Ukila Local Time: Noon. (January 14, 1512)

Leaving the diamondfall behind, I begin my experiments to improve Pause.

Though maybe experiments is too strong a word. For once, I have clear directions, thanks to Temporal Library. Which involves securing my own temporal thread. The part of me that extends forward and back and remains consistent no matter when I am.

Doing so is much more easily said than done.

Anchor helps with studying the effect in action, as it essentially has to Freeze time entirely whenever I use it.

The key is thickening my thread, though actually doing so is… it feels like trying to step around someone else walking down the hall and matching their own attempts to dodge. And more than just the six tries that used to be my average.

And I can’t just hold my hand out to point out my desired way around them.

There’s no trick to to this though. I just need to keep practicing until my metaphorical hand is able to direct me around my partner… which is time. My partner is time. That’s only a little weird, right?

Right. Don’t worry, just practice.

We’re over a very large sea or a small ocean, circling around Uthica’s next objective one hour and a subjective day later when I suddenly succeed.

The twisting ice-snake below us — an ice-wind mana-vent, not an actual creature — locks in place, alongside everything else as I manage to spread my thread out. Time still hasn’t frozen, not entirely. But it’s closer. And I can…

Yep, there it is. Just a bit more of a push and I’m officially frozen in time.

But… I can’t do anything. It’s worse than the first time the System locked me in place.

Even so, I’m not the same girl I was then.

With time frozen, I can feel my soul more clearly than ever. And the thrumming energy that keeps my shell alive in this state. Most of the Facet I need to enter this state is spent keeping my physical self intact. And… I’ve already found several ways to improve it.

I want to end the Freeze, but there’s something present in this frozen moment that shouldn’t be here.

While Midnight and Smoulder are frozen, Smoulder perched between the spines of his head just in front of me, they’re not alone. In the folded space between them, a… door floats. The shape is round in a way that squares shouldn’t be. But my mind immediately understands it’s just a consequence of distorted time.

Important, but not dangerous. At least, not to me.

Pressing my mind against the door causes my sense of self to shift, and I’m inside a small cozy room. A fire burns next to a comfy recliner. There are shelves to either side, filled with books, and above the fire rests a clock, ticking down the frozen-time I have remaining before the Freeze will end.

My current visit needs to be completed in a few minutes. But I suspect that it won’t take many improvements to my body’s time-shield before I can stretch it into hours.

I run my hand down the spines of the closest shelf, stopping as I find a familiar rulebook. Pulling it open, I laugh at the precise recreation. Guess I won’t need to buy my own Player’s handbook after all.

When my eyes drift over to the recliner, I freeze. Staring back at me, Smoulder sits there, wiggling her nose. And I realize I can feel her through the bond.

I waste nearly ten whole seconds before I break into a smile, kneeling down next to her.

“Guess I should’ve known you’d be able to join me, huh?”

Smoulder responds with a reminder that she went back through time first. Which is startling, because she knows exactly when we are compared to when we met.

Which… I suppose she’s my partner. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Not with how thick our bond has become.

Smoulder nods, her ears bobbing as she sits up. Then her eyes turn towards the clock.

Right. We’re out of time.

We return to the normal flow of time as Uthica yells over the wind. Not actual words, more of a cry of triumph as she drives Redstone down to the sole stationary spot on the snake-vent.

Midnight continues circling as she sets the heart in place.

In response, the ocean around the vent churns, as though she’d dropped the world's largest pebble, chunks of ice drifting along the top.

The waves rise high enough, I’m tempted to do some surfing. But unfortunately, my boards were all lost with my crushed inventory.

So, I return to Freeze, testing my new ideas for an improved body-shield. Soon I’ve stopped the leaks, increasing its effectiveness to the point I can remain within frozen time for nearly a day for only fifty Facet. For some reason, Edge has almost no effect on the duration of Freeze.

Still, a day is plenty of time to start looking through the library. It really does contain full copies of every book I’ve ever heard of. And my first few hours are spent paging through rulebooks that Sab and I used to use, just basking in the nostalgia.

As I close a rulebook dedicated to custom character backgrounds, a thought strikes me. Sab kept notes in her journal.

I haven’t just heard of it, I’ve seen it. That should be enough for my power to work, right?

Sure enough, when I turn to the bookshelf, my eyes are drawn to a little red-bound book. I hesitate, my hand hovering over the binding. This contains my best friend’s private thoughts. And while she’s shared it with me before, and even allowed me to make my own entries, venting where mom would never find it…

Reading it feels wrong.

So, despite my desire to see what she’s written since I left, I don’t open it. I do run my hand over its surface though. Temporal Library has even recreated the stickers that are plastered across the cover, bought at the Night Market less than a week before we were whisked away. My hand traces over the sticker of Luna, a cat from a show called Sailor Moon.

Sab had almost cut our night short when she found out I’d never seen it. I’d agreed we could do a marathon once we got our own place.

My soul body isn’t capable of shedding tears, but the sudden surge of all-the-feels is strong enough I find myself wiping at my eyes anyway. Smoulder is at my side, and I find myself snuggling into her as my soul-body takes a deep breath it doesn’t need.

Then, not feeling in the mood to delve through more books, I end the Freeze.

Uthica has only started dealing with the first wave of mana-beasts, reminding me just how quickly my tests were completed in real-time.

It gives me the opportunity to test my spells alongside Uthica. Which will be an excellent distraction.

I’ve upgraded every spell in my repertoire, taking advantage of her expertise and my expansive catalogue. And now I have an opportunity to make use of my Seeking Lightning Torrent.

Satisfying.

That’s the word that fills my mind as the single spell tears through hundreds of Iron-rank and dozens of Copper-rank mana-beasts. Only the large spiked crustacean survives, and it falls to the ice version, as do the mana-beasts filling the space behind it.

My next test isn’t supposed to be an attack spell. It’s a modified teleportation spell that can pull anything I have tethered or can see back to my location. It works perfectly, and leaves the killer-fish-snake thing I teleported impaled on another new spell, a metal cage of reinforced spikes that explodes outward when it makes contact.

Soon Smoulder joins in, stretching her own legs. Though she’s not satisfied with a few monsters, incinerating the offensive ocean alongside the monsters who dwell within.

With a flare of his wings, Midnight carries us higher to avoid the sudden wave of steam that billows out, huffing in Smoulder’s direction.

As the wave continues, I continue testing my improved spells. They’re impressively destructive. I especially like my new version of Uthica’s dart-bird.

It still starts as a dart. But instead of a bird, it turns into an image of Smoulder. And the spell explodes in sequence, creating a chain of seven fireballs before it runs out of energy.

I have, in a moment of peak creativity, named it boom-bunny.

When the monsters get thin, Uthica once more takes on the role of hunter as I gather as many bodies as I can fit into my inventory. I want to see if storing them will let me claim them.

I discover it does not. I need to stabilize the bodies before storing them. Annoying.

Still, with the excess mana, most of my System has been saturated. There are still some repairs I need to make, and I need to find or create a pattern to improve my Framework’s effective ‘level’, but most of the functions I had before I got caught in the mana-storm are repaired or queued to be done soon.

Which means that when Uthica winds up this stage of her quest, and we turn towards the next objective, I take the time to check on my soul-scape again.

Midnight and Smoulder’s bonds seem to have grown closer to each other, and the unknown bond still seems fragile, but the bond to the Eldinsworn is stable, and her movement catches my eye.

She’s gathered around a table with several other Eldinsworn and K’tharn, and they appear to be gambling. Splitting my attention between the game and teleporting Uthica closer to her next objective, I memorize every word they say. And from the way the others are referring to the one I’ve bonded, I’m pretty sure her name is Letonga.

The fourth of Uthica’s objectives is located in the middle of a low lying whirlpool, hundreds of metres beneath the surface of its host ocean. The vent that lies within seems to push water out of the whirlpool, the nearby fish seeming to make a game of riding the currents to go soaring high into the air.

As Midnight snags one in the midst of its glorious triple backflip, I drift closer to Uthica. The sounds of snacking dragon drift back as we get within wing-to-wing distance.

“Did you want to go straight to the next one once we’re done?”

Uthica shakes her head, her braided mane barely shifting. “We have gained a lot in a short time. I would like to see if your castle can create a usable Nexus point.”

I blink. Despite making the repairs to the spell, I didn’t even think about that. What will creating my own Nexus point do for me? Will it even work?

Or will it connect to Uthica’s System?

Even as Uthica is dealing with her waves, I descend to the mana-vent, using it as an anchor for my castle.

Landing, I begin to cast the spell, standing once more at the locus. Except instead of metal, ice or stone, I decide to erect a truly epic castle. Something that really says power.

It costs enough mana that if I wasn’t siphoning an active mana-vent into it, I would’ve been worried about the hundreds of thousands of mana I’m pouring into it.

But the castle made of pure lightning, tall enough to break over the ocean around it… yeah, it’s worth every point I didn’t spend.

By the time the castle is finished, so is Uthica’s objective. She joins me in the courtyard, where I’m sharing a post castle building feast of over-roasted fish with Smoulder and Midnight. Who seems to share my doom bunny’s preference for over-cooked food.

Uthica’s poking at the floor with her foot, as if expecting the lightning to jump free, as she get closer. But it remains contained within the considerable amount of Twilight that went into stabilizing the castle.

Really, the castle is more Twilight than lightning. It just doesn’t look like it.

Uthica doesn’t let her investigation slow her down, approaching the fountain where the Nexus access is located. From the way she paces around it, I suspect it’s not working.

“Nothing?” I ask, walking closer. I almost miss her response when a notification appears.

“No, it seems it doesn’t count. Shame. We will need to find a local Nexus,” Uthica says, running one hand along the edge of the lightning infused fountain.

I nod, glancing at my notification.

“Secondary processing node accessed. Offload tasks for processing? Note, any tasks not collected before Nexus destabilizes in three point two hours will be lost.”

“Oh,” I say, and at Uthica’s raised brows, I continue, “It seems it works as a secondary processing node. And…” I Focus deeper, and am able to confirm the details. “It’s less efficient than my own processing. But I could build ones that last longer. And I could make them cheaper by having a lot less castle.”

Not a lot cheaper. The Nexus is the most expensive part in the standard ice version. But still, cheaper.

“Hmm. That could be useful.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to make you sit around just to save me a bit of processing power.”

“Ah. But you could raise a castle at each objective. None have been less than an hour. It is perhaps, less than ideal, but it would allow you to get some use out of them,” Uthica notes, sitting on the edge of the fountain as Restone finally works up the courage to enter through the gate.

“I… it just doesn’t feel that important. I’ll try it, but most of my repairs need a lot more than one of these castles is going to provide in an hour.”

“Well, perhaps you need to find a way to get more than an hours worth out of them.”

“I… Hmm. I might just be able to…”

Laying my hand on the Nexus, I let my Facet run over it, sharing my body shield. I can’t maintain it for long with my current mana pool. But I think I could bring it with me into Freeze. Maybe.

Even if it doesn’t help with processing… the experiment alone will be worth it.

Just… maybe it’d be better not to start with a castle the size of a mountain packed with barely contained lightning.