As a group, we decide to delay as long as possible before engaging the centipede, preparing as best we can. The ascendant mentors may not be able to help us directly, but after a bit of persuading, Jeseria agrees to keep a watch on the surroundings with tripwires of air. If another group of ascendant proteges approaches, we’ll engage the centipede and end the fight decisively–or die trying.

I know that Karanos wants me to talk to Krath Mandur about the dagger artifact I received from the lost quadrant, but I can’t help myself: I need to know how to see souls within living creatures. At first Krath looks at me with a dubious expression and inquires as to why seeing souls will help defeat the centipede.

“Together, Maria and I incapacitated Karanos using a combination of End affinity and necromancy,” I explain. “The soul was a critical avenue of attack.”

“Can I have context?” he asks after a moment, eyes thoughtful. He reaches behind his head and tightens the blue strip of cloth tying his black hair away from his face.

I explain to him what Maria and I did back on the lightless plane, though leave out the bit about forcing Karanos to make a return beacon.

Krath blinks. “The fish was able to share Maria’s fate sight with you?”

I nod.

He hums softly. “What did you think of it? End affinity?”

“It’s more similar to Death affinity than I anticipated,” I confess. “I never really understood why it was called End affinity, instead of fate affinity or something more descriptive. But End affinity also deals with matters of the soul: contracts and oaths, bindings that can only be broken with an End avatar. Or as I was taught to call it, the ethereal body.”

“To put it another way, Death is the final end, the ultimate fate that awaits all things,” Krath remarks. He sighs. “There is no exact way to see the souls within living creatures,” he explains. “You can see disembodied souls, right?”

“Yes.”

“It’s really more the domain of Life practitioners to see the imprints of souls within the living–our seeds of chaos. We see the souls of the dead, and with effort can extract souls from the living. Life practitioners cannot see disembodied souls like we can. They can’t create necromantic constructs. But that’s because Life is different from Death, no matter how similar they may seem on the surface when taken to their ends, when master practitioners can both heal and shape flesh.”

“I’ve never heard anything about Life practitioners seeing souls,” I murmur.

“That’s because only the most powerful among them can do so. Even then, what use is seeing souls when you’ve trained all your life as a healer, as most Life practitioners do? When necromancy is largely stamped out throughout the cosmos for its dangers?”

“End practitioners affect the ethereal body,” I muse. “Death affects the soul itself, plying it for new purposes. But Life...” It must be something different. Something specific to embodied souls integrated into bodies.

Krath Mandur looks at me expectantly, his eyes dark and shining in the nethereal violet glow coiled around us.

My mind envisions the weave of fate, the grand tapestry of arrows I call to mind to protect myself from Remorse practitioners. Embodied, a circle twisting inward to singularity. Disembodied, an arrow of unwound soul essence, stripped of memory and form.

And the poem–The Samsara Crucible–once again comes to mind. I can’t remember the exact phrasing–my memory isn’t as keen on details as Maria’s–but perhaps that’s for the best. The poem as we know it is only a translation, passed down through countless years. But the meaning is timeless, and it’s the meaning and images that I glean from it that are important.

And with change, comprehension...trace heaven and earth from beginning to end, to understand the foundation of life and death...

A singularity of space and time, abyss piercing abyss, accelerating...but also, balanced by creation and destruction, beginnings and ends, life and death...effortless, non-deliberate...

And in the end, from nothing arises everything that ever was and ever will be.

At this moment, revelation clicks into place.

The seed of chaos blooms. And one day, everything will return to nothing, chaos expended, order returning in infinite, cold silence.

The disembodied soul is the end–the return to tabula rasa, the start of a new beginning. The beginnings and ends are non-deliberate, random, but the space in between–when the soul is embodied and collects experiences, acting on the world–that’s the essence of purpose. Non-deterministic, giving meaning to everything.

If I can imbue purpose into the silent and purposeless souls that drift through the cosmos, then Life practitioners like Ash...perhaps they can take that purpose and harness it for their own ends.

My mind spins. Life and Death are complimentary, but so are Beginning and End. End deals with fate, the ethereal body, the purposes that tie us. Beginning analyzes the world, understanding and seeing everything, like a perfect historian, remembering the purposes that ebb and flow in the cycle of life and death. Making sense of the chaos that End sees but cannot understand.

My head pounds. I feel like...I’m touching on something important. But I don’t even fully understand my own thoughts.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking unless you voice your musings out loud,” Krath states, crossing his arms. “You’re mostly self taught, right?”

“For the most part.”

“Then you’re used to thinking through things on your own, figuring everything out. It’s good to be like that–seeking your own truth rather than stealing a truth from someone else. But discussing your thoughts with others can be immensely valuable.”

I nod. “I know, I’ve learned a lot from being with Karanos. But discussing with others still doesn’t come naturally to me.”

“So tell me now what you were thinking,” Krath says.

I exhale slowly. “If we imbue meaning into disembodied souls to create constructs, I postulate that Life practitioners can take meaning away–or influence it.” I look for signs of a reaction as I speak, but his composure is perfect, revealing none of his thoughts.

Finally, he inclines his head. “To see an embodied soul is to see purpose itself, but that purpose is chaotic.”

“You made it sound like you could see Maria’s soul earlier,” I point out.

He denies it with a shake of his head. “Maria is different because she isn’t really alive. I could see her soul because she’s a construct; Ash could see her soul because it’s embodied.”

“I can’t see the souls in my constructs. Just when they’re external.”

“Soul sight differs between individuals, it’s true,” he murmurs. “So when you deal with Maria’s soul, you rely on other senses?”

“Mostly my ethereal body,” I reply. “That’s how I interact with all souls.”

“That’s as valid a way of doing it as any. After all of this thinking, let’s return to your original question–you wanted me to teach you how to see embodied souls. Is it possible?”

He poses the question like a teacher, testing what I’ve learned. “Not unless I have a Life affinity,” I say. But I get the sense that my answer is incomplete. “Or I have an artifact made by a Life practitioner. Or I see fate by sharing the sight of an End practitioner.”

“Good. You could theoretically try whatever strategy you used against Karanos on this centipede, but you have no method of seeing Maria’s perspective–we have no Remorse practitioner among our number. So we must consider a different strategy.”

Now is as good a time as ever to bring out the ornate dagger. I slide it from my storage and present it. “I found this dagger by chance in the lost quadrant,” I explain. “As an artifact expert, I was hoping you might be able to help me leverage its capabilities to the fullest.”

Krath’s eyes narrow with interest. “Demonstrate it for me.”

I charge ascendant energy into the blade, then stare dumbly at my surroundings. What should I try cutting when nothingness is around me? I suppose I could just cut my own body, since it’ll revert back after a few moments. I prick my off hand with the tip of the blade and my skin turns the color of night, red-tinged ridges covering the joints of my fingers like armor, my fingernails lengthening into talon-like points. It’s unlike any hand I’ve ever seen.

The cut was small, the ascendant energy expelled minimal, so the change reverts after a few seconds.

Krath’s expression is stony. He glides forward through the gravity-less space and carefully plucks the dagger from my hand, rolling its hilt in his hands, inspecting the filigreed metal.

“You said that you found this by chance?”

“There was a certain plane that Karanos brought us to,” I explain. “One that gives out rewards. Karanos said that the rewards usually aren’t very good. I confess that I didn’t even realize that this might be the prize until the end.”

“And what did Karanos say about it?”

“He said that it was an unexpectedly good find, but that he didn’t fully understand its purpose. That’s part of the reason why he brought us to the pageant–to get answers.”

Krath takes a circular rock from a void storage, then scrapes the dagger against it. The rock catches fire, gray, heatless flames flickering all over its surface. Where I had to wait for the energy to run out, Krath manages to siphon it back into himself, instantly killing the transformation.

Krath Mandur is silent for a moment as he inspects the blade again.

I point to the dagger’s mirror-like surface. “If you put energy in it, you can see potential transformations reflected in the blade.”

Krath chuckles roughly at that revelation. The blade shines red with his energy, and he angles it so that he can see his own reflection. Finally he shakes his head. “If I’m right, this blade is extraordinary. It’s not the most useful tool, since its effects are unpredictable, but from two examples alone, I can glean how versatile it is. I can’t even guess at what affinities went into making this. Life and Light, almost for certain, but it could be many others as well.” He has a hungry look in his eyes as he peers over at Farona Pyre, who is instructing Maria less than fifty feet away.

“Do you think that this artifact would be able to help me defeat other ascendants in combat?” I ask. Like Ketu...or Achemiss. “From what I’ve seen, it feels more like a clever parlor trick than an ace up my sleeve.”

“Well, we have the perfect situation to try it out,” Krath says. “Can you imagine what this blade would do to that centipede?”

I blanche. “I don’t think I have enough ascendant energy to channel the blade for such a wide area.”

Krath snorts. “Farona!”

Maria shoots me an amused expression as her ascendant mentor turns her head, obviously peeved by the interruption. “Damn you Krath Mandur, I am busy! Can’t you help your own mentee?”

“You don’t want to miss this,” he says, holding up the dagger in a reverse grip.

“It’s just a stinkin’ dagger!” she crows, hands placed defiantly on her hips.

Suddenly Krath stabs the dagger into his own chest, pumping energy into the blade. His hair and skin turns pure white, like he’s made of radiance. When he smiles, his teeth are sharp, like those of a shark, and a black, forked tongue slips over them.

His entire vital signature changes. It’s like he isn’t even alive–like he’s some kind of elemental golem. As Farona’s eyebrows rise up her forehead, Krath siphons the energy back into himself, divesting the blade of its power. In an instant, the transformation is reversed, returning Krath to his normal appearance.

In an instant, Farona Pyre is at our side, Maria utterly forgotten. Pressing her lips together, Maria floats over to my side while our mentors pore over the dagger.

It’s like we’re not even here, I transmit, crossing my arms.

This is what you’re like, you know, Maria replies.

What?

You’re similarly engrossed whenever you get a new toy to play with. Let them have their fun; their interest is only good. The dagger seems like it might be more useful than we assumed.

I’m still not convinced. Yes, turning Krath into a glowing white thing is cool, but how would that help us defeat Achemiss or upend the Infinity Loop? But before all of that, how can we use it to destroy the centipede?

Regardless of what the dagger can do, you’ve got me, Maria says, nudging my arm. There’s a limit to how much I can learn in a few hours, but I’ve been soaking up as much as I can from Ascendant Pyre. She’s had a long time to work out techniques leveraging both her End and Sun affinities, techniques I can put to use.

Can’t wait to see it.