Damien led Ryan, Tyler, and Bethany to the Heisar, Ryan keeping a check on things with his senses of air and water. He picked up normal readings for the space around him, but the closer they drew to the Heisar, the stronger that strange feeling he had grew.

As he was led down the steps, relying on Tyler to keep him steady, especially after nearly falling off a step, Ryan realized that he was probably sensing the Heisar itself. Whatever he was sensing, it was extremely thick the moment they moved off the steps and into the Heisar itself.

"Why are the steps just outside of the Heisar?" Ryan asked as he felt the open space around him, save for the steps and wall behind him. "Rather than inside of it?"

"Things are less likely to form on them that way," Damien answered. "The steps will wrap around the Heisar, and will descend as far as we have. So anytime we go lower, we'll add in more steps and a route from them connecting to the tunnels and caverns."

"Makes sense," Ryan nodded. "It gives you a sort of safe zone. Monsters from the Heisar will still go on the steps, but they and the alterations won't happen."

"Not as strongly, anyway," Damien said. "There are still some mutations that will occur outside of it, but they won't be as strong. Did you notice that your feet had grip on the steps?"

"Yes," Ryan moved a foot along the ground. "It was something grainy, right? You added that to make them less slip-prone. The ground we're standing on now isn't treated with that, and the moisture from the air and the Heisar has made it slightly slick."

"Indeed," Damien responded. "In other Heisars, doing that tends to make the paths slimy, so we can't treat it inside the Heisar. We're using sand for it, as we've plenty of that."

"Lowers suspicions from others if you aren't calling in resources for that," Ryan nodded.

"Come," Damien said. "Let's show you around this level first, then I'll take you down. We have this area clear, of course, and the level beneath us is carved out. We're working on the third level, now. On the 'top level', or first level of the Heisar, the one that forms naturally, mana crystals grow in abundance, this is the norm for them. Ours also has some luminescent moss growing on it. So far, the moss is growing everywhere in the Heisar. If we carve out a tunnel, moss begins to grow along its floor and walls. Not completely blanketing it, but enough to allow us to see by."

"That's interesting," Ryan said. "Is that normal?"

"For some," Damien answered. "In some, there are light crystals that form in the walls regularly. Too small to be of major use, but in enough quantities to light the way. Some Heisars, you have to bring or generate your own light. Would you like to feel some of the moss?"

They had stopped walking, and Ryan could sense a moisture-filled mass in a few clumps within his range, the air moving over them and telling him they had a softer feel to them than the crystals.

"Are you cutting off a piece, or am I touching it while it's still there?" Ryan asked.

"Either works," Damien answered.

"Tyler?" Ryan asked. "Could you touch it first, then let me touch it if it's safe?"

He knew about luminescent moss, and that it wasn't harmful, but Ryan wasn't sure if it would leave a glow on his hands, which he knew would attract attention, especially as he would have no way of knowing his hands were glowing. For that, Tyler would determine it first, so that Ryan would not have to deal with having to scrub his hands to ensure he got all the glow off, if that did happen.

Ryan watched through his elemental senses as Tyler knelt beside some of the moss and felt it, curiosity and amazement in the servant's mind. Then Tyler had Ryan crouch and move next to the moss, before taking Ryan's hand and guiding it. He knew his servant felt stupid for it because of Ryan being able to sense things, but also knew that it was necessary to keep up the act to keep the secret.

Especially as Ryan did still have a difficult time gauging distance. He had nearly stumbled on the stairs once already, proof that he had a long way to go for being a good judge of things like that. The smaller the thing was, the more difficult it would likely be for him to tell the distance and differences, until he grew used to doing so.

He marveled at the softness. It was slightly coarse, and not nearly as soft and springy as some of the moss back home, but it wasn't unpleasant to feel.

"It's a nice texture," Ryan said as he stood back up, then held up his hand as if examining it. "No glow detected!"

His companions chuckled, and he observed as Bethany felt some of the moss as well, before standing up.

"Let's move on, shall we?" Damien asked. "There isn't much else on this level."

"Sure," Ryan said.

He was led back to the steps, and noticed Bethany walking closer to him than she had been. He wasn't fully able to tell what she was thinking, as he was only using empathy, but he could sense some level of amusement in her mind. That, and curiosity about something aside from the Heisar.

They descended down to the next level, and Ryan turned off his sense of air to look through his sense of earth mixed with his sense of water. His elemental senses weren't limited by the air around him, as it was simply detecting all of that element in a range around him. This allowed him to look through walls with ease.

With his senses of water and earth active, the walls of the Heisar turned from air voids with a couple of minuscule pockets, with some water saturation, to solid blocks in his vision with a few slight near-voids, with plenty of water saturation. He could also detect the tunnel to their right, past four feet of stone.

"Damien?" Ryan asked as their guide continued explaining things to Tyler and Bethany. "Is it possible for there to be small pockets where something forms, in addition to the large ones which are turned into tunnels and caverns?"

"Yes," Damien answered. "Though more often than not, we find them while clearing a tunnel. When that happens, one of two things occur. Best-case scenario, it's something valuable and we didn't clear the section it's in. That allows us end the tunnel there and divert around it. If it's not valuable or we didn't notice it and cleared the spot where its hole is, we lose that spawn point."

"So if there was something six inches in right here," Ryan tapped the wall. "And you wanted to connect this tunnel to another one, and dug through here, but you just cleared the gap by several feet deep at a time, then you'd no longer be able to mine that resource from that spot. But if, say, you went in six inches, found the hole, and then left it like that, you'd be able to continue to?"

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"Yes," Damien nodded. "If it's not a rare or valuable resource, we'd clear right through it to make the connection. So if it were, say, a water crystal? We can lose that, considering how much of it just grows. Not only that, but water crystals grow in the walls of the tunnels already, so we may actually end up with more of it growing in that space just by clearing the tunnel."

"And if it's valuable and not common," Ryan said. "You'd want to keep that spawn point to maximize how much you have."

"Correct," Damien answered. "Our earth mages aren't talented enough to do precise measurings, so it's happened twice already where we cleared a spawn point for something small. Thankfully, neither have been rare enough to be a dip in the resource. Once we're further down, we will slow our progress, to allow for more accurate readings where possible."

Ryan could feel a hesitation in the man's mind, and knew what he was wanting to say. The Novars and the Veloases both had earth mages who could perform a more precise detection. Unlike his sense, it was done through vibrations – they would feel the walls, doing their best to determine the distance based on the slight vibrations they detected with every movement and tap of the wall.

With most of the Mieria Family's earth mages being lesser ones, their family mostly consisting of water mages, it made sense they wouldn't have the sort of talent necessary for that. The Mierias were also rushing through the first few levels to make it viable for harvesting resources. The really rare stuff would be lower down.

Damien wanted an earth mage who could perform such a spell to help, but knew he couldn't ask for that, especially not from the Novars. Not yet, at any rate. Even if the Novars would be willing to supply it, they weren't on good enough terms for Damien to ask for something like that and keep his dignity and honor intact. It would come off as begging for a stronger Family's aid.

"I can call my father," Ryan told Damien. "And see about having one of our earth mages who helped excavate our own Heisar come out. If you were willing, of course. Bethany told me about why she's really out here, so I'm sure it won't be too upsetting for you."

He felt Bethany turn nervous as Damien's mind became worried.

"I'm not upset," Ryan told Damien. "The logic behind it is sound. The Third Age of Magic is about to end, and you know you will end up as part of the most powerful Family in the world. You also suspect that there will be a union of my Family and the Veloas Family. You may not have been able to become a part of the Novar Family and have a child with our blood, but there is an opportunity available to you for that to happen with another member. As long as you manage to succeed before the union and the wars that will inevitably begin, or you may end up only having our blood after several generations. Do not forget, Damien – I am the next head of the Novars. I won't blame you for planning something I, myself would do."

"Ryan," Damien said. "Most of us wouldn't do that. We would, however, punish for plotting."

"Oh, I intend on that," Ryan smiled. "But not in a way that would really cause problems. Not any real problems, even if they're a headache or embarrassing. That's not my style, not for something so simple and harmless."

No, he planned on informing his father about Damien's suspicions and desire to merge their lineages directly, and the reason for Damien's old hatred of their family. He would do that while asking about an earth mage coming out. Knowing his father, the result would be interesting, amusing, or both.

"Would you like me to call my father and have him send an earth mage out?" Ryan asked. "We'll require payment for it, naturally, but I'm sure that can be arranged."

"If your father is willing to be so kind to us," Damien said. "That would be acceptable. I would be willing to negotiate a price for that as well."

"Excellent," Ryan smiled. "I'll do that once we're out of here, then."

Curiosity suddenly spiked in his servant, and Ryan dismissed it, knowing the reason for it. Tyler was more than likely wondering if Ryan had detected something within the walls of the tunnel. The answer was 'yes', though the teen wasn't certain what it was, just that it seemed hard and did register through his earth sense. Based on the rough outline he could manage of it, it was some sort of crystal. That meant it was likely just a water, earth, or mana crystal, but it had still sparked his curiosity anyway. After all, if there was an ordinary crystal in a pocket that was missed, there were doubtlessly more rare things that would be as well.

"Shall we continue?" Ryan asked. "Bethany mentioned something about a creature that is unique to the Raxvar Corporation's Heisar with the manalirate?"

"Yes," Damien said. "It's in a chamber not far from here, a tortoise whose shell grows mushrooms that can be mixed into potions that will restore some mana when consumed."

"Mana potions?" Ryan asked as they began walking again. "Ah, the exitaki mushrooms?"

"Yes," Damien confirmed, and Ryan watched as the man nodded, his servant giving him a curious look. "They're not quite as rare as manalirate, but they aren't common, either. As one of only a handful of plants known to be able to restore mana, they're quite valuable."

"Our Heisar has verika trees in one of its chambers," Ryan nodded. "The juice of the fruit they grow can be mixed into mana potions as well. Father let me try one when I was younger, just a small sip. It wasn't exactly pleasant to the taste, but enough to let me know I'd probably only ever drink it in an emergency once my magic had awakened."

"He let you drink some?" Alarm could be felt in Damien's mind as confusion filled the minds of Bethany and Tyler.

He didn't blame Damien for the panic, mana potions were toxic to anyone who didn't have awakened magic. Drinking too much of them for someone with awakened magic was also dangerous, though the tolerance level was higher the larger the mana pool the mage possessed. To allow a child to drink a mana potion was illegal under the Guilds and Orders and considered child abuse. Even the Families detested people who willingly allowed children to drink them.

"Father had a healer on standby," Ryan said. "Just in case of ill effects, and only allowed me a tiny amount. I was eleven at the time, and he and the healer made sure the amount I consumed was only enough to taste the flavor of it, with no more than a stomachache as a side-effect. We were temporarily storing several crates of them in the main house, and I was constantly escaping my servants in an effort to try to taste them. He figured that if he gave me a few drops of one after the twelfth time in three days that they'd caught me attempting to break into the storage room, it would be enough to deter me from trying them on my own. I don't actually remember why we were storing them, but I do remember that I decided I'd only ever drink one in an emergency. Hopefully, that never arises."

With how much mana Ryan had, if he needed a mana potion, then there was probably something pretty bad going on.

"I see," Damien said, his mind relaxing, and Ryan smiled.

"Yes," Ryan said. "I know it's not exactly the best thing in most circumstances, but in that one, it was. I remember having the taste stuck in my mouth for a week, too."

"Yes," Damien chuckled. "It does linger. Would you like to see the tortoise?"

"Sure," Ryan said. "Though after, I think I'm going to head back up. I'm actually a little more exhausted than I realized, and want to take a nap before dinner."

Damien led the trio of teens to the chamber, and heard Tyler gasp and sensed both his wonder and Bethany's, along with their nervousness. Tyler was on guard, which told Ryan that the tortoise was probably not a friendly one. The snapping and groaning he heard shortly after confirmed that.

"Sounds friendly," he said. "Mind if I give it a pet?"

"Only if you want to lose your hand," Damien told him. "They're not the friendliest of creatures, and there are only a few of us here right now who can handle it."

"Aw," Ryan pouted. "Well, I suppose we should get going, then. Thank you for the tour, Damien."

"You're welcome," Damien responded. "I'm going to head down to where they're excavating now, you have a good day."

"You as well," Ryan responded. "Bethany? Would you care to take my arm to lead me back up?"

"Sure," he felt the amusement in her mind.

"And could you do the driving of the boat, too?" He asked. "Maybe even teach Tyler how? I'm sure he's dying to know. It'll help us avoid breaking more servants, too."

Embarrassment filled Tyler's mind as the servant briefly tightened his grip on Ryan's arm, and Ryan chuckled. He was just poking fun at his friend, but didn't realize that his servant actually did want to learn how to perform the necessary spells for that.

"I can do that!" Bethany laughed as she moved closer to him, taking his arm as Tyler stepped back. "Let's go."