I blinked blearily at the wagon ceiling as Fora started yelling in my brain. I’d promised Ashevian that I’d have the location for him by three days ago, which had prompted plenty of sleepless nights. Those compounded on one another.

  As such, I could barely even comprehend the image she shoved at me. It was some kind of white lump? ~uhh… sorry I need more context?~

  ~IT’S SPARKING SANDFROST, BUT IT’S NOT ANYONE I KNOW!~

  I groaned, it wasn’t terribly restful to sleep in a moving wagon, but I’d been able to get a good amount in. Sitting up I glanced at the thunder crystal beside me to make sure it was still in one piece. They’d put padding around it to keep it from moving, but you never knew. ~I see… and… could you send the picture again? And whatever rune you’re getting from it?~

  I massaged my temples as she sent the images, trying to process them. It was annoying to get purely mental ones, as my mind had a tendency to forget them after a few seconds, but I did recognise that rune. I paused. ~Fora? Did you say this is in Filel’fanat? That this is who you’re looking for?~

  She sent annoyance and crouched down, sending another two pictures just to be sure. ~Well, it’s the only clue besides Kenny, and Kenny already confirmed we weren’t looking for him.~

  I blinked at the mention of Kenny, ~What if Kenny was lying? We already know he’s not telling us things.~

  ~Well, in that case you’d have to explain why there’s sandfrost here. Now stop confusing me! Who is this?~

  I examined the rune again, just to be sure, but it wasn’t changing. ~Are you sure you don’t recognise it? I’m pretty sparking sure that you’ve seen him before.~

  ~Eliax, I will personally teleport to your base and kick you until you cooperate.~

  I sighed, I just hadn’t wanted it to be true, besides, they had aremolots there, who knew what he’d be trying to do. ~That’s Turste. Seriously, how do you not recognise his mushrooms?~

  ~Turste?! Sparks! Why did it have to be Turste?~

  ~Not sure, but let me know how it goes…~ I disconnected from her before she could start yelling at me again. Honestly, she was like a child half the time. I shook my head at her memory for runes, glancing over at the crystal. Sparks, why did it look so fuzzy right now? I blinked but my vision refused to clear, so I exited the wagon by teleporting to the area I’d found last night.

  This area was secluded, with not even a path to its name. I’d thought about scouting out the area near Eternal River and Starlight where Fora and I had first ended up, because that was bound to have good leakage into the between. But it was pretty far and neither my sanity nor the blocker on the crystal would last long enough to get there.

  I examined the area again, making sure that— ah… no I could hardly even make out the runes in the air. I blinked at them several times before finally my eyes focused. I muttered to myself about having woken up so suddenly, but got to work anyway.

  I sat down in a clear patch of dirt, made sure there wasn’t anything in the area that might hurt me, and started meditating. I usually liked meditating, I’d picked it up back in Eternal River even before Kinthek had left, some days it felt off, and some days I could hardly even focus.

  But today I easily found the mindset.

  --

  When I opened my eyes, the sun was low in the sky, low enough that I could hardly even conceptualize it. Perhaps I’d fallen asleep.

  I opened my eyes and nearly fell over in shock, which just had my broken instinctive teleportation kicking in. I managed to stifle it, but I lost half my mana in exchange. So annoying…

  I shook my head, looking at the runes in the air again as they floated about, drifting in the wind.

  I could hardly make them out.

  Sparks that was not normal. And with my teleports freaking out too? Something was wrong. I found myself—irrationally—wondering if something was wrong with my abilities themselves. Fora hadn’t told me anything about problems like this so I figured it had to just be me!

  But… well she’d never been so bad at remembering runes before. She should have been able to immediately tell that it was Turste. He had a very memorable set.

  But she hadn’t.

  I really hoped it wasn’t just me, but if that was the case then what was causing it? I threw myself at my soul, searching it up and down for anything that might be wrong. Magical build ups or uneven flow, even a smidgen of overgrown area might explain it. It would be hard to fix something like that, but at least I would have a reason.

  I scoured my soul for hours, looking over every nook and cranny, taking in each divot and outline. It took a lot of concentration, but eventually I opened my eyes, at last with an answer. There wasn’t anything wrong with my soul, but that just led to more questions.

  I teleported to Kinthek’s tracking stone, unwilling to keep thinking about this.

  -

  I pointed at the map, tracing a line to the nearest road. I was better at straight lines with my senses, so I wasn’t sure how long it would take the Leftbites and the crystal to make the journey. “Does this seem like a good spot to you? I could take you there if you’d like.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Ashevian regarded the map, examining the distances with a critical eye. “That seems doable…” he took out another map and overlaid it, making a mark where I’d been pointing to the first one. This map was made with different colors, and it was far more detailed than the first one. It had lines that as best I could tell seemed to explain the height of each region. I blinked at it, taking in the way it had been made. Ashevian traced some lines and then nodded, “Alright, I don’t see any problems with it at the moment. You can take me there? How long would that take?”

  I smiled, “We’d be back before they’re done making dinner.”

  He glanced at Flame and Filfinde, who were on food today. “Alright, that seems doable, how does this work? Do I just…”

  “You ready now?”

  He nodded

  I rolled my eyes and crouched down, drawing a circle in the dirt with my finger. I added a balancing rune just outside the plain circle to make it easier on him, but I still suspected he’d be barfing his guts out shortly. Having a circle made passengers easier, and it also made it easier on them. I stood up after a moment, stretching my arms before I clasped them together in front of my chest.

  The moment they touched each other, a golden glow burst from them at the more complicated spell. “Last chance to back out!”

  Ashevian shook his head, so I took him by the shoulders.

  A second later we were standing in the area I’d found earlier, and as predicted, Ashevian immediately bent forward and started vomiting.

  I gave him a slightly sympathetic look, that couldn’t be- I paused as I noticed the runes in the air finally becoming more clear. Sparking things… if I’d been able to see them well a moment ago, I wouldn’t have even needed the circle! I glared at them, and they started fading again, as if hearing my annoyed thoughts.

  Right. Focus.

  I gestured at the area when Ashevian stopped barfing, and the Niortak looked up and around, his gaze awed. “How far can that ability go?”

  I shrugged, “I could be in Eternal River or maybe even Filel’Fanat in a few heartbeats. It’s not built to span such distances though, and it takes a lot of energy, so I certainly wouldn’t do that with a passenger.” I didn’t mention that since an incident where I’d hopped halfway across a continent with it after doing the same with gates and a passenger, the spell itself was far more effective than it should be. Practice though, and running dry on mana even after being unable to process it anymore without hurting… well it had been one heck of a growth in my abilities.

  Ashevian made some impressed noises, “Stars, we could use that for trade, we could find out the prices in far off towns, we could get valuable and time sensitive goods… the implications…”

  Sometimes I forgot he was a merchant. “Ah… well that’s why I expected you to be more… corrupt I suppose. Where I come from it’s common for merchants to bribe a dimensionalist onto their crew, and then barely even pay them for the increased profit.” That and dimensionalist messengers was why most of Virna was so connected to each other. I thought bitterly of my own attempts to make ends meet back when I’d traveled around with Estin. So many jobs that had barely even been worth it.

  Ashevian frowned, but nodded slowly, “I… can definitely see that. Many merchants and traders don’t care much for people’s well-being.” He paused, still frowning. “I’m sorry for your experiences. If you do decide to ever join us, we wouldn’t force you to use your ability like that.”

  I nodded, having expected as much. Ashevian had likely been planning on convincing me to stay for good once this was all over, which was honestly tempting. It surprised me just how much I felt that I wanted that.

  When I’d heard that a friend of mine was dismantling a government, I’d expected it to be the visible government. After all, why go through the effort of breaking down something that no one could see?

  But no, the longer I stared at the chart we’d swindled out of the aremolot ambassador, the more worried I got. “Sparks! That guy works fast.”

  “Did one of them die?” Eairmana asked, peering over my shoulder. “And then came back when he possessed them? Is that what it says?”

  I handed the page to Aenn, deciding he was good at smart person talk. He examined it for a long moment. “No… nothing like that, the only dead one they have on record is the one Eliax killed. Shatterings, I hope they don’t realize the connection there. But the aremolots withdrew their presence a few weeks ago, and no one is sure why.” He frowned at it, setting it down.

  “And we can’t just track down your friend?”

  “Friend is a stretch.” Even though this was the second time someone had referred to me and Turste as ‘friends.’ I shook my head, tired of this already. “We can go down into those tunnels we heard about, I’m sure Turste is down there, probably possessing something. Sparks last time I saw him he was practically comatose, I wonder if he’s alright.”

  Aenn gave me a dubious look, “but how will we know that it’s him?”

  “Oh trust me, it’s easy to tell.”

  --

  Less than an hour later, I stood in that very cave, surrounded by no fewer than four aremolots. “Okay I was wrong, it is not easy to tell.”

  Small-ears glared at me, Aenn was trying to explain to them that arkorians didn’t taste good, and Earimana was waving her sword about like an idiot. I was watching the sparking worm dragons, trying to see if any of them were Turste.

  I really didn’t think they were.

  “We’re friends of Turste!” Aenn finally shouted, holding his arms out placatingly and elbowing Eairmana until she sheathed her sword. “We’re looking for him! Do you know if he’s down here?”

  I glanced at a very Turste-shaped mushroom that was poking out of the wall. If they said no then I’d just be going further into the tunnel.

  One of the aremolots hissed, bending forward and glaring at me specifically, “Unnatural…” it said, eyes narrowed.

  Another barred its teeth, “Unnatural.” It kept going around, like a chant or a song. Unnatural.

  I folded my arms, puffing out my cheeks, “Sparks, that’s rude, don’t you think?”

  “What did you do to our brother?” One of them hissed, its eyes narrowed into slits. I figured that this information was the only reason we were still alive.

  I sidled up closer to the others, ready to jump them to safety. “That’s a very good question. Here’s a deal, you tell me where Turste is, and I’ll tell you if I know your brother?”

  They hissed at each other for several moments, and finally one answered. “Turste, the entity. The traitor?”

  “We know him.” Another spoke, shifting to the side, “but he will not speak to you, as he will not speak to anyone who asks.”

  “The master he is… the master of death.”

  That didn’t sound very good. I cleared my throat awkwardly, “I see? He’s fine though, right?”

  “As fine as any traitor can be…” the first one hissed, lowering its head, “What have you done with our brother?”

  “I’m afraid that he’s very dead.” I put a hand on Eairmana’s shoulder, and she in turn grabbed Aenn. I felt Small-ears scramble to get a hold of my cloak. “Sorry!”

  I could still hear a lingering voice as the teleport faded away from my ears, “We will hunt you… you and everyone you love… remember this, monster.”

  “Alright, I’m leaving him there!” I decided, nodding to myself. “At least for now, give him—and those things—a few months to calm down, I’m sure it’ll be fine!”