In fits and starts, in periods of floating and of sinking, I awoke. It took me a long time to realize I was alive. When I finally did, a burst of adrenaline propelled me to full alertness. I opened my eyes and looked around my hospital room in disbelief, amazed to be in any kind of room. The room was very nice. The left wall was built with a line of 3 windows above a ledge, providing ideal placement for a chest-high collection of houseplants. Someone had brought in a few plants, but most of the ledge was unoccupied. The rest of the room was in woody shades of brown or yellow. I had a small table directly next to my head, which contained only a small potted fern at the moment. To my right, beside the door, there was a chair for any visitor that needed one. It was a solid wooden chair, by no means cheap or afterthought-ish. These were all good things.

The modest increase in blood flow from waking up was enough to make my head hurt. I had an IV in my arm, a diaper on my butt, and bandages that served no purpose except to restrain any movements I might try to make. I already felt drained enough that the idea of moving seemed like lunacy. These were not good things.

I was far too tired to vocalize, so I closed my eyes and went back to sleep. I woke up again sometime later in response to being jostled. A team of two doctors was turning me over to keep me from getting pressure sores. There was an awkward moment where we were just sort of babbling at each other, I with a long-disused voice and they surprised to see me awake. They regained their composure and asked me to hold still while they finished turning me over. When that was done, one of them stayed with me while the other left to fetch people. I didn't feel like talking to the doctor who stayed. I stared blankly at the wall, hoping for the throbbing in my head to go away.

A good several minutes passed. It felt like no time at all to me. The doctor who had left returned, accompanied by the third full-time doctor and Headmistress Marin. She pulled over the visitor's chair and sat near me. She did not say anything. The oldest doctor present gently caught my attention and asked, "How are you feeling?"

"M'head hurts."

"As it should. Do you have any spots in your vision? Any blurriness? Trouble seeing?"

"No."

He asked me similar questions for the rest of my body. When he was satisfied, he told me, "You are very lucky. What you survived would have killed most people."

"Mhm." I didn't feel so lucky, being bedbound and in danger of diaper rash.

"Are you strong enough for conversation, or would you prefer to be left alone?"

My ability to speak deserted me. I turned my head to face the headmistress and jutted my chin in her direction. The head doctor told her to fetch him when we were done, and then they all left the room. Headmistress Marin and I were alone for the first time.

Neither of us knew what to say on such an occasion. She and I both seemed afraid of disappointing the other. I decided to face that fear head-on. "I can't help you. I can't do anything to the emissary except talk to her. I can't do anything to help your school, either."

"So I have heard," she replied. "Yet clearly you do have exceptional power, or else you would be lying in a grave."

"I guess Fate has use for me yet." Realizing that she must have talked to Minas, I shook my head. "Don't ask what Fate is."

"Why not?"

"There are a bunch of ways to answer that question. If I don't pick the right one, I make people mad. I can't pick which one to use right now. That takes too much effort."

"Very well." She adjusted her position. "You are very different from what I expected."

"What'd you expect?"

"...Something both more and less than you actually are. Legendary and awe-inspiring, but lacking substance. I suppose that means I expected that you would never return."

"You were right to expect that. I wasn't supposed to return."

Headmistress Marin blinked, startled. "What do you mean?"

I smiled sadly. "Life is like floating in a great and powerful river. When you pull a person out of their life, it leaves an empty space, and that empty space immediately starts to collapse from the forces surrounding it. When I went back to my world the first time, after two months away, my life was so badly warped I barely fit into it. Leaving it empty a second time guarantees its destruction. I can't go back anymore. I have no life left to go back to."

Her eyes widened. "You will stay on Lore this time?"

"Unlikely. It's more likely that the exciting adventure I'm part of will kill me."

She didn't have anything to say to that. We went back to awkward silence. I felt tired, but pushed myself to stay awake. "I mean it. I really can't help you. I call her Emma."

"The emissary?"

"Uh-huh."

"But she has attacked and nearly killed you."

"I deserved it. I abandoned her."

Headmistress Marin shook her head. "You saved Lore from the evil plans of Akanthus. That villain would have blown the planet to pieces if you had not stopped him."

"I didn't stop him."

She gave me a curious look.

"We came out in a populated area. He was seen, chased, eventually caught. He spent nine years in jail. Then he escaped, and vanished. The whole world was looking for him, but nobody could find him. Then I came home from work one day and found him waiting for me in my living room. He let me change into suitable clothes first. I took his hand and came back, and… Well, I let go partway through. We didn't end up in the same place. But I think he might be somewhere on Lore."

Headmistress Marin sat and stared at me, saying nothing. I kept babbling, trying to get my disoriented head on straight. "I didn't need to say all that, did I? I just meant - you said 'stopped,' and generally stopping someone means killing or permanently disabling them, and I didn't do either one. He's not dead, and he's not totally unable to do anything on Lore, or to Lore, or…" I squeezed my eyes shut and moaned. I'd overexerted myself, and now my head was pounding.

After a while, she said, "Are you saying that you have returned one of Lore's greatest villains in a time and place where nobody is prepared for him?"

"Yeah. Ow."

"After he has spent more than a decade honing the art of passing undetected in a nonmagical world."

"Maybe."

"Thus allowing him to cause greater destruction than ever before, even greater than when he was the trusted second in command to one of the most powerful people in the world."

"It sounds really bad when you put it that way."

"You did not realize what you had done?"

"I was a little busy."

"Busy with what?" My addled brain finally realized she was mad at me. "If you are unable to do anything about the emissary and did not realize that you should have been doing something about Akanthus, then what exactly have you spent the past month doing?"

"Getting my bearings."

"'Getting bearings' is what one does in preparation for action. What action could you possibly have been preparing for? What action can you possibly perform now, in this state?" She gestured at my bedridden body.

"I'm gonna talk to the emissary."

"Talk to her." The headmistress huffed. "To what end? That being cannot control magic on Lore. It is a human soul inserted into a well of power beyond what any human soul can handle for the sole purpose of plugging up said well. The only way to return magic to Lore is to destroy it."

"I'm not looking that far ahead. One step at a time."

"In other words, you have no idea what you are doing. The only thing that your return to Lore has accomplished is to unleash Akanthus." Headmistress Marin stood up and returned the chair to its spot beside the door. "You are correct. You were not meant to ever return." That was the last thing she said before sweeping out the door. I closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep. Sleep had been insistently pulling at me before, but now it eluded me.

.

The emissary paid her new conspirators a second visit several days after the first, when she felt capable of withstanding another round of assault long enough to accomplish something. As before, she laid down an invisibility spell and assembled herself behind it. She kept the invisibility spell up while roaming the halls, learning the layout of this unfamiliar place. Then she headed in Warlic's direction. His Infernal nature was horrible in every other respect, but it made him a useful beacon.

She found him with the two people who wore Swordhaven vests, going over inventory records. "I'd prefer to have spares of these," he muttered. "In case our first attempts to link them into the circuit damage them."

"The odds of that are low," the bearded man with the curly black hair assured him. "All we need is enough juice to move a compass needle. A circuit with such little power running through it would have trouble damaging any device, no matter how poorly connected."

"These are rather sensitive instruments we're using. I'd like to be sure." Nonetheless, he looked relieved.

The emissary dropped her invisibility spell. "Hello," she said. "I just got here. You seem to be discussing some kind of circuit."

Warlic's eyes darted around. "Ah… Jaania said that she would prefer to be the one talking with you."

"She's not the one I'm using as a beacon," the emissary replied. "I locate this place by homing in on your distinctive connection to the Mana Core. That makes you the one who's going to spend the most time talking to me. I don't like that any more than she does, so don't even bother protesting." She walked over to the small table they sat around and picked up the records Warlic had been studying. "You're looking through your inventory records for devices you already have that can be used to build a circuit. Why?"

"A magic detector, to track Akanthus with," Warlic replied.

"Good idea. Although locating him probably isn't going to be our greatest problem; why would he prevent you from killing me if his intention was anything other than to interact with me himself? He'll draw my attention when he's ready."

"Excuse me," the bearded man said. "I am Ostromir. This is my partner, Vseslava. We were both Magesters, once. Akanthus is drawing on his experience as a Magisterium researcher. Since we know what that experience is, we can help you determine what he's doing and how."

The emissary narrowed her eyes. "You are no longer Magesters?"

"The Magesterium no longer exists."

She smiled. "Just as well." The last thing she remembered about the Magisterium was those idiots just sitting on the Fissure and doing nothing with it, then throwing a childish tantrum that involved destroying whole cities when she refused to meekly submit. Lore was better off without such a group. Good riddance!

"Ahem," Warlic interrupted. "It was decided after your last visit that if you intend to personally visit this site in the future, you should do so under disguise. A cover story has been prepared."

The emissary's first instinct was to refuse. She didn't expect to stay long or travel anywhere on her visits. Pop in, have a short little chat, disappear: that was all she expected to be doing. But a situation involving Akanthus could change drastically with no notice. What if some unexpected thing forced her to stay for hours at a time and travel the compound? It couldn't hurt to be prepared for such an eventuality. She held up a hand so nobody would interrupt while she concentrated. She imagined a suitable form: a pale-skinned woman with round, innocent-looking features and long brown tresses, wearing a modest brown dress over black pants and boots. She put on an illusion that would make both people and sensors perceive her in this form. "Alright. What's the cover story?"

Warlic told her, "You are a researcher from a secret lab that was developing technology to mimic magic. A thief stole a prototype device and you have tracked them to this general location."

The emissary envisioned what sort of person that would be. She couldn't just disguise her physical appearance; in order to successfully pass, she'd have to assume a different personality, too. A secret researcher… That sounded like a mousy sort of personality, not prone to standing out, but with a hidden backbone of steel that would reveal itself under pressure. Probably soft spoken…

"Ah…"

She glanced at Warlic. "What?"

"You will need a name to go with your disguise."

Her fists clenched. She did not want a name. But she would need one, and perhaps it could be tolerable as long as it was only a fake name. "Emma."

Warlic smiled. "Emma. I like it."

"I don't care." She returned to her thoughts, and realized that was not the sort of thing her fake persona would say. She would have to be careful to act differently when a non-conspirator was around.

"So then… Emma. Ostromir, Vseslava and I were just about finished designing the magic tracker. Would you like to come with us to fetch the parts?"

.

Jaania knew what Warlic was doing and had told the head technomancers to expect it. She, the Hero, and Organa kept themselves busy by strategizing. They met in the Hero's personal quarters. He sat in a chair beside a small table meant for eating on. Said table currently held a small stack of papers. Jaania and Organa remained standing, the better to look over those papers. "Your usual 'strategy' won't work in this case," Jaania said to the Hero. "If the thief is Akanthus, that would amount to suicide. Our first priority isn't dealing with the thief, anyway - it's ensuring the safety of those parts he stole and getting them back."

"I had already thought of that," the Hero replied with narrowed eyes. "My plan was to follow the tracker and, if it leads us all the way to him, sneak around to find where he's keeping those parts."

"If you and your team are caught, deploy the beacon and retreat immediately."

"I know."

"Would you two stop bickering and focus on the task at hand?" Organa snapped.

Jaania took a deep breath. "My apologies. Let's move on. The plan just devised accounts for only the most likely scenarios. We should do a little bit of preparation for unlikely scenarios that might occur."

"I've already thought of several," the Hero said. "What if Akanthus isn't just keeping the stolen parts somewhere, but actively using them?"

Jaania's eyes widened. "That's unlikely," she said while looking for a sheet of paper that listed all of the stolen parts. "Most of those parts are newly invented since he left. He wouldn't know what they are or how to use them." Nonetheless, she studied the list closely. "Hmm… The mana-flux regulator would only be useful as part of a system that had a large amount of mana flowing through it. He didn't steal the power cores, so that's not likely. The matrix condenser, again, can only be used with a large amount of mana. Most of these parts are critical to the extremely large flow of mana the Soul Puller must generate. Their loss cripples the machine, but I don't see how he could use them for anything."

"What if Akanthus does something crazy like descend into the Fissure and plug them straight into the Mana Core?"

"If they had a suitable power source, these parts could theoretically be used to create a mana matrix in any location," Jaania conceded. "But the matrix needs confinement in order to stay intact. Without a confined space, mana won't form into a solid thread-trapping mass. It would disperse."

"Would magic force fields work?"

"Only well enough to make the mana take semisolid form. It would still leak, into the force fields in this scenario, causing a buildup of magical energy that would probably explode within a few minutes." Jaania straightened up. Her lower back was starting to protest. "Why would Akanthus want to create a solid or semisolid mass of mana, anyway? Such a thing has little practical application."

"What if he created not a full-sized matrix, but a tiny one?" the Hero asked. "Large enough to trap her feet, say."

"Her physical form is fake, Hero," Jaania said in an exasperated voice. "She doesn't really have feet to trap."

"Ahem." They both looked at Organa, who glanced around the room warily. "Ought we to be discussing these details, after the events of four days ago?"

"I'm sure she's already used magic to mine our heads," the Hero muttered. "It's what any competent villain would do."

"If the emissary is putting on a show of cooperation, then he's right. If the emissary really is as cooperative as she claims to be, then she won't flee from the machine's pull," Jaania added.

"If she is cooperative now but changes her mind when the time comes?" Organa asked.

"A desperate mind caught in the throes of panic will use the quickest method available to them. That would be blowing up the machine. Knowledge of the machine's inner workings won't make a difference." Jaania shook her head. "But she was created out of my soul. She wouldn't change her mind last minute on a whim."

"Very well," Organa conceded. "But even so. I would rather not discuss such sensitive information any more than strictly necessary."

"Makes sense," the Hero replied. "So. The parts he stole are good for creating a solid mass out of a huge flow of mana. There's nothing he could possibly use that for?"

"Not as far as I can see," Jaania replied. "But none of us can see very far right now. It would be good to keep asking this question."

The Hero nodded. "What if my team uses the magic tracker, finds the saboteur, and discovers that he's already destroyed the parts?"

"That would be the absolute worst-case scenario," Jaania replied. "We would have no way to prevent the emissary from escaping. We'd be utterly reliant on her cooperation."

The Hero looked down. "It sounds like we're hoping that Akanthus is more clever than us. He has to have thought of some way to use those parts, because if he hasn't, there's nothing stopping him from destroying them."

"But if he has…" Jaania sighed. "I know I keep saying that a block of solid mana would have no practical application. But the truth is, we don't know. The closest anyone has ever gotten to having such a thing is when the Magisterium recovered their piece of the Mana Core. That wasn't really the same thing; it was more like a mass of mana-drenched soul thread than a mass of pure solidified mana. We have no idea what solid mana might or might not be good for. Is it unstable enough for use as a bomb? Is it magically reactive? Who knows?"

"Having to rely on the emissary's cooperation, then, is our better option," Organa said quietly. "She is less dangerous than Akanthus at this point. All the disaster she can cause has already happened, whereas his potential is yet to be revealed."

The Hero closed his eyes and shrank down, giving in to a moment of depression. "Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse…"

His mood was contagious. They all took a moment to indulge in self-pity. When would the endless series of disasters end? When would Lore emerge from darkness into a time of pleasant sunshine? Would Lore always teeter on the brink of destruction? Would it plunge over said brink? Were they witness to Lore's final days? And the greatest question of all: why? Why did all this hardship have to occur, and why did it have to feel so malicious in nature? They kept getting glimpses of a light at the end of the tunnel, only for a new disaster to dash their hopes. Again and again and again that kept happening! It felt like the universe was playing with them, like it had a grudge and wanted to make them suffer.

They were all rescued by the sound of the door opening. Warlic, Ostromir, Vseslava and an unknown meek-looking woman who shyly averted her eyes walked in. Vseslava carried an open box. She placed it on top of the table. "We've done it," Warlic declared. "The magic tracker is assembled, and it has proved capable of detecting magic. Now we just need to test it outside the walls."

"Good," Organa replied, her gaze fixed on the unknown woman. "Who is this person?"

"This is Emma, that researcher from the secret lab that had a prototype device stolen. She's helping to track down the thief. You remember," Warlic said with a smile.

The atmosphere grew tense. The Hero crossed his arms. Jaania ground her teeth. She couldn't decide which part of this scenario offended her more: seeing her creation again, or seeing the way Warlic smiled in that thing's presence. Did he smile like that at her? Jaania dug a fingernail into her skin to remind herself that this was no time for petty jealousy. They had more important things to focus on.

The Hero stood up from his chair and looked inside the box. "Looks like it's time to find out what we have to deal with: a disaster or an apocalypse." He picked up the box. "I'll take this to my team. We can leave in fifteen minutes."

"I will come too," Ostromir and Vseslava said at the same time. They looked at each other. "We don't both need to show them how to use the tracker," Ostromir said.

"You should stay," Vseslava told him. "You have an easier time speaking with…her." Ostromir nodded. Vseslava and the Hero left the room as quickly as they could.

"May I ask what he meant by that?" Warlic asked.

Jaania said, "The disaster scenario is that he's destroyed the parts already, forcing us to reconfigure the Soul Puller to function in a more delicate manner. The apocalyptic scenario is that he has figured out a way to use the stolen parts."

Warlic knew what parts had been stolen and what they were used for as well as she did. He paled. "Ah. I see."

Emma held up a hand. "I should go with the Hero. I can devise a spell to hide me even from Akanthus' sight, and if the stolen parts are located I can teleport them away. It would be significantly less dangerous for me than for any normal person."

"Being able to simply teleport them back to safety would be significantly better than carrying them through Fissure lands at a dead run," Warlic agreed. "But the Hero does not appreciate your company, and how will you justify joining his team without revealing that you can use magic?"

"I'm looking to get my prototype device back, right? Why send out two separate parties to steal things back from the thief when we could steal everything all at once? The Hero's team doesn't know what my prototype looks like; I must join them." Emma turned to Warlic. "Stay somewhere safe and read a book." She ran out of the room.

Jaania's jealousy flared up again. "'Stay somewhere safe and read a book'?" She felt betrayed. Her creation had just had a spoken exchange with her husband that managed to be completely private despite the presence of other people. Public private conversations were very near to Jaania's heart. Even this single sentence felt like a knife between her ribs.

"She uses me as a beacon," Warlic explained quickly. He knew how Jaania felt and why. "My connection to the Mana Core is very distinctive. If this expedition succeeds, she will teleport everything to my location. She always manifests herself in my vicinity, too. It appears that, for practical reasons, I must take the lead on speaking with her."

Jaania's jaw tightened. Ostromir added, "If he serves an irreplaceable function for her, then she's all but guaranteed not to wither him. This is really a very safe position to be in."

Jaania shot him a glare. "Stay out of our business, Overseer."

"Thank you for your support, but this is a conversation Jaania and I should have in private," Warlic said quietly.

Ostromir backed away. "Right. Well then… Ah… I will deliver to the head technomancers a report on our magic tracker, how it was designed and how it works." He left the room posthaste.

"Do not let personal conflicts interfere with what must be done," Organa told Warlic and Jaania.

"With all due respect, Head Technomancer, the mission to destroy the emissary is a personal conflict," Warlic replied. "We and every single person on Lore are motivated to destroy her by anger and sadness, that she has killed our loved ones and ruined our lives. Personal feelings cannot be removed from this situation."

"Short-term conflicts, then," Organa said. "This project is twenty years in the making. I will not allow it to be derailed by the latest petty argument of the day." She picked up all the papers and headed for the door, indicating that they should follow her. They did. This was the Hero's private room, after all.