Tap, the black cane clicked against the cobblestone as Vern walked down the Castleview St. and hollered at one of the carriages with vigil's symbol on it. He had a few more things to do before taking the leap and jumping back into the Nexus.

Personally, he was in love with the cane's design. It was a gentleman's cane with a sleek black finish and carvings of three angels plucking the fruit that was the gem studded on the head of the cane. However, there were also some blue and red crystalline veins running around it—clearly an influence of the two-faced parasite.

It feels great on hand, too, he evaluated, very pleased with this otherwise expensive purchase. Selena had charged him a hefty ten sovereigns for this cranksteel reinforced cane.

Now, the only missing piece is the sheathe. He'd spent too much time on it to let it all go to waste just like that. He already had an idea of how to make it more compact and have it seamlessly blend with his outfits, he just needed some time to get it going.

One of the carriages stopped in front of him, and he picked the cane in one hand which somehow had none of the weight of Duality hiding in its blue face. However, when he stepped up to get onto the carriage, his feet missed.

He furrowed his brows and tried again. Another miss. This is…disturbing. He knew the reason behind it, as it had been happening to him for a while, but it was still fascinating to have such a dissociating experience.

This was the repercussion of switching to the red face of the parasite—the one bound to this cane. He'd intentionally bound the cane to red face. That way, he wouldn't have to deal with this whenever he switched to Duality as such affectations would be fatal in a sudden battle.

This effect was supposed to last for a total of fifteen minutes, of which a couple were still left.

Unleashing his perception, he realized that he was actually ways off from the pedestal of the carriage. Blinking, he corrected his course and finally got up. Once in, he settled down and said, "Fulham Borough, by the clocktower, please."

In a bit, the carriage began moving, and instead of admiring the scenery of the city from Ferrovane Height's most scenic route, he rested his cane on his lap and opened his notepad.

It was time to send another note to Esther and also see if the Echoes of the past included their conversation. To his chagrin, she hadn't replied after his joking delay earlier in the morning.

He didn't realize this in hindsight, but Senn empire was a few hours behind Elmhurst, and it was possible that his short delay had led her to end up sleeping and miss his subsequent response.

So, it was time to try once again. Even with the time difference, it should be way past early morning in Senn Empire.

So, he wrote, 'Hello Esther, Vern here. Did no one tell you that it's rude to start a joke and then not follow up on it?'

He decided to be straightforward this time as there was no way for her to be sure who it was now that there was such a long delay between this and the last note.

While he waited for her to respond, he flipped to a page he'd isolated just for his experiments with Echoes of the Past. There, he wrote the four words again, 'Hello Esther, Vern here' in the runic form. He had explicitly worded his greeting in a manner so there was little to no chance that anyone else had ever used the exact four words together in their notes.

This was to help avoid any ambiguity and ensure that he would land exactly on this message. If everything went correctly, then he should see the rest of the note he'd just written be formed by the hovering golden runes.

So, as the golden runes shuffled around, he waited on both fronts, expectation bubbling within him. After all, it was a very important test. If he could indirectly land on a note he wrote just a couple of seconds ago through the echoes, then were they even fit to be called as coming from the past?

No. They would instead become a direct channel for him to snoop into everything and anything that was happening in the world right now. He hadn't thought of that yesterday because of all that had happened, but the possibilities were going crazy in his mind.

Soon, the runes began to churn and moved to coalesce as he watched them with naked excitement. However, right before they could form into proper words, their progress came to a crawl.

He squinted his eyes, Not going to be easy, huh? So, he discarded everything else and focused harder, hoping to brute force them together.

.

.

.

Lady above! What the hell is this?

He was focusing as hard as possible, yet the runes barely moved. Did I land on the wrong conversation with some very high order information in it?

That shouldn't be possible, though. he grimaced. He'd just reasoned why there was no way someone else used these exact four words in their messages. So, given that there was little chance of encountering something risky, he said, Fuck it, and concentrated even harder.

In this headache-inducing focus, two words formed beyond his initial starter, 'Did no…' And that's where his mind gave up as his concentration shattered.

"Goddamn," he cursed out aloud as he held his eyes that throbbed with pain. That's my conversation, alright. The runes that he couldn't merge most probably held the rest of his note. That was to say, he could indeed land on recent conversations, but they seemed to have a cost of their own.

He frowned, This isn't ideal. If recency alone costs so much, it's only going to get worse with all the other factors in place that didn't matter in this isolated test on my own message.

Since Esther had yet to reply, he decided to check things out further. He flipped to his last conversation with Esther and the one even before that where he'd sent random strings of letters to his 'fated note partner'—the fake Eterna girl from the confluence and tested them for their costs.

.

.

.

By the time the carriage managed to reach the foot of the hill, an annoyed expression covered his face.

"It's too demanding. Why the hell does it cost so much?" Even for conversations dating almost two weeks back, he could barely see what was written past eight or nine words without losing his goddamned mind.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Essentially, while it was indeed possible to land onto recent echoes, their cost went up exponentially the newer they were. It didn't bode well for his desired usage.

"Why is nothing ever simple," he sighed. It would have been perfect for him to snoop on what everyone thought about Axiom and what schemes they were cooking against him.

Now, he would either have to suffice himself with a few words or wait a couple weeks or so before stumbling into such matters.

Hahh, I guess I will have to think of a better way to squeeze the potential of these echoes. They were too random or costly for important things right now. Also, they were a way for Nexus to regain its tiny flux. He couldn't not make use of them.

He stroked his chin, Hmm, I remember the runes became excited when the notepad was sitting in the vicinity of Insight Sphere. Could the presence of such items have an effect on what kind of conversations I can stumble upon? It was pretty easy to test.

That's when a notion appeared in his mind as he felt it buzz. He was sure it wasn't a prayer to the Axiom.

Finally.

Flipping back to his regular page for conversation, he let the notion guide his hand.

'Oh my god, Vern, you're sooo funny! So so funny I ended up sleeping before you even wrote back.'

Ah, right. How could he forget that he was up against a barrel full of sarcasm? She completely ignored how she didn't respond so many times.

Chuckling, he wrote, 'Oh, sorry. I didn't know any rituals to figure out who sent me the note, so when I received an unsigned one, I waved my hands around in the air for thirty minutes—terrified. You can't blame me for that now, can you?'

'Okay, that's minus ten points for overacting,' she replied.

He leaned forward, 'Good to know you still have enough faculties to subtract numbers. How're things going for you?'

'Hmm, that was suspiciously smooth. You are supposed to be a smelly fundamentalist who spends his whole day in front of books with weird symbols. Don't break the character, Vern.'

Hahh, don't worry, I'm spending my whole day in front of weird symbols right now, too. he chuckled, watching all the runes that were trying to form around his words.

Regardless, he leaned into it, 'Oh no, you've discovered my secret! I'm actually a typewriter that's calculating prime numbers and drawing fractals before feeding them into my steam-powered decision engine to figure out what to say next. Oh, but unfortunately, I am no master of deflection like you are.'

He put that jokingly, but he indeed got the feeling that while she was strong in her own right, she had a habit of avoiding hard questions. Hmm, or maybe I'm just asking a question that's too personal too quickly?

He didn't know.

It was really hard to strike a balance in matters like these. Too much, and you risked over extending—causing the other party to further turtle inside their anti-social shell. Too little, and you would never even have the chance to get close to them.

Shaking his head, he waited for words to emerge as his hands moved.

Huh?

His hand continued to move, but it didn't form any words. Instead, it penned a rather crude drawing of a stick figure with its hands folded sporting a…grumpy expression.

Pft…

He wasn't an artist, but this drawing was worse than even what he'd conjure on a bad day. Who would have thought that the famed lady Esther of the Lightvein family sucked at drawing?

The fact that she was otherwise good at playing piano only made this all the more bizarre. Regardless, he replied to Esther without expressing his opinions on her…artistic talent. 'Glad we're in agreement that you're faint of heart.'

'I'm not!' she protested.

'Sure…' he sighed and then reluctantly took the hint to avoid prying anymore and continue this loop of deflection, 'Is Lady Andrea back from the chase?'

He remembered that Esther mentioned her mother was still out trying to capture the people behind her kidnapping. He didn't know exactly how Esther got caught to begin with, but after the confluence, he had some ideas.

There was a priest in the confluence's crowd who he believed to be a member of Asea's church or the so-called kin because of his mannerisms and the fundamentals of his visions—preservation. His hunch was rooted in how this priest's outfit and visions were quite similar to Quentin Flowhart, who hurt Ari.

On top of that, the man was a vehement supporter of Rupert. He'd only slowed down with his opposition when Vern scared everyone by broadcasting that note of warning.

However, even beyond all this, there was one more astonishing detail that he didn't miss—Rupert's usage of Essence Strands for critical consensus. The very same strands that Esther used back in the Steamscript relay station to control the whole building and call on the Puppeteer of Crimson Court to put a stop to Quentin's tyranny.

All these facts seemed random when taken in isolation, but he'd long put them next to each other on a paper.

They told a story.

The story was that of Rupert working together with the Asea's Kin to get his hands on Lightvein Legacy for the critical consensus. Another point that solidified this theory was the bizarre surveillance method used to track Esther. It had left a deep mark on his memories.

The simple act of 'looking' at Esther by their trio—himself, Cera, and Ambrose had alerted the Observer, who was tracking her. Who would possess such a terrifying ability if not someone titled Omniscient?

He furrowed his brows and mused, Did Rupert really have a hand in Esther's kidnapping, then?

He was making many leaps of logic here, but there were also too many points to be made in favor of his argument.

This gave rise to a worse thought, Did he have a hand in Asea's descent into Ari, too? The idea alone was…disheartening.

Regardless of his actions, Rupert was an Eterna, while Vern was nothing but a first shade Observer without even a shade sequence to follow. The gap between them was wider than the skies and core of Prima.

Even 'Axiom' didn't have an upper hand against that man.

Luckily, there's no real evidence or hint of Rupert being involved with Ari. The only link was the Kin, which didn't seem to be directly working for Rupert but rather as if they were in something of a partnership.

He surely had to someday handle the Kin, but to aim to go against an Eterna right off the bat was terrible, even as a long-term goal. He wasn't a fan of setting unrealistic expectations for himself.

There was too much fog on the path to see that far ahead just yet. And he had better reasons to pursue the end rather than to pit himself against Rupert.

Balance.

Amidst all these swirling thoughts, his mind rattled again, and his hand moved, penning Esther's response: 'Mhm, mom's back. That's actually why I can talk freely now. They've made some breakthroughs in Convergence Note's distribution, and she got me one, too. Unfortunately, even she had to rush back midway to douse the fires of this city.'

He didn't know what to say here. One part of him wanted to share his conjectures with her. However, one would really really have to suspend their disbelief to accept that he, a first-shade observer, somehow managed to come across the information of what happened in confluence.

Not just that. Is it really a good idea to pit Esther's mother against an Eterna? What if all of this was true, and her mother took it up against Rupert? Would she not just end up dead when going against someone of his means?

He didn't know the depth of the Lightvein family's foundations and strength, but he doubted they had someone who could go against Rupert, an Eterna and a Visionary with unshackled subjectivity.

Also… he repeatedly tapped the pen and added, her mother might already know. So, he replied perfunctorily, 'Hey, as long as both of you're safe, I think that's a plus.'

'Mhm. What about you? Have you been, you know…'

He furrowed his brows, 'I've been…? I've been what?'

'Ughh, what a dense typewriter. Have you been making contact with the Third Rune? Are you okay? Are you secretly already a vegetable who's been taken over by this spirit of the typewriter?'

Oh…

He'd almost forgotten that she knew. This reminded him, I should grill her for all the information regarding the Institute.

Before that, he debated on how much to share and how much to keep to himself. After a while, he realized he had to strike a balance. Being too tight-lipped would seem ungrateful and ruin his chances of reciprocation. Yet, being completely forthcoming was equally unwise.

After a bit of deliberation, he wrote…