Tala and Rane sat in the snow, beside a large rock, enjoying the wonderful lunch prepared by Mistress Petra.

The light falling of snow was starting to obscure the distant mountains, but they both had enough enhancement to their eyes that it wouldn’t be a problem until the snowfall got a lot heavier.

Even so, the trees near at hand were also seen through a haze of snow that gave the scene a surreal, painting-like aesthetic.

It was lovely.

The food was warm, and the company was pleasant as they chatted about random things, laughing over their own missteps and the situations they’d gotten themselves into.

Tala also had some stories about her unit—and their antics—that Rane hadn’t heard before.

Tala was enjoying herself enough that she had neglected to renew her aspect mirrored perceptions, and Alat didn’t bother to interrupt her about it. The alternate interface simply left the two to their lunch.

Regardless, interruption came when Tala saw a flicker out of the corner of her eye, coming from her finger.

Her head jerked as she turned her gaze on the magic, and Rane cut off mid-sentence before asking, “Tala?”

“I just saw something that…” her eyes widened as she actually saw what had grasped her attention.

There—wrapped around her finger and resting just starward and out of alignment with the physical world—was her Archive ring.

It was among a tangle of other magics, so she hadn’t really noticed it to focus on the magics with her altered magesight previously.

At the moment, however, it was pulsing with ripples of power, magic seeming to launch toward—and return from—starward…

No, that isn’t right.

The magics seemed to fade as they moved starward, and others faded into view as they came stoneward, back to the ring. Was she seeing echoes of the magics or something else entirely?

Alat?

-Hmm? Oh. That is odd.-

The pulses stopped.

-Wait…-

They began again.

-Tala, your ring is linked to the connection to the Archive. I was sorting through some things while you were engaged.-

Tala spluttered internally. What!? I’m not—

She would have continued, but Alat cut across her. -Tala! ‘Otherwise engaged.’ Meaning doing something else.-

Tala’s thoughts were silent for an instant. Oh…

-Yeah.-

Well, back to the matter at hand. If what you say is correct, then, what we’re seeing is faint because the magic isn’t actually here, it’s going from and coming to the other half of the ring? Tala decided to go the route of ignoring what just happened.

Alat sighed but didn’t press the issue. -That would be my guess, yeah. We’re seeing the resonance that either allows—or is a result of—the unified connection.-

Huh. So, the Archive is starward?

-That is the implication, I believe.-

That is… huh. I suppose that makes sense.

-Hmmm… Should we call it Archiveward then?-

No. Tala cut off that line of thinking immediately. We might change how we think of it eventually, but not now. We need time to let our mental model set, or we’re going to shatter our own magics.

She had been staring at her hand for a long moment—contemplating and internally dialoguing with Alat—before Rane placed his hand on her shoulder, “Tala? Is everything alright?”

Tala jerked again, pulled from her internal musing. “Oh! Oh, I apologize, Rane. Yeah. My shift in mental model is revealing a few things that I hadn’t considered… before…”

She trailed off at the end.

“Rane, I’m going to look at Flow; I haven’t yet, and I think that it’s going to distract me for at least a moment.”

Rane patted her shoulder and shifted back and away. “Fair enough. Take your time. I’ll take watch.”

She smiled gratefully up at him as he stood, finishing the last bites of his food. By the sounds of it, he hopped up onto the rock they’d been sitting beside to get a better vantage.

With a sigh, knowing that she was safe, Tala closed her eyes, drawing Flow and holding it before her.

Then, she opened her eyes and looked upon her knife.

Flow was surrounded—stoneward and starward—with iron, all perfectly aligned with the weapon, physically speaking. Beyond that, she could see the magics that made the knife what it was much more clearly with her altered magesight.

The magic pathways weaving through the iron, her own power flowing through the turns and twisting patterns.

All the magic was hers, unlike with Kit.

Tala could also feel the resonance between the knife and her own soul, but she thought that was more to do with her recent training to feel her own soul more rather than her shift in magesight.

One effect of that resonance—or an effect additional to the resonance—was that the magic moving through Flow’s spellforms seemed to have no source, simply coming into being within the patterns.

So, is that what something soulbound looks like? That was interesting.

With a comfortably familiar flex of her will and power, she pushed Flow into the form of a sword.

The magics around the blade activated as the weapon expanded into the familiar handle with a wire outline of a blade above it. As always, the body of the blade was seemingly just heat and power rather than metal.

The iron pushed outward along the dimension of magic spreading out with Flow’s expansion, settling down closer to the superficial as it had a greater area to spread across.

Similarly, it thinned further as she pushed Flow into the form of a glaive.

Fascinating. The iron that was tucked stoneward or starward was very densely packed, and even so, it extended each of those directions for what seemed like a couple of feet when Flow was in knife form.

So… that means that… oh, wow. How do I calculate how much can be stored into a fourth dimension? Do I approach it like trying to find how much area can be stored in a given volume?

The very idea made her head begin to hurt.

Oh, rust me, there is no way—

Blessedly, Alat interrupted, -I think that’s the wrong way to think about it… more accurately, I don’t think that’s how you are thinking about it.-

Tala considered for a long moment before nodding, realizing that her alternate interface was correct. Right, one increment away on the dimension of magic should contain as much as the superficial layer. I have no idea what ‘one increment’ is, but I don’t actually need to know, I suppose.

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-Precisely. And around Flow in glaive form is about fifty increments of iron in each direction.-

To Tala’s magesight, each increment in the magical dimension appeared to be about tenth of an inch, but she knew that was just an arbitrary appearance to give her mind something to grasp onto, rather than the reality of things.

-Regardless, it works quite well for interpretation.-

Thank you, I think so too. Thus, she had about a hundred times as much iron by volume as Flow took up in glaive form.

-Wow, you have ‘one hundred Flow glaives’ of iron. You’ll use anything as a unit of measurement, won’t you?-

It fits, Tala thought defensively. Regardless, I think there is close to six thousand pounds.

-Plus what you have around your inscriptions.-

Plus that, yeah. She smiled. “Thank you, Rane. I think I understand, now.”

She spun out her bloodstars, aspect-mirroring her perceptions back into place.

The world came into her mind once more, and she felt herself tense a bit. Ironically, now that she could watch in every direction, she felt more on edge, more like she was about to be attacked.

She noted the feeling but didn’t dwell on it.

Rane nodded at her comment, walking back her way. “That was faster than I expected.”

She shrugged. “Basically everything I needed was in my head, so…”

Oh… rust.

She gave him a sheepish look, and he laughed, spinning on his heel to go back to the rock that he’d been sitting on.

“Forgot something?”

“Yeah… Thank you, Rane.”

He waved over his shoulder before, spinning around and sitting down once more. “Happy to help.”

She kept her mirrored perspectives active as she refocused her attention onto Flow.

-Void forms?-

Void forms.

Flow shrunk back to the shape of a knife, the iron seeming to thicken in the dimension of magic with the transition.

Tala nodded to herself and worked her will upon the weapon.

Nothing changed with the iron connected to the weapon, and the knife became the void-blade that she was used to.

Huh… I suppose I should have expected that.

-Nothing?-

Precisely. Why would the dimension of magic be altered by void?

-Void magic I would think? But you’re probably right.-

Just to be sure, Tala checked the other void-forms, and aside from redistributing identically to how it did with the normal forms, the iron didn’t react to Flow’s change in shape.

Yeah, that makes sense. She grinned and stood. “Thank you, Rane.”

He looked her way from the rock. “Are you sure? Or are you just trying to make me do more squats?”

Tala laughed. “I’m pretty sure. If I think of anything else, I can test it or look into it later.”

She quickly tucked the remains of their lunch into Kit and stood.

“Shall we?”

He gestured. “After you.”

She rolled her eyes and huffed a laugh, shaking her head. “See you in Bandfast.”

She bent low and launched herself powerfully into the air and away, altering her gravity as she did so to sail a good distance.

-Nice jump!-

Thank you, I really think I’m… Wait. Why are you commenting? Tala narrowed her eyes in suspicion.

-That really was a well executed jump. The thing is… Bandfast is that way.- Alat highlighted a direction behind and to Tala’s right within her vision. -And Rane is already moving in that direction.-

Tala landed, flushing with embarrassment. Not one more word.

Alat sent agreement and remained silent as Tala turned and moved in the correct direction.

After a few minutes, Tala grudgingly sent, Thank you, Alat.

-Happy to help.-

* * *

Tala wasn’t sure if Rane let her catch back up, or if he had some bad luck that slowed him down enough for her to do so. Regardless, they arrived on a hill overlooking Bandfast at nearly the same time.

Neither of them commented on her… odd choice of starting direction or on who might have actually arrived first.

The sun was barely past noon, so they had made good time regardless.

Tala felt an odd tightness within her chest. “It looks the same.”

Rane tilted his head to the side, a small smile on his lips. “Did you expect different?”

She shook her head. “No… Yes? It feels a bit like it did going back to Marliweather the first time. Bandfast was my home, but it isn’t any more. I think of it differently, so it shouldn’t look the same.”

He nodded hesitantly. “I… That sounds confusing for you.”

She chuckled under her breath. “Yeah, well… we’re going to see a lot of things changing through the decades and centuries, but not yet. For now, life continues, and humanity crawls ever forward.”

They stood on that hill for another few minutes.

Rane seemed to be about to say something, when Tala reached up to touch the back of her neck, her through-spike. “You know, I’m a bit tired of hiding. I don’t mind pulling my metal back around most people, but I don’t like hiding it this way.”

He frowned. “Oh? That seemed… out of nowhere.”

She shrugged. “I doubt I’ll do anything about it, but I’m finding myself disliking the deception,” she tsked, “So much about our lives is deception, and I understand the need for much of it, but do I really need an active illusion on me at almost all times?”

Rane shrugged. “You could ask Mistress Jenna for her opinion. She’s who gave it to you, right? Or Mistress Holly? She always has words that she’s willing to speak on such topics. Even Mistress Lyn is likely to have an opinion if you care to hear it.”

Tala smiled at that. “Yeah, she will.” She looked to Rane. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Together, they turned and walked down toward the gates of Bandfast.

The outer defensive towers drew closer until they were within easy view, and Tala marveled at the intricate natural magics that were woven throughout the nearest.

She knew for a fact that there were custom-made, massive spellforms for whichever Mage was currently on duty within the tower to use for defensive purposes, so the magics that she was seeing were something else.

When she noticed how they extended stoneward, she thought that she understood.

This is meant to be part of the current outer boundary for the magical funnel. That magic is anchoring the funnel to the superficial in order to prevent it from expanding or falling further away.

Out of curiosity, as she kept walking, she allowed her magesight to turn stoneward.

She didn’t really see anything out of the ordinary save the edges of some natural magics, weaving through the otherwise empty reaches of the dimension of magic.

There was a higher degree of magical density as she looked further stoneward, but that was it, until—

Tala staggered.

It was like looking at a mountain peak, and when she focused on the peak, suddenly realizing that it was, in fact, directly above her.

In this case, the peak that she could see was a blazing well of power, and it was directly stoneward of her, now that they were within the city limits.

In fact, what she saw seemed to actually be one of the Stones for which she’d named the direction.

That’s the Bandfast Stone.

There were intricate nets of magic that seemed to be constantly filtering the power that was being sucked stoneward out of the city.

No, not filtered… Tala didn’t understand what was happening, but it almost looked like the magics from various sources were being mixed as they came stoneward, until they reached a neutral state, and then that portion would be let through to the Stone.

It was a hideously complex working.

Rane had placed a hand on her shoulder when she stumbled, and he spoke, drawing her attention back to the superficial, “See something?”

“The—” She caught herself. Rane likely didn’t know of the City Stones. “I think I see the city’s magical grid.”

“Oh! That must be fascinating. Yeah, I can’t wait until I’m able to alter my sight to have a look. Master Grediv always gets coy when I ask about how it works.”

I’ll bet. As she continued to take in that which was stoneward of the entire area, she realized that there was in fact a ‘pulling in’ of the physical dimensions as the magical one decreased. It seemed that without anything physically in those dimensions stoneward, they were able to draw closer together, though trying to conceptualize what that actually meant made her head hurt.

Regardless, when she realized some of the implications of what she was seeing, Tala had an idea blossom within her mind.

-Oh… Oh! Is that how their transportation magic works?-

Well, I don’t know if that’s how they do it—though, I’d be surprised if it is—but I think it would work for us?

Tala turned a bright smile toward Rane.

He laughed. “You just thought of something crazy, didn’t you?”

She hesitated, then nodded in admission, her smile barely fading. “Yeah, yes I did.”

“We made great time; do you want to go to the Archon Compound or Constructionist Guild to test your crazy idea out with backup? You said Mistress Lyn and Kannis aren’t expecting us until dinner, so they’re likely at work right now.”

Her smile returned to full strength. “That is an excellent idea. Let’s go.”

They set out once again, a spring in their step, which for their level of advancement meant they were moving at a ground-eating pace.

After about a half a mile, Rane turned to glance her way.

“Can I know what this idea is?”

She glanced back. “Hmm? Oh, nothing too extreme.”—mischief gleamed in her eyes—“I’m just pretty sure that I can increase my gravitational attraction along the axis of the dimension of magic.”