Okay, got a new one for you:

WE HAVE THE NUMA. Or at least that's what the Devil and the Champion of Nightmare said. They are clever dicks, so I wouldn't put it past them to have in No. They did. There's no way we escaped both the Champion AND the Devil when they both "wanted us." They told us we had the Numa then let us go so we'd tell you. Or someone else.

Also, the riddle of the doors is actually the nine children who will inherit the world. either two or four have not chosen paths yet. I still don't understand how that connects to those two schuyster brothers we met. They said that when I knew who they were, I would answer my own question. That might imply that they were the ones who thought there was only one left, and I accidentally told them otherwise, but why is that important?

Anyway, we slept in the nightwood, and all kinds of wierd things happened. We attracted the attention of both the Devil and the Champion of Nightmare, they fought over Miss Rosalie (who is one of the nine), and we got away to troll territory. Three of us nearly sacrificed EVERYTHING to buy the others a chance at getting away, but the Devil's arrival distracted the champion and gave us the break we needed. Still in troll territory, making our way to a gate in one of the less hellish areas of the continent, if one exists.

Also, I lost my cart. I'm pretty bummed about that.

Also also, I need to ask, do you guys know of anyone who's tried to unify opposite aspects before? I'm thinking of trying it.

--Father Sulfur Irongut

PS: Alarming new development: the Nightmarians have aparently been murdered by the will of the Prophetess. They're gone now. I got a Horse Priest with us who's taking it hard. He wants you guys to get the word out.

---

Ten minutes later...

Dear Father Irongut,

How did you get to Ansulym?

What objects do you have that are likely the numen?

The nine children prophecy states that nine children will determine the fate of the world. It is believed that if a majority of them are aligned in one way or allied with each other, that will determine the world's fate, but it is not clear. We know that there are some troubling signs that four of them are already aligned to fell aspects, but one is almost certainly this Ailanean child king claiming to be an Offerant Reborn. That leaves four places open, not two as your prophecy of the doors suggests. Of course, it is possible there are many we do not know about. What makes you think Mademoiselle Renoir is one?

What do you mean about "unifying opposite aspects"? Is this part of Mastering your Gift?

Thank you. The Scholar

---

Hello, Scholar.

We were kidnapped through a gate, and woke up slaves on Ansulym. They knew we had Gifts they couldn't take away, but they didn't keep us unconscious. That's another sign I'm right about the ploy. The Devil and the Champion let slip explicitly that the Numen was a person with us. Moreover, we had a dream where a storyteller explained that the Mother of Serpents was preserved in a Numen after her defeat by a man named Tove. I hope that's not the one we have, but it could be. The Devil and the Champion also similarly let slip that Rosalie was one of the children of destiny. They were intent on having her.

The unifying aspects thing: I am a child of Rust, but a Priest of Amber. My tribe used the Rust faith very similarly to how I now used Harvest faith. I think the opposites have wrapped back around to each other. I think I can "unify" them in myself, and be both. I'm either a mad genius or a horrible blasphemer, and I want to see if I can tell which before I do any damage.

--Sulfur Irongut

---

Thirty minutes later...

The numen fashioned from the Mother of Serpents was used by the Webweaver to become Divine. It is definitely not the one you have.

Who kidnapped you? The Champion or the Devil or someone else? The Champion and the Devil were working together? That runs counter to our intelligence. The Champion of Nightmare is allied with the Winter Empire, which supports the Fool of Misfortune in his attempt to become a trickster, but he has to defeat the Master of the Misbegotten first, and that one is allied with, we think, the Devil. We might be wrong about that last part, but the Devil is definitely working against the Court of Winter. Frankly, there are several factions in the Trickster War that are hard to follow, and the Devil's is one of them. Suffice it to say, though, he does not support the rise of another trickster for Obsidian Obelisk, as he is a power in Sable Night instead.

The one who kidnapped you used the Gates to do it?

The Toves had nothing to do with the downfall of the Mother of Serpents. What was this dream again?

I will get back to you on the unifying concepts. I need to do some research.

The Scholar

---

Hello Scholar.

I don't know which of the two kidnapped us, or if it was someone else entirely. I think Prax may have been hearing the Champion in the gates before. Yes, they used the gates to kidnap us. It might account for disappearances. After your info, I'm guessing I was wrong about the ploy. I thought that because I thought we couldn't possibly have escaped the way we did. The dream was of a man who told Prax a story then gave him a card. He said Tove was at the hanging of the Fingers of the Serpent. That's all I got for now. Our journey continues.

--Sulfur Irongut

---

A day later...

Ah, yes, the Toves were involved with the death of the Fingers of the Serpent cult, but that was many years after the Serpent Mother died. I have directed our people to investigate employees at Hydrargyrum about this kidnapping.

You said the numen was a person?

---

The Scholar

That's what The Devil and the Champion seemed to think. I guess they could have been wrong, but they seemed pretty serious about it.

--Sulfur Irongut

---

Two days later...

There's quite a bit of information I have gathered recently. I am going to attempt to organize my information:

1. As regards the nightmariens and gorgonaurs of Baradin, this seems to have been a religious dispute. These beings were originally patroned by the Serpent Mother, and their core faith has never much strayed from that, even after so many Ages. In the wake of Starfall, during the War of the Gods that followed, they rallied to an attempted usurper--a demon that tried to oust the Webweaver and return the Court of Webs to the Court of Serpents. The outcome of this was that the Prophetess laid a curse upon the nightmariens and gorgonaurs of Ansulym, who had betrayed the Webweaver. Curiously, those still in Vesturia seem unaffected. What can be done about it, I do not know. Many are of the mind that the world is better off without those two peoples in it, and others see it as an opportunity to attempt to sway them to new Courts. My Order is investigating our options, but most of those that would lead to salvation seem to include either leading those peoples to the Webweaver or to a Court utterly opposite their culture.

2. Here's what I have found out about numens: the form they take varies by circumstance. A numen can, indeed, be a living thing, though that is rare, and it usually indicates that the numen is "primed" if it takes a living form. This means that the numen has been influenced by an aspect or sub-aspect. Since numens have most notably been used in the rising of gods, the aspects they have taken were usually that of the god they would eventually empower.

3. Our investigation into Hydrargyrum proved fruitful so far. A pair of twins, summoners by trade, who were Stolzene nationalists [GM's note: Nazis] were double agents. Hydrargyrum apparently did not know that their loyalties were elsewhere, but they had made a deal with a dark power. Your capture as the price they paid to acquire enough power to attempt to Master a Gift. We don't know much more than that just yet.

The Scholar