"As it happens, I consider myself a master negotiator." Tythes sat atop a rock and stroked his chin self-indulgently. "The previous Authority to approach you offered to torture and kill most of you. I believe that I can beat that offer."

Even though he was unquestionably more powerful than them, Nauda scowled at Tythes while he rambled. After confirming that Mattan wasn't coming back any time soon, they had all moved to one side of the triangular building, hiding themselves from anyone looking from above. Technically anyone else could come down, but Nauda had noticed an increasing number of distortions overhead.

"The good news is, I think we can work together. My father will not stop harassing me about acquiring some sort of Scepter of Sparkling, or something like that. The problem is, getting it would be way too much of a pain. If I make you do all the work getting into this building that no one has ever been able to enter before, then I should be able to get him off my back. You can have the excess sublime materials, I'll drop you off somewhere safe, everybody ends up happy."

"You expect us to trust you?" Nauda didn't bother to keep the contempt out of her voice. She wasn't going to offend such an unstable Authority, but she wouldn't let him walk over them, either. "The last time we met, you insisted that we duel and swore that you'd tear me apart."

"No, that doesn't sound like me." Tythes glanced at her briefly, almost as if he didn't even remember her. "Believe me, I'll be good for it. Soulcrafting is far too much work after Authority, so I figure that you can take away the extra sublime materials and save me the trouble. I consider myself a very reasonable man, so I think this is more than fair."

Though she seethed at her memories of him, Nauda went silent. If he was going to play this game, her interference wasn't likely to make anything better. Fortunately, Theo was already moving on to another approach. "If you made your way here so easily, why can't you reach the end of the river and get the scepter? Surely finding it would be easier than doing something that's never been done before."

"Oh, but you see, there's a deadlock further north. All the Strongholds are ready to gang up on anyone who tries to reach the final position. My father in particular tried to push north, only to run against a Stronghold from the Asplundat Movement. On top of that, the House of the Lost is being truly strange about all this. Not taking it seriously at all! But simultaneously taking it much too seriously, if you know what I mean."

"I do not understand," Fiyu said. Nauda expected Tythes to mock her, but he just shrugged and continued.

"They used their huge technique to keep everyone inside - which is absurd, because it means more work - and then began searching the Chasm. But not for the scepter or the vault, for a person. We have no idea who, but they're acting downright murderous. Really, they seem to be off in their own little world, but whatever they're doing is getting in the way of everyone else."

Tythes glanced between them, but when they didn't volunteer any more questions, he shrugged and moved on. "Anyway, I consider myself an extraordinarily handsome man, so I decided to try to win a victory while everyone else is distracted."

Fiyu frowned. "I do not understand how those statements are related."

"What are you talking about? Shouldn't you be helping me open that door?" Since they didn't really have a choice, they went to join him at the door. Tythes slouched up to it and rapped on the intricate designs with one hand. "Somebody dead put much, much too much work into this. You see, it requires cantae of a precise intensity and quantity. Anyone who has ascended past Ruler will burn straight through it, defeated by their own strength."

"You can't modulate your cantae down?" Theo asked.

"Whoever built the door was thinking of that, and it's extremely sensitive to high intensities. Anyway, did I say I wanted your help? Shut up and help me." Crouching down beside the door, Tythes ran a hand over the inscriptions, briefly not looking so foolish. "But the lock is nothing that can be easily opened by lower tier soulcrafters, either. Ten years ago, my father brought a number of first tier soulcrafters to unlock it, hoping that their weak cantae would do the trick. They all turned to ash. But I'm sure that won't happen again, so now I need you to come over here and touch the Instant Death Door."

Nauda edged closer, wishing that she saw any other option. Despite his nonchalance, Tythes had clearly studied the door, pointing out several spirals where they were meant to place their hands. It was an unusual sort of lock, nothing like what Nauda had seen before. The technique itself involved gently pouring her cantae through the inner workings, but it was like trying to push water through stone.

After over a minute, perhaps a fifth of the door glowed with cantae, but they could push no further. Tythes sighed and tapped the door, his cantae immediately overpowering theirs. The metal reacted instantly, power flashing across it like lightning through water. In an instant all of them were thrown back, though when Nauda checked the others, none of them had been harmed.

"Oh, this is obviously going to be a such a pain." Tythes slapped himself across the face twice. "But the three of you did better than most others who've tried. Did I mention that everyone adding cantae needs to be able to work together well? That's also a requirement. Did I mention that you have to wear special hats? You don't have to, so it would be silly if I'd said that."

Gripping her staff to contain her irritation, Nauda forced her tone to remain civil, if not polite. "Then just what are you going to force us to do?"

"We're going to stay here until you can open the door for me. One of you is already a Ruler, and the other two are close, so it just requires some practice and a little more power. I'll force feed you some sublime materials, make you ascend, then we can open it. Come on, buck up, this will be fun! If you try to run away from the fun I'll kill you, of course."

When Nauda looked to her companions, she could already see the expected reactions on their faces. Fiyu disliked the situation strongly, but intended to keep her head down and accept it. Theo kept his face neutral, but she could tell that he was planning to turn the situation to his advantage. Though Tythes wasn't truly their ally, if he intended to make them ascend, he would both defend and assist them.

"Alright, do you understand?" This time, Tythes seemed to be actually expecting a response, so Nauda decided to speak for the group.

"Thank you for your immense generosity, Lord Tythes."

"It really is immense, isn't it? I'm so glad we can help each other."

The ease with which he accepted the false praise irritated her, so Nauda broadened her smile. "We've never seen such magnanimity from a more powerful soulcrafter. We thought we'd entered the Chasm of Lamentations to find sublime materials, but we should have been searching for you."

"Good." Tythes examined his fingernails with an air of self-satisfaction. "I'm glad that you seem like reasonable people who can cooperate."

"Truly, tales of your kindness today will be told for millennia."

"Well, I wouldn't go quite that far myself, but I do seem to inspire depthless awe in everyone I encounter." Tythes smiled back at her, an exact mirror of her own false expression, and Nauda gave up. There was absolutely no getting through him that way.

And, given the gap in strength, they had no way of escaping him. Their only way out might be through the impossible door that sat darkly before them.

~ ~ ~

For almost the entirety of their third day in the Chasm of Lamentations, Theo had no choice but to assist with the door. If they had been limited to the original three days, he would have been furious. Instead, it was a rather more ambiguous imprisonment, like an invisible countdown to an explosion, only an ominous ticking sound every moment.

The door itself was the most obvious challenge, requiring a difficult mix of strength and skill. After several attempts, Theo was willing to admit that it couldn't be done with skill alone. He still possessed most of a Stronghold's facility with complex cantae work, yet his best efforts only brought the door to half lit. Most likely the only viable option would be to find more cantae, either by another soulcrafter or ascension, either of which would take time.

But the more difficult enigma was Tythes himself. Observing his behavior in a concentrated stretch, Theo was almost completely convinced that the Authority used apathy to hide a darker purpose. Exactly how malicious it was, he couldn't be sure, yet he felt certain that Tythes lied continually and methodically.

Growing bored after several attempts, the Authority left the rest of them and wandered to the other side of the island with vague threats. Though Theo couldn't parse his exact intentions, he was sure that the arbitrary contradictions and cruelty were themselves the message: a reminder that his strength put him beyond any sense of reason. It was annoying enough that Theo sometimes hoped that Mattan would return to fight him again, but when they weren't interrupted, he decided to commit to the problem itself.

Tythes had left them with a chamber blueprint that Theo judged was useless for anything except unlocking the door and thus immediately discarded. Their second decision wasn't so easy. The solution that had struck him as most obvious, both of his companions crafting a vestibule to increase their cantae efficiency, had been disregarded.

For whatever reason, Nauda didn't feel that it matched her soulhome, while Fiyu felt that her present environment was not right for making permanent blueprint changes. He managed to convince her to craft a temporary room that would serve the same purpose, so she set about her work.

When he turned back to Nauda, she glanced toward Tythes, then drew Theo into her soulhome. Even though they were alone there, she lowered her voice. "Alright, I understand that the room he gave us wouldn't offer any advantage. But would cantae alone help?"

"Possibly." Theo glanced toward her home, eyeing the third floor with only a few chambers fashioned. "Are you thinking of expanding?"

"That's right. I have the bricks stored for it, and if necessary we have plenty of sublime stone. By the time I finish my third floor, I'll be able to store quite a bit more cantae, and in the process I'll be able to show him progress. The benefit is obvious, but do you think I can get away with it?"

"Very hard to tell. He's opaque by design."

They both peered out of her soulhome enough to examine Tythes, who currently sat on the side of the island, throwing rocks into the water. Possibly in an extremely inept effort to skip them across the surface. When he ran out of rocks, he fell over onto his side to scrabble for more, refusing to actually stand up even when it meant crawling.

"I say you focus on your third floor," Theo said as they pulled back. "I think he's more serious about this than he looks, but that he won't harm us, especially if we seem to be making progress. Given the room you have to grow, you should be able to focus fully on your Ruler tier."

With that, they left her soulhome and set to work. Theo wished that he could float within his own soulhome as he did in others, but within himself his spiritual body existed in a deeply concrete sense. Currently, all he had to move between floors were the ladders set in his heart column. Briefly he considered setting up something more permanent, to make his soulcrafting easier, but he was almost completely certain that once he'd ascended enough, he would be able to set up gravity transportation within his soulhome. That would be just a little more efficiency, so he could deal for the time being.

As for ascension itself, there was no question in his mind that he eventually could, the true concern was if it would cost him anything. The early Archcrafter ascension hadn't bothered him, but now he found himself thinking back to Nauda's question from before the Chasm. It would have been better to find more potent low tier materials to fill his early floors, particularly the enhancement chambers.

Still, he could admit to himself that the core of his work was complete. He had two floors of solid architecture as well as a finished barrier wall. The singularity at his core was better than he had planned, continually absorbing power and keeping up with his growth. All eight of his technique chambers had powerful and appropriate sublime materials within, even if he hadn't fully developed all of those skills. Most likely he could pretend to struggle with ascending to Ruler, giving him time to gather a few more materials to fill the emptier rooms.

That essentially sealed his conclusion: he'd make actual progress toward ascension to keep Tythes happy, but put it off in case another Authority defeated him or the situation otherwise changed. It wouldn't be difficult to find sublime materials in the Chasm, the tricky part might actually be finding materials weak enough that he didn't need to lock them away.

At first he had presumed an interruption was more likely, but no one else appeared above the chasm and the atmospheric disturbances appeared to be increasing. There was no day or night in the Chasm of Lamentations, but eventually Tythes gave a loud yawn and proclaimed, "Night time!" He reached into his soul and pulled out an entire tent before dropping it onto the island.

"Is that...?" Nauda blinked in surprise, which unfortunately got his attention.

"Didn't you know that you can store non-sublime objects in your soul once you reach Ruler?" Tythes asked. "There's no point having extra space in your soul if you can't use it to travel in style."

Nauda frowned, obviously having known that, but didn't argue that she had been on too tight a schedule to fully develop such secondary capacities. Theo might have pushed her to do so, if the Chasm wasn't composed so overwhelmingly of sublime materials they could absorb and extract later. They only needed to carry food, water, and a few other supplies.

They had only taken one tent, currently rolled up in Fiyu's pack. Previously, they had used it individually, and Theo wasn't entirely sure if Tythes changed that equation. As she set up the tent, Fiyu continually looked in his direction, saying nothing while her posture screamed discomfort. Eventually Theo left his soulhome to go speak with her.

"You're uncomfortable?" he asked. Fiyu immediately nodded.

"Perhaps Tythes needs us alive, but I do not believe he can be trusted. I know that the tent provides no protection against him, but..."

"After traveling together for so long," Nauda said, "do we really mind sharing? One person can keep watch and the other two can each take half."

Fiyu hesitated, then smiled at both of them. An odd smile, but not forced. "You are both trusted companions. I would be more comfortable if we rested in this way."

Theo had been anticipating some awkwardness, but that plan worked out better than he expected. He and Nauda were entirely business-like about it, while Fiyu appeared a little apprehensive but went to sleep once she'd thoroughly wrapped herself in her sheets. It wasn't uncomfortable physically or socially, and that was all that mattered to him. Nothing to distract them from their soulcrafting.

On the fourth day, the darkness in the sky showed no signs of abating. Tythes said that there was a major clash between Strongholds further north, though he seemed entirely distracted. Other than hectoring them to work harder, all he did was pull random objects out of his soulhome and toss them into the water, chuckling to himself as they dissolved or disappeared into the waves.

Regardless of his demands, all three of them worked as hard as they could. It wasn't much compared to Authorities, but it was the only thing they could do to take any control over their situation. Nauda made excellent progress on her chambers, Fiyu was well on her way to completing her vestibule, and Theo spent most of his time carving the walls of the rooms he'd left incomplete. Simple carvings didn't have the greatest impact on his strength, but he wanted them finished so that they would be continually reinforced by all future ascensions.

They did have an interruption on the fifth day, but it ended swiftly and brutally. A group of Asplundat Rulers tried to sneak into the chasm and attack them, to be killed by Tythes almost immediately. He began trying to use their bodies as boats, shouting at the corpses to try harder when they kept dissolving into the water. Theo decided not to ask him any questions that day and just kept his distance.

By the sixth, he decided to risk asking Tythes to help them acquire sublime materials. Though he complained the entire time, he actually didn't put up much opposition, carrying them individually to different parts of the chasm to search. In the process they discovered a few sublime materials he hadn't counted on finding, giving them a slight additional edge.

On the seventh day, Tythes abruptly demanded that they give up on the door and try tunneling under the back side of the building. When the rock proved nearly immune to cantae and they only dug a few feet down, he abandoned the idea just as abruptly and then pouted all through the eighth day.

With help from an Authority and everyone else deadlocked before the end, Theo was starting to think that their situation was actually to their advantage. So, of course, on the ninth day life had to get in his way yet again.