“The hell’s a Fragment of Time?”

“I suppose it’s some ancient magical item. We are tasked to gather and then deliver them somewhere. Easy enough.”

Theora closed the notification, trying to calm her head down from how she could still feel the lingering sensation of that tap on her shoulder.

“Then, let’s go! It’s gonna have us travel a lot, right? Will have to be on the lookout to use my upgrade then. Maybe we’re gonna find something.”

“Maybe,” Theora mused. She was still very curious about that upgrade.

“So where’s the first Fragment?”

“I don’t know.”

Dema raised her eyebrows. “You don’t know?”

“Doesn’t say.”

“So you don’t know what those things are and have no clue where to find them?”

“Never heard of them before,” Theora confirmed. “We could travel to a large town and ask around.”

Dema’s eyes lit up. “A large town! That sounds amazing!”

And with that, she jumped out of the shed, but not without accidentally bumping into the door frame first. Her steps were light and exaggerated, as if she enjoyed every little bit of being able to move on her own again. She was still staggering, but didn’t seem to mind.

Like a bird learning to fly. Except, she had to learn it again.

When Theora wanted to leave too, she almost ran into Dema on the other side, because after exiting the shed, Dema hadn’t moved. Instead, she was looking around, taking in the view.

“Damn,” she let out in an unusually soft rasp. “That’s kind of incredible. Wait, this ain’t what it used to look like, is it?”

Theora stepped next to her, and gazed at the surroundings that had by now become very familiar to her. “Seventeen years can cause a lot of change,” she mused.

The hills were lit up by the starry sky above, together with the moons therein.

The hills, plural. Because now, it wasn’t just the one they stood on anymore. The monsters Theora had been forced to kill in their attempt to reach Dema, they’d decayed away into soil, overgrown by grassy meadows, forming mounds in the hills, some reaching higher up than the shed.

And, because it had just started to be that time of the year, all of them glittered in the soft, green spotty light of thousands of fireflies dancing through the grasses. Flickering on and off, all around them, on dozens of larger and smaller hills, up into the far distance they could see.

Dema looked back at the shed, inspecting it all around, then switched her gaze to Theora.

“This is kinda pretty,” Dema said, and seemed a bit lost in thought. After a while, she shrugged. “How ’bout we just stay here? Like, for good?”

“You want to?”

At that, Dema scrunched up her face, deep in conflict. “I kinda do! But… I ain’t gonna be able to use my upgrade here, I think. We gotta travel for that… We could come back here later, but…” She trailed off. Then, shrugged. “I guess it would be nice to have a home one day? For us?”

A home. What a thought. An actual place to stay at and return to? A place in the world — a house?

Theora knew it was something other people had, but the thought was so foreign to her. Not that she’d never ever lived in a house before, but a long time had passed since then, and she’d not truly felt at home even back then. As a child, she’d always wanted to leave, and travel the world in her curiosity.

Now, she felt like there was no place that would welcome her. No place she’d dare to feel welcome at.

But, in one of the two realities she was currently living in, Dema might accept her. So, that was a nice thought, in a way.

“I wonder,” she began. “There would be some… practical issues, maybe?”

“Like what!”

“Like… If we only come home every few hundred years, what kind of building would withstand the times like we do? What place would we return to that would not fall to ashes in our absence?”

Dema glared at her and yelled out a light-hearted complaint. “Damn you and your overthinking! We just gotta find a place, alright! One day it’s just gonna, boop, pop up in front of us. Just gotta keep our eyes wide and open.”

Theora nodded. “Alright. We can do that.”

“And remember the rule!”

“What rule?”

Dema pulled up a hand and wagged a pointed finger in front of Theora’s face. “Why, forgot about it already? No — more — thinking — for — Theora!”

Oh, god. Yes, she had completely forgotten about that rule. How was it she couldn’t even follow the simplest of Demas requests? How was it that she always—

“Hey!” Dema yelled. “Doing it again! Stop it, stop!”

“I’m not doing anything!” Theora said, sounding caught.

“Pretty sure you are! Can see those big cogs turning right inside that cute head of yours, little rabbit!”

Cute head. Theora was thankful for the night hiding her faint blush.

No more thinking for Theora. It was finally time.

That’s right. She wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to follow that rule, but for now, she simply emptied her head. Emptied it, and pulled up the notification log, scrolling up and up until that day seventeen years ago. Without thinking, she made her decision. After all, she now had Dema’s blessing, too.

You have unlocked a new Class!

By glancing into different realities, you can reveal the hidden fates of any ‘would’ and ‘never-will-be’ implied within the fabric of the world.

Do you wish to become a [Stargazer]?

Yes.

Congratulations! Your class changed to [Stargazer].

You reached [Stargazer] Level 1.

You have learned the Skill [Head in the Clouds].

You have learned the Skill [im//possibility].

You have learned the Skill [Firmamental Injection].

It took her a moment to get over how long these Skill names were. That was amazing. Longer Skill names would push out her stat sheet faster from her vision. That said, the names alone told her nothing about what these Skills actually did, and she’d never heard of any of them before. So, she pulled up their detailed information.

[Head in the Clouds], Level 1.

Gaze into the sky to receive an answer to a question you pose. There is a chance for the given answer to be correct.

[Additional effect unlocked at Level 50]

[Additional effect unlocked at Level 200]

[im//possibility], Level 1.

A random event is chosen.

If it is possible, it becomes almost impossible.

If it is impossible, it becomes almost possible.

[Additional effect unlocked at Level 13]

[Additional effect unlocked at Level -4]

[Firmamental Injection], Level 1.

Choose a star to inject into yourself. You will probably die.

[Additional effect unlocked at Level 800]

Theora couldn’t help but notice that all of these Skills were completely useless. Had she received a joke Class, maybe? It was certainly possible, considering the absurdity of the thoughts that had led her to unlock it. It was like the universe was chastising her for thinking she could live in two realities at once.

The joke was on the universe, though. Theora didn’t need any ‘useful’ Skills. In fact, these ones were perfect, because there was no way [Obliterate] would have any interest in swallowing them up to get stronger.

Well, ‘perfect’ was perhaps a slight stretch. Her goal was to gather pretty Skills, after all, and it was certainly worthy of a debate as to whether these would fit this category. She’d much prefer to have a sheet full of [Tea Brewing] and [Flower Language] but this was good for now. There were some ways to rearrange Skills on a sheet, so maybe she’d be able to push them out eventually… Not that she hated them, by any means. They just slightly reminded her of how much of a broken person she was.

She was so broken, in fact, that she could almost already imagine some use cases for these completely pointless Skills. Especially egregious was that there was a decent chance she could inject a star into herself and probably not die.

She filed that away for later. Or, maybe never. There was no chance she’d actually attempt to inject a star.

Actually… maybe there was. She couldn’t tell either way, and that was worrying enough.