Xanarken was on the landing-pad when Maeve finally touched down late in the afternoon. As a smaller skiff, there was no need for it to go all the way up to the top of the spire like the diplomat-ship had done, and when Gabriel hopped out and got clear, the platform itself moved, taking Maeve into the storage-lot further within. The Fourth was all-smiles as his heir approached, “There’s the man of the hour.”

“I did good?”

“You did really good.” Xanarken affirmed proudly, and reached his hands out to clasp around both of those shoulders, “You even impressed Rylen.”

“…Oh. I’m…I mean, I did? I thought he was angry with me.”

“Maybe by proxy, but I think you reminded him why I promoted you. Your working relationship with him will probably change dramatically once you’re using a mantle.” The Fourth explained, and turned to walk with the Vice towards one of the exit-elevators, “And I think he enjoys the fact that you don’t discount the potential of the Sixth to be the wolf behind the pup.”

“How come you don’t?” Gabriel wondered, “You two have been working together for half an epoch. You refer to each other as brothers. I’d figure you’d follow the ‘where I go, we go’ ethos.”

Xanarken hesitated to answer for a moment, but as the door to the elevator opened and they went in, he shrugged, “When you’ve seen as much as I have, you tend to hold certain trump-cards close to the vest. You’ve never seen the kind of Hell that Rylen can unleash if he’s provoked.”

“When has he ever?”

“Oh, a bunch of times. Kitez is hardly the first rebellious colony that wanted to go it alone because they were stranded for a couple generations.” The Fourth answered, “Back before the Sixth actually had SkyFortresses though, and it was mostly smaller vessels, he was a bit more strategic with the assaults. But, ultimately, the point still stands; he takes no chances, and he’s never lost a fight. I’d just rather exhaust every possible diplomatic option before even considering letting Rylen out.”

“…Should I back off on mentioning the Sixth then?”

“I think you should do what you think is best. If you go out there trying to be a mini-me, the people you’re dealing with will just think you’re acting as my proxy, and that they can always go around you to ask me for the final word. You have to find your own identity as an Eidolon, so that your word is the final word.”

“…I’m not going to be an Eidolon though. Even if the name is in the label, it’s just fancy packaging around High Negotiator like before.”

“And that, kiddo, is why I came to pick you up myself.” Xanarken explained, “I’m not cutting you loose for the night until you’ve gotten scanned.”

“Uh oh…”

“Don’t sound so unenthusiastic.” Xanarken puffed, “Anyone else in your shoes would be chomping at the bit to get what you’re getting.”

“I know, it’s just…weird.” Gabriel sighed, and found himself nudged out of the elevator and out onto a different level within the spire. They were beneath the ground-level, and they stepped along the platform to one of the subterranean mag-train tunnels. It was build as a perfectly-circular tube, and the gentle, slowly-pulsing hum of the system that powered it could be felt in the air. There was already a mag-train waiting for them – spherical in shape, with a clear exterior and three rows of seats set within a perimeter that lined the inner wall - doors open, “…I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these things empty before. It’s eerie.”

“This one is going straight to Arbelos, no stops along the way, so it’s basically out of service to everyone else.” Xanarken explained, and showed the way in.

Gabriel still stayed back a moment, a worried look on his face, “…I feel like this is happening too fast.”

“Heh, I’m the opposite. Feels like I’ve been waiting for years. Come on, then.”

The blonde mumbled a quiet whine under his breath, but followed, and grabbed a seat near the closing door. The sphere started to move, following the perfectly-circular chute as it picked up speed. The inertia of it was mild, even as it changed direction and the standing-platform within it moved relative to whatever true level always was. And…if Gabriel wasn’t immediately nauseated and dizzy from the sight of the city appearing and fading into the distance as the mag-train went vertical on the outside of Agartha’s central tower, he might’ve appreciated the view.

“Maybe you’ll get over that little fear once you’ve had a chance to mess around with the different mantles.” Xanarken teased, “Knowing you can’t take falling-damage, in essence, really liberates the mind from natural instinct. You can go flying in the shape of a literal bird or swim with the body of one of those crazy Poseidon-sharks. The possibilities are endless. Get creative with it. You could even do like Etienne and manufacture yourself the body of a forest god, and prance-around in the woods.”

Gabriel had to lay-down flat on the ground, heedless to it being dirty from the footprints of prior passengers, “Here I thought the Eidolon actually had jobs to do.”

“We’re still human, in the end, and we all need outlets for rest and creativity.” The Fourth puffed, “Unless you’re Arbelos, in which case taking a break is akin to suicide.”

The mag-train finally came to a stop, and for a mercy, instead of simply opening-up again with its exterior facing the open skyline, it went inside the building to rest at an actual dock. Gabriel still needed a minute to recover, and ultimately had to crawl pitifully out of the pod before everything around him stopped spinning. Xanarken just shook his head and waited.

There was still a short distance to go yet before they actually made it to their destination, but it was all safely within the walls of the tower. Up a long series of wide, unassuming steps, and through two substantial doors, they finally entered into the proverbial beating heart of the World Cloud itself.

It was a round-ish room, with a series of very-slowly-rotating concentric circles embedded in the floor; whether they were time-pieces, an astrolabe, or some other kind of machine, Gabriel had no idea. Above them, hovering like a blue dwarf-star, was the faintly glowing image of the Fifth Eidolon, though on a much grander scale than that of the wisp that had briefly appeared to Rylen’s summons. It was surrounded by nanotech panels – blinking in and out of existence – and a number of smaller orbs orbited around. When it finally realized that it wasn’t alone in that room, the entire sphere rotated on an axis and ‘face’ them; solid-light panels opened in a sequence ahead of it, creating something of an iris with which to observe them.

“Yo.” Xanarken raised a hand, “We’re here.”

Gabriel was baffled, “…Why does he look like that?”

“Why do any of us look the way we do?” Xanarken answered, and shrugged up his shoulders, “Anyway.” He turned back to the Fifth, “Thanks for agreeing to do this right away. Things are heating up in Kitez and I need this one fit to fight.”

“Thanks, I kinda hate how you said that.”

The Fourth swatted him.

The massive iris narrowed slightly, changing its focus from Xanarken to Gabriel and back again, “This one is to become an Eidolon.” A voice spoke – loud but passive – but, to Gabriel’s confusion, sounded like young boy.

“He’s been acting in the capacity of one for some time now. He needs access to a mantle to be as effective as one, though.” Xanarken explained, “Can we just get straight to it?”

The iris turned back towards Gabriel, and the way it zoomed-in on him made it seem like it was actually extending itself closer to the man. Gabriel just stood there in uncomfortable silence, although he balked when he heard that boy-child’s voice give him an unexpected command.

“Undress.”

“Hah!?”

“He’s not gonna scan you in all your clothes. It would take too much time to render you down to skin-level.” Xanarken explained, “He’s going to manufacture the digital doll-body that you can dress-up later.”

“I’m just supposed to strip right here in the full sight of both of you?”

“Not all the way. Just…most of the way. Go on.”

Gabriel muttered discontentedly under his breath, but released the image of his uniform-jacket, and grudgingly pulled the material base of the rest of his things away until he was just there in his shorts. He crossed his arms and glowered, “This is degrading.”

“Please tie your hair tightly to the back of your head.” Arbelos commanded, “Your back and neck must be uncovered.”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

That was less intrusive, so he didn’t complain, and pulled the tie from his hair. Fingers combed through his bangs to blend it in with the rest – Xanarken watched the red coloration fade as those bangs became part of the whole. Gabriel then grabbed the whole length of the ponytail around his right hand, coiled it around into a loop, and pulled the rest of it around the base of the loop until it was just the red-streaked tips, which he pulled through and tightened.

“Please stand in a neutral position and extend your arms straight out at shoulder-level.” Arbelos instructed next, as the entirety of that star-like orb started to move out and above the man.

Gabriel swallowed a nervous breath, but did as bid, and watched as the entire iris came down over top of him, engulfing him as those solid-light panels rotated - rising, and falling – for nearly half a minute. Xanarken watched carefully, those vivid purple eyes never blinking.

“You may release your hair again.”

The bun was loosed, and it all went tumbling down behind Gabriel’s back; those long, wing-like bangs were shaken free as well, and as soon as they settled, the red crept back in like he’d dipped the tips in ink. Another scan was taken from there, and finally, Arbelos lifted the iris and went back to his neutral position above the rings.

“Your mantle will be ready in two weeks.” That child-like voice answered, “Please review the schematic database that I will send to you now. It is imperative that you select a range of garb-options so that you may present yourself in the manner of your choosing. Thank you. Goodbye.”

And with that, Arbelos went back to what he was doing before…whatever that was.

Gabriel was a bit flummoxed by the whole thing, but shook his head, grabbed his hair to put it back into its usual style, and bent down to collect his things. At the end, he backed-into the mag-train in reverse, and found a seat that wasn’t facing the full open skyline of the city, “…That was, quite possibly, the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced.”

“Yeah, he probably could’ve figured out a better way to do that, but…” Xanarken couldn’t help but laugh at the whole thing, “Well, you’re the first person he’s ever scanned, so I guess it was a prototype method. Whatever it takes though, right?”

“If that was the first time, how did you guys get your mantles?”

“Vaguely-humanoid-shaped templates that were developed on Earth, at first.” Xanarken answered, “Like I told you, the original purpose of the Eidolon System was a scouting program. There wasn’t any need for it to have any particular identity or personality. It was just…a generic amalgamation that got the job done. We only started making unique images for ourselves when Arbelos started disseminating nanotech out into the world in cannisters, and we wanted to be able to confer with other colonies as ourselves. That’s initially the whole reason we set it all up this way; being able to keep working at the Agartha main-camp while sending our avatars to other sites as we found them.”

“…How did Rylen end up looking like he does now, though? And Etienne…? And, well, shit…Arbelos. Damn.”

The Fourth laughed and sat beside his heir, looking rather relaxed now that that chore was finished, “The original templates weren’t super great. They served, but people who interacted with them complained about the uncanny valley feelings they got from us. Rylen got kind of impatient with the way people didn’t like looking at him, so he acquiesced to the requests to make the mantles look better…only to take it a step further. He called it malicious compliance. Thought it was really funny. I, on the other hand, didn’t want to change the way I looked much, so the purple highlights are kind of a new thing from probably a hundred years back. Etienne started to change her mantle after around 70 years of looking like her original self. She had the idea in mind that if we were going to be these unique immortal creatures, she wanted to embody the concept in visuals, too. Being so long-lived as us, our knowledge and experience started to seem deific to the people who came and went after us, so I guess I can’t blame her. Flaunt it if you’ve got it, right?”

“…But Arbelos…? He doesn’t even go anywhere. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen him.”

“That’s not even really him.” Xanarken answered, drawing a look of genuine confusion, “The focus you saw up there is, in reality, the core of the World Cloud; he just kind of borrows the place when he’s needed in person. The whole room is a server-bank, and the blue orb-thing in the middle is a coalesced cloud of ambient energy coming off of Syraph.”

“…Come again?”

“About a mile down is the Eidolon System, with the Seraphim Engine at its co-”

“No, I know that part, but…that blue cloud was literally Syraph?”

“Well, indirectly, but yeah. When I said that energy radiated off of her, I meant it literally. You can feel it, interact with it, manipulate it…harness it into a power-system that flows through all the nanotech in use today. It all originates from that room. The panels that float around the core are new nanotech being charged with that energy before going out into the ambient Cloud. There’s always more being made, especially in the days since Sargon opened-up to us.”

“…How does so much tech not blot-out the sun?”

“Oh, in the beginning it was miserable. It was like smoggy patches. It took Arbelos years to figure out how to get it to be less obvious…now it just blends in like it’s not even there. But you wanna know something kinda cool?”

“…What?” Gabriel dared.

“The Eidolon can see the Cloud.” Xanarken answered, “And you’ll be able to see it soon, too, when you’re up and running. There’s a setting you can turn on that cancels-out the light-refraction effect, and it all becomes visible. It coalesces into paths…this massive, unending lattice…threads that connect literal rivers that flow through the sky. It reminds me so much of those early conceptual models of the known universe, with all those filaments of the cosmic web stretching out into eternity.”

“Wow…”

“I think you’ll really like it, once you get over the initial shock of the change.” Xanarken continued, and the pod suddenly became enshrouded in the dark of the underground-component of the chute, “What seems like a sacrifice now will quickly fade. The way the world just opens-up when you can go anywhere you need to be in an instant… The freedom from base needs like eating or bathing or going to the bathroom; all this stuff that won’t matter anymore…”

“…I like food though? I thought you said I could come and go from the System as I pleased.” Gabriel asked suspiciously, “You’re starting to make it sound like that won’t be the case after all.”

“Maybe I’m just eager.” The Fourth relented, and looked up as the mag-train started to slow down again, “I literally cannot wait to see the great things you do once you’ve got your full kit.”

“Would you have eventually pushed for this outcome anyway? Even if not for the Sterling Rose situation, I mean.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely.” Xanarken laughed, and pushed up to stand as the pod came to a stop at its original dock again. Gabriel stood as well, and they departed into that empty station, “The Sterling Rose certainly kicked things up a notch, but the cogs were already turning when you zipped into Sargon two years ago. And look how far things have come since then; Sargon is one small nudge away from joining the Accord. I think the Emperor’s just looking for a good excuse to pull the trigger. That’s all your good work. And even though you have misgivings about how things turned out with Kitez recently, the way you hammered Far’nah during the convention was a master-class. I’ve no doubt that Emperor Iresha’s foreign-affairs Minister is already reporting-back to him what happened. The further Kitez is pushed into a corner, the more free Sargon will feel to cut its losses. And while I will always hope for a civilized resolution to what happens out there…you’ve definitely set the stage for the Accord to accept the invasion if it comes to that.”

That opened-up the nervous pit in Gabe’s stomach again, “…Her final words aren’t sitting well with me. I didn’t want to set the stage that excuses the Sixth marching on Kitez. What the Hell is Far’nah thinking, spreading her arms out like that and saying ‘come at me, bro’? It’s suicide. How does the entire Conclave stand behind it? No wonder the Duke wants out so bad… Timid as he is, even he can see the writing on the wall. Gods, I hope he makes it to the Dawn of Ages… I’ll feel terrible if something happens to him before he has a chance to get out.”

“Waiting patiently can sometimes be one of the hardest things you have to do.” The Fourth reassured, “What do you plan to do now?”

“…I know you don’t want me to, but I kinda wanna call Ren; see how she’s doing since Rylen laid into her earlier.” He answered, “I’ve never seen him tear someone up like that before…least not one of his own. I can’t even begin to imagine how she felt after. She took off so fast…”

Xanarken gave him quite the look, “Gabe, you’ve gotta sort that situation out before you start using your mantle. You can’t be cavorting with a mistress as an Eidolon.”

“I can’t just stop feeling how I do.” The Vice argued, “This is such miserable timing… I’ve been on my own since my early 20s and now, all of a sudden, it’s a problem.”

The Fourth drew in a long breath and let out a vocal sigh, “…Just…let it be for now. Rylen’s still pretty mad at her for how she acted in front of him this morning. If he finds out you’re trying to talk to her after that…you might get put on that same shit-list. He just acknowledged the good job you did at the convention. Don’t spoil it.”

“How long am I supposed to ignore her, then? I can only put her off for so long before I start to look like an asshole. She didn’t get into trouble on her own.”

Xanarken narrowed his eyes slightly, “You’re putting me in a weird position.”

“Why?”

“Because I just told Rylen I’d do my best to keep you two apart, but I feel like if I don’t help you figure this thing out, you’ll hobble yourself before you stand a chance.”

“…What are you suggesting?” Gabriel raised a brow, “You’ve been so adamant about sticking me into the System that it’s like everyone’s forgotten it was you and Rylen who put her with me. You even once suggested she’d be a good influence on me. Surprise, you were right! Now I’m just being punished for it with this crap about Rylen being mad at her, and the salacious insinuation that she’s actually involved with someone else, suggesting I just facilitated adultery or something.”

“I know, I know.” Xanarken waved his hands down, then pulled one up to his goatee in thought, “…Let me go look in on her myself first. I needed an excuse to ask her how she’s doing anyway. Rylen may hold her in high regard, but only as a weapon, not a person, so he couldn’t really tell me how she’s holding-up since the massacre.”

“…You’d really do that?”

Those purple eyes looked up hesitantly, “If I help you find peace with this situation, will you promise to focus on the Eidolon-stuff?”

“Depends what kind of peace you’re implying.” Gabriel crossed his arms.

“You and Ren get whatever you’re looking for from each other, come to an understanding that you’ve got work to do, and accept that you’re not going to be together. I can only offer you my help insofar as to give you a soft landing. I’m not playing match-maker, especially not if it’s true that she’s already spoken-for. That’s a whole nest of trouble I want nothing to do with. …And, as I’ve said before already, you won’t have time for that kind of thing anyway once you come into your not-unliteral crown.”

Gabriel wasn’t sure how to feel about it, but he nodded anyway, “…Fine… She said she was helping escort Seth back home. So, she’s gone to wherever the kid’s family lives.”

“I already know exactly where she is.”

“…You spying on her or something? I thought you abhorred the idea of tracking people.”

“I’m not tracking her, per se. I’m tracking the nanotech that she’s been accessing. The World Cloud is my mountain, so it’s like following the footsteps in the snow that she knowingly left behind. That’s fair-game.”