Of the many people who lived in this sector, there was perhaps only one who knew anything about what would happen after the reset. In the early days, Theo had considered people like Khahar to be the experts. But as time went on, it was revealed that only a handful could truly grasp the weight of everything that was going on. Unfortunately, one of those people was a once murderous king whose entire family now hated him. Even worse was the fact that the king was on the other side of a temporal barrier that locked them all in a moment.

"How do you expect me to approve something like that?" the system asked, acting more erratic than ever. "You want to leave the sector. For what reason? You realize that maintaining this barrier is taking everything, and I'm going absolutely insane. The agony grows greater by the moment. Even if you two have managed to stave off my inevitable demise, I still see it on the horizon like a carrion crow, come to pick my corpse clean."

“That was metal,” Tresk said with a nod of approval.

The system shot her a silencing glare.

“I need to talk to Leon, and this is in service of my duty as the Dreamwalker. So don't get too bent out of shape," Theo said. "And yes, we bought you some extra time so we can make sure everything was perfect for the transition. Is it too much to ask for five minutes to talk to that guy?”

The system's crystalline features narrowed, locking on to Theo. After a moment, she shook her head. "You should have opened with that. You said you wanted to leave the sector, but Leon isn't outside of the sector. He's in. Well, just on the edge. Outside of your puny mortal senses. Yes, you're so small I could squish you right now and be done with the irritation."

Tresk leaned in, elbowing Theo in his side. "I think the system's losing her mind. Maybe we should reset earlier."

“Yes, perhaps we should!” the system shouted. Then she began sobbing. When she was done having a good cry, she barked a few manic laughs. “Right now, maybe!”

“Let’s not get hasty,” Theo said, trying his best to defuse the situation. “Can we do anything to help you?”

The system twitched, vibrating slightly. “Die,” she said, glaring as she faded out.

“Yeah, okay. Screw that,” Tresk said, turning to walk from the platform. “She’s absolutely nutso bonkers. One hammer short of a toolbox. What’s another saying?”

“Three sheets to the wind? Or is that for drunk people?” Theo asked, rubbing his chin. But he hadn’t been idle. As the system was going insane, he was taking readings from her. Although it was nearly impossible to probe deeply into the system, he observed a few interesting things. Her issues stemmed from an imbalance of energy. She couldn't get everything into equilibrium, not until the reset happened. It likely had to do with her remaining in her humanoid form for too long, maintaining the barrier and, of course, the effects of that barrier. “Seems like she’s having a rough time… I think this sector is like a microwave… Or some large metal container where signals bounce off, repeating as it passes through her.”

“Dumb it down for me, homeboy,” Tresk said, looking back from her spot near the stairs. “I’m stupid, remember?”

“The temporal barrier lets some energy in. We know that because we can eat up celestial energy.”

“Or there’s a finite amount of that energy,” Tresk corrected.

“That’s even worse,” Theo said, throwing his hands up in the air. “Either way, she’s getting cooked by this energy.”

“A siphon?” Tresk asked, scratching her chin. She clapped her hands after a moment. “A repeater? Maybe a big dish that shunts the power through the worlds.”

“Or diffuses it,” Theo said. “Recyclers?”

Tresk snapped her fingers. “A big old gong!”

Theo gave her a flat look. “Huh?”

“Yeah, a gong. Those big metal things that you smack with a mallet, and they make a gooooong sound,” Tresk said, nodding as though any of that makes sense. “You wanna build a big machine? Screw that, sounds like too much work. I’m gonna turn my planet into a gong.”

If Theo didn't have access to Tresk’s brain, he would simply think she was insane. But as he looked at her thoughts, he realized it actually made sense. His first idea was to take the energy that was bouncing within the sector, absorb it, and then re-emit it in a measured form. That way, he could ensure that all of these energies that were never meant to mingle together in a closed system could do so in measured quantities. That, in and of itself, would be the largest project he had ever worked on, and the resources to make it happen didn't likely exist in the time frame he needed. Tresk's idea of a gigantic gong actually made sense, and it made him want to cry.

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“Why does that make sense?” Theo asked, rubbing his face. “So if we get the planets to wiggle at the right frequency, they’ll eat up the signals and… do what with them?”

“Well, if the planets wanna work with us, they’ll release them in measured quantities. We only need to handle three forms of energy, so it should work just fine.”

Theo winced as he realized something important. The Ascendants had done the world no favors, but they had likely helped keep all those energies in check by creating massive amounts of their own energy. Now that the heavens had been sealed, the way their energy interacted with the world was minimal. Destroying the Ascendant system had likely accelerated the timeline for the system, and he felt a twinge of regret for that. He knew it had to be done, but seeing her suffer like this was not enjoyable in the least.

Tresk was very eager to see if her idea would work. Although Theo had little faith in it, he didn't want to give her the wrong impression. With a sigh, he surrounded them with his aura and teleported directly to his planet, appearing in Boar Hollow an instant later. After a quick report from Belgar, the alchemist was eager to see if the planet had any opinions about it. Unfortunately, Tero’gal couldn't speak directly to them, not yet anyway. Even Belgar himself couldn’t get a word out of it.

“A big gong?” Belgar asked, laughing nervously. “I can’t tell if you’re serious.”

“A big old gong!” Tresk repeated, throwing her hands in the air. “Makes perfect sense. Trust me.”

Theo frowned, unsure how to pose the question to the planet. According to Belgar, all he had to do was concentrate and send his intent to the world. It was as easy as explained, but understanding the confusing rush of feelings and thoughts coming from it was almost impossible. Although it took a while, Theo got some kind of sense from the planet that the gong idea wasn't entirely stupid. It agreed, but there was an entire layer of the message the alchemist simply couldn't understand.

“She says the gong thing won't work,” Belgar said, jumping in to interpret for the planet. Theo wanted to be slightly offended that somebody could understand his own planet better than him, but he pushed those emotions down, listening to what the man had to say. “The idea of resonating makes sense to her, but the other parts don't. She says you should build a statue made of… I don't know what that is… of something and place it on all four planets. Then the planets themselves will do the rest."

“Made of what?” Tresk asked, looking up at Belgar with a wild look in her eyes. “Cheese? Does she want cheese?”

“What? No,” Belgar said, looking skyward and squinting. “Some kind of powerful material. A resonant material that can carry energy?”

Theo shook his head. There was barely enough information to go on, but he understood. It was only because he had just been thinking about the Ascendants that he knew what she would need. After all, he had used this material for his own purposes before. While there was a finite amount of it to work with, he suspected they would have the exact right amount. The concept was similar to the way the Shards worked back on Iaredin.

“We need to go grab a few thrones,” Theo said. “Smash them up, reform them… No big deal.”

Belgar chuckled nervously. “Sounds like a big deal to me.”

“Nah, we got plenty of those,” Tresk said. “But we got a problem with that plan. Those thrones already have energy alignments.”

“Then we’ll need to unalign them,” Theo said. “Come on, let’s go.”

“I’ll just… stay here,” Belgar said, jogging off before they could rope him into the adventure.

There were quite a few realms to pick from. Using the throne dust as ingredients in his alchemy seemed like a perversion of the thrones themselves. Not that Theo had much love for them. Instead, using them for statues that would help the wider world seemed like a much better approach. He was uncertain about which realm he should target but avoided the ones that came with innate evil concepts. That ruled out the Burning Eye, Zagmon, and Fan’glir. Instead, they stopped by Toru’aun’s realm first, finding the mysterious realm in shambles.

"I think that used to be a tower," Tresk said, "just strung to a structure that had completely crumbled."

Theo nodded. He had a sense for where her throne was and took them over a rocky landscape to a massive amphitheater. At the center was the throne itself, which, unlike the surrounding structures, seemed untouched by time. The Alchemist pressed his hand against the throne and shook his head. There wasn't much energy left within it. He was reminded of how the Ascendant powers had faded over time, lingering for a bit, but eventually dropping off until they were nothing.

“This is gonna be easier than expected,” Theo said. “Her throne is pretty much drained.”

“Easy work, then. Right?”

Although it wouldn't be difficult, it certainly wasn't going to be effortless. Theo pressed his other hand against the throne and probed it with his senses. It was difficult to get a read on it, but he figured he could simply siphon the energy away, sending it into the atmosphere and clearing the stone of its power. When he began, he felt the familiar energy rush through him. The power drained from the throne, and he wasn't excited to see that it would take a while, even at such a scant amount of energy.

When it was completely drained to the alchemist's satisfaction, he equipped his earth sorcerer's core and interacted with the stone itself. Of course, it would have been impossible for anybody else to move the throne, but with his immense willpower interacting with the core, he was able to separate it from the ground and levitate it.

"I'm not much of an artist," Theo admitted. "What kind of shape should we make it into?"

“Don’t complicate things. Just make a big square,” Tresk said. “We don’t need anything fancy. And if we do, you can change it later.”

With a shrug, Theo got to work. He reformed the throne which had once given a dronon impossible power. He rendered the symbol of her station down from a high-backed stone throne to a large square block with a wide base. It didn’t pass his notice that it was almost a perversion of the old Ascendant system, but perhaps that’s what they deserved. Maybe they didn’t get to be remembered as anything but a mistake. Even if there were some of them that were worth celebrating, the entire project had been a sham.

Theo took one last look at his work, ensuring that all the seams had fused together properly. When he was satisfied with his work, he turned to Tresk and nodded. “Okay. Let’s see if Tero’gal likes this.”

“We still gotta train,” Tresk said, shaking her head. “And we’re supposed to do more commentary.”

“This might be more important,” Theo said.