Sechen waited for him to add to that statement, but Prisoner crossed his arms and leaned forward to watch her. So that was all he was going to give her; no hints, just an objective. She could work with this. Revel hadn’t even given her this much, and the manifestation hadn’t been trying something this little. Revel’d always had something to say, even though all of it ended up amounting to nothing. Sechen grimaced as her thoughts went sour, an all-too familiar direction they seemed to end up in these past few days. She needed to clear her head. Focus on what was in front of her: this little lesson, then getting stronger in general. Sechen gingerly reached out to touch the Issi spilling out from the crack and felt a connection with it, but not an overly strong one. Like seeing the family resemblance in a distant cousin.

“It’s part light Issi. And it’s warm to the touch, so maybe fire Issi too? But there’s something else in here I don’t think I’ve ever felt.” Sechen frowned.

“Say whatever you’re thinkin’ out loud. It helps.” Prisoner urged.

“Yeah. Alright. It feels like something clamping over my hand, trying to crush it into nothing. Or maybe that’s not right.” Sechen moved her hand and stared into the Issi. “Something’s trying to come together, and I think the crushing was me putting my hand in the middle of it. Is combination Issi a thing?”

“Maybe. I want to hear your guess before I say anythin’ that might sway your thoughts.”

“Fire and light, with something that’s trying to crush everything together. Do you want something more specific?” Sechen asked, and Prisoner nodded. “Alright. Well, fire and light makes me think of sunlight, plus the fact that that’s the only thing beating down on this hill right now. Unless there’s some kind of volcano under this hill, but I don’t know what the crushing Issi has to do with any of this. So I’m going to guess solar Issi.”

“That your final answer?”

Sechen shrugged. “I can’t think of anything else, so yeah.”

“Congratulations, you got it.” Prisoner clapped twice. “For future reference, there are two different types of solar Issi, which are both combinations of light and heat Issi but in different amounts. There’s what we have here, which is sunlight Issi, which is solar Issi where the major player is light Issi, and then there’s sunfire Issi, which is when heat Issi takes the spotlight. Well, there’s also true solar Issi, but unless you can get yourself close to a star that ain’t gonna come up.”

Sechen nodded in understanding, then put her hand back over the Issi vent. “So what’s with the crushing? If this is just light and heat Issi, why does it feel like it’s squeezing my hand?”

“That’s thanks to this piece of technology here.” Prisoner said as he patted the tile he was sitting on, then pointed to the golden wire that separated it from the others. “The tile takes in and separates the heat and light Issi, then this here wire transports it back to the Gilded Night where it’s most likely sold at a premium. What you felt was the tile tryin’ to suck that Issi back in, and the Issi fightin’ back with all its might.”

Sechen nodded and retracted her hand, then looked over the hillside of black glass tiles. She squinted at them as she tried to see the Issi actually going into the tile, and though she thought she saw the dregs of something, it turned out to be the reflection of a small orange songbird flying by. She wondered if the Issi was invisible to everyone, or if she simply wasn’t powerful enough to see it.

“From the look on your face, I gather you’ve guessed that somethin’ here ain’t exactly right. But you’ve got the ideas all wrong, ringlet.” Prisoner tapped two fingers just above his eyes. “Your brain’s better at censorin’ all the Issi types that are so common that you’d be walkin’ blind if you could see them at all times. The Issi in this tile here is modified enough that it sneaks past your subconscious barriers, and if you want to see solar Issi in everythin’ you’ll have to learn how to tear down and set those barriers for yourself.”

“Are those the ‘veils’ you said Metea/Irric has to work on?”

“Hey, you were listenin’! That makes this easier. A veil and a barrier are two sides of the same coin; a barrier keeps all the distractions and little techniques out, and a veil keeps your thoughts and Issi from gettin’ out. You could finagle it so that you’ve got one block that does both, but havin’ a veil and a barrier does wonders far beyond the extra costs.”

Prisoner turned to look at Metea/Irric, who had stopped pacing and now sat on a patch of grass while she stared unerringly back the way they’d come. He curled up his pinky and ring finger and closed one eye, then brought his thumb and his other two fingers together in her direction. Sechen saw a spark of Issi on contact, then Prisoner sighed and wiped his thumb and two fingers on his sleeve at the shoulder.

“Tell you the truth, ringlet, you weren’t the one I was hopin’ to be havin’ this conversation with. But I don’t think I have to tell you that.” Prisoner shot her a crooked smile that held no mirth. “I thought cloudy’d be the strong one, but her problems are far deeper than I first thought. Which would be impressive if it wasn’t so concernin’.”

Sechen sat up straighter. “Why even tell me that?” She asked with hurt in her voice.

“Because you deserve to know.” Prisoner sighed. “Just like sleepy deserved to know. But I pushed him to go before he was ready because the big guy said it was ‘of utmost importance’. I don’t know where he gets off talkin’ like he’s got some kind of prediction Issi, instead of a vague feelin’ that ends up comin’ true ‘cause it’s so generic. This ain’t some month-long outin’ you’ll half-remember in five years, sister. It’s a cause that’ll follow you like a hateful shadow for the rest of your forsaken life.”

“A cause you still haven’t explained.” Sechen muttered.

“Fair point.” Prisoner agreed with a sigh. “Shiny, get your ass over here! We got somethin’ to discuss!”

Gilt walked over with a raised eye-ribbon, and settled down on Sechen’s right with his face resting on crossed paws. Prisoner did the same gesture he’d done towards Metea/Irric earlier, but instead of wiping his hand on his shirt he pressed his Issi-coated fingers into the air between them, the very air distorting and struggling against Prisoner’s advance before giving up and breaking down into Issi that glimmered like silver powder before being carried away by the wind.

“What have you done?” Gilt asked in a worried, shaky voice. “You risk drawing too much attention with a display such as this.”

Prisoner narrowed his eyes at Gilt. “You know too much for a fresh manifestation.”

“And you are far too powerful to be unknown.” Gilt shot back.

“So we both got secrets. Movin’ on.” Prisoner said with a wave of his hand. “And a little information so that what I’m about to say makes sense; eternals can die. And a whole lotta them have bitten the dust since the days of their inception, more than even I thought before I met the weapon that locked me up for the greater part of a millenia. Most of what I’m about to share with you I learned the hard way, through fightin’ where no one else could and makin’ the choices nobody wants to, but the details were filled in by Elach’s patron.”

The fact that Prisoner called Elach by his name instead of a nickname didn’t go unnoticed by Sechen, but the other parts of Prisoner’s explanation drew just a little bit more interest. “You’re talking about the eternals, the beings that are pretty much the omniscient rulers of our world, right? Not something else you nicknamed the eternals?” She frowned. “I thought you were Elach’s patron?”

Prisoner shook his head. “Nah. Didn’t want him sufferin’ the same fate I did. No, Elach’s patron’s one of the most powerful spatial Issi weapons that’s ever existed. He’s either on par with the godsent arms or right below them, but they don’t exist no more, so I guess that makes him the most powerful at the moment. His name’s Sentence, and he’s a memento.”

“And the eternals?” Sechen asked, feeling as if there were something watching her from all directions at once.

“Seemed like you got the gist of it. And we’re still on the ten minute time limit, so I’ll go into detail later. Much later.” Prisoner held up a hand to stop the arguments that were about to be thrown his way. “This ain’t up for discussion. I’m the one layin’ out all the cards, I set the rules. When one of you hosts the game, you get to set yours, but I’ve got a feelin’ your secrets are locked up far tighter than mine.”

Sechen and Glint shared a wary look, but neither of them said anything. For Sechen, Prisoner was right. And honestly, she didn’t really know why he was so keen on sharing his own secrets with people he just met. She must have been giving Prisoner an off look, because his smile died and the atmosphere lost any friendliness it had had.

“I’m not givin’ you all my secrets, if that’s what you’re thinkin’. I’ve got more secrets than you’ve got thoughts, and most of em’ are comin’ with me to my grave. So shut your mouths and listen for a minute, because that’s all the time I’m givin.”

Prisoner took a deep breath as he crossed his arms, staring at the sky above as a grey cloud meandered by. “When an eternal dies, stuff goes wrong. Plain and simple, the world is rewritten with the inclusion of whatever that eternal was hoardin’ from us, and it don’t care about anyone or anythin’ that gets caught up in the tide of change. No, no… that ain’t exactly right.”

Prisoner shook his head and blew out a long breath. “How do I put this… when an eternal dies, that existence they used to be in is no longer valid. So, like how our world snaps back to what’s right when somethin’ on the other side of the veil is messed with, existence as a whole snaps back to what is now considered to be ‘right’. Save for one person, or group of people, since it can’t mess with them or everythin’ starts to unravel. Sure, some people can resist the effects of the eternals’ powers, but even they ain’t fully immune to the erasure that goes on when an eternal bites the dust.”

“And those people are the ones that deal the final blow to said eternal.” He continued. “The ones who’re cursed to live on in a new world with all the memories of an old one, friends and family who recognize someone you ain’t, and new rules that might just damn you in ways you couldn’t even guess at before.” Prisoner jangled his wrists for emphasis, and the clinking of chains cut through the unnatural silence that surrounded them.

“And that’s what I’m leadin’ Elach to. A life of constant new beginnings, of changes that might not be better than what you left behind, where nobody will ever know what you did. Where your loved ones look at you with a lifetime of memories you don’t share behind their eyes, expectin’ some other version of you to be starin’ back at them. It ain’t easy, and the only reason I’m still here mentally are the old friends who hopped from new beginnin’ to new beginnin’ with me.”

“And that’s where you two, and hopefully Metea/Irric, come in. If you come along with us, the us bein’ Elach and I, you’re signin’ up for that life. Abandonin’ everyone that ain’t strong enough to participate in fightin’ the eternals and adaptin’ to a brand new world every couple of years. I know it don’t sound overly appealin’, and that’s why I’m springin’ this on you so early. If you want nothing to do with this, you can leave. Go live your lives somewhere else, never mentionin’ anything we’re doin’ to anyone in case it gets out to someone on the other side of the veil.”

Prisoner paused to let his ultimatum sink in, and Sechen just sat there as the weight of his simple explanation settled on her. If this was the short version, the long version had to be worse. And Prisoner had prefaced this as if she had a choice, but now knowing this, she felt like her options had just been shut out in front of her eyes. She locked eyes with Prisoner and what she saw sent a shiver down her spine: cold, unwavering resolve.

Prisoner was going to kill each and every last eternal, the beings that Sechen had thought were legends or myths, and he was going to do it whether or not she stood by his and Elach’s side. If he was telling the truth, and not making something up to try and scare her into joining, then there was no future for her outside of this group. She would stop existing when Prisoner eventually accomplished his goal, and then the Sechen that took her place would disappear, and so on until something stopped Prisoner. Sechen looked down at her hands as her throat grew thick, Revel’s dress a backdrop for her one normal arm and her one manifested arm, and she asked herself the question she’d been mulling about ever since she’d become what she now was.

Did she want to keep existing? The voice in the back of her mind told her that she didn’t deserve to, but it was quieter than usual for some reason. And if the other option was non-existence, then a little pain and remorse seemed like nothing in comparison.

“I’m in.” Sechen said with a surprising amount of confidence in her voice. “On one condition; we bring Revel with us.”

Prisoner smiled wide and held out a hand for Sechen to shake. “Done. And I’ll throw in makin’ her as powerful as I’m gonna make you for free. How about you, Gilt?”

“I had fears of what you were hiding, but this?” Gilt’s smile was predatory, hungry, and violent. “This is nothing to fear. Though may I add a condition to my acceptance as well?”

“Before any of you get any ideas, I ain’t the one that’s gonna be givin’ everything to you. I’ll help you out along the way, but everyone’s gonna chip in to everything. Alright?” Prisoner looked from Gilt to Sechen, and they both nodded in understanding. “Good. Whaddya want, Gilt? We might not be able to get it done right away, or even anytime soon, but I swear we’ll do it before we make any sweepin’ changes to the world.”

Gilt started to speak, but the words dissolved into scattered letters before Sechen could make anything out. He shot a quick look at Sechen and sighed, turning to lock eyes with Prisoner. “Elach had a very close friend.”

“I’ve already heard the story.” Prisoner interrupted. “But you realize what you’re askin’ for, right? I need to make sure.”

“I do.”

“Alrighty then, that’s one more person we’ll bring with us to the end of this existence. And we’ve gone past our ten minute mark, so let’s get movin’.” Prisoner stood and the veil of unnatural silence withered away, the sounds of the world slowly coming back into being. Metea/Irric still sat exactly where she had been, but now she muttered something to herself that Prisoner winced at. “The Gilded Night’s still an hour or so away, and gettin’ in’ll add at least another hour after that. Grab cloudy and we’ll get movin’.”