Kaldalis held the ability until the last second before the attack came down. Considering he had no idea how it worked, and this was his maiden voyage into the “Paths Between Paths” he wanted to give himself the best chance of success.

It helped his confidence that his friends had made it. Not only because they’d be able to help him if this failed and he ate the hit full-force, but because they’d survived without him; if he was gone for hours, the boss wasn’t going to slam into the precious library and destroy it.

They would probably be able to handle it without him.

Probably.

Kaldalis started to panic. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea.

Maybe he could handle this experiment later?

But he was already committed. It was go time.

He flickered.

For a moment, everything went black. This didn’t seem too unusual, since he hadn’t been operating in light since entering the dungeon, just surrounded by some kind of vision zone around himself.

What was unusual about everything being black was that his senses told him that the vision radius was still there.

He looked down and he could see himself. He could still see his hand in front of his face, even though everything else was just empty blackness. There was no floor beneath his feet, but there was no sensation of falling.

He was just floating in a featureless void.

Well, not entirely featureless.

There were two hulking shapes in the darkness. Indistinct pale blobs just barely perceptible. He couldn’t tell if they were vague clouds just near the edge of his vision, or if they were beyond enormous and far enough away to be blurry even to his perfectly-functional eyes.

He looked around, and in all other directions was emptiness. No vague shapes there. Just these two.

What were they? He found himself reaching out, knowing they weren’t possibly close enough to touch.

He tried to inhale to speak, but there was no air in this place. The air already in his lungs was sucked out, and its passage made a gasping sound that he could only feel in his throat, but not hear in his ears.

The breath bar appeared in the upper range of his vision, almost entirely empty, with just a little bit of blue at the far left edge of it.

It served to draw his attention to the rest of the UI.

His minimap was devoid of features, just fully black. There weren’t even pointers or makers for any of his quests.

He was nowhere.

He was on the edge of suffocating.

And he didn’t even have the breath in his lungs to scream.

This was it.

The world came back all at once.

It was a sudden rush of light and noise as he reappeared, and he took a huge breath. It felt like he’d been gone for several seconds, but the giant horned silverfish was just withdrawing from the strike it had been making right when he’d flickered out.

Instinctively, Kaldalis lashed out with his glaive, chopping off a bit of armored shell as the creature pulled away. He was glad for the instinct as he got his twenty-five damage in, and tenth stack of gust out of the deal.

“What the fuck?” Balrim yelled, his voice cracking from the incredulous tone.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll, um, explain later!”

Kaldalis tried to refocus his attention. But he was more worried about what had just happened. The flicker ability had a fairly short cooldown. It would be up again before Endure would be, even though he’d used Endure a while ago now.

But he’d used it to avoid the attack. Successfully.

Now that he knew it would work, but would take a while to be available again, he was determined to hold onto it for a more relevant attack.

But it worked! Reading the tablet had given him real magic. He’d done something supernatural, beyond the scope of the basic game mechanics that he was aware of.

He hoped that he could share this ability by leading everyone else to the tablets. And then maybe drag everyone in the encampment down to investigate it as well.

The Infernal Horde wouldn’t stand a chance against an army of adventurers using that.

For now, though, Kaldalis knew he had to focus. The train-sized bug demanded his immediate attention. It shook itself, and he got one more stab in - and an eleventh stack of gust - before he had to back off to stay out of the poison puddle that it spawned beneath itself.

Kaldalis leapt backwards with every impact, knowing that the creature was going to charge once it was done, regardless of what he did. Putting some space between them gave him time to dodge the charge, and line up its return trip with Myrin and Haldir’s readied attacks.

He struck it on the way past, but didn’t get his twelfth gust stack. Instead, the creature circled around again, approaching him to use its normal attacks, and Kaldalis prepared himself to deal with them as Balrim provided him another blast of healing.

And on and on.

The fight went on for a surprisingly long time, even after the creature started to look rough. Kaldalis got his fifteenth gust stack before the end, blasting the creature for thirty damage before Myrin swept in to finish the job.

Kaldalis was immediately aware that the creature was something called a Great White Lepidiidae, and was worth a pretty impressive fifty experience points. As the creature went through its over-dramatic death animation, thrashing around as it toppled over sideways, a metal cylinder popped out of a joint in its armor, implying that it had been lodged there the whole time. It rolled across the courtyard until Haldir stopped it with his boot before picking it up.

“It’s our loot,” he said before tossing it over to Myrin. “Good work, everyone. I think we’re done in here.”

With that, the dungeon quest completed itself, rewarding him an additional two-hundred experience - quite a trove, even without considering what he still had coming from delivering the scroll case to the researchers.

“We’re not done yet,” Kaldalis said, pointing towards the still-intact library at the far end of the courtyard. “We still have-”

“Hold that thought. You have some explaining to do,” Balrim said, storming up to Kaldalis with fire in his slit-pupiled eyes. “Why didn’t you wait for us before facing the boss? Were you trying to die? Did you die? How many times did you die?” He gestured wildly with his scaled hands as he spoke, equal parts fury and frustration in his voice as he built to a fever pitch. “And what was that thing you just did? When did you learn that? Why did you do that? Was that safe? I just-”

Kaldalis reached into his inventory and held out the charm he’d found previously. The little wooden ball with the metal rings set into it.

Presenting Balrim with it made his yelling sputter to a stop. He took a hold of it tentatively, and his eyes widened as he examined it, seeing what it was and understanding, after a moment, the power he had just been handed.

“Well, erm-” Balrim stammered for a moment, before pressing his lips into a thin line. “You’re not off the hook just for-”

Kaldalis pulled out the pouch of cinnamon and held that out as well.

“Okay then,” Balrim said with a nod. “You can consider me paid off. I can’t argue with results like these, can I?”

“You could,” Kaldalis said, “but then I might not bring you presents the next time.”

“Come on, dads,” Myrin said as she approached, “you aren’t allowed to fight. Think of what that would do to us! I won’t let you tear this family apart!”

Kaldalis reached up to rub his temple, but stopped when he realized Balrim was making the same motion.

“Okay, I’ve spent the last ninety minutes looking forward to this reunion,” Kaldalis said, “well done making me regret it within ninety seconds.” He sighed heavily, but started towards the library. “Come on, then, let me show you the library now, or else I might just try and fuck off back to town before you start drafting the slashfic.”