The Quicksand Singularity ArQive: Array.init:0

A0T5.1 The Vampyre Syrenn (Part 1)

As he gazed through the glass, he felt something he hadn't in thirteen ages. This new Witch Queen, there was wildness in her heart. Fire burned there that would not so easily be extinguished.

"I sense a coinciding of a great many threads," Wander responded, feeling hairs on the back of his neck stand up. "Ravenheart...she is no simple Witch Queen."

"Truth be told, only Whisper could really tell what she is," Hal admitted.

"What did Overseer say?"

"That she is the equivalent of a magnetic monopole," Hal answered. "He declined to elaborate further."

"I see," Wander ruminated, "you brought her here for what purpose, exactly?"

"Ravenheart can do things I've only ever seen one person do before," Hal said.

"Then we are indeed in a Great Confluence," Wander assessed.

In the way he knew so many things, Wander felt a rightness to this also. It was as if there was nothing else the presence of all the individuals there could be. Two or three could be dismissed, but six? Never.

"Tell me about the subject."

"That is Øsjäm Sjöbäl," Hal said, "Temple Mistress and High Völva of the Midwinter Temple, Imperial Kaidan, 47th District."

"Class?"

"That...has become complicated," Hal answered.

"By this revelation I am entirely unsurprised," Wander said, "it seems but for the Scattered, we are gathered in the company of all our greatest."

"I think you're missing a few names," Hal commented.

"Yet before this tale is told, its gravity will draw them in also," Wander grinned. "What manner of witch is Headmistress Sjöbäl."

"She blurs the lines between a Death's End and a Beacon," Hal detailed, "98th percentile of 2nd Order Grandmasters according to her file. Quite an impressive C.V. as well. Her most recent exploit, however, leads me to believe her full potential is, at the very least, Type 3 ADMXN."

That was far from the reality. Wander knew this in his bones.

"Give me your most liberal assessment."

"What she just pulled off?" Hal responded. "S3 level work."

Even this was less than the measure he felt. Though, if the former headmistress' true potential was known, he supposed he would not have been brought in to interrogate her.

"I assume her present state is explained by said work," Wander said, pointing at the woman.

"Yes," Hal agreed, "I had the 47th Kaidan Temple's Beacon give me a few day's notice prior to the completion of Sjöbäl's ritual so I could have you prepared for this."

"Describe the ritual."

"What do you know of Sonorian Sirenics?" Hal asked.

"Only what its founder saw fit to enlighten me to," Wander answered. "It is wild magic, extremely potent, and hard to control. Last I was around, in even the most aetherial of capacities, the field was in its infancy. I recall it was a Ciþwa Sonorian heading the research, being possessed of the memory of an ancient practise known as the Kama Sutra, though she seemed rather preoccupied with only its most salacious passages. A shame, really. A complete synthesis would have been of much greater utility."

"The field has much matured since then," Hal added, "that Ciþwa Sonorian may have given birth to the field, and in more ways than one, but Sjöbäl's body of work has progressed and expanded it more than her collective predecessors combined."