It wasn’t all that long after Serenity left the flame wolf behind when he started seeing distorted areas out of the corners of his eyes. They wouldn’t resolve into anything more concrete even with Aide’s help so Serenity continued onwards.

It was a bit over an hour after the first distortion when Serenity decided that the blurs were common enough to try to get back to his own time.

He tried walking up to one of the distortions; Aide could even show him where it looked onto the “real” timeline in the Forest of Lost Regrets. It didn’t work, because he stepped right through the distortion and didn’t go forward in time.

Serenity didn’t know any Time-displacement spells. They had to exist; any natural phenomenon could be duplicated with a properly designed spell. He’d fallen through Time here, but as the Final Reaper he’d been sent backwards in Time.

Perhaps those weren’t the best examples, since they were both going backwards in Time and he needed to go forward. Still, he moved forward in Time every second of his life; it was natural. He simply needed to figure out how to do that without having to live through it all.

He wasn’t actually certain he could get there by living through it, because he wasn’t certain if he was really back in Time or simply in some sort of odd echo of displaced Time. The fact that there were edges to it gave credence to the “echo” theory but the fact that he could interact with it and the flame wolf couldn’t was support for it being at least somewhat real as well.

“Time magic is still bullshit magic.” Serenity grumbled to himself. He could pretend he was talking to Aide, but he knew he was really talking to himself.

That thought brought an idea. If Time magic was bullshit magic, why didn’t he do some bullshit himself? He had the Time Affinity, or close enough. For that matter, he even had a nascent SpaceTime Aspect; that meant it was just barely present, less than the Initiated stage of his Arcane Aspect and far less than the Growth stage of his Essence Aspect, but it existed. He didn’t know a spell for what he needed to do, but the doorway was right there; all he needed was a key.

It was clear why monsters would get trapped in Time and not return to the forest. Time magic wasn’t just bullshit, it was also rare.

Serenity reached for his SpaceTime Affinity. The main Time-related thing he’d done with it so far was to observe; he’d focused on the Space portion and simply used the Time portion of his Affinity to anchor his portals in the Now. That wasn’t a good way to learn the full Affinity; Serenity suspected it was why his Aspect hadn’t progressed even though he’d put a lot of practice into learning portals and teleportation.

Now he was going to use the Time portion and not deal with the Space portion other than making certain he stayed in the “same” spot on the world. A world that was spinning on its axis as it rotated around a star that moved around a galaxy that was probably moving somehow relative to the rest of the universe.

Yeah, there wasn’t any Space influence there. Sure.

But then, knowing that much was why it was a SpaceTime Affinity instead of a pure Time Affinity.

Rissa’s was a pure Time Affinity, but her Affinity worked differently. It was probably because she had a natural talent as an Oracle; her Time Affinity was strongly linked to sensing things through Time. Serenity hadn’t managed that yet but he could work with the intersection of Time and Magic or Time and Space. His Affinity was far more active than hers while hers was far better for gathering information.

Rissa’s version was also far better for gathering money. Admittedly, information was a currency in some ways, wasn’t it? It could be gained and it could be spent.

Serenity’s version ought to be better at getting him out of this natural trap, though Serenity was certain Rissa would be able to figure it out as well. He’d probably brute force something she’d finesse, but knowing that didn’t help him use anything other than force.

Serenity walked up to another tear in Time and felt for it with his Time Affinity and Aspect instead of his hand. It felt sharp, perhaps even jagged. It was impossibly thin and extremely wide at the same time. Hundreds of years across yet adjacent.

Serenity yanked on the tear, trying to pull it sideways. There was no better word for it; he wanted to pull it in another direction. Not more years but more of a connection. More reality. More something.

It shifted.

Serenity looked through the tear carefully. He could see a forest, but unlike the forest he’d seen before, this forest was alive and moving. The wind swayed the leaves and he could see animals moving around, even hear birdsong.

He had no idea if that was the right Time or not. Had he managed to force an opening to his own Time or had he somehow ripped his way into yet another Time?

Aide? Is that when it should be?

I think so. The movement started from the position I saw when you did whatever you did.

What did you do? I saw that but it doesn’t make sense. Time doesn’t work like that.

Time magic is bullshit magic, always has been. So I did something that sort of made sense and told it it would work.

I hate using Intent-based casting. It’s so much less controlled.

Serenity hadn’t meant to say the last bit to Aide, but it was the truth. He liked the control of spellforms; Intent-based casting was faster but far less reliable. There was simply no alternative here.

Serenity could feel his mana draining away from him; it was fast and getting faster, so he decided to trust Aide’s best guess and hurried through the tear in Time.

He stopped just before he ran into a tree, then released the magic.

Serenity was spent, but he didn’t want to stop in the area of weakened time, especially not after he’d pulled at it. There was no way to guarantee he wouldn’t slip through another crack in Time if he stayed in the area, especially if he’d actually damaged it getting back out.

Serenity started trotting in the general direction of Mornmot, apparently once known as the Mouth of Morning, located at the mouth of the Morning River. At least, that was the name once upon a time; Serenity doubted it even had a name anymore. There hadn’t been one on Duke Lowpeak’s map.

He was about to ask Aide if he could figure out some way to make sure of when it was when the Voice preempted him.

[Queued messages sent]

Serenity blinked. He’d written every day he was in the past, but he’d been unable to actually send the messages and he’d forgotten about them. He was certain he’d have remembered when he next wrote a message, but that could have been hours.

He then checked for messages from Rissa; she was writing back regularly. There wasn’t a message from her, which meant he’d been missing for no more than a day or so; she hadn’t missed more than a single day since she went to Aeon and that one day was while she was traveling.

Serenity started laughing in relief. He was tired, but at least he knew that he hadn’t messed everything up.

He only went far enough to no longer see continuous Time-distortions before he stopped and set up his tent. He felt a little silly using it with no one else present, but it was the fastest way to have shelter and it wasn’t like he needed to worry about it being attacked. It wasn’t particularly attractive to monsters, no more so than a tree, and there should still be very few monsters around. The flame wolf was clearly an exception.

Serenity barely made it to a bed before he collapsed into sleep.

Compared to what came before, the rest of Serenity’s trip through the Forest of Lost Regrets was without incident. Sure, he had to deal with a demon deer that decided he looked tasty, and then there was the demon owl with a wingspan large enough that comparing Serenity to a mouse was a reasonable analogy. They were nothing compared to ending up back in Time with no sure way to return to the present.

Rissa’s next letter confirmed that no time had passed while he was (sort of) trapped in the past, so he’d actually gained several days’ travel time from the experience.

Serenity noticed something strange as he left the forest: he reached the edge at least half a day earlier than he’d expected to and there were ruins at the edge of the forested area that weren’t on Duke Lowpeak’s map. Even as inaccurate as it was, Serenity had expected it to be accurate enough to note anything that could conceivably have been called a city and this was at the low end of that range.

Far more important than the fact that he faced the ruins of a human city was the fact that something had built on those remnants. Or was it built? On second thought, Serenity wondered if grown was perhaps the better word. There were four towers that stood in the city; only one was old stonework, slowly crumbling under the weight of time and plant life.

The other three were shiny, almost like an insect’s carapace. One was purely black, one was a muddy brown, and the last was a yellow that varied unevenly between mustard yellow and lime yellow. They all covered a wide area at the base but rose to a point at the tip, more like a thorn in shape than a proper tower even though they were about four stories in height.

None of the three newer “towers” had any visible openings from where Serenity was; there might be some at ground level, but Serenity sort of doubted it. Once he’d gotten a good look at them, he didn’t think they were actually towers.

Instead, he hoped they were three demons. The alternative was worse: they might all be part of one demon. He might have a chance against a four-story-tall thorn demon if it was relatively low Tier, preferably lower than his own; he wouldn’t have much of a chance against something that had multiple four-story-tall appendages. Even at low Tier, something that big could just step on him and he’d lose.

The differing color schemes made it likely they were separate but didn’t guarantee it. On the other hand, a demon that was large enough to have all three as part of itself was almost certainly higher Tier than Serenity; kaiju that large weren’t common until what, Tier Eight? Ten? Serenity wasn’t certain. Either way, higher than anything he wanted to face and probably high enough to not belong on Zon.

Serenity definitely needed a way to blend in.

The first thing he wanted to look into was how the demons dealt with each other. This relatively sparse ruined city seemed like a good place to start looking. Once he had that, he could figure out next steps like whether or not he actually needed a disguise.