Bob waved goodbye as he watched Jenna and Billy fly away. He already missed them. They were more than friends — they were family.

  He sat down and took the heavy envelope Governance had left on the table before Exiling himself. It contained a single sheet of paper and a sealed envelope. The letter was for him, and the envelope was addressed to the younger Governance, his own past self.

  He started reading.

  Dear Bob, I hope you forgive me the familiarity, but our fates have become so entwined that I already consider you a friend.

  All I said to Jenna also applies to you and Billy. If any of the Losers fail their appointed task, the delicate mechanisms of causality I have built will fall, not as the orderly line of dominoes I intended but as a collapsing house of cards.

  I have granted the three of you a chance to create your own fate, but all ultimately depends on your actions.

  That is the one lesson I have learned from playing among haughty immortals: In the end, it is the grit and dedication of mortals that shape the future, not the unseen tampering of the Covenant.

  The task at hand requires a patient, reflective mind. Only you, among the Losers, have a chance to complete it. You must find the Scrollbearer.

  In order to do so, you must first gain the trust of my past version, the one who rules in this segment of time. Seek him out and give him the other letter enclosed in this envelope.

  It contains personal information that only I could know. That way, my past self will see the letter comes from his future self.

  It also gives him seven cryptic prophecies he must announce in public-they will all become true and cement his fame as a prophet. His first task is to ask you for a complete description of the Temple of Three. You wondered how I knew so much about your abilities? Now you know-you were the one who told me.

  The prophecies are silly things, whose only purpose is to grant me an aura of infallibility. My people will only follow me if they think I can see the future.

  I can hear your brain grinding even from here, as I lie in the most bottomless pit of exile. “What is he talking about? He came with the Scrollbearer. His people already saw him as a prophet.”

  No, Bob, they did not. They followed me to the future, but as a divided force that tried to devour itself almost as soon as they arrived. And the Scrollbearer did not come with them.

  Such a wondrous creature will accompany them only if you discover it, and the only way they will not try to steal it away from Eleazar or take away its power for their own ends is if they have an inborn fear of my prophetic abilities. And I will foretell doom for anyone who violates the sanctity of the Scroll and its bearer. You can be sure of that.

  Those memories you have did not exist till two minutes ago. I worked long and hard to make them possible, but they were made real the moment I jumped into Exile. The history I changed was very different, and you had no part in it, as the Tribulation of Chicago had devoured you and your friends.

  Enter Velta, my city, the city of the Vel, my people. Become one of them. Learn their ways and infiltrate the palace. This task will take you months.

  Find the tool that will reveal the Scrollbearer. It will be in the possession of a powerful Imperial. The tool has never been used before.

  Find that wondrous creature and bring it to me, and we may still build a better future out of the remnants of this nightmare.

  You only have eight months, nine weeks, and two days to complete this task, my friend. If you have not discovered where the Scrollbearer is by then, the window of causality closes, damning all of us.

  A final warning: Do not read the letter I wrote to myself, Bob. I have told you as much about its contents as it is safe for you to know.

  Learn more, and the plan unravels. Causality chains are powerful, but as fragile as a cobweb.

  I know I am asking you to place a lot of trust in me, Bob.

  Just remember, these words come from someone willing to go to hell to save us all.

  Good luck, Bob.

  Your friend,

  Governance

  Bob sighed as he finished the letter. This was not going to be a fast and easy job. He was going to remain here, probably for a long time, trying to solve this mystery.

  But he had time in spades, now that he could halt his aging. He hoped he also had patience.

  He had his own theories about the Scrollbearer, and they frankly terrified him. The creature was capable of time-travelling and crossing dimensions, something that nowadays only Jenna could do.

  And he had no nerf module, much like them.

  But unlike them, he would be a born Pantean, with the rest of his system intact — he would have the three other components: stats, skills, and respawn.

  And at least one rank seven perk. By his calculations, it would take at least seven years to create one.

  One idea would not leave his mind: the creature was brain-damaged.

  Had it done it to itself when it tore out the nerf module? Is that what the perk was for?

  If that was the case, could the perk be used on others?

  He breathed deeply, trying to calm his nerves. If his theory held, the creature could create an army of Losers. No Covenant could stop that. He must find it first, though.

  He waited till the sun fell, and flew as Otra, in the cover of the night. Charlie was very talkative. “Look, I have been driving you around for a long time. If you can un-nerf people, you should start with me. It is only fair,” he said.

  “I will certainly consider it,” Mrs. Bob lied.

  He studied the city from a distance. It was a busy metropolis, filled with people of different races, dressed in colorful robes. It had an Arabian Nights touch to it.

  Bob pondered for a long time about how to approach his problem. He was supposed to mingle, to act as a spy—not a conqueror or an explorer—a challenging task when you knew nothing about the local culture and did not speak the language.

  But he had at least eight months. Governance was right; this was a job for a patient man. He flew at night in Otra’s shape and spent most of his time studying the city from a vantage point, usually on top of a tower.

  He had nothing else to do, so he began rotating his cultivation base while observing the city. He was glad to discover that this counted as training for his Fatigue Resistance skill.

  He now had two perks from that skill that could be used for training: Rotate Your Base for Fatigue Resistance perks and Sleepwalking for all others. The first perk was the most subtle by far; he only had to sit in meditation, which would allow him to maintain the Veil of Shadows indefinitely.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  He decided to make the most of it by creating more Fatigue Resistance Perks.

  Strengthen your Meridians (Fatigue Resistance 1): By rotating your base for at least one hour, your body and mind will not need sleep for the next 24 hours. Requires Rotate Your Base 1

  Cycle your Chi (Fatigue Resistance 1): By rotating your base for at least one hour, you will not become hungry or thirsty for the next 24 hours. Requires Rotate Your Base 1

  Bob spent a few days cultivating while invisible. It was surprisingly easy. Time seemed to pass by him without touching him as he studied the city, getting the lay of it.

  He eventually raised all his Fatigue Resistance perks to rank three. He could ignore all things biological by meditating for a few minutes each day.

  Rank four would turn them into passive abilities, not even needing time spent in cultivation.

  He briefly wondered what superior ranks could do. Could he age backwards, restoring his lost youth? Could he feed others by radiating his cultivation aura?

  Those were questions better left for when he did not have a universe to save.

  On his fourth day, he felt sure enough to try to mingle with the Vel.

  The Vel were a varied lot. They were human, but Bob counted at least seven distinct ethnic groups, some equivalent to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Earth types, and some exclusive to this land.

  There were no caucasians, and Bob was afraid he would draw too much attention with his pale skin and clear eyes; he used Thief of Faces to alter his visage till he looked more Mediterranean.

  He had dismissed all his Elven gear to wherever it went when he did not need it on his person.

  Instead of his usual attire, he wore local clothes that he had stolen after dark while in Otra form. The owner had left them out to dry in the sun and likely forgotten to retrieve them.

  His Harmony and Woodcraft skills served him well in carving some wood he had taken from the wilderness into a slat —a Pantean instrument that looked like two flutes of different sizes and lengths fused together.

  He had noticed there were many street performers, and people usually threw coins at them. It was a respected job.

  He sat down, took out his slat, and began playing beautiful pantean melodies on it. As always, his technique was superb, and he soon drew a crowd around him. Other performers threw angry looks at him when they started to lose customers and money to the rookie with the strange musical instrument. Bob moved to a different street now and then to avoid hogging too many customers.

  Some people congratulated him and tried to talk to him, but Bob pointed at his mouth and shook his head. A mute flutist drew less attention than a foreigner who spoke a strange language.

  The money he earned allowed him to rent a room at an inn, buy more clothes, and pay for his food. He did not really need to eat anymore, but he enjoyed the local cuisine, and it was a chance to get to know these people and learn their language.

  One week later, the innkeeper offered him some money, free lodging, and meals if he played inside the inn, instead of on the street. Bob agreed.

  His constant playing and maintaining a false form were good training for Fleshshaping and Harmony. He soon was as good as Billy in Whisper form when it came to shapeshifting and imitating specific individuals.

  He developed a Harmony perk, based on Helena’s powers and with Restoration Touch as a requirement, which gave a small amount of constant healing to anyone who heard his music.

  Finally, he created another Shadowcraft-based Harmony perk which rendered him invisible as long as he played his slat, and turned the music omnidirectional and subtle.

  At night, he meditated, increasing his Fatigue Resistance cultivation perks, until they all reached rank four. He would benefit constantly from them without having to cultivate.

  He was learning the local idiom, slowly but surely, until he finally decided to speed matters, using his Teaching skill. It irked him that he had only developed a single Teaching perk, and a combat one at that. He had been a teacher in another life, for god’s sake, and Teaching was the very first Pantean skill he had unlocked.

  He had given it a lot of thought; why was there a teaching skill, but not a learning one?

  He thought it had to do with the very nature of the perk system, in which practicing the skill empowered it. A learning skill could alter the very essence of that system, creating perks that changed the rate at which other perks were acquired, rendering the system meaningless.

  However, he could design perks that included being taught by someone with both a teaching perk and the perk itself as a requisite.

  Getting taught by a master could have its advantages, after all.

  He had befriended Pala, a young patron with a grasp of local culture who loved to see him play. They had made a deal: Bob would craft a slat for Pala, and teach him how to play it, and in turn, the young Imperial would teach Bob the idiom.

  He soon designed a couple of teaching perks which took advantage of that deal.

  Apt Pupil (Teaching 2): When you teach a single student, he will learn at five times his normal speed. You can only teach what you know.

  Exchange of Knowledge (Barter 2): You will learn at five times your normal speed, but only if your teacher is someone who is also your pupil. The perk will work only for the same amount of time you have spent teaching your pupil. You can only learn what he knows.

  Requires Apt Pupil 2

  A week later, both perks reached rank three, increasing the bonus to 20x. When the month was over, Bob spoke and read Old Imperial and three other local languages as a native, and Pala was almost as good as Bob at playing the slat.

  He eventually said goodbye to Bob and went away to earn his living as a musician.

  Bob was sad to see him go — but also relieved. It was only a matter of time before Pala noticed how unnaturally fast he was learning.

  The more Bob became integrated into Imperial society, the more he realized that trouble was brewing within it. There were rumours of a strange sickness that turned people into monsters and of weird happenings in the city. The System was already active when he entered this place.

  Bob realized that the first dungeons were beginning to hatch in Velta and that the System Vector had been released. He also realized how much tougher it had been for Earth.

  Bob had once believed advanced civilizations were safer. Now he knew better, as their technology failed sooner, and System Vectors were much more efficient. A single MMO had infected their whole world in less than 100 days.

  In Velta, the System Vector was biological, a disease that turned people into progressors. They had already begun quarantining entire cities and banning travel. Bob knew such measures would ultimately prove useless, but they did manage to slow the process somewhat.

  The Compendium had taken Earth by storm in weeks. Here, it would need at least a couple of years.

  Even so, the first signs of societal collapse had already begun. Quarantine would also cram more people in the same space, making it easier for dungeons to sprout in the isolated cities.

  People came to the inn with a feverish look in their eyes, as if seeking refuge from the truths that awaited them out there.

  Bob knew these were the invaders that would later cause so much suffering in Belona, but it was hard not to sympathize with them.

  One evening after playing one of the patron’s favourite ballads on his slat, a huge figure with a booming voice entered the inn.

  “What are all those long faces about? We are the Children of the Old Empire. Our lives are filled with light and laughter! We make the world better just by being in it!” The speaker was a rambunctious man with a long beard and a friendly demeanor. He jumped onto the stage where Bob was playing.

  “One round for everyone!” he shouted. “And I will pay two more rounds to anyone who dances with me!”

  “Musician, play your jolliest jig!” he said, clapping Bob on the shoulder and nearly throwing him to the ground.

  He had an infectious joie de vivre that worked like a charm on the crowd. Within five minutes, everyone in the room was singing and dancing with the newcomer.

  Even the waiters and the innkeeper joined it. It was clear that this man was known, respected, and loved.

  “Where are Blina and her kids? Why are they not dancing too?” he asked the innkeeper. Blina was the matronly cook, and her kids helped her in the kitchen.

  “They are working, your honor, preparing food for all this crowd.”

  “Who in the Blessed Empire is such an idiot as to prefer eating to dancing with your lovely cook and her daughters? Send for them. Do not worry, Balsko, I will pay for all the food your patrons do not eat!”

  And with those words, everyone in the inn joined the stranger, dancing to Bob’s merry music, as the dangers surrounding all of them became more distant.

  One hour later, with everyone drunk as lords, the newcomer took his leave. “There are more inns to visit, and more songs to sing before the night is over. Musician, you will drink with me. I will not leave this place without sharing mead with the man who made such lovely music for us,” he said, holding a tankard of ale to Bob.

  He drank gratefully, as the work had made him thirsty. “You will come to the palace in two days and play for us. Even stuffy, idiot aristocrats like us deserve some good music,” he said, clapping Bob on his back again as he left. The man was like a ray of sunlight in the middle of the night, and he had even provided Bob with a chance to infiltrate the palace.

  Bob smiled as he watched him leave the inn. “Who is that one? He must be quite famous if he always behaves like that.”

  “Of course he is. Everyone loves him, more than ever in these dark times,” Blina the cook told Bob, as she smiled back.

  “He is Duke Boral, from the Royal House.”

  Bob stared open-mouthed at the back of the huge man leaving the inn, trying in vain to find in him traces of the monster he would become.

  If Evolution is going to do that to him, what is it going to do to the others? Bob wondered.