When we arrived at where Dusk had been digging, I noticed something a bit strange.
“Why is Dusk’s… Primes, there’s no way to say this and it not sound weird. But why – how – has she dug so deep?”
Though visually, she didn’t seem to have dug much deeper than Kene had, volume was always hard to estimate. Still, looking over the piles of soil that she’d dredged up, there was a good bit more than the piles Kene had.
“The gates,” Meadow said. “She’s only got one, and Kene has two.”
Kene glanced at me.
“Before you draw any crazy assumptions, it’s not as simple as everyone needing to extract the same amount of dirt.” they told me. “Unless you get really lucky, you’re going to have to dig less per gate than Dusk or me, but a lot more overall.”
“How much more?”
“It varies,” Meadow said. “As I said, there’s no real rhyme or reason to it. Some people with only a single gate have found they only need to dig out a single handful of dirt to break through, and the increase in their mana density was still roughly the same as anyone else’s would be.”
“But as a good general rule of thumb, you should expect that each additional gate adds half as much overall,” Kene said. “Between my two gates, I’ll probably have to dig up about one and a half times as much soil as Dusk. You’ll probably have to wind up digging out somewhere between four to six times as much as Dusk did.”
“Does it apply to the increase in power?” I asked, a touch worried, and Meadow made a so-so gesture.
“Not badly,” she said. “It’s hard to tell, because as with all things, there is variance. But people who open and break through with less gates tend to gain more from the breakthrough than those with more. Not much, certainly nowhere near half or even three quarters, but noticeable.”
“The extra time and the extra power are why there are so many mono or dual-aspected high gate mages, isn’t it?” I asked. “I’ve noticed. You and Ikki both only have one type. Then there’s the others I’ve heard about, but haven’t met, like the Dreamer or the Amethyst Mask.”
“Some theorize that it’s why beasts are usually only born with one gate as well,” Kene said. “Well, that and resources. Building up more gates takes more time and more power. Non-sapients tend to have a harder time with that.”
“It’s not the only reason,” Meadow said. “But it’s certainly a big one.”
Dusk chimed in, saying that theory was fine and all, but she was ready to break through now, and if we could stop ignoring her, that would be great.
“Sorry,” I said, inclining my head to her. She sniffed, then floated down into her mana garden, raising her hands and commanding the dirt to shift. Slowly, bit by bit, I felt her throwing herself against an intangible barrier.
Then it cracked, and power rushed through her garden. Like Meadow had said, it was a little bit stronger than what Kene had experienced, but it was slight. It would be an edge over Kene, but certainly not enough that I could put a number to it. In a strange way, it was almost as if the increase in power was almost the same, but Dusk’s was simply used more effectively. Not denser, just… where it belonged.
The rush of new mana spread through everything, reinforcing it and settling down firmly, and when it hit the pile of dirt, it was transformed into bricks as well, but instead of mud bricks, these seemed to be hewn of yellowish sandstone. Strangely, the number of bricks looked to be exactly twice the amount that Kene had created, which gave me pause for a moment.
Her stairs reacted an instant later, and rather than blue crystal like Kene’s, her steps were made of a glowing red sandstone, flecked with gold and veins of orange that pulsed with warm, cheerful light, like a bonfire on a sleepy night.
Dusk let out a cheerful noise, and then we appeared back on the massive stump that I’d set up the teleportation platform on. I glanced at Dusk, who nodded.
“We’re going to link the spaces now,” I told them. “You may want to stay clear. The manipulation of space in the area won’t be able to hurt you, but we’re dealing with really concentrated mana, so it might not exactly feel pleasant. Also, once I begin, I shouldn’t be distracted.”
Meadow and Kene stood back, Dawn floating with them, next to Siobbhan, who leapt into the air, yipping and running along her. I smiled for a moment, then focused as I turned back to Dusk.
Together, we opened a portal to the teleportation platform in her realm, which was located behind the house, not too far from the circle of mushrooms at the fungal folk’s village.
“I’m about to begin,” I said, my tail twitching in anticipation. “Quiet, please.”
Mana exploded out of me, overcharging before drawing back in and powering both of the teleportation platforms at once. I began activating the functions that would allow me to weave together the two platforms that existed in different places, which alone would have been incredibly difficult. The weave of space between the two places was different, and the fact I was working with power that had been compressed and grown comparable to an arcanist’s power.
Orykson had said I could do this, but it still felt like trying to move through solid concrete – which was to say, moving the threads of space was like slamming into a wall headfirst.
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At the same moment, Dusk’s power was reaching out as she forcibly burned away a fragment of herself to instead integrate this fraction of the world and claim it as her own. Power lashed out of her in a way that felt similar to the power of the World Mammoths that Dusk had worked with.
As she established her claim over the space, I felt the wall that was space give, just a little bit. It still wasn’t easy or fun, and working with power this far over my own, I was already having to drain power from my higher gates just to keep up the strain of spellcasting.
Though space might not have been a wall, it was still like a thick tapestry, and I was trying to rip through it with nothing but a single little finger. I strained and flexed my power until I was worried about straining my spirit again, drawing my staff out and slamming it down. The resonance ran through me, mana and energy vibrating as I exerted my magic.
I kept fighting, and on the other side of the tapestry I could feel Dusk. She was reaching for me, pushing from her side, but we were still together.
I tried to call upon the Nascent Truth of Benevolence, but it was quiet. Truths were flexible, but at the end of the day, I was doing this for me, not to help others. Just as Kene couldn’t simply empower an offensive spell by thinking about it as providing succor to me by attacking my enemies, I couldn’t simply think about how this would be good for my family to get it to work.
With Benevolence not particularly helping, I stopped flexing to try and force it to work, instead converting more mana and pushing against the thick weaving between us.
It wasn’t enough. I was certain that it wasn’t going to be enough. I was close, so close, but I wasn’t quite ready to shape space on this level.
Then I felt a spark drift out of nowhere. Compared to what Dusk and I were pushing from our respective sides, it was nothing, barely worth noting.
But a single tiny spark can set an entire bakery aflame, if it strikes the right spot.
The spark struck the tapestry of space and snuffed out.
But the spark set a flame, and it burned away portions of the tapestry until.
Dusk and my hands met together, and the entire weave snapped into place. My sight returned, and I realized that I hadn’t even been aware that it had faded. Dawn was curled around my hand, and she radiated a sense of contentment from helping, before giving me the sense she was tired and slipping into Dusk’s realm.
The portal snapped shut, and I raised my hand. It tore open again. Dusk snapped it shut a moment later, only to reopen it herself.
“I… think… it worked?” I asked tentatively. Dusk made a river-rushing sound, claiming that it had absolutely worked!
“Well, there’s only one way to test,” Kene said, and I nodded my agreement. As we were bundling up to fly back to the city, Meadow paused, tapping her chin.
“You should get some fairy-circle toadstools to grow in Dusk, near the main teleportation platform,” she suggested. “They’re a spatial mana source, but while they can be drained to restore a person’s mana, they’re more effectively used to integrate with locations where they all grow together, amplifying movement between teleportation circles.”
“I’ll try to keep an eye out for them,” I said with a nod as we flew.
It didn’t take us long to leave sight of the log and be within the Dragon Sanctuary’s territory, where we landed, and stepped into Dusk’s realm.
There, standing in the circle of powerful spatial warping, Dusk stood and focused. It took her almost a minute, but a portal tore open a moment later, leading out onto the marshes. She closed it, and now that she’d figured it out, she opened the portal in only a few seconds. She practiced a few times, then stepped aside to allow me to try.
I focused, reaching out as if I was going to open a portal right here to exit her world, but all I could feel was the same entry point that I’d come in from. That was easy, normal, and I didn’t even need the portal open in order to move through it.
But there was something else, an itching sensation at the edges of my mind. I traced it, and then eventually found it, mixed into the weave of space around the anchors. It took me a few tries, but eventually, the gold rimmed portal leading out onto the marsh.
I leapt at Meadow, who happened to be the nearest person to me, and pulled her into a hug. A moment later, I pulled Kene in as well, and let out a sigh of relief, and if there were tears stinging my eyes, well… That was fine.
“I can do it,” I said, then glanced around for Dawn. She’d curled up to sleep in the center of the Ninelight Morels like a cat. One of the Fungal Folk walked through her semi-corporeal body as he headed over to the Soultoad Seat to clean its gills.
I wouldn’t disturb her, then. But I knew that spark had to have come from her in some way, though I didn’t know how or what it had been. Her dominion, maybe? I knew that Dusk’s dominion had been needed for this.
Even with the first stage of the portal network completed, it still took two more days before we were ready to leave Delitone and could board a ship to return home to Mossford.
With nine weeks left before I was in breach of contract for the settling of the Isle of Crysite, that should give me plenty of time to set up a portal anchor at home and in Kene’s village. With those made, assuming the cost of opening the portal over such a distance wasn’t too great, I’d be able to spend my time in Crysite connected to my friends and family.
And some of those friends were here now. Octavian was headed to Crysite soon, but he had a bit more work to do at the sanctuary before he left, so he, Araceli, and Roh joined us on the docks with Kater, Olive, and Thea as we prepared to leave.
I’d offered to let Meadow hitch a ride with us, even to pay for her fare, but she’d just said that she could make her own way back, then evaporated into mid-air. At this point, I couldn’t even be surprised.
“We’ll miss your help at the sanctuary,” Thea said to me, giving me a hug, then hugging Kene. “And while we didn’t get to know you as well, it was still lovely to meet you.”
She turned to say her goodbyes to Dusk, and I caught Thea saying something about giving their love to Dawn, but was interrupted as Olive stepped forward and gave me a handshake.
“You were competent, and did a big favor for us,” she said. “You’re welcome back.”
She gave Dusk a fist bump, which looked rather ridiculous with the spirit’s tiny hand and her large one, then turned and shook Kene’s hand as well.
“What my wife means to say is to not be a stranger,” Kater said as she gave me a hug as well, and patted Dusk’s head gently. “You’re welcome anytime, either to work with the dragons, or just to socialize. That goes for all of you.”
She turned to Kene, and they spoke for a few moments about the field, and the cleansing spells Kene had used on the plants from there. I hadn’t realized that they’d spoken much, but perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised me.
Aracelli, Roh, and Octavian stepped up next, the terragon butting her head aginst my knee gently, while Roh played with strips of my hair. Octavian gave me a sort of awkward half-hug.
“It’s not bye for long,” he said. “I’ll see you in Crysite.”
“Looking forwards to it,” I said.
Dusk gave a sarcastic wind-in-trees sound that maybe he could finally get a third bond while in Crysite. Octavian just rolled his eyes and gave Kene a half-hug as well, bending down to pat Siobbhan.
Shortly after, we had to board, and we stayed on deck, watching them wave and grow smaller as the ship pulled away. Before long, the glimmering city of white and blue marble, with its seven towers projecting powerful wards, faded from sight.