"Seriously?" I yelled at the wall in front of me, turning towards the stairs, about to storm off and demand answers from Conflict.

I'd spent over half a year inside, and then… that? That was when the trial decided it was over?

I was stopped by the sight of Bevel and Arizar both standing less than a pace away.

The anger melted in an instant. Despite myself, I found myself stepping forward and pulling them both into a tight hug.

"Uh… Papa?" Bevel wheezed out.

"Sorry, it's just… sorry."

"I get the impression you had a rather extended stay," Arizar remarked, looking over my shoulder. "One that took you to places even the bravest of elves might fear."

I followed her gaze. The heavily modified Dauntless sat there in the dock at Terra Centra, every detail clearly emblazoned on the door.

Standing in a chevron, like on an old movie poster, me and the four people I'd spent the last six months with stood shoulder to shoulder, looking into the horizon.

"Well, that's more heroic looking than it felt," I said, shaking my head. Then I realized I was still holding them both tight. I let go, taking a quick step back.

Arizar laughed softly, and Bevel grabbed my hand and started talking about her own trial.

Apparently she'd succeeded and transitioned into tier-3 mental. As had Arizar. They'd both just woken from their headaches when I'd appeared.

"That's incredible! Both of you," I said, unable to help myself as I grabbed Bevel and spun her around. "We'll have to get you scanned, and find out what exactly you've got going on."

"Scanned?" Arizar asked, tilting her head. "You know, I feel as though I'm missing a rather important detail."

"Papa has a way to get numbers for our superpowers," Bevel said, making punching motions. Then she looked up at me. "That's what they're called, right? Superpowers? That's what Esbee told me."

"It's not wrong," I said, ruffling her hair.

"Oh. A way to determine qualitative values representing our progress upon our paths?" Arizar asked, placing a single finger to her lips. "I imagine that would help determine your path, though I'm not certain I'd want to check it too often. I've known several fresh ensouled who spent their first months obsessing over Assess Self. And that merely tracks our Affinities."

"It's a bit of a process. Though not sure it's worse than Assess Self," I said, squinting. "Been a while since I had to slot that."

"I've found it's of little use once you're beyond Mage-soul," Arizar said as we started our way up the metal stairs towards Conflict. One nice thing about spending over half a year inside was that it had given me lots of time to think about what I wanted to ask for as a major favor.

Not something that had occurred to me at all. And perhaps not the most beneficial thing in the short term. But if it worked, it would help Cape Aeternia more than anything else I could think of.

After talking to the being, it confirmed that what I wanted was possible, though it would need time. And that I'd need to get Utility Access.

I thanked it, spent the lesser favor I'd gotten for the trial I'd just finished - which after its length, felt as though it should've entitled me to a major one, but that wasn't how it worked - on materials for our new train engines. Then I took the Waygate back to Tetherfall, seeking out Tamrie.

She was talking with some Tethered, Tanis and… and I honestly didn't care.

"Oh, hey Perry, I… mmph," Tamrie hit me once as I pulled her off her feet before melting against my body. After several long seconds, I let her fall back, though I didn't let her go as we'd kinda floated a few feet into the air.

She leaned against me, hard, and I simply held her for over a minute until someone nearby coughed.

"Hey boss. Sorry to interrupt, but we're kinda waiting on the boss lady," Tanis said from a net just to our side, scratching at the back of his head.

"Right. Of course, I just…" I trailed my hand through Tamrie's messy hair, tracing the side of her face. "I missed you. It… it's been more than a week. A lot more."

"Oh," Tamrie said before going up on her toes to press her lips to mine once more. "Right. I'll make sure we have time tonight even if'n I have to pull the Holds in line by hand."

"Okay," I said, giving her one last squeeze as I lowered us down to a catwalk nearly thirty feet above where I'd found her. "Tonight."

She nodded, returning my squeeze before moving down the nets with Tanis, though she turned back smiling.

"How long were you gone, Papa?" Bevel asked from behind me, making me realize I hadn't been alone in my pursuit of Tamrie. Both Bevel and Arizar were standing on the catwalk.

Arizar was smiling, seeming quite pleased with herself. Bevel on the other hand, was staring at me with a brow scrunched in concern.

"Months. More than half a year."

"That's…" Bevel started folding her fingers in, brow still scrunched. "That's as long as you've been my… been here."

I nodded, pulling her into another hug. "Yeah. And I missed you every single day."

"I missed you too," Bevel said, squeezing back. "Even if it was only a week."

"Wow, you were inside for a whole week?" I asked as I released her. "What did you do for an entire week?"

As Bevel regaled me with her adventures inside her trial, Arizar fell in beside us.

"Not that I mind your company, but don't you have a city to supervise?" I asked Arizar a few minutes later after making our way to Esbee's and claiming a table, Bevel doing her level best to inhale her smoothie.

"It's not a city yet. And unlike your paramour, I'm quite experienced at delegating tasks. Most of what needs to be done can be handled with proper planning within our mental space," Arizar replied, sipping slowly at her own smoothie. "That said, we must discuss Tamrie. You cannot continue leaving her behind."

"I know," I said, staring down at my hands. "The trial. Mine. It has people inside. Real people, I think. Or echoes of them so close as to make no difference. One of them is a woman. She's interested in me. I don't feel the same… and yet, I've spent more time with her than I have with Tamrie."

"And this is only the beginning of your journey inside your mental domain," Arizar said, nodding.

"How did your father handle it? With your mother, I mean?"

"Father refused to date for literal centuries," Arizar said, her voice soft. "My mother was on the cusp of Hydra-souled when they met. Sharing an enhanced Palace was no issue for them."

"It's always something," I said, leaning into my hands. "First I had to awaken her, now I need her to get strong enough to cast Memory Palace. Not even Memory Palace. She's not like Bevel, she actually has to put in the work."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Hey!" Bevel objected.

"Sorry, you work hard. Real hard. What I meant was she can't just use a 2nd Order spell. She actually needs to get to Pegasus. And she doesn't have the advantages we've had," I said, gesturing between me and Bevel.

"And while I quite appreciate her company, it is true that Tamrie isn't capable of dedicating herself to her Ascension half as much as any one of us," Arizar said, inclining her head towards me and Bevel. There was something in the way she said it that ticked at my brain, but I wasn't able to tease it out just yet.

"So… is there some other way to get her inside?" I asked instead.

The exact first thing I'd asked Conflict after getting out of the trial.

It'd given me the runaround, saying that I couldn't spend a favor, but that it might be possible to bring others with sufficient compatibility into a trial with me.

Assuming they were compatible, I'd suffer most of the backlash for the time compression. The being had sounded almost excited about the idea. It had also indicated that Bevel was practically guaranteed to be compatible.

Good thing, 'cause I doubted I'd ever want to do a trial again without her for company, with how long they'd gotten.

"There might be a way. The Establium you've mentioned. It's possible they could… smooth things out," Arizar said, setting her cup on the table. "I'd need to study them, but if they interact as intimately with the soul as I've heard they might, then it's possible they could allow her to access your space even if she were the weakest of mage-souls."

"An expensive solution," I said, though not dismissively.

"It is merely the first idea. I'm certain we can come up with more, given time," Arizar said, reaching over and patting my hand. "We shall do all we can to keep your relationship with Tamrie healthy. Isn't that right, Bevel?"

Bevel glanced between us for a moment, her brow scrunched up. Then she tilted her head to the side letting out a long sigh before giving a slow nod. "Yeah. All we can…"

"Well, don't sound so excited about it," I said, reaching over to ruffle her hair.

"Yes, you should be happy to help your Mama and Papa," Arizar said, reaching over to tickle her from the other side.

Bevel squealed her laughter, before batting both of our hands away with a firm but gentle application of her winds. "Okay, okay. I'm happy. I just… Tamrie's not… nevermind."

"Another smoothie?" I asked, collecting both their cups.

"Yes!" Bevel squealed out while Arizar nodded calmly.

"Right. Be right back," I said, pushing out of the sound bubble and making my way over to the counter.

Esbee nodded as I approached, giving me a big grin. "Heard about your little greeting with our administrator earlier. Quite the statement. Guess you got your relationship problems sorted out?"

"Not totally, but feels like they're moving the right direction. Now I just need to deal with thousands of ravenous fishmen and a couple dozen clans full of super-powered beast tamers," I said, shaking my head.

"Bah, that's the easy stuff. You'll get us sorted, no prob," Esbee said, waving me off.

"I think you've been spending too much time in the bar, if you think dealing with murderers and slavers is easy," I said, shaking my head as she slid a new tray of smoothies over.

"Oh, I'm sure it'll be brutal and the cost will be enormous. But it'll be easier for you, 'cause there's no worry you'll hurt one great gal by choosing her best friend over her," Esbee said, patting my shoulder and sending me back to the table. "No matter how much better a match you might seem, on paper."

"You sure you don't want to do the bartender advice gig?" I asked with a laugh, balancing the tray as I wove through the tables.

"Go on, I've got real customers to deal with," Esbee called after me.

As I sat at the table, Arizar and Bevel greeting me, I didn't worry about Esbee's parting comment, able to simply enjoy being back and the prospect that, next time, I wouldn't be alone.

I think, after spending more than six months aboard the Dauntless, I could be forgiven for forgetting that the Shaper's competition to bomb the Sahevin was that day.

Sure, I'd known it was coming, but in the face of seeing Tamrie and spending time with Bevel - and Arizar, to a lesser degree - it just hadn't been important.

As we flew up to Aeternia's Shield, I glanced down. They'd made enough progress on the train engine to put together a full sized mockup, though it was only in its first stages.

It was funny how we needed more refined methods to put the train engine together than we'd used for Aeternia's Shield.

We could've had a rough engine put together already if we were willing to make the whole thing rely heavily on enchantments. But we didn't.

There'd be enchantments to improve the safety, but the core function would use nothing but a dozen Forgehearts and basic physics.

It would also be much easier to reproduce, once it was done.

After one final curling sweep around the yards below, Bevel, Arizar and I alighted on one of the personal decks spaced along the side of Aeternia's Shield's main hull.

Arizar had reminded me that this bombing run was going to impact her city almost directly, so she had a vested interest in being there when the bombs dropped.

Really couldn't fault her for it.

Inertia greeted us with a hiss of steam, Tresla trailing along behind her. Amazingly, Inertia didn't have a single apprentice or assistant in her orbit.

"Inertia would like to know if you've had any thoughts about the sentry balloons. Especially since Nexxa has provided us with so many materials we could use," Tresla said before I even had a chance to greet them.

"I… totally forgot about them," I admitted sheepishly. In my defense, I'd given them lots of thought while on Dauntless. To the point I'd come up with several solutions months ago from my perspective. Then I'd forgotten about that I needed to share those ideas.

With them called back to mind, I brought out the designs I'd come up with.

With a gentle tug, Inertia pulled the booklet I'd printed them in out of my hand, paging through it slowly, nodding.

"Inertia would like to know what you can do with something that you didn't forget about," Tresla said, her voice tinkling with the musical chimes of her laughter.

"It's been… a while," I said, before explaining just how long it'd been for me since I'd seen them.

By the end, Inertia was nodding. She laid a hand on my shoulder. "Time."

"Inertia wants you to know that she understands. The Forgeborn have long had to deal with this problem. It helps to recognize that all time is precious, and even the slowest child is still a source of endless wonder," Tresla said, her voice soft as her cloaked form turned to look up at her large friend. "Been a while since you've been so soft, old friend."

Inertia waved Tresla off, and her musical laugh filled the cargo hanger.

"Anyway, Inertia is ready to judge your silly mage-children and their toys," Tresla said, turning back to us, a glint of red light escaping her hood.

"Let's get to it," I said, nodding her onward.

We moved to one of the observation pods that were spaced between the side entrances. I wasn't sure who'd labeled them observation pods, but they'd managed to miss the mark on getting the purpose lined up with the name, since they were supposed to be bombing bays.

Looking down, I could admit they did allow for easy observation of the terrain below. Plus, if anyone stole the plans, at least it didn't jump out as a weapon location.

The Shapers were crowding each other, most of them far too excited and lacking the caution they should be showing around explosive ordinance.

One of the hazards of letting engineer-types deploy their own toys.

After months aboard Dauntless, I took a moment to appreciate the elegant design of Aeternia's Shield. Even if those void hounds attacked, they wouldn't do more than inconvenience the crew.

Even our doors to the bridge were more heavily reinforced than what they'd had on the Dauntless. It was a perfect example of over-reliance on enchanting.

Surprisingly, despite the lack of enchantments, the ride was smoother than the Dauntless too. There'd always been a sort of vibrating thrum underlying everything on the Dauntless - a side effect of the constant moving Leaves - that the Shield didn't have.

The Sahevin didn't even notice us coming, sitting there clumped up in nice little groups.

With a raised hand, I signaled the first launch.

A single canister was released, tumbling slowly towards the ground below.

We watched on, the only sound the soft hiss of steam escaping Inertia.

After three solid seconds it made impact and…

Did nothing.

The Shapers in the pod with us started arguing with each other. Before they could get too excited, the canister exploded.

Which merely changed the tone of the noise they were making. Instead of shaking each other in anger, they started shaking each other in excitement.

It was endearing.

Also a little embarrassing.

The demonstration continued, and the pattern continued. Most of the dropped containers failed to detonate on impact, though they'd explode well enough after.

Unfortunately, that gave the Sahevin plenty of time to bring their barriers into position.

Aeternia's Shield was too high for them to respond. The very few projectiles that could reach its underside didn't so much as scratch the mesh armor.

"They were supposed to be contact bombs, right?" I asked Inertia after what must've been the hundredth failed to explode on impact.

She nodded, letting out steam in a long sigh.

"Well, it's not terrible for less than a week. It's not like this is their specialty," I reassured her, patting her leg.

She let off a rattling set of little puffs of steam.

"I'm sure it'll-"

My words were cut off as something slammed into the side of the airship.

"The hell was that?" I asked, already running up the steps out of the pod and heading towards the nearest landing pad.

An alarm started ringing, indicating boarders. Only a single landing pad had the corresponding enchantment lit up around it, so I changed direction, charging across to the blaring light.

I arrived just in time to see a Seeker outside push weakly to its feet, the hound-like fish being seeming disoriented. It only took a single shot from one of the nearby guard's Petal rods to kill it.

The thing had scorch marks across its side.

"Need to find out whose bomb that was," I said, laughing to Inertia as she joined me. "Good yield if nothing else."

She nodded. But before we could go back, several additional thuds echoed about the ship. This time, every one of the lights over the doors lit up.

Outside, I saw a pair of awakened Merman Sahevin, surrounded by dozens of Seekers.

The Sahevin had finally responded. And they'd come in force.

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