Theo crouched at the edge of the slope, peering into the whirlwind. The vortex was contained within the quarry, but it tore into the surrounding rocks and the earth below, no doubt serving a function for the quarry itself. There were a huge number of rocks traveling at considerable speed, so anyone who ventured below risked being battered to death. It did seem that the bottom of the quarry was clearer, perhaps to reduce casualties.

The House Teal official had leapt over the vortex to the central pillar, but the rest of them needed to venture into the whirlwind. One soulcrafter leapt forward with more confidence than skill, almost immediately taking a rock to the shoulder. He lost his footing and tumbled down the side, the whirlwind pulling him partway around the quarry before he hit the bottom and lay still.

Others ventured down more slowly, apparently veterans of the challenge. Some tried to use shields, but the broad surfaces caught too much wind and many tumbled down. One Archcrafter generated a spherical barrier around a small group and they advanced carefully.

"I suppose just throwing yourself down the side is one option," Nauda said. "But I thought that you would be more interested in trying to dodge all these rocks."

"Yeah, that will be a bit of a challenge." Theo rolled his shoulders and resolved to set aside his gravitational abilities for the speed he'd need in the duel.

Fiyu knelt down beside the edge, her body tense, then carefully sat cross-legged. "I will remain here. The number of gems and rocks and grains of sand is... very high. If I could expand my senses to encompass all of them, I could easily reach the other side, but to feel everything will be a great challenge."

"Then you're right where you need to be. The reward isn't anything special, so our actual goal is to use their whirlwind as free training. We might as well get started."

He and Nauda began edging down the side, bracing themselves against the intensifying wind. Theo could easily track the streaking gems, but the dark rocks were harder to make out. Several steps in, he needed to start dodging them, already requiring his full attention even before they reached the most intense speeds nearer the center.

What Nauda intended to get out of the contest was obvious: she spun her staff expertly, knocking aside every stone that came her way. As they pushed deeper into the quarry, a few of them made it past her staff, but they glanced off her body, leaving a mark but no blood. Clearly she intended to test her durability as well.

Though Theo could easily have reached the bottom by keeping her windward of him, that would defeat the purpose. Instead he tried to dodge on his own, the footwork difficult on the smooth slope down. Soon enough, some of the rocks began to clip him, some striking hard enough that he was afraid they'd bruise. He tried to snatch one of the gems out of the air, but it was too fast, even being able to anticipate them.

A rock hit the side of his head out of nowhere and Theo dropped, sliding down the remaining distance to the bottom. He groaned and rubbed the injury, sitting up only slightly. Here at the bottom, the wind was still intense, but most of the rocks had been flung higher, so it was moderately safe. Many of the other soulcrafters were catching their breath or lying still before they ventured toward the even more intense central pillar.

That had confirmed that he definitely wasn't fast enough - the rocks moved much slower than he'd expected Esaire to attack. The problem wasn't his instincts, which he thought were still sharp enough, but his raw speed. Fueled by their soulhomes, soulcrafters could move impossibly fast. As an Archcrafter he was already superhuman by Earth standards, but compared to someone with highly developed speed chambers, he'd be moving in slow motion.

"You okay?" Nauda slid down the side by him, shouting to be heard over the wind. He got up to walk closer to her.

"Not really injured, just frustrated." He glanced toward the central spire. "Are you going to try going up?"

"I'm not sure I'm good enough, but I won't improve unless I test myself." Nauda stepped away from him and headed inward, though she had to start deflecting rocks almost as soon as she set foot on the central slope of the quarry.

For his part, Theo tested his gravity in a small field around himself, mostly out of curiosity. It couldn't affect the wind itself, but it definitely had an effect on how easily the whirlwind picked up the rocks. If his goal had been to get to the top as fast as possible, he would have used that, but instead he set to work and began soulcrafting.

One of his side chambers on the second floor would be dedicated purely to speed, though it lacked sublime materials. Inspired by the wind around him, Theo began carving a pattern of a rushing orbit. Gravity was highly tied to speed, for example using a slingshot technique around a source of mass. Perhaps he could capture some of that...

Before he could do much, Nauda slid back down the side, bleeding from her lip but smiling. When she got close, she gestured toward the slope. "Nobody has made it up yet! I know the prize isn't much, but I think we should at least try, just to see how difficult it is."

That was reasonable enough, so he joined her. This time he helped a little, slightly increasing their gravity so the wind tore at them less fiercely. Nauda soon adjusted to her new weight, making it easier for her to climb the side while still deflecting rocks.

He stayed on the other side of her, his eyes struggling to track the projectiles. Those that got past her whipped at him at terrible speed, but he could occasionally dodge if he really threw himself into it. Without Nauda, he wouldn't have had a chance... for now. Once he'd soulcrafted a proper speed chamber, he thought this intensity might be a fairer challenge.

They struggled their way up, passing a few others who tumbled back down. At the end they needed to make a break for it, rushing up the final ascent on all fours, then suddenly the whirlwind abated. A few rocks swirled lazily near the top, but the whirlwind was no obstacle with the summit only a few times his height above them.

Of course, there were other obstacles: an Archcrafter stood on the slope before the summit, carefully watching the progress of someone below. When a different soulcrafter also got free of the worst of the whirlwind, the Archcrafter promptly hurled the rock at them, knocking them back down. They then returned to watching someone else struggling at the base.

"That Archcrafter could win at any time," Nauda said, "so is he... protecting someone else?"

"Maybe," Theo said, "but my guess is that he's a hired guard. Somebody with more money than skill brought a mercenary to keep anyone else from winning. If they're the one at the bottom there, they don't have what it takes on their own."

The Archcrafter glowered toward them, hefting a rock menacingly, but Nauda raised her hands and shook her head. He looked suspicious, but didn't throw anything at them. They caught their breath at the top, finally free of the dust, and prepared to head back down into the storm.

While he nursed a few bruises, Theo looked across, just to be sure Fiyu was alright. She still sat cross-legged, and when he raised an arm she waved back.

Because he was looking outside the quarry, he saw the crimson chariot descend near the starting point. Fiyu looked surprised and pulled back, but it wasn't an attack: Tythes slouched out of the vehicle. He took a final drink and then threw his cup aside before swaggering directly into the whirlwind.

"Is it even allowed for an Authority to do this?" Nauda asked the air. "What's the point?"

Given the unstable way Tythes walked, Theo wondered if he would adopt some sort of drunken fist style, but it was nothing of the sort. Instead he moved his body the bare minimum necessary to dodge each rock that spun his way. He didn't even look at them, just walked straight down the side untouched, yawning along the way... drawing in dust and coughing, though that didn't slow him down.

In a few seconds he was across the bottom and walking up the steep slope in the center, as easily as if ambling down the street. The Archcrafter mercenary hesitated, squinting down and seeing only Tythes's obscured soulhome. If he had any sense, he'd realize that Tythes was more powerful than everyone else in the quarry combined, but with Tythes approaching so quickly, he panicked and hurled a rock.

Tythes raised a hand lazily, raw cantae curling out and seizing both the rock and the Archcrafter. He threw them over his shoulder into the whirlwind without a second glance and continued marching up the side. Nauda glowered, but Theo grabbed her shoulder and urged her back. Not that he thought she'd attack, just to get them further away from Tythes in case he decided to target everyone in his path.

"You... you can't be here." The official from House Teal left her place at the summit to intercept him, though Lady Baryara didn't dare stand directly in his path. "You've already won this competition. You won when you were ten years old. Please stop coming back."

"But I want that... thing." Tythes stopped, glancing back to the other side. "Uh, a chariot? Yeah, I want that."

"Lord Tythes, the rules need to be followed. We can't stop you from taking the reward by force, but our master would be furious."

"If I leave the chariot here, will you declare me a victor and call me a good boy?"

Lady Baryara stared at him, unsure how to take that. Apparently growing bored, Tythes turned away from her... directly toward them. Theo braced himself to be thrown into the whirlwind, but the Authority simply ambled in their direction with a curious expression, smiling at Nauda.

"Didn't expect to see you here. They're telling me that I can't win, so do you want to?"

"I only reached this point with assistance." Nauda nodded toward Theo, which he didn't appreciate, but Tythes didn't even bother to look at him. "I will not be satisfied until I can pass through the whirlwind as easily as you did, without being struck."

"Ugh, hard workers. You are the absolute worst." Tythes promptly flopped over onto his face and then simply... slid down the side of the slope and lay at the bottom. Everyone stared down at him for a while, but he didn't appear inclined to move again.

Eventually Nauda shook her head and began moving around the side, ignoring Lady Baryara. "Let's stay away from him, but I want to go down again. I think I can do better, I just need to get used to the speed."

"That's a good strategy," Theo said, "but can you capture me one of those gemstones? They seem to move faster than the rest and I'm curious how it works."

She nodded absentmindedly before throwing herself back into the whirlwind. Sliding down was easier than climbing, so Theo just dodged as best he could and suffered the few injuries. This body still felt a bit slow - perhaps he needed to develop muscle memory to match his old instincts. That would only make sense if his physical brain wasn't the same as his mind or soul... the distraction let a rock strike his head and he focused again.

When they reached the bottom, Nauda simply thrust her staff upward, binding one of the gemstones in place. She grunted and took a step back, as if pitting herself against the whirlwind, but then easily pulled it down and tossed it to him. While she returned to train, Theo examined it carefully.

Even with the wind howling around him, he heard a second wind from the yellow gemstone, especially when he brought it close to his ear. It seemed to hum with the wind itself, and he realized that it must be one of the sublime materials that accelerated the wind. If it generated such an intense wind in the real world, it was likely not as valuable for a soulhome, but the cantae wasn't bad.

They didn't attempt to reach the top again, just using the full three hours to test themselves. Fortunately, Tythes didn't cause any other problems and seemed to have disappeared, so they made good progress. After some soulcrafting, Theo could endure the lower parts of the quarry without being hit by the stones, though the most intense part of the whirlwind was still far too fast for him.

What interested him more were the gemstones, which he had Nauda capture from time to time. He wasn't sure if House Teal approved of that, but no one stopped them, so he collected quite a few by the end. It would take a few experiments, but he thought they might be a functional material.

When the whirlwind finally died down, five of the soulcrafters had made it to the summit. That wasn't particularly stiff competition, but Theo knew that any powerful soulcrafters who wanted to win could do so at will. The real contest would be if two came to the same event, so he couldn't assume that he could win whenever he wanted.

Fiyu greeted them when they climbed back out of the quarry, first frowning at their bruises but then smiling as they talked about their progress. "Then this was a success?" she asked. "I feel I am closer, but such a storm is still complex for me."

"We got a lot of practice and some interesting sublime materials." Theo patted the gemstones he'd tucked away and smiled. "Let's fail again next month."