The Clan House is a monstrosity to behold.

Built from the underground floor up it stands four stories tall with most of the subterranean floor off limits to those who have no business being down there. Construction of the house had taken decades to reach the enormity it's currently achieved. The Clan Home grew along with Great Father's family as is went from a family to an extended family to a legitimate clan. There were constant renovations along with additions built onto the Clan House that made life more comfortable and convenient for Scions of the Emerald Wizard. Upon every section of roofing lay solar panels that had been collected and hoarded decades before. Eventually those panels that were installed upon the rooftops of other buildings had been redistributed so that Clan Home alone possessed the panels. As the they had become literally irreplaceable. With the Union of Great Mother and Father and the clans they sired merging along with their marriage construction became a constant facet of daily life in the Clan House for the last seven years. Where before building of Clan Home went on for months then stopped for as many or more months before starting up again. While the Clan House of the continued it's aberrant growth it devoured the the real estate surrounding it. Until it dominated the center of the city. It even enveloped other structures by adding them onto the Clan House as it grew. Clan Home currently consisted of twenty two bed rooms a nursery and play room for the little ones. Three spacious living rooms, two reading rooms and one cavernous den. Two large kitchens that are usually in some phase of preparing, cooking or cleaning up after meals. There is a large eating hall capable of seating most of the Clan at once. There were also two dining rooms where more intimate meals can be enjoyed. Between the two kitchens was the cold room that was refrigerated to keep food fresh and the room adjacent to it was another sizable storage room that held dry goods. Clan Home has both electricity and running hot and cold water. Two shower rooms for males and females could cleanse several clan members at a time. There was the spa room that contained large tub of heated water that one could relax in. Seven restrooms are scattered haphazardly throughout the House. There were also five bathrooms that are usually reserved for the elders of the Clan so they might bath or shower in privacy and comfort. There is an industrial sized laundry room that for most of the day everyday has a constant flow of dirty clothes and linens that are turned to clean clothing, blankets, tablecloth and everything else that gets soiled in Clan Home until the laundry room is shut down for the night. There radio room is the hub of all the news that enter Endurance beyond reaches of it's domain. And the Clan's ability to communicate the smaller towns that live under the

Clan's protection. The basement is divided into two sections the larger of which contains ethanol powered generators, hot water heaters, ingenuous steam era like machines some of which are powered by the heat exhaust of other machines in the basement. This was the lifeblood of the technologies that makes the Clan House a bastion where knowledge of the Age of Light and the power that knowledge created hadn't died out. Unbeknownst to many there is a door set into the floor that opens to a set of stairs that leads down to a subbasement a storage room that contains a hoarded supplies of ethanol, spare parts for equipment and devices in Clan Home and the last of the solar panels. The second part of the basement which was divided by walls and had it's own entrance to the basement. Is used as storage for more common items Clan Home needed to function. There were also a few storage closets around the House that held cleaning supplies and tools. Or were used to store linen for the dining rooms, spare curtains as well as sewing kits. The other closets held similar items that were essential in keeping Clan Home running efficiently. There are five offices for clan elders who hold positions of authority and leadership in the Clan and the city of Endurance. There are also separate offices for Great Father and Mother who have the lion share in both responsibility and power in the running of both Clan Home and Endurance. There is a private meeting room for the Clan elders to discuss day to day affairs. An office often called the strategy room that contained maps, information about the region the cities and towns that made this part of the world their home and of course all the data that had been gathered about the Ascended in the region. Both human, and Ascendant wildlife. There was a huge hall where the Clan could gather for social functions or to discuss the policies, alliances and other clan business amongst all those in the clan that had come of age. It was still sometimes used to settle disputes amongst the Clan and occasionally amongst humans in Endurance that held positions of authority or had influence in the city. It was also where Great Father and Mother held court. Where they meet with and entertained guests in which the Clan was allied with, ruled over or who were rivals of the Clan. The most awing room within the the walls of Clan Home though is the library which more books on knowledge of the Age of Light than any other library for a thousand miles in any direction. So valuable were these books that had been copied and collected since the Night of Darkness that each had at least two copies that where hidden in repositories in case the library was ever destroyed. The library also numerous volumes of history since the Age of Light had been brought to an end in a single night. Also there was the New Science has Great Father called it which comprised of biology books containing information of all the known Ascendant species that lived in the natural world. There were books on how to combat these creatures as well as books about ascendant specials that could be beneficial to humanity. There were volumes on ascendant plants that could be used for a myriad of useful purposes as well as knowledge on how to counteract poisons, deadly spores and pollen from the dangerous plant. There were books the ways to use crystals from crafting alloys superior to

titanium and steel to enhancing herbal remedies that created potent healing tonics. There were books on quantum theory about how living things became conduits of quantum energy. As well as how crystals had trapped some of the quantum energy that had brought about one age and created another. The library was were I found myself most often when I had time to spare. Especially when new books were acquired and brought in. This morning I was had a free day away from chores and working either in the House. Clan Home had a full staff of workers but Great Father insisted the younger members of the clan work in the House or on the outer grounds three days a week. He said it built character. I didn't work in the kitchen or laundry room though. Primarily I worked with the machines in the basement that gave clan home electricity, radio and hot water. While the Clan House was massive it did not hold everything within it's walls. Beyond the windows of Clan home stood several buildings encircling the Clan House. One was the three story rectangular building divided up into apartments that housed Clan Home's workers and their families. There was a two story barracks with it's own basement level. That housed the central wall guard as well as some Scions who were standing guard duty in either the central wall unless they were stationed in the inner or outer walls. Only those Ascendants that had passed the trials were stationed beyond the walls of Endurance. The garden where I would have preferred to spend my required work days was quite unique in the fact that it grew only Ascendant plants. Tucked away in a corner the garden nearly covered one sixth of the open space between Clan Home and the central wall. There was the chemistry workshop that I had been volunteered to work at an additional three days out of the week. The workshop was where the magic happened literally. It was where we used energized crystals, ascendant plant extracts even some samples of blood, tissue and bone from some Ascendant animals to create things that didn't exist in the Age of Light. The stable of the Clan Radiant Emerald was another of the wonders Endurance had to offer as every beast within it's walls was an Ascendant horse. Not only were the horses all Ascendants but the Clan had three of the four known Ascendant horse breeds. The three story broad square schoolhouse was the last of the buildings within the central wall. Which I was now a teachers assistant three days of the week though I was only nineteen. The school was for children ages five through seventeen. And it was not just for the Scions of the Clan. In the general school in Old Town tests were given and the smartest children from the town were taught along the Scions. Older Scions of the Clan continued to learn but in smaller groups usually at different times either in the den one of the living rooms or in the library. But their educations in books was only part of a scions education once they came of age. Scions who were born of only one Ascendant parent usually didn't manifest their powers until they were between thirteen and seventeen. While those who were born of two Ascendant parents often had their powers, if in a limited capacity, since birth.

For those who Awakened their powers they had to partake in a training regime until they were physically, emotionally mature and could past tests that they had more than a rudimentary control over their powers. Which for the most Scions was the day of their twenty fifth birthday when by the Clan standards they became an adult. All Scions also had to pass final tests to show they had more than a basic grasp on the knowledge they had learned from their school lessons. There were of course exceptions to the rule. I was one of them. I had always been smart but the spring I turned thirteen I was plagued by skull splitting headaches for more than a month. In which time my head noticeably got bigger as did my brain. My powers had manifested as pure intelligence. By the time I was fifteen I could have probably passed the educational tests but I was allowed to learn as much as I could both in and out of the classroom. When my seventeenth birthday came I had most of the books in the library memorized and had started to right my own. I had already been helping teach the younger children with fun science experiments of my own design. As my intellect grew so did what I was capable of. I created designs of new technologies that in less than six months. Replaced a couple of the machines in the basements with machines of my own creation that were powered by the heat exhaust of the other engines and generators in the underground level. From my mind came a method to boost radio signals sent from Endurance. I had begun to redesign chemical formulas to make them easier, less time consuming and less costly to make. To my mother, Great Father and other Elders my intellect, my power had been seen from the beginning as a boon to the Clan. To me my power was bittersweet. Though I was an Ascendant I had no real powers to speak of. I couldn't hurl bolts of energy from my hands, I wasn't strong enough to uproot trees, I couldn't fly or do any of the amazing things my siblings or cousins could do. So I had been withheld from powers training both on the training grounds and real world experiences under the supervision of full fledged adults and elders of the Clan. Great Father and Mother already had eight children, twenty five grandchildren and seven great grandchildren between them seven years ago. When our two Clans fully merged after New Hope was razed to the by the mythical Dragon Hawk. It had taken the combined power of Great Mother and Father with their eldest children and most powerful allies to slay legendary Ascendant bird. Along with the Radiant clan we took in the human survivors of New Hope. In the last seven years both Endurance the city in which we lived and Clan Home had grown to accept the refugees from New Hope. Since then there had been four intermarriages amongst grandchildren of the two Clans. In the decades prior to New Hope being laid to waste and the seven years since then a total of eight Ascendants from near and far to join the Clan. Five of whom had married

Scions of the Clan and delivered progeny to make the Clan grow. Out of all the Ascendants of the combined Clans Radiant and Emerald I was the sole Ascendant that had no real powers whatsoever. Or that's the way I saw it at the time.