Neuro-links were expensive, especially for a student, even if Leah was considered to be at the top of that particular hill. She’d promised herself at the beginning of the previous year to cut her spending, only use her coin for essentials, save the rest for the future, but she’d needed to see her grandparents. Letters were great, and they were cheap, but they were not Neuro-links. One use and she’d cursed the Techno-Guild and their abysmal prices. Two and she’d cursed herself for the spending. Three and she’d stopped cursing altogether, disappointed but happy. The rest of the year had gone by without a mind-bond, letters her only lifeline, her only connection to home. When it had ended, she’d made the same promise again. Do not spend. Coin is only for essentials. We can get by on letters. And she’d followed through with the promise… for a whole nineteen hours. The curses almost came back, but she needed this, needed them, after the brute of a day she’d just had.

Kibo’Eyera, the Pocket-System assigned to the School Harubridgium by the Techno-Guild did not like small-talk. For the decade and a half she’d been a student in the school, Leah had tried to acquaint herself with the ancient System-borne. Befriend the man with the key to a septillion free Neuro-links. No such luck; not for her, and so far as she knew, not for anyone else. He was a solid, immovable stone. Hadn’t stopped her the last time she was in his shop though, but she was tired today, and her stitches hurt whenever she moved. So, the ranger stood quietly, and watched the expensive Guild-member begin his work.

“Enter the circle,” Temples aglow in red had began to fade but his eyes remained a luminous gold with blue in the irises as he pointed at the center of the room, and the circle with unfamiliar runes etched on the marble floor.

“Where do these ones hail from?” Leah asked. The runes always changed, but the meaning always stayed the same. Mind-bond.

The amber-skinned man stretched one of his arms, rubbing the shoulder through his white robes, eyes cast down on the solid storm-bolt the Ranger was about to stand on. He considered, and judging it safe enough said; “Language of the Small-folk, before they started setting out from their continent. Particularly, the language of the City-State Ejaru’Ilsathe at the continent’s eastern shore.”

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“Have you been?” She asked, standing on the runes.

Kibo’Eyera took a silver cup from the counter and moved toward her. “No one of the Age of Slumber has. Not since they closed themselves off.”

“Yes, but you are not of this Age; are you, Kibo?”

The System-borne smiled, and held out the cup. “Drink, please.”

The metal felt cold in her hand, colder than it should be. Leah remembered the first time she’d done this ritual. How her trembling hand had let go of the cup, golden then, and how it had fallen, clinking against the ground and pouring all of its glowing blue content all over her boots and the etched runes beneath. Pure Energy Artifica, made into liquid matter. A quarter of the reason the ritual was so expensive. She’d been poised to pay double but Mackenzie had gone on a full offensive, haggling down the price to just above half. To this day, she’d never gotten a discount that steep from Kibo. Hadn’t gotten another discount at all. Now, the metal was still cold, but her hand remained steady.

“How about a discount, eh?” She asked. “For old times sake.”

“I see no Merchant Princess here, Ranger.” He walked over to a black lever crafted into the brown, wooden wall. “Are you ready?”

As I’ll ever be. The Ranger steeled herself, as solid as a stone, lifted the cup to her lips and drank from it the blue liquid energy. A moment and her insides started to burn, mouth before throat, before chest. Steady. Heart started to beat faster and faster. Breaths were coming in quick and light. Her legs were shaking. Steady! A sound, like a cog in a wheel turning. Kibo, pulling the lever and she was showered in light. STEADY!!! She covered her eyes, feeling the energy take root, fill her mystic threshold. Sooth the burning. Steady. The fool of a System-borne let out an unintelligible word, and the runes beneath the Ranger started to quake, taking on a pale blue shimmer. Her leg wanted to bend but she stamped at the ground instead. The storm-bolt took route and she felt her mind take hold of another.

“Steady,” Leah said in-between breaths.

“As fluid as a stone,” a voice said from a distance. A familiar one.