The Base of the Brother Hood was comprised in such a fashion that Ann still found herself helplessly lost at times if she were not vigilant enough to notice the etchings made into the arch ways and at the end of each hallway.

The Central Base, like all of the other bases around the world were built on a numerical Foundation, and inverted like an inside out honey comb. With three Companion Stair cases, called the Primary Breezeway’s, that cut clean across the Five Foundations of the Base, which extend deep underground to the Bowels and Ghoul nests, but also reached high up to the sky, culmination in the Sanctum.

The work of stone was a marvel, accomplished only by the hand of skilled gifted Mana Masons, who had sculpted their home centuries ago. And over the years more gifted Children had kept expanding upon the work of their predecessors.

The Base was navigable, if you kept track of the Foundation number you were on and added or subtracted the Numerals located at the top and bottom of the Hallways.

For Ann, she knew that if she came to the end of a Hallway and there was a IV etched into the wall and a II on her right and a IL on her left, Ann knew that she had to keep going forwards.

The symbol II meant that she was going to a room. And IL meant that she was heading into a Branching Hallway, which would just continue to carry her in a circle, until she arrived back at one of the Primary Breezeways. The Breezeways lead up and down, interconnected and bisected by countless doorways and Floors.

The Base of the Brother Hood that she called home was only one of nearly four other ancient bulwarks built during the time when Mankind flourished and Merlin the Great toiled for a kingdom of prosperity and greatness. A time of War, destruction, renewal, and the relentless pursuit of progress.

There had been many more Base’s, opulent works of stone erected all over the world, but Ann had been taught, that history and time had not been kind to the Children of the Sun...and disease and War and weakness had dwindled their greatness. The false Gods above had slaughtered so many of them...and now they had been reduced to the shadows.

Their Bases, now resided in but a few corners of the world...and were allocated deep in the earth.

Ann made her way along the Second Foundation. This Foundation was where Eric and others in more esteemed positions, like the Councilors and Healers slept.

The Fifth Foundation is where Hovel had his Offices. Most Alchmists stayed far away unless summoned to the Saviors side if they did not want to suffer his ire. That Fifth Foundation was built chock full of Observation rooms, for Alchmist experiments. Testing rooms, the Awakening Rooms, and the Ghoul Pins. The Bowels, which stretched beneath the Base, were unreachable except by Portal. And seeing as Hovel and Eric had been the only ones allowed to travel into the Bowels no one else had access.

The Fourth Foundation and Third foundations was where they had their Library’s, and Agriculture rooms, Class rooms, Nursery’s, and consequently this was where the most of the movement happened, an where most of the Brothers and Sister spent their days.

The First Foundation was where the Barreks were located, as well as the Dining Halls, and where most of the ventilation and sewage was sent from.

Above this Foundation...there was the Sanctum. A few years ago the room had been renovated, but the Sanctum was still one of the most amazing areas in the Base to lay eyes upon. Every time she set her eyes upon it, it took her breath.

And today was no different.

The Sanctum took her a solid ten minutes to reach from the Second Foundation, and when she arrived, she came in from one of the countless, adjourning path ways that branched away from the Breezeways, but all inevitably led to the Sanctum. This was space was a culmination of everything she respected about Alchemy and had always out lined to her clearly what it is she should have faith in.

The Sanctum was a giant dome like structure, carved from alabaster marble, and ballooned outwards as if crafted like melting glass in fire.

A massive structure, that seemed nearly suspend in the air above and around her, due in no small part to the hundreds of feet that spanned the width and height of the ceiling and concave walls.

The ceiling above was crafted into a giant oval, comprised entirely of glass. A ceiling of glass, thick enough to withstand the heaviest rains, and the harshest snow flurries, despite its massive size. Every inch of the walls, not adorned with murals, was covered with bright golden tapestries, with the single stylized Eye of the Scion, immortalized across the gold in neon white stitching. The space within the upper areas of the room was etched in rows of fixed seating, making the outer ring, resemble something like an auditorium or a stadium.

But this was no place for sports or games, but a place of deep religious significance. And the utter breadth of the room, did not negate this fact. In fact visual splendor of the place, incurred a sense of awe and calm. The air was dancing with candle light. And this was not a figure of speech, but a true fact.

The air, was dotted and speckled with white candles, floating in the air. Suspended by means Ann did not quite understand. She knew only that it was fantastical, to watch the lights, dance and bob above her, dipping and swirling in lose circles...like fireflies.

The candles burned bright, the black wicks, created with Alchemy of course, never stopped burning. They were created with the sole purpose of lighting the walk ways, by ways and the rooms of all of the Brother Hood. They gave off no heat, or smell, and so were safe to allow to burn for days, and weeks and years without any interruption from the Alchmists.

Occasionally one of the lights may sputter and fail, but there were Alchmists proficient in their creation, who simply replaced the Candles with a wave of their hands, and a burst of Mana.

Suspended in the air, by more Alchemy the lights were their only source of light here and in the First Foundations, mostly because the Sanctum was the highest point of the Base. The rest of the base was powered with electricity.

But not here. This was the apex point that was visible above ground so sunlight was abundant, and one of the only areas besides the Library that Ann felt any connection to the outside world. She had not seen much of that world in many years.

The teachings and work of the Children of the Sun kept then deeply entrenched, and far too busy to leave. There were thousands of years of Alchemic teachings to keep alive and new ones to discover all the time. There were artificial gardens, apothecaries, masonry’s and children, to be tended, cropped, cleaned, and prepared for the coming War. A war, more than five-thousand years in the making.

And there were other duties to uphold that most of them practiced daily. The morning Divination was one of them, and it was one of the few that Ann participated in religiously. The Divinations grounded her. Calmed her. She needed that calm now.

The Brothers and Sisters took their Morning Divinations in the center of the room, and once they completed their Supplements to the Scion, they were then free to lounge about the opulent vastness of the Sanctum. The center of the room was narrow, sporting a giant, unencumbered sphere, where hundreds of Mats, about five feet in length sat in near perfect rows and columns.

Each Mat was as white and clean as the Marble it was affixed upon, and at the top of each Mat there was a golden etching of the Scions Eye. Ann knew that the Mats had also been created using Alchemy, and were nearly impervious to dirt and fluids. They were also as heavy as dense as bags of sand, preventing them from being tussled. And yet they were as cushy as pillows so that Ann had no problem sitting on her knees for hours at a time.

The room was made to hold nearly all four thousand of their number. Each corner and upper dais sported cushions, and lounging pillows, made from the whitest silks. While the dome walls, bowed outwards, like an inflated oval, allowing more rows for sitting and perching and convening, at high balconies and gallery’s, connected by staircases and terraces, expertly cut into stone. The white candles, suspended around the room, glowed like stars, and the open miles of sky danced countless feet above. The blue sky was pale and pasty, dark and dreary up above this day.

Clouds laden with rain water, darkened the halls below, blocking out the pristine sunlight or moonlight that normally graced the glittering marble. There was a time when she had missed the sun on her skin, but after she had left the orphanage, the grace of sunlight had been one of the first things she had sacrificed to her destiny as a Child of the Sun.

Ann knew that she was possibly one of the few in the Brother Hood who had walked the streets in a mortal city, seen wide open fields or taken in the hot air off of asphalt or ocean water. Her orphanage had been located on the outskirts of a mortal city, nestled in a village not too far off the coast of the Mediterranean islands.

Ann knew she was lucky compared to the rest of her Peers.

Most of the Brothers and Sisters in the base were descendants of past Mana users. They all had been brought up inside of the Base, and so had their fathers and mothers before them. Governments had risen, Society had progressed, and yet the Brother Hood had remained. Thriving. In the Shadows. Unfettered by the progress of time. The masses of humanity covered the globe, boarded by the lands proffered to the Shifters back before, when the Dragons forced their selfish rule upon them all.

Ann understood that there were 7 continents around the globe, all of them divided by oceans, and each space nearly split vertical or horizontal, by the mortals and Shifters who occupied them. The invisible barriers imposed upon the descendants of mankind were avoided by mortals, and none dared to encroach upon the lands of the Shifters least the beasts release their wrath...and the wrath of the Elders upon the world.

Through the centuries weak mortal Governments that ruled the Continents of the earth were content to leave them to their works, many of the mortals in the cities were content to ignore the Alchmists...and the Shifters that boarded their homes.

The open spaces of wildlands that separated the Shifter Clans and Morals were untouched, but fertile and rich in resources. Fertile lands, denied to them, and magically guarded by the Elders and their false Gods. Unfortunately most of the Mortals feared to incur the wrath of the beasts and so the cities remained small, and stagnant, over crowded, but this would change.

Soon the beasts would offer up the land that they had stolen from Mankind. Soon the beasts would have nothing but the scraps of land they were offered. 

The false Gods on high that demanded the Beasts lands remain untouched by the hands of Mortals, would fall....and finally as promised by the Bane all Mankind would rule and divide the spoils among themselves. Anns breath caught as she tightened her hands and tried to push onwards.