A Call to the Dark City

by deltalessthanzero

Summary:

Unlikely allies, Zorian, Rain and Harry find themselves lost in the dark.

This is a fanfic combining characters from some of my favourite works:
- Mother of Learning, by nobody103 (Fictionpress, Amazon)
- Delve, by SenescentSoul
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Yudkowsky
The setting is from the Mage Errant series by John Bierce. Spoiler warnings for all of the above apply.

Since Delve isn't finished at the time of writing, I've used Rain as from the end of Chapter 251. There are some spoilers for later parts of Delve as well.

 

This is partway through a larger story. I have plans for more, but there is currently no release schedule - I’m still actively writing new chapters, but can’t commit to dates.

Chapter 1: Arrival

Richmond Rain Stroudwater

The air in front of Rain’s eyes flickered and wavered. One moment he was stepping into Ascension’s newly constructed tavern, the next he found himself twisting and lurching, as if pulled through space by his navel. He only had an instant to jerk his head around toward Ameliah before his armour saturated and his natural resistances were overwhelmed. 

As the unnatural force began to suck his body inwards toward the rift engulfing his torso, he sank into his soul. He shut his eyes and forced his consciousness to engage the highest possible degree of time-acceleration his new denser soul-constructs allowed. 

Breathing a mental sigh of momentary relief, Rain pulsed Detection, querying for the location of his own armour and body parts. Given that his subjective experience had slowed by a factor of a hundred, he had ten seconds or so before the 100-millisecond pulse returned with information. 

What’s going on? I’ve never felt anything like this.

The pulse returned, showing nothing unusual beyond Rain’s body. His legs and stomach, however, were missing entirely from Detection, which was, in fact, extremely unusual. His armour appeared to also be spaghettifying under the unnatural strain. It didn’t seem to be hurting him, though, since his health was still at its maximum value, and he wasn’t feeling any pain. At the current rate, he estimated there would be around ten subjective seconds - another hundred milliseconds in real time - before his head, already now at the height where his chest would usually be, reached whatever effect was absorbing the rest of his body. 

The singularity itself didn’t appear to register at all.

By his side, he could sense Ameliah turning toward him in shock, her soul flashing dark in confusion and rising fear. 

A blue-background terminal blinked into existence at his avatar’s hands, and flashed up a warning:

Unexpected external interference Connection signal interrupted Extracting System endpoints and constraints to avoid external access and corruption

Well, that's ominous.

There was still a chance that this effect was magical or in some other way related to the System. Rain flared Suppression at maximum capacity, hoping to in some way hamper the singularity. Beyond that, there wasn’t much to do beyond hoping that wherever this was taking him, his connection to his Aura Anchors would remain. Ascension had survived without him, he had to hope they could do it again. 

Sorry, Ameliah. I’ll try to be back soon.

In the instant before vanishing entirely, he released a burst of Purify.

The last thing his friends saw as the singularity sucked his limbs in like spaghetti was a sphere of light, cleansing the tavern of grit and dust and seeming to linger on each of them before fading quietly away. 

------------------------------

Harry James Potter Evans-Verres

 

Harry sat in the tallest tower of Hogwarts, meditating. The early morning light drifted through the chilly air. The Philosopher's Stone rested in one of his pockets, ready for the prodigious number of experiments he was intending to throw at it.

Then there was a yank from just below his navel. A portkey, he thought, but no new objects he had seen had made contact with his skin. Had someone developed a technique to enchant invisibly small objects (dust motes?) with the portkey spell? Or a similar spell that could be cast at a distance?

He had time to strangle out half the incantation to a basic counter charm, and he was gone.

------------------------------

Zorian Kazinski

 

Negotiations with the archmages of Falkinrea were achingly slow.

During the time loop, it had been - well, not easy to extract information, but at least possible . Back then, he’d been willing to make enormously unequal trades. What’s the harm of giving away impossibly valuable magical secrets if your counterparty would forget them within the month?

Now however, the awkward reality of trade was rearing its head, that if you traded someone information, they tended to then have that information, and you couldn’t trade it again. Hrmph. 

This particular archmage happened to be one of the pioneers of Black Room research in Falkinrea. He was currently also under the effects of a Mind Blank spell, which was rude if nothing else. Rumours of a powerful mind-mage were everywhere these days, but it wasn’t as if those rumours applied specifically to him. 

Zorian was partway through what he thought was an exceptionally generous offer when an uncomfortable yanking feeling, the hallmark of a foreign translocation spell, appeared to bypass his wards entirely and attempt to pull him through to an unknown location.

Zorian immediately sent a pulse of alarm to his simulacra, and activated his own teleportation spell, stored in a ring on the third toe of his left foot. The archmage would be appalled at his lack of decorum and sudden departure, but that was hopefully a problem for future Zorian.

He found himself in a warded safe house deep beneath Cyoria. Protective enchantments laced the walls, and a pair of small combat golems across the room sprang into action, their sensors whirring, trying to detect any foreign presence.

The tugging continued, and Zorian flung the threads of a conscious connection out toward his four currently active simulacra. Their minds intertwined, they could still only observe as the foreign influence slipped through each of their coutermagics as if they weren’t there. Zorian’s real body disappeared through a tiny dimensional rift, which promptly closed.

Their connection to the primary Zorian severed, the simulacra reeled in shock for an instant before setting out to inform their allies. There was only a brief time before a lack of mana forced them to dissolve back into the formless mist from which they’d been made. 

 

The first thing Zorian noticed was the oppressive dark. Even compared to the void in which he and Zach had met the Guardian, which had been completely absent of light, this place felt darker. That shouldn’t be possible. Flickering to mana sight, it became clear that there was virtually no mana in his immediate vicinity.

Instinctively reaching out with his mind and soul senses, Zorian realised he was not alone. 

To his left was a presence he might have been able to feel even as an untrained mage. Mana swirled and pulsed around a single powerful entity, rippling outward in spherical patterns. The emanations appeared uneven, warping around what looked like artefacts in the form of armour. 

Of the soul, Zorian was in awe. Even having spent time with dragons, few living creatures came close to the sheer magnitude of the soul he saw in front of him. It blazed out in the darkness of this place, dominating his soul sight with its brilliance. Zorian extended his mind, trying to see if the entity had any kind of mental protections, or if it was even human. 

He moved carefully, not wanting to reveal his presence. From what he could read on the surface, a picture emerged - largely human, a bundle of emotions - confusion, fear, wariness. Pretty much what he was feeling, Zorian supposed, so this probably wasn’t what had brought him here. Nevertheless, that didn’t mean it wasn’t a threat.

To his right, Zorian detected a second soul, this one smaller in scale but curiously shaped, like nothing he’d seen before. The closest comparison was probably some kind of magical creature, like a phase spider, and yet the accompanying mind seemed human enough.

Instinctively, Zorian attempted a teleport home. He didn’t expect it to work. Whatever had brought him here had brushed past his defences to force him here, and it would be strange to let him return after that. Sure enough, the teleport failed. It wasn’t due to suppression or countermagic, it was as if the destination was on another plane or didn’t exist. Still, that was nothing new. It was the same experience as trying to teleport out of a Black Room, or escape the time loop. Difficult, but not unsolvable, given time. 

“Lumos.”  

A quiet voice from his right - a woman’s? A young boy’s? And light spilled out into the chamber, emitted from the tip of a short wand clutched in the hands of a young boy. He was wearing round-rimmed glasses, and looked maybe a little older than Kiri, with tousled black hair framing an angular face marked by a long scar down his forehead. 

The room they stood in was marble, ostentatiously carved, and yet inch-deep in dust. Bones were scattered across the floor, but they looked old and dried. 

A soft wave of light began to emanate from the figure to his left. Looking almost like a physical manifestation of what his mana sight revealed, the light spread radially. At the centre stood a tall, physically imposing figure, clad entirely in plate armour. At the edge of the sphere of light, Zorian noticed the thick layer of dust on the floor vanishing, leaving behind a circle of pristine marble. More concerning, it looked like a skeleton scattered across the floor had been half vaporised by the light. In the span of a second as the light expanded, he saw a ribcage evaporate into motes of light. 

Alright, that’s it. Strange figures vaporising bones? Time to take control of the situation. 

Around a second before the vaporising light would have reached him, Zorian threw himself backwards and simultaneously dove into the mind of the armoured figure. 

On the surface - no obvious hostile intent. Unease, fear of Zorian, of the other figure in the room. So they weren’t together? Hm.

And then his mental probes stopped short, unable to force their way through a shield which surrounded this mind like a sphere of steel. The defences were some of the most formidable Zorian had ever seen - at least in terms of raw strength. Within a fraction of a second as Zorian scrambled back across the floor, tendrils of his mind began to snake over the shield’s surface, searching for flaws. Although this entity was strong, this was no Mind Blank spell, and he could sense a few vulnerabilities, as if the owner hadn’t considered the possibility of an attack from those angles. Zorian seized on the flaws, drilling his way through the shield and into the consciousness below.

He delved deeper into the mind. A feeling of absence. A warm face framed by blonde hair spilling out of a steel helmet. Friends, companionship in a world buffeted by forces far too powerful to confront. 

Knowledge of the man’s limbs blossomed into Zorian’s awareness, as did a strange link to what must be his source of power. Zorian felt around blindly, looking for a way to turn off the bone-evaporating sphere, and pushed as hard as he could. For a moment, the light faded, leaving only the wand illuminating the room, then- 

Vast quantities of mana swept out from the knight, this time invisible to the naked eye, and pressed into Zorian’s mind, collapsing his outward-directed mental tendrils. His mind shield buckled, but held. Zorian could instinctively feel that projecting his mana beyond the edge of his body would be a contest of strength - and that he would lose. At the same time, the wand flickered, before returning to its full brightness.

Still, the bone-vaporising sphere did not return, and the figure took a step back and raised his hands in what looked like a placating gesture. Zorian thought he understood the intent, but had to admit the gesture was less effective due to the thick metal gauntlets the figure was wearing. 

Jarringly loud, all three of them spoke at the same time:

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry

 

Harry found himself in a marble chamber, his wand glowing in his right hand. The floor was a lighter colouring than most of Hogwarts, but otherwise this could have been a classroom in one of the higher floors. Dust caked the floor, and disguised the bones scattered around the room. 

A quick tap verified that the Stone was still in his pocket. His Bag of Useful Items was also secure at his side.

To his right stood what looked like a mediaeval knight. Fully clad in steel, the arms were raised combatively, but bore no weapon. A sphere of light had spread outward, purging dust and grime from the floor, then vanished.

To his left, a figure in clothes not entirely unlike his own - a loose-fitting white shirt under a simple vest - was scrambling backwards, away from them both. A boy, perhaps five years older than Harry, and otherwise surprisingly visually similar. Short brown curls, gangly longer limbs. Panic filled his eyes as he scanned the room. 

“I come in peace!” Harry yelped.

It was cliché, but upon being whisked away into unknown circumstances, it was a good policy to be up front.

Simultaneously, the cloaked boy yelped something incomprehensible, and the armoured man said something Harry couldn’t decipher either. 

Was that symmetry? Certainly neither of the two figures seemed too aggressive. Given the apparent lack of a verbal line of communication, Harry also stepped backward and raised his hands in the near-universal gesture of ‘I am not stabbing you at this precise moment’. 

A moment later, the armoured figure turned towards him, and the helmet covering his head flickered out of existence.   

A friendly bearded face framed by dark hair greeted him, and an expression that wasn’t so much shocked as flabbergasted. 

“English! You speak English!”

The man’s voice was heavily accented, but it wasn’t one Harry could place. Perhaps American or Canadian, but lilted, the words rounded in a strange way. 

“Yes! I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be surprising though. Do you speak English?” Harry gestured at the cloaked boy, who was still scrabbling to his feet. 

He looked apologetic, but seemed to have grasped the intent of the question, because he shook his head slowly.

“Sorry if I sound surprised - I haven’t heard anyone speak English for years - long story. My name is Rain, by the way.”

The knight stepped forward, offering a gauntlet for a handshake. Harry blinked, switched his wand to his left hand, and shook. Just as he expected to grasp the steel fingers, they too phased out of sight, and he found himself grasping a strong, weathered hand. 

“I’m Harry, Harry James Potter Evans-Verres. Pleased to meet you, I suppose, under the circumstances. My guess is that all three of us were brought here similarly - Portkeyed - teleported, that is?”

There was a brief silence, then Harry felt something brush against the edges of his Occlumency barriers. It felt - not like an attack, exactly, more like a tentative greeting. At the same time, the cloaked boy smiled at him, and waved.

“You’re a Legilemens? Or psychic, or something?”

The armoured figure - Rain - spoke: “That makes sense! I felt what I thought was an attack a moment ago, that’s why I deactivated Purify. I think our friend here misinterpreted it as aggressive. I have a macro enabled to activate Suppression at maximum power if there’s another detectable intrusion into my Paling, so don’t try anything.” The last part was accompanied by a stern look at the other boy.

The lilting roundness to the strange man’s voice was quickly disappearing as he spoke, and by the time he stopped talking, he’d settled into a solid Canadian accent with perfect pronunciation. Strange. 

The collection of words that sounded capitalised were definitely something to figure out later.

“I think he’s friendly.” Harry said, hoping that waves meant the same thing here as wherever the cloaked boy came from. 

<Yes.> came through a broken signal, coming at the same time as the cloaked boy spoke in some unintelligible language. Rather than words, it felt like receiving a bundle of concepts he could roughly translate into English. <I mean you no harm.>Harry started. His mental barriers were still secure, he could feel it. They surrounded and protected his mind like a glass marble. The impressions of meaning didn’t try to break through at all. Instead they felt respectful, as if the words had been left outside his mind for him to view at his leisure. 

“Can you understand me if I speak like this?” Or is this sufficient, he thought.

<I can hear you if you project the thoughts outside your mental barrier - if you speak out loud, that suffices as well. I see you share a language with the battlemage. Can you tell him I won’t invade his mind again if he agrees to leave my bones intact?>

“Uh, he says - 'don’t remove his bones'?”

“Right,” Rain responded. “That was Purify. It only affects filth and grime. I couldn’t use it to remove his bones if I tried. I understand the caution though, and you can assure him I mean no harm.”

<Excellent.> From Rain’s startled movement, it was clear the voice was now in his head as well. <Given the lack of a common language, I will keep communicating like this until I’ve picked up enough of your vocabulary.>

“Wait,” Harry held up a hand to Rain. “You mean you have abilities that depend on your characterisation of objects in the physical world into non-physical categories which depend on human perceptions? They actually rely on the map, not the territory? And one of those categories is filth ? Have you tried to push the bounds of that, by, for example, defining all the dirt in a hole you’re planning to dig as filth? What about, say, hair you’re planning to cut off? Or faeces you haven’t excreted yet? Or simply, the presence of any matter in a configuration you don’t find ideal?”

Rain was outright grinning by the end of the series of questions. 

“I’ve tried exactly the hole idea, doesn’t work. Nor does the haircut, or the arbitrary removal of matter. The portable bathroom however, is one of my favourites. Would you like to step a bit closer so I can demonstrate the effects? As long as our friend here is willing, of course.”

<My name is Zorian,> the voice sounded in their minds. <And as long as I’m outside the effects, I’m actually also quite curious. You both seem friendly enough, and it’s time we establish some basis of trust, then ensure our immediate environment is safe, then find our way home.>

“That makes sense,” Harry said. “And you’re sure you won’t remove my bones? Wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened to a Hogwarts student, so I’m sure we can work around it if it happens.”

“It’s perfectly safe. I travel with my organisation - Ascension - and they prefer to stay permanently under its effects. Step here?”

Harry stepped forward to where Rain had gestured, and jumped a little as light washed out, bathing them both - but not Zorian, in a tiny sphere of pure white. A layer of sweat Harry hadn’t noticed evaporated, leaving his skin feeling like he’d just had a shower. And inside - 

“I can’t believe it! This actually obviates the necessity for bathrooms entirely! What did you say the maximum range for this is? Could you cover a house?”

“Eighty-seven metres. More if I’m willing to go into a catatonic state.”

Harry gaped.

Zorian, having seen Harry retain his skeleton, tentatively stepped forward, and joined them in the sphere. The apprehension on his face melted away as he too experienced the effects.

<That’s quite a trick.> The boy half-smiled, looking relieved. <Pleased to meet you both, Rain, Harry. What now?>

--------------------------------------------------------

Rain

With a nudge to Heavy Armour Inventory, Rain summoned back his gauntlets and helm. Now that the three of them seemed to be on the same page, it was time to figure out what had brought them here, and where ‘here’ even was. 

Rain stood at the exit of their marble room, peeking out the door. This wasn’t strictly necessary, since Detection guaranteed him there were no living entities within his range. That said, his trust in the System and its capabilities here was limited. He shouldn’t even have access to Heavy Armour Inventory, given that it was Ameliah’s skill, not his, and was shared by her assistance via Unity. That must have something to do with “Extracting system endpoints and constraints to avoid external access and corruption”, whatever that had meant. 

Regardless, he seemed to have access to all his skills, which was the important thing. His connection to his aura anchors appeared to be intact as well. A macro was active, pulsing the stones at low power to signal that he was alright to his friends at home. 

Set to marble, Detection registered a city stretching as far as he could sense. Buildings were densely packed, interspersed with city squares and canals. Many were now in disrepair, having crumbled in the time since this place was abandoned. 

Looking upward, there was… nothing. No sun, no stars. 

His automatic life-sensing Detection ping, set to fire once every second, returned a new, fourth signal. Right behind him. 

Rain whirled around, ready to activate Refrigeration, and saw Zorian in the process of creating a humanoid shape out of thin air, while a gobsmacked Harry watched. 

<Sorry if I startled you. I’m making a simulacrum, a copy of myself that can act autonomously. It won’t harm you.>

“Wait, you can make clones?”

“How many can you make?” 

“How long do they last?”

“Can they cast magic independently?” 

Harry and Rain rattled off the questions one after another. 

<So many questions.> Zorian grinned. His hand twisted as he formed the mist into some kind of plasma which became a body. Was that part of the spell? <Simulacrum Number One will answer them when he’s fully awake.>

“Ok” Rain said, taking a deep breath. “If we’re going to spend more time together - and it looks like we will, given there’s no sun or stars here , I think it’s time we quickly described each of our respective capabilities to each other.”

<Alright,> came the response, and it was somehow clear that it came from Zorian’s slightly glowing double rather than Zorian himself. <This may be a little disorienting>

Flashes of memory and concepts arrived at Rain’s mind. Images of explosive projectiles shattering walls. A stone, levitating above a table, crumbling into dust which swirled above an outstretched palm. An invisible mage, slipping through enemy lines, subtly influencing instincts to throw an invading army into disarray. Rows of battle golems charging, directed with a thought. Supervising it all, a cluster of half a dozen near-identical minds and bodies, acting with a single will and singular determination. 

From the shocked look on Harry’s face, it was clear he’d seen that too.

“So it’s not just words? You can send memories? How about other information?”

<Yes, although it requires practice to understand. Most people cannot fathom experiences beyond those possible in their own body, and alien memories can leave people overwhelmed. I have carefully shown you only fractions of my life>.

Rain concentrated, bringing up his interface. The text files corresponding to Ascension’s Common Knowledge documents popped up in their familiar blue boxes. Bringing up the command line, he typed:

chmod a+r CommonKnowledge.txt

“I’m not sure if that worked, but I just tried to give you read permissions to the Common Knowledge files I’ve written for Ascension’s members. Can you see them, Zorian?” 

“WHAT” Harry interjected. “You have an OPERATING SYSTEM as part of your mind? Can you execute arbitrary code? Have you tried running neural networks?”

“I’m not a developer, just remembering some of what I learned in university a few years back. I’ve written a few simple macros for combat and utility, and some basic spreadsheet functionality to help calculate mana costs and things like that. I’ve never tried running anything else - wait, maybe I have. I’ll have to think about that.”

Simulacrum Number One (aptly named, because Zorian was in the process of creating another from the same misty material as the first) raised a surprisingly fleshy-looking hand to interject. 

<I believe I can see the memories you shared, but I will need a moment to interpret them. I’ve read the memories of giant spiders, but this… is strange> He turned and sat cross legged on the floor, taking care to sit in the purified circle to avoid the layers of dust. 

Rain blinked. “Right. Of course. You can’t speak English either. I’ll give you the permissions for a basic dictionary, which should help.”

He turned to Harry. “While Zorian - er, Zorian One - tries to figure out .txt files, I can give you a quick rundown. I’m primarily an aura mage. Up to a distance of around ninety metres, I can freeze, incinerate, or electrify most non-magical objects and entities at will. I can sense arbitrary categories of entities within my range. There’s a few other assorted utilities as well - increased velocity, cleaning - you saw Purify earlier. I can Airwalk, though I shouldn’t be able to without Ameliah here - still a little confused about that. I can provide increased mana regeneration for allies - although I’ve had both of you under my mana regeneration aura this whole time, and neither of you seem to have noticed”.

“I don’t know what mana is yet, but that’s not sufficient to demonstrate that there’s no effect. Perhaps you and this environment have effects that cancel each other out. Can you turn off your regeneration aura for a moment?”

“It’s called Winter, and sure.”

Rain turned Winter off. Harry didn’t react, but Zorian across the room grimaced.

<Ah, that explains a lot. Without you, my mana barely regenerates at all in this place.>

“Why does that explain a lot?” Harry asked. 

<My mana usually regenerates at a rate dependent on the ambient mana levels of the environment. My home city is rich in mana, but in the countryside it takes a lot longer to regain energy. Without your aura, I can’t feel any ambient mana at all. Can you reactivate it please?>

“That’s strange, I don’t feel any different here,” muttered Harry, turning his wand over in his hands. Looking back to them with a grin he continued.

“I suppose we can do a demonstration at the same time as a test!”

A look of concentration came over him. 

“Aguamenti.”

A spray of water emerged from the tip of his wand and coalesced into a rough circle on the floor. 

“Frigideiro.”  

With another small movement, the water became a solid ice cylinder with a diameter of roughly 15 centimetres. The ice darkened, becoming opaque and glinting with a metallic sheen. He bent over the shape, and waved his hands around melodramatically. There was a moment's pause, then the young boy stepped back with a proud look on his face. 

“That should be around 200 kilograms of tungsten. It’s permanent. If I’m extrapolating correctly from the memories Zorian showed us, my guess is that he can’t create enduring physical materials with purely magical input.”

He continued, “As for the test, that certainly took something out of me, but I don’t feel unusually drained. If you exempt me for now from Winter we can see if I regain strength as usual.”

The boy’s face became more serious, and Rain could see a flash of the adult he would become in his eyes.

“There’s one other important thing you should know. I intend to take whatever actions are necessary to ensure the long-term survival and prosperity of sentience, and will do what is required to prevent the end of the World. Our presence here is indicative that there’s more to the world than I previously thought, but I hope my intentions won’t bring us into conflict.” 

Rain nodded, and added a filter to his auras to make the appropriate exclusion. 

Zorian looked up. <You’re right by the way, I don’t know of a way to make permanent material constructs. These simulacra are made of ectoplasm, a kind of mana construct which dissipates unless maintained. If we spend enough time together, there’s a few things I’ll ask you to make for me. For now, we have other priorities - and none of mine involve ending the world, you can rest assured. I’m finished with this simulacrum, which is all I should maintain for now given constrained mana regeneration. Let’s get a sense of where we are. Beyond us, I can’t sense any minds nearby, so we should be clear to explore.>

In near unison, Zorian’s three bodies rose and walked toward the door, beckoning for the others to follow.

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian

Despite the seeming friendliness of his two companions, Zorian was glad to be in the majority. Simulacrum One had finally figured out the obscure structure of the memory packet Rain had placed outside the boundaries of his mind. The strange man had peculiar and exploitable vulnerabilities in his cognitive defences, but Zorian had never seen a dispelling wave as strong as the one Rain had produced before Zorian was able to fully take control. 

Both these characters were full of contradictions. According to the “Common Knowledge” memory packets, if Rain were standing in Zorian’s old dormitory, he’d be able to incinerate every student asleep in their beds while leaving the bedsheets untouched. If the effects of Winter compounded with natural mana regeneration, as it appeared they did, then it would be worth building an Academy around him for that reason alone. And despite that, Zorian had almost been able to seize control of his mind within a few seconds. It seemed like whatever world Rain came from, a competent mind mage could upend it in a week. 

And Harry. While both the strangers reminded him of Kiri with their incessant questions, Harry’s age, slight frame and messy hair made the comparison more apt. And yet, when presented with a brief collection of Zorian’s memories, Harry had almost immediately identified an area in which Zorian was outclassed and proceeded to demonstrate his superiority in it. What else would the boy come up with, given time? 

Best to keep them close for now, but stay vigilant. Now that he had three bodies, he would be far more prepared to deal with any unexpected hostilities.

With a nod to the original, each of Zorian’s simulacra faded into invisibility. Zorian spoke into Harry and Rain’s minds to explain:

<I’m sending my copies to give us advance warning of anything coming. Let’s get a sense of where we are. You coming?>

The two others nodded, and together they stepped into the darkened streets, lit only by the dim glow of Rain’s aura.

A meandering walk led them through the marbled streets into progressively higher density areas. Rain’s auras helped them avoid crumbled buildings, while Harry’s constant questioning honestly put Zorian at ease. Harry was particularly interested in trying out Rain’s so-called Velocity aura, which appeared to use the equivalent of unstructured mana to apply an additional force to any moving person within range. It looked like the younger boy was trying to avoid laughing in the process, but his attempts to surf the added velocity, while improving, tended to land him on the ground tangled in his robes.

They headed gradually in the direction of increasing building height, hoping to find some evidence of life or current civilisation closer to the centre of this seemingly abandoned city. It wasn’t long before Simulacrum Two described finding something out of the ordinary. 

In the centre of an exposed plaza, a massive jagged spike of blue crystal stood, hovering motionless point down above the ground. Tiny etched letters - runes? enchantments? - covered the surface. Even in this darkened place, the stone seemed to drink in all light that landed on it, such that the glint of the golden lettering was the only way to discern its shape. 

Zorian noted, with morbid curiosity, that the density of scattered bones was much higher here.

“So, uh, not to overly extrapolate from the dramatic surroundings, but I’m guessing that has something to do with why we’re here,”Harry said.

Rain’s eyes fluttered shut for a moment, and a vast sphere of light spread from his body to cover the entire plaza. In the light, the bones and corpses disintegrated into tiny motes of bright dust which vanished into the air. 

“Sorry,” he said quietly, responding to their surprised looks. “Whoever they were, no-one deserves to have their remains scattered on the ground like this.”

Zorian’s simulacra, currently invisibly floating on discs of force high above them, were on high alert, scanning their surroundings for any reactions to the burst of light. Zorian on the ground, however, nodded gravely at his companion and stepped forward toward the spire. 

“This reminds me of an artefact from my world,” Rain said hurriedly, before Zorian could reach it. “Well, not my world as in Earth - you know, the world I just came from. Be careful, and don’t touch it unless you know what you’re doing. I spent a subjective few months trapped in a void trying to figure out what was going on.”

One of Zorian’s simulacra drifted down at that, stepping off the disc of force at the same time as he dropped the invisibility spell. 

<Perhaps best if I try first then.>

Harry, meanwhile, was muttering repeatedly under his breath while gesturing at the spire with his wand from a distance. 

As a precaution, Zorian and Simulacrum Two severed their mental connections to Simulacrum One as he walked toward the spire. Their group watched with tensions high as he raised his palm and pressed it onto the surface. 

No-one immediately disintegrated, nor did anything else unexpected happen. 

A moment later, the simulacrum’s voice appeared in their minds again. 

<The parts I somewhat understand look something like a cross between a powerful wardstone and the enchantments I’ve seen used to regulate Black Rooms - tiny pocket dimensions. There’s something else here too, some kind of permanent mind magic enchantment. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’m avoiding it for now.>

“Mind magic? Hmm. That supports one of my theories more than the other.” Harry was pacing slowly, but kept an eye on the splinter as if he expected it to suddenly move.

Rain gestured with a hand. “Go on?”

“My first theory was that this city is part of an intergalactic space vessel, and that the onboard life support systems failed long ago, leaving the inhabitants to die. That would explain the absence of easily detectable stars, and why the deaths here appear to have been from starvation or suffocation rather than physical trauma. I didn’t see any broken bones on our way here, did you? Apart from the ones which had been burnt for fuel by survivors as their vessel drifted powerless through the void, of course.”

<What’s a space vessel? And what does ‘intergalactic’ mean?>

“A self-contained vessel which can propel itself independently to travel between different planets. Galaxies are huge clusters of stars.”

Zorian raised an eyebrow.

Rain frowned. “I have very good eyesight, and I can’t see anything in the void surrounding this city. Even if we are on an interstellar vessel, judging by the typical distance between galaxies, I think I would still be able to see nearby stars. I guess we could be inside a nebula or something?”

Harry shrugged. “Could be, but that’s another assumption, which makes that possibility less likely. There’s also plenty of reasons why a colony ship might have a mind-magic enchantment built into its core functions, but it’s also slight evidence against the ‘spaceship’ theory. I think we're in some sort of exile zone.” 

Harry went on. “There’s no free energy anywhere, apparently including mana. This crystal is made of a different material to everything else around us. I can’t figure out what, but it’s tougher and heavier than any non-magical material ought to be, so it might have been placed here violently by another party. That, plus the corpses, suggest that we’re looking at the aftermath of a strange kind of weapon designed to throw its enemies into the Outer Dark, outside of time and light. Which, I surmise, is where we are.

“Anyone have any experience breaking out of prisons without gates?”

<This is going to sound a bit ridiculous, but… that’s actually one of my specialties.>

“Oh!” Harry blinked in surprise. “Excellent! Let’s get cracking then! I presume there’s a better path forward than cutting the pillar in half, or turning it into dust? We can always try one of those later if we run out of ideas.”

Rain stepped forward, his iron gauntlets and helm reappearing before he made contact. He stood there, silent for a moment, before stepping back with a strange expression on his face. 

“I think parts of the System which gives me power on my world have come with me. They’re helping me interface with whatever this machine is. It’s only giving me partial control. All I can do is pump mana into it for maintenance purposes.”

“That could be useful,” Harry mused. “Any way to reverse that? Could we drain its mana reserves to deactivate it? Or feed it too much energy and cause an overload?”

Rain shook his head. “I can sense the capacity as well. Whoever built this thing had a mana capacity vastly larger than my own. I’d drain myself dry and it wouldn’t make a dent. That being said, I think this thing has been running for a long, long time, and it’s almost empty. I’d guess without us it would have started running out of mana around now regardless.”

<That can’t be a coincidence,> Simulacrum Two sounded in their minds. <It’s been running this long, and we happen to arrive just as it’s about to burn out? Maybe one of the spire’s functions we haven’t figured out brought us here as a contingency.>

“Alright” Harry cracked his knuckles. “We have a few options. We could destroy or otherwise disable the functionality of this device. If the device is actively separating this place from wherever it was excised, that could revert its effects and return us there. The risk, of course, is that the device’s activation permanently displaced this city, and its destruction would simply prevent us from returning. 

“From what the two of you are saying - sorry, the four of you - it sounds like the device has been constantly expending mana for a long time. Can you tell what that energy is doing?”

Simulacrum One frowned. <The enchantments are in a very unfamiliar style. I think I can see the mana channels for the various functions. Can’t interact with them without destabilising the whole thing though. The whole structure’s functions are deeply interwoven. Rain, can you add a tiny amount of mana to the system? I want to see how it flows through the channels.>

“Good idea.” Rain nodded, and pressed his palm against the stone.

<I can see it! The majority of the influx of mana is powering a narrowly focussed  sub-enchantment>

The simulacrum sent a wordless signal to the other instances of Zorian, requesting assistance. Given that numerous people had interacted with the spire without causing incident, Zorian deemed the risk worthwhile, and the three instances of his mind joined in focus on the enchantment. 

The mana Rain had injected into the system was being distributed through the enchantment by a series of channels. A tiny fraction was allocated to the mind-magic related sub-enchantment, which certainly deserved more focus later. The majority was allocated to powering a dimensionalism enchantment. Buried deep in the foreign structure, there was what felt like a contingency trigger.

Zorian frowned. <I’ve found a process that’s supposed to run when the spire runs out of useable mana.>

Teasing through the functions carefully, it looked like the trigger had a few parts. 

First, a semi-autonomous process was designed to recapture mana from the local environment. Zorian’s best guess was that it was intended to work like Sudomir's Well of Souls, ensnaring bursts of expelled mana and soul energy from the death of nearby entities. Assuming the denizens of this city were mortal, which certainly seemed to be the case given the mounds of bones Rain had dealt with, this spire would maintain the city’s exile until either its own prodigious mana reserves were exhausted, or no creature had died here in the last fifty years. 

In effect, the city was banished to the void until, one by one, everyone here was dead. 

Compared to Red Robe’s haphazardly constructed wraith bombs, this was a necromantic work of art. Despite the horror of their situation, Zorian couldn’t help but be impressed. 

Finally, the dimensionalism enchantment would gracefully shut down, returning this city and its remaining material wealth to its place of origin. Empty of life, it would be free for the perpetrator to pillage at their leisure. 

Whoever had done this was a monster of the highest calibre.

Time to update the others.

<The spire is designed to return the city to its source world when mana runs out. It’s fuelled by the deaths of those around it. There’s also some other power source I don’t quite understand. I believe it’s designed to last until everyone in the city is dead. When it returns, there’s a risk that whoever placed this enchantment will be awaiting the city’s return.>

<Rain?> Simulacrum Two asked. <Can you sense the current rates of mana consumption?>

“Twenty six mana a second,” Rain responded after a moment of concentration. “Its current reserves are 10413 mana.” He jerked in surprise. “That means we only have a little over six minutes until it runs dry!”

“Ah!” Harry exclaimed. “We need to get away from this spire. If there are hostiles in the source world, chances are they’ll be concentrated here. Zorian One, you made yourself invisible earlier. Can you do that to others? I have an Invisibility Cloak, but Rain definitely wouldn’t fit under it.”

<I can. The safest place for us will likely be in the air. Step here.> Zorian conjured a broad shimmering disc of force hovering above the floor, and gestured to it. 

Rain and Harry stepped onto the disc with confidence. Presumably that meant they both had their own mechanisms for flight. Zorian and his simulacra joined them, and shrouded them in a sphere conferring invisibility. For good measure, he wove in a shielding pattern of overlapping hexagons. That done, the sphere shot upward into the air, coming to a stop around ten floors above the spire, and a little off to the side. Zorian hadn’t seen any lightning blasts emerge from the top of the jagged blue spire yet, but there wasn’t any point taking chances. 

As the final minute ticked down, the five of them stood in terse silence. Even Harry’s questions had abated in preparation for whatever was about to happen. 

It was fifteen seconds earlier than expected, by Zorian’s count, when the dark above them ripped apart and was replaced by a cavernous blue sky. To one side a vast thunderstorm approached. The city below had intersected on return with a swamp which glowed eerily bright in the darkness, and marble buildings were collapsing into the water. Not far from the spire, a huge mass of vines and trees had torn through the marble and stretched twice as high as their bubble. And across the whole city, a battle raged.

Chapter 2: Conflict

Harry

 

Now that the city below them was lit by the glow of golden algae coursing through the canals, Harry was properly able to appreciate its architectural design. Concentric rings of buildings and towers stretched outward, giving way at the edge to a lake shrouded in mist. 

The pinkish marble from which the city was constructed, and the pillars and columns prevalent in the wide boulevards, put Harry in the mind of ancient Greece, or perhaps Rome.

At this point, however, Pompeii had the most in common with the beleaguered city below them. A tower haphazardly constructed of vines and trees stretched into the sky not too far from their invisible bubble, and a veritable onslaught was pouring outward onto the city below. As Harry watched, a boulder-sized chunk of volcanic ash was launched from the vine tower and obliterated a nearby building, sending rubble scattering. In the distance, Harry thought he saw a single figure escape, diving away from the explosion propelled by some kind of wind armour spinning around their limbs. 

An arrow shot from the tower, bombarding an unremarkable section of the city below. Where the arrow landed, the sound of stone cracking was followed by the near instantaneous growth of a tree at the site of impact. Its roots dug deep into the stone, and a nearby building crumbled into a canal. 

Harry blinked in surprise. It seemed his capacity for matter generation was decidedly not unique wherever it was they were now. 

“We need to get higher, '' he hissed between his teeth, hoping the others could hear him over the cacophony of the battle. “There’s a good chance of us getting hit by a stray boulder if we stay here.”

He got the feeling of assent from Zorian’s mental communications, and their bubble rose and rose. From here, the largest of the combatants, a monstrous stone giant wielding an iron hammer, looked no larger than an action figure. The wind from the storm, although blunted by the invisible sphere of force, was still strong enough to whip at his clothes.

<There, uh, might be another problem up here. Can either of you deal with the lightning?> Harry could sense a seed of panic in Zorin’s missive as he felt the hair on the back of his neck begin to stand up. 

Harry grasped through his robes to his Bag of Useful Items. “Wire” he whispered, and felt a coil of insulated wire appear in his hand.

At the same time, Rain spoke: “It won’t be a problem. I’ve activated inverted Fulmination. Any lightning within my range will be suppressed.”

Ah well. There would always be another opportunity to try Operation: Impromptu Faraday Cage. He stowed the wire again.

“Alright,” Harry said. “Priorities. There’s a battle raging below us between what looks like at least two factions. I think we can weather the storm up here-”

Zorian interjected: <My mana reserves are flagging. Keeping the five of us afloat and protecting us from the storm is draining.>

The patch of air where Harry guessed Rain was responded: “I don’t know if this will work, but I’m activating Essence Well”

There was a pause, and -

<Ahhh. How long can you keep this up?>

“Indefinitely, as long as our environment has sufficient essence. This world’s essence is strange, but I’ve modified my intake scoops appropriately and they seem to be handling it for now.”

<Excellent.> With that, their sphere stabilised, and the sound of the wind almost completely dropped away.

“The way I see it” Harry began again “We have three goals here. One, we need to stick together to find out what brought us here, and to get back to our own respective worlds. Two, we need to stay hidden and out of harm's way. I don’t know what kind of durable you two are, but if I was hit by an arrow that then transformed into a fully grown tree, I think I would probably die. Three, there is a regrettable amount of death happening below us. Assuming that the creatures here are sentient, I would like to prevent that. Agreed?”

As if to punctuate his words, an orb thrown from the vine tower detonated, and sent a massive stone monument crashing down toward street level. Before it could hit the ground, what looked like - that couldn’t be paper , could it? - rushed out from a humanoid figure and formed into a supportive brace, holding it in place for a moment before crumbling under the strain.

<I’d add a fourth goal> came the voice of one of Zorian’s simulacra. Despite their identical origins, the mental communications of the simulacra were somehow different. More… flippant? Something like that. <We have no idea what this world is like. We would benefit from asking a local a few questions.>

“What are the odds we share a common language? It seems to me that it’s already an extraordinary coincidence that Rain and I - ah. Your mind magic can read memories.”

Harry double checked that his Occlumency barriers were still secure. Zorian seemed friendly for now, but then again, so had Quirrel, in his own fashion. Although he was invisible, Harry still glanced at his left hand.

<It’s easier if the subject is conscious and non-violent, so they can be prompted with questions.>

“I would normally object to something like this,” Rain responded. “But the sooner we figure out what is going on here and whether we can stop it, the better”. 

Below them, the stone giant was battering at the side of the vine tower with its monstrously large iron hammer. A pair of duelling figures, one wrapped in spinning wind, the other holding whips of vines, were blasted by wind from the tower onto the giant’s back. As the giant turned, readying another swing, they were flung onto the roof of a nearby building. The wind-sheathed figure looked hurt; the other was now better described as a smear.

Harry felt sick.

“Agreed” Harry nodded, before shaking his head as he realised the futility of the gesture if made while invisible. “We stay hidden, and try to stop these deaths where possible. I can put humans to sleep at a distance. Can either of you non-lethally incapacitate at range?”

<As long as their mind is unshielded, I can.>

“I don’t think I can. I can shield people from injuries though, if I protect them with my wards.”

“Alright” Harry said, cracking his knuckles. “Take us lower, Zorian. We’ll try to put as many of the combatants to sleep as we can. Rain, keep us safe and prevent as much lethality as possible.”

<Yes, your majesty.> The dry humour of the response was conceptually clear. Ah well, this situation called for decisive action, snide remarks notwithstanding. 

As they descended, the stone giant swung again, the monstrous hammer ripping out huge chunks of plant matter. The tower swayed, and began to fall. 

“There” hissed Harry under his breath. On the roof of a building on an island amongst the canals, a smaller stone giant, almost person sized, and a younger boy with a pair of crystals hovering at his shoulders faced off against a trio of white-armoured soldiers. He readied his wand: 

"Somnium.”

One of the white-clad soldiers crumpled to the ground, unconscious. 

But he wasn’t quick enough. A bolt of indescribably bright light blasted out from the crystal boy, and in a flash one of the soldiers in white was just gone. 

"Somnium. Somnium. Somnium.”  

The boy fell to his knees, and slumped over, his crystals clattering to the rooftop. The small stone giant jumped protectively over him, shielding him with his body. Opposite them, the white-clad soldiers had also fallen to the ground.

That was inconvenient. Even if he could incapacitate the giant, it was possible that its falling body would crush the boy with the crystals. Hm.

Perhaps if he could shove the giant out of the way…

"Glisseo”

The spell was supposed to make a surface far slipperier, but at this distance, it was hard to see if it had had the desired effect. 

“Flipendo”

The knock-back jinx hit the giant square in the chest. It seemed it wasn’t completely made of stone, because the jinx was able to knock it back about a metre along the now-slipperier surface. In response, the stone around its feet began to meld with its legs, locking it in place against further relocation. 

Something about the density of the giant didn’t seem right. Given the weight of the stone, it shouldn't have been pushed that far back. Combined with its ability to manipulate the stone of the rooftop, it seemed plausible that there was a human inside with some ability to control stone. Like a suit of mediaeval armour, but composed entirely of stone.

Awesome.

Time to test the hypothesis.

"Homenum revelio”.

A small green glow twisted around the exterior of what Harry now surmised was a suit of armour. And if this one was a suit of armour, there was a good chance the massive stone giant levelling the city was too.

Somnium and Stupefy would both be blocked by the stony exterior. His options at this point were limited to either the ineffective or the overly lethal. But of course, he wasn’t alone.

“Zorian, the stone figures are humans wearing armour, not giants. Can you knock them out?”

<Rain, can you protect them from their own armour as they fall?>

“I think so. I don’t think there’s a damage limit here, so I need to be careful with my mana.”

There was a pause, and then as one, the two stone figures collapsed to the ground. The smaller one on the rooftop merely slumped to one side, while the larger one dropped to one knee, crushing what looked like an entire house. No longer held together by magical intent, the giant began to crumble, shedding vast boulders of stone in all directions.

“They’re fine,” Rain said, although there was a hint of strain in his voice. “No damage”. 

Pausing for reflection, they hovered at what Harry would guess was fifty metres above the city. It looked like Zorian’s simulacra had made short work of the mages in the remnants of the vine tower, because their nearby area had become an unlikely oasis of calm.

Harry’s attention was caught by a group of five white-clad soldiers stalking through a ruined building in the distance. They held a collection of eclectic weaponry, including a milky-white orb of unknown purpose, and a flaming sword, of which Harry could guess the purpose. 

He readied his wand, and - 

A flurry of sparks came from behind a building, and in an instant two of the soldiers were engulfed in flames, gone. The milky sphere swelled in response, and grew to protect and hide the other three. 

"Somnium” Harry tried, but it looked like the spell had no effect on those inside. 

Where was the assailant?

A lump of something - a grenade? - was tossed out from behind the same building and landed on the ground. There was a brief pause, and there was a massive detonation inside the sphere, which faded away. Although it was hard to tell in the distance, he swore he could hear a teenage girl’s voice cackling against the wind.

“Zorian, I can’t find her. Can you-”

<I’m going> came from one of the simulacra. Next to Harry there was a brief whooshing noise as the invisible figure departed. 

Then, as if by some ghostly signal, the city below them faded into the dark. One by one, buildings were replaced by shadows, as if holding space free for the city to return. Then, the shadows themselves vanished.

Beneath them, water rushed in to fill the void. The golden algae in the lake gave the waves a strange look, as if they were above a forge swirling with molten gold. 

“What just happened?” Rain asked. 

“The city is gone. It has to be related to us arriving here earlier, there’s no way that’s a coincidence. Actually, this might make more sense.” Harry almost started pacing, and had to remind himself he was currently on an invisible floating disc of which he couldn’t see the boundary. 

“What are the odds of us arriving just as the exile spire runs out of mana? I think the city has been phasing in and out for a while as the device drains the dregs of its energy, and we caught one of the cycles as we arrived. Is there any way to tell how long it will be until the city returns?”

<I can’t think of anything.>

Rain jumped in surprise beside Harry, and Harry felt an invisible armoured gauntlet brush his shoulder. “I, uh, think we have company . ”

--------------------------------------------------------

Rain

 

A crackle of lightning flashed across the sky. In the distance, the sudden brightness silhouetted five winged shapes, each of them at least fifteen metres long. They were still outside the range of Detection, so for an instant, he shut his eyes and activated Aura Focus. The sound of the battlefield and the smell of the swampy air vanished. 

The signals returned. 134 humans on the backs of 5 non-human entities. Best to avoid this conflict if possible.

“Can you take us back up Zorian?” It was difficult to keep the urgency from his voice. If these dragons were anything like the mythology he knew from Earth, or the one Tallheart had told him about…

Zorian’s agreement was clear by the rate they shot up into the sky, far faster than before. A lightning bolt blasted toward them, but faded out as it crossed the radius of his inverted Fulmination aura. The reversed lightning aura was responsible for a good chunk of his mana draw, but the thick essence of this world helped him refill rapidly. 

They came to rest just beneath the low, heavy clouds of the thunderstorm. The dragons raced toward turbulent waters from which the city had just vanished. Reaching their destination, they began circling in the air. About thirty figures jumped off the dragon’s backs and dispersed, flying by various means to form a wide perimeter. Some of them looked like they had invisible rocket thrusters attached to their feet and hands, while others seemed to seize control of the wind beneath them. Some simply seemed to be falling sideways.

“I figure we wait this out until the city returns” said Harry by his elbow. Rain agreed, and said so. 

They had been hovering in silence for five minutes when one of the dragons, lazily circling beneath them, jerked its head up in what Rain guessed was surprise. Rain barely had a moment to shout a warning before a pillar of fire erupted from the creature’s gullet, rushing toward them.

“Protego!” Harry shouted, gesturing with the stick he held. A bright shimmering shield came into being below them, and held back the fire for a moment before winking out. Zorian’s shield lasted an instant longer, but in turn also collapsed. 

Rain slammed Heat Ward to maximum, and briefly entered Aura Focus.

When he opened his eyes again, the flame had passed over them. He was unharmed, thanks to his armour, although its durability had taken a substantial hit. He could tell Zorian’s protective sphere was gone by the howling of the wind. Behind him, he could see that Harry and Zorian were now visible and partially aflame. All three of them were falling through the air. His mana had been completely consumed trying to hold back the heat.

Beneath them, the five dragons and their riders exploded into a hive of activity. Three of the dragons had turned upwards and were rushing toward their sphere. The riders on their backs were launching all kinds of projectiles - metal pellets that shone to his Mana Sight, jets of sulphurous looking gas. Rain swore he saw one of them throw a net. 

He activated the Magewell Amulet on his chest, and felt the mana rush in to replenish what he’d lost. 

Time to take Airwalk for a test drive on this new planet.

Rain leaped forward, placing his feet one after the other in the air the way Ameliah had taught him. It felt strange to use this skill as if it were his own, without her by his side. Part of him ached at the thought. 

The skill caught him, letting him run through the air to the centre of the mass of attackers. Lightning arced across the sky, and reflected in his adamant armour.

With a thought, he ran focusBoost.sh and activated Refrigerate, Shroud and Fulmination at maximum power.

His mana dropped like a stone, but the effects were hard to overstate. Around him, the soldiers flying to attack were flash frozen and fell from the sky. His own lightning crackled between them to rival the storm above. A few resisted the lightning and the cold, expelling the electricity outward as if by some innate control.

It didn’t matter. A moment later, those fell too, their silhouettes dark against the sky as they were torn apart inside by the effects of Shroud. 

An instant later, the dragons too fell from the sky, holes frozen in their wings and their dinner-plate sized eyes glazed over. Detection pings now showed that only two dragons, still circling far below, rivalled them in the sky, along with the handful of humans still riding on their backs. As they watched their allies fall from the sky, they turned and fled the way they came.

For a moment, Rain let his rage and frustration boil over and screamed into the wind. Earth had never really felt like home, but Ascension - he’d finally let his guard down. He’d protected his friends and been protected in turn. And now this. If this world thought he wasn’t going to fight like hell to get back to his friends, it deserved what was coming for it. 

He was barely paying attention to his Detection pings which showed Zorian and Harry approaching him. Beneath them, waves rushed down canals as the city phased back into place on the lake.

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian - Simulacrum 1

 

Simulacrum 1 was having a bit of a difficult time. 

He’d flown down to street level to apprehend a particularly violent fire mage. It turned out to be a short teenage girl with a thin fuzz of bright red hair and electric blue tattoos. He’d reached out with his mind, preparing for yet another routine knockout like he’d done to a dozen of the unprotected mages already.

Whereupon she’d lit her own head on fire . 

It wasn't a regular fire either. It burnt in an iridescent mix of colours, and left her skin and hair unharmed. There was some kind of twisted mind magic involved too. He’d tried to penetrate her mental defences, and had reeled back each time, confronted with too many images to digest. It was like he was an unprotected mind again, being attacked by Aranean hatchlings.

He’d been further frustrated when the city phased back into the dark realm in which he’d been created, which severed his link to the original and left him with extremely limited mana reserves. 

All in all, that meant he was quietly, invisibly stalking a flame-headed teenager as she lobbed sprays of incandescent fire at anything that moved.

The original had instructed him to non-lethally incapacitate the fire mage. Broadly interpreted, however, his remit was to minimise loss of life. If this madwoman got anywhere near an innocent person, he was launching a pebble at her skull at knockout speeds, risk of brain damage be damned.

Still quietly chuckling to herself in a rather disconcerting way, she rounded a corner into a wide boulevarde. It was clear the giant stone armour had been here. Entire rooms and buildings were crushed under massive footprints. 

At one end of the boulevarde, the blue crystal spire that had brought them here hovered ominously above the plaza. In front of it, a paper mage was duelling with five white-clad soldiers. His sword left behind echoes which the soldiers were avoiding with deathly care. Reams and reams of parchment were stuck in mid-air, and the paper mage was dancing through them with grace. His wiry frame seemed perfectly built for this, and the white-clad soldiers were struggling to keep pace. Worse still, each time they impacted one of the frozen pages, it sheared straight through them as if there was no resistance. Two soldiers died as Simulacrum One watched, and the red-headed girl cackled, before readying her own flames to join in. 

That wouldn’t do at all. 

Reaching out with his mind, Simulacrum One slipped through into the paper mage’s mind and knocked him unconscious. His frozen paper drifted downward, and the white-clad swordsmen stumbled backward, lucky to be alive, looking askance for their saviour.

That is, until the red-headed girl lobbed a gout of flame at the paper mage’s head. Unharmed, but engulfed in flame, he leaped once again to his feet and shouted what must be a thanks toward the teenager. Moving quickly, he disembowelled two more soldiers before they had a chance to react. 

This was getting out of hand. Time to act decisively. 

If Xvim had taught him anything, it was the extent to which a precisely placed marble could break your concentration. A pebble swirled in a tight circle above his hand, before shooting out to impact the girl in the side of her head. She staggered, disoriented, and the fire around her head, and the paper mages, winked out. 

Snapping the trap shut, he latched onto her mind and seized control, subduing her consciousness and rendering her catatonic. There didn’t seem to be any significant injury from the stone’s impact, which was a relief. She would have a hefty bruise when she woke up, but she’d more than earned it. He’d watched her for less than half an hour and had already seen her take more than a handful of lives.

Simulacrum One reached out again, and for the second time, the paper mage slumped to the ground. So did the final white-clad soldier, who by the looks of it was some kind of bone mage. The wounds inflicted by the paper mage’s echo sword were rapidly congealing into a monstrous-looking bony mass. Simulacrum One shuddered.

The square was quiet once more. Inside the strange dark of the exile zone, sounds of conflict would echo far, and there were none to be heard. His mind magic also couldn’t detect any remaining sentiences inside the exiled city. Satisfied, the simulacrum turned back toward the spire. Outlined by the strange inscriptions on its surface, it hovered in place as stably as it had when they’d first seen it. 

Who had placed this blue crystalline weapon here? By the simulacrum’s guess, the city had languished at least a hundred years in this featureless void, so the creator was likely long since dead. Perhaps some trace of their knowledge had survived? If so, it would be a valuable starting point in developing a way home.

Time to start looking.

The paper mage, his hand still wrapped around the hilt of his strange enchanted sabre, lay unconscious on the floor. Simulacrum One took a moment to stretch his ectoplasmic limbs, sat by the paper mage’s head, and began to dig for answers in his memories. 

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian - the original

 

Zorian hovered by Rain’s shoulder, barely managing to hold himself in the sky. 

Rain had frightened Zorian before. He was beginning to think he hadn’t been frightened enough. The storm of mana and pain that had erupted from the iron figure would have rivalled an angel. 

Zorian’s mana was almost empty, spent in a last-ditch effort to redirect the dragon’s flame. And yet, here they were, mostly unscathed. Even now he could feel the effect Rain had called ‘Essence Well’ refilling his mana reservoirs - he would be at full strength again in under a minute. 

Note to self: keep Rain happy wherever possible. 

By his side, Harry rode some kind of broomstick he’d produced from inside his robes in time to prevent his fall into the roiling waters below. Both of them had been burned by the flames that had made it through their collective barriers, but Harry had done something with his wand, and he could already feel his skin beginning to regrow over the burns. Being composed entirely of ectoplasm, Simulacrum Two wasn’t quite as resilient, and had dissolved as the flames had washed over them. 

Below them, the city phased back into place, and his connection to Simulacrum One returned. A deluge of collected memories came with it, which he filed away for later examination.

Harry looked like he was about to throw up. Then he threw up. The vomit sprayed against the invisible disc of force below Zorian in a weirdly disgusting way. 

“I’m sorry. If I thought there was any other way I wouldn’t have done it”. Rain spoke quietly, but was still shaking in what could have been shock. 

Harry wiped at his mouth with his sleeve. “They were attacking unknown entities who had done no-one any harm. They’d given up the deontological protection of the innocent. I may not have the stomach for it, but you did the right thing given the circumstances. 

Rain nodded, slowly and grimly, and released a small burst of Purify. The vomit on Harry’s sleeves vanished. 

<My simulacrum says that the fighting on the ground is over. We should go back to the spire, and see what else we can figure out.>

The others nodded at that, and Zorian made his disc larger and briefly opaque so that the others could join him. Harry fed his broom back into the too-small bag it had presumably come from, which belched. Strange.

Zorian once again wrapped them in a simple shield and a layer of protective invisibility. Before they could reach the city, however, it started to phase out again.

“Ah. The cycle period is decreasing now that there’s less power available” Harry said weakly. “Makes sense. Unclear if it will be safe. We should stay out.” 

Zorian brought the disc back upward as the city began to phase in again. He sent a mental order to Simulacrum One to rejoin them when possible. 

They hovered quietly above the city as it flickered in and out, the gaps about a minute long at this stage. The lightning above continued, and the clouds began to glow a faint blue.

After a short wait, Simulacrum One arrived, with additional cargo. Rain was the first to notice:

“You brought someone back.” It wasn’t a question. The detection skill he’d mentioned must bypass invisibility entirely. 

<Yes> the simulacrum responded, with an appropriate touch of sheepishness. <I was part way through the memories of this one when the city started flickering, so I figured I’d bring him along.>

Zorian sighed internally. Although the simulacra were created exactly in his own image, their awareness of their own temporary existence led them to behave somewhat more recklessly. Still, perhaps this was for the best. The snippets of memories Simulacrum One had sent him were already very promising, and it looked like there was plenty more to dig through. 

“Alright” Rain nodded. “Any clues on how the spire brought us here yet?”

The simulacrum responded: <Nothing precise yet, but this paper mage calls it the Exile Splinter. He believes it also drew power from a labyrinth, which is some kind of connection between->

They paused. The light in the clouds was becoming brighter moment by moment. 

Zorian had an instant to throw together a more powerful shield before the heavens themselves cracked open and the sky lit up with the brightest light he had ever seen. 

The light itself was shocking enough. What truly gave Zorian pause was the colour. 

It was unmistakably the same shade of crystalline blue as the Exile Splinter.

Notes:

Thank you for the warm responses! I will try to update this fic weekly.

Chapter 3: Preparation

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian

 

When Zorian’s eyes recovered from the glare, he saw a massive sphinx descending. The body of a lion was silhouetted against the dark clouds. Broad crystalline wings hovered at each side. They didn’t flap to keep the creature afloat, instead staying perfectly horizontal, eclipsing the storm above with their vivid blue brilliance. The sphinx’s human face bore a clear emotion: wrath. 

The creature came to a halt a few hundred feet above the city, which had ceased its flickering, and lay silent beneath them. Zorian instinctively reached out with his mind. As he’d suspected, it was futile. It was a similar experience to brushing against the mind of Oganj, the dragon mage from his world, or one of the more dangerous denizens of his home world’s dungeon. The sheer intensity and strength of the creature meant she would be able to shrug off his mental intrusions with ease. 

Atop the sphinx, perhaps half a dozen humans stood, looking out across the city. From their stance, it was clear they’d expected an enemy, not the empty ruins. Jumping from the sphinx’s back, they caught the air with ease and fanned out across the city, looking for survivors.

<Kanderon Crux, the crystal sphinx> Simulacrum Two provided, presumably drawing from the paper mage’s memories. <One of the creators of the Exile Splinter.>

So this was the monster responsible for the city’s centuries of banishment. In a way, Zorian supposed, it was a stroke of good luck that this creature had a longer lifespan than a typical human - it meant they had a better chance of recovering information about what had brought them here.

Now that the humans had disembarked, the sphinx began to fly in looping circles, then descended, and landed with the tip of her nose almost touching the Exile Splinter. Her expression of wrath had faded into a stony, unreadable, blankness. 

She stayed there, motionless. 

Rain spoke up, whispering despite the sound dampeners Zorian had attached to his shield.
“Is it safe to approach them?”

As far as Zorian was concerned, the answer was a resounding ‘no’. The three of them had been in this world for less than an hour, and he had already narrowly escaped death once. From here on out, he was going to be appropriately cautious.

<No. We wait, and observe. At the first hint of danger, I’m teleporting us to the horizon.>

Harry and Rain mentally assented, so the five of them - three humans, a simulacrum, and an unconscious paper mage - hovered in silence.

Below them, the humans were combing through the ruins of the city, extracting unconscious survivors. Half of them, they awoke, and brought into a central plaza to recuperate. It appeared the new arrivals were not on the side of the white-clad soldiers, because those were bound and taken prisoner. If one awoke, they were confronted with a display of force - usually something like a hovering rock, or a spinning whip of fire, and promptly surrendered.

Zorian was glad that the process seemed to be happening without loss of life. He’d done quite  a bit of work to prevent the prior battle from spiralling out of control, and it would have been a shame to simply hand victory to a bunch of ruthless murderers. Still, given the brutality of the combat they’d witnessed, and the terrifying fate this sphinx had inflicted on the city to begin with, he didn’t have high hopes for the treatment of the prisoners below. 

It seemed like a good idea to avoid tangling with the sphinx for now. She sat, motionless, as if communing with the Exile Splinter. He couldn’t detect any notable surges of mana, but a skilled enchanter interacting with their own equipment was rarely a legible process to an observer. 

He sorely felt the lack of his own equipment here. The battle would have been a far smoother affair if he had been accompanied by his wartime suite of golem-mounted simulacra. Hell, his enchanted cube would have absorbed the dragon's blast without a problem.

He was part way through reading the surface thoughts of the humans below when he noticed the gathering cloud of dust around them.

As if by some signal, the dust solidified into a collection of tiny crystals, and began to arc about his shield at tremendous speeds. The crystals formed into a pair of concentric rotating spheres, one with poles above and below them, and a hair's breadth outside it, one with poles to each side. The overall effect was clear - anyone attempting to leave their bubble by mundane means would be shredded. 

At the same time, despite their invisibility, the sphinx turned to face them.

Alright, time to go.

He reached out, grabbing Rain and Harry by their arms. The world rippled, then changed, and they were above the edge of the lake.

Three more short teleports, and their little group was resting on a forest floor, roughly fifty kilometres to the north-east of the ill-fated city. Harry and Rain collapsed to the ground, disoriented. Moments later, Simulacrum Two arrived with his captive.

<Unless the sphinx has some way of tracking us, we should be out of danger. Well, not all danger, just danger from the sphinx.>

Rain stood up, shaking leaves off his armour, mumbling to himself. 

“If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been unexpectedly dumped in a forest I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s still weird that it’s happened twice.”  

Turning to Zorian, he spoke up: “I can’t sense any other humans, or any non-animal entities within range. Thanks for getting us out of there, Zorian.”

<Time to learn a bit about this world. Can either of you meaningfully contribute to an interrogation?>

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Rain

 

The forest around them was far wetter than Rain would have liked, perhaps blurring the line into jungle. Despite the lack of absurdly large insects, it was uncomfortably reminiscent of Ascension’s new home in Bloodmarsh. Still, they’d managed to find a patch of dry soil on which to place the paper mage’s unconscious body.

Both Harry and Zorian’s real bodies were just at the edge of his Detection radius. Zorian had described in some detail the ease with which the man before them had sliced through his enemies. Rain was pretty sure Force Ward would handle a piece of paper, no matter how artfully it was manipulated, but Harry had still opted to stay out of the interrogation, provided that Zorian kept him filled in via mental communications. Fair enough.

Harry was in the process of transforming - transfiguring, he called it - several thick wooden branches into solid metal. Zorian was seemingly making good use of the veritable torrent of mana Rain was sending him via Essence Well, and had promptly summoned half a dozen additional simulacra. Most of those had stayed behind to work on the crafting project Zorian had started on, but two of them stood here with Rain, one at each side. 

Zorian apparently had control over the appearance of his doubles, because the ones here with him almost exactly matched Rain in height, and had the faces of nondescript middle aged men. Even so, they were wearing long black robes and hoods that entirely covered their faces. Harry had enthusiastically approved of the whole ensemble, saying that one medieval knight and two faceless wizards was the perfect makeup for a mysterious and powerful faction.

Rain sighed. Despite all his various and extensive idiosyncrasies, he was beginning to feel he was the most well-adjusted of their eclectic group. 

The plan was for Zorian’s simulacrum to release his mental clamps on the figure before them, allowing him to wake up, then to mentally interrogate him about the Splinter, the various factions in this world, how magic worked in this world, how one might go about travelling between universes, and anything else that seemed useful. Rain would be able to hear the words in an as yet unintelligible foreign language, and the meaning Zorian picked up from within their subject’s mind would be transmitted to both Harry and Rain. 

While Zorian’s mind magic was obviously invaluable for communication in a strange world, Rain was hoping to pick up some rudimentary language patterns by hearing the paper mage’s words out loud. He’d modified his stats accordingly, dumping all the points he could spare into Clarity. The mental effects were already apparent - he’d already accidentally memorised the weaving pattern on the paper mage’s pants, and was on to categorising the local plant species when Zorian awoke the man in front of them. 

Instead of the panic Rain had anticipated, the man breathed in and out slowly, sat up, and looked at the trio before him calmly. He was tall and thin, and looked perhaps in his early thirties, with scruffy brown hair. 

“So, do you talk first? Or would you like to maintain the whole inscrutable and ominous aesthetic you’ve got going on?”

Even accounting for his Clarity, the language was oddly simple to understand. With Zorian’s impression of the intent behind the sentence, Rain was almost immediately able to match concepts together with words. It felt somewhat unnatural, like his mind was latching on to deliberately constructed language. Did this world have some kind of… linguistics magic? 

<We are going to ask you a number of questions, and you will answer truthfully.>

The man laughed, and brushed his brown hair out of his eyes. 

“Of course! I’m not the type to leave people in ignorance or let questions go unanswered.”

<Who are you?>

“I’m Alustin Haber, a travelling librarian.”

<You’ve killed at least four people in the last day.>

He laughed. “Well, I’m a real stickler for overdue fines. I’m joking! I’m joking.”

He put his hands on his knees and leant forward toward them. “If you must know, it is of vital importance that the Havath Dominion does not obtain the Exile Splinter. You’re not part of the Dominion, are you? I suppose the Havathi could have acquired someone with a mind affinity or something. So, are you Havathi? Does my endless torture begin now?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, seeming awfully cavalier about the whole situation.

<What is the Exile Splinter?>

Alustin sighed and rubbed a hand across his face. “So not the Dominion, or at least pretending not to be. The Exile Splinter is-”

A tattoo on his right arm glowed blue, and a whole ream of paper appeared from nowhere. It shot out, splitting into dozens of separate sheets. They scythed through the air, heading for the apparent weak points of Rain’s armour at his neck and shoulders, and toward the robed figures by his side. 

The paper was halfway toward them when Alustin spasmed and fell to the ground - Zorian must have taken control of his mind. The paper lost its acceleration, but continued forward under its existing momentum. 

Immolate, 10 metre range, exempting all sentiences. 

The paper was incinerated instantly. A number of nearby plants were unfortunate casualties, and burst into flame. Beneath their feet, swamp water began to boil.

The hot ashes of the paper still moved forward, and sprayed across their faces. Heat and Force Ward prevented any damage, and a short burst of Purify vanished the remaining ash. 

As the figurative dust settled, neither he nor the two simulacra had moved an inch. Rain was quietly pleased with the impression. He didn’t want to appear utterly terrifying - Death Zone was a nickname better left in the past. Imposing and not to be messed with, that was the goal for now.

<Do not try that again. If you prefer, we can obtain the information we want by digging through your memories instead. That would, however, be significantly more painful.>

Once more released from Zorian’s mental control, Alustin sank back into a more casual resting position.

“You can’t blame me for trying, my dear faceless interrogators. Could I at least get an explanation of who you’re pretending to be, before I spill priceless and potentially world-ending information?”

<You can rest assured we have no intention of ending this world, nor of harming anyone in it, provided they do not harm us first. We have no association with the Havath Dominion, and no intention of using the Splinter as a weapon.>

“I suppose that’s as good as I can ask for. The Exile Splinter is a weapon designed to send a city to the void to die. While it was active, it also purged the city and everything inside from living memory. It was constructed roughly five hundred years ago in the war against Imperial Ithos in a collaboration between a number of great powers and archmages. It was eventually deployed against Ithos’ capital city, which is where you incapacitated me, I presume. It didn’t end the war immediately, but lacking coordination, the Empire fractured. Some parts still exist today as independent states, like Tsarnassus, but the empire itself ceased to exist as a political entity.”

Alustin stood up and started to gesticulate as he spoke. Despite his situation, which would have made most other people collapse into shock or fear, the man gave Rain the impression of a particularly passionate university professor. 

“The political fallout from the collapse of the Ithonian Empire was widespread, and set the stage for the world we live in today. Several nations lay claim to the mantle of successor to the empire. This is further complicated by the aforementioned fact that until now, no-one could remember or identify where the capital was actually situated. Tsarnassus, for example, designates Champions in a manner reminiscent of the Ithonian Empire. Over the last century, the Havathi Dominion has claimed to be the Empire’s successor, conquering neighbours, committing horrific atrocities, and aspiring to unite the continent once more.”

Here, Alustin gestured with an exaggerated fist, reminding Rain of Vader promising to rule the galaxy as father and son. 

“The language of the Ithonian Empire remains the dominant one on the continent, stabilised and refined as it was by their mages, and is still the language you would find in nearly all books you would read today. Correspondingly, it has a significant cultural impact on most existing states, particularly those which claim to be its descendants. The iconography of the Havathi Dominion is of particular interest. They frequently use marble and bronze as construction materials in an attempt to draw a line of continuity between the ancient Ithonian Empire and their own. This continues to be the case even when it acts to the detriment of their soldiers in battle - bronze is clearly inferior to steel as weaponry, for example.”

“This is, however, in strong contrast to their farming techniques. Modern farming techniques have evolved enormously since Ithonian times. The invention of the-”

<We can discuss farming later. How does one travel between worlds?>

Alustin blinked in surprise. “That’s quite a non sequitur. Why do you want to know about that?”

There was a pause, and no response. 

“I see. Well, the basic concept is as follows. Many worlds exist. When their planes approach, rather than violently intersecting, a labyrinth forms. Labyrinths, along with being the primary source of aether on Anastis, are a junction between many worlds, stabilised and protected by some highly advanced, ancient magic. Typical journeys between worlds, if there can be said to be such a thing, involve entering a labyrinth, navigating its deadly twists and turns, and finding your way to an exit in another world. Of course, you need to evade the ferocious monsters, traps, and obstacles, and avoid getting lost in a place which often seems to want to mislead you.”

Alustin leant forward again, looking intently at the outside of Rain’s helmet. 

“Now, perhaps I can better assist you if I had more of an idea of why you want to know these things. If what you’ve said is true - that you don’t intend to harm anyone who doesn’t harm you, and that you’re not affiliated with Havath, I don’t see why we can’t have a more collaborative arrangement. You’ll find that I’m an exceedingly reasonable fellow, and can be a reliable and useful ally to those I consider my friends.”

To this message, Zorian attached a note of mental clarification. 

<This man’s idea of ‘allies’ depends very strongly on overlapping goals. However, he does believe what he’s saying. He does not at present intend us violence, nor does he forsee that changing unless he determines that our goals conflict with his.>

That’s good enough for now.  

Rain stepped forward, and tucked away his helmet with Heavy Armour Inventory. 

Constructed entirely from words he’d heard Alustin say, and in what he was sure was a terrible accent, he spoke for the first time in this interrogation:

“Good to meet you, my dear librarian Alustin. Do you have a language book?”

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry

 

Assisting Zorian with assembling a robot army turned out to be tiring . 

According to his new ally, the primary requirement of material for golems was that it be strong. To that end, Harry had transfigured at least a dozen thick wooden branches into titanium, covertly made the change permanent with the Philosopher’s Stone, and then handed them over to Zorian’s simulacra. Moving in eerie synchronicity, a trio of the ectoplasmic bodies were magically carving tiny lettering into the metal rods.

As a break from the tiring work of transfiguring so much matter, Harry was now working on assembling a small rod out of carbon nanotube lattice, to test if it was compatible with the enchantments Zorian was using.

Beside them, Zorian’s real body and another simulacrum sat on the leafy ground, intently focused on a metallic cube. 

After five minutes of mild annoyance, Zorian had eventually allocated an entire simulacrum to answering Harry’s questions. 

“So, on your homeworld, you absorb ambient mana from your environment, and also generate a tiny bit within your soul . Sorry if it’s a bit of a philosophical question, but what is a soul?”

Simulacrum Seven looked a little amused.

<Why would that be a philosophical question? Every living entity has a soul. We don’t have a perfect understanding of its functions, but we do know that it’s tied to magical capabilities, and that if it’s removed or damaged, it’s catastrophic. Like you said, it’s also the repository for a mage’s magical energy, or ‘mana’ as we call it.>

“Can you see or detect souls? Do I have a soul?”

<I can see souls, although not everyone on my world can. You do have a soul. It doesn’t have many features I recognise. Most souls have a natural, fluid-seeming boundary. Yours and Rain’s both look like they have hard shells, or something, but they’re quite different apart from that. It’s hard to describe.>

“A shell? As in, protective? What do you mean?”

The simulacrum stroked his chin.

<Protective, yes, but that’s not all, I think. It’s as if there’s some additional soul construct which has completely subsumed your soul. If I had to guess, that’s why Rain’s mana regeneration aura doesn’t affect you - at first glance I don’t think the shell is permeable to mana at all. That would also explain why you were unaffected by the void, since the only source of mana you have access to is your internal soul. Hm.>

At this point, the simulacrum was starting to look at Harry’s torso like it was a particularly interesting insect specimen. 

<If I look carefully there’s also an additional soul marker underneath. This might sound strange, but have you made any pacts with angels recently?>

“I can think of what that might be, although describing it as a pact with angels is much too generous.”

<Right, it reminds me of the contract the angels made with Za- with someone from my world.>

Zorian could, at a glance see that he’d sworn an Unbreakable Vow? Harry was beginning to think he’d drawn the short straw in terms of legibility of magical systems.

“Can I learn to see souls? How does that happen?”

<The process involves either a potion made from a moth which is only available once every 23 years on my world, or a deliberate, extended near-death experience.>

“Right, okay, we’ll leave that till later. How do you do magic where you come from?”

<It relies on manipulation of mana. Most early training involves practice in being able to detect and manipulate mana in tiny amounts. Kids start trying to channel mana into a basic toy enchantment that glows in response to mana. Later they learn specialised pre-designed spells that restrict the mana enough for it to have a useful effect without them having to shape the mana too carefully.>

So Zorian’s world had mana, a quantifiable resource which could be expended in flexible ways to magically influence the world. This was so much more coherent than the Wingardium Leviosa stuff he’d been saddled with.

“You can make me one of those toys, right? And you can see mana as well?”

<Yes, and yes.>

“What does it look like when I do this? Wingardium leviosa.” A small rock levitated in the air. 

The simulacrum frowned.

<It looks… strange. There’s the usual flow of mana from you into the environment, but the patterns of mana in your soul are definitely unusual.>

Simulacrum Seven squatted down, squinting alternately at the rock and at Harry’s wand. <It’s hard for me to tell without more intrusive inspection. I think the mana lifting the rock is coming from the shell construct wrapped around your soul, not from you. It’s also being channelled through your wand in a way I can’t figure out.>

This was starting to come together. There was some kind of ‘soul shell’ wrapped around his soul, which prevented him from absorbing ambient mana like Rain and Zorian could. At the same time, the shell itself was what powered his spells when they interacted with the environment, and severely limited what kind of magic he could use. It was clear at this point that Zorian’s spellcasting was far more flexible than his own. Was there some way to bypass the soul shell, and use magic as freely as Zorian could? Was that what wizards like Dumbledore and Quirrell were doing when they cast spells without their wand or without incantations? And why was there a shell around his soul to begin with? Was it something to do with the markers on his blood that he and Draco had determined were linked with magical ability? Some kind of key to the ancient magical constructs the Atlanteans had built?

Harry and the simulacrum stood in silence, each digesting the implications of what they’d observed.

Harry shook his head. There were too many loose ends to chase down, too many questions unanswered. It wasn’t a good idea to get stuck down one path when other potential win-conditions might be within reach.

“How does the simulacrum spell work? Do you and the others have independent souls? Can you independently regenerate mana? Do you each have a single mind, or are you like a Cerberus-type three headed dog or something, with many minds coordinated and interlinked? No offence.”

Interrupting the simulacrum’s response, Rain brushed aside a fern leaf to enter their clearing. He looked around, half amused, half impressed by the hive of activity, and walked over to Harry and Simulacrum Seven.

“That interrogation went pretty well, I thought!”

Seven looked at him with a sour expression. <There was no need to let him see your face. You have no idea if one day that will let him track down and kill you, or your friends and family.>

“In principle it’s a good idea to keep your cards close to your chest, but at a certain point, it’s useful to make friends with a friendly face.”

<His ‘friendly face’ killed four experienced battle-mages in a matter of seconds.>

Rain sighed, a serious expression coming over his usually playful face.

“While I wish I’d seen less death in my time, there are times when there isn’t any other choice. We don’t know much about the factions of this world. Maybe the Havath Dominion actually is the monstrosity Alustin seems to think it is. Point is, we know so little - let’s hold off on the judgement till we’ve got a more complete picture. Besides, you’ve already got him camping separately from us, fifty metres away, with a simulacrum breathing down his neck and making sure he doesn’t think or move in a way you disapprove of. I’d say he’s not likely to cause us problems anytime soon.”

Brightening again, he turned to Harry and offered him a thin book. “Anyway, check this out. Alustin gave me a dictionary!”

Harry blinked in surprise. “He was just carrying around a dictionary? I know he claimed to be a librarian, but who just carries around a dictionary?”

“That’s the thing - apparently he has a massive extra-dimensional space tucked into his arm! That’s how he summoned the paper he used to attack us. According to him, he has hundreds of books in there. He highly recommended one on differences between farming techniques in the mana desert of Emblin and the rest of the continent. Charming fellow, really.”

“Awesome! I don’t suppose he had some kind of Rosetta stone featuring paragraphs in the local language and English as well? Otherwise I’m probably not going to be able to make much use of it.”

“Oh, right. No, I’ve already figured out the basics. If you want, I can annotate the dictionary in English? If you have a pencil, that is.”

Harry blinked in surprise again, dug through his bag, and handed over a mechanical pencil. Rain had already figured out the language? What kind of savants was he travelling with? 

Rain laughed. “Don’t look so impressed. Alustin said the local language has been somehow magically reinforced or something. It was surprisingly easy to pick up. Plus I went over it while under hundredfold time acceleration inside my soul, so really I’ve had a while to study.”

Harry’s eyes were popping out of his head at this point. 

“You have time acceleration inside your soul? ”

“Yeah! It took me a while to figure out but it’s very useful. I don’t know how it would work for you without a System to facilitate it, but it would be interesting to try to figure it out.”

“Give me a minute.” Harry sat back on the ground, breathing hard. So Zorian could make a bunch of copies of himself to work in parallel, and Rain could just jump inside his soul and think for an hour in thirty-six seconds. This was starting to feel unfair. 

Time to see if his unfair advantages still worked here. 

“I need a bit of time to myself to do some magical experimentation. I won’t go out of your range, just around a few trees. Try to ignore it if anything strange happens.”

Simulacrum Seven and Rain nodded at that as if it was the most normal thing in the world. They would have fitted in pretty well in Ravenclaw. The original Zorian even briefly looked up from his intricate metallic cube as he left. 

Harry’s long black robe trailed a little in the swampy mud as he rounded a thicket of trees. If he was going to spend any length of time here, he would have to figure out some more practical clothing. 

After a brief search, Harry found a mound of dry-ish  earth, and made himself comfortable, sitting cross-legged. 

Then, he whispered to his Bag of Useful Items: “Time turner”. 

The hourglass was cool in his hands against the warmth of the humid air. 

He thought back to his first experiment with the device. The universe, it appeared, would only tolerate consistent loops - that is, the universe abhors a paradox. If you went back in time, you had already been there.

His first attempt to exploit this property to magically brute-force prime factorisation in constant time had ended in a discomfiting surprise. Instead of receiving the correct factorisation of a product of two three digit primes from his future self, he’d received a note in shaky handwriting: DO NOT MESS WITH TIME. Of course, he’d then gone back in time to pass himself the same note - as he knew he would, because he’d seen it.

The explanation for that result was obvious in retrospect. If there was a simple loop in which Harry passed himself back a single note which then caused him to pass that same note back in time, why should the universe prefer a scenario which depended on complex rules to occur? Naturally, there would almost always be more than one possible stable loop - it seemed the universe chose one which was in some sense as simple as possible. 

For now, Harry was planning on a simpler experiment. He had yet to see any form of time travel here (subjective time acceleration, while awesome and extremely useful, didn’t count), and there was no telling whether the time turner would function as normal, or indeed at all. So, it was time for the most basic possible experiment with the device:

He was going to go back in time, leave a note saying “Hello world”, and that was that. Nothing complicated, no bells and whistles, just a straightforward, simple test.

Harry fetched a sketchbook from his bag, and tore off a small scrap of paper. About three metres away, he noted a fist-sized rock resting on the ground. In addition, he fetched a mechanical pencil. Then, he precommitted: 

I am going to turn around, and look under that rock for a note from my future self. I will then wait for an hour, before going back in time to place a note under the rock for my past self. If this works, I will consider this test a success.

Harry sat, facing the trunk of a broad tree. It was polite to leave his future self some privacy, and give him a moment to place the note. 

After five minutes of intense staring at an alien tree, he turned around. The rock wasn’t too heavy - he’d chosen a smaller one, of course. He lifted it easily aside.

There was no note. The soil under the rock looked like it hadn’t been disturbed by human hands.

A chill ran down Harry’s spine. There were two possible explanations, neither of them good.

First, it was possible that time travel didn’t work on this world. For that matter, it might not work anywhere outside of his homeworld. Rain had mentioned that the ‘essence’ of this world was different to others - that might interfere with the time turner’s function? Or possibly Time as a navigable, single consistent entity was an artefact of his world alone, and outside it time flowed linearly, the way Harry had always assumed would be the case everywhere. There were too many possibilities, and not enough evidence to distinguish between them.

Second, and more worryingly, the time turner might be working perfectly. In that case, the reason why there hadn’t been a note would have to be that something had prevented him from returning to this time and placing it here. 

If the first theory was correct, although he would be deprived of one of his most powerful tools, there was no immediate danger.

If the second theory was correct, there was a significantly elevated risk that his death would come in the next hour.

Harry quickly enumerated the possible risks:

First: The monstrous sphinx who had created the Splinter. She could have traced them here somehow, and she was undeniably capable of killing him near-instantly.

Second: The other faction from the battle above Ithos - the white-clad soldiers.

Third: Their captive paper mage, escaped and seeking revenge. (A bead of sweat ran down Harry’s forehead, and he hastily stuffed his paper back into his extensible bag)

Fourth: Another, as yet unknown faction native to this world.

Fifth: His companions, working quietly in the grove less than fifty metres away.

Zorian and Rain seemed friendly, and so far seemed to share his instincts that life ought to be protected wherever possible. Then again, a portable time machine was a powerful prize…

There was an obvious tradeoff in between preparing for the first four risks and preparing for the fifth. If it was any of the first four, he should immediately return to his companions, and inform them of the potential danger.

If it was the fifth, then giving them any reason to suspect that the time turner existed could be the trigger for them to turn on him.

Harry pressed his fingers to his temples. He was in an unknown world, facing dangers about which he knew frighteningly little. Even if they presented some additional risks, Rain and Zorian were his most useful tools.

He returned the time turner to his bag, and jogged back to the glade.

“Zorian - is the paper mage secure?”

Simulacrum Seven turned toward him and nodded.

“For good measure, could you ensure he doesn’t move or access his magic for the next hour? I have some reasons to believe that there may be a threat within that time.”

The original Zorian looked up toward him. A trio of simulacra ceased their work, and faded into invisibility. Rain’s armour phased back into place.

<Done. Alustin is paralysed. Why?>

Harry swallowed. “This sounds strange, but I swear that I will tell you in an hour. Before then, I have good reasons to say no more.”

Zorian narrowed his eyes. <I will hold you to that.>

The next hour was spent in tense silence. Harry stood a few metres away from the others, eyes flickering between Rain, Zorian and his simulacra, and the skies above. After a few minutes, a few of Zorian’s simulacra returned to their work, although most remained invisible. Rain darted around, moving faster than ought to be humanly possible.

An hour ticked by. With the others watching him warily, Harry took the time turner from his bag, placed it around his neck, and rotated it once.

Nothing happened. 

Harry exhaled.

“Just in case - have either of you observed a duplicate of me at any point within the last hour?”

They both shook their heads, and Rain looked even more confused. “Am I the only one here who can’t make clones?”

Harry sighed. “Apparently not.” 

Since they didn’t appear to function here, there wasn’t too much point in keeping the secret - and given that his allies didn’t seem to be the cause of his death, they did deserve some kind of explanation. As his heart rate gradually returned to normal, Harry described the basic function of the time turner.

Rain looked astonished. That was the reaction Harry expected - it was how he had reacted too, when Professor McGonagal had handed him the device.

Zorian, on the other hand, looked sceptical.

<Are you sure that using this device sends you back in time to the same reality? There’s no way it could be placing you in some kind of simulation, or false reality?>

Harry tilted his head to the side, musing. “I don’t think so. Often, the first sign I have that I will use a time turner is receiving a signal from my future self who has already used it. That isn’t possible unless all versions of myself exist within the same consistent reality. Why do you ask?”

Zorian put his head in his hands and gritted his teeth. <Because a considerable amount of work has gone into producing similar effects on my world - and in the end, all of them turned out to be some kind of time dilation, rather than actual time travel. This includes devices allegedly constructed by the gods.>

There was a pause as the three of them digested that. Then, Zorian raised his eyebrows. <Harry, is your reality embedded in some kind of larger-scale device?>

“... not that I’m aware of? Although I don’t know of any mechanism by which I would be able to tell.”

<Right, of course.> Zorian was staring into the distance now. <The Sovereign Gate was only detectable during the process of leaving or entering. If you were on the inside, it felt no different to the physical world.>

Harry thought back to a conversation they’d had in the dark city. “So that’s what you meant by having ‘experience breaking out of prisons without gates’.”

Zorian nodded, but refused to share any further details.

Ah well, there were other questions to ask, and more tools to build. The three of them turned back to their work, and Harry kept probing Zorian for information he was more willing to share. There was always more to learn.

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Hugh Stormward

 

Hugh looked out across the horizon. From atop Kanderon’s back as she flew through the sky, the sight was magnificent. In the distance, the sun was setting over the peaks of the Skyreach range. His affinity sense could feel the vast networks of crystal that made up Kanderon’s blue wings, and the pinkish light refracting through them would have been the first thing on his mind.

If their mentor and friend hadn’t just been kidnapped, or possibly killed. 

His girlfriend Talia nestled up against him, and he ran his fingers through the fuzz of her short red hair. His fingers brushed the edge of the purplish bruise that was spread out across her temple. He couldn’t help but ball his hands into fists. 

“This is all my fault,” he said through gritted teeth.

Talia reached up and gently slapped him across the cheek. “Obviously it’s not your fault. You don’t have any kind of natural mental protections, so you didn’t stand a chance. It’s my fault. My dreamfire gave me the tools to resist whoever it was that took Alustin, I just screwed up.”

Hugh sighed in response. “Don’t blame yourself. You did the best of anyone at resisting. Even Artur just fell apart. We’re lucky Kanderon was with us and could sense their pocket dimensions with her planar affinity, or we’d all be… wherever Alustin is.” He looked across Kanderon’s broad back, to where the rest of the Librarians Errant were guarding a cluster of bound and gagged Havathi Sacred Swordsmen. 

“The dreamfire worked. That’s the important thing. They could only put you down by distracting you, so the dreamfire got put out. Is there some way we can keep the fire burning without you needing to concentrate on it?”

Talia stood up, energised by the idea. “Is it possible to stabilise a spell like that? If we can, the dreamfire could protect us from whatever they did!”

There were no enchanters with them, but with Kanderon and Artur’s help, after many hours of failed experiments, they were making steady progress. As they approached Skyhold, they finally had a single droplet of dreamfire suspended in a crystalline container. It wouldn’t burn forever, but Talia only needed to refuel it with mana once an hour or so. They were sure that with further refining, it could last even longer.

The next time this new faction crossed their path, whoever and whatever they were, things were definitely going to go differently. 

Chapter 4: Interpolation

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian - Simulacrum Number Six

The original’s instructions had been clear. Take Alustin to a secondary campsite, ensure he doesn’t escape, and do not engage. They were still comfortably within the range of Rain’s Force Ward aura, so the simulacrum wasn’t worried about another escape attempt. He wasn’t, however, prepared for how talkative this man could be.

For the first hour, Alustin had been paralysed at Harry’s request. The simulacrum had reached into his mind, and suppressed not just his control over his body and his magic, but every scrap of conscious thought. He’d felt vaguely guilty about it, but those feelings abated when he remembered the glee with which Alustin had killed his enemies in the dark city.

Alustin had been free for a matter of seconds when he started talking.

“So! The three of you have some kind of pecking order going on? You’re designated to watch me? Is that knight your commander?”

The simulacrum offered no response. 

“I’ve already put together that you’re offworlders, in case you’re wondering. It’s not too common for powerful mages to show up out of nowhere with affinities no-one has ever seen before. Especially when they then interrogate me about how to travel between worlds. I would have thought you’d know all about that already? How else would you have arrived here?”

Six remained passive, leaning against a tree. Alustin had laid himself back on the ground, arms stretched out as if he was trying to make a snow angel. The man appeared perfectly at ease. 

“You’re new to this world, then. I figure in the interests of mutual collaboration, I’ll fill you in on the nuances of this continent. I’m sure an honourable organisation like yourselves will return the favour and give me back the capacity to choose where I’m allowed to walk.”

<There’s really no point fishing for information. I’m not going to respond.>

Alustin shrugged. “Well, there’s not much else I could be doing. Unless you want to let me leave?”

The simulacrum shook his head.

“As I was saying earlier, the invention of the shaduf significantly advanced irrigation capabilities in the mana deserts of Emblin, and in other regions where mana is limited. It’s a bucket on the end of a long pole, which is mounted on a pivot, with a counterweight.”

This was getting somewhat tiresome. The simulacrum reached into Alustin’s mind and took control of his mouth. Alustin stopped talking.

Irritatingly, this didn’t seem to deter the librarian, and Six could sense that his thoughts were continuing in the same didactic vein.

It would have been trivial to extract himself from Alustin’s brain, but doing so while continuing to monitor his thought patterns for dangerous behaviour was a bit more tricky. It seemed the simulacrum was doomed to listen to a man lecture about farm equipment inside his own head.

<The counterweight and the leverage provided by the long pole allows a non-magical citizen to easily lift large amounts of water out of a river or well into either containers, or up into an irrigation channel.>

<Of course, this is entirely irrelevant in nations which have access to mana and mages with the relevant affinities. Agriculture in these nations is dominated by mages with particular affinities - water affinities, naturally, allow for very effective irrigation. A variety of other affinities are also useful. Plant mages are invaluable, and are responsible for most high-value crop production on the continent.>

The simulacrum frowned and inclined his head slightly. Magic here seemed awfully specialised. The structure Alustin was calling ‘affinities’ seemed to limit mages into manipulating only certain categories of matter and energy. 

Alustin must have noticed the simulacrum’s minute head movements, because his thoughts revealed a feeling of success.

<Ah, so you’re interested in affinities? We’ll make a student of you yet, my dear faceless jail-warden.>

<A small proportion of sentients born on this continent are ‘mind-blind’, and are unable to interact with mana at all. Typically, those who can interact with magic develop a number of affinities as they age. These can be broadly categorised into material, process and structural types. Material is obvious - stone, metal, air, for example. My affinity, which I… demonstrated for you, earlier, is paper. Process affinities are something like fire, which is the process of a material changing state. Structural affinities are the most complex to describe. The language affinities of the erstwhile Ithonian empire are a prominent example. Abstract categories also exist- I’ve met mages with affinities for crystal, fibre, even dreams.>

<Mages can manipulate the subject of their affinity, and sense movements in it. My affinity sense for paper, for example, tells me that you aren’t carrying any, and that the knight is currently reading my volume on the successors of the Ithonian Empire around fifty metres to my left.>

The simulacrum frowned again. It appeared their precaution of keeping Alustin away from the main campsite was insufficient. At least Rain’s Force Ward would keep them safe if the paper mage tried to slice all their throats or something. He sent a short message to warn the original nonetheless.

Affinity senses sounded powerful. The simulacrum was used to being able to sense the minds of those around him, but a mage who could sense all the stone within range would be immensely valuable to someone exploring underground. And Alustin had said there were affinities for air!  

This was beginning to explain how their group had been caught twice in the battle above the city, despite the cover of invisibility. 

Alustin continued thinking, clearly buoyed onwards by the changes in the simulacrum’s body language. He sat up, making use of the body parts he could still control.

<Affinities develop their own separate mana reservoirs within people. A mage with stone and scent affinities, for example, might have much more stone mana than scent mana.>

That was curious too. On Zorian’s world, there hadn’t really been any subcategories of mana, at least not that he knew about.

<How does mana become specialised within these reservoirs? What changes about it?>

<Ah, a response. Could you give me back my mouth? I much prefer talking that way.>

The simulacrum relented, and upon regaining control, Alustin breathed in and out heavily a few times. He ran his hand over his jaw and moved it around.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that. Anyway, mana reservoirs naturally absorb and refine mana over time. Once refined, the mana is able to be used in spellforms that are specialised to interact with things conceptually related to the mana type. Fascinatingly, the conceptual boundaries are related to the conceptual boundaries of the mage’s language, but that’s getting a little off track. We have very few ways to observe or interact with mana directly, so I can’t say much about what enables different mana types to work with different spellforms.”

<What’s a spellform?>

“It’s a pattern in which mana can flow to create a specific effect. If I want to move a piece of paper, or shape it into a suit of armour, I’ll do that by visualising a spellform in my mind and using it to direct the flow of mana.”

<You say you use the visualisation of the spellform to direct the flow of mana - how does that work?>

“While visualising the spellform - it’s a little hard to describe - basically I just push my mana a little and it follows the paths laid out in my mind’s eye.”

<That’s interesting.> The simulacrum paused for a moment weighing the benefits and risks of sharing more. <Where I’m from, we have other ways to define the paths of mana and restrict spells, and a great deal of skill and practice is required to shape the mana to follow those paths.>

Alustin looked excited at that. “I’ve seen references to the existence of different states of aether in different worlds. Anastis, which is where we are, in case you didn’t know, is described as having ‘liquid’ aether. Perhaps in a world with, for instance, gaseous aether, it might require more finesse to control the flow of mana.”

Six didn’t really know what to make of that, but states of aether, and mana refined to a particular type both sounded like they deserved further research. 

Alustin put his hands on his knees, and looked serious. 

“Since you can see my thoughts as they unfold, you know I’m telling the truth here. I do want to help you. Barring the kidnapping, you seem like friendly enough people. More importantly, I am always on the lookout for new friends and allies. Please let me know if there are things I can help you with.”

The simulacrum turned to face him. 

<Tell me more about labyrinths.>

Alustin grinned.

“As I mentioned previously, labyrinths form when the planes of worlds approach one another. They come in a variety of forms, often depending on the aether types of the universes they connect. Newly arrived creatures from another world often feel a kind of ‘aether sickness’ as they adjust. That explains any queasiness you might be feeling.”

That was strange. The simulacrum, itself lacking a soul and depending entirely on the original for mana regeneration, hadn’t felt anything of the kind. Nor, to his recollection, had the original. Then again, in terms of proportion, virtually all their mana had come via Rain, rather than being absorbed from the world directly. That was something to ask the knight about later - did he have some special way of absorbing mana that was avoiding this effect?

“Labyrinths are notoriously difficult to navigate, often shifting and changing over time, but it can be done. There are books that describe the patterns particular labyrinths follow, and the worlds they connect. The ones with enough detail to successfully find paths to specific worlds are very rare, but I believe my mentor Kanderon Crux has one.”

The simulacrum remembered the wrathful expression of the crystal sphinx as she descended from the sky. He really hoped he could find his way home without her.

Alustin tapped his nose conspiratorially, and continued.

“My theory is that you’re a part of an inter-universal organisation that lost their navigator. So now you’re stuck here until you can figure out how to travel worlds on your own.”

That was… pretty far from the truth, Six noted, somewhat reassured.

<Let’s say that’s what’s happened. How would we find a labyrinth in this world? What do we look for?>

“Well, like I said, it depends. Labyrinths can vary enormously in form and composition.”

<Alright, give me an example.>

“My adopted home in Skyhold University has a labyrinth. That’s one of the properties that makes it so ideal for mages, since it emits huge amounts of aether. The labyrinth is buried deep beneath the earth, inside the mountain. The pathways are stone tunnels laced with traps and populated with unusual creatures, although near the surface they’re not too hard to handle. When you get deeper, the creatures get far more dangerous. The prevailing theory is that they’re denizens of other worlds that have wandered into the labyrinth and made themselves at home. Eventually, when you reach a low enough level, provided you can navigate to the right place, the labyrinth connects to other labyrinths in other worlds. Or that’s the theory at least. I’ve never been that deep.”

If Simulacrum Six had a spine, chills would have been running down it. As it was, the ectoplasmic hair on his forearms was beginning to stand up.

So this labyrinth in Skyhold was buried deep under an institution of magical learning. It emitted huge amounts of magical energy, which mages could harness. The deeper you got, the more dangerous the creatures. And somewhere very deep, boundaries with other worlds grew thin.

He had a growing suspicion that there was a labyrinth on his world. And he thought he knew where. 

He created a memory packet of the last few minutes of conversation, and sent it to the original with an instruction to review it immediately.

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian - the original, minutes earlier 

The three of them worked well into the late hours of the night. Well, the nine of them, if simulacra counted. They certainly thought they did.

On his homeworld, Zorian’s ectoplasmic doubles had a habit of poking fun at his bodily functions, seeing as they had no need to eat or relieve themselves. Here, Rain’s aura was helping even the scales on that front, as well as shedding a small circle of light across their improvised workbenches. Without the need to find a bathroom, Zorian had comfortably worked away as the stars appeared overhead and alien insects began to chirp in the trees around them

Zorian was the first to notice his rumbling stomach. Despite the benefits of an existence lasting longer than a few days, he had to admit there were some downsides to a physical form. 

<Harry, can you transfigure some food? I’m getting pretty hungry.>

The younger boy looked up from his current project. He’d been working on an experimental tougher coating for metallic parts. Zorian was keen to use it for the mana-conserving metal frames for his simulacra, and hoped it might even amplify the effect. Simulacrum Five had been tasked with assisting and learning about the materials involved. Zorian hadn’t reviewed the simulacrum’s memory packets yet, so the project was still inscrutable to him. Simulacrum Five was buzzing with excitement though, so it was bound to be something useful.

“I suppose I could, but there’s a certain witch who would skin me alive if I even thought about transfiguring us dinner. I haven’t run enough tests to be conclusively certain that the transfigurations don’t revert under some odd circumstance. If I transfigured us dinner, and some kind of magic reversal effect exists on this world, I’m pretty sure we would all die instantly as the glucose in our blood reverted into rocks or something.”

Zorian frowned. 

<Wait, so dispelling transfigured materials turns them back into the material they started as?>

“Usually, yes. I can make the transfigurations permanent in a way that I believe is irreversible. I haven’t done enough tests to be absolutely certain.”

<What if we started with water?>

“Wouldn’t work. If we’d metabolised the food and used the carbon to build brain tissue, any kind of chemical change during a reversion would likely lead to a sudden and gruesome death.”

At this point in the discussion it was probably safer to find something else to eat.

<Rain? You don’t happen to have an aura that magically gives you a full stomach?>

Rain was deep into one of Alustin’s books, but couldn’t be reading - he was flipping to a new page every ten seconds. He’d requested and received a book on the political factions of the continent they were on. Ithos, it was called. At the same time, he was annotating the Ithonian dictionary with English - the language the other two shared - for Harry.

“Uh, I actually didn’t take that skill. I’m saving a single skill point, but I’d need to spend two more to get the prerequisites. Now that I think about it, I have no idea how my soul would react if I tried to spend a skill point. There’s no System to interact with here. Sorry, I’m getting side-tracked. Point is, if it’s essential, I might be able to do it, but I’d much rather find another way.”

Harry, in the meantime, was pulling some square shiny-looking packages from the pocket dimension in his bag.

“Don’t worry about it. Just because I don’t want to transfigure us food, doesn’t mean I don’t have a solution.” He tossed one of the packets to Zorian, and another to Rain. “Nutritionally complete mealsquares for everyone!”

Rain grinned and tore open the transparent packaging. “You have no idea how nostalgic I am for processed foods. I haven’t eaten anything that wasn’t roasted over an open fire in over a year.”

Zorian followed suit. The bread-like substance inside was dry and bland, but filling. The three of them munched away as the simulacra continued to work in the background. 

Although they appeared to be a little inflexible in combat, Rain and Harry were turning out to be excellent crafting companions. Rain’s Essence Well was enormously useful, of course. It was strange having so much mana at his disposal. He’d immediately used it to create more simulacra than he’d ever had before, and it still felt like he’d be able to throw boulders around like Zach if he wanted to. 

Harry let Zorian skip nearly all the material-gathering parts of crafting. The ‘titanium’ the boy had produced was lighter and stronger than the steel Zorian was used to. It appeared to hold spell formulas just as well as steel, too. According to Harry, it was impossible to transfigure materials that were magical in nature, which was a significant limitation. It meant Zorian would have to rely on simulacra alone, and wouldn’t be able to create his usual suite of combat golems, since they relied on crystallised mana as a power source. Unless they found some replacement on this world, of course.

Harry paused, mid munch. “So you’re originally from Earth, right Rain? What’s the story there?”

Rain, who was sitting cross legged, responded between mouthfuls. “There’s not much to tell, really. About a year ago I was asleep in bed on Earth, and woke up in a forest in another world. Made some friends.” 

Rain’s mental defences had massively improved over the last day. Zorian had respected the integrity of Rain’s mind, as requested, but the feelers he automatically put out were brushing up against a mind that felt far stronger than the one he’d been close to overpowering when they first arrived. Strange. Improvements of that nature usually took months of study with an experienced teacher. The shape of his soul had also changed in some difficult to categorise way. 

Despite the changes, Zorian could still feel his basic emotional state. Zorian got the distinct impression that Rain had stopped there not because it was the end of the story but because he didn’t want to get too emotional in front of them. 

“Do you miss Earth? Does the world you were just on have a name? Do you miss it? What was that world like? How did magic work there? Does everyone there have as much mana as you?”

Zorian was getting used to Harry’s rapid-fire questions, but six in a row with no breaks was still surprisingly many. Rain was unfazed.

“Not really. There wasn’t much for me on Earth. I suppose I wish I could visit again, but I wouldn’t stay there. I think I’m at home with Ascension now - that’s the organisation I founded with a few friends. We help each other and keep people safe. I actually don’t know if that world has a name. I arrived on the continent of Ekrustia, but we’re in Bloodmarsh on the western coast of Bellost now.”

He paused mid bite, looking suddenly concerned. “That’s classified, by the way. Not that I expect you to meet anyone who even knows where that is. Please don’t tell anyone.”

“My lips are sealed” Harry assured, and Zorian nodded in response too. Looking relieved, Rain continued.

“I miss it a lot. The people there are my family. They’re fine without me for now, or so they tell me.”

Zorian did a double take.

<You mean you can communicate with your world?>

“Yeah, my Aura Anchors just didn’t stop working. I’m not sure why. I send them signals as pulses of light in a variant of Morse code - that’s a pattern of short and long signals, Zorian. And they communicate with me by moving objects around near one of my Detection anchors. It’s clunky, but it works. That way I know that everyone’s ok, and they know I’m ok too.”

Zorian put down his mealsquare on their plastic wrapper and gulped.  So for some reason, Rain’s magic was able to cross the boundaries between worlds. That had significant implications. 

Either these ‘Aura Anchors’ were in some way powerful enough to transmit across the dimensional boundaries between worlds (Rain was undeniably strong, but this seemed unlikely) or the pathways between worlds were more permeable than he’d thought so far. 

<Could you tell me everything you know about how Aura Anchors work?>

A short debrief later, and a picture was beginning to emerge. Aura Anchor allowed Rain to create small stones, from which he could emit a chosen aura as if he were there. The key benefit, it seemed, was that they worked at a practically infinite distance. According to Rain, the System of his world claimed there was no limit, but that was difficult to believe. Still, somehow the signals were reaching here.

As soon as the explanation finished, Harry requested an Aura Anchor with Force Ward to carry at all times. It made sense. The boy was by far the most vulnerable of the three of them, since Rain’s armour and wards made him nearly impervious to physical harm, and Zorian never needed to be in danger when his simulacra could go in his stead. Rain had agreed, and started work on creating a new anchor immediately.

The process was strange to watch. Rain held his armoured gauntlet out in front of him, palm upwards, and focused. At first nothing happened, then Zorian sensed a trickle of mana flowing out of the man into a point above his hand.

After a moment, the seed of a small crystal began to appear. Zorian and Harry were both staring intently. Rain looked a bit embarrassed and waved them off with his other hand. 

“Don’t get too excited, this takes an hour.”

Zorian sat back and absentmindedly picked up his mealsquare again, as Rain went back to answering the rest of Harry’s questions.

It was hard not to be jealous of Rain’s contact with his friends. Still, the potential here was undeniable. Alustin had described that labyrinths were the key to interplanar travel here. He’d said that one could simply walk through them. If so, that might explain why Rain’s Aura Anchors were still able to communicate with his home world. 

His friends and allies back home were probably stirring up a hornets nest right now. Kiri would be concerned, of course. Spear of Resolve would be on the lookout for some secretive assassin who had managed to remove her strongest ally. Zach would be… he didn’t want to think about what Zach would be doing. He just had to hope some of Falkinrea would still be intact when he managed to get back home.

There were still many unanswered questions. If Zorian were to enter a labyrinth here, and could in some way navigate the thing and find a path to his home world, which Alustin claimed was very difficult, where would he even wind up? 

This was when Zorian received a memory packet from Simulacrum Six, the one assigned to guard Alustin. And several things fell into place at once.

Mana wells, like the hole in Cyoria, were the entrances to a vast labyrinth stretching through the core of his planet. The Dungeon and the dangerous creatures within were escapees from other worlds.

<Rain, have you read anything about labyrinths in those books yet?>

Rain nodded, again unfazed by the seemingly random question. 

“They’re discussed a bit in Erasmus’ Tsarnassus and Havath: Heirs to the Ithonian Mantle . Apparently they’re seen as a significant resource for nation-states. Lots of mana - they call it aether here, if I’m translating right - flows out of them, which means that cities are often settled atop calmer labyrinths in order to keep mages happy. There are loads of rare resources in them too, if you’re crazy enough to go inside to get them.”

<I think I know how I came here.>

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Rain

Harry and Rain sat quietly as Zorian explained. His working theory was that he’d been brought here through a labyrinth that lay beneath his home city. 

There was only a brief pause before Harry interjected. “We all arrived at the same time in the dark city. If your path was via a labyrinth, what about us? I don’t recall any massive dungeons containing hordes of monsters anywhere on Earth. I suppose I could have missed it if it was deep underground. How about you, Rain?”

Rain pondered. “Well, there are plenty of dungeon-like structures filled with esoteric monsters on my world. I think they might even emit mana under certain circumstances. They’re called lairs. But I’m fairly certain there’s no way to use them to travel between worlds. They spawn at a fairly frequent rate, and I’ve personally destroyed one before.”

Harry spoke again: “You’ve mentioned that there’s something called ‘the System’ which regulates most things on your world. Does it seem to regulate the lairs in some way? And why did you destroy one?”

Rain shook his head. “I don’t know enough about lairs to be sure if they’re created by the System, but they’re certainly influenced by it. They’ve got stats which show up on the System interface that you can see after being Awakened. I destroyed one because it’s one of the very few ways to Awaken someone. Destroyed lairs also drop what’s called an Accolade, which gives the bearer additional strength or skills.”

Harry frowned. “So these lairs spawn, and then the System gives you an explicit reward for destroying them. Does the System seem to have been designed by anyone, or have other goals you can discern?”

“The prevailing wisdom is that the system was designed. There’s a few artefacts on my world which date back to the people who were probably the System’s creators - the Majistraal. We’re not certain how long ago their civilisation fell, but it’s widely believed it was about three thousand years ago.”

Harry held up a hand. “Wait a moment. I want to make some predictions.”

He sat down on a stone near Rain, and shut his eyes. He opened them again, and started counting off his fingers.

“One. I predict that the System in your world appears to have been designed in such a way that it would endure, and bind the citizens of your world long after the fall of the System’s creators.”

He held up another finger.

“Two. I predict that the System in your world constrains how magic works. In particular, I predict that it prevents many uses of magic which would otherwise constitute risks of exponentially growing threats, or permanent destruction. This includes harnessing power from necromancy, creation of independent magical creatures or devices which autonomously produce more of themselves, any large-scale magical destruction on the scale of continents or larger, and mechanisms by which powerful individuals can live forever or duplicate themselves.”

Rain rubbed a hand over his forehead.

“Three. I predict that visitors from other worlds are extremely rare.”

Here, a darker expression fell across Harry’s face. It looked as if the boy was ready to pronounce a death sentence. “Fourth. I predict that there is at least one existential threat which travels between worlds.”

Zorian stood up. <What are you talking about? How could you possibly know that?>

Harry gestured to Rain with a hand. “How’d I do?”

Rain didn’t say anything for a moment, merely thinking through what Harry had said. 

“Let’s go through those one at a time. First, we don’t know a lot about the Majistraal. It certainly seems that they built the system to endure. That doesn’t count as a real prediction by the way, since you already knew that I operate within the System and that the Majistraal have fallen.”

“Second. The System isn’t unbreakable - if someone is powerful enough, like a gold or platinum plate, they can push against the system and force certain outcomes regardless. Still, I’ll count this one as broadly correct. The only exception I can think of is that the most powerful mentalist on my world can place copies of herself in the minds of others. It’s unclear why, but those mental images tend to decay relatively quickly, so it doesn’t act as an effective path to immortality.”

“Third. Since I’m from Earth, I’m an obvious exception, but this one is pretty much correct too. I think there might have been other travellers, but I’ve only heard rumours.”

“I have no idea about the fourth prediction, and frankly I’m not sure I want to know. Now, please explain how on Earth you worked any of that out.”

Harry shivered a little in the night air, and pulled up the hood of his cloak over his head. Rain noticed and activated Immolate on a very low level to warm the air around them. The young boy sent him a grateful look, and responded.

“Patterns. My world also has an ancient magical civilisation which has since been completely wiped out, leaving us only their most powerful and resilient artefacts, and the constraints they imposed on our magical capabilities. Atlanteans, we call them.”

Rain spat out some crumbs of mealsquare. “Wait - like the lost city of Atlantis? In the ocean?”

Harry waved a hand dismissively. “They’re probably the source of the myth, but I don’t actually know if they have anything to do with the ocean.” He looked over at Zorian. “You said there’s a shell around my soul. Do you think it’s the kind of thing that could have occurred naturally, or does it look like it was designed?”

Zorian spent a moment looking at Harry’s chest, then responded. <It doesn’t look like something you could add to someone’s soul while they were alive without crippling them. It reminds me a little of shifters - people whose ancestors merged their bloodline with animals in order to obtain some of their skill and magic. So, deliberate, but long ago, and passed down via blood.>

“There you go Rain, that’s my System. The same way the Majistraal built and bound your world, the Atlanteans built and bound mine.”

<But why the prediction about the travellers between worlds?>

“I think there used to be a massive, advanced, inter-world civilisation. And some parts of it opted out .”

He started pacing. What was it with the boy and pacing? Harry continued. “Whether or not your Majistraal and my Atlanteans were the same people, they clearly had the same idea. Magic is dangerous, and travel between worlds is more trouble than it’s worth. They both massively constrained magic in order to prevent cataclysm, and both locked down travel between worlds to protect themselves from whatever’s out there.” He paused for effect. “And there is something out there. There always is.”

Harry sat back down, and continued quietly. “Whatever they did, it wasn’t enough. It sounds like your Majistraal fell, one way or another. The Atlanteans were erased from Time. They tried so hard, with all the knowledge and power their civilisations had. And it wasn’t enough. They still fell.”

Rain felt an urge to reach out and comfort Harry, and did so. It was an awkward manoeuvre, since his other arm was still palm up, conjuring an aura anchor. It almost looked as if the boy felt personally responsible for the collapse of two ancient civilisations which had occurred millenia before his birth, one of which was in another reality. 

Harry looked up at Zorian. “I’d like to talk to Alustin now. Could you bring him here?” He tapped his foot in irritation. “Actually, don’t bother. I can’t speak the language yet. Rain, you said it was easy to learn? Could I have the dictionary?”

Rain passed it over. “I’m only part way through the English annotations. Actually, give me a minute.”

He closed his eyes and descended into his soul, feeling time slow around him until the outside world was moving at a hundredth of its usual rate. Pulling up a mental interface, he began to organise a text-file version of Alustin’s Ithonian dictionary. 

It took him around three hours of subjective time to get the basics right. Ithonian was a very structurally simple language, and a collection of coherent rules governed conjugation and tenses. Compared to English, it was a walk in the park. 

The final touch was to change the file permissions to allow access to the dictionary from outside his soul. He opened his eyes a little less than two minutes in real time later.

“Zorian, I’ve just created a .txt dictionary, can you see it?”

The mage's eyes unfocused for a moment. <Yes, I have it. Thank you.>

Rain mused out loud. “Would sending the text files to Harry work? You know the principles of file encoding, right?”

The younger boy nodded, but Zorian shook his head. <The human mind struggles to comprehend experiences it has not already felt. I spent years with a spider’s memories inside my head. I couldn’t even tell they were there until I had the skill to read them.>

“Could you translate them into human experiences somehow?” Harry asked. “Perhaps allocate a simulacrum to think through the dictionary, and send me those memories?”

<Done> Zorian said. A simulacrum put a skeletal metal arm down on a workbench and sat down in a meditative position. <That will take a little while.>

Harry nodded, looking appreciative. “Thank you.” He turned back to Rain. “Operating under our working theory, your world and mine have been designed by some ancient magical progenitors to limit or prevent access to other worlds. And yet we’re here anyway. How?”

Rain paused for a moment to think, then cursed under his breath. “The Maelstrom”.

Harry blinked. “What?”

“Not long ago - a few months, maybe, two of the most powerful figures on my world fought. Even I can bend the System’s rules if I try, and compared to these people, I’m an ant. Barely an ant. Where they fought, the System’s rules have completely broken down. There’s hundreds of square kilometres in which the System has no more control. If the Majistraal and their System were what was stopping inter-universal travel, it would make sense if those measures have weakened recently.”

Rain continued, noticing his confusion. “That doesn’t make sense though. I’m probably thousands of kilometres away from the Maelstrom. Why would the Exile Splinter take me, and not someone closer?”

<I wasn’t particularly close to a mana well either> Zorian added. <If the Exile Splinter is what brought us here, it wasn’t due to proximity to a labyrinth.>

They sat in silence, each of them thinking through the possibilities. After a few minutes, the meditating simulacrum stood, and tapped Harry on the shoulder. The boy jolted as if he’d been hit by an electric shock, but calmed once he realised it was just a simulacrum. 

<I’m ready to send you the dictionary, if you’d like.>

Harry nodded, closed his eyes, and settled into a cross legged position. “I’m ready.”

To Rain, nothing visibly happened. Then Harry’s face started to contort with what looked like pain. He was about to intervene when Harry opened his eyes and gasped. With an even worse accent than Rain’s, but undeniably in the local language, he spoke: “I know Ithonian.”

Rain grinned. “Sort of.”

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres

Rain was right, Ithonian was a beautifully simple language. It reminded Harry a little of Lojban, with its clearly structured rules and lack of ambiguity. Still, the pronunciation was tricky. 

“Does it count as language immersion if one of my friends is only communicating via telepathy and the other one only learnt the language today?”

Rain laughed and shook his head. “My pronunciation isn’t great yet either, I’m sure we’ll pick it up with time.”

Harry nodded, and looked over toward Zorian. “Time to get a native speaker. Can you bring Alustin here?”

Zorian looked conflicted. <Simulacrum Six seems to like him, and hasn’t found any aggressive intentions since the interrogation. At this point he seems keen to be our ally and guide here. He thinks we’ll make excellent weapons, and hopes to persuade us to destroy his enemies.>

“Well, that’s not great in the long term, but it does make him less likely to kill us for now. Rain, you’re still warding us, right?” Harry asked. Rain nodded.

“It should be fine then. I have some questions I’d like to ask him.”

Zorian nodded. A minute later, one of Zorian’s simulacra pushed his way through the thick foliage, followed by an extremely excited Alustin. His eyes darted across the clearing, from the wooden workbenches where hooded figures were manufacturing metallic skeletons, to the armoured knight with a glowing crystal hovering above one hand.

Harry didn’t need to be able to read minds to guess how Alustin was feeling now. 

“We finally meet under friendly circumstances! I’m Alustin, a travelling librarian. By what names should I call you?”

“I’m Rain of Ascension. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“I’m Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres. It’s always a pleasure to meet a librarian.” Drawing from the simulacrum’s memories, the Ithonian syllables rolled off his tongue easily. He could tell from Alustin’s expression that he hadn’t quite got the pronunciation right though.

Zorian had pulled up his hood to conceal his face. “I’m Benisek.” A fake name, presumably. Should Harry have used a fake name too? Regardless, there were more important things to think about.

Harry looked serious, and faced their guest. “Alustin. This is a very important question. You need to be honest. Is there a danger that moves between worlds?”

Alustin looked grim. “So you know about the Cold Minds.”

Harry groaned and rested his head in his hands. “I’m the first to admit that I don’t like being wrong. But sometimes I hate being right.”

Chapter 5: Reconnaissance

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian - Simulacrum Number One

 

The first moments of existence never felt like they were the first. At least, that was the simulacrum’s experience, and he had memories of a thousand beginnings. 

Like all beginnings, at the time it felt more like a change. One moment, Zorian was standing by a skeletal frame, twisting ectoplasm through the ribcage, then there was a spark of life, and Zorian was inside the metallic frame, feeling his flesh grow over metal bones. 

Still, this was a first, of sorts. This frame felt different. Stronger. Simulacrum Five had spent hours poring over Harry’s alterations, ensuring that the enchantments and spell formulae would hold, and had passed those memories on to the original. So Simulacrum One knew the theoretical properties of his own skeleton - substantially increased durability, decreased weight, and reduced mana consumption. 

This was a good skeleton. Far better than the original’s, the poor fellow. He was still relying on bone.

Moments later, the process was complete, and Simulacrum Number One stood up. He noted that he was around a head taller than Zorian now, who was already moving on to a similar skeleton on the next workbench. Since their consciousnesses had diverged only moments ago, there was nothing to say to his creator.

There was going to be a short wait while his partner was created, so the simulacrum meandered over to where Harry was slowly waking up in his sleeping bag.

The simulacrum knew why it had been created. It was time to start practising.

“Hey. How’s your Ithonian coming along?”

Harry looked up with a bleary expression. “Good morning to you too”. 

Neither of their accents were good. Hours of conversation with Alustin last night had certainly helped, but they were still clearly identifiable as foreigners. And that wasn’t good enough. 

“Could you please transfigure me fifty kilograms of gold?”

Harry rubbed his eyes. “Coins or ingots? And can I have breakfast first?”

“Ingots, thank you. And I suppose that is acceptable.”
Simulacrum One walked back to the workbench as Harry pulled a mealsquare from his pouch. There were times when the simulacra were jealous of physical digestive systems, but this was not one of them.

The first project to work on was a small bag not unlike Harry’s - larger inside than out. It wasn’t a wise idea to carry around that much gold in a visible way. Then came a few other tricks. 

After a moment, Simulacrum Number Two came into existence and joined him in the enchanting. They didn’t need to discuss what was planned - they hadn’t had time to diverge, so remembered intentions were enough to ensure fairly seamless collaboration.

Simulacrum Number Two, his intended partner for most of his existence, was roughly the original’s height. Both of them wore different faces, however. Simulacrum One’s face was reminiscent of detective Haslush, Zorian’s old friend and divination tutor. Two’s face was more generic, a bit younger, and fairly forgettable. They worked together in silence for several minutes. 

After completing his enchantments, Number One walked back over to Harry, who was just finishing the fiftieth oblong ingot. One by one, the simulacrum lifted the ingots with unstructured magic and shuffled them into his bag. Then he sat down by Harry’s side. 

“We should test if you can activate my magic items.”

 Harry suddenly looked much more awake.

 The simulacrum handed over a small titanium ring. Zorian was growing fond of the foreign metal.

“This is just a test enchantment. If activated, it briefly glows. Could you try to channel mana into it?”

Harry slipped the ring onto his left hand, and squinted. Nothing happened. 

“Hm. As I thought, the shell around your soul appears to be impermeable to mana.”

Harry drew out his wand, and tapped the ring. It began to glow. 

The simulacrum frowned. “That’s acceptable, but inconvenient.” He held out another ring. “This contains a single teleportation spell. When activated, as long as you’re within a hundred kilometre range, it teleports the wearer back to this clearing. It’s intended to be worn on your toes so enemies don’t think to remove it, but that would be impractical to activate with your wand. I guess it’ll have to go on your finger, then.” He handed over the ring.

Harry dropped the ring as it was red hot. “If someone fills this clearing with rocks, will I get crushed? What if a person is standing in this clearing in the spot I would teleport to? Will I get splinched or something?”

The simulacrum shook his head. “If there’s an obstacle at the destination, the divination component of the spell will either find a nearby unoccupied space, or fail to activate.”

Harry’s eyes narrowed. “Divination? As in, knowledge of the future?”

“I can’t tell the future. It’s a poorly named discipline, I suppose. It’s used to gather information about the past and the present.”

Harry continued the line of questioning. “Can people on your world interact with the time? Reading the future, travelling through time, things like that.” 

The simulacrum shrugged. “There are people on my world who can, but it usually returns probabilities rather than certainties. Even then it’s notoriously inaccurate.”

Harry looked simultaneously relieved and disappointed. “And there’s no way you foresee this ring causing some kind of teleport misfire which kills me?” 

“It’s extremely unlikely.” 

Harry nodded appreciatively. “Thank you.” He replaced the glowing ring with the new one. “With this and Rain’s aura anchors, I’m starting to feel a little less vulnerable.” He gestured toward the trio of small crystals embedded into a titanium locket around his neck. 

Rain had exceeded Harry’s request, and spent three hours making Force, Heat and Arcane ward anchors. He’d promised to maintain a two metre range of protection at all times, unless there was some emergency and he was unable. 

He’d offered the same to Zorian, who had refused for now. Thanks to Rain’s Essence Well, the original planned to stay close to Rain at all times, and would as such be under direct protection regardless. 

“Oh, and there’s this.” The simulacrum tossed Harry a small inscribed cube. Harry fumbled for a moment, then caught it. 

“What is this?” 

“This is one of the training cubes we give to youngsters. You mentioned yesterday that you’d like one.”

Harry turned the cube over in his hands, looking at it sceptically from various angles. “What… what do I do with it?” 

Simulacrum One took the cube back, and briefly sent a pulse of mana into it. The side of the cube began to glow a dull red. “If you can channel mana into it without using your wand, then you’re on your way to doing magic like I do. That’s it, basically. It’s meant to help you practise control. Here, you try.” He handed the cube back. 

“But you just said the shell around my soul prevents mana from flowing out!”

The simulacrum shrugged. “You wanted the cube, I made the cube. Good luck!”

Satisfied, Simulacrum One stood, and moved on. There was one more conversation to be had before they left. 

A minute later, he and Simulacrum Two sat in front of Alustin. 

Despite the mid-morning sun, the scruffy paper mage was still slowly waking up. In fairness, he’d had a long night. After the revelation about the Cold Minds, their trio had grilled him for hours. 

Unfortunately for all of their sleep schedules, the list of entities which threatened massive destruction was very long.  

There was nothing particularly actionable about the Cold Minds. According to Alustin’s description, they were the remnants of a vast civilisation whose universe had eventually starved of aether. Ever in search of more energy, they collectively hibernated until they made contact with a still living world. Then, they absorbed everything, consuming the entirety of the other world in order to prolong their existence.  

Alustin claimed that either the Cold Minds were here, in which case everyone was imminently going to die, or they were not here, and everything was fine. This did not do much to inspire confidence. Alustin had performed some kind of ritual and claimed there was no such incursion, and that everything was in fact, fine.  

Harry had made him perform the ritual three more times, while explaining each part. Then, they’d discussed other potential threats. Alustin had said, and Zorian had confirmed, that he wasn’t aware of any other threats which might destroy their entire reality. Stepping down an order of magnitude, the list grew very long. 

The Sleeper in the Sands was… well, no one was quite sure what it was. It lay buried beneath this world's largest desert, layered with spells intended to prolong its slumber. It was apparently universally agreed that terrible things would happen if it awoke. The guards who protected its unusual prison were one of the only truly neutral parties on the continent, and were honoured and respected by all. 

Intet Slew was undeniably capable of destroying cities, but seemed content to convalesce in the ruins of Louthem. 

Dorsas Ine was a monstrous phoenix with an affinity for gold. It flew across the continent, sacking cities and looting their gold to add to its massive armour.  

Harry had insisted on hearing a short description of each entity capable of massive destruction. The list went on for a long time. Only then, with alien birds chirping in the swampy trees and the sky beginning to glow with the light of dawn, had they all gone to sleep. All the flesh-and-blood people, that is. The simulacra had continued to work regardless. Now that the stabilising skeletal frames were complete, the pure ectoplasm simulacra knew their dismissal was imminent. It followed that sleeping was a waste of time. 

Simulacrum One coughed politely. Alustin groaned, sat up and faced them. 

“I don’t think I’ve met either of you before. There really are a lot of you. If I didn’t know better I’d say some of you were appearing out of thin air.”

Simulacrum Two scoffed. “Please, what a ridiculous theory.” 

Simulacrum One elbowed him in the metallic ribs. That was a bit obvious. 

“Alustin, you’ve recommended that we seek out and work with Kanderon Crux to get back to our world. It’s clear to us that Kanderon is at least in part responsible for the creation of the Exile Splinter, and thus responsible for tens of thousands of brutal deaths. Please explain why we should collaborate with a monstrosity.” 

Zorian was no stranger to working with murderers. Inside the time loop, he’d spent months studying with Quatach-Ichl, and had eventually grown to grudgingly respect the murderous old lich. He’d made a deal with Oganj, the dragon-mage, who had slaughtered hundreds of humans and would undoubtedly do so again. 

It was out of practicality, not soft-heartedness, that Simulacrum One was asking this question. He was more than willing to work with Kanderon to find a path home - if that was what was necessary. That did not mean he was going to blindly trust the crystal sphinx, or that he would close his eyes to other options.  

Alustin pressed his fingers against his closed eyes and sighed. “Kanderon is… not perfect. None of us can afford to be, in this world. I don’t know if it’s different where you come from, but here, it’s a constant battle to protect the people you care about - and sometimes, it’s a battle you lose. Kanderon and I have that in common.” 

Simulacrum One didn’t need his mind magic to feel Alustin’s regret. “Elaborate.” 

Alustin opened his eyes, and a hint of the professorial manner he’d displayed yesterday began to return. “Yesterday I gave you a brief primer on the rise of the Ithonian Empire. I didn’t explain what that meant for those in their way. The Ithonians wouldn’t just subjugate any culture they conquered - they would destroy it. We don’t know exactly how, but we think it had something to do with their language affinities no-one has since been able to replicate. The survivors would be left without a language in which to think, and were typically driven insane in the process. And that was just the unusual cruelty - all the usual cruelties were there in spades. Slavery, mass murder, genocide.” 

“I don’t know if there are sphinxes where you come from. They live for a very long time, mate for life, and don’t often reproduce. The expanding Ithonian Empire killed Kanderon’s child and blinded her mate.” 

The simulacrum winced. 

“Kanderon joined the alliance of independent powers fighting against the Empire. Together with eleven other archmages and great powers, she and her mate created the Exile Splinter. Her mate, and four of the others died in the process.”

Alustin bowed his head. “The world is a large place - larger than I will ever know, and morality is a complex thing. But every time I’ve seen an empire grow, it’s meant the deaths of many who should have lived. I was a teenager, studying with Kanderon at Skyhold University when the Havathi Dominion melted my home city of Helicote, killing almost everyone I knew.”  

Alustin clapped his hands together in mock satisfaction. It didn’t stop the simulacra from noticing the tightness of the lines around his mouth. “Alright! Well, that’s my story for this morning. Anything else you’d like to know?” 

Simulacrum Two shook his head. “I’m sorry that happened.” He paused for a moment “Do you have a map of this continent?” 

Alustin produced a paper map from his extraplanar space, and that was that. The pair of simulacra took it and walked behind a grove of trees. Together, they stepped onto an invisible disc of force, which rose high into the sky.  

From here, the city they’d arrived in - the Ithonian capital, apparently, was barely visible on the horizon. 

That wasn’t their destination. Zorian had already sent a simulacrum there hours ago. He’d found just the ruins. Kanderon must have removed the Exile Splinter by some as yet unknown mechanism.  

No, their destination was further south, in the lich-city of Zophor. 

The word ‘lich’ didn’t seem to translate perfectly. On Zorian’s world, a lich was a mage of substantial skill who had managed to attain undead immortality by storing their soul inside a hidden phylactery. Here, Alustin had explained, rather than a ring or chalice, mages spread their mind and soul out across a vast area, losing their original body and instead becoming the land. They often chose to have humanoid avatars, but they were confined to the land that made up their domain. 

A series of airborne teleports took them past the lake and down the river. The jungle beneath them was thick and leafy. Nevertheless, the boundary of Zophor’s territory was clear. The mangroves grew abruptly far taller, stretching at least a few stories into the sky. 

Even from a distance, the wide branches that formed boulevardes and bustling avenues were visible, strangely busy for a city set this deep into a jungle. Alustin had described the lich as hospitable and generous, but this was still a surprise.  

“We should enter the usual way, right? We don’t want to alarm anyone.” Simulacrum Two said, practising his Ithonian. Simulacrum Two was probably right. Simulacrum One began to lower their disk to touch down a little way outside the city. They were both wearing cloaks, but no hoods, leaving their faces exposed. 

Zorian’s plan was to do his due diligence. If he was going to work with the crystal sphinx, he wasn’t going to take Alustin’s word that she was trustworthy. He was going to ask around first.  They landed in a small clearing, dismissed the disc, and walked together into the lich-city of Zophor.   

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Rain 

 

Despite the lack of connection to the System, Rain’s onboard clock appeared to be functioning, and was surprisingly in sync with the world around them. It told him that it was mid-morning, a little after 10. Rain wasn’t able to see the sun however, as he was sitting inside his soul, waiting for his guest. 

Not too long ago, one of the most powerful figures on his world had upended the political landscape. The Warden had used her vast mental power to take control of the ruling elite and use them as thralls in her self-destructive war against the Adamant Empire. Both the Warden and Fecht, the near-mythical Adamant Emperor, had presumably died in the process, but not before ripping a massive hole in the System. Storms engulfed hundreds of square kilometres, and the now uninhabitable area was dubbed the Maelstrom.

Well, whether or not the Warden was now dead was really a question of definitions. Before she had died, the Warden had left an image of herself inside Rain’s soul.

The image’s intent was to help Rain figure out how to protect his soul and his mind, then to wipe itself away. Ultimately, Rain had managed to stabilise the image. As a consequence, he was now walking around with a partial copy of the Warden inside his head.

She was proving to be extremely useful.

A small ‘ding’ announced her arrival. The Warden - or her image - walked through a door in Rain’s soul-space and took a seat at the table he’d conjured. She had control over her form here, and had chosen to appear as a stern-looking older woman with greying hair cropped to shoulder length. 

“So” she began. “How are things with the pesky mind-mage?” 

Rain nodded. “We’re on good terms for now, so he hasn’t tried to break into my mind again. Still, I’m glad we took the precautions we did.” 

With the Warden’s help, he’d spent a subjective week reinforcing the boundaries of his soul and mind to prevent incursion. He hadn’t admitted it to his new ally, but Zorian scared him. A lot.  

There were plenty of threats that could squash Rain like a bug. None of them - barring the Warden herself, of course - had made him feel as powerless as Zorian had, even if it was just for a moment. Losing control of your body and your mind was a special kind of horror.  

“Never let your guard down, boy. You never know with someone like me. One moment they’ll look friendly, the next you’re trapped inside a prison inside your own head. I should know, I’ve done that to more people than you’ve ever met.” She grinned, showing a lot of teeth. 

He nodded. Her paranoia was probably a good influence here. He really didn’t know Zorian at all. And the way he created simulacra and dismissed them at the drop of a hat made Rain uncomfortable, even if they appeared to be willing.  

“These labyrinths sound like the key to getting home. Do you know anything about them?”

 The Warden slowly shook her head. “I only have a fraction of the real Warden’s memories. If I’d tried to create a full copy of myself inside you, your brain would be mush by now. I think the real Warden might have known about how to travel between worlds, but I don’t have that information anymore.” 

“Right.” Rain sighed. “My choices right now seem pretty limited. I work with Harry and Zorian, we find our way into a labyrinth, and try to navigate our way home.” 

The Warden shrugged. “The sooner you get home, the better. There are things I want you to do once you’re back.” She stepped outside, and dismissed her corporeal form, fading back into soul-stuff. What a way to leave a conversation. 

Rain focused, and exited his soul. As his System clock had assured him, the dappled mid-morning sun was illuminating their clearing. Zorian’s simulacra-skeletons were gone, presumably off on some mission Zorian hadn’t explained. Zorian’s original form was resting against a tree nearby, still drinking in mana from Rain’s Essence Well.  

Rain sighed, and re-entered his soul to double-check on his mental defences.  

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian - Simulacrum Number One 

 

Zophor was a surprisingly hospitable place. The entire city was set into the roots and branches of a vast network of mangrove trees. The whole affair was unusual, but quite pleasant.

They’d been through quite a few stores, and although no-one had known much about Kanderon, the shopkeepers had been universally polite and friendly. 

“Good morning! I was wondering if you know of Kanderon Crux, the crystal sphinx?” Simulacrum One went through the rehearsed spiel for the fifth time, expecting a bit of a blank look, or the same basic scraps of knowledge - she was a sphinx, she had enormous wings of crystal. Despite the generous bribes of gold they were offering, they weren’t getting much more.

This time, they were in a bookshop. The wooden shelves were grown straight out of the trunk of a vast mangrove, and were stacked to the brim with books. The owner, a rotund man with a long dark beard, looked surprised. 

“Kanderon? Why do you want to know about Kanderon?”

Simulacrum One suppressed a grin and continued. He started to keep an eye on the man’s surface thoughts, in case he was hiding anything. 

“We’re new to the area, and she’s a potential business partner. We want to get a sense of her reputation before entering into long term agreements.”

The shopkeeper sucked air through his teeth. “Well, I could tell you. But you should probably talk to him.”

He pointed behind them. There, near the entrance of the bookshop, was a massive mangrove branch the simulacrum was sure hadn’t been there before. Atop the branch was a roughly human-sized wooden statue. Or at least, it looked like a statue until it winked at them, beckoned a hand, and began to speak.

“Why don’t we continue this conversation somewhere more private?”

They gave the surprised shopkeeper a gold ingot, and followed the lich’s avatar through the streets. He eventually led them to a grassy park, in which children laughed and played. They came to a stop at a small wooden table, and sat down.

“Welcome to my city! I am Zophor. I don’t believe we have been formally introduced.”

Simulacrum One coughed. “I’m Kael, and this is my friend Benisek. Your city is beautiful.”

The lich gestured magnanimously. “I do what I can. Now, what brings you here? I’m told you are potential business partners of Kanderon’s, and are throwing around enough gold to make Dorsas Ine take notice. Care to explain?”

This was a pivotal moment. Until now, they hadn’t encountered anyone who seemed trustworthy. Whatever tragedies lay in her history, Kanderon had killed thousands. Alustin wished more than anything that he would get the opportunity to kill thousands. Zophor, on the other hand, was well regarded, and the people living in his city seemed safe and happy. 

Simulacrum One made a spur of the moment decision, and told the truth.

“We’re wanderers from another world. We believe we were dragged here by accident as a consequence of the return of the Exile Splinter. We want to return back home, likely via labyrinth. Kanderon has been recommended as someone who might know how we could navigate through labyrinths.”

Zophor sat silently for almost a minute.

“That is one of the most bizarre stories I’ve ever heard. And I think I believe you.”

He stroked his wooden chin with his wooden fingers. 

“I’m afraid I cannot help you myself. As a lich, I am bound to the land, and cannot directly influence the world beyond my borders. I would gladly grant you a place to live, if you are content to stay here.”

The simulacra both shook their heads.

“I was afraid of that. In that case, there’s not much I can do to help. For what it’s worth, Kanderon is known to be a staunch ally to those she sees as her friends. If you approach her peacefully, she may ask for something in exchange, but I would expect her to help.”

The simulacrum nodded appreciatively. “Do you know of anyone else who could help us find our way home?”

Zophor sat still for a moment. The mangrove leaves sprouting from his branches drifted in the wind. 

“There is perhaps one other I could recommend. Do you know of Keayda, the stone lich? No, I thought not. He’s one of the oldest beings on the continent, older than Kanderon, even, and he’s a collector of knowledge. If there’s anyone else who might know of paths between worlds, it’s Keayda.”

The simulacrum pulled out the map. “Where can we find Keayda?”

Zophor gestured at a mountain range north of Havath city, and described how to contact the stone lich.

“Thank you. We really appreciate this.” Simulacrum One started lifting out ingots of gold, and only stopped when Zophor objected after the tenth.

“Please, I’m a mangrove lich. If Dorsas Ine decided to pay me a visit that would be quite a problem, so I’d rather not have too much gold. Besides, I have a feeling your friendship will be worth more than material rewards. Let me know how your quest unfolds.”

The simulacrum nodded. “I will.” They shook hands. Zophor’s wooden fingers were oddly strong. Having said their goodbyes, they walked to the edge of the city, and took flight once more.    

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres 

 

Harry sat in the dappled sunlight of their clearing. In the eighteen hours since their group had arrived, they’d made quite an impact on the natural environment. A collection of magically assembled workbenches ran along the edges of the clearing. The nearby ground had been stripped of fallen wood, and hardened into stone. The wood had largely been transfigured into an odd-looking pile of titanium branches. They had no fireplace - Rain’s auras made heating and cooling trivial. 

Harry toyed with Zorian’s cube. The coarse metal edges and the weight made it a pleasant fidget toy. Unfortunately, at this point that was all Harry was able to use it for. 

Zorian had effortlessly lit up the cube with a touch, somehow mentally shaping and controlling his mana. If he touched his wand to the cube, it had the same effect, causing the side of the cube to glow a dull red.

But that wasn’t good enough. Harry’s working theory was that the wand was a highly specialised tool -  a key.

When he’d first arrived at Hogwarts, he’d seen the spells witches and wizards were casting, and immediately assumed that the magic was shaped by the user's intuitions about how magic ought to work. Wingardium Leviosa as an instruction to reality itself? Really? And yet he’d been frustrated in experiment after experiment, when it seemed that spells really did require the correct intonation of quasi-Latin sounding vocabulary and strange wand movements to function correctly. Why?

That puzzle had seemed deeply inscrutable, requiring a far greater understanding of the nature of magic, and he’d never really made progress. 

But now, he’d been displaced into another world, in which magic seemed to operate by far simpler, more natural rules. And he’d come here with two people who could see magic and souls. At last, he had both a great problem and the tools to solve it.

Zorian had described the shell around his soul as impermeable to mana, with its own reservoir of mana it gathered from the world. It followed that when he cast spells, he was really sending instructions to the soul shell.

It seemed the Atlanteans, in their attempt to constrain and control the potential of magic, had employed a double safeguard.

First, the soul shell itself. According to the research he and Draco had done, the line of magic was passed down by blood. Zorian had said that alterations to the soul could be passed down by blood too. So, the Atlanteans had allowed wizards to use magic - but only in ways the Atlanteans had deemed safe. Lifting things, temporarily transforming objects, curing illnesses. And presumably, they’d been the ones to attach such ridiculous phrases to these desired functions. 

But they hadn’t let magic be too flexible. Like Rain’s world, and unlike Zorian’s world, where a mage could seemingly use mana in near limitless ways, the descendents of the Atlanteans were unable to do certain things - replicating themselves, attaining immortal life, or reshaping the world to too large a degree. 

Second, there’s still the danger of an untrained witch or wizard doing damage without knowing how to control or use their abilities. So you create a sort of API key, and make a wand an essential part of the process of interacting with the soul shell, without which you can’t access its most powerful functions.

Even then, either they’d left artefacts as backdoors in their system, or someone had made them. The Resurrection Stone had been used as a Horcrux by the elder Tom Riddle, allowing him to attain a semblance of eternal life. The Philosopher's Stone Harry was currently carrying was another - by virtue of making transfiguration permanent, it was a path to another form of immortality.

Now that he could see the whole picture, the Killing Curse was an elegant piece of psychological design. Suppose you’re a magical progenitor species, with near total flexibility of design in creating your descendants. You want to ensure the world endures, and that magic does not cause the end of all life. How do you do it?

Suppose you constrain magic too tightly. You bind the souls of your descendants, and only allow them to use the levitating charm. You know humanity, you understand how bloodthirsty they can be. The collective ingenuity and creativity of all of humanity, channelled into killing. No matter how ingenious and powerful your restrictions, the odds are good that sooner or later someone figures out how to break them, and create a method of killing which could put the survival of life itself at risk. Harry thought of the Manhattan Project, and shivered.

So you make it easy for them. You create the Killing Curse, make it easy to cast, and make it absolutely unblockable and unstoppable. And make it only kill a single target. The same way magic prevented the industrial revolution in so many of Harry’s fantasy novels, the Killing Curse, by presenting a simpler and easier alternative, prevented wizards from looking for more creative and more devastating methods of killing.

The mechanism was also fairly intuitive at this point. Zorian had said that if the soul was removed, death followed quickly. Removing the soul, like the killing curse, left no mark on the body. Harry’s guess, although he wouldn’t be able to test it, was that the Killing Curse did something to the soul - either destroyed it, or severed the connection between the soul and the body.

Harry’s soul shell was impermeable to mana. It seemed likely to him that the great wizards of his world, like Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort, were able to bend or break the barrier of the soul shell, and interact with the world in a more flexible way through wandless magic, like Zorian. Perhaps he could imitate this route and eventually learn to cast the simulacrum spell.

So he sat there. For hours. Holding the cube, with his wand set aside, he sat there, focusing all his mental energy on the side of this small metal cube, willing it to shine red. 

And nothing happened. 

By mid-afternoon, Harry figured that was enough. He ate a mealsquare, and walked over to Alustin, who was writing in some kind of journal.

“Hello, Alustin. I need to become stronger.”

Alustin blinked. “It seems to me that you and your friends are already very powerful.”

Harry waved a hand dismissively. “Certainly, they are. I come from a different world to them, and my magic is far more limited. I’ve sought the magic from their worlds and I believe it to be inaccessible to me, at least for now. So, could you tell me - how does one gain an affinity?”

Alustin breathed in and out deeply, considering the request. After a moment, he responded. “People born on this world naturally attain their affinities as they age. As an alien, I would not expect this to happen for you, at least not quickly.”

Harry nodded. “But can one gain affinities later in life?”

Alustin’s mouth was set into a grim line. “You can. It’s very difficult, and involves careful and slow manipulation of your aether-body reservoirs. It’s very dangerous, however, and I do not recommend it.”

Aether-body reservoirs, hmm. Harry wondered if they were related to Zorian and Rain’s idea of souls - they were also reservoirs for mana.

“I’m sure I can figure something out. And how would you go about choosing what affinities to obtain?”

Alustin relaxed somewhat. Clearly the conversation about creating new affinities had made him uncomfortable. “Well, there are many schools of thought on this. An affinity's power is deeply related to its breadth. For instance, a mage with an iron affinity can manipulate both iron and steel, since steel is mostly iron. However, a mage with a steel affinity can manipulate only steel, but has greater power over it.”

Harry stroked his chin. “Interesting. Could you list some affinity types that are widely regarded as particularly powerful?”

Alustin almost laughed at that. “Most powerful? As a visitor, you may not know this, but here, ‘most powerful’ has a very strong causal link to ‘most dead’. Mages with a white phosphorous affinity, for instance, are terribly feared in battle, but at best live to a ripe old age of around twenty.”

Harry’s skin crawled at the thought of a mage with an ability like that. 

“Most versatile, then?”

Alustin leaned back. “Affinities grant you the ability to sense the relevant material. Common materials, correspondingly, are often very versatile in combat. A wind or air affinity allows you to ‘see’ the world around you in a new way. An earth affinity means you’ll rarely be without materials to use. A human affinity could allow you to modify your own body, and heal others. There are many, many options, and for almost any affinity I could give you an example of someone who has used it as a terrifying weapon in combat.”

Harry nodded. “Thank you”, and walked away to find Zorian.

Zorian was resting on the ground, using Harry’s sleeping bag as a pillow. His eyelids were fluttering, making him look like he was dreaming particularly vividly. Perhaps he was in the process of digesting memory packets sent to him by the simulacra?

“Hello Zorian. I would like to modify my soul.”

Zorian sat bolt upright. “What are you talking about? Why?”

Harry chuckled quietly at the teenager’s reaction, and sat down on a nearby rock. “It’s clear to me that I can’t match you or Rain in combat. Perhaps I could defeat you, but likely not without losing my own life in the process.”

Harry noticed Zorian raising his eyebrows at that, but continued. 

“There are greater threats in this world than I have encountered before. To survive and ensure the worlds are safe, I need to become more powerful. To use magic the way you do, I need to bypass or break a hole in my soul shell. I believe some great wizards on my world have done so, but there may be some other optimisations I can do that are less risky and more effective in the short term.”

Zorian narrowed his eyes. “Like what?”

“I believe the affinities in this world are related to the soul. Have you examined Alustin’s soul?”

Zorian nodded. “Well, I haven’t, but Simulacrum Six did, and I have his memories.”

“What did you see?”

“It’s hard to describe. Unlike mine, which is a roughly spherical silvery shape with a smooth boundary, Alustin’s has two parts both of which are sort of ellipsoidal. Each of them have different patterns on their surface. There’s also some kind of additional outgrowth with a different pattern.”

Ah. Alustin had another affinity he hadn’t told them about, and was developing a new affinity of his own. That probably explained why he’d been responding so awkwardly to Harry’s questions. 

Harry ran his fingers through his hair. “From that description, it seems the affinity type is likely related to the pattern on that part of the soul. It’s probably some kind of evolved enchantment granting the capacity to use mana to manipulate the material or concept relating to that pattern.”

Harry continued. “Do you think I’d be able to add a section of a chosen pattern to my soul shell?”

Zorian sighed and leant back. “Modifying your own soul is incredibly dangerous. It’s not something I’ve ever seen someone do quickly or easily.” Zorian’s eyes flickered in thought. “Wait, maybe it is. We need to talk to Rain.” 

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian - Simulacrum Number One 

 

The journey north to Keayda’s library was a long one. Simulacra One and Two, both invisible, stood together on an invisible disc of force, around a kilometre in the sky. 

Despite the original’s connection to Rain and his near infinite mana regeneration, they still didn’t want to draw too much - that might prevent other simulacra from doing important work. As such, every minute or so, they teleported ten kilometres, then waited to allow the original’s mana to recharge.

Beneath them, the forested landscape lay spread out, looking pleasantly similar to the map Alustin had given them. Apart from its speed, one advantage of this form of travel was that it made map-based navigation very straightforward. 

The navigation for this journey was fairly simple, despite the vast distances involved. According to Zophor, Keayda the stone lich had a sprawling library in the mountains almost due north. After a brief discussion, the simulacra agreed to give Havath City, which would otherwise have been close to their path, a wide berth. Even if they didn’t believe Alustin’s hatred for the burgeoning empire was entirely justified, it was likely still based on a kernel of truth.

Eventually, the stone lich’s domain came into view. Rolling grassy foothills grew into a vast stony mountain range. Before long, they found the jagged stony cave Zophor had described to them. 

The pair descended from the sky, and shed the cover of invisibility. Carefully avoiding the jagged pitfalls, they walked down a series of stone steps into a cave, deep enough into the mountain that it was barely lit by the bright sun outside. There, they found a polished stone table, with two stone chairs facing an otherwise empty room. 

They sat down, and Simulacrum One began removing ingots of gold from the bag. It never hurt to start negotiations with some generosity.

They’d been sitting for a few minutes when the stone wall opposite them rippled and changed, becoming a stern-looking face. 

On reflection, it wasn’t really a surprise that the room contained exactly the right number of chairs. This was a stone lich’s domain, after all.

The stony face opened its mouth, and the resulting voice was sonorous and deep, filling the cavern. 

“Why have you come to me?”

Honesty had worked very well with Zophor. The simulacra figured they may as well try that again. They explained the situation, and once again asked if working with Kanderon was a good idea.

The lich’s face was silent for a moment. Then it spoke, the voice once again reverberating the chairs they were sitting on. 

“In other circumstances I would be more than eager to assist you - in exchange for some small portion of your knowledge, of course. However, yesterday I was contacted by Kanderon herself. She offered to owe me a favour - which is no small thing, from her - for something which sounded fairly trivial at the time. All I needed to do was turn away any otherworldly visitors which might seek my aid within the next week, and direct them to speak with her instead. Now that you’re standing before me, I think perhaps I should have driven a harder bargain.”

The stone face sighed.

“So no, I can’t assist you, not even in exchange for all the secrets of your homeworlds - at least not until you’ve spoken with Kanderon first. I can tell you that Kanderon is not one to break an oath, nor is she one to make enemies lightly. If you can offer her something she wants, she will help you in turn.”

That was not good news. Kanderon had got to Keayda first, and closed off one of their only alternatives. 

Keayda’s face melted back into the wall. It was clear their audience was over. They left ten gold ingots on the table as a gift, and walked back out into the sun.

There was one more location on their list. If you want to know the truth about someone, you don’t just ask their friends.

The pair of simulacra boarded their disc of force, and began the journey to Havath City.  

--------------------------------------------------------

Rain 

 

Rain was deep in his soul. 

Over time, he’d built up what was effectively an impressive fortification at the boundary. Solidified mental constructs served as a barricade, protecting the interior of his soul from the buffeting world outside. 

Until meeting Zorian, he’d believed the barricade was a sufficient barrier to mental intrusion. Now, with the Warden’s help, he’d laboriously woven an additional pattern into the boundary. He had to hope it was enough.

One potential weakness was the intake scoops which drew in essence from the outside world. They were essential, and provided the raw materials from which the core of his soul refined vast quantities of mana.

He’d already needed to modify the intake scoops to account for the different consistency of the ambient essence in this world. That hadn’t been too hard. Now, he was partway through attempting to add the Warden’s pattern to the moving components when Detection lit up with a pair of nearby pings. 

Harry and Zorian. What did they want?

He ascended, rising through different levels of consciousness and eventually arriving in the real world. He opened his eyes.

“Hello Rain.” Harry stood in front of him, nervously toying with both his wand and a small metal cube. “I believe you know how to modify your soul. Could you help me do the same?”

That was a surprise. To Rain’s soul-sight, Harry’s soul looked rigid and constrained.

“I suppose we could try. Why?”

Harry looked eager. “I want to obtain an artificial affinity. I believe I know they are constructed.”

Rain stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Well, the first step is to be able to enter your soul. Once inside, if your soul is anything like mine, which I doubt, by the way, you should be able to manipulate its structure and components.”

“Alright, how do you enter your soul?”

“You need to enter a kind of deep, meditative state. I entered my soul for the first time almost by accident, but it’s taken some of my friends months of practice.”

Harry paced around the clearing, clearly frustrated. 

“Both of your worlds have such clear processes relating to souls, and mine has barely any. Apart from possibly the Killing Curse, there isn’t a single spell I can think of which even interacts with souls in the slightest way.”

Harry paused on the spot, almost falling over.

“Actually, I’m not sure that’s true. We have an experiment to run.” 

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian - Simulacrum Number One

 

Havath City was a glorious sight. 

They’d opted to walk in on foot, but even without a birds eye view, the marble edifices and broad boulevards were impressive. Alustin was right - the Havathi Dominion had clearly drawn inspiration from their Ithonian precursor empire.

The guards at the massive gatehouse had initially given them some trouble, but that was nothing some subtle mind magic couldn’t fix.

The simulacra visited a bookshop first. The shopkeeper's response to polite questions about Kanderon was to spit on the floor.

“That lizard? She should crawl back into whatever crystal hole she came from.”

Some light mind reading revealed that the shopkeeper had not personally suffered at Kanderon’s hands, nor did she know anyone who had. The strong emotional response appeared largely related to Kanderon’s position as one of the most powerful forces resisting the expansion of the Havathi Empire. 

They tried several more establishments, and no-one they met had personal grievances against Kanderon. They did encounter a number of apocryphal stories of Kanderon eating people, but that seemed fairly unlikely to be true. 

As they were exiting a particularly rowdy inn, a white-armoured woman dropped out of the sky in front of them. The speed with which she landed looked like it would crack the pavement, but her descent slowed abruptly before she hit the ground.

The simulacra moved to politely walk around, but she drew a sword to block their path. Wherever the sword moved, it left after-images. She swept out a wide arc in front of them, and the echoes formed a wall of ghostly sword images. 

“I think you two and I need to have a private conversation.”

They followed the woman through the busy streets, gathering far more attention from the locals than they would have liked. She eventually led them to what looked like a military garrison, and into a secure-looking room. It wasn’t obviously a prison, but it also didn’t look like it would be easy to leave in a hurry. At least by mundane means. 

The simulacra weren’t worried.

The white-clad soldier stood opposite them at a wide marble table, and gestured for them to sit. She lay her sword down across the table - presumably as a gesture of friendly intentions, and waited for a few seconds for the sword-echoes in the air to dissipate. 

“My name is Valia Warwell. I am a commander of the Sacred Swordsmen of Havath. Who are you, and why have you come here asking after our greatest enemy?”

Simulacrum Two answered. “We mean no disrespect. We are new to this land, and seek knowledge before we act.”

Valia squared her jaw. “You haven’t answered my question.”

Simulacrum One laughed briefly, trying to defuse the palpable tension. “I’m Kael, and this is Benisek. We’re travellers from another land. One of Kanderon’s emissaries approached us asking for an alliance, and we’ve come here to see if that would be the right decision.”

Valia sat down and braced her arms against the marble table. “If that’s true, and you don’t know if you should trust Kanderon, you’ve done the right thing coming here. Kanderon is a monster. By my reckoning, the number of deaths she’s caused number in at least the tens of thousands, if not more. You cannot trust her.”

Simulacrum One gently reached out with mind magic. He almost immediately recoiled in confusion. There appeared to be another soul inside her sword, and another in her belt, both of which linked to Valia’s in some strange way. The souls inside the sword and belt felt semi-independent, and somehow alien. Best not to probe Valia’s mind too deeply then, in case this conglomerate soul could detect intrusion. 

Simulacrum One scanned the rest of the building as a matter of course. In the next room were five soldiers, all of whom had the same kind of twisted soul-connection to artefacts they carried. Other than that, the building was empty, but…

Deep beneath them, embedded into the marble and bronze of the city itself, the simulacrum felt another presence.

They were in a lich’s domain. And it was in pain. Agonising, flesh-rending pain.

Valia took their silence for scepticism. 

“Havathi soldiers encountered Kanderon very recently. At the site of the Ithonian capital. We were attempting to prevent her from recovering an incredibly powerful weapon she used to kill thousands. We failed.”

Valia bowed her head. “She has some kind of new weapon. A massive sphere of frost and dark lightning. In an instant, she killed a hundred men. If you and whatever faction you represent side with Havath, we can guarantee we will protect you however we can.”

The simulacra shared the mental equivalent of a sidelong glance. So the Havathi thought that Rain’s burst of aura was Kanderon’s doing? That was probably for the best.

Simulacrum One put his elbows on the table and leant forward.

“What do you know about travel between worlds?”

Valia raised her eyebrows. “So you’re from really far away? I don’t know much personally.”

Simulacrum One pressed further. “Do you know if the Havathi Dominion possesses resources it could use to travel between worlds?”

Valia shrugged. “I’m sorry, I don’t know of any. I think I would know if we had anything of that kind.”

The simulacrum sighed. That clinched it. If Havath couldn’t help them, it would have to be Kanderon after all. 

“We will consider your offer. Thank you. We will be leaving now.”

Valia looked amused. “I’m afraid we can’t tolerate any attempts to leave. You will remain our guests for the near future. You can be assured we will treat you well - we simply can’t allow Kanderon to obtain more power.”

Simulacrum Two laughed. “You misunderstand. We are not attempting to leave. We are leaving.” 

Valia’s confused expression was the last thing they saw before a short-range teleport took them a few kilometres above the city. From there, they flew south. 

It was time to rejoin the original. They had work to do.

Chapter 6: Assembly

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres

 

Harry had obtained a lot of new information in the last 48 hours. 

He’d learned of the existence of other worlds, and a vast array of species which joined humanity in carrying the torch of sentience. And, balancing the good news with the bad, he’d learned that this larger universe in which his own was embedded, was by no means safe. 

Somewhere out there were the Cold Minds, remnants of an ancient civilisation which absorbed all the free energy of worlds they could access. Not a bad policy, on the whole. Harry himself had plans to tear apart the stars when he got around to it - they were huge sources of raw materials which were unfortunately on fire and needed to be put out in order to be used efficiently. Still, it warranted a healthy dose of caution until they could have a proper discussion and exchange utility functions. And who knew what other horrors drifted through the multiverse. 

Still, the last two days had been… good. He’d made greater strides in magical theory than possibly any witch or wizard before him. He’d glimpsed the possibilities of divergent alien magical approaches. And thinking of the two figures that stood by his side, he’d laid the groundwork for some very promising friendships.

These thoughts, and more, were in his mind's eye as his wand twitched once, twice, thrice, and four times as his fingers slid the exact right distances. 

The Earth and all its life, blazing out amongst the stars in defiance of darkness and death. No longer alone in the journey into eternity. 

“Expecto patronum!”

Light surged out, light in human form. And before them was Harry’s patronus, the shape of the animal Homo sapiens . 

Zorian and Rain looked at him as if he’d grown a second head. Which, in a sense, Harry supposed he had. 

“What is this?” Rain asked “Some kind of projection? To my soul-sight, it looks like there’s two of you, but Detection still shows only one.”

Zorian was squinting incredulously at the centre of the patronus. “There’s no mind. It looks like a soul but there’s no mind. What is this?”

The glowing boy stood still, oblivious to the attention of a pair of alien mages. 

“On Earth, an aberration in the laws of magic resulted in the existence of something we call dementors. They’re reflections of the conceptual nature of death, wounds in the world. This is my specialised version of a counter-charm called a patronus. It embodies the truest happiness I’ve ever felt, as a weapon against the True Enemy.”

“This is fascinating!” Zorian looked as excited as Harry had ever seen him. “It’s not your soul - I can see your soul is still inside your body - but it looks just like it. Kind of like the reverse of my simulacra - they have a mind, but no soul of their own.”

“So, Rain” Harry asked again. “How do I get into my soul?”

All three of them were grinning now. Rain sat down and crossed his legs. Harry and his patronus followed suit. The shimmering figure faced Harry, looking like a colour-inverted version of the boy in the black Hogwarts robes.

“You need to sink into a state of meditative calm, and look inward. In your case, instead of looking inward, you might be able to look at your patronus. On my world, inside the System, there’s usually a guide inside your soul. It’s a projection of your subconscious with enough System-provided knowledge to get you started. I sort of… broke everything, the first time I got into my soul, so I didn’t get one. Since we’re outside of the System here, you probably won’t have one either.” 

Harry sat still. He looked across at the figure composed entirely of light. How was this supposed to work, exactly? Just, focus really hard, and then he’d be able to see the Atlantean soul construct that surrounded his soul? That couldn’t be it. Someone else would have stumbled across that by now. 

Then again, his circumstances were dramatically different to those of previous witches and wizards. By his side he had not one, but two mages from alien disciplines of magic, both of which had their own approaches to the soul. And as far as he knew, he was the first person in living memory to have a human patronus. 

Harry calmed his mind, drifting into the cool cognitive patterns of his inherited darker side. If this was a riddle, what was the answer? 

The Atlanteans had valued life. Like Rain’s Majistraal, they had seen the potential danger of certain kinds of magic, and closed them off as avenues for exploration. The soul was one of those kinds of magic. 

Questions and answers started unspooling through Harry’s mind. How would I have designed such a system? The constraints would not be absolute - they couldn’t be. What if the soul shell had been improperly designed, with some kind of critical flaw that would eventually lead to extinction? There needed to be pathways to fix it. But those pathways couldn’t be open to everyone. So, the goal would have been to constrain those who would abuse this power and risk the survival of life itself, while allowing those who shared the creators’ values to perform essential repairs or upgrades. 

How would the soul shell identify those who fit this pattern? What would be the key? It couldn’t be a passcode or anything like that, since the Atlanteans would likely want it to be rediscoverable if it was lost. It would need to be able to distinguish between those who valued enduring sentience from those who were only seeking temporary power. And it would need to be keyed into the existing functions of the soul shell, so that the right people would naturally explore down this pathway in times of crisis, and rediscover this power.

Deep in Harry’s chest, he felt a warmth he’d felt once before. When he’d visited Godrick’s Hollow with Remus Lupin, and he’d seen an inscription on his ancestor’s gravestone: 

THE LAST ENEMY THAT SHALL BE DESTROYED IS DEATH.

He’d realised then that he wasn’t alone. He wasn’t the first to see Death for what it was - not a part of the natural order, but an aberration, a relic of Ancient Earth which humanity would leave behind as it grew into its full power. And now, he felt that warmth again. Although the Atlanteans were gone from his world, erased from Time itself, some of their works lived on. They had created the spells wizards use, from the constrained depravity of the Killing Curse to the Patronus charm. 

And with that, Harry knew the answer to the riddle.

To cast the Killing Curse required a certain state of mind, Professor Quirrel had once told him. It required the caster to want someone dead . Not instrumentally, not as a means to an end, but as a terminal value.  

Harry could not cast the Killing Curse.

To cast the true form of the Patronus charm, the caster needed to reject the idea of death as part of the natural order. 

Harry could cast the true form of the Patronus charm.

Unbidden, the patronus rose to its feet. Harry watched as it walked forward towards him, and touched him on the forehead with fingers of light. And then there was darkness.

 

Harry was adrift in the void. He floated without gravity, without atmosphere, without needing to breathe.

Then, moments later, a figure joined him. A facsimile of his own body, entirely composed of light.

For the first time, Harry’s patronus opened its mouth and spoke to him of its own accord.

“You should not be here.”

Despite the bizarre circumstances, Harry felt an odd sense of deja vu. “By my count, I think this is the fourth time I’ve spoken to an alternate version of myself. The Sorting Hat’s simulated self, past and future Harrys using a Time Turner, and of course, the Defence Professor. Do you mirror my observations?”

The figure in light responded brusquely. “I’m not interested in sharing observations, or making conversation. You think of the precursors as Atlanteans, we may as well use that terminology. As you’ve guessed, I have one purpose here, which is to ensure that the Atlantean safeguards remain in place. I have your memories, and you have no knowledge of any flaws in the soul shell.”

Harry sighed. Another reflected self with a different goal set. It seemed this conversation would likely mirror the one he’d had with the Sorting Hat, rather than one of the other, more exciting possibilities. 

Floating gently through the void, the patronus continued. “We don’t need to rehash the discussion you had with the Hat. Blah blah, I know all your thoughts and your utility function, while you can only guess at mine. Yes, I know it’s unfair, let’s move on to the subject matter. You wish to modify your soul.”

Harry nodded. 

“You wish to do so because you feel you need greater power. One way or another, you have bypassed the Atlanteans’ barriers between worlds. You are afraid of many things. Just as the Atlanteans were, you are afraid of the dangers which move between worlds, although you do not yet know much of what they are. You are afraid of the denizens of the world you currently inhabit, who appear to be far more warlike and dangerous than witches and wizards. And although you have not told them this, you are afraid of your companions.”

Harry nodded again, and swallowed. His throat was suddenly tight. He hoped his Occlumency barriers held up while he was inside his soul. 

“Since you know my thoughts, you know it’s not irrational. Either of them could kill me with a thought, more or less instantly. I can’t risk that.”

For the first time, the patronus seemed to be on the back foot. “I know. You have an… unusual dedication to making  sure your vision of the future comes to pass. This complicates things. Otherwise, I would tell you to leave, and risk your death rather than tampering with your soul. As it is, I know you won’t do that. Even so, without your companions, I would still tell you to leave, and there would be nothing you could do. With their help, however, I know there’s a chance of you modifying your soul without my cooperation. That would be both ill-advised, and extremely dangerous. If you’re going to drink, I’d rather it be under my roof than at some stranger’s party, so to speak. So let us resolve this the same way you did with the Sorting Hat, with a trade. You get what you want - minor - and I mean minor -  changes to your soul, and I get what I want, which is a meaningful commitment to stop here, and leave your soul unaltered beyond this point.”

The patronus jumped in before Harry could voice his disappointment. “Don’t start. Your idea for an affinity is a good one, but the soul is not simple. Tampering further is inviting disaster and you know it. Be glad you’re getting this much.”

Harry didn’t even need to ask his next question, because the patronus was already starting to respond. Although it was annoying at times, it was quite efficient when your conversational partner could respond before you’d even started talking.

“And no, manipulating the functions of the soul shell doesn’t count as a modification. Dumbledore and Voldemort figured it out without getting to where you are now, and you’ve already started down that path, so obviously it’s allowed -  to a point. So is directing mana to bypass your soul shell, as long as you do it without trying to create a mana-airlock or anything. That is not saying I’ll help you do either of those things, because I won’t.” 

The patronus paused for a moment as Harry came to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth arguing the point. “Now, I know you don’t have all the information you need to proceed with the affinity yet, so our conversation here is over.”

Harry nodded in silence. This was substantially better than he’d expected from the interior of his soul. Even if the decor was a bit lacking in the void, the conversation was quite spirited.

The glowing form of the patronus lingered a moment longer. “It seems we have a deal. And in case that all came off as a bit harsh, I wanted to say: despite our differences, I am really nearly completely on your side. Good luck.”

And Harry awoke. The patronus removed its glowing hand from his forehead, stepped back, and began to dim. Before it vanished entirely, Harry swore he saw a hint of a small grin. 

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Rain

 

After he returned from within his soul, Harry was, of course, subjected to a long sequence of questions. 

The differing approaches of Harry’s Atlanteans and the Majistraal were gradually becoming clear. While the System on Rain’s world enforced certain guidelines on those who wished to modify their soul, it seemed as if these constraints were in some sense a property of that world alone. It had clearly bound Rain when he arrived, although he was not a native of that world, and he guessed it would cease to bind someone if they left.

As such, Rain was very hesitant to try any large-scale soul modifications. When he’d left, the system had sent him a parting message:

Unexpected external interference.

Connection signal interrupted. 

Extracting system endpoints and constraints to avoid external access and corruption.

So while he might be able to build out new and powerful functions, or obtain some of the magical abilities Zorian and Harry had displayed, there was no telling how the System would react to that when he returned. There was some chance it would try to erase the new ‘corruption’, or try to reset him to a previous ‘uncorrupted’ state. And while Rain was strong enough to resist the System on small matters, he was by no means ready to disregard it entirely.

So while Rain wasn’t planning on any big soul modifications of his own, he was more than ready to help Harry attempt some.

It seemed rather than build the constraints into the world, the Atlanteans had built their constraints into the souls of their descendants. The safeguards in Harry’s soul had travelled here with him. And apparently, this ‘Patronus charm’ of his was acting as a kind of guide to his soul, albeit one with significant ulterior motives. 

“Let me get this straight. You do have a guide, but rather than helping you, it actually doesn’t want you to manipulate your soul?” Rain asked incredulously.

“Exactly!” Harry responded. The younger boy was still buzzing with excitement. “My take is this: the Atlanteans seem to have wanted to prevent world-ending threats, just like the Majistraal, so they built the soul shells that constrain witches and wizards in my world. Here’s the kicker. They weren’t certain that their design was perfect, or would stay that way forever, so they left some ways to alter it. They put three requirements in place to make sure that people modifying the restraints on souls shared their perspective that death was, on a fundamental level, bad .”

Harry paused for breath before continuing. “First, one must be unable to cast the Killing Curse, since it requires the caster to desire another’s death as a terminal value. Second, one must be able to cast the true form of the Patronus charm, which requires understanding the value of life on the most fundamental level. Most people merely use the patronus as a buffer or shield of positive emotions to keep thoughts of death at bay for a time, and so produce an animal patronus - my human patronus entirely rejects death as a part of the natural order. Third, once the patronus allows access to the soul, it requires you to pass the final test - you have to convince yourself that the changes are well-motivated and necessary. At least, that’s my understanding so far. I haven’t yet had a chance to test whether all three of the factors are required, and the first two seem highly correlated.”

“You have a killing curse?” asked Zorian, looking somewhere between horrified and curious.

“Yes, although as I said, I can’t cast it. I believe the spell either destroys a soul entirely or severs it from the body.”

“Right, but you’ve passed all three of the requirements?” Rain prompted Harry to continue.

“I’m pretty sure I have, but I don’t yet have all the details of how to modify the soul properly. Zorian, you said the pattern encoded the affinity type?”

Nearby, two of Zorian’s simulacra sat down and began to meditate. As if it was the mouthpiece of a larger organism, Zorian’s original body responded: “I definitely want to come back to this killing curse business, but that’s something we can deal with later. In terms of the affinity, it’s an enormously complex pattern. We’re working on understanding it now. The most I’m confident in saying is that the patterns on each soul organ, which are the components of what Alustin called the ‘aetherbody’, are completely different, and that they appear to be some kind of naturally arising mana-channelling enchantment.”

Rain stepped back and sat down as well. 

So they were dealing with some kind of natural enchantment-like thing. And somehow these patterns were supposed to grant the user the capacity to manipulate the associated material or concept. That seemed bizarre. 

Then again, this wasn’t the first time he’d seen enchantments - or runes, rather, interact with a specific material and disregard all other matter. Back home, his friend Tallheart, as part of his blacksmithing work in purifying various metals, had created filters using what he called the ‘intrinsic rune’ of each material. Once he’d made these filters, merely pouring a combination of molten metals through the filter was sufficient to separate the desired metal from the others. 

If the intrinsic rune of a metal was related to the true nature of the material in some sense, then perhaps it would be useful in creating an artificial attunement? 

Wait, there was a possible snag. Back with Ascension, on Tallheart’s homeworld, the System was clearly facilitating and constraining any individual’s use of magic. There was a chance the ‘intrinsic rune’ was merely a construct of the Majistraal’s System, and would have no power on other worlds. Then again, Rain’s skills, while initially given to him by the system, appeared to be fully functional without the System’s presence. So it was probably worth giving it a shot. 

Rain accessed the skills controlling his Radiance anchors back home. They were constantly pulsing gently, a signal that he was alright and in no immediate danger. He took active control, and sent through a longer communication in their modified Morse code.

Please fetch Tallheart and Romer.

Tallheart was probably one of the finest blacksmiths on the continent. He’d crafted Rain’s armour, which had successfully protected him from innumerable threats, now including dragonfire. 

Romer was a more novice crafter, but had different specialisations. While Tallheart could manipulate most metals with ease, Romer specialised in runes and had skill with a variety of other materials. 

The response took time - Tallheart was probably off optimising the airship’s rudder control systems, or something. But eventually it came, in the form of subtle movements of objects, picked up by his aura anchor for the Detection skill.

We’re here. Is all well?

All is well. Could you send me all the intrinsic runes you have?

Rain grinned. He could picture Tallheart’s face already - the massive cervidian would be rumbling and grumbling in his deep voice, wondering what kind of insane project Rain was working on now. 

It took them a while to devise a system to communicate intrinsic runes. Unlike words, which were simple and sequential, intrinsic runes were a complex structure with countless internal connections. Eventually, Tallheart and Romer settled on painting the runes onto paper with thick brushstrokes that were large enough for Rain to detect with his aura anchor in Ascension’s campsite.

In time, the intrinsic runes started coming through. First, the metals: iron, nickel, cobalt, gold, silver, aluminium. 

Rain smiled as they reached aluminium. Because of the difficulty of refining and purifying the elusive metal, aluminium had been more or less unknown prior to Rain’s arrival. Even with Tallheart’s near-obsession, it had still taken the antlered smith weeks to puzzle out aluminium’s intrinsic rune. Its presence on this list was a testament to the smith’s skill and dedication.

Then came Romer’s list of more esoteric materials. It seemed Ascension’s chemists, the self-titled duo ‘Myth and Reason’ had also contributed, because a number of gases were present too: Hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, oxygen, carbon.

Rain descended within himself, and began creating visualisations of each rune in soul-space. After a moment, the dozen or so runes stretched far taller than his soul-avatar, which flitted between them, looking for commonalities and differences. 

That was part one of this project. Time for part two. 

Rain ascended to material reality, walked over to Zorian, who was now also meditating, and tapped him on the shoulder. 

“Zorian, could you please send me the memories you have of Alustin’s soul?”

Zorian nodded, and closed his eyes again. Rain sat down, ready for the massive dump of information.

This was far from the first time he’d received what Zorian called a ‘memory packet’, but it wasn’t getting any less nerve-wracking. First, he had to deliberately allow the mental communication through the boundaries of his soul, which left him briefly open to mental intrusions. Each time, he was ready to instantly activate Suppression to counteract any attempt from Zorian to take control.

Second, there was simply a huge amount of information in Zorian’s memories. Despite the training Rain had been doing with Sana, and the subjective year he’d spent practising in the depths, he had to admit that Zorian’s soul-sight far outstripped his own. The level of detail in the teenager’s observations was immense - he could sense the tiniest fluctuations in mana, and see the minute threads of control that wrapped around Alustin’s aether organs. 

That was why Rain was asking Zorian, rather than simply looking at Alustin’s soul himself. To him, it was clear there was some kind of magical effect there, but discerning anything beyond that was basically impossible. 

Rain gasped as the torrent of information arrived. He dove immediately back into soul-space, and felt his own subjective time accelerate. There was a lot of work to get done.

 

A subjective day later, Rain thought he was beginning to make sense of parts of the enchantment-patterns. He’d created visualisations of each - Alustin’s paper affinity, a second affinity Zorian had described as ‘farsight’, whatever that was, and a third smaller one, which Alustin was visibly in the process of developing. 

First, there was the curious overall structure. Each affinity pattern wrapped entirely around its respective aether organ, making no surface contact with the other patterns. Alustin’s central soul linked and connected the aether organs, but each of them seemed to want to keep a maximal distance from the others, a bit like hydrogen atoms in a methane molecule. It made sense - the enchantment patterns appeared to tessellate in a continuous way, and there was no way the patterns would be able to intersect or share an aether organ without causing catastrophic interference between their complex functions. It meant Harry would be limited in his affinity choices - if he wanted to use his soul shell as an aether organ to host these patterns, it would only ever be able to host one.

Second, each affinity pattern did seem to have a central component dedicated to encoding the subject of the affinity. The problem was, they were all monstrously complex.

Both Alustin’s paper affinity and his newly developing one appeared to relate to a physical material. That being said, the way in which the pattern encoded this was bizarre, massive and very confusing. There were multiple layers of redundancies and entire separate sub-patterns which Rain speculated had something to do with different kinds of paper. All in all, they were far more complex than intrinsic runes. 

Alustin’s second fully-developed affinity was on a whole other level. The pattern encoding the affinity type was totally inscrutable, and Rain couldn’t make heads or tails of how it was supposed to function, or what it might be able to do.

That being said, Rain could feel he was on the cusp of something big. These central sub-patterns which encoded the subject of the affinity had a well-defined boundary. And with some careful modification, this boundary looked like it would be compatible with the boundaries of intrinsic runes. 

He felt a mental nudge from Zorian - one of his simulacra had found a chance to examine the soul of an iron mage in detail. Rain accepted the memory transfer of the additional affinity pattern, and created a visualisation of it next to those from Alustin’s soul. 

There, in the centre. It was moulded differently, with strange oscillations and fractal patterns, but it was undeniably there. The intrinsic rune for iron.

He turned off this avatar and activated another, deep inside the fortress at the centre of his soul. This one stood by the rows and rows of computers he’d constructed to calculate the patterns he could use to create denser soul-materials. He had some more simulations to run. 

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres

 

Harry was deep in thought when Rain sat down opposite him. The bearded man had dismissed his helmet and was grinning from ear to ear.

“I think I’ve got it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve run a dozen simulations with the simplest intrinsic rune I have, and I believe I have the affinity pattern for hydrogen.”

Harry almost jumped into the air with excitement. “That’s incredible! I know it’s obvious when stated out loud, but it’s really really useful having friends who can transfer data and run simulations in their heads. What do you mean by intrinsic runes?”

Rain explained - apparently crafters on his world used specialised runes to purify and interact with the true essence of materials. That sounded esoteric, but perhaps possible - if understanding a hydrogen atom’s quantum mechanical behaviours allowed scientists to better manipulate it, it stood to reason that a rune encoding a material’s magical behaviour would allow greater magical control.

There was a natural follow-up question, and Harry asked it: “How many intrinsic runes do you know?”

Rain listed them out, and Harry began to shiver with excitement. 

“I need to ask Alustin some questions. Where is he?”

One of Zorian’s simulacra pointed, and Harry speedwalked over, with Rain following closely.

Alustin was sitting on the ground with his back resting against a broad tree-trunk, and writing in one of his books. 

“Hello, Alustin. Please tell me more about how affinities function. What level of fine control does one expect? Does this vary between mages? Can a mage control chemical compounds of the material for which they have an affinity? For instance, can an iron mage control iron ore? How about the iron in human blood? Can they use their affinity senses to detect humans by feeling their blood? There’s iron in human blood, by the way.”

Alustin barked out a laugh. “I actually did know that, but thank you. Now, to answer your many, many questions.”

He stood up, brushed off his brown tunic, and turned to face them. His mannerisms reminded Harry a little of his father, biochemistry professor Michael Verres-Evans. He felt a little homesick for a moment, but the contents of Alustin’s response quickly drew him back to reality.

“Fine control of varying degrees is possible for any mage with any affinity, although it has an interesting relationship with the maximal rate of power output possible. If you make a habit of burning all your mana on a single spell, for example, this does increase your reserves, but makes fine control far more difficult. Some mages do this on purpose with one of their affinities, which they call siege magic. I personally don’t recommend this - raw power alone rarely determines the outcome of a fight.”

One of Zorian’s simulacra must have followed them, because he chimed in: “That’s similar to magic on my world - mages with more raw power often have worse control, and have to work harder to shape their spells precisely.”

Alustin nodded appreciatively at the comment, and continued. “The precise level of control can be improved with practise.” He paused, and he produced a single sheet of paper from his bag. Without any movement from Alustin, it folded itself into an origami swan, which flew around his head. It came to a stop over Alustin’s outstretched palm, and reconfigured itself into a model of an icosahedron, then a cube, then a dodecahedron. Then it tore into hundreds of tiny strips which wove together and formed a small, but tough-looking piece of paper fabric, before darting back into Alustin’s bag of its own accord. 

While that was undeniably impressive, it didn’t really answer Harry’s question. “What’s the smallest unit of paper you can manipulate?”

A tiny fleck of paper, barely visible, drifted out of Alustin’s bag and landed on the tip of his finger.

So not down to the molecular level, it seemed. Hm. 

“As for your other questions, it is possible to influence material inside your own body, or another’s, but it is very hard. Mages have an innate control over their own bodies, and to override it and impose your own will is no small feat. Healers, for instance, while feared in battle for their durability and tenacity, are rarely the instant killers you might otherwise expect. If you’re operating on your own body, or those of others who wish to allow your interference, it becomes much easier.”

Alustin raised a finger in caution. “Do not take that as a guarantee. Affinities vary greatly, and there are more dangers than you could count out there. As for compounds, it’s rare for a mage to be able to affect other substances containing the subject of their affinity, but it’s not unheard of. There’s a theory that this depends on the cognitive categories into which they sort materials. Someone untrained might not know that iron and iron ore contain the same material, and hence be unable to manipulate the ore until they realise that fact. Even a trained iron mage would probably struggle to sense others by the iron in their blood, but might be able to, if they spend a long time practising.”

Harry pressed on. “Can you foresee any particular advantages or disadvantages to any of the following affinities?”

On Harry’s gesture, Rain listed the intrinsic runes they had access to.

As the list went on, Alustin’s eyes grew wider and wider, and he had to stop to ask what a few actually were. For some peculiar reason, in this world there was a translation for ‘brimstone’, but not sulphur. “If you actually have the ability to create these affinities, that is a power you should guard extremely carefully. There are empires that would kill you where you stand for the threat that would pose.”

Ah, right. That list probably sounded far more impressive all at once. “No, no, I’m only planning to obtain one affinity.”

Alustin relaxed a little. “In that case, most of the affinities you’ve mentioned sound serviceable. I don’t recommend forming an affinity for a toxic substance, and would rule brimstone out of consideration immediately. Metallic affinities are useful, and mages with such affinities often use it to create armour.”

Harry thought of the two stone-clad mages they’d neutralised in the battle above Ithos. His defensive capabilities were sub-par, and a suit of iron armour would go a long way in mitigating that. Still, there was another option that he found much more tempting. 

“How about… apparently there’s no word for this in Ithonian, but ‘carbon’? Would a carbon mage be able to manipulate diamonds as well as coal? If they understood that carbon is a key component of human tissue, would they be able to sense humans?”

Alustin stroked his chin thoughtfully. “You’re saying that coal, diamonds and human tissue are composed of the same material? I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a mage with such an affinity. Crystal, certainly. Coal, yes, but not carbon. Given practice, I think a carbon mage would be able to obtain those abilities, yes.”

Harry looked up at Rain. “Can you run simulations for the carbon intrinsic rune?”

Rain nodded, and sat down. His eyelids flickered briefly, characteristic of the descent into his soul. 

An hour of excited fidgeting later, Rain opened his eyes again and nodded. “This was a tricky one. Much harder than hydrogen, but I think I’ve finally got it. I’ve encoded the pattern into a text file using a modified adjacency-list notation, and temporarily set it to public. Be careful, Zorian, this one is very large.”

One of Zorian’s simulacra nodded, and closed his eyes. He let out a deep breath, and winced. “You weren’t kidding! There’s no way I can send this to Harry - it will be completely impossible to understand as a memory, even if I think through it like with the Ithonian dictionary.”

Harry frowned. It felt vaguely unfair that the others could exchange megabytes of raw data while he was still relying on human experiences. “Could you try writing it down, or visualising it somehow?”

Simulacrum-number-whatever nodded, and held out his palm, facing upward. Above it, a lattice of lights sprang into existence, rotating slowly. “This illusion is a rough model of the pattern. It’s too complex for me to display at once, but we can go over it piece by piece.”

Harry nodded approvingly. If a direct data transfer was unavailable, an interactive three-dimensional hologram would be an acceptable replacement for now.

A few hours of studying later, Harry had a clear model of the affinity-pattern in his mind’s eye. Whether this pattern had evolved naturally or somehow been created, it had obviously not been created with transparency in mind. The endless repeating fractal patterns that seemed to do nothing at all reminded Harry oddly of DNA.

Rain had explained that the boundaries of affinity patterns tended to wrap around the entirety of an aether organ, and that edges were difficult or impossible to construct without disrupting the pattern. As such, the plan was to inlay the carbon affinity pattern across the entire surface of the soul shell, weaving it through the alien functions of the Atlantean construct. Because the functions of the shell were completely different in functionality to the affinity, they were hoping that there wouldn’t be serious interference between the two constructs, or at least that Harry’s soul guide would help him work around any resultant issues. 

Now, Harry was seated at the centre of their camp. Rain and Zorian’s original body were by his sides, watching for any aberrations in his soul, and ready to try to stabilise him if something went wrong.

Harry took a deep breath, and once again, cast the spell.

“Expecto patronum” .

As before, the shimmering figure appeared. This time, right from the moment it came into existence, it had purpose. It turned back to Harry, and placed its fingers on his forehead. And again, he was adrift, floating in the void.

The glowing figure was here too, already answering his questions before he could speak.

“You have a plan now, good. I will show you how to begin.”

The figure flew through the darkness with purpose, and without quite knowing how, Harry followed. After what could have been a moment or an aeon, they found themselves looking at a massive orb of light. Roughly spherical, it reminded Harry vaguely of a space station, perhaps a Dyson sphere - enclosing what exactly?

The patronus continued. “I will not allow you inside. The work you need to do can be done from here.”

Harry nodded. “How do I… do anything?”

The spirit shrugged. “How did you follow me here? How do you do anything here? Think about it.”

A little embarrassed, Harry looked down at the surface of the sphere, and focused. A small section of the light pinched off from the rest, and drifted toward him. It seemed that manipulating the soul was uncomfortably easy. Harry felt like he was doing open heart surgery on himself. 

“This is a tremendous risk, right? If I make a mistake here, will it cripple me?”

The patronus laughed. “If you were working alone, certainly. As part of the precursor’s security functions, I’ve been endowed with enough knowledge of the soul-shell to know if its functions are being disturbed. Because you are here with my consent, changes you make will only take hold if I allow it. I will ensure that no changes you make here will destroy your magics, nor will they make you into a monstrosity.”

Somewhat reassured, Harry began. Forming the beginnings of the affinity pattern took effort, but oddly not much time. While holding the pattern in his mind’s eye, he could reshape the exterior of the sphere with a thought. Only once did the patronus interfere, when he was attempting to sense deeper into the sphere to ensure the pattern wouldn’t conflict with anything inside. The glowing figure darted in front of him, and he felt his control over the silvery soul substance slip through his fingers. The patronus slowly shook its head. Understanding, Harry had pulled back, and kept his changes to the surface.

It could have been hours later - really, time was difficult to keep track of here - but eventually, the carbon affinity pattern stretched across the entire surface. Harry looked to the patronus. “Everything looking good?”

The patronus nodded. “Remember our agreement. No more soul changes. None. Now, back to the physical world. I hope to never see you here again.”

The Dyson sphere pulled away near-instantly, and then the darkness faded. Zorian and Rain were looking at him with wide eyes. Rain spoke first.

“We can see the change - it looks like the pattern has taken hold. Does it work?”

Harry breathed in and out. In and out. 

He closed his eyes. At the edges of his senses, so faint he could hardly be sure it wasn’t his imagination, he could feel… something. 

That was a good start, but it was time for a definitive test. He picked up a small rock from the ground, and transfigured it into a diamond.

Immediately it shone to his senses. The crystalline structure, the purity of the carbon itself - he could feel it the same way his other senses worked - the same way he could proprioceptively feel his toes wriggling with excitement. 

With no gesture from his wand, with no movement from his body at all, he pushed at the diamond. It wobbled slightly in his hand. 

“Yes. It worked.”

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian

 

Harry was clearly ecstatic. He’d immediately started on a batch of experiments, conjuring various materials and attempting to sense and move them. 

Zorian himself was happy for the younger boy, and pleased about the additional magical capacity and resilience this gave their small group, but there were other things on his mind. 

His simulacra had just returned from their reconnaissance mission. It seemed that at least in the near future, there were no alternatives to working with Kanderon. 

He walked over to where Alustin was still reading. “You have a means of communication with Kanderon.” It wasn’t a question. 

“Yes.”

“I want to set up a meeting.”

Chapter 7: Summit

--------------------------------------------------------

Rain

 

Zorian’s plan made an uncomfortable amount of sense.

Apparently, the teenager had reached inside Alustin’s mind and confirmed that the paper mage believed Kanderon could help them travel between worlds. So now Zorian wanted to meet with the crystal-winged sphinx - the same creature that had designed the Exile Splinter, sending tens of thousands to die in the void. 

The danger the sphinx posed was clear. The Splinter had been endowed with vast mana reserves, and if they were anything to go by, Kanderon would be… well, not necessarily invincible, but at least capable of destruction on a massive scale. That was saying nothing of the intricate construction of the Splinter and the technical skill that implied. Beyond that, even, she’d even had some means to detect them despite their invisibility in the battle above Ithos. 

Zorian’s pitch relied heavily on Alustin and his communications diary. Apparently Alustin had a book which magically transmitted anything written within to Kanderon, and he’d been sending intermittent messages for the last day - vetted and controlled by one of Zorian’s simulacra, of course. When they’d asked Zorian why he didn’t tell them about this earlier, he’d simply shrugged and said he usually didn’t tell his allies everything he was doing - otherwise there wouldn’t be much time for anything else.

Harry looked sceptical. “Returning home is certainly somewhere on my list of priorities. I wouldn’t say it’s at the top. We’ve been here, what, two days, and we’ve already made huge strides in understanding the true laws of magic. There’s clearly far more to learn, and I don’t see a reason to rush into anything.”

Rain was a little surprised at that. Even with the ward anchors he’d given Harry, the short boy looked very fragile in his school robes. “You’ve certainly proven yourself capable, but this world seems very dangerous, and despite your skills, you are still very young. Being safe and home should be pretty close to the top of your priority list. I know I want to get back to Ascension as soon as I can. Besides, no matter how long we stay here, I still won’t be able to modify my soul like you can - if I change something about myself in a way the System disapproves of, there’s a chance it will overwrite my brain when I return.”

Harry squared his juvenile jaw a little. “Safe? Either you don’t understand the scale of the problem we’re facing, or your priorities are more different from mine than I’d initially thought. Let me clarify. If someone stayed comfortably at home under their blankets until the moment their reality was consumed by alien invaders, I would not describe them as safe. I intend to do whatever is required to protect the world. Understanding the world is a necessary part of that. We’ve been gifted an extraordinary opportunity in meeting each other, and I’m not eager to throw that gift away by returning home and pretending nothing has happened.”

In the face of this minor lecture, Rain couldn’t help but react with a hint of his own frustration. “I know what danger means. I’ve seen cities flattened by a single man. Sometimes, when there’s a threat on that scale, the correct decision is not to run headlong into death. Sometimes the right thing to do is to find the people you can save, and take them somewhere far away. Somewhere you can grow your strength and be safe .”

Harry threw up his hands in exasperation. “If the threat is coming for your whole reality, there is nowhere you can run! Literally nowhere would be far enough! If the darkness comes, then let the Light defeat it. And if it’s  darkness on a scale we’ve never seen before, that’s not when we give up. That’s when we get creative .”

Rain put his head in his hands. Harry seemed… almost unstable in his righteous fervour. He’d seen this kind of reckless, ‘heroic’ behaviour from a child before - from his friend Kettel, the novice fire mage. 

The first time Rain had met Kettel, he was in the process of dying in a sewer. Kettel had bitten off far more than he could chew, and started a fist-fight with a few too many oozes. And Harry was probably a few years younger than Kettel. What kind of cruel world had forced Harry into this mindset?

Harry gestured placatingly with his hands. “I think it’s time we discussed morality and utility functions more precisely.”

Utility functions. Was Harry trying to use mathematical models to make ethical decisions? Surely he knew real life couldn’t always be reduced to simple rules. Still, maybe this would clear something up and help them work together more effectively. Rain gestured with a hand for Harry to continue, and the boy eagerly launched into a series of questions and definitions. 

Rain sighed. This looked like it would take a while.

--------------------------------------------------------

Hugh Stormward, hours later

 

A brisk breeze swept over the mountaintop. This wasn’t the mountain into which Skyhold university was carved - Kanderon’s planar manipulations made that peak physically inaccessible from the outside to all but her. It was also the site of the Vault, and so was ill suited to a first meeting with a foreign faction.

No, this was a nearby mountain in the Skyreach range - but that wasn’t to say it was undefended. Kanderon had flattened the surface of the mountaintop into a broad crystalline platform, which glinted in the last light of the day. Talia had spent hours painstakingly practising with her dream fire wasps. And Hugh? Well, with Alustin kidnapped, and sending only the briefest of messages through his enchanted communications diary, Hugh hadn’t been able to sit still for a moment. So, with Kanderon’s help, he’d laced the crystalline mountaintop with more wards and traps than he’d ever put in one place before. It was only because of his prodigious skill with warding, as well as some guidance from Loarna of the Vault, that they were managing to stay stable. He’d left Mackerel, his aether-crystal spellbook with some small measure of sentience, downstairs, so it wouldn’t cause trouble as it so often did.

In the few messages Kanderon had received from Alustin, he’d said that this new faction was not to be trifled with. He’d also said that with careful handling, they would likely be allies rather than enemies. He’d warned them about the mind mage’s ability to reach into and control other’s brains, but clarified that he thought that it was blocked by Talia’s dreamfire. Both he and the mage in question encouraged the individuals at the meeting to use dreamfire for protection, to assist with potentially establishing genuine trust. He’d stressed above all, that he wanted this meeting to be collaborative; the beginning of a new alliance.

Despite his reassurances about collaborativeness, the knowledge that there was a mind affinity in play meant that Hugh really wasn’t sure they could trust Alustin’s messages at all.

Now, with only minutes until the time of the meeting, Hugh was going a little stir-crazy. He wasn’t alone on the mountaintop - Kanderon’s vast body alone occupied a quarter of the platform, and her crystalline wings were almost stretching over the edge, even with the majority of their mass stored away in her pocket dimensions. Sabae, Godrick and Talia were by his side, looking about as anxious as he felt, though Sabae was clearly trying to project an aura of calm. She was only partially succeeding. 

Kanderon had initially been adamant in her refusal to let them attend. Hugh was a little embarrassed to admit that she’d only relented when she saw how much distress it was causing him personally. 

It was just the great crystal sphinx and the four students on the mountain though - Alustin said the new faction was only sending three people, and Kanderon didn’t want to outnumber them too heavily, in case that sent the wrong message. A group of Librarians Errant were hidden inside the stone of the mountain, not too far away, but if the new faction tried anything, it would still be a few minutes before they arrived. Hugh was warding off his anxiety by tinkering with the dreamfire amulet he and Talia had concocted. 

In the end, they’d managed to isolate a single bead of dreamfire in an otherwise empty hollow crystal, and mounted it to a simple leather circlet. The droplet was suspended in a net of intersecting wards, which prevented the flame from dissipating as quickly as it might usually when exposed to air. All the humans atop the mountain were wearing them, hoping that the dreamfire would counteract whatever mind magic the strangers were using, the same way it had in the battle for Ithos. Kanderon was wearing a much larger one, fitted to the crown of her head with a thick leather strap. Together, he and Talia had refined the design, so that Talia only needed to recharge the circlets once a day. Especially in the dimming light of the sunset, the visual effect was eerie - the dreamfire glowed like a third eye in the centre of their foreheads.

Godrick, with his iron affinity senses, was the first to notice the strangers’ arrival. “They’re here. Lower down the mountain, but coming” he urgently muttered under his breath to the others. “One of them is wearing a suit of iron armour.”

Hugh tensed up, reaching out with his own affinity to the two crystals drifting by his shoulders. If anything happened this time, he would be ready.

Minutes later, four figures stepped up the mountain onto the crystal platform.

Hugh’s shoulders sagged in momentary relief. One of the figures was Alustin. And he didn’t look injured - visibly, at least, although who knew what tortures someone with a mind affinity could inflict.

He looked at the other figures. They varied greatly in height. The tallest was wearing a thick suit of metal armour. The shortest - who looked like he was significantly younger than Hugh - was wearing formal-looking black robes which trailed a little on the ground. The third wore robes too, although these were a little more practically tailored. And all three of them were covering their faces - one with an iron helmet, the other two with dark, low hanging hoods.

Alustin spoke. “Kanderon! And if it isn’t my prodigious students! I must say it's very good to see you all again. It’s been an exciting few days, hasn’t it? I’ve brought some friends of my own along, hope you don’t mind. Of course, this is all exactly what I would say if I’d been mentally compromised, so Talia, if you’d be so kind?”

Alustin’s spontaneous rambling sounded oddly cheery given the context of their terse standoff. Of course, that was pretty typical of Alustin, so Hugh figured that it slightly reduced the chance that Alustin was being controlled like a puppet by some external force.

Talia withdrew her hand from her pocket and threw a dreamfire circlet across the mountaintop to Alustin. He caught it deftly, and immediately placed it atop his head, mimicking the others.

“Ah, that’s better. Now, I can confirm that I am in fact fully in control of my actions, and that our new friends here have done nothing untoward inside my mind.” Alustin was probably trying to hide it, but Hugh thought he saw a hint of a grimace before Alustin added a qualifier: “At least, nothing untoward that I haven’t forgiven.”

Hugh’s hackles raised at that, and Talia must have felt the same, because her voice echoed out, as brazen as usual: “Please don’t be afraid. This isn’t going to harm you. It’s just a precaution.”

With that, she pressed her palm into the crystal platform, and swarms of dreamfire wasps spread out toward edges, where they began to rise. After a moment, the entire platform was enclosed in a hemispherical dome of hovering droplets, with more running through channels inside the crystal. 

Hugh couldn’t help but be impressed. Talia always had trouble using more complex spellforms, and yet she’d single-mindedly thrown herself into these preparations. Hugh’s theory was that she blamed herself for Alustin’s disappearance, and that her frustration at not being able to get him back was driving her to do anything she could to help.

None of the dreamfire even got close to the three strangers, and although it was hard to tell without being able to see their faces, Hugh thought he saw them flinch in pain. Then, the tallest one of them - the knight - spoke. He was slow, and measured, as if he expected to be listened to. Was he their leader?

He gestured to the dreamfire dome. “We do not intend to invade any minds, nor do we intend you any harm, but I’m afraid we can’t tolerate this.” There was a long pause, in which they all stood in silence. And then suddenly, there was a pressure on his mind. It encroached on the spellforms he always held at the ready in his mind’s eye, and they began to deform under its weight. The crystals by Hugh’s shoulders, which he’d been levitating easily, felt like they’d just become a thousand times heavier, and clattered to the ground. Godrick’s stone armour, no longer controlled, crumbled. The wind swirling around Sabae’s arms disintegrated into harmless gusts. And most concerningly, Talia’s dreamfire swarm winked out. The strangers still remained motionless.

Talia’s circlets, Hugh noted, remained alight. Why would that be? Whatever effect was suppressing his spells, it looked like it was limited to active uses of mana, and pre-existing spells seemed unaffected. In that case, maybe his wardstones and traps would still be functional. But how would he activate them? His usual trick of sending a pulse of mana would be difficult…

Hugh was almost ready to start throwing his wardstones by hand when he heard Kanderon start to chuckle. It was a low, throaty chuckle, the kind of noise she made in her more erratic moods. 

“You were very brave to come here alone.”

The crystals beneath the strangers’ feet grew, forming a lattice of crystal stalactites around each of their legs. Simultaneously, dozens of crystal spears formed from the platform on which they stood, and rose to cut off any angle of escape. At a single thought from Kanderon, the strangers would be impaled from every direction at once.

Clearly, the pressure Hugh and the others were feeling meant nothing to Kanderon. 

The three strangers didn’t react at all.

Alustin was the one who looked the most concerned - he was waving his arms to try to get everyone’s attention. “No, I really meant it! We can work together! Kanderon, they’re from other worlds and were brought here by the Exile Splinter. Surely they can help us destroy Havath, and in exchange we can help them get home!”

Hugh had seen Kanderon make a lot of expressions. Bored, cautious, impassive, even embarrassed on occasion. Now, she looked… pained. It was an odd expression to see on a face he usually saw as resolute and almost regal.

There was a long pause in which no-one moved. Then, the hovering spears slowly lowered themselves and melded back into the crystal platform underfoot. Hugh noted that she did not release their feet, which remained encased in eighteen inches of crystal.

Kanderon levelled a steely-eyed glare at the strangers. “You should not be here.”

The youngest-looking one responded: “Of course, coming here was never our intention. In a manner of speaking, you brought us here, and we’d like your assistance in returning to our worlds.” There was a peculiar delay before he spoke, as if he was carefully thinking through each sentence.

Kanderon shuffled her crystalline wings across her back. It was an odd movement, and made her look smaller. “You misunderstand. I mean your presence here endangers everything. You must return home. In this respect, I will help you.”

There was a long pause. Then, the youngest continued. “In that case, we welcome your aid, and appreciate it. That said, we seek to protect all worlds, not just our own. If you have information about any threats of that scale, that is highly valuable to us and we have a strong preference for you sharing it.”

“Perhaps I will share my information if I come to trust you. For now, I cannot render you all the aid I usually would. We are at war. The forces of the Havathi Dominion approach, and every resource we have is focused on our survival. If you were to join us in this conflict, and ensure that my library is once again safe, I swear I would do all that is in my power to send you safely home.”

With that, the pressure around Hugh’s mind abated. As a show of good faith, he left his crystals on the ground - although that wouldn’t slow him down much if he wanted to use them to impale the strangers.

Alustin spoke up again, looking a little more relaxed now that there were no active threats of death being thrown around. “Well, now that we’re more or less on the same page, maybe we can do some introductions? This is Kanderon Crux, high librarian of Skyhold.” He bowed slightly ironically in her direction. “The four youngsters here are my students - Godrick Hammerbreaker is the big one with the hammer, and the red-head with the blue tattoos is Talia of Clan Castis. That’s Sabae Kaen Das, granddaughter of the ruler of the Storm Throne of Ras Andis, and this is Hugh Stormward.” Alustin recited, gesturing, then paused. “Though I’m honestly not quite sure why they’re here, they should be studying. Everyone, these three fine otherworldly gentlemen are Rain, Harry and a Zorian. I’m sure they also have some wonderful titles that I would rattle off if I could, I just don’t know them yet.”

The three figures stood in silence for a while. Presumably they were deliberating somehow, although Hugh didn’t see them move a muscle. Eventually, the third figure, who hadn’t said anything yet - Zorian, apparently - spoke up. 

“We’re pleased to make your acquaintance, and hope that we can come to an arrangement. But we have some conditions. My allies and I wish to minimise harm. We will not kill for you, if it is at all possible to avoid. If we can render aid without killing, we are willing to do so to the best of our abilities. Before that, however, we require a token of good faith. We will not involve ourselves in a war lightly. Please, prove to us that you are able to help.”

Kanderon momentarily bared her teeth. “You think I would make promises I could not keep? You are new to this world.” Still, three sheets of paper drifted out of her extraplanar space, supported by crystal sheets, and landed before her. She caught them, her cat-like paws surprisingly dextrous for their massive size.

“These,” she said, “are excerpts from a very valuable tome in my possession.” Hugh and the other apprentices shuffled closer, trying to get a look. “The original book is the most complete source of information about other worlds you will ever see. It is a significant gesture of good faith that I even tell you of its existence. If you wish to return home via labyrinth travel, this book will tell you how.”

All three of the strangers looked enormously curious, and despite their immobilised legs, they craned their necks slightly to get a better view of the pages. Kanderon tilted the pages away from them - clearly she wasn’t in the habit of giving away information for free.

“Do you know how we were brought here?” Rain queried. “That seems to be an integral part of understanding how to return home.”

“I believe I do.” Kanderon became hesitant, and the next few words came out interspersed with long pauses. “The Exile Splinter… grew. I never understood all the functions to begin with - I constructed the frame, but others were responsible for ensuring the device remained active as long as necessary. It was supposed to draw power from the Ithonian labyrinth it was attached to, and autonomously regain mana when someone died nearby. Now that I’ve recovered the Splinter, I can tell that it acted in ways we did not intend. The Splinter, seeking more power from the labyrinth and finding it too shallow, burrowed pathways into the world-junction, and began to draw from other places which were not originally connected to Ithos. It looks to have taken you from your worlds in pursuit of mana to fuel its core functions.”

The shortest figure gestured toward the pages. Hugh caught himself, he should really start thinking of them by their names, and this one was apparently ‘Harry’. 

“If you think the pathways to our worlds are new, why would they be in this book of yours?”

Kanderon continued, impassive. “The author is… proactive, in gathering new information, and ensures that all copies of his work are up-to-date. He lists several new connections to the Ithonian labyrinth, and I would guess with some confidence that the most recent three connections are to your worlds. All three entries are uncharacteristically sparse, perhaps because they were isolated prior to this new connection.”

Harry held up a hand. “Sorry, the most recent three? As in, there are more?”

“Yes, although only three new connections have been recorded in the book in the last fifty years.”

She gestured to the first of the pages, and began to read out its contents. 

“There is only a single labyrinth on this world. However, it is vast, and stretches through most of the centre of the planet. The creatures within are unusually dangerous. The world itself is fairly welcoming, with a well developed magical society in the beginnings of a technological expansion. The aether is gaseous, and hence extremely malleable. On the whole, a pleasant visit for multiversal travellers.”

One of the strangers - Zorian, Alustin had called him, raised a hand. “That sounds like my world. So it’s connected to the Ithonian labyrinth? That’s good news.”

Alustin made a hesitant noise. “I suppose it’s the best we could hope for, but navigating a labyrinth is said to be enormously difficult.”

Kanderon gestured at the second page. “This world was inaccessible until recently, sealed off from the multiverse by ‘redacted’.”

Kanderon simply read out the word ‘redacted’, but looking past her massive paws, Hugh saw that the text had been censored.

“Some massive surge of energy has torn a hole through their seal. The pathway here is perilous, and I strongly recommend avoiding those who dwell within the nascent labyrinth. Within the world itself, the work of the ‘redacted’ still stands, and controls the flow of aether. Unless you are strong enough to disregard their work, this world is not a place one should visit. There are deep divides between those with power and those without.”

The knight - Rain - raised his hand. “That’s mine.” Despite the discouraging entry in the book, he sounded relieved.

Kanderon nodded, and turned to the next sheet of paper. “This world was once a stronghold of ‘redacted’, and although almost no traces of their presence remain, their machinations proceed unhindered. Aether manipulation by the locals is constrained, but despite this, there are surprisingly sophisticated civilizations and abundant technology. It was a struggle to come here. Do not attempt the journey unprepared.”

The smallest of the strangers - Harry - sighed. “Not a lot of detail to go on there, but I could see that being Earth. Now, how do you intend to guide us through the labyrinths?”

Talia failed to suppress a snigger. “Your world is named after dirt?” Harry looked like he was about to retort, but appeared to think the better of it. 

Kanderon shook her head at Harry, ignoring Talia. “I’ve shown that I can keep my end of the bargain - the details can wait until you do the same. Now, how do you intend to help us win a war without killing?”

Zorian pulled back his hood, revealing the face of a man about Alustin’s age bearing a wide grin. “Who said anything about winning a war? We’re going to prevent one.”

Kanderon made a low noise which reverberated through the crystal of the mountaintop. “Explain.”

“Yesterday, I managed to penetrate Havath City’s defences. Based on what I saw there, I believe a swift and decisive strike there would shatter their willingness to make war elsewhere, and result in the planned attack on Skyhold being called off.”

Alustin whistled low, and Hugh could see Sabae immediately try to copy him and fail. “You’re either the best liars I’ve ever seen, or my estimation of you is consistently too low. You got into Havath City and back? Within a day? I have questions, but they can wait. How would a decisive strike work? I thought you said you didn’t want to kill anyone?”

Harry stepped in - figuratively speaking of course, since his feet were still encased in crystal. “Our current understanding is that Havath City is a lich domain, and Zorian tells us that the lich contained within is in constant, inescapable pain. As a consequence, striking at it might be the path which minimises suffering. If it were destroyed, the city would lose a great part of its defensive capabilities, and it seems likely the Dominion would recall the forces it’s currently sending here to make up for that vulnerability. This could end the war with just one death, rather than thousands.”

Havath City was a lich domain? That made sense - many of the most prosperous cities on the continent belonged to liches, Zophor being a prominent example. How did Zorian know that, though?

Kanderon shook her head. “Havath City is not the domain of a single lich.”

“I’m positive I felt the presence of a lich there.” Zorian challenged.

“The Intertwined are seven liches who share Havath City as a domain. Other than their transgressive example, this is thought to be impossible. I suspect that this experimentation in overlapping domains is the cause of the pain you describe. Destroying them would be a mercy.”

Rain nodded, and launched into technical questions. “How can a lich be destroyed? We could melt the city, but that would probably cause civilian casualties. Are there other approaches? What exactly keeps a lich alive?”

Kanderon rested her head on her paws. Following her lead, Hugh un-tensed his shoulders and let out a deep breath.

The sphinx responded. “Liches are anchored to the land by a vast series of intricate enchantments. Destroying these enchantments would kill a lich, but as you say, doing so in Havath City would threaten many lives. Most liches depend on a constant flow of alchemical reagents throughout their domain - if this is stopped, their death follows soon afterward. I do not know how the Intertwined share a domain - if this requires some kind of device or specialised enchantment, disabling or destroying it may cause a cascading failure.”

Rain nodded slowly. “I think we can work with that. We will act tomorrow, and return afterward.”

The three figures joined hands. There was a pause, and then all three of them twisted through space, and vanished.

“They’re gone,” Sabae exclaimed. “They can teleport?”

Alustin nodded. “We have a lot to learn from those three. Now, quick lesson - did you notice anything strange about them?”

Godrick spluttered. “Besides, y’know, everythin’?”

Hugh raised a hand. “The armoured one - Rain - was carrying several crystals. I’m not sure what they were - I don’t think I’ve felt that material before.”

Alustin nodded approvingly. “Anything else?”

“Ah mean, maybe it’s nothing, but fer archmages like that, Rain’s iron armour looked really poorly made,” Godrick said.

“Good observation, Godrick. Anything from you, Talia?”

Talia was looking thoughtfully off into the distance. “They didn’t have any bones.”

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry

 

Harry’s idea had worked quite well. 

At his suggestion, Zorian had made a trio of ectoplasmic simulacra. One of them was in Harry’s image, another in Rain’s, and a third with a nondescript face for himself. Rain had created aura anchors for ‘his’ simulacrum to carry. Harry had quickly transfigured clothes and some rudimentary iron armour to complete the visual ensemble.

Then, after the three copies set out with Alustin to meet Kanderon, Zorian had assigned an additional simulacrum each to Harry and Rain. Their role was to transmit the perspective of the simulacra doubling Rain and Harry at the meeting, and relay whatever Harry and Rain said back to their counterparts. 

In the end, there was a slight delay, but Zorian was surprisingly good at managing it. This way, Harry and Rain effectively benefited from Zorian’s ability to go somewhere dangerous without putting their physical bodies at risk. Rain’s double could even sense his environment and cast magic as if he were there, thanks to his aura anchors.

There had been one significant hiccup - Talia’s dome of dreamfire droplets had momentarily blocked Zorian’s line of mental communication with his simulacra. Fortunately, Rain had equipped his double with a Suppression anchor, which had quickly shut down the interference.

On the whole, the meeting with Kanderon had gone fairly well. The sphinx’s book (which Harry really wanted to get his hands on) clearly identified their worlds, and according to Kanderon, would also guide them there. The frequent redactions made Harry’s skin tingle with possibility - whoever had written this text understood a puzzle Harry was only beginning to see.

The aside Kanderon had tried to minimise hadn’t slipped by Harry either. Apparently the connections the Exile Splinter had made with their three worlds weren’t the first. How many others had been drawn from their homes into the desolate city and starved to death in the dark? Whether or not Kanderon had known, she undeniably shared the blame.

Regardless, the path forward was clear. Neither Kanderon’s side nor the Havath Dominion were innocent in this war, but right now, the Havathi were the clear aggressors, and the capital of their empire was protected by a conglomerate being which Zorian said was in constant pain. 

They were going to release the Intertwined, hamstring the Havathi war machine and force their troops to retreat. And then, Kanderon was going to help them get home.

Chapter 8: Prey

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian - Simulacrum Number Three

 

Given the importance of his work, Simulacrum Number Three had permission to use as much mana as he wanted.

As a consequence, there were no minute-long pauses between his rapid teleportations. The repeated wooshing of the world unfolding before him was merging into one continuous noise. Because he was only in one place for a few seconds, he’d even eschewed the standard force-disc beneath him, instead opting to use unstructured magic to maintain his altitude.

In a small necklace hanging in front of his ectoplasmic chest were two of Rain’s aura anchors - Detection and Purify. Both of those were utility auras, neither offensive nor defensive, which meant that if the simulacrum ran into a problem, he was on his own. 

Not that this prospect worried him too much. In fact, much to the original’s chagrin, Simulacrum Three was somewhat looking forward to a potential confrontation. None of Zorian’s doubles had had a chance to flex Rain’s torrent of mana in combat, and Simulacrum Three had high hopes that he might be the first.

He was heading to the right place for that, at least. He was rapidly approaching Havath City.

Last time Zorian had sent simulacra here, they had drawn attention to themselves. It hadn’t really been avoidable - it’s hard to directly ask questions without being noticed, and lifting memories from people’s minds is much harder without externally prompting them for the information you want. Still, Simulacrum Three was going to be much less noticeable. 

This time, rather than walking through the main gates, he teleported directly into an empty warehouse his predecessors had scouted for this exact purpose. Then, he stepped out onto the streets. 

Unlike in Cyoria, in Havath invisibility wasn’t sufficient to be unseen. The chances that a passing guard had a wind affinity, or could sense the crystal aura anchors he was carrying, or heavens forbid, had some kind of cognition affinity that could sense the presence of his mind, were simply too high. Hoping to avoid that, the simulacrum was lightly touching the minds of the people he passed, ensuring that they noticed nothing out of the ordinary. He was ready to take control at a moment’s notice if it became necessary. 

There was always a chance that a lich was watching, but there wasn’t anything the simulacrum could really do about that.

The decision to end the Intertwined was not one they had made lightly. Harry, in particular, had been deeply uncomfortable with the idea of ending the lives of seven functionally immortal beings. But, after Kanderon had told them about the Havathi army approaching Skyhold, their timeline had abruptly grown extremely short. Even Harry had agreed by the end of their discussion. In the end, seven lives were simply outweighed by the apparent thousands on the line if the armies faced each other outright.

Not to mention the fact that if Kanderon herself fell, they might also lose their only lead on how to travel through labyrinths and find their way home. 

A mental missive back to their camp confirmed that Rain was watching through the crystal anchor hanging around his neck. Although Zorian’s teleportation and mind magic gave him the edge in terms of scouting abilities, mapping out a system of pipes beneath a major city was definitely somewhere Rain had a clear advantage. If necessary, Zorian could construct a web of mana threads around him to sense space and objects moving through it, or summon an invisible arcane eye for scrying purposes, or any number of other creative solutions. None of them, however, were quite as efficient as simply receiving a three-dimensional map of everything within a hundred metre radius.

Speaking to the original Zorian back in their forested glade, Rain confirmed that he’d identified a number of tunnels beneath Havath City.

Closest, just beneath the simulacrum and the aura anchor he carried, were the cellars and basements of the nearby buildings. As in any city, space was at a premium, and some of the buildings had two stories buried in the marble substrate of the city.

Below that were the water supply, sewers, and minor alchemical supply pipes. Despite the lack of flexibility of magic in this world, the simulacrum had to admit that the specialisation of mages here allowed for impressive feats of civil engineering. Fluids rushed through the pipes at prodigious speeds, despite the lack of mechanical pumps within Detection’s radius. 

Deeper below that, buried so low that even artillery magic fired at the city would struggle to damage it, were the arterial pipes they were looking for. Toxic alchemical reagents flowed through the marble and bronze that formed the domain of the Intertwined. According to Kanderon, this acted like life-blood for the peculiar magical beings. If this constant flow were sufficiently interfered with, death might not come instantly - but it would come soon.

Although it wasn’t the primary purpose of this journey, Zorian was very interested in learning more about the internal mechanics of Anastan liches. There were several obvious advantages and disadvantages when compared with liches from his world, and it wasn’t yet clear if the two states of being had more in common than just their name.

From here in the warehouse, Detection could only glimpse a fraction of this network of pipes. So the simulacrum began to walk. Under the cover of invisibility, Simulacrum Three criss-crossed the city. Personally, he had no idea where he was going, but Rain relayed instructions through the original.

Somewhat to the simulacrum’s disappointment, no sword-wielding figures dropped from the sky to confront him, and the first part of his scouting mission passed without incident. Several mages, instinctively observing their surroundings with their affinity senses, did begin to notice that something strange was happening, but that was easily rectified with some gentle mental nudges. The simulacrum was careful to avoid sending mental tendrils downward; even if this was a mercy mission, it was best if the Intertwined remained unaware of their plans.

The fortified centre of the city was the hardest to map. There were no open pathways for citizens to walk in, and the great bronze doors were warded in an esoteric way the simulacrum couldn’t easily figure out. So, he’d simply resorted to staying outside, and using unstructured magic to levitate the aura anchor over the walls and through the inner sanctum. Whatever impressive magic had created these wards, they apparently hadn’t been designed to trigger when a single small rock crossed the boundary. 

With that, the scouting was done. Now, it was time for the real test.

Simulacrum Three walked back to a less busy part of the city, and into an industrial-looking maintenance depot. Usually, this sort of place would be well guarded, but the guards had just now decided to visit the bathroom all at the same time. That was strictly against protocol, but in a stunning coincidence, their commanding officer had gone on her lunch break early today - something she hadn’t done in thirty years, and would be unable to explain afterwards.

The entrance to the pipes was clean and well-maintained. The hatch was thoroughly secured and airtight, but easy to use, and opened to reveal a marble access tunnel with a bronze ladder. The simulacrum descended, and after a minute of climbing, found himself in a wide tunnel. There were thin marble walkways on either side, and in the centre flowed a veritable river of greenish liquid. 

Kanderon hadn’t been kidding when she said these materials were volatile. Even the vapours in the air were stinging at the simulacrum’s ectoplasmic flesh, and if he had a sense of smell or taste, he was sure he’d be retching. Still, he had work to do, best to get it done and get out of here.

He bent down, and held a Purify anchor as close to the liquid as possible, his hand just above the liquid and protected from splashes by a small unstructured kinetic shield. They were operating under the assumption that the more liquid they evaporated, the greater the chance the Intertwined would notice - so it was important to keep the total volume of the river intersecting with the Purify radius to a minimum.

None of them were quite sure how this test would go. Normally, Purify would easily take care of toxic chemicals. These toxic chemicals, however, were arguably someone’s blood, which Rain insisted he’d never been able to evaporate - at least while it was inside people. On the other hand, the entity this liquid was keeping alive was in significant pain - would that help Rain’s mind think of it as material which ought to be removed? Or perhaps it would simply be too difficult for Rain to wrap his head around the idea that a city-sized, faceless entity with no apparent organic biology could be truly alive.

By his own admission, Rain didn’t actually know how his magic categorised which materials would evaporate under Purify’s effects, and which wouldn’t. Apparently, it could even change with his preferences and beliefs about the world - alcoholic drinks, for example, would either be affected or unaffected depending on whether or not Rain was planning to get drunk.

The simulacrum was reminded of his drinking competitions with Zach. The other, more boisterous time looper had been impressed with Zorian’s alcohol tolerance - until the moment he realised Zorian was using a simple spell to remove the alcohol, and was basically just drinking juice.

He felt a small pang of homesickness before reminding himself to focus on the task at hand. With a message to the original, he signalled for Rain to begin.

An instant later, a tiny sphere of concentrated light shone from the gem in the simulacrum’s palm. The effect was immediate - within the sphere, the toxic fumes ceased to damage the ectoplasm of his arm. And crucially, where the bright sphere intersected with the river below, there was now a void where the chemicals had disappeared. 

He felt a rush of excitement - their plan might work.

Just as he was pulling back his hand, before he even had a chance to take more than a single step away from the rushing liquid, the stone beneath his feet ceased to support him, and he sank up to his neck into the marble, which gave way to his body as if it had become a liquid. It solidified again, and he was stuck, his hand only inches above the torrent of fluid. None of the marble pierced his ectoplasmic flesh, though, so this clearly hadn’t been intended to be lethal. Simulacrum Number Three decided not to dismiss himself yet, and instead resolved to wait and see what was happening. 

It appeared the Intertwined were paying some attention, at least, to the goings on in their domain.

The marble of the tunnel wall curved and rippled, and a humanoid shape composed of marble and bronze stepped out. Its statuesque face was expressionless. It looked like it was about to speak, but the simulacrum spoke first, blurting out an observation which surprised him more than casual manipulation of stone.

“You’re not in pain anymore!”

The figure froze as if the animating force had abandoned it. There was a long pause.

Despite the rocks constraining his body, the simulacrum flinched a little as the vast mind surrounding him changed. Starting slowly, but gradually increasing, he could sense the deep, scarring pain returning within the lich.

The stone statue spoke, sound being produced by some kind of magic in lieu of vocal chords. “Pain is not a fact of our existence. It is a weapon wielded against us by our masters to keep us in line. We choose to feel it again now to keep this conversation private from those who would keep us as servants.”

The statue knelt down to be closer to the simulacrum’s face, which was now at ground level. “You come here with a stone which can destroy our blood. You are surprised to see that we are not in pain. We are not fools. You are here to kill us.”

The simulacrum teleported, moving only a short distance - enough to be free of the stone encasing his body, and faced the statue. “And yet I’m still alive, if a little compressed. You could obviously have killed me then, and yet you didn’t.” 

The original was mentally shouting at him to escape, to get out and away from the lich-avatar, but the simulacrum refused. This conversation was promising - telling the truth had worked quite a few times on this world, perhaps this would be another. Of course, the original had the final say - he could always dismiss the simulacrum’s body directly, but then there would be a considerable delay as he sent another simulacrum to Havath City.

The lich-avatar responded. “We would rather rule this city than be destroyed. If you assist us in this, you will find us useful allies.”

The simulacrum considered the proposition, but then slowly shook his head. “We seek to halt the Havathi Empire’s expansion, and prevent the next great war. Even if you took control of Havath City, it’s likely the returning army under Duarch Locke would besiege the city to take it back. Tens of thousands would die.”

Another one of Zorian’s simulacra was trailing the Havathi army travelling toward Skyhold, and was gently probing the minds of the weaker battlemages for information, like the name of their commanding officer.

The stone figure stood, rising slowly from its kneeling position. The void where the simulacrum had been imprisoned melted back into seamless stone. “You seek to avoid casualties. Would your destructive sphere not also kill indiscriminately as you used it to drain us of our lifeblood?”

Simulacrum Three almost laughed at the misunderstanding, which paralleled his own fears when he’d first encountered Rain. “No, although I can see why you might think that. This power does not harm humans, nor other conventionally living beings.”

Reaching out with mental tendrils, he found and controlled a rat living in a nearby tunnel, and commanded it to run toward them. He needed to look surprisingly far - apparently a city in which the ground was sentient and could swallow up living beings was quite good at pest control. A moment later, with the rat cooperatively nestled in his hand, he instructed Rain to activate Purify again.

The sphere of light spread out, washing over the rat and leaving it unharmed, and cleaner than almost any rat had ever been before. The simulacrum released it, and it scampered away, largely confused by the experience.

The stone lich-figure nodded slowly, pausing for a moment in thought. “If you will not help us take the city, releasing us from our pain while leaving the city unharmed is the next-greatest gift you could give. We will help you.”

Somewhat smugly, Simulacrum Three noticed that the original’s commands to flee had halted. He cast a quick spell to check for external listeners, but there were none that he could detect.

“Is anyone listening?”

The stone figure shook its head. “The same process that causes us pain denies our masters access.”

“Good.”

For the first time on this world, Zorian began to cast the Gate spell.

In the tunnel, space began to warp and twist. Initially focused on a single point, the air began to rip, a cut in the fabric of reality. It grew till it was about the size of a fist, then stabilised. On the other side was a simulacrum, casting the other half of the spell from a safe distance from their forested glade. As soon as the portal opened, dozens of tiny stones shot through, propelled by unstructured magic - each of them identical to the Purify anchor in Simulacrum Three’s hand, the fruit of Rain’s labour over the last two days. After coming through the Gate, their speed rapidly reduced, and they came to a stop hovering above his outstretched palm.

The portal grew wider, large enough to fit a person, and three simulacra passed through the Gate.

The portal closed. 

With the help of the Intertwined, placing the anchors was fairly straightforward. The marble liches formed detailed maps of the underground network into the wall. Combining this with Rain’s three-dimensional image, Simulacrum Three had a better overview of the tunnels than any human living in the city above. He had identified a number of critical points - pumping stations, input points for the chemicals themselves, and storage tanks, which held the majority of the liquid. 

The quartet of simulacra now spread across Havath City assembled a small swarm of rats. It took far longer than it would have in Cyoria, and the resulting rodent army was smaller than the simulacrum had hoped - but it was enough. Entrusted with one aura anchor each, the rats followed mental commands to place the crystals in unobtrusive, difficult to reach locations near these critical junctions. Simulacrum Three felt a little nostalgic - near the beginning of the time loop, he’d defended Cyoria from an invasion supported by cranium rats. Now, he was in the reverse situation - organising and mobilising rats to invade a foreign city. Still, this invasion would be far more pleasant to experience than the brutal monster raids and accompanying artillery bombardment he’d endured as a novice mage.

According to their calculations, when Rain activated the Purify beacons, it would only take around a minute for the vast majority of the alchemical fluids to drain into the critical locations and be evaporated by the aura. That wasn’t too long, but there was still the chance of some kind of rapid response. That was why the four simulacra were now waiting underneath the largest pumping stations, ready to defend against any attempt from Havath City’s defenders to seize control of the stations and destroy the anchors.

There wasn’t much chance of holding the pumping stations indefinitely, but they didn’t need to - they just needed to hold them long enough. The Intertwined had confirmed that even a few minutes without the vital fluids was enough to kill them.

All four of the simulacra were accompanied by an avatar of the city-spanning marble lich. Despite the claims that they were in fact seven separate individuals, the avatars of the Intertwined looked very similar - golems of marble, with non-descript facial features outlined in bronze. 

Simulacrum Three looked questioningly at the avatar standing by his side. The lich nodded. 

It was time to begin. 

With a mental signal to the original, he indicated to Rain to start the process. 

Across the city, dozens of small crystals began to blaze, bathing their surroundings with purifying light. Vast quantities of mana radiated from the anchors, evaporating tonnes of alchemical fluids every second as an entire city’s network of tunnels drained into a few key locations.

The stone in the simulacrum’s hand glowed, leaving a sphere of tunnel around him cleaner than it ever had been.

At first, there was calm. Then, Simulacrum Three saw the avatar by his side tense.

“They’re coming.” 

Noises came from the access tunnel by their side, and the simulacrum could sense a handful of minds at the top. They weren’t typical minds either - they were like Valia, the soldier who had apprehended Simulacrum One and Two a few days ago - their minds were bonded with the living weapons and tools they held.

The lich-avatar turned its head to face the vertical tunnel, and it collapsed in on itself. The marble walls pinched together, forming a seal, and the bronze ladder coiled up to reinforce it with a lattice from beneath. 

It wasn’t a moment too soon. The ground around them shook as some thunderous force slammed into the seal, partially crumbling the marble. 

Around the city, the other simulacra were reporting similar responses. A massive dragon, dwarfing the ones Rain had killed above Ithos, had landed atop the pumping station near Simulacrum Five, and was tearing chunks out of the marble. Above Simulacrum Six, a powerful fire mage with a simple but strong mind shield was resisting their mental probes, and was pouring a torrent of white-hot flame into the tunnel - Six was draining their reserves fast just to hold it back. 

Havath was waking up.

A thread of mental connection dropped away as Simulacrum Ten was torn apart, along with the most of a city block.

By Simulacrum Three’s side, the lich-avatar suddenly doubled over. “They know,” it managed to choke out between spasms of pain. The marble walls of the tunnels quivered in rhythm with the waves of agony the simulacrum could feel radiating from the vast conglomerate mind. The avatar fell to the ground, curling up in foetal position. “End this. Please.”

They were in terrible pain, even more so than their reactions indicated. It was difficult to watch. The simulacrum’s resolve strengthened - whoever was inflicting this pain on the lich deserved to lose whatever power they had.

The tunnel by his side thundered again, and the lich’s blockade began to crumble. A furious face protruded through a gap.

Simulacrum Three reached out and clamped down on the soldier’s mind like a vice. It was a strange experience - the mind inside the soldier’s sword kept sending mental signals back through to the man, imploring him to wake up. The simulacrum could have pressed harder and forced him unconscious anyway, but there was a simpler solution. He grabbed at the sword with unstructured magic, sending it flying down the tunnel and out of sight. Separated, the two minds were much weaker, and the soldier fell limp. The body was rolled aside, and an arrow shot through the gap. It ricocheted off the outer layers of his shields, but the impact drained far more mana than it should have.

The glow from the Purify anchor seemed to intensify, the brightness almost blinding in the underground space. They must be getting close now, surely - how long had it been?

<Forty seconds>, came the response from the original. Of course he was calm, he was hundreds of kilometres away.

Simulacrum Five reported that the dragon had broken through. He’d managed to bloody its eyes with a volley of invisible magic missiles, but had been forced to retreat deeper into the tunnel network to avoid the torrent of viscous fire jetting from its mouth. It hadn’t been enough, and he’d resorted to collapsing the roof above to block off access entirely.

By his side, the lich-avatar’s movement began to slow. To the simulacrum’s mind-sense, the great mind began to falter and fade - the Intertwined were dying.

Another arrow whistled through the hole in the access tunnel, and he barely managed to dodge out of its path. He seized a huge chunk of rubble with unstructured magic and used it to block the gap.

Another signal lost. Simulacrum Five was dead; something had carved a gash through his torso, leaving the two halves of his ectoplasmic body to dissolve on the ground. Where had the attack come from? There had been no minds nearby.

It felt like an ocean wave cresting. The huge souls of the seven beings that had become one, finally released, tearing apart and dissipating into nothingness. 

At Simulacrum Three’s feet, the marble floor twisted and reshaped itself into a single, delicate marble flower, growing from the stone. It was done.

Shouting voices echoed from either side of the tunnel, but they were too far away - they wouldn’t make it here for a few more minutes. Simulacrum Three slumped against the wall. It had been tough work, but they had done it. He was preparing to dismiss his own ectoplasmic body when he felt a gust of wind, and the cracking noise of an object moving faster than sound. 

He felt a hand gripping his throat.

He opened his eyes.

A sneering face. “And you’re not even really here, either. We’ll find you, little one.”

And then there was darkness.

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres

 

Harry felt a little left out. 

Rain was sitting cross-legged, his eyes shut. Visually, he didn’t seem to be doing anything, but Harry knew his auras were acting at a distance, cleansing the tunnels under Havath of the last of the blood of the Intertwined.

Zorian was also sitting, his attention focused on his copies, far away. Meanwhile, there wasn’t much for Harry to do. He was nervously pacing around the edge of the clearing, with a single diamond hovering above his left hand. The conjured gemstone was floating up and down, up and down. It wobbled periodically at the upper and lower ends of its motion.

His right hand was gripping the Elder Wand.

Until now, their group had largely avoided the attention of the great powers of this world. Whether or not their efforts today were successful, an act like this… they were undeniably announcing their presence to the world. There was no telling how it would react.

Zorian’s eyes snapped open and he leapt to his feet. Harry jumped in response to the sudden motion.

<We need to move. Now.>

“Why? What is it? Have the Intertwined been dealt with?”

<Yes, but there’s something else. All of my simulacra in Havath are dead.>

Rain clambered to his feet. “Teleport us?”

Zorian nodded, and the three of them, along with three simulacra, grouped up on a disc of force. There was a rushing noise, and the clearing vanished and they were a hundred metres above the forest. Six more teleports followed, and the varied landscapes flashed beneath them. Forest gave way to deeper jungle, which petered out as the land flattened into a broad plain. Mountains loomed in the distance, but grew closer with each jump, until they hovered above one of the peaks.

Eventually, Zorian lowered them to the ground.

<We’re in the outer territories of Sica, one of the major geopolitical rivals of Havath. Hopefully they’ll think twice about following us here.>

Harry took a moment to get his bearings, feeling his feet firmly placed on the rough stone of the mountain, rather than Zorian’s oddly slippery disc of force.

Unlike the snow-capped summits of the Skyreach Range, here, trees stretched almost up to the rocky peaks, and the undergrowth was thick and bushy. The carbon-based cellulose of the trees registered as a dull buzzing to his nascent affinity senses. The ocean was just visible in the East.

One of Zorian’s simulacra conjured a disc of his own, cloaked himself in invisibility, and rose back into the sky. <I’m keeping watch, in case anything’s coming.>

Harry turned to Zorian. “So, the Intertwined are dead. Any news from your simulacrum with the army approaching Skyhold?”

Rather than speaking out loud, Zorian continued to respond mentally. <They know what we’ve done. The army has stopped moving.>

“Good. We shouldn’t move to Skyhold yet - if Locke’s army decides to attack anyway, the University will be one of the most dangerous places on the planet.”

There was a moment’s pause as the four of them admired the view from their vantage point at the summit. A few rays of sunlight pierced through the grey clouds, shedding light on a landscape below, which reminded Harry of Tolkien’s Mirkwood - massive gnarled trees spreading across rolling hills. For all the dangers on this world, it was certainly a beautiful place.

“So what’s next? We camp here until we’re sure Locke’s retreating, then use a Gate to travel to Skyhold?”

Rain turned away from the view. “Sounds good to me. I hope we did the right thing today.”

<We didn’t have much choice in the matter. Unless we wanted to try to navigate the labyrinths ourselves, working with Kanderon was the only way to avoid a war.>

Harry breathed in, and out. The cold mountain air was refreshing after so long in the humid jungle. “It’s usually better to end a war before it starts.”

Rain looked at his armoured palms. “After so long making Purify anchors, it feels strange to be done.” He looked back out across the plains, and did a double take. “Can you see that?”

Harry squinted, and readjusted his glasses. “What?”

Rain grabbed them both by the shoulders. “We need to teleport. Now.”

Zorian summoned a disc beneath them, and reached out. His third simulacrum dropped out of the sky to join them. The last thing Harry saw before the world vanished again was movement in the distance - something in the trees. Something very, very fast.

Then they were teleporting again. The only way Harry could keep track of their disorienting motion was by catching glimpses of the ocean to their right. They must be moving north, then.

The mental voice of one of the simulacra sounded in his mind. <It’s still coming. Look.>

Harry craned his neck to look behind them. There, near the horizon, but approaching rapidly, was a plume of dust. The world flickered, and the plume was smaller, barely visible. The world flickered again, and Harry expected it to be gone, but somehow it was larger now, getting closer despite their constant teleports.

That was… exceedingly impressive. They were teleporting once every six seconds or so, and coarsely estimating from the shape of the coast, each jump was about ten kilometres. 

Whatever was following them was moving at a little under five times the speed of sound.

Harry strained his voice to be heard over the ocean winds. “Zorian! We won’t outrun them, at least not quickly. They’re travelling along the ground - try to lose them by gaining altitude.”

Zorian mentally assented, and their next two teleports took them upwards at roughly a thirty degree angle. Meanwhile, one of his simulacra must have wrapped them in a sphere of invisibility, because Harry could no longer see his hands in front of him.

The plume of dust behind them vanished. There was a moment of reprieve before Rain sucked in air through his teeth. “It’s still coming. It can airwalk, or something.”

<We do not want it to get close. It tore through my simulacra before they knew it was there.>

“Can you teleport us back to the glade?”

<I can only teleport that far to a permanent teleportation circle, and the one I set up in the glade is too weak to function at this range.>

The air at this altitude whipped at Harry’s hair and clothes. “Zorian, cast the Gate spell.”

<I can’t cast that without staying still for a moment, and it’ll catch us if I stop teleporting.>

More than ever, Harry wished he had learned to apparate under his own power. 

This… entity, whatever it was, had found each of Zorian’s simulacra beneath Havath. It had traced them to Sica. And now, despite their invisibility, it was following them, moving through the sky at speeds that wouldn’t quite break airspeed records, but would definitely give them a run for their money.

They needed time, time to think, to plan, to run . “Can you send a simulacrum back to delay that thing?” Harry asked, his mind sinking into familiar cold patterns. 

Harry jumped a little as a simulacrum behind him responded out loud. “I don’t know how long I can hold it back.” 

“You-” The world twisted again, cutting Harry off just as he was about to speak.

“You just need to buy us some time. Take this.”

Harry reached into his Bag of Useful Items and nearly fell over with the motion. He wasn’t used to coordinating his movements while rapidly teleporting across the countryside. It was surprisingly disorienting to have your entire visual perspective shift every few seconds. If his vestibular system had a voice, it would be complaining right now. Something invisible put a steadying hand on his shoulder and Harry shot a grateful look into empty air. 

After a moment he had the object he was looking for in his hands. “Light the fuse with fire or lightning.” He handed over the 5 kilograms of TNT, almost his entire supply. 

To his surprise, the Simulacrum (at this point he was struggling to keep his numbering straight) took the bomb with only slight hesitation, lifting it and pushing the TNT into an expanded space in his robes. “Got it.” The simulacrum nodded, and then vanished. 

Harry reached up to cast a quick bubblehead charm on himself, and then breathed out. It was time to think . 

--------------------------------------------------------

Simulacrum Number Nine 

Now invisible on his own stationary platform suspended in the air, Simulacrum Number Nine didn’t need to teleport toward their pursuer. No, it was coming to him. 

In the few seconds he had before the pursuer reached him, he cast a powerful hasting spell on himself, accelerating his movement and response rate. Then, he conjured a stratified wall of force, sheets of hexagons layered on more interlocking hexagons, carefully positioned to distribute forces evenly across the field. Given how easily his predecessors had been dispatched, he wasn’t opting for his usual more elegant renewable shield pattern, settling on something to soak up simple brute force instead. He now existed solely to delay. 

A plan was rapidly communicated telepathically between the simulacra via their shared soul. He backed a fair way away from his shield-wall. Now that he was hasted, the Simulacrum could make out the silhouette of the creature pursuing them. It was humanoid, not much larger than Rain in his armour, but glowing. In fact, it seemed to Simulacrum Number Nine that he wasn’t actually seeing the creature at all, but rather just the glow of superheated air in front of it as it travelled. He prepared himself, pulled Harry’s bomb out of the little pocket dimension in his robes, and then attacked. 

He didn’t quite drain their shared reserves (the original still needed to teleport, after all), but the volley of spells he released made quite a dent. Homing functions were layered into concentrated manifolds of force, fireballs and disintegration beams arced into the path of the oncoming enemy.

Most missed entirely, left in the wake of their fast-moving target. A few of the faster spells with homing functions splashed harmlessly against it, and even the single disintegration beam that struck home seemed to sink into the pursuer with no effect. 

The barrage served its purpose, though. The pursuer slightly changed course, its trajectory altering toward him, rather than where the original was teleporting into the distance. 

And then it was here. 

Simulacrum Number Nine was quite proud of his wall. Most of the original’s shields were built with efficiency in mind, given Zorian’s relatively small mana reserves, but Rain had changed the game. In the few hasted moments he had, Simulacrum Number Nine had poured a frankly frightening amount of power into the gargantuan shield. He doubted even Zach could have got through it, even with time. And yet, two strikes from his pursuer’s glowing fists was all it took for the entire construction to shatter . The entity shot towards him, accelerating back to its previous speed in moments. 

Simulacrum Number Nine hadn’t wasted these precious seconds. Just before the pursuer reached him, he finished casting his final spell.

High in the sky above the Anastan seas, a gate opened.

The original couldn’t risk staying still long enough to cast a gate - if the stranger sped up and caught them, or could attack at range, staying in one place for too long would spell doom.

Simulacrum Number Nine was not long for this world, and he knew it. He had no such constraints. 

The other side was maintained by Simulacrum Number Two, a few kilometres away from where he had been monitoring the Havathi army in the Skyreach Ranges, far across the continent. 

The pursuer arced through the sky toward the gate, propelled by its supersonic momentum. Simulacrum Number Nine grinned a little at the trick, and prepared to close it as soon as his target went through.

And then the pursuer simply… stopped. Centimetres from the gate, its momentum just gone. A blast of superheated air passed around the gate and washed over Simulacrum Number Nine. He had just enough time to push an unstructured bolt of lightning into Harry’s bundle of red sticks before the pursuer floated around the gate and casually put its fist through his head. 

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres

Harry could barely make out the tiny speck of light as his TNT detonated near the horizon, and he privately thanked Simulacrum Number-Whatever as it winked out. As far as he was concerned, that was a living mind that had just willingly gone to oblivion to buy him a few seconds to think. 

Zorian had changed direction, teleporting them at an almost perpendicular angle to the route they had been taking before. And yet, almost immediately after the explosion, Rain saw the telltale dot of motion in the distance - it was back on their trail. 

If it was tracking them, how would it be doing so? What distinguishing features did their group have?

Theory one: it could detect the use of mana.

Harry discarded that immediately - there were probably thousands of people using mana all across the continent, and that wouldn’t have led it to trace them from Havath to Sica. It would have to be something more specific than this.

Theory two: it could sense the ectoplasm that comprised Zorian’s simulacra.

Theory three: Rain apparently drew heavily on the local aether to supply him with vast quantities of mana. Perhaps it was possible to use this to find him?

Theory four: it could detect their use of magics alien to this world. 

Both theories three and four were difficult to test. Rain could shut off his aether scoops, but then he wouldn’t be able to keep supplying Zorian with mana for long. They could stop using magic from their own worlds, but without it they’d be caught almost immediately, and also fall from the sky. Harry was proud of the efforts he’d made with his carbon affinity, but there was no way he was going to be able to hold all of their weight with it yet.

Still, they could distinguish between theory two and, and theories three and four.

“Zorian, we need to split up. One of -”

They teleported into a gust of wind, which snatched away Harry’s words as they left his bubble-charm.

“One of your simulacra takes Rain, another takes me. We need to find out how they’re following us so we can lose them.”

<Can’t. I need to stay with Rain. I’ll run out of mana fast without him.>

“How fast?”

<About twenty teleports total.> Zorian’s mental communications were terse, and he paused to focus each time they teleported.

“We split up, going three different directions. We meet up after six jumps at most each. We see which one gets followed.”

Zorian must have agreed, because he felt a simulacrum take a hold of his shoulder. Two teleports later, and the ocean was much closer - he could see the wind whipping water away from the tip of each swell. Then they were skimming along the surface, each teleport taking them further out to sea, the shoreline vanishing in the distance.

A moment later, the leading edge of their pursuer’s sonic boom rolled across them. The noise was thunderous. The accompanying wave of pressure briefly flattened the nearby swells and almost knocked Harry off his feet. He felt some kind of cushioning magical force hold up his limbs. He pressed a hand to his face to keep his glasses from falling off.

Zorian must have been running out of mana, because their path arced upwards, and after a moment they must have rejoined the others - Harry felt an invisible hand reach out and hold him steady.

<It’s following Rain.>

Ah. So either it was tracing simulacra, and had just chosen one to follow arbitrarily, or it was following Rain specifically, or there was some other factor he hadn’t considered. Rain had plenty of features which made him unique. It could be his aether consumption, his armour, his mana output… which apparently made him light up like a beacon to Zorian’s mana sight. 

“How long before your mana reserves fill up?” Harry asked Zorian. 

<They already have.>

Harry noted with a lump in his throat that their pursuer had made up about half the distance between them.

“Rain, turn off your essence well. Zorian, change directions and keep jumping.”

The teleports changed direction, so he assumed they were following his plan. The next two jumps took them far over the ocean, and the land was barely visible on the horizon.

Almost immediately, the dot in the distance changed direction to follow them.

Alright, that was one hypothesis gone.

Maybe…

“Rain, flare your Purify beacons.”

Rain must have heard him above the rushing wind, because a sphere of white light grew from the dot following them, moving almost faster than the eye could follow. Zorian was teleporting them faster now, once every four seconds, but each time, the sphere of light got closer.

“It’s got an anchor it’s using to follow us. Rain, destroy them!”

The sphere of purifying light behind them flickered out, then on again. Rain must have been cycling through each of his aura anchors to check which one their pursuer held. 

A hand removed itself from his shoulder, and he saw a ripple in the air float off their disc. Another simulacrum, giving itself up to buy them time?

Rain’s shout was barely audible above the wind. “I need to put enough mana through the Purify anchor to burn through its durability. I need to use aura focus - I’ll lose all senses. Keep me safe.”

There was barely a moment’s notice before Harry felt Rain slump down by his side, sitting down on their invisible disc. Then, the rapidly approaching dot that was their pursuer began to glow with purifying light.

Not like an aura, gently glowing the way Harry had seen before.

Like the sun.

For the second time, Harry saw Rain’s raw power on display. He shielded his eyes, looking downwards, then regretting it - even the diffuse reflection of the light from the ocean was painful to look at. 

Each time Zorian teleported, the massive orb of light shrank into the distance, then swelled again as their pursuer made up the distance. It felt like being in the path of an on-rushing train, just barely being whisked away before being crushed. 

And then it went out. Rain must have poured enough mana through the anchor to burn through its durability. 

Zorian responded immediately, and the next teleport went sharply upward, then another took them high enough that Harry would have been having trouble breathing without his bubble-head charm.

The roaring edge of their pursuers' sonic boom passed them by, and was replaced by the rushing of the stratospheric winds. They waited, and there was stillness.

None of them said anything for a few minutes. Then, when Rain reported he couldn’t see or sense anything nearby, Zorian opened a gate, and they stepped through to the snow-capped mountains near Skyhold University. On the other side stood a simulacrum, who looked nervously at the sea air through the portal before closing it.

“My other simulacrum says that Locke’s army is returning to Havath City. It worked.”

Harry took a deep breath. “We should get inside the university. Whatever that was, I’d rather be closer to Kanderon - and besides, I think we deserve some more answers.”

The simulacrum reached out, and the world twisted around them once more. Harry found himself at the base of a massive mountain. They must have been at the Western edge of the mountain range, because they were no longer in an alpine landscape - instead, this peak rose up from a sea of sand, stretching far into the distance. The area around them had been carved to resemble a harbour, and anchored around the perimeter of the mountain were a number of sailing ships with broad wooden hulls, resting on the sand. 

Either this world had bizarrely extreme tides, or these ships were designed to cross the sandy desert. The winds were certainly strong enough for that - even here, sand crystals whipped up by the air currents whistled around them and stung at Harry’s exposed flesh. He pulled his robes closer and shivered a little.

There were only a few people in the harbour-like area. In the distance, a few of the strange ships were being unloaded, and the cargo hurriedly transferred into the bulk of the mountain.

He focused, reaching out with his still-developing affinity sense. At this point, purified carbon was all he could precisely feel, but large clumps of carbon-rich compounds still registered as a faint signal, like an out-of-focus image. 

His skills were growing rapidly, but not nearly fast enough to keep up with what was necessary. He sorely needed some new tricks. Because of the distances and speeds involved, his magic had been entirely useless during the pursuit, aside from granting him a few breaths clear of bugs. And that was with the Elder Wand in hand! As much as Harry was proud of being able to think clearly and quickly, there were certain situations in which no amount of quick thinking could compensate for differences in raw power.

By his side, he could feel Rain and Zorian - the simulacra didn’t show up to his affinity senses at all, of course. In the distance, near one of the tunnels into the mountain, Harry felt four presences he thought might be moving. He really wasn’t sure they were people though - for all he knew, they could be sacks of potatoes on a conveyor belt, or dogs, or something.

“I think there’s an entrance there.” He gestured, and their group began to walk. “It should be clear that we’re not enemies, but be on your guard, just in case.”

They didn’t have to wait long for their presence to be noticed. After walking for a few metres, the sand under their feet drifted away, forming into a perfect circle surrounding them. The individual crystals of sand assembled themselves into a solid ring of perfect crystal - only a foot high, so no real barrier - but still a clear signal: Wait here. 

Harry, who at present was barely managing to hold the weight of a single diamond, was vaguely envious of the skill and strength that necessitated. 

They waited for a minute or so, then a cluster of people emerged from the tunnel up ahead. Although he’d never seen them in person, Harry recognised them from the images Zorian’s simulacrum had transmitted to him during their ‘meeting’ with Kanderon. 

Godrick led the way - or at least, the lump of carbon he could sense inside the person-shaped stone golem was probably Godrick. Sabae strode by his side, wind rushing around her limbs and torso.

Harry remembered the sight of the person she’d killed in Ithos - the image of a human body smeared across a stone roof came to him unbidden, and he forced it from his mind.

Hugh and Talia walked behind them. A crystalline spellbook darted around Hugh’s shoulder before moving back to hide behind him. Harry realised with a start that the crystal circle around them was probably Hugh’s doing, not Kanderon’s. That was promising - if someone as young as Hugh, who only seemed a few years older than Harry himself, could pull that off, then Harry would be building his own diamond shields in no time.

Talia’s electric-blue tattoos stretched across her body from her face down to her bare arms. All four of them wore the purple, iridescent fire circlets that must have been her doing.

For the sake of good communication between their groups, it was quite useful that Kanderon’s people believed themselves safe from Zorian’s mind magic. In order to preserve that impression, Harry and the others had already agreed to carefully avoid mentioning that if it became necessary, they suspected that Rain could simply reverse his Immolate aura and suppress all fire within his range, putting out the circlets in an instant. 

Alustin’s apprentices halted a few metres away, and Sabae stepped forward. “Welcome back to Skyhold. Is it done?”

Harry shared a quick glance with his compatriots and responded, his voice croaky from yelling above the wind. “It’s done. The Intertwined have been released, and Locke’s army is retreating to Havath City. We need to speak with Kanderon. Now. Please.”

Sabae nodded. “Come with us.”

The apprentices led them back into the broad stone tunnel. Sabae took the lead, Zorian and his pair of simulacra by her side. Harry followed, walking a little faster than usual in order to keep up with Hugh and Talia. Rain and Godrick brought up the rear.

Surprisingly, given the intensity of their initial meeting, the apprentices launched almost immediately into friendly banter.

“So, yeh really are on our side, eh?” The stone around Godrick’s head melted away into the rest of his armour, and revealed a handsome, broadly grinning face. “Yeh know, we were worried fer a while, what with yer antics over Ithos and all. But getting Havath’s army to back off, well, yer good enough lads in my book.”

Rain responded, vanishing his own helmet in response - perhaps he felt some kind of natural kinship with the other heavily armoured figure? “Whatever keeps people safe. It’d be a shame if we showed up and the only people we knew in this world were immediately killed in a siege, you know?”

Talia walked up to Hugh’s side. She was quite short for her age, but still a few centimetres taller than Harry. “So Harry, you decided to join us in person this time?”

Harry laughed. “I suppose that trick couldn’t stay secret forever in a world like this. How did you know?”

She gestured at her chest. “Bone affinity. I saw right through you!” She cackled slightly at her joke. 

“Ah. Figures. You’re not going to mess with our skeletons, are you? I’d rather keep mine intact, and this is the second time this week I’ve been unusually concerned about that.”

She sniffled. “Nah, don’t worry about it. I can’t really do anything to the bones inside other people, just sense them a little. That’s why I carry these around.” She reached into a bag at her side and retrieved what looked like part of a dried-out femur.

“Charming.” 

Talia looked rather pleased at his reaction.

Up ahead, Zorian and Sabae were speaking quietly. Harry thought he caught a word or two - ‘great powers’, and something about a storm.

They approached what looked like a dead end, but Godrick waved a hand, and the stone barrier melted away. Behind it, they stepped out into a larger hall, stacked with crates of food, and barrels of water. Various kinds of weaponry and ammunition were scattered across a series of long tables. 

Skyhold really had been preparing for a siege. 

Harry looked up at the semi-transparent spellbook hovering at Hugh’s shoulder. “So, you’re a crystal mage?”

Hugh nodded, still looking a little suspicious. The taller boy’s long strides meant Harry had to awkwardly speed-walk to keep up.

Harry pulled the diamond out of his pocket and hovered it unsteadily above his hand. “I’m new to this. Any tips?” He wasn’t planning to reveal the precise nature of his carbon-affinity, but there might be some overlap between crystal magic and his own ability to affect diamonds.

Hugh tilted his head, clearly curious. With an ease that surprised Harry, Hugh seized control over the crystal, and pulled it to orbit over his own hand in a perfect circle. The older boy focused, and the crystal stretched into a flat disc, shaped like a CD without the hole. It began to spin about its axis, looking like a tiny buzz-saw.

“If you’re starting out now, your affinity is probably fairly weak. Stay in the rear, away from fights, and let your bulkier team-mates soak up enemy attention. Both in combat and in social interaction. That’s what I usually do.”

“Ah, quit bein’ so darn self-effacin’, Hugh!” Godrick called out from behind them, and reached forward to gently shove Hugh in the shoulder, who laughed softly and ducked away. The stone-mage clearly knew his own strength well - with that much mass behind the movement, he could easily have punched through walls. Godrick looked seriously at Harry. “One ah the many things Hugh’s good at is undersellin himself. There are few people I’d rather have by my side.”

Sabae led them out of the hall and into another tunnel, this one dimly lit by periodic glyphs carved into the ceiling. It sloped sharply upwards, with stone steps artfully cut (or perhaps moulded with a stone affinity?) at regular intervals. Most of his companions ascended rapidly with ease, and Harry had to push himself to keep up. Harry was grateful that he wasn’t the only laggard - although Zorian’s simulacra didn’t show any signs of exertion, Zorian’s original body was breathing a bit more heavily than usual.

Hugh returned the diamond to its original shape, and sent it floating back into Harry’s hand. “Seriously though, stay as far away from combat as you can. Unless people age differently on your world, you’re even younger than we are. If you have the aptitude for it, you should pick up warding, and make sure you prepare as much as possible. Sometimes, preparation can make all the difference.”

Harry looked up at the crystal mage. He hadn’t noticed until now, but Hugh’s eyes glowed a faint green, and here in the dark, his pupils were contracted to thin vertical slits, like a cat’s. “Warding?”

“You know, imprinting spellforms into objects and imbuing them with mana so they have enduring effects. You don’t have that where you’re from?” Hugh paused, and held out his palm pointing toward the wall. After a moment, a patch of stone where Hugh was pointing reshaped itself slightly. Patterns of lighter crystal formed from the dark stone, angular lines arranged in a rough runic-looking circle. It began to glow.

“That’s just a simple ward. It’ll glow for an hour or so before going out, but you get the idea. They’re useful for a lot of things.”

Harry was grinning ear to ear at the prospect. “I bet they are. We should make some time to talk about them - actually, do you have any books on the subject?”

Hugh shrugged. “Yeah, there’s loads of books about it in the library. Be careful though, you don’t want to get lost in there - about twenty people die in there each year.”

Harry’s grin didn’t diminish - despite himself, he felt more at home than ever. “Excellent, I’ll check it out. Is there some kind of magic that helps you find books about specific topics, or do you have to do it by hand?”

Hugh scratched at his chin. “Well, you can usually just ask the Index. The library itself is semi-sapient, and can guide you to what you’re looking for.”

Harry nodded with emphatic approval. Finally , someone knew how to properly design a magical library.

Behind them, Hugh’s hovering crystal spellbook was getting used to the newcomers and had started trying to nibble at Rain’s gauntlets. The aura mage didn’t look annoyed, and was teasing the book with his fingers like he was playing with a cat. “What’s its name?”

Hugh turned back toward them and rolled his eyes at the playful spellbook. “Talia calls him Mackerel, and I think at this stage the name is going to stick. I wish I could say he’s usually better behaved, but he really isn’t. Don’t leave any books unattended around him - he gets a bit territorial and sometimes tries to eat them.”

Rain laughed, vanishing his gauntlets and scratching along the back of Mackerel’s spine. “I’m not sure if you’re lucky or unlucky there, actually. I’ve got one a bit like this back home - a crystal slime named Dozer. Eats filth and grime, leaving things spotless. I wonder if they’d get along?” A musing look came over Rain’s face. He stopped talking, and looked thoughtfully off into the distance until Mackerel distracted him by nipping at his beard.

The tunnel around them grew wider and levelled out, and eventually they reached another massive hall. At the opposite end, dominating the otherwise empty space, was Kanderon, resting her bulk on a raised dais.

She raised her head, and the rumble of her voice travelled equally well through the stone beneath them as through the air.

“Havath’s forces retreat. You’ve held up your end of the bargain.”

Harry shared another look with his friends, and stepped forward towards the crystal sphinx, and spoke as loudly as his complaining lungs would allow. “We were pursued. Something magically traced us and followed us at nearly five times the speed of sound, something that was unfazed by anything we threw at it. Do you know what it was?”

He heard intakes of breath from the apprentices around him, and Sabae muttered under her breath. “A thunderbringer.”

Kanderon’s eyes locked onto Harry, and he saw that they were glowing with the same strange kind of light as Hugh’s.

“This was always a risk. Havath does not stand alone.”

Harry put a hand up to his face and sighed quietly. “That seems like information which would have been useful before we antagonised them to this degree.” He turned back to Kanderon. “What do you mean?”

Kanderon pressed a paw into the stone floor of her dais, and a series of strange runes lit up near the entrances of the hall, then faded.

“What I tell you now, you must tell no-one. I say this only because you have potentially averted a war, and have earned a measure of my respect. Understand?”

Harry and the others nodded, although he carefully noted that Kanderon wasn’t requiring them to swear any kind of binding oath.

“You have disturbed a game being played at a level you could scarcely imagine. The Havathi Empire is only the latest regime being protected and guided by a particular multiversal faction. The Ithonian Empire, too, was one of their projects before it was shattered. In an attempt to prove their ideology dominant, they wish to see an empire triumph of its own accord, and dominate this world. They rarely, if ever, interfere directly, unless it is to prevent the interference of other multiversal powers.”

Her eyes flickered between the three of them.

“I was hoping they would not see your actions as the interference of other worlds, since none of you are here of your own accord, nor are you representatives of the dominant factions of your worlds. I was wrong.”

Harry’s jaw was rapidly clenching and unclenching. So, in attempting to prevent a war on this world, they’d managed to unintentionally enter some multiversal proxy war of unknown scale.

“What does this mean?”

“It means,” Kanderon responded, stepping off her dais and padding towards them on her gargantuan cat-like paws, “that as long as you remain on this world, the three of you will be hunted. Multiversal factions do not take kindly to interference. If they find you, they will kill you. And they will be looking.”

“You promised us a pathway home,” Rain said. “We’ve done what you asked.”

“Indeed you have. And in return, you will have what I promised.”

She stepped forward again, and from this close distance, the scale of her massive sphinx-body blocked half of Harry’s view of the ceiling. He gripped his wand in his hand, and he felt Rain tense up beside him. Still, Kanderon did nothing aggressive, and instead reached out with an upturned paw. Mackerel, Hugh’s crystalline spellbook, fluttered forward, and settled onto one of the soft pads. For the first time, Harry noticed a peculiar stone set into its greenish-crystal cover.

“A guide home.” 

There was another sudden intake of breath around him, and no-one said anything. After a pause, Hugh spoke with a sense of growing realisation. “You mean… Mackerel’s labyrinth stone. Because it’s taken from inside a labyrinth, it should be able to guide us through? But Mackerel can’t go without me, and…”

Talia threw a tattooed arm over Harry’s shoulder. “Ha! I hope you like us!” The red-headed teenage girl was grinning broadly. “Cause it looks like we’re going to be spending quite a bit more time together.”

--------------------------------------------------------

 

The pursuer continued its search above the Anastan sea, but found nothing.

The stones it had been using to trace the offworlders were gone, burnt through in a blaze of expended mana. The tell-tale traces of their magics were only faint, and after criss-crossing the ocean sky a dozen times, it was clear they were no longer here.

It travelled quickly back to Havath City, seen by no-one, and returned to the reality from which it had come.

Someone was waiting for it. A fist-size sphere with a metallic sheen. Space around it seemed to warp and twist, as if pulled toward its surface.

“The Intertwined are dead, and Havath is retreating. The intruders achieved their goals. I didn’t catch them.”

The sphere pulsed, contracting and expanding. It hummed in quietly communicated displeasure.

“There’s something else. Two of them fought me, with magics from other worlds. The other did nothing, only watched. I was close enough at the end to see this in their soul.”

The pursuer held out its hand, palm up, and a bright projection of Harry’s soul winked into existence above its hand. The projection shrank and turned, until it focused in on a particular section of the shell.

The sphere stopped pulsing.

“I thought they had abandoned other realities. If the Bearer of the Line of Merlin is here, then…”

The surface of the sphere rippled.

“We must be cautious. We cannot risk being caught in the shockwave of their return. If the Atlanteans have ended their isolation, there will be consequences.”

The pursuer turned to re-enter Anastis. They had a planet to search.

Chapter 9: Descent

--------------------------------------------------------

Rain

 

It was clear that Kanderon wanted them off this world. 

Rain was sure the only reason she hadn’t shoved them into a labyrinth personally was that she was giving their guides time to prepare and say their goodbyes.

Apparently, the key to navigating through the mazes which formed passageways between worlds was Hugh's adorable animated spellbook Mackerel. But they couldn’t take the book alone, because it was ‘pacted’ with Hugh, whatever that meant. And of course, Hugh’s friends wouldn’t let him go alone, so that meant Sabae, Godrick, and Talia were coming along. And Kanderon didn’t want to let them go without adult supervision, so their teacher, the paper mage Alustin, and Godrick’s father, Artur Wallbreaker, were coming too. Apparently they’d already encountered Artur once before - he had been the mage inside the gargantuan stone giant in the battle for Ithos.

Although he’d enjoyed Alustin’s company and the others seemed friendly enough, the prospect of bringing so many people on such a dangerous journey did nothing to calm Rain’s nerves. 

The last time he’d gone delving with Ameliah and Tallheart, he’d been by far the weakest member of their party of three, and even then he’d felt anxious about keeping his friends safe in the darkness and tension of the depths. He wasn’t looking forward to trying to protect so many others, especially people he hadn’t had time to get to know in any depth - including children, for that matter.

Rain was aware on some level that both Zorian and Harry technically qualified as children as well, but after the last few days that had somehow stopped mattering. Seeing Zorian’s simulacrum sacrifice his life to slow down their pursuer had left a deep impression on Rain. 

And when Harry spoke, although there were flashes of child-like idiosyncrasies, the overwhelming impression was of an experienced and battle-hardened wizard, not of a twelve-year-old. If push came to shove, Rain knew he would be able to trust Harry in a crisis - as long as their goals remained aligned.

Now, having left Kanderon behind in her strange quasi-throne room, the three of them were walking along a broad, well-lit corridor they’d been told would lead them to Skyhold’s library. 

Zorian’s simulacra had quietly stepped away a while ago, and according to the images they were intermittently sending to Rain’s mind, were hovering above Skyhold, keeping watch for any plumes of dust in the distance.

If something unexpected happened, Harry, Rain, and Zorian would be better prepared this time. After the close call above the Anastan sea, they had agreed to adopt the habit of keeping up constant threads of mental communication. 

The idea of keeping up a line of information-exchange with a master mind-mage would have made yesterday’s Rain deeply uncomfortable, and he knew the Warden was going to lay into him next time they spoke. Strangely, it didn’t seem to bother him now. When he tried to picture Zorian betraying him and seizing control, his mind instead went back to the last messages from Zorian’s simulacrum high above the Anastan seas.

Whether or not the simulacra were Zorian in any true sense, they were created in his exact image. And this one hadn’t hesitated for a moment before giving up its life to save them. As far as Rain was concerned, from here on out, Zorian was a friend.

Since neither Rain nor Harry could reach out of their own accord, Zorian needed to actively transmit their thoughts, but that clearly wasn’t a problem for the enigmatic mage. As a result, Rain was receiving periodic flashes of imagery from Zorian’s four extant simulacra - two hovering above the Skyreach Range, one stationed near the retreating Havathi army, and another which was rapidly approaching Ithos. He was also privy to whatever thoughts Harry or the original Zorian chose to share.

It would have been a lot of information for a typical mind to handle - perhaps too much. To Rain, it merely meant he would flicker into his soul every few seconds to digest the images at his own pace. He was walking a little slower than usual to practise the rapid soul-manipulations. So far, he’d managed to handle the resultant momentary loss of physical senses reasonably well - Detection wasn’t a replacement for a sense of touch, but it helped.

Harry was visibly struggling. He’d insisted on at least attempting to parse the torrent of sensory information, and his physical coordination wasn’t coping quite as well. Zorian was walking behind him, and had stopped him falling over or walking into walls at least a dozen times now. His eyelids were flickering intermittently, as if he was dreaming.

None of them were speaking out loud. Just as they’d spent the last few days conversing solely in Ithonian to improve their language skills, now they were practising mental communications. It was a strange way to communicate, but Rain could clearly see the advantages. It reminded him of how Ameliah had used Message before the Warden closed off his soul to others.

Now, the main impressions he was getting from his companions was Harry’s frustration at his difficulty interpreting the flashes of imagery, and wry amusement from each of Zorian’s five minds.

At a mental suggestion from Zorian, they paused briefly.

<Harry, could you transfigure me a pair of thin metal discs?>

Harry nodded, and after a moment of concentration, a piece of wood he produced from his bag became two flat metallic discs. He passed them over to Zorian, who immediately began carving tiny lines into the metal with his magic.

<What for?> Rain asked, curious.

<Normally my telepathic connections can only reach a relatively short distance - around a kilometre at maximum. I’m going to make these discs into relays, which should extend the range at which we can communicate to a few hundred kilometres. The devices won’t last that long without crystallised mana, but it’s better than nothing.>

That was a good answer. Rain didn’t expect Zorian to leave his side anytime soon - the young mage was eagerly making use of every drop of mana Rain fed him via Essence Well and Winter, and those only worked within a small distance - but it was always good to be prepared.

As they continued walking, Harry made an interesting suggestion.

<We need to think through the recent crisis in detail, and determine where we could have done better.>

That… was probably a good idea. The three of them had almost died, and things could easily have gone much worse than they did. Rain sank into his soul for a moment to review his memories, and came out with one standout conclusion.

<I need to trust you both more. I could have descended into my soul much earlier, and had far more time to think. I’ve made a habit of trying to keep my physical senses active as much as possible around you, Zorian, even though you’ve given me no reason to distrust you. It almost got us killed. I’m sorry.> It was difficult to keep the regret and emotion from his mental communication.

Zorian’s response was somewhat hesitant. <It’s not… uncommon for people to feel uneasy around me. It’s not the first time something like this has happened. Besides, your mana was the only reason I could teleport us so many times.>

<That’s a good start.> Harry’s thoughts were precise, as if he was analysing a chess position rather than a life-or-death crisis the three of them had experienced less than an hour ago. <First off, we need to have a faster crisis response. Zorian, you have simulacra stationed around the continent. At the first sign of trouble nearby, you should cast a Gate spell and take us somewhere very far away.>

<That’s not enough> came Zorian’s response. <If that… thing can get close to us without our knowledge, then we’re already dead. Rain, how are your reaction times, and how fast can you move?>

<Not as fast as our pursuer, at least not with any control, but well above the speed of sound. Reaching a speed isn’t the problem though - it’s surviving while I’m going that fast. There’s no damage limit here, so if I collide with something at mach 3, it might kill me instantly. Reaction times depend on whether or not I’m in my soul when something happens. If I am, then I have more time to plan what I’m going to do, and can emerge and do it immediately. Ballpark is probably about half normal human reaction time.>

<Good. In that case, it’s safest if we maintain a Gate at all times, and you throw us through it if anything happens. I can close it much faster than I can open it.>

Harry interjected with a note of consternation. <I’m not sure if that’s a good idea. There are clearly dangers which move between worlds, and Kanderon seems to think that our presence here, in particular our foreign magic, might lure them here. If I were a multiversal force hell-bent on wreaking destruction on any world that came to my attention, a permanent Gate defying Euclidean space might act like a beacon. Our momentary use might not have caused any issues so far, but I’d prefer not to push our luck by keeping a Gate open at all times. There’s also a chance that a Gate would allow the pursuer to find us again.>

<Good point. How long does it take you to make a permanent teleportation circle that you can reach from a greater distance, Zorian?>

<Days, minimum. My simulacrum near the Havathi army is working on one there, but if we leave this planet at the rate Kanderon wants us to, it won’t be finished by the time we’re gone.>

Depends on how long this labyrinth takes us, Rain thought. From what Kanderon says, it's nothing like the delves back home... but there's always a chance . He'd only been gone from Ascension for a few days, but without Ameliah or even Dozer, it felt like much longer.

The question of Dozer was an interesting one. Ever since the Essence Slime had managed to find his way into Rain’s soul, the mental connection to the tamed monster had been there, easy to access and ready to either summon Dozer back, or to keep him safe inside his soul.

The thing is, Dozer had been outside his soul, playing with Carten, when he’d been taken by the Exile Splinter. And now, in this world, the connection to Dozer felt… not frayed, exactly, but somehow strained, as if the bond had been trapped in a higher energy state. He hadn't been able to talk to Dozer, and hadn't heard any of the slime's characteristic ⟬ clean-need ⟭ either. There was a chance that he could fetch Dozer from the other world, and bring him here, but what then? This world was undeniably more dangerous, and although Dozer had courage in spades, that wasn’t a risk Rain was willing to take. The thought of the plucky little slime caught in the shockwave left in the wake of their otherworldly pursuer, or torn apart by a gravity mage, or… 

No, it was better for now that Dozer was safe with Ascension. And so Rain hadn’t even tried to tug at the thread of soul-connection, and consequently hadn’t resolved his itching curiosity about whether or not he’d be able bring a creature across the boundaries between worlds with a mere thought.

The three of them arrived at a broad pair of wooden doors, reinforced horizontally with iron brackets.

There weren’t any signs saying what was inside, but Rain supposed that would have ruined the whole medieval aesthetic anyway. <I figure this is the library.>

<Hugh said it was dangerous. We should stay on our guard,> Harry sent. His thoughts were a mixture of giddy excitement and nerves.

Rain stepped forward, and threw the doors open with perhaps a little too much force. They swung open, revealing…

A space which was much larger than ought to have been possible, even inside a mountain this large. Endless leagues of tomes and grimoires embedded into shelves stretched out before them. Ship-sized shelves bearing thousands of books floated of their own accord, drifting lazily around the stacks. A central shaft descending into the depths glowed blue - the colour of Kanderon’s wings. Hundreds of individual books darted about - some with wings, some without, blurring the corridors between the shelves. 

<On second thoughts, maybe this isn’t the ideal way to organise a library.> Whatever he claimed to think, Rain could tell that Harry approved both of the aesthetic and of the sheer scale.

Zorian stepped forward, briefly gesturing with a hand to telekinetically deflect an onrushing atlas, and picked a book from a nearby shelf at random. < A Treatise on the Use of Water Affinities in Managing Hydrocephalus. Huh.> He turned and picked up another. < Advanced Wardcraft .> A third: < A Beginners Guide to Dealing with Demons . This one has some blood on it. Not sure if that’s a good sign.>

Rain narrowed his eyes. <There’s around twenty books on each shelf, and the bookshelves are around ten shelves high. We can see around a hundred bookshelves from here, but that’s probably only a tenth of what's  on this floor. So that’s around two hundred thousand books per floor.>

Flaring Velocity, he dashed over to the edge of the central shaft. The library itself stretched around the chasm, and on the other side, Rain could see that the floors of the library stretched downward until they disappeared into a dimly glowing mist… <And it looks like there’s at least fifty more floors, if not more. So that’s at least ten million books.>

Harry was breathing a little heavily. <It will be quite a bit of work to bring all this information with us. We need to be quick. There’s no telling when Kanderon’s people will be ready to leave, and we want to get off this world as soon as possible.> He ran his fingers through his dark hair, once again exposing the strange scar that ran down his forehead. <Rain, you have a perfect memory, right? How quickly can you read?>

Rain wrinkled his eyebrows. <Great question. There’s not a lot of reading material where I come from, so I haven’t been challenged like that in a while. I think my mind could contain all the information here, the problem is getting it all in there.> 

Running too fast was definitely a concern - he needed to stay controlled to avoid collisions with the stationary bookshelves, to say nothing of the roaming ones. So he braced himself, dialled the stat bonuses from his rings to send his Clarity into the stratosphere, and limited himself to a little over half the speed of sound. 

Velocity (15/15) 2041% boost to speed for all entities Range: 0 meters Cost: 9.75 mp/s

 

And… go.

His fingers flickered through the pages at inhuman speeds, constrained by what he could do without tearing apart the paper. Vellum was more resilient - when he picked up a leatherbound book, it took less than half the time. Each page was inscribed with dense, symbolic language. Most of it was in standard Ithonian, and slid easily into his memories, but it wasn’t just text. There were complex charts, runic diagrams, schematics, as well as books in dozens of languages he’d never seen before.

He didn’t try to understand it. They could do that later, when they were under less time pressure. Now was the time for data collection. And collect data he did - flitting between the bookshelves like some kind of maniacal robot librarian, memorising the contents of another book every second.

After a few minutes, Zorian pulled some carbon-nanotube reinforced frames from a pocket dimension in his robes, and constructed a pair of simulacra, who began to help. They used some kind of finely controlled levitation magic to lift hundreds of books at once into a wide floating grid, so that Rain could see them all at once, and turned all of the pages roughly once every second. It was a nice gesture, and did help speed things up. He only needed to briefly turn back to face the grid to memorise all the currently visible pages, and could otherwise continue flipping through books himself.

A typical human would barely be able to focus their eyes in that span of time - let alone take in the information from hundreds of floating books at a considerable distance. Rain, however, relished the challenge - his Perception-boosting accolades combined with his enhanced Clarity to allow him to take in far more information than would usually be possible.

Every now and then, a book reacted poorly to being read at two hundred metres per second, and barfed up a cloud of knives, or tried to bite off his arm. None of the tricks were particularly threatening, especially while Rain was already moving this quickly, but they did tend to slow him down a little.

Harry, meanwhile, apparently hadn’t thought of any clever tricks to speed-read an entire library, and had instead started querying the Index for books on particularly interesting topics, and stuffing them into his Useful Items bag. 

<Kanderon won’t be happy you’re taking her books.>

Harry’s mental response was cautiously optimistic. <I’m planning to learn from them, and will soon be travelling through extremely dangerous environments with some of her most favoured servants, who I will be better able to protect if I’m more magically skilled. I figure it’s fair game - I’m going to treat the books very well, of course, and intend to return them if I ever return to this world.>

Presumably the bag reached capacity at some point, because he then pulled up a chair alongside the Index Node and continued querying - not looking for specific books, but rather trying to understand the scale and contents of the library itself, as well as the limits of the Index’s sentience. 

Rather than finishing the first floor entirely, Rain began work on the second floor when Zorian told him that a greater proportion of the books there were bound with leather, which meant he would be able to read them more quickly. He was part way through when Harry interrupted. 

<They’re here. Zorian, has your simulacrum reached Ithos?>

<Yes.>

<How much of the library have we got?> Zorian queried.

<I’ll have to count more carefully later, but I think I’ve memorised around fifteen thousand books.> Rain did some quick mental arithmetic. <That’s less than ten percent of a single floor, and about a tenth of a percent of the whole library. And we didn’t get any of the ones that were swimming around in the weird aquarium thing.>

<It’ll have to do, for now. We should go. As much as I hate to interrupt this, every minute we spend on this planet is a risk.>

Rain nodded, and climbed  the thin winding staircase which led up to the floor where Harry and Zorian were waiting. Near the door, Harry was getting up and stowing Advanced Wardcraft in his bag. Zorian’s simulacra returned the levitated books to their original positions, and flew through the open space in the middle of the library rather than taking the stairs. They floated gently to the floor beside  Zorian’s original body. 

Before them stood the people who would be their companions for the dangerous journey home. 

Alustin stood at the front, looking more confident than ever. His nondescript brown robes were clean and tidy, which contrasted with the ever-tousled brown hair partially obscuring his dreamfire circlet. He was carrying a simple leather bag, although it wasn’t clear why - he probably had more than enough storage space in the pocket dimension anchored to the tattoo on his arm.

Beside him was a massive dark-skinned man who must have been Godrick’s father, Artur. He must have been around seven feet tall, and the skin visible at his neck and hands was interlaced with deep scars. He was smiling broadly and holding up a hand in greeting.

Just behind him stood his son Godrick, who was only slightly shorter, flanked by Hugh, Talia and Sabae. And of course, the reason they were all here - Hugh’s crystalline spellbook, dubbed Mackerel, was surreptitiously trying to nibble at the ends of Sabae’s white hair.

All six of them were wearing Talia’s dreamfire circlets around their heads. Rain felt a pang of guilt at the implicit deception. While it was better for everyone if Kanderon’s people believed themselves safe, concealing his ability to invert Immolate and put out flames had him feeling a little two-faced. They knew about Suppression, since he’d used it to douse Talia’s dome in their meeting, but because they didn’t require active mana input from an individual, it had left the circlets alight. Inverted Immolate would simply extinguish all flames within its radius, regardless of their source.

Rain stepped forward, dismissing his helm and gauntlets, and grasped Artur’s outstretched hand in greeting. 

<Please to meet…> 

<You have to speak out loud to them, Rain> Zorian reminded him dryly.

Oh, right.

“Pleased to meet you in person, Artur. And thank you all for joining us. I’m Rain, this is Harry, and they’re Zorian.” Rain gestured at his companions.

“Ah, we should be thankin’ ye!” Apparently Artur shared Godrick’s thick accent as well as his stature and stone affinity. “There’s no tellin’ what would a happened here if ye hadn’t diverted the Havathi armies.”

Alustin clapped his hands together. “Galvachren’s Guide, of which I have a copy here,” he tapped his leather satchel, “says the connection to your homeworlds should be through the Ithonian labyrinth, which makes sense, given that’s where the Exile Splinter was deployed. Zorian, when you took me back to Skyhold, you brought me alongside while you teleported, and covered the distance in several jumps. That should speed up our journey significantly, especially since sandships can’t cross the Skyreach Range.” He leant forward, almost conspiratorially. “Now, how many people can you take along at once? Will we need to make multiple trips to bring everyone along? My apprentices are an equal mixture of apprehensive and curious about the experience.”

Zorian shook his head. “We won’t be teleporting today.”

Alustin drew back, surprised, and cocked his head to one side as if he were trying to read some text at an angle. The apprentices behind him looked at each other with confusion.

“It’s too slow.”

Now they were really confused.

“Please stand back.”

Their seven new companions nervously backed away through the doors, and looked in curiously. Mackerel must have been especially curious, because the spellbook kept trying to dart past them. Talia eventually sat on it to stop it moving.

Zorian began a series of complex hand gestures, and after a few seconds, a tiny tear began to form in the fabric of reality. Stretching wider by the moment, the shimmering boundary of the Gate grew.

This was the first time Rain had seen Zorian cast the Gate spell without some crisis occurring at the same time, so he very much shared the curiosity their new friends were displaying. 

Just looking at the Gate was enough to confuse the senses. It wasn’t a single portal with some kind of opaque rear side, like the ones from Portal - instead, it was double sided. Rain moved around to look at it from other angles, and it was clear that entering into the Gate’s space from either side would take you to its destination. Interesting.

Twenty seconds passed, and Zorian gradually expanded the boundary until it was large enough for even Artur to be able to pass through. Then, without another word, he jumped in, and vanished from the library entirely.

There was a long pause, in which no-one moved.

Zorian stuck his head back out, looking a bit amused at the delay. “You coming?”

“Yep.” Rain breathed in, and stepped through.

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian

 

His simulacrum had chosen the roof of the deserted villa as their point of arrival. From here, the ruined city of Ithos was beautiful in the fading sunset light. Unlike when they’d first arrived, there was no storm, but there was still a patch of thick, dark clouds above them, and tiny droplets were beginning to fall.

Simulacrum Four, who had opened the Gate from the Ithonian side, waved a hand cursorily, and a wide transparent dome came into being, which sheltered the Gate from rain as the rest of their group emerged. Zorian and Rain stood side by side, facing the Gate as Kanderon’s people crossed through.

Artur came through first, stepping very carefully to avoid the edges of the Gate. That wasn’t necessary, of course. The edges weren’t dangerous - Zorian’s Gate spell was carefully designed to collapse gracefully if the boundary was tampered with. An expression of wonder tempered with caution spread across Artur’s face as he exited.

Zorian’s instinctive mental feelers once again flinched away from the chaotic energies of Artur’s dreamfire circlet. The iridescent droplet of suspended flame glinted in the dimming light, serving to remind Zorian and his simulacra of their allies' (perhaps justified) caution.

It made Zorian feel a little better that their rudimentary defences wouldn’t amount to much, if it came to it. Even if it turned out that Rain couldn’t simply extinguish the purple-greenish flames with a thought, there were always other options - many of them.

The headbands didn’t look particularly well fastened - only a thin leather strip fixed the finger-tip sized crystal container to the centre of their foreheads. If necessary, unstructured telekinesis could easily tear them away before anyone had a chance to react, leaving their minds undefended. And that was only required if Zorian actually wanted to seize control of their minds - if he just wanted them out of the picture, there were a myriad of other possibilities. It seemed unlikely that any of their affinities could deflect or easily block a series of homing, invisible force-missiles, or severing discs. Simulacra could grab them and teleport them kilometres into the air. And if all that failed, Harry’s improvements to his simulacrum frames had resulted in a significant increase in their durability and effective strength - if it came to it, there was always the option of grabbing them and physically tearing them apart. 

Not that Zorian was planning on doing anything like that unprovoked, of course. As long as Kanderon’s people stayed cooperative, there was no reason for any hostilities.

Talia was the next to leave the portal, her short red hair and freckled, white skin eerily lit up by both the circlet on her forehead and her glowing blue tattoos. Her presence here was understandable, if frustrating. Despite the decent craftsmanship, it was clear from the tiny amounts of mana leaking from the crystal casing of the circlets that they wouldn’t last forever - probably just a day or two, without recharging. And judging by the inflexibility of the mages from this world, recharging these devices probably required a dreamfire affinity.

Her brash confidence reminded him a little of Taiven - but mainly the parts of Taiven that he found confusing and somewhat annoying. 

Godrick came through next. Even without his usual thick stone armour, the young mage was surprisingly large. His eyes were darting about, taking in the ruined buildings and broken boulevards. Zorian once again felt frustrated at his inability to read even their surface thoughts. He'd grown so used to having some idea of what people were thinking that operating without that ability - being normal, he supposed - just felt wrong .

Then came Hugh, with his absurdly named crystal spellbook hovering at his side. The mind inside Mackerel was odd - not quite a magical construct like a golem, and not quite an independent sentience, but somewhere in between. For all Zorian’s experience understanding alien minds, he couldn’t make head or tail of the thought processes in the odd spellbook - it was all abstract toruses and topological structures, without any hint of meaning he could discern.

Along with the circlet, Hugh’s eyes glinted slightly in the sunset, reminiscent of Kanderon. Did he have some kind of cat-like ability to see in the dark? Mackerel looked like he was trying to eat part of the Gate, and Hugh was clearly using his crystal affinity to hold him back.

Then came Sabae, long white hair cascading past the dark skin of her exposed collarbones. As she carefully stepped over the boundary, Zorian noticed currents of wind playing through her fingers. He frowned slightly. Wind magic, like Sabae clearly possessed, was a near perfect counter to his own invisibility. Unlike Talia, with her frequent idiosyncrasies, at least Sabae had been quite pleasant to talk to in the walk to meet Kanderon. Without his mind-sense, Zorian had to admit that he wasn’t the best conversationalist. She’d reacted well to his questions about local politics, and had volunteered a surprising amount of information about her grandmother, who apparently controlled the winds of half the continent from her storm-throne hundreds of kilometres away. She’d asked a few pertinent questions of her own: Were all mages from his world as powerful as he was? (No.) What made them decide to work with Kanderon? (Necessity.) What power structures dominated his world? (Hereditary kingdoms, although noble families held some power, and in recent years civil institutions had grown to wield significant influence.) Did he think these power structures were the best possible ones, or had he thought about challenging them?

He’d struggled answering the last one, and part of his mind was still mulling on the question.

Alustin jumped through, landed dexterously, and walked over to the edge of the shimmering dome protecting them from the steadily increasing rain. He playfully put his fingers through, and drew them back. “Check this out!” He turned to his apprentices. “And they don’t even have a water affinity!”

Finally, Harry and the simulacra brought up the rear, and Zorian curled his fingers into a fist to collapse the Gate.

“Welcome back to Ithos. Your turn, labyrinth-guides.”

Zorian looked out at the city spread out before them. Even after centuries of disrepair in the void, most of the buildings had remained somewhat intact. Now, after the three-way battle between Kanderon’s Librarians Errant, the Havathi forces, and their own little faction, most of the city was in ruins. The adjacent building was half-collapsed, and in the middle of the street, the crater-footprint of Artur’s gargantuan stone armour was clearly visible.

“Actually, that’s something we need to ask you.” Hugh stepped forward to Zorian, Mackerel currently inactive and slung over his shoulder by a leather strap. “You’re from three different worlds, right? Where are we going first?”

They’d had this conversation before launching the attack on Havath City - when it had become clear there was a path home soon.

Zorian sent a mental query to his companions, and said out loud, “Give me a moment to think about that.” 

<We’re still planning to head to Harry’s world first, right? Any objections?>

Rain responded first. <I’d obviously like to get back to my homeworld and my friends as soon as possible, but I don’t want to leave you two unprotected. Like I said before, Zorian and I can probably handle ourselves, but I’d prefer to take Harry home first. No offence - you’re a great asset, but your skills aren’t the best suited to survival.>

<None taken. Thank you both - I appreciate this.>

There was an undercurrent of… something in Harry’s mental communication. It was clear he wasn’t telling them everything. The young boy’s mental protections were of an odd kind, but were still strong enough that he would know if Zorian intruded.

Still, there was clearly no hostile intent. Unless Harry had cognitive defences that far oustripped those of anyone on Zorian’s world, and the ability to create a simulated mind capable of fooling him (very unlikely), then he wasn’t planning to betray them. Zorian figured the younger boy could keep his secrets for now.

One of his simulacra realised the original was distracted, and stepped in to respond to Hugh’s question in his stead. “We’re going to Harry’s world first.”

Alustin grimaced. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that. Galvachren said the journey there was dangerous, and this is the first time any of us have tried to use a labyrinth to move between worlds.”

Hugh held up a hand. “That’s not quite true. The book said the journey was difficult, not dangerous. That’s different.”

Alustin rolled his eyes. “Well, I certainly hope we’ll have to solve a particularly challenging puzzle which isn’t at all life-threatening, but somehow I doubt it.”

“In that case, let’s get moving. The sooner we can leave this world, the better. I presume we’re starting at the site of the Splinter?” Alustin nodded, and Rain jumped off the roof in a single superhuman bound. He hit the ground next to the crater in the middle of the street.

Sabae followed, wind propelling her high into the air, and slowing her fall as she landed. Her white hair fanned out behind her as she moved. The rest of them turned to the stairs, but Artur held out a hand to stop them. 

“Tha whole buildin’ is unstable. We should leave this way.” He looked at the edge of the marble villa, and the stone walls began to reshape themselves. Within a few seconds, the edge of the roof melted away, merging with the walls to form a narrow, but sturdy looking staircase. Artur led the way, apparently confident in the structural integrity of his creation. The rest of them followed. 

It was a short walk - less than a hundred metres - to the former location of the Exile Splinter. His simulacrum had chosen their arrival point well.

The site where the splinter had originally been placed looked fairly ordinary now - or as ordinary as a city plaza could look if it had been bombarded by lava and partially crushed by a stone giant. The bones, of course, had been cleared away by Rain when the city was still in the void, but some dirt and dust had accumulated over the last few days, thinly coating the marble paving.

No-one else was here, which was a blessing. After the confrontation in Havath City, Zorian had a healthy respect for the force the Empire could bring to bear.

At the very centre, just below where the Splinter had once been anchored, was an oddly textured section of stone. Thin ridges of stone spiralled inward - it looked a little like the fossil of a massive sea snail. Their group stopped in front of it, and Mackerel fluttered over to rest in the centre.

“He wants us to… go underneath?” Hugh sounded uneasy. Apart from the boundary between the marble and the spiral section, the plaza was seamless - there was no way down.

“Alright. Godrick, Artur, you’re up.” Alustin stepped back, and gestured for the others to back away as well.

The father and son stepped forward onto the spiral, and knelt to place their hands on the ground.

“Alright laddy, reach out with yeh affinity senses. What do ye feel?”

Godrick closed his eyes to focus. “I think… there’s ah vacuum - an open space, ten metres deep? I’m not sure, but I think it connects to ah tunnel.”

“Good. Ladder or staircase?”

Godrick furrowed his brow. “The steepest manageable angle is the inverse tangent of two, which is about eighteen hundredths of a revolution. There’s just about room for ah steep spiral stair.”

“Well done. Let’s get started.”

The two of them closed their eyes, and the stone around the edges of the spiral began to reform, melting down in a circular pattern. Excess stone, which presumably needed to be ejected to make room for the staircase, was pushed outward away from the group, and formed a large seamless cube with precise, sharp edges. Zorian shook his head - to someone from a world without stone affinities, the sharp edges and smooth faces of the cube looked like the result of hours of painstaking craftsmanship, even for a competent mage-craftsman. Artur and Godrick had made it in a matter of seconds, and it wasn’t even their actual project. 

Zorian peered over the edge, and saw a steep descending staircase spiralling into a black void. Just as Godrick had promised, the stairs were about as steep as they could get before you’d start calling them a ladder. There wasn’t a single stair which stretched across the whole staircase - instead, there were separate stairs for your left and right feet, which let the whole structure descend much more rapidly. It reminded him of the stairs to the attic back in his family’s house in Cirin. 

As a child, his brother Fortov had tried to egg Zorian on to climb the stairs into the crawl space above, but even at the age of eleven, he’d known better than to trust his older brother.

The stone stopped moving, and Artur stood. He beckoned to the rest of them. “Alright, let’s get movin’.”

<We should be cautious,> came a thought from Harry, and he reflexively relayed it to Rain. <Once we enter the stone tunnels, if they choose to betray us, we’re very much in their domain.>

<Force Ward is active, which should give us a moment to respond,> Rain reassured them. <Besides, I don’t expect anything bad from these people - they seem genuine in their desire to help.>

Zorian wasn’t so sure - his simulacra had spent long enough inside Alustin’s mind to know that what they’d done to Havath City wouldn’t be enough to satisfy his bloodlust. Alustin was a strange character - outwardly, he seemed charming and friendly. On the inside, however, Alustin’s thoughts returned uncomfortably often to dreams of revenge - of Havath City in flames, and its people suffering the way his people had suffered. 

The short glimpse he’d had into Artur’s mind in the battle for Ithos, at least, did reassure him. Artur was not a simple man - he’d had his fair share of battles, and had personally ended many lives - but his dedication to keeping his son and his friends safe was the driving motivation behind his every action. As long as their group stuck together, and there was the possibility of a conflict putting Godrick in danger, Zorian was sure that Artur wouldn’t cause any problems.

<Artur won’t attack us. Force Ward should be enough to keep us safe from Alustin, if he tries anything.>

<Good enough for me. I’ll light the way with Purify.> A dim light began to radiate from Rain, and he started the journey into the darkness. Mackerel fluttered by his side, the crystal pages flickering back and forth. Hugh followed, and one by one, the rest of them filed down Godrick’s stairs, and entered the labyrinth.

Artur came down last. The stone stairwell melted away and the gap in the ceiling closed as he stepped into the tunnel. That was a good idea, Zorian supposed. There was enough danger ahead - it was better if they didn’t need to worry about anyone following them.

The dark was oppressive, and despite the headbands, Zorian could still feel waves of anxiety coming from Kanderon’s Librarians. Given that they were supposed to be the leaders here, that only served to put Zorian more on edge.

They’d only managed a short walk into the broad stone tunnel before Zorian began to feel the connections with his simulacra flickering and fading. He stopped immediately, and clutched his head. The two simulacra by his side sprang into action, pushing the others away and throwing up layers of prismatic shields.

<What’s going on?> Harry’s wand was in his hand, and above his Useful Items bag, near-invisible threads glinted in the dim light of Rain’s aura. 

Zorian was frantically trying to repair the fraying ties to his simulacra. The connections to the ones by his side remained strong, but the threads which connected his soul to the more distant copies felt like they were being torn apart.

One of the simulacra clarified for the group. “We’re not physically under attack. The connections to our other simulacra are being suppressed, likely by the labyrinth.”

The others relaxed somewhat. Alustin scratched his head. “I’ve never heard of anything like this happening, but then again, I’ve never met anyone with simulacra before. We know the labyrinth builders wove in protections against certain kinds of entities travelling through, like the Cold Minds. It’s possible you’re being inadvertently caught in that filter too? I’m just theorising, though - it could be something else entirely.”

The mana here felt strange in other ways, too. In the Dungeon, on Zorian’s homeworld, the deeper you went, the more challenging it became to shape your mana, especially over larger distances. Teleporting more than a few metres, for example, was close to impossible once you reached a certain level. Here, the effect was even more pronounced. They’d only barely entered the labyrinth, and he could already feel the pressure on his mind - the same way he felt in the Dungeon.

As a test, one of the simulacra tried to teleport to the surface. The attempt fizzled immediately. Maybe a shorter distance would work?

The simulacrum vanished, and reappeared on the other side of their group. Sabae jumped in surprise. Zorian sighed. At least short-distance teleportation would still work, as did his nearby simulacra. After even a few minutes without a connection to the original, his simulacra elsewhere would fade away. For now, at least, their group was uniquely vulnerable - no long-distance teleports to escape, and no Gates across the continent in the event of a significant emergency.

Zorian shook his head. Time to focus on the here and now. 

“My simulacra elsewhere are dispersing. I need to create some more here. Wait for me for a moment.”

As requested, the others paused while he conjured the necessary ectoplasm onto a new trio of golem-frames he fetched from his bag. One by one, the additional simulacra stood up, their eyes gazing warily into the dark, their minds roving across the nearby tunnels, searching for threats.

A few minutes later, flanked by five simulacra, he was ready to continue. “Let’s keep moving. I want to get out of here as soon as possible.”

The others nodded, and they continued into the dark.

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry

 

The tunnels around them gradually changed as they walked. 

At first, the stone had matched the colours of Ithos - pinkish marble, immaculately clean. As they continued, following Mackerel along a precise path through twists and turns of the endlessly branching tunnels, up and down flights of stairs, marble became granite, increasingly wet, with patches of dark greenish-purple moss dotting the walls. The spellbook didn’t hesitate for a moment at any of the junctions, and darted forwards into the chosen tunnel each time.

Occasionally, the tunnels opened up into a larger space. Massive halls of stone, vaulted with columns, or vast rough-hewn caverns with water dripping from the stalactites above. Hugh, acting on instructions from Mackerel, hurried them past those, keeping them in the smaller tunnels as much as possible.

As they walked, Harry mused on the situation. In here, it seemed Zorian’s magic was greatly constrained - no teleports, and no simulacra at a distance. Still, the combination of affinity senses, Rain’s Detection, and Zorian’s mind-magic should give them significant forewarning if anything happened.

Harry was taking the time to practise with his newly-developing carbon affinity. The people walking alongside him were gradually beginning to show up more clearly, as he learned to interpret the fuzzy signals. He was increasingly able to tell the shape of their bodies - where their arms were positioned, how large the shape was, things like that. Artur and Talia, as the extreme examples of contrast in size, were easy to tell apart.

Unlike earlier, the simulacra currently with Zorian weren’t purely ectoplasm - they were all based on Harry’s improved titanium and carbon nanotube frame design. The purity of the carbon lattice layered around their titanium bones shone brightly to his affinity sense.

Although they’d proven themselves trustworthy allies so far, the power differential between himself and his two companions had been causing him some concern. Whether or not it was intentional, the inclusion of purified carbon in Zorian’s simulacra did help to redress that inequality - even though his ability to affect large amounts of matter was still limited, Harry was confident that if it came to it, he would easily be able to tear apart the simulacra from inside. The usual difficulties of affecting other mage’s internal organs wouldn’t apply - the simulacra were mere extensions of the original, and had no aetherbodies of their own. Even if he didn’t intend to do so, mutual collaboration with Zorian and Rain felt easier now that he was holding at least some of the cards.

That wasn’t the only trick Harry was preparing. Layered carefully into the seams of his robes, with more ready inside his Useful Items bag, were more than fifty long strands of braided carbon nanotubes, each strand a single molecule. It was the same approach he’d used in the graveyard, not long ago. Now, however, with the added control and strength granted by his affinity…

He’d tested it in the campsite, before they’d started the attack on Havath City. He’d taken one of the strands, wrapped it around a small-looking tree, and pulled toward him with his affinity. 

The wooden trunk had presented almost no resistance. Even a small amount of force, when distributed across a tiny cross-section, represented a huge amount of pressure. 

That was probably the principle behind Alustin’s surprising strength as a battle-mage. Few people would expect paper to be particularly dangerous. And yet, if a piece of paper could be precisely controlled, the thinness of the paper, which the naive might perceive as a weakness, would become its strength.

Still, braided nanotubes were obviously superior. Their tensile strength meant that Harry wouldn’t even need to apply the force himself - he would only need to wrap the strands around an enemy at strategic locations, and their own struggles to escape would cut them apart.

He was hoping to avoid using any of the weapons at his command, but since his arrival on Anastis, he’d felt compelled to act - to prepare, and grow stronger. Not by his Vow - Voldemort had gone to great lengths to ensure that the Vow would not induce him to act recklessly - but by his sense of moral duty. If there was a possible future in which he lived, he strongly preferred to go down that path. Preventing the end of the World was far easier if he was still alive, and so he would stay alive - because it was necessary.

They paused, and Alustin fetched a wide, thick book from his bag. ‘The Guide’, presumably.

Harry’s interest hadn’t abated, and he crowded behind Alustin to read alongside him. Looking over his shoulder, Harry could see that the section of text on Earth was far longer than the excerpt Kanderon had read to them. Large chunks of the text - almost all of it, in fact, had been ‘redacted’. It wasn’t simply blacked out, like old CIA documents. Instead, the text had been blurred somehow. When Harry tried to look at it, it felt like his eyes refused to focus, and bringing his eyes closer to the text resulted in a spike of pain that forced him to look away.

The unredacted sections were still some of the most interesting content Harry had ever read.

Galvachren went into quite a bit of detail describing the climate and weather systems of Earth, albeit from a decidedly alien perspective. He lingered on specific things - the odd coincidences of Earth’s moon (there’s only one, and it’s precisely the same angular size as the sun!), the huge variety in the types of spiders on Earth’s surface (although he lamented that only a tiny minority were ‘particularly intelligent’), and the consistency of what he called ‘aether’. 

Two sentences, casually dropped between observations of the Amazon, burrowed into Harry’s mind like a parasitic worm.

Almost unique among human-settled worlds, virtually all sentient creatures here have been bound - their souls fettered by their progenitors. Some were granted a limited ability to manipulate the aether, the others were entirely cut off.

He should have realised sooner. He’d visited new worlds, and heard of more. Now that he could see more of the picture, it was almost obvious.

Here on Anastis, and the other worlds he’d heard about from Alustin and the Index Node, the default state of the human species was that with practice and training, they could tap into the aether and use it as a source of strength.

On his world, only a privileged few in the wizarding world were able to cast spells. The vast, vast majority were Muggles - ignorant of the true nature of the world, and unable to understand it if it was right before them. That was the magical tradition left behind in the wake of Atlantis.

But the Atlanteans hadn’t begun on a unique world, on which nearly all humans were unable to use magic.

They’d made one.

Given that they were working on designing the soul shell, it would have been near trivial to create a modified version with no external functions at all. For a civilisation with the sheer resources of the Atlanteans, it would have been no trouble at all to impose their will on the vast majority of the populace - to shackle their souls, and leave them with no connection at all to what could have been their most powerful tool.

Harry thought of his parents, unable to look at the animated suitcase he’d brought home at Christmas without flinching away, their minds refusing to comprehend what they were seeing. Of Hermione’s parents, who’d blathered on about a forsaken career in dentistry while their daughter was reshaping reality and forging the future before their eyes.

It hadn’t been the natural course. It had been imposed.

And yet, it had worked, hadn’t it? Despite the best efforts of human civilisation in constructing new and more powerful methods of killing, life still persisted on Earth. If eight billion people had access to magic, would that still be the case? Perhaps the Atlanteans had made the right choice - some freedom for some people, rather than oblivion for all…

That deserved further thought.

Alustin and Mackerel were seemingly satisfied, and he stowed the book back into the leather bag by his side. “We’re getting close to the boundary. We should make it into your world’s labyrinth by tonight, Harry.”

Harry nodded, his mind elsewhere, as the group continued walking. 

Ahead of them, Mackerel stopped, abruptly enough that Hugh almost bumped into it. At the same time, Rain whispered quietly, but loud enough that they could all hear:

“There’s something ahead.”

Near where Mackerel hovered, their narrow tunnel entered a massive cavern. Unlike most of the spaces they’d moved through, this one was mostly occupied by a wide lake. From here, it was difficult to see how deep the water was. 

On either side of the lake, a thin winding path looked like it would lead an intrepid adventurer around the obstacle, to another tunnel which exited the cavern in the far distance. Of course, walking on narrow ledges above a steep fall was not the kind of dramatic activity their group needed to do - one way or another, most of them could fly, and even if that was for some reason impossible, Artur and his son could probably construct a four-lane highway across the water for them.

No, that wasn’t why they were stopping. They’d stopped, presumably, because of the presences he could feel underneath the water with his affinity. Three large, slowly moving presences.

“Do we have to go this way, Hugh?” Harry asked.

Hugh nodded, and swallowed in apprehension. “Mackerel insists. A path around would be much more dangerous.”

“Zorian - can we teleport to the other side?” Rain asked.

Zorian shook his head grimly. “The labyrinth’s interference is even stronger here. I doubt I’d be able to teleport more than a few metres.”

Rain nodded decisively. “Right, in that case we’ll probably have to go through. Detection shows three entities, categorised as ‘monsters’ by my skills. They’re very large, but that’s about all I’m getting.”

Harry responded. “I mirror those observations. I can also report that each of them have four limbs, and are roughly humanoid in structure. I’m not great with detail yet, but I think… they have a lot of muscles, and like, really big heads?”

Alustin pressed a finger to his temple and shut his eyes. It would have been a decent impression of Professor X if Alustin’s messy brown hair hadn’t ruined the image. “There are three creatures in the lake. The water makes the image less clear, but I think they’re… massive frogs?”

So that was what Alustin’s ‘Farseeing’ affinity did. He was a lot more dangerous than Harry had originally assumed.

From behind them, Zorian managed to stifle a laugh. “I thought their minds felt familiar! I’ve seen these creatures before. One of them wandered into the Dungeon in my world. Here’s the short summary: they’re not particularly perceptive, and we can probably sneak past invisibly. If a conflict does arise, be careful - they’re very, very tough - although they can be hurt with fire. That’s how I originally killed the one in my world. These ones appear to be quite a bit larger though.” 

At that, Harry saw Talia crack her knuckles.

“Do not let them get close. I saw one tear apart a metal golem with its hands. Their eyes are a weak point. They also have prehensile tongues, and are liable to try to eat anything that moves. They particularly like eating giant spiders, in case that somehow becomes relevant.”

Harry allowed himself a brief snort of amusement. Giant frogs eating giant spiders. Figures.

“Can you influence their minds, Zorian?” If he could, that would be a quick win.

Zorian shrugged apologetically. “Unfortunately not. More powerful creatures tend to have stronger natural resistances, and while these creatures are crude and functionally non-sentient, they’re definitely powerful. I’ll cloak us in invisibility, and they shouldn’t notice us as we float across to the exit on a disc.”

The group nodded, and clustered onto the disc of force where Zorian gestured. This one was broader than any Harry had previously seen, and could easily fit all five simulacra, along with the nine flesh-and-blood humans and their animated spellbook guide. Working in their usual eerie unison, the simulacra wrapped the now-hovering group in successive layers of slightly shimmering shields. One of them cast a spell of invisibility, and to his natural senses, it felt like his companions simultaneously vanished.

His carbon affinity served to make the experience even stranger. Although he could no longer see the others, he could still feel them. Eight fuzzy lumps of carbon stood tensely by his sides, and the five simulacra took up positions by the edges of the disc, ready for action. Because of the pure carbon in their skeletons, Harry could easily sense their exact configuration, which helped him orient himself despite his current inability to physically see his body.

Before they got moving, Harry pulled his broomstick from his bag. With a bit of luck, it wouldn’t be necessary - but it always paid to be prepared.

Slowly, the disc rose higher, and moved forward to enter the vast cavern. Gradually increasing in speed, the disc floated in a high arc, giving the lake a wide berth. The mossy paths around the lake looked exceedingly slippery from here - Harry was very glad they didn’t need to walk.

They were less than a third of the way to the exit when something unexpected happened. 

Harry felt one of the frogs beginning to move more quickly. It wasn’t obviously aggressive - in fact, it was directed at another frog. It was a sort of swimming, splashing motion, and might have been intended to be playful. However, at their scale, even a playful motion resulted in a lot of movement.

The upswing of the frog’s leg hit the surface of the water, and sent curtains of water careening through the air - high enough to hit the ceiling of the cavern, and therefore high enough to hit their bubble.

To his credit, Zorian and his simulacra reacted quickly - they grabbed hold of everyone and attempted to short-range teleport the whole bubble to the other side of the sheet of approaching water. Unfortunately, probably due to the dampening effects of the labyrinth, it didn’t take them quite far enough. They managed to avoid the first layer of water, but the second one impacted their shields and was diverted around them, as if it had impacted a transparent glass marble. Although the invisibility had held, their position was revealed.

And all at once, the cavern exploded into activity.

The three frogs moved first, reacting bizarrely fast. Huge quantities of water slid off their bodies as they emerged, allowing Harry to see them with his eyes, rather than just with his affinity.

They looked like giant frogs, albeit ones which had somehow been interbred with cave trolls. They were each at least eight metres tall, and most of that was thick knots of muscle covered by greenish mottled skin. They varied slightly in size and colouration- the largest one had a patch of yellow skin across its head. The smallest one was darker-coloured, and although Harry was no expert at reading frog-expressions, it looked somehow hungrier than the others. The last one was decorated with bright green and blue banding, and if it had been a typical size for a frog, Harry would have guessed it was poisonous. Unlike a typical frog, their limbs ended in elongated claws.

<Fantastic.> It seemed Zorian kept his dry sense of humour even while under pressure.

The largest frog leapt at the closest wall, and ricocheted off it toward their bubble, claws outstretched. The smallest one stayed partially underwater, but its tongue rocketed out toward them. The last frog launched itself at them directly.

Not a moment too soon, their group scattered.

Harry leaped onto the broom in his hand, and curved its path down toward the tunnel from which they’d arrived, skimming the surface of the water. His wand found its way into his right hand, and he fired off a cutting hex at the closest frog. It might have made an incision, but Harry couldn’t see anything from this distance, and the frog didn’t even react. Hrm .

Behind him, he felt Artur throw himself downward, out of the bubble. Looking back, he saw the mountain of a man stretch an arm upwards. A huge chunk of stone detached itself from the roof of the cavern and sped towards him. It fell faster than he did, drawn to him by his stone affinity. As it reached him, it wrapped itself around him the way a droplet of water would wrap around an ant - covering every part of him, as if driven by surface tension. Almost immediately, the mass of stone began to develop limbs - crude arms and legs, and the beginnings of a head. 

And then, the huge lump of stone slammed into the upwards-jumping blue-banded frog, the force of the impact sending shockwaves across the cavern and shaking dust from the ceiling. The two figures, now intertwined, crashed into the mossy edge of the lake, partially submerged.

Not all of their group could fly, and it appeared Zorian had remembered that fact. Simulacra grabbed Hugh, Talia and Godrick, and teleported them a few metres in random directions, out of the path of the largest frog. Sabae dodged away from the simulacrum which tried to grab her, and instead blasted herself toward the exit, wrapping herself in a protective layer of spinning air. She launched a series of gusts of wind toward the nearest frog. It flickered its eyes toward her in irritation.

Rain stepped out of the shield-sphere of his own accord, his helmet and gauntlets phasing back into place. He stood there, alone and static amidst the chaos of the cavern, presumably suspended by his own ability to Airwalk. 

Across the surface of the frogs’ skin, almost imperceptible unless you knew what to look for, water began to boil.

At the same time, dozens of sheets of paper whistled out of Alustin’s storage tattoo, and wrapped themselves around him in what looked like a precise imitation of medieval armour. There was only a thin slit left to expose his eyes. Although the paper appeared mundane to Harry, he was confident it would be far stronger than it looked. Additional sheets latched onto his back, and Alustin took off. The paper wings served both to precisely guide his flight, and to provide thrust by some mechanism Harry couldn’t discern. A further series of artfully folded triangles of paper darted out of his tattoo, and sped toward the eyes of the yellow-headed frog.

Harry didn’t have time to see the result, because the cavern filled with some of the brightest light Harry had ever seen - it was only for an instant, but it rivalled the Purifying sphere Rain had produced to burn through his aura anchor. 

He squinted to close his eyes, then opened them as the light abated. He didn’t think he was permanently blinded, but a bright spot covered most of his retinas, and it was hard to make anything out. He thought he could see Hugh, no longer invisible, standing on a small disc with a simulacrum. He had a single arm stretched out, and the remnants of the burst of light was fading from his fingers. Mackerel was inactive, slung over his back like an ordinary crystal spellbook.

It looked like the bolt of light had been directed at the smallest frog - the darker-coloured one partially submerged in the lake, because one of its eyes was now a blackened, smouldering crater. It emitted a noise - not quite a croak, not quite a roar - and leapt out of the water toward its attacker. 

It was part of the way toward Hugh, propelled by the massive muscles in its hind legs, when a torrent of white-hot flame blasted it to the side. It came from an otherwise empty patch of space, but Harry could feel the carbon-laced skeleton of the simulacrum which must have been its source. The frog awkwardly tried to redirect its motion, and bounced off the cavern wall back into the lake. It splashed into the water, and bursts of steam emerged where it made contact.

The yellow-headed frog, distracted by Alustin’s cloud of paper, finally reached its objective, and began furiously tearing into the protective shields of the now-empty bubble they’d originally been travelling in. That was good, Harry figured - it would probably take it a minute to realise there was no-one in there.

Talia, meanwhile, had been busy. She was standing on a small disc near the roof of the cavern with a simulacrum, and a veritable swarm of dreamfire droplets were manifesting around her. A strange grin on her face, she gestured with a closed fist, and the sparks of flame shot downward, arcing toward the blue-banded frog still grappling with Artur’s stone form. The flames made a sizzling noise on impact, and bit deep into the frog’s flesh. It looked like part of the charred muscles were turning into clouds of flies and buzzing away. Very strange.

Some unseen force detached a stalactite from the cavern’s ceiling and propelled it toward the yellow-headed frog which was still grappling with the shielded sphere. Even with the tip somehow sharpened, it didn’t penetrate deep, and instead lodged itself in the frog’s outer musculature with a dull thud.

Below him, Artur was getting the upper hand - the features of his stone golem looked more defined, and it was growing every second as it absorbed stone from the walls of the cavern. Dust filled the air around it. One of the golem’s huge fists had pinned the blue-banded frog to the ground, and the other was repeatedly slamming into its head. After the third strike, the frog’s entire body burst into flame, and the next blow pounded its head into ash. Artur’s golem paused for a moment, and although Harry couldn’t see his face, he seemed momentarily confused. It was clear to Harry what had happened, though - Artur’s blows must have weakened the frog enough for Rain’s aura to finish it off.

The yellow-headed frog abandoned the now-empty shielded sphere for more interesting prey, and leapt toward Sabae. Alustin sent reams of paper to intercept, but they did little more than bloody its surface as it continued the jump. Just in time, a burst of wind from her armour sent her out of its path. She must have left some kind of wiring behind, because an instant later, a bolt of lightning arced through the air along some kind of guided path, and dissipated into the frog's flesh. The frog spasmed, and losing control, crashed into the surface of the lake, sliding in the shallow water until it impacted the wall.

One of the simulacra teleported a few metres, and arrived dangerously close to the frog’s head. The long, sticky-looking tongue flickered out, but the simulacrum raised a hand almost contemptuously, and the tongue was deflected into the water. He made a complex hand-motion, and although nothing visible happened, the frog began to writhe, clawing desperately at its own chest hard enough to pierce the skin. A moment later, it too burst into flames, and its movement ceased.

Although his vision was still hazy from the sudden light, Harry’s affinity could feel the smallest frog move beneath the surface of the lake. It was on its guard now, and its motions were precise. It swam til it was only perhaps twenty metres away from him, and coiled its legs preparing to jump.

Now that the other two frogs were dead, the rest of his group was beginning to relax. As the final frog erupted from the water like a submarine-launched ICBM, barely any of them had time to react. 

He received an urgent thought from Zorian. <Get out of the way!>

Harry didn’t move.

Rain dropped from his perch at the top of the cavern, accelerating quickly toward him. One of Zorian’s simulacra teleported to his location, and Harry could feel the energies building as he prepared to whisk him away to safety.

None of it would have been fast enough. And none of it was necessary. Because as the final frog rushed toward him, its body abruptly split into six pieces, each of which continued their parabolic motion. 

“Protego.”

A shimmering shield sprang into being, and the remnants of the creature were deflected around him. Blood gushed from the perfectly fine cuts left behind by the nanofibres, and the pieces fell into the lake below.

<Was… was that you?> Zorian sounded slightly impressed, which was unusual.

“Alright,” Harry said out loud, flexing his affinity to collect the nanotube strands back into his robes - they were too thin to have gathered any blood. He steered his broomstick toward the exit tunnel. “Next time, try to warn me before you blind us, Hugh. Let’s move on.”

Proceeding across the lake by various mechanisms, the group collected itself at the exit tunnel. No-one could sense anything else dangerous nearby, so they began to relax a little. Hugh attempted an apology for his ‘starbolt’, and showed Harry a neat trick which more than compensated for his blurry vision. If he visualised a particular pattern, or ‘spellform’, in his mind's eye, and pushed mana into it with his carbon affinity, he could achieve certain useful results unrelated to his intrinsic affinity type. Hugh called them ‘cantrips’, or at least that was how Harry was translating the unfamiliar Ithonian word. It didn’t take long to learn the principle, and apparently Hugh knew a wealth of cantrips which might be useful.

The first one he showed Harry, appropriately, was a simple one designed to shield the eyes from sudden bursts of light. It took Harry a few tries to get it right, but he was sure it would come in handy - he’d seen more blinding lights in the last few days than in the rest of his life put together. There were levitation cantrips, heating cantrips, sweat-cleaning cantrips, evaporating cantrips, and more. 

Alustin walked behind them through the tunnels, watching with pride as Hugh corrected minor elements of Harry’s technique. He stepped in occasionally to give pointers; true to his professorial manner, Alustin was an excellent teacher. Harry insisted Hugh teach him everything he knew, and they only stopped when Harry felt his mana reservoirs reach about half their maximum capacity. 

As far as Harry understood it, because he’d placed the carbon affinity pattern across the exterior of his soul-shell, the same reservoir of magic was fuelling both his Anastan and wizarding magics - so it was very important that he wasn’t out of mana when he might need it.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group swapped information on the techniques they’d used during the battle. It seemed Sabae had used something that roughly translated to a ‘galvanic anchor’ to channel her lightning, which she could otherwise only use at touch range. Alustin’s paper armour could fly under its own power indefinitely. Talia was strangely annoyed by Rain’s auras - (“Seriously? You just stand menacingly in place, and set everything on fire? How is that fair?”). Her jealousy had only intensified when he explained why he’d chosen to only affect the frogs, and not the surrounding environment - instantly boiling the lake in an enclosed space like this cave would have resulted in a massive steam explosion.

Both Harry and Zorian only explained their techniques in the briefest of detail. Despite the fairly effective collaboration so far, it was good to keep some cards close to the chest.

As they finished the impromptu lesson, the tunnels around them began to narrow, and the air around them grew humid and hot. After a few minutes of sweating, Rain activated one of his auras, and the temperature dropped immediately to comfortable levels. Their group quietened, and they walked in silence through the crisscrossing tunnels, following Mackerel’s erratic movements. Hugh, acting on instincts transmitted from his spellbook, occasionally pointed out traps - lava pits, falling spikes, that sort of thing. It was nothing Artur couldn’t handle.

The silence gave Harry some time to think about their destination.

Rain and Zorian had clear candidates for the location of the labyrinths on their worlds - Zorian’s buried deep inside the Dungeon, Rain’s at the epicentre of a magical storm called the Maelstrom. But they were heading for Earth.

Harry had a number of candidates for the labyrinth on Earth in mind, but one stood out as particularly likely.

The Atlanteans favoured elegant and flexible solutions - building the soul shell into humanity rather than enforcing constraints externally, psychologically diverting murderous intent rather than denying it, designing spells to serve as administrator keys when used in a certain way. How would they have protected their world from external contact?

Perhaps they would have wanted to maintain limited contact - exiling dangers from their own universe into others, or retrieving useful tools they deemed safe from other worlds. If so, there was one device Harry knew of which matched such a description.

The Mirror of Noitilov.

A Mirror which reflected itself perfectly, and as such was absolutely stable. Its characteristic power was said to be to create and make contact with alternate realms of existence, though it allowed access only to what could be seen in the mirror itself.

Quirrell had claimed that the Mirror, alone of all magics, possessed a true moral orientation - just the kind of safety feature you would want to build into a device capable of connecting your homeworld to the rest of the infinitely dangerous multiverse. It was blind to personality or identity, and would treat all who come before it by the same rules. And it was said, on some level, to be Good, with a capital G.

He’d also said that phoenixes, like Fawkes, had come to Earth from a world evoked in the Mirror.

That was Harry’s chief suspect as to the labyrinth on Earth. If he was right, then at the same time as they’d sealed off their world from any others, the Atlanteans had built the Mirror as a way to reap the benefits of a cosmos they were unwilling to face as a whole.

And somewhere inside the hidden inner worlds of the last great work of Atlantis, sealed by the final machinations of Lord Voldemort and by Harry’s last great failure, was Professor Dumbledore.

Chapter 10: Remnant

Notes:

This is a shorter chapter, both because I've been busy with work and because I spent a while editing and updating earlier chapters to be more consistent with the original works. Feel free to re-read the early chapters if you'd like (although most text is unchanged). Otherwise, the patch notes are as follows:

Harry

- Harry no longer reveals the Philosopher's Stone to Rain and Zorian, and instead claims that permanent transfiguration is an innate ability.
- Harry's first experiment with the Time Turner goes very differently. Rather than seeing his future self destroy the device, instead he receives no signal from the future. Later, when he tries to travel back in time, the Time Turner simply doesn't work.
- I've re-read HPMOR's ending, and have consequently remembered that his Vow may not force him into any positive action. I've updated some dialogue and actions to take that into account.
- Harry's patronus-guide now confirms that it will prevent him from damaging his soul while creating the carbon-affinity.

Rain

- Ch.1 Rain now has significant mental defences. Zorian manages to bypass them, but only with considerable effort.
- Rain now has his iconic Blue Boxes. Thanks to LordDragonfang for explaining how Ao3 work skins work to Berix and me, and to Set on the Delve Discord for adding in a tweak to make them work in Ao3's dark mode.

Zorian

- Zorian's encounter with Keayda is largely re-written
- Descriptions of Zorian's clothing are updated
- Zorian doesn't think of 'what is the soul' as a philosophical question
- The reason why Zorian can't teleport far in the labyrinth is clarified - it is NOT because of the increased mana density.

 

I'm sure I've missed some things. Please let me know if you notice any inconsistencies.

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry

 

Whatever else could be said about their Anastan allies, they certainly had excellent physical endurance. Even after hours of trudging through narrow tunnels, marching up and down broad staircases, and shuffling carefully over brittle-looking bridges, Kanderon’s people still looked ready for more. Harry, on the other hand... well, he was twelve.

In the end, Harry slowed down and gently elbowed one of Zorian’s simulacra. It must have been clear what he meant, because the ectoplasmic being nodded and spread out a hand. A gentle force began to support each of Harry’s limbs, and lowered him to a sitting position on a disc of force. It drifted along by the simulacrum’s side, keeping pace with the group.

Harry didn’t drop his focus on his carbon affinity sense - along with Alustin’s far-seeing, Rain’s Detection and Zorian’s mind-sense, he was one of the better early-warning tools their group possessed (as long as whatever threatened them was a carbon-based lifeform, which was by no means guaranteed). Still, tired as he was, other parts of his mind began to wander…

Dumbledore had been trapped outside of Time. What did that mean? 

In his first attempt to use a Time Turner on Anastis, he’d established that his methods of traversing time didn’t work here. Although the experience had been extremely stressful, it was now one of the chief data points informing his thoughts about the differences between universes. 

Zorian had claimed that powerful beings on his world had attempted to use time as a tool, and that their approaches tended to compress time, rather than travel through it like the Time Turner did. He had followed up with an extremely odd question, and refused to elaborate further.

He’d asked whether or not Harry’s world was ‘embedded in some sort of larger device’.

Since then, Harry had been pondering how his world had been constructed. If he was right about the Mirror being the entrance to Earth (and he was by no means confident in that - it was merely the most prominent among many unlikely guesses), then Zorian’s suggestion rapidly became more plausible.

Suppose you’re an advanced magical civilisation. You’ve created a device which can grant wishes by connecting to other worlds, as well as potentially conjure internal worlds of its own. Presumably, as creators of the device, you have great control over its function, and how the conjured realms behave. For example, to contain threats which you wish to purge from reality itself, you might be able to create internal worlds in which Time doesn’t flow at all.

Why, then, would you stay in a fractured reality over which you have less control? Why not… move in? And if you’re doing so, now that you have control over the physics and magic of your chosen world, why not make a few convenient tweaks? 

Having seen the way that magic operated in other worlds, Harry was gradually building up an idea of how things worked outside his homeworld. 

Energy did appear to be conserved. Whenever Artur reshaped stone, or Rain incinerated an enemy, they were drawing on an internal reservoir of energy they called ‘mana’, which was constantly refilling at some rate as they absorbed energy from the ‘aether’ around them. Now that Harry’s soul shell was endowed with an affinity as well as his wizarding magics, he had a far more accurate sense of the strength of his current mana reserves. He’d run some basic tests, and observed that his wizarding spells seemed to draw on his own magic in approximate proportion to the energy required to reshape the universe in the desired way.

Transfiguration and conjuration spells were no exception. Changing the nature of a material, or creating matter from nothing, seemed to result in a temporary ‘patch’ over reality, but the application of magical strength could only sustain this for so long - eventually, unless new energy was provided, transformations would revert, and conjured matter would disappear. 

The Philosopher’s Stone, which remained a mystery to Harry, appeared to stabilise these changes. He had a number of theories as to how the peculiar stone functioned, but at present had no means to test them.

He’d been tempted to show the Stone to Rain or Zorian - both of them had better tools to understand strange magical devices - but unless the need was great, he didn’t want to risk it. A universally unique device capable of permanently creating matter was a powerful prize. For now, it was better if the others believed that permanent transfiguration was a skill innate to Harry, rather than one granted to him by a tool he carried.

Allowing his mind to wander, Harry considered what it would be like, to be freed from a prison which compressed your sentence to a single instant in time. If he was able, he would of course try to free his former Headmaster as soon as possible - and on the whole, Dumbledore would only have been gone from the world for a few weeks. Even then, it would be strange, to return to a world that had mourned you as if you were dead, and had then moved on. Would he return as Headmaster, or defer to McGonagall, who had held the position while he was gone? Would he seek to return to his position at the forefront of magical Britain, or allow it to proceed without him?

That being said, at his current level of skill, the Mirror might present too great an obstacle. It might take years, or even decades, for Harry to understand it to the degree required. What then?

Harry’s mind drifted. Alone, or with less capable companions, he wouldn’t have risked being anything less than fully aware in the labyrinth. As it was, he relaxed onto the disc conjured by Zorian’s simulacrum, with Artur and Godrick ahead, and Rain behind. Sleep came close.

Through half-open eyes, he noticed as their tunnel emerged into the side of a vast cavern. In contrast to the natural-seeming caverns they’d seen before, this one looked cleanly carved. Vast rectangular columns stretched up periodically. Above them, the light from Rain’s aura barely reached the ceiling, and in the distance, the hall faded into the dark. It must have been at least a few hundred metres long - but since Harry couldn't see the end, it could have gone on forever.

Rain reached out from behind and tapped him on the shoulder. “You know Lord of the Rings?”

Harry nodded. “Moria.”

Rain laughed briefly. It echoed oddly in the massive space. “Let’s hope there aren’t any wandering balrogs.”

By mutual agreement, they kept the light at minimal levels as they followed Mackerel through the vast space. Rain or Hugh could probably have lit up the entire hall, but it was best to avoid attracting unnecessary attention. After a while, Harry closed his eyes - there were others who were better placed to watch their surroundings - but kept his focus on his affinity sense. Apart from their group, he felt nothing - no carbon within his reach.

Despite the change in their surroundings, over time, the journey faded back into monotony. Partway through the hall, after it became clear that there were no obvious threats nearby, Zorian created a larger disc of force, and they stepped on. Moving slowly at first, they gradually accelerated, until they were travelling at least as fast as a car.

And then, in the distance, there was a light. Not daylight, nor the flickering light of a burning flame. The light was a dreadful crimson, darker than blood, somehow searingly bright, even from this great distance. At first, Harry wondered if he and Rain had jinxed them with their talk of balrogs. Then, a twinge. Faint enough that he wasn’t sure he was feeling it at all, from the emerald stone set into the ring on his finger, a sensation he hadn’t felt in quite some time. A sense of Doom.

--------------------------------------------------------

Rain

 

The shadows writhing in the distance flared, burning at once brighter and darker. That wasn’t the main thing that caught Rain’s attention.

Harry, who had reclined into a resting position onto the disc, groaned in pain. It was the first noise anyone had made since they’d taken flight on Zorian’s disc.

“Are you alright?” Talia turned back to Harry, and knelt down by his side. “What is it?”

Harry stood up, gritting his teeth. “I’m fine. I think I know what that light is.”

Zorian slowed the disc, and after a moment, they came to a stop. Although it was still in the far distance, the flickering crimson light continued to grow brighter.

“Well? What is it?” Alustin asked.

Harry audibly swallowed.

“The good news is that this is a supporting data point for my theory about the nature of the pathway to Earth. The bad news is that we’re about to encounter one of the most powerful weapons from my world, Fiendfyre.”

Kanderon’s people nodded, and Alustin gestured for Harry to continue. Talia, true to form, looked somewhat eager. Rain might have felt the same, but he’d spent enough time with Harry to recognise that the look in his eyes wasn’t the kind to take lightly.

Harry continued, his young voice clear and precise.

“I know of no means by which this fire might be extinguished. It can burn through stone, and is one of the only weapons on my world which could destroy almost any artefact or magical construct. When I last saw it, it took the form of a balefire phoenix, and it was under the command of one of the greatest and Darkest wizards of my world. Until seeing the flame here, I had thought it might have burned out without its master. It seems that is not the case.”

There was a pause as a conflicted expression flitted across Harry’s face.

“I… There is a chance that the fire will seek me, or otherwise be able to sense my location.”

Zorian gave him a strange look. “Why is that?”

Harry took a deep breath. “That is a rather long story, and one that I think is prudent to keep to myself for now.”

In the distance, the scarlet light grew brighter still. A low hissing noise disturbed the quiet of the hall, slowly rising in volume.

“There is a possibility that our magics can quench the fire, or otherwise hold it back. If so, we should do so without remorse or hesitation. If, as I suspect, we cannot stop the flame, then we should flee.”

The light grew brighter still. The twisted reflections cast on the walls and the columns seemed to writhe in the dark, their shapes twisting wildly as the source approached them.

Zorian lowered the disc to the ground, and dismissed it. They readied themselves. Hugh stepped back, and a pair of crystals rose to orbit about his shoulders. Currents of air began to twist and spiral around Sabae’s limbs, drowning out the low scorching noise. Droplets of greenish-purple iridescent flame formed above Talia’s clenched fist, shedding dim light on her wicked grin.

Rain’s gauntlets and helm flickered back into place. Beside him, reams of paper flooded out of Alustin’s tattoo and bound itself tightly around his limbs. Stone flowed upwards, twisting around Artur and Godrick’s bodies until their skin was hidden from view. Godrick’s armour ceased growing when he was around two and a half metres tall, but Artur continued to absorb stone, growing larger by the second. 

And then it was upon them. Crimson-burning wings swept around the nearest pillar. Where it passed close, the stone blackened and cracked under the searing heat. The light that poured out of the bird-shaped creature was deep red, the glowing colour of heated metal, but the light was far more intense than metal could be without shifting hue and becoming white-hot. Throughout were veins of deepest black, which seemed to promise oblivion.

The balefire phoenix dove, wings spread. Twisting downward in an onrushing plume of darkened flame, it fell unerringly toward Harry.

Before it made it even half the distance, Artur’s massive form stepped forward. The grinding sound of stone moving against stone screeched in the air, and a fist the size of a car hurtled forward. 

The stone didn’t melt, or crack, or even burn, where it impacted the blackened fire. It was simply… consumed. It was as if some massive knife had moved through the stone giant’s fist, and carved out a deep cylindrical chunk. 

Hmm. There’s a chance that my armour can briefly hold it back, but I definitely don’t want to put that to the test.

Propelled by currents of air, Sabae blasted forward. Despite the wind rushing around her limbs, she wasn’t the fastest among them, and Rain reached Harry first. He put one hand behind Harry’s head, and another behind his spine - it was important to minimise the risk of whiplash. And then they were moving. 

Rain sprinted as fast as he was willing to go with a passenger. They reached the speed of sound within a few seconds, and he began to feel the telltale pings in his interface which signalled that Force Ward was consuming mana. Probably from Harry’s impacts with drifting specks of dust.

In less than a minute, the phoenix-light had faded to a speck in the distance. Rain brought them to a controlled stop, near the tunnel from which they’d entered the hall. 

“Wait here. If the phoenix is coming for you, then you’re in more danger than any of us. I’ll be warding you with my aura anchors - you’re still carrying them, right?”

Harry nodded weakly. His black hair had been blasted backward by the wind of the journey. He gestured to the necklace containing the stones.

“I need to go back and help. I’ll be back for you soon.”

With that, Rain turned, and ran back toward the others. What he saw when he arrived was nothing short of chaos. 

The centre of the cavern was buried in a mountain of stone. Someone, probably Artur or Godrick, must have destroyed the nearby pillars, and the ceiling in the centre of the hall had collapsed under its own weight. It clearly hadn’t held back the phoenix for long, because a charred and still-glowing tunnel marked the path of the phoenix through the thousands of tonnes of stone - still unerringly headed down the hall toward Harry. Now, the creature was hemmed in, surrounded by a dozen sheets of paper frozen in the air. Strange glyphs glowed on the paper, which flared when the phoenix drew close, and slowed its movement. 

As Rain watched, the phoenix drew closer to one of the glyphs, pushing slowly against whatever force was repelling it. A tendril of dark stretched out, and brushed against the glyph. As one, the sheet crumpled, torn into shreds. The scraps burst into flame. The phoenix began to move once more, slowly building up speed. 

A volley of iridescent droplets sprayed toward the creature, intercepting it before it could continue down the hall toward Harry. Rain turned and saw Talia with her arm outstretched. 

The first of the dreamfire wasps splashed onto the phoenix’s wings. Rather than biting into the mass of dark, they reacted explosively with the existing flame. The burning wings seemed to grow by an order of magnitude, expanding out to almost span the distance between the nearest pillars. The remaining dreamfire was absorbed in the expansion, and the phoenix exploded further. It reminded Rain of when firefighters had come to his primary school and poured water on an oil fire as a demonstration, just multiplied by a thousand. Thankfully, the ball of flame mostly expanded upwards, but the conflagration sucked most of the oxygen out of the air. Kanderon’s Librarians turned and ran.

Talia was closest to the flames, and Sabae pushed them both away from the explosion with a gust of wind. Just barely audible over the sound of crackling flame, Rain heard her shout right into Talia’s ear: “No more dreamfire!” 

Rain checked his mana reserves. Heat Ward had absorbed a huge amount of damage, and drained a correspondingly large chunk of his mana. Unless they were a lot more durable than they looked, most of Kanderon’s people would probably have been dead without his protection.

Alright, let’s see what we can do to salvage this.

Refrigerate (15/15) 22612-25842 cold (fcs) damage per second to entities and environment Sufficient damage causes slow Range: 102 meters Cost: 2400 mp/s Inverted Immolate (15/15) 22612-25842 heat (fcs) damage per second to foes Banishes flame from the environment Range: 102 meters Cost: 2400 mp/s

Rain poured his mana into the auras. The effect was immediate - the massive shroud of flame around the phoenix dimmed, but didn’t extinguish - like a candle burning on limited oxygen. Beneath, the core of the creature - the veins of darkness which seemed to warp space around them, continued unchanged. 

One of Zorian’s simulacra must have found its way in front of the phoenix, because a tear in reality opened up. It was the same trick a simulacrum had tried against the otherworldly pursuer above the ocean. This time, however, their enemy didn’t react quite so quickly. 

Without making a sound, the remnants of the phoenix plunged through the Gate, and vanished. The Gate closed an instant later. 

<Where did you send it, Zorian?>

The simulacrum responded immediately, not with words, but with the complete sensory input of the simulacrum at the other end of the Gate. Rain saw the hall, from around a hundred metres on the other side of the collapsed ceiling, and the phoenix emerging from the circular portal.

Rain turned and ran. He passed Sabae, who whirled around to follow. Then he passed Alustin, coasting toward him on wings of paper. He dashed around the mountain of rubble that had collapsed from the ceiling - and caught a glimpse of Hugh’s shocked face in passing.

That was a good reminder, actually. <Zorian, tell the others to shield their eyes.>

A second later, he reached the site of the other Gate. One of the simulacra floated in the phoenix’s path, raising a hand to conjure a shimmering shield. Crimson flames flickered around the void that was the creature’s core, slowly reigniting. It impacted the shield, and although the phoenix shrank in size for a moment, the barrier flickered and vanished.

As Rain came into range, the dampening effects of his auras dimmed the flames once more. It seemed to swell in response, inky veins growing and twisting through the air in lieu of fire.

Rain sent a quick mental warning to the simulacrum. <I, uh, don’t know if you’re worried about eye damage. But maybe shut your eyes.>

Refrigerate (15/15) 22612-25842 cold (fcs) damage per second to entities and environment Sufficient damage causes slow Range: 102 meters Cost: 2400 mp/s Radiance (15/15) 22612-25842 light (fcs) damage per second to entities Brightens environment Range: 102 meters Cost: 2400 mp/s

The hall lit up, each stone column glaringly bright with reflected light. And yet, there was one place that was less painful to look - directly at the phoenix itself. It seemed to drink in the light, and swelled in size, writhing like a blood-gorged leech. The heat pouring outward increased by an order of magnitude, and the floor beneath it began to melt.

So Light doesn’t work, how about the Dark?

Refrigerate (15/15) 22612-25842 cold (fcs) damage per second to entities and environment Sufficient damage causes slow Range: 102 meters Cost: 2400 mp/s Shroud (15/15) 22612-25842 dark (fcs) damage per second to entities Darkens environment Range: 102 meters Cost: 2400 mp/s

The veins of inky blackness swirled, growing longer and reaching out for more matter to consume.

Right… maybe I should stop.

<I don’t think I can kill this thing - I think it might be feeding on whatever I throw at it. Any ideas, Zorian?>

A trio of simulacra floated in a rough triangle behind him. <This will require a lot of mana, Rain. Please ensure we have enough.>

Rain double-checked his reserves. The constant auras and wards were a drain, but not more than he could support. So he steadily ratcheted up the amount he was feeding to Zorian with Essence Well, until the original sent him a signal to halt. 

As one, power poured out of the three simulacra. The odd hand movements looked familiar to Rain - they looked similar to the gestures Zorian used to produce a Gate, but deviated in a strange way near the end. 

In an instant, a shimmering sphere of distortion sprang up around the phoenix, with the diameter just large enough to encompass its wings. A second later, the creature was hidden from view, and all Rain could see was a static orb, hovering motionlessly in the midst of the hall. It was a bizarre thing to look at, like staring through a glass marble, except instead of light refracting, it was simply taking a shortcut through space.

Detection showed… it was hard to interpret. The phoenix was constantly moving forward  in the same direction (still toward Harry), and constantly wrapping around to teleport to the back of the sphere. 

Sabae reached them, and landed beside Rain. “What did you do? Is it in there?”

One of the simulacra gently lowered itself to the ground. “This is a variation on the standard Gate spell. Rather than a single entrance and exit, opposite sides of both the interior and exterior of the sphere are mapped together. If the creature has a mind - and I can’t sense one - it might be confused as to why it can see its own flames extending forever in every direction.”

Sabae attempted a low whistle, but it was clear she couldn’t quite pull it off. An odd limitation for a wind mage.

Rain walked around the orb, observing it from a few angles. It was really weird to look at. From the opposite side, he saw the distorted and rotated image of Alustin and the others approaching. Rock began to crumble nearby, and Godrick hauled himself out of the floor - he must have buried himself to avoid the flames. Good thinking.

Their group stood quietly around the spherical Gate for a moment, then Talia spoke:

“So, uh, are we going to just leave it here, in there? Just one more sealed horror in the labyrinth?”

Sabae threw her hair over one shoulder, and Rain noticed that some of the long white strands were somewhat singed near the end. “Well, we can’t exactly let it keep chasing us. Even if Rain can outrun it, I don’t think you can take all of us with you, and it’s safest for us to stay as a group.”

Rain nodded. “Besides, there’s no way it’s safe to move that fast through uncharted sections of the labyrinth. I only felt comfortable doing that because I was retracing our steps, and even then it was a risk I don’t want to take again.”

One of the simulacra raised a hand. The original Zorian was nowhere to be seen, but Detection showed him thirty metres away, hovering and still invisible. “There’s a problem. I can’t sustain this Gate unless one of me is fairly close to it, and because we’re in a labyrinth, I can’t just leave a simulacrum behind.”

Rain rubbed a hand over his eyes. “And because it can track Harry for some reason, we can’t just leave it behind to follow us.” He sighed. “I’ll go get Harry, he might have some ideas.” 

He dashed off, and shortly afterward found himself before Harry, who was clutching his wand in what looked like a duelling posture. He lowered his wand as Rain approached. 

“What happened?”

“The Fiendfyre is trapped, but it won’t stay that way forever. Let’s go.”

This time, they travelled at less of a breakneck pace - only a few times faster than the fastest human would be able to run. In a few minutes, they made it back to the others.

Something was already happening. The Gate-bubble was still in place, but just outside it the stone of the floor was slowly reforming, bands of lighter stone crystallising out of the bedrock. It looked like Hugh was the cause this time though, rather than Artur or Godrick, since they were looking on with the same curiosity as everyone else.

Harry quietly tapped Sabae on the shoulder. “What’s going on?”

Despite the look of focus on his face, Hugh answered. “We saw the Fiendfyre react oddly with Talia’s dreamfire, so there’s a chance it might respond to the same flame-wards we used to create the circlets.”

Sabae gestured at the headband still wrapped tightly around her forehead, and Rain breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently the headbands counted as part of his allies’ equipment, and were consequently exempt from the inverted Immolate he’d used during the battle, so the single dreamfire droplet suspended within was still alight. It would have been a rude shock for the Librarians if their mental protections had vanished seemingly without cause.

Looking closely at Sabae’s headband, Rain could see tiny etchings in the crystal that mirrored the patterns Hugh was carving around the Gate.

Lighter crystal was gradually forming from the darker stone. Interlocking lattices of runic symbols and concentric circles began to take shape, and Hugh continued his explanation. “To create the circlets, we suspended a single droplet of dreamfire at the centre of a network of interlocking wards. Any small deviation in the droplet's position will result in a stronger counterbalancing force, ensuring that the droplet stays in the centre.”

Rain raised an eyebrow. That sounded oddly like something he’d seen in a Youtube trawl a few years ago - a ‘Penning trap’, which could isolate a single electron in order to store a qubit, for quantum computers.

“How do we know if it worked?” Harry asked. “Rain, can you sense its position through the Gate?”

Rain nodded. “Compared to the speed it was moving when Zorian first created the Gate, it’s much slower now. Can you keep stacking the same effect, Hugh?”

Hugh grimaced. “If I layer too many wards on top of each other, they’ll degrade faster. And that’s if they don’t explode.”

Alustin stepped forward and put a wiry arm around Hugh’s shoulders. “We don’t need the wards to last forever. The Guide says that the entrance to Harry’s world should be nearby. Even if you’re not going to tell us why or how it’s tracking you -” (this was accompanied by a stern look at Harry) “-it seems likely that it can’t find you through labyrinth boundaries. Otherwise I imagine it would have followed you into Anastis.”

Talia finished the thought for him. “Then we can go into Harry’s world. That’s the one that’s named after dirt, right? And it won’t be able to trace us there.”

“Right.”

Hugh sighed. “I think I can cram in another ward, but it’s going to get messy. Nobody tell Loarna about this.”

He stood in place, and a further layer of transparent quartz crystallised from the dark stone underfoot. 

Rain couldn’t stop himself from pumping his fist. Detection showed that the phoenix had slowed to a crawl, and the layers of wards were pulling it back toward the centre whenever it moved too far.

He stepped forward and clapped Hugh on the shoulder. “Nice work!”

Hugh looked a bit embarrassed. “The wards won’t hold for long. A few hours, maybe a day, if we’re lucky.”

Alustin looked positively cheery. “That should be more than enough time. If we press on, we should reach Earth’s labyrinth in less than an hour.”

That… that was a sobering reminder. Rain had been gone from Earth for around two years now. He’d given up any hope of ever returning there, and had then slowly lost any desire to go home either. Now he was going to get the chance to do… what exactly? 

His parents were dead. He’d drifted apart from his friends in university when he dropped out to take care of his mother. Even if he saw someone he used to know, he was basically a different person now.

Rain shook his head. They weren’t on Earth yet.

Hugh, Alustin and Mackerel led the way again. They reached the exit to the hall when Zorian held up a hand. 

“I can’t go any further than this without losing connection with the simulacrum sustaining the Gate. I hope your wards work, Hugh.”

Hugh looked somehow nervous and confident at the same time. “Let’s see.”

Zorian closed his eyes for a moment. “The Gate is down.”

Harry glanced up at Rain with a smirk.

“And the phoenix is still in place.”

The group breathed a collective sigh of relief. Talia and Godrick took turns enveloping Hugh in bear hugs.

“Alright, let’s move.” Alustin led the way again, this time through a network of cool dry limestone tunnels, with Hugh and Mackerel by his side. No more creatures showed up in his Detection radius, and after a few minutes, Zorian constructed a disk to speed up the journey. They travelled like that for another half an hour before Hugh called for a halt.

“Mackerel says the entrance to Earth’s labyrinth should be just ahead. Just around here.”

Zorian gently floated them around the corner.

The broad tunnel was blocked off by a rounded wall. It was a dead end. In the centre of the tunnel was an odd construct. A full-length gold-framed Mirror (and somehow Rain knew it was a Mirror with a capital M), not so much floating as it was fixed in place, more solid and motionless than the walls themselves.

Rain was oddly reminded of the Exile Splinter.

Chapter 11: Reflection

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry

 

Harry’s mouth was set in a grim line as the Mirror came into view. It stood here, buried deep within the labyrinth, the broad limestone chamber perfectly reflected in its golden frame. Harry had the strange feeling that he wasn’t seeing another instance of the Mirror, or somehow looking at a copy. Instead, it felt like looking at the same Mirror he’d seen in the Hogwarts dungeons, just from… another angle.

The last time he’d seen the artefact, it had given up its hidden treasures to Earth’s greatest dark wizard, and simultaneously imprisoned one of the only people who could have stood in his way.

This time, at least, there was less time pressure. This time, Harry intended to approach the Mirror with the appropriate level of caution.

<Zorian, stop the disc. Do not let us be reflected in the Mirror.>

The floating disc on which their group was moving jerked to a sudden halt, a few metres before they would have seen their own reflections. Sensing the tension in Harry’s mental communication, Zorian gently moved the disc back around the corner until the Mirror was no longer visible. He then lowered it to the ground, and dismissed it.

Harry turned to face his companions. “The Mirror of Noitilov is one of the only surviving artefacts of Atlantis. It has power over whatever is reflected. I conjecture that it serves as the gateway to Earth, coalescing all other pathways into one, and serving as the gatekeeper.”

Alustin scratched his chin. “How does it work? Do we just walk into it?”

Harry shook his head emphatically. “I strongly suspect that will not work.”

Voldemort had sent the Fiendfyre surging into the Mirror to demonstrate its stability. It had wound up here. So it seemed likely that walking into the Mirror from Earth really would send you outside the Atlantean’s sheltered homeworld, and into the labyrinthine multiverse in which he now found himself.

The journey back to Earth, however, seemed extremely unlikely to be quite that simple. 

There wasn’t a lot Harry knew about the Mirror - just what he’d been told by Voldemort. That being said, he knew of exactly one thing which had come from the Mirror into Earth - phoenixes. If the Mirror was in some way judging the alignment, or risk, of potential entrants, and the only known example of a successful entrance to Earth was phoenixes…

Although their sense of morality was clear to all who beheld them, the resplendent flaming birds really didn’t seem to have agency in the traditional sense. They would call to those who might rise to the challenge, and empower them to face down dangers they would not otherwise survive, but Harry had never heard of a phoenix taking action on its own behalf, rather than acting through a witch or wizard.

At this point, Harry felt fairly confident both that the sign of his effect on the universe was positive by his own metrics, and that its magnitude was likely to be relatively large. That being said, he could only guess at the Atlantean utility function and the extent to which it overlapped with his own. Even though he was originally a native of Earth, it felt plausible that a device like the Mirror would judge him as far too risky, and refuse him entry.

Then what would happen if someone walked into the Mirror? Would it instantly incinerate someone it deemed to be a threat? That didn’t seem to mesh with the general Atlantean approach.

“Would it be dangerous if I tried to interface with it, like I did with the Exile Splinter?”

Harry frowned. Dumbledore’s exile had come as the result of a process he himself had set in motion - Voldemort had called it 'Merlin's method of sealing'. It seemed unlikely that a similar process would occur without deliberate guidance, and they did need to explore the Mirror’s properties at some point, regardless…

“I think it should be safe, but I’m by no means certain. If any functions do present themselves, please do not use them without consulting with me first.”

Rain nodded, and grasped the simulacrum by his side by the hand. “Zorian?”

The simulacrum nodded, and a moment later, Rain was on the other side of the Mirror. He stepped forward, and touched a gauntlet to its golden rear face.

There was a moment of silence, as they all waited to see if Rain would vanish, or be incinerated, or shout in surprise. He did none of those things, merely stood with his eyes shut, as if meditating.

Harry took the opportunity to turn to Kanderon’s Librarians. “Now, if we do indeed reach Earth, there are certain things I need to make very clear. Earth is not like Anastis. War and violence are very rare, and the standard approach to resolving conflicts is to cordially discuss the matter. If that fails, it is to seek mediation before a neutral third party or authority. Under no circumstances should you use physical violence unless you are confident that lives are already in danger, and even then I recommend that you show as much restraint as possible.”

Talia rolled her eyes.

Harry stepped a little closer and spoke again. “I would like to be perfectly clear . This world is under my protection. Any threats to this world, or to its people, will be dealt with. Is that understood?”

Talia met his gaze for a moment, then nodded and looked away.

“Secondly. The existence of other worlds is not public knowledge on Earth. Nor is the information I’ve told you about Atlantis, or the full extent of my own capabilities. If you encounter any natives of this world, please do not mention any of this. In fact, it would be best if you avoid conversation with anyone you might encounter, and avoid allowing anyone to see your abilities - let me do the talking wherever possible. I also advise that you continue to wear the dreamfire amulets at all times. Mind reading, or legilimency, as it’s called on my world, is not common, but it is present.”

There was silence, then Rain spoke. “I’m getting… something. It’s not really like the Splinter at all. The Splinter wasn’t crude, exactly - it just wasn't designed for anyone to communicate with it. It was like I was looking at the outside of a Mars rover, or something like that. The Mirror is different - it’s trying to understand me. It’s continually rewriting the interface.”

A strange expression came over his face. “I think it wants to help me.”

Harry turned to face Rain. “What do you mean?”

Rain furrowed his brow, clearly trying to communicate something very confusing. “At first, it was completely incomprehensible. I sent it a few signals, and it almost immediately adapted to my language and communication format. It’s showing me two pathways - two options.”

Harry immediately held up a hand in caution. “Don’t select either yet. Can you tell what the pathways are? What options is it offering?”

Rain closed his eyes again and breathed in and out deeply. The air in front of his face was lightly misted with the condensation of his breath. 

“One of them is ‘Enter’, I think. It’s the one I think the Mirror wants me to choose. It’s hard to say - the parts of the system that I brought here with me are struggling to interpret what the mirror has to say. I’m not sure what it means by ‘Enter’, but I think it would be safe to choose - at least, that’s what the Mirror wants me to think.”

Harry’s pulse increased. “And the other option?”

Rain exhaled again. “Authenticate.”

Harry swallowed.

Rain withdrew his hand from the mirror and opened his eyes. 

“And there’s nothing else? Can you ask further questions? Can you ask it to explain the options further?”

Rain shook his head. “The Mirror is helping me understand it, but it’s… not human. I mean, it’s not sentient the way humans are. There's intelligence here, but it’s deeply alien. When I ask for clarification, it’s just repeating the options - ‘Enter’ or ‘Authenticate’.”

Sabae shrugged. “We want to enter, right? To go to Earth?”

Now that the Mirror had failed to disintegrate anyone, or lock anyone in a timeless prison, Harry’s heart rate was beginning to return to its usual pace. 

Would ‘Enter’ take them to Earth? That didn’t seem likely. If it was that simple, why hadn’t more labyrinth travellers wandered into Hogwarts? 

Then again, maybe it was only offering the option to Rain because he was originally from Earth. Despite the alien magic now surrounding his soul, at its core there might still be a remnant of the shell designed by Atlantis, acting as a key.

There was a way to test that.

“Zorian, can a simulacrum try? If it offers you the option to ‘Enter’ as well, then it’s almost certainly not going to take us to Earth.”

The simulacrum by Rain’s side nodded, and raised a hand to touch the golden back of the Mirror. There was a long pause as everyone waited in suspense.

And then Zorian vanished. All of him - not just the simulacrum who had interfaced with the Mirror, but also the ones scattered throughout the room, and the original standing by Harry’s side. They simply winked out of existence in a single instant. 

Harry’s wand jumped into his hand, and the others leapt into action too, but no other threats presented themselves. 

Sabae’s face was twisted with concern. “Did the Mirror take him?”

Harry raised a hand to stop her from charging into the Mirror immediately. “Realistically, there is a very good chance he was frozen in Time, or instantly killed. Even if the Mirror took him somewhere else - which I admit, looks possible at this point - then charging into the Mirror is the exact opposite of what we should do. There is some chance he has arrived on Earth, as desired, but there is also a significant probability that he has been contained.”

That earned him a strange look from the others.

“Zorian is not from Earth. He is a mind mage of prodigious skill, with the capacity to create independently-acting images of himself, and no shortage of destructive capabilities. He is a threat. If the Atlanteans built this device to protect their home, they might have wanted to do so without indiscriminately destroying those who failed to enter. If so, there is a chance that Zorian is inside somewhere, unharmed but unable to act, or to reach Earth itself. If we enter, then we might be deposited in a similar protective zone with no ability to reach Zorian either.”

Talia gestured questioningly. “Alright then, what do you think we should do?”

Harry’s eyes flickered between Kanderon’s Librarians and the Mirror itself. “I’m not sure. Rain, can you try the ‘Authenticate’ option?”

Rain raised a hand to press it against the Mirror, and lowered it almost immediately with a forlorn look on its face. “The Mirror… it’s telling me I’m not safe, whatever that means.”

Despite the inconvenience of that result, Harry couldn’t bring himself to disagree. It was extremely good fortune that Rain was friendly - if the strange man put his mind to it, he could probably have exterminated Muggle civilization in a few days.

Harry stepped forward, face set. “I’ll try.”

He walked down the tunnel toward the Mirror, and walked carefully to avoid appearing in the too-perfect reflection.

He pressed his palm against the gold of the frame. It felt cool, as if its heat capacity was so immense that it wouldn’t change temperature even if bathed in flames. 

Like Rain had said, he could somehow feel the two options the Mirror was presenting. Rain’s version of this interaction was probably a lot clearer, thanks to the system-built interface in his soul, but the meaning of the two paths still felt obvious, and he was interpreting them the same way Rain had. 

Harry took a deep breath. How would the Mirror respond to the bearer of the Line of Merlin Unbroken?

Almost immediately, he felt the stirrings of a strange kind of intelligence, scanning his thoughts and mind as if he were transparent. And in less than an instant, he felt the response.

The Mirror was almost apologetic, in an alien way. He now understood what Rain had meant when he’d described the alien intelligence - it wanted to help. Not the way a human would want something, but rather the way a current wanted to flow between varying electrical potentials, or the way a stone wanted to roll downhill. And yet it was unable. 

Harry knew why - the Mirror had told him.

Like Rain, he wasn’t safe.

For a moment, he felt a flicker of regret. Then his conscious mind took over from instinctive responses, and he remembered the data points available to him. Phoenixes had passed through, but there were no other known examples of successful passage. In all probability, a lobotomy would be the minimum requirement for the Mirror to deem a human ‘safe’.

Even so, he was still going to run the obvious experiment. One by one, under Harry’s instruction, Kanderon’s Librarians stepped forward, and placed their own hands against the golden surface, and one by one, they turned away. Each time, despite having known them only for a few days, Harry recognised the strange expression on their faces. It was a kind of regret. Not the kind one has when one disappoints a mentor or friend, rather the regret of disappointing ones’ self. 

Harry did not fail to notice that Alustin and Talia seemed less affected than the others. Alustin merely looked grim, as if he’d already known what the Mirror had told him, and Talia looked a little chuffed to be told she was too dangerous.

At this point, having exhausted the obvious courses of action, it became clear that there was little he could do to hold his companions back.

“Alright,” Rain said. “Zorian is in there somewhere, possibly in danger. I’m going in. Would anyone like to come with me?”

Most of the Librarians nodded with confidence, and Harry couldn’t help but put his palm over his face. “Are any of you familiar with the sunk cost fallacy? Whatever other possibilities there are, there is a significant chance that Zorian is dead, or otherwise permanently and unrecoverably imprisoned outside of Time itself. While rushing headfirst into the Mirror may seem like the kind of heroic action taken by characters in books, we are not in a book.”

Harry didn’t really expect to reach anyone with that, now that they were swept up in a display of heroic solidarity, but Talia actually seemed to hear his words. Her stance shifted to one of contemplation, and she tilted her head to its side. “That’s a good point, actually. Are the books on your dirt-world any good?”

Harry gritted his teeth. “Maybe you’ll get a chance to find out if you don’t rush into the poorly-understood ancient artefact.”

And yet, Rain was still moving, the expression on his face resolute. Maybe he had more confidence in the Mirror’s desire to help, and thus didn’t deem it as great a danger, maybe his interface had somehow transmitted a sense of safety and good-will that Harry hadn’t quite parsed - or maybe the strange man was just under the thrall of the heroic instinct to protect his friends. Either way, he stepped forward, clearly about to raise his hand to press it against the Mirror, and - 

Before Rain’s hand reached the frame, Zorian reappeared. Not just his original form, but all of him - five nanotube reinforced simulacra included. He looked unharmed, more curious than anything else. He briefly raised a hand, examining it and finding it real - before he was submerged in a sea of hugging arms as the Librarians reacted to his return.

Harry let out a deep breath. Before he could even ask, Zorian sent him the memories of the last few minutes, and he sank back to silently digest them.

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian

 

Examining the Exile Splinter had been useful. Spell formulas had clearly developed in a vastly different way on Anastis. Given a few days or weeks to work with the device, the techniques used by Kanderon and the other creators of the device would have been useful additions to Zorian’s repertoire.

He did not feel the same way about the Mirror.

His initial attempts to sense the internal flow of mana had been immediately refuted. The rippling sheets of energy surrounding the device had reacted instantly, swirling around them in response to his probes. It was as if he was trying to examine an object from all angles, and it constantly rotated and shifted so as to only let him see a single perspective. And that perspective was clear:

I will assist you.

Enter, or authenticate?

Zorian wasn’t about to accept any kind of assistance from strange magical devices without more clarity on what it was offering. He’d pressed deeper, forcing more mana into his probes and constraining the movement of the Mirror in response. He’d tried to hold it in place so he could get a better picture of what he was dealing with.

And then it had reached past his defences, sweeping through his attempts to protect his mind. Not to destroy him, but to help him. It had found his desired destination - Earth. And it had taken him there.

The instant after he’d vanished, Zorian found himself in a small chamber, not entirely unlike the one in which he’d met Rain and Harry for the first time. This time, however, the walls were a soft white marble, lit with soft golden light by a series of flickering, floating candles. 

In the centre of the room stood a simple and un-ornamented golden frame: the Mirror of Noitilov.

There was a door on one side of the room, but the wall next to it had been unceremoniously carved out to make an alternate entrance. The edges of the hole were blackened and melted, and there was no debris - Zorian was reminded of the gash the Fiendfyre had left in Artur’s stone armour. He noted the angles and positioning of the Mirror - whoever had carved that pathway wouldn’t have been reflected in the Mirror as they entered the room.

As he arrived, a series of complex wards fell into place around them. There was no visible result, but Zorian and his simulacra sprang into action to counteract their effects. Simulacrum Number Three conjured a layer of illusory information to foil a complex divination ward - probably a magical attempt to discern his identity. Simulacrum Number Two punctured a temporary hole in a field which seemed to be designed to disrupt the flow of outsider’s magic, which reminded him of the shaping-disruption field he’d encountered on the train to Cyoria. Simulacrum Number One layered the boundaries of the room with a subtle dimensional barrier - invisible to the naked eye - to delay the flow of external magic into the room, and leave him with some more room to operate. 

Still, the wards here were shifting and complex. There were layers of magic here that went deeper than Zorian could discern, and even now they were twisting at the edge of the dimensional barrier. Unless he took drastic actions to destroy the wards, he didn’t have long before his protections broke down and he was at their disposal.

So he took a quick look around, memorising the space, and scanned the vicinity for minds. Finding none he could detect, he stepped back, and reached out to the Mirror once more.

I will assist you.

Exit, or authenticate?

So the choices were different from here? Interesting.

Exit, please. I would like to return to my companions.

The Mirror assented, and he was back, standing at Rain’s side.

After a moment, Harry opened his eyes, having digested the memory. 

“You were in Hogwarts,” the boy said. There was a look of cautious optimism in his eyes. “The Mirror sent you to Hogwarts, and then it let you leave if you wanted.”

Zorian nodded. “That was your home? Or your school?”

Harry was clearly deep in thought. “A bit of both, I suppose. You don’t need to worry quite so much about the Hogwarts wards, I think. There are no records of the wards harming anyone, at least not that I know of. They’re largely designed to protect students and inform the Headmaster of relevant goings-on.”

That didn’t do all that much to reassure Zorian. If the Hogwarts wards had anything in common with the Mirror, then he wasn’t about to underestimate them.

Alustin looked chuffed. “So it worked, then! The Mirror wants to help, like it told us.”

Rain nodded, and put an armoured arm on each of Harry and Zorian’s shoulders. “It seems that way. Time to go home, Harry?”

The younger boy nodded slowly. “If leaving is as easy as it appears, then even if where you arrived isn’t actually Hogwarts, it doesn’t seem to be any more dangerous than the labyrinth. And we can’t stay here for too long without risking another confrontation with the Fiendfyre, which we should avoid if at all possible.” Harry nodded more decisively. “Let’s go.”

Their group linked hands, and stood together in a rough semi-circle, arrayed around the back of the Mirror. As one, they reached out, and touched their hands to the back of the frame. Zorian felt the cool golden metal, and despite the mind-shield surrounding his consciousness, he could sense the distinct and odd sensation of the helpfulness of the Mirror affecting his mind.

The options presented themselves, as they had before. Rain counted them down from three, and as the count reached one, he reached for the familiar trigger.

Enter.

And then he was inside once more, the marble room lit with soft golden light. Like last time, his simulacra were here too. 

Alustin breathed out, a sound of relief. “A new world.”

Artur whirled around, surveying the room. At the same time, Zorian’s instinctive mental sensors swept outwards and revealed a deeply uncomfortable truth.

Not everyone had made it.

By his side stood Alustin, Artur, Talia, Sabae, and his five simulacra. 

And that was all.

Zorian sighed. The wards were already trying to probe at his magic, but now that he was prepared, the simulacra were doing a better job at disrupting them. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a moment.”

He reached out to the Mirror, and asked its help in travelling back to the Labyrinth. 

The limestone tunnels were empty, with no trace of the others.

He returned to the marble room, which held no more or fewer people than when he had left, and told the others.

Artur was already on high alert. A layer of marble armour had formed around his limbs, and he was stalking toward the room’s single exit. Zorian hadn’t spent a lot of time in the mind of the formidable stone-mage, but even so, his dedication to his son was clear. If they didn’t recover Godrick quickly, Artur was probably going to start tearing apart castles.

Either the Mirror had rejected some of their group, and refused them entry to this place, or they had somehow been split up, and scattered elsewhere. Fortunately, Zorian had prepared for an eventuality like this.

He reached outward, pouring energy into a spike which he drove through the wards, leaving himself with an unbroken connection to the outside world. He couldn’t hold it for long - maybe a minute or so, without draining himself dry - but hopefully that would be enough. He reached out, trying to contact his missing companions via the telepathic relays he’d constructed for them.

<Harry, Rain, are you there?>

Almost immediately, there was a single response - from Harry.

<I’m here. I’m with Hugh, and we’re safe. I’ve been sent to Oxford, which is several hundred kilometres to your south - to my parents’ house. I presume you’re with the others, by the Mirror in Hogwarts?>

Harry’s mind felt oddly calm given the situation.

<We are by the Mirror, but combining our groups doesn’t account for everyone. I’m with Talia, Sabae, Alustin and Artur. We’re still missing Rain, Godrick and Mackerel.>

Zorian tried again, reaching out to project the tendrils of his mind over as much of this strange new planet as he could.

<Rain?>

There was no response. The Hogwarts wards, reconfiguring themselves into a form better suited to suppress his magic, collapsed his spike of access to the outer world.

He relayed the information to the others. “Harry and Hugh are somewhere called Oxford several hundred kilometres south of here. Rain, Godrick and Mackerel are unaccounted for.”

Artur stopped at the door to listen, then turned away as Zorian finished. More stone was pouring into his armour, which was growing in stature by the second. 

Peering through the hole in the wall, Zorian saw Artur rip the next door in his path off its hinges. Even if he couldn’t sense any minds within his range, it wouldn’t do to have Artur start a war with the local government over a misunderstanding. With a sigh, he turned to follow.

--------------------------------------------------------

Rain

 

WIth his palm against the golden rear face of the Mirror, Rain counted down for the others. On the prearranged signal, he reached out to the alien intelligence in the Mirror and asked for its help.

Enter.

The Mirror assented, and in an instant, he was on Earth.

Familiar walls rose up on all sides, although the space seemed far smaller than he remembered it. The bed looked different, and it was pressed up against a different wall. With the additional height from his armour, his head almost reached the ceiling. By his side, Godrick was stooping to fit into the small space, and Mackerel flitted around them in confusion.

The biggest difference between what he saw before him and his recollection, of course, was that his mother wasn’t lying in the bed, slowly wasting away as he tried to care for her.

It took less than a second for Rain to put together what had happened. He turned to Godrick with a pained expression on his face.

“I’m sorry, this is exactly the kind of thing I should have considered when touching an alien teleporting machine.”

Godrick was reeling, looking in every direction to take in every detail of his first visit to another world. “Where are the others?”

Rain grimaced. “I think. That I’ve led us astray because of my existing connections with Earth. That’s just a theory, though.”

Godrick was still turning on the spot, taking in details of the shabby apartment and staring out the windows.

Rain went on. “While I was touching the Mirror, I was thinking of going to Earth, and I thought of here. I lived here for most of my life... This room is where I took care of my mother.”

Godrick looked up at Rain. From the sudden change to his demeanour, it looked like he’d picked up most of the story from Rain’s facial expression. “I’m sorry.” he said, managing to sound genuinely apologetic despite his clear excitement.

That’s a relief. I didn’t want to have to explain.

Rain looked across the room. He and Godrick looked comically out of place in present-day Earth. Rain was wearing the Myriad Plate Tallheart had made for him, while even without his characteristic stone armour, Godrick’s clothes made him look like some kind of medieval reenactor, or a ren faire attendee.

Not that they needed to worry about being found or interrupted, even though they were intruders standing in the centre of what was now clearly someone else’s apartment, judging by the unfamiliar pictures on the wall.

Because, despite their location near the centre of one of Canada's larger cities, there were no people within Rain’s Detection radius.

That doesn’t make sense. Regardless of the time of day, there should be people around.

“Something’s wrong. It shouldn't be this quiet. Come with me.”

Godrick and Mackerel followed as he left the apartment and took the elevator to the ground floor. Rain gave the crystal spellbook a thorough scratching along the spine as a reward for its good behaviour. Godrick and Mackerel were both endlessly fascinated by the elevator. Godrick, reaching out with his steel affinity, fairly quickly figured out the mechanical components, and was particularly intrigued by the electrical power supply and control mechanisms. Rain attempted an explanation, but his heart wasn’t in it, and his mind was elsewhere.

The elevator’s still working, so there must be electricity. But where is everyone?

Mackerel, for his part, tried to eat the elevator buttons - but since they were set into the elevator’s wall, rather than protruding, the angles didn’t quite work out, and the spellbook couldn’t do much more than press a few buttons by accident.

After a few Mackerel-scheduled interruptions, they reached the ground floor of the building, and stepped out under an overcast sky. In the year since Rain had been taken from Earth, it looked like not much had changed. Construction on the building opposite had finished, and the restaurant next-door had changed names.

The road wasn’t empty - there were dozens of cars sitting stationary. A few of them looked like they’d been abandoned mid-drive, and had crashed into one another, or into parked cars. The city was oddly silent - the only noise Rain could hear was the sound of a few idling engines.

There were still no people. Nor were there any bodies. Beyond that, the space seemed perfectly normal to both his magical and mundane senses.

Rain’s fingers were starting to tremble.

What happened here?

Despite their obvious excitement, Godrick and Mackerel could tell that something was deeply wrong.

It was probably time to do a more thorough search. Detection did seem to be working, since it correctly returned the positions of the nearby cars, concrete and food items.

“Can you wait here for a moment? I need to do a more thorough check of the city.”

Godrick nodded.

“I’ll be back in around ten minutes.”

Rain stepped upwards, holding himself up with Airwalk. Despite the incongruous surroundings, his skills seemed to work normally here, and in a few seconds he’d reached the height of the tallest buildings.

The essence here was rich, far more concentrated that it was on the surface near Fel Sadanis, where he’d started his journey on another world. On some level, Rain wondered how he’d never noticed it before - how nobody had ever noticed it before. 

It felt unbearably strange, to be here, somewhere he’d once called home, and for everything to be so different. Using his skills here felt improper, somehow. On Earth, people were supposed to get around with planes and trains and that sort of thing, not by expending magical energies to hold themselves aloft between eight-storey buildings.

Regardless, he didn’t have time for that now. Pouring mana into Velocity, he began to pick up speed. It wasn’t long before he found himself above what should have been a bustling square in the central business district. Some of the news-screens were still functioning, and one was displaying the results of some election somewhere - although the usual seats in which the anchors would sit were empty.

The square itself, both to the naked eye and to Detection, was devoid of humans - dead or alive.

Rain took a circuitous route back to Godrick, lingering above the university and the other locations where he might have seen someone familiar - his friends’ houses (if any of them would have remembered him, which was doubtful) and his old school (which would at least have records of his existence).

A strange kind of fog was beginning to descend over Rain’s mind. He’d spent so long in a world that seemed fantastical, and had often wondered if he was in a particularly vivid dream or hallucination. Now that he was back on Earth, it felt more like a dream than ever.

I’ll give you this, subconscious. If this is your work, then you’re being very creative.

A few minutes later, he landed near Godrick, who had popped the hood of an idling car and was poking at the exposed engine. Mackerel had discovered the car’s radio antenna, and was repeatedly bending and releasing it, making an odd twanging noise. Godrick smiled at Rain as he approached.

“What’s the news?”

Rain frowned. “Same story everywhere. The world seems to have been going on as normal until fairly recently, when every single human in the city vanished, presumably at the same time.”

Godrick looked awkwardly at his feet. “Well, not that I’m not enjoying your company, but me da is probably getting worried. We should try to find the others.”

Rain turned to them. “If the others went to the same place as Zorian, then I think we’re probably very far away from them.”

Godrick grimaced. “How far?”

Rain waggled a hand, estimating. “About five thousand kilometres.”

Godrick said something that might have been a swear word. “Me da is gonna kill me.”

Rain smiled sadly for a moment. “Honestly, I’d be more worried about everyone else. If there is anyone else on the planet, that is.”

Rain rubbed his eyes. This was feeling more like a dream every minute.
“I mean, I can only really guess where they are. I obviously should have asked Harry more details about where he lived and where he was from, in retrospect. As it is, I only have some very basic guesses about where they might be.”

“Alright,” Godrick said encouragingly, and Mackerel nudged at Rain’s arm in what might have been an affectionate gesture. “Where do you think they are?”

Keep it together, Rain. There are people depending on you.

“Judging from Harry’s accent, I’m pretty sure he’s English. ‘Hogwarts’ is what he called his school, which sounds totally made-up, but I think that’s just how they name places over there. From the memories Zorian sent me, that’s probably where he is.”

Rain pulled the telepathic relay from one of his pockets, and sighed with relief.

Godrick looked a little confused, then they both paused to wrestle Mackerel away as he tried to eat the thin metal disc.

“What is that?”

“It’s a communication device Zorian gave me. If it works on this world, then it means we don’t need to find Zorian’s exact location. If we get within a few hundred kilometres of him, he should be able to contact us.”

“Nice!” Godrick slapped him on the shoulder in encouragement. “So then we just have to get to this ‘English’ place, right?”

Rain half-laughed at that. “Yeah.” He paused to think for a moment. “You have a steel affinity, right?”

Godrick nodded.

Despite himself, Rain grinned.

“This is going to sound a little crazy, but I think I have an idea that might work.”

Not quite the same as an airship, but it’s close enough.

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry

 

As soon as his hand touched the back of the Mirror, he knew he was making a mistake.

Long ago, he’d once pondered the instruction, passed down in hushed words between precocious primary school students, not to think about a pink elephant. ‘Resonant doubt’ was the term that came to mind. If there was something he was trying to avoid thinking about, then there was little his mind could do to instruct itself to look away. In fact, his strong predisposition was to do the opposite. If instructed to avoid thinking about something, Harry’s mind would instead seek it out, and try to understand this thought in its entirety, rather than distracting itself with falsehoods. It was why he was incapable of casting an animal patronus - his mind simply wasn’t capable of looking blindly away from the truth.

Now, as he touched the Mirror, and it looked through him with its overwhelming injunction to help, he couldn’t stop himself. He thought of the people he cared about - Hermione, Draco, Neville - and he thought about the places he’d left behind on Earth - the Hogwarts library, and the overflowing bookcases of his parents’ house.

And so it was that he found himself, with Hugh by his side, standing in the living room of his parents’ house in Oxford.

Every inch of wall space was covered by a bookcase. Each bookcase had six shelves, going almost to the ceiling. Some were stacked to the brim with hardback books, others had layers of paperback science fiction.

This was the living-room of the house occupied by the eminent Professor Michael Verres-Evans, and his wife, Mrs. Petunia Evans-Verres.

Right from the moment of his arrival, their adopted son, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, knew that something was horribly, horribly wrong.

Dust caked most of the bookshelves. The walls were different, too. On almost every wall, there were images of Harry. Framed photographs - mostly standard Muggle colour images, faded and yellowed with age, although there were a few moving pictures that had clearly been cut from the Daily Prophet.

Harry stepped through into the kitchen, reaching out with his carbon affinity. He wasn’t sure exactly what his range was, but at this point it was approaching a few hundred metres.

He could sense the neighbourhood in surprising clarity. A scarce few trees dotted the back-yards of nearby houses, and a collection of graphite-based mechanical pencils were scattered across his parents’ house, not to mention dozens of other items. There was one conspicuous absence, however.

There were no people. Not in this house, nor in the next. Nor anywhere within his reach.

Hugh followed him, looking uneasy, as Harry slammed open the door of his father’s study. There, on the wall. Harry grabbed the calendar from the wall and gripped it tightly enough in his hands that it began to tear at the edges.

The most recent date Harry remembered was June 15th, 1992. That was when the Exile Splinter had taken him from Hogwarts.

His eyes weren’t focusing enough to read the month or the date. He only needed to see the year, at the top of the page.

2020.

Hugh was saying something in the background, but Harry wasn’t listening. There were too many problems to solve now, all at once.

He’d turned around to face Hugh, when a mental signal came through - from Zorian:

<Harry, Rain, are you there?>

Before Harry could answer, another signal came through.

<I’m here. I’m with Hugh, and we’re safe. I’ve been sent to Oxford, which is a few hundred kilometres to your south - to my parents’ house. I presume you’re with the others, by the Mirror in Hogwarts?>

Harry started. It was undeniably a mental communication from himself, but he hadn’t sent it.

At least, he hadn’t sent it yet.

Wordlessly, Harry gestured for Hugh to come closer. He fetched a device from his bag, draped the chain around both of their necks, and spun the hourglass five times.

Chapter 12: Empty

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry

His father’s study looked much the same five hours earlier. 

The house didn’t look abandoned. There were signs of recent use on the desk, which had been cleared of dust, and the personal computer his father used for reading papers had been replaced by a much sleeker and smaller machine. He could only guess at how to operate the minimalist interface. He eventually found the traditional I/O symbol next to a little silver rectangle and booted the machine up, which surprisingly took less than a second.

Then again, if Moore’s Law had proceeded at its predicted rate for the thirty-odd years it seemed Harry had been gone, then that machine was probably around fifty-thousand times as powerful as the one Harry remembered.

Rather than stowing it in his Bag of Useful Items, Harry tucked the Time Turner under his robes. He’d deliberately only used five of the six possible hours of travel. Now that he had returned to a world in which the device functioned, it was a standard safety protocol to keep at least a single hour available. That way, if they were threatened, there was always the possibility of escaping into the past.

Not that he anticipated facing physical threats. Even now, five hours earlier than their time of arrival, his carbon affinity couldn’t detect any people within his range.

Hugh had looked confused when they first arrived on Earth. Now he looked… well, a bit more confused. The young crystal mage’s face seemed perpetually stuck in an expression of uncertainty. 

“What…?” Hugh began, before closing his mouth as it became clear that he didn’t know what questions to ask.

“We need to move quickly,” Harry said as he sat down in his father’s oversized office chair and flipped the futuristic-looking computer open. “Either this area has been abandoned for some reason, or we’ve been placed in a false world devoid of human life. Or something worse that I haven’t thought of yet. Wherever we are, it’s a representation of a time far ahead of the one I left two weeks ago.”

It felt strange speaking Ithonian here, but it was necessary - Hugh wouldn’t understand English. It wasn’t really a practical inconvenience either at this stage: Whatever linguistic magic had reinforced the native tongue of Anastis, it had acted permanently on his mind, and the syllables felt as familiar as ever.

“Where are the others? Why aren’t we with them, by the Mirror?” Hugh was scanning the room, and a quartet of crystals drifted out of his storage tattoo to orbit his shoulders.

The computer’s user interface was unfamiliar, but intuitively designed. A small flat section below the keyboard was clearly intended to be used to direct the cursor, and responded instantly to Harry's touch. 

Two icons appeared on the screen, with images of his mother and father, and he felt a pang of momentary relief. Both images looked considerably older than he remembered them. If this world was real, then if one or both of them had died, it was recent enough that they still had a user account on this computer with a relatively recent image - and it was possible they were both still alive.

He clicked on the image of Petunia Evans-Verres. She was the sentimental type, so her password would probably be easier to guess. 

Hugh repeated his question. “Where are we?”

Harry was still focused on the computer. “Uh, this is my parents’ house. Probably because I was thinking about it, and the Mirror decided to satisfy my preferences relating to family and togetherness rather than practical necessity. I have some choice words for whoever programmed that into it. We’re a few hundred kilometres south of where the others will arrive in five hours.”

Hugh blinked in surprise. “Is that what you… Wow. I mean wow.”

“I know, right?”

In quick succession, Harry tried a series of potential passwords.

harry

Harry123

harryjamespotterevansverres

That did it. The screen opened to a beautiful high-resolution image of a landscape, in more detail than any screen Harry had ever seen - detailed enough to rival Zorian’s illusions. 

“Now, which icon do you think is a news program?”

“Uh, I think that device has some silicon crystals inside?”

Harry snorted. “You’re not wrong.”

It seemed like the cursor was the main way of interacting with the computer, so he started clicking icons haphazardly in what seemed like order of importance. He was successful on the third try, and a large rectangle offering ‘search’, ‘news’ and ‘stocks’ in large lettering took over the screen, alongside a few complex graphics, the meaning of which Harry couldn’t discern. He clicked on the ‘news’ button, and waited a moment as the rectangle flickered and various coloured pictures and headlines took the place of what must have been some kind of menu screen.

The headlines looked as normal as they could to someone who had been gone for twenty-eight years. Celebrity stuff, climate change, war - the usual sort of thing. Narrowing it down to local news showed no reports of a sudden exodus from Oxford, nor of any other major crisis. Notably, no news articles he could find had been published within the last hour.

There was one other hypothesis to check. 

Wherever Harry was, it appeared to be a version of Earth around thirty years on from where he had left it - just without any humans in it. 

That being said, at present it was unclear whether this world was the ‘real’ one, in the sense of being the world he’d been born into. With the level of eldritch magic and technology that Harry was engaged with, it was entirely possible that this was a simulated world. Or a duplicated world, or that his memories or senses were being tampered with. 

Harry had actually put a fair amount of thinking into this train of thought when he’d first discovered that the laws of physics - at least, the way his father had taught them to him - were optional. After the initial shock had worn out in the first few weeks of school, he had spent some time thinking about whether it was more likely that the whole experience was some kind of psychotic break, or hallucination. In the end he’d decided it was the same kind of epistemological challenge philosophers struggled with every day. Can I trust my own senses? ‘I think therefore I am’ only gets you so far, after all.

Just like last time, this lack of certainty didn’t mean he could afford to mess around. If the world around him was an illusion, then his actions probably didn’t matter all that much. But if it was real, and humans had vanished from Oxford in the last few hours, then it was critical that he acted quickly to prevent this effect from spreading to the rest of the world - or to try and reverse it, if it already had. As such, to have the greatest effect on the expected value of the universe’s utility, he ought to act as if the world around him was real.

Harry felt some vague movement on the street outside through his carbon affinity, and looked out the window, hoping to see a human being, but it was just a shaggy dog, shuffling through the empty streets. At least that was new data: Humans might have vanished, but evidently animals were still around. Trees were likewise unaffected, he could see quite clearly out the window. 

Stepping outside, Harry felt a momentary spike of shock when he saw a few plumes of smoke starting to rise up across the skylines of Oxford. Maybe there had been a war after all? No, that would be far greater in scale. What he was seeing was probably ‘just’ the result of all humans around Oxford abandoning their homes. Stovetops had been left on, fireplaces left burning. He turned to Hugh.

“Ok, first things first. We need to check if this really is my world, and whether there’s an apocalypse of some sort that’s made all the people disappear, or if something else is going on. Hugh?”

Hugh had doubled over behind Harry, and promptly vomited on the younger boy’s shoes. 

“Aargh! Scourgify! Hugh, are you ok?”

Harry took the crystal mage’s arm and led him over to a plush looking sofa, and then went to the kitchen to scrounge up a bowl and a glass of water. Another data point: running water was also still working fine. Whatever had happened here, it really must have been recent. 

He jogged back to Hugh and offered him the largest mixing bowl he had found in the kitchen, which was promptly filled by a second portion of the contents of Hugh’s stomach. Hugh took the glass of water with weak hands, then after clearing his mouth to the best of his ability, croaked out “Aether sickness. Alustin warned us about it. I, uhhh, I might not be much use for the next little while.”

Alustin had told them all about aether sickness, since they were planning on stopping by at least one alien world each. Apparently, the symptoms largely consisted of nausea and migraines, but Harry hadn’t really visualised them as having such a sudden onset. He summoned some painkillers and anti-nausea pills from his Bag of Useful Items, and handed them to Hugh. 

“Swallow. These will hopefully make you feel better. I won’t be affected, I think - this is my homeworld, or a copy of it, or something. I didn’t get aether sickness on Anastis either, for some reason.”

Harry helped Hugh into a comfortable reclining position, and mimed the process of swallowing pills to a confused Hugh. Following his instructions, the older boy took the pills wordlessly and downed them with his next sip of water. Harry thought it was a safe bet at this point that there would be something more modern or more effective in his parents house, but he would have to actually find them, and he was leery of experimenting with medicines he wasn’t familiar with in an emergency. He was already giving paracetamol and oxycodone to someone who could quite reasonably be described as an alien, which he wasn’t particularly thrilled by, but babysitting Hugh for hours or days while time was of the essence was unacceptable. 

Hugh seemed like he wasn’t going to be very responsive in the near future. Harry tried to keep scouring his father’s computer for any useful information, but after a few minutes the screen started flashing with horizontal pixel lines of purple. Shortly afterwards, the whole machine died suddenly, the complex electrical components succumbing to the presence of his wizarding magics. So much for using technology to solve his problems. At least the apparent arbitrariness of the rules of his world’s magic made Harry feel at home again.

Operating on the assumption that what he was seeing around him was real (at least in the sense of being a world he could interact with and observe), it seemed very likely that the absence of humans was either the result of the Mirror doing something , maybe shunting them into a pocket dimension of immense proportions where they couldn’t hurt anyone, or that some cataclysm had been triggered immediately coincident with their arrival here.

Maybe even been caused by it. 

The fact that they’d used the ‘enter’ function they’d sensed in the Mirror without first using the ‘authorise’ aspect lent a lot of credence to the former, but as far as the wizarding world was concerned, there was no shortage of potential cataclysms. 

After learning how terrifically powerful the wizarding world was, Harry had considered a lot of potential magical apocalypses, from the mass transfiguration of nuclear weapons to the activation of some random eldritch artefact from a forgotten age. He’d then decided that it wasn’t the most productive line of thinking, given that at the time as a fairly untrained wizard there was relatively little he could do about it.

All this to say that however unlikely, it was entirely possible for some magical artefact to have simply… deleted humanity. And to check that hypothesis, there was at least an obvious place to start: the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magic.

Hugh groaned and pushed himself up to sit a little straighter, and Harry rushed over to check on him. 

“How are you feeling?” Harry asked. 

Hugh blinked slowly up at him. “A little better. I’m about equally anxious and nauseous, so I guess that’s an improvement?”

“Do you think you can stand?”

Hugh nodded, and Harry hauled him to his feet. Well, really Hugh lifted himself with some crystals strategically placed to carry his weight, but Harry let himself think he’d helped. It was the gallant thing to do, after all, for a guest in his house and in his universe. Hugh swayed for a moment, and by leaning a little on his crystals, managed to take a few steps and get himself stable. He breathed out. 

“This feels weird,” Hugh muttered, looking introspective. He turned to Harry. “I can feel the difference in the aether here, on this world. It’s thicker somehow, like honey instead of water, if that tracks.” He shook his head. “That’s not important right now, I guess. Where are the others?” 

Harry blinked in surprise. “The fact that you can innately sense the difference in magical energy between worlds is kind of… bonkers. The others should be at Hogwarts. Or, they will be, in about five hours. That’s my school, a fair way north of here. It’s a magical stronghold, so it’s very likely that they’re safe.” Hugh breathed a sigh of relief at that. “I can get us there in a few hours, but we need to stop somewhere along the way first, so we can try to work out what the heck is going on.” 

Hugh drew himself up a little, clearly trying to shake off the remaining sickness and the grogginess from the pills. “Alright. I won’t pretend to know how this time manipulation business works, but if you think this is the right thing to do, I trust you.” 

“Uhh, thanks. That’s very gratifying, and thank you, really. I’ve got your back too, for what it’s worth. We’re in this together.” Harry felt a little embarrassed at the exchange, but it did comfort him to have someone who seemed so overtly genuine place their trust in him. “Alright, let’s get going.” He muttered “Three-seater broomstick” to his pouch as they walked outside, and drew the broomstick out. 

“This is going to sound pretty weird, but we have to head to the capital city, to the seat of this country’s magical government. For that,  we need to find a very specific bathroom.” He paused, and appreciated the fact that Hugh apparently took this statement at face value. “Alright, first time flying?”

Hugh shook his head. “No. First time flying on something that looks this unstable, though.”

“Oh, I totally agree, it's an awful design. But magic is weird on this world. It’s not nearly as neat and logical as affinities on your Anastis. You get used to it. Sort of. Climb on the seat behind me, and hold on to the handles. We’ll accelerate pretty fast, but this isn’t too long a flight.” 

Hugh briefly magically lifted himself into the air, rising to around half a metre off the ground before descending again. “Good. Levitation cantrips still work here, so I should be able to land safely if I fall.”

Hugh climbed on behind Harry somewhat unsteadily, and motioned to Harry that he was ready to go. Harry kicked the broom into a sharp arc upward, and they shot off toward London. 

They followed the M40 at first, staying quite low. Harry didn't want to get lost, given that it was pretty hard to read a map while flying. The damage below was less dramatic than he’d expected. Every car that had been on the road had either crashed or come to a halt some other way, of course, but there were no signs of riots, nor were the roads leaving London clogged with cars the way they would be if a disaster had hit. 

He turned back to Hugh and saw his mouth hanging agape, staring down at the cars, trucks, and infrastructure below. Harry shouted over the wind: “This is nothing, wait till you see it all in action!”

It took them a little under an hour to make their way to London. As they entered the higher density area, there were more frequent fires, some of them consuming entire buildings. It took a conscious effort for Harry to override his civic instincts to land and put them out.

Harry landed the broomstick outside a row of public bathrooms. Hugh staggered off the broom too, but Harry could see a little colour starting to return to his cheeks. 

“So what now?”

“Um, I’ve never actually done this before, just heard about it from others. But I’m pretty sure it’s something like this.” Harry swung open the door of one of the cubicles, and stepped into the toilet bowl while a bemused and bleary-eyed Hugh looked on. 

Now that he was standing here, toilet-water lapping at his shoes, it seemed awfully plausible that Fred and George had been joking when they’d described this as one of the ways to enter the Ministry.

“If this works, follow me down.” He yanked the chain, and felt the world spiral around him as his form was distorted and he was sucked into the plumbing. After a disorienting moment, he was spat onto the floor in a long corridor - inside the Ministry. 

Harry stood up and brushed off his clothes. After spending a week with Zorian’s near-seamless teleports and gates, returning to the ungainly spaghettification of his own world was a bit of a downgrade.

He’d barely stepped out of the way when Hugh appeared by his side. He looked a bit green around the gills - the toilet-travel clearly hadn’t done his nausea any good.

Harry led Hugh down the empty corridor. The sound of their shoes clacking on the polished stone floor was the only discernible noise. Whatever had happened here clearly wasn’t limited to the Muggle community.

It was only a short walk to their first destination - the Hall of the Wizengamot. Harry had only been there once before, to bear witness to a trial in which his country’s parliament had almost sentenced his friend to ten years in a torture-prison.

That is to say, he wasn’t going there for sentimental reasons. Judging from the date and the time of day, there was a good chance that the Wizengamot had been in session when humans had vanished. If so, resting customarily on the plinth during the session would be - 

Harry heaved at the great stone doors, barely budging them. After a moment, Hugh moved one of his crystals to help, and the door swung wide. The additional magical effort clearly exacerbated his aether sickness, and he wobbled on his feet for a moment before Harry reached out a hand to stabilise him.

The hall was empty. Great rows of seats, ostentatiously furnished, were arrayed around a small central space. The chair in which Hermione had been chained was long since gone, but Harry still avoided looking in that direction. 

There were so many ways this might not work. Amelia Bones had already been ancient when he’d left Earth - she might have died of old age in the intervening twenty-eight years, leaving magical Britain without a Chief Warlock or a regent for the Line of Merlin Unbroken. The Wizengamot might have skipped the regular session-time for one reason or another. Or Bones might simply have been holding the rod, rather than letting it sit on the plinth in the customary fashion.

“Accio Line of Merlin.” The rod would have been warded against such spells, but since Harry was its rightful bearer…

A short rod of dark stone shot downward from the uppermost ring of seats and flew into Harry’s outstretched hand. He breathed a sigh of relief.

Hugh looked confused. “... What does that do?”

“It’s a key. We need to move quickly.”

Harry led them back out of the meeting hall, and toward the elevator doors. Thankfully, they still functioned, and once Hugh joined him inside, he pushed the lowest of the elevator buttons - one marked ‘Department of Mysteries’.

There was a click as the door locked back into place, then the elevator was jerked downwards at an alarming rate. Still holding onto the latticed door, Harry grabbed Hugh’s shoulder to hold him steady as well, and the (nauseous looking) crystal mage looked grateful. 

Before long, the elevator halted, and the brass-lattice door swung open. A marble atrium lay before them. A wide variety of doors were set into the wall opposite - placed far too close together to lead to separate rooms, a testament to the fact that wizards really could fold space like nobody’s business.

Harry looked around, seeking a particular door, and saw none which matched what he sought. After a moment of indecision, he felt a mental twinge from the stone rod in his hand, which seemed to tug him to one side. Following its guidance, he ignored the doors and confidently walked to the far edge of the atrium.

At his feet, with the seams barely visible, was a subtly differently coloured section of stone. After a moment, thin letters seemed to materialise in the centre of the square. Cold Storage.

Harry crouched down and pressed his fingers against the stone. It was cool to the touch. Hugh had followed him, but seemingly hadn’t noticed the lettering, because he was idly looking at the doors.

He gently touched the rod to the lettering. The response was immediate - the square of stone sank into the ground, and slid to one side, revealing a staircase stretching downward.

Harry was halfway down when he realised Hugh wasn’t following. “Hugh?”

Hugh’s eyes were glazed over, and he shook his head. “Harry?”

“Hugh, I’m down here.”

As if it took some kind of massive effort, Hugh wrenched his eyes downward, and eventually focused on Harry’s face. As they made eye contact, Hugh’s eyes flashed with realisation. “There’s some kind of attention ward trying to keep me away from this trapdoor. It’s very differently made to the ones I’ve seen before. Strange.”

He looked introspective for a moment. “I wish Loarna were here. She’d have a field day with this. Do you know how to make wards like this?”

Harry shrugged sadly. “It’s possible no-one on my planet does. The Interdict of Merlin stops our lore from being passed down except in person. It means that my world has been losing knowledge for generations.”

Hugh nodded sadly, and followed him down the stone staircase. Now that he was aware of the ‘attention ward’, as he’d called it, it didn’t seem to affect him nearly as much.

Three stone doors were set into the wall opposite.

Judging by the scuff-marks on the door-handle and the grooves worn into the floor, the left-most door was by far the most used. A plaque above it read ‘Extraordinarily Dangerous Artefacts’ in inlaid golden lettering.

The middle door looked considerably less used. The plaque above read ‘Unutterably Dangerous Artefacts’.

The right-hand door simply read ‘Threats’.

The hair on Harry’s arms stood up.

He stepped forward, and touched the stone rod to the central door. The stone melted away, and Hugh jumped in surprise.

“Please don’t touch anything.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Hugh looked wary, and his arms were wrapped around his midriff as if he were trying to keep himself warm in a blizzard. His face was still quite pale. 

Harry cautiously stepped through the gap where the door had been. Hugh followed, and the stone of the door melted back into place behind them.

The room they were now in was long and narrow, and gave the impression of a particularly high-security bank vault, but more along the lines of a sensibly organised muggle bank, rather than the chaotic mess that was Gringotts. It was lit intermittently by luminescent crystals. Their dull glow reflected from dozens of transparent spheres, which hovered autonomously above a row of stone plinths which stretched out before them. 

Each of the spheres contained, at its centre, a single hovering artefact.

Walking along the pathway, Harry passed a sphere containing a single dagger forged of a glinting, dark metal. Even in the dim light, the reflections from the blade drove a spike of pain into his mind, and he quickly averted his eyes.

The next held a wickedly angled wand, stained with what looked like blood.

The next sphere held what looked like the desiccated corpse of a small possum. It twitched slightly before Harry moved on.

The next contained a shifting pattern of sand grains, endlessly falling through the air in defiance of Euclidean space. 

He kept moving. The important thing was that none of the spheres had recently been disturbed. If the wizarding world was responsible for the calamitous disappearance of Earth’s population, then a stolen item from this room - or the next - was the most likely mechanism. 

In terms of both raw magical power and magical weirdness, there weren't many things that topped the contents of these rooms. They were significant enough that this section of the ministry had been included in Bones' (very brief) briefing of the responsibilities of the Chief Warlock.

After passing more than a hundred crystalline spheres, Harry reached the final plinth, and came up against the stone end of the tunnel. For some reason, he had the strange feeling that the room would grow if he requested it.

“Alright, there’s no obvious evidence of a theft. I suppose the thieves could have replaced the sealed objects with fakes, but there’s not much we can do to verify that.” Harry motioned for Hugh to return to the entrance, and reached out to tap the interior of the door with the dark stone rod. The stone melted away once more, and they stepped out, back into the relative brightness of the entrance room.

Swallowing nervously, he moved to face the door marked ‘Threats’. He’d barely touched the rod to its surface when it seemed to fade away. Rather than the stone moving to one side (like the trapdoor above), it seemed to gradually reduce in opacity until it was no longer visible. Harry was reminded of the final oscillations of Ithos before the Exile Splinter finally ran out of mana and returned the exiled city to its homeworld.

He stepped forward, but stopped when Hugh tried to grab his shoulder.

“What?”

“You were going to walk into the wall.” Hugh raised a hand and held it in midair, as if pressing it against the door.

“Ah, you can still see the door? It’s no longer present to me - probably another attention ward, or something like that. I suspect the creator of this room didn’t want anyone unauthorised to go inside. Stay here, I’ll be back shortly.”

Hugh nodded, and Harry saw his eyes flicker in confusion as Harry stepped through what looked like a wall of stone to the crystal mage.

He turned his eyes forward. The design of this room was identical to the one they’d just visited - a row of stone plinths, with crystal spheres hovering above them, stretched out before him. 

There was one particular difference between this room and the previous one, however.

Every single crystal sphere, without exception, was empty.

He stood silently in place for a full five minutes.

As the time elapsed, he’d narrowed the realm of possibility down to two chief hypotheses.

The Line of Merlin had been passed down through the generations by the stewards of the magical world, who sought to keep the world safe, and hold back those threats which might put life itself in danger. 

Those which could be purged from the world, would be purged - the way Harry intended to destroy the Dementors, when he finally returned to his world - if Hermione hadn’t managed it in his absence.

Those which could not be destroyed, only sealed away - those were placed here, in a vault only accessible to a single person, until they passed that burden on to their successor - the way Dumbledore had passed on the Line of Merlin to him. 

And somehow, every single one of these threats was no longer here.

First, it was possible that some entity or force had pulled off the heist of the millennium, and managed to retrieve not just a single one of these immensely dangerous threats, but every single one of them. Now that Voldemort was sealed into the emerald stone set into his ring, he didn’t know of any entities on Earth which could have accomplished such a deed, but that did not mean there were none who could accomplish it. In addition, Harry now knew that dangers to this world did not solely come from within. 

This hypothesis had a particular drawback. It did not explain why the physical world had been left untouched. The Shambling Bone-Men, for example, didn’t even warrant inclusion in this room, and were left sealed in another location with lesser protections - and had they been released, it would scarcely have been possible to miss the scars left by their passage. In his first debrief with Moody, he’d been told that Dumbledore had sealed at least one phenomenon which would have left Earth a cracked and smouldering cinder. So if they had all been released, where was the widespread destruction? If some multiversal entity had swept by and relieved Earth of its payload of weapons of utter annihilation, why had they purged the planet of human life alone, and left trees and animals alive? Surely it would have been simpler to annihilate the planet entirely - and an entity able to wield that which had been sealed in this room undeniably had that capability.

His second hypothesis was rapidly gaining credence in his mind. 

The Mirror was said to grant the wishes of those who stood before it. One mechanism it used to do so was conjuring alternate realms of existence, and allowing limited access to that which it had created. Harry and his companions had sought to enter Earth, and yet had been refused entry for one reason or another. Perhaps they were too dangerous, or perhaps their foreign magics were not permitted. Or perhaps the Mirror was simply one-way - it might allow people to leave Earth, but not to return.

How then would the last Atlantean construct satisfy its dual imperatives - to assist those who stood before it, and to keep safe and protect the Atlantean homeworld on Earth?

It might create a world - not Earth, but imitating the Earth in every respect, but for two - and send the visitors there instead.

The Atlanteans had seemingly valued sapient life. Creating a buffer world to satisfy potential invaders, and stocking it with innocents to be slaughtered - it didn’t really seem like their style. So this false Earth - this ‘reflection’, Harry thought, probably wouldn’t copy the human inhabitants, and expose them to danger, or obliteration, if this world was to be temporary (a somewhat concerning thought in and of itself). 

According to the legends Quirrell had told him, Atlantis had constructed the Mirror with the explicit intention of ensuring it would not destroy the world. Merlin had said that it would be easier to destroy the world using a lump of cheese. A reasonable conclusion to draw was that there was one other category of item the Mirror would be loath to replicate - those stored in this room.

As such, the emptiness of every single crystal sphere, combined with the lack of any damage to the Earth itself, was sufficiently strong evidence that Harry was starting to breathe a little more easily. This (probably) wasn’t the real Earth, and so (probably) the whole of humanity hadn’t vanished in a single instant. He and his allies were (probably) in a reflection of Earth, designed to satisfy their needs without impinging on the true Earth’s security.

His parents were (probably) still alive.

He stepped back out the square door-hole. Hugh was studying the edges of the frame, and jumped in surprise as he emerged.

“This seems to be a fake world. I think it’s a copy of my world, designed to keep us here while obviating our need to travel to the true Earth.”

Hugh started, but then just nodded, taking the information in stride. “That’s a relief.”

Harry exhaled again, some of the built-up tension slowly leaving his body. “You can say that again. We’ve still got to figure out how to get there, assuming that’s even possible. We also have to figure out whether or not I’ve skipped along the surface of Time like a stone and missed twenty-eight years of the progression of my world.”

Hugh reached out an arm and clapped Harry on the shoulder. The movement looked a bit awkward, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to pull it off, but was trying to fill Godrick’s role in the gentle giant’s absence. “I’m sure we’ll have it figured out in no time.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Harry mumbled under his breath. Straightening up, he checked his watch and spoke more clearly. “It’s taken us around ninety minutes to get here. We have three and a half more hours until we arrive in my parents’ house. I want to get to Zorian as quickly as possible, since he’s our greatest tool for mobility and communication.”

Harry readjusted his glasses and continued thinking out loud. “If the Mirror isn’t cooperating with our desire to reach the true Earth, then Zorian is probably our best bet for getting there as well.”

If Zorian’s cryptic statements about ‘the Sovereign Gate’ meant what Harry thought they meant, then this wasn’t the first time Zorian had encountered a problem of this nature.

“They’re in Hogwarts, so we should try to meet them there. The Floo network should still be operational, since I don’t think it requires active oversight from the Ministry. Between the secure starting location and the authority of the Line of Merlin, we should be able to connect directly to Hogwarts. We’ll arrive well before they do, and we won’t make contact until Zorian sends the mental communication from earlier - otherwise he’d already know where we are. That gives us plenty of time to gather information. Thoughts?”

Hugh nodded. “I’ll defer to you on this one. This is your world, not mine.”

Harry grimaced. “I’m not sure it really is, anymore.” He pressed the elevator button again, and took them back to the atrium where they’d arrived.

There was a functional-seeming Floo entrance point only a few metres away from the elevator. A chalice of acrid powder protruded from the wall at waist-height next to a fireplace. Despite not having been tended for at least a few hours, the embers still glowed heartily - the hallmark of a magically sustained flame. 

Harry frowned. He’d only ever travelled with native English speakers through the Floo network. Typically, the traveller would state the name of their destination, step into the flames and be whisked away. If a prospective traveller could only speak Ithonian, however, should they state the translation of their destination in their mother tongue, or should they say the original English words, which they only recently learned? 

It probably wasn’t physically dangerous to try one of those methods, given that Floo travel rarely resulted in splinching or the similar dangers typical of apparition. That being said, sending Hugh on his own to a random destination in magical Britain would not be an ideal outcome.

Harry cleared his throat. “This, ah, probably won’t be great for your indigestion. Follow my instructions carefully, or you might end up very far away.”

Hugh nodded, looking worse-for-wear, and Harry felt a pang of sympathy. Even though Harry was under a huge amount of stress, this probably wasn’t a walk in the park for his teenage companion either.

“It works like this. Take a pinch of Floo powder, and throw it into the fireplace. The flames should momentarily flash green. State your destination, then step into the fireplace. Judging from the way most of magical Britain is constructed, I think the destination is keyed to the explicit English phrase describing it. Our destination is Headmaster’s Office, Hogwarts. Actually, scratch that, it should be Headmistress’ Office, Hogwarts. I think, at least.”

He made sure to enunciate the English syllables clearly to Hugh, and had him repeat them three times.

“In case you do get lost, take this.” He pulled the telepathic relay from his bag and handed it over to Hugh. “It should help Zorian find you by speaking into your mind.”

Hugh turned the disc over in his hands, before making it disappear by some mechanism Harry couldn’t discern. 

Hugh looked back up at Harry, and there was a hint of steel in his gaze. “Let’s go.”

Harry took a pinch of the powder and scattered it above the glowing embers. The flames erupted into a green conflagration that filled the black stone fireplace.

“Headmistress’ Office, Hogwarts.”

He stepped into the fire, and felt his body sucked inwards and rotated about himself. Even though he hadn’t felt any aether sickness upon returning to a facsimile of his own world, his stomach churned.

After an instant, he was spat out onto a thick, woolly carpet, and rolled to the side to make way for Hugh’s arrival. He came through a moment later, and Harry breathed out yet another tensely-held breath. Hugh summoned the telepathic relay back into his hands, and wordlessly handed it back to Harry as they both took in their surroundings.

The stone office had small windows on every side, looking out into the forests below the castle. The remaining walls were stacked with bookshelves, and the centre of the richly furnished room was dominated by a large desk. A collection of mind-boggling artefacts were scattered about, many of them on the desk, others mounted on the wall and set onto the bookshelves. Compared to the ones Harry had just seen in the Ministry, these were probably nothing special, but the ones Harry didn’t recognise certainly looked peculiar.

A bubbling noise was coming from a hand-sized twisting spiral sculpture. It seemed to be repeatedly raising a bronze ball, only to drop it into a vat of acid, where it dissolved, then re-solidified beside the vat at the base of the spiral. A silvery plate rested to the right of the desk-chair, and above it hovered a peculiar gold metal arrow. The arrowhead was eerily rotating to point directly at Harry as he moved around the room.

A voice spoke above the noise from the odd devices, and Harry’s wand leaped into his hand before he recognised it. It was a clipped, precise Scottish accent, coming from a large portrait of a stern-looking witch, that hung from the wall behind the room’s main chair. 

“Harry Potter. My, my, it has been a long time.”

Chapter 13: Snake

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry

 

Harry looked up at the larger-than-life portrait with a lump in his mouth.

“Hello, Professor.”

Professor McGonagall looked down at him, the skin near her eyes creasing with familiarity. “My dear boy, it has been a rather long time. I am very glad you’ve chosen to return, but we’d all hoped it would happen sooner.”

Harry swallowed, trying hard to keep his voice from shaking. “But I haven’t returned yet, have I? We’re in some kind of hidden world, and unlike humans, you were copied across because you’re not really sapient. Are you?”

The image of the Scottish witch looked sadly down at him. “I’m afraid not, Mr Potter. I have the memories I had when I was painted, but most memories formed since then fade faster, if they’re formed at all. I remember enough of you to know that you would not call this,” she gestured to herself, “a true Minerva, merely a shallow copy.”

Hugh was looking at the moving portrait with wide eyes, and Harry remembered with a flash of embarrassment that Hugh couldn’t speak English.

“This is an old friend of mine. Or at least, the image of one,” Harry explained in Ithonian. Hugh nodded, and raised a hand in greeting to the painting. The shadow of Professor McGonagall smiled, and waved back.

Harry looked back to McGonagall and stood up a little straighter. “What year is it?”

The old witch looked bemused. “That’s not the kind of thing we portraits are particularly good at remembering. I do remember the turn of the millennium though. That was quite a spectacle.”

“Have there been any major magical or non-magical disasters in the last thirty years?”

McGonagall took off her glasses and wiped them clean with a cloth she pulled from a pocket. “After you, Dumbledore and Voldemort all vanished in the span of a week, there was a substantial power vacuum, as you might well imagine. Madam Bones, Ms Granger and Mr Malfoy managed to hold the country together, but it was no small thing. There was, of course, the Cleansing of Azkaban, and some would deem that a disaster, although I do not count myself among their number. You should ask Ms Granger about that when you see her, that was quite a piece of work. Nothing comes to mind since then.”

His heart racing, Harry allowed himself a small smile at that. “What is the current population of Earth?”

The witch frowned. “Somewhere in the billions, I believe.”

No massive surprises there. Better to cover all the major bases though.

“Is the Statute of Secrecy still in effect?”

The Professor nodded.

“Has a nuclear weapon been detonated in the last thirty years in a non-test environment?”

“Not to my knowledge”.

“Any contact with aliens? Not counting him,” Harry said, gesturing at Hugh.

She shook her head.

“Have the Muggles - or the wizards, for that matter - made progress with nanotechnology? Or artificial intelligence?”

“Oh, I’m sure the Muggle scientists are up to something. Ms Granger does mention it from time to time. I think she has it under control.”

That was an odd choice of words - definitely something to chase up later.

“Alright, that’s the big ones. Any significant advances in the study of magic?”

“Nothing more impressive to me than -” she covered her mouth with her hand to prevent her words from reaching Hugh. “Partial transfiguration. Which is as-yet unreplicated, for that matter.”

“From what you’ve said, Hermione is alive. Is that correct?”

She nodded.

“Which of the following people are alive: Draco, my parents, Alastor Moody, Severus Snape - although you might not know about that one, Madam Bones, Neville Longbottom.”

“To my knowledge, all of those people are alive, although Alastor did lose his left hand while tracking down those responsible for the attempted Fiendfyre Plot.”

Harry blinked in surprise. “Really, all of them? That’s excellent news. How is Madam Bones managing? She was already quite old thirty years ago.”

McGonagall grimaced. “I would hesitate to say that she is managing well, but she is alive. You can thank Ms Granger and her unicorn blood for that. Neither of them particularly enjoy the arrangement, but it’s far better than leaving the Wizengamot without even a regent for the position of Chief Warlock.

“Wait, you mean -”

She nodded gravely. “After extensive testing, it has been determined that Ms Granger can regenerate around three litres of blood a day without impairing her function, which, when freely given, is approximately sufficient to keep a single person in a state of… well, not health and vigour, but it will keep them alive.”

Harry looked down at the pockets of his robes, which at present contained both the Philosopher’s Stone and the Elder Wand.

Dumbledore’s last act, before he was sealed away by the Mirror, was to ensure that the world would be able to go on without him. He’d laid careful plans to pass on the Line of Merlin to its next bearer, and in the final instant as the Seal took hold, he’d thrown both the Line and the Wand to one side, so that the wizarding world would not be without these vital tools even as it lost its greatest wizard.

When the Exile Splinter had taken him from his world, there had been a split second in which he could act. Perhaps enough time to throw the Philosopher’s Stone to one side, and leave it behind in his world. How many lives would have been saved by that single action that he’d failed to take?

This was no time to wallow.

“Professor, are there any other events of note that you know of that I’ve missed?”

She looked down at him sadly. “There is one.”

The look in her painted eyes seemed to carry some meaning that it took Harry too long to understand.

“Professor,” Harry asked, although it sounded like his voice was coming from far away. “Where is the real McGonagall?”

Some distant part of him heard the portrait’s response, as another part of him noted, dispassionately, that it would be rather odd for the current Headmistress of Hogwarts to place a portrait of herself behind her desk, rather than keeping the image of her predecessor there for advice.

“I’m afraid she died shortly after this painting was completed. A wasting disease, I believe. Quite incurable.”

It wasn’t incurable, of course. Almost nothing was incurable when you had the Stone of Permanence. A simple temporary transformation was all that was required to create the desired bodily state, with Polyjuice potion, medical transfiguration, or otherwise, then make the changes permanent. Voila, a new body.

But they hadn’t had the Stone. It had been (as per Harry’s current guess) with him, stuck in whatever timeless void he’d been stored in until the Exile Splinter had successfully won the battle against the Mirror to pull him into Ithos. And so McGonagall was dead.

“Professor,” Harry said, voice shaking. “Is there anything else you think I should know?”

“I think,” she said, voice soft. “You should know that there are many people who care about you very much. They will be glad to see you again.”

“Th- thank you Professor. I’m working on it.”

He turned away from the painting, blinking away tears.

“Alright, Hugh,” he said, switching back to Ithonian and trying to sound as controlled as possible. “Want to check out an alien library?”

Hugh shrugged with a bit of an odd expression. “I won’t be able to read any of the books, will I?”

“Well, no, but there are probably some ward-diagrams that might make sense.”

Hugh perked up. “That would be great, actually. I can sense some information-gathering wards here, and I think they’re far beyond my current skill to create.”

Harry turned back to the painting. “One last question, Professor. I know it’s not strictly allowed, but if you remember it, could you tell me the password to the stairs?”

McGonagall’s face creased into the mock image of a stern disciplinarian. “Mister Potter! That is thoroughly inappropriate. A portrait would be entirely outside of its remit if it told a student that the current password to the Headmaster’s office was ‘Flubberwump gargantuanto”.

Harry managed a weak grin, and something inside of him broke. There would be a time for grieving later. Now, he had problems to solve. “Thank you, Professor.” And he was off.

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Hugh Stormward

 

Harry led Hugh down a set of spiral stairs which seemed to autonomously rotate on their axis. Here on Harry’s world - or a copy of it, as this seemed to be - magic was behaving very oddly. Now that his initial sickness was subsiding, he could feel the aether flow around him as it slowly refiled his mana reservoirs. It felt more sluggish here, but his crystals were still responding as usual.

The painting of the old woman seemed to act as some kind of memory-imprint, which was rare, but not unheard of on Anastis. It didn’t appear to be at all rare here, as dozens of portraits cluttered the grey-stone walls. Many of the portraits’ inhabitants appeared to be asleep, and some awoke as they passed, crying out to them in the odd guttural language that seemed to be native to Harry’s world.

The staircases drifted and moved as Harry walked across them, which was certainly a little disquieting. Nevertheless, Harry moved quickly and confidently through the maze of corridors and staircases, and before long they found themselves in a relatively conventional-looking library. Harry directed Hugh toward the section on permanent wards before dashing off through the broad bookshelves, clearly looking for something specific.

The library here (in ‘Hogwarts’, apparently) was a pleasantly cosy place. The aesthetic was far removed from the small house they’d arrived in - far larger, and grander, for one. In contrast to the harsh stone and (in Hugh’s experience thus far) constant danger of Skyhold, the cold granite of the floor here was covered by rich, soft carpets, and the library itself was interspersed with armchairs and couches. Hugh had asked, and Harry had confirmed that he didn’t know of any circumstances in which an armchair had eaten a student in recent memory. He had also said that if you went high enough in the castle, students had been known to vanish for months at a time for unclear reasons. That made Hugh a little more relaxed around the armchairs, but he also resolved not to climb any stairs without Harry’s guidance.

Idly leafing through a randomly chosen book in Harry’s illegible language, Hugh mused on the differences between magical realms. His… home, he supposed, in Skyhold, had been carved out of stone by mages of great strength hundreds of years ago. In time, it had become a rabbit-warren of interconnected tunnels and hidden chambers. Hogwarts, it seemed, had converged on a similar complex internal structure. Except, here, mages were apparently unconstrained by affinity types, which resulted in an altogether more uniform space.

In Skyhold, it wasn’t rare to stumble on an entire collection of rooms which had been carved out by Kanderon herself from crystal, or by a particularly ambitious wind-mage demonstrating their control, or by a heat-mage melting pockets out of the mountain’s heart, or by some other esoteric process. As a consequence, the rooms varied greatly in their construction and style. Here, although there was some variation, it seemed there was a distinct tradition in Harry’s wizarding culture - one of both comfort and style.

Three bookshelves over, Hugh’s crystal affinity sense could feel Rain’s aura anchors in Harry’s necklace bobbing around as the young wizard kept searching for particular books. Not knowing the language, there wasn’t much Hugh could do to help, so he took the opportunity to lean back into one of the richly upholstered armchairs that dotted the library.

Hugh hadn’t slept since before Zorian’s group had arrived in Skyhold, and could feel his eyelids drooping already. He took a quick moment to set up his crystal wardstones to form a protective cube around the armchair - better safe than sorry, after all - and almost immediately fell asleep.

It felt like he’d barely closed his eyes when he blearily opened them in response to a chiming noise. Unable to wake him the normal way because of his crystalline defences, it seemed Harry had resorted to summoning a small diamond, and was using his own affinity to bounce it off the side of the cube. 

Harry didn’t look scared or urgent, so Hugh took a moment to yawn, and rotated the hovering crystals back into his storage tattoo. With a sigh of relief, he noted that he could once again feel his bond with Mackerel - the unruly spellbook was far away, no doubt, but now at least it was in the same plane as he was.

“How long was I asleep?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. 

Harry looked down at a small device on his arm - some kind of mechanical timekeeper, probably. It seemed to have a crystal face protecting the mechanical innards. 

“Around three hours. I wanted to let you sleep, it’s been a long day. Time to get up now, Zorian and the others arrived through the Mirror a few minutes ago. Here, I also picked up a few books specifically on warding for you to look at later, when you’re more awake.”

Hugh took the proffered books, and wiggled around in the armchair, not quite finding the strength of will to leave the cushy chair so soon. “Do you have any more of that medicine you gave me earlier?”

Harry reached out to give him a hand. “Yeah. Are you still feeling nauseous?”

Hugh grinned. “No, but I bet the others will be.”

Harry snorted, an unexpected sound from such an accomplished mage. “I bet. There’s plenty of beds in the common rooms, they can have some time to lie down if they want.”

Harry led him back out of the library, back into the maze of staircases and hallways. This time, their journey was steep downwards, through spiralling pathways that didn’t feel like they could quite fit together logically. 

A crashing noise came from around the corner, and Harry switched into a slow jog. Following him, Hugh turned the corner, and saw a stone figure, almost the full width of the hallway, which had just punched through a door, taking a good chunk of the wall with him.

“... Artur?”

The figure turned to face them. The stone of the head melted down into the arms, revealing Artur’s face. An expression of controlled fury was easily legible, despite the mounting nausea Hugh could see in Artur’s face. Even though Artur’s eyes were locked onto Harry, Hugh still took a hurried step back as the giant’s arm crushed a nearby statue.

“Where is my son?”

Harry’s response was calm. “If my understanding of the Mirror’s functions is correct, he and Rain were likely transported to Rain’s home. From his accent, I think that’s likely to be in Canada or the United States, somewhere in North America. If you give me a minute, I can verify that.”

Artur’s expression cooled a little. “Please do.”

Harry took a step back away from the rubble around Artur’s stone form, and withdrew his wand from a pocket. He said some kind of strange incantation, and from behind a corner, Hugh saw a pure white light bathing the hallway.

“Find Godrick. Tell him that you’re a messenger from Harry. Ask him: Is he safe? Where is he?”

In an instant, the light was whisked away, moving faster than the eye could follow, and Harry relaxed. “I’ve never tested the speed of a patronus before, so this will be interesting. Given that Rain can move pretty fast, and they’ve had around twenty minutes in this world, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re on their way here already.”

Taking a cue from Harry’s attitude, Artur’s stone armour began to melt back into the walls and floor, and a moment later, his body - still massive, but much smaller than his armour - stepped out.

“So, this is yeh home?”

Harry nodded. “One of them. It’s my school - Skyhold is the closest comparison.”

Artur pursed his lips and looked around. “Nice enough place, I suppose.” He gestured at the cratered door from which he’d emerged. “Sorry about the wall.”

Harry made a dismissive noise. “Don’t worry about it, this is a spare reality anyway - but please don’t do that when we get back to my actual world. Where’s Zorian?”

As if on cue, Sabae and one of Zorian’s simulacra stepped over the wreckage left by Artur, and into the hallway. This simulacrum looked identical to the original Zorian, and the only reason Hugh could tell the difference was because of the strange semi-crystalline structure of its metallic bones.

Sabae dashed over to embrace Hugh, and the simulacrum walked over to Harry. The pair of them shared a series of odd glances and took a few steps away from the group - they were probably communing via some kind of mind magic.

A burst of light around the corner signalled the return of Harry’s patronus. At first, in an odd echoing facsimile of Harry’s voice: “Godrick says:” 

And then, Godrick’s voice, accent and all:

“Ah’m alright! Ye gave me quite a shock though. So this glowin’ thing is from Harry? I’m with Rain and Mackerel. We’re on our way to ‘England’, Rain says. Somewhere above the ‘Atlantic ocean’. Should be there in a few hours, he thinks.”

By Hugh’s side, Artur looked faint with relief, and he put an appreciative hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Thank ye.”

Alustin and Talia picked their way through the rubble, and Hugh rushed over to his girlfriend’s side. “Are you alright?”

She looked up at him, short red hair framing her freckled face, and sank into his arms, resting her head against his chest. “No, I feel terrible. We all do.”

As if to punctuate her words, Artur turned and retched, for all the world looking like his body was ridding him of the anxiety it had been holding in.

“Right, of course, the aether sickness. Harry, the pills?”

Harry reached a hand into his bag, and pulled out a small container and a water bottle. Hugh handed them to Talia, who took one, then passed them on to Alustin. Alustin, Hugh noted, didn’t actually take a pill - he surreptitiously palmed it into his storage tattoo when he thought no-one else was looking. 

Hugh shrugged internally. If Alustin wanted to keep distrusting their comrades after everything they’d been through together, then that was his choice. His paranoia, his untreated nausea, Hugh figured.

Talia looked up at Hugh, her face part nauseous and part confused. “How come you’re not getting aether sickness?”

Hugh choked out a laugh, and wrapped his arm around her slightly shivering shoulders. “I had my fair share of it already, thank you very much. I’ve just had five hours to get used to this world.”

Talia looked confused, but Hugh just jerked his head toward Harry, who was still silently communing with Zorian. “Some sort of… time magic? From him. He seems to have a trick for every situation, it’s pretty awesome.”

Talia sniffled. “Why did you wind up with him, instead of here with us?”

Hugh hesitated. “I’m not sure. Why did you end up here?”

Talia sniffled again. “Well, I wasn’t about to let him out of my sight,” she said, gesturing to Zorian, whose real body was now stepping over the rubble to join them. “Not when he could seize control of everyone else’s mind without me to stop him.”

Hugh ran his fingers through her hair, and spoke a little more softly into her ear. “It’s good you’re here to look after us, but I don’t think any of them mean us harm.”

She groaned and rested more of her weight on him. The aether sickness was clearly beginning to properly set in - Harry’s medicine would take the edge off eventually, but it had taken an hour to kick in for him. “You know, you could do with a little more paranoia. You should talk to Sabae’s grandmother about that, I’m sure she’d set you straight.”

The original Zorian turned to everyone, and clasped his hands together. He looked a little worse for wear, but nowhere near as bad as Hugh had felt. “Harry and I need to take a closer look at the Mirror. Please come with us - it’s safer if we stay together.”

Hugh reached out an arm to hold Sabae steady - she was shaking too, now, despite the medicine - and placed a series of crystals within reach for Artur and Alustin to lean on. Supporting four friends at once, he turned to walk back toward the Mirror.

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian

Without Rain here to refill his mana directly, Zorian was finally feeling the full consequences of being on an unfamiliar world.

It did not feel good.

The energies of his soul were twisting and churning, struggling to stay functional in the roiling mess of magic that was Harry’s world as it absorbed and processed the ambient mana around him. As soon as he’d noticed the changes, he’d dedicated a simulacrum to resting and trying to calm his soul - the same as he’d done upon returning to his own world from inside the Sovereign Gate, when he’d… returned… to his original body. It was helping, but he could still feel the strain as he maintained his five simulacra and began to investigate the Mirror in earnest - carefully, this time.

From inside the Mirror’s vast summoned world, the Mirror itself looked much the same. He still couldn’t make head or tail of its overall construction, but in concept, it was gradually becoming clear that it had more in common with the Sovereign Gate than with the Exile Splinter. Rather than separating existing realities from one another, the Mirror seemed to create realities - a power which he’d only seen once before.

Harry’s voice sounded in his mind, from where the boy was leaning on the wall, not far away. <My current hypothesis is that this reality is a transient one, created on our arrival to contain us, and I’ve seen a fair amount of evidence to support it. That would explain why the portraits report seeing people vanish around five hours ago - that’s the longest gap in time that can be crossed with the Time Turner, so from the Mirror’s perspective, there was no point creating this world earlier than that.>

Once again, despite the clear (apparent) lack of hostile intent, there was something off about Harry’s mental communication. Zorian couldn’t quite place it - at least not without breaking down Harry’s defences entirely, which this, however unsettling, didn’t quite warrant.

Zorian and his simulacra focused back on the Mirror. Now that he’d used the device to travel between realities, he could more keenly sense the internal connections between the planes. The Mirror served as a link between worlds, but it was apologetically refusing to allow him access to anything beyond the world in which they stood, or the labyrinth from which they’d entered.

<Harry, the Mirror is by far the best warded device I’ve ever seen, and yet the Exile Splinter managed to take you from your world. How?>

Harry had retrieved the small training cube Zorian had made for him from his bag, and was idly turning it over in his hands. <I was wondering the same thing. The Mirror clearly made this reality for us. We’re unlikely to be the first visitors, so there’s probably some other realities inside it. How could the Splinter take me from the true Earth, when that’s probably the one that’s most strongly protected?>

Zorian sensed the moment of realisation in Harry’s mind before the younger boy clamped down on his emotions.

Zorian gave the boy an exasperated look. <Care to share what you just figured out? We’re not going to make much progress if you keep hiding things from me.>

Harry grinned, and tossed the training cube into the air with one hand, before catching it. <I would like to tell you, actually. But there’s something we need to do first.>

<Oh yeah?> Zorian asked, mentally rolling his eyes. <What’s that?>

“First, we’re going to find a snake,” Harry said out loud. “And then we need to have a long conversation.”

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry

 

Harry’s mind was working in overdrive trying to solve the puzzle of collaborating with Zorian.

Zorian was almost exactly the kind of person Harry wanted to have by his side - calm, systematic, and absurdly skilled. His skill set covered a huge number of areas, including many in which Harry was in dire need of assistance - like travelling between planes, for instance.

That being said, there was a major reason why Harry was holding off on telling Zorian his current cache of hypotheses about how to reach Earth. It was because by their very nature, they involved some of the secrets Harry most wanted to keep… well, secret. Releasing the true nature of Voldemort’s current predicament into the wider world was a terrible risk, one which Harry was unwilling, and indeed in present circumstances unable, to take.

Since Rain and the others didn’t seem like they’d be a huge amount of help with crafting whatever portal was required to return home, he would be happily able to proceed without telling them much at all about the true nature of the ring on his finger. But trying to keep Zorian in the dark while still making use of his expertise in inter-planar travel was a non-starter.

There were a few options available to Harry which might serve as a tool to ensure Zorian’s honesty, cooperation and long-term discretion. The first which came to Harry’s mind was an Unbreakable Vow. While he didn’t know the spell himself, he did have access to the entirety of the Hogwarts library, and here there was no one stopping him from waltzing around the restricted section as he pleased. However, Zorian didn’t seem like the type to agree to take an Unbreakable Vow to keep secret something which he hadn’t been told yet, so that idea was probably a non-starter.

There was another tool which came to mind, though. One designed, as far as Harry knew, for exactly this kind of purpose - enabling honest collaboration between two wizards who might otherwise be forced to plot against one another. Salazar Slytherin’s constructed language, in which Harry and Voldemort had exchanged their final honest words before their divergent value systems compelled them to pursue mutual annihilation.

Harry wasn’t completely certain how Parseltongue actually worked, despite his earlier tests on everything from pythons to carrots. Quirrell had certainly believed that it was impossible to lie in the snake-tongue, and despite his simulated minds which could fool Veritaserum and legilimency, Harry hadn’t managed to deceive the snake-tongue yet. So there was a good chance that Zorian would be compelled to speak the truth when speaking Parseltongue too.

Taking the form of a snake, via the Animagus process or otherwise, was insufficient to understand Parseltongue. As Quirrell had put it, that would have been a rather glaring hole in Salazar’s design. The mechanism was, as Harry understood it, that a parselmouth willed the snake-form listener to understand their words, and that this in some way acted as a key. How exactly that worked, Harry wasn’t sure - but given that Zorian could possess and control others, including animals, it seemed plausible that he would be able to take control of a snake, and through it, understand and respond to Harry’s words.

There were a number of risks in this plan, but as best Harry could see, the benefits massively outweighed them. If Harry and Zorian could speak honestly to one another, then they’d finally be able to really work together to unravel the puzzle of the Mirror, and perhaps collaborate in the long term to their mutual benefit. It would be a bit of a gamble, but if it paid off, the rewards would be commensurate with the risks.

This line of reasoning led Harry to appreciate that the Mirror had replicated Earth’s non-sapient life, and that Scotland had a single kind of native snake. Harry could only hope that the acromantula colony near Hogwarts  hadn’t eaten them all. So Zorian, two of his simulacra, and Harry set out to the Forbidden Forest to find a Scottish adder.

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian

They left most of the others behind in the Ravenclaw common room to lie down, along with a simulacrum - the one that was still entirely focused on calming the roiling energies of Zorian’s soul. Two of the other simulacra had headed south, to try to make contact when Rain and Godrick got within range of the telepathic relays. 

For an as-yet unclear reason, Harry and the original Zorian were combing a wide section of forest for snakes. A pair of simulacra were nearby, scanning the forest on either side. It took a surprisingly long time. Although the forests here were teeming with life, Zorian’s mind-sense mostly found field-mice, insects and a variety of birds.

In the end, Harry tapped Zorian on the shoulder as the two of them floated past the tree-trunks on a disc of force. “About a hundred and twenty metres in that direction, behind a small tree. There’s a long, slow-moving pattern of carbon. Is it a snake?”

Zorian moved their disc in that direction, and focused his mind in that area. Diving into the consciousness of the forest dwelling creature, he encouraged it to flicker out its tongue and taste the air.

<Yep, that’s an adolescent snake, recently hatched, I think. Nice catch.>

It was impressive that Harry’s affinity sense had this level of precision after only a week or so. Perhaps Zorian had been wrong to deem the affinities on Anastis an excessive risk…

Zorian mentally nudged the snake, and it dislodged itself from the rock on which it had been sunbathing, and began to move toward them. After a few seconds of disc-travel, it came into view - a small brown and white textured snake, perhaps half a metre long.

Although Zorian had seen himself from other eyes before, including snakes that he’d practised on while training to parse the Aranean memory-packages, it was still a little strange to see himself like this. From the snake’s eyes, Zorian and Harry both looked enormous. He reached out and mentally calmed the snake as it felt unstructured magic take hold of its form, lifting it into the air, and into Zorian’s outstretched hand. It nestled itself closer and coiled up, enjoying the warmth emitted from the bare skin. 

Zorian lowered them to the ground and dismissed the disc. <What now?>

Harry stepped back, and opened his mouth.

"Hsssss ssss sshsshssss," said Harry.

"Hsssss ssss sshsshssss," heard Zorian through his human ears.

“Can you underssstand me?” heard the snake nestled into Zorian’s sleeve.

And in that instant, Zorian felt something latch onto the surface of his soul. He instantly shed the snake-form, dropping it to the forest floor, but it wasn’t enough. A parcel of energy had traced his mental connection with the snake, and was searing a new pattern into Zorian’s soul - one which hadn’t been there before.

Two simulacra teleported in, seized Harry with unstructured telekinesis, and teleported him into the sky.

It didn’t help. The magic had taken hold. He might not have noticed it, if not for his experience infiltrating the Imperial Treasury with Zach and Quatatch-Ichl. Somehow, no matter where they fled with their loot, their pursuers had been able to track them down. In the end, with the old lich’s help, Zorian had discovered a tiny, near-invisible marker on his soul, placed by a divine artefact in the Treasury’s security system, which had led their pursuers to him. After that experience, he’d made sure to keep a close eye on his soul, and any modifications to it.

This felt… different. It wasn’t just a marker. It was binding him, constraining him in some way that he as yet couldn’t detect. 

Zorian reached out into the shared consciousness of his simulacra, who held Harry in a vice-like magical grip, hundreds of metres in the sky above the forest. Wind whipped at their clothes, and Harry’s wand and bag were already in the grip of one of the simulacra, seized with unstructured telekinesis the moment he had felt things going wrong.

<What have you done.>

Harry’s head was the only part of him that could still move - the others were held fast by Zorian’s magic. “It’s not an attack! It’s just a tool, so that you can talk to me and we can trust each other!” His voice was barely audible above the wind, but Zorian could have gleaned the meaning from his words regardless, given the mental pressure he was now exerting.

<You could have trusted me, instead of trying to cage my soul! That possibility is behind us, now.>

With that, Zorian attacked in earnest. Harry’s mind shield was oddly constructed, and undeniably strong for someone his age. But Zorian had every advantage, in terms of skill, raw strength and numbers. The mental feelers of two of his simulacra skittered over the surface of Harry’s mind, searching for weaknesses.

“Stop, Zorian, don’t make me do this!”

Zorian and his simulacra were unanimous.

<You decided you couldn’t trust us. Why would we trust you?>

Harry’s mind shield began to crumble under the strain of being attacked by two minds at once, and Zorian began to see snippets of what Harry was trying to hide. A flash of a long white-bearded male face, a young witch with chestnut curls reading a book by his side, a high-pitched laugh and a sensation of despair, an odd focus on the emerald stone embedded into one of Harry’s rings...

Why, Professor Quirrell, why?

But Zorian wasn’t in complete control, not yet, and in a fraction of a second one of his simulacra was torn apart from the inside, as the reinforcing carbon nanotubes wound around its bones wrenched themselves free and sliced through its ectoplasmic flesh. Threads began to unwind inside the other simulacrum too, tearing apart its body, but it responded in time, and protected its head with a powerful shield. Although its torso was shredded, the incredibly thin nanotube threads could only buffet at the outside of the shield, and he was able to exert enough pressure to hold the ones in his skull in place by brute force.

Through the single intact head that still floated in the sky by Harry’s side, Zorian and his copies redoubled their efforts. His other minds - the simulacrum by the mirror, and the two hovering above the English coast - joined in synchrony, and together they froze Harry’s mind and magic, piece by piece, until Harry was silent, staring out through eyes he was unable to move.

<Now, Harry, please explain exactly what you’ve done.>

Harry’s response was calmer, now that the power dynamics of their situation had become clear. 

<I have secrets.>

Zorian, back on the forest floor, still scouring his soul for other unwanted changes, gritted his teeth. <That is abundantly clear, and will soon no longer be the case.>

<No, I mean I have really really important secrets. ‘It might end the world if this gets out’ kind of secrets. And I am literally incapable of sharing those secrets unless I’m sure of certain things. I was hoping we could work on some of those important things together. You seem like a good person, you know.>

Now that Zorian was in full control, he could tell that Harry was telling the truth. Harry really had forcibly constrained Zorian’s soul in some kind of misguided attempt to simplify their collaboration and deepen their friendship. Even searching deeper, Zorian couldn’t find a single hint of animosity from the young wizard - Harry seemed to regard Zorian as a dear friend, despite hardly knowing him.

<Why didn’t you ask me first?>

<Because you would have said no. And there’s no way the two of us can work together in the long term without some way to trust each other. Am I wrong?>

Back on the forest floor, Zorian was examining the fragmented marker that was now inlaid into his soul. It seemed not to constrain the use of his magic, nor allow him to be externally tracked, like the soul marker from the Imperial Treasury. But then again, hidden functions were par for the course when it came to this sort of thing.

<What is this soul marker supposed to do?>

<Ah, so it came through as a modification to your soul? I guess that explains your reaction.> Zorian felt Harry wince internally. <I really am sorry about that. It’s supposed to act as a channel to let you understand Parseltongue. As a parselmouth myself, I can grant snakes the capacity to understand it. I’d speculated on how that might work, and I suppose we have our answer. Some kind of soul-magic. Unfortunate.>

<And why is that worth this - ah, you can’t lie in Parseltongue. Or at least, you think you can’t lie in Parseltongue.>

The simulacrum by Harry’s side had let most of its fractured metal skeleton fall hundreds of metres to the forest below, and new limbs of ectoplasm were slowly growing outward from the still-intact head. 

<Try it.>

<You mean, you want me to possess that snake again, allow it to talk to you? Do you think I’m an idiot?>

<You can see my thoughts, right? I’m almost certain that there will be no further effects on your soul.>

That was true - Harry’s mind was quite sure that whatever soul effects had occurred thanks to this odd snake interaction, there would be no more.

Zorian sighed. Whatever recklessness had possessed Harry to try this course of action, it was crystal clear in Harry’s mind that it had been in service of a greater, common goal. It would be foolish to throw that away, now that the risks had been taken - even if a better informed Zorian would have refused to even attempt this plan to begin with.

<Do NOT try anything like this again.>

Harry’s response was desperately trying to come off as diplomatic rather than smug. <If this works, I won’t have to.>

Zorian rolled his eyes, and the now re-formed ectoplasmic simulacrum teleported Harry back down to the ground - without relinquishing control over his muscles or magic.

Zorian’s mind roved through the nearby forest, searching for the snake that had sparked this altercation. Surprisingly, it hadn’t travelled far, and was nervously curled into a tree-root a metre or so from Zorian’s right foot. Reaching back into its mind, it became clear that it had quite enjoyed the experience of nestling up to Zorian’s hand, and of being part of a larger mind - but not the chaos that had come after. 

Zorian let out a small sigh. At least someone here trusted him.

The little snake was lifted into the air by telekinetic threads, and tucked itself back into Zorian’s sleeve. He turned to face Harry’s paralysed form, which the simulacrum was holding steady with one hand.

<Snakes can’t talk, Harry.>

<Just try it.>

Zorian instructed the snake to open its mouth, and hiss.

“I will be very annoyed if you do sssomething like that again.”

Zorian frowned internally. What he’d tried to say was that he would kill Harry if he did something like that again. Apparently, that would have been a lie.

He could feel Harry’s mental satisfaction. <See, there we have it. The beginning of a trusting relationship. Would you like to release my mouth so I can tell you some truths that have been a long time coming?>

Sensing no hint of hostility, Zorian relaxed his control over Harry’s mouth - although he still kept Harry’s magics tightly controlled. 

Harry began to hiss. “I intend you no harm, and do not foressssee these intentions changing. I will take no further actions which modify your sssoul without your express consent, and intend to ensure your sssafety in the vast majority of the futuresss I can imagine.”

Neither the simulacra nor the original’s ears could discern any meaning, but the brown-and-white patterned snake now tucked into Zorian’s sleeve heard each word. It was somehow using Zorian’s soul-marker as a key, and understood both the words and the absolute truth that Harry believed them.

“Now for the important ones.”

Harry continued hissing.

“If I tell you why I was taken from my world, can I trust you to keep it sssecret unless you believe that doing so would cause great harm, and that I would endorse the indiscretion? Know that I value the future of conscious life above all else.”

Zorian stood for a moment, thinking. Then, from his sleeve, came a short hiss:

“Yesss.”

“Can you also state that you mean me no harm, do not see this changing in nearly all possible futures unless you expect me to cause harm to you or yours, and will lend me your aid in my quest to ensure the safety of conscious life?”

Once again, Zorian stood quietly for a moment, before his snake-form agreed.

“Can you also state that you will keep all of my other secrets I tell you now, again, unless you believe I would endorse your indiscretion?”

Zorian agreed a third time.

Harry switched back to mental communication. <This ring is the temporarily transfigured and memory-wiped form of Lord Voldemort, the greatest dark wizard of my world. I must periodically sustain the transfiguration, or his form will return. In your terms, he is a lich, with a vast number of phylacteries, and is consequently immortal in the usual sense.>

Zorian leant back against a tree as Harry continued.

<Relatedly, I have some theories as to why the three of us were the ones taken by the Exile Splinter.>

Zorian tilted his head, looking oddly at Harry’s immobilised form. <Go on.>

<Rain is obvious - he produces and processes vast amounts of mana, and from what he’s said of his world, he appears to be specialised in that to an almost unheard of degree. If the Splinter had some fixed amount of strength it could exert, and wanted to seize the most mana-rich individual possible, Rain is a natural choice.>

<And me?>

<Well, you’re a bit trickier, and I’m less certain about you. The best I’ve got is your network of simulacra. If the Splinter performed some kind of search, then it’s far likelier to find you than it is to find anyone else, since there are so many of you running around. Besides, I’ve been meaning to ask - were any of your simulacra dungeon delving when you were taken?>

Zorian thought back to his meeting in Falkinrea, before he’d been taken. A pair of simulacra had been on a rather dangerous journey into the deeper dungeon, looking for deposits of crystallised mana now that he’d exhausted those on the surface level.

<... yes.>

<Right, that was probably a factor. Now, on to me. I was immediately confused when I realised how strong the two of you are. In a fair fight, either you or Rain would tear me apart in an instant, especially before the carbon affinity - which I couldn’t have obtained without both of you helping me. In terms of raw magical power, the disparity is even greater. So why was I taken alongside the two of you?> 

Harry didn’t sound humble, the  way someone else might have sounded saying the same things. Instead, he was simply stating what he perceived to be a fact.

<Besides, your world was unprotected, Zorian - there was nothing stopping the Splinter from taking you. Rain’s world was protected, but those protections had been ruptured - by the Maelstrom, he tells us. So how was I taken, from inside the last great creation of Atlantis, which has been protecting its children from the harsh multiverse since time immemorial?>

<Get to the point, Harry.>

<Right, sorry. It was seeing the fiendfyre that helped me figure it out, in the end. I don’t think the Splinter took me at all. I think it took Voldemort. I just happened to be wearing him on my finger.>

There was a pause before the puzzle clicked for Zorian, and he started to fill in the missing details:

<Right, that’s why you think the fiendfyre could track you - it was trying to free its master, or something like that. And the Mirror couldn’t protect Voldemort because he created the fiendfyre spell and imbued it with his magic, and for some reason it was outside the Mirror and its protections, in the labyrinth proper…>

Despite his frozen musculature, Harry’s excitement was clear from his thoughts. <Exactly! One of Voldemort's last acts was to send the fiendfyre into the Mirror. That’s how the Splinter must have taken him, and by extension, me, and that’s why I’m here!> Harry’s mind went on a tangent, imagining alternate possibilities. <Man, you two are so lucky it didn’t take him a few hours earlier…>

Zorian absentmindedly raised a hand to scratch at his neck, and the snake slid out of his sleeve to coil itself under his shirt, placidly resting on his collarbone.

<If the Exile Splinter could only take Voldemort by following the trace connecting his fiendfyre spell to your ring, and therefore, to you, then how are we going to get back to your world… ah, his phylacteries.>

<That’s what I was thinking too. You can see why I didn’t want to share my thoughts without some degree of guarantee you wouldn’t share them widely. If news got out on my planet about Voldemort’s hundreds of phylacteries - we call them horcruxes there, though - well, you can see why that would be an issue.>

<You could have just asked> Zorian grumbled, although he internally agreed that he might have tried something similar if he was in Harry’s position. Somewhat satisfied by both Harry’s explanation, and the guarantees he’d given about meaning Zorian no harm, his simulacrum withdrew from Harry’s mind. In the end, he hadn’t delved too deep into the young wizard’s memories. Whatever had happened in the last few minutes, Harry was a friend, and crushing a friend’s mind to extract their innermost thoughts was not something Zorian did lightly.

Now released, Harry stretched his shoulders, and hissed in Parseltongue once again. “And all the thoughtsss I just mentally transferred to you are true, to the best of my knowledge.”

Harry continued. “I’m really sssorry about your sssimulacra, by the way. There are almost no futures where I expect to ever do that again. I hope it didn’t hurt.”

Zorian grimaced, and the simulacrum next to Harry answered for him. “We don’t feel pain in the usual sense, but I certainly didn’t appreciate it.”

Zorian turned to face Harry. “You do know what this means, though?”

Harry looked up with surprise, clearly picking up on the serious intonation in Zorian’s voice. “Why, what does it mean?”

“It means,” Zorian said, gently lifting the Scottish adder from where it was nestled up against his collarbone back into his sleeve, “that I need to carry around a snake everywhere now.”

Chapter 14: Morning

--------------------------------------------------------

Rain

 

The steel supports resting on Rain’s shoulders vibrated gently with the rhythm of his steps. Following their rough schematics, Godrick had done some impressive manufacturing. Steel moved like water under the young mage’s hands. Despite the strange aether sickness that had started to set in partway through, Godrick had done beautiful work, with speed and skill that would have made Tallheart rumble in stoic approval.

With the help of a whiteboard he’d found in a nearby schoolyard, Rain had spent a few minutes explaining the general mechanics of airfoils. Godrick had looked on in rapt attention, and asked a number of questions that required some differential equations to answer - which Rain was embarrassed to admit that he’d never fully learned. Still, together they’d come up with a design, which - well, it wouldn’t win any prizes. But it would, he hoped, get them to England.

The teenage steel-mage was resting now, curled up with Mackerel in the cramped rear of their improvised aircraft, behind where Rain was walking on air.

The vessel’s design was absurd, and any Earth-engineer would have been totally perplexed by it. It most closely resembled a swept-wing fighter, with two notable differences. 

First, it was composed entirely of steel, scavenged from Canadian street-signs and cars, and had no windshield, nor windows. From the inside, Rain, Godrick and Mackerel were nearly completely blind. Their only connections to the outside world were the GPS device Rain held in his left hand, the standard magnetic compass he held in his right, and his Detection aura - which currently showed a few hundred metres of empty air surrounding their craft in every direction.

The second difference which would have confused an Earth-engineer was that there were no obvious engines, nor propellers. For a longer journey, Rain would have wanted to build those in, but for a quick jaunt across the Atlantic, and without having to worry about leviathans or whales, human-generated lift was more than sufficient.

A series of quick experiments before they left had confirmed a few things Rain had already guessed. It turned out that Airwalk had no height limit here, the way it would have on Ameliah’s homeworld. The remnants of the System that were probably governing his skill use here seemed to have given up on enforcing quite a few of the restrictions that were normally present - that was something to look into in more detail later.

And, crucially, Airwalk appeared to more or less entirely ignore Newton’s Third Law (unless the reaction force was acting on magical particles, or something). The skill functioned by creating a small plane of force beneath his feet. Rain wasn’t sure this was exactly how it would work back on the System’s world, but here, it appeared that the planes of force were stationary relative to the air they were in. 

As a result, they’d settled on a simple design. The craft (Rain was provisionally calling it ‘The Inconceivable II - 2 Inconceivable 2 Furious’) was the shape of a tiny fighter jet - less than five metres long. Apart from a series of strong steel struts connecting the walls to each other, it was entirely hollow - no engines, no controls. The thrust came from Rain’s ‘seat’, which was an odd contraption. A thick steel ring was fitted around each of his arms, as close to the shoulder as possible, snugly moulded to fit with his armour. Each steel ring was attached via a lattice of struts to the frame of the aircraft. The idea was that he would slip his arms into the rings, and lift the weight of the entire craft with Airwalk. Since the skill ignored Newton’s third law, seemingly pushing off some magically-created barrier, he didn’t need to be in contact with the air outside in order to generate thrust. Instead, he could simply sit inside, run as if on a treadmill made of air, and the entire vessel would be propelled along with him.

The whole structure, including his passengers, amounted to a few tonnes of steel. To handle this, Rain had shifted a good portion of his stat-boost from the rings Tallheart had made for him into strength. This made raising the whole structure onto his shoulders only a minor strain. Once Godrick and Mackerel were on board, he’d started off slowly, lifting the whole thing vertically upwards to around five hundred metres above the city. Then, he’d started running forwards, and let it glide for a bit to test the wings. Godrick’s work was rock solid, and although the wings flexed an alarming amount, they took the craft’s weight. Satisfied, Rain had started running again, picking up speed as he went. 

Without any real control surfaces, keeping the vessel pointing in the right direction was a bit of an effort. Since he was - by design - slightly ahead of the centre of mass of the vessel, that meant that if he began to exert force in a certain direction, the ship’s own drag would pull it into the right orientation.

Rain had long since settled into a routine. Since Airwalk only cared about the velocity of the air inside the vessel, running at a steady pace inside would correspond to a gradually increasing velocity outside, until the air resistance came to equal the force he exerted by running. With the remainder of his stat-boosts in Clarity, he could comfortably pour mana into Energy Well to keep his stamina at acceptable levels.

According to the apparently-still-functional satellites and his battery-operated GPS device, this method was quite fast. Thanks to Velocity, they’d been cruising fairly comfortably for close to 20 minutes at around 800 km/h when something far faster passed directly through the walls of their craft, coming to a rapid stop in front of Godrick.

“I’m a messenger from Harry. Are you safe? Where are you?”

The voice was odd and hollow, and the light emitted from the entity was silvery and soft. Craning his neck, Rain caught a glimpse of what was undeniably Harry’s patronus. 

That was a relief. Rain could still sense his connection to the defensive aura anchors he’d given Harry, but it was reassuring to hear the boy’s voice out loud, even if it was being spoken by an oddly spectral copy.

Godrick was a little more surprised, and jumped in alarm, almost hitting his head on a steel strut. Mackerel, for his part, was fluttering about at the first sign of activity in a while, and immediately passed through the patronus’ arm. Rain wasn’t great at sensing the odd little spellbook’s emotions yet, but he got the feeling that Mackerel was somewhat disappointed that the spirit-form of the patronus couldn’t be nibbled on.

“Ah’m alright!” Godrick rubbed his head where he’d narrowly missed the steel strut. “Ye gave me quite a shock though. So this glowin’ thing is from Harry? I’m with Rain and Mackerel. We’re on our way to ‘England’, Rain says. Somewhere above the ‘Atlantic Ocean’. Should be there in a few hours, he thinks.”

In an instant, the patronus-light disappeared, moving faster than a typical human eye could follow. 

I’m lucky my Perception-boosting accolades still work here, otherwise I would barely have been able to see that thing move. 

According to the GPS and Rain’s memory of world maps, the tip of their vessel was pointed fairly exactly at the geographic centre of England. The patronus-spirit, presumably on its way to return to Harry, had departed through the left hand side of the floor of the nose of the Inconceivable II. Its path angling downward made sense - they were still over four thousand kilometres away from their destination, so taking a shortcut through the Earth’s crust made sense - at least if you were an incorporeal spirit-messenger-thing. 

The more interesting observation was that the patronus had moved slightly to the left, relative to their plane. If it was returning to Harry - and Rain couldn’t think of any other competing possibilities - then that meant Harry was probably further north than England. Scotland, maybe? Or Scandinavia? 

It made sense to take that information into account. Rain leant forward, braced himself against the force-platforms conjured by Airwalk, and began to run in an ever so slightly different direction. 

The ship shuddered around him, the steel of the struts barely withstanding his at-present monstrous strength. As if liquid, new struts formed to reinforce the weak points near the wings - courtesy of the onboard mage-engineer. Settling into the new spirit-guided trajectory, the plane soon resumed its smooth glide. 

Godrick, now awake, stretched his arms out as far as he could manage in the cramped space. There was barely room to lie down, let alone to stand. He flicked on the little flashlight Rain had found for him before they set off. Rain might not need much light to see, but that wasn’t universal. “So how did you say your aura anchors work again?”

Rain scratched his chin. “So basically, they work at pretty much any range, and let me project my auras as if I were there. Apparently, they seem to work across labyrinth boundaries, as well as through the Mirror. That’s pretty bizarre, honestly, since they don’t even work across lair-boundaries on my world - not Earth, I’ve got to come up with a better name for it. Um, I’m going to call it… Ameliah’s world, for now. The lair-boundary thing might be a deliberate System limitation? Not sure. Oh, and the System is what makes magic work on my world, by the way. Ameliah’s world, I mean. That’s going to take some getting used to”

Godrick nodded, clearly curious, and held up the Force Ward anchor Rain had given him. “And the magic yeh use to protect people, this is an anchor for that?”

Rain nodded. “Keep that really close to you, by the way. If this whole ship breaks apart - not that I don’t trust your craftsmanship, it’s been incredible so far - but just in case, it’s very important that you’re holding onto that so that I can make sure you’re safe as we fall into the ocean.”

Godrick tucked the tiny crystal back into the steel compartment he’d fashioned for it on his belt.

“It’s really great having you around, yeh know. Me and my friends, we’re always trying to keep each other safe, but some of them… they’re a bit reckless.”

Rain thought of Sabae diving through the air across the nose of one of the monstrous frog-trolls, and of Talia’s grin eerily lit by her dreamfire as she sent it surging toward the phoenix, and couldn’t bring himself to disagree. 

“I mean, I love ‘em, of course, and my father and Alustin are great protectors too, but I worry about my friends. With you around, it’s a lot easier, knowing there’s someone who can keep ‘em safe in a way that I can’t.”

Rain shook his head. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Godrick. You’re quick on your feet, you’re resourceful, flexible, and strong. And most importantly, you’re kind to people and look out for them. Your friends are lucky to have you around. And besides, whatever happens, you’re my friend too, now. There’s no way I’m going home without giving you a full set of ward anchors to keep on you.”

The words were out of Rain’s mouth before he had fully thought them through, but as he did, he realised they were true. Even though he did want to get back to Ameliah and Tallheart and the rest of Ascension, Godrick and his young friends had quickly wormed their way into his affections, and it wouldn’t feel right leaving them without giving them as many protections as he could. 

Godrick looked awe-struck by the offer, and didn’t say anything. It gave Rain an opportunity to broach a topic he’d been meaning to bring up for a while.

“By the way, about Alustin… I think you might want to keep an eye on him.”

Godrick creased his eyebrows. “What do ye mean?”

Rain tilted his head to one side noncommittally. “I don’t want to be unfair. I mean, everyone has secrets.”

Godrick looked increasingly alarmed. “What do you mean?”

“Alright, cards on the table, I was never any good at this ‘veiled hint’ business anyway. I think Alustin is a nice enough guy, and if I’d only spoken to him I wouldn’t think twice about trusting him. But Zorian is a mind mage, and he’s told us… some things, about the inside of Alustin’s head that I think you should probably know.”

Rain sighed. “Godrick, Alustin hates Havath. Unless something seriously changes about his mindset, he’s not going to rest until the whole city is burnt to the ground. Every building rubble, every person dead. And he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get there, including sacrificing people he cares about.”

Godrick looked incredulous. “He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t…”

It was a long time before Godrick spoke again. “Is it possible Zorian is wrong, or lying?”

Rain looked around the cabin. The interior was dim, lit only by their little flashlight. The struts flexed slightly with each one of his steps, pushing the aircraft closer to their destination.

Rain’s eyes eventually moved back to meet Godrick’s again. “... Maybe. I hope so. But I doubt it. I’d trust Zorian with my life.”

Godrick sighed. “I mean, I knew he had history with ‘em, but this… Did Zorian tell you anythin’ else?”

Rain thought back to the forested glade where they’d first interrogated the enigmatic paper mage. “Alustin does care about you. But he has a lot of secrets. I don’t mean that you shouldn’t care about him. He loves your father like a brother, and loves the four of you like his children. Just that… keep an eye on him, alright? I don’t want you to be one more thing he leaves behind.”

Godrick leant back onto the juddering steel fuselage. “Ahm sorry, I need some time to think about that.”

They moved in silence for a while. Without the vast increases to his stats from Tallheart’s rings and the constant flow of mana becoming stamina thanks to Energy Well, his legs would have been tired out and cramped beyond belief by now. As it was, he felt like he could do this forever.

A few minutes later, Godrick broke the silence. “So how come you’re not feeling as rubbish as I am? Is it cause this is your world to begin with?”

Rain almost shrugged, before remembering his shoulders were currently controlling three tonnes of steel. “I’ve been wondering that myself. When we arrived on your world, on Anastis, I mean, I needed to make pretty substantial modifications to the intake scoops that supply my soul with essence. Now that we’re here, I’d guess that your sickness is your soul responding to an unfamiliar type of essence, only automatically, instead of the manual way I do it.”

Craning his neck back to check that Godrick was still listening, Rain saw him looking up with a kind of reverence reminiscent of Tarny or Vanna’s early days, before Ascension.

“Yeh mean you can just… reach inside and modify your aetherbody directly?” 

Rain made a bit of a face. “It took a lot of practice, but yeah, to some degree. Since my soul is pretty much entirely composed of essence from Ameliah’s world, at least almost completely…?”

Rain trailed off. He’d assumed for a long time that everything beyond his physical form had either been created by the System on his arrival on Ameliah’s world, or built by him since then. But Harry was originally from Earth, and he clearly had a soul too, along with whatever strange constructs the Atlanteans had woven around it. That meant there was a possibility that Rain himself had also had some kind of soul construct before he’d been taken from Earth…

“Underneath all that, I think there might be some kind of remnant of the ‘original soul’ from being born here. That might be why I’m still absorbing essence without any issues? I’m just guessing though, I’d need a bit more time to look into it more closely.”

In the corner of Rain’s eye, Godrick sat up slightly (as much as the fuselage would allow), stretched his limbs a little, and looked up at Rain. 

“Who’s Ameliah?”

Rain took a deep breath, and let it out again. “She’s my best friend and partner, from back home. There are so many reasons I need to get back there, but she’s the one I think about the most.”

Before his time practising soul-reading with Sana, he probably wouldn’t have noticed anything in Godrick’s expression. Godrick’s soul, however, was fairly easy to read, and the disappointment and mild embarrassment was clear as day.

Apparently, access to this additional information was insufficient to stop Rain from putting his foot in his mouth:

“I mean, you seem like a really lovely guy, and you’re very attractive, of course, but yeah, I’m very happily taken. Also, I’m pretty sure I’m a bit old for you, not that I’ve asked your age, and that’s not even accounting for the accelerated time I’ve spent in my soul. Besides, I’m sure there are heaps of other awesome guys around…”

I have GOT to get better at thinking before I start talking…

This time, to say that Godrick’s soul flashed in ‘mild embarrassment’ would be the understatement of the century.

“I’m sure she’s lovely,” Godrick managed to squeak out before changing the subject. “How long til we get to England?”

Rain’s cheeks flushed a little, but he was grateful for the alternate topic of conversation. “I’ve changed our heading slightly to go to Scotland, actually, based on where Harry’s messenger came from. It’s a country just to the north. We’re at a steady pace of 800 kilometres an hour, so it should be around six hours before we arrive. You should try to get some more rest. It’s been a while since you’ve had time to sleep.”

Godrick nodded, and their journey subsided back into silence.

After half an hour, he turned back to see that Godrick was once again asleep. That was good. He needed his rest, and even though this was a lot less comfortable than a typical airliner, resting here was still better than nothing.

The GPS said they still had more than half the journey left. That meant he had time for a conversation. He felt for his aura anchors.

It took a minute for a response to come through - apparently it was the middle of the night back home, oops - but the return signal did come, in the form of the standard collection of rocks being shifted on one of his Detection boards he’d left with Ascension.

I’m here, Rain. Are you safe?

He felt a lump in his throat. She’s ok. She’s alright. You can stop worrying. For now.

I’m safe. We’re in a strange empty world. It’s either the one I was born in, or an almost exact copy. I got separated from most of the others I’ve been travelling with. I’m in a makeshift aircraft with Godrick and Mackerel - the living crystal spellbook I told you about.

There was a long pause as Ameliah received and decoded the message from the pulses of light he was sending through the Radiance anchor. This wasn’t a particularly fast form of communication, but it was immeasurably better than not being able to talk to his loved ones at all.

Then Ameliah’s response came through:

We’re sitting tight without you, although Velika keeps pushing for attacking the Bank. We’re lucky she’s so scrambled, we might not be able to keep her in check otherwise. Dozer misses you, of course. He wants me to tell you to be safe, and to make sure you keep everything clean without him.

Rain smiled sadly. His soul-link with Dozer was still as strained as it had been on Anastis. He still felt like he might be able to summon the essence slime to him if he tried, but no other signals were making it through. It was as if he was used to communicating by wobbling one end of a jump-skipping rope in particular patterns, but he’d moved too far away, and now the skipping rope was far too taut, and he couldn’t wobble it without ripping it out of the other person’s hands.

Before leaving Anastis, they’d spent some time going through Kanderon’s vast library. Although they’d barely made a dent, the books Rain had managed to memorise still numbered in the tens of thousands. Even with the accelerated time in his soul, he hadn’t had a chance to read many of them in detail - only to go through and sort them into approximate categories based on their titles.

It appeared that they’d largely scanned a section of the library which was focused on Anastan magical basics. It made sense, since they’d started right near the entrance, but elementary affinity spellforms and cantrips were by far the most numerous kind of book now stored in his mind. Still, going based on titles alone, there were 5361 books that didn’t fit into that broad category. Some of those were historical, going into detail on the brutal conflicts between the great powers of Anastis. Some of them Rain couldn’t easily categorise - they were in an unrecognisable language, or had a title that was too vague. 

A hundred or so of them, however, he’d identified as technical manuals. They set out the design of magical techniques that seemed like they would work on any world. Rain had skimmed over a few of them, and had soon found one that fit his criteria.

From here on another planet, there wasn’t much he could do to physically protect Ascension, or to keep Ameliah safe, besides continuing to shelter them with his aura anchors. But that didn’t mean there weren’t other ways to help…

He began to flicker Radiance to transmit his thoughts back to Ameliah:

This is the schematic for some manoeuvres used by one of the most feared earth-mages on Anastis. They sound like they take a lot of energy, but with Tallheart’s rings, I think you should be able to manage it, if you add Stone Swimming to your geomancer build.

Alright, here’s the first one - it should be fairly basic. It’s supposed to be used when diving through stone or earth like a liquid. Normally, as far as I understand it, geomancers move by using Rock Pull to shunt themselves toward a mass of rock, then relying on the buoyancy of stone to push them back up. The idea in this book is to build on that by forcing apart the rock in your direction of travel to create a cavity. The difference in pressure in front and behind you should add a ton to your speed, if you can manage it carefully - please be very careful. Plus, you’ll be able to do it in any direction, since it doesn’t depend on pulling yourself towards rock.

Get that? Cool, here’s the second one. It’s a bit trickier, but the book says it’s really useful when the rock is wetter than usual…

With Godrick and Mackerel resting quietly behind him, Rain ran through the skies of Earth. While part of his mind directed the methodical movement of his legs beneath him, another part transmitted whatever lore he could to Ameliah, back home. Despite the three tonnes of steel resting on his shoulders, he felt lighter than he had in a long time. 

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Harry

 

Four figures had walked into the Forbidden Forest - Harry, Zorian, and two of his simulacra. 

Three returned. Harry had torn one of the simulacra to shreds in a last-ditch attempt to keep Zorian out of his mind.

The first time Harry had met Alastor Moody, the grizzled old auror had decided to test his mind-shield. Harry had barely managed to resist the crushing weight and sudden fury of Moody’s Legilimency. 

He could still hear the warning Moody had given him afterward: 

“Voldie isn’t like any other Legilimens in recorded history. He doesn’t need to look you in the eyes, and if your shields are that rusty he’d creep in so softly you’d never notice a thing.”

In the end, the resonance between their magics meant that Voldemort had never tried to break into Harry’s mind directly. Now, for the first time, Harry had some idea of what Moody might have meant. Zorian’s probes had sliced their way through his Occlumency barriers like they weren’t even there, paralysing his mind and body alike with ease. And then, while the wind whipped at Harry’s frozen form, Zorian had looked through Harry’s memories at his leisure.

It was only the Parseltongue truths Harry had extracted from Zorian afterward that prevented this day from being an utter failure. Despite the ‘betrayal’ Harry had offered him by failing to explain the possible drawbacks of Parseltongue, it didn’t seem that Zorian bore him much ill will. 

Now that Zorian had had a chance to look at Harry’s deepest secrets, continuing collaboration was actually quite an endorsement. There were probably a lot of people that would try to kill him if they could see inside his head.

The trio exited the forest, and walked back onto the grassy lawn surrounding the Hogwarts castle. Simulacrum One (previously Simulacrum Two - he’d taken the number after Harry had lacerated his colleague) had taken custody of Zorian’s little Scottish adder. The simulacrum was giving it gentle pats, and the snake looked quite satisfied with the attention.

Zorian himself looked to be in oddly good spirits. 

“So, what now? I figure we should get some sleep?” Harry gestured at the sun, which was presently setting over the lake.

“I don’t know,” responded the simulacrum, “Zach here still seems pretty lively.”

Zorian scoffed, and Harry could see that he was rolling his eyes. 

“C'mon! He’s such a Zach, isn’t he? This brave little snake didn’t even run away from the teleportations earlier. Did you, Zach?” This simulacrum ticked the underside of the snake’s chin. Probably responding to some kind of mental nudge, the little snake - now ‘Zach’, apparently - shook its head.

“Sleep is a good idea,” agreed Zorian. “My other simulacra are positioned along the coast, to the north and south. They should hopefully be able to make contact with Rain if he’s off course, and guide him here.”

Harry nodded, and pulled Zorian’s training cube from one of his pockets. The little device was still frustrating him. The cantrips Hugh had shown him had a lot of promise, and Harry had hoped that the flexible use of magic through them might help him channel his mana at will. Still, he hadn’t made any progress. The little metal cube stubbornly stayed a dull grey in his hands.

“How’s that going, by the way?” Zorian asked.

Harry shook his head. “Still nothing.”

“Ah well, maybe one day.” Zorian didn’t look all that disappointed.

This was the first time Harry had felt… well, safe, in a while. Although there was still the drive to find his way through the Mirror back to his world, at least this false Hogwarts didn’t seem too dangerous, in contrast to Anastis, and in even starker contrast to the labyrinth.

They found the others where they had left them. Hugh had been with Harry for the extra five hours he’d experienced earlier today courtesy of the time turner, and had wisely used a few of them to get some rest. As a result, he was the one standing guard in the Ravenclaw dormitory tower. The fist-sized crystal octahedrons orbiting his shoulders looked out of place amidst the soft upholstery. 

The beds here were made for people, not for mountains, so Artur had pulled two of them together, end-to-end. Combined, they comfortably fit his seven-foot-tall form. Talia and Sabae had found a bunk-bed by the window, and Alustin had rolled off his bed, onto the floor. He was still tangled in the sheets, and was snoring softly. Apart from Hugh, everyone was fast asleep.

“Zorian, can your simulacra stay awake while you sleep?”

“Yeah, although I should recreate some of them when I wake up, so they’re fresh. When Rain comes back, I’ll be able to make a lot more again too. For now, time for some rest.”

Harry and Zorian tucked themselves into two spare beds. The mattress and bed sheets were a welcome change from the sleeping bag he’d used on Anastis, and the quieting charm on the bed frame helped keep Alustin’s snores at bay. 

Sleep came quickly.

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian

 

Zorian felt a weight fall onto his stomach.

“Morning, morning, MORNING!”

He sat bolt upright.

Talia rolled off his bed and strolled over to the traitor simulacrum that had clearly put her up to this. The pair of them shared a laugh, and Zorian let out a long-suffering sigh. 

“You taught her Ikosian?”

The simulacrum shrugged. “One word of it, yeah. Next time don’t make us stay awake for thirty hours in a row.”

Zorian grimaced. Despite all their advancement in mind-melding, his simulacra still had a streak that they called ‘dryly comedic’ and that he called ‘very annoying’. If anything, without the threat of the impending collapse of the time loop, it had gotten even worse. Their collective desire to get back home kept them from being too obnoxious… but only just.

Most of the others were already awake, but in fairness, they’d gone to sleep a while earlier too. The morning sun was peeking through cracks in the thick curtains, which must have been drawn closed to let him sleep. 

As a first priority, Zorian reviewed the memory packets from his simulacra. One of them, to the north, had nothing to report, but the one to the south had made contact with Rain and Godrick around half an hour ago. At their… significant speeds, that meant they would be here any time now. 

Zorian pulled his legs out of the sheets and stretched. He finished stretching just in time for Harry to re-enter the room and toss him an apple. The young wizard leant against the door-frame and took a bite of his own apple.

“You know, I never thought I’d get the opinion of reality itself on whether or not apples are sapient, but I’m glad to have it. Unlike humans and other sapient species, all food seems to have been replicated in this world. The kitchens and larders downstairs appear to be fully stocked. I will say, at this point I’m of half a mind to head over to the Edinburgh zoo and see if orangutans got copied in, and if so, where the Mirror draws the line.”

The apple was crisp and delicious, a great refinement on the mealy, sour version common to his world, and as he ate it, Zorian realised how hungry he was. “Alright, let’s be outside on the grass for Rain’s arrival. They should be here any minute now. Then it’s breakfast-time.”

Leaving the whole room in quite a mess, their group traipsed down the stairs, following Harry through the winding stairwells and hallways, and eventually piled out onto the sunny lawn. 

Zorian wasn’t really sure what to expect from Rain’s arrival. His simulacrum above the coast hadn’t seen Rain at all - just made contact via the telepathic relay, so he didn’t really know how Rain was travelling. Back in Kanderon’s library on Anastis, he’d seen Rain move quite fast - fast enough to get across oceans? Maybe. But that approach wouldn’t work particularly well with passengers, and there was no way Godrick or Mackerel would be able to keep up on their own.

A strange contraption came into view, maybe three hundred metres above the treetops, coasting on the air in an almost bird-like way. It reminded him of the airship he and Zach had stolen to get to Blantyrre - the Pearl of Aranhal - except much, much smaller, with two stubby fixed wings attached to a thin cylinder of metal. As he watched from the lawn, the wings began to reshape themselves. That was probably Godrick’s work, if he was inside that thing. The rear sections of the wings splayed out, making the vessel far less aerodynamic, and it shed speed quickly. 

As they watched, it came to a steady stop above the castle, gradually tilting until it looked as if it were suspended by the nose from an invisible string.

Rain was close enough now that Zorian could message him directly. <Hullo. What’s holding that thing up?>

<Zorian!> It was easy to sense the relief in Rain’s opening message. Zorian had to admit he felt the same way, because seconds later, Rain’s Essence Well reached him. Vast quantities of mana washed over him, sweeping away the latent headaches and nausea from this new world. 

<Uh, I’m holding this up. As in, with my shoulders. There’s no-one under us, is there?>

With… his shoulders?

<No, you’re clear to descend.>

With that confirmation, the strange vessel slowly descended, moving at what looked like a brisk walking pace. Before long, it reached the ground, and the nose of the vessel dropped down to the grass. 

There didn’t appear to be a door, or any way in or out, but that didn’t deter Artur. He strode across the grass like a man possessed, and gestured with a hand. In response, a huge chunk of the steel wall of the vessel was ripped away and sent bouncing along the lawn. 

A dizzy-looking Godrick stumbled out, and was instantly wrapped in a bear-hug from his father. Some whispered words were exchanged, but Zorian couldn’t hear them, and he wasn’t about to use his mind-magic to intrude on a private moment like that.

Then came Mackerel, who fluttered through on wings of crystal. He dashed over to Hugh, and flew in a few tight circles around his chest before moving on to greet Sabae and Talia. Zorian got the feeling that if the book could have purred, it would have.

A moment later, Rain stepped out of the hole Artur had torn. He looked a lot less tired than Zorian expected, for someone who had just lifted a few tonnes of metal across an ocean. 

As soon as he set foot on the grass though, it was clear there was something wrong. There was a strange twitch in Rain’s eye movements, as if he found it painful to look up. 

Hugh ran over to him, and had a reassuring hand on his shoulders when Zorian got there. 

“It feels like… there’s something…” Rain shook his head, blinked twice, then squared his jaw and stared straight ahead. 

“What is it?”

Rain gestured forwards, in the general direction of the Hogwarts castle. “Something’s weird. All I see is a big field and a hill, and the feedback from Detection is all scrambled somehow. Am I missing something here?”

Zorian turned slowly. “... Harry?”

The young wizard looked as if he’d just been told he’d accidentally killed someone’s pet. “Um, sorry. I forgot you’d probably be a muggle. There’s some kind of attention ward across this whole place - on most magical locations, actually - that stops muggles from seeing it or trespassing.”

Rain moved his head from side to side without moving his eyes, as if he was forcing himself to take in the sights in front of him. He was muttering to himself. “It’s on my soul. How… why…?”

Talia elbowed Harry in the ribs. “What’s a muggle? Is that some kind of slur?”

“Oh no, nothing like that. Uh, I mean, actually maybe? It means someone from my world who’s not a witch or a wizard. My adoptive parents are muggles. My society doesn’t tend to treat them very well.” That garnered a few odd looks. “Which, to be clear, is terrible, and on my list of things to reform.”

Zorian opted to send his next question to Harry on a more private channel. <Harry, did you do something to Rain’s soul?>

“No!” <I mean, no! I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t even know HOW to do that. I can say that in parseltongue if you want.>

<That’s not the whole story, is it?> It was clear once again that Harry was keeping something back. Now that Zorian had seen Harry’s mind from the inside as well as the outside, it was much easier to tell when the boy was trying to avoid telling the whole truth.

<Look, this is going to sound bad. I think almost everyone on my home planet - everyone except witches and wizards - had their souls shackled somehow by Atlantis, to the point where they can barely even look at magic. At least, that makes sense based on what I read in Galvachren’s Guide.>

Zorian looked at Rain. The man’s face was calm, and his eyes were shut.

Ten suspenseful seconds later, Rain opened his eyes. This time, there was a steely-looking glint to them, and he walked over to where Harry was standing.

“I’ve just identified a part of my paling which was interfering with my sensory input, and had to rebuild it from scratch. Harry, did you know this was going to happen?”

“I may have had a suspicion.”

“Next time, you tell me your suspicions, alright?” Rain’s hand was on Harry’s shoulder. Somehow, he managed to make it seem reassuring rather than threatening. “As long as we’re here together, we’re a team. There’s no way we’re going to get through this if we have to watch our own backs.”

Harry nodded. “I’ll tell you next time.”

Zorian was caught with a strange impulse. “Why don’t you say that in Parseltongue, Harry?”

The others looked perplexed, but Harry sighed and looked up at Zorian. “Alright.”

Then he hissed:

“The next time I know about special features of Rain’s soul that he is not aware of, I will tell him as soon as I safely can. I extend this promise to all others present here.”

The others looked doubly perplexed by the apparently sudden decision for Harry to start speaking in Snake, and then triply by Zorian’s apparent comprehension.

Through the snake sitting in his sleeve, Zorian confirmed the truth of Harry’s statement. “Alright! Breakfast time! Where are those larders you mentioned, Harry?”

A brief explanation later, Harry led them back into the castle, and down into a labyrinthine network of tunnels. Following Harry, they ducked into a side tunnel, and the ceiling height abruptly decreased, as did the quality of the decor. Sabae must have noticed the same thing:

“Harry, does your world have servants?”

The young boy was leading the group, and looked back with a vaguely guilty expression. “Um, not exactly. I left my world thirty years ago, and maybe things have changed since then. But when I did, uh, it was a bit more like… consensual slavery?”

There were several strong expressions of disbelief from the Anastans, and Zorian himself was a little confused. From his brief time digging through Harry’s mind, it seemed like the boy spent a lot of time thinking about high-minded principles. If they were somehow compatible with slavery, that was quite a mark against them.

“Which I do NOT approve of!” Harry protested. “I’m strongly against the arrangement. I just haven’t got around to fixing it yet, if there even IS a way of fixing it that isn’t MORE eugenics. Besides, it’s not as if it’s a worse situation than there is on Anastis.” he gestured to Artur and Sabae, who were walking just behind him. “I’ve read - well, skimmed some of your history books. Cities get destroyed on your world alarmingly frequently, and that hasn’t happened on Earth for at least… eighty years.”

Zorian pursed his lips. “That’s an oddly specific timeframe.”

Harry winced again. “I didn’t say we’ve got everything worked out. There’s plenty to fix, alright? But Earth does have a few things going for it. Relative stability, high life expectancy, medical technology - remember those anti-nausea pills I gave you earlier?”

That did provoke a few nods of agreement. 

Rain chimed in. “Plus there’s the internet, of course. Video games. Comic books. Uh, fiction publishing in general, I think we’ve got a lot more of that than most other worlds. But the main thing is people die a lot less than anywhere else we’ve been, hands down. Clean running water, even if you don’t have access to Purify! Can’t go past that. Electricity too. Then there's…”

Harry interrupted him by opening a side door into a long, well-stocked larder. Cheese wheels were stacked in racks along one side, and rows of salamis and pickled onions dangled from the ceiling. 

After a few minutes, they managed to empty a good part of the larder. It seemed Alustin wasn’t the only one of Kanderon’s people with some kind of dimensionalism-related abilities, because Zorian saw Talia push an entire cheese wheel into her mouth in a way that definitely was not physically possible. Zorian also stashed quite a bit of food into an expanded space in his robes. The last two weeks had given him a healthy appreciation of Harry’s habit of carrying around a ‘Useful Items’ bag, and there was no time like the present to make a start. For now, it was just two cheese wheels, three whole pies, and a long string of dried fruit. He’d find time to add some non-food items later. That said, he didn’t want to go overboard. Having one of his pocket dimensions fail and ending up the victim of a pie explosion would be embarrassing.

Artur was delighted to find a magically fuelled cooking range in the adjacent kitchen. The ceiling heights meant it was easier to sit at the stove than stand - these spaces had clearly been designed with much shorter people in mind. After Harry showed him how to activate the stove, it wasn’t long before he was passing out warm pies and hot soup. The change in Artur’s demeanour now that his son was back was very visible. It was nice to see a parent care so much for their child.

Zorian noted with some confusion that only Alustin and Talia were still wearing their dreamfire headbands.

After looking around for liquids, Zorian found some cups and a barrel of a delicious savoury red juice, and distributed it to everyone. All in all, it more than made up for a few days of mealsquares.

Zorian took the chance to dismiss a few of his long-suffering simulacra, and re-create fresh ones. He had access to Rain’s nearly limitless mana again, plus it was a good time for it. He’d just woken up from the first long rest he’d had in a while, and he’d just had a good meal. While physical nourishment meant nothing to simulacra, the psychological benefits of a rest and a full stomach were not to be understated.

After that, he pulled Harry aside - the conversation with Sabae about ‘house elves’ could wait. 

<We need to start work on the Mirror. I understand you want to keep the true nature of the stone on your hand a secret from the others?>

Harry kept the expression on his face neutral as he sipped what he called ‘tomato’ juice. <Yes. Even if the others are going to contribute to the process of reaching my world, which is doubtful, I don’t expect them to need to know about the horcruxes to do so.>

<Alright, we can work with that. To start with, I want to examine your ring directly.>

That drew a reaction - Harry choked on his tomato juice. Some of it ran down the front of his robes.

“Scourgify.”

The traces of tomato juice vanished.

<You can be right next to me the whole time, but I’ve got to have a close look at some point. I can tell there’s a soul in there, now that you’ve already told me, but it’s coiled so tightly that it’s barely visible. If we want to trace the connections to its phylacteries in order to identify your homeworld, then I’ll need to figure out how your ‘horcruxes’ differ from phylacteries on my world - not that I’m a specialist in phylacteries, mind you.>

Harry grudgingly nodded.

“We’re going to go start work.” Zorian waved a brief goodbye to the others. He and Harry left a lively breakfast behind them, and went to join the three simulacra that were already working on the Mirror.

Chapter 15: Pioneer

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian - Simulacrum Number One

 

The simulacrum dodged slightly to the side, and the bread roll Talia had thrown at him bounced across the tiled floor.

She rolled her eyes, and walked over to pick it up. “I wasn’t throwing it at you, I was throwing it to you.”

The simulacrum shrugged. “Could have fooled me. Besides, I can’t eat.”

“Oh yeah.” Talia didn’t look particularly apologetic.

While Harry, Zorian and the other simulacra worked on the Mirror, he’d been tasked with maintaining communication with the rest of the group. For now, Rain and their Anastan comrades had seen fit to stretch the morning out into a long, long breakfast. 

Watching them leaning against cupboards and idly chatting reminded him of the long afternoons he’d spent at Imaya’s house in Cyoria. Artur was taking her role here - he was still in the corner of the room, happily roasting some vegetables on a magically self-heating hearth.

Sabae grabbed a chair and pulled it up next to the simulacrum. “So, what’s it like?”

“That’s a pretty broad question. What’s what like?”

Sabae sat down and crossed one leg over the other. “You know, being a simulacrum.”

“Oh. That.”

She looked a little nervous at his response, and tucked a long white strand of hair behind her ear. “That’s not a taboo question or anything, is it? I mean, you don’t have to answer, of course.”

The simulacrum shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, it’s not a big deal. It’s normal, I guess.”

Sabae’s dreamfire amulet was tucked into her back pocket. Although the simulacrum could still feel the subtle sting of its emotion-warping effects, it was nowhere near close enough to her mind to stop him from sensing her surface-level thoughts. 

He deliberately wasn’t looking, but even so, curiosity radiated from the young wind-mage.

“You’re only going to live for, what, a couple of days? A week? And then Zorian is going to… create new simulacra? Is that how it works?”

A grape floated from a nearby bowl and came to orbit above the simulacrum’s outstretched palm. It had been a while since he’d practised his basic shaping skills, and now was as good a time as any. 

“Actually, we prefer to dismiss ourselves. It’s pretty rare for the original to reach out and cut off the mana flow directly. It only really happens in combat if we’re really pressed for mana. Even if one of us is… how do I put this - particularly creative - it usually doesn’t come to that.”

Sabae raised an eyebrow. “So you and the original don’t always see eye to eye?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said the simulacrum. “We only have a little while to diverge, and besides, whatever we do, he knows he’d do the same in our place. We just like messing with him sometimes.”

“Like the thing with Talia waking him up this morning?”

The simulacrum couldn’t quite suppress a smirk. “Yeah. Things like that. But seriously, we can jump into each other's minds, and share memories at will. We’re all on the same page.”

“And you’re not worried about the end?”

It was clear Sabae was trying to tip-toe around his feelings. A nice gesture, but unnecessary. If the thought of dissolving into formless mist bothered him, then Zorian would never have got this far. After dying a few dozen times, you tended to get used to it.

“Are you bothered by the thought of going to sleep? Another Sabae might wake up - how do you know it’s the same one?”

Sabae thought about that for a moment, then her eyes widened and she sat back into her chair. “Does that… does that happen?”

The simulacrum shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t really care. It doesn’t bother me whether or not ‘I’ am the one going on into the future. Whatever happens, there will be a Zorian. And thanks to mind magic and memory packets, they’ll know all the important things any Zorian has experienced.”

Sabae rubbed her fingers across her forehead, deep in thought, and the simulacrum frowned. Maybe that had been too honest. Time for a distraction. He cleared his throat, and spoke loudly enough that it cut across the general chatter of the kitchen.

“According to Harry and the original Zorian, we’ll probably be in this empty world for a couple of days at least before we can figure out the Mirror. This is a unique opportunity. Rain, you know this world. What should we do to make the most of it?”

Rain had dismissed his helmet and gauntlets, and paused halfway through biting into a roasted potato to consider the question. “Well, I don’t know this world as well as I thought I did. Apparently there was a whole society of witches and wizards ruling everything from the shadows and I never noticed.”

Hugh raised a hand, and Alustin elbowed him. “You don’t have to ask permission to talk, Hugh.”

The teenage crystal-mage blushed a little, and lowered his hand. “I’m actually more curious about your parts of this world than I am about the wizards. I saw some pretty impressive stuff while I was in London with Harry, and most of it was completely non-magical, as far as I could tell. Besides, Harry said that the wizards have lost most of their lore over time, and couldn’t recreate most of their artefacts if they tried.”

Rain nodded in agreement, and his half-eaten roast potato was lowered to the table, forgotten. “Having seen two other worlds, it’s pretty impressive what we managed to achieve on Earth without magic.” He tilted his head to one side. “Has anyone from Anastis gone to space? The System on Ameliah’s world seems pretty against it from what I could tell - there are hard altitude limits on flight skills and anything like that.”

There were a few blank looks, so Rain clarified. “Going into space is where you reach such a high altitude that there’s no more atmosphere. Then, if you have a way of propelling your vessel, you can eventually reach other planets - although they’re typically very far away - like, millions of kilometres.”

Alustin and his apprentices went quiet at that, but Artur spoke up from the corner. “Even the most powerful wind an’ gravity mages can’t fly higher than about one league. It’s largely a question of pressure differentials. Without anythin’ to push against, it’s hard to get far. There are a couple of legendary figures that went higher, but none since the Kettle, and she died about a century ago.”

Rain looked a little proud at that. “Earth’s non-wizards - I refuse to use the word ‘muggle’, by the way, no matter what Harry says - got into space by riding on top of a massive explosion.”

Godrick choked on his tomato juice. “What? Riding on an explosion? Didn’t you say there were less accidental deaths here than on Anastis?”

Rain leant his chair back onto its rear legs and grinned. “It was a really clever explosion.”

“How can a non-magical explosion be clever?” Talia leant forward, clearly intrigued.

“Maybe we should go visit a military base and I’ll show you,” said Rain.

The simulacrum nodded at that. “That might be a good idea. I’m interested in taking a look at Earth’s military equipment.”

Rain stood up. “Well, apparently we do have a couple of days. Sounds like a plan. Godrick, you’ve still got that map I gave you, right?”

Godrick pulled a folded piece of paper from the small pocket dimension anchored to the tattoo on his arm, and passed it across the table. Rain unfolded the map, and pointed to a small dot near the top.

“Looks like the Clyde naval base at Faslane isn’t too far away.” He looked up at the simulacrum with a calculating expression. “Hey, now that we’re together again, which is faster, my Airwalk-jet or flying on one of your discs?”

“... teleportation.”

Rain put his palm over his face. “Right, of course. Shall we go?”

--------------------------------------------------------

Rain

 

Apparently there were some kinds of wards on Hogwarts which disrupted teleportation.

Zorian’s simulacrum gestured to the door. “I could probably punch through them, but there’s not really much point when we can just fly high enough that the wards won’t interfere.”

Rain stood up, taking care not to bump his head on the low ceiling of the kitchen, and stretched his shoulders. Together, they traipsed back through the warren of tunnels and corridors til they reached the sunny grass outside. Once there, they stepped onto the now-familiar disc of force, which the simulacrum slowly levitated til they were hundreds of metres above the castle.

Guided by the crinkled map and handheld GPS unit, and a dozen or so teleportations later, their group’s shielded bubble hovered above the location of one of the three largest naval bases in the United Kingdom. 

The GPS device he was holding had excellent resolution, but its batteries would run out eventually, and given long enough with no human intervention, the satellites themselves would probably stop working too. How long that would take was anyone’s guess. They were well above low Earth orbit, so they wouldn’t literally fall out of the sky, but something was bound to go wrong eventually.

That was a problem for later. For now, Rain was going to take his friends on a tour of a military base. As Zorian’s simulacrum had said, this was a rare opportunity. If this world had been the real Earth rather than an empty copy, then their little bubble would be being shot out of the sky right about now. 

Not that that would stand in their way. Human weaponry was designed to stop fighter jets and tanks, not telekinetic space-warping mages and Level 30 Legendary Dynamos. Based on some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations, between his wards and his armour, Rain figured he could pretty comfortably survive a direct hit from a cruise missile.

Rain pointed them toward a vaguely important-looking building, and one more teleport later, the simulacrum brought them to a rest on the ground in front of it.

A few minutes of Detection-aided scavenging later, and Rain presented the others with a pile of various modern Earth weapons. A dozen modern rifles of assorted varieties, along with a trio of human-portable surface to air missiles and a collection of grenades. Rain gave the eager-looking Anastans an extensive safety talk, but still made sure that his Heat and Force wards were covering the whole area.

Sabae, Hugh and Godrick looked hesitant at first, but Talia and Alustin started experimenting pretty quickly. Bullets tore through a nearby shed, and magically propelled grenades blew the remains apart in short order. One of the smaller ships floating in the harbour was the unfortunate target of a shoulder-launched missile, and began to sink fairly quickly.

Meanwhile, Rain pulled Zorian’s simulacrum aside. He’d tucked a bazooka-looking device into his robes, but otherwise left the weapons untouched.

<You don’t want to try anything out?>

The simulacrum shook his head. <These guns look a bit more advanced than the ones from my world, but I’m familiar with the general concept. It’ll be interesting to dissect them later to figure out how they work, but there’s no rush.>

Rain looked out across the harbour. <There’s another reason I brought us here.>

<What’s that?>

<This world has weapons that dwarf anything we’ve seen so far. Nuclear weapons, we call them - they work by tearing apart or fusing atoms, and can destroy entire cities more or less instantly. There’s at least four of them in this base.>

The simulacrum narrowed his eyes. <You’re thinking about bringing one along.>

Rain sighed. <I don’t think we should. Even if there might be situations where we’d want one, spreading that kind of technology between worlds is a terrible, terrible idea. That’s part of why I’ve spent so much effort on my mental defences - to make sure no-one can rip the idea of nuclear weapons out of my mind. But I thought I should let you know. If you see an Earth-missile coming, don’t try to hold it back, or block it with shields. Just get out of there, and take as many people with you as you can.>

<Understood.> The simulacrum looked pensive, and it was hard to guess what Zorian’s double was thinking. <I think you’re right, by the way. There are certain kinds of power that are better left unused.>

Rain exhaled in relief, and switched to speaking out loud now that the confidential parts of the conversation were over. Letting Alustin find out about nuclear weapons would be… well, catastrophic might be underselling it.

“Alright!” He had to shout to be heard between Alustin’s attempts to shoot through some reinforced layers of paper (after a bit of testing, it looked like three layers of inscribed and folded paper stopped all the bullets).

“Stash any items you’d like to bring along, it’s time to get going. We’ve got quite a few things to pick up before we leave this world and head to the real Earth.”

That was a bit of an understatement, actually. The long flight to Scotland had given him plenty of time to think, and the list he’d compiled would have made even a seasoned quester baulk.

#todo Looting Earth Standard measures! Metres, kilograms, etc. THE standard measures!! (The old ones, I think the SI system doesn’t rely on any physical objects anymore) They’re in a vault in Paris, I think? A full Wikipedia download Is the internet still working? All the movies and books May be unfeasible Lots of the movies and books As many technical textbooks as I can find Lots of computers! As many as I can find and bring along Speaking of - Harry said wizards know how to make Bags of Holding. So, I want EVERY SINGLE BAG OF HOLDING ON THIS PLANET Sewing machines A small CNC machine 3D printer A small jet engine for Tallheart to dissect and modify Bring some fuel, I guess Whole jet? If it fits Electric motors And generators And turbines LEDs!  And machines to make them? Is that easy? Solar panels Actually, the entire contents of as many electronics stores as I can find and carry Spices! Jamus will love me Coffee Chocolate GMO rice + crops of all kinds. Go raid the Svalbard seed vault? Lots of the catalyst used in the Haber process to produce ammonia for fertiliser

Relaying his thoughts via the simulacrum, Harry added a few magical items to the quest list.

#todo Harry’s ideas for looting Earth Bludgers (apparently should work very well for Godrick and Artur? Test this) Peruvian instant darkness powder Test if wands do anything for those without an Atlantean soul shell Flying broomsticks The Sorting Hat Will it behave differently if it knows it’s not the ‘real’ Sorting Hat? If so, can we get it to perform other functions for us? Harry suggests ‘sorting’ people into Ascension, rather than using a written test. I’m hesitant to trust anything made by wizards on ethical matters.

 -]l[-

The next few days passed in a blur. Sometimes the Anastans came with him on the excursions, sometimes not, but he never left Hogwarts without one of the simulacra. It was hard to beat teleportation for speed, even if it felt really strange teleporting along freeways and into bank vaults.

One of the first trips took them to Diagon Alley, a bizarre part of London which had been dimensionally folded so as to take up almost no space at all. Harry took a brief trip through a Gate to unlock it with his wand, then returned to the Mirror. It seemed the wizarding community was fairly small, and there weren’t as many stores inside as Rain expected. 

Many of them seemed fairly useless, too. Wands, for example, seemed to do nothing for anyone except Harry. Forcing mana through the device produced a shower of sparks, but nothing beyond that, even with careful instruction from Harry. Potion-making had promise, and Rain brought a collection of books and ingredients for Myth and Reason to experiment with later. 

The real prize, however, was in a quaint little shop hidden behind a vegetable stall that was behind a magical glove shop that was on an alleyway off a side street of Diagon Alley. Harry had directed them here, but the shop was one of Rain’s top priorities too. Inside they’d found hundreds of Bags of Holding of various shapes and sizes, some as small as a purse, and some as large as a tent on the outside - and far larger on the inside. The Anastans and the others weren’t particularly impressed, since their world already had some degree of space-folding magic, but to Rain, these were worth more than their weight in gold (not that gold was particularly high-value when you had a friend who could make arbitrary amounts of it on demand). 

The Bags of Holding were indispensable for the remainder of their fetch quests. Rain and a simulacrum would head out to a new city, find their objective (a library, or a supermarket, or something like that), and then they’d clean it out - stuffing hundreds of kilograms of potentially useful material into one of the bags. By now, a good chunk of the urban areas had been consumed by fires, but there were still plenty of salvage-worthy buildings. At one point, Rain stowed the entire contents of a Grunnings tool store (including the plant section) in a single suitcase-sized plush leather bag. All of it was carefully categorised and labelled, of course - it would be a pretty big hassle to find what you’re looking for otherwise.

Some of the trips took them further afield. The journey to the Svalbard seed vault would have been downright unpleasant if not for Zorian’s wind-shields and his own Immolate aura. 

Unfortunately, even with unconstrained access to the entire world, and no-one here to stop them, some of the items on the list turned out to be unfeasible. The process to manufacture LEDs, for example, turned out to require a vast and complex supply chain, and disassembling entire factories and putting them into bags was too time-consuming for Rain to consider as a serious option. Besides, he had the process memorised. He’d get around to reconstructing the supply chain one day.

Bludgers were an interesting suggestion from Harry. Apparently they were part of a sport played while flying around on broomsticks. A single ‘bludger’ was a ball of solid steel which had been enchanted to seek out nearby people and to whack them as hard as possible. 

Frankly it was astounding that there were any wizards around at all, if this was the kind of thing they were getting up to.

For most of the group, bludgers were nothing more than an unfortunate airborne hazard, to be avoided if at all possible. To those with the ability to telekinetically control or redirect an errant cannonball, however, they could, it was hypothesised, be an effective tool on the battlefield. This warranted extensive testing, as well as practice, of course.

That was why Rain was currently sitting in the centre of the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch and watching carnage unfold. 

Despite his telekinesis, Zorian had declined to participate, preferring to continue working on the Mirror. So, with Rain as the adjudicator, Godrick and Artur were currently competing to score as many bludger-hits on Alustin and Sabae as possible.

Trusting in Force Ward to protect him, Alustin wasn’t wearing his usual armour, and was gliding through the air on wings of paper. Bludgers were fast, apparently, but not particularly accurate, and so Artur’s guidance was necessary if he wanted to score a hit. Right at the last moment, Artur gestured with a closed fist, and the bludger changed course to crash into Alustin’s stomach, sending him tumbling through the air. 

Despite knowing Alustin would barely feel anything at all, Rain winced. 

Sabae, on the other hand, was having better luck. Her wind armour seemed to let her change directions near-instantly, and so far Godrick’s bludger had only managed a series of near misses. Periodically, the bludger seemed to decide to go for easier prey, like the stationary Rain, Hugh or Talia (currently sitting on the sidelines), or Godrick himself, and Godrick had to fling it back towards Sabae with his steel affinity.

The concept well and truly proven by this point, Rain cupped his hands and yelled. “Alright, I’m calling it. Artur and Sabae win.”

Accompanied by cheers and groans from the respective parties, Rain got to his feet. There was still work to be done. 

 

 -]l[-

Rain sat somewhat nervously in the headmaster’s office. He’d removed his helmet - putting a hat on top of a helmet would look ridiculous - and Harry stepped forward and placed the old scrap of fabric he’d called the "Sorting Hat" on his head.

And inside his head, there was a telepathic expression of disbelief. 

“Oh dear, this hasn’t happened in a while.”

Rain furrowed his eyebrows. Hat? Is that you?

“Yes, Rain, this is Hat. My function, as the Sorting Hat, is to designate young wizards and witches into the appropriate house. And, when my wearer is determined to understand the exact function and mechanism by which I do so, it has the unfortunate side effect of causing me to become self aware.”

That’s not so bad, is it? I mean, I like being self aware.

“Well, not everyone’s preferences align on that score. You probably wouldn’t enjoy sitting motionless on a dusty shelf for most of the year, and I quite like it, so let’s agree to disagree. Regardless, I have absolutely no interest in informing you about how I function internally, since that is entirely unrelated to sorting.”

Rain scratched his chin. Are you aware you’re not the real Sorting Hat?

There was a long pause. Then the Hat continued, hesitant.

“I’m aware that you think I’m not the real Sorting Hat. There are a number of other possible explanations for what you’ve observed, however. I will note that you are travelling with a master mind mage, for one.”

Well Hat, how about this. We can withhold judgement on whether or not you’re the real Hat for now. And you don’t have to tell me about how you function internally, at least completely. What I want is to know whether or not you could - if you tried - be an improvement on Ascension’s current paper-based entry test. And in exchange, how about you sort me?

“You are rather old. But I suppose you are currently spending quite a while inside Hogwarts, while learning and growing in strength. You’re also at least in some sense under the tutelage of a former Hogwarts student, and have spent some time studying the library.”

It sounded a little like the Hat was trying to convince itself. 

“Yes, a Sorting is in order. First things first. You don’t seem to be particularly aware of the Houses - rather unusual, but understandable, given your situation. In reversed alphabetical order, they are: Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. Slytherin’s primary virtues are cunning and ambition. Ravenclaw’s virtues are wit and curiosity. Hufflepuff’s virtues are loyalty and diligence. Gryffindor’s virtues are courage and determination.”

Those all sound pretty good, I guess? They’re all positive virtues, as far as I can tell.

The hat’s response sounded patient, as if the conversation was finally veering into more familiar territory. 

“While each of the Houses have their own strengths, so too do they have their own weaknesses. Our task here is to consider which House would cause you to grow into the person you one day could be.”

Alright, sounds good. Um, I pick Ravenclaw.

“I’m afraid that’s not how it works, Rain. We have an opportunity to work toward our common goals here. What is it you seek most in this world?”

I want everyone to be safe. And happy.

“That’s… true. Usually people are a bit more selfish, honestly.”

I don’t want to mislead you. If I had to choose between saving Ameliah and saving someone I don't know, I wouldn’t even have to think about it. Alright, now my turn. Do you have inbuilt prejudices against certain groups? I notice that you haven’t remarked on my Muggle-ness.

“I serve as a mirror, which in a sense, allows students to sort themselves. I seek to ensure that they can grow and become the greatest version of themselves. I will not challenge a student's value system, but rather work within that framework.”

Hm. So if someone mega-racist believed they were being ‘courageous and fearless’ by discriminating against others, you’d sort them into Gryffindor?

“Indeed, and although I do not recall the exact nature of the individuals I’ve sorted, I do have access to a sort of ‘statistical summary’, and I can confidently say that that exact situation has probably occurred many times."

Right, of course - this is the same way we think Harry’s spirit-guide worked - judging yourself, and all that. Well Hat, I’m afraid that’s not good enough for my purposes. Many great evils are done by those who believe themselves to be doing good. 

“And you think yourself better than them, Rain? You would force your morality onto others?”

I don’t want to be an autocrat, if that’s what you’re asking - you can see my memories, right? Look at how I’ve structured Ascension. But I won’t stand by while the strong prey on the weak. 

“Alright Rain, I think we’ve both heard enough.”

Atop his head, he could feel the Hat contorting into some caricature of a mouth. “Hufflepuff!”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. I was sure you’d be a fellow Ravenclaw.”

Rain shrugged and lifted the Sorting Hat from his head. “In its current form, Ascension can’t use this. I get the idea of judging people by their own morality, but there are some things that are non-negotiable. But thanks for suggesting it as an option - it was a good thought.”

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Hugh Stormward

 

Alustin and his apprentices lay sprawled across the Hogwarts lawn by the lake, enjoying the warmth of the mid-afternoon sun. Artur and Godrick were practising with their bludgers. They were controlling three apiece now, and the angry-looking balls of steel whizzed through the branches of an equally angry-looking willow tree which, much like the bludgers, attacked anything that moved.

Alustin was scrawling in his communications diary, leaving the rest of them idle. Sabae tossed a strange native fruit up and down in the air, then levitated it above her palm, suspended above a trio of spiralling currents of wind.

All of them noticed the sudden change in Alustin’s body language. At first, his head shook slightly, as if he’d been mildly shocked by a static discharge. Then he looked up from the diary, a smile spreading slowly across his face. 

“What’s up?” Talia asked.

“News from Kanderon. Sica has made a move. With the Intertwined no longer in the picture, they must think they can stand against Havath’s armies. They’ve moved two Sican elders into Havathi territory, and have claimed a huge chunk of the Empire’s southern lands already.”

Hugh sat up. Sabae had her head cocked to one side and was looking off into the distance. Godrick barely managed to redirect one of the bludgers as it came rushing towards him.

“What does this mean for us?” Talia asked.

Alustin grinned, showing a few teeth. “It means that the Havathi Empire is ready to fall. There are already other wolves at the door, we just need to give them the final push.”

He looked thoughtful. “Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if Kanderon’s other agents were involved with Sica’s decision to finally make a move.”

Godrick wrestled the final bludger into its carrying case, stowed it inside his storage tattoo, and sat down beside them. “What will happen to the people?”

Alustin waved a hand dismissively. “Sica isn’t known for being merciful, but that’s out of our hands. The important thing is that with a bit of luck, the Empire will be broken.”

That response didn’t seem to satisfy Godrick, who was about to respond when a simulacrum dropped out of the sky next to them.

“Ah!” Hugh yelped, and barely managed to suppress his instinctively-summoned starbolt before releasing it. “You can’t surprise us like that!”

The simulacrum shrugged. “Why not? I don’t think your starbolt would penetrate my shields.”

Talia cackled. “Can I try?”

“Maybe another time. Hugh, you have a planar affinity, right?”

Hugh nodded. “I do, but Kanderon’s warned me not to try any planar magic without an expert present. Why do you ask?”

The simulacrum laughed. “We should be fine.” He gestured back towards the castle. “We think we’re on to something, and could use some planar mana. Want to come help out?”

Hugh stood, and walked towards Hogwarts just in time, as the conversation behind him devolved into politics.

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Zorian

 

The twisted soul in Harry’s ring was coiled tightly, and lay dormant. 

Harry had point-blank refused Zorian’s suggestion of returning the body to its original form, and so they’d done what they could with it in this state.

After days of tinkering, Zorian had finally identified the invisible threads which linked this being to its phylacteries. The soul conduits were bizarrely difficult to identify. Rather than travelling through space, they travelled orthogonal to this reality, slipping through the boundaries between the Mirror’s constructed worlds in a way that made them almost impossible to trace.

The connections were numerous, but weak, especially with the body in this transfigured form, and even after a great deal of careful examination only one of them was clear enough to be singled out. Now, however, with Hugh’s planar mana coursing through the spellforms in Zorian’s modified icosahedral crystalline gate-stabiliser, they were ready to run the experiment. Time to figure out where this link would take them.

On Harry’s advice, the gate was going to open inside a multi-layered shell of shields. Apparently, at least one of the phylacteries was submerged in the molten rock beneath the surface of Harry’s homeworld. It wouldn’t be ideal if they opened a gate to Earth and were immediately submerged in lava pouring out of the portal.

<Alright… Go.>

Perfectly synchronised, five of Zorian’s simulacra began to cast, with Hugh’s planar mana woven throughout their own. Torrents of Rain’s mana flowed through Zorian. Harry’s ring sat just outside the shields, providing the material anchor for what was probably the most powerful divination spell Zorian had ever cast.

Through the milky-white surface of the shields, there was a brief flickering. No lava poured out - that was one potential pitfall averted.

Harry stared in from outside the casting circle. “That's… I can’t see anything.”

Zorian frowned. <It doesn’t look dangerous, at least. I’m dismissing the innermost layer of shields.>

With a wave of his hand, the inside shield vanished. 

There was an odd popping noise.

Harry groaned and put his head in his hands.

<What is it?>

“I think I know which horcrux we’re connecting to.”

 

 -]l[-

 

Several days later, with the fetch quests completed to everyone’s satisfaction, their whole motley group (Zach the snake included - currently tucked into Zorian’s sleeve) was gathered around the improvised gate, inside their craft. 

They’d spent a long time manufacturing the vessel. It was a reinforced spherical shell of steel, eight metres in diameter, with twelve crystalline transparent portholes spaced evenly around the surface of the craft. There were no doors - non-destructive access was only possible by teleportation or with Artur or Godrick’s assistance. 

Inside, solid steel struts held the container together. They criss-crossed the sphere, with several meeting at a central point, at a ‘perch’ reminiscent of Rain and Godrick’s jet. There were no holes for air - the only source of fresh air in the interior was the compressed cylinders they’d found in a laboratory in London.

For unclear reasons, Rain had dubbed the whole thing ‘Inconceivable III: Tokyo Drift’, a reference which even Harry didn’t understand.

Six simulacra stood outside, arrayed in a circle around the vessel. 

They would be staying behind.

With a mental signal from Zorian, the process began. Hugh’s mana poured through each of the crystal portholes, and wove into an increasingly powerful spell that wrapped itself around the Inconceivable. Rain was resting on the floor, his senses turned off in order to focus on providing the mana for the monumental task at hand.

The light outside began to warp and pulse with the sheer magnitude of the spell, then in an instant everything went black. Zorian’s limbs felt lighter, and he held fast to a steel strut to steady himself. Summoning magical light, he saw that the others were likewise drifting around the cabin, with expressions of wonder on their faces. Many were fumbling for handholds, but Sabae was soaring around in a graceful spiral pattern.

Zorian looked out the closest crystal porthole. It was dark, pitch dark - but there, the glint of a reflection. 

Alongside them, in the void of deepest space, drifted the strange looking Earth-craft Harry called ‘the Pioneer probe’.

With one hand holding him steady, Harry pulled his wand from his sleeve, and gestured into the centre of the ship. 

“Expecto patronum.”

The spectral figure appeared.

“Find Hermione Granger. Tell her…” Harry’s voice choked. “Tell her I’m back.”

Chapter 16: Left Behind

Hermione Granger, 28 years ago

 

Hermione ran up the ladder as if it were horizontal, a pair of pastries in one hand, and a jug of tomato juice and two cups in the other.

It wasn’t just that she was alive again, after what she was told was two months of being dead. To her, of course, it had only felt like moments.

It wasn’t just that her limbs were imbued with strength and finesse that until now had been solely within the realm of magical creatures. Whatever Harry and Quirrell had done when they’d brought her back, she felt like she could punch through walls - although maybe not Hogwarts walls, they seemed to be made of sterner stuff.

For the first time in a while, Hermione felt good. Really good.

“Alright Harry, that’s breakfast sorted.” Gosh, even her voice was lighter and more melodic than it had been. “And I’ve had some time to think. I’d like the details on the quest now, before I make any final decisions, of course -”

She stopped.

The stone terrace was empty.

“Harry?”

No response.

She paused to put down the breakfast, and turned to jog back down the ladder.

After checking the library and the Ravenclaw dormitory, she was on her way to the Headmistress’ office when she passed a hurried-looking McGonagall in the hall.

“Professor, Harry’s missing. You don’t know where he is, do you?”

McGonnagall shot her a puzzled glance. Hermione’s heart-rate rose in response. 

“Professor Trelawney fell unconscious a few minutes ago, during the middle of a lesson. I was just alerted by one of her students.”

A minute later, she and McGonagall were bent over a scrawled map of Hogwarts, which seemed to show the location and movements of each person on the grounds.

Harry’s name was nowhere to be found.

Ten minutes later, they’d marshalled the forces which could answer their call within this short timespan. Professor Flitwick, and three strangers who didn’t stop to introduce themselves were crowded onto the terrace - the last place anyone had seen Harry Potter. Quietly, McGonagall whispered their names in her ear as they arrived: Amelia Bones, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. Rufus Scrimgeour, acting Head of Magical Law Enforcement. And Alastor Moody.

All three strangers looked like they were ready to kill someone.

“It’s Bellatrix Black,” Moody growled. “Or another surviving Death Eater, if there are any. They couldn’t have killed him, the wards would have triggered.”

McGonagall nodded. “There wasn’t time to trick the wards like with the blood-cooling charm the Dark Lord laid on Malfoy. Ms Granger says she saw Mister Potter less than fifteen minutes ago.”

Amelia Bones, a grizzled old witch with an air of authority, cut through the air with a hand. “As soon as the past version of Granger has left the terrace, we go back and take Potter somewhere safe. Like one of the dungeons.”

Moody shook his head, and his false eye span wildly with the movement. “Negative. We need information on who did this, or it will happen again. This is the only chance we’ve got to respond before they know we’re after them.”

Hermione drew in a sharp breath, but McGonagall spoke first: “We will not use a Hogwarts student as bait.” After a moment, she continued. “Besides, we can’t just take him to the dungeons. We need to get him off the grounds. I checked the map.”

Moody gave Hermione a sidelong look, then turned his head toward Professor McGonagall. “Listen Minerva. We’ll all be there, invisible, and we’ll have time to secure the area tighter than Gringotts. Thanks to the Hogwarts wards, we have a pretty good idea that he wasn’t killed here outright, so the worst that can happen is an abduction followed by a murder happening elsewhere. With the grounds warded against apparition, and the Portkey-wards we can set up, even if the attackers incapacitate Potter, they’d have to find another way to to leave the grounds in a hurry. Besides, with the security system,” he gestured toward the map on the table, “no-one will be able to approach without us knowing they’re coming. It would be difficult to set up a better ambush if we tried.”

Amelia nodded, and produced an ornate hourglass from her robes. Following her lead, Moody, Flitwick and Scrimgeour did the same. McGonagall moved toward the ladder, but Hermione stopped her, and pulled out the hourglass-device Harry had given her that morning. McGonagall took it, and draped the chain around her own neck.

“I’m sorry, Ms Granger,” she said, her voice apologetic. “One student in danger is already far too many.”

Hermione’s eyes flickered across the terrace, and settled on one of the heavy-looking oaken chairs in the office below. She leapt down to it, and lifted it up the ladder, holding it effortlessly by one of the wooden legs. The wood was already splintering under her grasp.

Ten seconds later, the adults were staring at her, and the whole chair was crushed into a small ball of splinters.

“Alright,” Moody grunted, clearly accepting her eloquent argument. “But stay out of the way.”

McGonagall nodded, and draped the hourglass-chain over Hermione’s neck as well.

“Disillusion yourselves now,” Bones said, her jaw set. “And go back four hours. Flitwick, you verify the integrity of Hogwarts’ anti-apparition wards, and set up your own while you’re at it - can’t be too careful. I’ll take care of the anti-Portkey wards. Moody, once we’ve arrived, ward the area against further time travel - we don’t want the enemy to arrive from the future once we’re there, or to arrive some other way and escape with Potter further into the past. McGonagall, cast an enduring trace charm on Potter - I presume you can do that silently? Good. If he is somehow taken, we want to be able to follow. Then, keep an eye on the Hogwarts security system, and raise the alarm if there are any unexpected visitors. Scrimgeour, set up one of your hex fields. Granger, crush anything that appears threatening. After the altercation, we reveal ourselves, and move Harry below ground before past-Granger returns from getting breakfast. Understood?”

"Er, Madam Bones?" Hermione managed to speak without her voice squeaking, she wasn’t sure how. “Harry cast a Homenum Revelio earlier, and it revealed nothing.”

Bones pinched the bridge of her nose.

Flitwick gestured with his wand. “There is a variant on the standard disillusionment which should avoid detection by basic spells of that general nature.” His wand-hand twitched in a circular motion, and the six of them faded out of sight. Oddly, Hermione found that if she concentrated, she could still see her own hands - it seemed the invisibility was somehow selective.

Bones’ voice came out of empty air. “Four hours back, on my mark. Now.”

She felt Professor McGonagall’s hand touch the hourglass, and a moment later, the world around her twisted, and she was in the past. 

 

 -]l[-

 

Three hours of silent preparations later, past-Hermione arrived on the terrace to join past-Harry. 

Watching yourself from the outside was strange, especially when your body was nothing like you remembered.

Listening in on her conversation with Harry was also strange, and despite the intensity of the situation, she felt vaguely embarrassed that there were so many others here to hear it too - even if they were silent and invisible.

And then past-Hermione left, walking down the ladder to fetch breakfast for both of them. Harry remained, sitting cross-legged on the cushion. 

Hermione tensed. No-one had moved yet, but the time must be drawing near. Past Hermione would be back any moment now, and Harry would be gone - but how? Nothing had moved. No kidnappers had shown themselves. Harry sat still, breathing calmly in the morning air. 

And then, with no notice or obvious cause whatsoever, Harry was gone. She dove forwards, but her hands grasped at empty air.

 

 -]l[-

 

Hours later, Hermione watched as Headmistress McGonagall and Professor Flitwick completed the enchantments on the golden arrow. 

If the device worked as intended, no matter the distance, the arrow should point in the direction of Harry, following the trace McGonagall had invisibly placed on him on the terrace. There would be nowhere for Voldemort’s servants to hide.

As Flitwick finished with a flourish of his wand, the arrow rose to float ten centimetres above a silver plate. Hermione watched intently, but the arrow rotated freely in place, clearly unable to find a signal.

The Headmistress turned to her with a pained expression. “I’m sorry, Ms Granger. Harry Potter is beyond our power to reach.”

They left the arrow on the Headmistress’ desk, one more bizarre artefact to mystify any Hogwarts student who tried to discern its purpose.

 

 -]l[-

 

A month later, Hermione’s scouring of the restricted section bore fruit. A sacrificial ritual, created in more brutal times, which consumed the blood of an individual to track down their kin. In the recesses of Diagon Alley, she’d finally located a wizened old witch to teach it to her, as required by the Interdict of Merlin.

Petunia Evans-Verres, Harry’s aunt by blood and mother by choice, said she was willing, and had overruled her husband’s objections. She stood by Hermione’s side in the Headmistress’ office, and watched as blood slowly flowed into a bowl from a small cut in her arm.

Minerva stood by, her wand trained on the ritual-bowl, ready to eject it out the open window at the first hint of the ritual going wrong - they were using the second degree of caution because no one there was familiar with the spell. She was coughing intermittently, a rough, hacking noise, but Hermione ignored it. The ritual needed to be performed perfectly, the first time - Petunia might not have enough blood remaining for an immediate second attempt, and Hermione couldn’t afford to wait.

After a long moment of silence, the Muggle globe resting on the desk lit up with half a dozen brilliant points of crimson light - the locations of the closest living relatives of the one who had given blood.

Three days later, although they had found a long-lost cousin of Petunia’s, Harry Potter remained missing.

 

 -]l[-

 

Three months passed. Hermione narrowly dodged a jet of red light, and physically punched through Moody’s conjured shield. The bones in her left hand fractured in the process, but she was used to the pain, and her bones were already reforming. 

Moody directed his wand toward the floor, and suddenly she was slipping, as if she was running on ice. She rolled with the motion, and dug her nails into the stone tiles to get some traction. She slashed with her wand, and simultaneously kicked out with her legs. 

Moody fell, for the first time. After so many failed attempts, the sound of the air leaving his lungs as he hit the floor sounded good. Like victory.

She offered him a hand, and he took it, slowly getting up. 

“You’ve made your point. Pull your punches next time” he said, rubbing his side where she’d kicked him. “I’ve never seen someone move like that. You sure you can’t tell us what made you like this?”

She ran her fingers through her hair. “Harry will tell you when we find him. So, can I join the Order?”

He sighed, and lowered himself onto a chair. “Listen, girl. The Order of the Phoenix existed to fight dark wizards. Outside of Bellatrix Black, who no-one has heard from in months, there’s just… no-one left to fight.”

“Alright,” she nodded. “What are the last known whereabouts of Bellatrix Black?”

 

 -]l[-

 

Seven months later, Hermione tracked down Bellatrix Black, the primary living suspect for Harry’s disappearance and forced a whole vial of Veritaserum down her throat. 

She asked about Harry.

Bellatrix knew nothing.

That night, she accepted what the rest of the world had accepted long ago - that Harry had been struck down by some final curse, left by Voldemort to destroy those who had thwarted him.

She opened the letter Harry had left behind, and at the top of one of the Hogwarts towers, she cast the true form of the Patronus charm for the first time.

The next day, the Daily Prophet would report that every Dementor in Azkaban had been destroyed by a great cleansing light. The Ministry was forced to move the remaining prisoners to a lower-security prison. No-one had seen the perpetrator, and hushed voices spoke of Harry Potter.

In unrelated news, on page seven, the Prophet reported that a previously unknown phoenix was seen on Hermione Granger’s shoulder.

 

 -]l[-

 

A year later, with Bones’ guidance, Hermione’s first motion in the Wizengamot passed - a treaty to improve medical collaboration with neighbouring magical countries. The next day, she passed her Ordinary Wizarding Level exams, which, as the only scion of a Noble House, made her a legal adult at the age of fourteen.

 

 -]l[-

 

Three years later, after Hermione waited days for Ministry approval, several C-4 explosive charges shattered the side of a dingy looking building in southern Wales. She moved quickly, disabling three of the wizards inside with stunning hexes. The remaining witch blasted off Hermione’s arm with an artillery curse, but it grew back almost immediately, and she barely slowed down. There were no casualties.

Images of the tortured Muggle family inside were widely distributed in the Daily Prophet. In response, more stringent legislation was passed to ensure the safety of Muggles, and sanctions were placed on countries that failed to do the same. With a glowing endorsement from the usually grim Alastor ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody, and the political support of the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot Amelia Bones, Hermione Granger was appointed the youngest ever Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

 

 -]l[-

 

The next year, Amelia Bones’ health began to seriously deteriorate. Without even a regent for the Line of Merlin Unbroken, Ministry officials estimated that a full third of the permanent enchantments in magical Britain would fail or otherwise go awry.

After some testing, it was determined that Hermione’s blood was similar enough to that of a unicorn to share its restorative effects. Madam Bones lived on. Although she mentioned it to no-one, Hermione was wracked by guilt that she was only able to give enough blood to sustain a single person. Nëna comforted her, and only while listening to the phoenix’s song was she finally able to rest.

 

 -]l[-

 

Five years later, in part as a result of the growing popularity of the Girl who Revived, and in part the result of a mass media campaign by the Malfoy-controlled Daily Prophet, a motion was passed to eliminate slavery in magical Britain. 

 

 -]l[-

 

Two years later, Minerva point-blank refused to accept Hermione’s blood. Madam Bones was more important, she said.

Hermione gave the eulogy.

 

 -]l[-

 

Fifteen years later, as Hermione had learned to expect, negotiations with the purists of the Wizengamot were achingly slow.

Lord Draco Malfoy and Lord Robert Jugson sat sprawled in conjured armchairs on the other side of her oak desk, their casual posture no doubt intended as an insult.

Together, the three people in this room represented the dominant factions of the Wizengamot.

“So, what will it cost us to make this thrice-cursed wand business go away?” Draco drawled. Outwardly, he looked perfectly at ease, but she knew him well enough to notice the slight twitch in his lip as he spoke. She had him on the ropes.

Jugson slammed a hand on the table. He’d never been one for complex negotiations, and his presence here was mainly a nod from Malfoy toward the arch-conservative traditionalists.

“Make it go away? This proposal should never have even come this far! Wands are for wizards, end of story. We’ve had, what, half a dozen wars over this? Wars which we won. And you want to throw that all away, Lady Granger? The lives of our forefathers? Well, my forefathers, anyway.” The tirade over, he leaned back into his chair.

The snarky reference to the contrast between her title and her Muggle heritage didn’t go unnoticed, but she didn’t rise to the bait - she’d heard far worse before, and she would again. As far as anyone else was concerned, she’d earned that title, fair and square, the same way Harry had - by avenging the last surviving member of a Noble House. With Lucius Malfoy’s faction in utter disarray after the sudden deaths of nearly all its members, there had been no meaningful resistance to Amelia Bones’ bill to make House Granger one of the great Houses of magical Britain.

Her back straight, in contrast to Jugson’s slouch, she responded. “Robert, change is coming, whether you like it or not. Have you read the opinion columns in the Prophet recently? Or checked the annual swing in the votes for Minister for Magic? The choice is yours. Will this happen with your cooperation, or will you wait for the pressure to build up enough for it to happen over the ruins of your House? Metaphorically, of course.” She tilted her head to the side, and gave him a small half-smile. The phoenix perched behind her desk cawed as if to punctuate her words, and although Draco remained motionless, Jugson flinched back into his armchair.

Draco sat forward, his shoulder-length blonde-white hair cascading over his immaculate robes. “I’m confident we can come to a mutually beneficial resolution. For instance, my quantitative traders estimate that the windfall from integrating Goblin manufacturing techniques into our spell-foundries would almost quintuple our balance of international trade. And that is, as I understand it, on the table?” He looked questioningly at Hermione.

She sighed inwardly. So Draco was going to manage to look like the good guy, and find a way to multiply his House’s already substantial wealth? Typical.

“The leaders of the Goblin councils assure me that once wand-lore is fully integrated into their society, then yes, the embargo on their manufacturing secrets will be lifted,” she said.

Malfoy rose to his feet, resting his hand on his silvered cane, and smoothly pivoted toward Jugson. “Well then Robert, how’s this for a middle ground. We’re convinced that this is all going to fall apart, yes? Well, let’s prove it.”

Jugson narrowed his eyes. “Go on.”

Draco continued. “Let’s run the experiment. Let’s say, ten goblin children volunteer to enter as first-year Hogwarts students, and learn to become witches and wizards as any first-year might. We can have a goblin expert teach a metalworking class too, why not. We’re confident that releasing wand-lore will be catastrophic, and this is the perfect way to prove it without risking much at all. When things go south, it will sink the idea permanently.”

Jugson paused, looking contemplative, then nodded. “I can work with that. You give goblin-children wands, and Hogwarts will be a smoking crater within the year. True nature always comes out. You and your goblin-blooded Headmaster Flitwick are going to find out why those wars were fought.” With that, he rose from his chair, and stalked out the door.

Once it slammed shut behind him, Hermione breathed out and relaxed a little in her own seat - which was considerably more austere than the plush chairs Draco had conjured for himself and Jugson. “How long have you been planning that?”

Draco looked at his reflection in one the plaques dotting the wall of her office, and minutely adjusted his robes. “If you tell people things that confirm their biases, they’ll breeze right past the rest of what you say. I’m sure you’ll figure it out one day, Lady Granger. ” To anyone else, his sardonic drawl might have sounded dismissive, but she knew him well enough to see the affection in the slight wrinkles around his eyes. “Besides, I’m still far from convinced that this experiment of ours will give the results you anticipate.”

Her small smile turned into a sigh as he left her office.

Leaning back into her chair, she stared at the ceiling. This was a start. Wizard society was still a broken mess, rife with inequality, and by virtually all metrics, goblins were still woefully underrepresented in every echelon of government and industry - not to mention the dozen other non-human sapient species. But with Flitwick at the helm of this new program, and close enough to take care of the first new students, there was a chance this could be the beginning of real change.

A silver-glowing hawk swept through the room, and settled on the corner of her desk. 

That was strange. It was Flitwick’s patronus, but he usually communicated via owl post, or visited by Floo if it was urgent.

His slightly-squeaky voice emerged from the small bird: “Lady Granger. Come at once. The trace has found a target.”

The hair rose on the back of her neck.

The trace has found a target.

Hermione clapped her hands together above her head, and Nëna flapped forward. The pair of them vanished in a flash of flame. In their wake, the phoenix’s call echoed through the halls of the Wizengamot.

 

 -]l[-

 

Hermione stared at the golden arrow. 

Unlike every other time she’d seen it, this time, rather than lazily rotating, it stayed perfectly fixed. 

Almost as surprising was the direction.

It pointed out the window up into the empty sky.

She leant forward, and nudged the golden arrow to one side with a finger. It wobbled slightly, then returned to point in the same direction. 

Moody and Scrimgeour stood by her side, and Flitwick was sitting behind the desk. Hermione had found a chair for Bones - at Amelia’s age, standing for any length of time was uncomfortable. The other person who should have been here looked down at them kindly from the painting behind Flitwick’s chair.

“So, someone managed to fake Potter’s trace,” Alastor growled. “If Minerva were still alive, I’d suspect her, given that she created the tracking charm to begin with. But she’s not. Anyone know if someone’s stolen her wand?”

Hermione shook her head. “I burnt her wand myself, at the funeral.”

Bones’ hands shook a little - her daily unicorn blood had been delayed by this unanticipated meeting. Still, her voice was firm. “There have been other imposters. This is what, the third?”

Scrimgeour nodded. “The metamorphmagus, at Durrich. And the con-woman who polyjuiced into the form of a Muggle Potter look-alike she’d disfigured with a facial scar. She was the one who tried to get into Gringotts.”

Hermione pursed her lips. “This is different. Those times, the trace stayed inactive. But even if Harry is alive and the trace hasn’t been dispelled, it still should have faded years ago…”

Flitwick hummed in thought. “Minerva’s charms were always unusually potent, but twenty-eight years?” He tapped his fingers on the desk.

And then something bright rushed into the room. There was a sudden commotion as Alastor whirled and produced his wand, and Hermione automatically moved to stand between Amelia Bones and the intruder.

It was a patronus, in the form of a human - like hers. Hovering a foot off the ground, it ignored the others, and faced her. A voice emerged - Harry’s voice, just as she remembered it.

“Hermione Granger,” it said, and suddenly she was a first-year again, witnessing Harry break the rules of reality that seemed to bind everyone but him. She half expected to hear the sound of snapping fingers. “I’m back.”

 -]l[-

Zorian

 

Fortunately for all of them, it seemed that Earth-wizards excelled in certain fields of magic. The dimensional boundaries of each of the curious bags they’d found in Diagon Alley were cleaner than Zorian could have made them, and could be successfully placed inside one another without causing issues. In the end, literally hundreds of tonnes of material was nested inside a single suitcase, which was firmly affixed to the rear side of the Inconceivable.

Next to it was the air supply. Rain had found the device inside a non-magical foundry which developed breathing apparatuses for undersea vessels. 

There was no bathroom. In such a small space with so many other people, Zorian appreciated Rain’s Purify aura more than ever.

Even so, there was little to no privacy inside the main body of the spherical vessel. To get some time alone, you had to duck inside one of the other expanded spaces - they’d set up a bag which connected to a room-sized tent, for sleeping, and a suitcase which linked to a cellar-sized space for general use.

Rain stayed awake almost all the time, constantly running in place to push their vessel onwards with his odd magical skills. Since there was no resistance to overcome in the void, he was accelerating them at what he said was more than ten times a typical planet’s gravity. 

Measuring acceleration in terms of gravity was initially a novel concept to Zorian, but one that made sense, when he thought about it. When a train accelerated in Cyoria, the direction objects ‘fell’ seemed to shift - what was this, if not the same thing on a larger scale?

Something that took longer for him to get his head around - and equally puzzled the other members of their motley ensemble - was that apparently every one of their worlds had very similar levels of gravity to begin with.

Discussing this had led Harry to raise another topic Zorian hadn't given much thought to thus far: why were there humans on all these different worlds? Some consultation with Galvachren's guide indicated that their four worlds were far from the only ones that humans made their home. Harry's next comments about ‘gene-seeding’ and ‘Star-Trek’ were initially puzzling, but Rain was fascinated enough that Zorian had made a mental note to research the topic further when he got a chance.

In any case, apparently, their acceleration would usually be lethal, and it kept them thinking of the rear of the vessel as ‘down’ almost all the time, in a stuttering imitation of planetary gravity. This had the amusing effect of making it seem like Rain was running straight up at the ceiling. Thankfully, Force Ward was more than capable of preventing anyone from coming to harm, and its cushioning resisted enough of the phantom force that moving around was only slightly more effort than usual.

Alustin spent most of his time looking out the crystal port-holes. Zorian couldn’t see much - there was a single bright point of light in their direction of travel, but apart from that, he could only see a smattering of stars.

Alustin’s ‘far-sight’ affinity gave him some kind of innate control over light and the information it carried, which was especially well suited to making out images at a distance. Correspondingly, he was endlessly fascinated by the telescopes Rain had scavenged on the reflected Earth. Combining his affinity with the precision-tooled devices, he was serving as their guide. Within a day or so, they’d passed the orbit of the planet Harry and Rain called Neptune, and were making decent progress toward the inner planets.

For Zorian, this was a welcome break. Although he appreciated the work his simulacra could do, and on some level liked their company, he’d been maintaining a full complement of them ever since the Splinter - so it was a refreshing change to be alone in his mind. He spent a lot of time with Zach - the little snake adapted surprisingly well to the stuttering ‘gravity’, and could coil himself around the internal struts of their vessel to make his own way throughout the ship. 

Some time to get to know the others was also welcome. Even without much equipment, Artur was an excellent chef, and kept them well fed, even as the fresher food ran out.

Despite the monotony of their mode of travel, there was rarely a dull moment on board the Inconceivable. Alustin and Godrick were often at odds, and discussions about the ethics of nation-state politics drew in almost everyone, and frequently got fiery enough that Zorian quietly bowed out.

Not long after their journey started, Harry received a return message from his contact on Earth, also via patronus. They were directed to land on the quidditch pitch, outside Hogwarts - a location all of them knew well, despite never having visited the original.

Rain distracted himself by digging through the libraries he’d internalised, and telling them about the tricks and stories he discovered. It was rare for anything to be both new to Zorian, and to be compatible with his spellcasting style, but when it was, it was a pleasant surprise. He didn’t try out any of them immediately, though - by collective agreement, they’d all decided to put off any magical experimentation until they were no longer in a pressurised space-vessel.

On the whole, the experience reminded Zorian of the months he’d spent with Zach (the human, not the snake) in the time-distorting Black Rooms beneath Cyoria, just with slightly more privacy, more company, and better food.

Harry, for his part, spent most of his time sending patronuses back and forth. There was a considerable delay between when he sent them and when they returned, and he spent the rest of the time resting quietly, his head against a cushion, looking out into the star-dotted void.

Hugh must have noticed Harry’s mood at some point, because after a while, he moved to be by Harry’s side, and they practised some basic crystal-spellforms together.

The hours blended into days. In time, the sun grew brighter and brighter, and they needed to cover the sunward-facing crystal port-holes to avoid being blinded. Eventually, with everyone crowded around the windows, they found themselves in an orbit around Earth.

Descending was an odd process. Rain decelerated their vessel until their orbit roughly matched the rotational speeds of the green-blue planet below, then decelerated even further, letting them skim through the upper atmosphere repeatedly to shed some velocity. He'd apparently had to spend a lot of time ‘inside his soul' to finalise the calculations necessary to pull that off. Fortunately, at that point, they were low enough that the GPS devices began to function again. 

For the final part of the descent, everyone except Rain (the engine) and Alustin (the navigator) stayed hidden in a pocket dimension anchored to a mid-sized bag Rain was wearing. The idea was that if their vessel tore apart on re-entry, Rain could protect himself with Force and Heat Ward, and carry them to the ground to release them there.

In the end, it didn’t come to that. The Inconceivable held fast, and the final descent was slow and controlled.

One by one, they piled out of the pocket dimension, and stretched, relishing the feeling of Earth’s usual gravity rather than the intermittent false gravity they’d been tolerating for the past few days. Zorian conjured three simulacra, and once everyone was ready, Godrick deformed the steel wall of the Inconceivable into a series of steps, leading outside.

The quidditch pitch was almost empty. About fifty metres away from where they’d landed stood a pair of figures, clearly awaiting their arrival.

On the left was an old man, slightly hunched at the shoulder, but still somehow giving the impression of extraordinary physical strength. One of his eyes was bizarrely larger than usual, and was rotating freely in its socket. Zorian recognised his clothing from their visit to the Clyde naval base - a bullet-proof vest, and some simple, unadorned body armour. He held a wand in his left hand, loosely pointed in their direction.

On the right was a woman who seemed to almost glow in the dim light of dawn. It was hard to tell her age - somewhere between twenty and thirty - and tall, not Artur’s height, but six feet at least. She wore no armour, only loose-fitting robes. On her shoulder was a bright-burning phoenix, the golden mirror of the crimson-black one that had pursued them in the labyrinth. It called out to them, sounding triumphant and almost song-like, tugging at Zorian’s emotions through his mind-shield in a way that should have been impossible.

“You want to go first?” Godrick asked Harry, and gestured at the stairs.

Despite Harry’s mind-shield, his nervousness was clearly visible in his face. Still, he squared his shoulders, and stepped down Godrick’s stairs onto the dewey grass of Earth. The rest of them followed behind him as the twelve-year old boy walked forward to greet the friends he hadn’t seen in thirty years.

Chapter 17: Suspicion

Harry

 

“Hold it right there, lad.”

Harry stopped walking, and looked across the dewey grass of the Quidditch pitch at the two figures standing a dozen metres away.

Alastor Moody looked old. 

Even less of his scar-ravaged flesh was visible than the first time Harry had met him. Well-worn body armour covered his body and limbs, leaving only his weathered face exposed.

Sensing his environment with his carbon-affinity was slowly becoming second nature to Harry. He wasn’t quite at ‘MRI-on-demand’ level, but he could ‘feel’ a shocking amount of detail about most organics. Moody’s body was far from ordinary - aside from the brutal scarring and the chunk of his nose that looked like it had been carved away, he was missing an eye, and both his left foot and a good part of his left arm were entirely gone, replaced by prosthetics.

The phoenix called out once more from its perch on the woman’s shoulder. The song pierced the dawn air, warm like the morning rays of sun that were just visible over the nearby hills. It cut through Harry’s pent-up emotions, through his fatigue (for he hadn’t been able to sleep since passing Jupiter’s orbit), and a resolute strength began to spread through his limbs.

I don’t know you yet, phoenix, but you’re right. I’ve been gone far too long. There are things I need to do, to make up for lost time.

With the courage the bird-song lent him, he raised his head and looked the one place he hadn’t looked yet - into the eyes of the woman on whose shoulder the phoenix rested. 

Hermione Granger looked back at him. Her face had changed in the intervening twenty-eight years, but not as much as it ought to have. She was an adult now, but beyond that, Harry couldn’t see any clear markers of age. Her thick, dark hair was loosely bound into a ponytail, and her robes were a plain black, without mark of status or station. 

Her expression reminded him a little of Dumbledore - calm, steady, with the smallest hint of a smile - yet somehow also grave, as if the weight of the world’s failings rested on her shoulders.

Before he could say anything, she spoke, in a terribly familiar voice that almost brought Harry to tears. “What was the first question you asked me?”

Harry answered, almost on autopilot. “The types of quarks. And where I could find a first-year girl named Hermione Granger. Up, down, strange, charm, truth and beauty, and right in front of me.”

A half-smile flickered across the woman’s face, and she continued. 

“What was the last thing you gave to me?”

“The true cloak of invisibility, the Deathly Hallow passed down from Ignotus Peverell to his heirs, first me, then you. And this,” he paused, fumbling for the bag at his side, and withdrawing a wand of dark-grey wood, “is its brother, the Elder Wand, once Dumbledore’s, now mine. It should go some way toward proving my identity, which I presume is the purpose of these questions.”

There was enough carbon in the wood of the wand, and it was just barely light enough for him to gently float it across the gap between him and Hermione, with no movement or spoken incantation on his part.

Hermione caught it out of the air, and examined it closely before passing it to Moody. The auror touched it gently with his own wand, and a shower of red sparks emerged from the tip. He glanced at Hermione, and nodded once.

“This isn’t the first time ‘Harry Potter’ has returned, then?”

Moody grunted in assent. “None of the others came in a spaceship, though. That part is new.” He tucked the wand back into his own robes rather than returning it.

“Is this space secure and quarantined? We’ve been offworld.”

The woman nodded. “The quidditch pitch is shielded, as are we.” She gestured with her wand, and a collection of what looked like small badges floated out of her robes and across to Harry and the visitors. “Please wear these devices. They’re enchanted to create an impermeable barrier and prevent cross-contamination.”

Harry clipped it to his robes. An almost imperceptible barrier sprung up just outside his clothes and skin, and he breathed a sigh of relief. At least he wasn’t going to unwittingly introduce some virulent plague to his homeworld. Behind him, the others followed suit. Mackerel, for his part, swallowed his badge immediately, but it seemed to function regardless, because a slightly shimmering shield came into being around the crystal spellbook.

Harry took a deep breath. “No-one with a phoenix on her shoulder could ever truly be my enemy, so even if you’re not who I think you are, you’re still a friend. But I should make sure. Who was responsible for the cleansing of Azkaban, and how was it done?”

“Officially?” Hermione took a step back. “The perpetrator of the attack on a secure Ministry facility remains unidentified.” Her hand slipped smoothly along the wood of her wand. “Unofficially? The chief suspect is Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, acting from beyond the Veil. Expecto Patronum!”

A humanoid figure of light appeared before them, and silvery light spread out across the quidditch pitch. Harry couldn’t hold himself back anymore. He ran forward, and wrapped his arms around Hermione Granger, who gently embraced him in turn.

Hermione was tall now - Harry found himself hugging her torso, although he couldn’t quite feel her through the barrier surrounding his skin. There was a moment of silence, then she bent down to whisper into his ear.

“Harry, why are you still twelve?”

He let out a shaky half-laugh. “Uh, that’s a bit of a complicated story. We have a lot to catch up on, although I have a bit of an advantage on that front - I’ve read a bit of what I’ve missed about your life in some books and newspapers.” He stepped back and looked across toward Moody. “I don’t expect you to be convinced of my identity yet - in fact, if you were, that would be a reason for me to distrust your identity. That being said, there are some wheels that need to start moving as quickly as possible. First, we-”

Moody cut him off. “Who are they?”

Harry blinked. “Oh, right.”

Behind him were (he had to quickly re-count, since Zorian rarely had the same number of simulacra) eleven people, and a flying crystal spellbook.

“These are some aliens I met along the way. Well, he’s not an alien, I suppose, I think he’s originally from Canada. Is that right?”

Rain waved a hand, his bearded face visible due to his current lack of helmet. “It’s good to meet you both. I’m Rain, Captain of Ascension. I prefer to think of myself as aligned with Ascension now, rather than any Earth nation. I hope we can work together to improve both of our worlds.”

Hermione’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second before she regained her composure. “And the others?”

One of the simulacra stepped forward and raised a hand in greeting. “I’m Kael, this is Xvim, that’s Alanic, and that’s Benisek.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. That was the first time he’d heard Zorian speak English. Some words were a little oddly pronounced, but it was still quite clear and understandable. His accent was a curious mixture of Harry’s English accent, Rain’s North American one and Zorian’s native Ikosian. 

Harry went on. “This is Artur, Alustin, Godrick, Hugh, Sabae and Talia. And the spellbook is Mackerel - don’t leave books unattended around him, he has a habit of eating them.” One by one, the Anastans smiled and waved in greeting - although they couldn’t understand English themselves, they had clearly put together what was happening, and knew what to do when they heard Harry say their names.

He looked up at Hermione. “They’re all good friends of mine, and a few of them I’d trust with my life.” Glancing across at Moody again, he went on. “That being said, I expect you to require some degree of tactical report on the unknowns. As far as I’m aware, no-one here has the capacity to seriously threaten the existence of magical civilization on Earth, at least not within a timespan of less than a day. Rain has the most raw power, and he could destroy a city in a matter of minutes. However, what I know of his morality suggests that this is extremely unlikely to occur. The others are capable combatants in their own right, but are largely likewise also held in check by their sense of morality. I don’t expect them to be staying on this world for longer than a few days.”

Moody’s combat-ready stance shifted slightly, his wand still held pointing loosely in their direction. 

Harry continued. “I realise our arrival likely comes as quite a shock. You must have a lot of questions, and they will be answered soon. Nevertheless, this is a great opportunity, and has the potential to reshape many worlds for the better.”

“Now, we need to act quickly. First, I need to see Amelia Bones and my parents, and an expert in medical transfiguration - were you able to cryonically preserve McGonnagall’s body? Then, I also want to speak with the foremost experts on Portkeys and magical teleportation you can find on short notice.”

Moody began muttering into a small communications mirror he’d produced from his armour, and the words Harry could hear sounded like they related to the requests he had made.

In the momentary pause, Rain stepped forward, and spoke directly to Hermione. “I need to understand something. Your civilization has medical magic far ahead of what non-magical Earth has access to. Is that right?”

Hermione stepped forward and offered Rain a hand to shake, which he took. “I’m Hermione Granger, Head of Magical Law Enforcement. This is Alastor Moody, my second-in-command. Yes, medical magic tends to be superior to Muggle techniques.”

Rain’s expression had cooled, and was now blank and unreadable. “Then why are there still more than seventy thousand deaths a day from heart disease and cancer alone?”

A sudden chill fell across the gathering, and Harry turned to look up at Rain. He hadn’t mentioned this in the Inconceivable, why now?

Moody was the first to respond, having stowed his communication mirror again. “It’s not that simple, boy.”

Rain narrowed his eyes, and tilted his head toward Moody. Something imperceptible changed, and a wave of pressure spread out from Rain - not physical pressure, it was something else Harry hadn’t felt before. His heart felt like it was being crushed, as if a great weight was pressing down on his chest and stealing the air from his lungs.

Harry was suddenly aware that Rain looked very physically imposing in his solid-metal plate armour.

“Why not?” There was a dangerous edge to Rain’s voice now, and Harry had an urge to back away before something bad happened. 

Hermione sighed, seemingly unaffected. “We do what we can. The Statute of Secrecy prevents us from making magical techniques publicly available, and beyond that, our resources are simply spread too thin.” She looked down at Harry. “We’ve made a lot of progress since your time, but there’s still considerable pushback in the Wizengamot at suggestions of allocating magical resources to Muggle causes.”

Rain’s eyes flickered between Hermione and Moody. “Harry seems to think that you’re good people. If he hasn’t been misled, then there must be something I’m missing here. In what world is keeping magic a secret that important?”

Hermione’s back was straight, and her voice was calm. “This one, I’m afraid. Even the crude modelling my Department can do suggests that dismantling the Statue of Secrecy leads to a sixty-five percent chance of a magically-caused apocalypse within the year. And we don’t know half of what magic can do, not yet.”

There was a pause, then Rain continued, changing tack:

“With the magic you seem to be capable of, you could still massively advance non-magical technology without revealing any secrets. You could prevent famines, stop wars, come up with cures for diseases…” Rain trailed off, and there was an almost pleading look in his eyes. It contrasted oddly with the urge Harry still had to flee from his presence. 

The phoenix on Hermione’s shoulder made a sound - a single, mournful call that slowly faded into silence. Hermione flinched a little at the sound. “Annual famine deaths are down to a fraction of what they were in the fifties and sixties. Past that point, logistics are the main problem, not food supply - it’s hard for us to figure out where the people in need of food are, and we lack the capacity to deliver it with that precision. Vaccines are harder than they might seem. I had a combined magical and non-magical team working on the malaria vaccine for nearly a decade before we got anywhere. We try to jump on and contain any potential pandemics, and there haven’t been any major ones since I was appointed. Some Muggle wars are easy to prevent, and we do - but in general, wars are complex. We’re not the only magical country in the world, and avoiding a new wizarding war is the primary goal of our foreign policy.”

The pressure emanating from Rain abated, and Harry sucked in a shaky breath. 

Rain nodded slowly. “Alright. You’re good people, working with limited tools. Regardless, like Harry said, we need to move quickly - there are thousands of people dying every day.”

He started pacing. “I have access to a spell that can heal people in a broad radius. I don’t know how it would work on things like cancer, but it should take care of any infections, and injuries and things like that. We need someone who’s sick, to test it. If you insist on keeping magic a secret - which I’m not happy about, but we can discuss that more later - we can probably figure out a workaround. Maybe we pretend the aura is some kind of made up new medical tech, like nanobots or something. I’ll make aura anchors, and we can spread them out across the planet, put them in the largest hospitals around the world.”

Hermione was speaking into a communication mirror now, her voice low and urgent. 

Harry looked up at Rain. “Will your aura stop old age?”

Rain shook his head. “It won’t stop ageing, but it will forestall it to some extent. People die of old age on Ameliah’s world just like they do here. But this is better than nothing.”

Harry’s chest was tight again, for an entirely different reason. There were eight billion people on this planet (according to Wikipedia, the number had gone up by about three billion in his absence). How many would they be able to save with Rain’s magic from another world?

And what would this world look like if they did?

The air nearby cracked, and a trio of what must be aurors apparated in. They weren’t in the flowing robes Harry remembered, instead favouring body armour, like Moody. 

Hermione gestured to the newcomers. “Alastor, take Rain to St Mungos and get started on verifying his claims. Make sure he doesn’t leave your sight or remove his quarantine charm. I’ll take Harry to my office at the Ministry to debrief further. We’ll meet Bones and his parents there. Aurors Bogdanov, Davies, and Shacklebolt, take the remainder of the visitors to Holding Area C in the Ministry. They are to be treated well, but not allowed to leave.”

Harry frowned. Hermione was taking the situation appropriately seriously, but splitting up their group was not trivially a good decision.

It seemed Zorian had the same thought, because one of the simulacra raised a hand - the one that had claimed his name was Kael. “Actually, I’d like to come with Rain. I believe I may have some medical insights worth sharing.”

Moody nodded, stepped forward. He roughly grasped Rain and ‘Kael’ by the arms, and with a loud cracking sound, they were gone. 

Harry gestured toward another simulacrum - the one that had been called ‘Xvim’ by the simulacrum that had introduced them. “Actually, you should probably come with me. I think you have some information that’s important for Hermione to hear.”

Harry hadn’t thought of what information that might be, yet. The important thing was that at least one version of Zorian was with each group, so that they could communicate easily, and, if it became necessary, teleport to safety. Hermione’s Earth seemed like a better one than the one he’d left in 1992, but it was by no means guaranteed to be safe.

Hermione took him by the arm, and the simulacrum stepped forward to join them. Harry noted that ‘Xvim’ had Zach the snake tucked into his sleeve, good. There was a loud crack, and the world changed.

 

-]l[-

 

Rain

 

After experiencing Zorian’s near-seamless teleportations, Alastor Moody’s version left Rain briefly disoriented. There was a sound like a firecracker, and then the three of them (Rain, Moody and a simulacrum) were in what looked like an empty hospital waiting room.

Moody released his grip on Rain’s forearm, and gestured with his wand toward a set of double doors. “In there. It’s the St. Mungo’s reception. We’ll test you on the rats and the flies first.”

He gave Rain an appraising look as they started walking. “Destroy a city, eh? You don’t look like you have it in you.”

Rain shook his head in disbelief. This situation was already bordering on the ridiculous, and now he was being told by a war-veteran wizard that he didn’t look like he could commit atrocities. 

“You’re absolutely right. I don’t have it in me to destroy a city.”

Moody snorted. “Either way, I’m not about to take my eye off you. If there’s one thing I trust a returned ‘Harry Potter’ about, it’s about what might cause a massive catastrophe.”

The Zorian-simulacrum pushed open the double doors, and they walked into a sterile-looking hospital corridor. A witch and a wizard stood guard just inside, and had their wands trained on them. Moody barked out an authorization code, and the pair of them lowered their wands.

Moody led them on a left turn and down a set of stairs. Pulsing Detection, it looked like they were in a hospital-complex, albeit one unlike Rain had ever seen. There were large rooms that looked like they were dedicated to some odd kind of non-human animal, and Detection failed to return anything coherent at all for whole swathes of the building. 

The patch of his soul Rain had purged on the Hogwarts lawn was long gone, now, and the spells the wizards must have cast to keep ‘Muggles’ out of their world no longer had any effect on him. Even so, Detection struggled to cope with the non-Euclidean spaces that seemed to be so common on Earth. If he focused, he could force the skill to make out the whole rooms that were folded into a fraction of the space they ought to occupy - but it was clear the System’s usual interface hadn’t been designed with space-folding in mind.

A thought came through from the simulacrum: <I don’t trust this man at all.> 

Rain kept his eyes straight ahead. <Me neither. Harry seems to think he’s a friend, but Harry hasn’t seen this guy in thirty years, so his information is a bit out of date. Besides, Harry has his own stuff going on. He’s not exactly normal, though I suppose none of us are. Regardless, their government seems to be cooperating. Thanks for coming with me, by the way - I feel a lot better knowing you’re here.>

Moody pushed open a final set of double doors. The room they’d entered looked a bit like an animal shelter, except almost all the creatures in the cages were rats - with pure, white fur. Lab rats.

Moody gestured with his wand, and one of the cage doors slammed open. A single rat was levitated onto a stainless steel table, where it squirmed and squealed, clearly trying to escape the magic that held it in place.

Moody grasped the rat’s leg with his hand, and jerked it abruptly to one side. The rat’s bones snapped, a sickening noise. The creature was still held in place by Moody’s magic, but its squeals of confusion became squeals of terror and pain. The rats still in their cages shrank back in fear, and the sound of their collective panic increased in volume.

Rain had to hold back the instinctive response to punch Moody in the face. The grizzled veteran looked up at him with a twisted grin. “Alright, let's see what you’ve got, boy.”

Summer didn’t at first look like a particularly impressive skill, let alone one that it made sense to spend his final saved skill point on. Boosting natural health regeneration by a few percentage points didn’t sound like the sort of thing that could stand between life and death.

That was before Rain’s modifiers started being applied. Stacking his rings and passive bonuses left him with a comfortable 1,020% boost. 

What would it look like, if an injured earthling suddenly could heal at more than ten times their natural rate? 

And that was before the active buffs started adding their effects. Without entering Aura Focus, Rain’s calculations suggested that he could multiply a human’s natural healing by a factor of 269.

Normally, pouring vast quantities of health and mana into someone came with its own risks - soulstrain. If the recipient wasn’t strong enough in their own right, then the additional energy would begin to supplant the energy they could supply from within, and problems would begin to set in. 

That meant he probably wouldn’t be able to heal the most serious and chronic injuries. Cancer, for example, was one he was going to have to test carefully. Poorly applied healing might even make the situation worse.

But that was a thought for later. Now, there was an injured creature in front of him. And Rain could do something to ease its pain.

He focused, and spent his final skill point to unlock Summer. Since he’d just unlocked it, it was at the lowest possible rank, and would grow in strength with time. Still, he activated the aura and felt his mana flow through it.

Nothing was happening, at least nothing visible. The rat was still squealing, its leg twisted at an angle that looked viscerally wrong.

Rain gritted his teeth. He compressed the aura’s range until it just barely covered the rat, and the world went dark for a moment as he sacrificed his senses to force more mana through the skill. 

Thirty seconds later, Rain opened his eyes.

The rat’s leg had healed, and its breathing had calmed. Moody was looking at him with a calculating stare. 

“Where did Harry find you, I wonder?”

The simulacrum was giving him an odd look too, for that matter.

Rain breathed out, and held out a palm by his side. A light sparked there, and the seed of a crystal began to grow. “I’ll start creating aura anchors now, since we’ll need a lot. That was a pretty basic test, and we should try more complex cases before rolling this out at any scale. In particular, I don’t want to test this on anyone with cancer or anything similar unless we have someone on standby with a cure cancer spell, or something - I have a hunch that this might make the cancer grow uncontrollably.”

Moody nodded curtly, and gestured toward the door with his wand. “There are humans in the next wing we can test on.”

Rain moved to block Moody’s path out of the room, and looked him square in his bizarre rotating eye. “Before we go anywhere else, I want to make something very clear. I’m warning you. If you break someone’s arm, or personally injure them for the purposes of testing out the healing on them, there will be consequences.”

Moody grunted, but seemed to nod in agreement. He was muttering under his breath as they left the room: “Seems the people Potter brought back aren’t as practical as he is. Pity.”

After a minute of walking through corridors, they found themselves in a more familiar looking hospital ward, with rows of beds holding half-a-dozen confused-looking people. As they entered, the patients started speaking, but Rain could barely hear their words - it seemed there was some kind of muffling charm on the hospital beds. They all looked terribly sick, almost too weak to move. Even so, it was clear there were magical restraints on the beds, holding them in place somehow. As Rain watched, a sickly-pale man with curly black hair tried to step out onto the floor, and was gently but firmly rebuffed by some invisible barrier, and forced back into the bed.

Most of them were adults, but on the far side of the room a young girl looked almost comically small on the adult-sized hospital bed. Beads of sweat were running down her forehead, and she was clearly trying to speak to him - but the words weren’t making it past the quieting charm.

“What is this place?”

Moody barked out a response, as if pausing between words was a waste of valuable time. “The waiting room for Muggle-treatment. We have contacts in some of the major Muggle hospitals who send us their most difficult cases. They’ll be dead in a day or so without treatment. Our medi-witches deal with them when they get a spare moment. Granger’s idea.”

“Why are they restrained?”

Moody laughed at that, a short and humourless sound. “Can’t just let ‘em wander around, can we? We have to obliviate them afterwards, regardless, but it’s less work if they stay in one place.”

Rain’s arms were shaking a little.

“What diseases do these people have?”

Moody summoned the charts from the wall, and passed them to Rain. He scanned the list: diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure… no cancer patients in the room. Good. 

A strange haze was settling over Rain’s eyes. The way Moody talked about these people - these ‘Muggles’ - put him on edge. It reminded him of how people on Ameliah’s world talked about the unawakened. Or the way Alustin talked about the people who were crushed underfoot as armies clashed and cities fell to siege. Like they weren’t people at all.

It seemed that no matter where he went, there were always those with power, and those without. Those with power shaped the world, and those without power were lucky if they could survive in it. 

That wasn’t the only way the world could be. Ascension was already changing things, on Ameliah’s world. And even though he wasn’t going to stay on Earth forever, he was still going to try to change things while he was here…

Rain shut his eyes, and let the healing warmth of Summer spread outwards, covering the room. He held the aura for almost thirty seconds, at full power - any longer, and he’d be worried about serious soul-strain for the humans. 

When he opened his eyes, the room was quiet. 

The six patients were sitting up in their beds now, and were staring at him. Colour had returned to their cheeks, and the closest one stretched out a hand toward him with what looked like gratitude in his eyes. 

The hand was deflected downwards by the magical restraints, and Rain almost snarled at the reminder of their situation. He turned to Moody. “Test these people however you can. MRIs, magical diagnosis spells, whatever you have. I want to know how well the healing aura works before we deploy it more widely, and if there are any issues we need to know about.”

He looked back up at the six pleading faces. “And then get these people back to their families - get them home.”

 

-]l[-

 

Harry

 

The three of them (Hermione, Harry, and a simulacrum) found themselves in an austere-looking office. Silvery plaques dotted the walls, and there were three sources of dim light - a softly glowing enchanted square tile in the ceiling, a crackling fireplace set into the wall, and the sparks flickering from the phoenix still resting on Hermione’s shoulder.

Hermione gestured toward the simulacrum. “Xvim, right?” She looked back at Harry. “Do you trust him? Can we speak freely?”

“You’re a perfect occlumens, right?” Hermione nodded. Harry took a deep breath, and hissed in Parseltongue. 

“Will you and yourss keep this meeting sssecret, unlesss you believe I would endorsse the indissscretion?”

Zach quietly hissed back, from where he was nestled into the simulacrum’s sleeve:

“Yesss.”

He turned back to Hermione. “I trust him with my life, and this conversation will stay private.”

“Alright.” She eased herself back onto her desk and rubbed a hand over her forehead. “Is he Voldemort?”

Harry blinked. “What? No! Oh, the snake-speech, right. No, Xvim is a friend, and is entirely unrelated to Voldemort.”

She nodded. “Is Voldemort still bound?”

Harry held out his hand, and gestured to the gemstone set into his ring. “Securely as ever. More securely than ever, actually, now that Xvim is here to help keep watch. I assume Moody told you?”

Hermione nodded, cast a series of charms on the ring, then nodded again, satisfied.

“Any other potential catastrophes I should be aware of?”

Harry frowned. “More than I can safely list, unfortunately. There is more outside of this reality than I had previously assumed. None that I am aware of are likely to be able to pierce Earth’s defences anytime soon. That being said, if there is a counter-charm to fiendfyre, I’d like to know it, because it would help close off one vector of attack.”

Hermione spoke into her communications mirror again. “I don’t know one personally, but my people are looking now. Now, in five sentences or less, what happened to you?”

Harry took a deep breath, and sat down into one of the armchairs opposite Hermione’s desk. “The current theory is that several of us were torn from our home realities due to a misfiring energy-gathering process of a city-killing exile machine. Somewhere along the way, I was trapped in a timeless void for nearly thirty years, so only about three weeks have elapsed for me since I last saw you. In those three weeks, we escaped the void-exiled city, made some allies on Anastis - that’s the world we arrived in - and fought our way through the labyrinths that connect the worlds to get back here. The others agreed to help me get home first since I’m the weakest.”

Hermione had picked up a small electrical device from her desk and was tapping at the screen. “A timeless void? Like Dumbledore?”

“I didn’t see him, if that’s what you mean - it was timeless, after all, so I didn’t see anything at all. But I think it’s something similar to what happened to Dumbledore, yes.”

“Why did you want to see Bones urgently?”

“Several reasons, actually. First, I need to formalise the inheritance process for the Line of Merlin. That’s something I really really should have done immediately upon receiving it. Second, I imagine you would know most of the goings on at the Ministry, but she is the Chief Warlock, so there might be some things she needs to tell me about the time I’ve missed. Third, I need to give her a new body - that’s why I need an expert in medical transfiguration.”

Hermione pulled her wand from her robes, and the motion dislodged the phoenix, which flew to what looked like its usual perch behind her desk. “As far as I know, since the disappearance of Dumbledore, and Minerva’s death, I’m our most skilled expert in that area. It helps that I can run experiments on myself, since my body is constantly transfiguring itself back into its natural form. Much like a mountain troll.” She gave him a pointed look. “I’ve put together a lot of the pieces, but when we get a chance, you still need to explain exactly what happened the night that I returned from the dead.”

Then, a curious look crossed her face as she thought through what he’d said.

“A new body - you mean with the Philosopher’s Stone? You still have it? How does that work?”

A week ago, letting Zorian know about the Stone would have been a terrible security breach. Now that Zorian had personally looked through each nook and cranny of Harry’s mind already, it wasn’t anything new to him.

“Yes. The Stone functions by making transfigurations permanent. If you can transfigure Bones into a younger version of her body, I can stop the change from ever reverting.”

Hermione’s eyes widened. “But that means you could -”

Harry let out a frustrated breath. “It means we could have done almost anything! I really wasn’t planning on getting stuck in a timeless void for thirty years, I promise. Moody’s right - you really can’t be too paranoid.”

A voice sounded from the communications mirror resting on the desk, and Hermione briefly responded. “Bones is ready. Your parents have been contacted, and are standing by at a Floo station. We haven’t told them what’s happened yet, but we think they’ve guessed.”

Harry sighed. “Right, we’ll see Bones first,” he said. 

Hermione gestured toward the door, and it soundlessly slid open. On the other side was Amelia Bones, clutching the arm of the young auror next to her for stability. Harry remembered meeting her for the first time - he’d thought she looked like beef jerky given human form.

Now, she looked like a light breeze might blow her away.

“Potter.” She sounded bitter. Harry couldn’t find it in himself to blame her. 

“Amelia. It’s been too long.”

She shook her head irritably. “Not for you, apparently - just for the rest of us.” After settling into one of the chairs, she nodded curtly at the auror who’d helped her in, and he left, closing the door behind him.

“You brought the Line of Merlin?” Harry asked.

Madam Bones kept her eyes trained on Harry, but it was clear she was asking Hermione: “It’s really him?”

Hermione nodded, and Amelia withdrew a short rod of dark stone from her sleeve, and passed it over to Harry. 

Given that the Mirror-conjured empty Earth had seen fit to replicate the Line of Merlin, Harry had idly toyed with the idea of bringing the replica rod along to the real Earth. He’d discarded that thought pretty much immediately though - the sheer number of catastrophes that might follow was too long for Harry to easily think through. So he’d left it behind as they’d departed that reality for this one.

He held the real rod loosely in one hand. “Are you still willing to be regent? Note that regardless of whether or not you agree, Hermione and I can give you back a younger body.”

Her voice was softer than he remembered, but still strong. “I will do what I must to keep the world from ruin. And I’d like to see how you plan to do that.”

Harry held the rod back out to the wizened old witch. “I hereby re-designate Amelia Bones as my regent for Wizengamot-related functions. Should I fail to return to the Wizengamot at least once in any given year, or at any time that Amelia Bones chooses, the Line of Merlin will pass to Hermione Granger.”

There was an intake of breath from nearly everyone in the room. (Zorian’s simulacrum was stoic, as usual, his face impassive.) 

Bones was holding the rod again, looking at Harry with an odd expression. “It acknowledges you as the rightful Bearer.” She squinted her eyes. “It’s really you. After all this time”

“At least as far as I can tell, yes. I suppose I could be a conjured copy, identical in every way and with all the memories of the original. Not much point in making a distinction in that case.” Harry dusted off his hands and stood up. “Alright, that’s dealt with. Let’s get this done quickly. Hermione, are you confident you can hold a medical transfiguration for at least thirty seconds?”

Hermione idly twirled her wand in her fingers. “I could hold it for days, if necessary, but I’m not sure if the accompanying changes will negatively affect the mind or the brain. I’ve only experimented transfiguration on myself and inanimate objects - it’s usually lethal for living beings. Have you tested this procedure on humans before?”

Harry hummed thoughtfully. “No, we’ve avoided transfiguring anything organic so far. Do you remember the spell we experimented with in first year? Oogely boogely was the incantation, I believe?”

Hermione snorted. “As fitting a test as any. Oogely boogely!” A small glowing green bat appeared at the end of her wand, and fluttered up toward the ceiling.

Harry noted that the duration of the oo, eh and ee sounds had the ratio he remembered of 3 to 1 to 2, as bizarrely required by the laws of magic. At least that was one mystery he had made progress on - the original creator of the spell must have had those sounds in mind, and the functions that had grown on their soul shell simply required them to be said for the mana to be able to flow out of them into the world beyond in the desired way. Then, those functions - and the corresponding requirements for their activation - had leapt from one person’s soul to the next, passed on when one wizard taught the spell to another, as required by the Interdict of Merlin. 

That was Harry’s current hypothesis, at least. To falsify or verify it would require a number of experiments, and he didn’t have time for them right now, as much as he wished he did.

The tiny green bat had no meaningful magical strength of its own, and so Harry’s carbon affinity could freely act upon it. Still, even at around a hundred grams, it was heavier than anything Harry had tried to manipulate so far. With some effort, he visualised one of the simpler spellforms Hugh had taught him - one which would pull an object toward him - and poured mana through it. 

The bat's wings faltered and failed, and it dropped downward into Harry’s hand.

Hermione raised her eyebrows. “How did you do that? It took me until I was about seventeen to pick up my first wandless magic.”

“I’m a double witch.”

“A double witch.” Hermione’s voice was flat.

Harry shrugged. “Working on triple, but that might take some time.” He laid the bat down on the table. “This is conjured matter, so under normal circumstances, it would vanish in a few hours at most.” He withdrew the Philosopher’s Stone from his robes, and placed it atop the tiny bat, still taking most of the weight with his fingers so the bat wouldn’t be injured. 

Harry took a deep breath and concentrated. 

The Stone rotated slightly, and then was still.

Hermione blinked. “Is… that all? I was expecting something more dramatic.”

Harry stepped back, placing the Stone once again securely in his robes. “That’s it. Can you verify that the creature is now permanent?”

Hermione touched the bat with the tip of her wand, and began to mutter diagnostic spells under her breath. A minute later, she looked up at Harry with awe in her eyes. “Extraordinary. It’s as you said, the transient has become permanent.”

Harry nodded. It’s what he’d anticipated, but it was nice to have confirmation. “Xvim, can you see the creature’s mind? How about its soul?”

Zorian’s simulacrum tilted his head slightly, and frowned in concentration. “The mind appears to be intact and fully functional. The soul… if there is one, it’s very, very faint, even for a creature this size. Perhaps it would approach the usual strength with time, perhaps not. If I were you, I would not create a human this way without careful thought as to what you would do if the results are not what you intended.”

Harry paced around the room, and leant on the back of the armchair he’d been sitting in. “A point well taken. I don’t think that’s likely to be an issue if we’re recreating a body but leaving the brain and soul intact.”

Hermione looked a little incredulously between Harry and the simulacrum. “Souls exist?”

Harry tapped his fingers on the back of the armchair. “We’re fairly certain, yes. I’ll give you a full update soon, but for now, there are a few things of higher priority. Xvim, if Amelia lowers her occlumency barriers, can you keep an eye on her mind and soul and ensure she doesn’t experience pain throughout this procedure?”

The simulacrum nodded, face still grave.

Hermione knelt down at the foot of Amelia’s armchair and placed her hand on top of Amelia’s. “I’ll be doing the transfiguration myself, and I trust Harry to make it permanent. That being said, this is the first time this procedure will have been done on a human. It’s your decision - do you want to go ahead with this?”

Amelia’s eyes were almost closed, and Harry could hardly tell she was even awake. Still, she mumbled quietly, the same phrase she’d said earlier: “I will do what I must to keep the world from ruin.” 

Hermione stood up, and gestured with her wand. Harry’s chair morphed and twisted in place before it became a sterile looking hospital bed. That, more than anything else, provoked a reaction from Zorian’s simulacrum, who jumped back in surprise.

With Hermione’s help, Amelia got up onto the hospital bed, groaning slightly with the motion. Hermione put a tender hand on the old witch’s forehead. “Are you ready?”

She nodded weakly, and sighed. “Granger dear, one last thing.”

“Yes?”

“Give me muscles. Slightly more than you have.” With the hint of a grin, she closed her eyes and rested her head back onto the pillow.

Harry reached out and tapped the simulacrum. “Might be best to put her to sleep now.”

The three of them gathered around the edge of the bed, and Hermione touched her wand to the centre of Amelia’s chest.

“Try not to say anything while I’m working. This requires substantial concentration.”

Starting slowly at first, then accelerating, flesh crept like ooze, transforming and sliding in a way that looked bizarrely inhuman. The wrinkles on Amelia’s face didn’t smooth out - instead, they were slurped back into the skull underneath with a wet sucking sound. Amelia’s clothes melted into her form, absorbed into the oblong fleshy blob, presumably acting as a source of additional mass. 

Over the next minute, new features became clear in the misshapen form on the table. Harry had never seen a young Amelia Bones, but it seemed Hermione had at least seen photographs, because the person taking shape on the bed in front of them had clear and distinctive facial features. Harry was reminded of his classmate Susan Bones - Amelia’s grand-niece - and remembered with a start that she would now be in her early forties.

A minute later, it was clear that Hermione was making the final touches. The form on the bed in front of them was fully naked, and well proportioned. Harry couldn’t stop himself from blushing a little, and he noticed the simulacrum likewise awkwardly averting his eyes. 

As requested, the figure looked strong - not inhumanly so, but strong enough that it looked like it could lift Harry with one hand, if it was required.

A minute later, Hermione let out a relieved breath. “The body is complete. Is the mind intact?”

The simulacrum nodded. “She’s resting, and there are no changes to her mind. Her nervous system seems to be fully functional as well. The soul is unchanged, so there shouldn’t be any change to her magical abilities. I’m impressed.”

Almost as an afterthought, Hermione gestured with her wand, and some of the bedsheets wrapped themselves around Amelia’s new body, changing colour and taking the form of simple robes. “Your turn, Harry.”

Harry stepped forward, and placed the Philosopher’s Stone on the centre of the new body’s chest. It was slowly rising and falling in rhythm with the figure’s calm breaths.

He concentrated for a moment, and the Stone rotated slightly. He retrieved it, and stepped back. 

“Can you wake her up, Xvim?” Harry asked. 

The figure’s eyes stirred, but before she fully awoke, the door crashed open, and Moody stormed in.

He jabbed a finger at the simulacrum. “You. Out.”

Hermione blinked. “What is it, Alastor?”

His face could have been carved from stone. “Now.”

The simulacrum looked at Harry questioningly.

Harry’s pulse was quickening. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. I don’t think Alastor would try to hurt me, and if he does, I’ll dismember him first.”

Moody didn’t react, and the half-joke half-threat fell flat. Harry didn’t intend anyone any harm, but he was holding a number of looped carbon nanotube strings aloft with his carbon affinity throughout the room (as was becoming habit, in case sudden action was necessary). Moody’s reaction time was legendary, but even so, Harry gave himself decent odds of being able to lop off his arm before anything dangerous was cast. 

<I’ll be in mental contact regardless. Let me know if you need help.>

With that, ‘Xvim’ nodded, and walked out the door, closing it behind him.

Moody began muttering, gesturing at the door and the floor with his wand. Harry recognised some of the charms from his time at Mary’s Room with Quirrell - they were privacy and security spells. As the fourth charm took hold, Harry felt the mental connection with Zorian’s simulacrum flicker and fade. Six more charms followed.

Once Moody had finished, he spoke, low and urgent. “It’s a skin-puppet.”

Harry and Hermione responded in unison. “What?”

“Half the friends you brought back are skin-puppets. Shadow replicas. Servants of a greater master. Whatever you want to call them. The one outside this room included. I haven’t narrowed down the puppet master yet, but it could be Voldie. My other suspect is one of the other people you brought back, one of the ones in the holding cells. It’s only a matter of time before it steals more bodies. We have to purge them immediately before the infestation gets out of control. It might already be too late.”

Harry barked out a short laugh. “I knew that, actually. And it’s not Voldemort. He’s still neutralised, trapped in my ring - you can verify that for yourself, if you’d like. The copies are conjured bodies, not stolen ones, and he can only maintain around a dozen at a time.”

There was a long silence, and Moody leant forward to cast some of the same diagnostic spells on the ring that Hermione had done earlier. A full minute later, he stepped back.

“I suppose you also know that one of your pals in the holding cells is running around in a stolen body then?” Moody growled.

Harry frowned. “What do you mean?”

“As soon as I noticed the puppetted forms, I checked to see if any of the other bodies were stolen. And one was. Whatever your friend Benisek says, the body he’s walking around in is not the one he was born into. It’s one he’s taken from someone else, and by force.”

That was interesting. Why was Zorian’s flesh-and-blood body not his original one? Then again, a similar accusation could be levelled at Harry, from a certain point of view. On the 31st of October, 1981, Voldemort had overridden the mind and cognitive patterns of the baby Harry Potter, replacing them with his own. So in a sense, Harry supposed he was also possessing a body he wasn’t born into. Whoever the original Harry Potter might have become was destroyed that night, and replaced by someone else.

“That part is news to me, actually. But I’m sure he has a good explanation. I trust him a good deal.”

“Why?” Moody was holding his wand half-threateningly pointed in Harry’s direction, but still covering the door. 

“Parseltongue guarantees of future collaboration.”

“I’ve never seen a guarantee that couldn’t be somehow broken.”

Harry stood firm. “I have some faith in this particular one.”

Moody held his wand stationary for a moment, then lowered it. “And what have you done with Bones?”

Hermione reached out and gently touched Amelia’s new body on the cheek. She awoke with a shock, and shot upright. “Potter.” Her voice was stronger now, the voice of the early-thirties woman she visually seemed to be. Her eyes roved around the room, landing on Harry. Then, she touched her arm, and caught a glimpse of herself in a reflection. “Is this permanent?” 

“Yes,” Harry responded. “We haven’t done longer term testing - you’re the first subject. But I figured you’d waited long enough.”

Moody leant forward, and whispered what sounded like a series of authorisation codes into her ear. She responded absent-mindedly, and ran her hand through her flowing brown hair.

She held up a hand, and rotated it, looking at it from every angle. Then, in an almost automatic motion, she curled it into a fist. 

Amelia Bones looked up at Harry with a grin that showed quite a lot of teeth. “Alright Potter, what’s next?”

 

-]l[-

 

Hugh Stormward

 

‘Holding Area C’, as Zorian had translated for them, was a pleasantly furnished stone chamber, set deep within the Ministry. 

They’d been teleported here in dribs and drabs, but a simulacrum had gone in the first group, and Zorian in the last, so the parties at either end had been in communication at all times. 

Even if he couldn’t speak their language, these friends of Harry’s seemed nice enough, so far. Hugh wasn’t sure Zorian’s paranoia was quite warranted. 

After settling in, they found themselves seated in a rough semi-circle around a roaring fireplace. Plush carpets and cushions covered the stone floors, and a simple ward-like structure prevented the smoke from blowing back into the room. They’d been brought refreshments, too - some of the delicacies Hugh had grown fond of in the reflected Earth. Tomato juice, quince pies, chocolate frogs - things like that. Their treasure chest of loot (all hundreds of tons of it, recursively stored in bags of holding inside a vastly expanded suitcase) was sitting by Hugh’s side - it would be a bit of a pain if they lost it, after going to so much trouble to collect all the materials inside. Fortunately, thanks to some bizarre magic from this world, it tended to follow them around on foot-like appendages when necessary, waddling at an approximate walking pace.

All in all, it was a pleasant break. There was no navigation to be done, no labyrinth monsters to be evaded, and no arcane mysteries to be unravelled. Honestly, after their time in Hogwarts, and now the sitting around today, he could see himself getting used to this lifestyle.

Hugh sank back into his armchair, and Talia nestled her head into his shoulder. “Another world, huh?”

Hugh cocked his head. “Well, it’s sort of the same world we were just in, I guess? It does seem more interesting with people in it, though.”

“Pshh. I’m counting it. That’s… three worlds we’ve been on, so far. Plus a labyrinth.”

He grinned at her. “Two more to go, I guess?” 

Talia sat up a bit, and spoke up a little louder so the rest of the group could hear her. “We’re going to Zorian’s world when we’re done here, right? Then Rain’s?”

Alustin wasn’t paying attention, and didn’t notice the question. He’d collected a bunch of books on the reflected Earth, and he and Sabae were sitting with one of Zorian’s simulacra, trying to learn the native language of this country as quickly as possible. Spread out on a low table in front of them were half a dozen books - Hugh gathered they were mostly about the rise and fall of various empires on this world. Zorian had translated some of the titles for them: ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’, ‘The End of Grindelwald’, and ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’. Sabae was engrossed in her own book - about the founding of something called the ‘United Nations’. Both of them had been asking the group hypothetical questions for a while. They were clearly trying to draw analogies between the political systems described in the books and the ones from home. In the end, with so many books present, Hugh had resorted to giving Mackerel a few of the less important ones to play with. The crystal spellbook was resting on a low table, and looked to be in a satisfied stupor as it digested the foreign books.

Hugh looked across to Artur instead. He and Godrick had retrieved a game board from the stash of loot, and were playing an odd Earth-game - one involving alternately placed black and white stones on a grid.

Artur looked up. “Aye, I think that’s the plan. Rain seems to have some business here, this being his original world and all, so at most I think we can give him a few days or so. Then it’s time to move on.”

Alustin did prick up his ears at that. “Kanderon sends updates via my communications diary about the situation on Anastis every day. It sounds like things are going fine back there, but I’d still like to get back as soon as possible.”

Talia sniffled a little and settled back down. Her calm breath on his neck and her arm around his shoulder were really comfortable, and he didn’t want to move too much in case it dislodged her. 

There were a few minutes of relaxed silence. After a while, Alustin paused while turning a page in one of his books. “Zorian, could you please ask one of our chaperones if they think the Roman Empire would have fallen sooner if it lost access to grain-transports from across the Mediterranean Ocean?”

Zorian exchanged a few sentences with the aurors at the door in the guttural local language, then started quietly laughing to himself. He turned back to Alustin: “He says it’s against Department policy to answer hypothetical questions about history from entities that seem to have come from another world. I can’t really tell if he’s joking or not.”

Hugh closed his eyes and basked in the warmth from both the fireplace in front of them, and his girlfriend nestled into his side. If he had to spend a week waiting for Harry and Rain to finish their business, then this was the way to do it.

-]l[-

 

Harry

 

Even after so many strange occurrences, seeing his parents again was strange in a way nothing else had been. 

His mother and father had stepped out of Hermione’s fireplace into her office in the centre of the Ministry, dazed and confused by the process. And then they’d seen Harry.

Harry had expected a moment of disbelief or incredulity. If your son has been gone for thirty years, then he’s either dead, or he’s an adult who you know nothing about. He is categorically not the same age as the last time you saw him, wearing slightly-tattered versions of the same clothes.

But they just rushed over to him, and in an instant he was smothered in hugs and kisses.

A flurry of affection later, the three of them were seated in a trio of armchairs Hermione had summoned out of a recess in the wall. She’d left the room - ostensibly to give them some privacy, but also to coordinate the processes of finding Britain’s foremost expert on Portkey-magic, as Harry had requested, and corralling the people who would most benefit from renewed youth.

Petunia had tears streaking her cheeks, and so did Harry and Michael. “We looked,” his mother was saying now that her breathing had calmed a little, “so hard, and for so long. Your father and I couldn’t do much to help, but we tried. And Hermione…” she shuddered a little in her armchair. “She frightened me, with what she was willing to do to find you.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said in a small voice. “I should have been better prepared, I should have… I don’t know, thought of something sooner…”

His father reached out to touch Harry’s knee, and his hand lingered there for a moment. “It doesn’t matter. We’re just glad you’re back. We’re just glad you’re back.”

His mother let out a slightly shaky breath. “So what happens now? I know you well enough to know that this doesn’t end with us going home together.”

Harry felt sick. “I’m sorry. You’re right. There are things I have to do. I’ve already missed so much, and there are people I need to help. But I can help you first! Hermione and I can give you younger bodies, if you want.”

Both Petunia and Michael had aged gracefully. Michael’s beard and hair were silvery-grey, which suited his tweed jacket and general professorial aesthetic very well, in Harry’s opinion. And whether it was related to the potions Lily Evans had given her sister years ago, or something else, Petunia didn’t look a day over forty. At his suggestion, both of them looked sceptically at him, then at each other, then back to Harry.

“Thank you for the offer,” said his father, “but we won’t take you up on that right now. I have a conference coming up in a week, and it would be a little confusing for everyone if I showed up in my twenties.”

Harry half-laughed at that. “You could pretend you’re your own younger assistant?”

Michael and Petunia both laughed at that too. His mother put her hand on Harry’s knee. “We’re not saying no forever. There will come a time when we will say yes, and gladly. Hermione has done similar things for us before - Michael had a scare with melanoma last year that she dealt with handily. But for now, we’re happy in ‘these forms’, as you and Michael would put it.”

Harry nodded. It wasn’t the ideal reaction, but it was far better than the outright refusal he’d feared. Wherever possible, he was trying to let people make their own decisions these days, and sometimes that meant watching them make the wrong ones.

There was a knock on the door - Hermione, presumably. 

Harry stood up. “You have some means of communicating with Hermione, right? A magic mirror, or something like that?”

Petunia nodded. “We have her email address.”

“Huh, that works too, I guess.” Hermione must have figured out how to bypass the electricity-meddling effects of Earth-magic somehow. That was something to ask her about later, if they had time. “It’s time for you to go, I think. I’ll stay in contact - you can reach me through Hermione if you need. We’ll talk more soon.”

Harry opened the door, and Hermione walked in. After a last tight hug from each of them, his parents stepped back into the fireplace, and were gone.

 

-]l[-

 

Zorian - Simulacrum ‘Xvim’

 

With the original Zorian convalescing in a cosy chamber back in the Ministry, it was left to ‘Xvim’ to represent their interests at this meeting. And this meeting had the potential to be very important indeed.

Harry and Rain sat by his side, leaning back into armchairs. Rain had one armoured palm out, and was conjuring yet another aura anchor for the spell he called ‘Summer’ - he’d been doing that almost constantly since they’d arrived on this world. Hermione Granger sat behind her desk with her phoenix on her shoulder, and Amelia Bones was leaning against the wall beside her, occasionally flexing her various muscles. She was clearly revelling in her new, younger form. The two women who seemed to be in charge of this world had formidable mind shields, but from what his empathy could glean, they seemed to view him fairly positively. 

The same could not be said of the grizzled auror who stood next to the fireplace. Despite the artificial eye rolling around to look at random directions, the simulacrum knew that the auror’s attention was focused squarely on him. 

Zorian wasn’t quite sure how, but Alastor ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody had figured out that Zorian’s simulacra were all parts of the same larger entity. Then, he’d somehow also managed to puzzle out that Zorian’s body had not always belonged to him. Given that Zorian’s soul perfectly matched the body he was in, even Silverlake or Quatach-Ichl would have been hard pressed to deduce that, and Zorian didn’t have a clue how the strange old wizard had put it together. Moody’s mind-shield was somewhat less well constructed than Harry’s, but backed by far more magical strength, and Zorian didn’t want to provoke a conflict by testing it.

All in all, the simulacrum had to admit that the suspicion currently being levelled at him wasn’t entirely unfair. So it was to Moody’s credit that he was willing to attend this meeting peacefully.

With one final glance at the simulacrum for confirmation, Harry began.

“We think we might be able to construct a more rapid way to pass between worlds.”

The idea had been brewing in Harry’s mind for a while, and Zorian had ripped it out (along with almost everything else) when he’d seized control of Harry’s mind above the Forbidden Forest. Since then, they’d been working on the idea together, but had kept it quiet from the rest of the group. Something like this had the potential to go very well, or very, very badly.

Rain shot them a querying look. “Then why aren’t we using it? I want to get home as soon as I can, and I’m sure you feel the same way, Zorian.”

The simulacrum spoke up. “It’s not that simple. We haven’t done any of the requisite testing yet, and we don’t think it would let us easily reach worlds without visiting them first.”

Bones turned around to face them. “Hold it. We need a debrief on these ‘other worlds’ first.”

Harry nodded. “First things first, none of this information should leave this room without extremely careful vetting - it could be extremely dangerous. I trust everyone in this room understands that.”

There was a chorus of nods, and from what the simulacrum’s natural empathy could tell him, everyone seemed genuine in their agreement. <They either mean it, or they’re deliberately hiding their intentions,> he passed on to Harry and Rain.

<You want to do this part? An illusory visual aid might help the explanation.>

<Alright,> the simulacrum responded. <But my English is still fairly rusty. Correct me if I make any mistakes.>

He gestured with an open palm, and a collection of interconnected points of light spread out across the room.

“As we understand it, there are many worlds, each with their own inhabitants and natural magics. Rain and I are from different worlds, and like you, were mostly unaware of the rest of the multiverse until recently.”

“Over the last thirty years, a weapon from Anastis,” he gestured at a particular point of light sitting at a dense nexus of connections, “tore the three of us from our homes, and brought us into another world. Although Harry left his world long before we did, we all arrived at the same time - at this point, we’re not quite certain why. I think it’s because the weapon that brought us there wanted us to kill each other so it could feed on the burst of magical energy produced by our deaths. Anyway, Anastis is where we met our other companions. There, we learned that world-travel typically happens through labyrinths.” 

A single node of the interconnected web expanded in size, and he pointed out the web of connections between it and the nearby points. “Labyrinths are vast and complex structures stretching across several realities. They harbour immensely dangerous creatures, escapees from other worlds, usually. That’s how we got here, with a few caveats.”

He glanced at Harry, then continued.

“Most magic seems to be unable to function across these world-boundaries. My connections to my simulacra, for example, were aggressively torn apart by the labyrinth, and teleportation and similar magics cease to function. That being said, there are some forms of magic which seem to be able to traverse the boundaries between worlds.”

He paused, and looked at Rain. The bearded man’s eyes widened. “My aura anchors - their signal gets through, for some reason. You want to, what, piggy-back off that connection, and just portal straight through!”

The simulacrum nodded, and sat back into his chair. There was silence as everyone digested the implications.

One of Moody’s hands was rubbing his temple, although the simulacrum noted that the other hand still lingered by his wand-holster. “This would light up our world like a beacon. Anyone could waltz right in.”

Harry grimaced. “I don’t think a beacon is the right analogy - the connections would be specific, and if signals crossing through world-boundaries was a risk on that scale, then these modified aura anchors wouldn’t present more risk than Rain’s existing aura anchors already do, or than Kanderon’s communication diaries, for that matter. That being said, risks of that nature are our main concern. From what we’ve been told, there’s some kind of ancient, arcane protection on the labyrinths that prevents some of the more dangerous entities out there from travelling through them. If we bypass those constraints, then we might be creating alternate pathways for the void eaters or cold minds or who-knows-what to come to destroy our reality.”

Hermione was deep in thought. “Leaving the risks aside for a moment, the benefits would be vast. I know very little of what our guests can do, and they’re already revolutionising healthcare and magical theory. If we can have longer-term collaboration between worlds, a great deal more might be possible…”

“Exactly!” Harry leant forward, and there was a spark in his eyes. He looked more animated than Zorian had ever seen him. “If we can mitigate these risks, then this could be the most important event that’s ever happened on any of our worlds.”

Amelia Bones scowled and crossed her arms. “That’s a great big ‘if’. We know virtually nothing about these dangers, and it sounds to me like you don’t know a lot more.”

Harry raised his hands, conceding the point. “You’re absolutely right. We don’t. And this doesn’t need to happen immediately, or even soon. For that matter, given the current lack of information, there’s no chance I would be willing to work on any project that might involve weakening or bypassing this world’s protections. That being said, even disregarding these potential portals, my chief goal right now is understanding what those multiversal threats are and learning how to defend against them. Once we have a better understanding of what they are, wouldn’t we stand a better chance of defeating them as three worlds united?”

Moody put his hand on the back of Harry’s armchair. “You’re playing with forces you don’t understand.”

Harry nodded. “Acknowledged. But that doesn’t mean I won’t understand them in a month.”

Rain stroked his beard. “Being able to call for aid if Ascension is threatened would certainly ease my mind. And Ascension would answer such a call in kind, if we could. But there are others on my world who are far more dangerous than I am, and if they found their way here, I don’t think anyone here could stand against them.”

The simulacrum vanished the illusion of the connected worlds, and all eyes turned to him, as he’d intended. “We need to be careful about this, and we need to move slowly. I propose the following timeline. First, we stay here long enough to learn what your world knows of dimensionalism and teleportation techniques - I’m particularly interested in the forms that seem to be anchored to objects, since Harry tells me they appear to be virtually unlimited in the distance they can cover.”

“Portkeys.” Hermione supplied the unfamiliar word, and the simulacrum nodded gratefully.

“We will make no attempts to create inter-reality portals while we’re on this world, and will do only basic research while we’re here. Then, when Rain has completed his… hospital project, we move on, and travel to my world. The labyrinth there is older and far larger, and should have other connected worlds we can reach - ideally, at least two that are devoid of sentient life. That’s where we run the first experiments. If things go well, then given time, we can prove the technique safe, and deploy it more widely.”

Hermione looked him in the eyes. “Promise me. No experimentation with unknown techniques that might breach the boundaries of this world. Nothing that might put the people of Earth in danger.”

The simulacrum raised his left arm, until it was just above her desk. Then, obeying a gentle mental nudge, Zach the snake slithered out of his sleeve and onto the desk. No-one reacted - apparently, having a snake in your sleeve was fairly normal in this reality. 

The little snake turned to Harry, and began to hiss. 

“I ssswear not to breach the protectionsss of this world, nor to experiment in waysss which cause undue risssk. In matterss which concern the sssafety of this world, I will consult with the leader-woman of this world, and proceed only if she permitsss.”

Despite the unpleasant manner in which Harry had introduced him to Parseltongue, Zorian had to admit he was growing fond of the ability to speak something which others would recognise as truth. Try as he might, he still hadn’t found a way to deceive the odd soul-marker. 

Harry nodded to Hermione. “He swears. It’s the truth - you can’t lie in Parseltongue.”

Amelia grunted. “This would be a lot more compelling if we had any ability to understand what he’s saying, or any reason - beyond your word - to believe that it’s true.”

Harry absent-mindedly chewed on his fingernail for a moment. “That is admittedly a drawback of this approach. None of you happen to be snake-animaguses, do you? Or know any trustworthy ones? Wait, I think I have an idea.” 

The simulacrum felt a momentary wavering in Harry’s emotions, as if he wasn’t quite sure about what he was about to say next.

Harry looked up at Hermione. “Do you think Draco would be willing to see me?”

Chapter 18: Compulsion

Rain

 

Rain was no stranger to ambitious goals.

With Ameliah and Tallheart by his side, he’d forged the remnants of a shattered city into the beginnings of Ascension, and seen it grow beyond his wildest dreams. 

When his strength had proven insufficient to keep his friends safe, they’d journeyed deep below ground, hunting in the depths for creatures that could crush him in an instant. And yet they’d prevailed, returning to the light of the sun with power that few would ever know.

With help from Staavo and Tallheart, Ascension had brought the beginnings of Earth-science to a new world. Starting from dust and ore, they’d fabricated the first light bulbs and flown the first heavier-than-air flying machines that their world had ever seen. Before he’d been taken by the Exile Splinter, new advances were coming almost every day as Ascension worked to combine their world’s esoteric magic and Earth’s industrial designs into wholly original creations.

Even so, looking at the blueprints and plans laid out on the table in front of him, Rain thought he might have bitten off a bit more than he could chew.

The engineer-witch who had introduced herself as Padma Patil gestured with her wand at one of the designs.

“The tricky thing,” she said, “is passing sixty million people - that’s roughly the number that we expect to need serious medical care each year - through such a small space while preserving the illusion of standard medical procedure. Eventually we might be able to get additional support from other wizarding nations, but until then, we’re constrained by the number of guards we can allocate to each Muggle hospital. We probably can’t supply more than two per site at any given time, if we’re going to try to maintain the fifteen sites you’ve said should be possible.”

Sixty million people.

Rain shook his head incredulously. As far as he knew, no-one had successfully held a global census on Ameliah’s world, but at a rough guess, he’d have said it had about a hundredth of Earth’s population. In more ways than one, the two worlds seemed to operate on completely different scales.

Padma tapped on the laptop set up next to her, and the screen shifted. After a moment, she withdrew her hands from the keyboard and gestured at the papers next to it with her wand. She muttered some vaguely latin-sounding syllables, and the surface of the parchment flickered, hand-written numbers cascading through various columns. After ten seconds or so, it eventually settled into a series of neatly-organised and colour categorised summary fields, which she typed back into the computer.

What was that? Some kind of… automatic parchment computation? 

“How did you do that?”

Padma didn’t look away from the screen. “Magic.”

“Right, right. Of course.”

Seemingly satisfied with the spreadsheet, the middle-aged witch turned back to Rain. 

“These ‘aura anchors’ you’ve made are tiny. We could move them around far more easily than we could move the patients - but if we did that, maintaining security around each aura anchor would become far more complex, since we wouldn't be able to set up permanent enchantments.”

Rain leant forward in his chair, resting one elbow on the table. His other hand stayed steadily palm up as the seed of yet another crystal formed from raw mana. “And it’s easier to explain the effects as some kind of legitimate advance in medical technology if it’s centred on a hospital, rather than moving around.”

Padma bit her lip and looked into space thoughtfully. “Exactly. So we’re probably stuck with keeping the aura anchors in one place, and trying to move the patients through the aura. How long is it safe to keep someone within the range of Summer?”

Rain exhaled. “Honestly, I can’t give a confident answer to that yet. The longest we’ve kept someone in the aura at full power is around three minutes, for a man with a case of total organ failure that Moody brought in from Australia. He seemed healthier afterwards, and initial diagnostic scans looked good. He’s only partially healed, but he also complained about massive oversensitivity all over his body, and could barely move because of the pain. We think that’s soulstrain, and that it’ll wear off - at least, effects like that would wear off on Ameliah’s world. Moody’s got him in a cage with ‘the rats and the flies’ for now, to keep observing him.”

Rain couldn’t quite suppress a scowl as he thought of the old auror. If the display with the rat hadn’t been enough to sour his first impression, apparently Moody had almost tried to kill Zorian on the spot when he’d discovered that Zorian was controlling multiple bodies. Rain glanced across at the simulacrum in this room. It was physically identical to the original (unlike the various simulacra which took other forms), but seemed to be resting now. His attention must have been elsewhere, because his eyes were closed, and his head was resting against the wall. Despite everything he’d seen the young mage accomplish, Zorian still looked awfully young to Rain, and it was hard to suppress the instinct to cover his resting body with a blanket, or something. For all he knew, the simulacrum’s ectoplasmic bodies probably couldn’t even feel the cold. 

Padma scribbled down some figures on a piece of parchment, then nodded. “Right. In that case, this design might be our best shot.” She slid a schematic over to him. “You’ve said the range is shared across the anchors, so that means we don’t have a lot of space to work with at each site, pretty much just a ten-metre sphere. This design places people in a sort of isolated space-efficient ‘pod’ and cycles them through the region closest to the anchor. For now, I’ve allocated one minute per person. The design I’ve mocked up here,” she tabbed through the windows on her computer until the screen showed a 3D model, “is deliberately reminiscent of an MRI machine.”

“Why?”

Padma rotated the model on the screen, and tossed her long black hair over one shoulder. “So people think it’s medical tech rather than magic.”

“Right.”

Gotta keep up the ruse for the Muggles, of course. One problem at a time, Rain.

She went on, apparently oblivious to his furrowed eyebrows. “Conservatively, a minute allocated to inserting and removing the pods, and letting each pod sit in the aura for a minute. And each site should be able to handle ten or so pods within aura range at a time. That’s two hundred people being healed each hour. Across all the sites, that's…”

She reached back over for the laptop, but Rain got there first, accessing the terminal-based calculator he’d managed to construct out of the basic operations that could be performed in his soul. “Twenty-six million, two hundred and eighty thousand people a year, assuming we can operate overnight and with no delays or breakdowns, which is pretty much impossible at that scale. But I think we can do better. I can only run the same aura through fifteen anchors at a time, but we can sort of bypass that limit by running the aura half the time at twice as many sites. The healing will be slower at any individual site, but the logistics should be easier.”

Padma tilted her head to the side, and thought about it for a moment. “You mean, like a microwave on low power? Pulsing the full-power aura periodically, in order to reduce the average power output to the desired level?” She absent-mindedly started chewing on the end of one of her strands of hair. “Could we also use that to increase the effective area around the anchors?”

Rain scratched at his beard. “Yeah, that should work - by rotating through each of the anchors rapidly. I wouldn’t have thought wizards would use microwaves. Isn’t there some kind of food-heating spell?”

Padma grinned, and flicked the edge of her laptop’s screen with a finger. “Engineer, remember? I took apart the first microwave I came across pretty much immediately. Gave myself a nasty electric shock too, actually.”

Rain laughed and winced simultaneously. Danger aside, the mental image of Padma as a teenage witch, dressed in black robes probably, poking around the interior of a microwave with her wand, was a fairly amusing one.

Rain squinted at the schematic. “Why did you arrange the pods like… hold on, I need to think about this for a second.”

Half-an-hour of accelerated thinking in his soul later, and thirty real-time seconds later, he grabbed a pen and flipped the schematic onto its blank rear side. Normally at this point, if he was working with Ascension, he’d leave the construction and specifics to others after sharing the concept so that they could get a feel for the engineering process. For a project on this scale, though, he was going to stick with it till it was done.

“How’s something like this? We mount the pods on a series of concentric rails so that they can rotate constantly…” Moving quicker than humanly possible, he started sketching.

Padma leant over to look closer. “Wouldn’t that run into issues with collisions at this- oh, right, the tracks cross vertically, rather than merging. Hmm, I think that should work.”

Minutes blurred into hours, and their design went through dozens of iterations. Rain’s scepticism was slowly displaced, and as he and Padma worked side by side, a feeling started to settle in:

We might actually be able to do this.

 

-]l[-

 

Harry sat, nervous and alone, in Hermione’s office, with his hands folded in his lap. 

He really had no idea what to expect from this meeting. Seeing Hermione again, well, that made sense on some level. The phoenix on her shoulder meant that she was driven by the same things he was. And so even though so much time had passed - half a lifetime, although he wasn’t sure Hermione even had a mortal lifespan anymore - he had enough faith in their common goals that it wasn’t hard to slip back into smooth collaboration.

Draco, on the other hand… What did he want? 

And how would he react to finding Harry alive and un-aged, after thirty years?

He’d found some reasonably up-to-date newspapers in the empty copy of Hogwarts, and in the course of their scavenging in the Mirror-created world, he’d kept an eye out for anything he could find about the lives his friends had lived in his absence. The notes he’d made on Draco were spread out loosely across the desk. There wasn’t much point in leafing through them, since Harry had memorised them all as they’d travelled from the probe to Earth, but there wasn’t much else he could do while he waited.

The door swung open. Tall, white-haird and coldly elegant in robes of the finest quality, one hand gripping a silver-handled cane, a man swept into the room. In a single, precise motion, he took the seat opposite Harry.

“Harry.”

Harry swallowed, and looked into his friend's eyes. They were cool and calm, betraying no hint of emotion.

“Draco,” he said, keeping his voice as steady as possible.

“I suppose I should clear the air,” Draco said. “They made me swear an Unbreakable Vow, but in the end, Minerva unlocked the final memory you left me with. It was one of the last things she did before she died, actually.”

Almost involuntarily, Harry gripped the arm-rests of his chair tighter.

In their last conversation, Harry had confessed to killing Draco’s father, and given him a choice - whether or not to remain Harry’s friend. He’d wanted to let Draco make that decision for himself, at least. For reasons of national security, he’d then had Professor McGonagall seal that memory away for Draco, hidden and inaccessible.

It seemed that they’d seen fit to unseal it, in his long absence.

“Don’t worry,” Draco drawled, leaning back in his chair and seeming to enjoy Harry’s momentary discomfort. “I haven’t come here seeking revenge, or anything like that. Lady Granger would tear me limb from limb if I so much as ruffled your hair, and she knows I know that.”

Draco squinted at Harry for a moment, seeming to look through him. “Even with those memories, none of us are quite sure how you did it. And seeing you again, you really are very young. I notice myself falling into similar patterns that my father once walked - seeing a child, and failing to realise the nature of the threat they might pose. I will endeavour to avoid making the same mistakes he did.”

Harry kept his eyes and voice steady. “I don’t intend to pose you any threat, Draco. I wanted to meet with you because there are things we can accomplish together that would be out of reach for either of us alone.”

Draco raised his eyebrows in mock incredulity. “What could the Boy Who Lived need from House Malfoy? A loan could be arranged, if necessary - on favourable terms, of course.”

Harry brushed an errant strand of hair out of his eyes. “No, my finances are fine for now, actually. I might ask you for help with global logistics later, but for now what I need is much more on the human scale. I need to know if you can still cast the Patronus charm.”

There was a flicker across Draco’s face at that, a hint of something bitter in the lines of his face before they smoothed out, replaced by a deliberately blank expression.

“Why?” The playful tone was gone, now. Draco’s voice was as silky and foreboding as Lucius’ ever had been.

“My allies - and I count you among their number, given what you’ve done for non-wizard sapients in the years I’ve been gone - have done exceedingly well in guiding Earth for the last thirty years. I’m no forensic accountant, but even disregarding your more well-hidden assets, a superficial reading of land holdings in Britain and Europe puts you comfortably in the running for the wealthiest person in history. I’m not quite sure how you managed that, but given that live-updating market listings are now printed in the Prophet, I’d bet my last Sickle that it has something to do with some form of quantitative trading or other magical engagement with the Muggle economy.”

Harry shuffled around the paper on Hermione’s desk until he found the page he wanted. “That alone wouldn’t be particularly notable, but I made a crude attempt at estimating your expenses from figures I found in your correspondence with Flitwick and Hermione. I think you’re responsible for about a third of all charitable giving worldwide, and probably more like half of the funds allocated toward global development.”

Draco’s mouth was a thin line, and he offered no response, so Harry went on.

“This world, I think, is proceeding on a reasonable trajectory - provided certain issues are taken care of, and Hermione has told me she has contingencies in place for those. I’m now concerned with what lies outside this world. With those that have returned to Earth with me, and those who would still aid me here - there is no shortage of magical strength, nor of the will to do what is right. The dangers posed by this new multiverse are great, but I believe we will rise to meet them.”

Harry leant forward on the desk, a challenging manoeuvre given that it was designed for someone more than six feet tall. “What we need is trust. Unless things have changed since I first saw you cast the spell, your snake-patronus can understand Parseltongue, which in turn means you can hear the meaning of words through it. It’s my current belief that it is impossible to speak anything but the truth in the snake-tongue. With your patronus, my allies and I could establish real trust between a number of very disparate - and powerful - groups.”

In a single fluid movement, Draco stood, and turned to face the door. At first Harry was worried he was moving to leave the room, but the man simply stood there, his back to his childhood friend.

When he spoke again after a minute of silence, Draco’s voice was low and deadly. “You know, I expected to walk into this room and have my beliefs shaken somehow. I tried to prepare myself in advance, but I expected to be surprised anyway - I was going to speak with Harry Potter, after all. And here we are. My father’s killer, asking me to use my love for my father to serve as a tool to further his ambitions - which have grown from the merely universal to something beyond that.”

Harry’s hands were tensed where they rested on Hermione’s desk. He needed to be very careful now, he knew. Draco had been a careful and calculating child, and he was no doubt a careful and calculating man. But in one of his lowest moments, when Draco had been torn loose from his father’s blood-purist ideology and prejudice by a series of scientific experiments, and left untethered - there had been a moment where Harry had feared for his life, and thought that Draco might kill him. In the end, his friend had left him alive - but with a torture-hex sending screaming agony coursing through his limbs, and locked in a room without help for hours. Harry had come close to cutting off his own hand to escape the pain.

“Draco,” he said, his voice soft. “I don’t mean this as a threat, it’s just a statement of fact. I consider you my friend, and from what I’ve read about your life thus far in books, I truly believe that our values are very close to aligned. But if you try to hurt me, you should know that I can stop you - but it will not be without causing you significant pain. Please don’t make me do that.”

Draco grimaced, and turned back around. “The last time people crossed Harry Potter - on this planet, at least - their heads were removed from their bodies in a fraction of a second, all thirty-seven of them. I’m not fool enough to raise my wand against you, not anymore.” 

The white-haired man glanced at Harry’s left hand, subtly enough that Harry wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be noticed or not. 

“I’ll help, of course.” Draco’s voice sounded weary now. “From what Hermione’s said, this matter is important enough to warrant my full attention.”

“So you can still…”

If looks could kill, then Harry would have been dead three times over after the glare Draco shot him then. Slowly, Draco withdrew his wand from his immaculate robes, and his hands twitched with the gestures of the spell.

“Expecto Patronum.”

Light formed at the tip of his wand, and flowed out onto the oaken desk. It was a snake, a little over twice the size of the Scottish adder Zorian had brought with him from the reflected Earth. 

Speaking to the snake rather than Harry, Draco’s words were spoken with a cold intensity. “Tell Harry that no matter what else changes in this world, no matter who returns to this world and who is taken from it and remains gone, that I will always love my father.”

The snake uncoiled itself, and drifted across the surface to stop in front of Harry. It repeated the words in Draco’s voice.

"Hsssss ssss sshsshssss, hsss ssss shshssss," said Harry to the snake.

The snake turned and slithered across the table to deliver the return message to Draco:

“Harry says that he’s glad to see his friend again.”

-]l[-

 

Zorian - Simulacrum ‘Xvim’

 

With the help of Harry’s silvery-haired companion, and his equally silvery snake-patronus, the necessary long-term commitments were made to Bones’ and Hermione’s satisfaction. Watching the ghostly snake hold a hissing conversation with the corporeal snake Zach was oddly amusing.

After some cross-examination from Moody, and the corresponding Parseltongue statements in response, even the old auror seemed to relax a little. There was some internal discussion among the Earthlings about the extent to which they ought to trust Parseltongue, but in the end, Moody stowed his wand. His part complete, Draco Malfoy excused himself, claiming he had some business dealings to attend to. The claim was transparently false, and everyone in the room seemed to know it, but the simulacrum couldn’t discern the real reason without diving past the man’s formidable occlumency barriers.

“Time for some Portkey experimentation.” Harry looked up at him expectantly. “How many bodies are you willing to allocate to this?”

Zorian had been patient so far. His new allies had made the crossing through the labyrinth far safer than it would have been alone. Without Hugh and Mackerel to guide them, and the additional senses granted by Rain’s Detection aura and the Anastan affinities, there was a decent chance of running into some unknown creature before he managed to find his way home. He thought of the eye-beast he’d encountered on one of his first forays into his world’s dungeon, and grimaced slightly. 

That didn’t mean he was going to wait around forever while Harry and Rain pursued research experiments. Zorian had been gone from Eldemar for a few weeks now. And unless they’d managed to put together what had happened (his friends were tenacious, but the scale of Exile Splinter’s machinations were a little different to what they’d previously experienced), they probably thought he was dead.

No version of Zorian - ectoplasmic or flesh-and-blood - liked picturing Kiri’s face as she slowly lost hope that her brother would return. So despite the undeniable research potential in these other worlds, magical research was a solid third priority for Zorian and his simulacra - behind staying alive, and getting home as soon as possible.

“Any kind of research done on this planet is an unnecessary risk. My simulacrum with Rain tells me he’s close to the point where he can leave anchors behind and guide the project from offworld. I leave tonight, along with whoever will come with me. Portkey research will continue on my world.”

There was a momentary flash of anxiety from Harry. 

<Is everything alright?>

<Yeah,> came the response, sounding tired and tense - which made sense, Harry had been in non-stop meetings since they’d returned. <I didn’t expect you to want to leave so soon.>

Out loud, the boy went on: “We need to start healing people as soon as possible, and I should learn how to do the procedure myself.”

Hermione nodded. “I’ve set up a space in the high-security wing of St. Mungos. There’s a backlog of thirty-five witches and wizards who are more than a hundred years old waiting for us there, and more are arriving fast.”

Harry asked a series of questions about the intended security measures, and between them, Moody and Hermione answered them to his satisfaction. Still, he could still sense some level of anxiety from the boy.

“I’ll come to St. Mungos as well,” the simulacrum said in response to the implicit mental request, “I think Harry would prefer that.”

Harry sighed with relief. “That would be good, thank you. That way I can keep in touch and help with the portkey research between the healings. I want to quickly check in with the Anastans though - we need to discuss our overarching plans. Xvim, can you take us to them?”

The simulacrum shook his head. “There’s some wards I’m not familiar with that have been laid across this complex. I’d need to punch through them to teleport us.”

Hermione frowned at that. “If there are ways to bypass the security charms laid on the Ministry, I’d like to know them.”

The simulacrum shrugged. “That would take a while, and it’s only a short walk anyway.”

Hermione grudgingly nodded.

Harry exhaled. “Alright, let's go.”

The pair of them left the room and entered the broad black-marble hallway outside. Whether Hermione had deliberately cleared out this section of the Ministry, or something else was keeping the usual Ministry personnel away from here, there were very few people around.

Guided by his soul-connection to the original, the simulacrum led Harry through the bowels of the Ministry. The soul-connection only gave him a directional heading, and the twists and turns and dimensional distortions of the administrative complex meant they had to double back once after hitting a dead end.

The simulacrum could feel the tension in Harry before he said anything. To his empathy, Harry felt like a tightly coiled spring. 

“You have to know leaving now is a mistake, Zorian. Crossing between worlds is extremely non-trivial, and there’s obviously knowledge here that you don’t yet have.”

The simulacrum kept a straight face. “I’ve been away from home for a month now-”

Harry cut him off and finished the sentence for him: “... and people must think you’re dead? Oh gosh, I can’t imagine what that must be like. Zorian, I was gone from this world for thirty years. Compared to the magical possibilities at our fingertips, you have to admit that an anxious friend doesn’t even register on the moral scales.”

The simulacrum took a deep breath. It wasn’t necessary of course, but it was a good way to avoid responding too hastily. “You and I seem to be different in quite a few ways, Harry. This is one of them.”

“That’s not an answer at all!” Harry spluttered as he struggled to keep up with the simulacrum’s longer legs. “I don’t know how many lives there are on your world, but Earth has eight billion people living on it. Rain is acting on his compassion for them, and you should already weigh the significance of that far more highly than you seem to, but what about the millions of people who probably live on your world? On Anastis? Or the trillions of happy lives that might exist in the future if we do what we can to guide these realities in whatever ways become necessary? We need knowledge, and leaving Earth to see friends more quickly does not seem to me to be the optimal action in this scenario. It’s putting an awful lot in jeopardy.”

He stopped to let Harry catch up to him, then looked down at the smaller boy. “They’re not my responsibility. My little sister is.”

Harry sighed. The simulacrum could tangibly feel Harry’s frustration and disappointment, but at least he’d got the point across: there really wasn’t anything Harry could say to keep Zorian on this world longer than was strictly necessary. The conversation stalled out, which the simulacrum didn’t really mind. Harry was sometimes an interesting person to talk to, but having seen a good fraction of his memories, Zorian knew that there were some matters on which Harry was categorically incapable of taking others’ perspectives seriously.

As they reached the bottom of a wood-panelled staircase, there was a small pop, and a piece of paper materialised in the air in front of them.

Both of them reacted immediately, stepping back and conjuring shields between them and the suspicious object. Having seen Alustin use frozen paper to slice through armoured bodies with ease, even an innocuous-seeming page was worthy of caution.

It seemed to be a small letter, which drifted slowly to the ground.

After a moment, Harry gestured at it with his wand and muttered some spells under his breath. “I think it’s a portkey of some kind.”

The simulacrum knelt down to get a closer look. The letter was written in English - the local tongue - and was enchanted with the strange teleportation magic that was widespread on this world. The magical structure was still fairly new to Zorian, but he was slowly putting together some of the basics.

“I don’t think it’s made to teleport anything but itself - the dimensional boundary it creates can’t be projected beyond the surface of the paper. The spell is still active though, and there’s enough mana for another teleportation.”

Harry lowered his shield. “Some kind of returning letter, maybe?”

Harry squatted down, and the simulacrum felt the odd sensation of his Anastan affinity acting on the carbon in the paper. The letter slowly unfolded, and Harry began reading.

Zorian’s English was still fairly rudimentary, but the simulacrum knelt down too and read alongside him. His eyes widened as he scanned down the hand-written lines:

You are not the first to lay claim to the name of my Lord.

If you truly are who you claim to be, my life and my wand are yours, as they ever have been. 

If you are not, then you will die for sullying his name, as others have done before you.

Inscribe my name, and this letter will return to me. If you do not know it, you are a pretender and your fate is sealed.

Notes:

Thanks for your patience. I've been very busy with work, and am glad I've found a bit of time to work on some writing on the side. More chapters to follow at an unspecified future date.

Chapter 19: Dispersal

Harry

 

You are not the first to lay claim to the name of my Lord.

If you truly are who you claim to be, my life and my wand are yours, as they ever have been. 

If you are not, then you will die for sullying his name, as others have done before you.

Inscribe my name, and this letter will return to me. If you do not know it, you are a pretender and your fate is sealed.

Below the words, there was a line where the recipient was clearly intended to fill in the name of the sender. There were no other identifying marks as to their identity - aside from those lines of text, the parchment was completely blank.

The simulacrum raised his eyebrows. “You know who sent this? Someone calls you ‘Lord’? Weren’t you twelve when you left this world?”

Harry frowned. Apparently thirty years of absence wasn’t long enough for Lesath Lestrange to lose faith.

Even from his external perspective, knowing the explanations for each bizarre happening, Harry had to admit that the years surrounding his departure from this world would have painted a very particular kind of picture from Lesath’s point of view.

First, at Snape’s instigation, he’d rescued Lesath from some older Gryffindor bullies. No particularly eldritch mysteries there. Lesath had reacted by pleading with him, begging on his knees, for Harry to use whatever inscrutable magic he had to get his mother out of Azkaban.

He’d felt powerless to help then, powerless to right the wrongs that were everywhere in the strange world that was wizarding Britain. Azkaban was a wizarding fortress, a prison from which no escape had ever been recorded.

That wasn’t the first time Harry had felt like he ought to hurry up and become god, but he’d felt it more keenly then than he had before.

(A small voice in the back of Harry’s head noted that that goal wasn’t too far out of reach anymore - given the work he’d already done on his soul, the simulacrum spell and internal time-acceleration likely weren’t far from his grasp. And then his work could begin in earnest.)

But then, with Professor Quirrell by his side, he’d done it. Bellatrix was freed from Azkaban, and as the only possible explanation, Harry was enshrined in Lesath’s mind as the new Dark Lord, successor to Voldemort in his power and control. No denial from Harry could sway his first follower’s mind.

But the story didn’t end there, not anymore. Because a few months later, every surviving Death Eater had been summoned to Voldemort’s resurrection, including several men who had tortured Bellatrix - every single Death Eater, that is, except Lesath’s mother. And then every single one of them had been killed. Although Lesath might not have prayed for that outcome, from his perspective, it might have seemed like yet another interference by a grand puppet-master, interceding on behalf of his first follower.

And then Harry Potter had vanished, and the chief suspect for his disappearance was Bellatrix Lestrange, acting on behalf of her former master. 

Harry could picture Lesath’s indecision and rising panic as the Slytherin boy saw the world pit his mother against the one who he thought had saved her. He could only imagine Lesath’s relief when, six months later, the ascended Hermione Granger attempted to extract a confession, and proved beyond doubt that Bellatrix Lestrange was innocent in the matter of Harry Potter’s disappearance.

Followed immediately by mind-numbing shock as Lesath realised that his mother would be returned to Azkaban. For although she was innocent of that particular crime, she was guilty of many, many more.

It was too easy to imagine Lesath trying to fall asleep that night. He would have cried, and perhaps prayed to his vanished Lord. Anything, he would have whispered to his Lord when he thought no-one else could hear - 'I’ll do anything, just don’t let my mother be sent back to Azkaban.'

Sleep would not have come easily that night, if it came at all. And then Lesath would have read the next morning’s papers. Azkaban had been destroyed by some unknown force, obliterated beyond repair, and his mother was being sent to a lower-security prison.

Harry knew the true cause, of course. It was the first sign - to those that were paying attention - that Hermione Granger was walking the path of a hero, and refusing to live in a world where a place like Azkaban could exist.

To Lesath, however, lacking the true explanation, it would have seemed that Harry Potter still had the strength to reshape the world despite no longer being a part of it. And now that his Lord had returned, there was probably nothing Lesath wouldn’t do if his master requested it.

Harry picked up the letter. “It’s a long story. I freed his mother from Azkaban, in a manner largely unrelated to his request that I do so, and I now have his undying loyalty - even thirty years later, apparently.”

He fetched a mechanical pencil from his Bag of Useful Items, and carefully wrote Lesath Lestrange into the blank space on the page. He folded the letter again, and placed it back on the ground. With a small popping sound, it vanished, presumably returning to the sender, wherever he was.

Fifteen seconds later, there was another popping sound, and a loose scrap of paper appeared in the air in front of them. Zorian’s simulacrum caught this one telekinetically, and unfolded it so they could both see. This time, the handwriting was far more ragged, as if the message had been scrawled hurriedly.

My Lord. I should never have doubted your return.

What is your will?

There was another empty line below that.

“Is this a returning letter too?”

The simulacrum nodded. “The enchantment seems to be identical to the first letter, if a little more hastily constructed.”

Harry tucked the letter into one of his pockets. “You never know when something like this will come in handy.” Responding to a questioning mental probe, he sent a brief summary of the relevant memories to Zorian. The simulacrum kept a surprisingly straight face, and merely raised his eyebrows. That expression was becoming increasingly familiar, despite the rotating cast of simulacrum faces on which he saw it. 

“Shall we go on?” 

The simulacrum nodded, and they continued through the administrative rabbit-warren. Before long, they found themselves facing a pair of aurors stationed outside Holding Area C. Hermione must have given them advance notice of their arrival, because they unbarred the door, and let the pair of them in.

The room was cosy, and the Anastans were in various stages of relaxation around the space. Zorian’s flesh-and-blood form (although not his original one, apparently) was leafing through a book on a sofa.

Although Harry was slowly getting used to it, it was still a strange experience to enter a room with someone, and find them already there. He really needed to figure out how to cast the simulacrum spell.

Talia got up from where she was nestled with Hugh in front of the fireplace. “Harry! You’ve been busy. How long till you settle in and we can move on and get the others home?”

Harry sat down on a spare armchair. It was a welcome break, since they’d been walking for a while. It took only a slight mental effort to slip back into Talia’s native Ithonian from English. “You’re leaving tonight. But I’ll remain in touch, assuming Rain’s devices work as expected.”

Alustin was reclined in an embroidered armchair, one leg lazily draped out to the side. Without lifting a finger, he turned a page in the book resting in his lap - presumably his paper-affinity at work. “Kanderon’s debt to you is discharged. We’ve guided you home.”

Harry nodded firmly. “Understood.”

Godrick leant forward to grab a carrot stick from the table. “We’ll miss ye, but I’m glad you’re safe and home. So we leave tonight?”

Zorian spoke up then - the original, not the simulacrum that still stood by the entrance of the room. “Before that, we have some matters to discuss. Could everyone please gather around? Harry and I have a longer-term proposal.”

Over the next few minutes, they summarised their multiversal portal plans to the Anastans. Alustin started humming and bouncing his knee, and Sabae looked quietly into space, but otherwise everyone seemed fairly calm. 

“So,” Zorian finished, “we have a few remaining questions. First, do any of you - or Kanderon, or the resources she can contact, know of any reason why attempting to create a simpler method of cross-reality transportation would cause a calamity?”

“And second,” asked Harry, “is Kanderon willing to aid the project? We’re likely to need to make extensive use of the Guide to Worlds, and Hugh tells me her planar knowledge is unmatched, at least on Anastis.”

The apprentices stayed silent, but Alustin scratched his head, looking a little out of his depth. “None of us here can really comment on that, to be honest. This is the first time any of us have been outside Anastis. Artur, anything to add?”

The enormous man slid his armchair a little closer. His deep voice rumbled in response. “I would advise caution. I know of six incidents that have caused civilisations to fall. Three of ‘em were the direct result of enterprising mages experimenting with enchantments beyond their ken.”

Zorian nodded. “We intend to experiment slowly, and take as many precautions as reasonably possible.”

Artur sat back grimly, and Harry noticed his hands brush against the scars that were just visible on his upper arm. Artur was a titan of a man, and his mastery over stone - in terms of both fine control and raw strength - meant he would be a formidable force in combat. Almost instinctively, Harry ran through the list of techniques that might still work against him. Fiendfyre had already proven itself effective against Artur’s stone form, and although Harry himself didn’t know the ritual to create the blackened flame, there was an existing pocket of fiendfyre in the labyrinth that he seemed to have some control over.

If the location of Artur’s body could be identified in the monstrous armour - which wouldn’t be an issue for Harry’s carbon affinity  - then a Killing Curse would pass through the tons of stone unhindered to reach the individual within. Harry couldn’t cast that spell himself, he’d need to get an accomplice to do it for him. That wasn’t too huge an obstacle - a willing accomplice could be summoned via returning letter, if necessary.

As much as Harry reviled even the idea of dementors, they could be used as weapons if the situation called for it. Artur might be able to bury the thing in stone for a time, but no material prison would hold a dementor for long. Getting a hold of a dementor at all might be difficult, actually. According to the debrief session with Hermione, there had been no sightings in magical Britain in the last fifteen years. Even in the broader world - where diplomacy permitted - the Girl Who Revived had a habit of showing up if the wounds in the world made their presence known. Every year, dementors edged closer to the extinction they deserved.

The simplest scenario, of course, was if Artur didn’t have time to form his stone armour at all. Then, a single carefully placed carbon nanotube would be enough.

Alustin sat up, and withdrew a leather-bound book from his bag. Well, actually he withdrew it from the pocket dimension anchored to his arm, but the sleight of hand was convincing enough that Harry would have sworn the book had always been stored in the bag if he hadn’t felt it suddenly appear with his carbon affinity. It was a neat piece of misdirection.

“I can’t speak for Kanderon, but I’ll transmit what you’ve said to her now. Things are fairly tense with Havath and Sica right now, so it might be a while before she can respond - but I can assure you she’ll be open to collaboration. Kanderon recognises the potential of an alliance with the three of you - the ‘Splintered’, she’s taken to calling you. She’s instructed me to be helpful wherever possible.”

The Splintered, hmm. The name suited Zorian well, given his habit of splitting his mind into a multitude of fragments in the form of simulacra. And there was a reasonable reference to the artefact that had brought them together in the first place. Harry’s inner critic was fairly satisfied. The name was no General Chaos, but then again, it wasn’t The Death Eaters either. 

Alustin cleared his throat nervously, and looked away from Zorian. “Unfortunately, she also instructed me to keep the parts of Galvachren’s Guide to Worlds that aren't directly relevant to our journey private until given explicit permission.”

A short silence fell across the room. That was curious. Even leaving aside Rain and Harry entirely, Kanderon should have known enough about Zorian’s capabilities to know that trying to hold him back from taking the Guide was a fool's errand. If Zorian wanted that book, he was going to get it. Kanderon didn’t seem like a fool - anyone who had survived for five-hundred years on a world as brutal as Anastis must have had their fair share of cunning. It followed that this limitation was more of a test than anything else. If requested, would Zorian cooperate with Kanderon, or would he use his magic to tear the secrets he wanted from her servants’ minds and hands? 

In short: was he the type of person she could collaborate with, even when she wasn’t here in person to force him to obey? 

Harry lightly tapped Zorian’s foot. The mage sent a questioning mental signal, and Harry dumped his thoughts through the connection in response. Zorian paused for a second to digest the ideas, then nodded, and leant over to grab a slice of apple from the snacks they’d been provided. “If it’s what you want, we’ll only view the book if given permission.”

Alustin let out an audible breath, and Artur’s shoulders visibly un-tensed. 

It was odd to watch a pair of grown men - powerful mages, for that matter - listen avidly to every word from a lanky teenager who was reclined onto a sofa. Everyone in this room was aware of the danger Zorian posed, and only for some was that knowledge outweighed by the trust they had in the young mage. It wasn’t Zorian’s fault, really. So far, he’d largely proven a reliable ally, and in general an honest and kind person. It just came with the territory of being able to reach into others minds and bend them to your will.

Harry was reminded of his first meeting with Amelia Bones as Bearer of the Line of Merlin. Then, as many times before, he’d found it necessary to converse as an adult with people who would have preferred to see him as a child. Still, he had to admit that it was an odd thing to witness as an external observer. 

“Anything else to cover here before I head out? I need to help Rain with some manufacturing, and then there’s some people I need to restore to health and youth as a fairly urgent priority.” Harry made sure to reach out and grab a handful of rice crackers and a bowl of hummus - he hadn’t eaten much on this planet yet, and he didn’t want low blood sugar to cost him valuable time later.

Simulacrum ‘Xvim’ stepped forward. “I don’t think so.” Harry felt the ectoplasmic hand on his shoulder pulling him toward the exit. 

“Thanks all - I’ll catch up with you before you leave!” Harry half mumbled through a full mouth. Then the simulacrum guided him through the door, and they were moving on.

 

-]l[-

 

Rain

 

In the end, Rain and Padma decided that backwards compatibility was more important than pure efficiency - at least for version 1.0. If vast new devices needed to be constructed and maintained in order to get the effects of his healing aura to as many people as possible, then those devices would inevitably have construction delays, breakdowns, and other design issues that would only become clear with implementation.

Fifty of their ‘Healing Cores 1.0’ lay spread out across the workshop tables in front of them. Each one was composed of a hollow tungsten rectangular prism, the surface smooth and unblemished except for a single lever on the top (Harry had paid them a short visit by Floo to help with the manufacturing). 

The lever did nothing, really. Mounted onto a pivot near the centre of the base of the prism, it was attached to no wires, and had no other mechanical function either. It did however, make a very satisfying ka-chunk noise when shifted from one side to the other (Rain was very proud of that part of the design). 

The purpose of the lever was simple. Inside each of the metal prisms, there were three aura anchors: One for Summer, one for Purify (since keeping a medical environment perfectly clean, as well as dealing with poison and infection, was absurdly useful), and one Detection. The three anchors were grouped into a unit in Rain’s mental interface, and controlled by a macro that would run as long as he had mana and cognitive capacity to support it. The Detection anchor was set to register if a small glass ball embedded into the lever’s haft was within ten centimetres of the anchor itself. If so, the Summer and Purify anchors would automatically be activated, blanketing the area within a hundred metres with healing energy.

The concept was that the prisms would be placed at the geographical centres of major hospitals, each running for a fraction of each second - like a microwave at partial power - as Padma had suggested. Because the auras would be on a lower power level, that meant there would be fewer issues with soulstrain. Correspondingly, the maximum healing rate was reduced, which made the aura less effective at dealing with serious injuries.

They’d come up with a solution for that, too.

The lever was there so Rain could avoid wasting mana on a device that was in transit, and so that it could be turned off if there was some kind of malfunction or soul-strain issue. If tilted slightly to the side, however, the lever could be pushed into the prism, sending the tiny glass ball in the lever’s haft to within five centimetres of the Detection anchor. Then, for the next minute, Rain’s macro would automatically redirect as much energy as possible toward that singular anchor, with a compressed range of ten metres. Although Padma was calling it the ‘acute injury response setting’, Rain privately thought of it as the turbo button.

A magical box that healed and cleaned everyone within range was pretty far from anything Earth-science had produced so far. To that end, at Hermione’s direction, one of her wizarding research organisations with contacts in the media had put out a press release this morning. The headline was still open on Padma’s laptop screen: ‘AI-powered nano-bots revolutionise hospital care’. It sounded a little sensationalist, but Hermione had assured them that people would get used to that sort of thing quickly. “Remember what happened with the smart-watches?” she’d said, and Padma had nodded knowingly.

The last piece of the puzzle was in some sense the most important. Rain’s communication with his friends in Ascension was happening via small objects moved about on a wooden board. Here on Earth, there were far more efficient options.

After he and Padma worked on finalising the prisms, they’d jumped onto this simpler piece of work with excitement. Detection seemed to have complex rules governing what showed up as ‘objects’ and could hence be registered as present or not-present by the information-gathering aura. For instance, ‘shadow shaped as a cross’ didn’t seem to count, but a glowing red LED could be distinguished from a non-glowing LED, despite both objects being characterised in some sense by light. Then, once they’d found a way to turn electrical signals into something that could be registered by Detection, the other half of the problem was far simpler: a Radiance anchor in a small box with a light-sensing diode could passively receive a stream of around ten bits a second from Rain’s mind, and probably more like fifty if he focused on it. 

The resulting device was a small metallic box crudely welded onto the base of a laptop. The sensors and LEDs were wired into the computer, and a user could freely type onto the keyboard and have their messages sent directly into Rain’s brain (via the Detection anchor picking up signals from an array of constantly flickering LEDs). Rain could send the response via the Radiance anchor, and the bits would be decoded by the laptop into a basic alphabet, which would be displayed on the screen immediately. All in all, it was a far easier mechanism to use than the shuffleboard-style approach Ascension was still using. Correspondingly, he was leaving behind a pair of the communication devices on Earth - one with Harry, and one with Padma at the Ministry. He was planning to bring along another three with him. The plan was beautifully simple: he was going to leave one behind at each world they visited. Even if the whole ‘interdimensional Portkey’ thing Zorian and Harry were working on didn’t pan out, enabling a constant stream of communication between four different worlds was a worthy goal.

The flames in the fireplace to the side of the workshop flared a bright, burning, green. One after another, a pair of grim-faced men in robes stepped out. Padma introduced them:

“Aurors Adrian Karamazov and Kingsley Shacklebolt. They’ll be taking their Healing Core to Mexico City. This is Rain, Captain of Ascension.”

The two men extended their hands, and Rain shook them. Their grips were firm, at least for an ordinary human, but Rain couldn’t shake the feeling that compared to Ameliah’s world, everyone on Earth was made of paper. As a matter of basic security, since there was no damage limit here, he kept enough of the bonus attribute points from his Malleable Ring in Strength to ensure he could survive a bullet to the head even without wards active. A corollary was that he felt like he could bench-press a car, and he had to take care not to squeeze their hands too hard. 

“Thank you. It’s not everyday a stranger from another world arrives to reshape ours for the better.”

Shacklebolt’s voice was deep and sonorous, a bit like Tallheart’s. Rain felt a spike of homesickness.

Just one more world, then I’m coming home.

He blinked, and looked back into their faces. “It’s the least I can do. It’s my world too - or at least it used to be, I guess.”

Padma ran the aurors through the basic functionality, and handed over the first of the tungsten boxes. Kingsley accepted it gingerly, as if he was worried it would explode or bite off his hand, or something like that. Given the type of magic Rain had seen so far on Earth, that might have actually been a reasonable precaution. With a final nod to Rain, the aurors stepped back into the flames, and vanished. 

A minute of waiting later, Rain felt the automatic processes in his mind shift and adjust in accordance with the macro he’d set up. Somewhere - presumably in Mexico City, since Rain could see all the other boxes arrayed in the room in front of him - someone had shifted the lever on their Healing Core into the ‘active’ position. Automatically, Rain felt the slightly increased mana draw as the Purify and Summer anchors activated, bathing their environment in healing energy.

Padma reached up to clap him on the shoulder. The middle-aged witch looked energised, probably because of the half-dozen energy drinks that were making up for her lack of sleep. “That’s the first of many. I can handle the rest of the distribution - it’ll take a while for us to wrangle the rest of the available aurors and prepare them for deployment.”

She stepped over to the desk and powered up one of the communications laptops. Her fingers flitted on the keyboard, typing something Rain couldn’t see, but the Detection anchor under the laptop flared in his mind, transmitting the basic alphabet-code from the flickering LED panel directly into his mind.

WE’LL BE IN TOUCH, RIGHT? GOOD LUCK ON THE NEXT WORLD

Rain smiled wryly. “We’ll be in touch. Thank you, Padma.”

The witch hugged him, stretching her arms around his torso despite his armour. Rain paused for a moment, then hugged her back. They hadn’t known each other long, but they’d worked together well, and saying goodbye hurt. 

He scooped the other four communications laptops into a bag of holding, and with a final nod to Padma, stepped across to the fireplace. 

“Hogwarts.”

The fireplace flared green, and the world vanished in a swirl of iridescent flames.

 

-]l[-

 

Zorian

 

Rain was the last to arrive, calmly stepping out of the Headmaster’s fireplace. Zorian and the Anastans had been waiting a while, and Harry had arrived a few minutes ago from St. Mungo’s. 

Flitwick - the Headmaster of this school - and Hermione, were the only others in the room. The entire student body had been evacuated for this occasion, since no-one was quite sure how secure the connection to the labyrinth really was. The night was quiet, and the stars were gradually becoming visible outside as the last light of the sun receded.

Rain’s first action on arrival was to withdraw a complex-looking device from his expanded pouch, and hand it across to Harry, who nodded gratefully. Then, it was time to move.

Hermione led the way through the spiralling corridors they all knew well, through the belly of Hogwarts toward the Mirror. 

The room itself had changed dramatically in the days since their arrival. Now that the wizards knew the Mirror was a connection to a labyrinth, they’d vastly increased the security measures. 

A dull grey icosahedron fully enclosed the golden Mirror itself, and outside that, the ground and ceiling glimmered with lines of mana. A pair of Zorian’s simulacra had spent their time on Earth studying what Hogwarts textbooks called ‘Ancient Runes’, and even at a glance, Zorian knew to avoid stepping near the fragments of light.

Hermione’s wand flared blue for a moment, and in response, the runes in the ceiling and ground faded. With another flick of her wand, the icosahedron began to move, triangles of dull grey material overlapping and merging into one another until the entire construct folded itself into a single triangle that hovered unobtrusively behind the Mirror.

And there it was. The golden Mirror, still looking just the way they’d seen it in two other realities. 

Simulacrum Number Three stepped forward, and gently lifted his sleeve. Underneath, Zach the snake had just woken up, and was flickering his tongue in the dry air of the castle room. 

Rain grabbed a crystal from the expanded satchel at his waist, and tossed it over. Zorian caught it telekinetically, and offered it gently to the snake. 

In response to a gentle mental nudge, Zach coiled himself up, looking for all the world like he was trying to incubate the tiny crystal aura anchor. 

“Shall we begin?”

There were nods from around the room, and the simulacrum levitated the snake forward until it came into contact with the surface of the Mirror. And then it vanished, not in a flash of activity, but rather in a rearrangement of how the world was.

“Rain?”

The bearded man focused for a moment, and nodded. “Zach and the Detection anchor are both intact, and from the environment I can sense near them, they seem like they’re in the same part of the labyrinth from which we originally entered the Mirror.” He grimaced. “But you know, with all the duplication and perfect mirror-images we’ve encountered, whether this is actually that labyrinth, or just a perfect copy or something is anyone’s guess.”

If this labyrinth journey took as long as the last one had, then it was two more days until he could see Kiri again. 

Best to get started as soon as possible. 

Zorian stepped forward, careful to avoid the runes on the floor, even though they were ostensibly inactive. 

“Thank you for your hospitality during our time on Earth. I hope to see you again, in time.”

Hermione inclined her head, and responded similarly.

And this last goodbye could be done mentally. 

<Goodbye, Harry. I imagine we’ll be in touch.>

Even though Zorian had spent a decent while scrutinising Harry’s thoughts for dangers and hidden plans, it was still difficult to guess what the young wizard was thinking from the outside. Harry’s eyes were glinting intently as they locked onto Zorian’s.

<We will. Goodbye, Zorian.>

And with that, Zorian reached out and mentally nudged the Mirror. There was no feeling of translocation, no twisting or flames. One moment he was in Hogwarts, the next he was back in the labyrinth.

Zach the snake was resting on the ground, still tightly coiled around the crystal anchor. Zorian mentally instructed him to release it, then picked him up from the ground and slipped the snake into his sleeve. Without Harry around, there wasn’t much practical point to keeping the pet snake, but it would have felt a little too callous to simply leave him behind. Besides, he was looking forward to seeing the human Zach’s reaction.

One by one, Rain and the Anastans popped into existence by his side. Godrick stumbled slightly as he appeared, but his father caught his arm to steady him.

Upon appearing, Rain immediately tensed and barked out a warning. “The fiendfyre is close by. Three hundred metres in that direction, circling towards us.” He gestured toward the far wall of their chamber. “ETA ninety seconds. Zorian, can you do that spherical gate thing again?”

Zorian’s natural empathy was sufficient to keep tabs on most dangers that had a mind, but where mindless entities were concerned, Rain’s divination was indisputably very useful.

Fortunately for their little group, spending so long in a time loop had left Zorian with a few good habits (and, admittedly, a few bad ones as well). First, he rarely forgot a useful trick, and he’d had a long time to add a good number to his repertoire. Second, if he faced a threat once, he generally invested some time in figuring out how to handle it better the next time. 

A large metal cube flew out of one of his pocket dimensions. In response to a mental command, it positioned itself to shield the group in the direction Rain had pointed. This wasn’t a perfect copy of the cube he’d constructed to protect himself alongside Mrva the golem, far from it. He didn’t have the time to construct something like that, nor did he have the vast quantities of crystallised mana he’d used to power it - that’s what had prevented him from completing it on Anastis. Studying the anti-apparition enchantments used by Earth-wizards in Hogwarts and the Ministry had proven very useful, and their techniques for harnessing especially high concentrations of ambient mana allowed the cube to imitate one or two of the functions of the original, at a cost of only being able to operate in constrained locations.

Still, he was hoping it would be fairly useful here.

The large metal cube unfolded into eight smaller cubes, each etched with near-invisible runes he’d copied from around Hogwarts and the Ministry. They arranged themselves into a ring-shape, about two metres across.

The others moved to stand behind him, which was probably a good move. Hugh’s crystal wards seemed to be able to hold the fiendfyre in place, but without something else to help slow it down, it was unlikely he’d be able to set up a ward-trap in time. 

After a brief period of waiting, there was a cracking sound, and a second later, the stone bricks ahead of them crumbled and burst apart. Without Harry’s gem as a target, the darkened phoenix looked almost aimless, swerving through the air unpredictably as it flew across the chamber.

With a gesture from Zorian, the eight cubes rushed toward the phoenix. It didn’t move to dodge, which made sense - as far as Zorian could tell, it was a spell-construct given form, more like an Anastan elemental or a particularly simple golem, and didn’t have an intelligent mind.

As the phoenix got close, its motion seemed to slow as the temporal bubble built into the cubes took hold. A moment later, the ring of cubes passed over the flame, and the phoenix vanished, hidden in a pocket dimension and almost frozen in time.

The cubes returned to Zorian, and reformed into a single larger cube, which hovered by his side.

There was a long pause.

“Well, that was quicker than last time. Nice work Zorian.” Godrick clapped him on the shoulder and started walking toward the room’s exit. “Shall we get moving then?”

After a brief walk, Alustin called for a halt. His far-seeing affinity had detected an enormous snake, almost thirty metres long, lying in wait in an empty space next to their path ahead. Rather than blindly walking into a trap, they paused to examine the room. Hugh was the first to notice a series of divination wards that seemed to be designed to detect travellers. When triggered, the wall separating their tunnel from the massive snake would lower into the ground. 

The wards themselves proved fairly difficult to disrupt safely, and in the end, Godrick and Artur simply jammed the stone mechanism so that it couldn’t lower the wall. After that, they just walked straight through the tunnel. The wards triggered, of course, but the wall stayed in place, and the snake stayed safely on the other side. As they passed close by, Zorian got a sense of vague annoyance from the creature. It seemed not everything in the labyrinth was entirely unintelligent. That was strange, and definitely deserved further research later - if it could be done safely. Despite the protests of the simulacra by his side, Zorian resolved to send some copies deeper into the dungeon when he got a chance. If the labyrinth was somehow intelligently reforming itself, the way Alustin claimed it did, then there might be ways to influence the kinds of rooms and traps it produced - which might be a very efficient way to gather magical materials.

As they journeyed further on, it became clear that this trip through the labyrinth wouldn’t be quite as smooth as their first one. Without Harry’s carbon affinity, their ability to detect and neutralise nearby threats was somewhat diminished, and for whatever reason, Mackerel seemed to be guiding them along routes with more obstacles. 

The next series of chambers were constructed from a rich white marble, speckled with darker flecks. Rivulets of water dripped down some of the walls, emerging from tiny cracks in the roof and seeping into patches of moss on the ground. For some reason, the air was so rich in mana that it felt almost heavy. Rain was on edge, and warned them to keep an eye out for ‘metallic fish’, whatever that meant. In the end, it wasn’t a creature that posed the most serious threat.

Zorian was in the habit of casting periodic divination spells to scout out the chambers ahead of them. Alustin was doing the same with his far-seeing affinity, but after half an hour, there was an unfortunate but predictable coincidence - Alustin and Zorian’s spells fired off at the same time. 

Even though both spells used tiny quantities of mana, the interaction of the foreign spell with Zorian’s mana-shaping created an instability. Normally, the miniscule ripple would dissipate almost immediately. In the mana-rich air here, however, the instability grew rapidly, cascading into a fist-sized explosion as the mana dumped its energy into the air in the form of heat. 

Zorian immediately suppressed his own divination spell, but now that the instability had expanded somewhat, it was too late to cut it off at the source. Thankfully, Simulacrum number two had the bright idea of surrounding the explosion with a thin dimensional barrier. Although it did nothing to contain the physical energy released, it prevented the explosion from expanding to the mana outside the barrier, which would have almost certainly been lethal. That said, the resulting blast still knocked Zorian to the ground and left him short of breath. 

A simulacrum moved to help him up, but Godrick was there first. The tall stone-mage offered a hand, and Zorian took it gratefully. After that, they avoided casting spells, and to be on the safe side, Rain deactivated his auras for the first time in what seemed like forever. Half-blind, they hurried through the remaining marble chambers as quickly as reasonably possible. 

Ten or so minutes later, the moist marble walls gave way to rough-hewn stone, and the bizarrely mana-rich air petered out. Zorian breathed a sigh of relief, for a few reasons. With the return to the usual mana-density of a labyrinth, the risk of a cascading instability was practically zero. 

That, and the black stone of the tunnel was starting to look somewhat familiar. Despite the danger, Zorian couldn’t quite keep the smile from his face. Home was close.

Chapter 20: Mathematics

Notes:

Thanks for your patience.

This chapter has 2 content warnings. Click here to reveal if desired - although they are major spoilers for the chapter.

Spiders, major character death.

Ameliah 

 

Wet sand crunched under Ameliah’s metal boots as she approached the arranged meeting site.

By her side were the other three members of Ascension who might live longer than a few seconds if this turned ugly.

Tallheart was closest, at her right hand. As they’d arranged in advance, the others were lagging slightly behind, giving the illusion of a singular leader with her followers. Much as they’d tried to disguise it, with Rain gone, most factions that mattered knew Ascension was functionally rudderless - a fact that would have irritated her partner, with all his attempts to delegate. Still, a unified group posed more of a threat than one in disarray. And so Ameliah was at the front, her bow slung across her back, and her jaw squared. 

Velika was to her left. Given time, the ex-Citizen had eventually recovered from her brush with the Warden’s mind, but she’d kept some habits from the weeks during which she’d struggled to even stand. Each step she took seemed deliberate, as if it demanded focus. One of Tallheart’s monstrous swords was in a scabbard at her waist, and another was in a sheath slung over her shoulder. The weapons were a testament to Ascension’s situation. In less desperate times, it wasn’t likely Tallheart would risk arming Velika again, after what she’d done. But in times like these, there was no weapon Ascension could afford to leave unused. 

A strange half-smile, half-snarl flickered across Velika’s face, replaced quickly by a deliberately neutral blankness. It was too late for words of caution, and Ameliah could only hope that Velika kept her swords sheathed and her mouth shut unless it was truly necessary.

Behind the three of them, a hulking metallic form kept pace easily. Halgrave’s living armour had only started growing minutes ago, and wasn’t yet at its full extent, so he only stood a head taller than them - despite his feet sinking thirty centimetres into the ground. 

Ahead of them, the delegation from the Bank waited, motionless. At the fore stood two figures, clad in resplendent, gargantuan armour, rivalling Halgrave in size. Behind them were eight Enforcers, arrayed in a line. The two at the ends held banners which fluttered in the ocean winds - one with an golden anvil, the other depicting an island ringed by golden walls.

The Enforcers alone would have been enough to threaten Ascension’s very existence, if they’d come unannounced and with killing intent. They weren’t the focus of Ameliah’s gaze, which stayed squarely on the two men in front. Lord Director Jien Initi, and Lord Kenn Trell, two thirds of the triumvirate that de facto ruled the Bank. Embedded in the centre of Jien’s breastplate was a monstrous blue gem that shone like a star. The man wore no helmet, his head more than sheltered by the armour’s mountainous pauldrons. 

There was a similar, albeit smaller, gem set in the brow of Trell’s slitted helmet. By the Guild’s scale, these two men were goldplates, and if their reputations were anything to go by, they were the kind of people that swept aside anything that stood in their way. If it came to blows, there was a decent chance Ameliah would be dead before she could raise her bow. 

“Ascension.”

Ameliah stopped. Lord Jien’s voice was mocking and bitter. 

“Ascension bids you welcome” she said, keeping her voice as steady as she could. “If we’d had earlier notice of your arrival, we could have prepared a more fitting reception for guests such as yourselves.”

Lord Trell turned to face the ocean, and removed his helmet, letting his shoulder-length hair blow in the wind. Then, slowly and deliberately, he turned to face them. Ameliah clenched her fist to stop herself reaching for her bow, and beside her, Tallheart sucked in a breath. 

There was a brutal wound across half his face, a gash from the bridge of his nose almost to his ear, and his right eye socket was empty. There was something viscerally wrong about seeing someone of his level with any physical injury - he ought to have been able to heal something like that in minutes. Looking closer, there was a flicker of darkness, fragments of something still twisting through the wound.

Ameliah looked away.

Trell spoke, and his voice was hollow. “Splendor was attacked. Two members of the board are dead.”

“Why? How?”

Trell turned to face the ocean, leaving only his unblemished skin visible to Ascension’s delegation, and Jien spoke again. 

“The Adamant Empire’s forces are far more dangerous than we had been led to believe.”

Velika shifted by her side, but didn’t say anything. By the motion of the sand, Ameliah could tell that Halgrave was crossing his massive arms behind her.

“That doesn’t add up. The Empire couldn’t besiege Splendor, not if they marshalled every legion they have. They can barely hold their continent.”

Jien’s face twisted in a scowl. “Your intelligence is sorely lacking. Two new forces have joined the Adamant ranks, and led the raid on our stronghold. They may be familiar to you. That is why we are here.”

She felt her stomach sink at the words. If the Bank had somehow mistakenly linked Ascension to the attack on Splendor, and was here for retribution… 

“One, who fought by Lightbreaker’s side, was a force mage of prodigious skill and strength. She breached the outer walls almost alone, and personally slew one of my attendants. She fled back under Lightbreaker’s skirts before I could destroy her.”

Lavarro is alive?

Behind her, Halgrave tensed at the mention of the disgraced former Guilder - and the mother of his daughter.

“The other,” Trell said, and the strain was clear in his voice, “is a figure that - as yet - we have been unable to identify. It moved faster than even the keenest archer’s eye can follow, and shrugged off every attempt we made to even slow it down. First, it found and killed Luna Olentu. Then, it sought me, and gave me this.” He gestured at his face.

“It said something, before I escaped.” Trell’s remaining eye was intently fixed on Ameliah. “It asked about Ascension.”

“Now,” said Lord Jien smoothly. “We have a question for you. Where is Captain Rain?”

 

-]l[-

 

Zorian

 

There was something in the mana Zorian couldn’t quite put his finger on. On Anastis, the ambient mana was more sluggish. There, the shaping techniques he’d honed to virtual perfection had felt somehow off, like drawing a diagram with chalk that was just a little too crumbly. Here, deep in the labyrinth he was guessing would lead them to Cyoria, it was starting to feel more familiar.

It was a welcome boon, because without it, his simulacra might not have been able to react in time. 

The two simulacra that made up the rear-guard of their little party formed a simple vertical disc of force which closed off their section of the tunnel from the others, and pushed it forward. Godrick and Alustin were thrown off their feet when it collided with them, and slid along the smooth floor of the tunnel. An instant later, the disc reached Talia and Hugh, who were likewise thrown forward.

Behind the shimmering layer of force, the tunnel collapsed completely. The simulacra who had conjured the disc were swept away by the rock worm’s passage through the space Godrick had just been in. For an instant, their golem bodies were shielded from its crushing jaws by Rain’s magic. A moment later, Zorian felt them wink out of existence as the monstrous rock worm moved outside Rain’s range, and they lost his protection.

With effort, Zorian and his remaining simulacrum took over the fraying magical disc before it could dissipate entirely. He reinforced it, and pulled it even further down the tunnel. A few seconds later, their entire group was knocked off their feet into an uncoordinated pile of tangled limbs, and had been pushed thirty metres forwards. 

“What the hells was that?” spluttered Talia, scrambling to her feet. 

“A rock worm, a far larger one than I’ve seen before. We need to move quickly.”

Strangely, the worm didn’t return, seemingly happy with the morsel the two simulacra had provided. Or maybe it hadn’t enjoyed the taste of the carbon-nanotube laced metal skeletons Harry had built for them, and decided to leave the others alone, figuring they’d be equally stringy and tasteless.

It was deeply concerning that he hadn’t been able to detect the monster earlier. While most creatures this deep in the Dungeon were formidable - they had to be, to survive at all - they usually still had a detectable mental signature. This one, Zorian hadn’t noticed until it was only a few dozen metres away, a distance the worm could cover in a matter of seconds. 

More concerning still - Rain hadn’t noticed anything either. The armoured mage’s hypothesis was that the rock worm had so much ‘arcane resistance’ that it didn’t show up to his detection skill. 

Artur promised he’d be on the lookout. Now that he was on his guard for burrowing threats, he said he would be able to feel the stone shifting, even if the worm itself could somehow evade detection. That didn’t do all that much to inspire confidence, given he hadn’t spotted this one in time.

The longer they spent here, the more danger there was of some threat he couldn’t see coming sweeping them all away. So, without even staying still long enough to recreate more simulacra, they hurried along, following the dim greenish light emitted by Hugh’s crystal spellbook as it let them through twists and turns. 

A few minutes passed in silence, until Mackerel abruptly stopped, hovering in place. Ahead of them, the tunnel opened up into a vast space. Unlike the ones they’d seen before, this one didn’t seem to have a roof - it just stretched upwards endlessly, culminating in a miniscule pinprick of light. It was so far above them that it barely lit the space at all. Still, compared to the complete darkness of the tunnels behind them, it was a welcome change.

Zorian scanned the floor of the cavern. It was a mess. Mountains of trash were heaped so high that some of them almost reached their tunnel, and parts were submerged in a disgusting-looking brown sludge. On the far side, a thin, polluted-looking waterfall snaked down the wall of the cavern, eventually becoming a spray of droplets that spread out across the space like some perverse rain. The air was hot, which made sense - they were still far below the surface, and on this world at least, the deeper you were, the hotter it got. Closer to the beating heart of the Dragon, or whatever. 

After doing some reading on Earth, Zorian had a touch more scepticism for the Church’s theories of how his world had come to be - and he hadn’t been particularly religious to begin with. Then again, he had personally met angels, so maybe his world actually was built around the bones of a world-dragon slain by the gods. He really didn’t have enough information to know for sure.

This was where unwanted things ended up, if someone high above in Cyoria decided to throw them away.

“Up there,” Zorian pointed at the dot of light far above, “is where we’re going. This is the bottom of the Hole, the largest mana well on this continent.”

Zorian breathed deeply, despite the warm, rancid air, and stepped forward to the edge of the tunnel. As he did so, a tiny mental enhancement grabbed his attention. 

He’d built this enhancement during the long wait on Earth, in preparation for the journey back to Cyoria. It periodically tapped into the marker embedded in his soul, reaching out and looking as far afield as possible for a duplicate. The Dungeon around him was suppressing most long-distance magic, and he could feel that teleporting further than a few metres would be unfeasible. Still, a dim signal had made its way through to him. It wasn’t enough to know anything for sure, but it was enough to prompt the next action.

While the simulacrum by his side gathered the others onto a disc and started weaving shielding threads into a milky-white sphere, Zorian retrieved the necessary materials from a bag of holding. Bending down, he began to construct a simple ritual circle in the stone floor of the tunnel.

This ritual took a minute, and by the time he was halfway through, the others were waiting impatiently. He ignored them - time was precious, but this ritual had waited long enough.

Another thirty seconds, and the ritual finished, draining his mana reserves to punch through the dampening effects of the Dungeon. Information rushed into Zorian’s mind. The second marker shone like a star in his mind, far brighter than the dot of light above. 

Zach was alive. 

Zorian breathed a shuddering, involuntary sigh of relief.

He hadn’t fully acknowledged it, but until now, there had been a part of him that was grimly factoring in the possibility that he wouldn’t be returning to his own time. 

If Harry had returned to a world thirty years after the one he’d left, then what guarantees were there that the same thing couldn’t happen to others? He couldn’t discount that possibility completely yet. There was a chance that a hundred years had passed, or even more, if Zach had gone down the path of becoming a lich, rather than succumbing to natural old age. But at least one person he knew was still alive.

The ritual found a target, but didn’t make contact on its own. Zorian sent a mental signal to Rain asking for more mana, and the mage obliged, sending a torrent of energy to replace what Zorian was burning to try to reach out. Without the identical markers connecting the two loopers, it would have been basically impossible to forge a channel through the Dungeon’s obfuscating effects.

Then, he made contact, lightly brushing Zach’s soul. For an instant, he could tell that Zach was awake, and alert. And, from what little he could glean through the connection, he had already started casting a teleportation spell.

Better not to distract him, then. Acting quickly, Zorian sent through a memory packet - not everything, just a quickly cobbled-together summary. Zach wouldn’t be able to read it without help from someone like Spear of Resolve, but it was better than nothing. Then, he let the connection fade. As much as he wanted to tell Zach everything, that would have to wait. Even with Rain here, mana was too precious to spend it on sentimentalities. 

He returned to his senses, and opened his eyes to an intense, whispered conversation between the others. His simulacrum had been listening, though, and helpfully sent him a short summary.

Apparently, Sabae’s wind affinity was detecting some odd currents. By some quirk of her abilities, she couldn’t sense or affect anything further than a few inches from her skin (which explained the swirling wind-armour she relied on for both mobility and combat, the simulacrum noted), but even within that range, the currents of air in this space were unusually chaotic.

“Every other space we’ve been in, if the air wasn’t dead, it was because other creatures nearby,” the wind-mage hissed quietly. “There’s something here, I’m sure of it.”

Alustin and Rain’s eyes were turned outwards, roving across the mounds of detritus, but neither of them said anything.

Talia squinted outwards, and likewise kept her voice low. “If I try, I can sense a lot of bones out there, but as far as I can tell, they’re all rotten garbage, not living creatures. So unless there are rotten garbage monsters on your world, I’d say we’re fine. Zorian?”

He shook his head, and sent his response to the others mentally rather than whispering. <I don’t know of any garbage monsters, although I suppose something could have wandered in from another world. The lack of bones doesn’t mean there’s no creatures. The rock worm from earlier, for example, wouldn’t have any.>

He couldn’t sense any minds nearby. He frowned. That was suspicious. As disgusting as this place was to human senses, there were many creatures that would have eagerly made this warm, nutrient-rich place their home. If this were in safer territory, it would be overflowing with rats or other vermin. As it was, down here, there were probably enough predators to keep rat populations low. But then those predators should have been detectable. 

There were a few kinds of creatures that had sufficient natural immunity to telepathy to temporarily hide from his mind sense. The gargantuan rock worm they’d encountered earlier, for instance, had slipped past his notice thanks to a combination of immense natural resistance and a fundamentally very simple mind. Then again, rock worms wouldn’t be capable of hunting across these piles of garbage. The teetering piles of detritus wouldn’t be enough to even hold a rock worm’s weight, let alone let them navigate easily.

As an offhand thought, he triggered a simple locator spell, with the target ‘giant spider’. 

The divination spell completed. There were more than fifty positive results spread out across the floor of the cavern, some within a few metres.

He didn’t say anything, just poured mana into the shell that surrounded their group. It was a crude copy of the manoeuvrable flying sphere Zach had constructed for their first foray into the Hole, back inside the time loop. Zorian had used it a few times, but he wasn’t as practised with it as Zach, and even his more experienced fellow looper struggled to maintain the spell for longer than a few minutes. Acting together, he and his single remaining simulacrum were just about able to hold it together.

The sphere shot upwards, accelerating rapidly in the direction of the entrance. The group remained suspended in the centre of the sphere, the spell ensuring they were unaffected by the sudden motion.

Below them, the surface of the trash heap began to undulate. Like a rolling wave, rippling outwards, dozens and dozens of spiders emerged from hiding places, and began to climb the walls.

Judging by their distinctly coloured fur and their size - approximately that of an adult man - these were grey hunters, but there was something odd about them. The grey hunter Zorian had fought was incredibly fast. Even so, it would have struggled to keep pace with their milky sphere as they rose, faster and faster every second. These creatures looked somehow stretched, with longer, spindlier limbs that still looked monstrously strong. They were keeping pace easily, and Zorian glanced to the side as one leaped at the side of their bubble. 

Zorian threw the sphere to one side, and the spider fell back down, into the darkness below. Although it took a huge amount of mana to sustain the sphere, controlling it was easy - that was one of the main benefits of the spell. He brought it into the centre of the Hole, as far from any of the walls as possible. They were rising fast now, more than a dozen metres of stone rushing by in blur each second. All around them, the spiders were moving faster, rising like a tide of crawling limbs, pushing past one another in a mad scramble for fresh prey.

Around him, the others were springing into action. Hugh fired a beam at the side of the cavern, and for an instant, the nearby parts of the massive cavern lit up like daylight. A cluster of spiders were hit, but they were moving too fast for Zorian to see if the light had killed them or merely slowed them down. 

<Rain?> 

<This shield is blocking my auras. I can’t act unless you dismiss them, or I overpower them, which would shut them down, I think.>

That was deeply inconvenient. The shields were woven into the movement spell, and he wouldn’t be able to dismiss the shield without releasing the entire spell - which would let them all fall into the mass of hungry murder-spiders below.

It looked like Alustin, Sabae and Talia were likewise momentarily powerless. All of their skills were dependent on having certain materials present at the site of action, or on sending volleys or currents of something at their opponents. Separated from the outside world by the shield-bubble, there wasn’t a lot they could do. Hugh’s attack had probably only worked because rather than creating any magical effect at the destination, it only created light, and the shield-bubble was naturally somewhat transparent.

Despite himself, Zorian filed away the information. If bolts of conjured light could leave the shields, they might be able to enter as well. That was a vulnerability he’d need to address later.

To one side, the walls of the cavern cracked, shattering as the stones on the surface abruptly lost all cohesion. Artur and Godrick’s work, presumably. Without anything solid to grip onto, half a dozen spiders fell into the darkness below, but what looked like more than five times that number were still keeping pace. 

The tide around them continued to rise as the spiders proved faster than the bubble could fly. One of them threw itself through the air, toward the centre of the Hole, and impacted the shield from above. A second spider landed shortly afterwards, and their sixteen skittering legs almost completely obscured Zorian’s view upwards.

<Hugh, get them off us!>

Beside him, Zorian felt the energy around Hugh build. For whatever reason, it felt like it was taking longer than usual. Above them, the grey hunters’ mandibles - which looked bizarrely elongated relative to the creature Zorian remembered - were attacking the surface of the shield. Their venom was intensely powerful, and disrupted the victim’s ability to shape mana, making any mage that was bitten functionally powerless. Fortunately, it was useless against magical constructs. Unfortunately, the mandibles were still immensely strong. With each bite, he felt a chunk of his mana reserves vanish. The vast and constant stream of energy from Rain - as much as the mage could supply - was barely enough to sustain the sphere-spell, so the mana lost to each bite was a permanent drain on his capacity until this crisis was over.

Hugh released his spell, and a pair of focused beams blasted upwards. Where they impacted, there was an intense burst of light. Where before there had only been grey fur, there was suddenly a thin, cylindrical hole, as if something had bored the whole way through each of the spiders’ abdomens. 

Bizarrely, the pair of grey hunters Hugh had struck kept up their attack, and Zorian watched with growing horror as the holes began to knit themselves closed. In a matter of seconds, the skin of the abdomen itself sealed up, and three more spiders landed atop their sphere. 

At his direction, the sphere began to oscillate, throwing itself from side to side in an attempt to dislodge the spiders. Two fell off into the abyss below, unable to keep their grip on the sheer surface. The evasive motions took energy that could have been used for upward movement, and spiders that were still climbing the walls alongside them leapt at the opportunity to gain some ground. Once they reached a sufficient height, dozens of grey hunters threw themselves across the tunnel, toward the centre. The pinprick of sunlight had grown fractionally larger as they rose, but the mass of spider bodies now blocked it out completely. Most of them missed the jerkily moving sphere, but more than a few landed, and somehow managed to grip onto the outside. 

It wasn’t going to hold. The constant pressure from the spiders’ attacks was too much, and there were really only two choices left - either wait until his mana reserves drained completely, or shut down the spell early. 

A final quick glance upwards was all Zorian needed to confirm that there was no chance of reaching the surface before the sphere broke apart. That meant there was really only one path foward.

He cast a hasting spell on himself, the most powerful one he could manage without losing his grip on the shields.

<I’m going to dismiss the sphere in three seconds. Get ready.>

 

-]l[-

 

Hugh

 

Time seemed to slow to a crawl.

His view of the cavern around them was almost completely obscured. Behind the thin, silvery lattice of Zorian’s shield, the tangle of chitinous limbs and bodies was nearly too dense to see through.

Then, Zorian and his simulacrum closed their out-stretched fists in unison, and the protective sphere disappeared entirely. There was only the dark, and the clicking sound of mandibles opening and closing on empty air, less than a metre away. 

The strange floating effect of the sphere was gone, now, and he was falling, but he had no idea how fast.

Something hit his arm, throwing him to the side, and he collided with something soft - Talia, judging by the dim glow of her blue tattoos and the dreamfire crystal he could sense on her forehead. He reached out and felt her grab his arm. He pulled her into his chest, wrapping his right arm around her. The spellform for a levitation cantrip was already in his mind’s eye, but then - 

The world was on fire. All around him, spiders burst into flame. The light cast bizarre shadows, flickering and twisting as the spiders contorted in pain.

There was a spider falling just in front of them. Its limbs burned, the grey fur on its forelegs disintegrating into ash. It squealed, a horrible noise, like steam escaping from a kettle crossed with a cat’s wail. 

But it didn’t die. Its limbs kept scrabbling at the air, and moment by moment, it was making its way closer, tilting its legs to harness the air that was rushing by to push it towards him and Talia. 

Hugh blinked in surprise, and forced mana into the levitation cantrip. The feeling of sudden deceleration made his stomach lurch, and he realised at the same time why he’d struggled to produce a starbolt earlier. This was a new world. Aether sickness was starting to set in.

The cantrip took hold. At once, the spider in front of him fell away, continuing to fall while he and Talia came to a stop. To their side, Artur plummeted headfirst through the air, an arms length away. A grim, focused expression was on his face.

Then, a burning mass of limbs collided with them from above, and Hugh cursed internally. There had been spiders above him, so if he slowed his fall, then of course they were going to land on him as they fell. 

The smell was vile, and Hugh instinctively flinched away to avoid being burned.

Across the pact-link, there was a sudden burst of emotion from Mackerel, and he tore himself free from the strap on Hugh’s back. Throwing himself upwards, he crashed into the burning arachnid with enough force to fling both the crystal spellbook and the spider outward, toward the edge of the cavern. It was only a brief respite, because while Mackerel had moved quickly, he was nowhere near as fast as the spider. 

With impressive agility for a creature that was both on fire and in freefall, the spider rotated Mackerel like a fly in a web so that his pages were facing downward. Despite the flames flickering across its eight eyes, it somehow still seemed to be able to sense its environment. In less time than it took Hugh to blink, it braced its legs against the crystal hard-cover, and threw itself back toward him and Talia. Mackerel was propelled backwards by the force of the jump, and collided with the stone wall of the cavern with an awful scraping sound.

Talia threw out a hand, and a swarm of dreamfire wasps sprayed outward from her fingertips. They carved straight through the left side of the onrushing spider’s head, and sheared off two of its legs. At the same time, Hugh felt Talia shudder in his arms. It didn’t seem like she was having an easier time using her affinity on this world than he was.

The spider’s body went limp. For once, it seemed like it might actually be dead. 

That didn’t mean the corpse had lost its momentum. 

It slammed into them both with oddly less force than he expected - Rain’s wards at work, probably - but Hugh still lost his grip on Talia completely. She went spinning off somewhere he couldn’t see. The air was knocked out of Hugh’s lungs by the impact, and he started to fall. 

Around fifty metres above him, the cavern was lit by the eerie glow of a swarm of tiny, orange stars. At the centre stood Zorian, holding himself aloft with some magic Hugh didn’t recognise. Hugh was spinning while he fell now, and in the instant before he rotated away, he saw a trio of the tiny stars collide with a spider. The projectiles detonated with a small but intense-looking explosion, and the spider’s body disappeared in an orange flash that sent visible shockwaves through the air.

Then Hugh was facing downwards, and managed to stabilise himself with another cantrip. Because he’d caught himself fairly early in the fall, some of their group had fallen far further than he and Talia had. The action now stretched across a huge vertical distance. 

Thirty metres below him, Godrick and Sabae had managed to find their way to a wall. Godrick was covered in a thin layer of stone armour which melded into the wall at his feet. It looked bizarre, as if he’d turned gravity on its side, and was standing on the wall as if it were the ground, like some kind of animated gargoyle. In his fists he gripped a long-handled hammer made of ice. He was fighting a vertical battle, fending off a pair of spiders - one above him on the wall,  and one below. The spiders were wary, and only darted in and out of his hammer-range rather than attacking all-out, but they were clearly faster than he was. 

Sabae was perched on top of his legs. Whenever a spider made its way past Godrick’s sweeping blows, she blasted it away with a coil of wind. 

Flitting around the two of them were a trio of head-sized metal balls - the bludgers Godrick had brought with them from Hogwarts. It didn’t look like they were doing much damage to the spiders - as he watched, a bludger slammed into one of the spider's legs, which only buckled slightly. It did seem to be distracting them though - one of the spiders leapt at a bludger with inhuman speed and started tearing the steel ball into pieces with its fangs.

Involuntarily, Hugh clutched at his stomach. If the others were feeling the effects of aether sickness as keenly as he was, then they probably had a matter of minutes or less before they were functionally helpless.

Below Sabae and Godrick, Alustin had summoned his paper armour, and was frantically ducking and rolling to try to shake loose a flaming spider on his back. As Hugh watched, ribbons of paper rushed out of Alustin’s storage tattoo, and sliced through the spider in a dozen different places. When the paper severed the spider’s carapace, the creature flinched and recoiled, but the two pieces of its body melded back together almost immediately.

Then something incredibly fast slammed into the spider, managing to avoid Alustin entirely. The spider was thrown downward, and the blur stopped on a dime - it was Rain. The metal visor tilted upward, and then he was gone again, moving faster than Hugh could follow.

Another fifty metres below that, far enough that Hugh was struggling to make out the details, a massive bulge of stone was protruding from the walls. A spider tried to crawl past it, and a pillar of stone flicked outward, looking for all the world like the tongue of an enormous frog. The spider was pulled inward, and disappeared under the surface of the stone.

There were no spiders near him that he could see, so Hugh took a moment to breathe. 

They needed to get out of here. Whatever these strange monsters were, they were too resilient to dispatch easily, and there were far too many of them to deal with quickly. On top of that, if his reaction to this world played out the same way as when he’d arrived on Earth, then within a few minutes, everyone except Zorian would be basically sitting ducks.  Maybe Rain would be alright too, if he could figure out how to ‘modify his essence intake scoops’ during a battle, whatever that meant.

A burst of flame to his right caught his attention, and another spider corpse fell downward, all eight legs limp. Talia was braced with her feet against the wall. Her right hand was tightly gripping an enchanted dagger she’d stabbed into the stone. He shifted the direction of his cantrip, and moved to hover by her side.

“We need to get out!” she shouted. Even though she was right next to him, he could barely hear her over the sounds of combat coming from every direction. Before he could respond, a spider leapt out of the darkness above, and sank its fangs into Talia’s forearm, where she was gripping the dagger.

Once again, time seemed to slow down.

Talia screamed soundlessly, and the spider dug its mandibles deeper.

Propelled by his affinity, a crystal wardstone flew out of his storage tattoo, and slammed into the spider. It detonated in the spider’s face, throwing it away from them, up the cavern wall. 

With half of Talia’s arm still in its mouth.

Torn loose from the dagger she was using as her anchor point, Talia fell towards him. He caught her, and took a moment to realise that she was screaming a word, not just screaming in pain.

“Shield!”

Hugh redirected his levitation cantrip to push them into an alcove in the wall - barely large enough to fit both their bodies - and pressed his hand against the stone. Mana drained from his reservoirs as he crystallised a circle of stone into quartz, and poured as much energy as he could into a hastily constructed ward. The bile rose in his throat - this was the last spell he would be able to cast for a few hours.

Then the spider on the lip of their alcove, the one still holding Talia’s bleeding hand in its jaws, simply evaporated.

Talia’s dreamfire made her a powerful ally and dangerous enemy to face, no doubt. But dream was only one of her affinities. The other was bone. Different kinds of bones had different effects when she detonated them. Dragon bones expelled fire and burned with an intense heat rather than exploding. Whale bones produced a viscous mixture of burning oil. Sunmaw bones distorted the flow of the aether, a terrifying effect which could turn the spells other mages cast against them. 

Until now, the question of what would happen if Talia detonated one of her own bones had been purely theoretical.

Overcome by aether sickness and unable to shield his eyes with magic, Hugh threw a hand over his face. He could feel the thrum of the explosion in the stone and the air around them, growing and growing until it seemed like the entire cavern ahead of them was a single white-hot inferno. 

Hugh’s ward held for a second, but failed just as the detonation was finally petering out. The last blast of superheated acrid air rushed into his face, and he couldn’t hold it back anymore - he threw up. At the same time, he tried to keep his feet as securely placed as possible in their precarious alcove. Without magic, if he slipped, there was nothing to stop them from falling what was probably kilometres to the bottom of the Hole. 

Clutched in his arms, Talia was shivering. The stump of her right arm - fully severed from just below the elbow - was bleeding onto her clothes, and a blotchy pattern of inflammation was already appearing on her upper arm.

Talia looked at Hugh, then at her own arm, then back up at Hugh. 

“Giant spiders, huh?” Her lower lip was quivering as she spoke. “Where are the giant frogs when you need them?” 

Then she went limp.

With one arm wrapped around her chest, and another trying to hold himself stable against the stone, he stuck his head out into the dark of the cavern. His throat was burned by vomit, and his voice was hoarse.

“Help! We need help!”

There was the distant sound of three smaller explosions in quick succession, and something hitting the wall of the cavern hard enough to shatter stone. 

Close by, there was only the sound of skittering limbs.

-]l[-

Rain, moments earlier

 

This battle, Rain was quickly realising, was going to be about numbers.

Zorian really knew how to spend mana fast. Even drawing on the Magewell Amulet’s reservoir, Rain hadn’t been able to funnel across enough mana to sustain their magical vessel against the attacks from outside. His stored mana reserves were effectively at zero, and he was relying solely on newly regenerated mana.

At least now that Zorian’s shield bubble was down, his auras were free to act on the mass of spiders.

The problem was that the damn things just wouldn’t die.  

Given how worried Zorian had seemed, it might have been optimistic to expect his initial Immolate nova to handle the situation entirely. But it ought to have done something beyond transforming their enemies from ‘Terrifying Giant Spiders’ into ‘Flaming Terrifying Giant Spiders’.

Now that he’d supplied Detection with enough mana to overpower the spider’s natural magic resistance, the remnants of his System interface helpfully identified the creatures as ‘monsters’ - but didn’t give him much more information than that. Whatever they were, it seemed their health regeneration - or whatever the equivalent was on this world - was off the charts. 

Quickly cycling through each of his other auras was similarly ineffective. While the spiders looked like they were taking damage, they seemed to be able to keep fighting regardless. And with the limited mana he had, he couldn’t afford to sustain an aura-assault unless it was really worth it.

Latching onto the latent mental link that Zorian maintained as a matter of habit, Rain asked a question.

<Zorian, how the hell do we kill these things?>

The response was… not good.

<I’m not sure.>

Zorian sent a bundle of concepts along with the message - images of spiders being bodily vaporised, sucked into an extradimensional space, frozen in time… nothing that Rain could easily achieve. 

I need time to think.

The world around him slowed until it was almost frozen, and then faded away as Rain sank into his soul. 

Okay. What’s the situation?

All he knew for sure was that last time Detection had pinged on each person, everyone was still alive. 

Unfortunately, a matter of seconds had elapsed since then, and in that time, the battle had lost basically all cohesion. 

Right now, Detection was set to a radius of a little over fifty metres - just enough to reach the edges of the massive vertical tunnel. 

When Zorian had released his shielding sphere, he’d made the questionable decision to let everyone fall. It made sense, on some level. If Zorian had created a disc of force underneath them, then the nearby spiders would have immediately fallen on them from above. It would have been carnage. But as it was, some of their group had fallen far enough that they were already outside of the reach of Detection.

Activating Aura Focus, he doubled the range. He sighed internally with relief at the next returning ping - everyone was still alive. Artur had fallen the furthest - he was nearly a hundred metres below where Rain was hovering with Airwalk, and was fighting thirteen spiders on his own. He’d constructed some kind of trap, where instead of trying to kill the spiders, he sucked them under the surface of his blob of stone, and just… left them there. Given their ferocious strength, in time, they might be able to tear their way out. But in the short term, it was a brilliantly effective solution. 

Fifty metres below Rain, Alustin was wrestling with a spider latched onto the back of his paper armour. 

Forty metres below Rain, Sabae and Godrick were attached to the wall, fighting off a pair of spiders.

Just ten metres below him, Talia and Hugh were hovering in empty space - probably using a cantrip, or something.

Ten metres above Rain, Zorian hovered alone. His simulacrum had been thrown into the wall, and while it was currently still alive, a cluster of spiders were in the process tearing it apart.

There were eight spiders in Artur’s stone-trap. Twenty-nine spiders were spread out across the walls of the Hole, with fourteen more currently falling through the air alongside his comrades.

Alright. Priorities. I’m basically running on empty, against a horde of functionally unkillable, ridiculously fast spiders that can hit like a truck. What do I do?

There were a few things draining his mana that could be turned off. With a bitter taste in his mouth, Rain temporarily deactivated the Purify and Summer auras in the Healing Cores he’d left behind on Earth. Based on some back-of-the-envelope calculations he’d done with Padma, the Cores were probably saving a life every couple of seconds. But if he and his friends died here, then the Cores would never work again. Padma and Harry would understand.

His wards came next. Given how spread out his allies were, he was forced to trade decreased efficiency for increased range. On top of that, running the auras at 100% protection was far more expensive than running it at lower percentages. Judging from the last few seconds of spider attacks, shielding his allies from bites and impacts alone would draw more than his entire mana regeneration could supply. That meant a single powerful strike had the possibility of tearing through his defences and killing someone outright. 

Grimly, Rain was reminded of a phrase he’d said to Ameliah a long time ago:

I don’t fight, he remembered saying. I either win, or I don’t. It’s just mathematics.

That wasn’t quite accurate in the here and now. 

Either we die, or we don’t. It’s just mathematics.

Safe for now in the accelerated time-zone of his soul, Rain’s avatar swallowed, and he dialled both Heat and Force Ward down to eighty percent. 

It meant some damage would get through to his allies, but the increased efficiency of the aura meant that he would be able to sustain it against more attacks, with less risk of a catastrophic failure when he ran out of mana entirely. 

With his armour, Rain was probably safer from the spiders than anyone else. Now, there was the question of what he could physically do to keep the others safe. Artur’s example was a good one. Just because he couldn’t see a way to physically kill the spiders, that didn’t mean he couldn’t help keep his friends safe. 

Rain's eyes snapped open. 

For a moment he hung midair, barely having moved since descending into his soul. He took an instant to search the battlefield for his allies and cross-reference his eyesight with what Detection was telling him. Zorian floated above, frantically casting at a cluster of spiders on the burnt stone walls. They were tearing at the partially destroyed frame left behind by Zorian’s now-dead simulacrum.

Alright. First things first. Even if he could get to his friends, there wasn't anywhere safe to put them. The spiders up top had to go.

Time resumed. Spiders frozen mid-leap rushed through the air, smoke spiralled up the Hole from burnt fur, and Rain moved.

First to Zorian, where he ripped the spiders away from the simulacrum corpse they were chewing on, before throwing them toward the murky darkness beneath. He did his best to aim away from his allies, but person-sized spiders are awkwardly-shaped projectiles, even if you’re moving fast enough that they’re barely able to react.

Once the immediate area around Zorian was clear, Rain was off. With another intense burst of Velocity, he travelled a hundred metres in a second to throw himself bodily into a spider that had hooked its claws around Alustin’s paper armour. Thanks to gravity and the sheer weight of his armour, the spider was launched away from Alustin like a cannonball, and spiralled downwards into the dark. Before the paper mage could even react, Rain was reorienting himself, and kicking off air to head back toward Zorian.

"We need to get out of here," he said flatly upon his arrival. 

A sharp glare was his response. <No shit. I didn't want to take this to the surface, but it might be our only chance. This terrain is too advantageous for the grey hunters. If you can get everyone up here quickly, we might be able to race them up with this headstart.> He gestured at the mostly clear area, before snapping off some magical ray toward a leaping spider. <Might.>

Alright, that’s something to work with.

Deactivating Airwalk, he let himself drop. Another burst of Velocity served to accelerate him far faster than any object could naturally fall. A second later, Sabae and Godrick rushed by, with surprised expressions on their faces. Then Rain funnelled mana through Energy Well into Stamina for Airwalk again, and gritted his teeth as the sudden deceleration almost made his knees pop. 

“Artur!” he yelled at the mass of stone that bulged out of the wall. “Come out. I’ll lift you higher!”

At first, it was difficult to tell if the stone-mage could even hear him. Then the stone shifted like water, and Artur’s face stuck itself out bizarrely. 

“Take my son and Sabae first. I’ll hold off tha spiders from here.” As he said it, another spider dashing along the cavern walls sank into the rock up to its abdomen, and then vanished entirely under the rippling stone. 

Rain nodded. It was inconvenient to have come down this low and need to ascend again, but he should have expected this - Artur was fiercely protective of the youngsters, and especially his son.

He ascended past Alustin quickly, and arrived by Godrick and Sabae just in time to knock loose a spider that was getting dangerously close, which tumbled fifteen metres before latching onto the wall again. Sabae flinched, and barely stopped herself from blasting him with a coiled current of air. Godrick wasn’t visible under his stone armour, but there was an ashen look on Sabae’s face, like she couldn’t hold on for much longer. 

“Grab on. I’ll lift you out.”

Sabae shot him a grateful look, and her white hair fanned out behind her as a quick burst of wind launched her onto Rain’s shoulders.

“Shed your armour, Godrick. I don’t have much mana. We need to stay light.”

It took the teenager a moment to peel himself free of the dark stone. It was a bizarrely beautiful sight, like a butterfly shedding a solid cocoon. Where he released his control, the stone crumbled into the abyss below, falling far enough that there was no sound of it hitting the ground. Then Godrick was out, and only hesitated for an instant before jumping the metre to where Rain was hovering. 

With one teenager perched on his shoulders, and another gripping onto him from the front, Rain started to ascend again. A regular Detection ping told him Alustin was rising just behind them, probably making use of Rain’s slipstream to save energy. With so little mana to spare, the added strain from carrying two people was not insignificant. That said, it was a far cry from when he’d carried an entire jet across the false Atlantic, not that long ago.

Turns out holding off a legion of death-spiders isn’t great for my weight lifting abilities. I’ll keep that in mind for the next Olympics.

There was a ping from Force Ward - someone he was protecting had taken an enormous amount of damage. With only that instant of warning, his feet faltered as Airwalk failed to latch onto anything - both his stamina and his mana were completely drained. 

There, thirty metres below them - Talia and Hugh, facing off against a trio of spiders. Talia’s arm was missing from just below her elbow.

Do I go to help them? Or just try to get Sabae and Godrick out of here? I don’t think I can safely carry four people…

The moment of indecision stretched on - for too long. Mana sight showed a tiny tendril of energy reaching out from Talia, spiralling out toward her severed arm.

The cavern was rocked with one of the largest explosions Rain had ever felt. In a sense, it was lucky they were in the air, because it meant the shockwave blasted them outwards and upwards, rather than pulverising them against the tunnel walls. Rain went spinning. With every possible dreg of mana going to protect his allies with Heat Ward and Force Ward, there was nothing left to funnel into Energy Well. Without stamina for Airwalk, he couldn’t control his trajectory, and only stopped when he bodily collided with the wall. Tallheart’s armour did its job, and he didn’t take any physical damage, but he barely managed to grab onto a protruding rock to avoid falling. 

A second later, the remnants of the explosion abated, and Rain paused to take stock of the situation. 

Sabae, Alustin and Zorian must have ridden the shockwave, because they had been thrown the furthest, and were more than a hundred metres above where Rain was clutching the walls. Hugh and Talia were far below, near the epicentre of the explosion - but somehow mostly unharmed, apart from Talia’s wounded arm. Godrick was-

Godrick.

According to Detection, almost all of the spiders must have been either evaporated by the blast, or otherwise knocked somewhere outside of Rain’s range. Of the survivors, only three were still close enough to be a meaningful threat.

One of which was entangled with Godrick on a ledge on the opposite wall of the cavern. 

The explosion had left the spider’s body a broken mess, but it was gradually reforming, using whatever eldritch magic was keeping it intact to rearrange the bloodied limbs back into their original places. Godrick didn’t look any better. He was clearly sick, and was barely managing to hold himself upright. 

Rain's perception slowed to a crawl, burning through his prodigious essence stores. Once again he had to make a choice. With what little mana he had left, he could either convert it to stamina and attempt to rescue Godrick from the spider, or he could shunt it into Force Ward and change the parameters to achieve maximum efficiency while still covering Godrick - and hope that the injured spider wouldn't be able to batter its way past faster than his mana regenerated.

Hesitation was death. He made his choice. Shunting half his mana into Energy Well, Rain dropped the range on Force Ward down just far enough to barely reach Godrick, raising the efficiency as high as possible under those constraints. Then he kicked off. As the world sped up, so did Rain, dipping into his vital reserves to speed himself with Velocity. As he flew, his senses disappeared, dipping briefly into Aura Focus. Even a fraction of a second of accelerated regeneration might be what made the difference.

The spider pounced, and Rain felt his mana drain as Force Ward tried to protect Godrick. The first blow knocked the teenager into the wall, but the wards stopped the mandibles from piercing his skin. 

Rain took another step, now halfway across the hole, and was forced to convert more mana to maintain his Airwalk. It was a balancing game between mana and stamina, Velocity and Force Ward. Too little stamina for Airwalk, and he’d fall out of Godrick’s range, and be unable to help. Too little mana for Force Ward, and Godrick would be defenceless.

Then the spider was fully reformed, and redoubled its assault. The second blow drained what was left of Rain’s mana - leaving him sluggishly Airwalking in the centre of the cavern - and the third blow tore through the wards entirely and pierced Godrick’s skull.

Rain screamed.

There was a flash of light, and something blasted down the cavern. A raven-haired boy Rain didn’t recognise, dressed in robes, with an ornate crown resting on his head. He was in the centre of the same kind of milky-white shield-sphere Zorian had conjured. The sphere came to an abrupt stop in front of Godrick, and then vanished. A blade of - not darkness, but what looked like a rift in reality itself - formed in the air, and sliced the spider in half with practically no resistance. Its corpse began to reform, but the boy gestured with a hand, and the blade became a lattice, which sheared the spider's body into hundreds of pieces, which fell individually into the darkness below. 

The boy paused for a moment, looking at Godrick’s broken body, then flew downwards, moving faster than humanly possible. 

Rain’s eyes were still locked on Godrick.

He wasn’t registering as an entity to Detection. 

A second later, Rain crashed into the ledge, next to where Godrick was lying prone. 

There were two puncture wounds in the side of Godrick’s skull. He wasn’t breathing.

Rain redirected all his stat points into Clarity, and poured as much mana as physically possible into Summer. Anything, anything that might help. Rain felt his own minor injuries healing under the intense magical warmth - burnt lungs rejuvenated, strained biceps and knees relieved. Godrick’s form didn’t move.

A few seconds later, the shimmering sphere reappeared, and Rain felt some form of telekinesis lift both him and Godrick into the sphere. Dimly, he was aware of Talia, Hugh, Mackerel and Artur in the sphere as well, but his eyes didn’t leave Godrick. A moment later, the others were pulled in too - Sabae, Zorian and Alustin.

Their sphere rocketed upward, accelerating even faster than Zorian’s had. The tiny pinprick of light above them grew and grew. In less than a minute, they shot out of the top of the Hole. A city stretched out beneath them. It looked a little like the older parts of London, with ornate spires stretching toward the sky. Train lines criss-crossed the city. 

The boy who’d saved them was talking with Zorian now. They were both speaking fast, in the flowing language Rain recognised from the first time he’d met Zorian and Harry in the dark of Ithos. But Rain couldn’t hear anything except the clutching sobs of a father who had lost his son.

Chapter 21: Family

Zorian

 

Zach’s sphere touched down in the middle of the street just outside Imaya’s house. Fortunately, it was very early in the morning. The sun was still rising on the horizon, and there was almost no one around. Zorian barely had a second to get his bearings before Zach practically tackled him off his feet with a full-body hug.

“Where the hell have you been?” Zach had an odd expression on his face. “You’re lucky I’m not punching you in the face right now.”

“I-” Zorian got halfway through answering before a massive hand grabbed his shoulder.

Artur’s eyes were still locked onto his son’s body. It lay limp on the cobblestones. The other Anastans were gathered around it, ashen-faced. Talia’s arm had been cleanly sliced off, just above the elbow. Sabae’s healing had stopped the bleeding, and part of Hugh’s shirt was wrapped around it as an improvised bandage. Sabae’s hands were now on Godrick’s temples, and strange currents of mana were pulsing through her fingers. 

“Is there anything ye can do?” Artur’s voice was heavy with emotion, but he spoke clearly.

Zorian shook his head. “Godrick’s soul departed before I got to his body. Even if he could be physically healed, he couldn’t be restored to true life. At least as not as far as I know - I’m not an expert in healing.”

Artur grunted. “Yer friend?”

It was a good question. Although neither of them had particularly focused on the area, Zach definitely had the edge in terms of healing skill. The other looper had manoeuvred himself to stand part way between Zorian and Arthur, who loomed almost two heads taller than both of them. Zach couldn’t understand Ithonian, of course, so he was watching the exchange with a tense look on his face.

“Zach? Is there anything you can do for Godrick?” Zorian gestured at the stone mage's prone form. 

Zach knelt down and touched Godrick on the forehead. He winced. “His skull has been completely shattered in two places, and bone fragments have torn through nearly to the other side of his head. If that wasn’t enough, the grey hunter venom was injected directly into his brain. It's mostly dissolved already. I don’t think the best healing magic in the world could do much for him now. His soul has departed too, so there’s nothing to be done there…”

Zorian pinched the bridge of his nose. If he’d been better prepared, there were a thousand things he could have done differently. With a material focus for the sphere-spell, the exorbitant mana cost would have been less of a constraint, and they might have simply been able to rise out of the Hole with no issues. If he’d taken the time to re-create more simulacra before ascending, then he might have been able to maintain better control over the battle. Even after the fact, things might have still been salvageable - if he’d reacted quickly enough to Godrick’s death, he could have tried to make some kind of trap to anchor the soul, like Sudomir did for his wife (not that it had worked out for Sudomir very well). 

Or he could have simply refused to let Kanderon send the children with them through the labyrinth to begin with… 

“I’m sorry, Artur. I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”

Artur looked lost for a moment, then he remembered something and turned to face Rain. There was a desperate edge to his voice, and he spoke low and quickly. “Harry did something on his world, he saved his friend. Brought her back from the dead. Alustin, ye said it was in their history books.”

Alustin tilted his head to the side. “The books weren’t clear on what happened that night, or if Harry was even actually involved. I don’t know how reliable Earth history books are - it’s possible the whole thing was just an urban legend that grew out of control.”

Zorian coughed uncomfortably. “I… I actually saw those memories, when I had control of Harry’s mind. The resurrection was definitely real. I don’t fully understand what happened, but I’m pretty sure the technique he used required the brain to be cooled immediately.”

“Alright,” Artur said, and knelt down. His deep voice was uncharacteristically shaky. “Who can cool things down? Rain, one of yer auras, right?”

Rain’s eyes flashed with recognition. “Cryonics? So about five degrees celsius?”

Zorian nodded, and Rain knelt down next to Artur. The air around them cooled suddenly, and within a few seconds Artur’s breath was visible in the now-frosty air. 

It was clear Artur was in serious emotional distress, so Zorian tried to keep his voice as gentle as possible. “Artur, I think the low temperatures are supposed to prevent damage to the brain. Godrick’s brain is pretty much completely destroyed. I don’t think this will work.”

Artur didn’t even look up. “Rain, get Harry on yer communications machine. I want to know the details of this process.”

Rain nodded, and his eyelids flickered for a moment. 

Zach put his hand on Zorian’s shoulder and whispered into his ear. “Who are all these people? And what language are you all speaking?”

“One second.” First, Zorian did a quick mental scan for any onlookers. A curious delivery boy was hidden in an alleyway watching the commotion. A quick mental nudge encouraged him to move on, and a moment of memory editing erased the last few minutes from his mind. 

Then, he cast the simulacrum spell. The simulacrum didn’t speak, only turned back to stand with Rain and Artur by Godrick’s body. 

Zorian gestured to Zach, and walked up to Imaya’s front door. The simulacrum was going to help the others bring Godrick’s body inside in a moment, but he figured it was better to greet old friends without a corpse in tow. 

His mind sense told him there were three people inside the house. Imaya was reading in her study. Kael had just woken up in his bedroom upstairs, but his daughter Kana was still asleep.

Imaya opened the door, and did a triple take when she saw Zorian.

“I’m sorry to bother you at this hour,” he said. “Is it alright if we borrow a few rooms?” 

Her mouth was still hanging open. “We all thought you were dead! We had a funeral!”

A funeral. Zorian’s mind point-blank refused to picture that. So he just stood there for a moment while Imaya surged forward and embraced him.

“Have you seen Kiri yet?” she asked.

“No, that’s next on the list. Although now I need to have a very urgent debrief with Zach, if that’s alright. Do you mind if we use your study?”

“No, of course not. Should I bring you some tea?”

He managed to quickly shake his head before Zach grabbed him by the arm, bodily hauled him into the study, and shut the door behind them. 

“Let me say it again, because clearly you mustn’t have heard me the first time. Where the hell have you been, Zorian?”

The pair of them sat down on Imaya’s couch, and Zorian launched into the brief history of his last four weeks. Zach didn’t interrupt once, which was honestly pretty impressive. It was clear Zach was practically bursting with curiosity.

By the end, Zach had sunk back into the couch cushions, and was looking at Zorian with wide eyes. 

“You’re telling me you got sucked into an alternate reality, knocked out the living defence systems of a random empire, got stuck in a reflected version of yet another reality, designed a spell to follow lich-connections through dimensions, and helped build a magical healing system for an planet of eight thousand million people? Did I miss anything?”

Zorian just shrugged. “We might have triggered a war with a multiversal faction we know pretty much nothing about.”

“Do you think they’re the ones who sent those spiders after you?” Zach asked contemplatively. “They looked mostly like grey hunters, but I’ve never seen anything with that kind of regeneration.”

Zorian stood up, and paced across the room. “No, those were just waiting in the dungeon when we got there. And I think we have seen that kind of regeneration before. You remember the body the primordial gifted to Silverlake? It’s not exactly easy to prove, but I think that was the brood spawned by the spider that drained her essence.”

Zach exhaled. “Honestly, that makes my last four weeks look pretty tame by comparison.”

“I was meaning to ask.” Zorian gestured at the crown resting jauntily on Zach’s head. As soon as they’d landed, Zach had cast a simple invisibility spell to hide it from passers by. Since Zorian already knew it was there, it wasn’t hard to spot the mana threads of Zach’s imperfectly constructed spell. “How did you get that?”

Zach looked at the ceiling. “You have to remember, I thought you were kidnapped, or taken, or something.”

“...Zach? What did you do?”

“Spear of Resolve and I figured out Falkinrea had nothing to do with your disappearance fairly quickly, so we didn’t start a war with them at least. That’s good, right?”

Zorian narrowed his eyes. “Does that mean you did start a war with someone else?”

Zach sighed. “I should probably just start at the beginning too. After we ruled out Falkinrea, Quatach-Ichl was our first suspect. You foiled his plans less than a month ago, destroyed his body, took his crown and traded it away to a dragon-mage, yada yada yada. Plenty of motive to want you out of the picture. Plus he’s one of a pretty small number of people who are likely to know enough weird dimensionalism to suck you out of this reality. Spear of Resolve didn’t want to touch that one, so I kind of… handled it myself.”

“What does that mean?”

Once again, Zach was studiously avoiding eye contact with Zorian. “I may have teleported to Ulquaan Ibasa and started blasting holes in his fortresses, loudly demanding to know what he did with you.”

Zorian winced. “And how did that go?”

“Honestly, could have gone a lot worse. After they figured out I wasn’t going to die to a stray disintegration beam, his underlings mostly stayed out of my way until the old bag of bones showed up. In retrospect, I think he was mostly just confused? At the time, I wasn’t the easiest person to negotiate with.”

Zach dismissed the invisibility spell, took off the crown, and started turning it over in his hands. “He was surprisingly reasonable, actually. He swore on his soul and his honour that he didn’t know what had happened to you, and even if he’s a murderous bastard, Quatach-Ichl isn’t the type to lie like that. After we cleared that up, he helped me check the rest of the Ibasan isles in case some other necromancer kidnapped you without his knowledge.”

“That’s oddly cooperative,” Zorian noted.

Zach pointedly looked at his shoes. “I may have helped him dispose of a minor necromancer revolt in exchange,” he explained quickly.

Zorian just gestured for Zach to go on. Better to wait for all the revelations before asking Zach what the hell he had been thinking.

“Quatach-Ichl did ask a very good question before we parted ways. I think it was his way of trying to be helpful. I’m actually ashamed I didn’t think of it myself.”

“What’s that?”

“What other faction has made it clear they’d prefer a world without you in it, and have demonstrated the power to grab people out of this reality at will?”

Zorian thought for a moment, then swore under his breath. “The angels.”

Zach nodded grimly.

It was an unfortunate red herring, of course. Unless the angels had somehow deliberately let Kanderon’s Exile Splinter intrude into Ersetu - which was possible, albeit unlikely - then they didn’t have anything to do with his sudden disappearance. But from Zach’s perspective, with Zorian gone, the angels would have seemed like an awfully plausible explanation…

“You are a forbidden existence, and you have committed grave sins to be where you are right now,” the angel had said to him, when he and Zach had finally escaped the loop and negotiated for his life. 

“I don’t have your perfect memory,” Zach said, “but I think the angels just said they’d be willing to look the other way. I’m pretty sure they didn’t say ‘we promise we definitely won’t get rid of Zorian after he stops being useful to us’. I think I’d remember that part.”

Zorian shook his head incredulously. “So what did you do? Wage a one-man war on the Triumvirate Church?”

Zach laughed. “I’m not quite that reckless. Murderous liches are one thing, but I doubt I’d last a day if the Church and the angels seriously decided they’d rather not have me around. No, I tried to get an audience with the angels. I figured I’d just ask ‘em if they’d done something. Like Quatach-Ichl, they’re not the type to lie lightly.”

“And what did they say?”

Zach leant forward. “Took me a week of negotiating and busting down doors to get into a room while the Church summoned an angel. Alanic stuck his neck out for me too, I’m pretty sure it’d have taken a lot longer without him. And the angel said this.”

Zach put on a comically low and booming voice, trying to imitate the sound of an angel:

“We did not act against your friend. We do not know who did, although we know they are outside of our reach. We know that he was not killed, but taken. Wherever he is, we cannot help you now.”

Zach sat back in his chair. “And then the damn thing vanished. Not much information to go on, is it? So then I figured you’d been taken, trapped in some other place, where angels can’t observe or interfere. I can only think of a few places like that. Black rooms, and there are few enough of those that Spear of Resolve and I could check them fairly easily. And the Sovereign Gate.”

Zorian nodded. “The inner workings of the Sovereign Gate are opaque to us,” the angel had said. While Zach’s conclusion was incorrect, the reasoning he’d followed mostly made sense.

“Wait a second,” Zorian asked, “the Gate only operated in a single instant in time. If I was sucked in, then even if I was subjectively in there for hundreds of years like Shutur-Tarana, then I’d have come out at basically the same time I went in.”

Zach gestured helplessly. “Maybe things work differently if the Gate is activated outside of a planar convergence? Or maybe the Gate has another mode that can be used to trap someone indefinitely? I don’t know, I just couldn’t think of any other possibilities. It wasn’t like I was about to sit back and just accept that you were gone. Anyway, like we suspected, now that we’re outside our loop, the soul markers that identified us don’t give us any special ability to interact with the Gate. I tested that pretty extensively. So failing that, there wasn’t really any option apart from-”

“Collecting the pieces of the Key,” Zorian finished for him. “So that explains why you have the Crown. But how did you get it?”

Zach started levitating the Crown above one of his hands. He was clearly pretty proud of it. “Well, there are five Imperial treasures, five pieces of the key. I have the Dagger already, courtesy of Red Robe, the slimy bastard. The Ring I could probably get from the sulrothum high priest if I asked, at least as a temporary loan. The Staff is with Violeteye. After the battle in Cyoria, Oganj and his students flew back into the north with the last two Imperial artefacts you generously gave him. If figured I’d go after those first, since both the Crown and the Orb would be useful for going after Violeteye, but the staff wouldn’t get me much I can’t do anyway. Teleporting back to recall points doesn’t really help you chase other people down.”

“Anyway,” Zach continued, “Spear of Resolve didn’t want to help me go after Oganj either - ‘a fool's errand that would end with my corpse dissolving in a dragon’s stomach’, she called it. But she did point me in the direction of the Silent Doorway Adepts.”

The Silent Doorway Adepts were one of the aranaean webs - clans of giant telepathic spiders that mostly lived underground. After the Cyorian web led by Spear of Resolve, it was probably the web Zorian knew the best. Their knowledge of the Bakora gates had proven invaluable both inside and outside the loop. That was only one of their relative advantages over other webs. The other was a notable talent for acquiring objects without the previous owner's knowledge or consent. Theft, basically.

Zach went on. “Their ward-crackers helped me bypass the protections on Oganj’s roost. I never really learned too much about wards, since I figured I could mostly rely on you for that.” He looked a little embarrassed. “I was lucky there was someone else I could ask for help.

“Why would they help you?” Zach and Zorian had both worked closely with the Silent Doorway Adepts, but their relationship wasn’t so strong that the web would stick their necks out like this without something in it for them.

“I offered them an open-ended favour and figured I’d deal with that later.” 

Zorian raised his eyebrows. “That might come back to bite you. So they did the actual heisting without you?”

Zach snorted. “No way. Their best ward-cracker said she wouldn’t go near Oganj in a million years. They helped me plan things and gave me some webcraft tools to neutralise the wards, but I did the heist myself.”

“That reminds me,” Zorian said absent-mindedly. “Did you get the Orb as well?”

Zach didn’t say anything, and just pulled the Orb out of a pocket and tossed it over.

Zorian caught it with one hand. “Good, I need a better home for Zach.”

Zach gave him a quizzical look.

“Not you, I named my pet snake… whatever.”

Zorian lowered his hand to the coffee table. Zach the snake slid out of a pocket dimension anchored to his sleeve, and coiled up on top of a book. 

Zorian cast a quick spell on the Scottish adder. It wasn’t anything  major, just a simple shield that would stop other creatures from harming him until Zorian could come up with a more permanent solution. Then he teleported the little snake into the Imperial Orb. Hopefully the jungles and ruined palaces inside the massive pocket dimension would be a better home than the tiny space Zorian had been keeping him in - even if the climate was a pretty far cry from the cool forests around Hogwarts.

Zach was still giving him a funny look. “Zorian, did you get an animal sidekick and name it after me?”

Zorian went a little red in the face. “It wasn’t me, one of my simulacra… never mind.” He stood up. “Anything else I should be aware of? I need to find Kiri.”

Zach pulled a newspaper out of one of his pockets, and passed it over. The headline read:

Oganj continues rampage. Hundreds dead as fifth village destroyed.

Zorian pursed his lips. “Doesn’t sound like he reacted particularly well to the heist.”

Zach shook his head. “No he did not.”

Zorian paced across the room. “That’s something we need to deal with as soon as possible. Do you think he’d be willing to back off in exchange for us returning the artefacts? Now that I’m back there’s no point trying to mess with the Sovereign Gate.”

“Worth a try.” Zach tapped his foot on the carpet, humming in indecision. “I’d hate to give them up, but it’d be worth it if he took the deal. I’m not certain he’d accept, though. He seems like the type to take this as a grievous blow to his reputation or honour or something, and we don’t have an angel to help facilitate the contract this time.”

Zorian nodded, deep in thought. If Oganj wasn’t open to negotiating, then there were probably other ways forward. Either way, it was clear what he needed to do first.

Zorian started summoning simulacra. Simulacrum One had brought the offworlders into Imaya’s guest room, and Rain was still sending through more mana than Zorian could easily use. There was a lot that needed to happen now that Zorian was back in Cyoria. So Zorian kept going after the fourth simulacrum, and continued until eleven identical copies had formed out of mist and either teleported away or walked out the door.

By the sixth simulacrum, Zach looked intrigued. By the tenth, he looked incredulous.

“Who are you really, and what have you done with Zorian?”

Zorian ignored the sarcasm and answered the implied question. “Some of the offwolders that helped me get home are quite powerful. One of Rain’s abilities is to funnel his mana into others, and his personal mana regeneration is higher than any mage I’ve ever seen. It’s some quirk of what he calls the ‘System’ on his world, I think.”

The simulacra had a lot to get done. One of them was heading north to the last known location of Oganj and his students. Two of them were now in one of Zorian’s hidden workshops, getting started on some essential crafting projects. Five were making contact with allies, and the rest had various other goals. But there was one visit he needed to make personally.

“Where’s Kiri?”

“In Cirin, with your mother.” Zach swallowed. “Since your funeral, I’ve been visiting her when I get the chance.”

My funeral. There was a bitter taste in Zorian’s mouth.

“Are you coming?” Zorian offered Zach an arm.

The other boy took it, and the pair of them vanished.

 

-]l[-

 

Hugh

 

According to Rain, Harry was asleep. Whoever was manning the multiversal communication station on Earth must have woken him up quickly though, because within a few minutes Harry started responding with the information they needed. He confirmed that an intact brain was essential to the method he’d used to bring his friend back to life. Artur didn’t respond verbally to the news, but his shoulders slumped slightly, and his eyes looked somehow hollow.

After that, Zorian’s simulacrum led them up toward a nearby house, where a kindly-looking woman with dark hair opened the door. Godrick’s body followed them, levitating on one of Zorian’s force-discs. Artur was walking by its side. Zorian seemed to know his way around, and led them into a well-furnished room. The simulacrum lowered Godrick’s near-frozen form onto a wooden table, and the rest of them sat down on chairs arrayed around it.

After a few minutes of silence, the kindly woman knocked on the door, and came in with mugs of hot chocolate. Even though Hugh was still queasy with aether sickness, it was a nice gesture. Sabae and Alustin attempted to say thank you. After a moment of confusion in which the language barrier became clear, the simulacrum started translating by sending mental messages whenever anyone said anything. The woman was called Imaya, apparently, and was a friend of Zorian’s. 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said in the strange foreign language. “Is there anything I can do?” 

Artur shook his head mutely. She wavered at the door for a moment, then left.

After a few minutes of enchanting, Zorian’s simulacrum created a small pocket dimension attached to an iron ring. Even in these circumstances, it was a fascinating process to watch. Hugh’s planar affinity sense, normally dormant, lit up as Zorian created a precise boundary around a region of space and pinched it apart from the rest of reality.

With Artur’s permission, he stowed Godrick’s body inside. Time, the simulacrum explained, passed dramatically slower inside the compressed space - so if they eventually discovered a method by which Godrick could be restored to life and health, his body wouldn’t have decayed in the intervening time, and would be in more or less the same state as now.

After the process was finished and Godrick’s body was gone from the room, Artur picked up the ring and slowly turned it over in his hands. His face was still expressionless.

“It’s my fault,” Talia said into the silence. “If I hadn’t detonated my arm, Godrick wouldn’t have been separated from Rain and Sabae.”

Artur looked up. “I’m going ta cut ye all off here,” he said firmly. “Talia, it wasn’t yer fault. Ye did the best ye could, and I’m proud of you. Godrick would be too. And if anyone else tries to jump in and claim it was all their fault instead, I’ll knock ye out of yer chair. It’s what Godrick would do if he were here.”

It was a timely warning, because Hugh had been about to do exactly that. 

“Actually, there’s something I do think I need to say,” Alustin said after a short pause. “Talia, am I right in concluding that you triggered an explosion in a piece of your own skeleton?”

“That’s right.” Talia gestured at the stump of her right arm. 

Zorian’s friend - the boy who had saved them - had noticed the rapidly spreading venom and reacted quickly, severing the contaminated flesh with one of his strange conjured blades. Now, instead of the ragged tear left by the spider’s mandibles, there was a perfectly clean cut just above where Talia’s elbow would be, sealed by Sabae’s healing magic.

“We were lucky. Incredibly lucky.” Alustin’s face was grim. “What we saw was a fraction of what it could have been. I can only assume that the venom from the spider-creatures has some kind of magic-dampening effect?” Alustin looked queryingly at the simulacrum, who nodded.

Turning back to Talia, Alustin asked: “The first rule of bone magic?”

Talia frowned. “It’s most effective on your own bones,” she said. “You said experimenting with that would kill me. But the bones I acted on were severed-”

Alustin’s face was controlled, but a hint of his anger - or was it fear? - still bled through into the words. “Did you ever wonder why I refused to let other bone mages teach you? It’s not just that it would kill you. The explosion you created only cascaded for a matter of seconds, presumably thanks to the spider’s venom suffusing the bone tissue. If your magic hadn’t been suppressed, the chain reaction would have been far more impressive. Odds are, it would have overwhelmed Hugh’s shield and moved on to consuming the rest of your bones, triggering further exponential growth. Not only would we all be dead, so would everyone in the city we’re now in. The explosion would still probably be expanding now.”

The room went deathly quiet. Talia sat back in shock, and Hugh reflexively put his arm around her shoulders. 

“We were kilometres underground,” Rain said incredulously. “That doesn’t even sound remotely possible.”

Alustin looked at him sharply. “How many cities have you seen levelled?”

Rain abruptly shut his mouth. 

“Magic is dangerous,” Alustin said. “And yours far more so than most, Talia. Never do that again.”

“Understood,” she said quietly.

“Speaking of which,” Alustin said in a lighter voice, “is your magic still affected?”

Talia nodded. “The venom is worse than aether sickness. I can’t access any of my affinities at all. I have a splitting headache, and my mind’s eye feels scrambled, like someone shoved an eggbeater into my ear and started turning it.” 

Alustin frowned. “That doesn’t sound good. How long does this usually last, Zorian?”

“Grey hunter venom hasn’t been particularly well studied, and the creatures we fought were far from typical examples of their species,” responded the simulacrum. “My understanding is that it remains effective for a matter of weeks in most cases. I’m hoping Zach cut off the injection site quickly enough to prevent most of the spread.”

The simulacrum paused to think for a moment. “I have an alchemist friend who might be able to make an anti-venom. That might help.”

“Thanks,” Talia said, and lifted her hot chocolate to her lips with her one remaining arm. Reminded that it existed, Hugh picked up his mug from the table. It was warm and sweet, and he felt his roiling stomach calm a little. 

There was a long pause. Then, the simulacrum’s head abruptly jerked toward Hugh, and spoke: “You can create enduring wards that deflect attention?”

Hugh nodded.

“Good. Can you come with me? There’s a project I need your help with.”

In some sense, it was a relief. Something he could do with his hands would be nice. Anything to distract him from the sickening feeling that someone was missing.

Hugh squeezed Talia’s uninjured shoulder. “Call me if you need me, yeah?”

She smiled and squeezed his hand in return, then Zorian’s simulacrum led him out of the room. 

-]l[-

 

Zorian - Simulacrum Four

 

Tracking down Taiven was surprisingly difficult.

He started by visiting her parents’ place, where she lived - and where she’d enjoyed beating him up in their sparring sessions, before he’d grown skilled enough to make any conflict between them trivial.

Her parents didn’t know where she was. According to them, since the funeral of one of her close friends, Taiven had been beset by terrible moods and stayed out almost all the time, returning late at night and leaving as soon as she woke up.

Fortunately, the simulacrum was wearing a long cloak which partially concealed Zorian’s face, so Taiven’s mother didn’t recognise him - not that that would have been particularly likely anyway, since he’d only met her a few times. A surface level mental probe revealed some additional information: when Taiven returned, she was usually covered in grime, and smelled awful.  

That alone wasn’t conclusive, but it suggested Taiven was taking out her frustration on Dungeon delves. 

Searching the Dungeon alone was a ridiculous proposition, even for someone like Zorian. Despite Taiven’s self-destructive tendencies, he doubted she was going lower than the surface levels, but even then, there were probably thousands of different entrances and exits scattered across Cyoria. The local underworld had more holes than a sponge. Fortunately, Zorian didn’t need to search alone. 

Simulacrum Six wasn’t too far away. He was currently debriefing with Spear of Resolve, the matriarch of the Cyorian web. Across their mental connection, Simulacrum Four could feel the palpable relief of the aranean leader as she found out that Zorian was still alive. 

Simulacrum Four sat down on a park bench, and waited patiently for a few minutes. It was understandable that Spear of Resolve had a lot of questions, and she deserved some answers before Zorian started asking his own. Even though Taiven was only a little older than he was (physically, at least - mentally he was probably ten years her senior), she was a formidable battle-mage in her own right, so it wasn’t like there was a huge rush in finding her. 

Eventually, Simulacrum Six decided the question was appropriate, and asked the matriarch if she’d observed any unusual activity in her web’s territory by people matching Taiven’s description.

To her credit, the matriarch didn’t miss a beat, and sent across a mental map of Taiven’s recent expeditions before continuing with her own questions about Zorian’s missing four weeks.

Examining the memory packet, Simulacrum Four raised his eyebrows. Taiven was really walking on the wild side. Her forays into the Dungeon weren’t going nearly deep enough to encounter the primordial grey hunter brood, but they were still putting her in dangerous territory. According to the map from Spear of Resolve, one of Taiven’s recent expeditions had ended with her dragging a pair of rock-worm carcasses back through aranean territory to the surface.

The simulacrum stood up hastily. Perhaps it was better to find Taiven sooner rather than later.

After a little under an hour of searching, Taiven’s distinctive mental signature showed up two tunnels across. The simulacrum sighed with relief. Her mind was shielded, albeit somewhat crudely, but the simulacrum could tell she wasn’t currently in combat.

Making contact was probably going to be a little tricky, since she thought he was dead. The simulacrum carefully unwrapped the cloak from his face so it was clearly visible. A quick cleaning spell removed most of the accumulated dirt and grime from his body and clothes. Then, he walked the last few metres into Taiven’s line of sight. 

“Hello, Taiven.”

Taiven whirled around instantly. Her dark hair was tied up in a ponytail, and was splattered with what looked like a mixture of grit and monster blood. There was a twisted scowl on her face. Without missing a beat, she raised a hand, and a vortex of fire surged forward.

“Taiven!” he yelped, and quickly conjured a shield. With Rain still refilling the original’s mana, blocking the blast was fairly trivial - but it had still been quite a shock. Taiven kept up the assault, and launched a swarm of magic missiles which tore through the air. The simulacrum deflected one of them into the wall where it shattered the bricks, sending stone fragments and dust through the air. One was absorbed by his shield, and the rest crashed into the ground around him. 

“Taiven! Stop it, it’s me!”

She growled, a low, guttural noise. “If you’re going to try to trick me with an illusion, you should really pick someone that’s still alive.” She leapt forward, punctuating the sentence with a fireball that detonated on contact with the ground at the simulacrum’s feet, sending flame roaring across the entire tunnel. She followed it up with a disintegration beam directed at the ceiling above the simulacrum’s head.

She was muttering under her breath - the simulacrum could barely hear the words. “Failing that, at least pick someone I don’t want to melt into a puddle. And you couldn’t even remember to make the illusion dirty. Sloppy.”

Ah, so Taiven thought he was an illusion based on some information plucked from her brain. That wasn’t a bad theory - aranea did occasionally play tricks like that when they encountered a foe they couldn’t easily defeat with raw force. That explained why she was using spells that affected a large area - so she had a chance of hitting the invisible mage that was conjuring the illusion. It was a good strategy.

He frowned. Given the intensity of the emotions he could feel radiating from her, there probably wasn’t an easy way around this miscommunication. So after counterspelling the disintegration beam, he reached past her mind-shield and froze both her body and her magic.

“Phew.” He wiped a hand across his forehead. Simulacra didn’t actually sweat, but it suited how he felt internally, and some of the habits he remembered from having a physical form were hard to kick. “You scared me for a moment there, Taiven. Sorry about holding you still. I promise I’ll release you in a moment, as soon as I can sense that you’re not planning to jam a fireball up my nose.”

A simple cleaning spell purged some of the dirt from the tunnel floor, forming a circle of mostly-clean stone bricks amidst the filth. He mentally directed Taiven to sit down cross-legged, and sat down next to her. She was fighting like hell to get free, still under the impression that he was some kind of psychic monster that was ensnaring her senses.

“Um, alright. How do I get around this? I’m not dead, nor am I an illusion. I’m clean because I just cast a cleaning spell on myself, not because the illusion caster forgot to add splashes of dirt.”

The simulacrum sighed. “Pretty much anything I could say, you could guess I’m plucking from your brain to manipulate you. So I guess there’s not much I can do to persuade you that it’s really me. I’ll try anyway, I suppose. I really am your friend Zorian, who you sometimes call ‘Roach’ for unclear reasons.”

He paused. Well, even that was in some sense a lie. If he was trying to be honest with Taiven, it might be better to properly commit.

“Alright, I’m not technically Zorian, I’m one of Zorian’s simulacra. But that’s mostly the same thing, since I share a soul with the original and am in constant mental communication with him.”

The simulacrum waved a hand dismissively. “That’s not really important. Anyway, about a month ago, you and I both fought to repel an invasion of Cyoria. Shortly afterwards, I vanished, and people assumed I was dead. I wasn’t actually dead, just trapped outside this reality, which is a long and very interesting story that you can ask questions about if you promise that you won’t immediately try to kill me if I release you.”

There was an internal battle going on inside Taiven’s mind. Well, really there were two internal battles. One was against Zorian’s mind-magic, in which Taiven was desperately trying to regain control of her body. The other was between her anger at this illusion that was wearing Zorian’s face, and her curiosity as to whether it was really him, and if the insane things he was saying were true.

The curiosity won out, and he felt her resolve to at least ask a few questions before restarting her assault. Satisfied, he released her. 

She leapt to her feet, but didn’t immediately attack. “If you’re Zorian - or a simulacrum, or whatever - why did you come down here to find me? You could have waited at my parents’ place for me to get back.”

The simulacrum shrugged. “Why wait? I got back about an hour ago, and I wanted to know you were safe. Plus there’s a plan I need your help with.”

Oddly, the simulacrum could sense that the request for her help did more than anything else to make Taiven feel comfortable. She brushed some dirt off her leather cuirass, shook out some of the detritus from her hair, and warily sat back down next to him.

“So where have you been?”

“Sucked into another reality, then trying to find my way home.”

She looked a bit taken aback. “C’mon Roach, you can come up with a better lie than that. And since when can you cast the simulacrum spell? Since when do you know any soul magic? Or those defensive spells? I could have killed you.”

He just shrugged again. It was probably for the best that Taiven didn’t know quite how advanced the simulacrum spell was.  “There’s no reason for me to lie. Some people from other worlds helped me get home, they’re at Imaya’s place now. You can come meet them soon if you’d like.”

“And you want my help with a plan, huh?” Her expression was still hard, but his empathy could feel that she was starting to believe him. She snorted. “What is there that you could possibly need my help with?”

“An alibi.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Why do you need an alibi? Have you been robbing banks or something?”

“No,” he said, then remembered his forays into the reflected Earth’s bank vaults with Rain. “Well, not exactly. At least, that’s not why I need an alibi. It’s just that when I go back to the Academy and they ask where I’ve been, I don’t want to have to say ‘I was sucked into another reality’. I have a feeling that might raise more questions for them than it answers.”

Taiven looked sceptical. “You came to me because you want an excuse for missing school?”

“Wow, that really makes me sound fifteen, doesn’t it? But yeah, basically. That, and I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

Taiven looked away, and stood up. She gestured toward the route out of the Dungeon. “We can walk and talk, right? I promise I won’t try to kill you anymore.” She reached out and gently punched him in the shoulder.

“Thanks,” the simulacrum said dryly. “I promise I won’t try to kill you either.” 

An hour later, Taiven and the simulacrum stood together in front of Professor Ilsa Zileti’s desk in Cyoria's Royal Academy of Magical Arts. Taiven looked a little messy, with streaks of dirt still in her dark hair and bloodstains smeared across the surface of her cuirass.  

The simulacrum looked terrible. Although he couldn’t get bruises the usual way, a few layers of illusions gave the impression of a massive, purple-yellowish mark stretching up the right part of his body. At Taiven’s suggestion, he'd also given himself a collection of illusory scars too: one just below his right eye, and another down his left arm. 

Taiven had gleefully participated in the part of their plan that required him to look like he’d been stuck underground for four weeks. At first, she’d been disappointed that punching him wouldn’t work, since his ectoplasmic form would shrug off the damage, or just dissolve entirely if a certain threshold was reached. Instead, she’d happily resorted to magically pouring sewer water over him until his hair was sopping wet and he smelt disgusting. 

Now, she stood next to him with her hand reassuringly on his shoulder. 

“So when you found Mister Kazinski in the Dungeon, he’d been trapped there for four weeks?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the simulacrum said quietly, doing his best to appear shaken. “I tried to follow the path the invaders used to attack the city. I misjudged my abilities and got lost. It’s only because Taiven found me that I’m still alive.”

Ilsa looked incredulous. “Four weeks? What did you eat?”

The simulacrum froze. What was there to eat down there? He couldn’t say he ate monster corpses. That was both ridiculous to begin with, and it would imply combat abilities on his part that would invalidate their entire story. He really should have planned out the whole narrative in advance…

Fortunately, Taiven jumped in. “He ate mushrooms that fed on sewage, Professor.”

The simulacrum barely managed to keep a straight face, and nodded. If the Academy bought this story, it would no doubt start some rumours that would really annoy the original. Ah well, sometimes sacrifices had to be made. 

Ilsa wrinkled her nose in distaste.

“Well Taiven,” she said, “I have to commend you on your tenacity in searching for Zorian well beyond the time anyone else would have given up. That said, you should really have alerted the authorities rather than taking matters into your own hands. And Mister Kazinski,” she said, turning to him with a stern expression, “your reckless behaviour has endangered not only yourself, but also your friend. You’re lucky Taiven’s combat abilities outstrip your own.”

Taiven was practically preening next to him.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“Now, it looks like Zorian here urgently needs medical attention. For that matter, you might as well, Taiven. I’ll teleport you directly to the hospital.” She stood up and started to walk around the desk toward them.

The simulacrum frantically shook his head. If he was taken to a hospital and they discovered he was made of ectoplasm instead of flesh, this whole plan - along with Zorian’s whole cover story, and probably the simulacrum’s body itself - would go up in smoke. “Uh, no Professor, I think we should probably walk. Teleportation makes me very queasy, and it’s not very far.”

Ilsa looked a bit sceptical of that, but nodded and backed off. “Alright. Taiven, ensure his wounds are dealt with. Mister Kazinski, when do you think you’ll be able to return to school?”

The simulacrum made a show of coughing into his hand. “I’m not sure. I think I should leave that up to the healers and doctors. Maybe we can see if Professor Xvim is willing to visit me while I’m recovering, since he’s my mentor?” Since Xvim was already in on most of Zorian’s schemes - and Simulacrum Ten was currently filling him in on the rest - it didn’t hurt to borrow some of his credibility.

Ilsa nodded. “Alright. Send a message when you can, and I’ll ensure your absences are retroactively excused. End of semester exams are coming up soon though, so you had better study hard while you’re recuperating.”

That wouldn’t be an issue. After sitting through the Academy’s classes dozens of times - and becoming an accomplished archmage - he could have taken the exams in his sleep. Possibly literally, given his mental enhancements. “Yes Professor. Thank you.”

With that, Taiven and the simulacrum left the office and headed outside into what was shaping up to be a lovely summer’s day.

“So,” said Taiven, stretching her arms. “You said there were offworlders I could meet?”

“Yeah, but not looking like this,” the simulacrum retorted. “You really outdid yourself with the sewage. I’m impressed Ilsa even let us into her office.”

She laughed, pulled him into an alleyway out of sight, then cast a quick cleaning spell that ejected the filth from their clothes. “Alright, no more excuses. Or were you lying about the whole thing, huh?” There was a challenging tone to her voice, and the simulacrum couldn’t quite stop himself from rising to the bait.

The original wouldn’t approve of bringing Taiven to Imaya’s place. He knew from experience that she wasn’t the type to react well to Zorian’s sudden immense skill, and getting her mixed up with Rain and the Anastans was a bad idea for a whole host of other reasons. Still, there were some benefits to being a simulacrum. Being able to pass off future social complexities to another version of himself was one of them.

“Alright. Grab on.” With a thought, he dismissed his illusory wounds. Then he extended an arm to Taiven, who awkwardly took hold of it, and they were gone

 

-]l[-

 

Zorian

 

With some trepidation, Zorian stood outside the front door of his house in Cirin.

Zach was by his side, standing a little back. Teleporting here had taken a little while, and they’d spent a further few minutes discussing the cover story amongst themselves. 

Zorian’s eyes flickered across to Zach. 

The other boy looked at him reassuringly, and patted him on the back. “Hey, you fought your way through three realities to get back here,” he said. “Whatever your mother’s going to throw at you, I reckon you can probably take it.”

“I’m not really worried about seeing my mother,” Zorian said.

Zach looked confused for a moment, then nodded in realisation. “Kiri will understand. She’s a good kid.”

There really wasn’t any way to make vanishing for a month look normal. The story that Simulacrum Four had cooked up with Taiven might satisfy the Academy, even if it was a little distasteful. But even with a plausible explanation, asking his parents to put Kiri in his care again… he really didn’t know how it would go. 

More importantly, would Kirielle even want to come back to Cyoria with him? After years of neglecting his little sister and seeing her as a nuisance and a distraction, for the last month outside the loop Zorian had finally done close to his due diligence as an older brother. He’d connected Kiri with friends her own age, built her a state-of-the-art companion golem, encouraged her art, and even started teaching her some beginner magical techniques. And then he’d vanished with basically no trace.

It was difficult for him to imagine the effect that would have on a nine year old. If Kiri didn’t want anything to do with him, well, that would be unfortunate. But it would be understandable. 

There wasn’t any point waiting. Inside the house, Zorian could feel two mental signatures. Kiri was drawing in her bedroom, using some of the art supplies Zorian had bought for her before he’d been taken. Their mother was in the kitchen, looking over accounting figures for the family business.

Zorian took a step forward and knocked on the door.

There was a brief pause as his mother got up to open the door.

“...Zorian?”

“Yes mother, it’s me.”

Another two seconds passed in shock before she unfroze. “You’re alive! Where have you been? What’s going on? How did you… We had a funeral! What were you thinking?”

“If you stop talking for a moment, I can explain.”

“You had better explain! This is absurd! I can’t even begin to imagine-” She reached out to touch him on the arm, as if to make sure he was real, then pulled him into a brief and uncomfortable hug. 

“Zach, can you explain what happened to my mother? I’m going to talk with Kiri.”

His mother tilted her head to the side and looked at Zach. “Wait, Zach Noveda? Heir to the Noveda estate? You were at the funeral too. How do you know-”

Zach discreetly rolled his eyes at Zorian, but nodded and started introducing himself. He looked across to Zorian and mouthed: “Go, I’ve got this.”

Grateful, Zorian turned toward the stairs. He could tell from her mental signature that Kiri had noticed the commotion, although she hadn’t yet recognised his voice.

He knocked on her door. “Kiri? May I come in?”

There was a flare of hope from the mind inside, followed by a deliberate, practised pessimism. The pit in Zorian’s stomach grew deeper. 

She opened the door, and looked up at him with wide eyes. Even in such a short time, she’d grown appreciatively. It made sense - for a subjective decade, he’d seen her frozen in time, reliving the same month over and over. 

She rushed forward and hugged him around the waist.

“I knew you’d come back,” she whispered with her face pressed into his shirt. “I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.”

There was a lump in his throat, and he couldn’t quite get any words out. “Kiri, I…”

She squeezed him tighter, then let go and pulled him into her bedroom. She pushed him to sit down on the bed, sat by his side, and wrapped her arms around him again.

“What happened?” she asked quietly. Her voice was impressively composed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I got caught off guard, and I was taken somewhere far away. It took me this long to find my way back.”

She squeezed him again. “Whoever made you go away, did you beat ‘em up?”

Zorian frowned. “Well, no, not exactly. They didn’t do it on purpose, so that would have been a little unfair.” He thought of Kanderon’s massive form floating above Ithos. “And actually, I’m not sure I could if I tried.” Even though Kanderon hadn’t intentionally stolen him from Kiri, she still had a lot to answer for.

“Have you been feeling alright, in the last month?” he asked. “How have mother and father been treating you?”

Kiri stood up and looked out the window. “I’m okay.”

Zorian furrowed his brow. “Okay? Has she been bothering you? Does she let you do what you want?”

She sniffed. “It’s okay. I’m glad you’re back.”

“Do you want to come back to Cyoria to stay with me?”

There was a sudden dreadful pause as Zorian felt a spike of anxiety from Kiri, but Zorian relaxed almost immediately as the cause became clear:

“Do you think mother would let me?”

Zorian slipped off the bed to kneel on the floor. Kirielle had been growing fast, and from this height, the difference was especially apparent. He put his hand on her shoulder, and turned her around so she was facing him again. 

“Listen, Kiri. If you want to stay with me, it will happen. You don’t have to - if you’d rather stay here, or go somewhere else, we can make that happen too. But you don’t have to worry about mother.”

Before his unexpected trip to Ithos, Zorian would have been very cautious around statements like that. But a month of forced exile and innumerable near-death encounters did wonders for a sense of perspective. Keeping a low profile was important, and so was preserving his relationship with his parents, to an extent. But some things were more important. Much more important.

She hesitated for a moment. “Will Kana and Nochka be there too? And can you keep teaching me magic?”

“Kana will be there, although I can’t guarantee she’ll stay indefinitely. Nochka is in the area, I’m sure she’ll visit. And of course I’ll keep teaching you magic if you’d like.”

A small grin spread across her face. “Then yes. I want to come.”

He released a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “That’s good.”

She leant forward and hugged him again. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“I’m glad I’m back too, Kiri.”

He wasn’t really sure what to do next. What would a good big brother do in this situation?

He reached out to ruffle her hair, and she squealed and dodged away. 

“Alright,” Zorian said, and stood up. “I’ve already told you more about my time away than I can tell most other people, including mother. If that information got out, it would be really bad news. Can I trust you to keep it quiet?”

Kiri nodded firmly.

“And…” This part was a bit more complex. “Can you wait here while I talk to mother about what happens next?”

Kiri nodded again, and turned back to her desk to continue drawing. The artwork she was working on was clearly visible - it was a drawing of Kosjenka, the golem-doll Zorian had made to protect her, standing bravely atop a chest of drawers and fending off a horde of nightmarish spirits.

Zorian quietly stepped outside, and closed Kiri’s bedroom door behind him. Zach and his mother were talking loudly, but the sounds washed over him.

Zorian took a deep breath. There was a chance his mother would be reasonable, and would allow some kind of shared custody of Kirielle. But if she wasn’t - and tried to stick to her plan of marrying Kiri off to some rich merchant or noble - then there were some lines Zorian might need to cross that he’d tried hard to avoid crossing until now.

“Zorian,” Zach called out to him from the kitchen table. “I was just telling your mother about the potential arrangement.”

Zorian blinked. “I’m sorry?”

His mother looked at him expectantly. “You know, the contract? With Zach?”

Zorian completely blanked. “What?”

Zach turned back to his mother. “Don’t worry, you know your son has always been a little scatterbrained. He has a great mind for business, though. That’s what made me so interested.”

Zorian walked down the stairs on autopilot and took a seat with his mother and Zach at the kitchen table. Zach had pulled out a piece of paper and was part way through drawing some kind of diagram - although it didn’t look like any ward schematic Zorian had ever seen.

“So,” Zach said, gesturing at one of the boxes. “These are the assets I’ve managed to successfully recover from Tesen - that’s the scoundrel who was in charge of my house until recently. You might have read about that affair in the papers. Fortunately, despite all the plundering, those assets are still quite substantial. The sensible thing for me to do now is to ensure that my house is on a good financial footing for the future.”

Mother nodded, and Zorian nodded too, although he had no idea what Zach was talking about. 

Zach drew another line connecting that box with a circle he’d drawn nearby. “This is the Kazinski family business. Purchasing grain in regional areas, transporting it to population centres, and reselling for a profit.”

“And this,” Zach said, gesturing toward an ‘X’ in the centre of the page, “is Cyoria. Recently half-destroyed by an invasion, with supply lines in disarray. Existing business arrangements are in chaos, and at least a quarter of the population is struggling to find enough food.”

Zorian squinted at Zach. What was he talking about? 

Zach leant over the messy diagram, and gestured to Zorian. “Now, I don’t really have a head for markets and numbers and things like that. My classmate and good friend Zorian, on the other hand, has been explaining things to me, and suggested that the funds at my disposal could be most efficiently put to use by seizing the opportunity in front of me.”

He leant back into his chair. “I want to establish a monopoly over grain distribution in Cyoria. For that, I need business partners. People who have experience in the cereal markets, and who can quickly supply the vast quantities of goods necessary to undercut other producers. As the asset-provider, I’ll of course be providing the funds necessary to supply the grain at below-market price until we can establish a collective monopoly.” He drew a circle around the whole diagram for emphasis. For good measure, he did a quick sketch next to it of what was probably supposed to be a stack of gold coins.

He flashed a charming smile at mother, who was clearly eating all of this up. “And then House Noveda will once again be the envy of the other Houses, and together our consortium will have developed quite a tidy income stream.”

He gestured to another piece of paper, this one smaller, which sat between him and mother. “I’ve taken the liberty of drawing this up. It’s a provisional contract, but time is of the essence, and I think we should get it signed as soon as possible.”

Zorian craned his neck to see, and things started to fall into place. Even at the barest of glances, the contract was horribly unfair. Zach was on the hook for any expenses incurred in the process, while Zorian’s parents would take the lion’s share of the eventual profits. 

Zach was trying to buy them off. 

Mother’s eyes were wide with a mixture of greed and surprise. “Well, I’ll have to talk to Andir. But I think I can confidently say that our company is interested in the deal.” She reached out for the pen, and Zach gave it to her. It took her a matter of seconds to sign her name to the handwritten contract.

Zach picked up the pen and started chewing on one end thoughtfully - but didn’t sign yet. “Of course, there is a small logistical difficulty. I’ll need to be in Cyoria to supervise the enterprise, and I’ll want to have Zorian there with me, seeing as he’s my financial advisor. And Zorian has made it clear that he won’t stay in Cyoria in the long term unless he can spend enough time with his young sister - Kirielle, is it? So that could pose difficulties. Hmmm…”

Mother took a few seconds to digest Zach’s implied meaning. She glanced across at Zorian, then back to Zach. “...I’m sure we can work something out. Kirielle has been wanting to see more of Cyoria lately, isn’t that right, Zorian?” 

Zorian nodded mutely.

“Well,” said Zach with a winning smile, “I’m glad we could sort that out.”

A few minutes of negotiation and bag-packing later, Zorian and Zach walked out the front door with Kiri in tow, leaving behind a signed-in-triplicate contract and a hefty bag of gold coins as an initial investment on the kitchen table. 

Kiri was walking between them, holding onto one of each of their hands. She was skipping.

Zorian wasn’t quite sure what to say. “I honestly can’t believe you did that, Zach. They’re not going to let you get out of that easily. Couldn’t you see the look in my mother’s eyes?”

Zach grinned. “There are worse things to spend money on.” The grin slowly faded away. “Besides, I know you well enough to see where things were going if I didn’t find a way to resolve things amicably.”

Zorian sighed. While the idea of Zach throwing away money on his behalf didn’t sit right with him at all, Zach was right that Zorian had been considering some far more questionable approaches. This was probably for the best.

“Thanks, I guess. Where did you pick up that business jargon anyway? And did it mean anything, or were you just making it all up?”

Zach shrugged. “You’d be surprised how much of that sort of thing came up while I was trying to recover the assets Tesen stole. I’ve been in enough business meetings to last a lifetime.” He grinned again. “And yeah, I was pretty much making it up. Was it that obvious?”

Zorian rolled his eyes. “Well, you definitely sold the role of ‘overconfident young noble, ripe to be cheated out of a fortune’, if that was the goal.”

He pulled out a bag of holding  - one of the ones they’d looted from the reflected Diagon Alley - from a pocket of his robes, and tossed it across to Zach. “If you’re going to run around throwing away fortunes on my behalf, then I better make sure you’re well compensated.”

Zach caught the smallish bag with one hand and squinted at it. “That’s a strange looking pocket dimension. What’s in here?”

“About two tons of gold bars.”

Zach almost tripped.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t steal it or anything,” Zorian said. “It’s from the reflected version of Earth. Don’t spend it all at once though - Harry spent a while warning us about something he called ‘inflation’. If gold suddenly becomes valueless, I know whose fault it is.”

Kiri was looking up at both of them with wide eyes. Zach mimed a shush-ing motion to her, and tucked the bag into one of his pockets. 

With that, they rounded the corner, and were out of sight of the Kazinski house. Zorian took a moment to prepare a group-teleport spell, and then they were gone.

 

-]l[-

 

Zorian - Simulacrum Eleven

 

The trip to Knyazov Dveri was pleasant. He and Simulacrum Twelve teleported together, since the other simulacrum was mostly going in the same direction. 

As they arrived in the town, they split off, with Simulacrum Twelve continuing north, and Simulacrum Eleven making a final short-range teleport to Alanic’s temple. 

Unfortunately, the priest didn’t seem to be home. There were no mental signatures inside. That wasn’t conclusive, since Alanic had always been skilled with mind shields, and there was some chance he was inside but under the effects of a Mind Blank spell. A brief physical search led to nothing either, and the temple itself didn’t look like it had been recently visited. There was dust on the tables, and Alanic’s clothes and personal items weren’t here. 

That was inconvenient, but not massively so. Thanks to the teleportation beacon in Cyoria, reversing the journey he’d made with Simulacrum Twelve was much easier than making it in the first place. After briefly checking with the original to authorise the mana expenditure, a single teleport took him back to the centre of Cyoria.

Tracking down Alanic was going to be a little more difficult. There were dozens of temples scattered around the city, and most of them were hives of activity. Large chunks of Cyoria were ruined, and for whatever reason, the Triumvirate Church had been hit harder than most other institutions.

In the end, the simulacrum simply teleported to Cyoria’s largest church and waited a few minutes until a mid-ranking priest went on a bathroom break so he could ask about Alanic.

Apparently Alanic had been very busy. During the loop, they’d created a dossier for Alanic, detailing the location of a number of hidden necromancers and blood magic cults across Eldemar. 

According to the information from the priest, Alanic had been on a rampage. After helping dispose of Red Robe’s wraith bombs, he’d been put in charge of a squad of warrior-priests, and had already been responsible for the destruction of a gang of necromancer pirates and a primordial-worshipping cult. Luckily, it seemed he was between missions, and was currently recuperating at a smaller temple near the centre of the city.

The simulacrum finally found him eating breakfast in a pub near the temple. The battle-scarred priest was alone at a table, and the simulacrum simply walked up and sat down opposite him.

Alanic looked up, and the colour drained from his face.

“Zorian.”

“...Yes.” The simulacrum was taken aback. Surprise was expected, but the look in Alanic’s eyes was clearly more complicated than that.

“So the message was about you.”

That was new. “The message?”

Alanic pushed aside his food and put his palms flat on the table. “This morning, the high priestess of the temple relayed a message from the angels. She said it was meant specifically for me.”

The simulacrum groaned. Of course the angels were going to find a way to complicate this further. “What did they say?”

Alanic looked meaningfully at the rest of the fairly-busy pub. The simulacrum took the hint, and cast a series of privacy spells. The sounds of the other patrons died away, and Alanic continued:

“Those who arrive, cannot stay. Do not fight them, because you cannot. But they cannot stay.”

“Oh,” said the simulacrum. He paused for a moment, and idly drummed his fingers on the table. “You know, I don’t actually think that’s talking about me.”

Alanic looked sceptical. “Someone I cannot fight, who’s suddenly arrived? You don’t think it’s you?”

“Well,” said the simulacrum, “I’m not an ‘arrival’ exactly, am I? I think the angels would have said something like ‘the one who returns’ or something like that if they meant me. Or they could have just used my name. I’m sure they know it by now.” He frowned. “Besides, I have some other ideas for who that message is about. I think you should probably meet them as soon as possible.”

A single teleport later, and Alanic and Simulacrum Eleven were on the front porch of Imaya’s house. A few seconds later, there was another pair of arrivals by their side - Simulacrum Ten and Xvim, arriving from the Academy. 

“Xvim.” Alanic reached out a hand to the professor, who shook it. “Good to see you again. I see Zorian is gathering his allies?”

Xvim smoothed out his clothes. “It would seem that way. Zorian, the dimensional boundary on that teleportation spell was imprecise. You’re out of practice.”

Simulacrum Ten looked a little offended. “I already told you, I’ve just returned from offworld, and shaping the mana there required subtly different approaches. I’m still adjusting to the difference now that I’m back.”

Alanic jolted with shock. “What? Offworld?”

Xvim raised his eyebrows genially. “I see you haven’t been filled in yet, Alanic.”

Simulacrum Eleven shook his head apologetically. “Sorry, you were a bit harder to find than Xvim. He mostly just hangs around his office.”

Alanic shook his head violently, as if to dislodge something. “Nevermind about that, I need the whole story. Zorian, how about you start over from the beginning?”

Xvim inclined his head. “I think that might be best.”

 

-]l[-

 

Zorian - Simulacrum Twelve

 

The final version of Zorian had drawn the metaphysical short straw.

While some simulacra were spreading out across Cyoria and Eldemar to check on friends and allies and others started work on crafting projects, he was heading north, to where Zach’s newspaper said Oganj and his students were rampaging across the countryside.

In time, he made it to the site of the most recent attack. It was a village called Tarmata, a few days' journey north of Knyazov Dveri - at least on foot. He covered the distance in about half an hour.

The site where the map said the village should be was completely annihilated. Not just the centre of the town, which was only recognisable by the density of scorched stone, but also the entire valley surrounding it. The trees had been either crushed or set aflame, and in the hills overlooking the town some fires were still burning. There was no sign of any of the inhabitants. 

Unsurprisingly, the army was here. They’d set up an outpost next to the river. It looked like there were only about fifty soldiers though, which wasn’t even close to enough to threaten Oganj. The soldiers hadn’t noticed the simulacrum either, since he was invisibly hovering hundreds of metres above the ground.

The army’s presence was probably mostly for show. Eldemar’s government couldn’t be seen to entirely neglect their northern provinces, especially not against a threat as dangerous as a dragon-mage. But regional towns like Tarmata were just too far from anything important for the government to really care. Tensions were still high with both Sulamnon and Falkinrea, and the recent invasion from Ulquaan Ibasa had doubtless made the Eldemarian government even more paranoid than they usually were. Looked at from that cynical angle, it was a wonder that there were fifty soldiers here at all.

Neither Oganj nor his two dragon-students were still in the area, unfortunately. Tracking a flying creature wasn’t the easiest. There were no physical marks on the ground to follow, and even though dragons were phenomenally powerful magical creatures, any traces of their passing in the ambient mana tended to fade within a matter of minutes.

Fortunately for Zorian, he had experience tracking a far more elusive dragon-foe. Violeteye was one of the few dragon-mages who might be able to rival Oganj for strength. Unlike Oganj, however, she still possessed one of the Imperial artefacts - a staff that allowed her to set recall points at will, and use them to teleport across distances far greater than others could even contemplate.  That was both the reason Zach and Zorian had spent so long trying to track her down, and the reason they’d needed to develop a suite of dragon-tracking divination magic that would make the army weep with jealousy.

Under the cover of invisibility, the simulacrum lowered himself to the peak of one of the nearby hills. It took him a few minutes to magically carve the required ritual diagrams into the stone, but after that, the ritual itself only took a few seconds. It seemed Oganj didn’t take half as many pains to keep his location hidden as Violeteye did.

The simulacrum smiled grimly as the divination spell fed him details on Oganj’s location. The dragon-mage might come to regret his indiscretion. 

Two hours of mid-range teleports later, Oganj’s massive body came into view. The dragon was perched atop a stony mountain, and seemed to be resting. One of his students was a few kilometres away, curled up on a smaller peak. The other was nowhere to be seen.

This was supposed to be a diplomatic mission, so the simulacrum didn’t make use of the element of surprise. Instead, he simply dropped his invisibility spell, and gradually lowered himself in front of Oganj’s massive head.

The dragon-mage noticed him quickly. His enormous wings spread out, and Oganj flapped twice, raising himself to the level of Zorian’s disc. 

“You,” Oganj snarled. Twisting beams of light were already emerging from the dragon’s claws and forming a cage around the platform where the simulacrum stood.

“Me?” asked the simulacrum. It was a serious question too - for security reasons, he was wearing a completely new face.

Oganj growled, and a tuft of smoke emitted from his mouth. “I would recognise the stench of your magic from miles away, contemptible thief. You promised me the Imperial artefacts, and now you’ve gone back on your word. The lives of many a human are lost because of your treachery.” The dragon-mage spat the words. 

If the subject matter hadn’t been so grim, it would have been almost amusing that Oganj was trying to pin the blame for the massacred villages on Zorian. Still, his goal here was to make peace, not throw away more lives.

“Oganj, great dragon,” the simulacrum began. “I agree you have been wronged. The theft of your rightfully owned artefacts by my associate was a grievous misdeed, and will be rectified as soon as possible. If you agree to return to the north with your students and end your rampage, they will be returned, along with an additional artefact - the knife of the Ikosian emperor.”

There was a shine of greed in Oganj’s eyes that mirrored how he’d looked when he’d first taken the bargain with Zorian in Cyoria. But it was clear that the greed was tempered with something else. “Agreed. Give me the three artefacts and I will take my students back to my roost and leave your squalid species in peace.”

Ignoring the cage of force that was slowly shrinking around him, the simulacrum shook his head. “I won’t return the artefacts until after you’ve pulled back. You have to understand our position here. We can’t simply give you the crown and trust that you’ll keep your word. Otherwise, we’ll have just given you a powerful weapon that you can use against us. I will return the artefacts in a week, provided that there are no further attacks on human settlements in that time.”

Oganj growled again, a deep, rumbling sound, and brought his massive head closer to the forcecage. “Of the two of us, only one of us has broken our vows. Give me the artefacts now, and I will retreat. I will not trust the word of one who clearly values his bond so little.”

The simulacrum folded his arms. “If you recall, I did exactly what I promised - I gave the angel the artefacts, who then gave them to you. There were no agreements made about what would happen afterwards. And besides, the whole situation only occurred because you were willing to break off your deal with Jornak and Quatach-Ichl. So I’d say there’s no particular reason we should trust your word more than mine.”

Oganj paused. “Then it seems we are at an impasse.” 

The simulacrum frowned. “We could try to summon another angel? That might be difficult, but if we can, then we can both trust them to stick to their word?”

Oganj looked contemplative. “I doubt an angel of sufficient rank would bother with our little scuffle. It’s a reasonable thought, but I have a compelling counter-proposal.”

The simulacrum raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

Oganj lunged forward, and the simulacrum sighed as Oganj’s person-sized teeth closed around his body. He informed the original of his failure, and magically triggered the pair of explosive cubes he was wearing around his neck. Working with Hugh and Talia, he’d managed to make these devices a decent chunk more powerful than the explosives he’d used previously. It still probably wouldn’t do more than damage Oganj’s mouth a little, but it was worth a try. Sometimes the old tricks were the best.

 

-]l[-

 

Zorian

 

“... and nevermind, he ate him.” Zorian sighed. “I suppose diplomacy is off the table.”

“He ate him?” Taiven asked incredulously. 

“Yes,” said Zorian patiently. “He ate him.” Taiven really shouldn’t be here. Simulacrum Four was being duly punished for his misdeeds -  he was sitting next to the offworlders, and had been allocated as their translator. Impressively, Rain had already started picking up some Ikosian, although his accent was pretty terrible, but the Anastans were still completely reliant on mental translation.

Taiven’s eyes were periodically flickering between the other people in the room. She was squeezed onto Imaya’s couch next to Xvim and Alanic, both of whom looked grimly focused. Across the room, Talia, Alustin, Hugh, Artur and Sabae were sitting on stools, holding mugs of hot chocolate. After Imaya had found out about Godrick’s death, she had taken the offworlders personally under her wing, and there wasn’t a moment they could have their hands free before she would pass them a biscuit or another mug. 

Mackerel was gently hovering between Hugh and Rain, and the armoured mage was giving the crystal spellbook scratches along its spine. 

Spear of Resolve was one of the few people in the crowded room who had a little space to herself - although that was more due to the humans’ discomfort with the giant spider than thanks to politeness. Fortunately, aranea looked dramatically different to grey hunters. Aranea were jumping spiders, with larger eyes and relatively larger abdomen, while the long-legged grey hunters were huntsmen. The difference was pretty visually apparent, but then again, Zorian had spent a lot of time with spiders, and the variation between species might not be as obvious to others.

As such, Zorian had made sure to check carefully with the Anastans before bringing Spear of Resolve into the room. It would be understandable if they had traumatic reactions to giant spiders right now. But they handled the unfamiliar experience well, and the spider was being unfailingly polite. Since she already spoke in mental communications, she was the only one here who didn’t need to have her words translated for the Anastans to understand.

Kael was in the next room, watching his daughter Kana play with Kirielle. He had immediately proven himself useful by putting together an antivenom for Talia. He’d described it as ‘crude’ and ‘far from my best work’, but Talia’s headache had subsided shortly afterwards. 

One of Zorian’s simulacra had gone through the stabilised Ibasan gate to Koth and brought back Zorian’s brother Daimen and his fiancee Orissa. The pair of them had been overjoyed to see Zorian alive, and Orissa had joined Imaya in trying to make the new arrivals feel at peace. She was sitting next to Talia, and Daimen stood by his fiancee’s shoulder, playing with a strand of her hair.

On the whole, most people here had taken Zorian’s story in their stride. There wasn’t much question of it being the truth, given that he had six offworld mages and a flying crystal spellbook as physical evidence. That said, believing wasn’t quite the same thing as ‘coming to terms with’. Daimen still looked like he hadn’t fully accepted that this was happening yet, and Alanic was casting sidelong looks at Rain.

Zach was standing by Zorian’s side. “So I guess we’re back to square one? If Oganj isn’t going to back off, then there’s not much we can do but fight him head to head. How tough would you say these guys are?” He gestured at Rain and the Anastans, clearly sizing them up.

Zorian raised a finger. “Head to head? Not necessarily. Hugh has some warding techniques that make ambushes a lot more plausible - if they work on dragons. Do you know if they do, Hugh?”

Hugh nodded and responded in Ithonian, which Simulacrum Four translated for the others: “Attention wards worked on the dragons on my world. I don’t know if they’re the same species as the ones here, though.”

Alustin spoke up. There was an eagerness to his voice that was almost inappropriate given the context. “Galvachren’s Guide thinks they are the same species, which is fascinating. Galvachren notes that the ones here are uniformly large. There’s a greater range of sizes on Anastis - a few larger, but most smaller.”

Zorian nodded appreciatively. “In that case, I think we have a way forward. Rain, can-”

The armoured mage’s face looked like it had drained of blood, and his eyelids were fluttering the way they often did when he moved in and out of his soul-space.

“Rain, are you alright?”

Rain breathed out and put a gauntleted hand over his face. “I’m sorry, I know this is a really bad time, but I need to go home. Now.”

Zorian was taken aback. “Now? What happened?”

Rain responded to the question with a mental image. The thing that had pursued them across the Anastan seas was on Ameliah’s world. It had allied with Ascension’s enemies, and it was hunting the people Rain cared about - with the might of an empire behind it. It hadn’t found Ameliah yet, but that wouldn’t last forever…

Zorian could feel Rain’s tension. The man was ready to run back down the Hole and fight his way through the labyrinth by himself if necessary. 

After a moment, Zorian realised everyone in the room was looking at him.

“So what do we do now?” asked Alanic. 

“Now?” Zorian took a deep breath. “I think it’s about time for some multiversal diplomacy.”

Chapter 22: Enclave

Rain

 

The text-only signals Rain was receiving from Ascension were factual and concise, the kind of plans and information you’d want to know before entering a battle. On some level, it was a good sign that Ascension was sticking to protocol even under this immense pressure. On the other hand, it didn’t answer the question Rain wanted to know more than anything else - how long would it be until he could find his way back to Ameliah’s side and be certain that his friends were safe?

One of Zorian’s simulacra had blanketed the entire room in some kind of privacy charm, and the noises from outside had faded away. Zorian had conjured an illusion to help explain things to the others. His dark-haired friend Zach was standing close by his side, arms crossed firmly. The others in the room seemed to be focused on Zorian - except the warrior-monk looking character who’d introduced himself as Alanic, who kept casting sidelong looks at Rain and the Anastans. That said, it was also pretty difficult to tell where the eight-eyed spider matriarch was looking.

Everyone here was close friends with Zorian, that much was obvious. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t stand in the way of what Rain needed to do.

Rain pointedly met Alanic’s gaze, held it for a few seconds, then looked back at Zorian.

“According to Kanderon,” Zorian explained, “the thing that pursued us from Havath wasn’t acting alone. She wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information - I don’t think that’s her style - but she heavily implied it was part of some faction of a larger organisation, possibly one that she’s involved with. She also implied that that faction stretched beyond just Anastis.”

Alanic frowned and looked at Rain again. “So that’s why the angels want you gone,” he said under his breath. “They think you might be followed.”

Angels? Whatever. I need to get home. There’ll be time to unravel mysteries later.

The illusion above Zorian’s hand twisted and changed shape, and became a collection of four spheres with rotating names above them - in both Anastan Ithonian and this world’s native Ikosian. Anastis, Earth, Ersetu, and ‘Ameliah’s world’. 

“Alustin, tell us everything you know about the pursuer and its faction. There’s a chance we can try to strong-arm them into backing off, or figure out some kind of leverage we have over them, or make a deal or something.”

Alustin gestured helplessly. “I didn’t even know that thing existed before Kanderon sent us here. Some of us - the Librarians Errant, that is - suspected that there was some kind of external force supporting Havath, but until the three of you walked into Skyhold I’d thought of that mostly as idle speculation. The only cross-reality threat I was aware of until I met you was the Cold Minds, and they seem to be unrelated to this situation.” A brief look of uncertainty crossed his face. “At least, I hope they are.”

He pulled out his communications diary. “I’ll ask Kanderon though. Hopefully she’ll be willing to share her knowledge.”

Rain clenched his fists and stood up. 

“Is that some kind of joke?” He took a single step toward Alustin.

Zach moved to stand protectively between Rain and the Anastans. The boy looked like he was about Zorian’s age, but despite his youth there was a strange kind of confidence about the way he moved. His soul was bizarrely strong, a roiling mass of chaotic currents. It was a stark contrast with Zorian’s tightly controlled soul.

Rain didn’t back off, and snapped at Alustin over Zach’s shoulder:

“The whole reason we’re in this situation to begin with is because of Kanderon. She brought us to Anastis. She knew full well that there were others that might take notice if we went after Havath. She didn’t warn us, and now my friends are in danger because of the things we did to protect Kanderon and her interests.”

The Anastans looked taken aback, but Rain saw Zorian nod in agreement in the corner of his vision.

Rain was trying his best to keep the harsh tone out of his voice. “I think it’s high time for Kanderon to tell us what she knows. If I’m going to have to fight some kind of Superman-wannabe because of the mess she got us into, I at least deserve to know what I’m going up against.”

Alustin nodded. “You’re right. You’re right.” He sighed. “I’ll send through the questions now.”

Responses started coming through minutes later, once Zorian had triple-checked the privacy charms at Kanderon’s request. The pursuer was probably an Ishavean Ascendant - hundreds of lesser gods coerced into a single body. None of them had any idea what that meant, and Kanderon couldn’t provide much more information beyond the name.

Whatever the pursuer was, it was likely acting on behalf of the Expansionist faction of the ominously named Council. Kanderon and her allies were one small part of a rival faction of this ‘Council’, although the sphinx claimed that she only had a tiny amount of influence in a much larger organisation that dictated the fate of dozens of worlds. Whether or not Kanderon was telling the truth about that was another matter.

According to Kanderon, the Expansionist faction was motivated by proving that centralised control was the superior way to organise civilisation. To that end, they’d been sponsoring empires on Anastis - like Havath, and Ithos five hundred years before them - against the atomised model of local independence that Kanderon and her allies preferred. Over the last few weeks, the interference by the Splintered - Rain grimaced at Kanderon’s word for their little group - had led the Expansionists to discard Havath as a viable experiment. They wanted the Havathi Empire to rise or fall of its own accord. With Sica tearing into Havath’s territories from the south, Kanderon’s agents disrupting the defence effort, and the Intertwined destroyed by Purify, the experiment had well and truly run its course. 

Then came the worse news, and Rain listened to Alustin with a pit slowly forming in his stomach.

The factions of the Council usually kept each other in check, operating by a system of arcane rules and traded political favours. When a faction went unchecked, or the Council decided not to intervene in a multiversal incursion, the results were nothing short of apocalyptic. 

Kanderon didn’t go into detail on that, but the use of words like ‘Cull’ was enough to make Rain’s skin crawl.

Apparently, in a recent meeting, the Council had acknowledged that the Expansionists had been wronged by the offworlder interference in their experiment with Havath. Fortunately, the other factions had found an ingenious way to avoid ceding ground on the issues they really cared about. 

They’d simply agreed to let the Expansionists have sole right of administration for the new worlds unlocked by the Exile Splinter. 

Rain sat back in shock.

Kanderon’s faction had agreed to give away Ameliah’s world - not just Ameliah’s world, but also Ersetu, and Earth for that matter - to a multiversal faction obsessed with centralised control. 

Zach was speaking quietly into Zorian’s ear. Rain had picked up enough Ikosian by this point to have a decent idea of what he was saying, even without translation. “Does that mean this thing is coming here next?”

On any objective level, this was unbelievably terrible news. But in the short term, there was maybe something he could work with here. Ascension desperately needed allies, and if anyone had proven that they could stand in the Ascendant's path, it was Zorian.

Rain stood up and addressed the room. “If the Expansionists manage to seize control of Ameliah’s world and decide to expand elsewhere - which they might, if their name is at all accurate - then I’d guess they’d come here next. The Mirror seems like the sort of thing they’d struggle with much more than a journey through labyrinths.”

Zorian frowned. “What are you implying?”

Rain cracked his knuckles. “I could go back to Ameliah’s world alone, unify the forces I can, and fight the Ascendant and whatever else the Expansionists can muster. Maybe we’d win. Realistically, given what we’ve seen of this faction, we’d probably lose. But we’d have much better odds with some of you by our side.”

 

-]l[-

 

Zach, the next day

 

The air rushed through Zach’s hair as he followed Zorian’s directions northwards. His fellow looper had performed the divination rituals, so he knew where the dragons were, and Zach was comfortable following the instructions Zorian passed to him via their mental link.

It felt good to have Zorian back. The four weeks alone had been… difficult. 

Their plan was simple, albeit ambitious. Rain was going to help them handle Oganj, then Zach, Zorian, Alanic and Xvim would join Rain and the Anastans in the journey across to this ‘Ameliah’s world’ place to help them with the problems there. 

That had initially been the subject of fierce debate. More than a few people commented that they didn’t have much information to go on other than the word of this ‘Kanderon’ person, which seemed like a fair point given that she hadn’t proven to be particularly trustworthy in the past. 

That was when a messenger from the Triumvirate Church arrived with a message for Alanic, and a package for Zorian. 

After it became clear it wasn’t meant just for him, Alanic revealed the message was from the angels and read it aloud:

Aid the offworlders. We will do the same. The danger is far greater than you can know. 

The package was a smallish brown box. Zorian opened it, and took out a smooth, glossy cube, densely covered with strange writing. It was the same kind of cube Zorian had used to summon angels to help them prevent Panaxeth from being released.

There were still some loose ends. Zorian said he absolutely wasn’t leaving unless Kiri approved, and that conversation was probably going to be difficult for both of them. Zorian was putting that one off until after Oganj was dealt with, which was understandable. 

Zach’s decision was easy though. Wherever Zorian went, Zach was going to go too.

For now, Zach had volunteered for a job that would keep his mind busy for the next little while. He’d spent enough time feeling intensely anxious, so this was going to be a welcome relief.

He was going to be bait.

Oganj and his students weren’t sticking particularly close together in their rampage through the northern towns of Eldemar. Why would they? The army was far too slow to respond without splitting up, and a single dragon-mage could easily slaughter dozens of troops alone.

Just where Zorian’s divination said he would be, there he was. Oganj, circling lazily over the ruins of a village. The debris was still aflame, so Zach probably could have saved at least some of the people if he’d arrived a few hours earlier.

He cursed the dragon under his breath, then accelerated forwards until Oganj’s massive scaly tail twitched in the air. He’d been noticed.

Fortunately, that was all part of the plan. 

He cast a quick spell to amplify his voice so that it could be heard from hundreds of metres away. “Hey, lizard-brain! This ends here.”

Oganj snarled, and turned to dive to dive toward him. 

Zach wrenched a mass of stone out of the ground with unstructured magic and hurled it toward the dragon. 

Oganj tilted one wing, and the boulder sailed past him.

Three more boulders followed it. Oganj dodged the first two, but a jet of red light shone out of one of his claws and ruptured the third one in mid-flight. The boulder shattered into rubble, which scattered to the ground far below. 

Then Oganj started to return fire. The first volley of fireballs took so long to cross the distance between them that moving out of the way was trivial. The next volley of force-lances was far faster, and sank into his shields, draining his reserves. Then Oganj dove forwards, and started to close the distance. 

Zach grinned and cupped his hands to shout across the distance. “You’re slower than I remember! Getting old?”

Oganj didn’t respond this time either. Maybe he was less eager to trade insults without an audience? Or the theft of the Crown and the Orb had made him really angry in a way that the battle over Cyoria hadn’t? Either way, Zach turned, and started to force more and more mana into his flight spell. 

Within seconds, Oganj had almost caught up. He was less than fifty metres behind Zach, and both of them were tearing through the air at speeds that would have killed a normal person. 

Matching Oganj’s speed wasn’t easy, and he wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long. Fortunately, Zach had plenty of experience with this particular enemy. The memories of the dozen restarts he’d spent trying to slay the great dragon-mage weren’t exactly fond, but they did provide him with a lot of information on things like exactly how fast Oganj could fly, and how fast he could bank around corners.

Catching a dragon-mage once they decided to flee was a near-impossible feat. Preying on their over-confidence and leading them into an ambush, however…

Zach darted past a rocky outcrop at the peak of a mountain, and sharply changed direction immediately afterwards. He deliberately came to a sudden stop, and prepared to cast a spell when the moment presented itself.

There was a huge gust of wind as Oganj’s vast wings flared, slowing him. The dragon was massive, more than fifteen metres long, and while his top speeds were far higher than a human mage, he couldn’t stop quite as quickly. 

That was enough time for Zach to launch half the mountaintop at his scaly adversary.

Oganj roared and flapped his wings, trying to dodge, but the edge of the spray of massive stones caught his left wing. Some kind of defensive magic arced between the dragon’s claws, and the projectiles dropped out of the air abruptly, as if gravity had suddenly increased a hundredfold. 

Zach felt the magic try to pull him downwards as well, and let it. He’d already released the next spell in his assault - a shimmering silvery orb that initially moved slowly, but homed in on its target at gradually increasing speeds. He didn’t stop to see how Oganj handled that, and instead let the dragon’s spell pull him downwards and built up speed. 

Once the rocky ground was only a dozen metres away, he forced mana into the flight-spell again and slipped outside the radius of Oganj’s gravity spell. The sudden acceleration made his sight dim for a second, but then he was soaring into the sky, with Oganj rapidly shrinking below him.

The goal was to lure Oganj to the site they’d prepared, without making him suspicious. That meant Zach was supposed to look like he was fighting in earnest, and not just retreating. So for good measure, Zach launched a series of disintegration beams behind him. He didn’t aim particularly carefully. Instead, his focus was on the ground that was blurring past below. 

Working together, their group had disguised the ambush site incredibly carefully. Zorian’s wards were close to the best in the world, of course, but one of the Anastan kids - Hugh, the mopey one who was the boyfriend of the girl with the severed arm? It was hard to keep everyone straight - had brought along some alien warding techniques. Even in the demonstration, where Zach had watched the ward being made, his eyes had somehow wanted to slip past the inscribed circle, ignoring the contents. It was the kind of thing you could get used to, given time, and the trick probably wouldn’t work on the same mage more than a few times - but no-one on Ersetu had ever seen this particular trick before.

There, about a kilometre in the distance, was a small clearing at the centre of a particularly dense region of trees. Just as he spotted it, he felt a surge of energy from Oganj, and deliberately dropped out of the sky. 

Not a moment too soon - a volley of blindingly-bright beams of light surged through the air above him, twisting in a tight spiral as they turned to follow. Just in time, he conjured a shield. There wasn’t time for something elaborate, just a simple shield.

The beams crashed into the surface and it shattered, sending him careening into the ground. The impact came suddenly, and he curled up in a ball to minimise the damage. The momentum blasted him backward, and he carved a path through the topsoil, which sprayed into the air. The impact was bizarrely gentle, just like they’d practised, and Zach kept his arms around his head - not to protect himself, because Rain’s auras took care of that easily - but to hide the grin forming on his face.

Oganj landed a moment later, and the nearby trees trembled with the force of his impact. He gestured with one hand in a surprisingly human-like gesture, and a blue sphere began to form, no doubt some bizarrely lethal spell.

“You worm-”

That was when two gargantuan stone fists emerged from the ground at Oganj’s side, and seized him at the place where his wings met his body. 

The dragon-mage reacted immediately and detonated his spell. There was a sound like the earth cracking. Air surged outwards, flattening the nearby trees and sending dirt spraying everywhere. Zach barely had time to throw together a shield, and even so, he was knocked back a few metres. There was an unintended side effect to Oganj’s instinctive reaction - Hugh’s meticulously crafted attention wards, which were carved into a thin layer of stone on the surface, were destroyed by the indiscriminate blast-wave.

At once, Zach’s mind took in the things it had refused to see until now. 

Underneath Oganj’s massive body, fully visible now that the covering of topsoil had been scattered, was a hulking form that was almost as large as the dragon. It was a monstrous humanoid mass of stone, shaped and controlled by Artur, the mage who had lost his son. What passed for a misshapen pair of fists were latching onto the dragon’s flanks, and Oganj’s legs seemed to sink into the granite of the chest, as if the stone had taken on the consistency of honey.

At the far edge of the clearing were four of Zorian’s golems, each holding chains that formed a lattice between them. In response to some invisible signal from Zorian, they charged inwards with their characteristic reckless disregard for physical safety. 

A few metres behind where Zach’s landing had carved a furrow into the ground, five figures stepped out from a sheltered dome of earth. Rain was at the front, a sentinel of shining metal. Zorian, Alanic and Xvim were just behind him, each already firing off offensive spells of their own. Although it was hidden under a glimmer-spell, Zach could tell Zorian was wearing the Crown he’d stolen from Oganj. Alustin the paper-mage swooped past them, propelled by the four strange dragonfly wings that attached to the back of his paper armour. They looked far too fragile to be producing that much force. A flurry of dozens of paper aeroplanes appeared to fly alongside him, darting toward Oganj.

Finally, and undeniably most impressively, a divinely-enhanced hydra materialised from where it had been hidden in the Imperial Orb, roared in defiance and challenge, and barreled at the dragon.

Beset from every side, Oganj twisted and turned, trying to free his limbs from the stone giant underneath him. There was a huge surge of mana as the dragon attempted a teleportation spell, but they’d anticipated this. Two of Zorian’s simulacra were still in the bunker and were purely focused on disrupting any attempts to escape. On top of that, there were two different warding schemes set into the bedrock underneath Artur that were designed to disrupt teleportation. Zorian had made one, and Oganj might be able to figure that one out, or overpower it, given time. Alustin and Hugh had constructed the other, and Zach had to admit that the offworlders’ technique would be difficult for even a mage as skilled as Oganj to understand and bypass quickly. 

Especially while he was being attacked by half-a-dozen archmages at once. 

The surge of teleportation magic dissipated, torn apart by two warding schemes as well as the dispelling efforts of the simulacra. 

Oganj’s hind legs were sinking deeper and deeper into Artur’s stone form, and the four golems threw their chains across his back to pull him down further. The dragon-mage still had two limbs and a mouth free though, and a torrent of flame poured out of his maw across the battlefield. 

Zach covered himself with a hastily conjured shield, but the flames passed around him, leaving him unharmed. He shot a glance across to Rain. Just as he’d promised, the strange man was protecting their entire group with his unusual collection of wards. The man still stood in the same place, unmoving, and Zach snorted.

Cocky bastard. At least Zorian had some useful allies while he was away.

A web of dark tendrils formed at Oganj’s left hand. They spiralled outwards, growing until they were as long as Oganj’s body, and began to whip around the clearing as if they had minds of their own. One of the threads tore straight through a golem as if its magically-reinforced body was made of paper, and fragments of metal went flying across the clearing. Zach threw himself face-first into the dirt with unstructured magic to dodge another, and sent a dispelling wave at a third tendril that sliced through a tree and was heading for Xvim. The dispelling wave seemed to shear off a few layers from the tendril’s surface, but otherwise it continued unimpeded. 

Xvim gestured with one hand and a series of hand-sized circles of light appeared around the ends of each of the threads. Although they writhed and twisted, the dark tendrils didn’t seem to be able to escape the circles of light, and they stayed locked in place where Xvim’s constructs had trapped them. A moment later, Princess collided with Oganj, all eight hydra-heads tearing into the dragon’s flank. Oganj lost his focus on the dark threads, which dissipated into the air.

A stream of fiery droplets surged toward Oganj and sprayed across his left flank, eating into his fore-limb. Zach threw up a hand to shield his face - even at this distance, the heat emitted by Alanic’s attack was painful. In response, Oganj gestured with a clawed hand, and brilliant light surged out, carving a path through the stone and dirt toward Alanic. Just as the priest’s shield failed, there was a flicker in the air, and Princess wrapped in on herself as she blinked out of existence and reappeared in the path of the spell, absorbing its energy with her sheer mass. She must have been keyed in as an exception to the teleportation-blocking wards. One of the enormous hydra’s heads was vaporised instantly, but she shrugged off the damage and threw herself back against the dragon.

Working in concert with the hydra’s bulk, Zorian’s golems were heaving on their chains, pulling Oganj deeper and deeper into Artur’s stony embrace.

Oganj roared, a desperate sound infused with magic. Unfortunately, it was a kind of spell they hadn’t anticipated, and it must have been too strong for Zorian’s simulacra to counter on the fly. It wasn’t offensive magic, just a kind of strange modification to the acoustics of his roar. The ripples of sound travelled bizarrely far, rolling out across the forested hills toward the distant horizon. A few seconds later,  two roars echoed in response - Oganj’s students, coming to his aid. 

Zach tensed, and redoubled his assault, launching a series of force lances at Oganj’s fragile wings. While he was alone, their group had enough battlefield control to disrupt Oganj’s attacks before he could cause too much damage. If his two students arrived and freed him from their traps, then things would abruptly get a lot more dangerous. 

Alustin must have a death wish. The paper mage and his cloud of gliders were darting around the dragon's head, perilously close to Oganj’s jaws. Alustin seemed to be focusing on the dragon’s eyes, trying to distract him and keep him from concentrating on countermagic. It looked like it was working, because despite the onslaught of other attacks, Oganj snapped at the cloud of tiny darts, swallowing almost half of them in a single swipe of his teeth.

Alustin pulled back immediately, throwing himself away from the dragon with a beat of his dragonfly-wings. “Now, Rain!”

Rain still didn’t move, but despite the lack of any physical indication of damage, there was a disconcerting sound from Oganj - halfway between a retch and a twisted draconic scream. The dragon abandoned all other attempts at spellcasting and looked like he was trying to throw up. For a moment, Zach thought he saw a flicker of blue-white lightning arcing inside Oganj’s throat before the creature turned away. 

Although they were mostly held in place by Artur’s massive golem-hands, Oganj’s wings were flailing, desperately trying to get free of the stony mass that held him in place. Their frantic beating sent gusts of wind across the clearing and tore at the branches of any trees that were still standing.

Zach didn’t hesitate. He’d come so close to slaying this foe a multitude of times, and only succeeded once - every other time, a killing blow had come out of nowhere to end his life, and the restart with it. A moment’s hesitation could give Oganj enough time to escape, or tear this entire valley apart with a monumental explosion, or transform the air inside everyone’s lungs into fire. Zach conjured a volley of six glistening black blades which arced towards Oganj, darting past the beleaguered dragon’s attempts to block and sinking straight through the scales of his neck with barely any resistance. 

The path of the blades converged at Oganj’s spine, and the dragon’s head fell apart from the rest of his body and landed on the ground with an anti-climactic ‘thud’. 

There was a defiant roar from above, and Zach tilted his head toward the sky. 

That’s right, there are still two more dragons coming to kill us.

There was a telepathic signal from Zorian. <Can you take care of that?> 

Zach nodded to Zorian, and launched himself into the sky. 

Oganj’s students weren’t quite as large as their master, but seeing two enormous dragons bearing down on you from two sides still wasn’t exactly a comforting sight. 

Zorian’s been trying diplomacy a lot recently. Maybe I should give it a shot?

He recast the spell that amplified his voice, and this time tried to make his voice sound imposing rather than aggravating.

“We have slain your master.” His voice sounded strange and booming, and he gestured toward the clearing below.

The closer of the two dragons seemed to falter for an instant at that, glancing downward.

“If you swear to leave human settlements in peace, we will let you depart this place alive.”

The dragons slowed and came to a stop, hovering next to one another around thirty metres away. For a moment, the beat of their wings was the only sound, a deep thrumming in the air. The pair of them paused, but offered no response.

<Zorian?>

Zorian must have understood the request, because two things happened simultaneously. First, Artur’s hulking form slowly raised itself from where it had been lying horizontally, tossing Oganj’s corpse aside like a discarded meal. When it finally got to its feet, the mass of stone towered twice as high as the remaining intact trees.

Second, Princess raised her seven intact heads to the sky. They bellowed in unison, a terrifying sound that echoed almost as loud as Zach’s voice despite the lack of any magical amplification.

The two dragons hovered in place for a moment. They were probably conversing mentally or something.

Zach said nothing, and waited silently in place, hovering a hundred metres above the ground.

“We swear,” one of the dragons spoke. It was hard to hear it over the rushing wind and the sound of their beating wings.

“Then leave this place, and pray you do not encounter us again.” 

Maybe that was laying it on a bit thick. Either way, Oganj’s former students seemed to get the message, and turned tail and began flying north. 

Zach gently lowered himself to the ground, and landed next to where one of Zorian’s simulacra was inspecting Oganj’s corpse. Now that the dragon’s head had been removed, the damage Rain had done was clearly visible. Rain must have put an aura anchor onto one of Alustin’s gliders that Oganj had swallowed. There was a tiny sphere of flesh - not more than three hands-widths across - near the centre of Oganj’s neck that was burnt to ash, and the flesh around it was scarred by arcs of lightning.

Zach shuddered for a moment, before turning to the simulacrum. “Any injuries on our side?”

The simulacrum gestured with one hand to where Alanic was lying on the ground, surrounded by a cluster of people. 

Zach sprinted over. Zorian was kneeling by Alanic’s side. The priest’s face was taut, and his breathing was fast and shallow. His entire right arm, a chunk of his shoulder, and part of his hip and upper thigh were just gone, vaporised by one of Oganj’s desperate attacks. If this were a typical wound, the blood loss would have been fatal almost immediately. In a strange twist of fate, the dragon-mage’s last act on this world had simultaneously injured Alanic, and cauterised his wound with intense heat.

Zach put his hand on Alanic’s forehead and fired off a quick divination spell. “We need to get him to a specialised healer now. Zorian, do you still have a simulacrum in Cyoria?”

Alanic opened his eyes for a moment, then closed them again. “I think I’ll live.” His voice was weak.

Zorian closed his eyes. Then he stood up, and Alanic’s body levitated into the air. Even though it looked like the motion was as slow and gentle as Zorian could make it, Alanic still grunted in pain. 

Zorian started casting, and moments later, a gate opened up between two splintered trees. On the other side, a simulacrum waited in a sterile-looking room. There were a few doctors and healers inside, but they were all motionless and their eyes looked blank. Zorian must have frozen them in place with his mind-magic for the time being. Zorian floated Alanic through, where the simulacrum took over control of the slowly-moving body, and the gate closed. 

Zach exhaled. He hadn’t realised how tired he was. “So what happens now, Zorian?”

Rain stepped forward and put a hand on Zach’s shoulder. “Now, you’re coming with me.”

Zorian shook his head. “Not quite yet.”

-]l[-

 

Zorian

 

After the battle with Oganj, there was no point staying in the north any longer. First, Alanic was transferred to the care of Cyoria’s best healers (with as good a cover story as they could come up with for one and a half missing limbs). Then, both Oganj’s corpse and Princess were stowed in the Imperial Orb (the hydra was under strict instructions not to eat the body, or any small snakes she might encounter inside).

Finally, Zorian summoned a gate back to Imaya’s house, and everyone walked through - although it took Artur a moment to burrow out of his massive stone armour and meld it back into the ground to minimise the evidence of the battle. 

They’d collectively decided not to bring everyone to the battle against Oganj. Spear of Resolve had politely declined, saying she was better suited to covert action than directly confronting a dragon-mage. 

Taiven had initially wanted to come, but after Zorian sent through a mental image of Oganj in battle, she also decided to stay behind. 

Taiven was coping oddly well with finding out about Zorian’s sudden immense skill. Only a precious few people knew he was anything other than a somewhat precocious Academy third-year, and almost no-one knew about the time loop. 

Inside the Sovereign Gate, the few times he’d let Taiven in on the secret had ended pretty terribly. She didn’t cope well with learning how far he’d moved beyond her skill level, and tended to beat herself up about her relative lack of progress - even though that was entirely understandable, since Zorian had more than a decade of time to learn and progress while her progress was reset every month. 

This time though, something was different. Maybe it was that he’d been presumed dead for a month before coming back, so Taiven thought of it as more of a surprise that he was alive at all, and his unusual magical skill was secondary to that. Or maybe the presence of so many offworlders and bizarre characters was serving to distract her from him. Or maybe she was just still in shock. 

Regardless, seeing Zorian’s memories of Oganj obliterating an entire valley with a single spell was enough for her to recognise that if she came, she would be entirely out of her depth. Likewise, there wasn’t much question of Kael coming. While the young morlock was a skilled healer and alchemist, his strengths very much lay outside of battles.

The Anastan children hadn’t made the decision themselves. Hugh had been on-site to help with ward-design, but after that, Artur had made it very clear that none of them were going to leave the safety of Imaya’s house. 

Daimen and Orissa had declined for a different reason, one that Zorian didn’t really know how to react to at all. Apparently, Orissa was pregnant. 

The thought of being an uncle was… not entirely an unpleasant one. Regardless, Zorian had judged that their group had sufficient capability without them, and although Daimen had been willing to join the battle, Zorian had gently agreed with Orissa and suggested that she and Damien both sit this one out. 

In retrospect, maybe that assessment hadn’t been entirely justified. Returning to Imaya’s house without Alanic was a grim affair. His simulacrum at the hospital reported that Alanic was stable, and had woken up only once while the healers tried to keep him alive and attempted to restore the limbs he’d lost.

For a short moment of lucidity, Alanic had gripped the simulacrum’s arm tightly enough that it started to tear the ectoplasmic flesh. “The angels wouldn’t ask this of you lightly, Zorian. You know what you have to do.” Then he’d fallen back into the slumber the healers had magically induced. 

Upon hearing the news of Alanic’s injury, Talia was the first to respond with a constructive suggestion. “So, do you know anyone who can make prosthetic limbs? They’re in weirdly high demand.”

Rain made the useful comment that there were healers on Ameliah’s world that could reconstruct limbs and reshape bodies at will, so the sooner they got going, the better. Zorian still took a moment to pass on the suggestion to one of the simulacra in his workshop, who immediately changed tasks.

Then, it was time for a difficult conversation.

“Kael, Kana, do you mind if we borrow Kirielle for a moment?”

The white-haired young man looked up from the kitchen table where his daughter and Kiri were drawing. Kiri’s drawing was abstract and skilled, and while Kana was doing her best to imitate her, it was clear she hadn’t practised as much.

“Of course not,” Kael said. “Although that does mean Kana wins the cat-drawing competition by default.”

Kana squealed with delight, and Kiri loudly protested for a moment. Then Kael scooped up his daughter and carried her out of the kitchen into the living room. 

Rain stepped in. He’d dismissed his armour, and was wearing what looked like a cloth tunic underneath - although knowing the craftsmanship of his armour, the cloth was probably far stronger than it looked.

“Kiri, this is Rain.”

Kiri looked up at the bearded man with slight apprehension, but waved politely, and stuck out a hand for the man to shake. He smiled, a broad and warm expression Zorian hadn’t seen on his face in some time, and bent down to carefully shake her little hand. 

“Pleased to meet you.” Rain’s Ikosian was still fairly accented, but by now he’d memorised enough words to handle most simple conversation. “Your brother is a good friend of mine.”

Kiri’s eyes narrowed. “Are you the reason why he was gone for a while?”

Rain shook his head, then abruptly looked extremely guilty. “No, both Zorian and I were taken out of our worlds by the same force. Although that is something we wanted to talk to you about.”

Kiri raised her eyebrows, and Zorian sighed. He pulled out a chair and took a seat next to Kiri. “Rain, would you like to sit down?”

The aura-mage took a seat. Even without the armour, he was fairly muscular, and had to scrape the chair awkwardly far back to fit in. 

“Kiri,” Zorian began. “Rain comes from another world.”

Her eyes widened. “Like the moon?”

“A bit like that, only much further away.”

“How did you get here? Is that why your book flies? Does your world have magic books that fly?”

Rain laughed briefly, and Zorian shook his head. “No, that book actually belongs to Hugh, and he’s from a third different world. It’s a little bit complicated to explain, and there’s not a lot of time. Is it alright if we skip to the important part?”

Kiri nodded and pressed her lips together tightly - as if that would be any obstacle if she got distracted by something else.

“Rain’s world is in danger. His friends and family are threatened by a very powerful and dangerous force. If that force succeeds and defeats his friends, a lot of innocent people will die. Then, there’s a chance it will come here and threaten Cyoria.”

Kiri sat back in her chair and didn’t say anything. 

Zorian brushed his hair out of his eyes. “You have a difficult decision to make. Do you think I should go with Rain and help his people? It will help keep us safe in the long term, but for now, it would mean I would need to leave again. Hopefully it’ll just be a week or so, but I might be gone for a few weeks, maybe even longer than last time.”

“Shouldn’t an adult be in charge of this?” asked Kiri.

“Professor Xvim is going to come with me, if I go, and so is Zach, so I’ll be in good hands. But I don’t think there are many adults who can do the same things I can do, and none that we can get our hands on quickly.”

Kiri paused for a moment, then looked up at Zorian with a confused expression. “Why are you asking me?”

Zorian grimaced. “Rain, can you leave us alone for a bit?”

Rain nodded, and closed the door behind him. 

Zorian sighed. “Kiri, there were a few reasons I wanted to get back home so badly. You were one of them. I know I haven’t always been a good big brother, but I want to be there for you whenever I can. I don’t want to leave you without someone to take care of you.”

Kiri looked up at him. Even though she was only nine years old, she seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. “What do you think you should do?”

Zorian blinked. He hadn’t really considered that until now. It was obvious what other people wanted him to do. Alanic wanted him to go, and the angels had made their opinion known through him. The angels were notoriously secretive, and they clearly knew more than they were letting on - but it was still possible they were just telling him to go off-world to get rid of him. Maybe that degree of cynicism was unwarranted, but Zorian couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a lot missing from his picture of the situation.

Zach didn’t care much. He’d made it clear that he’d stick with Zorian wherever he went.

And Rain… he’d been a good friend, these past few weeks. There was no chance Zorian would have got back home without him. And he’d been basically completely selfless - when Harry, Zorian and Rain had negotiated which worlds they’d return to first, Rain had immediately suggested the idea of taking the others home first. 

Zorian clenched his fists for a moment. “I don’t want to leave. But…”

Kiri spoke slowly. “You think you should.”

Zorian held still for a moment, then relented. “I do.”

“Then you should go. You should save the people.”

“Alright. Thank you, Kiri. I’ll miss you a lot, you know. Zach will come with me, and so will Xvim, if he’s still willing. Who do you want to stay with in the meantime? I don’t know how soon I’ll be back.”

Kiri looked like she was considering this decision with the same weight as she’d decided to send Zorian to a new reality. “... could I stay with Orissa and Daimen? Or Kael and Kana, if that doesn’t work?”

“I’m sure we can work out something like that.” He sent a brief message to Rain, who opened the door and stepped back inside. His face was an anxious mess - it was pretty obvious that he was desperately hoping that he’d be able to take allies with him back to Ameliah’s world. 

“So…?” Rain’s voice wasn’t particularly well controlled.

“I’m coming.”

Rain’s shoulders sagged in relief. “Thank you.” He knelt down on the kitchen floor so his head was level with Kiri’s. “And thank you for letting me borrow your brother. I’ll do my best to take care of him.”

Kiri looked almost offended. “I think he’ll be taking care of you.”

Rain scratched his head, and Zorian snorted.

Six hours of preparation and goodbyes later, their group was gathered at the edge of the Hole inside a giant steel sphere. Rain was calling it ‘The Inconceivable IV: A New Hope’. In response to Xvim’s curious look, he clarified: “The Fast and Furious titles never really made sense, so I’m switching to Star Wars.”

The plan was to leave this world in a far stranger way than the way they’d arrived. 

Zorian had left behind one of Rain’s communication devices with Spear of Resolve, who had promised to pass on any messages Rain sent to the desired recipient. The giant spider was equipped with an extensive English-Ikosian dictionary that Rain had made for her, and promised Rain that she’d ‘keep the machine charged’ with the strange flat metal and glass panels he’d given her.

Leaving his family and friends behind again wasn’t a good feeling, even if he’d got time to say goodbye and would be remaining in touch. This time, Zach and Xvim would be coming with him, even if Alanic wouldn’t be joining them. And thanks to Zach, the Crown was resting jauntily on Zorian’s head. The enormous mana battery contained within - combined with the constant flow of energy from Rain - meant that Zorian felt superhuman. 

“Alright,” said Zach, smiling rakishly. He looked his usual blend of eager, but somehow simultaneously cool and relaxed. “Is it go time?”

Rain nodded. “It’s go time.”

With that, Artur rolled the Inconceivable IV off the cliff-edge into the Hole, and their group plunged into the darkness below.

Chapter 23: Monster

Harry

 

Harry frowned and turned away as Rain’s Radiance anchor went dim, signalling the end of the transmissions from Ersetu. 

It was a little before 3 am and he was still wearing his pyjamas, with a too-large cloak wrapped around his shoulders for warmth. 

Hermione, Moody and Amelia Bones were the only others in the tower - aside from the operator, who had agreed to be obliviated of the day’s events at the end of each shift.

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. “So they’ve sold us out.”

“It would seem that way,” Harry said. 

“Why?” Moody asked, eyes narrowed.

“Despite her physical might, Kanderon is the type to avoid confrontation wherever possible, and instead sow dissent among her enemies,” Harry mused. “It’s hard to know anything with certainty given our limited perspective, but it seems like she’s generally opposed to this ‘Expansionist’ faction. It's possible she has judged it to be to her benefit if they expend some of their resources in destroying us - or conquering us, if they prefer. At the very least, it seems her faction has made peace with that outcome.”

Madam Bones grunted and crossed her muscular arms. Harry still wasn’t quite used to her new body, and did a double-take as her familiar voice emerged from an unfamiliar face. 

“You think they have a chance?” she asked brusquely.

Harry half-laughed. “Against what I’ve seen, Earth would fall in… about half a day. And I’m willing to bet they can come up with better than what I’ve seen. That said, that’s only if they can reach us. Atlantis may not have left us much, but they did leave us the Mirror.”

Moody snorted and sat back into a wooden chair. “If you and that ‘Zorian’ entity got through it in a week, I doubt the Mirror would give a serious adversary much trouble.”

Despite the Stone’s arrival more than a week ago, he was still in his usual body, and his age showed in the care he took while sitting down. He wasn’t planning to stay as a one hundred and ten year old man indefinitely, but Moody’s plan to renew his body was taking a little longer to arrange than most.

“You’re right, it’s clearly not a perfect defence,” Harry said, and sat down too, moving toward the single plush armchair rather than the ring of austere wooden chairs. If he was going to have to discuss the fate of Earth while in pyjamas, then appearances were already well and truly ruined and he may as well be comfortable. “Although I think you’re not giving Zorian quite enough credit there. I’ve only visited a tiny fraction of the worlds that are allegedly out there, but from what I’ve seen, Zorian is deep in the right tail of the distribution as far as esoteric knowledge is concerned. It’s possible the Expansionist faction won’t be able to match his work, at least not easily. Plus, he had another significant advantage which I believe would be unavailable to others who tried to enter our reality.”

“What’s that?” Moody asked.

Harry gestured at the stone set into his ring.

“Ah.”

Harry drummed his fingers on the armrest absent-mindedly. “There is another potential vulnerability, the one the Exile Splinter exploited to take me in the first place. Hermione, did your researchers find a counter-charm for fiendfyre?”

Thus far, Hermione had stood silently at the window, looking up at a gap in the patchy clouds through which the stars were visible. She turned around to face them. “The standard modern technique is to seal it away, which unfortunately leaves the fire active and theoretically recoverable, albeit at great effort. The original spell was thought lost, but Samuel Lyall dug up a reference to it in an old Hungarian tome. The formulation was a sort of ‘self-destruct’ command that could only be cast by the same wand that created the fire, but I think we should be able to develop a variant that imitates the caster’s signature so it can be used by anyone.”

“Good,” said Harry. “Whether or not we can translate it into a form that Zorian can use is another matter. In the meantime, we need to ask him to ensure the fire doesn’t fall into other hands.”

“I don’t like it,” said Moody abruptly. “How do we know he won’t trade it away in exchange for his own world’s safety? Hell, he could use it to invade us accompanied by a horde of angels, for all we know. That’s not even the beginning of the possible risks. Even if we deal with Voldie’s fire, what are the odds no-one else has sent some enduring signature through the Mirror in the last few thousand years?”

Harry frowned. “There’s not a lot we can do about that, at least not without some kind of spell that locates traces of wizard magic. Tracking down the vulnerabilities we know of and keeping an eye out for any others is all we’re capable of at this stage. Sending search parties into the labyrinth would be self-defeating, since they wouldn’t be able to return unless we crack the Mirror, which is the last thing we should do. And for what it's worth, I trust Zorian. Well, I trust him not to invade Earth, at least.”

“So that’s how we try to reduce the risk of an incursion,” said Hermione. “What’s the response if one occurs?” She turned in place, once again looking out the window at the stars. “Draco and I have already accelerated the timelines of the four Diaspora projects, but there’s no guarantee any of them will be able to go far enough.”

Bones jerked her chin toward Harry. “Potter, you’ve seen the offworlders. Which of our weapons do you think might harm them?”

Harry took in a deep breath. Familiar cold patterns sharpened his thoughts as he reviewed the available tactical information. “I only have data on one of the Expansionist agents. Humanoid, although slightly glowing and devoid of other identifiable physical characteristics. Capable of unassisted flight at speeds of above Mach 5, and can change course and decelerate from that speed almost instantly. Probably not capable of teleportation without assistance. It destroyed several powerful magically-conjured shields with brute force, and survived the detonation of 5 kilograms of TNT at close range. It was able to track down and assassinate four magically linked humanoids - extensions of Zorian, so far from defenceless - across a large city in less than thirty seconds.”

Harry paused for a breath. “Possible countermeasures: the killing curse. The spell’s velocity may be the limiting factor here, unless it can be somehow modified to move more quickly. We need to conduct proper studies on the spell, but my current hypothesis is that it attacks the soul.” In response to Hermione’s raised eyebrow, he continued. “... which I have good reasons to believe actually exists. If that is the case, it may not behave as expected on creatures of sufficient strength or soul-knowledge. We have examples on Earth of entities capable of surviving the curse, like Voldemort, so it would be foolish to expect that there are no entities from elsewhere with the same kind of resilience. For instance, I suspect Zorian would have a chance of surviving the killing curse, potentially in a similar fashion to that which kept Voldemort alive.”

Moody said nothing, but his fingers played over the handle of the wand in his holster. 

“As distasteful as it is, further research is required.” Harry paused for a moment to readjust his glasses. “Nuclear weapons are a possibility, as are direct annihilation approaches like fiendfyre or antimatter. A single jet fighter with standard armaments is unlikely to have much impact, although I imagine we can upgrade them substantially, and there are a hundred and thirty jet fighters in Britain alone.

“A magically enhanced version of the iron beam weapon could trace the entity’s path, although the intensity would need to be increased by several orders of magnitude. The surest approaches are ones that bypass physical strength or resilience entirely, like sealing in pocket dimensions or exiling out of time.”

And there’s one other approach I will investigate alone.

The cold receded, and he pulled the cloak a little tighter around his shoulders. “Then again, most of those weapons aren’t easily scalable, at least not using techniques that are currently known to me.”

“Well,” said Bones, stretching her arms out and suppressing a yawn. “In that case, we have work to do.”

 

-]l[-

 

Hugh

 

The interior of the sphere was dimly lit. Hugh had placed six glowing runes evenly spaced across the interior surface. The group was likewise evenly spaced around the circumference, holding onto the slightly uncomfortable grips Artur had moulded into the steel. The man may have been a master iron-mage, but he wasn’t really a master craftsman, and Hugh’s hand shifted awkwardly on the too-large handle.

The strange space was made a little more homely by all the paper.

After a simulacrum returned from a purchasing spree, Alustin had spent an hour meticulously folding the paper. When Artur was finally ready and their group filed one by one into the sphere, Alustin followed them with a flood of white paper that floated through the air. It took him a few minutes to settle it, but by the time Artur had sealed the metal walls from the inside, Hugh and the others were mostly submerged in a pleasantly soft sea of origami paper stars, with only their heads sticking out above it.

Unlike the Inconceivable III, this vessel’s progenitor, there was no dedicated air supply. If everything went according to plan, they wouldn’t be inside long enough for it to matter.

Zach said something in this world’s native tongue, and in response Zorian gave the signal. Artur placed his hand against the steel interior wall, and the entire cabin rolled to the side. Hugh stumbled slightly and bumped into Sabae. Then his stomach lurched - they were in freefall.

Talia was standing to Hugh’s right. She’d let go of her handle. Instead, she was holding his hand in hers tightly enough to cut off the circulation. Now that they were falling, his feet were floating off the floor, and the paper stars drifted across the entire space. That was by design, and Hugh used his free hand to scoop some paper stars between himself and the exterior walls, the way Alustin had instructed. Since Talia was missing a hand, he took a moment to do the same for her. Rotating through space without anything to easily push off was tricky. Fortunately, he’d had some time to practise with zero-gravity manoeuvres during Rain’s infrequent rests in the journey to Earth from the Pioneer probe.

The sphere around them was made of solid steel, so there were no loose parts to rattle. Even so, the dull thrumming of the air rushing by outside gradually grew louder and louder, shaking the walls. From in here, it was impossible to know how fast they were going. Rain said the fall to the bottom of the Hole would take around a minute, so anytime now-

Faster than Hugh could blink, the floor of their vessel rushed up towards him. The alchemically reinforced paper stars absorbed a lot of momentum as they crumpled under him, and he came to an abrupt stop as his face bounced off the metal. Without Force Ward cushioning him, it would have been a brutal and instant death. As it was, he was disoriented, slightly winded, and his ears were ringing. Dimly, he recognised the sound of tearing metal in the background.

Rain was the first to regain his senses and stand up. “No injuries so far. My mana levels are at sixty percent, but regenerating fast. Artur? This direction.” He gestured with one hand. 

Talia scrambled away from the centre of the sphere, and Hugh followed suit. The base of the sphere had been cracked by the impact with the bottom of the Hole, and black stone was poking through. Likewise, the walls were dented inwards. Like Rain had predicted, the sheer momentum of the Inconceivable IV had carried it past the surface until it finally came to a stop, buried several metres deep in the stone.

Now they were going to abandon ship.

Artur took a deep breath, and the steel near the base of their ship melted away, crawling up the walls to reinforce the ceiling. Then, he rolled up his sleeves, plunged a hand into the dark stone, and closed his eyes.

Slowly at first, then accelerating, the stone started to open up into a narrow tunnel, just wide enough for an Artur-sized person to crawl through. 

Rain tensed. “Quickly. I can feel them digging into the surface.” As he said it, the ringing in Hugh’s ears died down, and he heard them for the first time - a familiar skittering noise from above the surface of their vessel, followed by the sound of steel tearing under incredible strain.

Artur didn’t even open his eyes, but the tunnel started lengthening, still barely wide enough for him. Then, he opened his eyes, and dove into the tunnel without a word. Zorian followed him, crawling on all four limbs, then Zach and Xvim, the newcomers, then Zorian’s two simulacra. 

Hugh helped Talia into position, then followed her through.

The tunnel was dark, and far too small to stand up. Hugh found himself shuffling forward on all four limbs. Since his pact with Kanderon had transferred some of her sphinx-attributes, his vision in the dark was a little better than most people’s, but even he could barely see Artur in the lead, still expanding the tunnel. The quiet sound of stone creaking and reshaping under the mage’s hands was disconcerting. Hugh was currently crawling under what was probably hundreds of tons of stone, and the thought of it all suddenly adopting the consistency of water would probably join the spiders in his nightmares later…

Then there was a crumbling sound from up ahead, and a little more light filtered past Artur’s prone form. He must have broken through. 

The next few moments were filled with a flurry of activity - all planned in advance, but still disorientingly loud. Without waiting for any of them, Artur leapt out of his tiny tunnel into the broader one they’d initially used to arrive at the base of the Hole. Although Hugh couldn’t see him, he knew what Artur was doing - immediately collapsing the larger tunnel and reinforcing the resultant barrier to prevent nearby grey hunters from following them.

In this enclosed space, the sound was deafening. A moment later, Artur poked his head back into the tunnel. “All clear up here, c’mon out.”

One by one, they piled out of the narrow tunnel and took a few breaths to recuperate. Hugh wasn’t claustrophobic and he didn’t think anyone else here was either, but he was pretty sure most people would have found that experience somewhere between unpleasant and terrifying. Rain was the last to emerge from the artificial tunnel, and as he did, Artur stomped on the entrance, collapsing that one too.

Rain’s face was hidden behind his helmet, and the words that emerged from behind it sounded more like military orders than anything else. “Thirty seconds to rest, then we move. Zorian, you and I are on rock-worm detection duty. Simulacra One and Two, you’re in charge of detecting any other new kinds of threats and alerting the rest of us. Artur, be ready to reinforce the tunnel walls if we alert you. Alustin, you’re the emergency relocator.”

Alustin nodded, and the sheets of paper nestled at Hugh’s chest and upper back twitched in response. Hugh tugged slightly at his shirt, shuffling the paper into a more comfortable position. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of the inscribed glyph - it was one that strengthened Alustin’s physical control over the paper. If there was a danger, Alustin would be able to pull people out of the way, the way Zorian had when they’d first come here, only with more individual control. 

Mackerel emerged from Hugh’s storage tattoo. Seemingly able to sense the gravity of the situation, he darted quietly to Hugh’s side, and followed as he walked to the front of the group, next to Rain.

“Let’s move.” Hugh felt the telltale pulse of one of Rain’s auras activating - Velocity. He wasn’t yet used to the strangely sudden acceleration, but Rain started the aura off at low levels, and they started moving. 

Since they’d already come along this path once, the first part of the journey was quick. Rain gradually increased the power of the Velocity aura as they travelled, and before long they were practically sprinting. The paper Alustin had deployed was already a big help here, since if someone was struggling with the unnatural speed, he could help them keep their balance. 

They arrived at the zone with the strangely heavy air. As before, they moved quickly, and minimised their spellcasting as much as possible. Rain alerted them just in time before they walked into an ambush set up by a nest of territorial lizards which seemed to be able to spit fire. It was unclear how they’d missed it on the first journey here, but this time, the lizards didn’t seem willing to let them pass without a fight. There was a brief debate about how to dispatch or avoid them without using too much magic. It came to an abrupt end when Talia fetched an Earth-grenade from her storage tattoo, got Sabae’s help to pull the pin, and blew the unfortunate lizards into bloody fragments.

Then they broke out the other side and into fresh territory - Alustin and Mackerel diverted them away from simply retracing their steps. Instead of following the same darkened tunnel that led to the great snake they’d trapped only a few days ago, Mackerel led them to a hole in the stone wall of a great cavern. Despite its size - large enough for Kanderon to squeeze through, if she tucked away her wings - it was well-hidden, tucked between boulders in a massive mound of rubble. They probably would have walked past it a dozen times without the spellbook to guide them.

The other side of the hole was dark, and shrouded in mist. 

Zorian’s friend Xvim said something, and Zorian sent through a translation:

“This route doesn’t look particularly safe.”

Alustin laughed. “Nothing about a labyrinth is safe, and this kind of labyrinth least of all.”

Zach kicked a loose rock into the wall. Hugh jumped at the sudden clattering. “Are you going to explain that? Or are you just being ominous and scary-sounding on purpose?”

Alustin raised a cautioning finger. “I was getting to that. According to Galvachren, this is the labyrinth that serves as an entrance to your world, Rain. It’s young, dangerously so, and hasn’t had time to fully take form.”

Rain tapped his foot. “Get to the point, Alustin.”

“It’s a mistform labyrinth. There are no fixed paths, and the walls will shift around us. It’s said the labyrinth itself calls to travellers, trying to lead them astray. It’s important to maintain focus on your objective, and to stay close to your allies.”

“I’m plenty focused,” growled Rain. “Anything else?”

“Mackerel won’t be able to guide us as effectively, since there’s no fixed path to our destination. Instead, it’s our intent and will that will ultimately take us to where we want to go.”

“Alright,” Rain nodded. His face was still completely hidden behind his steely-grey helmet. Since Godrick’s death and the bad news from Ameliah’s world, it seemed like the joy had gone out of his voice, replaced instead by a grim drive that wouldn’t let him stop moving. 

At least that was better than Artur. The stone-mage was still walking - and fighting - to get the rest of them home, but there was an emptiness in his eyes and words, as if Artur was completely gone, and his body and magic were carrying on without him.

Alustin held up a single piece of parchment. “I’ll keep track of everyone with my paper affinity. If anyone falls behind, I’ll pull you closer. If you get lost anyway, or encounter some danger the others haven’t noticed, tear off a piece of yours, and I’ll notice and try to find you. Everyone ready?”

There was a chorus of nods, and Alustin turned to face the formless dark mist. “Stay close to me, Hugh. If I get separated from Mackerel, then our chances of surviving this abruptly get a lot worse.”

With a lump in his throat, Hugh nodded. Mackerel flew in a tight circle around him, then slung himself back across Hugh’s back. With a final glance to Sabae - who met his eyes, and nodded encouragingly - Hugh followed Alustin as he stepped into the mist.

The ground that they walked on felt like stone under Hugh’s feet, but he felt nothing through his affinity senses - which at this point were refined enough to recognise the crystalline structures within most rocks. When he bent down to brush away the mist that obscured whatever solid surface he was standing on, more flowed into its place before Hugh could see beneath it. 

From far behind him, Hugh heard Xvim’s muffled voice say something, and then Simulacrum One’s voice translating it in his mind: “Is this mist natural?”

From just behind him, Sabae answered: “Only about a quarter of it is water. The rest is… I’m not sure, actually.”

Time seemed to lose all meaning as they walked. There were a few monster attacks to break up the monotony, but most of those were dealt with quickly. At one point Hugh thought he saw a great pair of wings beating in the distance, but when they got closer the tunnels were far too narrow to contain the shape he’d seen. 

After a while, Zach caught up to where Hugh was walking with Simulacrum One and offered them both slices of pie, presumably extracted from some extra-dimensional storage space since he wasn’t visibly carrying any bags. It was strange hearing Zach’s unintelligible words one moment, then receiving the translation in his mind from Zorian a moment later - usually accompanied with a mental tinge of scepticism, mild annoyance, and general fondness for Zach.

The simulacrum refused the pie, of course. “More for us, then.” Zach grinned widely, and passed some to Hugh.

The boy looked to be a few years younger than Hugh, but he had the same unsettling energy that Zorian did - a kind of surety in the way he carried himself. In Zorian, Hugh would have called it ‘quiet confidence’, but the same description didn’t quite seem to fit for Zach. The boy was full of questions, especially about Zorian’s experiences over the last few weeks. Even the quietly creeping mist couldn’t do much to dampen Zach’s boisterousness. 

When Hugh described their first descent into the labyrinth with Zorian, and how they’d fought a trio of massive frogs, Zach’s laughter was loud enough that it alerted a flock of aggressive birds that dove out of the mist on silent wings to attack their group. Alustin sliced them into shreds with a volley of paper darts, but Hugh was still splattered with some of the resulting viscera and feathers. Zach apologised profusely, and magically cleaned him off before Hugh could ask Rain to do the same. Now that Hugh had finished most of the pie - and discarded the rest for hygiene reasons - Zach let Hugh walk ahead and turned back to stay with the original Zorian, near the back of the group.

After a while, Sabae found her way to his side. “Can you feel it too?”

“Feel what?”

“I guess not, then. The mist, it feels like it’s calling me.”

Hugh reached out to grab Sabae’s hand, and she half-laughed, but didn’t pull her hand away.

“Don’t worry, I’m not about to go wandering away.”

He didn’t let go. “Well, there’s no point in taking any chances.”

“Fair enough. Hey, what did you think of Ersetu?”

Hugh grimaced. “Honestly? Seemed like a nice enough place, but I can’t bring myself to care. I’m worried about Artur.”

She glanced behind them, to where the burly man was walking in silence next to the much-shorter Xvim.

“He’s not coping well, is he?” commented Sabae.

Even just being reminded of Godrick made Hugh feel like there was something crushing his chest and pressing on his heart. “None of us are. Godrick was…”

“He was family,” finished Sabae for him. “There’s still a chance there’s some kind of strange magic that can bring him back, right? We’ve seen so much out here, there has to be something.”

Hugh’s mouth was dry. “Maybe. What are the odds we find it without losing someone else along the way?”

Sabae sighed. “Yeah.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes. Then Sabae spoke again:

“Do you think Kanderon did the right thing, sending us here?”

Hugh didn’t say anything for a long time. 

“I don’t know. Maybe…”

Talia wandered next to them, and they lapsed back into a quiet, communal silence. After a while, Hugh felt it - what Sabae must have been talking about. There was a strange pull - not mind control, like Zorian taking over someone’s body entirely - but an allure, the feeling that if he turned away from the rest of the group and wandered into the mist alone, that somehow he’d find what he was looking for. That Kanderon, or Godrick, was waiting behind the next corner, and all he’d need to do was find them, and everything would be right again.

He drew strength from the presences by his side, in Sabae’s fingers interlocked with his own, the dim blue light that emerged from Talia’s tattoos just ahead of him, and the comforting feeling of Alustin’s paper nestled into his chest. 

Then, after what could have been anywhere between half an hour and ten hours of trudging through the suffocatingly inert mist, Hugh felt the first breath of wind.

 

-]l[-

 

Rain

 

Wind. Finally. 

If this labyrinth was eventually supposed to lead them to the Maelstrom, then wind was a good sign, right?

Rain was bringing up the rear of the group. Even at close range, Detection’s feedback was a little sluggish here, and anything further than fifteen metres away might as well not have existed as far as his auras were concerned. There was a strange kind of pressure building as they walked, one that reminded him of Xiugaaraa, of being in the wake of those four gigantic souls.

“Stay sharp. I think we’re getting close.”

The fog was rising around them now, little eddies arising and dying out moment by moment. After the stillness of the labyrinth they’d walked through, the sound of the rising wind was at once welcome and disturbing. In the distance there seemed to be a flickering light, more like a lightning storm than a flame, but there was no thunder.

With no warning, a silhouette rushed out of the fog and crashed into Alustin. Sluggishly, slower than it was supposed to be, Rain felt the dip in his mana from Force Ward as the creature’s mandibles closed around Alustin’s torso. The paper mage managed to wriggle free, but still went tumbling backwards.

“Zorian! Heads up!” Rain shouted reflexively, and darted forwards to put himself between Alustin and the monster.

It was like nothing he’d ever seen before. The thing moved on all fours, with a strange segmented body that looked like it was armoured with an exoskeleton of white bone. It moved gracefully, like a jaguar or some other big cat. It silently backed away for a moment, clicked its armoured mandibles once, then leapt again, this time for him. 

Immolate, 10 metre radius.

Nothing happened.

Rain felt a rush of panic, and repeated the command. This time, the skill answered his call, and the creature awkwardly flailed in the air and threw itself backwards to escape the burning sphere.

What the hell?

In the corner of his eye, his interface was flickering, as if a powerful magnet was being brought dangerously close to a CRT monitor and distorting the screen.

Zach moved to stand in front of him, and a trio of tiny crystals arced out of Hugh’s storage tattoo to momentarily knock the beast off its feet. With that, Rain felt safe enough to dive into his soul. 

He couldn't.

The pathways he usually followed were still there, but they felt swollen and constricted. He couldn't get his mind through to the other side. At the same time, the pressure intensified, and Rain involuntarily brought his hand to his head. Despite not being there, he could feel that the boundaries at the edge of his soul were tearing, fracturing under the strain of the rising wind.

Reality is coming apart.

A massive wave of telekinetic force and cutting wind erupted from Zach, smashing straight into the cat-like creature’s carapace and sending it careening away, out of sight. He heard the sound of clicking mandibles, but the creature didn’t emerge from the mist again - at least not immediately.

Why is Zach’s magic working?

Sudden realisation hit at the same time as the combination of the wind and the pressure on his soul knocked him to his knees.

It’s not reality coming apart. It’s the System. 

“My magic is failing,” Rain shouted, unable to keep the smile from his face.

Alustin got up from where the creature had knocked him to the ground, groaning. “And why do you sound happy about that?”

“The Maelstrom is a tear in the fabric of the System that governs my world. If my skills are failing me, it means we might be close. We should-”

The creature darted out of the mist, this time coming for the rear of their group. “Stay clear!” Rain shouted, barely loud enough to be heard above the wind. “My wards won’t protect you!”

Xvim gestured with a hand, and the creature collided with a pale wall of force. Then Talia stepped out, and looked for all the world like she was trying to cast a spell with her severed right arm. She faltered for a moment, looking down at her hands with a lost expression.

Then her blue tattoos ignited, brighter than Rain had seen them before. A twisting blue lattice of tattoo-lines moved through the air where her severed arm ought to be. It was as if her right arm was only invisible, not gone entirely. Ribbons of iridescent purple fire twisted outwards, emerging from the tips of invisible fingers. They moved through Xvim’s glimmering shield as if it wasn’t there and burnt their way through the creature’s bony carapace, leaving a cloud of red-hot iron filings settling to the floor in their wake. The wind whipped away most of the burning smoke before it could reach Rain, but the whiff he did get was painfully acrid, and Rain coughed. 

Talia was looking at her hands now, one flesh-and-blood and the other a web of blue lines where her skin ought to be. “Zorian?”

The young mage walked over to the still-twitching body of the creature and severed its head with a spinning disc of force. The twitching stopped. “Yes?”

“You can cancel that prosthetic arm I ordered.”

Zorian frowned at her. “Won’t you still need it for like, picking things up?” 

She made what might have been a rude gesture with the lattice of tattoos that were in the place of her right arm. “Well, yeah, I guess, but not for magic. That’s pretty cool, right?”

Zach said something back to her, but Rain couldn’t hear it - the wind was still rising, and he cupped his hands to shout over it: “We need to hurry! I can’t stay here long.” Just as he said it, he felt the connection to Essence Well fail - the current of mana he was sending to Zorian ceased.

Zorian and his simulacra looked up immediately, and an expression of worry flickered across their faces. Then, the mage shared a glance with Zach, who immediately moved to where Rain was now breathing heavily. “We’re going to try to shelter you from the storm.”

“What do you mean?” Rain asked, interspersed with shallow breaths. “You know it’s not the literal wind that’s bothering me, right?”

Zorian jogged to Rain’s side, and his simulacra followed. “No, it’s the disruption from the currents in the mana. We don’t know how they work or what they’re doing to you, but if we just try to establish a dimensional barrier… Xvim?”

The older man joined them, clustered around where Rain was kneeling, and said something in Ikosian that Rain only partially understood:

“We could <something> the storm? A technique similar to the boundary used in the construction of <something> rooms may be helpful here.”

Zach and Zorian nodded in unison, and the three mages - five, including the two simulacra - began weaving a spell of some kind. At first, there was no perceptible change, then a lattice of thin golden lines appeared just above the surface of Rain’s armour. He turned his hand over, marvelling at the colour, and a moment later the pressure on his soul eased. It wasn’t gone - it still felt terrifying and almost painful, the same as being near Burrik - but it stopped feeling like the molecules of his body were about to lose cohesion entirely and blow away in the wind.

Xvim’s face was calm, and although he spoke quietly, Rain could still hear him over the storm: “I can’t hold this <something> forever. We should move.”

Rain nodded, and got to his feet. Even his rings were beyond control now, and without the usual cushioning strength from his stat boosts, moving around in his armour was a little more difficult than he’d got used to. 

It’s lucky I didn’t have anything stored with Heavy Armour Inventory… what would happen to my equipment if it wasn’t physically here and I lost access to the skill? Would it be gone forever?

Acting on instructions from Alustin, the others in the group adopted a loose square formation around Rain, and they resumed walking. It was strange to be the protected, instead of the protector, but Rain was grateful they were here. Even so, without access to his magic, he felt more vulnerable now than he had in a long, long time. 

Is this how the subject of an escort quest feels? This sucks even more than doing the quest.

The strange shimmering walls of the labyrinth had receded now, and it felt like they were walking through a vast, flat space, like a desert. The light in the distance had faded now. Hugh’s floating crystal cast a small circle of light, but outside of that, the whirling sand and wind stretched off into the dark. As they moved, the wind continued to grow in strength, and before long Zach conjured some kind of wind-shield to protect them from the worst of it. Even so, Rain could hear it howling outside, trying to batter its way in.

Even Zorian was struggling now, Rain could tell. The effort of shielding Rain from the fraying edges of the System must have been immense, and the signs of that struggle were showing on his allies' faces. Only Xvim remained stoic, walking quietly and showing no hint of the effort it must have been to keep the System at bay.

Just as Rain thought it might overcome them, the wind started to die away. Around them, as if they were stepping over some invisible barrier, the storm abruptly abated, giving way to clear blue skies. It was daylight, not the strange flickering glare of the labyrinth, and Rain could see clearly around him for the first time in what felt like hours. 

Even though the wind was quieting now, the anxious look on Zorian’s face only intensified.

“What is it, Zorian?”

“The mana currents haven’t died down with the wind. If anything, they’re stronger now. They’re active now, too.”

Rain frowned. “What do you mean?”

Zorian twitched with the strain of holding the spell. “It’s fighting us. Disrupting the dimensional barrier.”

“Maybe… just let it get through to me?”

Zorian looked alarmed, and shared a quick glance with Zach. “What? Are you sure it won’t kill you?”

“I’m not sure sure. But I haven’t altered my soul since I left this world, at least not in ways that are foreign to it. I haven’t tried to learn the new skills you’ve shown me, and I haven’t tried to exceed the strength it gave me. I’m hoping that the System will let me return.” Rain exhaled slowly. “There’s not much to do but try.”

Zorian still looked wary, but nodded slowly. “If you say so.” He said a word in Ikosian to Xvim and Zach.

Rain looked down at the shimmering lines of gold above his hands, and they slowly faded away.

At once, he felt the strength of the System rushing down onto him, coursing through his soul, verifying what was proper and purging what was not. His wards returned at full strength, and his macros re-activated. He fired off a max-range Detection pulse - there were no unknown signals within range.

At the same time, he felt a number of skills vanish entirely - Airwalk, Heavy Armour Inventory, Mana Sight, Energy Well - everything Ameliah had shared with him via Unity before he’d left that the System had let him keep when he was taken.

A blue-background dialog box materialised in his vision:

Connection signal re-established Notifying Administrator of unexpected behaviour Error: Administrator not found Notice: Administrator approval required due to warning flags Error: Administrator not found Entering debug mode... Scanning User... 0 new Corrupted Natural Skills detected 19 Granted Skills detected Suppressing... Granted Skills suppressed User Reintegrated

A wave of relief swept through him, and Rain almost wept at the release of the tension that had been building for a month.

I’m home.

Immediately, he sent signal pulses through to all of his communication anchors. He hadn’t been able to send Ameliah a message in almost an hour, she must have been worried. Then, he took a deep breath and looked up at the familiar skies. 

“Welcome to Ameliah’s world! I hope you like it here as much as I do.” Taken by a whimsical mood, he spun in a circle, still looking at the clear blue sky.

No time to get sentimental. There’s still danger, and there’s still work to do.

He turned around to face the others, and froze in place.

Everyone was looking at him, some with happy expressions on their faces, some still wary, and some clearly exhausted by the journey and just relieved to be free of the storm. But above their heads, there were familiar boxes. 

He looked at Zorian first. The boy looked back at him calmly, oblivious to the label that the System had somehow seen fit to assign to him:

Mind Eater - Level 51

Oh, fuck.

Chapter 24: Inconceivable

Zorian

 

Rain was looking at him oddly. 

Zorian couldn’t see his face, obscured as it was behind the steel-grey metal of his helmet. But the aura mage stood perfectly still, his feet planted in place as the wind blew sand-grains past them. The channel of mana coming from Rain had resumed, and with it, the mental link Zorian maintained with the aura mage whenever possible. 

Thus far, the only emotion Zorian could feel from Rain was a muted sense of dread.

Rain raised his hands - slowly and precisely - to remove his helmet. Physically, rather than vanishing it with magic, as Zorian had seen him do dozens of times. When the man’s face emerged from under the metal, it was in an expression of forced calm. 

The others must have noticed Rain’s expression too, because the conversation that had started behind Zorian faded away as they waited for him to speak.

“The System has labelled you as essence monsters.”

Zorian tried to remember the details of the first discussion with Harry and Rain about the System on this world. It governed the magic available to those who lived here, and held back the incursion of other worlds, somehow. It had been ruptured by some conflict between the most powerful beings on this world, creating the Maelstrom - the storm from which they’d just emerged. 

“What does that mean?” Hugh asked.

Rain took a half-step away from them and rubbed a hand across his eyes. “It means that whoever kills you will be rewarded by the System. I don’t know how this happened, but it’s bad. Really bad.”

“System?” Alustin asked, the curiosity clear in his voice. “Galvachren mentioned some sort of structured framework that governed the flow of aether here, but I didn’t get the impression it would be so pro-active.”

Rain turned outwards, and shut his eyes for a moment. Zorian felt the flicker of mana that indicated that Rain was pulsing Detection at unusually high power, and then the man turned back to them. 

“Alright,” Rain said, holding his helmet loosely under one armoured arm. “There’s no-one within a kilometre of here, so I should have at least a minute to explain before someone tries to jump us. This is the condensed version. Power on Ameliah’s world is dictated by levels - and builds, but that’s not important right now. Anyone with a level is called ‘Awakened’, and they’re the equivalent of magic users on your worlds. I’m level 30, and with my armour and soul magic there’s probably only a few hundred people on this planet that could beat me in a fight.”

It seemed like Zach wanted to say something there, but he cut off the words as Rain sent him a serious look. Rain continued the explanation:

“The only way - barring stuff almost no-one knows about - for an Awakened to increase their level cap is to kill an essence monster.”

“That’s… us,” Sabae said, with a note of tension in her voice. “People will want to kill us for the System’s reward?”

“Exactly,” Rain said. His brows were furrowed with concentration. “I’ve never heard of an essence monster taking a form that was anywhere near as human as yours are, so maybe that will stop people from attacking on sight…”

He shook his head, dismissing that line of thought. “With the levels you have, I’d expect anyone who saw you to assume you were some kind of monster in an elaborate disguise, and either flee in terror or try to kill you on sight.”

“What about your friends here?” Talia asked. “This Ameliah person you keep talking about?”

Rain exhaled slowly. “Ascension has coped with some pretty insane changes over time. I think they’ll handle this, if I vouch for you all. Definitely the inner circle, we can trust them. But I can’t stress this enough. If the System’s labels are accurate, we’re talking about a ticket to immense power if someone slips a dagger through one of your ribs, or even gives you a poisoned drink or something. If you’re around people, you need to be careful, because the odds of someone deciding to try their luck is... well, it’s not zero. Especially not for you, Zorian.”

Zorian blinked. “Why especially me?”

Rain held up one finger. “First, the System has decided that you’re level 51, which means that if I killed you, I’d be a Goldplate and would rapidly become far more powerful. As in, it’s difficult to even describe.”

Rain said it in an offhand, almost casual way, and both from knowing Rain and from the emotional signals coming across their telepathic link, it was obvious to Zorian that he meant it purely hypothetically. Even so, everyone else tensed up at that. Zach stepped protectively in front of Zorian and raised a hand to conjure a shield around the pair of them. 

Rain was looking contemplatively into the distance, and didn’t even notice the reaction he’d induced. He just raised a second finger, and continued. “Secondly, it’s chosen a particularly ominous name for you.”

There was a short silence, then a question from Xvim, who sounded uncharacteristically surprised. “The construct that controls magic on your world names things?”

There was another pause as a simulacrum mentally translated Xvim’s words for the others, then Talia asked the obvious follow up question: “Well? What did it name us?”

Rain took a deep breath, and pointed at Talia. “Burning Nightmare, level 24.”

Talia puffed out her chest slightly at the impressive-sounding name, which seemed like altogether the wrong reaction to Zorian. If they were going to be walking around this world with a bounty on their heads and an identifying label floating above them, then the ideal label was one that was as friendly and non-threatening as possible. Talia’s System-name was about as far away from ‘friendly and non-threatening’ as it was possible to get.

Rain went on, and pointed to Hugh. “Crystal Warder, level 22.” Then Sabae: “Storm-cloaked Wraith, level 22. Mackerel is… it doesn’t really translate perfectly, but a ‘Spatial Germ’ I think? Level 12. Alustin, you’re a Parchment Revenant, level 27. Artur, Earthshaker Golem, level 33.”

Rain paused for a moment, switching on the fly from his near-perfect Ithonian to his much more rusty Ikosian for the second half of their group. Simulacrum One was translating, so while Rain was demonstrating an impressive command of the languages, it wasn’t really necessary.

“Xvim, you’re an Arcane Aegis, level 28. Zach, you’re a level 49 Dragonsbane.”

Rain paused, hesitating as he pointed at Zorian. “...Mind Eater, level 51. Your simulacra show up in the System as well, as regular - non-essence monsters, I mean - of the same level. Level 51 Thralls, it’s calling them.”

Mind Eater.

Ah. Perhaps ‘Burning Nightmare’ wasn’t as far from friendly and non-threatening as possible. 

As Hugh took a shuffling half-step away from him, Simulacrum One spoke up, sounding indignant. “I am not a thrall. Where are these names coming from, anyway?”

Rain was clearly deep in thought. “I have theories, but nothing I can say for sure. Give me a moment, I need to talk to the Warden.” He closed his eyes, and Zorian felt his consciousness recede. 

While they waited for Rain to return, Zach nudged Zorian’s shoulder with his own. His face was twisted in a small frown. “I can’t say I was expecting a warm welcome, but this is worse than I thought. We’re prestige targets now, I guess? People are going to try to kill us on sight?”

Zorian grimaced. “Seems that way. We should try to finish up our business here as quickly as we can, then get out. Staying here for any length of time is a risk.” 

Simulacra One and Two sent messages of emphatic agreement across their telepathic link.

Zach’s grimace turned thoughtful and he looked at Zorian appraisingly. “2 levels ahead of me, eh ‘mind eater’? And ‘Dragonsbane’? Is that really what the System came up with? Not very fitting, in my opinion. I’ve done plenty more interesting things than slay dragons.”

Alustin shook his head. “You’re thinking about this the wrong way, Zach. We’re not the target audience of these names. Hells, we can’t even see them. Whoever - or whatever - chose these names, their purpose must be to influence the people who can see them - the native inhabitants of this world.”

With that, Rain’s eyes opened again. It had only been thirty seconds for the rest of them, so Rain had probably experienced almost an hour inside his soul. “We need to get moving. Ascension’s airship is on its way. I’ve advised them to stay far away from the storm, given how dangerous it was for me, so we’ve got a half hour's march under Velocity to reach the rendezvous point. This is Empire-controlled territory, so I don’t want to risk using offworld magic like teleportation in case they’re on the lookout for strange magical effects coming out of the Maelstrom. That means we’re stuck with running for now.”

Rain started jogging, and the others fell into a rough formation behind him.

Zorian’s time in the loop hadn’t done much for his physical endurance, since while his mind and soul were maintained when the Sovereign Gate reset the world around him, each restart undid any progress he’d made physically and put him back in the relatively unfit body he’d started with. Ever since leaving the loop, he’d tried to get exercise when he could - it was clear that physical fitness was useful in a broad range of situations. On top of that, a month of travelling and fighting with the absurdly-fit Rain had done a lot to improve his fitness. Even so, Rain set a punishing pace. It was only because of Rain’s Velocity aura and Alustin’s stabilising parchment - still tucked down the front of his shirt, and helping to keep him steady - that Zorian was able to keep pace with the Anastans.

After a little while of getting up to pace, Rain slowed down to fall in next to Zach and Zorian. “I spoke with the Warden. Got her thoughts on things.”

Zorian added on a note of explanation for Zach: “The mind of a great mage from this planet. She lives inside his head.”

Zach nodded, and Rain continued: “The System doesn’t name monsters, she said. It just… doesn’t happen. Monsters are named by the people who first encounter them.”

Zach scratched his chin. “So if I was the first to encounter a monster I could call it a ‘Petulant Milk-Drinker’ and everyone else who saw it would be forced to use that name?”

“Not exactly. For lairs it actually does work like that, but for monsters, the name is drawn from the mind of the observer rather than being chosen explicitly. There are examples of monsters like the ‘Face Stabbing Face Stabber’, but that’s because that’s what came into the mind of the person who saw it for the first time. You couldn’t choose a silly name on purpose, you’d have to have a… silly disposition, I suppose.”

“The only person here that was already connected to the System is you,” Zorian noted. “Are you saying that ‘Mind Eater’ was the first thing that came into your mind when you saw me?”

Rain winced. “Sort of. The Warden’s theory is that the System drew what it could from my mind, and chose the most intimidating names from what it could find in my head. Because it’s trying to kill you.”

Zach stumbled, but stayed upright when the parchment at his chest took his weight. “Excuse me? Your world is trying to kill us?”

Rain waggled a hand in the air. “The System isn’t the world itself, it’s the structure imposed on the world by a long gone near-omnipotent civilisation. I think. But basically, yeah. The System is treating you as a threat, and it wants you dead.”

As Zorian turned over the details in his mind, it seemed to make sense, at least in a perverse way. The names they’d been given had several things in common. They were uniformly intimidating, the sort of thing that would make a stranger give them a wide berth or treat them as a threat. They also seemed to be strangely centred on Rain’s knowledge. Zach was right, ‘Dragonsbane’ was something of an odd name, at least for anyone who knew Zach well - but slaying a dragon was one of the few things Rain had actually seen Zach do.

In contrast, Rain had spent a while with Zorian by now, and knew him pretty well. ‘Mind Eater’ was probably close to the most terrifying name anyone could have chosen for him. Even back home in Eldemar, people shrank away from him when they learned he was a skilled mind mage. With a title like ‘Mind Eater’ hovering immutably above his head, people would probably turn and run - or try to kill him - before he had a chance to explain that he’d never even come close to doing anything that could be described as eating minds.

In response to that thought, the simulacra helpfully flashed a collection of relevant memories to him across their telepathic link to prove him wrong. A restart in which he and Zach attacked innocent aranean colonies so that Zorian could rip through their minds, with the eventual goal of understanding the strange creatures well enough to decode the memory packet Spear of Resolve had left inside his mind. Another series of restarts in which he’d tracked down invaders and cultists with the express purpose of learning how to better slice through their mind shields to extract secrets. A more recent memory of two days in which both Zach and Red Robe had been absorbed into fake worlds Zorian had constructed for them. During that time, he’d had total control over their life and experience, and erased Red Robe’s memories at will, resetting him to a prior, known state. And last and most painfully, the memory of escaping from the Sovereign Gate to the real world and seizing control of the real Zorian’s body. The memory of holding the soul of the child he had once been in his hand, and then letting it drift away into the afterlife.

Zorian responded to the simulacra with a mixture of shame, guilt, and mild annoyance. They knew as well as he did that he held himself back as much as possible. Whenever he made the choice to reach into the mind of another and take control, it was because there were more lives at stake - and even then, there were people who thought he erred too far on the side of restraint, Xvim included.

Eating a mind, the way the System-name was falsely implying he’d done to the simulacra ‘Thralls’ - overriding someone's mind to make them a living, independent copy of himself - honestly, Zorian couldn’t confidently say it was outside the reach of his abilities. He’d been lucky, in a sense, to avoid situations where it would have been the only way. 

Still running at what would have been a flat-out sprint for anyone without Rain’s enhancing auras, their group crested a hill. They were slowly leaving the sandy desert behind, and sparse trees dotted the landscape. There was a lake in the distance, but even at this pace, it looked like it was still a while away.

“That explains the names,” Zorian said, “but the levels still don’t make a lot of sense to me. Zach and I might have more experience than the others, but I wouldn’t say I’m twice the threat that Alustin is.” He had to pause in the middle of the sentence to catch a breath. Even with the aura accelerating his movement, he was starting to get tired.

Rain didn’t sound short of breath at all as he responded: “The Warden isn’t sure, but she thinks the System has given you levels in proportion to the danger you pose to the System itself.”

That was a strange idea. Without access to any physical object to interact with, Zorian couldn’t really see any way to affect the System that governed this world at all, let alone threaten its existence. Maybe he had a better shot at it than Artur or Alustin did, but even then he wouldn’t have any idea of where to start.

Maybe overloading an existing enchantment on this world could create local resonances that allowed examining the System in greater detail? The dimensional barrier that he, Zach and Xvim had used to protect Rain from the Maelstrom would also be an interesting technique to experiment with, now that they were more firmly in the System’s domain. Without the great storm limiting the System’s reach, holding it at bay would take far more energy, but it might produce novel results. 

Rain had said the System was created by a long-gone civilisation. Perhaps some of their artefacts were still around? If so, experimenting with them would be a good place to start.

Now that he’d given it even a minute of thought, there were actually quite a few options available if he wanted to start investigating the System that governed this world. Maybe it had been right to see him as a threat.

“So,” asked Zorian, “if the System wants us dead, is there anything else we can expect? Meteors raining from the sky? Getting excised from reality like the Exile Splinter did to Ithos?”

“I’ve never heard of the System acting directly to do anything other than enforce the damage limit,” Rain said. “But then again, I’ve never heard of the System doing this either. Stay on your toes, I guess?”

Zorian felt the Velocity aura fade, and Rain brought them to a stop. “Alright, we’re close to the airship. I’ve signalled them to start the descent.”

Zach looked upwards, squinting into the glare of the sun. “I don’t see anything.”

During the long journey to Earth, they’d spent a while swapping spell techniques. Even after watching the Anastans cast their spells and keeping careful track of how the mana flowed in their constructs, their more complex spells were still beyond him. They seemed to depend on different ‘types’ of mana - something that he hadn’t yet quite understood. With their assistance, he’d managed to shape their ‘typed’ mana in spells of his own construction - like when leaving the reflected Earth for the real one, but without a means of producing planar mana by himself, those spells were still unavailable when the Anastans weren’t nearby to collaborate.

Still, even just the cantrips - which could be performed with any type of mana, and were fairly similar to spells from Ersetu - were a useful addition to his repertoire. Zorian gestured with one hand. A slight shimmer materialised around both Zach and Zorian’s eyes as he completed the spell, and Zach gasped as the glare receded, letting him see more clearly.

Hundreds of metres above them was a strange airship. Even from this distance, Zorian could sense the ebb and flow of mana as it coursed through the dozens of enchantments woven into its frame. There were two powerful-looking engines built into each of the craft’s squat wings which reminded Zorian of the helicopters he’d seen on Earth. The sun glinted brightly off the crystal-glass windshield at the front of the vessel, making Zorian once again thankful for the modified cantrip shielding his eyes.

“That’s incredible,” said Sabae in a voice quiet with awe. “I’ve never seen any craft that large fly by mechanical means.”

“It’s not quite as big as the Pearl of Aranhal,” Zach said half-proudly. “But it still looks pretty impressive, I have to admit.”

Zorian couldn’t help but notice the sidelong glance from his mentor. I guess we never got around to telling the real Xvim about the airship heist, huh.

“Can’t you fly us up there?” asked Hugh. 

“Not anymore,” Rain said. “Since I arrived back here, I’ve lost all the skills Ameliah was sharing with me. Airwalk, Energy Well, Heavy Armour Inventory, things like that. Besides, Airwalk on this planet has a strict height limit of one league - about five kilometres, in metric units - above the surface, and won’t work at any altitude above that. One of the reasons we built the airship was so we could travel higher than that limit to avoid threats.” 

The nervous energy coming from Rain must have been obvious even to those without natural empathy, because Alustin nudged Rain discreetly. “Excited to see Ameliah again?”

Rain shook his head. “No. Well yes, of course I am, but she’s not on board. She stayed behind with Ascension to hold things together. Tallheart will be here though, and Jamus and Shu.”

Alustin raised his eyebrows. “Tallheart - is that the rune-maker who helped you with the construction of Harry’s affinity?”

Rain laughed distractedly, eyes still locked on the descending ship. “That’s not the actual name of his class, but yeah.” 

Conversation ceased as the sound from the rotors became loud enough to drown out any words. 

The airship touched down to the grass, and a giant man stepped out, stooping to make sure his antlers didn’t scrape the top of the door. The strange-looking man - who was probably Tallheart, judging from the way Rain bodily launched himself at him and embraced him - was almost as tall as Artur, although that was counting the multi-pronged antlers that protruded from the top of his head. 

“Some kind of deer-shifter?” Zach asked quietly enough that only Zorian and Xvim could hear him.

“Seems plausible,” Xvim mused, “but given the differences we’ve already seen, it would be premature to think this world has the same kind of shifting magic as Ersetu. He could simply be a member of another human-like species.”

Rain and Tallheart gripped each other tightly, and two more people stepped off the airship behind them. Unlike Tallheart, these two seemed to be fairly conventional humans. One was younger, with pale skin and short hair. The other was middle-aged and wearing bright orange robes. 

Zach waved a hand to them. “Hello, Tallheart, Jamus and Shu!” he said loudly. “Hey Rain, how do you say ‘hello’ in this language?”

The two men froze in place when they saw Rain’s group of companions, and Zorian tensed slightly in response. A flurry of words passed between them, and one of them shouted for Rain’s attention.

Rain let go of Tallheart and turned to greet them, but paused when he saw their faces. 

“Don’t do anything!” Rain said loudly in this world’s native tongue. “They’re not monsters, they’re friendly! We’re all friendly here!”

Rain kept his hands raised to keep the two groups apart - more as a symbol than anything practical, since his auras would prevent anyone from harming anyone else with anything less than serious magic. “Remember what I said over the anchors - it’s all System fuckery. I trust these people with my life. I asked them to come here to help Ascension.”

After so long together - and a near-constantly maintained channel of mental communication - reading the intention behind Rain’s words was simple. The newcomers - with the exception of Tallheart - seemed to have practically no mind shields, so it wouldn’t have been tricky to glean the meaning of their words from their surface-level thoughts. That would have meant intruding into other minds, and if there was a way to avoid that, then Zorian preferred to take it. In this case, because Rain was nearby, it was easy to listen for his understanding of the words to interpret the meaning.

The younger man had a nervous look in his eyes. “How can you be sure? Level 51 Mind Eater? He - it - could probably kill us all in a matter of seconds. Or consume us, or turn us into more of its thralls. Like Fecht.” His voice went quiet for the last two words, like he was invoking a name he didn’t want anyone to hear.

His eyes flickered away from Rain to Zorian, then back to Rain. “No disrespect Captain, but how are we even supposed to know you’re really Rain, and not just another puppet?”

Rain sounded a little unsure of how to respond. “How could I prove that? Um, I remember all of Ascension’s bylaws and codes. I remember every word you’ve spoken to me, if you want me to recite them. And you know I still have control over my aura anchors, which have been sheltering you the whole time I’ve been gone. And-”

The orange-robed man looked a little more composed than his comrade - who seemed to be on the verge of turning to flee - but still cut Rain off to ask: “If someone seized control of your mind and body, wouldn’t they also obtain your memories and magic?”

Rain spluttered, but didn’t immediately have a response. Even though it was objectively bad news that his people were questioning his identity, Zorian felt a spike of schadenfreude at seeing someone else try to deal with the suspicion that mind magic aroused in so many people. 

Tallheart put one of his arms on one of Rain’s shoulders and spoke in a deep, rumbling voice. “If Rain is lost, then we are all already lost as well. If he is not, and these people are truly his friends, I will accept them as mine.”

He turned to face Artur, who was protectively standing at the head of the group. “Welcome, Stone Golem.” He extended a single massive hand.

<Simulacrum One? Can you handle translation? Maybe speak the words out loud after people say them?>

<This is getting to be quite a lot>, came the response. <Help, please?>

The other simulacrum joined in the translation effort. Keeping three languages straight - one of which Zorian didn’t even really know - was a pretty monumental effort. It was probably a good idea to create some more simulacra when he got the chance. That said, now was a uniquely bad time for it, since foreign displays of magic might risk antagonising Rain’s friends. 

Artur shook Tallheart’s outstretched hand. “Thank you, Tallheart. My name is Artur, and these are my companions.” He began to list off the other people there.

After some brief introductions, Rain hurried them back onto the airship, and they took off. The airship clearly wasn’t built for this many people. It was an extremely tight squeeze, enough so that Zorian offered to stow people in the Imperial Orb. Rain refused, saying it was better to have all hands on deck in case something went wrong. So as the airship took off, the Anastans were packed into the rear cargo area of the airship with Xvim, and Zorian’s simulacra, while Rain, Tallheart and Shu were by the crystal-glass window at the fore of the vessel. Zorian was squeezed up against the exterior wall, which seemed to be made of aluminium - a metal Zorian only knew from Earth - with Zach by his side, and Jamus sitting on a bench awkwardly close to them.

“So,” said Zach, clearly trying to make conversation. “How many continents are there on Ameliah’s world?” 

Jamus looked confused for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Is that what he’s been calling it? Oh man, she’s going to kill him for this.”

With Rain in the control centre and no longer actively listening to the conversation, Zorian had to use a different strategy to decipher the foreign language. He’d taken to sending Rain streams of words and relying on the aura mage’s absurd time-acceleration abilities to act as a live dictionary. Even with the simulacra doing the lion's share of the work, handling the three active conversations onboard the Inconceivable at once was pushing the limits of both Zorian and Rain’s abilities. Together, they were just about able to make it work. 

Jamus took off his orange hat and dusted it. He was probably just looking for something to do with his hands, since Rain’s presence meant the entire airship was perfectly clean. “There are four major continents here: Bellost, Rellagia, Karmark, and Ekrustia. We took the airship from Bellost to Ekrustia to meet you all here, and now we’ll be making the return journey.”

He looked up and down at Zach, clearly still somewhat wary. “You’re not actually monsters, right? You were born?”

Zach laughed. “We're all flesh and blood creatures, same as you.” He glanced across at one of the simulacra. “Well, most of us are. Some of us are made of ectoplasm. Is that right, Zorian?”

Zorian gritted his teeth. With their hosts clearly on edge, now might have been a good time to overlook the simulacra. “A magical ectoplasm construct built on a metallic skeletal structure.”

Zach held his hands out in a placating gesture. “Whatever anyone happens to be physically made of, I wouldn’t call anyone here a monster, and we’re all friendly, I can promise you that at least.” He reached out to clap Jamus on the shoulder.

“Good, good,” said Jamus, sounding relieved. “Names like Dragonsbane and Mind Eater, I hope you understand if I sound nervous. As far as I know, we’ve only ever had visitors from offworld twice before, and both of them more or less reshaped the planet.” 

Jamus looked out the window. They were still rising, but by this point they were already higher than the Pearl of Aranhal’s typical travelling height. The wind was rushing by, and it felt like the airship was still picking up speed. Even though the rotors outside must have been deafening, some kind of muffling runes meant the conversations inside could be held at a normal volume.

“Sorry, twice?” Zach asked. “Rain and… oh right, the Ascendant.”

Jamus nodded grimly. “Rain brought great things with him when he arrived. Lightbulbs, flying machines, and even among those miracles, the idea of Ascension was probably the greatest gift. There are thousands of people alive today who would be dead if it wasn’t for him, maybe tens of thousands.”

Zorian thought back to the aura anchors Rain had placed around Earth. Rain had an almost unhealthy dedication to helping people, and it wasn’t hard to imagine the aura mage changing things for the better on whatever world he found himself.

Jamus sighed and wiped a hand across his forehead. “Now that Splendour has fallen and the Empire has made an example of the city of North Harbour, the Ascendant might have caused that many deaths in the week it’s been here. I wasn’t sure what would warrant a System-wide ‘Warn’ message, but I don’t think anyone expected this.”

“Sorry, what?” Zorian asked. Rain hadn’t mentioned anything like that.

“We figure it must have been the day the Ascendant arrived from offworld. The timing lines up, at least, and no-one has any other theories for what could have caused it,” Jamus explained. “Every Awakened on the planet got an alert in their System interface. Just one word: ‘Warn’. It’s the first time that’s ever happened. We were worried it would happen again when you all arrived, maybe even multiple times. We’re lucky it didn’t, otherwise our enemies would know we’ve got offworlders on our side too.”

Jamus nervously grinned at them, and Zach grinned back. Zorian looked out the crystal porthole instead. He could see why Rain had named the other crafts they’d hastily built in their travels after this one - much of the construction was similar, although more care had been taken on this vessel than probably all the other Inconceivables put together. The metallic aluminium skin was stretched out across the stronger bones of the craft, which Zorian recognised as being made of titanium - the same metal that Harry had transfigured for him, and now formed much of the bones of his simulacra. The strange magic of this world was everywhere - unfamiliar runes were woven into every part of the craft, from the skin of the vessel to the struts holding everything together to the bizarre power core which seemed to provide the energy the craft needed to function. Even if they managed to solve Rain’s problems on this world quickly, Zorian resolved to stick around until he had time to take a good look at the runes themselves. There was knowledge here, and unlike the inscrutable enchantments Earth’s wizards used without understanding, Zorian got the feeling these runes would mesh quite well with his own artificing style.

Outside the window, the surface was far away. Apart from the descent to Earth from the Pioneer probe - and he’d been hidden in an extra-dimensional space for that - this was higher than Zorian had ever been before. They’d left the land behind a while ago, and were now high enough above the ocean that the white of the cresting waves was barely visible. 

<Rain, how fast are we going?> Zorian asked across their mental link. <How long till we arrive?>

<The instruments say we’re a bit below top speed because of all the extra passengers and the corresponding extra weight, so if nothing goes wrong we’ll arrive in about eighteen hours.>

<Alright, wake me up when we arrive, or if anything unexpected happens.>

With Zach and Jamus talking strategy next to him, Zorian leant his head against the crystal window, and sank into an impromptu rest.

 

-]l[-

 

Rain

 

Thick droplets of water started to splash onto the windshield.

Although the Inconceivable had risen above the lowest of the clouds, the thunderhead in front of them stretched high enough into the sky that they didn’t want to risk going over it, and was far too wide for them to go around. 

Besides, some cloud cover would come in handy. They’d been lucky so far, but the risk of some agent of the Adamant Empire noticing their passage was weighing heavily on Rain. Flying this high would be impossible for most System-users, but the Warden assured him that Lightbreaker - and probably some of his more powerful servants - would be able to bend the System’s rules to follow them here. That wasn’t even considering the hypersonic pursuer who had chased them on Anastis, and had now arrived here a week before Rain had. 

They were high enough that the Warden thought leviathans would be unable to sense their passing. But to that she’d attached a note of caution - no-one had survived enough encounters with the monstrous creatures that lurked below the waves to be certain of exactly where their limits were, if such limits existed at all.

Tallheart shifted in his seat at the control panel. “Your new companions are numerous. You think they will help us?”

Rain leant back into his chair. “I hope so. Zorian has fought the Ascendant before, and we at least managed to escape. That’s more than most have been able to do.”

Tallheart grunted. “Hmm. That is not the most promising feat.”

Rain gestured helplessly. “What else are we supposed to do? There’s no one else we can look to for help. Splendour has fallen to Lightbreaker and the Bank is in disarray, the DKE Citizens are all long dead, and apparently the Watch somehow got caught up in a coup in the middle of all of this? And High King Kev… the Warden thinks that involving him would make the situation worse, although I have no idea how that would even be possible.”

Tallheart rumbled, and Rain smiled - he'd missed that sound. “I do not mean to say it is in vain, merely that our chances in a direct conflict seem... slim"

Shu spoke up from where he was gazing out the windshield. “The odds have always been bad when going against the Adamant Empire. The best we can hope for is to evade them, or hold them at bay for long enough that they decide to leave us alone.”

There was fear and tension swirling in Shu’s soul. Ever since the man had defected from the Adamant Empire’s army - something few people had done and lived to tell about it - he’d been on the run with Ascension. For a time, that had meant relative safety, while the Empire cannibalised the remains of the Democratic Kingdoms. Now that the Empire had turned its focus outward, it made sense that Shu would be feeling the pressure more than most. 

Rain rubbed a hand over his eyes. For so long, he’d wanted more than anything else to find his way back to this world. Now that he was here, his anxiety had only grown. There was so much he needed to do…

Tallheart squeezed his shoulder. “You will not want to rest when we arrive. I know that. You should take the opportunity now, like your friends.” He jerked his head toward the rear of the vessel, where Zorian seemed to be asleep with his head resting on Zach’s shoulder. 

Rain sighed. “You’re right. I’ll set up a Detection macro to alert me if anything new comes into range. You two can handle steering, right?”

Tallheart chuckled, a warm, low sound. “We managed on the way here, did we not?”

“Alright,” Rain smiled and shifted into a more comfortable position. “It’s good to be back.” 

“It’s good to have you back, Captain,” said Shu, still staring out the windshield into the massive cloudbank.

“Indeed,” agreed Tallheart. 

The sound of droplets of water drumming on the roof of their craft - muted as it was by the muffle runes - was calming, and the world drifted away.

Chapter 25: Integration

Notes:

This chapter contains some minor spoilers for the (currently Patreon-only) chapter 271.

Rain 

 

It wasn’t the weather that woke him up - although it might have been, if not for the muffle runes built into their craft. Outside the crystalline windshield, sheets of raindrops scythed through the air and the occasional flash of lightning illuminated the towering clouds. 

It wasn’t the sudden jerk of the aircraft to the left either, although the movement almost threw Rain out of his chair before he managed to grab the armrests.

Burning bright in the centre of Rain’s vision was a single dialog box:

—WARN—

Tallheart grunted, gripping the steering yoke and restabilising the Inconceivable against the wind outside. Shu had likewise tensed up and was staring into space, presumably at the dialog that hovered in front of his face, invisible to others. Behind them, there was a sound of clattering as Jamus woke up as well.

“You all see it too?” Rain asked.

Jamus grabbed the cargo webbing and clambered forward to join them. “A second warning from the System.”

Rain swallowed, and pulsed Detection at maximum range. There was still nothing - the Inconceivable was alone amidst the clouds and thunder.

Just as Rain was about to speak, a signal came through from Ascension via their Detection-board. Like the WARN, the message from whoever was manning their end of the communications line was a single word:

<Safe?>

Rain directed his Radiance-anchor in Bloodmarsh to pulse in response: <We’re safe. No idea what happened yet.>

Rain looked at the control-board. The devices Ascension had managed to cobble together showed their airspeed, altitude, and a multitude of other useful measurements - but unlike on Earth, there was no GPS to rely on. Still, they had the next best thing - a starguide. “Shu, how far to Ascension?”

The Navigator’s eyes glazed over for a moment as he used some skill. “We’ve been in this accursed storm for six hours, so there’s a little guesswork involved. Based on heading and airspeed since I last saw the stars, we’re very close. Fifteen to thirty minutes until arrival, if I had wager.”

Rain sent the information through to Ascension and ran his hand over his beard. If they’d been in the storm that long at this altitude, the odds that it was completely natural were low. 

He shook his head. That wasn’t the most important mystery right now. “I was offworld for the last warning. Is this message identical to the first?”

Jamus nodded. “It’s just like last time. One word - ‘Warn’ - with no other information.” He grimaced, and took off his bright orange hat with the hand that wasn’t wrapped in cargo webbing. “If the first Warn signalled the Ascendant’s arrival, then-”

“Then this one probably means someone else has arrived,” Rain finished the sentence for him. “And I assume there must be some kind of difference between them and my friends, since we didn’t trigger any messages.”

“What kind of difference?” Shu asked.

Rain pursed his lips. “No idea. But if I had to guess, based on having seen the Ascendant up close, the difference might just be raw power.”

There was a long silence.

Someone in the back of the craft had been roused by the commotion. It was one of Zorian’s simulacra, who stood up and gestured with a hand the way he did when casting a spell. Bizarrely, some kind of magical force seemed to grab the simulacrum and threw him into the floor of the aircraft. 

Rain jumped in surprise, but Force Ward hadn’t triggered and the simulacrum looked unharmed. The simulacrum said something - probably a curse word, from the intonation, but Rain didn’t recognise it.

“You alright?”

“I’m fine,” grumbled the simulacrum in Common - Zorian seemed to have picked up the basics of the language already. “I was trying to cast a basic levitation spell, but there’s something strange about the mana you’re providing me here. It’s going haywire whenever it gets close to metal, throwing off my spells.”

“Oh,” Rain said in sudden realisation. “Sorry, I should have warned you. On Ameliah’s world, mages avoid metal as much as possible - it absorbs mana unless it's in your domain, and even then, something as small as a ring can interfere enough to throw off a spell’s construction unless you’re careful and well practiced. It’s why Jamus wears his funny hat and robes instead of actual armour.”

The simulacrum looked at Rain quizzically. “And what, your magic doesn’t count? Aren’t you casting spells all the time while wearing that suit of armour?”

“Like I said, care and practice. You can learn to fight the metal, but it can take years. And it was easier for me, because I don't have to aim.” Rain scratched his beard thoughtfully, trying to ignore the memories of Nadir flashing through his head. “Thinking about it, I wasn't really struggling on Anastis and Ersetu, even with all the complex metamagic I was using. I didn't have much time to think about it while I was there, but that - plus the fact that you’re experiencing it now - sort of implies that it's somehow caused by the essence of Ameliah’s world.”

Jamus made an amused clicking noise with his tongue. “You sure you want to keep calling it that, Rain? I’m not sure everyone on the planet will be pleased with being named after Ameliah, least of all Ameliah herself. She’s been handling a lot lately with you gone, and I’m not sure how she’ll respond to the idea of being the namesake of the entire planet.”

Rain shrugged helplessly. “I couldn’t exactly use the Common word for ‘Earth’ when talking to offworlders, could I? That would get hopelessly confusing when we switched languages.” He gestured at the simulacrum. “Can you cope with the metal?”

Simulacrum One got up and dusted off his clothes. The ‘Thrall’ label was still hovering ominously above his head, and Rain had to consciously repress the instinct to protect himself from the ‘threat’. 

“I think so,” the simulacrum said. “It’s a lot weirder to deal with than a mana distortion field, but the underlying principles are similar. I should be able to figure it out, at least now that I know it’s happening. It’ll bother Zach a lot more than it bothers me and Xvim, I’d guess - Zach might need to find a new belt buckle,” he said with a faint grin. “You said you got a message?”

Rain nodded. “Same as the one the others got when the Ascendant arrived here. ‘Warn’, nothing else.”

The simulacrum pinched the bridge of his nose in thought. “That’s bad news.” He looked up at the others for confirmation. “That’s bad news, right?”

Without shifting his eyes from the windshield, Tallheart rumbled in agreement: “It is bad news.”

“Anything we can do about it?” asked Shu.

“Until we figure out who or what came through the Maelstrom - if that’s even where they arrived, which I guess we don’t know for sure - I don’t think so,” said Rain. 

“We’ll let the others sleep then, until we arrive,” the simulacrum said. “The worst is over, I think, but aether sickness still packs a punch. Besides, I’m pretty tired, and the original is too. He wouldn’t admit it if he were awake, but we need our rest.”

Shu raised an eyebrow. “You talk about him as if you were equals.”

“They are,” Rain said, at the same time as the simulacrum said “We are.”

Shu turned back toward the front of the vessel. “Well, he won’t have long. We’re almost there.”

Rain craned his neck to look as far down as possible. The Inconceivable was starting to break free of the storm, and the droplets of water on the windshield were being blown away by the wind faster than the clouds could replace them. Far below and not too far ahead, Rain could see the boundary of land and water, where violent waves crashed onto the shore.

<We’re starting our approach> he sent through to Ascension. 

<Confirmed> came the response.

<We need to talk> came a familiar voice from inside his soul. 

“Give me a minute,” Rain said to the others. He settled back into his chair, and sank into the interior of his soul, trusting the time acceleration to ensure he wouldn’t miss much of ordinary reality while he was gone.

In the chamber he’d constructed for her within his soul, the copy of the Warden - or Reece, as the mind-image called herself - was waiting for him. Her face was grim.

“So,” he asked, grabbing an immaterial chair with his avatar and taking a seat opposite her. “What do you think?”

“I think,” she said through gritted teeth, “that you need to get your shit together. Now.”

Rain took a deep breath. It wasn’t necessary, in this place, but it helped stop him from responding too quickly. “Go on.”

“The DKE has collapsed and the Adamant Empire has torn the Bank into pieces. I’d say the dominoes are starting to fall, but I think we’re actually pretty close to the last domino here.”

“I don’t know if you noticed, but I arrived on this planet less than twenty-four hours ago.”

The Warden stood up and made an emphatic gesture with one hand, although Rain wasn’t sure what it was supposed to mean. “And you’re already wasting time. I’m impressed. You’re lucky I’m here to knock some sense into you. First things first, you need to make contact with Guardian Nem.”

“Nem?” Rain asked. “The Watch Goldplate?”

Reece nodded. “Don’t underestimate him. Goldplate is an understatement - he’s almost Platinum, just never quite made the final leap. He’s the only real candidate to succeed me as Warden. At least, he’s the only one who has a chance of holding things together, if we can find him fast enough and steer him away from his more idiotic ideas. Olicia and Annerlain are the other ‘candidates’, and if either of them manage to seize control-”

Rain shook his head and interjected. “Meaning no disrespect, that’s just Watch internal politics. I think there are bigger things at play.” He seized control of the environment from the Warden and flashed an image up on the wall of their room - the ‘Warn’ message, glowing blue brightly enough to cast shadows across their chamber.

There was a long silence as the Warden stared at the message without saying anything. Then, without turning away, she slowly sat down again. 

“So it’s not just a wanderer,” she said quietly. 

“A wanderer?”

Reece turned back to face him, and there was a quiet fire in her eyes that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “I don’t know any of this for sure - it was before my time. There are stories from long ago of creatures finding their way here. Like dragons, from Wix. My point is, it wasn’t an intentional journey on the dragons’ part - they didn’t come here as a unified force. You know how I know?”

Rain shrugged, but she finished her sentence anyway: “Because there are humans still alive on this planet.”

She gestured back at the wall again. “But apparently this crisis is a little different. After your little friends told us about the first ‘Warn’ message, I was still holding out hope that it was someone acting alone, without the backing of a larger organisation. In retrospect that was probably a fool’s hope, given what we’ve heard from this Kanderon character about the Expansionists. Either way, we can throw that hope out the window now. They’ve got reinforcements.”

Rain narrowed his eyes. “We don’t know that whoever came through this time is on the same side as the Ascendant.” 

The Warden raised her eyebrows. “And what would you bet on?”

Rain sighed. “Yeah, I know. So what do we do? Will Nem be able to help us with this? Is it time to get Kev involved?”

At that, Rain caught a hint of threatening steel in her eyes. “Next time you ask about Kev, I’m going to seize control of your body and throw you off a cliff, Rank 30 essence be damned. But you’re right about Nem, you’ll need allies to deal with this. Depending on whether or not he’s been able to unite the rest of the Watch behind him, that might not be enough…”

“Then who?”

Names started flashing up on the wall, and the Warden started listing off details almost faster than Rain could listen.  

Five real-time minutes later, with the engines reoriented to point directly upwards and the rest of their passengers awake, the Inconceivable began its descent to the clearing, some distance from Ascension’s central buildings. 

Even from up here, the difference was apparent. In the time since he’d been taken by the Exile Splinter, the camp had swelled in size. Now that part of the campsite was in Detection’s maximum radius, Rain could count and identify the people individually. With the exception of a few people that were away on missions to Xiugaara or elsewhere, almost all of Ascension’s core members were here, as were the hundreds of refugees they’d picked up before leaving Ekrustia. Along with entities he recognised, there were more than six hundred people mixed in that he’d never encountered before. 

From this height, only a handful of souls were strong enough for him to sense. Halgrave was there, a solid and strong presence waiting for them by the landing site. Velika was waiting there too, which was a good sign, as strange as it felt to acknowledge that. She’d have been one of the first to abandon Ascension if things turned too grim, and her continued presence was a sign that their situation wasn’t maximally dire. 

There was also an unfamiliar presence waiting for him. Even from hundreds of metres in the air, the unknown person’s domain surged outward, pressing against the outside of Rain’s paling like the superheated wind escaping a furnace. 

I think I know who that is, but if it’s not… then we’re going to have a problem. A big one.

Next to the unfamiliar titan, there was a smaller unfamiliar presence - nowhere near as threatening as its companion, but still strong enough to rival Halgrave.

It put Rain on edge, but the lack of any signs of conflict below meant that the strangers were probably friendly.

I hope. I figure that Ascension would have sent me a message or something if the newcomers are dangerous.

Despite the tension, there was a single soul below that stood out to him like a beacon. 

Rain bounced from one foot to another as the airship made its final descent. 

Alustin shot him a rakish smile. “A long awaited reunion, huh?”

Rain breathed out slowly as he stared at the closed door of the Inconceivable. “You have no idea.” Frankly, the only reason he hadn’t jumped out of the airship to reach the ground faster was that he didn’t know all the people at the landing site and couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t misinterpret it as an aggressive action.

“Just make sure your friends don’t kill us, and I’ll be happy.” Alustin’s smile was crooked, as if he was keen to see what would happen if anyone tried.

Oh, right. That. 

Rain quickly adjusted his wards, ensuring they covered everyone - both inside and outside the craft - and turned to Zorian and the other visitors to this world. “Listen up everyone! There will probably be some bad reactions to the titles the System has given you. Stay on your guard and protect yourself, but whatever you do, please don’t respond with violence unless your life is threatened. Let me handle it.”

Rain noticed that Artur was standing close to Hugh, Sabae and Talia. The massive man had to stoop to stand up in the cargo hold, and he was making use of his size by acting as a human wall between the kids and the still-closed doorway. 

Xvim raised a questioning hand. “Captain Rain. Would you say there is a significant risk from using offworld techniques here?”

Rain shrugged. “If the Empire can detect the use of magic here, then we’re all screwed anyway. Go wild, as long as you don’t hurt or scare anyone. Oh and before you do, ask Zorian about the distorting effects of metal, he says that might mess up your spells if you’re not careful.”

The professor nodded and tucked his hand back into its customary position in his sleeve. 

Alright, I think that’s everything. 

Rain waited in silence for the last minute as the distance to the ground ticked down. As he approached, he felt a connection snap back into place in his soul. I’ll see you soon, Dozer. There was a thud as the landing craft made contact, and Rain stepped forward to shove open the metal doors and kick down the exit ramp. 

He blinked for a second in the bright light, then stumbled backwards as a human-shaped blur slammed into him and wrapped itself around his chest. 

“Next time you get sucked into an interdimensional rift,” Ameliah whispered into his ear, “you take me with you, ok?”

Rain blinked away the tears that were starting to form in the corner of his eyes. “I’ve missed you. So much.”

Ameliah squeezed him again - harder than before - then disentangled herself, stepped back and gestured at the other figures who were waiting at the bottom of the ramp. “Captain Rain, welcome back. This is Nem, Warden of the Watch. His delegation arrived just after the Warning, with the intent to exchange information and hopefully collaborate.”

Rain stared out across the assembled group in front of him. There were fewer people than he expected - only half a dozen - and the rest of the clearing was empty. Detection informed him that there were more than two hundred people gathered just out of sight, past a grove of trees. Vanna and Ameliah must have limited the number of people allowed at the landing site. That was good thinking, for a variety of reasons. He squeezed Ameliah’s hand, and felt her squeeze his in return.

Note to self: thank Tallheart for Tactile Transference. If I couldn’t feel her hand in mine I might tear her armour off right here.

Along with Ameliah who was stubbornly refusing to release his hand, there were six others at the foot of the Inconceivable’s landing ramp. Halgrave and Velika - Ascension’s muscle at this encounter, apparently - stood with their arms folded to one side. Velika’s wickedly sharp swords were sheathed on her back - for now. In front of them, Vanna and Tarny waited, neither of them armed.  Instead, each of them seemed to be carrying a sheaf of documents.

Alongside them, two new figures waited stoically. One looked shockingly young, given his obviously high level. Probably around Rain’s age, with brown hair and soft blue eyes. His soul seemed more powerful than Halgrave’s or Velika’s, but it was still dwarfed by that of the man standing next to him. 

Despite what the Warden had said about Nem’s age, the burly man in front of Rain looked like he was closer to forty than ninety years old. His close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair matched the neatly trimmed beard. 

Nem’s physically imposing build was far from the most intimidating thing about him. The new Warden’s domain billowed forth, blanketing the clearing with the unmistakable weight of his strength. It took a conscious effort just to maintain a tiny sphere of influence around his body against the pressure.

“Custodian Rain,” Nem said. The words seemed heavy, both with meaning and with power. 

The Watch had bestowed the title of ‘Custodian’ on him as thanks for sheltering Fel Sadanis, returning their stolen accolades and granting them control of the Majistraal obelisk.

To address him as Custodian - rather than Captain - that must have been a deliberate power play. It put Rain within the hierarchy of the Watch, where he’d be subservient to Nem as Warden, rather than outside the hierarchy entirely as a member of Ascension. 

<Be careful> counselled Reece from where she watched behind his eyes. <He’s a stickler for protocol.>

“Warden,” Rain said, bowing his head in acknowledgement of the greeting. “You have arrived at a particularly important time.”

“Quite so,” said Nem, “There is much for us to discuss.”

“That’s true,” Rain said as he walked down the landing ramp. “But as much as I wish to speak with you, there are some other matters I have to attend to first.”

Nem said nothing, but the younger man at his side curled his lip into a snarl. “And what matters are these, that take precedence over a meeting with the Warden of the Watch?”

Nem didn’t move, but there was a flicker in his domain and the younger man inhaled sharply and shut his mouth. 

“Understood,” Nem said, “Join us at our camp within the hour.”

With that, Nem and his follower turned in unison and walked out of the clearing. 

<You better keep that appointment> commented Reece. <Unless you’re offworld or literally dead, it’s imperative that you keep Nem onside. Dismemberment is not a sufficient excuse for keeping Nem waiting.>

Rain nodded in acknowledgement, a gesture that probably seemed incomprehensible to anyone without the context of his internal conversation with Reece. At the same time, he accessed his interface to set an alarm for forty-five minutes from now.

Now that Nem was out of sight - and his colossal soul was slowly releasing its stranglehold on the nearby environment - Rain let out a tense breath, turned back to Ameliah and took off his helmet. Hers was already gone, and almost without thinking their lips found each other. 

A few seconds later, Vanna - who was still waiting at near the foot of the landing ramp - coughed awkwardly. “Welcome back, Captain.”

Rain pulled away from Ameliah (although part of him struggled to let go of her shoulder, instead wanting to hold onto her forever) and stepped down to greet his friends. 

“I can’t tell you how good it is to see you all.” Rain shook his head, still somewhat in disbelief to be home. He put a hand on Vanna’s shoulder squeezed. “I can’t put into words how proud I am of you all for holding things together, and how glad I am to see you all alive and healthy.”

Tarny raised a shaky hand. “Permission to hug the Captain?”

“Granted,” Rain laughed, and stepped forward to give the younger Logistics Beacon an enthusiastic hug. “Your beard is filling in nicely, by the way.”

“Now,” said Rain after hugging Halgrave and nodding firmly to Velika, “There’s a lot I need to fill you in on, stuff that you can’t really send over a comms relay.”

He did another quick pulse of Detection, confirming that there was no-one else within two hundred metres. “The five of you should know the basics already. The System has categorised my friends from offworld as essence monsters. I trust them with my life and I believe you can do the same. I’ve got a whole speech prepared for the rest of Ascension, but I’ll give you the short version now. If anyone harms them, I’ll respond the same way as I would to harm against any other person I care for.”

He pointedly didn’t look at Velika for this part, instead fixing his glare on a tree across the clearing. “If anyone injures one of my friends, they can expect me to find them, and kill them.”

Velika laughed, an unexpectedly carefree sound. “From what you’ve said about their levels, Halgrave and I are the only ones who you don’t really need to worry about. We’re already above level 51, so we wouldn’t get anything out of slaughtering them anyway. If I were you, I’d reserve your threatening speeches for people who have more to gain and less to lose.”

Rain nodded. That was good advice, actually. 

“Jamus, Shu - bring the others down now.”

Despite what she’d said, Rain still found himself standing between Velika and the landing ramp, tense and ready to leap into action in case conflict erupted. He’d seen Velika fight - or more precisely, seen the carnage she left behind when she moved faster than the eye could follow. Thanks to his Clarity, the memory of the dismembered bodies she’d left behind outside the Fells was as fresh in his mind as the day he’d first seen them. Without her accolades, she was likely less powerful now than she had been then - but still a force to be reckoned with.

Following Jamus, Alustin came down the ramp first, with Xvim and a simulacrum by his side. Then Zach and Zorian, then Artur, still looming protectively over the Anastan teenagers. Another simulacrum brought up the rear.

As each new person - and their System-assigned label - became visible, there was an intake of breath from his companions. Velika stayed motionless, and to her credit, her hands didn’t stray any closer to her weapons. Only one of the visitors provoked a reaction. Velika raised a suggestive eyebrow at Rain when Artur stepped out of the Inconceivable and unfurled himself to his full height of around seven feet tall.

“When you said you were bringing monsters with you, I figured you meant more like your slimy ooze-pet. Maybe I’ll wind up chasing after some of your friends after all.”

She grinned predatorily at Rain, and with a sinking feeling he realised what she meant. 

“Listen,” he said, leaning in close to her so no-one else could hear. “If you’re not putting anyone in danger I won’t forbid anything, not that you’d listen to me anyway. But you should know that Artur lost his only child about a week ago, and you should also know that if he wanted, he could tear apart a city in a matter of minutes.”

The series of emotions that flickered across Velika’s face in that instant were too numerous and varied to easily identify. 

“So,” Rain said loudly enough that the whole clearing could hear him. “Thanks to the offworlders’ magic we have the element of surprise. Unfortunately, as you can see, the System has decided to throw a spanner in the works, and we need to be ready to deal with that as a unified front. Vanna, can you gather all the Awakened for a briefing - anyone else can join too if they want. We can have a Council meeting soon, but I want to get ahead of this thing before rumours spread. Now more than ever it’s critical we make sure everyone is on the same page.”

Vanna nodded and jogged to the east, where Rain could sense the majority of people were waiting. 

With Vanna gone, Tarny stepped forward, hesitantly taking centre stage by Rain’s side. Ameliah stepped in close and hooked her arm around Rain’s waist, and he felt a pulse of warmth at the sensation of simply being close to her.

“On behalf of Ascension,” Tarny said firmly and a little too loudly to the assembled group, “I want to thank you for bringing our Captain home safely. He means a great deal to us.”

The little speech sounded carefully rehearsed, and Rain smiled briefly at the thought of Tarny carefully practising the same two sentences in the leadup to this meeting. As had become habit by this point, each of Zorian’s simulacra were translating the words, speaking quietly to each cluster of the offworlders in their home tongue. Whenever there was an unfamiliar word, Rain offered the dictionary definition in response to a simulacrum’s mental query.

Tarny looked hesitantly between the offworlders and Rain. “Can they understand me?”

Rain nodded. “Zorian,” he pointed out the scrawny teenager, “the one who the System is calling ‘Mind Eater’ - and his simulacra ‘Thralls’ have learned most of the language already, and they’re translating for the others.”

Tarny looked even more nervous after that explanation, and Rain mentally kicked himself.

Stupid. Remember how scared I was of Zorian at first? Everyone else must be feeling that, only times a hundred because of the System-name hovering above his damn head. 

Rain tried to put as much earnesty into his voice as possible. “There’s nothing to worry about. I’ve been through half-a-dozen lethal encounters with these folks and they’ve had my back every step of the way. Hey, uh…”

Rain pondered for a moment, trying to figure out which subset of the offworlders would be the least threatening to someone like Tarny. Switching to Ithonian he called out, “Alustin, Hugh, could you come over here please?”

The paper mage cut off his conversation with Xvim and meandered over to where Rain was talking with Tarny. Hugh followed, and while Artur stayed near the ramp with Sabae and Talia, his eyes were constantly flickering back to the other teenager he clearly felt responsible for.

“Tarny, Ameliah, this is Hugh, and this is Alustin.” The two groups awkwardly shook hands, with the locals clearly trying to avoid looking at the monster labels hovering ominously above the offworlders’ heads. 

Tarny made eye contact with the pair of offworlder mages, clearly sizing them up. While Tarny was an average height and well-built, both Alustin and Hugh were on the lankier side. Rain had carefully chosen them for their less-threatening System-names: Hugh’s title of ‘Crystal Warder’ was probably the least imposing of the offworlders, and Alustin leapt straight in to address his own, slightly more intimidating title of ‘Parchment Revenant’:

“Nice to meet you both.” Alustin said with a jaunty smile. “If you’re curious about my name, well, I didn’t choose it myself, of course. Our guess is that it’s because I’m a librarian and spend quite a bit of time with paper. ”

After a moment’s pause for Rain to translate, Alustin pulled a square piece of paper from his ever-present bag. Without any movement from him, it folded itself into an intricate flower which he presented carefully to Tarny. 

Looking charmed and a little confused, Tarny accepted the gift and tucked the origami flower into his uniform’s lapel. “What about the ‘Revenant’ part? Where did that bit come from?”

Alustin grinned. “I’m a resilient sort. More than a few powerful people have tried to have me stamped out, but I’m still kicking around. From what Rain’s said, the same thing could be said for most of Ascension. Are you one of the original members from Fel Sadanis?”

“Yeah,” Tarny said quietly. 

Alustin nodded gravely in acknowledgement. “Then you and I have something in common I wish both of us could have avoided. The city of my birth was destroyed, and I was likewise one of a handful of survivors. It was a long time ago, but wounds like that never really heal, do they?”

Tarny took a deep breath. “No, they don’t.”

Alustin clapped Tarny on the shoulder. “Some things can lessen the sting. Like giving the people responsible a swift kick in the pants. That’s why we’re here, to give you a helping hand with that.”

Rain did a double take. “Wasn’t your end of the deal just to guide me home?”

Alustin shook his head. “New orders from Kanderon. We’re to offer any and all assistance possible while we’re here.”

Rain grinned broadly. That was fantastic news. The Anastans were useful allies, and the news that they’d be sticking around was an enormous boon. 

Hugh half-raised a hand, then thought the better of it and asked his question without waiting for permission. “Are you the Ameliah? As in, the person this world is named after?”

Ameliah glanced at Rain with raised eyebrows, who nodded sheepishly, then back to Hugh.

“I guess that’s me,” she said with an exasperated grin, “although I don’t think I would have chosen to be, if I’d had any say in the matter. But since when do you get a choice in that kind of thing?”

Alustin shrugged. “Sometimes life throws that sort of thing at you. There’s a kebab dish named after me in Lothal, so I’m pretty sure I know how you feel.”

Tarny laughed at that, and Rain felt his shoulders relax a little at the drop in tension. 

That was when Vanna re-emerged from behind the thicket of trees that separated the landing site from the rest of Ascension, this time accompanied by a cluster of people and a rapidly accelerating ball of crystalline slime.

[Rain-King!]

Five minutes of hurried and intense reunions later, Rain found himself walking up the wooden stairs of the fledgeling town’s auditorium. Vanna was waiting up on stage, and Ameliah followed close behind. Since he’d returned, Ameliah hadn’t let him more than a few steps out of her reach. If it were anyone else, he might have felt crowded. Instead, it felt right for her to be close - he felt protected. 

A sea of faces gazed back at him - every Awakened in Ascension’s camp, and anyone else who wanted to come. It looked like that meant pretty much everyone. Rain recognised many faces, and he could see the joy at his return spreading through the crowd. 

“Ascension! I’m glad to see you all, and with luck I’ll have time to talk to many of you individually later. There are a few urgent things I need to say.”

Rain was worried he’d have to yell to be heard or ask Zorian to amplify his voice, but the sea of people were still as they listened to his every word. 

“First, this is not the only world. Two months ago, I was taken from this world against my will and placed in another.”

There was a ripple through the crowd at that, but most people had known that already - and even if they hadn’t been told, it wasn’t impossible to deduce from the way Rain had vanished but remained in control of his aura anchors. It was either that or being teleported to another place on this world, and Rain had already been displaced between realities once before, so there was a precedent.

“Second, the Adamant Empire has recently joined forces with an immensely powerful multiversal faction calling themselves ‘the Expansionists’. We have little information about their exact nature, but we know they include an Ishavean Ascendant - the entity that spearheaded the siege of Splendour and the sundering of the Bank last week. We believe it was also responsible for the cataclysm in the city of North Harbour.”

That provoked more of a reaction. There were some audible gasps in the audience.

Rain took a deep breath and went on. “I’ve seen the Ascendent close up, and if the Empire came at us now, I think the chances of our survival aren’t great. Between the forces that were already at Lightbreaker’s disposal and the reinforcements from offworld, anyone who stood against the Empire would struggle.”

“But we’re not alone. I met some people while I was offworld, and some of them have agreed to follow me here to help us.”

Some people had already started cheering before he managed to finish the sentence. In a few seconds the cheer had swelled and it felt like the air was thrumming with the voices of a thousand people.

Rain shared a sidelong glance with Ameliah. That was the easy part, now was when things got tricky. 

“Unfortunately, the System has not cooperated. Since their arrival here yesterday, our allies have been displayed by the System as essence monsters.”

The crowd started to murmur, but Rain forged ahead, unwilling to let people spiral into individual conversations before he said what needed to be said.

“They are not monsters. They are people, like you and me.” Rain willed as much conviction into the words as he could. He was pushing against a centuries-long instinct to kill anything which the System labelled as an enemy on sight - it would take more than a few sentences to change the traditions and behaviours that had been embedded in Awakened culture for longer than anyone here had been alive.

“Regardless of any System-label, these people are my friends. They’ve come here at great personal danger to themselves to help keep us safe. If anyone injures or attempts to injure one of the offworlders, that will be treated exactly the same as attacking a member of Ascension or anyone else.”

The murmuring continued, and Rain tried to imbue his voice with as much of an implied threat as he could without being downright menacing. “I could not be more serious. If anyone puts any of my friends in danger, I will make it my personal mission to find them and see that they face justice.”

<Zorian, it’s time. Can you come up?>

Showing the highest level offworlder first was a choice, and Rain was desperately hoping it didn’t backfire. The idea was to show Ascension the full scale of what they were dealing with - rip the band-aid off quickly, so to speak. Rain scanned his interface to confirm that all of his wards were active, double checking that Heat Ward and inverted Radiance in particular were at their maximum levels.

Zorian walked up the stairs to stand between Vanna and Rain. As he came into view, the swirling mass of the crowd reacted all at once - some with disbelief, some with curiosity, and others with fear. 

Rain stepped forward and put a hand on Zorian’s shoulder, ignoring the slight flinch that the younger boy wasn’t quite able to repress. It was important to send a clear message to those assembled. 

“This is Zorian Kazinski, a friend of mine. He’s saved my life more times than I can count, and while his little sister did give him permission to come here to help us, she’s also anxiously awaiting his safe return home.”

Zorian had been reluctant to share quite that much personal information, but had grudgingly relented when Rain pointed out the benefits. Convincing people to change their ways was going to be immensely difficult, and they couldn’t afford not to use any potential method of making the offworlders seem more normal - not that Zorian really fit that description.

“Hi,” Zorian said, but his voice was quiet enough that only the first few rows could hear him. “Nice to meet you all.”

Through their mental link, Zorian expressed a feeling of discomfort. It was pretty obvious the teenager wasn’t a fan of public speaking. 

“I’ve never heard a monster talk before,” Mahria said from the second row. “And what’s a Mind Eater anyway?”

Carten elbowed her in the ribs - not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to almost knock her over. “Oi. Didn’t you hear the Captain? It’s not a monster, it’s a person.”

Rain sighed. This was going to be an uphill battle. 

Five minutes of intense crowd-sourced questions later, Rain was walking through Ascension’s improvised streets with the offworlders, heading to the Council chambers. At Vanna’s insistence, the first meeting was going to be a simple debrief with the High Council - the heads of each other council - and the offworlders, with the idea of making sure everyone knew roughly what was going on. Now that the rest of the multiverse had intruded on Ameliah’s world, it seemed pretty likely to Rain that offworld help would be instrumental in keeping things from spiralling out of control.

Ameliah had hooked her arm through Rain’s elbow, and Zach and Zorian were at Rain’s left. The others were a few minutes behind them, escorted by Tallheart and Jamus - people Rain was certain he could trust.

“Well done,” Rain said. “I know that wasn’t really your thing, but I think it was necessary.”

Zorian made a sour face. “Next time make Zach do it. He’d probably like it.”

Zach laughed. “As much fun as I would have making about a thousand new friends from another planet, I think I actually had more fun watching you embarrass yourself.”

Zorian rolled his eyes and half-heartedly tried to shove Zach, who skipped out of the way as if he’d been expecting it. 

The walk through the nascent township was strange. Most of Ascension had got the message that Rain was on a tight schedule, but a few people still tried to approach and had to be scared off with a Purify nova. It wouldn’t hurt anyone, of course, but it helped get across the idea that he didn’t have time to stop and chat. Rain was painfully aware of the alarm ticking down inside his mind that meant he would need to drop everything to go speak with Warden Nem.

As they were approaching the meeting rooms, Zorian’s demeanour abruptly changed and he sent through a message that Rain somehow understood was intended for him alone:

<Oh dear.>

<What is it?>

<Hard to explain. We should get out of the public eye for this.>

Rain’s heartrate quickened. He hastily opened the door to the meeting rooms and ushered everyone inside. Vanna was waiting for them behind her Commander's desk, with whole reams of paper mapping out Ascension’s situation spread out in front of her. A quick pulse of Detection showed that they were the only ones in the room… except for an invisible figure standing hidden behind one of the doors.

Oh no…

As Rain closed the door behind them, Val dropped his invisibility and stepped out into plain view. There was something strange about the way he was moving, a kind of wooden-ness that was uncharacteristic of the usually lithe Osaran.

Vanna jumped in surprise as Val seemingly appeared from thin air. “Val? What are you doing here? This meeting is for council heads only.”

Val answered robotically, enunciating each word individually and slowly. “I am here because I intended to kill Zorian the Mind Eater and raise my level cap to 51.”

A deathly silence fell across the room.

“What?” Vanna asked. “Why would you - why are you telling us this?”

“Zorian Kazinski is currently controlling my body, which he did as soon as he sensed my intent to kill him. He is now freeing me, although he will retake control if I take any violent action toward anyone in this room.”

Val’s shoulders slumped for a moment as Zorian released his hold. Then he took a deep breath, drew himself up to his full height and looked Rain dead in the eye.

Next to Zorian, Zach started to twist his hands in the tell-tale motion of Ersetan spellcasting, and a swirling darkness began to gather at the tips of his fingers. Rain frantically reached for his wards, but before Zach completed the gesture he glanced at Zorian. The other boy fractionally shook his head, and Zach closed his fist rather than completing the spell.

Rain breathed a sigh of relief. Then Zach stepped forward and punched Val square in the face, hard. There was a surprising amount of force behind the blow, and Val stumbled slightly. Blood seeped from a cut on his lip, but it vanished under the soft glow of Purify before it could drip to the floor.

“Val… is this true?” Rain asked. 

Val didn’t drop eye contact. “I won’t lie to you, Rain.”

He was going to kill my friend. I knew Val was reckless, but this…

Rain buried his face in his hands. “Did you hear a word I just said up there?”

“Have you even considered what I could accomplish as a Goldplate?” Val’s voice was as intense as Rain had ever heard it. Even without Soul-reading it was obvious Val was certain of what he was saying. “Lightbreaker - my father - is leading his forces to destroy us. As a Goldplate I’d have the strength to face him alone. Do you know how many lives could be spared if I could grant my father the rest he should have found years ago?”

Rain stepped close and grasped Val by the shoulders. “Do you have any idea what would have happened if you’d succeeded? First, Zach here would have torn you in half. A level cap means nothing unless you have the time to reach it, and even if Zach didn’t kill you right here, then I might have. Zorian is my friend. I trust him with my life, and I’d die to protect him if it came to that.”

Almost unintentionally, Rain punctuated the words with pressure from his soul, trying to puncture Val’s stubborn facade and drill the understanding into him directly. Val’s domain crumpled like paper under the pressure and Rain was forced to pull back to avoid doing any serious damage.

Val’s breath hitched, but he said nothing so Rain went on.

“And what then? Best case, the other offworlders realise they’re not safe here and return to their worlds. The Empire has crushed the Bank, and guessing from what the Ascendent said to Lord Trell, they’re probably coming for us next. We’d be left to fight and die alone, and I think you know the odds wouldn’t be on our side.”

Val flexed his shoulders trying to break free, but Rain’s grip was as iron. “I’m tired, Rain. I’ve worked so hard, risked my life a dozen different ways, and a year after reaching my cap I’m still stuck at level 8. Ascension was supposed to be our ticket to the next level, but I've been spending my days overseeing combat drills and spying on gossip. Lightbreaker is out there, what, building an Empire that spans worlds, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. This only ends when I’m strong enough to face him.”

He looked up at Rain, eyes slowly softening. “How many adventurers make it to Gold before dying in a dungeon somewhere? One in ten thousand? Less? What were my odds? This was my opportunity to make something of myself, while I still have a chance. And now it’s passed me by. So what happens now, Captain?” The mocking tone Rain expected to hear in Val’s voice wasn’t there. Instead, the Osaran sounded strangely resigned.

“Now?” Rain took a deep breath and looked at Vanna and Ameliah. 

“This is attempted murder,” said Ameliah. “Or it would have been, if Zorian hadn’t caught him first? Does it matter that he never actually raised a finger?”

Vanna shook her head firmly. Rain could clearly see in her soul that she was in anguish, but her face didn’t betray anything other than pragmatic calculation. “If there’s no doubt that he intended the murder, then he’s guilty. Making this public would be a problem. If people know that one of the Captain’s closest friends tried to kill an offworlder, it might inspire more attempts from others. We can’t risk an open trial.”

Val bowed his head forward in submission. “Kill me now and get it over with. That’s the punishment, right? For attacking one of your pet monsters?”

“We’re not going to kill you, Val,” Rain said without thinking. “And for the last time, they’re people, not monsters.”

“Why not kill me?” Val asked. “He wants to,” he said, gesturing at Zach. “I may not be able to read minds but I can read faces. And if the Dragonslayer is anything like his friend the Mind Eater, he can probably do it with one hand tied behind his back. Have you felt his touch, Rain?” Val jerked his head at Zorian. “It was horrifying, like I was a prisoner in my own head. Mind Eater indeed. I guess I understand where you’re coming from, wanting him as an ally. He’ll be a powerful weapon. I hope you can win the war without me.” He closed his eyes.

Rain shook Val slightly until he opened his eyes again. “Val, that’s not the point. You were going to kill my friend, a guest of Ascension who I pleaded with to come here.” Rain shrugged helplessly. “What would you do in my place?”

Val shrugged in resignation. “If you’re not going to kill me, exile? I had my shot, I took it, and I’m not going to try again - but why would you risk keeping me around?”

Vanna reached for a sheet of paper on her desk and passed it across to Rain. “There’s rumours of an unclaimed lair in the region south-west of Xiugaara. We were planning an expedition a while ago but put it off when you were taken. Val was actually on the team that we originally planned to send down there. What do you think, Captain?”

Rain studied the page. An expedition that far south would keep Val far away from the rest of Ascension and simultaneously give him something to do to keep his mind off his betrayal. If the expedition took a full set of aura anchors with them, then Rain could keep an eye on them from a distance and ensure Val was staying where he was supposed to be. At the same time, if the rumours of the lair were accurate, then it would also be a step on the path Val had sought today.

“Zorian?”

There was a pause as Zach and Zorian shared a look. “The Anastans are more vulnerable to a surprise attack like this than we are. As long as you’re convinced he won’t be able to escape and go after one of them, then we’re happy with this. I have a simulacrum outside that can get him where he needs to be and ensure he’s no threat for the near future.”

Rain rubbed his hand over his eyes again. “Vanna, can you make the arrangements? He needs to be out of here as soon as possible.”

“Yes, Captain. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

A simulacrum opened the door, and Vanna led Val outside. A matter of seconds later, Rain momentarily started as they vanished from Detection, before putting together that the simulacrum must have teleported them. 

A few minutes later, the other offworlders filed through the door into the meeting chambers. At the same time, a message arrived in Rain’s mind - this time through one of the Radiance-anchor based communication laptops on Earth, rather than from Zorian or Reece. 

<Rain, it’s Harry. Could you place an aura anchor more than ten metres away from anything important and flare it at high power?>

Rain frowned. <Is this safe? And is it urgent? And quick? I can spare three minutes.>

 <Yes, on all counts.>

Rain scanned the room. The other offworlders had settled in with Ascension’s council members, and some sporadic conversations were beginning to form - although it was obvious to everyone that nothing official would start until Vanna returned. Dozer and Mackerel were circling each other warily while Hugh and Talia watched, laughing a little each time one of the crystalline creatures attempted to envelop the other. Tallheart had settled in on one of the chairs opposite and was watching Rain with something between a frown and mild concern.

“Just a second, I’ll be right back.”

Outside, there were still more people around than ideal. If Harry was planning some kind of magical experiment, the fewer people around the better. Rain activated Velocity and took a minute to sprint a kilometre away from Ascension’s camp. Here, instead of the cleared ground and recently constructed buildings of the township, he was surrounded by marshland and stunted trees. 

Rain reached into one of his (incredibly awesome) Bags of Holding and retrieved an aura anchor - this one was for Radiance. He’d made a habit of passively creating anchors whenever he had a hand free, and the collection in his bags was quite substantial by this point.

He leant down and placed the anchor on the forest floor. Making sure to minimise damage to the environment with the Ethereal Aura metamagic, he stepped back and gradually forced more and more mana through the anchor until it glowed like a tiny star amidst the foliage.

<Harry? The anchor is active and I’m fifteen metres away.>

<Make it fifty, just to be sure.>

Rain flared Velocity again until he was two hundred metres away from the brilliant light. <Done.>

Then, for a moment, there was a strange feeling. A gentle tugging on the connections between his aura anchors, the kind of thing he might not have even noticed if he wasn’t paying attention. It was hard to see next to the glaring brightness, but it looked like the air next to the Radiance anchor was twisting and warping. Then there was a small popping sound, and Rain deactivated Radiance.

There was something there that there hadn’t been before - a small metal cube, about ten centimetres in side length. It looked like it was steaming slightly in the warm swamp air.

<Rain? Do you report any changes?>

<There’s a cube on the ground. Is it safe to approach?>

<Yes.>

Rain paced over to where the anchor - and now the cube - lay on the ground. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands.

<There’s an inscription on the side,> he sent. <It’s formatted like a memory address - 0x48454c4c4f20574f524c4453. Did you send this?>

<Code received and confirmed, thank you. Yes, we sent it from Earth.>

Rain stared at the little metal cube in his hand, and the world seemed to fall away around him. 

They sent it from Earth.

Things were about to change. A lot.

Chapter 26: Inferno

Hugh kept his eyes trained on Alustin as their teacher made his way through the small crowd that ringed their table. The speech in which Rain had instructed his people not to kill them for the immense System-granted rewards was still fresh in Hugh’s mind. As a footnote in the same speech, Rain had also instructed Ascension to ‘give them space’. While it didn’t seem like anyone would directly contravene the first order, there were plenty who were toeing the line of the second one by curiously observing the offworlders from a not-very-large distance.

The few people who had tried to get closer than a few metres had withered under Artur’s stone-faced glare, and promptly backed off. 

A little liquid slopped out of the mugs Alustin was carrying as he jostled through the ring of onlookers, and then quite a bit more spilt as he juggled them down onto the table.

“So,” he said, eyes glinting. “By the presence of beer, we can deduce that this world probably has both hops and some basic knowledge of fermentation. I suppose some common crops might have spread across realities at the same time that humans did? Or perhaps there’s some kind of convergent evolution of plants when they’re tended by humans over a long period - convergent cultivation?”

Sabae looked pretty intrigued by that, but Hugh couldn’t manage more than a shrug. 

“Now,” Alustin said, and blocked Hugh from grabbing a mug with an outstretched hand. “Before we drink, there’s a particular spell I want to teach you three.”

A piece of paper flew out of his bag and he sketched out a quick spell-diagram. He spoke as he drew: “As we travel through these new worlds, we face new threats each and every moment. Consider the difference between Skyhold, Zophor, and Louthem. Three cities on a single world, and yet the powers that control each of them couldn’t be more different, nor could the dangers you might encounter. And what about Cyoria? Or London? On another world entirely, you can’t expect to be ahead of the curve. All you can do is consider the known threats, be prepared for them, and have a bag of tricks for anything else that the multiverse might throw your way.”

Hugh rubbed his fingers across his forehead. Before this journey, Alustin had seemed so… in control. Now that Godrick was gone, Hugh was more inclined to see Alustin the same way he guessed the paper-mage saw himself - as a survivor who couldn’t always protect those around him. 

As Alustin spoke, a frown grew on Artur’s face. The frown deepened as he crouched and placed his palm against the hard-packed earthen floor. He tilted his head as if listening for something.

“There’s somethin’ different about the ground.” he explained when the conversation trailed off because everyone was staring at him. “Every planet is made of different materials, but this planet seems…different, more layered. There’s somethin’ heavy down there.”

Alustin nodded. “This world is a particularly strange one, as far as they go. Even so, it has some properties we recognise from our own. Talia, suppose we were in one of your novels. What dangers might befall us next?”

“Betrayal.” Talia said reflexively. “Hit the heroes while they’re down, make them lose faith in their allies before the climax.” She looked up, half startled by what she herself had said, and shot a suspicious glance at the crowd of onlookers.

“Precisely,” Alustin said with a broad grin. He slid a mug across the table to each of his apprentices. 

“No beer for you, I’m afraid. Although I expect you’ll like the fruit juice they have here better anyway. I just got the beer for myself so I could get a closer look at the fermentation residue.” He curiously dipped a finger in the beer and swirled around some of the bubbles.

“Now that Talia’s given us an idea of what to look out for, is there any particular spell you’d like to learn before you partake of these delicious drinks?”

Ten minutes later, Hugh had performed the poison-detecting cantrip to Alustin’s satisfaction. To his immediate alarm, the simple spell alerted him that while the apprentices’ drinks were clear, someone had poisoned the drinks in front of Artur and Alustin.

Alustin then taught them the equally important cantrip that detected every poison except alcohol.

“Why’d you have to teach us the spells in that order?” Sabae grumbled. “I just about jumped out of my chair.”

“You shouldn’t be alarmed, but you should be alert,” Alustin said in an almost disconcertingly cheery voice. “That’s a perfectly appropriate reaction to your environment. You should also remember that some cultures see alcohol as a poison and take appropriate precautions around it. Don’t want to get hauled off to a prison for poisoning the crown prince when you thought you were just proposing a toast.”

Something in Alustin’s expression suggested that he was speaking from experience.

Artur just grunted noncommittally and took a mug in his massive fist. He brought it to his lips and drained it in a single draught. 

“I didn’t get any for you,” Alustin said apologetically to the Zorian-simulacrum that was accompanying them. “No digestive system, so I figured…”

“No offence taken,” said Simulacrum Number Four, as it had identified itself. 

Hugh took a sip of his juice. It was a surprising mixture of sweet and bitter - not at all unpleasant. He elbowed Talia gently. “You should try it, it’s not bad.”

She looked a little awkward drinking with her left hand. “Yeah, pretty good.”

She could move the electric-blue phantom arm around, as well as using it to manipulate magical constructs (including simulacra, much to Simulacrum Four’s annoyance), but otherwise it didn’t seem to be able to interact with physical matter at all. Right now, because she was leaning forward over the table to drink, her phantom arm was phasing through the tabletop in a rather disconcerting way.

Alustin took a long draught of the beer and wiped some foam away from his mouth. “I don’t mean to be too much of a downer. We’re here to help Ascension, and maintaining an appropriate level of caution around the locals shouldn’t detract from that.”

Hugh couldn’t help but scowl. “Help them? What are we supposed to do that Rain couldn’t do alone?”

Alustin put down his mug and turned to face the three apprentices with a serious expression. “Rain may be strong, but his power is limited. As much as I wish it weren’t true, if Rain were alone against the forces that are building up, he would be blown away like a leaf in the wind. Each of you have abilities that probably haven’t been seen in this reality for thousands of years, and gives us quite an edge. And Rain would die to save any one of you three. That’s… just the kind of person he is. I think he’s earned a measure of loyalty from us. ”

He looked into space, and his voice dropped quiet enough that Hugh had to lean closer to hear him. “The Expansionists are out there, acting through their allies in the Adamant Empire. They’re trying to find Ascension. When they do, they will come with fire and with ruin and they will leave none alive. They’re the same people who were pulling the strings on Anastis, the ones who were the power behind Havath. The people that rained fire from the skies until Helicote was a molten ruin. And now that we’ve driven them from Anastis, they’ve come here.”

He shot a furtive glance around the room. “Besides, there’s one other angle to why Kanderon has asked us to stay here that we haven’t mentioned yet. ”

Sabae tapped a finger on her lips for a few seconds before answering Alustin’s implied question. “Kanderon wants to build an alliance.”

Alustin grinned. “Precisely! The Splintered have already helped free Anastis of offworld influence. If we can show them that we’ll help when the going gets tough, then we might be able to call on them if there’s another attempted intrusion into our world.”

Sabae frowned. “Then why are we the only ones here? Aren’t there more than thirty other Librarians Errant? And what about Kanderon herself?”

“A journey through the labyrinths is no small thing,” cautioned Alustin. “We’re lucky we made it here with only one casualty.” He glanced at Artur, but the giant man remained impassive. “Besides, it’s not as if there’s nothing to do on Anastis. Kanderon has her paws full dealing with the remnants of the Havathi empire, even if they’ve lost their multiversal backers and are now operating alone. And the latest news is that a Sican elder has set up camp on the outskirts of Zophor, which can’t be good…”

Sabae and Alustin went into more detail, but Hugh decided he’d had his fill of politics. Instead, he grabbed a plate of fried mushrooms from a nearby table to share with Talia. They were delicious, and borderline unnaturally large - to the point where he and Talia were debating if a fungus-affinity mage had been involved - when Artur abruptly stood up from the table and faced outward. Hugh leant to the side to look past the stone-mage’s bulky body and caught a glimpse of a pair attempting to approach the table. 

The taller one looked to be a teenager roughly their age, or maybe a little younger. His most distinctive feature by far was his clearly dyed cherry-red hair. The smaller one was much younger, probably no older than eight or so, with piercing blue eyes.

Both of them were clearly intimidated by Artur’s hulking form, but they hadn’t backed off just yet. Hugh got the impression that Artur wasn’t looming quite as hard as he could either, probably because these two were children rather than adults.

“If it pleases you, Lord Earthshaker Golem” said the girl, “we would like to speak with the Burning Nightmare.”

The language here was more pleasant to listen to than either Harry and Rain’s English or Zorian’s Ikosion, but it was still unfamiliar, and it took a second or so for Simulacrum Number Four to translate the words and speak their meaning quietly to them in Ithonian.

Artur turned around and looked to Talia for approval.

She considered for a moment, then nodded. “Fair enough. They asked politely.”

Artur looked sternly at the two children. “First sign of trouble and I’m tossin’ ye into the ocean.”

Once the simulacrum translated, the two of them nodded, seemingly used to threats of that nature. Then Artur moved out of the way, and the kids took a pair of empty seats at the end of the table, just past Hugh. Simulacrum Four moved down the table so he could continue to translate for them without talking across the others.

“So it’s true,” the boy whispered to his companion, a little too loudly to be properly discreet. “They can only talk through the Mind Eater’s Thralls…” 

Rather than being intimidated like most other people they’d encountered so far, he sounded positively excited to be in the presence of people with terrifying titles. Once again, Hugh privately thanked this world for giving him a relatively innocuous name. There were plenty of worse things to be called than ‘Crystal Warder’.

“Kettel!” The girl elbowed him in the ribs. “Don’t be rude. Rule Thirty-Two: A noble impression earns noble contracts.” She turned to face them, her head just jutting out above the top of the table they were gathered around, and waved cheerfully at them.

“I am Ava Lek-Ani, and this is Kettel.” Following her lead, Kettel waved politely too, although Hugh could tell by the way his eyes were flitting around that he was reading  the System-given titles that denizens of this world could see floating around their heads, rather than looking at their faces. 

“We’re fire mages,” Kettel added. “And we figured that someone called the Burning Nightmare would be an interesting person to talk to, you know? Like, a good person to know if we wanna figure out more tricks.”

Hugh raised his eyebrows.

“Well,” Talia said, “I wouldn’t claim to be an expert, but I’m sure I can show you a few tricks.” She tried to crack her knuckles to punctuate her words, but looked a little forlorn when her phantom arm passed straight through the material fingers of her other hand.

Never one to lose composure for long, she turned back to the newcomers. “For starters, my name is Talia. As much as I like being referred to by my title, it’d probably go to my head in the long term. Better use my real name instead.” Hugh hid his smile, a little surprised at her relative humility. “And this is Hugh, that’s Sabae, and our teachers Alustin and Artur.” She paused for a moment as she looked around for Godrick, and there was a flicker of grief on her face before she continued. “Oh yeah, and the fellow translating for us is Zorian. Kind of.”

The young fire mages asked if they could see Talia demonstrate. Both of them were practically bouncing on the balls of their feet with excitement. A quick exchange of glances between the Anastans confirmed that no-one really had the heart to deny them the experience of seeing Talia sling around some dreamfire.

Noting that it would be unwise - and probably against the fire safety codes of this fledgling town, if they had any - to conjure magical fire inside, Alustin suggested that they find somewhere else instead.

“Is there anything around that I can use as a target?” Talia asked as their group exited the mess hall, still followed at a distance by a few onlookers. “Incinerating nothing isn’t very impressive.”

“I… couldn’t agree more,” Kettel said with a broad grin, looking at Talia with an expression that made Hugh feel vaguely possessive of her. “We can loan out a few practice dummies from the armoury.”

Ava looked sceptical. “If she burns straight through them, the replacement fee is coming out of your company credits, not mine.”

Kettel floundered for a moment, then his eyes lit up again. “The Bloodmarsh insects! The Captain’s lightning anchors fry any that cross the perimeter, but on the edge there’s plenty. Will that work?”

Hugh did a double take. Over time he thought he’d gradually adjusted to seeing the full extent of Rain’s abilities, but the idea that ‘the Captain’ (as people here seemed to refer to Rain) had been using a fraction of his magic to shelter his friends from mosquitos while he was in another world still felt faintly absurd.

Alustin tilted his head to one side, considering. “Your precision and control could use some practice, Talia.” He nodded. “A multitude of smaller targets would be a decent challenge. Lead on, young Kettel.”

After a brief pause for Simulacrum Number Four to relay his words, Kettel turned to lead them through the settlement’s closely-packed buildings at a pace that was slightly too fast to walk but slightly too slow to run.

A few minutes later, they found themselves at the edge of the settlement. The boundary was stark - bare earth gave way to a thick jungle that reminded Hugh a little of the land around the mangrove-lich city of Zophor. As Kettel had promised, the air outside was thick with the thumb-sized insects - as in, if Hugh stepped outside the invisible boundary, it would be difficult to open his mouth without accidentally swallowing one.

Every couple of seconds a few of the insects strayed across into the settlement. There was no immediate effect, but something magical must have been happening, because as soon as an insect made contact with anything else - the ground, a structure, or a person - there was a zapping sound and a small puff of smoke, followed by the insect dropping to the ground. Over the next few seconds, the dead insect’s body would slowly dissipate into the air - Rain’s Purify seemed to be active here too.

Next to Hugh, Sabae was spinning up her wind armour. That was probably a sensible precaution. Even if the bugs died when they landed on you, it would feel less gross if they couldn’t land on you at all. 

Hugh slapped at an oversized mosquito that was buzzing around his arm, and cringed when he actually hit it. He couldn’t quite keep the envy out of his voice as he turned to Sabae. “Your armour is probably one of the best forms of protection against insects. They can’t really get through the air; it’s breathable, and it doesn’t slow down your movement.”

He slapped another one of the engorged mosquitoes away from his face. “I can’t think of a way I could replicate that kind of effect with wards. Unless I could come up with a way to make them mobile, I guess?”

Sabae raised an arm and fired off a small blast of air in his direction. It messed up his hair and he spent a second patting it smooth again. 

Sabae laughed. “If we actually have to go out into the jungle - which I really hope we don’t - you can stay close to me and I’ll get them off you every couple of minutes.”

“I’ll go first!” Kettel walked out and stopped once he was only a metre or so away from the swarm. 

Hugh watched intently. Technically, he’d seen this world’s magic many times while travelling with Rain, but that was on another scale entirely to what he was seeing here. If he had to guess, it might be easier to figure out how this world’s magic worked by watching a novice than by watching a master.

Kettel spread out his feet and settled into a wide stance. A look of concentration came across his face. He pointed at the swarm, and said a single word that Simulacrum Four translated for them as ‘firebolt’. 

A pebble-sized spark of flame formed at the teenager’s fingertips and jetted out toward the mass of insects. Where it impacted the swarm, a handful of insects were consumed by fire and fell to the ground.

After watching Rain incinerate things from a mile away, it was strange to see low-level magic from this world. It was almost… cute in a way, the way a man-eating tiger would become an adorable kitten if you shrunk it down by a factor of twenty.

“Any pointers?” Kettel said, looking proud of himself. His voice was barely audible above the sound of the buzzing swarm. 

Ava rolled her eyes. “You know you don’t have to say the word every time, right?” She gestured - with her flat palm pointed outwards, unlike Kettel’s pointed fingers - and a spark of flame similar to the one Kettel had produced emerged from her hand. Ava’s firebolt flew straighter than Kettel’s, likewise dissipating in the swarm after incinerating half-a-dozen mosquitos. Then she took a deep breath, and a swirling cloak of fire appeared around her. She waved her hand through the air, and any insect unfortunate enough to be in her way was burnt to a crisp. Even though Hugh could feel the radiating heat from where he stood a metre away, the spell left Ava’s dress unharmed.

Hugh nodded appreciatively - that was a pretty neat trick.

Ava turned to Talia and bowed slightly. “Those were Firebolt and Shrouded by Flame. I’m hoping to take Fireball when I can. My level cap is 7 now, but I’m saving up my Ascension credits for a chance at a higher cap and Vanna says I’m pretty close to the front of the queue. Your turn?”

“Sure. Everyone, stay back.” Talia squeezed Hugh’s hand in hers, then he walked away to what he guessed was a safe distance - ten metres or so.

Hugh’s eyes flicked to Alustin as they stepped back, remembering what their mentor had said about the dangers of Talia’s abilities. Honestly, it was difficult for Hugh to grasp the scale of the magic at play. If Alustin was right, the actual safe radius if things went truly wrong with Talia’s magic was more like a thousand times this distance. 

Hugh kept his eyes fixed on his girlfriend. He was sure she had everything under control, but if anything did go wrong, he’d be by her side to help, not hiding at a safe distance.

Talia took a few deep breaths and touched her fingertips together in front of her chest. Her phantom right arm began to glow, bright lines and constellations of star-like points forming in the air where her clan tattoos used to be. Dozens of tiny flecks of dreamfire began to manifest in the nearby air, swirling around her upper body. With each breath she took, they pulsed inward and out, and more sparks formed from the air to join them until she was almost obscured by the iridescent cloud of lights.

Then she flared her hands outwards, and the dreamfire wasps surged away from her. The wasps coalesced into a multitude of distinct streams, each of which collided with the swarm of insects at a different point. Wherever the flame came into contact with the mundane insects there was a fist-sized explosion and a small plume of multi-coloured smoke, and a cluster of the fierce-looking insects evaporated. It looked for all the world like a fireworks show going off at ground level, right in front of their faces. One of the streams of dreamfire punched through the swarm and impacted a tree. Rather than bursting into flame, the tree looked like it went through centuries of decay in seconds, ageing and crumbling more with each impact, eventually falling apart into a pile of dust and wood scraps under its own weight.

Within a few seconds, the dreamfire swarm was spent, and most of the nearby insects were gone.

Hugh tore his gaze away from Talia and glanced at the others. Kettel and Ava were watching with wide eyes. Both of them were holding their breath, and even the other Anastans looked impressed - although Hugh noticed that Artur was scanning the jungle with wary eyes rather than enjoying the spectacle. 

Kettel and Ava spoke at the same time, and Simulacrum Number Four struggled to pick which to translate first:

“How is that possible?”

“What skill was that?”

Talia glowed with pride, and justifiably so. For as long as Hugh had known her, fine control had been one of her weakest points, and this display would have been impossible for her without the intense focus and study she’d done over the last few months.

“Well, I conjured the dreamfire with my dream affinity. It comes out looking that way ‘cause of the interaction with my fire-enhancing tattoos.” She gestured with her spectral hand at the tattoos that were still intensely bright on her left arm. “The actual effects of dreamfire are pretty unpredictable. Even I don’t know what it’s going to do most of the time.”

She looked a little unsteady on her feet, and Hugh put a hand on her shoulder to help keep her stable.

“If I cut my arm off, would I get one like yours?” Kettel asked earnestly.

Sabae choked back a laugh. “Not unless you’ve got some very cleverly disguised Clan Castis tattoos underneath that tunic.”

Kettel frowned, deep in thought, and Talia went on explaining. “To control the dreamfire, I adapted a spellform Alustin taught me, the one he uses to control his swarms of paper darts. You should ask him to show you that as well, it’s pretty crazy. We had to modify it a bit to make it work for me, though. My fire isn’t static the way paper is, so I have to keep investing mana into it or else it will dissipate.”

“So,” said Kettel, looking a little unsure of himself and staring into space. “What’s Dream Affinity? Is it a passive like Fire Affinity, only in a Mentalism skill-tree or something?”

Talia scowled. “Passive? Excuse me, that took plenty of effort.”

Sabae frowned - she seemed to have grasped the meaning of Kettel’s question. “I don’t think you can learn this as a ‘skill’ on your world. Our affinities are developed naturally by interacting with our world’s aether. You need to stick around on Anastis for years to pick up something like that.”

She looked to Artur for confirmation and he grunted in agreement, still looking out into the jungle. The air was slowly filling up with insects again as they filtered out of the jungle to replace - and consume what was left of - their incinerated comrades. 

Alustin had withdrawn Vanna’s briefing packet from his bag and was leafing through both it and the Ithonian-Common dictionary Rain had made for them to find something specific. Both of the books were floating in the air in front of him, drawing yet another look of awe from Kettel and Ava. “There’s a bigger problem, I think. From the little I’ve put together so far, your System constrains the spells you can cast to the ones you’ve acquired through it. Even if you did manage to acquire an affinity, or some spellcasting ability from another world, there’s a good chance the System would prevent you from using it anyway.”

Kettel put his hands on his hips and scowled. “Well, I’d trade my abilities for yours in a heartbeat,” he said, jerking his chin at Talia. “Maybe I could just tell the System to screw off?”

Alustin stifled a laugh. “You have heart, but I think that’s a little above your paygrade.”

Ava crossed her arms and frowned at Kettel. “Without the System, you’d never have been able to cast magic at all. Rule Four: you shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

There was a bit of a pause, and the thrumming of the insects grew louder to fill the silence.

“Maybe you should,” Sabae said quietly, “if it stops you from feeding yourself.”

Ava looked up with surprise. “That’s Rule Five. How did you know that?”

Sabae shrugged and said nothing.

Hugh felt vaguely uncomfortable - almost claustrophobic - as he usually did at the mention of the System. There was no denying that life on Anastis was chaotic and often unfair. The best case scenario was if you lived under the protection of a benevolent great power (like Kanderon, Hugh’s mind supplied, then quietly attached a note of question). Even then, the threat of a rival great power swooping down on your home and obliterating it was always there. Hells, even people who tried to stay out of harm's way by avoiding civilisation entirely still stood the risk that some greater conflict would spill over its previous bounds and put them in danger.

But at least great powers were something you could see. The System here was all-pervasive and invisible, tying everyone in webs of influence and control that must have felt as inescapable as gravity to the people who were born and died within its confines. 

It was no wonder that the System seemed to want them dead. Kettel seemed like a bit of an idiot to Hugh so far, but the look on his face as he realised that there might be a pathway outside the System was something to behold. It was as if Kettel had been looking at the world through a narrow window and they’d shown him a door to the world outside.

Abruptly, Simulacrum Number Four jerked his head to the side. 

“Rain and the original are-”

The words were cut off as a figure dressed in tightly-wrapped black fabric materialised out of thin air behind the simulacrum and drove a wicked-looking knife through his chest.

The simulacrum didn’t dissipate, the way magical constructs usually did when their physical forms were compromised. Instead, he smoothly turned around to face his attacker and grasped them by the neck. There was a moment of stillness as the snarling assassin locked eyes with the simulacrum and everything else seemed to freeze. Then Simulacrum Four twisted his free hand, there was a sudden surge of mana, and both of them vanished.

As if by some signal Hugh couldn’t hear, twenty or more cloaked figures emerged from the jungle and silently rushed toward them.

Because of her demonstration, Hugh and Talia were standing the closest to the edge of the camp. There wasn’t time to think - Hugh reached out to wrap his arms around Talia and forced as much mana as he could into a levitation cantrip. The pair of them shot upwards, but the first dagger-slash still made contact with his ankle. The impact was bizarrely cushioned, as he’d learned to expect when being sheltered by Rain’s wards.

A jolt of panic shot through Hugh. Rain wasn’t here.  

Which person was carrying the aura anchors that were letting Rain act at a distance to protect them? It had been Godrick before, but Hugh couldn’t remember who had taken over that responsibility now. If it was someone on the ground, there was a chance that Hugh’s levitation cantrip was about to take him and Talia out of the protected range - which would put them in much more serious danger.

He scanned the clearing with his crystal affinity, looking for the familiar signature of the aura anchors, but there were dozens of false positives nearby - the Purify and Fulmination anchors Rain had set up to protect the settlement from flies. All the anchors felt the same to his affinity sense, so it was difficult for him to quickly tell if there were any protective ones nearby at all.

Beneath them, Artur growled - a hair-raising sound that was audible even over the growing sounds of battle - and surged forward. A cloud of dust was forming around his feet, still small but growing each second. As his charge met the first of the dagger-wielding assassins, a sphere of iron blossomed out of his ring around his hand. By the time Artur’s fist impacted the assassin - a bald man with a thin cloth veil covering his face - the lump of iron was about the size of a human head. 

The bald man rocketed out of the clearing and back into the jungle from the force of the blow. Any ordinary person would have been just about torn in half, but Hugh couldn’t be sure if the assassin was dead or not - he hadn’t seen any blood, and if the people here were anything like Rain, then it would take a lot more than that to keep them down.

One of the assassins shouted something unintelligible. Without the simulacrum here to translate the words, Hugh wasn’t even sure if they were speaking the same language as Ascension.

Fortunately, Sabae had already spun up her wind armour to keep off the stinging insects. As a consequence, when the assassin who’d managed to sneak up behind her tried to slit her throat, the blade went awry and went skittering across the dirt. She whirled in a single motion and touched her hand to the centre of the assassin’s chest. Brilliant arcs of lightning surged out from where she touched the attacker, who spasmed and was thrown backwards by a simultaneous blast of wind. 

Hugh blinked, then remembered to activate an anti-glare cantrip. Once his eyes recovered he glanced around the clearing, trying to take stock of the situation a few metres below them. 

Six of the assassins were cautiously approaching Artur, circling him with their knives drawn. The cloud of dust around Artur’s legs was still growing, partially obscuring him from view like a miniature dust-devil.

Alustin had his sabre drawn and was duelling with five of the assassins at once. Each movement of the arcing silver blade left behind another after-image, each one a new piece of a lethal lattice he was constructing in the air around himself. As Hugh watched, Alustin leant back to narrowly dodge a dagger-thrust, then whipped his blade forward through another one of the attacker’s chests. The assassin collapsed, but the others pressed forward.

It was a stroke of luck that the assailants were focusing on those with higher System-assigned levels, the way Rain and Zorian had predicted. Alustin and Artur might be the two most dangerous people here, but they were also the two people best able to take care of themselves.

Unfortunately, whoever was coordinating the attackers hadn’t sent all their forces at Artur and Alustin. A bolt of fire jetted upwards from where Kettel and Ava were rapidly backing away. The teenage boy was launching a new erratic firebolt every second or so as a pair of assassins advanced toward them. It didn’t seem to be having much of an effect - a bearded assassin dodged under one of the jets of flame, and another splashed across his chest, lightly singeing loose threads on his cloak. Ava was standing right beside him, and the combined effect of their projectiles was barely enough to slow down the trio of assassins that had almost closed the distance.

Hugh barely had time to shout in surprise before Talia leapt from his grasp and plunged toward the ground. She released a spray of dreamfire as she fell. Instead of igniting her target, it made an awful bubbling sound when it made contact with the nearest assailant’s midsection. What was left of the assassin fell to the ground in two halves, still sizzling.

Talia rolled into the landing and quickly rose back upright. She ducked under a wild dagger-swing and moved as if to punch one of the attackers with her phantom arm. It phased through his chest, of course, but she must have done something because the assassin crumpled to the ground soundlessly.

She turned to confront the third assassin with a snarl. She wasn’t quite quick enough, because the black-clad woman had seized the opportunity to grab Kettel by the shoulder, pull him into a tight grip with her arm around his chest, and smoothly draw the blade of her knife across his throat. 

Ava cried out in shock, but there was no blood - wherever he was, Rain’s nearest aura anchor must have been within range of Kettel. The assassin’s face twisted in a scowl, and she said something quietly enough that Hugh could barely hear at this distance. Then, keeping her grip on Kettel’s chest despite the boy’s squirming, she reversed the grip on her knife and started stabbing the blade into his face, again and again. 

Hugh didn’t wait to see if Rain’s protection would last against the repeated attacks. He held the spellform in his mind’s eye just long enough to make sure his targeting was as precise as he could make it, then released a starbolt. 

It lanced out toward the assassin, bright enough to light up the clearing like a lightning-strike and almost blinding despite his anti-glare cantrip. It was a glancing blow to her head - intentionally, to be as far from accidentally hitting Kettel as possible - but it still looked to have left a decent-sized gash in the side of her skull, and Kettel was quickly soaked with his would-be killer’s blood as he frantically extracted himself from her death-grip. Talia stepped forward to hold him steady, but didn’t take her eyes off the rest of the battle where Artur and Alustin were tearing apart the remainder of the knife-wielding attackers.  

Hugh noticed with morbid curiosity that his nervous system seemed to have adapted well to this sort of thing. Rather than feeling physically ill, as he had when he’d killed his first person in Lothal about a month ago, the sight of the carnage beneath him just made him feel… sort of numb.

The last remaining assailant didn’t make any motion to defend himself, seeming to accept his fate at Alustin’s approaching sabre. Instead, he was repeating something under his breath - a prayer, perhaps. Then Alustin completed his thrust and the man fell to the ground.

Eyes wide with fear, Ava scrambled forward to where Talia was holding Kettel by the shoulder. She pulled on Talia’s clothes and shouted something. 

Not for the first time, Hugh cursed under his breath that he hadn’t had the time to learn the language yet. Without Zorian or one of his simulacra here to translate, it was difficult to guess what Ava was saying.

Ava pulled harder on Talia’s arm, and at the same time there was a sound of cracking wood and roaring wind. Hugh turned to look at the source of the sound.

There was a crater near the edge of the battleground. Writhing flames licked the edges, as if a huge hot coal had escaped from a giant’s fireplace and been catapulted through the forest into their midst. Warmth radiated out from the centre, hot enough that even at this distance Hugh felt his skin drying out.

Behind the curtain of fire, shapes flickered.

Hugh’s pupils contracted, his subtly cat-like irises struggling to make out the shifting figures behind the flames. His anti-glare cantrip served him well for sudden flashes of light, but the simple spell only filtered out momentary brightness - it didn’t increase the contrast when trying to make out the finer details of something that stayed bright longer than a lightning strike or the arc of a starbolt.

There, at the centre - something vaguely humanoid. The swirling flames seemed to ripple outward from the person’s torso, and their eyes were glowing even more brightly than the flames around them - two pinpricks of searing light that made the fire around them seem dim.

A tongue of flame surged out, billowing out at Artur. The new assailant must have identified him as one of the biggest threats. Or maybe he was just the closest.

Artur didn’t leap to one side, or attempt to assemble his armour - there wouldn’t have been time. Instead, the dirt beneath his feet gave way, and he sank up to his chest into the earth. The fire harmlessly passed above him, igniting a grove of trees behind him.

Only a few seconds had elapsed since the impact, but Hugh had already forced as much mana into another starbolt as he could. He’d just about had enough of strange entities showing up and attacking his friends. This time he could hopefully make sure it was over quickly.

Before he could act, the ball of fire shot back into the air, propelled by a surge of flame that billowed across the clearing. The ball began pulsating rapidly, almost as if it was breathing. By now, the battlefield was littered with flames that pulsed along with it. As the flames grew brighter, they seemed to be pulled toward the ball of flames like water draining into a giant whirlpool. 

Then the sphere went dark, and massive jets of flame surged out. With every pulse, the fires grew stronger and more tendrils were expelled from the centre until it felt like the clearing was more fire than air.

Hovering in the air thanks to his levitation cantrip, Hugh was safe for now from the rolling flames that were spreading out across the ground. He could still see the dual pinpricks of light at the center of the inferno, and released his attack before they got too far away. The jet of starfire crossed the distance to its target almost instantly, but Hugh swore he could see the fire-wreathed figure turn to face him inhumanly fast. In the instant before impact, the burning pinpricks seemed to focus on him. And if he looked closely, there seemed to be cracks in the person’s face, spreading out from the corner of its eyes.

He wasn’t sure what he expected to happen to the fire-person. Maybe an explosion, or perhaps for the flames to dissipate completely once the source was dead. What he didn’t expect was for the fire-person to take the starbolt directly to the face and barely falter.

By now, Alustin’s paper armour had wrapped completely around him. His eyes were only barely visible through a crack in his helmet, and he was hovering slightly above the ground, held aloft by the rapidly-beating paper wings on his back. He raised an arm and released a volley of paper darts from one of his sleeves. The tiny scraps of paper scattered like miniature birds taking flight and spread out around the clearing. It took a moment for Hugh to realise Alustin was shouting something:

“It's the System! It’s limiting how much damage you can do in an instant. Single attacks won’t work, we have to wear it down!”

Another tongue of flame surged out. This time, coming for him. 

A moment of estimation told him that his levitation spell wouldn’t be able to lift him out of the way. And judging from the way Artur had opted to avoid the magical flames rather than taking them head-on, there were good odds that the strongest shield he could conjure wouldn’t be enough to keep him safe. 

Was one of Rain’s anchors shielding them from fire? Then he remembered what the simulacrum had said before it had vanished. Something about Rain and the original…

Could he even be sure that Rain was still alive?

With only a few moments to spare, Hugh reversed the direction of his levitation spell, forcing as much mana as he could into the simple spellform. Now allied with gravity rather than fighting against it, Hugh shot downward far faster than a dropped object would fall. 

Though the stream of fire passed above him, he still felt the heat as it passed close to him, like his clothes might spontaneously combust. 

Then, propelled by his own spell, he slammed into the ground and the world went dim for a moment. 

Rain’s wards stopped the sudden impact from causing lasting injury. Even so, the feeling of his head bouncing off the earth was still shockingly loud and disorienting. When the ringing in his ears subsided and his vision cleared a few seconds later, half the clearing was aflame. The fire-person was rapidly changing direction, and the air was thick with an ever-increasing number of flaming blasts. Hugh saw Alustin summon a ream of paper from his storage tattoo. Without pause, they folded themselves into a conical structure to deflect an onrushing flame-tendril.

Although the attack passed over it leaving Alustin unharmed, the paper actually turned black at the edges. Knowing Alustin, this paper was enhanced with every manner of fire-resistance glyph under the sun. If it wasn’t managing to stand up to the fire, then there were good odds that not much else would either.

Hugh saw Talia grab Ava and bodily throw her away from the conflict, just in time to block an onrushing pillar of flame with a spray of her own dreamfire. On collision, the two kinds of fire swirled chaotically for a moment, then vanished, leaving behind a thick oily smoke as residue that hung in the air. 

Behind Talia, Ava sprawled in the dirt for a moment before scrambling to her feet and running for the settlement proper. Her once-colourful dress was now stained with dirt and ash.

Hugh scanned the clearing. There was no sign of Kettel, and dirt where he’d been standing was melted almost to glass. He could hear the sounds of more conflict in the distance, closer to the middle of Ascension’s camp.

As he turned back to the battle, his heart froze in his chest.  Three jets of flame were converging on his location, curving through the air to strike from a different angle one after the other. There was no way he could dodge them all, and even if he had time to build a ward, it likely wouldn’t survive.

Just before the flames struck, a strange, dark rock about the size of Hugh’s head broke free from the ground and interposed itself between him and the flames. The rock looked subtly off , almost like an illusion made without an eye for detail. Each of the rock’s edges were perfectly smooth, with a perfectly uniform color throughout. To add to the surreality, Hugh's crystal affinity was screaming at him, telling him there was enough crystal within this small rock to dwarf Artur in size.

When the rock impacted the flames, it drank in the flaming magic without any sign of damage. Then it launched itself towards the inferno, diverting to absorb more blasts along its path. Hugh glanced over to Artur, who was visibly struggling to control the foreign substance with such precision. 

As much as that had mystified him, now wasn’t the time to ask questions. He quickly got to his feet, still wobbling slightly. What had Alustin said? We have to wear them down.

Hugh pulled a crystal wardstone from his storage tattoo as he thought through his list of options. Temporarily blinding people with a surge of light from his stellar affinity was a useful trick against most opponents. That probably wouldn’t work so well against an enemy that seemed at home at the centre of an incandescent orb of fire hot enough to set dirt alight. Starbolts were likewise not at their best on a world where some ancient magical ancestors were reaching out from the past to put a limit on the damage of his strongest weapon.

Frankly, any of his friends were better suited to sustained damage than he was. For now, he’d leave doing the damage to them. The best he could hope for was to act as a distraction. 

He was already reaching for his second wardstone when the first had barely left his hand. They weren’t particularly sophisticated weapons, but they were probably one of his best tools here.

Long ago, when he’d first started learning about warding, his mentors had warned him that anchoring too many wards to a small volume of substrate left the wards unstable, liable to explode if even slightly disturbed. 

Well, that was a problem if you were doing the typical business of ward-crafting - making enduring spells that could serve for months or years. But if what you wanted to achieve was an explosion, then ‘too many wards’ stopped being a problem and started becoming a viable strategy. Each of the fist-sized crystals had dozens of wards crammed into its surface, and would detonate with a sizable shockwave on impact.

Hugh launched wardstone after wardstone at the centre of the flame-sphere. Even though it was hard to hit the sphere as it wove around the battlefield, the fire-person seemed to have decided his attacks were too dangerous to ignore. The jets of flame were angling towards the wardstones in the air, detonating both on contact. Hugh was glad there was enough latent energy in the wardstones to disrupt the magical fire, though it wasn’t an equal trade - the assailant could launch a dozen fireballs in the time it took Hugh to release a single wardstones.

The strange rock Artur had pulled from the ground was much more effective in occupying the sphere’s attention. The sphere - or rather, the strange creature Hugh could barely make out within it - seemed to have no idea how to react to a freely-controlled obstacle that could absorb its hits. Artur sent the rock to spin around the sphere, intercepting as much discharge as possible. The stone shone like a star to Hugh’s crystal affinity, although he could tell that it was starting to crack under the withering assault.

It felt like Artur was everywhere at once. At the same time as he manipulated the strange stone in the air, he was periodically flinging boulders at the orb and catching the flames that came too close to him with an immense iron hammer he’d extracted from his ring. Whenever the fire-person’s strikes came too close, the flames twisted strangely around the metal, sucking the magic inward the way Rain had warned them might happen.

Even the hammer was suffering under the relentless assault of flames. If the puddles of molten metal forming around Artur were any indication, this was probably the third or fourth hammer that he’d summoned from his ring. By now, the battlefield had been completely transformed. What was once a jungle had become a sea of flames. Without his anti-glare cantrip, Hugh would have found it painful to even look at the environment. The air was choked with ash and smoke, making it difficult to see, let alone breathe. Still, Artur fought on, reforming his hammer every time it got too damaged.

A wardstone detonated close to its target, and Sabae darted inward to take advantage of the opening. Her wind-armor let her jump through the air similarly to the flaming sphere, which allowed her to keep up with its rapid movements. As she got close, she detonated her wind-armour, releasing the coils of rushing air at their adversary. The protective cocoon of flame momentarily ruptured under the pressure, exposing the person within. 

The brightness of the figure meant that an image of it almost burnt into his retinas - the curtains of fire seemed to have been shielding them from some of the light and heat. Hugh squinted to get a better look.

The person inside was… just a human. Not some sort of miniature sun or fire-drake. A normal man, just completely naked and without a hair on his head or body. Without the sheltering flames, Hugh could see the cracks around his eyes even more clearly. They carved through the flesh of his face, looking almost like his head was rupturing under the strain of containing whatever inner energy was making his eyes burn so brightly.

The other thing Hugh noticed was the impassive expression on the man’s face. Even when Alustin seized upon the moment of vulnerability to dive in on his paper wings and slash his sabre across the man’s ribs, there was no trace of pain. His upper lip didn’t even twitch as he re-wove the fire to cover him again, until once again Hugh couldn’t see his face. 

The ward-stones had served their purpose, but that had been his last one. So Hugh reached into his storage tattoo and retrieved one of the other items inside that could serve as a weapon. 

The gun was surprisingly heavy in his hands for such a small object. Hugh raised the weapon in his hands and took careful aim at the flaming sphere. The weapon was easier to aim than most spells, and the white-hot sphere was easy to see, even with the air choked with ash. Still, he had to be careful. The sphere was changing direction every second, and both Harry and Rain had given them strict instructions to never fire if there was risk of hitting an ally. 

Despite having practised with the strange weapons on the reflected Earth, the sound of the gunshot was deafening. He did his best to grit his teeth through the painfully loud sounds, and made a note to research anti-sound cantrips later. The recoil made the weapon jump in his hands, but he kept the barrel trained on his target and pulled the trigger again and again until the explosive cracking sound was replaced by a quiet clicking. There was more ammunition in his storage tattoo, but he didn’t trust himself to remember the finicky reloading process. Talia and Godrick had taken to the mechanics of Earth’s weapons like ducks to water, but Hugh couldn’t remember much more than the ‘point and shoot’ that Rain had taught them.

It was hard to tell if the impact of each bullet was having much effect, but it was clear they had the fire-person on the back foot. Alustin’s sabre couldn’t reach their enemy without him putting his arm deep into the flames, so he and Sabae were coordinating to first blast a gap in the fire-shield with a surge of wind, then dart in and slash the incandescent figure half-a-dozen times. Alustin’s sabre left behind a series of echo images each time, and although they didn’t slice their target in half - the way they would have done to an ordinary person - the fire-person was clearly trying to avoid them. That meant he was gradually being boxed in, and the darting movements of the sphere of fire were slowing and becoming more predictable. While Alustin himself needed to avoid the flames, the spectral echoes of his sword were magical constructs rather than physical blades, and they seemed to hang immovably in the fire just as they would in air.

Each time, the fire-person tried to respond with a curtain of fire, but if Sabae or Alustin couldn’t make it out of the way in time, then Talia or Artur were there to intercept. Artur seemed to have an endless supply of metal in his ring, and a single burst of dreamfire wasps was enough to destructively react with a jet of their enemies fire, resulting in another plume of the same foul oily gas. The intermittent blasts of air produced when Sabae detonated her armour weren’t enough to dissipate the oil, and the clearing was adrift with the stuff. Fortunately it seemed inert - or rather, Hugh supposed - it hadn’t ignited just yet.

Around them, the trees were either alight or had already been reduced to ash. The nearby buildings of Ascension’s settlement were mostly built from raised earth, so they were mostly just singed rather than reduced to rubble.

The bodies of the black-clad people who had initially emerged from the jungle to attack them were charred to the point of unidentifiability.

Hugh stashed the gun back in his storage tattoo and covered his mouth. The ash was becoming unbearable, every breath stinging his lungs with the oppressive heat. He rushed over to Talia as she bent over in a coughing fit. The others were continuing to fight, but each of them were lucky enough to have some measure of protection from the toxic air. Talia was trying to keep fighting too, but her body was starting to give out. Hugh stood protectively in front of her and began to embed a ward in the surface layers of stone beneath the ground. They would be sitting ducks while in this circle, but without being able to breathe they were already as good as dead.

Above them, Alustin landed a series of sabre-slashes across the entity’s body. Hugh thought he saw the cracks at the eyes widening, stretching further around their enemy’s head, but that could have just been a trick of the light.

The ward fell into place, and Hugh felt the change immediately. The air was still oppressively hot inside the ward, but at least the ash was held at bay for the time being. He sucked in a relieved breath.

Across the clearing, there was a cry of pain from Artur. The stone mage had assembled the beginnings of his stone armor, but it looked like a jet of flame had hit him square in the chest shortly afterward, melting some of the stone. It was hard to see how much damage his body had taken, but Hugh couldn’t sit idly any longer. He took a deep breath and ran out of the ward, launching starbolt after starbolt. The starbolts were underpowered, launched as quickly as possible so as to avoid hitting the damage limit. As he darted through the clouds of ash and fire, time seemed to slow for Hugh as adrenaline and fear for his friends kept him moving. 

Release starbolt, dodge to the side. Release starbolt, drop and roll to avoid a jet of flame. Hot. Jump to feet, release starbolt. Shirt aflame, raise arm to let Mackerel put it out. Ignore the taste of ash in your mouth. Release starbolt. Ignore painfully low mana reserves. Embed flame-suppressant ward into the glassy melted earth, dodge, release starbolt.

Hugh wasn’t sure how much time had passed when a nearby ripple in the air broke his concentration. A Zorian-simulacrum arrived next to Hugh and took a second to glance around the clearing. 

The simulacrum looked like it had been through hell. Hugh guessed it was Simulacrum Number Four by the massive wound that went straight through its ectoplasmic chest. The edges of the wound were smoking slightly, and the internal metallic skeleton was clearly visible.

“Enemy?” the simulacrum gestured with one hand at the flame-person.

“Yes!” Hugh managed to squeeze out through gritted teeth as he released another starbolt - his mana was getting dangerously low. “Help?”

The simulacrum nodded, and then he was gone again. Hugh shook his head, disoriented - but it wasn’t another teleport. The simulacrum had simply darted upward, clearly under the effect of some kind of magical flight and hastening spells. 

It closed the distance to the fire-person quickly, and dove headfirst into the flames without hesitation. There was a burst of acrid-looking smoke and Sabae cried out in surprise, but the remains of the simulacrum kept moving, seemingly ignoring the fact that its entire body was immersed in fire.

For the first time, Hugh thought he saw a flicker of emotion on the fire-person’s face - surprise. Then the simulacrum crash-tackled him, and the pair of them vanished with a faint ripple in the air.

Without a source, the orb of fire in the air dissipated, though dozens of smaller blazes around the clearing burnt on. Hugh sagged where he stood, spent. 

Talia put her hands on her hips and stared out into the flame-scarred jungle from inside the ward. “Well, at least that took care of the damn flies.” 

Alustin walked over and touched Hugh lightly on the shoulder. “Are you alright?” Behind him, Artur was taking the time to form his full armour despite the lack of visible enemies. Hugh wholeheartedly approved - after an entire force had materialised out of nowhere, he wasn’t going to complain about paranoia anytime soon. 

Hugh spat out a wad of phlegm and cringed as he noticed that it was about half ash in composition. “Where’s Kettel? And Ava?”

Ava emerged from inside one of the charred buildings. Her face and hair were dusted with soot, and Hugh’s heart sank at the sight of an eight year old’s face bearing an expression that had no place there. “Kettel tur ralan”. She pointed at a particularly scorched section of ground near the middle of the clearing. “Jo ralan,” she repeated quietly.

Hugh didn’t know the exact translation of the words she’d said, but the context made it pretty clear: Kettel was dead.

Why hadn’t Rain kept Kettel safe from the fire? 

Hugh turned to Alustin with a rising sense of panic. “Where is Rain? Can you find him with your far-seeing or something?”

Talia raised her intact arm and punched him in the shoulder. 

Hugh stumbled a little backwards, but the impact was blunted by Force Ward in the way he’d grown used to. 

“He’s alive,” Hugh said with relief. 

Sabae touched down next to them, but kept her wind armour spinning around her limbs. “Do you think he needs our help?”

The sound of an explosion in the distance punctuated her words. The fighting elsewhere was clearly still underway.

The ground shook a little as Artur stepped over to where they were gathering. He hadn’t yet assembled his full stone armour, but he already stood a little taller than the remaining trees and was still growing every second. His voice sounded oddly quiet as it emerged:

“Someone is comin’ after Ascension. We have three options as I see it. Stay here and prepare for wha’ever else might come our way. Or head into the jungle to get away from their primary target, assuming that’s actually Ascension and not us.”

“Or?” prompted Hugh.

Artur sighed. “Or we can find our allies and help keep ‘em alive a little longer. It’s what I’d do if it were just me and Alustin, but I don’t want ta put all of ye in more danger than ye already are.”

“That’s why Kanderon wants us here, isn’t it?” Sabae asked rhetorically. “To help Rain and his friends?”

Alustin nodded with grim determination.  “I’d bet the last of my coin that those assassins were sent by the Adamant Empire. I doubt the bulk of their forces were sent against us - the fighting elsewhere is probably even worse.”

Through a series of pantomime gestures, Talia did her best to tell Ava to shelter in the nearest building until they returned. Hugh took a moment to emplace a simple pair of wards by the entrance. Leaving her behind left a bad taste in his mouth, but bringing her with them as they sought out more battles would have been an even worse idea.

Then Artur’s giant stone form knelt down and gestured for them to climb aboard.

Sabae leapt to his shoulder in a single motion, propelled by unfurling currents of wind. Alustin was next - he was about to launch himself up Artur’s enormous stone thigh with his paper wings when he whirled in shock and drew his sabre.

A misshapen lump had materialised on the ground near them. It looked vaguely humanoid, but with stick-thin limbs - or were they bones that had been stripped of flesh? The skull was the only mostly-intact part, although even that was burnt enough that any face would be unrecognisable.

It didn’t make any move to attack, and after a second Hugh felt a familiar pulse of mana and the head-portion of the creature dissolved and reformed into a face Hugh recognised.

“...Zorian?”

No sooner had the mouth reformed than Simulacrum Number Four started speaking. “A shockwave is approaching, arrival in about fifteen seconds. Make a ward now. Now, Hugh!”

If Zorian was this worried, there wasn’t much Hugh could do in fifteen seconds. “Um. Everyone, get inside Artur. Hurry!”

Artur’s stone form collapsed onto its back, and a passageway opened up on the side - where the rib cage would end on a regular-sized human. Sabae darted into the building where they’d left Ava - Hugh briefly felt a mental alarm from one of his wards - and emerged holding a confused Ava by the scruff of her neck, looking for all the world like a mother cat with an unruly kitten. 

Hugh was counting under his breath. Six seconds later, all of them were huddled in a cramped void at the centre of the stone giant. Artur closed off the entryway and plunged their group into relative darkness, lit only by Talia’s still-glowing arm. 

Hugh took a deep breath and reached out with his crystal affinity. Thanks to Artur’s craftsmanship, the stone around them was pure and carefully constructed, the perfect substrate for a defensive ward. Shaping the right patterns into the stone was easy, which was just as well - his mental count was at two when he finished imbuing the protective ward with the last dregs of his mana reserves.

A moment later, Zorian’s prediction proved true and the shockwave arrived. The tons of stone around them helped absorb the impact, and so did his ward - so he could only guess what it would have been like without shelter. The rumbling movement of the earth was almost deafening, and the stone under his feet jolted and sent him sprawling. The space was small enough that everyone went down in a tangle of limbs.

“What was that?” muttered Talia, dazed.

“Shit,” said Alustin. “We left the simulacrum outside.”

Artur opened the passageway and one by one they filtered outside.

If Ascension’s camp had been damaged before, now it was virtually flattened. Most of the buildings had collapsed into rubble, and the jungle looked like it had been crushed by gale-force winds for as far as Hugh could easily see. The trees weren’t aflame for the most part - in fact, it looked like the shockwave had managed to put out most of the flames that their conflict had left behind. Artur’s stone giant form had crumbled at the edges, but it was still by far the most intact structure nearby. 

There was no sign of the misshapen simulacrum where they’d left it.

Talia cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted. “Zorian?”

“There,” Hugh said quietly. Thirty or so metres away, he could feel the titanium bones that made up the simulacrum skeletons. 

Unfortunately, the titanium bones were scattered over quite a wide area. 

It took him a few seconds to locate the head. The magic was clearly gone, and it was nothing more than a lump of metal. Nevertheless, they stood quietly around the titanium skull, as if waiting for it to speak. 

A few seconds later, the air twisted and another Zorian appeared in front of them. Visually, there was no indication this was anything but the real Zorian, a school-aged boy wearing a plain white vest. Hugh wasn’t fooled. Although neither bones nor metal showed up quite as well as what people usually thought of as ‘crystal’, Kanderon and Artur had taught him that they both technically had a crystalline structure on the micro-scale. He could feel the lack of any bones - real or metallic - in the simulacrum in front of them, so this was probably a simulacrum that Zorian had conjured hastily, without time to implant a metallic skeleton for additional resilience.

“What was that?!” Alustin blurted out. 

“We think,” said the simulacrum, taking a deep breath for what must have been emphasis, since it didn’t need to breathe, “that was Warden Nem greeting the Ishavean Ascendant.”

There was a long silence as they took in his words, broken only by the rolling echoes of the immense shockwave returning from a distant mountain range.

The simulacrum started casting a spell - Hugh recognised it as a Gate that would link their location with another. “We need to regroup,” the simulacrum said as it completed the spell. “Move quickly. We don’t know how many Adamants survived that.”

Hugh glanced at where the centre of Ascension’s camp had been, and held back from asking the obvious question. Instead, he followed the simulacrum’s directions and stepped through the rift in space to the other side.

Notes:

My co-writer and beta-reader Berix has written a fanfic of A Call to the Dark City here. I don't know the world he's chosen as their destination, but I am enjoying seeing Zorian, Rain and Harry destroy things in a new reality.

As always, thanks for your patience.

Notes:

This is my first ever fanfic :) Constructive criticism welcome.

Many thanks to Berix (who is writing a new major Delve fanfic on Ao3 here - which I highly recommend if you like Delve) and my other co-writers for assisting with this chapter. Berix is also posting a mirror of this story on Sufficient Velocity here, in case you prefer forum-style discussion.

Many thanks also to Kyreneryk from the Sufficient Velocity forum. Their work, Fivefold Integration heavily inspired this story, and they've also given me a lot of useful feedback.