Technically they could have started thinking of a solution to their predicament immediately, but after enduring so much, the group wasn't eager to throw themselves into yet another problem. Their cavern shook a few times as the eryo tried to find a way in, but when it failed, they decided to leave aside that issue for when they were better rested.

Nauda got her hands fully bandaged, while Fiyu curled up and slept, exhausted after the encounter. Theo was actually the one in the best shape, for which he felt vaguely guilty. He'd made the best choices he could, they just hadn't required as much from him.

One night of sleep left everyone feeling much better, but it didn't fundamentally change their situation. Early in the morning, Theo ventured to the mouth of the cave to check, only to find the eryo waiting outside. It had again curled up on itself, forming the lumpy shape that had first made him mistake it for a building... but he saw one vast eye watching from between its claws.

When he returned, he found that the other two had finished eating. Nauda gingerly set down her bowl and regarded him somberly. "Still there, I take it?"

"Yeah, I think it's waiting. I'm surprised it would still come after us, given how small we are, relatively. What do these things eat, anyway?"

"Soulcrafters." Nauda glanced toward the corner where they'd disposed of the bodies. "I can understand why they might pursue us this far, but I can't believe the last of them sacrificed himself just to trap us here."

"Oh, you should believe it. There are a lot of Deuxan stories about mortally wounded soulcrafters killing their opponent with their last breath, poisoned lovers pulling knives, and so on." Theo sat down and looked between them. "The question is what we're going to do about it. Fiyu?"

"I do not have an easy solution." Through her mask, he thought that her eyes were closed. "I have examined the caverns carefully and there is not another exit route. I am unsure if it is able to see through my veil of stealth, but testing that could be very dangerous."

"We still have supplies, but I'm guessing that it's patient?" He glanced to Nauda, who only nodded, leaving them in silence. Setting aside the search for a solution, he decided that it was finally time to raise a different issue. "Nauda, exactly how do you know about a sublime beast like that?"

Nauda stared back at him, resolute, but eventually eased back with a long sigh. "It would be easier just to show you, if we live through this. I became an adult in Nlukoko, but I wasn't born there. We're almost home. You'll see then."

"Your home is right beside the gate?" Fiyu asked.

"Not exactly."

Since he had already trusted Nauda with his life, Theo decided that he could trust her with a few secrets. He was skeptical that they really required a demonstration over a simple explanation, but since she said it would be soon, he didn't even have to wait that long.

Assuming they found a way to get past the eryo.

Though Theo began soulcrafting out of habit, carving more on his feast table, it was just to keep his hands busy while he thought. Their group might barely be able to keep up with Archcrafters in some respects, but they had no chance of overpowering a Ruler-tier sublime beast like the eryo. Either they needed to find a weakness or they needed a path around it.

The frustrating thing was that he didn't think his blueprint was flawed: when he reached Archcrafter, he could forge chambers that drew from his four cornerstone techniques to use gravity in truly devastating ways. But even if they had supplies to stay in the cave for a year, he didn't have the sublime materials to build chambers on his second floor, and that was setting aside ascension.

Stopping his efforts temporarily, Theo walked to the sleigh and looked through everything they taken from the Deuxan soulcrafters. They'd carried assorted money and weapons, along with some minor armaments and Delarde's pike. Those might sell for a bit of money, but they were unhelpful in the short term. None of the soulcrafters had been foolish enough to carry around sublime materials, and all those within their souls had been destroyed upon death.

Beside their supplies, Senka still slept, snoring obnoxiously loudly. She hadn't even done anything in the chase or fight, so he wasn't sure what right she had to be so exhausted. At least she had consistently stayed out of the way when things got difficult.

His gravitational fields had had some effect, but not enough, and... and abruptly Theo realized his solution. Using gravity against the eryo had been the only time when they'd been even close to matching its strength. Esaire with his resistance cloak had been a terrible matchup for him, but this sublime beast might actually be the opposite.

It was far from his original plan, but Theo was going to ascend to Archcrafter.

He eagerly went through his soulhome, putting away any minor materials left out and finishing off a few final details. Several of his chambers were completely unfinished and he needed strong sublime materials to serve as a focus for his techniques, but he could fix those problems later. The fatal problem at the moment was that he didn't have raw strength, and that was one of the few problems that could be solved with more intense cantae.

Normally, it wouldn't be possible without a considerable amount of time building a temporary platform to ascend, but the first barrier was by far the weakest. The frame of his first floor was rock solid, with a suitable roof, so he had options. In fact, he thought back to some tricks he'd only discovered after they were too late to do any good and realized he had a clear plan.

To start, he grabbed his supplies, climbed up to the roof, and examined the ridges marking the central chamber. He'd put those blocks in at the end, since he'd intended to remove them as an Archcrafter to allow the cantae to flow through the center of his entire soulhome. When he carefully pulled the blocks aside with his spirit, the singularity within roiled, but he was glad at how effectively it contained cantae, instead of wasting it into the air. The very concept was about trapping energy, after all.

Still, he needed all of it for his ascension. Theo unrolled the Deuxan fairysilk and spread it over the top, pinning it down with excess sunbronze. That was enough to contain his cantae while he worked on the rest. The springy branches Nauda had used would actually be very helpful, just not in the way she'd used them.

Though he wanted to rush, he forced himself to work methodically as he built a framework that could hold the fairysilk in place. It needed to be stretched taut, but not so tense that he risked breaking it. For a while he wasn't certain how to affix it to the stone and settled for chipping out a space of exactly the right size for the frame.

Eventually he'd done what he could and just stood on his roof, staring at the limits of the sky.

The barrier to Archcrafter was just pressure, and his willpower should be far stronger than when he had been a teenager, yet he remembered just how hard it had been at the time. Actually, he remembered more how hard he thought it was, but how much suffering had he really experienced back then? It wasn't a challenge he could take lightly, but would it really be an obstacle? He supposed he'd find out soon enough.

First, he removed the silk frame and dropped down into the central chamber, spending a while meditating under the singularity. It didn't help directly, as far as he knew, just got him into the right mindset. He was his soulhome, he embodied gravity itself, he stretched far beyond these small bonds.

Then he rose, thrusting his hands skyward, casting his will into the heavens. Willpower alone could never ascend, but his cantae floating upward became a hammer that beat against the barrier. It bent back, just a little, so he quickly scrambled up the side for his main attempt.

Setting the frame into its position, Theo stepped out onto the fairysilk, knowing that it could take his weight but still apprehensive. It gave way beneath his feet but held, just as he'd hoped. Once he reached the center, he began to bounce - yes, he'd created a spirit trampoline. The method might not be dignified, but Theo would care about that when dignity helped him tear down the barrier overhead.

Once he built up momentum, he truly leapt, throwing himself skyward - he was immediately caught by the pressure and pushed back down, but he'd been prepared for that. Theo hit the fairysilk hard, and for a moment feared its elasticity wouldn't be enough, then it flung him upward again.

This time he struck the barrier even harder, driving his will against the pressure, but it closed around him and threw him back down even faster than before. When he struck the fabric, it held, but on his way up he heard something snap.

It had to be now. Theo sucked all the cantae within his soulhome into himself and made his body an arrow shot against the heavens.

The pressure tried to stop him, but he snapped through it, exploding into new heights. As the gray clouds flooded downward through him, he was surprised that they resonated with his fundamental design. It wasn't just raw power, his soulhome had shifted to more perfectly embody the gravity he sought to control. Instead of plummeting downward, he descended at a fraction of normal gravity, the clouds whirling around him before they suffused his soulhome.

This pleasure... so many other things about his time in the Nine had faded over the years, but the rush of ascending was completely unchanged. Theo smiled within his soulhome and opened his eyes in the real world.

There, the other two looked at him in surprise. Archcrafter ascensions weren't overly dramatic, but sitting so nearby, they had no doubt felt the surge of cantae. Once he opened his eyes, Fiyu beamed and clapped her hands together once.

"You're an Archcrafter now, Theo!"

"I didn't think you'd built enough," Nauda said, "but I should have known you had a trick."

He could only shake his head. "It really was just a trick, not something that will work in the future. I didn't even intend to ascend yet, but we need to get past that eryo."

"More importantly, now we're waiting on Fiyu." Nauda turned to her with a playful smile. "Can we count on you to join us as an Archcrafter soon?"

"Oh no!" Fiyu rapidly shook her head, apparently oblivious to Nauda's tone. "My first tier is not fully prepared. I will join you when I am ready."

It was a warm moment, but Theo couldn't help but think about the fact that all these fights had delayed them for too long. They needed to move forward, and now he finally had the power to help them do it. When he got to his feet, the others understood and joined him.

"Your hands still need to heal..." Fiyu brushed the air near Nauda, giving them a look of concern. "You shouldn't risk yourself to help."

"I won't act unless there's an emergency." Nauda did hook her staff with her elbow, though, and watched him as they left. "I assume you're going to use gravity again, but are you confident that it will work?"

"Confident enough. We should be able to escape it." He hoped that they might do more than that, but didn't want to boast before he was sure of his new limits. After being so confident of his power in his past life and dying miserably, he hoped never to be that arrogant again. Going up against a Ruler-tier sublime beast with only his current strength certainly seemed like arrogance.

He'd find out soon enough.