Farron was still in the tower. That didn't come as a surprise, considering he'd been there for a few decades by this point. To be more precise, his Navigation passive told him it was a little over 46 years.

What was surprising was that he was awake. He'd been hibernating, conserving his precious mana and life reserves as he waited for something, anything to happen in this godsdamned desert.

So what was it? What had awakened him from his slumber? Without any way to refill his reserves, every time he woke up took years off his remaining life, such as it was. Casting the muted sense his spiritual form still had outward, he attempted to find answers.

A weak monster had moved into one of the other rooms in the collapsed tower, its life force mutely glowing despite the walls and distance. There were some advantages to being dead, after all. Still, he doubted something so weak would have been enough to jolt him awake. It would only give him a couple of years' worth of continued existence, and that was if it randomly decided to wander up to him and offer its body up. No one would be stupid enough for that.

Changing gears, he switched to his mana perception. The second he did, the room lit up. The ancient contraption in the middle of the room was completely covered in dense, glowing runes. It was almost like it, too, had just woken up, yet the light quickly faded from his senses.

"No, no, stab then slash!" Farron chastised. What was this kid doing? Had he never even seen a sword before?

"I'm trying!" Symon whinged, wiping the sweat from his brow before resuming his wild flailing through the air. It was almost like he was attempting to imitate a bird, slapping with the flat of the blade to push as much air with each strike.

He knew the kid had only had this sword for a few hours, but he'd certainly been better than this back during training.

"I'm… immortal," Symon said.

Farron would have frowned if he still could. Even after all these years, old habits died hard. Still, the wording of the ability meant it was possible. The Ledger could be vague, obtuse, open to interpretation — though usually, whoever's Ledger the message belonged to had the correct one — but it never lied.

There was only one other man he knew of with true immortality, but of course, no one knew exactly how the Emperor's magic worked. Perhaps it wasn't truly an infinite lifespan. Symon would only ever be non-senescent, not truly unkillable… but with an endless amount of training and honing himself, maybe he could get close.

"No, Symon, we're immortal," Farron said. And together, we're going to kill that bastard.

It felt like he was far beneath the waves, so deep that light couldn't reach. He knew that wasn't the case, but the mind has a tendency to wander when bored — and Farron was very bored.

At first, the novelty of a special vitality filling the crystalline prison that was his new home for the indefinite future was exciting, especially when it had surrounded him and tried to break him apart. Emphasis on the 'tried', as even as just a spirit, Farron was still on the Third Step. Few made it this far, and fewer still did it while leading a life of such few comforts and advantages. It made him stronger than those pricks in the capital, their strength as sharp as his yet more brittle, like comparing glass to steel.

That was to say that the undead essence of a revenant lizardman was no threat at all, although it was something of an annoyance. Despite the many years as a spirit, he hadn't exactly been doing much. He wasn't sure what he could do, really. No one had given him a guidebook on being a ghost.

It attempted to smother him, or maybe just hug him. Both were equally distasteful, but the only solution he'd found had been a slow one. He'd tear a small chunk of the essence off from the whole, then absorb it into himself. It would ineffectually attempt to corrupt him, he'd grind it down to nothingness, then he'd move on to the next piece.

"Because they eat babies, Symon! You idiot, kill it before it wakes up enough to try eating you!" Farron shouted. The godscursed elves would do more than that, too, and he didn't even recognise this type. For all he knew, the damn thing had already put Symon under its thrall.

The monsters had killed enough of his crew over the years, and he'd be damned if he'd let that happen to his only link to the living world too.

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The kid wasn't the worst host, he supposed.

Farron focused on the elf, obscured from mundane sight by the mists. His senses were unobstructed, and he focused on tracking its vitality. He'd tried to judge the progress by how much mana it had, but it hadn't turned out to be helpful. As soon as the core got a little low, the pollen slowly burning through it, it jumped back all the way back to full over just a few seconds. Frankly, it was ridiculous, and yes, he was very jealous.

Even in the best cases, it took hours to refill an empty core. Naturally, that didn't factor in the use of alchemics or gathering arrays, but it was still stupid. What was an elf of all things doing with an ability like that? Then again, he was hardly a blood mage himself, so maybe they all had some similar ability to convert their own life to mana.

It wouldn't be good for much without healing magic as powerful as Symon had, but it was still stupid, and he was still jealous.

Even though his eyes were screwed shut against the pollen, Symon felt his sight blur back into existance. He was himself, once more, but that wasn't what he needed. He could feel Entisse's weight in his arms, his vitality still steadily being given to her, but what he couldn't feel was the vitality inside her. He needed to see it, to know how far he could push things before he had to pull her out of the mists. Having to daisy chain through Keelgrave for what was, in effect, a medical procedure wasn't ideal, and the spirit just didn't understand vitality the way Symon instinctively could.

It felt like he was a police sketch artist who had been blindfolded, and he was talking with a toddler over a static-filled radio, doing his best to draw the person the child had described. It wasn't Keelgrave's fault, but his own senses were too different from Symon's, and they just weren't able to translate it with the details that Symon needed.

He felt that he was close to a breakthrough, but Entisse's life hung in the balance. Maybe he should just reset everything, then try it again. Sure, it would delay things, but the time wouldn't be entirely wasted, and it wasn't worth killing her for the sake of efficiency.

As if sensing his hesitation, he felt her long fingers grasp around his wrist, their clawed points digging into his skin before her grip loosened once more.

"Again!" he shouted into his mind. He knew they were close: he just needed to see what Keelgrave was seeing right now, not thirty seconds ago.

<I'm not sure about this kid, it feels like there's some kind of resistance…> the spirit said. He sounded distracted, as if he was looking at a puzzle and only offhandedly sparing Symon his attention. <Aww hells, fuck it, I'll just push through. Don't blame me if this melts your brain.>

The moment Keelgrave finished speaking, Symon once more felt his peripheral vision fizz and blur, even despite his closed eyes. The dizziness, which he'd previously associated with the memory dreams but had recently been less and less prominent, now returned stronger than it had ever been.

He swayed unsteadily, his balance not helped by his blindness. Only, instead of the blurring creeping across the rest of his vision and whisking him away to the past, it felt like it moved… behind him, maybe. That wasn't right, but it was the closest feeling his brain could come up with.

The artifacting receded, only it didn't. It was both there and not there, visible without being visible.

"Ugh, this is so weird," Symon sent.

<You're telling me…> Keelgrave said, his voice full of awe and confusion in equal measure.

"I think it's working," Keelgrave remembered Symon saying. Or did Symon just say it now? He wasn't sure. He wasn't entirely sure who he was right now.

They directed their vision to the elf in Symon's arms, and colour bloomed into his mind's eye. Perhaps colour was the wrong word: the vitality he saw tracing through her body was bright, but it didn't have a hue. Still, it was vivid and… beautiful.

It suffused her entire body, but it didn't block vision of the vitality behind her. He could see right through her, and he could see inside her. The vitality was thicker and more vibrant in the areas he'd transferred the healing into, while it was dimmer in her extremities.

The pollen affected her whole body equally, but her mana core was located in her chest, across from her heart. The mana in her flesh was densest in her torso, which meant the pollen did more damage there.

They guided the next dose of vitality directly over her mana core, the vitality spreading out through her body in tandem with her own mana. He couldn't actually see the mana yet, but that was something they could try later. He had bigger priorities right now.

The spirit in the vessel zipped around, stirring up the vitality like a tornado. When the man pulled a small bit out through the walls of the vessel, the momentum seemed to carry over, sending the healing essence down through his body and into her at a much greater speed.

The man knew at all times what the spirit was doing, and the spirit knew at all times what the man was doing. The line between them was blurred, two minds sharing a single body. No words were necessary, for did the left hand have to speak to the right to swing a sword?

Like this, the man and spirit slowly but steadily brought the elf back from the brink. With the placid intensity of a machine, they directed the vitality to where it was most needed, finally making positive progress in the battle of flesh against pollen.

If he'd been able to see, he would have noticed the weeping blisters across her battered body beginning to shrink, chunks of old flesh and skin shedding and being replaced by something new and healthier. It wasn't just healthy: it was better. Even without having the resistance they were after, this was still excellent Constitution training.

The healer knew exactly how long this continued for, some intimately familiar and unused skill providing this detail. Thirteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds later, the slow improvement to her form gained a sudden, qualitative shift.

The formation of new wounds slowed down dramatically, finally allowing the vitality infusion to completely outpace the damage. He watched as wave after wave of vitality pulsed from the centre of her body, the essence being consumed to heal her until, finally, it no longer disappeared. Instead of filling up an Olympic swimming pool with his cupped hands, he just had a leaky bathtub that he could still keep topped up by keeping the faucet open.

He squeezed the bony ribs on her side as he stumbled out of the mist holding her, continuing forward a dozen paces until he felt the sun on his face. Cracking his eyes open blearily, he saw his Dumosan friends staring at him and Entisse with surprised expressions on their faces. They hadn't been expecting them so soon.

He dropped her unceremoniously to the ground as he collapsed, the dizziness too much to remain standing. The side effects were far worse than even the very first memory dream he'd had, but they'd done it. It had actually worked!

Entisse let loose with her hissing laughter, the sibilant joy cutting through the silence. After a few moments, Symon joined in too.

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