Ranvir stepped through the door to the Masters’ Tower, as Sansir held it open.

“It’s getting a bit cold, isn’t it?” Grev added, as he followed behind.

“Nah,” Sansir said. “You’re just being a baby.” He knocked Grev with his shoulder playfully.

“Northerners.” Grev grumbled, pulling his coat tighter around himself.

Inside the stark entrance of the tower, waited Master Svenar and Master Ayvir. They were in quiet conversation with each other, but broke apart as the students entered the hall.

“You’re here.” Master Svenar said. “Good. As I was saying to Master Ayvir, we’re waiting for Administrator Kirs to return and declare Student Esmund ready to begin.” He sounded a little skeptical, which Ranvir expected. There was a lot of pride bound up in being both a Master and a Teacher. That someone with no experience or training could figure out truths about being a tethered had to rankle him on some level.

Master Ayvir approached them, but Master Svenar kept his distance, staying close to the door leading to the stairway.

“Students.” Ayvir greeted them with an easy smile. “I hope your training is going well.” He said to Ranvir, who hadn’t showed up for one of Master Ayvir’s classes since the second trimester started.

Ranvir scratched his neck. “It’s going alright. I’ve been trying to develop a feeling for different tether exercises.” He shrugged.

“How’s that going?”

Ranvir tilted his head back and forth. “It’s going okay. There are a few that I think do work and help the tether, but best I can tell they’re rather edge cases and nothing solid. Other than that, mostly normal training along with my usual habits.” He briefly popped the space bubble he’d made, displaying the finger-length obsidian. Though at this point it was getting kind of small for what he could manage. He’d created a space around a fork during the exam, but hadn’t managed that feat again since.

“Interesting.” Master Ayvir said, turning his attention to Sansir. “And how’s your studies going?”

Before Sansir could answer, the door popped open. Kirs stood in the doorway, waving for them to enter. “Please keep quiet. He’s not deep in the trance, but he’s there.”

The others nodded and silently followed after her. Ranvir had tried the ritual a couple times, but they took at least half an hour to set up, if you were fast, and did very little to train his tether. Though for purposes like this, both he and Kirs, suspected it would do nicely.

As they descended the stairs, Ayvir caught up to Master Svenar as Kirs fell back. “Figured out anything?”

Ranvir winced, tilting his head back and forth. “It’s a little up in the air. I have something that works, but its rough. There’s definitely a way for it to work better.”

“It doesn’t need to work perfectly. It just needs to get the job done.” Kirs replied, her voice both stern and understanding.

“Then yes, I have something for dead threads.” Ranvir continued through the corner of his mouth. “But it could be better.”

Kirs rolled her eyes, then moved to stab his side with a finger. Ranvir quickly danced around Sansir and Grev, putting them between him and her weapon of moderate pain.

“I thought we were supposed to be quiet.” Master Svenar said over his shoulder.

Ranvir who’d let out a yelp when he’d seen her ready the finger, looked to the floor in embarrassment.

They soon made it to the room Master Svenar’d set aside. He stopped before they entered, turning towards the others.

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“Normally, I wouldn’t start this late. But due to some timing issues with the new schedule we’re forced to begin now.” He turned towards Master Ayvir. “Master Ayvir’s here, both to provide assistance and to learn. He’s new to both his stage and his role. He’s been educated on the process, but still hasn’t experiencing guiding a beginner tethered through the process of advancing.”

He turned towards Kirs. “Since Esmund will be in this… ‘trance’, I’m going to ask you, assuming he can’t answer me. He hasn’t used his tether at all, today?”

Kirs shook her head. “Only to embrace the pressure, other than that he hasn’t touched it.”

“Can he leave his state all together without breaking the trance?”

Kirs looked to Ranvir, who nodded. Svenar gave him a long look. “You mentioned this trance thing and the rituals surrounding it, but what exactly is it?”

“It’s a state of focus-” Kirs began to say, but Ranvir interrupted.

“You align yourself with the tether. The more deeply you achieve this state, the deeper your connection. Better and more instinctive control.” He looked apologetically at Kirs, who was glaring at him like she was a warp tethered Dagger.

“As I was saying,” She turned back to Master Svenar her mouth set in a hard line. “It’s a state of focus that allows you to better control your tether and achieve more controlled results with your power.”

Master Svenar nodded slowly, eyes glancing to Ranvir briefly. He didn’t miss Kirs rolling her eyes as he looked to the tethered for confirmation. Even Master Ayvir had looked at her with skepticism until Ranvir explained. He bit his lip, stifling a complaint. That wasn’t why they were here, right now. He could see Kirs do the same.

“Right,” Master Svenar said. “Like I was saying this is going to take quite a while. Since we started after classes, it’s probably going to last long into the night, unfortunately. I don’t expect any of you to stay here for that long, of course. You’ve all got classes in the morning.” He deliberately avoided looking at Master Ayvir in that statement.

“You will not disturb the process.” He voice turned stern as he spoke, as much military leader as teacher. “If you have questions you can either remember them until we’re done, or they weren’t that important.”

He made sure to get everyone’s explicit agreement, before he turned and opened the door. Inside the room was sparsely lit by the four candles used for the ritual. It was a lot smaller than the training room Ranvir had used while the other students had been away, though that did make sense, since these rooms were specifically for guiding tethered through their advancements.

It was the same plain gray stone as the training rooms, though, walls, floors, and ceiling were hollowed out of what seemed like a single slab of stone. In the center of the room sat Esmund, surrounded by a circle of shattered obsidian and four candles, each aligned with a corner of the room. He was wearing his clean white robe, like what Ranvir had in his trunk.

Scents of lavender rose from the candles. They’d changed the candles from normal ones to the slightly pricier scented variety partly because the smell should help associate with the trance. But they also smoked slightly more as they burned, one of the Goddess’ aspects being smoke. The water was colder, borderline frozen aligning it closer to ice. The flames in the candles was the only light in the room, though usually turning off the bright-torch—or the few times Ranvir had done it outside, the sun—was usually too much of a hassle.

Also, Ranvir suspected Kirs and Esmund would have a hard time getting anything useful done if they were stuck in a dark room lit only by candlelight. A bit too romantic.

In order to represent warp, they’d brought in a few sharp knives like how Esmund liked them. An even sharp edge rather than the obscenely sharp but broken lines of obsidian. Space was everywhere and always represented, but Ranvir had still suggested as finely knit a piece of cloth as they could find. That had turned out to be very finely knit, to the point Ranvir actually doubted it was knit and not put together in some other way.

The cloth had a smooth and glossy finish and was so fine, he could barely feel the threads, despite running his fingers over it. Just like how space felt like a single solid object until he examined it closely, only then could he see the weaves in the fabric of space.

Representing all the elements in the circle had been one of Ranvir’s ideas after his second attempt at the ritual. It had mostly been an idle thought he’d had while talking to Kirs, but since they’d already had an obsidian circle and the candles, it wasn’t actually too hard adding the other parts. Though the cloth had been disturbingly expensive considering it was only a four by four inch of cloth. No matter how smooth.

Master Svenar approached Esmund and started talking in slow quiet voice. Esmund barely reacted, nodding only slightly, his words too muddled to be cohesive. To Ranvir’s senses, Esmund felt like a small hill of razor sharp blades slowly turning around itself.

Ranvir sensed Es letting go of the pressure, the hill fading. Then he felt it return. Over and over again, for nearly twenty minutes. Each time it didn’t appear any stronger, but more solidly. The edges gaining more definition, Ranvir felt like he could count all the individual blades if he wanted to.

Master Svenar looked up at Ayvir, then nodded. “We’re ready to begin.”