Jiann glared at Orton. "You cain't be serious, boy."

"Ah, my young student! You are so disrespectful, to refer to one older than you in such a way." Orton had to resist cackling with pleasure at all this. Doing his best to suppress his mirth, he moved in closer to Jiann and lowered his voice. "Seriously, dude, it totally doesn't matter what either of us thinks. This is for the information we need to save the world, remember?" He scowled at Jiann's expression of offense. "Grow a pair of undead balls, already. I think you can put up with two minutes of humiliation in exchange for that."

Jiann huffed, but didn't complain further. "This ain't gonna be much of a match if'n I cain't move real well, though."

Orton squinted at Jiann for a moment, then frowned. "You shoulda let me clear blockages earlier when I offered. You're having trouble with your legs, right?"

"Yeah." The revenant shifted uncomfortably. "Knees go out on me sometimes -- lock up, or buckle. Feet don't go where I want 'em, neither."

"It's because you're about five inches shorter than your original body," Orton hissed, "and almost all the difference is in your femurs. You've got all your sacral meridians trying to operate a knee halfway down your shins." Forming a fist, he extended his index finger and jabbed it into Jiann's solar plexus; the revenant grunted, but didn't object. "That'll get you working for now, but you should work on this later. For now, get in there." He stepped out of the way and moved back, crossing his arms to watch the fight.

Glumly, Jiann moved forward to stand opposite the robed figure. With a sigh, he waved his hands in various directions, concentrated, and took up a guard position of his own.

Enna sidled up next to Orton, who winced at the shoddiness of Jiann's martial trance. "Orton, is he gonna be okay?" Enna asked, worriedly.

Orton shrugged. "I don't have a clue what's going on, honestly. We'll just have to see where this goes."

Jiann took a deep breath -- more out of reflex than anything else -- and let it out slowly. "Don't suppose there are introductions we need to do before we start?"

I am only a humble keeper, the voice replied in his mind. Jiann snorted. "Alright, then. Hopefully this won't be too embarrassin'."

He began shuffling closer, keeping his guard up -- the keeper's longer limbs would give it a reach advantage until he could rush in close. As he came within ten feet, he tensed, expecting an attack, but the robed creature seemed content to let him approach. Bastard's makin' me make the first move, he thought to himself grimly.

He ran through and discarded a few approaches in his mind; this was supposed to be a test of the skills he'd learned from Orton, not of his own lore. He did, in fact, have considerable knowledge of Orton's Prajna Yuddhan arts from watching Orton retrain his own body during the fourth loop, but he'd never practiced it himself in either his previous body or this one; he was, in many ways, feeling his way through the situation blind. As he drew within five feet of the keeper, he shifted his feet and darted inwards, aiming a rapid punch at the other creature's sternum.

In the blink of an eye, the skeletal figure reacted; its hands crossed, dropping down to intercept his wrist as his blow was blocked. Jiann found himself flying backwards through the air, trauma signals blaring through his face and stomach; he realized he'd just been backhanded twice in the face and then kicked in the guts with enough force to knock him ass-over-teakettle into the air. He tried to regain his balance, failed, and impacted hard face-down on the cobblestones; good thing I ain't got no breath to get knocked out o' me, he groused.

Picking himself gamely back up, he tried again, but each time with the same result; a low spinning kick earned him a skeletal foot to the face, and an attempted grab resulted in a deeply embarrassing full-height suplex. Scrambling to his feet, he found himself under assault as the keeper closed in with a harrowing series of blows.

"Wow, he's getting creamed," commented Enna.

Orton could barely contain himself. "This must be what it feels like to watch your favorite football team tank in the playoffs." He raised his hands to his face, shouting. "More chakras! You need to energize more chakras!"

"Orton, I ain't exactly practiced at this!" panted Jiann, dodging a flurry of machine-gun-rapid skeletal punches. "I ain't never trained my body for this style!"

Orton groaned. "What fucking body?!" he practically howled. "You're a spiritual construct! You don't have any reflexes!!"

Oh. Well, I'll be damned. Jiann took a punch to the face, rolled backwards, and decided to try things a little differently.

Discarding all the typical methods he'd used to move his body, he instead simply invoked internally; designating each of his chakras a harmonic wavelength analogous to their photonic component, he let his spirit give voice to the song of the resultant seven-part harmony. Prismatic light flared in the astral spectrum as his bodily systems reversed their paradigms of execution, becoming an expression of his will rather than a crude facsimile of its fountainhead. Blazing light cascaded through his limbs, turning them from leaden to luminous. Let's rock, One-Eyed Willie, he growled to himself.

Springing inwards, he launched an elbow strike, then whirled into a shoulder block when it was deflected. The keeper retaliated with a throat jab, but Jiann ignored it -- I ain't usin' my throat for nothin' important, pal -- and rolled to one side inside the robed figure's guard. He dodged a grappling grasp, landed a solid descending left hook on his opponent's bony skull, then followed up with a rising knee leap that forced the towering skeleton backwards a step. Exhilarated, he flowed forward to press his advantage.

Enna squinted, trying to follow the lightning-fast exchange of blows. "It looks similar to how you fight, but... different, too. Less yoga-y."

Orton nodded. "The prana is what matters, not the movements. He's figuring it out."

As they watched, the battle escalated; the robed figure's speed and power continually increased, using a myriad of techniques from a thousand disparate martial arts, but Jiann's momentum grew unstoppably to match it as his spiritual progression continued to empower his martial expression of Orton's arts. Each time the keeper changed tactics, struck at a weak point, or countered with a clever technique, Jiann's execution improved; his movements increasingly economical, his flow unceasingly harmonious. He traded blows, then stonewalled his opponent's offense, then began striking consistently. Enna's jaw dropped as the speed of the contest began to escalate beyond the capabilities of living humans.

The keeper punched at Jiann's head, stomping the ground with the force of an ox as spiritual strength flowed through its rooted limbs; Jiann simply flowed around the blow, the red-orange glow of his svadhisthana chakra expressing his fluidity and grace. The skeletal figure shifted styles, whirling around and leaping into the air with a graceful descending axe kick; Jiann's muladhara chakra blazed maroon as he countered with rooted strength of his own, blocking the descending bony heel with one hand and seizing the opportunity to land a blow on his opponent's trapped shinbone.

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Recovering and leaping backwards, the keeper lifted one foot and raise its hands palm-out, taking a flowing stance which absorbed and redirected Jiann's blows; Jiann's ajna chakra blazed an indigo flare from his brow as he sensed and anticipated the patterns of movement, countering each block and diversion with subtle counterpressure and minute shifts of position and angle. Finally, he achieved kuzushi, breaking the keeper's balance with a deftly aimed left-handed open-palm strike; as the towering skeletal figure reeled backwards, all seven of Jiann's chakras erupted with simultaneous radiance, and he stepped forward with lightning speed; his right foot crossed precisely and instantly over his left, his hips rotated with an inhumanly precise arc and circuit, and his right fist soared upwards in a shattering uppercut which took the keeper directly in the ribcage. Launched nearly ten feet into the air, its form exploded with polychromatic incandescence in a burst of disruptive power; it arced high, hung suspended and limp in the air for the briefest of instants, then hurtled downwards to impact on the blood-red grass. It bounced once, twitched, then lay still.

Jiann flowed into a resting stance with inhuman precision and swiftness, then blinked; his martial trance dissolved as his own recognition of what had just occurred penetrated his conscious mind. He opened his hands, staring down at them in wonder. "Oh, damn. Oh, damn. Oh, damn!"

"You know kung fu!" shouted Orton at him gleefully, laughing. Enna cheered, leaping with excitement, and raised her hands in encouragement.

As Jiann turned back towards the two of them, a goofy grin spreading across his bearded face, he failed to notice the rising shadow behind him; the keeper, floating in the air once more, seemed to flicker as it abruptly ceased to be there and was simply here, hovering directly above him as he half-turned, caught off guard.

The keeper's skeletal index finger reached out, tapping him in the center of his forehead; everyone froze for an instant. Then, abruptly, the tension disappeared; the keeper floated backwards and assumed its original stance, and Jiann staggered backwards to flop gracelessly on his butt on the cobblestones.

We have observed, the not-voice echoed in their minds. In payment, you may take seven answers.

Orton stepped up, facing the figure for a moment; then he turned, offering Jiann a hand to stand up. "First things first. Thanks, man."

Jiann growled, swatting his hand away, and clambered to his feet huffily. He stalked back to stand next to Enna, grumbling about the unfairness of unlife, and pretended not to care when Enna grabbed his shoulders and squealed in his ear about how cool that had been.

Orton smiled, then turned back to the keeper. "All right." He thought hard, doing his best to control his chaotic thoughts and curiosity; seven questions from an Aumbric Keeper was a resource more precious than gold, and he needed to spend them very, very wisely.

Choosing his words with great care, he began with "Is there a way for us to defeat Gentry without acquiring a new artifact of our own? Say, within a fifty-percent chance?"

All things are possible, responded the keeper imperturbably, but some things are more likely than others. As you are now, your defeat is near-certain; to become evenly matched, you require a way to counter the power of the Elder Sign.

And that counts as two questions, it continued.

Orton groaned. "Fuck. All right, let me think." He pondered a moment, then assayed another attempt. "What would a list of viable artifacts be that could both help us against the Elder Sign and are within our capability to acquire, with a reasonable chance of success?"

The keeper's fleshless smile seemed to expand. There are many artifacts which could counter the power of the Elder Sign, but many are unsuitable for your purposes. The Ring of Solomon would be the most fitting choice, but it no longer exists in your world; likewise, the Tablet of Destinies would allow you to override your enemy's claim to his legions, but it is beyond you to claim. The skeletal creature bobbed fitfully in the air, seeming contemplative. Though there are many powerful artifacts you could pursue, the vast majority of them are outstripped by the Sign in provenance and power. Your options are fewer than you think. It seemed to deflate slightly. Nothing remaining in your world can match its power directly.

"Yeah, Gentry's OP as fuck, tell me something I don't know." Orton sighed. "Well, you said there was a way for us to win, so I'm guessing I screwed up asking the question." He paced back and forth, tapping his finger on his lips as he thought furiously. "You said when I came here that I needed intelligence, not wisdom. Am I not smart enough?"

The answer to that question is subjective, the keeper intoned, and thus cannot be answered. It does, however, count as being asked; three questions remain. Orton clenched his fists in frustration and tried to control his mouth.

"Much as I do enjoy callin' you a dumb cracker," Jiann interjected, "Orton, I think that there bony feller meant 'intelligence' in the military sense." He shifted uneasily, grabbing one arm with the other. "Then again, that might jest be Cameron's paranoia chippin' in."

"Hmm, no, wait. That's good." Orton turned, regarding the lich-like figure once more. He fought hard to measure his words more carefully. "Let's assume I'm missing something. Instead of an artifact that can directly oppose the Sign, is there an artifact that could allow us to outmaneuver Gentry?"

There is, responded the keeper. Orton waited for nearly ten seconds for it to elaborate before groaning again.

"Okay, what artifact would allow us, with the greatest possible chance of success, to outmaneuver Gentry?"

There are many, responded the robed figure, but those which are of sufficient primordiality are very few. Your best option would be to seek the fruits of the trees of Eden.

Orton rolled his eyes. "Great. Eating more dusty ancient plants." He racked his brains, trying to spend his final question cleverly.

Leaning in close to Jiann, Enna whispered "How do we know we can trust this guy, anyway?" Despite her attempt at sotto voce, her voice carried all too well in the weighty silence of the courtyard, and Orton cringed. "I mean, he could be lying to us."

There was a long pause, during which Orton fervently prayed that the keeper would not answer; eventually, however, its message boomed into their thoughts. Existence is not the same for you as it is for us. From our perspective, you have been here countless times, in one form or another; and you will return countless times after you are gone, each time seeking the same answers. But each version of you brings slightly different payment; we attain greater knowledge, which in turn becomes answers to other questions. Truth contains all lies; we have no need of deception. The figure floated slightly closer, seeming to grow smaller as it did so, and alighted on the stones next to Orton, who was giving Enna a look of unadulterated exasperation; Enna gasped as she noticed that its height, limb lengths, and mannerisms matched his identically. One does not lie to oneself.

Before Orton could turn and notice the figure, it moved back and expanded again; in an instant, it was as inscrutable as before. You have received your answers; your time in this place has ended. Return to your world, before more dangerous things take notice of you here. Floating backwards, it moved into the darkness and vanished.

Orton cursed. "Well, shit. At least we have a lead, though." He walked back to the others, lost in thought.

Enna was trembling slightly. "Can we go home now? I'd like to leave the evil hell dimension, please."

"Well, if you insist." Orton gestured, and the color seemed to drain away out of the grass and stones; in a few moments, the rusty red light of the moon and the air had receded, leaving behind only a cold gray perfusion in its wake. Enna shivered; the air back in the real world was frigid and clammy.

They were exactly where they had been, in front of the entryway to Raglan Castle, but everything looked much less threatening now. The parking lot, entirely devoid of cars, was nonetheless well-lit by lamps; a small sign nearby informed them that refreshments could be purchased in the castle's café.

Jiann shook himself. "Damn, but that was an experience." He turned to look at Orton. "So, got a conjecture for how we can pursue that there lead?"

Orton pondered for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, I think I can come up with something." He turned and began walking south, towards a nearby road where they could hear the occasional car. "Come on. Let's see if we can find an open pub or something."

Enna continued to shiver. "Now that's wisdom and intelligence I can get behind."