Chapter Summaries

Neph studied Moon City's lessons, obtained food from Audrey, and found that eating Mummy Powder while reading history and mythology could help her digest her potion. As she prepared to begin combat classes, Narani was summoned underground by the High Priest, and Nim unexpectedly addressed Neph as “Your Excellency.”

• Neph questioned Neph about the poem and the communion, then agreed to contact her again after Audrey collected the first batch of food.
• Neph memorized a ritual directed at the Ancient Sun God and received bread, meat, pies, and Mummy Powder from Audrey.
• Neph discovered that Mummy Powder and studying history and mythology could help her digest her potion within about a month.
• Neph asked Narani to let her attend Moon City's combat classes starting the next day.
• A young messenger summoned Narani underground to meet the High Priest, and Neph followed her to the Black Tower.
• Nim met Neph by the basement stairs and addressed her as “Your Excellency Neph.”

Neph learned that Arula had died by suicide, leaving Moon City without its last Artisan Beyonder Characteristic. After Narani went to see her, Neph offered to tell Nim the myth of the Lord’s past, and Nim asked what had happened to Him.

• Nim told Narani and Neph that Arula had killed herself and that her Artisan characteristic had been their last.
• Narani went to see Arula’s body, while Nim explained that it could not safely be preserved because of the risk of corpse mutation.
• Nim asked Neph whether the Lord had sent her because He saw Moon City’s troubles, and Neph offered to share what she knew of the Lord’s history.
• Narani left to see Arula through her final journey, and Neph followed Nim to the Black Tower.
• Nim asked whether anyone else had been beside the Lord before Neph left, and Neph answered that there had been.
• Neph explained that the Lord might be unable to hear prayers, and Nim asked what had happened to Him.

Neph told Nim that the Left Hand of God was Dark Angel Sasrir, then sensed Amon's influence around the clock and suspected he had tried to tamper with her memories. After checking herself in the Pure White Space for parasitization, she explained Amon's identity and hostility toward the present Lord.

• Neph recited a poem, and Nim identified the Left Hand of God as Dark Angel Sasrir.
• Neph sensed Amon's influence near the clock and hurried out of the room, believing he had tried to alter her memories.
• Neph used the washroom to enter the Pure White Space and check whether she had been parasitized by a Worm of Time.
• Neph returned and told Nim that Amon was a child of her Lord, had a nasty personality, and did not acknowledge the present Lord as his father.

Neph explained the True Creator’s condition and warned Nim that Amon threatened any city that embraced the Lord. She refused to reveal the Lord’s honorific name, then learned that Moon City’s mystical forces could not affect her, though Amon might still harm her physically.

• Neph told Nim that the True Creator had been re-formed from negative emotions and could not hear prayers, while the Forsaken Land had been polluted by the Lord’s corruption.
• A clock given by the Angel of Time ticked abnormally, but Nim said it had never shown any problems before.
• Neph named the Eternal Blazing Sun, the Lord of Storms, and the God of Knowledge and Wisdom as three of the betrayers who remained active outside the Forsaken Land.
• Neph refused to give Nim the True Creator’s honorific name and warned that Amon stole the lights of cities that converted to the Lord.
• Neph said she was preparing to help Moon City, and Nim explained that mystical forces could not affect her, though she considered that Amon could still kill her with physical force.

Neph trained for combat while avoiding Amon, then helped the Tarot Club with potion ingredients and intelligence about the Intis ambassador. After the meeting, she guided Klein toward resources and allies he would need to face the coming assassination attempt.

• Neph began morning Combat practice, saw Narani calmly attending class, and continued to find no trace of Amon probing her.
• At the Tarot Club, Neph requested ingredients for her Magician potion, promised Audrey the Psychiatrist formula, and explained she lacked the supplementary ingredients.
• Klein assigned the Tarot Club members to assassinate Intis Ambassador Beckland Jean Madan, and Neph warned them that he was a Sequence 6 Conspirer with a Sequence 5 Marionettist assistant.
• Audrey offered Neph 1,000 pounds for detailed intelligence, and Klein realized Neph’s hint meant he would likely face a Sequence 5 assassin.
• After the gathering, Neph told Klein to visit the Bravehearts Bar that night and again on Wednesday, and said he could safely buy a Listener Beyonder characteristic with her Lord’s protection.

Neph advised Klein about Marionettists and Faceless Beyonders, then sold him the Lawyer Pathway’s Barbarian potion formula for five hundred pounds. Klein memorized the formula and learned that the Beast Tamer Pathway’s Sequence 9 was Apothecary, before Kaspars came to lead him somewhere.

• Neph explained that she knew much of Roselle’s Diary and that only original pages would help her.
• Neph warned Klein about Marionettists, his bodyguard’s three-day commission, and Faceless Beyonders who could change their appearance.
• Neph offered Klein the Barbarian potion formula, and after bargaining, Klein agreed to pay five hundred pounds.
• Neph wrote down the formula, and Klein asked whether the Beast Tamer Pathway had a potion.
• Neph told Klein that the Beast Tamer Pathway’s Sequence 9 was Apothecary.
• At the Bravehearts Bar, Kaspars Kanlin approached Klein and said he would take him somewhere.

Klein attended a gathering led by Mr. Eye of Wisdom, where he traded the Barbarian potion formula for a Rune Steel Sword. After receiving the sword, he announced that he had an item for sale.

• Kaspars charged Klein two pounds to lead him into a gathering at a dark house.
• A Fat Apothecary offered medicines and thirty pounds for someone to clear beasts from the Backlund Bridge sewers, and a man accepted the commission.
• A hooded woman offered a Rune Steel Sword for five hundred pounds or the Barbarian potion formula, while a gloomy man tried to buy it with money.
• Klein offered the Barbarian potion formula, and Mr. Eye of Wisdom authenticated it with a ring.
• The hooded woman chose Klein's formula over the gloomy man's higher cash bid, and Klein received the Rune Steel Sword.
• Klein announced that he had an item for sale.

Klein sold a crimson Beyonder characteristic at a gathering and bought a dangerous Mystical Item after learning it could help him face a Sequence 5 enemy. In Moon City, Neph prayed to the True Creator for help with Amon, but the response overwhelmed her with incomprehensible murmurs.

• Klein sold the crimson substance to Eye of Wisdom for 400 pounds, then asked the gathering for help against a Sequence 5 enemy.
• A man offered Klein a Mystical Item that let its user hear a great existence, and Klein decided to buy it despite Eye of Wisdom's warning about its danger.
• Neph impressed her combat instructor by quickly mastering techniques and wondered whether muscle memory could be part of memory.
• Neph created a Spirituality Barrier and prayed to the True Creator, reporting that Amon had tried to steal her memories through Moon City's clock.
• Neph received a cacophony of murmurs that made it difficult for her to understand the True Creator's response.

Neph recovered from the corruption and deciphered the True Creator’s message, while Klein arranged to hire a bodyguard against the Marionettist. Neph then revealed she had the complete Unshadowed potion formula, giving Klein a way to meet Mr. A’s demand despite his growing debt.

• Neph found the corruption gone and deciphered rituals and a symbolic emblem from the Blank Canvas’s message from the True Creator.
• Neph decided she would not perform the Descent Ritual and thought she needed Miss Justice to become a Psychiatrist in case she went mad.
• Klein went to the Bravehearts Bar, where Maric offered to have a stronger friend protect him for three days for 1,000 pounds.
• Klein told Maric he needed time to raise the money and would choose the three days within the next two weeks.
• Klein told Neph that Miss Justice had hired Mr. A to assassinate Beckland and paid 2,000 pounds in advance, leaving Klein 11,000 pounds in debt.
• Neph offered Klein the complete Unshadowed potion formula, saying she knew the formulas for her own pathway.

Klein discussed the Unshadowed potion and the connection between the True Creator and the City of Silver’s Sun God with Neph, but declined her offer of the formula. After Neph left, Klein considered hiring Maric’s friend as a bodyguard, while Neph contemplated asking Ouroboros for help obtaining a Mystical Item.

• Klein asked Neph whether Mr. A’s Aurora Order ties made it dangerous to share the Unshadowed formula, and learned that a Sequence 5 advancement ritual was its crucial element.
• Neph joked that Mr. A might have to choose between worshipping the Hanged Sun and the current Sun if he became an Unshadowed.
• Klein connected the True Creator with the Sun God worshipped by the City of Silver and asked whether the Eternal Blazing Sun had become a god by consuming a divided deity.
• Klein refused Neph’s offer of the Unshadowed formula, choosing instead to repay Miss Justice’s ten thousand pounds with information and knowledge.
• Neph explained that the Aurora Order had a Soothsayer, then left after Klein suggested using her as an explanation for his own guidance.
• Klein wrote a divination about the risk of hiring Maric’s friend as a bodyguard, while Neph considered asking Ouroboros for help.

Neph learned that Moon City had no funeral customs and explained how people in her homeland honored the dead. She then sought a Monster Pathway Beyonder characteristic to help create a Sealed Artifact that could purify corruption, and Narani advised her to ask the High Priest.

• Neph asked Narani whether Arula's brother Bartel had been released from quarantine and wondered how Moon City held funerals.
• Narani and Zaphir revealed that they did not know what a funeral was, so Neph explained how the dead were remembered in her homeland.
• Narani remarked that everyone in Moon City might count as a hero, prompting Neph to consider how she could help its people.
• Neph asked Narani which herbs belonged to the domain of fate and whether Moon City had any Monster Pathway Beyonders.
• Narani said Moon City had Monster Pathway characteristics but no surviving Beyonders, and Neph asked about using a 'Lucky One' or 'Winner' characteristic for a Sealed Artifact.
• Narani suggested that Neph ask the High Priest for help, and Neph agreed.

Klein introduced Mr. World to Neph at Sefirah Castle and asked her about corruption, the Backlund ruins, and the nature of orthodox gods. At the Monday gathering, World joined the Tarot Club, and the Fool gave Justice an assessment task for two candidates she had proposed.

• Klein showed Neph Mr. World, who fell when Klein's attention shifted, and Neph kicked him to test whether he was solid.
• Neph agreed to help Klein remove corruption from a Beyonder characteristic when he needed it and continue buying ingredients for his Magician potion.
• Neph warned Klein not to explore the Backlund ruins where Medici was hidden and explained that orthodox gods had won and used faith to resist divinity's influence.
• At the Monday gathering, the Fool introduced Mr. World as a new member, and Neph complained about the time difference.
• The Fool told Justice that her two proposed candidates were still being assessed and asked her to commission them with a task in her own name.

At the Tarot Club, Audrey offered to pay the Fool’s Blessed the remaining five thousand pounds for the Beckland assassination after her finances recovered. Neph sold Audrey the Psychiatrist potion formula on credit and offered to provide higher-level formulas, while the World sought an Elven Spring marrow crystal.

• The World asked whether he could post requests and gather materials, and Justice Audrey explained that he had to wait for Mr. Fool’s reading time.
• After Mr. Fool finished reading Alger’s diary pages, he praised Audrey for dealing with Beckland and asked what reward she wanted.
• Audrey said she owed the Fool’s Blessed five thousand pounds after accounting for the Qilingus bounty and Beckland’s assassination, but asked to pay a few months later; Mr. Fool agreed.
• The World requested an Elven Spring marrow crystal, and Neph asked Derrick and Alger about the ingredients she needed.
• Neph offered Audrey the Psychiatrist potion formula on credit at the market price and said she could provide formulas up to the Demigod level.
• The World said he had another request.

During the Tarot Club meeting, Neph explained the limits of charm and arranged to obtain Audrey’s language memories. Afterward, she told Klein that the Seer pathway’s Sequence 0 was called the Fool and revealed that her own Sequence 0 was Bitter Winter.

• Neph explained that high-sequence charm could affect different genders and species, but a Sequence 7’s charm was limited.
• Audrey agreed to provide Neph with memories of languages she knew, and Neph named the Planter pathway as the one that could make ships produce milk.
• After the Tarot Club meeting ended, Klein asked Neph about Sequence 0 and the Seer pathway.
• Neph told Klein that the Fool had already been born, though the current Fool had not yet become Sequence 0, and said that a prophecy was the history of the future.
• Neph revealed that the Sequence 0 corresponding to Ghoul was called Bitter Winter.

Klein wrote to Azik about spending part of the bounty money owed to him, while Neph borrowed a Lucky Coin and performed a ritual seeking good fortune. She contained the Pure White Walker Beyonder characteristic in a bucket and planned to check on it later, uncertain whether the ritual or coin would work.

• Klein wrote Azik that he had used 10,000 pounds of the bounty money to arrange the ambassador's assassination and promised to repay him.
• Klein sent the letter to Azik with the copper whistle and lamented the cost.
• Neph asked Nim to lend her a luck-enhancing Mystical Item, and he arranged for her to receive the Lucky Coin.
• Neph performed a ritual seeking the favor of good fortune, and the black ink on the Blank Canvas spread and shimmered with silver.
• Neph brought the Lucky Coin and a wooden bucket into the pure-white space, then enclosed the Pure White Walker Beyonder characteristic in the bucket.
• Neph returned to reality with the coin and prayed for the True Creator to take pity on her.

Klein received Creeping Hunger from the letter writer and took it to Sefirah Castle to study. Neph discovered that A Bucket of White Paint could erase traces, including corruption, and proposed leaving it in Moon City before Nim asked her how he should address her.

• Klein read the letter explaining that Creeping Hunger required human souls, flesh, and blood, then took the glove to Sefirah Castle.
• Neph divined the effects of the paint bucket and learned that its white paint could erase traces until a person or object was forgotten by the world.
• Neph confirmed that she could take A Bucket of White Paint outside the pure white space and brought its information to Nim.
• Neph told Nim she wanted to leave the Sealed Artifact in Moon City because it could purify corruption.
• Nim and Neph recognized the artifact’s potential, and Nim asked Neph, “How should I address you?”

Neph explained that she was the successor to the White Angel and revealed that Amon had been spying on their conversation through a clock. Nim temporarily sealed her paint bucket and then asked Neph to help erase the corruption in his body.

• Neph rejected the names White Angel and God of Winter, then told Nim she was the successor to the White Angel, one of those who devoured the Lord's body.
• Neph used A Bucket of White Paint to erase Amon's surveillance from the clock.
• Nim showed Neph a powerful Sealed Artifact, a magnifying glass that he had once used to observe her.
• Nim used his Nightwatcher's Evernight Domain to temporarily seal A Bucket of White Paint.
• Nim asked Neph to help erase the corruption from his body, and she agreed.

Neph used her unusual Spirit Vision and paint to remove much of the corruption from Nim, though the treatment also made his Beyonder Characteristics less stable. Nim planned a ceremony to announce Neph’s arrival, and she proposed a funeral to bury Moon City’s painful past and welcome a new life.

• Neph saw the extensive damage to Nim’s spiritual body and painted over some of its corruption.
• Neph removed about sixty percent of Nim’s corruption, easing his burden but destabilizing his Beyonder Characteristics.
• Nim told Neph he planned a sacrificial ceremony to announce her arrival and asked about its details and a priest.
• Neph told Nim her power came from memories and suggested holding a funeral to bury Moon City’s past.

Neph agreed to help Nim prepare a funeral ritual and learned that Moon City could organize it within a week or two. She struggled to create an honorific name, then settled on three lines based on memory, ice and snow, and things fading toward their endpoint.

• Nim asked Neph what a funeral was, and she explained it before agreeing to write instructions for him.
• Nim asked whether Neph had an honorific name and advised her to choose one before the ritual; Neph promised to provide one before she departed.
• Neph gave Nim several versions of funeral practices, then sat down to invent an honorific name for herself.
• Neph wrote the first two lines: “The witness to all, the one who remembers all” and “The sovereign of ice and snow.”
• After considering the pathway’s connections to memory, death, and fading, Neph wrote the third line: “The endpoint of all that fades.”

Neph discovered that she had entered an Outer Deity’s divine kingdom and learned that she could hear prayers through the Blank Canvas, but doing so seemed to end her beginner protection period. Later, Nim asked whether she planned to attend Moon City’s funeral ceremony, and Neph mistakenly assumed he meant she would lie in the coffin.

• Neph entered the Blank Canvas’s white world and found an ice sculpture of herself, which shattered and revealed a record identifying her as Cheng Jianxue, a human who had appeared after a sacrificial ritual.
• Neph concluded that she had transmigrated into an Outer Deity’s divine kingdom and suspected its owner called prophecies “history from the future.”
• Neph recited the God of Winter’s honorific name again and entered the white world, where she could finally make out prayers.
• Neph realized that entering the white world in spirit form might mean she was now vulnerable to mystical powers and that her beginner protection period had ended.
• Nim asked Neph whether she intended to attend Moon City’s funeral ceremony, and Neph replied that she thought he meant she would lie in the coffin.