Final Preparations for the Manifestation

The Silvergrey Sea

Part Seven: What Is and Should Never Be

Final Preparations for the Rite of Manifestation

* * *

The Erthe Woman had lost herself in the Æthyr, or so she thought.

It took her some while to realize she wasn’t in NOTHING at all, but in the Dark, the Lost Aion of the Elven Convocation. How that had occurred was something she would never figure out. It did give her an idea. The Sea God needed souls for the Rite to revive the Templars. It needed fæ souls.

Initially, the plan had been to seek fæ in the reaches beyond the Thirty Aions, the former Miu Empire being the preferred spot. Since the exile of virtually all educated Miu long ago, that region had become so chaotic that finding and capturing the requisite number shouldn’t have been a problem. Then the Hermetists had stuck their bad finger in, disintegrating the mountain of Primal Matter. There was no time to go hunting and return, now.

Here in the Elven Dark, both the problem of finding the energy and the souls for the Rite could be solved.

It had been a risk, staying where not even the bravest of sane fæ dared venture to find hosts for the rebirth of the Templars but she thought, what other options where there? The storm on the Silvergrey Sea would make all navigation impossible for some time. The Primal Matter was likely unrecoverable, in any event. She was wrong about this.

No one knew or cared about the Lost Aion, not even the elven mages who had made it. It was source of great a shame to them, something best forgotten. Siphoning energy from it should go unnoticed.

Assuming it could be done, of course.

The woman who had been Rayne Hermit had never been to the Elven Dark. Indeed, none of the handful of Hermetists who had done so returned to tell the tale. This ignorance about something so important rankled.

She, at least, had some data to relate, assuming anyone wanted it. ‘Anyone,’ in this context meant any of the new Templars. The woman who had been Rayne Hermit doubted the Order of Hermes would be allowed to continue after what they had done to try to stop the re-emergence of the Shining Empire. In nothing was the death of her former self more apparent than in her indifference to the thought of the extinction of the Hermetists.

Self restored, the Erthe Woman set about gathering the fæ for the Rite. Later would come the gathering of the other Elements at the Evanescents. The Temple needed to be prepared for the Manifestation to follow.

Being thrown out of the Æthyr had meant abandoning the two—The Hermetist and the Watr Man—to the mercy of undiluted Spirit. No doubt they’d soon realize they weren’t in a dream of hers and also that they were in real danger. At least, the Hermetist Abram would be safe so long as he wasn’t separated from his companion. The Element of Watr would have to wait. If he were half as strong as he had seemed, he’d probably get out on his own.

She was as surprised, therefore, to discover the duo had followed her into the Elven Dark.

—Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, October 2026

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Gideon is a freethinker, free expression absolutist, intersectionalist, and a proud child of the Enlightenment. He lives and works on the Pacific Coast.

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