“You know, you could have saved us a whole lot of work if you’d just… not knocked the damned tower down,” Querit told me.

“You’re not even doing the digging. Why are you whining about this?” I asked.

I’d found a use for Ammun’s legion of golems after all. There were several thousand of them below us, slowly digging through and transmuting the remains of Ammun’s tower as we burrowed to Manoch’s core. They’d been at it for about four years now and had made a good thirty miles of progress, which was greatly hindered by the fact that they were now all completely underwater. The ocean had poured in and turned the crater into a massive inland sea years ago, long before I’d even launched this project.

We’d considered other locations, even going out into one of the ocean trenches directly to skip the excavation portion. That provided a quick route down to the planet’s crust, but left us digging sideways thousands of miles to reach the spot we needed to patch. In the end, it didn’t save us any work, so we’d opted to head right to the center of the damage.

“Because I’m the one who has to redo the rune structures on all those golem cores,” Querit said.

“You would be doing that either way.”

“Not this many!”

“I’m doing all the modifications for underwater digging to their frames. You don’t hear me complaining about it,” I told him.

“At this rate, it’s going to take decades to finish.”

“We always knew that was likely to be the case. Even if we blocked off the incoming water and drained trillions of gallons out of this hole, it wouldn’t save us any time.”

“I still don’t know how you expect to keep the whole ocean from flooding into the core once we get there,” Querit said. “The amount of mana needed to hold that much pressure back…”

“Trust me, I know what I’m doing. The spell will work.”

We stood in the air, silently staring down at the massive sea of blue stretching out in every direction. Below us, out of sight, a small army of mechanical soldiers slowly took us one more step into the future.

“Might have been less work to kill Ammun with the tower intact,” Querit muttered.

“If you’re so sure, you can take care of the next insane lich that comes along,” I offered.

* * *

It was Nailu’s sixteenth birthday, making him officially an adult. True to our word, Senica and I had never breathed even a hint of the existence of ointment of aging to him – not that I thought he’d have taken us up on it. But it kept Mother happy.

Naillu was less interested in magic than I’d expected. He was good at it, unsurprisingly, but he seemed to treat it as more of a fun hobby than something he wanted to devote his life to mastering. Despite that, his core was stage two and as robustly developed as possible. Whether he’d ever go past that remained to be seen.

“You’re thinking about it again, aren’t you?” Father asked me while we stood off to the side and watched my baby brother tear into his presents. Considering how rich the family was now, and not through much effort of my own, it was a haul fit for a merchant prince. There was a lot of gold, ivory, richly colored clothes, some sort of instrument that he favored that I couldn’t recall the name of, and of course, a few enchanted pieces from me.

“No, it’s fine,” I said. “It’s his life and his choice. If he doesn’t want to be a mage, well…”

“He’s going to look older than you and your sister in another few years,” Father said. “At the rate we’re going, people are going to think the two of you are our grandchildren.”

“I could—” I started to say, but Father cut me off.

“Maybe in another decade or two when the aches and pains start to set in, we’ll change our minds,” he told me.

It would be better to start them on alchemical treatments now to prolong their youth rather than try to regain it, but we’d had that conversation too many times already. They weren’t interested in immortality or anything close to it, though I suspected they’d both age with grace. I also had enough firsthand experience with creaking joints and the indignities of an aging bladder to know I’d choose to spare them that for as long as possible if they’d let me.

“How’s your world core project coming along?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Slow, but steady,” I replied. “We’re still digging. Getting close to the bottom now, I think. And I’ve got all the mysteel we’ll need ready to go. All that’s left is to reach the core and start the process.”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“So it’ll happen in our lifetime after all,” Father said. “What a strange world it’ll be.”

“Better in practically every way. Well, except for the monsters. There will be new monsters taking advantage of things, but trust me, there were always going to be monsters either way, and we’ll be better prepared to deal with them.”

“Senica did say she opened another branch of her school a few weeks ago.”

I watched a steady stream of people heading for the food now that Nailu’s presents had all been revealed. He stood there next to Mother, grinning from ear to ear and clutching something with a long neck and too many strings on it. I still wasn’t sure what it was, and I’d etched the runes into it myself. As long as it had mana, he could smash it into anything he wanted and it would never take so much as a scratch.

“I told her she was moving too fast, that she needs to get more professors up to standard before she started a fourth location, but you know how well she likes to listen,” I said.

“Wonder where she got that from,” Father muttered, but there was a smile on his lips as he said it.

“At least she finally gave up on that ridiculous idea of hers.”

“No, she didn’t. She just isn’t talking to you about it. She’s been over at Eyrie Peak every other day talking to them instead.”

I groaned softly and tried to cover the noise by taking a sip of my drink. If that particular project ever got off the ground, I just knew I’d be the one doing all the work. Wasn’t one impossible dream at a time enough?

“Whatever. Just leave me out of it,” I said. “How’s the farm doing?”

It wasn’t a farm in a traditional sense. They grew things there, but not food. Father had decided to branch out from basic crops years ago and started a distillery, mostly on Senica’s advice. She’d shown him the process, including a few alchemical twists that really changed the whole experience of getting drunk, and he’d decided it was a product worth chasing after. Their biggest challenge had been keeping up with demand, even after three other competitors had sprung up.

“Fantastic! I’ve actually run out of room and had to expand out into the desert again. Tetrin charged me a fortune to extend the wards after Hyago finished the terraforming, but I’ll make it all back again inside a few years.”

Before I could respond, Senica appeared in the door and rushed over. “Gravin! There you are.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’ve been here the whole time watching the party. Where have you been?”

Senica’s cheeks flushed and she glanced over at Mother and Nailu, only to flinch when she saw the expression on Mother’s face. She’d been less than impressed at my older sister’s tardiness. Senica quickly rallied, though, and said, “Never mind that! I need to talk to you about something.”

“Is it this stupid idea you have for your demesne again?” I asked.

“It’s not stupid! It’s brilliant.”

“You could have reached stage six five years ago if you’d just give this notion up and pick a place to start working on.”

“But this way is better,” she said. “You have to see how much better it is once we figure out how to make it work.”

If it actually worked, she’d have a point. I just didn’t think it would, which was exactly what I’d told her the last three times she’d tried to rope me in on it. Senica was nothing if not persistent, however. Ignoring my protests, she pulled out a large sheaf of papers and spread them out over the nearest table.

“Look, here, this was the problem before,” she told me as she jabbed her finger down on a particular chunk of the runic script. “We couldn’t find a way to support the weight without the mana costs cascading into failure, but what if we did this instead?”

“Already considered it. It won’t work. In a vacuum, it would do what you think, but you didn’t consider how it would affect the linking to the next section. Then multiply that problem a hundred times as it chains through the entire structure.”

“Aha! You’re right, except I did think of that, and look what I came up with!”

I peered at the next sheet in the stack she presented to me, then chuckled. “Clever, except it’ll be fifty years or more until there’s enough ambient mana to support that, and then you’re still locked to high density zones.”

“Think long term,” Senica said. “No, it won’t be anything special for the next century, but once that passes—”

“It still won’t be viable. I know you understand how mana propagation works. We’ve gone over the theory.”

“Not on its own, but what if we installed collection arrays to create sort of… refueling points for it to coast between?”

I considered that for a second. It could work, in theory. It would be a massive undertaking, but then again, that was nothing new. I’d literally linked up five moon cores and was digging a hole down to the very center of the planet. Compared to that, this was maybe a decade of infrastructure, then some hefty maintenance and upkeep forever.

“Okay, fine. Technically, that could work,” I said begrudgingly. “But it’s still a stupid idea.”

“Hah!” she said, a bit too loud. Everyone looked over at us, but she was too excited to notice.

“Alright, you two, whatever you’re doing can wait until later. Don’t ruin your brother’s day,” Mother scolded us.

“No, it’s fine, Mom,” Nailu said. “Really, no big deal. We’re all here to have a good time. If they want to do their magic thing, that’s what makes them happy.”

“Yeah, Mom,” Senica said. “Don’t be such a grouch.”

“She’s going to make you pay for that,” Father muttered softly.

“I think… I’m going to head out soon,” I replied. “I’d just as soon miss that conversation. I’ll just go have a few words with Nailu, then I’m gone.”

Chuckling, Father pulled me into a one-armed hug. “You always were the smartest of my kids,” he said. “Go on, do what you’ve got to do and then run for the hills.”

Mother was already on her way over, and she’d reach us long before Senica finished gathering her papers back up. Leaving her to her fate, I cast a quick short-range teleport spell and reappeared behind Nailu. Senica glared murder at me from across the room, but by then it was too late.

“She’s kind of tightly wound these days,” Nailu said. “I try to keep her level, but she’s not having it.”

“I think it bothers her that Senica and I stopped growing older,” I said.

“Don’t know why. It’s not a big deal or anything.”

“I’ll tell you in a few years. She made us promise not to until you were done growing.”

Nailu shrugged, unconcerned, and I once again felt a pang at my little brother’s lack of interest in all things magical. That was his choice, though, however much I wished he felt otherwise. “Happy birthday, Nailu,” I said. “Show me what this instrument sounds like before I go?”

“Sure. I wanted to try it out anyway.”

Despite my intentions to cut and run before Mother could turn her vengeful wrath on me, I ended up staying for a few more hours. Everything else could wait.