“There's nothing we can do—all systems are jammed! Prepare for emergency landing!”

As Captain Navasi's frantic voice echoed throughout the Sunrise Maiden's bridge, a sinking feeling settled into the pit of Zemir's stomach.

There were many realities in which the Maiden was an unreliable starship, but this wasn't one of them. Something wasn't right.

But that didn't change the fact that the ship was quickly plummeting into the atmosphere of an uncharted planet in the Vast. If the crew didn't act quickly, that desolate rock would be their grave.

Pushing aside his fear, Zemir leaned back in his chair and cleared his mind. In an instant he sorted through a thousand iterations of this crash landing and clung to just one—the one where everyone survived.

“Hard to starboard!” Zemir boomed. “Aim for that plateau—it's our only shot!”

“You heard him!” Navasi shouted, cutting in the ship's retro-thrusters to try to slow its descent. “All hands! Starboard side!”

Obozaya and Quig scrambled to the captain's terminal, the bulky vesk's eyes wide with adrenaline and the scraggly ysoki shrieking profanities. They forced their weight onto the controls, pulling the levers far past their safety points, desperately hoping the ship could find the landing spot Zemir had seemingly pulled from thin air.

“That's it,” Zemir encouraged them, clinging to the single survival scenario he foresaw. “We're going to make it!”

The Maiden's proximity sensor screamed a warning. The ship slammed three times into the hard ground. But sure enough, thanks to the reality Zemir had plucked like a grain of sand from an infinite beach, they crashed in one piece.

Once Navasi caught her breath, the captain stumbled over to Zemir and clapped him on the back.

“Another day, another of your mysterious magic tricks,” she said, grinning with relief. “I don't suppose the universe told you why we all just nearly died in a fiery crash, did it?”

Obozaya strode up behind Navasi, glowering with anger now that the danger had passed. “If there is an enemy here, Zemir, tell us. It is dishonorable to sabotage the ship,” she growled.

Zemir forced a characteristic chuckle and shook his head. His companions knew his powers didn't work that way.

“Look, I don't have all the answers,” Zemir said. He grinned impishly. “Where we are, and why we're here—well, I'll need some help figuring that out.”

Just then, a telltale pinging rang out from the Maiden's comms. Quig slid over to examine the readout.

“Hey,” the gruff ysoki barked. “While you three are over there solvin' the world's mysteries, somebody near us on this rock needs help. Distress signal incoming.”

Hesitating, Navasi turned toward Quig. “But the ship—how damaged are we?”

“Structural damage minimal. I'll reset our systems and we'll be peachy again in an hour. Seems we just hit an electronics-jamming field.”

Obozaya hefted her doshko and looked at the captain, who nodded.

“If someone else hit that field and didn't have someone with Zemir's talents aboard, it's possible there's another crew outside lying on death's door,” Navasi said. “Obo, Quig—you up for a search and rescue? Zemir and I'll watch the systems.”

The vesk and ysoki nodded, saluted their captain, and headed toward the ship's airlock.

Zemir's eyes narrowed. Again, the subtlest of ripples tickled his senses. Something was not right, but without any sense of what or why, Zemir did the only thing he could.

“I'll join the rescue,” he said, winking to Navasi and striding purposefully to catch up with his companions. “You saw that green sky? Seems like a view I can't miss.”

The captain nodded, and the three set off for the source of the distress signal. Despite the rocky planet's abandoned desolation, its atmosphere was surprisingly friendly. Helmets off, the crew sauntered past chalky rock formations, skirting steep valleys and stagnant pools of dark liquid. Knowing Zemir's love of culture and cuisine, Quig joked about making the witchwarper a “sludge soufflé,” while Obozaya missed the jest and offered to share traditional vesk baking recipes.

It was strangely like any other friendly stroll—until the twinge in the back of Zemir's mind became a nauseating wave. Gritting his teeth through the mental assault, Zemir saw dozens of beady eyes and vicious tusks beginning to rise from crevices in the surrounding rock.

The creatures' hulking, scaled forms and snake-like tongues were unmistakable.

“Riveners!” Zemir shouted. “It's an ambush!”

The tines of her doshko roaring to life, Obozaya gave a fearsome battle cry and lunged toward the nearest riveners—powerful and nearly mindlessly aggressive lizard-like monsters often used as shock troops. Not to be outdone, Quig snatched his flamethrower from his back and braced himself to unleash a gout of flaming petrol.

But Zemir stood back, the wisdom of infinite possibilities settling on his shoulders.

The odds, he noted, were not in the companions' favor. Zemir counted a dozen riveners rushing toward him and his friends, who were already beginning to falter. And Zemir was certain he saw a different humanoid form scuttle away from the battlefield.

The twinges he felt made sense now. There was another witchwarper at hand—that's why everything from the moment the Maiden's systems jammed until now felt like it existed in the reality next door. Someone was out to destroy Zemir and his friends, and it seemed they were willing to change existence itself to do it.

Not if Zemir could help it, he thought, as he scrambled atop a rock formation high above the fray.

Illustration by Igor Grechanyi

Gritting his teeth and stretching out his arms, Zemir focused his mind and began to call just a taste of a terrible world into their own. Hellfire rained down from the sky, the ground boiled into lava, and grasping hands sprang from the rocky earth to clutch at the slavering riveners' feet.

Of course, much of it was an illusion. Zemir's friends knew that; they had witnessed his raw power unleashed before. Still, Obozaya and Quig turned to stare at Zemir in terrified, respectful awe.

The riveners, on the other hand, screamed with horror as the spectral hands grabbed at them and the hellfire burned through their skin and flesh.

“Finish them off!” Zemir shouted. He leapt off the rock formation to pursue the opposing witchwarper. “Do not follow me!”

Purple robes billowing behind him, Zemir dashed to the ravine where he'd seen the mysterious humanoid figure disappear. But when he vaulted down, a different sight stole his breath.

Instead of a person, there was merely a metal hatch set into the ground. It was partially ajar, revealing a passage that led deep below. And on the hatch was a familiar crest: a stylized “IEM.”

The crest of the Institute for Extraordinary Minds.

An academy for witchwarpers.

Specifically, Zemir's alma mater—and one whose masters held a fierce vendetta against the fugitive who abandoned three of his classmates in an alternate reality many years ago.

Reflexively, Zemir lifted his comm unit to his mouth to warn Navasi back on the Maiden. His past had come to call, and now they were all in danger.

“Captain, they've found me,” he said.

No response.

“Captain?”

A scream, and then nothing but static.

About the Author
Amanda Hamon is the Managing Developer for Starfinder, and you could say science-fantasy is her jam. Her game design, worldbuilding, and adventure writing have appeared in dozens of RPG products, including the Starfinder and Pathfinder roleplaying games. Mostly, she just likes doing stupid voices for characters at the table. You can find Amanda on Twitter at @amandahamon.

About Iconic Encounters
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games' iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

Illustration by Remko Troost

Zemir Solodan was born with a gift—but not everyone saw it that way at first.

The only son of miners on a remote planetoid called Pikora 317, tucked within the widest orbital ring of the gas giant Preluria in Near Space, Zemir spent his earliest days exposed to the harsh reality of life in a corporate labor colony. Determined to provide for their son, Zemir’s parents eked out their existence in the Freugan Salvage Company’s starmetal mines. The Solodans never went hungry, though the only delicacies young Zemir enjoyed were occasional tastes of citrus-chocolate pastries, sweet-milk custards, and savory meringues—gifts from the Freugan executives’ own ample stashes of treats imported from Absalom Station.

Even as a toddler, Zemir’s gaiety and thirst for new experiences were readily apparent. The vivacious boy quickly became known for his curiosity around the sparse facilities of the salvage company’s residential complex on Pikora 317. He developed many troublesome talents, such as sneaking into seemingly inaccessible places, turning neat collections of supplies into epic messes, and even finding ways to manipulate control panels into colorful, sparking displays. In fact, whenever a commonplace utility malfunctioned around the Solodan home, his parents joked that the “Zemir effect” had struck again.

Around Zemir’s fifth birthday, it seemed that the boy’s body began to betray him. Always known for eating anything with aplomb—especially new foods—Zemir seemed to sicken overnight. His appetite was as strong as always, but he gained weight, took on a sickly pallor, and grew weak. Despite his healthy diet and robust physical activity, testing indicated that the boy was dangerously malnourished. Even stranger, after every meal, Zemir’s breath smelled eerily similar to his favorite sweet treats, perhaps an indication of a dangerous blood disease, doctors speculated.

One by one, physicians ruled out all known ailments. Though his spirit never dampened, Zemir’s condition continued to deteriorate, even after his family sold most of their belongings to afford vitamin supplements, pediatric medicinals, and batteries of experimental medical tests. Desperate, and carrying news from the pediatricians that Zemir might eventually perish, his parents took to posting details of their son’s strange condition on every related infosphere portal they could find.

In just a few days, the Solodans’ pleas elicited a mysterious message from a Dr. Fainoro Corone, who said he suspected a rare and unexplainable diagnosis and requested to observe the boy in person. Dr. Corone’s long list of credentials indicated he was an expert in “exceptional pediatric conditions.” He hailed from a facility on far-off Arkanen, a Liavaran moon home to scientists, spellcasters, and—as Zemir’s parents believed—medical doctors.

With no other options, Zemir’s parents readily welcomed the quiet damaya lashunta doctor into their home. For a full day, Dr. Corone watched Zemir’s every move, focusing on the boy’s behavior at meal times. As Zemir slurped at his nutritional broth with surprising glee, Dr. Corone studied him closely. Slight mumbling accompanied his look of suspicion, as if the doctor communed with some internal eldritch knowledge.

On the second day, Dr. Corone attended breakfast at the Solodan house wearing a pair of thick, circuitry-etched bracers. Saying nothing, he watched Zemir’s father spoon broth into his pallid son’s mouth. Just before the gleeful boy swallowed, Dr. Corone’s demand rang out:

“Zemir, open your mouth now.”

The boy refused and downed the broth quickly. But at his mother’s command, he sheepishly opened his mouth. A thin film of custard clung to his baby teeth, and his breath smelled like sweet milk.

Dr. Corone pointed this out, and then gently instructed Zemir’s parents to continue feeding the boy. Saying nothing, he flipped a tiny switch on his bracers, which thrummed and glowed with a strange technological energy.

Immediately, Zemir’s eyes widened. His father fed him his broth, and when Zemir drank it, he made a disgusted face.

Dr. Corone nodded and explained: Zemir was not suffering from a physical ailment. The boy was instead, in the subtlest of ways, warping the fabric of reality to suit his childish preferences. For months, the boy had been turning all of his meals into nutritionally empty sweets. Similarly, the messes and mischief he had caused around the residential complex were the result of the boy’s ability to shift reality ever-so-slightly for his own amusement.

Zemir was a witchwarper—one who understands that the universe consists of infinite realities. What’s more, witchwarpers possess the innate ability to peer into those worlds, and to mix and manipulate them at will. Most witchwarpers’ abilities manifested in adulthood, Dr. Corone explained. But Zemir was special, powerful even for a child, and unlike anyone he had seen.

The doctor’s bracers—called reality stabilizers—dampened Zemir’s nascent and unstable abilities and would allow the boy to have a normal childhood. The lashunta was prepared to give the Solodans their own set of reality stabilizers, but with his “diagnosis” came another offer.

Dr. Corone wanted to bring Zemir back to Arkanen with him. There, he’d enroll the boy in the Institute for Extraordinary Minds, a facility that was effectively a school for young witchwarpers.

The witchwarpers at the institute—like Dr. Corone himself—could help Zemir learn control over his abilities, the doctor explained. Dr. Corone offered full tuition for Zemir and unrestricted visitation privileges for his family. Saddened but understanding the value of this offer, Zemir’s parents agreed.

For the next twelve years, Zemir was Dr. Corone’s protege. Zemir spent the time honing his ability to subtly manipulate his surroundings, growing more delighted each time he created a new sound, smell—and especially taste—that he’d never before experienced. He supplemented his training with an insatiable appetite for learning about far-away cuisine and cultures, dreaming of one day traveling throughout this reality and perhaps an infinite number of others. During this time, Zemir also learned of Eloritu, the god of magic and secrets, and came to view the infinite cosmos as a gift from this mysterious deity.

However, as passionate as Zemir became about his talents and studies, he also grew increasingly cocky and resentful of the reality stabilizers the instructors used to rein his more dangerous experiments.

Near Zemir’s eighteenth birthday, the young witchwarper began the early stages of his final thesis project: an ambitious attempt to create a minute-long rift into a reality adjacent to his own. The institute’s professors approved the project only under their strict supervision, requiring the placement of several stabilizing safeguards during all forms of research.

Zemir bristled at such restrictions. And so, under the cover of night, the brash and charismatic young man convinced three of his closest friends and fellow students to participate in a dry-run of his experiment. With no safeguards in place, Zemir used his substantial willpower to tear open a rift in reality. A primal scream rent his lips and a shock of his hair whitened under the great mental strain. Ecstatic, terrified, but trusting their brilliant friend, Zemir’s classmates stepped through the rift, which immediately winked out.

The human Alena Nidaro, the half-elf Tornil Lee, and the ysoki Smidge disappeared from this reality. Try as he might, Zemir could not reopen the rift nor could he find any trace of his friends.

Panicked, Zemir ran from his lab to the institute’s docking bay, where at least he could be alone and think. For a moment, he considered returning to confess his horrific error to Dr. Corone, but then he saw a midnight supply shuttle about to leave Arkanen for Absalom Station. And in that split second, Zemir decided the course of his own existence.

Posing as a worker, Zemir fled the Institute for Extraordinary Minds in the shuttle, and promptly lost himself in the crowds of Absalom Station. Convinced his friends were gone and he was to blame, Zemir wandered the station in a haze for weeks, performing minor tricks of warped reality for the credits he needed to survive. Eventually, Zemir sent a message to Dr. Corone to confess what he had done, then deactivated his institute communications account.

Despite the institute’s best efforts to track Zemir down and get some answers, Dr. Corone and his colleagues have always remained one step behind him. Although his wits returned, Zemir’s scars are far from healed. He now travels to all corners of this reality, as much seeking to earn a living using his strange magic and indulge his love of new experiences as he is running from a guilty conscience.

Growing ever more powerful daily, Zemir is a mysterious and joyful—if occasionally morose—companion to those who share his goals. He’s known for waxing eloquent about the tapestry of existence and the dangers that other realities hold. The wise would heed the witchwarper’s words, for Zemir has looked into infinite realities—and he’s vowed to never again lose another to the fray.

Amanda Hamon
Managing Developer