Nebula's Premise

"It is clear who is responsible for this creation, as well." István continued, holding a piece of the delicious flatbread that had come with the meal. "This is substantially similar in construction to the one I was examining before."

"You mean the one you got captured staring at," I pointed out.

"A dozen of one, twelve of the other," István replied with a grin.

"Either way…" I said "It's clearly something the Umbral Veil is doing. Or at least related to the seal that was on the smaller town from before." I then realized that rolling my eyes at István as I was, was a bit pointless - he couldn't see them thanks to the veil on the wéimào I was still wearing.

Eating under what some might call pointlessly elaborate headwear was a challenge as well, but considering that the waitstaff hadn't grasped the finer points of knocking before entering, I kept it on all the same. It did occur to me that they could be doing that on purpose, expecting or hoping to get a glimpse of who was patronizing their establishment.

"Before you ask," István said, "I do not think this is about setting up an anti-inhibition field, the same way they did in the little town just outside the mountain cave." He tapped his notepad, his flatbread taking the place of the Artifact-based pointers he favored. "This is far too large, for one, and the structure is different enough that I believe they are unrelated."

Celistar held out her hand, and he gave over the notepad to her. I kept my highlights on the page, sticking them in place so I wouldn't have to deal with the complexity of realigning them, an approach I wasn't sure would work until it did.

She scrutinized the outputs of our combined intelligence - well, mostly István's, let's be honest - before sighing.

"This seal doesn't make a lot of sense." She kept looking at it, as though more information would pop out, before sighing again. "I'm not understanding what the goal is. It appears to be pulling power from… somewhere. But it's trying to return it to the very same source. I'm not sure why you'd do that."

Her statement gave me a bit of a lightbulb moment.

"I think I know where they're pulling it from." I said, which caught the attention of the table.

"Everyone in Anwell."

We'd moved back to the hotel at Celistar's insistence the moment I'd mentioned my theory. Something about how she didn't have great faith in the seal of silence they were using there and what I was saying had some fairly explosive consequences, figuratively if not literally.

"So," she said, as we settled into the comfortable seats. We'd fairly rushed on the way back, and I hadn't been checking as we'd went, so I wasn't able to gather any new information. "Continue."

I took a breath, somehow feeling pressured as I sometimes had back when I was in school. We'll just overlook the fact it was only 'sometimes' because we didn't always have teachers who were able to properly teach to the level of the students.

"It's fairly simple. I believe the reason I feel the pull in the direction of the seal is because it's trying to siphon power from everyone."

"If that's the case," Celistar said, "Then why don't we all feel it?"

Thankfully, I'd already considered that issue.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Because I have a lot more Nebula than anyone else." I was going to search for a better way to describe it when Elder Scholar came to my rescue.

"Ah," István said, "It's like gradient pressure. It flows from areas of high concentration to low concentration, with greater differential creating greater forces." His eyes were lit up with the sense of discovery, "All of us have an innate resistance to the gradient applied by the seal removing power, but since your 'density' is so much higher versus your control, it's creating enough to where you notice it."

Oi. No need to remind me I'm dense!

"No need to remind her she's dense." Celistar said with a completely straight face. "I'm sure she's already aware."

Thanks… I guess?

Before I could respond though, Steeve appeared in - and then leapt out of - my lap. She flew into the air and then detonated into a thick pink cloud, like some sort of party favor or less hazardous gender reveal.

I was at first confused at what our resident bit of insanity was doing, but then I realized that the cloud was completely static, floating in the air as everyone stared at it.

Reaching out with my Nebula, I switched off the seal of silence. Immediately, currents appeared in the pink, drifting in several different directions. Different directions that matched the pulls I was feeling. As the smoke reached the floor, it pooled back into Steeve(s). There were a few of varying sizes, and they promptly started playing with each other. I turned the seal back on.

"Well, that's a pretty convincing demonstration," Celistar said, as one of the smaller Steeves romped around on her lap, batting a frill on her outfit like some sort of kitten. Another, even tinier one, decided to hang off my ear as an earring. I was probably the only one who could tell, though.

I was going to say something about how Steeve probably didn't follow the same rules as Nebula, but two things occurred to me almost simultaneously: there was no reason she couldn't, and there was nothing that said the seal only affected Nebula. After all, we'd long since noted that the forms of power that the Umbral Covenant was making use of seemed antithetical to Nebula itself.

It was probably best I'd managed to disabuse myself of these thoughts before I aired them, as I didn't want to mislead the group. It was hard enough figuring out what was going on without me helping out the bad guys with some accidental misdirection.

Or at least I assumed they were bad guys; it's not like there were many good uses for a city-sized seal slowly siphoning away power from the populace.

And I'm pretty sure that wasn't just a failure of imagination on my part.

"So," I said at last, "It appears we have a method, even if we have no motive. Thanks to Steeve, we also have a way to detect it, of sorts."

Somewhere, one of her many copies kekeke'd in acknowledgment. Yes, yes, you're a good girl.

"But do we have a way forward?"

I was met with a protracted silence at this question. Which was not what I had been searching for.

Oh well, you make do with what you have.

Celistar laid a hand on Viktor's arm. "Hitting it won't work; there's too much energy at play here; the consequences could be disastrous." He hadn't even said anything yet, but his look of disappointment made it clear that she'd definitely nailed what he'd been thinking about.

I'd say it was spooky that she could mind-read him like that, but I think the only reason he became Elder Mountain in the first place was a lack of unfriendly targets in the Stormwind Circle.

Stormwing?

Damn it, Celistar. Couldn't you give your Sect a less confusing name?

"I hate to say it," I said, upon realizing we'd overlooked something, "But we've overlooked something."

"What would that be?" István asked.

"My mysterious visitor. The other thing tugging at my Soul Space." As if one wasn't enough.

"You haven't heard anything more?" Celistar asked.

"No, not since the first time."

Her face scrunched up as she thought, something I always thought was pretty adorable. Then suddenly, a wild thought appeared. I could see it replace the thinking face in real time.

"I wonder if the silence seal blocks them as well?" she asked.

A look of revelation crossed our faces at her words. "That seems quite plausible." István said.

"Wait, no," I said, thinking of how the crowd had woken me up, "We didn't have it on last night, did we? The noise from the street was there when I awoke."

"That was me," Viktor said. "I needed a snack."

"You're a snack," I groused in response, feeling a little tossed-about by the sudden changes in facts.

Celistar raised an eyebrow, looking like she had something to say but in the end decided to keep it to herself. I will admit I was curious, but decided to let it go. We had bigger problems.

"Can't hurt to try, I suppose."