"Shitshitshit!" Caeden cursed as he waved his flaming gauntlets, trying to get the flames to go out. His shrouded weapon had violently reacted to the suppressing sword. He had expected them to interact, but he didn't think it would set his weapon on fire!

"Are you ok?!" Lily sounded just as panicked as him, and his hands were on fire!

Before Caeden could respond, a wave of thick storm clouds washed over his gauntlets, the water snuffing the fire out in an instant.

"Whew. Thanks, Lil." Caeden reflexively shook his hands as if to cool them off, even though the heat never touched him. "Well, we need to find a way around that."

"Are you joking? We're not doing that again!" Lily sounded affronted that he'd even think of it.

"It's fine, I'm not hurt at all, and Forged Infinity is fine. We just need to create a barrier between the gauntlets and the sword." Caeden reasoned.

"There's no guarantee that would work!" Lily protested.

"Yeah, but there's no reason not to try." Caeden shrugged. He didn't feel like he was being reckless. His push had definitely moved the crossguard that little bit closer to touching the Heartstone.

"I'm pretty sure your shrouded weapon bursting into flames is a good reason not to try again!" Lily glared.

"Oh, come on. Help me come up with a good way to stop that from happening. Please?" For a long moment, Caeden wasn't sure if Lily would agree to help or ignore him. But after a minute of giving her his best pleading look, Lily's sharp gaze softened into a pout.

"Fine. But we're making sure this is the best defense we can give." She insisted.

"Of course. I don't want to get lit on fire any more than you." Caeden laughed.

Several minutes passed as various ideas bounced around, with Erik, Sauma, and Cat pitching in whenever they thought of something. Finally, they landed on a halfway reasonable preventative measure. Sauma started wrapping Caeden's gauntlets in her strongest webbing. As she layered on the thick strands, Lily slipped in slivers of dry ice, solidified carbon dioxide. The chemical was commonly used to smother fires, and its frozen state was cold enough to hopefully prevent the flames from forming.

"Ok," Caeden looked at his hands. He couldn't see the gauntlets buried under so much dry ice and webbing. "Here goes."

Once more, Caeden slammed his covered hands down on the sword. Once more, he pushed as hard as he could, his fully enhanced might bearing down. He needed every bit of that strength. Caeden felt both the sword and the Heartstone resisting his push. The sword resisted because of his shrouds, and the Heartstone resisted the seal. He might be bearing down on it, but this was the definition of an uphill battle.

More than that, he could feel the interaction between Forged Infinity and the sword. The webbing and ice interfered as they had hoped, slowing down the inevitable clash that had caused the fire. It was interesting to experience, even as he pushed down another millimeter. The sword pushed out with a force that wanted to rip his shrouds apart. Forged Infinity, partially composed of his shrouds, was just as susceptible as him.

Or that's what he thought. In fact, his unique weapon was fighting back. The same ability it held to tear apart and absorb other shrouds was in action, somehow combating the sword. The more Caeden observed, the more confident he was that this unique facet of Forged Infinity was the only reason it hadn't shattered apart under the destructive power of the suppressing sword.

Which meant the only reason they were able to get this far was because of dumb luck. Caeden mentally kicked himself. This attempt to re-seal the Heartstone could have been just as disastrous as when they started with the hammers. Admittedly, that danger would have been to him, not his friends, so at least that was a better outcome. Still, this was just as ill-conceived as last time.

Altogether, that fact left Caeden feeling a bit lost, even as he kept slowly pushing the sword deeper. These attempts to seal the Heartstone were the first time he had consciously tried to be more proactive about doing good since they started the Forged, and that had still mostly been about protecting Lily. He wanted to escape his old apathy toward anything not directly related to him and become a better person.

Now, those attempts had come very close to greatly harming both himself and his friends. It felt like he was being punished for trying to be better. It was discouraging. Once again, he had to acknowledge that the world wouldn't bend to his desires and that becoming a more caring, active person was an uphill battle.

His resolve wasn't weakened. If Lily, who was under much more pressure and came from far worse circumstances, could truly care about the lives of strangers, then he could too. Doing any less than her would be unbearable. He wouldn't know how to look her in the eyes, knowing he hadn't at least tried to live up to the standard she set.

With a solid click, the crossguard came to rest against the surface of the Heartstone. Moving at a blur, Caeden jumped back from the stone entirely. He didn't want to be anywhere close to that sword any longer than he had to, knowing what he now did about how close he had come to losing his shrouded weapon and possibly gravely injuring himself.

Moments after the sword's descent was complete, several things happened in rapid succession. The ball of orange light sitting at the center of the Heartstone began to dim and disappear as the energy veins began to evaporate, wisps of raw Ki bleeding out of them and into the cavern air. They were all plunged into darkness.

While everything was dark, Caeden felt the consciousness of Forged Infinity reach out and whisper into his mind. "System fault detected due to outside element. Nature of fault undefined. Proceed to the nearest continent-level Central Management System for further diagnostics. Access to forms above 099 restricted due to safety concerns until further diagnostics are performed."

Then light returned as Cat manifested a few workers, their green flames casting an eerie glow around the chamber. Caeden immediately looked at his gauntlets. Sections of webbing covering then had melted away, and all the dry ice had evaporated, exposing the gold and purple metal underneath. Portions of that metal looked melted and warped, indicating the damage Forged Infinity had taken. Caeden hadn't managed to complete his act of altruism unscathed.

"Woo! We did it! Now let's get out of here. I really want a steak and some popcorn." Erik cheered.

"Hold on; we need to grab the revolutionaries." Cat created a Passenger Brute, and everyone started to hop on as Sauma bound the five revolutionaries that had been captured and remained sitting against the cavern wall.

"I believe it would be best if I discorporated, master," Sauma spoke to Erik. "My webs will remain as long as you sustain them, but I'm a bit large to be a passenger." Sauma, with her legs and abdomen, covered enough space to occupy 3/4th of the Passenger Brute's back. With them carrying the five revolutionaries, she wouldn't fit.

"Ok, see you next time." Erik raised his hand, and Sauma grabbed on like a handshake. Bands of Stitch flowed off her body, absorbing into Erik's skin as Sauma disappeared. "Oh, that's cool!"

"What?" Caeden stopped worrying about Forged Infinity. Transforming it back into its hilt form hadn't caused any problems, and there was nothing he could do about it right now. He would just have to deal with not having access to the triple-digit transformations for now.

"Well, since I manifested Sauma, she can talk to me now even when she's not acting as my Incarnation. She's like a voice in the back of my head. Also, discorporating her restored my shroud reserves! That's insane!" Erik looked almost stunned.

"Oh, yeah. I forgot about that." Caeden nodded.

"How could you forget about that?! It's such a massive benefit!" Erik stared at him incredulously.

Caeden shrugged. "It doesn't really matter to me. I can use sharp to restore my reserves without Incarnating it anyway. In fact, Sharp is arguably more sustainable without me using its Incarnation. When I get Physical Enhancement's Incarnation, that'll be an entirely different situation."

"I can't believe you never said anything." Lily sounded just as disbelieving.

"It never came up. I don't see why it matters."

Erik and Lily shook their heads, sharing a rare moment of camaraderie between them at Caeden's expense. Caeden wisely chose to ignore it and move on. It wasn't worth trying to defend himself anymore. The whole concept had genuinely slipped his mind once he realized how little it did for him. Obviously, he knew that Incarnation's restoring the shrouded's reserves was one of their main benefits for most people, but it didn't affect him, so he forgot about it.

"Yeah, let's get out of here. I'm done with tunnels and caverns." Cat jumped in, ready to leave. They all hopped onto the Passenger Brute, which had to stoop to traverse the tunnels, and left the sealed Heartstone behind. This whole episode felt like some surreal nightmare to all of them.

{}

Finding the exit ended up being easier than they expected. Erik used his interrogation technique on one of the revolutionaries who told them which of the tunnels leading off the main revolution encampment was the surface exit. Making their exodus even easier was finding that the camp was abandoned. Probably due to the monsters racing through.

Looking at the exit tunnel made it obvious to everyone that a cursory search of the tunnels around the camp cavern would have naturally led them to this one. It was significantly wider and taller than most other tunnels, and the smooth walls showed telltale signs of excavation that could only mean this tunnel was artificial. The steady upward incline was another sign that this was the surface tunnel.

Nearly two hours passed as the Passenger brute took them up toward the surface. Breaching into a tree-filled clearing, they all let out a sigh of relief. A week underground was a long time to not see the Pillar. Now that they were back in daylight, it was almost impossible to describe the relief. Caeden thought that none of them had really realized how much the constant monotonous light of the Heartstone veins or the oppressive darkness of the underground had weighed on them.

There were no revolutionaries here either. It seems they had moved on. The monster wave had been almost four hours ago, so they had plenty of time to put some distance between themselves and this clearing. They briefly debated hunting them down, whether in the air or on the ground, but ultimately decided it was more important to find and inform Blaine.

Lily flew into the air on a cloud to look around for where the town was, only to be interrupted by a shrill cry before Sky almost slammed bodily into her. "Oh, I'm so sorry. Things went wrong."

The Midnight Roc simply glared at her.

"Ok, ok. Next time, I'll bring you and Snowball. I promise." Lily acceded to her bound monster's unspoken point. "Now, where is the big fluff-ball?"

With the bird equivalent of a snort, the deep-blue eyes turned to gaze at a distant point where Lily could barely see Mining Station 003 at the base of Black Reach. The clearing was in a nearby valley some three miles away.

Lily dropped back down, Sky firmly attached to her shoulder. The Roc refused to let go. "Ok, I know where we are and how to get back; let's go. I really need a hot shower."

"YES!"

"First thing I'm doing."

"Why are we still here?"

The Passenger Brute charged out of the clearing, heading back to civilization, propelled by its master's intense desire for indoor plumbing.