The Abyss had its own aesthetics, at least as far as I could be bothered to observe it during my short visits. It was a combination of gothic architecture, with an overabundance of pointed arches, even pointier towers, flying buttresses, and stained glass crammed everywhere they could fit them, with a bit of somber Victorian style sprinkled on top. The town buildings around the big castle were also following the same design principles, though obviously with less extravagance and flair than the home of the local lord.

Compared to that, the aesthetics of the Elysium seemed to be much simpler, bordering on the austere. Or so I deduced, though admittedly the only reference I had was the interior of one of the white spires dotting the landscape, specifically the one where Jaakobah was cooped up. That said, things were very consistent so far. White walls, utilitarian furniture, unassuming and efficient designs as far as the eye could see.

If there was one major difference between the two pocket spaces, it had to be the presence of electricity. Oddly enough, the Abyss had incandescent lights, proper plumbing, and various, if somewhat outdated, electronic appliances. I'd seen CRT TVs, microwave ovens, and even a stray Walkman, used by Crowey of all people to listen to music while working. Despite being a micro-civilization ostensibly built on and maintained by magitech mana-wells controlled by feudal ruling families, the place was surprisingly modern, which was extra strange considering it was supposedly a prison for the entire Abyssal race.

In comparison, the home of the Celestials, a supernatural power actively entwined with human society, was way more outwardly magical. For example, instead of faucets, the sink in the bathroom had a glowing blue orb that conjured water out of thin air when the user activated it with their magical humming thing. The same went for the toilet, lights, and even the doors had to be unlocked by aggressively humming at them. This, logically, meant that only Celestials could use any of them.

Of course, that didn't exactly pose an obstacle to me, as every locked door could be Phased through, and I didn't come here to use their washrooms in the first place. Even if the way they flatly said 'Thank you' in a mechanical voice when someone flushed them was hilarious.

Anyhow, after I finished inspecting the enchantment powering the water-orb in front of me, I slowly exhaled and resumed my skulking activities. I arrived only a few minutes ago, and while my main goal was to make a couple of backup marks, I'd been curious about how these things worked since the first time I saw Jaakobah use them, and I couldn't help myself. For example, it turned out the toilets were using an array arrangement that was suspiciously similar to the one in Fred used in our base's generator to break waste down into fuel. That was quite interesting, but as much as I wanted to bring one home to directly compare the two, I imagined carrying a ceramic bowl around during an infiltration mission was just asking for trouble.

So, back to the present. The bathroom attached to Jaakobah's apartment was fairly spacious and smelled faintly of lilac, but otherwise, it was just that. A very simple and utilitarian restroom with a magical shower, a magical sink, and a magical toilet. Not much else to see here.

I chose this as my point of entry since it shared a wall with Jaakobah's bedroom, making it comfortably within Phasing range, but now that I quenched my initial curiosity, it was time to move on and see the rest of what this pocket-dimension had to offer. First things first, I extended my senses, forming a sphere around me where I could freely shift my point of view. While it never experienced another big expansion like when I gained my second phantom limb, steady use of my powers still gradually increased the effective radius of this power, and at this point, it was wide enough that it not only covered the entire bathroom and most of the neighboring rooms, I could even peek at the floors above and below me.

Of course, I still had to 'manually' shift my vision to look around, which was time-consuming, but during a clandestine operation like this, it was still as good as a cheat code. In the beginning, I hoped that with enough practice, I would develop some kind of spatial awareness, or maybe even unlock one of those fancy mini-maps that outlined walls and automatically marked enemies. Those were on all the rage in certain animated shows I may or may not have binged in my free time during the nights, but I never managed to develop a skill like that. The closest I got to that was my ability to roughly tell the position of my marks, but it wasn't exactly the same, or nearly as elaborate as an actual heads-up display.

Still, it at least told me that Jaakobah was in the next room, and by shifting my PoV over to him, I could extend my effective range a bit in that direction. Of course, I didn't Phase over; I didn't want to wake him up and accidentally reveal myself. This was a stealth mission, so I wanted to stay completely hidden, ideally without anyone realizing there was an uninvited guest at all. Of course, that was setting the bar a bit high, but as they say, aim for the moon, and even if you miss, you'll still end up among the stars, right until you run out of oxygen and die a slow, lonely death in the vacuum of space. Why was that supposed to be an inspirational quote again?

Not important, let's move on. In this case, literally, as while the beautifully austere interior of the bathroom was definitely an extremely important and, dare I say, vital part of my infiltration, it kind of outlived its novelty, and I was ready to see the lesser sights. As such, after deciding on my next target, I left and reappeared in an equally riveting utility closet on the other side of the hallway. Or, at least I figured it was one, since it had a bunch of shelves with unmistakable cleaning supplies, but no mops or washcloths in sight. Instead, there were a series of blocky, knee-high stations housing small magical roombas. Yes, I just said that. The Celestials had magical roombas. What a world we lived in, eh?

As if on cue, one of the round little things came to life and left its station before it came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the closet. I wasn't joking; it looked just like one of those round autonomous vacuum cleaners that just recently hit the shelves in the more mundane parts of the Simulacrum, except it was floating a few centimeters above the ground and it had tiny little foldable brush hands. Combined with the transparent green magical gem at its front, which kind of looked like a huge, unblinking puppy-dog-eye, it was borderline cute.

After stopping, it made a couple of odd musical notes as it turned around in place, only to freeze up when its 'eye' found me. I held my breath for a moment, wondering if it could see me, and my question was immediately answered when the little magic roomba skittered over to my side in the company of a few more melodic notes and began brushing my shoes. Once it was satisfied, it let out a jaunty tune, folded up its tiny-weeny brush hands, and left the utility closet through a conveniently sized flap at the bottom of the door.

During all this, all I could muster was a slightly confounded yet intrigued "Huh," and I had to work hard to restrain my urges to grab one of the little mini-saucers and stuff it under my hoodie. I just wanted to take one home to study its internals, of course, not because they were kind of cute or anything, but decided against the idea. This was a sneaky operation, so no thieving. I could leave that till next time.

After another round of observations, I picked my next Phasing target, and reappeared in an empty room a floor below. It was yet another simple, no-frills chamber, this time in the bedroom variety. Holding my breath, I quietly searched the room from top to bottom, but couldn't find any articles of clothing or personal items. That told me this place didn't have an owner. That was both good, as it meant I could freely move around, and bad, since there was nobody to mark here. In any case, I breathed a bit more freely while I explored the rest of the place, but there were no new discoveries.

The bedding was simple and clean, the shelf on the wall by the entrance was empty save for something that looked like a prayer book, there was no TV or any other source of entertainment, and even the potted plant in the corner was plastic, or whatever magical equivalent the people here used. Honestly, the more I investigated this place, the more it felt like I was exploring the sets of a sci-fi show where all the props were designed by a company with a fruit logo. Sleek, minimalist, kind of stale, and boring.

By this point I had quite enough of the scenery, so instead of inspecting every nook and cranny, I focused my attention on covering more ground in search of a target for marking. After Phasing around a couple of times, I had to conclude that this floor consisted mostly of these kinds of simple rooms, with communal bathrooms at every corner. Were these spires just fancy apartment buildings, I wondered? Seemed like a bit of a waste, especially considering nobody lived here.

On second thought though, what if the floor was emptied because Jaakobah was holed up on the floor above? He was ostensibly under protective custody, and considering the Celestials leaned very heavily into espionage tropes, reserving a couple of floors just to make sure nobody could get close to the 'VIP' wasn't completely unthinkable. But then again, he didn't have any guards around, at least not at the moment, which was mighty annoying, considering it would've made my marking-efforts infinitely simpler.

Phasing became considerably less mentally straining than it used to be, but no completely free-to-use yet, and since I didn't run into a single living thing or any magical security cameras so far, I decided to save my mental resources and appeared inside a corridor this time. It was just as riveting as the rooms, so I didn't waste more time gawking and headed down the hallway. After roughly ten minutes of wandering, I've roughly figured out the floor plan of the area. The only new discovery during this time was a fancy door that, after some phantom limb finagling, turned out to be an elevator.

At first, I almost questioned why Celestials needed elevators when they had literal wings, but on second thought, we had legs and stairs, and yet we still used elevators, so maybe it was a moot question. Anyhow, since the opportunity presented itself, I called the lift and stepped inside. Of course, the bloody thing didn't have convenient buttons, so I had to use my phantom limbs again to interact with the humming-interface and figure out where to go. In the end, I picked the bottom floor and…

"Ugh… Did they seriously have to use elevator music too? Really?"

There was nobody to answer my grumblings, so I just leaned back and patiently waited. That didn't mean I wasn't doing anything at all though, as I also extended my senses and positioned my point of view outside, so that if I noticed any actual Celestials ripe for marking on the way, I could Phase over at a moment's notice. Weirdly enough, even after close to seventy floors, I didn't see a single soul. No movement, no signs of life, no nothing.

At last, the elevator reached the ground floor, and while I couldn't see anybody right away, I definitely picked up a few stray words in the distance, so I prepared myself to head out. Then, the elevator doors… didn't open, and I continued even further down instead. In retrospect, I did pick the bottom option when choosing my destination, and should've figured this place had a basement too, but in my defense, the enchanted innards of the control panel weren't exactly user-friendly.

Not long after, the sliding doors opened to a well-lit corridor filled with the kind of distinctly stale underground air I was very familiar with already. Unlike the upper floors, this place felt more lived in, with a well-trodden stone-pawed floor and walls marked with various warnings in Celestial script. I could read them, but as usual, it was fairly annoying to do so thanks to all the shifting words and layers of meaning. The messages could be divided into three categories. The first, most straightforward messages, were warnings about this being a restricted area. The second type was doing the same, but in much more flowery terms, explaining how ignoring the warnings would bring the wrath of Deus upon me and all my descendants and whatnot in gratuitous, old-testamental detail. The third type, written in a much smaller font, was slightly more helpful, as it designated the area in front of me, depending on the reading, either as a 'Font of Power', a 'Sacred Source', or, most intriguingly, a 'Well of Mana'.

All the warnings had already piqued my interest, but this last bit pretty much cemented my desire to explore this basement first. Using my disembodied point of view, I glanced around the corners, but still couldn't find any sort of security, so after a beat, I simply walked out of the elevator and down the corridor. On my way, I ran into a couple more signs, some pointing at administrative offices, while others were just reminders of all the brimstone and fury I would experience if I came here without permission. I naturally ignored all of those and headed deeper into the facility, towards the center of the basement floor, and the closer I got, I could feel a sort of static charge in the air that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on ends.

It was a familiar feeling, and once I reached my destination, a pair of huge metal doors barely holding back the magical glow permeating from the other side, I glanced behind them with my external point of view, and couldn't help but click my tongue.

"The plot thickens…"

While my whispers were swallowed up by the empty hallways, my mind already racing to figure out how things fit together. For the record, on the other side of the doors, there was a large, lavishly decorated hall, kind of like a small cathedral, with a brightly shining blue cube floating over a round pedestal in the middle of it all. It was, without a doubt, a Mana Well, the exact same thing I nearly snatched as Bel back at the Inanna's castle in the Abyss.

This was a tad perplexing, as I'd never heard of anything like this, either on the Hub or from any of our sources. Granted, I'd never heard anything about vacant crystal spires with flying roombas or medieval farmers either. In fact, our knowledge about the Elysium, in general, was spotty at best. All the more reason for me to explore some more, I concluded.

While I would've loved to Phase into this room and see this Mana Well from up close, my goals lied elsewhere, so after one last look, I returned to my body and turned on my heels.

After returning to the lift, I called it again, and this time I made sure to spend a bit more time reverse-engineering the enchantment that served as its control panel, just to figure out how to reach the ground floor. Another uneventful ride later, I finally arrived at my destination, and the automatic sliding doors opened to a fairly unassuming main hall. Both the walls and the floors were dominated by white marble and light blue tapestry, but since there were no decorations to speak of, or even any particularly fancy architectural flourishes in the design, the whole place reminded me more of a hospital than a mansion or a hotel's entrance.

More importantly, unlike the rest of this blasted building, this place actually showed some signs of life beyond the flying roombas idling here or there, so I switched to a much more cautious approach and moved around the hall one short Phase at a time. Since the spires were somewhat conical in design, it meant the ground floor was much larger than any of the higher floors I'd explored before, but there were still more than enough nooks, utility closets, and other out-of-sight crannies I could use to move around unseen. Not that there was anyone who could see me so far, but the S. in my middle name stood far 'Safety', so I did my best sly thief impression, checking around every corner and being very sneaky-like.

This time, I had to use my ears to locate my targets, and after less than a minute, I found myself near the enormous entrance of the building. Adjoining  the approximately ten meters tall frosted glass doors, decorated with more ornamental details than all of the upper floors combined, there was a small enclosure separated from the rest of the foyer by a waist-high counter. No doubt some kind of security or information-kiosk, I concluded, behind which I could see two people huddled around a small, round table.

Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised after seeing Angie's 'battle garments', but the fact that the duo were wearing the equivalent of togas with shiny brass breastplates over them still gave me a pause. Were these some kind of ceremonial uniforms, or were celestial security guards seriously cosplaying as fantasy hoplites sans the helmets on a regular basis? Either way, I finally found my targets, so now I just had to successfully mark them and I could call this a day. The only question was, how?

The two of them were sitting while facing each other, so I was guaranteed to get noticed if I tried to Phase in. Since I was still trying to adhere to my sneaky plan, that option was relegated to 'last resort'. First, I'd try something more subtle. Last time there was a similar situation, I used my phone as a distraction while marking Fred for the first time, but considering I left it at home this time, I couldn't repeat the tactic. That, of course, didn't mean I couldn't use something more analog to do the same.

Once I found a nice spot with a convenient column to hide behind near the kiosk, I took a deep breath and whistled as hard as I could. The sharp sound echoed for a while in the empty hall, and I waited for some kind of reaction from the pair with bated breath… but there was nothing. The two simply kept focusing on the table while loudly discussing something. I figured they probably didn't hear me, so after a beat, I let out another whistle. Long beat, held breath, still no reaction. What the actual hell?

Curious, I carefully sneaked closer to the counter to take a better look, and once I was near enough to cast my point of view over the duo, I realized they were playing some kind of game using eight-sided dice and elaborate cards with realistically moving monsters and people on the illustrations.

"I put my Inner Sanctum Knight into defense position. Since I have the Inner Sanctuary in play, it gives him four extra shields and a taunt. Your turn."

"That's such a cheap combo…"

"Hey, I didn't make the rules. I also wouldn't talk about cheap, mister 'my Bloodwrack Chimera is immune to all spells and card effects'."

"I didn't make the rules either. Also, I use three mana points to summon a Lesser Balefiend and activate its ability, forcing all of your units into attack position for two rounds, and end my turn."

"Argh! I hate those things! Why do you even have one in your deck?"

"Because you hate it, obviously."

…

Were these two seriously playing a TCG? A magical TCG with animated cards?

What the actual, literal, non-philosophical hell was up with this Elysium place? The more I learned about it, the less sense it made.

More importantly, the cards were also making all kinds of fancy visual and sound effects, which explained why they didn't react to my whistling right away. If I wanted to gain these guys' attention, I needed something more drastic. Such as…

"Hey there, little buddy."

Phasing right on top of it, I grabbed hold of one of the flying roombas, and it let out a series of high-pitched noises in return. It tried to fly out of my grasp, but I held onto it tight, even as it nearly dragged me around, and the longer we struggled, the more noises it made.

"Easy there. Easy."

My original plan was to throw it behind the counter to cause a commotion, but to my surprise, this noise had an immediate effect on the guards, and one of them stood up right away.

"One of the servitors probably got stuck under the furniture again. I'll go check it out."

Since that more or less achieved my goal, I hastily put the roomba back onto the ground and whispered, "Sorry, buddy. You can go now."

Despite the fact I already let it go, it remained motionless and only faced me with its big not-eye. I gently patted it on its back as a form of apology, at which point it let out another series of high-pitched noises and whistles and scurried away like a startled cat. Did I mention that this place was weird yet?

Anyways, I quickly Phased back behind my previous hidey-spot by the column, and could barely catch one of the guards warning the other not to peek at their cards while they were away. I observed the situation through my external point of view, making sure my body was out of sight, and once the two were separated far enough, I held my breather and rapidly Phased close to ten times in a row, jumping from one blind spot to the next in a roundabout path until I arrived behind the counter.

Now, let us be clear on one thing: the remaining guard, currently busy trying to sneakily glance at the cards at the top of his own deck, had lots of exposed skin, and I only needed to make a small contact to mark him. However, I had a tradition to uphold here, so after one last teleport, I raised my hand and delivered a sharp karate chop at the back of the man's unguarded neck. He all but jumped off his stool, scattering his playing cards all over the place, but by the time he could turn around, I was already on the other side of the wall, looking at the building from the outside.

Before anything else, I checked to see if my mark stuck, and merrily noted that I had a brand new red dot on my Far Sight radar. While the process took way more time and sidetracks than originally planned, with this, I had successfully completed my mission and was ready to head home. Or at least, that's what I would've done if something else didn't catch my attention.

The spire I just exited was situated on a hill, surrounded by a beautifully maintained garden. There wasn't much in terms of flowers, but the arrangements of the trees, hedges, and occasional sculptures were still fairly impressive. However, the thing that made me stop in my tracks wasn't any of those, nor the other imposing white towers glowing with magical light even in the middle of the night, but a smattering of small, unlit buildings barely visible past the boundaries of the gardens.

I didn't know how much time had passed since I had arrived in the Elysium, but I figured it couldn't have been more than an hour. An hour and a half at most. That meant that I still had some time to burn, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still extremely curious about this place. I vacillated, but only for a second or two.

"In for a penny, in for a pound," I whispered, and ignoring the muffled shouting coming from the wall behind me, I disappeared into the night, exploring this strange place one Phase at a time.