[I couldn’t get a good look at it, but if I’m right, then that rock was touched by a Primal God,] the Thunderbird said, her tone grave. [Probably more than touched, though, if these wards are truly needed…]

Leon cocked his head and entered a more guarded pose, with Maia beside him doing likewise after seeing his caution, but he doubted it would make much of a difference if the thing was actually dangerous—he was just grateful that the dome of light was still in place and that the stone hadn’t done anything reckless quite yet. The power of the Primal beings that once ruled this universe was still far above his own capabilities.

[So,] he continued with uncertainty dripping from his voice, [I take it that I shouldn’t disable the dome, then?]

[That would not be wise,] the Thunderbird replied. [Such powers are beyond your ken right now, and a thing so suffused with divine power cannot be left for anyone to find. It must either be destroyed or hidden and well-protected.]

Leon scowled. He had to open the dome to retrieve his sword, but he didn’t know how to do that without shutting the entire thing down.

He sighed, and as he did, something else occurred to him. [Nestor told me that he thought it had been touched by a Universe Fragment, not a Primal God. Does that change anything?]

He could practically feel the Thunderbird scoffing as she said, [If he was stuck in there for as long as he was, there would be no way for someone like him to mistake the power in that moon stone. He knew exactly what he was experimenting with, and the power pushed back against him.]

Leon sighed again as Nestor was revealed to be even less honest than he’d appeared, and he hadn’t been particularly honest to begin with.

[So… what should I do now?] he asked. [My sword is in there…]

[I ca—] the Thunderbird began, but she was cut off by the smooth, yet depressed and defeated voice of Nestor speaking in a slow and resigned cadence.

[There are many failsafes built into this place. If you were to try and disable that dome, then the entire chamber would come crashing down to bury the moon stone.]

Leon scowled as the voice of his distant kin filled his mind and then shivered in disgust as he was reminded of what Nestor had done to him. [You finally speak,] he growled, revulsion oozing from every syllable.

Ignoring Leon’s tone, Nestor said, [If you want to open the dome, I can tell you how.]

[I wouldn’t trust anything you told me even if it were somehow made of gold,] Leon shot back. [You lost any and all credibility with me when you possessed me!]

[You’ll not be hearing me make any apologies,] Nestor replied, causing Leon’s scowl to deepen. [I was desperate, and you are inadequate. The best possible solution would be for our Honored Ancestor to throw all of her support behind me, rather than you.]

[My mind has been made up,] the Thunderbird said, speaking to both Leon and Nestor. [I have promised my support to Leon, and so to Leon will go my support. However, if you ever want to return to the physical world again, I will highly advise you to do the same.]

There was a long pause as Nestor seemed to contemplate the Thunderbird’s words, during which time Leon began to plan out exactly what to say to the old Prince when he returned to his soul realm. Until the moon stone was dealt with, he could stomach Nestor speaking up like this, but his elder kinsman wasn’t going to have such freedoms for long.

After a long moment, Nestor said, his voice still dampened with defeat and resignation, [It seems that I have little choice if I want to see the Clan rise again…]

As Nestor spoke, Leon felt a familiar pain in his head as the knowledge to open the dome was pushed into his mind by Nestor. Again, he was reminded of the man’s possession of his body and that he’d interacted with Valeria and Maia, and Leon made a mental note to try and make sure that Nestor couldn’t dump information into his head like this as he pleased, assuming such a thing was possible—though he had no reason to think it wasn’t.

The method of opening up the dome wound up being deceptively simple, little more than a single ‘open’ rune combined with a drop of his blood. This ensured that only someone as knowledgeable as Nestor and possessed of the same power would be able to access his most important research project; fairly powerful protections, to be sure, but not robust enough for Leon’s liking.

With a grimace, Leon pricked his finger for a drop of blood and retrieved a bit of spell paper and ink. A few moments later, he had a suitable entry into the dome. He and Maia entered the place, and the latter froze as she laid her eyes upon the moon stone. Leon almost did likewise, but he forced himself in a slight panic to look around on the floor for his blade, and he let out a breath he was unconsciously holding when he saw it still lying on the floor where it had been dropped.

Leon hurried over and picked the blade back up. It might have been nothing more than wishful thinking, but he felt a slight pulse of magical power coming from the blade as his fingers wrapped around the hilt, as if it were celebrating its return to his possession.

As he stood back up, his blade resting comfortably in his hand once again, he turned to see Maia staring alternatively at him and the moon stone.

“What should we do with this thing?” she asked out loud, her voice an absolute delight to his ears.

“I’m still figuring that out,” Leon replied. “Give me a few minutes, I think I need to speak a little more with the Thunderbird.”

Maia’s eyes narrowed, clearly unhappy as Leon, from her perspective, seemed to just stand there not doing anything even though she knew things weren’t that simple.

Leon at least had the good graces to give her an apologetic look and a squeeze of her hand before he turned his attention back to the demon and ghosts that had taken up residence in his soul realm.

[How do I deal with this thing?] he asked for anyone to respond. [If it’s dangerous enough to have poisoned Nestor, then I don’t think taking it into my soul realm would be advisable, nor am I comfortable leaving it around like this, even with defenses as powerful as what it currently has—especially since I want this place’s power storage crystal.]

[No, taking that thing into your soul realm would probably kill you in a matter of days,] Nestor replied, and Leon felt a tacit sense of agreement from the Thunderbird. [Now that the ancestral blade has been returned to your hands, it would be best to level this entire mountain. There’s little remaining here for anyone, so better to not leave it open for squatters.]

[Nothing else?] Leon asked incredulously. [Are there no enchanting supplies here? Golem assemblies? Notes into magical research of any kind?]

[All of that was taken when my team departed millennia ago,] Nestor replied. [Right now, there’s little more than a couple magical power generators and some readily-available raw materials—though I suppose if you really want some bronze and steel bullion, then there’s still quite a bit here.]

[No silver?] Leon asked. [No gold? No great stockpiles of gems for storing power?]

[Let me be clear: everything that could be taken, was. That material was needed to maintain control in the south, though obviously, it didn’t help. I was left with the barest resources required to keep this place functioning at minimum capacity. I’ve had to scrounge for everything that I have that I wasn’t so graciously given by the survivors of those who confronted the Grave Warden. All the knowledge of this place is located in one place and one place only: within my head.]

[What about the storage crystals for magic power? And those magic power generators you mentioned?]

[I was on my way to the generators to top off after you reclaimed your power from me,] Nestor said. [The magic power storage crystals aren’t far from there, though there’s only one that still has any power remaining.]

Leon paused. [So… when you say ‘magic power generators’, you really mean those creatures you had entangled in those vines? That man that you captured a few months ago and that dying ice demon?]

[Yes,] Nestor shamelessly replied. [In all the experiments conducted by the Clan, both by myself and those who came before me, we found that nothing generates magic power quite like a living being. Consequently, we designed ways to extract that power and used it on prisoners. Criminals and those who attempted to access this facility after its evacuation were all plugged into the power grid to keep this place running for as long as it could be maintained.]

Leon’s mouth curled in distaste, and he felt Xaphan’s rising anger. The demon had been similarly restrained in his prison, and it resulted in the extreme loss of power that he was still trying to recover from.

[You do not approve of such actions?] Nestor asked, sounding genuinely curious and somewhat baffled.

It took a moment of thought before Leon could respond. Justin had claimed that the Thunderbird Clan had committed grave crimes in the pursuit of and maintenance of their power, and while he’d never brought up these specific things, Leon was starting to think that maybe there was more to those claims than just a weak man trying to get his enemy to kill him. In this case, Nestor had repeatedly lied to him, attempted to steal his body, and had admitted to using people like disposable resources in ways that made Leon’s stomach turn.

After taking a deep, steadying breath, Leon asked, [How can I activate the failsafes? I would like to take the power storage crystal with me when we leave this place to fuel my forays into the world of enchanting, and I would prefer if this thing weren’t just left lying around for anyone to find. I would also like to ensure that the ice demon doesn’t subsequently wake up and escape, if possible.]

[Both of those are easy to accomplish,] Nestor replied. [You just have to follow my instructions…]

Leon was skeptical as Nestor explained what had to happen to deal with the moon stone, but after thoroughly examining each and every step in the process, he concluded that Nestor wasn’t trying anything nefarious. Still, he asked Maia to head out of the lab and back into the hallway while he went about shutting the place down with several runic consoles that had been retracted and hidden in the floor.

As he went about getting everything ready, he continued to ask some questions about the stone.

[So, this thing was ‘touched by a Primal God’. What does that even mean, and why does that impart so much power that it emits such magic?]

Nestor was the one who began speaking first, taking on the stern and didactic tone of a professor attempting to teach a class made of people he thought far too stupid to understand what he was trying to say, the chance to lecture his distant kinsman seemingly getting rid of the elder Thunderbird clansman’s defeated tone.

[If you weren’t aware, kinsman, this place is known as the Divine Graveyard.]

[I’m aware,] Leon interjected, though Nestor continued as if he hadn’t said anything.

[This planar cluster is the resting place for the remains of the Primal Gods and Devils, six planes apiece for each of these two divine tribes. This plane was built from the ground up to be devoted to the interment of many of the Gods.]

Leon blinked as his hands paused in their enactment of the failsafe to bury the moon stone. ‘Built from the ground up?’ he silently asked, though he filed that question away for later as he got back to work.

[Such powerful beings were born in the creation of the universe, and their power cannot be simply lost or expended or anything else of the sort. It is integral to the universe, as much a part of it as the Nexus and the planes that surround it. When they were killed, the power of the Gods and Devils had to go somewhere, though most of it returned to the universe in various ways—the birth of new planes being the most common. I believe that one of the Primal Gods—or part of one, at least—may have been imprisoned or buried within that moon, with its residual power inundating the moon and causing the moon to take on that power.]

[So, not a Universe Fragment, then?] Leon asked as he processed what Nestor was saying. Nestor had originally told him that the moon stone’s unique properties were actually a result of a Universe Fragment, though it seemed clear to him now that that had just been another lie since Nestor didn’t seem fazed at all with explaining the stone’s link to a Primal God.

[That was just an initial theory I dismissed soon after I began to study the local moon, I wasn’t too keen on sharing everything I knew with you when you arrived,] Nestor dismissively replied.

With a sigh, Leon fought back his anger. He and Nestor would have to have quite a few more words in the coming days, but right now, he had work to do.

But before he got to that work, he had just a couple immediately-relevant questions remaining. [There’s no way I can use this thing?]

The Thunderbird replied instantly, [No. The powers of genuine divinity and humanity rarely mix well, and your blood makes such an event even less likely. That’s probably why you died so young, Nestor, all of that divine power that you breathed in warred with my power in your blood, destroying you from the inside. Not even the divine powers of one that has achieved Apotheosis can easily stand against the power of a Primal being.

[This moon stone will bring you no benefit Leon, so burying it would be the best option—other than returning it to the moon, of course, but that, I think, is a bit beyond your capabilities.]

Leon almost felt Nestor’s frustration as the Thunderbird pointedly brought up the death of Nestor’s physical body, and it brought a smile to his face.

[There’s a lot you just said, I think, that can be elaborated upon,] Leon said as his hands raced across the lab’s control console that he’d had to lift out of the floor, [but for now, let’s just focus on burying this thing, because there’s no damn way I’ll be getting it back up to the moon…]

With just a few more runic circles activated, Leon felt the flow of magic in the room shift as the dome of light shimmered and dissipated. All of the swirling runes along the domed ceiling began speeding up, before, one-by-one, freezing in their proper places. Once all were in position, an enormous crack formed in the ceiling, and Leon wasted no more time watching; he sprinted for the door.

He made it with time to spare. He linked up with Maia, slammed the door shut, and both were in the lift and rising before they felt the enormous crash of the dome falling down upon the moon stone, burying it forever in the earth.

Or, at least, burying it for a long time. Leon felt a strange sense of regret at letting such a powerful artifact go to waste without even a cursory study of the thing, but he was comforted by the knowledge that there was an entire celestial body orbiting Aeterna made of more of it. While what happened with Nestor meant that any desires he had to study the moon closer didn’t go very far, he still knew that the moon was there if it were ever to be needed.

All-in-all, it had taken about half an hour for him and Maia to deal with all of that, the only things left to do were to deal with the ice demon, find the power storage crystal, maybe clean out the raw materials in storage, and then link back up with Valeria and Justin.

There was no doubt in Leon’s mind that they hadn’t decided to run, and he was looking forward to seeing just what had become of them while he and Maia had been gone. He couldn’t imagine their conversation had been peaceful and pleasant given how hurt he knew Valeria had been by Justin’s absence.