By late afternoon, the three girls finally returned to the shelter, knowing they could successfully control their destructive impulses. However, in turn, they were left confused at the discovery of even more familiar abilities, a secondary form of their gifts.

Riyxia was especially baffled at this turn of events, Sryine finding an affinity for elemental forces as Vwyx was suddenly found capable of transforming the properties of inanimate objects, such as switching stone to wood. Vwyx and Riyxia had always seemed like a bit of a parallel, with consideration to Riyxia’s healing versus Vwyx’s repairing. However, Riyxia had then been able to change the properties of the people she could heal, while Vwyx could reshape the objects she could repair. Now, she could also change the properties of the objects she could repair too, that stole from her entire side of the advantage here. Vwyx’s gift also had a lot more reach for ways it could change objects; size, weight, density, material. Sryine had mentioned that it was a lot similar to the details of alchemy that she could remember reading about from the Terran Mythos, apparently a myth about a myth. The original myth said something about changing metal to mineral, like changing sheet metal into crystal. Vwyx had actually already done that, even though it had only been a short time since they returned.

Sryine was actually playing with a ball of lightning, using it as a personal lamp. She claimed that the Terran Mythos tended to use a lot of lighting for things too, almost everything there ran on lightning somehow. Vwyx’s infliction on Riyxia’s gift was one thing, but to find both Sryine and Vwyx suddenly advancing dramatically in areas of the gift, reaching new and greater heights, it made Riyxia feel like she was falling behind again. Actually, she specifically was falling behind now, her only advantage had been that she was the only one around with control over her destructive influence. With the other two safely learning control and gaining such improvements, Riyxia just felt helpless in keeping up with the others at all.

“Don’t worry Riyxia, your spectral form has already been a sort of second gift, we can just keep working on it from that perspective.” “That really doesn’t count, drifting around looking at stuff has far fewer applications than this elementalist and alchemy-type stuff. Even my actual gift has a lot more substance in comparison.” “Well, just look on the bright side, it means you can focus more of your time on perfecting your own unique talents, while the other girls will have more expectations left to them. I’ll need to actually start work on that, figuring out what lessons will help with their newly discovered gifts. Such versatile gifts will need versatile expectations.” Ayzherie felt this constancy could be very advantageous for Riyxia, making it easier for Riyxia to apply her own abilities. Sryine and Vwyx however knew that things were going to get several times rougher on them, with training involving control and their new gift, all at once. It might even be at once, they were well aware of how Ayzher had expected Riyxia to command both her spectral form and her gift at the same time. This could easily have them expected to make use of both of their gifts simultaneously. They weren’t wrong either, Ayzherie was considering including material composition shifting as part of Vwyx’s regular form shaping, they could always use some extra wood around here after all. Sryine meanwhile could always be expected to wield illusionary and real lighting both at the same time, and hitting targets with such lighting with split second reflexes where she would have to determine if the target needed real or illusionary lightning, making use of this new appreciation of lightning. Such lessons could even begin tomorrow.

“So, Eqriuxzl is actually here today. I was talking with him earlier about your strife from yesterday, as you had recommended. If your training is done, I would think it appropriate for you three to go drop in on him, have him check you three over and make use of his knowledge to see if he’s got anything new for you. He seemed excited about the idea earlier, but understanding in our plans to ensure a safe study condition. I expect I’ll have time to drop in myself to see how things are going, but I really should finish some of the tasks I’ve already been working on first.” Ayzherie might not have more training for today, but already had something for them to look into today. At least Eqriuxzl could possibly have some interesting information on things for them to learn about. The girls set off to his study, finding him absorbed in his books on arrival, making unusual calculations, while not even noticing he had guests.

“Why is there, like, a box full of the Astral Flame detectors? This feels like a huge breach of my personal privacy.” “Ahh! Riyxia! I never heard you came in. Oh, you’re friends are here too I see. That means things have been worked out, right? I was worried I would have to figure out a way to counter the effects of the Astral Flame, but it was really looking impossible … Not that people doubted your success or anything, of course!” Riyxia waited for Eqriuxzl to clean up, him suddenly deciding to abandon and trash his current calculations and research completely, like it was no longer required, and not something for others to observe. Riyxia sighed at Eqriuxzl’s weak bluff, but led the discussion towards a recount of the recent events as they related to the Astral Flame and the destructive impulses recently discovered and even more recently controlled. She also included the discovery of the new gift elements that were discovered, as Eqriuxzl kept glancing at instruments and documentation in study.

“Fascinating.. but probably not entirely unexplainable. Records from the dawn of the instrumentation era explain that a person’s gift is defined by their own level of personal ambition, which their mind then directs and their blood supplies. We’ve already determined that the traces of the astral flame are essences, just like everyone typically has. Your body has always had its own essence, your mind has memories of your own experiences with it. When the Astral Flame affected you, the old essence was burned away, a new one applied, but the old essence isn’t gone completely, which now leaves you with two essences. Each essence imprints an influence on the development of your own identity, which for the most part is resolved as your own ambitions. However, I suspect the previous control factor failed because your current self has rejected factors of the foreign identity, possibly not only because of being foreign, the abilities related to the destructive aspects probably didn’t help either.” Eqriuxzl flipped through a few of his books, cross checking notes before continuing.

“Now, we’ve determined that there have been changes to your ambitions, things you haven’t even appreciated before. Think about it this way too, Sryine, do you really think the previous you had any fear of fire? Can you remember any time back then where it was especially frightening?” “Actually, no, I don’t think I ever cared about the idea back then.” “...and yet, you have an ingrained fear of it now. I estimate that it’s probably an integral factor of your second essence, and having accepted your second essence has connected it with your own, giving you access to the gift of its own ambitions. Vwyx’s new gift would then be similar, she’s just never explored the concepts behind her previous essence, which would be why you might not know of any particular thing integral to that essence in the same way. Riyxia meanwhile hasn’t noticed anything probably for two reasons, first that she had probably accepted the second essence right from the beginning, which is why she gained control without any struggle. The second reason is because your essences aren’t even completely connected, your second essence has probably no more than a slight fragment to link it to, the part that remains when you spectrally leave your body behind, so small that it doesn’t even have a trace of the astral flame itself. Your actual second essence is the portion that wanders around, after all, so it’s potential is never integrated with your body. I suspect it probably had an originally tiny effect on your gift, an ultra small change that was added, something you might not even notice without records of your predecessor.” Eqriuxzl surprised Sryine with this insight, the distinction between her previous and current self. So her second essence is where she gained this second gift from, an aspiration from another world, it really made her wonder what kind of life might have forged such ambitions.

Vwyx also wondered about the nature of her second ambitions, determined to make the most of these new ambitions, they would be part of her own after all. As a craftswoman, any goals that somehow related to the changing of properties of materials could have been something her upbringing would have gotten along with really well, actually something she felt she would have loved to have been graced with much sooner. It was like she was her close friend, all of a sudden, a weird thought because that implied they were almost a group of six friends instead of three. Riyxia however still felt ripped off in this process, having a disconnected essence wasn’t seeming quite as fair as having the connected ones her friends had. If this other essence was so accepted by her, why didn’t it simply become part of her. She could almost feel the response, that it was all a matter of personal circumstances, possibly a combination of the circumstances of her predecessor’s death in addition to the complications of her Ersatz body. This resulted in a waste of her second essence’s ability, which was tragic simply in the context of realizing that they had learned that their second essences were each their main essences, after the involvement of the Astral Flame. That implied it was the ambitions of the real her that was disconnected, that only her predecessor’s ambitions remained, except for that small fragment.

“Looks like I missed all the personal stuff. Perfect. Now for my own question. We had noticed that the beasts around here have been getting more and more aggressive, and the timing was starting to look too similar to the progress of the Astral Flame. Is there any chance of a relationship between the two subjects?” “Actually, I don’t even think that would be possible. Just like Eqriuxzl’s device, I can see the Astral Flame’s traces, none of the beasts have such influence. Actually, I think it might be related to something else. While hunting beasts deep underground, we actually saw someone capture one of the beasts, and then all the other beasts began lashing out. Even how they completed the process, it was pretty obvious this was a standard routine, they’ve done this before plenty of times. Repeat such captivity too many times, the beasts would really be constantly on edge. They could then be either searching for their lost companion, or otherwise growing in desperation as their losses put their goals at greater distances.” Ayzherie listened to Riyxia recount that scene in greater detail, the captivity by some still unknown person. Eqriuxzl personally jumped at the details of the portal that was used, going back to his own notes again in review.

“That reminds me, when originally searching for the Astral Flame, I had thought it had used portals to fuel its ambitions and presence, even if that belief was wrong. That idea didn't suddenly come up from nowhere, I had found evidence of the mass usage of phase-gate portals throughout the entire city. Something or someone had gone to great efforts to hide the usage of such gates, making things pretty hard to detect, which was really suspicious back then. Due to the danger, I haven’t checked for any similar readings from the mountains, but the descriptions seem to match what would be observable by the same readings I’ve found. It seems we might have our coincidences mixed up then, the Astral Flame not being so related to either, but both otherwise related to the other. Someone is working with a gateway technique, either by instrument or gift, to ensure that beasts are transported somewhere else, and the same person or people is working from within the city itself. It might even be related to that really powerful portal I found within the city, in some abandoned property. The place had some really considerable defenses, so I didn’t bother investigating, but it might be worth checking out.. you girls probably could pierce such defenses without breaking a sweat at this point. It was at some old place not far from my apartment actually, the sign said it’s owned by someone named Ymheqxhya.” Eqriuxzl paused as things started to seem awkward within the room. He had spoken two syllables all three girls were familiar with, being the name shared by Riyxia’s parents, in fact the family name she herself held. All three girls were thus staring at him blankly in pure disbelief.

“I take it this place might have some special significance for you three, and I suspect it relates to your original purpose for coming here. Fortunately, if this theory of having beasts taken captive, instigating them as they have been.. if that’s true, then I really need to figure out more in order for us to continue keeping the beasts contained. Please.. go to this place, look for any useful hints, and let me know anything related to this theory. If you find anything useful to your own goals in the process, consider that a personal bonus. It might be smart to be prompt in this, so consider it a replacement for tomorrow’s training. In that light, please be aware that you will be inside the city, and will want to keep the display of mass destruction to an absolute minimum. Consider it a good opportunity to practice with your respective gifts and everything. Eqriuxzl, I may have some extra study for you to work on. We might need to make use of your personal skills and equipment to identify more about these gates in the mountains. I know, walking through the mountains is pretty dangerous, so I’ll have to request some alternate arrangements that would keep you out of the reach of the mountain beasts. I’ll let you know when everything is in order, but make sure you take the opportunity to get what you need for such a scanning operation. If they are trying to keep things out of sight, sticking to areas deep underground, you’re going to need to be ready with some quality equipment. Let me know if you need anything more, and we can see about securing that as well.” Ayzherie was quickly off at that, rushing to make sure everything would be promptly prepared in kind. As it was also getting close to dinner, everyone else decided that now would be a good time to leave as well.

After dinner, all the girls were back to taking things easy, the day having been surprisingly long overall. Dinner at least went fairly smoothly, attributed to the fact that the other hunters had no real idea what the girls had done or accomplished, just that they were taking their training rather seriously, being assigned some irregular stuff, and that being mostly accounted for by them not being real hunters, to keep them out of the way of the other hunters. The rumor mill had put quite a lot of wonder at some of the casual destruction that was discovered that morning outside the area of the shelter, but as yet no connection had been made. The patrols that had witnessed the entire event had only thought that the activity they saw was only part of the girl’s regular training, completed in the middle of the night, and looking quite normal without a concept of scale. Some of the latest gifts demonstrated by the girls were simply believed to be Sryine’s newest illusions, along with Vwyx making use of her melding on crystals. There were still a lot of things to explain, but all of that could still wait for another opportunity.

“So, are we going to do more of that projection stuff again soon? I hear you’ve been working really hard on training, so certainly we’ve got a few useful things we can work with by now, right?” “Actually, we might. I’ve been thinking of a simulator, so first have it build realistic projections of threats to deal with in a safe environment, like a bunch of beasts to casually face off against, simple stuff. We can later involve other simulated challenges, stuff that’s a bit more complicated for them, needing some complex decision making. I would need to talk more with Ayzherie about that sort of thing, but there just hasn’t been much opportunity. Maybe tomorrow you should start trying to catalog some generic training courses with her, she almost comes up with this stuff in her sleep no matter what new stuff comes up.” “But you can only project in a small area, how are we going to come up with anything useful for such a purpose with such limitations?” “Easy, make the whole thing a carried personal set instead of a wide area projector. Give the person an interpretation of their surroundings, a course to almost just play out in their head like a dream. My illusions can handle all five senses, so it’s pretty perfect for such a thing. If the tiny box of a space that they are in leaves them thinking they are in a much larger area, doing much greater things, it will seem like a real crisis that could cover thousands of Uyns.” Hyusziq’s eyes were glittering from this impression Sryine was leaving from her description. Sryine had actually gotten the idea recently from a combination of the immersion of her own augmentation, and the nightmare from the night before. Jwyexzn sitting nearby actually pulled closer to hear more, himself seeing the benefit of this kind of endeavour. A scale of illusion so compressed, yet with that level of potential magnitude, he knew several people who would have a demand for it, this sort of development would itself be ground-breaking and newsworthy. Out of all irony, that was almost the pitch Liyuzhe had tried to sell him on earlier, news that would be bought by all of the city’s businesses, and sticking around instead had brought an even greater opportunity that was very similar. He could just tell, these three girls would quickly become the city’s next big thing, and he wanted to make sure he was around to be the only one with the full scope of all related details, if for nothing more than to promote their growing greatness.

“So, that was you three earlier this morning, right, all of that destruction. Something was going on, last night, yesterday.. something important is going on.. that’s why Ayzherie is so interested in you three. My group had gone to the chasm today, including Nuiqhyx, and we got to see the destruction that had suddenly appeared there too, the same place you three were supposed to be training at the day before. Something serious is going on, and I know we’re being kept from getting involved, but I want you to know you can call me if something comes up and you need someone, my cell is always available. Even if you just need me to tell something important to Ayzherie, I’ll get it done. Look, I joined the Hunters to make sure people stayed safe, so being able to do nothing for you has.. it hasn’t been easy. Really, if you need a hand, just let me know. I plan to talk with Ayzherie about it, probably tomorrow, seeing what else we can do to support you. That same day, we saw only one pack leader ourselves, working together with some of the other groups to take it down. To find two corpses of leaders that could have only been handled by three girls…” Dhyinze might in fact be the only one with a suspicion of what was really going on, both from this visit to the new chasm, and him being included in sending supplies for the morning training. He thus seemed very serious in his intentions to Vwyx, and had enough reasons to be worried. Vwyx could only hope Ayzherie would know what to tell him, his pride would probably be shot when he found out the truth. Things would probably start getting rather difficult around the Hunters once news began to spread. Having a reporter around, they had to be thankful things still remained so quiet with the Hunters.

The three girls went to bed really early, intending on catching up to some early sleep. All three of them were willing to rest in their assigned room, no wishes greater than comfort in slumber as they all fell asleep instantly.