There was no sense of relief or even joy at their closing of the first Gate together. Verne apologized for being wrong but for some reason it didn’t settle anything in Aris.

She aided Laell for the rest of the night in investigating the area around where the Gate was and came to the conclusion it was one that was naturally occurring - this was troubling news since it meant the situation has come to a point where Gates are opening by themselves so near the Heart.

“If that’s the case, it’s only going to get worse,” Aris said to the runist when they finally made camp at the dead of night. They decided to spend the night not too far from the small town that was recently vacated in case Bringers came to investigate what remains. “Even if Ral and I can close them, it’s not going to mean anything if too many of them open at the same time.”

“I-if we can predict the lo-locations, it would be easier,” Laell said thoughtfully.

“We know that the majority of the Gates exist north west of the Heart,” Verne said. “It’s where we were focusing our efforts.”

Aris folded her arms around her against the night chill. “That’s what I don’t get. Why so far away? If the ones that open naturally randomly spawn so far away, that makes sense. But Bringers are opening gates purposely at such a distance.”

“They like to target small, defenseless towns,” Ral said, his voice bitter.

“But before us, even people at the Heart wouldn’t have defense. Remember Rask told us how our Grandfather was a victim too? Back then a Gate opened right in the Heart. My point is why couldn’t they just target places with the most Gaians to do the most amount of damage?”

“S-so the location matters…” Laell said this almost too softly for anyone else to hear. Aris heard a slight ruffling sound, then the familiar scrape of pencil against parchment. “W-we chart it back at th-the Academy.”

“There hasn’t been a pattern observed,” Verne said. “At least not yet.”

“We haven’t gotten all the locations plotted either,” Ral added. “Like information from Rask.”

“N-no, Verne is right. There i-isn’t really a pattern,” Laell said but the sounds of her scribbling away continued. “At l-least to people with n-normal sight.”

Right then, a set of runes glimmered into view for Aris. Laell had used simple runes such that they would activate and be seen for Aris in the Great Solvent.

“This is a-approximate,” Laell muttered. She was refraining from drawing on the only map they had.

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Aris stared at it, brows furrowed behind the bandages on her head. The parchment ruffled as Laell shifted it. Aris frowned deeper. “Do it again but with the ones where we know someone purposely opened it.”

“Ta rune for the ones w-we know for sure,” Laell said. “And ko rune for suspected. As f-far as I remember.”

Verne helped her plot a few points as well as he was helping Yepla deploy students to help. One by one, spots lit up light stars in front of her and shifted when Laell held it up again. With a thrill, Aris stood when she saw that many of the points aligned in the Solvent space in front of her. It wasn’t anything special - just two relatively straight lines meeting at one point to form an angle. She tried to trace it out in the real space with her finger. “It’s the start of a triangle,” she said to Laell.

Laell made a concerned sound. Aris recalled being in that runeology classroom where Laell worked on an enchantment to close Gates. It was precisely why she was with them - to try and get the damn closing enchantment to work since the Academy refuses to let anyone see the recorded runes made to open one.

However Laell knew of one detail: in the past, Gates were only able to open with a specific arrangement of runes cast with a specific triangulation array. What texts that are not kept secret also show that shape required to make the enchantment ‘work.’ There is evidence that arranging specific runes in a triangle is no longer required to open a Gate. It led the runeology department (or at least Laell) to suspect that somebody had been working on an improvement or an alternative to Gate opening enchantments. Obviously it points to the Bringers conducting research on the matter.

It led to a more interesting question: why would the Bringers want a simpler enchantment? For Aris, the only reason she would want to concentrate on reducing or simplifying an enchanting circle was because it was to be a part of some bigger enchantment.

Aris stared at the lit up runes in front of her. What if the enchantment in the material world no longer requires a triangular shape to open a Gate as it is to be a small part of a grand enchantment? Perhaps the former enchantment was a rudimentary, almost ham-fisted way of casting the spell and they have improved upon it by now. But for the large scale one they are planning around the heart, the triangle shape is required again?

What if Mind was never poking holes in the dam to cause a flood, but merely testing out enchantments and working towards one last act of desperation?

The Finale is coming… daughter of moon.

“We have to find Rask,” she said. “And use the information he’s collected to complete this.”

“Agreed,” Ral said. “We’ll do more scouting tomorrow. There’s bound to be people who would recognize a freerunner.”

“No, we have something more pressing,” Aris said. “There is a point where the two lines intersect from the pattern I can see. We have to find out where that is on the map.”

Laell immediately got her meaning and started etching in runes on the parchment, hoping it would coincide with the intersection only Aris could see in the Great solvent. After a long stretch of trial and error, they had an approximate location while comparing it to a map.

“Gymor,” Verne muttered after a few moments. “It’s a guard outpost with a settlement attached to it. Large population and probably one of the few places people feel safe.”

He didn’t speak the words they were all thinking: Gymor sounded like the perfect place for Bringers to open a Gate.