An hour of frustration followed, forty minutes of which were dedicated to threading differently colored threads through the same needle. The other twenty were actually productive, mostly fixing the seam on the dress Revel had made for her. It wasn’t as clean as Sechen wanted it to be, and she knew she’d have to come back to it eventually, but that was something for when she had full control over her body.

Prisoner popped into existence a foot to Sechen’s right. “You three. Team meetin’ downstairs in five minutes. We’ve gotta do somethin’ about cloudy.”

“Is she getting worse?” Sechen asked, folding Revel’s dress and carefully packing it away.

“She can’t get much worse than she is now, but if she takes that one next step, she’s done for. Five minutes. Be there.” Prisoner spun on his heel and disappeared, leaving Sechen and the others to gather their thoughts.

Paui pocketed her notebook with a grimace. “I really hope Metea/Irric isn’t violent today.” She said, rubbing her stomach where she’d caught a particularly violent punch two days ago. “Everyone keeps telling me she’s nice, but I haven’t seen anything like that. She’s either angry or despondent, and nothing in between.”

“It has gotten far worse over the weeks.” Gilt said as he slid out from under the table, returning to his lion-like form as he emerged. “She seemed conflicted at our first meeting, but has devolved into the binary woman you have come to know. Rage at her incompetence, and despondence at her weakness. She might speak with the same voice, but it is not the woman we knew.”

“And it all happened so damn fast.” Sechen shook her head. “Let’s go. If Prisoner thinks we can help her, then we owe it to her to try.”

“Good, you’re all here. Come closer, I don’t got enough Issi to make this whole place soundproof. Spent it all tryin’ to help cloudy.” Prisoner motioned to the dining room table, where he’d set up a spread of finger foods. “Feed yourselves while we talk. We’re in for the long haul.”

Sechen took a seat next to Paui, with Gilt pushing aside the one to her right before dragging over a couch to lie on. Prisoner shot him a look that Gilt returned blankly, reaching out a very person-like hand for a piece of purple fruit. “I cannot use a chair in the same way as the rest of you. You have known this for quite some time, yet you act as though you are learning this each and every time I do this. Are you enjoying this?”

Prisoner shrugged, a small grin tugging at his lips. “Could be.”

“I loathe you.” Gilt said plainly.

“Loathe you too, buddy.” Prisoner chuckled. “Loathe you too.”

“We’re here for Metea/Irric, right? Because she doesn’t have a lot of time left? So… shouldn’t we get started?” Paui pointed out. “Just a suggestion. We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Nah, you’re right. Shiny, stop wastin’ everyone’s time.” Prisoner chided, shaking a finger at Gilt. Words slid across Sechen’s eyes she wouldn’t repeat in polite company, and watched as Paui’s cheeks ever-so-slightly reddened. “Hoo, glad you didn’t put that into the atmosphere. Let’s get serious.”

Prisoner clapped his hands as he took his seat. “Cloudy ain’t doin’ so well. I assume she’s complained to all of you in turn about how she don’t want to be here, and she wants to go back to Novia?” Nods and affirmation all around. “Well, if we don’t get movin’ soon, I’m thinkin’ we give her what she wants. If bein’ ‘round Novia’s workshop makes cloudy’s brain decay just that little bit slower, then I ain’t gonna force her to stay here with us while she decays down to mush. Unless anyone’s got a better idea, we’re gonna be sayin’ goodbye for the time bein’.”

“Which is why you called this meeting, correct?” Gilt licked his fingers, then crossed his now paws in front of him. “You are looking for any reason not to leave Metea/Irric behind.”

Prisoner pointed at Gilt with a nod. “Guilty as charged.” He sighed. “She’s powerful, and she’s got somethin’ everyone here needs to find; somethin’ they can put their everythin’ into. I’ve snuck a peek at some of her unfinished designs, and I’ll be damned if that girl ain’t got a good brain. We get her back to normal, and we’ve got someone who can make us powerful trinkets, supplements, and weapons. That’s normally three people you’d need to find, in case you’re wonderin’, and I’m guessin’ it’s because she’s got the insight of two people workin’ together. Two heads better than one kinda thing goin’ on.”

“So she’s important for the…” Paui looked around nervously. “Eternals thing that’s going to happen?”

“More important than the rest of us?” Sechen added.

“Ain’t nobody more important than anyone else here. Except maybe me, since I’m the one teachin’ all of you. But I ain’t gonna die or lose my mind any time soon. I can see someone ain’t exactly believin’ me here, so I suppose it’s time I spill the few remainin’ beans I got left.”

Paui blushed and looked away, but Sechen felt Prisoner’s gaze settle on her. He was right, of course. She’d felt like dead weight for quite a while now, no matter what Prisoner said, and even though she did feel the effects of her body needing less Issi to function, she still felt weak. Probably because all she knew how to do was make those empowering rings of light.

“You listenin’, ringlet? I don’t want to say this twice.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m listening.”

“Alrighty then. So, eternals die, everythin’ does a full turn and comes back around like nothin’ you’ve ever seen. I’ve made that crystal clear quite a few times, so I ain’t going to reiterate, but it’s the core of everythin’ we’re dealin’ with here. Trust comes real hard after the first reset. Tellin’ stories about someone you used to love ain’t the same when someone don’t know the person in question, so expandin’ the group becomes a real chore. Near impossible, actually.” Prisoner flourished his hand, a picture suddenly between his fingers. “Of the eight people we ended with, only one of ‘em was recruited in anythin’ but our original reality.”

Prisoner pointed at a small man, up to Prisoner’s chest at best, with beady eyes and a nervous smile. “He looks like he’s going to steal the camera.” Sechen snorted.

“He would’ve laughed in your face if you told him that.” Prisoner said, a somber note fading away to his usual upbeat tone. “Rat was proud of the way he made people feel for some reason I never managed to put together, but he was about as likely to slit your throat as he was to steal somethin’ from you. That chance was zero, in case you were wonderin’. He might’ve not been the strongest, but I’d be damned if that man couldn’t cook. Didn’t have any attachments, either, and we thought he always had a tragic backstory he wasn’t tellin’ us. Turns out his girlfriend ran off with another man, so he slept with the man she ran off with, and got chased outta his hometown. I’m ramblin’ now, ain’t I?” Prisoner shook his head. “Alright, back to the point. Makin’ bonds with people becomes near impossible if you ain’t got nothin’ in common. And when the world rewrites itself, the only people you’ll have stuff in common with are the ones right next to you while everythin’ goes to hell.”

“You said there were eight of you left. How many did you start with?” Sechen asked. She didn’t like the implications behind those words.

“We started with thirty three, gained three after killin’ our first eternal to fill the void that losin’ our friends left, then never recruited another person. It didn’t feel right, and it was real hard to connect to someone who ain’t seen the same things you have. Eventually, we got down to the eight we had left.” Prisoner turned the photo to face himself, grimacing as he put it back in his headspace. “We lost fifteen people to that first eternal. Six to the next, then three, then two, then two again. Left us with eight, and we killed three more eternals before we were forced to give it up. We tried to add new people, but it just didn’t feel right. Like they didn’t know anythin’ we went through, and even if they’d had some terrible stuff happen to them, it wasn’t the same. We quite literally came from a different reality than they did.”

Sechen looked down at the food. It wasn’t so appetizing any more. “So you’re building us up to be that initial group of thirty three. Get the biggest group possible so it won’t matter if any of us die, right?”

Prisoner slammed his fist down on the table, making everyone jump. “You ain’t talkin’ about any of us like that, ringlet. Each and every life becomes beyond sacred the moment we make that leap, and I’m doin’ all this for the explicit reason of not losin’ anyone. We brought in too many, makin’ up for skill with numbers. It worked, and we paid for our success in blood and memories. I ain’t payin’ that price again.”

“Why us, then?” Paui asked. “Couldn’t you go ask Hoalt if you’re looking for someone powerful?”

“Hoalt? Hoalt can’t do nothin’. He’s strong enough to mostly resist the change existence’ll put on us in the death throes of an eternal, and so are Lavassil and Glasrime. They’ve been around since before my time, and they’ll keep goin’ on long after I’ve bitten the dust.” Prisoner pricked a cube of cheese with a toothpick, throwing it to Gilt who’d been eyeing it for a little while. “Hoalt might support our work, but he ain’t gonna lift a finger to help; anythin’ he does risks drawin’ attention from the eternals, and he ain’t gonna sacrifice the Gilded Night for our little crusade. What he might do, however, is point us in the right direction to fill our ranks. Such as forcing a certain runner into our midst, one whose Issi ain’t modifyin’ her body in the way it’s supposed to.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you took me in. If you’re on a time crunch, why did you take in someone you need to train?”

“I’m already trainin’ a wisp manifestation and a practitioner who looked like leather wrapped ‘round bone when I met her. When I say I’m in a hurry, it’s on Hoalt’s scale, not normal people’s. We’ve got a good half decade before I start gettin’ worried, and that’s plenty of time to mould you three and sleepy into people I’d feel confident havin’ my back in the fight against an eternal. Cloudy needs to work out her issues, but after that, she’s the closest to survivin’ that encounter we’ve got. And that’s the end goal; everyone survivin’. Not one of those terrible ‘we won, but at what cost’ victories I ‘won’ with my old crew, but a real victory that no one could look at and see anythin’ but an utter win.”

“So who’re the others you’re recruiting to our group? Because…” Sechen muttered numbers for a split second. “Six of us aren’t going to take down an eternal. Seven if you count Elach’s bird, and that’s still less than you had when your group disbanded. And I’m guessing that the other seven were just as strong as you were, and not people who can barely make one single thing with their Issi.”