Even as the three girls found slumber, three others had sleep continue to elude them. The sun might have long passed over the mountains, but the quiet day’s end was grounds for some disappointment.

“Nothing, nothing at all?” “I’m sorry, I was at it the whole day, there was nothing like that anywhere all over the city. I’m not sure if you’ve bothered checking the news yet today, but there has been nothing but silence all across the city today, my boss is really not impressed. Really, I can’t afford to keep at your wild goose chase anymore, I’ve got a job to do. I’m lucky I might have a lead to anything tomorrow, all things considered.” Liyuzhe scowled, not happy with the news Ieqyisa’s brother was providing. He was right too, even today’s news was devoid of much of any substance. Still, she knew she had reasons to be concerned, her childhood friend having no real way to fend for herself if put into the wrong situation, and the two shrubs with her not exactly being much value to the ways of the real world. At this point, she was getting desperate for anything.

“Really, you’ve got a lead tomorrow?” “Not related. Got some people with some table scraps, associated to the Hunters.” “Hunters? Hells, you really don’t want to get involved with them.” “You can see just how bad the position you’ve put me in is. Look, you said this was a bit of an internal problem, so if you don’t have anything more for me to work with, you’re going to have to do the legwork yourself. So if there is nothing else, I’m tired and want to call it a night, going to have a busy day tomorrow.” “Alright then, whatever. Goodnight.” Liyuzhe hung up on Ieqyisa’s brother, accepting that her attempt was a dead end after all. She wasn’t happy with this outcome at all, knowing that Khyzae would have handled things so much better. If she was even a fragment as good as her childhood friend at making the most of her resources, she wouldn’t have such reasons to be so worried right now.

“Hells, Liyuzhe, what’s happened to you?” “Oh, nothing much.” “Nothing much? By the divine, you take your work far too seriously, bleeding all over the floor like this.” “I’m not bleeding over the floor, I know how to tie myself a bandage, stop over-exaggerating.” “Of course, you got amazingly good at it after all the scuffs you and Khyzae got into, the both of you being impossible sometimes. This is why I keep saying we need to actually have a medical expert around, someone who can at least keep up with how often you two get hurt.” Fhyernx was blowing another fit, Liyuzhe certain the gash on her leg not being nearly as serious as he was making it appear. Ever since that one time a couple years ago when Liyuzhe had broken her leg, he’d been pressing harder for someone with the gift of healing. Khyzae had told him that she would be willing to accept a healer if he could find someone she would be willing to trust.

“Speaking of, how’s that search been going for a half-decent candidate?” “I, uh…” “If you’ve got nothing, then shut up. It’s not even broken, I can walk perfectly fine.” “So, nothing on Khyzae?” “Nope, not a thing. So if you’re done slacking off, maybe you should just worry about your own work.” Liyuzhe was not in the best of moods, and she knew it wasn’t exactly fair to take it all out on Fhyernx. Even her own injury had been caused due to her own state of distraction over the course of the day, and thinking about it only made her irritation worse. Khyzae wouldn’t have tolerated such distraction either, always being so composed and methodical even in the worst of circumstances. Not that she wasn’t someone who cared, the same time Liyuzhe had dealt with a broken leg, Khyzae was all over a methodical approach to ensure it healed as rapidly and effectively as possible, making sure she stayed comfortable through the process. They had even gone to a real medical office to make sure she had proper care, Khyzae having funded it herself. But now Khyzae had gone missing, leaving Liyuzhe in a fit of endless desperation and worry.

“So I take it my brother was still useless?” “Ieqyisa, perfect! It’s been an entire day of nothing, leaving me really concerned, so I’ve changed my mind. Can you take to the city and do what you must to find her?” “Khyzae? That probably won’t work.” “What? Why not?” “Khyzae is a whirlwind of change wherever she goes, impacting the lives of every single person she graces with her presence. Meanwhile, not a peep, anywhere, the city is just a span of silence. The only way that would even be possible is if she didn’t want to be found. I mean, I seriously doubt my brother was a layabout arse the entire day, no matter what else there might be to complain about with him. If he was sniffing for news, and she was waiting to be found, we would have gotten news possibly before lunch. Meanwhile, I would be willing to bet that he’s instead passed over her today already, probably more than once. If she really is that unwilling to be found, I don’t stand a chance in finding her.” Ieqyisa made sense in a way that only made Liyuzhe more disappointed. Maybe there really was nothing to be done about it.

“This isn’t fair, why would she be avoiding us like that?” “Rather thinking it that way, I don’t think there would be much reason for her to have much consideration for us in the first place.” “What!? There is no way…” “Keep in mind, she’s been witnessed to be suffering amnesia. If she has truly forgotten about certain aspects of her life, if that includes us as well, then what reason would she have to go out of her way to inquire on a pack of nobodies? We both know she’s far too practical for that sort of thing, she would instead be working deeply with the facts she remained aware of, the resources she knew were at her disposal, and making practical use of them for whatever machination her mind was able to conjurer. She would already have deeply developed plans and a structured process with things she knew she could depend on. None of that would then include us.” Liyuzhe’s mood only grew worse, realizing that Ieqyisa had yet another good point. The whole amnesia thing would be working against them in this process, unfortunately.

“I’ve been looking into the whole amnesia thing too. If her little experiment had indeed caused it, probably due to some substantial head injury or such, that would mean the memory loss had persisted for almost an entire year. If it’s that long lasting, it means natural cures won’t even be possible. Now, there was consideration that she came here to witness things that would instil memories of her past, stuff that would awaken latent thoughts in turn, but if she really did spend all that time with Fhyernx, without results… I’m really doubting we might be so fortunate in being able to simply restore her lost memories, at least not completely. Even partially, it might be nothing more than tiny fragments, hardly enough to be considered even remotely reliable. If this is true, we might not be able to rely on the past to make enough of a difference to return her to us. Instead, we need to find our way into her current plans, and rebuild everything from scratch. We know her probably better than she knows herself right now, especially while she’s still fresh to the city and its opportunities. If we can leave her with the right bait, the right resources that would encourage her to turn to us, she would then reveal herself to us.” Ieqyisa really could not see any other solution for this problem, and knew that Khyzae would not approve of them dragging their thumbs with anything less certain. There was no way they would ever find Khyzae if they weren’t capable of providing a reason why they should be allowed to find her.

“Hells, that’s not going to be easy. People don’t bait Khyzae, it just doesn’t work like that, more like the other way around. I really don’t even have a clue where we would have to start.” “Me either, that’s why I’ve instead worried upon other matters. If Khyzae did return to us and found us so idle, she certainly would not be impressed. So instead, I’ve made sure to devote my time to some of our original projects. The talismans are done, by the way, ready for your own testing. I was even checking up on Fhyernx’s work today, he’s been keeping up well enough. Your side of things is the only one falling behind, though I guess your injury lends excuse to that one.” “Hells, bloody injury. Fine, I’ll call it a day, maybe a decent night’s sleep will save some time enough for me to be more productive in the morning. Don’t stay up too long yourself, I know you’ve not been leaving yourself with much sleep.” Liyuzhe didn’t bother waiting for Ieqyisa’s answer, knowing the girl will just do what she felt needed to be done anyway. Instead, Liyuzhe carefully made her way to her own bed for the night.

Ieqyisa did have a lot on her mind, most especially the rumors involved with Khyzae’s recovery. By the sounds of things, the girl had actually endured what seemed like a year of comatose, along with two other victims which had then quickly taken to her side after their recovery. The other two however did not have any records of amnesia, making it appear as if there was more involved than they might have expected. An entire year of sleep, selective victims of amnesia, just what kind of magnitude of failure did Khyzae stumble upon. The others were more concerned for Khyzae herself, but Ieqyisa was more curious as to what might have happened that day.

One way to get more information would be for her to visit the village herself, although that wasn’t exactly going to be a simple solution. Beyond the matter of distance, which by itself was quite a taxing problem, there was also the matter of gathering information in the boonies, working with people who weren’t the most welcoming according to Fhyernx. She could approach the site of the event in question, as even Ieqyisa was aware of Khyzae’s little observatory, acting as a personal haven in the wild. However, the incident was over a year ago, evidence would have faded rapidly in that time. There was one other solution, Khyzae would have left documents and records of what she was doing, not just in the village but also in the city. The girl was all too driven to make sure there were clear and concise records of everything, stuff that she could refer to later, and some of it would have been left behind. If Ieqyisa could find where such records were hiding, maybe she could reproduce the whole experiment, at least enough to gauge what might have occurred.

Tomorrow would be the perfect time to look into such matters, as she was well ahead of schedule with all of their current projects. Finding Khyzae’s hidden cache of records might be a nearly impossible task, but compared to finding Khyzae herself in such unwanted circumstances.. it would be a considerably easier venture. There was always the chance too that Khyzae’s current plans could be deduced from such documentation, bringing the entire venture even more value. Before Ieqyisa eventually settled down for the night, she made sure to spend some time going over her own records, searching for plausible locations to reach out to in the morning.

Elsewhere in the city, a young elf was pouring over his tomes and instruments in the apartment he called home once again. Yet another day, totally wasted. He had been trying to scry out any further traces of the astral flame, only to find any such discovery completely illusive to him. He didn’t even know if his instruments had malfunctioned last night. It made little sense to find simple tiny traces of the astral flame without any sign of the source. Even a grand flame like that was simply unable to endure when deprived of its source, even beyond the span of about a hundred Uyn. The ashes of the astral flame could possibly hold traces for a time, but without anything keeping it going it would just fade instantly from existence. Even the idea of sustaining an ash of the flame was merely hypothetical, as the simple thought of exposing the astral flame to Celese would have certainly led to the source being left free to consume everything.

It was not a concept that the people of Celese were well aware of, but their records of the astral flame related in many ways to some of the dark energies found and detected by Earth. With consideration for this comparison, the elf was viewing the exposure of the astral flame to Celese as much one from Earth would consider the release of an actual black hole on their own planet. The exact interactions and effects weren’t quite the same, but the magnitude of influence had a lot of similarities. Releasing the entire unrestrained astral flame to Celese would have resulted in the planet’s all-consuming erasure, along with some potential collateral destruction even beyond that. However, this was the measure of influence the elf was baffled with, a planet-ending influence detected without any follow up.

If his instruments weren’t actually malfunctioning, the only possible reasoning would be a crack in the veil that was still holding, itself alone a world-moving event. He knew he had no chance in following the traces of the astral flame, stuff like that would have been elusive and faded into nothing, but he really hoped that he might have located where the traces had drifted in through. After walking for over a thousand Uyn radius from his home, his tools had found nothing. He really didn’t understand it at all, nothing about his observations were making sense. He searched through his tools, perplexed as to the problem. His tools for finding the astral flame, silent. His tools for detecting filaments of the tattered veil, all constant. It was insane, as if simple matters of distance were being ignored in the equation.

The elf bolted upright in his chair, insight dawning upon him. Maybe that was it, there was a way to actually remove elements such as distance from the equation. Teleportation. Grabbing another of his instruments, he dashed out from the door. Even a short distance from his home, he was getting a scatter of positive readings in faint numbers. There really had been teleportation going on around his own home, which then possibly related to matters of the astral flame. Still, they could also be totally unrelated. It was even possible for only a handful of the ones he was detecting to be related, the remainder being simple red herrings. It was infuriating, being left with such vast measures of uncertainty.

Following one of the faint rifts, he stumbled upon the rusted fence of a fancy establishment. At least, he expected the place was once much fancier, now being decrepit and abandoned. Within the establishment, he could detect the faint pulse of a rift, fully sealed and deprived of the gift but visibly of a design that would have required some of the best of instrumentation in order for it to resolve at all. This was especially interesting because the reading proved to be well beyond a year in age, something which normally should have faded away long before that amount of time had passed. According to the readings, the rift was also… incomplete. Someone had gone to great strides to make something this capable, this incredible.. and then stopped and gone far, far away, leaving some of the remnants of their work behind.

He went around to the gate, following the perilous fence around. The fence itself looked intimidating, clearly designed to deter people, and he was well aware that such fences then tended to be designed with some additional traps as deterrents. Arriving at the main gate, he found the place locked tight, a sign saying ‘Do not trespass’ painted as almost a warning and a dare. On the other side of the gate was a skeleton, still smoldering. The simple fact that the gift could not have caused this was making it even more intimidating, clearly the traps here were designed to last the test of time, even in the occupant’s absence. Left without recourse, he took quick visual account for what he could see inside. Other than a small tower off the side of the building, somehow appearing like it was watching the western sky.. it looked rather nondescript. The elf considered the tower, followed by the western sky it seemed to face. At this late hour of the night, with all the city’s lights shut down, it seemed to provide a great angle to look up at the stars in the night’s sky.

Without any other recourse left to him the elf packed up and returned to his home. Of course, it was not as if this was going to be easy, he was quite honestly probably out of his league. If teleportation had been involved, if the gift had really been used, then this was all the work of a person, or even people. People with a considerable collection of resources at their disposal, stuff way grander than anything he’d been given to handle before. He was at a dead end, without any way to advance. However, if there were people involved, then perhaps such people were already working on the matter, already putting care on getting everything resolved, and there was nothing for him to worry about. Between that and broken instruments having false readings, it might really be for the best if he put this whole business behind him, before he got involved in something way bigger than he could handle. He would just leave it behind him, and start tomorrow with other goals.

In the deep of the night, a howl echoed through the valley, a feral voice filled with torment and fear. Moments later, it was responded to in kind, the feral howls responding with a ferocious rage.