Arc 2 – Part 4

The gold and colourless vortex twisted and writhed around her, and Caprifexia dug her claws into the stone beneath herself, flapping her wings as hard as she could to try and resist the terrible pull. One paw came away, then the other, and Caprifexia screamed as she was wrenched upward.

She called her magic to her, weaving together a gust of air to try and hurl herself back downward. The magic responded, and her magic threw her forward, far enough that she reached a ruined pillar and wrapped herself around it.

"Capri!" screamed Chandra, who was struggling to hold onto a rock against the pull. "Help! I'm slipping!"

Caprifexia conjured a chain of silver which wrapped around Chandra's wrist and secured her. Her friend no longer immediately in danger, she turned back to the swirling vortex. It was familiar, she had had this dream before-

And just like that, her perspective shifted from immersed to lucid. She was dreaming. Dreaming, but her magic had worked, and not just in a sense that she'd been able to affect the world in her dream. She had felt the complex weave of magic thread together and form into the wind spell, and the chain spell. That wasn't what happened in dreams.

Caprifexia cast a general scanning spell, which detonated outward in a pulse of silver magic. She snarled as the spell began to return information about the surroundings, manifesting as draconic sigils that hovered in front of her and showed overwhelming levels of astral energy, too high to be anything else. Somehow her consciousness had been shifted, seemingly when she had fallen asleep, from the material realm of 'Thedas,' as Kallian had called it, to some kind of astral demi-plane.

Ahead of her Chandra began to claw her way up the chain, making her way towards where Caprifexia was. "What's going on?" shouted the young girl over the howling wind. "Where are we?"

"This is a demi-plane," shouted Caprifexia back. "Astral."

"How did we get here?" said Chandra. "And why is the Eye of Magnus here!?"

Caprifexia turned her attention back to the golden vortex and looked around. The area she was in was manifesting as a mishmash of various disgusting ruins that Caprifexia had been in, with the blazing 'Eye of Magnus,' or 'Eye of Caprifexia' as some of the Psijic were calling it, at the centre. The material bridge between 'Aetherius' and 'Mundus,' it was located back in the central library at the College on Nirn, and was what allowed Nirnian mages to access magic.

At its core, or at least, at the core of the real object, blazed Caprifexia's Spark from some indeterminate point in the future, when she had- would- was to have sacrificed herself to save Nirn from destruction. It was why the Psijic Order, or what remained of it, had moved to Winterhold. Why she needed to 'chaperoned,' and why everyone was utterly terrified of her. Not that that was a bad thing. It was appropriate for mortal's to have an appropriate level of fear for their draconic betters – even for heroic dragons like Caprifexia.

But this? This was some kind of manifestation of what for a mortal might be called her 'unconscious fear.' Although, since she was a dragon, Caprifexia didn't have repressed fears. She was just… mildly perturbed by the perhaps unbreakable loop of causality that hung over her like an executioners axe, descending day by day and bringing her closer and closer to her inevitable, unavoidable annihilation-

She shook herself, focusing back on the present. This was just a phantasm, not the real thing. That… future lay far away. It was not now. This object had no power over her, she could just will it to be gone.

She flexed her will: there was no orb, only a bad dream.

Nothing happened

Caprifexia tried again.

Nothing happened.

That was odd. On an astral plane the environment was a reflection of mind and thought. Caprifexia might not have quite mastered the mental arts just yet, and wasn't a Green with an innate understanding of such realms, but she was a dragon, and therefore had a far greater control over her own thoughts than any mortal.

The fact that the orb remained meant that there was something opposing her, something maintaining the form of this place and the orb designed to frighten her. Some kind of psychically sensitive Spirit, capable of tapping into her… mildly perturbing thoughts and using them against her.

"This is some kind of dream-state," said Caprifexia. "But I can't unmanifest the orb."

"Dream state?" said Chandra. "Why are we in each other's dreams?"

"I don't know," said Caprifexia. "You're probably not real."

"What!? Yes I am!" said Chandra.

"That remains to be seen," said Caprifexia.

"How do you know you're the not real one?" said Chandra.

"I'm a dragon," explained Caprifexia.

Chandra rolled her eyes.

Caprifexia grumbled. "Alright, you try willing the thing away then."

Chandra looked back and scrunched up her face. Nothing happened.

"Can't," she said.

"Maybe because you're not real," said Caprifexia.

Chandra pinched Caprifexia's paw.

"Hey!" said Caprifexia.

"If I was a 'dream,' could I do that?" said Chandra.

"Probably…" said Caprifexia. "OK fine, maybe you're real. In that case, we were both brought here, maybe when we fell asleep. But we should be able to unmanifest that orb if it's an aspect of one of our unconsciousnesses."

"What if it's not ours?" asked Chandra. "What if it's someone else's?"

Caprifexia frowned. She supposed it was possible that something else, a spirit or elemental, perhaps even what had drawn them here, was maintaining the orb. In that case…

"We know you're there," shouted Caprifexia. "Stop hiding. Come out and face us!"

Several heartsbeats passed, before slowly the world around her began to twist and morph, shimmering and reorganising until she found herself crouching on an ashy hollow next to Chandra.

Jagged black rocks closed the area of grey sand, the perimeter broken here and there with narrow crevices and caves. Here and there pools of stagnant water reflected a churning sky filled with ribbons of shimmering fel energy and an enormous… shape that she couldn't immediately make sense of. All of that was also unexpected. Astral planes was supposed to be mostly formless, milky white cloudy voids. Not twisted hellscapes that wouldn't look out of plane on one of the demon-worlds of her native Plane.

"Clever little magelings," came a hissing voice.

"Ahh!" said Chandra. "Capri! Capri!?"

Caprifexia looked back from the sky back to where the orb had stood, narrowing her eyes and the group of a dozen emaciated, vaguely humanoid shaped floating figures that were fanning out had taken its place. Twisted mockeries, they were all marginally different, but all had their upper faces covered by some kind of scaly headpiece, leaving only a sharp maw full of rotten teeth visible. Arachnid like limbs sprouted from the monster's backs, and Caprifexia's lip curled in disgust. She hated spiders.

"Where are we?" demanded Caprifexia. "How did you bring us here?"

"How rich you both taste," purred one of the creatures, flexing its disgusting appendages. "How you blaze with thought, emotion… power. What a feast!"

"You- you picked the wrong people to, like, mess with!" said Chandra, summoning cherry red fire to her fist. There was something off about her friend, she seemed… more afraid than usual. "Aag!"

Caprifexia felt red mana surge across the Blind Eternities into her friend as a torrent of fire erupted from Chandra's hands, crossing the gap and smacking into the one of the demons, sending it hurling back.

There were, however, quite a few more, and the demon's surged forward. Earth bent and shifted beneath Caprifexia's draconic powers, surging upward in viciously sharp spikes that erupted from the ground and ripped into the line of spirits, tearing through the pallid flesh of several of the creatures.

Six were still coming, however, and even Chandra's second blast of fire only took out one more. Chandra screamed as they closed, one lunging for her. Her red-headed friend reeled backward, her heel catching on a stone and sending her tumbling onto her behind. The twisted spirit raised a claw high, Chandra looked away and held up her hands to ward off the incoming blow. Caprifexia pounced, intercepting it before it could grab her friend and-

Her claws erupted into golden fire as soon as she touched the spirit, and the creature howled in agonising pain as it began to burn. The other spirits hesitated, drawing back as their fellow disintegrated beneath Caprifexia's claws, dispersing into wisps of greenish energy.

"Um, thanks," said Chandra. "Nice, err, spell."

"That wasn't a spell," said Caprifexia, staring at her claws as the glow receded. "That was my… Spark. And what is wrong with you?"

"N-nothing," said Chandra, shaking herself and pushing herself up. "I'm fine."

Caprifexia huffed and turned back to the spirits, who were recoiling and eyeing Caprifexia with horror. She summoned her Spark again, and they fled. Most made it, one didn't. Caprifexia reached out and closed her claws, commanding the rock to rise through the sandy ground and snare one's legs. Stone shot upward, enclosing the lower half of the creature in rock as she advanced on it. It struggled and flailed, but it wasn't strong enough to break the rocky tomb.

"Um, Capri?" said Chandra. "Isn't it… like, not very heroic to kill people who are running away?"

"I'm not going to kill it," said Caprifexia. "I need to torture it for information first."

"Torture?" said Chandra. "Aren't we the good guys?"

"Yes, and?" said Caprifexia, shifting from her dragon form to her mortal guise as she stomped around to stare at the cowering and gibbering spirit.

"Well, it's just that, um, generally, you know, the good guys don't… torture people," said Chandra. "Spirits, elementals, demons – whatever these things are."

"Fine, we'll do some… 'enhanced interrogation,'" said Caprifexia, shaping a piece of rock into a sharp poker and super-heating the tip. "Better?"

"I don't know if just… renaming torture makes it better," said Chandra, looking queasy.

"Mercy! Mercy!" hissed the spirit, shying away from Caprifexia's makeshift burning poker as she waved it around near its face. "We did not know! We did not know!"

"Know what?" said Caprifexia, waving her poker threateningly.

"That you- that you are infinite!" screamed the spirit, writhing and trying to get away. "Please, Great Ones, we did not know! We did not know!"

"How did you bring us here?" said Caprifexia.

"We did not, you came here on your own!" said the Spirit. "Please, Great Ones, release us! Release us!"

"If you burn from touching us, you must be tainted with Void energy," said Caprifexia. "Are you some kind of Void cultist?"

"We have never heard of the Void!" wailed the Spirit. "Release us!"

"Hmph," said Caprifexia, glancing at Chandra. "OK, do you want to ask anything? Or can I disintegrate it?"

"No, but-"

Caprifexia placed her hand on the spirit, and it exploded in a roar of golden fire.

"Capri… wasn't that, you know, bad?" said Chandra. "It wasn't fighting back."

"It was a monster that attacked us on sight, and had we not been protected by our Sparks, they might have proved an inconvenience to me," said Caprifexia. "And certainly, they would have killed you and any other hapless traveller to this realm. The Friendly Lich rule exists for a reason."

"I… guess," said Chandra uneasily. "Wait, is this place changing?"

Caprifexia glanced at the nearby surroundings, which did seem to be slowly morphing: the hardest edges of the nearby rock softening, colours brightening, and things generally becoming less hellish in their immediate area by the second.

"The Void corruption, its diminishing," said Caprifexia, waving a hand and casting a scanning spell that brought up several lines marked with draconic runes. "Fleeing from our Sparks, perhaps?"

"And look," said Chandra, squatting down and running a hand over the grey ground as grass shoots began to, before their very eyes, poke up through the ash. "It's… reacting to us?"

"Our thoughts and emotions," said Caprifexia. "None of this is 'real,' remember. It's all astral energy. Those spirits were exploiting and amplifying your fear, and my… mild unease. Now that they're gone, it's shifting."

"And, what, all this is what our minds and emotions look like?" asked Chandra, gesturing beyond to where the twisted hellscape rolled outward as far as the eye could see, curving upward as if they were on the inside of some great sphere. "I know I've got some issues, but this still seems a bit much."

"No, the mind of something else shaped this," said Caprifexia. "Is shaping this. A greater spirit, perhaps. That would explain how this entire area is saturated with Void energy."

"Capri, you're doing that thing again where you're skipping dozens of steps and just stating conclusions," said Chandra. "Why exactly does that explain why this area is saturated with Void energy?"

"Because Void energy cannot, under normal circumstances, freely enter reality," said Caprifexia. "Reality itself fights back, cuts off the flow of the energy entering it through any kind of rip or tear. The 'Void Integrity Quotient' of a reality determines how fast."

"I notice 'under normal circumstances,'" said Chandra.

"Sentience is one of the only other ways that Void energy can easily enter reality; as you… saw with me," said Caprifexia. She cleared her throat. "The Void gains footholds in minds, and is, to a degree, able to manifest as long as that mind exists. This isn't a demi-plane, I was wrong, this is a dreamscape of some immensely powerful being. A being that has been tainted by the Void."

"Whoa," said Chandra.

"I know, this is very bad," said Caprifexia.

"No, I mean, you admitted you were wrong," said Chandra, punching Caprifexia lightly in the shoulder.

Caprifexia huffed and moved off, making for a small pass between the rocky, jagged crags.

"Ok, but seriously, this is bad?" said Chandra, rushing to catch up with her.

"Yes," said Caprifexia. "This is bad."

"How bad?" said Chandra.

"It means that, if the locals don't figure out how and stop it, this entire world could be consumed by the Void," said Caprifexia. "The natural defences are, at least in part, 'down.' 'Thedas' could be annihilated."

"OK, so really bad," said Chandra as they rounded a corner. "But what can we do about it?"

Ahead of them was another clearer area visible through the swirling smoke and ash.

"We gather information," said Caprifexia, looking around.

"Gather information?" said Chandra in a weak voice. "Can't we just, um, try to get out?"

"This is too good of an opportunity to waste," said Caprifexia. "We should…"

Caprifexia turned her friend, who was hugging herself. The redhead shivered.

"What?" said Chandra.

"You're scared," said Caprifexia, cocking her head to one side. "Why?"

"Why- why am I scared?" said Chandra. "Are you crazy? We're lost in a hell dimension, I nearly got stabbed –well, maybe it wouldn't have worked– and, and you told me this place is being corrupted by the Void. Of course I'm scared!"

Caprifexia frowned.

"And what's more we nearly died yesterday," said Chandra, tears forming in her eyes. "If Kallian hadn't been there we- we would have…" Chandra sat down, put her head in her hands, and began to cry. "The first time we fought, back on Kaldheim, I didn't really have time to stop and think. I was just reacting, and, well… I think I sort of shut down a little after the enforcers got me. But afterwards… afterwards I realised just how close I'd come to dying. And it was hard, but then we went to the college and it was safe and I did those counselling sections and that helped and I thought I was better, but- but… I'm not like you! I can't do this. I get scared when I have to fight."

Caprifexia sat down next to her friend, and didn't protest as Chandra buried her head against her shoulder.

"It is true you're not like me," said Caprifexia, patting her friend's back gently as she had seen a few mortals do when consoling others. "You're not a dragon."

"Thanks Capri," sniffed Chandra, laughing hoarsely. "You're a great help."

"But it is not true that I do not sometimes feel… unease," said Caprifexia. "Very rarely, you understand, but sometimes."

"I know you get scared, and upset – I remember Kaldheim," said Chandra. "But in combat, I mean, you're… you're insanely brave. Like, I think you might actually be crazy. I'm always flipping terrified."

"I am not crazy, and I wasn't scared," huffed Caprifexia. "Chandra, you are one of the least irritating mortals I know-"

"-thanks," said Chandra, wiping her eyes. "You really know how to cheer a pal up-"

"-but, and I do not mean this harshly, you are not a dragon. You are a human teenager," said Caprifexia. "A Planeswalker, and therefore exceptional for your limited species, but still a human."

"Gee, really?" said Chandra.

"No, what I mean is, my kind emerge from our eggs with both the knowledge and the capacity to defend ourselves," said Caprifexia. "Humans do not. You are born weak, helpless, vulnerable, pathetic, useless-

"-not helping Capri-"

"-so it is not surprising that humans have a heightened fear response compared to dragons. But you are not weak, nor helpless, nor vulnerable, nor pathetic, nor useless. You are, for your age and species, a powerful pyromancer, and without your shield yesterday there was a remote change that I might have possibly perished. And no one said that you had to be a hero, like me."

"But I want to be!" said Chandra, balling her hands into fists. "I want to be like you, fearless and powerful and- and always willing to fight for what you believe in! I mean, you're also a bit of a megalomaniac, and you have weird ideas about what being a hero means, and have, like, done some objectively fu- fudged up things, but you're cool."

Chandra shook her head.

"But me? I just get so scared," said Chandra. "And it's getting worse."

"Being a hero isn't about not being scared, you're not a dragon after all, that would be unrealistic," said Caprifexia. "Being a hero is about destroying villains, and getting up when you get knocked down. Not that I get knocked down much. I'm a dragon, after all, I have four legs, so I'm much more stable…"

Chandra stared up into the shattered sky and laughed.

"You know, it's wrapped up in a whole lot of craziness," said Chandra. "But sometimes you're pretty wise. Getting up again… yeah, I think I can do that. Especially with my best buddy by my side!"

Chandra punched Caprifexia lightly in the arm. Caprifexia did not strike her back, however, she had learnt that this was a strange form of mortal 'affection.'

"Thanks Capri, you're the best," said Chandra.

"I know," said Caprifexia.

"OK, so we're investigating, yeah? Lead on."

For want of anything better to do Caprifexia picked a random direction and started walking. They reached a narrow path that led into a dark gully, and she saw skittering shadows in the dark. Spiders. Caprifexia bared her teeth and summoned fire to her fist as she prepared to exterminate the eight-legged monsters.

However, none came to oppose her, and instead they fled before her, and after ten minutes of wandering through the disgusting paths they crossed over some kind of threshold, and from one moment to the next Caprifexia and Chandra found themselves on the second fleet of a large, roughly constructed hall. A figure turned at they approached, a bald elf, frowning at them. Beyond him, on the hall's lower level, a large groups of mortals arrayed around a table, arguing and shouting about what was probably tedious mortal nonsense. They seemed to be utterly oblivious to both Caprifexia and Chandra's presence, and the bald elf's.

"Two mages? Together?" he muttered to himself, turning himself to fully face Caprifexia and Chandra. "Greetings, I am Solas."

"Pride?" said Chandra, translating his name and switching to the local Elvish. "That's a weird name."

"And you speak Elvhen?" he said. "Interesting."

"Well, I'm Chandra," said Chandra. "And my buddy is Caprifexia. Are you, what did Caprifexia call it, a spirit?"

"I am not," said Solas. "Strange," he said eventually. "Neither of you feel as if you… belong here. The Fade does not touch you. In fact, it recoils. What are you?"

"I am a dragon," said Caprifexia. "And a mage. But a dragon first, that's more important."

"I'm human," said Chandra. "And a mage too, well, I'm learning still… Do you know where we are?"

"A dragon?" he said, looking at Caprifexia. "Able to assume mortal form? I was unaware that there were any Great Dragons born in this age. It warms my heart that not all of the old world has been lost. As to where you are, you are in the Fade."

Caprifexia nodded and brushed some dust off one of her shoulders. "I am a Great Dragon," she agreed. "Now, next question, why is this place tainted by the Void?"

Solas' left eyebrow rose. "Tainted by the Void?" he said, glancing up. "You mean the Black City?"

She followed his gaze to where part of the hall's roof had ripped away to reveal the 'true' geography beyond, and high above it, the large shape that Caprifexia had seen before in the distance. Now that she looked at it again, she supposed it was sort of city shaped. She knew all about flying cities, of course, the mortals back on Azeroth had one - Dalaran, and her people totally could have created one themselves if they'd wanted to, they just hadn't, that was all.

"I don't know what that is," said Caprifexia. "We fought a Spirit, it was tainted by the Void. This entire place is saturated with low-level Void energy."

"I am afraid I am unsure what you are referring to," said Solas. "You mean the Blight?"

"Blight? No, this isn't some mortal disease," said Caprifexia. "The Void, as in, the non-space between different universes? The Blind Eternities, as Sorbet Melon calls it? The infinity of absence that connects the various different Planes of the Multiverse?"

Solas furrowed his brows and looked up at the floating city far in the distance. "And you say that the Spirit, the Fear Demon was tainted by this phenomenon? This strange realm?"

"Yeah," said Chandra. "They really didn't like our Sparks – went 'poof' when Capri touched them."

"Spark?" asked Solas.

"We're Planeswalkers," said Chandra, puffing out her chest. "We're like, super powerful."

"I confess I have never heard of a 'Planeswalker' before," said Solas. "You slew an aggressive Spirit?"

"Yeah," said Chandra, buffing her nails on her college robe's long white coat. "Well, it was mainly Capri… actually several-"

"That doesn't matter," said Caprifexia, dragging the conversation away from her friend's boasting. "This entire place has clearly been twisted by Void energies, along with Fel. I was hoping someone could explain what was happening. Are there loads of cultists repeatedly opening Void portals? Or is the VIQ just really, really low?"

Solas didn't respond, and instead turned back to the heated discussion. Although it didn't really look like he was listening.

"Look, if you don't know anything-" began Caprifexia.

"Tell me about this Void," he said, waving a hand and dispelling the illusion of the hall and leaving them standing in an ashy clearing. "This 'Multiverse.'"

"What do I look like, a lecturer?" she huffed, preparing to leave. "Even an immortal like me doesn't have time to educate every foolish mortal in the multiverse."

"Please, Great Dragon," he said, extending a hand and lightly touching her on the arm. "Any wisdom, any knowledge about this… 'Void,' would be appreciated."

"Hmph," she said, crossing her arms. "Well, fine, since you asked so nicely, I suppose I can educate you. The Plane you know, and seem to foolishly believe is the sum total of all creation, is but a single material manifestation within an endless expanse of non-actual psuedo-space – which is commonly called 'the Void.'"

"Non-actual psuedo-space?" he asked.

"It's easier if you just pretend you understand what she's saying," said Chandra in a stage whisper.

"Non-space, un-space, anti-space," said Caprifexia, waving her hand. "There are many different, more inaccurate ways to describe it. Suffice it to say, it is so alien, so foreign that even I cannot perceive it as it truly is. Its very geometry, very nature, drives all beings of material planes hopelessly mad. Well, except me."

"Except you?" he asked.

"And Chandra, people like us, Planeswalkers," she said. "We are resistant to its effects. I am not entirely sure why, or how it works. Yet, that is. I'm a dragon, you see, a genius, so I'm sure I'll figure it out soon enough-"

"And this 'Void,' it has somehow infected this world?" asked Solas.

"This demi-plane, this 'Fade,' at least," she said, waving her hand. "This whole place has a low-level taint. Something must have weakened this world at some point. The VIQ must be at one. Possibly even below…"

"And what happens if it gets worse?" asked Solas.

"Worse and worse Voidborne will be able to manifest, the foundations supporting this Plane will begin to crack, and eventually it will fall back into the Void," said Caprifexia.

Solar looked away, running a hand over his face and taking a deep breath. "This energy, how can you detect it?"

"A general multi-phasic, poly-spectrum diagnostic charm will work," she said.

Solas frowned. "Please, show me."

Caprifexia didn't really like doing tricks on command, but he had asked nicely. She raised a hand, threading together energy before releasing it as a pulse of silver that raced out in all directions. Information appeared appeared in front of her, taking the form of her native language, draconic, showing a readout of various energies around her.

"Fascinating," said Solas. "I have never seen a scanning spell like that before. Please, again."

Caprifexia huffed, be repeated the spell.

"Like… this?" he said, raising his own hand and releasing a pulse of silver. It wasn't as well refined as Caprifexia's spell, of course, but she was still surprised. He seemed quite adept at spell-craft, for a mortal, to be able to reproduce a spell after only seeing it twice. Of course, she wouldn't have needed to see it a second time.

He frowned as the information filtered back from his spell, forming the script of this world's 'elvish.' "This is… fascinating," he said, flicking his eyes over it. "I have never seen scanning spells provide information like a book. The matrix, it is incredibly clever, who designed this spell?"

"My people, of course," said Caprifexia smugly. "It's dragon magic."

Well, it had been adapted from Titan magic, but her people had made it better.

"Truly remarkable," said the nice and friendly and polite mortal.

"There, at the end of the fifth wavelength," she said, pointing at his readout. "The high amplitudes – that is caused by Void energy."

"I see… Can it be reversed?" he said, tracing the script with a finger. "Can things be put back as they were?"

"How should I know? I don't know what is causing it in the first place, let alone how exactly one goes up cleaning a place like… this up," she said, gesturing wildly around. "I know I'm a dragon, but even we actually need to investigate things. Which is what we're doing here. Right now. Investigating. Heroically, mind you. Did I mention that? I'm a hero. The best hero-"

"And you say you are from another world?" he asked, somewhat rudely cutting her off.

"Yes, do keep up," she said. "I am from a world known as Azeroth. Which is far more advanced and cultured and interesting than here."

"And yet you express concern for Thedas?" he said. "Why?"

"Because… because even small worlds like this don't deserve to be consumed," she said awkwardly. "I'm a hero. I told you."

"Yeah, we're the good guys!" said Chandra. "Well, we try to be. Capri sometimes blows stuff up, and, err, kills people…"

"You are a kind young women," said Solas with a smile, putting a hand on Chandra's shoulder and pressing a gemstone into her hand. "I would learn more of you wisdom, but I cannot stay - I just felt one of my proximity wards trigger. This gem will lead you to me, and me to you, while we are in the Fade. I may know what is causing this damage, but I will need to 'investigate,' as you put it. Seek me out, young Chandra and great Caprifexia, if you find a way to repair this damage."

"Well, I am very busy," said Caprifexia, taking the gem from Chandra's hand and peering at it. "But… alright, I'll mention this problem to Sorbet Melon when I see him. He might know how to… de-Voidify an astral plane. Although he's pretty useless."

"Thank-you, great one," he said. "I look forward to our next meeting."

"Hold on. How exactly do we get out of here?" said Caprifexia.

"Oh," said Solas with a smile. "That's simple. You just wake up."

Caprifexia's eyes opened and she jerked upright, staring about wildly for a moment before memory of where she was and what they had been doing came rushing back to her. She was lying on one of the couches in the laboratory of the elvish Planeswalker, Kallian. Next to her, with an arm draped over her, was Chandra, who was groggily waking up as well. In her hand was a gem. The same one that Solas had given her. Odd – how had that followed them out?

"Capri, you OK?" asked Einar.

He was sitting across from her, writing in a journal with the ever-full pen she'd made for him and the demon hadn't wanted to trade for his interesting 'Tyrite.' She'd given it to Einar for his birthday, or, at least, a week after it – when she'd returned to Nirn with Chandra.

Personally, Caprifexia didn't see the incessant need for ritualised celebrations, let alone the anniversary of one's birth. But she had been told she'd needed to get him a present by J'zargo, and the khajiit hadn't shut up about it until Caprifexia had finally gotten bored of listening to his yowling and made the pen. Well, she'd made three actually – the first two had exploded. She'd never been able to get the lightning cannon part to work properly…

"I fell asleep," she said.

"I noticed," he smirked. "You snore."

"D-dragons do not snore!" she said, outraged.

"You totally do," said Chandra, stretching.

"Relax Scales, they're just winding you up," said Serana, bringing over two cups of coco and pressing them into Capri and Chandra's hands. "Thanks for earlier by the way, Sparky. Guess I owe you my life."

"Yes, yes," said Caprifexia, taking a sip of coco before standing. "Where is Kallian? I need to speak with her."

"You just woke up, and you need to speak with her?" said Einar.

"We went to this world's Astral Plane, when we were asleep," she said.

"Oh right, the Fade, she told us about that," said Einar. "She said Serana, Lomeria and I needed to be careful when we fell asleep, but that you two would be fine though, apparently Planeswalkers are immune to the 'Spirits' there. What's it like? Nice, or-"

"It's saturated with low-level Void energy," said Caprifexia, cutting off his prattling. "This entire world, this Plane may be in grave danger."

They found the elvish Planeswalker in another of the rooms of her subterranean complex which, to Caprifexia's approval, seemed to be another arteficing workshop – this one much larger. The red-haired elf was dressed in baggy, stained overalls, had her hair pulled back in a messy bun, and she was lying on some kind of rolling trolley and fiddling with something underneath a large metal shape.

The thing she was working on was an armoured brass rhombus the size of a large wagon that had several cog-wheels on either side joined by continuous articulated metal belts. There was a second boxy shape on top with a long hollow cylinder welded to it.

Caprifexia was vaguely reminded of some kind of dwarvish or gnomish device she'd seen in a book. A 'tank?' Maybe? She couldn't remember what it was for, perhaps holding liquids? It seemed a bit too complicated for such a simple task, but mortals were fussy about a whole lot of things and had weird, arcane rituals – like birthdays – it was sometimes best just to go along with and not question too much.

"Oh, hey," said Kallian, sliding out and grabbing a cloth, rubbing the some of the magically infused oil from her hands. "Good to see you up. Feeling OK?"

"What's that?" asked Chandra, pointing at the massive box. "It sort of looks like a… Aether-cart? But with a lightning cannon attached?"

"Oh this? Don't worry about it," said Kallian. "How can I help?"

"Whilst in the Fade we discovered that it is saturated with low-level Void energy," said Caprifexia. "We need to discover why, before this world is consumed."

"Huh," said Kallian. "I mean, if it's what I think it is, that is probably the whole Golden City turning Black. I wouldn't worry, it's been like that for ages – centuries, at least."

"That's what Solas said," said Chandra.

"Who?" asked Kallian in the local elvish. "Pride?"

"Some elf we met in the Fade," said Caprifexia, offering Kallian the gem they had been given. "Said he would investigate, and we could find him in the Fade with this."

"Huh," said Kallian, taking out some kind of magical lens from a pocket and peering at it. "This is… I have no idea what this is. Complex, and using what looks like Thedasian enchanting. Although, something's off…"

The elvish planeswalker shrugged.

"Can I keep this a while? I'd like to study it," said Kallian. "It's not like it will work off-Plane anyway."

Caprifexia shrugged. "Fine, but it's mine – I'll want it back."