The visitor looks around. 

This is not what he was expecting, but it looks like it also isn't anywhere any of his enemies would expect to find him, so it's not so bad. 

He demands to know the physical and magical composition of the room. 

The physical composition of the room... mostly isn't? That is, it's very debatable whether anything in this room qualifies as physical matter. It gives a very convincing impression of physicality to the mundane eye, but the underlying reality is...

Magically speaking, the room and the papers and the desk and the muttering presence behind it are all sort of one thing. Baruti himself is a separate being contained within. The cabinet is part of the room-thing, but the contents of the cabinet are separate presences like Baruti, except... dormant, in some unspecified fashion.

An eye, or the visual impression of an eye, appears in the gap between two stacks of paper and squints out at him. "Ţ̴̧a̶̵ķ̨͟͞e̸̢—ah, excuse me—take a seat," says a friendly voice of indeterminate age, gender, and language; the first word comes out rough and hoarse, with overtones of howling sandstorm and oppressive tomblike silence, but they sound warm and pleasant and not at all eldritch as soon as they clear their throat and try again. "Welcome to the Reincarnation Office. I'll be with you in just a moment. If you prefer not to wait, just stand behind the chair and I'll put you on hold until I have time to take your case. Otherwise, take a seat or stand beside or in front, as you prefer. I do apologize for the delay." The eye disappears.

...He sits down. He is very much not in immediate need of reincarnation, but he is curious. 

After a minute or two of quiet muttering, the eye reappears between two different stacks.

"Thank you for waiting! Let me just have a quick peek at your—hang on." The eye blinks rapidly. "You're not even dead! What sort of—?!" The eye disappears. There is the sound of shuffling paper. Binders and folders and individual pages are yanked out of the middles of stacks, some shoved back into place immediately, some re-stacked in seemingly unrelated locations moments later. Despite the commotion, and the precarious swaying of the stacks, only a few loose leaves of paper slip free and drift toward the floor, and each one is caught by an unseen limb before it gets below the height of the desk.

"Well," says the voice, apologetic and mildly disgruntled. "I'm terribly sorry, but there's nothing for it, I'm going to have to put you through the same processing as the ordinary souls." Shuffle shuffle. "I can hold you pending a better solution if you like, but I don't expect one anytime soon, and you have a better chance of making it back to your home universe within a few centuries of your departure if I process you and send you forward than if I stick you in the back of a drawer and don't pull you out until the next full audit."

"And compared to trying to go back the way I came...?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

The voice sighs. "It won't work. By all means try, I wouldn't dream of insisting you take my word for it, but it won't work. This place is very good at not losing track of souls. Souls leaving under their own power, well... it would be too easy for that sort of thing to turn into people launching themselves willy-nilly into oblivion because they miscalculated their transport method, you see?"

"Mm." He steeples his fingers. "Alright. Tell me what the processing for ordinary souls is like."

"We have an assortment of outbound pathways, all individually vetted for reliability, consistency, and," the entity sighs, "balance. The basic premise is that, on selecting a pathway, you will be sent through some manner of associated intermediary processing—some involve speaking with another entity like me; in others you'll be filling out a form; there are a few idiosyncratic ones I can explain as they come up—and, once you have made your choices, you'll make your way through the final processing layer and into a target universe, where you will be reembodied in some fashion appropriate to the pathway in question. I can't tell you what all of the available choices are in detail for any given pathway, but I can provide summaries, overviews, and notes on the associated entity or entities where relevant; some of them are a lot friendlier than others. In your case, I'm guessing you'd prefer pathways that land you within causal range of your home universe?" They pause for confirmation.

"Certainly. How does reembodiment work when I haven't mislaid my original body?"

"Ah... well... in a manner of speaking you have," the entity explains. "I believe," flip flip shuffle, "your magic should be sufficient to confirm that physical matter as such doesn't quite exist in this place? You have a—representation of your body with you, which maintains a record of all its properties. Many pathways will allow you to translate those properties directly back out into the world you end up in, but you won't be transporting the same physical body from source to destination; it'll be a reconstruction, varyingly faithful depending on the exact mechanics of the pathway. I'm sorry."

He frowns. "Alright. What can you tell me about pathways I can choose between?"

WEIRD SEX STUFF ------------------------- (Y) / (N)
IMMEDIATE RISK OF DEATH ------------ (Y) / (N)
HOSTILE ADMINISTERING ENTITY --- (Y) / (N)
MISCELLANEOUS WARNING FLAGS - (Y) / (N)

He raises both eyebrows, considers, and checks yes on everything. 

"Right then. My best guess about a good preliminary search for you would be: endpoint within causal reach of your home universe, allows you to keep your current magic, exploitable using traits you possess, high achievable power level? Let me know if any of those sound wrong to you or if there's something else you want to specify."

"No, that all sounds good." He considers this. "Preferably no oppressive power structures of the sort that would take a tedious amount of social engineering to dismantle, but I'm flexible on that point."

A pen scratches against paper. "Good, good, that'll do for a preliminary search. Let's see now..."

There is a flurry of shuffling, much faster than the last time. It goes on for a solid couple of minutes, insofar as time can be said to be passing in here at all—if he consults his magic by way of a clock it'll get very confused.

And then, eventually, something heavy thumps onto the desk—a smaller stack of binders and folders and pages, mostly occluded by the larger stacks in front.

"Here we go. Okay, the first one on the stack—sort order's always a pain, sorry, the next ones might be better—scores very high on Weird Sex Stuff but very low on immediate risks otherwise, and pretty high on achievable power level. Looks like it's the kind where you fill out a form and then we insert your data into the target universe and the endpoint organization finds a contract in their records and embodies you according to their own protocols. Information on oppressive power structures looks debatable but it doesn't seem like there's anything too egregious. It's called Fantasy Life. Shall I set that one in the Maybe pile and keep going?"

"Yes, please."

The ruffle-thump of a manila folder alighting on the desk. A page-turning rustle.

"Next up, hostile administering entity, high risk of death, and I'm sorry to say I would have to call that a very oppressive power structure indeed—Soul Graft Battle Royale. Looks like it's highly exploitable by your magic system, though, and the achievable power level's not bad. Miscellaneous warning flags: incentives encourage harming others for your own advancement. Shall I stack it with the Maybes or start a more dubious pile off to the side?"

"I don't object to all oppressive power structures, just ones that can't be quickly toppled with brute force," he clarifies. "Let's set up the dubious pile."

The slap of a stapled packet landing next to the folder.

"Well, not with the kind of power you've got on you at the moment, anyway—oh! That gives me a notion—now that you've been here under your own power once, there's, technically speaking, nothing to stop you from returning deliberately if you choose. If you can manage it. I don't know for sure that you can, but—I'm very sorry about not being able to send you home right away, and it seems like the least I can do to expedite you looping through multiple times in quick succession if you choose. I don't have any control over when you come back, but I can promise that I'll see to you as quick as I can if you do."

The entity picks up the next packet.

"The miscellaneous warning flags on this one include 'sapient symbiotic bondmate acquired', is that all right with you or shall I put it aside and move on?"

"...Can you give me any more detail than that? It sounds potentially acceptable, depending on the details."

"The pathway is called Borderworlds. The choices available will customize the personality and attributes of a person, a young member of a species called Endlings, who will bond near-irreversibly to your soul on arrival. The bond will allow both of you to access new powers and abilities, particularly shapeshifting and psionics. Cases of irreconcilable differences between bondmates are rare, but," flip flip, "not totally unheard-of, if the chosen personality conflicts badly enough with the chooser's. The destination will involve some risk of death, but mostly not immediate."

"Hmm. Put it on the dubious pile."

Plop.

"Let me see..." Rustle flip. "Ah. The next one is called Abyss Diver. It has the Weird Sex Stuff warning and also the 'entrapment' warning, which... hmm, hmm..." flip rustle "...ah, yes. So, in general, the entrapment warning indicates that some aspect of the pathway or its destination can cause someone to be trapped somewhere unable to leave, potentially forever without hope of escape even in death. In this case, the pathway and its destination are intertwined, and consist of a lengthy expedition through successive levels of a place called the Abyss, where at each level one may become trapped if one is unable to gather the supplies and pay the costs necessary to progress forward or turn back. It seems your magic will very likely make you much more able to move freely between the levels of the Abyss than usual, but will not give you complete freedom of movement there, nor save you from the entrapment effects if you run afoul of a particularly thorny one. The potential rewards are very high, though. It's hard to quantify these things but the power and resources you could gain here are undoubtedly much greater than any of the others we've seen so far, and very few pathways will have anything comparable."

"Let's put that on the Maybe pile, then."

The folder thunks gently onto the pile. The entity examines the next packet.

"Hmm, how'd this one get here? It's out of circuit and the power level isn't generally much to look at... ah, I see, but the potential is reasonably high if you make your choices correctly. Warnings include mandatory gender—you will emerge from the pathway as a woman in both body and mind regardless of your gender going in—and 'villainy', which is to say, the pathway sets you up in a scenario in which you will be intended to act out an antagonistic role, although you can choose to act otherwise. It's called Otome Villainess. Ah, 'out of circuit' means that by entering this pathway you leave the local soulstream of the Reincarnation Office and enter the soulstream of the selected pathway, meaning you would not travel back here through ordinary reincarnation. Usually that would also mean you would have a hard time reaching your original world from the pathway's destination, but apparently in this case it would be reasonably easy, and you might even be able to travel back here and reenter our soulstream under your own power, although I can't guarantee it. On the upside, the administering entities are lovely, very helpful indeed! They're constrained by a somewhat eccentric and rigid arrangement of choices, though."

"If it changes mental gender as well I suppose it wouldn't be much of a problem. Let's put that one with the Maybes."

"Sensible." Down it plops. "Let me see..." A quiet, dusty sigh. "Oh, this one—another villainy warning, and a fate warning, which in this case means that the pathway contains several choices for how events will transpire once you reach your destination, and in the ordinary course of things, those events will play out as dictated regardless of how much effort you put into averting them. It's called the JRPG Traitor. The potential rewards are quite high but not many people find them worth the mandatory betrayal."

"How mandatory, and whom is one betraying?"

"There will be an Overlord plotting the conquest or destruction of the world, and a number of Heroes endeavouring to stop them. The chooser is fated to betray those Heroes, either for the Overlord or for some third party. Fates such as these cannot be averted without some truly extraordinary intervention; if you took this pathway as you are now, I don't believe you could escape it."

"...Hm. Put it on the dubious pile."

Ruffle plop shuffle rustle.

"Next we have..." The voice trails off. "W̶h̢͘͠a̛t?͠!" They cough apologetically and modulate their voice back into the human range. "Excuse me, it's just that I thought we banned this one... 'under review', I see. I would strongly advise you against taking it, but I can explain if you're curious."

He raises an eyebrow. "Intensely curious."

"The Void Maiden pathway has a strong Weird Sex Stuff warning, an entrapment warning, and an oblivion warning—that is, a possible outcome of taking the pathway is that your soul might be destroyed. Relatedly, its destination is interdicted pending resolution of an ongoing safety issue, which means that once you travel there you can't leave that worldsheaf again until the safety issue is resolved. The safety issue is an entity known as the Abyss—no relation to Abyss Diver—which intends to consume and destroy all life within its reach. I've sent a few people there, after emphatic advice to only take that pathway if they believe they can single-handedly defeat such a being, and so far the situation persists. Several of them have been devoured already. If you mean to take that pathway, I strongly recommend doing so only after you complete several others—for one thing, until you solve the safety issue you won't be able to return to your own universe, and solving the safety issue will be faster if you first accumulate more power."

"Yes, you can skip the dubious pile and start a 'no' one," he says firmly.

The entity consigns the Void Maiden pathway to the No pile.

"Hmm, hmm... ah, 'Fay Path', another Weird Sex Stuff pathway... this one has a binding warning, which in this case represents the fact that the first choice on the Fay Path is between two different forms of indefinite servitude to the administering entity. I suspect you won't want to take this one."

"I do not."

"To the No pile it goes." Plop. "All right, that's the first layer done—I can re-run the search to cast a wider net, but whatever I pick up will either have less available power or be farther from your home universe. If I may make a suggestion, though—I think it would be a good idea to choose something with less available power and a lower general threat level first, then return here under your own power—assuming you can, but after all you did manage it the once—and try something more difficult next. Repeating as many times as needed. But if you want to pick something more lucrative on your first try in case coming back here proves unexpectedly difficult, that's up to you."

"...I'll take something low power with a negligible risk of costing me my existing magic," he says thoughtfully. "To start with. I imagine I can replicate what brought me here."

"I have a standard recommendation for people who want a reasonable amount of power with a manageable amount of risk. It doesn't meet the power threshold for the original search, but," ruffle shuffle flip rustle, "as I suspected, it's within the approved multiversal radius of your original world. It's called the Mask Maker and the pathway entails crafting a magical mask which grants powers when worn. The mask can be integrated directly into the soul, which enables it to persist stably through nearly all forms of reincarnation. Once you emerge with your mask into the destination world, other mask-bearers may try to harm you, but they tend to be unprepared for extradimensional powers, especially ones as strong as yours. I can look for alternative options in a similar style if you like, or you can pick something from one of the existing piles."

"That sounds like it would do nicely. Is there anything else you can tell me about this path before I'm sent there?"

"The pathway we use now is a variant; the original had every mask be a sapient symbiote, but that one was much less popular for obvious reasons. It's still possible to choose to have the mask possessed by a spirit, and it can be surprisingly helpful and is very rarely a bad idea from a practical standpoint—but there's always a little risk that something about the spirit in question will be inconvenient. Hmm... I think you'll have an advantage at learning the various forms of mask magic that take time to learn, because your magic answers questions for you. Note that making masks is a skill you can pick up once you have one, but your first several masks will almost certainly need to have spirits attached; it's much, much harder to make them without one. You might want to have a source of volunteer souls available while you're practicing. Also, a mask must be made for a specific bearer, and will be bonded to them until their next death, or beyond if it's a soul mask. Attached spirits can be let go eventually but you should assume that if you put a spirit in a soul mask they're in it for the long haul. I can't think of anything else offhand; do you have any questions?"

"Where would one find volunteer souls?"

"In any world where the dead linger in the mortal realm before proceeding to the local afterlife or out into the soulstream, or in any world where the local afterlife is within reach of your magic if not the local kind, or, in situations where neither of those is an option, I suppose you could also take donations from the living. Though they might be harder to convince. Existing as a magical mask is widely considered a step up from ghosthood in the Mask Maker destination world, but also widely considered a step down from true embodiment."

"Understood. No more questions." Wryly: "Or, rather, I doubt you have answers to all the questions I have, or would appreciate being squeezed for drips of relevant information."

MASK MAKER PATHWAY

• Warnings: NO MAJOR WARNINGS
• Destination hazard level MODERATE
• Available power level MEDIUM
• Choice complexity level LOW

[_] I affirm that I have read this information packet and freely choose to proceed through this pathway.

SIGN HERE: __________________

He signs, the hieroglyphs he uses possibly more dramatic than strictly necessary.

"Good luck!" the entity says cheerfully, and the office unravels around him, the illusion of physical space dropping away until he is a disembodied perspective floating directionlessly through a featureless void.

There is a sensation of movement. Something lightly ruffles the substance of his being.

Reality reweaves itself, and his body—or an approximation of his body—is sitting on a patch of bare dirt in a misty clearing, dimly lit by moonlight filtering through the narrow leaves of the tall white trees that encircle him. In front of him there is a broad tree stump, and five piles of materials evenly spaced around its surface: a stack of rough cardstock, a block of pale wood, a heap of iron ingots, a ball of leather scraps, and an empty space where the mist swirls and eddies uncannily. The clothing he's wearing is unfamiliar, all faded grey linen with torn and ragged hems.

"Welcome," says a soft androgynous whisper from no particular direction. "I am the Assistant; I will help you make your mask. Please touch whichever material you would like me to describe first."

He considers the options for a moment, then reaches out and touches the wood.

"Wooden masks are sturdy and practical. They're not too heavy and don't lose power with extended use. But if a wooden mask is damaged, even while unworn, the bearer will be struck by a proportionate minor injury or illness."

He touches the cardstock. 

"Paper masks are light and flimsy. If worn too long or too often, for more than a few hours a day or a few days a month, they may begin to lose their power. However, out of all the masks, they are the easiest to learn how to safely repair; and damage to them does not harm the bearer at all."

He touches the iron ingots. 

"Metal masks are heavy and strong. It is almost impossible to damage one, but wearing them for long periods is uncomfortable and draining, both physically and spiritually. And if something does damage the mask, the harm to the bearer will be significant."

He touches the leather scraps. 

"Leather masks become part of the bearer's body. Once put on, they will meld with the bearer's flesh and transform it to match the mask's features. They cannot be separated except by killing the bearer, which destroys the mask. Damage to a melded mask is damage to your body; it hurts as much as you would expect, but has no effect on the mask's magic."

Innnnteresting. 

He reaches out to touch the empty space of eddying mist. 

"Soul masks are not only bonded to the bearer's soul, they are directly fused with it. Even death will not separate them. You can summon and dismiss your soul mask at will, and it is immaterial and impervious to physical damage; but magic can harm it while it is manifested, and injuries to the soul are grave indeed."

For reincarnation reasons he's probably going to go with a soul mask. But...

He draws his hand through the air, pulling carbon out of the carbon dioxide. Soon, he has a little lump of diamond in his hand. He holds it out. 

The mist swirls uncertainly around him.

"A mask of diamond..." the voice says slowly. "It could be done. I have never seen it done. I would not have the tools, or the knowledge of how to work the material. At a guess, I think it would be most similar to metal in its nature and effects, but I cannot be sure without seeing the mask made and worn. It might kill you; it might make you immortal. The only way to know is to try."

He nods, and puts the piece of diamond down. 

"To begin with, I choose soul," he says. 

"You can choose to stop working and start over at any time before you bond to the mask," the Assistant assures him. "If you wish to switch to a different material later, it can be done."

A swirl of mist clears away all the other materials, diamond included; then tools appear, of strange form and mysterious function. Some look like carving or leatherworking tools; there's also an eyedropper, a pair of excessively tiny tweezers, a pale jade comb, and, strangest of all, a pair of spectacles with solid silver lenses gleaming in the moonlight.

"Please put on the soulsight spectacles so you can see your work," the Assistant instructs.

"The next decision to be made is the form of your mask. All forms of mask can hold one elemental Rune and two Decorations, each with its own contribution to the mask's power; a Crown-shaped mask, having no face covering at all, provides only those. An upper-face mask will additionally have Eyes, and a lower-face mask will have a Nose and Mouth; a full-face mask will have all three, and a full-head mask can bear one more Decoration. Each mask also requires two Complications to balance its power, and a full-head mask requires two more than that."

He puts on the spectacles. "I'll try a full-face mask, then," he says. 

When the spectacles are off, the lenses look fully opaque. When they're on, though, he can still see the world through them—very dim and blurry, but those are his hands, that's the tree stump, that's the comb...

...and, piled up on the tree stump, right where the mist has been getting so excited, a wispy little heap of glowing something-or-other. It shines brightly through the silver lenses, the only clear and colourful thing in an otherwise washed-out world.

"Next, the style. There are many possibilities, but the five most common are Plain, Ornate, Demon, Skull, and Beast. A plain mask hides itself from view and is easily overlooked, but cannot bear any Decorations; an ornate mask needs an extra Decoration, and draws attention so compellingly that even magical invisibility cannot hide it. A demon mask is styled in the form of a human face with exaggerated features; it grants the bearer enhancements to strength, health, and endurance, and encourages their body to grow taller and more muscular. A skull mask is styled in the form of a skull; it grants the wearer the ability to summon and communicate with the spirits of the dead. A beast mask is shaped like the face or head of an animal; it grants the wearer the ability to transform into that animal at will."

"Will a soul mask be visible to someone not be wearing a set of these spectacles?" he asks, tapping the frame. 

"Raw soulstuff is invisible to the untrained and unaided eye, but as you craft your mask it will become more and more visible; once bonded and worn, a soul mask is usually only a little translucent."

"So whatever the mask looks like, that's what I'm going to look like, permanently?" 

He's slightly perturbed by this concept, and irritated with himself for it. Vanity is a trait he's never had a need to purge from himself, but if it gets in his way now...

"Since it is a soul mask, you can manifest and dismiss it at will. You will only look the way the mask looks while you are wearing it. Or, if you craft a Plain mask, you can make it subtle enough that only those who look very closely indeed will notice it, and everyone else will see only your face."

If he can turn it off at will that's fine, then. On to actually important questions: "What do Decorations do?"

"I usually offer a choice of the ten Decorations I am most familiar with; each one has its own unique magic. For example, Scales grant immunity to mundane physical injury, and Gems transform the bearer's body into their ideal form while they wear the mask. There are other Decorations known to me besides the ten in my usual list, but I cannot craft them so readily, and their magic might be more limited or less reliable."

"What does it mean that an Ornate mask 'needs an extra decoration;' is it possible to purchase additional ones in some way?"

"The Ornate mask can bear an extra Decoration, like the full-head mask; but it is possible to craft a full-head mask with only two Decorations if for some reason you want to do that, whereas an Ornate mask must have three, and an Ornate full-head mask must have four. One of the available Complications also grants extra Decorations, but at the cost of making all Decorations slightly less reliable."

"Understood. What exactly does 'the ability to summon and communicate with the spirits of the dead' mean?"

"When someone dies, their spirit may linger, or it may pass on. Lingering spirits cannot be seen or heard directly except using spirit magic, or tools made with spirit magic. The bearer of a skull mask, while wearing their mask, can see and hear those spirits, and can call out to a recently passed spirit to summon them back across the divide for a brief time."

"So it will do little in cases where someone has been dead for a very long time, or in worlds where lingering spirits are less of a phenomenon."

"I've heard of such worlds, but I've never seen one myself. I know only my own domain; I can't tell you how the magic will act elsewhere. But..." The voice hesitates. "The skull mask does help the bearer learn spirit magic faster and in more depth. And that might help you use it effectively in strange situations. I can't be sure, though."

He considers this. 

"The skull mask," he decides.

"Very well. The next choice is Eyes. The five customary options are Blind, Hollow, Mirrored, Eightfold, and Ethereal. Blind masks have no eyes but enhance your other senses to compensate for the lack of sight; Hollow eyes show your own eyes clearly and give you clear sight into the truth of things; Mirrored eyes let you see the intentions and nature of whoever gazes into them; Eightfold eyes see more colours, more clearly and precisely; and Ethereal eyes grant an effect similar to the soulsight spectacles, but more refined. There is a Complication that allows you to craft one eye in one style and the other in a different style, although it can be hard to get used to seeing two very different things at once."

"What else does the Complication do?"

"Only that. There is another one that allows mixing two Mouth options, and another that allows mixing two Runes, but we haven't gotten there yet."

"Are Complications not meant to be negative? That was the impression I had gleaned."

"They complicate things. Whether they are negative depends on perspective. For each Complication I offer, some people think it is obviously the worst one and they would rather not have a mask at all than take it, while some think it is obviously a good thing that they want to have."

"I see. If one combines selects Blind as one of the two options, wouldn't it not have the seeing-two-things downside?"

"It would not, but it would instead have the downside of making it much harder to see distances the way a pair of eyes normally does. And the enhancement to your other senses would be a little less powerful."

"I see. I'll take the complication and craft one eye Hollow and the other Ethereal."

"Very well. Here."

There is an odd sensation, like alien muscle memory, like his hands just know which tools to pick up and how to use them. He doesn't need to follow the provided directions if he doesn't feel like it, but it's as easy—and as easy to accidentally slip into without meaning to—as absently fiddling while thinking about something else.

And, if he lets the Assistant's directions lead him, the eyes of the mask begin taking shape under his hands. One empty socket carved of soulstuff, and one with a gleam of silvery light in its black depths.

"Next is the Nose, which can be Smooth, Human, Strange, Slit, or Snout. Smooth means no nose, and no need or ability to breathe. Human means a humanlike nose, which makes breathing more calming and invigorating, so that no matter how tired or upset you are, a few deep breaths will always help you steady yourself a little longer. Strange means a nose that resembles none of the usual types of noses, and carries a magical effect that makes you almost impossible to recognize as the same person with the mask on versus off. Slit means a simple opening such as the nose hole in a skull, and gives you the power to exhale clouds of toxic gas to which you are immune. Snout means the nose of a beast, and gives you a fantastically powerful sense of smell and a perfect memory for scents."

"Human," he says, firmly and immediately. He's plenty good at keeping calm already, but no matter how tired or upset you are--that could be very useful for his own magic. 

"As you wish."

Somehow, as he continues shaping the mask, the human nose manages to work well with the skull aesthetic.

"The Mouth, then, can be Mouthless, Slot, Mandibles, Human, or Fangs. Mouthless removes the need and ability to eat, drink, and speak, and lets you communicate mind to mind with anyone nearby; Slot ensures that when you speak, you are heard by all and only those you mean to speak to, no matter how far away they are or who else is listening; Mandibles let you eat a mask to add one of its powers to your own; Human gives you the power to always know the right words to say what you mean to your audience, even if they're in a language you don't understand; and with Fangs you can bite someone to drain their lifeforce and restore your own."

"Does Mandibles have some downside that I don't understand? It seems like I could just make masks and then eat them."

"The added power is imperfect, not in balance with the rest of your mask; and weaker, most especially if the mask is unbonded when you eat it. And making a mask is a spiritually tiring endeavour, even once you learn how to do it, which could take many years. Those who take Mandibles most often intend to hunt other mask-bearers and eat their masks for power. You are correct, though, that you could do that and it would work. It would even help you learn mask-making more quickly, if you ate your scratch-work and prototypes."

"Mandibles, then." 

The Mandibles take shape in his guided hands. The mask is starting to get pretty clearly defined.

"Next, the five Runes: Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and Spirit. Each has a passive effect, protecting you from the element and supporting you with it, and an active effect, allowing you to learn how to shape and control it. If you take the Complication to combine two Runes, you may take only one effect from each."

"What are the active and passive effect for each rune?"

"Fire's passive effect makes you immune to burning, Air to falling, Water to drowning. Earth grants immense durability. Spirit makes you age half as fast and heal twice as quickly, as a side effect of strengthening your spirit. The active effects grant you a talent for the relevant form of elemental magic, which you then have to learn how to use."

"What does elemental spirit magic look like?"

"It's the same magic that lets you see and manipulate soulstuff, or create the tools to see and manipulate soulstuff. It's by far the hardest elemental magic to learn, but with your choices so far you should have a very good headstart indeed."

"What does immunity to falling look like?"

"No matter how far you fall, you will always land lightly enough not to hurt yourself."

"I'll complicate the rune with Earth passive and Spirit active."

"Very well then. Here..."

This is the most delicate operation yet; the mask, still half-formed, turns under his hands so that he can pick up an as-yet-unused tool and carefully engrave a complicated arrangement of lines and curves into the inner surface of its forehead. The Assistant stays quiet through the process, as though focusing wholly on the work.

Then: "Where were we... ah yes, Decorations. Horns, Feathers, Scales, Gems, Flowers, Engravings, Trinkets, Tendrils, Branches, or Shadows. Horns enhance strength and endurance; Feathers enhance speed and grace, and allow you to summon and dismiss a pair of wings. Scales make you impervious to mundane physical injury. Gems transform your body into its ideal shape. Flowers shed petals that can be used to make paper and textiles. Engravings enhance Runes. Trinkets can be expended to completely heal a person. Tendrils can be used as extra limbs. Branches make you heal a little bit faster and a lot more completely, so you never age or scar as long as you wear the mask often enough. Shadows let you become insubstantial at will."

"What happens if you use two decorations of the same kind?"

"The short answer is that you can't. But which one would you have wanted to double?"

"It would have depended on what doubling did. If doubled Scales gave resistance to magical injury, or if doubled Engravings enhanced Spirit magic ability."

"Ah! No. But if there is one thing you want above all else to refine your mask towards, I do know a technique, depending on what it is. You would need to balance some things strangely, and probably change to a full-head mask, but for example, if you wanted to engrave the whole mask to enhance a pure Spirit rune as strongly as possible, it can be done. It would depart from the usual realm of my choices and constrain some things—a hybrid rune can't be enhanced that way—but it can be done, if you want to. You might like to hear the list of usual Complications before you decide whether to try it."

"I would like to hear that list anyway, I think," he says firmly. 

"Complications: Mismatched Eyes, Many-Mawed, Twisted Rune, Overburdened, Divided, Hunger, Stolen Face, Beacon, Possessed, and Sundered. I think I've explained the first four already. Divided means your mask has two forms, which you must craft separately and then combine into one; you can shift your mask's form at will, but it will divide your soul to match, pulling your personality apart into the aspects that are most drawn to one mask and the aspects that are most drawn to the other. Most people find that they get along with themselves reasonably well, but for some it turns out to be a very bad idea. Hunger gives you an insatiable hunger and a drain on your lifeforce that can only be balanced by regularly feeding on death. Stolen Face lets you flawlessly impersonate anyone whose face you remove from their body and attach to your mask, but requires that you do this at least once to complete and bond the mask. Beacon makes all your thoughts and feelings obvious to anyone who interacts with you while you're wearing the mask. Possessed gives the mask a resident spirit, who can access its powers as easily as you can; I'd introduce you to some candidates and let you decide how well you could get along with them. Sundered gives the mask a damaged appearance and the power to sense other nearby mask-bearers and their powers; but it also lets them dimly sense you in return."

"Does Stolen Face require that the face donor die? That they not consent?"

"It does not require either, but there are only a few hours after you leave my domain in which you can still complete your mask, and you might not find anyone in time."

"Would it work with my own face?"

"Only if you were a different person from yourself—with Divided, for example."

"Alright. If I wanted to take Mandible and otherwise optimize my ability to make masks as much as possible, what would you recommend?"

The mist swirls thoughtfully, then,

"The most helpful possible mask for learning to make masks as well and quickly as possible would be a full-head Paper Skull with, hmm, your Hollow/Ethereal eyes would work nicely actually, and you could keep the Human nose, and Mandibles and a pure Spirit rune and Engravings and Trinkets and Flowers, Overburdened to add Tendrils and Feathers, Possessed by a spirit who knows something of mask-making, and Sundered to give you the mask-sense. Except that that's not quite right, because the thing you should really do, if what you want above all else is to learn mask-making, is get nearly all the way through making a mask a hundred times in all different configurations and materials and each time change your mind and start over at the end. And then take a mask that's Possessed and Sundered and has Trinkets and otherwise whatever features you like. Or, if you wanted the very most helpful possible mask for a mask-maker and didn't care about anything else, let me design something for you that's off the script entirely."

"I don't necessarily want to optimize for mask-making at the cost of everything else,  but I at least want to know what tradeoffs I'll be making if I do. Can I say, 'okay, go off-script' without making a commitment?"

"Yes. Whether to bond to a given mask is your own choice; all I can do is help you make them. Would you like to see the mask I would make for someone who wanted to be a mask-maker more than absolutely anything else?"

"Yes, I would."

The partly-finished mask unravels, and a whole new set of tools appears. The Assistant guides his hands through a swift and bewildering series of operations. First he pinches off a bit of soulstuff from the heap and spins it into thread, then he braids the thread into a cord, then coils the cord into a disk, sewing it to itself along the way with neat little stitches using more spirit-thread. Around this central core he molds more soulstuff like clay until the original disk is completely obscured, not even visible to the soulsight spectacles, fully melded into the whole... except when, moments later, he carves into the clay to make an engraving of an open eye, whose pupil reveals the center of the spiral. On the back of that piece he carves a rune that is almost certainly pure Spirit; this, then, becomes the forehead of the mask, and he sculpts eyes beneath it, then the rough shape of a face.

Overall it's... not not a skull. There is definitely something notably skull-like about it. But it's not quite a human skull, and there are parts that are hardly skull-like at all. Perhaps elements of Demon? It's hard to be sure.

Once he has the basic shape formed, the next stage is—well, probably these are the Decorations, or some off-script equivalent. Antlers? It has antlers now? They sweep up from the mask's temples to curve around above the head like a halo or crown, deeply grooved in a pattern reminiscent of abstracted woodgrain.

After a brief pause, the Assistant guides his hands back to the mask's forehead and has him carve out two more eye-shapes above and below the Hollow-looking left eye, then add more material into the right eye to divide it into three smaller eyes, for a total of seven. Then comes the engraving: over and over, he carves thin, smoothly curved lines into the mask's surface, inside and out, following some invisible contour map that only the Assistant can see. The lines are barely visible once placed. As he passes over the nose and mouth areas of the mask, he seems to incidentally shape them into an odd sort of beak-like arrangement that flows perfectly into the skull-like shape of the rest of the face.

Finally, when the whole mask from the end of the chin all the way up to the tips of the antlers has been patterned with those smooth-flowing lines, he spins an enormous amount of soul-thread and crafts about a hundred different individual little oddments from a bewildering variety of materials some of which don't even seem to be soulstuff at all—is that his diamond in there? But each of them, once it has been tied to the antlers by soul-thread, fades out into the same translucency as the rest of the mask: half-visible to the mundane eye, crystal clear to soulsight.

The end result, when the guidance stops, is a translucent silvery-black mask that looks like an alien skull made of moonlight and shadows, with seven asymmetrical eyes and elaborate antlers full of dangling beads and charms. The barely-visible engravings give the whole thing a sort of liquid rippling look.

"There!" says the Assistant, sounding a little out of breath. "I think that's the best I can do. You'd need a spirit to complete it—I can introduce you to some candidates if you like. The eyes are meant to let you see everything at once in as much detail as possible; I expect them to be a little overwhelming to start with, but it should be possible to get used to them with practice. The mouth and nose aren't special by themselves; they're just there to balance the rest. I put in as many Trinkets as I could, but that means they're underpowered right now, about half strength; you'd have to spend a long time taking them apart and putting them back together before you could get ones that will fully restore someone from the brink of death. Still, Trinkets are one of the best places to start if you're learning maskmaking, the more the better. The rune is pure Spirit and I supported it with engravings but the engravings are mostly taking advantage of the rune to hold the eye situation together; they won't help you all that much with learning Spirit magic faster. And I carved channels in the antlers that will let you add Tendrils once you're a little farther along, but I recommend waiting on that as long as possible because there could be side effects if you mess up the placement, and even if you do it perfectly, they're going to rebalance the whole system and you'll probably only be able to sustain about six Trinkets at a time maximum once they're all filled in. And if I've done it right, installing the Tendrils will also enhance the eyes to the point where you'll have to get used to them all over again."

Baruti is awestruck.

Baruti likes making things with his hands. He's bounced through dozens of favorite crafts in his time, achieving high journeyman levels of skill at least in most of them. 

It helps, in following along with and understanding what is happening.

He is still completely blown away.

"This is amazing," he says when they're done. "I would love to meet candidate spirits. Can you explain everything at some point--I have so many questions--"

"I'll do my best but it's surprisingly hard to explain, you know, the considerations get so complex... anyway, I should probably introduce you to your candidate spirits first. Here."

The ever-present mist rises, obscuring the trees. A luminous figure, visible only to soulsight, steps hesitantly into view. She looks like a blurry, faded afterimage of a plump woman with long curly hair, drawn on the air in faint traces of moonlight.

"This is Ylir," says the Assistant. The figure nods. "She was a mask-maker. Not as good as me, but then, very few people are. She's thoughtful and curious and likes to figure things out; she would make a good companion for a mask-maker who plans to stay out of trouble and focus on studying and understanding magic." Nod nod goes Ylir. "She won't be as good a fit with a more adventurous sort, though; if you're planning to lead a dangerous life, it would be best to choose a spirit who's happier with that sort of thing." Ylir nods very firmly.

"I don't think we'll be a good fit," he says to Ylir apologetically. "I need power so that I can go back to where I came from and stop the people who tried to kill me."

Ylir makes a sympathetic face, nods understandingly, waves goodbye, and steps backward into the mist. Moments later, a different figure emerges. This one appears to be some sort of off-brand centaur, with a deer's body and a human's head and torso.

"This is Arten," says the Assistant. "A worse mask-maker than Ylir, but much better-suited to a life of adventure and hardship." Arten makes some rapid hand-signs, which the Assistant translates as, "He says he's pleased to meet you and you should wait until all the candidates have had their say before deciding who to run with but he likes the look of your soul and he'd be happy to be your partner." More hand-signs. "Especially if—ah, yes, I forgot to mention, but one of the reasons I built your mask the way I did was that if I give you a foundation for modifying it later, that makes it easier to develop further modifications after that. Untangling a bonded spirit is a very, very tricky business, but it can be done, and Arten would like to have a body again eventually. You'd need a replacement spirit unless you learned how to rebalance the mask very thoroughly, but I imagine it will be possible to find volunteers somewhere in your journeys."

He bows to Arten. "I shall, indeed, meet with everyone before making a decision, but you seem like a suitable prospect and I would be happy to build you a new body." He looks at Arten thoughtfully. "--If I choose to partner with someone else, can I just make him a new body here and now? That is to say: I can certainly construct a human body with my own magic. Are the spirits here bound in some way such that they can only go into masks and not bodies."

Arten smiles slightly.

"My candidate spirits made agreements to enter masks, on terms that are generally kept private. Even if it would be possible to embody them here, it would void their agreements."

Sign sign sign. "He says he thinks a century or so of being a mask-partner sounds lovely, it's just that he'd expect to get restless eventually." Sign sign. "He wishes you well." And Arten turns and vanishes into the mist, leaving behind dainty ethereal hoofprints that fade out after a few seconds.

The next spirit... is a snake. They're just. A snake. A really big snake, the kind that'll squeeze you to death and then swallow you whole and roll around for the next week looking like a sock with a tennis ball in it while you're digesting.

"This is Cold River," says the Assistant. "Very well acquainted with mask-making theory, although the traditions among the serpentfolk are very different from the ones I'm familiar with. I recommend her to both mask-makers and adventurers." The snake's tongue flicks the air. She regards Baruti with glittering eyes. "She's had some trouble finding a partner because most people don't want to work with serpentfolk, but perhaps you'll have a different perspective. She wants me to be very clear with prospective partners that she isn't what they'd think of as a nice person and she won't cooperate with whatever they're doing simply because they're the one wearing the mask; if you want her help with something, you need to make a convincing case for why it's a good idea from her point of view. She also doesn't want to be matched with anyone who'll object to a dark sense of humour."

"I don't object to a dark sense of humor, or to serpentfolk," he says, tilting his head. "I would want a better idea of how 'not a nice person' and 'has to convince her it's a good idea from her point of view' work out in practice, I think."

Cold River tilts her head to a matching angle.

"There is, hmm, something of a cultural divide, I think," the Assistant explains hesitantly. "Among those with human faces, there is an expectation that a mask-partner will be helpful to the mask-bearer by default, unless there's a specific disagreement between them, a clash of personalities or a difference of opinion about the task at hand. Among serpentfolk—I'm not sure I have this right—the expectation is that before action comes debate, and unilateral action can be taken unilaterally but cooperative action requires consensus. Am I on the right track?"

The snake dips her head in a graceful nod.

"As for 'not a nice person'... I'm at a loss to explain that one, I'm afraid. Maybe I can ask Arten once I've finished showing you the best candidates. The spirits can speak to each other when they're not summoned here, and Arten can sign to me, but they can't make sounds or scents or colours in this form so their ability to communicate here is limited."

"Ah. I understand. Please understand that I have no philosophical objection to such an arrangement, I just want to make sure I choose the spirit who best fits with my goals."

She nods again, and turns and slithers back into the mist.

The next spirit is a—hummingbird? No, that's a humanoid body being propelled by those speed-blurred wings—but they don't hold still long enough for an anatomical study, instead constantly flitting through the air from side to side and up and down and forward and back and at all sorts of other angles.

"This is Fel. They were one of the first wildfolk mask-makers. Like Cold River, I think they would have insights into aspects and traditions of mask-making that I myself know little about. They want to be matched with someone who will lead an interesting and exciting life; if you intend to settle down eventually and retire to less active pursuits, I recommend embodying them first."

"That shouldn't be a problem," he says, "even if I ultimately manage to save my world, there will still be plenty that can be done in such a manner for however long it takes to embody them."

Fel flits in a jagged zigzaggy circle around Baruti, considering him from all angles, and then zips away back into the mist without waiting to be dismissed.

"I think they're not enthusiastic about the partnership but would be willing to listen to a pitch if you wanted to make one. Let me see... those were definitely all my best mask-makers, I'll just take a quick peek outside to see if anyone else wants a look at you..."

The mist in the clearing drops precipitously, until there are barely a few wisps left clinging to the dirt. An elusive sense of presence lifts from the area.

Half a minute later, the mist rises again. "Brr, stepping outside is always a trial. Just one more. This is Gauru."

A tall, broad-shouldered spirit steps out of the mist. He seems human, except for the size; he rather towers above Baruti, at what must be seven or eight feet. His spirit-clothes are bulky and fur-lined and he has what looks like a massive war-hammer slung on his back.

"He dabbled in mask-making but it wasn't his main strength. He said—I've probably got this a bit scrambled, I'm too uncomfortable in the spirit-space to be a good listener—that he heard from Ylir that someone tried to kill you, and he wants to ask why, and if your story moves him and you have a use for a mask-maker of middling skill who is also a skilled singer, a well-read historian, and an accomplished philosopher of law, he'd like you to consider him as a possibility."

...He nods, slowly. 

"In my world, magic is something that individual people do, paying a price in pain and the risk of personality alteration for power. Different people have different tolerances for how much of this tradeoff they are willing to make. The strongest, those most willing to pay the price and able to handle the results without becoming a danger to those around them, are called Great Mages. They're reasonably rare, both because most aren't suited to it and because those who might be suited to it don't always find a teacher, and magic is very, very hard to pick up on one's own. Great Mages have ever been known to die, but it's very rare; any mage worth their salt can de-age themself indefinitely, and Great Mages are nearly invariably the equal of any danger that isn't another Great Mage." He takes a deep breath. "I'm a Great Mage. A little less than a month ago, one of my peers, a woman I respected greatly, was killed with no warning. We attempted to investigate, but the event was occluded by a great deal of magical static that apparently resisted all attempts to past-scry the event. It was immediately obvious that something had gone badly wrong, but it wasn't apparent that it was still going wrong until the second death, less than a day later. That one most of us didn't find out about immediately, distracted as we were by our forensic investigations. By the time we found out about it, it had been accompanied by a third." His fists clench unconsciously. "I immediately realized that it had to be one of us behind it. 'Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.' There was no way a non-Great Mage without any of us colluding with them would have managed to kill three of our number within such a short span of time. I shared this insight with my colleagues. Unfortunately, several of them responded unproductively, by immediately accusing each other and using the occasion to bring up old grudges. The next several deaths were...not directly caused by the initial murders. Those of us with sense attempted to band together for protection, but that strategy was fractured the first time a group was wiped out, apparently by an unidentified traitor in their midst. 

At that point, I saw the writing on the wall, and determined that the best way to weather this storm, however it fell out, was to hide my own survival. I refreshed myself on a technique I had developed and not shared, and waited for the murder attempt to come. When I felt the magical pressure on my wards, I resisted for a plausible length of time, then blew up my citadel in a burst of chaos magic and teleported away. I had a hiding spot prepared, but apparently the chaos aspect of my escape rerouted my trajectory, and I landed elsewhere."

Gauru frowns, nodding slowly along with this explanation. He signs something, noticeably more slowly than Arten and in what might be a different language.

"He says that he should not be your top choice—really, you'd recommend Cold River? All right—but he agrees that your cause is just, and he would assent to join you if you wished."

"Why Cold River? Is it because she has a different maskmaking tradition?"

More slow signing.

"Yes, and because he respects you for reasons he thinks she would share."

He nods slowly and thoughtfully. 

"I'm not sure that she and I ought to work together forever, but I do respect what I've seen of her so far."

"I'm sure you would be able to reembody her eventually," says the Assistant. Gauru nods.

"Alright. Did you want to speak with Arten before talking to her again?"

"Yes, I think that would be a good idea."

Gauru waves, makes a gesture, and walks away through the mist.

"He says good luck," the Assistant translates.

A few moments later, Arten returns, and immediately starts signing animatedly.

"He agrees that you and Cold River are likely a good match," says the Assistant. "He says that the way she is not a nice person is mostly about differing expectations. Among her own people she was seen as a deliberate and careful thinker, but that same way of being, when she's among different people who expect different things, can have them seeing her as lazy, callous, and indifferent to urgency. She doesn't want to fall in with a naive partner who will be shocked and disappointed by the way she is."

"Oh," he says. "Yes, I think we would probably be a good match. That's not even slightly what I was concerned about. I can relate to it."

Arten nods and signs some more.

"He says he suspected as much. Do you want to choose her, then?"

"Yes."

Arten waves goodbye and darts away into the mist, and Cold River slithers out again, this time moving closer to examine the mask. Her tongue flickers, as though investigating how it tastes.

"Then if you are satisfied with your mask and your partner, we can complete the mask and bond the three of you together."

He smiles slightly at both the mask and at Cold River and bows.

"I am entirely satisfied."

The snake slithers into the mask. As her ethereal body touches it, he might catch a glimpse of startling iridescence, colours flaring in her ghostly scales as her spirit-form merges with the mask; and when the tip of her tail vanishes into it with a flick, it settles slightly more heavily in his hands, though not nearly a forty-foot-long snake's worth of heavy. The Assistant guides him to take off his soulsight spectacles, and the mask is still just barely visible as the Assistant guides him to put it on. A soap-bubble shimmer with a gentle weight like thick paper, it rests against his face, held there by nothing at all...

...and then gets somehow lighter and more solid all at once, as colour floods into it like spilled ink, the inner surface suddenly opaque to him. There is a sense of what the mask is, its powers and where they come from: the eyes, the trinkets, the antlers with their hint of potential for future connection. The rune, which is indeed full Spirit. The spirit, a watchful presence within; he can tell directly that as soon as the bond is complete, she'll have as much access to the powers of the mask as he does. Until then, the mask is inert, offering no powers to either of them.

There is a sense that the three-way bond between spirit, mask, and bearer is nearly settled, and all he has to do to complete it is sort of... lean his mind into it, be satisfied with this outcome and put that satisfaction at the forefront of his mind and give it a little push until the magic clicks into place. Or he could refuse it, and take the mask off and try again.

He is not going to do that. He thinks about his satisfaction, the appreciative respect he has for Cold River and the awe he has for the Assistant's design, and leans. 

click

The bond completes; the magic blooms.

Seeing through the mask's eyes is just as disorientingly informative as the Assistant led him to expect.

Physically, he can see more clearly than he ever has in his life, with hints of alien colours accenting the ones he's used to—a glow of heat in his hands that's a red deeper than red, the faint rainbows in the pale silvery mist showing a gleam along their inner edge of a violet beyond violet. Details are sharper, and sharper still if he focuses. His peripheral vision is not narrowed by the mask's occlusion but expanded by its magic; he can't actually see the inside of his mask anymore, and he can see things above and to the sides at a wider angle than before, with a broader range within that angle visible in detail before it starts to blur out at the edges.

Then, overlaid on top or intertwined between the physical aspect of vision, there is also the soulsight. The pile of spirit-scraps on the tree-stump worktable, visible under the spectacles and invisible without, are visible again in far greater detail, a difference in keeping with how much better he sees physical things with the mask than he did before. He can also see a shifting glimmer in the mist, an indication that it has a spiritual aspect; he can see his own soul embodied in himself, if he looks closely enough at his body, and when the mist rises and drops again to reveal a tall standing mirror, he can see the spirit bound up in his mask, ethereal scales twining impossibly under its surface. The soulsight layer is noticeably separate from the physical layer, and has noticeably different boundaries and limitations—different things occlude it, to a different degree—but, looking at any given object or place in the world, the two forms of sight meld seamlessly into a unified whole.

On top of that is a hint of something else. He can, just barely, access a third layer of sight that shows him not sense-data but pure information, knowledge about the things he looks at. It's vague and elusive and largely overwhelmed by the other two, but it detects the Assistant's attitude of excited pride in their workmanship, and Cold River's thoughtful curiosity, and the fact that the mist is the closest thing the Assistant has to a body.

He also breathes easier, with the mask on, like his body just has more energy than it did a minute ago. Logically speaking this is probably the passive effect of the Spirit rune—but he doesn't need logic to know that; he can feel it, with the mask-sense his mask also grants him. It's a mask-maker's mask-sense, attuned for fine detail at short range instead of clear warnings at long. With it, he can perceive the exact shape and nature of his mask, and the movement of the spirit within as she examines it.

(The Assistant does good work,) comes a soundless whisper into the back of his thoughts. Cold River communicates more in concepts than in words, although it seems she's starting to pick up his languages through the bond, because the concepts are structured partly using his own vocabulary. (I think we will do very well together, you and I and this mask.)

He grins. 

(I agree.) He tries to see if he can sense anything about her languages. 

"Thank you. From the bottom of my heart," he says to the Assistant. 

The main sense he gets about Cold River's languages is that they're not associated with the medium of sound, the way languages he's familiar with are; he can get a vague glimpse of how their writing works, a complicated structure of linked rings and spirals flowing from one ideogram to the next, but can't pin down any vocabulary yet. His access to her languages is more muted than the reverse.

"You're welcome!" says the Assistant. "I'm so glad I could make you a mask you're pleased with! I can try to explain it now if you like? Oh, I should've thought ahead, you'll be moving on now that it's complete... we still have a little time, though. Hmm, where to begin... Do you have any questions?"

"What was the purpose of the additional materials you incorporated? I think I saw my own diamond in there."

"Trinkets can be made of nearly anything, and I though the diamond was interesting so I used it. Because of the way the magic balances, the best arrangement of Trinkets is one where no two Trinkets are made of the same set of materials; that's part of why it gets so much harder to balance them correctly as there get to be more of them. A Trinket can be made from just about anything as long as it's the right size and you can get it to bind to the magic properly. Spirit is the easiest medium to work with for that, because it has no physical substance to get in the way, so you can focus on the magic, whereas if I had to use leather string or metal settings, I'd have to also get the physical material to hold together appropriately at the same time."

(Yes, that's familiar,) Cold River agrees, although the Assistant can't hear her. (We do it differently, but I recognize the principle.)

"What can you tell me about the shape of the mask? It clearly isn't standard Skull, exactly; I think I can see elements of Demon?"

"It draws on the magic of the Skull shape, but not fully; it doesn't draw on Demon, although there's superficial similarities. The shape and the mouth and nose are things I had to sort of trade away to get the important parts fully supported; that's why it has a beak. There are ways to make beaks magical but they're very tricky to balance and it's much easier to use them as a null entry for mouth and nose magic when the mask has a lot going on in other areas."

(That, on the other hand, is all unfamiliar to me. Face-shapes and feature-shapes in the human-faced mask-making tradition work very differently than they do among the serpentfolk.)

"What was the purpose of the thread-disc behind the first eye?"

There's a sense of alertness/interest from Cold River, although she doesn't say anything directly.

"Ah! That was the part I'm proudest of, I couldn't have held the rest together without it," the Assistant enthuses. "It's a spiral weave. It holds the structure of the magic in place and binds it together to form a foundation for the eyes, and then through the eyes for the rest of the mask. It's very tricky to get it just right! That kind of internal support structure is less necessary for my standard arrangements, but when I'm going out on a limb like this I really have to work to make the magic stable and functional. It's part of why I like working in spirit so much more than other materials—a proper spiral weave can be incredibly difficult to achieve in metal, because it's so hard to give it a sufficiently even twist, and for wood you have to approach things from an entirely different angle, by selecting your blocks of wood and carving the mask components at just the right places to fit with the grain so you can lay the magic inside it..."

Their voice is beginning to get fainter, and the misty clearing itself seems to be gradually fading from view. Baruti might not have much more than a few minutes left here, if that.

"I think I could probably cheat at that with my magic--would you like me to share the sense-impression of my magic, that's all it takes to get started on it in my world, although I should also warn you about the side effects--"

"Oh! Yes, that sounds very interesting! Please do tell me all about your magic! Although perhaps very quickly—sorry again about that, I always forget that finishing the mask means I won't have all the time in the world anymore—"

He doesn't bother with the standard telepathy form, instead simply commanding the spirit's mind to contain the sensation for magic-using. 

"Doing magic hurts, and there are three kinds, each with their own side-effect. Sympathy involves persuading the world and makes one more agreeable, Effort involves pushing on the world and makes one more stubborn, and Conquest involves commanding the world and makes one more imperious and less inclined to hear the word no. All these effects can be meliorated through meditation and self-examination and practice in behaving contrary to the direction the magic wants to push you," he says in a rush. 

"That's so interesting!" the Assistant says delightedly. "Thank you very much! I'll be sure to experiment as carefully as I can! Good luck!"

The voice gets fainter and fainter until it's barely audible; the clearing, similarly, fades away to both mundane and magical senses. Finally, Baruti is floating in a void with nothing but the intangible sense of Cold River coiled up in his soul to keep him company.

(It has been said that the transition back into the world may be rough,) she warns, and then reality crashes into them like a ton of bricks. He lands flat on his back on a muddy riverbank, with the wind knocked out of him and his vision sparkling; as it clears, he beholds for the first time the sight of a starry night sky through his mask's enhanced eyes.

The stars are astonishingly beautiful.

He stares up at them for all of three seconds, then pushes himself to his feet, sluicing the mud off his back with a small application of magic. 

(Well, that was interesting. What would you like to do next?)

(There are many possibilities,) she says. (In the most immediate term it would be prudent to secure food and shelter. Beyond that, what are your short- and long-term goals? Gossip among the spirits suggested that you wish to leave this world entirely, perhaps on a very short timeframe; is that true?)

He explains his situation with the other Great Mages and the reincarnations office. 

(Food and shelter my own innate magic can handle easily; what I want to do is extract as much low-hanging fruit in the form of maskmaking expertise you do not have from this world as possible before leaving.)

(Mask-makers are often secretive about their craft. With your mask and I to aid you, you would be very well-placed to pursue an apprenticeship, but I would not say that its fruit hung low. And there are dangers to roaming this world with a mask, which I think the Assistant forgets, having been in that place so long. I myself was killed by a hunter who devoured my mask's power. If what you seek is the most power at the least cost, it may be that the time to return to this—'office'—draws near already.)

(Very well, you would know better than I; I accept your judgment. I assume you will want input in where we go next. I shall have to ask him which routes will allow you to make choices as well as I.)

(An agreeable plan. I am interested to see how your magic works to move between worlds.)

(Watch carefully, then.)

And then he commands himself back in the reincarnation office. 

It's the same office that he left, with the same unseen presence behind the desk. With his new senses, he can see everything more clearly, but mostly what he sees is the same thing he already knew: the office and the desk and the papers are all manifestations of a single entity, woven from the same thread, unified by a single soul, and the cabinet is filled with countless more souls in some kind of stasis.

Mere moments after he arrives, the unseen voice says, "Ah! Welcome back! And," flip rustle ruffle swish, "welcome to you as well, miss!" The bureaucrat's eye appears between the stacks again and blinks at them in what seems to be a friendly fashion. "Shall I run the same search from last time, or have your parameters changed?"

"If there are paths that would allow her to make choices as well as I, I would prefer to be directed to those, where possible."

"Hmm. Do you mean paths that will offer additional sets of options given two choosers, or paths that will require consensus from both of you to proceed, or something else entirely?"

"I mean paths that will count her as a chooser and not just an--accessory to me." 

"I'm not sure that's a criterion I can sort on without understanding your practical purpose in wanting it. The two of you are in a situation where both are associated with a single physical form which only one of you can control. Very few paths are formulated with that kind of scenario in mind; I can't think of any offhand, though it's possible some would turn up if I searched the right parameters. Regardless of which path you take, you will retain the ability to confer with your partner and take her preferences into account. Some paths will have an administering entity, who may or may not be able to perceive the presence of a second soul, and may or may not regard the second soul as a separate chooser, and will react to their perceptions according to their nature. Some paths will have no administering entity, and their reaction to your situation will depend on their specific interface."

(What do you think?) he asks Cold River. 

(I, too, wonder about your practical purpose.)

(Very well.) "The same parameters as last time, please."

Mild amusement from Cold River.

Shuffle riffle swish raffle thump. The stack has arrived.

"Largely the same results, I see, though I can refresh you on them if you like... hmm, this one's new, but it's stamped Still In Testing, shall I take a closer look?"

"There can be no harm in looking." Pause. "I assume."

"Pathways that are harmful to consider have very clear warning labels!" the entity says cheerfully. "Here we are. The Tree of Fate. Part of a cluster with the Fay Path from last time, it seems. Medium-high power level, no known risks... but of course there's always some uncertainty with the untested paths. You'd likely be among the first choosers ever to try it."

"And this one doesn't involve any form of servitude...? What would you say is the risk level just from untestedness."

"Difficult to say. Most paths don't turn out to be too much trouble, but every so often you find an entrapment or oblivion risk. Early signs don't point to either of those being an issue here but we can't rule it out yet."

"So statistically speaking, it isn't very risky, but the risk that is there is reasonably high...does it look like it would be particularly useful, assuming it's exactly as advertised, which I'm aware nothing ever is?"

"Hmm, let me dig a little deeper into the notes... ah, there's the Weird Sex Stuff warning label... hmm. By my best guess, it will be useful, but not necessarily more useful than other options previously discussed. I might recommend that you save it for later, take a different path now, and hope that by the time you return it will have been better tested by more adventurous beings."

"That sounds valid." He takes a moment to explain to Cold River all the previous options offered. 

(I find myself intrigued by the concept of a 'Soul Graft', especially given how soul-focused our mask's powers are. I imagine we could explore interesting possibilities that way.)

"Can you tell us more about the Soul Graft option?"

"Of course!" Ruffle shuffle plop. "The Soul Graft Battle Royale pathway is administered by an organization of malevolent beings, primarily for their own entertainment, secondarily with the intent of encouraging participants to become more violent and ruthless. They're not affiliated with us directly, but we picked them up as a pathway endpoint because they fit our criteria. They're mostly popular among either people who don't mind being violent and ruthless, or people who expect to be able to exploit hidden advantages to beat them at their own game. I expect the two of you could make a very good showing. The titular Soul Graft is a melding of your soul with the essence of some kind of magical being—their selection is very broad—which gives you a progression of mostly combat-focused powers, starting with a very basic set and gaining more if you nourish it by defeating your opponents in the titular Battle. There is also a Grand Prize, one of a small selection of varyingly useful magic items. I confess I'm not sure what they'll think of the two of you. By the nature of the pathway, you cannot be forced to compete with one another, and also by the nature of the pathway they cannot disqualify you from competing, so you will be required to enter the contest jointly; but it's possible that by the whim of the administering entity you may be offered separate Soul Grafts. Or perhaps they'll offer the Soul Graft only to the soul directly linked to your shared body, or perhaps they will apply the same Graft to both souls."

"I assume we fall under 'people who expect to be able to exploit hidden advantages.' The phrase 'Battle Royale' is concerning; is there a serious risk--to us specifically--of being forced to hurt people?"

"It may become necessary to inflict harm in self-defense, if you are unable to defend yourselves another way. The rules of the contest do allow you to resolve your differences peacefully or nonviolently, if your opponent cooperates, but of course some opponents will not."

"Understood. I'm provisionally amenable." (You?)

(I am interested. It seems as though there is little more information to be had than what we have already been told, but I would still like to see it before coming to a decision.)

"She would like to see the file, if that's possible."

"In the most direct terms it is not. I can, however, answer further questions to the best of my knowledge if you have any."

(I have no specific questions, only the desire to consider all the available information before deciding to act.)

(Admirable.) "How detailed is the information with which such questions can be answered?"

"There is not much in the way of further direct detail available, but as an example, if you wanted to know what approximate proportion of the previous choosers taking this path have died there and how that criterion relates to whether they were the violent and ruthless sort or the exploitative kind, I could search out that information and find it very shortly." A pause, a ruffle of pages. "Four choosers in twenty survive, three of them exploitative, the last a mix of violent and other. Of the exploitative category specifically, only one in thirty dies. These numbers are very approximate but it is difficult to collect more precise ones."

"Do you have any insight into why someone would choose this path who wasn't exploitative? ...Aside from being very violent as a person, I suppose."

"It seems many of them asked for search parameters that left it as a top option."

"Of the survivors, have any returned here and reported on their satisfaction?"

"Most went on to become immortal and have not returned. I suppose you could view that as a good sign."

"Can you tell us anything more about the rules?"

"Some rules change between iterations, and our notes on the subject are incomplete and somewhat out of date, but there is one aspect of the system I can confidently expect you to encounter because it has remained stable for a very long time. Pursuant to their goal of incentivizing violent conflict, the organizers of the event mandate that each participant must select a specific Grand Prize out of a small number of possibilities, and at the end of the tournament, for each prize, if only one participant survives among those who selected it, that participant receives it. Selecting a prize is mandatory and there is no means of reliably confirming which prize one selected, so participants who are serious about the pursuit of their prize will generally try to kill all of the other participants, just to make sure."

"I see...of the species likely to participate, either as contestants or grafts, what are their psychological bell curves like, compared to both of our species?"

"I don't have good statistics on that. Many of the participants are likely to be human before their soul grafts are applied."

"I see. How long does the Battle Royale typically last?"

"Approximately thirty days, I believe."

"What resources tend to be available to contestants during that time, apart from each others' corpses and the soul grafts themselves?"

The entity checks their notes with a ruffle of pages. "It seems the organizers generally arrange for the arena to contain resources sufficient to ensure everyone's survival until the end of the tournament."

"How big is the arena, and how many contestants are there?"

Ruffle ruffle. "Notes indicate that the arena is usually a pocket dimension containing an island, but I don't have anything on the size of the island. I also don't have any precise counts on numbers of contestants, but reports have ranged from 'less than a hundred' to 'a few hundred'."

"Is it likely that any of the other contestants in the iteration we enter will also have come through here? What other routes send people there?"

"By far the majority of contestants will have arrived through local routes—worlds within the organizers' sphere of influence such that the souls of the dead are sometimes available to them."

"Do you have any information about the magic levels of those worlds?"

"Reports indicate that the majority of contestants are encountering magic for the first time when they receive their soul graft, but beyond that I don't have access to details."

"Alright..." (Can you think of any further questions?)

(I cannot. You have done admirably in that regard. Overall, it seems that this expedition will certainly pose some risk, but the risk is acceptable to me in light of the intriguing promise of the Soul Graft. I am very curious how they will approach our situation.)

(Agreed.) "We'll try this one next," he says firmly. 

SOUL GRAFT BATTLE ROYALE PATHWAY

• Warnings: IMMEDIATE RISK OF DEATH, HOSTILE ADMINISTERING ENTITY
• Destination hazard level HIGH
• Available power level MEDIUM-HIGH
• Choice complexity level LOW

[_] [_] I affirm that I have read this information packet and freely choose to proceed through this pathway.

SIGN HERE: __________________ __________________

He checks the boxes and signs his name in his native glyphs. 

Cold River prompts him with a mental image of how to write her name on the second line.

He carefully and precisely scribes out the unfamiliar shapes. 

Reality dissolves around them once more, and they drift through the disorienting void until—

—they are, once again, in a room with a desk and a bureaucrat.

The lighting is dim, the furniture foreign. The papers on the desk are neatly stacked in ornate trays. The bureaucrat is cherry-red, with gleaming black horns and glittering black eyes, and regards them over half-moon spectacles with a smugly patronizing air. Soulsight shows him as a dark glassy shell that mostly but not entirely conceals the roiling mass of tangled wisps within; but soulsight also seems to have trouble seeing even that much, as though the soul layer is being obscured by a thick fog.

Something about this place feels wrong, corrosive, sickening, like just being in the room is somehow bad for your health. It's uncomfortable, bordering on painful; and it hits Cold River harder than it hits Baruti.

Also, there's a pervasive sound in the background, just on the edge of hearing, almost like... distant, sourceless screaming?

WOW DO NOT LIKE

The first thing to do is to try to put up a repulsive barrier against the sickening effect around Cold River. This takes more oomph than it ought because he doesn't know anything about it but he is a Great Mage, he'll cope. 

The second thing to do is to investigate the screaming. 

When submerged in water, the Fountain begins to convert the water into Life Elixir, a potion with powerful healing and rejuvenating properties. A few drops will revive a corpse to perfect health; a sip or two will restore a mortal to the prime of their life.

An enormous chest filled with gold, jewels, and magical artifacts, lightly enchanted to provoke a gentle greed that encourages strangers to accept its trinkets as payment.

A mystic key that opens pathways between worlds, allowing for easy transit. If there isn't already a path to your destination, the Key can make one.

This dusty old grimoire belonged to a circle of ancient archmages, and the first chapter is a perfect introduction to the basics of wizardry. The rest of the book holds entire lifetimes' worth of arcane secrets and lost knowledge.

This is a copy of the machine we use to apply Soul Grafts to our contestants. It comes with a detailed instruction manual and a small selection of basic essences.

Winners of this Prize will receive the entire pocket dimension in which the tournament was fought, with full root access to the terrain-shaping and portal-anchoring frameworks we laid on the place.

Absolutely without question the most dangerous Grand Prize of all... to anyone but the victor, that is. Once bonded to you, your Doll will be perfectly loyal, nearly indestructible, and eternally yours. Her combat capabilities are unparalleled; very little besides another Doll could stand in her way.

Mystery prize! There's something in here, but we're not telling you what. Just know that it's useful, powerful, or interesting on a level with the other prizes.

"Do we have to go on just the descriptions provided or will you answer clarifying questions about the prizes?"

He raises his eyebrows. "Try it and see, but be warned, I only have so much patience to go around and you might want to save your questions for later."

"I only have one question--the fountain, it says it can restore a corpse--are there any limitations on what kind of corpse, age or total biomass or the like."

Smirk. "Yes."

What an annoying fellow. Nothing like the helpful being in the other office. 

(Do you have a preference? I'm leaning towards either the Fountain of Youth for the usefulness--resurrection is something my native magic system doesn't do--or something more provocative, in case this leads it to being shared mostly by the kinds of people more likely to get themselves killed.)

(I see your point about the Fountain of Youth, but I propose a different idea: that we choose the Bodyguard Doll, so that no one else will win her. I am not sure yet which I prefer, and I would not object to you deciding that the chance at resurrection magic was more important.)

(I don't like his taciturnity at its limits, and the Bodyguard Doll falls as well into the second category as anything else, I think. The spellbook also, but I've met plenty who would take it for love of knowledge alone.)

(We should be prepared for the eventuality where the Bodyguard Doll is bound to our, or perhaps your, eternal service, if we do choose her. But I think I prefer that eventuality to the one where she is bound to the eternal service of someone else. And if we avoid slaughtering everything in our path, perhaps we can avoid both. Though that will of course ultimately lead to her being won in some later contest.)

(No doubt...it seems useful, in terms of avoiding annoying psychological snags, to put ourselves in a situation where 'nobody gets the prize we selected' is the best outcome.)

(I agree. And I expect that we should move swiftly where we can, here, for the sake of preserving this one's patience and out of concern for whatever is causing the ambient discomfort in this place. I favour choosing the Doll.)

"The Bodyguard Doll," he says aloud. 

"Done." He re-rolls and drops the scroll, which crumbles to ash in the air; Baruti's variously-enhanced eyes might catch a flicker of some intangible essence darting toward him from the grey speckles.

"Next up: choosing your Graft. Just a second while I check your compatibilities..."

A wave of his hand causes the corrosive feeling to briefly intensify, knocking out Baruti's barrier and inflicting a wave of nausea on his body before it returns to previous levels. Meanwhile, the devil is now opening another desk drawer and muttering to himself, pulling out sheets of paper and stacking them on his desk. Each sheet seems to have a similar format, divided into four main sections with a brief foreword and afterword, but he's adding to the stack too fast for them to feasibly read much more than the titles upside-down even with enhanced vision. Zombie, Vampire...

Some kinds of revenant? Concerning. He puts the barrier back up, maintaining it with a steady push of Effort. 

"Now," says the devil, still sorting papers, "given the whole two-souls thing you've got going on, this is going to work a bit differently than usual. By the rules, you each get to pick your Graft. But you take the Graft by drinking a specially prepared vial, and when there's two souls in one body, the Graft will flow to whichever one has higher compatibility first, tiebreaking by favouring the one that's more attached to the body or that's been there longer, and then the second vial hits the other soul, unless its compatibility is too low in which case you explode. Which means," he sighs long-sufferingly, "I'm actually going to have to tell you your compatibility scores, because it's relevant to deciding which vials to pick and which one to drink first. Like, there's a Zombie in this list, but only one of you is compatible with it, so if you who's been talking to me this whole time wanted to take it, I have to tell you you're out of luck." He has a stack of papers assembled now; he picks it up and taps it on the desk to neaten it, then hands it over.

He flips first to the Zombie option. 

"I don't want to take it," he assures the man after a cursory inspection. 

(Nor do I, I think. What do you suppose will be the result if you ask him what other effects compatibility scores have, besides causing one to explode if they are too low?)

(Only one way to find out.)

"What effects do compatibility scores have besides causing one to explode?"

The devil grimaces and rolls his eyes. "If you must know, a higher compatibility score makes your Grafted powers easier to learn and use."

He does not grin externally. He does share the idea of a grin with Cold River. Other things besides the prizes to ask valuable questions about indeed!

(I propose that we first quickly read through all the options and form initial impressions of them, then examine in more depth the ones we like the look of at first glance, then go over the rest of the list to be sure we haven't missed anything competitive with our favourites. We can also inquire about compatibility scores as we compare our options. Do you agree with this approach, or is there another you prefer?)

That approach seems sensible.

He skims the documents, careful to linger on each long enough for Cold River to get a good look too. 

I find myself extremely tempted by Construct; it seems like it would go very well with my own world's magic...I'm a little concerned about just how indestructible the core would be, though. 

(I am likewise tempted by Gargoyle. It would be convenient and pleasing to gain so many advantages from remaining still. What troubles you about the Construct's core? Does it seem more fragile to you than most of these immortality methods? It seems plausible to me, from what I have seen of the list so far, that the descriptions are written to deliberately conceal the true level of fragility in each method.)

My concern is that I am less worried about attack from other people in the Battle Royale and more worried about eventual attack from other Great Mages, and in my magic system, physical objects are easier to destroy than magic.

(If you are successfully killed again in your own world, will you not simply return to the Reincarnation Office?)

Yes...and despite all the physical differences, this is a soul graft...I suppose it doesn't risk that much. My favorite is Construct, then, although Phoenix looks very competitive. Do you have a second choice after Gargoyle?

(Nothing that appeals to me nearly so much. If Gargoyle were unavailable I would be likely to choose Phantom, I think.)