The universe has other plans, however. There's a crash from the kitchen as something fragile-sounding topples over, and a whole lot of swearing. He better wrap this up before someone sees him - it looks like someone's home.

Interrupted again. At this rate, they're never going to get anything at all done, let alone the greatest Great Work the world has ever seen. He sighs and returns the pen to its well, pulling the cover down over the desk and locking it shut with a glance. It's second nature at this point - operational security has a way of pressing white stress marks into one's mental processes, given enough time, and he's the one who made the checklist after all. He'll head towards the kitchen. Hopefully, it wasn't anything important.

Saul's grinning sheepishly, broom in hand as Scoria enters the room. He's tall, with fine features and a shocking mane of silver hair. He's also covered in orange juice and broken glass. The sun is merrily streaming through the window, indicating that it's about eight in the morning. "Pull another all-nighter, Scor?"

"You're one to talk. Where were you? I thought that we were going to collaborate." He opens a drawer and pulls out a pyramid of sandalwood incense that he drops into a brazier. With a little grinding sound, entropy reverses within a localized area and the juice pitcher reassembles itself. The spiderwebbing cracks across its surface wick up fluid, and then close. Mostly. One might get the impression that this is not the first time that the pitcher has had a brush with death.

"Family obligations." He looks tired, grin wavering momentarily. "We can work on the oaths tonight, assuming nothing else comes up."

"Weasel words."

"Always." He pours two glasses of juice, this time without dropping the container.

It's probably good to drink the juice. He'll even pretend that he didn't check for poison as part of that last spell, for politeness.

"I think I've cracked another element for the ritual, by the way." He's staying casual, sipping the juice. It's sweet and wets his mouth more than usual. He really ought to start keeping a water bottle by his desk.

The house shakes as a strong wind blows outside, rattling the windowpanes, and dust settles from the ceiling into his cup.

The color drains from his face. He pulls a pocketwatch from somewhere in his coat, flips it open, closed, and he's gone.

He drops to the floor just in time to snatch the empty glass before it hits the ground, and sighs. Always the time emergencies with that one. More time for the ritual, he supposes. Maybe it's time to figure out a partial demonstration. That'll get his attention for sure.

That's going to be harder than he expects, because he is so very very sleepy. Go to bed.

Absolutely not. There is an incredible amount of suffering in the world in its current state, and he can't stop just because of a little thing like sleep. Besides, he'll be able to sleep when Saul takes up the project in full. He's always been better with the weird efficiency stuff.

Thirty items are needed for the ritual that will create what they've been calling the Pact. The diagram must be inscribed upon holy ground in red ochre, and contain runes for humanity, power, nurturing, restraint, and benevolence. The carefully counterweighted mobile represents the cooperation and balance of humanity and Other to sustain equilibrium in the cosmos. At the points of the diagram, seven offerings for the universe: iron ore for strength, holly for protection from evil, a silver infused skull for wisdom, a gold solidus for prosperity, a pressed rose for passion, incense for clarity, and fruit burned to ash, symbolizing sacrifice. The ritual is intricate, to say the least — twelve circles, seven bowls, and many, many prepared components. Archaic summoning runes line a geometric diagram large enough to contain several beings at once, each participant necessary to forge the Pact's initial connections to humanity and Other alike (though not equally). In his writings, still, but soon into the world. There is no room for imperfection in a ritual meant to safeguard all of mankind.

And one day, somehow, some way, he will end the exploitation, the suffering, the Drains. And until then, he cannot rest. So he returns to his desk, and begins writing the next stanzas, the next prayer to egregore not of societal subconscious dreaming or of their imagination, but of constructed tradeoffs such that the cruel and heartless world twists itself into a shape more pleasing to their shared design.

…And proceeds to fall asleep on his pages. You are not immune to sleep.

He wakes up with a start - no, not true awakening, a false awakening into a dreamscape. Around him floats a powdered quartz heptagon, tendrils coiling off into the distance. He knows for certain that if those anchors were to snap that he'd hurtle off into the dark emptiness beneath his feet, never to be seen again. Hopefully that's only true of the dreamspace, and not some sort of projective trap.

There is absolutely no way this could possibly be a trap. He should know better than that.

Okay, so it's a trap. He pinches himself, but it just seems to make him disoriented before returning him firmly to his form inside what he recognizes as a sort of mirror to the thing he was designing when he slept.

There's a giggle from outside, and his head jolts up, scanning for the source.

It's a figure clad in shadow, face obscured. It looks pleased with its handiwork.

No, that's not just a figure, that's the tip of an iceberg of flesh and veins of light artfully arranged to dangle the mannequin like the lantern of a deep-sea fish. "What do you want from me, exactly?”

She laughs. Straight to the point with this one, refreshing.

"Isn't the question usually the other way around? I imagine I have something you want, scrawler."

He briefly glares at her. "Juding by the circle, I'm at your disposal, ma'am." And unless she has a way to enforce a global - no, universal - agreement of human and Other, no, he'd rather go back to work, thank you very much. Sleeping is always a mistake.

"I know your type. You want to make your mark on the world, I've seen your scribbles." She gestures broadly at diagrams conjured around him.

"I believe you're mistaken. I might want to change things but it's not my mark I desire. If it is the one used at all, that's the lack of any better made by another, fairer upon this world." There's something wrong with the diagrams, they hang limply in the air. It brings to mind starched shirts wilting in the heat.