CHAPTER 400: CHAPTER 400 - ONE WAY GATEWAY, ONE DAY DEBT TO PAY

The northwestern convergence point of the exclave had been transformed over two months time. The fairly flat area on top had been worked flatter, into something resembling an ancient ruin... if it was built from scratch and not really so ’ancient’.

It now looked like a small temple complex whose centerpiece was missing. Pillars rose around an area of quarried and tirelessly worked stone. It was hard to tire when a spiritually powered automaton was designed to perform very specific steps, though Elua did have to meditate a lot to regain her energy accumulation.

Madrigil had assisted at times in the sigils - and needed much less touch up than Sevra’s attempts to carve into the stone. She had been banned after the first week of carving and told that if her interest was ever in this field at all, she would start with a set of beginner’s examples until she got them to work right on her own.

She had not finished the first one before deciding her time was better spent exploring and gathering the other things that were needed.

Now, crystalline essence condensers - mined and chosen from the deep caves underneath the water by the illusionist herself - hummed in calculated geometric arrays around the central platform. The air around them shimmered with contained energy... and from the sigil groups keeping it contained.

Sevra stood at the edge of the emergency containment circle, watching as Elua made final adjustments inside to the sigil work that would eventually channel months of stored energy into a single ’catastrophic’ breach between dimensions. She hated how the ’little girl’ kept making light of her fear with statements like that - and hated more that she couldn’t tell if the serious face was serious or not this time.

Just standing in the area, one could feel the ground beneath their feet thrum with power in a low vibrational harmony that made her less confident she was ’joking’. Without looking up from her work - which was now more about overseeing the results of some sort of mechanized, spinning, diamond coated saw spiritual construct... Elua spoke to her.

"The condensation rate has stabilized. I’ve calculated again and I was right. Four more months until we reach sufficient energy density for a stable one-way portal for you to take back home."

Her hands moved to wave toward sigils at the center. Mathematical concepts that would manifest the dimensional puncture into what was essentially a ’wormhole’ with extra steps. But that sort of impressive result couldn’t be seen until later.

It was the containment arrays that Sevra passed on the way here... overlapping concentric circles that stretched for nearly a quarter mile around the site, each ring serving a function in the gradual, safe buildup of ’portal’ creating essence.

"I’ve seen Guild defensive fortifications less complex meant to protect a whole building. Continental Army battlements meant to guard against Voidlings - with the latest in sigil protections - with less symbols altogether than I can see by just glancing at the ground."

"You sound surprised. Why now?"

"I’m not sure. Maybe because I haven’t come here in three days. It’s just... this scale of... organized power."

The reborn cultivator finally straightened up and looked her way. Mint eyes with her facade engaged at a fraction of its potential strength were normally a bit dull, but lately they had been blazing with a bit of their own inner light that somehow made them look ’more normal’ and *much* less.

Her spirit had begun clashing against her essence field so much in the last weeks as the environment allowed her to rapidly advance. She didn’t like getting further ’ahead’ of Qat, but with four years of nothing much to do but build and cultivate... it was always going to happen.

’Plus I might be more stable if my Trinity is more... in balance.’

"What you’re seeing and feeling are techniques applied without any concern for technological contamination. When you don’t have to worry about cultivators reverse-engineering your methods, you can be more... comprehensive. Like I can be here. Using everything I know."

Each thrumming pulse of the essence condensers were synchronized in waves. A design hat battered the surroundings and pulled free incremental amounts of the energy, that would build up in the overall energy matrix at a constant rate. She could easily see someone trying this and creating a time-bomb by messing up in any number of places.

’Or they could do it intentionally. Condense into a package, create a detonation trigger, and obliterate a city. The sorts of terrifying things that can happen when innocent power is bent to nefarious or malicious means.’

But altogether they looked beautiful to her eyes, despite that. Standing like sentinels around the site - each one a monument taller than a person and a half. Their interior’s peppered and latticed with sigilry so dense that it looked like a tailor’s lacework had been encased... from certain angles.

"In my travels for the Shadow Whiskers, I learned to recognize dangerous artifacts. Items that could level buildings or kill dozens if mishandled. This..."

Sevra walked bravely closer, past the emergency ring that had been explained to her, toward one of the condensers. Feeling the almost spiritually magnetic pull of its contained power against her awareness.

"One of these could probably already... reshape a small mountain, yes."

Elua confirmed casually - but the admission didn’t horrify the scout as much as it might have months ago. It was obvious that such a thing was within the scale of what the brunette was trying to accomplish here. And it made it all the more amazing what the realmshard had been able to do, with its significantly smaller size.

"And you’ve built this all steadily while ignoring your other plans, just to send one person through and keep your word."

The woman continued in a quiet voice, but not so quiet that the heiress couldn’t hear. If she hadn’t wanted her to, she’d never say anything at all. Not while tunnels of Air were latched nearby her to carry sounds.

For while she’d grown able to manipulate essence just a bit in this environment... even back in their world she could never do the sort of advanced things that the ancient cultivator did. Though the one doing such amazing things assured her that she just had not had enough time practicing in optimal ways.

’Scale of hard work over time compared to the impossibility of genius. It doesn’t feel like there is a difference in this case. What are the chances I live so many millenia?’

"Despite my fear, my suspicions, and my... inadequate contributions to the work. Being here has been a different experience than I expected, every day that I expected it."

Small hands stilled on the sigil adjustments she was making to her newest little robot helper. A ’real’ frown tore across her face less awkwardly than months before. She had been practicing constantly to remove her instinctive tendency to ignore actuating certain muscle groups.

"Your contributions haven’t been inadequate at all. The mapping work alone saved me months of personal surveying. And the material gathering you’ve done-"

"We both know you could have handled anything I’ve done once I was gone. You didn’t need to get me to talk to you while I was here or to try and understand you like you have. Why have you tried so hard at that?"

Elua was quiet for a long moment. It wasn’t something she had to think about - the reason for anything with her always boiled down to Qat... with extra steps. And she’d told her as much more than once as well as attempted to explain her thoughts a few times before, as well.

"As I told you, isolation makes me... difficult. Prone to spiraling in worst case scenarios. Seeing you change and grow in your opinion of me reminds me of my beloved out there. Growing. Being safe. Waiting for me to come back like you wait to go back."

"So you’ve said. I don’t really understand how they connect."

The scout walked back out of the dangerous area and sat cross-legged. She stared at the girl on the other side of the ’boundary’ in a similar position. Emulating her just a bit, as if that would help either of them.

"To put it another way, you remind me to remain myself as I try to... become myself."

"That makes even less sense. But I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve heard you say it for the first time or not. What do you mean?

"Madrigil is not an especially emotive individual to talk to, unless he is excited about a new find. Though discussing his theories while knowing the results is sometimes amusing."

"So you... needed someone more normal."

A smile that held a bit of warmth was released for the first time in their conversation. The heiress had worked on this the most - and if Sevra had to be asked, she would say that it had gained the destructive power of one of the essence condensers around them.

’Sincere’ and ’cute’ were not terms that usually went together in the scout’s head. For someone that was ’acting cute’ was usually not authentic, in her experience. An outlook that may have been seriously poisoned by the discovery that the ’innocent prodigy’ of the Coiled Serpent had been the reincarnator she feared.

"Power wielded without conscience becomes corruption. Isolation endured without connection becomes indifference. Lets just say that I’ve seen what I become when I stop caring about individual lives, and I refuse to show back up like that when I return to Qatrand er Yecine."

"Can I ask you something personal?"

Her voice didn’t have any of the hesitation from even weeks ago. The months of working and ’living’ together had worn away the scout’s instinct to maintain formal distance on that topic... and now she knew quite a bit about the heavy blade wielder that she did not already know.

’All but one thing, of course. Even here, I refuse to be the one to tell people. I wonder if she’ll do that at all before I return... I would have loved to support her through it...’

"You can ask. I may not answer."