Once he'd appeared in their tavern room, Asher stumbled over to his and Samantha's bed, collapsing onto it and putting his head in his hands. That had been far too close to going horribly wrong. Even with High Prince Donvath's warning, they'd barely gotten out of there alive, and Audrey had almost certainly given her life for theirs. He'd forgotten about how the demon could somehow teleport around like that, but it certainly explained the future Donvath saw where all of them died. If it decided to appear behind Samantha and take her out just because it thought it would be funny to see Asher's reaction, there wouldn't be a damn thing he could do about it.

It can lock down my Recall so long as it's concentrating… Slash through Audrey's insanely tough blue-ice like it's not even there… And even teleport around the battlefield with seemingly no effort…

How the hell do people fight these things?!

Asher took a few more shaky breaths, focusing on Brian's sleeping face to help him relax. His body was still primed for combat, flooded with adrenaline and desperate for him to stab at something. And if the demon nearly getting him and bringing him back to The Council of Death wasn't bad enough, High Prince Donvath's last warning that had been cut off echoed in his ears.

"If you want to save Brian's life, you need to-"

"Damn it all," Asher hissed, wincing as Brian twitched in his sleep before rolling over. Realizing he had a far more private place he could move his internal grumblings to, Asher stepped into his Personal Rift. Seeing as he hadn't actually ended up fighting the demon, he had more than enough energy on him to stay in his own rift for a while if needed.

"Asher! Oh thank God," Samantha exclaimed, rushing up to him and throwing her arms around him. "I can't explain it, but I could actually feel your rift grow heavier almost immediately after I came in here. I didn't know what it meant, but I figured it couldn't be good."

"The demon ended up having a way to lock down space at range," Asher explained, hungrily pulling Samantha's body against his own as he breathed in her reassuring smell. "I had no idea such a thing was possible. If it wasn't for Audrey…"

Asher quickly explained what had happened after Samantha had retreated into his rift and gave her a more thorough rundown on his conversation with Donvath. It sounded even crazier repeating it back a second time, but the evidence was hard to ignore at this point.

"The leader of this kingdom has to have a Time element," he decided, the mere thought seeming utterly insane to him. He'd already been fairly certain before, but it was such an insane claim, a small part of him had held out hope all this time that he'd somehow been wrong. "I don't have the faintest idea how one goes about getting Time as an element, but he literally mentioned the timeline over the sending stone to me."

"I suppose if anyone would have an element as crazy as yours, it would be the High Prince," Samantha shrugged, seeming not quite as concerned about a man capable of messing with time as he was. Though seeing as she hadn't grown up watching movies about cyborgs capable of traveling through time and killing people in the past, or things of that nature, he couldn't really fault her. "What I don't get is why he's not stopping more tragedies before they occur. If he can view the future, why allow Horntho village to be destroyed in the first place? Or all the others?"

"This is all conjecture and purely based on fantasy, but on my world, the concept of time travel is incredibly convoluted," Asher tried to explain. "Seeing as it's actually real here, I can't even begin to wonder how it truly works. Though from what his note said and this recent conversation, it sounds like he can only see certain critical points, and I'd be willing to bet he can only even do that much if he's specifically looking for them."

To try and drive home how time travel really didn't actually make any sense, Asher was about to launch into a quick explanation of the grandfather paradox, before a strange sensation stopped him in his tracks. He could feel someone attempting to scry him, but here within his Personal Rift, a pocket dimension removed from the material realm, it seemed the attempt failed without even needing to be shattered by his overlapping resistances.

"Asher?" Samantha asked, looking worried. "What's wrong?"

"Someone's trying to scry me," he explained, waiting for the sensation to vanish. After a few seconds, whoever was trying to find him finally gave up, and he let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

That's good to know, at the very least. If we ever need to hide someone or something from prying eyes, they'll be safe within my Personal Rift.

"Who do you think it was?" Samantha asked after he said they were done.

"No idea. My bet would be either The Council of Death after the greater demon reported his failure to capture me again, or High Prince Donvath trying to see if we actually made it out of there alive. Hell, the greater demon itself might have some sort of scrying ability. It dropped that weird line about us mortals not even understanding what elements truly were, which, on top of being unnerving as hell, might mean it's capable of far more than we originally thought."

Samantha went silent as she digested this, and Asher finally turned to the notifications he'd been ignoring for the past hour. Deciding to go after the demons with Sefta had turned out to have been a terrible idea, but at the very least, he'd leveled up a few skills from it.

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Distortion - Lvl 28

Personal Rift - Lvl 24

Sever the Thread - Lvl 10

Sever the Thread - Lvl 11

Complete Resilience - Lvl 27

Recall - Lvl 14

Looks like killing demons is fantastic for leveling Sever the Thread, he realized, which led even more credence to this theory that he was in fact ending their existence for good. He could only hope that meant fewer demons would be willing to agree to come to this realm to do the lich's bidding. From what he understood, it didn't seem as though demon summoning in this world worked quite like it did in most stories back on his own. Rather than being completely powerless and bound to a master, it sounded as if demons and the summoner came to some sort of business agreement.

Usually, the summoner would have some sort of task for them to do, and the demons would get to slaughter innocent people in exchange.

"If anything, I'd say this just further shows we need to get Brian to a safe place before we go up against the greater demon a third time," Samantha finally said, snapping him out of his internal musings. "Though I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about that last line of the High Prince's… the one about saving Brian's life."

"I know what you mean," Asher nodded, wondering what the second half of the missing statement could be. "…If we can find someone with a direct line to Donvath, maybe we can ask him ourselves."

"Shame his ability to reach out to the sending stones is only one way," Samantha frowned. "And our closest truthseeker is dead. Not like Audrey would have helped us anyway."

"Yeah…" Asher muttered, an idea suddenly popping into his head. "What if I jumped over to Whikoga and tried asking to borrow Bordan's sending stone? He should have a direct line to the High Prince as well."

"I thought you were avoiding Whikoga?" Samantha reminded him. "And do you really think Bordan would be willing to help you?"

"At this point, I have no idea if Bordan is going to try to stab me, or ask me to eat lunch with him," he admitted. "And while I have been trying to avoid the city, I'm officially at the point where if Donvath wants me to follow his instructions, he needs to start giving me more of an explanation. At the very least, we know the greater demon isn't anywhere near the city right now, so me Recalling to it shouldn't put it in any immediate danger."

"In that case, I think it's a good idea. It might be a bit selfish to potentially put so many lives at risk, but you're right about the greater demon being far away, and I want to know what he was going to tell us about Brian. Could you let me out of here before you go, however?"

"Of course," Asher said, giving her one last lingering kiss before taking her hand and stepping out of his Personal Rift with her at his side. "I'll be back in a few," he whispered, getting a nod from her before she kissed his cheek and bid him good luck.

As Samantha began getting ready for bed, Asher took a seat and focused on Eternal Mark's second tier ability. His mind shot across the kingdom, and he suddenly found himself staring down at Rosh from directly overhead. It was late into the evening by now, so he wasn't surprised in the slightest to find the instructor sitting at his desk, scribbling away on some paper.

Having ensured he wouldn't be interrupting anything, Asher triggered Recall and travelled a few hundred miles in the blink of an eye. The world shifted around him, and then he was back in Whikoga once more, standing behind his friend. Remembering how badly he'd scared him last time, Asher slipped into the astral and actually walked out of the room, reappearing in the hall and knocking on the door.

It only took Rosh a moment to get up and answer, and he blinked as he found Asher standing there.

"Asher?" Rosh asked, as if the act of finding him outside his room was more shocking than finding him suddenly standing behind him. "Well, I suppose I should thank you for not scaring me half to death this time. What brings you back to Whikoga? Did Brian put on two artifacts again?"

"No, Brian's fine," Asher smiled, pleased that Rosh not only remembered why he'd popped in the last time, but cared enough to ask about Brian. "I'm actually here to try and find Bordan and Clare, this city's truthseekers. Any chance you know where they are?"

After he'd surprised them at their safehouse in the first ring that one time, he figured the two of them had probably started staying somewhere else, assuming the safe house had been compromised.

"That's, uh, certainly a choice," Rosh said, raising an eyebrow. "I assume you have a good reason for wanting to talk to the people probably best suited for executing you on the spot? And wait, since when are you on a first-name basis with any truthseekers?"

"Long story," he sighed, remembering how Rosh had specifically asked him not to drag him into anything life-threatening. "This definitely falls under 'things Rosh doesn't want to know' territory."

"Right, say no more," Rosh nodded. "The truthseekers have an official headquarters within the third ring. I suppose you could always try there. It's also a not so well-kept secret that they have a safehouse or two hidden within the city, however, so they could be anywhere."

"Thanks Rosh, I appreciate it. Any chance you could point me toward their spot in the third ring?"

Luckily for him, Rosh kept a well-drawn map of the city on him at all times for the sake of his logistics work with Draken, and Asher soon found himself standing in front of a small, well-maintained manor deep within the third ring. The lawn was immaculate, and the trees and hedges out front had been trimmed to perfection. The manor itself almost reminded him of a small church with its stained-glass windows and beautiful stone features, but it was far too small for anything like that.

Recalling how Bordan had reacted the last time he'd tried slipping into their space to talk to them, Asher made a face as he raised a fist and knocked on their front door.

The sun had long since gone down at this point, and the sounds of insects chirping in the lawn was all that kept him company as he waited for someone to answer the door. Few people wandered the third ring this late at night, and he quietly whistled to himself to pass the time. It seemed someone walking up and knocking on the truthseekers' door was a bit unusual, based on the weird looks he was getting from scattered passersby. Finally, just as he was beginning to wonder if Bordan and Clare were in fact holed up in one of the hidden safe houses, he heard someone moving about on the inside.

Moments later, the door was pulled open, and a rather surprised Clare stared at him. From her lack of armor and more lounge-style clothing, she looked as though she'd been getting ready for bed.

"Hello again," Asher said, clearing his throat and offering her a tentative smile. "Any chance I could talk to Bordan?"

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