202 – Conjecture

When Vivi stopped in front of the watchtower’s iron-bar window and peeked inside, she found something that had her stiffening in shock.

The Concept had escaped.

Though her [Cage of the Sunless Sanctum] remained intact within the small guardroom, the prisoner was nowhere to be seen. Seeing how the binding was her number-one pick for keeping anything and everything trapped with absolute confidence, she was more than a little jarred.

Her spell had failed her.

Since Aeris and Lysander had followed right behind, she didn’t have time to organize her thoughts. She was still in the process of gawking dumbly at the empty room when they arrived.

The two men slammed to a halt and stared at what lay within, much the same as she was doing—but Aeris wore a somber expression, and Lysander a more complicated one: unease, awe, a hint of irritation. Vivi almost thought the reactions were also shock at how the Concept had vanished, but a second later, she realized that didn’t make sense. They hadn’t known she’d brought them over to look at a Concept.

Then she noticed the queasiness mixed in with their other emotions and understood what was going on.

“Oh,” she said. “I can dim the aura. Sorry.”

She reached out, took hold of the ultra-high-tier spell, and clamped down on the radiation. She defaulted to doing so as a matter of habit, but apparently she’d been lazy in this instance. While it was a defensive construct and not an attack, [Cage of the Sunless Sanctum] and all other spells of its tier were still created using enough mana to erase a city.

As archmages, both Lysander and Aeris had registered that fact the moment they’d laid eyes on it. The spell probably felt like a miniature sun to them.

She refocused on what mattered by saying, “But we have a problem.”

“That’s a fearsome statement, coming from the Sorceress,” Aeris replied, regaining his composure first. Lysander continued frowning at the shield, lost in thought. “I assume there was something inside of that barrier?”

“Yes. And it shouldn’t have been able to escape.” She turned away, gazing out across Prismarche. “[Detect Presence],” she incanted.

Four entities pinged back in response, and to her immense relief, one of them identified itself to her senses as the corrupted Echo. She flew off toward it, half-forgetting that Aeris and Lysander were accompanying her.

Moments later, she confirmed the Concept had taken up a new post inside the northeast watchtower.

As soon as she arrived, an arrow slammed into her barrier, sending prismatic sparks flying. She huffed in aggravation and pointed her staff.

“[Cage of the Sunless Sanctum].”

Maybe she should have tried a different spell, but she didn’t know which to reach for. Again, she didn’t have a better containment ability.

“It really shouldn’t have been able to get out,” Vivi grumbled uneasily. Glancing at Lysander and Aeris, she paused once more at their expressions. Instead of staring at the Concept, they had locked their gazes on her [Prismatic Barrier].

She was confused until she remembered the Concept’s arrow had damaged the shield. For some reason, she felt intensely embarrassed as she patched the fractures up, returning the spell to its pristine default.

“I can’t tell if I’m relieved or disturbed at seeing proof of the Sorceress’s mortality,” Aeris said, trying for levity. “So, these things are quite powerful, I take it…?”

He trailed off as his attention turned to the Concept. The old man’s spine straightened. When Lysander saw the archmage’s change in demeanor, his eyes snapped to the soldier too, and he reacted much the same: with a jerk and a posture filled with alarm.

“There’s some kind of emotional impression when you look at them.” She should have warned them beforehand. “And yes, they’re strong, but they’re not supposed to attack in the first place. I think the Fell Apostate did something to him. It.” Her voice dropped in volume as she mumbled to herself, “Really, how did it get out?”

She couldn’t get over that. Her best, most absolute isolation ability had been ignored? At least if the previous cage had been destroyed or damaged in some way, she could understand.

Lysander shook off the cascade of forced emotions and considered her. “Are you sure it did?”

“Am I sure… it got out?” She glanced at the Concept that was obviously not where it’d been before.

“Is it a copy?” Lysander asked. “A branch, a replica, a second instance. Whatever you might call it.”

“That’s…”

An extremely plausible theory. Thoughts now sprinting forward as she made connections, the parting words of Remian Voss’s own Echo bubbled up. ‘Go. I will kill as many as I can… if I remain. What is a shadow without light to cast its shape? I suspect I only exist in this form through your perception.’

Who would know how Concepts worked better than the Shattered Oracle’s own?

“I think you’re right,” Vivi said. “We barely exist in a coherent form in the void. I guess when I left and came back, it… dematerialized and rematerialized somewhere else?” She looked at him, impressed. “You figured that out fast.”

“It’s conjecture.”

“I doubt we’ll be getting facts today, unfortunately. It’s going to be theories all the way up and down. For what it’s worth, I think your explanation is correct.”

“One point for the new headmaster, zero for the old,” Aeris said wistfully, pulling on his beard. “I need to get my wits in order lest I shame the reputation of an elder.”

Lysander gave the man a sidelong glance. “Now is not the time for games, Archmage Aeris.”

“Always so serious.”

Lysander’s lips pressed into a line. “If ever there were a time for sobriety, I believe this would be it.”

The old man sighed.

Vivi suppressed a wince at the exchange. In her first discussion with Aeris about the new headmaster, the older archmage had told her outright that he didn’t have the best relationship with Lysander. Maybe she’d discounted that warning.

Though, while she didn’t agree with Lysander, she couldn’t disagree either. It might feel melodramatic to say that the fate of the world hinged on this investigation, but in many ways, it wouldn’t be a lie. She could see why he wanted to take it seriously.

Vivi broke the tension by gesturing at the Concept with her staff. “Any guesses for what the red cracks mean?”

Both men’s attention returned to the soldier’s Echo, and they frowned almost in sync.

“It’s not possible to communicate with them?” Aeris asked after a long silence.

“Not impossible, I guess. The Shattered Oracle’s Echo did talk to me.”

Aeris grimaced at the reminder—the prospect of that ancient madman having survived in any capacity probably unsettled him. To be fair, the idea didn’t thrill Vivi either.

“Why him alone?” Aeris asked.

“I have no clue. Because he’s one of the strongest? Because what he represents is transgression? Ignoring boundaries, doing the impossible? Then again, I haven’t investigated that many of these things. He might not be unique, just rare. This one doesn’t talk, though.”

Aeris hummed in consideration. Another short silence passed. “Can you say without doubt that the Fell Apostate is at fault?”

Vivi hesitated. The implication was obvious. “I don’t think a Concept would harm another Concept. I feel that very strongly, actually.”

“Would he aid someone else in doing so?”

Ugh. Cinereus himself had floated the idea of the Shattered Oracle teaming up with—or at least giving advice to—other people. And perhaps he would be especially interested in the Fell Apostate. While not quite the same zealot of transgression for transgression’s sake, the ritualist sought to push the boundaries of magic. To perform impossible feats. He pursued true immortality, like all the Selrath-Kyn did, and even Remian hadn’t managed to achieve that.

She just really, really didn’t want that particular team-up to be true.

But hope wasn’t a counterargument.

“He might,” Vivi said reluctantly. “The Shattered Oracle was the one to punch a hole through the dimensional boundary to begin with. He fights against the void like every other Concept, but he clearly doesn’t have the same nature as the rest.”

“Troubling.”

You can say that again, Vivi grumbled internally.

They were quiet for a while as they studied the Echo of a Soldier Who Keeps a Lonely Vigil. Theories for whatever affliction had been wrought upon the entity didn’t spring forth from either the current or prior headmaster. Vivi couldn’t blame them. Her intuition hadn’t whispered much either.

“If it’s a threat to us, and assuming a cure is impossible, should we put it out of its misery?” Lysander asked.

A shiver went through Vivi, even though she hadn’t been the one to suggest or entertain the prospect. Lysander’s body was seized by a similar shudder.

“Perhaps not,” he replied dryly. “Hm. But what did that reaction mean?”

“I’ve been wondering that too,” Vivi said. “Killing it would be bad in some way, but how? Would it affect the real world?”

“Worth investigation,” Lysander said. “This one is injured already, so we could track down individuals who fulfill the role of… a soldier who keeps a lonely vigil. See if they’re affected. That would perhaps give us an answer.”

Another good point.

Aeris said, “I could see how depriving our world of one of its defenders would be a sin inherently. More than enough to provoke unease, even if consequences don’t cascade into reality.”

Lysander nodded in agreement. He turned to Vivi. “May we see healthy ones?”

“Oh. Of course.” She probably should have led with that, so they had a baseline to compare against.

There were three other Concepts scattered through the city of Prismarche—one more than her first trip’s scan had produced—and she investigated each with Lysander and Aeris. She further confirmed that they were friendly and not prone to chatting: they all ignored her, going about their patrols as if Vivi and company didn’t exist.

She even tried being more thorough this time, attempting a number of approaches to explain the situation and the danger people were in, and other verbal methods of eliciting a reaction. She continued avoiding physical or magical interference, though.

In the end: nothing.

Vivi made a displeased noise. “I think we can safely say that the normal Concepts won’t talk with us. I’d have to look for the powerful ones… maybe the other Cataclysms. The Colossus didn’t speak to me, but it’s also a giant turtle. Giant turtles don’t talk in general.”

Both men stared at her, and she didn’t understand why. The casual reference to the Colossus?

Feeling a bit awkward, she glossed over their reactions with, “We should head through the portal again, make sure it hasn’t been too long. Still not sure how the time warping works, and it’s better to be safe.”

“Very well,” Aeris said. “Though I’d like to take a look at the voidbeasts and surrounding environment. We were sidetracked.”

“We can come right back. I just want to keep checking in on the time distortion.”

As a party of three, they flew over to the portal and entered. Vivi took a moment before leaving to clear out the nearby voidbeasts so they weren’t bothered by them upon return.

Ember floated on the other side, an instantly promising sign. Years hadn’t passed. Vivi had no reason to think the temporal distortion would multiply a thousand times over on one of these trips, but she couldn’t guarantee anything.

“Longer,” the dragon said. She referenced a small brass device in her hand, a timekeeper, having apparently decided to make the experiment official.

Maybe I should’ve done that too, Vivi thought. Would a timekeeper even work in the void, or would it give nonsense results if not freeze entirely?

Though on reconsideration, she supposed the precise second or minute count didn’t matter. A broad sense of how it worked was what was important, and they hadn’t gotten even that yet.

“Twelve minutes, to be exact,” the Princess said.

“We were gone about twenty,” Vivi replied. She glanced at Aeris and Lysander to see if they agreed with her assessment, and they nodded. “So it’s still slower in there instead of faster, about half-speed to one-third. Why was my first trip a month ago faster, then? Random chance?” She huffed. “Too small a sample size still.”

Her head started to hurt. There were so many unknowns! Each was fascinating in its own right, but all together, they left her feeling overwhelmed.

Particularly since none were strictly magical phenomena, not in the mana-based sense—that was where her true, most pure interest lay. She already had too many experiments and research topics she wanted to pursue. Some she hadn’t even gotten to touch yet, like trying to imitate the Dragon King’s Fires of Creation.

“Locational?” Lysander suggested.

Vivi turned to him, tilting her head in curiosity.

“If the speed factor is consistently slower, perhaps it’s because you never left Prismarche,” the Headmaster explained. “During your first trip, you were traveling from Meridian—you crossed the continent. Certain portions of the void may run at particular speeds. Moreover, travel itself may be the confounding element. Why that would be the case, I have no idea, but it isn’t implausible.”

Unlike with his earlier theory about how the Concept had escaped, she wasn’t sold outright. But it was a clever candidate explanation, and not something she herself had considered. Even more impressively, he’d come up with the conjecture the instant the topic had been broached.

It’s almost like he’s a genius or something, Vivi thought sarcastically. Technically, she was too, but only when it came to magic. Lysander was brilliant in the mundane way, and while Vivi didn’t consider herself dumb, she most definitely was not a genius.

“We’d be lucky if that’s the case,” Vivi said, “because it’s easily testable.”

Aeris hummed. “And reliable time dilation would be an incredible boon.”

Vivi had said that to Ember earlier. And yes, it was obviously true.

She told Ember, “We were just making sure years hadn’t passed while we were gone. We’re going back in.”

“Enjoy,” Ember said, seeming vaguely entertained for some reason.

Vivi turned back to the portal.

Round three, then, she thought.