"That was fucked up," Summer said, once we had left Tomairu behind us. We'd been thanked for our help with a loot chest and a door, ae getting some very good loot from it- a few spellbooks, a description of this Hall of Demons thing we were warned about (apparently a very personal 'face your inner demons' thing that everyone faced alone), and a magic crossbow that fired bolts of solid fme- nobody had been terribly enthusiastic about the experience.

  "More than a bit," I admitted. "Fug hell, that was... I mean, okay, I khat killing a whole bunch of guys with a vicious trap so that we didn't have to fight them was the whole point, but... Uh... I don't think any amount of y prepare you for human-shaped lumps of charcoal."

  "Oh, good, so you aren't pletely desensitized to death," Summer muttered darkly.

  "It's less that we don't care about death, and more that we cared more about proteg the i," Faith said. "Those vilgers didn't deserve to be killed and robbed and raped just because the bandits were hungry. And if the bandits couldn't be vio go away and not feed themselves by violence, well... If the only way to stop them is to kill them? Then that's our only real option, isn't it? Doesn't matter whether we like that optioill have to do it, because it's the right thing to do."

  "Mmph. Still don't like it," Summer said.

  "Well, of course not," Talia said. "If you did like it, there'd be something wrong with you."

  "Whatever," Summer huffed. "Let's just... get some sleep, alright?"

  We were in a safe room, now, with stairs leading down to Floor 6- the siege of Tomairu had beeirety of Floor 5. Now was as good a pce as any to make camp for the night, and it retty te, so nobody really objected.

  "So how does this whole thing work?" Talia asked, as we sat down for breakfast. "Y'know, the Abyss, and how it's... real but not real?" I loved Talia for asking that, because I also wao know, and it was an excellent way to divert everyone's attention away from the horrifying atrocity I'd wrought st night.

  "Oh, that's easy," Volex said. "It's made of e, which is the closest thing the Essential Pnes have to 'substance.' So it's really made of ideas that are pretending to be material."

  "...I have several questions now," I began.

  " we start with the questions from people who don't know what half those words mean?" Summer asked.

  "Right, you have barely any magical training," Volex said. "Well... Hrm. Right, well, first we o uand the differeween the Are and Occult, between a Wizard and a Bard."

  I kept my mouth shut, because this I knew pretty well, but that was because my mom was an archmage who'd taught me all this stuff when I was in high school.

  "Both Are and Occult magics draw upon the power of the mind," Volex expined. "As opposed to Primal and Divine magics, which draw upon the power of vital essence, but they aren't strictly relevant right now. The relevant point is that the Are primarily exerts its influen the Material, while the Occult primarily exerts its influen the Spiritual. With me so far?"

  "Kinda?" Summer said, wobbling her hand. "I'll... I'll figure it out."

  "The Material and Spiritual are two ends of a linear scale," Volex said. "The Mortal Phe world we live in, is a roughly even mixture of Material and Spiritual. At the Material end of the axis, we have the Elemental Pnes, which are nearly pure Material, and from which Wizards tend to jure all sorts of raw substances like stone and water; at the Spiritual end of the axis, we have the Essential Pnes, which are nearly pure Spiritual, and from which Bards draw all sorts of cepts, as well as e- ideas given a sembnaterial form. Also, I should note: 'Essential' does not mean necessary, it meaaining to Essence, which is the metaphysical opposite of Element."

  "Oooh," Faith said, nodding. "So, this pce is made of souls?"

  "That's like saying trees are made of rocks," Volex said. "They're of a simir substance, but e and souls aren't made from each other, and don't really behave the same way."

  "Souls aopsm are both made of ideas and cepts," I added. "Souls are made of ideas like a person's memory and personality and whatnot, while e is made of ideas like weight, hardness, shape, et cetera."

  "More or less," Volex said, nodding. "The soul is a bit more plex than that, but... Well, we'll get there."

  "Does this mean those bandits weren't real?" Summer asked.

  "More or less," Volex said, nodding. "They had enough plexity, enough raw idea that they could vingly act like humans, but... Very, very narrowly. They were created whole-cloth for the fight, and dispersed bato loose magicka once we were dohere."

  Summer grunted, chewing on that.

  "Now, what were your questions, Joseph?" Volex asked, turning to face me.

  "If Summer's duster is made of e, how durable is it going to be?" I asked. "I've read a few books on Occult magid in one of 'em, e was described as fragile- unusually solid and durable for an illusion, but ultimately still an illusion, and therefore less substantial than, y'know, actual substance. How long until an anti-magic spell destroys it?"

  "And now you uand why The Abyss is not actually a source of infinite wealth," Volex said sagely. "While a powerful spellcaster could disie the duster more easily than if it was made of real vas, the fact that it is Summer's duster that she earned in The Abyss will make it more resilient than a normal eic item, and it should st for as long as she still values it. Obviously, upon her death, it's very likely to simply unravel in its ey, but until then? Well, it might as well be real."

  "And... if I were to cast an anti-illusion spell on the dungeon around us?" I asked.

  "It would basically be a disiion spell," Volex said. "If you used enough magicka, you'd destroy the dungeon we're in, and The Abyss would spit us back out into the basement we were in, but I sincerely doubt you'll have anywhere hat magicka before you're a hundred."

  "Oh yeah, that reminds me, how long do elves live for around here?" Summer asked.

  "Until something kills us, just like humans," Talia said. "The difference is, age 't hurt us."

  "So..." Summer hummed. "...Like, hypothetically, an elf could live for a million years, as long as they didn't get in any fights or anything?"

  "Maybe?" Talia hazarded. "I'm gonna be ho, nobody knows for sure, but it's generally agreed that the oldest elf in recorded history was five thousand years old when he died, and that's about how long elves have existed on the Mortal Pne- before that, we were prisoners and sves in Annwn, so... I don't know. Maybe at ten thousand years old, we start feeling e. Nobody knows, elves just don't live that long."

  Mentally, I asked The Father to weigh in on this. "Father, as the God of Death and Time, is it true that age alone ot kill elves?"

  The response was quick, and not very encing:

  "It is true that this one specific thing ot kill you. Don't let it go to your head."

  I decided to not share this with the css.

  "So how long do humans live around here, then?" Summer asked.

  "Median life expecy for humans in the Hikaano Imperium is 76 years," Emily said. "With good healthcare, living to 90 is perfectly doable, and the oldest human in credibly recorded history was Cassandra Peon, who died at 131 years of age about thirty years ago."

  "...Huh," Summer said, blinking. "And, uh... How on is it for humans to achieve immortality through magical means?"

  "Not very," I said. "There's a lot of humans who try for it, and while some methods are more on and successful than others, the on thread is... if it works, you don't stay human. There's the Living Gods of the Hikaano Pantheon, who were nearly all human in life, but asded to immortal divinity. Then there's vampires, who use blood magic to steal the lifespans of others and graft it to their own- they're almost universally hated, and held up as an argument for why we he Adventurer's Guild, because Adventurers are usually the ones who hunt vampires."

  "Ah," Summer said, dryly.

  "There's also liches, who transform themselves so that their mind and soul are no longer held captive by a mortal body that fail them," I tinued. "This tends to only work for a little while, and they usually end up losing their minds by the time they're 200; powerful spellcasters tend to lose their minds in ways that make them a serious dao others, and so liches are also typically hunted like vampires are, and the methods of li are sidered forbidden knowledge." My mother, of course, knew precisely how liches were made, and even had some theories on the meisms that drove liches to insanity in the first pce- if anyone could make a lich that wouldn't go ier a few turies, it'd be her. Still, this was something I knew better than to say out loud, even surrounded by friends.

  "Uh huh?" Summer said.

  "There's... I think something about reination?" I said. "Where, y'know, your body dies, but your soul is reborn in a new body? I'm going to be ho, I don't know much about this o's my uanding that it's an old folk belief from the Su Kingdoms and some other pces, but it might actually be that they never believed in that specifically, and we just misuood their actual beliefs and religious practices? It's something to look up ter; maybe Professor Takeda knows something."

  "Is that all?" Summer asked.

  "Hell no," I said. "There's, like, thousands of legends about how humans attain immortality. Those are just the ohat're ing to mind right now. Now, personally, I'd like to point out that half of those legends are about ing to terms with your own mortality, and hoting that you're only here for a limited time is an important step in making the most of that time, rather than wasting it in pursuit of a pipe dream."

  "Mmn." Summer grunted. She then sighed, and leaned ba her chair, wearily.

  "Sorry, hon," Talia said. "The Elixir of Life isn't real."

  "It should be," Summer grumbled. "sidering the bullshit I'm supposed to do, I feel like living a long, healthy life afterwards isn't too big an ask."

  "Huh?" Faith asked.

  "Helen didn't take Summer as her apprentice for no reason," Volex said. "Helen had something in mind for you, didn't she? Something hard, something that couldn't be done by a normal Adventurer, or even a whole party of normal Adventurers."

  "She did," Summer said, quietly. "That's the price I paid for this power, y'know? You don't get to have your name written in the Book of Heroes for doing nothing."

  "Wait, Helen has the Book of Heroes?!" I demanded. "What the fuck, she categorically should not have that!"

  "Huh?" Summer said.

  "Yeah, I'm not really that fussed about most High Elf stuff, but Helen really shouldn't have the Book of Heroes," Talia said. "That's the sort of a, sacred relic that shouldn't belong to anyone, and should probably be kept in a temple watched over by priests of The Mother who see themselves as custodians rather than owners, but like... Of all the people who could own the Book of Heroes, Helen Rosewood is one of the worst. God, she probably looted it during the War of the Roses, didn't she?"

  "It's..." I sighed. "...Okay, look, we deal with that ter. Great grandpa asked me to py h Helen for purely strategic reasons, and yelling at her for looting a temple isn't going to help matters. More importantly, though, Summer is having a real rough time of it, so... Let's maybe be supportive instead, yeah?"

  " I get a hug?" Summer asked.

  Three seds ter, she was buried under a pile of affeate teenagers and one very old sex demon.

  It took a while for her to start pining.

  AnnouAs always, if you like Iro and wao keep making it, the best way to do that is to leave a ent, here or on my discord server.

  Also, I'm taking suggestions for publius chapters iween books. The ideas I've currently ge from "The remaining Kings of Hell react to the political upheaval caused by Paimon's death" to "Joseph Iro visits a neighbor and pys dominoes." Anything goes.