Carlos responded to Purple's discovery of a viable method of aether transportation by immediately coming up with ideas for improving or extending it, or investigating various details of its limits, of course. [So you can pack aether 1 level above you into a denser concentration. Does that mean you can directly prevent aether of that level from decompressing, or was it dependent on the environment? What level of aether, if any, can you directly hold intact despite being surrounded by lower-level aether? And what about forcing lower-level aether to compress to a higher level, can you do that? It would still be terribly inefficient for large level gaps, with the exponential scaling of quantity, but it could still be a gamechanger in the right circumstances. Oh, and speaking of level gaps, what about the other direction? Could you use multiple layers of tightly-packed insulation to extend this technique to keep aether of even higher levels from decompressing? Oh yeah, the really critical question: how well can you conceal this from detection by the guardian? Um, what else…]

Purple seized the pause in Carlos's torrent of questions to interject, [I don't know! For any of that. All of that. Um. Whichever!]

Carlos reined himself in sheepishly. [Ah, right. Sorry, that was a lot of questions at once, wasn't it? Anyway, I didn't expect you to just know any of those answers. My point is that these are important questions to investigate, and I believe you should easily be able to find out the answers. So go and experiment, please? Oh, and do you need me to repeat any of them?]

Purple echoed a bit of sheepishness back at him. [Oh. Yes, I can experiment to find out. And no need to repeat; I have the log. I'll let you know the results when I'm done.]

[Okay, thanks.] Carlos started turning his attention—well, this part of his attention—back to what he'd been doing, but paused as he realized the significance of a word Purple had used. Wait, "log?" As in logging of events and stuff on a computer? Is he…? You know what, I don't care. I was already planning on having Purple literally be my house. Any concerns about privacy, or whatever, from him are pretty much a lost cause. As long as he's put appropriate security locks on it, it's fine. … Let me check, just to make sure. … Ah, locked to Purple and House Carlos leaders only. That'll do.

It was less than an hour before Carlos felt Purple seeking his attention again, this time with answers. [Okay, in order: I cannot directly prevent higher-level aether from decompressing to a lower level; it depends on that level of aether being prevalent in the environment. I can directly prevent the decompression of aether that matches my own level or lower, despite holding it in a lower-level aether environment. I can force aether that is below my level to compress, but only until it matches my level and no higher, and the closer it is to my level and the greater the difference from its surroundings, the more effort it takes. Preserving the level of multiple-levels-higher aether by means of concentric layers of maximally-concentrated aether of successively reduced levels… is possible, but difficult. Very difficult. As for concealing it, well… The guardian hasn't reacted yet, at least? I'll need someone else to check that one for me.]

Carlos nodded. [A mix with some good results. I'll come and bring Sconter with me to check the concealment. I'm fairly sure I'm better overall at sensing stuff like this, but he might have some quirks in his mana sense and experience to sense some things that I can't yet. Ideally, we want it masked from both of us from any nontrivial distance.]

Two days passed with them all hidden inside that sprawling thicket, made considerably more comfortable by Purple's efforts at controlling the insects, before the next major development happened. Early that morning, soon after they woke up, Purple reported to Carlos and Amber, [We're absorbing aether faster than the area I'm pulling it from can replenish. I'm having to extend my pipeline and reach farther and farther to keep it coming in as fast as we can absorb.]

Carlos started a new thread of his consciousness to handle the conversation. [Well, we knew this was coming; the wellspring has a finite output rate, and catching up to it at some point was inevitable. The guardian isn't going to miss noticing that! I suppose we could slow down to keep it hidden longer?]

Amber joined in. [No. I considered that days ago, and it is not practical. If we limit the speed we absorb aether, the time required for each additional level will double. We would soon be waiting months to gain even a slight advantage, and every day is more chances for the guardian to notice despite our precautions. We should continue at full speed and trust in our preparations and soul plans to handle the guardian when it comes.]

Carlos sighed, then shrugged. [Yeah, fair point; exponentially growing costs get out of hand quickly. Alrighty then, we probably won't get more than one or two more levels before the fight either way, so it's time to warn everyone and do any finishing touches on things.] He promptly suited his actions to his words, broadcasting a telepathic alert to the rest of House Carlos in the camp and verbally informing the two royal guards.

On hearing the warning, Lorvan nodded gravely and clanged his gauntleted right fist against the chest of his armor. "Then our service to you will soon be at an end. I will be honored to witness your victory and report it to the Crown, High Lord Carlos Founder."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Carlos cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. "You're that confident we will win? And… are you really just going to watch?"

Lorvan nodded again. "You have proven exceptionally competent. This will be the greatest enemy you have yet faced, but I believe you are up to the task. As for watching…" He hesitated, then held his hand forward and wobbled it. "If you wish it, I will attempt the guardian myself, if only so that you can see for yourself how utterly irrelevant my power is in such a fight. In that case, it will be Major Ordens's duty to witness your victory if the guardian kills me, as I will likely not be able to return before the battle is over." He tilted his head to the side, and a faint hint of humor entered his voice. "And if my armor is destroyed in that demonstration, the Crown would appreciate a free replacement of it, which you are uniquely able to provide."

Carlos laughed. "Alright, fair enough. If it comes to that, we can make a new set of armor for you. Well, the enchantments for it, but I believe that's the expensive part, so close enough. But we'll see what happens."

The next day, Carlos was busily digging through the deep details of a responsiveness algorithm for a refined Force Barrier spell, trying to optimize its efficiency and effectiveness, when a palpable sense of powerful pressure suddenly descended on the whole area. He paused just a moment as he noticed, then engaged his new habit of spinning off a new thread of consciousness to handle it, rather than changing the focus of his attention.

Ahhh, it's so nice being able to focus simultaneously on both a new distraction and what it would distract me from. He dismissed the thought, as it was, itself, a distraction, and resumed analyzing potential improvements to the spell. Let's see, where was I? Ah yes, concurrent threads to focus the spell's power on the points of contact do improve efficiency when there are only a few points being pressed, but they have an overhead cost, and it doesn't scale well beyond a certain point. If the barrier is being pressured everywhere, or just in too many different spots, it's better to fall back on the simple effect of uniformly distributed power.

Scanning for pressured spots and counting them would be complex, with a significant overhead of its own. I could have it check the rate of power expenditure? Yeah, that could work, lots of hits on different spots would naturally drain a larger amount of mana to counter them all. Though, wait, if someone just attacks one spot really strongly, that would also drain more mana, and it's exactly the use case where focusing the counterforce is the most important. So, hmm… Trigger the fallback if total power drain is high and it's not all going to one spot? Oh! Right, duh, I don't need a separate scan for this; the part for focusing counter-force is already detecting pressured spots, so I can just check how many spots are getting power focused to them by that. Actually, no, that could get exploited by combining a bunch of weak attacks with a strong one. Check the highest single-spot power draw too. Or, hmm…

Meanwhile, Carlos's new mind considered the new development. Okay, the obvious explanation is that the wellspring guardian finally noticed us, and it's exerting its power to suppress us while it tracks us down. Good news: This doesn't feel particularly focused, so it hasn't actually found us yet. Bad news: It's pretty damn powerful. Even with it unfocused and distant, I'm still feeling the pressure pretty strongly. Good news again: It's not really actually affecting me. He glanced around at the rest of their hidden camp and grimaced. And more bad news: Most of the other people here are either badly hindered or outright out of commission. The royal guards are holding up fairly well, and so is Kindar, but everyone else… He pressed his lips together and shook his head. Taking them into this fight would be a slaughter. Looks like it really will be just us.

He held back a chuckle and mentally rolled his eyes at his own unthinking choice of priorities. Right, now that I've taken stock of all the people not at the forefront of things, maybe I should check in with the person who's already directly engaged. He reached out mentally to his dungeon core friend. [Purple, how's the first encounter going?]

Purple had been mostly just waiting idly for the past few days. There had been some interesting setup in getting his automation to handle all kinds of things, and then he'd finished that and had little to do but pass the time. It was oddly similar, yet also different, to how his life had been before meeting Carlos. Similar in how little activity he had to engage in, but different in that he was secure and steadily improving, rather than desperate.

Then, as he was idly waiting, suddenly his aether flows vibrated as if violently shoved by a powerful force. He reeled in shock for a moment, then firmly pushed back against the pressure that had descended upon him. It felt almost like something was contesting ownership of his own domain, but his control quickly stabilized under his firm grip. Then he looked for the source of the disturbance and found himself looking up. Very high up.

Far above in the sky, a large winged beast flew in lazy circles, light glistening off of its brilliant scales as it stared downward. Its head was pointed directly at the spot where Purple was taking in most of the Level 49 aether he was continually grabbing. The head started changing its angle, following the initial southward direction of the stream, and Purple implemented the plan Amber had come up with for precisely this moment: He ceased absorbing from that spot and ramped up absorption from three other locations at once, scattered across a couple miles. The creature's head swiveled rapidly, sweeping its aim widely across a large swath of ground as it took in what had changed, then it seemed to hesitate, possibly in indecision.

Then Carlos reached out to him, and Purple considered and analyzed for several seconds before answering. [I've managed to confuse it for now, but it won't last. I might be able to keep it chasing changing leads long enough for us to finish advancing to Level 49, but it will find us today.]

He sent the location to Carlos, and Carlos quickly scried on the area. He had to adjust his viewpoint to look higher, then paused before asking in a tone of awestruck reverence, [Is that a… a dragon?]

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