Some things cannot be defined, only experienced.


    <hr>


    Jair stopped back at the overhang just in case, but Sekir hadn''t miraculously repaired himself there. He glanced down at the empty shell of Sekir''s previous form one last time, then darkflamed himself to the Berris pickling shed''s secret sub-basement.


    PLEASE COME BACK.


    “Not now,” Jair gritted out. He was getting a headache from all Meliarn’s interruptions.


    Sekir’s backup bodies all lay exactly where they’d been last time he checked, except one that was faintly twitching.


    "Well, well, well. What have we here?" Jair crossed to the twitching body.


    It wasn''t quite moving, more convulsing like it was having a seizure, muscles contracting and loosening seemingly at random without any visible pattern. Its eyelids were closed and the eyes beneath lolled wildly, sometimes zipping around, sometimes just lying there in slow drift, but never opened.


    It wasn''t breathing yet, but it was rather fascinating to watch Sekir v3 come gradually to life.


    Jair was torn between the feeling of ''should kill it'' and ''want to see the whole thing.''


    And he would, but first there were a few things to verify before he could sit down to watch. If the previous hours-long transition between his original version and the one Qahrvirna had lured out away was any indication, he didn’t need to rush.


    <hr>


    Jair found Eythron sitting in the corner at a small round table with three bottles of assorted drinks, wearing a simple tunic and sleeveless overrobe that left his imprints on full display. Without Jair''s ostentatious collection of medals and awards and title pins, that made him the most blatantly veteran-fighter person in the room.


    "I didn''t realize there even was a table in the corner," Jair said by way of hello.


    Eythron chuckled. "I brought it over."


    "Of course you did. And no one minds?"


    Eythron waved a hand at the seat across from him and pulled a cup out of his soulspace for Jair, then a second for himself. "Take your pick."


    "I''m not here to join the party. I think I found Sekir''s resurrection chamber."


    Eythron''s eyebrows rose minutely. He picked one of the bottles and poured out a pale pink liquid for both of them.


    Jair didn''t take his but leaned forward, voice an urgent whisper. "I killed him, so he should be coming back any time. I''m going to go watch. Qahrvirna said she''d keep an eye on things here, but she also didn''t tell me she was luring him off by himself by fluttering her fangs at him. Did she tell you anything?"


    Eythron shook his head, eyebrows going still higher, and took a small sip of his drink.


    "So, since I''m sure her report will be heavily abridged to let her feel superior, can you take careful note of who''s where when?"


    Eythron snorted. "Already would have."


    "Thank you." Jair stood to leave, then paused and looked back. "And do be on guard. If there''s one thing I know about Sekir, it''s that the more times he''s killed, the nastier he gets."


    "You don''t have to worry about me. Worry about yourself. If you die in some hidden experiment chamber who''s going to help me kill that star hydra?"


    Jair shook his head and laughed. "You really are a one-note guy, aren''t you? If it''s not killing dungeons it''s persecuting this poor hydra who''s done nothing to you."


    "It''s a threat to the whole Oriad," Eythron said quietly, eyes going distant. "As is my absence. As soon as I can get back there, we need to deal with the hydra."


    "Yes, you have my word, once we''re done with Sekir, you can destroy Meliarn and I''ll help you hunt your hydra."


    Eythron nodded and threw back the rest of his drink in one go. "You going to drink that?"


    Jair shook his head. "All yours. I have a sorcerer to hunt."


    Eythron grunted in reply, dropped his own cup back into his soulspace and leaned over to grab Jair''s. "I mean it, lad. Be careful. Sorcerers in close proximity are not safe adversaries."


    "I''m well aware." Jair rubbed at his arms, still bare of any imprints. "I''m not equipped to face him right now, but I am equipped to escape with information that he can''t take away from me. Even if all I get is a verification of whether or not he can return in this particular location, that''s good enough."


    <hr>


    “Stephani Serin, the one whose party the second Sekir was ostensibly a member of, had no knowledge of any ''Ser Elsven'' and had never heard of a Mykoras family,” Carn reported, falling in step beside him as Jair left Eythron and started back toward Ajriol and Raina. “She was, in fact, quite indignant to find that such a personage was pretending to be a member of her entourage, and determined that if she ever caught sight of the rogue she''d give him quite a piece of her mind. And not politely.”


    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    “Did anyone else know anything?”


    “No one I’ve spoken to was directly involved with Ser Elsven''s inclusion in the party. It seems his name simply showed up without anyone remembering having put it there. I tried to cross-reference the rest of the list to see if this was the only persona Sekir could sneak into the party under or if there were others who''d slipped through the cracks, but the invitation list has been assembled over the whole past year. Even I don’t remember who or when half the invitations were added.”


    “Which ones could you verify?”


    He gave a list, but it was a disappointingly familiar list. Basically, it narrowed things down to ''not the actual Serin cousins'' but Jair was sure Raina or Ajriol would have already noticed if someone was pretending to be a nonexistent relative.


    “Thank you. Keep looking.”


    Carn nodded. “I will.” He hesitated, looking away, then back, eyes flickering with green light as though he wasn’t sure what to do.


    “You have something to say?”


    Carn blinked and the light of his soulspell disappeared. He straightened, the uncertainty gone. He took Jair’s arm earnestly. “Be careful.”


    Jair nodded and smiled. “You don’t have to worry about me. Watch over Ajriol and Raina. I’ll be fine.”


    Carn released him and Jair walked outside before darkflaming himself away to avoid attracting too much more attention. See, I can be subtle too.


    The afternoon was still young. Plenty of time for their nemesis to show back up if his switch took the two hours he''d observed the first time.


    Speaking of.


    He checked on Lilin before continuing his observations, and she was doing well. Had only formed eight life feuds already, and had plenty of afternoon left. Jair was convinced by now that she was trying to intentionally push people into misalignment just to see if she could.


    To her immense delight, Jair''s reputation was sufficient to allow her all sorts of undeserved tolerance. They wouldn''t do anything to disrupt her because of him, and she would do everything she could to disrupt them for no better reason than because she wanted to.


    As the representative of the Phoenix Healer, she was considered an honored guest, but as a ball of chaos given form, she was throwing everyone''s alliances into pure chaos.


    She had caught on to what she could and couldn''t get away with very quickly and then proceeded to use that knowledge to join temporary alliances and leave them just as rapidly as she quickly turned the whole event into a game.


    She wasn''t playing the noble''s game, she was playing them. They thought she was entering as a participant in their games, but she had made up the rules all on her own.


    Jair smiled proudly and left her to it. There was a lot of fun to be had messing with nobility, and the fact that he could shortcut the ''earning their respect’ part for her and get straight to the ''doing fun things with their existences because I can'' made it altogether more entertaining.


    She would never have to fight her way up from nothing like he had. She would never have to scrape and beg for the faintest scraps of recognition.


    He would give her everything she wanted and watch while they floundered in her wake.


    Lilin’s penchant for chaos was beautiful. What would the political scene look like by the evening? He couldn’t wait to find out.


    But in the meantime, he had Sekir’s equally fascinating magical process to observe over in his secret hidden underground room.


    <hr>


    With everything else handled and moving smoothly, Jair sat himself on the empty slab nearest the ladder, Maelstrom across his lap to provide light, and settled in to watch.


    Sekir’s reawakening process was so fascinating that Jair wished he had any way to obtain manasight, because he would be willing to bet that there was a lot of metaphysical stuff going on in there that he simply couldn''t observe because he was only watching it with light.


    The body would twitch wildly for a time, slow, then stop and lie still again for minutes. Sometimes only a few minutes, other times nearly a half hour. Then it would start up twitching again, more violently each time. The first few were self contained and relatively minor but the ones that went on included it thrashing about and only held down by the restraints it wore.


    They weren''t something it couldn''t escape from, they were clearly intended as protection rather than control, and had simple releases that even a child could have gotten out of, but it was enough to prevent him injuring himself as he gradually came into alignment.


    Jair considered taking them off just to watch the fun as Sekir''s own resurrection process tore his body into aggressively bruised pieces.


    He smiled faintly at the thought. It was tempting to wait until just before the new form was active and ready to be used, only to destroy it and force Sekir to begin again, but he couldn''t bring himself to interrupt. He wanted to see how it was supposed to go first. Then he could start hunting the man.


    He counted the seconds between convulsions, noted their gradual changes as the new Sekir went from thrashing to twitching, and measured the duration of the stillness between. At first there would be several minutes of spread out activity before Sekir fell still as though comatose, nothing moving at all.


    This state would remain for several minutes, sometimes as many as ten, before the body started going through its twitches and convulsions again. Jair couldn''t be sure at first if he was keeping proper count,  but as they went on the duration of these stillnesses between connection attempts fluctuated wildly. Sometimes it would last only a minute or two, other times it would be ten or once even twenty minutes before it resumed.


    But after the twenty minute one, they began rapidly coming closer together. Jair counted no more than four minutes between the twitching sessions for almost an hour, and the amount of twitching was increasing just as steadily.


    From what had been a few minutes, it became almost constant. The durations had reversed, with the body flexing and straining for minutes at a time while the brief stillnesses were few and far between.


    Then the moment came to an end, and the body went abruptly fully still.


    Jair stared at it, then the body slowly blinked its eyes open.


    Finally.


    Jair stopped pacing and watched, wondering. Would this finally be the chance to talk to the man without a violent altercation? Or would Sekir find a way to attack him even weaponless in an underground room?


    Either way, it had been far too long since they''d seen each other face to face.


    This meeting had been a long time coming. Far longer than Sekir could ever guess.


    Allowing Jair to discover this place was a terrible mistake.


    He couldn''t have known he was observed, but having a plan convoluted enough that it involved him visiting the same location in multiple different guises was risky under the best of circumstances and absurd under others.


    Jair wasn''t going to be able to do anything to his soul, apparently even Maelstrom wasn''t able to grab onto the man''s slippery essence, but that didn''t mean he had to make the man''s life easy.


    He grinned as he periodically paced the tiny room, watching and waiting as his nemesis prepared for a doomed life.


    <hr>