The Astral Realm was divided into three layers, but right now, the astral projection spell Caen needed pertained to the deepest of these layers.

It didn't take too long to adapt the spell enough for casting. Caen's spirit and mind responded to him like never before. His familiarity with his own spirit, coupled with its currently boosted affinity for Dream-guarding, smoothened the process.

He called forth a visualization of spindly and twisting branches, each one splitting off and forming increasingly complex shapes. At the same time, a small portion of his mind focused on Vai's Astral locus. Splitting his mind took only the barest effort. He split off a third portion. Even though he'd expected it, the ease with which he did this baffled him.

His spirit contorted into a series of patterns that would have been impossible for him an hour ago. He kept his excitement from bleeding into his fingers as they moved through the requisite gestures.

The deep purple of Astral space crept into the corners of his field of vision. It was a struggle to keep his eyes open.

At the same time, he could feel himself detaching from his body, almost as though he were being gently coaxed out of his own skin. It felt like falling backwards and inwards all at once. He tamped down on his excitement and kept his mind focused.

The instant his physical eyes were covered with the dark purple of the Astral, his speculon activated, replacing his sight with a very dull and blurry image of Uncle Vai's sleeping body. It was as though Caen were watching the man through a thin gauze of fabric in the dark. He could feel his connection to Vai weaken by a fraction, but it held.

A moment later, though, Caen’s vision winked out, and he found himself in the deep purple void of Astral space. His heart, or a representation of it, hammered in his chest. This particular spell offered minimal protection from the void, but that was not the cause of Caen's alarm.

Slowly but undeniably, his connection to Vai had started to unravel again. Mimicry was sight-dependent, and he could no longer see his target. He could not even see his own soul structure, to say nothing of Vai's, but he could sort of feel it. Caen held Uncle Vai's Astral locus in his mind like a lifeline. Meeting Vai here might preserve the fraying connection.

Caen experienced a jerking sensation and was shoved hard into a padded armchair. The world around him spun for a moment as he experienced a profound sense of vertigo.

Uncle Vai sat across from him, clapping. “Ha! You fucking did it. I thought you'd be well into your fifties before I saw this day.”

“The connection is already weakening,” Caen said, focusing all of his attention on Vai. It wasn't doing anything. He could still see no trace of either of their soul structures. And try as he might, the connection continued to fray at a worrying speed.”

“Weakening? It's still reliant on sight, isn't it? Look at me properly, then.”

Caen couldn't even spare the concentration for a flat look as he strained to counteract the sense of fundamental regression that he was currently feeling. “There's a line connecting us together. I'm trying to reconstruct it right here,” He pointed. “Can you sense anything?”

Vai peered closely at the portion of space where Caen's finger was. Caen battled down his impatience. He was losing his boosted affinity very quickly.

“I don't see anything,” Uncle Vai eventually said, shaking his head.

Moments later, Caen completely lost the connection. He let out a sigh. At least the time construct still remained. Even here, he could see it.

“How long did it take you to mimic me?” Vai asked.

“Under an hour,” Caen said. “I think I can reconstruct that cord and then maybe our soul structures, too. It will probably take quite a bit of trial and error.”

Now Vai sighed, though with far more melodrama. “What have I signed up for?”

“It's going to be a long day,” Caen chuckled. “Send me back?”

“Sure,” Vai said. “I'll ask Hshnol to fix you lunch.” Then he flicked Caen's forehead.

The next moment, Caen was back in the Material Realm, seated in the ornate chair. “Ow,” he muttered. Somehow, that always stung.

As he Mimicked Vai's affinity once more, he pondered over his problem. Mimicry was dependent on physical sight, but when he went to the Astral Realm, he could no longer tap into his physical senses.

I can see Vai's astral form, though. It's not physical sight, but shouldn't that count?

Once he'd Mimicked Vai's Dream-guarding affinity, he stopped to meditate on the cord that ran from his chest to Vai's. It was razor-thin, but there was a fullness to it. A plethora of elements braided tightly into one coherent unit. He filled his mind with the notion of connectedness he got from it.

When he returned to the Astral Realm, he focused half his mind on reconstructing that razor-thin, black line between them. The other half of his mind held firmly to the idea that they were, in fact, connected. He couldn't see Vai's body anymore, but he could ‘see’ Vai's mind here in the Astral.

Their connection continued to fray, but at a much lessened rate. Caen channeled all his attention towards his task, but to no avail. When that sense of fundamental reversion had finally run its course, he nodded his head thoughtfully. This was feeling to him like the right direction.

When he returned to his physical body this time, he extended his spirit to Vai. Caen placed a hand on Vai's shoulder. All this he did to strengthen their connection as he Mimicked the man's affinity. He focused on the cord between them, on Vai's physical body, and in both their soul structures. Then he projected into the Astral.

The connection felt firmer than either time, but it was still fraying. Caen crossed his legs on the sofa in Vai's mansion and split his focus on meditation. The ease still took him by surprise.

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One portion of his mind focused intently on the fact that he was connected to Vai, while the other portion focused on how

he was connected to Vai. He was in physical contact with the man. Their spirits, too, were in contact. And here in the Astral, he could see Vai's astral form. Out in the Material Realm, his eyes were watching Vai, despite his being unable to see what they were looking at right now. But more importantly, he was connected to Vai through Mimicry, a dense cord running between them. Their soul structures were linked. Caen had Mimicked Vai's Dream-guarding affinity.

The fraying of their connection slowed to a crawl, but most of it was already undone by this point.

“There should be a way for me to sense my body and spirit better while in the Astral Realm,” Caen mused. Whenever he cast a spell in the Astral Realm, his spirit was engaged, despite the fact that he was only vaguely aware of it. His body, however, was utterly outside his awareness, as most spells performed in here didn't require gesture components.

Vai was rocking back and forth in his throne. “As a Dream-guardian, it takes years of practice to gain awareness of your body while in the Astral Realm. But I suppose you have an advantage that others don't.”

Caen nodded thoughtfully at this. He wasn't entirely sure why or how, but Mimicry used his body, mind, and spirit. Whenever he had the ability active, he was engaging all of his existence at the same time. If he could gain a stronger awareness of his spirit as well as his body while in here, it might help him stabilize—

The connection completely unraveled. Caen let out a sigh. “Again, please,” he told Uncle Vai.

The next few hours went like this. He would link their affinities, jump into the Astral Realm, work on sensing his body and spirit before the connection unraveled, and then get sent out to repeat the whole thing again. At some point, he'd had to recast that beautiful time display spell.

He muscled through his migraine as he worked. He was starting to get a significant notion of his body and spirit whenever he was in the Astral, especially with regard to what his body and spirit were doing at the moment. A hand on Vai's shoulder. Spirits interacting.

Even after many iterations, the connection, though firmer, continued to fray. His migraine had grown to encompass his entire head as the hours went by. He felt a deep tiredness in his body, mind, and spirit; a holistic exhaustion.

Once the connection had frayed completely, Caen and Vai Revisited his most recent memory so that they could set the scene in the Astral Realm to look exactly as it did in the Material. They wanted to recreate everything: Vai's room, their relative positions, both their soul structures, everything.

This proved incredibly hard, even for Uncle Vai. There were so many sensations within a soul structure that went beyond the physical. Impressions, sounds, so much. They iterated the scene for hours, trying to nail down as much as they reasonably could.

They reconstructed the entire memory, and Caen made sure to memorize it—which he could now do far more easily—so he could act in the exact same way when he went out into the Material. Once Caen was satisfied, Vai sent him back.

He maintained the same position. Hand on Vai's shoulder, spirit tendrils in place as he connected to Vai and Mimicked his Dream-guarding affinity. A portion of his mind focused intently on the fact of their connection.

When Caen returned to the Astral this time, he found himself in Vai's room. Everything looked and felt exactly the same, almost as though he hadn't left the Material Realm. Vai's astral form lay in bed, and Caen's hand was on his shoulder. He could even feel an imposed sensation of his own spirit tendrils and Vai's grazing his spirit. His migraine and holistic exhaustion were present, too.

Representations of their soul structures were manifested upon both of them, the razor-thin cord running between them. Caen could tell that these were merely reconstructions, not the real thing.

As he concentrated on their fraying connection, he began to sense an… echo. A sort of synchronicity.

Caen brought the entire weight of his attention to this impression. He sought to expand that echo in the same way that he might unfurl his existence.

A wispy, razor-thin, black line possessed the illusory representation of it here in the Astral. Then, before his eyes, it grew into a tightly braided cord, as firm as he'd ever seen it. And with this came a sound. A song of sounds. Then impressions. Sensations poured in. His soul structure, as well as Vai's, was possessed by the real thing. Caen was inundated by the myriad elements of Mimicry.

He could feel the moment the connection stabilized. Caen whooped.

Vai cracked an eye open. “Please, tell me we're done.”

“The connection is stable, but we're not done. I need to make sure I can replicate this.”

Caen repeated the entire process, and this time, Mimicry worked perfectly. The connection did not fray in the slightest. Being able to sense his body and spirit better seemed to be helping.

“Finally!” Vai said, dismissing the illusory representations along with Caen's migraine and holistic exhaustion.

Though now that Caen could sense his body and spirit better, he felt more tired than he'd ever been in the Astral.

“That was incredibly annoying,” Uncle Vai continued. “Like a specter trying to nibble on my mind. I'm glad it's over.”

“We still have more testing to do, Uncle Vai.”

“Oh, for the love of Tet!”

Caen disconnected from Vai. Then he ensured that he could unfurl his existence while here in the Astral. It was surprisingly difficult to do so. Like moving a limb that had grown numb. But he managed it fine enough. His soul structure bloomed around him, and once he was sure he could do that repeatedly, he connected with Vai again. The cord of connection manifested between them along with both their soul structures.

Caen unraveled the connection himself and sank deeper into the sofa he was sitting on. He let out a complicated sigh of equal parts exhaustion and satisfaction.

“What are you relaxing for?” Vai said. “Let's try out some new spells.”

“Actually, Uncle Vai, I think I'm tapped out. It's been almost fifteen hours.” Adapting even a single spell might be too much for him right now.

“This will fatigue nonsense again? Fine! I'll show you an exercise for strengthening your Volition.”

“I have a very strong will for my age and condition,” Caen said. “And besides, you already taught me several exercises.”

Uncle Vai let out a dark laugh. “Oh, those were all basic. These are the real deal. If you weren't copying my affinity right now, I wouldn't have ever brought this up. It would have been pointless even.”

Caen squinted at that. “You're saying I need a high affinity to perform these exercises—”

“Not just to perform them. To learn them. These exercises have antimemetic properties that make it all but impossible for anyone with a rating below 10 to even retain the memory of the lessons, much less process them. There's a fifth elevation spell that's usually cast on Dream-guardians with low affinities to teach them far weaker forms of these exercises.”

“Wow,” Caen said, blinking. He had never heard of something like this before. Though he supposed that if he ever had, he'd simply have completely forgotten. And fifth elevation spells? That was archmage territory. “Wait, but the moment I'm no longer Mimicking you, won't I forget the whole thing?”

Vai shrugged. “I'm guessing not. The way that this fifth elevation spell works is to delay the hazardous effects of the exercises long enough for you to learn them. Afterwards, you'd retain knowledge of the exercise, even though you'd still need the spell reapplied whenever you wanted to practice.”

Caen nodded in understanding. Vai was hoping that Mimicry would have the same effect as the higher-order spell, allowing Caen to learn the exercises. “Okay, let’s do this.”

“It's simple,” Vai said, smiling. “You split your mind in four, which is simple enough. Then you get all these portions of your mind to observe each other simultaneously.” Vai laughed at the look on Caen's face. “Let me explain the steps.”