"Empress Nox figured out a way to become immortal while maintaining her sanity," Cedez said, pointing at herself. "New bodies. New experiences. Growth. Evolution. She understood that to preserve her humanity, she needed to embrace change, ensuring that her essence, her legacy would live on in new bodies, untainted by the crystallization effect."

"I see," Dave said, processing the weight of Cedez's revelations. “Do you remember being her at the end? Did she die of old age?”

“I remember,” Cedez said, her hands trembling ever so slightly. “I did not die of old age.”

"When my body started to bloat, unable to support the massive core residing within it, I asked my trusted Archmagi… to carve me up," Cedez continued. "The process took five painful years. My core was slowly and meticulously fractured into nine different segments while it was still inside me. When it was done, my mages put me into eternal slumber of suspended animation and removed the split dungeon core from my gut. Nine perfect segments divided up like an orange were each assigned to a conquered city."

"Damn," Dave muttered, the gravity of her situation becoming increasingly apparent.

"The body of Nox now resides in a great mausoleum, an object of worship and reverence for pilgrims," Cedez said, a distant look in her eyes. "She's on display in the capital, suspended in a crystalline solution, dreaming forevermore, connected to the nine shards of the split core via her Divine Shadow.”

Dave could only imagine the burden of living such a fragmented existence, the vestiges of a once-whole being preserved eternally in stasis. Yet, it was this very sacrifice that allowed Nox - and now Cedez - to retain her humanity and sanity in the face of immortality. The complexity of her existence was awe-inspiring, bewildering and disturbing.

"It's not a perfect solution, mind you," Cedez said, her gaze drifting up to the sky filled with the endless curvature of the inverted world. "But it's what I am. I hope that you don't secretly hate me for being so… messed up."

"I don't hate you," Dave assured her, his voice sincere and steady.

"That's what they all say," Cedez sighed, a hint of vulnerability in her voice. "Right before they ask a necromancer to stab you in the back."

Dave carefully wrapped his arms around Cedez, counting each second of the embrace. One. Two. Three. Four. He felt sparks dancing on his skin and let go, mindful of the dangers that her power presented.

"Thanks," she whispered, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. "I really needed that. It’s awful when I can’t even give my mom a hug without frying her brain."

"This absolute charisma thing, was it supposed to make you unable to have physical contact?" Dave asked, concern furrowing his brow.

Cedez shook her head. "No. This was an unexpected side effect that showed up after two hundred years. The science of what I did to myself was quite experimental, and by the time I realized that something went wrong, it was too late. The engine of my continuity has become self-sustaining. I... I really messed myself up because I didn't want to die, because I wanted to serve and protect my people."

Her confession hung in the air, a poignant reminder of the sacrifices she had made in pursuit of immortality. The unintended consequences of her actions had left her with a bittersweet existence – lifetimes spent shouldering the burden of her choices, and the longing for a connection she could never truly have now.

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"Magic, the ability to manipulate reality to our will, has a steep price," Cedez mused, her eyes reflecting the depth of her own experiences. "No matter what we do... we run into the loss of our humanity, emotional instability and irrational madness."

"Yeah," Dave agreed, recalling his failure to control his emotions during the name-calling incident. "So being a wizard doesn't get better?"

"Alas," Cedez said sadly, a wistful sigh escaping her lips. "It only gets worse. The higher level one attains, the more likely you are to lose control of your magic and hurt those near you."

"This isn't very encouraging," Dave admitted, a sense of unease settling over him.

"You either become a hero that this city needs or live long enough to turn into a villain," Cedez replied, her tone both matter-of-fact and philosophical.

"That's from..." Dave opened his mouth, the words on the tip of his tongue.

"A play called Batman," Cedez supplied, a knowing smile on her lips. "Lord Chadwick wrote it. It's quite popular with the highborns, since it’s a tale of a Lord who fights crime in the late hours before the Shadow wraps the city in her embrace. I suspect it's something he pawned from your culture, yes?"

Dave nodded, feeling both annoyed and amused.

"You can see my magical radiance, as the Shadow, yes? What do you see me as?" Dave inquired, genuinely curious about Cedez's perspective on him.

"A brilliant, pale blue star orbited by a swarm of a thousand small, colorful, hollow, and broken skyships," she described, her voice almost poetic. "Two of the ships are particularly large and complex. One of them is green, the other steel-gray."

"So you..." Dave trailed off, the implication of her words sinking in.

"I am well aware that you are not a single soul," Cedez confessed, her gaze piercing. "I've always known since I've seen you through the eyes of the Shadows. Your skill has something to do with souls."

Dave felt a mixture of relief and trepidation wash over him, knowing that his secret had been unraveled by the insightful vixen.

"It's called Phantomancy," he confessed, the truth finally spilling forth from his lips.

"Took you long enough," she smiled.

Dave shrugged.

"I've never seen anything like it," Cedez added, her voice filled with genuine appreciation. "It's a beautiful skill. You must have done something truly extraordinary to gain it."

“How does one gain a magic skill exactly?” Dave asked.

“By killing a lot of monsters,” she said. “Or people. You know, I had assumed you were a trained war veteran like Svenn… but then you freed Remicra and kept acting nothing like a mass murderer which didn’t make any sense whatsoever. It takes a lot of strife to gain a rare skill.”

"Umm… I seriously didn't do anything," Dave admitted.

"Truly?" She inquired, her eyes narrowing in curiosity. “You didn’t kill an archmage or slay a dragon? Maybe you killed someone and forgot about it?”

"I didn’t bloody slay anyone!" Dave insisted, feeling very annoyed. "I was given a quest to collect a thousand teeth but never even did that. The damn bracelet evaluated my soul and simply assigned me a skill a few hours after I was reincarnated!"

"Hrmmm," Cedez pondered his words.

"Sherlock," Dave said suddenly. "The green soul shard orbiting my soul… he had a hypothesis that it has something to do with me dying twice on Earth."

"If you were summoned twice by the fat Emperor," Cedez mulled. "Then there is another you on Arx, another Dave that took a different, far more bloody path, an exact duplicate of your soul..."

Dave looked at the dark vixen, his eyes wide.

"And he's done something truly terrible and great to pay the price for the incredibly unique skill you now wield."