Tala and Thorn tried not to stare up at the new fake star in the sanctum’s sky.

Well, how fake is it really? It shines, it gives off heat, it seems to burn…

-Not a real star, so ‘fake’ is correct, but it is more real than I expected from a cursory examination of the House of Blood’s hold. My understanding is that without magic, stars have to have a sufficient mass to maintain coherence. Miniature? Artificial? One of those might be more accurate?-

I suppose so.

Thorn cleared his throat. “As fascinating as all of this is, we should get to our training.”

Terry glanced at Tala from her shoulder, then hopped down and ran off to do Terry things. Probably exploring the sanctum. Definitely not killing workers and eating their bodies.

-Yeah, that doesn’t sound like Terry.-

Tala decided to ignore the hints of sarcasm in Alat’s voice and trust Terry’s discretion, regardless of his chosen tasks.

Be-thric gave a nod to Thorn. “Very well. But one more thing before that.”

He walked over to Tala and pulled out a metal rod. “The city lord has granted our request to modify your saorsa-collar. It cannot be removed as common-law requires all gated humans to wear one, but yours will be modified to only be actionable by illegal conduct on your part, the Pillars of the House of Blood, or the city lord himself.”

Tala gave a shallow bow. “Thank you, Pillar.”

“Of course. We couldn’t leave you in a state where a mere bribe to a city guard could kill my Eskau, could we?” He pressed the rod through her collar, pushing it in so far that it should have come out the other side to skewer her neck.

Instead, it seemed to sink into the collar, fully melding with it, and Tala felt the magics shift.

“There we have it.”

Tala had investigated the magic of the collar innumerable times, even not counting the times that Tali had investigated the thing. There was no way out.

Kit couldn’t remove it.

Even if she could convince him to help her, Thorn couldn’t erect a disintegrating force between the collar and her neck to intercept the dasganachs.

The list went on and on. She and Alat were constantly brainstorming for possibilities, but the necklace was laid bare to them, and they could easily see how each of their plans would end.

Two dasganachs injected into her.

There was no way around it.

Tala was brought back to the present moment when Be-thric turned to go.

“By all means, proceed with your training now, my Eskau. I wish to examine the sanctum a bit more before I depart. I am working to set up an…appointment, which should be very profitable. I’ll want you to attend me whenever I am able to get it established. It should be in less than two months, though I hope it will be much sooner. We must keep pushing forward, after all.” He smiled along with the last words.

Tala nodded. “As you wish.”

The Pillar turned and walked away without another word

Thorn cleared his throat to garner her attention. “Alright then, Eskau Tali. Can you place a stone block somewhere you can hit it with your weapon?”

Tala frowned but shrugged in resignation. She hopped off the platform, then sent the desire to Kit.

A two-foot cube block of stone appeared on the edge of the platform, the center of the stone being about as high as Tala’s sternum.

“What now?”

“Strike it with your weapon in the form of a sword. Don’t do anything else, no mirroring, no enhancing, no nothing.”

Tala quirked a smile. “No nothing?”

“I don’t understand all your strange fount powers.”

She shook her head. “Okay.”

The stone was heavily magically saturated granite. She drew Flow and pushed it into the form of a sword.

Tala took a deep breath and exhaled with her swing, keeping proper edge alignment.

Her blade passed cleanly through the stone at a downward angle.

With a soft grating, the upper piece slid off the lower.

Thorn blinked at her. “Huh.”

“What was that test for?”

“I…I expected you to fail to cut the whole way through, and I wanted to establish a baseline.”

Tala rolled her eyes and jabbed at him, verbally, “That was ignorant of you.”

“My old sword, formed from my protian weapon, wouldn’t have been able to.”

She grinned. “Well, that might be one reason I won then, eh?”

Thorn groused, but she could see a small smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah, that may well be.”

“So… what now?”

Thorn sighed. “Get rid of that stone.”

Tala silently requested, and Kit made it happen.

“Thank you. Now, there should be something in your storage called ‘striking wood.’ Place it here, where the stone was.”

Tala shrugged and sent the desire to Kit.

A thin piece of wood appeared in front of Tala.

It was a three-by-three foot square and one inch thick. The broad side was facing her, and it was on a stand of sorts.

“There, cut that.”

Tala could see magics of endurance and resistance to cutting flowing through every fiber of the wood.

She took a deep breath and struck again.

This time, Flow caught in the material after cutting about a quarter of the way through, the wood charring above and below the cut until she withdrew her weapon.

“Good! Good. Thank you. Now, doing your aspect mirroring thing. Give your sword your entire magical weight.”

Tala shrugged and did as he asked, striking at a different place on the wood.

Flow cut halfway through before being caught up in the material once again.

“That’s the baseline, then. We need to increase your flowrate before we see what progress you make.”

She frowned. “My flowrate won’t affect my density directly.”

“No, but it will affect it over the long run.”

“That’s… fair.”

The wood vanished since she no longer wanted it there. This might just make me a bit lazy…

That was a hurdle for later, however.

“So, how are we going to do this? How are founts normally expanded, enhanced, and improved?”

Thorn looked a little sheepish. “Well, to my understanding, this is only really done with founts.”

“Yes, that is what I was asking. Now, what will we be doing?”

“Gate-breaking.”

-That sounds painful.-

“That sounds… painful.”

-Copy cat.-

We’re literally the same person. I can’t copy myself.

-Only marginally these days.-

Tala huffed a laugh.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing, just arguing with myself.”

Thorn grunted, seeming to decide to ignore the oddity. “So, the way this works—”

“Gate-breaking.” Tala interrupted.

“—what?”

“The way gate-breaking works.”

“Yes, of course that’s what I’m talking about.” He sounded a bit exasperated.

Tala grinned back at him. “Good. Just checking.”

He gave her a suspicious glare. “As I was saying: the way that gate-breaking works is there are two devices we attach to a fount or, in this case, to you. One stabilizes the gate, while the other…”

Tala gestured for him to continue, then helpfully supplied. “—breaks it?”

“Not precisely, no. Though, my understanding is that that would be the result, without the reinforcement.”

“Ah, so what does it do?”

The dwarf sighed. “The other device will forcibly pull power through your gate as fast as possible, while forcing the power to flow normally. No tricks, no compression, no ‘Ways’ if I’m remembering the term correctly. Founts apparently occasionally maintain them, and it messes with the process, so safeguards are put in place to suppress them. Thus, in the end, it is just raw, unrefined power. That power wears away at the edges of the gate, expanding its base flowrate.”

Tala’s eyes widened, but he continued before she could interject.

“The two devices are linked, so the more power that is pulled, the stronger the reinforcement of your gate will be.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What is the success rate?”

“When properly monitored? It never fails.”

“What does that mean?”

“Generally, an expert in maintaining founts is present and regulates the rate of expansion to prevent catastrophic failure. In this case, you will be letting me know how to adjust the flow.”

“Why can’t I do it myself?”

He seemed hesitant. “Well… I mean we can do that, but I was thinking I could rein you in a bit.”

Tala laughed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You can be a bit brash, Tali. Never stupid, but you’re willing to take risks if it’s what Pillar Be-thric wants. We both know he wants this for you.” Thorn snorted. “At this point it’s practically required if you don’t want to spend all of every day keeping this sanctum full of power.”

“I’ll be careful, but I do want this.” Until I Refine, this is my best path to greater power, and I will need that in gold if I’m to make good my escape.

He looked skeptical, but finally nodded. “There’s something more. If it ever stops, your gate will become…resistant to this means of expansion. Slow it down as much as you want, but don’t stop unless you really can’t take it anymore.”

“I can understand that. How long?”

“Its settings are numerical, and we need at least one-hundred-unit-hours’ worth, meaning one hundred hours at setting one, ten hours at setting ten, etc. Any less will have been a waste of everyone’s time. Ideally, we’ll get closer to a thousand-unit-hours. Unfortunately, the returns diminish significantly as the unit-hours increase.”

She nodded, moving back up on the platform. “But more is better?”

“In theory.”

“In theory?” She paused, looking back towards him.

“Well, founts are expanded to meet a specific need. They aren’t generally broken as wide open as they can be, just because they can be. I don’t know that anyone has simply kept expanding a gate. If my limited understanding in integral theory is accurate that could rip a hole into the next world and kill us all, though that would probably not happen for close to a hundred-thousand-unit-hours’ worth.”

“Ahh, so I shouldn’t let it run for ten hours on setting ten thousand?” She quirked a smile.

“It doesn’t go that high, but no. No, you should not.”

She shook her head and sat down in the throne. “Even so, more power is better, right? Why not open each fount as wide as possible? Run the device until the increase is inconsequential?”

Thorn’s voice returned to its professional tone, “Because the process never fails, only when properly monitored.”

She cocked her head to one side. “Explain.”

Thorn gave a shallow bow. “Each fount seems to have a certain threshold, after which it will slowly degrade. Not in a day, or a week, but soon. The way I’ve heard it described, the founts cease working for their own existence.”

“I don’t understand.”

He sighed. “Founts devote a large chunk of the power coming through themselves to stabilize their existence, to keep themselves in the physical world. If a fount is pushed too far? It just stops keeping itself here.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know that anyone really knows why, but the experts have learned to notice the signs and stop gate-breaking before it gets there. Thus, founts are opened as wide as they will go, then sold or traded to those who can use them at that level.”

Tala was nodding. “The larger flowrate costing more.”

“Precisely.”

“Thank you for the explanation.”

“Of course.” He smiled, then cleared his throat. “I need your diaphragm and keystone clear.”

Tala obliged, flexing her power within her elk-leathers to clear those patches of her skin.

Thorn pulled out two round magical items. They were linked by a braided metal cable of various materials.

The dwarf looked at the exposed area and cleared his throat. “Completely clear, Tali.”

Tala looked down. Right, the iron paint. With a precise aspect mirroring, she pushed the elk-leather’s self-cleaning onto the exposed skin, freeing the paint.

With quick motions, she broke the areas free with a finger and tossed the dark circles aside.

Magic rushed out through the openings, and the echoes that her magic had been generating in reality around her began to fade, vanishing entirely in a handful of seconds.

“Thank you.” Thorn seemed to relax a bit as the obvious evidence of her power bled away.

Tala just shrugged.

She lifted one arm briefly, allowing Thorn to place the devices on her keystone and diaphragm, the cable running under that arm.

As soon as they were both connected, Tala felt something seize her gate, reinforcing it, but not right at the edge. The feeling was like the reinforcement was set back, just away from the edges. Then, the other device kicked on, and she felt a pull on her power like she had never experienced.

It was all she could do not to scream at the oddity of it.

It wasn’t pain, just like a limb falling asleep wasn’t precisely painful, but it felt wrong.

Thorn was speaking to her, and she did her utmost to focus on the words.

“As of now, it is on its lowest setting: one, as we discussed.” He then handed her a small disk that was connected to the two devices by another twisted cable.

How did I not see that thing before? She was forcing her mind to focus on that, rather than the abrasion in her soul.

-That’s not really important, Tala.-

She heartily agreed, which is why she was trying to focus on it.

It didn’t work.

Thorn explained how to adjust the pace and then stepped back.

Tala was already feeling off, even not accounting for the device’s direct results.

The magic in her body was in a turmoil, her spell-forms starved of new power.

About half of the power being sucked from her was being directed around and into the strategic reinforcement of the edges of her gate via the second device.

The remainder was being spilled into the air around her, where it was being quickly consumed by Kit.

Even so, that consumption wasn’t instant.

Tala grit her teeth and seized some of the power as it came out and forced it back into her spell-forms.

She felt a wave of relief as her magic stopped screaming at her.

She was working at very low power compared to normal, let alone her ‘pressure cooker’ state, but her inscriptions were still working.

-That was unpleasantly close. I don’t particularly want to die.-

Me neither…

The feeling of power being ripped through her was deeply uncomfortable in an utterly non-physical way.

It felt like someone was insulting her friends or laughing at her most cherished beliefs.

It was an ache, an agony, that was so much deeper than mere physical pain.

And she needed to increase it. Or endure this for at least one hundred hours.

That wasn’t really an option, if she were being honest.

“How many settings does it have?”

Thorn was giving her a worried look but answered without hesitation. “One hundred. Just remember, what you’re feeling? This is currently on one.”

Great. “Let’s try two.”

She activated the increase.

There were no words for the change in sensation, and she threw her head back and let out an involuntary, weeping scream.

Thorn was almost to her when she mastered herself, closing her mouth and cutting off the wail.

“Oh… bleed me dry… that is awful.” Her teeth were grinding against each other. “How long do I need to do this?”

The dwarf looked a bit pale. To say he was green would have been ridiculous. He was always green, but the green of his skin was a lighter shade than she was used to seeing. “As long as you are able, Tali. Ideally, just more than two days at this setting. Can I get you anything?”

“Do I have to be conscious?”

“I think so, unfortunately. At least for now. If you can manage to sleep with it, later, I think that should work.”

“I hate you a little bit.”

“I know, Tali, but that can’t be helped, I’m afraid.”

Tala laughed at that, and the laughter seemed to help. Is that because laughter helps the soul heal?

-That’s very conceptual thinking, but maybe?-

Seemed to work. “Maybe, do we have any good comedies? I think laughing might help me endure this.”

“I’ll see what I can find. Then, I’ll see what I can dig up in the city.”

“Thank you, Thorn.”

As the dwarf stepped back, watching carefully, Tala ticked the device up to ‘three,’ and felt her entire body flash cold at the strain. This is the worst.

Tala was mistaken.

The next week was vastly worse than that first half-hour had been.

Honestly, she couldn’t really say why she kept going. It was awful, and she was sure she could bring a halt to it at any time, but she found that she didn’t want to stop, either.

With long practice and careful ramp-ups, Tala was able to push the device up to fifty for up to ten minutes at a time, before she had to drop it back down to the twenties.

She felt like her whole family had died before her eyes.

A thousand other descriptors rolled through her mind as she sunk deeper into a depressive state.

She barely ate, constantly fidgeted, and nothing felt right.

Her soul was raw, but the results were unquestionable.

Well, she didn’t know exactly by how much her flowrate had increased, but she knew it had.

-We’ll test it when we’re finished with this stupidity.-

That was another thing that had surprised Tala, back when she could be surprised.

Alat felt agony too. She’d hidden that fact for the first day or so, but as the alternate interface became noticeably more irritable, Tala had wormed a confession out of her.

They’d almost quit the second night, after not sleeping at all the first.

Blessedly, they found a way to sleep. Though, it was hardly restful, and every second had been filled with nightmares.

I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemies.

She actually meant that.

Be-thric had visited her a few times to check on her progress, and she hadn’t been able to muster up the energy to wish he was suffering alongside her. Even when she felt like she could wish it on him, she realized that that would be too cruel.

What is wrong with me? If it’s that bad, let’s stop.

-Yes, please stop.-

Okay. We’ll stop. Tala checked the time. Just one more hour, I think I can take it on thirty-five for another hour, if we’re going to be done after that.

-If you’re sure, I can endure with you.-

And so it went.

One week became two and the sanctum was finished around Tala.

Plants began to sprout and grow, and the last of the workers departed.

Still Tala couldn’t quite make herself bring the process to an end. If I stop, what will have been the point? I can never do this again. I need to make it worth something.

Thorn remained, always nearby. Though as the days went on, he looked more and more concerned. Tala had even woken to him trying to take the control from her once.

She’d screamed herself hoarse at him for that, though she couldn’t remember why she’d been so angry.

In the end, Tala had utterly lost count of the days when Be-thric came to her. “Your dedication is admirable, my Eskau, but you are needed.”

Tala sat in her throne, slumped to the side, and barely acknowledged the man.

She’d tried letting Tali be in command, but the woman’s internal monologues about ‘doing this for her Master’ were somehow worse than the agony of the device. Or maybe it was that their repetitions had been in exact cadence with the pulsing pull, amplifying the awful?

In either case, it hadn’t been a true solution.

When Tala didn’t respond, Be-thric stepped forward, gripped the two devices, and simply ripped them off of her in one, quick motion.

Tala screamed, her throat so hoarse that it came out more like a harsh breath. Her gate had briefly spasmed, the flow seeming to stutter.

Then, the torrent rushed through the new gaping maw, power slamming into her scripts, suffusing her flesh, and burning its way free of her aura control.

Be-thric had taken a step back, a look of undisguised greed briefly flickering over his features.

After the brief slip, the Pillar snapped at her. “Master your power, Eskau.”

Tala had strained to pull her power, her aura, back in, and by slow degrees she succeeded. It was harder than the first time she’d ever attempted aura control despite the skill being deeply ingrained in her subconscious. It was supposedly something she did without thought.

That wasn’t true anymore.

“Clean yourself up. I need you in three hours. Will you be able to contain yourself by then?”

But… I could have kept going for another three hours… With such a time limit, I probably could have endured up into the seventies.

Her self was shaking.

That device had become all she focused on, and now it was gone. Gone. GONE!

Tala stared at it as it lay on the ground. I could reattach it. It’s probably not been too long. I can keep going at least for a little bit.

Be-thric seemed to see where she was looking, and he sighed. “Thorn, was there any mention of addictive properties?”

The Pillar glanced to Thorn and the dwarf shrugged, his worried eyes fixed on Tala. “I’m sorry, my Pillar, but I don’t know. I don’t think anyone’s ever used it on a gated human before. That would explain how she’s been acting, though.”

-Depression is addicting, in its own way.- Alat had kept a clearer line of thought through the whole process, and that seemed to be holding true even now. -This is better. We needed to be done.-

I…I guess that’s true. She took a deep, shuddering breath. The power within her had settled, though it still moved like the tide itself. Her throat was already fully healed. It likely had been in the first wash of power, but Tala hadn’t noticed.

Tala groaned, pulling herself back together in an almost literal sense.

The power was ripping her apart as it activated her magics more powerfully than they had ever been before. That same power was also flowing through her regenerative inscriptions, repairing the damage it caused before it could truly register.

The truly physical pain was actually steadying to her, like vigorous exercise. It helped her focus on the present. “I’ll be ready.”

Tala vaguely heard Thorn add in his own affirmation. “I’ll make sure of it.”