“No.” Nat stated after hearing Abby out in the cafeteria like room. “Even if you received the okay, from what I know about Janice, she would not cross over here.”

“Why wouldn’t she want to live longer?”

“It’s not about living longer to her. It’s about going out with her people. The magic keeping her planet together is wanning in the force of that black hole. And since that black hole is a god-spirit that turned on the world, there’s nothing you can do to it. Can you fight something that insurmountable, a literal force of nature so large you are a speck? Even with your newly awakened self?”

“Well, I could…… no, no I could not.” Abby resigned herself to accept what Nat was telling her.

“You know the science and abilities of your people. You know what a black hole does.”

“It consumes everything.”

“Everything,” Nat echoed. “No amount of magic of her world, or abilities from ours can help. Not even mine, I’m limited by the divine law.”

“What would happen if you went against it?”

Nat looked at Abby in the most serious manner Abby had ever seen, “Everyone in history I have ever known or interacted with, would be wiped from existence. Including myself. Every mark I have left, people I helped, things that have been built with my help. Just gone with no one ever knowing we were here.” His voice was stern, none of his normal sarcasm present and he began to absentmindedly play with the pendant on his necklace.

“Why would someone make something like that?! Who would?” Abby stood quickly knocking the chair she sat on backwards and crashing on the ground. Torchbearers getting their lunch looked to her quizzically, as to them she just started yelling and standing up for no reason. After her embarrassment subsided and she apologized, she sat back down.

“I did, well, we narrators did. It was an idea that needed to happen. Being able to write something into existence, without knowing its intricacies, to cause things to happen against a person’s will…” He paused and shuttered. “You may describe what I do as terrifying, but to me that is a horrendous power no one should have. That’s why all three hundred of us created the divine law to make sure none of us fell to that all powerful godlike power.”

“How do you know if any of you have?”

“That’s the rub,” Nat looked her straight in the eyes. “I don’t.” After a few seconds, he cleared his throat. “That’s why even I can’t help.”

“What if something similar to what is happening on Janice’s world happens to ours?”

“Then, we are swallowed by a black hole.” He stated resolutely and shrugged while spreading his hands. “A noble sacrifice is nice and all, but I’ve seen first-hand the fallout from that. People move on, see the sacrificed as a hero but then vilify him or her, criticize their actions, and for the most part history just repeats itself. Sometimes someone else makes the opposite sacrifice. Morals change and villains are the heroes.”

Abby crossed her tentacles across her chest and blew out air exasperatedly. “When you put it that way, I guess my plan was a little silly.”

“In excitement we tend to act irrationally,” Nat agreed. “I wouldn’t worry about anything until you speak with Janice again, whenever that maybe.”

“Could you come with me?” Abby asked while raising a brow.

“What are you wanting me to do?” He returned the facial expression.

“Nothing more than what you do, just watch, and write. Maybe make some smart-ass comment.”

“So, the usual then?”

Two weeks passed before Abby, Carl, and this time Nat, readied to return to Janice’s world. Somehow Carl knew exactly when to return to his worlds, all the Torchbearers did; however, there was no communication between the worlds they visited. The portal device was one way from this side, the thought of how they can do this frustrated Abby.

They approached the portal device and activated it. The blue and green swirling portal lay before the three as they stepped forward. Next thing Abby knew the same eerie forest from before appeared before from the threshold of a dilapidated cabin. The darkness of the sky was far from comforting as there was nothing.

“Amazing.” Nat said looking to the sky writing as he gazed, “It’s been years since I’ve been here, and time passes by faster here than on our planet. That thing sure has gotten huge.”

Carl walked ahead of Abby, and she turned and whispered to Nat, “Wait what? shouldn’t time go slower next to a black hole?”

“It is slower, slow enough to almost match ours. Touch one of the trees.”

Abby reached out a tentacle to a skeletal branch of a nearby tree. It was cold, rough like sandpaper. Where her tentacle touched left an indent in the tree and it began to crack and break about becoming a fine black mist.

“What is this?” She asked. “Time distortions caused by us? The portal?”

“Neither. It’s the decaying of a world stripped of all but the faintest of magic. Last time I saw this forest it was still green. One year on our world was two hundred here.”

“TWO HUNDRED?!” Abby was shocked.

“Yes, but most life had already died out when Erik and I ventured here, mind you this will be the first time I’ll visit the tomb itself. I’ve never met her before, most of the time I was cataloguing the world and traveling. This forest was the last bastion of life of sorts.”

“Janice inferred this was her people’s fault.”

“Yes, it was. But that is a tale she needs to tell.”

“Could I read some of what you catalogued? I would like to know what this world was like.”

“Perhaps.” Nat thought for a minute. “No, I will let you read it. Narrators only care about our world, no harm in you reading about another. Though this may actually be a different universe, since time flew so differently.”

Abby left the settling mist to catch up with Eric. As they neared the tomb, they found Janice standing outside of it motionless, her skull poised towards the darkness of the sky.

“Greetings Janice!” Carl called. Janice stood motionless, the ethereal nature of the magic around her seemed very dim compared to the last time Abby saw her. The regal robes she wore today were more complete than last time, pristine even, Abby thought it was special robe.

“Janice? You alright?” Abby asked placing a tentacle on her boney shoulder.

“Ah yes sorry, I was just lost in thought.” She turned and revealed the soulstone Abby had left with her, now turned into a necklace wrapped around her skeletal neck. The soulstone’s color had radically changed. The once vibrant soft blue hue was now replaced with a warm orange and yellow, with wisps of blue undulating every once and a while. “It’s been a while since we last spoke. Your fires died out so much faster this time. Your months were decades to us, but only two years have passed.”

“Two whole years!” Abby shouted.

“Come some changes have occurred.” Janice led them into the tomb. The once grand tomb with passageways and multiple rooms now appeared to be a ruin. One room was accessible with collapsed passages blocking everything else from view. Carl went about lighting the sconces and torches around the makeshift room. The center showed Janice’s deathly throne with a gentle glowing light, her healing flame, above it dimly lighting the area causing shadows to lay in the corners of the room. Skeletal bodies lay everywhere around the room. She sat upon the throne exhaustedly.

“Thank you, Carl,” Janice said as he lit the few remaining torches. “These past couple years have really drained me, but many at my command have departed to help me conserve magic.” She looked to those surrounding her throne. “It’s only me now, and my flame.”

“You waited for us, didn’t you?” Abby asked solemnly.

“Yes, I wanted to give you a couple gifts of a what I call a true soulstone, and something else. The one you gave me was corrupted by ill intent, having particular souls be able to be forced into it.” She shook her skull in a disapproving manner.

“Particular souls?” Abby asked. Nat nodded in her peripheral.

“Souls able to use magic. Since all souls here could it was trying to absorb them, hence why my butler was bending towards it.” Janice removed the soulstone necklace and motioned for Abby to come closer. “It took about a year to cleanse but now it’s as it should be. A vessel for magic, not for souls.”

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“Not for souls,” Abby echoed as she approached the throne. “Wait, are you saying that the Arvendon King is forcing the deaths of kah users and cramming their souls into these things! Ive seen several of the Arvendonian army crush these and gain awakenings!” The weight of this realization weighed on her mind.

“Yes, you noted black swirls within the original design. I was able to place my butler inside and it formed a swirl just exactly as you had described. Something like this does not come naturally, and only the extinct god-spirits of my relm could make such a thing. A spirit in your world has turned against the living. Whether coerced or willing I cannot tell, but it’s definitely elementally driven. Like a vast ocean.

“You can tell that just by fiddling with it?” Carl asked.

“No, there are traces of sea salt within the confines of the material.” Janice replied. Carl looked to Abby. “But now I have a healing flame settled in it. The flame has cleansed the soul catching nature and allows for magic to pass through it more easily.”

“You know what this means right?” he asked looking between Abby and Janice.

Abby stood in the dimly lit tomb, the weight of Janice's revelation settling heavily upon her. The once hallowed ground seemed to echo with the implications of the corrupted soulstone and the Arvendon King's sinister actions.

As Janice disclosed the malevolent intentions behind the Arvendon King's deeds, Abby's mind raced, connecting the dots between the soulstones, the deaths of kah users, and the disturbing awakenings within the Arvendonian army. Her eyes fixed on the cleansed soulstone in Janice's bony hands, its hues transformed from a blue to warm orange and yellow, a stark symbol of redemption.

"There’s still a water spirit on our world," Abby uttered, her voice carrying a mixture of realization and concern. The gravity of this revelation bore down on her, and her thoughts spiraled into a whirlwind of apprehension. “And it may not like mortals.”

In that moment, the implications of a rogue water spirit manipulating events, or at the very least involved in events on her world unfolded before Abby's mind. She thought of her people, of the Torchbearers, and the unsuspecting citizens living their lives, oblivious to the looming threat. A cold shiver ran down her spine, tendrils of fear intertwining with her innate determination.

Abby's eyes flickered, glancing toward Carl and Nat as if seeking confirmation or guidance. The camaraderie formed between them during their journey now faced a new challenge—one that transcended the boundaries of Janice's world and encroached upon Abby's very existence.

What does this mean for us? she pondered, her mind a battleground of conflicting emotions. The responsibility of confronting a possibly malevolent force, a water spirit of all things, weighed heavily on her. As Janice resumed her discussion with Carl, Abby's gaze lingered on the cleansed soulstone. Its gentle glow seemed to pulsate with the rhythm of Abby's racing thoughts.

Nat was standing behind Abby when he tapped her on her shoulder. He leaned in and whispered, “I picked that stone up from a water spirit’s den back in the Wylde Wood Sanctuary. That’s the same place I left Erik.”

Abby didn’t react, but her face twitched as he ended his sentence. She glanced back, letting Nat know she heard him out and refocused her attention on Janice.

“Abby,” Janice’s voice was stating as Abby was refocusing. “I would like to pass on my healing flame to you. But I’m not sure if you can use it as I have.” She reached her left arm and hand above her skull, the dimly light fire enveloped her hand. As it did, muscle fiber and skin began to form on the skeletal frame. It was not ethereal, nor spiritual, but true flesh and muscle. “When I lived, I was a priestess of Solarian, we followed He who warms the world. We were much like you torchbearers, but only cared about our own world. Honestly, we didn’t even know of other worlds.”

She moved the flame to the other hand, and it too formed flesh over the skeleton. “I became leader of the church and found enemies of kings and wealthy alike. They turned the people against me once they found I could create this flame. Claimed I stole it from the Great Solarian, like anyone could do such a thing. The church protected me for years, so the kingdoms attacked my hometown.” She gestured to the skeletons on the floor. “In my anger I found what this flame could do,” she placed the flame within her chest and soon her body clothed itself in muscles, organs, and flesh. Eyes formed in her skull and hair fell behind her. A regal priestess in formal robes stood before them. As she breathed in, Abby could tell the cold air stung newly formed lungs.

“It could give life, return life, and warmth to those who need it. I brought my loved ones back, to true life not just undeath. I would like to see if you can learn this Abby and Carl.” She smiled. “Please stay and learn what little I can teach you. I can live as long as necessary. But I can’t guarantee the magic here will last for me.” A much stronger and brighter flame appeared in her hand.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, what is causing the magic to disappear on this world? Solarian as the black hole?”

“No, once the sun disappeared, magic sustained the world for a little, but without a star, life can’t live for long. First it was the smaller forests and freshwater animals. But soon it spread. The world still had magic, it was just losing life. So, I began collecting it.” She waved her hand along the floor. The stones parted and revealed a massive healing flame.

“There’s no end to it,” Carl stated looking at the massive flame underneath him on all fours.

“But it still pales in comparison to a black hole that has swallowed a good chuck of a solar system.” Abby stated.

“Agreed.” Nat said silently.

“This is the only weapon I have, perhaps the magic I’ve collected in this world can do something to Solarian. Maybe bring him back as it does for us.”

“What caused him to become a black hole?”

“For the most part Solarian was the spirit of our star, prayers of those who worshiped him empowered him. After my first death, the kingdoms who worshiped the sun lost power. A death cult took over most of the continents with their necromancy, who then brought me back. They worshipped the god-spirit of death Xersis, Solarian’s brother. They warred together and eventually Solarian was slain in the battle. When he was killed our star dimmed so much that there was little difference between day and night.

At first Xersis and his cult prospered and enjoyed their victories for a few years. The first round of cold and death swept through, and Xersis did not become any more powerful.”

Janice's narrative hung in the air, a tapestry of celestial tragedy woven with threads of worship, war, and the delicate balance between life and death. Abby, captivated by the cosmic tale, pressed for more details, yearning to unravel the intricacies of Solarian's demise and resurrection.

"What happened during the battle?" Abby inquired, her curiosity driving her to delve deeper into the events that led to Solarian's fall.

Janice's eyes, reminiscent of galaxies, focused on Abby as she continued her recounting. "The battle was fierce and cataclysmic. The forces of Solarian and Xersis clashed, each god-spirit wielding unimaginable power. The sun itself bore witness to their conflict, its once radiant glow dimming with each clash of divine energies."

She paused, as if allowing the weight of the cosmic confrontation to settle in the room. "In the end, Solarian fell, his radiant form extinguished by the combined might of the death cult and his brother Xersis. The sun, now bereft of its guiding spirit, cast a pall of eternal twilight across the lands."

Abby absorbed the gravity of the revelation, the image of a darkened world haunted by the consequences of divine strife etching itself into her mind. The balance disrupted, the natural order unraveled, and Solarian's once-vibrant presence reduced to a mere ember in the vastness of the cosmos.

"But why did Xersis weaken after Solarian's revival?" Abby probed, sensing there was more to the story.

Janice's expression turned somber, and she traced an ethereal pattern in the air with her fingers. "Reviving Solarian required a tremendous sacrifice of magical energy. Xersis, already weakened from the prolonged conflict, and the loss of followers once the sun dimmed, expended the last vestiges of his power to breathe life back into his brother. The equilibrium of life and death, so delicately maintained by the two god-spirits, was disrupted. Xersis, once a deity of death with dominion over the cycle of existence, found himself drained and vulnerable."

Abby pondered the cosmic ballet, the interplay of opposing forces shaping the fate of gods and worlds. "And the cult of Xersis, once powerful, lost its influence?"

Janice nodded, a melancholic aura surrounding her celestial form. "Yes, with the depletion of Xersis's power, the cult faltered. The undead they once commanded became inert, and the once-mighty necromancers found themselves bereft of their supernatural abilities. The political landscape shifted, and those who had once pledged allegiance to the god-spirit of death now sought solace in prayer, pleading for the restoration of Solarian's full strength."

Abby's mind raced, connecting the celestial dots of cause and effect. "So, the priests of Xersis, in a desperate attempt to regain their former glory, beseeched him to revive Solarian completely?"

Janice smiled, a glimmer of admiration in her cosmic eyes. "You grasp the essence of it. The cycle of divine dependency, the ebb and flow of cosmic energies, shaped the destiny of the gods and the mortal realms. In their fervent prayers, the priests unwittingly became architects of Solarian's incomplete resurrection, forever altering the celestial dance."

Janice looked to the ceiling and took a breath, she seemed to be enjoying it as though she was breathing clearly for the first time in years. Abby was still in awe of a complete resurrection. She had no idea how long Janice was undead, but she guessed it had been a long time by chance even eons. “He tried, and he succeeded in reviving Solarian, but in his weakened state Xersis couldn’t bring him back all the way. And thus, here we are.”

“It seems that the entirety of your world relied on Solarian, way more than the people realized.” Abby said placing a tentacle under her chin.

“Well, life cannot thrive without a star,” Janice looked to Carl and Abby, “And when something tangible is tied to it there’s no telling what damage you could do. We learned the hard way.” She gestured towards her tomb and their surroundings. “Now shall I ask you to join me in learning this?”

Once more, a powerful flame erupted from Janice's hands, casting a warm and radiant glow across the chamber of her tomb. The brilliance of the healing flame painted the surroundings in hues of golden light, dispelling the shadows that clung to the ancient walls.

In the heart of the chamber stood Janice, alive and resplendent in her pristine robes. The fabric, adorned with celestial patterns that seemed to dance with ethereal energy, shimmered in the radiant illumination. Her features, an otherworldly reflection of cosmic wisdom, bore an expression of serene concentration as she channeled the magic within.

The healing flame, an awe-inspiring manifestation of Solarian's divine essence, emanated from Janice's hands in undulating waves of incandescent power. It bathed her in a luminous aura, turning her into a living beacon within the sacred confines of the tomb. Janice's brows were arched in focused determination, her gaze fixed upon the ethereal dance of the healing flame.

“This, it is imbued with the last of Solarian’s radiance that is within me.” The tomb, once a realm of quiet repose, now pulsed with the vibrant energy of Solarian's healing flame. Ancient symbols etched into the walls seemed to stir, their dormant magic responding to the celestial presence within. The air itself shimmered with residual magic, as if the very essence of the healing flame had woven itself into the fabric of the chamber.

As Janice stood amidst the radiant illumination, the healing flame caressed her form, creating a play of shadows and light that accentuated the celestial grace of her being. The hues of gold and amber danced upon her robes, casting a captivating display of color that seemed to echo the cosmic forces at play. The tomb, a sanctuary for the living embodiment of Solarian's essence, resonated with the celestial symphony of magic and divine power. Janice, the healer and undead Lich Lord, stood at the epicenter of this luminous spectacle, her connection to the healing flame a testament to the enduring dance between life and death in the celestial tapestry.