Luckily for her, Cardomos deactivated his Embodiment, the scales spilling blood, and the spilled blood disappearing, going back into the Primeval Sea.

It was her first time seeing the Primeval Water up close, from outside and under the “sun”. It was translucent, but very dark in color, except when light shone upon it, which made it look kinda silvery.

So, when it’s not affected by an Esca, getting tainted on the Paradigm’s color, it’s plain gray? She thought, seeing the tides recede, taking the Embodiment with them. Doireann’s Conceptualization was coloured, so pure Primeval Water is only visible on the Embodiment stage.

Even so, for an Embodiment, it’s kinda… She didn’t want to say weak, because depending on whom it was used against, it could be an absolute gamechanger, but… Doireann’s was better, in her opinion. And hers was still in the initial phase.

Well, not better. Hers is also useless if she’s alone. The Embodiment is like an ultimate attack, so the user mage’s identity matters a lot. She hadn’t let go of the idea of trying to make a Conceptualization herself, so she was very focused on the ones she saw.

No wonder Tristan told her to wait. As of now, she didn’t have anything to call an identity, magically speaking.

Even if she badly wanted to.

“So I’ve passed your judgment, no?” She asked Cardomos, once he finished closing off the spell.

“Indeed.”

“Do you do this to everyone that enters?”

“The duty of making mages face their own sins falls upon every Inquisitor.”

That’s a yes, just fancy. “What about your selected?” Even when Cardomos was ‘retired’, he wasn’t so in the past, having the same obligation as every other mage in the Mergifari.

“There are no exceptions.”

“... Well, there’s plenty of novice mages who haven’t killed anyone.” The vast majority hadn’t, in fact.

“I only pick those who have.”

How many novice mages did you harm doing that? “Kinda like Irsen Kartal.” She muttered. Well, Kartal didn’t Select novices with bloody Escas, instead recommending them to other mages, but once they became full-fledged mages, he offered them a position in the Scales of Poine.

“He was one of them.”

Velvet opened her eyes slightly in surprise. Then, again, it wasn’t that surprising. Kartal and Cardomos shared several similarities in their opinion towards mages, as far as Velvet could see.

“How did I compare to him?”

Maintaining his composure, yet taking a small breath, Cardomos ignored her question. “There’s something else you should be asking.”

“R-right…” Getting ready, Velvet started speaking, fast and without stopping to breathe. “So, in the Tales of Coris, it’s depicted that you confronted the Harpan Army together with Dianz Coaltheno, yet in the Servendipy, there’s no mention of that, and instead it says that the Harpan army fell fighting against the alliance made by Arhontissian and Charlampian mages, without any mention of you. It’s been debated for a while, so, if you can tell me the truth…”

“...”

“Ah! Of course I’m not expecting you to remember something that happened hundreds of years ago, don’t worry! I can quote both books completely by memory, and see if it rings a bell- Or maybe it’s better if I quote only the chapters where it’s mentioned? I can do both, so-”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Cardomos finally let his non-frozen eyebrow flinch. “About the reason you are here.”

“Oh.” Velvet's mood deflated instantly. Yes, she hadn’t forgotten about Dianthus, but she was more interested in the childhood “antihero” currently in front of her. Even when he was older, and more scarred, Cardomos looked pretty similar to his depictions in books. Even in personality.

In fact, he was more mellowed than when he was younger, which said a lot. And… she still doubted being able to get his autograph.

“So… where is Dianthus? The Chosen One.” She said, masking her disappointment by looking at the Humming Figs at the distance, now calmed down.

“On the Realm below this one.” He simply said, turning to the side, raising one hand.

Like touching the surface of resting water, ripples formed in the air, a translucent picture forming itself, showing the exact scenery from Velvet’s dreams, the one where she found Dianthus, where he hadn’t destroyed everything.

Massive vines filled with thorns forming a small, hostile path towards the depths of the pocket dimension, ignorant of their counterparts having been reduced to ash and dust.

Velvet’s breath got stuck on her chest, as she processed the information.

Realms shouldn’t be possible on pocket dimensions, not to say unsafe.

A way to explain it would be: if the world was a book, then a pocket dimension would be ripping a piece of page off, folding and sticking it between two pages, one of which would be the page from where it was torn.

And a Realm would be turning the page. It might look the same as the previous page, but, if one started reading, the differences would show themselves, in some places more than others.

For example, Hell. It was a Demonic Realm, one that Velvet had visited when she made a deal with Hyde, albeit shortly, only the start, and with the protection of the Father of Hell.

Another one was the Fae Realm, the one where fairies resided, and from where Velvet called them. And, another one would be the Death Realm, where ghosts resided.

There was more, but something that they shared was that rules worked differently for each one of them, were it be with the pass of time, gravity, survivability…

As long as one knew and respected the rules of each Realm, traversal was possible, but dangerous. In some places, there were even “holes” between the pages, where the Realms merged, allowing passage to dangerous beings, just like the Unnamed Forest of the Mergifari, which was merged with Hell.

So, for a pocket dimension to be connected with another Realm… It would be like tearing pieces of two pages, and folding them together, with everything inside, which sounded doable in theory, but, when one remembered how unstable pocket dimensions could get, imagine that instability combined by merging rules from two or more different Realms.

If time worked differently in two places on the formation, one side could accelerate and break down, losing its connection with the other side. That made any sort of pocket dimension with fairies impossible to build.

And that was ignoring that, aside from the Material Realm, beings from other Realms knew magic, so, if they didn’t like being folded inside a pocket dimension, they would break it down themselves.

And, ignoring also that, Realms not only had rules, but also Rulers. Demons had Devils, for example Hyde, who was under the Devil of Knowledge, Ars Chryses, and like Frenese, who had been a Ruler in Hell before being sealed.

Fairies were more varied, sometimes forming a Seelie or Unseelie Court, sometimes being under a King or Queen, and sometimes under Lothrigern himself. But they liked making pranks, so putting them inside a pocket dimension was like throwing a bomb.

And, Death Realms were under Reapers. Velvet didn’t have much information about those, only that they carried the souls “stuck between pages” towards Purgatory. Or so Skugol had told her, and, since he was a follower of the Death Goddess, she chose to believe him.

Deities could also possess their own realms, but that was debated. For something to be able to be called a Realm, it should possess some sort of “natural life” on its own, not brought or made. Otherwise, it wasn’t considered a real Realm, just some parallel space.

But no, looking at what was in front of her, it was a Realm, not anything else.

And looking she kept on doing, not that keen on entering. Her experience with Hell still raw in her mind, and, she didn’t know which one-

Well, the last question had a solution, no need to be so fatalistic.

“What Realm is this?” She asked, looking at Cardomos’ back. Probably Hell? The Mergifari already touched it in some places, and, as long as one took down the Devil, it could be doable.

He lowered his hand, not turning to face her. “The Death one.”

“Inquisitors are enemies of the Death Acolites. Why would you…” No, not why, but how.

There was no possible way that a Death Realm Ruler was in good grades with him. Or so she wanted to say, but Cardomos didn’t wait anymore, entering the portal, which started closing.

Running after him, Velvet also crossed that hole towards the next page.