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Professor Sternkessel blinked.
A moment ago he had been consumed by hatred, body twisted and torn with rage, clinging stubbornly to the last fragment of himself. Now he was standing in front of a building floating in a void of distant stars.
The building itself seemed almost normal. It looked like a two story rectangular building of cream stucco with a tiled roof somewhere between red and brown with a door halfway down the long side that Sternkessel had appeared in front of. It also felt like it was bigger on the inside and he could see flickers that felt like a non-euclidian precariously stacked tower before the building reverted back to its two-storey-and-an-attic look.
It was not the strangest place he had ever been in, but it did not seem malicious or contaminated and when he tapped his shoe on the ground he found that it seemed flat and consistent, even if not visible. Additionally despite there being no apparent light sources he could see everything clearly.
Sternkessel then realised he was wearing shoes again. He looked down and found himself smiling at the crisp white suit, intact and spotless as if his warping chest hadn't ripped it apart.
That meant either this was a dream or he had truly lost his mind. Neither seemed like they should be possible, but at this point the mere existence of Cale seemed to downgrade many things from 'impossible' to 'implausible'.
The door opened and a celestial opened the door, his wings not visible, but the space behind his back shimmering where the impression of them could still be felt. Other than that he appeared strangely human, with pale skin and long black hair tied back in a ponytail by a white ribbon.
Presumably this celestial's god had a thing for black and white imagery given that - despite the colours washing him out - he was wearing long priest robes in black and white with a swirling design on the front that matched the black and white tattoos on his hands. The only other clue to his devotion was the symbol of a set of scales on the short mantle around his shoulders.
"Hello, my name is Howitz." the man offered, polite and a little formal, but not unfriendly, "Would you like to come inside and have some tea?"
"That would be lovely, thank you." Sternkessel replied, because even if he was losing his mind, taking the opportunity to remind himself of civilisation would be perfect fortitude against the rage when he returned to reality.
Inside the building felt just as light as the outside despite the fact the lower floor was almost entirely ringed with bookcases of various heights. The main exceptions to this were a line of counters to his left that ran almost to the back wall and a kitchen area that changed the rectangular open plan room into an L-shape. The main rectangular area held a large circular wooden table slightly to his left and in front of him, while the area to his right had been made into a living room with comfortable sofas and armchairs. A sweeping staircase next to the kitchen led up to a mezzanine with a cozy reading nook that turned into a balcony walkway that ran along the opposite and left wall on the second storey, lined with what looked like bedroom doors.
The doors felt far spatially interesting. From the size of the building theoretically all of them should have been external doors, but they were clearly not. The ones on the second floor were clearly bedroom doors, and this was True, even if it were not spatially possible. The door in the centre of the wall to his left was an external door to a corridor, but the door to the right was not. The door in the kitchen area was also not an external door, for all it led outside (an internal courtyard or garden, perhaps?) and the door on the long segment of the L wasn't even meant to be visible to him. There was clearly rather a lot of domain magic going on here, and the celestial felt like half an anchoring point for it, but not the source.
It also had a fair few people scattered around, chatting like this was one of the common areas of the academy where students mingled. It made the space feel familiar and relaxed, from the catfolk woman in the upstairs mini library to the multiple humans he could see. He would need to ask them about that, Cale would be ecstatic.
"What an interesting place this is." Sternkessel commented, "I thought there was only one human remaining."
"I apologise, but as far as we can tell that is true in your set of worlds." Howitz agreed as he made tea in the kitchen area. "Please do take a seat wherever you like."
Sternkessel slid into one of the wooden chairs at the round wooden table on the basis that there was only one other person there, another human priest given the tall black conical hat had to be religious headwear, but wearing asymmetric white robes with gold flames embroidered around the hems not entirely unlike his own suit.
The man - though young enough that Sternkessel wouldn't have put him much above 20 - startled as he looked up from his own tea cup. Sternkessel immediately paused, looking between this priest and the celestial.
They somehow had the exact same face. Same ponytail tied with a white ribbon, same grey eyes, even the celestial's tattoos seemed to be mirrored in the shape of the burn scars on the priest's hands.
The young priest looked at him in open admiration, then went slightly pink and promptly looked away again, "Um, greetings, wise spirit. My apologies for staring."
"You would not be the first. My appearance is unusual even in my home." Sternkessel replied, hands folded elegantly in front of him.
"Oh no, that's not at all why I was staring! Your suit is fantastically tailored and the movement of your rings is fascinating, particularly with the light reflecting off them." the young man hastily reassured him before he realised what he'd said and clamped his mouth shut. Sternkessel watched in amusement as the priest took a deep breath to try and calm his raging blush, "I mean- my apologies, um, may I start again?"
Definitely young. Sternkessel hid his smile, "You may."
The priest smiled, blush finally calming as he drew himself straight, then gave a half bow, "Greetings, my name is Flowing Silk Ribbon, priest of the Golden Phoenix."
Sternkessel was entirely unsurprised that the deity meant nothing to him. "Professor Sternkessel, of the Kazix Brightscale Academy of the Attuned Arts." He returned the half bow, "May I ask, are you human?"
The priest tilted his head in confusion, "What else would I be, Learned Professor?"
"Perhaps someone like me or Rowan." Howitz replied, setting a mug in front of Sternkessel before he sat. "My apologies, professor, Flowing Silk is from a world where the sentient beings are humans, spirits or demons. And he is dreaming."
Sternkessel sipped his tea. Not a fancy brew, just simple black tea with milk. Interestingly neither of them reacted to him drinking, they were clearly used to strange things, "Fascinating, am I?"
Howitz paused for a moment to consider, "I believe so, at least as far as canon is concerned. It is very easy to explain impossible things away by saying it was just a dream."
"It's how I'm still retaining my sanity despite my visits here." Flowing Silk said cheerfully.
Sternkessel looked between them, "Is that why you have the same face?"
Howitz smiled, "In a way. We're what Estantia calls alternates, the same person born in different worlds. Rowan is a semi alternate if he shows up."
Sternkessel had no eyebrow to raise, but his rings rotated as he thought, "How did you find each other?"
"Technically Estantia found all of us, she's the person this place belongs to." Howitz glanced at Sternkessel over his own mug and anticipated his next question, "She's a world hopper both like and very unlike Cale. The rules of her abilities means she needs to work around the edges of major plot events and nudge things into the right place without generally being overt about it. Making sure one of the bars in a jail cell is rusted, that incriminating documents are stacked precariously… that sort of thing."
Sternkessel took another sip, "I'm assuming that is why she's not here, then?"
"She might turn up, but she's probably just watching." Howitz agreed, "She is the one who invited you here though, she was under the impression you could use a bit of a non-canonical break."
"I can't deny that the opportunity to take a moment to breathe and rest outside of time is a welcome one." the professor admitted, flexing his hands in their white gloves, safe and contained compared to whatever his body was doing. "Though I have to ask, how do you - or I suppose she - know about what is happening in Utelia in so much detail?"
Howitz smiled, "Estantia's power is based on stories. As far as I am concerned, stories are the reflections of other universes in our own. She can travel to them, but if she interferes in the plot too much it changes too much from canon and the changes don’t stick."
Ah, he could see how it worked now, "So she works around the edges to maintain plausible deniability. Such as a dream that may never have happened, but might give someone enough of a break to have the mental fortitude to hold out until their friends get there?"
The celestial gave him a small smile, eyes sparkling with the knowledge he couldn't say aloud, "Precisely."
How very neat. It also meant that he could probably relax in safety and use the time to remind himself what it was to live, "So I'm assuming I cannot ask for spoilers or things you have worked out from the outside?"
"Nothing that you couldn't plausibly have worked out yourself." Flowing Silk sighed, "And yes, I tried that with details about my own world."
Sternkessel turned over the information he had gained, "So you effectively have an external view of the events in Utelia?"
Howitz nodded, "From when Cale turned up, unsurprisingly. It shifts between different points of view but mostly stays with him, which gives us a more complete image in some respects but means we do not know how much you have already put together."
"I see." Sternkessel steepled his fingers together as he thought, "But that means you know where the information is."
Howitz smiled, "Now that we can help with. Between you I think you have all the pieces, but you need to talk to each other. Cale will probably put it together once he hears about the resurrection magic, but ask him about the Monolith of Life."
"Or Damien." Flowing Silk suggested quietly, "He'll probably tell it better and be less traumatised by doing so."
That made Sternkessel curious. Damien, of all people? "I see. Anyone else?"
The pair looked at each other before Flowing Silk spoke, "Talk to Akkau. Properly. It may be that what he needs is his friends more than anything."
"But your ripple proof memory will be important too." Howitz added, "Don't let him retreat and isolate himself."
Sternkessel turned his teacup a precise quarter circle, "So the most important thing is to support each other?"
"Communication is overpowered." Howitz said with a weary sigh that spoke of learning this lesson the hard way. "As I said, all of you are finding different pieces. They seem to be naturally congregating in Cale's hands, but I see no reason why having more people able to put together the larger picture is a bad idea, as long as they're able to keep themselves safe from whatever methods might exist to extract that information."
The professor nodded, "Thank you. I appreciate you trying to give me what help you can." He picked up his teacup again, "Even if it is ultimately common sense and will be fruitless anyway if I cannot regain my sanity."
Flowing Silk rapidly shook his head, voice earnest, "Please, don't think like that. Don't give those doubts a foothold. Have faith in your friends, please, just hold on."
The celestial's expression was just as serious, "Do you really think that Cale will let you die if he has any other choice? He knows how to kill you, yes, but do you really think he will not do everything in his power to bring you back?" A measure of power stirred in the celestial's non-visible wings, but he kept them closed, "Do you think that Cale will let the world kill you? The one person he has found who recognises him for what he is and how much it means?"
…Sternkessel had to admit that it seemed unlikely. Given his blazing determination over saving an innocent baby abyssal it seemed unlikely he would let someone that he actually cared for fall. "So you are saying to have faith?"
Flowing Silk smiled, "I suppose! But I'm not sure what you expected from two priests."
"Though we are encouraging faith in your bonds and friends rather than in any god." Howitz pointed out, then paused. "Even if some of them may be on an equivalent or higher power level."
That made the professor smile, "As if you are not?"
"By technicality, no, I am not." Howitz replied, wings sliding into existence to fluff, the white feathers expressing his embarrassment, "I am merely an empowered or semi-ascended human, depending on which timeline and point in time you're looking at."
"Most people would still call you a demigod." Flowing Silk pointed out, "Or at least a celestial."
Howitz raised an arched eyebrow at his younger alternate, "And you know perfectly well how much I could say about your particular oddities." He flapped his wings once to settle them back into their incorporeal form. "Unless you particularly wished me to embarrass you further in front of our rather attractive guest?"
Flowing Silk promptly glanced back at Strenkessel, then blushed again. "I, um, your point is made."
It wasn't an uncommon reaction from some of his students, but it was unusual for it to be one of the more humanoid ones to be so openly fascinated in tracking the rings of his head and tracing the embroidery on his suit. "You would not be the first. As stated, I do not mind, this is a refreshingly normal interaction." he looked up at the rest of the room, "Though I am curious about this place. It is not real, is it?"
"No, it's the communal segment of Estantia's mindscape." the celestial explained, indicating the doors, "The rooms upstairs go to private spaces for the ones who consider themselves residents. The loft has guest sleeping. Most of us have a separate house in another area of the mindscape that's a bit more real than this, but this is where visitors tend to show up."
"And the TV's better!" a white-haired man in a sky blue shirt, whose hair only mostly followed the laws of gravity called from the sofa.
Sternkessel recognised from interacting with Cale the kind of comment that would only lead to further questions. As such he took the prudent choice of not asking what a TV was and returned his attention to Howitz, "So why was it you who greeted me rather than anyone else?"
Howitz winced slightly at being called out, "Partially because I'm the most attuned to this place, but also because I have some experience at being a mind trapped inside itself." Howitz paused for a moment to look at his own tea mug, "Call it fellow feeling, wanting to offer someone else a breath of relief from a similar situation."
Ah, now it made sense. "I see. Should I ask?"
The celestial's incorporeal wings shuddered, but his expression did not shift, "If you like, but it was a long time ago. I was trapped inside a soulstone. Estantia gave me the opportunity to escape, just a fragment of myself, so that I would survive when the stone was burned for energy." The celestial breathed out, "The price was never going home, because according to my home I was dead. They saw the body, burned the stone. If I went back it would break the illusion and reality would reaffirm itself."
Sternkessel breathed out, "A heavy price indeed, but that is quite a loophole."
"It is." Howitz agreed, "Estantia is quite skilled at them after so many years, but my existence here is one of the most egregious ones."
They settled into a comfortable silence as they drank their tea. Sternkessel turned the information over in his mind. He didn't know how he had got to this place, or if he could manage it again, but it did offer the slimmest of backup possibilities if all were to go wrong. "Would the same loophole be able to be used again?" he asked.
Howitz smiled, "Even if it could I would be unable to confirm or deny, also it would be rude to offer that to someone Estantia does not write the world for. And as stated, I do not believe your friends will let you lose yourself."
"I see." Professor Sternkessel sipped his tea, savouring the calm bustle of the room, "How long can I remain here?"
"As long as you want, but I suspect you'll be pulled away by your instinct or your body at some point soon." Howitz explained, then gave a faint smile, "Until then, I don't suppose you have any fun and harmless stories from your time as a professor? I would be happy to trade my own."
"You're a professor too?" Sternkessel asked curiously.
The celestial chuckled, "Yes. Another thing myself and my alternates have in common is that we are absolute nerds and will happily both absorb and teach any knowledge we come across. Your domain magic, for example, is fascinating, but I think you would be almost as interested in how Flowing Silk's chi works as it is not magic, and my abilities are largely from drawing on my deity and being used as a conduit…"
The conversation wandered, debating the nature of magic and worlds from their different universes until Sternkessel felt the world fading, something insistent pulling him back to twisted metal and corridors.
It was time to return, but hopefully the academic discussion and the tea would be enough to help him hold on to who he was.
Find me quickly, my friends. I’ll be waiting.