Isabella nodded at Dellen, “You want to forge yourself, a brave, if incautious, choice. Come with me.”

Dellen followed Isabella through a door on the side of her office to a small room. It was a treasure trove of curiosities and mementos, suggesting extensive travel and unyielding curiosity. Shelves lined the walls, each one holding its own unique story and allure. His eyes darted from one object to another, captivated by the eclectic assortment before him.

On one shelf, scrolls were carefully preserved in weathered leather cases, their inscriptions unfamiliar. Nearby, a collection of peculiar masks adorned the wall. Each mask seemed to possess a distinct personality, tempting Dellen to imagine the tales behind their creation and purpose.

Another shelf held a display of ornate weaponry. Elaborate hilt designs and intricate engravings adorned swords, daggers, and axes. Next to that, a display was consumed with colorful feathers, seashells, and polished stones.

Small statues and figurines populated the room, depicting aetherforged creatures, eagles, lions, cephalopods, and even insects. Antique pocket watches and compasses lay in neat rows, their delicate mechanisms frozen in time. Their presence evoked a sense of adventure.

In a glass case, delicate porcelain teacups and saucers with intricate floral patterns awaited a sip from curious lips. Maps and atlases, their edges worn and frayed, unfurled across a nearby table. Between the shelves were pieces of art, one was a sunset made from stone rather than paint, every rock was black, white, or grey.

In a corner of the room, nestled next to a velvet-draped glass case, sat a chair that reminded Dellen of the laboratory aboard the Aetheric Cultivators’ ship. He saw points of contact for Electrical Aether.

Isabella pulled the velvet from the case revealing both controls and discrete lumps of material.

Dellen looked at her, “Are those?”

“Extras, yes, but not enough for you to use.”

Inside were metal spheres, they were unmistakably forging materials, and they called to him. There was enough there for an incomplete forging, orichalcum, voidstone, and marcanite. His fingers curled and uncurled just looking at them.

“I see your avarice, stop.”

“What’s she talking about?” Eliza asked.

“Greed, she’s talking about greed,” Gilgamesh said, despite Eliza being unable to hear him.

“Take a seat in the chair.”

Dellen sat, noting that the chair was much more comfortable than the one he had sat in on the airship. He glanced about, looking for the controls.

“Prepare yourself.”

He placed his hands flat on the points of contact, then he felt rather than heard mechanisms coming to life within the chair. A faint trickle of Electrical Aether dribbled into his palms. The controls he realised were inside the chair, and Isabella was manipulating them with Electrical Aether.

The flow of Electrical Aether increased, though not to anything that was problematic.

“What’s happening?” Eliza asked.

“There’s Electrical Aether flowing through these contact points,” Dellen said, “I think Isabella is making sure that I don’t take in too much all at once.”

“Correct.”

The flow to Dellen increased, he relaxed, resting his head on the back of the chair. “You are going to give me materials for Second Trinity, right?” He asked.

Isabella sighed, and let Miss Thornbrook pass her a bag, she pulled ingots from the bag and threw them into Dellen’s lap.

Dellen grunted, when the first ingot landed, and broke contact with the chair to catch the rest. “That was unnecessary,” he said. With an ingot in each hand, he brought the bottom of his curled palms back in contact with the chair. The flow of Aether intensified.

When the flow of Aether running through him was more than he could safely handle, he pushed Electrical Aether into the ingots in his hands. The ingots puffed into gaseous metal and were sucked in through his palms. He closed his eyes for a blink, turning his focus inward, following the flow of metal and Aether before opening his eyes to pick up another two ingots and repeating the process again, and again, and for a fourth time.

Dellen closed his eyes and turned his full attention to the storm of gaseous metal in his body. Titanium, gold, and palladium surged through him, chaotically. Dellen imposed his will and order on the forging. He began with his Spark Core, weaving the three metals into and over it feeling it strengthen and shine. Immediately the flow rushing through him grew easier to handle. Then he sent Aether crashing against the cradle behind his right lung, but it was rebuffed along with the metals.

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The metals splashed from the cradle to his lung, Dellen pushed them into his tissues, strengthening the organ, letting a small noise issue from his throat as a burning sensation ran through the right side of his chest. When his right lung had accepted the change, he pushed the Aether across his chest, bathing his left lung and heart, the changes swept through his organs before spreading out to his bones and up to his head.

The fire of forging his eyes flared his vision bright, even as his lips parted with pain, then it passed. Dellen lay, limp in the chair, pushing the remaining metals further out, to his steelskin, feeling a ripple of transformation stem from his face up through his hair and down over his body.

He opened his eyes and smiled at Isabella and Miss Thornrbook, “Thank you.”

“You have atypically refined control for an Aetherforged of the Third or perhaps even the Fourth Trinity,” Isabella said with a frown. She looked at Dellen, with her forehead wrinkled, looking confused rather than irritated.

“Can’t blame her for being confused,” Gilgamesh said, “You have experience that you shouldn’t.”

Dellen was in no rush to stand, but he was hungry, “Is there any food?” He inclined his head at Eliza and Finnegan, “Why aren’t they hungry?”

“They were guided through their forgings, that usually means people aren’t as hungry afterward,” Miss Thornbrook said.

“I would also like some food,” Finnegan said.

“But not always,” she continued.

Dellen nodded and stood even as his stomach rumbled, “Thank you very much for all of your help.”

Isabella sighed, “I expect you to procure materials for Third Trinity on your own.”

Dellen took that as a tacit acceptance of his thanks. “Can I look at your maps, please?” He walked over to her table of maps.

Isabella gave away little in the way of her opinion. “What are you looking for?”

“Ravenport,” Dellen said, “How far away is it?”

“What’s in Ravenport?” Eliza asked.

Dellen chose that moment to lie, “I’m remembering a conversation I had with a member of The Mercantile Guild, they let something slip, and then looked immediately worried, like they had said too much, they were complaining about Ravenport.”

“Why does it matter if a member of the guild was complaining about Ravenport?” Eliza said.

“If there was a clash between the guild and a group out of Ravenport, maybe that same group attacked or scattered the fleet, or they might know something about what happened to them.”

“That’s interesting,” Miss Thornbrook said, she drew his attention to a map, down in the bottom right were Evergale, Ravenport, and Copperopolis.

As Dellen's eyes traced the lines and symbols on the expansive map, his gaze swept across the parchment. He saw markings for dense woodlands, arid deserts, bustling cities, tiny hamlets, serene lakes, and the coast. Copperopolis was marked as relatively small, with Evergale rather larger. Ravenport was smaller than both of them, but there were cities that were drawn as five times the size of Evergale. His eyes were drawn to the unfamiliar names of the largest cities, Ardentholme, Solstice Citadel, Stormhold, Ayhale, and Jakross.

Dellen forced himself to push his focus back to Ravenport. He stabbed a finger onto the parchment, “How long would it take to get here?”

“You’re assuming Captain Tiffin will take us,” Eliza said.

“She will or she won’t. Either way, I’m going to find my way back to, I’m going to find my way to Ravenport.”

“It’s already suspicious enough that you’re leaping at the idea of Ravenport,” Gilgamesh said, “You can’t make mistakes like that.”

Dellen nodded in reply, “Are you and Finnegan going to come with me, stay here, or return to Copperopolis.”

Eliza’s eyes traveled the distance between Dellen’s finger and his face, “Let’s say you go to this Ravenport, and let’s say you find the fleet, what then?”

He knew that all of them would have been sold, he did not know what had happened to any of them, not even those that had joined him at The Order of The Red Truth. “I don’t know,” he admitted, “It depends on what I find.” He did not know what Lady Katherine had done with the unsullied that had been sold with him, but he knew that it would not have been easy for him to leave the compound, he had to assume that they were given no more liberties than he had experienced.

As to the rest of the survivors sold at the auction, he would need to find them and decide on a case-by-case basis. None of this helped him too much, he would try his best, but Dellen was all but certain that he would be returned to the storm, not yet at First Trinity, with only a slightly better idea of what he needed to do next.

“I’ll come with you,” Eliza said.

“I’ll come too,” Finnegan said.

“Ravenport is no place for a pair of First Trinity aetherforged,” Miss Thornbrook said.

Both Finnegan and Eliza looked at her, stricken. Miss Thornbrook sighed, “You are both, technically, adults, and I will not stop you from going to the city, but understand that it is by no means as welcoming a port of call as Evergale.”

Dellen knew that if anything, she was understating the situation.

Their discussion was interrupted by Atticus, “Miss Thornbrook?” He stood in Isabella’s outer office with Westlake, Bogsmith, and Stevens, “These three unforged said that you asked for them?”

“Lord Northcote,” Stevens said.

“Miss Thornwood, please let me introduce you to Mr. Bogsmith, Mr. Westlake, and Mr. Stevens, Captain Tiffin’s crew.”

Miss Thornwood shook her head in minor amazement, “Three unforged sailors, I cannot imagine what the skies of your city must be like. Come, gentlemen, we will have all of you forged to First Trinity in no time.” She turned back to Dellen, “I will find you to finish our discussion, and I will help you with those unforged. In the meantime, you should get something to eat.”

Dellen’s stomach rumbled again, the idea of eating sounded appealing to Dellen. “Is there food here?”

“Go outside and get some food,” Isabella said sharply, “Not everything is free.”

“Outside it is,” Dellen said, “Thank you again for your help forging, I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Isabella gave him a forced smile, “I’m sure I’ll see you all too soon.”

“She does not like what she does not understand,” Gilgamesh commented.

Dellen retraced their steps through the Aetherweave Institute, down the stairs, and to the desk where they had met Atticus. “Thank you for your help.”

Atticus blinked at them, “Delighted to be of service, you can’t imagine how exciting it was for us to meet unforged! We’ll be telling stories about this for years to come! Six of you, it’s amazing, six!”

Dellen laughed, “Thank you for all of your help.”

“Leaving so soon?” Atticus asked.

“No, we’ll be back after we eat.”

He started to give them directions to Aiman’s bazaar, but Gilgamesh spoke over him, “Don’t listen to him, you’ll just confuse yourself, he gives confusing directions, I’ll take you to a market nearby where you can get something to eat.”

“Thank you,” Dellen said once Atticus was done speaking, then he led them out the door.