Going back to swimming after getting used to grips is torturous. Guess that's what I deserve for delaying the journey this long.

I discovered that there was other stuff out here in the astral hundreds of pages ago in my journal. Sadly, it is still one of my best methods of timekeeping, next to sleeps.

I made a map a while ago of the nearby echoes that I can both hear and locate, and I’m heading toward the original echo, but there are two other echoes along the way.

I stare at the map; disappointingly, it's very crude, but well, I'm not exactly a cartographer. I just created a rose compass out of my base and its segments, then used the various persistent clouds as landmarks. Larger clouds are slower to change than smaller ones and rarely grow. Usually they only change when they start to shrink and die.

I wonder what those objects I detected could be; my main hypothesis is monsters of some sort, because the animals that could survive and thrive in the Astral would definitely adapt to, I dunno, the MAGIC. With only six people put into the Astral via the only-way portals, it would be incredibly improbable that half of them would be so close to my home. Although it could mean that we all got spat out in the same place, but I doubt it. But if it isn’t people, what is it?

I frown because I do not know objects have never been recorded to be left behind in the astral despite there being an extremely large volume of small objects coming in and out of a portal constantly, so it has to be a living or formerly living being.

And people probably would have you know explored and made an impact; I sigh and realize that what I’ll most likely find is corpses.

I shake my head and start to swim faster, the lack of wind resistance in the Astral allowing me to accelerate to ludicrous speeds.

Curiously, my magic techniques that affect the environment are always temporary; whenever I create winds with my expectation, I don't make them from now on through my actions. This is quite useful because, without it, every single magic technique would alter my world and make former observations worthless, but it is curious.

The infinite objects I make don't have any such restrictions, like the paper not dissapearing after I make it. However, the seeming temporary nature of any nature is both quite ridiculous and not in accordance with my expectations theory. Maybe it's a rule that I have discovered, this needs investigation. I think while speeding through the astral.

You know this is probably magic. My actions are not in accordance with previous observations; it's an alteration of the fundamental rules and thus magic. I’ve made a lot of items through experimentation, but most of my “techniques” are things I created accidentally.

While rocketing through the Astral at absurd speeds, I pull out my notebook, the pages not fluttering due to the absence of wind, and write down ‘make more techniques'. It’s eerie going so fast with almost no sound at all, like I’m not even touching this place, as if I were a ghost interacting with reality but not a part of it.

But as I speed through the astral, I look and am alarmed to see a red cloud in front of me; touching those from my previous experiences seems to have me consume their emotion.

The last time I touched one of those, I got both ridiculously angry and paranoid. What the hell would happen if I touched something bigger than me? Would I go mad from the infusion of emotions, or would it devour me?

I frantically turn around my body and start randomly waving my arms and think, how do I survi-

But before I can finish my thought, I plunge through the cloud and reach the other side.

I hold my breath and yet nothing seems to have happened; I pat down my body and nothing feels bad or anything like that, plus I got to see the inside of one of the blooms—they're much lighter colored on the inside!

I breathe a sigh of relief, but something feels off, it feels like something is missing?

But I’m not sure what happened—I quickly wiped at my runny nose, only for my hand to come back stained with blood.

I stare at it and try to wipe it off, but it just smears, making me see more and more blood. I gasp for air over and over again while holding my hand away.

What the fuck does the blood mean? Is my brain bleeding! If so, how and where? Oh, gods, I don’t know anything at all about this goddamn mess. I sob my heart pounding in my ears. I panick, wondering if this is this why I’m bleeding? I scream and shake, and I dig my once-beautiful but now ragged nails into my palm.

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I breathe deep, gulping breaths over and over, my mind stuck on that one thought, refusing to let go, getting more and more panicky as time goes on. I think FUCK when you heal, you generate new cells. Where the hell am I getting those nutrients from?

I tear off the backpack, hearing ragged threads tear as I grab my old granola from my backpack and stuff it into my mouth, the sugary oats, nuts, and berries scattering into the astral, wasted. I grab the scattered granola from the air and keep eating it scared for my life because of a stupid nosebleed.

My mouth is so dry and damaged that I turn to reach for my water, almost about to throw the entire bottle down my throat, before I tremblingly place it back into the shitty backpack.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

I continue to rocket through the astral, this time with a bit less hope. I’m so goddamn stupid, why can’t I think of dangerous things before they happen and plan ahead of time instead of just letting things happen? And I can't even say that I'm good at improvising to compensate; the second I was in danger, I got into a hissy fit instead of solving my problems.

I sigh and lay my head in my hands. But as I curled in with shame, I am shocked into action by slamming into a pile of bones contained within a colorful robe with various colorful patterns dyed on, filled with various wooden charms intricately carved with foreign glyphs, although those charms right now are being scattered across the Astral.

"Shit, I need those!” I slow down my speed and head back in the direction of the scattered items.

I pondered what to do while gathering the pieces, but only when I saw them all put together did it truly hit me. I just desecrated a body, and right after doing that, I’m going to loot it. I sigh

“Too unlucky for you, poor brother or sister. I have no idea as to who you or your gods are, but I hope that wherever your soul will drift, it is filled with peace and love." I say for I might not believe in gods, but that doesn't mean I disrespect belief. It is a core piece of the human experience that cannot easily be sullied.

With that done, I get back to the business of graverobbery, although it does bring to mind why the hell there is a body here. I did expect them, with the Astral Plane only seeming to hold what people brought and themselves.

And while death is inevitable, how did they die? I look over the bones; they weren’t broken into pieces, but I do see various crooked bones that healed wrong. I frown things like bones healing wrong pretty much stopped centuries ago. Whoever this was must have lived a difficult life to have so many broken and then healed bones. I didn’t see anything on the bones for it to be death by violence, so it has to be something else.

I wonder what it was. Maybe kidney failure, various magical and wild events, or just the vagaries of old age. But why is it just a skeleton? There are no microbes in the astral plane; who would transmit them? Where would they come from? Do they live in the air if so how?

There are so many questions that must be answered before microbes are flying around the astral, but while this seems contradictory, so does my speed swimming and the wind waves.

So my hypothesis is that the answer to why the hell he rotted is that he expected to rot, and so he did, even without the microbes necessary. Although another hypothesis that could work is that he contained enough microbes in his gut and stuff to rot him.

Since the removal of my gut bacteria would make me violently sick, I can presume that it’s still inside me. I have no way to research it without either bodies or studies in Steven’s database, but it is a possibility, no matter how dim. And it's not exactly like this scenario has ever come up at home, who would have researched it?

But whatever the reason may be, I’ve got a dead body on my hands. What do I do with it now?

I search through the person's items and find a great deal of carved wooden charms. With further examination, I can see that while they are made with quite a lot of skill, the charms were made with primitive tools, judging by the lack of photon blades or any signs that they were made in a replicator.

So unless one of the people who ended up here was a historical nerd, this man doesn’t seem to have come from the galactic era. Looks like I’ve found a corpse that is at the very least a century old since we only got hardened photon technology through trade with the Aexki. Which was obviously after the invention of portals.

So he could have only been around for a very narrow stretch of time, that is, post-portal but pre-contact with the galactic community. There could only have been a few years they could have lived in. And while they might not have brought much with them, I can still use the wood on all these charms for the fire necessary for my future plans.

But should I take the body or the clothes?

They could be useful, especially the clothes, for some upgrades to the IPA. I shake my head and float in the beautiful astral expanse, stumped. There are no graves for me to respectively place them in; there is no easy moral choice here.

I could leave his body here and let him drift in the astral. But that's not correct either; only a coward makes the choice to leave something that's bad the way it is with no intention of changing it because they're afraid of making it worse. Plus, leaving him here would be the equivalent of leaving soldiers dead bodies on the battlefield and that's pretty obviously wrong. I could also cremate him, but the heat required to turn bones into ash is incredibly hot, and for all I know, the man's beliefs might place being cremated as the biggest blasphemy possible.

I sigh and wipe my still-bloody hands on my face. When there’s no perfect moral option, I must place my hopes and dreams over a morality that doesn’t offer any solutions to the problem.

I then with trepidation gingerly place all of the man's remains into the body along with his clothes and jewelry. Then, hoisting up the backpack, I continue towards the next echo.

When I reach the place this time. I stop well in advance. Thankfully so, since there is quite a large obstacle to reaching the echo.

I see a man with dark ebony skin anointed in a golden paste forming strange symbols, sitting in a strange position that I presume is for meditation, with his face adorned with a peaceful and gentle smile.

But more alarmingly, he is surrounded by three clouds that are furiously spinning around his pristine body. Without any damage to the body, it’s hard to tell if the man is dead, but I look at him and see nothing, he is empty, a void. He cannot possibly be alive.

I cannot reach the echo, at least not without an unacceptable amount of risk, but let's see what I can notice from observation.

First I ‘unpeel’ all the clouds surrounding it; looking first at the bold red and orange cloud and ‘unpeel’ it to be hit with the unfurling banner of an army of nights, my mind gets slammed by the concept of a Just War.

I feel as if someone smashed the theory behind a subject into my skull. So many ideas flowing through my head, wars fought for honor, and blood spilled according to treaties and accords. But as I continue to get slammed with the very idea of a Just War. I begin to understand, Just Wars aren’t perfect, but War will always exist, and a better, more just war means a better world.

I reel from the cloud; the cloud not that big but filled with one of the meatiest mind packages I had ever seen. Not only did I process a lot of information, but it was so neatly structured, like an introduction pamphlet on a new subject. I practically had a philosophy lecture on the idea of war just shoved into my head!

It’s so strange to feel this pulsing pressure in my head. The pain holding me close like a vice were clamped around my mind. I’ve unpeeled so many clouds over these boring days, that I rarely get more than the tiniest headache while peeling, unless I unpeel landmark-sized clouds.

I put my hands on my knees and take a bit of rest before I continue.

I unpeel the others, but they are much less complicated than the others. One cloud is a dull white that contains the thought of simple math and ambition. While the other is a vibrant electric blue that contains the idea of sudden inspiration. They are also both structured, but their structure is both more shoddy and an imitation of the first cloud. Like someone copying the writing style of an acclaimed author.

I’m unsure of what I can do further. I'm definitely not wading in there, so what the hell else am I supposed to do, just throw stuff in there?

I shrug. It is not the worst idea ever; it might tell me the purpose of these clouds. It is quite abnormal for them to be moving and so fast as well.

I pull out the binder and complete the steps of the Infinite Binder Attempt, or the IBA and throw a magnetic nail at the spinning clouds. I am surprised to see that the red and orange cloud of just war smacks the nails away while it’s spinning, like throwing a penny at a spinning fan.

I pull out my notebook and diligently write down, ‘Clouds seem to have the possibility of being solid, must experiment further before confirmation’.

I place my pencil and notebook back and throw two more nails aiming at the same spot to stop confounding variables, and curiously, only the red cloud could stop the nail, but it moved faster to intercept it. I can conclude that the clouds are protecting the person.

But why? And why can only the red one block projectiles, and how did it speed up?

I ponder these questions for a bit before realizing.

“I’m too tired for this shit I’m giving up." I say rubbing my head in frustration as I get the fuck out of there.

While this question and the answers I will find while pursuing it are fascinating, it's not worth the danger to my safety and the unknown ability of those clouds. Sometimes you just have to give up.

---

I approach the original signal quickly—the first echo I heard and mapped in this world, the symbol of my hope.

But as the echo gets louder and louder and as I slow down in anticipation, I see it.

My hope, a book whose surface is adorned with beautiful mystic runes that seem to just radiate power, is sadly obscured because it is at the center of an enormous gray bloom. I pull my hands to my legs and just stare at the site for a bit.

“Fuck me if I want to get that book, I’m going to need to get through that cloud!” I say this while looking up at the menacing cloud large enough to block the sun that stands between me and my knowledge.