The old woman shrugged it off, sat down wearily on the far side of the rooftop, tilted her head back, and started drinking in long gulps.
Thea summoned a chair out of empty air and sat across from her—not too close, not too far. Her guard stayed up, not a millimeter relaxed.
When the old woman saw her pull the chair from the void, something that might once have been called brightness flickered in her eyes.
"Someone as busy as you. What do you want with me?"
"I want to know the method for elevating a Two-Dimensional world to Three-Dimensional."
She said it casually, as if they were making small talk.
"Knowledge is priceless. And besides—I think you and I are fundamentally different..." The old woman's tone was uncertain. "I'm sorry. In this world, I'm just an ordinary human. I'm afraid I can't help you."
"If you still had your power, could you elevate a Two-Dimensional world at will?"
"Of course."
"Then how did you do it?"
"I don't know..."
Fifteen minutes of cross-purposes conversation left Thea mildly frustrated. The old woman was sincere enough—she sidestepped certain questions but wasn't lying. She either didn't have the knack for lying, or the pride of a Fifth-Dimensional being made it beneath her to lie.
"I honestly don't know how to describe the process in your languages..." The old woman strained like she was constipated, rifling through her mental lexicon without turning up a single useful word.
The old woman wasn't an academic. Her intelligence was unremarkable. Even her English carried a rural drawl, and forget French or Chinese—she didn't speak those at all. English had too limited a vocabulary for what she was trying to convey, and the same few strange words she kept circling back to left Thea more confused, not less.
"Let me show you my memories instead. Maybe that'll help," the old woman said.
Thea went quiet for a long moment. She couldn't accept this gift for free. It touched her principles, her Trade godhood, and the subtler mechanisms of causality itself. She had to ask. "What do I need to do in return?"
The old woman was silent for several minutes. "You need to listen to my story."
Hell. Thea cursed silently. Listening to the story meant binding herself into its karmic chain. By Fifth-Dimensional logic, she'd be stepping inside the Princess's narrative itself.
She wasn't the hapless Superman of the original timeline. For the sake of a Two-Dimensional world, was she really going to wade into this mess?
She probed carefully. "When you still had your power, how did you compare to me?"
The old woman looked her over. The contempt in her eyes was well-hidden, but Thea caught it.
"You're overthinking this. From our perspective, the protagonist of that story is someone else. Everything has already happened, everything was always going to happen. You're just an incidental participant." The old woman's phrasing was vague, but Thea got the point: she wasn't the protagonist. Whether the actual protagonist was Superman or not, she didn't care.
"My name is going to sound long to you. It carries no meaning in your languages. I am Nyxlygsptlnz—"
The old woman rolled her tongue with effort through the syllables. Before she could finish, the whole world seemed to shudder at its foundations. Ordinary people felt nothing, but Thea immediately sensed the ripple and hurriedly cast a sound-barrier over the rooftop. When she realized it wasn't sound being transmitted at all, she severed the rooftop's connection to space and time as well. The tremor finally subsided.
Impressive. She glanced at the old woman. Just speaking her name, unfinished, and already the disturbance was that massive. Fifth-Dimensional beings lived up to their reputation.
The old woman sagged. "Fine. Names don't mean much here. For convenience, just call me Mrs. Nyxly. I am an old woman, after all."
Thea obliged. "Mrs. Nyxly. Please continue."
"The Fifth Dimension is beyond anything you can imagine. Long ago—in a place that was infinitely close to the past and could never reach the future—far away at the horizon, yet right in front of your eyes..." The old woman rose to her feet, her frail body gesturing along with her words like a fool's performance. Thea knew she was choosing her words with care.
"There was a Fifth-Dimensional kingdom full of fantastic wonders. Zrfff. I won't say the full name—it wouldn't mean anything to you."
"The kingdom's ruler, Brpxz, had fallen into deep melancholy after the death of his queen."
"Since her passing, nothing could brighten his mood. Because of his grief, the entire court—and all of Zrfff—lay beneath a dark blue-black gloom. The royal family and every subject felt the king's sorrow as if it were their own."
An image flashed through Thea's mind: a great demon king with bared fangs and claws, ready to devour the world.
Mrs. Nyxly reflected a moment and went on. "All his subjects scoured the kingdom for rare treasures and offered them to him. His most beloved daughter spoke with him every day. None of it could make him smile again."
"Among those who tried was his court magician—Lord Vyndktvx. He conjured dull programs, tedious concepts, noisy rules, and pallid examples. All of it only made the king even sleepier."
Thea bit back a grimace. The old woman's storytelling wasn't exactly objective. This "court magician" was being framed as a complete incompetent—obvious personal bias at work.
"Then one day—" the old woman's eyes lit up, "—a young man arrived at the palace. His clothes were ragged, but his bearing was extraordinary. His charming smile could make the stars in the sky blink back at him..."
Thea rolled her eyes with elegant precision. "..."
The story, predictably, was heading toward melodrama. The old woman recounted in a dreamy voice, "The charming young man promised to make the king laugh. The court magician Vyndktvx was openly disdainful."
"The young man's name was?" Thea asked.
"Mister Mxyzptlk." The old woman said it with deep affection, and Thea got goosebumps.
If she wasn't mistaken, this guy was the premier troublemaker of the entire DC Universe.
Thea made a few insincere remarks along the lines of What a lovely name, and the old woman continued. "Mxyzptlk didn't bother with traditional tricks. He pulled off his hat and drew from it a projection of a universe—a cowering, coiled multiverse."
"He was like a sprite—endlessly energetic, never tired. He ran the people of that universe ragged, and finally drew laughter from the king."
Thea understood perfectly. The so-called entertainment was the classic Mxyzptlk-and-Superman routine: turning Superman into a boss in an instance dungeon, farming him over and over in every creative variation imaginable. Mxyzptlk's endless schemes versus Superman's quick wits. From an outsider's perspective, it was actually pretty funny.
"And then you two fell in love? With Mister Mxyzptlk?" Thea figured anyone who could fall for an absolute clown like that had... interesting taste.