Arc woke up in the shrine. Not in his usual bed, but in a pile of rat fur on the stone slab next to the firepit, which served as his kitchen counter. (Although, Rocky also used it for much more grim purposes...)

He felt groggy, had a terrible headache, and couldn't remember last night. Maybe Pantimus forced a skinfull of surface wine down his throat?

What was the last thing he could recall doing? ...It was embarking on a mapping expedition, wasn't it? No, wait.

That journey had ended in disaster. They were attacked, and slaughtered. Arc was lucky to even be alive now. He knew this fact, but it somehow felt detached, like it wasn't actually him that it happened to.

{Ark, okay now?} Lucky to be alive, huh? "Yeah, Kat... Did you do mess around with probability again to save me?" {...No. Too far. Domain too thin to collapse on that scale.} Arc hesitantly poked at his ribs. No pain.

"Then... You healed me, Kat?" {...Arc reverted to previous state. Experience merged where possible.} So, she basically rewound time for him? It sounded like there was more she wasn't telling.

"Kat... Where did you get enough power to do that?" {Outsourced.} "Outsourced where?" {Here.} "What..." {Observer interaction.}

Kat wasn't being very helpful, but Arc had seen this pattern before. It was back when Arc was first asking Kat about how her power worked. Only this time, she was probably being deliberately evasive instead of just at a loss for words.

The proper response was to be as specific as possible with one's questions. "So... Are you saying a source of power external to you is 'here', as you used the term?" {No.} "But it was here when you healed me?" {...No.} "Then... If it wasn't 'here' then and isn't 'here' now... At some point it will be?" {...Yes.}

Arc was shocked. Doing stuff non-causually had to cost a lot. Or rather, it shall inevitably do so. But... He muttered to himself: "If the power 'lost in transmission' is directly proportional to the amount sent, and exponentially proportional to time traversed, then mathematically it's no different from a loan. Only, we can't default on it without violating cause-and-effect..."

{Arc isn't mad?} "No. You probably saved my life again, and it's done now. Well, technically it isn't done yet, but we still can't change it. Or won't." Arc's mind may not have had a problem wrapping around the situation, but his tongue sure did. "Just make sure this debt gets paid without hurting yourself in the process."

Arc needed to switch focus to something he could actually do something about, now. "The assailant... That was a human, wasn't it? One of the so-called surface giants." {Yes.} "He was using Power, wasn't he?" {Probably. Not identical to Kat's power.}

"And... Dungeons: humans invade those, don't they?" {Kat feels like they're supposed to.} "But we should fight them off? Minions, I mean." {...Minions maintain dungeon defenses.} "That can include themselves though, right?"

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{Arc shouldn't fight.} He understood that Kat was trying to protect him, but Arc wasn't intending to sit idly by and not protect her in return. "I promise I won't be fighting myself. I don't feel like having a repeat of this event ever again."

And so, Arc got back to work. But he had made the mistake of assuming that what he'd actually uncovered the thing Kat was trying to hide.

Not even once did he consider the possibility that when Kat patched up his memories, she took a peek at them first, and decided to leave something out.

---------

Rocky had posted a guard at the shrine's entrance. He had olive-colored skin and a dim wit even by minion standards, but the most distinguishing feature had to be his massive size. He was nearly twice Arc's height, huge! Even taller than Pantimus. Arc decided to call him Big Green.

Big Green was very dedicated to his duty. During Arc's entire conversation with Kat, he'd neither made a single noise nor moved one finger's-breadth from his post. According to her, Big Green hadn't even left to eat or sleep once.

This gave Arc an idea. He quickly fetched a spare paint pot and brush. On the wall behind Big Green, he wrote the symbol for '1', then a circle with a horizontal line through it. He didn't even need to tell Kat it meant "Guard", which boded well for his odds of success.

Rocky had once demonstrated that written symbols could help a dungeon expand by literally marking its 'claim' on the walls. If such crude paintings could do that much, perhaps a more refined mark could affect the domain in a different way?

Making sure not to tell Kat what he was up to, he moved to another tunnel. On a wall he made a a circle as large as he could. In side it he made a flattened chevron with a vertical line in a sort of 'T' shape, a '4' symbol, and another vertical line, this time connecting two dots.

Eventually a passing minion decided that where he'd marked would be a good spot to dig a hole roughly four lengths deep. (The process took a while, but Arc had ways to pass the time. Such as the low-effort but tedious task of shaping fragments of rat bone into large beads for the water clock to count with.)

In another tunnel, he made a simple 'X' on the floor. But this time, the first minion to pass by did not move a pot full of dirt there like Arc hoped. Instead, he just stared at the mark cock-headed, cautiously poked it with his foot, then finally took a leak on the spot.

"So, I guess just making any old mark won't work, huh?" {Symbols convey only meaning invested in them: no more, no less.} "Then... An 'X' has the meaning of 'do something here', but doesn't specify what? I suppose that's not unfair; being able to interpret characters I made up on the spot is generous enough."

{It's because Arc always puts thought into what he does, that his actions carry such clear meaning.} "Hmm... Is that pride I detect in your voice?" {Kat's favorite, Arky-minion!}