Sophia and Dav talked about all sorts of things as they walked through the space that didn't behave properly in the interspace conduit. Many of those things were silly and fun, like the eternal debate about whether the floaters from Dav's world or the flyers from Sophia's were better. They both agreed that horses lost and walking was worse than any of the above, but floaters and flyers both had advantages.

Now matter how much fun those topics were, they always returned to the space around them, the "interspace conduit." Issvako never said exactly what it was that the interspace conduit did. Dav and Sophia had read through everything Othala had between the two of them; it wasn't there. Admittedly, Othala didn't have much, not really.

The more they walked, the more they both began to think that Sophia's idea that it was a shortcut through the Origin with walls to protect whatever passed through the shortcut seemed to make sense. Those walls were damaged, which meant that the protection was incomplete. It had probably never been complete, since Othala's instructions talked about precautionary measures under normal circumstances, but it definitely wasn't complete now.

It still seemed to be mostly working, though, since Sophia didn't feel like she was in the Origin and neither of their shields were taking much damage. That didn't mean there was no damage; periodically, when Sophia and Dav checked their Status screens, they'd see that they were missing a point or two they hadn't been earlier. It was not significant yet, not when they hadn't even taken ten points each.

When they finally stepped under the lightning-struck jagged roof they'd seen in the distance, it became immediately clear that they'd found some of the damage. The roof completely stopped the lightning, leaving only darkness above and in the distance, but they could see enough. The walls were jagged and broken, now more like natural rock than stone blocks; the pillars were completely gone. Sophia guessed that was probably a byproduct of the fact that the area was damaged, but it wasn't the true damage.

No, the true damage was to the glowing pattern on the floor. It was no longer crystals covered in a black web; instead, it seemed to have shifted yet again. It was now an interlocked latticework of crystals and black wires that looked almost like jewelry, except that it was jewelry for the floor instead of someone's hand. It formed an interlocking pattern that was consistent close to where Sophia and Dav stood, but in the distance it seemed to have been shoved together; beyond that, it was missing. There were a few rocks scattered on the impossibly smooth floor past the break, but there was no sign of whatever force actually did the shoving.

"I don't know how we're supposed to fix that," Sophia stated unnecessarily. She knew Dav had read the same things she had and they both knew what she carried in her pack. A few crystals and a few short obsidian rods might have worked if it was just cut, but it was completely missing. There were some blue spots towards the side of the damaged area, which might be some of the missing crystals, but a lot of it was just gone.

At least, it was … if what they were seeing was real. Sophia reminded herself that this entire space wasn't real. It imitated reality the way the Origin did.

"We have to find the other end of the break." Dav sounded determined. "I can't tell how wide it is; it might be just past that rock. If it is and we can move the rock, we might be able to do something. More likely, we can bring Xin'ri in and she can do something."

Sophia blinked and took a second look at the scene in front of her. There was definitely not a rock there, at least not one large enough to make her uncertain about whether or not the break was nearby. "What rock?"

"The one where the crystals end." Dav gave Sophia a concerned look, then sent her an image telepathically.

What Dav saw was almost identical to the scene Sophia saw, but there was one very large exception: there was a huge black crystalline object where Sophia saw an unnaturally smooth floor. It glowed a light blue in places, just like the light-colored crystals in front of them, but it looked more like a lump of the walls than anything else.

Sophia couldn't tell if it skidded to its present location or if it grew from the floor. Neither looked quite right, but she guessed there was no reason to assume that either was true. "I didn't realize we could see different things. It's almost the same, but … here." Sophia sent Dav what she saw, the scene without the boulder.

"Huh." Dav shook his head, as if he needed to clear it. "Why don't you see the boulder? It's right there."

Sophia frowned, then headed towards the questionable rock. "I don't know, but I'm sure it's important. I see a damaged pattern and emptiness, you see a huge rock blocking the same pattern. I guess one of us could be right and the other wrong, but it's a lot more likely that we're either both right or both wrong. And I'm betting we're both right."

It was easier to walk across the relatively flat pattern of crystals and settings and links. As long as Sophia watched her step, she wasn't about to catch her foot on an unexpected ridge. It wasn't exactly comfortable to walk on, and she did have to pay attention, but it was still better than before.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"How can we both be right?" Dav followed Sophia. He was less careful about where he placed his feet, but his feet didn't really fit in the open areas very well anyway.

"We're different people," Sophia answered as she thought. "That means that if this whole space is an image formed by our interpretation of something else very different, the way some parts of the Origin are, we naturally see different things. I don't think that's it, though; we see everything else the same. That means that even though the space continually shifts, it's presenting itself the same way at the same time to the people who are in it. There's an underlying reality of some sort."

"That doesn't really help," Dav noted dryly.

"I know," Sophia said grumpily. She wanted to understand what was going on and thought she should, but she didn't. "I'm thinking out loud."

Dav shook his head. "We've been saying this place is weird, but what if it isn't? What if we're just looking at it the wrong way?"

Sophia shook her head at her boyfriend. That didn't make sense.

"This is just sight, right? I mean, I can feel my weight but I don't smell anything or hear anything. So what if the reason Issvako's instructions don't talk about things changing is because she never saw it change? The instructions said that only people with some form of manasight could work in the interspace because without it, all you see is darkness."

Sophia frowned at the empty spot she saw instead of a boulder as she reached the spot where it should be. She carefully avoided touching the space for a long moment as she thought about what Dav said. "You think she had some sort of spatial sight or maybe something specifically tuned for this strange space that isn't real and doesn't follow the rules but also has only hints of the Origin, the space between spaces."

"Yeah." Dav paused for a moment, then reached out and tapped his finger against open air. Sophia saw his finger indent a little, as if he'd touched glass or something, but she still didn't see anything. "My only sight Ability is Eyes that See. You have several."

Sophia nodded with a frown. "Aural Magic Sense, MageSight, and Spirit Sight. I can see or feel mana, essence, and the presence of spirits, even yours and mine, though they're muffled by our bodies. If all of this is made by essence, even temporary essence like dungeon monsters, and lit by mana … of course I can see that. But if there's something here that somehow isn't any of those…"

Dav nodded. "You wouldn't see it. I might; Eyes that See is one of those really useless descriptions. The eldritch reality of the world doesn't really tell me much, and I can't turn it off so I don't really know what the difference is or if there are any. I know I haven't seen anything that really looked eldritch. Even this is just a weirdly glowing rock."

Sophia nodded and did exactly what Dav did: she poked the space where the rock should have been. Oddly, there was a tiny bit of resistance and then her hand passed through the space.For a moment, she didn't feel anything, but then her fingertip started to hurt.

Sophia pulled her hand back. A flicker of lightning followed it, but the lightning was clearly not electricity this time. It was mana and essence flashing apart as they entered a place where they couldn't be combined in the same way they were in the Origin. She could see a hole in space where her finger had been that looked like it reached into the Origin itself, but it immediately began to shrink. A few seconds later, the hole disappeared and Sophia watched empty space once again.

That explained a lot.

It explained the lightning that ran along the edges of the protected area, lightning that glowed and didn't move like real lightning. It was mana splitting away from the other half of primordial magic.

It explained the space they were in. It was, had to be, a single image created by Issvako to travel safely through the Origin. There were other places like that that existed. The most famous was the Well of Souls, an ancient travel system that predated the common use of portals and probably predated the Voice itself. The only entrance or exit Sophia knew of was on Earth, where it appeared as a short step pyramid in one place and a hole in space in another.

Back home, portals did not cross through the Origin. That was far too dangerous and costly; the Voice used its extreme understanding of spatial magic instead.

Sophia had suspected that the strange entrances and exits from "shards" in the Broken Lands were through the Origin ever since she went through the first one, but she couldn't prove it. If knowledge of travel through the Origin was common enough for people to choose it over proper spatial portals, it only made her more convinced that the Guide was doing the same thing.

It explained the strangely subdued surroundings with odd wisps of essence and mana that Sophia saw around her. The subdued nature was the suppression that kept the area safe and probably also shoved what contamination there was out through the door they'd entered through, while the traces she saw were contamination from the Origin it hadn't managed to get rid of.

It explained why people couldn't stand to be in the environment too long; not only was the Origin bad for people, trying to get rid of all essence was also bad in a different way. In fact, that was probably the primary problem; if it tried to separate mana and essence to maintain the space's stability, that was bad for living things. It wasn't fast, but it could cause all sorts of problems in the long term. It would be especially bad for constructs like Scout; she'd probably disintegrate within minutes in an area that specifically attacked bound essence.

It didn't explain why shields would help against the suppression of mana and essence or against the Origin, but Sophia really didn't understand the Guide's shields. They let some things through while blocking others. The guidelines for what it let through and what it blocked were unclear, but it was very much like it wanted to extend fights longer while still letting all Abilities function, even ones that properly ought to be blocked by any half-decent shielding spell.

Yeah, it all made sense. There was only one problem. "I think I know what's going on, but I have no idea how to fix this."

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