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Philim belonged to the Order of the Vance.
Like all those of his order, he mastered various and sundry spells and incantations, committing their formulae to memory, storing it all in his mind. Philim's mentor was Therese; she was also his wife. Therese had recently met the Changery's qualifications to erase her mundane appearance. Her head now floated free of her body and her face glowed with the moth's wings of light. Like almost any one of import, she herself was a spectacle. Philim envied her sk** and dramatic appearance. Like all Vislae, he valued the interesting above all else, and thus coveted Therese's rapid rise above him and his own mundanity.
Philim and Therese made to leave their home in the brick house district of the city of Satyrine on a Tuesday night. They had made plans to spend the evening with their friend Kali at her place of business. Kallanan, Kali for short, owned a prosody on Merit Street where the customers were quite literally nourished and sustained by the poetry recited within.
You could not live your entire life on nothing but a prosody's offerings (and some have tried!), but you can go for weeks on its offerings in lieu of food. Of course the prosody offered coffees of all sorts as long as they were all strong — but that likely goes without saying.
Philim put on his evening coat, the one with an array of sorcerous candles perched upon both shoulders. As an adherent of the Zanweir, he wore a silver mask that hid his face. Therese clothed herself in a gown made of the pages of magical books with a high, mirrored collar that accentuated her hovering head's glowing wings as they fluttered.
They pa**ed the garden of Ophlim and walked to the district known as Palindrome. the Mandela Gate opened for them soundlessly. Sitting next to the gate was an Eldebrin, it currently had a lanky shape with unkempt yellow hair and azure skin that looked like it might squeak if you rubbed your hand across it. It leaned heavily upon a weapon of mechanical complexity that clearly hurled short metal spears.
It wasn't common to see an armed Eldebrin. “Are you a veteran of the War?” Philim asked.
"Go back to shadow, Exile," the Eldebrin replied, and dismissed him with a wave of a gaunt hand. Angry spells welled in Philim's mind, but he held them back. Therese put an arm on his shoulder. The two kept walking.
"I grow tired," Philim said with lips tight, "of never getting respect. I'm a capable Vance. I am a person of means. What do I need to gain recognition and esteem?"
“A secret," his wife and mentor whispered.
“What secret? Will you tell me?"
“That's just it. It's not one secret; it's many. The secret is secrets. You know: knowledge, information, ideas, secrets. Such things are currency here. They are influence. They are power.
“You know this, my love. I think you spent too long in Shadow. The spells in your head? Those are just the beginning. The Actuality is an extremely complex place, it's d**hs are still quite unplumbed. Become masterful by discovering something no one else knows."
They walked together through the night air. The ghosts of tiny moths were drawn to the halo around Therese's face. They whispered to her and she whispered back. Philim watched out of the corner of his eye and contemplated the enormity of all that he did not yet know or understand.
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