Tala and Rane walked through the open gates of Bandfast without issue or fanfare, simply joining the near constant traffic moving in and out at this time of day.

As they entered, Tala asked Alat to send a few pertinent messages through the Archive.

One was to Lyn and Kannis, letting them know that they were in the city and confirming their scheduled meet-up at Lyn’s house that evening.

The second was to Mistress Elnea, the head of the local Archon Council, letting her know that Tala had entered the city, per protocol. It was helpful to know when anyone—Refined or above—was in the city as they could show up oddly on the detection grid on occasion, and it saved some hassle for the defenders to know who to watch for as expected.

The final was to Mistress Ingrit, the Librarian who had helped Tala so much, and who was still managing the access to her memories from the arcane lands. Alat and Tala asked Mistress Ingrit about the best place and assistant for the testing of a theory and working relating to the dimension of magic.

Lyn responded quite quickly. Though, that was likely only the case because her job required that she work with her Caravan-Guild-assigned Archive slate, and the message would have been immediately obvious in those circumstances.

Tala and Rane had barely walked a block from the gate before that reply came in.

-Oh, hey! Lyn says, ‘Welcome back! Excited to grab dinner this evening. See you then.’ That was kind of her.-

Can you let her know we got the message?

-Already done.-

Thank you.

They had only traversed another two blocks through pedestrian and vehicular traffic—all feet, hooves, paws, and wheels working together to churn the still-falling snow—before a response came from Mistress Elnea.

Well, it was a response to the message that they had sent to Mistress Elnea. The magical signature on the response didn’t belong to the Paragon.

Alat couldn’t quite place the person who had responded. So they assumed that they’d either never met her, or had only seen her in passing without getting a good peek at her magics.

-She conveyed a thank you for letting them know of your arrival. When she asked, I informed her that you were here for a short visit and weren’t interested in any standard work. Even so, if anything was needed that was particular to you and your abilities, you’d happily hear the request.-

Thank you, yet again.

Alat sent a mental shrug. -This is what I was designed to do. The fact that I do more is testament to how amazing we are.-

Tala’s mouth pulled up on one side. And humble, don’t forget humble.

-It is humble to have a correct assessment of our capacities. False humility is not humbleness, nor is allowing things that we are capable of doing to go undone for fear of being seen as prideful.-

Her smile manifested fully. True enough.

Finally, when they were passing into the inner ring, Mistress Ingrit responded.

-She’s asking for a brief description of what we intend. I assume it’s alright for me to explain your idea?-

Absolutely, thank you for asking. Alat would have already known how Tala would respond, but something about being asked anyway helped her relax.

-She is surprised that she isn’t surprised by the oddity of the idea, but she doesn’t see an issue in theory. There’s a couple of Refined, who owe us for memories shared, whom she’s getting lined up. They have specialties that should be able to help mitigate the risks. We should head to the Archon Compound.-

Tala grinned, turning to Rane, “Shall we go to the Archon Compound? We have some people expecting us.”

Rane gave her a side-eyed look. “You have it all arranged ahead of time, then?”

“Yes.”

“That seems unlike you.”—his eyes widened, and he flushed—“I mean—”

Tala held up a hand to forestall him. “It’s fine, Rane. I know I often rush into things, but this seemed like it was… important to have some safeguards in place.”

He smiled and shook his head slightly. “Well, let’s see what we can do, then.”

They made their way to the Archon Compound in the center of the city, down the long hallway, and into the atrium.

The receptionists greeted them and ushered them toward a testing room on the lower floor.

The Refined area beneath Bandfast was almost perfectly identical to that beneath Alefast, being made of the same network of wide, vaulted passages, and having the same facilities within, in basically the same configuration.

The main differences were in the materials used—given that they were in a different section of bedrock when compared to Alefast.

I wonder if all the Archon Compounds are the same?

-I’d bet so. With Refined and above moving around so often, relatively, they likely want some stability and familiarity. Plus, these are the facilities for the defenders of the city. It would be foolish to juggle them around just to be different. In defensive situations, moments matter.-

That’s fair.

Tala had never actually been in one of the testing rooms in this lower facility. In Alefast, she had done her training in one or another of the big fighting arenas below the Archon Compound.

Regardless, the massively thick iron door standing open on one side of the hall made it obvious that they’d reached their destination.

Interestingly enough, Tala could see that there was iron extending starward and stoneward of the door as well, likely to help passively contain whatever higher-level magics were to be utilized within.

She had the usual mild desire for the iron but given her certain knowledge that it was not hers and never would be, there wasn’t really a pull or temptation. After all, there was no reasonable way that she’d ever own the metal here.

The door was standing open, and Tala saw inside with ease, recognizing the iron-clad walls, ceiling, and floor, all with iron somehow forced outward along the magical dimension to make the space incredibly insulated to such power, even before the active defenses.

Additionally, with the Stone—waiting stoneward and pulling all power to drain in that direction—magic would have a hard time going truly out of control.

Within the room waited two figures, both barely taller than Tala, herself.

As Tala and Rane entered, Rane immediately bowed to the two, as they were more advanced than him.

Tala and the two exchanged the nods of equals.

The man spoke first. “You must be Mistress Tala, correct?”

“I am.”

He smiled. “I am Anam.”

“Good to meet you, Master Anam. This is my companion, Rane.”

Master Anam gave a shallow nod to Rane once again, “Greetings, Master Rane. This is my wife, Spiora.”

Tala nodded to Mistress Spiora again, “Greetings, Mistress Spiora.”

“Hello.” The woman’s voice was soft, like a warm summer breeze. It almost sounded timid, but there was a subtle strength in the single word that, instead, conveyed a simple tendency to use precisely the volume needed.

“Well, I think I should describe what I am going to attempt, while Rane closes the door, and you two can let me know your thoughts?”

The two nodded, and Rane moved to close the door without comment.

“I manipulate the gravitational attraction of objects toward one another. Unlike most, I do not work with areas, but individual targets.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The two shared a look but didn’t interrupt.

“Recently, I have been able to latch onto reality nodes and increase their attraction to each other, but without too much of an effect.”

That got a raised eyebrow from Mistress Spiora, but she still waited silently and patiently as Tala continued.

“Thus, I would like to increase my own gravitational pull along the axis of the magical dimension. If it works as I expect, I believe that I could effectively ‘bob’ to a different place in the city.” She glanced toward Rane who had just secured the iron door.

Master Anam nodded. “I see. Is Master Rane familiar with City Stones?”

Rane spoke up for himself in this regard, “I know of the concept, but not the particulars.”

The two Refined shared a look, before nodding. Master Anam continued, “Very well. You may have already considered all of them, but there are six things that you should be concerned about, that we will go over.”

Tala’s eyes widened, “Oh?”

He smiled. “First, the traditional way this is done involves imposing a type of magical buoyancy into the space within the transport room, before pulling it down and letting it move back up to the correct place. If I understand what you are proposing correctly, you will be giving yourself a vector of movement along the axis of magic, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then, how will you come back to the proper level?”

Tala nodded. “My intention is to establish a pull back to this level first, then overcome it with an outward pull along the axis. Then, when I break that second working, the first should return me here.”

Master Anam tilted his head to the side, considering. “That should work.”

He looked to his wife, and she nodded as well.

He continued in a professional tone, “Very well. Second, time passes differently as you move along the axis. Toward the Archive, time moves slower, relative to us, toward the Stone time passes more quickly. The next two issues lie there. One is that your gate will not increase its flowrate, relative to here. If you go too deep, you could easily become power-starved. It sounds like the workings you will set up will mitigate that risk, as you will not need to enact new magics, is that correct?”

She nodded again. “It is.”

Still, Tala was reeling just a bit from the provided information. Variable timestreams?

-More like one timestream with a gradient along this axis, but I get what you mean. It does explain why the Archive is so stable. It is far starward, so time must be passing incredibly slowly.-

But, shouldn’t that make it slow to access?

-Only if adding to or taking from the information there actually took any time, but such actions are instantaneous in the most literal sense. No time is required for the process so the lengthening of a second wouldn’t affect it.-

I… I’m not sure I understand exactly, but I think I do?

-I think we do, too, but that’s not the most helpful check.-

Master Anam continued, pulling Tala’s focus back. “Then, the final of the first three issues is that your mind is similarly tied to this level within the dimension of magic. Even if you have the means, do not change that. Doing so will misalign your mind and your soul in ways that are very difficult to fix.”

Tala considered for a long moment before nodding. “I have the capacity to process incredibly quickly, so it shouldn’t be an issue even without shifting my mind’s perception of time.”

He regarded her for a long moment. “Very well. My specialty is the triune relationship between body, mind, and soul. If there are issues, I should be able to keep you from passing on.”

She swallowed, feeling slightly nervous for the first time, “Well, thank you for that.”

Mistress Spiora stepped forward just a bit. “Without the cage of the transportation room, your body will not be tied to this timestream. Oddly, my husband has proven that that doesn’t cause a synchronization issue with your soul or mind, though we are unsure of why. Regardless, if you aren’t careful, you can suffocate, die of dehydration, or starve before you even know anything is wrong. Though once again, this is theoretically only an issue if you go too far.”

Tala took a moment to consider. “That shouldn’t be an issue for me, so long as it isn’t days or weeks.”

“Unless you go past the Stone, it shouldn’t be that long, and within a city if you go that far you’d pop regardless. That is the next issue: Don’t go near the Stone. It’s far, but not incredibly so. From what you described, what you’ll be doing is akin to skipping along the surface of the ocean, where the bottom is the danger that I’m warning about now.”

She nodded regardless. “Right, another danger of going too deep.”

“Precisely.”

“And the sixth thing?”

“There is something akin to the coefficient of friction, keeping everything physical aligned with us, here. You will require quite a bit of force to overcome that, but don’t let that tempt you into reckless overuse of power, or you will be thrown far, far beyond where you want to go.”

Tala nodded slowly in understanding. Or like surface tension I suppose.

She considered for another moment before smiling.

“Alright, I think I understand the issues.”

The two shared a look then shrugged. Master Aman smiled when he looked back. “Very well, then. One thing that I can do—if you will entrust me with one of your soulbound items—is draw you back to it, in the case of disaster.”

Rane had listened to all of this with rapt attention, clearly trying to absorb all that he could. Now, he seemed to have reached his limit. “Wait, you can draw someone to their soulbound item?”

“That is what I said, yes. More accurately, I can create a mutual draw, which can act as a guide to the person. It wouldn’t normally be enough to matter, most people wouldn’t even feel it, but Mistress Tala will effectively be in a frictionless vacuum. Any force, no matter how small, will eventually be enough to draw her back, so long as she breaks her working after it pulls her out of what we consider the physical layer.”

Rane grunted, then looked to Tala. “It might be wise to leave Kit?”

Tala cocked her head to the side, then nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. That is probably wise. The magical weight of the sanctum might affect things.”

She tossed Kit to Rane.

“Keep her safe.” Tala then pulled Flow from her belt in its sparring sheath. “This should do for my soulbound item. It was my first.”

Master Aman’s eyebrows rose at the implication as he received the weapon. “Interesting. Bound even before your body, then?”

Tala nodded.

“Then that will be a very powerful connection indeed.”

Without further need for discussion, the Refined couple and Rane spread out to give Tala room.

Alright, first… She reached out and targeted her own node of reality, focusing on its gravitational pull toward the nodes of reality that currently surrounded her. She then poured all her focus and incoming power into the working, feeling her node pressing outward on the surrounding nodes through her voidsight.

Physically, it was an odd feeling of closeness and comfort. Huh, I wonder if something like this happens when you live somewhere for a long time? Though, it probably isn’t gravity.

-Focus, Tala.-

Right!

She let her watchers know what she was doing and continued the amplification for a full three minutes at her maximum.

An oddity of the work was that she now felt like she really didn’t want to leave this place. She was content, and might have simply sat down to rest if she weren’t in the middle of a task.

Yeah, we’re noting this for later.

-Noted.-

The extent to which she powered the amplification was probably overkill, but she’d prefer to come back too strongly than linger stoneward.

That done, she again targeted herself, but this time aimed her amplification at a zone of existence just a few increments stoneward of superficial.

It was interesting because there were still nodes of reality there—surrounded by void just as all were—but they were utterly empty, as if simply waiting to be filled or otherwise used.

Regardless, they would do as a focus for her amplification.

After taking a deep breath and notifying the others that it was time, she began the amplification.

At just after the four-minute mark, the whole world stuttered and went black to her mundane sight.

She felt the barest instant of something akin to slipping across a ledge, her footing about to fail her and let her drop, and her eyes widened.

With now well-honed instincts, Tala canceled her own effective gravity, and hoped that she’d been quick enough.

My in place pull to where I was should correct any fall that might have begun.

A moment later in the blackness, she cut off the working that was pulling her stoneward, taking in her surroundings as she trusted in her original working to reverse her momentum and draw her back.

There truly was nothing visible to her mundane sight.

Nothing existed, physically, this far stoneward.

Quickly looking back through her memory of the very start—right after the physical world had gone black—she had caught a glimpse of a Flow-shaped blob of iron for a bit longer than she’d seen anything else. Even the iron of her surroundings hadn’t been visible for quite as long.

To her magesight, however, there was no difference.

She kept her sight focused, ignoring the City Stone stoneward of her in favor of near surroundings.

She could still see all of the magic that she’d seen before, and without the interference of her mundane sight, she could see rather minute details, though not as finely depicted as before.

Her thoughts were racing to enact all of the changing magics and make all these observations, as it had been less than a second since the world had gone dark to her mundane vision.

-Huh, I think I can feel the change to timeflow around our body. Our heart rate is rather regulated in any given situation by our inscriptions, and so I can count the beats.-

Sounds like a plan.

It took what seemed to be ten seconds to her body before she felt that she was nearing the superficial again, based on what her magesight was showing her.

She was about to resurface, when she had a thought.

She’d been practicing with her through-spike, after all…

She grinned mischievously for the barest moment before making her decision.

Tala flicked back into being bare seconds after she’d vanished, from the perspective of those watching.

They had barely even had a chance to move. Rane’s eyes were still wide, his eyebrows raised, from her sudden disappearance.

But something was different.

Tala was hunched, her hair gray, her skin wrinkled.

Her voice was shaking as she asked, “How did it go for you all?”

Three sets of eyes stared at her in brief horror.

“What?” Then, she acted like she noticed her own voice. “What’s wrong with my voice?”

She lifted a hand and stepped back in feigned shock.

“My hands! Did I go too deep?”

Then, Mistress Spiora snorted a laugh, pulling the two men out of their shock. “Mistress Tala, Refined don’t age.”

Tala stopped, then she lost her composure and cracked a grin. She straightened, and her through-spike illusion returned to normal. “That’s fair enough.”

Rane was rubbing his face even as he shook his head.

Master Aman had a small smile, “I take it there was success, then?”

Tala nodded triumphantly. “Yes. First test, complete.”