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In a parallel to how light fragments were anchored in the Alladharian Dimension while light itself still illuminated the Material Dimension, Yves assumed that the Vicha must be anchored in yet another dimension. All that he perceived through first and second sight was but a phantom presence traversing his reality — crucially untouched by both pure energy and pure matter, yes, unable to affected either.
In strict but simplified terms, phantom presences were energies perceivable through first sight. They could be recognised in the Material Dimension. Amongst these were light and also the Rothar of solely ethereal beings such as spectres or sprites. However, while these are anchored in the Alladharian Dimension, Yves believed that the Vicha was not.
As Yves confirmed moments ago, when he attacked with light fragments, the Vicha could not consume them. Light remained elusive, passing through the curse unaffected. Vichae demonstrated no inclination to absorb free energy from their surroundings either. Drawing on the hierarchy of magical purity, Yves understood that the Vicha did not consume raw energy and light because they were solely anchored in the Alladharian Dimension, and it was incapable to impact this dimension.
The first premise stood: the Vicha could not access the Alladharian Dimension.
At the same time, it effortlessly passed through tangible matter rooted in the physical dimension. It traversed objects and even natural life-forms like plants without leaving any trace on them. It did not evade or go around them, like less dense material entities such as wind or fog did, but passed straight through them as if it were nothing but a visual illusion. Yet, it consumed higher biological life-forms, assimilating the energies and somehow incorporating the bodies of all animals and peoples it touched.
This was where the established laws of wizardry and the prospect of just two dimensions faltered: If the Vicha was not anchored in the Alladharian Dimension, it should be anchored in the Material Dimension. If it were anchored in the Material Dimension, it should not at all ever be able to fucking pass through things.
Yves refused to accept that a witch could wield command over what her Vicha consumed and what it spared; purportedly to protect nature and plants? Even if such control were possible, how the fuck did it work? It was oh so easy to dismiss Vichae as just another inexplicable facet of witchcraft, but no, Yves insisted on logic. He demanded rules. His flawed education at Emery Thurm had ingrained in him the principle that if things did not seem right, the teaching was not right. If none of what he knew offered sensible rules, he needed to unearth them in the unknown.
Daring to dig for the daunting, he planted the second premise for his theory, firmly rooted in the conviction that the Vicha did not pass through natural existences because of some sort of a witch's command, no: it could not affect any matter that was solely or predominantly rooted in the Material Dimension. Lifeless matter had no energies. Similarly, plants carried only minimalistic traces of Rothar, much like how light fragments had but a phantom presence in the Material Dimension. Essentially, the Vicha was not anchored in the Material Dimension. In the dual reality that was known to Yves, the Vicha was but a grotesque phantom existence, a shadow presence of the true curse, now dragging itself to the centre of his dome of light.
Yves placed his unbroken ethereal mirror on the shard-covered ground, precisely at the centre of the dome. From there, the mightiest of his supporting light pillars ascended, reaching the zenith of the curved glass roof. Yves slid the mirror into this column of light, ensuring the reflective surface lay directly beneath.
The Vicha's selective consumption was the prime example of all that made witchcraft so utterly non-transparent. It consumed higher life forms. It also consumed those types of magic that conveyed energy into matter, such as physical illusions and shards. In core, it seemed to selectively devour physical masses with strong energies. How was this possible? How could the Vicha consume dense and potent energies without accessing the Alladharian Dimension, and how could it interact with the corresponding bodies without being anchored in the Material Dimension?
There was a logic behind this. There was indeed a rule, and Yves had found it: The Vicha only affected dual existences. In the pursuit of the unknown and untaught, this selective consumption directed his third premise:
If the Vicha was neither anchored in the Material Dimension nor in the Alladharian,
and if it could only consume those dual existences that were anchored in both dimensions,
then it affected neither physical matter nor Rothar directly, but the link between them.
A wizard’s body and his Rothar were somehow linked. Magic that transformed energy into matter relied on this link. Even the act of sustaining the wizard body through energy, instead of physical sustenance, was only possible because of such a link. Yves believed that the Vicha, not anchored in either dimension, exploited these links. It could only consume dual existences founded in a link between matter and Rothar, akin to tapping into a vein that was non-existent in lifeless matter and raw energy, and too feeble in simple natural existences and light fragments.
Now, if you can still stomach to delve deeper, force yourself to question this third premise on the foundation of all that you experienced and all that you have been taught. Learning in mere paragraphs what Yves needed years to piece together, you have already expanded your limited world view from one to two interconnected dimensions. You have acknowledged that you possess a dual existence rooted in both dimensions, while this curse must be rooted in another, third dimension. But confronted with the third premise, you now realise that again, something does not seem quite right.
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Because when you pick it all apart, you understand that a common beast can kill another beast to then consume its flesh. But you ask: How can a Vicha disintegrate your physical body if it cannot actually access the Material Dimension? How does your body disappear?
Likewise, you know that a sprite, whose ethereal existence is anchored in the Alladharian Dimension, can eat off your Rothar. But you cannot explain: How can the Vicha do so, if it is not anchored in the Alladharian Dimension? How can the energy just vanish?
Yes, dear novice, you know your words. You understand that consumption means that your physical matter and Rothar go from you to the Vicha. But it is not the same as when you take in Adhar to do your magic, is it? Because what you do is draw energy from a dimension in which your own existence is anchored. Your Rothar, anchored in the Alladharian Dimension, takes energy from the same dimension. And if you realise matter through magic, your energy moves from the one dimension in which your dual existence is anchored to the other. The enigma that is the Vicha, however, takes in your physical matter and your Rothar while being anchored in neither. It took something from dimensions it did not belong to.
You ask, exhausted, disturbed and impatient: Well then, what is the difference? What does it mean to access the link?
It meant that Yves would never again denigrate witchcraft or believe that he could fathom its limitations. This was dimensional transgression. The Vicha was not an enigmatic, self-sustaining spell. It was an active dimensional portal.
Harnessing an ever mightier surge of energy from the Jabarrah, Yves orchestrated the deciding transformation of his dome. Every one of his light-infused shards transmuted into mirrors. Prior to crafting artifacts as distinctive as the ethereal mirrors, Yves had spent years learning the highly specialised craft of mirror making. It demanded an intricate understanding and manipulation of the delicate equilibrium between shards and light. This, now, was his grandest creation. The entire expanse within the dome transformed into one singular mirror — the walls, the ceiling, the very floor beneath his feet, and the supporting pillars unfolded in a surreal ambiance. It was no ordinary mirror, not akin to those crafted from silver, nor did it resemble the unique artifacts that were his ethereal mirrors. Instead, the entire structure became an incandescent confine, a colossal one-sided reflector emanating and encompassing a mesmerising play of luminosity. Yves had built an extension of his ethereal mirror.
It was established that the Vicha pursued Yves because the witch had infused parts of it into him. When the curse captured a target and regained its missing part, it became complete. It was generally assumed that the Vicha then disappeared into the void since it had fulfilled the witch’s desire for revenge. Building on the fourth premise that the Vicha was a portal, Yves believed that it instead shifted back to the dimension where it was anchored. The reason that it shifted only after capturing the cursed wizard must be that he carried the gateway key. With the curse, the witch infused the gateway key into the wizard. It then activated upon contact, just like Yves could only access the Mirror Dimension when using the witch mother crystal half ball on his ethereal mirrors. So when conjuring a Vicha, a witch got her revenge by literally ripping you out of existence.
Whether you died right there in the process or after shifting to the Vicha's dimension, a portal did not dissipate after a shift. That explained the lingering ominous feeling in places where a Vicha had consumed its target — because it persisted, existing in a third dimension beyond the reach of first and second sight. Yves assumed that from this third dimension, the faintest of phantom presences still touched upon the dual reality, not visible, but still perceived by what may be defined as your instinct or intuition, the ominous bad feeling.
Was all of this a terrible idea? Oh yes. But unfortunately, it made more sense than anything else. Yves knew less than the bare minimum about dimensional travel, heck, he did not even understand how exactly his body and energy transitioned from their dimensions to the Mirror Dimension. Yet, whatever link existed between his body and his Rothar, and however his consciousness was defined and connected to both, his mirrors somehow accessed and altered this link. As a wizard, he could draw energy from one dimension and convert it into matter in another. His ethereal mirrors exemplified this interdimensional transfer, shifting his body and Rothar into a mirror world form within the Dimensional Plane of Shards. The moment he entered the Mirror World, his matter and Rothar disappeared from their respective dimensions, just like anyone who fell victim to a Vicha. And as he shifted, the infused Vicha part within him, the gateway key, came with. Yves had sensed it when transforming after closing the lighthouse tunnel.
Now, then, did that not make you wonder, what would happen if the whole Vicha was connected to him, and his ethereal portal were just much, much bigger?
As Yves gazed at his reflection in the ethereal mirror, he found himself bathed in a cascade of brilliant streams of crystalline light, as if he was cut out from this world and placed upon a sheet of unspoilt nothing that still tried to flicker anything substantial into existence. Approaching, spilling and spoiling this sanctuary, looming ever higher above him, the Vicha remained a black enigma amid this opus of brightness, a rotten mass untouched by the symbiosis of light, unrooted in this dimension. The dome mirrored only endless, seamless layers of the light it incorporated, like celestial fragments of the most star-strewn sky.
The tempest outside lashed against the dome, rain and wind converging with thunder into a haunting, harrowing melody, gradually turning resonant, almost captivating, if you dared listen beyond the chaos. Every flash of lightning transgressed through the transparent yet reflective mirrors, casting streaks of endlessly reflecting beams of gold across hundreds and hundreds of meters of radiant surface above, below and around Yves. Amid his creation, Yves recognised the beauty that could be wrought by magic. In a world so marred by ugliness, beauty needed to be crafted. The thought carried strange solace. This was not the worst place to die.
In his hands, he cradled two objects. In his right hand, a feather so weightless it was almost imperceptible; in his left, the crystal half-ball, a relic burdened with familiar weight. One was to forget, the other a reminder of past commitments and present convictions.
Confronting his reflection in the mirror, Yves witnessed the looming mountain advance over the platform, veins of shadow surging like tendrils, seeking the edge of the crater, pressing forward.
With deliberate precision, his left hand inserted the witch mother crystal half ball into its socket. Taking and dropping the unpacked, singular feather from his right hand, his left hand then intertwined his fingers in the initial gesture for the ritual.
“Well then, a shitload of poison it is.”
As the Vicha bulged in, cascaded down the crater, veins extending toward him, Yves completed the ritual. He paused just before drawing the last sign, enduring endless seconds for the veins to spill over him.
Breathe.
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