I grinned sheepishly at the three Arkorians as they turned toward me, baffled. Hah, I must have really freaked them out, dying like that. Good thing Eliax had…

  My eyes tracked to the beast behind them. Lying lifeless on the ground. In two halves. Hardly even bleeding yet because of how clean the cut was. It was almost too clean. I felt my expression freeze, shock, terror. My hands twitched as I drew them to my mouth.

  She’d… She’d killed it with these hands, just moments ago. Cut it in half with the beautiful powers I’d cultivated.

  I wretched, feeling my insides twist themselves up with discomfort and pain. I’d as good as killed it myself, hadn’t I? I was the one who gave Eliax the ability, I was the one who’d let her run free and do who knows what while I wasn’t watching.

  She was… killing things. Sparks! And aremolots were intelligent, did that mean its friends and family would come after us now? What could we do against a whole legion of them?

  Elix rose back up before I could do anything about this revelation, sending an apology as she did. She hadn’t meant to hurt me with it. She hadn’t meant for me to even see. Her eyes tracked back to the Arkorians watching her with wide eyes. She didn’t seem to have even realized though that this might be the start of a new cycle of death.

  “Sorry about that.” She examined the corpse behind them, which had begun to bleed. She examined the area, finally frowning, “Fora took you guys here specifically so you could watch her get eaten, didn’t she.”

  They remained silent. One of them—he had rather big ears—folded his arms, “You’re not her?”

  Eliax shook her head, not really willing to explain at the moment but deciding that they had the right to that information if I was going to be dragging them around the world and getting into trouble. “I’m Eliax. You might want to figure out how to tell the difference between us on sight, otherwise it’ll get confusing quickly. We share a body but we don’t share a mind.”

  She frowned, thinking, “But it was smart of her in concept to take you here. You’re likely going to watch the two of us—mostly her—die quite a lot. You need to figure out how to just let it happen. Intervening like you did today will cost a lot more than it will help.” She paused again, watching them. “That’s what Fora did wrong, she didn’t explain that beforehand.” I stirred a bit, reminding her to say something nice too. “I don’t want you guys to get hurt, okay? That was stupid earlier. You did good though, I haven’t seen any larborak capable of going toe to toe with one of those things.”

  They puffed up slightly, but mostly just seemed contemplative. The female arkorian raised her hand, her larborak disguise seemed more lifelike than I’d expected. She spoke at Eliax’s nod. “So you’ll just come back if you die?”

  Eliax nodded. “So far it’s happened every time. Fora was using a clone body though, if I actually die it takes a week or so to get back, not a few minutes like what you guys saw.”

  They chewed on that for a bit.

  Finally, the arkorian with the big ears spoke, “Her highest being, Zolinal, asked us not to tell you for a few days, but in light of that, we might not need to wait for the situation to die down.”

  The female glanced at him sharply, her eyes wide. “Aenn…”

  The small eared Arkorian simply sighed.

  Big-ears folded his arms, “I know, I know, it’s usually bad to go against what she says, but I hate holding on to something like this.”

  Eliax had her eyes narrowed as she watched the two of them. She took several steps forward, almost menacing. “We’re relocating to my base, and then you’re going to tell me exactly what it is she said to wait on.”

  They stiffened slightly, perhaps remembering their last trip through our dimensionalism.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  I sat down roughly, letting out a long and annoyed breath as the three Keepers found spots on the floor.

  My tent wasn’t lavish or anything, but the sheer amount of important looking things had the woman holding very still so as to not touch anything, and big-ears moving his gaze about like an anxious pirate.

  I folded my arms, glancing to the side at the new clone body I’d shoved Fora into. She was still adjusting to it at the moment, it usually took a bit for that to be done. But she seemed angry at me at a glance. Oh well, there was nothing I could do about that at the moment. I stared at them.

  They’d talk.

  Impressively, it took five entire minutes for big-ears to open his mouth and begin. I wasn’t very practiced in the art of staredowns, but the Keepers seemed like worthy foes.

  “Our mistress told us that… a friend of yours arrived nearby just over two weeks ago.”

  Fora perked up slightly, climbing onto my desk—annoyingly—and peering down at them from her new perch. “Really? Which friend?”

  I glanced at her, and then back at Big-ears. “A goddess wouldn’t go and track someone down for us for no reason, what’s different here?”

  He balked slightly, glancing between us, “ah… she didn’t say who it was, only that they’re… a danger to the people around them at the moment as well as in danger. She wants you to go find your friend.”

  I massaged my temples.

  Fora got to her feet, walking to the other end of the desk—I liked big desks, okay?— “Well that seems straightforward. Where are they at?”

  “The closed gates of Filel’fanat.”

  Fora glanced at me, confused as I groaned slightly. “Is that far?”

  I shook my head, barely able to express my thoughts in words. “No… no it’s not, It’s just across the mountains according to the maps. I’ve just… heard some weird things about that place.”

  Fora motioned for me to elaborate, “liiiiikkkkeeeeee?”

  “I told you before.”

  “Well it certainly seems like I forgot. Come on Eliax!”

  I grumbled slightly, folding my arms tighter, “Filel’fanat is to Arithren what Yera is to Virna. Except they don’t have someone like Gium to keep them under wraps.” I closed my eyes, “Thankfully all reports say they don’t hate magic, but that’s only because all their progression is with that magic. They know exactly how to use lifeforce and bloodbinding, and they exploit it to the hilt.”

  I met Fora’s gaze, “The weird part isn’t that, it’s the monster-taming. People over there don’t use thunder crystals, not because they don’t have any, but because they ride things like that aremolot.”

  Fora’s eyes shone with a sudden worrying excitement. A glee and anticipation. She sat bolt upright, the air around her warping at her sudden movement. “SPARKS YES. Eliax, I call this mission! You probably want to just stay here and ruminate in your books and I will literally die if I don't get to ride one of those things!” she grinned from ear to ear, “sparks sparks, this is perfect!”

  I sighed, turning back to our companions. “And did she say what our friend is doing exactly that makes them a danger to this place?”

  Big-ears darkened slightly, “Your friend is… demolishing their government.”

  Fora laughed, “it would be super funny if it's Taasen. That sounds like something he would do.”

  I gave her a dubious look, “How in the world would Taasen have possibly gotten here from Virna?”

  “Don't underestimate Taasen’s ability to do weird crap! He’s my role model in more than half of the things I accomplish in life.”

  While that explained far too much, we were in the middle of something else. I turned back to Big-ears, who seemed like the spokesman at this point. “Do you know if we have a time limit then? I've never been there and neither has Fora, so we can't exactly teleport.” Kinthek hadn't been there either, so I couldn't just use one of the locations I'd memorized from the tracking stone to bypass that.

  He glanced at his two friends, “She didn't mention a time limit. Just that she’d told Atharian and Astral that she would handle it.”

  Great, so it wasn't just Zolinal. Why did the gods always care so much about what I was doing… or maybe I was just the best person to fix this. I glanced at Fora, hoping it was someone she was more friendly with than I was. That would make it much easier to trust her to do it right. “I can try and contact Astral, see if he's willing to give us more information.”

  Fora snorted, “that's a waste of time, besides, since when do any of the gods willingly tell us things?”

  I snorted, there was truth to that. “And you’re just going to dive straight into it I assume?”

  Fora stood up with a grin, grabbing one of the many many spare bags I’d made for her. “Of course! Ear gang, you ready to go?”

  The three arkorians seemed confused, but one by one they nodded.

  “Great! Eliax, do we have a map? I have no sparking idea where we’re going!”

  I sighed, digging into one of my drawers. At least it wasn’t as bad as that one time she’d walked for three hours before admitting that…