After a second of blank staring, Ian recognized just who was addressing him: Yuma Tai herself, her wrinkles far more pronounced in person. But it couldn’t be Yuma Tai–the woman wasn’t an End practitioner.

Ian looked around at the others...and found that everyone suddenly looked like Yuma Tai. He narrowed his eyes and peered up at the ceiling, curious if using his peripheral vision would change anything.

It didn’t, so Ian closed his eyes and tried to rely on his vital vision. He remembered the cautionary words of Euryphel and Shivin’i: Yuma Tai liked to take advantage of people who relied on affinity perception abilities. Even so, he hoped to at least see something different without his mundane sight.

Using only his vital vision, Ian realized that people’s vitality seemed almost blurred, as though there were some kind of thin, half-living mask lying on people’s faces.

Lying on me, Ian realized with a start, flinching back. He felt the soft, gooey touch of some wet substance plaster itself to his face, seeming to emerge out of the empty air. As soon as the sensation came, it left, leaving Ian with the strange sensation that something was subtly wrong. If he had to describe it, it was like the feeling of having something stuck in your teeth.

He instinctively tried to control the grayish vitality in the thin mask around his face, only to feel pushback from the bracelet on his left wrist. Ian gritted his teeth and suppressed a snarl. He looked around once more at the others in the room, trying to understand just what had happened to all of them.

The Yuma Tai who previously initiated the conversation burst into soft laughter. “Oh my, I suppose I must look like Tai now, don’t I?”

Something about the woman’s tone made Ian laugh, at first softly, but then uncontrollably. As he did so, the water mask was slightly more tangible as it hugged the curves of his mouth and cheeks.

“Tai has...an interesting sense of humor,” Ian observed, his eyes glowing. The bracelet hummed in warning, though Ian ignored it: it seemed as though flashing his eyes violet wasn’t quite enough to set the bracelet off.

“Oh, can we do that?” Rindo exclaimed, Ian recognizing the man’s voice behind his Yuma Tai wrinkles. His eyes suddenly flashed gold-green.

“It seems so,” the first Yuma said, flashing her own eyes gold-red. “Lovely. Makes it easier to keep people straight. Skai’aren, I believe we were unable to finish introductions. Did you have the chance to see my face?”

Ian shook his head, a smile tugging up the corners of his lips. “While seeing Yuma Tai’s visage is certainly a...blessing, I regret not seeing your own.”

Gold-red Yuma grinned. “I’m Princess Kali of Suvva.”

Kali and Rindo began to formally introduce Ian to the other people in the room, a task that more often than not ended in laughter as people began to have fun as “Yuma Tai.” Two brothers named I’ris and Molvor, also from Suvva, were taking turns doing all kinds of weird stunts in the library, going as far as to successfully ride upon the back of a non-living bear construct.

For better or worse, their antics seemed to actually set off a next stage in the transition.

As soon as the bear snapped down on Yuma-Molvor’s wrinkled forehead, the animals all burst into showers of color. Said colored water seemed to multiply and condense into swirling brush strokes, painting a dynamic jungle all around them.

“Is this for everyone, or just for us?” Princess Kali wondered out loud.

“I think everyone must be experiencing something similar, though perhaps asynchronously,” Ian replied. “Everything has matched up too-cleanly with physical actions we’ve taken, like Suran opening the door, or Molvor putting his face in the bear’s mouth.”

Ian reached out with a hand, running it through a collection of swirling pink leaves. It was surreal to see both the leaves move constantly and in response to physical stimulation; Ian felt as though he had been subsumed into a real-life mural.

Suddenly, the ground began to shift. “Did someone do anything?” Rindo asked.

“I touched some leaves,” Ian confessed. He doubted that was the stimulus in this case, however: This felt like something that might be affecting not just their group, but the entire gala. His vital vision revealed others on the floor below also bracing themselves against what appeared to be a quaking floor.

Any attempts to respond were cut off by the sound of harsh water crashing down from ducts in the walls and swirling around Ian and the others. The ground beneath them was soon engulfed in a current that whipped around their legs, the smell of sweet wine suffusing through the air.

There’s no way this is all wine, Ian thought as he fought to remain standing. Unbidden, a few droplets of spray splashed into his mouth. His eyes widened in incredulity at the taste. Just how much wine does Yuma Tai have, metric tons!?

With each second that passed, water coursed more forcefully around Ian, the level soon rising up to his waist. Recognizing the inevitable, Ian stopped his struggling and was taken by the current. More wine naturally found its way into his mouth, though he took care not to swallow too much.

He closed his eyes and the world became more simple: He and others were being washed away in different directions, the water passing unhindered through empty doorways. Ian noted that Princess Kali had even been dumped out one of the large windows in the library room and appeared to be falling into a lake behind the property...one that Ian didn’t recall being there earlier.

“This is insane,” Ian murmured, spitting out wine. “But I love it.”

A grin lit up Ian’s face just as the water slammed him into a wall. He coughed and found himself completely submerged. On instinct he tried to raise himself out of the water with decemancy, only to find the bracelet humming violently against his wrist. Ian flailed his arms and pulled himself above the surface, wine stinging his eyes as he tried to open them. The water began to subside, revealing him to be in a room with one other person.

He noticed that the Yuma Tai mask around his face had melted off, only to be replaced by a mask-shaped slab of paint that hugged his features, its surface malleable in his hands like putty.

The other person was bent over and wore a similar mask. Her clothes were thoroughly coated in sticky paint; Ian glanced at his robes and noticed that they were also obscured, their original color replaced with organic swirls reminiscent of nacre.

The woman straightened up and began to walk confidently over, her heels clicking and splashing water on each footfall. Ian felt himself straighten as though rising to a challenge.

“And who might you be?” he asked.

The woman laughed, her voice a melodic soprano. “What’s the point of wearing masks if you just tell everyone your identity?”

Ian smiled back, though realized a beat too late that it wouldn’t be visible under the stiff paint-mask. “Now that I’ve heard your voice, I expect to recognize you eventually.”

The woman came closer, almost too close, as though probing for Ian’s response to her incursion. Ian moved swiftly around her, almost as though dancing, pressing into her space in turn.

A quiet tension began to build as the two circled one another.

“All things in time,” the woman replied. “But this is Yuma’s gala. I can tell you’re new, so I’ll let you in on a secret.” She darted in close, brushing past his ear and chuckling softly. “Once the night has progressed this far, it’s best to just live in the moment. Isn’t it exciting?”

Something about her tone of voice suggested that she thought things were more than just exciting. Ian couldn’t ignore the sensation that this woman recognized him.

Ian swallowed sidestepped around the woman, gaining a bit of breathing room. “Have you drunk the wine?”

The woman’s laughter sounded out again, sounding equal parts mature and girlish. “It’s not wine.”

“Have you tasted it?” he asked, tightening his orbit; this time his lips trailed by her eyebrow. Ian had never circled someone before, not like this, but the movement came naturally.

“None of us had a choice,” she replied simply. “And now we need to wait. Quite frankly, I’m surprised not more people washed into this room with us, but I suppose we were both already at the far edge of the mansion.”

“Wait for what?”

“You need to stop asking questions,” the woman said. “I am not Yuma Tai; what I lack in knowledge, I make up for with wisdom. And you...you compensate by pretending to be in control.”

“Pretending?” Ian murmured. “I think your words can just as easily be used to describe yourself.”

The two of them were now facing one another, their circling steps coming to a halt. Ian felt jittery, nervous. Most of him just wanted to get away, but part of him refused to be the one to step away first.

Whoever this woman is...I’m more powerful than she is. As far as he knew, he was the only half-step ascendant at the tournament, and there were no ascendants invited. Theoretically, he should be the most powerful person present.

Recalling this fact eased his nerves somewhat. I’m not going to let her walk all over me.

“I’ll let you in on a secret: none of us are in control,” she murmured, her voice barely a whisper, but still audible at such an intimate distance. “Even the greatest empire can be wiped out by the whimsy of fate.”

Ian opened his mouth to respond, but froze: Without him realizing, the area around them had become filled with what seemed to be people. He knew on an intellectual level that they couldn’t be real, but when he looked with his vital vision...they appeared an all-too-familiar gray.

Ian withdrew from the woman and clutched his hands behind his back, trying not to show how tense he was feeling. There is no ginger at this place.

But what of the not-wine? His mind unhelpfully argued. Perhaps it’s something similar. Something that will bring you under and inside out...

Ian shook his head slightly. There had been a time when he had tried ginger. It had been a horrific, mind-bending experience, one he never thought that he’d repeat.

But when he had been in the depths of his hopelessness and despair...there were times that he took it again in some kind of perverse hope that doing so might grant a final release...that it might break his mind enough that he’d never come back.

“What do you see?” she asked, drawing close once more. Ian’s bracelet began to hum slightly. “These are more constructs; nothing new.”

“The previous constructs were dead. These...are not quite.” Ian found that talking was helping to appease his nerves a bit: Thinking through this rationally and voicing reason out loud helped to dispel his anxiety. At this point he didn’t much care if his words gave him away as a decemancer, especially given his intuition that the woman knew his identity anyway.

“They won’t be made of the sweet substance from the water, or the oily substance that composed the feathers and fur of the animals. These humanoids are likely made of water filled with microorganisms, the same kind of solution that composed the masks that made us all appear like Yuma Tai.”

The woman’s eyes studied the humanoid constructs more intently. “How very interesting. I wonder what happens when we touch one of them?” She didn’t need to walk very far: the constructs had drawn in close, prancing around them like dancers. She maneuvered her hand to press against the palm of a male-shaped construct, causing all of the constructs to freeze in place.

Has she set off another transformation?

The two of them gave each other a knowing look and waited for the inevitable torrent of water or flurry of paint...but nothing came.

Ian frowned and began to walk around the frozen bodies. Was he supposed to do something to them as well? He eyed the crooked joint of a construct frozen midleap, then tentatively placed his palm against the construct’s hand.

Ian heard a sound like tearing paper.

“The door is open; there’s nothing to prevent us from leaving,” the woman said. “Let’s proceed together for now.” Ian hadn’t noticed that the exit had been missing, but now an empty doorway stood amidst a large swirl of color, tendrils of paint drooping around it like a torn spiderweb.

Ian caught up with the woman by the threshold and the two of them walked out together, their steps synchronized. Ian noted that there were a few more people in nearby rooms, visible through the walls with his vital vision, though none had yet opened their respective doors.

In fact, some of the people...were engaging in rather lewd activities. Ian was thankful for the mask, lest the woman see his face change color. He had the impression that not everyone in these rooms was entirely in their right mind; perhaps they had drank too much of the sweet, mysterious liquid. Otherwise, Ian had no idea why otherwise esteemed practitioners would be hugging and rolling around with the humanoid constructs. They were unable to take their paint-glazed clothes off no matter how much they struggled, so their attempts to engage the constructs and each other seemed clownish.

Ian actually snorted out loud as he watched one poor soul try to tear off his clothes, only to fall awkwardly on a splatter of paint and get stuck to the floor, unable to move.

“Is there something funny?” The woman at his side asked.

“Just people being people,” Ian replied, drawing a parallel between the practitioners and his memory of the school dance back in the second loop layer. He suddenly felt a sense of nostalgia, recalling how he’d managed to bring everyone back from the practitioner campus party. He thought of Xander and how his former roommate would have already finished the semester.

Can I even call it nostalgia if it never happened?

The woman fell uncharacteristically silent, seemingly content to let his answer go without a follow-up. They eventually reached the end of the hallway, only to find that the main exit was missing, presumably concealed by yet another layer of paint. Looking to the right, they spied a small staircase leading down whose door had been plastered open against the wall.

They proceeded down the stairway, their only source of light the dim brightness behind them. Ian had no trouble maneuvering with the assistance of his vital vision, but the woman seemed to have a bit more trouble, each of her high-heeled footfalls careful and deliberate. Ian slowed his pace to match hers, eventually providing her his arm for support.

When they exited the staircase, they found themselves outside. The stars twinkled like merry beacons, welcoming them into a world no-longer turned on its head.

Ian turned toward the woman and laughed. “I think I’m going to stay out here until the party’s over.”

“I’ll stay with you, though don’t forget: The party might not let you get away so easily.”

Ian shrugged. There were at least twenty others nearby who had also found their way outside. He debated trying to talk to some of the others about what they’d experienced, but ultimately decided to stay put. Who knows, maybe there’s some booby-trapped tile out here that’ll trigger another transformation.

Ian walked a few steps over to the edge of the building and sat down next to one of the support columns, resting his head against its refreshingly-real surface. The woman walked around and sat on the other side of the same pillar such that their heads were about a foot apart.

I’m not the most socially astute when it comes to women...but she’s clearly interested in me, Ian mused. She seems to be fairly confident about this whole gala, so she’s likely at least a few years older...and she knows it.

Just thinking those last few words caused a foreign heat to rise in his stomach. He began to study her more intently with his vital vision, trying to determine her age. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to determine anything conclusive: she seemed to have been recently treated by a Life practitioner, so common signs of aging like vital graying around the joints was missing.

He was almost curious enough to ask outright, if not for his Mother beating into him that asking a woman her age was a forbidden question.

Distracted by her mysterious appearance, he failed to notice that she was inching her arm around the column. He jolted slightly in place when her hand covered his. When he recoiled reflexively, her hand held his firmly in place.

“Tell me,” she purred, “have you ever been with an older woman?”

She probably knows I haven’t, Ian noted. So why do I find her pointless question so alluring?

“Have you ever been with a younger man?” he riposted, trying to glean more information about her identity.

She laughed. “Yes. I like my men...vigorous.”

Ian felt heat flash across his face. Thank you mask!

Suddenly the woman was next to him, leaning against his paint-crusted vestments, her mask a scant inch from his. The tension was palpable and his heart began to quicken. To both of their surprise, their masks began to peel upwards, revealing only their faces below the nose. The woman smiled, leaned in...and kissed him.

Ian didn’t recoil. He realized he wanted to kiss her back, but there was something nagging at the back of his mind. I’m drugged right now, aren’t I? Aren’t we all?

But what I feel...feels real. I may never have this kind of moment again, Ian realized, thinking of his ascendance. There won’t be a next time at the gala.

Having made his decision, Ian pulled the woman into his arms and pressed his lips against hers.

“You need to stop thinking so hard,” the woman said.

Ian gave her a wry smile and tangled a hand in her hair, his face close enough to taste the sweet scent on her breath. “I know.”