"Can't help you with the Aspect thing, I'm afraid," Clyde said. He'd joined them at their breakfast table after serving up their breakfast — a surprisingly hearty and comforting meal, though Derivan couldn't taste it himself. From the sounds Vex was making, though, he assumed the food was good. It was some assortment of egg and fried meats; the oil was still crackling by the time it reached their table, no doubt assisted by the fire-aspect mana circling around the plates. "I know what mana aspects are, but I've never heard of them being alive. It's not the same thing as elementals. I can theorize, if you want, but you're better off finding someone with a Role more specialized in that kind of thing."

"Give us your best theory anyway," Sev suggested.

"Mana's alive," Clyde said immediately, making Derivan wonder if he'd just been waiting for someone to ask anyway; he seemed eager to share his ideas. Clyde caught his gaze and winked. "Maybe not in any traditional sense of the word, but it's certainly capable of feeling. Get that feeling extreme enough, and who knows, maybe something happens."

"That's kinda vague," Sev frowned, but Vex was nodding.

"If what the system is doing is hurting it," Vex said quietly. "Then I wouldn't be surprised."

With the way he'd slowed down and started poking at his food, Derivan suspected the lizardkin was remembering what his family had done to him. Even in the name of the greater good...

"The mana here hasn't had any reason to be nearly so angry," Clyde added. "I don't think you'll have to worry here. The young mage's instincts were right. If an Aspect can come to life, I suspect it would be similar to us: existing across all realities with mana, but different in each one."

"Well... thanks. That's a relief, at least," Sev said. "Is there anything we can do for you? I feel like we're imposing on you a lot."

"Nonsense," Clyde said dismissively. "I might be happy with my job, but do you know how boring it is to be an innkeeper without any guests? This is the most fun I've had in centuries."

"I forget how old all of this is," Sev muttered. "We only have, what, 200 years of history to go off of? But the world here ended 1400 years ago, and that was the most probable divergence point."

"I hadn't quite considered exactly how much of our history is missing," Vex said with a small frown. "If we knew what happened in those interim years—"

"—We might be able to understand what the system's been trying to do," Sev finished. "I wonder..."

He trailed off, but there was a look in his eyes that Derivan recognized; he'd hit upon an idea, and didn't want to share it just yet, in case it was a false lead. "Do you know anywhere we can train, Clyde?" he asked, changing the subject. "We don't want to accidentally destroy your inn or anything."

"Oh, you wouldn't," Clyde said cheerfully. "But if you're looking for an actual training grounds, there are plenty all around. If you try to head out of this town you'll find a lot of the adjacent sections of land are from different eras of our world. I'd say you're pretty lucky to have ended up here, of all places, but if this is a manufactured echo, then it's not really luck."

"We've been lucky in a lot of other ways," Sev muttered, almost to himself; there was a furrow in his brow, and a look of slight worry in his eyes. "And I know Onyx was planning something..."

"Onyx?" Clyde asked, curiously. Sev shook his head.

"It's nothing," he said. "Just a thought. I need a little more time to think about it. In the meantime, uh, do you know anyone else with Roles that might help us? Maybe a trainer, or someone well-versed in magic?"

"Our resident scientist and historian not good enough for you?" Clyde joked, and chuckled when he saw the look of consternation on Sev's face. "No, no, I'm kidding. Most of us serve pretty mundane Roles; if you want magic, you'll have to find another elemental town. Same thing with combat. But I'd caution against doing that. It's considerably more dangerous than this place."

"What do we call the town?" Vex asked, and Clyde laughed. The shadows of his form bubbled along with his laughter, casting a strange light on the wall.

None of them flinched. They'd seen stranger.

"Now that's a matter of contention," he said. "We've got a couple of names for it, but a lot of us just call it the Mundane. We play all the mundane Roles; hospitality, research, sanitation. Some of us want to give it a more creative name, but we're afraid it'll mess with the mana too much if we try to be anything more than a template."

"Is that why everything outside is so..." Sev gestured a bit. Clyde chuckled.

"Yeah, pretty much," he said. "We've got a lot more leeway inside. I don't think any of us really think of the Mundane as our own, because of that. There's a lot of emphasis on personalizing your homes." He leaned in close to whisper. "Belle decorates her place in skulls and bones. Scared the shadow out of me the first time I went over to her place, let me tell you."

"Really?" Misa leaned forward, sounding interested. She'd spent most of the conversation only half-listening, glancing through her system-screens; she'd long-since finished her food. The mention of bones seemed to call to her, though. "Sounds badass. I wanna see."

Clyde snorted. "You'll have to take it up with her. She's very protective of her bone collection," he said.

"Maybe later, then," Misa said, managing a ghost of a smile. "We need to head out and look for a good training ground. And look for a blacksmith. You happen to know of one, or know about anything nearby we need to watch out for?"

"There's not a blacksmith here, I'm afraid. You'd have to find one of the more combat-oriented templates." Clyde's gaze wandered down to Derivan's missing arm, though he didn't say anything about it. Derivan was surprised he hadn't remarked on it before then. Vex sagged a little bit at Clyde's words, and the shadow elemental's gaze turned sympathetic, but he said nothing further.

"As for the rest... don't wander too far, or you'll have a hard time finding your way back. Other than that, not that I know of, but most of us don't wander very far from here. So be careful."

"We will," Misa nodded. "You guys ready?"

Derivan and Sev stood from the table. Vex quickly shoveled the rest of his food into his mouth and nodded. "Mhm," he said, trying not to let any food fall from his mouth.

Misa chuckled and ruffled her fingers through the frills on his head, despite his protests.

Misa spoke to the others, and they chose not to wander too far for their first day. With no blacksmith to be found, Derivan would have to wait on getting a new arm commissioned; in the worst case, they could commission back in Elyra, though Vex and Sev and Misa all seemed loath to wait that long.

For now, though, they would explore in greater sweeping circles around Mundane over time, as the days passed. The time dilation was strong, almost a hundred times that of base reality, so they had time. The anchor's degradation being based on undilated time was helpful, too. It stretched the anchor's remaining two weeks out to several years.

Not that they were planning on waiting nearly that long, of course, especially since they suspected that Misa using her skills would push that degradation faster than the timer indicated.

As such — as much as she hated it — Misa's training was to take a back seat for now. Derivan and Vex had to push their skills first, to learn more about the system and about the nature of magic. Sev would meditate on his bond with Aurum. None of his skills allowed him direct contact with any of the gods, but his skills didn't cover whatever it was he had with Aurum.

It was an avenue to grow in, in any case.

"...so there has to be an aspect that represents the system," Vex was saying. "If I can just figure out how that aspect works, how to access it—"

"But this whole world is based on not having a system," Misa pointed out. "And we just discussed how Irvis probably isn't a threat here, because aspects are local to the particular echo we're in."

"Right." Vex deflated a bit. "We still have access to our systems, though. It's not like the system doesn't exist here entirely. It might just be harder."

"Perhaps it would be best to leave system-manipulation to me, for now," Derivan suggested gently. "It is something I must train regardless. If you work on glyph combinations, and I work on the system, we will be a difficult pair to beat."

Vex brightened a bit; mostly, it seemed, at the prospect of testing glyph combinations. "You have a point," he said. "And I can try to figure out how to access the glyphic records, too. You heard what Clyde said — mana is a record of things, right? That's got to be how they discover new glyphs. I bet that's how my Sign works, too, by accessing that record. Maybe if I try to turn my Sign on itself again, but this time while it's casting — or maybe if you cast something, and I try to target the spell in the process of being cast—"

Vex rambled, and Derivan smiled. Misa watched them both and let herself smile a small smile before she walked away to sit on a small rock that was relatively close. The idea was that if any of Vex and Derivan's experimentation generated something that could help repair the anchor nestled in her soul, she'd benefit from it.

In the meantime, someone had to communicate with the outside world. Even with a hundred-times dilation, there had been enough time for everyone to get her messages.

Sure enough, there were a number of responses waiting for her through the system.

[I love you, and I hope you're okay,] Charise had sent. [Don't worry about us — the village is fine. We just have to rebuild a bit. I won't say no one was hurt, but no one is dead, and that's what's important.]

Misa winced a bit at that. She wasn't sure her mother was even telling the truth about no one being dead, but she had to imagine Charise wouldn't lie about something like that. She still trusted her mother.

[As for the situation in Fendal,] the message continued, [It's going better than we hoped. Don't have enough time for all the details, but there's a whole rebellion against Helg, now. We might not need your help. I'll keep you updated. Stay safe, stay alive, and come back to us.]

A small pause, and then an additional message, left as an afterthought. [We'll have fish stew waiting.]

Misa managed a small smile, there; it pushed back some of the fog of emotion that had begun to accumulate in her head. She moved on to the next message from the Guildmaster.

[Velykos and the delve team you four helped have gone out to investigate the gods,] the Guildmaster had reported; Misa snorted at the absurd thought that the Guildmaster was reporting to her. It was nice to get updates, though. [The bandits you caught — Xothok and his team — are adjusting well. They seem to have uncovered something related to your most recent discovery, but I do not have the details. I suggest getting into direct contact with him at the earliest available opportunity.]

[The Guild is currently handling the aftermath of one idiot's experimentation with the system, but fortunately that's going relatively well. Thank you for handling it as promptly as you did. I see I was right to trust you. Please keep me updated as much as you are able, and otherwise, feel free to act as you believe is best. The Guild remains behind you. We will deal with Elyran... negotiations. It appears there is some turmoil within the kingdom at present.]

Misa winced a bit at that, but it wasn't surprising. She glanced over to Vex, who was happily chattering away at Derivan while the armor listened intently; he was drawing diagrams in the ground, and his tail was practically wagging.

...She wouldn't bring up what was happening in Elyra. Not yet.

There was no update from the rebels, but she wasn't surprised; they were likely busy. It was surprising that the Guildmaster had even found the time to respond as quickly as she had. She'd really only been expecting a response from her mother.

She fired off a quick message to Xothok, then sighed, and stared at her skill list.

She needed practice — they all did. She needed to understand more about the nature of the reality anchor, and what it meant to have one attached to her. She was beginning to understand that it was responsible for a lot more than just the survival of her village.

It was the reason the food in Fendal still fed them, even though it didn't fill the other residents of Teque. It was the reason they could remember the stars. It was the reason their system had operated mostly independently of Fendal, and they'd retained access even when Noram and others had lost their access.

The anchor she held protected all of them. If it broke, a lot more was at stake than just her village. They couldn't save the world if no one could remember that the world needed saving.

That, more than anything, made her feel a pressure she hadn't felt before.