Elach stared at the mass of chains and dirt he’d managed to scrape together, and wondered if he was actively making things worse. Y’talla kept making little surprised noises each time a chain shot through a piece of debris, peeking through her fingers as if she couldn’t bear to watch but also needed to see. Elach grunted as he felt the pull of emptiness on his container, shaking his arms and sighing.

“This obviously isn’t working.”

“At least you’re doing something.” Y’talla said as she severed some of her Issi for Elach to absorb, a cycle of filling and wasting they’d been repeating for a good long while now.

Elach inhaled as he felt the Issi filling his lungs, forcing his mind to focus on the location Issi he needed instead of the transcended Issi Y’talla’s Issi wanted to become. “Are you sure you aren’t getting tired? Or running low? We can take a break if you want.”

“I can go for a lot longer than you can.” Y’talla said with a smile. Elach knew she didn’t mean anything insulting, but her words still stung. “Do you want to try again? Maybe something new?”

“I don’t know what else I can try.” Elach gestured up at the mass of further destroyed debris, all his chains having disappeared the moment he struck empty. “I can only anchor my chains to one of two things; myself, or empty space. We tried to do that thing I did back in the fight, chaining you up, but even with all the Issi in my container it just wouldn’t work. Because I don’t think my Issi works that way.”

“So make it work that way.” Y’talla said innocently. “It’s your Issi.”

“You keep saying that, and I keep telling you it doesn’t work that way. It might for you, but it doesn’t for me.” Elach sat down next to Y’talla, putting a hand to his stomach as he felt the Issi streaming into his core. “The double empty space anchor is a neat trick, but aside from tripping someone, I can’t think of any time it would be useful.”

“I still think you should be able to anchor onto things. Even if you can’t stop them like when you were super powered, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to.” Y’talla traced more circles in the dirt. “Maybe that transcended Issi will let you do it? Any luck on getting that into your pathways?”

Elach shook his head. “No luck.”

Y’talla went silent, and Elach returned to his thoughts. He had to get out of here somehow, and Y’talla seemed convinced that putting this broken field back together was the key. But all Elach saw was dirt and rock. Like everything living had been fossilized, all the water evaporated, and the primal spring’s Issi faded away into the background of the universe. But that wasn’t quite right. There was Issi here, but it was all earth and rock, coinciding with the only things in this empty void. If Y’talla wasn’t here, he wouldn’t have a chance at making it out.

“Shouldn’t there be destruction Issi here?” Elach asked. “Maybe some ruin?”

“It’s been too long. Everything else’s all dried up by now.” Y’talla responded absentmindedly. “This place is a lot older than I thought it was. A LOT older. But that should be impossible. The primal spring near your village isn’t even twenty years old.”

“There were other primal springs before the one near our house. They just… disappeared. There one day, and poof, gone the next.” Elach paused. “Wait. Those cult-y people from before this place exploded. Is that what this is? One of the primal springs that disappeared?”

“...Disappeared?” Y’talla looked around, her eyes widening as if she was seeing the empty world around her for the first time. “Who would destroy a primal spring? All they do is help people.”

“Uh,” Elach started, ready to point out exactly how many times he’d seen people get hurt in primal springs, himself included.

“It’s not the spring’s fault the eternals force people to use them dangerously!” Y’talla cut in. “The solstice is the only time there’s enough Issi for wisps to feel safe around people, but it’s also when all the Issi beasts get stronger. If people were a little kinder to wisps, they wouldn’t have to risk it on the solstice. But the eternals make sure people don’t make that little connection in their brains, so they go on like they have for almost a thousand years.”

“Agree to disagree.” Elach said. “But this doesn’t help us get out of here. I’m open to any suggestions that aren’t just ‘do this thing’.”

“What happens if you do that continuously moving chain thing, but then you pull both ends at the same time?” Y’talla suggested. “Why don’t you try that?”

“Because I’m terrified that’ll do something horrible to this place. Like, rip a tear in existence horrible.” Elach created a tiny chain between his palms that rattled and clanked as it was pulled through nothing and into nothing. “But we are running short on ideas…”

“Do it.” Y’talla said excitedly. “The worst that happens is we die a little sooner than we would have.”

“What a thought.” Elach muttered, splitting his focus so half was on each side of the constantly moving chain. “Sorry if this kills us.”

Y’talla shot Elach a worried, yet hopeful, smile. “I’m forgiving you now, because I can’t if I’m dead.”

Elach chuckled as he readied himself. “It’s been good working with you, Y’talla.”

“Same!”

A deep breath, a spark of Issi, and Elach very slowly began to pull his palms apart. He didn’t make it an inch before his container screamed empty defiance, a hungry vacuum ripping through his container and worming its way into that bizarre spot where his transcended Issi slept. It devoured that in a split second, his consciousness flickering like a candle in the wind, but he held on. He felt a stronger connection to his Issi than he ever had before, thanks to whatever had eaten away at the remnants of Sentence’s influence, and after what felt like an eternity Elach forced his eyes open.

The chain was down to a single link, unmoving, and his hands were now a good three inches away from their respective starting positions. The single link was not the black and amber of his regular chains, but the ancient white and green around his wrists. Elach sent a probing thought at the link, gaining an overwhelming feeling of connection in return. It felt like what he’d expected to feel when he initially bonded with Flow, and he heard a quiet song of utter joy cutting through the space around him.

“Our bond.” Elach whispered. “Were we not… bonded before, Flow?”

The joyous melody didn’t pause for a moment, and was now accompanied by a thumping beat that harmonized perfectly with it. Elach turned to look at Y’talla, and found tears streaming down her cheeks. The rest of her face was a visage of relief and happiness, and Elach felt a strange sort of melancholy in the pit of his stomach that made him feel thankful for the moments he had left.

“Thank you, Elach.” Y’talla said in a powerful voice, rumbling through Elach like a raging river. “I’d forgotten the simple joy of living. The other godspawn will tremble before a power like yours.”

“What are you talking about?” Elach asked. Y’talla simply smiled wide and gestured out at everything. As he blinked the spots out of his eyes, the world came into view. And it was no longer as it had once been. The sky was a shattered mosaic of colours, the ancient dirt and rock debris now actual pieces of earth, streams of gravity defying dust running through and around them as blurry figures stood helplessly by. “Oh, man. There’s no way I did that.”

“Not really. But it was a nice effort.” Y’talla laughed, her mannerisms still the same as before, but no longer fitting with her new voice. “Whatever you did, it put us at the starting line. We’ve got a whole lot of work to do, and you need the Issi to do it. Open wide, and let’s do this.”

Chaining together a broken world was about as difficult as Elach had expected it to be. Meaning it was pretty much impossible. He needed to use his transcended Issi to get the effects he wanted, but he also needed to use a full container’s worth of Issi to get to the point he could use that transcended Issi. Watching as the world was slowly but surely knit together, however, was worth all the hassle and impossibly difficult work he put into it. Even Y’talla was looking haggard after Elach managed to put together a small forest clearing, and that was nowhere near the entirety of the task ahead of them.

“This is going to take forever.” Y’talla complained as she played with a nine inch long blade of grass that was two hairs thick, folding it up into random shapes that picked at something in Elach’s memories he couldn’t place. “We’ve been working for hours and all we’ve managed to bring back is this little clearing. How are we supposed to fix this place before we both die of old age?”

Elach shook his head as he looked out over the vast expanse of… stuff. Sure, he’d carved out a tiny space that felt solid, but this couldn’t be more than one percent of this primal spring. And then there were the buzzing shadows of people, animals, and wisps, the shattered sky, and all the globs of solidified Issi that meandered around the place like dandelion fluff in a breeze.

“My biggest question is how I’m supposed to get that stuff,” he pointed to a ball of bright yellow Issi that smelled of ozone, “back into the right places. There’s like a million of them floating around. And I don’t even know how to touch them, since they aren’t even affected by my Issi.”

“Save them for last? Maybe it’ll sort itself out.” Y’talla suggested with a shrug. “I’m done for tonight, Elach. I need to rest.”

“Is your container running low?” Elach asked. If Y’talla ran out of Issi, this all came to a screeching halt.

“Not even close.” Y’talla yawned. “It’s the rest of me that’s running low.”

“Good. Good. So, I’ve been meaning to ask; what’s a godspawn?”

Y’talla tilted her head to the side. “Where’d you hear that word?”

“You said it a few hours ago. And I just kind of forgot to ask.” Elach shrugged. “Did you have another fit of knowing?”

“No, I always knew what a godspawn was. But when you did that chain thing, I found out something more.” Y’talla gestured at herself. “I’m one of them.”

“... Is that supposed to be some kind of huge revelation?”

“I dunno. Godspawn are wisps that somehow got the same kind of Issi as one of the dead gods; primal, transcendent, that kind of thing. And I somehow know that they… we’re starting to show up now. In the order that the gods appeared at the beginning. The very beginning.” Y’talla drew yet more circles in the dirt, but these started to glow with power once they were completed. “I’m pretty sure I was the first. I can barely feel the others starting to stir, but they don’t feel like I do. They’re powerful. And they’re already working towards manifesting.”

“Is that a bad thing? I thought the gods were all good guys.”

Y’talla snorted. “The gods were like people. Some good, some bad, most just existing. But now they’re angry. Angry at the Eternals, the greater manifestations, the living cities, the tyrants. And I don’t know why, but they hate each other. And that hate extends to anyone who’s friends, acquaintances, or really anyone who has any positive relationship with a godspawn.”

“And that includes me, right?” Elach sighed. “I don’t need any more piling up in front of me. I’ve already got enough to deal with to last a lifetime.”

“I know. And I’m sorry.” Y’talla said quietly. “You’ve got your promise to Sentence, the chains slowly pulling you to Prisoner’s cell, Glasrime’s after you, and you’re dead. Now I’m springing this on you, and I don’t even really know what ‘this’ is. Oh, and Flow might be a godspawn too. I’m sorry.”

“Not like you had a choice. I just hope I can somehow get out of my headspace instead of being stuck here for the rest of my life. However short it is.”

“I’m still sorry.” Y’talla said, then let out another wide yawn. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Night.” Elach said, then turned to look at the blurry person-shaped mass that was only a few chunks of earth away. “There’s something I want to try.”