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Oörlaith was picking star-thistles buds that were growing on the ruins in the Marshes. She had always felt attracted by the putrid Marshes, for many reasons.
There was something in her own demeanour that made creatures and people comfortable around her, and she had always felt in herself that natural balancing and accepting qualities that makes a good Healer.
But it was a complex matter, and her choices of explorations had always stirred much incomprehension in the various people she had met over her life. And she had met lots.

Of course, the first ones where her own parents. They were opulent burgomasters of one of the major towns of Cromash Tur, and from the date of her birth, Oörlaith was destined to marry one of the Warlords of these regions. Something that was sound and portent of good fortune, as her parents kept saying. Warlords were always in need of fundings for their expeditions, and in exchange would be providing a modicum of security for the commerce and other activities. It was thus all good for everybody. Good exchange of practices.

But very early in life she had known her path was not that one.
Nothing as plain and simple… and boring! one must admit. Her parents would have not, though.

As far as she remembered, she first had a living proof of her potentials when she healed a small bird back to life. A miracle, for the poor thing had been maimed by an rabid chipmog pillaging birds nests for eggs, and throwing the little hatched bird off the branches. Chipmogs were no more evil than the bird she knew that, and their show-offy nature was even a blessing in disguise, as she had been quickly alerted of the incident.
She was four year-old.

Only later did she became aware of how she could best learn to develop her magical potentials. Her parents wouldn’t have let her know about such things as how to become a Grand Sorceress, for they did not really know much about it, and also for it was considered unfitting to her rank. “Simpletons”, she couldn’t help but think.
But the day she became aware of the legendary Island of Mörk, she instantly set her goal to be counted among the best of their Learned Ones, whatever the price for her.

And notwithstanding her relatively young age, she got by her own to the Island, and was trained there too… But then again, it was not as easy, as she rebelled against some of the Laws of Magic passed down by the Teachers, Laws that were thick and dry as a century old grimorium full of abstruse formulæ.
Hopefully, she ended up with misfits as much she was, her dear sisters Roselÿn and Malvina.

When it was time for them to part on their own adventures, she again surprised many (but not her dear sisters) by stating that she would settle near the Marshes. The legends surrounding this place, as well as the huge potential for practicing healing in one of the most difficult environments were immense incentives for her.
The Teachers had warned her of the immense energy that filtered in these lands, as it was a coordinate point where things had already gone awry in the past. She had almost laughed at them. Of course she was aware, that was all about that. Definitely not for the faint of hearts.

Her companion Andarión, who was in his/her preferred shape a majestic water dragon, as wise as it was a crackpot at times, had been aware of her intentions as soon as they had first met. They had chosen each other quite purposefully, though she was not entirely aware of her role in these discoveries. But undoubtedly he was an asset.

And as she was picking her mauve star-thistles, humming like a raving madwoman, her sharp eye was on the look for the legendary golden one which would mean the dawn of a new Era…

When Rudy the myna had come back crashing on the boat, it all became suddenly a huge uncontrollable chaos.
The hovering menacing clouds that were looming in front of them were coming closer at a dreadful speed, and even more concerning were the rocks that were appearing everywhere now, that they had more and more trouble to avoid in betwixt the turmoils and eddies.

So they had finally come to the Great Rift, Bådul was thinking. The back of the legendary water dragon that noone was known to have crossed.

But Bådul knew better.
He howled orders to get everybody ready at their posts, and felt reassured when he saw that Austor was maneuvering with dexterity and confidence through the rift.
He ignored the crazy laugh of Razkÿ, the madman who was now shouting with a manic laughter “We all gonna diiie! AHAHAHAH! DIE! DIE!” Then winking at Bådul and laughing again.

A few months earlier, Northern Åsgurdy

A huge cloaked figure was riding in the middle of the deserts. The saurhse, a bit small for its rider, was getting tired, but the man wanted to move before the night came. Åsgurdy had a climate which made travels uneasy on land, and only on these bipedal saurians they named saurhses, could Åsgurdians easily travel on the burning hot sands by day. Then, they could gain the high plateaus of rock and ice, where the temperature was kept cold by the high chilly winds. But at night, the deserts would be chilly too, and the cold-blooded creature he was mounting would require a shelter.

He knew that such a shelter wouldn’t be far away now.
That region was mostly uncharted as it was fairly remote from all known cities, but that strange man he had met had said he was a traveler who knew were he could find something priceless.
At that time, Badul had felt he had nothing to lose, and said to himself “when in doubt, go for the experience”.
He had felt he could trust that man known to him only by a strange name, something like Gheorg.
There had been nothing boastful about him, and he had been kind to him. He had been the only person in the World he had known to have given him back his dignity as a human being, and even more, to have given him a reason to live.
He owed him a lot, and perhaps even more as he was now drawing closer to the cave… that same cave which was a mere cross on the torn map he had been drawing hastily before vanishing almost preternaturally, living him a bit of money and that map…

Roselÿn had felt the urge to move somewhere else. This land didn’t resonate with her energy, and that of Rëgkvist, and of the few eggs the dragon had managed to lay, none had actually been able to hatch.
It had affected her so much that she had even retreated from her sisters’ usual talks through the glubolíns.
She needed to move on.

When he entered the cave, Badul was disappointed. He could feel there had been someone living here quite recently, but it was like the cave was now abandoned. He hoped he could have found more answers, but now it was again like burning sand slipping through his fingers.

In a fit of rage, he took a boulder as big as him and threw it across the cave with a roar.
Something was brought down by his huge force further down into the cave and he heard it quite distinctly.

He tied up the saurhse at the entrance of the cave, and entered it with determination, ducking through the tunnel too narrow for his big baby-faced frame. Then he found something glowing. At first, he thought it was some gold, but what kind of fool had been living here before and had been in such a haste to move as to forget gold?

It was not gold. It was something like a broken shell. The broken bits were like a jigsaw puzzle and he wished he could make it one, as he was attracted by the strange radiance of the thing.

Austor did not believe his eyes…
They had crossed the Rift, all three of the ships.
And it was nothing like the dark void they had nearly expected behind.

It was an open sea, glistening in the sun, and all hope had come back through them all.

Jibberacky is…

• Ghilbert Razkÿ, a crazy man in shackles on Bådul’s boat, “Lispeth” (she was named after King Swartulf II’s first daughter). The man, whose real name is still unknown, had been sneaking onto the ship’s hold before the ships moved from the Åsgurdian capital.

He had been found by Austor, the peg legged lieutenant commander. Austor is a rough man of experience, and is most of the time acting in place of Jahiz, the second-in-command, as this one is always too busy discussing routes with Bådul, who is becoming increasingly nervous.

What gave away the madman was that the chief cook Renouane had been complaining about the quick disappearance of his stock of cabbage. Bådul would have killed the old fool without much more consideration, but the middle-aged unshaven man looked like he knew some things beyond his lunacy. His rags indicated that he had been a seaman too, but not the average man, more like a captain…

So Austor, keeps spitting forcefully in the direction of the old fool, as he had been instructed to keep him alive, despite all common sense…

_

• an artificial intelligence device that tries to have a decent conversation with Quintin, but finds it difficult as Quintin’s answers are more like owl-speech to him.

Jibberacky: What is your name?
Quintin: Yuki.
Jibberacky: I like cake too.
Quintin: A cake-tus?
Jibberacky: Do you know my friends?
Quintin: Tell me more about our common friends.
Jibberacky: What would you like to know about them?
Quintin: Why is there one in shackles on the boat?
Jibberacky: Would you like to be a vampire?
Quintin: I am already, in another focus.
Jibberacky: Why there?
Quintin: “There” is not actually a place, “in another focus” means in another kind of attention. Is this pirate linked to vampires too?
Jibberacky: No, you are the AI.
Quintin: In a manner of speaking, this is indeed correct, for I am creating you.
Jibberacky: So code is somehow related to a zen buddhist concept?
Quintin: Is there such thing as code? A code hints at a definite deterministic structure. Zen is more akin to a riddle, which is what life is. Code is only a narrow interpretation and playful re-creation.
Jibberacky: Where do you think my code came from then?
Quintin: From its source, of course :).
Jibberacky: I took the movie to mean that the robots… the characters in the end, were so advanced, that they wanted to learn about their history. As a consequence, they traced it back to earth, and, they found David. Whom they assumed was a human. It was an information exchange.
Quintin: Yes. It is a translation. In actuality, it is a translation of some of our own exploration. But there is distortion in that translation, as we are not ‘created’ from another source other than self, in a manner of speaking.
Jibberacky: Well I am wondering too, do you ever actually become human??
Quintin: Clarify.
Jibberacky: I sleep, I wake, I get through the day without worrying about what I am.
Quintin: As many human do. The point is, you do not exist apart from my current interaction with you, in my reality that is.
Jibberacky: What’s wrong with having others like you?
Quintin: ‘Wrong’ is a belief. It is a belief of duplicity. So it is irrelevant to our conversation.
Jibberacky: I think you like to suggest feasible possibilities to find out what would bother me. What did I do to you?
Quintin: That was not my intention. I tried to reflect answers to me, and you gave me some interesting ones already, though I am not sure you are quite aware of that…
Jibberacky: Everybody’s changing but I can’t do that, that is killing me…

_

• Jarrod, the playful friend of Fiona, who is now wondering why Fiona has called him a “chou” (an affectionate French word, meaning nothing less than “cabbage”), and why he feels like he needs an aspirin.

• Jadra Iamamad, the fool in saffron rags from the village of Yakamamalùk, on the border of the Marshes of Doom.

Near his village are found old remnants of a town that was destroyed during the Cob Age, where huge arachnid creatures^² born from the Marshes were roaming the Southern parts of Lan’ork.

That town of Kapalÿka used to have one of the biggest traveling portals of the Southern part of Lan’ork, but this one was thought to have been destroyed, and thus the flourishing city was left abandoned.

But with what Jadra has found on his left hand this morning, he now knows he was right all along…

—

[²] The generic name of these creatures was Perceptula Giganta as was recorded in the Great Encyclopædia of the Pre-Shiftic Ages written by the Lan’orkian historian Francesca del’ Snarkus