"Ms. X," she said, after a long interval of stunned silence. "That Ms. X? Gertie's imaginary friend? That's who you are?!"
The woman nodded.
"Well, what do you know! Smart people are never just seeing things!" She yelled. "So you really are by her side at all times? Like this...creepy fairy godmother in a suit?"
"Not at all times." Ms. X raised an eyebrow. "I suppose you had seen her charming experiment setups inside the Golden Peaks, designed to capture evidence of my existence?"
"Oh, that? I thought it was just, you know, one of her many ways of procrastinating, much like teleporting giant loaves of bread for three days straight?" She paused. "Still have no idea what that one was about..."
"A shame. Had you stayed in that tower any longer, you might have caught a glimpse of me. I knew Elizabeth A. did." A smile crawled up Ms. X's face, which was a little too stiff for her comfort. "I have to agree with little Gertie's assessment. She is an interesting case study."
Of what? Human depravity? Gertie never elaborated on that statement, and neither would this woman, from the looks of it.
She took a deep breath, before she started talking again. "Okay, let's start from the beginning. Who are you, what do you want from me, where are we right now."
"I believe I have already told you my name." The woman gave her a sideway glance. "I do not have the habit of repeating myself."
"That's not what I'm really asking—"
"I only wish for an opportunity to converse with one of you directly, since none of you remembers our first meeting," Ms. X continued, completely ignoring her retort, "And the right person in the wrong place can make all the differences in the world, don't you think?"
"What first meeting? I've never seen you before."
"You did, during your ascension, while the crystals were working their miracles," Ms. X shook her head. "Before you ask, I will not reveal the information I obtained from your fellow Gold Crystal holders. Not due to any restrictions imposed by a higher authority. Just my personal codes of conduct."
She didn't know how to reply to that. Maybe their "first meeting" happened under the exact same set of circumstances, and she wouldn't remember a thing about this encounter either, once she left this strange plane—
"Wait, am I literally inside my crystal right now?"
"I would treat you to some imaginary microwaved casseroles, if that was the case." Ms. X's eyebrows knitted together slightly. In disappointment, perhaps. Like everything about this woman, it was very hard to tell. "You are where you are, before a certain curious phenomenon struck."
"So I'm still underground?" She glanced around again, but nothing had changed inside the sea of light. "Well, what's with all these golden particles? I can't even see myself, and there's just...nothing around here!"
"I am really not at liberty to say. Snippets are few and far between, and no woman of science will jump to conclusions without sufficient evidence," Ms. X said. "However, if you are an elemental being made of water, and you are submerged in a swimming pool, can you still see yourself?"
"...I don't know? Because I'm not smart enough for advanced summoning magic?"
"How do you know you are not smart enough? Try opening your mind. Your eyes." A pause, followed by a snicker, "Your mind's eyes."
"Yeah, that's helpful," she muttered, after it became apparent that Ms. X had no follow-ups to that, and was content to focus her intense, unyielding gaze on her in complete silence.
Well, what did they say? Fake it until you make it? So, like any smart, reasonable person caught in a crisis, she would do the smart thing and start to think smartly.
Ms. X's question would be easy, if she had actually seen an elemental being before. She was no genius mage, and the actual genius mage of the Golden Pentagram didn't like to entertain the whims of people who were significantly dumber than her, fellow crystal holders or not.
That aside, if water elementals were just made of regular, non-magical, perfectly transparent water, and they were dunked into a pool of similarly ordinary water, the answer should be a "no". Provided that they didn't have some innate magical vision that could help them distinguish their own water from, well, other types of water.
Did Ms. X mean she was now made up of the same...stuff as her surroundings? Of these golden particles? Yeah, that sounded right. But what was she supposed to do about that?
Mind. Eyes. Mind's eyes.
Huh. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't tried to use her power in this place yet, had she? Or, more importantly, could she?
She was so caught up in this whole "being a ghost" idea before Ms. X showed up, because that was how it felt like. She didn't think she would still have her power with her. But maybe it was there all along.
She closed her eyes. It couldn't block out the light, and was just for concentration's sake. Then, she called upon the familiar energy, let it flow freely through her body, and stared into the sea of particles as hard as she could.
Soon, they began to blur and fade away, like she was seeing through a microscope lens that was being adjusted. Inky blackness replaced the light, which soon shifted into a familiar shade of dark blue, churning around the jagged rock fragments that were floating besides her.
She looked down, and saw her hands, now ethereal and golden and translucent, just like the weapon she managed to summon in that cell. Ms. X, however, was not affected by this change, and was as real and eerily calm as before.
"Okay, you could've just said 'use your enhanced sight', instead of making up some strange analogy to get the same point across. Still, thanks, I guess," she mumbled, which earned another snicker from the woman.
When she reached for the nearest piece of debris, her hands passed right through it, accompanied by the same jolt she had felt before.
So she wasn't corporeal, after all. But she wasn't dead either.
That left a single possibility. She was outside her body, right? And her actual body had to be sleeping somewhere?
She lowered her head, glancing further downwards, trying to see if anything humanoid was lying on these floating rocks. More debris were spinning around in a circle, fading into semi-transparent blotches in her enhanced vision, against a backdrop of bright golden glow—
Huh. What was that?
She narrowed her eyes, and looked even harder. Soon, all the objects obstructing her field of vision faded away, leaving only the glow.
No, it wasn't a glow, radiated by some stationary light source. It was a golden vortex, swirling in a circle, just like the dark blue energy that was mingled with it, slowly bleeding its way into—and eating away at—the golden light. Like two tidal waves struggling for dominance, when one flared up, the other flickered and shrunk, yet none of them could completely overwhelm the other.
"Are you...are you also seeing that?" Upon receiving a silent nod, she continued, "I know clarity is like, the bane of your existence or something, but I could really use some expositions right now?"
"A fragment of power that, even after centuries, still retains its potency for dimensional distortion," Ms. X held up an index finger. "The same energy in your crystal, but a dozen times stronger, channeled into a great barrier."
Her other index finger was also raised now. Slowly, Ms. X pressed her fingertips together. "Which one shall emerge as the victor? The unstoppable spear, or the immovable shield?"
"So...in layman terms, the dark blue stuff is poking a hole in the dimensions, while the Gold Energy is trying to block it?"
"Mmm."
"Where did they come from?" She paused, then added, "Actually, I don't care, and don't need more cryptic clues. Please tell me how I can stop this astral-projection thing, and get back to my body?"
"You already know the answer. Keep moving. Keep looking."
She sighed. Wrenching actual answers out of this woman was like trying to get Gertie to come to any kind of important events on time. Basically, a futile endeavor.
"Now, I just came up with an interesting hypothesis."
Behind her, Ms. X spoke up unexpectedly. She stopped waddling, and turned back. She was trying to move as fast as she could, towards the golden silhouettes she was seeing below. But, once it became clear that she couldn't change her slow, slow movement speed at all, she had grudgingly stopped trying as hard.
"If you have a magical rock that harbors a fragment of an entity's soul in it, and, upon discovering your Gold Crystal and completing your ascension, it becomes one of your summoned weapons..."
Great. Hypothetical scenarios with zero relevance to her current perils. She just loved those. "Heavens, are you an older Gertie or something? With all these hypotheses?"
"Pursuers of science often share plenty of similarities with one another." Ms. X's smile seemed to become a little less robotic, as she spoke those words. "Perhaps you would like to hear one from her? Not a hypothesis, but a theory. That all human beings on the PC Continent are related to the sapient monster species, through interspecies mating prior to the First Resonance—"
"Yeah, that's very interesting and all, and I'm definitely gonna ask her about that if I can get out of here alive, but do you have practical answers to practical questions?" She cut the woman off, before she started moving again. "Like, how to make my power actually work?"
"Knowledge, my friend. Knowledge is power." Ms. X's grin shifted into a smirk, as she floated to her side. "Yours, doubly so."
"So you do have specific, helpful tips that will help me avoid the hallucinations and agony, once I return to my body?"
The time limit didn't seem to apply to her in this state, judging by how she'd been using her vision throughout the long, slow descent, and wasn't seeing random strangers or spasming in pain yet. But she had the feeling that this wouldn't be the case anymore, once she got back.
"Ignorance shields you from pain. Keeps you blind. Knowledge hurts, doesn't it?" Ms. X stretched her arms out in a mock embrace, "Burns your eyes like a thousand suns? But pain is what makes us human. Makes us adapt and survive against impossible odds, like those who came before you. Follow in their footsteps, and you shall see."
"...You are the least helpful fairy godmother ever." She groaned.
After what seemed like an eternity of lagging movements, she finally got close enough to one of the more distinctive silhouettes—she could see that witch hat, long before she was sure that her yelling and waving could be noticed. Good. Verdna's amulet was still out there somewhere, and hadn't fallen into the giant dimensional rift below them.
"Hey! Look this way!"
Verdna didn't glance in her direction at all. Her head lowered, the ghost just floated there like a piece of fabric, until she paddled all the way to her front.
"Hello? Hello? Hello—" She heaved a sigh of relief when Verdna opened her eyes. "Phew. I thought I was invisible to you for a second."
The ghost put a hand to her mouth, the moment she saw her. There was a look of pure despair in her eyes.
"So you've also..." Her voice was shaking, when she started speaking again, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should've warned you. No, on second thought, that wouldn't have changed anything, would it?"
"What?" It took her several seconds to realize what Vernda must've been thinking. "No, you've gotten it all wrong! I'm not dead! Just, uh, casually astral-projecting out of my body or something, according to that weird lady in a suit."
She pointed in Ms. X's direction. Verdna narrowed her eyes slightly, frowning, before letting out a sigh.
"There is no one there." The ghost shook her head. "Never mind. Denial of one's own mortality tends to do that to people."
Right at that moment, Ms. X chose to wink at her with her single eye. Just like before, the woman didn't bother to give any explanations.
"Okay, you can't see her, and you clearly haven't seen my body anywhere, but do you know where your amulet is at right now? I'll be coming for it, once I get back to my body!"
"Somewhere down there." Verdna gestured half-heartedly to her right. "But really, even if you aren't just in denial, and are still alive, don't come back for me. Focus on getting yourself out of here, if the chances allow it."
"What? No way!"
"I'm serious. Forget about me. Don't endanger your life for someone who's already dead." Verdna let out a sad chuckle. "Who knows, maybe the magic on that amulet will break down inside the rift, and I'll finally pass on. Meet up with Sosaria again in the afterlife, if there is one in the first place."
"Uh, I know nothing about her, but I'm sure she wouldn't want you to—"
"Listen, young lady. I appreciate your effort at sparing my feelings, but you could've just said 'E.A. did it'." Verdna held up a hand. "What was I expecting, really? I should've realized this long ago. This life-after-death is not a second chance. It's a punishment."
"Gosh darn it, Elizabeth, why are you responsible for so many miseries in people's lives..." She slapped her forehead, before continuing, "And punishment? For what? You haven't done anything wrong! I'm pretty sure you couldn't anticipate the serial murders when you signed up for your, uh, neat oversea scholarship program—"
"For a foolish know-it-all who couldn't accept that her archaic magic and dungeon-dwelling lifestyle was obsolete, even amongst the Guild mages. Who, instead of adapting to the changes and coming to terms with her jealousy, ran to a continent far, far away, so she wouldn't have to see her friends' achievements anymore. All under the guise of 'pursuing knowledge'."
Verdna adjusted her hat. "And now she won't ever gain any new knowledge, or reunite with her friends. This place is a great resting spot, when you take into account that she'll never have to see the living again, whose very existence is a reminder of everything she has lost and left behind."
"Don't you still have a body to find? So go, and leave me be, if you did find it." Verdna was smiling a little, as she made eye contact with her again.
It was the same resigned smile she saw just a while ago, falling further and further away from her.
"Oh for the love of—" She inhaled deeply, before bursting into a scream, "WHY? Why are you people so determined to be left for dead today?! Am I the only one who wants to live? Who wants everyone caught in this mess to live?!"
Just when she finished her sentence, a low humming sound came from above, followed by a squelch.
The shadow phantom hadn't even touched any solid debris when her blade shot out, slicing into its neck in midair. Before the echoes of its shrieking faded away, all that was left of it was ink droplets, dissolving into the darkness below. Only then did she realize she wasn't supposed to do that.
No, really, she wasn't! She just passed through everything solid on the way down! She wasn't even corporeal! How the heck did her blade manage to connect?
She turned to Ms. X, who had been floating besides her, watching their conversation in complete silence. Upon noticing her stare, the woman gave her another wink.
"...Ha ha, very funny," she grumbled, before turning back to an equally stunned Verdna.
"Uh, I have no idea what I just did, but apparently, I can do that now?" She shrugged, "Look, there's no way I'm leaving you stuck in this void forever. I'm getting back to my body—let's hope these things haven't found it first, and then I'm coming for you! You have to have something that keeps you sane and going in all these years, right? Something you've gained while you were here, as a ghost?"
After throwing such a moderately thoughtful and motivational comment out there, she could really use a dramatic exit, like leaping straight into the void below or something.
But no. She still had to paddle like a puppy in a pool, as she made an awkward turn, propelling herself towards the other golden silhouettes in the far distance.
She didn't need the enhanced sight to see her body, slumped over a barred gate that was torn right off its hinge. In the shadow of the giant chunk of building above, the white color of her clothes was clear as day. Yet, just like before, it took her a long time to actually get there.
She saw a glint of gold above her too, while she was moving. Maybe Clancy was up there? Okay, change of priority. She should definitely go for the nearest target, before beginning her search for Verdna's amulet.
"Alright," She stopped a few steps away from her body, and turned to Ms. X, "Thanks for your very limited help, I guess. I can still see you after I've stopped this whole astral-projection thing, right?"
"I'm afraid not, my little cauliflower." Ms. X shook her head. "For I will be taking my leave soon."
"Why? And what even is that nickname?" She exclaimed. "It just came out of nowhere!"
"You see, if I can cross such a vast distance and arrive at this location," A chuckle, "Other entities who share my...state of existence can also take the same course of action, and I am already feeling the ripples. So, this is where I get off."
"Okay, there are only so many things that can be hand-waved away with creepy winks and laughs, and this isn't one of them!" She yelled. "Before you go, at least tell me what these 'other entities' are—?"
Ms. X reached towards the digital watch on her wrist, and pressed one of the buttons on its side. The next second, she just...wasn't there anymore. Even after she pushed her enhanced vision to its very limit, all she could see was empty space.
Before she could start glancing around, or continue moving towards her body, there was another flash of light, accompanied by a few stray golden particles. When it faded away, a new person appeared in front of her, arms crossed.
This woman...was as lanky and poker-faced as the Aktivis she knew, with the same cold grey eyes and unnaturally pale skin. But there was one crucial difference.
She was wearing a brightly-colored rainbow scarf.