“This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Ray bluntly as we pushed through the hanging flower vines, stepping into the house. I’d taken to calling it the Heart of the Forest, because it was what popped into my head when I made it, and when I’d told the others the name had stuck.

The craziest thing about it was the sheer life force radiating out from the place. When the plants finished growing, the intensity of the power hadn’t diminished. If anything it had increased a bit. It was like standing in a low level burst of Zagan flames just being in here.

On the upside, it would enhance the rate of any healing that needed doing, not as much as a dedicated healer or burst of my flames, but it was a passive boost that would remain as long as the Heart did. On the downside (thought not for me, really), it was an aura of life force and purification, which meant Ray and Cavallo had sobered up nearly instantly upon entry.

“Master, this really is amazing,” said Bella in awe. “Will I be able to do this?”

“Not a chance in hell,” I told her bluntly. “At least not any time soon. Hypothetically if you turned the staff art into your main ability and focused your path on it maybe. Otherwise you might be able to make a small tar pit.”

Though she could use the abilities of my forms, it was only during her stances. Even if that expanded, she’d have brief bursts of use for each of my powersets. Invaluable in battle, but it had taken me an hour and a total fluke to make this place. It was one of those weird coincidences that in retrospect I was pretty sure my fatewalker build had pushed me into. I’d been running on instinct when I made the choices that led to this.

The only question was why it had happened. Was it just a random confluence of luck leading to an interesting result? Would this place be important in the future?

Not for the first time I wished the divination aspect of my abilities was more potent. I’d been tinkering with a form for it, but I was missing something. The construction of divination skills was mostly Perception, but there was Fantasy in there too, from the fate sense side of things. Because of the way those two stats interacted, the construction of the form had to be extremely stable to avoid overbalancing.

Stat interactions were something I’d only just started getting into in the book, and more than that, they varied wildly based on purpose and distribution. Divination was WAY more Fantasy than Perception, and keeping it balanced was difficult in a way I couldn’t really quantify. It didn’t help that my overlay wasn’t EXACTLY a Skill, in a confusing way I had trouble identifying, and I wanted to use that as a base.

I’d figure it out eventually, and even had some ideas, but for the moment it left me mostly in the dark and at the mercy of my instinctive responses to things.

Putting that out of my mind though, I followed the others as they toured the house, enjoying the awed responses and excitement to something I’d made, even if it wasn’t exactly intentional. I’d forgotten how good it felt to make things.

“This place is going to make me rich,” said Chess in wonder. “Even if I don’t tell anyone but my most trusted subordinates about it, this passive invigoration effect is amazing. I feel like I’ll never need to sleep again if I live here.”

I waggled my hand. “Sort of? The mind needs sleep to reorganize itself. I mean, as Ascendants we don’t NEED to do it nearly as often, Focus can help stave it off pretty much indefinitely, but my Uncle is pretty powerful, and he says that there are a lot of reasons that even high rank Ascendants usually sleep. I wouldn’t recommend skipping it completely.”

He grimaced, but nodded. “Still, I bet people will flock here. It feels great. Like I’m LIVING in a warm bath.”

Bella nodded excitedly. “I love it here! Can you make me something like this, master? I know the house was an accident but maybe like a…lamp or something? I bet this makes sleep super restful.”

“That…is a really good question,” I said pensively. “I mean, without the local energy pumping through it I’d need to put in a power source, but theoretically…yes?” The thing I’d done with Song of the Soil, constructing those veins for the power to run through, I was pretty sure I could do it in a smaller context, at least if I put my mind to it. Maybe some kind of VItality gem?

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It almost seemed like a new form of Enchanting or small scale Formation work…but it wasn’t. It was more like armor and weapon smithing in a way. Just imparting my energy into an object to pump out in its normal way.

But was that so different? And hadn’t I imbued the egg with a technique? Where did Inventing, Alchemy, Smithing, Enchanting, and all those other crafting disciplines overlap? Was it really that easy to make objects? Too early to tell, since I hadn’t done it yet. But it made me wonder if I should look into picking up a crafting Skill again.

Sadly, now wasn’t the time for that particular flight of fancy. I was on a short break from an important mission. I had far too much going on here to become a lampmaker in my spare time. Still, I made a mental note to speak to the Moravian about this little exercise. Maybe I could learn a bit more about how this fit with Formation making. That would be useful even outside of a crafting context.

For now, I’d just made something interesting. It wouldn’t serve a purpose. I actually had the idea that this place might be able to amplify Archie’s abilities, but I didn’t have a use for that. It wasn’t like I knew any sick pe-. I froze.

Elena. Her son was ill. A place like this would be a perfect environment for helping someone with a chronic illness, and if it really could amplify Archie’s power, it might even be able to cure him. She’d helped me out so much that I’d been thinking of trying to slip her a scroll, even if it risked my cover. This though…this was better. This was a fucking BUILDING, and it wasn’t something that matched my demonstrated powers at all. She’d never connect it to me.

“Chess,” I said slowly. “Would you mind if I invited someone here? A friend? Her son is sick and I think this place might do him good.”

He shrugged, laughing. “You built the place. Don’t take out an ad in the local tavern or anything, but a visitor or two won’t hurt anything. My house is your house. Literally. You made this house. That still blows my mind. I have a house. And it’s fucking AWESOME. Seriously man, I owe you one.”

“Let my friend visit and treat her son here and we’ll call it even,” I said with a chuckle. “I really owe her, and you could consider this you paying off that debt.”

Shrugging again, he didn’t seem to be bothered. Bella, however, looked excited. “Are you going to help Elena? She was so nice! I didn’t know her son was sick though. That’s so sad. I hope we can help.”

I smiled at my effervescent apprentice. Bella might be a little weird at times and often annoying, but she had a good heart. Moments like this made me glad I’d chosen to make her my apprentice. I couldn’t think of anyone on this planet who deserved it more.

Turning, I whistled for Archie, pulling a piece of paper from my ring along with a pen and pressing it to the bark walls so I could scrawl out a message. “Take this to Elena for me buddy?” I asked hopefully. “No eyes but hers.”

He trilled solemnly, then snagged it in his beak and vanished in a burst of flame. He appeared outside the house, visible through a window, and I rolled my eyes. His version of the Supernova Step (or wing beat I guess) was way more dramatic than mine. Green flames were so eye catching. How gauche.

“Well, while we wait for her, why don’t we continue the tour,” I said brightly. “I left a basin in the lower floor. We need someone with a water ability to fill it, but there’s a concentration of life fire down there that’ll turn it into a perfect hot tub.”

I was particularly proud of that one, and clearly they all thought it was as cool as I did, since they perked up and took off in the direction I’d pointed.

Once they were gone, I was surprised to find Ray waiting behind to talk to me. “Hey man,” I said with a smile in my voice. “You need something? Sorry about your buzz earlier, I didn’t mean to make an anti drunk building, though if it helps I’m pretty sure it’s also anti hangover.”

“It actually does,” he admitted. “I was sloshed and tomorrow was going to be hell, so I actually appreciate it. But that’s not why I stayed back. I wanted to talk to you about something.”

That was an unexpectedly serious tone for Ray, so I waited…then realized I was wearing a mask and answered aloud. “I’m happy to listen, what can I do for you?” Ray might be kind of flippant, but he’d been a welcome respite from my own messiah complex when I first got here, and helped me realize I was overcompensating, at least after Callie had pointed it out to me first.

“I need your help,” he admitted. He looked almost concerned, which was alarming. “You know I’m here for the trials, ours haven’t started yet, but when they do…well, Raxus’s trials probably aren’t going to be a picnic. I don’t mind failing, but Desria and Cavallo NEED to do well. My family is pretty well off, but theirs isn’t nearly as comfortable. They came here to gain more influence to help their parents out of a jam.”

I assumed he couldn’t just wave his hand and fix it, otherwise he’d obviously do that. It was clear he really cared about them.

Honestly, I liked them too. They were good people. “I can’t promise to be available at all times,” I cautioned. “I have my own trials and they’ve been getting rough. But barring recovery and actual trials, I can do my best to help you out. When do Raxus’s trials start?”

“Tomorrow,” he said grimly. “Part of why we wanted to come out and celebrate with all of you. We have no clue what to expect. Most of them probably won’t be something you can help with, but I know you did well for Delthrys’s trial, and I have to assume there’s some overlap, even if Echelon got weirdly offended when it came up.”

I chuckled at that, but held out my hand. “Like I said, I’ll do whatever I can.” And I meant that too. Not just in terms of the trials. I was already planning to invite the three of them to the WCP if things didn’t work out for them here.

Once again, I wondered if I’d need to reveal myself to someone early, because I got a seriously bad vibe about Raxus. Maybe I was wrong, but much more than Felicity, I had a sense of deep foreboding about the god of deceit. If need be, I’d contact the Acheron before leaving and have the A-rankers snatch Ray and friends up.

After I agreed, he grinned widely, then clapped me on the shoulder. “Well, now that we have that out of the way, lets go check out that hot tub. I want to see how big it is. Need to know how good a job you do as an architect, I’m thinking of hiring you to do my next summer home.” With a wink, he blurred off, and I laughed, trailing behind him. Guess serious Ray didn’t last long.