He took his time out there pretending to shift the unlit fire around for several minutes, content to let his vague embarrassment fade away from him. The evening began to firmly take hold of the sky, the sun now entirely hidden behind the edge of the crater. Once he’d made sure that all of the Voithos had returned and were now inside the hut—with the exception of Rittan, who was beside the door, fixing up the skewers—August finally pushed himself back to his feet. He moved carefully towards the huts—Rittan passed into his range, followed immediately by Haiko and like before, he was able to tolerate it pretty well. Another step forward put Kalter in his range, and with the appearance of her too-familiar mental render, the strain returned. Three people were approaching the limit, but it was something he could work through, provided they remained sitting down. August listened to the conversation for a minute—Boko seemed to be explaining the general layout of the island from the position of where we’d first exited the crater—and once he was sure he wasn’t about to be overcome with nausea, he sat down.

“Morningstar,” August said, eyeing the Efkini with a bit of apprehension. “Come here for a minute, would you?”

The Efkini in question moved from where it was attempting to impress Ladybug with some kind of upside-down spinning manoeuvre that left its legs kicking in the air. It passed into his range—but the signature was far simpler and lacked all the distracting elements that the Voithos had. August scratched at the creature’s fur for a minute, giving it some attention, before turning to face him.

“I have it on good authority that you can regenerate those chain spikes of yours, and I’m pretty sure you can’t feel anything through it,” August said, tapping a finger against the edge of the hole where one of the spikes was currently visible. “I find myself in need of some chain—so I’ve got a question for you.”

Morningstar trilled at the words—and August noted that the conversation inside had mostly stopped.

“Can you extend one of your chains out for me as far as you can—slowly—so I can cut it off?” August asked, “I’ll provide you with enough mana to help you regenerate it afterwards—”

One of the spikes dropped out of a hole on the bottom right side of its body, chain reeling outwards and pooling in a growing pile beside it. August reached down and carefully moved it out, drawing the pile away to make more room. Morningstar kept on going until there was so much chain on the ground that the pile was larger than the creature’s entire body mass.

“That’s more than enough, Morningstar,” August said, picking up a section of chain that was close to his body. “I’m going to cut it off now—if it does hurt, make sure you make some sort of noise, so I know to stop.”

Morningstar trilled again, apparently unconcerned with the fact that August was talking about cutting pieces off of him. August reached down with his other hand and pressed his finger against the chain.

“[Etch],” August murmured.

August watched his finger sink into the material, visibly slower than the bone but not by too much. Morningstar seemed not to even notice what was happening, which took away a great deal of the unease he’d been feeling. The chain split into two pieces, and he ended the skill entirely before moving to place his hand against its fur again.

“[Tame],” August said.

The mana sank into the creature, and the end of the chain that was still attached to the Efkini grew—the end rounded off, the edge growing out into a circle, and then the point began to press outwards from the middle of it. He ran out of mana just as it stopped growing, a new spike in place on the end of the chain.

“Good as new?” August asked.

Morningstar trilled at the words before reeling them back in. The spike returned to its previous position, snug inside the hole and ready to be fired once more. August gave it another round of scratches as a thank you and then sent it back off to rejoin Ladybug. He reached down and caught hold of the mess of white, segmented chain, pulling it up off the ground with one hand. He used one of the rope winding techniques to collect it all, looping it around his palm and down under his elbow before repeating it until he’d run out of chain—at an estimate, he’d managed something like twenty meters of chain from that alone. The almost-smooth segments left it pretty flexible, but actually knotting it would probably be an issue.

“That seems to go well,” Rittan said, drawing his attention. “Here—if you could?”

August vanished the chain into his inventory and took the stack of skewers from him with caution. He carefully reached inside the hut, feeling Boko’s legs come into his range, and he was quick to retreat once he’d handed them off to Haiko. He’d come up with about two dozen shower thoughts that would have allowed him to diffuse her earlier compliment, or at least play it off without turning into a flushing idiot over it—but the moment had long since passed. Why couldn’t these conversations take place in the shower in the first place so he’d have his response on hand? Then again, he’d bathed with her once already, and that conversation had a few other risks that he’d have had to offset.

“I’m just glad they don’t have some kind of bizarre sensory thing that allows them to feel things through the chain,” August said once he’d sat back again. “If we could isolate the runes that are responsible for growing that metal, maybe we could just pump mana into it whenever we needed more? Do you think that’s how it works?”

“I assume it must,” Rittan admitted, “Else they wouldn’t be able to produce so much of it at a moment’s notice.”

“Something for us to ask Melon once we summon her,” Haiko said, speaking up. “I do believe she has a reservation for the next candidate—unless you’ve all come up with a better alternative in the meantime?”

“I think Melon has the most potential, so she has my vote,” Boko said, “I do have a suggestion for next time, though—if we’re taking those into consideration.”

“Oh?” Rittan said, curious. “Who were you thinking about?”

“A guy called Sondar,” Boko said, “He was there the day of the Magnus attack—he seemed to be one of the ones who got pulled into the Molionidai as a ‘private security asset.’”

“Why him in particular?” Kalter asked.

“He’s got a bunch of relevant training for how best to act in crisis situations, which we’re kind of in right now—and he was good enough at the job that they had him in one of those little five-man teams you’d sometimes see on the higher floors,” Boko said, twisting his skewers around in the fire. “He was also keeping up with me pretty well when everything started to go bad—not to brag or anything.”

“That’s a rather glowing review, I must admit,” Haiko said, humming. “Anyone else?”

“Before I was recommended for the assignment I was given, I met a Voithos called Kairos,” Rittan said, settling in closer to the door. “We kept in touch to some extent over the years, and she had the most peculiar talent for moving up several floors whenever we next spoke—the last time I spoke with her, she was on the seventh floor.”

Kalter, who’d been leaning forward to reach the fire, stilled before sitting back up straight.

“I’ve never heard of her,” Haiko said, looking visibly surprised. “Although, there was a small rumour that a Voithos was living on the first floor around the time the decommission was actually beginning.”

“That was most likely her,” Rittan said, looking a bit hesitant now. “Kalter—are you alright?”

Kalter looked incensed by the information.

“I tried for years to find a way up there, I broke into buildings, I stole plans, blueprints, keycards, PDIs. I killed hundreds of people—” Kalter said before breathing out in a rush. “We never got higher than the twelfth floor, and that took two dozen Voithos fighting our way up the central column—how did she get to the first?”

“I—asked her several times, but she always put it down to luck and stumbling into good opportunities,” Rittan said, “I’m almost certain that she wasn’t telling the truth, but if she had some kind of secret method behind her ascension, she didn’t seem willing to share it through common messages.”

“I’m changing my vote,” Kalter said. “I want Kairos.”

There was a charged silence following her words, everyone aware of how upset she was and that their own votes now put them in opposition against her.

“I had only intended to put her name up for consideration for the next vote,” Rittan said, the first to break the silence, “I still think Melon is the better choice for the moment.”

Kalter’s jaw tightened, but she said nothing in response and August couldn’t help but notice how her decision to limit the summoning to every three days had just come into direct conflict with something she now wanted—considering it wasn’t something she could have predicted in advance, it was a pretty unfortunate situation to be in.

“It’s already a majority vote, so it doesn’t really matter at this point,” August said, speaking up. “But my own interest is currently in figuring out how to use runes to help improve our survival, so it would have remained on Melon as well.”

“Then I do believe that Melon remains our next summoning candidate,” Haiko said, watching Kalter out of the corner of her eyes. “We had something else to discuss, if I’m not mistaken—an military operation to tame some horrible monster or some such?”