Bloodcrete: Chapters 13-14 (The Weirkey Chronicles) (Patreon)

Some fun stuff this week! We have a chapter of soulcrafting information I've been waiting a long time to reveal, plus the chapter structure of this book evolves a bit. Please enjoy. ^-^

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Chapter 13

Theo should have been happy. It wasn't the first time he'd thought that, but this time really got under his skin.

Things had begun well enough. The Blacksilver Authorities had responded to his signal with remarkable speed - apparently the situation on the Dustwind Plateaus really was one of their higher priorities. They had arrived in the middle of a skirmish with more demons, so Theo had pulled back and had the opportunity to examine all three of them in combat.

Karchibol was the most conventional Authority, with only a single floor of shielding wall leaving most of his soulhome plainly visible. Four floors of red Fithan stone and no signs of damage that might imply a crippling ascension to Authority. Most likely he was kept from Stronghold by the fact that his soulhome lacked advanced features or more complex cantae flow. His fighting style certainly matched: conventional flight and cantae bolts, but nothing remarkable.

By contrast, Janne's soulhome was completely obscured even in combat. Her stealth techniques couldn't match Fiyu's, but she was more than competent and Theo didn't think he'd seen the full extent of her technique that controlled dust. Aside from cantae efficiency, she didn't reveal anything else about her soulhome and he could only guess that she was the most recent ascension for Blacksilver.

But the main reason Theo wanted to observe them was Dhan: he had never actually seen the third Blacksilver Authority fight before. His basic techniques were flawless but plain, clearly not his primary focus. Only at the end, when the demons attempted to sacrifice, did he reveal anything more. His Ichili mask glowed, revealing itself to be an armament, and a blue field expanded from Dhan's body. It froze both demons and cantae bolts in place before he ended the battle.

Fighting an Authority as a Ruler was always suicide, and Theo didn't anticipate the need to fight his own allies, but he couldn't help but compare himself. Theo estimated that he would be able to defeat Karchibol basically the instant he ascended. Janne was hard to judge and would be a threat if she got the drop on him. But Dhan... an area-control technique like that would be a bad match for his gravity-based skills.

At least he wasn't an incompetent Authority. Theo had been ready to discuss plans with the three of them, but they seemed eager to take over. They'd discussed the evidence he'd found and his potential deal with the Asplundat Movement, and they'd agreed those were reasonable steps. Dhan had gone off to investigate, and it seemed as if everything would be resolved in a few days.

So instead of working with the three of them, Theo found himself back in Norro Yorthin, soulcrafting in the Blacksilver Complex. No one had even contacted him in several days. Technically, he should have been happy to finally ditch all the politics and just focus on his ascension, but they'd made him put in so much effort...

He tried to tell himself that it was because he had to babysit Krikree. She wasn't confident enough to navigate the city herself, but insisted on it: first she wanted to "visit the beetles" and then "visit the rocks". Since he'd needed to pick up his remaining windows, he'd indulged her. Currently she was staying with Navim, apparently having gotten over her confusion and more interested in asking what every object in his house was. So, really, he couldn't blame her either.

When he was honest, lying in bed before he went to sleep, Theo knew that he was just frustrated by the fact that he hadn't ascended yet. It had been over a year since he had ascended to Ruler. Of course, the average soulcrafter never got past that point, and even fast soulcrafters expected to spend several years before reaching Authority. But if this had been his first life, it would have happened months ago. The fact that he'd been manipulated was little comfort, especially if his enemies could use Artifacts of Elghiera or other tricks to ascend others that fast.

Apparently the other Earth-born human had fled Norro Yorthin when the Order of the Deepest Blue began to grow aggressive. But reliable intelligence from elsewhere on Fithe suggested that he had already ascended again, meaning Theo was at the same tier as someone calling himself "Raythe Darkblade". That hurt.

The one time he'd tried to contact Dhan, he'd been informed that the Authority was busy - apparently too busy to have time for him. After that, Theo decided to focus exclusively on his soulcrafting, no matter how much it irritated him. It wasn't as if there wasn't more work to do.

His first task had been to finish placing and coating every single one of Navim's windows, now that the set was complete. There had been nothing really wrong with sending his cantae out through open holes, but the glass increased the efficiency of his cantae flow and strengthened his techniques just slightly. Small edges, but at the higher tiers power was formed from advantages like that. Not taking windows seriously had been a major problem in his Authority ascension in his first soulhome: they had seemed like a waste of time that had little impact until that was suddenly very untrue.

Only one of the window installations took anything other than simple conscientious work. A long time ago, he'd installed rainhorn antlers in the window of his torsion bolt chamber to "sharpen" the cantae. It had worked well enough, but it had been a temporary measure. Replacing the antlers with a window would make the technique slightly less deadly, but aligning it with his central concept should make it more difficult for opponents to resist.

That left him with a pair of antlers. They were a rare material available only seasonally, and they'd been bathed in the cantae of two ascensions, so he placed them in his storage chamber. He couldn't imagine any context where they could be part of his soulhome, but it never hurt to have extra sublime materials.

Thinking about temporary measures made him think about his primary door, which had been soulcrafted from simple Tatian wood. Not hard to replace, he'd just been waiting for the right time. Theo used his House connections to purchase a material called weightwood from Aathal - the dark wood was an excellent match for his soulhome, so he put a lot more effort into this door.

Once it was perfectly fitted to his vestibule entrance, carved, and coated in supporting lacquer, Theo set about making the replacement. Everything lined up, of course, but when it was done he didn't really feel the difference. Still, it had to be an improvement, so he was glad to have finished it now.

He held the old door in both hands and looked it over. This had been the very first thing he soulcrafted on his return to the Nine Worlds. It didn't hold any particular emotion for him, and he'd chosen it just because it was one of the best ways to kickstart his soulcrafting. Still, when it came time to throw it into his singularity, he hesitated. Maybe it was pointless sentiment, but he decided to set it aside in his storage chamber instead.

Theo finished all that with a smile on his face. That expression rapidly crumbled as he considered his blueprint, his future plans, and how he was stuck at Ruler.

There was still work to do. He watered the grizzleroot with his spiritual blood every day, some of his third floor chambers needed more supporting materials, and there could always be more polishing. But it all felt pointless when he didn't have what he needed to take the next step. Which he couldn't do without reaching Noven, and Blacksilver wouldn't give him a weirkey until he solved the political mess.

"Whatcha doing?"

Senka popped up beside his bed while he was soulcrafting in irritation. He emerged ready to say something caustic about how that should have been obvious, but this was the real Senka. So he sighed and told the truth. "Getting angry at myself for not ascending."

"Yeah, I get that." Senka pulled herself up to sit beside him. "I was going to talk to you about that, because I've just remembered something. In my time, there was a special way to ascend without extra materials that could kick-start your progress toward Stronghold."

"Liar."

"Sporp, you didn't buy it even for a second. I guess I should have built up to it more."

"It was a good effort." Theo glanced down at her thoughtfully. Recently she had been fading in and out more, which seemed to be easier on her and rendered her much less annoying. "Is there anything I can do to further my overall advancement before ascending? I'm willing to take time to maximize my strength, but I don't feel like I can afford to spend any time against walls."

"Honestly, you're doing fine. The ascensions up to Authority are very well understood, even now."

"Implying that some of the later ones are unclear?"

"Yeah, there just isn't enough data because so few soulcrafters reach that point." Senka frowned and crossed her arms in a gesture that looked strange on her doll-like body. "You don't want me to try to strain my memory on any of that blook, because I might get it wrong. But I suppose I could tell you about some other things, if you don't mind a lecture."

"Please do."

"Really? I figured you liked being the one to give the lectures, not receive them."

Theo dropped to the floor in front of the bed and gave her an over-exaggerated bow. "Instruct me, oh great teacher!"

"Heh." Senka reached out, almost like she was going to touch his head, and then pulled back. "You actually enjoy this, don't you?"

"Of course I do." He pulled himself back up to the bed. "Can soulcrafters really be effective if they don't enjoy soulcrafting?"

"More than you'd think. For a great many, it's just a means to an end. I thought you were the same way, especially given the kinds of threats you're facing. You put up a good front."

Now that he thought about it, Theo reflected that in a sense he really had thought about himself that way. Part of him still wanted to believe it: that he was a purely logical being who only wanted the most efficient means to his ends. Those thoughts were entangled with emotions he didn't want to think about, so he remained silent.

"All Archcrafters are basically just Archcrafters," Senka said. Her tone had shifted lower, and she didn't look at him as she spoke. "Oh, I know the differences seem sporping huge when you're at that tier, but everyone is playing with the same cards. Your soulcrafting starts to affect your limits more at Ruler, but honestly the difference still isn't huge. Beyond Authority, however, the gaps widen."

"Were you a teacher in your past life?" Theo asked as he dropped his head into his hands as if listening raptly. "You have a lovely, sonorous voice."

"Shut it, fumpet. The principle applies to more than just the most basic concepts of quality. Yes, you have some blooky Authorities who purchased a bunch of powerful sublime materials and slapped them together poorly. Of course there's a huge difference between them and an Authority who actually knows how to soulcraft. But you could have someone build four floors perfectly well and there would still be a difference between them and someone else at the same tier."

"Because of more abstract principles of soulcrafting, or something else?"

"Some of both." Senka gave an odd shrug. "The importance of 'theme' is hard to quantify, but I'm too scrambled to be sure about that. I wanted to talk about something else: the Five Transcendent Monuments."

Theo raised his eyebrows. That was the first time he'd so much as heard the term.

"At least, that was the preferred name in my era. Some also wanted to call them the Five Sublime Monuments, but in my opinion there's too much sublime blook. It's an objective and useful term when it comes to materials or beasts, but the Five Monuments are more of an abstract category. Some also wanted to call them the Soulworks of Power, or the Five Great Works, but-"

"So. Five Transcendent Monuments. What are they?"

"By definition, they're the works of soulcrafting that have such potency that they can make almost as great an impact as ascending a tier. Not including transformative works you can only accomplish during an ascension, which are their own category. There could debatably be more, and some argued for a sixth, but I think five makes the most sense. You're already familiar with some." Senka held up a single finger. "The most common: Corporeal Floors. A Ruler with one is substantially different than a Ruler without."

"Surely that's just a trade-off," Theo said. "They'd have an entire floor they couldn't use for techniques, and it would impact what kinds of cantae flow they can have between floors. Maybe they'd have stronger bodies and more integrated cantae, but at the cost of flexibility and efficiency."

"I said substantially different, not superior." Senka rolled her eyes so hard she almost fell over. "Honestly, do you even listen? Or did you just go too long without hearing your own voice?"

Theo chuckled despite himself. He leaned back on his elbows so he wasn't towering over Senka so much. "Joking aside, this is interesting. What's the fundamental difference?"

"One thing that unites all of the Five Transcendent Monuments is that they can't be created effectively by remodeling. Say someone made it all the way to Dominion, or even Bupp... or even the seventh tier. If they hadn't built any of them, they would be fundamentally limited as a soulcrafter, and they'd probably never be able to go higher, no matter how many centuries they spent remodeling."

"I'm not behind because I've built three normal floors, am I?"

"In my time it was customary to work at least one Transcendent Monument into your first three, but I'm not convinced it's actually necessary." Senka gave him a little grin that looked almost sincere. "Your cube of power containing a spherical flow is actually very clever - that sort of multi-floor design is the kind of thing people argued for a sixth Monument, since you could never remodel for it. There's plenty of time for the Monuments later, I just thought you might want to know more so you could begin planning."

Instead of throwing out any more snark, Theo just gestured for her to continue.

"There's another of the five that requires an entire floor, or at least should use one: an Ethereal Floor. You know the basics of that?"

"I was aiming for it in my first life, possibly at Dominion. What about basements?"

"I'm sporping getting there!" Senka held up two fingers, then added two more. "The next two aren't as large, but they're potentially critical: an Immortality Conduit and a Field of Abrogation."

Multiple questions immediately occurred to Theo, but since Senka was being so cooperative, he arranged them into a mental list and got started. "Immortality has obvious benefits, but what makes it worthy of being part of the Big Five?"

"Ugh, that name is by far the worst. Look, there are a lot of different kinds of Immortality Conduit, because the definition is just that is extends your lifespan. The blookiest of them don't do anything else and can run out, so they just buy more time. But the best Conduits can be a fundamental transformation that's essential for the higher ascensions."

"While we're on the subject, why are they so difficult to create? I've always been surprised that people fail at them so often, considering the potential reward."

"Several reasons, but the biggest has to do with ascension reinforcement. Generally speaking, we say that an ascension strengthens previously soulcrafted sublime materials, making them as if they had begun at a higher tier. That's not precisely true." As she spoke, Senka leaned a little closer with a new spark in her eyes. "Powerful sublime materials are powerful within themselves. Ascended materials draw their power from their unity with you. This difference becomes extremely important when it comes to completing an Immortality Conduit."

"I'm guessing that if the materials are powerful but not highly bonded to your soul, that's what leads to a Conduit breaking?"

"Exactly! Any idiot with money can buy a ton of powerful materials, but that kind of power isn't what's relevant to spiritual immortality. In my era, it was generally said that your Conduit route should be in place for a full ascension, and your materials for two."

That threw a bit of a wrench into his plans: when Theo had been designing blueprints with Brigana, they hadn't known about that factor. His old blueprint really wouldn't have had any space, but fortunately he'd become more flexible. "I'll need to figure that out later, but I'm getting us off topic. What's this Field of Abrogation?"

"The sporping worst." Senka scowled toward the ceiling. "There was no way... I..."

She trailed off, suddenly looking almost lost. Theo quickly sat up and touched her back, wishing that he could do something to help. It didn't feel like any kind of attack, but something had clearly gone wrong. Senka shivered and then slowly shook her head.

"For a moment I thought I remembered something, but... it's gone. Anyway, that Monument is a little different than the others, and I guess I had a problem with it before. I really don't think I can tell you anything else."

"That's fine," Theo said. He almost spoke soothingly, but he doubted that was what Senka needed. "Why don't you get on with your lecture instead of wallowing in memories?"

"Fumpet." Senka grinned and then raised her fifth finger. "The last one is also a bit of an exception, and it's a gurfoop to name. Everybody had their own ideas, and some really are different, so there were constant arguments about nomenclature. But the fifth Transcendent Monument involves building deep into the soil of your soulhome."

"I feel like I've been getting teased about that for years. Can you finally explain basements in full?"

"I'd be afraid of directing you wrong, but I can tell you the effect. You know how two Authorities have exactly the same intensity of cantae, right? Of course you sporping do, sorry. Anyway, basement chambers change that. They're not as potent as ascensions, and they don't reforge sublime materials, but they do offer an edge you can't find anywhere else."

"So... Five Transcendent Monuments." Theo decided that he'd prefer a hard visualization, so he walked to his desk to grab some paper. He scooped up Senka, who yelped in indignation, and began sketching. "Let's compare several different Dominion-tier soulcrafters..."

Before he'd finished drawing his first tower, Senka snatched the pencil from him to mark it up. "This first blueprint will be a pure vanilla soulcrafter. That translate? Good. This design has powerful cantae and a lot of chambers for techniques and enhancement, but... that's it. I'm not saying it's blook, because any Dominion could wipe out a city, but they'll never be a higher power."

"What about a Dominion with all Five Transcendent Monuments?"

"Almost nobody crams them all into just six floors: you'd have so few techniques or special enhancements that you'd be vanilla in an entirely different way. But consider this." Senka copied his tower sketch and applied several different marks. "This soulcrafter has six floors, plus a basement and an Ethereal Floor. They might have slightly less flexibility, but their cantae is more intense and once they activate their Ethereal Floor, they'd blow the first blueprint away. A lot more work, but more potential in the end."

"Is that a pure hypothetical, or is that a suggested model?"

"Bit of both. Let me show you another one." Senka sketched a third tower, and this time he guessed what her markings meant before she explained. "This Dominion has a Corporeal Floor and an Immortality Conduit. Ignore how long they live - that won't matter in the short term. But their soulcrafting has fundamentally transformed their bodies, and that makes them more prepared for ascension than either of the others."

"Would it have other effects?" Theo asked. "Say that all three of these are fighting, and their cantae has been drained or exhausted..."

"The third one would tear through the other two like paper. But what I really wanted to show you is how all of this makes the tiers start to overlap more. Beating a Ruler as an Archcrafter? That's a feat - good job, you're a big strong man."

"Why thank you! I've been waiting my entire life for someone to-"

Senka swatted him with the pencil and continued. "But a Stronghold defeating a Dominion isn't shocking. Against an elite Dominion, of course the gap between tiers would still matter. But if you've soulcrafted more of the Five Transcendent Monuments than your opponent, the intensity of their cantae isn't going to save them."

After a little thought, Theo picked up another pencil and added a seventh floor to the first tower. "What about the gap between sixth and seventh? It's just a large as the leap to Authority, isn't it?"

"It's definitely a challenge, and even easier to ruin yourself. I doubt the seventh tier has ever been common, anywhere in any era, but it's the last place where a soulcrafter is likely to get stuck. Anyone beyond that is a world power for the ages."

"This has been... thanks for this, Senka. Are you still feeling alright?"

"What? I'm..." She trailed off and rubbed her forehead. "I guess I was getting caught up in all this. Yeah, I should probably rest. Just keep it all in mind, alright? If you can get me to another one of the rivers, I should be able to remember more."

She wandered away from the desk and fell face-first to the floor before snoring. Theo smiled affectionately but decided to leave her there, since there was no telling how her cursed state would react. Instead he sat down at the desk and began making some sketches of his own.

Her lecture had certainly given him a lot to think about. In a way, this would fit with his modified design. For a solar-based soulhome, he had needed his higher floors to grant him new techniques of various kinds. His gravity-based design had taken longer to generate the same raw destructive potential, but his techniques were more flexible. Instead of just piling on more in higher floors, he could think about how to enhance what he already had.

It might not have helped him ascend, but at least he had something to do again. An hour before, Theo would have welcomed a distraction. Now, when he heard a knock on the door, he got up with a scowl on his face. He could feel Dhan's presence outside, but he didn't want to talk about politics.

When he opened the door, Nauda stood alongside the Blacksilver Authority.

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Chapter 14

Nauda hadn't been planning to hug Theo when he opened the door, but she'd done so before she could consciously think about it. The beetles might be friendly enough, but there was no comparison to simple human touch. Thankfully Theo didn't mock her for it and instead rubbed her back in the proper Tatian manner.

If Dhan hadn't been looming right behind her, she might have embraced him longer. Since he was likely to start coughing forcefully if they wasted any more of his precious time, she pulled back. Honestly, she would have been happy to stay and talk in Theo's room, since she felt an odd affection for the Blacksilver chambers, but Dhan gestured for them to follow toward a secure chamber.

"No discussion of sensitive matters outside," he said tersely, "but the weirkey is a known quantity."

"Oh, that's right!" Nauda reached into her soulhome and revealed the chitin key for Theo to see. "Not the weirkey you wanted, I know, but it's great to finally have it."

"How was your time on Slest?" Theo asked.

"It was... a lot. I really want to talk to you about healing blueprints, and signalscent translations... for that matter, we need to talk about castes on Slest."

"I never traveled there before last year, remember? You're probably more of an expert than I am now."

"Not like that, more about... the societal structures we discussed." Nauda glanced toward Dhan, since she wasn't entirely sure what he would think of her thoughts. Best to leave that for later... possibly much later. "Anyway, I technically own this weirkey, but since I'm not an Authority, it will be in the keeping of House Blacksilver."

"Your offering to the House is greatly appreciated," Dhan said. "There are some who doubt it, but you have already contributed more than most. If you do ever reach Authority, the weirkey is yours."

"I was wanting to ask about Slescan trade," Theo said. "In theory you have access to the entire world, but you only know a small part of it, and most of it doesn't seem friendly."

"Actually, I had some thoughts about that." Nauda partially cut Theo off, and she expected him to glare at her, but he only glanced in her direction. When Dhan did as well, she continued. "Gray-Blue-Gold hive is open to formal trade, but I think you might want to trade with some groups directly. The leafpuller b- certain species on Slest mass-produce some sublime materials that I think would be beneficial to raising your younger soulcrafters."

"There are protocols for such things." Dhan stared down at her without expression. "Finding a weirkey is the most difficult step, but establishing contact is the most dangerous. There are entire regions of some worlds where Authorities arriving by weirkey will be attacked on sight. Rest assured that House Blacksilver will proceed with due caution."

That killed the conversation well enough, but they'd traveled half-way through the Blacksilver complex. Everything seemed much tenser than Nauda had last remembered. During her brief time in the city, she'd been surprised to see the presence of the Order of the Deepest Blue again, and even signs in the windows of some shops proclaiming that outsiders weren't allowed. Fortunately House Blacksilver didn't buy into any of that, but it troubled her more than she expected.

As they mounted the steps to the main building, Theo glanced over at Dhan. "So the reason you were busy is that you were picking up Nauda?"

"Among other work." Dhan glanced to the sides and spoke in a lower voice as he escorted them to one of the secure rooms. "I was also conducting investigations based on your own work. Due to something Nauda has found, I thought we should all discuss it together."

Once they were finally inside, Dhan stepped to one wall and folded his hands behind his back. "The situation on the Dustwind Plateaus has worsened. With the Asplundat Movement less active, the demons are causing more damage, which gives the Deepest Blue cultists more of a platform for their views. So this temporary reprieve will lead to war if we don't act."

"What do you want us to do?" Theo asked.

"You've already done enough for now. We used your contacts to establish a toehold in the region, providing aid with no strings attached. No military assistance, but we can replace their lost crops. We're much more concerned about problems from our side: there's evidence that House Crimson is increasingly active in the region."

Nauda wasn't convinced they could brush past all the consequences so easily, since demon attacks dismissed by leaders could often be real problems for local soulcrafters. But the mention of House Crimson fully seized her attention. She had gotten no hints at all from Tythes, so she could only imagine how bad the situation could become.

"What's most puzzling about this is that it doesn't make sense from a military perspective," Dhan continued. "They don't seem to be extracting resources or making contacts, and House Crimson does not have the forces to control a claim in such a contested region. If others discover their involvement as we have, they will be in a dire position."

"Unless they recruited all the wild tribes soulcrafters they captured before," Nauda suggested. Dhan immediately shook his head.

"While that's possible, it seems unlikely to be effective enough. If control of the Dustwind Plateaus is decided in battle, both sides will send Stronghold-tier soulcrafters. Wiltur has been expanding his House for a long time, but he must know that he can't fight equals without significant support."

"What about Tythes? Could this be the work of a faction within House Crimson?"

That one made Dhan pause for much longer before answering. "We are... less certain. Officially, every faction is unified in helping fight the Asplundat Movement if they go to war. Our spies suggest that Wiltur himself is behind the push into the Dustwind Plateaus, so we're still sorting through his basic motives."

Given what Tythes had been doing on Slest, Nauda had no doubt that he was working against his father again. She didn't trust him far at all, but she did believe the intense statements he'd made when they traveled together. Of all the problems growing on Fithe, she didn't think those two were the biggest, and secretly hoped they would eliminate one another.

"You implied the Asplundat Movement withdrew," Theo said, "but we still don't have any evidence to offer Homez. Shouldn't that be a higher priority?"

"It pains me to say it, but we may not understand the shape of this war." Dhan gestured and a map of Fithe descended from the ceiling - a much larger map than Nauda had ever seen before, with lands beyond the Norron continent. "Our evaluation of the military potential of Tymetron is that they have Dominions so powerful that they could annihilate the Ruling Cities and the Asplundat Movement together. We don't know if they aren't serious about their offense, if they think this demon ploy will work, or if they're waiting for something else."

"Can't you just..." Abruptly Nauda put together the pieces. "Tymetron is one of those places where you can't just jump in via a weirkey without causing trouble, isn't it?"

"That is correct."

"So that's why you wanted to investigate the gate." Nauda turned away from Dhan to catch up Theo. "While I was looking for the weirkey, I found a gate between Slest and Fithe. Dhan thinks that it comes out in Tymetron, so that might be our path in."

"Not the continent," Dhan corrected. "That would have been too much to hope for. The gate comes out on a large island called the Gold Wastes - too small for the empire of Tymetron to conquer, but still reasonably powerful. We hope that investigations there might reveal more."

"But you haven't gone yourselves," Theo said, "so you must want one of us to do it."

"Correct. Your Ichili companion might have been ideal, but she has not been in contact for some time. We believe that a Ruler traveling from Slest might be able to avoid attention in a way that we could not."

Nauda glanced at Theo at exactly the same time he looked at her. It might have been fun to go together, but she quickly realized that it wasn't to be. She had what she currently needed from Slest, and she had spent enough time searching. If she wanted to avoid falling behind her friends, she needed to focus on regaining strength.

"I... want to ask a favor," Nauda said. "I want you to take me to Tatian."

Dhan frowned. "Unless there is a pressing military need, that's out of the question. The Landguard is always zealous about policing their world, and they have grown tenser as of late. Besides, we have the gate just outside the city."

"Then I want a swift vehicle and supplies to make the journey as quick as possible. I need to cover a lot of ground."

"That can be done. In preparation for the war, the Ruling Cities are producing a larger number of flying chariots."

"And I need another weirkey in exchange for mine."

"...you must discuss the rest of this with the administrators."

If Nauda got permission from an Authority, she hoped that Antha would be able to connect her with a suitable vehicle. For that matter, she hoped that she had time to catch up with Antha and her other friends in the city. Before that, Dhan wanted to discuss the remaining details with them. Curiously, he never even asked why she wanted to go to Tatian - apparently she was in the good graces of the House again.

Theo definitely wondered, based on his glance toward her. They'd need to discuss that and many other things once the meeting was done. With a minimum of fuss, they agreed that they would take several days to prepare, and unless Fiyu returned, Theo would go investigate the Gold Wastes. Nauda hoped that Fiyu did return, and not for military reasons.

Business complete, Dhan vanished. As soon as they were alone, Nauda hugged Theo again.

"I didn't realize how much I missed this," she said softly.

"Are you telling me that you didn't share your warmth with any Slescans?"

Nauda jabbed him in the ribs, but she didn't let go with her other arm. "Shut it. You can't embarrass me with closeness, since I'm so much better at it. You and Fiyu are the family I have now."

"I know." Theo rubbed her back with a bit more vigor. "We have a lot to talk about, not least what you've been constructing in your soulhome."

"Ugh, not soulcrafting already. Surely there's something else?"

"Senka is back."

Finally pulling back, Nauda cast him a sharper glance. "And herself?"

"Intermittently. We have a lot to talk about."

"State of Rest?"

"State of Rest."

They departed to the restaurant to finish catching up. She had some questions to ask about his impressions of Slest, and to her surprise he wanted to ask her about the Fithan farmers on the plateaus. Despite his apparent focus on himself, he cared about them more than most Fithans.

Of course, they did talk about soulcrafting sooner rather than later. Over the next several days, as Nauda prepared for her journey, they hashed out blueprints and made plans for sublime materials. Almost immediately, Theo arranged for her to view a wide variety of Arbaian rocks for use in her staff tower. Honestly, his ability to get things done scared her more than his combat ability. He would no doubt be very popular on Slest.

At one point, while discussing ways to improve her cantae flow up her three towers, Theo stopped and stared at nothing for several seconds. When she tried to press further, he only said that she'd given him an idea. She couldn't think of any possible comparison, since their soulhomes had such radically different flows, but apparently it had helped him in some way.

Even before that, there hadn't been a shred of begrudging when he helped her. He clearly enjoyed soulcrafting, but underneath the surface he truly seemed to like her as well. And Nauda had to admit that she was going to miss him, when they went their separate ways again. It was a shame that Fiyu didn't return as well, or those days could have been a wonderful reprieve.

The one thing they didn't do was discuss the far future as much as she wanted. She'd hoped that she could discuss the balance of power on Slest, in particular its vicious system of castes. From her view, it was impossible to make changes with her power, and maybe impossible for anyone, but she'd hoped to get his perspective. Unfortunately he was far too focused on his upcoming ascension to Authority. Given how many of her hopes rested on that tier, Nauda couldn't blame him.

Eventually they were prepared and Dhan returned to provide transport. All three of them went to Slest together so that she could introduce him to the forces she'd left around the gate. Theo confirmed that he could use his techniques to safely clear the landslide on the other side, so they left him there to investigate.

Maybe he would find out some secret of Tymetron that would change the war, maybe not. Nauda had been focused on Slescan wars and weirkey hunting for too long. Dhan at least had the decency to place her just beside the gate out of Norro Yorthin with all her supplies.

"I hope you find what you need in your home," Dhan said as he turned away. "Please return as soon as you can. Blacksilver needs to see that Tatians stand with them even at a time like this."

"They think I wouldn't?" she asked.

"It's said that, when it comes to war, Tatians will always choose their own families. They don't have enough examples from the upper side of your world." To Nauda's surprise, Dhan turned back to her and placed a hand on her upper arm in the Tatian fashion. "I know that a House is not a family, and that you don't know me well. But I look forward to your return."

An instant later he turned away, his Ichili mask covering his face and his posture entirely warlike Fithan. The warmth of his fingers on her arm lingered and Nauda found herself wondering how far Dhan had explored on Tatian. But a moment later he had vanished through the gate, so Nauda turned back to her home world.

It had been almost three years since she stepped through that gate and left Tatian for the last time. Back then, she had been glad to be done with it and see new worlds, yet now she found herself immensely glad to be back. The long list of tasks she wanted to accomplish was important, but it paled in comparison to standing beneath an appropriately warm sun.

Nauda stepped into her chariot to begin, since she needed to hurry. But there was time to take a very long breath first.