He gripped his clean-shaven chin with his thumb and forefinger. "More than I expected, but far less than I would have liked. I've been most successful with explaining the consciousness transference. It comes from the fungus itself, which uses pataphysics unlike anything I've ever seen before to facilitate a complete transfer of an individual's seat of consciousness from their central nervous system to the fungal cells growing within the victim's body. Given what we know about Andalon, I would not be surprised at all if it turned out she developed the wyrm transformation as a modification of that process. That would explain a lot of what we observed in transformees, from the seizures that presage the start of the transformation, to their presentation of Nalfar's Syndrome."

"W-What? How?"

"Once the transformee's consciousness is housed within the fungal tissue, the transferred consciousness becomes a step removed from the electrochemical interfaces in human physiology. That would explain not just the Nalfar's, but the other proprioceptive difficulties, and even the motion lag that transformees experienced early on in their changes."

"I don't understand," I said.

He bit his lip for a moment. "Think of consciousness as software, and the body as the underlying hardware. We spend all our lives with our minds running on BrainOS hardware. The fungus changes that. As it grows within its victim's body, it forcibly shifts the victim's mental operating system from BrainOS to FungusOS."

"The 'ghost in the machine' has changed machines," I said, nodding in understanding. "It's likely why the Type One cases suffer from memory loss: their minds are being uploaded right out of their bodies!"

"Exactly!" Suisei said.

"But what does that have to do with the Nalfar's that the transformees experience?" I asked.

"Think about it," he said. "Instead of letting the fungus have its way with your bodies, Andalon manages to hijack it in the earliest stages. Rather than absorb your mind piece-meal like the fungus does, she uses its ability to transfer your entire consciousness into the fungal mass growing inside you, causing a massive grand mal seizure in the process. Then, when you wake up from that, you are operating your body the way you would an avatar in a game."

This made perfect sense!

"Yes, yes," I said, excitedly, "and that's what causes the lag and the Nalfar's. The lag is, well, literal lag—the delay between the time a command is issued from our minds where they live inside the fungus and the time when that command is carried out by our human bodies."

It was no wonder that the fungus was so dead-set on corrupting the souls we carried. Andalon was using the fungus' own abilities against it—literally!

Exhaling, Suisei smiled, nodding in satisfaction. "I'm glad you see it, too." He tilted his head. "Speaking of which…"

"Yes?"

"Earlier, you mentioned hummingbirds."

"Hummingbird-people," I said, correcting him.

He waved his hand dismissively. "Hummingbird people, then. What did they have to do with any of this?"

I told him about the hummingbird-people.

"So?" he asked.

I swear, my overactive imagination nearly ended up freezing the blood in my veins, I was that spooked.

Scooting my chair back, scattering ripples across the Main Menu's water-coated stone floor, I stood up, voice raised. "What do you mean, so?" I said. "They're…" I shook my hands, "they're hummingbirds! Didn't you say you were devout?"

"What?" Dr. Horosha blinked in dismay.

"Suisei, the hummingbird is scared. It's a symbol of the Lass. It's the most sacred bird, perhaps the most sacred animal in the whole gosh-darn world!"

"This is not good." Suisei's expression turned grave. He squeezed a hand into a fist atop the table. "It's not good at all." He shook his head.

"What—"

"—It's a discrepancy between your world and mine. Hummingbirds never became sacred in my world, not to any branch of Lassedicy that I know of."

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"But, what about augury?" I asked.

Suisei raised an eyebrow. "Augury?"

"Beast's teeth…" I muttered. "It's the use of birds for divination. The augur watches how the birds fly, where they land, what they do… it's very important. Daily auguries are printed in the news."

"Like horoscopes?" Suisei said.

"Say what now?" I felt like Andalon when she asked me about words.

He chuckled, and then palmed his forehead. "Why didn't I see it sooner? Obviously, the practice of astrology never developed in your world; you can't have astrology without stars to use for divination."

"Astrology?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "It is the belief that the positions of planets and other celestial bodies relative to the stars can be used to divine future events. Some even believed an individual's personality and even the entire course of their life was determined by the sky's configuration at the moment of their birth."

"Is this some kind of joke?" I asked. I gave him such a look. "That's like saying you'll become a werewolf if you were born under a full moon."

Suisei lowered his head and sighed. "Unfortunately, no. Astrology is as idiotic as it is real."

"It's ridiculous," I said, furrowing my brow.

"I agree, and so is augury."

I'm not gonna lie: for a moment, I genuinely felt the need to defend augury.

Gosh, he was good.

"Let's…" I cleared my throat, "let's stop bashing each other's cultures for a moment."

He snickered. "What, are you afraid you'll end up defending augury?"

I muttered under my breath.

Though I agreed with him that augury was not a legitimate way of acquiring information about the future, I couldn't bring myself to call it ridiculous. Not quite.

Talk about ending up on the other side of the argument!

"Anyhow…" I said. "What does this mean? It makes sense that we don't have astrology because we didn't have stars, but that doesn't explain why the hummingbird isn't sacred in your tradition. Was your Lass not translated to Paradise at the Battle of Southmarch?"

"The battle of what?"

Shakily, I pointed my finger at him. "Alright, that's a red flag, if I ever saw one. Our world's histories aren't as identical as I thought they would be." Feeling anxious, I fidgeted with my lucky bowtie. "What does this mean?" I asked myself, speaking under my breath. "What does this mean?"

Suisei shook his head. "I wish I knew."

I wracked my brain for anything that might explain this new information. I did not like what I found.

"Time is melting," I muttered.

"What?"

I let both of my arms come to rest on the tabletop. "Time is melting; Andalon told me the fungus is doing it."

Suisei blinked, lips contorted in confusion. "How can time melt?"

"The fungus is changing history, and not in the usual sci-fi go-back-in-time-and-kill-your-own-grandfather sort of way. Somehow, my spirits' memories are changing over time."

"What do you mean?"

"As an illustrative example," I said, "because in truth it was a lot more complicated than this, suppose at midday, I look at a certain memory in a certain spirit, and I see them eating a sandwich. Then, later that evening, I go back to that same spirit and revisit that same memory of theirs, only the memory has changed, and now, the sandwich is eating them. Worse, nothing has altered the memory's data in any way. Rather, the actual event that the spirit lived through had changed."

"That's impossible." Suisei was adamant.

"No," I replied, "that's what happens when time is melting!" I huffed. "It's worth mentioning that, so far, it's only happened to the time travelers' spirits—Yuta, and the Trenton crusaders. That has to be significant."

"I agree," Suisei said. "So, you believe this is happening again?"

I nodded. "It's within the realm of possibility, especially considering that you came from a different world—which, again you're going to explain to me pretty soon, right?"

"Correct."

"Good," I said. "My point is, we can't even trust our own memories anymore, not if the fungus is re-writing the timeline behind our backs. Our memories of the past depend on what happened in the past; change the past, and you change people's memories of it." I shook my head. "No wonder Kléothag couldn't hold a candle to it."

What was a god compared to a being that could rework the very fabric of time?

"What do you mean?" Suisei asked.

I showed him, conjuring my memory of the experience in an air-window above the table. Dr. Horosha made the Bond-Sign as the Hallowed Beast dashed across the starry void in His battle with Xuyux and its ever-turning rings. When the darkness erupted from Xuyux's dying body, Suisei gasped, eyes wide, got up out of his seat and staggering back, scraping the chair's legs across the floor.

I paused the playback. "What is it?"

Suisei pointed at the memory.

Kléothag was as big as a world, and yet, even He was dwarfed by the tides of darkness.

"I've seen this before," he said. "It was as if space itself was being torn apart at the seams."

"Yuta told me you'd mentioned something along those lines," I said. "Something about Cranter Pit being a twelve million year old crater, and that having a connection to the, uh… expansion of the universe?"

"Yes." Suisei nodded. "I did."

"Is it something I can understand? Or do I have to extract the knowledge from you directly?"

Suisei shook his head. "No, you don't need to go that far."

Closing his eyes, he focused. I could sense him probe his memories. He was going back to his college and high school years.

He opened his eyes and glanced at me. "This brings me back to one of my questions for you."

"Yes?"

He gestured at the furnishings. "Do you mind giving me the ability to make things appear and disappear in here? I only need it for a little while. I have things to show you."

I nodded. "Be my guest."

I gave him partial control over my hyperphantasia—though, of course, I still maintained final say on anything he wanted to do.

Suisei stared at his hands, as if expecting some kind of external sign that he had been bestowed with the power he'd requested. "Is it done?"asked.

I nodded again. "Yes. Just… picture what you want, and it'll—"

—Suisei was a quick learner.

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