Finna spins around to look behind us. She puts her hands on her hips and presses her lips together. "What are you playing at?" she asks.

I turn as well. Rworg is pointing at us, one finger stretched out. His mouth is open to the side, tongue curled up. His eyebrows slide upward slowly, and the low rumbling continues. The sound comes from his mouth, a stretched-out aa syllable, sounding like he's drunk in a dream. Or I am.

His right leg starts to rise, ankle straightening as his boot creases and bends, the toe still touching the ground.

"I saw a mime once," Finna says. "He's better at it."

The light behind Rworg is tinted red, dim, and dull.

Just like in his story about the tombs.

I put my hands on my hips as well. "He's slowed down. Or we're sped up. Not sure if it matters which way it is."

Finna harrumphs. "This is dumb. It's going to take a week for him to walk over here."

"Maybe we could go and meet him halfway?" I ask, waving a hand at Rworg.

Finna shrugs. "Yeah, I guess. I'll die of boredom."

We start walking toward Rworg. I make sure to stay exactly with her. It's interesting to see Rworg's reactions slowed down. When we start walking toward him, he's just finishing his third step. He tilts his head slowly to the side and mumbles something. As we walk closer, the pitch of his voice rises, and the syllables start to resemble words.

"...aaaareeee mooooviing faaster, oh. Ok. Well. Good." He claps his hands together, moving at normal speed again. The light behind him has grown in intensity with every step we took with Finna.

"Keep up, big guy," Finna says, slapping him on the arm. "Don't want you wandering off and getting lost for four years."

I rub my chin, push my palms together, and grab my nose between them. I think back to what Mandollel said about the tombs after Rworg had told his story. Sharp changes in how time ran were dangerous. I step back a step, then two forward. The light dims and brightens accordingly, but it's not a sharp change, instead a smooth one. Finna and Rworg keep talking, and their voices squeak high and rumble low depending on how far I step from them.

Finna grabs my arm and pulls me to stand next to them. "Stop it. It looks weird."

"Sorry," I say, rubbing the place she grabbed. She has a grip like a vice. "The changes in how time runs might be smooth enough that we don't need to worry. At least here it seems like that."

Finna looks at me, squinting. "Did you bring me to the goddamn desert? Is this one of the stupid tombs?"

"Let us rest a moment. We will explain all," Rworg says.

I start walking ahead, then stop, as I realize I can't leave them behind. I turn around to face them and the room. "We probably have to stop what is happening here as soon as possible, so let's rest a bit deeper."

"Why?" Finna asks, but comes to walk beside me. "And why are you walking backwards?"

Rworg glances behind us, but then starts sprinting to catch up. Just the couple of steps we managed to take already slowed him down, making his steps sound like distant thunder. He reaches us, starts moving at a normal speed, and nearly crashes into Finna. Rworg stumbles to a halt, and Finna brandishes her fist in front of his face.

So far, the light from the room has dimmed with every step. Suddenly, it brightens again. I hold a hand up and stop, taking a step forward. The light dims again. It's really interesting, but Finna and Rworg are waiting for me to speak, so I lower my hand. "Ok, let's rest here."

Finna has her fist up at Rworg's face, but she moves it to hover before my eyes. "I don't know how funny you think you are, but this explanation better be worth it."

Finna pushes a finger into the hole that's in the front of her shirt. "You're telling me I actually died?"

Rworg shrugs, raising his hands in a what-can-you-do kind of gesture.

"You really did. I think. We used what little healing we had, but you just went still," I say. I'm sitting, leaning my back to the wall, elbows on my knees. "Lictor rode in just a moment later. He used the Time Gem to freeze you."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Finna scoffs. "Like a goddamn fish waiting to be sold? Typical."

"He did save you," Rworg says, rubbing his beard. "I think."

"You both think too much. And stop scratching constantly! Just shave," Finna says, and points a finger at me as well. "That goes for you too!"

"We don't have anything to shave with. The corridor turned my backpack into a flat surface."

"What are you on abouuuut?" Finna says, groaning and lowering her head between her knees. She shakes it, making her hair flow down and tumble in the air.

"I broke the wall with your head, and the corridor flattened," Rworg says, pushing his palms together. "Like an accordion. Rhumblblbl."

Finna looks up, and the expression on her face makes even Rworg flinch back.

I guess it really is time to start taking things seriously, but it's hard to sit still and focus when I'm so happy and bewildered. Now that there's a moment to rest and consider things, it's a miracle she's here, glaring at us. Out of all the impossible things I've seen, healing someone with magic shouldn't be even near the top, but it truly is.

"And what are you looking at?" she asks, turning to me.

"Sorry, sorry. Today has been weird."

"Thanks, I noticed," she says between clenched teeth. "Now explain it properly."

I try. How Lictor came back with yet another mission. How the Monolith was the source of mana for the Device, but now it's gotten out of hand. How Tenorsbridge can't approach this place, how magic is out of control. She listens, leaning her cheek on her palm, biting at her fingernail. The nails are long and shiny instead of the gnawed and ragged leftovers she had earlier.

She moves the hand before her face and looks at it, frowning. "I take my eyes off you for a moment, and you immediately go on another mission, sent by goddamn Lictor, of all people? And drag me with you? I wish you'd just buried me instead."

"We got excited," Rworg says, then pulls his face into a serious expression. "We could not leave you. We lost the elf already."

"And we couldn't just ignore what is going on here," I add.

"Do you actually have any idea what is going on here?" Finna asks. She falls backwards to lie on the stone floor, gazing up at the ceiling. "Lictor might as well have sent you here to die, so that the word about what nearly happened in Kerthar doesn't get out."

"Hah! He would not..." Rworg says. His voice trails off, and he pouts. "Well, even if he did, we will surprise him by surviving! His face will be worth seeing!"

"We're going straight into assuming this is a suicide mission? That nothing is actually wrong?" I ask.

"Oh, suicide mission this is for sure. But guess we're used to that," Finna says, still staring at the ceiling.

"Ha!" Rworg barks. "She brought a backbone from beyond the veil."

Finna flops like a worm, hopping close enough to Rworg to kick him in the shoulder without getting up from the floor. "I'll kick you so hard your backbone flies out of your butt. I feel it. Even if Lictor is full of crap, there's something wrong."

I lift my elbows off my knees and lean forward. "What do you mean? What do you feel?"

Finna pushes herself up and leans her temple on the black stone wall. "There's a pressure behind my eyes." She presses closer to the wall, turns her cheek to rest against its cool surface. "I told you the story earlier, remember? I can sense things like that. This place feels wrong. Like it's ready to burst."

The light is pale and dim, trickling out from the room at the end of the corridor.

Finna glances toward it and moves a hand in the air, like waving off smoke from her face when sitting at a campfire. "It's easier to breathe here."

That actually makes sense. Mandollel's confusing explanation about light might apply to mana as well. He told us that if time moves faster, the light coming from outside gets diluted. Or something like that. The mana being pushed around the Monolith maybe has time to disperse if this area moves faster than everything else around it.

"What are you thinking about?" Rworg asks.

"Just trying to wrap my brain around all this," I say. "Time moving faster at this spot would explain plenty of things. And it's not like time moving faster is such an improbable idea at this point." I finish with a shrug, looking into the corridor ahead of us.

It's dark. The glow of the walls muted almost to nothing. Makes sense. I snap my fingers. "Maybe we can watch the walls to see where time changes?"

Finna snaps her fingers as well, miming my gesture. Then her face darkens. "Maybe what the hell are you talking about?"

I scratch at my mustache while I think about how to answer so it makes sense. Finna glares at me so vehemently, I drop my hand and sit on it. "Um, if the walls look brighter, then time runs faster at that spot. If it looks darker, then it's slower. If it changes sharply, then we have to be careful."

"Simple enough," Rworg says, slapping his thighs with both hands. "Ready to go?"

"Simple? What does it actually mean? How will we be careful?" Finna asks him.

Rworg shrugs and stands up.

"He's been like that since we got here," I say. "Maybe the mana is affecting his brain." I wiggle my hand next to my ear.

"I was equally brave before I came here," Rworg says, angling his sword to get it back into its harness.

"How is it fair that I'm the one who ended up dying when we have a person like you with us?" Finna says, then chuckles. "Although, you did cut it pretty close in the beginning."

I'm helping Rworg with his sword, but he laughs and shakes so much, it's difficult to get the fasteners to close properly. If the sword drops, it's going to cut my toes off.

"Stop squirming," I say. "I'm not going to join your club of dead people. Well, unless you count Rides. I died maybe five or six times, but I guess everyone does? One time I thought it was for real, though."

"Sheesh, what the hell were you up to?" Finna asks.

"Stopping Lictor from killing all of Kerthar," I say, shrugging.

Finna rolls her eyes. "That bastard. Let's go?"

Rworg nods.

"Let's follow the mana coming from the room," I say, pointing into the corridor ahead of us. "It went in this direction, so let's continue and try to find another conduit or whatever it was. Once we find the control room, we just need to turn off some machinery."

"You sure?" Finna asks.

I'm not.

I'm really not.

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