Tala stared into the void.

Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate.

Unlike previous times where she had combined items with herself, or that which was soul-bound to her, the void was black in that there was no light, or input of any kind.

As she examined the absence of things more closely, Tala realized that she was the void and was surrounded by the void and nothing else.

This is awful.

She could feel what had led her to this moment. She had been filled with an insatiable hunger to consume everything, even heat, until she was one with all that was left.

And all that was left?

Nothing.

Nothing was left.

Hard pass.

The manifestation shifted, and Tala looked down upon herself, standing as an unchallengeable goddess of war.

If Pallaun’s skin was the color of obsidian, Tala’s was now the color of the void. No matter how she moved, she looked two dimensional, as light simply could not escape once it touched her.

She stood between two armies, one of humans and one of arcanes, and they both were coming for her.

This manifestation smiled, though it didn’t show. Tala still felt the unbridled glee of this version of herself.

Magics and effects bombarded her, but they only caused her to grow in power as she absorbed them all. Her own gate provided stability, power to maintain a solid foothold in the physical realm without degrading it overmuch.

These attacks? They let her grow.

Well, I suppose I could see this as a way to get the arcanes and humans to unite?

-Against you.-

I look like I’m winning.

Alat snorted derisively.

Hey, wait. I don’t remember you being in this with me, before.

-You didn’t have me at your last merging. Though, I’m a bit surprised to be able to actively witness this. I expected to have to review your memories after you were done.-

This is simpler, I suppose.

As the armies died to the blacker-than-black blade in void-Tala’s hand—

-Vala!-

No. Just no.

—this possible version of her swelled in power. The growth was more akin to the advancement of arcanes than that of humans, but there was definitely a…difference. She wasn’t an arcane in this version, and her advancement wasn’t identical to theirs.

A hybrid path? Is that possible?

-Let’s see what we can learn.-

Tala had already decided to reject this option, but she, like Alat, thought there was something to it, something they could pull from the manifestations of possibilities.

After the two armies were utterly decimated, Tala realized that she had to solidify her rejection of this path, or it would be chosen merely by her overt attention.

No.

A parade of thousands of manifestations followed, each featuring her suffused with the void, working towards the obliteration or absorption of all things.

Well, this isn’t good.

-It almost feels like something is skewing the possibilities offered to you.-

There is a chance of that, I suppose.

She hardened her will and pushed.

I will not contribute to a hastening of the end of all things.

Instantly, the vast majority of manifestations that she felt building around her awareness flickered and winked out.

Tala thought she saw a pair of eyes watching her for the briefest of moments once again.

The sword? It was trying to gain greater influence? That might be right, but she wasn’t sure.

The next possibilities offered were much more palatable, though none were acceptable.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Tala found a version of herself in which almost all the power was contained within Flow and the portion of her soul which was directly linked to that weapon.

The smallest hints would also be tied to her elk-leathers, giving them a bit of absorptive and nullification properties, and she had the deep knowledge that if and when she used those powers, her physical body would be affected…somehow.

It was the best option available. So, this was her only real choice, unless she wanted to abort the whole thing.

Doing so would likely banish the void sword due to its nature, at least that’s what Cerdai theorized before they began.

It was now or never.

Maybe never would be better?

It was her choice, after all.

No. This offers a great deal of power, and I’d be foolish to neglect that. She had no wish to be foolish or weak.

She flexed her will once more, searching one last time for a superior option, but there were none. She could practically feel the void sword opposing her. It wouldn’t accept a bond where it gained less than this.

Very well. Agreed.

* * *

Her vision splintered back into normal sight, and she found herself sitting cross-legged on the dirt of the space they’d chosen for the working

All traces of the spell-forms were gone, and Thron stood over her, hand outstretched. “Eskau Tali, are you alright?”

“Tali.”

The dwarf grinned. “Tali, how do you feel?”

Tala swayed, the incredibly familiar feeling of soul-deep tiredness washing through her. It was no more than a minor inconvenience, like having just completed an intensive workout. That didn’t make it any more pleasant, however.

As she shifted, moving to take the offered hand, she grabbed Flow with her other one.

Once she was on her feet, she examined the weapon.

The darker parts were now closer to black, but otherwise, it hadn’t visibly changed.

Her elk-leathers honestly felt more changed than her weapon, and those garments simply felt like they had an ever-so-slight distortion effect on the light and world around her.

The main, obvious result was a soft breeze, seeming to be blowing toward her from all directions.

She flexed her connection to the garments and stopped that as soon as she noticed it. Please don’t drain away all the air from in here. That would be really irritating.

Cerdai was standing off to one side, his magics clearly examining her as unobtrusively as he was willing to bear.

“Artificer Cerdai, please perform your examination.”

Without verbal response, power washed over her in overlapping, cascading waves.

Tala practically staggered under the sheer magical pressure but managed to maintain her equilibrium.

“I’m not sensing any of the void magics in the weapon at all.” The artificer was frowning. “I am sensing it in your clothing, however. Did something go wrong?”

“Not at all. I simply made the best choice that I could.”

“Fascinating. So, it is not an unlimitedly controllable process?”

“No, I have to choose between a finite selection.”

“So, the sword was unable to join with your weapon?”

“Oh, no, that wasn’t the result at all.” She grinned, holding Flow out. She dove into the connection with the weapon, now feeling six paths of power, rather than just three. “Observe.”

With excitement, she poured power into the simplest new path. Hah, I’m feeding my weapon with a void-channel, making a void weapon.

She hesitated at that. Huh…I might be more bent towards this type of magic than I realized.

-So it seems.-

The knife in her hand transformed, absorbing her power at nearly ten times the rate Flow passively required in its resting form.

The transformation was simple enough, the knife simply darkening until it resembled the void sword from before. It was so dark as to appear two dimensional.

As the power fully snapped into place, something about her vision, even her mage-sight, changed.

It was as if, suddenly, she could see the energy within everything around her. Everything physical had a certain flavor of power and energy within it, which seemed to be the bonds that held it together, kept it solid. There were also other energies which seemed quite a bit more esoteric and outside of Tala’s ability to easily understand.

Cerdai and Thron were both brimming with magical energy to her new vision, though their auras and control had obscured it before. When she looked down at herself, she saw the same was true of her, along with her gear.

Now that her vision had shifted, she was able to see Flow as more than a two-dimensional shape once again. It looked like a normal knife, but it felt hungry. Where everything else she could see had a modicum of power and energy, Flow didn’t, and it seemed to dislike that.

In truth, that was too great an anthropomorphizing of the weapon, but it was also the best way for her to conceptualize the sense she got from that which was around her.

She took all this in almost instantly, just as the dwarf and hue-folk male did.

Thron stepped back, looking not at the knife, but at her face. Cerdai didn’t react visibly, though Tala did see the energies flowing within him pick up speed just before he began sweeping her with magics.

Those magics were sucked into Flow whenever they came close to the weapon.

Rather than asking Thron what he was staring at, Tala moved one of her bloodstars to where her mirrored perspective could see her own face.

Her eyes widened in shock as she took in her own visage.

Instead of eyes, all that she could see were void-like holes, and surrounding those ravenous pits, cracks seemed to be radiating outward through her face.

No, that’s not quite right.

The cracks weren’t actually in her flesh and bone at all.

They weren’t growing; they simply were. It was as if reality itself were breaking down under the force of her gaze.

Oh, that’s going to be terrifying in conjunction with the manifestations generated while wearing the iron paint.

-You will look positively inhuman.-

Tala didn’t dignify that with a response.

Thron seemed to regain control of himself a moment later, and he straightened. “That’s deeply unsettling, Tali.”

She pitched her voice slightly higher than usual, speaking in a monotone as she tilted her head just slightly to one side, even as she widened her eyes a bit more, and let a slight smile pull at her lips, “I can see your soul.”

His eyes contracted fractionally in an instinctive reaction, before his features set into a frown. “That’s not funny.”

Tala sighed, letting her face and posture return to normal.

She cut off the rush of power streaming into Flow. Without the constant influx of power, the knife returned to its resting state, and her eyes returned to normal…well, normal for her.

They still looked a bit too red to be non-magical, almost seeming to be glowing.

“Better.” The dwarf looked towards the artificer. “Anything interesting?”

“Undoubtedly, but all I did was verify that the merging seems to be stable. I can delve deeper, but it seemed a violation without the Eskau’s explicit consent. I would be examining pieces of her soul, after all.”

Tala hesitated, wanting a bit more information before making a decision. “What sort of things could you learn?”

“The state of your soul overall, the flavor of the concepts surrounding your magic, that sort of thing.”

“I can’t use conceptual magic.”

“Of course not.” The artificer’s smile seemed genuinely puzzled. “But your magic still contains concepts. Conceptual magic is the manipulation of concepts. But, just like a crossbow can impart kinetic energy without manipulating that energy directly, human magics contain, and can impart, concepts without directly interacting with this same.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

Cerdai hesitated for a moment, then cleared his throat. “So…?”

“Oh! Yes. My apologies. Please do a more detailed scan.”

The magics washed over her without hesitation, and she once again had to fight to maintain her balance before the torrent.

She was successful, however, and held her ground without wavering.

“Fascinating. Your soul, aside from the expected bifurcation, is… stretched? Distorted? The half anchored in the next world is solid and coherent, but the half on this side? It has tendrils reaching out in all sorts of directions. Some don’t even appear to be attached to anything…” He seemed to consider. “No… wait. Can you extend your aura outward?”

Tala nodded and did so.

“Amazing. Somehow, your soul is trying to connect with your aura, directly. It isn’t, not yet, but it is trying.”

That was odd. Tala didn’t think she’d been doing anything that should have caused that.

-Except that you think of manipulating your aura in the same way you imagine manipulating your bloodstars and soul-bound items.-

Could that affect things this strongly?

-We could ask.-

So, Tala conveyed her thoughts to Cerdai.

“That might be behind that part of what I’m seeing, yes. The human soul, especially a gated-human soul, is much more…malleable than most. That said, I don’t know for certain.”

Tala considered.

“Oh, and the concept most strongly associated with your magics is ravenous, jealous desire.”

She blinked at that. “What?”

“Your healing magics return what’s yours to you, mainly your health and your body as you have forged it. Your internal enhancements effectively take what you have and amplify it toward your desires. Your gravity magics are all about amplifying the pull of one object towards another or reducing it. You could describe that as one object’s desire for the other, if you were inclined to anthropomorphize. And so on.”

He paused for a moment, nodding to himself.

“Oh! And your entire being is speckled with…impurities? That’s likely the best word for it. These are at a magical level, embedded in the dimensions of magic. From the looks of it, your body is straining to realize its full potential, but can’t, not quite, due to that muck in the way.”

He sees the issue. He detected what we need to remove to Refine me. She almost asked him how to remove it, but then, she stopped. No, I don’t want him to tell me. If he does, and he’s right, then there’s no reason to go to the human lands, and I’m going to be stuck here, forever.

Before she could debate further with herself, let alone say anything, Thron spoke up, “Impurities…is that what humans do to Refine? Remove those impurities?”

Cerdai gave Thron an unamused look. “I’ve no idea. From what I can see, the stuff is intrinsically embedded within her body’s fusion with her soul. That alone is insane on a level I cannot express, but it isn’t any different from her soul’s fusion with her other bound equipment.”

What? I would have thought the link between my body and soul would be stronger, a fusion versus a bond.

-I think Fusing strengthens all your soul-bonds. At least that was my understanding.-

She might have asked, but Cerdai continued speaking, “If I were asked how to remove it, which I’ll note that I wasn’t, I would say doing so would kill her, categorically.”

Well, that’s useless.

Tala felt irritated that he hadn’t been able to provide a means of Refining, but at the same time, she was obviously relieved that her best hope for escape still lay in the need to seek a means of Refining for her advancement.

Thron grunted, then gave Tala a consoling smile. “That would have been too easy, eh?”

She forced a smile and nodded. “Yeah. No shortcuts, it seems.”

Cerdai clasped his hands. “My work is done, but I would love the opportunity to study you and your equipment further, if you are willing.”

Tala hesitated, then shook her head. “Not in the near future, I’m afraid. There is too much needed of me to pursue such at this time.”

The artificer sighed in resignation as he bowed. “I understand and expected as much. Thank you for allowing me to examine you as much as I have. Please call for me if you ever have need, once again.”

She nodded respectfully in return. “Absolutely. Thank you for your assistance.”

She waved her hand, and the exit appeared directly beside the man.

His eyes widened slightly, but he didn’t comment as he bowed towards Thron and departed.

The door vanished as soon as it closed.

Tala turned to the dwarf. “The ending grove?”

“As you command.” He gave her a small smile.

“Lead the way. Don’t worry about positioning, I can see past you just fine.”

He blinked at her a few times, then snorted a laugh before turning and setting off.

It was a short walk to a nearby hill. From the top of that hill, Tala could look down on the grove.

It was a thing of beauty.

A ring of stone completely surrounded the large grove, some fifty trees in all, each seemingly fully grown.

The stone enacted a single effect, which Thron described.

“What you see is just the top edge of a complete half-sphere. The magics in the stone are powered by your sanctum and they create an utterly empty space between the stone and the soil in which the trees are planted. It is a force-effect, generated by magic, but not magical in and of itself. Nothing can cross the space, be it dust, liquid, or root. The effect further extends in the upper half of the sphere, creating a segregation of the air around the trees from that within the rest of the sanctum.”

“A bubble of isolation.”

“Indeed.”

“Further, the magics condition the air and soil to be ideal for fruiting, while not for growth of the trees, themselves. I am not an arborist, but my understanding is that that particular portion of magic is quite difficult to get precisely correct.”

“Is that why I already see berries?”

“Indeed.”

“How am I to harvest them?”

Tala saw no means of entering the ending-tree grove.

Thron cleared his throat. “Well, I believe the assumption was that you would find a way.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Oh? That’s utterly unhelpful.”

“See if you can simply… ask your sanctum?”

She shook her head, feeling quite skeptical, but decided to try it out nonetheless. She held out her hand and focused on one of the berries she could easily see.

I would love to have that berry—

A small weight settled into the palm of her hand, and the stem on the tree she was watching sprang up slightly, now relieved of the weight.

Thron grinned but didn’t comment on how correct he had been.

Tala matched his grin, excitement overflowing across her features as she giggled with glee. “Oh…oh, yes. This is going to work amazingly well.”