AMBROSIAAnyway, the cave was fairly dark, but our lantern helped. At the entrance, we found a number of rocks blocking our way. Using the Gigas Gloves, I carefully pushed boulders out of place to create a path. The next room had a swarm of bats flying around, and a dwarf mining off to the side. I had never actually seen a dwarf, but they are easily recognizable.

    In the old Earth, people decided to make a distinction between dwarves and midgets, declaring that midgets were healthy and just shorter than normal, and dwarves had a body deformity. They also declared the term midget offensive. Let me clear a few things up. Besides the subliminal impression that being normal is somehow offensive, this is completely false. A dwarf is simply a runt, a creature smaller than others of its species, there is nothing in the term that declares that something which is a dwarf most have limbs that are not in proportion. In fact, there is no such thing as a “midget”, the term was slang that P.T. Barnum came up with. Dwarves were simply shorter people.

    I say were. Under political correctness, people pretended to care for such folk. But as years went by, these same people kept dwarves apart from the general population as a so-called special interest group. They told them that it was to protect their minority status but their real thoughts were closer to wanting them to breed with their own kind. Gradually, through repeated breeding and inbreeding among other dwarves, they actually became a separate race. Eventually, one ruler decided that short people “ain''t got no reason to live”, and declared that they be hunted down. In desperation, many of them took to hiding in caves. True to the Lamarck''s laws, the dwarves living underground began to develop night-vision of an advanced degree, their diet changed to include mushrooms and insects, and because of their constant exposure to land mana, they developed a thick extra layer of skin which was capable of screening out incoming magic. Dwarves could be subject to magic cast indirectly, but unlike the atheists who had an antimagic field around them, they could not be blindsided. Someone could cause an earthquake under them or wrap them up with vines, which would not happen to an atheist. But unlike atheists, they can be shot in the back with a Fire spell and not notice.

    This dwarf was male, and clearly quite distracted by the process of mining with pick and shovel. He ignored several calls to him, until finally he stopped and turned around, “Did ye call me, lass?” I asked him what he was doing. “Why,” he answered, “I''m building a railroad here!” I shook my head, “A railroad? Travel is usually done by ship. It''s better for the most part. True there''s all sorts of storms, but still...”

    Railroads and other such large machines had largely taken a hit in terms of usage. About the only ones who even still knew how to make such complicated moving parts were the dwarves, and the same for the steam engine. Most people simply couldn''t work moving parts, so they couldn''t make this. The closest equivalent used were called ley sleds, a large sled-like device that predictably traveled along the ley lines, using an elf to move the device. The dwarf grumbled, “For years, those derned seafarers have lorded over us, with their ''ships.'' But if I finish this here railroad, people will have to depend on dwarves instead!” I nodded, humoring him, “I see...” He continued ranting and mumbling, as I slowly walked away, shaking my head. “Oy,” he called out, “I''m looking for me girl. If you see a dwarf lass mining down yonder, tell her I''m this way.”

    The next area had a section of rock that was loosely forming a gate. We peeped through, and behind the wall was a large treasure chest. Looking around the room there was a small metal door with no keyhole, but two slots for a block to be placed. The area nearby had a number of small blocks with numbers on them from zero to nine. I realized that this gate was keyed to a puzzle, and probably would not open without the correct numeric password. So I decided to read the plaque. ?I am a number below 100. I can be divided by any number up to 6, except for five. Two different sets of these numbers mentioned above can be multiplied together to make me. The square root of myself is not a whole number. Most importantly, when I am multiplied by myself, I become a number that is truly gross. What number am I?? My math skills have always been horrible. I tried some random number. For some reason, I believed 64 was the perfect number.

    But it wasn''t the case here. A boulder dropped from the ceiling, and chased after us, until finally we dived to a side passage. Uhhhh, let''s try this again. Elias offered, “Try 12.” I picked up the one and two blocks and slid them into the plate. To my surprise, they clicked in neatly, and the gate opened. I looked dumbfounded at him, despite all of us having evidence that he was brilliant and scholarly. He explained the puzzle for about ten minutes, while we opened the chest. We found a series of old-style diving suits. They had some alterations, particularly made to the back, to make it convert water into air, but they were more like diving armor from the 1880s than they were like anything made by modern alchemy. We decided to hold off putting on these things. Instead, we opened up a tent in a nearby save point.

    ELIAS

    It is well known that party tents have no physical weight beyond maybe that of a normal tent, since they are basically operating under warped space, and can potentially be the weight of an entire town pulled basically out of one''s pocket. Essentially, I travel into the space of the tent, I don''t summon the space outside the tent. Because of this, we were able to exploit this to the absolute limit, opening the tent and shoving massive amounts of diving suits in, then closing it behind. Well, to be fair, the tent already had a full-sized bed inside, and in Galaxia, we had hired a banker and a priest to handle stuff like keeping our accounts straight and helping us revive. Oh, maybe I didn''t mention that there we people living inside this tent 24/7. I''m sure they won''t mind tossing stuff into the tent.

    Azrael asked to borrow Ambrosia''s knife. “Why,” she asked her, “what will you do with it?” She mumbled the word Apport, and then she carved a small square in the ground where the save point stood. She then carved a series of arrows. They seemed to need to be in a direct path from each other, so it was tricky. As we wandered through the cave, fighting off bats and goblins and all sorts of other creatures (such as the dreaded giant flatworm), she paid none of us any mind, her concentration wholly focused on the effect. In the beginning there was no sign that what she was doing was amounting to anything, but lately these arrows had taken to glowing. When we finally got to an underground lake, she was sweating hard, and her eyes looked bloody. Not bloodshot, she was bleeding from her eyes. Whatever she was doing was strenuous enough to not do as a regular feat. At long last, she carved another square in the path of the arrows. Up went the small patch of land with the save point etched on it, and down went Azrael.

    AZRAEL

    Soulfires are not the only ones who can use psionic abilities, there were talented wonder-workers who had learned to do some of these, but most were basically something that normal people required concentration enough to trigger nosebleeds, or worse. A Soulfire had a brain designed to tune psychic energy without damage. This is what happened here, I used an ability that didn''t really suit me, and as a result, I strained my body and mind greatly. But I had little time to think this as I collapsed in a heap. I awoke much later in our tent with a splitting headache.

    I had two psionic abilities, my Apport, and my Sensory abilities, specifically the ability to see and talk to ghosts. But because I had an affinity for spirits and because the latter was a passive ability, only the former ever caused me strain. I awoke after some effort, before laying down again with intervention from outside. “Shhhh,” said Zoe, “rest now. You overstrained yourself.” Zoe and Elias looked exhausted from caring for me.

    After we had fully rested, we began to unpack the diving armor. As we helped each other into it, we stumbled towards the water, walking down a long and winding underwater slope. It was very slow progress, as these atmospheric suits were not built for movement but rather protection against all manner of pressure and current. Even underwater, it was absurdly difficult to move. Aqorm would not have needed them at all, except that as we descended, eventually the water pressure became more and more severe. She had decided not to wear one, and it looked like she was in some pain because of it. Several hours later, we descended to the deepest depths of the sea. Thankfully, the suits provided limitless amounts of air without the need of old-fashioned external pumps or limited scuba setup, or all of us would have met a watery end, possibly being noticed in the Afterlife by Elder Formless who slept below. According to rumor, this is what happens to all who die under the sea. I shudder to think about this. In any case, the underground and underwater cave opened into a much larger space as we exited the rock walls. We saw urchins, stingrays, lanternfish, and the weirdly cute scotoplanes (originally called “sea pigs” but then some showed up on land, and they couldn''t be called “land pigs”) as we wandered through different depths. I was not so thrilled to leave the cave section, once I saw what awaited us. At the gate towards Aquamundo, the underwater metropolis floated a Gate Guardian, a serpent dragon apparently made of glass. I did not like our odds. Not one bit, I tell you.

    Most people believe glass is fragile. In actual fact, most glass breakage is due to poor crystalline structure, or because of stress-fracture. It actually has much higher hardness and strength than many materials, but it appears fragile because of these issues. The Kool-Aid Man would indeed be able to smash through a wall, given weight proportionate to size, and a thick body with good crystalline arrangement. Oh yeah! As we could see, the dragon''s body appeared to be made of some sort of flexible glass, so I was going to wager that our chances of attacking this with weapons was basically zero. Oh no!

    Sure enough, when Ambrosia tried to slash at the creature with her First Material knife, it simply shattered. Nevras told her, “Push the broken bits together!” There were internal communicators in each suit, so conversation was possible here.

    Sure enough, fitting the knife like a jigsaw puzzle, she was able to piece together two pieces, then another two, until it was whole again. Similar to a wound closing about itself, the blade fused itself together. After fusing, the material healed even more cleanly that a living thing. I couldn''t see any sort of scar. First Material was truly incredible.

    Nevras decided to rely on techniques rather than risking his weapon as well. But the glass was simply too sturdy. Elias said, “We need a strategy!” Now, Elias is more of a bookworm for many things but I understand metaphysics, the paranormal, and elemental theory better. The latter was immediately useful, as I remembered how glass behaves when exposed to sudden heat and cold. “Zoe,” I called out, “use Fire, and keep it coming! I''ll delay an Ice spell.” Delaying thaumaturgy was dangerous if someone didn''t know what they were doing, but allowed one to charge up a high level of power. But I needed to time the spell properly, so I decided to delay. Zoe did indeed try to build the Fire runes in a consistent pattern, but the heat kept getting reduced by the sheer amount of water. All of this effort only managed to create boiling water. She cast over and over, but the dragon was unfazed. I called out, “Zoe!” She turned. “Do you know how to use Druidfire?” Druidfire, or aether, was a combination of the five elements. For many casters, it was impossible without years of experience with all the elements. This was why being able to cook food with aether was a career-builder. Druids, however, were supposed to have this ability as practically their birthright. Apparently not, though, as Zoe started to sweat and shake her head. “Nah, I didn''t learn it,” she admitted. I called out to Ambrosia, “Can you use your new powers from Chronos to slow this thing down?” She nodded, “I can do more than that, I can freeze it in place.” She did an elaborate dance, and the dragon was coated with a greyish film. Still, she told us, “It''ll only stay until I run out or energy.” I called back to Zoe, “Alright, now is your chance to learn! Keep trying until you get it.”

    Lest there be any confusion, since earlier I said rain disrupts runes, it is possible to use runes underwater. If it were not, countless people would have died trying to refresh a Water Breathing spell. It''s just a matter of properly using the runes. It''s like this, there are runes big enough to be seen on the visible level. There are smaller runes which form those runes, made from mystic power, those which can only be seen with a microscope. These coexist with atoms and molecules, and are sometimes influenced by them. That is, with rain, the water molecules hitting a series of runes moves fast enough that it manages to knock them apart into smaller runes. This is not the case for a body of water. The runes do get damp while forming together, but the motion is gradual so there is little danger of dispersing runes. Elemental affinity is still an issue though. It is absurdly hard to use fire runes while surrounded on all sides by water, just as water magic is difficult in the desert.

    Zoe cupped her hands and tried to draw several different runes into the same space. No sooner did she try to push them in proximity than the runes began to attack each other. The effect fizzled out. She tried again, but no matter what she seemed to do, it fell apart.

    Ambrosia''s trigram was slowly fading in its glow. It couldn''t hold this creature much longer. Soon the dragon would be free to attack us once again...

    ZOE

    I''m not quite as sharp about using my mystic power as Azrael. I can barely scribe silent runes, I could counterspell, but mainly only by casting elemental spells, and my reflexes weren''t good enough to not cast the wrong counterspell once in a while. Combining five elements into one magic? I was not that confident. When I tried to do this, it felt vaguely like juggling, I was trying to keep the fire runes from getting consumed by the water all around us, and the water or air runes would simply blend in with our surroundings. I tried stringing the runes together in an array, to join these elements together so they wouldn''t be canceled out by our surroundings.

    This didn''t work either. The elements began to interact with either other, and basically wound up forming hot mud. I was totally at a loss what to do. Not that I had much chance to think about it. The temporal stasis thing around the dragon was beginning to flicker and fade. As the grey receded around the beast and it stirred, it glanced around until it noticed Azrael. She was still gathering energy for her big spell, and it wouldn''t do much good unless I hit the creature first. Oh crap.

    The dragon sucked in water to fill its lungs, preparing to spit out a mix of glass at its target. I had to get in front of Azrael before she got hit, but with the heavy swimming armor I was moving too slowly. I waddled towards her making it just in time to push her out of the way. Her armor flopped over, and while she lay prone, her hands continued to be cupped, building her runes yet further. What concentration! On the other hand, I was now directly in the path of the shards of glass.

    My life began to flash before my eyes as I saw the shards move closer and closer. Of course, with my many reincarnations, this was less of a panicked moment and more of a long film. I suddenly became aware that many moments of flashback had passed, yet I was not impaled by thousands of tiny shards. In fact, it was nowhere to be found. In its place was a pillar of flame extending inches around me. What was happening?

    AZRAEL

    “There is no greater love than to lay down one''s life for one''s friends.” I thought about that saying when I saw what happened. The aether came out not because of any skill, but directly in response to her actions. Her eyes glowed golden for a second, then the pillar of aether spouted at full blast, before it gathered toward her hand and it settled to a manageable size.

    Aether was supposed to be incredibly easy to manage once formed, as a type of energy which had all the elemental characteristics. A person could freeze something or make plants grow just as easily as they could burn something, and while it definitely had the traits of fire, it didn''t get snuffed the same way as fire. In fact, the only thing said to be able to stop Druidfire was to run out of mystic power.

    The flames glowed a deep green, evaporating the water nearby. It wasn''t being snuffed at all, instead the water was being absorbed, parting the water with the intense heat. I called out, “Throw it!” Zoe tossed the stuff at her target, coating the dragon in such heat that its glass turned solid red. I followed up with the ice attack I had spent such time on. “Absolute Zero!” I incanted. Of course, it wasn''t real absolute zero, but the spell created a powerful beam of ice. This beam was cold enough to strip heat from the nearby air, scattering outward and freezing whatever it touched. Elias had prepped us some by casting a protection against cold so the extreme temperatures did not freeze our metal suits. After the aether dissipated, the water came rushing in, only to be stopped once again by the extreme cold.

    The sudden change of temperature created a hairline crack, which in term created tension that spread all the way to the core of the glass. The glass shattered with a high-pitched sound, leaving only the naked wyrm. The Gate Guardian was still a tough creature but Aqorm and Nevras lunged and stabbed at it. Ambrosia tried once again to slash at the dragon with her knife, but it was too late. The dragon''s soul left the body as a small glowing orb. “Awww crud,” I said, speaking in an uncharacteristically casual manner. Ambrosia''s mannerisms were beginning to rub off on me. I explained, “if we do not stop the departure of that dragon soul, it may attempt to reanimate itself.” Dragons, unlike other living things, had no Afterlife set aside specifically for them. Instead, they had a ball of spirit known as the dragon soul, which they decide what to do with. If the dragon was soundly beaten, the spirit would be weak, and often becomes part of the natural world, since the energy of so-called “dragon lines” had a vitalizing effect on the land nearby. On the other hand, if the dragon still had some fight left in it, it might often come back in a weaker form, or attempt to reincarnate. We hadn''t seen the last of it.

    The ice was melting, so it was time to head out. The water began to creep in, clearing our path. As it did, more of the ice melted until we were walking through ice cold water. The open areas narrowed through a stretch of natural rock, leading us to a small city.

    This must be Aquamundo, the second underwater city, and the first to be built underwater. I imagine people have heard about the first one. Atlantis began as an island filled with great civilization. It used to be as big as a small continent, then one day, it disappeared. Nobody above water knows why. Aquamundo was slightly less impressive in comparison. As a town, Aquamundo was basically a libertarian paradise. It had no laws to speak of, and police only interfered to enforce personal squabbles such as unpaid loans or faulty products. The only other real government interference I saw at all was that many of the young virginal men were fed to the dragon (something about wanting to appease it). Like I said, Aquamundo was a wonderful town with no state oppression.

    Without government, this meant everything (especially the houses) was privately built. It was Aquamundo''s belief that everyone must be an architect of their own life, so houses built from coral and underwater rock littered the streets. The better places had no windows or those made of a metallic glass somehow made to be incredibly transparent and just as strong, and were built with floors designed to drain water away. Those that... weren''t the better ones were flooded with water all the way up to the top, had dangerous animals like sharks inside the houses, or were just uncomfortable to humans that didn''t have eight legs for traction.

    Having met with some heavy resistance getting here, we decided to purchase a fair amount of items and equipment. Neither I nor Ambrosia really needed anything, but Nevras arranged to have his blade tipped with fused obsidian for some added sharpness. Obsidian normally is sharp enough to cut more sharply than even steel, the problem of course being that as a ceramic blade, the edge chips easily and becomes blunt, if not outright shattering. After many centuries of work, alchemists effectively managed to obsidian fragments into a sort of rock glass, allowing the keen edge to retain while also preventing shattering if the sword was dropped. So to summarize, he now had a Fused-Obsidian Durasteel Katana. The diving suits were armor enough, so we opted out on that, but we were relieved to not have to wear helmets indoors. We spent much of the rest of the time shopping for food and recovery items, and then spent time in the inn.

    Elias found an alchemist''s Mixing Pot at one of the shops, suitable for larger scale projects. While resting, he worked tirelessly and managed to convert our items into high-grade recovery tools. We now had five Jade Elixirs (a potion which recovered general health and mystic power on multiple targets), ten Ruby Elixirs (only enough for one person yet able to heal completely and remove multiple ailments including death), a few servings of Phoenix Meat, and some Healing Herbs. Elias made an extra Ruby Elixir and Jade Elixir, then he showed up with some plant he called a Level Root after searching around. He apparently had big plans for this later. But we left him inside the inn with Aqorm. Ambrosia bought a For Sale Sign, which she immediately used to sell some items to some random person passing by. She wound up making back most of the money we spent and reducing our load in terms of critter trash.

    We went to a priest to save, because it was basically unthinkable to ever try to defeat that dragon again. After this, we explored the town, talking to random people. From them, we learned that originally these people had in fact come from Atlantis. They were a race of powerful psychics, who built cities out of raw mental power. They seemed to be too embarrassed to admit what actually caused Atlantis to sink, so we''d probably not find out until later. Since their city was fast crumbling under the pressure of the deep sea, they somehow rapidly adapted to the change to survive underwater. Some of them claimed God made them evolve. In any case, after many centuries they went from psychic masters to a race of sea creatures with many different subgroups: the squidlings, the merfolk, the sahagin, and the selkie. Outsiders referred to all of these as merfolk even if some technically weren''t. Of these, the selkie were the most adaptable, as they could disguise themselves as seals, or slide off their upper seal-skin to become a human/seal hybrid, or shed their skin entirely to walk on two legs as humans.

    They also talked in great length about the Gate Guardian we had just faced, and how it had protected their city above the water as a flying dragon, until the situation changed, and it formed a glass shell in response. From the sound of it, it was probably a good idea to talk to the village elder. We wouldn''t want this dragon flying back around and destroying the city, after all.

    ELIAS

    While the others explored town, I tossed my ingredients in a pot together, being careful to follow the right procedure. The Level Root was crushed into a powder, then stirred together into the cauldron with Ruby and Jade Elixirs. Aqorm was watching the whole thing. I had to alternate, mixing one part powder by two parts of each liquid. Each part was a teaspoon , since the metric system had gone by the wayside (except when measuring temperature, which had been converted into Double Celsius or ? for short, as a result of concluding that Fahrenheit had far more degrees of accuracy, but the idea of starting a measurement at something other than the freezing and boiling point of water was just stupid). Aqorm asked “What are you doing?” Once the powder was completely expended, I would have to distill the mass, extracting the water soluble compounds of the Level Root from the denser solids, adding more liquids to repeat the process until no powder remained, and then continuing to condense the distilled gas until the resulting liquid cooked down to a solid. This process finished in a few hours, completely taking away concentration from her, yet I could tell that she stood nearby. There were some remains of the two elixirs, leaving behind a thick yellow liquid which did not appear to respond at all to heat. I strained this out to use as a fire retardant, while I worked on condensing the other liquid. “I''m working on crafting a Philosopher''s Stone,” I finally responded. Her look of shock told me that she had studied the lore, and could appreciate that this was no mere side project.

    This process of condensing must take a week, due to both the considerations of the actual work involved, and since there were actual ritual needs for it to take this long or fail outright. I would have Aqorm notify the others that I would meet them in the next major town later, if they would wait for me. Traveling alone might be an issue, but it would provide an opportunity for me to test out my alchemy abilities. I would miss Aqorm, but hopefully, I would be able to rejoin everyone. With the Philosopher''s Stone, I would be able to achieve the dream of any scholar, the ability to create high-grade alchemy. Elixirs of long life, lead into gold, all of these would be a simple matter. But I had to do this carefully, or I would wind up with some sort of sludge. I mustn''t allow her to distract me. She walked off to give me some space to perform my work. At least, I think that''s why she walked off.

    AMBROSIA

    Finding the Water Queen and Water King was no trouble at all, we just looked for the biggest house. I talked to the woman first, “Hi there! Can you tell about...” Glancing at me, she said, “Ah yes, I know that face. Father and daughter look so similar. Your father knew us well, and blessed our oceans with his presence.” Puzzled, I tried talking to her husband, “Excuse me! We have to make our way to the surface. But the last we saw, there was a giant dragon. I was wondering if you could perhaps tell the dragon to go away.” He nodded, then he too stared at my face as if struck by something. “It is no problem,” he said, “I will summon the dragon right outside so you can deal with it permanently. Your request is no trouble...” Well, to be honest, I wanted him to shoo it away, not bring it closer. He continued, “not for his child. As it happens, I knew your father. I will do anything for His children. Especially one who is the Oracle.” I was suddenly more interested, “What?!? I knew my father was a wealthy merchant, but I didn''t think his influence reached to even the deep oceans here.” He shook his head, “You are mistaken, I knew your real father.” There was something fishy about the way they were saying the words ''his'' and ''father'' but I couldn''t put my finger on it.

    In any case, we left town to the east, walking along a sloped hill toward the surface. Elias had left the party for now, agreeing to rejoin us much later. Aqorm looked a little sad, but I could tell she understood that this was part of his goals. We passed an area with a stone gateway. The gate had something written in the Elvish language. Apparently whoever had this written decided to enlist the help of aquatic elves, as there was no unified written language known by the outside world from the undersea species. As tempting as it was to say “friend” here, I knew enough of Elvish to know that it was actually sort of impossible to pronounce. ?Here lies the gateway to Atlantis. The gate is closed for the time being to tourists while we repair our... water slide? read Aqorm. It was clear she was skeptical that any sort of water slides existed, given that Elvish was a language of images and memories, but she shrugged as we walked past. That would have to wait. We climbed the underwater path with our suits and headed toward the surface.

    AQORM

    While I was definitely excited that Elias was working on such an ambitious project, I felt torn since his work was causing him to lose sight of me. No, I''m not so emotionally immature that I get separation anxiety, but having to basically walk in the opposite direction when we had only recently developed a relationship, well, let''s just say that while I''m a half-elf, I''m still human in any way that counts. I just have a longer view.

    A Philosopher''s Stone was the holy grail of alchemy. It had been developed by the half-elf Sophophilus during the Second Great Industrial Revolution, which I imagine is predictable since a human didn''t have a long enough lifespan and a true elf wouldn''t care much for most of the things the Stone would do. The Stone could be used to make an elixir for lengthening life, for turning lead into gold, and even for raising the newly dead. It was also a conduit for using alchemy without a catalyst as sacrifice, allowing people to generate massive amounts of energy. Therefore, God had decided that such a tool must be tied to the lifespan of the user, causing it to crumble to dust on their death.

    That Elias was even attempting it was an impressive goal, but at the same time, it filled me with sadness. Most of those who tried had failed. Historically, in fact, only seven people succeeded, and with the exception of Nick Flamel most of them were extremely long-lived already. Those who failed usually wound up drunk and bitter, not to mention angry for the rest of their lives. It required immense effort and research, only to fail for reasons unknown, despite having a clear recipe.

    This much was on my mind as I continued up the path, as I examined the writing on the gate, as I walked further and further away. He was isolating himself, he was working so hard, and I was leaving him alone in hopes that it would help give him the space he needed to have success. But if he messed up, he would feel awful, and there would be nobody nearby to cheer him up!

    The path finally broke the surface of the water. We crawled up the banks and peeled off the super-heavy swimming armor, only to come face to face with a large and rather angry serpent dragon. Its whiskers twitched, then it growled. For those who have never heard a dragon roar, it''s an experience. Consider a kitten mewing, and then a full grown lion. Now consider a snake hiss by the same analogy, only the “lion” here is roughly the size of three-story tavern (and far bigger if we''re talking about elder dragons).

    This was the Gate Guardian from before? It was horrifying! Its teeth and skin were covered in a greenish shade and its body was showing signs of rot. The battle was, if possible, even more difficult than the last one. It appeared to have grown in size in the absence of a glass outer coating on its skin, and the dragon had some sort of aura surrounding it. When Nevras and Zoe tried short range attacks, they found this out after they were covered in acid. I kept waiting for Elias to cast some quick prayer to clear them up, but he was not here. It wound up being up to Azrael to quickly flush off the substance before it dissolved their hair and skin. The dragon snarled, and responded with a slash from some sharp claws. As its clawed hands as big as a terrier dug into my friend, she went down for the count. Zoe tried to heal her, but her Revive prayer was nowhere near as effective as a resurrection, and simply couldn''t bind together wounds like that. Not that it mattered. The dragon breathed out a wide spray of some type of aggressive microorganism, causing their bodies to rot in front of my eyes. I was slightly back from them so I lived just long enough to see it summon a Grim. No, Grims aren''t related to Reapers, but they do cause death. They are a spirit that if it touches a body, severs the bond between the body and the spirit. Some magic can fend them off, but Azrael had already died from the rot, and neither I nor Zoe knew how to repel that effect.

    GOD

    Reset. The party died five other times after that one, I simply figured it would be better not to subject you to that sort of thing over and over. Without their cleric providing support, their teamwork had holes, and the dragon''s abilities were able to cause instant death. It was time for me to do something.

    There was a reason I came up with my Reset ability. It was not originally for the party at all, but rather invented for me to escape the consequences of my own mistakes. The countless worlds that weren''t good for life? They were Resets that I decided to keep as examples of what not to do. The same was true of deer. Myself damn it, deer are stupid. The ability to reset reality sounds like a convenient escape, but if poor conditions persist, the flaw of this is to get stuck in a repeating loop.

    I initially decided to do the whole angels from the sky and massive miracle overload. My angels were immune to the death effect, since their bodies and souls are one. They are immune to decay and the acid as well, and their swords chopped the dragon into bite-sized pieces before the group could even blink. I clearly hadn''t remembered what happened in Biblical times. It triggered a deus ex machina ripple, and humans were stripped of all free will. Humans always ask, “If God is good, why does he allow evil? God must not be real because (some minor evil) happened to me.” Ummm yeah, about that. Let''s stop and think here. What is life like when humans have no evil? Not just no Knowledge of Good and Evil, but are stripped of it? Well, since you can''t imagine, I''m going to show you.

    Reality wavered around the group and the effect spread outward to even people watching from a distance. Gone were their personalities. Their dreams. Their will. Their hopes. Their drive. Without the concept of free will, and the desire to do their own thing, they had only one desire: to be perfect and to be loved by me. Everyone, regardless of what they were thinking before, immediately took to their knees and asked, “How can I help you, Lord? I will sacrifice all for your sake.” I don''t like the idea of burnt offerings or sacrifices, so I hastily said, “Fuck that! Go jump in the water over there and drown!” And to the best of their ability, everyone but Aqorm managed just that.

    I am not all-good. I never said I was, humans just interpreted me thus. I give misfortune to humans. Some misfortune happens because I am lazy or bored. Some of it happens because testing humans allows them to grow. But behind Oz the Great and Powerful, the whole impressive God image you humans like to see, I''m just a humbug.

    I don''t care for humans blindly worshiping me. I don''t need it, and frankly it sucks. While if I did something nice, humans can thank me, but stop groveling. What happens when you take away evil is that humans become eager-to-please puppets. Altruism is something I didn''t want but I''m no psycho either, I just want living things to live. I want them to make mistakes. I rarely use Reset to correct the actions of normal people unless they clearly need a do-over. In any case, this was a good time to try again. Oh yes, and before you ask, “omniscience” is simply the result of endless do-overs. I could give myself that ability, but I left it instead to prophets. I find it boring and depressing to know everything that could happen to people.

    This time, I outright used my power to blast it to dust. Surely, they wouldn''t go all crazy over one destruction effect, especially if I made it look like something else killed it. Unfortunately... selective effects were always an issue of mine. The attack intended to just wipe out one creature instead wound up being an area destruction effect. The whole party was wiped from existence. As was Atlantis, and so was nearby Aquamundo. It was like someone used a nuke. Even the water of the ocean was getting consumed.

    Uhhhh... third time''s the charm? This time, I thought ahead. Instead of sending angels, or doing overkill effects, I sent an avatar, a being that had pledged to help. I initially thought of sending some sort of summoner to use some kind of anti-death spirit. But more than the death of free will, someone like J. K. Rowling freaks me out. I''m not touching that franchise with a ten-foot pole. I instead decided to send something I had created before humans, something that I had hoped never to see again. Drudges.

    Drudges are a first attempt at creation of life. Coincidentally, they are also humanity''s first attempt, though humans have yet to learn to hate them. You would call them robots. They neither love nor fear, nor have any will of their own. Humans tried to fix this, but wound up either with robots following Laws of Robotics, or evil robots. They couldn''t seem to get this right either. I hated drudges, for the same reason I hated mindless worshipers. I''d rather have someone who loves or hates me, than who feels lukewarm. Still, for this purpose, they were the ones I could send.

    64756D6D79 as an avatar basically had to be ordered to do anything, but was tough enough to take on a dragon. It had no magic, but then, it didn''t need it. It was immune to acid. It was immune to flesh-rotting. It was immune to death effects, since it didn''t have a body that could be considered living under the normal definition. And while its body could be cut, it had segmented limbs that reattached, and no real nerve endings. And drudges were very strong. It kinda ripped the dragon apart, and left a mass of bones and guts behind. However, because none of Ambrosia''s party would have been happy watching robot on dragon violence, all of this happened “off-screen” (between moments). To their understanding, they simply surfaced and rather than seeing a zombie dragon, they would have seen a corpse. The robot even convinced the dragon to finally give up its dragon soul to the land. So, by the time they came, they did not even see a corpse, but rather a verdant shore with a large hill in the spot where the dragon had been.

    YAZIM JIANNE

    Having set aside the Meteor spell, along with several lower-tier spells which I could use more often, I had ultimately dispensed with the molebear blocking my path. I had just departed from a side tunnel, when I noticed a fairly large party of adventurers who had yet to see me. These people must not be allowed to discover what I was doing. I would have to blast them, but first, in order not to miss... I muttered under my breath the words, “ザ?ワルド ” words roughly associated with the halting of time. While a simple spell in theory, since there are no complicated gestures or anything, about one person in a thousand would actually understand how to cast it, even among sorcerers.

    Using sorcery is unlike thaumaturgy in a key way. A wonder-worker, strictly speaking, does not need to understand the miracles they perform. They simply are more effective this way, because the thaumaturgy doesn''t risk violating physics. Remember the more fantastic the effect, the more effort it involves to succeed. Unlike a wonder-worker, sorcerers need to understand what they are doing. This is precisely why attempting to stop time, or for that matter, traveling forwards or backwards through it is so dangerous.

    There are two major theories of what happens when time is stopped, neither of which are right. The first is that the effect accelerates the body to the point where matter around the caster appears to be standing still. The second involves slowing down the movement of all matter. Both of these ideas are dead wrong: the first would move the body at such a speed that this body would vibrate apart, causing disintegration; the second would take unbelievable amount of power, so it usually fails. If it somehow could draw that amount of mystic power, it would end the universe by causing Absolute Zero. These theories are based on a faulty notion that the energy/entropy in the universe, temperature, and rate of motion are all linked to time. In actual fact, time is simply causality. All that really changes is that this moment is stopped; because of this, time spells are far easier to cast than would originally be believed.

    A grey wave extended in an expanding sphere around me, cloaking the area in a sort of barrier against events. This is not to say nothing can be changed, rather, I alone would be the only thing in color. I could still move and breathe, and any objects I touched would move again. Using physical attacks would hurt the target, but end the effect for them. I''d have to make whatever attack count the first time, because a spell like this wasn''t much for second chances, short of turning back time. There was a limited radius, since I couldn''t exactly cover the Earth in this effect. And since we were in a tunnel underground, my options were rather limited. I pulled out some knives and took aim at the girl who had blue hair.

    AMBROSIA

    I felt weird for a second, or about 9 seconds to be exact. Time had stopped. The Crest of Chronos has suddenly started glowing. I was just in time to see a wizard tossing around knives at me, so I stepped out of the way. His hair was black with touches of white, and he wore the clothing of a sorcerer. The knives embedded themselves in the rock walls behind me. The knives were made from cheap steel, so some of them broke from the impact. The wizard looked visibly shocked, “You... you can move?!?” I was new to using time powers, so I probably could only make a movement like that for about 2 seconds every so often, even though I could still talk. As he continued to talk to me though, gradually this length seemed longer, until finally I could move somewhat freely.

    “Why shouldn''t I be able to move...?” I asked before glancing around. Everything besides us was still and a strange hue of grey. The others of my group were completely still, as was a nearby bat in mid-flight, and another hanging from a stalactite. There was also a drop of water hanging in midair, I grabbed it out of the air and drank it. It was wet, but kinda had a limestone taste to it. It was a bit too minerally for my taste.

    I asked, “So, time has stopped, huh?” He nodded. I tried touching my friends, but couldn''t get them to respond. He looked surprised but after looking at what I did, he mumbled, “Ah I see, a tighter primary temporal layer...” Finally, since nothing I did could unfreeze anyone, I just gave Nevras a big kiss, since nothing I did would obviously have any consequences. “He''ll be able to feel that when time starts again,” he said (causing me to blush), “Will I need to fight you? I don''t want anyone finding out what I''m doing.” I shrugged, “Honestly, I don''t know or care who you are or what you''re doing. My group is trying to get the Crests of the Oracles.” He gasped, “You might be a threat to me. I cannot allow an Oracle to Tao to threaten my plans. What is your name, woman?”

    Hmmm, it probably wasn''t wise to tell my name here, but I don''t tend to care about that. I told him anyway. “My name,” I paused for effect, “is Ambrosia Brahman. What''s yours?” There was something very odd about this person. I got a mad scientist vibe, like he was going to just start cackling while boasting to me of his plans. Sure enough. “You''d like to know about me, now wouldn''t you? You''d like to know that I am Yazim Jianne, the sorcerer who will summon the dread demon Belial to give my beloved a new body. You''d like to know that, wouldn''t you? But I won''t tell you, I''ll never tell you!” He continued ranting, and telling me increasingly personal details about his wife, his past, and several things about his sex life that were honestly too kinky to share.

    Finally, I cut him off, “Uhhh, you kinda did tell me.” His crazed nature and paranoia suddenly turned into garden variety shame, as he realized he''d been blabbing all sorts of personal issues and many of his plans for quite some time. I had no idea that he had a plan J-4 that involved teleporting away in the event that he managed to meet the Oracle of Tao (he''d apparently dismissed this as an impossibility, yet planned for it anyway) and told his plans to them. “Well,” I said, “I''m not gonna fight you, if you''re not gonna attack me. Here''s your stuff.” I slid back his knives, as he gulped, nodded, and left the area.

    As he left, the time stop effect suddenly caved in. His body turned into particles of light, and scattered to reform elsewhere, while the grey sphere started pulling in, with a slight recoil. The bat in flight wobbled slightly, as if wondering what it had been doing. The nearby stalactite dripped another drop. And Nevras asked, “Why can''t I hear anything? And why does my mouth feel so nice?” Okay, so maybe I kissed a little hard. “Shut up,” I said. Not that he heard me for a while.

    ZOE

    I spent much of my time looking at underground life with interest, as much of my life had been involved in the studies of the Druids, and I had learned to revere places like forests and meadows. I had been in a cave before, obviously, since I grew up wandering the natural world, but I was always fascinated by how diverse caves were. Some were covered in lava, others in sand, some were cold, and still others were filled with life.

    There was something weird about this one though. As I was trained as a Druid, I have something called Nature Sense which is the ability to feel subtle things about the surroundings. Right now, I could tell that the bioluminescent mushrooms which had been feeding off waste had slightly stunted here. They were ten or twenty minutes behind in their growth compared with those around them. This is not to say they looked withered, but more like somehow that time hadn''t existed. Very strange...

    We walked ahead. A dwarf woman up ahead looked depressed, and more than slightly listless. I wanted to help. Wasn''t there a dwarf man who wanted to see his wife?

    YAZIM JIANNE

    I arrived at the doorstep of one of my lairs a second later. Teleportation, strictly speaking, was not instant travel. They tried “instant travel” at one point during Earth''s history, it wound up being like a facsimile machine. The person would enter, have everything about them scanned, be cloned on the other side, and the current side would destroy the person. All it took was a few network errors resulting in “corrupted” scans, creating puddles of mush or amnesiacs to discard the technology. This was magic, not technology, and much more reliable. I had also learned the spell Gate, which opened a window to another place in time/space, allowing me to go anywhere including other times or dimensions, but it was much more taxing. This was a simple transmutation from solid matter to a tight ball of light. I could travel anywhere in this universe at light speed. If this were the original Earth, this wouldn''t have taken even a second, but this New Earth was actually much larger. It actually took quite a few seconds to get to this remote location. Not that I could enter directly, anyway. I could not teleport into any space that was solid and did not reflect light, and this castle... well, it was made from a mineral that refracted light to an extent that it appeared black. It was effective against beam magic, and it was specifically made so that others could not drop in uninvited.

    Those people would surely ruin my plans. I had not released that woman Ambrosia because of mercy or since she vaguely reminded me of my time with my wife. I had made a tactical retreat. I would amend my plans to orchestrate that group''s downfall.

    Soon...

    I would show all of them that I was a genius. They scoffed at my work. “Scoff scoff,” they had said. But they would see. In time.

    ELIAS

    The process of distilling out Jade and Ruby Elixir with the addition of Level Root as a powdered ingredient is actually the easy part. Honestly, if this were all there was to it, I would have finished the process within a day and a half. I managed a great deal of it while Aqorm was talking to me. I spent another two and a half days, straining the substance through smaller and smaller filters, until there were no impurities.

    Aqorm. I sighed. There''s no helping it. I cannot help but miss her, but the task that I was about to perform would make me more useful to the group. It didn''t seem to matter to them, but perhaps it mattered to me. I would need some time to catch up to the others.

    From this point on, I shall make a log, and you, the future readers of my work will bear witness to all that has transpired. I will not share these results with the others, aside from possibly Aqorm. You understand. Ambrosia had a special destiny, and she would not wish to see herself as a mere factor in my logs. Aqorm, she would accept such an account, as she understands my goals.

    As I say, the part I performed earlier was the easy part. Most books on alchemy dutifully copy these steps to any would-be master alchemist. However, most of them find after wasting most of their resources, that there is an extra step. Writers of such books fall under two categories: professional copy-editors and professional alchemists. The copy-editors grab all the books they can, and run it through the xerography process, creating fast updates to keep the world''s many books from going out of print. This isn''t a problem with books made from First Trees, their berries become ink and their branches become paper, making books that last forever. But everything else must at some point either be replicated by hand, dry-written by a thaumaturgy expert, pounded on a page by a printing press, or dry-written using alchemic processes. Unlike the so-called “dry-writing” of 20th and 21st century, these versions used no resources, they simply zapped the page heat and electrostatic charge. Any decent wonder-worker could work a xerography session. A lousy attempt, however, might wind up burning pages.

    But I digress. The point is, aside from their ability to copy pages by either magic or alchemy, they typically knew very little of either, having skill mainly at copying the works of others. And make no mistake, they were good at that, but they had little understanding of the larger theories of alchemy in many cases.

    On the other hand, professional alchemists typically reproduced their own paper, and knew a great deal about how such things worked. So much, in fact, that this was precisely the problem. They wanted to keep their trade secrets to themselves. It was only through reading a number of supplementary resources that I learned of the Reverse Inversion Method of Matter Subjugation, and its role in creating a working Philosopher''s Stone. To speak bluntly, this was high-level processing. It was the reason most alchemists had some magical ability. This process could best be compared to the complexity of atomic fusion, only for magic. I''m not sure that I can explain the process, but I shall certainly try.

    Hmmm, perhaps now would be a good time to explain how alchemy works, and how it differs from magic. Alright, let''s start with a history lesson. Long ago, there were two major schools of alchemy, Eastern and Western Alchemy. It''s much more complicated than this, but let''s start with that. Western Alchemy focused on the four elements and aether, and the use of chemistry to turn lead into gold, along with making the universal solvent. Eastern alchemy had five elements, focused on trying to turn cinnabar into gold, and was more concerned with immortality. On the surface, these seem much the same, but Eastern Alchemy was also tied into Taoist mysticism. When technology supplanted the arcane, these alchemy secrets were preserved while ultimately Western Alchemy was turned into chemistry. At around the start of the New Earth, very little information about technology could be found, and what could be found was eventually suppressed by the Council for prevention of further wars. As a result, most practical science, with the exception of chemistry, was stuck just prior to the first Industrial Revolution, roughly about 1720 or so. There were crank operated devices, but for the most part electricity was difficult to harness. On the other hand, alchemists quickly mastered the production of cement, various acids and bases, and even the use of special battery cells for holding energy from various sources.

    Of course, having no conventional sources of the aforementioned energy, they had to turn to unconventional ones. Alchemy, as it is known today, is divided into four subsets: Crafting, Synthesis, Outer Alchemy, and Inner Alchemy. Somewhere in the overlap between Outer and Inner Alchemy there is the Decomposition technique which breaks solid matter down into energy, and also the Extraction technique. I currently have no means available to do the former (it usually requires a catalyst), so let''s discuss what exactly Extraction is. Any alchemist worth his salt has at least two means of generating energy, with up to five total: using the elements whether four or five (or some other model), using one''s own body''s energy as fuel, using batteries that stored energy from another source, using a catalyst, or through Extraction. So what, you ask, is Extraction?

    This may take awhile. Everything in nature, has energy with regard to its existence. Living things like trees and people have jiva, nonliving things have ajiva. The average alchemist can extract this being into a flame-like energy known as anima, or animus, ummm, let''s call it anima. Extraction withers what it just touched to draw anima out, which is why it is usually used on soil. Still, the soil can''t grow anything until it renews itself. This anima energy can then be used for Elemental Synthesis, for Decomposition, to power basic Synthesis, for Transmutation, and so on.

    All of those things are Outer Alchemy. Inner Alchemy, on the other had, was more akin to mind-over-matter techniques. Its source was usually the body itself, and it used its power to energize the body in various ways. Releasing static electricity, detoxification, fusing rock or metal to harden the body, regeneration, all of these were Inner Alchemy. The goal of Outer Alchemy is to get the body to regenerate so the body is immortal.

    As for magic, well... Runes are individual marks, which govern the formation of matter and energy. They allow magic to operate, but more than that, they alter how things function on an atomic level. Now, the problem of all of this is that, typically magic doesn''t create matter, but rather works with energy. Plenty of people could use runes to make stuff, but only angels, exorcists, and innkeepers (don''t ask) have ever been able to use runes to truly create something independent of themselves, using either the Forging of Objects or the Forging of Heart. The stage of creation above this was the Forging of All Things, which to my knowledge had only been done by God. Supposedly, there was one layer of creation beyond even that, the so-called True Creation, but that was just a legend. Most people won''t understand the distinction, except to say that the quality of Original Intent is higher, as the higher up, the more real things got, and the more an object has its own nature. By the time you got to the Forging of All Things, matter had exactly the same Original Intent as something that had always existed.

    For anything else, all other rune creation had the same drawbacks of enchantment, that of locking up mystic power. To avoid this problem, most runes are used to alter matter instead. So the first mistake is that people seeking to create a stone resort to enchanting, when they actually need to be using runes in a sound manner to alter matter into new matter. After all, “matter can neither be created nor destroyed,” as per the Law of Conservation of Mass. Matter can only be transformed, with alchemy or runes.

    I believe at some point Synthesis has been mentioned, and how it typically produces faulty materials. This is not always the case. You see, typically Synthesis works to create materials from scraps by formula. However, the Reverse Inversion Method of Matter Subjugation is a high-level brand of Synthesis using a few key differences, mainly the bonding of free matter with an excess of energy to an already existing material. In essence, while normal Synthesis fell apart because the objects had no Original Intent, this drew some from previously existing materials, cobbling together something from a composite of other resources. That is, rather than trying to build a crappy product from a list of ingredients, I was redirecting a freakish amount of energy to remake raw materials into finished matter. I''m told this is how a food athanor produces real food, and not tasteless garbage, but to be fair, it only has a few recipes.

    Even though it wasn''t really my energy going into this Stone, I clasped my hands, straining from the effort. I chose to use a circle to draw in elements, along with several batteries that I had made from extracting along the way. I had been careful to do so sparingly, as I had heard of many greedy alchemists that nearly made wastelands as a result of rampant use of alchemy in this way.

    I unclasped my hands at last, having finished the current process, bringing the total number of days spent to five. The Philosopher''s Stone was now totally solid, and unlike other methods employed by misled alchemists, it had properly solidified rather than simply hardening from evaporation of all moisture. Those stones typically shattered when exposed to air. I pulled the mass from the beaker. It was tempting to believe myself done on the fifth day, but I knew better. As exhausted as I was from lack of sleep, there was a reason this took a week. It was modeled after the Creation itself. God would permit Philosopher''s Stones to be made, only by following proper procedure. If I did not, the Stone would explode within the day, and I''m not talking about a puny meth lab explosion. The built up array of runes contained enough energy to completely obliterate a 5000 mile radius. But let''s not focus on failure, okay?

    For the fifth, and much of the sixth day, I had to enchant the Philosopher''s Stone, but not just any enchantment. The process was called Life Giving, a process similar to the magic ritual known as Forging of Objects, and was a key part of many methods of golem production. It offered the user''s own lifespan as collateral, allowing what was created to “live” for the user''s lifespan in return for cutting their own shorter. The Philosopher''s Stone could then be used to extend that life back through using brewed elixirs, but if they were already old when they tried, cutting lifespan meant the process would be lethal, and the Stone would turn to dust. I still had my life ahead of me, but I felt like I was going to die from exhaustion after several straight days of strenuous work.

    At last, the process completed. The stone glowed in its core a faint green at steady rhythm while the stone itself turned a deep purple. The crystal was as clear as water, allowing one to see the rune in the core. It was a teardrop crystal roughly the size of a large cobblestone, but it weighed about as much as a pebble. My job wasn''t over yet, but now was the easy part. I had to rest, as did the stone within its container. For the rest of today until tomorrow. This is why it took seven days.

    I dreamed a very strange dream. I was in the Great Library. I was just about to settle in for a day of reading, when I noticed this was a dream... I awoke. After I woke up, I went to the library to read. I was just about to settle in for a day of reading, when I noticed this was a dream... I awoke. I was just about to settle in for a day of reading, when I noticed this was a dream... I awoke.

    The Stone glowed, and my eyes fluttered open after a substantial amount of rest. I had definitely recovered, but I had a roaring headache from my dream. I donned my diving suit and made my way toward the rest of my group, a week later than them.

    NEVRAS

    Ambrosia and the others continued through the cave. The cave started out slimy, and transitioned to a dry cave with jagged rocks. There were mushrooms littered all around the moister portions, and some of these were huge, creating actual obstacles. Somehow or other, we managed, and we found ourselves in the section with the dwarf woman.

    “Hi there,” I said. She was singing some sort of work song, until she turned around and noticed us. She gave a little gasp, and hid her body behind a rock.

    And yet, dwarves were shy. Staying underground does have an effect on interpersonal skills, since the only contact they usually get is maybe meeting when their tunnels cross. They have a lot of festivals, which usually wind up just being pretexts to consume large qualities of beer. But occasionally, such a thing as conversation happens. Sёarch* The NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    She mumbled and fidgeted, “H-hi...” Ambrosia asked her, “You wouldn''t happen to be looking for another dwarf, would you?” Her look of surprise mixed with a slight blush. “You...” she paused, “you met him?” I nodded, then spent the next half-hour explaining how the dwarf was on the other side of the cave, but the path itself led straight through the water. I asked, “Would you like to take one of our diving suits?” She shook her head pointing to her petite frame that wouldn''t fit properly. She asked me instead to elaborate on all the details I had seen concerning the rock walls. I hadn''t noticed it before, but come to think of it, even the open portion where we fought the dragon did seem to have a cave far above us acting as a sort of ceiling in places. Picking up her pickaxe, she expertly cleared away the rocks in her way. I noticed how she seemed to have a lot more energy to her swings than the other dwarf had about building a railroad. In a few minutes, she had managed to build a tunnel, and I no longer saw her.

    We continued on. The cave that had been filled with mushrooms and mycozoe near the edge of the water was starting to feel increasingly cold the closer we came to the opening of the cave. We stepped out into the open snow. The area was coated with permafrost, broken occasionally by alpine forests or mountain ranges, yet the snow and ice never receded until the shore. There were three large structures nearby: to the southeast was a castle that I never wanted to enter if I could help, let''s call this the Castle of Fear; the direct south had a mansion surrounded by trees which Aqorm pointed out was her own; and the western coast had the thriving walled city of Kushiyama.