The Sieve’s budget was about as grandiose as its scale, Gem decided. She’d known it was big, and that it had spared little expenses, but the size of the stadium yesterday had been something else. That alone would have been one thing, but the more she actually moved around the quarters of the contestants and contest officials, the more she realised that expenditure was not being spared even in places the public would not see.

The office in which she now sat, belonging to Karma, was a perfect example. Roughly ten paces wide and long, it was carpeted with a woolen layer thick enough that it had almost felt as though her feet sank as she walked across it. The wall to Karma’s back was made entirely of some form of aether, hardened magic which was even more transparent than glass, and the desk at which the Olympian princess sat more resembled a barricade one would hide behind to block musket fire. It was strewn with paper, quills and ink pots- though if Gem knew Karma, most of this was simply to give the impression that she was far busier, and therefore more tied to her office, than she actually was.

Though the aether walls allowed an abundance of the currently glaring sunlight into the room, a chandelier hung from the ceiling regardless. Gem didn’t need to look up to know it would be made from either diamond, platinum or some other ridiculously rare material. The wall to her left was marked with the symbol of the Unixian Faction Alliance, a cyan dragon to represent Zora “the fire drake”, a golden griffin to represent Xia “the hunter” and a shield surrounding both to represent Pangaea- the capital nation of Unix. This was no surprise, the Alliance’s mark was undoubtedly the most common symbol in the entire building and possibly the entirety of Bermuda. What was different about this room, however, was that, on the right wall opposite of the Unixian crest, the symbol of Olympus had been written.

A single clenched fist made from ivory, as far as crests went it was as simple as they came. But then that was Olympus all over. Straightforward and upfront, like a cannonball to the face. Well, for the most part at least. As Gem glanced back to Karma and watched her chat away with that Astra Tempora girl, it occurred to her that she was quite possibly the least straightforward Olympian in the entirety of Dewlz.

Karma’s eyes were intently focused on Astra as though she were the most interesting thing in the world, and yet her carefree smile and posture gave the impression that their conversation was completely informal. The perfect flattery, Gem had to learn how to work people like Karma could.

"Oh my god I cannot believe you're actually here, like actually in front of me." The girl in the chair next to Gem said, there was a childish glee in her tone.

"No offence but I just figured given how things were politically we wouldn't be seeing anyone from the continent of Dewlz, much less Olympus, in a Unix sponsored event."

Karma waved a hand as she answered.

"Oh Olympus understands that despite our cultural differences it's best we all get along for the future generation of mystics." Karma said, pitch black hair swaying slightly as though a desert wind had somehow followed her inside.

"Besides." She playfully leaned in towards the girl, almost whispering as she continued.

"Now don't tell anyone this, but I think there are certain Pangaean customs we could stand to pick up. I’m particularly fond of not having to kill something before I eat it.”

Tempora and Karma broke out into a bout of giggling. Gem had spent years watching Karma interact in public, and yet the girlish facade she put on still shook her to this day- like an entirely different person.

"Well I best get going, my brother’s probably got his head stuck in a window by now or something." Tempora stood up.

"Sticking his head in places it doesn’t belong? Sounds like I'd like him." Karma stood up, revealing the full extent of her height as she towered over Astra by almost a foot. She escorted the girl towards the door.

Astra chuckled softly. "People often do, it's really weird because he's really weird." The two walked across the room, passed Gem and after a few complimentary goodbyes, Karma shut the door.

The moment the girl was out, Karma’s back straightened as though it were a rope being pulled taut. She turned and moved around her desk, taking her seat on the opposite side of it as Gem. Her warm smile had given way to her usual expression, an odd cross between irritation and complete indifference, and she affixed Gem with a severe look.

"Enjoying yourself?"

"Not really, no." Gem smiled. "I did figure out how many squares were in the ceiling though."

"You were supposed to be paying attention." Karma replied, eyebrow arched.

"I was, there's like ten, no , fifteen or is it twelve?"

"To the girl."

"Ah, oh. I did that the moment she walked in." Gem shrugged, turning away from Karma and getting to her feet. She paced as the conversation continued, her legs aching from being sat still for so long.

"So. What do you think of the competition then?" Karma asked.

"Eh I don't know." Gem sighed, gazing out the window and towards the streets of Bermuda below. "She's weak. They all are." Like most Olympians, Karma’s limbs were lined with lean and dense musculature. This, combined with her standing a full foot taller than Gem, meant that it really hurt when she rapped her knuckles against the back of Gem’s head.

"Ow!" Gem hissed, hands covering the site of the freshly blossoming throb. "What did you do that for?!"

In the latest Olympian fashion, Karma wore something called a kogna fi. A stretch of undoubtedly expensive white cloth covering her torso but leaving the stomach and shoulders exposed, running down to a sort of half-skirt which hung over her legs in two separate sheets.. In combination with her white elbow-length gloves and almost delicate slippers, she looked the spitting image of a fashionable princess. It was for this reason that suddenly receiving a look which would make a Butcher reconsider its life choices from the woman was particularly jarring.

"How long have we known each other?" Karma asked.

"Uhm, two years now?" Gem hesitantly answered, now cautious of saying the wrong thing and invoking another smack..

"Ah. And yet despite having the single best mentor you could possibly ask for dedicating no small amount of her time to teach you for those two years, after spending half an hour in a room with a potential enemy the only conclusion you can draw from them is that they’re weak.”

Gem chose her words carefully and slowly. "I mean...she is." She continued just as Karma was about to open her mouth. "But! She's also a huge fan of yours. She would probably give up a kidney just to be you for a day. It's really distracting honestly how so many people are obsessed with you. I think it's the boobs, it's totally the boobs."

Karma hummed fondly. "Ah I remember when you used to be like that."

Gem scoffed. "I was never like that."

"Oh really?" Karma said, arching an amused eyebrow.

"Yeah. You're entertaining so I hang around you, that's about it Karma. Sorry to break it to you."

"You're wearing the same clothes as me." She said, corner of her mouth twitching upwards as she folded her arms.

Gem looked down. “I’m wearing a popular article of clothing, what does it matter?”'

“You’re aware that I’m the reason it became popular though, right?”

Gem tried to think of something witty to say, then decided to mask her failure by changing the subject.

"Why do I even need to study her? We talked about how I’m the challenger because of my age and all that, but she’s barely older than me. I’m already more powerful than she is so what does it matter?”

Karma sighed in that special way of hers which always made Gem feel like she was being humoured like an annoying child.

“Because power isn’t everything. Because winning a fight isn’t as good as winning a fight easily. Because you can be sure she’ll have studied you in order to maximise her own chances.”

She paused, then added. “And because, frankly, you’re terrible at it and need all the practice you can get. Since your daddy letting you skip the first stage doesn’t make the second any easier.”

Gem rolled her eyes at the woman's words. "Whatever. He's not even here at the moment."

She fought to keep her face straight, mood already soured by the mention of Gilasev. It wasn’t Karma’s fault for not knowing he hadn’t returned even a single one of Gem’s messages, but being reminded of the fact still made her feel uncomfortable. She supposed that was rather natural for someone who’d spent their entire life living under the protection of the most powerful being on the planet, only to suddenly lose their safety net.

Karma sighed. "Well let’s put a pin in this. Come with me.” Karma gestured to the door, and the two statuesque figures which had been standing on each side of it, so still that Gem had genuinely forgotten they were there, immediately moved to pull it open.

The Kin were something which Gem, along with most people, really did not like. Clad from head to toe in iron grey plate armour, they looked almost like they’d been plucked from some long-forgotten battlefield centuries ago- before gunpowder made such apparel ineffective. The reason for the general disliking people took to the Kin was because of their resistance to magic, something many saw as a gift from the Teary Eyed God himself. Gem didn’t really care about that, after all she herself used antimagic. Her disliking of the Kin stemmed from the fact that they would also have beheaded her without an instant of hesitation or remorse if they were ordered to.

The current mission of these Kin was to protect the princess of Olympus, and from what Gem could tell they had been doing an unreasonably good job of it. Having not left her presence for even a moment while she remained outside of her own heavily fortified quarters. Though they bore her no harm, Gem had to suppress a shiver as she walked past them and followed Karma out through the door. They may have shared antimagic, but the Kin were no closer to Gem than they were to any other mystic.

They stepped out into a corridor and walked in silence for a few steps. The Kin were only four paces behind, though even in their armour they made only as much noise walking as most people did in casual wear. The quiet made Gem uncomfortable, and after a moment she couldn’t help but start a conversation.

"Are you gonna dangle me over the roof again?"

A smile played on Karma’s lips. "That was one time."

That's infinity times as much as I've dangled you over the roof of your palace."

"Oh relax, you’d have survived the fall."

"I would not have enjoyed surviving the fall!"

“And I didn’t enjoy spending twenty minutes explaining the concept of air resistance to a screaming child, friendship is about making concessions.”

Gem cracked a smile, then exaggerated it for effect.

“T-The p-p-princess of Dewlz i-is m-muh-my f-f-f-fwend!?”

Karma glanced at her, all amusement gone from her face and an irritated twitch in the corner of her eyes. It was not until the two had turned a corner that she replied.

“Of course we are, dear Gem. It’s not uncommon for people to be friends with puppies, I don’t think it would be too much more outlandish for me to be friends with you.”

There was a long pause before both of them failed to keep their faces straight at once, breaking out into grins. They turned another corner and Karma nodded to a doorway on the end.

“That’s where we’re headed.”

As they came upon the door Karma stepped up and pushed it open, walking through first while Gem followed after. As was always the case with the two of them.

As a Pangaean, Gem was used to beautifully modern sights. And as a frequent visitor of Olympus she was likewise used to beautifully ancient ones. The hall into which they walked, however, took her quite by surprise with how it almost seamlessly combined the two.

At the far side of the hall, the side they were now halfway to, there was a door. This one at least twice Karma’s height and nearly as wide as it was tall. It appeared to be made of ordinary wood, though frankly with the amount of unnecessarily expensive materials that had been smeared over every other object in the room that made it rather unique.

They walked through and into a new corridor, this one was more similar to the sparsely decorated ones which dotted the majority of the building. Stone floor, no carpet, precious little on the right wall besides glowing crystals with a name too stupid for Gem to bother learning. Well Gem assumed they were glowing, however as the left wall was actually an extremely long, single window through which sunlight currently spilled she couldn’t exactly tell. A thought occurred to her.

“Wait, are we in the moderator’s section?”

Karma nodded without looking, striding onwards at a pace Gem needed to hurry in order to match. It seemed that, despite how hectic things had been since the first stage ended, they were alone in the winding passages.

She reached Karma, walking by her left where she had a view of the confluence of culture down below in Bermuda. From this height the city looked strange. Not enormous and daunting as it did from the floor, yet not laughably insignificant as it did from miles in the air in Gilasev’s grip.

"Shit." Karma came to a dead halt.

Gem stopped only a second later, staring at the woman in confusion.

"What's wrong?"

Karma gave no reply, in fact she didn’t even seem to hear the question. Her beautiful features had hardened as though she were bracing for a punch.

"Ο Θεός αφόδεψε στο πρωινό μου"

Olympian was only Gem’s second language, and she was even less familiar with the ancient form Karma and the rest of Dewlz’ nobility spoke. That phrase, however, was well known to her. She’d heard it only once before, and it had shortly preceded Karma hurling a man down several hundred steps using only his ear as a grip.

She looked forwards and for a second all seemed normal until she saw a boy turn down the empty corridor. He was tall for his age, already the height of an adult despite looking at the very most sixteen. His hair was a light black with a crimson streak running down the front on its left side, and his face had a rounded sort of boyish shape which had clearly been recently smoothed into handsomeness by adolescence. He wore the generic Pangaean garb, a single piece torso covering called a hankah with slim pants and ankle high boots. Unusually his was green, not taking on either Faction’s heraldry. After a moment Gem realised that she recognised him, but couldn’t remember where from.

Her train of thought was cut off when the boy walked forwards, clearing the ten or so paces separating them quickly with rapid and looping strides. He stopped just short of Karma, a diabolical grin twisting his mouth. When he spoke, it was with a high Pangaean accent- though unlike Gem’s he practically picked over every syllable with his tongue.

“Oh my years”, he murmured as he stared up at Karma. “The jewels of Olympus.”

Gem frowned, wondering what he meant by jewels plural. Then she realised his stare had shifted to being aimed directly at her friend’s chest.

"Unity Eden." Karma forced a smile. "I see you're still-"

"Brilliant?" He interrupted.

"I was going to say twelve, at least if we’re judging mentally rather than physically." She clarified.

"Ah. Oh. That's rude." He feigned offence.

"Yes, that’s the point. Now if you would excuse me, I'm on my way somewhere else." She said with a sweet smile.

"Awww, really?" He groaned. "I had this whole scenario in my head where you'd be excited to see me after all this while. Maybe my timing was off, did I arrive too soon?"

"It certainly wouldn’t be your first experience with coming early.”

Unity chuckled, clapping softly. "That...that was a good one."

He turned from Karma, stepping back and shifting his brown eyes to focus directly on Gem. He looked as though she were a new toy he was waiting to play with, she didn’t like that at all.

“Gemini Menza, the new frontier of magic and the world's first perfect artificial. What don't you have to your name?"

There was intense hatred behind his words and Gem almost took a reflexive step back on hearing them, however when he next spoke it was with such a level tone that she began to wonder whether she’d imagined the hostility.

“Nice to meet you!”.

Gem licked her dry lips and forced herself to respond.

"You're Unity Eden." She said, feigning the same smile she always did.

"The-"

"Creep who nothing short of molested me during a peace treaty." Karma interrupted.

He rolled his eyes at the woman. "I'd rather be acknowledged for my greater feats, such as being a fusion of two deities, the ability to wiggle my ear a little bit and of course my wicked charm."

"Ah I see." Gem said. "Nice to meet you, creep.”

She regretted it immediately, as Unity’s attention turned back to her.

"I heard you've been following the Olympian around like a little lapdog. you're like a mini Karma, Only lacking in chest and wit."

Gem grit her teeth as she flushed red with anger. "You're...I…your face is stupid."

The boy arched an eyebrow, seemingly in disapproval.

“Case in point.” He chuckled and addressed Karma. “You really aren’t doing a good job on this one. Or are you just deliberately teaching her wrong as a joke?”

With a massive bang, the door Gem and Karma had come through swung open. She turned to see a tall, lean man with a young face twisted by stress. Gem knew at once he was an Immortal, not even needing to strain her eyes to see the dense, twisting well of magical power clinging around his body- like coloured mist. It made it difficult to breathe, almost. Compared to him even Karma was eclipsed, and he was staring at something behind Gem with a face like thunder. Her heart caught in her throat at the sight. A person no more visibly impressive than any other, but whose every feature had been recontextualised by the terrible might and anger emanating from him.

For the first time in a while Gem was glad to have the Kin following them, and gladder still that the man had entered the hall from behind them- thus putting the Pariah guards in-between him and her.

She didn’t see him move, not really. One moment he was standing ten paces away, seemingly rooted to the spot with his body rigidified in barely contained rage, and the next there was a noise from behind her. Gem spun to see him clutching the Unity boy by his throat with a single hand, lifting the artificial as though he weighed no more than a doll.

"You little shit." The man spat the words out as though they burnt his mouth.

"I told you I'd kill you if you didn't stay put. I told you how important it was that you behave yourself for just one fucking day and what did you do huh?...What did you fucking do?"

Gem saw the ferocity of his aura, ordinarily the field of magic surrounding a mystic was completely tranquil regardless of their emotions. The fact that she could see this one quivering meant there must have been a truly shocking amount of fury behind it. Unity gargled and let out sounds indicative of one choking on their own spit. His face had begun to redden. The Immortal made no show of relaxing his grip, only continuing.

"What do you have to say for yourself?!"

"Unison...We have...C-company." he wheezed out and as the man turned his gaze to Gem and Karma, he let Unity slip from his fingers and fall onto the floor. The boy crumpled into a heap as he landed, gasping and spluttering in ways that sickened to hear. Despite this the Immortal merely stepped away from him as though he were nothing more than a puddle of something unsavoury, his eyes widened slightly as he looked between Gem and Karma- as if he hadn’t even registered their existence until now.

"Karma Alabaster. Gemini Menza." He said with a calmness she had assumed he had no place for.

Gem answered only a blink before Karma.

"Hi.". "Hello."

"I apologize for the ruckus." The Immortal said with a smile, not even glancing at the writhing boy at his feet. "Hopefully this will not affect our previous negotiations about having Eden and Menza formally meet."

Seeing how collected and casual he was while addressing them when he’d been a mass of fury just moments before was jarring, Gem knew from experience that Immortals were of strange and often changeable dispositions but she’d never seen it demonstrated quite so clearly before.

The man’s face changed once more as he heard Karma’s reply.

"Oh this has completely broken down those negotiations." Karma said.

"Oh."

"Yes, you see the single reason I agreed to that in the first place was my confidence in the Alliance’s ability to reign in Eden’s..."

She crossed her arms over the exact spot on her breasts the boy had apparently grabbed her, and Gem doubted it was accidental.

“..Erraticity.”

The Immortal’s jaw tightened ever so slightly, his eyes hardening into something between irritation, disappointment and a similar level of anger as he’d unleashed on Unity.

“I see,” he replied. Voice betraying no emotion. “That is…. Regrettable. Nevertheless, I wish you good fortune princess. You too, Menza.”

Without another word the Immortal made a slight gesture with one of his hands, Unity was plucked from the ground and suspended some metre above the ground before drifting after the man as he walked past Gem and Karma back through the way he’d come.

There was a moment of silence between the two girls, Gem was processing what had just happened while Karma looked as though she was attempting to melt a hole in the back of the Immortal’s head just by glaring at it in annoyance.

"So…" Gem started. "I'm guessing that's not the person you wanted me to learn something from."

Karma turned back to her.

"Hm? Oh. No. Eclipse no.” She shook her head.

"Good." Gem nodded.

"Come on, we're almost there." Karma walked forwards and once again Gem followed behind.

"Who is this person anyway?" Gem asked.

"Xeno Warper, a fae with the potential to have the greatest mind in all of mirandis."

"Ah." Gem nodded

"Ah?"

"That's the sound I made, yes."

"Well it sounds like you're disappointed."

"Good ear." Gem said, hands curling through her long silvery hair. "I was hoping it'd be some powerful mystic."

"Well you hoped wrong then."

"Hoped wrong? Nobody can 'hope wrong.' that's not a thing that happens. That's not how hope works." Gem picked up her pace so she was by Karma's side. "Where exactly is this person by the way?"

"Eh she's in safe hands." Karma said as she slowly came to a stop in front of one of the doors and Gem followed suit. "Right here if I remember correctly." She opened the door.

Gem's eyes widened. She was greeted with the sight of a man with glazed eyes and a scalpel gleefully chasing a girl who screamed in panic round a table in the room's center.

"I said no!" The girl yelled back at him.

"Just a little snip snip here and there you wouldn't even notice it!" He pleaded as he panted.

"You left her...with doctor Newt." Gem said with a disappointing gaze to Karma.

"It's not as bad as it seems." The woman said as the girl ran past her. She idly stretched out her palm and the doctor ran straight into it, his momentum not even enough to move her limb as he crashed into it and was knocked onto his back. "He's harmless."

"Oh stop being a baby I just want to harvest your brain!" Newt said, carrying those words with nonchalance.

"Hi Newt." Gem said as she waved at the doctor. He wore a long loose work coat that ruffled when he got to his feet.

"Ah! the Gemini of Unix. Nice to meet you again!" He said with a jittery unfocused energy he always seemed to have. "You're looking well today. I think...I don't know actually, I can't see anything at the moment. Did you know pegasus dung mixed with serpent's venom reduces visual clarity by seventy percent and causes short term memory loss?”

Gem smiled reflexively. "That's very interesting doctor."

"I know right!" He laughed. The doctor was a Fae so despite likely being in his late seventies, he had the youthful features of a twenty year old. Though his lack of sleep made him appear as some strange cross between a baby and a weathered corpse. Despite this he spoke as though he were both fully awake and high on one or more particularly powerful drugs.

"You know I tell Alabaster all these fun interesting little facts and she doesn't appreciate them at all, I'm afraid she's just too dull to get it and to be honest I'm glad you didn't bring her with you today, she's kinda 'whack', you know as the kids say."

"The kids don't say that, doctor." Karma said with her signature look.

"Ah!" He jumped "The Princess of Dewlz. Nice to meet you again, you're looking well today. I think...I don't know actually, I can't see a thing at the moment. Did you know pegasus dung mixed with serpent's venom reduces visual clarity by seventy percent and causes short term memory loss?

"Doctor Newt I would really appreciate it if we could give Gem and Xeno some time to get to know each other." She said.

He frowned. "That is just not feasible Alabaster. I have work here to do, I'm not just dicking around, this is my lab afterall."

Karma folded her arms. "There's a morgue filled with the unattended bodies of several dozen unusually powerful young mystics to the north of the island."

"Oho!" He grinned like a child receiving a birthday present. A look of contemplation crossed his expression "Hmm but what of my assimilation chamber?" He muttered then shrugged. "Eh who cares." He dashed out the door, hands swaying to the winds as he ran down the corridor while screaming: "Oh by the way, there’s a slight chance the lab will explode and kill you along with everyone on the fourth floor! Toodles."

Gem exchanged a look with Karma, who just shrugged.

"He's probably joking."

"Let's uh...let's hope so."

"Okay now walk into the death lab."

"Wai-"

Before she could even react, Karma shoved Gem forwards and slammed the door behind her. She cursed slightly before gazing around, the lab was littered with cabinets filled with varieties of organs and creatures in liquid jars. She looked at a heart, then quickly looked away from said heart and did her best to ignore the fact that it was still beating.

"Hiya!" Gem jumped at the voice and turned to see a short and slender girl, probably around her age with short brown hair, dark eyes and a cheerful smile. She had a feeling she knew who it was.

"Xeno Warper is it?" Gem said, putting on her usual smile in greeting. The girl was across the table from Gem and in front of her were a series of papers and chemicals which she idly mixed and wrote in while splitting her attention towards the conversation. It almost appeared as though her hands were moving completely independently of her body.

"Yeah, or you can just call me Xeno." She said. "you're friends with Newt right? He's pretty awesome."

"Didn't he try to harvest your brain?"

"I like to leave things like that in the past, let bygones be bygones." She giggled. This girl had something almost childish about her.

"Fair. Don't take it personally though, if it helps you feel any better he tried to harvest my brain when we first met also."

"Oh." Xeno said with intrigued purple eyes. "What did you do?"

"Kneed him in the balls."

"Oof. And Newt?"

"Oh he just laughed and told me he had them “surgically displaced” in the event of this scenario taking place."

Xeno giggled then the swift motions of her hands came to a dead halt. "Oh that's right you're the Gemini Menza!" Her words carried the same hurried tone Gem was well used to.

"Do your antimagic stuff!”

The Fae clapped her hands at Gem as though she were a performer. Ordinarily such behaviour would’ve been quite annoying, but Gem couldn’t help but find it endearing coming from this girl. Besides, it wasn’t an uncommon request.

"Uh… alright" Gem stretched out her palm. She imagined the pool inside her mind, bubbling and churning as though it were boiling hot. Her magic reserve. And then she moved on, ignoring the first pool and searching for the second- the pool that only she possessed. The pool containing her reserves of antimagic. She’d grown well used to tapping into it by now, as had she grown used to tapping into her regular magic, and yet doing so still sent a strange tingle moving under her skin. She felt almost reinvigorated as the power flooded her body, a captivating feeling.

Finally Gem pushed the energy out from her palm, releasing a display of multi-coloured lights. This was not an ability, she didn’t need to dedicate part of her Potency to using it.

It was just a party trick, something she’d learned from Gilasev as one of their first lessons on controlling magic. Of course the variant Gem used now was probably the most impressive party trick in the universe, Xeno certainly seemed to think so.

"Raw antimagic." The fae almost whispered, in awe as she leaned in. She poked her finger into Gem’s palm and almost shuddered.

“I don’t feel anything from it, even focussing as hard as I can. It’s like you’re making the lights with nothing but a regular oil lamp.”

Gem was not the only mystic who could sense the presence of magic, though others could not physically see it the way she could; it was not such an uncommon ability. Of course she’d never met another person who was capable of sensing her antimagic, apparently not even Pariahs could. Then again regular Pariahs couldn’t manipulate antimagic the way she did either, the highest level of control she’d ever seen from one was the Kin not passively neutralising magic within a certain radius of themselves- and in their case it was because their equipment concentrated their antimagic aura into itself rather than their own abilities. Gem tried to suppress her self-satisfied smile as she answered Xeno.

"Yep, though I can feel it. I think it’s because-"

"You can act as a vessel for both magic and antimagic." Xeno said, completing her sentence. Gem felt slightly put out at not being able to explain, but she supposed Karma had warned her she was dealing with some kind of genius. She smiled.

"Yhup. My theory too."

"Oho! A fellow magic enthusiast!" Xeno said, giggling.

"You could call me that yes." Gem nodded, catching herself smiling without trying this time. “Though unlike you I’m awful with numbers.”

"Oh pish posh, numbers are stupid easy." She pointed at her paper. "If it's even it blue, of it's odd it's red and if it's a decimal it's a cyclic hue right until the thirteenth f-"

"Yeah I'm not getting any of that really." She interrupted.

The girl smiled, not looking dissuaded at all. "That's fine, I can look up a better way to help you out later. Likely between stages though as I'm gonna be a bit occupied by that."

"Oh you're a contestant in the Sieve?" Gem arched an eyebrow.

"Yeah!" Xeno pulled down her left sleeve to reveal her pink gauger. "Got it custom colored!"

"Ah."

Gem silently concentrated on her eyes, looking at that place between the otherworldly source of magic and the physical universe to see what kind of power the girl before her was wielding. After a second she felt that familiar buzzing somewhere behind her eyes, they’d have begun glowing cyan as she turned on her mana vision. What she saw was rather disappointing.

Xeno was at best one third as powerful as Gem in terms of raw Potency. Her magic was a light shade, and gathered around her barely any thicker than the meagre power of a Saint- mystics so weak that Gem could hardly make out their colour at all. If Karma was a bonfire and Gem was a hearth fire, Xeno was an oil lamp. She dismissed her mana vision, concentrating instead on covering up her thoughts with a smile. Poor Xeno, she didn’t stand a chance.

“I’m sure you’ll do brilliantly,” Gem beamed.

***

Karma checked the miniature scrying slate on her wrist, glancing at the vision of the great clock in her office it provided a display feed of. She had some time before she needed to meet with Zilch again, that was good. Of course what was better was that she’d been able to so easily procure Xeno Warper and set her up with Gem.

She turned a corner, Kin silently striding after her.

Karma really was fond of Gem, but the girl was simply too stubborn for her own good. She’d seen that arrogance before, of course. Gem was the spitting image of her father, strolling around as though nothing could possibly hurt him. Except Gem wasn’t a Deity, and things could most certainly hurt her. Still, Karma was used to working with difficult people. If Gem wouldn’t use her mind as well as her power, then the simple solution was to get her paired with someone whose mind could pick up the slack.

The Sieve’s system of selecting teams based on personality compatibility and potential for teamwork was quite a fortunate one, it made it extraordinarily easy to stack things by ensuring certain people were already familiar.

Now all Karma had to do was keep the girl from doing something to get herself killed outside of the contest.