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For the last day, he’d gone to the shrines, pay his respects to his ancestors.
They had long joined with the trees, for most, still living in their roots, and while the trees that they prayed to were young in comparison to the ones in the Heartwood, they were all connected.
Here, it was harder to ignore their messages. Their voices had the gravity of silence, bearing the weight of ageless wisdom. Among them, Rukshan felt at home.

The cold was sharper than the day before, and the east wind brought with it smells of industry and worry, and that of the dragon’s bad tooth. He felt there was a past were such things disturbed him; for now, he was at peace.

Back to the campement, he retreated in his small lodge with the thin paper walls, and the warm mountain salt crystal lights.
There, in front of him, was the little he possessed, and the provisions needed for the climb to the mountain.
He’d found a page from the vanishing book reappear from time to time in his bag. Everytime it carried different words, and would vanish again. Its magic didn’t come from the trees, but their messages intertwined. The page carried bits and pieces of news about the Sage Sorceress, who had started to move on her healing path, the Teafing Tinkeress who was hunted by a swift menace of godlike powers, and also a Gifted Gnome, on his way to become his own maker under the protection of a Renard Renunciate looking for lost souls.
He couldn’t figure out the stories yet, but he was glad for the piece of paper. He was helpless at distant viewing in general, so it did save him additional worry about sorting through his impressions and getting them right. Like after the Court audience, when he couldn’t feel Margoritt’s presence, and worried she and Tak were in trouble. The resident Seer at the campement had peered through his glubolin and confirmed that they were both fine. He did also confirm that she’d fainted, and was recovering. Rukshan had wanted to go back, abandon the trip to the Hermit, but reasoned that Margoritt was fine for now, and that she was a proud woman. He would have to trust she and Tak would be alright.

“Magic comes from the heart. You will know when to use it.” the words said in passing were etched in his memory, and the potion was still here. Its color seemed to reflect his mood at times. After the morning praying, it was almost glowing gold. Now, it was a pale purple. He had felt no pull to use it. At first, there was strong resistance about it, but now, there was a mildly curious acceptance of the gift. Like the vanishing paper, whether it appeared or disappeared was of no consequence for now.

The paper wall shivered. His meditative state was easily distracted by the sounds around, even after nightfall when everything went quiet.

“Quiet suits you well.” The visitor was near him, wearing thin wool despite the cold.
“My Queen?” he was surprised.
“You still don’t remember who you are, do you?” the Queen leaned forward. He felt a strange attraction, and their lips touched. The kiss was warm and filled him with longing. They fell into each other’s arms.

The cave’s entrance was glowing in a golden light. The fresh snow had blanketed the entrance that the midday sun was bathing with warm rays through the fog.

The cave was hanging perilously on the precarious slopes of the mountainous ranges, where only a few woolly goats could safely reach its heights without fear of breaking their necks. It was a safe haven for the Hermit.
Below the cave, the vast expanse of the Forest was almost entirely white, except for its fringe, far from the mountains, where the cities had flowered, and except from its center, the darker Dragon Heartwood with its reds and greens that seemed almost black in contrast.

She was known as the Hermit by most of the Faes living in the forest, a honorary title if not slightly belittling when they called her that. To others, she was often known by different colorful names. Sometimes when she was seen flying in her bird skin, accompanying the giant raptor birds from the plateaus with her long white hair flowing to the wind, surveying from above the life of the land, she would gain other names as well.
Her shaman name was Kumihimo, or weaver of threads. In the cave, many threads were carefully hanged onto a long line, without particular noticeable pattern, either by colors and material. All were different. Her birds friends, big or smaller would often bring her threads from many great distances. She would hang them here, without particular care, or so it seemed to the naked eye.

It had been a long time she had weaved any of them, or had the impulse to.
But she had dreamt.
She never dreamt. To dream for her was a matter of crucial importance.
She had dreamt of seven threads.
It was time she made a new braid.

You’re a fool, Olli

His mother’s voice, even now kept haunting him. Olliver was a bit of a fool, far too credulous at times.
People would think him a simpleton, and, at 17, he would still arch his back when he was around others, maybe a little more now that he’d grown so much, always feeling awkward and unsuitable for anything.

He wasn’t so clear how the foolish plan had hatched in his head, honestly, he wasn’t very clever. Maybe he was guided. There was no other explanation.

Slowly, slowly his mother Ethely would exhort him, when he struggled to explain so many things in his head.

There was the house first. They had come early in the day, paint it with the white triangle in a circle. That meant it was to be demolished soon. The Pasha wanted to remove the ugliness of the town, the old bazar and the cows and chickens pens out of the town’s wall. He wanted a nice clean pall-mall place for his games, with boring clean white walls, and fake grass, his mum told him.
What is fake grass made of? he asked at the time. It was all he could think of. He hadn’t imagined they could tear down their neighbourhood, or their old familiar house.

So first, the house. Then the precious package. He liked it, the gilded egg with the strange difficult name. Rukji (that’s how he’d told him to call him, it was more easy) had left a note for him. He didn’t write much, in large big letters for him to read slowly. He remembered the stories Rukji told him about the egg. He used to forget a lot of things, but the stories were always very clear in his head, and he never forgot them.
Rukji said the egg used to transport people and things to distant places, at the speed of thought.
Olli had laughed when he told him that, he’d said his thoughts were not very quick. Rukji had smiled, with his nice and a bit sad smile.

So, he’d thought, maybe the egg could send his house and mum to a safe place, before they remove the house.
He’d tried to think of it, touch the eggs and its gilded scales, but nothing happened. You’re a fool Olli his mother said, while she was gathering their few things in a large cloth and wicker basket.

Then there was the tower. He’d thought Rukji would be there, still. He could tell him the secrets surely. But the stern man at the clock building told him he had gone.

Olli didn’t trust the man, and went from the back-entrance he knew about, up in the tower, to see in case he was there. But he wasn’t.

It was only the stroke of the 7th hour. And one of the mannequins from the tower moved as he would do, four times a day. Alone, at 7 in the morning, and 7 at night, and with everyone at noon, and midnight.

Olli had recognized the god of travel, with a funny pose on his plinth. He called him Halis. He had trouble with remembering names, especially long names. Ha-sa-me-lis. Sometimes he would say the names out of order. Like Hamamelis, and that would make everybody laugh.

That’s when something happened. He’d prayed to the god, to help his mother and their house. But the golden egg with his scales touched the statue, at a place where there was no pigeons stains. And zap! that was it.

Black for a moment, and then he was in the forest.
And he wasn’t alone.

“Free! At last!” he’d shouted.
Then he’d said “Ain’t that unexpected rusty magic… You tricky bastard managed to zap me out of my concrete shell! now, pray tell, where in the eleven hells did you send us, young warlock?”

What a fool you are, Olli, you got us all lost he could hear her whisper in his head.

The small fire had died during the night. There wasn’t a lot of firewood in the forest, so he’d used all the dry leaves he could find. The child was quiet, and sleeping peacefully.
Waiting for the sun to rise, Rukshan was carving a piece of bamboo into a flute.

The night had been cold, and a lot of the smaller bamboos had turned yellow. He thought about the ginkgo trees in the town, guessing they would have left all their golden leaves to the ground by now, going into the winter sleep, falling silent for a little while.

He didn’t have a clear plan, but some twirling leaves on the ground seemed to invite him in another direction than he had planned. He gazed into the last of the fire’s smoke, and saw there was a small lodge he didn’t know about, close to the Dragon Heartwood. Something he didn’t expect. There was an old woman there, to whom he could entrust the care of the boy, while he would go to the mountains.

They would go there, another little detour, at the first crack of the pale sunlight above the bamboos’ tops.

Rukshan didn’t know when the book first appeared. His room wasn’t large, and he always took great effort to keep it organised and uncluttered. Well, it was hardly effort at all, more like a well ingrained habit.

Thinking about it, the book could have been put there by a visitor, that was the most evident explanation. But undoubtedly the nosy concierge wouldn’t have missed such opportunity to mention it when he’d come back from the Clock, even at the late hours of the day he’d come back lately.

Considering, his latest exploration of the basement of the Clock below the hatch had not been extremely enlightening nor completely in vain, if only for realising the fact that he was in dire need of more expert help. The Clock was old as the Town, and after generations of crafters jealously guarding of their secrets, the knowledge of its magic had been watered down to the bare necessities. And without proper care and maintenance, last incident could well reoccur at any time.
For now, he had to stop worry, it wouldn’t do his body any good, only manage to let his real age catch up with his now youthful appearance. He knew just the right way for him to get back to his centered balance.

Sipping his favourite brew of hot tulsi leaves tea, he sat cross-legged, carefully in the brown floor chair with the golden thread embroideries, and observed the large black book placed at an angle on the end table.

The tea was already giving off its soothing effects, and glinting, he could see the book almost vibrate.

The thought came back to him. The book was a memory, a memory that he’d brought back from a dream of last night. How peculiar, he thought. He’d heard about such magical powers that the Fays possessed, travelling between pocket dimensions, but it was almost part of the lore of old, nobody had witnessed such things —in human memory, at least.

Now he was curious to open the book. He probably would have to hurry before it starts to fade and vanish. He was glad for the tea, it was the perfect brew to avoid any excitement that would hasten the fading process.

The day had been inordinately hectic.
He had been working on the Town’s Clock till dawn, and was still none the wiser about why it had stopped to work, and moved the whole town into disarray. A problem with a few redundant cogs, and some pipes apparently.

He wouldn’t know for sure such things, he wasn’t a master technician, just an Overseer. Chief Overseer, another word for Master Fuse, he used to say jokingly.
It wasn’t an usual job for Fays, who were usually using their gifts of faying for other purposes, but mending complex systems was quite possibly in the cards for him.

On his way down from the Clock Tower, late during the night, he had noticed the energy has started to flow again, not very regularly, in spurts of freshwater moving through rusted pipes, but it would have to do for now.
The Town Clock wasn’t completely repaired, and still prone to subtle and unexpected changes —it was still 2 and half minute behind, and some of the mannequins and automata behind the revolving doors were still askew or refusing to show up in time. But at least the large enchanted Silver Jute, emblem of the City, managed to sing its boockoockoos every hour. So, his job was done for today.

He put on his coat, noticing the wind chilling his bones under the large white moon. He was walking in long regular strides in the empty streets, vaguely lost in thoughts about how clockwork was just about showing the energy the way, and leaving it to do the rest, and how failures and breaking down would appear at the structural weakest places as opportunity to mend and strengthen them.

Before he knew, his feet had guided him back to the alley of golden ginkgos, and he was drawn from his thoughts by the wind chiming in the golden leaves.

The idea emerged at once in his head, fully formed, incomprehensible at first, and yet completely logical.
He had to assemble a team of talents, a crew of sorts. He wasn’t sure about the purpose, not how to find them, but some of them were being drawn to the light and made clearer.
Beside himself the Faying Fay, there was a Sage Sorceress, and a Teafing Tinkeress, and also a Gifted Gnome. There were others that the trees wouldn’t reveal.

It seemed there was a lot more they wouldn’t say about. He guessed he would have to be patient about how it would reveal itself. It was night after all, Glade Chi Trolls would be lurking in the shadows menacing to erase his revelations, so he would have to find shelter soon and recover his strengths for tomorrow’s new round of Clock repair.

Ricardo had finished cleaning the tea cups in the empty office. He liked the job alright, it was a bit silly of him to surmise people would clean their own cups, and do their own teas. That was what he’d meant with the team job comment.

Connie and Hilda were right, totally right about it; he couldn’t expect too much, he’d just arrived, he was just a simple intern in a prestigious journalistic establishment. He’d come here to learn the tricks of the trade, when he’d answered the wanted: secretary and cleaner ad of last week.
So far, there was only so much golden nuggets of weirdo news he could find. You’d need some serious training to get to the level of Hilda and Connie, the dynamic duo.

For now, he was content to being put to menial tasks, it helped know the colleagues better, support them as he could with the pressure on the deadlines. And also, improving the typos and legibility by cleaning up the loose letters dropped during typesetting.
His own headline baiting skill was still rather low —it was an art to create the perfectly sexyied up heading, not too tacky, but enticing enough to captivate the readership’s attention.
If Hilda was the queen of headline fishing, Connie was undoubtedly the empress of headline baiting.

Liz looked at the fat dealer with a snicker “Oh, you’re still here talking nonsense Big G? Haven’t you got your cabbages already? The staff these days… FINNLEY!” she shouted to the gaping muttering maid. “Snap out of this silly trance, will you! Get the man his cabbages, and show those drug-dealing gentlemen out. Can’t be here all day with the cement to set, I have a wedding to plan now.”

She turned at the window, looking for Godfrey who had temporarily left her, “what on Earth is he doing talking to that devilishly handsome fellow. Those rubberducks give me an idea for the wedding dress though. Golden yellow for the colour. With gorgeous yellow shoes. I’m feeling ages younger today… Oh, sweet love.”

The Matrimandir was empty at this time of night, deserted by the occasional late devotees, and only silently browsed by the maintenance robot.

Its exterior was shaped as a sphere covered in gold — well, not entirely yet. It was first built to be the heart of the future city, and to this date, partly a work in progress, half-coated with the gold foils of discarded satellites and other space craps.

The interior was rather large now, and air conditioned, though it was probably smaller and hotter in the past — John never had the curiosity to look at the archives, he’d known it like this since he was a child. It was meant to be a sacred place, or a place of simple beauty, which was odd, when you thought about it.
All around them was infinite space, boundless opportunities to connect to the great mysteries beyond, and quite frankly, this was often scary as hell. Maybe that’s what this place meant, a safe retreat, like a bubble with only a thin wall of soap dividing space between here and out there, but open for the world to see.

He’d brought another batch of water-stones, and opened the hatch below the meditation altar. When he jumped the last rug of the ladder, his boots landed in a splatch of water. Something had changed. The rate at which the stones were exuding water had increased. He would have to move them again after the next commercial shuttle departure. He couldn’t risk the Consortium getting notice of this… Not yet, not before they figured out what it meant.

Soul loss and soul recovery
Whenever you are in a situation with intense pain, grief, loss, or intense joy, excitement, you may lose part of your soul, or vital energy, it’s also called dissociation by the psychologist. You usually do it to make it stop, or it is an automatic action to stop the intensity of what’s going on.
You separate yourself form an aspect of yourself, and you are not aware of it, most of the time. It can manifest as chronic fatigue, depression, feeling numb, addictive behavior, etc.
In order to get back this energy, you have to reclaim it. And as a shaman, you do it through the process of soul recovery. Today you’re going to learn how to do it.
It is relatively simple. First, you are going to go in the lower world, find your main power animal. Thank it again for all that it does for you and ask them if they are the one to help you in the process of soul recovery. If not, ask them to lead you to your soul recovery animal. When you get acquainted to this new animal, you can ask them their name, and how you can call them when you need them. Thank them for their help and presence with you.
When you do a soul recovery, you may not know what you are going to recover. You may not really know what you have lost, or you may not be aware of symptoms. Just tell your Soul Recovery Power animal (SRPA) that you want to recover a part of your soul that you are missing at the moment. They’ll guide you through the process. Follow them, trust them.
They may take you through different places or spaces and times to go find that lost soul piece. It may be from your childhood, from another life, or dream situations.
You are going to be presented to that piece of your soul and you have to ask them what happen. Most of the time they are frightened and don’t want to come back. You have to convince them, and ask them what you have to do to show them that you’ll not do the same “mistake” that make them leave in the first place. It may require you change something in your behavior, in your attitude toward certain things, it might be simple or huge. Depends on what you find. And it’s up to you to see if you’re up to the challenge.
you can also take some time with your power animals to get to know them better and learn from them.
If you don’t know how to manage the situation with the lost piece of soul, you can ask your soul recovery power animal to help you do the “negotiation” part
but you’ll have to do what’s required by the soul so that it comes back definitively sts
If you still have time, you can go on a second recovery.
And remember, this is not a race, take your time, don’t rush, enjoy the journey.

Eric
Before the music starts, I have the feeling of “Nagini” my snake power animal: it’s looking patiently at me with golden eyes. I also get the first impression of a spirit panda as a soul retrieving power animal. There are two aspects of it, a docile and friendly one, and another more fearsome, they seem to shift depending on his mood. As the music starts, I sift through few fleeting impressions (one of a lemur), then some stronger.
The panda comes back but I also have other animals who seem to present themselves in order, as if in different directions, and I remember there are no rules as their number, so I let myself welcome them. The panda is on the right, it seems connected to childhood memories, (call it “Panda”) then, on middle right, there is a spider (“Anansi”), it connects to the jumping spiders I’ve seen a few times the past days, and
one this morning I put outside instead of letting it drown.Middle left, coming from above and perched on a tree, there is a firebird/phoenix (“Fawkes”). There is another one, I remember a bit later that appeared further left, as if from the direction behind me, it’s an ape (“Hanuman”).
The serpent circles around them. I have the impression I can choose any of them, and they will lead me to different realizations, and I have the impression of the buddhist emanations, where enlightened being manage to split themselves into many as one. So I decide to ride them all at once. Actually, I start with the first three ones, and as I ride on the land, I suddenly remember the ape which was very discrete initially,but seems to be willing to show me stuff too.
The land we ride into is dark, almost volcanic in nature, as if scorched. There are trails that spread to different directions, and each ride goes down one of them. There are various visions, moments and memories from the past connected with strong emotions.
At one end, there is a little boy that shoots magma out of his incandescent body. It irradiates the land through veins of lava, and as it cools down it darkens the land even more. He seems to be caught up in a circle of rage or fear, fear of never seeing the light again. I listen to him without words, and realize he’s afraid of letting go.
I’ll show him the light is covered by his own cinders, and he needs to cool down and let nature grow back again around him, and I’m showing him I’m willing to help. It seems to resolve as light opens in the sky, and a tree starts to grow again… At the end, I seem to connect the scene to certain memories.
There is another one that comes in, where the ape is doing a certain pose where it walks on its hands. The posture catches my attention, as if to remind me of something. I’m encouraged to turn around to see the world as it sees it. As I do it, the world changes and spins, and the music starts to indicate the end of the trip. I thank the animals and finish with the snake before leaving…
the end
well, it’s very condensed, there was lots happening
It’s like I was doing many stuff at the same time

Flove
(no recollection)

Jib
I have difficulties stabilizing my attention first, there is this kind of veiled perception I’ve been having lately. As I call my power animal for soul recovery I have a strong impression of a bear and then a raven. There is a kind of snake too, and I also feel a wild boar. I refocus back on the whale and say I’ll come back later. The whale leads me in the depth of the earth to a magma chamber. It becomes scrambled again and I just take a moment to refocus on my penguin.
First soul recovery
I ask him to find the piece of soul that would be best for me to recover now, and we go fly above something. The penguin flies like a rocket, super fast. I soon find a kid feeling presence. I have no real visual, and I keep having visuals of lemur, or raccoon interfering.
Then I feel that the presence is also camouflaging behind projections to be left alone. He left me when I was little, around 8 because the world seemed to disappointing. I have some difficulties at first to convince him to come back with me, and I show him what I’m already doing that’s fun and that’s worth doing and exploring. After a while, he agrees and I feel a nice warm feeling inside my belly as he is reintegrating me. I thank him for coming back. The only thing I need to do is take the time to reassure myself when the world seems too dangerous.
Visiting the bear and the raven
Then I decide to go back visit the bear and the raven.
I’ve already seen them before and they seem to be there for me. There is an impression of power with the bear and also mother here for her kids. With the raven, it’s more a mystical stuff, and the power of observation and seeing through things.
I am offered a kind of raven skull symbol of power and energy manipulation staff or something like that. I take it and it feels quite powerful, I have the impression the energy or the “spirits” would follow it when I demand it. Like make blocked energy move.
Second soul recovery
I decide to do a second soul recovery and ask the whale to lead me. I have the impression of changing plane, the focus is different, I am more on the middle world, and we go somewhere icy like Antarctic. Maybe near a shipwreck. There is a man, depressed and gloomy. I begin to ask him why he’s here, but he seems to want to come back and don’t ask anything. I feel very warm and loving. The drums begin to beat the return and I thank everyone for participating and come back. Saying I’ll take time to assimilate.
Eric’s account remind me of a few stuff
that reminded me a few stuff too because at one time I had to follow a spider and with the raven I flew over a magma land and the raven became a phoenix to be able to fly because it was so hot
thanks I forgot that

Tracy
went down the stone steps, the unicorns on the left looked up as I passed. Zebra joined me from the right, said thanks but forgot his name! Then a white bear joined me, said his name was Waldo (or at least that name would do for now, impression)
He was huge but was very light on his feet the whole time. Came to a tall tree with a single very red apple on it. The white bear scampered up the tree and I followed. Various other fruit but mainly the red apple stood out.
At the top of the tree leveled out to a large plaza with gameboard design, the white bear demonstrated frolicking from one part to another playfully leaping in lightness.
Flash to me as a small child being woken up in the night by concerned parents for nasty medicine for chicken pox.
Same house but in the field behind, me as a small child alone by the wigwam of sticks dad made, frowning, alone. Next door to the neighbours pond, frozen over. White bear kept dancing on the thin ice part that we didn’t skate on, huge heavy bear, such a light step didn’t break the ice
Zebra was hanging around incidentally, kept feeling reassuring warm breath and muzzle on my shoulder. Breathing restrictions started, left the pond, down a path in the woods, came to a fork. Went left ~ papers everywhere, letters, words, snowed under with words and letters, monkeys pulling sheafs and sheafs of letters and papers and words.
Then a school of tiny silver fishes swan inside me and started chomping at all the letters in my solar plexus and spewing out coloured threads and ribbons from my mouth.
Breathing difficult. (several times just sank into intense colours for awhile with no imagery, plenty purple and green). I started doing sort of swimming motions with my arms with the breathing and fishes, had a sudden blast of energy in the chest and then later a much stronger one just before the video ended.
I should add the impression of less thinking/intellectualizing, less buried under a mountain of words, in favour of more purely physical expression