I woke up with a headache. Go figure. It wasn't a bad one, just a light throb of pain. A bit of spiritual calming should get me up to speed. One of the first things I did was snag a mirror from my spatial ring. I'd picked the piece of equipment up in the bazaar to monitor and check the progress of my soul. Pressing my thumb to the base of the mirror's setting, there was a hum as the reflective surface turned orange. Specifically orange bleeding slowly to yellow.

I had to do some calculations, but I was able to clarify that I'd officially reached nineteen percent of the way to yellow. I whistled. That was the result of tons of training and long weeks of practice, but last night still must have been quite a bump. I was almost a fifth of the way to the next level of soul strength. I knew it would get exponentially more difficult as I went, but it was still nice to know that my pain had been worth something.

"Oooh, testing the soul mirror?" Callie said sleepily from her place next to me. Sitting up, she smiled softly at me, and I was just blown away by everything about her all over again. Her black hair cascaded around her delicate face like a waterfall of the shadows she communed with, and her blue eyes were always just a bit brighter first thing in the morning. Like they were saving up the radiance for when she opened them in the morning and had to vent all that sparkle immediately.

Grinning, I held it up. "Sure am. Want to give it a try?" She didn't train the soul as much as I did, but she DID train it, or she'd started to anyway.

She groaned. "Can't we just relax for now? I just want to cuddle and sleep in." She buried her face in my shoulder sulkily, and I chuckled, running my hand through her hair. Somehow it never got tangled in the morning, always managing to be more 'windswept' than messy. Styled by pillow, I called it, though she insisted on brushing it out every morning anyway. I told her I liked it the way it was, but I was informed I knew nothing of hair care and that I should keep my bad opinions to myself.

"Relax?" I said in surprise. "What is this...relax? It sounds delicious." She giggled and elbowed me in the side, which I retaliated to by tousling her hair. She tried for mine, but being so much bigger I was able to keep away, and she was forced to pounce on me. I squawked and pulled back and we both fell off the bed in a tangle of sheets as she ruthlessly messed up my sandy hair.

"Victory!" She crowed, throwing her hands in the air like she'd just won a tournament. I just slumped back on the floor, laughing softly and staring up at how the light framed her sheet wrapped form. "Now all your treasure belongs to me. I've defeated you and lay claim to all you have."

I snorted. "I wonder what THAT'S like." I grabbed her and tossed her onto the bed. Even with the higher Impact, we were near the same level and she was much smaller than I was, so it didn't take much effort. Standing up, I stretched, rolling my eyes as I caught her propped up on her elbow leering at me. I raised an eyebrow reproachfully. "I'm not a piece of meat you know."

She winked at me. "Dragon steak baby. Only the finest." Her lips quirked up as she stifled her grin.

I just rolled my eyes again and headed to shower. "How do you make that sound like a compliment?" I turned on the water and raised my voice a bit. "So, what do you think we should do once we head out on our own?"

Her voice carried over the water from the room easily, given our Perception stats. I probably hadn't even needed to raise mine, but it let her know who I was talking to. "Don't be obtuse. You know you want to raid a wizard's tower. You were straight up drooling over the idea of spellbooks." She made an incredulous sound. "Still can't believe people used to WRITE skills DOWN. That's just crazy. Wonder how long it takes to learn them that way."

"Ask Abel." I called back. "He did that with Ragam remember? Probably a while though. Upside is there's no limit to how many people can read a book. Crystals are limited use."

I forced myself to shower relatively quickly, much to my horror. We had things to do today. I was almost surprised they even HAD showers here, the whole rustic kingdom thing seemed like more of a bath environment, but even if they used a more old timey aesthetic, the people who founded this place were still Ascendants, and showers had existed for a long time.

Stepping out to slip into my armor I groaned with relief. It felt good to be back in my second skin. You'd think the armor would get uncomfortable or claustrophobic, but it just made me feel safe. It was comfortable, durable, and had saved my life plenty of times.

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When I stepped into the room I saw Callie waiting in bed still, watching me with a dopey smile that made my heart pound a bit. "I'm gonna go in search of breakfast. I know how you get when I don't feed you. I'll talk to the others about where we should head and catch you up when you're done."

She stuck out her tongue at me and I laughed, turning and heading out as she went to take her own shower. Stepping outside, I walked over to knock on Benny's door. "Ugh!" Came an annoyed grunt from inside. I laughed and knocked again. I heard feet slapping against the stone floor as he stomped over and threw the door open with a glare. "What? What do you want?"

"Come on nerd, we're getting breakfast." He glared at me for a second and then groaned. "Hey Celine you hungry?" I called to the rumpled pile of blankets. A slim hand emerged from the blankets, flipped me the finger, and then retreated, and I burst out laughing. "You are a TERRIBLE influence, Benny. What happened to our proper self contained noble? You're turning her into just as much of a hooligan as you."

Benny grinned. "She's been trying to teach me manners, so it's only fair I teach her to have more fun. Besides, you deserve rude gestures on principle. Who wakes someone up at..." I swiped his scan ring and winced. "Noon? Shit. We must have been wiped from last night."

I blew out a breath, nodding solemnly. "It was pretty rough. But we're past it, and once we're out and mobile we're less likely to undergo a siege. We should be on the offensive, looking around for ruins to explore. When we find somewhere good we can use my skill to detect the flowers."

He groaned. "Fine. I'll come eat." He looked over his shoulder, calling. "Cel, get up sweetheart we need to go get some food before we go, it's noon." She groaned loudly, and he laughed and turned to me. "Go look for some food, we'll meet you out there."

I said my goodbyes, turning to look for the others, and almost jumped out of my skin to find Abel, Mel, Jessie, and somehow Randall behind me. I looked around and spotted Callie grinning at me from one side, apparently she'd rushed her shower so she could sneak up on me. Damned stealth skill.

She must have hurried, high Might makes moving fast more than possible, but to get ready completely in a short conversation was impressive. I glared at her. "How did you even get them all out here that fast? No way you hit all their rooms."

Rolling her eyes, she held up her hand, the one opposite her spatial ring. "Group text genius." I cursed. She must have messaged them as soon as I was out the door. I laughed it off and we waited, discussing possible food we might try to throw together if they didn't have a premade breakfast.

Finally, Benny and Celine came out, Benny looking much less sleepy and Celine somehow managing to look both furious and blank faced. We all set off after stopping to get Nat, Perit, and Valk and headed into the fort proper, looking for some of the guards. Once we found one they directed us to where Anna-Marie was currently eating lunch (we'd missed breakfast).

"Princess." I said with a grin. "Mind if we join you?" The bottom of my mask was receded so I could eat, so my smile was fully visible.

Anna-Marie beamed at me from her place next to Amaya. "Solomon! I was beginning to think you'd sleep the day away. Come in, please, have a seat." She gestured and a bunch of formally dressed people appeared to slide chairs up to the table. "My mother sent reinforcements, and we've gotten the entire fortress detrapped and ready for habitation. My father was over the moon we've reclaimed this location. He sends his thanks."

I kind of doubted that. The king wasn't the type to say thank you from what I'd seen. "So, we were thinking about heading out today, have you seen the other team? Or are they still asleep?" My cousin had contracted the leader and a bunch of the others. The last four I needed to do, or have Nat use today's wishes, but as shitty as it felt, I wanted the insurance of having a bunch of them bound to me directly. I didn't think Nat would hurt us, but better safe than sorry.

It made me all the angrier at my family, to raise us in such a way that I had to fear betrayal from my only nearby family member just because we were related. Anna-Marie nodded. "We've got guards on their rooms. Your cousin told us that they were safe to leave alone, but we prefer to trust but verify."

I shrugged. Her suspecting them wasn't a bad decision. I probably wouldn't take them with us either. Sending them off on their own might be a bit risky, but not as much as sleeping next to them would be. We'd stop in and talk to them before leaving. "How about scouting? We were hoping for a basic layout of the area outside the map. Or folklore? Any stories about this place any of your guards know that might point us to some ruins or something?"

"Any notable location nearby is bound to be empty." She said dismissively. "At least ones we have an exact location for. The core itself has thousands of legends about random palaces, temples and ruins, you're free to go over any of our books. As for scouts, yes, we sent some out to look around for any ruins. As expected, they didn't find anything nearby or it would have been picked clean."

I nodded with a sigh. That made sense. We needed some way to find ruins or a wizards tower or something. Worst was that a lot of them might be underground. Anna-Marie had mentioned subterranean buildings were big here in the core, given how chaotic the surface was most of the time.

Getting into a reinforced structure like that would be a nightmare. Especially since a lot of them were LITERALLY reinforced, surround by metal structures to prevent...I paused. Metal. Large deposits of underground metal. I turned to Callie, my grin splitting my face. "I think I know how we can find a place to start looking." It was time to get some use from the OTHER new skill I'd made. Song of the Soil was about to get it's trial run.