"Alex told me you were going to be gone for a few days, to help Matt settle down. What happened that made you rush back so quickly?" Zack asked, as Archie settled into his room with a pot of tea.

The rabbit drank deeply from his mug and sighed, shaking his head. "Everything went sideway is what happened."

The scenario that Archie relayed felt like a nightmare come true to Zack. As soon as Matt's building touched back down to earth, he was swarmed by the Waterloo adventurer's guild. They proceeded to scour his structure, looking for the source of whatever created the gargoyles and made the building fly. To Archie's credit, he managed to distract them away from the core, but there was nothing he could do to get them to leave.

"Matt had to take things into his own hands and… ejected everyone from his structure," Archie said quietly. He took another long sip off his mug before speaking again. "Zack, I think we need to accelerate your plan to reveal core sapience to people. Reyna and her guild were looking for something to kill."

That was enough of a threat to send a ripple of fear pulsing through Zack's core. If an entire adventurer's guild was looking for a core to smash… He couldn't even begin to fathom what might have happened if they found Matt.

"I can't just… accelerate a plan I haven't even fully formed yet," Zack protested. "I'm still working out all the details. I was hoping to talk to Matt and have him help with the process, too. I figured a younger mind like his might endear the public to our plight."

"That's not going to happen," Archie said, shaking his head. "Matt's on the run. After he ejected everyone—myself included—from his structure, he took off into the sky and disappeared beyond the clouds. By the time Reyna checked to make sure everyone was safe, he was long gone and outside her portal range."

Zack let out a frustrated sigh of defeat. There went any plans he had of getting another major core on his side. This put a huge wrench in his half-formed plans, but ultimately changed nothing. He still needed to reveal cores to the world, but now he was limited to the four cores within his dungeon.

Well, five if we count Ember.

The thought popped into his head unbidden, and gave him enough of a startle that he fell uncharacteristically silent for a few seconds. He hadn't thought about the forge core ever since he absorbed her. At the time, she'd been delirious, borderline insane and dumping mana with such fervour as to push Zack's own magic out of the way. He'd needed to punch through her influence and shatter her himself—an act she begged him to do. But why would she do that? She hadn't been much smaller than Zack, and yet she was so full of mana that it was… spilling out of her.

"Archie, do you think this has anything to do with the person who weaponized Ember to use against me?" He asked, his voice quiet and concerned.

The hare's ears quirked curiously, and he leaned forward in his seat to rest his elbows on the table. "What makes you say that?"

"Just… an uncomfortable hunch."

"Try me."

Zack sighed and walked Archie through his thought. "The dungeon fairy Alex showed me, part of its abilities involved eating a core's maximum mana capacity. A value I don't remember seeing when I checked Ember's stats…"

Archie bolted upright, his ears pointed straight up. "And Ember was unable to contain the mana within her, so much so that the pain was driving her mad. It was spilling out in a fiery influence she couldn't control."

"Exactly."

The hare shuddered uncomfortably, and slowly lowered himself down in his chair. "If that was the fate that awaited Matt… I'm not sure I'd be able to live with myself if that came to pass."

"I think his dungeon—sky palace?—his structure would have fallen out of the air long before he went insane from mana anema. He's that big because he needs the energy to remain afloat."

Archie shivered all the same, his ears twitching uncomfortably. "We don't have enough evidence to confirm this is what happened to Ember."

"Actually…" Zack meekly walked Archie through the dead fairy's abilities, causing the rabbit's eyes to bug in horror. "It can dominate the mind of weaker beings. There's nothing to say that it couldn't do so to the man that used Ember on me."

Zack and Archie sat in silence for a few breaths, the rabbit reaching for his tea cup before draining its contents. When he finally spoke again, there was an edge of worry to his normally jovial tone.

"I think I need something harder than tea to take the edge off today," Archie muttered.

Zack spawned a bottle of beer on the table, one of the brews that Alex shared with him. He didn't know if Archie could even get drunk, but he didn't blame his faithful rabbit for wanting it. He popped the cap off and watched as the rabbit took a long swig, before pulling it away again.

"This tastes wrong…"

"Yeah, I can't really ferment the beers I make. I have all the right chemical ingredients, but it's not properly aged and stuff. I haven't quite figured out that process, but I'm working on it."

"Do you plan on getting a liquor license?"

"Eh, probably not. Still, it'll be nice to have for when we're done work for the day."

Archie grunted and took another sip from the bottle. Zack had at least remembered to leave out anything yeasty. "So what's our next plan of action?" He asked, pulling the bottle away and checking its contents curiously.

Somewhere in the dungeon, Jean-Claude shook his head and shrugged. "I'm not sure," Zack admitted. "Matt was really our only lead on these dungeon fairies, not to mention he was the only other core we had any knowledge of outside my dungeon. We know more cores are out there, but we don't know where they are or how we might get to them. I think it would also be extremely arrogant to think that there's going to be lots of cores in driving distance."

"The ability to travel would have made Matt invaluable," Archie agreed. "As it stands, we're kind of stuck here, aren't we?"

"Theoretically I could dismantle the dungeon, obliterate my influence, and surrender all the gains I've accumulated in order to make myself portable. I'm kind of reluctant to do that, though," Zack chuckled.

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"Here, here," Archie muttered in agreement, taking another pull off his bottle. "So we're essentially back to where we started. We need to find more cores, and we don't know where to look."

"Yup, that about sums it up."

"And the Akashic System is useless in this regard?"

"I don't think she's willing to give me that information, no," Zack admitted.

Something Zack said gave Archie pause, and he flicked his ears curiously. "Since when do you call the Akashic System a she?"

Now it was Zack's turn to be surprised. "Huh. You're right. I don't know, it just felt right to call her a she."

Archie shook his head and brushed past the sudden faux pas. "Regardless, it—she'll be unhelpful in getting what we need. Let's not waste our time trying to get it out of her and instead focus on what we know and what we can do."

"Right. Should I wake Alex up and have him join us? He's out cold in his room."

"No, let him sleep. He had a big a day."

"Fair. Alright so, the big factor that we need to take into account is the Aetheric Boom itself. We know that people caught in the Boom—specifically in the magical fires that erupted from the earth—were turned into cores. Any capacity they had for mana was condensed into their crystal structure, and then every core went catatonic for… let's assume three to four years, it would be arrogant for me to assume that I was the first one awake—especially since Snow and Enza seemed to have been working together for some time."

"Keep in mind that Enza was a lesser core, as were Iris, Ember, and Glitch. It's not out of the question to assume that their waking process was faster than yours both due to the abundant aether they were exposed to and their functions being significantly simpler than your own," Archie pointed out.

"That's more arrogance I don't feel comfortable leaning into. Iris is capable of almost all the same functions as me, just on a more limited level. You're probably right about the aether levels, though. I didn't wake up until I absorbed a spell that was meant to kill—or at least mortally wound—Alex.

"Factor number two that we need to consider is the primary raison d'etre of cores: namely, we exist to serve as aether filters. Our purpose is to take ustable magical energy and render it stable again. That's why we have influences and the like, and why aetheric harvesters are so important to my ongoing functionality."

Archie nodded in agreement. "You perform a natural function that otherwise doesn't exist in the world. I wonder if the fairies benefit from removing that natural function?"

"Impossible to say. The dead fairy you sent me wasn't exactly very talkative."

"I should hope not. I cut her head from her body!"

Zack chuckled and continued. "Factor number three: there are people out there aware of what cores are, and what we're capable of doing."

"Archmages and the magical universities," Archie sneered. "We can mark one of those off our hit list. Waterloo's magic campus is a smoking crater thanks to Matt and the fairy controlling him."

"And thus does Cornelius Snow's legacy die with him," Zack sighed in relief. He never told anyone, but he had always worried that somebody from Waterloo might show up one day seeking vengeance for what had happened to the dean. "Is there anything we're missing?"

"Factor four: fairies are real, and the prey upon cores," Archie said, adding to the growing list of concerns.

"Right. Those. I was kind of lumping them in with factor three but I guess that is a big enough concern to warrant its own line. We know dangerously little about them, and as far as we know there isn't anybody out there who has ever heard of them. Our only lead is the person that dumped Ember on me and ran away."

Archie raised an eyebrow curiously. "You wouldn't happen to have caught their name and description, would you?"

"I did. His name was Edward Fenton," Zack said, beaming a picture of the man in question into Archie's mind.

The rabbit frowned and closed his eyes, as though mentally studying the image intently. "I think that's enough for me to start from. I'll see about getting Iris to convert that into an image on paper that I can show people. I think this is a lead we need to follow up on."

"We?"

"Fine. A lead I need to follow up on."

Zack mentally scowled. "I don't like the idea of you being outside my dungeon much more. You have a job to do in here, not to mention I want you around to protect me."

"At the same time, I am almost the most mobile part of you. I have a suite of stealth skills capable of allowing me to effortlessly move about the humans—and I have a passable excuse for looking like a rabbit if and when they catch me about."

Zack sighed in defeat. He'd known before he even started arguing that this was a lost cause. Archie was his best agent for this kind of work. "Don't be offended, but I think I'm going to move my core room out of your wing. You're right about being the most mobile part of me, but I can't afford to leave myself undefended."

"I was going to suggest you do just that," Archie said, nodding in relief. "Perhaps the manor might be your safest place to rest?"

"I was thinking that, or the new forge wing I constructed for Ember. Both should be roughly the same difficulty."

"I would lean on the tried and tested wing rather than an untested one."

"Fair point," Zack conceded. He mentally prodded Jean-Claude and got the kobold ready to carry his core from his current room in the warren to a new room he was preparing in the manor. "Are you at least going to stick around for a bit?"

Archie cocked his head and flicked his ears. "I would like to see Chandra before I head out on another mission. I think I can afford to spare a day or two here while I recover from my last escapade."

"In that case, I would like to offer you one of the new ability nodes I acquired from the fairy you killed," Zack declared in delight. With a twist of mana, he spawned a tangled net of magical fibres on the table next to Archie's teapot.

Curiously, the rabbit picked up the node and studied it. "Unseelie? Zack, this is…"

"A fairy power. I know, not the most comfortable ability given what we're dealing with."

"I was going to say perfect, actually," Archie chuckled. "Cursing my enemies with bad luck sounds like just the sort of ability I could make excellent use of. Though I think I'll check its evolution paths rather than keep it as is."

Zack mentally kicked himself for not thinking to do just that. He needed to practice viewing ability upgrades without allowing nearly infinite information to spill into his mind. Oh well, it was something he could practice later.

Archie popped the node into his mouth and swallowed. His eyes went glassy as he stared into space, a telltale sign that he was studying the node's information via the Akashic System and figuring out what sort of permutations might best suit his needs. When he once again focused, a grin was tugging at the corners of his lips.

"I've turned it from an always-on passive ability to a targeted spell," he explained.

Zack quickly checked the system to learn more about it.

[Unseelie Bolt]

[Spell, Fairy]

[Fire an non-elemental bolt of fairy magic. Targets hit become afflicted with Unseelie for thirty seconds.]

[0 second cast time. 2 mana cost]

Zack made a low whistling noise. "I don't think it does any damage, but given how variable an effect that can be I think that's more than justifiable."

Archie's smirk widened all the more. "If that's all you need from me, I think I'd like some time to myself? I want to have a bath and make myself presentable before I go out and see Chandra."

"Right, right. Can't have your girlfriend thinking her favorite bunny smells like anything other than carrots and dirt."

"What? I don't smell—Zack!" The insides of Archie's ears turned bright red with embarassment, and Zack couldn't help but cackle devilishly. "Not funny."

"Oh I think it's quite funny, thanks. Anyway, I'll leave you to it." Zack started pulling his awareness out of Archie's room, when he suddenly stopped. There was one last thing he wanted to ask about. "Before I go, what happened to the mobs I sent you out with? The badger and medibold?"

"I think Matt might have eaten them by now," Archie shrugged. "They were the only things he didn't eject from his palace. Well, those and his gargoyles. The left over metal ants were ejected with the rest of us."

"Dang. Oh well, I hope he enjoys the present," Zack sighed. "Anyway, enjoy your shower."