Here was an impossible riddle. Your realm is dying, mana is draining fast and there is no way to stop that. Your only option as mighty humans is to gather all the magic you can and leave. But you can't leave the realm.
So you create another realm inside.
From there, things got fuzzy but here was the gist. You needed a near vacuum in the inside. Then anti-magic. Then your reserve of mana. Then anti-magic. Then another vacuum that was the actual, deprived realm.
If the realm recovered, your shelter would open by itself. The worst the realm got, the stronger your keep. But here was a new problem you had: those variations made the whole construct very, very unreliable. Unstable.
In fact, just the normal ebb and flow of magic in the realm could break it.
And you had another problem. The scores of humans you left behind, envious of your retreat, would come visit. So, how did you solve both problems at once?
Locks.
You chained your haven to the cosmic ceiling through seven locks, both stabilizing it and daring anyone to try.
Because making your haven unstable meant detonating a magical fireball twenty-one orders of magnitude in potency. The decayed realm would just not survive it. For all you knew the cosmic ceiling itself would collapse under such stress.
A fool that tried to go after you would meet mutually assured destruction.
"No!"
Yes! The whole realm was part of the humans' haven, with Earth safe inside. A mad craft from desperate madmen.
"No!"
I held tight on the anti-magic sphere. My armor was suffering from the timeless void but now I just could not leg go anymore! There was so much to say.
Behind me, the titanic skull of the wyvern, broken and shattered, reeled both from the void and the revelation.
"It lies! Lies! Tell us, Veleter, that it lies!"
"The human speaks true."
The colony of chitinous insects that formed the worm kept freezing in time, dying and appearing again. A void monster toying with inexistence.
Of all things Veleter never lied.
What monstrous scream the wyvern let out we never heard, but it thrashed and thrashed.
"Very well then!" The beast's tone still had its hint of mockery. "I will not let the drake's gift go to waste. Nor will a dead realm tolerate such trade! They will learn the wrath of the... They cannot ignore the... the cries of..."
And just like that, the decade-long hunt of a vengeful ghost had ended.
"I refuse! I refuse! The humans are defenseless, and we should let them escape? Let them rest over the desolation they sowed? Tell me! Tell me how to bring them destruction!"
And the worm, in its faint voice: "I can change the balance. The realm is merciful. Change the balance."
Ah.
Raise the amount of mana in the realm, so that the Earth opened itself. For the wyvern that was incomprehensible gibberish but after all my work, it made cold and terrifying sense.
"Veleter." I thought. Well I had many more thoughts than that, but still. "What does merciful mean? Can't you detail or give an example?"
It took the worm several seconds during which I just endured, and the wyvern enraged.
"The realm is merciful. Seek weakness. Weakness is the key. The realm is merciful."
It was like this void monster was just repeating bits of human records. Except human records were storing a lot of knowledge in very few words. That was useless if only the words were repeated without the knowledge the held.
Was it... what Veleter was doing? Just blindly repeating what he, what it had read?
Maybe not even conscious of speaking to anyone.
Who knew with this little amount of magic it had.
"Calisle." I decided to try. "Let us call a truce. It seems our interests align after all. Help me change the realm's balance of magic and I will help you find the humans' haven."
Those were thoughts. I could hardly choose my words. The skeletal wyvern could hardly do more.
"You expect me to believe that! You... expect me to believe that. Yes! Yes, I could destroy us all in the drake's name, or I could bargain. But your terms are hardly fair, good friend. You get your part before I see a crumb of mine."
"What's wrong with helping the realm?" My thoughts admonished. "Do you enjoy watching others suffer?"
"No, no I do not. A truce, then. Let us discuss the terms in better circumstances. Goodbye, good friend. Stay well."
In an instant, the skull was dust, the dust was gone. I was left with the void monster still frozen in front of me.
"You still haven't told me what you seek, Veleter." I thought. "Every monster is in it for something."
"I learn. I will learn. Help me change the balance."
"Then tell me, what do I seek? Am I a killer, or a servant?"
That was one of the many problems with using thoughts to talk. You could quickly lose control.
"Human."
That was the moment I chose to break the sphere. The worm was still before me, but it would not talk, it would not disappear anymore. A timeless image that was never there.
With this, I had gained more knowledge than I wished for and more damage than I could afford. But for now, under the moonlight, the damage would not be apparent. What preserved me was an image of myself that still looked pristine.
The pain said otherwise.
I struggled to walk all the way back. But I had to hurry. Both my strength and that of my master were being consumed rapidly.
Outside, dusk had fallen.
I espaced the timeless void, passed the massive dungeon shards and reached the ship. It had been attacked time and again in my absence. The hulls and sails shredded.
Everyone was still on the deck. They saw me climb from the nets and the fire lizard came to help me. The human, for his part, would not move from his spot. he was still kneeling, still holding the polearm in his hands. His menilis, that humanoid cat, was hugging him.
"I am back." I told the man. "You can stop."
"He can't hear you!" The menilis complained.
I approached. His armor was intact, the seals holding fine. Nothing had even skimmed his dark hair. His gaze was fixed in front of him, on nothing. I waved in front of his eyes. His pupils were nearly erased.
He muttered: "It's not over yet. Kaele is still in there."
"I am back. Varun, I am back!" I tried to shake him off. "Varun I am here!"
And I hugged him.
That only finally broke off his concentration. He touched around, felt the badger helmet, recognized that shape.
"Kaele? Why are you here? You can go, I will cast the ritual."
"What have you done to him?!" The menilis roared.
She had already given him all the magic she could, probably without even realizing it. I had none to give myself.
"Burn the oil. Get him to bed. He can still recover."
He could not, but I refused to give up just yet.
Not yet! He needed more time!
Once on the bed, with the menilis holding his hand, he seemed to calm. The Adhipatia rested on his chest, the mythical weapon just providing that little extra magic to absorb.
"Your armor." The magnal noted.
"Damn my armor!"
All the tanks onboard were lit. We could do nothing more now but to wait for that merciful realm's decision. And so time ticked. Second by second.
Dusk outside would not move anymore. Still, after a while I decreed that it was time for a meal. Rice, lentils and cheese, plus salad and rice pudding. It was meager enough to hold on one tray.
"What good is food?!" Once more the menilis protested.
"He must eat. Then, he will bathe, then sleep. His body must remember the rhythm of life."
That calmed her enough that she agreed to feed him. He was conscious, he reacted, but forgot what he was doing in the second and she had to guide his every movements.
We carried him to the bathroom. Mana was taking its toll there but still, there was enough water left to at least wash his body. I let her do and kept pacing on the side, the hand scratching at my gorget.
He fell to sleep the moment he was back. She would not leave him. Neither could I.
"I will stand guard." Nasse told us before leaving the cabin.
He may have been the last of us that stayed rational. We all knew it was finished.
The next morning he seemed better.
The first thing the human did when waking up was rubbing his eyes. Every of his motions was slow and weak, but coordinated. He could string thoughts again.
"Where is Kaele? Where are you Minette?"
"I am here!" She begged him, her hands on his.
He could not hear her, could not see her and failed to realize that but, after touching her face, and then mine, he kept going.
"Why don't you talk? Don't just stand there, it's creeping me out."
She went to hug him, anything to break through his state. He gave up on pushing back, just let her rest on his chest.
"So, what was down there? Did you find anything useful?"
Where to even begin.
"It's okay, there is a whole realm to explore. It's a good realm, I hope you can save it."
Idiot, that was your job.
"I did the family proud, didn't I? Eh, Kaele? Don't tell Minette."
She had her head right against his neck. She hugged him tighter and held her tears.
"I have a system. You probably don't know what it is. It's... not important. The system promised me a wife. No, let me try again. After we saved Minette, the system said I could sacrifice her to get a wife. A human wife."
"Then sacrifice me!" She sobbed. "Why didn't you sacrifice me, you would be happy then!"
"And at first, I wanted to do that. But what can I say? She is like a daughter to me. She is always there for me, even when I am being capricious or stupid. She is... fantastically kind. Kaele, she gave me more love than even my own mother."
I had removed my helmet. There was no need for me to remove that helmet but I still did. I was removing the pieces around it too.
"So, promise me you will protect her, okay? She can join your crew, she can be happy."
"I can't promise that."
He was caressing her neck like one would an actual cat. She was desperately holding on to him. Her distress was mostly that of a monster that did not know what to do.
Easier to kill than save.
I approached. She would not let me pull her away from him. But I really, really needed her to get away for a moment. There was a sense of urgency growing in me that derailed everything.
"I did the family proud, didn't I?" The human repeated. "Eh, Kaele?"
She watched me take out my necklace and put one bead on his forefront. She watched him suddenly twitch and wriggle.
The menilis tried to pull the necklace away, shrieked and fell back at the contact. Her fighting instincts still made her lunge again and bite the articulation mid-arm. The broken iron hardly gave any resistance.
Yet before she could section the arm, her body spasmed and she fell on the human, struggled a bit more, then went limp. I could only think of the bead I was pressing on the human's head.
That sharp face whose white eyes were fixing nothing anymore.
Her body fell to dust first, then he followed. There was nothing before me but the pillows and mattress. I was holding a bead over nothing once more.
Onto the next.