The Well pulsed again.

Not with light, but with a profound, abyssal darkness. The swirling, silver strands of energy within it coalesced, rising from the maw like a phantom emerging from its grave.

A semi-transparent, silver-veined squid-like entity, its head a grotesque, blossoming mushroom cap, its tentacles writhing masses of fungal hyphae bloomed from the well.

It had no eyes, yet I felt its gaze wash over us—a wave of pure, psychic dread that promised oblivion.

"Fuck me," Adelle breathed out. "It's the Archangel Queen!"

The creature's psychic gaze settled on the cheetah. Adelle froze mid-step, her body locking up as if turned to stone, her face a mask of primal terror.

Then the psychic wave shifted to Nessy. The husky cried out, her body going rigid, eyes wide with a horror that was not her own. She too became paralyzed, a statue of a girl on the verge of a scream.

Finally, that terrible, sightless gaze found me. The psychic pressure slammed into my consciousness and I felt an order of pure, absolute stillness pouring across my soul.

[Halt. Cease. End.] It sang. [Give up. Surrender. Die.]

My muscles locked. My breath caught in my throat. For a horrifying instant, I was trapped, a prisoner in my own body, thousands upon thousands of depressive, suicidal, terrifying alien thoughts flooding into me.

"Unbind Astral connection," Nessy howled, clawing at her head. She then fell, panting and shuddering to the floor. "You are a tree, Alec!" She barked, heaving. "Trees do not cease, they endure!"

Her yelp seemed to dislodge something in me.

I dove deep into my liminal soul, into the endless tree within.

[CEASE! HALT!] The psychic commands of the Archangel Queen washed over me, but they were like wind against a thousand resilient branches now. They rustled my leaves but could not break my endless trunk.

I took a step towards the well.

And another.

[CEASE! I ORDER YOU TO CEASE! STOP! SURRENDER!] The Archangel Queen seemed to recoil from me, a psychic shriek of disbelief echoing in my mind as I continued to walk toward the Well, toward the psychic monster, one slow, deliberate step at a time.

"Damn it, it's gotten in again," Nessy howled, clawing at her face. "Unbind Astral connection! Get into the well, Alec! Destroy the core… Get out of my head, you bastard! Unbii…."

She frothed at the mouth, twitching and flailing and then fell silent, passing out, curling in on herself. I glanced at Addie behind me. She too was out.

Guess it was up to me then.

I growled and took another step towards the well.

[HALT! KILL HIM! KILL HIM FOR ME!] The psychic entity howled.

From a hidden tunnel I hadn't noticed, a figure suddenly darted out towards me. A female wolf, her gray fur streaked with white, her eyes burning with fanatic devotion, orange robe flapping.

She leapt towards me with the speed of a delver, a curved, obsidian knife flashing in her hand.

I saw the blade coming, but could do absolutely nothing about it, struggling against the psychic presence of the Queen.

"Die, interloper," the wolf snarled.

The obsidian blade sliced across my neck. The world tilted, a searing line of fire followed by a wet, final gurgle. I felt my own blood, hot and slick, spill down my chest. My legs gave out. I collapsed to the stone floor, the world going dark at the edges.

I was dead.

For about three seconds.

I feigned my demise, letting my body lie still. The well-keeper stood over me, panting, her eyes wild, my blood dripping from her knife.

Then the knife went right through my heart, the wolf kneeling in front of me and whispering a prayer of forgiveness.

She left the knife in my chest, panting and looking about, ready to strike at any further threats to the Queen.

I directed Reconstitution to knit another heart beside the one that'd been sliced open, kneading my throat back together from within, sealing the wound from inside my throat but leaving a gash in my skin.

When it was done, I slowly dug into my pocket.

"What?!" The wolf snarled, eyes wide at my motion. "How are you…"

I was on my feet in an instant, the plastic pepper container already in my hand.

I flung a cloud of pepper directly into her face.

She screamed, in sheer, unadulterated surprise, her hands flying to her eyes as she began sneezing. I didn't wait. I ran. Leaping over the crystalline-growth covered edge, I dove headfirst into the Well of Severance.

As I plummeted into the heart of the swirling vortex, I felt a hand grab my ankle. The well-keeper, blinded by pepper but still driven by its piloting Archangel, had lunged after me, caught me.

We plunged into the darkness together, tumbling through the air.

The impact was a jarring, final agony. I felt my spine shatter against the jagged rocks below.

Darkness claimed me again.

I rapidly reconstituted, opening my eyes. I was at the heart of the monster, in a cavern of pulsating, crystalline flesh.

[CEASE! HALT! STOP!] The Astral Phantom Queen howled, but the ocean of emotions she poured against me simply washed off me, became lost in my infinite soul.

The wolf gurgled beside me, trying to reach me, her legs broken, eyes closed.

I stood up, walking away before the broken, half-dead monk could reach me.

In the center of the cavern, suspended by silvery, fungal threads, was a crystal heart, a sphere the size of my own head. It pulsed with a cold, silver light, and I could hear the whispers of a million severed desires emanating from it, pounding against my endless branches.

[Stop! STOP! You want power?] The entity whispered in my mind. [I can give you that. You want love? I can make them all adore you. You want peace? I can cut away the parts of you that feel pain!]

It was trying to sever me now, to cut away my desires and feed on them. But it had made a miscalculation, never encountered something like me.

I wasn't just one man with a handful of wants. I was a tree. An endless, liminal tree with a billion branches, each one a different possibility, a different path, a different Alec with his own unique set of desires.

It tried to consume my desire for Nessy, and a thousand other branches sprouted, each wanting Nessy in a different way, each desiring a sliced off, divided part of her, now existing within Kristi, Candace and Adelle.

It tried to cut my desire for my pack's safety, and a million branches of new desires for their happiness, their success, their futures, bloomed in its place. The monster was trying to empty an ocean with a thimble. It was drowning in my infinite potential, its feeling-cutting knives ineffectual against my liminality.

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"You took her songs," I growled, grabbing and pulling the obsidian knife from my chest. "You took her dreams."

I drove the knife into the crystalline-organic tissue of the heart. It resisted, like cutting through cold, dense cartilage. The psychic noise in my head intensified, screaming promises and threats.

"Shut the fuck up! Give. Them. Back!"

With a final, desperate surge of strength, I sliced through the crystalline roots and tore the crystalline heart free from its fungal moorings. It pulsed erratically in my grasp.

I didn't hesitate. I raised it high, and with all of my strength, I smashed it against the crystalline floor.

. . .

The crystalline heart didn't shatter on the first impact. Instead, a network of spiderweb cracks spread across its surface, and a high-pitched, agonizing shriek echoed through the cavern—another horrid wave of pure psychic pain, unleashing a billion stolen emotions. The pulsating, cold light within the core flickered violently, and the very walls of the creature's innards seemed to convulse like a giant esophagus.

The monstrous presence in my mind faltered, its control fractured by the damage to its core.

A torrent of stolen feelings—severed loves, forgotten passions, discarded dreams—erupted from the cracked crystal, washing over me in a disorienting, exhilarating flood. For a moment, I saw the world through a thousand different eyes, felt the joy of a thousand first kisses, the ache of a thousand partings, a thousand broken hearts.

They did not break me, did not make me stop.

From the edge of the cavern, the well-keeper wolf dragged herself forward.

"No!" she begged, face smeared in blood, her voice a howling rasp, now seemingly awake as the control of her Archangel had been disrupted by me smashing the core. "Please... don't destroy it! The peace... the freedom from pain... you don't understand! She offers us salvation, liberation from the infinite loops that bind our souls!"

I ignored the bleeding, orange-robed monk. I grabbed and raised the cracked, bleeding heart of the Archangel Queen high above my head again.

"This isn't peace," I snarled. "It's a lie!"

I brought it down again. And again. And again, with all of my strength–my fingers, bleeding, snapping and reconstituting.

With each impact, the psychic screaming intensified. The crystalline cavern began to crumble, pieces of its roots flaking away and falling all around me, smashing to bits. Some of them sliced into me as they fell, but I reconstituted rapidly, smashing the core again and again, burning through my skill.

The core groaned, splintered, and then, with a final, blinding flash of pure, white light, it exploded.

Crystalline shrapnel tore through me, slicing, piercing, shredding. The last thing I felt was a serene sense of completion before the darkness took me one more time.

…

I reconstituted to the sensation of being airborne, cradled in strong, violet-scaled arms. My eyes flew open to see Kristi's face, her emerald feathers fluttering in the wind. Below us, the ruined catacombs of the Krishna temple shrank away.

"Wha…" I let out as my sliced up insides knitted themselves back together, wounds spitting out crystalline pieces.

"I got you, Alec," she said, nuzzling into me. She had one arm wrapped around my waist, the dimensional bag over her shoulders. "It's done… we did it."

"Where's the others?" I asked. "Are they…"

"In the bag," Kristi replied. "Got you all out right before the cavern ceiling fell on you."

She blasted through the exit doors and out into the open, blowing past confused monks, slowing out at the green meadow beside the parking lot.

A colossal jet of high-pressure water erupted from a side wall of the temple, blasting a hole clean through the ancient stone and sending debris flying. The massive seal TA shot out of the opening on a wave of her own making, landing with a ground-shaking thud in the temple gardens before spotting us and giving us a cheerful thumbs-up.

Then, the Corpse Seeker suddenly arrived with a thunderous boom of displaced air, momentarily deafening me. The temple's stained glass windows detonated, shattering.

It flowed into existence like a river of blood-red crystal, coiling around the now-exposed temple. The remaining monks, who had been emerging from the building to oppose Fern's Elemental army, stared at the interdimensional abomination in horror.

The crimson Omnid centipede didn't hesitate. It swept through them, its maw opening and closing, swallowing the monks whole. Then it buried itself through the front doors, obliterating most of the entrance and vanished inside the temple.

Principal Kerberos's fanciful 1950's style glider car descended beside ours. The half-Omnid rolled down the window.

"A job well done, Mr. Foster," he commented, his magic-enhanced voice carrying easily over the hum of our engines. "Congratulations on passing your... extracurricular quest." A silver notification flared into life in my vision.

[QUEST COMPLETE: Pest Control!]

[You have successfully assisted an interdimensional cryptid in eliminating a rival parasitic infestation. The System is unsure whether to applaud your initiative or recommend you for immediate psychiatric evaluation. We'll call it a draw.]

[Reward Issuance: The shattered remnants of the three temple ward cores, currently scattered across the astral and physical planes, will now be re-materialized and fused for your convenience. Please stand by.]

[Warning: Do not attempt to eat the resulting artifact. Despite its crystalline appearance, it is not rock candy.]

I blinked the message away just as the air in front of me began to shimmer. The world seemed to fold in on itself for a brief, stomach-lurching moment. Shards of glittering crystal—some the size of my hand, others no bigger than dust motes—materialized from nowhere, drawn together by an unseen force. They swirled and coalesced, light bending around them as they fused together with a soft, resonant hum.

When the light faded, a single, rectangular slab of translucent, blue-black crystal hovered in the air before me. It was about the size of a large book, its surface perfectly smooth, its interior swirling with what looked like captured starlight and faint, shifting colors. It hummed with a quiet, immense power.

Then it fell into my waiting arms.

Professor Fern landed her own vehicle on our other side.

"Well done, Mr. Foster," she smiled. "The temple is ours."

"Thanks," I grinned back, cradling my crystal cube.

"You've def' earned it," Marlena barked, stumbling through the bushes. "Is that our reward? Swank!"

Kristi lowered the glider to the grass.

"It's safe to come out now, you two," she commented into the bag, raising the flap. Nessy's head popped out, her face a mess of joyful tears. She didn't say a word. She just launched herself at me, smothering my face in kisses that were wet, salty, and utterly overwhelming.

"You did it," she yelled against my cheek. "You crazy, stubborn, beautiful, unbreakable human, you actually did it!"

A moment later Adelle emerged from the bag too, her orange-red hair a mess, her grin feral and triumphant. She joined in on the smothering, her purr a deafening rumble in my ear.

"So," I said, once the girls released me, offering Nessy the cube. "Time to get your memories back?"

"Yepperoni," Nessy nodded.

She grabbed the cube with her paws. "Unbind memories, dreams and songs! Bind to me!"

Her entire body ignited with silver fractals, one eye blazing silver.

"Wow," she let out. "Damn… that's… damn."

"Got it?"

"Got it," she said, looking past me. "So many dreams. A lifetime of songs. A lifetime of… missing you."

She shoved the cube into the backpack and buried me in another tight hug, licking my face.

"Two lifetimes," she added.

"Two?" I repeated.

"We have to get Bulwichu back from the superstore!" she smiled.

"Who's Bulwichu?" Adelle asked.

"A tree Alec and I planted with our love and positive vibes," Nessy smiled. "Kristi helped make it bloom too. In another lifetime before this one. If Alec followed my instructions, it should still be in the Superstore Dungeon, waiting for us to find it again. Did you follow my instructions, Alec?"

"Bulwichu, huh?" I repeated, trying to remember. "You know… I'm not sure."

"Let me help you," Nessy said, reaching out to the sides of my head. "I know exactly what you need to remember now. Unbind memories!"

A radiant aurora detonated in my mind, a flood of lost memories reaching from some distant endless innards of my soul. It wasn't just information; it was a symphony of shared existence, a kaleidoscope of moments that crashed over me, each one sharper and more real than the last.

"Sandwichu!" I blurted out, grabbing Nessy by the shoulders. "That damned moldy, bitten sandwich! You named it Sandwichu and kept it in your pocket!"

Nessy's eyes lit up and she clapped. "Yes! Yes! You remember!"

"The stop sign!" I continued, the memories tumbling out, exploding in my mind like colorful fireworks. "The conceptoid in the blue coveralls! I killed it, and then... then I wished for you! For my dog, Nessy, who saved me from the quarry!" I laughed wildly. "And you showed up, and you were... you weren't a proper dog, and I was so angry!"

"You were a total jerk about it," she laughed through her tears, her grip on me tightening.

"Your dumb face-licking!" I shouted, shaking her slightly. "The selfies! The marker flowers! We drew on my face to generate 'positive vibes' for the bulbees!"

"The ultimate vibe!" she cried out, her tail thumping. "My undying phone captured it all!"

"You washed my hair!" The memory was so vivid, I could almost feel the warm water and the gentle scrape of her claws on my scalp. "And I washed yours... and then you said you weren't actually cold, you just wanted to be close!"

She bobbed, nodding.

"Kirra Pawstrong on the moon!" I yelled, the absurdity of it hitting me all over again. "You told me a collie was the first prad on the moon! Holy shit, I'm not even from this dimension…"

"She was! You sorta are! You're the Alec of another world and also the Alec of my world!" Nessy declared. She threw her arms around my neck, her body shaking with joyful sobs. "You remember, you remember, you remember everything!"

She pulled back, her face radiant, and then, with a strength that caught me completely off guard, she lifted me off my feet and spun me around. The world became a blur of green grass, night sky, and the faces of our stunned packmates. I wrapped my arms around her, laughing with a freedom I hadn't felt in... well, in this life or the last.

Her scent filled my senses—lavender, and that unique, perfect something that was just her. This was real. This was what I'd been chasing through an eternity of retail hell.

And then, as she slowed the spin, another set of memories crashed in, these ones cold and sharp as broken glass.

The Magnetic Lynx. The nail gun. The spray of blood.

Her crumpled body on the tile floor.

The paperclip spiders descending, wrapping her in a metal shroud, taking her away.

Her final note.

...it will undo many things... Everything, except for you and our lovely RV domain...

The crystal tree. Bulwichu. The broken artifacts I'd taped to her branches, begging her to fix them, to bring them back.

The Leviathan at the end of time.

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