"What's next?" Beef asked, plodding up next to him. Felix had been staring at the Shadowgate, now quiescent, for a couple long minutes. The last of his people had walked through, swallowed up by the tar-like darkness, and the entire contraption had slowed until the sigaldry around it dimmed to a bare glow. Beef's clacking hooves roused him, though. "First we talk to the Deepking." He strode away from the Shadowgate, down the ramp and across the polished flooring. A pattern of seven point stars had been worked into the stone, glittering white to contrast the flecked blue-gray of the slabs. An inlay of dull gray metal outlined each star, defining negative space between the white. It was only a single detail among thousands, but it was fascinating. How did the Nym make these Temples? How can they repair themselves? The process took Essence and significance from Felix, lightening the darkness within his core by the tiniest margin. In both senses. The shadows around his cores and Skills was paler, and it all felt just the slightest bit less heavy. Less dense. Sending a quick probe into his core space, Felix took inventory of it all. His Skills shined on, same as ever, and the ribbons that wrapped around his Tempered Skills were pulled taut toward the center, where they twisted ever so slightly. There, at the center, was the major difference that Felix had been working on all this time. Essence streamed down from the Divine Tree, swirling in streams of light that mingled with the red-gold and blue-white fire of his dual cores. The cores had spread, wider now around the darkness, still there and still blazing with power but mingling more and more. Now all that radiance appeared to bend, lensing around the abyss like a halo, pulsing brighter with each passing second. His abyss, his Hunger, yawned at the heart. Perfectly dark; like the Maw's once unending appetite. Like the Void itself. Above arced the Divine Tree, from which the Essence streamed down in countless cascading waterfalls of glimmering vapor. Its trunk was lost among the bending light, an illusion that hid where exactly the growth began, but it was clearly changed as well. No longer a dark, bloody crimson, the Tree now appeared to be fashioned from some opalescent crystal that shimmered a different hue depending on the angle of perception. It's boughs reached up and out, spread wide and filled with leaves of Essence. The branches split countless times, bending back downward toward his cores, filling the dark sky from high to low. A forest made of a single Tree. Felix's progress had been simple and slow. Small changes, here and there, between training bouts and reading. It was coming together, but he had a long way to go. Longer still now that he'd spent more of his Essence and significance. The former was easy to measure, being leaves upon his Tree, but the latter was more ephemeral. It was a feeling, how the core space thickened and weight against his Aspects. Zara had told him that spending his significance was dangerous and typically reserved for dangerous or devastating Skills, and that even then, most Grandmasters would rather not. It apparently weakened the stability that was the goal of all advancement on the Continent, reducing a person's resistance to aging and increasing their vulnerability to the actions of others; along with a host of other reasons she wouldn't explain. Secrets. Always secrets. Those secrets might be necessary so that his advancement wasn't fouled by his own skewed expectations, but it was annoying, always walking in the dark. Maybe if I leverage my personal information with Isla, I could get more. Felix considered the slight Chanter as he stepped up toward the others, now gathered near the exit. She was watching Felix like a scientist might watch a particularly fascinating lab rat. Or maybe not. "What are—" Isla started, but Felix swept past her. "Follow me," he said, and strode from the Shadowgate chamber. Was it a little childish? Yes. Was it also satisfying to hear her sharp intake of offended breath? Absolutely. Felix walked along the broken island of stones, hopping toward the end where Garox still coiled about the alabaster arm of some sunken sculpture. As he did, the water rumbled and roiled, and the Deepking rose from the steaming depths, baring his large, very yellow teeth. "You have stayed," he said, his voice sending more waves rippling out around his half-submerged throat. It was only the pleasure that radiated from the Deepking's Spirit that Felix could tell his expression must have been a sort of smile. Happy Trixie, Pit sent. "I have. While the rest of my people go to handle the threat, we will remain to help you resolve your own," Felix said. Despite the Deepking's obvious power, he was finding it easier to talk to this guy than any number of non-monstrous authority figures. "I know the bare bones of this conflict, I know that you're on the defensive. Garox has even told me that the enemy is coming from a place called Khasma? What is that?" "It is the vile center of the Fathom's reign," the Deepking rumbled. "Far below the surface, further still than this Temple, likes the true depths of the Ghreldan Hills. It is there that the core of their forces lurk, multiplying. Khasma lies there." Felix put his hands on his hips, thinking. "How exactly can we help?" Trixie didn't answer, but Garox did. "The Fathom have spread far and wide. The flooding from the south was a boon to us, but to the Fathom it was far more. It strengthened their reach, allowing their disgusting ooze to spread further and further. Far beyond what we can control." "Their Dens produce Hatchlings too fast to count. Alone they are nothing, mere snacks for our legendary appetites. I could eat a thousand and still be ready for more," the Deepking rumbled. "The issue is their Evolutions. They come upon them rapidly, far more rapidly than us Nagafolk or even any natural monster we have ever met," Garox added. "The Manawarping," Vess said. "Yes," the Deepking agreed. "The what?" "A twisting of the natural process through overexposure to Mana, Beef," Isla explained. "Except it isn't Evolution these creatures are experiencing, not if they're all Manawarped." The Deepking frowned at her so loudly, Felix had to clench his Affinity to dim the noise. "Explain." Isla absently adjusted the coronet atop her platinum curls and continued as if no one had spoken to her. "It is an overflow of Mana when a monster does not Evolve as it should. If it were Evolving, the the Manawarping wouldn't take hold. Unless..." "Unless what?" Vess asked. Isla bite her lip. "Unless the Mana involved was so potent that the Evolutions happened and it was still flooded with power. But that would require a source that was far beyond Master Tier, and I've sensed nothing like that in these waters." She looked up at the Deepking, every inch of her a queen looking at a peasant. "What leads them? What exactly is this Fathom?" "It is hatred and corruption and dark, vile menace!" The Deepking roared, bellowing mighty cry into the air that all of his people answered. Felix winced and his friends all took a step back from the sheer Spiritual pressure of it. The Deepking lowered his head, Nagafolk still raging around him, and growled. "It is a dragon!" When Atar stepped through the Shadowgate, he was expecting a rendition of the coastal forest they had raced through the last time. What he encountered, however, was a rocky stone island and the endless expanse of a deep, violently surging ocean. Burning ashes. It's because Felix isn't here. He said that last place was a reflection of one of his Mind Skills. He had looked around, watching as more and more people arrived from what looked like thin air. But whose Skill is this, then? Over the course of a quarter-glass, everyone arrived on the stone island. It was a tight fit, with hundreds of people packed shoulder to shoulder, and the giants looming over them all. Atar was just about to shove his way to the front, but Alister tapped his arm. "Look." Above them, Zara flowed across the air on a wave of aquamarine light, arcing over the crowd until she landed at the very edge of the raging surf. The waves were high enough to swallow a Frost Giant, but as she landed another set of blue-green light burst from her. "Risi Warriors! I shall need your assistance!" The waves were seized and shoved back, scattered until only a space nearly a hundred strides wide was filled with a framework of aquamarine light. As Atar watched, Zara shaped it into a wide structure of some kind, and the Frost Giants made their way to her side. "Pour your Mantles into the framework before you," she commanded. The giants shared a few confused looks, but Battlelord Ari nodded sharply. "Tuak fa rasa. Naat!" Even through the crowd, a blast of cold air hit Atar hard enough to blow back his robes as every Frost Giant activated their Mantle of the Long Night. The stone platform they stood upon was quickly covered with thickening ice, but as it hit the edges of Zara's spellform the ice was funneled away. Into it, so that its blue-green framework was layered over and over with ice. "Fascinating," Atar muttered. His eyes danced along the construct, trying to absorb everything. "Alister! She's using Odelkain's Boundary to contain the flow of Mana, and a modified siphon array to pull it from the giant's Mantles!" "She can't be. That would break the Jasto-Marvane Theory of Displacement. You can't have Odelkain's anywhere near a siphon array, or else it all collapses. It's why they haven't been able to make a lamp much larger than a barrel, not unless you fuel it with monster cores." "Impossible or not, that's what she's doing. Except," Atar paused, listening. He could hear a strange, multi-toned humming coming from the Naiad. "Damnation. She's using that Chant of hers. She's cheating." "I would not call it such. Besides, this opens up some options." "How so?" As they were talking, the giants gasped and fell to their knees. Their faces were stricken and several appeared to have passed out, but before them all was a magnificently wide and deep-bellied craft. It appeared to be a Manaship, but not even their modified ships had looked so huge or ungainly. Hundreds of sails had erupted from ice-shaped masts, already rippling in the ceaseless winds. It's a seafaring ship, like in the ancient tales, Atar realized. He'd once read stories of mariners that plied the farthest reaches of the seas, before the water was turned to acid and the waves roused to anger. Now no one dared traverse the endless expanse of the oceans. It's what the Manaships were based upon. Fascinating. For her part, Zara didn't even look winded. "Everyone! Board the vessel quickly!" A gang plank twenty stride across burst from the ship's side, landing at the edge of the island with a deep, resounding thud. The Claw members closest immediately clambered up the plank, soon followed by all the rest. People jostled a bit, but they were calm for the most part, and the only noise was the sound of boots on ice and the ceaseless roar of the surf. a paltry conjuration. were you to embrace me, we could boil away the very sea itself, atar. Quiet, Atar demanded, casting his senses briefly into his core space. The obsidian cage he'd fashioned around his core was intact, though the fire within surged. Flames spread like wings, batting at the glassy stone bars. release me and we can do so much. He looked at the rest of his core space, much changed since his injury. The monoliths were now covered in sigaldry that blazed white and red, while jagged lines swirled around them, connected at the base to his core. The ceiling was no longer vaulted, but instead open to a night sky so dazzling that it hurt his eyes to look at it. Stars glimmered up there, great swaths of them like jewels set into the dark, and brightest among them were a blaze of red-gold and blue-white. a light that bridges worlds. curious. he is so much stronger than you. Shut up, Flame. he dares connect to your inner world, a would-be king. i can show you how to be truly worthy of rule. how to rise— "Well," Alister said, clapping Atar on the back and drawing him out of his reverie. The voice of the Flame was snuffed. "Far easier to examine this up close. Are you coming?" He was already flowing with the crowd toward the craft. "Yes yes, of course." Atar said, leaning a bit on his staff. He focused on his excitement of the magic before him, content to shove the battle ahead and the whims of a half-dead Urge to the back of his Mind. He stubbornly ignored the rising heat in his chest and ambled after.