Vayra woke up to early morning light washing across her face. It streamed down from a hole high above and caught in the mist, beckoning her out of her slumber.

She pushed herself up to her feet, then stretched out an ache in her back. Overnight, the bites Larra’s wolf had left had mostly healed, and her cloak had dried off. Phasoné’s glowing white ghost sat at Vayra’s feet, petting Adair while feeding him sips of elixir and ripped-up chunks of salt-pork.

“Good morning, Vayra,” the Goddess said. “Feel rested?”

Vayra rubbed the back of her head. Everything was a little clearer, and not just like she had slept well. Her vision was sharper, and when she used her spiritual sight, the different swirls of Arcara and spiritual power in the air were sharper.

That was what First Lieutenant felt like.

When she shut her eyes, she could practically feel the energy of the elixir bubbling behind her. She couldn’t say exactly what it was, but there was something strong behind her, exactly from the direction of Phasoné.

“First Lieutenant, down,” Phasoné said. “Now comes the real trick: we push ourselves up to Captain.”

Vayra inched closer to Phasoné until they were sitting side-by-side. “Sorry for being snappy with you yesterday. And thank you for helping.”

“That’s part of my job, Vayra,” Phasoné said.

“Well…” Vayra crossed her arms and shifted away. She chewed the inside of her lip, then added, “Thank you anyway.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“What did you mean?”

“That I’ll always be here to help you, no matter what.” Phasoné tilted her head, then leaned forward so she could stare right into Vayra’s eyes. “Are you alright? Having a mid-life crisis a few decades early? What’s it with these questions?”

“I just…” Vayra sighed. “You know anyway.”

“I want you to say it, anyway. We’re stuck together. If we can't be honest with each other, we’re going to have serious problems.” She reached out and grabbed Vayra’s hands with her ghostly fingers. With a mischievous smirk she said, “Is it Glade? Boy troubles?”

“No, no, it’s not like that.” Vayra expected herself to blush again, but she didn’t. Phasoné already knew the answer. “Yeah, he’s pretty handsome. Cute. Whatever you call it. But…I know where we stand on that topic, and so do you.” She accidentally fed Phasoné a little bit of mana as she cycled. “If it hadn’t been for you, yesterday, we wouldn’t have made it out. I promise you, I’m going to start standing on my own two legs. And before you get onto me with all that ‘oh, you don’t have to do it alone’—I know. But I want to be strong and raise us up together. I want to be the one who protects, too. I want to hug you after a fight and tell you that everything will be alright, too.”

Phasoné gave a curt nod. “I understand.”

Still a little cold. “How…how do you feel about me?” Vayra asked. It was a vague question, but Phasoné would know the intent.

“Feel? I feel lucky to have ended up with you.” Phasoné shifted closer. “Look, when I first bonded with you, when you first took the seekerstone, I wasn’t too pleased, and we’ve had our spats between then…”

Vayra nodded, waiting for something else to happen. Phasoné opened her mouth, as if looking for the right words.

“You remember when Glade said that he thought you were the perfect person for the job?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t believe it back then, but he saw something I didn’t. There’s this…spark in you, and I believe you can do what needs to be done.”

Vayra pulled her hand out of Phasoné’s, then lunged forwards and hugged the ghostly apparition. “Thanks, Phas.” Adair climbed out of Phasoné’s lap and curled up between both of their shoulders.

“I need a better nickname for you now. Orangie? No, that’s terribly uncreative…”

“We’ll find something.” Vayra inched away carefully. Adair stayed on her shoulder, clinging on with his tiny claws and mewling right into her ear. She didn’t want to pull away from Phasoné’s moderately warm strands of white starlight, but there was still a climb to make. She called the three empty barrels out of her corespace and set them down on the ledge. “This elixir has to count for something, right?”

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“It’s still a golden elixir,” Phasoné remarked. “It will still fuel you with raw, almost-purified spiritual energy—which is what we need to hit the peak of First Lieutenant.”

Vayra stretched her fingers out, then crawled to the edge of the ledge. She held the barrel down and started scooping water from the basin. “So…First Lieutenant. As I get closer, we’re supposed to add the finishing touches to the corespace. Some trails, ornaments, the like. But…once then, once we finish that, set the core in place…what then? What does it take to advance?”

“You will need plenty of Arcara and mana—pushing yourself to the peak of the stage as you would do normally. Three barrel might be enough, though we’ll be safer with four. But you’ll also need to come to a certain…revelation.”

“Revelation?” Vayra Braced her arms with a basic technique, using the simple boost in strength to haul the barrel back up to the ledge. It was full. She pulled it back into her corespace.

“To bridge the gap between First Lieutenant and Captain, you’ll need to truly understand the purpose of your Path. Some God-heirs have Paths set out for them, of course, but if they don’t understand their Path, what its purpose in the world is, they’ll never advance to Captain.”

“Do…lots of people get stuck at First Lieutenant?”

“Lots of God-heirs get stuck there, yes. In the past, a few Mediators have gotten stuck there for decades, though they were well before my time.”

“How will I know if I have the revelation right?”

“Because you’ll start advancing, and you won’t be able to stop it. Your body will be remade once more.”

Vayra nodded. She had the second barrel filled up, and she started on the third. “Where are we heading? I’ve…I’ve seen glimpses of the future. We tried the kausisia, and…I saw some things. It might help.”

“Oh, it’ll help,” Phasoné assured her. As she spoke, she looked directly at Vayra, and Vayra caught a whiff of calmness from Phasoné. It was faint, but it was unmistakably one of Phasoné’s thoughts.

Phasoné continued, “But…at some point, we’re going to need to get out of the greenhouse dome as a whole. If we have what we need to hit Captain, then we need to think about an escape route.”

“There’s a way over to the other half of the facility in the upper control room, right?” Vayra couldn’t see the upper part of the greenhouse dome from such a deep little cavern, but it was still up there somewhere. “And if we get over there, then we can leave.”

“If we make it to the central wall of the facility, then climb a bundle of roots, we’ll start reaching some of the old workers’ bunks, and some minor control rooms. I figure there might be some stronger, smaller elixirs there, and maybe even some fancy weapons.”

“Then it’s a plan.” Vayra hoisted the last barrel up and drew it into her corespace. She was expecting it to feel at least a little heavy, but the core was stronger now. It was full, but it didn’t sag. Everything was wrapped up neatly, like cargo on a ship. She hopped a few times. Maybe there’d be a faint sloshing sensation.

Nothing.

That’s what a stronger core got her, then. She examined her arms, checking the phoenix feathers to see if there was much of a change.

“Only difference I see is the ears,” Phasoné said. “Feathers poking out, now.”

Vayra reached behind her ears. A few red feathers lined the upper ridge, having now completely emerged from her skin. “Huh…”

“It looks like fancy jewelry,” Phasoné said. “It looks nice, Vayra.”

Vayra couldn’t resist a smile. But then she said, “Alright, get back inside me. We have a cavern to climb out of, then a greenhouse to cross.”

Phasoné dissolved and slithered back inside Vayra. ‘Before we reach the top, get the Astral Shroud up. If Larra’s waiting for us, we’ll be ready to outmaneuver and outrun her.’

“I’ll be ready.” Vayra didn’t sense anything to signify the God-heir, but Larra’s veils had been strong before.

Vayra bent down in front of Adair, then picked him up. “Alright, kitty. Back to safety you go.” She drew him back into the corespace to protect him.

Then, sliding her hands into a crag in the rock, she began to pull herself up the cliff wall. It sloped inwards as soon as she made it more than a few feet off the original platform, but the fingers of her mechanical hand were more than strong enough to hold her in place, especially with the First Lieutenant grade Arcara. With the proper application of spiritual power, she used her mechanical hand as an anchor. Her prosthetic leg, with a boot still on it, wasn’t as useful, but she didn’t dare to take the boot off in case she needed to run when she reached the top.

Just when the ceiling began to slope back at an almost forty-five degree angle and she feared she couldn’t hold on anymore, she found a set of roots draping down from the ceiling. They were normal, pale roots that absorbed water instead of ejecting it, and when she grabbed them, they bore her weight.

She adjusted her course slightly, aiming for the nearest hole in the ceiling. It was ten yards away, and she would fit through it—just barely.

The moment she reached the hole, she paused, trying to let her newfound and subtle sense of regional awareness take over. A faint tug came from the direction of the pool below, and nothing came from above.

Once she reached the hole, she wasn’t at the surface yet. A thin chamber, mere inches wider than her shoulders, led up to the surface—nearly five fathoms above. Staying as quiet as she could, she pressed her hands against the walls and lifted herself up through the hole. All she needed was a friction fit, and she climbed faster than before.

Before she reached the top, she spent a half-minute charging and activating the Astral Shroud. When it burst out around her in a cloud of white flame, the air hummed around her, loosening pebbles and dirt. She scrambled to the top as fast as she could, then leapt out onto solid, muddy ground.

Before she could even look around, a knife of seething water blasted at her shoulder, nearly stapling her to a flower-tree. Had it not been for the Shroud, she wouldn’t have ducked in time.

Larra threw off her cloak, unveiling her spiritual presence, but it was too late. Vayra was already sprinting away towards the greenhouse’s central wall.

She promised herself: next time she and Larra met, she wouldn’t run.