Vell turned away from the vortex, almost tingling with power.
He had an absurd amount of it.
The question now was what to do with it.
He had considered the possibilities.
Were there many?
Yes.
But many of them were useless.
He could try to understand the realm more deeply. He had already learned that understanding it did not necessarily mean understanding how to leave it.
Perhaps he could destroy it?
That seemed both unnecessarily ambitious and somewhat rude.
Not to mention that he most likely couldn't.
A doorway, perhaps?
He had considered that the most.
If he somehow tore open a passage into reality, there was no guarantee that he could pass through it.
Vell looked toward the distant connection he had with Sonder.
His current plan was not the most elegant.
And it was a bit simple.
Stupid, perhaps.
He would use brute force.
Not against the realm itself, but against the boundary separating him from it.
That was to say, he wouldn't attack the boundary directly.
He would attack himself.
In a way.
He was an essence.
Whatever that actually meant, as it was a very nebulous concept, and even more so in this realm.
What he was sure of was that he did not possess a body here.
Neither did he possess a soul in any recognizable sense.
And the mind he had did not seem to be the same one Vell possessed in the other realm.
It didn't really seem like a mind at all.
What he did have, though, was a connection.
That connection led back to the world.
Perhaps he could force himself through it.
Force enough power through himself and push himself against the boundary, trying to slip past it while opening even the slightest gap.
Hopefully without creating any lasting consequences.
It would not be elegant, but who cared about that?
Not Vell.
It also would not be careful.
He would blast himself and the realm with a tremendous amount of power.
He'd force himself out somehow and hope that worked.
If it refused, he would push harder.
Make it yield.
Again, Vell considered the possibility that this might be catastrophically dangerous.
He dismissed the thought.
If he got through and could not find his body, then he could perhaps recreate it.
He had the same thought about his soul and mind.
A body that was not his body would be better than no body.
A soul reconstructed imperfectly would be better than being trapped as an essence.
A mind that was incomplete would still be a mind.
Perhaps even Sonder could do that, if he found a way to communicate with her in his current state.
Any state of existence in the real world seemed preferable to this one.
At least there would be people.
There would be someone he could speak to.
Surely.
Vell had spent so long in silence.
The only voice had been his own.
He glanced toward Endrith's cage.
Then he looked back toward the connection.
"Sonder," he murmured.
He had no idea whether she could hear him.
Probably not.
He knew where she was.
He had found her.
Now he only needed to reach her.
And if the distance between them refused to let him pass peacefully, then Vell would simply have to become considerably less peaceful.