Chrys left to inform Granix of my impending arrival and say her own good-byes. She left a copper statuette on the table that captured what my face now looked like, in copper. I had the face of a dragon, complete with an extended snout, a longer tongue, and teeth that could rip the hard crust of the stonefruit with barely any effort.

“What the fuck, Arx Maxima!?” I blew up, finally, when I was certain Chrys was no longer close enough to hear my explosion.

“Is the Mask of Azazel not to your liking?” Arx Maxima’s question was asked with such freedom of guilt, embodied by so much innocence, that I had a hard time hanging on to my anger in the face of her confusion. Oh wait, no I didn’t, I had the face of a lizard, I was still angry as hell.

“It melted my face off, won’t come off, and made me into a monster!” I hissed at the golden crystal. Since when did I hiss? It felt natural, and sounded quite threatening, with my newly shaped mouth.

“You wanted power, you gained power. Do you wish to be powerful enough to save your brother from the grasp of Mithras before their bond is unbreakable, or do you wish to remain the powerless child who left Havenstone, or the one cowering before Corvusol? What attachment do you have to who you were? Who do you want to be?”

Arx Maxima’s crystal sparkled and shone before me. Did what I look like matter? If Chrys could alter my appearance and coloration that easily, perhaps she could reshape my face over time, and if she couldn’t, there might be others who could. In the vast see of the mists, anything could be found if you but had the will. The clock on restoring the mind and soul of Etienne ticked onward.

“You’re right,” I begrudgingly nodded to Arx Maxima. I could worry about not being a monster when Etienne was safe. After Mithras paid for casting me aside to die while stealing the mind and soul of my brother, and who knew how many others. “But in the future? Tell me about these things, suddenly having a different head is traumatic enough, without feeling like your partner just betrayed you.”

“Understood. I, Arx Maxima, will endeavor to be more forthcoming with you. The human form is one hard pressed to bear my power, you are the first to join the ranks of my delegates. The more powerful you grow, the more you will deviate from humanity. It is not too late to unbind me, if you choose humanity over me.” Arx Maxima’s response surprised me. She vowed to be more forthcoming, and then immediately followed through. I half expected her to offer me empty platitudes, and string me along until it was too late.

As an Enkindler, I could find more powers, but so far the abilities Arx Maxima gave were above and beyond what I had seen in others at comparable stages. That, and something about the golden crystal called to me, a siren song of mystery and taboo, things I wanted to know and things I shouldn’t know.

“Why do I have to use my Modify Vector to attract your fragments, why can’t you do it?” I asked a question that had gnawed at my stomach for days.

“I am cursed. When Amon and Mithras sealed me in that cave they cursed me into being unable to draw my fragments to myself, they are repelled from me. But you, my envoy, can alter the vectors of the curse for short durations, long enough for me to reintegrate fragments before the curse forces them away again. That is why the energy cost for that vector manipulation is so high, you are challenging the will of Amon and Mithras each time.”

Again, Arx Maxima spoke with what seemed to be complete honesty. That she was cursed didn’t really strike me as a shock. Images flickered through my mind of my body crashing into a crystal, and the experience of the silicate fragments of Arx Maxima bonding to my body.

“You were trapped in that cave, too, weren’t you?” I guessed.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The crystal spun, glittering in front of me, for long seconds before it spoke again.

“I was the catalyst for the end of the Universe. Not the intended end of the world, the glory of Cosmogenesis, but the accidental catastrophe that created the Gossamyr. An impossibility. I struck something in hyperspace. The impact caused both physical and metaphysical shockwaves that unraveled and reshaped the fabric of existence. Planes that once overlapped the Material Plane were now stitched together in a constantly changing patchwork.”

“Huh. What’d you hit?” I didn’t understand a lot of that explanation, but it didn’t sound like it was Arx Maxima’s fault from where I stood.

“Unknown,” Arx Maxima replied.

“You don’t even have a guess?” I prodded a little more.

“The Divine?” Arx Maxima asked, more than told, me.

“Well, anyway. It wasn’t your fault, so why did they break you up and lock you in the cave?” It didn’t seem to add up to me.

“They refused to accept my ignorance. It was deemed impossible to be an accident, and instead opted for the belief that I initiated Cosmogenesis under the Captain’s orders and failed.” Arx Maxima’s resentment had coalesced for a long time and simmered in a stew of vindictive dreams of retribution. I could hear it, and I empathized. I wanted to punch those assholes in the face for her.

“Shitty,” I said softly. I went to rub my forehead, but stopped when I felt the spike that arose between my eyes, and the scales that covered my face now. Flows of mist still tracked along the regular, human, skin on my hands in the shape of scales. Would I be a full dragon, by the time I saved Etienne? Mom would have no choice but to acknowledge I at least sounded more masculine now. If she didn’t scream when she saw me.

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“Alright. So, we need more power, and more allies. Chrys wants to join me, so that’s our first ally.

Reminder: Please visit the nearest Talent Management Office to receive your promotion.

“Also, I keep getting told to visit the nearest Talent Management Office to receive my promotion. How do we do that?”

“We search for fragments until we find one with a TMO inside of it.” Arx Maxima’s answer didn’t tell me much about what a Talent Management Office was, but if we only had to get more fragments, we could do that. I pushed myself up from the table and grabbed a pack one of the Gneisslings I’d enkindled had gifted me. The black silk backpack, while simple, had the feel of being the work of a master. Apparently an artisan named Galena had a large number of arachnids she tended and coaxed into the creation of clothing, necessities, but mostly works of art.

I left the copper key on the table and made my way to the center of the chamber where Granix and Chrys, along with most of the inhabitants of Schieferon waited for me. The observers didn’t seem very surprised by my change in appearance, only by the non-gold coloration of my dragon face.

“The Mask of the Beast suits you well, Emery!” Rock Lord Granix’s voice boomed through the large disc shaped communal chamber.

“Thank you, the changes were more than I expected, but I give full credit for it suiting me to Chrys.” I bowed my head to the coppery-blue-green woman as I came to a stop next to her, before the colossal Rock Lord.

“Chrys tells me you have agreed to take her with you?” Granix probed.

I smiled a little and realized it would look a lot different now that I had so many ridiculously sharp teeth that could rend stone as easily as flesh. I could almost hear Mom’s voice whisper you had such an adorable smile, and it ran a shiver down my spine.

“Chrys is welcome company, and free to join me for as long as she wants to walk alongside me.” I hadn’t expected her to want to get involved with Mist Lords, Enkindlers, barbaric food eaters, and all that that entailed, but I wasn’t about to turn her company down.

“My little pebble has told me the vaguest details of where you go, Emery. Both of you should have a care in confronting any plots of any Mist Lord, but another Enkindler once told me that to reach the highest peak you must traverse the crucible of risk and wager life and liberty for your goal. When your family business is concluded, return to visit us. The Stone King wishes to meet you upon your return.” Granix’s voice rumbled on, although the last seemed to surprise the citizens of Schieferon.

“The Stone King!” echoed across the chamber, repeated by dozens of different Gneisslings. I hoped that wasn’t a bad thing.

“We’ll be as careful as we can, and I look forward to meeting you again on my return, Lord Granix, and to meet the venerated leader of your race, the mighty Stone King.” For all that I’d been amongst them for over a week, I hadn’t learned much of anything about the Stone King. The Gneisslings spoke about him the way the people of Solarias spoke of Mithras. Was he a god? A powerful Mist Lord? Did he exist in physical form, or was this mysterious monarch a sapient concept that existed only in their collective belief? Maybe I could learn more from Chrys on our journey, but she had been tight lipped so far.

“Create a Doorway against that wall,” Arx Maxima half commanded, half suggested, to me. The golden diamond glowed in what I had taken to calling north, which is how I deduced where she meant, considering that the entire exterior of the chamber was one continuous wall.

“Allow me to leave a promise of our return,” I said and lifted my hand. Arx Maxima hadn’t said a wall, but a Doorway. I envisioned a thick stone door constructed of pillars of EternaStone, topped with an EternaStone header. Simple, basic, and a rock door that felt entirely at home in the environs of the Gneisslings.

“What is a Door? A barrier that separates two spaces, a threshold that allows transition from one distinct environment to another. It is an opportunity. An open door leads to a destination, while a closed door is a denial of opportunity, control over your free movement.

What is a Window? It, too, is a barrier separating two boundaries. Yet a window allows light pass through. A window is a tool of lighting, it allows or invites observation and contemplation, it is a bridge between the in and the out, the known and the hidden.

But a portal, a portal can be a window, or a door, or both, or so much more. With an eye for thresholds, a portal can be the window to your desires, the doorway to unlimited treasure, or vacuum drawing you into the deepest abyss. Awaken the power within you to Create Portal.”

Arx Maxima sometimes spoke like a teacher, and when she adopted the instructive tone I found it impossible to ignore her. In these few moments, she had an allure similar to the glamour of Amaranthine Sadow, and I wanted to carry out her instructions perfectly, for they held the secrets of wisdom and power that I wanted. Well, I wanted the power. Wisdom might be nice, but right now I needed power more than anything.

“Create Portal!” I cried the words, and the blocks of EternaStone flowed into reality, along with nearly half of my energy reserves. Losing so much of my power at once felt like having the wind knocked out of me, and I coughed and wheezed a little, not used to the changes of my throat. In the coughing I nearly bit through my tongue and had to expend even more energy to heal the puncture wounds I earned from biting my tongue.

The doorway that sat against the exterior of the chamber remained dark, but when I looked at it I could sense it wasn’t dormant. I just hadn’t connected it to anything. A new sensation dawned in my mind, a sense of a single point in a rocky environment. Could I create a network of these portals?

With Arx Maxima’s coaching I explained what I had done to Granix.

“When Chrys and I return, we shall do so through that portal. Yet our departure shall be the same as those before us, and we will exit through the mine gate, and travel to the ruins of the Ancients.”

Granix stared at the dormant gate apprehensively, but after a nod from Chrys he rumbled a response.

“Then may you eradicate the Stalking Scavs as you did with Ol’ Snappy.” With that, Chrys took the first step towards the mine gate, and I fell into step with her. Towards adventure, and indirectly, towards Havenstone.

I enjoyed my time in Schieferon, but the binding of countless earth, stone, and artisanal concepts for a week straight had been something of a sensory overload on rocks, rocks, rocks, and had contributed nearly nothing to my own advancement.

With each step beyond the gates, I could feel an electric agitation in my body, a need to stretch, to move, to strike. I felt like a boiling pot, the lid ready to shoot off under the explosive pressure inside of me. I could hear the whispers of the maddening Ebon Gale, and sparks of black lightning danced at my finger tips.

Katrina sang a song of primal destruction, of beautiful annihilation, and it refused to be left behind by my other concepts. It wasn’t just Katrina, though. I could feel the imbalance. My strength and agility concepts had barely advanced, while vitality and to a lesser extent essence, had seen significant growth. Instinctively, I knew that imbalance was dangerous.