Wakespire: Chapters 44-45

I'm glad so many enjoyed the content in the bonus post! I'm hopeful that the appendices will be a fun addition to the series and you can look forward to more in the interim. ^-^

I'm less confident I'll be able to produce in-book soulhome diagrams to a sufficient level of quality. I've purchased some software and I'm fiddling around, we'll see. More info possible and an eventual decision when we do the official new version of TWC1.

Meanwhile I'd like to ask the community for a bit of help, because I'm trying to gather all the soulcrafting tutorials for reference. You can get them all on Patreon via this link, but that won't be accessible to non-patrons. Does anyone have time to search the ones that have been posted on Reddit? If I get them all, this time I intend to make a permanent page for them that fans can reference.

Alright, business is out of the way, on to the chapters!

-

Chapter 44

From the very beginning, Isorales hadn't been happy about the plan. He preferred logical problems where all the terms were stated clearly beforehand and every step could be worked out in your mind. He was good at those. This was utter chaos, a battle of unknown variables and constantly changing conditions. Just like he'd feared, they'd overlooked something horrible.

As he flew up the staircase to the top of the Wakespire, he desperately considered all the facts of the case. What the Dortorus teams had said was not compatible with the idea that they had a simple plan to steal the lineagegem. From the beginning their grievances had been consistent: accusations about the murder in their lineage and dishonor during the competition. Whatever their purpose in the official halls, it wasn't what had been claimed.

That meant Ractifus was mistaken and there was some other player involved. The most likely suspect was the Terefilia lineage, perhaps divided into factions working at cross purposes. Beyond them, who even could be behind this? Gatrium? His own parents somehow?

Then Isorales finally reached the top of the spire and all his theories evaporated.

Elegant lines of gold all flowed into a great chamber that directed enormous quantities of cantae toward a central point. A brilliant gem hovered in the center, burning with the accumulated power of the entire Wakespire. But a grim black mass had been attached to the lineagegem.

Isorales floated closer nervously, trying to recall his fundamental classes on sublime materials. The first thing he realized was that, while the lineagegem was optimized for use in a soulhome, the black mass was entirely composed of materials that were more effective in the physical world. Most were designed to create large explosions, contained only by a thin shell and an elaborate timing mechanism...

Someone had planted a bomb in the heart of the spire.

He dropped to the ground and just stared as he tried to come up with a new theory. Had the last Dortorus team or someone else already raced to the top, far faster than his group, to place the bomb? Or had their purpose all along been to reach it and stop the explosion? Isorales certainly didn't have the expertise and the artifact looked intentionally fragile, as if tampering would only make it explode sooner.

There was no way to analyze his way through this. Too many unknowns, too many ambiguities, too much of everything.

"Get a hold of yourself." There was no one else there, so Isorales had to shake himself out of it and think.

The one thing he could be certain of is that the princes of the city would never have allowed the Wakespire to begin if they knew about the bomb. He couldn't disable it, but he could warn them. With Theo and the others all engaged in uncertain battles, that was the most important thing he could do.

Isorales fumbled for the weirkeys in his soulhome. He'd anticipated needing to push through weirkey-resistant materials, but to his surprise the weirkey-dampening fields around the rest of the spire were completely absent here. They had existed before, so they must have been turned off, presumably by the person who planted the bomb. With only a little effort, Isorales was able to circle back to Noven and appear above the spire.

The top was chaos, princes arguing with guards and officials and one another. Judging from their shouting, it seemed like their methods of watching the Wakespire directly had failed. There were also arguments about Terefilia and Dortorus teams simply disappearing without failing. All of their arguments were trivial compared to the true threat just beneath their feet.

"Princes of Ugustial!" Isorales hadn't known he could shout that loud, but the ascension had strengthened his lungs and vocal cords.

As he descended, every eye was on him. He swallowed and forced himself onward.

"Someone, I know not who, has betrayed the Wakespire. An explosive artifact of terrible force has been placed around the lineagegem. I do not know how long we have."

Several of the princes yelled at him, calling him a liar or questioning how he could know that. But some of the older princes went pale and began giving commands, so they must have believed him. At last the leader raised her hand and managed to shout over the chaos.

"He speaks the truth! The peak defenses have been altered and we must presume the obscuration is also the result of sabotage. We have some time to evacuate, so the true question is who has placed this knife above our necks?"

"Where's Prince Dortorus?" one of the others demanded. "The Dortorus clan is missing one of their heads with no explanation at all!"

"Now see here!" The remaining Dortorus prince sat up straight in alarm. "All we've ever wanted was for this contest to be conducted fairly. If we planned to destroy it, why would I be here? If anyone is to blame, it would be the missing Terefilia lineage! Their prince and their team are gone!"

They all began to shout over one another and Isorales realized the horrible truth: the princes were more concerned for their politics than the danger. If the artifact did explode, they could simply use weirkeys to transport themselves away. On some level, they must have known that many citizens of Ugustial would die in the spire, but they thought they had time and so they fought for dominance.

The fact that they could escape with weirkeys revealed something worse, because there was no reason to be suspicious of the missing Dortorus or Terefilia princes. If the conspirator had known about the bomb, they could calmly sit on their throne the entire time and leave just before the explosion.

Someone needed to step up. Isorales looked toward his grandfather and saw the old man frozen in his chair, taken aback by all of the accusations.

Given the new evidence, the most likely theory seemed to be that someone had planned to gather the strongest soulcrafters in Ugustial and eliminate most of them at once. In a single blow, they could decapitate the city. And judging from how its leadership was bickering instead of acting, the plan could still work.

~ ~ ~

No darkness room so far. With every challenge passed, Nauda grew more nervous. Not just because of what she was anticipating, but because of what could be happening outside.

Through the next portal she found herself in another familiar office... an empty one. She blinked a few times and looked around, as if the official would be hiding behind the desk. The model of the tower had been knocked over and the heavy book the officials usually referenced was gone, as if they had just run off.

"Hello?" Nauda directed her question to the ceiling. "Anyone there?"

She had expected at least some answer - silence. Were the basic pieces of the contest falling apart? There was probably no point in her advancing like this, and in fact the portal onward hadn't activated. For a while Nauda simply waited, hoping that someone would arrive to give her more information.

Eventually it seemed clear that she could remain there forever. Nauda walked back through the portal and stepped out on the ground floor.

The main room was as chaotic as the challenges had been silent. Some officials were running around carrying ledgers while others shouted for evacuation at those watching the largest spire model. Many of the watchers were yelling back, some insisting that this was a panic over nothing and others throwing accusations. Unable to parse all of the arguments, Nauda grabbed the first Noveni official she saw who looked somewhat composed.

"What's going on here?"

"No one actually knows," the man said. He looked uncomfortable, but seemed to have kept his head. "First the tracking for the Wakespire failed and we couldn't fix it. Then teams started coming back injured and accusing others of sabotaging the competition. We've tried to contact the judges and they won't respond. No one we've sent to the top has come back. That's all I know."

"Thank you." Even though it felt absurd in this context, Nauda turned her grip on the man's shoulders into a friendly pat and nodded to him. Hopefully he would accomplish whatever he was rushing to accomplish.

For her part, Nauda wanted to start fighting her way into the spire to help Theo and Isorales. Maybe she could find a key or another way in, or even bash her way through the reinforced stones if she had to.

But the unfortunate truth was that she wouldn't be of much help. The spire was filled with elite Rulers and Authorities - she might not be weak anymore, but she would be just one more combatant. If she wanted to be of any use during all the chaos, she needed to make a change.

Nauda found the quietest corner possible and sat down to soulcraft. She looked over everything she had, desperately trying to think of a plan, and then began to work...

~ ~ ~

Against incompetent Authorities who had been handed their way to power or cheated their ascensions, Theo was unstoppable. Now that he was facing opponents who were actually talented soulcrafters, he'd be truly testing the limits of everything he'd worked so hard for.

The Terefilia Authority was definitely good and he hadn't wasted his two months' head start on Theo. His crimson whips were even more powerful than before and they'd managed to destroy Theo's singularity. He really needed to enhance that as soon as possible. So far the two of them had only fought briefly because the dark-winged man was mostly hunting down Dortorus soulcrafters.

But they had proved less beaten they appeared, because they finally unleashed their golem. It was even more powerful than the silver one used in the Wakespire, with two curved blades and a heavily shielded body. Since it wasn't linked to the spire, it would presumably run out of cantae eventually, but he estimated at least two Authorities had poured their cantae into it. And this one wasn't built with a conveniently accessible weak point, it was armored for war.

Until it ran down, it was a major threat that couldn't experience fear, injuries, or fatigue. And that was growing to be a problem, because Theo wasn't at his best. Efficient cantae flow meant he hadn't spent too much of his supply, but the wound in his side ached whenever he needed to do more than hover.

Theo ducked away from another spear hurled in his direction and jammed the thin key into the wall beside him. The stones parted to reveal a large chamber... the silver golem was sitting in the middle of it, completely still. No chance of using it as a distraction, then. His gravitational senses only gave him a vague impression of the nearby challenge rooms, few of which were useful.

"Out of the way!" The Terefilia Authority loomed in the air behind him, both whips flashing like streaks of blood. Theo ducked behind the inert golem to avoid the strikes, then lunged out with a technique in each hand.

He first cast a point of mass, then a torsion bolt. His opponent lashed out with his whip, only for the tip to jerk to the side at the last second, drawn to the point of mass. That distracted him long enough for the torsion bolt to strike one of his wings. Feathers scattered, but he had covered his entire body in cantae for protection.

A second later, the golem slammed into Theo's side. He only realized that the other whip had wrapped around its base and hurled it at him when the heavy metal was crushing him against the wall. His coat mostly protected him from the force, but his injury broke open again. The inside of his clothes were going to take a long time to clean.

"Hey, fumpet!" Senka appeared on the opposite side of the room and the Authority lowered his whips in confusion.

"This is no battle for children. Get out of the way, before y-"

Raw cantae exploded from Senka in a beam half the size of the room. The Terefilia Authority hurled himself to the side and the mere wake of the blast sent him tumbling through the air. It tore through the reinforced blocks of the spire, scattering stones in all directions. In an instant, a gaping hole had been torn in the side of the tower, revealing Noveni sunlight.

Since the Authority had been sent spiraling into the sky, Theo pushed away the golem and rushed to Senka's side. She didn't look quite as bad as before, but her eyes had rolled back in her head. When he tried to pick her up, she gripped the front of his shirt.

"Bought you a little time and a way out," she said weakly. "Good luck."

Then she vanished, exactly as if she had left via weirkey. Theo could only hope that she had still been in control and that she wouldn't be vulnerable on the other side. Meanwhile, he had no choice but to use the time she'd given him.

While he recovered a little, Theo stared out the hole in the spire wall. Would it be wisest to head to the top, or to retreat? Given how long he'd spent fighting, it seemed very unlikely that the lineagegem was still resting there unharmed. Then again, fighting against other contestants with unclear goals didn't help him either.

His decision was made for him when the golden golem came skittering down the nearby stairs, unnaturally fast on all four legs. Worse, it had an Authority and a Ruler flying along after it. Apparently the Dortorus teams had regrouped. They attacked before he could even figure out what he should say to them.

Fighting all three in this position exposed to the open air would be foolish. Theo retreated up the nearest staircase, wishing that he could find the room of darkness. He wasn't sure if it would affect the golem, but it would definitely give him an advantage against the Noveni. All he could sense nearby was the room of smashing blocks, which was a bigger risk than it was worth.

They'd followed him up and were gaining. As soon as they reached a larger room, he'd be taking cantae bolts from behind. Theo reversed gravity behind him and was relieved to see the two soulcrafters taken off guard and flattened into the ceiling. But the golem kept coming, its armored surfaces resisting all techniques. That thing was going to be a serious problem.

Since he was rapidly losing ground, Theo instead opened the nearest wall. It was the maze of glass tubes, empty of water. He still remembered the rough layout and so he ran into one of the entrances. Their surfaces were dark enough that it would be somewhat difficult to see him, and more importantly the golem was too large to easily enter.

As he'd hoped, it patrolled around the entrances, giving him time to move. He slipped deeper into the maze, looking for one of the exits that led back into the base of the room. If his opponents hadn't encountered this chamber, or at least not familiarized themselves with it, then they would only be looking at the obvious entrances.

"You can't hide forever." The Authority had recovered and floated into the room burning with cantae. "Just give yourself up and face the justice that's coming to you."

Theo would have liked to ask him what he meant by that, but he couldn't afford to give up his advantage of stealth. While the golem patrolled the entrances and the Dortorus Authority searched for him in the maze, Theo reached the floor and crept underneath the glass tubes.

As soon as he had a clear angle at his opponent, he struck. First he cast a tunneling portal from his position to the entrance, then he fired a torsion bolt with his other hand. The Authority swiveled wildly, deflecting his direct attack only to be struck from behind. Theo didn't let up, striking him from several other angles until he dropped.

Almost too late, he sensed the heavy point of mass underneath the maze. The golem was racing toward him, having flattened itself to get under the pipes, and now crawled like a spider. Theo flew backward, barely ahead of it, and still took a lunging swipe to the shoulder.

He tumbled out from underneath the pipes, barely managing to control his fall to land on his back. What he needed to do was tunnel to get some distance, but his head was still spinning and the golem was closing on him. It looked like the Dortorus Ruler had recovered as well and was coming toward the room, so he was running out of time.

The golem crawled from underneath the glass and rose to its full height. Both bladed limbs twitched, ready to impale him when he tried to move. Theo braced himself in the corner of the room, wondering what options he had. He was fast, but this thing had been built to fight Authorities. It looked like there was no way he could get out except taking an injury and making sure it was a non-lethal one.

A blade of blue cantae erupted from the golem's chest.

As Theo stared, it slid upward, extending and slicing through the golem's entire torso. It thrashed violently as its stored cantae was expelled, then it collapsed to the ground and revealed Fiyu. She stood there for a moment, her arm raised above her head, then smiled.

"Hello, Theo. I am not sure what is going on, but I thought it would help to defeat this golem."

"You're an Authority." Theo leapt up to greet her, admiring her new cantae. Her techniques had all become more natural after her Corporeal Floor, and now that grace had been burned into her fundamental being.

"I have ascended." Fiyu bobbed her head in agreement, but her senses searched around her wildly. "Do you understand this battle? I asked my relative to determine the cause, but then I observed you through the large hole in the wall."

"Isorales was the only one to make it further up, so I guess we should follow him."

They were interrupted by the Dortorus Ruler, running in with some kind of helmet armament on his head. He stumbled to a halt as his eyes moved from Fiyu and Theo to the destroyed golem and the fallen Authority. When Fiyu surrounded them both with a bubble of stealth, the Ruler turned around and fled. They let him go.

"Attention, contestants." Finally the voice of an official spoke through the spire, though it didn't sound like one of the usual Noveni. "The Wakespire has ended. Please exit via the nearest portal immediately."

"It's a trick!" Another voice interrupted over the same channel. "They're trying to steal all the rewards for themselves! Fight, before th-"

Both voices overlapped and then disappeared in a rumble of conflicting cantae. That left Theo and Fiyu standing uncertainly. Everyone in his range, Dortorus or Terefilia or even Gatrium, seemed similarly confused. Many of them began turning on one another again, more interested in their own vendettas than in the announcements.

"What do we do?" Fiyu asked.

"We head up." Theo adjusted the collar of his coat and hoped he could hold out. "Most of these battles are probably pointless, so don't kill anyone unnecessarily. No one is being protected from death anymore, but they might not know that. Best to get rid of them before they can hurt themselves."

A pair of Rulers came charging into the chamber the next moment, looking wildly for opponents. Fiyu unleashed a lightstorm, but it was nothing like the indiscriminate blast she had used since he met her. Instead the bolts curved through the air, striking at the new arrivals' legs. They staggered back, and as soon as they touched the portal, they disappeared.

"Will that do?" Fiyu turned to him and Theo smiled back.

"If the others won't give up, we'll just have to make them forfeit."

-

Chapter 45

The rational decision would have been to take Ward Fiyu and leave. Let the Noveni kill themselves over their irrelevant conflict. Guchiro would not have hesitated to take his ward's companions as well, then they could be free of this madness with no liabilities.

And yet, he found himself risking his own life for the sake of his affection for his ward. Instead of making the most prudent decision, he went to engage with the Noveni princes.

There truly was a risk. Without the kinstone, his soulhome was no longer operating anywhere near peak efficiency. It would have harmed Ward Fiyu to remove it so rapidly and there was no time for him to soulcraft it back into place properly. He had thought she was overly hasty when insisting they return to Noven, but judging from the chaos they found on their arrival, if anything they were late.

None of the thrones atop the spire were occupied any longer. Their inhabitants were scattered across the top, arguing and working at cross purposes. The center of the spire had opened via some mechanism he had failed to locate before, perhaps one that could only be used by the united judges. It opened directly into the chamber where all the cantae should have been gathered into the lineagegem. Whatever was inside now was disrupting his senses and causing a great deal of confusion.

"Hey, you can't be here!" One of the guards flew toward him brandishing a spear. Guchiro took it away.

"I am not here to cause harm," he said. Carrying the guard to prove his peaceful intentions, Guchiro floated closer.

Normally Guchiro's mask did nothing to hide his emotions, because he had full control of his facial musculature. When he saw what was inside the spire, he was glad for it. He took a moment to soothe away fear for his ward and considered the danger carefully.

The artifact around the lineagegem was clearly an explosive armed with Stronghold-tier sublime materials. A thin layer of suppressant materials was all that prevented the living flames from cascading through the spire. Unlike other bomb designs he had seen, there was no material that burned down toward an explosion. Instead, a container of liquid appeared to be deteriorating and was likely to damage the suppressants once the process completed.

"Don't bother the foreigner. And you, set him down." The Noveni his ward associated with was approaching... Acquaintance Isorales.

Guchiro realized that the latter command had been directed toward him and set the guard aside. Others had been advancing on him nervously, but Isorales seemed to have calmed them. Good. There was no more time for meaningless division.

"What do we know?" Guchiro asked. The young Noveni man flinched, but still responded.

"Someone, we don't know who, is plotting against Ugustial. They don't want to steal the lineagegem, they plan to destroy it. And given how things have gone, it looks like they'll take half of Ugustial's best soulcrafters with them."

"Your specialists have already failed to disarm the explosive artifact?"

"That's why I said they want to destroy the gem." Acquaintance Isorales gestured down into the spire. "Some were arguing it was some sort of brinkmanship, but I just don't agree. Everything about that artifact is designed so that it can't be moved, can't be disarmed, can't be portaled, can't do anything but explode."

For a time Guchiro seriously considered locating Ward Fiyu and removing her, regardless of her wishes. Options were few and the consequences severe. But she had just taken great pains to help him with the kinstone and it would be heartless to deny her. His only hope, then, was to create enough time for everyone to retreat from the tower.

"This place needs to be evacuated immediately," Guchiro said. Acquaintance Isorales made an uncomfortable rotating motion with his wings.

"That's obvious to me, but not to everyone else. Unless you want to argue with the princes, I don't think they'll do anything more than rescue their own lineages. Assuming they don't set it off somehow."

"They would not listen to me. However, I believe I can delay the process."

Before anyone could object, Guchiro lowered himself into the uppermost chamber. The artifact was delicate, but not beyond the full extent of his skills. Even with his power reduced, there was no deterioration of his fine motor controls. Guchiro extended extremely thin lines of darkness through the outer layers and began manipulating the timing mechanism.

"What are you doing?" one of the princes screeched. One of her aides stopped her from charging.

"W-wait, he's delaying it!" The Noveni specialists stood uncomfortably close to him, but they remained mercifully silent because they understood what he was doing. Their hush spread through the rest of the room and even the princes fell silent.

"I can delay the time before the explosion," Guchiro told them as he worked. "You would be wise to evacuate."

Before they spoke, just from the stiffening in their wings, he knew they wouldn't agree. "Can you disarm the artifact?" the lead prince asked. "We need that gem."

They had mistaken him for some kind of miracle-worker. Guchiro was generally confident in his understanding of sublime materials and armaments, but he couldn't disable an unknown artifact on a world he didn't know intimately. Even his current intervention was an unacceptable risk. The fact that they even suggested he retrieve the gem meant they were blinded by avarice.

"I cannot," was all he said. "All I can give you is a little more time."

"The lineagegem is essential!" One of the other princes, as if telling him about their opinions would change the truth of the situation. "We've poured resources into this for over half a year, we can't abandon it now!"

Clearly, negotiations were futile. Guchiro had carefully positioned his darkness so that he could retract it if necessary. When their argumentation became too much, he would retreat and find Ward Fiyu, regardless of the current circumstances. This city might be beyond help.

"What if he's in on it?" one of the princes asked. "This foreigner shows up and claims to be able to stop the bomb, but it was his all along! They must be planning to-"

Acquaintance Isorales stepped forward and slapped the man in the face. Even though Guchiro had noticed his body moving and tensing, he was still surprised. Everyone else appeared shocked, as one of their leaders had just been assaulted.

"Your children are dying!" Acquaintance Isorales rose into the air, all four of his wings spreading wide as he addressed the entire chamber. "Every part of the spire is failing, which means they could be killing one another right now. And if you keep bickering, every single one of them will die! Is the lineagegem worth the sacrifice of all our lineages?"

The speech would not have worked on Ichil, but Guchiro had long ago accepted that other worlds operated by unusual standards. All around the room, he felt muscles shifting as the words had their intended impact. They were actually ashamed of their behavior.

"The princes need to put out an announcement first," Acquaintance Isorales said. He was no longer shouting, but his voice commanded the room. "Get all of the officials out of the spire, along with any civilians watching. Find someone who can take down the barriers blocking weirkeys. Contestants are fighting each other all through the spire... find your own allies and knock some sense into them before it's too late!"

All of them obeyed, even though some expressed incredulity at obeying a young man not long past childhood. Guchiro grunted in reluctant approval. Those had been the right words for the right moment, and apparently Acquaintance Isorales had come into his own.

That still left him delicately holding back an artifact designed to kill them all. Guchiro grimly accepted that, even though he held the bomb between his fingers, the fate of his ward was no longer in his hands.

~ ~ ~

There had been no time to experiment with her new abilities on Ichil, so Fiyu delighted in testing them now. Few of the opponents they faced could equal herself or her companion, particularly with her presence hidden. In fact, the only thing limiting her was that she didn't want to kill any of her targets.

Between herself and Friend Theo, no one could stand against them. In fact, she could have simply maintained her bubble of stealth and let Friend Theo use his gravity to throw opponents into portals. Many of them had at least some ability to resist, so she would also take part. Targeted lightstorms were enough to push back the strongest, and for those that looked too fragile, Fiyu poked them with a column of darkness.

Then a blinding light washed out the room and Fiyu realized that the comfortable fight was over. The wave of it couldn't make her visible because of her Corporeal Floor, but it tore through her larger bubble of stealth and revealed Friend Theo.

"I knew I'd find you here!" Adversary Cannium blazed into the room, surrounded by even more light than before. Fiyu frowned into the blinding source. It wasn't only him, he was followed by more Dortorus soulcrafters - uninjured and apparently fresh combatants.

"I only wish to prevent anyone from coming to harm," Fiyu said.

"More likely you want to infect the lineagegem with your darkness!" Adversary Cannium unleashed an assault, his light aura expanding into lances that stabbed out in the direction of her voice. Very much like her physical darkness, though much more troubling. Fiyu managed to evade them and remained hidden.

"Please do not-" But there was no more time to talk, because Adversary Cannium's allies were beginning to attack.

Friend Theo struck faster, again twisting gravity to his whims and sending many of the attacking Dortorus soulcrafters flying. Of course Adversary Cannium was unaffected, because his soulhome was well-designed enough that it gave him great control over his body.

Fiyu instinctively reacted matching light with darkness. Though she couldn't use the skill as masterfully as her relative, the darkness flowed from her far more smoothly and forcefully than before. The process pleased her... but it was enraging Adversary Cannium.

Letting the darkness recede within her, Fiyu attempted to match him using only her other abilities. The trouble was that they didn't want to kill their opponents and so many of her techniques were lethal. Friend Theo was using various techniques to keep the others away from her, but she wished that he would take care of Adversary Cannium so she wouldn't have to worry about these concerns.

Deciding that her lightstorms would be less offensive, Fiyu tried to match light with light. Her storm tore through many of his tendrils of light and knocked him back through the air. Unfortunately, it did not have the intended effect.

"Enough of this mockery!" Adversary Cannium drew on even more cantae and prepared a larger assault. Solid beams of light began to rotate in all directions, dealing no damage to the tower but sizzling with power. It was certainly an effective technique, and she wished she was fighting it under different circumstances.

How could she get through to someone so angry? The bitter thought made Fiyu think of Betrayer Senka and a new idea emerged.

She slipped deep into her stealth technique and began weaving through the beams of light. Her adversary reacted with admirable instincts, blasting spikes of light both in the direction she had been moving as well as along the direct path to him. But now that she had ascended, Fiyu was no longer at a speed disadvantage compared to Authorities, so she slid around them.

When she stepped behind her opponent, she formed a blade around her hand, then set it to his throat very carefully.

"I do not want to hurt you," Fiyu said. Adversary Cannium jumped but didn't immediately strike back because he could feel her cantae tickling his throat.

"You have a funny way of showing it."

"If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done it then." Fiyu released her technique and took a step back. She wasn't so foolish as to lower all her defenses, but placing herself in that position was still a great risk. Adversary Cannium glared at her.

"What kind of trick is this?"

"Please listen to me. We were told that you wanted to steal the lineagegem. All we have ever wanted to do was stop you and protect other contestants."

"Lies!" Adversary Cannium burned brighter for a moment, but he didn't attack her. "I swear to you... maybe some corrupt part of the Dortorus lineage wants to steal this thing, but I know nothing about it. There's a rot in our lineages, trying to destroy Ugustial."

"Think about what we have done." Her adversary still seemed very angry, but at least he was listening. "We have not harmed anyone. If you stand down, so will we, then we can sort everything out."

"Of course you'd say that! You're outnumbered and you know you'll lose in the end. This is just a trick to save yourselves now that you've realized you failed."

It was closer to true than she wanted to admit: Friend Theo was struggling to contain all of the other soulcrafters and had been struck by several cantae bolts. Fiyu could keep fighting for a long time, but it wasn't clear that she could win now that she had given up her advantage. Perhaps her attempt at a good faith offering hadn't been enough.

"Enough!" Adversary Cannium waved a hand and columns of light suddenly closed around Fiyu. "We'll take you in first. If you're really innocent, you have nothing to fear."

The light was oppressive, as if it sought to bore into her soul and open it to the world. Fiyu instinctively tried to lash out at it, but she'd given her opponent too strong a position: he increased the flow of his cantae and light pierced her. It didn't harm her body, but the burning sensation pinned her in place, making it almost impossible to move.

"We aren't losing." The voice spoke from the side and Fiyu struggled to sense who had spoken through the brilliance. Before she could figure it out, someone swept past her.

Adversary Cannium was buffeted backward and the columns of light around Fiyu shattered. She looked to the source and could not believe her eyes: Friend Nauda stood beside her, glorious and beautiful, a new cloak whipping around her body. Her cantae flowed with an Authority's intensity. It seemed that she had understood the goal as well, because she only gathered her power in her staff instead of attacking.

"You're an Authority now too?" Adversary Cannium staggered backward as he recovered, staring incredulously. "Where did you come from?"

"Your team is looking a little thin on Authorities." Friend Theo floated down on Fiyu's other side but remained hovering in the air with small rocks levitating around him.

Even though the Dortorus group still had the advantage in numbers, Fiyu did not believe they had the upper hand. With her standing in between Friend Nauda and Friend Theo, they looked indomitable. It seemed that the others were making the same calculation, because they threw down their weapons. Eventually Adversary Cannium cursed under his breath and finally released his light.

"You really aren't here to attack?" he asked. When he wasn't shouting, his voice was surprisingly melodious.

"We do not want to hurt anyone." Fiyu tried to put all her earnestness into her voice as she spoke to the entire group. "Please, many are only fighting each other because they believe you are attacking. If we all stand down now, the battle can be ended peacefully."

"I..." Adversary Cannium took a deep breath, then abruptly turned back to the others. "Stand down! Let's go talk to the princes and get to the bottom of this!"

As the group began to leave, Fiyu searched carefully for some further layer of deception. Yet it seemed as though the Dortorus teams were truly giving up the fight. They began picking up injured allies and departing through the hole that had been made in the sides of the spire. Hopefully they would tell all of the other Dortorus soulcrafters as well and there would be no need for more violence.

"Gah, that hurts." They hadn't been alone for long when Friend Nauda spoke. She reached into the neck of her robe and pulled out a blue mask, which she threw to the ground. "That thing was burning hot by the end. How did that Gatrium soulcrafter wear it on his face?"

"Most likely he had an armament chamber for it," Friend Theo said. It seemed that he had already understood what Fiyu was only then realizing.

With the mask separated from her body, Friend Nauda's cantae diminished. She was only a Ruler, as she had been before. "You didn't ascend," Fiyu breathed.

"I want to do it right." Friend Nauda looked between the two of them, smiling wearily, and her gaze lingered on Fiyu. "My soulhome isn't as good as either of yours, but I want it to be. I want to soulcraft until I can keep traveling with you."

"Oh, Nauda..."

"Touching." The new voice spoke harshly and Fiyu realized in alarm that someone had managed to slip within the range of her senses without her noticing.

Unknown Nifanos Dortorus floated in the air, silhouetted in the hole that led to the outside. Her elegant wrap, her hair, and her wings were all untouched by the battle. It could be difficult to tell the emotions of hovering Authorities, due to how they held their muscles, but Fiyu misliked the tension around her eyes.

"If you're really interested in peace," Unknown Nifanos said, "then you'll come with me. Some parts of this don't add up."

Fiyu glanced toward Friend Theo, afraid that he would want to continue fighting. But even he raised his hands and shook his head. "You don't need to threaten. I'd like to get to the bottom of this myself."

"Then why don't we head inside?" Unknown Nifanos floated closer to them and the implicit threat of her aura made them all retreat deeper into the tower. "Something about this has never made any sense to me. One of our own was killed... a murder, or to cover up a crime? And then the underclouder attack on our soulcrafters... allegedly there was no connection, but we all know better."

"Your lineage is hardly innocent," Friend Theo said as they walked deeper. "You've been harming people from the beginning."

"There's no more need for such lies. I know that Ractifus gave you a key so you could subvert the Wakespire."

The woman's tone made Fiyu flinch away, ready to defend herself. But Unknown Nifanos showed no sign of attacking them and it didn't seem as though she had planned a surprise assault. Given her power, she didn't consider it necessary.

"I don't know your game, but I don't care." Adversary Nifanos began to glow like an emerald sun as the lines of her Ethereal Floor wove their way through her wings. "The three of you are right at the heart of this rot. It ends now."