The game of draw and react came upon them spontaneously the first night of their travel.

  Lowell never slept well while traveling between stations. The shifting sands of space weather always made sure of that. But he had never experienced Musea like that night.

  Steak and rehydrated potato had been delicious, and he had fallen asleep almost by accident when Kate and Keith stopped talking. A bit later, he jolted awake, still sitting in one of the reclining chairs of the lounge slash dining multi-purpose room.

  Oddly, he felt interested in drawing, so he put on his visix goggles, and configured the processor to display a holographic canvas in front of him. Using his finger, he could pick out different drawing tools or editing functionality. He chose the paintbrush and began drawing.

  Usually if he tried to force himself to recreate some of his artistic moods, he was too anal about all of his artistic flaws, but he didn't think about flaws, or the fact that they were supposed to have a Musea weather event. He just drew.

  He had seen this lightning storm, the day he went on his first trip to the mountain. Lava no longer flowed, but the place was latent in Fire, and then the daily storms in the afternoon on the mountaintop made it an iconic trip for any rising Fire and Lightning adept like himself. He was thirteen.

  He drew his reaction to seeing the intense lightning, booming thunder, and the howling wind, and the lightning powered steps as he tried to escape down the mountain.

  When he was done, he noticed both Kate and Keith were looking at him.

  "Draw and React?" Kate said, like we understood more than the individual components of that sentence.

  Katie projected a stylized painting of a man in full steel armor, and Kate herself, kneeling in front of the man. In the background, a monastery, and towering above the monastery was some symbol, likely the semoitics of her denomination. It looked as if the man was knighting her.

  "That's a pretty happy picture. What is that weird star fish symbol on top of the church?" Keith asked.

  "The Divine Whale. Our prophets would only share that the angel had appeared to them as a sea creature, but clearly divine, with a glowing radiance unconcerned by Earthly viscitudes. The most faithful bishops lived on house ships on the sea. We would have all of our sermons on the water."

  Lowell pondered a good question. "But the monastery for your Knightly order was in the mountains."

  "I think it's a universal, at least I've talked to dozens of exiles who all say, they had monasteries in the mountains. Something about being closer to the Waters Above."

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  Keith's question for him was, "How do you run faster... with lightning."

  "Electricity powers our muscles, in some sort of way. I guess you get more juice. I spent three weeks recovering after that trip."

  *

  They each drew five or six pieces of artwork that was meaningful, He thought all but one of the pictures was from their homeworlds (of course Kate had to draw a crystal processor). Kate set up her processor to project one of their pieces randomly every hour.

  But eventually the Musea storm faded and they reached the crystalline gateway.

  Keith was decelerating the corvette to match gateway speed. Kate was shooting O's cereal into her mouth from a little launcher toy like they made for mints and candy.

  There was speculation on how much elemental storms could diffuse through a gateway, but he felt the tingly feeling of an abundance of Arcana.

  Crystalline gateways were made in different sizes, but each had a circular barrier that was closed on both ends until an authorized warp request was submitted. Maxime Station had an affiliate agreement with the sovereign who controlled this gate, but they had to wait for three other ships to pass through.

  The gateway to Virgo was not very large, only cruisers or smaller could pass through. The gateways were called Crystalline Gateways because of the amount of Crystal processors involved in the warp physics calculation, as well as the crystal barriers themselves.

  Gate security, beyond even the barrier itself, had two auto-defense turrets. 80,000 rounds a minute. He calculated the heat buildup those turrets must have. They couldn't fire more than a minute at a time. They probably wouldn't need too, and the ammo would have to be replaced anyway after extensive firing.

  XGM Channel 21-18 was still playing while they listened to the Gate chatter.

  Has there been an increase in high intensity storms? Our analysts say yes. Peace talks at the Aleph Six Conference were shattered earlier this year by a freak Holy storm that lead to new religious disagreements between the parties. That's just one example recently. Many weather events happen and are not commented on, even though they can have major effects on travelers. Even the isolation systems of fortress stations have been disrupted. One common Fortress design is being deprecated after severe recent incidents. Some commentors even suggest that there's one element that's lead to the most freak storms recently. Stay after the break to find out which element.

  "It's Musea, isn't it," Lowell said.

  "Jester."

  "Holy," Kate said. "They even mentioned it in the Peace Talks bit."

  Virgo Connector Center Security: Maxime's Joyride, Maxime's Joyride, reduce speed by 20 knots, shift left by 150 feet..

  "Anyway, why did you put your armor back on?" Keith asked Kate, briefly looking back at the two of them in the passenger chairs behind his pilot seat.

  "I don't like gateways. You never know what the locals are going to do. The ecumenical fleet always got ready for anything."

  AD BREAK: Hab Colony Harmony is the lovely place to live. We have over ten thousand standard colony modules worth of space. Greeneries, social spaces, restaurants, bars -- Space Golf! Our elemental distribution is controlled and you can ask for extra dispensation in your living module. Located in the lovely Cetus Sector. ::: (interrupted):::

  VIRGO CONNECTOR CENTER SECURITY: EMERGENCY ALERT. ARCANA STORM CONDITIONS AT THIS GATE'S ANTIPODE ARE BECOMING HOSTILE TO LIFE. PLEASE SEEK AN ALTERNATIVE ROUTE TO YOUR DESTINATION. WEATHER UPDATES ON THE VIRGO SUPER-ARCANA STORM WILL BE PROVIDED HOURLY.

  "Well shit," Keith said.

  "Son of a Drylander."

  Holy is the tendency to profession of belief in miracles, acts of God(s), of absolute certainty, wondrous belief and rapture. Holy is also the tendency to define narrowly the nature of one's God, and to fight (first evangelically, and then militarily) against those who even slightly disagree.

  ?On planets where Holy is abundant and pure (unfiltered by the other four elements), angels will appear ex-nihlo. It seems even the angels have at least 56 different faiths, or these are as many as are known. The angels become centers of faith, first performing apparently divine acts and recruiting the first prophets of the true way, then establishing a full church of believers, and finally the faithful encouraged to join the militant arm of the church. Then Holy War comes.

  Holy must not be confused with the binary of Holy and Logos, often called Theologica. On pure Holy worlds, there will be very little written down about belief and faith. Belief comes straight from the line of prophets and them from the angels. It is not a reasoning form of faith, although individuals will try to reason especially when their original faith is disrupted.

  Holy does not produce true divinity or any true insight into creation.Instead it primarily affects the minds of sentients. Holy exiles have the ability to perform minor miracles, and when supplemented with a large quantity of Holy, resurrection up to a day or two after death is possible. This is where the exile community gets most of it's funds.

  Like all elemental worlds, there are traditions associated with the exiles who left Holy planets and moved to the galactic community. Holy exiles actually have two: the Ecumenicals, and the Reformers.

  The Ecumenical faith celebrates faith itself, irrespective of the angelic branch the believer came from. These are both frontier pastors and communities. The Ecumenical tradition operates fleets of ships which explore and seek to discover new Holy planets, and keep record of the existing ones. To locals, they offer a way off-world, and instruction on what Holy actually is. From these exiles, they form their new members. There are also settled Ecumenical communities, but in general this faith is practiced in a traveling diaspora.

  Secondly, the Reformers do try to keep the original faith as taught by a specific branch of angels and their prophets. So there are actually many reformed faiths. However, they still stop the violence between faiths. Gaining access to other elements, they will produce holy texts, holy art, and many other wonderous things.

  There are entire books written about Holy, the dangers of the element and the need for the element, but this explanatory note can only point to some of these resources. Encyclopedia Galactica: Holy (elemental radiation) and Ecumenical University: Holy Studies are highly recommended.

  Material Safety Data Sheet - Holy (elemental radiation)

  Repeated exposure is Mensogenic (affecting cognition)

  Repeated exposure is Animagenic (affecting identity, soul, i.e.)