Theora woke up on what she assumed to be the next morning or the next year. She toddled down the stairs into the bathroom to clean herself up absentmindedly. Then, looking through the rooms in search of the others, she ultimately heard the soft sound of Bell’s dampened voice from inside the plant room.

“So based on those readings, it’s probably going to take years until the rain stops. We shouldn’t plant you until then, at least, but it’s cosy in here, right?”

After gently pushing the door open, Theora found Bell talking to a gardening pot.

“And the rains are fine for me, but you know None, they always—” Bell turned, breaking into a smile as she saw Theora. “Hey there. I’m talking to Treeka.” She pointed at the little flame tree seedling.

“She can hear us?”

Bell shrugged. “I’m not sure. Last time, she told me she didn’t remember anything, but that doesn’t mean she can’t hear it, I suppose? None always takes care of me when I polyp. I guess I learned the habit from them.”

Theora knelt in front of Treeka. “I’m very happy I get to meet you again. I’m sorry it took so long.”

As she spoke, Bell rose up and weaved her tendrils into a thick braid. “You slept for a month.”

“Oh. Where are the others?”

Bell tilted her head. “Not home, obviously. Didn’t you check on the party map?”

Ah, right. The party map. Theora tried to recall what that was, and after realising that Bell probably wasn’t referring to some kind of celebration, she noticed the little System interfaces in the periphery of her vision. “Right.”

Theora pulled up the party member screen. That’s right — technically she’d never left the party with Isobel, she only left the range of the System. Had Iso kept her in the group the entire time, and then invited the others back?

Either way, Bell was correct — the others were far away.

“But I woke up in fresh clothing,” Theora observed.

“Yours truly,” Bell admitted. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t.”

Theora vaguely remembered all the times Bell had reached out and offered advice and solace. Back when Theora had been crying from nightmares, and back when she’d worried about Dema on the lake. “You always take care of me. Thank you so much.”

Bell averted her gaze, blushing slightly — or rather, toxins built up under her translucent blue skin in preparation for danger. Either way, it was cute, and she looked embarrassed. “It’s fine. I wore gloves, don’t worry. Did you rest well?”

That question somehow gave Theora the urge to stretch. And she would have almost done it right there. She never stretched. She never really needed to. But in that moment, being so relaxed, she almost would have — if not for the fact that showing off her body in front of Bell in that way was far too indulgent. “I think so,” she said. “I must have. I barely feel tired, and I’m a little bit happy.”

Bell nodded. “That’s good. I’ll take my rounds soon, so you’ll be alone with Treeka.”

Theora didn’t know what it meant for Bell to ‘take her rounds,’ but she was a little curious. “Would it be alright if I asked you if I could join?”

They’d never spent a lot of time together alone. It was very tempting.

Bell considered it for a moment, and said, “Yes.”

Theora nodded. “So, would it be alright if I joined you?”

“Of course,” Bell said, already leaving. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something, anyway.”

 

Bell was carrying the special Rains-of-Fire protection umbrella wrapped in a few of her tendrils. However, it wasn’t large enough to cover them both, so Bell left half of herself exposed, making sure to keep Theora shielded instead. The little drops of glowing red rain fizzled on Bell’s skin and tendrils, the toxic mana dissipating into her skin.

This was slightly unbearable. Theora extended her hand. “Would you let me hold it?”

Bell’s eyes widened. She leaned forward, throwing a glance around Theora, as if to make sure she hadn’t accidentally left her exposed. Her gaze softened slightly upon finding Theora unharmed. After a moment of consideration, she finally relented. “Sure. If you want.”

Theora nodded, and held the umbrella so that it fully covered Bell instead.

They kept walking down the hill towards the village, with Bell getting distracted with what appeared to be System prompts. 

“So,” Theora asked slowly, “what did I miss? While I was gone?”

Bell looked up, a little startled. “Hasn’t Dema filled you in?”

Theora looked away. She’d been too sleepy. Listening to the contents of words was difficult when she could just let Dema’s voice soothe her instead. She barely recalled anything Dema had said.

Bell seemed to draw some conclusions from Theora’s reaction, and made her hair tendrils imitate a shrug in a short upwards twitch. “Well, lots of stuff happened. But that was to be expected. I’ll be honest, we would have had no chance if Dema had gone up there with you.”

“No chance concerning what?”

Bell curved into a side path leading up a hill. “Anything, really. Like a week after you left, some group of heroes decided to launch an invasion. They wanted to cause suffering to farm Afterthoughts and get stronger. And they were already strong; they’d hidden their power, they would have wiped the floor with me. Dema and I went to face them together.”

They arrived at a steep incline and Bell pushed aside some shrubs to find a crevice in the rock. As they went inside, Theora felt a very faint, concealed, but powerful energy source inside. She couldn’t clearly locate it. Whatever it was was being obscured — or obscured itself. Was this why they were here?

Beyond the crevice was a cave system. Bell kept grazing her fingers against the rough walls. At some point, her hand stopped, causing an electric crackle. An iridescent wave ran across the air.

There was some kind of barrier moving along the side of the cave.

Bell tapped against it, frowning, distracted by the System. “Huh.”

“What’s that?”

“The Rains of Fire can cause geography to become brittle. There’s been landslides. I’ve stabilised the rock formation to keep the surrounding villages safe.”

“Won’t the rains harm you if they hit the barrier?”

Bell nodded. “They do, but that’s why I put it inside. Fewer drops will trickle down to here. But there’s something wrong with this one.” She kept a few tendrils grave along the barrier as they proceeded.

Bell seemed to be incredibly diligent. She also puffed herself up, untangling all of her hair, having it dance around in a dense forest of tentacles to probe along the surrounding rock. Her eyes narrowed as she inspected every part of the defensive field. At the same time, she kept clear of Theora to avoid accidentally touching her. Sometimes the thick web of tendrils would open a path in a random direction, and Theora understood that to mean ‘you are standing in the way, please go there instead.’

“What do you think is wrong?”

Bell jolted up. “It just feels off. Technically I should feel the problem, but it becomes difficult when I have many barriers up at the same time.”

Eventually, Bell found an entrance on the side of a larger hall leading deeper into the cave system. She just slipped through. Bell didn’t have any bones inside her body, so she could squeeze through very tight openings. Theora was too large to fit, and went further ahead to find a different way in.

She found access by climbing up the rock and squeezing through a narrow slit, and saw Bell on the other side, sitting on a little island inside a small pond of fire rain. She was casting countless lower-rank Skills to weave new life into the barrier.

There was a rift in the ceiling with red raindrops gushing down and into the pond, right through Bell’s protective fields, which were fringed at the edges with a translucent red-shift.

That should be hurting. Bell’s senses really must have dulled a lot.

The hole closed up slowly, leaving a spot for the rain to run down unobstructed. Then, Bell disabled some other barriers further below to help the pond drain out.

As it glucked away to be reintegrated into Himaeya’s mana cycle, Bell let out a sigh. “I wonder what caused this damage. I made sure to leave gaps in the barriers so wildlife can still pass through. But this looks like something tried to force its way in.” She pushed herself up — her body hanging in the air as the tendrils carried it over to Theora, where she landed with the sound of her feet squishing onto the rock. Her hair weaved itself into three thick fishbone braids; one on her back and one to each side of her head. “Let’s search the rest of the cave just to make sure.”

“I can feel a faint presence. It’s diffuse, though.”

Bell nodded. “Whatever did this is probably still here, then.”

Breaking barriers created by one of the strongest mages alive was probably no easy feat. Theora kept her senses open for anything amiss, but couldn’t clearly locate the presence even after an hour of wading through wet tunnels. 

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah.” Bell knelt in front of a patch of lichen, storing some away, presumably as a present for Iso. 

“Why did you leave the party? Did Dema not want me to see her break the rules?”

“I assume so. We had no idea how difficult the fight would be. We’d only just engaged, and she thought that she’d rejoin the party right after. But…” Bell took a deep breath. “It didn’t go so well.”

She entered another crevice, and as Theora followed, she heard the echoes of faint sobs from further ahead.

“Must be here.” Bell took a deep breath, and they went down a steep and long slope only lit by her bioluminescence.

At the very end of the cave system, they found an Afterthought, sitting on the ground.

The Afterthought was vaguely shaped like a person. Hot pink frizzles with colour-shifted glitches formed its outline. It cowered there, hands over its head, legs pressed up its chest. Bell drew a glove over her hand and started patting its head.

“I see,” she murmured.

“This one caused the damage?”

Bell gave a cautious nod. “I’m inclined to believe it would have been able to. Let me check what it’s made of.”

“It’s very strong.” Theora could feel the presence clearly now, despite the Afterthought obscuring it. “It took us a long time to get here.”

“I think it came here on purpose,” Bell added. “[Appraise] suggests it was manifested from the subconscious desire for — safety? — of people living around the area. Maybe it wants to feel sheltered from the Rains of Fire?” Bell got up and took a few steps back. “Not hostile. It would be difficult to defeat it anyway, without causing a mess, at least.” She activated a few fairly strong skills and formed a glowing, intransparent crystal shield around the Afterthought.

Theora was inclined to agree. A fight with it might destroy the mountain. The desire of the people that created it must be unbearable. And it must have been building up for a while. “I thought the Rains of Fire started only recently.”

“It’s been a year or so. And the last Rains of Fire only ended relatively recently. It could have been created during the first, and left to wander.” 

The creature was now engulfed in thick layers of walls.

“You are sealing it away?”

“What?” Bell stared in confusion. After following Theora’s gaze, she added, “Ah, no. I’m a [Barrier-Mage], not a [Sealer].”

“I’m not well-educated in the precise difference between the two,” Theora admitted as they turned to leave.

“The distinction isn’t always clear. But the general rule is that barriers are meant to keep something out, while seals are meant to keep something in. Matter of definition, of course, some Skills are a little dubious. In any case, what I just set up would be easy to break from the inside.” She shrugged. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? The barrier protecting this cave is meant to keep the Rains out. Maybe it came here to follow the desire that made it. Maybe it wanted to feel safe.”

“You made a barrier so it feels safe.”

Bell bit her lips. “Anyway, let’s go to our next stop…”

She got lost in System prompts again while crawling back up the path. However, she kept throwing nervous glances at Theora.

Based on the strength of that Afterthought, it would have dispensed a lot of experience. How had Bell become the world’s second-strongest hero while forgoing rewards like that? Heroes at the peak of the rankings weren’t necessarily known for their compassion. It wasn’t a coincidence that Bell defended the System so adamantly.

Then again, Bell had dropped to third place during Theora’s absence.

As Bell threw another nervous glance, Theora caught it, and kept it firm. Bell squirmed for a few moments until she broke. “This cave was my biggest worry for today, so I was a bit distracted, but… there’s something I wanted to… to talk about. I think.” 

“What is it?”

Bell’s tendrils shivered. “It’s…” She stopped to look at Theora. “I’m curious about something. When you were up there, lost. At the edge of the planetary system. Were you… waiting for us? Did you expect us to come for you?”

That question was not difficult to answer. Theora’s friends had, unthinkably, managed to somehow extract an Orb of Seven Wishes from thin air. It had taken them almost two hundred years to do so, and it would not have been possible without Isobel’s [Compute] and her System data analysis. Waiting for an Orb to randomly appear might have taken millennia. Even then, it would have been ridiculous to assume that anyone could have actually used an Orb to find Theora, much less through the Wish of Yearning — and even in that case, the idea of somehow managing to get home through blood propulsion was difficult to fathom. All things considered, it was a miracle that they were able to rescue her at all.

“I didn’t think you would be able to.” 

Bell nodded. She turned back to continue the ascent. Her tendrils squelched against the rock, finding purchase drag herself up. Every now and then, they loosened parts of the walls, but she was kept firm by all the others nonetheless. It did seem more reckless than how she’d traversed the caves before, though. Was she upset?

“This is your home.”

The tone of Bell’s voice was calm and firm.

Theora looked up. “What?” 

“You deserve to be here,” Bell continued, still climbing. Her wet voice echoed just like the sounds of her movement. “On this planet. It’s your home. It belongs to you just as much as to any other being living here. It would have been fine for you to return.”

Theora stared at Bells back in confusion, stopping. “Why are you saying this?” 

Bell halted too, and turned. “Because you got stuck in space.”

“I did.” It was a true, but obvious statement.

“You got stuck in space,” Bell repeated, sounding sterner. “Of all people. You.”  

Theora made a careful step back. “I don’t understand what you are trying to tell me.”

“I’m saying you should not have gotten stuck in space. I’m saying you should have come back.”

Bell continued her ascent.

The words stunned Theora into a pause, then she hurried to catch up. “I couldn’t. I was stuck.”

Bell clicked her tongue. “You know, None wants to research [Obliterate]. They are currently waiting for you to recover, but ultimately, they might want to see you use it.”

“That would be alright with me.”

“During your absence,” Bell went on, “None tried to find information on the nature of Skills. How they form and what they are. They talked to Dema, who has a ridiculous amount of them. And we found that, while we commonly think that Skills are learned, it is more accurate to say that people create them. There are, of course, many restrictions, you can’t just do whatever. You need to spend dedication, effort, and time. And any Skill you create must in some way align with who you are as a person. It’s related to what you believe to be possible. What you believe to be able to do. And what you want to do.”

“I vaguely remember talking about something similar with Dema,” Theora murmured. “It sounds reasonable. But… I’m still confused.”

Bell tensed up. Some of her tendrils curled. She arrived at the top of the narrow path, where it then widened into the hall with the pond.

She awaited Theora outside, staring her down, saying, “You came back with a new Skill.”

Theora remembered. She pulled up her sheet. She hadn’t ever seen it in the Interface before.

 

[Retain], Level 516.

What you retain will remain.

 

“It felt bad, losing myself.” Theora’s voice was low, defensive. “I wanted to keep some of me. Of all of you.”

Bell kept staring. Theora felt the gaze burn into her body. Had she made her angry? Though Bell didn’t seem angry, she seemed… intense.

“This is your home,” Bell repeated. “It’s fine for you to come back. You can come home if you want to. Always. Dema missed you. None missed you. And I enjoy your presence on this planet too, if only because it means I have to die less.”

Suddenly, a tear dropped out of Theora’s eyes. She blinked, befuddled. What was going on?

Bell continued, “You did not make a Skill that would help you return.”

“I couldn’t have returned.” Theora swallowed dryly. “Even if I had learned to fly, I had no way to navigate home. The device was out of energy. The reach of the System was so small in comparison to how far I was away. I couldn’t have found my way home.”

Bell shook her head. “Up there, you made the perfect Skill to be stuck in space forever. You made the perfect Skill to oppose time. If you thought you belonged here, you would have been able to make the perfect Skill to return, don’t you think?”

A silence fell over them. Theora tried to gather Bell’s words into a coherent shape, but struggled. She wiped her cheeks. It did not fit. She could have made a Skill to return? “But,” Theora said, as low as she could, “I don’t deserve to be home.”

Bell smiled. “There we have it. And I’m telling you, you’re wrong. You deserve to be home.”

She wrapped a tendril around Theora’s hand. The acid felt soft and warm. She tugged, and Theora stumbled forward.

“Just to be clear, though,” Bell added, “You did make the right choice by creating [Retain], if for the wrong reasons. Of course we would come to fetch you. Always. You could have just waited for us. And in a way, unknowingly, you did. Who knows what state we might have found you in if you had not retained so much of yourself. So, I’m not chastising you for the Skill you were able to make. You could have either trusted us, or found a way back home yourself. But this is home. You can come back home if you want to. Don’t abandon yourself.”

They proceeded onward together. Theora managed a nod between sobs.