Elach raised an eyebrow at Sentence’s regret. “Not killing a god?”

Sentence shook his head. “I was a mere weapon when that happened. I did not become a memento until there were less gods than eternals who held claim over reality.”

“A memento?” Elach asked. “I don’t know that term. Unless you’re using it literally.”

“Technically, I am using it literally. Just not in the way you are familiar.” Sentence tapped his fist over his heart. “We are the weapon’s version of a living city. We came from nothing, became significant not because of our innate power, but because of the acts our wielders committed and the legends surrounding us. But you don’t need to worry about that. There are so few of us that you probably won’t ever see another one of us. But if you do? Tell them Sentence sends his regards.”

“Uh, ok? Sure.” Elach said, taking a bite of one of the cookies. It was spiced with ginger and cloves, and he felt warmer from the first bite. He dunked it in the drink and scooped up some of it just like Sentence had done, and then chocolate with milk was added to the mix. “These are delicious.”

“Glad you think so.” Sentence said with pride. “It’s an extremely old recipe that’s absurdly simple. Hells, I’ve substituted out all of the expensive or rare ingredients with mundane ones. Unless you’re some snobby ruler you wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference.”

“Can you share it?” Elach asked, and Sentence shoved a piece of paper at him. Seems like he’d been waiting for Elach to ask. “Thanks.”

“The black ink is the base ingredients, and the additions in red are what I used for these. If you ever get the chance to make the real thing, don’t be too disappointed when they’re barely better than the ones before you.” Sentence said with a smirk. “And that’s everything I need to tell you right now. If you have any questions, I’ll answer them to the best of my abilities. But nothing about Prisoner. It’s better if you hear those from him.”

“I know, I know. You already told me.” Elach said as he polished off his first cookie and reached for a second. “And I do have some questions. Most of them are pretty boring; how to use the Issi you gave me, how to make my container and headspace bigger, how to get more Issi into my container, how I make a focus. Those kinds of things. But I do have a bigger question.”

Sentence waited for Elach to continue, but Elach was waiting for Sentence to reply. They sat in silence for a few seconds until Sentence held out a hand and spoke. “There’s no harm in asking. The worst I’ll say is no, so go ahead.”

Elach leaned forward. “Which eternal stole six years of my life away?”

“There’s the fire.” Sentence laughed. “And now you’ve cemented my choice. Use the ring, Elach, it will help you learn everything you need to know. Once you get stronger, I’ll help you with the new power you’ve gathered. But the lessons are just that; lessons. Don’t try to walk the same path as I have. Find friends you can bring to the end of the world. Learn from masters that will no longer exist after you slay an eternal. Carve your path into the screaming flesh of reality and look back with pride at the atrocities you have brought forth.”

Elach said his goodbyes to Sentence and closed his eyes, first willing Flow back to his own headspace and then himself to awaken. He felt something cool brush against his arm and pushed it away with his other hand, Prisoner’s voice cutting through his disorientation.

“How’d it go?” He asked with a hint of trepidation in his voice.

“Pretty good, I think. Sentence told me we were bonded, but I don’t feel like I really did anything.” Elach looked down at his hand, the only reminder of his experience the dark iron ring on his middle finger. “Any ideas of what I should do now?”

“Test out your newfound Issi, of course!” Prisoner spread his arms, revealing nothing in between them. “You can do the basics without a focus, and you’ll need them even if you’re blowing up cities and rewriting the rules of reality. Go on. Try it out.”

“I would, except I have no idea how to do that.” Elach pointed out. Prisoner smiled and waited, and eventually Elach gave in with a sigh. “Any tips you’re willing to share?”

Prisoner clapped his hands together with a loud bang. “Haven’t done this in a long while, but let’s see if I’ve still got the touch for teachin’. Reach into your container, not your headspace, and try to pull out a little bit of Issi. Then let it do its thing. We’ll go from there.” Prisoner said. “Don’t close your eyes for this one. Wouldn’t want you blindin’ yourself every time you wanted to use Issi. Oh, and you have to do this to activate the seed in your container. Won’t see any changes in your headspace until you do.”

“That’s it?” Elach asked. It was both simple in concept and completely impossible. Like nailing an ice cube to a wall.

“That’s it. And remember, keep those eyes open.” Prisoner said, giving Elach two thumbs up and waiting for him to get the show on the road.

Elach rolled his eyes at Prisoner and then closed them. That earned him a tirade of reminders, so he waved Prisoner off and forced his eyes to stay open. He placed a hand on his stomach to get a feel for the intangible space where all of his Issi was stored, which felt a little more solid than before. Which didn’t mean much, intangible organ and all. But perception was everything, and Elach got a slightly warm feeling almost in his gut. Almost exactly like the feeling Sentence’s cookies gave him.

That couldn’t be a coincidence. Elach blinked and focused everything he could spare while keeping his eyes open on the warm feeling near, but not quite in, his gut. It felt like ribbons of warmth wrapping around something impossibly cold, both trying to bring down the other but locked in a perpetual stalemate. And the cold was also familiar. Just like the drink Sentence had served him, staying freezing no matter how long it sat by the fire. Delicious apart, but divine when combined. Elach tried to get the ribbon to unwrap from the core it was protecting, and it fell free with a single tug. The bottom of his container became unbearably hot while the top of it froze instantly, and Elach’s teeth started chattering while he became drenched in sweat.

Prisoner wiped away sweat that threatened to get in Elach’s eyes, giving him another thumbs up as he shook Elach’s sweat off of his bare hand. Disgusting. He couldn’t have used a cloth? He seemed to be able to manifest almost anything in here, and he used his bare hand to wipe Elach’s forehead? Elach shook his head, sweat flying off of the tips of his unkempt hair as he cleared his head. Prisoner was just trying to help, and he had more important things to focus on.

The ribbon danced around the core of cold as Elach tried to get it to squeeze the core to pieces. When that didn’t work, he tried crushing the core with his will alone. This time it relented, but it did not shatter. It tore a hole in the exact center of his container that a thick, liquid cold started spilling out of, and in a panic Elach stretched the ribbon as far as it would go and wrapped it around the hole. But the cold seeped through the cracks, and the ribbon fluttered back down to the bottom of his container. Elach took a deep breath and focused on the axe in front of him and asked himself a question; how was this a spatial Issi seed?

Elach blinked twice and exhaled. Prisoner wiped off more of his sweat, his expression still void of concern. Elach took a deep breath; he wasn’t in danger. This was his Issi now. He gripped the ribbon and formed it into a tightly woven bowl, catching the cold as it flowed out of the hole. It overflowed. Was he going about this all wrong? This time, Elach latched onto the hole. And pulled. It stretched out to cover the entirety of his container, the cold and ribbon smashed against the sides and melted together to form some kind of insulation against whatever the hole now was. His container was empty. But now it was full. Full of emptiness. But that couldn’t be right.

“Full of the spaces between spaces.” Prisoner said, starting Elach out of his trance. “You didn’t close your eyes. Nice. But Sentence might’ve given you a little more than you can handle there. Hope it don’t come back to bite you later.”

“What about this is powerful?” Elach asked. He no longer felt empty, but there was something on the edge of emptiness in there instead. “I’m not sure what Issi is supposed to feel like, but it can’t be this.”

“Issi is everythin’, so it can feel like anythin’.” Prisoner said with a shrug. “What you have there is location Issi. The same stuff Sentence is usin’ to keep me trapped here.”

“An executioner’s axe gave me location Issi.” Elach said, not believing his own words. “That’s the stuff they use so self driving carriages know where to go.”

“Not quite. Think about it this way; when the executioner swings their axe, it doesn’t need to pierce through armor. It always severs flesh. The moment the executioner reads your crimes you’re dead, not the moment blade bites flesh. For some, that moment comes when they are captured.” Prisoner put an emphasis on capture, and Elach understood what he was trying to say.

“You’re dead. You can’t run, can’t plead your case, can’t escape the inevitable.” Elach said, and Prisoner nodded. “So how do I make use of this?”

“Well, just one idea, but what if you designated two separate locations and tore them apart? And, if someone just so happens to be at the junction of those two locations?” Prisoner blew a raspberry while miming pulling something apart. “You’ve got two halves of a person.”

“A little too grim for my first technique, don’t you think?” Elach said, but tucked the idea away for later. “But I get the idea. I just need to get creative.”

Prisoner snapped his fingers. “Exactly. But before that you need a focus to hold that technique, and before that you need to master the basics of Issi manipulation. And before that before that, here.” Prisoner handed Elach an empty bottle and thumbed over his shoulder at the stump. “Scoop up some of that existential bleed there and put it in here. That stuff’ll fast track you to catching up with your peers.”

“The rainbow stuff? Can I even, uh, scoop it up?” Elach asked. “It doesn’t really look like a liquid.”

“The rainbow stuff. And yeah, it’ll act like thick water once you start playin’ with it.” Prisoner confirmed. “It’s an absurdly powerful Issi accelerant, but it only works for location and severing Issi. And if you bond that other wisp manifestation, you’ll end up having both by the end.”

“How do you know it's powerful?” Elach asked, bending down to scrape some of the thick substance off of the stump to force it into the bottle.

“Because I’ve used it. I’m somethin’ of a location practitioner myself, you know.” Prisoner said, kneeling down next to Elach. “Don’t try to scrape it in, take off the top layer and it’ll flow down on its own.”

“Gotcha.” Elach said, doing as Prisoner suggested. The existential bleed flowed like the blood it was named after, slowly but constantly dripping down the stump and into the bottle. “Any tips on how to best use the Issi?”

“Your location Issi is gonna be different from mine, since our sources are on opposite sides of the spectrum. Sentence is about the empty spaces, but my bond was all about fillin’ ‘em. Storing things, bringing out an army from a space the size of a button, mass travel, that kind of thing.” Prisoner pulled a small crystal out of thin air, a purple and blackened silver thing that smelled of fresh pine and flowing rivers. Then he flourished his hand, and it was gone. “But just from what I can feel from you, that ain’t for you. You’re gonna have to learn to work with moving, writing, and shaping the locations themselves. And the first thing any location practitioner needs to learn is how to make their anchors, the lone common point between all of us. Little invisible chunks of Issi that let us use our techniques from a distance. Once you’ve got that down, I’ll find something that suits you to use as your first focus.”

“Okay.” Elach said with a nod, excitement buzzing through him as he got a moment to stop and realize that this was actually happening. He was a practitioner now.