Zyet had brought two meals, surprisingly to John. Well, he had arrived with one meal, and then, after John had put it before Avers - the young lad definitely needed the food more than John did - Zyet had reappeared with another. The two ate and drank in companionable silence; John drank water he fetched from the tub, and Avers drank the beer.

"This is pretty good. Uh, the food's ... not bad either." Avers was lifting the beer, examining the sediment at the bottom, and his stricken expression only deepened as his mouth opened again, apparently unwilling to stop himself in time. "Although you should filt- ... ah, sir." John just shrugged.

"I don't have anything I can use to filter it, although figuring that out is next on my list. Been brewing it myself with the stuff around the manor." Avers looked up, and then back down to the beer, with a complication expression that John couldn't quite figure out. Something between confusion and ... something else.

"Uh, sir. Why don't you send your man to town and get some cheesecloth?"

"Zyet?" John blinked, looking out the door to where the strange sage had disappeared. "He's not ... but I don't know, I hadn't thought to ask. I guess I'll ask him tomorrow."

"You can't send for him? Oh, uh, forgive me, sir." Avers ducked his head, his face reddening.

"Lad, I'm a mil- I'm a scholar." The second wasn't quite right, either, but the first, as automatic as it had been, was entirely wrong. "The only thing qualifying me for that sir is my age, and I think my deep well of immaturity balances that off nicely. It's John, or Jonathon if you insist."

Avers looked up. "You're a scholar? Oh! Forgive me, Professor ..." he paused for a moment, searching, "Professor Eucole." John couldn't help but bark out a laugh at that. It did sound almost right, for all the pretense involved; he almost was the picture of the absent-minded self-professed professors he had met in the Three Isles. Although he'd yet to doddle about, holding 'classes' only the newly arrived attended, in which he spouted opinion like it was fact. He'd attended a few himself before he learned better.

"John is fine. I've gone by it far more than I have any other name." You got one-syllable names in the military. Anything longer, and you might die when somebody was shouting for you to duck, as their tongues labored over the extra baggage.

"So forgive me from asking, si- pro- ... uh, John, but are you the owner?" Avers was looking around the room they were in, still awed at the fine furnishings. John considered the question for a moment.

"I don't think so. Maybe? Zyet seems to fit that role better. I'm not really sure what I'm doing here. I'd leave if I could." Oh. Whoops. He'd meant to let that particular conversation wait until ... well, the lad was fed. Close enough. Avers' eyes turned back to John, widening.

"You're a prisoner? But you were outside ..." Avers looked John over, then around the room, looking for something only he knew.

"Gate won't open." Avers attention returned to John, expression going flat. Ah yes. He had walked through the gate; he thought John was messing him about. John elaborated. "The gate doesn't open from the inside. It didn't close behind you, it was never open." Avers continued giving him the look. "There's some kind of spacial magic going on here."

The look evaporated, into an expression, first of relief, then of fear. "Magic?" What rural backwater was the lad even from? Most large cities had nearly as many magi as anyone else, if for no other reason than that it was necessary for food and water. Farms could produce more food, and much more flavorful, for less effort, until you considered transportation. Only the rich and the rural ate farm-grown fruits and vegetables; everyone else ate manna.

Most people supplemented the magical nutrition with meat; meat was far tastier than magic-summoned food, and was only one extra step away, feeding the animals the magical food. It was slightly more expensive, but well worth it. Even John's parents, poverty-stricken as they were, had mixed meat in with their manna stew more days than not.

John's attention returned to the lad, who still had a rigid and unnatural posture; he raised a hand for Avers to relax. "It's just magic. If you've been to a city, it's everywhere. I'm still working out how to get out of this particular place, although I must admit I'm not working too hard at it, as curiosity has caught me as thoroughly as the magic itself." He mused for a moment on his fear, and his temptation, of investigating the magic that let this estate function. The fear still outweighed the temptation - the blood, he was sure it was blood, that had come from the walls still terrified him. But the fear was fading, and the temptation remained as strong as ever.

"Uh. Right." Avers still looked fearful, but straightened himself up; John eyed him, recognizing a country lad trying not to be seen as unsophisticated. It's what John had been aiming for, after all.

"Anyways, yeah. I haven't been able to figure out a way out. I guess I can work a little harder on that, get you out of here before you're as old as I am." John laughed, but Avers just shrank in fear a little bit more. "Don't worry lad, there's a way. I know Zyet can leave, and another gentleman left as well." Unspoken was Leonard's implication that it might have taken a decade. Avers definitely didn't need to hear that.

"Uh. Right. Sir. Uh, John."

"Anyways, I'm rambling a bit. Zyet isn't much for conversation" if the sage was even human, which John was starting to doubt "and I've spent a little while now without any decent company. You'll want your rest, I'll come by in the morning and we'll see about getting you fed again and on your way."

"Thank you, sir." John stood, and left, Avers looking terrified behind him. Well, so much for the lad's rest. Maybe he'd get a little bit of sleep anyways; the beds were quite luxurious, and while John didn't actually have much experience with luxury, they definitely exceeded anything he had encountered before.

Avers walked out the gate - the closed gate - without apparent issue. He'd just moved his hand, and the gate opened in front of him. John stared in shock and dismay as the lad turned and looked at him.

Avers, for his part, was giving John a look that suggested he now thought John had been telling him ghost stories the night before, his hands moving to his hips.

"Ah. Right. Well, maybe it's just me, then." John thought about the odd mithril collar he couldn't remove, at least not for very long. Maybe the effect was somehow bound to it?

"Ah. Right. Well, uh. Thank you for the meal and bed, sir. I ... " Avers paused for a moment, then, expression clouding. Then it cleared. "I'll try to be back in a few days with some cheesecloth. I think your beer would be pretty good."

John blinked, and smiled. "I'll have some ready for you."

John filled every available jar with beer over the next few days - if Avers could be a reliable intermediary to trade with whatever village he came from, as John hadn't though to ask, he needed some trade goods - and spent some time exploring. He did find a new and different storeroom, or maybe laundry room - this one contained bedding, towels, and an empty copper washtub. One corner also held a large mechanical contraption with rollers he couldn't quite figure out the use of - he couldn't find a handle - but which he thought might be for wringing out water. It was the only new room he had found, but he suspected there were many.

Otherwise, he started focusing on the farming, until one rack of shelves of the farming storeroom were heaped with elderberry seeds. Well, maybe not heaped - they weren't actually in danger of sliding off - but he was pleased. His only other focus was building up a supply of his fuel, and having run out of places to put more berries, he started adding them into the fuel as well. It didn't make a huge difference, but it made some.

Zyet, somewhat to John's expectations, did not respond whatsoever to anything John said. He was quite sure that Zyet was not human, but couldn't progress any further on that mystery, no matter how he tried. He spent his days waiting for Avers to get back - he wanted to trade for some more bags, and maybe some barrels, to begin with. Actual barrels, that could be sealed, would mean he could make more beer, and then he could start trading for more valuable things. He wasn't sure what those more valuable things were, yet, but he'd figure it out.

---

Kyuse stared into the dying ashes of the fire. Another day, another meal of fish. He was tired of fish, but his heart also felt too dull and worn-out to really get worked up over it. His nightmares were old friends, but they were friends who had overstayed their welcome, and which he couldn't ask to leave. He deserved them.

At length, he rose, the aetherhand moving automatically to pull down the ladder, which he ascended smoothly. He had gotten pretty good at climbing up the thing, although climbing down was still challenging. His camp - no, his house - greeted him.

He'd added some additional furniture, grown from trees further out, and then broken off. He moved to the chair he actually sat in - the seat was angled on one side, back supported entirely from the other, so his tail would fit in if he slid into it from the side - and slid into it, relaxing against the broad back of it.

This was his third chair. His first chair he had broken, after unconsciously leaning back in it, and damn near broken his tail under himself as well. His second chair was sitting innocently a few feet away - he'd tried growing a rocking chair, deciding to satisfy the need to rock back in a chair, instead of resisting the. It worked, although it had been a pain to haul up into the space, even using aetherhand. But rocking chairs and tails, as it transpired, didn't mix. So it sat unoccupied.

There was also a small side table he never used, but which would hold his books if he ever sat down to read. Light would be a problem if he wanted to read in the evenings, his old habit - he couldn't exactly light a fire in here. But it wasn't a problem for today, and his attention moved on.

To ... nothing. And that was the problem that increasingly pressed on Kyuse. He had set up a comfortable place. He had a source of food, however tiresome fish became. He had shelter from the rain, and when the seasons changed, the snow. His fur meant that the cold wouldn't be an issue - he ... already knew that, but his mind quickly moved on before he focused on the memories. He was running out of things to do to make this place complete.

And he started dreading the feeling of completing a task, of having one less thing to occupy his mind. Kyuse had been running on fulfilling tasks, on distracting himself, but the number of tasks was dwindling, and with it, the distractions. Every day he found that he had to try a little bit harder to not think about the last ... the last few years.

Kyuse choked back a sudden rising sob before it had begun, hardening his mind, concentrating on his unsteady breathing until he stopped gasping for air. Calm. In. Out. In. Out.

The evenings were the worst. No, falling asleep was the worst. Going through the tasks he would accomplish the next day didn't work anymore. He'd love to have someone to talk to, someone to distract him with inane conversation about arcane powers beyond human comprehension. But he didn't look like a person anymore, and he'd get an arrow or a sword through him before he could convince somebody that he wasn't some kind of new and unknown monster. He was lonely, but that wasn't a problem he could solve, it wasn't a task he could check off the list.

Kyuse needed ... Kyuse needed a hobby. Something to occupy his time, that wouldn't end when he completed it.

He took up whittling with a knife that had never been designed for it. He had no shortage of wood, after all, and the challenge of using the knife for this unintended purpose was perfect.

---

Avers returned, as promised. John saw him approaching as he worked the fields, and moved to the gate to greet him, waving cheerfully. Mostly he was grateful for human company.

"Hey there!" Avers waved back as John called out to greet him, smiling cheerfully. He moved through the gate, which never stopped being closed from John's perspective, shifting a bag from a shoulder and offering it to John.

It had cheesecloth. And also some actual cheese. No, wait - that was muslin. John picked up some of the somewhat finer fabric, looking up to Avers.

"My da said that cheesecloth would let too much sediment through." Avers offered by way of explanation, then continued, in a slightly neutral tone, eyes moving up as he tried to remember some phrasing. "Also he said thank you for your hospitality good sir and more people should be like you, the old ways of hospitality are important and ..."

John watched Avers screw up his face, trying to remember the rest of his memorized speech, and took pity. "Tell your 'da' that hospitality is the proper way of things, and his appreciation is in turn appreciated." Alright, not too much pity. Avers opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, then just nodded, eyes closing tightly.

"So, want to try some of the beer, sans sediment?" Avers opened his eyes again and smiled, nodding. He was dressed a little more nicely today, looking less worn down and ragged than his last visit. What had he even been doing out here, back then?

The two walked back up the path to the manor, between the half-dead trees that lined the walk. Avers was from a small farming village northeast of here, a half day's walk by road, called Rustor's Walk. They had a single store, which sold durable goods and naught else - it was a community of farmers, and if somebody needed milk they'd trade for it. The local blacksmith was another two villages over, a three day walk. And the nearest glassblower was a week's journey away, although his wares could be purchased in Rustor, as the town was usually abbreviated.

The glassblower was the one John had initially been interested in, but Avers informed him that, with the distance involved, glass was too expensive for most tasks. One of the farmers moonlighted as a cooper, although parts had to be ordered from the blacksmith.

John then gave Avers a tour of the manor; Avers jaw dropped when John demonstrated that the rooms didn't stay fixed in place, setting a piece of cheesecloth in the floor in one of the yellow bedrooms, then walking down the hall and around a corner, opening a door there into the same bedroom, where the cloth sat right where it had been placed.

"But ... " Avers pointed wordlessly back down the hall where they had come from. "But we just came ... " John enjoyed the fresh reaction; it had really thrown him for a loop, too, and he was accustomed to some level of magical shenanigans going on, from his time in the Three Isles.

"Yeah. This place is something else. My goal is to find a way into the towers, no luck there yet though. If nothing else, I'd love a good view of the surrounding area."

Avers nodded, and John walked out the door and turned left. A new door sat facing him, a dead-end in the hallways that never had dead-ends. John blinked at it. It was metal, some kind of copper alloy, set in walls that were distinctly different from those they met; these were rough stone, compared to the elegant wood paneling of the rest of the manor.

"Huh. I think ..." John swallowed. What did this mean? "I think we just found one of them."

There was indeed a spiral staircase, in a circular room about ten paces across. Windows were set at odd angles in every direction - and John was disturbed to notice that he couldn't see the manor, or the fence, or indeed the estate at all, through any of them. As far as the view from the tower was concerned, as they ascended, they were in a vast, empty meadow, surrounded by forest.

The lighting in the tower came from the same lanterns, suspended from overhead, which appeared irregularly. They glowed with a golden light, but peering into the glass, as he walked up and drew level with one, there was no apparent source - it was just bright inside the lantern.

The lanterns, made of the same alloy as the door - John designed it was bronze, absent further evidence - were suspended with delicate-looking bronze chains, which rose up to a landing, five or six floors above them. There was no rail on the spiral staircase, which wound its way up the walls, a series of stone steps apparently mortared into, and a part of, the walls themselves. He felt like they should break underfoot, under their own weight if not the two hesitantly ascending men's, but they didn't shift in the least.

He had never been afraid of heights, but John could see through the gaps in each step, and as the floor below fell away beneath them, he found himself edging until his shoulder brushed the wall. The stone would not be forgiving of a fall. Avers panted behind him, muttering unintelligibly to himself. John wanted to rant and rave, himself, but he had been looking for these damned towers for - days? Weeks? He'd lost track of time.

"Hey, uh, Avers." His voice was -not- trembling."

"Y-yeah?"

"What day is it?"

There was a pause, and then a quiet, disbelieving laugh. "Day? Day? It's, uh, the fourteenth of First Founding. Why?"

Hell. It had been a month, give or take a few days; he hadn't actually been doing a good job tracking before he'd gotten here, really. And he'd really lost track of some days in here. Wait.

"Uh. What year?"

"Really? Uh. 458."

Okay, good, a month. Give or take. So time dilation hadn't been - he resisted the urge to ask which era, which would just be silly. If an era had come and gone, the odds were astronomical against the possibility of arriving in the same damn year. Anyways, if there was a time dilation effect causing a few more days to pass outside than inside, it wasn't too bad.

John focused his attention on the lanterns, instead. They were actually really pretty, now that he had gotten used to the asymmetry of the place; the overall effect was almost like an immensely tall, golden-lit chandelier. Sort of.

"W-why do you ask?"

"Oh. Time passes weirdly here, and I wanted to make sure the world hadn't completely passed me by outside."

"Ah." Avers sounded quiet. "Did it?"

"Nope. Still the same year. A few more days might have gone by out there than in here, but nothing like what I was worried about."

They fell into mutual silence as they labored up the stairs. John's legs hurt; this was a damned long climb. He looked up again at the approaching landing, and could see more spiral staircases above it. It kept going. How tall was it from the outside? He couldn't quite remember.

John, leading, arrived at the landing first, and collapsed, panting heavily, to the ground, laying on his back and staring up. He really hadn't wanted to stop on those stairs, and now he was completely done. Five or six stories? It had felt like more, not that he had ever spent much time climbing stairs. Was it always that much work?

Avers sat heavily down next to him, not quite as far out of breath, but folding his arms around himself, teeth chattering lightly - farmers tended towards heavier labor than John's past few years as a scholar. But then, farmers probably didn't get up to too many activities much more dangerous than the activity itself.

Not that farming was safe, exactly, but the dangers were more, well, down to earth. Most were rangers, for the benefits in dealing with animals, but even then, a ploughbeast was still not entirely predictable. Belatedly, John realized he had been somewhat rude when they first met, but it was a bit late to exchange classes. They rested on the landing, looking up.

John's eyes finally drifted sideways, where he noticed a door sitting in the wall. Slowly, he got up, moving to the door, and opened it. He wasn't surprised, exactly, to discover the quite familiar hallway behind it. Leaving the door open, he moved through, keeping an eye back on Avers through the opening as he walked to the first door, and opened it. The library. He moved back into the tower before he lost his way back in.

"Checking the hallway to see if there were new rooms, if we were on a new floor." He explained, to Aver's questioning look. The lad nodded.

Hm. There was a window near to the door. John walked across the landing, so he could look through the window and door at the same time. Well, that was a disturbing view; an empty meadow through one, and a hallway through the other. John moved back in, closing the door.

"T-this place is creepy." Avers offered, as he watched John's motions. John just nodded.

"I'd love to know what magic is responsible, though. I had given up being a scholar, but this place is slowly reawakening it in me."

---

Kyuse was getting pretty decent with the knife, and he'd only cut himself a few times. Okay, he'd cut himself a lot, until he sharpened his knife on the whetstone. He really needed a strop - how could have have remembered the whetstone, and forgotten a strop? He had made do, unwrapping the leather from one of the vials of acid, but the grain was a little course for the work, and he wasn't sure if it actually helped or not.

The sharpening as a whole had, and he'd managed to carve himself a simple wand, which he'd used as a focusing implement for growing new wood a grand total of once. Then he'd realized he could make a better focusing implement, which was what he was working on now.

A living wood oak staff, grown from an acorn with nurture until it sprouted. Then he'd carefully alternated carving with nurture and woodwarp castings, until he had a straight sapling, as tall as he was and of perfect width for his wide hands, topped in a dense bundle of living leaves. Two thirds of it was coated in bark; the bottom third was woodwarped roots, forming a dense spiral.

It extended his effective reach quite well - strictly speaking, he could use aetherhand for the same purpose, but it wasn't attuned correctly to biomantic mage, and worked better for pure thaumaturgy. This enhanced his spellcrafting slightly, instead of reducing it.

When he wasn't using the staff, he planted it, with a small burst of Nurture, beside the river where it could get some sunlight - he'd cleared out a small section of bushes, and cut down the remaining brush around it until the leaves got some more direct light. There was still canopy overhead, but it was thin by the river, and there was light to be had, at least. He had to cut the roots off each time he picked it up, but his mana fixed the damage whenever he brought it back.

This distraction sufficed for a few days, but he was still lonely and miserable, spending far too much time avoiding thinking about things. He finally decided that he did need to confront at least a little bit of the past years. The easy stuff, first.

Like Silvas making him cut off parts of himself and cook them for her, before using her magic to restore him. He made himself - he let himself - remember. Day after day. Week after week.

When he had finished sobbing until he could barely breathe, he forced himself to start whittling again, through the blurriness of the tears. He carved a little wooden bat. Well, a blob with wing-shaped blobs; the knife wasn't great for delicate work.

---

The next landing was even further up. If the last had been five stories, this one was six. They climbed in silence, again shifting closer to the walls as they climbed higher, looking out the windows as they passed them. They were growing level with the immensely tall trees of the distant forest.

The next landing had another door; John didn't bother to open it, knowing what he'd find. Although he was tempted to go for water, or even better, beer, he wanted to see the top of the tower before he left.

However, the four or five stories to the landing above them had started to make him doubt he'd get to the top. He was reasonably certain now that they had climbed higher than the tower had been on the outside. One more landing. They rested, and climbed higher.

Another landing. Another. John's every muscle ached; Avers was quiet, but also, Avers was quiet. The lad didn't seem overly strained by the climb, but then, he was a farmer. He probably did more work every morning. Through the windows, the ground fell away beneath them, and the forest stretched out towards the horizon.

"That's Rustor's Walk, over there." Avers pointed towards a gap in the canopy, through which could be seen the sharp lines of brown rooftops. Tile, or thatching? Too far away to tell. It was indeed a good distance away, a long walk. John nodded, pausing to admire the view. They just looked out the window for a while, and then continued up without speaking.

Eleven landings up, and somewhere between fifty and seventy floors, and John reached his limit. He lay on the floor, spent, where he had been resting for some half an hour now without any sense of recovery. The meadow couldn't be seen at all through the windows anymore, and individual trees were indistinguishable, just green blurs far below.

"Professor, I don't think there is a top to this tower. I think it has the kind of creepy like the rest of this place." John nodded from his position laying on the stone floor.

"I think you are right, huah, lad." He wheezed back.

"At least we don't have to walk all the way back down. Want help back to your room?"

John didn't want to want help, but he did in fact want help. Avers helped him to his feet, offering his shoulder to the old scholar as they moved awkwardly through the bronze door. The open door of his bedroom waited a few feet away, and Avers helped John to his study chair, where he collapsed.

He'd found the tower. It just hadn't given him anything he'd wanted. The view had been nice, but it had only deepened the weirdness inherent to the estate - no tower in the world rose that tall, it would collapse under its own weight, magical reinforcement or no.

He smiled anyways. Avers was a nice kid. He'd have to leave again in the morning, but that was alright; John would send some jars of strained beer with him, and maybe in a few weeks he'd get himself a barrel or four. Hell, the glass jars, with their screw-on lids, would be worth more than the beer itself, but what he really wanted wasn't glass jars, but barrels, sacks, and cloth. And maybe some different food. He picked at the meal in front of him; he hadn't enjoyed this meal in a while, now, and he almost had to make himself eat it. Hm. Maybe even some spices. That would be something.