Statera: The Balance of Yin and Yang

But That is Not What Ships are Made For

Starring Ramin Karimloo as Ramiel Lokni 😉 Any Phantom of the Opera fans?

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"Alright, hello there all of you. We have half an hour before arriving at the Congregate. I have some housekeeping matters to attend to, so listen up please – Zita, wake Elora in front of you," Tomokai commanded, pointing with a long rectangular box at a girl a few seats down the aisle from me. He sounded louder somehow, his voice ringing clearly even though I was further away, yet he did not appear to be raising his voice. I wondered if he was using some energy technique to amplify his voice.

I craned my neck over the seats to see who it was. Zita shyly shook the shoulder of the girl in front of her. Elora, whose head was lolling out of her seat, opened her green eyes. She rubbed her eyes and pushed her light brown hair out of her narrow, tanned face. Zita hastily pointed at Tomokai when Elora blinked blearily at her.

Senno, that girl was pretty.

"I've got here with me your access discs – they've been imbued with yin energy, so please don't start fooling around with it, those of you who have had some basic training. You'll probably harm yourself before changing anything in these discs. They are encoded to your Faculty-rooms and your private rooms. You need these to get into most closed areas, and of course, your own rooms, so don't lose them. They are rather a bother to replace and will cost you a bit too." Tomokai informed us, as he slid open the wooden rectangular box he was holding to unveil a row of white discs that glinted faintly.

He must have been warning the few lucky ones who had Congregant connections in their hometowns. The very wealthy often did and used those connections to tutor their progeny and give them a head-start in the rat race.

"These are a welcome gift from the Congregate, so your first one is issued gratis. They've been very kind to engrave your name, room number and Faculty, so I can hand them out easily now. In my time, they used to get all the discs mixed up," He smiled at some inside joke, and shook his head. "I'll be going down the rows now to pass them to you. Forgive me if I've forgotten your name."

It turned out that there was nothing to forgive, as I watched Tomokai glide down the rows, saying everyone's name as he looked through the discs and matched them to their owners. The man seemed to have some kind of photographic memory.

"Here you go, sleeping beauty," Tomokai teased, picking a disc from the box and handing it to the girl who had been sleeping. The girl received the disc with a fine-boned hand, a quirk of a sheepish smile on her face.

He continued down the rows, making his way toward me. "Aletheia," he said, picking one of the three remaining discs in the box and depositing it in my hands.

"Thank you."

I turned the white disc around in my hands, it was a uniform shape and thickness, almost like a cup coaster, except that it was glossy and sleek, much like the material of the Zidan. So this was similar to a swipe-card then, giving us access to certain areas. As Tomokai said, my name and Faculty were engraved into it, against a faint background of the Yin-Yang symbol. There was also what looked like a room number (zero-five-zero-eight), and a seemingly random string of alphanumeric characters. The disc gave off a faint luminescence, and it seemed to be emanating a cool – almost calming – feeling. I wondered distractedly if it would shatter if I bent it in half. I gripped two opposite ends between my index fingers and thumbs and tried to bend it gently, but it was solid. Maybe if I threw it...

"Some of you might notice a strange feeling coming from the discs – I'm told that it feels like a cold breeze. No need to worry, that just means you are more attuned to Yin energy than some of us here, myself included," Tomokai paused, weighing his next words. "I'm not sure what you have heard from stories in your towns and cities, but I would just like to remind you all that Yin and Yang both have places in our world. And that disc is proof of the usefulness of Yin. Us Yang users will never be able to do something as intricate as that."