3 — Delegated Duties Johnathan, after several drinks, was called away to attend to his delegated duties. Once alone, Daelus managed to track down Kaite. He felt hopeful to find a kindred spirit in her given their mutual disinterest in the song and dance most delegates seemed compelled to perform for one another. The conversation was short, unpleasant and left Daelus regretting the attempt.

  Following that, he abandoned any attempt to engage, retreating back to his table and losing himself to thought. This was interrupted by a distinct chime. He looked up and noticed the room had mostly cleared out. Someone was approaching: a slightly familiar face. It was someone who had been there following the crossing over period. Suddenly, Daelus suspected it was an entourage. Jonathan said that it cked decorum to use the projections in the lodge, but not all social rules applied to all people in all situations.The man — surely an entourage, though whose was anyone’s guess — invited Daelus to come upstairs to receive his kit. The kit, it turned out, was an empty room so quiet Daelus could hear his ears ringing. There was a single table standing in the center, draped in red cloth, with two white cards and a pque.

  The pque read: The Two Commands.

  “From the Benefactors,” Daelus reasoned aloud. Fatigue over the cultish obtuseness of the presentation tugged at his mind, and he made the decision to quash it. He was part of this, and there were certain things he simply had to accept.

  He turned the first card over. “Daelus Thresh will found a museum. He will gather within art and culture from the world over. He will control the narrative surrounding what it presents. He will influence public perception of the outside world.”

  “Pretty sure that's four commands,” Daelus said in an attempt to amuse himself. It didn't work.

  He turned over the other card. “We grant Daelus Thresh an entourage to aid him in his delegated duties. To project an entourage into being, imagine the form of a man able to act according to your commands. Fill your mind with surety that it can and will obey. Form a clear and precise command and fill the projected shape with the intentionality to complete the task.”

  This was the only writing about the ability that the Benefactors allowed. Daelus had both expected more, and somehow, less.

  “I suppose I may as well try.”

  Daelus imagined the form of a man, and nothing happened.

  He reasoned that the steps were intended to be done all at once rather than as an ordered list, and tried again.

  He imagined someone taking the instructional card from his hand and pcing it back on the table exactly as it was before, and with a surprising sensation of ease, it was so.

  The being standing before him wasn't quite a shadow but the light in the room didn't quite interact with it as if it was fully there. It had a face but it was the kind of visage one might see on a stranger in a dream. One could see something but as your eyes moved over it the details changed.There was something else, too. A scent, though Daelus wasn’t quite sure he was actually sensing it through his nose. It was more of a feeling of a sensation of a scent.

  Daelus tried something else. Jonathan said a delegate could manifest their will directly into the entourage. It would be like seeing out of someone else's eyes. He tried it, following the same process as before.

  Nothing happened at first, but Daelus quickly realized his attitude was a bit incredulous. There was no reason to believe it wouldn't work. So far everything had been just as he had been tol—

  I saw myself standing in front of me and somehow the other me and also I were here at the same time. I felt an arming sensation in my head, like an air pressure change when a train rushed into a long tunnel, but a hundred times more intense. Feeling my heart pound and head to spinning, I willed it to stop. I needed it to stop. I focused on the surety that it would now sto—

  Daelus caught his breath and managed to steady himself against the table, which thankfully was up for the task.

  It had worked but unlike simply commanding the entourage, the sensation was overwhelmingly visceral.

  Then Daelus had a second, completely different visceral reaction as he gained his bearings and looked at the entourage. It was no longer a vague dream–shadow of a shape.

  It was a woman.