Ryan shifted his water to inform the elementals they were ready, then began following as Grand Storm led the way. They spent an hour walking through the valley, which consisted of nothing but hard dirt, nearly stone. Then, they walked up the mountain for nearly half an hour. Through the trip, Ryan both spoke with the elementals and explained to the others what he had been informed, as well as his sensing spells and how they worked.

"The strange part," Grand Storm told Ryan after they stopped. "Is that the location simply disappears after."

"It does?" Ryan asked.

"Yes," Grand Storm answered. "We are now in the location where we exited it, yet as you can sense, the base of operations exists no more. When we succeed in exiting it, we lose our ability to sense it, and it is as if it were never here."

Ryan frowned and he examined everything within the eighty feet of his current range. No signs a building had ever been there, just the hard land of the mountain. Despite that, the air felt off to him, and it took him a moment to realize why.

There was something he was sensing there, something he had sensed not that long before. Every time Emily manipulated space to expand the suite's common room, he sensed it. The Blessed Ones had told him he was sensing the spatial magic at work.

Even if he needed to actively use his elemental senses, there were a few things he would always be able to sense. No mortal could ever trick a god's senses for space, and any time he entered a place where it was distorted or manipulated, he would know immediately. He would even be able to tell the extent of the manipulation and how it worked.

Despite that particular ability of his, he found it did not work on the residual feeling left behind by the spatial spell. His knowledge of spatial magics was limited as well, as users of it were nearly as rare as chronomancers. He didn't know if his father could use them, but doubted it due to having never heard even the slightest rumor of it.

Actually, Ryan thought. That makes it likely he can use spatial magics.

After all, his father was rumored to be powerful, even if very few knew he was a Specialist. But many would still make speculations, especially among those who knew his father was a Jewel as powerful as he was, yet not once did Ryan ever hear a single rumor.

Which meant it was possible his father had concealed all traces of that ability of his, possibly through the manipulation of memories and use of a geas to prevent people from even jokingly suggesting the possibility.

"You're frowning," Tyler said. "There's no building here, are we taking a break?"

"The building was here," Ryan answered. "But the guilty party is using some sort of spatial spell. It seems that once they found their place compromised by the sudden appearance of elementals, they cut off whatever connection they had to here. How would such a spell not be noticed? Or a building? I'm sure the Novarax would have noticed something like that."

"If I may, sir," Mary said.

"Go ahead," Ryan said.

"There is a spell some Jewels can perform," she said. "Called 'reality marble'."

"Reality marble?" Ryan asked. "What is that?"

"It's when they create," she explained. "A separate space or dimension from our own, linked to ours. Your great-great-great grandmother, Helena Novar, could create ones large enough to fit the main estate inside."

"The Silver Oracle?" Ryan asked. "Rumors have it that she died performing some sort of experiment when she was only twenty-three. I imagine it would not have been easy to learn how to create a space that large. How did it function?"

"They would anchor it," Mary explained. "To a location somewhere in the world. Then, they would create a gate to it that linked the inside with somewhere outside. It could be a doorway, an archway, just a hole – anything you can pass through or pass something through. Only through the gate could someone enter it, but they could create multiple gates."

"Which meant," Ryan said. "They could have placed a gate here, then when the elementals broke out, removed the gate and moved it somewhere else."

If that was the case, there would be signs of the gate somewhere. That also explained why the elementals were taken to one area, but then exited through another – the spot they were at was the original gate location, then they removed it and put it somewhere else after the location was compromised.

Ryan turned on his sense of earth as well and pulled his elemental senses down to only fifty feet in range.

"Grand Storm," he spoke through through his water. "Where, exactly, did you exit at?"

"Right where I am hovering."

Ryan examined the soil there with his senses. At first, he noticed nothing, but something felt off to him. It was when he realized that several large rocks in the area formed a ring that he began to pay closer attention to things.

The rocks sat in what appeared to be a natural way, with many others around, smaller and larger. He could make any number of rings with them, from rocks of similar sizes to rocks of vastly different sizes. Despite that, the six rocks which caught his attention were unique in two ways. The first was that each was the size of a large grapefruit and completely flat on the side resting on the ground. The second was that the flat side had some sort of runes etched into them.

One of the six rocks sat away from the others, though Ryan could figure out where it had originally rested, before it was cracked on the underside to break the runes.

As soon as he took note of them, Ryan lifted the six stones and flipped them over, pulling the anomaly back to its original spot.

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"The crack," Ryan said indicated the damaged rock. "Was probably to avoid anyone noticing a broken rock. They could simply crack the underside and cancel the spell. The damage conveniently removed some of the runes, though I doubt we'd be able to fix it. I'm sure only the mage who created the reality marble could actually open a gate there."

"So the elementals," Tyler said. "Came out through some sort of gate created by a ring of stones?"

"Possibly," Ryan said. "Thoughts, Mary? Since you seem to have some knowledge of this sort of thing."

He could tell she noticed the suspicion in his voice by the way her mind reacted to it.

"I am a Jewel," she informed him. "Of minor magical power. I'm only in the Advanced Tiers. However, I can perform a minor spatial spell, so I've done a little research in order to find out what else I could do, with training."

There was sincerity in her mind, and Ryan could tell she was telling the truth by her thoughts, having touched into his telepathy for a few moments.

"What do you know?" Ryan asked.

"It's possible," she said. "That they created two spells here. The first is a portal, which would be enough to act as a gate. Then, they linked the portal into the reality marble, thus creating a gate into it."

"Alright," Ryan said, then relayed the information to the lightning elementals as he released his sense of earth and expanded his others back out.

"I will ask the Bright Spots to assist us," Grand Storm told him. "In locating another location such as this. What you have said now makes sense. It has been many cycles since I was last in a reality marble, I had forgotten what they were like. Now that I ponder upon it, I can confirm that we were within one after our capture."

"You didn't notice yourself entering it?" Ryan asked.

"We were incapacitated," the elemental responded. "There was no way for me to distinguish between the cage and elsewhere."

"Do you have signal?" Ryan asked Tyler, then watched as his servant pulled out one of the phones Ryan's entourage had been given prior to his arrival.

"Yes, sir," Tyler answered after a check, and Ryan sensed his servant's unease. "They're not going to… zap the phones, are they?"

"Please don't interfere with the technology my staff has," Ryan told the elementals.

"We will not," Grand Storm responded. "We can amuse ourselves with the other Slow Ones."

"Thank you," Ryan responded, then switch back to his voice. "They will not."

"Understood."

"Call my father," Ryan instructed. "Then hand me the phone."

"Yes, sir," Tyler obeyed, and Ryan put the phone to his ear and listened.

"Hello," his father answered after the first ring.

"Hello, Father," Ryan said. "Can you make up a list of every Jewel who is known to have spatial magics, publicly or not?"

"Does this have to do with your business with the elementals?" His father asked.

"Yes," Ryan responded. "I specifically need a list of any Jewels who can create reality marbles, but a list of any who can perform spatial magic will be enough to start with. Once we have that, we'll need to compare it to the log of anyone who has entered Volnal in the last few months. There's always the chance they took the hard way to enter, but I still want to do this as well, as it might make things easier."

"I'll have someone work up that list," his father said. "You're looking into reality marbles?"

"Yeah," Ryan answered. "Someone made a gate around ten feet in diameter linked into a reality marble."

He manipulated one of the stones with the runes into the air, then into his hand, turning it over. The closer it was to him, the more of the residual spatial magic he could sense, which told him they were the cause of the feeling.

"They did a sloppy cleanup," he said, then explained to his father what was going on.

For the current reset, he didn't care about his father knowing everything, as it would make things easier to deal with things and require less restraint and less careful wording on his part.

"That sounds difficult," his father told him. "I'll also investigate the list of those who can use spatial magic to see who has the means to enter there or create what's necessary to restrain a lightning elemental. It would be a resource-intensive task, so that should narrow the list down further."

"Thank you," Ryan said. "We have until the new moon after this one to stop them. If not, I can always stop them during it, but I'd rather deal with it before then."

"And how would you deal with it during that?" His father asked.

"I'd kill them," Ryan answered. "Simple as that. It wouldn't be the first time I've killed, so I won't sleep badly for it. Plus, I'm sure my interrogations were more affecting of a psyche than killing would be."

"You and I are going to have a discussion about those interrogations in the future."

"Probably," Ryan shrugged, knowing it would happen even through resets. "Thanks, Father."

"You're welcome, Ryan," his father responded. "Did you settle into the mansion first, or did you go straight to investigating?"

"We stopped at the mansion first," Ryan answered. "I learned its layout, then ate lunch before coming here. We'll head back to it soon, and I'll check out the Heisar tomorrow."

"I'd rather you didn't."

"Father," Ryan said. "I can snuff out someone's life in a moment. All it takes is stopping the bloodflow in them, inserting air into their brain or heart, and probably a few other things. I can take a few moments longer and suffocate or drown someone, too. I can raise their body temperature to the point where they cook themselves, even at a distance. If I want to kill someone, I don't need to send a spell towards them, only to be blocked. I can simply create it in or on them.

"Because of that," Ryan continued, aware of the sudden unease all four of his companions felt at his words. "I can do the same thing to any creatures we might find in the Heisar. It's really no trouble for me. With my empathy and elemental senses, I would notice anything coming before it did. Honestly, Father, I'll be safe. And I'll take Tyler and a few other guards with me as well, just in case."

"I'm still going to worry," his father said. "I'd rather you not go into the Heisar without me present. I was planning on inspecting it soon, anyway, just to make sure it hasn't expanded without us being alerted. If you can wait a couple of weeks, I can guide you through it."

"Maybe," Ryan said. "But neither Tyler nor my guards know what's supposed to be in it. I do, because of the meetings I've sat in on. They'll have no idea I'd be aware of any differences, and it would be more fun if you showed up already knowing things were wrong, wouldn't it? They'd not expect my guards or servant to know there's something wrong, as they wouldn't normally be in on such a discussion."

He could hear his father sigh at the suggestion, and knew his father had agreed. There was amusement in the sigh.

"Alright," his father said. "There's the chance they'd expect it to be an official inspection, but by Tyler or the guards rather than you. Keep your mind open to that."

"Will do!" Ryan grinned. "But if they don't expect that, it'll be even more fun for you! Well, and me, once you arrive and reveal you know everything that's different, but still. Or I can ditch the guards for it, saying that my visit to it is just a trust exercise between me and them. Kendra was already trying to win my trust right after my arrival. Since Tyler's my servant and will act it with them around, they won't expect him to know anything – or to say something, if something is different from what he's aware of."

"Please be safe," his father responded. "And think rationally."

"I will," Ryan said. "Goodbye, Father."

"Goodbye, Ryan," his father responded, and Ryan ended the call.

"Just me and you tomorrow?" Tyler asked as he accepted his phone back.

"Yep!" Ryan responded. "I'm a lot more powerful than they'd expect me to be, and what I said is true. They might suspect a guard, but not a servant. Come on, let's head back down. Call the mansion and let them know to have something ready for us to eat when we return, too. I'm going to be hungry."