I put my hands in the air, examining the three people fashioned of crystal. In one hand I fiddled with a bracelet that would put an illusion around me of a Larborak, and in the other I had a bag with seventeen more, as well as twice as many transformation potions that I didn’t recognise in the least. Eliax said those things were likely from another world, and she seemed just as excited about that fact as I was.

  “So! Who’s first!”

  One of the crystal folk stepped forward, giving his companions annoyed looks, he saluted for some reason. “I am Aenn, of the thirty fourth division of Keepers.” He seemed like a sane person, with a no nonsense attitude and really big ears.

  I nodded, immediately forgetting both the name and the title. “Great!” I pulled out one of the bracelets and handed it to him, focusing on the next person. She seemed more hesitant, but still eager.

  “Eairmana. Of the ah… sixth division.” She gave the bracelet a startled look as she took it, and I got the sense that she hardly ever wore things like this. Or much of anything really. They had carved crystal clothing and I had a feeling that it didn’t come off.

  “Just put it over your wrist when you’re ready.” I instructed her, turning toward the last Keeper. He was glaring at the ceiling still, as he’d been doing since I’d arrived five minutes ago. I contemplated leaving him to that, but I was more than ready to get my head bashed in for annoying him. I held out a third bracelet, “Hey, small ears, don’t you want to go see the world?”

  He grumbled, but took the bracelet, putting it on without a word. Alright, seems like I’m going to keep calling him small ears then… A haze of warped light passed over him, and a moment later a nondescript larborak stood before me, still glaring at the ceiling. He looked a bit like a traveler, which would help.

  Big ears and Ear-mana already had theirs on, and I took a moment to examine their new faces. They looked good, these were pretty amazing illusions. Not as good as something Aymi could make, but nothing poked out of them and though one couldn’t really tell at a glance, it didn’t seem like they were going to start fading on themselves anytime soon. Besides, they were a different kind of illusion than what I remembered. This style was either very obscure from the ones I knew, or it just wasn’t from Virna in the first place.

  I nodded to them and donned my own illusion, feeling the familiar buzz of magic passing across my skin. I glanced at my rear end and laughed, a tail! I’d never had a tail before! Even though this one would move on its own without my input, it was still almost the same. I passed a hand through it and was a bit startled when it had enough substance to keep from fuzzing or letting my hand through. With more force though, it passed to the other side.

  I flexed my hand, realizing that the illusion had five fingers. That would probably be the most dangerous part. The last finger moved with the rest of them though, so it would probably be fine.

  I hummed to myself, looking back up to the Keepers, who were similarly examining their illusions. “By the shatterings…” Ear-mana muttered as she felt at the clothing, “Is that really how fabric feels to wear? That’s so odd.”

  I shrugged, looking down at myself, I was still wearing the same thing, most illusions were designed to keep it like that. I glanced at each of them, realizing that their illusory clothing was cut after the same fashion as their crystalline ones had been. That was neat! “I’m sure you’ll get used to it.”

  Big-ears seemed more curious than anything as he also messed with the tail. “At my old station we occasionally saw illusions. This is different somehow.”

  I shrugged, “I don’t know where they got these ones.” If any of them knew, they didn’t seem inclined to tell me. Oh well. “Alright! Where to first? Today’s light day, I could bring you to the City of Starlight and you could watch me fight that aremolot. I swear I will kill it one day…”

  The three of them were hesitant, but Big-ears seemed a bit interested. “A monster? Aremolot… hmm I’ve heard of those, they tunnel and shape earth, correct?”

  I nodded, “It’s sparking annoying too, they’re almost like dragons half the time but not nearly angry enough.”

  Ear-mana was flipping through some kind of guidebook she’d retrieved from her bag, “They’re on the sapient monsters list. You can talk to them but the procedure was always to kill them on sight.”

  I warped space to stand beside her, looking at the decent rendition of an aremolot. “Say, that’s pretty good! Do the Keepers often run into them?”

  Ear-mana’s eyes widened and she closed the book, putting it away. I got the sense there was something in that line of talking that she wasn’t supposed to tell me. “What? Ah… not… not very often.”

  “Huh, that’s weird, you guys live underground and all, I kind of thought that the aremolot do too.”

  Big-ears sighed, intervening, “We go from place to place, as is the nature of Connection. Most of us don’t have much contact with Arithren.”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Oh, huh, and you’re not allowed to tell me how to reliably and on my own get from world to world?” All three of them regarded me with tense expressions and bearings. “Alright, alright, let’s just go, you can watch me get eaten or something…”

  --

  I danced away from another strike as the aremolot leapt into the air to chomp at me. It was just another routine sparring session for me at this point, even if the overgrown worm didn’t seem willing in the least to let me keep it that way. It attacked with all its ferocity, and the worst part was that it had realized two light days ago that if it didn’t answer me when I shouted at it, I had a tendency to get annoyed and slip up.

  I would have simply done better as some might put it, however, I never could resist some inner-sparring banter these days.

  “Oh come on! Is that the best you can do? We’ve got some onlookers today!” Instead of the usual fearful citygoers who watched the strange aremolot with barely veiled terror, there were three Keepers—or Arkorians as they apparently liked being called.

  The beast simply snarled at me, slashing through the air where I’d been.

  “Oh noooooo, the beast is aaannngrrryyyyy. Whatever shall I dooooo….??”

  I landed on its forehead, riling it up further.

  “Oh come on, no comments? None at all? You haven’t spoken in ages, did you hit your head or something?” I kicked at the skin beneath me and then braced myself as the aremolot started shaking to get me off. Its arms couldn’t quite position correctly to swipe at me if I stood there.

  “Seriously though!” I shouted over the wind, yelping as I was almost thrown free, “Did you forget how to talk? I’m a tad bit worried about you.” I jumped back into the air, pausing in my words as the creature started swiping at me again. Sparks.

  “Can you even hear me? Is there something in your ears?” I landed back on its head during a lull in the attacks, picking up the edge of one of the ears, “hellllloooo in thereeeeeee!!” The aremolot snarled and jolted at the worst possible moment, throwing me to the ground and managing to pin me before I could bounce away like a demented bird. “That’s not sparking fair!” I managed to get out, though my lungs were being crushed, which, even though I was in a clone body, usually prevents speech.

  The beast snarled at me, “Whoever said this fight was fair? Die correctly this time, abomination.”

  I slumped, weezing, “right, sure, I’ll do my best, could you not chew on my head for an hour this time? That was a really painful way to go.” I contemplated phasing through its claws, but that had a nasty tendency to make my stomach feel weird for days.

  “I have to vary my approach if I want to find something that can end you permanently.”

  “Yeah yeah, good luck with—” A battle cry sounded from the city walls.

  …The guards? Why would they come and help? They’d never done that before. I turned my head, curious. It wasn’t until then that I remembered the three Arkorians I’d left to watch. Sparks, they were going to do something about this predicament I was in.

  I opened my mouth to yell for them to stop, yet I barely had enough air left to wheeze. An enormous set of jaws clamped down on my head and all I knew was darkness.

  I jolted upright as the piece of me that was Fora slotted neatly back into her place in my brain. I’d expected it, honestly, it was light day, she always died on light day.

  But her emotional state was much more… hectic than usual. She was apparently going dormant for the moment though. “Fora?” I whispered aloud, needing an explanation.

  She stirred more, her emotions spiking. She showed me the memories of the last few minutes, which left an impression of words. We couldn’t quite talk to each other like this. ~Starlight. Please?~

  I looked down at my maps, deciding I could put a hold on it for an hour or so. “You owe me for this.”

  I got a dim sense of agreement from her as she returned to the back of my mind for the time being. We didn’t really know how things like that worked to be honest. When we were in the same body there were far too many variables that decided who was in charge. Part of it was sometimes the willpower exerted. But sometimes the universe itself seemed to just choose for us. As it was though, it would take too long to make a clone body and shove Fora into it.

  I shook my head with annoyance and cast a teleport.

  As the world faded into view, I stretched my back, feeling it pop in a satisfying way as I stood up straight and tracked my gaze to the familiar giant in the near distance. There were people fighting it from what I could see on the wall. The Arkorians, the Keepers.

  I hopped off the wall, pushing myself off with a burst of power. Time to kill that sparking bastard.

  I collided with the ground near it, the three Keepers, amazingly, were holding it at bay. They even seemed to be winning a little bit. They moved like they’d been fighting together for years, even though Fora knew for a fact that they’d—

  I paused at the momentary lapse. It was strange to have those again suddenly, I’d gotten used to never moving between being two people in my day to day. It was much nicer this way. I shook my head, raising my arms to the sky and drawing a line in the dry dirt with one foot. I felt at the between, which had thoughtfully been made more than accessible to me by Fora’s many battles in this area. It was almost too easy to move the power I needed, and it hardly took any mana to make the hole.

  I let out a long breath, watching the aremolot with steady eyes. There’s no problem here, I can just… kill it. It’s killed Fora more times than I care to count, and probably plenty of people before her.

  I slowly and deliberately shaped the spell, knowing full well that I could have done it much faster. But my stupid emotions—I couldn’t even blame them on Fora—needed a moment to prepare themselves.

  Finally, the distortion sprung from my fingertips, going in an arc almost straight upward and then forward.

  It slammed into the aremolot, cleaving it in two.