The darkness was everywhere around Tercius' thoughts, but out there in the distance, a tiny pinprick of a blue light sparked to life.

"What… is this?" an arc of lightning flashed into the darkness, passing near Tercius' form— sounds of chirping birds, a thousand short and discrete sounds of buzzing electricity making a single whole in a near-perfect imitation of human words.

Tercius’ thoughts whirled in place, a strange calmness rearing back his rising panic. As quickly as he could, all of his thoughts gathered in one place and merged with the darkness. This was {Distant Mind}, but he was not the one willfully using it. That never happened before… How… strange.

The language that the birds chirped in sounded completely alien, and yet he somehow understood it. In snippets, images came to him. The invocation, the thunderstrike and the vibrations of it, the tiny neon-blue bird—

There was confusion swirling about the bird’s mental form, then curiosity, and then anger. An explosion of pure anger and rage.

“Zerakronoz demands to know what manner of trickery this is!” the tiny blue dot chirped louder, two tiny arcs of lightning forming and angrily flapping like wings. “Where is the mind of the human creature?!”

With each moment that passed, some of that anger slipped away. {Distant Mind} allowed no emotion to warm up and pollute the cold and calculating realm of darkness— after the initial spike, all of it was always drained away by the all-present void.

“Zerakronoz can feel you hiding, lurker! Answer Zerakronoz! Why do you interfere?!” the bird asked. “That human creature is not yours!”

Tercius kept his thoughts well away, safely self-contained and hidden in the darkness.

The bird raged, lightning striking everywhere. With each flash of brightness, more blue and white lightning formed. Some of it fell on Tercius’ compacted form of darkness and left not a trace of pain.

“What is this?!” the tiny being that grew to look more and more like a bird demanded with anger, but Tercius felt the forming fear beneath. “Where is Zerakronoz?! Answer me, creature!”

Tercius continued with his policy of keeping to himself completely. Not a single thought formed towards the bird.

“Why bar Zerakronoz’s quest, formless one? Who sent you?” the bird chirped again, with far less anger and far more fear. But neither anger nor fear had a place here. All were eventually destined to dim to a neutral placidity. As even fear left it, the bird moved around with a rising confusion radiating in every blue and white jolt that touched Tercius’ dark form. The vibrant blue and white feathers, so dynamic previously, settled.

“Where… where is the human creature? Why are you… here?” the bird chirped in subdued and slow thoughts. “What is… happening? What is… wrong with Zerakronoz?”

In an explosion of blue lightning and white thunder, the small bird rapidly enlarged to a towering eagle. The blue and white feathers themselves never quite settled in from, but rather zigzagged around.

As the being grew in size, Tercius almost scoffed to himself. The bigger your form here, the more you have on your mind. The more you have on your mind, the less focused you can be. Go far enough without properly managing your thoughts and it was like walking up a mountain with a bag that kept increasing in weight.

Eventually, the bird would collapse under the weight of its own thoughts. When he just got {Distant Mind}, he had no idea of this danger, but thankfully back in those days, he had a disadvantage that acted as a natural limit. When his magia completely ran out, the Skill was stopped. Nothing like that would happen now. It was years since the running magia cost of {Distant Mind} had fallen under his base magia regeneration rate.

While the increasingly confused blue and white eagle settled to brood on one side of Tercius, his tendril-like thoughts went to weave themselves away from it.

What was happening here exactly? He needed some answers, and he needed them now.

This being seemed to be here specifically for him.

One tendril of darkness wanted to see how others handled being here, in the mental darkness of his Skill. Just because the being was not a human, didn’t mean that he could collect some data from it…

Another tendril branched far into the darkness to think about using {Distant Mind} on others. How could he have been so blind? This Skill could be used for more than just taking away the pain— properly timed and prepared, the Skill could be both offensive and defensive. Could he trap someone in here with him? It had taken him months to learn to handle himself here… After a surge of excitement that he quickly put down, a small fear rose with a question.

What if the other person or being was capable of subverting him inside of here? Utmost care was needed while exploring this new line of thoughts…

Leaving contemplations of these appealing lines of thoughts for later, he made those thoughts deflate towards him and he placed his entire focus on the present situation. He was on a time limit. For one, he couldn’t be here forever. His body had needs that needed to be met, to mention nothing of Lucky. The ram needed a new batch of food asap.

So… how to approach this exactly?

The bird was growing on and on and on.

Soon enough, a single tendril of darkness went from Tercius to the bird, making only a quick little tap on the edge of a tail-feather of the bird’s massive lightning form. “Zerakronoz,”

In that single moment of mental interaction, Tercius got a stream of information. In the thought, the being was complaining about how strange humans and animals and plants were. Some of them claimed their difference from each other, when in fact they were so much alike that few spirits ever learned to see them apart.

As if waiting for a prod from him, excitement burst out of the bird in visible arcs of electricity and the being grew even larger.

Lightning was surging all over and as some of it landed on Tercius’ form, he heard the thoughts of the being. “Yes! She whispered to Zerakronoz! Go and find it, She said, and bring it for Zerakronoz’s humans. Zerakronoz obeyed immediately! Zerakronoz searched, but all of those creatures are so alike! How is Zerakronoz to tell one from the other, without first meeting them?—”

As the spirit rattled on with the complaints, opposite to the bird, a tiny thread of thoughts formed. In one of those threads was one of Rona's stories, where a spirit of Divine Land had attached himself to a man. The man's strength rose considerably and he became nearly invulnerable to any weapon. At first, it all went very well, but before long the man started hearing things, and then soon enough he ripped his ears off, claiming that the movement of the lands below his feet was constant and deafening. At the end of the story, the man finally found the silence he sought.

He had to die to get it.

He quickly severed the useless thought away.

"—how would Zerakronoz find the creature? A storm was needed, obviously. Zerakronoz knows about those creatures and their fear of Zerakronoz's storms. If Zerakronoz's storm is powerful and long enough, those creatures always send tribute to appease Zerakronoz, as they should!" the bird chirped, a large infusion of accomplishment swelling the bird to look like a puffed-up frog. "And Zerakronoz is good at storms! NO! Much better than good! Zerakronoz is GREAT at storms! The creatures always tell Zerakronoz that Zerakronoz is GREAT! Zerakronoz can block the skies forever if Zerakronoz wants to! Zerakronoz is smart AND powerful, isn't that right?! That's why She whispered of the creature to Zerakronoz and not those idiots! They wouldn't find the human creature like Zerakronoz did!—"

As the sense of accomplishment was slowly drained away, the spirit simply cheerlessly droned on, its thoughts springing forth like an unclogged geyser. Occasionally, an emotion would spring here and there and stir the bird’s thoughts in another direction. Tercius had been there and done that. {Distant Mind} was so conducive and enabling that it took quite a bit of discipline to rein yourself in from heading down a path. Random thoughts were one of the dangers as well, as they often led him on tangents. The bursts of emotion were by far the largest danger as well as a great booster if used properly since they actually had an impact on the direction of the thoughts.

“—five times the sun went up and then down above my storm. Yes, five! Those human creatures are sometimes so surprised that Zerakronoz knows to count! So silly of them, really. Of course Zerakronoz knows! Zerakronoz learns better than any of you creatures! Zerakronoz just needs more time, that’s all! It was Vera that taught Zerakronoz to count. Vera died, you know. It’s something those human creatures do often. But Vera is with Her now, so—”

Zerakronoz first and now Vera, both names taken straight from Rona's story. In the story, Zerakronoz turned out to be one of the oldest spirits, one of those who were sent directly by the Divine Sky herself during the Age of Divine Arrival. As the spirit prattled on about how it learned to count, seemingly completely ignoring his rampant thoughts, Tercius remembered that the name that Vera gave to the spirit was supposed to mean something like "the lively one"... Perhaps she should have gone for "the chatty one"...

Tercius quickly extinguished that line of thought— he had more pressing issues now.

He had to be rid of this spirit, as soon as possible— within a few days at the latest.

Think, Tercius, think.

After what could have easily been hours of just thinking and half-listening, all the while filing away interesting tidbits for later consideration, Tercius had distilled as much information as he could from the spirit’s more important thoughts. But before any more assumptions were made, he had to find some answers. If he played his cards right then he could get something directly from the source. Even better was that this bird-spirit came with an overinflated sense of self-importance.

“— and in retaliation for their insolence, Zerakronoz made the biggest storm—”

One dark tendril tapped the bird again. “Zerakronoz,”

“Zerakronoz, Zerakronoz, Zerakronoz… what…” The bird’s unfocused thoughts stopped in track, the moving feathers of lightning stilling across its form. A part of the bird fell off like a discarded body part, but Tercius’ was quick to get it all—

By the spirit’s own thoughts, spirits as a species were not able to tell a human apart from a plant. To them, every living being was as similar as two peas in a pod. But that didn’t mean that they were incapable of learning the difference. Once they came into contact with a being in what the spirit called “the first meeting”, that being was perfectly remembered as unique to them forever.

With an amount of restored focus and with some rising caution, one arc of thunder reached over to Tercius. “You are not She, creature.”

“I am not.”

“Where is She? No… Where is the human creature? What have you done to it?” The bird’s lightning sent back the response with a tiny spike of emotions, all of which were rapidly dulled back.

“The human creature you seek is under my protection.”

“Your protection—” For a moment the bird bristled, but as all the emotions flowed away, the bird finally noticed and a spike of guard rose. “What are you… doing to me?”

“I am not doing anything,”

“Yes, you are!” the eagle quivered. “You are… Zerakronoz can feel it! Stop! Stop right now! Zerakronoz demands it!”

“I am not doing anything,”

The bird flew into a rage, a surging storm of blue thunder and white lightning shining brightly around its mental form. But the darkness was vast and the light was not even a fraction of a pinprick. The eagle flapped its wings and rushed to move towards him, but Tercius just matched its speed of movement and moved backward, keeping his distance.

The eagle’s increasingly bigger form followed Tercius endlessly, with a singular focus that Tercius feared a little. Single-mindedness could be a dangerous quality and he was not too keen on finding out here and now… Acting on a hunch, Tercius formed a tendril of thoughts and left it behind for the bird to pass through.

In that afterthought, a special message awaited. “One, two, three, four, five…”

Within a minute of passing through that thought, the spirit’s feathers started looping around in tiny swirls and soon enough the being stopped moving completely.

Tercius' thoughts kept a respectable distance from the blue and white eagle. Since the spirit told him it knew how to count, it would be a shame not to use that against it. Counting was such a simple thing, yet here it was one of the hardest mental loops that even he found hard to get out of. Once you started counting, your thoughts kept running ahead to get to the next number in line, completely forgetting all else.

Before him, the massive eagle wilted away, leaving behind only that single tiny pinprick that it started off as. Tercius’ thoughts rushed to collect the discarded parts—

It was all one big jumbled mess of confusion. Nothing made sense, nothing seemed connected in any way that was familiar to Tercius. It was as if the being’s mind had gone off on the smallest of tangents at every single second, spinning faster than a tornado.

“What… is this?” a single lightning arc suddenly formed from that remaining blue dot, splashing around in a curious supernova. After that initial one, more supernovae followed but these came in explosions. “What manner of trickery is this?! Where is the mind of the human creature?! Zerakronoz can feel you, lurker! Zerakronoz knows you are there! Show yourself!”

Oh? Was it acting ignorance, or did it not absorb its thoughts? Either way, an interesting development…

"I beg your pardon, oh great one," Tercius immediately sent a placid thought to the bird through a tendril of darkness. There was no way that a being that thought of itself in the third person wouldn't like some flattering words. In any case, it was worth a try. "I just can't believe that I have the immense pleasure and so special a privilege as exchanging words with Zerakronoz. I am in awe."

The bird was silent for a moment, confusion in each newly made arc and spark and newly growing feather, but then it warbled happily. “W—what?”

“To stand in your presence is an honor I can’t describe.”

The tiny bird puffed up like a frog, swelling with pride. “As it should be, creature! As it should be! For Zerakronoz to grace you with so many words is a rare thing and your good fortune! Not only one, nor two, nor three, nor four, nor five, nor six, nor seven, nor eight, nor nine, nor ten—”

"You have graced this one with a countless number of words, oh great one." Tercius helpfully interrupted. "I will forever remember each and every single one."

After a particularly long silence, that made Tercius wonder if something went wrong, the bird’s form beamed with lightning. “As you should, creature! As you should!”

“Yes… But why is Zerakronoz here?”

“Why is Zerakronoz here? Why… why… why…” Confusion came over it, then calm contemplation. But the calm did not last long as a massive spike of excitement burst forth in a surge of blue lightning. “Let Zerakronoz enlighten you then, creature! She has spoken to Zerakronoz! To Zerakronoz, creature! Zerakronoz obeyed the command immediately and so Zerakronoz searched for five days—”

“Forgive me my impertinence, oh great one, but who was it that told Zerakronoz to search for this human creature?”

“She told Zerakronoz.”

“And she is?”

“She.” the bird warbled in immense happiness.

“What is she called?”

“She.”

“What is the name of this… “she”?”

“She.”

“Where is she currently?”

“She… She… She…”

Something was not quite right…

Tercius pondered for a bit and decided that starting from another end might end up being more productive. “And if I can be allowed to know, why did she ask Zerakronoz to find this human creature?”

“To… to… to…”

“Yes?”

“To… bring the human creature to Zerakronoz’s humans, of course!” the bird chirped finally. “Vera was a human type of creature too, you know. So was Pallandin, and Kalla, and—”

As the spirit started listing names and slowly shedding more and more of the form it made, Tercius’ thoughts retreated back to himself to focus on this new development, while letting the spirit send itself down another loop.

Why were its thoughts looping in such a manner?

"Yes, they were all… human creatures," Tercius said, interpreting the being again. "But this lowly one is interested in the plan of the great mind that is Zerakronoz. How did the great Zerakronoz plan to get this human creature back to Zerakronoz's humans?"

“Plan… plan… plan… plan…”

“Zerakronoz.”

The bird startled, its head moving around in confusion. Finally, the eagle’s form stopped reducing.

"When Zerakronoz started a storm to find the human creature—" Tercius tried to jump-start it.

“She has spoken to Zerakronoz!” the bird warbled with a brief spike of ecstasy, starting a new growth spurt. “To Zerakronoz, creature! Go and find it, She said, and bring it for the humans. Zerakronoz made a storm, you see, for those human creatures—”

“Yes, oh great one. The human creatures quiver at the mere word of your storms, as they should. What a marvelous plan. So how did the great Zerakronoz plan to get this human creature back to Zerakronoz’s humans after the great Zerakronoz found him?”

“Creatures… creatures… creatures…”

Placidly, Tercius observed the being. It kept building itself up, only to fall apart at each loop. During the loop itself there was some growth, yet what he managed to observe was minuscule. Did repetitive thoughts count as a single one? Interesting…

Nothing to it, but to try and try again… but maybe this time he should not interrupt.

“Zerakronoz. When Zerakronoz started a storm to find the human creature—”

“A storm… storm… Yes! A storm! Zerakronoz is GREAT with storms! Powerful AND smart!”

Tercius had a feeling that, like it or not, this might take a while…