Tutorial's End

The New Arrival's Guide to Common Things

by Jorbon Delivas

Many beings have declared every organization "parasitic" or "tyrannical". Some famous speakers and revolutionaries even called for reform and change. Their views slowly changed over time as they realized the true breadth and scope, not to mention depth, which a new arrival would be required to traverse alone without a support structure.

A particularly noteworthy being on the path of Ideological Philosophy argued for a system where organizations took turns greeting and explaining the situation to new arrivals, then presenting them with a comprehensive list of organizations looking to recruit. While this proposal was met with optimism at first, the logistics quickly proved to be untenable.

As in all things in life, the recruitment process is a transaction of value given to both sides. The new arrivals are an essential low-skill resource which facilitate simple, but critical, services to the organization with which they're contracted. Meanwhile, organizations themselves provide resources and structure. New arrivals are given the opportunity and means in which to acclimate to their new reality.

Imagine, if you will, entering an entirely new world with absolutely no connections or contextual knowledge. How would one even begin to integrate with larger society? Without joining an organization, they have no work. No work means no opportunity to generate currency of any kind. Without currency, our hypothetical being cannot purchase food, or equipment, or even a night's sleep under a roof.

As any discerning reader will have realized: joining an organization is an absolutely critical part of a new arrival's integration with society. The give-and-take between an organization and their new arrivals is mostly balanced, sometimes being slightly to the favor of the new arrival as for the first five to ten years most contracts provide housing, nutrients, and other living requirements free of charge.

It's only once a being has truly gotten their bearings and settled that the tender aid of their organization is withdrawn, the proverbial mama bird setting their children loose so they may spread their wings and learn to fly once they're properly equipped.

Would it be possible for organizations to rotate the responsibility of settling new arrivals without requiring the beings they aid sign contracts with them? Certainly. However, what then would the organization gain from the arrangement? A largely fair transaction is here turned entirely into a charity - one which many organizations simply cannot afford.

Willow

Campsite, Second Layer, Chimera M 63

Staring at the campsite, Willow couldn't help but feel impressed. Her own party's accouterments were pretty swanky, in her opinion. Their sleeping pods were like super-tents. They had so many enchantments!

One designed to keep out any living thing which wasn't keyed in advance. Another which kept the internal temperature perfectly comfortable - even going so far as to slowly reduce the temperature throughout the night then equally slowly raise it back up when it was time to wake. They had built in camouflage and 'forget-me' spells woven into them. Finally, they were incredibly comfortable. Honestly, Willow thought she'd probably never slept better than on the 'floor' of her beloved camping pod.

Despite having felt like the fanciest royalty just one night previous, Willow now found herself under-equipped.

"This is not a camp. This is a village." She noted flatly, her feet having stopped without consciously deciding to halt.

Polli, the wāskan who also happened to be Frella's second, chortled. "That's not the first time I've heard that." His huge eyes flicked toward Hosh, causing the Lythan's perked ears to flatten to either side.

Shaking her head, Willow just took in the odd site of a pop-up town. Maybe hamlet would be most accurate?

A honest to God stone wall encircled a circle about two hundred meters in diameter. It was clear now why Frella's team said they had to 'go back' to camp instead of just picking it up and moving it each day like Willow's own team.

The four meter gate with a full portcullis stood open and welcoming, though the opening itself sparkled with a dimly lit sheet of visible mana. "I've marked all of you as guests, so you can enter without setting off any of the defenses." Frella noted as she and Polli passed Willow.

Jonah, still going by System around the new group, stopped beside her. "It's even more impressive inside. You can see the fire circle and some of the houses from here, but what you can't see is that each of the buildings have cleansing rooms and there's an empty building with mats on the floor, probably for training."

"Peeping into other people's houses isn't polite." Willow noted distractedly. She was only half listening. Piper poked her cheek, "Don't forget! This is your ultimate-bestie-guide's one and only reminder for the day!"

Blinking a few times, Willow turned to look at Piper as she hovered between herself and Jonah. It took her nearly a full ten seconds to realize what Piper was "reminding" her of.

"Right!" She slapped her forehead, "My library. I told you to remind me when I had a good opportunity to put new stuff into it."

"Yeah. I know. I'm the one who reminded you. You're dense when you're impressed by an unlikely settlement nestled into a cavern barely bigger than it."

Naomi patted Willow's shoulder as she passed by, "Let's go see what else there is to be stunned about."

Slyth stopped on Willow's other side and sighed, "I'd have killed for something like this on Shee. You know how much EB I could have saved up by not having to pay for rent?"

"I thought you worked for an alchemist as his apprentice and lived with him." Piper noted, cocking her head a bit.

He shrugged, "Sure, but he still charged rent. It just came out of the wages he would have given me."

The four of them spent another few moments before Willow finally kicked herself into gear and finished the trek to Frella and co's "camp".

Passing through the gate, she felt the membrane of mana stretch around her briefly before allowing her through. The film of mana snapped back into place sharply once she got to the other side of the thirty centimeter thick gateway.

"Welcome to our humble home!" Frella declared with a flourish and deep bow.

Deciding against poking at the 'humble' part of the welcome, Willow just smiled and thanked her, "We appreciate you letting us in. Though, I think your earlier worry that we were gonna try to rob you becomes way more real now that we've seen this."

Her joke clearly fell flat, as Frella and the two members of her team who were within Willow's view tensed. She waved a dismissive hand, "Joking, joking. I wouldn't even know how to carry this thing around. Probably something insane like a dimensional ring?"

"No, in fact… It cannot be 'stored', only moved." Frella's tone had cooled a little. Don't joke about stealing stuff. Got it. Sore subject.

"So you carry the entire thing however far you want to go? Or drag it, or something? I fail to see how you could get the walls through most of the tunnels…" Jonah trailed off with a deep frown as he looked around.

Six buildings, each appearing to be made of carefully cut stone blocks, were visible now that they had passed under the sheltering walls. Walls with ramparts, Willow noted.

Seeing Lovey - Lovel? Loooven… - the Minotaur, exit one of the structures, she presumed they were houses. Six buildings, six party members. It made sense. Though… Jonah mentioned an extra building with training mats… She looked around, but didn't immediately see anything like that and dropped the line of thought.

"No, of course we don't carry it around." That was Polli's throaty voice. His tone was scathing as he explained, "We have a ritual we perform which pulls the camp to our location."

"What if you don't have enough room? Does it shrink or something?" Slyth asked from where he was crouched, one claw tapping curiously at the asphalt like pavement which made up the entirely of the camp's floor.

Sighing, Polli suddenly sounded exhausted, "Of course not." He started, then shifted to a tone one might use when explaining something simple to a dim child, "The ritual would just fail, consuming all of the resources we'd prepared for it. Don't you know how a ritual works?"

"No."

"Nope."

"I don't."

"Yeah, totally!"

"Not a clue!"

Everyone turned toward where the lone confirmation of understanding came from and found Piper trying to do a hand-stand against one of the stone building's walls. She fell as they watched. "What?! So many people looking at me made me nervous!"

"Beings." Polli snapped in an oddly aggressive tone.

A tone Piper ignored entirely as she rolled to her feet and asked, "Why's everyone staring though?"

"You know how rituals work?" Willow clarified.

Mouth opening in an "O", Piper shook her head, "No, definitely not. Someone else probably said that in my voice, from my direction, in order to trick you all into observing my beautiful hand-stand!"

"Which you failed at."

"Well, yeah! That other per—eh-being, probably didn't know that I struggle with stage fright!" She said as she slowly rose into the air, wings fluttering, making sure everyone had the best possible view of her.

Shaking her head, Willow turned back toward Polli just as Slyth stood and clarified for the wāskan, "None of us know how rituals work. We know they exist and are like more complicated spells which multiple beings can work together on, but that's it."

"Oh." He frowned, "How'd your organization decide you were ready to be let off your leash without even that basic knowledge?"

"I slipped the collar before they put it on." Willow smirked, "And hit the guy who tried, too!"

Slyth inclined his head in Willow's direction without taking his eyes off of Polli, "I also refused to sign any contracts."

"Oh." His eyes went wide, "You're independents!? Slimy webbed feet! Seriously?!" The grumpy frog-man quite suddenly switched from condescending to excitable fanboy. With a single hop, he closed the distance between himself and Willow, looking her over from bottom to top. Apparently, he found her lacking as he hopped again to check out Slyth.

"Sooo, what's the verdict, who's hotter?" Willow asked when Polli just stood there awkwardly after his odd antics.

"What? Neither, you're both disgusting! Just look at how dry all of your skin is and-"

"Alright, that's enough, Polli…" Frella sighed, "Don't get him on that topic of physical attraction or you'll be stuck for hours. Anyway, yes we use a ritual to move the base and yes if we fail to measure properly and there's not enough room - specifically from the center of our casting spot - the entire ritual fails and destroys the material components."

"What kind of components?" Slyth was now fully in his element, golden eyes seeming to shine with excitement at the prospect of learning something new.

"C'mon, let's get settled and I'll explain." Frella turned and lead them to the center of the base, to the circle that had been vaguely visible from the gate. There was a green circle which began glowing softly and radiating a gentle heat as the approached - very reminiscent of their own not-fire camp heater. Willow preferred their own blue version over the verdant green, but it was pretty in its own right.

The circle was ringed by stone chairs with comfortable cushions. There were ten of them in total, five of which were quickly occupied by Frella's team. Remembering the hiding rogue member, Willow glanced around, worried they were keeping him from resting. Apparently noticing her concern, Jonah sent her a metal message, "He's sitting on the chair between Polli and Kash."

Glancing at the seat between the wāskan and dwarf, Willow plopped herself in a different seat. Naomi had moved to sit beside Frella already. Slyth poked her forehead with a nonchalant motion as he passed by, his claw indenting her skin without breaking it. "Tsk, tsk, bad situational awareness again!"

"You're my friend! I shouldn't have to defend against you!" she glared, rubbing her forehead despite it not hurting in the least.

Flashing her a grin, he rebutted, "You told Frella you needed to train your perception. Don't like my training methods?"

Resisting the urge to snark back, Willow considered that for a bit, before nodding. "Okay, you win. This time! Next time I'll catch that pokey finger of yours and shove it-"

"-Rituals are an art, as much as a science." Frella cut through the good-natured banter and Willow fell silent to listen to her wax poetic about ritual magic.

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

After a while, Willow felt she understood the gist and the additional context Frella was adding became monotonous and hard to pay attention to.

Standing, she winced as everyone turned to her. She made a placating motion, "Sorry, sorry, keep going. I just need to relieve myself."

Nodding, Frella pointed behind herself, "If you go around that building there, we have an empty building that we usually use for training. You can use the cleansing room there."

"Thanks!" Willow fled with as much dignity as she could muster. Piper's snickering on her shoulder suggested the attempt may have failed. Or that Piper was a jerk.

True to Jonah's previous note, there was indeed a building covered in padding. What he hadn't mentioned was the large number of enchantments clearly visible on every single pad. Willow assumed they helped sparing partners avoid injury.

Although she didn't turn down the opportunity to clean herself and take care of neglected bodily needs, that hadn't really been Willow's plan. Really, she just wanted to explore a bit and get away from the academics. It wasn't that she hated learning, but she learned best by actively doing things. Listening to lectures had never done much for her.

So, she started by exploring the "empty" building. It seemed the building probably followed the same floor plan as the others, though she'd need to peek in a few windows of the others to confirm. The first room was a large open area. In this case, covered in enchanted training mats. At the back of the room was a door which lead to the cleansing room, while the only other door led into a long but shallow room which boasted cabinets and counter top space.

Remembering Luzzi's small kitchen, Willow assumed that's what the final room was. Why anyone would want a tiny cramped closet-like kitchen instead of a large open area with a massive island that guests could congregate around, Willow couldn't begin to understand.

Checking some cabinets, she found a few devices she also recognized from her time with Luzzi. Various cooking apparatus which replaced Earth analogs. A bowl with a lid which acted like an a near-instant pressure cooker, a panini-press looking pan which was an "instant sear" device which could pan-cook foods in seconds with a perfect sear every time, a tall bowl which would perfectly mix any ingredients placed in it, and so on.

Piper had fun opening and closing the cabinets, hiding in one, then popping out of another one with a "BOO!" The attempts quickly devolved into a game of hide and seek, which rapidly moved from the tiny kitchen throughout the entire encampment.

Though, thankfully, Piper had the good sense not to go into any of the claimed houses. She found several excellent places to hide, though, only giving herself away with giggles when Willow passed her by without noticing her one too many times.

At one point Piper hid directly behind Frella at the top of her chair. The two had interrupted whatever deep discussion Jonah and Naomi were having with the woman, though Slyth had wandered off and was chatting with Kash as the latter worked on some equipment with a forge setup in front of one of the houses.

Another snicker alerted Willow that Piper was hiding somewhere near the two. Approaching, Willow returned Slyth's smile then asked, "Seen Piper?"

"Nope, don't even know who you're talking about." He stated in a flat tone while a subtle finger pointed toward the active forge, where a length of metal was heating.

Taking his queue, Willow sighed deeply, "Well that's too bad. I guess I'll go check the wall over there. Maybe she slipped into another crack." So saying, she passed the furnace's mouth. Once past, she quickly slipped behind the blocky device and waited. It took less than a minute for Piper to burst out and flit over to Slyth.

"I knew I could count on you! You and me vs. mother, that's how it is!" She held a tiny fist out for a fist-bump, which Slyth returned while his entire face spasmed with the effort of holding back laughter. The next moment, Willow's hands closed around Piper, trapping her.

"Noooooo!" The pixie wailed.

Releasing her, Willow told her, "I think that's about enough searching for your tiny self. Let's call it your win."

"Yes! I win!" With that, she zipped off to who-knows-where at full speed.

Turning back toward Slyth, she only barely had time to yelp and hop backwards as a finger appeared between her eyes, centimeters from her vulnerable forehead!

"Traitor!" She yelped and rushed off, trailed by Slyth's bassy laughter.

Exploration done, party occupied with their own stuff, Willow made her way back to the walls. The inside of each brick was covered in line upon line of enchanting script.

Taking a deep breath, Willow activated her focus with an imbued intent to learn. Carefully tracing the section of wall directly in front of her, Willow's consciousness fell into her internal world. Her soul nexus.

Finding the familiar gym in perfect order, with her cartoon self running around doing various exercises, she grinned. Having her soul nexus always a moment away was so wonderful. Is this what people meant on Earth when they'd say 'go to your happy place'?

Turning from the temptation to join her exaggerated doppelganger in her circuits, Willow made her way toward one of the doors set into a wall. She wasn't sure which wall, given there were no cardinal directions in her soul as far as she could tell.

Of the two newer rooms, she stepped into the least explored. The library was massive. Intimidating, even, despite how cozy the furnishings and lighting were. It was also not of her in the same way as training hall of gymnasium. It had been grafted to her as a rift reward rather than being built through her own insights and understanding, after all.

The library in her soul was much like the libraries she'd visited back on Earth. Beautiful, magical, majestic, but not hers. It was owned by someone else. The organization was an unknown system, the furniture was pretty and comfortable, but not her style. Even the snacks up in the theater weren't tailored to her own preferences.

Even so, she refused to let the boon sit unused. Although it was the least explored room, she had spent time exploring. One of the things she'd learned over the last month of training with Madrick was that the soul nexus served a purpose, aside from just enabling the use of mana and representing insights.

Each being had their own soul nexus, with its own layout and functional laws. She hadn't fully understood what that meant until she spent time talking with the others.

Jonah's soul nexus was essentially a huge player's guide. A super fancy book in an elegant notes taking program - fancy and elegant according to Jonah, at least. He had pages of notes about how things worked, a database with references and links to avoid confusion, big skill trees and charts visualizing different things. Apparently he'd even added 'videos' which let him plan out how a spell, skill, or ability should work. He could then go 'into' the video, test the new thing out, and pop out. He didn't even have to 'unlock' the thing to test it! He could just try things out, then plan out his progression accordingly.

There were two big downsides to Jonah's setup, in Willow's opinion. First, was the dependence on raw potentia or 'XP' to unlock things he'd designed. If Willow herself developed a spell, she could just use it, no questions asked. If she wanted to make another ability or skill she'd need the potentia for that, but at least for spells she could free-form based on what tasks her mana was compatible with. The other downside was how narrow the scope of his spells, skills, and abilities felt to her.

Her own ability was incredibly broad and flexible, which is what she felt an ability should be. As she'd learned more about the difference between energy use categories, that opinion had only grown stronger. Abilities were carved into the outer shell of the soul nexus and once they were embedded it was exceptionally hard, nearly impossible, to remove or change them. So, if abilities were so difficult to change or remove, it made sense that they should be flexible and also core to a person's 'build'.

Of course, I might be able to change mine easier… The thought was as tantalizing as it was concerning. She hadn't forgotten the universal achievement which said she could change her soul at will, though not without cost. Part of that, surely, had to be the capability to alter her abilities.

Shaking her head, Willow found herself sitting in the work desk which sat on one side of the library, taking up all of the space between the wall and the edge of the first shelf. While she hadn't remembered moving here, it didn't really matter. Walking around within her nexus was quite literally a formality. With a moment of concentrated thought, she summoned a small journal and a pen. Putting the pen to the page, she willed her thoughts on Jonah's soul nexus onto the page under the heading 'Jonah's Nexus'.

Glad she didn't have to manually write everything out an cramp her hand, Willow pulled the pen away and quickly skimmed the page. As expected, the words were nonsense. However, the experience of remembering what she'd been thinking was absolutely crystal clear. She could examine every thought from an outside perspective, both re-living the moment of thought and able to consider the stream of consciousness objectively. It was an entirely alien experience and probably one of the most valuable functions of the library she'd found so far.

Tapping the butt of the pen against her lips, Willow moved her thoughts on from Jonah's soul nexus and onto Naomi's.

Her 'empty' friend's nexus mirrored her personality and declaration that she was, in fact, empty. It had started as a vast cosmos of nothing but darkness which she was slowly adding things to. By 'things', Naomi had meant 'anything' and 'everything'.

What Naomi described honestly scared Willow a bit. Not that Naomi had the capacity to seemingly absorb anything into her own path - that part was awesome - the idea of such an empty expanse with nothing in it was terrifying to consider. Even in her own soul, Willow didn't feel alone. She had her avatar in the main dojo, the little wisps played in the gymnasium, and in the library she had books and movies to keep her company!

Meanwhile, Naomi hadn't had anything at all to start. At least, nothing she could see or interact with. Willow theorized that there was plenty of stuff in that 'empty' space which Naomi just wasn't able to notice yet. After all, if she'd built the soul nexus around the concept of how 'empty' she herself was, then it couldn't be a true vacuum. After all, Naomi had goals and desires. Even if she didn't feel things quite the same, or as strongly, as a 'normal' person, she was a person. Had she been truly empty, she would have just been a despondent husk, right? At least, that's how Willow saw it. She kept such thoughts to herself for now, not wanting to possibly slow her friend's advancement or somehow damage her understanding of her own insight.

From what she had learned from the books Madrick gave her, insights had to be true in some way in order to 'click'. It wasn't possible to actually have an untrue insight. However, an insight could 'break' if a being's personal understanding of the insight was proven wrong or challenged to such an extent that the being no longer believed it. So, there was some truth to Naomi 'being empty', whether Naomi herself understood the truth of the matter properly or not… Willow couldn't say and didn't feel the need to speculate.

Beyond the less solid insight and concept side of things, Naomi really only had one thing she could do with her mana. Willow wasn't clear on whether it was a spell or ability, and neither was anyone else. Madrick theorized it was an ability given how little active direction and shaping Naomi had to do to achieve an effect, but he admitted there were types of mana that 'did' things without any structure and responded well to intent. It was possible Naomi just moved her mana around and then thought at it, telling it what to do. Willow decided to just think of it as 'freeform' magic, rather than structured.

So, Naomi had freeform magic. A magic that was exceptionally flexible, but also insanely limited. Naomi had to absorb things, in order to use them. So the only 'effect' she could accomplish with her mana by itself was to 'remove' or 'steal'. However, once she had done that, she stored the stolen thing - power, emotion, strength, whatever - in her soul nexus. From there, she could re-use the things she stored. She had even hinted that she was working on 'cultivating' some of the resources she purloined. If she managed that, then she could literally pick and choose pieces of different being's paths to steal and incorporate into her own! Beyond that, she could take even natural things and add them to herself. Absolutely incredible.

Touching the pen to the next page, the title 'Naomi's Nexus' blossomed at the top.

Willow's only real 'problem' with Naomi's insights and paths were the lack of a direct path to advancement. Jonah's was clear enough: Create whatever it was he wanted in his book, get potentia, assign the potentia wherever he wanted it. Willow felt her own path was pretty straight forward too, if a little less directed. The more she learned about her mana types, and magic in general, the more she could do!

As for where she'd allocate her potentia… She was strongly considering allocating the lion's share to her soul nexus, since that wouldn't go away even if she died again. Skills and body enhancements would be reset like anyone else, but her soul was safe from reset. However, if she wanted to take that route then she had to properly understand what aspects of the nexus she should improve. Which, in turn, meant she needed to know what she wanted out of her path.

Her path was as simple as they came. She'd get to the top, become a god, and go beyond. How she'd do that? Through discipline and dogged determination. It'd worked for her in her endeavors on Earth, and it'd work now too. The main difference was she wouldn't be fighting against her emotions. They wouldn't control her, but she also wouldn't suppress them.

Not that I did a fantastic job of that before, but… I tried. No more of that, part of my path is following my passion. Passion gives me purpose. I'm competitive, which is why I want to reach another universe faster than anyone has before. That goal I set in a moment of ambition is as valid as any other objective. Better, there's nothing stopping me from following my passion down whatever side roads on the way there! I have a hundred years after all! That's like… Insane.

Noticing she'd turned the page and started a new page titled 'My Path, Random Thoughts', Willow chuckled and pulled the pen off the page. All this speculation lead her back to her original reason for coming here.

Closing the journal, she noted the title 'Willow's Thoughts on Paths' and slid it in one of the little cubbies built into the top of the desk.

With a small effort of will, another journal appeared in front of her. Opening it, she tapped her pen to the first page and carefully remembered the enchantment she had noted on the wall before entering her library. The ink meandered and twisted around, as if uncertain. Wincing, Willow realized she'd spent too long off-topic and had forgotten some details.

I'm still literally standing in front of the wall though. Can't I just go halfway out? Willow had glanced into her soul nexus inner-world plenty of times, while maintaining most of her attention on the outside world. What was stopping her from doing the opposite?

As it happened, nothing. As soon as she tried, her vision split in a familiar way and she was looking out through her physical eyes while at the same time she stared at the wiggly ink as it danced on white paper. Trippy.

Fortunately, her mind was something Willow had shunted plenty of potentia into and she found the exercise of parsing two viewpoints surprisingly easy. Pah, Jonah complained about how hard it was for weeks. What a baby.

Now that she could just look at the existing enchantment, the ink from her pen solidified into the appropriate shapes. Taking on precise shapes and forms, with notations about relative scale along the edges. Similar to the other journal, if Willow 'read' this page, she wouldn't see any real words but would be able to relive the memory of her thoughts and reexamine them.

Can I revise… Or add more to a page? The thought was intriguing, so she tested. Holding her left hand on the side of page, she pressed the pen tip to the other. Revisiting the notes about scale, she examined and found a few areas where the scaling rules seemed to be different. There were several lines which were thinner than others, the differing line weight creating the illusion of depth. She wanted to note those and point out their own relative scale and… That's weird.

As she added the new notes, she was simultaneously re-experiencing them in a very strange feedback loop. Thankfully, it wasn't painful or even very difficult. In fact, all of this felt very natural.

This is an intended function. Willow realized. A way to study and internalize way faster than anyone has any right to…

The iterative process this would enable, and the speed at which she could loop through it was simply insane. If she had actual study materials, rather than just an example enchantment she was examining…

Then she stopped, realizing something obvious. I've only looked at a handful of books… Most of them had titles that didn't sound very useful but… What if there's an enchanting book in here? Do the books not written by me work the same way as the ones that are?

Excited at the prospect, she stood and rushed to the stacks. Grabbing a book at random, she glanced at the title, 'Precepts of Idrian Holsken.' It meant nothing to her. Opening the book, she was almost disappointed to find a perfectly legible first page introducing the author and the subject of discussion.

Bracing herself, Willow touched her finger to the book. Nothing happened. Sighing, she closed the book and put it back. No luck, huh? Better check a few more from random spots in the library to be sure, though…

Taking her own advice, she spent the next while searching high and low and touching her finger to various pages on random books. She thought she might have been at it for an hour or so and sheepishly checked her body. Finding herself stiff, she had the brilliant idea of going back to the training room and going through repetitive stretches and exercises while she perused more books.

It ended up being a little tricky walking with two different bodies. It took her a long while to get the hang of moving her body while also moving around the library. By the time she started managing to move smoothly in both worlds, she'd haltingly checked another few dozen books and had gotten through a dozen rough stretches.

Smoothing her motions out in the physical world, Willow began going through a familiar routine which she often did in a semi-meditative state. Once auto-pilot was well and truly engaged, she found moving around the library became significantly easier and she started flying through book after book.

Finally, she found one. I knew it. She hadn't stopped checking even after passing a good hundred books checked. Something had pushed her, some instinct, maybe a vague hint had been included when the library was grafted to her soul. She didn't know why. What she did know is that she found a book which was different than the others. It felt warm as soon as she touched it, as if it had been sitting out in the sun.

The title read, 'Josep's Arrival'. Opening the heated tome, Willow touched her hand to its page and felt a sensation similar to when she touched the pages of her own journal.

Unlike when she reviewed her own memories, it wasn't like re-watching a well-known movie which she'd both stared in and directed. Instead, it was as if she'd stepped into someone else's skin.

She heard Josep's thoughts, felt his emotions, experienced the motion of his body: yet she didn't lose herself. The sensation was uncomfortable, but exciting. She grinned and let herself sink into the book's memories.