Rhys was sketching in the dirt with a stick.
Having concluded that Vesper's mission might take some time, he'd decided to plan out the "next expansion" for his floating island. He'd designed a complex, multi-tiered cave system with potential ore veins (mithril, adamantium, and the purely aesthetic 'echo-crystal'), an underground river, and a chasm leading to a nest of 'yet-to-be-determined giant spiders.'
Liora stood guard a few feet away, her posture a mix of vigilant readiness and bored patience. Every few minutes, she would glance up at the glowing dome, as if expecting to see Vesper return at any moment. The rivalry between the Knight of Light and the Queen of Shadows was already a palpable, unspoken thing.
Theia sat nearby on a conjured obsidian stool, dutifully recording Rhys's idle sketches into her tome, treating them as holy architectural blueprints for a future, subterranean cathedral.
"So if we put the main cavern here," Rhys muttered, drawing a large circle, "we can have three branching tunnels. One leads to the spider queen's lair, one loops back to the surface near the lake, and the third... what if the third one goes down? Like, really deep. And it just opens up to a vast, empty darkness?" The idea pleased his inner storyteller. "Leave it open for a future 'underdark' saga."
Suddenly, a wisp of cold air ruffled his hair.
He looked up. Standing before him, having appeared from nowhere with her signature supernatural silence, was Vesper. She was perfectly poised, her face an unreadable mask of calm efficiency.
Rhys tossed his stick aside and grinned, jumping to his feet. "You're back! That was fast! So? What's the verdict? Empty void? Eldritch horrors? Space whales?"
Liora was instantly at his side, her hand resting on the hilt of her moonlight blade. She eyed Vesper with unconcealed suspicion. "Report, Penumbra Queen. Did you find anything?"
Vesper ignored Liora completely, her gaze fixed only on Rhys. She gave a short, precise bow. "My Lord. I have returned, as commanded."
"And?" Rhys prompted, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet with anticipation.
Vesper's delivery was flawless, her tone perfectly flat and factual. "Beyond the Weave, the world has unmade itself. I discovered a region of complete dissolution—an echo of a fallen kingdom, now little more than corrosive static."
A flicker of disappointment crossed Rhys's face. "Oh. So… nothing, then. Bummer."
"Not nothing," Vesper said, her timing impeccable. She paused, letting the silence hang in the air for a dramatic beat. "In the heart of that fallen kingdom, a single survivor falls. An angelkin, her wings consumed by The Bleed. Her life will be extinguished in moments." She tilted her head slightly. "She is falling... this way."
The atmosphere shifted. Liora, who had been hostile, froze, her expression turning to one of horror and dawning empathy. The description was an exact echo of her own final moments.
Rhys, on the other hand, was instantly re-energized. "Another one? Really? The dream is recycling plot points already? Well, can't complain, I guess. The first rescue mission was pretty cool."
"What are the survivor's coordinates?" Theia asked, her quill poised. She understood, perhaps better than anyone, the significance of this. The Progenitor was not an idle god; he was a redeemer. This was his nature.
And this was the masterstroke of Vesper's gambit. She had not come back to tell them. She had come back to direct them.
"She will intersect our Sanctum's spatial coordinates in approximately ninety seconds," Vesper stated. "Her trajectory will pass just below the southern edge of this island."
She wasn't giving a report; she was giving a countdown.
Liora looked at her, then at Rhys, a storm of emotions on her face. A sister of her kind was about to be extinguished forever. Only one being in existence could save her. "My Lord! We have to do something!"
Rhys held up a hand, a smirk on his face. This was much better than just finding an empty ruin. The dream was delivering a dynamic, time-sensitive event right to his doorstep. It was a quest, and it was a test.
"Vesper," he said, his voice sharp with focus. "Can you open the dome? Just a small section, an exit portal."
"My Lord, no!" Liora protested. "Exposing the Sanctum—"
"I was not made to cower behind a wall, Knight," Vesper replied coolly, her first direct address to Liora dripping with condescension. She looked to Rhys. "Your will, Progenitor?"
"Do it," Rhys commanded. This was perfect. The dutiful knight versus the pragmatic spymaster. The character dynamics were writing themselves.
Vesper nodded once. She raised her hand towards the dome above the southern waterfalls. A section of the glowing Celestial Weave, about twenty feet wide, shimmered. The crisscrossing lines of starlight and Argent simply... parted, dissolving to reveal the endless, placid blue of the Erased Sky. A perfect, silent opening in their unbreakable shield.
"Thirty seconds," Vesper announced calmly.
Rhys grinned and started walking towards the newly opened breach.
"Lord, what are you doing?" Liora asked, rushing to keep up.
"What do you think?" Rhys said, a manic glint in his eye. "I'm going to go catch her." He cracked his knuckles. "This is going to be way more dramatic than last time. Last time you were just falling through a blank sky. This time? I'm making a diving catch from a floating paradise island through a hole in a reality-shield to save a dying angel from oblivion. The theatrics are just..." he searched for the word, "spectacular."
"Ten seconds," Vesper called out, her voice never wavering.
Rhys reached the edge of the island, right at the break in the dome. He peered down into the deep blue nothingness below.
"Five," Vesper counted. "Four... three... two... one..."
As she hit "one," a tiny black speck shot into view from far above, plummeting past their island at incredible speed. It was just as Vesper described: an angelkin, leaving a trail of grey, entropic dust.
Liora gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. She was looking at a ghost of her own past.
Rhys didn't hesitate.
"Theatrics," he whispered to himself, a wide, joyful grin plastered on his face.
And then, he jumped.
He dove headfirst off the edge of his floating world, plunging into the endless void in a perfect, swan-like dive.