Soth dancing Soth in the style of Utagawa Hiroshige, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.

  Chapter 23: Time is the enemy

  Expedition headquarters, Mikla metropolitan area, Confluence dimension

  Year 42 of the Confluence Republic (local time)

  Soth’s pocket was defended by a variety of protective magics, so Charlotte and Sophie’s mission would clearly need someone to pave the way for them. Olz, Yutten, and Salome decided to take care of this themselves, so the plan was that the three of them would stun a hole in these defenses and make room for Charlotte and Sophie to alter the pocket flow itself.

  Sophie was still far from mastering Soth’s subtle dimensional magics in all their complexity, but with help from the Expeditions people she had figured out which strands related to the time aspect of the dimensional pocket, and she had figured out how Soth specified the characteristics of the pocket’s three physical dimensions. Collaborating, they found a way to apply a similar set of specifications to the time aspect, tweaking the target parameter to a very large value.

  They set it into effect one rainy morning. Yutten took responsibility for the overall obfuscations, while Olz and Salome stunned the pocket’s inbuilt defenses. Then Charlotte and Sophie pierced through the hole the others had ripped open, Sophie directing the altering and Charlotte manifesting it. When the desired changes had been implemented, the two agents carefully withdrew, and then Olz and Salome mended the disruptions of the pocket’s protective magics, closing the hole and stepping back. Yutten held up the obfuscation for a while, then finally she pulled out as well.

  So far, the SC board and the dimensions specialists at Expedition had been very careful not to intrude into Soth’s pocket to spy on him, fearing that he might notice them and flee. Now, however, the calculations were different. If the altering had worked, Confluence peeking at Soth would take place in what is, for him, an exceedingly brief period of time, and even if he noticed it would take him millennia to respond. On the other hand, if the altering at failed, they obviously needed to know so Soth would not be able to surprise them.

  They looked into the pocket. Soth was as if frozen in time, caught standing in front of a fire with his hands in the air, as if he were in the middle of some kind of dance. His face looked gleeful, even exuberant, and yet it was as if he had noticed something in the corner of his eye, as if some kind of realization was about to dawn on him. Behind him, the sun was setting over Lake Crystalmir.

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  Soth dancing Soth in the style of Abstract Expressionism, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.

  Soth dancing Soth in the style of Félicien Rops, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.

  Soth dancing Soth in the style of Gustav Klimt, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.

  Soth dancing Soth in the style of Gustave Moreau, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.

  Soth dancing Soth in the style of Hieronymus Bosch, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.

  Soth dancing Soth in the style of Ju Chao, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.

  Soth dancing Soth in the style of Mikalojus Konstantinas ?iurlionis, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.

  Soth dancing Soth in the style of Mikhail Vrubel, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.

  Soth dancing Soth in the style of Ren Xun, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.

  Soth dancing Soth in the style of Surrealism, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.