Lyun and Mheridz continued to press forward along the winding halls of the citadel, confronting obstacle after obstacle as they travelled. Lyun was getting very frustrated, as she had grown used to this place being on her side, so she wasn’t taking such a betrayal very well.

“This is getting really annoying, I’m certain there has been a new wall every 50 Uyn, if not less.” “You’re lucky that your first trip was so welcoming, you should have seen how rough this place was for those of us not welcome back then.” “Did it have this many barriers?” “Well, no, the place was running pretty idle, but the layout of this place honestly has a mind of its own. It got so bad, I was stuck running in circles back then for at least sixty moments. In that light, this is nothing.” “But.. how do you know we aren’t running in circles?” “The instruments I’m using don’t provide a clean passage, they leave lightning streaks along the floor near where they are used. We haven’t run into such, so we’re fine.” Lyun knew Mheridz was the prepared one here, but something still seemed wrong. They continued onward as Lyun spotted a blossom on the floor ahead, a subtly inviting sight. As she got close, the blossom blew into the air.. and then disintegrated into dust. However, the spot where the blossom had been was a suspicious lightning streak, visibly fading away as she watched as the very ground pulsed with hydro-electric integrity. Apparently, with everything saturated with lightning elemental, residual lightning wasn’t apparent for long.

“Yeah, we’re going in circles.” “That was one of the fabled blossoms!” “Uh, what?” “A legend of the citadel. It seems this place was once a great fortress, and has been under the care of some form of guardian as aspects of the heroic wills of their time. Very little is actually known about the truth behind the myths, but it is said that such influence takes very specific forms. The two most known are the blossom and the crescent moon.” “Oh, so the stuff Axln and I followed a lot during our first visit.. but actually hadn’t shown up since.” “This place is almost simply embodied myths, mother kept calling it the closest our side has to real magic. Supposedly though, it embodies the magic of the other world more than our own myths, like it was that rendered real.” “That would require something capable of not only rendering an idea, but also that someone here had to have access to ideas from the other world. That’s impossible.” “Well, such is what makes this place appear so haunted. Quite decidedly, there has been quite a strong concentration of essence composition here too, which the most informed modern researchers believe to have been caused by transporting the world seed. However, some of that lends wonder to an existing essence concentration before that time might have instead made it ideal for transport, a theory which identifies that the presence of essences could have persisted long before that.” Lyun still didn’t like Mheridz’s line of thought, the woman was clearly intimidated by such strange myths. The place was creepy, but certainly it wasn’t that creepy.

「This place does exhibit quite a bit of true chaos, which could itself go a distance to explain the beliefs of such myths. The mold of chaos present here seems to be inviting for those who exhibit traits in defiance of natural order, while being resistant to those who have no foreign principle. It’s a chaos that is more chaotic to order, but more ordered to chaos. While there is no way to be certain, any other factor that would be defiant to the way this world work might share in such a blessing too, but such a concept would be beyond known chaos.」In other words, her mild affinity of the other world, added maybe with a touch of temporal, gives her a special invitation to the strange that seems to exist here, as if such off-world measures were a goal of the design. Mheridz however held a bit of chaos, but claims she hadn’t gotten the same positive treatment. Well,such chaos wasn’t exactly temporal chaos, and the girl might have a mother with an affinity for the other world, but she herself was completely belonging to this one. Such a line of thought was looking bad, because it made it seem as if the halls would be more inviting if she left Mheridz behind, leaving herself to the halls’ blessing while Mheridz struggled with its contempt.

Nope, Lyun didn’t like this line of thought at all, neither of the two girls deserved such contempt, not after everything they had gone through. In all actuality, they deserved more to be held in high regard, even by such a definition, because certainly being of another timeline should count. It.. didn’t seem to count, but it should have. Velvet’s message still haunted her, pleading to let Mheridz be a part of this last voyage, to not be left behind. To hells with whatever these stupid halls wanted, Mheridz was coming with her, like a special guest or something. Well, there was the concern that Axln was in trouble, and going slowly could make things worse, her honest instinct was to do whatever she could to just save time. However, she knew it was those instincts which had always gotten her into trouble before, panicking always made stuff worse. If she found Axln, and Axln needed help.. what would she do if she couldn’t provide the help needed? Mheridz was the one visibly more prepared right now, so in all likelihood, she would need Mheridz to be there on arrival. The sooner she could bring Mheridz to Axln, the better things would be.

Actually, another idea might be to simply bypass the citadel and simply make the straight path to Axln from the other world.. or other moon, whatever. 「That would not work, the link with Axln has some sort of interruption, doing so would at best provide you access without bringing Axln along. The worst outcome would be that such would decimate the link, outright killing you both. Actions which endanger the link are not recommended at this point.」 Okay, so that wasn’t an option, which just implied that sticking with Mheridz was an even better solution. Actually, there was also the worry about the lens fragments on the other side too, a problem which could also make everything worse had they been able to make the trip safely otherwise. One thing she knew, she hated this whole planning deal, it was far more Axln’s thing, not her own. She was far better at getting creative instead, like messing with everything in unpredictable ways, that was much more fun.

Actually, wouldn’t that be an idea? The halls held strong against her favourite trick, abusing it in a way she had only recently realized by applying in the presence of either law. So, even if she activated both laws, the halls would simply have access to both to deny her. What then.. what if she extended neither? Well, that might be dangerous, unmaking law was the grounds of the temporal, that could have widespread destruction. However, this place held a keen interest in the mythical, the ambitions of the imaginary, a pretense of the magical. It however wouldn’t be designed for such, of course magic didn’t actually work.. but what if she wrought such laws up from the depths of her imagination and forced them into effect? To such rules, people would still exist, but magic would be possible. Genius enough, instrumentation and technology would both fail. Heck, being able to design such temporary laws, she could even write them in her favour. Such would be the imaginary made real, the pretense of myths rendered to fact, the very laws of the world shaped to her whim. Of course, building and sustaining such laws would take more from her than normal, so she would have to keep the area down. Such wouldn’t matter, she wouldn’t need much space anyway, only enough for Mheridz and her to work from.

The two of them approached yet another obstruction, with Mheridz pulling out the usual instruments to deal with everything. However, Lyun stepped in the way, surprising Mheridz. Certainly the girl knew better by now, right? However, she realized the Lyun was once again opting for another shift, even after such had simply been futile last time. Mheridz sighed, ready for when Lyun would give up as she held the instrument. As the shift resolved, the protective field went down.. and the nearby halls went dark. Mheridz then pulled out a light generating device, using it to create light.. but nothing happened. She tried her gift, but that didn’t work either. Lyun however snapped her fingers, and the halls simply grew brighter without apparent reason, neither scientific nor elemental, it was just.. visible.

“See, I knew I was right to not depend on instrumentation here. Hells, this is still pretty hard though. Hey, maybe you could manage the lights for me, I’ve got enough to get used to for now as is.” “How.. how did you.. do that?” “Oh, you mean because glowing isn’t exactly in my purview? It’s magic.. and I’m not even joking. Sorry, I’m still trying to figure out all the rules on the fly here, inventing a world principle from just myths isn’t as easy as it might sound.” “Y-you.. you’re doing what? Woah, that.. that’s remarkable. No, that doesn’t sound easy at all. So what do I have to do?” “Do exactly what I did, snap your figures and wish to have the place light up.” “L-like this?” “No, you’re putting too much focus into it. Stuff like this isn’t going to happen just because it should, it’s going to happen because you’re asking nicely.” “... and how does that make any sense at all?” “Like I said, I’m new to this whole thing, give me a break. I need to make it seem like it’s magic, not that it’s actually practical or anything. Coming up with new reasons for things to just work is really difficult.” Lyun helped Mheridz a bit more with the process, until the girl also managed to cast her first spell. Light, yay, simple magic.. probably. Coming up with new matters of organized principles in such an imaginary way was going to become a lot more challenging, but something about the design of the citadel made it feel like this whole idea was actually possible. The place invited the imaginary, especially right now for.. some unknown reason, she had simply brought the imaginary to it.

Mheridz started handling their illumination while Lyun turned her attention towards stabilizing new principles. Their passage was no longer blocked, as none of their obstacles were magical in nature. Also obvious though was how much her link to Axln simply didn’t work, she wasn’t able to fashion a teleportation spell that would simply bring her to Axln, as the only magical space in existence was around her. Axln was not extending the same shift, not as would normally be the case. In such consideration, she would do well to consider mapping spellcraft in a way that appealed to actual elementals, so that residual effects extending beyond her shift could actually resolve an effect. In such a light, she could probably process a teleport through a thin enough wall to the other side if she was close enough to it, but she couldn’t translate that into a rift or anything, as the walls were made to deny such kinds of elementals. The light spell they had cast could however project illumination beyond the shift, because the ambience could be converted to light elemental. It implied a limitation that they needed spells that could translate properly into real elementals.

Having grown up as an elf, even being one right now, one thing she took great pride in is resolving the resource of spellcraft into something which was not stamina. It was a subtle ambient resource that people just had, for reasons. Mana, whatever. Unlike the super-biased design of the elements, there was no difference between elves or humans casting such spells, it was all the same thing. Okay, maybe her practical reasoning in design would be really weak for coming up with actual new principles, but that’s why she was only doing something temporary, it was only an expression of her creativity, she wasn’t trying to honestly be too realistic about it. Certainly though, it would be a tale to share. Supposedly, as Rosa, she had found a few problems with her creativity being too impaired by matters of realism. Knowing such, this would then be a fine opportunity to discover a way around such impairment, making application of one of her most natural abilities in the process. At the very least, Xwyhr was going to love it, she was basically making a complete mockery of existing rules in the most fun way imaginable. Her sister too would probably be quite a fan of this event as well, even more reasons to take pride in her work.

However, she was becoming more and more aware that it was those more prone to logic who would struggle the most with this. Mheridz herself was doing her best to keep up, but was very visibly uncomfortable at having logic fail her for the imaginary. It was a demand Lyun was finding difficult to keep up with, to build creativity in a way that sufficiently captures logic for those who so completely depend on it. Helping out Axln would then become even more challenging if the girl couldn’t keep up with all of this magic stuff. Between that and trying to blend with outreaching elementals, there was quite a lot for Lyun to work on to make her design feel satisfactory, investing her entire attention into the process. Mheridz, still struggling under such spellcraft, was finding the entire process leaving her head in a massive clutter of confusion, everything she knew coming against her to simply compound confusion when it came to trying to be efficient with the imaginary. Even chaos itself was entranced by this absolute display of refined true chaos, delivering non-existential principles in abstract order that applied reason without logic, it was complete perfection on display.

This was why none of those within the field of magic spared an awareness for what was going on beyond such a marvel. A blossom fluttered along the hall, only to shrivel and die. Chaos was taking its full dominion, between rules of magic and the temporal furls that filled the halls at all ends. The real was faced with the imaginary and the malfortunate, nothing else. It was like the conflux of dreams and nightmares, surpassing everything such a bastion of hope could ever attempt to deal with. Like a crescent moon that has passed into the next phase of its future, it was a new beginning that left no signs of any known comforts. Instead, it would be a turning point, where those so invested in such greater premises would need to resolve what sort of future would come to pass with the coming of a new moon.

“So how exactly would a haste spell work?” “Uh, what?” “Oh, I mean, we’ve sped up, but this is still rather slow. I was thinking maybe I could come up with a spell that simply makes us walk faster.” “Isn’t that far more Axln’s thing, shifting the flow of time?” “Bah, you know that doesn’t make things any faster, that just gets you there sooner, huge difference.” “But, she’s also good at breaking down the distance travelled, so that you go faster.” “Naw, that’s still changing the area ahead, not really affecting the person, that would be a lot harder. Seriously, this isn’t easy to do at all, coming up with this stuff is really hard.” “Well, your work has all been simply about things just happening, why do you need a reason for it to make sense?” “Well, because I’ve got people who care about that sort of thing.” “O-oh, well.. maybe then, instead of simply pressing matters of speed, you could adjust the cost of a person naturally going faster. Make it easier to run.” “Ah, so a spell that would make people lighter.. and that means they don’t use up even a fragment as much stamina running. I love that idea, let’s go with it. Could you cast that spell, please, for the both of us?” “H-h-how?” “I’m still keeping to the idea that you just make a motion and wish for something to happen, I haven’t figured out anything better than that. So, the spell would just be like the light you created, just your wishing for this instead.” Lyun helped Mheridz prepare this next spell, which occurred a lot easier than the last one. Yeah, her creation was simple, but it looked like it was working.

“How exactly does your spell creation work? Is there a given list of spells and you’re making them all one after the other?” “Oh, bah, that would take forever. I’m working more on the overarching concept that a spell would work behind, providing a framework that would allow a spell similar to another to also work in much the same way. Basically, I’m not making the list of spells, I’m making the rules for spells. The rules have to be good enough to at least have effects that might maybe not perish once confronted with elemental law. However, one of the biggest of all the rules is that spells are cast, tools don’t work. That means, no matter what, the stuff we find here can’t do anything, because it’s from a tool.” “Meaning, in your law of spells, instrumentation isn’t allowed.” “Exactly, that.” “So everything I brought is useless?” “Well, no.. just means you need to go over to elemental law to use them. I can always arrange that if we really need it, and you could always go beyond my little field to make use of that yourself. However, I’m hoping that anything you might need.. might still work in a spell form. So, yeah, backups, you brought backups in case spells aren’t enough. That’s good, right?” Mheridz was really impressed at what distance Lyun was going with everything, exactly how practical all of this imagination was seeming. It wasn’t logical, but it was really practical, in its own way. She had to commend the girl for that degree of effort, especially considering how hard the process was appearing. She was especially appreciative in the practical thinking in considering her own resources as a practical backup plan, it was an idea she had neglected to consider in all the confusion. Having such care presented to her, she was thus a bit more determined to see what sort of practical application she could find within all this imaginary confusion.

The two of them continued to wander the halls, ever driven to discover exactly where Axln was in all of this mess. Little did either of them know, Axln was also searching for them in return, just without any of the familiar regard they might have expected.