“What is it?” Heggy asked.

Suisei pointed further down the hall.

We walked up beside him to look around the corner for ourselves.

There was more of the dark hallway ahead, seemingly identical to the corridor we’d just walked down: no sign of life, dreadful cold; static glitching across the screens of the consoles mounted on the wall. But there was one key difference: a door was open. Light spilled from the doorway and into the hall. And not just light, but sound, too.

We stepped inside. I’d barely turned to face the entryway when, once again, a wave of lightheadedness swept through me. I felt Mr. Himichi’s spirit push out from within myself.

I shook my head.

Many different sensations hit me all at once. Cold night air chased away my hazmat suit’s unpleasantness. The stifling heat and moisture was gone, with only the slightest trace of dampness to the wandering breeze. I smelled petrichor beneath me, along with moss, grass, and loam, and the pungent scent of sap-oozing pines. The wandering breeze carried just a hint of ramen, savory and delightsome. It was made with pork and water chestnuts, and some madman had the wild idea to put a dash of cinnamon in it.

It wasn’t until Mr. Himichi spoke up that I realized something was out of the ordinary.

Standing in front of me, he gawked. “Why do you look like that?”

I started to say, “Look like what?” but stopped when I felt a tail swaying behind me, and the nice feel of the moist grass against the underside of my tail-tip.

A quick glance down at myself revealed a familiar set of clothes: chainmail armor, beneath a long overcoat, with pangolin scales on the back of my hands.

I was back in the body of my Lantor character!

“Mr. Genneth?” Andalon asked. “Where is this?”

I turned to face her, grass crunching underfoot.

My mouth hung agape.

We stood in a beautifully manicured park, in the heart of a city whose grandeur rivaled Elpeck’s. It was a dream of silicon and steel. Digital billboards plastered at skyscrapers’ waists played their advertisements into the night. The park was in the Munine style, kept at the edge of ruin, somewhere between nature and civilization. Half of the park wrapped around a quiet pond, over which a Moon bridge curved. Lights hidden in the flowerbeds illuminated pastel-colored flowers: mauve fuji, languorous and resplendent; effusive sakura, the color of true love’s first kiss. A half-disk of Moon quivered on the water, the rest hidden behind a towering pagoda.

The view pulled my eyes skyward, first to the searchlights swaying in the distance, then to the roar of an approaching aerostat’s engine. The aerostat passed over us, roving its searchlight through the night. I noticed the aerostat was of antique make, recognizing it from one of the miniatures Heggy kept in her office.

Mr. Himichi looked up too, gazing even higher than I had.

“Oh my…” he said.

I gasped softly as I saw it, too.

There were stars in the sky, though they weren’t like what I’d seen in Yuta’s memories. These were dimmer. Their lights were thinner, and less splendid, with many of the details washed out. But, even so, countless stars still remained, twinkling and twinkling.

Was something harming them? Was this place doomed to lose its stars? Would this night lose its magic and become as cursed as ours?

But while I was busy worrying, Mr. Himichi was having an entirely different experience.

He’d never seen stars before.

“Wha… what magic is this?” he asked, in a whisper, as he stared at the star-swept sky.

“They’re called stars,” I said. “Beautiful, aren’t they?” I quickly explained what I’d learned about them from Yuta.

“And to think, our Night denied us this serene tapestry,” Mr. Himichi said. “What a cruel fate, to be left ignorant of the world and its beauty.”

“But why are we here?” I asked.

“You’re asking me?” Himichi said. “One minute, I’m sitting in a hallway with you and Andalon, the next, I’m here, and you look like…” he shook his head and shrugged. “That.”

“I didn’t do this,” I said. “I didn’t bring us here. At least, I don’t think I did.” I turned to face him.

Speaking of which, where was here, exactly?

Though a quick check revealed my mental powers still weren’t working, my memory was as perfect as ever. Closing my eyes, I briefly went over all my memories, breezing through my whole life.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

A week ago, this would have left me a panicked, gibbering mess. Now, it was just part of the daily grind.

“This place isn’t from my memories,” I said. “I’d remember it if it was.”

“In between here and the hallway, I was back in the Thick World—the real world.”

“Inside the locked-down lobby?” Himichi asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded.

“But why do you look like this?” he asked.

“As I told you, I can create worlds inside my mind. One of them happened to follow tabletop RPG rules, and, well…” I scratched my neck scales with my claws. “This is my character—a half-pangol cleric.”

“You took this form when you were exploring that creation of yours, correct? Landor?”

“Lantor,” I said, emphasizing the T.

But then I groaned as the whole world seemed to pulse. I felt an unseen presence looming over me, massive and might.

“Oh no…” I muttered.

“What?” Himichi demanded.

“Mr. Genneth!” Andalon yelled. “Something’s coming! Lots of things are coming!”

“Fudge…” I cursed.

“What is it?” Mr. Himichi asked.

“I…” I looked around nervously. “Like I told you, the fungus was trying to attack me by way of Lantor. It must have pulled me back in.” I bit my lip. “It looks like my hunch was right. The fungus is behind this.” I gestured at myself. “That must be why I’m in this form.” I pursed my lips. “I wonder if I have my character abilities.”

Closing my eyes, I focused and then muttered a prayer under my breath, in an attempt to cast . I was rewarded with the appearance of several motes of glistening light and much-needed feelings of strength and fortitude rushing through my limbs.

So, things weren’t completely hopeless.

A momentary meditation confirmed that my spell slots were all fully charged. I could even feel the energy of my ability coiling in my chest. I had three uses of it left before I would have to rest to refresh the ability.

But then Mr. Himichi spoke, his voice barely above a whisper. “I know this place…”

“Wait… this is your memory?”

“Yes and no. I know this place; I could never forget it.” Mr. Himichi smiled fondly. “This is the public garden in Noyoko where my mother took me as a child, and where I took Lily. It is where we fell in love.” He pursed his lips as he looked up.

“How can that be?” I asked. “Your memories wouldn’t have stars—unless the fungus has altered the timeline.”

“How would I be able to know if it had done that?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “Are there any other differences you can detect?”

Speak of the Norm, right as I asked that question, Mr. Himichi narrowed his eyes, focusing his gaze at something in the distance. “Wait… no.” He shook his head. “That’s not possible.”

I was about to ask him why when I was struck by a wave of dizziness stronger than any of the ones before. The next thing I knew, I was multiplied once more. I was in two dopplegenneths, one in this mental realm, the other, in the hallway with Heggy and Suisei.

I think my attempts to use my mind-powers had worked; they’d just been delayed.

“Dr. Howle!?” Mr. Himichi yelled, rushing toward me.

Tuning in to the part of my awareness that was in my physical body, I realized hardly any time at all had passed out in the real world.

Andalon’s eyes narrowed. “Mr. Genneth… there’s something weird with Mr. Michi.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” I said.

“Are you okay?” she asked me.

“Yes, but—”

“—Mr. Genneth, this feels really imporptant. It… it feels like Andalon. Somethin’… it’s somethin’ Mr. Michi knows, but he doesn’t know that he knows—”

—Out in the real world, I groaned.

“Genneth?” Suisei’s voice echoed through the darkness.

I shuddered. Everything twitched and ached as the fungus’ interference intensified. With each passing second, it became more and more difficult for me to maintain simultaneous awareness of both copies of myself. It was as if the hallway itself was eating away at the connection.

I yelled at my mental self.

Decouple! Quickly, decouple!

I’ll take care of the mess out here. You figure out what’s going on with Mr. Himichi.

We can—

—I groaned in pain—

—We can reconvene later!

Right!

My consciousness bifurcated as I let the connection break. Part of myself would keep command of my physical body while another part of myself—this part—would stay here in starry-skied Noyoko.

At least, I hoped it would.

The instant I decoupled, everything calmed. I stopped feeling like one man with two heads, and—more importantly—the distortions and all the pain that came with them almost completely died away. I could still feel the interference in the distance, and any attempt I made to reach out to my physical self left me feeling like I’d just stepped into a storm of molten glass.

Back in the night-garden, under the stars, I fell to my knees beside the silent pond, panting for air. Andalon did the same, her blue hair drooping around her.

“Are you alright?” Mr. Himichi asked.

Gradually, my breathing calmed, as did Andalon’s. Rising to my feet, I looked Mr. Himichi in the eyes. “I think I will be,” I said, “once you tell me what’s not possible.”

“The city skyline is… wrong,” Mr. Himichi explained. “Some of it is recognizable, but there are differences.” He pointed. “Look! That’s the—”

Angel’s Breath, he was right.

“—That’s the Tokuwatsu Palace!” I yelled.

The grand palace of the ancient Soran Empire’s castle stood in the distance. Its central pagoda rose like a premonition of the skyscrapers that now flanked it and its wooded gardens.

“It was burnt to the ground along with the rest of old Noyoko, back when darkpox first came to Munine shores,” Mr. Himichi said.

But this building was no ghost.

The more we looked, the more anomalies we saw. The Tokuwatsu Palace was far from the only ancient building that should have been destroyed centuries before, but hadn’t.

“Wait,” I said, “where’s the Got6 store?”

Mr. Himichi’s eyes widened. “You’re right! It’s gone.”

And Tensoka district’s world-famous high rise department store wasn’t the only modern monument that was missing.

The New Millennium Train Station?

Gone.

The Great Lassedile Temple of Noyoko—the crown of the forested hills?

Gone.

“How can this be?” Himichi asked.

Then a voice spoke. It was the voice of a behemoth, one that made the pond’s waters ripple and rumble. Giant footsteps shook the ground beneath our feet, making the park’s trees shivered in terror. The vibrations knocked me onto my knees.

“Dr. Howle!”

Mr. Himichi tugged at my sleeve with one hand, while pointing up with the other.

I raised my head to look.

“Oh fudge…” I muttered.

My mental self’s heartbeat shot through the roof.

That presence I’d felt looming over us? It had come into view.

Mr. Himichi whispered as he stared: “Kaiju.”