My master was a very reserved man, sometimes even with me. There were days when he was so lively, chatting for hours, but he fell into deep silence when he had something on his mind. He enjoyed the silence, admitting it himself. Some people distrusted him because of the indifferent personality he adopted when studying or solving a matter, but those who knew him found it fascinating. That personality had emerged the moment the Link appeared before us.

Our guest had reluctantly accepted to go to the bedroom we offered, and my master had locked himself in the basement. I, on the other hand, sat in the living room to wait for his return, but soon my head started to spin, overwhelmed by everything revealed to us in that stormy dawn. It had been a long time since our last adventure. The sudden change caught me off guard, and my insecurities mixed with the timely weather, between lightning, thunder, and pouring rain. I missed the thrill of victory, but I was no longer the same naive girl eager to travel the world solving people's problems. Now, I was aware of the dangers lurking outside and began to fear for our lives, especially my master's. But then, a sense of guilt overwhelmed me for such selfish thoughts. People were in danger. A mother was worried, and two young individuals were under the yoke of an unknown adverse situation. We had to help; that was the right thing to do.

The "Link" that Briseida brought had piqued my master's interest. It was a Life Link. I had read about it before, but I didn't remember much. I only knew it was a seemingly useless accessory, a ritualistic object closely related to the etiquette of nobles worldwide, especially popular among the Stavians. The glow of the Link, the flower in this case, represented something. Feelings? Relationships? I couldn't recall. I never thought knowing about it would be important.

The sound of a door brought me out of my thoughts.

My master entered the living room with a heavy toolbox and sat beside me. He placed his box on the table and opened it to examine its contents meticulously, just as he always did before heading out on a mission.

His attire seemed the same in appearance, but it changed fundamentally for each occasion. Each fabric had different Shyvian properties, and my master combined them to achieve different effects. He had two sets of outfits: one for combating Usshyers and another for battling beasts. These groups were further subdivided for each specific case, like an outfit for facing Warkber-class Usshyers or another for Orkarus. On this occasion, he had chosen a heavy outfit leaning heavily toward defense: Mothero leather and plant fibers from the north of Stavenger, indicating he was expecting some kind of beastly danger on our adventure. He glanced at me briefly, as if calling me with his eyes, and placed on the table the flower in the vial that Briseida had given him.

—Do you know what a Life Link is? —he asked, and I shook my head—. It's the result of a ritual in which the life of an Usshyer is linked to an inanimate object. It can be anything, each with different effects. Usshyers experimented with flowers for the first time about a thousand years ago. They discovered that the ritual made them glow beautifully in the tones that made up their petals. And they also discovered that the light reacted to the life of its link, paling when it was dying and extinguishing completely when all traces of vitality disappeared from the body. Giving a Link to someone else symbolizes trust or goodwill towards that person, as if giving away one's life. That's why Caisam gave it to Irene's parents to ease their concerns.

That could only mean one thing. I immediately believed we were facing a catastrophic situation and urged my master to go to the city to inquire about Caisam's whereabouts as soon as possible. He shook his head and asked me peacefully to sit back down. Lives were in danger, and we had very little time and information to make a difference. I couldn't understand how he remained so calm, but his soothing voice always managed to calm me; soft as a whisper but so strong it echoed in my head.

—To find Caisam, this flower makes things easier —he continued.

—I don't understand —I said, a little impatient as I sat back down.

—The key is in how it works —My master continued meticulously examining the contents of his toolbox—. Two years ago, I received a commission in Gredel, a town in the Cassinger kingdom adjacent to Stavenger. The place was plagued by an elusive extortionist who constantly alternated between borders to escape justice. His acts were despicable and seriously affected the citizens' already limited purchasing power, not to mention he was colluding with the local authorities. The landlord of a nearby area learned about the situation and sent me a letter asking me to take care of the problem.

He spoke of a time when I had retired to continue my studies at a boarding school in the Aradel kingdom.

I talked to my master every week through an advanced communicator that allowed us to see each other, but I never managed to get him to talk much about what he was doing. Sometimes I saw him camping in a forest, other times he seemed to be staying at an inn, and I even thought I saw him sailing on some sea towards God knows what destination.

My master noticed my curiosity about his Gredel story, but he continued speaking before I could interrupt him with questions.

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—Let's say, in essence, that I helped the criminal and his accomplices find a way to atone for some of their sins. Thanks to that, I had the opportunity to study the Life Link more deeply, discovering in the process its amazing properties. That's how I confirmed that the link reacts to its owner regardless of the distance between them, the space they occupy, or the material that separates them. Its glow persists even if I place it on the other side of the continent, it pales in the face of torture, and it extinguishes instantly when all signs of vitality disappear from the body.

I was accustomed to his peculiar mentality, quite flexible about the lives of those who didn't deserve it—as he said—continuously taking advantage of the "scum of humanity" to guide them towards a greater good, whether or not it was their will. I didn't entirely agree with that, nor did I want to know much about it. He kept the details of his methodologies at my request, but what he was hinting at terrified me completely.

—Are you saying they're torturing Caisam? —I asked, completely worried about the fading glow of the flower.

—That doesn't seem to be the case —he said, examining the Life Link vial carefully—. I made sure to explore every possible scenario until I had a comprehensive understanding of the light's behavior in relation to its owner's afflictions. When it comes to torture, the plant's pallor fluctuates in very diverse rhythms and intensities, lighting up intensely at the initial adrenaline awakening of a wound, a product of a very primitive survival instinct, and agonizing at the most indescribable subsequent pain. Look closely at this specimen. Its pallor is very different from what I describe. It remains constant, flickering at well-defined rhythms and without varying its intensity in the slightest. This undoubtedly corresponds to an illness.

He also said that it was most likely that Caisam was suffering from a condition affecting his nervous system, causing pulsating pains reflected each time the plant glowed a little more, then dimming again. My master had observed a similar effect on a test subject when he applied a strong tetsú insect venom. He paused in the middle of his dialogue to look at me intensely and ask me to calm down, perhaps inspired by the concern reflected in my eyes. He said it was a dangerous situation, but we still had time to reverse it or prevent it from worsening.

My master tapped the Life Link container three times, attentive to the sound it produced: deep, hollow, and slightly muffled. Then he looked for something in his toolbox while asking me about the mineltite bombs I had made in spring. After a while, he handed me two of those bombs. I had made them to kill hordes of hostile beasts attacking us in the spring, those reptiles nesting on the cliff. We had run out of mineltite trying to control the situation, but a dozen bombs had remained at the end of the season.

—I need you to extract the mineltite from these bombs —he said—. Go to the kitchen and pour it into the stone mold I have there. You can't manipulate it with your gifts, but you can invoke a fire to melt it. Do it as if you were cooking, but at temperatures that would carbonize a body.

I followed the instructions to the letter.

Once the mineltite was turned into liquid, my master asked me to hand him the stone mold. He rummaged through his toolbox and took out a jar from which he extracted a bit of clay to spread it on the Life Link container. He painted a circle at the height of the flower's petals, then took the stone mold to pour its contents over the Life Link.

—Isn't it going to break? —I asked, a little dismayed.

—It's not glass, Abigail —he said, focused on his task—. It's polished wood reinforced with three or four resistance seals, as expensive as it is durable. It's the standard for nobles with these objects. It only has a special seal so that the light can pass through its material.

He poured all the liquid mineltite at the highest point of the container, using gravity and a metal stick to ensure it spread evenly over its entire surface. He continued working with the container until a thin layer of mineltite formed on it, except for the small circular area covered with clay. He blew gently until the liquid hardened, then removed the clay with a finger, looked at the flower through the open space that had formed, and then showed it to me.

—It's too late! —I screamed in horror as I saw its light fade.

I was already feeling bad for Caisam, dead under who knows what circumstances. There was only the consolation of knowing that Irene might still be alive, but it wasn't enough to calm me. We still had to find out where they were in a city with more than three hundred thousand inhabitants, with no leads to follow or signals to gather. My master raised his voice to stop my chaotic thoughts. I grumbled a bit, desperate and impatient to find Irene, but in the end, I yielded to his peaceful demeanor.

—Go get your romular stones —he said, pointing to my room—. We're running out of time.

—How many should I bring?

—Enough for an intense battle or, if it's easier for you to imagine, enough to counteract the effects of some deadly poison on three men.

I followed his order, not without melting with worry. I trusted my master blindly, but handling uncertainty was very difficult for me. He stayed by my door, carrying his toolbox, as I broke the seal of my stone chest.

—As I mentioned, the Life Link seems to act ignoring both distance and time —he said.

—I think you told me something related once —I said as I gathered the necessary stones—. It was something like… Quirky entanglement?

—Quantum entanglement —my master corrected—. Two entangled particles that react to each other instantaneously wherever both are. That discovery surpassed everything humanity believed to know about nature. The Life Link is similar: it ignores the four fundamental dimensions and passes through a fifth, so invisible to us that it seems to escape understanding. This dimension is none other than the one where the Shapbishyss acts, acquiring its fantastic properties but also adopting its weaknesses. We better hurry. The rain will be a nuisance, but not an impediment.

I placed the romular stones in my bag, then we left the house as I materialized on my body the combat clothes I deemed appropriate based on my master's attire. We looked under our roof at the chaotic weather, almost as terrible as the one that greeted us for the first time in those lands, but my master began walking nonchalantly towards the wall of water falling from the sky.

I projected an invisible roof over us to shield us from the rain, looked at our house fading into the darkness, and then followed my master.