--- FORA - CLONE ---

“That’s super interesting!” Fora exclaimed, nodding up and down as Taasen—a horrible storyteller—explained the legends of Divaria. That wasn’t to say she was lying, it was interesting, he was just the very last person she would have picked to tell her about it.

He nodded, “We have many stories, though I confess that I have never listened to most. It is considered a high calling in my homeland to be an artist, and storytellers are artists. As are Warriors… even…” He sighed, “Even musicians.” My clone got the sense he didn’t like them much. “Most of the tales I remember are about Kalteii.”

“The goddess of Justice.” I finished, tapping my chin. Netun would be very interested to hear about that.

Taasen nodded again, “The snow mother. Justice can be gentle and persistent like a light snowfall, or it can be violent and relentless like a storm of ice. In the end you shouldn’t seek to change it, but instead to change yourself to match what it needs you to become and to accept its determinations. In the end, it’s always there, one must simply be grateful whenever it deigns to spare you.”

Fora had a distinct feeling that Taasen and Netun would get along swimmingly.

“Do you think…”

She felt a sudden familiar lurching sensation from her body, My clone blinked, stopping mid sentence, her mouth forming a baffled O shape as her form collapsed.

Sparks, her real self had great timing.

--

I paused as the memories flooded into me, remembering again how much easier things would be if I could have that happen in real time. It was getting really annoying that things like this kept happening, and I had a feeling that they would only get more annoying as time went by.

Extra incentive to keep trying to practice time magic…

I felt my soul at the thought, wondering if I could convince it to behave. My dimensionalism was still growing, and I really hoped it wasn’t at the point yet where I might break things forever if I neglected to use the built up power for a few days. I’d heard of a few rumors about that happening to more powerful mages, though I wasn’t sure yet how much stock to put into them.

Regardless, it took me about ten minutes to decide that we really needed to go pick up Taasen, and that definitely wasn’t enough time to…

I felt it distinctly as a huge amount of energy drained from me, exactly the amount actually that it took to cast Geneseri.

--

Fora frowned in confusion at Taasen as she rematerialized.

Sparks.

“Did you just make me cast Geneseri again?! How is that even possible?!”

He tilted his head, “I thought you teleported away.”

“My real self called back the clone without giving that clone any warning.”

“Oh, were you just going to leave me here?”

“What? We’re on the same side here, we both hate Gium. I was going to probably come get you in a few minutes and take you to our base.” Sparks, we really needed him to be on our side, if I couldn’t disperse a clone with him there… that made both my avenues of escape completely null with him.

My clone touched her head slightly, blinking at the fact that all the previous clones' memories seemed to have seamlessly slotted themselves into place. She was used to taking hours to understand everything from any given clone! She couldn’t help but hope this would be repeatable.

Except now she had the real Fora’s memories too.

How the sparks…

Taasen nodded and then allowed the clone that was Fora to set up the teleport, apparently not concerned at all that she might be lying about anything. Perhaps he was just that confident in the power of threats. Fora knew that he would beat her to a pulp if he caught her lying about anything, and he knew that she knew that.

For a moment Fora contemplated how terrible of an idea it was to take someone this powerful into her base, before she decided that was a pointless line of thought. She already knew she was going to take him there anyway.

No, I’m not sure why.

What do you mean, Eliax would be groaning in frustration at me whilst banging her head into a wall right about now?

They teleported. Fora didn’t even need a second stop thanks to the proximity of the base. She could hardly believe her luck that it was so close by. In the back of her mind she begrudgingly admitted that Netun had been right to make me put the base just outside of Reiaran.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

After materializing, Fora’s real self was in the middle of running around like a headless chicken while Netun watched, and Fora was mature enough to admit not a little bit of glee at my predicament. Because clearly this wasn’t also her predicament, she was certainly more in control than I was. Definitely.

Fora grinned at my face when I saw them, and promptly dismissed herself.

This time, Taasen didn’t force her to come straight back, how very thoughtful of him.

--- TAASEN ---

He tilted his head at the two Foras, wondering why one of them seemed more… agitated than the other. Thankfully the agitated one was across the room, as opposed to right next to him, but he still watched her warily, an agitated person was a lot more unpredictable.

The clone next to him disappeared, just like she had earlier, and the agitated Fora seemed to relax slightly once the clone was finally gone.

“Taasen, I presume?” She asked, folding her arms, most of her agitation melted away, though he could tell that something might still be bothering her.

He nodded, gazing around the small room. The walls were made of dirt and stone, there was a doorway on one wall, but no windows or other escape routes. He would simply have to learn how to phase through rock if worse came to worse, which was pretty good odds in his eyes.

Besides, if Fora was actually a deceiver then he would have to take it upon himself to bring her to the dust.

“Where are we?” He finally asked.

“About a mile underground near Reiaran.” She explained, frowning at him. After a moment she sighed, “Alright, you’ve taken us by surprise, but I can’t say that it’s a bad surprise.”

Taasen nodded, “Likewise. Unless of course you happen to be a deceiver, in which case I must vanquish you out of precedent.”

“I only lie when I’m being an idiot, which admittedly is a bit too often… I like to think I’m getting better about it.”

An unfamiliar voice sounded from nearby, “Like you’ve been ignoring Hivren?”

Fora scowled, moving her gaze toward the doorway, where a strange man with entirely white skin watched them. Taasen hadn’t seen him arrive, which was stupid, he was better than that. “I’ll go talk to him once I get rid of the Mis-born…” She sighed, glancing at Taasen, “What the sparks are we supposed to call them now that Wela’s dead?”

Taasen tilted his head, “I apologize that my vanquishing of evil has inconvenienced you.”

The man in the doorway frowned, “Does he always talk like that?”

“Of course, how else would I speak?”

That same man put a hand to his forehead, sighing, “Alright, I know I’ve been perfectly capable until now operating under barely any information, but I don’t have clone memories to tell me everything. Where in the stars did you come from and why does Fora trust you?”

“He destroyed the base where my clone was being kept and killed Wela.”

“I vanquished evil. She was a deceiver.” Taasen corrected, it was a big difference to kill someone who wasn’t a deceiver. He nodded at the strange man, “and who might you be?”

“Netun.”

Fora perked up, “Oh, Netun, guess whaaaaaattttt?!”

He raised an eyebrow in her direction, apparently still annoyed about something.

“Taasen is from Divaria, and he knows all about the goddess of Justice!”

Netun blinked, glancing at Taasen, who was tilting his head at Fora, wondering why that was relevant. “You worship Justice?”

“Of course! Kalteii is the highest god in this world. She might still be dreaming from the strain of creation, but in the end she far eclipses Gium in power and fairness.”

Netun looked vaguely as if he was about to pass out.

“Are you well?”

“Yes, yes! Of course! Just… reminiscing about a promise I made a long time ago. I’ve been looking for Justice.”

Taasen perked up, feeling a grin spread over his face, “So you want to help me vanquish deceivers?”

“Definitely.”

Taasen found it very difficult to refrain from dancing. Only his status as a warrior kept his feet at bay. “I have a feeling that we are going to become the greatest of friends, you and I!”

Fora rolled her eyes, “Alright, welcome to the team, Taasen. We seem to have completely lost our plan of action, besides our new idea of figuring out where the sparks Aymi is. That base you destroyed was our only lead, and I highly doubt they’ll stick around now that the location is known.”

Netun adopted a slightly blank look for a moment, “Sorry, what?”

Fora sighed, “We were doing so good…”

Taasen frowned, “What is it?”

“Well Netun has a memory spell on him, whenever I mention Aymi, he forgets the last twelve seconds of conversation. I think the effect was weaker when we were near Aubinere, but…”

Taasen frowned at him, “What memory spell?”

“The one that…”

“No no, there is not one present, I can tell these things, being an artist. I do not see any memory spell, in fact, if there is one, I would say that our friend Netun is completely immune to the effects. However, there is no memory spell, so therefore it’s impossible.”

“What are you—”

“No memory spell.” Taasen nodded wisely, “There never was one and never will be one again. Now Netun my friend, what do you know about this…” he glanced at Fora, “What was the name again?”

“Aymi.” She said, frowning at him.

Netun opened his mouth and closed it a few times, looking baffled. “Aymi… She’s… I was helping her. She made some kind of a… a deal with Turste.”

Fora straightened her posture sharply, glancing between Taasen and Netun, “How did that—”

“Fora, I’d kindly request that you don’t question it, with things like this if you think too hard about them they tend to stop working.”

She closed her mouth.

Taasen sighed, wishing that he’d realized that memory spells were impossible back when Erane had gotten hit… he was a much more powerful artist now though, after however long he’d been meditating, since everyone knew that meditation made you a more valiant foe. He wondered where she was right now. He’d have to track her down soon and vanquish that deception.

Netun still seemed baffled as he slowly continued, “Aymi became sandfrost, but she was like me. She had a problem with absorbing regular energy though, the longer she subsisted on just plant matter the more tired she would get, so she had to take blood and magic. I think that fact hurt her a lot more than she let on…” He frowned. “She clearly hated it.”

“Alright, she’s a vampire, we established that.” Fora said, “So what happened to her then? I find it hard to think of any ideas to kill or contain someone like you, Netun.”

He fell silent for a long moment, “They captured us when we returned from dealing with something in Yera, when we weren’t in the area long enough to have much mass nearby, they killed Harrel, but they couldn’t kill the two of us.”

Fora deflated slightly, “Harrel…”

Netun nodded, “To restrain us they captured as much of our mass as they could, and then they… they separated us from the rest of the mass and denied us nutrients. I can eat almost anything and live off it. Aymi though…”

“You managed to escape and they still have her.” Fora said, eyes wide and full of pain.

Taasen frowned, “We’re retrieving this ‘Aymi’ then?”

“Yes.” Fora nodded, resolute. “We’ve left her there long enough.”