AMBROSIAHaving no idea where this fourth scroll was, we decided to head toward Aquamundo. The only entrance we knew of was through the cave near Galaxia, so we headed in that general direction. We looked at the vellum paper. It had a slight gold tone to it, and like each of the song sheets, when Aqorm read from it, she seemed to get stronger. According to legend, while the song sheets had potent magic of their own, the Song Book would lead to an ultimate weapon. Honestly, I just went along with this quest to buy time, but it turned out to be really important for Aqorm getting stronger.

    Riding on Bahamut, we got to Galaxia, and landed right in front of the cave. It was once again rather dark, but in addition to our Lantern, Yazim Jianne had a quick spell of Brighten and Azrael had the Illuminate spell ready.

    YAZIM JIANNE

    My Brighten spell works differently than Illuminate, since it cannot create light, only reinforce existing sources. Sorcery is viewed as a forbidden art because it draws from the user rather than God, and their magic is based on their mental and physical endurance. In some ways, it bypasses the spiritual limits God has set up for himself.

    But there are some things we also cannot do because we use rules and limits of science. For instance, “matter cannot be created or destroyed” means that while we can rework energy and matter in tremendous ways, even creating a single photon of light becomes a difficult proposition. When making light, the old scientists wound up with unnecessary by-products. For instance, so-called light bulbs were mostly devices to heat a wire until it glowed. Or they needed radiation.

    The cave twisted and turned, as we fended off spiders, bats, and small rodents. It is difficult to believe that this group used to have trouble fighting such beings, but earlier on their quest, this was actually a hindrance to them. At last we came to the large cavern lake that led to Aquamundo. Aside from using a submarine (which was usually regarded as an act of war if traveling directly into the town), this was the most effective means of entry. The others donned heavy swimming armor. I had my Sea Ring, which formed a bubble allowing me to breathe and to withstand underwater pressure. The Sea Ring was the wedding ring my wife had given me, and it was crafted to be durable, so I wore it always. While the others stumbled around in their bulky outfits, Michael, Lilith, Aqorm, and I walked casually through these waters.

    We made it to Aquamundo. The map on the back had reacted to the seawater, however, and an inscription read, ?Seek out the island of Atlantis.? But everyone knew Atlantis no longer existed! The others in the group told me otherwise. They mentioned seeing a path to it earlier. We headed that way, but noticed it was still closed. “Let''s ask the ruler of Aquamundo,” suggested Aqorm.

    The land of Aquamundo had a wild natural beauty that was difficult to describe with valleys filled with water, squid swimming overhead, kelp and anemone swished about like natural plants, coral formed along the rocks, and plankton floating around the seawater. The world around us would have been alien to most of the group, but Sarai and I had spent much of our research time in an underwater lab over the years. But we lived secure within a climate-controlled dome, we imported livestock into the area, and we farmed and grew our own food. We didn''t have the same experience as those who gathered sea kelp, hunted sharks, and built their houses using the materials nearby.

    The sea folk breathed both air and water, but for the sake of travelers, most indoor dwellings were dry. Houses featured a number of passive means of draining water, such as grates near the doorstep, the door actually opening to a basement, and trap doors. This allowed the living quarters to remain dry, as water sank to a lower floor But there were also artificial means of staying dry such as a pump system, and dehumidifiers. Lastly, runes were carved into the inside of the house to allow the entire structure to evaporate water. As a result, all homes tended to be slightly more steamy than would normally be expected, and mold was a real problem. Cleaning jellies were often kept as pets to maintain the houses over time. Those scrubbing bubbles got all the scum off.

    The king and queen of Aquamundo were actual sea folk, who had long since evolved to the rigors of the deep. The king''s skin was covered in delicate scales, and was coated in slime like an eel. Their palace kept the water at bay through a system of air suction, sucking water away before it penetrated the door. The drawback however was that anyone entering felt like they immediately needed to quench their thirst, as it also sucked moisture from the air inside. “Welcome,” said Sea King Apsaras, “what can we do for you?” We explained our situation.

    He smiled, “Oh that? Atlantis has been using that excuse for centuries! The truth is, Atlantis was once part of the surface world but around 2000 BC some event happened that massively altered history. They won''t tell us anything about it, but apparently there is some vague carving outside of town that shows a giant whale called the Wind Fish, but most of the writing is defaced.” We noticed this too, but the plaque was pretty garbled as he said. It had a big whale and only read, ?TO?T_E?F_ _D_R,TH_?N_ _?E_ _T_?_S?B_ _?_ _?ILL_ _I_ _, A?S_E_E?O_?_ _E?_I_?O_?A?S_ _E_ER’S?E_ E. A_A_E_?_ _E? D_E_M_R, A_ _?_ _E?C_E_T_ _N?W_L_? V_N_S_? M_C_? L_K_? A? B_B_L_? O_?A?N_E_ _E. R_A_ER, Y_U?S_O_LD?K_O_?T_E?T_U_H!? I was thankful for the ? interpunct that allowed us to figure out where a word started and ended. But the lack of letters made this rather unreadable. Still, we copied it down, and while listening to the king talk, I worked on it with a pad of paper. ?TO?THE?F_ _DER, THE?NEW?EARTH?IS?BUT?_ _?ILL_ _I_ _, A?S_E_E?O_?THE?_I_?OF?A?

    S_ _E_ER’S ?EYE. A_A_E_?THE? D_E_M_R, AND?THE?C_E_T_ _N?WILL? V_N_S_? MUCH? LIKE? A?B_B_L_? ON?A?N_E_ _E. READER, YOU? SHOULD? KNOW? THE?TRUTH!? I was an inventor and therefore a genius, but some words I couldn''t figure out either by context or letter placement. The last sentence, I was particularly proud of, even though I had no idea what this truth was. I looked up and realized that the king had been explaining a great deal of things while my attention had been focused elsewhere. Oh bollocks, what had he said?

    AMBROSIA

    Yazim Jianne had been scratching stuff down on a piece of paper, and ignored the part where the king had explained that the most likely cause of them hiding themselves from the rest of the world was due to some great war or natural event, which caused the city to fall into the ocean in the first place. He suspected the former, since this would explain closing the passage in the first place. But he assured me not to worry. He would personally open the passage.

    Our group followed the king as he pressed his hand on the doorway, opening the area up. “I will close this area area behind you after you enter. The people of Atlantis have a rather strict immigration policy, and you are unlikely to be able to stay longer than a single day.” We stepped inside and the stone wall closed behind us. Oh well. We explored the city of Atlantis.

    It was much different from the town of Aquamundo. The other town had been mostly stone, with small additions to each house to adapt to water flowing in. The buildings in this city were made of adamant metal and glass of a sort that I had never seen. They glowed on their own, despite no discernible light anywhere.

    As we wandered around this town, we saw merchants of all sorts standing outside, peddling goods. There were a variety of underwater races in Atlantis living together, and all were welcome until they made trouble. Atlantis had a pretty strong deportation policy, so people like us who couldn''t breathe underwater were given entry only as tourists. That didn''t stop them from trying to sell us goods, though. We asked for a tour of the town from sahagin woman, and the guide explained all about different races and sights to see, so we wound up learning a lot. Unlike Aquamundo, which had a majority human population, humans could not survive for a prolonged period here. We realized after his explanation that the king and queen had been sahagin and merfolk, respectively. Sahagin were scaly-skinned amphibians, while merfolk tended to appear human from the waist up and fish down below with some of them having blue skin. Contrary to popular belief, mermaids tended to not be particularly good in bed, unless you were okay with them laying loads of eggs. There were also sharkfolk which had the upper body of a shark and the lower body of a human, there were sea witches which invariably were female (though seldom pleasant-looking) with powerful magic and the lower body of a squid, and then there were the selkies. Aside from mermaids, selkies were the most likely to make it to shore, since they had outer skins of seals which they could strip off partially or completely. Because of this, selkies could blend as either seals or humans, but down here they had no reason to pretend at being anything but a selkie, so they often appeared as females from the waist up, and wore their skins to cover their lower bodies.

    The people of Atlantis had not drastically changed in centuries, so while much of the world around them had developed modern religions, they still had old temples to Poseidon. Not that much could be called old here, their buildings were basically skyscrapers, to the limit of what the height of this cave allowed. The various sea races were able to open tunnels into the cave by pressing on certain panels, and the industrial and agricultural technology seemed to be far beyond that of the rest of the New Earth. The guide showed us cultural museums, temples, and all manner of inns and shops. There were domes for growing crops, despite the ever-present salt water. The residential section seemed to be tailor-made for those who lived on water rather than land, so in some cases no effort was made to keep water from entering. The walls were lined with stone plaques displaying Atlantis''s history. It showed very strange things, and it got weirder the farther back you went. The stone tablets seemed to be showing major events in Atlantean history from newest backward. The newest had merfolk shaking hands with elves and humans, then the Earth splitting, then a submarine visiting Atlantis, a sort of Ascent of Man style picture but with merfolk, an island sinking, flying buildings which were firing beams of energy and people chanting or something, some sort of disaster and people building boats, flying discs near pyramids, a Yin Yang, and then... nothing. I looked at some of the earlier pictures, and to my surprise, there were strange gaps. It was strange enough what they had already carved, what did they have to hide?

    I asked the guide to explain this. She explained, “The newest picture is the forming of the Council. Before that, is the forming of the New Earth and Void, as imagined by our artists. The next one explains why the borders of Atlantis are now largely closed to outsiders without some kind of authority or permission, since humans tried at one point to invade. This one shows the evolution of our life after Atlantis sank. And this one shows Atlantis sinking.” I interrupted, “Why did it sink, anyway?” She recounted, “Ages ago, all of civilization had elites who understood the same secrets of technology as we do. But only a few countries actually were advanced enough that such things were widespread This created a gap where commoners were living in huts while the elites knew secrets of science and mystic power. This is why these same huts had incredible stone structures that are difficult to build even with forklifts, they used their power and knowledge to do things beyond the current understanding. This meant that princes fought with ''Brahma weapons'' while architecture all around the area was stone and wood. This is what you see in the picture just before it, huge buildings that were actually weapons of war, capable of firing tachyon beams or dropping nuclear missiles.” I asked, “So what''s the deal with the rest of these? And why the blank space?”

    She elaborated, “I believe the boats are reference to a worldwide crisis in which humanity was forced to flee. It is always represented as a flood, but it may not have been. For that matter, these may not have been boats at all but spaceships. As for the picture before it, accounts differ as to what this means. Some say that aliens built the pyramids, others say that during early history they either attacked humans or taught them technology. Or it could be that these elites I mentioned before were aliens. As for the blank pictures, it is believed this represents the division of creation into the ten thousand things, as Taoists put it, even though there are more than that. The ancient Atlanteans must have known what happened before that, but for some reason, we cannot see them.”

    I looked carefully again at these depictions. Wars, invasions, evolution, hidden technology, world destruction and re-creation, and a depiction of the creation of the world we know of. Wait, maybe that was it! I was looking at the stone tablets from my perspective as a being of this universe, but what was before that? I remembered the numerous myths left behind by ancient cultures, touched the tablet, and said, “Light!” This wasn''t a spell, as I had none, and no runes transferred anywhere. Nor did any light appear. The Light I was referring to was that in the creation stories there was Void or undifferentiated gunk, and Light was the process by which the divided was united, and that which was too united was divided. You know of this is the Big Bang, where all mater exploded into stars and space, and planets began to have earth and sky. It didn''t matter if it was Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, or what, they used different terms for the same theory. I kept my hand on the tablet, and tried to visualize a world where such divisions did not exist. Such a thing was completely alien to my imagination, except when we were in the presence of God. The stone tablets began to fill in, one by one, with the other half of the stone tablet with the Yin Yang showing a circle of light on the left side that before had been blank. The last vellum scroll popped out of the stone that was half-blank. “Can you see that? The tablets are filled!” I asked the guide. The scaled women shook her head, “I saw a scroll pop out of the one you touched, if that''s what you mean. But no, I don''t see anything new.” Ah well, so then it was just a personal psychotic break. I stared at the filled-in plaques and borrowed Yazim Jianne''s notebook. The very first picture had a Trinity floating near a cloud or something, the half of the tablet I''d filled in had light, and between those, there was a picture of someone''s hand in the process of sculpting stuff in sand before the water came, and there was one tablet between that I couldn''t understand. I was a pretty good artist when I took the time. I sketched out the pictures as I now saw them. Yazim looked at the one and asked, “Why are you drawing yourself sleeping in a bed?” This girl had looked familiar, but I hadn''t really made the connection until he pointed it out. What exactly was this picture? Having no good explanation, I figured it was likely that this picture was out of order, and supposed to be the picture at the end. I did have a bed like this in Opening, maybe this picture was prophetic of the coming of the Oracle of Tao?

    We had technically finished our mission here, but I wanted to explore some more and check out the shops before we left. But I also noticed a path to the north of town, and wanted to see it. Some of the others browsed the shops, finding an excess of seafood at the markets for very low prices, and land items for significantly higher. We even found a phase blaster there, but weapons were significantly more expensive. I handed the vellum song sheet to Aqorm, but we''d have to wait on this one, because playing music underwater was tricky. This sheet contained the song (what else) Under the Sea. Marching ahead at a steady pace, the path narrowed into a long pass before emptying out into an open space. This area, unlike the others, opened up to the water above. Sun shone from above, and air bubbles came through tiny holes in the rock walls. A selkie girl sat chanting, attempting to perform an underwater ritual. Who was this girl?

    YAZIM JIANNE

    The others were creeped out by this and headed back, apologizing for bothering her, but I stuck around. I recognized what she was chanting. “Mgahnnn yeeogngp ngluii ot syha''h n''ghft, hai cahf yogfm''ll ah ahehye, uln mgepogor mgepogg ye''bthnk ot cthulhu yog ot mgepogg ot r''lyeh. L'' h'' mgah''ehye ah unto ya, cahf Y'' ah mgeplllln''gha ehyeog,” she incanted. There was a lack of incense because we were deep beneath the waves but she had gotten the location and other materials needed right, from the still-beating heart of another follower, to the various trinkets needed to attract such a being by sympathetic magic. I walked up to her, my Sea Ring forming a gap in the water around me, and tapped her on the shoulder.

    I was immediately stunned by a jolt of electricity. I could tell she was a powerful wonder-worker, powerful enough indeed to raise the Elder Formless Cthulhu from its lair in R''lyeh where it slept until it would come again. However...

    “The stars are not right,” I explained to her. The selkie girl protested, “But... I made a calendar chart based on the last time the planets aligned with the stars in the Vajrayogini Mandala. This is the method most sure to bring death and destruction. Why shouldn''t this work?” I chuckled at that, “Well, first off, the Elder Formless don''t use such patterns, they use non-Euclidean geometry for their release rituals. And also, you forgot that your calendar cannot be Gregorian calendar or even Julian, never mind our current Elemental Zodiac calendar, but the calendar of the Abyss. Why, the date is not even the same eon! You''ll need to wait until later to be eaten first.”

    She sighed, deeply disappointed. I looked at the girl with interest, for she was beautiful, intelligent, and just slightly evil. I visualized her helping me with my experiments, and then I knew. If only she joined us, we would be unstoppable! “You,” I asked, “what is your name?” She took my slight rudeness in mind, “I am called Selqui, and I am the daughter of King Triton. The other daughters were all beautiful mermaids who had properly married into nobility, but Triton had me through a... less than noble union. I inherited nothing, except for this Trident of Poseidon.” She held up an extremely powerful artifact as though it were nothing, though she definitely knew how to wield it. She continued, “Having nothing to do, I have decided to destroy the universe. But I didn''t even manage that! I''m such a loser...” She started crying, and then a shark flew past, and she casually speared it, zapped it, and tore it apart with her hands and teeth while still sobbing, reminding me of women who cry while eating chocolate, being unaware that they are even doing so. “Hey, ummm, suck it up,” I said. I think that''s what you''re supposed to say when someone''s in tears?

    She looked up at me, I with my robe, intense eyes, and handsome face touched by ambition. “You''re...” she said, “kinda different from the other ones, aren''t you?” I shrugged, “If by different, you mean borderline evil, insane, and completely broken-hearted, then yes, I suppose I am.” She nodded, “Tell me all about it.”

    And so, I recounted my early childhood, my ambition to learn sorcery and the lost arts of technology, my foray into mad science, and my marriage to former wife. She cried a bit more when she heard of my accident that had made me a widow, and my deal with Belial. “Everyone knows you should get a contract in writing when dealing with a demon of that sort,” she commented. I nodded ruefully, as I explained how I had become trapped in the Eternal Town, how Ambrosia had released me, and how I joined their party after they had made it through my mansion. I even told a few sex stories, such as the best time with Sarai and me, about Surrogate Lover # 2 and me, and about that one time with Sarai, Additional Lover # 7, and me where my wife basically destroyed the chimera with her lovemaking technique. Some people might think it is grossly inappropriate to share tales of old lovers, but well, what I liked about Sarai was that in addition to being very handy with a wrench and a Geiger counter, she was an absolute nymphomaniac who pleasured herself multiple times a day, and gave me sex at least thrice a week. If I was to invite her in to our group and into my life, I wanted to be sure this helper wasn''t a total prude. I needed a real woman at this point in my life.

    To my relief, she responded as I had hoped. “This story, you told me this for that reason, correct? You wanted to see if I would also be up for something like that? Well, I''m sorry but I''m not like your old wife,” Selqui said, then she softened as she saw my face fall, “I''m worse.” She pulled off my robe, my shoes, and my loincloth, leaving me naked but for a necklace and some enchanted jewelry. She touched my stomach. I had a feeling this was going to be rough.

    I peeled the shells covering her breasts, and started sliding her seal skin off of her body, revealing two shapely legs. Unlike Surrogate Lover # 2, she didn''t have claws. What she did have, however, were the sharp pointed teeth of a leopard seal, capable of tearing fish apart with little effort. I was thankful that she did not have shark''s teeth. Seals'' teeth are elongated at the front four for holding food, with the back teeth shorter for chewing. They were designed more like spears than cutting tools, so if she nibbled at my ear, she wouldn''t be able to bite it off without effort. It would, however make a nasty puncture wound wherever she bit, even though her jaws probably weren''t as strong as a real seal''s were. I fully expected with her goofy personality so far to do something weird like start nibbling on my face, my neck, or maybe... but she didn''t. She was actually pretty gentle. Having been with Sarai and many of our chimeras and their strange frisky personalities, I guess I was used to wild sex. But with her, despite supposedly wanting to destroy the world, she seemed to be pretty easygoing. She just enjoyed exploring my body. Being used to being clawed at, bitten, whipped, or hammered with rough sex, I honestly wasn''t sure what to do when someone wanted to just be with me. Selqui spoke, “I''m sorry.” Was she apologizing for not measuring up to the stories I''d told her about the others? Because that was okay, actually. Then I noticed her eyes. Selqui''s eyes were blue-green like the ocean, a sharp contrast to her medium brown hair. But these were royal blue eyes, almost like... “Sarai,” I said. The many races of sea folk came from a single race, a group of powerful psychics similar to our Soulfires. They had used much of this in a desperate bid to survive underwater, and now mainly had powers over water, wind, or lightning. But many of them were psycho-receptive, and could become possessed by good or evil spirits. A surefire way to tell was if their eyes changed, and I recognized my previous lover anywhere. She explained, “I''m sorry I left you heartbroken for so long. I know you were in pain for the longest time, and I couldn''t help, I couldn''t talk to you. Yazim, I want you to love this woman. I want you to be lab partners with her. I want you to be her lover, and her best friend. I want you to share everything with her, from your deepest secrets to, if possible, a family. I know I couldn''t give you children, even though I loved the sex. Oh yes, and just for a little bit, I want you to fuck her brains out with me in her body. I miss you inside me, and I really miss having a physical form. The Afterlife is so beautiful and peaceful, but I can''t fully go there yet because I''m still your ghost.” And so I did. I spread her legs wide, and I went inside her until she came. A little later, Selqui''s eyes changed back. Sarai had passed on, and it was time to do sex the way Selqui wanted it.

    Selqui was worse than Sarai as she said, but only in her sexual appetites. Although the sex was much less kinky than I was used to, she wanted to keep it going until she was totally spent. Four hours and about 8 times later, we finally rejoined the others. At one point, though she got all scary. Her eyes turned red and she started saying things like, “Give me blood! Blood and flesh!!!” That time, I actually did get bitten, and wound up taking a break to put balm on my face, neck, and arms. I later gave her a bracelet which allowed her to guard against unwanted possession. But overall, it wasn''t too bad, except for exhaustion. We''d have to take it easy, or I''d probably die from too much of a good thing. We tried to pace ourselves a bit better from now on.

    AQORM

    Once those two rejoined the group, we decided to make it back to the surface. We got Selqui a small satchel and some pairs of clothes, because well, right now she was wearing a sealskin and some shells, and I knew she would have modesty issues when blending with humans. She kind of seemed like a mousy modest girl from what I knew of her. Nah, I''m kidding, she seemed more at home with nudity than I did, and I routinely refused to wear undergarments. This was really so the rest of the group wouldn''t get embarrassed. My first goal was to find a piano, in order to unlock the last song sheet. I knew that the fate of the world might rest in discovering the Song Book, and the ultimate weapon that it supposedly revealed.

    We made it to the surface, and pulled off our heavy diving suits to stow in the tent. The save point that Azrael had moved was still there, reminding us of our previous adventures. Getting prepped to go back, however, wasn''t as easy as it sounds. Selqui was not very used to walking, having been on her hands and knees most of her life, since she never ventured out of Atlantis. She was used to being a seal or a hybrid, but rarely stood on her own two feet. Not just that, clothes were a real challenge for her, especially shoes. Not wanting our journey back to Galaxia to take forever, I finally just told her to go barefoot. To this day, while on land, she refuses to wear footwear.

    Once in town, I set to work finding the tavern, and playing this song. The last corner of the map displayed, and I saw the words ?Where the four meet? display on the surface. Putting the map together, we used Bahamut to fly to roughly the spot where all four maps met. The maps were longer than wide and the bottom two maps had more music on the front, so the center was north of what I thought it would be. We wound up on that strange island that had the portal to the Realm of Void. “Fan out,” I told the others, and we combed the entire island over the next several days. “It''s not here,” we finally concluded. Elias requested, “Let me see that again.” Studying it, he noticed that the island wasn''t actually on the map. He jotted down an archaeological record based on the general date of the songs. “Let''s see... Under the Sea was composed roughly 1989, Don''t Tell the Wind was 1985, Beds are Burning was 1987, and Earth Song was mid 1990s. Most of these songs were with four years of each other, and recorded well before the land was anything like this. They were probably recorded again on crystals sometime before most records would have otherwise destroyed, so the maps would have been made sometime during the early history of the New Earth. Now, this island didn''t appear until around 4500 AD or so according to records, so this means the location on this map is not the location.” He looked at the inscription again, “Hold up. This doesn''t say, ''where the four maps meet'', it says ''where the four meet.''” I protested, “What''s the difference?” He explained, “There are four elements, which each of these maps, and their songs represented. We need to find a place where there is a high mountain, a windy area, water nearby, and plenty of warmth. Let''s go to the Great Library again, we need to look at a climate map of the world.”

    After returning to Galaxia, it was a short walk from Galaxia to the Great Library. As before, we had to navigate through fifteen floors of books, scrolls, blueprints. We now knew where to find maps though, so we climbed all the way to the S section on the top shelf floor.

    ELIAS

    As a scholar, I knew how books were sorted in a library. The method of sorting books had not changed substantially in thousands of years. The only major difference was added categories. With the discovery of thaumaturgy and sorcery, added categories were made. But once someone understood the Dewey Decimal System, they could essentially be transplanted 5000 years in the future, and still fully understand how to find anything. For instance, a scroll map would be S 912 (which had decimals for subcategory if it was for a specific country), but since it was ancient geography, I had to refer instead to S 911. I had to search a bit to find a map based on ancient climate, but at last I found it. The map had deep blue for water, light blue for frozen wastes, light green for plains, deep green for forests, and reddish-brown for mountains. The continents had shifted somewhat, but I could definitely recognize the area where a volcano, tundra, plains, and forest all in close proximity. Over the ages, constant eruptions created the peculiar desert terrain surrounded by frozen tundra, with mountains nearby. Unfortunately, because of the massive climate changes, it was impossible to figure out where the Song Book was today, or if it had even survived such massive changes. S~ea??h the n??el Fire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    Yazim Jianne made a suggestion, “Perhaps it would be better if we made a time portal?” I wasn''t thrilled about this idea. The risks of time travel were rather steep, since time could ripple and cause parallel dimensions. We might wind up going to the wrong present since it was now the future.

    It was unlikely that you could even travel to the same timeline as yourself. Suppose I made a stone go back five seconds in the past. Now what you''d think would happen is that Stone A (the one you sent) would become Stone B (the one that popped in five seconds ago) and there would be two stones. But that''s not actually what would happen. If I went back to warn myself of a disaster, before I even visited myself, the part of me that was native to the timeline would receive the memories of the visit, while the visitor got sent back home. I could occupy the same timeline as yourself, but only disguised or significantly different in age, otherwise when I got within the five senses of the original my memories would merge and I as a visitor would get displaced to my present. Of course, if I made it to the wrong timeline, I''d get displaced to parallel timeline on arrival. Since all wrong timelines would do this, this technically meant that the closer I was to the present, the more accurate my visit became to my main timeline. It also meant it was impossible to see two stones, or in fact less than one for more than a few seconds, because after the gap for sending the stone, it would get bumped back to its present. People would still know that it went back in time, they just wouldn''t be able to explain why there weren''t two stones if one returned to the past. This is a blessing, because I could imagine someone like Aqorm sending back the wrong stone, and creating a paradox. Thankfully, we were going to the distant past, and didn''t have to worry about any of this. But we did have to worry about temporal inaccuracy.

    He saw the concern in my eyes, and said, “Relax, I can make a Temporal Anchor.” I was no less concerned, for this meant we had to split the party. If anything dangerous happened, we would die in another time. And if anything happened to him, we would be trapped in the wrong time. I saw the look on Aqorm''s face, though, and couldn''t say no. “Oh, all right,” I sighed.

    The sorcerer called out, “時間錨 ” and a magical circle formed under his feet. He would need to stay in that spot until we returned, so he would need to be guarded and cared for. We needed to split up the group. “I''m going,” I said, “who is staying and who is going with me?” Ambrosia and Nevras stayed behind. They had no desire to explore some strange time. Lilith also stayed. She had lived through this period, and did not want to see it yet again. Michael went with me, as did Aqorm, and those two girls.

    The anchor formed a clear point, just outside of Galaxia where we could return to our own timeline. I was careful to tell the others not to interfere with any events, but I forgot about the bystander effect. You know, where if someone sees someone in trouble, but there are plenty of people around, they won''t help? Well, back then, the ancestor of the current mayor was about to fall from a house and the guy who was going him saw all of us, and concluded that we would help even though we weren''t to do anything. We gathered the Song Book at the base of a volcano and returned, only to find out the region of Galaxia had become covered with lawless bandits because the mayor''s family hadn''t set up any kind of formal state here. Eventually, we did manage to save the mayor and his future generations, but it took a few tries. Now Aqorm had her Song Book, and that''s the important thing.