There is no record of Vamisel''s presence after the Division. Once the world shattered and the lands split apart, so too did much of our knowledge become fragmented and lost. What has survived this long, passed down in its own pieces from generation to generation, is very difficult to now piece back together.


    <hr>


    Jair drove Maelstrom into the octide''s crystal-shelled back in the same moment that Raina skewered its head. Something like triumph flashed through him, so quick and exhilarating he gasped involuntarily in the moment before it faded.


    "Woah." Raina held up Tempest, looking a bit unsteady as she did. "What was that?"


    "Synergy," Jair guessed. "Is this the first time we''ve mutually killed something together?"


    "Surely not." Raina turned to look back into the trees, though of course there was no sign of their path of terror. The fights had taken place far enough apart for none of the monsters to witness one another''s demise.


    Those that did tended not to stick around waiting for their turn.


    "This is incredible," Raina laughed. "We should try that again."


    Jair nodded. He hopped onto Maelstrom''s flat and ascended to search the treetops for sign of more octides. They were usually not alone, there should be at least a few more in the area.


    "You make that look so easy," Raina grumbled. She stood on Tempest, which remained lying flat on the ground. "Bladewalk!"


    Tempest didn''t budge.


    "Up, come on, you don''t want to let your big brother show you up, now do you?"


    Tempest remained flattened to the ground beneath her feet. “Why do you get all the unfair cheat powers,” Raina grumbled. “What do I need to do to catch up?”


    Jair chuckled as he rose through the canopy and out of sight. It took only a moment to find the octides'' path. "They came from this direction," he called down, then started flying casually in that direction.


    Raina muttered something about how unfair it was that he got to revert so many times without her, picked up her sword, and strode along in the indicated direction.


    Twice, Jair had to drop from his flight to deal with some of the smaller threats that waited in ambush. Each time, he jumped in front of Raina, then gave a demonstration of what the danger was and how to better recognize it in future.


    A lot of it he''d learned from painful experience. The Oriad had probably killed him more than anything else. Well, aside from the Letyran Beastlord who invaded Celsin and pursued him up Mount Sanctum, but that was something else entirely.


    "I thought snapvines were blueish."


    "Those were snap pods. These will knock you down and wrap you up and wait for you to die, not bite your fingers off."


    She shook her head and gave the vine another stab for good measure, though it was already dead by now. "If this is your favourite place, I''d hate to see the ones you consider worse."


    "Veor," Jair answered without hesitation. "Worst place ever."


    Raina looked at the dead murderous plant, then at Jair, and ran a hand across her face. "Yeah, sounds about right for you."


    "I''m nothing if not inconsistent."


    "Consistent, you mean?"


    "Exactly."


    They were still playfully arguing when they reached the rest of the octide nest, and the next several minutes were spent in slashing and stabbing an angry bunch of crystal-shelled monstrosities eager to avenge their fallen kin.


    The next time they managed a simultaneous killing blow on a monster, Jair was ready for it. He caught the brief flash of light that pulsed up both Maelstrom and Tempest''s blades in perfect sync, overflowed into him with that same feeling of elation, then disappeared as fast as it had come.


    "That could be distracting," Raina commented as she spun to face another octide.


    "Look out!"


    Two more were closing in on her, and she wouldn''t have time to catch them both before they reached her.


    Jair threw Maelstrom into her back, darkflamed her across the clearing, and dove into the group of octides with Maelstrom flashing.


    "Hey!" Raina overbalanced as her attempted swing ended with air instead of the octide she''d been aiming at. She spun to face the ongoing fight but by the time she crossed the clearing Jair had already finished off the last of their current cluster. Another group was descending from above in a rustle of branches and leaves, so she rushed to take up a defensive position beside him.


    The one main disadvantage that Tempest had was being non-legendary. It couldn''t slice through creatures in the same way Maelstrom could. It had to deal with the physical body of its targets. More than once, Tempest got stuck where Maelstrom could sweep through them without pause. This slowed Raina down and threw off their rhythms.


    They’d been at this for several days now. The process of crafting their anti-star-hydra equipment took weeks, so they were practicing while Eythron and Uqiar did the material preparations.


    Which was probably a good thing.


    Raina was well-trained for a first-year mageblade initiate, but all her experience in fighting was duels against other humans. Fighting monsters in their home terrain was an unfamiliar challenge to her.


    “Watch above you,” Jair had to keep reminding her.


    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    “I know,” she growled. “I just lose track sometimes.”


    “Too many times. I’d rather not have to watch you die.”


    “You don’t think it’s inevitable?”


    “It shouldn’t be.” He frowned at her. “Is that why you’re fighting so aggressively, you aren’t worried about dying?”


    “Of course I’m worried about dying. It’s not fun. But it’s not paralyzing.” She grinned and stabbed at an octide, slipping Tempest between its crystal plates, then danced aside as it careened into the tree behind where she''d been standing. "Besides, you don''t have to watch, you can always turn away."


    "That''s not something to joke about." He''d already watched her die too many times, to Ryenzo, to unrelated disasters caused indirectly or directly by Ryenzo, and now the aftermath of Sekir''s rampage.


    "You joke about yourself dying. Maybe you shouldn''t do that either."


    "Do I?"


    "Perhaps not ''joke'' exactly, but treat it with casual unconcern."


    "I''m generally good enough not to die easily, and if I do die I can come back."


    "So can I, now."


    "I... I do know that." Jair frowned as he sliced through another quartet of octides. Why was this bothering him so much? He never wanted any friend to die in front of him, Raina least of all, but she had Temporal Rebirth to protect her even if he was too slow to revert her before things went terribly wrong.


    Jair had hunted with Eythron through these jungles more times than he could count. He’d spent years with Qahrvirna doing the same, albeit with different priorities and strategies. He’d only rarely witnessed them dying; in almost every instance of such it had been only because they were trying to rescue him back in his era of still needing rescuing. He’d never seen someone actually outfight them in their own territory.


    Perhaps that was the difference. He was used to being the student, not the teacher.


    And now he understood on a visceral level that instinct to throw himself between his beloved student and whatever threatened her. Even when it meant she growled at him for being overprotective.


    Hunting with Raina was an entirely different experience. He’d imagined it would be like… any number of things. But the reality didn’t match anything he’d guessed. She was both more aggressive and more cautious than he’d expected, in different areas than predicted.


    She took to killing the local monsters with impressive enthusiasm. He’d always thought she might protest the violence of intruding into creatures’ territories to depopulate them, but the subject didn’t even come up.


    “Have you been hunting much in the past?” he asked at one point, as she made a point to kill one of their targets without damaging its body in the wrong places for its future crafting. “I don’t remember if we’d talked about it before.”


    “I haven’t. But I’ve worked with material preparation teams.” She laughed. “You hear enough guys complain about misplaced kill strikes and it sticks with you.”


    "You never mentioned this before."


    "Yeah I did. We discussed it when we had to put together the presentation about the economy of combat, remember?"


    Jair did not.


    Raina bit at her lip. "Right. Not going to retain anything that far back. Well. It wasn''t a particularly interesting period of my life, just a lot of listening to complaints and trying to ascertain what I could do to make things go smoother when I was in charge."


    "Did they know it was you, or were you undercover?"


    "I wasn''t announcing myself, but I wasn''t denying it either. More, I just sat around quietly and after a while they stopped worrying about me overhearing. The more I didn''t report them or do anything but laugh along, I''m not sure, I think they did consider me kind of one of them by the end. Maybe just a mascot."


    "Mm... You''ve always been the champion of the commoner, have you? Guess I just got lucky."


    "I''d argue I''m the lucky one." She leaned up and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Not everyone gets an immortal time traveler for an unhesitatingly loyal friend."


    "Unhesitatingly loyal, am I? I think my loyalty hesitates on a regular basis."


    "Only because you''re torn between trying to save me and trying to save me."


    "How does that figure?"


    "Well, you can either protect my body or my soul, right? Either you let me face the consequences of my actions and grow from them, or keep sheltering me to the point where I become helpless without you. These are extreme examples, but it''s a demonstration of the general trends. You can protect me but harm my development in the long term, or you can allow my development and safeguard my soul but at the expense of there being a lot of pain in the middle. And you''ll not only have to watch that happening, you''ll have to watch it knowing you could prevent it, and that it''ll probably happen again." She grinned brightly. "Have I left anything out?"


    Jair stared at her. "Um."


    "Yeah, you''re not as subtle as you think you are."


    "I wasn''t trying to hide from you..."


    "Then you should try even less."


    Jair laughed and kissed her back, more properly.


    They may have been slightly distracted when the next pair of vylix came for them, and they might have had to revert, but neither of them complained.


    The vylix were much less happy with the outcome the second time around.


    “We’re getting better at the timing on this,” Raina commented as the two of them stabbed the catlike monster in unison. “I don’t know exactly what the point of it is, but it does feel very right.”


    “I think Maelstrom is trying to fast-track Tempest’s upgrade path by using its innate power control to steal pieces and slip them over. I suspect that once we get to reforging your sword, it''ll jump ranks pretty dramatically."


    "You think that''ll be a while from now? Or soon?"


    "That''s entirely up to you. If you want us to go reforge Tempest right now, you need only ask."


    Raina contemplated the offer. "No, I don''t have the ingredients I need yet,” she said, and forestalled his followup suggestion before he could make it. “And I think... I''ll know when the time to start searching is right."


    "That is how it''s traditionally done. Maelstrom may be in a rush but there’s no reason for you to need to be. If anything particularly calls to you, grab it and keep it for when you''re ready. Just be aware of the values and degradation levels of your items. If you find something organic like wood it''s best not to store it in your soulspace for longer than a few days. Better to use standard preservation techniques and leave it in a vault somewhere."


    Raina snorted and raised an eyebrow. “House Serin, remember? You think I don’t know how to care for materials?”


    “Right.” Though they may be a nominally declining house in Veor and their presence in Veor minimal, they had a sizeable intercontinental footprint and remained notable despite their decreasing numbers.


    Though, now that Ryenzo had been dealt with, perhaps their numbers could stop decreasing.


    Raina laughed and kissed him again, then turned to the dead vylix. “So, what’re we keeping from these things? I think some of these spines would make for a good hilt wrap, don’t you?”


    “They’re a little stiff for that. Also spiky.”


    Raina had already squatted down next to the monster’s remains and begun to carefully slice it open with Tempest’s tip. “Then we’d better take a lot. I have some ideas for soaking them to make them malleable, but we may need to try several compounds before hitting the right one.”


    Jair considered the suggestion, half convinced it was an elaborate joke, but there was no reason he could see not to include monster parts in a sword’s reforging. Even if gems and metals were more traditional, stranger things had happened.


    After he ascended Maelstrom with his blood as he lay dying and then subsequently gave it full access to his soul, he had no right to criticise nontraditional upgrade choices.


    He squatted down next to her and got to work.


    <hr>