Standing on a stone pier, I looked out over the small patch of clear water inside the harbour's mouth at the impenetrable wall of mist beyond. In the month since we had attempted our ill-fated escape through the barrier's grey depths, and despite being told it was impossible and the man's bemused glances, I had attempted to dig out, swim out and had spent one stir-crazy afternoon in my room just saying Xiournal’s name over and over again. None of these attempts had been successful, and the swimming had very nearly killed me, as it turned out moving at super-speeds is significantly more difficult under water. Luckily, my time abilities were not actually related to speed, and so it had not been significantly impacted. It had caused some very strange behaviour in the water, including flashes of intense brightness and heat, as well as shockwaves. If I had been any less sturdy, just the swim may have killed me, never mind the Wraith Fish.

With a sigh, I went back to my glacial practice, my sword grinding through the air at a speed that was barely perceptible, ingraining the precise movements of muscle and steel into my body. The sword practice might not be particularly useful to me, as it seemed like I could either cover myself or the sword with my time aura, but I was bored.

I had hoped, after my experience with the dragon back in Ouhl that I would simply be able to extend my time spikes over the blade and become a living blender, but it seemed that the spikes themselves lagged behind slightly when I was in motion, resulting in the destruction of my second to last sword. It was fine if I just wanted to uselessly swipe my spikes through a person, but to actually make use of them, it appeared that I needed to keep them pretty steady. It was an irritating limitation, but I could hardly complain given the capacity that my control of time otherwise granted me.

I had also tried with the chain, which actually had not broken when practising; it had caused the length to spin in odd directions and at strange angles and I had almost killed myself several times, and had successfully captured myself many times more as the metallic length wrapped around me. It was something that I might be able to overcome with practice, but I was not sure the chain was for me; images of wrapping it around people and allowing my lightning to flow along its length to zap them had filled my head when I had first started practicing, but... I did not appear to be talented with it. At all.

But I kept practising, every day; sword, chain, unarmed, spar. Repeat.

I was so bored. This was the longest period I had spent in any one place since my arrival on the Aspirant Plane, other than my brief foray to the dead world, and that at least had the experiments and invasions to keep me going, and I had still become restless after a month. In Cresent Bay, there was practice and... that was it really. The locals, well used to the phenomenon, had simply settled in to repair buildings, ships, ropes and nets. They also drank. A lot. I had no idea where they were getting all the alcohol, there had to be truly massive stories somewhere, given how much they were drinking every night and I wondered what it was made of. It tasted vaguely herbal, and felt about as strong as vodka, which was saying a lot given the heights at which my constitution rested.

The abundant, strangely powerful booze had helped while away a day or two, but the novelty had quickly worn off; it turns out trying to control lightning as it roiled about your system, while moving about at hyper-sonic speeds and propelled by the powers of time itself was pretty difficult without full control of your faculties, which had resulted in me having to assist with – and pay for – several repairs.

The one bright side of our being trapped in the town was that the innkeeper had given us the rooms for free until the mist cleared; apparently, he did not see it as moral to force people to pay when they were being forced to stay in a location against their will. I felt it very decent of him, and tried to picture Loneth giving away rooms for free, but then remembered that she had charged us for storing unconscious people in her common room...

Reff and Riffa seemed to be handling the delay and imprisonment better than the rest of us; they were considerably older and of a significantly more patient people. They spent their time cultivating, reading and discussing philosophy, which was actually pretty interesting a lot of time, but I needed to be doing things. I had spent very little time doing nothing since my arrival, and it seemed my mind had adapted to the constant activity. I knew that the long road to Ascension was going to be filled with periods of inactivity, and it was something I was going to need to get used to, but not then, when I knew things were afoot in the world that I needed to be helping with.

Darina was – if anything – even more impatient than I was, training constantly, alternating between one-on-one spars with each of us and anybody in town who would take her up on it. Most of the city had given up on that, but there were quite a few frequently-drunk-sailors that did not mind the odd fight, and it filled most of her time. Toria was somewhere between myself and the risi, used to long travel in Chian’s golden, wheeled palace. Even so, just like myself, she knew there were things happening in the wider world, as well as the usual injustices, and she hated at least not moving in their direction.

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With a sigh, I completed my last sword form and slipped the sharp length of metal into storage, going looking for somebody to spar with.

*

***

*

Sitting on a low wooden fence, I watched as Reff and Riffa squared off against Toria and Darina, their stances low, their profiles minimized and their gazes loosely focused on each other’s centres. I had found the four of them already in their fourth bout of the day, and had asked to take part, but unfortunately it seemed that my super-speed was not particularly conducive to training. Even at my normal pace, I was more than twice as fast as any of them, and I only drew roughly level if I did not use my Path at all. So, it was a case of either not being good practice for them, or for me.

They had conceded that our one-on-one sparring was still useful, in case they met faster opponents, but when they were practicing as a group, I was mostly just a distraction, at that point. With a sigh, I refocused on the fight, tapping my Path to make it easier to observe it; I may have been faster when using my powers, but they all had a higher baseline than I did, to the point that they were each twice as fast as I was.

Time slowed around me and I watched as the four fought, their two sides vying for advantage; they made good opponents for each other. Reff and Darina cancelled out a lot of each other's advantages, as did Toria and Riffa, but without overwhelming them completely. Several subjective minutes crept by as I took them in, trying to glean insights from the battle, but our abilities meant that we simply fought too differently.

Groaning, still bored and growing more so, I stood up from the fence and wandered off with the vague plan of examining the various artificial limbs I still had on me for new ideas about paths, but mentally waved the idea away. It would just be speculation, I knew, without a method of testing. And I had no desire to go through that particular experience again, especially without the benefit of a handy immortality potion.

Slumping, I stared up at the dark grey dome as I paused between two buildings, their painted wooden exteriors drab and subdued in the shadows cast by the distant artificial lights. Frustration and boredom boiled against each other inside of me, one hot and tense and the other cold and flat. I felt like I was frozen there, in that city, unable to progress. I could not look for a way south, I could not escape and I had been singularly unable to make any progress in my cultivation in the month we had spent trapped. The world – and my friends – were passing me by.

Realising that my Path was still active, I stepped off it with a subdued smile; everything else might have sucked pretty hard for me, but I had still progressed enough that I could casually forget I was using my powers without draining myself dry in a matter of minutes. That was something, right?

“You do be okay, lad? You’ve been stood like a statue for a hefty slice of an hour, that you do have been.”

I looked around for the source of the voice, finding the old man we had met on our first day in Crescent Bay a short distance away, leaning on his long, hooked spear, the crags and lines that made up his face cast in darkness, lending him an almost sinister look.

“I’m fine. I don’t think it’s been that long though.”

Not with my abilities; in my past life I would often find myself losing hours, lost in thought, but it was not something I had succumb to since my life re-started, and certainly not with my time powers active; it would take me subjective hours of standing about to seem like I was from the outside.

“Old I may be, lad, but that just means I’ve seen more time’n you. I know what an hour looks and feels like, and I be telling you how long you’ve stood there, that I do be.”

The old man’s voice sounded mildly offended, though his face did not appear to change, though that may have been a simple trick of the light. I was not going to argue with him though; even as frustrated as I was, I knew he was almost certainly a Pinnacle stage, and if I could not hit him, I could not leach his energy. Which meant I would lose. Also, it was not like he had said anything offensive.

Mentally shaking my head, contemplating that my first reaction was not arguing due to my inevitable loss, rather than because there was nothing to argue about, took a steadying breath before speaking again.

“Right. Sorry, I guess I was lost in my own thoughts. I’m fine, really. Just eager to leave; we’re trying to get south as quickly as possible. That’s why we were looking for a skyship.”

“Worry not, lad. And aye, I be knowing what it be like to crave an exit to this cage, that I do be. Old I be now, but once I was as young as you. Not an easy thing to stay still when the world do be out there, waiting for you to experience it. I travelled the length of the world, met Apexes and saw ascensions. Seen all manner of oddities. But it be but a short time, in the grand scheme of such things. You’ll be out and causing trouble before you know it, that you will be.”

I found the old man’s words oddly comforting and offered him a nod, which he returned with a wide, lined smile before vanishing in silence. I wondered which Apexes he had met, my mind going to the vaguely naval looking woman I could not quite recall the name of.

Still, comfort was good, and I knew he was right, that it would be over in an effective eyeblink, given my new and increasing lifespan, but that did not change the fact that I was bored.