Tala sat in comfort as the unit glided through the air in what was nearly the twentieth iteration of their combined construction.

She was still seated on flat stone, but there was no need to keep as still as possible, and that made a surprising difference.

Terry, as had become his habit, was proudly perched atop his perch at the pinnacle of the sleek glass shell, which redirected wind away from the passengers.

Mistress Cerna had perfected the scripts she used to propel the craft, making for a smoother, more controlled, more stable flight.

Master Girt had increased the compression in the stone platform below them, changing the shape to more suit their needs and adding to the inertial stability. Though, something was off with the man.

I should check on him at some point…

Master Limmestare had refined the contours of the glass, to aid in movement and flight, rather than detracting. Though, he still left Terry exposed to the airstream, as the terror bird preferred.

Tala had narrowed in on the right amount of gravity to leave affecting the construction, to allow for easy maneuverability without undue burden to keep the whole thing aloft.

The Paragon who was with them on this outing had been suitably impressed by the combination of effects and talents, inquiring at length as to each part of the construction as they headed to the south, toward the plains near the edge of the forest where this next cell awaited.

The Paragon was older looking than Mistress Kep had been, but he appeared in no way feeble.

He had a studious air to him, added to by his insightful and thorough questions. Each one conveyed his interest and attentiveness in a way that prompted those of whom he was inquiring to speak at length in response.

Honestly, he reminded Tala of Master Nadro in that way.

He had introduced himself as ‘Abali,’ and Master Abali had proven himself to be quite a pleasant companion.

Truthfully, each of the Paragons who had come with them to the various cells had been enjoyable to interact with, each in their own way.

This was only their second ‘new’ cell, but they had gone to three other known cells for the standard maintenance for this cycle. Apparently, the added turmoil of this waning made it so that more cells needed maintenance than usual.

Finally, Tala decided that she couldn’t ignore her unit-mate further and took a chance to move over and sit next to Master Girt. “Master Girt?”

“Hmm?” He grunted, looking up to meet her gaze.

“Is everything alright?”

He shrugged and sighed. “I’m just having some trouble with those who I’m living with.”

“Oh?” Tala frowned. She thought she remembered that Master Girt rented out rooms in the home he had in Alefast. “What’s the issue, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Well, my new housemates think my house is haunted.”

Tala’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “What?”

“Yeah! I mean, I don’t know what they’re on about. I’ve lived there for nearly three hundred years, and I’ve never seen anything worthy of concern.”

There was silence then, and Tala noticed that everyone was looking in her direction.

Her expression fell into a neutral mask. “That’s meant to be a joke, right?”

The man huffed and shook his head. “See? I told you she wouldn’t think it was funny.”

Master Clevnis grinned. “I thought it was hilarious.”

Master Abali breathed a soft laugh. “It would work better if the person you tell it to doesn’t know you're Refined.”

Master Girt grunted. “Yeah, I suppose I can see that.”

Tala sighed. “So, you’ve been acting grumpy all morning, just to set up a joke?”

“Hmmm? I’m not grumpy.” He frowned.

“Why do you think I came over here?”

His frown deepened. “I’m not grumpy.”

Mistress Cerna didn’t look away from their flight path as she spoke up. “Yes, you are. You’ve been sulking. It’s why we thought you attempting some humor would be good for you.”

“Wait. You told me to try to make her laugh, for me?”

That caused the unit leader to look back at him. “Of course. We know you won’t tell us what’s wrong, but we thought it might help you. She doesn’t need cheering up. Mistress Tala’s been nothing but happy since she took the day off to be with her friend.”

Mistress Vanga took that opportunity to sit down beside Tala. “Speaking of which, you never did tell us how it all went. I mean, I had to heal him a few times, but that’s hardly a good way to get a picture of the tenor of a day.”

Master Limmestare looked up from his book. “Are you two courting? If not, I’m going to read while you tell everyone else the details.”

Tala flushed. “No! We’re not courting. Why would you even ask that?”

He gave her a flat look. “I just told you why. If you are courting, it’s important enough for me to give my full attention. I take great pains to pay attention to my unit-mates and the weighty things in their lives that they feel worthy of sharing. However, if this is just our fellows forcing you to expound on a standard day with a friend, I prefer my book to such things.”

“Oh.” Tala blinked a few times. “I suppose you did imply that… Well, we’re not.”

“Alright then, thank you.” He turned back to his book.

And from there, Mistress Vanga re-took over the reins of the conversation, and Tala did her embarrassed best to convey how the day with Rane had gone.

Over all, they passed the trip with their regular comraderie, Master Abali interjecting only occasionally as was appropriate.

They touched down lightly outside the forest, and blessedly, they wouldn’t need to enter it.

Tala had made her team aware of her storied history with the Leshkin, and Master Grediv already knew. Together, that ensured that they wouldn’t be picked for any ‘in the southern forest’ cell work.

Their construct was complex enough that Master Clevnis stored it once they’d all disembarked and after Mistress Cerna had removed her spell-forms from the bottom, which took very little time.

They were on the rolling plains, atop one of the higher hills, the forest some quarter of a mile distant.

Tala immediately scanned their surroundings for the fold in reality that would indicate the hidden entrance into the cell, but didn’t find one. When she reported this, Master Abali nodded, considering.

“It is likely one of the many cells that are underground. It can be tricky to find the exact location of those, if you don’t come prepared.” He pulled a handful of white powder out of thin air—seemingly from his spatial storage—and threw it up. “Thankfully, I am prepared.”

Power sparked between the particles, seemingly drawn from the air itself, before the growing cloud began moving against the wind.

Little portions broke off from the main formation to swirl around each of the Archons. That which moved toward Tala seemed most drawn toward Kit.

The vast majority of the dust, however, seemed to be pulled down the hill upon which they stood to settle in an oddly static pile in a small dell.

Tala frowned. “What is that powder, if I may ask, Master Abali?”

“It is a metallic synthetic powder. It is known to have a magnetic-like attraction to disruptions in reality when properly activated—at least in this form. Though, the attraction and movement is far more powerful and works rather differently.”

Master Girt jumped down the hill, landing beside the pile and tapping his foot. “Yeah, there’s a cavitation below here. It goes deep. I can barely detect the highest portion, close to a hundred feet down from here. There’s a fair amount of iron in this soil restricting my perception.”

With a flexing of power that clearly came from the rock and earth inclined Refined, a vertical shaft opened below the white powder, letting it fall down with surprising rapidity.

Terry flickered to Tala’s shoulder and looked back and forth between her and the hole before shaking himself.

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“Not interested in going down there?”

He shook himself again.

“I thought not.” She opened Kit, and Terry vanished within.

Master Abali leaned over the edge, looking down, and Tala saw something incredibly odd when the man utilized his magic.

The darkness in the pit seemed to pull back, drawing the light of the mid-morning sun in after it.

There wasn’t more light, per se, but the light definitely was penetrating deeper and deeper into the hole.

Master Limmestare had put his book away, and it was he who asked, “What sort of power is that?”

Master Abali smiled. “Control over darkness, and wherever there is not darkness, there is light.”

Tala shook her head. “Alright, I call that rusted. How is that not conceptual magic?”

Instead of being offended, Master Abali laughed, power still flowing around him in intricate patterns as he clearly did more than bring light down the vertical entrance. “When I was but a boy, my family lived away from the cities, and we were attacked by arcanous creatures. My father got me into a deep pit and closed it up before the defenses were fully overwhelmed, and I hid in there for more than a week.”

His tone and demeanor did not fit the tenor of story he was telling, but Tala didn’t interrupt to ask about the incongruity.

“In that time, I found the darkness around me to be an almost tangible thing, like the very air we breathe, but not in the same way. I think it was my own power manifesting in a time of stress, reaching out to the darkness, because by the time my father was able to circle back and recover me, I was more at home in the dark than the light.” He shrugged. “It has been like an old friend ever since.”

She almost started to argue, but then stopped herself. Who was she to argue with someone else’s fundamental understanding?

Soon enough, there was no darkness below them as they looked down the well-lit shaft.

“After me, then.” The Paragon stepped forward and dropped.

Tala, as the designated ‘blocker’ of the group, followed moments after.

She briefly considered wrapping herself in iron and void, infusing them into her defenses to create an existence separation field as Mistress Kep had explained it.

She shuddered internally at the thought.

The magical interweaving was a powerful defense under the right circumstances, but the way it made her feel… it was like her worst nights at the Academy.

True, it didn’t start out that bad, but from the first moment it had echoes of her darkest moments of loneliness, isolation, and worthlessness.

She wouldn’t dismiss it as a tool, just like she didn’t avoid anything that was useful because it was uncomfortable, but it definitely wouldn’t be her ‘go-to’ defense.

Instead, as she fell she directed her power and focus toward feathering her gravity and leveling the bottoms of her feet to be able to adjust her surface area expansion scripts and thus increase her drag to aid in slowing her fall as well.

She fell slowly enough that she wasn’t surprised that Master Abali was out of the way when she hit the bottom, even though she’d followed closely after him when jumping in.

All the darkness seemed to gather around the Paragon, flowing around him in quick streams, only discernible by the ripples of the exteriors because the insides were so dark as to appear two dimensional.

Tala pulled her gaze from the man and immediately oriented on the fold in reality that she could now easily sense down a long tunnel, angled smoothly downward.

Even if the darkness hadn’t been pulled back, she’d have been able to see all there was to see in this place.

Above her was a perfectly vertical shaft, and before her was an equally perfect downslope of a tunnel leading to a dead end.

Tala called up, “Clear! Advancing.”

While she and Master Abali moved toward the folded prison entryway, the others made their own ways down with varying degrees of quickness.

While each of the cells she’d seen so far was a bit different in their own way, this one seemed oddly… blank?

There was nothing special about this tunnel, buried in the earth, except it was a tunnel buried in the earth. That, by its very nature, made it odd.

It was nearly featureless, but that just served to highlight how unnatural it was.

The effect gave the impression of someone trying to remove all markers, without really realizing that the lack of such things was a marker of a different kind.

Who would be so capable, yet still naive?

-Or so pressed for time that they weren’t careful?-

That actually made a lot of sense, and she frowned. The prisoner?

She had a mental flash of a faceless something standing right behind her, similarly stripped of features to ‘better blend in’ and thus standing out in the worst way.

Its long, clawed hands were reaching toward her with inexorable power, ready to disembowel her through her spine.

Tala spun, Flow snapping into her hand, but only found Master Girt behind her back up the tunnel, one hand on the wall as he examined the ceiling.

He saw her movement, turning to face her in confusion. “Mistress? Is everything alright?”

She shook her head, feeling a sweat of fear roil over her even as she sheathed her weapon. “No… I just got the unshakable feeling that something was behind me…” She hesitated, then shook her head again. “No. That’s not right. I just realized that, somehow, I have no feeling of safety, here. I think my own mind might have filled in the rest?”

He frowned, then glanced up again. “Yeah… I can feel the integrity of the stone around us, but I keep checking. Like something in me is refusing to let me feel… safe. Yeah, that is exactly right.”

Tala again felt like something was standing directly behind her, but this time, instead of reacting, she simply analyzed her own surroundings more closely, her mirrored perspectives already providing complete awareness.

There was nothing there.

But… was she sure?

She whipped around again, managing to contain her reaction enough to not draw Flow this time.

There was nothing, as she’d known there would be.

But what if? She groaned. “Please tell me this doesn’t have to do with the prisoner.”

Master Abali visibly tremored, before he shook his head. “No such luck, I’m afraid. There are all sorts of conceptual twistings layered over this tunnel and—I suspect—the entryway to the prison. Likely things the prisoner was doing in an attempt to lash out at his captors, or keep the prison from sealing as it closed.”

Tala shuddered. “He didn’t want his captors to ever feel safe? How can such a working even… How is it still in effect?”

“It was wrought on this space, and this space has gone undisturbed since. The magics likely originally extended above as well, but they would have dispersed with time. Down here, though? It’s concentrated, and the conceptually-altered matter is still here, waiting. The change should fade while we’re here, and the effects should be all but utterly gone by the time the cell is maintained again.”

Tala grimaced, glancing over her shoulder reflexively. “I rather hate this…”

Mistress Vanga lifted up her shield with a little shrug. “I’m feeling alright thanks to this. Thank you all, again, for letting me claim it.”

Tala did her best to not begrudge the woman. “This conceptual nonsense won’t extend into our dimensional storages, will it?”

She had the horrible thought of the Zuccats feeling unexplainable, undirected danger within Kit.

Or Terry… Yeah, that wouldn’t be good for anyone.

Master Abali hesitated. “Not unless they are opened. As to what will happen then? I’m not sure, but let’s get a look inside the atrium for this cell, and I’ll know better.”

Great… going deeper in.

It was obviously a bad idea to do anything with this cell, even checking on its integrity was foolish. She—

-Tala.- Alat’s tone carried a note of warning within Tala’s mind.

Tala jerked her head, shaking it. “Oh, that’s awful. Not only is the feeling of safety gone, but so is faith that what we’re doing is the right course.”

“That”—Master Abali said with a shake of his head—“should pass incredibly quickly. What I would watch out for more closely is if you all start to feel less confident in each other, or anything like that.”

She felt her eye twitch. “That’s possible?”

“I wouldn’t think so, not with the level of magic that I’m feeling, but people have had odder specialties. Be careful.”

Tala sighed. “I’ll pay special attention to our reality-thread connections…”

“Thank you, Mistress. Watch for suppression as well as severing, if you will.” The Paragon smiled at her kindly.

She grimaced and nodded. “Should I enfold myself in my existence filter?”

Master Abali paused for a moment. “You could try it, but I don’t believe it would help. You still react to external stimulation, so you aren’t truly cut off from reality, at least not in the way the prep-documents outlined the ability. This effect is equivalent of looking at a kitten and thinking it’s cute. Now, once we know more about the prisoner I very well may recommend its use.” After a moment's consideration, he shrugged. “That said, you are welcome to experiment. You have good enough control that you shouldn’t cause yourself or anyone else harm. Again, though, that’s just from my understanding.”

She nodded, accepting his words for the recommendation that they were.

After a long consideration, and several involuntary looks over her own shoulder, she grit her teeth and sealed her mouth, forcing the manifestation of the void into her bound iron and defensive magics.

Because she was looking for it, and because she already felt unsafe, she immediately felt like everyone had abandoned her, and she would never find her way back to the surface.

She tried to start hyperventilating, but she couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t breathe!

Claws grew out from her fingers, and she scrabbled at her face, trying to get free of the cloying inability to take in air.

Her perspective seemed to fade as her mind spiraled into panic.

There was another voice that seemed that it was trying to get her attention, but that didn’t matter, not now.

Can’t breathe.

Can’t see.

Can’t breathe.

Can’t see.

She couldn’t bring her focus to bear sufficiently to mirror Flow's cutting onto her claws to get them to work.

Something hit the side of her head, and she felt like she rang like a bell, even though she knew that wasn’t true.

That outside stimulus was something to grab onto.

She wanted the outside.

Something was keeping her separate from it.

Get away!

Her iron exploded away from her into the dimensions of magic, destroying the synergy that created her existence filter, and the rest of the world came crashing back into focus.

Master Clevnis was standing over her.

I’m on the ground?

“Mistress Tala? Are you alright?”

Tala groaned. “Yeah… that was an awful idea.”

He helped her to her feet, and she found herself clinging to him for a long moment.

He didn’t pull back, instead rubbing her upper back comfortingly. “You’re alright, Mistress Tala. We’re here.”

Mistress Cerna came up beside them, resting a hand on Tala’s shoulder. “Let’s verify the safety of the entrance, then get up to the surface for some perspective, shall we?”

Tala nodded mutely, working her lips to bring moisture back to them. Finally, she managed, “Yeah. I think that would be good.”