Vex was dimly aware that something hurt.

But it was a dim awareness. There was a point where the pain had become excruciating, and then something had snapped—which was a relief, really. He wasn't sure he would have been able to tolerate the pain for much longer, and he'd grown up on pain. This was excruciating on a level he'd never had to define and that he hoped he'd never have to define again.

Whatever it was that had snapped, the pain felt lesser after that. Or maybe it wasn't that it was lesser? Maybe it was just that it was distant. He wasn't entirely sure what the difference between the two was, but whatever the case, he was grateful that it wasn't quite so mentally overwhelming anymore.

The spell was still going. That was good.

He didn't have to exert any conscious control over it anymore. He'd had to at first—the internals of the semerit was a lot more complicated than he expected when it came to restoring an entire kingdom instead of a single dragon. Even within the semerit, there were multiple possibilities, multiple different outcomes; he'd had to mentally sort through them to find the one that was closest to what had actually happened in reality.

It helped that he'd been inside the semerit before. His actions, too, had been recorded within it—that was the whole reason the semerit had been labeled as containing a temporal paradox, after all. Because he'd added an outcome that never existed before.

An outcome where the citizens of Enkiros evacuated before the kingdom was consumed by the Void.

It was staggering how many other possibilities existed—how many different ways that same kingdom had fallen. Not all of it was to the Void, though the Void was always what eventually consumed them. It was just that in some possibilities, the kingdom fell to infighting long before the Void properly consumed them. Disagreements about how the gods functioned, about what the gods wanted...

In only one of them did anyone even notice that the gods were slowly going missing, and that person had been summarily dismissed. For how could an entity so powerful as a god be erased from not only reality itself, but from the minds of everyone that had witnessed them?

Sorting through all those possibilities had been taxing. He'd felt something within him slowly tearing apart even while he was doing it. And then he had to push that possibility outwards, pouring the power of the Grand Anchor into the Primordial Glyph of Translation, using the remnant fragments of reality caught by the [Spelldisk] as a sort of substrate for everything else to grow on. Doing all that pushed his mind to the limit, and if he hadn't experienced this sort of cognitive overload already from his use of his Sign of Research...

...Well, it wasn't worth thinking about, because it hadn't happened.

The point was that the restoration spell he was casting had eventually reached a sort of critical mass of power, at which point he no longer needed to maintain it—in fact, he couldn't stop it even if he wanted to. It dragged more power out of him with or without his will.

It was the first moment that Vex thought he might've made a mistake, because he couldn't stop this spell. Not even if something went wrong and he had to.

Even the fear of that mistake felt distant from him, though. Vex felt a little bit like he was floating in a bubble—come to think of it, he was floating, so maybe that wasn't all that unusual. He could still see and hear and think, at least, so things hadn't gone that far off-course.

He could see the marble pathways of Enkiros's streets materializing before him. He could see the streetlights and the merchants walking along the streets. They weren't completely real, yet; it would take far more magic than what he'd cast so far to bring them back. But they were getting there. What he witnessed now was something like an echo of the past, a moment that had already happened, long ago.

The iteration of Enkiros that was coming back was a few days from the Void beginning to spread within it. Vex wondered briefly if choosing that point in time had also strained the spell he was casting. He wasn't asking for Enkiros as it was now; he was asking for Enkiros as it was before the Void had ever begun to damage it.

It shouldn't have, he thought. As far as he could tell, most possibilities within the semerit were weighted equally, and would have been equally difficult to bring back from the Void.

He had a brief, silly thought, wondering if things would proceed in the same way. Would the Void begin to expand in the middle of the kingdom again? And perhaps more interestingly—would a copy of him show up in the middle of the palace, interfering with a discussion on what to do about the encroaching Void? That was the possibility he was drawing from, but... he was here, and not there.

The thought made him giggle a bit, so that was nice. It was good to know he could still giggle. And laugh.

Vex thought he heard a voice calling for him. It was a familiar voice, too. Derivan? He wanted to turn around and respond, say that he was fine, but... he found that he couldn't. His muscles simply wouldn't obey him. His entire being was still under the spell's control, and his body was a mere conduit at the moment, channeling vast amounts of reality and pouring it into the Void.

It would be fine, probably.

Vex barely noticed it, but within the spell—something that had happened at the same time he felt that strange snapping sensation within him—there was a tiny, errant split.

The flow of power within him was no longer a single stream. It was two, then three, tens of dozens of individual strands, split down the cracks of a broken channel.

And before him, Enkiros Shifted.

—

[Derivan, I need you to attack something. I don't care what you're attacking—just swing your sword at the grass or something. Tell me when you're going to do it.] Misa's instructions were quick and precise. Derivan stared at them for a moment, and then at the outpouring of power from Vex.

He didn't hesitate. [Three seconds,] he informed Misa.

One. Two. Three—

Derivan swung his sword, ignoring the way it nearly slipped from his grip. It did slip from his grip a second later as Misa appeared before him and his sword clanged against the shaft of her mace; he ignored the weapon as it bounced off of him and landed in the grass.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"The spell is straining Vex too much," Derivan said. He couldn't help. He'd already tried. Their combined Sign was supposed to link the two of them, to a degree, but his attempt at using it had only forced a sort of magical feedback through the Sign and thrown him back; he couldn't interfere with what Vex was doing.

What was worse was perhaps the knowledge that if he did interfere, it would only make things worse. He'd gotten at least that much of an impression from the mana. There was no stopping whatever Vex had started. It would be seen through to its conclusion, no matter what the result was.

Derivan tried to quell the fear rising in his heart. He'd never felt it quite like this before. He barely noticed Misa's own appearance—her face distorted in a grimace of pain, her hair disheveled, and a staggering number of potions strapped haphazardly across her body.

He did notice it quickly enough to catch Misa before she collapsed, though. "Misa?" he asked. He didn't need two of his teammates to be hurt, not like this.

"Just... give me a second." Misa said the words in a half-growl, panting; she ripped one of the potions off and drank it down in a single gulp, then seemed to recover, straightening and catching her breath. She stared up at Vex, whose power was still pouring into the Void in front of them.

Even Exvhar was starting to look worried, now. The dragon had seemed excited at first, but now he was realizing how much he might have been asking from Vex. Realizing how much restoring Enkiros might have cost. His tail swung nervously behind him, and his wings fluttered as he tried to control himself.

Novice, for his part, simply clutched at the magelight Vex had given him and stared. Every so often, his fingers twitched, as if he wanted to paint a glyph that would help—but he stopped himself every time. No doubt he'd gotten the same feeling from the mana, that trying to help would only hurt Vex in the process.

"Shit," Misa finally said. She stared up at Vex. "He already started, huh?"

"And something is wrong," Derivan said.

"No shit," Misa said, though her expression softened when she saw Derivan's restrained panic. "I've got potions. We can help Vex heal—"

"You do not understand," Derivan said. "Something is wrong with the spell."

Misa's gaze sharpened. "What do you mean?"

"I do not know how to explain it." Derivan glanced at Novice, who nodded at him; he felt the same thing. "The spell is... fracturing. Vex cannot contain the amount of power that this spell requires."

"Will the spell complete?" Misa asked.

"Yes, but..." Derivan hesitated. "The outcome will not be what we expect, or what we want. I can already feel it."

He could feel it with Shift, to be specific. Vex wasn't just restoring Enkiros to reality—that was what he'd been doing at first, certainly. The moment the spell had fractured, every single possibiity that Vex had been manually holding back had come flooding out. Now he could feel other versions of Enkiros layered on top of itself, Shifted in layers, over and over and over. Different iterations of the same kingdom. Different people. Different outcomes.

This was where he could help. He could feel the spell trying to compress all those different layers of reality together, not knowing what to do with them; he had to reach out with Shift, hold those layers apart. Letting them merge could very well mean the end of Enkiros—some iterations were so utterly different that they would annihilate without Shift to keep them apart.

This was the only way he could help. The only way he could make sure what Vex was doing wouldn't be for nothing.

(But he couldn't think that way, surely? Vex would be fine. Vex would be fine. He refused any other outcome, refused any other possibility. Vex had to be fine.)

"Derivan," Misa said. She had a hand on his shoulder—when had that happened?—and pulled him to face her, away from Vex. He almost resisted. He wanted to turn back and see what was happening, even if he knew, consciously, that it didn't matter whether or not he was looking at Vex.

He could feel it. Even looking away, his stats were active, and half of them were focused on Vex in some way. He knew exactly where the lizardkin was, knew how much power was flowing through him, could feel the state of his system.

It was... surprisingly intact, considering everything that was happening to it. He could actually feel the system reaching out to try to compensate for the damage the spell was doing. He almost reached out with Patch to try to help, but almost immediately could feel himself being warned away. The system was fine. There was nothing here that needed fixing.

Only Vex.

"Derivan," Misa said again, shaking him a little to catch his attention. This time, Derivan managed to make himself focus on her.

"Yes," he said, more to indicate that he was paying attention than anything else.

"We'll make sure he's okay." Misa's words were firm. It was more certainty than he felt within him, and there was a comfort in that. At least someone was more certain than he was.

"I allowed him to do this." Derivan said the words before he realized he was thinking them. "I should have—"

"He would've done it whether you tried to stop him or not," Misa said. She smiled at him, a sad smile, but it made Derivan's heart clench—she was right. Vex was determined. He'd already put it off as much as he could, but he was under the impression that if he put it off any longer, it would have made recovering Enkiros impossible.

And he had asked Vex to slow down, to wait until the last possible moment. Vex had healed in that time. That had to count for something.

"It is... difficult," Derivan admitted after a moment. He didn't even entirely know what he was admitting was difficult. Not blaming himself, perhaps. Or standing here and doing nothing while raw power poured through Vex, eroding at his being. "You are aware of what is happening to him?"

"Kinda," Misa said with a sigh. She took a seat in the grass and gestured for Derivan and the others to join her—there was nothing further they could do for now. They had to wait for the spell to complete. "Funny enough, Sev and I were up against something pretty similar in the Anderstahl Prime Dungeon."

"Similar?" Derivan asked. He latched on to the story like it was a lifeline.

"We had to fight a monster, but the interesting thing is what it did to us," Misa said. Her voice was low and calm, the opposite of everything Derivan was feeling; he wondered if she was doing it on purpose. Misa gestured to the potions still strapped all across her body. "Soulstrain. These potions heal it."

"Soulstrain," Derivan repeated. It sounded right. If he tried to feel for what was happening to Vex—

"We couldn't use our systems, and it messed us up if we tried to use our skills directly on it. Or even if I touched it directly." Misa winced a little at the memory. "Sev had it a little easier, I guess 'cause his divine magic stuff doesn't interact with the system as much. But it turns out that some types of power you have to channel through your soul, and our souls can only take so much of that strain."

"And this is what has happened to Vex," Derivan said. "It is his soul that is injured."

"Yes, but these potions will help." Misa pulled one of them off the straps on her and handed it to Derivan; he took it, cradling it like it was a precious remedy. Which it was. "They're made from the soulbloom flowers we found in the dungeon. They improve your connection with your soul—or help repair it, if it's been damaged. It helped us. It should help Vex, too."

"It will." Derivan didn't know if he was just clinging to hope or if what he felt now was rooted in reality. The vial in his hands felt... right. Like it was what they needed to fix this, if they could get it to Vex. He was half-tempted to walk over there right now and pour the potion down Vex's throat. He would have, if he thought it would help.

A long pause. Power surged around them still. It almost felt like an itch he couldn't scratch—not that he knew what that felt like. He glanced down at the more sensitive of his two arms, and remembered Vex slowly tracing the patterns on it.

Slowly, he closed his fist.

"It will," he repeated.