“No, it’s impossible,” Nym said. “There’s no way.”

He could buy that he’d lost track of time, that maybe he’d been there for a day instead of twelve hours, but almost two months was stretching it past breaking. Even just a week was stretching it. If Baracia wasn’t lying to him, then he was missing something about how time worked in the outer layers.

“I assure you, I am able to keep track quite easily,” Baracia said.

“But… no. It’s just… how could it possibly be that long?”

“Ah, I think I understand. Let me assure you first that if this room were located in the core reality, the sun would have risen and set on us fifty-six times. This is an objective fact. But.” Baracia raised a finger, “Out here in the sixth layer, linear time is optional. You are thinking of our conversation as something that happened for so long that weeks passed, but that isn’t the case. Time is a mental construct, and I’ve simply collected all the time you spent processing this new information into one solid chunk.”

“So, you’re saying that every random thought I’ve had about all of this, and every thought I’m going to have in the future, has already happened?”

“Or is currently happening, if it makes you feel better to think of it that way. Truly, I’m surprised the conversation is so short. I put aside years to work this out with you.”

“Oh, I think I get it!” Nym hoped he was right, at least. “It’s not the same as sitting in a room for months like it would be for mortals. It’s past time, future time, and present time all mixed together, pulled into one piece instead of scattered as individual moments.”

“Ehhh, no, not really. Your whole idea hinges on the idea that there are past and future times, which isn’t correct. Only beings who can experience single instants of time in a fixed order think like that. Think of it like this instead.”

An illusion of a thick line appeared in the air between them, with a small dot in the middle. The dot disappeared and a new one that was the exact same size appeared right next to where the old one had been. That dot disappeared, and another one replaced it just slightly farther over. This continued until the dot reached the end of the line, a process which only took a few seconds.

“This is how mortals experience time. Well, human mortals. There’s some case specific stuff I’m not going to get into, since it’s not relevant,” Baracia explained. “And this is how immortals like you and I experience time.”

Instead of a dot, a small, thin line appeared in the middle of the thick one. Then a dot appeared a few inches away, and the line stretched to reach it. More dots appeared, sometimes in front or behind the line, sometimes off to the side. Each time, the line grew until it was longer and thicker.

“Each of these dots is an anchor you’ll create. The more of them you have, the more parts of the timeline you’re touching. Your presence in time is very small right now, only a few objective linear months from when you established your first anchor to when you left the core reality. That’s time you’ve already used. You can’t go back into reality at those points ever again. When you establish new anchors, you’ll have access to new times, and you won’t have to burn up all the time between when you left reality and when you return to it.”

“But that’s in the mortal layers,” Nym said, his mind working furiously to follow the logic. “So out here, in this space where time isn’t linear, those fifty-six days’ worth of time could be scattered all over, little slivers and pinpricks pulled from anywhere and stuck together into one big blob.”

“That is theoretically possible, but not very efficient. You’ll notice in this illusion that the timeline is thicker than your experience of it, even as an ascendant. Those are other possible iterations of existence, alternate versions where events played out differently. We can take from them as well.”

“Then, that means that even though I can’t go back to the time I already experienced in the core reality, I could go see alternate versions of it?”

“You could, if you were strong enough. I wouldn’t recommend setting anchors sideways just yet. Focus on extending them through one iteration of reality before you explore parallel paths. Going sideways is more of a goal for ascendants who reach the Crushing Void anyway.”

“That being the seventh layer?” Nym asked.

“Yes, followed by the Heart of the Stars, Labyrinth, Illusory Mirror, Edge of Reality, and finally, exclusive to Exarchs: Hungering Chasms.”

“I see. It seems like I have a long way to go before I push up against the boundaries of the collective knowledge of the ascendants.”

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“Don’t we all,” Baracia murmured.

“Right, well… it was nice chatting, but I should probably get some work done.”

“Oh, you have a project in mind?”

Nym stared at her blankly. He had no clue what he was going to do next, other than trying to decipher some more of the green-leather book knowledge locked in his brain that he still didn’t understand.

“If you’ve got free time, I have an acquaintance who’s looking for someone to do some work for him. I recommend approaching him and trading a favor or two. If you don’t already know how, learning to build new anchors and place them is an essential skill, and you have so much free time available that I’m sure you’ll be able to come to some sort of agreement. Would you like me to arrange an introduction?”

“Sure. That sounds good.”

"Very well, next time you return to the core reality, I’ll have another letter set to find you at the earliest possible moment.”

“Thanks,” Nym said.

* * *

Nym spent a lot of time just floating out in the void, thinking about what Baracia had told him and trying to wrap his head around the fact that he’d spent enough time talking to her to fill close to two months. It still didn’t seem possible to him. Even with her explanation, it felt like he was missing something.

Eventually, he gave up and turned instead to building himself something to exist in. That was mostly an effort of will, but the techniques and mental constructs he’d used to create spells served him well here. The same kinds of skills went into creating rooms. The hidden presence spell was woven into them, modified to shield a place instead of a person, and the whole thing ended up looking similar to his first core reality sanctuary.

It was a bit smaller, since he doubted he’d ever need anything like a guest room. None of his mortal friends were likely to ascend, not even if he helped them along. Perhaps Analia might be able to do it, but she’d be racing against time to try to modify herself enough to be able to handle the amount of arcana needed just to step between layers. It was far more likely she’d die of old age first.

Perhaps if he grew strong enough, he could set up a place like where Niramyn had stuck him to give her more time. Of course, he should talk to her first and find out if she even wanted to do something like that. It was a lot of work and he wasn’t at all sure it was worth it. He certainly would have been happier to remain mortal if he could have ensured that the ascendants would have left him alone.

Once he considered the idea, he wondered if Niramyn had done something similar with Archmage Veran. He’d gotten the sense that the ascendant had helped the mortal, if only as part of one of their games they played against each other. It had worked out well for Nym though, perhaps suspiciously so. Had the Exarch known he’d one day need a mortal’s help and groomed him for it?

That didn’t seem likely, since if he’d known that, he’d have known enough not to let Myzalik zap him with the spell that had turned him into Nym. Obviously Niramyn didn’t know that, so… Nym wasn’t sure exactly how existing across a spectrum of time instead of a single point translated to living in the core reality. Time was undoubtedly linear there.

Nym spent time, or didn’t spend it, such as the case might be, teasing out bits of pieces of knowledge from his brain and connecting it to other things he’d recently learned. It was a slow process, but it wasn’t like he had somewhere to be or something to do. Idly, he wondered how ascendants measured progress. There were so many things that didn’t seem like they should work, like if time didn’t exist, how did they measure change?

Nym could say that a number of years back, he’d been unable to use fifth layer arcana, and six months before that, unable to use third. There were still more layers to reach ahead of him, so it stood to reason that they had some way to measure how fast someone progressed.

There was a lot more to that puzzle, but he felt like he was missing too many pieces to figure it out, and maybe some of the pieces he had were from a different puzzle. He wasn’t sure yet, but it was giving him a killer headache. Until he had a bit more to go on, that was going to be a subject to pick at some other time.

He’d spent an inordinate amount of time chatting about random things with Baracia, common knowledge to gossip and rumors, nothing that was immediately actionable by itself, but it painted a picture of a tangled web and really drove home exactly how ascendant society functioned. They only had two things they valued: knowledge and time in the core reality. Nym was severely lacking in the first category, but he was the richest ascendant of all in the second.

Not all time was equal either. When ascendants wanted to experiment with something that required them to be on reality prime, they tended to spend time during portions of history where people didn’t yet exist, at least not in any form of civilized society. There was less clean up if things went wrong, and since there was less going on, the time being wasted likely wouldn’t see any other use.

That wasn’t an option for Nym, not yet. He’d need to form four or five anchors at absolute minimum to stretch that far back from his current anchor, the point in time where he’d ascended. Using time around that anchor seemed like a bad idea, if only because that’s when his friends were still alive and also because it seemed like a decade long slice coming up was being used as the arena for the newest scuffle. No doubt that would put a premium on those years to any ascendants who were interested in the outcome.

Since one possible outcome was an Exarch who could kill the unkillable taking control of everything, Nym assumed that every ascendant had an interest. So then, if he wanted to do anything in the core reality while preserving his own personal time around his one and only anchor, the solution was obvious. He needed to make a new anchor.

He might be able to puzzle that out on his own, but it would be easier if there was someone to show him. That would incur a favor, and would be one step towards being entangled in ascendant politics. As long as he was careful though, that might not be a bad thing. It opened up the possibility of other ascendants owing him favors, and that might be just what he needed to keep himself safe from two Exarchs who had more interest in him than was healthy.

Nym just needed to go back to core reality for a minute to get his letter from Baracia, and he’d be on his way.