“I will not risk lives on such a foolish expedition!” The Chieftain snapped sternly at Sebastian. For nearly two days, the Naga had been trying to get permission from his chief to search for the void slime, and he was getting on the leader's nerves.

"Furthermore, I forbid you and anyone else to go anywhere near the location of that explosion! Have you not forgotten the devastation the last voidling caused the planet? Do you want your entire tribe wiped out just to satisfy your curiosity? What about your mate? Would you have her death on your hands?" Sebastian winced at the mention of his Cliss dying. Seeing that, the angry chief adjusted his tone with a sigh, “I’m sorry, Sebastian, but you know there is always the possibility of extreme danger when it comes to anything involving the Void. Besides, you said they would come to us so I do not see the reason for your urgency in this matter.” The chief scratched the scales atop his head with his claws before adding, “I am surprised you want to find them, considering even by your own words, one from their group nearly killed you upon first contact.”

“Ah yes, about that,” Sebastian wrung his hands nervously.

The chief narrowed his already slit eyes and leaned forward. There was a hint of menace in his posture as he loomed over Sebastian from the raised platform that served as his throne. His usually dull red scales brightened in annoyance as he asked, "Sebastian, is there something you did not tell the council and me?"

Sebastian squirmed in the enormous tent’s audience chamber, cowering under his peers' gazes. He finally spoke softly, "I…um, that is to say…I may have been the initial aggressor.”

The sound of angry hisses arose all around him, and Sebastian coiled himself tighter, cowering under the stern gaze of his chief, who now loomed over him menacingly. "You what?" The chief's words were soft, but his anger was evident and felt almost like a physical assault on Sebastian.

“They were trespassing on our lands, and I did not notice the void slime until after they…" He trailed off when his chief covered his face in his hands and groaned. Trying to save some of his dignity, Sebastian quickly added, "I harmed no one; they subdued me almost immediately, then healed me. The keeper of the void slime, who may be a voidling herself, found it more amusing than an affront.”

The chief raised his head sharply, “You attacked a voidling! The same race of creatures we are sworn to protect and train! You told us you encountered them, and they attacked you but stopped when they realized you were not a threat! Then they healed you and agreed to travel here on their own time!” The chief let out a frustrated hiss before continuing, “Now you are telling us you attacked the same being or beings that painted the sky with violet darkness and shook the planet merely two days ago!”

“They said they would come!” Sabastian argued. Then he remembered Sam’s exact wording and cringed a little before correcting himself, “Or at least they said they might come.”

In frustration, the chief threw up his hands and yelled, "Leave us!"

Sebastian slowly slithered out of the long tent with his head down. The counsels' angry stares bore into his dark scales as he left. He had no idea how he was going to explain this to Cliss.

Once Sebastian closed the door behind him, the chief looked at his counselors with concern. No one spoke for a long time as they all pondered the repercussions of angering a creature so powerful it could darken the sky for kilometers with a single attack. Finally, a female warrior slid out from the shadows along the wall and approached her chief, respectfully bowing when she was a few meters away.

“My chieftain, if I may speak?” she said, her head still down, one fist clasped across her lightly armored chest.

“Arise Tresia, you may speak freely.” The chief couldn’t help but smile at his favorite niece.

Tresia, the level eighty-nine Battlemage, smiled at her uncle and explained her plan to contact the void slime and its possible voidling companion without them vaporizing the entire tribe.

The council took four hours to reach a final decision, but in the end, Tresia managed to get everything she needed for her plan to work. Nervous but determined, she left the Chieftan’s tent to begin her preparations. First, she would find her younger sister's useless life mate and squeeze every last drop of information out of his scrawny little body. She smiled to herself; if her plan worked, she would be the first of her kind to fulfill their tribe's sacred oath to the Collective.

Her mood was elated as she crossed the tribe’s safe zone, “Now, where could that little snake have slithered off to?”

***

Lupie looked at Sam’s peaceful face; firelight reflected off her cheeks and hair, giving off an almost angelic glow. “Mistress, how long will you stay? It has been hours,” Lupie said quietly.

Once she and Nul realized Sam was taking too long, they grabbed S-2 and portaled away a few more kilometers to set up camp. They knew what it meant when Sam took time in her soul. It meant that she was likely going to wake up with a manic look in her eyes and some insane idea that would likely get her blown up in the end. Lupie, for one, was looking forward to it.

Letting her eyes roam, she looked from Sam to S-2, who was curled up in a ball near them. The droid was utterly motionless except for its ears, which were swiveling this way and that. Lupie stared at the droid curiously, asking, "S-2, can you speak to Nul and me?"

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“Affirmative!” Came the loud robotic reply.

Lupie did not care; they were in a safe zone, so she was not worried about the sound. Clapping her hands excitedly, she started asking questions about the fascinating metal monster to pass the time.

***

Sam was sitting on the couch in her soul. She arrived on the altar without incident other than the feeling of being watched by…well, whatever it was watching her travel to her soul.

She hadn’t immediately switched back to her Arcane Pathfinder; instead, she climbed off the altar and wandered around her soul, first checking that the figurines were still where she left them. Noting that the nude figure stayed on the altar pedestal, she checked the other two and found them the same as always: broken.

With a sigh, Sam passed from her art room into her living room, where she found, to her surprise, a door with neon lettering above it reading 'Technogog Arcana Workshop.' So now she was sitting on her couch debating whether or not she should enter the door.

"It is my soul, so why not? I mean, what's the worst that could happen? Damn, why did I say that? Of course, some bad shit could definitely happen, and now it probably will since I just jinxed myself in my own soul!” She stood from the couch, "Oh, well, I guess I'll get it over with."

She opened the workshop door and entered…then she whistled to herself as she stood in shock at the enormous room with a brightly lit white tile floor stretching out in front of her! The space was so large she couldn’t see the far walls or ceiling other than the bright glow from them in the distance! To her right was an extended workbench mounted against the wall with weird machines on and around it. There was a desk in front of dozens of large monitors with what looked like several laptops resting atop it. To her left were at least thirty circular metallic pads anchored to the floor. Each pad had a matching disk of metal hovering high above it. The pads ranged in size, the smallest being a meter in diameter. In contrast, the largest one was at least twenty meters across, and she didn't know if there might be more past that one because she couldn’t see that far.

“This place is huge!” she exclaimed to no one, her voice echoing in the brightly lit space.

“It is infinite, as is your soul,” a deep, resonating voice responded from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Sam stood in shock. Something was in her soul with her! This was not good! Millions of scenarios raced through her mind, and Sam was afraid! She knew souls were nothing to be played with, and supposedly, no one could enter another's soul, but now not one but two…things had been in her's in a matter of weeks.

As if sensing her fear, the voice said, "Fear not, my child, I am a copy of your mother’s mind left as a guide to aid you if…when…you made it this far.”

Sam heard the correction and narrowed her eyes. Frightened as she was, the statement still pissed her off, and against her better judgment, she snapped, “If I survived!?! Well, I might have had a better chance if my “Mother,” she threw up air quotes at the word as she yelled into her soul, "Whoever the fuck she is, helped me out just a tiny little bit! You know, like, maybe warn me that I was going to be transported to an alternate verse and then tortured nearly to death multiple times! If you're a guide, why wait so long to help me? I have been stumbling through this reality since day one with no help from you, so why now? What has changed? Am I suddenly powerful enough to be useful to you? Because you better not think for a second that I believe you are really a guide and not something spying on my progress!” Sam was panting. She had no idea what made her say the last bit other than a hunch.

The silence that followed her outburst was deafening to Sam. After nearly a minute of silence, she turned toward the desk with the laptops, dismissing the voice as a figment of her imagination.

She made it a step when a black orb the size of a basketball appeared in front of her, blocking her path. Six glowing white eyes, each with three black vertical pupils, stared at her from the murky depths of the void black orb. Sam stared back into the eyes for a moment before saying, “Well, you’re creepy.”

"This is not my true form," the orb retorted immediately. At least its voice wasn't shaking the room any longer.

“You mean my mother’s true form,” Sam responded just as quickly.

“Yes,” the orb responded, adding, “I am afraid my true form would terrify you. So, I have chosen this one to interact with you. You have no cause to fear me, for I am merely a memory implanted into your soul at creation. I have no power over you or your soul.”

“You are a spy,” Sam said flatly.

"I am not," the orb said in response. When Sam only narrowed her eyes, it continued, "I will admit that should I ever come within range of our creator, she will know all that has transpired between us. But that is because I want to know you, my daughter."

“Don’t call me that! You haven’t earned the right—at least not yet!” Sam’s emotions and thoughts were in turmoil. “My mother left a spy…or guide or whatever this thing is in my soul. Did she do it out of love, or am I just some experiment to be observed? And just how powerful is my mother?” She looked at the orb and said, "Show me, my mother."

“I must advise against it,” the orb tried to argue.

“If you want us to interact, then you better show me what I want, or I will find a way to purge you from my soul, even if it costs me!” Sam was done arguing with things that thought they knew best for her.

The orb must have believed her because it floated out into the room about fifty meters away and started to grow.

Sam stared in shock as the orb continued to expand. Once it was the size of a full-sized van, the smooth curvature began morphing in different directions as details were added. The orb's surface flexed and contorted as a form began taking shape. It was already the size of a house, but still, it was growing.

"Holy shit," Sam whispered when she realized what the orb was becoming. She couldn't take her eyes off the figure, now thirty meters long and half that in height and width. Still, the creature kept growing.

The creature before her finally stopped growing once it was around fifty meters long. “It’s half the length of a football field!” she thought as she studied the enormous figure of a midnight-black void dragon that just formed in her soul.

When Sam did not speak, the dragon lowered its head, which was the size of a compact car, until it was right in front of Sam. The two examined each other for a while.

Sam was the first to move. She reached out and tentatively placed her hand on the smooth scales of the dragon's snout, her mother's. The scales were bitterly cold and raging hot, yet somehow, they felt comforting to Sam, like they were a piece of her that was lost.

"Hello, child," the dragon whispered. "We have much to discuss, but first, I apologize for all that has happened to you. I swear it was not as I planned."

Without thinking, Sam leaned forward and hugged the dragon's massive head, ignoring the shocked gasp from the creature's mouth around hundreds of teeth the size of Sam’s legs. Through tear-filled eyes, Sam only said one word, “Mother.”