After a few hours of trudging through the forest (and nearly shredding Mazorah's feet in the process), Eadit, Mazorah and Dawl entered a large clearing. There was a small encampment beneath a particularly massive tree with about a dozen people sitting around. They all wore white cloaks and most of them were eating biscuits or berries. One saw them and stood, bowing his head slightly in their direction and, making an incomplete circle by cupping his right and left hands and facing them towards each other over his chest. The others weren't much slower to react and all followed suit with practiced efficiency. "Mage Templar," the first one said, apparently using some kind of honorific title. Dawl and Eadit made a similar symbol with their hands, though Dawl's was much more relaxed. "The others should join you shortly," Dawl said, "the hunt was unsuccessful, though we did pick up a lost pup," he indicated Mazorah, "we'll be zipping back to Vaylan. I'll be counting on a report from each Order Mage by tomorrow afternoon, and make them short. Only include interesting things." With his last word, Dawl pushed his two cupped hands together, clapping them softly. Everyone else followed suit, and Dawl walked to a large circular platform in the middle of the encampment, motioning for Mazorah to follow. They stepped onto the platform and Mazorah took Dawl’s pack off his shoulders and set it on the platform.

"Inquisitor," Dawl turned around, addressing Eadit, who stood about two steps from the circular platform, "take care of wrapping things up here." Eadit nodded to him and walked away from them, towards a couple of the people in the encampment. Now Dawl looked at Mazorah, "You really don't remember anything?" Mazorah shook his head. "Well then," Dawl grinned, "this will be fun." With that, Dawl snapped his fingers and a railing made of the same stone material as the platform literally grew up around them, at the perimeter of the platform. Once it was around eight feet tall, it created a barred roof. Without warning the large platform lifted into the air, going straight up at a pretty quick speed. Mazorah fell forward onto his knees and braced himself with his hands. He stood back up after a moment, smiling, "you did that on purpose," he accused Dawl. The other man just kept smiling at him. After about thirty seconds they had risen above the tops of all the nearby trees. They continued climbing for about ten more seconds, and right when Mazorah was about to ask when they'd stop, they did. Suddenly. This time he didn't fall over, just wobbled a bit.

Now that they'd stopped, Mazorah glanced over the edge. It was a dizzying height that made him a little nervous. He felt extra thankful for the railing around him. When he looked back at Dawl, he could see the man had pulled a small amulet out of his cloak. He held it out, rotating his arm around as though he was using the amulet to search for something. Mazorah thought that if he closed his eyes he would probably be able to see the glowing Ether doing something. However, since he didn't really trust this man or his motives, Mazorah simply watched. After a moment, Dawl stopped and let go of the amulet. The amulet floated in the air, and the platform's railing disappeared from the area the amulet seemed to be drawn towards. Dawl looked at Mazorah, "touch the amulet," he said. Mazorah knew it was a trap and that something crazy was about to happen but he figured he didn't have much choice. He'd already flown head-first into a tree. How bad could it be? The second his finger touched the amulet, his body was sucked towards the opening of the platform. Before he had time to scream, his feet were on solid ground.

All around Mazorah was open sky. He was on a large platform with no walls, stairs, or other defining features. He hadn’t been there for more than a second when the ground he stood on sank. Suddenly he was inside a see-through tube inside a halo of other similar tubes. Outside of his tube he could see six people; two people dressed in comfortable white clothes and four in white gleaming armor. The woman dressed in comfortable clothes said something to her comfily-dressed male companion, but Mazorah couldn’t hear their words. In fact, he couldn’t hear anything as the woman walked towards him. She touched the outside of the tube Mazorah was in, “please hold your arm out and stay still,” the woman’s voice said from all around. It matched the movement of her mouth, so Mazorah figured she was using Ether to project her voice into his tube somehow. He complied with her request, really wishing he could try to see the Ether so he could figure out how this worked. He’d thought flying above the canyon - no, sorry, The Abyss - was a feat, then he’d been teleported a massive distance before he could blink. He felt a little in over his head, suddenly.

As Mazorah watched, the woman touched a red button on his tube. An extremely thin needle grew itself on the inside of the tube and stuck into his arm, and soon he saw bright red liquid flowing through it. His blood, he realized after a second. It made him a little woozy to look at, so he looked back at the woman. She was reading some words that had appeared with a chart on the outside of his prison tube. To Mazorah, the words were mirrored and full of technical terms, so he didn’t try too hard to understand them. Instead, he watched the woman’s facial expression. At first, she looked bored as she touched something on the chart to make it display something else. Once the chart shifted itself, she furrowed her brow as if she’d seen something unusual. Even from his vantage, Mazorah could tell that one of the graphs that displayed had a very large slope. He tried to read what it said, but he couldn’t make out a word before the woman swiped her hand on the display and made it disappear. Her mouth moved a few times as she spoke to the others in her room and she turned back and walked to the man. They were soon looking at what Mazorah assumed was his charts, glancing at each other and talking quickly.

There was a hint of movement to his left and Mazorah saw Dawl holding his pack and walking to the group of people from one of the other tubes. His had apparently opened somehow. Probably something to do with that amulet. Definitely not some kind of button on the inside of the tube that Mazorah could have seen if he’d paid better attention to his surroundings. Mazorah did a quick look around his tube just to be sure. Nope, no buttons in here. After a few more minutes of the two people talking with Dawl, the Mage Templar left his pack with one of the comfily dressed people and approached Mazorah’s tube, touching it. “Sounds like you’re a little more special than I realized,” Dawl said, pressing a yellow-looking button on the outside of the tube. The needle in Mazorah’s arm retracted and the tube slowly rose up until he could walk out of it. Dawl cocked his head, “how’d you like to meet a Lord Templar?”

Mazorah opened his mouth to ask some pointless question about if he could refuse, but Dawl just turned away from him and started walking. Mazorah glanced at the four men in gleaming white armor who were watching him intently and decided Dawl biscuit-giver was indeed still his best option. Mazorah followed the man to a section of a wall with a small panel in it. Dawl held his hand against it for a moment, and the wall slid apart, revealing an opening. Dawl walked through it and Mazorah followed, “so, special huh? I thought I was about average.” Dawl glanced at him and nodded gravely, “yes, the woman who took your measurement claims you are quite attractive. As myself and the other Gauge vehemently disagree, we need to escalate this to the Lord Templar in order to be sure.” Mazorah blinked, unsure of what he should do in the face of such bold slander.

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Before he could say anything, they arrived at another panel and Dawl held his hand to it, “how old are you, anyway?” The question Dawl asked seemed innocent, but Mazorah suspected he was probing for answers about Mazorah’s memory loss. “I’m not sure. How old do I look?” Mazorah was genuinely curious, as he had no recollection of what he looked like. Should he be concerned about that? “Twenty, maybe. But with your Ether…” Dawl trailed off, walking through the newly opened space as the walls separated. Mazorah walked up beside him, “what’s wrong with my Ether,” he asked. Dawl shook his head, “nothing’s wrong, just off. You’ll know soon enough.” With that, they walked in silence down a few corridors and through a few opening walls, and eventually they reached an already open doorway.

Inside the room stood a tall man with dark hair in a white jacket. The man was faced away from them, looking through a massive window at a huge city outside. Although Mazorah wanted to look out the window and see where he was and what it looked like, his eyes were drawn to the man. The man seemed to radiate with Ether to the point where it was visible to Mazorah even with his eyes open. The man turned to look at them when they entered, and the door slid closed behind them silently. Although the man looked fairly average, his eyes were a shocking white color, with only his irises still black. The man looked at Dawl, “instead of a criminal you’ve brought me a prodigy. A fair trade, I suppose.” Dawl threw himself onto a couch Mazorah hadn’t noticed and sighed loudly, “the Blood Mage was as good as gone by the time we got there, Aidar. Want me to chase him into the Chasmlands?” The man, Aidar, shook his head. “No, you did well.”

Aidar shifted his gaze to Mazorah. It was like Mazorah had stepped into a beam of sunlight; notably warmer than being in the shade but not quite uncomfortable. “So, you lost your memories, walked out of the Chasmlands, met a Blood Mage and lived, then came back here with Dawl. Did I get it right?” Mazorah had to cough at the part about ‘walking’ out of the Chasmlands, “more or less,” he hedged, “though Clau-the Blood Mage- didn’t seem very dangerous to me.” Aidar shrugged, “perhaps he wasn’t that far gone yet. It’s hard to measure the level of corruption without a recent measurement.” Mazorah nodded, remembering that Claude had said something about avoiding measurements. ”So, how am I a prodigy?” Since he couldn’t think of any more tactful way to ask, Mazorah figured he’d just outright ask. “Did Dawl not explain the measurement to you?” Mazorah glanced at Dawl, who had started snoring on the couch. He shook his head. Aidar used a couple of fingers against his temple. Suddenly Mazorah felt he had an understanding of this Lord Templar’s burden. He couldn’t imagine trying to manage someone like Dawl and also maintaining his sanity at the same time. “It’s nothing too complex. The amount of Ether in your blood is standard, but it appears the density of it is unusually high.”

Mazorah felt stupid, having no idea what the difference between quantity and density meant in practical terms. But he figured he’d lost his memories so he’d might-as-well lean into that, “sorry,” he said, “but what does that mean?” Aidar kept rubbing his temple, “normally I consider either the quantity or the quality of Ether, since the former contributes to more available Ether and sometimes contains corruption if amassed too quickly. The latter is simply how pure the Ether is; how much it is separated from the blood or other binding agents. We’ve never really considered Etheric density to be a factor, but your blood seems to be a bit of an anomaly.”

Mazorah was sure the Lord Templar was trying to explain something to him, but quantity and quality and density in Ether just didn’t have much meaning. He’d been hoping for a quick easy explanation about the basics of what those terms meant in regards to Ether, but Aidar was obviously a little too involved with the technical aspect to give a good answer to someone on Mazorah’s level. Surprisingly, Aidar seemed to understand the information wasn’t coming across. “I did not explain it very well,” he stated, “unfortunately teaching is not one of my strong points. That leads me to our topic of conversation and the reason you are here in my office. Please, take a seat.” Aidar motioned to a couch opposite of the one Dawl was sleeping on. Aidar then kicked Dawl’s couch, causing the man to sit up. “Go get some rest,” he said. Dawl stood and teetered to the door.

After the door shut, Aidar cleared his throat. “What was your name again?” “Mazorah.” “Mazorah, The Order would like to sponsor your enrollment into the Imperial Academy of Kazar. We will cover the cost of everything you need and supply tutors to get you the best possible education. You, in turn, will submit samples to our labs there and perform measurements and other tests as required.” Mazorah stared at the man with strangely white eyes, trying to process everything. An academy? For learning? Samples? Imperial? They obviously wanted to experiment on him due to whatever was strange with his Ether, but why would they want to pay for him to learn things? He couldn’t think of a tactful way to ask, so, “why would you want to sponsor me?” Aidar smiled, “Please do not be afraid. Lord Templars do not usually have the tact of Arch Mages.” Mazorah smiled slightly, feeling he’d missed a joke. Aidar was unperturbed, “In short, preliminary readings of your blood indicate that density may augment the potency of your Ether… Right… I think you might be a great asset for the Empire. I am also cautious of your potential to unintentionally cause great harm. I do not wish to harm you or take you prisoner, so I would like to instead take this opportunity to recruit you.”

Mazorah understood from the explanation that this was not an offer he could really refuse. Not that he would; free education, food and housing seemed like an incredible benefit to him since he had absolutely no memory about anything this man said. Mazorah also understood that although Aidar might not have his best interests in mind, the man could have come up with far worse ways to achieve his goals. Mazorah considered for another moment, not wanting to seem too eager, before saying, “I accept.” Aidar sighed slightly, as if he’d taken on a burden of some kind. “Very well. Eadit, arrange for immediate transport.” Eadit? Didn’t Mazorah know that- “immediately, Lord Templar,” came a cool, familiar voice from right beside Mazorah. “Holy m… Where did you come from?!” Mazorah nearly died right then and there. It was the knife lady! Eadit looked at him, furrowing her brow slightly. Her light green eyes seemed to glow. Maybe they were glowing? Ether? “I’ve been beside you since you left the entry chamber.”