The skies above Bleakroot fen had changed. No longer choked with twisting smoke or echoing with voices of the lost, only a dim gray mist remained — soft, curling around the party like quiet breaths. The ground squelched faintly beneath their steps as they returned to where the wargon, the beast, awaited them. Its thick, plated hide shimmered subtly under the wet, colorless light, steam puffing from its nostrils like a lazy forge.
Liora was the first to break from the group, her boots crunching lightly against gravel and brittle reed. She moved with purpose, yet her fingers trembled just slightly as she unclasped her worn leather pack from the Wargon's side. She knelt down beside it, her brows furrowed with anticipation, and carefully unfastened the buckles.
From within, she pulled it out:
A sketchbook unlike any ordinary relic.
Its cover lacquered in golden liquid, the texture somewhere between polished glass and still-warm wax. It shimmered faintly even in the dull light, the surface refusing to ripple or move, as though time itself had been paused and sealed into its form.
Liora stood slowly, the book in hand, turning toward the others.
Luke was leaning against the Wargon's side, arms crossed loosely but posture taut, eyes half-shadowed under the rim of his hood. His gaze was fixed on the sketchbook, but unreadable — cold curiosity? subtle anxiety? Liora couldn't tell.
Nymei — still half-formed in its smoky humanoid silhouette — hovered idly near Luke, drifting just a pace behind him like a silent, curious echo.
"Alright," Liora said, her voice steady but low, "this... might be weird."
She turned the sketchbook toward them and opened it. The first page crackled faintly like old firewood.
There, scrawled in inky-black script — curled, poetic, as if handwritten by something not entirely human:
Feed it ideas, and it'll return the favor.
Luke tilted his head slightly. His jaw tightened, a motion so faint it might've been imagined. His voice didn't come. Instead, his brows creased just barely, and Liora had no idea if that meant disbelief or concern.
Vivy had settled herself cross-legged atop a rock, petting the Wargon's rough side like it was a sleepy housecat. She didn't look up, just let out a soft hum. "After this," she said, half to herself, "I've got a question."
Kairo, standing a bit apart, looked at the sketchbook with the same subtle unease. But unlike Luke, Kairo's face was an open book. Curiosity flickered behind his eyes, mixed with that signature hesitance he carried around new things — especially old, magic-tinged ones.
Liora caught his expression easily and offered him a tiny smirk. "It's not cursed. Probably."
Kairo gave her a sideways glance, lips twitching. "You say that now."
But Nymei… Nymei moved. Not walked — moved — like a shiver of wind re-shaping into form. Its smoky silhouette drifted forward until it hovered just inches from Liora. Then, its hand, pale and gray and half-there, reached out.
It took the sketchbook.
Liora let it go, slowly, with an instinctive breath held in her chest. She expected the golden lacquer to resist Nymei's grip. But no — the book sat calmly in the creature's palm, as if it had been waiting for this moment for centuries.
Nymei tilted its head with childlike wonder, its voice curling out like fog over ancient stone:
"Hmm… that's really fascinate, isn't it? A vessel for imagination... bound by gold and ink. A trickster's tool, maybe. Or a dreamer's cage."
Its voice had shifted again — somewhere between archaic and conversational. The cadence of someone who had spoken before language existed, and only recently decided to pick it up again.
Then Nymei turned its pale, hollow face toward Liora.
"So, I just say what I want? That's how this thing works?"
Liora blinked, tilting her head just a little — lips parted like she wanted to say something clever, but the presence of the smoke-being always made her think twice.
"It's... supposed to be like that, yeah," she said finally. "But I've never used it before. Not really. I just—found it. Or it found me, I guess."
Nymei hummed. The sound was melodic, rising and falling like a hymn hummed in a forgotten cathedral. It opened the book slowly, pages fluttering under its fingers, despite the air being perfectly still.
The moment was quiet. Tense.
The Wargon shifted, letting out a long snort that echoed across the fen. Mist curled upward.
Luke finally moved — arms uncrossed now, his knuckles pressing subtly into his pocket as he watched Nymei with narrowed eyes. "If that thing starts glowing or screaming, I'm stabbing something," he muttered under his breath.
Liora smirked again.
Nymei tilted its head in an almost theatrical arc, smoke trailing like velvet ribbons from its limbs. The fingers that held the sketchbook flexed with unnatural grace, joints bending just a little too far, too slow, like marionette strings pulled by invisible hands.
Then it spoke — no, declared — its voice laced with amusement and the slow savor of ancient intention:
"Hmm... alright. This strange book, this vessel of ink and thought — then hear me."
"Give me... a human body."
"One that I, Vel'Kyren, may dwell within. One I can control, shape, walk in. That is my idea. That is... my wish."
As soon as the last word passed Nymei's mouth, the golden lacquer that coated the sketchbook shivered.
It moved.
Like oil stirred beneath glass, the golden film pulsed once—then began to flow, drawn by some silent command. Liora took an instinctive half-step back, her breath hitching, watching with wide eyes as the cover warped, the golden liquid pulling inward through invisible seams. It seeped, threading itself between the pages like veins of living light.
Then one page — just one — began to breathe.
The surface pulsed, and the gold pooled into it, staining the paper as if bleeding through from another world.
It began to shift.
The lines formed first — no hand moved the pen, yet shapes drew themselves in frantic precision: the rough architecture of a humanoid body, limbs curling into being from pure line and golden ink, bones and tendons, musculature like ancient anatomical sketches—but then more. Flesh began to layer over it, shaded in with whisper-thin brushstrokes of living paint.
Nymei froze.
Its smoky body shimmered with unease — not fear, but something deeper. Heat. The sketchbook had started to glow, gold flickering beneath the surface, and the air around it began to warp, rippling with rising temperature.
A low crackle began to echo from the pages — like fire catching paper, but contained.
And then—Nymei reacted.
"Tch—! It burns."
With a swift motion, almost instinctive, Nymei flung the sketchbook away, smoke trailing from its fingertips like a wound bleeding shadow. The book tumbled midair, end over end, before landing in the dirt with a heavy thud, skidding to a halt inches from Luke's foot.
None of them moved.
Vivy didn't even blink. She sat perched on her rock still, eyes sharp, body still but coiled like a thread pulled taut. Her pupils locked onto Nymei, watching not the sketchbook, but the creature's reaction. Her silence was deliberate — the calm of someone who knew the moment could crack any second.
Kairo was more visibly affected. His hand twitched slightly, hovering near his side — not at his weapon, but more like he was debating whether to reach for the book or back away. He couldn't look away. His gaze was tethered to it, wide with something between fascination and caution.
His thoughts spun: Is this what it looks like when magic listens? Is this how cursed things are born?
Liora clenched her hands together. Her concern wasn't for the sketchbook — not directly. It was for the chaos this thing might unleash. She shifted her weight, inching subtly toward Vivy, as if proximity to her might offer safety, or answers, or both.
Luke didn't shift.
Didn't breathe.
Didn't blink.
One hand slowly, casually, rested on the hilt of his blade, the other tightening into a loose fist at his side. His eyes weren't on the book. They were on everything — calculating threat, direction, intent.
And still — the sketchbook lay there.
Golden ink still shifting within its open pages.
The form not yet complete.
Nymei hovered a few steps back now, its smokey torso swaying as if unsettled, yet its face — if it could be called that — seemed almost pleased.
"Ahh… it sings back. Fierce little thing."
The mist around the group began to pull in slightly, curling toward the book like threads drawn into a spindle.
The golden light still pulsed faintly within the pages, a quiet heartbeat beneath curling mist and the cautious breaths of the group. Nymei, silent for a moment longer, exhaled softly—not from lungs, but from some strange imitation of breath—and her form began to shift. Her body, smoke-like and translucent, unfurled and extended outward like a living shawl of fog, tendrils of vapor wrapping protectively around the sketchbook lying still in the grass.
"It seems," she said, tone unusually soft now, "this little thing needs... time."
Her focus didn't waver, eyes locked on the glowing pages. The gold was calming now, steady, no longer volatile. It breathed in rhythm with her.
"I'll protect it."
There was something almost maternal in her voice. Possessive. Reverent.
Kairo stepped closer, arms folded loosely, his eyes flicking between the book and Nymei's expanding smoke-shroud.
"Can you tell us how long it'll take?"
Nymei didn't look at him. Her body rippled, silent waves moving through her form like wind on still water.
"I don't know. But... look at it," she murmured. "A few minutes, maybe."
Kairo exhaled through his nose, then stepped back and leaned against the Wargon, folding one knee casually over the other.
"We can wait."
Vivy, still seated beside the beast, finally spoke, eyes still fixed on the golden light.
"We have to."
Her voice held no doubt. Just fact.
Luke turned to glance at her, one eyebrow raised slightly.
"Is it that important?"
Vivy nodded once. Unshaken.
Luke observed her for a second longer, then let a small smile tug at the corner of his mouth. He looked away again, thoughtful, but said nothing more.
Liora remained standing nearest to Nymei, barely a few feet from where the book hovered between dimensions. She wanted to know. She needed to see what this thing would become — if it would work at all. Her hands were clenched behind her back, her knuckles pale.
Time passed like mist — slow, quiet, and strange.
And then something shifted.
The smoke began to collapse — not violently, but with intent. It spiraled inward, folding into itself like a cocoon, until nothing was left in Nymei's place but a body.
A human body.
Lying where the sketchbook had once been.
Everyone froze.
Kairo stood straight, all ease gone from his posture. Vivy's hand hovered near her belt. Luke tensed. Even Liora's breath caught in her throat.
The body was still — bare, glowing faintly gold for a second — until Nymei's last tendrils of smoke gathered, solidified, and lifted it.
Nymei's smoky hands wrapped gently around the newly formed figure, cradling it like a precious sculpture. Then, without a word, she reached into the smoke with her free hand, pulled the sketchbook, and tossed it through the air.
"Catch."
Liora caught it reflexively, stumbling back half a step with the force. The golden heat was gone. It was just a book again — heavy and still. She blinked, clutched it tightly, then quickly slipped it back into her pack with a relieved breath.
Vivy had already begun to move.
She broke into a quick stride, closing the distance with long, efficient steps. Liora followed her instantly, quickening her pace, and not far behind, Kairo and Luke began to move too, their eyes never leaving the figure Nymei held.
The figure stirred.
Slowly, gracefully, Nymei's essence bled into the human body — like water soaking into roots. The process wasn't jarring. It was like watching breath return to a lifeless form, warmth blooming in cold clay.
Nymei's new body blinked.
Flesh-colored now. Human. Her skin had a faint dusky tone that shimmered faintly when the light struck it. Her height matched Luke's — tall, elegant, commanding. Her eyes opened slowly, and a brilliant yellow iris stared back at them all, slit like a cat's, glowing faintly beneath the lashes.
Her hair was an explosion of colors — wild strands flowing down in waves, streaked with blue, gray, violet, and hints of yellow that shimmered like refracted sunlight. She wore a blue short corset dress, high-collared, edged with silver threads. The skirt split diagonally over one thigh, and her feet were clad in red heels that shouldn't have belonged in a place like this — but they did.
Nymei tilted her head, cracking her neck, stretching each limb one by one, as if testing this form like a new suit.
Then she grinned — wide and unrestrained, a flash of teeth and delight.
"Well now... that's much better."
She twirled once — effortlessly — then clapped her hands together in one joyful sound that echoed slightly through the trees.
"Let's get on the Wargon and get out of this miserable place, shall we?"
Vivy didn't answer. She turned silently and mounted the beast again, sliding back into her spot like nothing had changed.
Luke and Kairo, however, didn't move right away.
Both of them stared at Nymei. Their expressions conflicted — not quite fear, not quite awe, but something close to both. Because something was different now.
When Nymei had spoken before, her voice had never truly filled the air — it had crept into their minds, silent and invasive, like thought that wasn't theirs.
But now...
They'd heard her voice.
They could feel it in the world, in the air. It was real.
Kairo turned away suddenly, muttering something under his breath. His pace quickened as he climbed up onto the Wargon again, fingers twitching against the saddle.
Luke rubbed the side of his jaw, then covered his mouth with the back of his hand as he cleared his throat.
"Ahem. Ahem... So it really worked, huh?"
"Liora... that's really great."
Liora scratched the side of her head, grinning sheepishly.
"Yeah... yeah... "
She laughed nervously. "We're still alive, so. Success?"
Luke chuckled and shrugged, then stepped up onto the Wargon.
Liora was the second-last. She checked the sketchbook one last time, made sure it was tucked in tight, then finally climbed up.
Nymei lingered only a moment longer.
She turned to the fading edges of the Bleakroot fen, took one last slow breath, stretched her new arms — and then strode forward, tall and radiant, stepping up into the saddle behind the others.