Chapter 227. Ghosting (Patreon)

When we exit the void, I collapse, suspending myself in the air like a limp marionette. The tendrils of darkness that cocoon my body slough off and dissipate. After being in the senseless dark, the plane is a shock to the senses. The smell of fecund growth is overwhelming. Small, stubby ferns and paddle-shaped roots cover most of the visible terrain. I sense sleek martens frolicking in burrows below us while colonies of flying, nine-legged ants swarm above.

I close my eyes. “My body felt like it was going to burst.”

“It did burst,” Maria mutters. “Five times in the past hour alone.”

Thanks for the reminder. “But think of all the times I didn’t burst,” I reply. “I’ve improved a lot from a week ago.”

Raising an eyebrow, Karanos manifests a simple chair and sits, the chair legs slanting slightly on the uneven ground. “And you’ll have more opportunities yet. There’s another stretch of shattered planes ahead–and more void travel.”

No... I groan internally. “I feel like we’ve passed through far more sections of void on the return trip.”

“You can handle it, and it’s faster this way,” he notes. “Now rest. We’ll take a break for the next few hours.”

“Give me the transmission artifact,” I say, holding out my hand.

Karanos snorts. “Not when you ask like a child.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Come on, I flew through the void at great personal risk for a prolonged period of time.”

“There was never any risk,” Karanos corrects. “You can’t die.”

“If you weren’t present, and I died after spending more than ten minutes in the vacuum...” I trail off, transfixed by the gruesome implications. “Some would call that a fate worse than death.”

“You’d find a way out eventually.”

Maria glances between us. “Can you just give him the artifact like an adult?”

Karanos’ fingers twitch. “The longer this trip drags on, the more I feel like a parent. Fine.”

I float languidly over and pluck the transmission artifact from his hands. “Thank you for keeping it safe. I’ll be back soon.”

I head for a nearby slick of rock, the surface unfavorable to ants and other crawling critters. When I use the transmission artifact, I’ll be leaving my body effectively unattended. While I’ll just come back if I die, I’d rather avoid letting insects crawl into my orifices.

Where are you going? Maria asks, keeping pace below with a brisk walk.

Somewhere I can pass out in peace.

She looks up, a frown clouding her features. I can just watch you. Fire elementalism is rather ideal for keeping bugs at bay.

Fine. Rather than heading for the tall rock, I settle for a boulder within eyeshot. As I lay down, Maria jumps up, flames unnecessary when she has ascendant energy to power her legs.

“Who are you going to speak to?” she asks.

“Euryphel.” It shouldn’t come as a surprise. “I haven’t checked in with him since we entered the lost quadrant.” I hover my thumb over the transmission artifact’s bottom trigger. “Anything you would like to relay?”

After contemplating for a moment, she shakes her head. “Nothing so urgent it can’t wait for later.”

“If I somehow see Zilverna, I’ll tell him–”

“You won’t,” she interjects. “We already agreed he’s not being drawn into this. The war between the SPU and Selejo was treacherous, but going against the entire world is incomparably risky.”

“You’re right, apologies if I worried you. Anyway, I’m off.”

I depress the button and find myself in Euryphel’s bedroom. The prince is at his vanity desk staring intently at the mirror, applying a pale cream to his skin. Rather than wearing his typical formal robes, he’s in casual clothes. I realize that it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him wear jeans. The attire is incongruous with my normal image of him.

“Eury,” I call out.

The prince whips around. “Ian!” A grin stretches across his face.

I match his smile. “Finally back. How have things been?”

“Busy.” He gestures to his face. “If you can’t tell, I’m preparing to go out.”

I walk over to the vanity, peering at various tubes of makeup and dye. “Where to?”

“Sere.” He resumes his makeup routine, rubbing the pale cream into his cheeks. “How long do you have?”

“A few hours.”

He pauses, then gives me a calculating look. “What would you say about coming with?”

—

I leave Euryphel for exactly two hours, returning to my body. When I activate the transmission artifact again, I find myself standing in a dank alleyway that smells of rank trash. Looking up, I recognize the iconic secondary level of Saispar, a medium-sized university town. I know very little about Sere’s provinces and cities, but the massive, winding platform wrought from colored glass is iconic.

Kaspari’s position in Sere is akin to Gnoste’s in Kester: not particularly high. Both are arid, with older, dwindling populations. Much of Kaspari’s energy and wealth is concentrated in its eponymous capital, Kaspar. Situated an hour north, Saispar is distant enough to be its own entity but still firmly within the metropolitan area.

It’s a good place for an Infinity Loop experiment. University researchers should be in ample supply, and the town itself is average enough that it wouldn’t stick out. Why would anyone suspect Saispar of being a town with an Infinity Loop more than any other medium-sized college town?

“You’re certainly dressed for the occasion,” Euryphel remarks, interrupting my reverie.

The dark gray cape built into Cayeun’s rugged jacket doubles as a cowl. The material resizes dynamically to wrap my forehead and jaw, leaving only a slit for my eyes. Since I’m incorporeal, there’s no chance of being disrobed, so my identity should be safe. The only danger might be Remorse practitioners, but even peak Remorse practitioners can’t skim surface thoughts without their mental intrusion being noticed.

Crystal and Cayeun Suncloud’s mind-reading abilities are apparently on another level. I should remember to give the fish more appreciation when I return.

Continuing, he says, “You look like a petty thief.”

The hot breath of the desert finds no purchase in the shadows of the shining skyscrapers and Upper Level, but the ambient temperature is still oppressively hot. My clothes are rather heavy and unsuited to the weather, but they’ll suffice. While I can feel the temperature, it doesn’t actually affect me–my real body in Eternity shouldn’t be affected by this world’s weather.

I smirk. “I’m a ghost–I can pass through walls and objects. I’m not worried about people mistaking me for a burglar. If I play my cards right, they won’t see me at all.” I frown. “Besides, I look far more like an assassin than a run-of-the-mill thief. Where’s your imagination?”

He rolls his eyes. “You don’t even know how to hold a sword, let alone a dagger. Your form with the wooden practice sword has always been terrible.”

“I’ve been getting more experience lately,” I retort. “Maria’s been showing me how to use a dagger artifact I found.”

Suddenly Euryphel stiffens. “Quiet. Someone’s coming.”

“From this point on, speak on the wind only,” he says. “Quantum channeling doesn’t work when you’re projecting out of body, so that option’s out.”

In other words, whisper so softly as to be inaudible, relying on Euryphel’s practice to direct and amplify the sound waves to the former prince’s ear.

“You don’t have your soul sight, so you won’t help us as a necromancer, but we have Soolemar for that.”

I do a double take. “Wait, Soolemar is here, in Sere?” It’s only been a few weeks since I told Euryphel to reach out to the old necromancer. “He hasn’t left Gnoste. Ever.”

“Well, he’s been traveling all over the world since five days ago. We paired him with Guardian Druni. She’s been using her elementalism to ferry him across the Illyrian Ocean.”

“Is that how you scouted this city?” I ask.

“No. We found out about this Infinity Loop experiment through more traditional channels. It was only thirty minutes ago that Soolemar confirmed the presence of a vortex of souls above the town.” Euryphel motions for me to follow him out of the alley.

“So we’ve found it,” I say. “Now what? Attacking it now is pointless.” Doing so would be nothing more than destroying an expensive capital asset.

“We’ve found that it’s here, but not its exact physical location,” Euryphel replied. “That’s where we come in.”

“We?”

“You already said it yourself–you’re the perfect scout. Paired with my Regret scenarios, we’ll be able to find the Infinity Loop’s location. By the way, as we walk, loosen that cowl a bit. You’re sticking out too much in my scenarios.”

“Say we do find its location now,” I say, tugging at the cloth over my mouth. “What happens if it moves in the next few weeks?”

Euryphel nods in consideration and steps onto a small thoroughfare. Regulars are everywhere; I feel like I’m going to accidentally bump into–or more accurately, pass through–someone without the spatial awareness my vital vision affords me.

“Moving the loop is unlikely, but a point the Darkseers have already considered,” he continues.

I raise an eyebrow. “I still can’t get over that name.”

“Be nice–it was Diana’s idea,” Euryphel says coyly.

“Since when are you nice to Diana?”

“Since she stopped being a brat. Oddly enough, I think you had a large part to play in her transformation, but I digress: Once we locate the loop, Soolemar is going to send in a small tracking construct. It’ll be powered by necromancy and insulated within a carapace, minimizing its Death energy signature.”

A valid strategy–necromantic constructs appear like inanimate objects. A small one could easily go unnoticed.

But. “Is there no back-up plan?”

Euryphel covers his mouth, his eyes hinting at muffled laughter. “Are you really asking whether I have a back-up plan? Also, watch where you’re going.”

My head snaps forward and I step around a young couple holding hands. That would have been awkward. “You did make over fifty contingency plans for our invasion of Selejo...”

“Exactly. Now, if you had it your way, there would’ve been one plan,” Euryphel laments. “Winging it.”

I roll my eyes. “So what’s the back-up plan in this case?”

“Plans,” Euryphel corrects. “We have a secondary team that will come in next week to add specialized End arrays, and one of our Life practitioners is going to station a trained fox to keep an eye on the Infinity Loop’s activity.”

“A fox?”

“Small, solitary, independent. Intelligent.”

I nod. “Huh. You really recruited some interesting people. Seems like you got some strong ones.”

“We were lucky that those we reached out to agreed to help. To be fair, we went after the low-hanging fruit–the people who had the highest likelihood of helping based on the auguries of Beginning practitioners.”

“Soolemar isn’t low-hanging fruit.”

“No, he wasn’t. But we still got him because of you. And we recruited Illalios because of Maria.”

“You have an Illalios?” I ask. “I didn’t think Shattradan’s elite would ever involve themselves in something like this with their neutrality stance.” There’s a reason why other nations trust Shattradan to host the Fassari Summit.

“Sometimes I forget how naive you are,” Euryphel mutters. “Neutrality is only a facade, Ian. In public, Shattradan could never blatantly take sides or go to war. Consequently, they’ve become masters at puppeting politics from the shadows.”

“Which Illalios?” I’m familiar enough with the politics of my homeland that I should recognize them.

“Celek Illalios.”

I frown for a moment before recognition dawns on me. Celek is the man I saw in Maria’s soul. A former partner.

Her memory comes back to me with acute sharpness, as though it were my own. I see him through Maria’s eyes, the two of us tangled in the bedsheets, morning sunlight streaming through thin drapes.

She tells him that he could do more, turn Shattradan into the kind of paradise she envisions for Selejo. Eyes half-lidded, he gives her a tired smile and kisses her forehead, saying, “Perhaps one day I’ll think about it.”

A chill rushes down my spine. The sowing of fate, now reaped.

“How do you know which way to walk?” I ask.

“I’m in communication with Soolemar within my Regret scenarios,” Euryphel says. “He can’t get close because this city has defensive arrays to detect necromancy. Tiny constructs can get past them, but Soolemar’s body sets off the trigger.”

“How does he even enter the border, then?”

“Nations don’t bother running the arrays over such a wide area,” he replies. “Not worth the cost. Many cities don’t even have them–it’s very much a regional practice. It just so happens that Sere has them everywhere.”

The Infinity Loop, which uses necromancy, was created in Sere. Sere is also hypervigilant against necromancers. That doesn’t seem like a coincidence.

“So how is he finding the loop, then?”

“With his constructs. We’re about to run into one of them...now.”

I squint my eyes to see further, but don’t notice anything aside from people.

Suddenly a bug-shaped creature jumps off the nearest building, passes through me, and lands onto Euryphel’s shoulder. I flinch and take in a deep breath.

“Soolemar didn’t mean to startle you,” Euryphel chortles. “The construct can’t sense you at all–you have no physical presence or vital signature.”

“It’s fine.” Curiosity quickly takes hold–I haven’t seen Soolemar use constructs like this before. As we walk, Euryphel continuously adjusts his steps and tells me to pay attention to my surroundings as I inspect Soolemar’s handiwork. I focus mostly on its outer shell and the small inscriptions covering its exterior. Soolemar prefers interior inscriptions; I wonder if he’s using both the inside and outside of the shell because there isn’t enough room.

Depending on the way Euryphel moves, the construct digs its forelegs into his shoulders, adjusting the former prince’s angle. Such navigation is a bit clunky since Euryphel needs to follow the streets–he can’t take a direct path to the source of the souls–but after forty minutes of walking, we finally reach a nondescript building with a plaque out front that says, “Ancillary Dark Research Lab, University of Sere – Saispar.”

Yeah, this seems like it could be the right place. We’re practically out in the suburbs at this point. We continue past the building and wrap around to a residential block. Euryphel leads us so that wherever we walk, nobody is on the streets, a notable feat. As for any glosscams, we haven’t avoided them, but that’s what our disguises are for.

“You need to sneak in and find where the loop is,” Euryphel says. “At some point I’ll lose the ability to communicate with you, my wind unable to penetrate far enough into the lab. When possible, try to go through the walls to the exterior to regain contact. Once you locate the loop, Soolemar will direct the construct to where it needs to go. He says ‘hi,’ by the way.”

“Hi right back at him, I guess.” I suddenly realize that I’ve become the cornerstone of this whole operation. “What were you planning to do without me?”

“I was going to break into the lab within my Regret loops, brute forcing my way past any sealed doors or defenses. It’s much easier this way, though.”

“Are there sealed doors and defenses?” I ask, expression dubious. “It’s just a university lab.”

“Ian...it holds an asset worth billions, if not trillions, of auris. What do you think?”

...Right. “Anything I should know before I go in?”

“Don’t get seen, that’s it. And listen to my orders.”

On a whim, I stomp my foot into the ground. My leg disappears into the earth up to my shin. With a questioning look, I push the limb down up to my thigh, then sink my other leg in.

“Hey, what if I can travel underground the whole way?”

Smiling, I try to move my leg forward–only to find that it can’t get any purchase on the soil. It feels like I’m trying to walk in quicksand.

“What’s wrong?” Euryphel says.

“Uh...hold on.” I try to think of a solution.

“You’re stuck, aren’t you.”

“Hold on!”

Euryphel presses a hand to his forehead. “How did you ever become an ascendant?”

I snort. “Hey, I’m good at Death energy, not...whatever this is called. Astral projecting? Isn’t that a word?”

“Soolemar is laughing at you.”

“Y’jeni...” I kill the transmission with a thought, returning to my body in the ascendant world.

Maria turns around. “You were gone for a while. Ready to go back?”

I shake my head. “No, just taking a momentary break.”

“Uh-huh.”

I’m on the receiving end of so much sass today. Shaking my head, I press the transmission button.

Round two.

[ it's always fun to see so starkly how euryphel brings out another side of ian and vice versa. ]