“That…” I said slowly. “Sounds like a problem.”

Grey crossed his arms. “A mild one, I admit.”

“Are ye sayin’,” Bella said in a dangerous tone, clenching a hand on the pommel of her cutlass. “That I risked me crew comin’ to this damn island, and we can’t even get inside?”

Grey gave her an unconcerned gaze. “Oh, do calm down. As I said, it’s only a mild setback. From what I can tell, they’ve simply stripped the opening enchantment on the door. However, it’s still a mere slab of stone. Many among us are more than capable of simply smashing our way through.”

“Oh,” Bella said, relaxing. “Now that ye mention it, yer right. Hell, I could probably get through a rock like that if you gave me a bit o’ time.”

“Indeed,” Grey said wryly. “However, the bigger problem is what would happen if we simply broke down the door. The noise from such a thing would no doubt draw quite a bit of attention from the prison at large. At that point, we would be involved in a running battle throughout the complex as we attempted to locate everyone that we need to free from their unjust imprisonment.”

Azarus grunted, somehow thoughtfully. “What about if we just moved the door out the way? Don’t got to smash it then.”

“Again, no,” Grey said, shaking his head. “I constructed the door in such a way as to recess into the floor when it is activated. Part of that enchantment was a silencing effect, to mute the sound of stone grinding against stone, as this entrance was designed for a stealthy infiltration.”

Our group stood around in silence for a moment, before Sylvia broke. “Then we have no choice,” She said simply. “We must prepare for a far more combative entrance than was planned.” Her words caused a series of grim nods from members of our little circle.

Meanwhile, I was considering the problem from another angle. I tilted my head in thought, crossing my arms. I mean, it could work? Worth a shot, at least. “Maybe not,” I said out loud, drawing attention.

“Nathan?” Grey said curiously, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s just stone, right? At this point, the door is just a slab of rock with no enchantments or special properties?” I asked Grey.

Grey titled his head at me, puzzled. “Indeed? What are you-” He cut himself off, eyes widening. My mentor snapped his fingers in realization. “Of course! I often overlook that capability of yours.”

“To be fair,” I told him wryly. “I don’t think I’ve ever thought of doing something like this either.” At the curious looks from everyone else, I explained. “So, when I’m using my Profession, I can ‘astralize’ materials into component Aether, and then recombine that Aether into forms that I want. However, I don’t have to recombine it. I can just choose to let the Aether disperse into the environment.”

“Ohhhh,” Azarus said, realizing. “So you’re saying that you can just poof away the stone and we can get through that way?”

“Yeah, I think it’s worth a try,” I confirmed to him.

Bella gave me a doubtful look. “Are ye talkin’ about that weird stuff I saw ye doin’ to me deck? I…suppose I didn’t hear nothin’ while ye were doin’ it.”

“Right, yeah,” I nodded at her. “My melds are completely silent.”

“Well then, please,” Grey said to me, stepping out of the way and gesturing to the ‘door’. “As you say, it’s worth a shot.”

I stepped past him to the door and laid my right hand on the stone of the door under the curious gazes of my comrades. Concentrating, I fell into my trance and let myself start examining the stone. I hadn’t done a whole bunch with pure stone, to be honest. Most of my work had been with either metal, wood, or plants. I just didn’t typically have a bunch of use for a bunch of rocks. However, I had done a brief experiment with it, back in Addersfield.

Stone to my senses was stubborn. It didn’t like to move and be manipulated. It wasn’t like wood, which was all too eager to obey. It wasn’t like an herb, which might as well have been water from how easy it was to manipulate. It wasn’t like fire, which I sometimes had to fight for control of. It wasn’t even like metal, to be honest. With metal, the eagerness of the fire it was being introduced to coaxed it into shape.

No, stone was a stubborn bastard. It had existed for longer than human civilization, and it didn’t like bending to the will of some uppity whippersnapper.

I wasn’t anthropomorphizing inanimate materials at all. Shut up, middle ring.

However, bend it did.

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Under my hand, a fist-sized portion of stone transitioned into a haze of glowing blue-green mist. It swirled for a moment in the new pocket in the door, before dispersing into the environmental Aether around us. I opened my eyes and looked at what I had done thoughtfully. Okay, the test seemed to be successful, but…

I turned back to the others. “I can do it, all right,” I said to them. “But there’s an issue.”

Grey stopped the congratulations that I could tell were on the tip of his tongue. He furrowed his brow. “And that is?”

“I’m going to be exhausted when I’m done with this,” I told him bluntly. “Like the days when I was first getting used to Melding. Just from that little bit of stone, I could feel a drain. Doing the whole door, I don’t think,” I said, stressing the word. “That I’m going to pass out afterward. But I can’t be sure. But what I do know is that I’m going to be useless in a fight, if one breaks out.”

Grey hummed thoughtfully, but it was Bella who answered me. “Do it anyway,” She told me, just as blunt as I had been. “Don’t mean no disrespect, mind, but yer the weakest one here. We get into a scrap, the rest of this lot can handle themselves.”

At her words, I cast a raised eyebrow over at Grey. He nodded at me in response. I shrugged and nodded. “All right then,” I said. “One demolition, coming up.” At that, I turned back around and laid my hand back on the stone door, closing my eyes and re-entering my trance.

All right, what was the best way to do this? I could slowly ‘poof’ away the stone like Azarus said, one fist-sized portion at a time. But that would likely take me an hour at the earliest. The door wasn’t incredibly thick, but it wasn’t as thin as a regular door either. No, we were in a hurry to get started. That wasn’t the best way to go about this.

Instead, I think I was going to try and astralize the entire door at once. That would be far, far quicker. I’d need to get a mental grasp of the entire thing at once to do that, though. Once I did, I think I would be able to just destroy the entire thing in one go. It would be a bit tedious, though. I’d never stretched my Aetherial sense over such a large structure at once. I allowed myself to sigh, mentally, and then got to work.

Sure enough, it took me about ten minutes of mentally stretching a figurative hand around the entire door. I was lucky that the incredibly slight seam outlining the edges of it allowed my sense to penetrate through to the other side. Once I was done, I took a deep breath and braced myself. I was sure this was going to suck.

I was right.

When I pulled the mental trigger to astralize the entire slab of stone, I blacked out from the strain. I didn’t even get the chance to open my eyes to see if it had worked. Instead, I could feel myself falling backward.

Luckily, I think I regained consciousness moments later. I regretted it, though. God, I hadn’t missed this sensation of having fully drained my stamina. It had been months since I’d pushed a Meld this hard. I sure hadn’t missed this kind of brain-melting headache. Luckily, I had a handy new skill to deal with it. I used my middle ring to dull the sensation of the headache and slightly disconnect myself from it. Odd sensation, that. I could tell that the headache was still there, but I couldn’t feel it anymore.

I think someone had caught me as I was falling, as I could feel myself lying in someone’s arms. Cracking opening an eye, I could see the concerned face of Sylvia looking down at me. I felt my face redden.

Of all people, why did it have to be her? I think my head was even resting in her lap, for God’s sake.

“Are you well, Nathan?” Sylvia asked me in a concerned tone, unaware of my embarrassment. She helped me to stand up, holding me steady when I wobbled.

“I think so,” I said in a rough voice. “Just…a little tired. Did it work?” I was pretty sure it had worked.

Sylvia smiled slightly, before nodding behind me. “See for yourself.”

I turned around to see a yawning portal where the previous stone slab had stood. I don’t know if either Grey or I had done it when he had initially made the entrance, but the edges of the entryway were far smoother than I would have expected. It looked like a perfect arch, with the other side of it being too dark to see anything on the other side.

However, there was nobody else around. Sylvia and I were alone on this side of the door.

My Sculpted friend answered me before I could even ask the question. “The others went on ahead while I tended to you. Father said we could catch up once you awakened.”

I furrowed my brow. “How long was I out?”

“Not long,” Sylvia told me, unconcerned. “Perhaps a quarter of an hour?”

So much for thinking I'd only been out for a few seconds.

I felt my adrenaline spike. Not long? Who knew what could have happened in just fifteen minutes? Sylvia, I understand having faith in Grey, but this was a bit much. He wasn’t omnipotent.

I straightened up, making sure that my dagger was secure in its sheathe. “We’d better catch up then.” With Sylvia in tow, I approached the entrance into the prison. Stepping through it, I once again lamented my lack of a light Skill. It was pitch black wherever this secret entranceway exited into.

Luckily, Sylvia seemed to have something. A flickering yellow light sprang into being to my right, causing me to shield my eyes momentarily. When they had adjusted, I saw that Sylvia had lit the flammable end of a small handheld torch.

Ah…

That made sense. You know, having an actual physical light source instead of relying on other people’s skills…

Man, Vereden had really warped my perspective on things, and I hadn’t even been here a year yet.

I shook off my chagrin and examined where we had exited into. Looked like a storage room of some kind, to me. We were surrounded by barrels, crates, and sacks in a large underground room hewn from the same stone I had noticed comprised the prison earlier. On the far side of the room was a large set of wooden stairs that led upward. I guess we were inside the prison proper, now.

There was nobody down here, though. I suppose the others had already moved on.

That presented a problem.

I leaned in closer to Sylvia. “Do you…know anything about the floor plan of Caer Drarrow?”

Sylvia paused in her inspection of the room. “Ah,” She said slowly. “No.”

Shit.

How were we supposed to catch up to everyone else, if we had no idea where they had went?