IC Date: 10/17/2025

Tempesti had spent the past couple of weeks scrutinizing the leatherbound tomes she’d found in Sotiria’s study, doing what she could to make sense of the text surrounding diagrams far too arcane for her to fully understand. The Basilea’s handwriting was mercifully meticulous, her work clearly intended for the use of future heirs, though its presence behind a crystal-locked door gave more than a suggestion that those she planned to inherit her designs were her future selves. Or it would have if the books’ diagrams hadn’t included schemata for additions to the doors themselves. To Tempesti’s surprise, it appeared that Sotiria had intended to modify at least some of her most powerfully secure fortifications with something that would allow future basileis to maintain her work, senshi or not. For what felt like the hundredth time she read what she could of Sotiria’s writings, copying lines into her notebook so she could make diagrams of her own as she painstakingly deconstructed each sentence.

Though Tempesti could only puzzle out the vaguest meaning…something about “resonance,” or maybe “ringing,” a key (she did know the word for “key”), and crystal (or “soul,” though the context made that seem unlikely), sourced somehow from the Primordial Tower itself. She wasn’t about to tamper with whatever crystals the Primordial Tower had to offer, but there had to be some answers in the workshop she knew was somewhere near the Wellspring Shrine. That hope was what brought her back to the tower’s grotto. Though she’d been back since transcending to attend to the Primordial Shrines, the sheer sense of life in the once silent sanctuary never failed to infuse the entirety of her being with a fiercely loving awe. Even the troublesome little leeches who pulsed through the water carried hope with them as the blue light along their backs flared and faded beneath the glassy surface. For several long moments she paused at the apex of the bridge spanning the lake, closing her eyes to really feel every sound, every alien fragrance that sought her, the soft breeze meandering through the top of the grotto, the unfamiliar…beeping from well above her head. Her eyes flew open as she scanned the chamber for the source of the strange noise until they landed upon a group of enormous white shapes in the upper reaches of the rocky walls surrounding the lake. Gleaming wings stretched and flapped, their voices far softer than she could have ever expected for their size.

Selapeth.
Though it took her far longer than she would have liked to admit for the sight to fully sink in, the realization that she was finally finally seeing these creatures drew a slightly embarrassing squeal from within her as she bounced on her heels.

They were real!

They were here!

Even from this distance she could see that none of the art she’d seen had done them justice. They were huge, far larger than any bird she’d imagined, the light gleaming iridescent off of their feathers. She wasn’t really one to put much value in signs, but their return all but had to augur something good, a new beginning for this world and maybe for her.