The next morning was awful. He felt dreadful when he woke up, tired and slightly dizzy. He was up before Rissa, which was just as well; he could change shape before she woke.

The shift was strangely painless. He didn’t feel hungry while he was shifting, and the relief was incredible until it hit him again when he finished transforming. A look down gave him the bad news; it hadn’t been as obvious in his other form because he wasn’t as familiar with it, but his humanoid form clearly showed that he was starving.

Serenity quietly put his clothing and armor on. He’d rather Rissa didn’t see how poorly he was holding up. It felt like he was losing weight faster than before.

There were only three levels left, but even if they hurried and were lucky enough to not run into another long level, Serenity didn’t think he’d be useful by the end. He’d be lucky to survive.

Rissa watched Serenity pull his armor on. He was clearly trying not to wake her, so she didn’t move. She didn’t want to let him know that she’d seen what he was trying to hide.

He looked terrible. He wasn’t just thin; he was more clumsy than usual and seemed tired despite the sleep he’d had. She wasn’t sure if he realized just how unhealthy he was, but she was afraid he was dying. They needed a solution - Serenity needed a solution - today. She didn’t know what would work, but there was a way she could find out.

Maybe.

Foresight was always tricky, and it seemed even less amenable to direction in the Tutorial. Rissa hadn’t managed to successfully guide her Sight to get more than a still image since she entered, so she’d been trying to do without it.

It hadn’t helped that the only image she’d managed to get was when she tried to see her death, but only saw her dead body.

Even trying would drain her, but it was worth it. Even an image might give her an idea.

She concentrated, and slipped into the empty space full of colors that weren’t colors. She’d Timewalked by accident before her mother had taught her control, and entering the Timescapes was still simple, even in the Tutorial. The question was if she could bring anything useful out or not.

She needed to concentrate on what she needed an answer to. She had to be careful. Once she saw a future, she couldn’t change it even if she didn’t like it.

Sometimes she could get useful information without needing to change things. She’d learned a lot over the years about how she could move around visions without being able to change anything she directly saw.

She couldn’t depend on Serenity being able to change the future. She didn’t know how that worked and it was still not absolutely certain that he could. After all, if he died here and then she did ... that would qualify as a “worse future” and she’d still have died on her Death Day, with the way Time didn’t really move forward in Tutorials.

She sent her desire out through the Timescape, hoping it would lead her to a future that would hold the answers she needed.

How can Serenity survive? I want options, not how it happens.

If she knew how it WOULD happen, she couldn’t change it if she didn’t like it. If she could direct it to options… she tried to push for a conversation afterwards about what could have worked. Anything that was a “could have” wouldn’t be the real solution, but it would give her a shape to think about and things to try.

Four threads coalesced in front of her. She’d hoped for a scene that would lay it out clearly, but she obviously wasn’t going to get that.

The threads were a symbol she’d seen before. She thought it meant the future wasn’t fixed, but it was hard to be sure. If she followed any of the threads, it would become the future.

She needed to study the threads themselves before she picked one.

They were a black that almost looked gray, a deep crimson, silver-white, and a color that was either a screaming pink or a particularly horrid shade of neon avocado green.

The colors didn’t tell her much. She looked at where they led into the distance and noticed that they headed the same direction for a short while, then branched. The first one to branch away was the silver-white, and standing at the branch were two people.

Suddenly, Rissa was standing in front of the two people. Things like that happened in the Timescapes. They didn’t operate by the same rules as the physical world.

One of the people was a woman holding a rapier. Rissa had no idea who the woman was, but she looked angry.

The other was Serenity, but this Serenity had eyes that were the same silver-white as the thread he stood beside, and did not have the scales or wings of her Serenity. He had a slight smile. Rissa recognized the smile; this was Thomas - no, Serenity - when he had a clever, fun idea. He was planning something.

The last time she’d seen that smile had been the day before everything started, when he’d asked her to dinner the following day. They’d never made it to the dinner, so she didn’t know what his plans had been. She’d been looking forward to finding out.

Serenity spoke first. While he spoke, the woman seemed frozen. “She cannot see me, as she will not be able to see your Serenity. She is stronger than I am, and my Time is almost up, but I’ll do what I can. I can’t tell you which option to choose, all I can tell you is that one option IS the best.”

The woman unfroze and stepped towards Rissa, brandishing her sword. “Clever girl. But not clever enough. Walking the Timescapes with no Skill and without your Protector when you should be dead? On your Death Day? You have made this easy.”

The woman didn’t seem to notice that Serenity had stepped between her and Rissa. When the woman stabbed, her rapier hit Serenity. In the real world, it would have been a minor injury, but here the rules were different.

The woman froze again and Serenity vanished like a bubble popping, leaving a glowing ball of silver-white fire where he’d stood. The woman’s sword vanished and the silver-white thread made a high pitched TWANG noise as it snapped.

Rissa saw the thread - a possible future? - break in front of her and whip through the space where the woman stood before it vanished. Was the Serenity here the Serenity-that-would-be from that future? Had the woman just killed a possible future?

Was that even possible?

The woman growled. “Someone is protecting you, girl, that’s three times now your thread should have been cut today. I don’t know what you’re after, but I can deny your search.”

She raised a hand and a storm seemed to gather in the distance. Rissa saw lightning strike near the threads as the woman faded into nothingness.

The ball of silver fire was still there, and as Rissa watched it fell onto the three remaining threads and seemed to disappear, leaving a slight silver-white glow. Rissa looked carefully, and the black and neon threads had only a touch of silver, like a streak on the side, but the crimson thread now seemed to be a braid of both crimson and silver-white threads.

Rissa smiled. “Can’t tell me which to choose, huh?” It was clear that this Serenity found it funny to work around whatever restrictions he was under.

She reached out to take the crimson-and-silver thread and the space around her went dark. The thunder in the distance vanished, and she was left in silence for a moment.

A sliver of silver-white fire shimmered in front of her.

The silence was broken by Echo’s voice. “Would Death affinity be enough? If all you need is Death affinity, we have that. We all have Death-”

Serenity’s voice interrupted Echo’s. “I’m not eating my friends.”

The silver-white fire broadened, and the false Serenity she’d seen before stood in front of her. He didn’t seem solid, and as soon as he appeared he started fading out again. He had that same mischievous half-smile. His voice quietly asked, “Did you know dragons are manavores? We all use mana to sustain ourselves, but dragons are a bit more direct. It lets such large creatures gather in surprisingly large numbers, sometimes.”

He sounded like he was talking about an interesting piece of trivia, but Rissa could read between the lines. As he finished talking, he disappeared and almost immediately the darkness she was in transitioned to the darkness of her closed eyelids.

She wasn’t going to get to ask any questions.

[3000 XP awarded for successful completion of a highly difficult noncombat task aligning with your current Path]

[Tutorial Camp XP bonus: 3000]

Rissa waved away the notification, her attention on what she’d learned in the Timescape.

She needed to figure out what he’d been hinting at. Was there a way to somehow give Serenity her Death-attuned mana? Where was it stored, anyway? Blaze had never really said; she’d gotten the impression it was more of a cloud that stayed in a person’s body until they directed it, then it would gather and do what you directed.

Directing it. What if there was a way to push it outside the body so that Serenity could eat it? Some way to turn mana into food? It probably wouldn’t need to be much in the way of food … best would be if they could actually store it in food, even if it wouldn’t stay for long. That way he’d get to eat as well. If that didn’t work … Rissa needed someone who could see magic, since she couldn’t.

It’s too bad we aren’t in Stage 1 anymore. I’m sure the instructors would have ideas. That vision implied there are multiple ways forward, though, so we should be able to figure this out.

Moira has magesight, doesn’t she? Pretty sure she said that was the Mage level 10. That should let her see if I can gather death-attuned mana into something. If I can do that, then maybe-

And then I need to talk to Echo. We need a plan to deal with Serenity. I can generally talk him into things, but sometimes he gets stubborn and this sounds like it’ll be one of those times. Maybe Echo and I can work together...