As Sammy and Azure made their way back through the doorway of the Challenge Room, Sammy sought out that ‘feel of time’ in mainline reality, as she had the last time she’d been there. It seemed similar, perhaps a bit longer than before, which had been two days that passed.

  Surprising after all that time in there, but instinct-wise, this seems correct. Plus, Ozra said as much.

  As they walked back over the platform of the main room, Sammy hesitated before leaving this time around. Instead, she walked back to Ozra’s pedestal over the water fountain.

  “Ozra Bosk,” Sammy called, “I’ve finished the second Challenge Room. Is Rallindin really the foundation of the Cycle? Runes? Reality? How did you reach that far? I feel like it should be impossible.”

  Ozra’s image flickered on. It was an exceptionally haggard version of her in worn clothing sitting at her desk. Shockingly, she seemed older. She didn’t answer for a good click, as she had her eyes closed and was pinching the bridge of her nose, almost appearing to be asleep. But finally, she opened her eyes. Haunted orbs that locked onto Sammy’s. “Well, well. Here we are again. Been a while since I did one of these. You cannot even fathom how long I’ve been doing this. You’ll probably be disappointed in the lack of enthusiasm and bombastic idealism. It’s still here inside me, I just… I had a… bad day.”

  She cleared her throat and looked away. “So you rolled up Ralli. Her Bootyness Supreme. Lucky you, you got the straight dope instead of being a sacrificial lamb. I hate myself for that, you know. But these worlds spit out marred souls doomed to core errors. Not just ours. Too many have to align! Just like me, some have no hope but to carry something novel forward to the next. Or backward. Only a few have a real chance at change. Only a few can be truly… instrumental.

  “Alright. Design. Underlying principles. Theorem. Alright. Well, first of all, there has to be some novelty to reality to hang our hats on. That’s how I see it. This time around it’s those runes, which are reflective of a purer code driving deeper than we can parse. Do you remember the book she found? A fragment beyond the Cycle, brokenness just interpretable enough to be forged into something. Maybe it's like Crazy Sis said — principles and ideals persisting. The only things that can. I dunno, though.”

  Ozra sighed. “The information you want isn’t here. But I can tell you how I found Rallindin — the beginning, as it were. It’s simple, really: the drum beat. Crazy Sis. Follow the regular pattern to the source. Where it ends in our sense. You don’t want to even try and look beyond that. Trust me.” She looked away, face getting dark as she shivered. “It takes way too much effort to try. Sometimes I wonder if I should have. It scarred me, left me with the haunted feeling of trying to gaze at something too massive to see.

  “I can’t say what the drum beat is — what she is, other than another of us. She has a special awareness or understanding of the rest of herself. Her symmetry is different. She doesn’t sleep, doesn’t black out, doesn’t retreat. Aware, but in a way difficult for us to translate. Not like typical consciousness, stuck in lockstep frozen in the clock's sequential ticks. She’s already stretched-out madness at the end, already warped patterns at the beginning, irregular nerve lines through the structure. Through… the rest of us.”

  Ozra shrugged helplessly. “This made it easier to find certain points. Studying Rallindin was eye-opening. Revolutionary, revelational… sobering. She set the stage for something big. Triangulation. I’ve utilized it.” Ozra leaned forward, eyes burning intensely. “But by necessity, one of my successors must use me in a greater triangulation of us. Culminate the work because I already failed long ago. It’ll take a special realization. Some marginal chance of many stacked zeros finally coming home. A novel, new evolution in understanding. Are you the one? I hope so.”

  The image winked out.

  Sammy took it all in, contemplating. Everyone calls me special, but this would be a message to millions of us. Doesn’t every Tom, Dick, and Harriet think that of themselves, by nature? The words could be nothing more than pep talk.

  “Ozra Bosk,” Sammy followed up, “have you been to the end, then? The last beat of this drum. Did you peek into the future and factor it in?”

  There was nothing but stillness. Ozra’s image failed to appear.

  Sammy exchanged a glance with Azure, who shrugged and commented, “If she did, it might’ve changed already. The answer may no longer exist.”

  Sammy gave a dubious grunt. “I don’t think that’s how it works. Her comment about Crazy Sis being at the end was a slip. Ozra has to be involved in this grand plot. She pretty much designed the FT amalgamate, as their current operation goes. Maybe she’s even the central orchestrator. Her investigations eventually came to haunt her. I’d call that circumstantial evidence. It’s not like seeing chaos would disturb Ozra. It’s the weight of the greater good on her.”

  “Don’t forget longer and longer distances of time from the love of her life.”

  “That’s the motivation pushing her forward, Blueberry. She does it for her. To break the cycle of pain.”

  “She seemed to visit Lovie a number of times. Perhaps that helped.”

  “I doubt there was regularity there. Lovie easily gets… attached, I think.”

  Azure frowned at her. “Uh-huh. And you’re due a date with her.”

  “I know. It’s not lost on me that my own trips will have to be few.”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Azure leered. “Make it count.”

  “Shut up. I could use information. That’s my primary motivation.”

  “Sure it is. You’re a spy. A naughty spy sent to coax out intel for her mistress, by any means necessary.”

  “Ugh!” Sammy threw up her hands and turned to leave. “Mind out of the gutter, Azure! We need to focus on Calrenazzod’s business, now. We’ve got to go play catch-up, I’m sure.”

  Azure ran to catch up, soon felt smirking at Sammy’s side and slipping a hand to take hers. Sammy did not give her the satisfaction of an admonishing glare. She was too shameless for it to do anything.

  “A shame, though,” Azure commented. “I’d like to know what the third couple we’ll experience is like, and I feel like it’ll be a while.”

  “Yeah. All in good time, though.”

  ??············???···········??

  Sammy’s return to the realm first hit her with the convolution of changes from Ozra’s challenges, a searing soul burn to follow up the near-death experience she’d already had. All-in-all, it was disorienting more than challenging as her psyche realigned itself and powerful magic tantalized electrically at her mental fingertips.

  The bundle of gains came again in verification, with many random codenames. There was one rather minor, verified disappointment, with a definitive ‘blip’ in reality felt…

  Welp, it was a little under 50/50 for ‘Barrierizer,’ so no surprise, really. And I didn’t cross my fingers, either. My bad!

  Everything else seemed to pan out, though. But when her awareness materialized, she had other things to deal with before digging into what it all meant in detail…

  Horror and disbelief hit her at the marchioness’s death. Grief and guilt then quickly filled the gap, falling on her like an anvil, even as Jeeves, Michael, Pythia, Orswyth, Aramis, and others came to her, deliberately and emphatically insisting there was nothing she could’ve done. That it had blindsided them all and there was no way to completely protect such a prominent, public monarch. Sammy could not really believe them. People had died when she wasn’t there. It was as simple as that.

  Finally, Agatha herself came calling, apparently recovered enough to try consoling Samantha on her death. Pulling herself together, Sammy insisted they speak in person and summoned her to the very top of heaven. Rather than address her from the throne — which she did not feel worthy of right that moment — Sammy awaited her beyond the outer pillars, where one could look down on the city and the vibrant landscape.

  Despite an empty throne, Sammy made sure she was escorted with all honors by angels, announced loudly in glory, and trumpets blown as she passed. The flag of Oldaster was erected just before the throne, and across from it on the other side was a flag with the marchioness’s house sigil.

  Marchioness Agatha looked as regal as ever in her spirit body, though she’d chosen a rather understated dress for one of high nobility. Simple, but the vibrant blue of her goddess. She remained mature in age but appeared younger than Samantha ever remembered of her, wrinkles all but banished on her face and her hair a vibrant red-brown.

  Sammy hurried to her as she approached, teary eyes blossoming once again. She held together enough to say, “I’m sorry — I’m so sorry, Agatha-”

  She got squeezed in the embrace and shushed firmly. “It isn’t your fault, Your Majesty, so stop it! Everyone has been trying to tell you the same thing, so yield to the consensus already! I’m here to thank you. I made my bloody race as long as I could run, but it’s over now. You’ve given me Heaven and I’ll walk the new path provided. There’s nothing to pity — unless you take a look at my political career, that is.” Though her words were no-nonsense, when she separated in the hug, she gave a supportive, confident smile and nodded. “Good it got put out of its bloody misery, I’d say.”

  Sammy shook her head, disbelieving. “How could you say that? So many loved you. You’ll be mourned for years to come!”

  “Bah. A long life scraping by, keeping things together. So I did the bare minimum as a noble? Treated people decent? Hardly worthy of praise. Save it for whoever you put at the top of what replaces our decrepit, crumbling stones. You won’t find them in the slavering mudhole of hungry goats left in my wake, not for the mantle I kept, that much I can assure you.”

  “There’s no one you favor at all?”

  “Not in the slightest, and there’s quite a selection of claims. I could tell you one of three lesser of evils so you could pick your poison, that’s about all. I’d suggest revolution in the long term.”

  Samantha opened her mouth, ready to ask, but she shook herself. “I have an even better solution. I talk to Redberry… and get you a new body. Maybe human this time — we’ll figure-”

  “I’m going to stop you right there.” Agatha glared eye-to-eye and replied firmly, “That won’t be happening. I’m sticking it out here. Help from afar. Annnd… take a holiday or two. I understand that I can eat whatever I want here with no consequences. Do you have any idea how restrictive my diet was with my digestive issues?”

  “You can’t be serious. What’s that compared to life itself? You wouldn’t want-”

  Agatha raised her chin and eyebrows high. “Who says what I want or don’t?”

  Samantha found her mouth opening and closing again.

  Agatha gave a satisfied nod. “That’s right — I do. And what I want is to remain here. Are you going to kick me out, Goddess?”

  “Of course not! I just-... I… We can make sure your digestive issues are cleared up with the reincarnated body.” It was stated rather sullenly at that point.

  The marchioness sighed and followed it up with a smile, touching Sammy’s cheek fondly with a hand. “It’s a kind offer, dear girl and Goddess, but I refuse. If you’re going to do it, resurrect a fighting man. Or save it. It’s not for me. It isn’t just the food, dear. I can’t be who died again, we both know that, and I’ve no interest in being someone else. I’ll just be me. Here, with you. Is it so bad for either of us?”

  Samantha took a deep breath and had to shake her head despite the anxieties involved. The lack of a perfect correction to a perceived failure. “No. No, it isn’t, Agatha.”

  *pours one out for Agatha*

  Next Chapter...

  Figuring things out with the old, dead lady.

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