After what felt like an eternity of staying awake on Issi alone, Elach and Y’talla were about ready to collapse. Elach was confident he had another day or two in him, but he ended up not needing even that. The purple light dimmed without warning, taking the silver beams along with it. The apparitions flickered once and then disappeared, assumingly sent back to wherever the silver beams had plucked them from. Elach almost collapsed in relief, and Y’talla went past almost. She crumpled to the ground and was snoring within seconds, and Elach found himself joining her moments later.

The next thirty waking cycles were spent repairing the world. Elach didn’t know how his container held Issi with gaping holes in it, but it did, and it worked exactly the same as it had before. They made good time patching the world and dispatching the apparitions, which Y’talla quickly learned were not all Issi beasts, and insisted on partaking in each and every memory that Elach experienced. Merely being in contact with each other was enough to bring her in, which Elach found out when she dove at an apparition that looked to be the size of a teenager. She stopped asking after that, and Elach didn’t force her to leave when she held his hand to enter their memories.

Each and every day was a strenuous routine, Elach taking any free time he found to compress his Issi and capping off each day with a little progress towards expanding his container. No matter what he did the chains held strong, so he didn’t ask questions and pushed forward.

The next time the purple light invaded, there were far fewer apparitions brought with it. Y’talla had pointed out each and every apparition that looked to be dangerous, so all that were left were the weaker animals and a few practitioners on the skill level of Cama Freshetfall. They worked through the purple light, and seven waking cycles later, the light retreated. By this time, the primal spring was almost completely rebuilt. All that was left was the sky.

“You still can’t get a lock on anything?” Y’talla shielded her eyes from the constant light of the shattered sky. “Is there even anything to get a lock on?”

“It’s either too far away or immune to my Issi. Either way, I can’t do anything about it.” Elach hopped out of the tree he’d climbed, pulling himself to the ground next to Y’talla. “There’s gotta be something we’re missing. We’ve fixed the rest of this place, and it doesn’t make sense to screw us over now.”

“Maybe it’s the existential bleed? The sky does kinda look like that stuff.”

“It’s been way longer than two weeks, so I doubt it.” Elach gestured towards the spring part of the primal spring. “Maybe the spring’s up and running now?”

“You’d be the first to know. We are in your headspace.” Y’talla frowned. “At least I think we are? Or maybe this is my headspace, and it connected to you somehow? Oh, it could be Flow’s, but then that doesn’t explain why I’m here, does it?”

“It does not.” Elach agreed. “Still want to check the spring?”

Y’talla thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

“I don’t know why this place isn’t filling up. The river is flowing and we’ve found some new plant life, but the spring won’t make a drop of Issi.” Elach ran his hand through the thin liquid that filled the basin of the spring. It looked exactly like steam, but it acted like water. “Still no idea what this stuff is?”

“Nuh-uh.” Y’talla shook her head, her feet dangling in the steam-water as she stared at the sky above. “It doesn’t have any Issi in it at all, so it shouldn’t exist. Everything has Issi; even nothing does!”

As if reacting to Y’talla’s words, the spring was suddenly empty. She yelped in surprise and scooted backwards, lifting her legs up from the impossibly deep basin that seemed to go down for miles. Elach squinted to try and get a sense of how deep it went, but it defied perception. He could swear he saw a glint somewhere down at the bottom, but the next moment it was perfectly dark.

“Think that’s a sign for us to go down?” Elach asked.

Y’talla looked down and shivered. “Do we have to?”

“I don’t think there’s anything else left in this place for us. So it’s down or nothing.” Elach looked over and reached out his hand. “I’ll make sure we have a soft landing.”

“If there’s a bottom to land on.” Y’talla muttered as she walked over to Elach and wrapped her arms around his torso. “Just… warn me when you’re about to go, please?”

“I’m going in five seconds.” Elach said, feeling Y’talla’s hug tighten. “Four. Three. Two. One. Going.”

Y’talla let out a scared whimper as Elach jumped, chaining himself to a spot as far down as he could go and pulling. The darkness rose to meet him, the surface of the primal spring now a small circle up above. Y’talla mumbled something about the dark and wrapped her legs around his right knee, her head jerking erratically as she took in the pit of the primal spring. They needed to go deeper. Far deeper, if Elach’s chains still finding empty space was any indicator.

“Going down again. Hold tight.” Elach said, waiting for Y’talla’s nod before he pulled. And pulled. And pulled once again. The light from the surface dimmed and dimmed until it was the tiniest pinprick against the all-consuming darkness, and Elach still couldn’t feel the bottom of the spring. It had barely been over his head when he’d chained it together, so this was getting absurd. “You holding out alright, Y’talla?”

“No.” Y’talla squeaked. “Keep moving please. Staying still is scary.”

“Will do.”

Seconds went by. Darkness. Minutes. Darkness. Hours, so long that Elach felt Y’talla’s grip redouble under the strength of her Issi. Darkness. The only light was the dim glow of Y’talla’s skin, fending off the darkness in a ten-foot sphere but no more.

“Maybe this was a mistake.” Elach said. “Do you feel like we’re getting anywhere with this?”

“I don’t feel like we’re anywhere at all.” Y’talla said, her voice barely a whisper. “Can you check if there are still walls around us?”

“Hells, there better be.” Elach muttered. He reached out and pulled, then reached and pulled, then reached and pulled… “It might be a little too early to say, but I think the walls are gone.”

“Oh no. Not again.” Y’talla whimpered. “Please. Not back there.”

“There?” Elach asked, then bit his tongue. “You mean wherever you were before you found me. Was it all darkness like this?”

“It wasn’t darkness. It was nothing.” Y’talla shivered against Elach, and his heart cried out in sympathy. “And now you’re stuck here with me. I’m sorry.” Y’talla sniffed, her voice thick. “I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me. Don’t leave me.”

Elach ran his free hand through Y’talla’s hair. “I’m not going anywhere. Let’s take a breather and look at this with fresh eyes. Sound good?”

“Okay.”

“I’m putting down a net of chains we can sit on. Don’t let go for a second.”

“Okay.”

Elach’s feet touched his Issi. He felt his chains spreading out in a good five feet radius around him, and he gently lowered himself until he was sure they could hold his weight. “You can let go now, but be careful. You’ve got five feet of chains to sit on.”

“Okay.”

Y’talla didn’t move. Elach grimaced and lowered himself down on his chains, careful not to hurt her. She adjusted her legs but held tight around his waist, and Elach slowly ran his hand through her hair to try and comfort her.

“I’m here.”

A sniffle. “Thanks.”

Elach sat there for a long while, one hand on Y’talla’s head and the other clasped between her own. She seemed truly terrified of wherever they were, and calm never came no matter how long he waited.

“Back when I found out I could connect a chain to two points in existence, I felt my connection to Sentence change. It’s still there somewhat, but I felt something else burrow into the space only his Issi used to occupy in my container.” Elach mused, and he felt Y’talla nod along. “Now, I might be wrong, but there are only three things I think could have filled that space. One is Flow, but I figure they would have told me the second it happened through our bizarre link. The second is whatever manifestation weaseled in on Sentence and my bond, which I’m guessing has something to do with chains, since all my Issi looks like them now.”

Elach paused. He wanted to get Y’talla interested, and maybe a little bit out of her justifiable funk. He felt her shift, and when he turned to see what she was doing he found himself face to face with her. Her eyes were puffy, her lip leaking the thick amber liquid Elach suspected was her blood. She looked absolutely terrified, and her nails dug into his hand as she worked up the courage to speak.

“Who’s the last one?”

Elach smiled wide. “You are. My chains changed colour, my Issi feels different, and I managed to expand my container when it was filled with just your Issi without killing myself. What do you think the chances are that we’re bonded now?”

Y’talla blinked in surprise, excitement slowly worming its way onto her face while pushing away the fear. Even if it lasted a moment, Elach smiled along as a warmth rose in his chest. She closed her eyes, then Elach felt something prodding at his container. The smile that blossomed on Y’talla’s face was bright enough to blind the midday sun.

“I can feel it! You! Your Issi!” Y’talla laughed, shaking Elach’s hand up and down in excitement. “I can feel that other thing trying to butt in too, but I’m not giving in to whatever it is. It can stay outside begging all it wants, but now that I’m here, it’s going to have to fight twice as hard for every inch!”

“Thank you for that.” Elach said with a genuine smile that Y’talla returned twice over. “So is my Issi still location Issi? Or is it something else now?”

“Nope. Well, yes, and no. You’ve got primal Issi now, just like me!” Y’talla gestured a thumb at her chest. “It won’t work any differently, since it’s still your Issi, but Flow might have a little adapting to do when we get back!”

“They certainly will. It’s a good thing my compression and expansion techniques were for transcendent Issi, or else I’d have to learn everything all over again.” Elach let go of Y’talla’s hand, and she excitedly shimmied over to sit cross-legged across from him. “Any trade secrets I need to know to work with this stuff?”

“You’ll have to tell me if you figure any out. Anything from back when I knew things feels like it’s gone forever now. Well, most things.” Y’talla raised a hand and began counting on her fingers, ticking them up one by one as she spoke. “I know what the godspawn are, but I don’t remember what we’re fighting over. I know that I have primal Issi, but I have no clue how to do anything with it. I remember everything I’ve seen while I was close to you, and some things you don’t remember, but anything before that is one big blur.”

“You remember things I don’t? About my own life?” Elach raised an eyebrow in suspicion. “How’s that possible?”

“Remember how the eternals keep things separated?” Y’talla asked, and Elach nodded in confirmation. “Well, that’s happened to you. Pretty much every time you went into the wisp garden, and every time you went into the primal spring. Things wanted to bond with you, Elach. But you always turned them down.”