Theo didn’t know how to estimate the conceptual weight of a Shard. From the first time he had interacted with one, he had felt how heavy they were. If one considered them to be a form of World Anchor, the weight was too much for one person to handle. That’s why they had created the beacons, as a way to guide that weight along a track, eventually reaching predetermined destinations.

Now Theo faced five shards at once, a task which would’ve been impossible without help. Yet one amongst them wasn’t so lucky as to have mastered the void.

“How is this going to work?” Elrin asked, arms wrapped around the dim shard. “Do I steer?”

“A little,” Theo said, watching as Alex emerged from nowhere. Without prompting, the dragon coiled herself around Elrin. The elf shouted in surprise for a moment, but gritted his teeth. “Alex isn’t comfortable doing it alone, and both her and Tresk are going to draw on my ability and authority to make this happen. That means…”

Theo trailed off, stumbling to one side as the ground fissured below him. Gritting his teeth, he went with the short version. “Trust the dragon!”

Tresk had two shards under her care, as did Theo. Alex and Elrin were only responsible for one, which should’ve lessened the load. The alchemist stopped whatever spiraling thoughts came after. Unless he wanted to lose a Shard to the void, they had to move.

“Just pay attention,” Theo said, closing his eyes. His aura sprung out, wrapping around the two shards and encasing them with his immense willpower. Tresk did the same, although the willpower she added to the mix wasn’t quite as impressive. When Alex’s barrier erupted, it was the weakest of them all. The alchemist grumbled. “Load balancing.”

Thanks to Theo’s immense willpower, he had more than he needed. Even with two Shards, he could wrestle them through the void and guide them to Iardein. He spread his will over the group, through the Tara’hek. Tresk took the least of it, bolstering her decent shell. Alex drew heavily on him, causing him to lose focus for a few moments. It took longer than he wanted to adjust to the sensation, but there was simply no more time. They had wrung the void island dry of extra time, and now paid the price.

Theo drew one last breath, narrowing his focus to a point. Everything, from his willpower to his authority as the combined Dreamer and Dreamwalker entered his command.

“Go.”

The void island crumbled to nothing, rocks broken into dirt, then fine particles of dust, and eventually nothing. A whirlpool of conflicting energies formed where the group had just stood while three balls of protective energy rocketed across the emptiness of the void. Theo’s mind shot in every direction, his soul aching as he held three bubbles together at the same time. If Xol’sa’s little invention failed, the world would be down an anchor. It was an unacceptable loss.

Through the pain and the strenuous flexing of Willpower, there was only one thing keeping Theo’s mind together. A gentle song floated through his mind, sailing like a flower on the breeze. It took him too long to realize that Tresk was singing into his mind, humming an unfamiliar tune that came with an impossible level of comfort. The alchemist felt warm and certain, as though pleasant summer days were here to stay, now and forever. He then felt the urge to murder something, driving his daggers into its stupid, ugly face.

Theo shook his head, looking down to see his normal, scale-strewn skin. He focused again, steering the group as best he could while the song grew louder in his mind. In her bubble, Tresk’s eyes were clamped shut. Elrin was pumping his fist and shouting words of encouragement. Meanwhile, the alchemist did everything he could to keep himself from drifting.

The marble appeared in the distance, shrouded amongst the darkness of the void.

Almost there.

Words of self-encouragement filled Theo’s mind, joined by the song. It repeated, the words mingling with the song. They became the lyrics. Don’t worry, be happy, or something like that. It didn’t really matter, did it? Come on. Theo knew what he was doing. He’d done this crap a thousand times before, just zipping through the void like a streak of purple.

Theo shook his head, dislodging the invasive… But it wasn’t invasive, was it?

“Oh, crap,” twin voices muttered.

As per Xol’sa protocol, the Shard split as they approached Iaredin. They locked onto their destinations, no longer in need of help. Elrin hooted with excitement and Alex roared. But their descent onto the planet wouldn’t go well unassisted. They weren’t Shards, after all.

The barriers guided them all down. Perhaps not to the intended destination, but it was enough that none of them died due to the strange way a body entered a world in this realm. With a snap, the barriers vanished, revealing a desert landscape. Elrin stumbled from his shell, shaking off the sand that had been kicked up and thrusting his hands into the air.

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“Hells yeah!” he shouted. “That went off without a hitch! Are you guys… okay… What in the name of the Lady am I looking at?”

Dusting themselves off, the Tara’hek rose with a frown on their face. “This complicates matters,” they said.

Elrin’s mind flooded with confusion. Before him stood someone he didn’t recognize. The being was roughly his height with horns somewhere between the dragon and the demon, pale purple skin covered with scales, and a thick tail that swept back and forth like a tiger ready to pounce.

“Who are you?” Elrin asked, pointing a lazy finger.

Looking down at themselves, the Tara’hek sighed. “Yeah, this isn’t good. We drew on too much of our connection. Now we’re the same person.”

Elrin’s head slowly tilted to one side. “That was an option?”

“I suppose it was.” The Tara’hek clapped their hands together. “Now, we need to figure out how to pull ourselves apart. We didn’t get a system message, so this is part of an existing skill.”

“That’s a problem. I need to get to the other Shards, so I can’t help you,” Elrin said, turning his head. He could sense the new Shards requesting his help somewhere distant. If he didn’t act soon, there was no telling what would happen.

“You’re fine,” the Tara’hek said.

Elrin nodded, looking at the new being before him with concern. “This is Skaral, by the way. Uh… Have fun.”

Elrin vanished, replaced by a bird that looked around with a confused expression. It made a screeching sound before taking to the skies.

The Tara’hek was left there, in the desert, with their thoughts. And they were some extremely confusing thoughts. It wasn’t as though three voices were crying out for control over the body. They all worked in concert, merging to create something that wasn’t Theo, Tresk, or Alex. They were all three at once. Rather than solving the problem, the Tara’hek teleported to Tero’gal, instead.

This time, when Belgar came jogging over, he looked puzzled. “Hey. Are you…?”

“Yeah, we’re having a bit of trouble right now,” the Tara’hek said. “Theo, Tresk, and Alex merged into one entity. And you’re looking at them.”

“Oh! That’s… not good,” Belgar said with a chuckle. “Or is that good? I don’t know.”

The Tara’hek shrugged. “It just is. We’re going to that park Elrin was meditating in. We figure the best chance to splitting is some calm.”

“That makes a lot of sense to me. I think,” Belgar said, scratching his head. “So are you a demonling? Marshdragon? I can’t think of a way to combine three words that makes sense.”

“We’re the Tara’hek.” Without explaining further, they headed through the town and found their way to the park. That’s where the Tara’hek took a seat, closing their eyes and focusing on what had happened. That was the best way to figure out how to reverse it.

It didn’t take long for them to figure out that this was the Tara’hek Union skill. While they had never pushed it this far, they remembered the song that had spread through the connection to unite them. They also realized it was the only reason they had come out the other end alive. The Shards weren’t stable enough in their inactive form to have survived the crash-landing. Combining their connection was the only way to operate as a whole unit, rather than segmented things.

A few hours of breathing, reflection, and introspection later, and distinct voices sprung from within the union. It took great effort, but the skill eventually activated.

Theo opened his eyes, blinking away what felt like a week’s worth of sleep. “I’m not eager to try that again.”

“Are you kidding!?” Tresk shouted. “That was awesome. I wanna do that all the time.”

Alex shook her head. “I’m with Theo on this one. Perhaps that’ll be useful as a last-ditch effort, but it was too hard to split ourselves. We could get stuck that way, you know.”

“Can we?” Theo asked, scratching his chin. His concern wasn’t getting stuck. It was a concerning, but pleasant enough experience. There had been no confusion about what needed to be done, resulting in split-section decisions that saved the Shards. “I don’t know. We should reserve it for dire circumstances.”

“This is why we can’t have any fun,” Tresk said. “You guys are always worried about, ‘Oh, what happens if we get stuck as the same person forever? I need my sense of identity and blah blah.’ Who cares?”

“I’d say she has a point, but she doesn’t,” Theo said, laughing. “The point of the union is to provide us a chance to work as an unimpeded team. There’s nothing stopping us from drawing on any power from the three of us. We can communicate without communicating. It goes beyond instinct.”

“I sense some training in my future,” Alex said with a smoky sigh. “I can already feel your desire for us to increase our willpower to match yours. I don’t think that’s possible without the system’s little cheat.”

“No, that’s true. You won’t be able to reach the level I’m at now, but you can get close,” Theo said. “And if you’re close, that means that our overall willpower when we’re in that form will be... well, we can’t even calculate how strong it will be.”

“The most important point of all is that we need a name,” Tresk said, slamming her fist into her open palm. “Something that strikes fear into the hearts of our enemies, something that exemplifies everyone in the group.”

“Dave,” Alex blurted out.

“I like it,” Theo said before Tresk could oppose. “We are Dave.”

“We’re not Dave!” Tresk shouted back. “How could you do this to me? We could’ve been Murderaxe Killboy or something like that. You wanna call us Dave? I’ll kill ya!”

“Thus it is spoken,” Theo and Alex said in unison. “We are Dave.”

“We are Dave! We are Dave!” they chanted.

“Noooooo! Stop it!” Tresk threw a tantrum, falling to the ground and slamming her fists. But she got tired, eventually rising to her feet with a sigh. “Fine. But it stands for something cool, I just know it. We are Dave! We are Dave!”