"You shouldn't have risked going to pick it up," Errod said as he admired the glove on his right hand. It was a perfect match, so he no longer looked like he was pulling some sort of Michael Jackson thing.

"It's fine," Katrin replied as she dug through her bag, "you'd already paid for it and I knew you would take a bit to get the wagons ready and moving. Plus neither of us had grabbed a water purifier. If you're going to criticize someone, yell at Calliope."

"Whoa! What did I do?"

"Well Callie, when you're concerned about being arrested for murder it's probably best to not steal things from the body."

Ah. That. "Okay first of all it wasn't on the body, it was laying nearby. Second, it's a cool-looking sword with lightning powers. Third, it flies to your hand when you reach for it. That's awesome. But... okay, sure. Point taken. Oh man, that last thing I said would almost be a pun in English but the translation ruins it. Balls. Anyway, if we get caught it won't be because of the sword. What I want to know is how do we deal with people tracking us through magic? I guess I should learn more about divination considering I'm planning on starting to use it myself at some point." In fact, it had moved up the priority list somewhat. I now had the following goals:

Check on my memories, to see what the fuck is going on there. Since that could be tied to my memory palace thing the cost was low, and it's not like I would need to view my memories in combat or whatever anyway. If I wanted to learn to dig into other people's memories at some point I might have to re-spec or something depending on how that Dumine developed. On a related note, I needed to implement some security on my brain. I didn't want people prying knowledge of Earth out of my head, or manipulating me like that thing from Nusos that made me think I was in a bar. That would be thought magic as well, and again I should be able to tie it to the memory palace - probably I could make a jail cell or something and have unwelcome visitors land there. Because of how the skill tree functioned, to do the security thing in the cheap way that worked alongside the memory palace I would need to also develop the ability to let others in on purpose. I had wanted to do that anyway so I could show Katrin and Errod what Earth was like and maybe even do some sort of neat VR-style games, so moving it up the list a little so I could get my security in place was fine. Get some sort of divination magic going, so that I could try to use it on the fate string things. I was really chafing at the idea of being manipulated by some external force, and I wanted to see what exactly my friends and I were slated to do so I could - entirely out of spite - not do them. On top of that, with all four of the potential requirements of the divination gift presumably I could be the best fucking diviner in the world and not surprisingly the idea of being the absolute best at something was pretty appealing. The fate magic itself felt like it had a few ways I could develop it. I could up the detection so I could see secondary threads - from what the professor had said I suspected I was only seeing the basic X is destined to Y at this point, but that fate should also be reaching out to things all around it in the world to tweak them. I also felt that I could instead learn to mess with the threads somehow, but like everything else about that gift the impressions I had were vague. Maybe I could transfer fates around, especially if they weren't too specific; if so, it could be very useful indeed. More useful would be learning to make them myself from scratch, but that was at least another level up past the manipulation ability and the costs were steep. I wanted to add a little more into mana, to be better at charging magic items and feeding mana into Katrin when she ran low. I was also interested in maybe working on making mana pool together to attract monsters, or crystalize it to use later.

This left a few of my abilities out. The one I was saddest about was spatial magic, because I really loved the idea of folding space in crazy ways or even teleporting - but if the Dumine capped out like it would for anyone else I'd never be like Telen, since spatial shared one with thought and divination and I was for sure going to be building both of those up. There was a chance the three Dumines could share the load somewhat, but from the impression I got when I meditated in order to add an ability I didn't think that was the case. I was also neglecting temporal magic, but since that one was on a Dumine with probability and runic - neither of which I had much planned for at the moment - it seemed I would be able to develop it later. Enchantment I also didn't have any special plans for, but that was more of a support gift anyway so I would find uses for it as I went. If nothing else there were some things I was expecting to tie off an enchantment for with mana.

"Those all sound reasonable," Katrin said once I'd gone down the list with her, "but in terms of goals I'm less interested in your training and more in what we're going to do about this attack. You said he mentioned a prophesy?"

"Yeah, but they were a bit light on the details. The one mentioned saving the world, and they both kinda sorta referenced throwing Errod into a volcano."

"Not a volcano," Errod corrected, "One said something about the core of the world, and the other said a river of lava."

"I dunno man, sounds pretty volcano-y to me. But maybe I'm just thinking about Lord of the Rings too much. Uh. Earth thing, just a story. Anyway they said that, and they were upset about you reading the spellbook I think, and the guy that was attacking us mentioned something called the storm chalice. It's... I don't know, it's a lot of random garbage to me. Errod thinks he's destined to be the world's greatest swordfighter, I'm from another planet nobody seems to know about, we're some of the only people that are aware the whole world ended about two months ago and just kinda reset, we're literally the only three that know I actually broke the whole Duminere system and ended up with three Dumines, we have way more of those stupid fate string things attached to us than anyone else I've seen, and now some dude attacked us while saying there was a prophesy or something and he wants to chuck your brother into lava - presumably somehow related to you getting that book. Oh! Oh! And the guy that caused the end of the world is still at large in a side dimension that only I can get into and that somehow is also the setting for a series of books I read back on Earth. Can't forget that. Did I miss anything?"

There was a moment of silence, and then Errod cocked his head. "Your memories are inconsistent and at one point you somehow saw people coming for us in a dream, which so far as I can tell has nothing to do with your inborn ability to curse people."

"Right. Yeah. Although those are both probably gone now that I've got the Dumines, right?"

Katrin nodded, but Errod just shrugged. "The curse part probably, since that seemed like some sort of wild magic. But the dream? I'm less certain."

"Well, it can wait in line. At the back. I swear, if one more random plot point drops in my lap I'm going to scream. I am absolutely not going to start worrying about this storm chalice thing."

Katrin made some glowing orbs and started making them spin in a complicated pattern - before getting her Dumine she'd only been able to manage the one, and hadn't been able to do that kind of acrobatics with it - and sighed.

"I'm sorry, Callie. I didn't want to add more to your plate."

"Shit, no, I didn't mean it that way. You guys have just rolled with all sorts of nonsense coming from me. It's not... how do I put this? I'm fine with you guys being the cause of some of the drama. Fuck, that's actually great news. It's good to know it's not all my fault. It's just that it seems crazy to have these guys show up out of nowhere and imply that there might be even more stuff we still don't know about. City guards, or some random dude yelling about you being a thief? Sure. Great. Guys appearing out of nowhere covered in tar or some shit and screaming about throwing Errod into lava and storm chalices and... it's a lot."

"Well, I hate to break it to you but I don't have any answers. I got the spellbook from an old man named Jettere that lived in our building. I took care of him after he injured himself, and just... I don't know, I felt bad for him so I cooked him meals and made sure his clothes and sheets got cleaned. Sometimes he had... accidents... and nobody else was there to clean him up. But when I was doing his laundry I found a false bottom in one of the cupboards and inside was the spellbook. I studied it sometimes while he slept, but I always put it back. Except one day, he... he passed away. And I'd been reading the spellbook when I realized that I... I couldn't hear Jettere breathing anymore. I didn't plan on stealing the book, but I ran downstairs to our apartment to get Errod and I just sort of put it down on the table." The orbs of light faltered and flickered out. "The day after that, someone ransacked his apartment and destroyed everything. There were valuable things in there - not many, but enough - and they hadn't been touched. I had to assume they wanted the spellbook. And then a notice was posted, saying something had been stolen - but it didn't say what, and... well, my father had been arrested for an accident that burned down a building just a few months before and everyone had been telling me how terrible the prison was and I was scared. Plus, if I'm honest, I really wanted to keep learning. I'd already started to understand it a little."

"So... wait. But it's just a spellbook, and some dude had it in his place. How does that translate to the fuckers that attacked us?"

"I don't know. I never really knew anything about Jettere's past. Spellbooks are very difficult to write properly, and people guard them jealously. At the time I assumed it had been passed down through his family and it was a child of his that had come looking for it - and I felt like if they hadn't been willing to come and help him in his old age and only showed up to get their inheritance... I know it's not my place to make that kind of choice, but I told myself they didn't deserve it. But the alternative is that he was part of some sort of organization and had only been loaned the book. In that case, they probably had some device that alerted them to his death so they could come and collect it. And considering the focus this spellbook has on combat magic... well. It's probably not a bunch of gardeners."

Errod frowned, but it took some nudging to get him to say what he was thinking.

"If it's an organization of spellcasters, why did they send a man with a sword after us? Why not another spellcaster? Although I suppose that might have been the one in the hood - maybe they go in pairs."

"No way to know. But something we did in that city must have alerted them - it can't be divination magic, or not good divination magic, because they didn't even go after the right book. So hopefully we're safe for now and can continue with the plan. Drop off Elba, train up as fast as we can. And then... well, the portal to Brynnklar opens in about a hundred days - shit, sorry, what's a nice round number in base six? A hundred and eight days. There we go, I'm getting better at this. Anyway, then I guess I need to get back to Hammersmith so she doesn't hunt me down, and I mean... there's still some chance the world is in danger so best we take care of that. And then I think Errod agrees we need to explore Brynnklar some - I loved the Jake Ross books and he wants to... uh. Errod? You said you were going to be a knight of Brynnklar, or am I remembering that wrong?"

"That's... I believe that's my destiny, yes."

"Okay cool but you know that that whole kingdom is abandoned, right? Of course you do, we talked about this. Shit, I think you might have been the first one to tell me that. So who, precisely, would be knighting you?"

"Um. Well. We can figure that out when the time comes. Perhaps I can just... say some oaths or... I don't know."

"Fair enough."

As had been my habit I went to sleep inside the memory palace. It was maybe not as restful as sleeping normally, but I liked that there was some separation from my crazy dreams - I could look out the window at them if I wanted, but otherwise I could just relax on the bed and try to change things with my mind. It was still the same three areas - the made-up bedroom I always started in, my childhood bedroom at my mom's house, and the hotel room from uncle Roy's place. I'd managed to add a few things here and there, but it was tricky. I felt my body fall asleep and got that floaty sensation, like I was just a teeny bit buzzed. Walking over to the window I peered out at the shifting landscape, seeing my dreams float by - there were bits of the library we'd just been in, though the librarian was someone I had known on Earth I think. There was that curved sword, and a burrito truck, and for some reason a hospital room. I'd been hoping, as I had from the first time I stepped foot in this place, that Connie would somehow visit me; there had been that moment right when she died that we had been somewhere a lot like the memory palace and had been able to talk - but there hadn't been so much as a whisper from her since.

I decided to try and force it. There had to be some connection - we had the same soul, the same history, the same everything. Ghosts were real, at least in this world. I still wasn't clear on what that meant or how it worked, but it seemed like if anyone would be able to contact me from beyond the grave it would be Connie. I focused, and stared out the window feeling for some sort of connection - some sort of echo of myself. And then she appeared. Or... well, someone did. It was me, but looking a bit ragged; I was covered in scars, and my hair was a mess, and I was wearing an ill-fitting My Little Pony shirt. Also I had a knife.

"Connie? Is that you?" I said, knowing I was being too optimistic. This was some fragment of a dream, some reflection of myself born of indigestion or guilt or something. She approached the window, staring at me, and stood just a few feet away in silence.

"No? Okay. Crazy figment of my imagination I guess."

"Imagination?" the scruffy me asked, in an odd accent.

"Yeah, this is my dream and you're in it."

"Ah," she said, "Yes. I have been in your dream before." She spoke slowly, like she was having trouble finding the words. "Why do you look like this here?"

"I don't understand the question."

"Why is that your face?"

I felt suddenly uneasy. What if this wasn't just a figment of my imagination? What if it was something external, reaching out to me? Some sort of monster, coming to eat my memories or mind control me? "What... what are you?"

"I am Calliope Smith," she said in that accented English, "and I want to know thing."

"What thing? What do you want from me?"

She shuffled closer. "Want to know... if this make you die for real."

She threw the knife, and it smashed through the window into my eye - I sat bolt upright, hitting my head, and then scanned the dark wagon for anything out of place as I realized I was back in the real world. It was fine. It had just been a nightmare. My eye maybe felt a little funny, but it seemed like it was probably just the power of suggestion.

"Motherfucker. Guess I won't be trying that again."