[ It had been a surreal experience wandering into the inn only to have Mag immediately recognize him and rush over to express her concern and fuss over him. To learn that only a few weeks have passed, not months or years or centuries.

He has memories of when Mag peacefully died of old age. He knows the inn was eventually abandoned, that the building at some point disappeared — or at least, he's pretty sure he remembers that, but everything is a haze, and trying to dig through details that didn't actually happen over such a long span of time feels like wading through a thick, waist-high sludge.

It helps to have Sam here, sitting right in front of him. To be face-to-face. It jerks Steve out of that sludge, and he stares at Sam for a few seconds before he sighs and shakes his head. ]

I guess it depends on how vivid this all feels over time. If we're gonna be haunted by... whatever that was all the time, then I think it'll be a while.

[ Like seeing ghosts in all of their interactions with fellow Summoned. Even with one another.

Steve's brow twitches with a half-formed frown as he looks Sam over again. He remembers their fights, if not every specific reason or the exact words exchanged. He recalls how they had chafed against their transformations into something more than human.

It was even enough to drive them apart for a while. ]

So... what do we think it was? The Singularity trying to show us what the future might hold? Or was something else behind it? We still don't know what caused that storm, just that us going into the crater seems to have fixed it.

[ This is the easier conversation to have right now. ]