The interior of the Duminere was smaller than the outside - I hadn't walked far, so I had to assume that rather than having thick walls the inside was just one room near the front of the geodesic dome and something else was taking up the rest of the space. That being said, the walls were the same shape and same blue crystal as the outside with no sign of any other doors. I took a moment anyway, just poking around and looking for seams or runes or... well, anything interesting. You could only go into a Duminere once, after all.

In the center of the chamber there was a pedestal, made of some silvery metal like the floor. Other than a golden hexagon there were no other markings, and likewise my search of the walls had turned up nothing of note. It felt silly to even be searching for anything; I was already standing in a room that could grant me magic powers. Or... different magic powers. Too late to think about that. Still, something was bothering me about the room and it took me another moment of looking around to figure out why it looked even more empty and plain than it should. There were no shadows. I lifted my bare feet and when I still didn't see any hint of shadow under them I cupped my hands over my eyes... and could see just fine. It was some sort of impossible magic ambient lighting. Huh.

I resolved not to ask anyone about it. It just felt right that this place would have some inscrutable magic effect to it. Satisfied that I'd figured out what I was subconsciously bugged by, I walked over to the pedestal and placed my hand on the golden hexagon. Immediately, words appeared in the air in English:

Oath: Disabled. No valid oath detected. No conflicting oath detected.

Restrictions: None. All gifts may be chosen. Standard maximum allotment.

Badges: Disabled. Temporary badges may still be affixed as desired.

Imperial Override in effect, current duration exceeds guidelines.

Young (Primary, 2 Unclaimed), Unbroken Thread: Security threat level overridden by security access level. Access granted.

Initiating: Lutore Scouring successful, minor damage detected. Potential meets or exceeds maximum Dumine capacity, growth restriction not enabled. Erima link already established. Ematse link already established. Biltagiretzae link initiated, connection not enabled.

WELCOME, CITIZEN OF THE EMPIRE. CHOOSE YOUR GIFTS, THAT YOU MAY SERVE YOUR COMMUNITY.

The words vanished after I'd barely had time to skim them, leaving me wondering if I had imagined them. It being in English was a little strange but not that shocking, since I assumed it was made to somehow display in a language the user knew. On that note, had it seemed kinda... computer-y... just because it was trying to be relatable to me, or was that how it appeared for everyone? Of course, if the goal was to be understandable it left a lot to be desired.

The oath thing I felt like I could guess, most nations still required a magically binding oath to use their Dumineres so it made sense that there had been some sort of official Imperial oath. Restrictions were, likewise, self-explanatory. Badges though? No clue. The Imperial Override thing probably related to the fall of the old Empire, and I had to assume the nonsense line that came next was related to the override. For the last bit... some I could kind of guess at. Lutore scouring would maybe be getting rid of existing natural magic? And then Erima and Ematse were the planes I'd been told your mind and soul were connected to. Biltagiretzae was a mouthful, but probably another plane. I'd spent time chatting with Sige and Cyne about the planes but that one wasn't ringing a bell - I'd heard the name at some point, but I couldn't remember what it was. I could look it up later, but either way it said there was no connection. I had a ridiculous moment where I wished my phone was working so I could Google all this stuff before realizing what I'd thought and feeling extremely silly.

A blue hexagon, the same shade as that message a moment before, appeared in the air. It pulsed with light, and six more hexagons spiraled out of it, these ones glowing golden. Lines extended from the gold ones to little points of light, although I saw that the bottom facet of each - as well as the entire bottom hexagon - was dull silver and had no lines. Presumably those were the ones with prerequisites, but I pulled out the crumpled pages Connie had given me back in Theramas to have the Primer on Known Gifts ready. Before anything else, I had a probably doomed experiment to perform.

Hex six, facet five required three others and was therefore impossible to select - but Connie had had two of them and so if there was some strange entanglement I might be able to snag it. Clutching Connie's Dumine tightly, I found Binding and touched the point of light. I got a vague feeling of being able to tie things together or make them persist without my attention, and as In acknowledged that feeling the point of light shifted from gold to bright blue. Looking down, the bottom hex still didn't have anything available. Just to test, I also located Probability and Temporal and selected them and sure enough a facet on that last hex turned gold - but with no point of light I could select. In fact, all the points of light had vanished.

Well, it had been worth a shot. Getting something nobody else had would have been cool, but I also would have been worried that it would be broken since I didn't actually have Connie's Dumine implanted. If nothing else, I'd just confirmed I could get three gifts. I de-selected everything and tucked Connie's Dumine back into my dress. It was time to make my choices for real. I could feel my heart racing.

I'd considered almost everything at one point or another, but thankfully I had narrowed things down during the trip. I knew that no matter what I selected there would be some point when I would second guess myself and imagine having some other gifts, and certainly I was in a stranger position than most; generally you had years to plan with the help of your family, and then your options were limited by the government anyway. For me, I just had one that felt like a requirement - once it had become clear I was having false memories, I knew I should take Thought. Figuring out what was wrong with my brain was important but even when I had solved that - assuming I could - it was a cool ability, and might let me enjoy or even share memories of Earth. If it hadn't already been high on the list it would have needed to jump up there after the trip through Nusos, because frankly I was not okay with what Errod and I had been through. Nusos was amazing and I would love to explore more, but I needed to have protection against mind control. I touched the light, totally certain of my decision.

Speaking of exploring Nusos... I'd been fascinated with the planes since I'd learned about them, and as fucked up as the monsters were I wanted to see more. Sige mostly dealt with Itzele - that shadowy mirror dimension we'd briefly used to get out of Good Charl - and one called Kertzale which I wasn't super interested in. It was, if I understood right, filled with these natural nodes that would trap you forever and the whole plane was hard to get out of unless (like Sige) you made that your specialty. It was where he'd dumped the Behemoth, though he hadn't managed to get him into one of the nodes. But Cyne? Cyne had been to a huge number of the planes, and he'd been more than willing to chat with me about them. The Warren sounded like some sort of dungeon from a video game. Inuizlorrareto - another mouthful - was a bunch of floating islands and you could just naturally fly by choosing to ignore gravity. Enimondoa was a world of spirit creatures that sounded like some psychedelic fairy land. Plus... honestly, I knew myself. I wanted an ability that would let me travel.

With Planar magic selected, I had one more to go. While I had been tempted to pick something unrelated to get some more diverse utility, with limited development on a Dumine it was generally best to get things that would work together. Thought and Planar had some synergy due to the mind's link to Ematse, for example, though I'd have to be careful how I developed my abilities if I wanted to make use of that. Fabrication was an obvious choice, since I could take matter from the more ephemeral planes and make it real. Fabrication was also a reliable source of income. But... I didn't want it. It just wasn't my thing. Maybe if I could make things instantly, pulling fully-formed objects from my imagination... but that would take a ridiculous amount of mana and development, and realistically I'd be more likely to focus on Planar magic. And anyway, I was going to be rich. I didn't need income, and could pay a fabricator to make ephemeral matter real if I really wanted to.

Instead, I had decided on Spirit. It paired with Thought in a few ways, and when it came to Planar magic - well, that's where spirits were from. I would, eventually, be able to probably tame or control spirit creatures. I couldn't count on Katrin and Errod sticking around - or if they did, I had to admit to myself that I couldn't promise I wouldn't ditch them - and it would be dangerous to explore the planes by myself. It would be way better if I could also have either Summoning or Binding, but I'd have to ditch Thought for that. It was still a very versatile ability, and I could just imagine myself exploring the planes with some sort of fucked up spirit monster at my side. I could also look into getting a magic item made that would take the place of Binding maybe, so a spirit could be tied to me as a semi-permanent pet at the cost of some of my mana or... there was something Cyne had said about binding them to you in a way that would change you, though that sounded fucked up and risky.

The rest of the lights went out - obviously I couldn't go for a fourth. I hesitated for a moment. Was I making the right choice? Was I going too tame with it? Should I take Gravity and Force and Radiance and try to fly to the moon? Or Radiance and Influence so I could take Illusion? Hell, did I even trust myself to take Influence? Should I take Perception and Temporal and Spatial so I could scry on anyone, anywhere, any time? What about using Life and Thought to make golems - could I animate my phone and make it work again? There was a way to make golems with Spirit but, again, that would require Binding. Was Spirit worth it without Binding?

Deep breaths. I'd already considered all of this. In a pinch, I could use Planar magic to bring altered laws of physics to me so long as wards weren't locking me down, which meant it could take the place of Gravity and who knows what else. Granted, if I went that route it probably wouldn't be good for actual travel - but I'd have the option. Thought, Planar, and Spirit all had synergy with each other. It was a good plan. I touched the pedestal again and held the thought that I was ready, and the six golden hexagons swirled back into the blue one in the center. The color faded from it as it seemed to become more solid, and after a moment it was clearly a Dumine. It was just silver at first, but after a moment angular golden shapes scrawled over it resulting in the strange patterns I was used to. There was a final flicker of blue light, and it was done. The Dumine hung impossibly in the air in front of me, waiting to be taken. No going back now.

As soon as I pinched it between my fingers the walls turned purple and then almost maroon, and a searing pain shot through my chest. I dropped the Dumine and heard it give a little metallic ping as it hit the floor, but I couldn't look for it because it felt like something was burrowing into me, this horrible burning pain radiating into my sternum. I stumbled, stepping on something and almost slipping, and desperately fought to reach under my shirt and get rid of whatever was trying to kill me. I was expecting blood, and imagining some other parasite like the one that had been on my leg tearing into me - but instead I felt the cool metal of Connie's Dumine at the center of that white-hot pain.

The stone ring around the edge, as well as the leather cord strung through it, had partially merged with my skin as it sunk in and seemed to be the source of my agony. I was in panic mode, unable to think clearly. I pulled at the leather cord but that made it worse. I began pacing in circles like a feral animal, needing to do something but not knowing what - all I knew was that I had to make the pain stop. I could feel the Dumine, somehow, and frantically latched onto that sensation in the hopes it could help. I could sense it, and as I shut my eyes and concentrated a field of blue with a single hexagon on it flickered into place - and then shuddered and vanished. Something was very wrong. It returned, but it was different somehow. Hollow. Another flicker, and I could see that there were two, with this impossible gap between them that held something I couldn't conceive.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Why was there more than one? Had the new one attached as well, or was this something else? Hadn't I dropped the other one? In any case, I knew which side was Connie's - the feeling of this branching path of possibilities was there for both, but one of them was full to the brim. I could feel it writing something onto the very core of me, blazing symbols forming in that mind-bending chasm between the fields of blue. It felt like it was going to kill me. I tried to seize control but my mental focus kept falling into that dizzying gap. Finally I got a grip on Connie's Dumine in my head, not able to understand or control it properly but just barely hanging on through the pain and the shaking and flickering of the interface. I tried to focus, thought with all of my might that I just needed to do something - to fix this, to make it so this wasn't happening. That bright line flared, and the pain was gone.

I stood there, slightly dizzy and disoriented. The walls were back to being blue, and for some reason the hexagons were back in the air over the pedestal. I reached for the leather cord around my neck and pulled it out from under my dress, but the little ring of stone was empty. Connie's Dumine was gone. With trembling hands I reached under my shirt and there it was, flush against my skin right where it had been hanging. But how had it finally broken free of the necklace? And why had the pedestal activated again? A chill ran through me suddenly, and I closed my eyes to concentrate. The fields of blue were more steady now, but no easier to grasp and still with that strange space between them. Both were hollow now, empty of energy. What had Connie said? That she could burn the mana out of it in an emergency to go back in time again?

I looked back up at the display, at the hexagons hovering there. I'd gone back to before I finished my selection. I staggered back, feeling something odd about my left foot. Collapsing to the ground in an undignified way, still staring up at the hexagons, I gingerly reached one hand down and felt underneath my heel. There, sure enough, was the other Dumine which I had stepped on after dropping it. So... You weren't supposed to be able to pull any shenanigans in a Duminere, but I had just gotten two instead of one - and, unless I was mistaken, was about to get a third. Had it happened before? Were there others that were running around with multiple Dumines?

I knew magic items, spells, and wild magic didn't work in the Duminere. Dumines could work in theory, but you couldn't go in if you already had a Dumine and you couldn't attach someone else's Dumine to yourself - except of course I had done exactly that. Or had I? After all, it wasn't really someone else's - it was mine. A different me, from a dead timeline, but still essentially me. It made sense that the Duminere got confused, it was the same basic thing I had been worried would prevent me from entering. And surely nobody else had been able to go back in time within a Duminere, because to level up the temporal magic enough you had to train for ages; even if you could somehow manage it without leaving it would take far too long to make rewinding a possibility since you'd only go back thirty seconds or so. My situation was, almost certainly, unique. I couldn't help it - I started laughing.

Finally I stood up, testing my left foot - the Dumine had sunk in lower there, at a glance I was guessing because it ignored the callouses on my heel and went in enough to line up with the living skin. That meant that it didn't click when I walked, but it did feel a little funny and was hard to ignore - like a missing tooth that you can't help but poke at with your tongue. Hoping that I would get used to it, or that it at least would be less noticeable with shoes on, I walked over to the pedestal and took a look. All of the hexes were dark, preventing me from selecting anything - Thought was still selected, but the mote of light had turned red rather than blue. I touched thought and it de-selected without me even consciously asking it to, and immediately the rest of the hexes lit up gold again. It seemed like I had triggered an error since you weren't supposed to be able to select the same thing twice. What would have happened if I had chosen one that Connie had on her Dumine? Both would have implanted without the Duminere having the opportunity to give the error, so... Hmm. Well, there was no way to tell now.

I felt giddy. I was nervous, excited, and confused all at once. I hadn't planned for this. Or... well, in a way I had. I'd planned on trying Binding first, to see if it combined with Connie's selections somehow, and now that seemed way more likely to work. I selected it and was immediately rewarded with that mystery ability lighting up - so it didn't need them to be on the same Dumine. Touching the new gift gently, I tried to figure out what it was - I sensed something, an ability to manipulate events, or to impart significance to them maybe? I already knew that curses were essentially Probability and Binding. So what was temporal adding? It felt like it was somehow... broader? Like it applied to the world in some bigger way. I picked up the pages I'd dropped, and read the description. "The most accepted theory is that it deals with Fate or Destiny as a force, which is known to be possible via wild magic and famously wielded to great effect by Poicelria at the start of the 7th age."

I had the opportunity to take a gift nobody else could get, and I had planned on taking it if possible just based on that. But I couldn't help thinking about what Connie had said to me about her worry over having not time traveled in the traditional way. The idea that fate had been out to get her, that she had broken some planned destiny and would be trapped and killed by it. Still. If that was the case, wouldn't it be better to be the one in control? If fate was real, didn't I want to be holding the reins?

"If you're alive," I said to the empty room, "If you can understand and you're not just some mindless force... and if you... if you killed my sister, if you killed that version of me? I'm going to destroy you with your own power. You hear that? Fuck destiny. Fuck fate. I'm going to take this, and I'm going to do whatever I want with it. And if you get in my way, I'm going to kill you in whatever way you can die. That's a promise."

I knew it was silly. Was I really threatening a force of nature? One that I wasn't sure even existed? But it made me feel better. I took a deep breath, and looked back at the hexagons. I actually still had one last selection to make. Binding would already make Spirit better, so that was taken care of. The mystery option by definition had synergy with Probability and Temporal since they were prerequisites, and Comprehension had synergy with Thought. There wasn't a single obvious choice that would link everything together. Summoning was an option, but as cool as I thought Spirit could potentially be I was thinking of it as a secondary power.

"Okay. Okay. Last one. Choose wisely. Keep it together." As a quick experiment I got rid of my current selections and tried as many combinations as I could, but nothing I did got the final mystery option to light up. Shame, that could have been interesting. I re-selected Binding and the other one. I thought for another moment, but in the end what made my decision was the realization that I didn't want to let anyone know I had more gifts than you were supposed to be able to get and several of them would already be obvious once I started using them. I would, therefore, benefit most from one that could potentially be used in a more subtle way.

I considered Affinity or Focus, but I wanted something a little more active than that. Perception? It was super versatile, and I didn't have to let anyone know I was using it. It could probably pair with Temporal to see a little into the past or maybe even future, and possibly with Planar to look into other planes or something. I could maybe learn to see - or taste, or whatever - things that normal humans couldn't. Hell, with Thought I might be able to hear people's internal monologue. Plus I already knew a lot of spirit things could be hard to see, so it had synergy with that as well.

I was sure the others would be wondering what was taking me so long, but I wasn't going to rush. I touched each of the options that remained, considering them in turn. None of them were bad, but even as greedy as I could be I was very aware that I was picking a ninth gift when most got none at all. I didn't need to agonize over what I couldn't take. This was all icing. "Fuck it," I said, and selected Perception. It really did seem useful. Everything else went dim, and after one more moment of pacing around I hurried back to the pedestal and slapped my hand down on the hexagon to tell it I was ready before I could change my mind.

The new Dumine appeared, just like the other had. I was nervous to take it, partly because of the excruciating pain it had caused me a few minutes before (knowing why that happened and that it would not happen again did nothing to reassure the primitive part of my brain that was rebelling) and partly because I had this nagging sense I was breaking something, that I was tampering with things I couldn't understand and which could possibly kill me. After all, maybe nobody had three Dumines for a very good reason. Maybe it would put too much strain on my lutore and I would die in agony. But then, I already had two - so if cheating the system was going to get me killed I was already taking a risk. Also I wasn't even sure I could leave without implanting this one anyway, and if I could... would this one just be sitting here when the next person came in?

I plucked the Dumine out of the air and the walls once again shifted to maroon, indicating it was time to apply the thing to my body. I'd been planning on putting it in the same place Connie had had hers, on my right hip, but I was worried that if circumstances ever caused me to be largely undressed it would be too easy to see two of the Dumines at once. Who knows what people would do if they realized I had somehow gotten more than one - they would pull my mind apart to get that secret, not that it would do them much good.

I considered a few locations. My armpit, even all the way up, was still a bit risky considering the popularity of sleeveless clothes here. Likewise my inner thigh felt like it could still come into view a little too easily. Back when I was first traveling down off the mountain and snuck into that Halenvar camp, I'd heard the soldiers talking about checking for a Dumine between the tracker's ass cheeks. I considered it, and it seemed like the best option for keeping it out of sight, but something about it just bothered me. Inside my mouth probably wouldn't work and even if it did it would potentially be bad, and while I could put it on my other heel for symmetry Connie had suggested that having them on your extremities was risky because you could have a hand or foot lopped off and lose your abilities. Where else would be covered?

The back of my head seemed like an option - at the lowest part of my skull, where I could make sure my hair would always be covering it up. I could just avoid cutting my hair too short, or wearing it up. And with it only being an inch across, I could probably save some hair next time I did cut it and make a sort of... toupee for it, to hide it better. Thinking about that raised another concern - the existing hair in that spot. I kept remembering the pain of the necklace trying to merge into my skin and thinking of what could be the worst ingrown hair imaginable... but you had little hairs almost everywhere, and the one on my foot had dealt with the calluses in its way without issue. Presumably as long as it was a part of my body it would be fine. I played with my hair for a bit, to make sure I was going to put the Dumine in the right spot, and then very carefully pressed it into place. There was a slight tug as if I had snagged a hair on something but that was it, and then it was flush with my skin.

The walls turned back to blue, and I ruffled my hair and patted the back of my head to make sure the Dumine was covered - it seemed good, but I did note some loose locks of hair falling free to the ground after somehow being severed by the Dumine implanting. I scooped them up, figuring I could start on the toupee plan as soon as I found glue, and crammed them into my coin pouch. I closed my eyes and concentrated and there was that gut-twisting hole with illegible squiggles in its depths. It reminded me of a Magic Eye image where you had to disjoint your vision just right to see a 3D object and instead I would always get a headache as shapes began to form only to dissolve back into the pattern. I hated those things.

I could feel the Dumines, all three of them, interfaces floating out of view. I had a sudden memory of playing a video game on an old console I'd gotten from the pawn shop where I sold off stuff from Universal Servicing Systems. Something about the video out was flaky, and if I didn't hold the console at just the right angle with my foot while I played everything would shift and wrap back around to the other side of the screen. Between games, I'd see the menu screen split in two with the center lost in the edges of the monitor. I had that thought again, about breaking things. If anything it was even harder to get a mental hold on them than when there had been two. If they were going to work at all it might be a challenge, but I had been able to burn out Connie's Dumine and so surely I would figure out how to build these ones up. It might be... a little tricky... but I was determined.

I'd have plenty of time to work on it - my whole life was ahead of me. I took a deep breath, and walked out of the Duminere - despite my fears, no alarms went off and I passed through the barrier as if it wasn't there. I gave Katrin and Errod a thumbs up, then reached back as I left and touched the mirror gateway again - feeling it turn solid and prevent me from going back in. It was done.