All things considered, Theora’s first attempt at baking could only be called a success. She’d received praise from everyone who ate one, and as such, decided to pursue that new interest whenever she found time.

She tried to learn how to extract sugar from a sugar beet. She found an alchemist who could teach her the process of creating the powder used to make the dough rise. And since she was still not confident she’d be able to actually do it, she fetched a lot of that substance for good measure.

At the same time, she and the others went back to helping out with the Afterthought plague.

One of the heroes responsible for the attack had agreed to help with decommissioning the remaining crystals; the others were exiled.

Bell could clear entire halls on her own; as could Dema. The same was true for Theora, and so that’s how they spent their time, which freed up a ton of guard capacity. Many outright decided to quit and take up other tasks to help with rebuilding the city.

Isobel couldn’t clear a hall alone. She was by far the weakest member of their party, so she mostly tagged along with Bell, because Bell was a [Barrier Mage]. That way, Isobel was protected enough to dispatch and absorb some of the creatures to level-up her Class without being ground into the finest dust.

However, much to Theora’s self-contained delight, she eventually got to spend a day with Isobel too. The mages trying to decipher the crystals needed some ingredients to be fetched from outside town. There was an area with rather strong monsters about a two-hour travel east, the so-called Sounddoom Valley.

Bell and Dema were both really good at clearing halls, especially if they were willing to spend mana. Meanwhile, the monsters in the area of Sounddoom Valley — so-called prowlers — were too dangerous for someone to travel to unguarded.

Normally, a raid expedition would be mounted to acquire these ingredients, but Isobel had the necessary level of [Identify] and wasn’t a big help with clearing out Afterthoughts, and everyone was eager to get Theora away from those halls.

And thus, one day, the two drove through the mountainous paths outside Hallmark in a little magitech carriage. It had been built out of wood, painted red and yellow, and stuffed with machinery, providing space for two people to sit side-by-side, hovering a hand width above ground with a humming noise.

It reminded Theora of a sled, and she didn’t like it.

Yes, moving was effort, but walking was among the few types of movement she liked, and this carriage took that away from her. Still, she understood the need — everyone wanted to get done with that plague as soon as possible, so they needed to hurry. It was as much an intrinsic motivation for Theora as for everyone else, and so she leaned against the wooden backrest and let the soft breeze blow through her curly hair, eyes closed.

Isobel was excited, though. She stood on her seat, arms grasping the front railing, head held high. They weren’t even going that fast.

“This is so fun!” she yelled out. “We should get one!”

“Don’t they need charging stations in Hallmark to function? We would strand.”

“Yeah!” Iso said. “But it would be fun, right!”

“I…” Theora swallowed. Should she tell that poor little girl the truth? The truth about this harsh world where Theora preferred to just walk? Or let her live in that excited bliss? “It would be fun to some,” she eventually compromised on.

Iso sat back down with a clonk of her rock against the wood, the moss she’d grown on herself to dampen the blows barely managing to keep scratches off the vehicle. “Only in Hallmark,” she said, smiling. “So at least we should appreciate it as much as we can, while we’re here.”

At the very least, Theora could get behind appreciating this one day she got to spend with Isobel.

After the rather uneventful hover to the valley, they got off the machine to station it at a safe spot. It wouldn’t be able to carry them all day, so they’d leave it for the journey back.

Plus, in that valley, they needed to be quiet.

Very quiet, as to not alarm the monsters hiding within.

Mostly, Theora wanted to avoid having to kill them.

“Will we be able to talk?” Iso asked in her bright voice. “Because I want to talk!”

“You want to talk,” Theora repeated. She hummed in thought. “I don’t know. We could try whispering. If one turns up, we run away.”

“Alright!” Iso cheered out, and Theora immediately figured they might have to do a lot of running that day.

Actually, she didn’t want to run. “Maybe when one appears, you just run away alone. I will wait for it to get bored of eating me.”

“No!” Iso yelped. “No, no. No being eaten. Bell told me everything. You run with me, no more hugging things that are being mean to you.”

That was really unfair. Nobody had scolded Dema when she’d gotten herself eaten by wolves. Theora sighed. So, running it was.

At first glance, the valley was completely empty.

Vast grey mountains stood high to their left and right, alternating into the far distance. A few large boulders and rocks lay in the dried-up riverbed in the centre, overgrown by eerily short grass. Other than that, nothing to be seen. No trees, no brushes. However, the shape of the terrain hid many areas in the valley from view.

A few deer hopping up a neighbouring slope to get away from Theora and Isobel.

“I think it’s about to happen!” Isobel said, looking around, and indeed, a few steps further, the world darkened. As if someone was dimming the light, pulling it away not by obscuring the sky but simply weakening their eyes.

“That’s so spooky!” Isobel said cheerfully. “Wow, it’s getting dark! I’m used to seeing a lot even with no light, but this is truly something else. I love it.”

“Let’s not get split up,” Theora murmured.

“We’re in a party, remember! Can always find each other again. Ah, would be nice if we were in a guild together, then we could use the chat function, even if we get split up.”

Theora had no idea what Isobel was talking about, but it was more important to focus on the surroundings anyway.

If the creatures in here were strong, would she feel their auras? Or did that unnatural darkness serve to obscure those as well?

“Does your [Identify] work?”

“Yeah!” Isobel said. “Can [Identify] things that I can’t even see. No issues on that front. Now, all we have to do is find a few Darkness Daffodils.”

They went ahead for about ten minutes until the light was finally gone. Theora could only see the area about two or three steps around her, and it seemed almost as bright as day. Then, beyond that, nothing. Black over black, so dense and dark it didn’t even leave her eyes with optical frizzles to fill in, as if all the sensory input her brain received was cut off at entrance.

“You said you wanted to talk,” Theora whispered after a while. “Did you want to talk about something specific?”

“Oh, yeah!” Isobel hissed back, trying to keep quiet but failing. “Like, we still didn’t get to talk about your sheet. I did peek at it a bit more, but I’m just so curious about your Class and Skills. If that’s okay?”

“That’s okay,” Theora said.

“Especially about this brand new Cuckoo-Skill of yours!”

Theora froze. She sought Iso’s gaze, who just stared back in curiosity, also stopping. “What did you just say?”

Iso shrugged with a clack. “That new Skill of yours. Appeared in your sheet a while ago. Not mistaken, am I?”

“No, it’s new, that’s true. Why are you calling it ‘Cuckoo-Skill’?”

“Because cuckoos are the ones who put their eggs in other nests! Why wouldn’t I call it that, it fits!”

Theora shook her head. “Isobel, could you please explain this to me like I had no idea what you are talking about? Why is it an egg from another nest?”

“Oh! I thought you knew! When you pull up the Skill and look at the advanced details, there’s some stuff that doesn’t quite check out, right?”

Theora now regretted having undone all the extra options Isobel had made her activate a while ago. “I’m sorry, I need a moment.”

Theora did her best to navigate the menus, until she finally saw the skill sheet with all its unnecessary development details. And indeed, it didn’t take too long before she realised what Isobel was talking about. Theora double-checked with her other Skills, all of which had a field declaring their ‘user’ as ‘Theora’.

Except for that new Skill. The Skill she had received against her best wishes, the one she feared would enable her to pursue the fetch quest concerning the Fragments of Time.

That Skill’s ‘user’ was not Theora. Instead, the field simply showed three question marks.

“It’s not my Skill?” she asked. 

“I thought you knew! How’d you get it?”

“It just… It said I received it as a special unlock from [Stargazer].”

Iso looked like she’d bit into a lemon. She grimaced in slight disbelief, and shook her head with a frown. “That’s so funny!” she said, and snorted in amused derisiveness. “Cause like, when you look at the Skill-ID and stuff, it’s not even a [Stargazer] Skill. It’s a common Skill.”

Not even a [Stargazer] Skill. And Theora wasn’t the ‘user’.

“Do you think this is bad?” she asked. Truth be told, Theora had never even known that a concept such as ‘slipping a Skill to someone else’ was even possible.

“Well…” Isobel clicked her feelers in thought. They started outlining small circles as if processing. “It’s tricky. If the person gave it to you in good faith, wouldn’t they have kept their name on it? Unless they don’t have a name… Maybe it’s not a person at all… That it would fake being a [Stargazer] Skill is also a bit of a red flag… But, at the same time, maybe it didn’t fake it. Maybe you were able to receive the Skill uniquely just because of your Class. It’s on brand with the Skill’s name too, right? That name is the one thing that makes me hope it’s nothing bad.”

That’s true. Theora had initially understood the name to be mocking her, because she’d received it in a state of distress. However, if something else had sent the Skill to her, that made it sound just slightly sadder. As if something had called out to her from very far away, using her reality-bending [Stargazer] Class to latch onto.

It still couldn’t be a coincidence. Theora understood on a fundamental level that the Skill was related to her fetch quest in some way, despite those complications. 

Finally, she took a moment to read its description.

 

Dare a glance across the brink to find the one unrivalled. 

 

Oh, what a terrifying thought. The one unrivalled? Was Theora out to fetch the Fragments, or were the Fragments out to fetch her? Her eyes grazed back over the Skill’s name.

 

[Beyond the Horizon, a Scry For Help].