Serenity stood in a library, watching a dragon read from an oversized book. As he paged through it, the pages turned themselves. After a few minutes, the dragon glanced up and noticed Serenity. “Ah, you’re already here. Quick, I like that.”

The voice made Serenity recognize the dragon, even though he was crouched over a book instead of sitting at a podium. He was Althyr, the Eldest of the Conclave of Dragons.

The last thing Serenity remembered was passing out in the Dungeon; how did he get here?

“I see you prefer a humanoid form. They do have their advantages.” Althyr shifted quickly, and a fully human man stood in front of Serenity, dressed in what looked like a comfortable robe and short, soft pants. Serenity felt a flash of envy at Althyr’s shapeshifting ability, but suppressed it.

It just takes time. I’ll get there eventually.

Althyr waved Serenity over to a pair of chairs nestled next to a fire. Serenity hadn’t noticed them until Althyr waved, and he was beginning to wonder if this was really real. “Is this a dreamscape? The last thing I remember is passing out, and …”

And I can see color right now.

As Serenity sat in one of the overstuffed armchairs, Althyr chuckled. “More or less. I promised to mentor you, and there aren’t any planets where we’d both be comfortable. Your mana tolerance is remarkably high for your Tier, but it’s still far too low to meet in person. In any case, there are two ways this can go. You can either tell me about yourself and I can choose where to help you, or you can ask questions and I’ll answer them as best I can. Eventually, I recommend that we do both. For now, though, I expect you’d rather start with questions?”

Serenity nodded as he tried to think of what he wanted to ask. He knew there was something, but it was escaping him for the moment.

“Before we get started, then … what exactly is your draconic element or Affinity? I can tell it is somehow related to dungeons, but not how or what.” Althyr was sitting in the other chair, even though Serenity hadn’t seen him sit down. Serenity chalked it up to dream logic.

Essence was related to dungeons? That was news to Serenity. On second thought, it shouldn’t be. That probably explained why he found dungeon level crystals more interesting than monster cores, and might even explain how he’d dealt with the core in the Field Dungeon. It didn’t explain why that dungeon core hadn’t been interesting, but since he hadn’t seen another actual dungeon core, maybe it was just the level crystals?

Serenity shook himself. “It’s called Essence. I didn’t know it had anything to do with dungeons. It does seem to have something to do with monsters.”

Althyr nodded. “You’re probably a chimera, then - or possibly Evolving Path? No, you don’t need to answer. I can understand hiding that. It doesn’t matter to me anyway, it just means you’re closer to what we all were before the Order was established. There are some who wanted to control everything, but that was foolishness.”

Althyr paused, then continued. “Eh, you don’t need to listen to an old dragon ramble on about things that happened before your planet was born. It’s a peril of getting old, there’s so much to remember. You should have questions for me that are a bit more pertinent than all that.”

Serenity thought he might actually enjoy hearing someone who was probably older than he was talk about the past - not that he would say it that way to Althyr. The thought that Althyr had been around since before the Order and Order’s Voice was mind-boggling. He might have answers to a lot of questions Serenity had idly wondered about over the years.

That wasn’t why Serenity was here. He pulled himself back to his immediate needs.

There was a topic he wanted advice on. “Magic - well, Affinities. I know the standard model, but … it seems woefully inaccurate now. Space and Time definitely aren’t separate and there’s something about Void … it seems to resonate somehow. It was never really very good about Death, either, it places it as opposite to Life and that’s only partly true; they work together. Plus Death opposes all of the other animating Affinities, and I know they aren’t Life, even though that’s what the model says they should be. It also doesn’t make sense that they’re grouped with Mind and Arcane; there’s no real connection between them even though they’re called the non-physical Affinities.”

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Serenity stopped himself. He could talk about how the standard model was wrong about Death for hours - he’d proven that more than once - but it wasn’t something Althyr needed to hear. “Essence doesn’t even fit as an Affinity, really, even though it’s a lot like them - like Arcane, maybe? It’s affecting a mana type, only it’s not exactly mana, it’s separate.”

Althyr took a moment to absorb the question. “That’s a big question, all right. It’s one we’re going to spend a lot of time trying to answer. The short version is that the model is only a model that people find useful. It’s a simplification of reality into a set of standard buckets. It’s common these days because enough people found it useful at low Tier that they started shoving it down students’ -”

Althyr coughed. “I’m not fond of the standard model because it’s wrong in more ways than it’s right. It’s useful only for people who happen to fit it. There are a lot of people who do, but there are a lot who try to force themselves into it and end up getting themselves stuck instead.”

“Given what you’ve said, I assume you have the SpaceTime Affinity?” Althyr waited for Serenity’s nod before continuing. “Seeing the resonance with Void is interesting for someone with SpaceTime. I usually only see that in a few oddball Space specialists. They actually resonate a few different ways; you’ll need to figure out which one works for you to build your own model. How far did you get in moving to the standard model?”

“I had the entire nonspecialist standard set. Before I merged Space and Time, anyway. My SpaceTime is higher than either Space or Time was.” Serenity remembered being really proud when he finally finished the set. The last one he’d managed, oddly enough, was Liquid. He hadn’t ever pushed several of them up after that, though. It hadn’t seemed important.

Althyr nodded as he listened. “Dedication. That will serve you well. You’re going to need to build a new model, one that fits you rather than one you make yourself fit. It sounds like you already know how to alter Affinities so we’ll start with the boring part, Concepts. Much as I’d like to talk you through some of the different Affinity models, we don’t have time this visit. So I’m going to assign you some reading. Here.” Althey held out a book.

He hadn’t been holding it a moment before. It had to be dream logic again.

“This book contains information on the Void Affinity, Void magic, and the Void itself. It also talks a bit about how Void magic links to other magic types.”

Serenity took the book. “Does it talk about using Void magic techniques with other Affinities? Like using the way Void magic draws things in, but without the destructive second half?” That was sort of what Eat Death did, only it was packaged as a Path Skill rather than being direct magic use.

It was something he wanted to figure out how to do so that he could do it with other Affinities. It was proving extremely effective at countering Death, after all. Some of that was that he could put an Incarnate behind it, but some of it had to be that the technique was a better counter than the standard 'use an opposing Affinity'.

“Not directly. That’s more in the lines of the Arcane affinity usually; that would generally be a triple-Affinity ability. If you’re managing it with two, either you’re using a resonance or your personal model shouldn’t have Arcane as a separate Affinity. Unless, of course, you’re also using Arcane and not realizing it. I’d like you to show me that some time, but let’s start with this book first. You will need to enter a dreamscape to read it, which should be simple enough when you fall asleep. Remember that reading it won’t be good rest, so however long you spend reading, you can’t count that as sleep time.”

Serenity was only vaguely familiar with dreamwalking. He knew it existed, but it wasn’t a skill he’d ever practiced. This time, he thought he’d been pulled here by Althyr; if he hadn’t, he didn’t know how he’d gotten to Althyr’s library. “Uh, how do I dreamwalk? I don’t know where to start.”

Althyr laughed. “I’m glad you can admit that.” He reached out and tapped the hand Serenity was using to hold the book. “Concentrate on the back of your hand when you try to fall asleep. It should pull you here. The mark should only last a few days, but by then you should have at least something of a feel for it. If you’re still not sure how to start when we next meet, I’ll give you some training then.”

Serenity started to thank Althyr, but instead of sitting in a comfortable armchair, Serenity was suddenly laying on top of a bed. It was the first bed with a mattress that he’d been on in over a month, and it felt far too soft.

His eyes popped open. He tried to sit up, only to find out he was tangled in his armor; it wasn’t as uncomfortable as he’d expected, but it clearly wasn’t made for shapeshifters and, as usual, he’d shifted into his hatchling form while unconscious. As he shimmied out of the armor, Serenity looked around the room. It was the same dimensions as the Field Dungeon, but it was softly lit instead of shrouded in darkness. There was only one other person in the room, and he was in a nearby bed, sleeping. Serenity thought it was the young lizardman he’d told to shelter behind him when he’d fought the possessed man. Serenity didn’t know what had happened to the human.