Matlyn looked nervously at the statues I'd made of the strange beings from my vision, and then back at me. "You want me to give you permission to revive an insane demigod you killed?"

In retrospect, I could see how my explanation had been a bit rambling. "No. I think I confused you some. The insane demigod copied itself onto a spirit like a sort of costume, and I... pulled the costume off. I would just put it back on, temporarily, and then pull it off again when the demigod either answers my question or does something that makes me nervous. But... y'know, technically it's dangerous and not directly related to the job, so... yeah, I need your permission."

She frowned. "I thought you were just going to show us your domain in Ematse, and maybe some memories of Earth."

That had, in fact, been the plan. "Right. And I will, in the morning. But right now... I mean, look at your sister. She's..."

Zoey was still staring at herself, even though it had been at least five minutes. "I'm blue," she said, "but you're not blue. But I'm blue. You're... other colors." She looked at us, then back down at herself, and then at us. "Why do you guys all get to be in color? That's not fair."

She wasn't operating at full capacity, obviously. It was a lot like when Errod had been in my memory palace while I was fucking with the passage of time and he couldn't keep up yet - except in this case, time was synched. She should have been fine, and would have been if this had been her mind rather than... whatever it was. She also seemed to be even less substantial than normal stuff in Ematse, which was saying something; Ematse was easily the least-real plane I was aware of.

I could feel something else about her, something off, but I couldn't put my finger on it. It was like when you washed your clothes in a different detergent than usual after you'd been using the same one for months; it wasn't bad, or gross, but it just didn't smell right.

She seemed to sharpen up some, as she did every minute or so. "I'm thinking through a blanket. A blanket when you first wake up. Am I bad at this? Am I doing it wrong?"

"Zoey," I said, "you're... using some totally unfamiliar spirit right now. And I'm no expert or anything, maybe this isn't that uncommon, but... yeah, I have no fucking clue what you are. I'm assuming it has something to do with you being from Earth, but that's just a guess. I could be totally wrong."

I was looking at her actual body with threadsight, and could see the tether that vanished a few inches from her body. Spirit shit in general looked yellow, and thought-specific stuff was orange. The tethers for everyone else's minds were a strange kind of yellow-orange, but for Zoey the orange was purple. I was also still orange, somehow, but it was inexplicably a purple shade of orange, or an orange shade of purple, or something.

I wasn't certain how to explain that to Zoey. "This spirit is like... artificial banana flavor."

Amazingly, despite running a little slow, she seemed to get what I meant right away. "It wants to be banana, you'd call it banana, but we know it's totally not banana. Okay. What does that mean?"

I had no idea, which was why I wanted to ask Betokat. Purple was planar shit, and Betokat had gone off on this whole thing about the influence of the planes on spirits. Also, they might already know what kind of spirit this was. I didn't bother explaining further to Zoey, because her intelligence was waning again and she'd gone back to staring at her hand in a confused way. If I understood spirits correctly, it was amazing that she was able to function through this one at all.

Minds and souls were always attached to people, and oydirme were basically sponges. But other spirits, random spirits out there, shouldn't be able to act like minds. Most spirits, if you bound them to yourself it would just let you control them a little bit - tame them, essentially, and even then only in some cases or if you were lucky. Avatar spirits could fully bind to... well, to almost anything alive... but you couldn't see through their eyes or anything. They just made you grow horns or extra toes or some shit, and maybe made you obsessed with trying to catch fish. Each type was different.

Some people had pet spirits like Pokemon almost, but again - that didn't mean you could control them like they were another body. You could feed them mana, and build a relationship with them, and they'd fight with you because you were a consistent meal ticket. Okay, also some of those bindings probably did force a little loyalty into there. But this thing? It was a shitty mind, but that was still way better than it ought to have been. And if it was from Earth... well, there shouldn't be spirits on Earth.

This brought me back to a big question - was there mana on Earth, or not? I'd been able to use magic, occasionally, but the more I thought about it the more sure I was that my mind and soul - and ghost - wouldn't be able to just flit back and forth between their planes like I was used to. If they could, well, more people would know about Earth. But if you couldn't regenerate mana that way, and even a normal settlement could quickly drain the ambient mana from a large area around it if it wasn't properly warded, how would I have recharged? Maybe I was generating some teeny amount even without all that, but I would have thought that it would just get siphoned into my mind and soul, since they would have been totally mana-starved.

I'd just have to try and figure it out once we'd arrived. Katrin could see mana flows, she'd know almost immediately what the deal was, probably.

Meanwhile, as I went down that rabbit hole, Matlyn was pondering. "I think I'm okay with this," she said, "but only because you've already done so many crazy things that I don't feel qualified to argue with you. But you have to ask Zoey. The real one, the one that can think clearly. And I'm not going to be here while you talk to the demigod."

That seemed more than fair, so I booted them out and asked Zoey in the real world. She was fine with it, and while I suspected that this was partly because she didn't really understand the damage that could be done to you via your attached spirits I wasn't about to argue her into disagreeing with me. Once Zoey was back inside my memory palace and Matlyn was off asking Errod to help her untie a knot in the string that was around her bedroll - a transparent attempt at flirting that he seemed to be somehow still missing - I grabbed the souped-up oydirme and carefully put the Betokat outfit on it. Eye-nipples and everything.

As always, it giggled. "Interesting, interesting! Some time has passed, yes, and I have entered at the middle of your domain rather than the edge. A security measure, perhaps?"

"Yeah, you were trapped for a bit there. But your timing is perfect - do you know what kind of spirit this is?" I needed to direct Betokat's attention right away, in case they went off on a tangent and we went off the rails.

"Yes, yes, excellent. A specimen to... what is this?"

I rolled my eyes. "That's what I just asked you. It's a spirit, and it's acting as her mind. Badly, but... y'know. She doesn't have a mind or soul, just this."

The giggling stopped, and Betokat began sniffing around the translucent blue version of Zoey. There was some quiet muttering, but it wasn't in Imperial and, knowing Betokat, might not have made sense even if it was. Zoey would shoot me a concerned look from time to time, but I'd asked her to not say anything unless she needed to; I really wanted to keep things focused on the topic at hand, and not on the outside world.

After about five minutes, Betokat finally turned back to me looking cranky. "This body doesn't have the right tools, you'll need to come back to see me in person."

"Your body is surrounded by Tindelus' body-snatching hive mind," I said, "and also I won't be able to keep this spirit around until the next time Brinkmar is in alignment. Please, is there anything you can tell me right now? It's going to bug the shit out of me."

Betokat giggled again. "Yes, it's quite infuriating! Oydirme can take on influences from other planes, but they're sponges. Some other spirits can get a partial resonance, over time, but you can always tell where they were from originally. This one... it's blank. Blank! It's got a partial resonance with Ematse, but the other part is... nothing! Given more time, I can't imagine any reason it couldn't become fully acclimated... but I lack the tools to... to..."

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Betokat stared at me.

"You're making me nervous. What?"

"Yes, yes. Perfect. Yes, good. I have already promised you tutelage, in return for your alliance on the council once you rise to your destiny as a demigod." Right, Betokat was convinced I would vote with them against the Queen of Candles on something. And if I pointed out that I didn't ever actually agree to that, shit would get violent. "This will benefit us both, yes. Yes."

And they launched into a lecture I'd already heard twice. It was about how to change oydirme with the influence of the planes, that being less about the altered physics or other magical properties and more about the encoded intent of the gods. Lenderatze was used to grow things, and to destroy landfills by turning them to groves of trees or whatever. But the plane wasn't about growth, or nature - not according to Betokat. It was about renewal, and reinforcement of an ideal state the gods imagined - supposedly because they'd fucked up when making the prime plane and couldn't get the climate and food chain stabilized.

Likewise, Ematse didn't have any actual magical properties that changed how people thought - but the intent behind the plane was somehow related to thought, and so the spirits were all things like the minds and oydirme and other stuff like that. "I've tried to feel the intent of Ematse," I said, "and I can't pin it down. Something about thinking or imagining, I guess. Something related to the Common Local Understanding, maybe. But I can't really identify any discrete intent."

Betokat nodded while grinning way too big and making uncomfortable eye contact. "Yes, precisely! You see the problem! They are gods, and we can never fully understand what they are thinking of why they think it. I believe I mentioned to you that I had tried to speak to the gods, and failed to initiate a conversation. That singular burst of communication, that acknowledgement and dismissal, was educational but... not by enough. No. Not nearly enough. And yet! Hah! I have pulled from the intent of a dozen planes to craft my minions, teasing at the thoughts of the gods and cobbling together a functional resonance."

"Great. So it's absolutely vital that I know this, but also you don't know it and you get by just fine."

Betokat nodded. "I'm a fucking genius."

"You're crazy, is what you are. But... I have some skills that already kinda align with that. And I have Planar, and Binding, and Spirit. And I'm good at grabbing at stuff from the Common Local Understanding, and I'm good at manipulating the planar membrane. So I feel like I have all the tools."

Betokat nodded eagerly, and started trying to explain what he wanted me to do. It didn't make a lot of sense, but I paid close attention. It was a way more focused lesson than I was used to, but while I concentrated and tried to feel what Betokat was describing they wandered off and came across the shelves with boxes on them. Boxes that had the Queen of Candles' emblem prominently displayed. "What... what is this? What is this? What is this, what is this, what is this? You... traitor."

Well, shit.

In previous sessions, I'd yanked the Betokat imprint away from the oydirme before he could get all riled up. I'd been right there next to them, ready to go, and when they'd started to get agitated or act squirrely I'd immediately pulled the trigger. Since it was a new application of the imprint every time, Betokat never remembered or learned while I just got to know their tells and triggers more and more. But this time... we weren't right next to each other, and they were instantly on "you're a traitor" mode. Not great.

"I am disappointed, child. I was hoping to teach you so much. I'll have to pick this place apart, once I eat you. Will you struggle? Will you squirm?"

I could feel Betokat's influence wrapping around the edges of my domain like some sort of vine, but I'd been strengthening it ever since the first time they broke in - with their help. Last time there had been cracks in the world right away as things began to break down, but this time it held. For a moment. I charged forward, knowing I just needed to get one good touch in, but the floor liquefied and then began to pull me in. That was some bullshit. This was my domain, my memory palace.

I shunted Zoey out, having almost forgotten she was even there, and then with the sound of her screaming no longer distracting me I tried to fix the floor. It should be solid, and not wrapped around me. Come on. This is basic floor stuff, almost every floor in the world knew how to be solid. Nothing. I could feel Betokat's influence, effortlessly pushing against me as he began walking towards the Long Haul Hotel section to dig through my memories.

What do you do when dealing with someone stronger than you? Try to use their strength against them. I switched gears abruptly, making the floor more liquid, more unstable, and managed to drop through into another section of my memory palace. Take that, asshole.

I'd fallen into an undefined part of my domain, a sort of crawlspace between scenes. Right now, it looked like an alleyway on Earth other than the hot pink fur that was growing from the walls in a few places. I could feel where everything was around me - the bedroom from Bill's house, the vardo wagon, room 217 from the Long Haul Hotel, the bedroom from mom's house. There was relatively little unused space in my domain, and the hallway Betokat was walking towards was part of it; the facsimile of the hotel filled with memories wasn't there unless I was actively moving through it.

In theory, Betokat should have therefore run into a dead end almost immediately. And yet... it seemed like the hallway was working on automatic. It shifted around as the fragment of demigod proceeded, and I could hear the giggles through the walls. "Very good, getting away. Very clever. But very stupid, to plot with the Queen of Candles. Princess of Candles, maybe, if you can even call her that; a stolen name, stolen title. Even the queen before her, a thief. A desecration. Dancing on the grave of the true queen."

My domain shuddered, and I felt the structure shift around me. I was sure, suddenly, that Betokat could crush me here; squeeze this whole domain into a tiny ball with the shattered remains of my mind dripping out. I'd been able to send Zoey away, and could probably abandon ship myself, but that would just leave the whole place defenseless. My other mind was in position, the best position I had, but it was weaker. I needed to use my ghost, which could maybe last a few extra seconds in an actual fight.

The domain was feeling stronger than it had the last time, but my mental attempts to control or destroy Betokat felt like I was slapping someone with a noodle. My defenses were best at the edges of things, and designed around the idea that I could contain anyone that was trying to fuck with me. Betokat, however, was already in here and was strong enough to break out of any cell I could place them in. There was only one thing to do.

The cracks were forming everywhere now, slower than before but not particularly different now that it had begun. Whispers from the stored memories, flickering lights, walls buckling in. But the alley my ghost was in acted very differently; the walls crumbled, sure, but they flowed and changed into sand that spilled over my feet. It was made of nothing but thought and the weakest of ephemeral matter, so insubstantial that my ghost would shatter iron formed of the stuff.

I had one move, one attack that I felt confident in. It was the same thing that had freed me from the floor. With a yank, I pulled a thread loose from the center of my memory palace and accelerated the destruction - on my terms. The walls turned to smoke, the pressure of Betokat's crushing pulled inwards and focused all on one spot - Betokat himself. Well, the copy of him. Man, it was distressing that this was all needed to fuck up some sort of super-charged oydirme.

The spirit reeled, as my mind bounced around in the strongest part of my memory palace - the reinforced storage unit that Greg had somehow made. My ghost lunged, flying through the swirling debris, and tried to grab at Betokat. All three of the spirit's weird flipper feet things kicked to help it dodge as the claw arm lashed out at me, but I just took the hit. The idea was to use that contact to strip the oydirme of its imprinted identity, but I wasn't ready for the pain that lanced through me - or for the claw to sever my arm.

Logically, I knew that losing an arm wasn't necessarily a problem for a spirit. But it was still terrifying, and the pain was otherworldly as it rippled through my entire being. I still managed to reach out with my other arm and attempt to wrench Betokat's identity from the spirit, but I'd lost my focus and it kept slipping through my fingers. I headbutted the thing in front of me as it clawed at me with one of its arms, and then... it ran away.

I looked over at it, swimming through the shattered remains of my memory palace. It paused on half a mattress, floating there and looking back at me. It wasn't Betokat anymore; scraps of the demigod remained, and bits of doughy oydirme showed through the gaps. It groaned at me, like a zombie, and then as I slowly tried drifting towards it the thing spoke. "Traitor? Promise? Kill. Kill me, kill you. I am... I am... lost. I know... I hate you. I know that. Yes."

Whatever Betokat had done to this oydirme, it was somehow holding on to the little bits that remained. It sounded confused, and sad... but mostly wrathful. The tattered spirit snarled at me, and then flung itself out of my domain and was gone. I had really thought that it wouldn't be able to do that, especially in its weakened state. Would it go back to Betokat and report what had happened? I wasn't so sure it could. Would it wander, and forget, and turn back into a regular oydirme?

I was sure I wasn't that lucky.

With a sigh, I got to work mentally pulling all the bits and pieces of my memory palace back together. I probably wouldn't remake all the rooms, but I sure as hell didn't want to leave it as a cloud of junk. I'd have to lie to Zoey and Matlyn about it and say it was fine, and then I could loop Katrin and Errod in later so they could help me plan and, in all likelihood, give me shit for introducing yet another problem. Because gods knew I didn't have enough shit on my plate.

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