Archcrafter: Chapters 22-24 (The Weirkey Chronicles) (Patreon)

I have a surprise for everyone, one that was a surprise to me too! A fan of Street Cultivation just sent me fanart of Rick and Melissa. ^-^ I'm not sure how many of you have Instagram, but if people don't, I'll see if I can't get someone to upload the files elsewhere.* Instagram seems to intercept downloading, which isn't ideal.

*Somebody else did before I figured it out. See here and here for non-Instagram versions.

Meanwhile, these chapters are soulcrafting and an introduction to the next little arc, which I hope people enjoy.

-

Chapter 22

With the well of gambling profit dried up, Theo could only eye his total and hope the numbers worked out in the end.

He'd received his salary for another month, which took him a hundred and ten Fithan Discs closer. Some of his plans for Aathal had been deemed viable by House Blacksilver, but not as immediately profitable as the granitebile. Instead of a percentage, they'd given him flat payments. Combined with his ongoing income from the petalfilter work, that earned him roughly another two hundred.

So in all... only nine hundred. Over a hundred Fithan Discs short, which was no small sum.

Of course, he'd gain it in another month, but he was concerned that the drysupernova wouldn't be available by then. He almost considered gambling again, though challenging the House of Coin was clearly too risky. The others might have loaned him the money, yet he was already in their debt and they didn't have much, having purchased their own sublime materials.

One possibility was to begin selling off what assets they had, though it was a bad option that would cost them in the end. The Deuxan sleigh, for example, couldn't be easily replaced and saved them money each month. Nauda reminded him that they still had the eryo claws, which definitely had some value, but he wanted to save those for a time when he was truly desperate. His deadline might be highest priority, but a single sublime material wasn't worth losing irreplaceable assets.

If he had one skill developed on Earth, it was preventing depressing thoughts from overwhelming him completely. Despite falling short and feeling the increasing pressure, Theo didn't let up in his soulcrafting routine even slightly, throwing himself into every task he had available.

The most successful of those was his work soulcrafting a pure speed room. He'd researched the yellow crystals from the mine and discovered they were named, unsurprisingly, tornadogems. Imbued with wind as they were, they had a clear tie to concepts of speed and could definitely find a place in his soulhome.

For the first time since his return, however, he found himself having to build the room to dampen the essence of a sublime material instead of enhance it. They simply generated too much wind, clashing with his gravitational concepts of mass and pressure. So instead of placing them on an altar, he'd built a box for them out of leftover eclipsebasalt. That had contained them far too well, however, storing them inertly.

In the end, he'd forced himself to purchase some glass with his House merits, though he didn't like dropping further from his goals there. He still needed well over a thousand merits total, and his recent activities had been less successful at acquiring those than earning money.

Once he forced himself, however, the chamber came together quickly. He built a hollow cube of eclipsebasalt, then replaced the four sides with dark window panes. The top was a lid, through which he poured all the tornadogems he'd collected from the quarry. Once shielded from the rest of his soulhome, they began to spin around one another, soon forming a tornado of cantae. Their force passed through the dark window panes and was transformed into a much more palatable energy.

It all would have been much easier and cheaper if Fiyu had been able to create the glass for him, but it wasn't an option and he was actually uncertain if it was even theoretically possible. Such matters had been at the very edge of his understanding when he'd been a Stronghold, so he held the rules he remembered lighter.

In any case, the glass worked well enough for now. He had the force of a tornado inside his soulhome, and he could strengthen it simply by acquiring more tornadogems. Still, whenever he had time, he did his best to carve the walls of the room into a proper speed chamber.

He could definitely feel the results, able to move much more swiftly than he had before. When he tried sparring with Nauda, her enhanced speed was no longer overwhelming, but he still wasn't satisfied. Even if Nauda was as fast as Esaire had been before, he'd be even faster by the time of their duel. The speed chamber was a good start, but he needed more.

Which just brought him around to the same old flaw: his second floor chambers would work more efficiently if he could move his singularity upward. To do that, he needed the drysupernova, and that required the money he didn't have.

Eventually, after another mundane assignment, he realized that he needed to relax if he was going to think of a breakthrough. That had always been one of his greatest flaws, in a sense: he'd been so focused on gaining strength that he'd missed Vistgil's schemes, then so obsessed with returning to the Nine that he'd lived a miserable life on Earth. It seemed efficient only through tunnel vision, but with perspective he could see that it limited him in the end.

So instead of continuing to be unsociable, he found Nauda when she wasn't working and they both went to Fiyu's room. House Blacksilver had windowless rooms designed for Ichili, and Fiyu had customized hers since they arrived, reinforcing the door to reduce sounds and veiling all the lights. Only when checking to make sure Senka wasn't underfoot did Theo realize that he hadn't seen her recently.

"How are you, Theo?" Fiyu had been soulcrafting, but emerged to smile at him. He could only shrug.

"I need to think about something other than soulcrafting. What have the two of you been doing?"

"Mostly soulcrafting," Nauda said, but Fiyu regarded him seriously.

"I have a question, Theo. If soulcrafters do not exist on Earth, what was your profession? Were you a gambler?"

Theo coughed in surprise, struggling not to laugh. No, the only gambling he'd done had been preparation for a return, not trying to run any serious operations. "No, I wasn't a professional gambler. Honestly, I wasn't much of anything. It's not a very interesting time of my life, even though it's the majority of my life."

"It would be interesting to me." Fiyu continued staring, and he swore he could feel a supernatural sense flowing over him. "Your world seems strange to me, more strange than any one of the Nine Worlds. It is okay if you do not want to speak of it too much, but could you tell us what you did for a living?"

As the two of them watched him, Theo realized that this was very nearly a first. In his first life - no, he kept falling into that pattern, and it led him to make the wrong separations. Of all the people he had met on his journey through the Nine, essentially none had asked him much about his home. They'd treated him as if he was a brand new person, without a world that would be strange and exotic to them.

Yet he remembered his friends, and they had been vibrantly curious people. He wondered if perhaps he had been the one who had caused it, wanting to forget that he had ever lived elsewhere and exist wholly in a new life. But his silence had stretched on for too long, and they deserved an answer.

"I was an operations manager." When they both blinked at him, clearly not having heard the words he intended, he tried again. "Imagine an organization larger than a House, employing many more people and selling products over a much larger area. When a structure becomes that big, you can't just have a few leaders deciding everyone. My job was managing supply chains, supervising the work of others, and maintaining quality."

Nauda stared at him with an unreadable expression and eventually shook her head. "Well, that might explain a few things about you."

"I think I understand the purpose," Fiyu said, "but I cannot imagine what your actual work would have been. Did you enjoy it?"

Theo snorted. "Not at all. At first, I was convinced that I was going back to the Nine Worlds at any moment, so I wasted my early years. When I realized it might be a long time, I took stable jobs that supported me and let me travel. It paid well enough, so I could explore my world, hoping to find a place close enough to the Nine Worlds to have a door back."

"I see." Fiyu bobbed her head as if pleased with his answer, though he thought it was a terrible one. Meanwhile, Nauda balanced her staff across her legs and tilted it back and forth, eventually coming up with a question.

"So what happens to that money, back on your world?"

"It probably stays in the bank, where I left it." Thinking about such details felt deeply wrong to him, somehow, as if he should have abandoned that life entirely. Instead of flinching away from the thoughts, as he often had, he pushed harder. That was part of his life, and ignoring it would cost him.

"And to your friends, you just disappeared?"

"Hah, as if I had real friends. If anyone thought about me, they probably assumed that I just cut them off."

Fiyu shook her head. "That is sad. It is good that you were able to return to the Nine Worlds."

"I hope it is." For a while he sat back and reflected on that, wondering just how they were connected. A very long time ago, Vistgil had spoken to him as if his old life had ended, an irrelevant prologue before his true life began. 

Now it was clear that those words had been meant to manipulate him, but how? Vistgil must need people from Earth for some reason, which meant he had to keep them ignorant. The problem was, Theo couldn't think of anything he'd done before that was so important that someone else couldn't have done it. Surely someone as powerful as Vistgil could do his own dirty work. What he needed to remember was that Earth did matter, somehow, or there wouldn't be traps set up to destroy him.

Realizing that he'd fallen into his thoughts again, Theo smiled at both of them. "One thing I can say: I'm glad I'm here, and I'm glad I met you. This is my third shot at life, and I'd like to get it right this time."

Nauda smiled and touched his arm. Fiyu bobbed her head pleasantly. Senka slid out from underneath the bed and screeched, "Senka too, Senka too!"

All of them flinched in surprise, and Theo very nearly flattened her into a puddle. Not out of panic, but because he really didn't want to deal with her at the moment. Before he could decide whether or not to do it anyway, Senka suddenly thrust a large sack against his chest.

"Senka stole this for you!"

He looked down to see what junk she'd taken this time, hoping that it contained some money or items of decent value. But to his surprise, the entire sack was filled with Fithan Discs, not a single piece of trash in sight. After quickly calculating the value at over a hundred total, he looked up to Senka, only to find her staring at him with unusual intensity.

"Senka doesn't want you to hate Senka. Senka isn't a Senkahead all the time."

Theo met her gaze, wondering if there was really something there. "Senka, you..."

"Sporp!" She abruptly flopped backwards against Nauda's legs, then tried to chew on the end of her staff. When Nauda pulled it away, she began to thrash on her back and wail. The abrupt shift left all of them staring at her, not quite sure how to take it.

In the end, Theo hefted the sack. "There's enough here. If you meant to do that, Senka, thank you."

"Give Senka yummies right now!"

While Fiyu tried to console her, Nauda instead stepped closer. "Are you going to buy it tomorrow, or...?"

"Right now." He saw her expression and grinned in response. "I might have worked a very boring job, but I know something about doing things efficiently. If this works out, I'll be unsociable again for a while."

"Just so long as you keep your ultimate goals in mind."

She let him go, so Theo rushed to take the sleigh. A cynical part of his mind was convinced that the drysupernova would have been purchased just before he arrived, or someone would attack him on the way, or Vistgil himself would descend from the sky. None of those happened: he simply walked into the store, purchased the drysupernova from a polite clerk, and left.

He toyed with it all the way back, marveling at the power burning within. Though he was certain it would fulfill its most basic purpose, he wasn't sure how much of the cantae would be lost in the process. This was one of the points of his blueprint he wasn't completely satisfied with, since he'd been dependent on Brigana's design for a core and was trying to rework from first principles.

Back in the Blacksilver complex, he locked his door and practically leapt into his soulhome. It actually hadn't been so long since he'd been forcing work on his speed chamber, exhausted, yet the short time with the others left him rejuvenated. That, and the potential for a breakthrough.

First, he pulled the singularity up as high as it would go, the space between floors. Then he set the drysupernova hovering in the center of the shaft, which it did easily. It really was a remarkable sublime material, ready to explode and begin generating immense energy. What he needed to do was subvert all of that, make sure that the energy didn't damage his soulhome but did leave the glossy black residue like before.

Though he started with the old model, something about it felt wrong, so he prepared his own plans. This wasn't kindling a heart chamber for the first time, after all, but expanding on top of the singularity he already had. After considering every angle as well as he could, Theo took a deep breath and let cantae flow into the drysupernova.

This time he had a split second view of an explosion before his back smashed against the wall of his second floor, blinded by stars. He staggered upright, struggling to blink them away, trying to see the results properly.

His fingers touched the obsidian-like stone before his eyes recovered, and he let himself smile. The central chamber had been dark eclipsebasalt before, but now instead of rough stone, all the walls were glossy. Some of the explosion had made it into the outer rooms as well, coating parts of the walls. That might be a problem later, until he found a way to work the strange stone, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

Because his singularity pulsed more powerfully than before. Not only had it survived the explosion, it seemed to have absorbed most of the cantae, growing far denser than before.

This time, when he pulled it to the center of his second floor, his soulhome held firm. The power flowed throughout every chamber more intensely than before. He had the heart chamber he needed, now it was just a matter of putting it to use.

-

Chapter 23

Though Theo was mostly glad when they had a second chance at the quarry competition run by House Teal, it also reminded him that he had less than three months left. Half his time before the duel had elapsed, and though he'd made significant progress, "significant" was the bare minimum he needed to survive.

As they headed out to the quarry, Nauda was chatting cheerfully, tossing her staff from hand to hand. Both of them were eager to test themselves against the whirlwind again, though via different means. By contrast, Fiyu had sat still and silent the entire time, even her eyes closed. When they drew nearer, she finally spoke.

"Do we know what the top prize is this month?"

"Not sure." Nauda glanced back at her, grin fading. "Are you going to try to win?"

"I would like to try." Fiyu's expression shifted to a shy smile. "I think I can. I thought my perception chamber was perfect, but I have been inspired to make improvements. This will be a good test."

"Wait for the prize announcement," Theo suggested, "and then decide whether or not it's worth it. You can still test yourself and then stop at the last second, like we did."

"Yes, but I think you and Nauda will benefit more from it than I will. If you do not need me to collect tornadogems, I would like to win the trial. It is very noisy and disruptive out here."

That was fair enough, and since only one of them could win each month, it didn't hurt to start. He suspected that he and Nauda could gain much more from the trial itself, unless the prize was ever something truly valuable. Given the state of House Teal, he suspected it wasn't likely, though it was always possible they'd sell off something from their vaults...

Then he caught sight of the quarry and other thoughts fell away. A Deuxan sleigh sat near the entrance, and Esaire leaned against it.

All conversation ceased, and only discipline kept Theo on his path. Here, in front of so many witnesses, Esaire couldn't possibly be attempting an assassination. More likely it was a challenge, which had its own risks and potential benefits. Deciding to pretend he didn't care, Theo stopped the sleigh not far away and stepped out without even acknowledging him.

"I'm impressed you haven't run off again." Esaire kept pace with him, ignoring the other two. "Or do you just understand that we'll keep following you?"

"You're a few months early for a duel." Theo looked back at him without expression, trying to parse the exact emotions he saw in the other man's face. There was anger, but tightly controlled, not in control of him.

"My grandfather heard that you failed this training course last time, so I figured you'd try again. Just a little friendly competition."

Since any answer would be useless, Theo didn't bother, just accepting that he might not get the training he'd wanted this time. He thought that this might work out in his favor, since the training course and its prize would be useless to Esaire. Talented soulcrafters with an organization behind them didn't often make mistakes, so this was an opportunity... provided that Esaire didn't pull off something else.

"Everyone, attend to me!" It was the same official from House Teal as the previous month, Lady Baryara, spouting the same vainglorious platitudes.

Tuning her out, Theo instead examined Esaire from the corner of his eyes. Though Esaire felt like an Archcrafter, Theo suspected that he had had already ascended and built a shielding wall. His clothing was immaculate, of course, but the strangest thing was that he wore a Deuxan dueling blade at his hip. Previously he'd used gloves that were a powerful armament, yet Theo didn't see them.

They might be hidden, but it was a curious choice. Given that they knew Theo fought at range, it would have been logical to try to close the distance and use the gloves to tear him apart. Then again, perhaps Esaire had decided he needed range as well, or was worried about direct contact with Theo's abilities.

At the end of her speech, Lady Baryara announced the prize: a sublime material called a mistsphere. Fiyu perked up, but then tugged on his sleeve and whispered.

"I would like the prize, but should I stay to help you?"

"No, go for the top." Theo shot a quick glance at Esaire, who didn't seem to be listening, and then leaned back to her. "I think Esaire wants to win, but I suspect he also wants to attack me. That will give you a chance, and it might work against him."

"Okay, I will do this. Be safe."

Not long after, Lady Baryara sounded the beginning of the match. Esaire drew his sword with a flourish, turning on Theo... who promptly leapt down the side of the quarry into the whirlwind.

He was moving far faster than intended, fragments of stone whizzing around him, yet he mostly kept up. A few did manage to strike him on the way down, but they no longer moved so quickly that his eyes couldn't track them. It would be more difficult around the central mountain, but his main intent was to put space between himself and Esaire to spread out the fight.

When he looked up, he struggled to see through the full whirlwind... yet he soon saw Fiyu. She walked calmly down the side of the quarry, gracefully stepping aside from each stone that spun her way. It was nothing like Tythes's indifferent evasion, but instead a surprisingly elegant dance. Such choreography would be impossible with pure reaction time: she must be feeling each and every stone in the quarry and planning her route to spin around them.

Nauda slid down the slope quickly, only knocking aside a few rocks on her way to him. She glanced at Fiyu, then upwards. "Looks like Fiyu will be fine, but Esaire is right behind me. Want help?"

"Let him fight me." Theo flexed his fingers and prepared his cantae. "Step in if he tries to inflict permanent injury, but otherwise stay wary. I don't think he'd do something like targeting Fiyu, but we should be ready."

He was going to say more, but at that moment Esaire descended through the storm. His body was cloaked in a sapphire aura that burned with a Ruler's cantae, against which rocks shattered into harmless fragments. As he landed, Theo gestured to his own eyes, hoping that Nauda would understand. She nodded and stepped back, but then he needed to focus on Esaire.

The first lunge was blindingly fast, and it would have skewered him if not for his new speed chamber. As soon as he dodged, Theo dropped a reverse gravitational field over both of them as he leapt back. Esaire flinched as he started to rise, while Theo returned to the ground.

Unfortunately, Esaire immediately shifted the nature of the aura around him, again resisting gravity and returning to the ground. To do so he needed to drop the defensive shield, though Theo was immediately skeptical of that switch. Was he trying to deceive Theo into thinking that he could only manage one, as preparation for the duel?

In any case, the few rocks whirling around the bottom of the quarry seemed to be no threat to Esaire at all, since he stepped aside from them without even taking his eyes off his opponent. As that opponent, Theo realized that he had a difficult fight on his hands, since the rocks were still a threat to him. Even with Esaire having his back to the coming rocks, this would be difficult.

"You did kill Delarde, didn't you?" Esaire raised his sword to a thrusting position, but held that stance. "Tell me the truth."

"I didn't do it with my own hands, but when he attacked us, I fought back." Though he wasn't sure what he saw in his opponent's face, Theo decided to go with honesty. "You must have known he'd made enemies."

"Delarde had his flaws, but he was my friend." Esaire crept another step forward, eyes remaining calm. "If it had just been self-defense, I might have let you run. But when I learned what sort of person you are, I decided that I needed to end this."

"And just what do you know about who I am? Why would the Armeau family chase me this far?"

"There's no point talking to you anymore."

Another rush, but this time Theo was ready, leaping aside from the thrust. It transformed into a slash with startling speed and he barely leaned back in time. He tried to cast a gravitational torsion field into his opponent's torso, but Esaire pushed through it, kicking him in the chest.

Theo flew into the air, temporarily caught in the whirlwind, but Esaire leapt after him even faster. Instead of trying to strike back, Theo focused on dodging. He brought himself back to the ground sooner than normal with a gravitational field, dodging just under another thrust. As soon as he hit the ground, he sprang upward with reverse gravity, taking him through the whirlwind again.

Esaire frowned, perhaps realizing that his defensive aura meant he couldn't feel what gravitational fields Theo was using. Between them, the other contestants stared, set up defenses, or tried to take cover despite the fight going on around them. Nauda stood near the center, watching carefully.

When Theo's gaze shifted away, Esaire's cantae flared. Theo moved on instinct but the sword still pierced through the side of his arm. Esaire was no longer holding back, and his full speed was overwhelming. 

A blow slammed into the side of Theo's head and he hit the ground, too disoriented to generate any more fields. Esaire immediately leapt above him with a foot on his chest, his sword positioned overhead. It first targeted his head, but Esaire hesitated a moment, then aimed it for his shoulder instead.

Nauda struck from behind, a pulse nullifying Esaire's cantae aura and then her staff slamming into his arm. He cried out in pain and staggered... but only one step.

Theo scrambled back to his feet, watching Esaire. That blow had contained Nauda's full strength, and it would have shattered the bones of most soulcrafters, but the way Esaire flexed the arm, he obviously retained its full use. He wasn't just a Ruler, he'd moved further along with his blueprint. Truthfully, Theo didn't like the odds even with the three of them fighting together.

"I have won." Fiyu spoke softly, barely audible over the wind. Esaire turned to her as if surprised and saw her standing just above the whirlwind, the mistsphere in one hand... and cantae flickering in the other.

For several heartbeats, Theo thought that Esaire might try to attack them all anyway. Then he snorted derisively and sheathed his sword again, turning his full attention to Theo.

"You won't be able to rely on anyone else when it's time for our duel." He switched back to his defensive aura and leapt from the quarry in a single bound, shattering through rocks in the way.

Once he was gone, Theo breathed a sigh of relief, which was a strange thing to do at the bottom of a tornado creating a vortex of sharp rocks. He was glad that Esaire hadn't pressed the matter, but even more glad that he'd left. Their fight hadn't taken very much time, so they could still make use of the opportunity to train.

Nauda watched for a possible return while Fiyu moved down to them, again easily evading the rocks. Once she arrived, they found a corner of the quarry partially shielded from the wind and huddled close enough to speak.

"I spent the entire fight trying to use my telescope," Nauda began. "His control is excellent, but you managed to create a few openings. Esaire is a Ruler now, but you obviously know that."

"He's too fast." Theo tried to bind the injury on his arm, which would definitely need healing but wasn't overly deep. "What I'm afraid of is what else he might have in store."

"His second floor is strange, all of it dedicated to a single complex room."

"Probably a Corporeal Floor, which will transform him physically."

"That was my impression, and it explains how his body alone shrugged off such a solid hit from me." Nauda frowned to herself, but soon continued. "Anyway, his third floor has a completely soulcrafted interior, but it's empty. I couldn't tell anything about it from the layout alone. So he had three full floors of cantae, but no new techniques."

"For now. We'll see how much has changed in another three months."

"Will you be okay?" Fiyu asked. "You've soulcrafted faster, but he will have so many advantages. I hope you are not discouraged by today, but I would be discouraged."

"Actually, this is a good thing." Theo smiled at the two of them and he didn't have to fake it. "Attacking me now was honestly a bit childish, because it just gave me more experience against him. Now, let's get to work and try to take as many of those tornadogems as possible."

Though everything he said was true, as Theo began to train his reflexes again, his mood declined. This attack might have been a tactical error on Esaire's part, but he was no fool. For Theo to win, he needed to overcome an opponent who had massive resources behind him and likely a decade of soulcrafting more than him.

If he was gambling on the fight, he wouldn't like his odds.

-

Chapter 24

It had only been a few days since the fight at the quarry, but Nauda still fumed every time she began soulcrafting. From one perspective, that made no sense, because Esaire didn't care about her in the slightest. Yet she had delivered a perfect hit to his arm, believing that she would slow his progress before the duel, and he had nearly shrugged it off.

Perhaps she was simply seeing the limits of Archcrafter, though there was still so much that needed to be done. In retrospect, she wished that she had built her barrier chamber in a different place so that its cantae could flow upward to reinforce another chamber. Theo's design was entirely based on such principles, and when she'd spoken to Fiyu, her blueprint had similar plans. Yet there was no time to stop and remodel, not with so many monsters above her.

Especially Tythes. She hadn't spoken to the others about it, but their previous meeting at the quarry had unnerved her. The Authority had held eye contact for a moment too long, making clear that he truly remembered her. Though it would be incredibly petty for him to hate her for standing up to him, Tythes seemed like a petty man.

Which might mean yet another Authority-tier soulcrafter potentially standing in her path. Nauda sighed and continued stacking bricks on the tower beside her main soulhome. She'd used some of her merits to purchase good sublime materials, both for stone and mortar. Being able to rely on a House's resources was certainly convenient in some ways, and if not for the threats hanging over them, she might have been happy.

There had been a time when she'd thought soulcrafting all the Archcrafter materials she'd been storing in her soul would make her impossibly strong. And they certainly had strengthened her, just not enough. She'd only been an Archcrafter for less than a year, and in the tournament she'd fought others with decades of experience, but the fact was that she had lost.

Here, that didn't matter. But in her home, losing meant death.

By the time she finished the second floor of her tower, Nauda was spiritually exhausted. She still hadn't made full use of the tower Theo had helped her create: it was suited for a single highly focused technique, but she didn't have the right sublime materials. That was always the problem.

Dragging her weary body back to her main soulhome, Nauda examined the sublime materials they'd recovered from the eryo again. If she could somehow make use of them, they'd strengthen her immensely, but the materials threatened to demolish her soulhome if she didn't keep them in safe storage. Abruptly she realized that she was falling into the same pattern, relying on future sublime materials to save her, and returned to the real world.

As always, it was disorienting to go from an exhausted spiritual form to her physical body, which brimmed with strength. Soulcrafting was deeply physical work, so her muscles there burned in the same way they did after real world training, yet those sensations vanished like spirits.

She'd almost forgotten that Theo was soulcrafting in the same courtyard, she'd been inside so long. Instead of getting his attention physically, she touched his knee and used her telescope to shift into his soulhome. Since she wasn't truly there, just an attentive presence, she didn't feel any exhaustion. Instead of the rich tactile feelings of her own soul, she floated as hazy fire, able to drift in all directions.

"Yeah?" Theo's voice echoed from within his second floor. It was solid, so she couldn't see him, but within his soul of course he knew her presence.

"Taking a break," Nauda said. She couldn't simply push into his soulhome, so she drifted up to enter via the hole in the roof.

It wasn't just a hole anymore, she realized. Theo had built a shutter-like structure that opened upward, and though it was probably just a temporary construct because it was made from local stone, it made her reconsider his soulhome. Normally cantae for techniques was released through windows or doors, but could it be released from the roof? She saw no reason why not, and now that she floated overhead, she felt as though his entire soulhome was a weapon being aimed at her.

Floating down the central shaft, Nauda found Theo working away at his tornadogem container again, sublime materials spread all around him. He worked with a furious intensity, but managed to look up at her seriously.

"Anything the matter, or just wanted to talk?"

"I feel like I have the opposite problem you do." Nauda tried to lean back against the wall, but her body merely slipped along it. "You have too much to do and not enough time. For me, I finally have most of what I want, and I feel like I'm not using my time well."

"You could always consider a remodel of your first floor, or further refine your rooms." Theo glanced up from his work, and though he might not be able to see her expression well in this form, he seemed to understand. "But that isn't what you're looking for, is it?"

"No. You're bending your entire Archcrafter floor to a single technique, and even if Fiyu is stalling, she's in an excellent position for when she ascends. I need to find something more dramatic to soulcraft, just in case things go bad."

"Well, there's always a shielding wall. Your two-sectioned soulhome should already have expanded the boundaries of your soul enough, so you could begin on that. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it."

"You're not building one."

"Because I have a duel to the death in less than three months." He hesitated slightly in his work, then shrugged. "Not technically to the death, but you know what I mean."

She did, and she thought he was thinking about the problem the right way, but that didn't mean that she agreed with his other conclusions. "I'm not sure a shielding wall is worth it. Being able to pretend I'm a first tier soulcrafter isn't worth very much, and even if I went overboard and built it two stories tall, how well could I pretend to be an ordinary person?"

"If you soulcraft the wall well enough, it's possible."

"I mean the fact that I'm carrying a powerful armament and spending all my time with soulcrafters."

That got a slight chuckle from him. "Okay, fair enough. But shielding walls can do more than just hide your strength. They can resist observation techniques, and most importantly they'll defend your soulhome from serious damage if things go wrong. With the right wall, you could drink undiluted granitebile harmlessly."

"I see your point, but I don't see how it will matter in most situations." Nauda tightened a fist, feeling the tension through her arm even in spirit form. "Maybe that would matter while fighting other Archcrafters trying to injure me, but how often will that be relevant? If a single Authority or worse decides to kill or cripple me, they'll tear straight through the shield wall."

Finally Theo looked up at her for more than a moment, seeing past the immediate soulcrafting questions to her true concerns. He didn't answer right away, which she appreciated about him - the Theo who strode forward confident in everything was different from the Theo who waited. When he started to open his mouth to answer, however, there was a disruption in the real world.

"Hey! Hey, fumpets! Stop sporping around and pay attention to Senka!"

Theo growled in irritation, so Nauda waved a hand. "I'll take care of it." A moment later, she was back in her body, watching Senka attempt to shove a flagstone into Theo's hazy body.

"Senka, where did you get that?"

"From the ground, silly gurfoop." Senka turned and tried to push the flagstone into her body instead, so Nauda took it from her, which stopped her for only a moment before she pulled more things from her filthy dress. "Senka also founded these!"

A piece of moldy bread and some Fithan Discs. Nauda sighed and took Senka by the shoulders to force her to stand still. "Senka, you need to stop stealing things. Even if you don't care that it's wrong, you're going to steal from the wrong person someday and get us all in trouble."

"Senka wouldn't steal! Senka just founded stuff!"

"You very proudly told Theo that you stole all that money before."

"Nu-uh! Stop lying like a lying liar! Senka wouldn't do that!" Her pronouncement complete, Senka wriggled out of her grip and moved into a corner to sulk.

Sighing, Nauda watched her for a while, as if that would get her any closer to answers. Theo seemed content with his explanation that she was an outsider broken by her transition, and he was probably right, but Nauda remained dissatisfied. Yes, Senka had been overall helpful to them despite her obnoxiousness. That didn't mean she liked having the question in the back of her mind.

Before Senka could finish her sulk, which never took long, the courtyard door opened again. This time it was Fiyu, and Nauda immediately smiled, but the other woman looked unusually nervous. Not upset or panicking, just anxious. Theo emerged from his soulcrafting before she started to speak.

"I have been negotiating with House Blacksilver organizers for many months." There was a bit of satisfaction in Fiyu's tone, despite her anxiousness. "I knew our best chance to use the gate to Ichil was a long assignment, but they did not want to give me one. There are other Ichili who are stronger soulcrafters, and more experienced in this region."

"But they offered?" Theo asked, and Fiyu immediately nodded.

"Yes! It is a long assignment that will allow us to travel far, deep enough for me to send a message to my relative. Though it will be dangerous, I believe that we could do it... if you are willing to join me."

"Of course we will!" Nauda surged to her feet and had to restrain herself from getting too close, but Fiyu heard her tone and beamed back at her.

"In that case, we need to leave in less than a day. They only gave me the opportunity because of an accident, so I fear they could take it away again. Let us go as soon as possible."

A day later, the three of them packed their things and departed to Ichil.