The Adaptation Guild's building looks like someone took a perfectly normal administrative office and let a cosmic horror redesign the architecture.
I stand before its entrance, studying the way the doorframe seems to exist in more dimensions than my eyes can properly process. The collar around my neck hums with contained energy, working overtime to prevent my dimensional signature from interacting with whatever spatial impossibilities the Guild's architects thought were a good idea.
"Second thoughts?" Marius asks, noticing my hesitation.
"Just wondering if walking into a building that defies geometry is the smartest move for someone who accidentally tears holes in reality when emotional," I reply, watching a group of beings exit through what appears to be the same door we're about to enter, despite them clearly coming from a completely different direction.
"The Guild specializes in impossible situations," he says with that too-perfect smile. "Their headquarters reflects that philosophy."
I take a deep breath—or what passes for breathing when your lungs process hellfire as easily as air—and step through the entrance. The transition is disorienting, like walking through thick water that exists in seventeen dimensions simultaneously. For a moment, I'm everywhere and nowhere, my consciousness scattered across possibilities that shouldn't coexist.
Then I'm standing in a surprisingly mundane reception area, complete with uncomfortable chairs and outdated magazines. The only hint of the building's true nature is the way shadows fall upward in some corners and the receptionist's extra set of arms.
"Welcome to the Adaptation Guild," she says without looking up from her paperwork. "First time visitor?"
"Unfortunately," I mutter, approaching her desk.
She glances up, takes in my hellfire-burned appearance and the containment collar, then makes a note on a form that seems to write itself. "Dimensional refugee, power management issues, probable grief counseling needs." Her four hands work independently, filing documents while she continues talking. "Dr. Thess can see you in twenty minutes. Please take a seat and try not to accidentally destabilize local reality while you wait."
The casual efficiency with which she categorizes my cosmic trauma is almost insulting. Almost. But after five thousand years in Hell, I've learned to appreciate bureaucracy that actually functions.
I settle into one of the uncomfortable chairs, which immediately adjusts itself to accommodate my weight and the heat I generate. Around me, other beings wait for their appointments—a woman whose skin shifts through different states of matter, a creature that appears to be made entirely of crystallized music, something that might be human if humans typically had tentacles growing from their shoulders.
Just another day at the Guild, apparently.
"Kamen Driscol?" A voice calls from across the room.
I look up to see a tall, thin being approaching—humanoid but clearly not human, with skin that has the translucent quality of deep ocean water and eyes like captured starlight. They move with the fluid grace of someone comfortable existing in multiple dimensions simultaneously.
"Dr. Thess," they introduce themselves, extending a hand that feels like touching liquid light. "I specialize in integration therapy for beings displaced from their origin realms."
"Integration therapy," I repeat, standing to follow them down a hallway that seems longer than the building should be able to contain. "That sounds ominous."
"Only if you're expecting to be fixed," Dr. Thess replies with what I think is amusement. "We don't fix people here. We help them learn to exist as they are in new circumstances."
Their office is a study in controlled impossibility—walls that curve in directions geometry doesn't account for, furniture that exists in a state of quantum flux until someone needs to use it, and windows that look out onto three different landscapes simultaneously.
"Please, sit wherever feels comfortable," they gesture to chairs that hadn't been there a moment before.
I choose one that looks sturdy enough to support my weight and settle into it carefully. The collar around my neck pulses as it adjusts to the room's ambient dimensional distortions.
"So," Dr. Thess says, manifesting a notepad from thin air, "tell me about Caleif."
The directness of the question catches me off guard. The hellfire in my chest flickers, and I feel the collar grow warmer as it works to contain my emotional response.
"How do you—"
"Marius sent word ahead," they explain gently. "Grief counseling works better when we don't waste time with pleasantries. You've lost someone important to you, and that loss is tied to your displacement from your origin realm."
I stare at them for a long moment, trying to decide if their clinical approach is helpful or infuriating. "She's dead. They're all dead. Because I wasn't there to prevent it."
"Tell me about her," Dr. Thess says, ignoring my attempt to summarize cosmic tragedy in three sentences.
And despite every instinct screaming at me to maintain emotional distance, I find myself talking. About Caleif's impossible eyes that shifted color with her moods. About the way she looked at my true form without flinching. About her strength and vulnerability existing in perfect contradiction. About the way she made even Hell seem bearable through the simple fact of her existence.
Dr. Thess listens without interruption, their starlight eyes reflecting something that might be understanding. When I finally fall silent, they set down their notepad and lean forward slightly.
"You loved her," they observe.
"I destroyed her," I correct bitterly. "My connection to that realm caused its collapse when I was torn away. She died because of what I am."
"No," Dr. Thess says with quiet firmness. "She died because cosmic forces beyond anyone's control decided to play games with dimensional barriers. You were as much a victim of circumstance as she was."
The rational part of my mind knows they're right. But rationality has never been a match for Hell-forged guilt.
"Doesn't matter," I mutter. "She's still gone."
"Yes," they agree simply. "She is. And you're here, carrying that loss like a weapon you want to turn on yourself or the world around you."
The accuracy of their assessment makes me shift uncomfortably in the quantum chair. "Is there a point to this conversation?"
"The point is choice," Dr. Thess replies. "You can let this grief consume you, turn you into the weapon Hell tried to forge. Or you can choose to honor her memory by becoming something she would be proud of."
"Everyone keeps saying that," I snap, the hellfire flaring despite the collar's suppression. "But no one's explained how someone like me is supposed to just... move on."
"You don't move on," they say, their voice carrying the weight of personal experience. "You move forward. There's a difference."
Before I can ask what they mean, Dr. Thess stands and moves to one of the impossible windows. They gesture for me to join them, and reluctantly, I do.
The view shows the Crossroads Quarter from an angle that shouldn't exist, but more importantly, it shows the beings moving through its streets. Refugees from collapsed realms. Survivors of cosmic disasters. Entities that exist beyond normal classification, all finding ways to build new lives from the ashes of old ones.
"Every being you see down there has lost something," Dr. Thess says quietly. "A home, a family, an entire way of existence. But they're here, choosing to continue. Not because the pain goes away, but because they've found ways to make that pain meaningful."
I watch a group of children playing in a small park—human and otherwise, their laughter carrying up through the dimensional distortions of the Guild's architecture. Some of them bear the marks of trauma, the subtle signs of beings who've seen too much too young. But they're playing anyway.
"How?" I ask, genuinely curious despite my cynicism.
"By helping others," Dr. Thess replies. "By building instead of destroying. By choosing to be part of the solution rather than adding to the problem."
They turn away from the window, fixing me with those starlight eyes. "The Guild has programs, Kamen. Ways for beings with your particular... capabilities... to contribute constructively to the community. Would you be interested in hearing about them?"
I consider the offer, weighing it against my natural inclination to handle problems through controlled violence. The hellfire in my chest pulses with restless energy, eager for some outlet that doesn't involve sitting in impossible chairs discussing feelings.
"What kind of programs?"
"Dimensional barrier maintenance," they list, manifesting that notepad again. "Reality anchor installation. Cosmic threat assessment. Emergency response for supernatural disasters."
All jobs that would put my Hell-forged abilities to constructive use. All ways to channel the destructive power I carry into something that protects rather than harms.
"And the catch?" I ask, because there's always a catch.
"The catch is that you have to want to help," Dr. Thess says simply. "We can't force someone to choose construction over destruction. That decision has to come from within."
I think about Caleif, about what she'd want from me now. About the choice between honoring her memory through service or dishonoring it through self-destructive rage.
The choice, when I really examine it, isn't difficult at all.
"When do I start?"
Dr. Thess's starlight eyes study me for a moment, as if assessing my sincerity.
"Tomorrow," they say finally. "The Guild begins all integration programs with a full evaluation. We need to understand the precise nature of your abilities before determining where you'll be most effective."
I nod, feeling something unfamiliar stir beneath the hellfire—not hope exactly, but maybe its distant cousin. A sense of purpose that doesn't involve destruction.
"Until then," Dr. Thess continues, "I suggest you spend the remainder of today settling into your temporary accommodations. The Convergence Festival will be at its peak tonight, and dimensional energies will be particularly volatile. Not the best environment for someone still learning to manage their emotional responses."
"You mean I might accidentally tear a hole in reality if someone bumps into me at the wrong moment," I translate.
The corner of their mouth twitches in what might be amusement. "Precisely. Though the collar should prevent catastrophic breaches, it's better not to test its limits unnecessarily."
They reach into thin air and pull out what appears to be an official document, complete with Guild seals that shimmer with dimensional energy. "This grants you formal status as a Guild initiate. It will help explain your... distinctive appearance... to anyone who might otherwise be concerned."
I accept the document, noting the way it feels more *real* than normal paper should—as if it exists with greater certainty than the reality around it.
"Thank you," I say, the words still awkward in my mouth after five millennia of having nothing to be thankful for.
"Don't thank me yet," Dr. Thess warns, their starlight eyes twinkling with that not-quite-human humor. "Integration programs are notoriously demanding. Many initiates find the emotional work more challenging than the physical aspects."
"I survived five thousand years in Hell," I remind them. "I think I can handle a few therapy sessions."
"Perhaps," they concede. "But surviving trauma and healing from it are very different skills. One requires walls; the other requires taking them down."
The observation hits closer to home than I'd like to admit. I've spent millennia building barriers—physical, emotional, psychological—to protect myself from further harm. The idea of deliberately dismantling those defenses feels more terrifying than facing Hell's worst torturers.
Dr. Thess seems to sense my discomfort. "One step at a time, Kamen. Tomorrow's evaluation is simply about understanding what you're capable of. The deeper work comes later, when you're ready."
When I'm ready. As if anyone could ever be ready to confront five thousand years of accumulated trauma and the fresh wound of Caleif's loss.
But I nod anyway, tucking the Guild document into the pocket of my heat-resistant clothing. "Tomorrow, then."
As I turn to leave, Dr. Thess says one more thing: "She would be proud of this choice, you know. Taking the first step toward something constructive rather than destructive."
I pause at the threshold of their impossible office, the hellfire in my chest flickering with emotions I don't have names for. "Maybe," I concede. "But I'm not doing it for her approval."
"No?"
"I'm doing it because it's what she deserved from me and never got." I step through the doorway, back into the hallway that shouldn't fit inside the building's exterior dimensions. "See you tomorrow, Doctor."
The journey back through the Guild's reality-bending architecture is less disorienting than the entrance was. Maybe the collar is adapting to the spatial distortions, or maybe I'm just getting used to the impossible geometry of this realm. Either way, I emerge onto the street feeling slightly less like I might accidentally destroy everything I touch.
It's a start.
Marius is waiting outside, his too-perfect features arranged in an expression that might be concern. "How did it go?"
"I start evaluation tomorrow," I reply, already moving toward the relative safety of the safe house. The Convergence Festival is in full swing around us, dimensional energies thick enough in the air that even through the collar's suppression, I can feel reality fluctuating at the edges of my perception.
"That's... good," Marius says, falling into step beside me. "The Guild doesn't usually fast-track new arrivals. Someone must have put in a good word for you."
I glance at him sideways. "Someone like an innkeeper who destroyed his own realm?"
His too-wide eyes reflect something that might be embarrassment. "I may have mentioned your situation to certain contacts. The Guild takes special interest in beings with the potential to cause significant dimensional disruption."
"In other words, they want to keep an eye on the walking catastrophe before I accidentally tear a hole in local reality."
"They want to help," he corrects gently. "As do I. As would anyone who's experienced the kind of loss that makes you want to unmake existence."
We navigate through streets increasingly crowded with festival-goers, beings from across the dimensional spectrum celebrating the thinning barriers with varying degrees of sobriety. The collar around my neck grows warmer as it works to contain my dimensional signature against the ambient energies of Convergence.
"You should return to the safe house," Marius suggests, noting my discomfort. "The festival will only grow more intense as night falls. Not the best environment for someone still adjusting to a new containment system."
He's right, of course. The sensible thing would be to retreat to the reinforced walls of the safe house and wait out the Convergence in isolation. But after my conversation with Dr. Thess, the thought of spending another night alone with my grief feels unbearable.
"I need to walk," I decide. "Clear my head before tomorrow's evaluation."
Marius looks like he wants to argue but thinks better of it. "Very well. But perhaps avoid the central plaza. The Veil Dancers perform at sunset, and their ritual tends to create localized dimensional instabilities."
Of course it does. Because nothing in this realm can just be a normal celebration without reality-bending side effects.
"I'll stick to the quieter areas," I promise, though we both know it's a lie. After five millennia of isolation in Hell, the chaotic energy of the festival calls to something in me that's been dormant for too long.
Marius sighs, a sound that carries those inhuman harmonics. "At least keep the Guild document visible. It should prevent most official interference if your collar starts to struggle with the ambient energies."
I pat my pocket where the impossibly real document rests. "I'll be fine. Go back to your inn—I'm sure the Convergence brings plenty of dimensional travelers needing accommodation."
He hesitates, those too-wide eyes studying me with uncomfortable perception. "Grief doesn't improve with solitude, Kamen. Trust me on this."
"I'm not seeking solitude," I reply, gesturing to the crowded streets around us. "Quite the opposite."
"You know what I mean." His voice carries the weight of someone who's walked this path before. "Being alone in a crowd can be the loneliest place of all."
Before I can respond with something appropriately cutting, a commotion erupts from a side street nearby. Shouts of alarm. The distinctive crackle of magical energies being discharged. The unmistakable sound of someone—or something—in distress.
Without conscious thought, I'm moving toward the disturbance, the hellfire in my chest flaring with anticipation. Five thousand years in Hell taught me many things, but the most insidious lesson was how to find comfort in chaos.
"Kamen, don't—" Marius calls after me, but I'm already pushing through the crowd, drawn to the conflict like a moth to flame.
The side street opens onto a small courtyard where a scene of unexpected violence is unfolding. Three beings in the distinctive blue uniforms of the Citadel guard have cornered what appears to be a young woman against a wall. Except she's not entirely a woman—her form flickers between human appearance and something else, something with too many limbs and eyes that shouldn't exist in this dimensional plane.
"Containment violation," one of the guards is saying, a device in his hand pulsing with energies clearly meant to suppress dimensional anomalies. "Come quietly or we'll be forced to use more aggressive measures."
"I haven't done anything wrong!" the flickering woman protests, her voice shifting between human speech and harmonics that make my teeth ache. "The barriers are thin during Convergence—I can't help how it affects my form!"
I should walk away. This isn't my problem. The last thing I need before my Guild evaluation is an altercation with local authorities.
But something about the scene strikes too close to home. The fear in the woman's constantly shifting eyes. The casual cruelty of the guards, treating her existence as a crime rather than a condition. The fundamental injustice of punishing someone for what they are rather than what they've done.
Before I can reconsider, I'm stepping into the courtyard, the collar around my neck pulsing with warning as my emotional state pushes against its containment.
"Is there a problem here?" I ask, my voice carrying that metallic resonance that makes reality vibrate slightly.
The guards turn, their expressions shifting from authoritative to wary as they take in my true form—the metallic skin, the burning eyes, the obvious signs of someone not from this realm.
"Guild business," I add, pulling out the document Dr. Thess gave me. "I'm sure we can resolve this without unnecessary force."
The lead guard studies the document with obvious skepticism. "This says you're an initiate, not a full member. You have no authority to interfere with official Citadel security matters."
"I'm not interfering," I reply, keeping my voice calm despite the hellfire building in my chest. "I'm offering assistance. The Convergence is causing dimensional fluctuations throughout the Crossroads. Surely that's taken into account during festival enforcement?"
The flickering woman looks at me with hope and confusion, her form still shifting unpredictably between human and something decidedly not. I can see the strain in her expression as she tries to maintain a consistent appearance against the thinning barriers.
"Unregistered dimensional entities are required to remain in containment during peak Convergence hours," the guard insists, though I notice he's lowered his suppression device slightly. "It's for public safety."
"She's not unregistered," I counter, taking a calculated risk. "She's under Guild observation for potential integration programs. Same as me."
The lie comes easily, wrapped in enough truth to sound convincing. The guards exchange uncertain glances, clearly weighing the hassle of challenging someone with Guild documentation against the simplicity of finding easier targets.
"Fine," the lead guard says finally. "But get her off the streets until she can maintain a stable form. Next violation means mandatory containment, Guild observation or not."
I nod, positioning myself between the guards and the flickering woman. "Understood. We'll return to Guild headquarters immediately."
They depart with obvious reluctance, throwing suspicious glances over their shoulders as they return to the festival crowds. Only when they're completely out of sight do I turn to the woman I've just committed to helping.
"Thank you," she says, her form still shifting but with less dramatic fluctuations now that the immediate danger has passed. "They would have taken me to the Containment District. During Convergence, that's... not somewhere anyone wants to be."
"I'd imagine not," I reply, studying her with professional interest. Her dimensional instability is different from mine—where I exist too solidly in reality, she seems to exist partially in multiple adjacent dimensions simultaneously. "Do you have somewhere safe to go?" I ask, already wondering if I've made a terrible mistake. The collar around my neck pulses with warning as the ambient dimensional energies of Convergence grow stronger with the approaching night.
"Not really," she admits, her form flickering between human and something with too many limbs in a pattern that suggests growing instability. "I'm... new here. Came through a tear during the spring equinox. Been managing alright until Convergence started."
I glance around the courtyard, aware that the guards could return at any moment with reinforcements. The smart move would be to walk away now, return to the safe house, and focus on tomorrow's Guild evaluation. Leave this stranger to her own problems.
Caleif would be disappointed in that choice.
"Come with me," I decide, gesturing toward the street that will lead us back toward the Crossroads Quarter. "I know somewhere you can stay until the dimensional fluctuations settle down."
Her constantly shifting eyes study me with understandable wariness. "Why would you help me? You don't even know me."
It's a fair question. Five thousand years in Hell didn't exactly nurture my altruistic tendencies. But something about her situation—trapped between forms, hunted for simply existing—resonates with parts of me I thought had burned away long ago.
"Let's just say I understand what it's like to be punished for what you are rather than what you've done," I reply, the collar growing warmer as memories of my own imprisonment threaten to trigger emotional spikes. "Besides, I told those guards you're under Guild observation. Might as well make it not completely a lie."
She hesitates, then nods, her form stabilizing briefly into something more human-adjacent. "Thank you. I'm Lith."
"Kamen," I reply, already moving toward the street. "Stay close. The festival crowds will provide some cover, but your... fluctuations... are going to attract attention."
We navigate through back alleys when possible, taking the less crowded routes toward the safe house. Lith struggles visibly with maintaining her form, each surge of dimensional energy from the festival causing her appearance to shift unpredictably. Sometimes she looks almost human—a young woman with pale skin and silver-streaked hair. Other times, her form reveals glimpses of something with too many joints and eyes that see in directions reality doesn't account for.
"So," I say, partly to distract her and partly out of genuine curiosity, "what realm are you from?"
"The Shattered Expanse," she replies, her voice shifting between octaves as her vocal structures realign. "Or what was left of it after the Collapse. Not much, by the end."
Another refugee from a dying realm. The Citadel seems to collect us like cosmic debris.
"And what brought you here, specifically?"
She manages something approximating a laugh. "Not like I had a choice. The tear opened, the guards on the other side were getting closer, and I jumped. Dimensional Russian roulette."
"The guards?" I ask, my interest piqued. "You were being pursued?"
Her form flickers more dramatically, revealing a glimpse of iridescent scales beneath the human appearance. "In the Expanse, beings like me were... collected. Studied. Used." Her voice carries harmonics of old pain. "They called us Boundary Walkers—those who exist partially in adjacent dimensions simultaneously."
The revelation makes her unstable appearance make more sense. She's not struggling to maintain a single form; she's struggling to exist in a single dimension when her natural state spans multiple realities simultaneously.
"The Convergence must be particularly difficult for you," I observe as we turn down another side street. "With the barriers already thin, your connection to adjacent dimensions would be heightened."
She looks at me with surprise that manages to translate across her shifting features. "That's... exactly right. Most people just think I'm some kind of shapeshifter having a bad day."
"I spent several centuries teaching interdimensional theory before my... career change," I explain, careful to avoid mentioning Hell directly. "Your condition is fascinating from an academic perspective."
"Glad my existential crisis can provide scholarly entertainment," she mutters, but there's no real bite to her words.
We're approaching the hidden entrance to the safe house when I notice a patrol of Citadel guards moving through the festival crowd ahead. Their attention seems focused on checking identification rather than actively searching, but I can't risk them spotting Lith in her current unstable state.
"Change of plans," I murmur, guiding her toward a narrow passage between buildings. "We need to take the long way around."
The "long way" means navigating deeper into the festival than I'd planned. The dimensional energies grow thicker as we approach areas where celebrants actively work to thin the barriers further. The collar around my neck pulses with increasing heat as it works overtime to contain my hellfire against the ambient chaos.
Lith isn't faring much better. Her form shifts more rapidly now, the human disguise holding for shorter periods before revealing glimpses of her boundary-walking nature. She clutches at her head as if in pain, her constantly changing eyes squeezing shut.
"It's too much," she gasps. "The barriers—I can feel all of them at once. Too many realities pressing in."
I recognize the signs of dimensional overload—the same thing that happened to me when the ring failed during last night's festivities. If she loses control completely, her dimensional signature will flare like a beacon, drawing every guard in the vicinity.
"We're almost there," I lie, having no idea how we'll reach the safe house without passing through heavily patrolled areas. "Just hold on a little longer."
That's when I spot a familiar figure moving through the crowd ahead—Thorne, the weathered cartman who brought me through the Whispering Woods. He's navigating his way through the festival with the practiced ease of someone who knows every shortcut in the Citadel.
"Wait here," I tell Lith, guiding her into a recessed doorway where her fluctuations might be less noticeable. "I see someone who might help."
I intercept Thorne before he can disappear into the crowd, moving with more speed than my metallic form suggests should be possible. "Thorne. I need your help."
He startles, hand instinctively moving toward where I suspect he keeps a weapon, before recognition dawns. "Kamen? What in the seventeen hells happened to you? You look like someone dipped a demon in molten metal."
"Long story," I reply, the collar pulsing with warning as my impatience threatens to trigger dimensional disruption. "I need to get someone to safety. Someone the guards are looking for."
His weathered face creases with immediate suspicion. "What kind of trouble are we talking about?"
"The 'exists in multiple dimensions simultaneously and can't control it during Convergence' kind," I explain quickly. "Not dangerous, just different in ways the Citadel finds concerning."
Thorne sighs, the sound of a man who knows better but is going to help anyway. "Where is this dimensional anomaly you've adopted?"
I lead him back to where Lith waits, her form now flickering so rapidly between states that it's difficult to focus on her directly. Thorne's eyes widen, but to his credit, he doesn't immediately back away.
"Boundary Walker," he observes with surprising accuracy. "Don't see many of your kind outside the Liminal District."
"Didn't know there was a Liminal District," Lith replies, her voice strained with the effort of maintaining even partial coherence.
"That's because the Citadel guards don't exactly advertise safe havens for beings they'd prefer to keep contained," Thorne says grimly. "Come on. I know some passages the patrols don't check during festival nights."
He leads us through a series of increasingly narrow alleyways, eventually stopping at what appears to be a solid wall covered in festival decorations. With practiced movements, he rearranges several of the decorative elements, revealing a hidden mechanism that causes a section of the wall to swing inward.
"Smuggler's paths," he explains, gesturing for us to enter. "Built during the early days when the Citadel wasn't so tolerant of dimensional refugees. Still maintained by those who prefer to move without official notice."
The passage beyond is narrow and dark, lit only by occasional luminescent fungi growing along the damp walls. It slopes downward, taking us beneath street level and into what must be the extensive undercity of the Citadel.
"Where are we going?" I ask, the collar's heat diminishing slightly now that we're away from the concentrated dimensional energies of the festival.
"Liminal District," Thorne replies, navigating the darkness with the confidence of long familiarity. "Place where beings like your friend can exist without constant fear of containment. They've got stabilization fields that help Boundary Walkers maintain coherence even during Convergence."
Lith's constantly shifting form seems to brighten with hope. "There are others like me here?"
"The Citadel collects all sorts," Thorne says with a shrug. "Some districts are official, with the Lord Mayor's blessing. Others exist in the gaps between—tolerated but not acknowledged. The Liminal is somewhere in between. The authorities know it exists but prefer to pretend it doesn't as long as its residents stay out of sight."
We travel through the undercity for what feels like hours but is probably only twenty minutes. The passages occasionally intersect with larger tunnels or open into small chambers where evidence of habitation suggests the smuggler's network sees regular use.
Finally, Thorne leads us up a different set of stairs that emerge into what appears to be the basement of a large building. Unlike the rough stone of the undercity, this space is finished with smooth tiles that shimmer with subtle dimensional energies.
"Stabilization chamber," Thorne explains, gesturing toward the center of the room where a circular platform glows with soft blue light. "Step onto that, Boundary Walker. It'll help you maintain coherence."
Lith approaches the platform cautiously, her form still flickering between states. As soon as she steps onto the glowing circle, the effect is immediate and dramatic. Her shifting slows, then stabilizes into a form that, while not entirely human, at least maintains consistent dimensions. The relief on her face is palpable.
"Thank you," she breathes, looking around with eyes that now stay in the same location on her face. "I haven't felt this stable since before Convergence began."
"Don't thank me," Thorne says, nodding in my direction. "Your metallic friend here is the one who decided to play hero."
I shift uncomfortably under their combined gaze. "I just did what anyone would do."
"No," Lith says quietly. "You didn't. Most people see something like me and call for the guards. You stood up to them instead."
Before I can respond to this uncomfortably accurate observation, a door at the far end of the chamber opens. A figure enters—humanoid but clearly not human, with a body that seems to exist partially out of phase with the surrounding reality.
"Thorne," the newcomer greets, their voice carrying harmonics that suggest speech occurring in multiple dimensions simultaneously. "Another delivery? During Convergence, no less. The Guild will be displeased."
"The Guild can take their displeasure and shove it somewhere dimensionally adjacent," Thorne replies with the casual disrespect of long acquaintance. "This one was about to be dragged to Containment for the crime of existing during festival hours."
I sigh and scratch my head, this feels like it might be a headache waiting to happen.