"Okay, so we have several problems right now that we need to address quickly." I turn back from the window to look at the wounded Quire. "Since you're stuck here for the foreseeable future, you'll need to either blend in and appear human, or you'll be stuck here hiding in this tiny room." I placed my notebook back down on the desk and glanced at the unsteady outsider.

"It's not that bad," She looked around my room optimistically, her eyes hanging on the extensive electrical burns splayed across the walls and ceiling. "I mean, it could be a whole lot worse, right?"

"Perhaps, but I have a feeling that the next room search by housekeeping is certainly going to be an entertaining experience." I chuckle and shake my head, thankfully I had remained on the housekeepers' good side, something which was a welcome surprise considering the condition of my flatmates' rooms, but I doubted they would look over the level of damage in here.

"I can't just stay locked up in here until I somehow find a way home, human," She responded once she had completed her inspection of the damage. "With the situation that's currently unfolding in the Iridescent Abyss, I simply can't afford to sit around and do nothing; I have to do something."

"Well, unless you can just casually regenerate your burns and wounds on the fly, you can't go anywhere until you've recovered." I approach her, gesturing to the charred clothes and scorched skin smattered across her. "And I doubt something as powerful as you can just wish away wounds like that."

The visitor sighed and glared away at something to my side, I turned to look, but there was nothing there, the act causing her to snicker under her breath.

"You're a touch too paranoid, aren't you human?" She rolled then narrowed her eyes. "But to answer your question..."

The visitor reached her arms out to her front, palms outstretched and facing the ceiling, her eyes ignited with amber flames which lapped around her their sockets, all while a vile crunching and grinding noise erupted from within her robes.

----------------------------------------

"A Protasi infused body," She grunted, her head twitched violently to the side, a loud unsettling crack rang out from her neck while fresh. "Is an unfathomably flexible thing." Pale skin slowly extruded from between what boney plates I could see, weaving and meshing into layers of kaolin skin. The mere act of perceiving what horrors I was witnessing caused me to step back; I raised an arm to cover my eyes from the horrific sight.

The crunching and cracking came to an abrupt halt around twenty seconds later. There was a strange static to the air, which I could feel and the tang of electricity. Uncovering my eyes, I looked upon the visitor and saw that their words were far from hollow. She had removed her mask and lowered her hood, revealing that she had changed substantially within a matter of seconds. No longer was there a robed and hooded figure who was patently not human, but now someone who looked so close to an average person that one would need prior knowledge of their identity to know that they weren't.

While still burning with amber flames, her eyes appeared black and shiny like marbles, perhaps she was blind, but the Protasi granted her some kind of sight beyond sight? Just one more question to add to the ever-growing mountain range of queries.

Her face was virtually identical to the figure in the reflective pool all those nights ago, down to the very scars upon her face and the shallow groove across her nose. There was no denying that this was the exact figure; the only difference was the colour of her hair, ultimately a trivial detail considering the sheer number of correlations. Interestingly, however, the burns around her mouth and eyes persisted; perhaps Protasi induced burns can supplant such methods of wound recovery.

"Please don't do that again; it was bad enough when you extruded bone from your hand the other night." I weakly speak up; my stomach churned weakly from the experience. "I really need to stop asking you stupid questions like that."

"Oh, no, I didn't regenerate the wounds." She reassured me. Her voice was much smoother and softer than before. "Us Amethyites learn fairly early in our training a little reversible incantation to switch the ossific configuration of our body if need be." She flexed her arms and fingers, the clink of joints flared up for a brief moment. "Does this look any better?"

"Yes, a lot better." I quickly reply, wanting the pain in my stomach from an impending violent content ejection to go away as soon as possible.

"Good, I'm glad you like it." She giggled with a sly grin while placing her mask upon the bed and raising her hood again. "I find it strange that our kin looks so alike, yet you are not Amethyites, very strange indeed..."

"A question for another time." I narrow my eyes and tilt my head; the more I looked upon her, the more I wondered about the origins of her kin and the world they came from. While I was a believer of the concept of convergent evolution, the odds of a civilised species forming in an entirely isolated area from an evolved creature that looked identical to humanity was virtually non-existent. Combine this with my previous findings regarding the presence of an ancient language in the Iridescent Abyss. It was becoming harder to suppose that there weren't human beings present in the Abyss for an extended period of time.

"The only problem left is your robes." I gestured to the significant scorch marks and burned holes across her robes. "We need to find you something to wear that doesn't draw so much attention; you walk around wearing that and, if anything is looking for you, they'll identify you immediately." I turn back and wander over to my wardrobe, I wasn't expecting to find anything she'd like, but I could, at the very least, find her something to make do until we got her some proper clothes.

"Oh, don't worry, we have far more effective ways to track down fellow Protasi wielders than the state of their attire, human." The visitor rolled her eyes coyly. "But you aren't wrong; I could do with some new robes. My mail appears fine, thankfully." She reached a hand into one of the burnt holes and pawed at the bronze ring mail. "Bit buckled from earlier, but it's otherwise fine."

"What happened earlier?" I asked. While glancing at the exposed ring mail, I noticed several broken rings and a few dents in the sheets of rings. Looking back to my wardrobe, I found an old jumper that would easily fit her, which I removed from its hanged and tossed onto the bed.

"If I'm stuck with you, I might as well tell you what happened." She sauntered over to the window and perched herself on the windowsill. "I was tasked, with a dozen other Quires, to watch over a precious artefact which the Order had recently discovered. A hefty piece of equipment, designed like an astronomical clock, which would apparently allow the Order to reach out to other worlds and pluck whatever they wanted from them."

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"And let me guess." I cut her off. "You and the guards got attacked, only you survived, so to spare yourself the embarrassment, you fled to this world using the artefact?"

"No." She chuckled and rolled her eyes. "I overheard the Grand Archivist who was assigned with our squad entering a communion and discussing plans for the device with the elders. They wanted to use the device to enter this world and 'make things right once again' or something along those lines." She paused and took a deep breath, a hand slowly reaching for her head. "When I tried to confront the Grand Archivist about this, he immediately turned to my squad, nodded, then levelled his sword and tried to flay me."

"Which explains the burns and the broken mask..." I looked over my shoulder while continuing my search for appropriate attire for the visitor.

"Not the broken mask, that came when I resisted the flaying and tried to fight back." Her hand slowly traced around the side of her face. "To think, all that damage caused by a single, well-placed punch." She shook her head for a moment, appearing to recall the incident in her mind vividly. "Just before he knocked me out, I yelled out a translocation incantation, so just as his fist connected with my head, I was torn from the Abyss and thrown into your world."

At first, I was baffled by this. The notion that Amethyites could think freely wasn't a concept that I thought was impossible. Still, the idea that one could simply disagree with leadership or ask for clarification, only to come within seconds of public execution, was downright appalling to consider.

"Holy shit. Well, I'm glad you managed to avoid the worst of it." I tried to comfort her with what little I could say. "Not your fault they got overly jumpy at a simple question."

"No, I should have known better." She snapped back instantaneously. "He was a Grand Archivist; they're bigged up as these entirely unquestionable beings of intellectual prowess. I should have known asking something like that could have gotten me in trouble."

"What matters is that you're not dead, you're as safe as you can get right now, and it's unlikely they'll follow you here." Undeterred by her pessimism, I tried to comfort her again while I fished out a baggy pair of jeans from my wardrobe, which joined the jumper on the bed.

"Sounds about right; they might be wise, but their ability to cut off loose ends leaves something to be desired." She explained. "I should be safe here; a single poorly equipt and wounded Quire is hardly a threat to them after all." She glared at the pile of clothes on the bed. "And what are those for?"

"I know you're not going to like this, but you're going to have to blend in if you want to leave this room. Until we get you some actual clothes, you'll have to borrow those, for now."

"Surely you jest!" Her eyes darted back from the clothes to me, locking on with a burning gaze. "I can't wear that; I'd burn out immediately if I need to use any..."

"Then you don't use any energy; it's not like we have much in the way of choices, to be honest." I butt in while closing my wardrobe, an arm gesturing to my ensuite. "You've got a nice, private place to get changed, but you can't leave here looking like that; otherwise, people will start asking questions."

"Fine!" She looked to the side and snarled, giving me an unwanted view of her vicious set of teeth. She quickly picked up the clothes, went into my ensuite and closed the door. "On one condition, we find something to make new clothes out of, and I make my new robes." She continues, albeit muffled by the closed door.

"Sounds pretty reasonable." I nod to myself in agreement with her request. "I'm sure there's a couple of textile stores in town, should be able to find you what you need."

Around a minute passed as I waited for her to finish getting her disguise on. After a short while, the ensuite door swung open violently, and an especially angry-looking visitor stepped out. Her normally ashen white skin across her face was tinged a mild red, her eyes fixed in a frown.

As for the clothes, they looked absolutely ridiculous on her. Because of her stature and feminine form, the clothes didn't fit her too well; her chest was tight, her shoulders looked like they were being squashed against her ribs. She certainly didn't look comfortable wearing the clothes in more ways than one.

"I swear if this turns out to be a waste of our time, I'll skin you alive and fashion robes from your festering corpse, human." She rasped while standing bolt steady, and I knew clear as day that she was not making a hollow threat. "I'll harvest your soul and make it spend the rest of time uncounted serving me as nothing more than a light source."

"Don't worry, we'll get you some tailors equipment and some cloth to work with, then you'll never have to wear those again, I promise you." I plea with the furious Quire while she approaches me, malicious intent blazing in her eyes.

"Very well, on one condition." She lunged at me and grabbed me by the collar of my vest. "You owe me a favour after this and a big one at that too." I could feel her nails digging through my vest and pressing against my neck.

"Deal, just let me get ready, and we can head into town, get you your stuff and discuss this favour in more detail." I plea, surely this favour couldn't be too bad; I reasoned that she could only do so much in the real world.

"Good," She released her grip of my collar and stepped back, she appeared to be calming down, but she was still very sensitive about not having her robes. "Now, how do we get to these tailors you speak of?" She demands while I walk past her to take some clothes of my own.

"We're not too far away from town here, only about a ten-minute walk," I explained while hastily retrieving a pair of jeans for myself and a fresh shirt. "We'll head into town, find the shops, get you the stuff you need, then come straight back here."

"Sounds like a plan," She took a deep breath and cast off some of her anger. "Sorry about that, it's just, when you're as attuned and sensitive to the Protasi as my kind are, not having infused attire and wardings present can cause your emotions to flare a bit more than you're used to." She lowered her head and looked away from me. "We're usually so calm and our minds so stapled down to forced emotionlessness that something so small becomes so, so much larger."

"It's okay, don't worry about it." I smiled, not wanting her to overthink what just happened. "I'll still get that favour sorted out once we are back, though I can't imagine how uncomfortable this must be for you right now." I speak up before entering my ensuite and changing into my daytime clothes.

While I was in the ensuite, I found the robes, padded jacket and ring mail which the visitor was wearing hung up on a hook behind the ensuite door. Being a bit nosey, I had a brief look at the ring mail. Whatever it was, it certainly didn't feel like any metal I had touched before; the metal itself vibrated softly, and a few of the broken rings seemed to be slowly reforming as if the metal itself was organic and was regrowing damaged tissue.

Deciding that the metal was far too anomalous to continue toying with, I made a mental note to jot this finding down sometime when I was free. I should also wait to ask the visitor about it when she's calmed down a bit; I'd rather not give her the impression that I was spying through her equipment.

Exiting the ensuite, I found her sitting in my chair again like she was when I first woke up, only this time she had taken one of my books on the first crusade and was busy reading through the introduction.

"Our history must be rather unusual to you," I mused, closing the door behind me and approaching her. "You'll be happy to know there's a lot of reading here in regards to the history of this world; if there's one thing we're good at, it's writing things down."

"I figured as much." She nodded. She closed the book, placed it back on the table, stood up from the chair, and approached me. "So, shall we go and find this shop you speak of, whatever that may be?"

"That's the plan, but I must ask," I cock my head while she walks up to me, not wanting to have her nails embed themselves in my throat again. "If you don't mind me asking, that is, what's your name?"

"My name's Farinosa," She mumbled under her breath. "We don't really use our names much where we are from, and it's a very personal thing to know an Amethyites name..."

"Don't worry about it." I gently patted her on the shoulder and turned to approach the door. "You know my name, don't you?"

"Yes, Frasier." She sighed, her eyes narrowed and focused away from me. "I won't be calling you by your name much, same reason as my own."

"Well, I think that covers everything. Shall we go and get you your textiles equipment?" I asked as I opened the door to my room and held it ajar for her.

"Sounds like a plan." She smiled briefly and headed over to the door with me. "I suppose it's time for a little bit of an adventure." She remarked as we both left my room and begun the reasonably short walk to the town centre.