After a short meal of sandwiches on brown bread and more fresh fruits, Elach felt rested and sated enough to go on with training. Flow cawed in agreement and flapped up to Elach’s shoulder, urging him onward.
“You’re both ready?” Sentence asked.
“Good to go.” Elach said, stretching his arms and making Flow take to the air for a second.
Sentence nodded and gripped his axe once more, the faraway haze getting sucked back into it in a torrent of Issi. “Compressinging your Issi is simpler than expanding your container; it can be done anywhere, any time, and there is no destruction that follows. As it is with expansion, each person will have a specific technique for compressing their Issi that works the best for them. What I teach you here will work, but you will have to fine-tune it for yourself to get the best results.”
“Just like everything else.” Elach said, shaking his head. “Makes sense why people who devour their wisps are stronger. They don’t have to figure anything out for themselves.”
“A fair assessment.” Sentence said with a nod. “But if you aren’t going to devour Flow, there is no point in dwelling on impossible possibilities. Look into yourself once more, focusing on your container. It should feel completely solid now.”
Elach didn’t expect his container to have recovered so quickly, but somehow it had. “Did you make it heal faster?” He asked, opening his eyes to look at Sentence.
“Eating is a form of resting.” Sentence said. “But yes, the Issi that was bloating your container was mine, and I added a restorative property to it so you would be fit for this next part. Don’t expect to recover so quickly from a large expansion in the future. Now, get back to focusing on your container and the Issi inside of it.”
“Sorry.” Elach said, closing his eyes once more. He felt the cold, faraway emptiness of his Issi straining against the insulating layer of his container. “I’m ready.”
“Compressing your Issi is a difficult process that becomes simpler and more instinctive the more you do it.” Sentence explained. “If you develop a technique that works perfectly for you and practice it to the point of mastery, it is possible to compress your Issi in the moments between expending it for techniques. Today you will experiment with many different techniques, since I cannot just give you the one I used thanks to the fact that you are bonded with Flow in addition to my Issi.”
“What happens if I add another type of Issi to my container?” Elach asked without opening his eyes or losing his connection to his Issi.
“You will have to adapt your compression technique for the influx of new Issi.” Sentence said. “But that can wait until you acquire another type of Issi. Flow’s natural Issi type is mortal, correct?”
“Life, movement, and transcendence.” Elach said, then frowned. “How did I know that? Flow’s never told me that before.”
“Your bond.” Sentence said in a way that made Elach know that should have been obvious. “The movement Issi explains why the location Issi I gave you works the way it does.” Sentence said, his voice and footsteps slowly circling Elach. “But transcendence Issi? Are you certain you aren’t misunderstanding their Issi types?”
“You’re the one who said I know it because of my bond.” Elach shrugged. “And I’m sure. I don’t know how I’m sure, but I am.”
“Never, ever tell that to anyone else.” Sentence warned, his voice terrifyingly intense. “Transcendence Issi is one of the pinnacle transformative Issi types. The number of wisps, no, the number of beings that have transcendence Issi could be counted on your fingers.”
“Um, alright?” Elach said, a little on edge from Sentence’s intense tone.
“I’m serious, Elach.” Sentence said, and Elach could feel Sentence’s eyes boring into him even while his own were closed. “Transcendence Issi is something masters would kill for. Specifically, they would kill you and then force Flow to bond with them; devouring them for their Issi.”
“Ok, ok, I won’t say anything to anybody.” Elach said, stepping back and stumbling on a piece of loose stone. “What’s so powerful about transcendence Issi that would make someone kill me for it?”
“Not powerful. Life changing.” Sentence said. “Just like all other transformative Issi, transcendence Issi has no effects on its own. But unlike its sibling Issi types, transcendence Issi can create a new realm of power where none previously existed. It is pure potential. And for people who think they’ve found the end of their prospective journeys, and are not content with where they have been forced to stop, the potential to push the journey’s end as far back as possible is more than worth killing for.”
“And that goes for you too, Flow. Once Elach can manifest you outside of his headspace, people will find out that you have transcendence Issi unless you learn to camouflage it.” Sentence said to Elach’s shoulder. “I will leave Elach with something that will suppress your Issi for the time being, but you will have to find a way to suppress your Issi before you grow too powerful for the relic to hide you.”
Flow let out a low chirp, and Elach felt them shift uncomfortably on his shoulder. He was glad he wasn’t the only one set on edge by Sentence’s intensity.
“Now that you both understand, we can proceed with what we need to.” Sentence said, and like a switch had been flipped, all the intensity was gone from his voice. “Imagine that your Issi is constantly being drawn towards the center of your container, like there is a great vacuum pulling it in. Do that for one minute, then tell me anything that you felt during that time.”
Doing as Sentence had requested, Elach imagined a gaping hole in the middle of his container that drew all of his Issi in towards it. He felt like nothing was happening, his Issi barely moving, and certainly not towards the imaginary hold he’d put in the center. He felt another conscience trying the same thing, their will added onto his, and still there was not enough force to pull his Issi inwards.
“That’s one minute.” Sentence said, and Elach let go of the image he’d been holding on to. “How did you fare?”
“Awfully.” Elach said, opening his eyes. “The Issi barely moved.”
“Really?” Sentence asked, confusion snapping onto his face for a moment before it was wiped away. “Go back and try helping your image along. Take five minutes this time.”
As Elach closed his eyes and brought the image back to the forefront of his mind, he heard Sentence muttering to himself.
“Something should have happened. Never had anyone unable to move Issi with their mind, and there were two of them working at it. Maybe he did it wrong. Yeah, that has to be it. My technique should have worked perfectly. He has my Issi in him after all.”
Maybe his patron wasn’t as omniscient as he tried to come off as. Elach smiled as he imagined his Issi being pulled ever inward, and with a mental effort he shoved it along to try and help.
“Nothing again?” Sentence asked quizzically. “Are you certain you’re doing it right? This technique is what I use to compress my Issi, so it should be at least partially effective for your own means.”
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“Nothing at all.” Elach said. “It was like pushing around gelatin. I didn’t feel it compressing at all.”
“Ok. Everything’s ok.” Sentence muttered, breathing in deep and holding it before letting out a long breath. “So my method didn’t work for you. I expected my compression technique to be the baseline in which we judge the others’ effectiveness, but if you truly felt nothing from it then we must move on. No matter my feelings on the matter.”
Sentence sighed and crossed his arms. “I know of a few methods life and motion Issi practitioners use to compress their Issi, but compared to those of my own types, my knowledge is severely limited. And I know of exactly zero transcendent Issi compression methods. So, which methods would you like to try first? The life or motion methods?”
“Motion first.” Elach said, and Flow chirped in agreement. “If that’s what affected your Issi seed, it makes sense to start with that.”
“Motion it is.” Sentence said with a nod. “Know that even though motion and location Issi both fall under the Spatial supertype, there will be differences in their makeup. Your Issi might not move exactly the way the technique claims it should, but you should be able to make a rough approximation of it.”
“That means the life Issi techniques are going to be much harder to pull off, right?” Elach guessed.
“Unless your Issi acts like life Issi, yes. They will be near impossible to reproduce.” Sentence confirmed. “So let's hope your Issi works with motion techniques and we never have to resort to life techniques.”
Almost two hours later, Elach had not succeeded with motion techniques. Nor had he succeeded with life techniques. Travel issi techniques failed, annihilation was a bust, and the pure spatial techniques that Sentence said would work for anyone with Issi under the spatial supertype fell flat. Sentence wasn’t so disappointed with that last one, since the pure spatial technique would have been extremely inefficient and near pointless, but that still left Elach in a tough spot.
“We can’t move on to compressing your container itself until we compress the Issi inside of it.” Sentence said. “Well, we could, but it would be a horrible waste of progress. You would have to work for months to get the strength I could grant you in hours.”
“We might not have a choice.” Elach said with a shrug. “If it's between losing some progress versus not learning how to compress my container, I think one of those would set me back further than the other.”
“A fair point. Though one I am not willing to sink to until we’ve used up every last second before we must compress your container.” Sentence said. “This is so important, we might have to delay the other teachings I'd prepared for tomorrow and the day after until we have run through each and every compression technique I can recall, and some that I have an inkling how to replicate.”
“Isn’t there some other way I can compress my Issi?” Elach asked, running a finger on the underside of Flow’s neck. “I do have Flow, after all.”
“Yes, I know. The union between sentient wisps and practitioners is not a new phenomenon.” Sentence said. “The usual way they affected Issi compression is that it was simpler for the practitioner to achieve success thanks to two minds working as one. And though my recollection of such pairings are fairly sparse, I can say without a doubt that not one of them needed to be taught how to compress their own Issi. They had their techniques scrutinized and improved, but they had always come up with something on their own long before that.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. My Issi’s weird.” Elach said, and Flow agreed with a caw. “From the start it was pretty bizarre. It’s like I’m filled with emptiness, but the emptiness is actually filling me, and not just a flowery way to say my container has nothing in it.”
Sentence stared unblinking at Elach for a moment. “What?”
“What, what?” Elach asked, confused.
“What everything!” Sentence exasperatedly said. “I gave you location Issi. That should feel like there is a world piece inside of your container, where the Issi I gave you is the wind and rain that washes across it. But you say it feels… empty? That shouldn’t be possible.”
“Prisoner seemed to think it was the stuff you were using to keep him chained up.” Elach said. “The spaces between spaces is what he called it.”
“Perfect. Just perfect.” Sentence muttered. “Prisoner knows a lot of things, but what I use to keep him stuck here is not one of them. He probably assumed it was the location Issi, but it is actually an intricate set of enchantments and artifacts I cobbled together to keep his fellows from ripping him limb from limb.”
“I’ve got to ask him what he did next time I see him.” Elach said. “I figured that at least one of you two would hold a grudge, but why don’t you?”
“Because he didn’t deserve the sentence they gave.” Sentence said, motioning at himself. “The absolute worst punishment, saved for the worst offenders. Not for disagreements of philosophy, or the breaking of pointless laws. The shackles on his body, as I’m sure he showed you, are the bonds that chain him here. To me.”
“Wait. Did you bond with him, and that’s forcing him to stay here?” Elach asked, backing away slowly.
“Now you understand.” Sentence said. “Which means that your Issi is not truly from me. It is an amalgamation of that which keeps Prisoner chained and my own Issi. The shackles must have developed just barely enough awareness to insert themselves into our bond.”
“Am I going to be stuck here?” Elach asked, starting to panic. “I didn’t do anything!”
“That is… an unfortunate possibility.” Sentence admitted. “Your Issi, if you’re telling me the truth, mimics the output of the chains almost perfectly. There is a chance you will be exempt from the constraints Prisoner is under, but the far more likely outcome is that you find your freedom reduced and reduced until you are constrained to the same area as Prisoner is.”
“What’s the point to any of this, then?” Elach half-yelled, gesturing at the destruction around him. “If I’m going to end up like Prisoner anyways?”
“For the off chance it doesn’t happen.” Sentence said, his voice unsure. “I honestly do not know what to tell you, Elach.”
Elach fell to his knees, chunks of rock digging into his skin, but he didn’t care. Everything was over. And just as it had begun, too. He would never free anyone from anything, never get to do the things he didn’t even know he wanted to do, never make good on his promise to bond with Hollow.
“Let’s just get this over with.” He muttered. “The sooner the better.”
“Elach… I....” Sentence paused, trying to find the right words.
“Don’t.” Elach cut him off with a wave of his hand. “You didn’t know. And I don’t want to hate you for trying to help me live a life I would never have tasted otherwise.” He tried to smile, but it came out forced and Sentence winced. “Keep giving me techniques to try. Maybe one of them will work.”
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“You’re sure that’s it?” Elach asked. “There’s nothing left to try?”
“That is everything I know.” Sentence said sadly. “My knowledge on compression techniques is deep, but it is not vast. I know a large amount about a select few of them, and none of them so much as sparked a thought in you.”
“Damn.” Elach said, sitting on a cleared stone and looking at the sky. “So what’s the chance I need a transcendent compression technique?”
“At this point? One hundred percent.” Sentence said, settling down next to Elach. Flow hopped to Sentence’s shoulder from Elach’s, and Sentence gently patted their back. “We still have a few hours to compress your container if we want to stay on track. But I could also head back early and read through my archives for anything that might so much as touch on transcendent Issi.”
“What would we skip over if I say yes?” Elach asked. “You obviously had this planned since the beginning.”
“How to manipulate Issi that is not under your control, like a water practitioner bending a stream to their will, and how to use and strengthen your focus.” Sentence said, putting his hands in his lap and joining Elach in looking skyward. “They are both important, but they will not stunt your growth if you have to wait half a year.”
“And this will.” Elach said, weighing his options. But there really wasn’t much to weigh.
“It will.” Sentence agreed.
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.” Elach said, standing up and brushing the dust from his pants and hands. “Hopefully at least one of us will have good news by then.”
“Hopefully we will.” Sentence agreed, grunting as he pushed himself off the ground. He extended a hand for Elach to shake. “I will not abandon you, Elach. I promise.”
“I won’t give up.” Elach said. Silently he added ‘until there’s no point trying’, but one look up at Sentence's face told him that he hadn't needed to keep it secret. His thoughts were mirrored in the ancient man's expression.