《A Castle in a Teacup》 prologue( part 1) If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. All of the tables have a few creatures similar to Butler clustered around them, with the only visual difference being that they are all a uniform sky blue. Closer inspection revealed that their hands had much finer plates of chitin covering them, allowing for a wider range of movement than Butler was capable of. Some of the creatures were beside the tables slowly moving or manipulating the objects while the others looked on with expressions of intense focus. There is always one in each group that takes careful notes on a long scroll of thin paper, writing down numbers that are whispered to it by random group members. One of the groups straighten up and look over at me expectantly. I stroll over and look directly at the member holding the scroll. in the creature¡¯s eyes, a small bit of glittering silver can be seen. prologue ( part 2) This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Chapter 1 Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Chapter 2 This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Chapter 3 This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Chapter 4 Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Chapter 5 This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. I. Me. Everything was suddenly so clear, As I replay my past actions in my mind I cringe at my stupidity. I could have been so much better, a better messenger, a better engineer, and a far better squad leader. his voice, there was defiantly a masculine quality to his voice, something I had never that experienced before. I filed that away with all the new things happening now to be examined later. I quickly stood back up from where I had curled on the floor. I wasn¡¯t just quicker in mind, my movements were faster and more coordinated as well. I looked back up at the Maker who was staring down at me with a clinical expression. Interlude 1 (council) This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. things he has created, however long that may take. He is just one wizard we are some of the foremost users of the mystical arts on the continent, he will never escape and the issue will be solved. We will simply need a focus and all of your aid.¡± Chapter 6 I can help you, let me into your mind so we can begin on this mission, there will be time to teach you properly later.* Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. This should be the start of your orders* He says before withdrawing from my mind. Put as much distance between your group and central command as possible, do so while avoiding notice by hostile forces. What is the best way to leave* Follow me I know just the people to ask* Chapter 7 Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Chapter 8 Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Chapter 9 If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Chapter 10 Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Interlude (Parting Shot) The once misty dome above my command center has become translucent and brittle. Dawn has begun yet it is hardly noticeable as the light and sound from the artillery spells slamming into the dome above me is non-stop. No longer is it the pitter pater of artillery it was a few hours ago, my enemies can sense blood in the water. They are ready to end things now. So am I. ¡° Sir the dome will not last another twenty minutes, you must move to the next defenses.¡± ¡° I am not going to abandon this reality quite so easily.¡± I pause for a second, mostly for effect. ¡° Begin! The final ritual!¡± I suspect if the gold Blue next to me had been capable of rolling its eyes it would have. ¡° Maker the ritual would be more effective in the sub-reality, using it here in the Other is just wasteful of resources.¡± ¡° Question not the Maker, you have not yet been equipped with a sense of style!¡± I will admit I have not slept for a very long time, I think about a week, but really who is counting? The final defense plans had been laid out almost three months ago after we lost the Battle of Boston. Still overseeing it is very different from drawing it up with a room of gold Blue¡¯s and my personal attach¨¦s. All of my non-Copto advisors are gone now. Some because I like them too much to send to their deaths, some just disappeared in the night when things went bad. More and more Coptos disappear into the command center leaving only carefully hidden pockets of Reds and Yellows supervised by copper Blues. It is always a shame to lose Blues but spite knows no bounds. I motion to the Violet standing next to me. It nods and shoots a bolt of fire into the air giving the signal to begin the final stage. The dome shifts, the upper parts becoming more opaque as the bottom fades out of sight. What was once a shield against the outside has become a ceiling against artillery.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. For a few seconds, nothing happens and then a roar erupts from all directions. The sound of hooves, bells, and running men fills the air. In front of me, a spearhead of the enemy forces crashes through the outermost barricades led by a mixture of mounted Fey and Knights. Behind the riders, battalions clad in bronze or steel advance slaughtering any surviving Coptos left behind from the charge. The leading Fey draw back their bows and fire. Arrows fall upon the command center some bouncing off of my personal wards. And then reality warps, the sky above the riders stretching like plastic wrap until it tears, revealing endless darkness behind it. Something foul this way comes. The riders scatter in all directions and the battalions scramble backward. It is too late, the rip widens and the Whale emerges. What exactly comes out of the rip is hard to describe. It is not a dark mist, though it may first seem so. It has form, but what is that form? Every time you blink it seems different and it is such a deep, all-consuming black that no texture or depth can be made out. Within fifty feet of it, light seems muted and strange. Everything near it withers, Fey fall from their deer and then dissolve into thin air, quickly followed by their steeds. Humans simply fall to the ground and lay still. The Whale moves and death moves with it. Most notable is the silence, the dying make no sound instead snuffing out like a light. The living scream yet all is consumed by the Whale. The whole command center becomes silent as meaning and existence are leaked out of reality. Gouts of green fire slash out from further down the boulevard towards the Whale, but they fade before they even reach it. Reality that cannot even support itself certainly cannot support magic. I chuckle to myself in the deafening silence before throwing the loyal Violet that never left my side over one shoulder. It has lost consciousness. The Whale does not discriminate, any Coptos left in the command center area would be dead of essence loss within minutes. I look into the Mundane to get one last look at my home. The city is in ruins, rescue crews running about desperately as waters continue to rise. Sirens ring out in all directions and yet a strange stillness hangs over all. I look up and smile grimly, the eye of the storm hangs above the command center. Truly the relationship between the Mundane and the Other is ever a mystery. Breaking the connection I turn and sprint down the stairs from the roof. After a few quick turns, I reach the portal room. I toss my dying Violet into the portal without ceremony. I feel the pressure on reality suddenly release, and a second later a magical wave of force travels through the room almost knocking me from my feet. I stagger back upright before moving over to my desk. I grab a piece of paper out of one of the drawers. I pull out my pen and put a quick doodle on it before slapping on a simple enchantment. The first person to see it may simply incinerate the offending paper, but if it annoys or dispirits even one person then it will have been a victory. I feel like I am forgetting something but I don¡¯t have time to dawdle, my foes are going to realize that there are no more Coptos to stand in their way. I turn, and with a running start leap into my portal. If they thought cracking my defenses in this world was hard let''s see how they fare in my personal domain. Chapter 11 The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Chapter 12 The hound jerks away and I make the choice not to go with it. I would rather not get pulled into the fray. Instead I jerk my head back quickly. My teeth, sunk deeply into the hound, are left behind. Copto teeth regrow quickly as long as there is enough spare essence. I will have a new set grown within the hour. The hound on the other hand is left with a circle of bleeding wounds on its side filled with foreign essence, no doubt a deeply painful sensation. I take a few quick steps back from the hound which continues to struggle with my thinking Red. The hound¡¯s movements slower now as it bleeds essence from its side. Looking around I see that the other hound that slipped past the Reds is wrestling with my two Yellows. One of the Yellows is badly damaged with part of its shoulder torn off and leaking smoke. Despite it¡¯s wounds it continues fighting alongside its fellow Yellow, the two are supported by the Violet who hits the hound with bullets of force whenever there is an opening. It seems that it is only a matter of time before that group is victorious. Casting my mind back to the front line Reds I see that for the most part my forces are overcoming their foes. Two of my Reds have mangled their hounds to the point that they are able to disengage and finish off their foes. One unlucky Red has lost an arm to its hound, smoke pours out of its stump as it weakly flails to prevent the hound from getting a solid grip around its neck. I reallocate the Reds that have won their fights to help those that are struggling. From the mental links I have formed with the group I watch as my thinking Red gets a solid blow on the hound that I helped weaken. As the hound reels back the thinking Red strikes with its right hand claws, stabbing them lighting fast into the side of the hound¡¯s head. It pulls its claws back out covered in bright red pseudo-blood, and the hound collapses. The threat closest to me is removed. I send my thinking Red over to help eliminate the other hound that has slipped past the Reds. The hound is not doing well, small craters crisscross its side leaking, pseudo-blood where the Violet¡¯s spells have landed. One of its eyes is bleeding and it has a slight limp. Only one Yellow faces it down, its comrade has fallen to the ground. It waves its limbs in the hound¡¯s general direction but essence loss from its shoulder wound has rendered it useless. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. I mentally note that the Red which lost its arm has disappeared from the mental link. Another Red has entered combat with the victorious hound. Some hounds begin to find themselves at a disadvantage as victorious Reds re-enter the fray creating two on one situations. My thinking Red reaches its assigned hound. The hound is already slow moving and damaged. The thinking Red makes short work of it having already learned how to handle these foes from its previous combat, the hound is not able to react fast enough to the needle like claws plunging into its skull. With that hound out of the way the none combat Coptos are more firmly separated from danger. The Violet begins to take pot shots at the remaining hounds, while the Yellow and thinking Red stay back from combat to provide a second line of defense for the delicate Coptos if any more hounds break through. Slowly but surly the hounds fall one by one, with each one defeated pushing the advantage more in my direction. Finally the last hound finds itself almost surrounded by Coptos. Bloody gashes left by Copto claws run across its body and crimson sheets down its side. Seeing itself firmly outnumbered it turns to flee. Before it can reach the tree line a ball of force slams into its back tossing it to the ground. It struggles to get back to its feet, but the balls of force launched by the Violet continue to pummel it one after another until it lays still. The injured Yellow¡¯s mind vanishes from the link as it collapses back into essence and smoke. One Yellow and one Red have been lost in this attack. Most of the other Reds have mild to moderate wounds leaking smoke like spent essence. I begin approaching the damaged Reds and healing their wounds. I lay my hands on them, feel what areas were damaged, and then channel the extra essence in each Copto to eliminate the damage and stop the essence loss I glance over at the green Blue the green Blue severs its mind from mine and walks over to one of the injured Reds. It takes several more seconds before smoke stops emitting from the Red¡¯s wounds. I mentally nod to it and turn my attention back to the injured. Ten minutes later the last of the essence loss has been stopped. Now it is time to make some decisions. Chapter 13 I mentally connect more closely with the green Blue. I show him what I have already noticed now that the hounds are no longer in motion. On each hound is a slim copper collar, these are not mere wild spirits. We are being tracked by our enemies. We do not have time to wait for a yellow to digest this essence into a usable form. We must leave now before more enemies find us. The essence that remains from the dead Coptos is quickly gathered up. I split it among the the Coptos strengthening those who have lost the most essence. Then the group gathers together. If we are being hunted then there is no choice, we will never make it to the land bridge before more dangerous enemies catch up to us. The gold Blue was right we will have to swim across the bay. The group climbs down the cliff quickly, the soft stone proving easy to maneuver on. Quickly the group is on the small beach at the base of the cliff. The beach has shrunk a small but noticeable amount from when I last checked. The violet tells me. I mentally nod before connecting with the green Blue. I spread the connect with the green Blue to all of the Coptos and mentally nod to him. I feel knowledge flow into my mind and then amplify it further so that it enters the mind of the other Coptos in the group. The knowledge shows me how to move my limbs in what could almost be called a crawling motion while in the water. Once the knowledge has been passed onto all of the Coptos. I turn and we advance into the water. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The crawling motion works and the group begins to move away from the shore. The swim is simpler than it would be for a human, after all Coptos do not breath and thus do not need to keep certain parts of their anatomy above the water. All that is necessary is having one of the group survey the area every so often to make sure that we are still moving in the correct direction. This probably also helps with stealth by limiting of the group exposer above the water. As we move through the water constant adjustments have to be made to keep the group together as currents push and pull the group in different directions. I pull the green Blue closer into the mental link and delegate some of the mental strain of managing the complex motions of the group to it. I also make a very small use of the Violet¡¯s mental power. The Violet may be smarter than the green Blue, but its mental net is built with a focus on the demands of spell casting. The Violet¡¯s coordination abilities are worse than even a copper Blue¡¯s. Slowly the sun moves across the sky as we make our way ever further out into the vast bay. I wonder what is going on back in the city we have left behind. I wonder what we will do once we have gotten enough distance between us and the central command. The tangled ball of orders sits in my mind, but I have to husband my mental resources for as long as we keep moving. On and on we go, eventually we reach the halfway point. The land on the other side is beginning to grow larger. After a few more hours the group is about three fourths of the way to the far side. Around us I can feel, through the information coming in from the mental link, the currents beginning to shift. The tide must be changing. The shift only grows stronger as time passes till our progress has slowed to less than half of what it was. The gold Copto was right if we had started at the wrong tide there is a good chance we would never have made it across. I would have grown mentally exhausted and lost communication with the other Coptos allowing us to drift apart. Who knows where the scattered Coptos would have ended up, if they had ever been seen again? Eventually we cross the last few kilometers of the bay fighting against the growing currents the whole way. There is no beach on this side of the bay, instead there are low spits of rock that raise up to a tree line creating a kind of flattened cliff. I have the group pull itself up onto a relatively flat rock then me, the green Blue, and the Violet collapse retreating back into our minds to recover from our mental exhaustion. We are across the bay safely. Hopefully we can now move forward without pursuit. Chapter 14 I lay on the rock for about an hour before sitting back up and taking stock. The water has receded further and the rock that the group is on has change from just above sea level to about a foot above it. Clearly the difference between maximum and minimum tide is vast in this area. I gather the group and we move off of the rock and up into the costal forest. The rocks on the way are slick, but my group is sure footed and with a little guidance we make our way deep into the costal forest. Yet before we have gone far the forest ends letting out onto a wide open space. Fields stretch in all directions full of tall grass with large clumps of seeds at the top. It seems artificial, I suspect that this open space and long grasses serve some kind of purpose for the humans in Mundane. Further away other patches of forest can be seen, but they are all small clumps surrounded by the open fields. To one side a small hill raises out of the field. Looking at it I am astonished to see that the visible soil is not brown like I have observed before, rather it is a rusty faded red. What a strange place where even the soil color seems foreign. I reach a decision. We will keep moving until I am certain that we are no longer being pursued and then I shall try to determine what my orders are going forward. I gather the group and we continue forward simply moving away from the bay. We keep moving for a day, occasionally crossing roads, doing our best to stick to wood land whenever possible. I stop to rest about every eight hours. It is far less mentally draining to have the Coptos move across flat fields rather than through shifting water. During one of the breaks the Violet tells me that the direction we are moving in is West, he can tell by the setting of the sun. That means that the direction we have come from is East. The Violet doesn¡¯t know how to tell the difference between North and South, none of the thinkers in the group do. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Eventually after two days of travel we stop for a longer time. I have not seen any sign of pursuit. That doesn¡¯t mean that we are free, but it does indicate that any danger is far behind us. I mentally reach out to the Violet. The Violet mentally nods and I feel his mental presence grow in my mind. Together we grasp the already read orders and pull more of the mental sting out of the tangled shifting ball of information lodged in my mind. After about two hours of careful work a good portion has been extracted. By softly mentally feeling along the string we can determine that what we have extracted seems to be a whole sting of information rather than a fragment. I decide this is a good stopping point for the time being and the Violet withdraws from my mind. Carefully I convert the string of information into thought. The first bit is a continuation of orders in the form of a message. Excellent job escaping, my creation, your Maker is proud of you. You will be living feral in coming times. The elaborate system that fed and created the Coptos under me has been destroyed by our enemies. Going forward you shall consider your group as a kind of long term resource gathering mission. Inclosed is some basic information on the world and where the best sources of meaning can be found for conversion into essence. Access the next set of orders once you have found a safe and prosperous place for your group in the world. The rest of the information is more a set of images and basic instruction on meaning gathering. I had never been in charge of a resource gathering mission, that was for bronze eyed Blues or above. Still it seems an easy mission. From what I understand based on the information there are lots of places in the Other that meaning builds up. My Yellows are already specialized to detect small amounts of meaning when left to their own devices, the only reason we have not found any so far is from being constantly on the move. The best way to find meaning would be to move towards more developed areas of the Other where humans have gathered in the Mundane. The key will be to find a good source on meaning that has not already been claimed by something in the Other that we cannot fight. I mentally connect with the group again and we start to move. Yet now we are not simply headed West. Instead we move until we find a dirt road, then we turn and follow the road. It is time to find where the humans gather. Chapter 15 Reading is a useful skill for Blues and Violets, many of our enemies write their secrets down. Master undoubtedly granted you the skill in your last meeting.* If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Interlude (Offering) I sit cross-legged on a cushion in the seal room keeping a constant eye on the probe team. the team of ten Blue¡¯s sit linked in a circle, the combined brainpower that they bring to bear allowing them to control and modify the probe while recording the information down onto sheets of paper held by one of the group. Some of the information copied down on the paper is different angles of the view outside of the seal, other parts look like a bizarre parodies of circuit diagrams. A little bit of tweaking has allowed for a greater field of vision of the room that the sealing foci is located in. Of course, there is my former teacup sitting on a pedestal a clean wood floor extending out in all directions. The room is large but not huge with low ceilings and no windows making it seem smaller than it actually was. The entire room is heavily warded with designs and mandalas. The original probe had not been able to make out the wardings, they were thin with little contrast between themselves and the surfaces they were on. It was clear that these wards had not been made to impress observers, just for effective longterm containment. At this point I have not yet ordered the probe to be extended further out of the seal, every layer of wards that we breach will have to be a slow drip. If a mistake is made and an alarm tripped than all of this will have been a waste of resources as our captors reinforce our cage before it can properly fail. Most of the effort thus far had been focused on concealing the probe from observers, it was too much to hope that my cup had been abandoned and forgotten in some sub-basement after everyone patted themselves on the back at a party with a huge ¡°mission accomplished¡± banner hung up. The forces that be know I am in here and they know I want out. Figuring out how we are being observed will be key. This is not the kind of secure room you just stick your head into every now and again, it could damage or weaken the defensive magic and be counterproductive. No there was certainly some sort of long term scrying going on, and most likely a few non-corporeal beings sealed into the wardings themselves giving them both a warning system and making the defensives themselves semi-sentient. In other words, this was going to take a very long time to get out. I do not have unlimited time. I stand up and walk out of the seal room turning left down the corridor outside and then right onto a spiraling set of stairs down into the depths of my structure. I finally after descending nine levels I reach the tenth level and my destination. There are three levels below this but they are all used for material storage. After a few more turns I come to the room I am looking for, the Voidport.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. The Voidport is a large room though not nearly as cavernous as the seal room. On the wall opposite from the entrance is a round hole that opens up onto darkness, actually, it opens onto nothingness but finite minds were not equipped for infinity so darkness acts as a stand-in. The entire room is tiled in an aquamarine marble adding an interesting underwater feeling to the room. With the lights set against one wall and the Void on the other, it causes one to feel that they are in the ocean looking down into the abyss. Sitting in the center of the room sits a two-foot-tall cube that seems to be made of crystal, white light shimmering in its center. Two silver Blues sit, still as statues, beneath the hole their eyes closed. Except for emergencies, these Blues will never move from where they sit. I walk in and sit down on the smooth stone behind the cube. I lay my hand on the floor next to me where a small white spot is inlaid into the stone. I send a small burst of power into the white stone. The world itself seems to buzz as arcane power floods the room buttressing and reinforcing reality itself. Everything suddenly feels more real, every action more profound. I watch as the artificial darkness of the hole ripples and then parts, a tendril darts into the room out of the hole. The power of the room ripples and the tendril condenses until an indistinct but generally humanoid form with a thin black thread connecting it to the hole. The humanoid is no more detailed than a silhouette. Its faceless face surveys the room its attention being palpable as the power of the room is strained. Eventually, its attention settles upon me Once again the deal is met, once again you grant me an adequate tribute. The cube of crystal in front of me wavers like a mirage for a second before disappearing entirely. Once again I offer you the chance of eternity. Why stay trapped like a rat here when I could show you the very bones of existence? ¡°a most generous offer as always but I will continue to maintain my individuality¡± I answer just as I always have. The thread attached to the figure pulls tight and the figure disappears into the nothing. I wait for a few more seconds before reaching back down to the white patch on the floor. The power filling the room dissipates. I let out a long sigh before straitening back up and standing. I turn and walk back out of the room. Once again another offering has been successfully made. Chapter 16 I walk out the door to check out what the Yellow had found. Through the link, I could feel that it probably wasn¡¯t dangerous but the Yellow wasn¡¯t capable of explaining much beyond that. Just outside of the building a small semi-circle of Yellows has formed. All of them are watching the sign hanging on the front of the building intently. I look at the sign closely as well to try to determine what about ¡° Clearwater Dinner, Open 5 A.M to 10 P.M.¡± is so enticing. A closer examination shows me that the sign is lit by small lights placed at the base of the sign, but that was not the cause of interest. Finally, I noticed the slightest wavy movement across the sign, like a very faint heat haze. Switching quickly back and forth between the Mundane and the Other I realize that the shimmer is only visible in the Other. I command the Yellows to go search for resources elsewhere and summon over one of the Reds. Searching my implanted memories I gain a clearer idea of what this is. This is a pseudo-spirit, and a well-formed one, usually the only way to find one was by accident during normal essence gathering. Like a normal spirit, a pseudo-spirit is a collection of meaning that has congealed and collects all similar meaning from the area. Unlike a normal spirit a pseudo-spirit is for one reason or another unable to gain greater self-agency allowing for mobility and self-defense. I could just have the Yellows destroy it immediately but that would be wasteful. I have one of the Reds come forward and lift me until I am on level with the sign. I focus my mind on my right hand. After a little bit of time focusing, I can feel the different lines and swirls of power that make up my right hand. I can see another arrangement for the lines of force in my memories, this new arrangement somehow connected directly to the information about pseudo-spirits. As I focus the lines of power slowly shift within me to match this memory. The sensation is strange, I do not get any feedback as I change, no pain or pleasure, and yet I feel at a deep level that I am changing. As I come back out of my meditation I see that my right hand has warped, each finger lengthening and tapering until they come down to imperceptibly sharp threads of pseudo-chitin. The lines of power that compose my being run down these threads until they are almost exposed. The process took about two minutes according to the minds of the other Coptos, thankfully the Red could not tire from holding me up on level with the sign. In future, I should remember to cause changes like this in less exposed positions.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I reach forward towards the pseudo-spirit slowly, the threads are so delicate that I can feel if I move too quickly air resistance will cause them to break. Eventually, my hand draws close enough and I feel the threads sink into the invisible essence of the pseudo-spirit. The pseudo-spirit is pulled into my being along the thread not as the carefully filtered essence that Coptos feed upon but rather as raw meaning which begins to imprint itself upon my mind. I feel the importance of this sign to those who view it. Many know that seeing it means that they''re getting close to home, others see it every morning as they go by on their way to labor elsewhere. To all, it is a key landmark and beacon of rest in a place with few public places and long journeys. I draw back slowly, it is gratifying to know I was correct this is a place of rest but the meaning of the pseudo-spirit gave me a much deeper insight into what this place is and where we are in relation to mundane society. It is clear to me that in most circumstance this collection of meaning would have formed some kind of threshold spirit but because no one truly considers this place home the final transformation never occurred. I look back at the sign, the pseudo-spirit is gone now absorbed by me. I mentally store the important information away and begin to internally break down the excess thoughts and feelings that made up the pseudo-spirit. I may not have the essence processing ability of a Yellow but I can break down meaning over long periods of time if I need to. I reconnect with my group and check-in how the rest of the gathering operation is going. It seems that a good amount of meaning has been gathered most of it from inside but a surprising amount also coming from the tubed machines standing outside of the building. I mentally call all of the scattered Coptos to gather back up and prepare to leave. I take one last look at the exterior of the rest building. While necessary I feel somewhat melancholy about the gathering of meaning that we have pulled off of the structure. Meaning is a two-way street and as meaning is created by attention and emotion in the Mundane so too is perception in the Mundane influenced by meaning in the Other. I have no doubt based on the information I have about gathering that this place will feel in the Mundane more sterile and temporary, unconsciously fewer people will notice it and care less about it. Still, essence is life and my regret fades as we lope down the road away towards new places.