"What do you mean Fenian's gone?" Theo asked, placing his hands on his hips as he looked down at Tresk. "He was here this morning. I could smell him."

"Yeah, he kinda smells like booze and old flowers, huh?" Tresk asked, scratching her chin. "But nah, he's gone, like completely gone. Nobody can find him in town."

Theo rubbed his face. He had spent quite a lot of time training Fenian already, and if the man had run off and gotten himself killed, perhaps flirting with another random dragon, that would put a dent in his plans. But there were other ways for the elf to travel. Since the Bridge of Shadows was still operational for the time being, it was likely he traveled through that. Whatever whims Fenian wanted to entertain would have likely taken him afar. And there was only one person who would have known if he took the bridge.

“I’ll be back. Gonna yell at a demon,” Theo said with a sigh. He folded space, arriving on the Bridge only a moment later.

“I didn’t do it!” Uz’Xulven screamed before Theo even had time to say anything.

The alchemist blinked. “What is it you didn’t do, exactly?”

“I didn’t grant access to the heavens,” Uz’Xulven said. She was still lurking somewhere in the shadows, likely avoiding his ire. “He took the bridge from Broken Tusk, and landed in the system’s place. I couldn’t track him after that.”

Theo felt the tension in his shoulders go away. Perhaps Fenian just wanted to have a word with some of the Warriors of the Shards currently training the gods. That made the most sense to him, so he shrugged. "That's fine, I guess. He's a throne holder, so he can go and talk to the system if he needs to.”

“Uh-huh. Please don’t kill me.”

Although he was certain the master of the bridge was hiding something, Theo felt as though she wouldn't divulge any information. With a sigh, he folded space in on itself again and found himself slamming against an almost impenetrable barrier. With the right application of his willpower and the mingling of draconic and celestial energies on his chest, he split the seal open, falling through the crack and angling directly for Death's realm. It was difficult to navigate in the heavens, but he managed, soon arriving on the long road. He scoffed when he landed, watching as two men fought near an impossibly large gate seething with death magic.

"What the hell is going on here?" Theo asked. Marching over, he spotted one figure he recognized. Death was standing at a distance with an amused look on his face. There was a young woman with short black hair who looked moderately annoyed. Then there were the two men dueling it out, one with flowing blonde hair and the other with black. They were both elves.

“Welcome to the show, Theo Spencer,” Death said, gesturing to the two figures fighting. “An uncle and a nephew. One betrayed the other. Can you guess which it was?”

“Black hair is the bad one,” Theo said. “He’s related to you, right?”

“Astute,” Death said. “You’re right, but not for the reason you think.”

“How long are they gonna fight? I’m getting bored,” the woman said.

“Just a few more days, I’m sure.”

Theo released an exasperated sigh. “Has anybody seen Fenian around here? I figure if he came to the heavens, the most likely place he'll go is your realm, Death.”

“He passed through the Gate of Souls,” Death said, nodding to the massive gate. “Which, in my expert opinion, is the worst choice a mortal can make.”

Theo closed his eyes and rubbed his face. Why would Fennegan do something so stupid? It didn't take a genius to know that passing through those gates was likely a bad idea. On the other side were the souls of all the dead people, and it was literally everybody. Anyone who had died since the start of the war, the warriors of the shard participated in until right now, were behind that gate.

“He’s going to get his dead wife,” Theo said, shaking his head. “Why couldn’t you have brought her back, Kuzan?”

“She was too far gone, and needs a lot more time to regenerate,” Death said. “He’ll likely bind her to something and bring her back. If he can get back, anyway. The chances he can survive in there are slim.”

“You,” Theo said, jabbing a finger at the woman. “Wanna run a world.”

“Not even a little,” she responded.

“Damn it. Why does he always do this?” Theo asked, rubbing his face some more. He slapped his cheeks, desperate to think of a solution. “Got any hero-types in the gate that can defend a world? Or anyone who wants the Throne of the Herald.”

“I’m afraid I used the last of my energy to bring these two back,” Death said, nodding toward the two dueling men. “It is not my domain to create new bodies for people, but Meya here forced me to do so.”

“I’m that bitch, by the way,” Meya said, pointing at herself. “And if Old and Crusty over here wants to keep his legs, he’ll do what I tell him.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Theo gritted his teeth. No solutions were coming to mind, so he soon gave up. Eventually, he released a sigh, looking back toward the way he came, not physically but in his mind. There was still a decently sized hole where he had come through, and although it was patching itself, it wouldn't remain for long.

“Okay, I guess carry on with whatever weird crap you two were doing. You’re the lady Elrin was talking about, right? The mastermind?”

Meya shook her head. “Yeah. Something like that.”

“I look forward to working with you,” Theo said. Remembering his manners when talking to new people was hard. But he often did his best.

“Farewell, Theo Spencer,” Death said. His gaunt face made the wink pretty creepy. “I’ll see you soon.”

Theo dismissed the threat and folded space in on itself. He arrived in Boar Hollow and infused his willpower as hard as he could into his Dreamwalker's core, calling an emergency meeting. Everyone would assemble in Khahak, including Fenian if he could feel the signal. Both Alex and Tresk felt the signal strongly, and were slipping through the void with haste.

As expected, Belgar came trotting over to see what was up.

"If you have an elevated state of alert, I suggest you employ it," Theo said, looking around. Things seemed calm here, but Theo wasn't very happy to know that Fenian had broken protocol so severely. “Nothing crazy to worry about. I just don't know what's going to happen.”

“We’ve got a few volunteer armies around the world,” Belgar confirmed. “I can activate them.”

“Make it happen,” Theo said. “Did you restrict all travel to Erradon like I asked?”

“As much as I can,” Belgar said with a shrug. “We have posters warning people not to go there, but we can’t shut the portal down.”

“Good enough, I suppose.”

Without wasting time, Theo made his way to Khahak, arriving directly at the Arbiter’s Citadel. He didn't like taking the weird elevator and instead pierced directly through the veil to meet with his old friend. “Got a problem.”

“I could tell by the urgency of your intent,” Khahar said, turning away from the window to smile at the alchemist. “Been a long time since you’ve visited me.”

Tresk popped into existence next to Theo, daggers drawn. “Who needs a stabbing!?”

“No one, yet. Fenian went into Death’s Gate.”

"Now why would he do that?" Khahar asked. "We're so close to the reset. I can't think of a reason why he would throw his life away like that."

"His dead wife, ya dingus," Tresk said, shaking her head. She returned her daggers to her inventory. "We gave him a little bit of power and he used it to pierce the veil. That's my guess anyway."

“Okay, here's the thing. Fenian is his own person, and he can do whatever he wants. But he's abandoned his throne. Isn't that going to be a problem?” Theo asked.

"I can offer troops to help defend his throne, and I can personally oversee his world. But from what I understand, it's not responding to his touch anyway, is it?" Khahar asked. "I can look from afar and deploy people as needed, but I don't think we have too much to worry about. The more concerning question is his life. I can’t imagine someone surviving on the other side of Death’s Gate.”

Theo had to force himself to think. He wasn't happy that a friend of his had plunged headlong into certain death, but there were bigger things to consider. He had to think about the world before he thought about his companion without Fenian. His world would be in danger of being taken over, but Kahar had volunteered to keep an eye on it. As long as no one claimed the Throne of the Herald, they could sort this out after the reset.

"Okay, this isn't as bad as I had first expected," Theo said, rubbing his chin. "All of us can keep an eye on Fenian's realm. That shouldn't be too hard. But since Khahar is permanently outside of the mortal realm, he can keep a closer eye. I just figured out that we could communicate thoughts and ideas through the throne, so he could warn us if anything terrible was happening."

“Maybe we could get the dragons over there,” Tresk said with a shrug. “I dunno, just spit balling here.”

“The proposed arrangement is acceptable,” Khahar said, smiling a bit too wide. “But, there are a few more things I’d like to discuss.

Khahar was really good at matching the theme of his world: bureaucracy. He had a lot of plans for the future, many boring plans involving laws and rules that they were supposed to enforce. While Theo wasn't so sure about doing any of that, he agreed to discuss it after the next switch. After all, they couldn't really do much now. They had to wait until the transition happened. Then they could decide how much authority they had.

Theo, Tresk, and Alex left once they were satisfied that things had been taken care of. The alchemists brought them to Fenian's world just to double-check things before they made their way back to the mortal realm. There were a few more things to do before they spent another year in the paper dimension with Pogo. But the instant they landed, Tresk turned to him and tilted her head to the side.

“Put up that shield thing,” Tresk said.

Theo didn’t hesitate, raising his privacy barrier in an instant.

“Khahar knew something,” she said. “He had this look on his face like he was holding in a fart. Or a secret, I don’t know.”

Theo shook his head. “What would he have to gain if he hid something from us?”

“Dunno. Just got a feeling about it.”

Theo filed Tresk's suspicions away in his mind. He wasn't sure what they could do about it right now. After having a short conversation, they checked the world out and made sure things were unchanged. Since they could do nothing about the perpetual war for now, they decided that was the norm. As long as people were finding each other 24 hours a day, everything was just fine.

Upon returning to the mortal realm, they linked up with Pogo, who had some very good news.

"You two are like beacons for our energy," she said, looking between both Theo and Tresk and beaming. “One true dragon was good enough, but with three, we're seeing many changes with the draconic energies.”

“That’s good news, right?” Tresk asked.

“Excellent news,” Pogo said. “Once we get you to the level of an elder dragon, it’ll be even better.”

“Side note,” Theo said, pointing his finger into the air. “Messing with the energy was actually good for the system, apparently. So, we’re doing two good things.”

“Huzzah!” Tresk cheered. “Now, let’s go suffer in a paper world for a year.”

“That’s very not huzzah,” Theo said with a sigh. “Let’s go.”