I took a deep, shuddering breath, and then finally risked abandoning my body.

I needed to use divination so I couldn't watch my body that way, and while I would normally stick one of my minds in there if I wasn't scrying on it I was just too upset. I needed the spare to be off in a comforting, relaxing place - I'd chosen a huge tree we'd passed on the way from Erathik to Sentortzi, one that I had climbed and spent an hour just laying in. My ghost, meanwhile, was replaying everything that had happened. The crazy ranting still didn't make a lot of sense, though there were some clear themes it kept returning to.

When the moment came and Hugh was taken, I forced myself to watch it over and over. What had it done? Seeing the gold patterns fade to red told me... what? Dumines couldn't be modified by any force I knew of, but this might not be true modification. The color could just be something over the top, like a Dumine lock of sorts. If so, could it be peeled off or washed away? In a pinch, I'd be willing to try removing the Dumine entirely... but that would be pretty traumatic, and if it worked Hugh would be left with no magic. We'd have to capture one of them and experiment, but if they really were a hive mind it was possible that capturing one would mean that all of them knew where we were.

This fucking sucked.

Advancing the memory, I watched myself panic and run. It was a reasonable thing to do, completely logical, and hell - Hugh had even told us to do it. I still hated myself. I wasn't sure what I could have done, but it felt like I should have done something. Anything. That voice faded somewhat as I looked deeper into the tunnel and saw the ranks and ranks of Empire soldiers, all smiling. Still, even if I was right to run, I'd done it carelessly. I'd lost my friends. I watched the divination advance and could see that Errod had immediately run as well - no, that was his legs taking initiative, based on the look on his face. Katrin had cast a flash-bang spell and her blast wave, and as everyone rushed at us anyway they were blocked by that opaque wall Rylan could make.

The last thing I could see, just at the edge of my divination range after I turned a corner at full speed, was the shield blowing apart and those blue-black tendrils reaching for Rylan. He'd bought us extra time, but there was no way he'd made it out himself. See, he wasn't a cowardly asshole. He hadn't fucking abandoned his friends. On that topic, I watched again to see which way Katrin and Errod went. It didn't really look like they'd had the option to run the same way as me just because of how Hugh had chucked Katrin away, and while I could have circled around to them if I'd been thinking clearly I had instead done some crazy zig-zagging and parkour shit to get to the most inconvenient little rooftop alleyway thing.

Thankfully, that was something I could fix.

I dropped back into my body, and flicked on threadsight. Errod's thread was still all jittery and forking off, broken like it had been since that day when I'd been calibrating Talia's artificer rig so she could make me the bracers. I still wasn't really sure what that was about, but this wasn't the time anyway; it was mostly pointing the same way as Katrin's thread, which was all I cared about. They were alive, and together. I waited a little bit, and when I was sure they weren't moving I started heading that way slowly, using divination to scout around corners and through walls. I only saw the body-snatchers once - they were marching down one of the larger streets, formed up in orderly ranks but not sorted in any obvious way; Hammersmith was in there, but just randomly in the middle. I didn't see Hugh.

I gauged my progress by occasionally shuffling five feet in either direction and seeing how much Katrin's thread moved. It took a while, but eventually it was shifting around in a way that told me they were probably in the next building. I approached quietly, nervous that they were captured or taken over or just mad at me. If they were free they'd picked the building well; it was some sort of ruined factory, and it looked like it would have a million hiding places. I circled a bit, looking not only for the best way in but for anyone else that might be watching the building, and instead found someone on guard. It was a huge relief.

"Psst! It's me, you shit! Take me to them."

The hand gave me a little finger waggle, as if scolding me.

"I'm not mind controlled. Did you see what it did to Hugh?"

No, it managed to gesture.

"Well, shit. That makes it harder to prove it didn't do it to me. Oh! How about this?" I popped my ghost out, and flipped it off. The hand seemed to think about it for a moment, and then bobbed and scurried a few feet before beckoning me on.

I followed it through the ruins to an incredibly hidden little nook. I had to pull away false walls and floors a few times along the way - not in the "secret passage" sense, just convenient shelves and a big sheet of metal covering a collapse and things like that. Still, it would require someone with actual tracking skills to find us in this place. When I finally got to them, despite the fact that Errod would have known the hand was bringing me, they looked nervous until I did the ghost thing again.

"Okay listen, I'm about to ask you to do something that's going to make you think I'm a baddie. I saw what happened to Hugh, and when that thing touched his Dumine the gold bits changed color to red. So... I know the evil thing was asking people to expose their Dumines, but I'm gonna need to see yours so I know you're... you. I'll show you mine too, though if you didn't know about this until I told you I can't see how that would reassure you."

Since it didn't require them coming any closer anyway, they did just show me their Dumines after a moment. Errod's didn't have any gold at all on it of course, which led to a question - could he not be taken over, or would it just leave no sign? Either way, I wasn't too worried about him - I didn't think the glove would get tricked easily. Once we were all satisfied I invited them into my memory palace, and as soon as they arrived I could see the last of the tension drop away. Before we could start talking about anything else I showed them what I had seen, to make sure they could keep an eye out themselves.

"So," Katrin said, "are we thinking that was Tindelus?"

"Yeah, I can't think of anything else. Pretty sure it's a hive mind, so we're probably fucked."

Errod shook his head. "If it gains access through the Dumine, remember that relatively few people have them. We've been surrounded by those with Dumines lately because of our circumstances, but in the larger world it's uncommon. Furthermore, we haven't seen any sign that the suborned agents can make more - if only Tindelus can turn people, then the rate of growth is very limited. For myself... I'm going to need your help with healing, but I'm digging my Dumine out. I don't want to take any chances."

Katrin looked concerned, but I thought it was a reasonable plan. Supposedly Dumines granted some benefits even if they were duds, but it couldn't be anything all that great if nobody could clearly quantify it. Especially in the face of a super mind-enslaving monster, digging it out was the right call. Still, there was no way Katrin was going to do it, and the same went for me. The thought of giving up magic was... well, unthinkable.

"I was going over what else we know. It's bonkers, that's one. That rant came back to a few points, so we can probably say that it's a construct that was given orders it doesn't like. I think. And it wants someone to tell it it's done, maybe? I know it looked like it recognized me or something, but I look like Helma right now. Well, kinda. And I don't think it could have recognized her, either, so that leaves the fact that the Clockmaker was at war with the Sahrger. It knew I was one, it called me 'child of Sahrger', so my theory - after listening to that rant multiple times - is as follows:

"Some Sahrger snuck into Brinkmar and found this badass construct the Clockmaker had made. They used top secret magical spy shit to give it commands to... I don't know, it said something about the fall of the Empire but that seems a bit lofty as a goal if the Clockmaker was still around. Maybe they told it to kill him, or maybe they'd already kidnapped him and this thing was causing chaos so they could get away with it - it said something about escaping, too. So they set it off and run, but the commands don't make a ton of sense or they conflict with its existing commands. It fucks shit up, gets captured and locked in a vault, and spends the last... almost thirteen hundred years going nuts in a box."

Errod was nodding slowly as he thought, and Katrin just looked cranky. My guess was that she had complaints about my theory, but also didn't have any alternatives. Neither of them said anything for a moment, and then Errod finally stood up and looked at me. "It could have recognized you, if it has access to the memories of the people it takes over - and I assume it does, to some extent. I don't think that's what happened, it wouldn't make sense, but I wanted to make sure we're remembering that it could have a lot of information. Otherwise... it's a good working theory. So how do we stop it?"

"Fuck stopping it, that's not our job. We just need Hugh back - I was thinking we try dragging him away, maybe it can't keep controlling him if they're not on the same plane?"

Errod's brow furrowed, and I assumed he was thinking about how he was kinda-sorta a knight of Brinkmar and it was his responsibility or some shit. Katrin, it turned out, was at the other end of the spectrum. "I don't think we can save Hugh," she said, "and I can't even imagine how we would try without immediately getting captured. I think we need to do exactly what Hugh told us to do - warn everyone."

I was going to have to get Hugh back, at some point... but she wasn't wrong. "Okay, yeah. And Errod, if you're thinking of some argument about why we should fight this thing that's still gotta be step two after raising the alarm, right?"

He shrugged. "Yes, if we can do it from here. If we have to leave, and then can't get back..."

"Fine, fine. Here, I've set things in motion. Give it a few minutes, she's typically very -"

"What do you want?" Human Callie asked.

"- prompt," I finished. "Hey! We have an existential threat to the world that we need to get word out about. You mind passing it along to literally anyone who might give a shit?"

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

She did, in fact, mind - but she also agreed to do it after a few minutes of bitching. I was starting to wonder if part of my shitty personality was from copying her, rather than from being a Sahrger. I edited out most of Tindelus' unhinged rant and focused on the details about what had happened. Human Callie listened patiently and didn't ask any follow-up questions, and when we were done she sighed.

"So. Gilbrecht Halenvar has released something that the Clockmaker had locked away in a vault, it has taken over Lord Protector Hammersmith, and she then ordered everyone to stand back and also get taken over. This thing is probably called Tindelus, if it touches someone's Dumine the gold changes color and they are taken over, and it may be sending itself or its minions through portals back to the prime plane. I will inform Harmid, I am still nearby. He will inform others. Is there anything else you wanted to discuss?"

"Nope, just the mind-control robot that's about to take over the Endless Empire and probably everywhere else."

She vanished.

Katrin and Errod didn't look confident that this counted as a warning, but I felt pretty good about it. "Guys, Sentortzi is the information capitol of the world. And yeah, sure, he normally charges for intel but he can't do that without letting some of it slip - so he's motivated to get word out."

Katrin looked confused. "Professor Yanipliss charges for information?"

"No. Sentortzi."

"The... city?"

Holy shit. Whoops. We'd chatted about stuff while walking along the subway tunnels, but it was amazing how well I'd avoided anything that would touch on all that stuff. "Right. So. We talked about how I learned the templating thing, and I told you how I used it to plan my escape from the planar fortress I was locked in."

"We did," she said, "and from context I assumed you'd learned it while practicing with Hugh."

"Right. That would make sense. So... under the library in Sentortzi there's multiple sub-libraries, and at the bottom there's a swarm of spider robots that make up the body of a demigod named Sentortzi - the city is named after him. He's in charge of the information brokers, and he's the one I learned the templating thing from. He snagged me before I was handed off to Hammersmith, he kinda offered me a job and said he would sneak me away so I didn't need to get locked up. But Errod here had gotten into my head, and I decided that if I didn't help get Halenvar out of this plane I'd feel bad. So this whole situation is kinda Errod's fault, for having morals."

He looked like he was going to say something snarky, but Katrin cut him off. "What was the job?"

"A courier thing."

Errod narrowed his eyes at me. "Are you getting worse at lying, or am I just getting better at catching you?"

"It's a courier thing. He gave me a mental template to deliver, and in return he offered to let me sneak away. And instead, like a chump, I asked to be taught how to make the templates myself."

Errod was still staring at me. "And who are you delivering it to?"

"Your mom. Stop looking at me like that. You think I'm lying? Didn't we just the other day have a whole talk about your glove full of ghosts and how you'd been lying to us about it in general and, more specifically, the fact that it had tried to eat me? Or, Connie. Whatever."

"Okay," he said, "if you're not lying to us answer this one question. What happened to Yesrin's Loom?"

Wait, what? Where the fuck did that come from? I was off-guard enough that I hesitated too long and he got a very smug "that's what I thought" look. Did he know what I had done? Or... no. No, it was the fucking Knights of the Storm. They'd accused me of stealing it. "I don't know, we turned around as soon as I realized we were heading towards it. You think I have it up my ass or something? Really, Errod, are you saying I've been carrying it with us this whole time? It's back in Storm's Keep, or it fell into the void when the Hierophants attacked, or... how the fuck should I know?"

Katrin said, very quietly, "They didn't do the void thing, though. At Storm's Keep? It just made things all... disjointed, right? And you'd only seen the void effect in the old timeline."

Right, I did say that. Because they didn't remember the void, since it had immediately destroyed them. I could just go with that, say I was getting my timelines mixed up. Or I could tell them the truth, but it wasn't just one thing. It was about how much fate was manipulating me, and everything being my fault, and the fact that the world was maybe going to end because I fixed it wrong last time. Or, shit, I could just leave. Right? My job was done. I'd let everyone into Brinkmar. The fact that they'd fucked it up and released some new hell wasn't my problem. And sure, I got Hugh captured and put Katrin and Errod in danger.

But none of that mattered, because we only had... what, a year and a half in Earth time? Yeah, about a year and a half until the world ended. Again. I could have tried harder to stop it the first time around, instead of killing Helma and hiding in Ulren's lab. I could have fixed it right. I could have joined up with Sentortzi. I could have just let fate lead me and taken Yesrin's Loom, probably I was supposed to have used it in that chamber behind the throne room. But I'd fucked up at every turn, and I was so mad at the idea that I was being manipulated that I was going to keep doing it. Didn't I always want to be the protagonist of a story? Shouldn't I be thrilled?

I still hadn't replied to Katrin.

"Do you want to end up like Hugh?" I asked. "I'm a magnet for trouble. I'm going to get you killed, or mind controlled, or turned into something. I ran away, when I saw them take over Hugh. I didn't wait for you and Errod. I just ran. I left you to die again."

"Again?"

"I... yeah. Yeah, the whole world already died once, remember? Everyone but me, wiped out by Azaraze eating the planes. Well, me and Ulren. Whatever."

Katrin did a double take. "Wait, it's that Ulren? Not the other one?"

"That's not the point. The point is... fuck, I don't even know. I'm going down a list, and I think everything is my fault. I could have stopped the world from ending, maybe. I don't know. I'll never know, but that's the problem. I didn't try. And then... even if we just look at the recent stuff, you guys were captured because I took a sword from a crime scene like it was a fucking souvenir and then didn't just make a deal with the Empire. They would have let you go. And Hugh was here because of me, here in general and at that place specifically. And I'm going to do it all again. I'm going to get you guys killed, and I'm going to not stop the world from ending. Maybe that's fate too, maybe there's some force trying to make sure things end the same way every time."

She sighed. "So what I'm getting from this is you have a lot of angst, and Errod is right that you've been lying to us. Look, you said from the beginning that you weren't great with people. Remember? We had a deal. You do the stabbing and stealing, Errod does the people stuff and keeps us ethical, and I make sure you two don't get yourselves killed. Whatever this shit is that's bothering you, it doesn't sound like stabbing or stealing. It's probably an ethical thing, and almost certainly a thing that could get you killed. I can see you trying to justify leaving, you know. You're not subtle. 'Oh, Katrin, I'm a bad person and everything around me turns to stinky goo! I've done bad things, I'll do them again, I'm bad and dumb and have bad taste.'"

I didn't remember saying that last one.

"Anyway, I don't want to speak for my brother but I would personally like to institute a no angst rule. I already listened to Errod whine about his glove, now you're being strange. I don't really need a turn, I'd just as soon we cut it out entirely. So. You're going to make us some comfortable chairs, and you're going to show us everything we missed. This meeting with Sentortzi, and the encounter with Ulren, and whatever happened in Storm's Keep that we can't remember. All of it. Because if you're already gearing up to wander off while feeling sorry for yourself, there's no reason not to tell us everything first."

My ghost started the movie, while my mind sat between Katrin and Errod on the couch I'd summoned. Katrin kept making me re-play parts of the conversation with Sentortzi, and Errod heckled Ulren while he watched the fight. Neither of them could watch the part where I cut my own face off multiple times, and I had to explain a lot of things as they happened because I'd skipped past weeks of training.

When we finally got to the portal in Storm's Keep, they didn't comment on their deaths at all. They reacted to the destruction in general, but other than Katrin saying "Well, no wonder I was bothered by that stuff in the tunnel" they just moved right past.

I started to feel silly about not telling them before I remembered that it wasn't just that - it was the fact that I'd decided to actively thwart fate, even though it was probably just trying to keep the world together. Speaking of, I couldn't show them what I'd seen when I used the Loom - but Katrin made me describe it over and over and just kept asking more questions. "What did it say again? 'I've got no bars'?"

"Yeah. This is a bad spot, I've got no bars. It was just a stupid... dream, hallucination, coping mechanism thing."

"And what does that mean to you? This is a bad spot, I've got no bars? It doesn't make any sense to me."

"It's a cell phone thing. We talked about those, do you remember I said they communicate with these towers? It measures how well it can communicate with bars. Kinda. More bars, clearer connection. No bars, you can't call anyone. And since it's based on the towers, it's about where you are - so there can be bad spots. Dead zones. Whatever. But I think it was just me imagining stuff and putting random words together."

Katrin smiled at me. "And I think you talked to a god. We need to get you to where there are more bars - do you remember... it was way back at the Necropolis, we talked about how some people have talked to gods, including Cyne? I told you there are special places, places where they can better communicate with mortals. Well, when Professor Yanipliss gave us the list of where your threads went, one of them led directly to the Observatory of Jenkutierra. It's the best-known place to speak to the gods."

"So the planet-sized mass of tentacles and eyes and mouths was real, maybe, and you want me to go deliberately get its attention?"

"Yes. When we can. For now, we have to get out of here. Trallanar is surrounded by mountains, so we'll have to find some more food first if we want any chance of getting to another city and finding a portal out."

Errod sighed. "You're almost as bad as Calliope. We need to take a second to talk to her so she knows we're not mad. Callie, we don't care that we got - temporarily - killed. We knew it was risky, even if that specific method wasn't one we would have expected. We already stayed up late one night talking about the fact that some version of us was murdered in an alley, and about the whole world ending. This... this isn't nearly as bad. It wasn't even our minds and souls, just our physical bodies. And in case you missed her leap of logic, Katrin's suggestion about talking to the gods is specifically about the potential end of the world.

"If anyone cares about that, it's the gods - and one is already paying attention to you. We talk to it, figure out what we need to do, and do it. One thing at a time. You shouldn't lie to us, but... this is a lot of crazy stuff, and it's not fair that it's focused on you. Now that that's out of the way, I've got a request. The man who you were talking to, before Hugh was taken over."

"Rylan. Hammersmith's second hand man, or bodyguard, or something."

Errod nodded. "Right. I saw him, when everyone was getting ready to attack. He had a staff, but that was it. When he came running back the other way, he was holding a book... one I hadn't seen anywhere before. He was right next to you, can you grab us a copy with divination?"

Huh. Yeah. I pulled up the memory and grabbed the book, then flopped back onto the couch and opened it up. "Okay, looks like we have... uh... lots of notes and..." I flipped past page after page, and as I saw more labels I tried going back to the beginning and, sure enough, there was a table of contents. "Huh. This... seems to be a list of all the big powerful artifacts the Clockmaker left laying around. Holy shit."

I made two copies, and handed them over. This was going to be a three person job. Katrin rotated on the couch so she could lean against me, and after a moment Errod did the same but facing the other way. I sat there, squished, and thought about all my self-loathing and lies and the fact that Katrin had correctly deduced I was talking myself into running away. I thought about how her calling me out just made me want to do it more, and how stupid that was. I thought about the fact that these dumbasses would be better off without me, and about the way they were just never going to consider that. I couldn't shake them, no matter what. As had happened a few times before, I felt this strange warm feeling - but this time, from inside my memory palace, it was different.

My ghost, standing off to the side, looked down at its hand as it separated into two parts - and the side formed from my soul was blazing like the sun. Huh.

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