“There’s got to be something else we can call you,” Kat declared. She got caught up on the situation pretty quickly, and to the nameless girl’s dismay, she was just as intent on meddling in her affairs as Gen was. The girl shook her head emphatically. “It’s ‘that one’ or ‘The Conduit’ or nothing at all.”

“I’ve already got to deal with him,” Kat huffed, pointing at a certain General-obsessed dictator, “and now there’s another one? Maybe we could just try common names until we got to yours, and just call you that.”

Blood drained from the nameless girl’s face almost instantly. “It’s one thing to break a vow,” she said, panicked, “it’s a whole different thing to cheat. I don’t know what would happen to me, but it couldn’t be pleasant.”

Kat groaned. “Conduit it is, then. I need to change my hobby from ‘running’ to ‘collecting basket-cases’, clearly it’s my one true calling.” She said, resignation oozing into her voice. “Love you too,” Gen crooned, and she laughed. The Conduit looked between the two, fascinated and a great deal more relaxed now that the focus was off herself. Clearly, even if she trusted the General, she still feared him. She probably feared Kat too, by proxy and due to her reputation. You don’t usually get to see the things that go bump in the night flirting, after-all.

“Alright, alright,” Kat said, “We’ve some more important things to talk about, anyway.” She beckoned gently at the nameless girl, giving her the stage. “We’ve got the present down, so what about the past?”

The Conduit shrank back in her seat. “It’s a little embarrassing, but I got kind of famous,” she said, almost shyly. “Famous for what?” Kat asked. “Well, I’ve always heard ‘voices’, and the doctors couldn’t know that magic shenanigans were afoot, so-“ She replied, but Kat cut her off, excitement and realization lighting up the girl’s features.

“You’re the crazy one!” She exclaimed, almost before realizing that not only was that quite rude, but also possibly fatal. “Oops.” The nameless girl looked hurt, and more importantly afraid, but nothing happened. There was a long, awkward paused, and she relaxed. “Thanks, Adventurer, now I’m ‘The Crazy’” she said, exasperated. “The what?” Gen asked. He was perplexed, looking between the two of them. Kat groaned. “You don’t even know about that? I know you didn’t get out much, but she’s in every modern Psychology lecture ever.”

He shrugged. “Humor me,” he said, and Kat obliged, much to the Conduit’s dismay. “There’s at least three paradoxes named after her by now, since the first studies were conducted. Story goes that she was discovered early in life by the tests, and she underwent rigorous analysis.” The nameless girl looked increasingly uncomfortable with every word, until she finally cut off Kat with a cough. “The important bit is that they diagnosed me with Schizophrenia, the good old-fashioned way, but they couldn’t find any traces of it- or proof that I was faking it. The medication didn’t even work.” Gen eyed her critically. “You know, I think I bought the ‘voices in your head’ thing a little more when you weren’t the last Schizophrenic on Earth,” he said, virtually monotone.

She scrunched up her face. “They were quiet for the first time when I got to this world,” she said, “and it all made sense. It’s magic, man. It wasn’t until the floodgates opened that they came rushing back.” The Conduit’s frustration was tempered with a sudden bout of disappointment at that. “I wasn’t happy to get it back, but it did save my life,” she concluded.

Her audience was especially interested now, likely for different reasons. Kat was probably most interested in the idea of a number of outstanding scientific paradoxes being explained by magic, while Gen seemed to key in on her last few words. “How did it save your life?” The General asked, intent. The nameless girl sighed. “As much as I’d love to avoid reliving my time in the new world, I guess I’ve got to do it at some point. The fact the ‘voices’ showed back up out of nowhere is bothering me, anyway.” She steeled herself, diving into her tale.

___

I blinked my eyes open, only to realize they were never shut. I was butt-naked in the dark of whatever confines I had found myself in, and the dirt wasn’t the most comfortable seat. For a moment, I thought I had my very first psychological break and that I had hallucinated it all, but time passed gently with no sign of ‘waking up’. Indeed, pinching my cheek hardly did anything to wake me up. So, I sat there, confused and scared and alone- or so I thought. From the silence came rustling and noises in every direction, and suddenly there were 29 other people just as ‘in the dark’ as I was, literally and metaphorically. One man began to mumble and shout about how they ‘couldn’t take him’, and how the ‘boss’ would be angry, and how he wouldn’t be worth any money. It took three minutes of coaxing from others to get him calmed down enough to realize this was not, in fact, about his unsavory activities. Someone else woke up and just screamed his lungs out for almost a straight minute, only to finally come to terms with their crippling fear of the dark, having endured a sort of trial by fire. Quite a few other late-wakers were startled and panicked by the shrieks. Eventually, though, things grew calm. Silent, once more.

I played it quiet and safe. Even with the way crime rates had waxed and waned, it was a generally bad idea to attract a bunch of stranger’s attention in the nude. The closest I got to genuine socialization was quietly offering my name, which thankfully no one recognized. A certain relationship counselor had assumed complete control of our little group, and after a little meet-and-greeting, things seemed stable enough to get moving. As useless as ‘relationship counselor’ was in their current situation, this woman was impressively competent, and she at least drove the group along. Almost everyone chipped in with ideas and suggestions, and eventually, they had formed a sort of organized unit, complete with a buddy system. Groping about in the dark for your ‘buddy’ was awkward as all hell, but no one got lost. It turned out to be a really good idea around the time we started to find off-shoot tunnels, some of which were quite dangerous, at least while unlit. We were pretty clearly underground, but despite that, the surroundings were uncomfortably well equipped. An Artesian Well in one off-shoot, tens of buried plants, sprouts, and soft-dirt patches scattered through others. There was even one that seemed appropriate for when nature called. Whatever had dumped them down in the depths, it had made sure they’d live, at least for a while.

Things went along smoothly. Tunnels were explored rapidly, and they extended the ‘buddy system’ to more of a triangular relationship, with a navigator and explorers dragging each-other about. The navigators spent a lot of time talking to each-other whenever the groups returned home, learning about new tunnels or sharing their own discoveries, while the explorers did whatever they could to make the space more livable. Despite how weird the situation was, it felt like the first time I was being treated like a normal human being. Part of a well-oiled machine, and not the odd gear out. The fact that the voices and strange impulses were gone helped, naturally. It was a strange sort of paradise, but it was the one I had.

The sixth group disappeared. They had simply been lost, and no one could even find a trace. There was no way to know if they made it out, if they were in a distant tunnel, or if they had died, but they were gone for ‘a long time’. I struggled to think of when I had last talked to someone from the group, but units of time only really made sense when you had a clock or the sun, and our Pod was a long way off from access to either. At first, everyone seemed to just accept the change, but as time went on, things got more strained. Paranoia was a powerful thing, and while no one said it, we all knew deep in the back of our minds that the missing three people were murdered. In all the time we spent in the dark, we had never run into another prim and proper animal, so who else could have so thoroughly erased them? Every manhunt turned up empty, and finally, it was too much.

Everyone split up with their groups, more or less. The split was something like six, three, three, three, so on and so forth. Everyone stuck with who they knew for sure couldn’t have committed the crime- their ‘buddies’, and whoever they were with frequently enough for their concerns to be assuaged. I’d read too many books where ‘splitting up equals certain death’, but nothing happened for a good while. No one was hostile, but if we bumped into each-other, literally, we went the other way, like feuding neighbors. The first real change to that new ‘system’ was when the next group disappeared.

Contrary to what I expected, for each of the little groups to get picked off, the next group to simply vanish were one of the larger groups of six. That set everyone into a tizzy- while it was hard to get a feel for who was and wasn’t nearby, we still checked in every so often, and the big platoons were more or less hanging around in the base, but this group was gone. It didn’t help that the relationship counselor that had kept us reasonably civil had been taken with them- she had been one of the two smaller groups’ navigators before we stopped exploring and started panicking. With that, nowhere was safe. Paranoia escalated into panic, and we scattered deep in the caves. Someone started playing a constant ‘Marco, Polo’ game to keep everyone else at bay, and sure enough, soon everyone was on-board, echolocating all the potential murderers and running the other way.

At that point, it was hard to say who had disappeared and who was simply deeper in the tunnels than ever before. No one knew one way or another, and that really drove home the fear. It was a terrible time, hours on end, constantly nervous that you were next, or convinced it had been ‘too long’ since you last heard anyone. We wandered, until at some point, our navigator spoke up. He was a shy boy, reluctant to even talk to other navigators, but he was pretty reliable, and endlessly polite. He was hardly out of middle-school, if that, and while he was just a kid, he had a solid memory- just right for a guide. “We can breathe,” he whispered. It was so sudden that the other explorer and I froze in our tracks, and as my thoughts desperately surged forward to catch up to his train of thought, he suddenly felt like the smartest person I had ever met. If we could breathe, then there was air, and if there was air then it came from somewhere, and the only way we could have so much air would be if there was a way out. That first realization stunned me, but the second one got me way harder. If there was a way out, then there was a way in. As the fear ramped up, we had left the idea of an external threat out in the dust. It was so obvious, but no one had stopped to think.

The three of us just stood there. I could feel new hope and mounting fear- perhaps the others had escaped to the surface and simply hadn’t returned yet. Or, perhaps, there was something far worse than a serial killer roaming in the darkness. They started forth once more, the boy leading us back to the main ‘room’. We chatted and walked like we used to, the constant pressure of paranoia being replaced by abstract fear. Counterintuitively, it was easier to relax with the threat of ‘some monster’ than just some other human. So, we sallied forth, with renewed vigor, and found light.

My eyes burned, and for the first time in ages, I could see my own flesh. I had deteriorated in the dark just as a matter of malnutrition, practically all skin and bones, though that wasn’t far from my bookish look from the Old World. My legs were more toned than I had ever managed before, contrasting my callused hands and weak arms. More importantly, I could see myself. The boy blushed desperately, and the other explorer was just as ecstatic as I was to have faculty of her eyes again. We beamed at each-other, heading towards the corner the dim light was cast around. It was a long walk, and each step brought our forms into view. We trekked forth, all too ready to forget the fact that this tunnel had never been bright before.

I was the first to round the corner, and I had to whip around and push the other two back as quickly as I could. The light wasn’t a way out, but a trap. The other explorer was surprised, looking at my eyes- which she could now see- for answers. I held a finger to my lips and pulled myself close to the wall, leaning around the corner, and there it was, just as it had been moments before. A plant twined the tunnel, digging deep into each surface as though it was part of the scenery. It was massive, and the digging tendrils were nearly a foot in diameter. Each was pock-marked with beautiful, luminescent buds, red flowers that emitted the light that was cast over them. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d have probably went to pick one, if only for the sweet recess from the eternal dark I had been plunged into.

Thankfully, or tragically, we were not the first group to stumble on the plant. Another group was cast in the red light, which did nothing to hide the crimson of their blood. The entire tunnel was coated in it, little splatters lining every speck of dirt and cropping of stone. The three had no doubt walked right up to the plant, ecstatic to find the light, only to learn that everything beautiful has its thorns- literally. The tendrils were silky smooth by sight, but several of them gyrated about the victims’ bodies, moving with speed that no plant should have agency to possess. As they rubbed, thin lines of skin were torn away by nearly impossible to see nettles that tugged at anything rubbing them the wrong way. I watched in morbid fascination, silent as I could be- but the poor navigator couldn’t help but let out one terrified sob. He caught himself, hoping the plant couldn’t hear. It kept on ‘eating’ the last group of victims for a while and the other explorer pulled the boy away, trying to comfort him. I pulled back for a moment, trying to help, but he got himself together pretty quick. When I leaned back over to catch up on the morbid display, the plant was gone, leaving only a hole in the wall that hadn’t, at least as far as I knew, been there before. Dim light came through the hole, but it was fading with every moment, leaving behind only blood and darkness. Thankfully, the blood was quickly masked by the darkness, returning us to the cold and familiar eternal night we had been stumbling through for so long.

I watched all return to black, trained on the tunnel the terrible plant had disappeared into, along with the corpses. I guessed that explained that mystery. To my surprise, I didn’t feel much more afraid now than I had before. Apparently, pants-shittingly terrifying monsters weren’t so scary if you had no pants. That was around the time the voices returned. They were whispering at first, and for a moment, I thought it was the other two trying to get my attention, but they weren’t saying anything at all- we had all been shocked silent. The whispering grew to a roar, and each word wore at my mind, warring choruses fighting to get my attention. On Earth, it had been gibberish and strange phrases, but here it was perfectly clear. Each group of voices harmonized, and when they formed a strong enough group, they used the opportunity to scream all sorts of things. Some told me to run, while others simply shouted questions I could never answer- why wasn’t I panicking, what was the giant plant monster, or where this was all taking place. At the time, I actually thought the voices really were just a manifestation of the terror I wasn’t really feeling. When the discordant, warring choirs unified into a chorus of “Run, now!”, my body moved on its own. I ran, leaving behind the rest of my group in the dark. I thought to call out, to get their attention, but before I could say anything, a noise distracted me. It was like a blender in the distance, a gentle grinding of something. I realized too late that the only thing that could make a sound like that in the caves we were in would be the subterranean plant, and I could only just bite back my voice as dozens of tendrils shot from the wall. They wound together on either side of my unfortunate partners and slammed them back against the wall. The beautiful light from the plant’s buds were great for looking at the terror in their eyes as they died, to see the odd angle their backs were bent in as it crushed them to the wall. The plant’s main ‘bud’, presumably where the rest of the bodies disappeared, flung itself forth. The voices urged me to flee, and to tell them just what the hell that thing was, but I ignored them. The two people I had spent the most time with in the New World were dead, and it was my fault, and I was probably next. It was a crushing realization.

The ‘crushing realization’ ground down my sanity just enough to let something else in. For the first time, perhaps I genuinely went insane. I ran to the plant, as silent as I could be, and fell to the floor by the corpses’ feet. I was no more than centimeters away from the deadly tendrils, but I didn’t care, I had a plan, and it would work. Blood was pulling around their bare feet, traces of the plant’s desperate grinding at their flesh. It was disgusting, but I dipped both of my hands in it nonetheless. Their blood was literally and metaphorically on my hands, now, and I used it to draw circles. I drew circles on the floor, and circles on my body, and circles in my mind. I tried to remember everything I had ever read about magic in worlds where this terrifying plant could possibly exist, anything to kill it or bring back my friends. I felt the tinges of power, something inside, but I could do no more than moving it around inside me. I was excited to feel it, though, and I renewed my efforts. The voices all the while shouted and hollered and asked if I had ‘gone mad’, but after minutes of me deliriously chanting random mantas and spells and mystic gestures, they must have gotten the hint. A new command came, first far quieter than the rest, and then dwarfing them all in magnitude. I listened. The plant was nearly finished with its meal, but I persisted, desperately scribbling. The command was intricate, an intense network of geometric shapes. I could feel the power within me bubbling, agitated, and by the time it was finished, I felt like I was on fire.

The voices were pleased, and celebrated. It was quite annoying, listening to a bunch of ‘good job’s and ‘great work’s while next to a deadly, man-eating plant, but finally, the next order came. “Give up something of yours,” it said. “Leverage your power,” it said. “The Third Race is not so weak,” it said. All of the other voices were suddenly drowned out by that one voice, swallowed up by a chorus not of the many voices I had been used to, but one made of echoes of this same voice, each saying the same things. As I stared at the circle, an army of those whispers took control, repeating phrases familiar and not. In the end, though, I got the memo. If I gave something up, I could get something back. “I’ll give me,” I shouted, throwing myself away from the plant. “If that’s what it takes to get out of Hell, that’s what you can take!” Tendrils lashed about, hunting for their next meal. One whizzed just by my face, and that dumb luck was all I had going for me. The ceremony didn’t do anything. I was just sitting there, waiting for my death. The fire burning within me cooked itself out, and for a moment, I thought I really would die just like that. Suddenly, the tunnel shook. Everything was vibrating, accelerating to such a degree that it looked like the world was just a series of lines. I shut my eyes, cringing for my inevitable death, but the vibration stopped. I opened my eyes once more, only to realize I was back in the dark. I felt about, wary of the plant’s return, but the tunnel felt different. I waited and waited, but nothing came. I clambered to my feet, stumbling about. I picked a random direction, trailing the tunnel, until I found a light. A little green man was wheeling a cart, a tiny candle mounted at its bow. He squinted up at me, grumbling something in a strange language and stumbling off. I gawked after him as he passed, completely confused. The little guy twirled back around, dismissive glare replaced with wide eyes and a gasp. He chittered a lot of words quick, and I tried to at least give him my name, but to my alarm, I couldn’t remember it. Hell, I couldn’t so much as make one up. Instead, I just shook my head, since I couldn’t understand his words. He took the candle from the cart, grabbed me by the hand, and led me back to the City of Man.

___

“You know the rest,” the nameless girl said. She seemed exhausted with the retelling. Gen was lost in thought, hardly noticing the fact that she had actually finished her speech. Kat shook her head. “You really have been through a lot,” she said, smiling gently. “You just answered quite a few questions and opened quite a few more, though.” Kat shrugged, emphatically. “For instance, why did that work? To our knowledge, power is communal, and innate. I don’t think you ever heard our- me and Gen’s- story, but this isn’t the first time we’ve got cryptic advice before.” The nameless girl gave her a critical eye. She seemed a bit displeased at her strange, advice-giving voices being preempted, but Kat decided to leave that be. “We got a weird motivational speech while Gen was being reconstituted in some temple-“

“You what?” The Conduit asked, confused. Kat’s smile deepened. “It’s magic. Who knows? Anyways, it told us a couple of things. We needed to work together, alright, but it also made it quite clear what External Mana was- the land’s power, given to the most valid recipient. Be territorial. It even explained why we should use it a little bit, after all. We didn’t need the External Mana to really fight the Kaenid, but what if we run into Dragons? Real dragons, not Train-Worms.” The nameless girl cringed. She had been hoping that fire-breathing, flying, gigantic dragons were off the table, and the Adventurer had simply meant the giant worm-things that coursed in and out of the huge lake every so often.

“Point being, the advice you got was sort of similar. We’re in the dark in this whole magic thing. Why did giving up your name let you magically appear in the City of Man’s tunnels? Why do you have to tug-of-war to get control of the External Mana? Merrilyn’s going to be pissed that you took this long to actually tell us this shit, by the way.” Kat said. The nameless girl shivered. The Imposter wasn’t someone who’s bad side you wanted to get on. At least, not if she was in the midst of a particularly dangerous persona. Gen finally came to his senses. “We’ve got some work to do, Kat. This is a whole ‘lot bigger than you’re thinking.” He stared at her, intent. Kat reigned in her chipper mood, channeling her best ‘serious’ look, and hopped to her feet to give an exceptionally awkward salute. Gen tried not to laugh, turning over to the Conduit. “You’re absolutely dead, by the way,” he said, “I think I can buy you some time if you come and behave today, though.” The nameless girl looked between them- the great dictator of the New World, and his right-hand gal in the midst of the most overblown salute she had ever seen. She sighed, resigned. “I guess I’ve got to. What do you need me for? I thought question time was over?” She asked.

The General stood, greatcoat swinging dramatically with every motion. “We’re going to do magic, of course!”