Ranvir examined the fold as Amalia waited patiently a few steps back. He sensed where the two planes connected, but there wasn’t an actual opening. In previous years, the village had used mana-items to break open the folds and clean them out, meaning he hadn’t needed to get inside on his own before.

Amalia had initially suggested that they should figure out if he could access folds without equipment. He wasn’t sure why she’d asked him when he could sense the power coming from one of the tools she brought along with her. Long-term mana-items were designed to constantly house fyla to fuel them and had no unbreakable tane to take the pressure.

Ranvir had skimmed a book about the subject, but mana-items were as deep a study as any, and he’d deemed his effort and focus better spent elsewhere. They seemed to be split into two groups: long term and short term. Short-term items used fyla and tane to temporarily empower the structure and fuel the effect. Long term used no tane but somehow managed to constantly house fyla.

To Ranvir’s senses, long-term mana-items felt off, like someone had cut off part of a braced and shoved them into the metal. Short-term items buzzed when they were powered, but gave off no sense of life.

He stopped his examination of the fold’s interaction with Korfyi. Dealing with space mana was relatively safe, compared to warp or fire, but if he blindly attacked the fold, he risked collapsing it directly into Korfyi. He shivered at the thought of such an event.

Taking a step back, he extended his Veil and swiftly created an aperture to open. The fold offered no resistance to his efforts, easily opening a gateway big enough for both Amalia and him to step through.

“How was that?” Amalia asked. “It didn’t feel like much of an effort for you.”

“It wasn’t,” Ranvir agreed. “Just had to make sure I didn’t accidentally bring the fold down on our heads.”

Amalia’s tanned skin went a shade paler, “That would’ve been bad… But this is actually good news,” she whipped out her rod. It was the length of her forearm and made of an iron burnished to a mirror shine. Like all mana-items from Korfyi, Ranvir couldn’t see any glyphs, but still sensed the power within. “The tools you’ll need as a Sentinel have some small cost in upkeep and maintenance. Now you won’t need them and you could even make some keys on the side, restoring them.”

Ranvir lightened up. That was good news. Anything he could do to offset the amount of times he would have to leave Eriene would be a significant benefit. He turned towards the fold, looking through to the small patch of grasslands he could see beyond the aperture.

“Not to toss your smile into the rafting,” Amalia interrupted. “But did you bring a weapon? I mean, you can borrow my sword today, but you’ll have to get your own afterward.”

“I got it,” Ranvir said, reaching into his pocket-space and retrieving his hammer. It had been worn when it had been gifted to him as he began building the house, and he’d inexpertly replaced the handle since then, but the lump of iron was still solid. The smooth wood sat roughly in his hand, but he’d given it enough shape that it wouldn’t unnecessarily roll in his grip.

Amalia chuckled, “You might consider getting an actual weapon at some point, but I guess that’ll do.”

They stepped into the fold.

It wasn’t quite what Ranvir had expected. Yes, the fold consisted of mostly flat grass plains, but it had clearly deteriorated over a long time. Space had ripped and torn, turning the once open field to a maze. Network lines of purple space held the edges of the fold, keeping them solid to Ranvir’s senses.

As he let the aperture shut behind him, Ranvir sensed the greater connection to Korfyi vanish and the lines cleared immensely. What was left to his senses was the internal pattern of the fold, coalescing at the densest point and trickling out through the connection with the greater plane.

Having been through folds a few times before, though never alone, Ranvir still felt confident enough in his power to simply move ahead. The path diverged into two, but he’d already sensed enough of the space to know they led to the same place.

The first creature attacked within five minutes. Gray skinned with long powerful legs made for leaping, shorter, but equally powerful, arms meant for grabbing, and hefty jaws for finishing their prey. They came at him as a pair, just slightly taller than his knees. Ranvir didn’t know the name of such a beast, nor did he care to.

Knocking the first one out of the air with a fast, he slammed the ball-peen end of his hammer into the second one’s temple. The animal went limp before it landed, flopping to the ground in a mess of long legs, short arms, and drooling jaw.

The first one attacked again. Ranvir caught its legs in space and aired its skull out, before finishing the job on the second creature.

“Mikromos,” Amalia said, wrinkling her nose. “Not unexpected, but still sucks.”

“Why?” Ranvir asked as Amanaris started roiling a new function activating within.

“They are a poor test of skill, unless I get lucky with the boss.”

“Oh, no…” Ranvir replied as the two creatures’ bodies were melted and reforged into katapetra. “What do you want to do with these?” Ranvir asked, lifting one of the spherical stones up. It felt like polished marble to his fingers, but didn’t look like any stone he’d ever seen on Vednar. The stones were predominantly a blue that reminded him of River Stex, with swirls or veins of yellow dependent on the sphere.

“For now, I’ll keep them. Once we’re at the end, I still need to take your measurements.”

Ranvir nodded, and they moved on. Moving through the rest of the fold was much the same. Even the strongest fold in Eriene’s local area wasn’t that strong and Ranvir was pushing against the borders of the first-stage with his tether. Even when they sneaked up on him, he could simply harden his Flesh and become invulnerable to their attacks. With Persistence influencing him, Ranvir could handle the near-stasis of freezing his body in space for over a minute. More than enough time for the simplistic mikromos to retreat in befuddlement.

Moving closer to the center, Ranvir thrust forwards the head of his hammer, crushing the space between him and his enemy in half. The blow caved in the animal’s sternum and it fell to the ground with a racking cough, blood seeping from its mouth. Her skin was stained dark with her own blood, already wetting his boots from the hole in her chest.

Ranvir licked his lips and tightened the grip on his hammer. Not actual creatures, he told himself as Amanaris turned its body from material to mana to katapetra. This monster had been bigger than the others, stronger too, though it lacked mana of its own.

“They’re growing stronger,” he observed, trying to distance himself from Naadiya’s corpse.

“The mana’s growing denser,” Amalia replied simply. She’d found an expression some step between bored and attentive, though Ranvir suspected it came from her focus on tether-sense rather than sight. “More prey, better predators.”

Ranvir nodded his agreement and continued forward. Amalia had him circle the center of the fold, cleaning out the rest of the mikromos before taking on the boss. Only once did she have to lift a finger, and then that finger blew a hole in the monster’s neck. Her stats were raised high enough that she didn’t need her Abilities to handle this fold.

He idly wondered how long she’d have taken if it was just her going through the fold. A quarter of the time, if not shorter, he suspected. With her murky-water affinity, he got a sense of speed and hiding, which would lend itself well to scouting or quickly rushing through weaker folds.

Finally, Ranvir approached the boss. Not that there was much sense of tension as he approached. It was attempting to hide, but stood out clearly to his senses. He could also sense the air mana swirling throughout it, and he suspected it gained some kind of permanent boon from the mana in its body.

Shame I can’t do that without poisoning myself, Ranvir thought.

A dust cloud exploded from the creature’s feet as wind assisted its leap, granting speed and accuracy as it rushed towards him. It continued to grow faster and faster as it approached; the wind picking up.

Ranvir struck with his tether-sense, forming it into a spear point to drive into its chest like he would attack a student he didn’t want to hurt. The creature keened as his Second-Order spirit punched cracks into its First-Order form. The boss monster crashed to the ground, howling and writhing in pain, leaking lifeblood and mana from the injury.

He didn’t let it suffer, ending it quickly with a space-shortened blow to the skull.

“Oh, come on,” Amalia groaned. “I was hoping to see you actually struggle against something faster than you,” Ranvir glanced at her from the corner of his eye, before retrieving a cloth and cleaning the head and handle of his hammer.

“That’s not a good habit to get into, you know,” Amalia said, as the mikromos started decomposing. “As you get into the high kistios tiers, even the weakest creatures are going to have enough substance to be protected from a soul attack. Beyond Urityon, they’re as physical as you and me, a no subject to your soul’s attacks.”

“Figures,” groaned Ranvir as he picked up the largest piece of katapetra. “What now?”