It didn't take long before Sev noticed the first signs of something strange. It became blindingly obvious at night, because there were stars in the sky. It was a beautiful sight.

Also worrying, because their universe no longer had any stars, and there should have been nothing in the sky.

"You're seeing this too, right?" he murmured under his breath, not quite daring to look away.

"Yup." Misa sounded grim. Her voice was strained. "Stop looking at it. I'm blocking it."

"You're blocking it?" Sev ripped his gaze away, alarmed. "What?"

"I don't know." Misa grit her teeth, and Sev noticed the way her muscles were tensed. Derivan and Vex weren't nearby — Vex was tending to his father, who still hadn't woken up and was starting to worry him, and Derivan was keeping him company. Misa held a small, metallic cylinder in her hands, and it flashed oddly at various moments, each time accompanied by a small grimace. "But looking at them is some kind of attack. Need you to talk to the others. A lot of people are getting curious. I'm bleeding health and mana."

Ah. Shit. Misa had a fair amount of mana stockpiled for situations like this, using the little trick they had learned about 'trading' mana, but that wasn't going to last long. Not when the group that was travelling was this large.

"On it," Sev muttered. He flung a string of divinity at her, pumping healing magic down so he could keep her topped off on health — healing came far more easily to him now, partially due to all the connections he'd made with various gods. Aspects of Life, Time, and Growth domains were all a part of his magic.

System health had nothing on him. Like most of his friends, he no longer relied strictly on skills provided by the system; Misa was the only real exception to this, and she made it work by pushing every skill the system gave her to the limit.

Even as he did so, he was already moving. Sev fired off a quick message to the various leading factions of Elyra, hoping one of them would have the presence of mind to check; another one to Vex, to keep him and Derivan updated. He almost used the divinity of Air to fly up and announce what was happening before he realized that would make people look up at him.

Earth instead, then. That was within Onyx's wheelhouse, anyway. Maybe it was time for a little sculpting.

All over the campsite, letters began to etch themselves into the dirt.

Unknown attack. Vector is by sight. Keep your eyes shut, and whatever you do, don't look up.

It helped that most people were inside tents or various makeshift shelters. For those that weren't, the Earth divinity helped him sculpt shelters over them, preventing them from looking directly at the sky. Mostly because Sev didn't trust people to listen to the instruction 'don't look up'.

Sure enough, a couple of people glanced down, read his instructions, and immediately — reflexively — glanced up at the sky. Sev winced, hoping the little makeshift shelters were enough; he felt Misa's health dip dangerously before his magic recovered it.

[Any ideas what this is?] he sent through the system.

[I don't sense any magic.] Vex's response came almost immediately, like he'd been waiting for it. [It's not a magical phenomenon. I don't know what it is, though. Derivan thinks it might be Void related.]

[A new type of Void creature?] Sev asked. He remembered the Void wyrmlings — the nasty, wriggly things that consumed everything they touched, erasing all memory of its existence.

[Looking at it causes us to be 'attacked',] Vex mused.

Before they could continue the conversation any further — Vex was clearly in the middle of typing more — Sev heard a scream and whirled around.

Misa couldn't block every attack. This was explicitly a limitation of her skill; multi-pronged attacks like these were one of her greatest weaknesses, and although she made up for it with a sheer, immense amount of borrowed mana and plenty of healing, Sev sensed she was running low on both. His healing was good, but it only came so fast; she had to choose which attacks to block and which ones to let through.

And as much as he'd tried, Sev hadn't been able to get to every single individual, either. There were simply too many.

Thirty meters ahead of him, slightly to the right; an older lizardkin had stepped out of his tent and peered up at the sky. He was on the ground, now, sat squarely on his ass and scrambling backwards while pointing at the sky—

Shit.

Earth divinity flowed from him, and he constructed a rapid shelter. He had a feeling Nilea was going to have words with him after this — this was not how he was supposed to use her strength or her domain at all — but he wasn't seeing that he had much in the way of a choice.

"What's wrong?" he said. [Triage] activated even as he spoke, and he scanned the lizardkin for any obvious signs of injury, but as far as he could tell, there was nothing. The system reported his health as full with not a single malus to his name.

"It's still there," the lizardkin insisted. He clutched at Sev, staring at the empty rock just above him like it was a monster. "Make it go away. Please. You're supposed to be the heroes, right?"

Sev didn't know what to do. He stared at the lizardkin and gave him an awkward, comforting pat on the back — at least, he hoped it was comforting. He had no idea what the lizardkin was seeing.

His mind raced. What was this? Some kind of mental attack, clearly, latching itself onto the poor guy's mind, but there wasn't anything his healing magic could do about it. Whatever was happening didn't even qualify as a status condition, though whether that was because of the system's glitches or because of the effect itself he didn't know.

[Derivan, anything weird with Shift or Patch?] Sev asked.

A second passed before the armor replied. [I do not sense anything. But the Void is very capable of... hiding. I would be careful.]

[Yeah, tell me about it.] The lizardkin was clinging on to his legs, shivering; Sev saw his condition rapidly worsening, though there was nothing in the system that reflected that anything was wrong. His health sat at a perfectly healthy hundred percent, and in theory the system should have reverted any damage that was done to him in that state...

Except he was clearly getting worse. Sev even saw the lizardkin's veins glowing through his scales as he shook, his claws digging into Sev's skin almost painfully—

Wait. Glowing?

A light blue glow traced its way through the lizardkin's veins and arteries, creating a delicate pattern all throughout his body. It was a glow he recognized.

[I'm seeing system sickness,] he reported. A sick worry began to gnaw at his stomach; whatever this was attacked a person's connection to the system directly. [Are you sure you can't sense anything with Patch?]

This time, a much longer moment passed before Derivan answered — and even when he did answer, it was short. [I am on my way.]

Almost as soon as the message was received, Sev felt the telltale distortion of air and reality that came along with his friend using Shift. Derivan stepped through the portal, casting worried eyes over the lizardkin that sat trembling at Sev's feet. He stepped forward, reaching out with a hand and only stopping when the old lizardkin flinched away; undeterred, Derivan kept his hand where he'd stopped it, closing his eyes in concentration.

Sev, of course, had no idea what he was sensing.

"It is system sickness," Derivan said after a moment. There was a frown in his voice. "But it is... subtle. There is no clear mechanism of attack."

"What I want to know is what it has to do with the stars," Sev grumbled. He stared up at the ceiling as if it could give him an answer, but Derivan froze.

"Speak to Tempus," he said. "I have a suspicion—"

"On it," Sev interrupted.

Divinity flowed easily from him now. Tempus?

Yes? The god of time's response was distracted, almost airy. What can I do for you, my child?

First of all, never call me that again, Sev said, shuddering. Tempus had never spoken to him like that before, but then he seemed pretty distracted. Second, can you come take a look at what's going on here? Derivan seems to think—

Sev could almost feel it as the god's attention shifted, and his emotions promptly flickered to shock, then horror, then worry, all in quick succession. How did that get loose?

How did what get loose? Sev asked impatiently.

Sev, whatever you do, do not look up, Tempus advised sternly, and Sev resisted the urge to sigh. There is a temporal virus in your area. It feeds by reminding you of a time long past, and then rewinding you back to that state. Sort of. It's complicated, especially with all the resets you've been doing.

Ah. That made... sense? The virus was somehow resetting people to before the system existed, or something like that.

It also explained why Derivan hadn't been able to sense anything going on.

How do we fix it?

The last time there was an outbreak of this it took a whole contingent of my priests to contain it, Tempus said. You need stasis fields. They'll be naturally attracted to stopped time, and will be relatively docile while inside those fields.

Fortunately, Sev did have access to [Stasis Field], and access to enough divinity to cast it all over the campsite.

That didn't mean the process didn't leave him exhausted. Derivan left once he saw that Sev had it under control, clearly worried about Vex and Karix and whatever was going on there — so Sev was pretty much alone when he collapsed from exhaustion.

Well, until Misa found him and collapsed beside him, anyway.

The virus was caught up in all the stasis fields he'd left up. Tempus had promised he would collect them through the link between the two of them, and he wouldn't have to worry about it — so now their camp looked like it was filled with dozens of fields full of tiny, glittering stars.

"Shitty first day," Misa grunted.

"I mean, not the first," Sev protested. He didn't disagree with the shitty part.

"Gonna be the first of many," Misa countered, and Sev fell silent at that.

She wasn't wrong. Things were getting worse.

Sev just didn't know what he'd done about it, so very long ago.