When we set out from the hotel, dawn is still several hours away; everything is awash in moonlight.

Instead of heading directly to the Flower District, we first head to the beach. I fish up shells and small bones, weaving them into pieces of chain-like bone armor for the three of us. I also spend half an hour creating three soul gems from fish, affixing each to a set of armor.

Normally, when outside of my control, the armor sets would fall apart, bereft of Death energy to link the shell and bone shards together. Because the soul gems serve as a stand in for my own energy, the armor sets are persistent. Additionally, while I only have my experimentation with the vessel as a basis, I’m hopeful that powering the armor with soul gems will offer protection against necromancy.

I turn away while the women strip their black shirts and pants, don the armor, and slip back into their garments. It’s easier for myself: I construct the armor directly under my clothes.

Before we leave the beach, Aunt Julia proposes a contribution of her own. “I’m going to try and mask our vital signatures. The armor you made, while protective, is also conspicuous.”

“But it’s under our clothes,” Germaine says.

“Doesn’t matter,” Aunt Julia replies. “To any Life or Death practitioner, it’ll show up clear as day.”

I nod. “Unless there’s something like the obfuscation array on the vessel.” Unfortunately, I still have no idea how to emulate such an effect.

Aunt Julia crosses her arms. “It’s a bit tricky, but I should be able to mute the energy.”

“How?”

“You’ll have to keep close to me, since it’ll be an active effect.”

“That’s fine,” I reply, still waiting for an explanation.

“It’s easier just to show you.” She holds out her arms and a stream of vitality flows forth. I feel it wash over me just as I see motes of light green energy float around the three of us, reminiscent of the vital growth array back at the winery. It’s not nearly as strong, however; I glance at Germaine, who seems to be looking aimlessly around.

“Is there something happening?” she asks.

I consider making another soul gem to crush and send into Germaine’s eyes, but decide against it. First, seeing vitality takes some getting used to; but more importantly, it’s useful to have someone without it on the team. We’re dealing with an adversary who may plan to use our perception against us.

“Aunt Julia’s sending out Life energy. But unlike back at the winery, or when she gave you a jolt of energy to keep you awake, she’s concentrating it around the armor.”

“I think I understand what’s happening.”

“Really?”

“Clothing normally shows up as a certain color to your vitality perception, correct?”

“Indeed,” Aunt Julia affirms.

Germaine continues. “Adding in Life or Death energy would alter its coloration, leaving it conspicuous. However, by layering the two types of energy, it can become less noticeable...”

She’s mostly right. “If you look closely, it’s clear there’s something odd under our clothes. But from afar, it’d be difficult to tell.” I turn toward Aunt Julia. “This is excellent; let’s go.”

—

When we finally step foot in the Flower District, it’s nearly half-past four in the morning, and the sun is just barely starting to cast its glow over the earth. It’s expansive and open, with numerous large trees and thin walking paths that span from the central commercial boulevard to the edges. From above, the district looks like a green, bisected oval within the heart of the city.

Aunt Julia performs Beginning auguries, leading our small party about the district’s residential blocks. The few residential areas in the Flower District lay at the periphery, so we walk along the district’s circumference.

She prompts me intermittently about whether anything looks like it was from the vessel’s vision. Unfortunately, nothing rings a bell: the vessel hadn’t looked back when it shut the door and ventured out of the necromancer’s home. What it did see of the surrounding buildings didn’t stick out.

While I let Aunt Julia focus on finding the most likely location of the necromancer, I remain vigilant against any ambushes. However, after searching around for nearly an hour, we don’t encounter anything suspicious; hidden traps, necromancer mansions, or otherwise.

“Let’s try going below,” Germaine suggests.

“Why?” In the vessel’s vision, the necromancer’s abode was clearly on the upper level, its neighboring buildings covered in sunlight and bordered by trimmed grass. Moreover, I’d been able to see the sky, a damning indicator that the necromancer’s house was on the surface.

Germaine asks, “Do you think that the necromancer is expecting us?”

I open, then close my mouth, thinking.

“He likely figured we’d come for him at some point before the wedding,” Aunt Julia assesses.

Germaine nods. “That being the case, he’s possibly already taken precautions, like leaving his place of residence.”

I see where Germaine’s going with this, but her reasoning isn’t exactly adding up.

“Why would he have reason to suspect we know where he lives in the first place?” From the vessel’s perspective alone, anyone besides a Menocht native–or some unfortunate looper like myself–would be hard-pressed to recognize the residential outskirts of the Flower District.

Moreover, all the above assumes that the necromancer is aware that I experienced the vision in the first place.

Aunt Julia sighs. “There’s nothing to go off of on the surface, so I don’t think it’s a terrible idea to see the lower level. With the wedding ceremony starting in ten hours, we have time to spare.”

“Fine,” I relent. It’s true that we have more time than we anticipated: We’d allocated most of our morning to tracking the necromancer. Now, without any leads, things are a bit stalled.

“Let’s do it.” Germaine motions to the nearest lift, its entrance half-concealed by a line of shrubs. The entrances to the lower level are by no means hidden, though their dim interiors do look cold and uninviting.

As we head into the lift, a few dim lights illuminate our steps. We step onto the platform, and within a few seconds, it begins to move, sliding downward. Before we reach the lower level, I know something is off. I turn around, meeting Aunt Julia’s eyes.

“Do you see the plants?” I ask.

“I see the plants,” she confirms, lips curling into a frown. “The entire ground is carpeted in them.”

“I don’t see anything yet, but that’s par for the course,” Germaine mutters.

Finally, the lift comes to a stop. When we step out, we can all see the plants in the low light.

Instead of the park-like upper level, the lower level is a veritable warren of buildings. Thin streets crisscross shopfronts and lead off into seedier areas with less-than-legal businesses, such as drug dens where the ginger manufacturers worked. From my understanding, the lower level is largely left to its own business, so long as the debauchery and crime stay below.

The ceiling above us has numerous thin slits and grates where light streams down onto the lower level, but they fail to dispel the place’s dusty, dark aura, and few plants survive the oppressive environment. But now, the dusty corridors around the lift have transformed into a garden. Grasses and flowers appear wild and overgrown, as though they’d been growing in the corridor for a while. Their appearance is unquestionably preternatural. I wondered if we’d see more people still awake on the lower level, but there isn’t anyone nearby.

“Ian, do you know what this place normally looks like?” Germaine wonders.

“The last time I was here, the lower level had almost no plants at all.”

“Makes sense...but why are these plants wilting? Pretty sure they were fine a moment ago.” She points to a cluster of flowers to our right. Unlike before, where the entire area was an uninterrupted glow of vitality, there’s now a growing field of gray and black.

Observing the mysteriously-wilting flowers is all the stimulus I need to get us out of here.

I feel like I’m so close–I’m not leaving anything to chance.

“These ones are wilting now, too,” Aunt Julia murmurs, her eyes flashing green. From the opposite direction, I see more flowers lose their vitality.

Nope nope nope, time to leave!

This is when everything’s supposed to go downhill: At the end of the day, I’m in a stupid loop, with stupid rules and a stupid plot, and now we’ve probably stepped into a stupid trap.

As though activated by those very thoughts, the remaining plants wilt and wither, their green stalks turning brown and black. I drag my two companions over by their armor and brandish Aunt Julia’s soul gem, using it to create a tight-knit cage of energy around us.

“Aunt Julia, do you have any idea where the trap array might be?”

“No idea!” she shouts. “We should go up now.”

Keeping the women close to my side, I drag the three of us into the lift.

Of course, as soon as I enter the lift, the world goes ballistic: The field of death erupts into motion, withered plants twining together and elongating into thin, gnarled vines. They stab toward and latch onto the just-arrived platform. I can control them–meaning that my decemancy is (unsurprisingly) stronger than that of my opponent–but in the second it takes me to react, the platform has already been tilted off its side, some of its circuits lying exposed.

Though the lift platform is destroyed, so long as it isn’t blocking the exit to the surface, I’m more than capable of taking the three of us up. Before I leave, I enervate all nearby plants of their Death energy. Then, I direct our three sets of armor upward.

When we touch down on the upper level, we realize the extent to which events have progressed beyond our control. The plants here also appear to have wilted and begun lashing out. In fact, enormous, desiccated vines partly sourced from trees have already started a fire and toppled a shopfront.

Residents have begun to come outside, screaming and running away from the frenzied plants.

It’s a good thing the residential buildings are on the edges: people shouldn’t have too far to run.

After a brief moment of disbelief, Aunt Julia and I spring into action. Since we’ve apparently given up all pretenses of subtlety and the loop still hasn’t triggered a restart, I give myself permission to do whatever needs to be done to shut this insanity down.

While I keep the three of us moving as one unit, Aunt Julia is able to send vitality into the dead plants, disrupting the flow of energy and rupturing them from within. As for myself...

I begin to condense soul gems while we move, using Death energy harvested from the plants as a medium. The density and uniformity of the energy helps the process along, and I’m able to condense the first gem in just under a minute.

As I take control of the plants, I begin twining them together, forming misshaped, sinewy constructs from hundreds of vines. After I implant the first completed soul gem within the new construct, I move to create the next.

Plant constructs are frailer and less powerful than bone constructs, but are sufficient to cut through vines and defend escaping passersby from attacks. Less than two minutes into the battle, I’ve managed to make four such constructs. As I glance over at one of them defending a man from the aggressive swat of a tree-sized tendril, a team of six uniformed Menocht Bay practitioners arrives.

They don’t dawdle or ask questions, instead throwing themselves against the plants, cutting them down, incinerating them, and freezing them. They also don’t seem confused that a decemancer is ostensibly on their side, working to ameliorate the situation.

Aunt Julia's voice suddenly sounds out. “Where’s Germaine?”

She’s–

I stop moving our armor; Aunt Julia and I freeze in place a few feet off the ground.

I certainly expect that one of us would have noticed if she disappeared right from under our noses. I’d been controlling her armor; how could I not realize? I briefly consider whether Aunt Julia would have noticed, but realize that she stopped actively muting the energy of our armor after the chaos broke out.

I cover my eyes with a hand, a bitter chuckle escaping my chest. Even though this is a loop, and I can always try again...I’d like to think I’ve grown powerful enough to do things right the first time.

Seems like I’ve still a long way to go.

In the real world, there are no do-overs. In the real world, there’s one Germaine. And if this were the real world, I might have already lost her.

A voice calls out from the left.

A uniformed individual hails us from the ground, her voice difficult to hear over the sounds of battle. I lower us down; as our feet touch the ground, Aunt Julia gives me a reassuring look, motioning for me to stop attacking plants.

“They’re wrapping up, nephew,” she whispers. “Our job is done here.”

If we hadn’t lost Germaine, her words might give me a sense of relief.

As though reading my thoughts, she adds, “Remember, she’s not real. None of these people are real.”

“I know,” I snap.

“Then act like it.”

She then turns toward the uniformed individual, a smile plastered on her face. “Hello, officer. How can we assist you?”