The moon once again lit up the night with a calm blue glow, as three travelers approached an oasis, as palm trees reached into the night sky.

Felix pulled the camel up to the edge of the water, allowing the creature a much-deserved drink as he stretched out his legs and got Bridget situated against a rock near the water. She definitely wasn't dead or injured, but whatever mechanism caused Rhythm to transfer had tuckered her out, as she had been out cold for a few hours.

Felix laid down in the sand like he had so many times before. Some residual heat from the day remained, and this was his favorite time of day because of it - it was like being wrapped in a warm blanket on a cool night. He looked up at the sky with its innumerable stars and took a deep sigh of appreciation for it, closing his eyes.

When he opened them, a man with a closed-eye smile and a large staff was hovering over him, the same way a hobby gardener would examine a tomato plant for growth. "So the destined duo have met according to schedule."

"AIYAHGH?!" Felix shouted, nearly having a heart attack on the spot as he scrambled out from underneath him. Once he had gotten a safe distance away, he bared his teeth at him while his wings and tail swished wildly. "Who the fuck are you?!"

"Felix!?" Bridget jerked awake due to the sudden commotion.

The man clicked his tongue. "Temper, temper." He took a step back and raised his staff. The winged hourglass on the crown of the staff glowed. "I am merely here to check on your progress and deliver your next mission."

Bridget slowly got up and squinted at the man. "…Seres??" she guessed.

"Progress?? Mission??" Felix repeated.

"Let's take a step back in time," Seres said. "Your partner and I have met previously." The hourglass projected a sequence of the two conversing and Bridget getting her missive. "And I have been observing you," he continued, as the hourglass shifted to various vignettes of the past couple of days. "You've done well in so little time."

Felix stopped wanting to murder the guy, but he still kind of wanted to punch him. "And you didn't think to help when we were about to be killed?" he asked.

"I do not interfere, I only observe," Seres explained. "Messing with the time stream is not very cash money."

"Not… what?" Bridget asked. She had just woken up after a few hours out, but this was making her second-guess if she had suffered another mild concussion.

"Wait, this is way too early for that. Sorry, that will make sense in a millennia or two." Seres flipped the staff around with a little twirl, and the hourglass changed to unfamiliar scenery of a tall mountain. "Your next goal is to make your way to Mount Clearoi. The way will be treacherous, and paved with dangerous foes."

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"And… if we don't go?" Felix asked apprehensively.

Seres opened his eyes slightly, with the same intense look Bridget had gotten when she asked a similar question. "Oh, you will go. No branch of the time stream has you not going."

Felix grumbled. Bridget sighed. "No point arguing with him," she said exasperatedly.

"You will find transportation in Alspo," Seres said.

"I thought you said you don't interfere?" Felix asked, raising an eyebrow.

"That was not a prediction, that was a command," Seres countered, smiling.

Bridget moaned, "Can anything you give be a straight answer?"

"No," he said, in the only example of a straight answer he would ever give for all time. "Well, it's time for me to go," he continued, gazing into his hourglass.

"Wait! You're just going to leave?!" Felix asked.

As Seres faded away, he called out, "See you later!"

And the two (plus a camel) were alone again in the night.

"That guy gives me more of a headache than the rock that hit my head," Bridget moaned.

"I have barely met him, and I already hate him and his stupid fucking time puns," Felix hissed.

"Well… I guess we have to go soon," Bridget said with a sigh.

"Can we wait a little?" Felix asked. "Just enough to make it to Alspo in one sitting."

"Yeah, that's fair."

And so Bridget and Felix tried to recuperate, wary of any other sudden divine interventions, before making the trip back.

Our final vignettes to close Act I of our play:

An empty cave, previously occupied but abandoned, looms over a cliff where various wildlife still roam, commandeered by a mysterious external actor.

A camel, safely hitched to his post at the Kalanichi Imports outpost in Alspo, looks upwards with a full belly and a story he can tell to no one.

A resignation notice is nailed to the supervisor's office in the warehouse, neatly penned and signed alongside a completed delivery manifest.

A village of Naturals, indignant as ever, putting up more anti-Resonator and now anti-human propaganda around the now-defunct KI outpost in the town. It seems as if their recent brush with the power that humans and Resonators can exhibit working together has only steeled their resolve to exclude them entirely.

A ship with a vaguely familiar, grizzled captain, making its way across the ocean to the lands that Mount Clearoi looms over. On deck and overlooking the ocean, a woman carrying a tome comforts her extremely ill partner who is currently slumped over the rail of the ship. His wings and tail droop over as he tries not to vomit for the fifth time. Today.

The woman looks up at the sky, hopeful for the future and what new adventures it may bring, as well as greater purpose. She is hopeful she can do anything with her new partner by her side… well, maybe once they're back on dry land.

~ Fin ~

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