Tala flew through the skies outside of Alefast on a rather interesting amalgamation, along with her defensive unit and a passenger.

Master Girt had created a platform of stone, and Master Limmestare had added a windscreen of curved, reinforced glass.

Tala, herself, had then reduced the effective gravity on the thing down to about five-percent, before Mistress Cerna had woven a select few patches of copper in the air, placing them just below the bottom, piercing thin tendrils of the stuff through to a central position, where she took up a seat.

The woman had then sat in that central position, and power began flowing through the metal spell-forms. They seemed to be some sort of propulsion, because the whole thing had easily lifted off of the ground to hover and await their boarding.

The unit had climbed aboard, along with a young-looking woman, who had introduced herself as Ezmenya-Kep—Kep for short—and they’d taken off, heading to the northeast, and the foot of the mountains in that direction.

Mistress Kep was clearly a Paragon, even though she kept her aura politely contained.

As the group flew, Terry sat perched on the top of the hemisphere of glass, wind whipping his feathers as he looked ahead, an oddly intense light in his eyes.

Tala and the others sat around Mistress Cerna, trying not to shift too much.

This was apparently a very metal-efficient means of transportation, but not very stable, all things considered.

In either case, they were moving just under the speed of magical resonance, which wasn’t that fast due to how many of them there were so tightly packed together.

Still, it was more efficient than jogging, given that they could skim about twenty feet above the treetops and head in a straight line.

They only had to deal with the occasional arcanous creature, but each was dealt with by a small stone firing off at greater than the speed of sound, a blade of glass molding to intercept and obliterate, or simple blades appearing to deliver death.

All in all, it was a rather uneventful way to travel.

I suppose that’s the result of having so many combat capable Refined ready to hand.

They’d been underway for about two hours, when Tala had a thought, “Why would this take multiple days? We could get to another city in about a day at this speed. Why would we need more than one to go somewhere relatively nearby, fix an issue, and come back?”

Mistress Cerna glanced her way, but returned her focus to the task of flying.

Master Clevnis opened one eye, glanced toward the Paragon, smiled, and closed his eye again.

Masters Grit and Limmestare simply ignored her.

Mistress Vanga smiled and gestured toward the Paragon, “Mistress Kep? Would you like to take this one?”

Mistress Kep stirred from her musings, turning toward Tala with a patient smile. “Well, as this involves my purpose, I think it fitting that I answer. Thank you, Mistress Vanga.” Her gaze came back to Tala. “You were Mistress Tala, correct?”

Tala had introduced herself, and Tala knew that this woman was advanced enough to easily remember something so trivial, so she was likely just being polite. Her aura is held incredibly close, though, likely to help with magical resonance. I could pierce her skin with my magesight and look, but that would be a bit rude. It’s enough just to know she’s a Paragon. I don’t need to know exactly where she is in that stage.

She nodded.

“Yes, I’m Tala.”

Mistress Kep’s smile grew. “Well, I am a specialist in analyzing and maintaining existence cells. Unfortunately, the time required for this type of mission is entirely on my end. It is not a fast process.”

“Oh?” Tala oriented more fully on the woman. “What exactly will you be doing?”

“I’m glad you asked!” Mistress Kep sat a bit straighter, positively beaming. “First of all, I will examine the ancient materials left by those who created this particular cell to understand what the contained threat is. Then, the six of you will follow the instructions provided in order to engage the threat while I do maintenance on the seal.”

Tala blinked. “Say again?”

The Paragon tilted her head to one side, questioningly, “What part?”

“Engage the threat. What do you mean?”

“Oh! That’s simple. The repairs that need to be done can’t be performed on an actively engaged seal. If the contained threat were to stress the seal as I was working on it, the containment might shatter completely, and no one wants that.” She hesitated. “Well, no one but the contained threat.”

“Why not have a double-layered seal, or something?”

“That is something that has been proposed, but it has also been dismissed. Do you want me to take you through why?”

Tala thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. “No, I think I can understand. If they were both sealed, then it’s effectively just one big seal, with no way of detecting the degradation of the first half of it. If the inner one is left ‘open’ to later engage to repair the outer one, the threat would still likely have to be fought back through that open seal. Additionally, it would be giving the threat a potential template to examine, in order to work out how to break through its containment. If it was the outer one that was left open, it would effectively just be a ‘in case you don’t notice soon enough, close this for more time.’ Repairing the engaged, inner seal would be identical to working on a lone seal. Thus, a double seal in that case would just be extra resources for no purpose.”

Mistress Kep chuckled in delight. “Very good, yes.”

“So, the issue stands. How are six Refined supposed to fight back and keep at bay something that no human Archon, even Reforged, can kill?”

She held up a finger. “Permanently destroy.”

“Hmm?”

“Permanently destroy, not kill. There is a large distinction there. Most of these things are killable, many laughably easily so.”

Tala found herself nodding. “I think I understand, but can you give a few examples?”

“Well, all the myriad phoenix related beasts come to mind first. If they grow in power to the point of being an existential threat, they almost universally have to be sealed. Killing a phoenix, no matter the variety, almost always makes it stronger in some regard. Even when the creature doesn’t gain strength from the death, they generally aren’t overly harmed by it in the long run. There are a whole host of creatures similar to phoenixes that we often just bunch together as ‘threats that come back from even the smallest fraction of themselves.’ Then there are the self-replicating threats. For some of those, destroying them often just creates more, in some way or other. Then the conceptual threats, who can move through ideas. Then, of course, there are the ones that are basically impossible to kill, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be hurt, pinned down, or otherwise delayed.”

She found herself blinking at the influx of information. None of it was precisely ‘new’ but she hadn’t really put it all together in these ways before. “Things like dasgannach?”

“Exactly, though they don’t pose a large enough threat to need to be contained… generally. It helps that they generally have a limited capacity of how much they can absorb and hold sway over. Even so, I think there were some that spawned for rather… unfortunate elements, but if memory serves some Sovereign or god-beast dealt with those.”

“That’s a lot to take in.”

“It is, but you aren’t hearing this all for the first time, are you?” The woman cast a confused glance toward Master Clevnis. He and the others were sitting with eyes closed, likely working on some internal skill or other.

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Tala shook her head. “No, I’ve come across most—if not all—of this before, but I’ve never really put it all together, if that makes sense.”

“Ahh, yes. That does track.”

She hesitated, then just decided to ask. “If you don’t mind, what advancement are you? I mean, where in the advancement of Paragon.”

“Hmm? Oh, yes, I’m a Paragon. As basic as they come, actually. I’m sure I’ll get to Reforging eventually, but there just isn’t much need for me to do it, and it isn’t the most pleasant of processes… or the easiest from my understanding.”

“Are there many Paragons in Alefast?”

Mistress Kep shrugged. “Not really. In most cities, there are more Paragons than Refined, but the ratio skews heavily around the waning when the more research focused Archons go elsewhere, unless their research is aided by the waning, but that’s mainly people like me.” She considered for a moment before adding, “That and the more combat focused Refined come running to the wanings.”

Tala frowned, “What about the combat focused Paragons?”

“Well, I don’t mean to imply that there aren’t any, but there aren’t many. Even most who fight in wanings don’t fit into how I’m meaning ‘combat focused.’ Now, most who are combat focused—and who reach Paragon—push on to Reforged as quickly as possible.”

“Are there a lot of those?” she tried to ask casually.

Mistress Kep huffed a laugh. “Are you trying to ask how many Reforged humanity has?”

“If you know.”

“That is actually an excellent way to ask it. To my knowledge, operating within the human cities, we have around thirty Reforged. Some haven’t been seen in a long time, but a long time for us isn’t that long for a Reforged. It takes a lot for us to count one of them as dead and gone.”

Tala grunted at the last, contemplating the presence of so many powerhouses. A moment later, she frowned, seeing it from the opposite side. “Isn’t that really few?”

“Yes and no. We often think of the soul-breaking as being incredibly recent, and in many ways it was, but we speak of it as ‘millennia ago’ when no human alive now was alive then. At least no one who’s talking.” She gave Tala a wink. “We think it was twenty thousand years ago?—Though anyone you ask will give you a different number.—But that’s mainly because of people like Master Jevin, who are ancient, but their memory from their youth contains ‘near past’ references of the soul-breaking. History becomes odd, though, when dealing with immortals and the scale of eons. Generally, we agree that the first gate was somewhere between three thousand to three hundred thousand years ago.”

Tala blinked. “What.”

“Well, Master Jevin isn’t really keen on putting a number on the passage of years. We're assuming he’s at least two and a half millennia, but that could be a radical underestimation.”

“What about Master Nadro?”

“Oh, you’ve met Master Nadro? Isn’t he wonderful?”

Tala smiled and nodded.

“That’s good. As to your question, you should ask him some time.”

The way Mistress Kep said that gave Tala pause, “What should I expect when I ask?”

“Well, he answers everyone slightly differently, but the general result is: It would probably be best if you didn’t know the answer to that.”

Tala chuckled. “No deception doesn’t mean all truth is spoken plainly.”

Mistress Kep grinned. “Indeed.”

It wasn’t too much longer before Mistress Kep guided them into a little valley and they set down before an unassuming cliff wall.

As they approached, Tala felt herself become a little nauseous. Her magesight was showing the zeme of the area, and it was tumultuous in the extreme, with magical eddies and swirls dancing every which way.

At the Paragon’s guidance, they touched down a good ways up the rolling rise toward the mountain peaks.

Tala frowned as she looked closer at her surroundings.

Because she was focusing so closely, she thought that she was able to pick out an unusually flat portion of the cliff face. She pointed to it. “Is it there?”

Mistress Kep tilted her head to the side. “What?”

“That flatter portion of the cliff. Is that where the door is?”

The woman grinned. “No. Don’t use your eyes. Use your magesight.”

Master Girt gasped. “What? Magesight? Why would a Mage ever use that?”

Tala shook her head at the grinning Refined.

Master Limmestare tapped the man on the top of the head. “Be nice, and be quiet.”

As to her magesight, Tala had been trying to parse through it, but honestly, the zeme in the valley was so choppy that it was hard to discern anything really of note.

Her unit was being unusually quiet, and after the relative quiet from them on the flight over, it was starting to seem intentional.

Wanting me to learn, and not trusting themselves not to ruin the lesson?

-Maybe.- That would certainly explain Master Limmestare’s comment.

Tala shook her head. “My magesight is too disrupted to tell much.”

“Ahh, so you have a lot of fidelity to that vision?”

“Yeah.”

“That can be a curse in such chaos, I can understand that. You’ll learn to see through the noise with time and practice, but it’s not pleasant. Do you have any sort of additional vision?”

“I have a form of voidsight.”

“Really?” Mistress Kep perked up. “That’s a rarer one. What does that tell you?”

Tala enacted her voidsight, and her eyes immediately snapped to a strange fold in the air off to one side, about twenty feet from where they’d set down. Now that she was focused on it, she could see it with her magesight as well, but it looked more like slightly more regular chaos, among the truly chaotic chaos.

-Eloquent.-

Hush you.

Mistress Kep noticed Tala’s attention on the spot and smiled, “Ahh, you see it, then. What does it look like to you?”

She frowned, walking forward. “It looks like someone took a group of reality nodes and… folded them over on themselves somehow? I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“That’s a good insight. Anything else?”

Tala frowned, looking around. There seemed to be tendrils of… something connecting to various things close by. “I think I see some connections. What are they?”

“The creators of these cells generally try to leave clues as the password for entry, so that when we have to come to do maintenance, we can get in.”

“So, beyond that fold is the cell?”

“Hmm? Oh, no. Beyond that fold is the entry-way to the cell. In there will be some murals and other information on the creature or creatures… or other threats housed within the cell itself. There is often also treasure, attempting to bribe anyone who might find the cell to leave it alone, or pay them to repair it. Things like that.”

That lined up with what she’d been told in the mobile villages. Then, she realized something about this fold in reality not being the only seal, and she quirked a smile, “So, it is double sealed?”

Mistress Kep chuckled. “Not really a seal. From the outside, they try to give us the password for entry, from the inside, you can just walk out.”

Tala nodded in understanding. “Ahh, yeah. That’s not a seal then.”

“So? Let’s try it. Place your hand on the fold, and say the password.”

Tala frowned skeptically and walked over, placing her hand where she saw the fold.

There was no physical sensation, but she held her hand in the right place regardless.

“So… What’s the password?” She didn’t really have any idea.

The Paragon patiently responded, “What’s it connected to?”

Tala looked around. “I think that’s a cantaloupe vine over there, and that’s a honeydew.”

“Alright, so based on that, what do you think the password is? Speak firmly and with determination.”

Shrugging, Tala resigned herself. “Melon.”

Nothing happened.

“I’m a friend?”

Nothing happened, except Mistress Kep chuckling again. “Now you’re just guessing.”

Tala shrugged once more. “It looks like it’s connected to plants, or vegetation, then?”

At the last—‘vegetation’—, the fold seemed to unfold, leaving an odd warping in the air in the shape of a large circle.

On the other side seemed to be the same valley, but a portion of it that hadn’t been visible before.

The group all walked through, and Mistress Kep patted Tala on the shoulder. “Well done.”

Tala smiled as she followed them inside, stopping in astonishment when she saw the cliff-face that had been hidden as part of the fold.

It was covered from top to bottom in squiggly lines for some reason that Tala couldn’t comprehend. There were no artistic depictions beyond those odd squiggles.

When she glanced toward Mistress Kep, she saw the woman frowning. “Well, this is a bit ominous. This seems to be a conceptual threat more than a physical one. I’ll need to read this carefully before we proceed.”

“You can read that? How? It isn’t words.”

“It isn’t words in our language, you mean.”

Tala blinked at that. “Our… language?”

“Yes, dear. The whole world speaks the same language because some millennia ago a sovereign got tired of having to relearn how to communicate to people due to linguistic drift, so he locked our language into a cohesive whole. It can grow, but it no longer can shift.”

“No one stopped him?”

“Oh, stars no. Apparently, many of the other Sovereigns were so taken with the idea that they helped him with some project or other in gratitude. No one knows what it was, and it’s probably just a myth, but there you have it. Everyone, everywhere, speaks, reads, and writes the same language.”

“But not that?” She pointed.

“No, writing in locked spaces wasn’t affected by the magic, so we had to relearn how to read these writings. The password was affected, because it was within our reality for the working, this writing wasn’t.”

“If this is in another language, then the aligning of all speech and writing doesn’t seem like it was that long ago, then?”

Mistress Kep shrugged. “Like so many things, I could give you a definitive answer, but I could be off by a few thousand years in either direction.”

Tala grunted. “Wonderful.”

“It is what it is. Now, it’s time to read a cliff.”