"Thank you for the advice," Bath said emotionlessly. "I think I have a general understanding of who we're dealing with here," he spoke, referring to Juserin. "Tell me: what would it take to unseal you?"

"Unseal me? I'm not sure, to be honest," Lepochim sighed. "It'd probably require someone stronger than the kursi that sealed me to break the seal by force. The level differential would have to be fairly large to destroy the seal, less to weaken it and allow me to use a fraction of my power as a kursi."

"Interesting." Bath wondered when Lisa would be powerful enough to help in that pursuit. "How does a kursi increase their power?"

Lepochim cocked his head. "Usually by being alive. Time."

"Any ways to speed it up?" Bath's expression was anticipatory. He knew someone in the vast universe must have figured out a way.

"Not that I'm aware of. Probably just using her abilities a lot, which goes with the whole 'time' aspect. Kursi use their abilities on the sapients around them constantly, so it's hard to actually increase the amount that kursi use their abilities."

"Hmmm." Bath figured that something could be arranged to help increase Lisa's abilities at a faster pace. He'd need to do some experimenting at a later date with some human test subjects, human kursi, and Lisa herself.

"Why is it that you can't just devour kursi?" Lepochim suddenly asked, his eyebrows pulling inward. "Shouldn't you be able to detect them and manipulate them yourself? Maybe even make me a new kursi symbiote to replace the one that's sealed?"

Bath chuckled darkly. "You think I haven't wondered the same thing?" He pushed off the bed and began to pace slowly about the room. "There's nothing genetically different about Lisa that should give her psychic abilities. This I knew from the beginning," he explained.

"Therefore, I always suspected that something beyond my capabilities to detect was influencing Lisa. The fact that I didn't definitively know Lisa had psychic abilities until she told me is stark evidence of this fact.

"Trust me when I say that I've been nursing this question for a long time and have yet to come up with a solution. What are kursi, and why can't I detect them like I can all other forms of life? I feel these questions will continue to evade me for some time," Bath sighed. Then he smiled and looked at Lepochim. "But that's what makes this all fun."

"Fun?"

Bath snorted. "What else?" He stretched out a long-fingered hand. "How far can I go...before I'm forcibly stopped? Before all the questions are answered?" His eyes had a sense of longing in them as he looked off into space, staring at a place, future, or reality only he could see. He didn't explain his words, letting them sit in the air like oil on water. Lepochim didn't know what to make of them.

"You can leave, Lepochim."

Lepochim was quiet for a moment, then spoke: "Don't you want to know more about this planet or the Waymaster?"

Bath turned away from him and began walking towards the bathroom. "No; no need. If this man is truly as insignificant as you say, I should have nothing to fear from him."

Lepochim wasn't sure if this was arrogance or confidence. Both were easy to conflate and depended upon whether or not Bath actually was powerful enough to deal with the Waymaster's worst schemes without difficulty. Lepochim admittedly didn't have a good understanding of the extent of Bath's abilities.

Then, Suddenly: "One thing. What is the name of this planet's sapient species?"

"Verdora."

Bath then entered the Bathroom and the door slid shut behind him with a click. As he did so, Lepochim was left with a distinct impression that Bath was unmoveable, rocklike. Godlike. As unwilling as he was to admit it to himself, there was really only one word to describe Bath, and it wasn't arrogant.

He wanted to find flaws in Bath's power because they gave him a greater sense of security in himself. However, the more time he spent with Bath, the more powerless he felt himself. It was the opposite of what normally happened, where he slowly ferreted out weaknesses and secrets and whatnot to use against someone, to gain sway over them.

At this point, Lepochim had no confidence at all that he could use anything to leverage against Bath. As a result, Lepochim was still adjusting himself to the reality that he was completely beholden to this mysterious entity from the fringes of the universe.

Where had he come from...and was he really a World Devourer? Should Lepochim's aim be to escape, or to work with this powerful--but inscrutable--entity?

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Lepochim sighed as he walked back to his room, his mind a maelstrom of questions and uncertainty.

---

Like Lisa, Bath took his time exploring the amenities in the bathroom, his curiosity for alien technology taking over. Soon, after Lisa finished getting ready, Bath, Lisa, and Lepochim--now all dressed in modified local attire--walked through Juserin's enormous abode. They explored the kitchens, the gardens, and even paid a visit to the school building, though it was already closed. They returned to the entertainment room and tried out some of the local games, though they were all rather difficult to understand without a native to explain their rules.

Dinner wasn't served; apparently, verdora only ate one meal at midday. Lisa reminded Bath ever-so-gently that she literally hadn't had anything to eat for two days.

"Bath, not everyone can go days without food, you moron!" she said as she whapped him on the shoulder. "I thought we were actually going to get decent food at this place. Alas, I was sorely mistaken."

Bath's face quirked. "Stop being so melodramatic. Besides, I offered you some of the local wildlife on Lime World, but you said it was too disgusting to eat," Bath rebutted. "Considering human sensitivities--"

"Sensitivities my ass," Lisa cut in angrily.

"Considering human peculiarities--" Lisa slapped Bath but didn't otherwise interrupt--"the organic specimens on Lime World really were inedible. Taste and appearance both rather poor.

"In my defense, how was I supposed to know that Lava Land or whatever you named it only had tiny, primitive, inedible lifeforms? And then, next thing you knew, we were here."

"Yeah yeah," Lisa huffed. "What's to stop us from leaving this place and exploring in the name of finding a restaurant?" Lisa asked.

"Nothing," Bath replied with a flat grin. "Lepochim, would it be socially acceptable for us to just leave and come back?"

"Actually, yes," Lepochim said slowly, his face pensive. "Lisa, you're kursi. That means you're technically a huge liability if you're allowed to go out. Moreover, Bath's a Waymaster who shows up as a mysterious emotional black hole on any kursi's shell radar."

Lisa gave Bath a look. "Shell radar?"

"Translator," Bath said sadly, exhaling audibly in mock despair. "You'd think it would come up with a better translation."

"What?" Lepochim asked with a bit of temper.

"Is there any way to change what the translator interprets certain words as?" Lisa asked. "That last term you had translates pretty clunkily into English."

"I'm sure you can," Lepochim shrugged. "Maybe just tell it to redefine the word as something else."

"Translator," Lisa began immediately, "redefine 'shell radar' as 'influence.'"

"That's so vague," Lepochim lamented. "Influence is such a terrible translation for shell radar," he remarked hotly.

"It makes sense with context," Lisa argued. "Bath shows up as a black hole on any kursi's shell radar. Bath shows up as a black hole on any kursi's influence. How could you mistake the meaning behind the second sentence? The meaning's the same!"

"Redefine 'shell radar' as 'influence,'" Bath repeated with a completely neutral expression. He had to agree with Lepochim that 'influence' was a fairly simple word that in fact didn't even grammatically map onto 'shell radar,' but Lisa was right: it made sense with context.

Lepochim let out a small groan. "Moving on, both of your are complete wildcards. The Waymaster would probably get an aneurysm if you both venture outside."

With that, Bath and Lisa resigned themselves to exploring the planet when they came back in the future. Bath alleviated Lisa's hunger through his own methods, though Lisa still claimed she wanted to eat a good meal as soon as physically possible.

As the three Travelers rested in one of the residence's many parlor rooms, Lisa continued to do more research on the world at large through her encyclopedia. She felt like no matter what she read, she was completely unequipped to understand the information.

Lepochim eventually came over to help her after watching her struggle for a solid half hour. He began to fill in the gaps in her basic understanding of the structures of power and influence underlying the bulk of the universe.

Bath appeared to be staring out of the window at the mountain city below. In reality, his essence effectively saturated the whole area within his long-range manipulation range. He was observing the movements and behaviors of this sapient species that seemed to dominate Illudis.

The society seemed to be caste-based, with clear hierarchies of interaction on the mountain indicated by how far someone lived up the mountain itself.

Bath thought it peculiar that the Waymaster didn't live at the peak of the mountain. This suggested that there were powers greater than Juserin on this world, likely people who first put Juserin into power.

Bath was curious to see who they were, but their residences were all under the strictest security. To his utmost surprise, the only five residences above Juserin's all had extremely heavy doors and no windows. He'd assumed the sapients at the top of this city's--and likely planet's--social hierarchy would have opulent mansions with beautiful windows and bustling foot traffic. Contrary to expectation, Bath hadn't seen a single person come or go into the residences in the time that he'd been on the planet and was growing wary of unseen forces: why would such esteemed individuals feel the need to resort to such paranoid behavior?

Perhaps when he came back to this world, he would find out.

Bath also continued to study the sapient species itself, the verdora. Unbeknownst to the Waymaster, Bath had already devoured at least fifteen different verdora, all of them the kinds that wouldn't be missed if they died. When he'd gone into the bathroom earlier, he'd practiced shifting into the new form.

He began to understand a bit better how this species differed from humans. He also understood why they wore body-covering robes.

He sighed in contentment as he continued to look out the window at the masses of verdora below. Such small lives, dotting this stunning white mountain on a world he'd never known existed until this very day.

He was truly beginning to understand on a fundamental level just how small Earth truly was. He'd logically known that Earth was small in comparison to the vast universe, but the scale of its insignificance hadn't been driven home until he'd arrived on Illudis. This was a planet comparable to Earth with its own technologies and culture and civilization.

So Bath looked out, in contented awe of Illudis and in quiet anticipation of all the world's he'd one day see. Lisa and Lepochim eventually turned in to sleep, but Bath continued to look out the window, watching as dusk turned to night turned to daybreak.

Soon, the time to depart had come.