Torivors, shapecraft, and the founding of the Outskirts

  “It didn’t go well at first,” Dandalus confessed. “We made a modest realm. We brought in mortals from some of the neighboring worlds. The easiest to access was Earth. But the mortals arrived with much more powerful shaping skills than the typical echo, and they soon destroyed the world we created. Everyone we had brought here died.”

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  “We labored to restructure the shaping power itself,” Dandalus said. “Shaping had been the main problem. Mortals would come to the world we had made and destroy all we had created. So we toiled until we learned to use shaping to redesign how shaping itself functioned.”

  “That sounds like shapecraft,” Cole said.

  “Doesn’t it?”

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  “And you divided the new world into five kingdoms.”

  “Yes!” Dandalus said. “You’re catching on! We only allowed certain shaping abilities in the various kingdoms. We wanted mortals to be able to shape, but not enough to destroy what we had created. The shaping in Sambria is called shaping because it is the closest to the original shaping. Just not quite as powerful. There was also enchanting, tinkering, weaving, and minding. When we brought mortals in the next time, the experiment worked. The world held together. We had produced the five kingdoms of the Outskirts.”

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  “So if you split up the shaping powers, how does shapecraft fit in?” Cole asked.

  “Shapecraft taps into the original shaping of the echolands,” Dandalus said. “Raw shaping. Natural shaping. The torivors have figured out ways to work around the system we established. They can sidestep many of the rules we made. If they succeed in truly unleashing raw shaping, mortal shapers will once again tear apart the world we built. Except this time, millions will perish.”

Chapter 29