Tala allowed her effective gravity to return to normal as she stood firmly in the testing room. Then, she stretched, feeling her body almost seem to realign after its moments of weightlessness.

She cleared her throat, and looked directly to the two Refined, “We need to add something else to the list of warnings.”

They shared a look before Mistress Spiora pulled out an Archive slate, an almost hungry look in her eyes. “What did you experience?”

“Gravity. I was still in existence, but there was nothing holding me up, and I would have started to fall if I hadn’t noticed something while still standing on the iron sheathing around this place within the dimension of magic. I was basically slipping toward a precipice when I noticed and negated the downward force before I went off of it.”

“That… that actually makes a lot of sense. We have had unbound items go missing.”

Master Aman nodded, considering. “It also explains some of the anomalous readings we’ve gotten.”

His wife spoke again, seemingly continuing his thoughts, “And with gravity, that would be pulling the items back toward alignment with us, here, but likely very physically near the center of mass of Zeme.”

“Then, the theories of high matter concentrations in the far magic dimensions…”

“Could just be from those who didn’t parse their data well or who didn’t have the right sort of measurements.”

Tala frowned. “Wait. I can’t be the first person to have done something like this.”

“The first? Absolutely not. There are those like us who send items to learn more about the dimension of magic, and there have been some, historically, who have dipped their toes in the waters, but some vanished without a trace, and others kept their notes private, not trusting anyone else with access so that the information is lost now.”

Tala grunted, feeling irritated and wanting to do something to correct the injustice, but Alat responded before Tala could ask her.

-All notes and memories of possibly pertinent events are actively shared with Mistress Ingrit.-

What about—? Tala briefly thought about a certain cell and the prisoner within.

-Yeah, no. That’s not spreading because of us.-

Tala flickered her existence defense, just in case. She didn’t know if it would do anything, but there was no way she’d let that prisoner get an attachment to her if she could stop it with something so simple.

The two Refined moved backward, eyes widening, but their further reactions were utterly different.

Mistress Spiora was suddenly covered in what seemed to be a transparent suit of diamonds that moved with her perfectly.

No, not diamonds… but similar visual effect?

Additionally, Mistress Spiora’s hands came up, magic gathering across her palms.

Master Aman simply lifted his hand as if ready to snap his fingers, before he asked, “What was that?”

“A precaution against something that doesn’t affect you.”

They shared another look, before Mistress Spiora shook her head, her defenses fading, while her husband lowered his hand. She sighed, “I suppose we’ll have to take your word on that. Did you need us further?”

Tala grinned. “Oh, yes. I have quite a few more things to test. Pull me out in… five minutes?”

The two sighed, before Master Aman pulled out a pair of chairs, hesitated then pulled out a third for Rane.

Rane thanked the man as they all sat.

As they were getting settled, Mistress Spiora cleared her throat tentatively. “Mistress Tala. I hope you are aware that that is plenty of time for you to drift too far.”

“I appreciate your concern, but I think it’s worth the risk.”

Rane shifted slightly, drawing her gaze before he spoke, “What can I do?”

She considered for a moment before shrugging, “I apologize, but I don’t think there is anything. I’m sorry for wasting your time. If you want to leave, we can meet up later?”

He shook his head with a smile. “No waste, and I don’t wish to leave. This is fascinating, and it’s giving me a lot to think about.”

She smiled in return, then looked back to the Refined couple. “Ready?”

They conferred briefly, then nodded, Mistress Spiora speaking for them, “We are ready.”

Tala still had her working in place, anchoring her to the superficial, so she began amplifying her pull stoneward once again.

This time, she amplified it toward an empty reality node less far removed from the superficial.

That should allow her to get enough force to break free more quickly.

As she felt the beginnings of the pull stoneward, she broke her bonds of gravity pulling her downward, so that she floated up a bare fraction of an inch from the floor before her mundane sight went black.

She moved stoneward more quickly. It was barely an instant before she arrived at the node that was the aim of her amplified gravity, starting to oscillate a bit as she came to a near rest in place.

That done, she verified the state of herself.

She had a good lungful of air, which was an additional boon, even if she could get on without it.

There was the odd lack of pressure which Mistress Spiora had warned her of, and Tala had barely felt during her last, brief test.

Now, floating in the emptiness, the feeling was akin to an odd tightness of her own skin, like her skin was fighting against her body’s desire to expand outward.

It wasn’t the most comfortable feeling, even if it wasn’t dangerous.

Her eyes felt more pressure—as well as other types of attempted degradation—than her skin, but their defensive inscriptions were more than sufficient to keep them intact and functional.

With her physical safety verified, she began to look around, testing the extent of her magesight.

First, she panned stoneward and starward within the testing room that she was using.

As she did so, she really couldn’t see much, as nothing much seemed to exist away from the point of origin, along the dimension of magic. It was like staring straight up at an empty sky.

Or out at an unbroken ocean.

-We simply can’t perceive everything at once. We aren’t able to grasp it. At least not yet. Let’s sweep outward.-

What layer of the dimension should we focus on?

-Let’s look around at the level of the Stone?-

Oh, that’s a good idea. Tala shifted her focus to that level, then cast her gaze outward, immediately seeing many somethings in the distance spread out around her.

Tala gasped, releasing her held breath.

The other Stones. I didn’t consider it, but of course we should be able to see them. They aren’t that far away—not really—and there shouldn’t be anything in the way.

They were above or below, physically, but now that she was looking at the right level, magically, they were obvious to her magesight, blazing in the distance.

Tala looked around, turning in place as she counted. With Alefast, Waning, near its end, the new Alefast won’t have a Stone yet, so… there should be twelve?

Alat cleared her non-existent throat. -Um… I count fourteen.-

Some were in nearly a perfect line—leading away from Tala—but at different heights, physically. That allowed Tala to see them with relative ease. Yeah… I count fourteen too. And the spacing for those two is off. Where are they?

All of those that Tala could see were of significantly varied power, making it rather obvious which were newer compared to the others.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The two that she could see that didn’t fit the expected pattern were both much weaker, and they seemed to be positioned out toward the plains in which the moving villages could be found.

Do you think that a couple of the villages could be trying the City Stone method to augment their other stabilizing techniques?

-That seems quite possible.-

Still worth noting… Do you think the Archon Counsels know how obvious the cities are when looked at in this way?

-I think that the obviousness may be the entire cause of the swelling power and dealing with the City Stone is purpose for the wanings. Like an allergic reaction meant to remove the contaminant.-

Tala frowned. After hundreds of years? After a moment’s thought, she answered her own question, On the scale of reality, that is quick. Isn’t it…

The last wasn’t a question, but Alat answered anyways, -Yeah. I think that’s a rather good guess.-

That was fascinating to consider.

Even so, she didn’t have long to look around, so now that she knew she could see the City Stones, Tala began sweeping her magesight around all that was laid out surrounding her.

If she focused on the superficial, she could actually see into the city around the testing room, but it was like looking from a distance. Though she could oddly see around physical barriers, and it was only her magesight that gave her input.

It was almost like looking through a window, with how disconnected and oddly turned everything seemed to her sight.

Because I’m misaligned with them, seeing everything from an oblique angle.

Not wanting to happen upon things that she didn’t want to have seen, she moved her focus back to the dimensions of magic, like turning her eyes back toward the sky.

As she did, she saw something move.

It was out of the edge of her sight, and when she shifted her perspective to try to find it, she couldn’t.

Regardless, it left her feeling suddenly incredibly exposed, dangling there surrounded by emptiness.

With barely a thought, Iron and white steel welled out of her, coating her in layered defenses.

She looked about, feeling a moment of almost frantic panic, like there were things in the darkness around her, and eyes were looking at her from every direction.

On a terrible hunch, she focused on her voidsight and found what she had expected. Everything around her was composed of empty reality nodes, abutting one another throughout.

As they were empty, however, there was nothing to obscure the void that surrounded each node, and through the void—as if through barely translucent glass—Tala caught glimpses of a twisty-not-quite-right side of reality.

The Doman-Imithe was just visible if she focused.

But she instantly knew, somehow, that that place wasn’t the source of the motion that she’d seen.

There was something on this side of reality, moving through the dimension of magic like a shark through the deep.

She’d been stoneward for nearly three minutes by Alat’s connection to the Archive.

-How does the Archive keep accurate time if it’s slowed down?-

Not the time, Alat.

-Right, possibly being circled by an unknown predator.- Alat seemed to consider. -You are scanning our surroundings like you would on land, but you are in the water, and you can see the currents.-

Tala was about to snap at Alat for a horrible analogy, but then she understood.

She could see the magic flowing stoneward from every human in Bandfast. Even she, herself, was shedding a bit of magic due to inescapable inefficiencies, and that power was flowing toward the Stone with every other morsel of magic.

Those flows were regular—predictable even—as people moved around the city.

There. She caught sight of an unexplainable eddy.

After all, it wasn’t like there were obstacles for the power to have to divert around.

Now that she thought she knew what to look for, she could trace a series of eddies of varying intensity, seemingly showing the path of something.

Alright. There is something, but it seems to be moving away.

-Tala…-

What?

-Look more broadly.-

Tala pulled back her perspective and realized why the eddies hadn’t stood out to her.

They were everywhere.

Only now that she knew to look closer did she see clear patterns or paths through the magic.

A shudder moved through Tala’s entire being.

Nope!

She broke her working and shot starward, back to the superficial world that she knew and was familiar with.

Rane was the first to notice the changes on her return. Though, she had no idea how he could tell the difference despite her through-spike. “Tala. Where’s the danger?”

Master Aman and Mistress Spira were immediately enveloped in shifting magics that hugged their skin, though Tala didn’t have a chance to determine their composition.

She split her metal, opening her mouth to respond, even as she relaxed.

That’s when it hit her.

She had only an instant’s warning as something flickered at the edges of her magesight.

In that instant, she allowed all of her iron to weigh down on her—not keeping it in place relative to her body with her will—to increase her inertia.

The blow came from stoneward and at an angle, physically.

She was thrown backward, away from the other three, and her mundane sight just briefly went black as she was pushed starward before settling back into the superficial, like a ball balancing on the edge of a hole before falling in, where it belonged.

There was a response from the city’s defenses, and Tala felt an odd flavor of magic slam into the creature, even as it rushed past her.

Force was in Rane’s hand when she refocused on the physical.

“What was that?” His face was pale, as were the visages of the two Refined.

-I found it.- Alat highlighted what had attacked her in her vision.

Tala growled, glaring at the thing that the three with her couldn’t see.

It was coming around again.

-Ready?-

Now! Tala lashed out with her hands, snatching for handholds that she could properly see.

It was exceedingly difficult, because she couldn’t change where her hands were positioned along the magical dimension.

Still, as the beast impacted her—trying to push her stoneward this time—her hands trailed behind her body, remaining superficial just long enough to latch onto the thing.

Her still active working was actively working to pull her back starward, and she began amplifying that working for all that she was worth.

Her hands began to ache, despite her incredibly enhanced strength.

Not taking a chance on being able to hold out, she immediately tried to extend her iron and white steel forward and into the beast, putting her power behind the growth, but as soon as her magic touched the creature, it began to bleed away before it could help her penetrate the seemingly hard exterior.

A magic absorber?

Her magic pulled her back to the superficial layer, and she was suddenly able to hear Rane and the Refined exclaiming in alarm as Tala wrestled with something that was moving in and out of alignment with their layer of physical reality.

Alat did her best to put together a cohesive picture of the thing but, as expected, it didn’t really make sense from a three-dimensional perspective.

At times, the beast had the look of a person in various positions, flickering through the peripheral portion of her mundane vision. At other times, it looked like a squid, and that seemed like a fuller picture of the reality of the creature’s shape.

Long tendrils extended in all directions, somehow having purchase or generating thrust within the dimension of magic, continually fighting Tala, trying to get free. It was also scrabbling against her, but it didn’t actually seem to have any blades, claws, or teeth that it could bring to bear on her.

Oddly, it didn’t feel like the white steel was slowing it down at all, each impact simply landing on her iron as if the other metal weren’t there.

To add to the chaos, the city’s defenses were slapping into every part of it that passed through the superficial, and Tala began to see ragged edges, indicating that the thing was taking damage from whatever specialized magics were at play.

Do I kill it? Or I could just hold it until the city’s defenses do?

-I would say a hard no. This seems to be a creature that lives off of the magic in its environment, and we stood out too much as a good source of its food.-

Tala felt herself pale. And if there is such a bottom feeder…

There very well might be a predator or carrion eater, and we do not want to draw the attention of such a thing.

Tala growled. “Have you all gotten a good look?”

Mistress Spiora wore a pair of gauntlets now, each with blades strategically growing out of them for both defensive and offensive use, and she had fallen into a fighting stance yet again, eyes fixed on the flickering thing that Tala held.

Master Aman held a simple ball of what looked like steel between himself and Tala, his own magical shell seemingly of shifting shadows, or at least something that looked like flickering shadows.

The Refined seemed surprised by her question, not understanding what she meant, but Rane answered quickly. “Yes. Let it go.”

Tala did so, and the thing, whatever it was, rushed stoneward at speed.

It was only then that Tala noticed her arms seemed to have vanished somewhere between her shoulders and elbows, but even as she watched, they shifted back into line with the superficial.

That was… disconcerting.

-Quite.-

Everyone was in a state of shock, Tala included.

Rane visibly swallowed. “It was passing right through me, and the defenses on me. It just pulled magic from me with each touch, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.” He glanced to the two Refined and nodded his thanks.

Only then did Tala notice swirling layers of what seemed to be diamonds and shadow overlaying Rane’s entire body.

Those defenses faded, along with the ones on the Refined, themselves.

Master Aman nodded. “The power taken was very little. I doubt that I’d have noticed at all in almost any other situation.”

Mistress Spiora looked around. “I would hazard a guess that we haven’t noticed it in the past.” The woman paused and seemed to consider. “I understand you have iron around you?”

Tala nodded, still gazing stoneward, trying to catch a glimpse of the thing again but to no avail. It was lost among the vastness. “I think that’s what it was hitting, and what allowed me purchase. Magic was just sucked away, but iron could interact with it.”

Rane cleared his throat, sheathing Force. “So, it was a sort of parasite that nibbles away at our magic, and we never really notice, save to think things are less efficient than we might expect.”

Tala nodded but it was Master Aman who responded verbally, “So it would seem. Though, I don’t know that ‘parasite’ is exactly the right term.”

Mistress Spiora oriented on Tala, hesitated, then seemed to gild herself before asking a careful question, “Was that the only one?”

Tala heard herself let out a nervous chuckle. “Well… no. I think it’s safe to say that that was not the only one.”