“So, whatcha picking?” Cedez asked.

"Agility," he said. "Seems like a bad idea to try to charm my way out of a jagged-rock filled hole."

"Alrighty then, here we… go!" She reached out, entwining their fingers.

Sparks of power rushed through his hand, tingling across his entire body.

Then the world seemed to warp around Dave. It was as if reality itself had become a giant squid, wriggling in nauseating waves under the sea. Colors blurred and sounds distorted, rising and falling in pitch like a warped record.

When the sensation finally subsided, Dave felt... off. His body twitched all over, feeling light. Too light. Like he was barely there.

"You okay there, hero?" Cedez asked.

“I... think so?” Dave replied.

Curious about the effects, he summoned his stats. A new line appeared at the bottom.

[Affliction: Timelessness 23:58:25]

“So, what does the System bracelet say?” she asked.

“It says I have an affliction called 'Timelessness' and a countdown going from twenty-four hours. Any idea what that means?”

“Sounds like you can move fast enough for time to stop,” she suggested. “The twenty-four hours thing is normal, that’s just how long the amplification effect lasts. It’s how long amplified Attributes lasted on Murdoc until...”

“Until the coma?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, pulling the dark glove back on. “Want to test it out?”

"Sure, let's give it a shot. How exactly do I activate this... timelessness thing?"

Cedez shrugged. "Maybe try focusing on moving really fast? Like, imagine you're trying to catch a falling glass before it hits the ground. Here, let me try to chain you!”

The fox raised her hands pointing them at Dave, dark spirals dancing around her fingers. With a dark flash, a shadow-chain manifested and fired from her fingers, heading for his neck.

Dave swerved away with his entire body.

Suddenly, the world around him seemed to grind to a halt.

The gentle breeze that had been rustling the alien foliage froze mid-gust. A dragonette overhead hung suspended in the air, its white wings caught mid-flap. Even Cedez appeared frozen in place, her mouth half-open. The shadow-forged chain hung in the air, crawling ever so slowly towards him.

He easily ducked under it and walked around Cedez.

Weirdly enough, while his body felt incredibly light, the air, on the other hand, felt thick, as if he was moving through jelly.

Glancing at his stats, he noticed that his mana was quickly ticking down, now at [4.21/5].

Feeling experimental, he tried to pick a rock up from the ground. The rock refused to budge.

Dave slotted everything into Strength and the rock finally gave way. He weighed it in his hand and threw it. The rock simply became suspended in the air when he released it from his fingers. Dave watched it crawl away through the air, warping the view with what looked like a bubble of pressurized air expanding outward.

He tried to empty his water skin a bit, squeezing it upside down. The fluid simply refused to emerge, a bit of water hovering at the tip.

“Freaky,” he commented.

Then, deciding to try something else, he stepped onto the thick air with one foot and then another. To his surprise, he simply hovered there without falling.

“Damn,” he smiled. “I can just walk on air. That'll come in handy for not falling into a pit."

[0.14/5] his mana stat stated.

The world suddenly lurched back into motion, colors and sounds rushing back like a tidal wave.

Dave fell down from the air, momentarily disoriented by the abrupt shift. The shadow-chain flew across the desolate rocky landscape, eventually slamming into a distant rocky formation.

Dave’s waterskin exploded water across his face. A rock flew across the air like a bullet, humming ominously until it collided against the ground in the distance.

Cedez spun around, her eyes wide, until she spotted Dave. "Neat! One second you were there, and then..." She trailed off, gesturing excitedly with her hands. “Here! So, how long did it last?”

“Hrm,” Dave slotted everything into Intelligence and made Sherlock go over his memory, calculating the exact time the effect lasted.

“I think that was about thirty-eight seconds,” Dave said. “Then I have to wait for my mana to reload… which takes an hour. Well, less… if I slot everything into Magic. Let me do that.”

"Great, that should get us through the cave to find the flower and back," Cedez nodded. "Just don't waste it all on party tricks and throwing rocks next time, okay?"

"No promises," Dave replied with a small smile that vanished quickly. “Shall we wait here until my mana reloads?”

“Sure,” Cedez sat down on a somewhat flat rock. “Want to talk about our favorite Earth books?”

Dave nodded, putting all of his soul bits into Magic. He also settled onto a nearby rock. For about fifteen minutes, they chatted about various popular fantasy series. As the conversation went on Dave relaxed, suddenly feeling like he was talking to his best friend from back home.

Suddenly, a low rumble echoed across the valley, flashes of violet lightning danced across the sky, illuminating the glaciers with an ethereal glow of shimmering rainbows.

"Violet lightning that explodes into rainbows?” he commented. “Is that... normal around here?"

Cedez nodded, her dark hair whipping around her face in the sudden gust of wind. "That's a Celestorm!”

CEDEZ-MOUTANU7.jpg [https://github.com/alexiussssss/romac/blob/main/CEDEZ-MOUTANU7.jpg?raw=true]

“A Celestorm?” Dave repeated.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“An event caused by Syntropic magic,” Cedez explained. “Arx is absolutely packed with it. Wherever the lightning strikes, monsters and other things can manifest from stray thoughts.”

“Stray thoughts?”

“Mhmmm,” she nodded. “Stray thoughts of people trekking through the passes.”

Dave stared at the Celestorm, mesmerized by the alien colors it produced.

"Celestorms are the result of dungeon core and misc crystallized mana in the ground interacting with the mana in the clouds," she explained, gesturing towards the sky. "When the lightning strikes, it creates connections between the two, like a magical bridge. It’s how older dungeon cores feed.”

"And this… brings thoughts to life?” Dave looked at Cedez in concern.

"Mm-hmm," Cedez confirmed. "At random. Could be a nightmare or a daydream.”

“For how long?”

“That depends on the storm's size,” Cedez shrugged. "Huge ones can summon something horrid into existence... permanently."

“Uh, should I try to clear my thoughts and not think of purple elephants or something?” Dave shouted over the rising wind.

“Nah,” Cedez replied, sliding closer. “If it doesn’t catch your thoughts or memories, then it’ll grab whatever other nonsense was nearby. The best policy is to stay positive! At least that’s what Murdoc says. Don’t worry, it’s a small one from the looks of things, so it’ll pass over quickly!”

“So I should…?” Dave began.

“I got it, don't worry!” Cedez replied and then began to hum softly.

After a moment, she started singing something he recognized. Her voice carried over the wind, a counterpoint to the storm's rumbling.

“Where there's a will, there's a way, kind of beautiful

And every night has its day, so magical

And if there's love in this life, there's no obstacle

That can't be defeated…”

The violin in Dave’s soul added the background music.

A violet lightning suddenly flashed a few hundred feet away, striking the glacier.

An inexplicable tree sprouted from the azure ice covered in orange leaves and violet flowers. Dave’s mouth fell open as he saw that a younger Cedez was sitting on a rope swing below the tree looking at a farmhouse with a green mossy roof.

The younger Cedez waved to Dave and then the tree and the girl shimmered and faded away into dancing rainbows, breaking up into violet flurries.

“Monday left me broken

Tuesday, I was through with hoping

Wednesday, my empty arms were open

Thursday, waiting for love, waiting for love…”

The real Cedez sang louder.

Another violet lightning struck the ground closer to them.

Dave’s boss from Serv0tek appeared there holding a mug of coffee with a dark stripe and red heart on it, looking very sternly at Dave as if he was implying that he’s really late for work today. Dave blinked and the manager and the fragments of the office around him fell apart into flickering rainbows.

“Thank the stars, it's Friday

I'm burning like a fire gone wild on Saturday…”

Cedez sang, her voice overpowering the thunder.

Another lightning nearly blinded Dave striking a gray rocky outcropping only about twenty feet away.

Lari appeared on it, in her paramedic vest.

She looked straight at Dave and her outfit ignited with violet flames and rearranged itself into long flowing white robes with a red cross and the crown logo.

A golden laurel appeared atop of her head. She extended a hand out to Dave.

“Lari…” Dave whispered, his heartbeat thrumming like the wheels of a chugging train.

“Find me,” the silver-haired Lari said suddenly. “I’m waiting for you… in Xandria!”

Before Dave could say anything in reply, Lari shattered into dancing rainbows, washed away by violet rain and snow. In another moment, the storm passed as quickly as it appeared, leaving sparkly raindrops atop Dave’s gray cloak and Cedez’s dark leather outfit.

Cedez finished the song, looking at the vanishing clouds.

"Did you... did you see that?" Dave pulled the words out of himself.

“Mhmmm,” she nodded. “Sure did.”

“That was… my friend… Lari,” he blinked the sleet from his eyes. “But… I didn’t think about her. Why is she here?”

“Maybe she thought about you,” Cedez said. “Many years ago, passing through here. Magic is weird like that. She said ‘Xandria’, that was the name of Shandria hundreds of years before it was taken over by the Shadow Empire.”

“And was that you… and a farmhouse?” Dave asked.

“Yep,” Cedez replied. “I must have lived… somewhere before Murdoc found me. Maybe I lived on a farm?"

“You don’t sound very sure.”

“That’s because I’m not,” she shrugged. “I don’t remember much from before Murdoc. It's quite annoying.”

“Also, that was a song by Avicii, called ‘Waiting for Love,’” Dave said. “How do you know so many Earth books and songs… specifically songs that I also know?”

"Some of them, via direct Voicecasts from Illatius. Others, Murdoc’s Musix Kitlix caught randomly via the Astralwaves per request through one of the cafe maids. No idea where they even came from. Maybe other cities on Arx. Some I dreamt about,” she said. "I’ve been memorizing them for years.”

“Why?”

“You could say that... I was waiting for someone special to sing them to,” she winked.

"So," Dave said, brushing a hand through his damp hair. "You've been learning Earth songs for years, just on the off chance that someone like me would show up?"

“There’s no such thing as ‘off chance’ when it comes to magic,” Cedez said. “I paid Seers good money to make sure I’m on the right track. Also, not 'someone like you'... I was waiting for you, Dave."

“Learning songs, paying Seers... seems like a lot of effort," Dave pointed out. "If you were that set on me, why not tell me that from the start?"

"Nu-huh," Cedez shook her dark mane. "I didn't trust you enough. Dreamwalker Archmagi can incept themselves into people's daydreams via Astral Projection. I had to be sure that you were the genuine thing. Actions speak louder than dreams. When you broke the control collar and fought Stellaris in front of me... that's when I knew that you were the one I could rely on."

“What if I died, what if the wyvern took me elsewhere or snacked on me, what if I never made it to Shandria?”

"Some big things tend to happen no matter what, especially if a powerful mage wants them to happen. For example, an Archmage can set a spell to activate at a specific time, long after they're dead. The Seers can spot that. They call such things - 'Set Events',” Cedez explained.

"Set Events?" Dave repeated. "So my arrival in Shandria was... inevitable?"

"More or less," Cedez shrugged. "The details might change - maybe you would have arrived a month earlier or years later. But you were always going to end up here."

Dave frowned. "But what about free will? If everything is predetermined..."

"Not everything is predetermined, you dummy," Cedez interrupted, waving a hand. "We still make choices that can hella mess everything up. It's just that some particular outcomes are... much more likely than others, harder to fight against. Like water flowing downhill - it might take different paths, but it's always going to end up at the bottom eventually. If you fall into a river, the current will carry you in one particular direction."

Dave contemplated her words.

“Your friend… Lari was obviously a very powerful, old Archmage if she imprinted here like that. Didn’t you hear what she said?” Cedez asked. “That wasn’t just a stray thought, she literally spoke to you. Stray thoughts do not talk. It was a message from the past meant for you to hear.”

"She said... to find her,” Dave nodded. “But how?”

“I dunno,” Cedez shrugged. “You can start by staying alive longer. Did your mana reload yet?”

“Uhm,” Dave pulled up his stats. “Yes. Five out of five now.”

“Excellent,” Cedez stood up. “Let's go get the lotus then! Lotusai? Lotai? Lotuses! Hrm.”

Dave nodded, standing up.

The pair cautiously crossed the maw of the gloomy cavern.

“Very cozy,” Dave commented, looking at the jagged stalagmites and stalactites that formed teeth-like formations.

Cedez snorted. "Oh yeah, real five-star accommodation. Watch your step, by the way. The ground is gonna get pretty treacherous once we're deeper in."

“How do you know? Have you been here before?”

“Nope,” Cedez replied. “But I’ve daydreamed about a group of dungeon divers who went into this place a couple of months ago looking for experience."

“And?”

“It didn't go well. They almost died.”

“I see,” Dave frowned, somewhat regretting his life choices.

They made their way carefully through the winding passages, the light from the entrance gradually fading behind them.

“Wait,” Dave stopped, realizing how dark it was getting inside. “I… don’t have a light. How are we going to see anything in this cave?”