While waiting for Tom to arrive, Hruk decided to take on the first few of the trials from the Mages’ Guilds. They gave him a moderate stipend for research, hiring a party, and supplies before sending him away.

The first of the two involved developing a new spell using the attunements and knowledge he already owned. They gave him access to the library too to make the process easier. They were pleasantly surprised when Hruk finished the task within a day. As an Artificer with the Adept rank in Scribing Mastery, Hruk finished the task in two days.

Access to the guild’s library gave him the one thing he was missing: reference material. Following some paperwork and several requests, they let me follow him as an assistant. They checked my Loreseeker and Scribing Mastery ranks to ensure that I wasn’t just a nobody entering their grounds. I just about passed.

I played along for a while until the surrounding mages got bored with watching us before delving into my own research. There were two topics I needed to investigate: Seekers of Oth and the strange stone I found on their vessel. Unfortunately, with the latter, I didn’t know where to start. So, I looked into Oth first.

Bonecrusher had given me a handful of leads. From what I understood, Oth classed as a deity but wasn’t quite like Lord of Shadows or Sang. He didn’t class in the same level as Tracy or the other Cosmics either. Instead, he was an entity of the Void. I didn’t quite understand whether the Void empty space between disks or whatever plane existed between universes. So, I picked up ‘Extra-planar Dimensions’, ‘The Void and Its Residents’, ‘The Inbetween’, and ‘Void Cults’.

As I leafed through the old tomes and their glossaries while taking notes, Loreseeker gained ranks with my growing understanding of Diskverse.

The Void

Scholars, deities, and Cosmics have all investigated the Void’s origin, but none have found a definite answer. Many theorise that it’s the space between the infinite universes. Others believe that the Void existed long before they came into existence and the many Universes float in the Void’s emptiness.

As an artificially created Universe, Diskverse is closer to the Void when compared to most other Universes. As a result, the Void’s denizens can crossover to our plane of existence with more ease than the others.

Loreseeker Mastery has progressed to Apprentice Rank 1!

The Void’s Residents

Fear and shock dominated Diskverse’s denizens when the first Void creatures revealed themselves. The Cosmics, mortals, and everyone in between considered the Void empty space with no life or energy. The voidlings proved them wrong.

The Void’s energies do not follow the same patterns as natural laws as the other planes of existence. The mana in them is unique too when compared to the other planes ruled by magic. As a result, the flora and fauna are unique existences which most struggle to comprehend. In fact, sentient mortals are often driven to madness when exposed to them.

They can survive temperatures close to Absolute Zero and are often found with frost-focused mana. When in Diskverse, they consume Life Mana hungrily to strengthen themselves and adapt to the plane.

The lesser Void creatures—Voidlings—often serve entities higher up in the food chain and can often be linked to one supreme, ageless Void creature or more. These entities often sue Mind Mana to control and rule over the others, flooding Universes to corrupt the plane and prepare it for their arrival.

As I read over my arranged notes, I couldn’t help but pause. I had set out to understand the Void and Oth, but suddenly I found myself with a hypothesis for the stone. It sat in my pocket, wrapped in rune-covered cloth. The aetherite-laced fabric pulsed occasionally with lightning-focused Creation mana, masking the object’s magical signature. I ran my finger along it, recalling the energies it had absorbed and those it rejected. Hruk had theorised it wasn’t a living entity since it absorbed the ice elemental’s mana, but the new evidence said otherwise. If the stone originated from the Void, it very well could be a living entity. Given its controlled absorption of Mind Mana, I theorised, it was perhaps connected to the Void’s higher entities. Perhaps it was an egg containing one of their offspring.

Your hypothesis regarding the stone matches one of the system’s many theories.

Loreseeker Mastery has progressed to Apprentice Rank 4!

Oth the Consumer

Stories regarding Oth extend far beyond the known limits of natural Universes. As opposed to what most believe, he isn’t a creature of malice. Instead, most consider him a near-indestructible force of nature. Hunger and perhaps ambition drive him.

Many worlds and disks across the multiverses now sit devoid of life and inert due to his influence. Oth specifically targets planes featuring at least one child of Yggdrasil. He fights and devours them, temporarily gaining the power to open rifts in space. Then he uses them to move between Universes, looking for his next target. The few that have encountered Oth at close range and survived were driven mad by looking into his infinite eyes. The handful that fled with their sanity intact practised Mind Mana and described him as an entity of tentacles, hooks, and suckers.

None have yet figured out a method to communicate with Oth, but many theorise that he seeks to transcend to the same planes of existence as Yggdrasil—the Tree of Life—by consuming her, he’ll gain omnipresence and return all of existence to the Void.

My heartbeat hastened as I poured over the many passing accounts of Oth. I struggled to understand how many believed he wasn’t an entity of malice. They called him a Forgotten God and detailed accounts of how he first flooded worlds with voidlings. Once the creatures had absorbed all the life energy from every living entity on the plain, he fuelled himself with the stolen mana and attacked the Child of Yggdrasil to fuel. Then when I finally found a brief account regarding the cults that worshipped him, I struggled to fathom why they wanted to bring him into the same Universe as him.

The Seekers of Oth

The Seekers are the youngest and only surviving cult dedicated to Oth. They survived thus far by being reasonably harmless. They worship Oth and preach of his coming, but do not actively work towards bringing him into Arena Disk.

They believe that Oth will manifest on the disk using his strength alone. While his physical form can’t penetrate the Cosmics’ protection around Arena Disk, he will possess an entity born of the Union between a void creature and the disk’s citizen.

“That’s it,” I mumbled, my brows furrowing. The pieces fell into place and my hypothesis turned into belief. While the Seekers of Oth weren’t directly working towards summoning Oth, they were focusing their efforts towards birthing a vessel suitable for his possession. They were likely invading Eldar’s Port from the inside to make it a feeding ground. The high population density would let the Forgotten God feast on life and rapidly gain strength.

Loreseeker has progressed to Apprentice Rank 7!

Hruk snapped me out of my research, having completed his spell. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to spectate the demonstration necessary to pass the trial. However, Doctor Whoo, Booger, and I got to join him for the following test. The following morning, we headed into the abandoned undercity, seeking monsters. Given the list of parts we needed to gather, I guessed the guild intended to use Hruk and other candidates as errand boys to enter the guild.