"What you need?" Jiehong asked.

"I was on the wild side before the invasion. Hence my name. Defending your home from attack sobers a person up awfully quick. I find living this rebel-solder's life works for me. I am more in one with nature. And myself. I feel better when I blend my life with the ebb and flow of the world. It must sound idealistic. It isn't, though. I am ready to push myself to the limit. I won't find that limit, though, if I sit on my ass and hand-out-fliers as my ragtag rebel group is 'besieging' a city. I know I can do better," Whiskey said as they neared Zan and his room.

"Does this mean you've given up on your rebel beliefs?" Jiehong asked.

"No. I retain my beliefs. I only acknowledge how, right now, circumstances beyond our control are forcing me to re-consider how I should best use myself and my aspirations. As much as I enjoy making trouble for our monarch, rebel activity is extremely limited. We should be fighting the invaders, primary, not only when our fellow citizens think differently than us. Don't get me wrong -- I see how you're looking at me, Jie -- I fully support those people who want to besiege. It is just that I feel like I can do better with my time. If my investment pays off, I will then be able to utilize this experience to advance my cause. I am thinking long-term. Not short. Miss me with that shortsightedness."

Feeling Whiskey's intensity, he gave her an honest answer: "I think you will benefit more from being with us. We'll still so small and powerless. But with each Advancement, made possible by the Wardens and their research, and with each victory under our belt, we grow. We will find and befriend allies and flourish under a new banner all manner of comrades, smitten to elect our adventure as their own. Our lives will never be the same."

Whiskey flashed Jiehong a smile. "You do speak so formally. Do you plan out everything you say in your head?"

Laughing, Jiehong said, "Nah! Zan does, though. He used to tell me about it. It is how he talks when he and I are alone. Some of it must've rubbed off on me!"

Their inside joke finished, and feeling closer to Whiskey, Jiehong brought her right over to Zan so she could survey his condition for herself.

"Oh my," she said, falling to her knees. "He's been through damnation and then again! Tell me again what happened."

Recounting the story once more, Jiehong told Whiskey of encountering the sickness after the airship crashed. How touch and go Zan felt for a while. Then of finally reaching the city after a confusing travel through an eldritch being. There, they met Marsha and Mimsy. Marsha treated Zan and was kind enough to let them stay in her flat. Now, for the past few days, Zan has been recovering, Jiehong tending to him as a brother should.

Within the confused tumble of everything happening, Jiehong did not consider telling Whiskey anymore of his encounter with the shapeshifter.

"Okay. If Marsha is a well-known city healer and says he is fine, then I have no reason to doubt her. I guess we have to wait for Zan to heal up some before heading back to your command center. That and inform colonel Winters of your safe arrival. You should be compensated for your actions, as is fair. I intend on asking for my payment shortly," Whiskey said, triggering in Jiehong the vague memory he had tucked away in his head of why Whiskey elected to join Winters's assault in the first place -- payment.

"I love it," Jiehong said. "I would like payment myself. We are hurting and the rescue kits we bought, helpful though they are, don't have everything we need. We need a lot more goods. Plus, some general funds might be nice. Especially while we're out on the campaign trail."

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Whiskey stayed with Zan for a while. She laid hands on him and used what healing energies she could use to help his progress. Jiehong didn't know if it did anything for his spirit, but Zan's body had to be in great condition by now. After Jiehong, the rescue kit pills, Marsha, and now Whiskey, on top of good old-fashioned sleep? Whiskey looked a touch jealous; but she would be after so much tedious horse riding.

Zan woke up shortly after Whiskey finished her healing incantation. Jiehong thought the timing coincidental.

"Hey... long time no see. I guess this means I'm going to make it. Yay..." Zan said, weakly.

"Come off yourself," Jiehong said, inflecting his tone so he took a mock-serious approach. "You've been out of danger for a day or two now. No more worrying about 'not making it.' You're strong, Zan. Whiskey and Colonel Winters just arrived in town. We came to see you as soon as we could. We would've been back sooner but it's a mob out there!"

"It's cool..." Zan whispered. His voice was sore as Jiehong imagined his throat, too.

"What happened to you?" Whiskey asked.

Slowly, Zan explained what his experience after the airship crashed and Jiehong helped him away from the site. "I was never unconscious, believe it or not."

Jiehong's eyes widened as he considered the implications.

Continuing, Zan said, "I saw a lot of lights... I flew through the sky and mountains of our world... went to different world zones, or so I felt... I was connected to the gods. Oh, how my heart filled! It didn't last. My connection faded and then the darkness came. I felt abstracted from my life. I met new entities. Primal entities who embodied emotion. Then I returned to the light. I saw how primal and holy worked together..."

"And then what?" Whiskey asked.

"Nothing. I saw the whole picture. The entire idea, philosophy, whatever you want to call it. Then, nothingness. Just me and my crystal talking. Not directly. But talking through echoes. It's alive, you know," Zan told his friends.

"Alive?" Jiehong repeated.

"Yeah. Alive. Like you and me," Zan stated.

"What did you talk about with your crystal?" Whiskey asked, taking a keener interest.

"I would like to know, too," Jiehong added in. "When I left you, you were fighting the crystal to not go into that Shining mode. You were begging it to ease off its turbulence."

"True. For a long time, it was me and the crystal arguing. I can't remember exactly what it said... it spoke more in images than words... but some words... It's hard for me to describe," Standing up and bracing himself, using his friends as support, Zan took in a deep breath and continued talking as he looked at Whiskey, then Jiehong. "And... yeah. I somehow communicated to it how it needed to stop making demands my body couldn't handle. It stopped -- finally -- and I fell into a weird state. I was half-awake. Half-asleep. I felt disembodied. Floating. Eventually, I came to the horizon of the gods. There, I explored."

"A surreal encounter," Jiehong said of the situation. "Do you remember me telling you any about my encounter?"

"Bits and pieces only. Sorry, bud..." Zan replied.

Saying it wasn't an issue, Jiehong repeated his encounter again. How indirect he felt from his body and how he hypnotically interacted with the world. Thinking to this time finally speak about the shapeshifter, Meow, Zan's face looked ghastly as he tried to make sense of Jiehong encountering an eldritch being at the same time as he encountered a holy situation.

"I'm no mathematician," Whiskey said. "But all this seems too coincidental to be a coincidence, right?"

The three of them talked over what they knew about divination and prophecy. Which was very little.

"Could I really be among the prophesied?" Zan asked. Odd things were happening to his friend, Jiehong reflected. He finds passages otherwise closed-off to people. He befriends strange guys in strange, far-away palaces, and now visions? Odd things are afoot!

Far off a bird trilled.

"What would that mean for me?" Jiehong asked.

Whiskey replied, "Let's not jump boats. Even if Zan has a prophecy about him, that doesn't say anything about you. Encountering an eldritch being is rare but far from impossible. Eldritch beings are not associated with prophecies, either. They're kind of the reverse, from my understanding."

"I'm not saying I am prophesied. Maybe prophetically-adjacent, though...?" Jiehong said. "It is not unheard of for prophecies to effect multiples."

The group continued talking on the matter. Able to reiterate only the already discussed information, none of their confusion or anxiety lessened. Eventually, they dropped the issue, Zan vowing to find an educated man on the matter. To which Zan replied, "Aren't we in a big city? Couldn't we find such a man here?"