For now though, I pressed the option for the Sentinel Habitat. As one might expect, it was much larger than the Guardian Quarters. Another long set of stairs led into a nest placed on what seemed to me to be a large geothermal vent. Inside sat Helios, preening. “Welcome, Guardian Lheticus. To aid you in your further efforts, I will now entrust you with this.”

He spread his wings, revealing a sapphire-blue egg the size of a tall armchair. “This egg...contains my sister, Serayne. In times long past, she has joined with previous Guardians of Fire as a companion. However, not all those who properly completed the Fire Sanctuary’s trials met with her approval.”

“So if she doesn’t approve, she won’t um, hatch for me?”

Helian shook his head, but not for the reason I thought. “If she didn’t approve of you, we wouldn’t be talking about this. I can communicate with her through our bond as sibling Phonixxans. It was she more so than I that posed the question of your motives. She found your answer, and you otherwise...acceptable.”

Helian continued in response to my raised eyebrows, “In truth, she had hopes for someone a bit more...pure to appear, but it has been over 10,000 years since the last Guardian she approved of perished, thus triggering her own death and rebirth. ‘There is wickedness within him, but he spares no effort to keep it at bay, and flames of righteousness do burn within him. With my guidance, he can be a fine partner.’ Those were her words to me, when I had her observe you with my eyes.”

“Then why is she still not hatching?”

“Mana. She must ‘feed’ on an immense amount of Fire mana to hatch, and well...the last challenger to activate the Fire Sanctuary was over 5,000 years ago, in the earliest days of your Federation. They could not surmount either the Trials of Pain or Discipline, and failed the Trial of Power as well. They barely qualified to activate the Sanctuary, and were barred from its depths. My sister could not offer to join with one such as them even were the prospect not disgusting to her in any case. With no one else showing up in 5,000 years, she stopped bothering to intake from the Sanctuary to do much more than stay alive and be able to awaken when she needs to.”

“I’m sure I can arrange for Fire mana pretty quick, then. Is it safe for her to enter spatial storage? I mean, I’m sure I have the strength to carry the egg if I need to, but appearing wherever I’m going to when I leave here is going to be a little conspicuous.”

Helian scoffed. “If a Phonixxan egg wasn’t enough of a self-contained environment for that, she’d have reached her End of Cycles long ago.”

“Still, I probably shouldn’t leave her there for long.” Nevertheless, once the egg was adequately stored, I gave Helian a short bow, and said, “Unless there’s anything else, I really must be going.”

Helian gave a nod. “Indeed. Go for now, and enjoy your triumphant return. I’m sure we will speak again soon enough.”

I returned to the Guardian Quarters level, and entered the warp at the side of the room. When I walked out, I was in a...well, it was an extremely red room. There were flame decals as well...and statues. Judging from their appearance...they’re probably all Fire casters and hybrid classes involving Fire.

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Am I in the Pantheon? No other place I knew of displayed any statues of challengers like this.

Exploring a little more, I found no other people, but there were nine more rooms arranged around a square hallway—six on the outside, and three on the inside of the square.

On a hunch, I went back to the room with the fire casters. Of the several dozen statues in that room, one of them looked very much like a minotaur. With hooved feet.

“Are these statues...all of Sanctuary Guardians?” I took a moment to bow to each of the statues, but nothing happened.

I had wasted enough time. I got a comm device out from spatial storage that, though it looked—and was—extremely high tech, only had the functionality of a 2 way radio. The thing was, it functioned as a 2 way radio no matter where each unit was in Area 1.

“Lheticus to Firebrand Liberation Fleet, are you receiving?”

It was a few seconds before Karl responded. I had a sudden mental image of him on the bridge of the Firebrand, calming down an uproar of cheering voices at my suddenly reporting in at last.

Probably not true, but it was funny. “Lheticus, this is Karl.” His voice came through much better than two-way radios that I had known, too. “What is your location?”

“I think I’m at the Pantheon.”

“You think?”

“I’m in what appears to be an unused area. There’s no one here but myself and statues of challengers, so I figure there aren’t many other places I could be. I found what I’m assuming is the way out a moment before I contacted you. I figure for now, I’ll proceed assuming that this is the Pantheon, and try to make my way to Grosstin’s Pantheon office.”

“Try calling Edwin,” said Karl, “if he’s in range, you should at least be on Satslik somewhere.”

“That’s a really good idea. I’ll update you shortly.”

I took out the normal (well, more normal) smart device that Grosstin had provided back when, and found Edwin in the contacts. He picked up immediately.

“Lheticus? It’s good you called—we have a lot to arrange. I’m already on my way to a press conference.”

“A press conference? Anyway listen, I completed the mission, and then the exit method dumped me into the Pantheon, onto an unused level. It’s pretty small, probably a side level of some kind. I wasn’t even 100% certain this was the Pantheon till my call to you got through.”

“You warped to the Pantheon directly from—there? You’d better head straight to our HQ there as quickly as possible. I’ll tell Geneve—no, at this point, under the circumstances even your usual handler is too recognizable. I’ll notify a substitute to pick you up and to bring a full escort.”

“What do you mean, under the circumstances?”

“Didn’t you get the notification?”

“What notification?”

“The Area-wide notification from the Tower! ‘The Fire Sanctuary has been restored. 9 Sanctuaries remain.’”

“Well yes—I mean, I got it, but I didn’t have any indication that it was Area-wide!”

“You didn’t? Oh...” Edwin was silent for a few seconds, then continued, “well, once that went out, it didn’t take long for people to think of the Federation Liberation Fleets, and yours in particular. Your involvement in the Fire Sanctuary’s restoration is already the prevailing rumor.”

“Are we going to confirm it?”

“Marshal Varstithon informed me the Federation President will give an address tomorrow discussing the situation. He did not actually express that would be the case, but it seems likely. My own press appearance will only be to inform them of this and to try and calm people down. Until the marshal clears things up, lie as low as you can. Treat that as an order—after all, you are still a member of Grosstin, even if that may not be first and foremost what you are in practical terms.”

“That won’t be a problem. The last thing I want is to get the kind of attention you’re implying. Although, there’s another situation of sorts that I should inform you of...”