Sitting cross-legged on the sand, Rain sighed deeply as he stared out at the hazy horizon. He was in his soul, gentle waves of essence lapping at his toes. Chaos churned up during the battle had polluted his artificial sky, but orange was slowly fading back to blue as order reasserted itself. It was calm. Peaceful. Like the day after a storm.

Outside, in the real world, that storm raged on, Temerity plowing its way through choppy waves as it fled for Barstone with all the speed its turbines could provide. One of the first things Rain had done after arriving was to check the boiler, finding it heated to the absolute limit. Any hotter would be risking a catastrophic failure despite the enchanted metal, so he’d simply topped Kettel and Ava up with mana and left them to it, child-labor laws be damned. He’d then done much the same for everyone on board, using both Winter and Essence Well, but with the range tightly controlled to keep the magic from escaping the confines of the hull. Ethereal Aura wasn’t fully leveled yet, but already it was showing its worth, allowing his spells to function at short range even at the very heart of the ship.

As the Adamants had fallen behind, the fear of Whales had eclipsed that of pursuit. Even Goldships didn’t travel at night. While they were in sight of shore—or would have been without the storm—they couldn’t go too close or risk smashing into something. The charts told of numerous rocky outcrops and islands peppering the coast near mountains that divided the DKE from the lands to the south. Fechton—Shu, Rain corrected himself—had charted them a course keeping them well clear. The Starguide couldn’t see the sky thanks to the clouds, but Ameliah was helping him by scouting with Airwalk. As a stamina-based skill, it had a relatively low chance of drawing anything unpleasant up from the depths to investigate.

The chance wasn’t zero, though. There was also the very real danger of Ameliah losing them in the storm. Rain had given her his perception accolade and ordered electric lights to be brought out on deck, but still.

He sighed again, looking down at his feet. He couldn’t do everything. Couldn’t fix every little problem and mitigate every risk. Ameliah had told him she had the navigation situation under control and that he needed to take a break.

She was right, of course, but he just couldn’t help worrying about her. About everything. Tallheart, for example. The smith had clearly pushed himself past exhaustion in holding the ship together, only to then strain himself further by healing Halgrave. Nobody else seemed to see it, what with how adept Tallheart was at hiding his fatigue, but Rain did.

And then there was the situation with Velika.

Now that was a powder keg ready to explode. The ex-Citizen seemed to have agreed to a truce of sorts with Halgrave, but the nearer they drew to the DKE, the more likely there’d be an issue. At some point, she would try to extract a promise of silence. If Halgrave didn’t agree to that, well...

Burying his face in his hands, Rain began massaging his temples in a vain attempt to relieve some of his tension.

Even supposing Halgrave agreed to keep the secret, he wasn’t the only one who’d need to remain silent. All of Ascension knew by now, and Rain wasn’t sure what would be the greater risk, relying on that silence, or trying to bypass Barstone entirely. The trouble was that Splendor was hardly any better. Without sailing through DKE waters, it was the only destination that wouldn’t necessitate crossing days of open ocean, merely a short stretch. Pirates and smugglers risked taking that route from time to time, but that didn’t make it safe. Bakal had ‘cut the corner’ a few times in his youth, or so he claimed, but one of those voyages had ended with the loss of his entire crew. And then, supposing they even survived the crossing, they’d just be stopped anyway, only by the Bank instead of the DKE, which was hardly an improvement.

What a mess.

Raising his head, Rain again looked out at the horizon. After all the rushing around, he’d found himself with a few minutes to think, so he’d wedged himself between a pair of twisted girders amidships and retreated in here. He was in his armor again, at least, so he wasn’t overly worried about being sneak-attacked. Of course, that also meant he had to contend with its interference with Prismatic Intent. If the Adamants attacked them again—still a possibility—things could get interesting.

He sighed. After the chaos of the battle, he hadn’t let himself stop until now. Stopping would have given him time to think. To process.

To come to terms with the deaths of those he’d promised to protect.

Mollo, who just earlier this week had made his first ring capable of holding an enchantment, then celebrated that success with such foul-mouthed exuberance that the Three Cliffs neighborhood watch had come running to help with the perceived crisis. Kip, who’d been with Rain since Fel Sadanis, since before Ascension. He’d joined for the promise of awakening. He hadn’t gotten it. Now he was dead. Now they were both dead.

It’s not my fault. They knew the risks.

Thinking the lies didn’t help. After a long silence, Rain sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose.

I should organize a memorial service or something. Glavin’s missing too, but that’s not surprising, given that he can teleport. Halgrave said he’s a coward, but I’m not so sure. Regardless, if Glavin got away, he’s not going to be able to find us at sea, let alone teleport onto a moving metal ship. Best case, we find him waiting for us in Barstone. Worst case, the Empire got him.

Rain groaned.

At least he has a chance. Not like anyone still in Three Cliffs...

Mayor Graymond.

Lellermen Green.

Gus...

We just...left...and the Empire’s going to...

Rain slammed a fist against the sand, as angry at himself as he was at the Empire. He hadn’t come in here to stew. Clamping down on his unhelpful thoughts, he pushed himself to his feet and turned, surveying what remained of his floating island.

It looked as if a hurricane had swept through, pulverizing his various experiments and scattering the shards across what little sand remained. His battle with the Incarn had placed their souls in direct conflict, and the shockwaves had reverberated all through his inner world, smashing and breaking. That wasn’t all, though. So much of his essence ocean had evaporated that his island’s underside was scraping his core’s armored shell. Some of it would have been converted to mana to fuel his spells, but not that much.

“Where did it all go?” Rain muttered to himself.

[⟬disorder⟭!] Dozer sent unhelpfully, apparently having heard him.

[I know, Dozer, I know.]

Rain sighed, then looked up to see the slime industriously oozing across the island like a gelatinous Roomba, collecting wooden splinters, chunks of metal, the torn pages of books, and whatever else. [Fixing this is going to take a while. Thanks for helping, buddy.]

[⟬filth⟭!]

Resignedly, Rain began walking through the wreckage, just wanting to be in motion. It was a lesson for the future, not to keep important things out in the open. Through extending his senses, he already knew that any enclosed spaces had fared much better, such as his core room below and the inner compartments of his pressurized station in orbit. The pipeline to his paling had miraculously survived, though it was cracked in several places, which hardly mattered given that the pumps were high and dry.

His paling was okay, at least. The strain gauges that speckled his over-engineered plug had shown high readings, but just within tolerance, which he supposed made it not over-engineered after all.

Coming to a stop beside Dozer, Rain watched as the slime struggled to free a splintered wooden object from beneath a fallen tree.

[Rain-King, what is?] Dozer sent. [Box?]

[That’s a birdhouse, Dozer,] Rain sent, bending down to look. [I made a little birdhouse in my soul.]

[???] the slime sent, confused, not that Rain had expected him to get the reference. [What bird?]

[There aren’t any birds here, Dozer. I just made it. Because of reasons.]

Dozer seemed to ignore him, his tone insistent. [What bird?]

[Don’t worry about it.] Rain straightened, massaging the bridge of his nose. [There is no bird.]

There was a long pause, Dozer quivering in the way he did when he was grappling with a particularly difficult concept. Finally, the slime spoke, sending each word carefully and slowly.

[What...does...bird...mean?]

[Oh,] Rain sent back, dropping his hand. [Sorry, I thought you were asking me— Sorry...and nice grammar. That was a full sentence.]

So intent was Dozer on the question that he didn’t react to the praise. [Rain-King! Focus!]

Despite his mood, Rain smiled at that. [A bird is an animal. You’ve heard them before. They sound like this.] Concentrating, he sent a few different snippets of birdsong in the slime’s mental direction, knowing that would work better than any attempt at a picture.

[Oh!!!] Dozer bounced excitedly. [Understand!!! Know bird!]

There was a pause.

[Birdhouse box-bed for bird?]

[Yes, exactly,] Rain said.

[...Where bird?]

Rain chuckled. [I don’t know, Dozer. Why don’t you look around while you clean? Let me know if you find one, okay?]

[Yes! Dozer ⟬clean⟭! Dozer find bird!]

[Love that energy. Happy hunting.]

Leaving the slime to his wild goose chase, Rain smiled for a few moments longer, then let himself slump down on a fallen tree trunk with a sigh. There was another thing he needed to think about, now that he had the chance: his clash against the Incarn.

He looked up at the sky, imagining he could see past the clouds as he began reviewing what he knew.

Soulspace. The Liminal Void, as the Majistraal called it.

People appeared there as glowing bubbles of light, coming in various colors and sizes. He’d known that since the obelisk incident when he’d seen Wallace, the Guild healer, in such a form. At the time, he’d chalked the simple avatar up to the man not believing in souls, but now, after gaining free access to the Void and chasing party links to find his friends, he knew he’d been dead wrong. That was simply how souls looked most of the time. He and Dozer were the odd ones out, him with his holographic avatar and Dozer looking like...Dozer.

As near as he had been able to determine by talking it over with the Council of Souls—just him, Ameliah, and Tallheart at this point—the difference was one of consciousness. He was actively projecting his mind into the Void, while everyone else was simply there. Most of the time, anyway.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Rain had interviewed everyone in Ascension who’d ever received an accolade, and they all reported appearing in their own body with varying degrees of ghostliness. He and Dozer were unique only in their ability to enter the Void on command. Until they found another lair core to break or someone else managed to enter the Void on their own, there wasn’t much they could do to find out more. Dozer’s example didn’t help. As an Essence Slime, he could be going there physically for all they knew, and he didn’t seem to project a domain, so—

Rain frowned, putting a pin in his musings and calling up his damage logs from the battle on the shore. What he saw made him narrow his eyes.

When I took that Fireball with him sitting on my head, it was like the system treated us as a single entity. It’s like he wasn’t there at all... Did he piggyback on my defenses? Are we really that connected?

Rain scratched at his beard, then summoned a keyboard and added a few experiments to his to-do list before closing all his windows again.

More research is needed. Later, later.

Closing his eyes, Rain returned his thoughts to the Incarn, then willed himself into the Void, hoping that the context would help.

WarningUnauthorized Liminal Void ProjectionThis action has been logged