready."

Purple took flight and began circling her head. "Okay, so, this is called a-" the parakeet made a string of noises in the Speech, but Siobhan understood them as 'claudication' "- and it's how we get to where we're needed. It sort of pinches and folds the universe together in interesting ways, and it's a great way of beating the traffic to trees with purple fruit on them. Not that there tends to be any, but you know what I mean. Anyway... anywhere you wanna go, chick?"

Siobhan thought for a moment. "Anywhere but here."

"Crawley it is-"

"Anywhere but here and also not Crawley you sadist."

Purple laughed. "Always gets people, that does. Right. This might get loud..."

Siobhan and Wombat were then treated to the spectacle of the universe going very, very quiet while a small green bird started to scream its head off at it. The sound seemed far too loud, as if it was echoing in a canyon that wasn't there. The young wizard heard the Speech, though, and it was an exceptionally polite request for a claudication to co-ordinates Avram Angband three-nine-two-grapefruit. The wombat, who didn't really understand the Speech, thought that Purple was about to have seventeen aneurysms at once.

Then they moved through the claudication and everything changed.

---

The three appeared in a pub, Wombat causing some consternation by landing on the pool table and blocking someone's shot. Siobhan peeked out from underneath the enormous raincoat hood, gathered Wombat into her arms, and moved out into the front bar. It was... an experience.

The bar itself was staffed by a selection of cheerful souls with pronounced Australian accents, as is obligatory in all London pubs; that said cheerful Australians were all tree snakes working the handpumps in various elaborate ways was somewhat less normal, unless you were in Camden and the furries were on the loose. A man dressed as a Roman legionary was having a ferocious debate about geothermal power plants with something that looked like an upside-down jellyfish balanced on top of a chocolate blancmange. Three women in traditional Nigerian suits, one of whom was an iridescent shade of green, were reading a paper called "Acta Parabiologica" and talking in low, serious tones about something disturbing in there. There were two old men in a corner playing cribbage, which was fairly normal, and explaining the rules to a bonsai tree that was asking questions, which wasn't. There was a slightly squashed-looking elephant proclaiming things in the Speech for an audience of twenty floating purple orbs, and Siobhan eventually realized (after looking at a poster printed in the Speech) that this was the stand-up comedy night.

"Welcome to the Group Dynamic," said Purple. "Local hub for wizards in and out of the area. All the world passes through here at some point. Probably."

Wombat looked out of the window. "No it doesn't, mate. This is Norwich. That's the mustard museum over the road."

"Alright, if you want to get technical-"

"This is a wizard pub?"

"Yes, Siobhan, this is a wizard pub."

"... Do they have any real ale on?"

"Not for you, they don't," said Wombat, "you're seventeen."

"Skree. I'll get 'em in then." Purple took off to the bar, dodging the hop cones hanging from the ceiling with a muffled "'scuse me."

Siobhan and Wombat eventually found a table when the Roman and the jellyfish-blancmange-thing disappeared. Purple reappeared a moment later, and a tray of drinks landed with a crash on the table. Siobhan had a Coke that somehow contrived to be blue (Purple's explanation involved a lot of allusions to Greek mythology and, for some inexplicable reason, branding legislation), Wombat had nothing at all, and the bird wizard had a pint of mixed nuts.

"So, this is a wizard pub," said Siobhan through mouthfuls of blue cola. "Quite nice, really."

"Yeah, it's a decent gaff," replied Purple. "Mostly I come here to figure out what I need to do next."

"Is it generally 'order a pint of mixed nuts'? Also, how did you get a pint of mixed nuts?"

"I asked them nicely."

Siobhan groaned. "I walked right into that, didn't I?"

"Yes. Yes you did." Purple perched on the rim of his pint glass and began to peck at the nuts inside. "Anyway. We're getting out of there because there's a lot going on in the world, and even Probationers like yourself can come in handy. You're on Ordeal now, even if you don't know what it is yet; when I was on it, this was where I came to plan my next move."

"... Don't I need to figure out what's it's going to be before I can figure out any moves?"

"Don't change the subject, you."

Exactly as he said this, Siobhan felt her Manual buzz. Purple felt his Echo clang. The other patrons rattled, dinged, bwarked, and (in the case of the floating purple orbs) flashed something unbelievably obscene in Ethiopian, though that was probably a coincidence. Everyone looked at everyone else, looking at their Manuals, or just looking around and wondering what was going on.

Wombat, who wasn't a wizard, simply looked out of the window.

"Where's Norwich gone?"

---

AN: Sorry, hS. =]

Much nearer than the distant forest, a flock of huts and sheds huddled against the landward slope of the Coastal Ridge (which may deserve a better name) – the rural village of Reewryght. Does this compel me to rewrite the Uncanonical Department of Inaccuracies to make it canon? If I ever find a way to make it goodfic while keeping it funny...

Even closer to where the hermit stood, the market town of Koewryght bustled with life. Someday I must visit this place. But not yet; right now I like my solitude.

The hermit turned to the left, his gaze sweeping over the border rivers Meibot and Jid'ryv – Barony Larf J. Stockins, Barony Eshakar and Barony Huinesoron, a good neighbourhood – and the Auksidentym Chain, until it rested on the wide dale between the two branches of the Raeltym Mountains. He still didn’t feel fully at ease with taking this away from his Master. But then, Castle Fanvik, except for the Whirl, had only just been a museum for so many years now, and somehow, the Fanvik Whirl had always been Baron Huinesoron’s domain. Which brought another thought to mind: After three years of apprenticeship, the time may come when I have to be a journeyman, and this not involving an actual journey may suit an old man quite well.

Ach, we’ll see what comes from this. Hieronymus rammed the staff that doubled as a flagpole into a crevice and began to gather stones and rubble. After several minutes, he stopped to wipe the sweat off his brow, glanced over the small square he had outlined on a somewhat smooth piece of rock, and started to do some calculations. Somehow, rigging up that shelter in Fanvik-Neht had been much easier. Building the Scowler’s Hermitage would take a lot of time.

---

In other words:

Prepare for the octogonal snowflake.

Did I mention that I would like Agent Androia to get some experience before she meets Agent Hieronymus, but don’t want to invent some more agents for that? The problem there is that Androia’s internship must have happened in or before January 2016; I may need to take the traditional option B.

@foreigners who may not know: In the ancient German/European tradition that is not followed much anymore, being a journeyman does involve an actual journey, working for several employers over several years. It’s the pre-internet way of innovations going viral: journeymen learn what they couldn’t learn on their apprenticeship or previous employments while they also teach what may not yet been known at their current place of employment.
@Huinesoron: If you find a more reliable site for the Fanvik Whirl, but it’s all just too much work, and you trust me with the keys, I’m here to help and earn me a new title.
@Neshomeh: If Huinesoron takes up that offer, Hieronymous the journeyman will skip the part where he should keep a distance of at least three days walking from the place of his apprenticeship. Since he doesn’t intend to ever claim mastery, breaking the rule can’t be held against him.

In case you are acquainted with Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, you may remember that “scowler” is the Hamish word for “scholar”.

I can’t say that these tales write themselves, but I’m amazed how well this all fits. Apparently the Edict of Bast can read my mind.

HG