A few minutes later Sweet and Boom resurfaced, leaving Karasu caged in the underground room, and headed towards Blade’s bar.

“Are they all there?” Sweet asked Boom.

“Yep. Getting a bit of deja vu here.”

“Same place, different people.”

“Except for us.”

“Yep.”

The two strolled through the bar’s door and were greeted by six individuals: Hugh, Sanchi, Lo, Toku, Dario, and the town’s resident farmer, Tiny.

Who was, of course, a six foot five tall human.

The Boomtown residents were huddled around a group of tables that’d been pushed together to form one large table. Dario had joined them, but Toku was seated on his own, on the edge of the bar.

Behind the bar was the bar’s owner, Blade, who tossed a beer at Sweet as soon as she stepped inside.

“Alright, first things first.” As Boom and Sweet sat in their chairs, Sweet took control and started the meeting immediately.

“Lo, seal us off. Nothing in or out.”

“Already done, mom.”

“Hugh, bring out the thing that you wanted to show me. The dangerous heart.”

“Yes, madame.”

The pouch holding the strange heart was already on the table in front of Hugh, so he simply undid the knot keeping it closed and revealed the contents of the pouch to his friends.

As soon as they saw the chained heart, Boom and Sweet jumped back onto their feet and assumed combat poses.

“Woah, hey! What’s wrong?” Hugh asked.

When nothing happened, Boom and Sweet relaxed a bit and sat on their chairs again. Still, neither of them looked away from the heart.

“Those chains are formed with the titan’s mana,” Sweet answered.

“The titan?” Dario asked.

“The Harbinger of All Things. The origin of all life in the myriad worlds and beyond.”

Dario’s eyes lit up as he imagined a colossal being made of ice cream.

“That’s not a good thing, Dario. His existence was corrupted and he nearly destroyed everything. Created a giant monster army and all that. It took all the bird-gods, their angels, and thousands of the second generation… wait, none of you even know about that stuff.”

Sweet facepalmed. “Well, it’s not the time for a history lesson. I’ll get someone else to teach you all later. All you need to know is that the mana in the chains constricting that heart has the same feeling of his corrupted mana.”

She and Boom exchanged a look, then turned to face the others. “But that shouldn’t be possible. Boom killed the titan thousands of years ago. There shouldn’t be any of his mana left in this world.”

“That’s not all,” Boom chipped in. “This heart, the mana inside it… this is the heart of Furamingo, one of the original leaders of the bird-gods, who was slain in the final battle against the titan.”

“Well, what does that mean? Why was the heart chained up and left in Vacantia?” Lo asked.

“It looked like it was feeding mana into some sort of rune system,” Hugh mused. “I didn’t get a great look at it before I booked it, though. Wanted to get the heart to you guys as fast as I could.”

“Hm. I think it’d be best to bring the heart to Tori and let him investigate the whos and whats and butts.” Boom shrugged. “The bird-gods should handle their own business. We’ll handle ours. Speaking of, let’s move to the next topic.”

He looked each of his compatriots dead in the eyes. “Rescuing our fallen friends.”

Toku, from the far side of the bar, spoke up for the first time. “How’s that possible, though? They’re dead.”

“That’s true, but… actually, it’s better if Sanchi explains.” Boom motioned for the bard to speak.

“As most of you know, I have the ability to summon my fallen comrades. It is not a special ability I have, nor is it a learned skill. Due to… certain circumstances, when they passed their essences were unable to traverse to the other side.

“So I bound them to my own essence and they follow me around in their ethereal form. Through the magical wonders of mana, I’m able to summon them into a slightly more corporeal form to support me in my times of need.

“Our friends. Beth, the three shapeshifters, Rudeus, Kaukau, even Tin, had their own essences, and those essences have passed to the other side.”

“The afterlife?” Dario asked.

“There is no afterlife, Dario. Just the other side.”

Dario fumed. “Damn it all! Just how much of the old scriptures were lies?”

“More than you know, Dario. More than you know,” Sweet muttered.

“In the circle of life, essences are passed from this side, the myriad worlds, to the other side. And when the essences finish their lives on the other side, they come back to live another life here.” Sanchi continued.

“So what’s the issue? They’ve all lived long, fruitful lives. I’ll miss them, but it’s time for them to pass on,” Hugh interjected.

“You didn’t read the contract when Tori offered it to you, did you?” Lo stared at him, bemused.

“...I don’t like reading. He told me I could have eternal life and a chance to relax and I took it.”

“Exactly. Only the first and second generations are born with eternal life. When you died, Tori forcibly retained your essence on this side, and when you signed the contract he placed your essence in a new body, keeping it in the myriad worlds.”

Lo frowned at Hugh. “The other side is governed by their equivalent of the titan, The Warden, and his seven officers. How do you think they feel about missing out on thousands and thousands of combined years of the most talented essences in the cycle?”

Dario raised his hand. “Oh, I can answer this one! These wardens are effectively the gods of the other side, right? There’s a great deal of scripture regarding angry gods! They’re angry!”

“Correct-o.” Sanchi nodded. “Kaukau and I researched quite a bit regarding the other side. Apparently if essences are delayed in reaching the other side, the seven officers jail and torture them for as long as they were delayed.”

Hugh cursed. “So, in all of their cases, thousands of years.”

“Exactly. Now, while the two sides are separate existences, sometimes the area between them gets a little fuzzy, and it’s possible for the bird-gods, with some cooperative effort, to open a tunnel to the other side. Tori’s spoken with them and they’re going to open a tunnel for us in a month. That should be all the time we need to prepare.”

“Are we all going?” Toku asked from his spot by the bar.

“All of us but Tiny. He—” Sweet motioned with her arm. “—is going to stay and be in charge of protecting Boomtown while we are gone. If he needs your help, you give it. I’ll give the same spiel to the rest of the residents later.”

She looked at each of the others dead in the eyes. “Given the gravity of the situation and how poorly prepared we were for the previous battle, I’ll be personally overseeing everyone’s training.”

After a tense moment of silence, Sweet clapped her hands together and stood up. “Meeting over. I’ll meet you all in the training field first thing in the morning tomorrow. If we’re going to deal with those officers and their warden, we’ll all need to be in top shape.”

She took a deep breath, then sighed. “I’ll even be giving up alcohol.”

***

Kandy fell, and fell, and fell through the darkness until he felt himself being sucked toward the side.

Eventually he saw a light in the distance, and moments later, found himself hurtling toward a massive sand dune.

He braced for impact.

“Ow!” Kandy’s bones creaked as he fell into the sand dune.

“Dammit, I thought sand was supposed to be soft!” He grumbled as he clambered to his feet. “Where the hell am I?”

He looked to the sky. Judging by the sun’s path, it was morning.

He looked ahead. Nothing. Just sand.

He looked to the right. More sand.

He looked to the left. Wouldn’t you believe it, there was even more sand.

He turned and looked behind him. In the distance was a tattered billboard. On its faded purple background was a beautiful dancer in a multi-colored dress and some words in large font.

Kandy’s nose wrinkled. “What the hell is Shen Yun?”