There was a red dragon standing in front of the three of them. It looked about as confused as Novice did, though both Derivan and Vex didn't seem particularly surprised.

"Uh," the dragon said. He was surprisingly soft-spoken. Vex had expected a powerful voice that echoed through the field; instead, the words came out quiet and almost-timid, and at a normal speaking volume that he would have expected to hear from a lizardkin his own size rather than a dragon several times larger than him. "Hello?"

"Hi," Vex said, waving up at the dragon. Derivan had backed off as soon as the Void Wyrm had been replaced, and came up to stand beside him. "Welcome back to reality."

"Back to—" the dragon cut himself off, looking around at the field he was in. "I'm... I'm back?"

"Take your time," Derivan said gently.

"But how can I be back?" the dragon insisted. "What about the others? The rest of them are still stuck in there—please, you have to get them out too!" He took a few steps forward and stopped, swaying slightly; Derivan reacted quickly, weaving a Glyph of Force that held the dragon in place and stopped him from collapsing.

Good thing, too, because the dragon would have collapsed into yet another Void spot and it would have removed a chunk of his flesh. Not an ideal situation for someone freshly back from the Void.

There were other Void Wyrms around them, still. Vex saw the way those spots of emptiness around them moved, almost as if they were waiting for an opportunity to strike—but the density of mana around them was still strong enough that the Void couldn't spread easily, so they were safe. None of the Void Wyrms would be attacking.

For now, anyway.

"It's... a process," Vex said carefully to the still-panicking dragon, trying to find the words that would help him calm down. "What's your name?"

"Exvhar," the dragon replied immediately. "Can you get them out? My friends and family. The other dragons. Gods, there's so much to explain—"

"We probably already know," Vex said, glancing awkwardly at Derivan and Novice both. "Look, let's catch you up on what's going on first, okay? And then you can tell us what you know, and we'll figure out what to do from there."

"Okay... okay." Exvhar took a few breaths, trying to steady himself; Vex noted the puffs of flame and smoke emerging from his nostrils every time he took a breath. "Okay. But we can't delay too long!"

"I know," Vex said softly. The truth was, he didn't know if he could replicate the feat he'd just performed anytime soon. He could feel the power there, lurking within his soul—the Grand Anchor hadn't been depleted at all by this act of magic. But his link to the Grand Anchor had. There was something within him that had been exhausted, and his instincts told him that pushing against that limit was a bad idea.

He fired off a quick message to Sev anyway, hoping that the cleric would reply to him in time. Hopefully Sev had been able to figure out what a Grand Anchor was and how it was related to him, and if there were any dangers in him overusing it.

"There's a lot you need to know," Vex said. "Let's start with Enkiros..."

"That's where I'm from!" Exvhar said this with obvious excitement and enthusiasm. "Let's go there! I bet the elders can help us. I don't think anyone knows about everyone going missing—"

Vex winced.

There was a lot to catch Exvhar up on, it seemed.

Those that dwelled within the Void did, for the most part, understand that most of Obreve was being erased. This was something Derivan had learned from his one visit to the Void when he'd been in the Roads—the erased had formed a small community of individuals, and there were no doubt many such communities, scattered throughout the Void. Within those communities, they'd been able to figure out what was happening to Obreve, even if they hadn't been able to actually do anything about it.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Exvhar, it seemed, was not part of a community that was aware of what was happening. The dragon—and he was a young dragon, apparently, by draconic standards—and his kin had assumed that their entrapment within the Void was something done to them by enemies of Enkiros, and not a natural result of a different phenomenon.

To say that he was horrified when he learned that all of Enkiros had also been erased was an understatement. The poor dragon was curled up into a ball on the ground, and Derivan, Vex, and Novice all sat awkwardly beside him, patting his scales comfortingly.

"It's all gone?" he asked mournfully. "What about my favorite flower shop? It's gotta still be there, right?"

"I am afraid that all of Enkiros is gone, to the best of our knowledge," Derivan said. He tried to keep his words gentle, though he knew there was no easy way to break this news. "But we are going to attempt to bring it back."

"Really?" Exvhar managed to roll around back to his feet, nearly crushing the three of them in the process; Derivan quickly held out a hand so he could gently nudge both Vex and Novice out of the way before they were hurt. "Like how you brought me back!"

"Yes," Derivan said agreeably. "We will try to bring back Enkiros. But it will be difficult, and we may require your assistance."

"Anything!" The dragon was eager, Derivan would give him that. He hopped up and down once, hard enough to make the ground tremble, and then almost ran into a bubble of Void before Derivan spun another Glyph of Force to pull him back.

"Be careful," he said, his tone reproachful; Exvhar's ears folded back a little at the reprimand, and he couldn't help but chuckle. "You are not in trouble. But you must be careful; the space around here is filled with Void. We do not want you to end up back there."

"I don't want to go back there either," Exvhar said, shuddering at the thought. "It's dark. And lonely."

"I can imagine." Derivan's tone was sympathetic. "Are you willing to carry us to where Enkiros is? If you remember the location, it will take us less time to make our attempt."

"Oh!" Exvhar brightened. "Yes! I definitely remember. I know where we are right now, too! I used to fly here all the time to play with this girl — Cyrlea? She had the prettiest blue scales..."

Derivan looked on, amused, as Exvhar began to ramble. Thankfully, the dragon didn't forget what he was supposed to do: he lowered himself to the ground so the others could climb on, and Derivan helped the two lizardkin climb on to Exvhar before he hopped on himself. They were able to fix themselves to the dragon's back with magic, and a single beat of powerful wings took them up into the air.

Thankfully, the Void-pockets were much more sparse in the air than they were on the ground. There wasn't all that much to erase in the air, after all, nor did much of it have any metaphysical weight to attract the attention of the Void. It meant their flight was mostly uneventful.

They did learn a lot about Exvhar, though. Maybe a little more than any of them were really interested in. Derivan didn't begrudge the dragon his desire for companionship—it was likely that he'd been lonely within the Void. Even with others of his kind there, the Void was just... nothingness. There was nothing new there to discover, and there was nothing new there to feel. He'd seen that reality hanging over every person he visited while in that cursed space.

Eventually, Exvhar stopped, hovering in the air in front of what appeared to be an empty field. Derivan knew better. The area was devoid of any mana, and Shift told him that there was nothing there to shift.

This was a massive bubble of Void, almost the size of a city. A kingdom.

"It's really gone," Exvhar said, his voice suddenly subdued; gone was the cheer with which he'd told his stories. "I... there's nothing there. But I remember it. I remember all of it..."

"Good," Derivan said gently. "We will need your memories to guide us. To take us to what should be."

"I... I think I can do that." Exvhar swallowed once, landing on the edge of the bubble. He almost took an instinctive step forward, but this time stopped himself before Derivan had to use yet another spell to pull him back. "Is there, uh... is there anything specific I need to do?"

"Not yet," Vex said. He hopped off the dragon, his Agility making the movement graceful even as he tucked and rolled to disperse the impact. The lizardkin knelt in the ground as Derivan helped Novice off the dragon and walked up to Vex. "I have to start the process. Let me just..."

Derivan watched. This was Vex's moment—a culmination of all the ways in which he'd grown. Bringing back a dragon was one thing, but bringing back an entire kingdom...

That would be a feat worthy of an archmage.

Derivan had full faith that Vex would be able to do it.