Alar woke slowly, turning the small stone over gently in his hand as he sat in the silence of what he assumed to be morning. He had no idea what time it was. There were no windows in the basement room where he had slept, nor were there any clocks. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t even know what a clock looked like on this planet, or if the translation enchantment placed on him would allow him to read one. Even if he could read it, that didn’t mean he would understand it. After all, measurements of time here must be different from those on Earth. He knew their day was about 28 Earth hours, but why would they measure time in hours? And if they did, the length of an hour would almost certainly be different.

  He continued playing with the stone in his hands, the smooth surface cool beneath his fingers. The house above was silent, but he had slept long enough that it was likely morning. Lacking anything better to do, he got up and prepared to head upstairs. He pocketed the stone and made his way toward the room’s exit. As he ascended, the silence gave way to faint murmurs that drifted down from above, growing clearer as he neared the main gathering space.

  By the time he reached the top of the stairs, the murmurs had grown into conversation. More than one voice, and not just Renik and Seren’s. He moved through the hallway and stepped into the main room, pausing as he took in the scene.

  Four figures sat around the large central table. Three of them he recognized immediately. Renik was across from him, facing the doorway. He still looked a little pale but seemed otherwise recovered. Seren sat beside him, deep in conversation, and now dressed in flowing dark green robes. She was the first to notice him, and as she looked up, the conversation stilled.

  Dain sat closer to Alar, facing away from him, still wearing the same leather armor from the day before. But the fourth person was someone Alar hadn’t seen before. A broad-shouldered man, shorter than Dain, with his hair pulled into a long braid that reached the middle of his back. He wore no armor, just simple clothing and leather bracers on his forearms, but a quiver of arrows leaned against the chair beside him.

  At the shift in conversation, both Dain and the unfamiliar man turned in their seats, their gazes landing on Alar as he entered the room.

  “Shouldn’t be up here!” the unfamiliar man said, standing as he did and turning fully to face Alar, his voice gruff, hoarse, and deeper than he had expected. “Go on back down, these are private matters we are discussing.” His brow furrowed as he took in Alar, eyes lingering on the brown cloak he had been given by Seren the night before.

  Alar didn’t move but raised an eyebrow at the man questioningly. He didn’t want to intrude, but he also hadn’t been told by anyone else that he wasn’t free to move about the house.

  The man turned to look at Seren and Renik, speaking further as he did. “Why wasn’t that door locked? Or did he escape?” He turned back toward Alar mid-sentence, his look now accusatory.

  “Settle down, Valk. He didn’t escape, he is a welcome guest,” Renik replied, tone exasperated.

  “Welcome guest? We don’t have guests; this isn’t a bloody inn!” the man shot back. “Move along, boy, someone will be down to fetch you once we figure out what to do with you.”

  “Valk, stop. We can finish this discussion later. There isn’t anything we can do about it right now anyway,” Seren cut in, looking at Alar apologetically as she did.

  “Doesn’t matter, he still shouldn’t be—” Valk started again.

  “It’s fine,” Alar said, not wanting to cause conflict. At this point, he didn’t want to stay in the room anyway. He stared back at the man for a moment before glancing toward Seren. “Just have someone come get me when you’re done.”

  She looked like she wanted to protest as she glanced between Alar and the other man, his arms now crossed in front of him, but instead she just nodded. “We shouldn’t be much longer. I’ll bring you something to eat when we finish.”

  Alar smiled at her and nodded before addressing the still-standing man. “Nice to meet you… Valk, was it?” he said sardonically before turning back toward the hallway to leave.

  “Oh, wait,” he said as he turned, remembering the keystone still in his pocket. “Here’s this back.” He pulled the stone out, raising it to show her before moving back toward the table to hand her it.

  The entire room froze instantly.

  “Where the hell did you get that?” Valk said, his tone cold and voice low.

  “What?” Alar said, taken aback by the man’s reaction. He looked over at Seren and Renik, both staring at the stone, open-mouthed, as Seren’s face visibly reddened as he watched her.

  “Seren handed it to me when she ran outside to help Renik last night.”

  Valk turned back toward Seren furiously. “Is this true? You gave him the keystone? You gave an outsider the keystone?”

  “I… I wasn’t….” was all she could get out in response, looking from the stone to Valk in shocked confusion.

  “She said Renik was on the brink of death, Valk,” Dain interjected. “She clearly wasn’t thinking, but it’s not her fault.”

  “She gave the keystone to an outsider! And not just any outsider, an unvetted, unidentified outsider who we know nothing about! And now he—” Valk was shouting in earnest at this point.

  “He isn’t unidentified,” Renik cut over him, the conversation becoming more and more jumbled as tensions continued to rise. “Seren and Dain both spoke with him plenty while you were gone. They have learned enough to—”

  “I was gone for less than a day! There is no way anyone could learn enough in that time to…” He turned away from Renik and toward Alar, not finishing the sentence, eyes furious. “Give me that stone, now!”

  He moved toward Alar with a speed unseen on Earth, grabbing his wrist instantly and reaching for the stone with the other hand. Alar barely had time to react, and his grip instinctively tightened on the stone slightly as the man seized him. But just as Valk’s hand neared the stone, attempting to pry it away, a shockwave of energy erupted from it, knocking the man back and displacing the air throughout the entire room.

  Alar gaped at his own hand in shock before looking up toward the man, whose eyes were also wide with bewilderment. He had no idea what had just happened, but he knew it wasn’t something he did personally, as he could still faintly feel his own mana, undisturbed, looping methodically throughout his body.

  “HE BOUND TO IT?!” Valk shouted out.

  Alar looked away from the man and at the others in the room, who were now all staring at him, eyes wide with surprise.

  “He couldn’t have,” Seren mumbled, dumbstruck, “Alar what did you do? How did you bind yourself to the stone?”

  “I didn’t, I didn’t do anything with it, I was just holding it.” he said back defensively.

  “Are you sure Alar?” Renik said, recovering from his prior shock, “Did you activate it? Use it for anything? Contact anyone?”

  “What? No. I have no idea how I’d even do that,” he said back, “all I have done is carry it downstairs and bring it back up here.”

  “Liar,” Valk growled, beginning to approach Alar again, “who are you with? Who sent you here?”

  “Drop it, Valk!” shouted Dain. “He’s Level 0 for god’s sake, no one sent him here.”

  Valk shifted towards Dain, bristling, “you’re too trusting. He binds to the stone, now has access to our entire network, and every ward in this house, and now we are supposed to send him off to Tir’Andell? You don’t think that’s suspicious?”

  Dain paused, looking between him and Alar, clearly unsure what to say.

  “He wants to join.” Seren muttered, still seated across the table.

  Dain and Renik both turned to her.

  “He… what?” Renik replied.

  “… Alar told me last night. He wants to join the Accord.”

  “Is that true Alar?” Dain asked.

  He paused for a moment before he responded, looking between Seren and Dain as he did.

  “Yeah, it’s true, I do,” was all he could think to say, though given Valk’s attitude and reactions a part of him was beginning to question that feeling.

  “He can’t just join the –“ Valk started shouting again.

  “ENOUGH” Renik erupted, his voice almost echoing off the walls of the room.

  Everyone, including Alar, quieted and turned to him as he continued speaking.

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  “He is bound to the stone. How that happened we cannot say for sure. Regardless, there is nothing we can do about it now. As for everything else,” he paused, looking over at Alar as he did, “we need to discuss what happens next, and not just with each other, the other branches need to know what is going on, too.”

  Dain and Seren both nodded in agreement. Valk said nothing, brow furrowed, but he didn’t disagree.

  “Alar, why don’t you go back downstairs. We will come and get you once we know more. You can take the stone but do not activate it or use it to contact anyone.”

  Alar nodded, having no intention of doing so, mainly because he still had no idea how to, and also because he had no one to contact in the first place.

  The four occupants of the room slowly turned away from him, and he made his way out of the room and back down the stone steps.

  Alar thought to himself as he descended. He couldn’t tell if the stone had responded to him trying to hold onto it, or if it would have happened even if he had tried to hand it to the man, but he had a feeling it was related to his reaction, or at least his feelings. But if it did respond to his intentions, then how could he have bound to it without intending to? Everyone upstairs clearly knew more about the stone and binding to it than he did, so he was sure he could ask Seren later, as long as their discussion didn’t end with them deciding they needed to kill him to protect the Accord’s secrets.

  His stomach growled at him as he made his way back to the bed, interrupting his thoughts.

  Hopefully Seren remembered her offer to bring him something to eat when she came down, as he hadn’t ate or drank anything since the night before. It was probably well into the morning at this point, though he still had no idea what time of day it actually was.

  It is currently the Third Minor Hour of the Fourth Major Hour, which is to say it is early morning.

  He shot bolt upright in shock, looking around the room.

  What are you looking for?

  He stopped. The voice was calm, female, and airy. It felt like it originated inside his mind but wasn’t his own thoughts. He knew there were forms of telepathic communication on this planet, he had seen multiple instances of it occurring over the last few days, but he had never experienced it before. Back on Earth, the only form of communication that occurred within someone’s own head was the result of mental illness. Direct Neural Interfaces existed, and provided direct integration of information into your brain, but they were unbelievably expensive, and he had never had one. Furthermore, this was a literal voice inside his head, whereas Direct Neural Interfaces didn’t produce sound or have a “voice” at all, as they fed information directly into your neural pathways.

  I could do that I suppose, but it wouldn’t really make our conversation any easier, and would probably just confuse you more than you already are. Plus, I like my voice.

  “Who are you?” was all he could think to say, speaking out into the empty room.

  Don’t do that, that’s weird. It’s also inefficient. If you speak out loud, you’re going to sound insane, and then I am going to have to distinguish between what you are thinking and what you are saying. The two are a lot different than most people realize.

  Alar paused, his mind whirling.

  Ok, who are you? he thought to himself, feeling a mixture of complete bewilderment and stupidity as he did it.

  That’s better! But also kind of a pointless question. A better question would be “what are you?” the female voice responded.

  … what are you, then? he replied.

  Well, that sort of depends on who you ask. To everyone around here, or the Accord as they like to call themselves, I am called the keystone. Well, I am not called the keystone, I am described as the keystone, because I don’t actually communicate with any of them, and you don’t really “call” inanimate objects anything. Wow I just said “call” a lot, didn’t I? Your language is strange. In Dravash there at least four different words to describe how to name things. Way less repetitive.

  Alar looked down at the stone in his hand as she spoke. As the voice continued, he noticed that the soft white pulsing seemed to sort of sync with the inflection, giving a sort of personality to the words as they were spoken.

  So this isn’t something you do with everyone? Didn’t you tell Seren that Renik was injured? Alar asked.

  No, Renik told Seren he was injured, they just use me as a conduit to communicate between each other. I haven’t communicated with anyone directly in like… an age? Maybe two, the voice responded.

  Age? How long is that? And why haven’t you talked to anyone else? he thought back.

  Just didn’t feel like it. And stop thinking so many things at once. Actually I lied, please do think more things at once. Specifically, think about how time works on your home planet, so far all you’ve thought about is how long a day is, which in the grand scheme of time is not exceptionally helpful, she said.

  Alar sat confused for a minute. Think about time? How are you supposed to think about time? Like how long things take? Like how long a day was compared to a month? A year? When had he thought about days in the first place?

  Good enough! the voice interrupted his confusion.

  Alright, let’s see… the keystone began, her voice still airy and almost distracted. A day here lasts fourteen Major Hours, each made up of four Minor Hours, so that’s fifty-six Minor Hours a day. A Minor Hour is about thirty of your Earth minutes, meaning a full day is twenty-eight of your hours.

  Each Minor Hour is divided into ten Moments, and each Moment is split into ten Instants. A Moment lasts around three of your minutes, so an Instant is roughly eighteen of your seconds.

  But you were asking about ages, right? Okay, so, there are eight-day weeks, five weeks per Great Phase, four Great Phases in a Cycle, ten Cycles in an Era, six Eras in an Arc, and ten Arcs in an Age. Wow you only have one sun? Sounds cold. We have two, but you probably already know that. That’s why we have different phases… the voice trailed off, realizing he wasn’t paying attention.

  Alar?

  Alar had lost track of what the voice was saying about halfway through her explanation, at first he was trying to relate everything she said back to how time was measured on Earth, but his mind had started wandering back to what was actually happening. There was a voice inside his head that was giving him information, lots of information. It was also apparently reading his thoughts, which was strange in and of itself.

  I still don’t get who… or I mean what, you are, he said.

  I already told you. I am a keystone, well a magestone is what people used to call me. But they were mages and, well, used me like mages are supposed to use me. These people just use me as a fancy magic rock, so keystone makes sense, sort of.

  Ok, so you’re a magestone… what is a magestone? Alar thought back, more confused now than before.

  I am a stone used by mages, hence the name. But more specifically, I am a stone created by a mage to help him do stuff. That was a long time ago though. All of the mages that pass through here lately, and by lately I mean in the last few ages or so, wouldn’t be able to make a magestone if their life depended on it, she said this with what Alar could only describe as a tone of superiority.

  Ok, and what stuff did a magestone help a mage with? he asked.

  Lots of stuff. But it sort of depends on the mage that makes it. But usually, we are designed to assist in refining their magic, solving problems, maintaining projects and experiments, and anything else related to their Form. We can also analyze mana structures, model spellwork, things like that.

  We? So there are more of you? he asked.

  I think so? she said back, there used to be at least, magestones were common before the Empire. Now though, I have no idea.

  And why are you talking to me if you haven’t talked to anyone in… a long time? Was it because I bound to you? Alar asked.

  Bound to me? You didn’t bind to me. The only thing I am bound to is this house. Magestones are bound to a place, usually the house or laboratory of the mage that creates them, she replied.

  But they said I bound to you, and you stopped Valk from grabbing you because of it?

  They are idiots, I only stopped Valk from grabbing me because he is grumpy and not particularly interesting. This whole binding to me thing is a giant misunderstanding, probably due in small part to me never correcting it. I help the Accord because I have nothing better to do, not because they are bound to me, and I can stop whenever I feel like it, the voice said.

  If you are helping them then why haven’t you spoken to any of them? Alar asked.

  Like I said, I just didn’t feel like it. The Empire is horrible, and they are fighting it, or at least trying to. So I do little things for them here and there, but most magestones, myself included, aren’t big fans of group settings, if you know what I mean.

  I… do not know what you mean. Alar replied.

  Disappointing. she responded. But as fun as giving you a lecture on magestone social dynamics sounds, they’re done talking upstairs. We can discuss this more later, as long as they don’t murder you.

  They are? How do you know?

  I am bound to this house. In some ways I am this house, have been for a very, very long time. I can’t communicate directly with someone unless they are holding me, but I can see and hear everything that goes on, she replied.

  But what if they take you from me? Then I can’t talk to you anymore? he asked, considering as he did the ways that he could try to hold onto the stone for longer. He had so many questions and felt like he had even scratched the surface of understanding what this thing was.

  Oh stop or you’ll give me a complex. They can’t take you from me. Well they can. They can literally take you from me. But that doesn’t matter. I am bound to this house, so I can move freely within it. If I couldn’t they would have lost me Arcs ago. Dain is notoriously disorganized, but every time he loses me I miraculously end up on the kitchen counter, strange right?

  Ok, so you’ll just come back then? he thought back, relieved.

  Probably, but Seren is about to come down, and you’ve been staring at the floor unmovingly for a while. So, start acting normal. Also, don’t tell anyone I am a sentient being capable of mana and magic development that exceeds their pedestrian understanding in ways they couldn’t even begin to comprehend, please?

  Okay… I won’t, he thought back, and just as he did, he heard someone coming down the steps. He looked at the stone for a few more seconds before placing it in his pocket and turning to face the stairwell.

  Oh and stop monitoring your mana like you’re watching a fish in a pond. It’s part of you. Consciously guide it. Speed it up, slow it down, that sort of thing. Get acquainted with it. You can’t progress your mana passively.

  And with that the voice ceased entirely.

  Seren appeared at the bottom of the stairs, her face unreadable. She looked at him for a moment before she spoke, but Alar couldn’t detect any specific emotion, only hesitance.

  “We’re ready for you upstairs,” she said.

  “Alright,” he responded, rising as he did, “should I be worried?”

  “I’m worried,” she replied, “the Accord is vast and… unpredictable, and we have only gotten minimal guidance on how to handle this so far, the Council is going to meet…” she cut herself off partway through the sentence, “let’s just talk upstairs, okay?”

  Alar didn’t like the sound of what she said, but he shrugged anyways, “sounds good.”

  They entered the gathering room in silence, the three men sitting on the same side of the table, facing Alar. Renik sat in the middle, with Dain sitting to his left and Valk his right. Valk was scowling at him, but that didn’t tell him much at this point.

  Assuming he was supposed to sit, he did, and Seren followed, pulling out a chair next to him and sitting to also face the three men. Renik did not hesitate, beginning to speak as soon as he sat down.

  “Alar, we had the chance to talk and briefly converse with a few members of the Council,” he said.

  “Okay,” Alar responded, “and?”

  Renik hesitated before answering, choosing his words carefully.

  “As of right now, you can’t join the Accord…” he said.

  That was fine. Part of him had assumed that would be the case. After all, he was a Level 1 nobody without any Form, any training, or any way to really help the Accord or contribute to their cause, so what did he expect? He could change that. He could go out and train, get stronger, learn more about this planet and mana…

  “But we also can’t let you leave.”